Poor Things (2023)

The saddest thing about Yorgos Lanthimos's icky Poor Things, a title that I think refers to audiences after two long hours, is that it takes an elaborate steampunk alternate fairytale-reality full of wonky actors playing wonky characters - including a Frankenstein sex doll-come-to-life with, perhaps don't think about it too hard, a child's brain - for the director  to elucidate so very little about the plight of women in today's world (or to be precise, the plight of women in fantasy realities of an alternate past) and there isn't much said of interest about sex or old-school gendered-rules about social propriety, either.

★☆☆☆☆

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Mississippi Burning (1988)

I think I read that potential lawsuits meant the factual story of the FBI's investigation into the murders of three young civil-rights workers in Mississippi in the 1960s couldn't simply be told as it happened, and so the identity of the case's mysterious Mr X informant is altered, names are changed, and liberties are taken with the historical facts of who did what, reducing the impact of the movie-final series of stills telling viewers what happened after the story, but as a gripping, dismaying, maddening period crime drama, this Oscar-winner is star-studded, well acted and completely engrossing.

★★★★☆

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Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997)

Sandra Bullock's character, Alex, wasn't this annoying in number one, I don't think - she whines incessantly about past boyfriends and driving badly and serves only as potential collateral loss in a police operation - while Jason Patric, bravely stepping in where Keanu left off, plays a hero left looking ridiculous as the plot has him leap unhelpfully toward lifeboats and psychically navigate flooded ship corridors, and the writing lets down Willem Dafoe, too, playing the villain who unnecessarily kidnaps Alex when he already has what he wants, leaving this sequel feeling like it is the product of writers asked to follow up a hit at super speed and with no brakes. 

★★☆☆☆

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What Happened To Monday (2017)

In an overpopulated world of food shortages and unrest, a one-child policy is strictly enforced meaning illegal septuplets, all played The Klumps-style by Noomi Rapace, grow up confined to an apartment with each able to venture outside only on their one allocated day per week and only provided they all pretend to be the same person, which is the starting point of this patently absurd scifi action that sees the septuplets' lives (blessed lives free from health emergencies, apartment fires, unwanted visitors and noise complaints from neighbours) suddenly thrown into disarray when "Monday" goes missing and the remaining six, despite their cloistered upbringings, find themselves suddenly able to take on evil agents repeatedly breaking down their apartment door.

★★☆☆☆

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The Lighthouse (2019)

We've seen pairs of men antagonising each other in remote locations before and in much better pictures than this (for example, How I Ended The Summer) but here we go again and right from the word go, when Robert Pattinson (looking good in black and white) and Willem Dafoe land on an island where a lighthouse needs upkeep, Robert Pattison gives a look that suggests he would like to take an axe to Dafoe's head, and so what comes after their arrival - a long string of unpleasant things involving excrement, piss, farts, masturbation, yelling, bird murder and meaningless dream sequences - doesn't develop or heighten the situation so much as perpetuate it: for two long hours we really are in the Doldrums and endscenes of mental collapse (thanks, Park Chan-wook) provide no particular satisfaction or punctuation, just ever more listlessness.

★★☆☆☆

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The Hunter (2011)

This movie about an American sent to Australia to hunt a thylacine is built around one extremely, um, hard-to-swallow factual inaccuracy that almost, well, poisons the rest of the movie - to tell you what it is would constitute a spoiler - but if you can accept the oddity then the rest of the movie, starring Willem Dafoe and Frances O'Connor and spectacular Tasmanian scenery, is a well-acted, engaging mystery drama.

★★★☆☆

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