The Trip To Greece (2020)

There is some spectacular drone camerawork in this fourth Steve Coogan-Rob Brydon The Trip-movie, making the most of the Greek countryside, and again spectacular food and amusing impersonations (all the same ones - Mick Jagger, Bane, Small Man in a Box, Michael Caine - none new) but my tolerance of the hosts' good fortune is definitely waning, and the side stories (a family death, especially) are protracted and add a new unwelcome morose tone.

★★☆☆☆

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The Trip to Spain (2017)

The Trip, this third time, is a trip to Spain, but otherwise everything else is the same including Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan's impersonations.

★★★☆☆

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The Dinner (2017)

In a fancy restaurant, a multi-course degustation delivered to tables by convoys of sleek, choreographed waitstaff is this movie's metaphor for a smooth, controlled passage or course through things, from A to B, and the dinner guests at one particular table - a politician, his second wife, his brother and sister-in-law - are the antithesis, an uncooperative, distracted, disparate group gathered to decide on their best course now that their teenaged sons have committed a despicable crime, in this frustrating film which tries to be both profound and farcical while it grapples with themes as wide-ranging as politics, American Civil War history, teenage bullying, adolescent crime, racism, parenting, sibling rivalry, familial secrets, and mental illness, all with a sassy, isn't-this-so-so-clever attitude.

★☆☆☆☆

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The Other Guys (2010)

Early on, hot-shot buddy cops, the sort of beefcakes that traditionally tear up the silver screen in action movies, die being stupidly heroic and into their macho places step desk cops Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell, a pair of Prius-driving, Little River Band-appreciating, wooden gun-bearing, bickering man-children, so the not very funny running gag here is that as a buddy cop movie, this drags its feet and is no The Nice Guys, no Central Intelligence, no Jump Street.

★☆☆☆☆

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The Indian In The Cupboard (1995)

A boy discovers that if he locks his toys in a cupboard using a magic key, his toys come to life, meaning this 1995 kids' movie based on a series of novels by Lynne Reid Banks plays out a bit like a live-action Toy Story except instead of an animated toy cowboy with freewill, it has a morose Native American indian who lives his animated moments at the mercy of a goofy white kid.

★★☆☆☆

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The Trip To Italy (2014)

British comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon go on a trip to Italy, reviewing food for The Observer and they're such good company and so effortlessly entertaining with their banter and impressions that you can't even resent them their incredible good fortune, not even when Coogan says, wine in hand looking out over someplace gorgeous from the balcony of an upmarket restaurant, "It doesn't get any better than this," and you are on the couch in a flat that needs tidying, with work in the morning - not a yacht trip on the Amalfi Coast - so, well, perhaps you resent them a little...three, not four stars.

★★★☆☆

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