By Reviewed by Philippa Hawker and Jake Wilson
New release
DESPICABLE ME 2
(98 minutes) PG
★★☆
Directed by the Paris-based team of Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud, this computeranimated comedy chronicles the further adventures of Gru (voiced by Steve Carell), an exotically-accented former super-villain who once made a successful bid to steal the moon. Since his redemption at the end of the first Despicable Me, his focus has shifted from world domination to more innocent pursuits, such as caring for his adopted daughters and marketing a range of "jams and jellies". But he's back to his old tricks, after a fashion, when he's persuaded to help track down another villain who happens to be hiding out in the local shopping mall. It all moves along smoothly enough, with a few inspired moments of 3D slapstick, including a mock shootout that neatly avoids spilling blood. The real stars of the show are Gru's minions - chittering creatures who resemble walking earplugs and instantly adapt themselves to their master's schemes. JW
General
ERRORS OF THE HUMAN BODY
(101 minutes) MA
★★☆
When Mike met Sulley: The slapstick can’t make up for an episodic plot in Monsters University.
Following Antiviral, this debut feature from Australian director Eron Sheean is the second release of the year that could be labelled "school of David Cronenberg". Both films are medical thrillers set in pristine laboratories, where obsessive research leads to mental and physical collapse. The central figure here is an American geneticist (Michael Eklund) who takes up a position at a research facility in Dresden, a chilly maze of corridors with the look of a military bunker. Sheean is a promising stylist, matching his "clinical" images with equally careful sound design; most impressive of all is the score by Melbourne composer Anthony Pateras - mostly keyboard and percussion, with electronic distortions, which manages to be aptly eerie without falling into cliche. But the script, which Sheean co-wrote with critic Shane Danielson, proceeds with disappointing caution, and Eklund's performance is "restrained" in a not particularly arresting way. JW
Cinema Nova
MONSTERS UNIVERSITY
(110 minutes) G
★★
The original Monsters Inc was funny, touching, and experimental in a way that the Pixar animation studio has rarely managed since. This prequel flashes back to the early years of the monsters we know and love, including the chipper Mike (voiced by Billy Crystal) and the gruffly well-meaning Sulley (John Goodman). Almost 20 minutes longer than the first film,Monsters University is far less rewarding: witty background details can't make up for a conventional episodic plot. Mike and Sulley start as rivals, both intent on being the scariest monster in class, but ultimately they have to work together, leading a team of misfits in the annual Scare Games. The film is another illustration of Pixar's defiantly elitist philosophy, but as a study of what makes for artistic success or failure it's oddly toothless: none of these shiny, colourful aspiring monsters seem likely to frighten even the smallest kids. JW
General
SATELLITE BOY
(86 minutes) PG
★★★☆
Lively, poignant, direct and dreamlike, Catriona McKenzie's Satellite Boy is a likeable mixture of fable and spirited naturalism. Pete (Cameron Wallaby), a 12-year-old indigenous boy, lives with his grandfather (David Gulpilil) in the Kimberley, in the shadow of an abandoned outdoor cinema. When Pete learns that a mining company is about to take over the place where he lives, he is determined to argue against the plan, and embarks on a journey across country with his friend Kalmain (Joseph Pedley). He soon discovers that he can draw on the lessons his grandfather taught him, as the pair encounter obstacles and physical dangers along the way. Within a work that mixes the realistic and the symbolic, Wallaby and Pedley give engaging, distinctive, naturalistic performances that have a playful and a serious quality. And Gulpilil, one of the significant figures in Australian cinema, is an eloquent presence. McKenzie and cinematographer Geoff Simpson make strong use of striking locations, in a story that lightly balances optimism and gravity. PH
Selected release
WORLD WAR Z
(116 minutes) M
★★
The first zombie film that could conceivably be nominated for an Oscar, Marc Forster's dour techno-thriller stars Brad Pitt as a retired United Nations investigator drafted to help find the source of a plague sweeping the planet. Adapted from Max Brooks' best-selling novel, the script retains traces of a cynical view of authority, as if catastrophe simply reinforced the existing gap between the wretched mass of humanity and the privileged few. Yet Hollywood convention creates a similar hierarchy - encouraging us to sympathise first with Pitt's character, second with his family, and hardly at all with disposable minor characters, let alone the zombies themselves. Even as Forster asks us to associate the zombie crisis with real-world horrors - terrorism, the plight of refugees and so forth - his overhead tracking shots and jitteryBourne-style chase sequences (in 3D) serve as nudging reminders that a zombie movie is supposed to be grisly fun. JW
General
Showing now
AFTER EARTH
(100 minutes) M
★★★☆
This science-fiction adventure is being marketed as a vehicle for noted control freak Will Smith, but it turns out to be as weirdly distinctive as anything writer-director M. Night Shyamalan has done - and as likely to be misunderstood. A thousand years hence, a spaceship crash-lands on a planet that turns out to be Earth. The survivors are the chilly General Cypher Raige (Smith) and Cypher's sullen young son Kitai (Jaden Smith, the real-life son of Will), who must save the day by trekking through a rainforest while his injured dad guides him from afar. Though the special effects aren't always persuasive, Shyamalan remains an unconventional visual thinker, and though the film has been accused of promoting Scientology, it's far too ambiguous to qualify as propaganda. There's no twist in the usual sense, but there are plenty of surprises, including the beautiful final shot. JW
General
BROKEN
(87 minutes) MA
★★★
Rufus Norris' version ofTo Kill a Mockingbird is set in a suburban English cul-de-sac. Adapted from a novel inspired by Harper Lee's novel, it creates its own world without feeling indebted to its source. And its young central character, Skunk (Eloise Laurence), is as strong, vulnerable and independent as Mockingbird'sScout Finch. Norris, a stage director making his film debut, givesBroken a bleak context but a yearning, blurred, playful visual style. He conjures love and violence, fractured families and flawed intentions. PH
Selected release
EVIL DEAD
(91 minutes) R
★★
The original The Evil Dead was a shocker for many viewers in 1981, but today it seems mainly an expression of high spirits and a calling card for its director, Sam Raimi. Produced by Raimi and directed by newcomer Fede Alvarez, this remake was conceived as a money-spinner and a thankyou note to fans. All the memorable moments of the original are rehashed, while the revisions to the script are mostly improvements: the college-age characters who gather at a cabin in the woods are now there to support Mia (Jane Levy), who is trying to get off drugs. There's even the hint of an actual theme, but the notion gets lost in a welter of mutilation and death, adequately choreographed but scary only in the manner of a funfair haunted house. JW
Cinema Nova
FAREWELL, MY QUEEN
(100 minutes) MA
★★★★
Benoit Jacquot's costume drama suggests a French riposte to the American vogue for films in which nobodies get up close and personal with celebrities: the celebrity here is Marie Antoinette (Diane Kruger), while the nobody is the fictional Sidonie Laborde (Lea Seydoux), a young serving girl tasked with reading to the queen in the days before the fall of Versailles. Rarely moving outside the palace gates, the film luxuriates in a mood of sinister eroticism, and seems less concerned with history than with fantasy, both individual and collective: Sidonie's cult of the queen is merely an extreme version of a general faith in the arbitrary line between those born to rule and those who must obey. The film's complex irony lies in the demonstration that this system offers something for everyone: after all, what could be more comforting than knowing your place? JW
Cinema Nova
FAST AND FURIOUS 6
(130 minutes) M
★★☆
As Hollywood blockbusters go, the Fast and the Furious films have a pleasingly casual vibe: the main characters aren't spies or superheroes, just guys and girls who like to drive fast cars. Directed by Justin Lin, this latest adventure sees Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) and company summoned to London by special agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson) to help capture a gang of thieves led by former SAS soldier Owen Shaw (Luke Evans). The plot is, in essence, an excuse for chases and confrontations; the exuberant style suggests the camera, too, wants to join in the mayhem, speeding between lanes of traffic or circling high above. But with more than a dozen lead characters,Fast and Furious 6 regularly has to slow to ensure everyone gets their moment in the spotlight. JW
General release
THE GREAT GATSBY
(142 minutes) M
★★
This version of The Great Gatsby is clearly the film its director, Baz Luhrmann, wanted to make, even if it satisfies neither as cinema nor as an interpretation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's subtle, ambiguous Jazz Age novel. Luhrmann rarely uses one shot where 10 will do, heralding the arrival of Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) with a trumpet fanfare and fireworks. For all this, he sticks closely to Fitzgerald's cunningly constructed plot, in which Gatsby, a self-made millionaire of dubious reputation, becomes a figure of legend as host of extravagant parties at his mansion near New York. For all his bravado, Luhrmann isn't much of a director; still, there's no denying the strength of his identification with a jumped-up pretender dedicated - in Fitzgerald's words - to "the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty". JW
General release
HAPPINESS NEVER COMES ALONE
(105 minutes) M
★★★
James Huth's exuberant romantic comedy with screwball aspirations derives much of its energy from the drive of its two leads, Sophie Marceau and Gad Elmaleh - even when the movie sags midway, they keep it ticking over. Elmaleh is Sacha, a jingle writer with an easy-come, easy-go approach to his romantic life, a penchant for younger women, and a horror of children. Marceau is Charlotte, separated from her wealthy husband, running a foundation for artists and raising three kids in a mixture of comfort and chaos. Huth and his co-writer wife, Sonja Shillito, make the most of their actors' gifts for physical comedy, but they also have a solid supporting cast and pleasing moments of absurdity amid the charm. PH
Selected release
THE HUNT
(116 minutes) MA
★★☆
Danish director Thomas Vinterberg has calmed down since the heyday of the Dogme 95 manifesto, remaining a skilful storyteller, though not an especially distinctive one. His latest tells the story of Lucas (Mads Mikkelsen), a divorced smalltown kindergarten teacher whose life falls apart when he is falsely assumed to have molested five-year-old Klara (Annika Wedderkopp). The subject is intensely painful and controversial. Mikkelsen avoids courting sympathy too obviously, but the subtlety of his performance makes the plot faintly glib, even evasive. JW
Selected release
THE INTERNSHIP
(119 minutes) M
★★☆
The Internshipis a comedy of reskilling with a product-placement style backdrop, and Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn are a couple of salesmen struggling with retrenchment who stumble their way into an internship at Google. It soon becomes apparent that some of their skills - confidence, pep talks, peoplepleasing - have a place in this brave new world.The Internshipis a relatively tame comedy: the most notable aspect is the setting. The Google organisation is depicted as a brightly coloured fantasy world: part playground, part country club. Whatever arrangement the company had with the production, it could hardly complain about the way it has been portrayed; it might even have preferred a little more comic edge. PH
General release
A LADY IN PARIS
(91 minutes) M
★★★
Ilmar Raag's quiet, slow-moving film is a story of gradual transformation - slight, graceful and incidental. It begins with the travails of Anne (Laine Magi), an Estonian woman in her 40s who leaves a miserable life to go to Paris to care for an elderly compatriot. Yet Paris is not exactly welcoming, even if the physical environment is far more comfortable: her new charge, Frida (Jeanne Moreau), is cranky and unappreciative.A Lady in Parisunfolds a little creakily. It revolves around its central performances, and they're appealing and well judged. Moreau, now 85, has the showier part, and she gives an energetic portrayal of the volatile Frida, an engaging monster who eventually unbends. Magi, as the put-upon Anna who begins to discover a new sense of self, has less to work with, but is no less convincing. PH
Selected release
LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE
(109 minutes) UNRATED 18+
★★★★★
Though the great Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami is sometimes mistaken for a social realist, he's always been a trickster at heart, as cunning in his way as a writer such as Vladimir Nabokov. This companion piece to his ersatz European art movie Certified Copy again puts the notion of fakery front and centre: the film is a prism that can be examined from many angles, even if the plot barely qualifies as anecdotal. Akiko (Rin Takanashi), a pretty sociology student who moonlights as an escort, is asked to spend an evening with Takashi (Tadashi Okuno), a professor living in the suburbs of Tokyo. Whether or not Like Someone in Love is "about" Japan, it pays homage to the Japanese tradition of art that relies on implication. Voices are detached from owners and images are visible as reflections, while truth, if it exists, remains off screen. JW
Australian Centre for the Moving Image
MUD
(130 minutes) M
★★★
The third feature from writer-director Jeff Nichols has been conceived as an allAmerican fairytale, set in a region where no one uses computers or mobile phones, and where Ellis (Tye Sheridan), 14, and his friend Neckbone (Jacob Lofland) roam free. Mud (Matthew McConaughey) is a grizzled fantasist who seems to have drifted from the sky, and claims to be awaiting the arrival of his true love (Reese Witherspoon). By design, the character is both a deluded buffoon and a mythic hero. Nichols is a divided personality in his own right: the former art-house director appears to be moving mainstream, and while his style sweeps us along, the film is built on contradictions scarcely acknowledged, let alone resolved. JW
Cinema Nova
ONE MILE ABOVE
(90 minutes) M
★★
This bland first feature from Chinese director Jiayi Du is based on the experiences of Taiwanese writer-adventurer Xie Wanglin, who set out to cycle from Lijiang in south-west China to Lhasa in Tibet - a journey of almost 2000 kilometres. In the film, the main character is Zhang Shuhao, the name of the actor playing the role, who looks more like a pop star than an athlete. Shuhao embarks on the journey after the death of his brother, a keen cyclist. This pilgrimage takes up the film's brief running time and is portrayed in vaguely spiritual terms, but we learn little about Shuhao. At best, the film feels underdeveloped; at worst, it could be part of an ad campaign marketing Tibet to Chinese tourists. JW
Cinema Nova
THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST
(130 minutes) M
★★☆
Charming, brainy and bound for success on Wall Street, Pakistani immigrant Changez (Riz Ahmed) is easy to like - until he describes feeling pleasure at the fall of the twin towers. Mira Nair's film is based on a 2007 novel by Pakistani writer Mohsin Hamid, and she embeds Changez's confession in a thriller framework, where he is forced to defend himself to Bobby (Liev Schreiber), who may be an American spy. Ahmed does not suggest Changez's inner conflicts with much force, and the plot peters out - but the film is provocative enough to spark debate. JW
Selected release
STILL MINE
(102 minutes) PG
★★
This subdued drama from Canadian writerdirector Michael McGowan is partly a study of enduring love and partly a feel-good story of an underdog who challenges the system. But either way, it covers familiar ground. James Cromwell stars as Craig Morrison, a feisty 89-year-old who lives with his adored wife, Irene (Genevieve Bujold), in a farmhouse on the New Brunswick coast. Irene is getting physically and mentally frail so Craig decides to build a new home that will meet her needs. An inspector (Jonathan Potts) threatens legal action if regulations aren't followed, but Craig brushes off his warnings, believing common sense will prevail. McGowan has a tin ear for dialogue ("Old age is just an abstraction, not a straitjacket") and directs as stiffly as he writes. Still, Bujold is a stunning presence - mischievous, inscrutable, almost witch-like - who gets far less screen time than she deserves. JW
Selected release
TABU
(113 minutes) MA
★★★☆
Set in present-day Lisbon, the first half of Miguel Gomes' mannered, but often exquisite, puzzle focuses on Pilar (Teresa Madruga), a social activist who reaches out to Aurora (Laura Soveral), an elderly neighbour with a gambling problem. Pilar tracks down Aurora's former lover, Gian-Luca Ventura (Henrique Espirito Santo); the story of their long-ago affair is told without dialogue through music, ambient sound and voice-over. Meanings are suggested by the tension between the film's two sections - the gap between Pilar's social conscience and the lovers' indifference to the colonial society around them.Tabubetrays a nostalgia for the old dream of the exotic and primitive, which has now lost its innocence and can only be indulged in the most slyly retro terms. JW
Selected release
YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHIN' YET
(110 minutes) PG
★★★★
French director Alain Resnais, who has just turned 91, is still vigorous, playful and exhilarating, skilfully reworking the past and present, new technologies and traditional art forms.You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yetis another of his explorations of the possibilities of theatre and performance. More than a dozen of France's finest actors, playing themselves, are summoned to the home of a (fictional) celebrated playwright who has just died. He has stipulated in his will that they watch a film of a new production of one of his works, Eurydice, in which they all appeared. As they watch young actors take on the roles they are familiar with, the older performers enter into the world of the play, with intriguing consequences.You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yetis poignant and quietly surprising. PH
Selected release