The Astronaut's Wife (1999)

Charlize Theron, at least, got a chance at a do-over in The Devil's Advocate, another, better scifi-fantasy in which a woman with a boy-cut experiences mental collapse while her husband becomes distracted by otherworldly issues at work, a concept that works well within the context of a morally bankrupt law firm but which here, set in Florida and centred around NASA male astronauts and their wives who wait fearfully on Earth, never is definitively a story about mental health nor alien abduction nor paranormality nor trauma, is never exactly a story about the after-effects of space travel, of loneliness, of body snatching, nor twinship, just a long string of ponderous scenes, the tedium of which is eventually put to death by an hysterical ending so random it is as if it comes suddenly from outer space.

★☆☆☆☆

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Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindlewald (2018)

This Harry Potter universe expansion pack is about an older, constipated (?) Harry Potter/Doctor Who type who surrounds himself with only the most uninteresting of friends - are we really supposed to care about the irritating Queenie and her spellbound Poirot, or keep track of who is and who isn't a fullblood wizard? - and punctuating the "you can only possibly care less about all this if you've read the books" plot are belaboured cgi sequences - a Groot climbing in and out and in and out of Eddy Redmayne's pocket, a mole collecting coins, a bird, etc.. - that I presume are included as careful nods to the Potterverse or to remind you of characters who will become important again in number three, four, five -  and they are spectacular feats of animation - but here, in this decidedly unmagical, heavyhanded snorefest, these moments merely slow down an already tedious series of magic-school carry-on and pokemon creature reveals.

★☆☆☆☆

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Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

The Orient Express is snowed in but Kenneth Branagh's movie, so fussily presented it looks more like the Polar than the Orient Express, is a runaway train ripping through the details of Agatha Christie's book at breakneck speed so that there is no weight to any of it, and at this pace no number of sweeping camera shots back and forth over the enormous cast helps commit any of the individuals to memory - they are all far less important than Branagh's overthought, spectacularly odd moustaches - and in the end it is left to an overbearing soundtrack to insist, ridiculously, on the profundity of end scenes.

★☆☆☆☆

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Dark Shadows (2012)

For those like me who watch this unaware of the gothic tv soap opera "Dark Shadows" that was popular in the 70s, Tim Burton's big screen adaptation with Johnny Depp yet again sporting a deathly pallor as vampire Barnaby Collins is an elaborately produced, occasionally funny but ultimately bemusing oddity; and now, having googled and read up about the tv series "Dark Shadows", I can in full knowledge confirm this tribute is an elaborately produced, occasionally funny but ultimately bemusing oddity.

★★★☆☆

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Into the Woods (2014)

If you can look past the fact this whole elaborate tangle of fairytales could have been avoided if the characters stopped their incessant singing and just sat down and calmly talked to one another, and if you are not repelled by the movie's several unpleasant adult-child relationships, you might enjoy this star-studded film version of the long-running Broadway musical featuring Meryl Streep doing her best Witchy Poo.

★★☆☆☆

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Transcendence (2014)

"Johnny Depp is a brilliant scientist who uploads his conscience to the internet and becomes all-powerful" is a winning science fiction film pitch but the resulting movie is less winning with the film opening a loooong time before Johnny Depp's brilliant scientist uploads his conscience to the internet, so there's a hohum wait for audiences as the pitch is set-up and then, too soon after things start to get interesting, the movie moves into its third act when the all-powerful A.I. is suddenly not so all-powerful, allowing an awkward hurry-let's-find-a-way-to-end-this conclusion.

★★★☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)

Once again, Depp sports a deathly pallor in a Tim Burton fable, appearing here as Roald Dahl's Willy Wonka but in a daring departure from the source material, Wonka is centre stage with an embellished backstory that explains, cleverly and with fitting wicked humour, the chocolatier's desire for an heir.

★★★★☆

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