Join The Community
Out on 18 April and 25 April
Mia Goth is among the final humans alive. Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell face off in a fatherly battle.
For the best movie reviews, subscribe to Total Film.
STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS
As the Millennium Falcon malfunctions noisily during a daredevil getaway, the core success of J.J. Abrams’ Episode VII swoops into focus with all the clarity of a freshly ignited lightsaber. We don’t mean $2bn worth of success, though you suspect the Mouse House partied like ewoks about that figure. While Han Solo frowns about the hyperdrive and Rey cheerily fixes things by bypassing the compressor, team Abrams navigate an exchange of old/new elements with breezy assurance: a loop-the-loop move so smooth, even the Falcon would approve.
If Terminator Genisys proved that mining nostalgia for fresh pleasures ain’t like dusting crops, Abrams shows how to do it right. Yes, he plays some old riffs, from cute-bots carrying secrets to space stations raining down death. Yet his experience in transcending nostalgia – in Star Trek and beyond – serves him well. Just as Super-8 wasn’t merely a detached Amblin homage but an Amblin film to the core, so Awakens is no mere sticker-book of rear-view easter eggs: it’s a Star Wars film in spirit and soul, the saga’s world fully inhabited and brought up to speed with love.
Whether you call it new-stalgia, retro-futurism or whatever, one thing is sure: the saga needed it. After George Lucas’ prequels, the first words spoken in Awakens seem to acknowledge a need to fix something broken. “This will begin to make things right,” intones Max von Sydow, with all the reassuring gravitas of an Ingmar Bergman vet.
From here, backwards nods are well-served and interwoven with forward-thinking twists. Mark Hamill’s absence (mostly) turns the farmboy who whined all the way to Tosche Station into near-myth. As for Daisy Ridley’s scavenger Rey, she might be Luke Skywalker’s sand-blasted equal in Force sensitivity and mysterious upbringing but she’s no whiner. Rey needs no aunt to cook her food, nor Jedi masters to save her from dustups with scallywags in remote outposts.
In a good year for female heroes, Ridley matches Charlize Theron and friends toe-to-toe, imbuing a smart, capable, non-fetishised lead with bright likeability. Just as he found the right kids to bring “production values” to Super-8 and recast the enterprise crew seamlessly, so Abrams casts his Force friends beautifully. Oscar Isaac’s classic-Hollywood dash enlivens Poe Dameron, a role faintly underwritten – presumably, there’s room for only one Han Solo this time. John Boyega brings a cocky, comic charge to redeemed Stormtrooper Finn, and Adam Driver imbues Kylo Ren’s terrible-twos-grade tantrums with stature, ferocity and inner tension.
Ingeniously, Kylo resolves at a stroke the problem of creating a villain to equal Darth Vader. Solution: make that problem the story. By painting Kylo as a stroppy Vader fanboy made lethally unpredictable by his fear that he might not match up to old helmet-head’s rasping example, Abrams and co. play meta while strengthening blood-ties to the original trilogy with fresh Freudian kinks.
That blend of connective franchise tissue with fresh-minted ideas extends to old friends whose reintroductions please fans (cue spontaneous whoops in cinemas) without ever outweighing plot needs. The misty-eyed joy of seeing Han (Harrison Ford, craggy charm intact) reunited with Leia (Carrie Fisher, wry and regal) is huge, but Awakens goes further, daring to be ruthless when the narrative demands it. And not only when Chewie doesn’t get a hug from Rey.
Even if this world seems dangerously over-populated, the script by Abrams and his co-writers (Lawrence Kasdan, Michael Arndt) slices through it with the brisk precision of lightsabers through snow. It’s kept in shape by the symmetry of the characterisation – a defector from the dark side and a jihadi-esque defector from the light side; a woman of uncertain origins and a man in mysterious exile. Maybe Awakens could have used more of Snoke, Poe, Lupita Nyong’o’s barfly-Yoda Maz Kanata and Gwendoline Christie’s polished captain Phasma; but Abrams never succumbs to bloat, much less muddies the focus.
Akind of emotional and physical tangibility helps anchor that focus. Thirty years after Endor’s rave-up, life’s hangover has happened, inscribed in every crevice on Ford’s wonderfully expressive face. Faces are worth a thousand CGI shots here: Kylo becomes more interesting unmasked, too. Equally, Abrams revels in immersive textures, from the crackle of lightsabers to the water swooshed up by the heart-rush of X-wings.
John Williams’ symphonic score offers an equivalent heart-rush, splicing emotive vintage cues with a heartfelt, hopeful and light-footed investment in the new that fits Abrams’ own infectious optimism more snugly than a wookiee’s bandolier. Contrasted with Zack Snyder’s lead-footed failure to uphold his leads’ heroism in Batman V Superman’s effects-pumped pessimism, Abrams’ spotlight on Rey’s refusal to kill during the fireworks of the starkiller Base attack is exemplary: a textbook case of spectacle, character and tone balanced.
EXTRAS: Making Of > Table read > Featurettes > Deleted scenes
DADDY'S HOME
Sean Anders' forgettable family comedy pits a sensitive stepfather (Will Ferrell) against a 'wild' biological father (Mark Wahlberg) in a half-hearted battle that fails to live up to either of their best efforts.
Playing it straight doesn’t suit Ferrell's strengths, and although Wahlberg has proven comic chops, here he phones it in: that his defining moment in the film is a one-handed pull-up says it all. The script actually has interesting things to say about its specific family set-up, but is sadly neither coherent or entertaining enough to leave much of an impression.
EXTRAS: Making Of > Deleted/extended scenes > Gag reel (BD) > Daddy-Off featurette > Additional featurettes (BD)
Director: Sean Anders Starring: Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, Linda Cardellini Dual format release: April 18, 2016
SISTERS
The '80s house party subgenre gets a midlife makeover in Sisters, which reunites Tina Fey and Amy Poehler as fortysomething siblings who decide to have one last celebratory blowout before their childhood home is sold. The duo's rapport is key, and it's refreshing to see Fey play against type as the wild child.
EXTRAS: Extended cut (BD) > Gag reel > Commentaries > Deleted/extended scenes (BD) > Improvorama > Featurettes (BD)
KRAMPUS
Christmas comes early in this festive creature feature from Trick 'R Treat's Michael Dougherty. When the untarnished spirit of young Max is left in tatters after a disastrous family dinner, the titular goat-horned nega-Santa and his minions descend to teach Max the meaning of Christmas.
EXTRAS: Alternate ending (BD) > Commentary (BD) > Featurettes (BD) > Galleries (BD) > Gag reel
CAPE FEAR
Not many films can be remade by both Martin Scorsese and The Simpsons and still come out on top. Yet J. Lee Thompson's thriller remains definitive; De Niro and Sideshow Bob are no match for Robert Mitchum's vengeful ex-con Max Cady, one of Hollywood's most chilling villains.
EXTRAS: Making Of > Production notes
THE NIGHT BEFORE
It's a case of bros before ho ho hos in The Night Before, as three best buds (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Anthony Mackie and Seth Rogen) decide to bring their annual tradition of Christmas Eve revelry to a close by seeking out an almost-mythical secret shindig.
EXTRAS: Gag reel >Making Of > Featurettes > Deleted/extended scenes (BD)
HITCHCOCK/TRUFFAUT
First published in 1966 when most cineastes viewed Alfred Hitchcock as just a Hollywood hack, François Truffaut’s frame-by-frame conversations with the auteur transformed film criticism.
Digging out the original tape recordings behind the book, Kent Jones offers something new to the crowded hitch-sphere, with the talking heads (Scorsese, Anderson, Fincher…) out-baritoned by the big man himself – a rare chance to hear chat-tracks for some of the most important films ever made. Self-deprecating, funny, occasionally frosty... essential for anyone with more than a passing interest in the master of suspense.
EXTRAS: Q&A > Interviews > Appreciation
PINK STRING AND SEALING WAX
Famous for classic black comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets, maverick director Robert Hamer’s talent for dark material shows in his debut, a Victorian-set Ealing Studios melodrama in which adultery, death and blackmail are served up with relish in a Brighton pub.
Brazen landlady Googie withers deftly ignites a murder plot, entrapping young chemist Gordon Jackson with tuppenny whisky and womanly wiles. Mervyn Johns’ self-righteous patriarch and his deceiving kids aren’t quite as grabby. But Hamer has fun rubbing the God-fearing household up against the brassy bar-life. A covetable restoration, whose inky blacks and pearly interiors clean up nicely.
EXTRAS: Interviews > Gallery
1900
Bernardo Bertoluccu’s 5¼-hoUr Marxist epic sweeps through Italian history from the day of Verdi’s death in 1901 to the end of WW2. Alfredo (Robert De Niro), son of a landowner, and Olmo (Gérard Depardieu), son of a peasant, grow up together but are sundered by the advent of fascism, which Alfredo passively tolerates while Olmo becomes a communist leader
Donald Sutherland hams it as ultra-fascist chief baddie, and Burt Lancaster reprises The Leopard as Alfredo’s granddad. It’s huge, sprawling, ambitious, visually handsome and dramatically inert.
EXTRAS: Documentary > Featurettes
Director: Bernardo Bertoluccu; Starring: Robert De Niro, Gérard Depardieu, Dominique Sanda; BD release: April 18, 2016
LEATHERHEADS
Three was definitely not the charm for George Clooney’s third directorial effort, a homage to the Hawksian screwballs of yore that didn’t so much score a touchdown at the US box office as fumble the ball 30 yards from the end zone.
Set in ’20s America, this gridiron yarn casts Clooney as an ageing player who enlists John Krasinski’s young buck to save his ailing side, only to see him have his past probed by Renée Zellweger’s reporter. Meant as a throwback to a less cynical age, the result feels as much of a relic as the classics it emulates.
Director: George Clooney; Starring: George Clooney, John Krasinski, Renée Zellweger; DVD release: April 18, 2016
THE NINTH CONFIGURATION
Talk about a Pepsi challenge: the drinks giant stumped up half the budget, but William Peter Blatty’s thriller-cum-farce didn’t set the box office fizzing on first release.
Since then, this outlandish drama – set in a military asylum, with Stacy Keach as its in-house shrink – has picked up a cult following – in part due to its jaw- dropping visuals and smart dialogue. If Blatty’s Exorcist was about the reality of evil, this is its flipside, exploring the possibility of pure altruism.
SYMPTOMS
Hard to credit, but this long-lost chiller by Spanish eroticist José Ramón Larraz (Vampyres) was Britain’s entry for the 1974 Cannes Film Festival. Like a homegrown version of Let’s Scare Jessica To Death (1971), it’s the slowburn tale of the psychologically fragile Angela Pleasance (daughter of Donald) losing the plot amid the melancholia of a deserted country pile.
Despite a beautiful BFI restoration, striking performances (including Straw Dogs’ Peter Vaughan as an odd-job man), and plentiful extras, it’s a bit of a trudge, and more curio than classic
THE ZERO BOYS
“I’m 5ft 6, I love tennis and I fuck on the first date...” Greek B-movie maverick Nico Mastorakis’ (Island of Death) none-more-’80s action flick doesn’t contain many lines as great as this, but it’s still worth a watch for anyone who might be missing the era’s eyebrow-raising sexism and terrible sportswear.
Ace paintballers the Zero Boys cruise out to the country only to find themselves caught in a survival flick that segues into slasher territory. Still, lucky they brought those Uzis... The film’s shot-in-17-days aesthetic is matched by charming – if ramshackle – extras.
BEAT GIRL
A seething tale of teen rebellion set in the dive bars of 1950s Soho, the newly restored Beat Girl has been scrubbed up nicely to reveal, if not a forgotten pearl of British cinema, then a beguiling B-movie with a brilliant score by John Barry.
Director: Mairtín de Barra; Starring: Louise Dylan, Craig Daniel Adams, Michael Higgs; Dual format: April 25, 2016
