Hello, and welcome to the Geeky Brummie Film Roundup! Each week we take you through the biggest new cinema releases and some of the reasons you might want to go and see them on the big screen. This week: beasts, boxers, bikers and Broadway…
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.
Zootropolis 2
After saving the city from an anti-predator prejudice plot in the first movie, officers Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) are now partners in the Zootropolis PD. They are tasked with finding Gary De’Snake (Ke Huy Quan), the first reptile seen in Zootropolis after they were outlawed a century ago. But Gary will make them see their city in a whole new light…
The first Zootropolis (or Zootopia, to give it its American name) was one of the highlights of an already very strong period in Disney’s history. The Mouse House had made many animal-based movies before, but this gave the genre a Pixar-level world-building twist, introducing us to a city inventively built to accommodate everything from the tiniest shrew to elephants and giraffes. With plenty of great animal puns, colourful characters, and clever in-jokes for the parents (hands up who was expecting a Breaking Bad reference in a Disney film?), it was an instant hit that grossed over $1 billion at the box office. It also had a strong message about the importance of acceptance and diversity, which feels like a good thing to promote at the moment. So it is no surprise that a sequel is slithering into cinemas.
The early trailers have been very promising, highlighting both the buddy (bunny?) cop dynamic between the two leads and the wealth of background gags and side characters that made the first film so great. Goodwin and Bateman are perfect casting for the perky Hopps and smooth Wilde, and many of the rest of the original cast are also returning, including Idris Elba’s Chief Bogo, Nate Torrence’s Clawhauser, Shakira’s Gazelle, and Disney stalwart Alan Tudyk’s Duke Weaselton. There’s also a host of big names joining them, including the legendary voice of Patrick Warburton as a stallion named Mayor Winddancer, a family of lynxes played by Andy Samberg, David Strathairn, Brenda Song and Macaulay Culkin, and Danny Trejo as a lizard named Jesús. Not to mention a host of cameos who seem to have been cast purely for the puns – even Disney CEO Bob Iger is in the cast list as Bob Tiger. And capping it all off is Ke Huy Quan, the most lovable man in Hollywood, whose career revival following Everything Everywhere All At Once is showing no signs of slowing down.
This is getting some solid reviews and I am very much looking forward to it. Whether you have kids or not, it should be well worth a watch (and probably a second watch just to catch all the visual inventiveness and background gags dotted around the city).
- Zootropolis 2 on IMDB
- Zootropolis 2 on Rotten Tomatoes
Christy
Starring Sydney Sweeney, Christie is a biopic of Christy Martin, a pioneering boxer who was one of the first female athletes to take part in a pay-per-view fight and legitimise the idea of women competing in what had otherwise been seen as a man’s sport. The film follows both her rise to success in the ring, and her troubled marriage to her trainer Jim (Ben Foster).
Sydney Sweeney seems to be everywhere at the moment, especially following her controversial jeans advert in America. It’s hard to know whether that controversy played any part in this film flopping badly Stateside, earning just $1.3 million on its opening weekend and then setting a record for the biggest drop in its second weekend. But she is a talented actress, and has clearly put a lot of work into this role – she reportedly refused a stunt double for the boxing scenes and performed all the stunts herself. All the reviews I’ve seen have been very positive about her performance. Where they have been more critical is in the tonal balance of the film, which puts a lot more emphasis on Christy’s personal life than on her professional career, framing her as a victim first and a sporting legend second.
Overall though, the reviews have been at worst lukewarm, garnering the biopic a respectable 66% on Rotten Tomatoes (and an audience rating of 96%, suggesting that while not many people saw it in America, those that did loved it). And regardless of whether it focuses on the right chapters of her story, it is a very compelling story overall that is definitely worthy of the big screen treatment. It might not be a knockout but it should be worth stepping into the ring for.
- Christy on IMDB
- Christy on Rotten Tomatoes
Pillion
Pillion follows Colin (Harry Melling), an unassuming man moving through life with no real direction when he meets and falls for Ray (Alexander Skarsgård) – a handsome member of a BDSM loving biker gang. They start a whirlwind dom-sub romance that gives Colin a new lease of life, despite the one-sidedness of the relationship.
To address the elephant in the room, yes, that is Dudley Dursley from Harry Potter starring in a gay BDSM biker movie. If anyone saw that coming when the Potter films came out let’s-not-think-too-hard-about-how-many years ago, please pick me some lottery numbers. If you can get past that though, this is by all accounts a beautiful and uplifting love story, which turns an unusually sympathetic spotlight on a very niche subculture. It’s getting rave reviews, with 100% on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing – a huge achievement for first-time director Harry Lighton.
The casting of the central pair is just right. Melling has turned out some great performances since (not) graduating from Hogwarts, most memorably in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and The Queen’s Gambit, and Skarsgård has been excellent in the likes of Succession and The Northman. In terms of both their physical appearance and their acting styles, I can’t think of a more perfect fit for their respective roles here.
At first glance this might not look like everyone’s cup of tea, but if you’re a fan of classic feel-good British comedies then you should absolutely give it a go. If the reviews are anything to go by, you won’t be disappointed.
- Pillion on IMDB
- Pillion on Rotten Tomatoes
Blue Moon
Blue Moon follows lyricist Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke) on the opening night of the musical Oklahoma! – written by his former writing partner Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott) and Rodgers’ new writing partner Oscar Hammerstein (Simon Delaney) – as he comes to terms with the fact that the new partnership has produced a bigger hit than anything he’d been involved in. As he drowns his sorrows, he seeks solace in art student Elizabeth Weiland (Margaret Qualley).
Ethan Hawke has a successful history of working with director Richard Linklater – this is at least their fifth collaboration after Boyhood and Before Sunrise/ Sunset/ Midnight. He is almost unrecognisable in this, buried under a thick layer of makeup and somehow looking about a foot shorter than normal. He has some great material to work with here – Hart was struggling with mental health issues and alcoholism at this stage of his life, but was nevertheless a notably witty wordsmith and Hawke has had a lot of praise for the energy and pathos he brings to the role. Andrew Scott has also had a lot of praise, winning the Silver Bear for best supporting performance when the film premiered at the Berlin Film Festival. And Margaret Qualley is always very watchable – she’s completely believable as the object of Hart’s unrequited love.
As a period biopic about a legend of the performing arts, featuring a standout central performance and a highly respected director, this is exactly the sort of film that would ordinarily be in the conversation in awards season. And although it’s had a slightly early release if that was the intention, it’s getting some solid reviews (89% on Rotten Tomatoes at time of writing) and I wouldn’t completely knock it out of the running for perhaps an acting nomination for Hawke or Scott. If you like a cultured, dialogue-heavy film about a flawed but fascinating character, this is definitely the film for you this week.
- Blue Moon on IMDB
- Blue Moon on Rotten Tomatoes
If you only see one film this week…
Take your pack to watch Zootropolis 2.
Still in cinemas and worth a watch
- Wicked: For Good – Not as good as the first one (none of the songs quite hit the musical heights of Defying Gravity) but still a very entertaining couple of hours in Oz. Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, strange crazy people though they may be, give some incredible performances both dramatically and vocally, and Jeff Goldblum is always a joy to watch. It links up to the original Wizard of Oz in some interesting and at times disturbing ways (who knew the Tin Man was such an incel?) and reframes the story in a way that will divide fans of the 1939 classic but delight fans of last year’s Wicked.
- Sisu: Road to Revenge – Also not as good as the first one, but still delightfully over-the-top. The violence is cartoonishly laid out, like a Tom and Jerry cartoon but with the titular cat and mouse replaced with a couple of cantankerous old men. At one point Aatami even gets his fingers caught in a mouse trap. But when you hit the point where you realise you’re supposed to be laughing, Road to Revenge becomes a lot of fun. One scene, which I will refer to as the rocket punch scene, is so magnificently anticlimactic that you could replace the entire rocket part with a shot of Aatami getting out of bed and it would still work about as well. But it still cements him as one of the biggest (and most sympathetic) hard-asses in cinema, and if you want to watch some ridiculous violence for a bit, you won’t find a better place to do it than here.
- The Running Man
Trailer of the Week
Glen Powell is an increasingly in-demand leading man, and even though The Running Man hasn’t even kicked its boots off yet, the trailer for his next film has dropped this week. How To Make A Killing follows Becket Redfellow (Powell), who was disowned by his ridiculously rich family at birth. Convinced that he is more deserving than they are to inherit the family fortune, he decides to start picking off the various cousins who stand between him and the wealthy lifestyle they’ve deprived him of. And for the second time in this week’s Film Roundup, he is also hoping to impress Margaret Qualley, who seems to know more about his plans than she is letting on. With Ed Harris, Jessica Henwick and Topher Grace also in the cast, HTMAK will be out in the States in February next year and should be out here shortly afterwards.
Leave a Reply