Wednesday 5 December 2018

Widows, Fantastic Beasts 2 and The Girl in the Spider's Web



Widows is a  well plotted and powerful film that is never less than gripping all the way through. Steve McQueen has provided us with some terrific Chicago locations, a great score and some topical themes about corruption and abuse. Viola Davis is outstanding, Colin Farrell the best I have seen him act and a menacing Daniel Kaluuya lead a superb ensemble cast. The only reservation was the predictable and  ordinary script. Not a patch on Drew Goddard's "Bad Times at the El Royale". Gillian Flynne could learn from him.


I only went to test out the IMAX screen at the Odeon in MK as Fantastic Beasts 2 was shown in 2D. Absolutely not worth the extra cash for  a big screen and louder sound. My review for the first in this series of pre-Potter films said "not for me" and I should have taken note. The story is very simple, except when late on someone does a rushed explanation of who is who. There had been complaints about multiple characters and too many sub-plots, but I thought it was just padding out the time. Jude Law was fine as a younger Dumbledore but Johnny Depp was so lone dimensional. I thought to begin with he seemed pleasingly mortified about causing some early deaths, but then his expression never changes.Katherine Waterston is a fine actress, but here she seemed so flat. I blame the script, not her. And then that awful ending. Thanks JK for nothing. Note to self: enough's enough.


The critics were mainly unimpressed by The Girl in the Spider's Web, but I thought it was a very decent thriller. OK, there was nothing really new, but the action sequences and especially the cinematography were firs rate.Claire Foy is startlingly indestructible as Lisbeth Salander, and she needs to be. Lots of twists along the way and good use of her unbelievable hacking skills. Director Fede Alvarez has done well with half the budget of the previous movie. However we are on the third actress to play Lisbeth after Noomi Rapace and Rooney Mara. Even James Bond actors nearly all got more than one film.

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