Cert – 15, Run-time – 1 hour 58 minutes, Director – J Blakeson

A woman (Rosamund Pike) who gains the trust and confidence of the wealthy elderly by becoming their guardian steals from the wrong person (Dianne Wiest) when her gangster son (Peter Dinklage) gets involved.

“Playing fair is a joke invented by rich people to keep the rest of us poor” explains Rosamund Pike’s Marla Grayson at the top of writer-director J Blakeson’s I Care A Lot. Marla is a guardian for many elderly people, making sure they get put in good care homes and that things turn out well for them. She’s a trustworthy person and as the kids of these wealthy figures begin to visit less their relationship with Marla grows, entrusting her with their savings, and sometimes leaving something substantial in their wills. However, it’s Marla behind the family not being able to visit, she acts as her own lawyer and finds ways to help the judge rule in her favour. To avoid such trouble she attempts to get a doctor associate (Alicia Witt) to assign her people with no family, and then manipulates the patients, sometimes making them feel ill or forcibly deteriorated, with the help of her partner Fran (Eiza González), simply to get their money.

Pike is gleefully evil throughout the film, a roaring performance of initially quiet menace that turns into raging threat. Her hints of facial expressions and hidden intentions add to the character and make her even more of an unsympathetic antagonistic focus. Never does the viewer get behind or want to support her character, everyone is just as bad and malicious as each other in this piece. Sympathy goes towards Jennifer Peterson (Dianne Wiest), the perfectly fine old lady who Marla takes on and abuses in the hope of stealing a fortune worthy hundreds and thousands of dollars. However, things soon take a turn when Jennifer’s gangster son (Peter Dinklage) gets involved. Soon Blakeson’s film finds itself taking a number of sharp, detailed twists and turns. The thriller themes of the film are set in and the fast pace escalates truly making for something tense, engaging and definitely interesting.

It’s testament to both Blakeson and the performances that the actors give that such high levels of tension can be created without it being directed towards any of the characters. We know that all of them are doing wrong, yet there’s still tension, perhaps the fact it isn’t specifically for anyone makes it greater as it has nowhere to go. Even the finely handled one on one conversational scenes and courtroom sequences have their high levels of drama, and in many ways hold the true detail of the film and build up some of the larger, more action like moments.

All the way through each parties true malicious extents are explored. The question “what lines will I cross?” is continuously asked and advanced. While the narrative certainly focuses on Pike there’s plenty of glimpses into the minds and behaviours of those around her, both those she has close relationships with and those that are trying to track her down and get their revenge. Yet, never does the film feel too heavy or as if it’s trying to pack in too much information. Everything is balanced and carefully formed for a cleverly thought through and executed narrative. The occasional montages looking at multiple areas help to keep up with each figure and simply ramps up the excitement further. Excitement of what will happen when these two opposing forces of evil finally meet. One with mindful evil the other violent. It forms a true clash that you can’t help but be caught up and invested in the tension of. With a fantastically twisted lead performance from Rosamund Pike there’s a lot to love about this deliriously escalating thriller, apart from the characters.

Rosamund Pike is fantastic in the lead role of I Care A Lot, a sensationally tense thriller filled with gleefully villainous figures at every twist and turn.

Cert – 15, Run-time – 1 hour 37 minutes, Director – Brian Duffield

When her classmates begin to randomly explode Mara (Katherine Langford) sparks a relationship with fellow student Dylan (Charlie Plummer) when everyone who remains are put through quarantined trials.

Perhaps one of the best ways to describe writer-director Brian Duffield’s directorial debut has been used as the poster tagline, “an explosive love story”. Although while the relationship between students Mara (Katherine Langford) and Dylan (Charlie Plummer) does play a key part in this adaptation of the Aaron Starmer YA novel of the same name we focus for the most part on Mara and how the sudden random explosions of her classmates throws her life into turmoil. Teenagers in their final year of high school, planning to go off to college, simply turn into splatters of blood, vanishing simply leaving soaking dark-red clothes, with no warning. “It was like a Cronenberg movie” exclaims one student after the first instance leaves a number of the young adults traumatised. Duffield’s screenplay contains a handful of such references, including some to Dr Strangelove, showing some of the inspirations for the film, while its tone and feel still shows promise for a potential future cult following. Yet, amongst all of this there’s no denying the strong teen movie feel at Spontaneous’ heart.

As the teenagers are locked into a highly protective quarantine – cue laugh-out-loud testing and interview montages, on student dead-pan demanding that his lawyer be present – they go through various new drug tests in the hope that this will stop the increasingly frequent, bloody deaths. While some live in fear that the same will happen to them others worry about their school grades before college. Meanwhile Mara and Dylan grow closer and manage to blossom a romance out of it. They somewhat forget about their worries and begin to live for each other in the heady, swirling chaos of life in the town their stuck in until life moves on, however that may be. Mara spirals and swirls throughout the film, her mental state rising and declining over the fine-flow of the film’s narrative. The character remains a joy over this entire course thanks to Langford’s fantastic central performance.

While the supporting class, and Plummer’s likably, lightly awkward love interest who raises Mara’s mood and creates humorous uplift in the dark comedy, are all good and push the film further; making for an even more enjoyable teen comedy, Langford truly steals the show in a number of scenes. Even during the latter stages of the film where some moments appear to get a bit lengthier as themes and ideas are being wrapped up there’s enough energy in the central performance to keep you engaged and laughing along with the film. Duffield’s screenplay is cleverly written, not just when it comes to the great, snappy and often sarcastic dialogue and energetic montage sequences, further fuelling the wit and highly entertaining atmosphere of the film. It might feel free-wheeling, but it’s clearly been carefully planned out and scripted.

Even as the characters find themselves in increasingly desperate situations, their mood declining as Mara specifically turns to what she believes is her only friend – alcohol, including some of her own intensely boozy cocktail creations – the film never looks down on, or pokes fun at them. There are dramatic sequences. Panic in the corridors as more students begin to explode and the drug tests fail. While such scenes might contain hints of comedy the root is somewhat serious, yet helps to fuel character and the comedic tones to come. When blended with the fine performances and the frequently effective humour this is an absolute hit, both for the current teen audience and perhaps those in the future too, alongside a potential range of other audience members. This truly is an explosively fun time.

Very smart and very funny, Spontaneous is an absolute blast, not just because of Katherine Langford’s joyous lead performance. Brian Duffield’s directorial debut is cleverly written and brings about a number of great laughs throughout its high teen comedy energy.

Cert – PG, Run-time – 1 hour 29 minutes, Director – John Hay

When their daughter passes away Roald Dahl (Hugh Boneville) and Patricia Neal (Keeley Hawes) begin to experience rifts in their marriage and family relationships.

“You, Mr Dahl, are one big kid, and the day you stop is the day I file for divorce” the line that seals the course that Roald Dahl (Hugh Bonneville) and Patricia Neal’s (Keeley Hawes) marriage will take over the course of this film. Things might not be steady for the couple at the start. Yet, despite the lack of success of Dahl’s James And The Giant Peach and new acting roles for Neal, alongside Dahl being unable to come up with new ideas and dealing with lightly-touched upon alcoholism, the relationship is close. The family unit with their son and two daughters is close. All five are closely bonded in their worlds of imagination and make-believe. Throughout we’re shown the strong imagination that the

That is until the sudden passing of their daughter, Olivia. The death shakes the family and the marriage at the centre of the film. Dahl and Neal grieve in very different ways, The actor of them openly; although trying to quickly move on and stressing about other people, and the writer bans all mention of his daughters name, trying to move on with his emotion bottled up. Such different responses create a distance between the pair as they find themselves unable to properly empathise with each other. Although, throughout the seriousness of scenes depicting emotion and quarrels (very rarely do things develop into full blown arguments) the film as a whole is relatively calm. It feels like a quick ‘everything will be alright in the end’ British tale – at just under 90 minutes it certainly spares some details.

On many occasions the film simply cuts away from some of the more personal conversations by fading to black and moving to an entirely different moment and point in time. It feels as if a lot of time and potential detail is glossed over, detail that could strengthen the characters and create something that bit more emotionally engaging. At some points the most advancement comes from constant references to possible details to appear in his next children’s book project, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. Things simply seem rushed at times, the film clearly wants to get in by 90 minutes but by doing this it appears to cut out a lot of stuff that could make for something more detailed and engaging.

While what we get is a decent enough calm, mid-afternoon TV drama there’s no escaping the feeling that there could be something more to this story about dealings with family tragedy. Bonneville and Hawes give good performances in the central roles, conveying the limited amounts of emotion and drama well. Yet, amongst the crowbarred Dahl references the feeling that there’s more to this piece and that there’s potential for more than just a decent enough middle of the road mild drama is, unlike the family initially is with their imagination, hard to escape.

Much like the project that Dahl works on throughout To Olivia feels somewhat incomplete, as if it’s missing some key details to properly drive its emotion and drama further for more effect. What we get is fine, it’s simply rather calm for the subject matter at hand.

Cert – 15, Run-time – 1 hour 29 minutes, Director – Kevin Lewis

After his car breaks down, a stranger (Nicolas Cage) is tasked with cleaning a soon-to-reopening kids party space overnight, however the animatronic characters are coming alive to attack.

One of the maddest scenes in 2018’s chaotically enjoyable Mom And Dad involves Nicolas Cage destroying a pool table while angrily grunting the ‘Hokey Pokey’. The actor’s latest starring feature sees him involved in a fight set to ‘Heads, Shoulders, Knees And Toes’, and another scene where he takes down an animatronic gorilla with a plunger. It’s weird, it’s chaotic and it’s very recent Nicolas Cage.

The brief for Willy’s Wonderland in a number of ways is shorter than the plot description. It’s a cross between a stereotypical modern Nicolas Cage film and a dodgy Direct-To-DVD 2000’s teen horror. Cage stars as a stranger simply credited as The Janitor, as his car breaks down in a strange town he’s told that it can be fixed if he spends the night cleaning a long-abandoned kids party space for a grand reopening. However, the various animatronic animals seem to be alive, attempting to kill Cage’s silent energy drink binging, pinball playing part-time cleaner. Meanwhile a group of local teens appear to have previous experience with the out-of-the-way centre known as Willy’s Wonderland. On the same night they set out to burn the building to the heavily graffitied building to the ground, however when trying to get Cage’s figure out they find themselves trapped inside and also being hunted down.

For those who have been waiting for the upcoming Five Nights At Freddy’s film this may serve as amusement enough until then. The scares certainly aren’t there, but there’s plenty of silly bursts of action – particularly when focusing on the quiet protagonist of the film – to be found. There’s even chance for one or two mild moments of humour around the central character that help to pick things up as they begin to dip – The Janitor sees a threatening message written in blood on a freshly cleaned mirror and, otherwise ignoring it, simply sighs that he has to clean something up again.

In the instances where there is dialogue, mostly focusing on the fight for survival of the teenage group, the dialogue itself certainly feels basic and as if from a poorly aged teen horror. Lines feel cliché and almost stereotypical of the characters types, and not in an amusing or aware manner. It could be seen as lucky then that the characters split off quickly and we spend small amounts of time with each one, and predominantly continue to look in on Cage with his regular dance-infused pinball breaks.

All of this backing on to the various attacks from, and brief fights with, bulky worn-out robot creatures, such as a chameleon, an ostrich, an owl, a weasel and more. It’s often as daft as it sounds, and alternatively as clunky as it sounds too. And this likely won’t be to everyone’s taste. Yet, despite the sometimes testing state of the film there’s just about enough amusement to be found in the often brief actions of Cage’s central figure to make this a not too low quality, lacking affair.

The dialogue is certainly weak, and the film suffers its dips, however there’s also enough dumb action within Willy’s Wonderland to appeal to Nic Cage fans, and perhaps just about those still waiting for the Five Nights At Freddy’s adaptation.

Cert – 15, Run-time – 1 hour 47 minutes, Director – Josh Greenbaum

Two lifelong 40-something friends (Kristen Wiig, Annie Mumolo) venture out from their small-town lives for a sunny holiday of adventure and romance in Florida.

Barb and Star (Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig) are two stereotypical midwestern American 40-something’s. Life-long friends the two spend their days sat on a sofa having close, high-pitched, rambling conversations about the violence in the latest historical TV series. When one is at work the other goes with them, even if they aren’t working a shift that day; this is until the furniture store they work at suddenly closes down. Unsure as to what they can do with their days now, aside from the slow moving, strictly organised, talking club they attend, the pair realise the routine nature of their lives is getting them nowhere. On bumping into a seemingly replenished friend (Wendi McLendon-Covey) the pair are convinced to go on a similar “soul douche” to Vista Del Mar, Florida. A land far away from their quiet small-town lives, one of potential excitement and adventure.

Yet, even on the way there the two spend the hours long plane journey discussing the name Trish, creating the life story for someone who doesn’t even exist. Despite the stereotype there’s something convincing about Wiig and Mumolo’s central performances, likely familiarised from their role as screenwriters. As they constantly agree and discuss with surprise that they agree their conversations are no doubt amusing, the two performances raising a handful of chuckles here and there with the various dumb gags and throwaways that the film produces. However, perhaps none of the absurdity matches Jamie Dornan belting out a pop-ballad to seagulls. Dornan ditches all seriousness as he plays a conflicted love-interest, Edgar. Sent by the film’s villain (also Wiig, giving the feeling of Millicent Clyde played for laughs) to unleash a swarm of deadly mosquitos that will wipe out everyone in Vista Del Mar he pines for a relationship with both of Wiig’s characters.

The humour is definitely silly and often absurd, there are hints of – and potential references to – the likes of Airplane and Monty Python, specifically Mark Jonathan Davis as hotel singer Richard Cheese, singing songs much alike to Eric Idle’s Noël Coward impersonation in The Meaning Of Life. All such moments prove a fine distraction from some of the more plot-heavy elements involving the core villain of the piece. Such scenes occasionally feel in place to remind the viewer that this plot point does indeed exist and this isn’t a film just about two women having a cracking, if chaotic, week-long holiday at the Palm Vista Hotel – where your greeted with a grand scale musical number. The underground dwelling figure simply feels more of a background character, lacking in any major detail to have a proper impact, also not quite managing to raise as many laughs as other characters in the piece.

Such moments boost the run-time up to closer to two hours than 90 minutes, the final 15-20 minutes or so begin to drag as all plot-points converge and attempt to wrap up as one. It proves a busy film, and luckily there are a decent amount of chuckles scattered throughout to stop things from feeling longer and as if they drag throughout. Some major plot elements are pushed aside, however perhaps the film is better for this. It lets us delve further into the conversations and antics of the titular friends. Wiig, Mumolo and Dornan give a trio of entertainingly humorous performances and overall create something that while sporadic certainly creates a number of good laughs – verbal, visual and musical – along the way.

Some plot elements may not have the strength or laughs of the central friendship, however the dealing of occasionally absurd humour of all forms helps it along and makes for an enjoyable comedy from Wiig and Mumolo.

Cert – 12, Run-time – 1 hour 47 minutes, Director – Sia

Recovering alcoholic Zu (Kate Hudson) finds herself looking after her autistic sister Music (Maddie Ziegler) after their grandmother (Mary Kay Place)

There’s been much discussion, and undeniable controversy, around the representation of autism in Australian singer-songwriter Sia’s feature directorial debut, and much discussion about the fact that there has been much discussion around it. However, autism is very much a side element of her film’s narrative, although a very key one. For the most part we follow Zu (Kate Hudson), a reckless recovering alcoholic drug dealer. After her grandmother (Mary Kay Place) suddenly passes away she finds herself taking care of her younger sister Music (frequent dancer for Sia, Maddie Ziegler). While Grandma viewed Music as “a magical little girl” Zu finds it difficult to cope with her high-end autism and almost instantaneously calls a local Mental Health department to see if they do “pick-up”. With the help of neighbour Ebo (Leslie Odom Jr) – “the smiliest person on Earth” – she learns to gradually get used to Music’s behaviours and how to take care of her.

Music has her routine known by everyone in not just the apartment building she lives in but almost everyone on the street that makes up her routine daily walk. On one of these Ebo explains to Zu about Music’s routine and how she views the world. She wears headphones to avoid sensory overload from the potential loud noises around her. Sensory overload which would definitely be caused by the various dreamlike escape sequences that occur throughout the film. At various intervals we get a glimpse into Music’s mind. A technicolour world much like a classic Hollywood sound stage, bright lights, flashy colours and loud music formed by writer-director Sia. The areas are comfortable and everything seems to be soft and protected; wrapped up, covered or locked – her apartment appears to be like a padded, graffitied asylum during a brief glimpse. Such moments don’t exactly provide much plot detail or advancement, and after a handful begin to lose their style, simply feeling as if they’re there to push the run-time on a bit.

One thing that remains very much the same is Ziegler’s caricature style performance – which many have understandably labelled as not just offensive but potentially damaging. While there are elements, particularly early on in the film as she finds the dead body of her grandmother, that seem to be aiming for something from the right place these are very few and infrequent. It simply feels as if the film has been misinformed or hasn’t done enough research – although Sia has spoken about working with controversial group Autism Speaks on the film – instead of coming from a place of malice. The biggest issues come in the third act, when things truly feel in place to be briefly rushed through and just there to extend the run-time that bit more, when the subject of autism comes more into play simply for emotional narrative beats that advance Zu and make her look better. This use simply feels lazy and misjudged, completely removing anything good that might have been built up over the course of the film, and reversing much of the way the viewer views Hudson’s character and the film as a whole – some decisions certainly seem as if the film hasn’t understood itself and as if they were made just to force the laboured points of “love is complicated”.

Most of what we see from Zu involves her dealing with the complications of her life. She’s trying to escape from her role as a drug dealer, working for self-inflated boss Ben Schwartz, and owes multiple debts to people and is still struggling not to get caught up with the authorities while she’s still recovering from her addiction while on probation. It’s the typical story of trying to get back on track, as she tries to escape to her paradise of Costa Rica, of course she’s only looking out for herself at the start of the film. This plotline and style mostly emerges during the second half of the film as the plot actually comes into play more and we see more of Zu and her regular life, simply dragging Music along to grunt and gurn in the background instead of growing and learning how to get on and care for her as was initially case. Things quickly become confused and wires are crossed as the narrative and focuses of the film become muddled and seemingly uncertain as to where they are going to go, relying more and more on music and dance sequences to get out of a half-dug situation. There’s even less time for Tig Nataro to occasionally appear as a spirit-lacking kids TV show host, the most entertaining thing about the film; actually managing to raise a laugh or two – “Good luck everyone on your mission, whatever it is”.

As everything eventually comes together – sometimes just starting to form in the extremely off-colour 25 minutes – there are ideas that are broken and elements that are pushed far aside and the whole things begins to feel lacking. Key points appear to be rushed or almost lazily written, with the detail being left for the narrative lacking, music-video-like breaks to push the soundtrack – when the film first entered production it was apparently not meant to be a musical, which in its current form would likely make it a short film. With everything that happens the final piece simply feels like a misjudged extended music video with some uneven drama sandwiched in-between.

Much like its handling of autism Music is an overall misjudged film. While on some occasions its mostly bearable plot-wise, when it begins to use autism for emotional advancement of other characters it loses itself and seems to forget everything it had initially built when not delving into frequent music video breaks.