MOONWALKERS

Starring: Ron Perlman, Rupert Grint, Robert Sheehan
Writer: Dean Craig
Director: Antoine Bardou-Jacquet

CIA agent Kidman (Perlman) is sent on a mission to London to locate Stanley Kubrick and enlist his services to film a fake version of the moon landing in case the actual Apollo 11 mission fails in that purpose. However, the guy who professes to be Kubrick is in fact Leon (Sheehan), permanently stoned flatmate of Jonny (Grint) who's in financial trouble with some bad guys and sees a quick money-making scheme as a way to get them off his back...

Moonwalkers is a reasonably entertaining film but it's certainly not without its problems. Still, let's start with the positives. The leads are very good indeed, make that very, very good in the case of Ron Perlman. His troubled spook provides most of the best moments of the movie as he wades through 60s hippie culture with an amusing weariness. When he's not slapping people around or blowing them away, that is. If Kidman was played by someone other than Perlman I feel the end product would have suffered as a result.

Rupert Grint, as the slightly dodgy band manager-cum-fake-Kubrick-wrangler, is good value as a somewhat reluctant, thoroughly out of his depth wannabe wheeler-dealer and I didn't spend the film thinking of that Weasley kid. Sheehan, as the uber-flaky Leon, gets to play the broadest comedy in the piece and his constant ineptitude under pressure could have become annoying but I was left chuckling a fair amount of the time, especially at his interpretation of Kubrick (not really a spoiler, but it's several miles off).

The period detail is generally spot on too, although there's a point at which you feel the 1960s props are just being shoehorned in to sequences. Occasionally the effect is one of drowning in the decade. Did they have a job lot of these things which they felt they should use? Sometimes less is more. I'm not going to point out that poster of The Who in Jonny's place may actually be from the 70s. Oh, I just did. I may be wrong.

It's an action/comedy, that I can't deny. There are some rather nicely choreographed fights and shootouts and I did laugh at various points along the way. The problem is that the two elements work against each other, so you're presented with scenes bordering on farce sitting alongside flashes of startlingly nasty and gruesome violence. Also, Kidman's suffering from flashbacks about what happened in a previous mission to 'Nam and although his hallucinations of burned villagers are chillingly memorable they belong in a different movie entirely.

Also, I know it's a movie set in the swinging 60s but did we really need a visit to another rambling bohemian pile whether another orgy is taking place and another group of naked women are wandering about? Actually, the visit to the rambling bohemian pile does wring some laughs out of Jonny's choice of director for the fake lunar footage, a guy called Renatus whose only previous celluloid outing - an experimental work which took YEARS to complete - is predictably pretentious but still made me smile.

There's also a whiff of "Lock, Stock..." about this, the plot could easily be described as a "caper" and for me this has exactly the same issue as Guy Ritchie's flick - it can't balance the comedy and drama as effectively as it aims to. It does throw in a couple of disposable gangs (wasting the great James Cosmo in the process, both figuratively and literally) for Jonny to avoid and for Kidman to take on and by the end it may not have quite got to the point where it's thrown in the kitchen sink but it's used most of the other stuff around it.

That's not to say Moonwalkers is a waste of time. Far from it. Perlman is always watchable and if you can laugh at a character discovering that someone has taken a shit on one of their records then you may enjoy this more than I did. The comedy's a little too wacky and the violence a little too unpleasant given the context, but there's just about enough to enjoy on balance and it's an interestingly flawed pic.

THE BELKO EXPERIMENT

Starring: John Gallagher Jr., Tony Goldwyn, Adria Arjona

Writer: James Gunn

Director: Greg McLean

In a high-rise office block just outside Bogotá, Colombia, the employees of the Belko Corporation are about to have a very bad day indeed as an unknown voice suddenly announces over the PA system that they're about to participate in a game which boils down to a drastically simple choice: kill or be killed...

After a breezy introduction which sets up the main characters and the appropriate office politics rather nicely, The Belko Experiment gets down to its blood-soaked business long before it can be project managed out of existence (I can say this, I've been a Project Manager). People lose their heads - literally - when the first target isn't reached, the ante is upped, sides are taken.

At the centre of the mayhem is your average office schmo Mike Milch (Gallagher Jr.), a guy who just wants to get by and please as many people as he can even when there's worker genocide on the menu. His girlfriend Leandra (Arjona) isn't quite as accommodating when faced with the prospect of random, splattery, cranium-exploding death but she's positively tree-hugging compared to colleague Wendell Dukes (John C. McGinley turning the psycho dial up to 11) whose initial, barely concealed sociopathic tendencies give way to hacking people to bits with meat cleavers faster than you can say "That guy's got a meat cleaver".

Running a tight 89 minutes, The Belko Experiment doesn't dally too long with discussions about who has the right to live, who's on the list to die and who has the right to play God in this situation. As with almost all business discussions anywhere ever, any debate is generally curtailed before it gets anywhere, but this time it's by another announcement requesting that more people have to be bumped off. At its core this isn't a film which is going to let itself get bogged down in moralising, it's a stripped-down, gory thrill ride and it delivers some startling, wince-inducing violence at regular intervals (UK readers, there's a very good reason why it's rated 18). Some of this violence involves, yes, office supplies. I'll never look at a sellotape dispenser in quite the same way again.

This is all carried along by a rather impressive cast and, for the more cine literate out there, trades somewhat upon knowledge of the performers' previous roles. For instance, Michael Rooker. Got to be playing a murderous nutjob, right? Well....just watch the movie to find out. Elsewhere, Tony Goldwyn scores as a calm, calculating boss who may just be about to take all of his rational decision-making processes to the Nth degree, Sean Gunn is amusingly annoying as Grade-A stoner Marty and Melonie Diaz fits the "surely they can't kill her, can they?" role of new starter Dany perfectly.

It's not an unfamiliar set-up and the usual questions are there (for instance, will the office nice guy suddenly snap and start killing people?) but this takes an approach which is fresh enough to shake off most of the potential clichés. James Gunn's script - yes, that James Gunn, about to unleash the second Guardians of the Galaxy outing - is brutally efficient, dispensing some killer one-liners as the bodies pile up. The final moments, not to give anything away, are an absolute hoot and a rather fitting way to round things off.

It may not be the most subtle of movies out there right now but if you can hang on to your lunch The Belko Experiment is easily one of the most entertaining and for this horror fan it was something of an unexpected treat. Also, it's nice to see director Greg McLean right back on gloriously gory form after trying, but not quite succeeding, to generate scares from the disappointing possessed rock snorefest The Darkness.

FREE FIRE

Starring: Cillian Murphy, Brie Larson, Sharlto Copley, Armie Hammer
Writers: Amy Jump, Ben Wheatley
Director: Ben Wheatley

In 1978 Boston, Justine (Larson) is brokering an arms deal which will see Vernon (Copley) and his associates selling a cache of machine guns to a group representing the IRA. Firstly Vern doesn't have the specific type of machine gun which Chris (Murphy) and his colleagues were expecting and then an unexpected conflict between one member of each party turns the situation from bad to much, much worse...

The antithesis of many a choreographed bullet ballet, Free Fire doesn't have people twisting acrobatically through the air, shooting enemies with deadly accuracy. It doesn't have a bunch of characters who shrug off gunshot wounds with a grimace and supernaturally limited physical impairment. No, shots go high and wide on a regular basis and those that do hit their mark cause serious pain for their targets.

As the shootout wears on the cast becomes ever more grimy and soaked in claret, some of them reduced to an agonising crawl as they attempt to reach their goal. Even at this point the protagonists are still cracking wise with each other and the barbed comments fly just as regularly as the slugs.

After the trippy, multi-layered delights of High-Rise some might view this latest from Ben Wheatley as being relatively straightforward and perhaps even a little lightweight. Nonsense. This is both bloody and hilarious, continually reloading with a ready supply of cracking dialogue executed with relish by a cast to die for.

It may be a trifle churlish to single out a performance for special mention as everyone in this is very, very good but for me Sharlto Copley steals the piece as the swaggering, spectacularly gauche Vernon who brings the chuckles and the cringes in equal measure. Sample behaviour from Vern: suggesting that Justine goes to retrieve something mid-firefight because "nobody will shoot the bird". He's amusingly awful throughout.

Let's be honest, there isn't a duff performance here. Hammer is excellent as the unruffled Ord, whether he's trying to reason with the increasingly excitable Vern or stopping to light up a joint in the midst of the chaos. Wheatley regular Michael Smiley is as thoroughly watchable as ever and Brie Larson makes sure that it isn't just left to the blokes to kick arse.

The run of excellent Ben Wheatley/Amy Jump movies continues with the smart, slick, Seventies-set shenanigans of Free Fire. It's brash, breezy (at just 91 minutes) and brilliant. Bravo!

WOLVES AT THE DOOR

Starring: Katie Cassidy, Elizabeth Henstridge, Adam Campbell
Writer: Gary Dauberman
Director: John R. Leonetti

It's 1969 and the Summer of Love is in full swing. Before returning to Boston, Abigail (Henstridge) is thrown a low-key leaving party at a swanky house in the California hills by her heavily pregnant friend Sharon (Cassidy). The festivities are soon curtailed as the house is visited by four psychotic strangers...

The opening of the movie points out that it's "based on a true story" and the major plot points are very close to the events of the actual Manson family murders that took place around the time. The main characters in the film share their first names with the real-life victims. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, Sharon is pregnant.

If Wolves At The Door were a completely fictional home invasion thriller there would be things to commend it. The leads play the material well, Henstridge in particular is very good indeed and even Campbell, despite being saddled with a distractingly wonky Eastern European accent, comes across as sympathetic and likeable. Technically it's well made and the director knows how to rack up the tension - the first seven or eight minutes, set in a different location the night before the main story begins, are a nicely-judged exercise in escalating panic (there's a phrase to quote out of context on a poster).

My own specific problem - and you may be able to get past this, but I can't - is that I'm not sure I want to watch something that's so closely linked to a tragedy that's still affecting the living to this day and to have it retold as quite a glossy shocker left me with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. The violence is downplayed quite a bit - some of it happens off-screen, one murder can only be seen in the reflection of a television screen - which on one hand shows a decent amount of restraint but doesn't make it any less horrible, especially if at the back of mind you're, like me, thinking "this actually took place".

Normally I would be complaining about a movie that's so short (it doesn't even make it to an hour and a quarter) but in this case I couldn't wait to get out of the cinema. The source material, for me, isn't the basis for entertainment and the fact that WATD goes for both jump scares and drawn-out suspense sequences just makes it all the more unpleasant to watch. This isn't so much "inspired" by the Manson family killings as it is a reconstruction and in my opinion this crosses a line it maybe shouldn't.

Though there's absolutely no denying the talent on display here both in front of and behind the camera, I find it somewhat troubling when this kind of thing is presented as entertainment. Having said that, I'm not going to tell you that you shouldn't go to watch this, just consider yourself forewarned.

LOGAN

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Dafne Keen
Writers: Scott Frank, James Mangold, Michael Green
Director: James Mangold 

It's the near future. Ex-X-Man Logan (Jackman) is making a living driving a limousine and trying to keep his head down. Hiding out in Mexico near the border, he spends most of his downtime drinking, looking after rambling, nonagenarian Professor X (Stewart) and being a massive pain in the arse to fellow mutant and X carer Caliban (a suitably washed-out Stephen Merchant). However, the claws are about to come out again in a big way as Logan's path crosses with that of young Laura (Keen) who's attracting the attention of some very, very bad guys led by cyborg-handed Pierce (Boyd Holbrook)...

It would probably be fair to say that previous Wolverine-centric outings have missed the mark by some distance but I'm delighted to say Logan redresses the balance and then some. From the opening sequence it's clear that this is down and dirty stuff with f-words and severed limbs littering the first few minutes. It continues in that vein too and the darker, resolutely adult approach results in a film which I believe is the very best from the Marvel stable so far.

True, some of the supporting characters may not be as well-drawn as they could be - Holbrook's baddie isn't given much depth and Richard E. Grant deserves more screen time as the scientist with a particular interest in capturing Laura - but that doesn't really matter as, quite rightly, it's the Jackman and Stewart show and if this is indeed their respective final shot at Logan and Xavier then they've saved their best work for last. Their grouchy, gritty banter is both touching and hilarious and they're the perfect companions for what is essentially a road movie with superpowers and bursts of startling violence.

Oh, the violence. This is a film which is definitely not for children and anyone who's used to the relatively neutered Wolvie from the larger-scale X-Men blockbusters might be somewhat taken aback by the bloodshed on display as our grumpy hero skewers and slashes his way through a series of kinetic action sequences. Newcomer Keen also proves she's no slouch with the claws either, acrobatically taking out various enemies and giving even Logan a run for his money in the gory killings department.

Logan picks up the baton from Deadpool in terms of the new wave of grungier, bloodier superhero stories but in so many ways it couldn't be further from the antics of Ryan Reynolds' wisecracking fourth-wall breaker and even further from the multiplex-friendly, industrial language-light summer smackdowns. This is a downbeat tale where the collateral damage isn't downplayed by means of a spectacular, large scale special effect. Quite the opposite - innocent people die horribly and up close in glorious widescreen, which makes you care more and more as the plot rolls on towards a conclusion fraught with genuine danger.

It would be a shame if Logan were to be dismissed as just another superhero flick because it's clearly so much more than that. Making points about the treatment of outsiders which are especially valid right now, it's a piece of work that delivers all the thrills you'd expect allied to a resonant, emotional gut punch of a final act. The fact that there's nothing to hang around for at the end of the credits is paradoxically something of a bonus as you'll probably want to get some air at the end after going on this journey, that's all I'm saying.

For me - and a lot of other people, I suspect - a Wolverine film of this quality has been a very long time coming but Logan goes a long way to erasing the memory of the previous misfires. James Mangold has given us a comic book movie of rare poignancy, humour and ferocity. Messrs Jackman and Stewart have never been better. You need to see this. It's superb.

WE GO ON

Starring: Clark Freeman, Annette O'Toole, Jay Dunn
Writer: Andy Mitton
Directors: Jesse Holland, Andy Mitton

Miles Grissom (Freeman) is a man who's so scared of there being no prospect of life after death that he offers a reward for irrefutable proof there's something on the other side. Predictably he gets his fair share of wild claims but he narrows down the field to three people - a scientist, a medium and an entrepreneur - who may be able to provide an answer in their own specific way. Of course, Miles has no idea of the strange and terrifying places his investigations will take him...

We Go On has the feel of a classic, old-fashioned, plot-driven chiller given a very modern slant and proves that no matter how many CGI monsters and jump scares can be crowbarred into the proceedings it's never a match for great writing and an unrelentingly eerie atmosphere. There's plenty of stuff to give you the heebie-jeebies here and, for me at the very least, one marvellous, show-stopping reveal.

Even so, the horror can only truly work its unsettling magic if you're invested in the characters and We Go on has the quite brilliant double act of Clark Freeman and Annette O'Toole at its core as phobic son and concerned mum respectively. Both bring their A games to the party and give smart, naturalistic, layered performances. Freeman's Miles isn't your stereotypical, panic-stricken victim and neither is O'Toole your average screen mother.

In fact, O'Toole and Freeman play so well off each other that they could be discussing the weather and it would be engaging. Their characters are immensely likeable and interesting and this obviously amps up the tension when they're inevitably put in potentially harmful situations. Freeman doesn't overplay Miles' fears and makes for a winning, vulnerable but capable hero. O'Toole is an absolute delight, dishing out her spiky, no-nonsense wisdom which clearly comes from a warm and caring place.

That level of quality extends throughout the cast, with fine supporting work from all, including John Glover as the scientist who may not be what he initially seems and Giovanna Zacarías as Josephina, the medium who has her own concerns about delving into otherwordly matters. When even the most minor characters feel like real, rounded people with depth and their own baggage you have to take your hat off to the writers and the actors. Top to bottom, the script and performances are excellent.

I must also mention the outstanding Jay Dunn as Nelson, who becomes more and more important to the story as it, ahem, goes on (it was going to happen at some point during the review, be thankful I only decided to do it once). Without getting too spoilery, he's one of the creepiest and most unnerving presences in any horror film I've seen for a while and there were several moments when I found myself dreading the prospect of him showing up. That's a properly scary guy. Terrific work, Mr. Dunn.

I saw this at the Celluloid Screams festival in Sheffield in October 2016 and it's a film which has stayed with me since then. At a time when so much big studio horror output tends towards the dispiritingly bland, it's great to see indie productions like this knocking it out of the park. Fans of horror films - hell, fans of films, regardless of genre - should seek this one out. It's a finely-crafted, brilliantly structured mix of chills, laughs and drama and for a movie which is so much about death it's actually a rather life-affirming experience. I can't recommend it highly enough. Go see!

JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 2

Starring: Keanu Reeves, Riccardo Scamarcio, Ian McShane
Writer: Derek Kolstad
Director: Chad Stahelski




*** GO TO THE VERY END OF THE REVIEW IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHETHER OR NOT THE DOG DIES ***

After bumping off a shedload of bad guys in the first movie, John Wick (Reeves) is now enjoying a quiet life at home with the dog he adopted at the end of said flick. Of course, a second chapter in the generally bullet-riddled life of Mr Wick isn't going to revolve around him buying scatter cushions, looking at wallpaper swatches and deciding which renovations to make next.


No, it's not long before another bad guy - and promoter of vowel use in names - Santino D'Antonio (Scamarcio) calls in a marker which means John Wick has to tool up again to take out a target. As you'd expect, the target is protected by various layers of security, meaning our anti-hero will have his work cut out to complete his mission. Meaning that wave upon wave of disposable henchmen will almost certainly be shot, stabbed or have the crap kicked out of them. Or they'll be shot and stabbed and have the crap kicked out of them.


So, is this better or worse than the, ahem, most excellent (sorry, Keanu) original? That's a difficult question to answer because the sequel has a somewhat different feel whilst still sticking to the general rules of a sequel by seriously upping the ante in terms of mayhem. It also opens out the continuing story to include the Rome branch of the Continental Hotel, presided over by Julius (Franco Nero - great casting) while Wisdom (Ian McShane) continues to mind the shop in New York.


Upping the action quotient means that Wick's been involved in a car chase, shootout and extended scrap even before the opening titles have appeared. The gun-fu battles are also much longer this time out, with Wick's adversaries appearing from seemingly every angle. These sequences are breathless, full of startling (yet cartoony) violence and, let's be honest here, they're massively entertaining. There's absolutely no point in trying to keep track of the body count - it's bloody enormous, let's just leave it at that.


In between all of the superbly choreographed bullet ballets you're going to need some breathing space and JW2 gives the audience just enough downtime before the next bout of retina-scorching carnage to serve up a simple but serviceable plot which chucks the taciturn assassin into a situation where he becomes the most prized target of all. It's hardly the most convoluted of tales but do you want two hours of scheming and lurking in the shadows or two hours of undiluted action nirvana? If it's the former, do you realise this is John Wick 2 I'm talking about?


Naturally, the shootouts, fights and chases are all superbly marshalled but there are some pretty good performances here too. Reeves looks like he's having a ball playing John Wick and it's good to see McShane, John Leguizamo and Lance Reddick (as unflappable front of house guy Chiron) reprising their roles. The newcomers are no less impressive, chiefly Common as stone-faced, dapper fellow assassin Cassian, Ruby Rose as the mute, deadly Ares and a deadpan, hilarious Peter Serafinowicz as an unfailingly polite "sommelier" who describes an increasingly lethal selection of firearms as he would a cellar of fine wines.


John Wick 2 is that rarest of beasts, a sequel that doesn't disappoint on any level. It's funny, exciting, chock-full of incredible action and makes the prospect of a third movie an enticing one. Yes, Mr Wick is working on his retirement but don't expect him to hang up his guns just yet. And if he doesn't have access to guns, a pencil will do nicely...


To close, as promised earlier in the review, here's the answer to the following question:


Does the dog die?


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No. But the house gets it. Big time.