Plus, we’ve got a huge Trailer Club this week, led by the third and final film in the new Jumanji trilogy, and Academy Award-winner Michael B. Jordan’s next film as star/director.

As ever, hit the comments to let us know what you watch this weekend (we know at least one reader has seen Spider-Man: Brand New Day already - any more for any more?), and if any of the trailers particularly pique your interest. We’re be back with two interview editions early next week. Don’t miss ‘em by subscribing, and help spread the work with likes, restacks and all that jazz. Until next time!

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Spider-Man: Brand New Day

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

12A, in cinemas now

It almost makes you feel like a victim of the Thanos-imposed ‘Blip’ when you consider that it’s been the best part of five years since Tom Holland’s third standalone Spider-Man movie, No Way Home, which was a $1.9bn-grossing milestone in cinema’s post-Covid recovery. Since then, the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s fortunes have been a decidedly mixed bag, both critically and commercially (Deadpool & Wolverine has been their only film since to cross the $1bn threshold, something the MCU used to do as a matter of course). With the hype (and box-office projections) building for this new installment, the ever-popular Spidey is poised to revive the franchise, so it’ll be a relief for anyone invested in the series that Brand New Day is, if not a completely new leaf for the mega-franchise, a return to crowdpleasing form that gets a great deal right.

Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton – who also helmed Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and terrific miniseries Wonder Man1 – there’s a pleasingly stripped-back feel to this instalment, ahead of what will presumably be global/galactic stakes in December’s Avengers: Doomsday. Following the memory-erasing ending of No Way Home, Peter Parker (Holland) is struggling without former girlfriend MJ (Zendaya), best mate Ned (Jacob Batalon), and late aunt May (Marisa Tomei). He’s throwing himself into the friendly neighbourhood crimefighting – one of the real pleasures of the film is an early extended montage of Spider-Man doing his everyday hero-business, something superhero movies often don’t do enough of before committing to the main villain storyline – but finds the arachnid DNA is doing strange things to his body, with blacked-out eyes and organic web-shooters the outwardly visible symptoms.

Also pleasing is the amount of time Peter spends in the suit, which gives the film a throwback comic-booky vibe, particularly when he takes meetings in the full mask (one key rendezvous in a bathhouse is a lot of fun). The villainous threat of Brand New Day also works well, as Peter has to deal with an anonymous baddie who can possess strangers and body hop at will. In a rarity for a modern superhero film, our hero’s facing what feels like a genuinely indomitable threat, but despite the great power, the threat still feels satisfyingly local.

The lengthy – but fleet-footed – running time also allows ample downtime to incorporate some worthwhile character beats. There are some nice moments with MJ and Ned, adding the kind of feeling that’s often lacking in these things, and Spidey’s odd-couple bromance with Frank ‘Punisher’ Castle (Jon Bernthal) also gives the film a lift. Bruce Banner’s (Mark Ruffalo) appearances are enjoyable, even if the trailers have splurged most of Hulk’s key moments. Stranger Things star Sadie Sink also does great work in a role best discussed after you’ve seen the film.

Cretton and co also do a decent job of bring some inventive motion to the fights and, particularly, the swinging trips through New York. Even if the VFX often feel notably digital (even more so, coming hot on the heels of Holland/Zendaya/Bernthal-starrer The Odyssey), the action has a level of brio not seen since Sam Raimi sent Tobey Maguire swinging through the Big Apple. Also harking back to Raimi’s movies are Cretton’s nods to the community spirit of the New Yorkers who’ve taken their local hero as a mascot. The mystery element of the film – which works well, and goes to some surprisingly dark (but 12A-appropriate) places – might mean it’ll move less nimbly on a second viewing. But Brand New Day is strong four-quadrant entertainment that puts the MCU on sure footing again. Let’s hope this isn’t a blip. (Matt Maytum)

IN SHORT Tom Holland’s most gratifying standalone outing as Spider-Man doesn’t rewrite the rulebook, but hits the required beats satisfyingly, and will have you hoping they spin out at least a couple more instalments with this cast.

STAY FOR THE END CREDITS? You didn’t need to ask, but the single sting (which comes at the very end) is small-scale with big implications.

WATTS THAT SOUND Keep an ear out for Naomi Watts as the voice of Peter’s virtual in-suit assistant, E.V.

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Ish

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

15, in cinemas now

The opening scene of musician and visual artist Imran Perretta’s first feature follows Ish (short for Ismail, played by Farhan Hasnat) and his bestie Maram (Yahya Kitana) as they roam the woods near the Luton streets where they live. Making use of a discarded mattress and some branches, the two 12-year-old boys carve out their own den-like space, where they can pick blackberries, talk footy, while away the summer hols.

The pair are inseparable… until a white van we’ve seen ominously prowling the streets targets the boys; while Ish runs and hides, Maram is subjected to a short, sharp stop-and-search. The remainder of the film tracks the fallout from this traumatising incident; as the angry Maram veers towards a new friendship group, the more isolated Ish tries to regain his trust in scenes that capture the pain and poignancy of drifting irrevocably apart from someone close. This personal drama is set against a charged political backdrop - racial profiling, police surveillance, references to the situation in Gaza - that mark Ish as a coming-of-ager that speaks keenly to the present moment. That vibe is reinforced by dialogue that avoids sounding like a tin-eared attempt to emulate contemporary ‘yoof’ speak (the script is co-written by playwright Enda Wright), performed with naturalistic conviction by a cast led by non-pro newcomers.

Yet alongside all that is Perretta’s desire to craft something classical and timeless. Hence Jermaine Canute Edwards’ black and white cinematography, which brings a crisp radiance to everything from the boys’ leafy idyll to the local lido and cements Ish’s debt to the likes of The 400 Blows and The Apu Trilogy - films whose acute mix of excitement and anxiety about reaching childhood’s end echoes across this fresh, promising debut. (Matthew Leyland)

TRUE FRIENDS Hasnat and Kitana’s chemistry is rooted in off-screen familiarity. “I’ve known Farhan since I was three,” says Kitana. “My mum knows his mum. Farhan’s mum used to teach me in Year 2 - fun fact!”

Trailer Club

Seven years on from The Next Level, the (modern) Jumanji trilogy closes out with avatars and animals running amok in both the real and game worlds, in what looks like another fun excuse for the core cast (Johnson, Gillan, Hart, Black) to put on different accents and identities (Hart’s ‘kiddie’ performance looks particularly chucklesome).

Michael B. Jordan produces, directs, stars and wears the hell out of a tux in The Thomas Crown Affair, a fresh-looking update of the art-heist thriller made in 1969 and then remade in 1999. In a ‘don’t think of an elephant’ move, the blurb promises it’s going to be ‘unexpectedly moving’, which of course now leads us to 100 percent expect it…

• Thomas Crown star Adria Arjona is a sniper with rogue super-soldiers in her sights in Adam Wingard’s sci-actioner Onslaught…

• Bloody violence, mega-billboards, screen-filling eyeballs… Prime Video series Blade Runner 2099 looks like it’s got the Scottian mood down pat…

• Woman King director Gina Prince-Bythewood is back with even more stars (Viola Davis, F1’s Damson Idris, Lashana Lynch, Cynthia Erivo, Idris Elba…) and more epicness as she adapts fantasy bestseller Children Of Blood And Bone…

• Inspired by the Mattel toys, Matchbox: The Movie seems to be leaning equally hard on the Fast And Furious and Mission: Impossible franchises with its mix of spies, spills and John Cena…

• Do we really need another take on Stephen King’s Carrie? When it’s King maven Mike Flanagan (The Life Of Chuck, Doctor Sleep) steering the eight-part ship, then we kind of definitely do…

• Welcome back to Raccoon City, where Weapons director Zach Cregger has made a few major changes, if the full, fearsome trailer for his Resident Evil reboot is anything to go by…

• The latest trailer for DC horror Clayface manages to shower us with gruesome sights (take your ick) without blowing the big reveal…

• William Gibson’s seminal cyberpunk novel Neuromancer has been oft-described as ‘unfilmable’. But is it un-stream-able? We’ll find out when Apple TV’s 10-part series arrives in January. Here’s the first teaser…

• The forge awakens in the teaser for The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power Season 3, as Sauron gets ready to unveil a certain all-conquering piece of Middle-earth bling…

• The horrors of the past flare up in the present in Possession, the Sky series formerly known as Inheritance, starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Jonny Lee Miller…

• Fans of Jonathan Bailey’s final form in Wicked would do well to check out Wicker, in which Olivia Colman builds herself a lover (Alexander Skarsgård) made out of twigs…

• Maika Monroe succumbs to darkness in the latest trailer for gonzo period slasher Victorian Psycho…

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If you have thoughts to share on Spider-flicks good, bad or obscure, please swing by the comments section. And why not give those like, subscribe and share buttons a tap for good measure? We’ll be back on Friday with a review of Brand New Day and more besides. Excels– OK, let’s not get the lawyers on our backs… See ya.

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Off-Brand Day

Matthew gets entangled in a Spider-Man movie that time (and he) forgot…

Impossible as it is to fathom, the hype around Brand New Day has overshadowed the fact that 2026 marks the 45th anniversary of another Spider-movie: Spider-Man: The Dragon’s Challenge. Well, I say ‘movie’, but like the earlier Spider-Man Strikes Back (1978), The Dragon’s Challenge was a cut-and-shut of two episodes (‘The Chinese Web’, parts 1 and 2) of the amazingly short-lived Amazing Spider-Man TV series (a mere 13 eps between 1977-79), whose feature-length pilot was also a big-screen event outside of the US.

Not only did The Dragon’s Challenge mark the end of star Nicholas Hammond’s tenure in the tights, it was the last Spider-flick until 2002. But it was my very first one, and I remember it like it was four-and-a-half decades ago. No, there are a couple of things I recall vividly: firstly, that it was presented in a double bill with slapstick western Cactus Jack (aka The Villain, starring Kirk Douglas and Arnold Schwarzenegger), and that five-year-old me couldn’t get my head around the phrase ‘double bill’. Something to do with ducks? You have to pay twice?

The second detail that’s stayed with me I’ll come to in due course. Before that, I want to share the experience, the fascination, the boredom, of rewatching the ‘movie’ for the first time since ’81. My initial impression: how on earth did five-year-old me sit through this 96-minute patience-sapping slog? For starters, the plot is a low-stakes swamp of unnecessary complications that has something to do with a visiting Chinese minister (Benson Fong’s Min Lo Chan) who needs to clear his name of accusations of WW2 treachery. Ex-Marines, ruthless industrialists, billion-dollar contracts and other stuff you’re never given a reason to give a fig about are also part of the murky, listless, un-comic-booky picture.

It’s 10 minutes before Peter Parker (Hammond) turns up. Another five before we see Spidey (Hammond plus stunt doubles). These are small eternities. I must’ve been crawling the cinema walls - not least in hopes of showing my hero what he should be doing. As Peter pounds (or rather plods) the pavements looking for ex-Marines (and running into a pre-Cheers Ted Danson), the whole thing feels more like an investigative-journalism procedural, with a main character who happens to have a spandex side-hustle.

Even trying to add some spark with a trip to Hong Kong doesn’t make a difference; there’s still more mooching about than The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and almost as little costumed action as Madame Web. The theory that superhero stories gain dramatic depth from time spent following the characters in their ordinary lives clearly wasn’t conceived by someone who’s watched The Dragon’s Challenge.

Stingy as it is, the spectacle we do get is pretty low-octane. At one point, fisticuffs between Spidey and some would-be assassins causes Min Lo to have a heart attack - which surprises, because honestly, the scene just isn’t that exciting. Spidey doesn’t shoot webs, he produces clothes lines, and ‘traps’ his enemies in stringy nets with holes big enough for an elephant (the goons’ performative writhing only makes things worse). And though this is the 1970s, our hero’s no swinger. He mostly travels by foot or, in one especially bathetic moment, slow-moving boat.

Sure, these are made-for-TV production values, and FX tech didn’t truly catch up to Spidey until the digital noughties. But the action in the contemporaneous Incredible Hulk and earlier Batman series - and indeed the comparatively zippy Spider-Man Strikes Back - was never this thin and shabby. Things do pick up a bit in the climax, where our hero does a spot of skyscraper-scaling that looks genuinely precarious. And then there’s the moment that stuck with five-year-old me, when Spider-Man is caught unawares by a tranquiliser dart (his Spider-sense seems to come and go as the plot demands) and ends up face down in the drink.

He’s whisked to hospital, and in the course of emergency surgery, unmasked in front of Min Lo’s niece Emily (Rosalind Chao) - and I remember being more distressed by the rumbling of Spidey’s identity than by the fact that he might peg it. Of course, Spidey survives, but all the way home I fretted over whether Emily would keep his big secret, until my parents had reassured me (or promised to buy me that Spider-Man View-Master if I stopped wanging on about it).

Good job, then, that I seemingly didn’t pay closer attention to the epilogue, where Peter says: “So… my secret is safe with you?” To which Emily replies: “Of course, I won’t tell anyone that you’re Spider-Man!” At normal speaking volume. In the middle of a busy airport. Oh, Emily. It’s a rare, if completely inadvertent, laugh in a movie whose near-total absence of humour suggests ‘script consultant’ Stan Lee, renowned for the flow of wisecracks in his Marvel writing, didn’t do much consulting. Other off-brand anomalies - no mention of Aunt May; the disconcerting sight of J. Jonah Jameson being all nice and avuncular (“Of course I’ll help you!”) - make The Dragon’s Challenge feel like it hails from some very strange and unfamiliar corner of the Spider-Verse. I think I’ll let it stay there. (Matthew Leyland)

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Time for a new MCU*

(*Major Casting Update)

Marvel Studios needed to pull out all the stops for its San Diego Comic-Con panel at the weekend, and it did. The biggest talking point wasn’t the Robert Downey Jr.-led Avengers: Doomsday panel, but the announcement of two major pieces of casting.

First up, Ryan Gosling was confirmed to be starring in a new take on Ghost Rider, bringing the character into the Marvel Cinematic Universe for the first time (well, excluding Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.). Gosling has long been a vocal fan of the character, and according to Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, the actor pitched a specific vision for the film based on particular comics (it hasn’t been confirmed, but it’s presumed Gosling will be playing the Johnny Blaze incarnation of the character). Gosling is reteaming with his Star Wars: Starfighter director Shaun Levy - who also directed Deadpool & Wolverine - for the film, scheduled to open in 2028.

While it’s an exciting prospect - all the more so since Feige has had a sneak peek of Starfighter and calls it “awesome” - it’s a further sign that Gosling is going all in on big-scale, blockbuster filmmaking, which feels like an underuse of his abilities. You have to go back as far as 2018’s First Man to find him in a drama, and even that’s pretty blockbuster-adjacent as far as Oscar-nommed dramas go.

The other major casting news was the announcement of British actor David Jonsson as the new Black Panther in Ryan Coogler’s third Marvel movie. He’s playing the son of T’Challa, and what this means for Shuri’s (Letitia Wright) time in the suit remains to be seen - given Jonsson’s age, should we expect a big time jump after Avengers: Secret Wars? However he’ll fit in, Jonsson feels like an inspired piece of casting. He’s been ace in films as varied as Rye Lane, Alien: Romulus, The Long Walk and Wasteman, and has won a Bafta Rising Star for his efforts, but he still feels like he’s not yet too famous to not disappear into the role. Black Panther 3 is also scheduled to drop in 2028.

The final talking point of the Marvel panel was a comedy appearance from Ryan Reynolds as a denim Deadpool: smuggled into the crowd, he grabbed the mic to angle for a role in Doomsday. With Reynolds having recently confirmed his interest in another Deadpool movie (“There’s stuff upcoming… It’s going to be great”), expect the Merc with a Mouth to figure prominently in the MCU’s future. (Matt Maytum)

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A heads-up: there will be no regular Friday review edition of the newsletter this week. Probably due to the release of the all-conquering Odyssey there’s not much of note being released this weekend. But we’ll be back next week, when Spider-Man: Brand New Day is swinging in to take on The Odyssey, as only a film starring Tom Holland, Zendaya and Jon Bernthal can.

See you then!

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Christopher Nolan movies: the ranking

Matt puts Nolan’s bangers in order…

A bit of light housekeeping before we dive into this list. First of all, I don’t feel like Nolan has made less than a four-star film in his career to date, and all but a couple of his films I’d give the full five stars too. So it makes ranking slightly tricky, and on a given year/month/week/day, the placement could shift. This isn’t a ‘Worst to Best’ list, it’s a ‘very good to genre redefining’ list. I also instinctively want to editorialise a list like this, so I’ll make an effort to spread out the films of Dark Knight trilogy, which all feed into each other, and could share a single spot in this list if I was so inclined. I’ve also leaned more towards ‘favourites’ than ‘best’ in this ranking, although the line between those two categories is obviously blurry.

So, with those Ts and Cs out of the way, here’s my list….

13. Following (1998)

It’s an honourable wooden spoon for this one, Nolan’s feature debut, which was made for peanuts but still managed to declare the arrival of a filmmaker with ideas and ambition. It’s also fascinating as a trial run for future Nolan preoccupations – fractured timelines, morally questionable heroes, inverted noir tropes – as a nameless man shadows a burglar and gets caught up in a murder plot. It’s all here in this London-set crime thriller, which also preempts Nolan’s superhero trilogy with a background Bat symbol in a kind of temporal pincer movement.

12. Insomnia (2002)

Nolan’s third feature was a true career stepping stone, proving that he could handle a studio picture and A-list, Oscar-garlanded talent. It’s an immensely slick and watchable thriller, in which Al Pacino’s beleaguered detective is sent to investigate a murder in an Alaskan town where it’s perpetually light. There are a couple of cracking set pieces (including a log jam chase) and a creepily restrained Robin Williams performance, and without it we’d never have got Batman Begins or the rest of Nolan’s career. But it’s hard to rank it higher as it’s the only Nolan film that he hasn’t at least co-written, and it strips some of the ambiguity from the 1997 Norwegian original starring Stellan Skarsgård, on which it’s based.

11. Tenet (2020)

Perhaps the closest thing we’ll ever get to a Nolan 007 movie, albeit with a narrative timeline that’s moving in two dimensions simultaneously. It was simply too complicated for many, and that combined with its unfortunate Covid-era timing means it’s remembered as one of Nolan’s most divisive. But for me, it’s still a giddily propulsive thriller, with some of the most inventive action of Nolan’s filmography – that backwards fighting is still brain-scrambling good, and the set pieces are often staggering, from 747 crashes, to catamaran races, to the bonkers military skirmish at Stalsk-12. As John David Washington’s Protagonist is urged: “Don’t try to understand it. Feel it.”

10. The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

This placement feels harsh for the conclusion of one of the great trilogies, but ranking Nolan’s movies brings with it some unwelcome sacrifices. The weakest of the TDK trilogy by a whisker, Rises makes use of some pretty substantial plot holes to close out Bruce Wayne’s story on emotionally (if not logically) satisfying terms. The most moving of the series (Bruce and Alfred’s stairwell bust-up!) is also impressive and unique for actually having an ending, bringing the story full circle and hinting at the future without needing to keep banging out further sequels ad infinitum (one of many things that sets it apart from its comic-book peers).

9. Oppenheimer (2023)

The film that finally landed Nolan Best Director and Best Picture Oscar is undoubtedly one of his greatest. But as I’m ranking favourites, it’s not as high as it might’ve been due to the subject matter making it ‘one you need to be in the mood for’. Still, it’s an incredible feat how the director manages to Nolan-ify a talky historical biopic, and the film set a new standard for the breadth and depth of his ensembles. There’s terrific work from the likes of Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh and many more, but Cillian Murphy towers above them all with a Daniel Day-Lewis-level performance as the self-anointed destroyer of worlds.

8. Inception (2010)

Hard to fathom that a film of this complexity was knocked out by Nolan between Batman films, a demonstration of how he could be as critically and commercially successful with original, high-concept ideas – here, a heist that takes place inside the human mind – as he was with the most popular DC superhero IP. Inception was where he really started to showcase his predilection for ambitious, mind-bending practical effects (the corridor scrap) to match the intricacy of the narrative. The multi-level dream worlds are perhaps Nolan’s most impressive yet intuitive timeline to date, and the film is one of his most analysed. It was also evidence of his ability to enter the cultural lexicon (‘Inception’ now being a byword for implanted ideas and/or concepts operating mulitple levels deep).

7. The Prestige (2006)

Another between-Batmans project, The Prestige is perhaps Nolan’s most underrated film (except by the hardcore contingent that consider it his best). It’s a doozy of a concept, skillfully adapted from Christopher Priest’s novel, which it actually improves upon in the transporting. Pitting Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman against each other as rival Victorian magicians chasing the ultimate trick, The Prestige is pure cinematic sleight of hand, with an elegant, time-hopping structure and a twistiness that demands revisits. Shot by Nolan’s then-regular DoP Wally Pfister, it looks incredible, and was the first time we saw what a modern feel the director could bring to a period film. Genius casting of David Bowie as Nikola Tesla, too.

6. Batman Begins (2005)

It’s easy to forget what a dire state the Caped Crusader was in, before Nolan answered the call of the Batsignal. Credibility obliterated by Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin (1997), Batman became one of the standout stars of the nascent superhero takeover that defined cinema for the first couple of decades of the 2000s. Starting over, Nolan made the concept of reboots and reality-grounded superheroics look effortless, though countless imitators since proved what a rare trick Batman Begins actually pulled off. It’s hard to believe Nolan was only in his early thirties when he landed BB, such is the confidence of his origin story: we don’t see Bruce Wayne’s alter ego until an hour in, and the plotting is unbelievably lean, with not a moment wasted. The killer (pre-credits) coda also arguably inspired the rise of the post-credits scene that would define the MCU.

5. The Odyssey (2026)

Ranking the new film is always challenging due to recency bias (and trying to correct for recency bias), but The Odyssey is unarguably one of Nolan’s finest achievements to date. The adaptation of Homer’s millennia-old tale is his greatest feat of world building so far, and as transportive a film as he’s made. It’s also freighted with feeling and modern resonance, and thrillingly alive for a film set at a time of apparent magic. Time will ultimately reveal where The Odyssey settles in Nolan’s canon, but as a consolidation of his key interests presented on the grandest possible scale, it deserves a top 5 placement, at least. Read the full review of The Odyssey.

4. Dunkirk (2017)

Nolan’s shortest movie bar Following, his WW2 evacuation thriller is so nail-bitingly tense a sub-2hr runtime was essential for the audience’s health and wellbeing. A rare film led by (then) unknown young actors, with the bigger names (and the world’s most famous pop star) in support, Nolan pulled off the trick of generating seat-edge tension around an event everyone already knew the outcome of: the 1940 Dunkirk evacuation that was pivotal to the Allied war effort. Filming on the beach, capturing Spitfires in IMAX and recreating the pleasure-boat fleet that proves to be an unlikely saviour add practical heft to a film told using one of Nolan’s boldest narrative gambits: three intertwined timelines for land (one week), sea (one day) and air (one hour).

3. Memento (2000)

If Following hinted at raw talent, Memento proved that up-and-comer Nolan had an unprecedented gift for narrative trickery, with an audacious structure that feels essential to the concept. Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) has anterograde amnesia, meaning he can’t make any new memories, complicating his goal of bringing his wife’s killers to justice. The main thread of the film plays out in reverse, intercut with another black-and-white strand that’s moving forward. A noir set in blazing sunshine that begins at the end, its showmanship never detracts from the storytelling, and also establishes the striking images (Leonard’s clue-tattooed body), crisp dialogue (“Now… where was I?”) and ability to stick the landing that make Nolan’s films so consistently gratifying.

2. Interstellar (2014)

2001: A Space Odyssey was a formative film for Nolan, so it’s fitting that his own look to the stars is one of his greatest achievements. Interstellar was originally earmarked for Steven Spielberg, but heavily reworked when Nolan eventually came on board. It’s probably Nolan’s most emotional film, as pilot Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) joins a Hail Mary NASA project to find other habitable planets before Earth runs out of food. There are several tearjerking standouts, but Coop catching up on video messages after a detour of a few hours has taken two decades in Earth time is the most powerful. The theme of a father’s desperate journey home prefigures The Odyssey, and its combination of practical effects and VFX still wow now. Robot TARS, meanwhile, stands up as Nolan’s funniest creation.

1. The Dark Knight (2008)

Like The Empire Strikes Back, The Dark Knight benefits from following a great first instalment that has introduced the characters and world. But nothing could quite prepare you for simply how far Nolan would overdeliver with his Batman sequel. The best comic-book movie ever made transcends the genre because it takes more influence from Heat than other superhero stories, and features an all-time great villain performance by the late Heath Ledger as the Joker, a terrifying agent of chaos who just wants to watch Gotham burn. The film also marked a new level of ambition for Nolan from a stunt and set-piece standpoint (the truck flip, the Batpod, the hospital explosion) and featuring his first foray into shooting on IMAX film for key sequences. But perhaps its greatest moment is the (literal and thematic) centrepiece showdown between Batman and the Joker in the interrogation room, when worldviews collide like an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. It’s also an object lesson in balancing two villains, as – against the Batman/Joker clash – Harvey Dent actually stealthily has the film’s key arc. A superhero movie of substance. (Matt Maytum)

What are your favourite Nolan films? Tell us below!

Trailer Club

As there’ll be no Friday edition this week, here’s an early look at the biggest trailer of recent times: the first proper look at Avengers: Doomsday, and Robert Downey Jr. in Doctor Doom mode. There’s not a ton of plot here, but we do get a glimpse of Thor vs. Doom, and plenty of in-fighting on the heroes’ side (Yelena vs. Mystique, Gambit vs. Shang-Chi), and the late arrival of one of Thor’s other friends from work. It’s hard not to feel at least a little hyped by this assemblage of characters, including classic X-Men, New Avengers, and timeline-hopping fan favourites like Loki, and it’s undeniably stirring hearing this Doomier riff on Alan Silvestri’s theme, but will this be enough to change the MCU’s fortunes after the somewhat tepid response to its post-Endgame output? We’ll find out when the film opens on 18 December (yes, still the same day as Dune: Part Three).

Plus, catch up with the week’s must-see trailers, led by by Tom Cruise’s characterful turn in Digger. As always, head to the comments section to let us know what you end up watching this weekend, and feel free to show the like, subscribe and share buttons some love. Until next time…

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The Odyssey

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

15, in cinemas now

If Christopher Nolan was one of Hollywood’s most powerful directors before Oppenheimer – the Oscar-hoovering, partially black-and-white historical biopic that raked in almost $1bn at the box office – then afterwards it’s fair to say he ascended to the god-tier, which is fitting for his adaptation of Homer’s ancient Greek epic, The Odyssey, a film that feels mythic and modern at once.

Chances are you’ll be at least half familiar with the story from your school days, an incident-packed travelogue in which Ithacan war hero Odysseus (Matt Damon, stepping up to Nolan lead after crucial support in Interstellar and Oppenheimer) attempts to journey home from the battlefield of Troy, where his sly gift horse turned the tide of the war. You probably know that on the way he’ll encounter a cyclops, raging seas, tempting sirens and more, while his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and now grown-up son Telemachus (Tom Holland) impatiently await his return, as unseemly suitors greedily eye his throne.

Familiarity with the key beats may lead you to expect a classic fantasy in the Lord of the Rings mould, but one of the most impressive things about The Odyssey is that the only playbook it follows is Christopher Nolan’s, working on a scale it’s impossible to imagine any other filmmaker matching. The only contemporary comparison point for world-building grit and grandeur is Denis Villeneuve’s Dune series, though as a single film The Odyssey feels more complete and more accessible than any Arrakis entry yet.

For a film that feels carved out of rock – or pieced together from scraps of battered boat hulls, like the pivotal Trojan horse that we’ll return to throughout – Nolan’s 13th feature feels innately in tune with contemporary morality when it comes to warfare, guilt and history repeating, but it’s also possible to enjoy on more straightforwardly adventurous terms, so immersive is the location work, costuming and prop craft. There’s a steady supply of set-pieces to guarantee entertainment across a 173-minute run time that moves at a clip. Highlights include the run-in with aforementioned cyclops, a forest throwdown with some oversized armoured opponents, and a standout sequence presided over by Samantha Morton that veers into horror territory.

It won’t be surprising to Nolan devotees that the narrative doesn’t progress in a straight line (something Homer toyed with too), starting with a bard (rapper Travis Scott) setting up the bare bones of Odysseus’ story in his gone-to-seed court. Flashbacks upon flashbacks layer up as various characters recount events, but as in previous Nolan joints, a narrative that’s hard to explain in words unfolds with effortless elegance on screen. Also true to Nolan form, there are no concessions for anyone who’s not keeping up, so if you’re unfamiliar with the text, you won’t get as much context on peripheral characters such as Helen of Troy (Lupita Nyong’o) as you might expect. But such is the momentum of Odysseus’ arc, you can barrel through without worrying too much about the wider details.

Adding to the film’s heft – and aiding the storytelling – is some outrageously A-list casting, in many cases from stars delivering career-best work. Damon is all earthy gravitas as the general questioning his legacy, and Hathaway is formidable as the queen struggling to play her own game of 4D chess while being underestimated by those who seek to replace her husband. Holland, meanwhile, gives a performance that’s typical of the film’s emotional register – it doesn’t so much elicit tears as stir the soul. Meanwhile, the likes of Charlize Theron, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, and Jon Bernthal – actors who’d typically be the lead in any other movie – provide shortcuts to character that allows Nolan to pack in a lot of story with minimal exposition. Special mention is also due to John Leguizamo, bringing dignity to his best role in years as Odysseus’ loyal, sight-impaired swineherd, Eumaeus.

It’s not just the cast bringing their all; you get the feeling that in every department Nolan’s collaborators are gripping an oar and giving everything to keep this ship gliding forward. Hoyte van Hoytema’s 100% IMAX cinematography, which wows however it’s presented1, Ludwig Göransson’s sublime, convention-defying score and Jennifer Lame’s deft editing work in thrilling harmony with the rumbling sound design that’ll have you shaking in your seat (goodness knows what it’ll feel like in 4DX). Nolan – like the gods of The Odyssey who are felt but not seen – oversees the spectacle with an awesome power that feels omnipotent, undeniable and borderline supernatural. An essential cinematic experience. (Matt Maytum)

IN SHORT The film of the year so far, Nolan’s opus will likely already be jockeying for position on films-of-the-decade shortlists. A transportive epic.

STAY FOR THE END CREDITS? As with every Nolan film, there’s no further footage, though you will hear the new original song ‘When I’m Home’, performed by Ludwig Göransson, Travis Scott and James Blake, and co-written by Nolan.

HOLD YOUR HORSES Nolan first began imagining the visuals for the Trojan horse some 20 years ago, when he was attached to direct Troy (before he’d eventually go on to make Batman Begins instead).

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Synthetic Sincerity

⭐⭐⭐☆☆

PG, in cinemas now

Documentarian Mark Isaacs’ film takes its name from a lab at the University of Southern England. The researchers at Synthetic Sincerity - ‘where data learns to be human’ - want to license Isaacs’ past work to teach AI characters how to express authentic emotion. In return, Isaacs is permitted to document the project…

…which, as you might have begun to twig from the ‘University of Southern London’ moniker (no such place exists), is a bunch of bobbins. Isaacs’ fabricated premise is a springboard for an exploration of illusion, reality and what the age of AI means for the future of film, particularly in terms of how human faces are represented. The director and co-writer Adam Ganz inject some absurdist and slyly subversive humour into their scenario, principally via an AI avatar (modelled on actor Ilinca Manolache, from Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World) who chivvies and chides the mock-bemused Isaacs (“That was quite hurtful!”).

Over the course of interviews with AI ‘researchers’ (played by, among others, Lebanese filmmaker Lynn El Safah), the movie also touches upon real-world geopolitics, from Chinese censorship to Israel’s strikes on Lebanon. But insight into these topics - already fighting for space in a film just 70 mins long - is somewhat overshadowed by Isaacs’ slippery method. With the busy mix of actors, non-actors and avatars, plus numerous rug-pulls, viewers may be too preoccupied with working out what’s synthetic and what’s sincere to focus on anything else. There again, that’s likely one of the main aims of the game, and this novel hybrid film captures a real sense of the confusion and uncertainty embedded in image-making right now. (Matthew Leyland)

THIRD DIMENSION Isaacs sees Synthetic Sincerity as the third in a trilogy, following his first picture with Ganz, The Filmmaker’s House (2021) - which looked at “notions of documentary truth” - and The Blessed Plot (2023), where he and his writer tackled “the relationship between film, place, memory and mythology”.

Trailer Club

Offering Tom Cruise his first original character in nearly a decade, the first proper trailer for Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Digger is quite something. It reads like a blend of Dr. Strangelove and Bong Joon Ho’s broad, English-language satires, as ultra-wealthy oilman Digger Rockwell (Cruise, channelling the manic, prosthetics-coated energy of Tropic Thunder’s Len Grossman) is called in by the president (John Goodman) to help fix a potentially world-ending disaster. The subtlety fuse has clearly blown, with every actor — including the additional likes of Riz Ahmed and Sandra Hüller — treating the scenery like an all-you-can-eat buffet. But with risk-taking originals of this scale a real rarity, it’s hard not to dig the idea of this one. Find out if the gamble pays off when it hits cinemas on 2 October.

• The film’s been delayed yet again - this time to Feb 2028 - but on the plus there is a teaser for The Batman Part II (emphasis very much on the ‘tease’)...

• Yo! Here’s your first look at the dramatisation of the blood, sweatbands and tears that went into the making of Sly Stallone’s finest hour, I Play Rocky…

• Crime writer Adam Scott needs retired cop dad Robert De Niro to help him find his abducted son in Netflix thriller The Whisper Man…

• Sporting his finest facial hair since his Poirot era, Kenneth Branagh is the ex-KGB man who buddies up with downed US pilot Ryan Reynolds in Mayday, the latest action-com from Game Night/Dungeons & Dragons duo Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley…

• Middle-earth feels decidedly grounded in this start-of-production announcement-skit for Andy Serkis’ The Lord Of The Rings: The Hunt For Gollum…

• Say cello to the first trailer for Tony Gilroy’s classical music mystery BEHEMOTH! (emphasis theirs), which doesn’t give a whole heap away, but is stirring and stylish all the same…

• Mum’s the word in Friday The 13th prequel series Crystal Lake, starring Linda Cardellini as the series’ OG killer, Pam Voorhees…

• Euphoria meets Rivals (plus a pinch of Emerald Fennell) in Ryan Murphy’s latest thriller series The Shards, based on the book by Bret Easton Ellis…

• Imagine a slightly more threatening Ballad of Wallis Island and you’ve got The Incomer, an indie-com with Domhnall Gleeson awkwardly attempting to relocate two siblings on a remote Scottish isle…

• A big orange unicorn (voiced by Keegan-Michael Key) spreads joy and terror in the first teaser for Buddy, a horror riff on 90s kids’ TV…

• Body-swapping comes without the usual big LOLs in The Unknown, a French psycho-thriller from Arthur Harari (co-writer of Anatomy Of A Fall) and starring Léa Seydoux…

• The peasants are revolting (fnar fnar) in Paul Greengrass’ medieval epic The Uprising, starring a curiously accented Andrew Garfield…

• Gal Gadot’s lawyer gets a phone call to say that her son is in danger while she’s out for a morning jog in The Runner. That’ll get your heart racing quicker than Couch to 5k…

Do you have a favourite Ford movie? Or one you wish he’d been in more? Let us know in the comments section, and feel free to forward this email to a friend or veteran A-lister whom you think might enjoy it, and they can sign up for all future editions for free.

And following the sad news of Sam Neill’s death, we’re also paying brief tribute to the star of Jurassic Park (and much more) below. Do you have a favourite role of his? Let us know in the comments section, and feel free to forward this email to a friend you think might enjoy it, and they can sign up for all future editions for free.

We’re back on Friday with our latest review round-up, led by one of the year’s most anticipated biggies: Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. Does it hit a Homer run? Find out then!

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Harrison ignored

Matthew heads down to Zabriskie Point, where it’s all sand and no Ford…

Over the years I have enjoyed many a Harrison Ford film, from the whip-cracking, replicant-retiring, “I know”-ing classics to The Secret Life of Pets 2. But recently I discovered a new favourite, one that occupies a rare and unusual position among Ford flicks: he’s not actually in it. The movie is Michelangelo Antonioni’s infamous flop Zabriskie Point (1970), and though Ford doesn’t feature in any truly tangible sense, for me his presence paradoxically loomed large, as I couldn’t help seeing striking, if possibly tenuous, parallels with his other movies, as outlined below…

Here but non-present

Admittedly, if you only see one Ford-less Ford film, it has to be Spielberg’s boy-meets-alien heartbreaker E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, where our man wound up on the cutting-room floor as Elliott’s headteacher, whose face is never actually seen. Whether you actually see any part of Ford in Zabriskie Point is a bone of contention. Some reports say he has a cameo as an airport worker, others that his scene was cut, but that he appears in the background of the jail scene as (per IMDb), ‘Arrested student (uncredited)’. My own carefully considered take on the matter is: damned if I know.

Irking girl

From Air Force One to the original Indiana Jones trilogy to The Expendables 3, high-altitude excitement is a fixture of the Ford oeuvre. In Zabriskie Point one of the key set-pieces sees our student drop-out hero Mark (Mark Frechette) casually nick a light aircraft and repeatedly buzz the car driven by our student about-to-drop-out heroine Daria (Daria Halprin) as she speeds across the Mojave Desert. It’s a meet-cute done in the style of the crop-duster scene from North By Northwest, and pretty extraordinary. True, no one starts a dogfight or leaps out of the plane on a life raft, but the mixture of peril and playfulness is pure Action Ford.

Temple of dunes

After putting the vehicular thrills behind them, Mark and Daria begin to forge a proper land-based connection, as they wander through the sands to Zabriskie Point in Death Valley National Park. The view’s stunning but there’s not an awful lot to do so they have sex, alongside several other couples who materialise out of nowhere. And as this utopian free-love orgy hits its freaky peak, I’m thinking, ‘Ooh, Death Valley - that’s where they shot bits of two other, somewhat more family-oriented Ford pictures, 1977’s Star Wars (as was) and 1983’s Return Of The Jedi!’ Then my enthusiasm darkens as I realise that next time I watch those movies, I won’t be able to shake my anxiety that R2 and C-3PO are about to have their circuits blown by the sight of row upon row of dusty bottoms.

Random parts

Talking of the top and tail of the Holy Trilogy, Zabriskie Point also ends with a mega-explosion, albeit one that goes on way longer than both Death Star conflagrations combined. Not only that, no miniatures were involved; the filmmakers rented a mansion, built a replica of it and then, to get their money’s worth, shot the detonation with 17 cameras.

Seemingly taking place in Daria’s mind’s eye, the explosion is repeated more times than I’ve rewound the Battle of Yavin. Then there’s the encore: all the worldly goods inside the mansion going boom in slow-mo - clothes racks, patio furniture, books, the telly, you name it - to the mellow sounds of Pink Floyd. Finally, Daria drives off into the sunset; a bit like the ending of Last Crusade, only with a box of Special K drifting across the screen.

Re-appraisers of the lost art

As noted, Zabriskie Point was a box-office bomb (budget: $7m; box office: a lot less than that); it was largely unloved by critics too, with Roger Ebert calling it “silly and stupid” and Pauline Kael (who went nuts for Antonioni’s international breakout L’Avventura) branding it “a huge, jerry-built, crumbling ruin of a movie”. Know what else Kael wasn’t a fan of? Blade Runner (“[it] has nothing to give the audience”), a Ford pic that weathered a commercial mauling and mixed reviews to become one of the star’s most beloved works, a sci-fi touchstone and the film you simply have to quote whenever you find yourself sitting in your pants on a rainy rooftop cupping a dove.

I’m not suggesting Zabriskie Point has experienced anything like the same level of reappreciation, but it does have much more of a cult-y reputation these days, and big-name supporters such as David Thomson (who hailed it as Antonioni’s “most beautiful inspection of loneliness”, despite leads “who simply could not act”), and Peter Bradshaw, who awarded five stars to this “countercultural adventure with something in common with Easy Rider and Bonnie And Clyde”.

I watched Zabriskie Point back to back with several other Antonionis - L’Avventura, L’Eclisse, La Notte, Red Desert - all of which are clearly superior (and star Monica Vitti, who simply can act, wonderfully) but none of which gave me quite the same trippy, unshakeable, what-did-I-just-watch feels as the Italian director’s sole venture fully produced and set in the US. I feel it deserves its place in the American New Wave pantheon, with special recognition for exemplifying the subset I’m labelling ‘1970s films that feature Harrison Ford in a minor (or indeed nonexistent) role alongside a bedazzling parade of Americana (American Graffiti), zeitgeist-nailing existential disillusionment (The Conversation), flames erupting to a stoner soundtrack (Apocalypse Now), or all of the above.’ (Matthew Leyland)

Sam Neill 1947-2026

Remembering an understated icon…

It’s sheer coincidence that Sam Neill’s most mainstream role – paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park (1993) – happens to be one that was originally earmarked for Harrison Ford, who turned down his old pal Steven Spielberg. But in hindsight, it’s impossible to imagine anyone else as the reluctant everyman hero in the game-changing blockbuster. For one thing, Ford’s star power would’ve wrestled with the real above-the-title stars – the visual and special effects bringing dinosaurs back to life in a way that was unlike anything seen before that point.

Not only was Neill believable as a serious brainbox, his character-actor chops grounded the sci-fi adventure, and he also had the grit to convince that he could handle himself – climbing electric fencing, escaping from a dangling 4x4, letting his paternal instincts kick in to protect the kids from the literal jaws of death – when things get stormy.

Few actors could headline the highest-grossing film of all time (up to that point) and not be defined by it, but upon the sad news of Neill’s death, there are so many other roles that worth celebrating and revisiting. From his spy in Andrzej Żuławski’s unhinged Possession (1981), to his tormented settler in Jane Campion’s The Piano (1993), haunted spaceship designer Billy Weir in Paul W.S. Anderson’s Event Horizon (1997) to gruff foster carer ‘Hec’ in Taika Waititi’s Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016), his versatility always seemed effortless.

It was also easy to underestimate that gift as he came across as such a down-to-earth bloke in reality, running a farm and a vineyard in his native New Zealand, and frequently sharing delightful videos of his animal exploits on social media. He’ll be greatly missed, and our thoughts are with his family and friends. (Matt Maytum)

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Plus, in our weekly Trailer Club, Denis Villeneuve’s scorching-looking Dune: Part Three leads our look at the biggest new movie promos of the week.

As ever, let us know if you end up watching anything good or bad this weekend, and we’ll see you again next week!

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Evil Dead Burn

⭐⭐⭐☆☆

18, in cinemas now

What makes an Evil Dead film an Evil Dead film these days? The requirements are slightly unclear, but it seems that as long as it involves accidental misuse of the Necronomicon, some gnarly gore and a camera whizzing through the woods, the conditions are met. Evil Dead Burn, the third Evil Dead film since the Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell trilogy, is once again pretty self-contained, but in its own unpretentious way it delivers on the franchise essentials effectively.

Keeping things simple works in its favour. Like the last film – the more intense (to a fault) Evil Dead Rise – it opens with a set-piece on a lake, though this one ties more satisfyingly into the rest of the film. A wince-inducing fishing mishap sets the squirmy tone before smash-cutting to a club scene (the two seemingly separate openers will be linked up before too long). In the club we meet the core characters of Burn, including Alice (Souheila Yacoub), who is married to Will (George Pullar). It’s Will’s death that sends Alice back to her in-laws’ run-down family pile where the Deadite curse closes in.

French director Sébastien Vaniček (Infested), who also co-writes with Florent Bernard, generously delivers on the gore, with a steady offering of inventively staged, gruesome moments. There’s occasionally a Final Destination-style glee in the way the roving camera will ominously pick out household objects (corkscrew, fountain pen, open dishwasher – pick your ick) that you just know are going to figure in some upcoming bodily harm. It adds a sense of mischief that makes Burn more fun than the relentlessly grim previous two films.

Vaniček also brings a little welcome levity with some well-deployed humour – be it a slurpy kiss that takes the awkwardness of seeing your parents snogging to a new extreme, or other moments of visual or verbal wit. It’s not as goofy as the height of the Raimi movies (which get an obligatory but fun nod here), and it’s not like it’s straining to be a comedy, but it just makes it more of an all-round enjoyable night out at the pictures.

Some economical casting works well too, considering there are no ‘names’ of note in the cast. Yacoub makes a gutsy lead, while Tandi Wright and Errol Shand (a decent ‘own brand’ alternative to Joan Allen and Jackie Earle Haley) give the parents-in-law an unwelcoming intensity. Hunter Doohan (Wednesday) and Luciane Buchanan also understand the assignment, and bring some gusto as Will’s brother and almost sister-in-law. Anton Yelchin lookalike Doohan in particular is a wimpy delight.

OK, so it doesn’t reinvent the wheel, nor does it give off a sense of staying power that’ll make a future rewatch favourite, and it loses a little bit of its momentum when the burn of the title comes to the fore in the final stretch. But, if you’re in the mood for whatever an Evil Dead film entails, Vaniček’s sixth installment does things by the book (of the dead) and hits the spot. (Matt Maytum)

IN SHORT Unexpectedly punching above its weight, Evil Dead Burn enjoyably grafts the franchise formula onto a satisfying new scenario.

STAY FOR THE END CREDITS? Yes – not only is there a mid-credits scene, but you also need to stay till the very end for a crucial revelation.

NEW ZEAL Despite the US setting, Burn was actually filmed in the home of Middle-earth, New Zealand.

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Moana

⭐⭐☆☆☆

PG, in cinemas now

At this point, most people have already established their feelings on live-action remakes of animated films, but Moana is both the most unerringly faithful one yet and has had the quickest turnaround time to date, making it the most pointless. As with many of these endeavours, there’s only so bad the film can be when it so slavishly adheres to a template that’s been proven to work. And, like some previous live-action remakes, it also has a cracking songbook to reprise, which also works in its favour.

But watching a film you’ve already seen before – and if you have kids in the target age range for 2016’s Moana, you may have seen it many times already – is actually just a bit boring. Any peril is gone, and the uncanny, AI-adjacent effect of this one is such that it even has you questioning how good the original film actually was. With the live-action but very greenscreen-feeling treatment holding you at a remove, your brain is free to consider how episodic the film is, and how its personification of the ocean seems to follow no particular rules (it gives Moana far too much help, except when the plot needs it not to).

In the title role, newcomer Catherine Laga’aia is cheerily likeable and has a great singing voice, but she doesn’t have quite the same level of star power that leads Halle Bailey and Rachel Zegler harnessed to lift The Little Mermaid and Snow White. It’s slightly baffling that they didn’t just bring back original voice actor Auliʻi Cravalho, as it wouldn’t materially impact the story to have a Moana in her mid-20s, especially as Dwayne Johnson is back as Maui — a move that never quite convinces. His angular face is too famous, and never works in harmony with the glossy wig he’s lumbered with (you keep half-expecting Maui to do a to-camera Timotei ad, a la Wayne’s World).

Also back is Jemaine Clement as bejewelled crab Tamatoa in a sequence that’s so similar to what played out before, you wonder why the Flight of the Conchords star even bothered to re-record his lines. The designs of Tamatoa and Moana’s pets are so similar to their animated counterparts that you’ll further question the point of this film’s existence. It’s unusual to reach this point of a review without having mentioned the director, but it’s hard to really grasp what Thomas Kail’s input would’ve been here, besides painstaking recreating scenes from a pre-established master copy.

If you haven’t seen the original in a while, and you’re going with kids who might get a kick out it, Moana might just about pass muster. But after one novelty glimpse, there’s no way you’d ever choose to revisit this over the animated film. What lingers is a slightly grubby feeling of having participated in a shameless commercial exercise that would besmirch the franchise, were it not likely to be forgotten so quickly. You’re welcome? What have we done to deserve this… (Matt Maytum)

STAY FOR THE END CREDITS One of the only things about the film that is legitimately new is an additional song that plays over the credits.

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Life Support

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

15, in cinemas now

“[Gaza] is an impossible place to enter and exit,” we’re told in Daniele Rugo’s brutal but vital documentary. There has been access, however, for international doctors, a group of whom shares here their experiences of working alongside their equally heroic local counterparts from 2023 to 2025 in hospitals overwhelmed by casualties of the Israel-Gaza war. Minimising captions and eschewing narration, Rugo defers to his interviewees, whose frank testimonies are captured in a no-frills but fluent mix of talking-head segments, iPhone video diaries and on-the-ground footage (used sparingly enough to make the necessary point but avoid charges of exploitation).

Three key players stand out: paediatric intensive care doctor Tanya Haj Hassan, gastrointestinal surgeon Nick Maynard and plastic surgeon Victoria Rose. Hard as it is to believe, the unrelenting trauma they lucidly recount steps up another notch as all three assert - repeatedly, and with utter conviction - that the targeting of hospitals, schools and other civilian spaces, alongside restrictions on supplies from antibiotics to baby formula, amounts to gross dehumanisation. Needless to say, this is a harrowing watch, but with first-hand reportage of the conflict so scarce, its insights are invaluable. (Matthew Leyland)

A-LIST SUPPORT Notable names among the film’s executive producers include Asif Kapadia, Susan Sarandon, Melissa Barrera and Paul Weller. The latter is also set to feature on an upcoming tie-in album curated by Massive Attack’s Robert Del Naja, who composed the movie’s score.

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Shoot The People

⭐⭐⭐☆☆

12A, in cinemas now

Nigerian-born British artist Misan Harriman is the first Black photographer to shoot the cover of Vogue’s iconic September issue. He’s also a filmmaker whose debut short The After (starring David Oyelowo) was Oscar-nominated in 2024. These achievements - and more - are highlighted by Andy Mundy-Castle’s docu-portrait, but it’s Harriman’s activism, and the protest movements he documents through his lens, that really drive the film’s narrative. “[Only] 10 percent of my time is taking photos,” he says; we see him not in the dark room but out on the streets, engaging with other activists on multiple continents.

This global scope stresses the border-erasing solidarity fuelling the fight for social justice; on the other hand, at 93 minutes, the film rattles at somewhat head-spinning speed from London to South Africa to the Oscars and beyond. Still, within that whistle-stop tour there is space for some incisive self-reflection, as Harriman wrestles with notions of doubt, privilege and responsibility. Meanwhile, there is rousing footage of the annual George Floyd memorial, and quietly moving interviews with Martin Luther King Jr III (son of the civil rights leader) and David Meyer-Gollam. The latter is the custodian of the work of Harriman’s hero, anti-apartheid activist-photographer Peter Magubane, a quote from whom serves as guiding principle for both the movie and its subject: “A struggle without documentation is no struggle at all.” (Matthew Leyland)

STAY FOR THE END CREDITS? Oddly for a film about a photographer, there are no work samples adorning the credits (you do get plenty in the main feature, mind); but Marshall Music’s song ‘Shoot The People’ rounds off a quality soundtrack led by Nik Ammar’s delicate score.

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Amores Perros

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

18, on MUBI now

Reissued in 4K for its 25th anniversary (with new sound FX and foley work), Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s name-making debut has lost little of its bite. Aside from the chunkiness of the mobile phones and the odd glimpse of a Blockbuster Video, its age scarcely registers; it still crackles with energy and jeopardy, and the infamous dog-fighting scenes remain stomach-churning, despite being deftly edited to suggest more than they show.

The canine carnage features most heavily in the first of this Mexico City-set epic’s three interconnected stories, ‘Octavio y Susana’, wherein breakout star Gael García Bernal falls for his brother’s wife (Vanessa Bauche), attempting to woo her with winnings from rottweiler Cofi’s savage victories. It’s both a relief as well as a comedown when Iñárritu and writer Guillermo Arriaga roll on to the remaining segments, ‘Daniel y Valeria’ and ‘El Chivo y Maru’. Neither quite matches the raw, nerve-fraying power of the opener, but both have their pleasures, from the farcical, increasingly dark laughs of maimed model Valeria’s (Goya Toledo) attempts to rescue her runaway pet, to Emilio Echevarria’s sad-eyed performance, which reinvigorates that noir staple, the hitman with a past.

Amores Perros was the first in Iñárritu/Arriga’s so-called Death Trilogy; concluding parts 21 Grams (2003) and Babel (2006) are bigger, slicker and starrier, but have faded over the years where their forebear has retained its brash glare. (Matthew Leyland)

PETS WIN PRIZES Amores Perros lost to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in the Oscar race for Best Foreign Language Film, but came up trumps in the equivalent category at the BAFTAs.

Trailer Club

Sun, sand and - wait a minute - sea?! Clearly, a lot has (climate) changed since our last visit to Arrakis. Indeed, Dune: Part Three is set nearly two decades on from 2024’s Part Two; Emperor Paul (Timothée Chalamet) has conquered and/or torn up most of the universe but lost his moral compass in the process: “You’re way beyond redemption,” declares Jason Momoa’s new/old character Hayt (readers of source novel Dune: Messiah will know what that’s all about). The latest trailer for Denis Villeneuve’s trilogy-closer features plenty of Chani (Zendaya), Irulan (Florence Pugh) and ‘face-dancing’ foe Scytale (Robert Pattinson), but surprisingly little of Paul’s sister Alia (Anya Taylor-Joy). Although amid all the war and galactic scheming there is a standout shot of her - blood-soaked and screaming - that suggests she’ll be right in the thick of the drama. Expect a lot more blood and yelling when the movie opens on 18 December (still Dunes-day - looks like neither Warner or Marvel are budging).

• The second teaser for Godzilla Minus Zero is even shorter than the first, but still conjures a sense of apocalyptic threat…

• Now rebooted as a digital release, long-delayed M3GAN spin-off SOULM8TE gets a trailer that makes the sci-rom-horror look like a cross between Companion and Obsession…

• From the director of Plane comes the ship-set Mutiny, which looks every inch the Jason Statham vehicle…

• Reclusive novelist Bill Nighy confronts mortality and his fatherly failings in & Sons, co-starring Johnny Flynn, George MacKay, Imelda Staunton, Dominic West and Noah Jupe…

• Something for Oasis fans to look forward to: story-of-the-comeback doc Don’t Look Back In Anger…

• Don’t plan a vacation in September; Terminator 2: Judgment Day is being re-released for its 35th anniversary in 4K and RealD 3D. We order you to go!

• Teacher Saoirse Ronan takes student discipline to a darkly comic new level in the trailer for Bad Apples…

• There’s plenty of geezer-y swagger and Guy Ritchie staples in the first teaser for The Gentlemen S2…

Have you ever been to a premiere? Let us know by hitting the comments section, and feel free to forward this email to a VIP in your life who you think might enjoy it, and they can sign up for all future editions for free.

We’re back on Friday with a bunch of fresh reviews, including our verdicts on the live-action Moana and the latest new leaf for the Necronomicon, Evil Dead Burn. See you then!

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What it’s like to really attend a film premiere

Matt shares what it’s like to attend a red carpet screening…

Throughout my career as a film journalist, I’ve been lucky enough to be invited to several film premieres in London. Sometimes critics and writers are invited to premieres because it’s the earliest or most convenient time to see the film for a review. Other times you might get an invite because you’ve previously covered the film, or because you have a pre-existing relationship that earns you an invite. Whatever the case, it’s always nice to be considered, especially if you’re someone who grew up gawping at the huge-scale Leicester Square premieres from the other side of the barriers.

Now, to get the jaded cynicism out of the way first thing. Many seasoned film critics will at one point or another have bemoaned the fact that premieres often start late on account of the red-carpet obligations of the attending talent. For the professional who has to file a review to an inflexible deadline, it can lead to the grumbles of the ‘my diamond shoes are too tight’ variety. But in most cases – and especially when it’s a film you’re genuinely enthused about – a premiere adds a bit of rock concert atmosphere to the cinemagoing experience. Such was the case with the world premiere of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, which took place in London on Monday.

After collecting your tickets from a nearby hotel, you generally head to the wrong entrance to the red carpet before security guards direct you back past the Greggs and M&M’s store to the right way in. There are always various security hurdles to clear – sniffer dogs, bag checks, patdowns, the full airport treatment – before you get to the red carpet.

The carpets (not always red these days – The Odyssey was sandy) can be pretty impressive set-ups in their own right. On Monday there was a HUGE Trojan horse and some impressive video screens providing a watery backdrop. Sometimes it’s a much simpler affair, sometimes it’s something completely out of keeping with the film. Perhaps the biggest inverse proportion of carpet scale to film quality I’ve experienced was at The Thursday Murder Club, which transformed Leicester Square into the grounds of the lavish retirement home where the film is set. It was immersive, memorable and well thought out… everything the film wasn’t.

If you’re lucky, you might hit the carpet just as one of your favourite filmmakers or stars arrives (you’ll know from the deafening screams before you actually spot on anyone), but there’s never much time to loiter/take it all in/pretend to be an A-lister, as unsmiling security guards will try to get you into the cinema as soon as possible.

Influencers and content creators usually have access to a separate line for ‘photo opps’, but if you’re a common or garden guest, you’ll generally be ushered to your allocated seat, while on screen footage plays from the talent interviews that are being hosted outside (often this footage is streamed online too). As you’re just about to watch the film, sometimes you have to brace yourself for the spoiler position (fingers in ears, head down) as you’re bombarded with clips and over-excitable talent risk potentially spill too many beans. Stars rocking up at premieres can be spoilers unto themselves on occasion (we’re looking at you, Marvel cameo-ers).

Another perk of premieres is that you’re generally given popcorn and drinks – sometimes even champagne, if it’s a really fancy shindig – to enjoy while you wait. And wait you do sometimes have to, as the stars complete their interviews, greet fans, and pose for photos in various groups, like a wedding party. If you’re attending a Tom Cruise premiere, be sure to check what time your last train home is, as the Cruiser is notorious for going above and beyond on the signings and selfies front.

Before the film kicks off, the talent are usually paraded on stage (it was particularly busy for The Odyssey given how stacked the cast is) – often they’ll grab mics for an intro or mini Q&A, but sometimes it is more of a ‘look at these famouses’ deal. They’ll inevitably have at least one person in the auditorium screaming that they love them, or occasionally asking them to whip their top off (hat tip to Henry Cavill for handling that one with dignity).

Then the film itself is much the same as any cinema screening, although the audience tends to be on their best behaviour, and there’s usually clapping at the beginning and end. Sometimes there’s the added frisson of the talent staying to watch the film, or occasionally there’ll be an unexpected guest so famous that it completely rearranges the molecules of the auditorium, eg. Tom Cruise (him again) popping in to support Glen Powell at Twisters, or Pedro Pascal rocking up to Thunderbolts.

So that’s the premiere experience in a nutshell. What often happens if the premiere takes place early (London was the first stop on The Odyssey’s global tour) is that you’ll see the film at a time where social media reactions are allowed and welcomed (it’s rare they’re ever held back after the first premiere), while full reviews are still embargoed. It’s a bit of a grey area, especially in this age of extended video reaction, but it basically means no formal reviews in print or on website review sections, and no star ratings. If you want to know my initial reaction, check out my post on the social media platform formally known as Twitter. (Matt Maytum)

The Odyssey opens on 17 July and will be reviewed in a future edition of The Movie Wingman.

We’ve also rounded up the biggest new trailers of the week, including Robert Eggers’ latest period horror, the spellcheck-bothering Werwulf.

Let us know what you see this week - and if you want to see us gibbering with joy, hit those like, restack and comment buttons. Till next time!

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The Invite

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

15, in cinemas now

If it weren’t for references to podcasts, cortisol and kids’ sleepover etiquette, you could almost think that The Invite was set in the 70s, and not only because Olivia Wilde’s latest directing gig is the kind of adult-comedy chamberpiece we don’t see so often in cinemas these days. It’s also there from the start in the period grain in the visuals, and the split-screen collage that tracks Angela (Wilde) as she does a deli raid around San Francisco ahead of an impromptu dinner party with the upstairs neighbours. The retro stylings are part and parcel of the spiky fun, which should have its intended audience wavering between howls of laughter and groans of recognition.

Adapted from the Spanish-language The People Upstairs (2020), Will McCormack and Rashida Jones’ script establishes character and ambience near instantaneously, but drip-feeds revelations in a way that keeps the one-location narrative engaging and frisky. Also helping to get things moving quickly is the starry quartet who aren’t playing characters a million miles away from their public personas. Wilde is the smart, sociable but slightly overlooked Angela, who’s married to a music teacher (and former one-hit wonder rock star) Joe, played with grouchy, straight-talking brusqueness by Seth Rogen. The upstairs neighbours – whom Angela invites without Joe being entirely on board – are exotic psychotherapist and sexologist Pina (that’s Penélope Cruz, going full bombshell) and her slightly smarmy and pretentious partner Hawk (Edward Norton).

Falling squarely into the dinner-party-drama subgenre, the presence of Pina and Hawk increases the pressure on Angela and Joe’s already fractured marriage (their unseen daughter is staying away for the night), which is already amply demonstrated in a pingponging barney before the guests arrive. Burnt soufflé and a lack of wine are among touchpapers for deeper personal issues that’ll be raked over across the course of the evening. If you don’t know much about the plot – and haven’t seen the Spanish original - it’s advisable to go in cold, just to get the most out of the revelations, though it’s clear from the off that Joe’s disgruntlement with the other couple’s loud sex noises – which he wants to bring up with them – is going to figure centrally.

As a director, Wilde makes smart use of the apartment space, from the framing of characters in windows and mirrors, to a strong sense of spatial clarity that allows the home to feel claustrophobic and expansive as needed. Other choices too – like the aforementioned grain to the cinematography – feel intentional and controlled. The soundtrack’s sharp, abrasive strings and the playful editing are among the many elements that feel like they’re gelling together harmoniously. The film opens with an epigram from Wilde’s (stage)namesake, and lives up to it: yes, it’s almost as fleeting, but equally witty, insightful and piquant. (Matt Maytum)

IN SHORT This star-led dinner-party dramedy is as tasty as a cheese and charcuterie board, and reaffirms Olivia Wilde’s skills as a director. Well worth RSVPing.

STAY FOR THE END CREDITS? There’s nothing more to see here, though there is a sweet dedication to Diane Keaton. “Her DNA is all over this movie,” Wilde has said.

ANYONE FOR SAUSAGE? Seth Rogen and Edward Norton previously co-starred in raunchy animation Sausage Party.

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Minions & Monsters

⭐⭐⭐☆☆

PG, in cinemas now

Generally speaking, the Minions are not here to teach us anything - unless it’s how to spin box-office gold out of burbling and bum-baring for years on end. But in the capsule-shaped critters’ third caper (and seventh overall in the Despicable Me franchise), we receive an affectionate, if somewhat heavily revisionist, lesson in film history, from Metropolis to The Matrix. True, virtually every nod and homage is hijacked by farty mayhem, but there’s a genuine charm in seeing the Minions share the screen with animated caricatures of their slapstick ancestors, from Chaplin to the Keystone Cops, as they inadvertently take Hollywood by storm in the alt-1920s.

A big turning point comes with the introduction of sound, which pulls the plug on our incomprehensible heroes’ A-list careers. Two of the tribe - James and Henry - aren’t ready to give up their Oscar dreams, while the rest (led by the well-named Dick) toddle off in search of an evil master to serve. Suddenly the era-pastiche dial flips to the 1950s: as Dick and co fall in behind bucket-headed, would-be-world-conquering robot Dort (voiced by Jesse Eisenberg), James and Henry are duped into unleashing actual monsters, including the Blob-like Irene, that are more interested in causing carnage than making movies.

Directed and co-scripted by series veteran Pierre Coffin (who as ever voices all the Minions), this is a welcome re-energising of the franchise after the aimless Despicable Me 4. The less-disciplined second half bites off more than it can chew (we don’t really need a subplot centred on Dort’s love life), while James and Henry’s devotion to storytelling is sweetly sincere, but falls well short of Pixar-like pathos. But the gags keep coming like a runaway train, loud and gloriously unsubtle. M&M is Babylon for kids - and heaven for parents after something that’ll keep the moppets tightly in its colourful, chaotic grasp. (Matthew Leyland)

STAY FOR THE END CREDITS? There’s an early flurry of meta-gags and cameos, but then it’s safe to make for the exit.

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My Father’s Island

⭐⭐⭐☆☆

15, in cinemas now

When Tom (Swann Arlaud) and his estranged 13-year-old son Roy (Woody Norman) arrive at their cabin on the remote island where they are to spend a year rebuilding their relationship, omens abound: a torn ‘Home’ doormat, a large animal skull, guns and knives within easy reach… Still, at least there’s a nice big jigsaw to keep them busy; and Roy’s mounting reservations start to recede when he takes charge during one medical crisis. However, with winter ushering in even greater physical and mental trials, it becomes clear that Dad perhaps should’ve finished reading How To Survive Anything BEFORE they set off…

Based on author David Vann’s semi-autobiographical novella Sukkwan Island (the movie’s title in international territories), Vladimir de Fontenay’s (2017’s Mobile Homes) survival drama wobbles bemusingly between rugged immersion and nagging implausibility. The good news is that the latter is sorted out by a climactic bombshell that answers several questions - not least, why is mum Elizabeth (Tuppence Middleton) surprisingly cool about her son spending 12 months in isolation with the ex-partner whose loose grip on responsibility she’s all too familiar with?

The bad news, though, is that the big, rather abrupt reveal feels parachuted in from a lesser Shyamalan movie, jolting us out of our investment in the story and denying us satisfying closure. At least it doesn’t detract too seriously from the authenticity of the performances, with the touchingly eager-to-bond Norman and charming but brittle Arlaud smoothly navigating their volatile dynamic as it sways from affectionate to antagonistic and back again (at times it’s like a sub-zero Mosquito Coast). The MVP, though, is DoP Amine Berrada, capturing the setting - somewhere deep in the Norwegian fjords - in all its raw beauty and treachery. You’ll feel the cold in your bones - but a dip in those crystal-clear waters does look oh-so-tempting. (Matthew Leyland)

WHERE HAVE I SEEN…? Swann Arlaud is perhaps best known as the lawyer in the Oscar-nommed Anatomy of a Fall, while Brit actor Woody Norman made his breakout in 2021’s C’mon C’mon.

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Enola Holmes 3

⭐⭐⭐☆☆

12, streaming on Netflix now

A decade or so ago, Sherlock Holmes was everywhere, played by Robert Downey Jr. in Guy Ritchie’s period films and Benedict Cumberbatch in the present-day TV series. Now it’s only Netflix’s surprisingly durable Enola Holmes films that are keeping the Arthur Conan Doyle flag flying, with Henry Cavill in a supporting role as the super-sleuth, and Millie Bobby Brown leading as his similarly skilled kid sister.

Part Three continues the franchise likeably enough. Like the previous sequel, Enola Holmes 3 doesn’t quite clear the bar set by the first, and for all the star power (alongside Brown and Cavill, Helena Bonham Carter and Himesh Patel return), it feels more comfortable as a premium telly event than it would on the big screen. But, chalking up the positives, the title character still fits Brown as snugly as a corset, giving her easily her best role outside of the star-making Stranger Things. As her love interest – and fiancé; EH3 starts in medias res with a runaway bride situation – Louis Partridge remains earnestly likeable as Tewkesbury, and Sharon Duncan-Brewster brings some caustic menace to this universe’s Moriarty.

It takes place in Malta (a rare film in which the much-filmed-in island nation features as itself), which sets it apart from the previous films and does provide a suitably cinematic backdrop. What keeps the film from ever breaking the three-star ceiling is a central mystery that’s not nearly as satisfying as the best Holmes stories, and fight scenes that are only a mild improvement on EH2’s low-impact fisticuffs. While series regular Jack Thorne returns on script duties, joining the franchise for the first time is Thorne’s Adolescence collaborator Philip Barantini, whose directing largely sticks with the peppy house style, and keeps things one notch above anonymous. Now, if he fancies doing a one-shot Enola mystery next, the game might really be afoot… (Matt Maytum)

SOURCE MATERIAL There are 10 books in Nancy Springer’s Enola Holmes series, so there’s potential for the films to run and run, though this film resolves with enough sense of finality that they could call it quits here if they wish to.

Trailer Club

The latest grimily authentic gothic horror from Robert Eggers looks set to do for werewolves what Nosferatu did for utter Counts (and what The Northman did for vikings, and so on…). Nobody has a name in this movie (apart from a dog, according to Eggers), so Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays a character simply known as ‘the cursed farmer’ inside of whom there’s seemingly at least one wolf threatening to come roaring out. The trailer is thick with atmosphere, and several reminders of Nosferatu permeate, from gnarly vocal intonations and almost monochrome photography, to the presence of Taylor-Johnson, Lily-Rose Depp and Willem Dafoe, and a title monster that’s being kept under wraps for now. Will Eggers have another five-star banger on his hands with Werwulf? We’ll find out when it hits UK cinemas on 1 January (after opening in the US on Christmas Day).

• Illumination is already gearing up for its next animated feature poster-Minions. The Not Alone trailer defies teaser expectations - at 2m45s its pretty long for a first teaser, and mostly focuses on one Bowie-soundtracked scene, before its jellybean-shaped aliens make a last minute appearance…

• Another week, another Wildwood teaser, this one a featurette showing off the behind-the-scenes stop-motion wizardry bringing this fantasy to life…

• Here’s a brief look at anime miniseries Star Wars: Visions Presents The Ninth Jedi, with a full trailer dropping shortly…

• There are chemistry lessons aplenty in the first look at Prime Video romcom The Love Hypothesis, which is based on a novel that bizarrely began life as a ‘Reylo’ (Rey and Kylo) fan-fiction…

• The trailer for Eli Roth’s heatwave-friendly horror Ice Cream Man plays like The Faculty meets Weapons on a sunny afternoon…

• If the intensity of the trailer is anything to go by, Colony - the new zombie actioner from Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho - goes very hard…

• The true story of the aftermath of the deadliest terrorist attack in the UK is the subject of Netflix miniseries The Bombing of Pan Am 103…

• Mahershala Ali appears to be on a rampage of revenge in the moody teaser for Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, which helpful spells out the rationale behind that memorable title…

• The hype train boat for The Odyssey continues to row at maximum pace, with a countdown trailer and an IMAX featurette to tide you over till the imminent release…

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If you’ve got any thoughts on the matter feel free to drop them in the comments – we always welcome your input as much as the likes, restacks and subscribes that sustain us. We’ll return to your inbox on Friday, with reviews of Minions & Monsters, The Invite and more – see you then!

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Box-office Kryptonite

How Supergirl’s box-office failure became a self-fulfilling prophecy

Someone get Kara Zor-El under a yellow sun, stat. The DCU newest hero is in ill health after a poor opening weekend for her debut solo film, Supergirl. The second movie in the relatively new DCU opened to just $37.1m in the US, with a worldwide total of $67.1m. Those figures aren’t super for a film with a reported production budget of $170m, and the trades are predicting that the film could end up losing studio Warner Bros. somewhere in the region of $80-100m, once its substantial marketing costs are factored in.

It’s a shame. As Matthew outlined in his review last week – it’s perfectly decent. OK, so it doesn’t warrant more than faint praise, but Milly Alcock made for an extremely engaging lead, and it was competently handled and fairly funny. It certainly doesn’t feel like it deserved to earn less than Morbius in its opening weekend. It now also has the ignominy of being a rare film based on DC Comics to not open at no. 1 in the US (other members of the club include Catwoman, Jonah Hex and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace).

There’s often a sense of self-fulfiling prophecy around the way box-office figures are reported these days. Even from the early tracking estimates, through to the immediate post-mortems on the opening weekend, a film like Supergirl is condemned before it has a chance to build any momentum. This creates a reverse halo effect that scuppers any chance a film might have of an upwards flight path – negative box-office headlines add a stink to the film, and the predictions of huge losses certify it as a failure in advance, meaning that on-the-fence potential customers are even less likely to check it out.

Perhaps the most damning element of the Supergirl fallout was that DC Studios co-chairman and co-CEO Peter Safran (who oversees the DCU with James Gunn) gave a statement to the New York Times, saying, “While Supergirl didn’t meet our box-office expectations, it’s just one component of a broader, long-term strategy at DC Studios that we remain confident in.” It reads like acceptance of defeat three days into Supergirl’s theatrical run.

It’s hard to know what the solution is in the era of instant news, and the emphasis the industry still puts on a film’s opening weekend, but there has to be a way of giving films a fighting chance.

Over the past couple of months, the success of Curry Barker’s Obsession, which posted unheard-of increases in its box-office take from weekend to weekend, defied decades of received wisdom, upending the idea that the best a film could hope for was a relatively small percentage drop from one weekend to the next. Barker’s zeitgeisty horror is on track to be one of the most profitable films of all time (versus its extremely lean budget), so it could suggest a new industry paradigm.

It’s also notable that Supergirl came second to Toy Story 5’s second weekend, with the animated fivequel on track to be one of the biggest films of the year. The most bankable movies for cinemas these days are the polarised likes of low-budget horror and expensive, IP-led family films (Minions & Monsters should also prove the latter’s bankability when it bounds into cinemas on wide release this weekend).

The superhero movie is not yet out for the count. Spider-Man: Brand New Day seems destined to be huge this summer, and it could also start the hype train for Avengers: Doomsday later in the year. But gone are the days when superheroes had the Midas touch, and characters like Aquaman and Captain Marvel could take a billion at the box-office without breaking a sweat. And there’s hope for DC Studios next film this year – with its horror trappings, a neat concept and stripped-back budget (and expectations), Clayface could end up being the dark horse the DCU needs this year.

And in 2028, the studio will release double-Robin animated film Dynamic Duo, which promises groundbreaking visuals comparable to the Spider-Verse films, if the first reactions out of the Annecy International Animation Film Festival are anything to go by. So even if standalone superhero films are no longer bulletproof, DC Studios is exploring avenues that could still see it resonating in cinemas. (Matt Maytum)

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And as ever, we’ve rounded up the biggest new trailers of the week, including Taika Waititi’s Kazuo Ishiguro adaptation, Klara and the Sun.

As ever, tell us what you end up watching this week, and if you want to feel like a superhero, hit those like, restack and comment buttons. We’ll see you again next week!

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Supergirl

⭐⭐⭐☆☆

12A, in cinemas now

We first met Milly Alcock’s Kara Zor-El - aka Supergirl - when she gatecrashed her cousin’s movie last summer. Here, Superman (David Corenswet) returns the favour, delivering the Kal-El cameo that the makers of 1984’s Supergirl couldn’t wrangle, with Christopher Reeve appearing only as a bedroom poster. The contrast with Jeannot Szwarc’s cult-ish spin-off doesn’t end there. That film was camp and colourful; this one’s more cool and muted (murky, even). Helen Slater’s eyes were full of wonder at everything from bunny rabbits to bras; Milly Alcock’s are hidden behind outsized sunglasses as she nurses a(nother) hangover.

More comfy in a Blondie t-shirt than her signature spandex, this Kara disses her cousin’s dress sense as well as his idealism (“He sees the good in everyone; I see the truth”), uses her laser vision as an interrogation tool and has endured enough loss to know that murderous revenge won’t erase the pain of Ruthye (Eve Ridley), the sword-brandishing orphan who asks Kara to join her galaxy-spanning hunt for her family’s killer, vicious brigand Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts), whose deadly poisoning of Super-dog Krypto is what finally spurs our hero into action.

Making good (but not ‘nice’, as the film is keen to establish) on her sparky, spiky Superman cameo, Alcock invests Kara with a witty, disruptive, street-smart-but-soulful vibe that makes her stand out from the crowd. Shame, then, that the same can’t be said of Craig Gillespie’s (I, Tonya, Cruella) film. Penned by Ana Nogueira, the screenplay is a fairly faithful adaptation of the eight-issue Woman of Tomorrow saga, yet tonally and stylistically owes more to the Mad Max and Guardians of the Galaxy series (the latter, of course, masterminded by DC Studios’ presiding auteur, James Gunn, whose hip-slash-snarky brand of humour leaves its imprint here)

Gone is Ruthye’s narration; too wordy maybe for a summer tentpole, yet a little of its consciously highfalutin literary flavour - inspired, like the basic plot, by True Grit - might have offset some of the comic-book-movie cliches that run particularly rampant in the final act (Exhibit A: giant object plummeting from the sky; Exhibit B: Snyder-ian slow-mo scrapping). The episodic nature of Kara and Ruthye’s cosmic whistlestop tour worked more elegantly in the serialised source material - which didn’t, incidentally, feature a string of lairy but narratively inessential pop-ins from fan-favourite bounty hunter Lobo (a gleefully amoral, cigar-chomping Jason Momoa).

Meanwhile, thanks to a less expansive timeline, Krem’s arc is resolved in a more generic fashion than in the original - fitting, perhaps, for a baddie with few distinguishing features beyond Schoenaerts’ pitiless grin and rows of facial studs that look like Pinhead after a literal hammering. The growing bond and mutual understanding between Kara and Ruthye loses a good deal of its depth and nuance here too; but at least some of its emotion is redirected into flashback scenes exploring Kara’s early years in Argo City, which offer a refreshing jolt of straight drama and a fresh perspective on the oft-told tale of how Krypton came a cropper.

We also rewind to the amusingly awkward beginnings of Supergirl and her Kansas-raised cousin’s relationship, where the buoyant chemistry reminds us that, whatever its flaws, this latest iteration of the DC universe has been built on rock-solid casting, and there’s time yet for it to soar. (Matthew Leyland)

IN SHORT A lively but mostly frictionless time-passer that leans more on other comic-book flicks than its own rich source material. But Alcock fully seizes the day as the Woman of Tomorrow and Krypto is as irrepressibly cute as ever.

STAY FOR THE END CREDITS? Pleasingly/disappointingly (delete according to taste), the movie ends where it ends, no stings to hang around for.

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Blue Heron

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

12A, in cinemas now

Blue Heron is one of those films caught in an awkward bind – it’s a fascinating film to go into cold, ready to discover as it unfolds, but it’s also the kind of low-budget, non-mainstream outlier that needs reviews and word of mouth to help it find an audience amid more multiplex-friendly competition.

It brings to mind Charlotte Wells’ scorching 2022 debut Aftersun in its semi-autobiographical blend of fact and fiction, and its interrogation of the frailty of memory. While not quite in the league of that instant classic, Sophy Romvari’s Blue Heron is subtle and affecting, and manages to be consistently gripping despite keeping much of the story’s ‘action’ off-screen.

Like Aftersun, it offers a child’s-eye perspective on an extremely difficult family dynamic, as well as the perspective of the grown child looking back over the events: in this case it’s Sasha – played by Eylul Guven as an eight-year-old and Amy Zimmer as an adult documentary maker – trying to make sense of the troubling behaviour of her older brother Jeremy (Edik Beddoes), whose erratic behaviour (which is often dangerous and/or illegal) drives their parents (Iringó Réti, Ádám Tompa) to their wits’ ends.

It’s a slow-burner as you ease into the family set-up – they are Hungarian immigrants recently moved to Canada, and ‘father’ is not the biological dad of Jeremy – and most of the troubling incidents occur outside of Sasha’s (and our) line of sight. The camerawork, while not quite docudrama, frequently feels almost uncomfortably voyeuristic, like you’re peering in on private home-video footage. But when the film shifts gears in the second half, despite its cool demeanour, it delivers a couple of emotional blows that sting well beyond the credits. (Matt Maytum)

FESTIVAL FAVOURITE The film won awards in its native Canada at film festivals in Toronto and Vancouver.

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Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

15, in cinemas 3 July, with previews from 1 July

Don’t worry – you absolutely do not need to be familiar with the web series or the TV adaptation that precede this amusingly titled movie in order to get a kick out of it. It’s easy enough to fall into the rhythms of the lived-in chemistry between best mates, roommates and bandmates Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol, playing fictional versions of themselves. Beginning with an archive-footage flashback also helps newbies to acclimatise. Wannabe music stars Nirvanna’s big goal is to play the Rivoli, a bar in Toronto where they’re based. There’s a slight Flight of the Conchords vibe to this hapless duo, and Matt’s harebrained schemes to land them a modest gig test the friendship to its limits.

The screenplay is by Johnson and McCarrol, and the former also directs, bringing a homespun feel to the film, which has the pair followed by a lo-fi camera crew for reasons that are never really explained, and don’t need to be. But what really makes Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie pop is the contrast of the scruffy home-movie aesthetic with a truly ambitious and inventive story, and a sense of scale that belies what was presumably a pretty low budget. Early doors, there’s a vertiginous set-piece that’s both stomach-churning and side-splitting, and sets the tone for some of the wilder ground-level turns to come. To say more would rob the uninitiated of some of the biggest surprises that await, but even if you know the outlandish twist that happens early on, there’s still plenty to delight.

Reeking of future-favourite status, Nirvanna… will probably play well at home on repeat viewings, as it has an almost found-footage vibe that will work nicely on telly. But it really does go off with a crowd, so see it at the cinema if you can, and get in as a fan on the ground floor. To paraphrase Marty McFly, some people aren’t going to be ready for it yet, but cult-comedy appreciators are gonna love it. (Matt Maytum)

SMART(PHONE) GUYS Johnson previously directed and starred in BlackBerry, for which McCarrol provided the score.

Trailer Club

Taika Waititi’s first film since 2023’s (unfairly slated) Next Goal Wins has a slight Tim Burton feel to it, and not just because of the presence of Jenna Ortega as a discounted Artificial Friend. She’s Klara, an android purchased as a companion for Josie (Mia Tharia), though she doesn’t get the warmest welcome from Josie’s mum Chrissy (Amy Adams). Adapted from Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel of the same name, Klara and the Sun looks like a whimsical spin on A.I.: Artificial Intelligence and After Yang, or even a brighter reflection of previous Ishiguro adaptation Never Let Me Go. Find out if Klara and the Sun lives up those comparisons when it hits cinemas on 23 October.

• Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility gets another adaptation, this time starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and looking very Pride & Prejudice (2005)…

• The family curse hits the next generation in an extended trailer for Practical Magic 2…

• Jesse Eisenberg returns as writer and director with The Debut, a tale of community theatre starring Julianne Moore and Paul Giamatti…

• Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom finds our woolly hero in monster-movie mode in his latest big-screen outing…

• Less a trailer for Digger and more of a Tom Cruise showreel, this brief new look at Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s upcoming comedy drama should keep you going until the proper trailer drops on 13 July…

• Sitcom adaptations can go either way, but the first look at Ghosts: The Possession of Button House finds a nice parodic tone for its first teaser…

• After playing to rave reactions at Annecy International Animation Festival, here’s a new trailer for DreamWorks’ Forgotten Island, directed by the duo behind the superlative Puss in Boots: The Last Wish…

• Batman fans are well catered for this week, with new looks at three-part movie event Batman: Knightfall and Prime’s Batman: Caped Crusader S2…

• The remake of the anime that’s also had a live-action remake, The One Piece offers an excuse to get animated about treasure hunting again…

• Being a cat is “fucking great” in the crude, sweary new look at Ricky Gervais’ animated series, Alley Cats…

• The second trailer to riff on A.I.: Artificial Intelligence this week, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Sheep in the Box sees a couple adopt a robot version of their deceased child…

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We’re back on Friday with another review round-up, led by the brand-new Supergirl, award-winning drama Blue Heron and more, plus all the latest big trailers and teasers.

Thanks for your support, and if you’ve got a friend/colleague/cape-wearing cousin you think would enjoy flying with us, please forward this on and they can subscribe for free.

Up, up and away!

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Maiden Voyage: Supergirl ‘84

Making first contact with the yesterday’s Woman of Tomorrow…

In the summer of 1984, I was nine years old and fixated on all things superheroic, not least the Man of Steel. Yet perhaps because I was busy repeat-viewing Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom - week after week after week - I somehow missed seeing Supergirl at the cinema. And on home video. And on TV. With the new Milly Alcock version hitting the big screen this week, I finally pressed play on the Helen Slater Cousin of Steel original. Here are my main takeaways, together with the thoughts I might’ve had aged nine. To quote Faye Dunaway in the contemporary Making-Of, “Come back again to the innocence of childhood - and believe that a giiiirrrrl can fly!”

THE CAST

Middle-aged Me: Sticking closely to the template laid down by their Christopher Reeve trilogy, producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind again plumped for an unknown lead (Slater was a 19-year-old with no movie experience) and surrounded them with big-name actors to impress kids’ parents: Dunaway, Peters Cook and O’Toole, Mia Farrow (particularly short-changed). Alas, they collectively produce only about one-third of the gravitas mustered by Marlon Brando in a Mr. Whippy wig reading his lines off a Bacofoil bassinet.

That said, O’Toole’s Zaltar - a self-banishing wizard with a thing for knitwear (a bit Dumbledore in space, then) forges the strongest emotional rapport with Slater’s amiably wholesome Kara, while Dunaway hypno-stares and nostril-flares with the best of ‘em as witchy villain Selena. Unfair, then, that she and O’Toole both received Razzie noms, but I think I see the problem with Dunaway: camping it through the ceiling of her funhouse hide-out, she’s in the wrong DC movie, arriving 11 years too early for Joel Schumacher’s Bat-travaganzas. Ah, to have seen her lobbing possessed coconuts at Chris O’Donnell’s head…

Nine-year-old Me: No idea who any of these people are. Except for Jimmy Olsen [Marc McClure], who must be the biggest star in Hollywood because he’s in even more Super-movies than Superman.

THE SCREENPLAY

Middle-aged Me: Again sticking with the tried and tested, Supergirl offers a familiar tale of a good-looking alien who flees leaves their dying home (the ‘inner space’-situated Argo City) in a snug rocket-pod that plonks them on Earth, where they gain amazing abilities, become chums with Jimmy Olsen and a member of the Lane family (Lucy, Lois’ kid sister) and fights a baddie with distracting hair. But what the script by David Odell (who also penned The Dark Crystal and Masters of the Universe, and deserves an honorary Oscar for services to childhood-defining 80s IP) lacks in surprise it makes up for in juicy, pseudo-sciency gobbledegook (‘six-dimensional geometry’, ‘binary chute’, ‘omegahedron’) and the sort of logic leaps comic-book movies would be crucified for on Reddit nowadays.

Kara emerges from a lake suddenly wearing a tailored Super-costume, just because. She knows how to touch-type five minutes after landing on Earth, just because. With so many blockbusters bloated with over-explanation, this sort of take-things-at-face-value approach is oddly refreshing, if utterly random and bonkers.

Nine-year-old Me: Where, where, where is Superman?!? I completely ignored the bit where they said he’s off peacekeeping in some remote galactic hamlet. I want him to appear along with Batman, Bananaman and Hulk. I don’t know or care about rights issues; I’m nine.

THE ACTION, THE FX, THE PACE

Middle-aged Me: Pre-Supergirl, director Jeannot Szwarc helmed Jaws 2 (1978), where he followed the Spielbergian blueprint closely enough, yet served up a fish-finger sandwich rather than caviar. Here, though, he equals - very nearly surpasses, in fact - his forebears in one key aspect, the flying sequences. Kara’s aerial balletics offer some of the “elegance, grace and style” Szwarc was keen to inject as a point of difference from the Reeve movies. One of the biggest set-pieces, meanwhile, is a mixed bag: it’s an old-school delight to see a practical set being practically torn to shreds, but the runaway-bulldozer scene is so comically slow it couldn’t help but remind me of a certain Austin Powers moment…

Throughout Supergirl the pacing in general feels a little sluggish; maybe that’s what you get when you watch an action movie 42 years too late. Though nothing but nothing dates the film like an alarming pin-up in Lucy’s room of the prince formerly known as Andrew. (Incidentally, 1984 also saw Andrew named Twit of the Year - so there’s still one title he could hold a claim to…)

Nine-year-old Me: Wait, the green bog in the Phantom Zone was created out of toothpaste?!? Bleurgh, I’m going to vomit my toffee Poppets. Also, it wasn’t me who scuffed the dining room table, it was the invisible shadow monster.

THE OPENING/CLOSING CREDITS

Middle-aged Me: The Superman movies are famed for their bookends, and it turns out, to paraphrase Supergirl’s tagline, that adventure, as well as ostentatious typography, runs in the family. Here there’s a cunning new twist on 1978’s opener: instead of whooshing at you from the dead centre of the screen/outer space, the giant floating names waft in from the wings, alternating left and right, like we’re watching some kind of word-based celestial Wimbledon. Beefing up the majesty is Jerry Goldsmith’s hummable score, even if it does sound slightly like his Star Trek theme at a different warp speed.

The end credits, meanwhile, are next-level epic; lasting just shy of a full calendar year, they scroll leisurely towards the camera like an underpowered down escalator, with Argo City glowing in the background. Lower-placed names are difficult to read, but on the other hand it makes you feel like God going through his rolodex, a transcendent final takeaway no amount of Frosties product placement can erase.

Nine-year-old Me: Argo? Is that where they make the catalogues with all the toys, digital game watches and endless carriage clocks? (Matthew Leyland)

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Plus, we've rounded up the biggest trailers, including a substantial new look at Spider-Man: Brand New Day, an unsettling look at Shrek 5, and a lockdown-flashback-inducing look at The Last House.

Let us know what you end up watching this week, and if any of the trailers particularly tickle your fancy. We’ll see you again next week…

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Toy Story 5

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

PG, in cinemas now

Before you can get down to assessing the merits any new Toy Story film, it’s now customary to pay tribute to the ending of Toy Story 3, which was the Platonic ideal of trilogy conclusion, and nothing further was truly needed after that send-off. Got that? Now, with that business out of the way, we can actually look at Toy Story 5 for what it is: a warm, witty, well-structured escapade with familiar friends who still make for extremely good company.

It’s an improvement on the (still pretty decent, also not strictly necessary) Part 4 for several key reasons. Chief among them is that director and co-writer Andrew Stanton doesn’t even try to imbue Toy Story 5 with the sense of another ending. It’s just ‘the next Toy Story’, and feels more refreshing for it. This instalment finally addresses what happens when tech enters the playroom, as Bonnie (Scarlett Spears) – who is now eight years old – gets a Lilypad tablet to keep up with her peers. It’s a smart thematic choice, and one that’ll further freak out parents who are already anxious about their kids’ screentime.

TS5 also improves on its predecessor by having Woody (Tom Hanks) return rather casually – apparently he took a walkie talkie with him when he seemingly left for good at the end of the fourth (in a character development that never rang true). It also understands that an essential ingredient of a Toy Story movie is a box-fresh Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) who doesn’t realise he’s an action figure: here there’s a shipping container’s worth of ’em, and in a side strand they’re on their own mission to rendezvous with Star Command.

The OG Buzz is still around too, working his way up to expressing his feelings for cowgirl Jessie (Joan Cusack), who is the nearest thing this film has to a protagonist, though the story is fairly evenly shouldered by the ensemble. An early flashback to “A long time ago” serves as a reminder of Jessie’s past and Toy Story 2’s heartbreaking highlight, and sets up a later emotional pay-off that should have you reaching for the tissues but avoiding full-blown existential meltdown.

Also well thought out are new additions, including a trio who straddle the tech/toy grey area, self dubbed “the double-A team”. Toilet-training toy Smarty Pants (Conan O’Brien), in particular, is a hoot. The animation across the board is massage-your-eyes lovely, too. If the animals in the Toy Story films are often used as a marker of how far the series’ technical prowess has come, TS5’s menagerie – which includes horses, a pig, a salamander and several woodland creatures – is tantamount to showboating. There are also a couple of imaginary-play interludes that take on a watercolour look that stretches the Toy Story style guide to let it compete with the more expressive CG animations of recent years.

That’s not to say there aren’t any downsides – with so many characters to service, as the ranks have swollen so much over the years, Lily (Greta Lee) doesn’t get fleshed out as much as she might’ve. The film’s tech observations also don’t really lead to much, which feels like a bit of a copout, and the cyberbullying that comes with it is resolved unrealistically quickly. But on the whole, when playtime is this slick and entertaining for its all-ages audience, it’s no surprise Pixar are refusing to box away these toys for the attic, Part 3’s perfect ending be damned.

IN SHORT Earning its right to exist with immaculate animation, smart set-pieces, a pertinent tech plot and good use of beloved characters, Toy Story 5 is family screentime you won’t begrudge.

STAY FOR THE END CREDITS? Yes, do – there’s a crucial mid-credits bonus scene, and if you stick around till the very end you get to see (and hear) some supporting characters titting about over the last bit of the credits.

MIXED MESSAGING The fact that the Junior Wingmen in attendance at the press screening came out of the film breathlessly asking if they could get a Lilypad in real life suggests the film’s messaging might hit differently for kids than it does for adults…

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Virginia Woolf’s Night & Day

⭐⭐⭐☆☆

12A, in cinemas now

Billed as an ‘un-romantic comedy’, this adap of one of Virginia Woolf’s lesser-known works (hence, perhaps, the namedrop title) is nonetheless about a passionate love affair, between Katherine (Haley Bennett) and astronomy. But since we’re in turn-of-the-century Edwardian London, the young woman is expected not to study but to marry; to placate her stuffy, sexist dad (Timothy Spall), Katherine gets hastily engaged to buffoonish family friend William (Jack Whitehall), hoping at least to secure the freedom to work.

Shortly she discovers a more genuine attraction to literary editor Ralph (Elyas M’Barek), who’s more of a side character here than in Woolf’s 1919 novel; director Tina Gharavi (2012’s I Am Nasrine) and writer Justine Waddell maintain focus on Katherine’s academic goals, with mixed results. On the one hand, the film has a tendency to tell rather than show, with characters making speeches that articulate progressive sentiments in on-the-nose terms. On the other, Bennett offers a barnstorming portrayal of female agency and aspiration, sticking it to the patriarchy with wit, steel and resourcefulness while giving us access to her vulnerabilities. The comedy part of the equation is largely driven by Spall and wife Jennifer Saunders’ spirited bickering, while Whitehall’s familiar but enjoyable bumbling-toff act - “You’re the loveliest pickle in the jar,” he tells Bennett - takes care of the ‘un-romantic’ bit. (Matthew Leyland)

STAY FOR THE END CREDITS? Nothing extra to see, but there’s a very pleasant earful of Celestine’s song ‘Sparks in Stars’.

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Lesbian Space Princess

⭐⭐⭐☆☆

15, in cinemas now

Starting with its delightfully, ahem, straightforward title, there’s a lot to like about this Aussie animation. It has a quality voice cast led by The Pitt’s Shabana Azeez, diffident but determined as Princess Saira, “the most boring royal in the history of [planet] Clitopolis”, who leaves her neglectful mums behind as she rockets off to win back her kidnapped ex-girlfriend Kiki (Bernie Van Tiel).

Saira’s ensuing self-discovery arc is executed without cloying sentiment, and dotted with memorable characters: principally the villainous but clueless Straight White Maliens, incel caricatures spouting multiple tone-deaf gems (“I have a lot of opinions on Marvel movies” are words women are dying to hear, they assert). Writers/directors Emma Hough Hobbs and Leela Varghese have a knack for a literal-minded sight gag (an actual ‘hot chick magnet’, covered in poultry) and a goofy pun (“Gay-flix and chill”), while their 2D visuals are button-bright, with quirky, spaghetti-limbed character designs and backgrounds boasting enough tiddly detail to fill a bumper search-and-find book.

With so much in its favour, you can’t help willing the film to be more consistently funny, or to pump up the love-triangle tension a little more after the introduction of travelling musician Willow (Gemma Chua-Tran), or to feel a little less like a slightly overstretched TV pilot. Still, further good-natured, candy-coloured adventures with Saira wouldn’t be the worst thing in the gay-laxy; after all, as they say of Clitopolis, openly queer sci-fi cinema is famously hard to find. (Matthew Leyland)

STAY FOR THE END CREDITS? It’s worth hanging on for a montage of still images whimsically paying off a handful of plot points.

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Cactus Pears

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

15, in cinemas now

Following the death of his father, Mumbai call-centre worker Anand (Bhushaan Manoj) returns to his ancestral village in rural Maharashtra, to (reluctantly) observe the traditional 10-day mourning ritual. Badgered about his bachelorhood by his family, he finds succor - and more - with Balya (Suraaj Suman), a childhood pal in a similar situation.

Riffing on his own experiences of love and loss, writer/director Rohan Parashuram Kanawade’s Marathi-language debut is a deeply felt queer drama. Its subtleties and languid-to-say-the-least pacing demand patience, but get into its groove and you’ll be warmly beguiled. Kanawade’s assured direction achieves a delicate balancing act: his camera is almost always static and often at a polite distance, yet this observational tact never feels dry or dispassionate. Similarly, the soundtrack is score-free yet anything but austere, teeming with the immersive noise of birds tweeting, goats bleating, crickets chirping, flags rustling....

The lack of music also helps us tune in more keenly to Manoj’s softly spoken performance, rooted in watchful, wistful looks, flickers of gentle humour (Lego Batman fans will enjoy a debate over black vs dark grey clothing) and subdued sensuality (the hair-kneading scene is a standout). Not a great deal happens plot-wise, and even by the movie’s own reserved standards the resolution is muted. But between the magic-hour motorbike rides and magical-realist flourishes, Cactus Pears casts a disarmingly tender spell. (Matthew Leyland)

FRUITFUL DEBUT Kanawade scored a double whammy at this year’s Sundance: the first Marathi-language film to premiere at the festival, it also took home the Grand Jury Prize.

Trailer Club

All but guaranteed to be one of the biggest films of the year, Spider-Man: Brand New Day has dropped a second trailer that reveals Tom Holland’s Peter Parker is struggling with isolation from the girlfriend and bestie who no longer remember him, as well as mental disturbances that are throwing him off his game and a development with his wrists that’s leaving his room covered in sticky white fluid. Also present here are looks at MCU faves Bruce Banner (and his raging green alter ego) and Frank ‘Punisher’ Castle, and there’s (maybe) a glimpse of Sadie Sink’s mystery character if you freezeframe at just the right point. And, yes, there’s lots of cool swinging, web-slinging and quipping, with director Destin Daniel Cretton (Wonder Man, Shang-Chi), demonstrating a sticky-fingertipped grasp of the material. Spider-Man: Brand New Day opens on 31 July, just two weeks after Holland, Zendaya and Jon Bernthal will be seen in The Odyssey.

• Snowmen making suggestive offers, gingerbread men having their butts spanked, nods to Eddie Murphy’s back catalogue… 16 years after the ogre’s last outing, DreamWorks’ trademark irreverence is alive and friggin’ well in the first teaser for Shrek 5…

• Netflix’s hit series Heartstopper is getting a feature-length farewell with Heartstopper Forever, the first trailer for which is heart-on-sleeve, heart-in-mouth stuff…

• Already renewed for a second season, Little House on the Prairie is a new adap of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books, which previously inspired the long-running TV show of the 70s/80s (long before CGI wolves were invented)...

• A teenage girl enters a bewitching world in Disney’s Hexed, which seems to be pottering about in familiar waters but does boast lush animation and a respectable cast (Hailee Steinfeld, Rashida Jones, Stephen Fry, Tracey Ullman)...

• Everyone’s under supernatural house arrest in the first look at Netflix’s The Last House, conjuring major lockdown 2020 chills. Greta Lee and Wagner Moura star, Louis Leterrier directs…

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We’re back again on Friday with a fresh batch of (non-spoilery) reviews, including the week’s big new release, Toy Story 5. To infinity, etc etc…

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Disclosure Day: Unredacted Spoiler Chat

Spilling secrets like Josh O’Connor’s Daniel Kellner…

It goes without saying that herein lie spoilers. If you carry on reading, it’ll be the equivalent of looking at Daniel Kellner’s stolen footage in Disclosure Day; there’s no going back to life as you knew it after this. Still here? Then you’re ready for the truth…

A golden rule for The Movie Wingman would be to avoid spoilers in reviews wherever possible. Generally speaking, twists, surprises and late-breaking plot developments have no place in a review, and can usually be avoided with a careful approach. No one wants to have the ending ruined or to be robbed of an unexpected joy unfolding on screen just because they wanted to find out if it was any good or not in advance.

But that becomes trickier when some of the film’s key problems relate to quote-unquote spoilers, which was the case for me with Disclosure Day. Revisit the review to see what I did like, which was a fair bit – agile set pieces, a virtuosic performance from Emily Blunt, John Williams’ wry score. But among the things in the film that didn’t work for me, were…

👽 The Aliens

A few issues regarding the aliens diminished my enjoyment somewhat. For starters, I thought the film played its hand too early, when Daniel revealed some of his stolen footage to girlfriend and former nun Jane (Eve Hewson). Revealing so early that his files were legit and did contain this sort of material sapped a bit of the tension (especially as they weren’t substantively developed as the film went on). Secondly, it was a bit disappointing that one of the first big-budget UFO (or UAP, as is the preferred term these days) blockbusters for years – not to mention Spielberg’s return to the subgenre – featured such generic looking ‘Greys’. While you could argue that it tied back to the film’s Roswell connection, it felt a bit half-hearted in 2026. Jordan Peele’s Nope did something so much more original with its treatment of UFOs back in 2022. The Greys also tied into another problem I had with the footage…

🎞️ The Footage

In the year of our lord 2026, would anyone actually believe what they were seeing at without question when viewing this footage? If a mate pulled out their phone and showed you exactly what Daniel showed Jane, you’d think it was an AI hoax or something. The fact that it was so obviously CGI only added to that sense, in an extratextual way. And maybe, maybe, Jane would believe Daniel thanks to their relationship and her pre-existing knowledge of his secretive work, but I don’t buy that multiple TV news services would instantly accept the footage at face value, let alone accept it so wholeheartedly that they cut away from the impending World War III to run the footage without verification. I don’t know when Spielberg came up with the story that David Koepp based the script off, but it felt like an idea that would’ve worked in the 70s, pre-internet, pre-extremely accessible VFX, but it just felt awkward and unconvincing in the present day.

🌎 The World’s Reaction

By extension, I don’t think the general population would’ve particularly believed in these videos either. Partly for the reasons mentioned above, and partly because we know in 2026 that the algorithm would be spewing out extremely divisive reactions to the news broadcasts in different echo chambers around the internet. Rather than chasing down Daniel, Colin Firth’s Noah Scanlon could’ve simply employed a targeted bot campaign to get the footage contaminated as fake news before it even hit the airwaves. And talking of Noah…

🧔🏻 Noah’s Capitulation

After throwing countless resources at a film-long chase, it didn’t quite ring true when Noah just gave up at the last minute, with even his underling Casper (Henry Lloyd-Hughes) wondering what hell he was playing at. Had he just accepted that he couldn’t stop the disclosure by this point? Perhaps. But it still felt jarringly out of character that he just sat back to watch the presentation when the climactic moment arrived.

📽️ Trailer Trash

To cut Spielberg a little slack, when he said at CinemaCon that the trailers revealed nothing from the film’s third act, maybe that was true at that point. But anyone who saw a TV spot while catching up with Married at First Sight on Channel 4 last week will know that the pesky final telly-teaser spaffed every single money shot from the film’s big final sequence into one overflowing 30s promo. It even threw in the deer-to-alien shot, giving away a crucial plot point as well as one of the most striking images from the film. Obviously marketing’s gonna market, and original films always need a bit of leg up in the current era, but it didn’t need to give quite so much away. It also unhelpfully creates the impression there’s much more alien action in the film than there actually is, setting up unmatchable expectations that would be left unsatisfied even if the film didn’t end on such an abrupt note.

Listen, all the above grousing makes it sound like I hated the film, when I still stand by the three-star rating. But it felt good to get that off my chest when I couldn’t go into detail in my review about why certain failings in the third act undo a fair bit of the intrigue and goodwill the film has built leading up to it. In short, it’s good to finally put the truth out there. (Matt Maytum)

Anything spoilery you want to disclose about Disclosure Day? Let us know in the comments…

Plus, we’ve rounded up the essential new trailer drops for your viewing pleasure, including The Social Reckoning. Without Fincher in the director’s seat, are audience and critics still going to hit the like button?

Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you again on next week (hopefully on Tuesday, UAPs allowing). Keep the faith in the meantime with your likes, shares and comments.

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Disclosure Day

⭐⭐⭐☆☆

12A, in cinemas now

Full disclosure: it’s fitting that for a film about stealing and disseminating secrets, Disclosure Day is pretty hard to review fully without straying into spoiler territory. It’s a particular issue when it comes to the stuff that doesn’t quite work in Steven Spielberg’s return to sci-fi for the first time since, well, 2018’s Ready Player One. Feels like longer ago, doesn’t it? But, DD finds him reckoning with the possibility of extra-terrestrial life for the first time since, well, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in 2008. But if DD feels something like a reprise of the thoughtful but thrilling, heart-and-ideas-stuffed sci-fi with which he established himself, perhaps that’s at least in part because he’s credited for the story, with the script then adapted by Jurassic Park and War of the Worlds scribe David Koepp.

When it comes to what we can talk about freely, there’s an impish sense of glee to Spielberg’s set-pieces, which often feel more Catch Me If You Can than Close Encounters of the Third Kind. From the starting pistol, it doesn’t really stop for breath. Cyber-security expert turned whistleblower Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) has a backpack full of classified files that he wants to leak to the world. For at least the first two thirds, Disclosure Day operates as a chase movie, and while it risks feeling repetitive at points – Daniel is frequently nearly caught by his nefarious boss (a slightly one-note Colin Firth), before escaping again – there’s a real brio to the nimble set-pieces.

The trains and automobile sequences are well executed, and cinematographer Janusz Kamiński’s camera often seems to be swerving in impossible rounds, but it’s the more conceptual set-pieces – like one involving invisibility, or those connected to the awakened powers of TV meteorologist Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) – that really zing. A visit from a bird gives Margaret empathic mind-reading abilities and unlimited language skills, and Blunt’s virtuosic (arguably career-best) performance is DD’s true highlight. Another win? John Williams’ slinkily suspenseful, unobtrusive score, which throws back to vintage paranoid sci-fi in a register that feels entirely appropriate.

The final stretch that the film builds to is something of a mixed bag, though. From a plot-revelation perspective, DD arguably plays its hand too early, leaving little room for further surprise. That’s not to say the final sequence – which hinges on a major broadcast event – isn’t both heart-in-throat tense and somewhat moving. It also boasts a standout late turn from real-life newscaster turned actor Courtney Grace, a terrific find who nearly steals the film. But it’s not entirely satisfying – there will be a note of anticlimax for many who’ve invested in the preceding two acts, a niggling feeling of ‘Was that it?’ when the credits roll.

There’s also an inherent implausibility to the premise (particularly in a contemporary setting) that can’t really be discussed until you’ve seen the film, which is undermined by some not always convincing digital effects. So while Disclosure Day occasionally feels like a top-flight blockbuster, it’s never quite the revelation it threatens to be. (Matt Maytum)

IN SHORT Spielberg’s UFO thriller’s dizzying highs (Blunt, inventive set-pieces) are brought back down to Earth by an uneven tone that evokes – but doesn’t quite live up to – several of his greatest hits.

STAY FOR THE END CREDITS? There’s no additional footage to be uncovered here.

TEAM PLAYERS Disclosure Day marks the 30th time Spielberg and John Williams have worked together. It’s the 21st collaboration between the director and Janusz Kamiński. It’s also David Koepp’s fifth script for Spielberg. Both Colman Domingo and Eve Hewson earn their second cap for Spielberg here, after having previously appeared in Lincoln and Bridge of Spies respectively.

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The Fall of Sir Douglas Weatherford

⭐⭐⭐☆☆

15, in cinemas now

Recently widowed Kenneth (a terrific Peter Mullan) is a dedicated tour guide in the (fictional) Scottish town of Aberloch, where he strives to preserve the legacy of his (apparent) ancestor, Enlightenment philosopher and controversial vivisectionist Sir Douglas Weatherford (who once attempted a brain transplant between a prison inmate and a goat). Kenneth perceives a pernicious threat to that legacy when Aberloch is used as a location for TV fantasy phenom The White Stag of Emberfell, turning the town, as our incensed hero puts it, “into a bloody theme park”.

Appalled at the influx of fans in cosplay - and the indignity of having to dress up as an Emberfell character himself - Kenneth starts a one-man culture war. His flailing attempts to get people more interested in local history than sword-and-sorcery form the crux of first-time writer/director Seán Dunn’s tragicomedy, which casts a satirical eye over Game of Thrones/LOTR-esque fan culture but also the disproportionate reverence for “geniuses” like Weatherford (who narrates beyond the grave and makes the odd ghostly cameo). The set-up promises bigger laughs and darker absurdities than it delivers and there’s a disappointingly brief turn by Kerry Fox. But Jakob Oftebro gives a thoughtful performance as the show’s artistically unfulfilled heartthrob lead, while Mullan skilfully sustains our investment in Kenneth’s stubborn crusade. The aching grief underlying his obsessiveness, frustration and alienation is the film’s main takeaway. (Matthew Leyland)

GRAVE ERROR Dunn was inspired by a trip to his native Edinburgh where he saw Harry Potter cosplayers paying misplaced homage to late British army captain Thomas Riddle. “So these fans were gathered round this military man’s grave thinking he was Voldemort,” he recalls. “I thought that was pretty funny…”

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Strictly Ballroom

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

12A, in cinemas now

Whip pans. Freeze frames. Crash zooms into extreme, sometimes grotesque close-ups. A pas de deux in front of a shimmering rooftop Coke sign. Hair-don’ts by the dozen… Odd to think that, for all its stylistic brio, and near-constant motion and music, this is one of Baz Lurhmann’s more restrained movies. But this 1992 debut (adapted from an 80s student production) was the low-budget underdog that made the Aussie auteur’s name; the next two entries in his Red Curtain Trilogy would be the blockbusting Romeo + Juliet (1996) and Moulin Rouge! (2001).

Here, the curtain parts on the story of Scott (Paul Mercurio), a ballroom dynamo with talent to burn but a scandalising tendency to do his own thing, which costs him his current partner and possibly a shot at winning the Pan-Pacific Grand Prix Dancing Championship. Enter awkward but eager beginner Fran (Tara Morice), whose ‘ugly-duckling’ transformation already felt dated three decades ago. Still, Morice brings a guileless likeability to the role, and if her romance with the smouldering Mercurio feels a little forced and perfunctory, the duo bring big Fred-and-Ginger energy to the dance scenes.

Which is where, of course, the film’s heart lies; Luhrmann and co-writer Craig Pearce conjure a heightened, slightly unreal world where absolutely everybody - from pre-teens to grandma - is obsessed with cutting a rug, generating an earnestly passionate, exuberant vibe that offsets every predictable plot beat. The finale, with its emotional reveal centred on Scott’s sidelined dad (Barry Otto), is the big showstopper, but there’s a pretty even distribution of dazzle, from Mercurio’s early solo spot to a montage set to a cover of a Cyndi Lauper banger that always charms, time after time. (Matthew Leyland)

STEPPING UP The movie’s been restored to a sequin-bright 4K; if you don’t catch it at the cinema, it’s also available on digital, and there’s a 4K UHD and Blu-ray release set for 27 July.

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Swimming Pool

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

15, streaming on Mubi now

François Ozon’s balmy psychosexual thriller feels like even more of a treat now than it did upon its initial release in 2003, given how relatively starved we’ve been of mainstream erotic thrillers in the intervening years. Anyone back into the genre after The Housemaid could do much worse than a revisit. The twisty mystery elements are less intriguing than the clash between uptight British author Sarah Morton (Charlotte Rampling) – trying to relieve her writer’s block and more besides at the holiday home of her publisher (Charles Dance) – and liberated young Frenchwoman Julie (Ludivine Sagnier), an unexpected houseguest at the property in the south of France.

Julie is the daughter of Sarah’s publisher, and her summer plans don’t seem to stretch beyond romping round the scenic villa like Sarah’s unleashed id. There’s an intentionally comic contrast between Sarah’s haughty froideur and Julie’s bombshell bravado, a clash that ultimately finds its fulcrum in hunky local restaurant worker Franck (Jean-Marie Lamour), when both women have their eye on his saucisson. Raunchy, funny and open to interpretation, it finds intriguing depths in a threadbare plot, and, fittingly, plays like the film equivalent of a poolside read. (Matt Maytum)

OZON LAYERS If Swimming Pool leaves you hankering for another frisky caper from François, The Crime is Mine is currently available to stream on BBC iPlayer.

Trailer Club

This spiritual sequel already had its work cut out following one of the most acclaimed films of the century, The Social Network. Aaron Sorkin is once again on screenplay duties (having won an Oscar last time around), but here he replaces David Fincher as director. The first look trailer isn’t all that promising, coming off as a slightly pale imitation of the 2010 banger. For starters, this dour teaser isn’t showcasing the spiky wit of Network, and Jeremy Strong looks like he could be potentially distracting casting - he’s five years older than Zuckerberg in the present day (and the film’s actually set 10 years ago). Mikey Madison and Jeremy Allen White feel more natural as whistleblower Frances Haughen and journalist Jeff Horwitz, and the contentious subject matter looks like it could reignite a lot of fury. The reprised notes of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ theme ends the teaser also do a lot of heavy lifting (though the duo aren’t returning to actually score this one - that’s Alexandre Desplat). It’s just enough to make you want to hold off on unfriending The Social Reckoning before it opens in cinemas on 9 October…

• If you’ve got a thing for 90s nostalgia, you’ll be plaid to know there’s a new trailer for Legally Blonde prequel series Elle…

• The Last of Us/28 Years Later vibes take wing in the second trailer for Ridley Scott’s post-apocalyptic drama The Dog Stars…

• Ahead of Toy Story 5, here’s a look at next year’s Pixar original, Gatto, which stars Mark Ruffalo and Laurence Fishburne as mafia cats - so naturally we’re already seated (and curled up, and purring)…

• Prepare to do a big gulp when you see the first trailer for Whalefall, which sets up the in-the-belly-of-the-beast premise in alarming detail…

• There’s more survival action in David Ayer/Brad Pitt re-team Heart of the Beast, though here the lead animal is on Pitt’s side: he’s a special forces officer stranded in the wilderness with his cool AF combat dog, Odin…

• Two more people go on a climbing holiday by mistake in the teaser for vertiginous sequel Fall 2: Deadpoint, directed by the Spierig Bros (Jigsaw, Predestination)...

• Hollywood-set murder mystery Chapter 51 is a meditation on the movies in more ways than one; as the trailer points out, photographer Tyler Shields’ meta-thriller utilises every film format in existence…

• Nearly a year after the first preview (when the film’s release was slated for Feb ‘26) comes the latest trailer for The Cat in The Hat, which looks to be taking an expansive approach to the Dr. Seuss book; for one thing, Thing One and Thing Two aren’t the only Things…

• Assassin Hannah Waddingham and bestie Octavia Spencer are on the run in action-comedy series Ride or Die; can’t wait to hear more of Spencer’s (deliberately) comic British accent, guv’nor…

• Workplace comedies don’t get much more NSFW than cult director Gregg Araki’s (Kaboom, The Doom Generation) I Want Your Sex, starring Olivia Wilde and Cooper Hoffman…

• The finality of the final season of The Bear comes across loud and clear in the feels-seeking trailer for the restaurant drama’s fifth and final (did we mention that?) run…

• The Rock kicks rocks in the final trailer for the live-action Moana remake, which reveals the return of another familiar voice…

• Another (yes, already) Enola Holmes 3 trailer features more of the same matrimonial mayhem, with added glimpses of supporting stars like Henry Cavill and Helena Bonham Carter to reassure that Millie Bobby Brown is not Holmes alone…

• You might need a massage and cucumbers on your eyes after sampling the raucous trailer for the Leslie Mann-starring Spa Weekend…

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We’ve also compiled a list of the best trailers of the week, featuring new films starring Robert Pattinson, Nicholas Hoult and Anne Hathaway which you can find below, and we’ll be back in your inboxes next week!

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Masters of the Universe

⭐⭐⭐☆☆

12A, in cinemas now

For all the bulging muscle on display, 1987’s Masters of the Universe was a rather puny excuse for a post-Star Wars blockbuster, with its cash-strapped action (epic locations included a music store and an empty school) and scant character development; Dolph Lundgren’s He-Man was so two-dimensional he felt like a supporting player in his own movie.

Thirty-nine years later, this second stab at live action has the budgetary and pixel-processing power to do greater justice to its 80s toy line/cartoon source, but winds up wobbling between well-oiled and bloated. Director Travis Knight and his four credited writers give us the origin story oddly denied us by the ‘87 version, but it’s a long and winding road to He-Man. First we get the childhood years on far-flung Eternia, with young, sensitive Prince Adam enduring dad issues that are put on hold when the evil Skeletor’s armies invade and he’s teleported to Earth, promptly losing his magic sword in a lake.

Moving on 15 years, we enter office-comedy mode, as the now-adult Adam (Nicholas Galitzine) exasperates senior management with his sword fixation. Eventually he finds the blade and, thanks to childhood pal Teela (Camila Mendes), hitches a ride back to Eternia where - a good hour into the movie - a makeover involving greater strength and fewer clothes awaits.

In this post-MCU age, a blond beefcake proving himself worthy of a mighty weapon can’t help but evoke a certain thunder god. The good news is Galitzine juggles pratfalls and punch-ups with Hemsworth-like assurance. But the movie itself is less Thor: Ragnarok and more Thor: Love and Thunder, with some big but erratic laughs, multiple detours that spawn pacing issues, and a streak of self-awareness that clashes with the attempts at genuine emotion.

The visual effects are variable - a major chase through an alien forest looks too studio-bound to thrill - but the production design and costumes hew close enough to the original designs to satisfy any He-fan. Meanwhile, several of the key cast - like Mendes and Idris Elba as her decent but drunk and disillusioned dad, Man-At-Arms - strike a balance between grounded and larger-than-life.

Not Jared Leto, mind - he goes full panto as Skeletor. The skull-faced fiend isn’t remotely frightening, and his dialogue is so slurred at times you wonder if he’s been at Man-At-Arms’ hip flask. But he remains a camp, cackling highlight - and with his petulance, shameless acquisitiveness (“Mine, mine, mine!” he drools at the power-sword) and constant need to belittle everyone around him, this archetypal 80s baddie oddly feels like a villain for our times. Disappointing, though, that the role of henchwoman Evil-Lyn doesn’t allow Alison Brie to maximise her comic gifts or that, on the good-guy side, Roboto is a more generic sidekick than you’d expect a Kristen Wiig-voiced ass-kicking automaton to be.

Fuelled by Daniel Pemberton’s head-banging, Flash Gordon-nodding score (Brian May guests on guitar), MOTU ‘26 comfortably clears the low bar set in 87. But if you’re after a big, goofy Travis Knight movie that outclasses its toybox-inspired forebears, his Bumblebee (2018) offers a smoother ride. (Matthew Leyland)

IN SHORT: Doesn’t have as much impact as Ram Man head-butting the ground, but makes a good fist(o) of honouring the brand’s spirited silliness.

STAY FOR THE END CREDITS? The closing title card’s followed by a cute callback to a staple of the 80s cartoon show; stay seated for two further stings, including a big character reveal…

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Erupcja

12A, in cinemas now

⭐⭐⭐☆☆

You don’t need to be a cunning linguist or a Polish speaker to have a stab at translating the title: it means eruption, of the volcanic sort that seemingly occurs whenever longtime friends (and maybe lovers?) Nel (Lena Góra) and Bethany (Charli xcx, continuing her 2026 cinematic takeover) cross paths. It’s no surprise that director Pete Ohs namechecks Before Sunrise as an inspiration, as freewheeling romantic coincidences unfold in a photogenic European capital – Warsaw, in this case. Also echoing the Linklater classic, Erupcja’s actors contributed to the script, which was only partly outlined in advance, before being worked through on the chronological shoot.

It’s a slight work, lacking the explosive power of its title, but it’s a pleasant excursion. The narration that provides a wry contrast between the anonymous older man’s gravelly voice and the whimsical details he shares about the characters’ dreams and neuroses. Nel and Bethany originally met 16 years earlier, when the first of their cosmically connected volcanic rumblings extended Bethany’s stay; that occurs again in the present day, though this time Bethany’s boyfriend Rob (Will Madden) is along for the trip and planning to propose. You can’t help but feel for the guy, as he soon loses track of his travel companion and prospective fiancée when she decides to have a (slightly brattish) summer reunion with flower shop owner Nel instead.

A boxy aspect ratio and bold monochrome colour blocks that act like pseudo-chapter breaks add to the self-consciously artsy feel, and some of the dialogue (perhaps because it was written on the hoof) clunks unnaturally. But at just 71 mins long, it’s an interesting, experimental minibreak from this week’s more mainstream releases. (Matt Maytum)

XCX-RATED As well as having been heard on the soundtracks to Wuthering Heights and Mother Mary and appearing in 100 Nights of Hero and mockumentary The Moment, prolific Letterboxd user Charli xcx also has further acting roles in I Want Your Sex, The Gallerist and Faces of Death to come this year.

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Köln 75

15, in cinemas now

⭐⭐⭐☆☆

Writer/director Ido Fluk’s musical biopic is billed as “the story of the best-selling solo jazz album in history”: Keith Jarrett’s The Köln Concert, a recording of the US pianist’s celebrated performance at Cologne’s Opera House in January 1975. Played with moody gravitas by John Magaro, Jarrett is a significant presence in the film, but its true hero is Vera Brandes (Mala Emde), the teenage concert promoter who attempts to move heaven and earth - not to mention a replacement grand piano - in a bid to stop the gig collapsing at the 11th hour.

Vera is also up against an ultra-conservative, disapproving dad (a stony-faced Ulrich Tukur), but her arc is less defined by emotional complexities than by repetitive demonstrations of her whirlwind energy. Emde’s full-bore commitment to the role at least helps paper some of the cracks; harder to ignore is the absence of Jarrett’s music (presumably due to copyright issues). Instead, Fluk aims to capture its freewheeling spirit with false starts, fourth-wall breaks and a second-act narrative hijacking by journalist Michael Watts (Michael Chernus), who gives the audience mini-lessons in musical history while chasing an interview with Jarrett.

The insights Michael affably coaxes from his reluctant subject provide some of the movie’s most satisfying moments, showing up the Vera strand’s relative lack of dramatic heft. When the storylines (finally) converge, all the disparate tensions align for a nail-biter of a finish, but Köln 75’s uneven composition makes it harder to savour the full scale of the achievements - on and offstage - it celebrates. (Matthew Leyland)

STAY FOR THE END CREDITS? You barely have to wait a beat for one of the film’s real-life inspirations to take a bow.

Trailer Club

The Fall Guy and Bullet Train director David Leitch does what he does best in How to Rob a Bank - high-concept, humour-laced stuntwork fronted by really, really, ridiculously good-looking actors (Nicholas Hoult and Zoë Kravitz in this case). The of-the-moment premise finds a sexy gang of bank robbers filming their heists and uploading the videos online. With the group sporting animal masks and Hoult dressed as Mr. Wolf, it almost looks like a gnarly, live-action remake of The Bad Guys if you squint. Though the Robin Hood gang already seem to have pretty strong morals, which leaves Kravitz’s hacker conflicted when the FBI tasks her with helping to track them down. How to Rob a Bank steals into cinemas in September.

• Adam Wingard’s throwback actioner Onslaught sees Adria Arjona forced to go into one-woman-army mode when genetically engineered supersoldiers - “the human equivalent of a heat-seaking missile - go on the rampage…

• Robert Pattinson plays To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen in Primetime, though Lance Oppenheim’s film will have to go some to top the documentary on the same subject, Predators…

• An intriguing mix of puzzle-box mystery and dinosaur adventure, The End of Oak Street sees Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor’s unassuming suburb seemingly travel back in time, in the new one from It Follows’ David Robert Mitchell…

• Anya Taylor-Joy could do with some good fortune in Apple TV’s bestseller adap, Lucky…

• Go behind the scenes of Christopher Nolan’s upcoming epic in a new featurette exploring the journey to The Odyssey…

• In the Hand of Dante casts Oscar Isaac as a writer who gets involved with the mob and tries to get hold of the original manuscript of the Divine Comedy. He also plays the legendary poet in flashback, and is joined by one of the year’s most impressively varied supporting casts, featuring Gal Gadot, Jason Momoa, Gerard Butler, Al Pacino and Martin Scorsese…

• One of the big talking points out of Cannes - not surprising considering Paweł Pawlikowski directs and Sandra Hüller stars - Fatherland is the story of Thomas Mann’s return to Germany after WWII…

• Save the date (1 July) for nuptials-themed threequel Enola Holmes 3, which sees Sherlock’s sleuthing sister embroiled in a mystery that may prevent her from getting to the church on time…

• The final trailer for Toy Story 5 promises plenty of tablet trouble in Bonnie’s room. Time to set that screentime limit…

• Animated series X-Men ’97 S2 sees the mutants facing off time-hopping big bad Apocalypse…

• Wingman has already seen this one so can say that you’re in for a meta-slasher treat with Jane Schoenbrun’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma…

• The latest teaser for Coyote vs. ACME features a fun Avengers: Doomsday riff…

• A franchise that feels like it’s been going longer than a geological epoch returns with a steamy teaser for Ice Age: Boiling Point…

Today we’ve got an interview with Masters of the Universe director Travis Knight, who talks toys, the ’80s, casting choices and the film’s banging score. Join us again on Friday when we’ll be reviewing the new He-Man movie and more.

As ever, we receive deep spiritual nourishment from all your likes, restacks and comments, and feel free to forward this to a friend who might want to subscribe (for free) to our twice-weekly missives. See you on Friday…

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Travis Knight: Masters of the Universe interview

If you were a kid in the ’80s, chances are you’ll be familiar with He-Man and Masters of the Universe, be it through the toy line, the accompanying cartoon or the Dolph Lundgren-starring movie adaptation. That 1987 film was the last time He-Man was seen on the big screen, and after multiple attempts to get a new movie going he finally returns this week, in a film from director Travis Knight, the president and CEO of stop-motion animation studio Laika. His previous films include Laika’s Kubo and the Two Strings and the live-action Transformers prequel Bumblebee.

The new, rebooted Masters of the Universe tells the story once more of Prince Adam, the Eternian royal and heir to Castle Grayskull who can access superhuman strength via his power sword. In the new film, Adam (Nicholas Galitzine, The Sheep Detectives, Red, White & Royal Blue) is sent to Earth for his own safety as a child, and must make his way back to Eternia to defeat his evil archnemesis, Skeletor (Jared Leto).

MOTU ’26 leans into the nostalgia with familiar characters including Teela (Camila Mendes), Man-At-Arms (Idris Elba) and Evil-Lyn (Alison Brie), and an absolutely rocking score by composer of the moment Daniel Pemberton, featuring Queen legend Brian May on guitar. Ahead of its cinema release this Friday, The Movie Wingman caught up with Knight to discuss the new film, big casting swings, and more…

The Movie Wingman: Masters of the Universe is your second live-action film, the previous one being Bumblebee. Do you have an affinity with the ‘80s and with toys?

Travis Knight: [Laughs] Given my filmography, you would probably think so. Like, “Oh, God, this guy only does artisanal animated movies or big, tentpole-y things based on ‘80s toy properties.” I do, of course – I’m a child of the ’80s, I loved Transformers when I was a kid, I loved He-Man and Masters of the Universe when I was a kid. They were huge, huge parts of my childhood. It’s only kind of happenstance that both of those movies live in that same space. They’re very different movies from each other.

But, they’ve been trying to make Masters for nearly 20 years. It’s been a hard thing to crack, so I feel very lucky actually that they failed miserably before they came to me, because this has been an absolute joy for me to bring this world to life, just rekindling my love for this stuff when I was a kid.

And to be able to tell this story now, in the age that we live in, actually I think it’s pretty resonant and I’m glad that we were the ones that were able to crack this thing, because I think the film is really fun, it’s joyful, but also has something meaningful to say underneath everything else.

Some people might consider stop-motion filmmaking a bit like playing with toys. Is there any crossover in the Venn diagram of stop-motion filmmaking, live-action filmmaking, and playing with action figures as a kid?

There can’t help but be that, can there? Yes. Stop-motion, you’re basically just playing with fancy action figures, and you’re coaxing life out of them one frame at a time. It’s probably the hardest way possible to make a movie. In some ways it’s also the most rewarding. There’s something magical about it.

But, part of it goes back to the imaginative life of who we were as kids. A child’s plaything is not just a child’s plaything. It is something that we imbue with so much of ourselves, our own thoughts, our fears, our personalities, our hopes, our dreams. In some ways they become extensions of ourselves and it kind of works in the reverse. It’s why these toys that I loved when I was a kid cast such long shadows into my life, because they meant something to me.

If I were to sit and talk to my psychiatrist maybe they’d be able to explain it to you. But all this stuff is about evoking that childlike imagination and wonder, which is what toys do and ultimately I think what stop-motion does so beautifully.

Is there anything you took from stop-motion filmmaking that you could apply to live-action filmmaking, or are the mediums too different?

They certainly are different. The methodology’s incredibly different. It’s just much slower and much smaller. But one thing that you have to do if you work in stop-motion is that you have to have forethought, discipline, organisation. You can’t wing it. So you really have to know the story you’re telling, and I bring that same kind of thinking into live action. I storyboard these things within an inch of their lives exactly like I would in an animated movie. So on the day… I know exactly what it is that I want to get, what I need to get, and then if we can get that, then that creates room for us to play, and that’s something that you never have in stop-motion. One of the most delightful things for me about the live-action process is that you can have discovery, you can have serendipitous moments where things you can’t plan sometimes spring to life, and those give you the best moments in live-action moviemaking, which is one of the reasons why I love it.

Masters of the Universe comes from Mattel Studios, which also produced Barbie, one of the biggest films of the decade so far. Did you take any inspiration or lessons from Barbie when you were approaching Masters of the Universe?

Not really, other than I think there are analogs between both of these things. Barbie is a fantastic movie, as we can all attest. He-Man is a very, very different property and a very, very different world. But I think there is something there in terms of: that movie used this toy line that everyone knew and that everyone loved, to try to tell a deeply personal story that actually has emotional resonance.

And in that way, we tried to do something similar with Masters. It’s based on a toy line, based on a cartoon. Generations of kids have experiences with them. And we took this world and these characters that people know to tell really a deeply personal story that hopefully has some emotional resonance, and I think that’s what Greta [Gerwig] did on Barbie, and I think we did something similar - in a different way - with Masters.

Can you dig a little bit into the casting process for Adam/He-Man? Was it a really long search?

Travis Knight: The search for Adam was and wasn’t a long process in the sense that it took a long time from when we started to when ultimately we hired our actor. It was many, many months. It was the most crucial casting decision to get right. He’s the heart and soul of the movie, and because it’s an origin story, I needed to find an actor who wasn’t necessarily a household name, a guy who was in his mid-to-late-20s. So it was the one piece of casting that I was most worried about, and yet when I met Nick [Galitzine] a little over two years ago, those worries went away immediately because he was exactly what I was hoping that I could find somehow.

I needed someone who could be vulnerable, someone who was charismatic and charming, someone who’s funny, who had a ton of heart, and then I also needed a big, strong body. [Laughs] Now, he didn’t have a big, strong body at the time, but I had faith in him and the process and in his commitment and dedication that he could get himself physically to where he needed to be, to be this most powerful man in the universe, because he had all the other incredible qualities.

And it’s a testament to Nick that over the course of the time, he worked so hard to physically transform his body, and yet he still retained all the incredible charisma and charm and vulnerability that you want in Adam, but he looked like the big, strong dude.

You need someone who can pull off that haircut as well…

[Laughs] He does have fabulous hair. We had more conversations about that hair than I care to admit. Because He-Man famously had the ‘80s bowl cut and the little Prince Valiant ‘do. And like, how do you make that look cool? And blessedly, in Pippa Woods, my hair and makeup lead, we had so many mood boards about Adam’s hair, and he looks fantastic.

And you have an extremely famous actor playing Skeletor, but we don’t see his face and his voice is unrecognisable. Can you talk a bit about how you approached that?

Skeletor was one of the most iconic villains of the ‘80s, and I loved Skeletor when I was a kid because he was scary, he looked cool, he was funny, and he had a really interesting voice and an interesting laugh. We wanted to honour all that, but we wanted to create a new cinematic version of that.

And so when I met with Jared Leto, one of the things that I was surprised and delighted to hear was that he was a big Masters of the Universe fan when he was a kid. He grew up with it just like I did, and Skeletor was his favourite character. And he understood all the characteristics and the qualities of this guy that made him interesting, and he really wanted to swing for the fences in this character.

And he gave his all. He really goes for it in this movie, and he’s such a delight to watch. He’s so funny, in a way I think people generally don’t think of Jared Leto as funny. He is quite funny, and he’s very funny in the movie. And he gives a really amazing performance, and as a character, he’s completely awful, and yet he’s so much fun to watch.

Every time he’s on screen, he’s just magnetic. You just want to keep watching him. And, he really went for it, and I think it’s that kind of commitment that really only fundamentally comes out of a love for the material, and he sincerely loved the material, and he gave it his all.

And what are you seeing of Jared on set when he’s filming? Is he in any sort of costume or is he in a VFX leotard?

It was important for me that as much as we could, we got everything practically in camera. A movie like this, you’re always gonna have a ton of visual effects, and we did, and our visual effects guys are amazing in the movie.

But as much as possible, my lean – because of my background in stop-motion – is to try to get it in camera if we can. So other than the skull face, everything you’re seeing of Skeletor on screen is what we shot on the day. Jared would wear this amazing prosthetic muscle suit, put together by our prosthetic master, Barrie Gower. It looks like someone’s skin has been flayed off and you’re seeing muscle and sinew underneath. We have a beautiful costume, made by our costume team and Richard Sale.

And then, for the face, Skeletor famously has a skull face. I was not going to ask Jared to peel the skin off his face – as Method as he can be, I think that’s a bridge too far – but we knew that was going to be a CG-animated skull. And so in a lot of ways it’s a combination of all these disciplines together. A committed performance from our actor, incredible work from our prosthetics and costume team, and then our visual effects team did all the facial performance. And it’s astonishing how much emotion they were able to get out of a skull. In that way, it is a beautiful collaboration of all these disciplines and a great actor, and that gives you Skeletor.

What was your collaboration with composer Daniel Pemberton like? His score is incredible.

I’ve been a fan of Daniel’s and have wanted to work with him for a long time, and we’ve had little dalliances over the years. So when I started working on this project, he was one of the first people that I contacted. He knew Masters growing up, and he saw the same opportunity to do something really fun and playful and distinctive in this movie. One of the first conversations we had going back over a year and a half ago, was I evoked one of my favourite scores of all time which was the Queen score to Flash Gordon from the ‘80s. It was iconic, it was awesome, it was rocking, it was operatic, it was emotional and sincere… all these qualities that I wanted [in] the movie, and I think Queen evokes that. And so that was one of the early touchstones.

Daniel brought so many other things to it. He brought this crazy disco-inflected stuff. He brought in these medieval instruments, all this crazy stuff. [It’s a] really emotional and really rocking score. But those are the key elements. And, I remember the very first day he played me just the first little inkling of something, I immediately [knew] we were on the same page. And I think the score is absolutely fantastic. It’s so, so good.

Often at the end of these interviews, you want to ask a director, “Do you know what you’ll do next?” But you’ve actually got another film out in just a few months. How have you balanced working on Masters of the Universe and upcoming Laika animation Wildwood?

Travis Knight: I don’t recommend making two movies at the same time. It is not an advisable situation. I love them both. They’ve both taken years of my life to create; Wildwood considerably more. I’ve been working on Wildwood in some form or another for 16 years, most of my adult life. It’s a beautiful novel written by Colin Meloy, illustrated by his wife, Carson Ellis, and I fell in love with it before Colin had even finished writing the complete novel. I saw early pages from it.

So we started collaborating 16 years ago, and it’s been this kind of slow, steady drip of evolution over that period of time. And yeah, it was a weird thing to be doing both things at the same time. Stop-motion is essentially filmmaking at the speed of a glacier. It is so ridiculously slow. But there’s intentionality brought to it. There’s extraordinary beauty brought to it. And I’m so proud of the movie. It really is the most incredible thing that we’ve ever done at Laika. In every discipline, people just went so far beyond anything that we’ve done in the past.

It’s so beautiful. It’s moving. I can’t wait for people to see it. It was a challenge trying to do both of those things at the same time. But I’m incredibly proud of the movie. I can’t wait [for] later in the year when it comes out. (Matt Maytum)

Masters of the Universe opens in cinemas on 5 June.

We’ll be taking a break next week, so there will be no newsletter on Tuesday or Friday, but we’ll be back in your inbox on Tuesday 2 June - see you then!

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Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu

⭐⭐⭐☆☆

12A, in cinemas now

At both the top and tail of this Star Wars story, one character chides, “Messy. Very messy.” But actually, it’s all pretty straightforward: after three seasons of his streaming hit, bounty hunter Din Djarin - aka The Mandalorian - jet-packs on to the big screen for another adventure that sees him hot-rodding round the galaxy, chasing marks, tangling with Imperial stragglers, gangsters and outsized critters and solo parenting his Force-sensitive ward Grogu.

So far, so familiar; and for non-Disney+ subscribers, the essentials are covered in the (non-scrolling) opening text. No need to worry about the series’ accumulated (Manda)lore - nearly seven years after the (genuinely) messy Rise of Skywalker, this is a keep-it-simple cinema comeback for the saga.

But maybe a few more complications wouldn’t have gone amiss. As Mando (Pedro Pascal, plus body doubles Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder) presses on with his righteous new assignment - rounding up war criminals for the nascent New Republic - director Jon Favreau keeps the action zipping from planet to planet, peril to peril, but he and co-writers Dave Filoni and Noah Koor rarely steer the plot into unpredictable waters - unless you count the ones bubbling beneath the palace of the slippery Hutt Twins.

Despite the bigger, IMAX-ready canvas, the stakes feel relatively small, the titular duo taking little more than baby steps on their journeys. The nicest, most quietly daring surprise comes in the second half, where Grogu stops being “shoulder candy” (as one lowlife calls him) and starts taking charge. For a stretch, the film feels like an oddly enchanting cross between Greyfriars Bobby and The Dark Crystal, with Ludwig Göransson’s eclectic score shifting to a lyrical gear that’s as lovely as a binary sunset.

Mostly, though, Grogu’s job is to be ready for his cute close-up as a barrage of set-pieces explodes around him. The well-marshalled mayhem includes several Star Wars staples (bar fights, speeder chases, face-offs with snow-stomping walkers) and a few trips to a Thunderdome-esque arena that culminate in an epic, if slightly over-pixellated, monsters’ brawl. It’s in the galactic gladiators’ pit we meet one of our principals, Rotta the Hutt who, voiced by Jeremy Allen White, brings dad issues (his old man is Jabba) and a distinctive US accent, conjuring the bizarrely arresting image that Bruce Springsteen has been swallowed by a pumped-up space slug.

The SW faithful will remember a much younger, less hench Rotta from the 2008 Clone Wars movie (another TV-adjacent outing that felt like like 3-4 installments sewn together); they’ll also get a deep-cut kick out of the references to Yuzzum, Dejarik, Ralph McQuarrie concept art and arcade vector graphics circa 1983. Yet for all the discreet fan service, The Mandalorian and Grogu still works as a no-homework-required standalone, a worthy franchise entry point for younglings. But its essentially safe approach also feels like a saga standing still, rather than pointing the way forward. (Matthew Leyland)

IN SHORT From Mando mowing down stormtroopers to Grogu trampolining, it’s heaving with action and adorability, but never quite makes the leap from episode to Episode. To paraphrase Sigourney Weaver’s underused Ward: good, if not great, job.

STAY FOR THE END CREDITS? No tease of further adventures, but look out for a SW veteran’s name in the cast list - and see if you can work out which one they were…

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Finding Emily

⭐⭐⭐☆☆

12A, in cinemas now

At a student-union bar in Manchester, sound engineer Owen (Spike Fearn) meets his dream girl, who gives him her number… minus one digit. Combing the campus, he encounters Emily (Angourie Rice) - right name, wrong girl - a psychology student who decides to help him find the correct one out of 318(!) other Emilys. But hey, what if The One is actually closer than he realises…?

Despite all the reminders that it’s set in the now - podcasts, social-media pile-ons, cc-all email gaffes, some (fairly cursory) commentary on toxic masculinity - this Working Title romcom is committed to a formula as old as the (Notting) hills. Genre staples from the big pretence (Emily secretly uses Owen as a case study for her thesis on attachment theory) to the climactic grand gesture pave the way to a foregone conclusion. Helmed by first-time feature director Alicia MacDonald, from a script by Rachel Hirons (A Guide to Second Date Sex), it’s a patchy, funny-one-minute-clunky-the-next affair, but crucially rooted in successful chemistry. Fearn (Alien: Romulus) bumbles from one faux pas to another with unassuming charm, while Rice leans into the peppy wit familiar from Mean Girls (2024) and the Tom Holland Spider-movies, without overplaying her character’s inevitable change of heart regarding romance. Together they generate enough good-natured spark to leave Emily in a more engaging place than we first find it. Shame, though, that the likes of Minnie Driver and Fiona Allen aren’t given more room to fully honour another romcom trope, the scene-stealing supporting character. (Matthew Leyland)

STAY FOR THE END CREDITS? A comic homage to a defining 90s pop video is worth hanging around for, and there’s a starry ‘Special Thanks’ section.

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Hen

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

15, in cinemas now

Following GOAT and The Sheep Detectives, the 2026 Livestock Cinematic Universe continues to expand with György Pálfi’s (Hukkle, Taxidermia) peck-tacular adventure. Unlike the aforementioned titles, this is no family movie. Told entirely from the POV of a chicken who’s escaped an industrial farm, it weaves into its avian odyssey real-world human horror via a major plot strand about people smuggling. The operation in question - tied to the seaside restaurant where our heroine finds a new home - holds a dark mirror up to earlier scenes of factory farming. As gangster violence and fiery tragedy erupt, Hen hatches a serious statement about the mercenary mistreatment of others en masse, be they animals or desperate refugees.

Similar to 2022’s EO, Pálfi hops between tones, more nimbly so than Jerzy Skolimowski’s donkey-centric drama. There are breathless action scenes as the chicken contends with various predators, moments of surreal whimsy (like the hen watching dinosaurs on TV) and even an interlude where the film morphs into a kind of musical sex comedy, featuring the most overbearing rooster this side of Foghorn Leghorn. All these goings-on are executed with extraordinary technical dexterity, from the racing ground-level camerawork to the seamless wrangling of eight different chickens (three principal, five supporting) in the lead role. No CGI or AI was reportedly used, and no attempts are made to crudely anthropomorphise our star - yet she’s as engaging and expressive as any celebrity-voiced fabrication. (Matthew Leyland)

STAY FOR THE END CREDITS? No extra footage - but after all the avian jeopardy, it may give peace of mind to stick around for the ‘no animals were harmed’.

‘BOLERO’-VER AND OVER Following Exit 8 and Surviving Earth, this is the third film in the past month to include Ravel’s composition, famously popularised by Torvill and Dean. Talk about repetitive…

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The Balloonists

⭐⭐⭐☆☆

PG, in cinemas now

If Artemis II’s historic moonshot has given you a thirst for more long-distance record attempts in a confined capsule, you may want to hop aboard John Dower’s documentary, which details the 1999 race to be the first to circumnavigate the globe, non-stop, in a hot-air balloon. Our principal balloonists are Swiss explorer Bertrand Piccard and British flying instructor Brian Jones who, in the 180-foot Breitling Orbiter 3, take on rivals including former teammates and Richard Branson. They’re also up against a host of challenges including restricted airspace - if they stray over Yemen they could be shot down - dwindling fuel, carbon dioxide poisoning and, of course, the weather.

Despite these perils - captured via a wealth of footage inside and outside the craft, alongside cutaways to ground control - the outcome is rarely in doubt; there are knife-edge moments and vivid images, but a feeling the suspense isn’t being milked to the full, a la Touching the Void (it doesn’t help that it takes a half-hour to get properly airborne). Meanwhile, though, there’s the fascinating contrast between the swaggering Piccard - who owns up to not always playing well with others - and the (way) more modest, placid Jones. This chalk-cheese pairing keeps The Balloonists afloat as a human-interest yarn; come for the high-flying adventure, stay for the unlikely partnership. (Matthew Leyland)

NAME IT SO Betrand Piccard comes from a long line of daredevils: dad Jacques took the first journey to the depths of the Mariana Trench while grandfather Auguste was a pioneering balloonist. The family’s legendary exploits inspired the naming of Star Trek captain Jean-Luc Picard.

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Leonora in the Morning Light

⭐⭐☆☆☆

15, in cinemas 29 May

Every so often you see a biographical film that has a closing-title info-dump that suddenly hints at a much richer story than the one you’ve just been immersed in. Such is the the case with Leonora in the Morning Light, a somewhat stilted drama about surrealist icon Leonora Carrington that’ll likely play better to those already familiar with the painter and the movement. It’s not that there’s nothing here to admire. The scenery, especially in the Mexico-set sequences, is often lush, and across a timeline that jumps back and forth between 1938 and 1951 there are historical events (the march of World War 2) and terrible personal experiences that can’t help but evoke some feeling, on an intellectual level at least.

But it’s very much a film of the head, rather than the heart. You’ll find yourself wanting to learn more about Carrington’s life and work in spite of the film, not because of it. Olivia Vinall, as Carrington, commits to the sad-eyed stare but doesn’t ever give a real sense of the interior life that led to the groundbreaking work. A series of notable art-world figures - including Max Ernst, Salvador Dalí and André Breton - feel like little more than maxim-spouting ciphers.

With its pretentious chapter titles and meagre context, Leonora… seems aimed at those already knowledgeable of the artist and era. Directors Thor Klein and Lena Vurma - working from the book Leonora by Elena Poniatowska - clearly have a decent grasp on the visuals and tone, but take the audience’s interest for granted. (Matt Maytum)

BOOKSMART Author Poniatowska personally knew Carrington, and shared specific details for the directors to include (which, like the film as a whole, are likely to induce a shrug for the uninitiated).

Trailer Club

The second teaser for DC Studios’ Lanterns series leans much more heavily on the ring-fuelled superpowers than the first one did, perhaps to appease those fans who thought it was looking a little dour and underpowered. This new promo still plays on the odd-couple clash of Kyle Chandler’s roguish Hal Jordan and Aaron Pierre’s greener (not literally) John Stewart, but there are glimpses of forcefields, flight, Hal’s Green Lantern suit and the ring being used to conjure up counterfeit money. Alongside the explosions there are also looks at cast members such as Kelly Macdonald, Laura Linney and Garret Dillahunt (clearly playing the villain because, well, it’s Garret Dillahunt), as well as Nathan Fillion’s Guy Gardner, who you may remember from last year’s Superman. Find out how Lanterns fits into the wider DCU when it streams on HBO Max from 16 August.

• Fresh from its Cannes debut, Na Hong-jin’s sci-fi thriller Hope has dropped a cracking first teaser, as a local police chief tries to defend his town from what looks like an alien invasion. No sign of married co-stars Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander yet, mind…

• Does Masters of the Universe have the power to inspire a new generation of He-Man fans? The final trailer reintroduces some nostalgic favourites…

• Jimmy Stewart gets the Michael treatment in biopic Jimmy, about his not always wonderful life. Despite this being the second trailer, it still feels more like an extended skit than a real film, not least when Rob Riggle shows up…

• You, Me and Dupree Andre? Super-successful John Cena reunites with his estranged, chaos-causing ‘brother’ Eric Andre in throwback Netflix comedy, Little Brother…

• Forty years on, revisit the World Cup clash between England and Argentina - featuring Maradona handily scoring a pivotal goal - in doco The Match. An ideal warm-up to get your nerves jangling before a summer of soccer…

• Another Cannes film trailer has dropped for those not hitting the Croisette this year: a first look at Nicholas Winding Refn’s futuristic thriller Her Private Hell…

• Fans of films based on ever more tenuous IP, look no further. Owen Wilson stars as an estranged dad looking for his son in a film based on hip-hop festival Rolling Loud…

• Maika Monroe is a governess turning the screw in the lurid trailer for another Cannes premiere, Victorian Psycho…

• Andrew Scott and Brendan Fraser fret over history’s most significant weather report in the latest look at D-Day drama, Pressure…

• Things get creepy for a live-in music teacher in straight-to-streaming horror Strung…

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And don’t miss our competition to win a copy of David Fincher classic Fight Club on 4K Ultra HD™. Entry couldn’t be simpler, so get involved ASAP! You don’t even need to be a subscriber to enter, but as it’s free to sign up for our twice-weekly newsletters, why not join our gang anyway?

We’re back on Friday with reviews including the aforementioned The Mandalorian and Grogu and more. See you then!

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The Mandalorian and Grogu cast and filmmakers speak

What we learned at a recent fan event…

Earlier this month, The Movie Wingman attended a fan event in London ahead of the release of the latest Star Wars film, The Mandalorian and Grogu. A feature-length spin-off from the Disney+ series, the new film - written and directed by series creator Jon Favreau - is the first Star Wars movie in more than six years, and follows the continuing adventures of the (almost) always-armoured Mando (Pedro Pascal) and his diabolically cute green charge.

At the event, the first 25 minutes or so of the film was screened, setting up the mission that will occupy the pair in their big screen debut. It opens with a bravura action sequence featuring AT-ATs, as the Mandalorian and Grogu attempt to bring in an Empire-supporting warlord, before they receive orders from Sigourney Weaver’s Colonel Ward to track down Rotta the Hutt (voiced by Jeremy Allen White), the only offspring of the late Jabba.

Before the footage was screened, Favreau, Pascal, Weaver and producer Kathleen Kennedy took part in a Q&A. Here’s what they had to say about the film ahead of its release in cinemas on 22 May.

Favreau is taking this opportunity to go BIG

“The rhythm of telling a story on the small screen is wonderful, but very different than what you can do on a screen this size,” says Favreau, speaking in front of the IMAX screen in the Cineworld Leicester Square.

As well as offering the chance to bring Star Wars back to the big screen after an extended break, Favreau also sees The Mandalorian and Grogu as “an opportunity to, to do things we never could do before [on TV]. We could build giant practical sets. We could have giant animated CG creatures. We could have stop motion. We could have motion-control miniatures. We could bring characters like Zeb to life, and see the planet of Nal Hutta, to see the Hutts do what the potential was for these characters as described in animation and in the books and in the comics.”

The writer/director also sees it as an opportunity to introduce a new generation of fans to Star Wars on the big screen. “We love passing that tradition down and making people feel the way I felt when I was 10 years old in 1977 and I saw that first shot that changed my life.”

Pedro Pascal is fanboying over his collaborators

Pascal admitted that he’s been hoping for a big-screen outing for Mando for years, hinting on press lines and generally trying to manifest it into existence, not least because it’s the cinematic stuff he was raised on.

“I saw Star Wars in the movie theatre,” he says. “I was raised on movies that Kathleen Kennedy’s produced, raised on movies Sigourney Weaver starred in. They’re the reason I wanted to do what I’ve been given the incredible gift of getting to do.”

He also calls Favreau “one of the greatest pros”, and insists this film needs to be seen on “the biggest screen possible”.

Sigourney Weaver is bring her sci-fi clout to Star Wars

Talking about what genre legend Weaver brings to the series, Favreau says, “Everybody remembers, of course, Ripley from Aliens. And people think of Ghostbusters. But what I don’t hear mentioned enough is Galaxy Quest…”

But it’s not just impeccable sci-fi credentials Weaver brings to the table. “When you have two hours to tell a story,” continues Favreau, “it’s a tradition in cinema when you get to hire an actor like Sigourney, who brings their entire reputation, their body of work, combined with their talent, their enthusiasm, their insights... Star Wars has to feel real. There’s so much over-the-top fun, action, excitement in the world that George [Lucas] created, but George also grounded his world with real people, with real feelings, with real emotion, and you have to have a cast of that calibre to help pull the whole thing off.”

“I've always admired [the Star Wars universe] from afar and been thrilled by it,” adds Weaver. “Been thrilled by the performances and the world and the array of different [locations] and creatures. But I never imagined that I would actually get to be part of such a world and such a community, so I'm so thrilled to be here.”

Martin Scorsese’s role came about surprisingly easily

In the most bizarre casting of a heavyweight director in The Mandalorian since Werner Herzog starred in Season 1, the new film features Martin Scorsese as the voice of four-armed Ardennian fry cook, Hugo. Favreau took the opportunity at the event to put forward his own question, asking Kennedy how she convinced the Oscar-winning auteur to join them in a galaxy far, far away. “When I wrote this character, we wanted Martin Scorsese,“ says Favreau. “It was our dream, and we thought it was impossible. And Kathy said, ‘Let me make a phone call…’ Can you tell me what happened here? I want to know the story.”

“You know, I wish I could say that it was really, really difficult,” laughs Kennedy. “But in fact, I think Marty Scorsese is a huge fan. And consequently, when I called him, he didn’t really miss a beat. He was like, ‘Oh, I would love to do that.’ And I wanted to make it sound like it was much more difficult. But he was a huge fan, and consequently, you can see he has a blast playing this part.”

Jeremy Allen White was involved early on (even though his character is fully animated)

Favreau and Jeremy Allen White - who are both known for playing chefs on screen, in Chef (2014) and TV series The Bear, respectively - hit it off at a party, “and then as this role of Rotta the Hutt came up, we wanted somebody who was an interesting choice for what we had in mind,” explains Favreau. Jabba’s sole heir, Rotta is far more ripped than you’d expect, especially compared to the rest of his space-slug species. In The Mandalorian and Grogu, he’s making a name for himself as a gladiator.

“And even though, he plays a character that’s fully animated, we build everything on these movies [around the voices],” continues Favreau. “We start almost like an animated film, where we record all the vocal tracks first, even with the live-action characters [like the Mandalorian].”

Mando and Grogu’s relationship could be surprisingly emotional

Giving an update on the title duo’s relationship since we last saw them at the end of Season 3, Pascal says, “They are real partners at this point. Grogu is on every mission, on every adventure. They are side by side.”

The film could also dig deep into father-son emotions, the way that Pascal describes it. “It’s sentimental because Din Djarin knows that this creature will outlive him, and I think that existentially he’s very, very focused on making sure that he can survive in a world without him.

“Of course, the power that Grogu has surpasses Mando’s by a lot. And yet, none of us want to let go of our child, and, none of us want to keep that child from growing into everything that they can be.” If it’s all sounding a bit too soppy, Pascal is quick to pull it back. “So that’s really, I think, the very textured relationship and story that they’re able to tell, on a thrill ride that you cannot believe!” (Matt Maytum)

The Mandalorian and Grogu is in cinemas from 22 May

Win a copy of Fight Club on 4K Ultra HD!

For more than a quarter of a century, people haven’t stopped talking about Fight Club. One of the defining movies of turn-of-the-millennium cinema, David Fincher’s cult classic remains as daring and darkly comic as ever. And now it packs an even bigger presentational punch, thanks to its release on 4K Ultra HD™ and 4K Ultra HD™ SteelBook®.

Based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk, the New Regency production stars Brad Pitt, Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter in an explosively twisty tale exploring underground boxing, identity, anarchy, masculinity and modern consumerism. Or as the tagline brilliantly put it: ‘Mischief. Mayhem. Soap.’ Plus, we might add, Meat Loaf.

Meticulously restored in 4K Ultra HD™, the new release brings fresh intensity and clarity to the movie’s rich cinematography and immersive sound design, ensuring a knockout experience for fans and first-timers alike.

Fight Club is available to buy right now - but if you fancy a chance to win a 4K Ultra HD™ copy of this smashing release, email themoviewingman@gmail.com with the subject line ‘Fight Club competition before 8am on Monday 25th May. The winners will be chosen at random. UK entrants only. The judge’s decision is final.

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Let us know what you end up watching this weekend (particularly if it’s Obsession, as we weren’t able to catch the buzzy horror in time for review), and as ever we welcome likes, shares, forwards, old-fashioned irl word-of-mouth or any other way in which you’d like to spread the word about The Movie Wingman.

See you next week 🫡

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The Christophers

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

15, in cinemas now

Following last year’s spy thriller Black Bag, Steven Soderbergh continues his ‘London phase’ with another taut piece steeped in mind games and rug-pulls, albeit with highly personal rather than global stakes. With the director working in a relatively self-effacing register - none of the POV pyrotechnics of Presence, say - The Christophers is undoubtedly stagy. But it’s propelled by the magnetism of two movie stars, one veteran, the other rising fast. Ian McKellen is Julian Sklar, a famous painter and one-time TV star who’s “done nothing but shit in 30 years”.

Indeed, it was the 90s when he abandoned the third set of his legendary portrait series ‘The Christophers’... but just imagine the fortune Julian’s grasping offspring (James Corden, Jessica Gunning, in rather thankless roles) would inherit if they hired a struggling art restorer - Michaela Coel’s Lori - to secretly forge completed Christophers while posing as the old rascal’s assistant…

As Lori takes up her hazardous assignment, a devious, dynamic, deliciously sharp-tongued battle of wills ignites. A vigorously cranky McKellen revels in the waspish one-liners that endlessly spring from the script by Ed Solomon (Soderbergh’s No Sudden Move). Coel is cooler, calmer, more watchful - but equally riveting; her self-possessed poise and subtle concealment of Lori’s motivations reaps emotional dividends when formative traumas come to light.

Between the zingers, the meditations on art and bouts of mordant self-absorption, there’s something Woody Allen-ish about The Christophers. But the playful suspense, sturdy professionalism and reversal-rich but unfussy storytelling are pure Soderbergh. (Matthew Leyland)

YES WAY, ED Solomon’s prior credits include the original Men in Black, the first two entries in the Now You See Me series and all three of Bill and Ted’s excellent adventures.

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Normal

⭐⭐⭐☆☆

15, in cinemas now

Bob Odenkirk’s reinvention as everyman action hero continues with Ben Wheatley’s latest, a short, sharp, wickedly funny action thriller that throws back to the sort of thing of you’d have rented on VHS in the 80s and 90s. Wheatley’s second US picture (after the slightly unfairly derided Meg 2: The Trench) lacks his weirder edges, though there’s distinct evidence of his fingerprints in the humour, OTT violence and commitment to practical effects.

There’s more than a touch of Fargo to this desolate, snowy town populated by oddballs, and not just because the previous (now dead) sheriff is named Gunderson in a tip of the wide-brimmed hat to the Coens’ classic. Sheriff Ulysses (Odenkirk) is the interim who’s in Normal, Minnesota to caretake after the death of the aforementioned Gunderson. Hot Fuzz fans will find much amusement as Ulysses’ boring, day-to-day duties are spiced up by a bank robbery that leads to an all-out gunfight that encompasses the entire small town.

Odenkirk’s great value – physically capable, but also straightforwardly convincing as the level-headed lawman with a gift for defusing combustible situations. Amid all the explosive carnage, there’s something almost comforting in his stable presence. Some of the bigger name co-stars (Lena Headey, Henry Winkler) don’t get enough opportunity to make much of an impact, but the most valuable supporting player is Billy MacLellan as Ulysses’ deputy – he has casually brilliant comic timing and a Nicholson-esque wolfish grin.

There’s not a great deal of substance to cling to here, but as a throwback actioner with much more personality than you’d expect from this sort of genre exercise, it’s a satisfying riot. (Matt Maytum)

WRITE ON TIME Screenwriter Derek Kolstad (John Wick) began work on the script before meeting Odenkirk on Nobody. Kolstad’s next high-concept thriller, Painter, sees Amber Midthunder rescuing kidnapped dad Walton Goggins, which will presumably involve intense, pacy violence.

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Orphan

⭐⭐⭐☆☆

15, in cinemas now

Budapest, 1957: living alone with mum Klára (Andrea Waskovics), Andor (Bojtorján Barabas) is a sullen 12-year-old tearaway eager to know more about his father, who went missing during WW2 but might, Andor hopes, still be alive. But then into his life barges Berend (Grégory Gadebois), the butcher that sheltered Klára during the war, who’s now returned to make a devastating claim about Andor’s origins…

It’s at this point, after a rather ponderous first act, that László Nemes’ (the Oscar-winning Son of Saul, 2015) drama begins to find its footing. The Oedipal clash that takes shape gives Andor a worthy target at which to aim (as Berend puts it) “all that sneakiness and anger”; traits that otherwise define the character to a reductive extent (though it should be said Barabas wields a hard stare that could scare the marmalade out of Paddington). Capturing the oppressed mood of the times - it’s set a year after Hungary’s failed anti-Soviet uprising - Orphan’s sound design seethes with ominous clangs and rumbles, while its palette is so muted that any flashes of bright colour - red balloons, fairground lights - really pop from the screen. But the film would be much drabber without Gadebois, whose outsized charisma skilfully combines destructive rages with surprising moments of tenderness and patience, giving the story the unpredictable edge it needs to sustain its lengthy, somewhat laboured running time. (Matthew Leyland)

FAMILY RESEMBLANCE Nemes based the script - co-written with Son of Saul’s Clara Royer - on his father’s own 50s childhood. “Through him, I carried this story in me,” the director says. “It embodies something universal, mythological and almost archetypal of the boy becoming a man, learning about who he is, and coming to terms with his own darkness.”

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Queer as Punk

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

15, in cinemas now

Meet Shh… Diam!, the “75 per cent queer” punk band that is the focal point for documentarian Yihwen Chen’s highly compelling study of the fight for LGBTQ+ rights in Malaysia. The group’s name translates as ‘Shut up!’, which is the last thing these rockers intend to do, openly opposing discriminatory national laws and queer criminalisation with loud, proud, witty songs about “making out with whoever you want” (the satirical ‘Lonely Lesbian’ is a particular banger).

Naturally funny lead singer Faris Saad is a trans man whose identity differs from the one listed on his government-issued ID card, which blocks him from voting or from marrying his female partner. Nonetheless, he continues on his journey, reaching key personal milestones, against a fluctuating political backdrop. Chen charts events from 2018 to 2022; one election brings hope, a later one starkly symbolises that the struggle is far from over. The film’s mood shifts accordingly: the lighter comic energy of the first half gives way to a more sombre latter section, whose defining moment is a stage performance highlighting the appalling state-sanctioned caning of a same-sex couple. The movie ends, fittingly, with Shh… Diam! still making a righteous racket, but striking a more despairing chord: “If you’re queer you’re out of luck,” sings Faris. “It all depends on who you fuck.” (Matthew Leyland)

FEAST FROM THE EAST Queer as Punk screened as part of London’s Queer East Festival, which continues until 1 June; for more details check out queereast.org.uk.

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Also Released: Obsession

18, in cinemas now

There’s a lot of buzz for Curry Barker’s new feature, which comes with a killer concept: Bear (Michael Johnston) wishes for his friend Nikki (Inde Navarrette) to love him more than anybody else, but it’s kind of a monkey-paw situation. It currently boasts a 95% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and is set to be one of the horror talking points of the year.

Trailer Club

After dropping a couple of featurettes centred on a giant bird, the first proper trailer for Laika’s Wildwood arrives, and, um, it doesn’t feature much giant bird action. But perhaps the stop-motion studio thought it was best to begin with behind-the-scenes snippets, as it’s a so crisply animated it’s hard to believe that is been made by hand, from the human leads to the humanoid animals glimpsed throughout. It’s very much a teaser, with a limited amount revealed about the Labyrinth-echoing plot (teen girl heads off to magical land to rescue her missing younger brother), and much more emphasis on the striking visuals, movingly soundtracked by M83’s ‘My Tears Are Becoming A Sea’. Wildwood opens in cinemas on 23 October.

• The Big Bang Theory is starting to rival Happy Days for spin-offs; here’s your first look at the fourth show in the franchise, multiversal sci-com Stuart Fails to Save the Universe…

• The buzz is strong for The Rivals of Amziah King, a rural indie drama starring Matthew McConaughey as the most badass beekeeper since Jason Statham weaponised a jar of honey…

• The final teaser for extradimensional spooker Backrooms adds a jolt of avian anxiety to the mix…

• Inked ex-con Javier Bardem is looking for some serious tit for tat(s) in the second trailer for Cape Fear, needling the family of lawyer couple Amy Adams and Patrick Wilson…

• There’s little dialogue and even less plot detail in the first trailer for Pedro Almodóvar’s Bitter Christmas, but the loaded looks and (of course) blazing colours speak volumes…

• The first look at Netflix’s Florence Pugh-starring East of Eden features big landscapes and bigger emotions in a new take on John Steinbeck’s novel. Joseph Zada (Haymitch in prequel The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping) plays Caleb, the James Dean role in Elia Kazan’s 1955 film version…

• Will Ferrell tears up the green in the raucous trailer for golf comedy series, The Hawk…

• History, fantasy and reality collide in The Fall of Douglas Weatherford, which stars Peter Mullan as a widower obsessed with the titular figure he believes he’s an ancestor of…

• Tom Holland promises “some of the best action we’ve had in any of these movies” in a new look at the practical stunts in Spider-Man: Brand New Day…

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We’re back on Friday with our regular review round-up, so we’ll see you then!

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Ben Wheatley interview

On working with Bob Odenkirk and staging explosive shootouts

Ben Wheatley has one of the most eclectic careers of any British director working today. On his CV you’ll find the varied likes of Kill List, Sightseers, Free Fire, In the Earth and Meg 2: The Trench, among other film and TV work, and now for the first time he’s releasing two films in one year. Following the launch of brain-scrambling sci-fi adventure Bulk, Wheatley is back in cinemas with Normal. Written by Derek Kolstad (John Wick, Nobody) and starring Bob Odenkirk, it’s the Better Call Saul star’s latest foray in high-octane action.

In Normal, Odenkirk plays Ulysses, an interim sheriff in the town of Normal, Minnesota. It seems like a quiet, perfectly charming little town, leaving Ulysses not much more to do than deal with local shop disputes and a wayward moose who’s occasionally seen strolling around. But it fairly quickly becomes clear that all is not quite normal in Normal, from the mysterious yakuza connection, to the death of Ulysses’ predecessor. No spoilers to say that it won’t be long before bullets fly and blood is spilled on the snowy streets.

The Movie Wingman caught up with Wheatley this week ahead of Normal’s cinema release on Friday, to talk about switching gears, orchestrating carnage and the film shootouts that have inspired him…

The Movie Wingman: You’ve had a very varied career so far, and now Normal has landed while you’re still touring with the physical-media release of Bulk. Did the timelines of working on those two films cross over?

Ben Wheatley: Yeah, they crossed over. I shot Bulk and started the post [production] on it and then went to Canada and did Normal, and then came back and finished the post on Bulk.

And Bulk came out while we were cutting Normal. So it was quite compressed. I’ve never had that where it’s two films in one year, which is difficult because I think there was a moment where we were going, “Oh, should we, enter Bulk into Toronto1?” And then we were like, “Oh, fuck, I don’t wanna have two films in the same festival. That’s not good.” And I didn’t want them to be reviewed against each other either, because that’s unhelpful for both movies effectively. But it worked out well in the end. They didn’t really cross over too much.

Did Normal feel like a chance to scratch a different sort of genre and location itch?

Totally. Primarily why I wanted to do it was because it was working with Bob Odenkirk and [Derek] Kolstad. But it was also a cowboy film, and that’s what was really exciting about it. And that was one thing I’d wanted to do for a long time. and so that made total sense.

Bob and Derek worked on the Nobody films together, and they came up with the idea for Normal together, right?

Yeah, I think what had happened was that Derek had written a spec, like a three-pager, while they were doing Nobody, and then pitched it to Bob and to Marc Provissiero, Bob’s manager-producer. It had kinda gone away for a bit, and then they went, “Oh, what about that thing?” And then they kind of expanded it from there.

How did you get involved?

I think they’d gone to my agent, and they were saying, “We’re looking for someone to direct this, someone who can direct action.”

And he said, “Well have a look at this,” and sent them a link for Free Fire… It was action, but it was also comedy and all those things. It was a fit. And when they came to me, the script was there, but they came with this set of rules, and they said, “Look, Bob is perfectly capable of doing action, so we wanna see him doing it. And we want every effect to be as practical as possible, and the only time we use computers is for safety or to clean something up.”

And I was like, “Yeah, that’s, exactly right.” Free Fire’s like that. There’s hardly any CG in it. And that was really exciting to do something that was fully practical.

But it was weird because The Meg 2 had a really big 3D printing department, that they printed all the models for. But we never got to use them in the film. Seeing that stuff made me want to make Bulk. And so we did a load of model work in Bulk. But then we did a load of model work in Normal as well. But hidden stuff which you can’t really see. So they all influenced each other in the end.

Model work as in miniatures?

Yeah. The snowstorm stuff, there’s a lot of model work in that. Normally you would just shoot the town at night as a plate, and then the CG guys could come in and make a snowstorm in it... And I was I was like, “I don’t wanna do that.” So we kind of built this town, printed it out, and then shot it in a studio with real snow. If you know, you can spot the shots. But I’ve seen it projected in the cinema, and if you don’t know, you don’t know.

As someone who writes as well, does it feel different when directing a project based on someone else’s screenplay?

It can be a relief not to have written it. It’s hard enough directing. So you come and have the full focus on that, and you’re not as responsible. But on something like Normal, there’s a lot of rewriting happening all the time, so everyone mucks in with that and comes up with lines and reworks and wrestles the script around quite a lot. And because of Bob coming from a comedy background, that’s an expected thing,

What do you think makes Bob so good at this unexpected/reluctant action hero character type that he’s fallen into?

I think as an actor and as a film star, he has very easy empathy. He looks like he’s thinking all the time, and worrying, and there’s a lot of that held in his face, and I think that helps the audience to invest in him. A lot of the time you look at actors and you’re going, “Nah. Nothing bad’s ever happened to them in their lives”... but with Bob you look at him and go, “Oh yeah, he’s trying to work something out.”

So there’s an intelligence to it, but also because you can see that he’s worried as well. And, that was one of the big things with this, to to look at the empathy side of it so he’s not just [adopts trailer voice] ‘a cop on the edge’. Destroying everybody, a whirlwind of revenge. It’s not that. You see him grappling with the idea that he’s fighting these people, but he knows that they’re not necessarily bad.

It’s a very funny film - was that always there in the script, or did you tease it out?

A lot of it is in the script, but then it’s just bits of stuff we add all the time, and Derek’s there as well doing it. And then there’s a whole load of other stuff that happens in the edit, a lot of ADR2 and thinking about how we can sharpen the scenes up.

Do you have any principles when it comes to balancing comedy and action?

I don’t know if they’re principles, but it’s more that it depends who your audience is. And if it’s an action audience, then you can’t be too funny or add too much comedy into the action because it weakens the action. The funnier or sillier it is, the less the action lands because it trivialises it. So you have to be really careful with that. And that’s why that balance of having practical effects and real Bob Odenkirk fighting — rather than him turning his back on the screen and then it being a stunt man for 10 minutes and then turning back around again and it’s Bob Odenkirk — helps to leaven it and draw the audience in. It’s just a juggling act.

And sometimes it’s just as simple as sound effects. I’ve found that audiences don’t like squishy sound effects, when people get hit. They don’t like it, at all. And then the other really dreaded one is pang. If you ever hit anybody with a pang - pang! - and that breaks the whole thing usually. It’s almost like it’s an audio cue to the audience that this is silly and now don’t take it seriously. But we have a bit of pang. There’s some pang in the film, but not too much pang.

Forgive this slightly laboured analogy, but as the director are you at all like Ulysses as a sheriff? He’s calm and dependable in the midst of chaos, he’s settling disagreements and putting out different kinds of fires all the time.

I don’t know. There is a bit of that in directing. You are in the middle of it all the time. And there’s factions that you have to deal with, and some people are upset while other people are happy. And it goes up and down. Not everyone can be happy at the same time, but as long as you’re explaining why it’s their time to be unhappy [laughs] then things are OK. [Directing is] much duller. It’s much more managerial than the Ulysses role, I think.

There’s a huge action component to this film – did you feed any direct lessons from Free Fire into Normal when you were mapping out the action?

The main one is, the more you plan it, the more the dollars in the budget get onto the screen. The more that you can say, “I’m doing this. This is how it works. This is gonna work. We’re gonna do it,” that kind of talk, rather than, “Oh, let’s see. Oh, try that. Maybe we could try this…” And certainly at that budget level, you have to be really precise about what you’re gonna do. So that was very similar with Normal, when you’re designing the sets, they are designed for camera very specifically, and if you change your mind, you’ve wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars.

What are some of your favourite movie shootouts?

Hard Boiled, obviously. The tea shop shootout is always something I watch to cleanse my palate. And the main one where they turn up in the kind of drug-packing area and when he comes down on the rope, all that stuff. And then probably the end of The Wild Bunch, and the beginning shootout in is really incredible. And they’re the two big ones for me, I think.

I quite like the big shootout at the end of [Peter Berg’s] The Kingdom. That’s got a really brilliant action sequence at the end of that. And I really like Michael Mann – Heat, but the one I really love is the one in Miami Vice, the much-maligned Miami Vice. I’m a big fan of Michael Mann’s [digital] video films. I think they’re great. That and Public Enemies, I really like. Public Enemies felt really intimate in a way that I’d never seen before. It’s like the cameras are so close to their faces. It’s excellent. I think Collateral and Miami Vice specifically, don’t work as well on TV. Seeing them in the cinema, the grain made a lot more sense. The [digital] video made much more sense, felt much more immediate. But when you saw them on TV, they suddenly felt a bit small. Maybe that’s the problem.

Are there elements from any of those favourites you’ve ever taken inspiration from?

Yeah, the use of slow motion definitely. And the cutting patterns of them, and then the use of particles, which is a thing that John Woo does brilliantly. You see it in Ridley Scott as well — the use of sparks and things floating in the air to show the different parallaxing depths of the stuff.

You try to do stuff like that, but I’ve yet to get close to a single bit that’s as complex as a Woo sequence. But, the Peckinpah stuff I love because it’s so jaggedy, like the idea of things being cut at different speeds, and your head’s trying to put it together and it feels much more like the experience of violence rather than something that’s cut perfectly and matches.

When I was doing the research for Free Fire, [I learned] apparently slow motion is a thing for people in stressful situations. You’ve probably experienced it when you’ve fallen over or something like that. But also dropping into black and white apparently is a thing. When people are under stress, the brain shuts down. If they’re under threat of death in gunfights, sometimes they see in black and white because they don’t process colour anymore with their eyes, which is pretty interesting. (Matt Maytum)

Normal is in cinemas from 15 May