Why ill-fated bushland hiking expedition The Dry 2 is turgid, muddled mystery

Eric Bana returns as federal cop Aaron Falk in the long-awaited sequel The Dry, Force of Nature, but the film is a far cry from the original hit, writes Leigh Paatsch.

Force of Nature: The Dry 2 (M)

Director: Robert Connolly (Blueback)

Starring: Eric Bana, Jacqueline McKenzie, Anna Torv, Deborra-Lee Furness, Richard Roxburgh.

Rating: **

Used to be The Dry, now it’s just flaky

Released just over three years ago, The Dry arrived fully formed as one of the better crime-laced mysteries filmed around these here parts.

Based on a best-selling novel by Jane Harper, the movie fastidiously mined deep veins of mood, menace and misery from within a small, rural Australian community.

Local audiences quite rightly came out in droves to embrace the picture, which wound up grossing a stack at the box-office.

However, it looks highly unlikely that the long-awaited sequel, Force of Nature, will be striking the same resounding chord with Australian viewers.

To be absolutely blunt, the new movie tumbles several notches downwards from the consistently high standards set by its predecessor.

The five-woman group on an ill-fated bushland hiking expedition.

The principal problem is the turgid, muddled mystery lodged in the nucleus of the screenplay.

In adapting another Harper book, writer-director Robert Connolly stacks his storytelling deck with characters whose only two defining traits are that they all have something to hide, and will inevitably get quite argumentative when prodded about what it is they might be concealing.

With so little scope for adequate character development – let alone the summoning of a single surprise twist – Force of Nature staggers about in a state of belligerent confusion. There is plenty of stress and anxiety in the air, but little chance for an audience to truly make any sense of it.

Once again, our lead investigator in The Dry 2 is federal police officer Aaron Falk (Eric Bana). He has taken a curious interest in an ill-fated bushland hiking expedition which resulted in one member of a five-woman group not returning to base.

The missing person in question, Alice (Anna Torv), just happened to be Falk’s prize asset in a corporate corruption case he is close to cracking.

Eric Bana and Jacqueline McKenzie in Force of Nature: The Dry 2.

While there is the possibility Alice may have met with foul play out in the scrub, there might also be a USB thumb drive out there somewhere that will expose some major conspiracy only Falk and his second-in-command (Jacqueline McKenzie) can see.

With so much second-rate material to slouch and grouch their way through, it is no small wonder that the cast can only supply performances that run the gamut from inane to insufferable.

Bana cops the worst of it in a role so blandly underwritten that you start wondering whether he is actually playing the same character from the original The Dry.

Torv’s Alice is so unlikeable that she invokes little to no sympathy as someone perhaps fighting for their life in wet and inhospitable terrain.

Even the likes of seasoned campaigners such as Deborra-Lee Furness and Richard Roxburgh have no choice but to serve up the same brand of antsy, unpleasant figure that almost everybody else on the cast list is playing.

Force of Nature: The Dry 2 is in cinemas now

THE GREATEST NIGHT IN POP (PG)

Rating: ***1/2

Now streaming on Netflix

Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson in a scene from the Netflix documentary The Greatest Night In Pop.

The title is stretching the truth somewhat, but there can be no denying that it was quite an evening at A&M Studios in Los Angeles on January 25, 1985. This was the fateful night where the cream of the crop in American pop convened for the recording of We Are the World, a track crafted by its principal writers Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie to raise much-needed money for famine relief in Africa.

The all-star anthem that resulted was fairly horrible as a whole, except for two saving graces. First of all, it sent tens of millions of dollars to where it was sorely needed most. Secondly, there are fleeting moments within the recording that are priceless audio heirlooms (such as a bewildered Bob Dylan trying to switch to singalong mode for the greater good, and a gravel-throated Bruce Springsteen all but melting the microphone with his vocal contribution).

Michael Jackson and Bob Dylan.

What keeps this doco very entertaining throughout is the on-the-spot footage sourced from the team making the iconic music video that sold the song around the world. The likes of Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, Billy Joel, Cyndi Lauper, Huey Lewis and legendary bandleader Quincy Jones become more than a little tired, emotional and testy, but somehow the whole project wraps by sunrise.

UPGRADED (M)

Camila Mendes stars as Ana Santos in Upgraded.

Rating: ***

Streaming on Amazon Prime Video from tomorrow

This whip-smart, lively little rom-com is every bit as good (and sometimes even better) than the recent cinema hit Anyone But You.

Camilla Mendes (from the hit series Riverdale) stars an Ana, an ambitious American art gallery assistant accompanying her intimidating boss (Marisa Tomei) on a hit-run mission to England to save a high-stakes gallery auction from imploding.

Ana (Camila Mendes) and William (Archie Renaux).

En route to London, Ana falls for a cute British guy named Will (Archie Renaux) whose mother (Lena Olin) just happens to be the vendor in that upcoming auction.

Movies like this only work if the screen chemistry between all leads is right (it is) and the screenplay doesn’t lose any likeable momentum throughout (it doesn’t).

Fans of Emily in Paris (or, for that matter, The Devil Wears Prada) will definitely like what they see here.