Hello there, and welcome to this week’s Film Roundup – taking you through the biggest new cinema releases and why you should be excited for them. This week: some warring Roses, some angry criminals, and one very toxic avenger…
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 Roses
Remaking the 1989 Kirk Douglas and Kathleen Turner film The War of the Roses, The Roses follows Ivy and Theo Rose (Olivia Coleman and Benedict Cumberbatch), a married couple with young children and a promising future. For the last ten years or so, Ivy has been staying at home and looking after the kids while Theo has worked as a successful architect, but when her career as a chef suddenly takes off just as his career crashes down, their roles are reversed. Theo’s jealousy at his wife’s success bubbles into resentment, leading to mutual hatred and an escalating feud that becomes increasingly violent. Will they be able to patch things up?
Coleman and Cumberbatch make a great central pairing. They’ve both been typecast in the past, with Coleman often playing a warm, affable presence while Cumberbatch is usually quite cynical and aloof – there’s a real contrast between the roles we’re used to seeing them in, which helps sell both the divide between the two and everything that builds up to it. Although the synopsis sounds like a depressing social drama, this is first and foremost a comedy and there are some great comic actors in the cast – aside from Coleman herself, there’s Andy Samberg, Kate McKinnon and Jamie Demetriou, as well as recently retired Doctor Ncuti Gatwa. As the cycle of vengeance gets more and more over-the-top, there’s plenty of scope here for some wonderfully silly moments of cartoon violence.
In short, this looks like a lot of fun, with some solid leads and a strong supporting cast.
- The Roses on IMDB
- The Roses on Rotten Tomatoes
Caught Stealing
Caught Stealing, based on a book by Charlie Huston, follows Hank Thompson (Austin Butler), a former baseball prodigy who gets unexpectedly caught up in the criminal underworld when his punk neighbour Russ (Matt Smith) asks him to cat-sit. With half the gangs in New York after him for reasons that he doesn’t understand, can Hank extricate himself from the crime world in one piece – and more to the point, does he want to?
The most intriguing thing about this film is that it’s directed by Darren Aronofsky – the man behind the likes of Requiem For A Dream and Mother! – whose films are famously cerebral mind-melters. This appears to be a completely different beast – a darkly comic crime caper where all of the threats are very much in the physical realm. While most directors would make this sort of film as their bread and butter with maybe the occasional oddball when they fancy branching out, Aronofsky seems to have gone in the other direction. But there’s still the impression that there’s something more here than the usual thugs and hustlers – there’s some lovely cinematography and well fleshed out characters, all indicating that the director has approached it with the same attention to detail as any of his artsier fare.
Again, the supporting cast here is excellent. There’s Zoë Kravitz as Hank’s girlfriend Yvonne, Regina King, Liev Schrieber, Vincent D’Onofrio, Bad Bunny, plus the aforementioned Matt Smith – our second former Doctor this week.
If you like a Guy Ritchie style crime film, this is the film for you this week. If you prefer more thoughtful fare from artistic auteurs, this is also the film for you this week. It really is something for everyone.
- Caught Stealing on IMDB
- Caught Stealing on Rotten Tomatoes
The Toxic Avenger
The original Toxic Avenger came out in 1984 and quickly gained a cult following. This new movie is a loose remake but it seems to be hitting a lot of the same notes. Winston (Peter Dinklage) is a single dad, mourning the loss of his wife and struggling to connect with his son Wade (Jacob Tremblay) and making ends meet working as a janitor at a pharmaceutical company. When he falls into a vat of industrial waste, he becomes the Toxic Avenger – super strong and near invulnerable, but also horribly disfigured. He sets out to use his new-found powers for good and make his son proud.
This looks very over-the-top, with some ridiculous schlocky violence and one-liners (“Just some dude… with a MOP!”) and a little fourth-wall-breaking for good measure. You get the impression that everyone involved knows the B-movie status of the original and is rightly proud of that heritage – the budget is clearly much higher than the original but also distinctly lower than the average superhero film. It’s also got another strong supporting cast (although no Doctor this time) – Kevin Bacon, Elijah Wood, Shaun Dooley and Julia Davis all look like they’re having a great time. And once you get below the slimy green surface, the father-son relationship looks genuinely quite sweet.
- The Toxic Avenger on IMDB
- The Toxic Avenger on Rotten Tomatoes
If you only see one film this week…
There are some strong contenders, but for sheer pulpy over-the-top fun it’s got to be The Toxic Avenger.
Still in cinemas and worth a watch
- The Life of Chuck
- Eddington
- Weapons
Trailer of the week
The 2022 movie Sisu was a violent treat. Its almost completely silent hero Aatami dug up some gold, and wanted to cash it in at the bank – the only problem was the increasingly angry swarm of Nazis in the way who want it for themselves. Fortunately, Aatami was a legendary ex-commando whose decades of experience at cutting through bad guys had earned him the nickname “the Immortal”. At first glance you might be tempted to compare him to a geriatric John Wick (right down to his cute dog), but Aatami is the kind of natural hard-ass who would sneer at Wick’s fancy clothes before headbutting his teeth out. With some slick action scenes and an escalating series of badass stunts, Aatami has now carved his way through to a sequel. Sisu: Road to Revenge sees him taking vengeance on the communist soldier (played by Stephen Lang) who killed his family. It looks like we can expect more of the same ridiculousness that made the first film so entertaining.
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