Toy Story 5

 

At the Orkney Community Centre there was quite a queue for the noon showing of Toy Story 5. Everyone was there wanting snacks, and Zoe (aged 10) was a bit worried the rest of the children were younger than her. I reassured her that modern animations had plenty in them for older children and adults, and in fact we sat behind a young couple who had no children, only a large Bullseye toy.

The premise of the film will in fact be lost on most young kids; that screens are bad and are preventing nice children from playing with each other. When Bonnie tries to get in with the cool kids she ends up glued to her device and is soon looking miserable and feeling dejected. "Cyber-bullying", Zoe whispered to me.

There is some good social commentary in the film, showing groups of young children meeting up and then just sitting beside each other on parallel devices, which always makes me feel a bit sad. At one point Bonnie's Dad asks her something and she says "Yeah OK" without listening or looking up from her screen, then can't remember what she has agreed to. "That's like me" said Alex. I certainly don't approve of the children having their own devices in their bedrooms. 

In the end a more nuanced view of Tech is reached. All in all, it's good entertainment. 

GOAT

 

This film had a good reputation among the kids at Alex's Cubs, so we thought we'd give it a go. The animation is from the same studio as Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse and has the same distinctive hand-drawn style.

The story is about Roarball, which is a more exciting version of basketball played by animal characters. The Goat is a small, who wants to compete with the bigs. A familiar story. In an attempt to appeal to the kids there is an annoying amount of talk of things going viral, and diss tracks. Other than that it was quite enjoyable.

The Housemaid

 

This is an old-fashioned thriller with a couple of twists thrown in. There are there main characters, and it's a guessing game who is evil/crazy/manipulating the others. It plays out in a satisfactory way, in particular the very final scene which I like, but on reflection I think some of the earlier scenes where the audience are misdirected don't make a lot of sense. Perhaps on a second viewing it would fit together.

The premise is a struggling Housemaid gets to live-in with a rich family, and get a sense of the dream-life that she can't afford. But of course, things are not what they seem...

Now You See Me: Now You Don't

Who goes to the cinema to watch this at1210 on a Tuesday? Turns out it's pretty much only me, while I had a two-hour wait for my bike to be fixed. This was the only film starting at roughly the right time, though I had to leave five minutes before the end to collect the kids from school.

I quite enjoyed the first film, which was apparently the surprise hit of 2013. However, I have the same issues with this new third film as I did with the first film (not seen Now You See Me 2, 2016). The problem is that magic that might be impressive live is simply not impressive on film. It's very easy to make someone disappear - you start filming them, then stop filming, get them to move out the way, and start filming again and they've gone.

To be impressive then the film has to play more clever tricks on the audience, which it succeeded in doing once or twice. The final reveal is a good one, though with a bit of thought it renders all the previous action irrelevant. 

As the film begins with a new set of magicians, who are young and woke which the film admits makes them quite annoying, there is a great opportunity for the surprising return of the original four characters. The best reveal is after the youngsters go back to their apartment, briefly discussing how secret it is, and one of them casually asks "Who wants a beer?". Eisenberg pops up from behind a holo-screen and says something cheesy like "I'll take one!" and they don't realise at first it's really him and not another projection. The other characters are reintroduced with hardly a mention, and by the end the action is rather crowded. It's a bit like the later Police Academy movies. 

What I did very much enjoy was Rosamund Pike's villain. The South African accent must be a lot of fun, and she really goes for it. I was rooting for her against the inflated gang of smug musicians, though the rest of the cinema didn't seem to agree with me, as to my surprise they both clapped when she got her comeuppance.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps

 

This was my first time taking the kids to a 12A at the cinema. Beforehand I consulted some Christian websites and adjudged that the swearing was minimal, the love scenes mild enough, and the level of peril highly acceptable. And it looked better than the new Spiderman.

I am generally averse to superhero films and find the high-speed action scenes boring. But this film didn't have too much of that. It was mostly about the relationship between the four of them, which was well done. There was a background of SciFi and disasters and space and superpowers too so it didn't get too talking and melodramatic. Overall, a good balance.

  

Freakier Friday

 

We took our kids to see this (aged 7 and 9), and someone else's kids too. While I think the children all enjoyed the cinema experience (snacks, reclining seats) I feel that most of the jokes were lost on them, as most of the jokes were about older people being slow and out of touch with youngsters. Boomers.

The film does have a few funny gags, and the body-swap plot is an instant recipe for comedy gold. This time there are two body swaps, so even more opportunities for silliness. This film is obviously not as good as the first movie, and nothing on The Parent Trap (which Zoe did really like), but still fun.

 

28 Years Later

Before this movie started I saw lots of trailers with crawling babies and floating people and limbs bending impossibly, and I wondered if it might be almost Halloween. But it's because 28 Years Later is classified a horror film. But this series of films is much more interesting than just gore, and in fact the bits where they are running away form the zombies are not the best part at all.

In the first film from 2002, 28 Days Later, the virus that causes Rage and zombie-like behaviour is accidentally released, and there were few survivors. As ever, it's the other humans that are the real danger. 28 Weeks Later I haven't seen yet. The third installment is directed by Danny Boyle again, and we are in Northern Scotland on a little village separated from the mainland by a causeway. This is ideal conditions for survival, no access for Zombies and lots of hardy people who like farming and weaving.

After all these years they have a good defensive system and are teaching the children archery. A twelve-year old boy is taken with his Daddy across to the mainland, and there the adventure begins.

It's clear that a lot has happened in the years since the virus was first released, and there are strange things going on. What makes the film really good is the visual suggestions without explanations. And also Ralph Fiennes as a demented doctor who somehow still survives in the wild.

I really enjoyed it. The relationship between the boy and his mother is excellent, and there was a weird but interesting conclusion.