Hello, and welcome to the Geeky Brummie Film Roundup! Each week we run through the biggest new cinema releases and why you should be excited for them. This week: baby bounty hunters, haunted highways, adoring adolescents, and dogs vs cats vs mice (with aliens and Chinese mysticism).
Usual disclaimer: unless otherwise stated, I haven’t seen these movies yet so all of my opinions are based on trailers, early reviews and other rumours and buzz.
The Mandalorian & Grogu
It was a long time ago that we last visited a galaxy far, far away at the cinema in 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker, which was far from the greatest entry in the Star Wars canon. But the TV output has been much more prolific, peaking with Andor but with the Mandalorian being a definite highlight. Running for three seasons (or three and a half if you count the Mando-centric episodes of the Book of Boba Fett), the show followed a simple formula: Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) would go to a place and complete a side-quest to fix their problem, while Grogu (still probably better known as Baby Yoda despite never having been called that on-screen) does cute things. Throw in a great baddie in the form of Giancarlo Esposito’s Moff Gideon, a few cameos from the films or other series, and a roster of snarky droids voiced by British comedians, and it quickly became a tentpole of Disney’s Star Wars offerings.
Baby Yoda is now such a cultural icon that it was only a matter of time before the Mandalorian got a film and Grogu got joint billing in the title. Other than the extended run-time, it doesn’t look like the movie is veering too far from the established formula. With the New Republic in power after the fall of the Empire, they enlist Mando’s bounty hunting skills to bring the remaining warlords and other threats to the new order in line. Chief among those threats is the Hutt clan, who hire Din Djarin to track down Rotta the Hutt (voiced by The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White), son of Jabba. With Grogu having elected to train as a Mandalorian instead of a Jedi, he is brought along to learn what he can.
The trailer has a lot to get excited about. There’s a brief appearance from Zeb Orrelios from Star Wars: Rebels, and new characters played by Sigourney Weaver and Martin Scorsese. Several shots show Din without his helmet, which fans of the show will know is a big no-no, and suggests he must find himself in some dire situations. Those are also hinted at by several battle scenes, including fights against AT-ATs, big eel-like monsters, and Rotta himself. There is also plenty of Grogu being cute – fiddling with buttons, eating biscuits and beating up a (presumably very evil) mouse droid.
If you’re a fan of the show, or of Star Wars in general, you are bound to enjoy this – and even if you’re not, it’s still the sort of exciting western-inspired sci-fi blockbuster that the big screen was made for.
- The Mandalorian & Grogu on IMDB
- The Mandalorian & Grogu on Rotten Tomatoes
Passenger
A young couple, Tyler and Maddie (Jacob Scipio and Lou Llobell), witness the gruesome aftermath of a car crash on a quiet American road. They soon learn that they inadvertently picked up a stowaway when they stopped to try and help – a demon called the Passenger who won’t leave them alone until it’s taken them both.
The trailer initially focuses on the early scenes that lead to the original car accident, and there are plenty of disconcerting elements here that make for an effective horror – from the creeping sense of dread caused by the repeating figure by the road to some nasty jump scares. Tyler and Maddie’s encounters with the Passenger look pretty terrifying too. The fear of being attacked on the road late at night is an easily relatable one for many, and the demon’s appearance is sinister without being too over-the-top. Although the idea of the killer in the back seat is nothing new, and this has some classic horror tropes (the mythology of the Passenger is exposited by an elderly local at the petrol station), Passenger looks like a fun trip for horror fans.
- Passenger on IMDB
- Passenger on Rotten Tomatoes
Finding Emily
Owen (Spike Fearn) meets the girl of his dreams on a night out and manages to get her phone number, only to discover when he tries to call her the next morning that it’s missing a digit. Despite knowing nothing about her but her first name, he sets out on a quest to track her down, enlisting the help of a psychology student (Angourie Rice). Will he find her, or will he learn that sometimes the love you were looking for was under your nose the whole time?
If you’ve ever seen a rom com before you can probably tell exactly where this is going to go, but it looks like it has a lot of fun in getting there. Fearn is a likeable lead, selling the angsty desperation of teenage love well, and Rice brings a smiley American positivity that stands out in the otherwise very British Manchester setting. The film was produced by romantic comedy veterans Working Title and has all the cringey awkwardness and displays of affection that you might expect from their films (including Notting Hill and Love Actually), but with a young adult energy that makes it all feel much more fresh and original. It’s been getting warm reviews (currently sitting at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes) so fans of these sorts of films won’t be disappointed. Plus it has Phil Wang playing a character named Pervy Martin, and if that doesn’t sell it, nothing will.
- Finding Emily on IMDB
- Finding Emily on Rotten Tomatoes
Charlie the Wonderdog
After being abducted by aliens, beloved family dog Charlie discovers that he has superpowers and the voice of Owen Wilson. He sets out to thwart his nemesis Pruddy (Ruari MacDonald), a cat who was given super intelligence by the same aliens.
Although the plot here is somehow simultaneously ridiculous and completely unoriginal, it’s hard to dislike anything that Owen Wilson is involved in. The CGI animation is better than a lot of the smaller animation studios’ output, but still looks a little dated given how effortlessly impressive the likes of Pixar, Disney and Dreamworks are able to make their films look nowadays. There’s also something slightly unsettling about some of the scenes where Charlie and Pruddy are stood on their hind legs, as if they couldn’t decide whether they wanted them to be properly anthropomorphic or just a dog and cat who happen to walk on two legs. While that’s distracting for Charlie it’ works well’s effectively unnerving for the baddie, and the animators have also done a good job at giving him some physicality and weight to go with his supervillain smarts.
Small children will no doubt love this, but I’m not sure their responsible adults will get as much out of it as they would a Pixar movie.
- Charlie the Wonderdog on IMDB
- Charlie the Wonderdog on Rotten Tomatoes
Tom & Jerry: Forbidden Compass
From dog vs cat to cat vs mouse – Forbidden Compass sees Tom and Jerry transported through time to ancient China after disturbing an artefact during a fight in a museum. They will need to learn to work together to find their way back to their own time.
Tom and Jerry has clearly changed a lot since the cartoons I watched as a kid. This one was actually co-produced by America and China and released in China first (it won’t be out in the US until September), which goes a long way to explaining the references to Chinese legends and history. But, much as I am normally a fan of crowbarring myths and history into a story, it feels like an odd and unnecessary choice for characters that work so well in a domestic setting. On the positive side, I am pleased to see that the titular pair are still happily knocking lumps out of each other, and that they don’t appear to have been given any dialogue beyond a few squeaks and screams.
Unsurprisingly, this isn’t getting great reviews, and if you need to entertain your kids this weekend you might be better off taking them to see Charlie the Wonderdog (which was not advice that I was expecting to give).
- Tom & Jerry: Forbidden Compass on IMDB
- Tom & Jerry: Forbidden Compass on Rotten Tomatoes
If you only see one film this week…
…take your Child to see the Mandalorian and Grogu.
Still in cinemas and worth a watch
- Obsession – A surprisingly effective horror film with some very disturbing and occasionally extremely violent behaviour and a great performance from Inde Navarrette. Despite everything else that happens, the most upsetting moments are those where the real Nikki’s consciousness manages to break through – the implications of what she’s going through are genuinely horrifying.
- Mortal Kombat II
- The Devil Wears Prada 2
Trailer of the Week
Do you want to see a Korean action horror in which alien monsters lay waste to a town? Of course you do, so here is the trailer for Hope, which is exactly that. We only get some glimpses of the monsters but there is some fun creature design going on, especially the chap at the end jumping out of the trees with an enormous mouth. Adding to the excitement are some breakneck horseback chases through the forest, and a cast list that surprisingly includes Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender. Hope doesn’t have a UK release date yet but I like the look of it a lot, so fingers crossed we get to see it soon.
Leave a Reply