STACK #156 Oct 2017

CINEMA REVIEWS

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MOTHER!

RELEASED: Sept 14 DIRECTOR: Darren Aronofsky CAST: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer RATING: MA15+ Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem play a married couple living in a big old house in the middle of nowhere, which they have just restored after a fire. He’s a poet struggling with writer’s block, and she’s focused on painting walls behind which something weird and organic pulsates. Their hermetic world is shattered by the arrival of two strangers (Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer) who refuse to leave. Bardem treats them like old friends, while Lawrence is understandably bewildered – who are these people? When an act of violence brings more uninvited guests, chaos reigns, leading to a final act that must be seen to be disbelieved. Making sense of mother! is like trying to understand Twin Peaks – it’s best to just let this batsh-t crazy psychodrama do its thing while you pick up your jaw from the floor. There’s neither rhyme nor reason to the absurdity that unfolds, but like David Lynch’s films, mother! does possess its own circular nightmare logic. Festering floorboards, escalating hysteria, and Lawrence’s gradual descent into madness invite comparisons to Polanski’s Repulsion and Aronofsky’s own Black Swan , but is this a surrealist horror film, haunted house movie, home invasion thriller, religious allegory, or the most pretentious project to emerge from a major studio? Who the hell knows. The kind of film you walk out of wondering what you’ve just seen, file mother! under WTF – with an exclamation point. Scott Hocking AMERICAN ASSASSIN RELEASED: Sept 14 DIRECTOR: Michael Cuesta CAST: Dylan O'Brien, Taylor Kitsch, Michael Keaton, Scott Adkins RATING: MA15+ When Dylan O’Brien’s island holiday with his girlfriend is rudely interrupted by Middle Eastern terrorists, his whole life is turned upside down. Subsequently, he embarks on a personal vendetta against the bad guys, determined to take out the head of the cult and anyone associated with him. However, you can’t really get away with 18 months of planning without being noticed by the CIA. They eventually recruit him to their cause and send him out to be trained by Michael Keaton with a few other Winter Soldiers. They’re faster, smarter, and more lethal than your everyday undercover agent – and if they’re killed, they never existed. Think Bourne, Atomic Blonde or the Mission: Impossible films – super spies that don’t really exist. Following the lead of some seemingly unrelated attacks, the team uncover a looming global threat in the form of a government intent on starting a new world war. When plutonium goes missing and a nuclear bomb is thrown into the mix, the stakes are raised even higher. American Assassin ‘s plot isn’t anything we haven’t seen before, and is at times patriotism at its finest – all it’s missing is Gerard Butler. O’Brien is great as the forlorn, driven spy with a keen eye, and Keaton shines as the no-love-lost trainer of the next generation of super soldiers. A sufficiently entertaining albeit forgettable terrorism thriller. Alesha Kolbe

RELEASED: Sept 21 DIRECTOR: Matthew Vaughn CAST: Taron Egerton, Channing Tatum, Jeff Bridges, Halle Berry RATING: MA15+

K ingsman: The Secret Service as smart as the bespoke suits worn by its agents. It was Bond meets Kick-Ass. This ambitious follow-up is full of inspired moments but it’s less controlled, suffering from the same kind of sequel bloat that affects the MCU. Eggsy (Taron Egerton) – now Gallahad – juggles his new Swedish princess girlfriend (Hanna Alström) and time spent with old mates with the responsibilities of being a fully fledged Kingsman. That is until rejected recruit Charles (Keith Allen) shows up with a Terminator arm and a murderous agenda, and Kingsman HQ suffers a devastating attack. In the aftermath, Eggsy and Merlin (Mark Strong) turn to the Kingsman’s American cousins, the Statesman, for help. Operating under the cover of a Kentucky whiskey distillery, these southern fried agents have the names and attitude to match – Tequila (Channing Tatum), Champagne (Jeff Bridges), Whiskey (Pedro Pascal) and Ginger Ale (Halle Berry). With Whiskey as Eggsy’s Statesman partner, the race is on to track down a nefarious new crime syndicate, which brands its operatives with the titular mark. And we also discover how Harry (Colin Too much of a good thing. KINGSMAN: THE GOLDEN CIRCLE reimagined the British spy movie as a snappy action-comedy that was

Firth) managed to miraculously survive that headshot from the original. The first Kingsman was let down by the lack of a good villain (let’s face it, Samuel L. Jackson’s lisping Valentine was a bit rubbish). Fortunately The Golden Circle has Julianne Moore, who’s clearly having a blast running the world’s biggest drug cartel from a mountaintop lair decked out in fabulous fifties’ aesthetic. But where The Secret Service wisely abstained from any Austin Powers-like shenanigans, The Golden Circle features a naff plot to hold the world to ransom that Dr. Evil himself might have hatched, a bit of stunt casting more suited to that franchise (but still funny), and a Glastonbury stopover for possibly the most inappropriate planting of a tracking device in the genre’s history. Oh behave! Matthew Vaughn stages the big action sequences and cartoonish violence with the same style and verve, and thankfully avoids over-milking the comic culture clash between British manners and hillbilly hospitality. But an overindulgent screenplay and inconsistent pacing robs the sequel of the manic energy that made its predecessor so much fun. Kingsman: The Golden Circle might be bigger and barmier, but that doesn’t mean better. Scott Hocking

RATING KEY: Wow! Good Not bad Meh Woof!

OCTOBER 2017

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