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Summer holidays movie special: Our critics’ picks of the flicks
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Summer holidays movie special: Our critics’ picks of the flicks

Already seen Wicked? Want a film that will please the family? Our reviewers have you covered from Boxing Day and beyond.

14 stories
Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn) and Anora (Mikey Madison) are a mismatch made in heaven.
★★★★

Crazy, stupid love: Anora takes you somewhere quite unexpected

The Cannes Palme d’Or winner about a stripper and her wealthy Russian suitor features a cast so spirited that anything seems possible.

  • by Sandra Hall
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Kani Kusruti (left) and Divya Prabha play housemates in the award-winning All We Imagine As Light.
★★★★

Cannes award-winner breaks one of screenwriting’s biggest rules – and it works

Set in Mumbai, All We Imagine As Light is a film of two halves, with loneliness and belonging at its centre.

  • by Sandra Hall
Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore play old friends who reconnect in The Room Next Door. 
★★★

It has its devotees, but Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton euthanasia drama left me cold

Spanish master director Pedro Almodovar’s English-language feature debut is visually rich, but lacking in earthiness.

  • by Craig Mathieson
Jonno Davies plays a monkey version of Robbie Williams in the biopic Better Man.
★★★

Robbie Williams as an ape? This biopic is more than monkey business

Better Man is far more unconventional than Bohemian Rhapsody, but lacks the connective personal tissue that held Rocketman together.

  • by Craig Mathieson
Kieran Culkin (left) and Jesse Eisenberg play cousins honouring their grandmother in A Real Pain.
★★★½

Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin collide in not-so-solemn Holocaust pilgrimage

A Real Pain follows two bickering cousins as they travel to Poland to honour their grandmother.

  • by Jake Wilson
Jim Carrey as Ivo Robotnik and Gerald Robotnik in Sonic the Hedgehog 3.
★★

Jim Carrey’s showboating double-act can’t save Sonic the Hedgehog 3

The comedian takes on a second role as Dr Robotnik’s lookalike grandpa, which doubles the number of movie characters he’s played this decade.

  • by Jake Wilson
Young cub Mufasa in Mufasa: The Lion King.
★★★

The comedy is back in the Lion King, but that doesn’t mean we needed it

Even with a soundtrack by Lin-Manuel Miranda, the Lion King prequel, which tells the story of Simba’s father, has a repetitive feel about it.

  • by Sandra Hall
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Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Russell Crowe play father and son in Kraven the Hunter. 
★½

Russell Crowe stuck between credibility and camp in blockbuster shocker

Crowe plays a Russian gangster in Kraven the Hunter, which alternates between entertainingly awful and just terrible.

  • by Jake Wilson
Shovels at the ready, the leaders, including Cate Blanchet as German Chancellor Hilda Ortmann, prepare to unleash some Neanderthal revenge.
★★★

Cate Blanchett’s political zombie comedy swiftly descends into chaos

Featuring a starry cast, Rumours is the kind of film where the ability to keep a straight face qualifies as consummate acting.

  • by Sandra Hall
Moana with her cute little sister (definitely not daughter) Simea in Moana 2.
★★★

Disney’s Moana retread misses the Lin-Manuel Miranda magic

Despite its lush visuals, the long-awaited sequel proves there’s no good idea Hollywood won’t drive into the ground.

  • by Robert Moran
Hugh Grant stars as Mr Reed, who doesn’t look like a monster at all, in Heretic.
★★★½

Hugh Grant is seriously scary in his first horror film

At first, Grant doesn’t look like a monster in Heretic, then he pushes his familiar mannerisms into grotesque caricature.

  • by Jake Wilson
Ariana Grande (left) as Glinda and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba in Wicked.
★★★★

Perfectly cast, Wicked is made bigger and better on screen

Director Jon M. Chu has taken a successfully radical approach to the beloved Broadway musical, smoothing out the kinks in the narrative.

  • by Sandra Hall
Paul Mescal as Lucius, son of Russell Crowe’s Maximus, in Gladiator II.
★★★

Mescal is the star of Gladiator II, but Denzel Washington steals the show

As the gladiator Lucius, Paul Mescal wisely doesn’t try to emulate Russell Crowe’s swagger in the original film.

  • by Jake Wilson
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Dalla Porta and Gary Oldman, who plays one of Parthenope’s many suitors.
★★★

Italian master Paolo Sorrentino’s films feel like deranged ads. His new one is no exception

Starring Celeste Dalla Porta and Gary Oldman, Parthenope is an experience you can drift through as the heroine drifts through life, enchanted and sceptical at once.

  • by Jake Wilson

Original URL: https://www.watoday.com.au/culture/movies/summer-holidays-movie-special-our-critics-picks-of-the-flicks-20241219-p5kznq.html