New political drama wastes the talent of rising star Emma Mackey in ‘dreadfully uneven’ new release, Ella McCay
Rising star Emma Mackey takes on the main role in Ella McCay alongside Oscar-winner Jamie Lee Curtis – in a film that has been branded ‘dreadfully uneven’.
With an underwhelming political drama from a Hollywood great, a sub-par horror sequel and dull rom-com that wastes a promising premise, it’s slim picking on the big screen this week
ELLA MCCAY (M)
Director: James L. Brooks (As Good As It Gets)
Starring: Emma Mackey, Jamie Lee Curtis, Woody Harrelson, Jack Lowden.
**
Too much movie for too little a result
The French-British actress Emma Mackey is just one great part away from becoming a major star.
She has been impossible to ignore in everything she has done in her short career so far.
Though most viewers might recall her fleeting role in Barbie (as Physicist Barbie, no less) or her brilliant breakout work in the Netflix series Sex Education, Mackey has continued to impress whenever asked (such as with her scene-stealing turn in the Agatha Christie thriller Death on the Nile).
Unfortunately, the dreadfully uneven Ella McCay will not be the vehicle to transport Mackey to the next level.
While Mackey is doing her best to bring her A-game, Ella McCay is, at best, a B-movie.
And when Mackey is not around, Ella McCay worsens quickly into C and D-grade territory.
Mackey’s title character is a rising star in America’s political ranks who has recently taken the office of Governor in her (unnamed) home state at just the age of 34.
Ella’s passionately progressive policymaking has never endeared her to her peers. Now she’s in the big chair, forces are starting to move to unseat her.
One of these forces, quite curiously, might be her husband Ryan (Jack Lowden from Apple TV’s Slow Horses), who seems to relish the media spotlight in the exact ways his wife does not.
However, this is only one strand that can be plucked from a messily threaded and rather tatty script.
There is a lot – no, make that way too much – going on in Ella McCay for it to stand a chance of making any coherent sense for too long.
Much of the frustratingly unnecessary (and later in the movie, weirdly unresolved) material used by veteran writer-director James L. Brooks centres on Ella’s oddball family.
Many minutes are chewed up by the inelegant serial womanising of Ella’s dodgy dad (Woody Harrelson). More time is lost mired in the lacklustre love life of her sheltered younger brother (Spike Fearn). Why? Who knows?
The only occasions on which Mackey’s consistently committed work is rewarded is when she shares the screen with Jamie Lee Curtis, a standout as Ella’s amusingly direct aunt and confidante.
Ella McCay is in cinemas now
FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S 2 (M)
*1/2
General release.
There was always going to be a Five Nights At Freddy’s sequel. The first one grossed half a billion bucks, merely for staying true enough to its dinky video game origins that players (past and present) just could not resist a look. It wasn’t much of a movie, but it never really had to be.
As for the second one, the bar has been lowered even further. The novelty of watching slow and not-so-scary animatronic mascots from a fast-food restaurant causing many a slow and not-so-scary death has truly worn off.
While a selection of new mechanised murder-bots have been added – some with the unprecedented ability to manifest mayhem outside the confines of a Freddy Fazbear Pizza outlet – the sequel struggles to raise pulses or pique curiosity throughout.
In fact, this just might be the most stress-free ‘horror’ flick released in a long, long time.
A core group of survivors from the original (Josh Hutcherson, Piper Rubio and Elizabeth Lail) reprise their roles with mild enthusiasm. Otherwise, anything that possibly lands in your memory will do so with a dull thud.
ETERNITY (M)
**1/2
General release.
There has been more than a few movies like Eternity released this year: movies that start out with a great idea, and then go dangerously close to outstaying their welcome.
The initial premise for Eternity is a corker. Imagine heaven as a busy, bustling transport hub. Something like an airport in the afterlife, where the dead get to choose a fantasy destination where they will remain forevermore.
You choose it – Paris, the Wild West, a tropical island, a luxury nightclub with a permanently open tab, or maybe your cherished childhood home – and it is yours. The recently deceased Joan (Elizabeth Olsen) is faced with an additional choice to make.
Should she enter the afterlife in the company of loyal second husband Larry (Miles Teller)? Or should that honour go to her first spouse Luke (Callum Turner), who died tragically during the Korean War before their love had the chance to truly bloom?
This is a fresh and lively concept for a rom-com, and the movie confidently sets it all up in fine style.
However, after a while, most viewers will sense Eternity’s best material is all to do with establishing the rules and regs of love in the afterlife. Once those rules and regs must be applied, everything gets a bit dull and repetitive, no matter how hard its attractive trio of lead actors may try.
Originally published as New political drama wastes the talent of rising star Emma Mackey in ‘dreadfully uneven’ new release, Ella McCay
