Mega weekend free-to-air TV movie guide
It’s cold, wet and we’re in lockdown — there’s never been a more important time to find a movie to watch. Leigh Paatsch rates every movie on free-to-air TV on Saturday and Sunday nights so you can pick the best movie for your night in.
Leigh Paatsch
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SATURDAY
DUNKIRK
*****
7:30 PM 7MATE
It only takes minutes for Dunkirk to convey the unmistakeable notion you are in the presence of true cinematic greatness. This is what a masterpiece looks like. Sounds like. Feels like. It is late May 1940 in the small French coastal town of Dunkirk. An estimated 400,000 Allied troops, most of them British, have been penned in by the Germans on a swatch of beach marked only by a solitary pier. All who stand shivering on those windswept sands are sitting ducks for sustained bombing attacks from overhead by Nazi fighter planes. If this unprecedented mass evacuation is to be successful to any worthwhile degree, it will take a miracle. This film is the gripping, transfixing chronicle of that miracle. Acclaimed director Christopher Nolan (Inception, the Dark Knight trilogy) has crafted a complete vision here. A vision that not only captures the sweeping historical significance of the subject at hand, but also its intimate human essence. Fionn Whitehead, Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy.
DÉJÀ VU
****
9:45 PM 7MATE
Imagine an episode of CSI: New Orleans featuring a mad bomber, a harbour full of floating corpses and a beyond-the-grave love story. Now factor-in a secret time machine that can send a cop exactly 100 hours into the past. Sounds a bit dodgy, huh? Not when an in-form Denzel Washington is involved. He’s the glue that keeps this absurdly compelling thriller together as it mashes up the present and the past to intoxicating effect. Cheeky, in a cutting-edge kind of way. Co-stars James Caviezel.
ICE AGE: THE MELTDOWN
**
7:00 PM 7FLIX
Global warming and the threat of an imminent flood forces Sid the sloth, Diego the sabre-tooth tiger, Manny the mammoth and friends on yet another arduous cross-country trek. Vaguely entertaining sequel to the big animated hit of 2002, but a bit flat compared to many of the sequels to follow. Features the voices of Ray Romano, Denis Leary, Queen Latifah.
WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING
***
8:50 PM 7FLIX
Slick lawyer Peter (Peter Gallagher) gets mugged at a railway station, and is plucked away from an oncoming train by a heroic, heart-of-gold type, Lucy (Sandra Bullock in the kind of role she relishes). He goes into a coma in hospital, she gets mistaken for his fiance, and the rest of this kooky crowd-pleaser just about writes itself. Like most American romantic comedies, this is all heart and no head, but it does have a habit of sneaking in some intriguing twists and turns when you least expect it. The eccentric stylings of Bill Pullman as Peter’s brother is a welcome relief when the vibe gets a little too soppy.
JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM
**1/2
7:30 PM Ch. 9
No-one really saw the mega-success of the 2015 franchise reboot Jurassic World coming, but it all made sense in hindsight. There was a strong seam of pent-up demand out there to watch prehistoric predators chase after and chew upon hapless human beings, and Jurassic World mined every last bit of it. So there just had to be another one another one, and if you are expecting anything else but more of the same, you will be sorely disappointed. Those prepared to settle for plenty of regularly scheduled “behind you!” and “gotcha!” moments won’t have any quibbles at all. It also helps that leading man Chris Pratt is the second most irrepressibly likeable figure in movies right now. (No-one will budge Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson from top spot until he says so). The plot is a bit of a fossilised fizzer, the only real twist being that dinosaurs are now a hot commodity on the black market for near-endangered species, and are understandably not that happy about it. Co-stars Bryce Dallas Howard.
PACIFIC RIM: UPRISING
*1/2
8.30pm Ch. 9
There is a lot missing from this drab, lethargic sequel to the 2013, rock-’em-sock-’em robots-versus-monsters hit Pacific Rim. The most telling absence is director Guillermo del Toro, last seen winning multiple Oscars for The Shape of Water. The loss of two quality leading men in Idris Elba and Charlie Hunnam isn’t helping either. The one marquee name in play here is current Star Wars team member John Boyega, who pushes hard to get this big fat boulder of apocalyptic bombast moving. Sadly, it is a waste of energy on his part, and a waste of time on ours. The plot fast-forwards the calamitous CGI clashes of the Jaegers (big robots) and the Kaiju (big monsters) a decade down the line from the original, where Tokyo will host the obligatory third-act trashing and trampling. While we wait for that (admittedly awesome) spectacle to arrive, our conflicted young hero Jake Pentecost (Boyega) helps train some cadets in the dual mystic arts of Jaeger wrangling and Kaiju mangling.
LEGALLY BLONDE
***
7:00 PM GO!
Witherspoon is Elle, a fashion-unconscious flibbertigibbet who swaps her lip-gloss for law books to prove a point to her ex-boyfriend. Warner (Matthew Davis) is an unabashed snob who gave Elle the boot because he needs “: a Jackie O, not a Marilyn Monroe.” After Elle is repeatedly humiliated for being an airhead (which the movie overemphasises to the brink of becoming cruel), our haute couture heroine develops a steely resolve that quickly turns the situation around to her advantage. In an endearingly unbelievable chain of events, Elle’s IQ improves to the extent that she eventually finds herself representing a widowed socialite in a controversial murder trial. From the very second the film begins, Witherspoon is on the front foot and working excessively hard to ensure she is playing something more than a static shopaholic stereotype. Unusually for fare of this type, the end results are never once annoying.
FIFTY SHADES DARKER
**
9:00 PM GO!
You’ve been a bad, bad audience. You made Fifty Shades of Grey a huge box-office hit back in 2015. So now you must cop the punishment you richly deserve: Fifty Shades Darker. This same-again, lamer-than-before sequel is adapted from the middle instalment of best-selling author E.L. James’ trilogy of heavy-breathing howlers. The first movie barely got by on nervous energy and novelty value. Now there is no hiding the sedately sleazy formula in play here. So every ten minutes, it’s tops-up-and-trousers-down time. Sometimes incorporating a salacious new bit of gear that doofus dominant Christian Grey (played by Jamie Dornan) has added to his collection. Once again, the pliant plaything perpetually tied to Mr Grey’s satin-sheeted workbench is Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson). When not submitting to yet another scheduled kink-athon, Anastasia keeps wondering aloud what is wrong with her too-cruel-for-school boyfriend. The right answer: nothing a cold shower and a restraining order won’t fix. Co-stars Kim Basinger.
I HATE VALENTINE’S DAY
*
10:00 PM 10 PEACH
And you, you will hate this movie: a rom-com bomb that exploded the career prospects of former My Big Fat Greek Wedding star Nia Vardalos once and for all.
FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS
**
8:30 PM WORLD MOVIES
After sitting this wonky marathon adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s most popular book of the same name, all you will learn is that the irksome excesses of early 1970s living were left behind for a very good reason. They just weren’t that much fun at all. In a nutshell, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas consists of nothing more than the same handful of events replayed over and over again in slightly (mind-)altered orders. Thompson (Johnny Depp) and his lawyer Dr Gonzo (Benicio Del Toro) ingest every ingestible substance until they can ingest no more. They undergo a short series of hallucinations. They cause a ruckus reacting to various comical mutations of reality they alone can see. Then they retreat to their hotel room in search of more substances to ingest in jest. Are you laughing yet? I don’t think so.
SUNDAY
DIE HARD 4.0
***1/2
8:30 PM 7MATE
After a lengthy absence, veteran cop and all-round he-man John McClane (Bruce Willis) returned in 2007 in cracking form. Armed with little more than a nervy, computer-savvy sidekick (Justin Long) and the indestructibility of a late-model Transformer, McClane goes after a band of terrorist hackers as only he can. This worthy addition to the Die Hard franchise sticks to a refreshingly old-fashioned (but no less effective) action formula throughout. The mindless magic of it all kicks-in very early, where a sequence featuring a few hundred head-on collisions inside an underground traffic tunnel somehow ends with McClane piloting an earthbound police car into an airborne helicopter.
ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS: THE MOVIE
*
10:40 PM 7TWO
This big-screen expansion of the hit 1990s Brit-com is a tired, lazy and often rather horrible effort from all concerned. Tragic nostalgists holding on to any hope that those beloved, badly behaved partners in grotesque excess Pats (Joanna Lumley) and Eddy (Jennifer Saunders) were going to return in triumph are kidding themselves big-time. The plotting of an all-new, yet same-old adventure for Pats and Eddy centres on the pair being implicated in the mysterious disappearance (and possible drowning) of Kate Moss. From here, the ladies totter off to the south of France to wait for the heat to die down. Meanwhile, the C-grade celebrity cameos just keep on coming. These dire walk-ons (Joan Collins! Stella McCartney! Baby Spice from the Spice Girls!) appear to have been organised by someone using a decade-old gossip mag they nicked from the hairdressers. In a glum era for belated movie reunions – Zoolander 2 is an absolute hoot compared to this lemon – Absolutely Fabulous takes the cake and sits in it.
THE MUMMY
***
7:30 PM GO!
While you won’t be so afraid of what transpires in this highly-strung horror-action hybrid, it does deliver solidly as middle-of-the-road escapism. Tom Cruise stars as Nick Morton, an ex-soldier-turned-relic-hunter who uses his military background to hunt down treasure. While on an expedition to the modern-day Middle East, Morton and his team open a crypt housing the malevolent evil spirit of the notorious Egyptian princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella). As expected, all hell breaks loose.
CONSTANTINE
**
9:35 PM GO!
Scrappy adaptation of the Hellblazer comic books, starring Keanu Reeves as a part-time exorcist and full-time lung cancer victim banishing earthbound demons straight back to hell. A handful of scenes depicting the high temperatures on the devil’s home turf are plausibly horrific, but the rest barely registers. Co-stars Rachel Weisz.
THE GREAT GATSBY
***
9:00 PM 10 PEACH
Australian filmmaker Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge) takes the collective substance of the classic novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, lines it up against a wall, and machineguns it with all the glitzy style he can muster. Though definitely a hit-and-miss proposition, you will not be bored for a millisecond by what transpires. Leonardo DiCaprio has the starring role of Jay Gatsby, the reclusive tycoon who has seemingly amassed an impressive fortune simply to win back his great lost love. Luhrmann has a field day capturing what passed for a high old time at the height of the jazz age. Everywhere you look, it’s fast cars, new money, easy virtues and hard partying. Some sections play out as if there has been multiple explosions inside a warehouse storing nothing but confetti bombs, neon lights and fireworks. The movie ultimately works due to the intuitive efforts of a well-chosen cast. The lead trio of DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan and Tobey Maguire keep proceedings grounded by applying a sincere emotional gravity to their performances.
STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT
***
8:30 PM VICELAND
The eighth in the Star Trek movie series. The movie kicks off with Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) in flashback mode. He’s still having nightmares about his kidnapping by the Borgs, an alien race of predators who ‘assimilate’ the best characteristics of all species into their own super-beings. Then the hardy Captain discovers that the Borgs are planning to travel back through time to prevent mankind’s discovery of warp-speed travel, so he steers the Enterprise E through a temporal vortex to the 21st century to ensure that history takes place as it was intended. If you carry the Star Trek gene, you’ll be camped on this already.
HER SMELL
***
9:30 PM WORLD MOVIES
A quality American indie drama dominated by a sterling performance from the ever-reliable Elisabeth Moss (The Invisible Man and TV’s The Handmaid’s Tale). She very authentically plays a self-destructive punk rocker struggling with sobriety while trying to recapture the creative inspiration that led her band to success. There is only one sticking point here, and it could be a deal breaker for some: the running time is a way too excessive 130 minutes-plus.
THE WACKNESS
***1/2
11:55 PM WORLD MOVIES
A casually confronting coming-of-age flick with a difference, blending moments of (literally) high drama, bittersweet romance and uniquely touching dark comedy with impressive ease. The film’s subtle shifts in tone and intent are handled brilliantly by Josh Peck, who plays a troubled teen drug dealer with the damaged bravado and raw honesty of a young De Niro. Peck’s scenes with a gloriously unhinged Ben Kingsley (as a dope-addicted psychiatrist) are worth the price of admission alone. Writer-director Jonathan Levine masterfully nails the vibe of New York City in the summer of 1994 with some wonderful soundtrack selections from hip-hop music of the era.