Action
The Creator (12A)
Review: Leveraging his background in visual effects, writer-director Gareth Edwards dazzled with his low budget 2010 debut, Monsters, embellished with digital trickery created in his bedroom. A fantastical film-making journey comes full circle via the rebooted Godzilla and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in an existential conflict between our warmongering species and simulant androids with friendly faces cloned from willing human donors. Shot in eight countries including Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, Nepal, Thailand and Vietnam, The Creator paints hundreds of visual effects shots over live action to deliver plentiful eye-popping bang for the buck (80 million dollars – a steal by Hollywood standards).
Edwards’ fourth film is epic in scope, bold in ambition but frequently limited in character development, hard coding a mysticism-steeped protector-ward dynamic reminiscent of the 1986 film The Golden Child into a dystopian future after rogue artificial intelligence has detonated a nuclear warhead in Los Angeles, vaporising more than a million innocent souls. The Creator malfunctions shy of greatness, working from a fragmented script co-written by Edwards and Chris Weitz that repurposes the rhetoric and supposedly righteous fury of the War On Terror following the September 11 attacks in a fictional mid-21st century setting.
The west, led by bombastic, grief-stricken America, has declared a ban on AI while the Republic of New Asia continues to develop technology to allow humans and robots to harmoniously co-exist. War between diametrically opposed regimes crescendos with the launch of the North American Orbital Military Air Defence battle station (Nomad), designed to hunt down the AI’s revered creator, known as Nirmata. US intelligence deduces Nirmata has fashioned a superweapon, codename Alpha-O, to destroy Nomad and seal humanity’s downfall. Battle-scarred American soldier Joshua (John David Washington), whose pregnant wife Maya (Gemma Chan) died during a bungled undercover mission to kill Nirmata, has intimate knowledge of the topography of the Republic of New Asia.
He is reactivated for a covert operation to destroy Alpha-O, led by Colonel Howell (Allison Janney) and trusted lieutenant McBride (Marc Menchaca). The target turns out to be a six-year-old android (Madeleine Yuna Voyles) with the power to control electronic devices. Haunted by the death of his unborn child, Joshua defies orders to protect Alpha-O aka Alfie from termination. The traitorous soldier ventures deep into AI-controlled territory with US forces in hot pursuit.
The Creator is slickly engineered and frequently spectacular, including one terrifically macabre sequence involving bipedal suicide bomber robots. Washington’s flawed military man is less interesting than the mechanised protagonists around him, softening the predictable emotional wallop of a frenzied final act involving the Death Star-lite Nomad killing machine. “We can’t go to heaven because you’re not good and I’m not a person,” concludes cherubic Alfie after a lesson from Joshua about the afterlife. Are we in heaven through Edwards’ lens? Not quite.
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Drama
The Old Oak (15)
Review: With an illustrious career behind the camera stretching back almost 60 years, Ken Loach has repeatedly celebrated the ebb and flow of British working-class life on screen, collecting the Cannes Film Festival’s coveted Palme d’Or twice for The Wind That Shakes The Barley and I, Daniel Blake. The Old Oak is his swansong and reunites the Warwickshire-born filmmaker with screenwriter Paul Laverty for a third consecutive study of solidarity and strife in the north-east of England. His final feature may be emotionally underpowered compared with earlier work including Sorry We Missed You but Loach’s farewell is another rousing call to arms for compassion and acceptance set in 2016 County Durham as anti-immigration sentiment takes root in a former mining community following years of austerity.
An impressive ensemble cast led by Dave Turner as the local publican, who is struggling to make ends meet following the breakdown of his marriage, lends authenticity to a familiar story of division torn from headlines of the time when the first Syrian refugees arrived in the UK and were met with hostility. Earthy humour in Laverty’s script infuses a culture built on unity and hardship while Loach delivers familiar body blows before he dons kid gloves for a surprisingly sentimental final flurry.
TJ Ballantyne (Turner) was born and bred in his village and he has never left the close-knit community, becoming a valued leader following the 1984 miners strikes and the subsequent closure of the pit, which led to the collapse of the local economy. The Old Oak is the last remaining pub and as its wearied owner, TJ pours all his time and effort into the watering hole, which he shares with a scruffy four-legged companion named Marra. The arrival of a bus of Syrian refugees exposes division and despair, leading to an ugly confrontation between 20-something new arrival Yara (Elba Mari) and a local man, who callously breaks her treasured camera.
Yara is the eldest child of her family and speaks English, translating for her mother Fatima (Amna Al Ali) and siblings. Her courage inspires TJ and he risks the wrath of old friend Charlie (Trevor Fox) to help Yara repair her camera. As tensions rise, TJ’s family friend Laura (Claire Rodgerson) works closely with him and Yara to establish a community food kitchen in the pub’s neglected back room where families and children can enjoy a hot meal surrounded by photographs of the village’s proud mining heritage.
The Old Oak incorporates touchstones from Loach’s distinguished career, anchored by Turner’s committed performance and winning on-screen chemistry with Mari. Political fires that raged defiantly in earlier work flicker less furiously here but still leave scorch marks as TJ and his neighbours listen with mounting ire and frustration to the death knell of collective strength.
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Horror
Saw X (18)
Review: How many ways can the human body be eviscerated in graphic close-up courtesy of special make up effects and prosthetics? The sadistic 10th chapter of one of the highest grossing horror franchises goes back to basics with the self-mutilation, providing terrified victims with scalpels, a cranial drill and Gigli saw as their instruments of salvation within a strict three-minute time limit. “This is not retribution. It’s a reawakening,” growls Tobin Bell’s returning mastermind John Kramer, aka Jigsaw, who believes his diabolical work is a moral crusade to purge society of malignant cells.
Penned by Peter Goldfinger and Josh Stolberg, Saw X nestles in the series chronology between the original film and sequel Saw II, and explores the ripple effect of Kramer receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis and making peace with the fact that he has “months… at best” to complete his rehabilitation of the sinful. Scriptwriters are handcuffed to the canon so characters who reappear after the first Saw cannot be killed off here, restricting the body count to obvious candidates. Bloodletting orchestrated by director Kevin Greutert is nauseating (I spent prolonged periods glimpsing the screen through my fingers) and fully warrants the 18 certificate. Once the whimpering and screaming ends, the 10th instalment is surprisingly emotional and poignant, catalysing sympathy for an architect of misery who has been largely defined by his ingenious contraptions.
A member of John’s cancer support group (Michael Beach) makes a stunning recovery from stage 4 pancreatic cancer and confides that his miracle was an expensive private medical procedure pioneered by Dr Finn Pederson (Donagh Gordon), who has been hounded into hiding by the big pharmaceutical companies. Dr Cecilia Pederson (Synnove Macody Lund) continues her father‘s work in secret and John secures last-minute surgery in Mexico with the Pederson Project team comprising surgeon Dr Cortez (Joshua Okamoto), anaesthetist Mateo (Octavio Hinojosa), nurse Valentina (Paulette Hernandez) and facility hostess Gabriela (Renata Vaca).
John pays handsomely for “a ground-breaking drug cocktail combined with surgery” and during recovery, he discovers that the treatment was an elaborate charade conceived by callous scam artists, who target vulnerable cancer patients willing to pay anything for one more day with their loved ones. Aided by his apprentice Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith), Kramer wreaks terrifying revenge on the heartless tormentors: “I help people overcome inner obstacles… make life changes.”
Saw X requires an exceedingly strong stomach, and gore hounds will be delighted by the on-screen carnage accompanied by sticky, squelchy sound effects. Bell captures the dwindling physical strength of his antagonist and there are touching scenes with Smith, whose protegee picks up the baton in subsequent films. Greutert’s bloodbath has a heart and protects it. Other organs are, however, ripe for harvesting.
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