Out now: Aquaman

 

In his first appearance in 2017's Justice League, Jason Momoa’s Aquaman made his mark by being the bro-est superhero around. Now he has his own movie (out now on DVD and blu-ray), and director James Wan actually dials down his bro-ness – which is pretty much the only thing dialled down here, because this is a film that’s going extremely hard in pretty much every direction. While not all of it works, its failures end up being part of its charm: whatever you think of its extremely loud and fairly dumb approach, it knows the only way to make it work is to commit 100%.

There’s a real balancing act going on here: even for a superhero, underwater fish lord Aquaman is hard to take seriously, and yet treating him as a joke would be fatal. So this sets out to make him the most normal thing in the film, plonking the hard-drinking part-time superdude into a meandering story that takes in a sad lighthouse dad, seven distinct (and usually bonkers) undersea kingdoms, a royal feud, the title “Ocean Master”, a modern-day pirate bad guy, Nicole Kidman as a trident-wielding mum, killer fish, a desert quest, killer fish men, beach training sequences, dinosaurs just in the background because why not, trash tidal waves, and a racist sea monster – and that’s barely scratching the surface. 
 

The not-so-secret to Aquaman's success is that while the story is actually kind of flaccid - it's basically a slow race between two Aqua-kings to see who can bring off their scheme first - it's constantly throwing new things at the screen. Over the course of the film Aquaman (AKA Arthur Curry) travels via ute, a regular submarine, an Atlantean submarine, a plane, by foot across the desert, a fishing boat and sea monster - plus he swims around using both regular and super-styles. He fights at least four different kinds of bad guy / creature, has multiple training montages, goes from punching dudes in the head to disrupting an epic fantasy battle, and occasionally drops a servicable one-liner. He's a very busy man.

With all that going on, it's no surprise that this is an uneven film at the best of times. The visuals are often stunning, but the dialogue is serviceable at best (there's a big speech about the difference between a king and a hero that had someone near me groaning), while the fight scenes are always competent but rarely memorable. But what this does get right is the world-building. To date DC's superhero movies have largely taken place in the real world, but this covers everything from futuristic underwater super-cities to "lost world" islands to desert ruins to teeming sub-surface nightmares in a way that still sells them as a (somewhat) cohesive whole.

It's all a bit exhausting, and Momoa's slightly subdued performance occasionally feels like a reflection of how the audience most likely feels at this onslaught of new sensation. But again, the slightly cheesy tone works in the film's favour: it may take it all seriously, but there's enough oddball moments scattered throughout that the tone is never grimly relentless in the way that something like Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice was. 

There's a moment where Aquaman wakes up on a fishing boat while noodlely nautical flute music plays on the sountrack, then he goes out on deck and sees his underwater tour guide Mera (Amber Heard) is actually playing the music on a flute she found; you can't hate a film that finds time for that.

- Anthony Morris

Review: Hellboy

Supposedly the reason that we even have a third Hellboy movie is that everyone in Hollywood who isn't Disney or Warner Brothers really really wants to get into the comic book universe business and Hellboy is one of the few reasonably well-developed, big name comic book titles that hasn't already been snapped up. There's no actual artistic reason for this movie to exist, no story behind it anyone was clamoring to tell. Boy, does it show.

That said, this version does at least make a few small gestures towards coming up with a slightly different vision of the character than the one seen in the two earlier, better films by Guillermo del Toro: this Hellboy (David Harbour) works solo for much of the film, feels a little more sullen (possibly explained by the character still being in his teens or early twenties emotionally; demons age a lot slower) and has more of a heavy metal vibe. None of which make him more of a fun character to watch, strangely enough; he's firing out what should be decent one-liners but pretty much none of them land.

The story involves bad guys putting together the pieces of the Blood Queen (Milla Jovovich), who was chopped up by King Arthur in an amusingly over-the-top opening scene. But it also involves Hellboy being in a funk, being attacked by people who think he's set to bring about the end of the world, being set up by an old enemy, making new friends, fighting a bunch of side monsters who just happen to be passing by, and after a while none of it really seems to matter.

Director Neil Marshall, working from an overstuffed script by Andrew Cosby, throws just about everything at the wall here, mostly body parts - this is definitely going for a hard-R when it comes to gore, but the underfunded CGI renders pretty much all of it ineffective. The script feels like there's at least three separate stories going on, which is probably the point as pulp excess is part of Hellboy's charm. But Marshall never manages to get to tone right, with what should be big moments slipping away and important plot points undersold.

Then again, it could just be that the shoot was a tough one. Some characters simply vanish from the story, while close-eyed viewers might notice that Ian McShane's Trevor Bruttenholm (AKA Hellboy's dad) has an outfit change in the middle of a scene. The joins are mostly smoothed over, mostly because the film pinballs from one scenario to another at such at rate that next to none of it sticks. There's at least three bad guys, two of which are using the others while the character sold as the main bad guy is really a puppet plus everyone else thinks the real threat is Hellboy anyway. Whatever happened to just punching out a bunch of monsters?

There's a bunch of that too, but while the monster designs are good the fights are just more weightless CGI. There's a sense here that if one element had worked the rest would have clicked into place, but everything is just that little bit sub-par and the whole thing ends up just staggering around.  To be fair, the del Toro films had their problems too; despite the seemingly movie-friendly premise, the Hellboy comics are actually pretty weird when you look at them, with creator Mike Mignola's soaked-in-black-ink artwork serving up haunting images the movies could never replicate. Maybe the character just doesn't work outside of them.

This is the kind of weird mess that often ends up being acclaimed as an overlooked gem a decade later. Those future nerds are wrong. When your film's one decent laugh comes in a post-credit scene - you really can't go wrong with Thomas Haden Church - you're definitely not working as a comedy; unless you really like computer-generated splattered heads, this barely gets over the line as anything else .

- Anthony Morris

Review: Shazam!

Remember when superheroes were for kids? Eh, probably not: Tim Burton's Batman back in 1989 pretty much sunk that boat, and since then taking things way too seriously has been the hallmark of the grown-up superhero movie. How weird is it that we're getting a Joker movie that nobody under the age of 25 should see? Creepy murder clowns: they're not just for kids anymore.

All of which is kind of strange, because the one thing superheroes really can do better than just about any other genre is speak to the youth. The phrase "adolescent power fantasies" used to be thrown around a lot in comic-book circles when comics were trying to get out from under the influence of superheroes; the difficult thing today is explaining exactly why it was seen as a bad thing when it leads to a movie like Shazam!.

When orphan 13 year-old Billy Batson (Asher Angel) is given super-powers by a wizard (Djimon Hounsou) to defeat the running amok Seven Deadly Sins and their human puppet Dr Sivana (Mark Strong), he does what any teen would do: uses his all-grown-up superhuman form (Zachary Levi) to buy beer, get out of school, and become a YouTube sensation by doing nutty stunts. 

This is the DC universe in kid-friendly mode, ramping up the silliness and keeping the tone light without depriving audiences of superhero thrills. To be fair, the hero formerly known as Captain Marvel is definitely one of their sillier characters, and with a Mr Mind cameo - look him up - this is definitely steering into that side of the superhero world.

There's a lot of comedy here, but beyond that this as much about family and friendship – Billy’s growing bond with fellow group home resident Freddy Freeman (Jack Dylan Grazer) is the surprisingly tender heart of this film – as it is about running around punching bad guys. Levi gives a note-perfect performance as a kid gleefully enjoying his superhero powers the most when he’s using them to do the least, while Grazer rapidly becomes a perfect sidekick and Strong... well, he does what he can with an underdrawn character. 

Some of the jokes aren’t the freshest, but even the old “let’s test your powers” routines are fun to watch and when things start to get heartfelt this still had a bunch of strange but fitting cards to play. This really does get just about everything right, and the result is easily the strongest DC universe film since Wonder Woman. Shazam! is all-ages fun that’s all-ages funny; with darker superhero films looming on the horizon, it’s the comic relief you didn’t know you needed.

- Anthony Morris

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Review: Five Feet Apart

Cystic fibrosis sufferer seventeen-year-old Stella Grant (Haley Lu Richardson) is in hospital for her latest round of treatment when she spots brooding new patient Wil Newman (Cole Sprouse). He’s everything she’s not: she obsessively follows the rules and he’s the original bad boy of cystic fibrosis, right down to having an infection that means he no longer qualifies for the lung transplant that's a CF sufferer's big chance at a regular life. 

Thanks to the risks of cross-infection, all CF patients have to stay at least six feet apart from each other (yes, that’s not what the title says; yes, the film explains it), which obviously will never be a problem for these two. After all, they have almost nothing in common and no reason to spend time together, let alone fall in love, right? Right? It's not like opposites attract or anything...

Anyone who's owned a mobile phone for more than five minutes will spend much of this film wondering why the teens are so angsty about touching when there's a whole world of options for getting each other off literally in the palm of their hands - but this is clearly not that kind of film, and the carnal side of their desires is barely touched upon. Theirs is a connection of the heart, not the groin... though a bit more of that (or even just a discussion of the available options) would have made this a lot more memorable.

Without the endless naked selfies and graphic sexting this story desperately needed, what remains is utterly predictable in just about every direction, right down to a side character (who’s obviously doomed from the start) getting a big moment declaring he’s going to overcome his fears and finally live his life right. No prizes for guessing what happens in the very next scene.

Still, a genre film can be satisfying in its own right if it ticks the right boxes, and this does a decent job of balancing teen angst with sexy longing with "aww the cute teens are doomed". It's utterly medically indefensible and a complete fantasy on that front, but a grim slice of reality this is not: you're here for the hot teens in forbidden love, not any serious insights into a chronic and terminal condition. 

That said, the medical side of things is clearly just an obstacle to their love, nothing more. The balance between the demands of the romance weepie and the hard-and-fast rules around their medical condition is really the only thing (aside from a pair of decent performances from the leads) that makes this interesting. Stella learns to love, but any expression of that love will most likely kill her; the rest of the film might be cheesy, but that conflict gives it enough drama to stagger through to the end.

- Anthony Morris

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Review: Fighting with my Family

As part of a tight-knit but low-rent wrestling family, siblings Paige (Florence Pugh) and Zak (Jack Lowden) fight in the ring and look out for each other outside of it. Zak’s dream is to wrestle in the WWE: Paige might have the moves, but she isn’t quite as committed. Still, when they’re both offered the chance to try out when the WWE hits London, neither wants to pass it up – but only one (okay, it’s Paige) makes it in. 

Based on the true story of WWE wrestler Paige, director Stephen Merchant focuses as much on her scrappy family (Nick Frost and Lena Headey play her rough but loving parents) as on her journey to the top. It's a strange mix of working class family comedy and sports aspirational movie, one half jokes about her parents sordid past and wrestling in pubs, one half glossy training montages on Florida beaches.

It's not surprising then that some stretches of this drift a little, especially in the second half. But Vince Vaughn as the head scout / trainer is excellent (as is The Rock, who appears as himself in a handful of scenes), playing a character who is basically your typical Army movie drill sergeant - you know, he's gruff but he still (sort of) cares, plus he gets to let fly with a lot of choice "motivational" insults.

Meanwhile, Zak’s struggle to figure out a path in life that doesn’t lead to pro wrestling (or to selling drugs down the local council flats) is predictable but still packs a punch, in part because Paige isn't sure she wants the life she's lucked into either.  She's a goth in a world of blonde models (who she can barely hide her scorn for), but her rough and ready wrestling style might not fit in with the WWE's more polished approach.

Merchant (who also wrote the script) is more than happy to lean into the quirky side of his characters without sacrificing their heart. Frost and Headey take full advantage of this, going broad without going over the top. It's the combination of solid (if predictable) storytelling and offbeat characters that makes this drama so funny (or this comedy so moving). It's occasionally rough around the edges, but like its characters, that's a big part of the charm.

- Anthony Morris

Review: Sometimes Always Never

Scrabble and tailoring: this is most definitely a very English take on grief. Bill Nighy is Alan, a father who hasn't so much buried his grief over his missing-possibly-dead son as he's dropped it in an impeccably cut jacket pocket where his hand occasionally brushes up against it.

We meet him waiting on a windswept seaside foreshore passing the time by chatting happily to an extremely disinterested ice cream man. If Alan was played by just about anybody else, it'd feel like a parody of a certain kind of adrift English gentleman, and what follows would crumble in a heap.

Nighy brings two essential things to this occasionally twee but never sentimental film - heart and a tough of ruthlessness. The heart takes time to develop: the ruthlessness we see when he and his son Peter (Sam Reily) - who assumed they were going on a day trip but now finds himself staying the night in a antiquated hotel - encounter a man and wife also staying at the hotel.

Alan suggests a game of scrabble; Peter, still haunted by childhood memories of endlessly playing a shoddy off-brand version, goes to bed. He wakes the next morning to find that Alan hustled the husband out of two hundred pounds. Worse, it soon develops that they're all there for the same reason: to identify a body that's washed ashore.

What follows is charmingly unpredictable in the details, but always firmly anchored emotionally. Alan has never stopped searching for his other son, who stormed out of the house years ago over an argument over a word in Scrabble; when he finds an on-line player with the same style as his missing son, he grasps at hope like a drowning man.

He does this while staying with Peter and his wife Sue (Alice Lowe)  in a room he shares with their son Jack (Louis Healy), proving to be a good influence on Jack - especially when it comes to romance and tailoring (the title is a reference to which buttons should be done up on a three-button suit jacket) - even as Peter's frustrations with his father's inability to move on grow.

This has the slightly heightened realism of a slightly damp Wes Anderson film. It never becomes cloying or distracting, partly because Nighy is so good, party because the core of the story is a wound that can't be healed. This sweet, good-natured film is constantly surprising, often insightful, and sure-handed about grief in a way many flashier films can only aspire to. It's a gem.

- Anthony Morris

Review: Captain Marvel

It's tempting to say Captain Marvel has arrived just a little too late. Marvel's strange reluctance to put a female character front and center in one of their films went on too long for them to score any brownie points now, but better late than never; the real problem is that this 90s-set movie feels like a superhero film that would have wowed audiences in 2009, and we've all changed a lot since Iron Man.

Like just about every Marvel movie of the last few years, the story (and character) feels like one step forward, one step back. There's the retro soundtrack and space strangeness of Guardians of the Galaxy, only now with the comedy double act of Thor: Ragnarok. Carol Danvers AKA Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) has both kinds of Marvel superhero powers: she can physically fight, and she can also shoot energy beams (and eventually, fly). The story seems straightforward, but there's just enough in the way of twists to keep things interesting until the action sequences (which are not interesting) kick in. At least the bad guys are decent.

Danvers herself is quick with a quip and approaches her job with a very Buffy-like combination of competence and ease. She's initially part of a Kree Empire military unit (led by Jude Law) who finds herself cut off on Earth and teaming up with S.H.I.E.L.D. pen pusher Nick Fury (a CGI de-aged Samuel L Jackson) against an infiltration of shape-shifting Skrulls (led by Ben Mendelsohn, using his Aussie accent to charming effect). It's a slightly odd mix of 2019 space action and 1995 paranoid TV drama complete with underground military base, and if the "1995" this takes place in is just a thrown together collection of kinda sorta vague references, who cares so long as we're all having fun, right?

So as a corporately-mandated origin story for a character designed to replace... let's say Iron Man?... in the next wave of Marvel films, this undoubtedly does its job. And there are definitely enough fun moments scattered throughout the film to make it worth the price of admission. But as an actual feature film that's telling a story? It's a bit shoddy.

Early scenes do a good job of setting Danvers up as someone who's lost her past, but when she gets it back she barely seems interested in it (and why would she be? It's basically "bad home life, became a test pilot"). At least that's more of an arc than Fury gets, and while he and Danver have some ok banter there's never much real chemistry between them - which may be the fault of the otherwise impressively seamless CGI taking 30 years off Jackson's face.

Larson does have strong chemistry with Law, which is nice yet throws part of the film off kilter, and she always seems slightly more comfortable during the rare serious moments than she is with the playful side of things. Mendelsohn is, unsurprisingly, the best thing in the film and sells a development that could otherwise have skewed the story badly with an effortlessness that shows just how good these Marvel films really could be if they weren't so constrained by their own conventions.

Captain Marvel is a mid-tier Marvel movie - it doesn't get anything seriously wrong, but it rarely gets anything especially right. Like most of their recent origin films, it feels more like its mission is to set up a character to carry the Marvel corporate universe forward than tell a story anyone felt really needed to be told. Maybe if Disney found a few more directors who could actually handle decent fights things would improve: for a genre based almost entirely around people doing impossible things, this is yet another Marvel movie where the action - whether on the ground or in the air - is all-too-grounded.

- Anthony Morris