Drama
Chevalier (12A)
Review: A musical prodigy faces racial discrimination across the class divide in director Stephen Williams’ handsome period drama, based on the untold true story of composer Joseph Bologne, whose artistic achievements were almost erased from history during the upheaval of the French Revolution in the late 18th century. Kelvin Harrison Jr adopts a cocksure swagger in the title role, beginning with an eye-catching opening sequence in which Bologne brazenly shares the stage with Mozart (Joseph Prowen) and humiliates the Austrian composer by performing one of his works with more verve and passion than its dumbfounded creator. A fiery expletive from Mozart provides the perfect punctuation to this thrilling battle of the violin bows.
Screenwriter Stefani Robinson’s conventional and largely chronological approach to storytelling is both comforting and disappointing, composing a bittersweet symphony of triumph against adversity with ravishing solos from production designer Karen Murphy, costume designer Oliver Garcia and their respective teams. Bosoms tastefully heave (sexual dalliances are inferred but never explicitly depicted on screen to secure a 12A certification) while violence is used sparingly to illustrate a groundswell of public discontent that will lead to Marie Antoinette losing her head. The French queen is played with steely resolve by Lucy Boynton, labouring under the illusion that the people “cannot topple what has been ordained by God”. Williams’ artful picture repeatedly reminds us that powerbrokers and the privileged underestimate the resolve of hard-working people.
As the illegitimate son of an African slave and a French plantation owner, Joseph Bologne (Harrison Jr) is vigorously encouraged by his father (Jim High) to achieve excellence in all aspects of his schooling at the prestigious Academie La Boessiere. “I fear this will not be a kind place to such a boy,” warns La Boessiere (Ben Bradshaw), a fencing master who fires Joseph’s competitive spirit with a foil. Those skills with a blade impress Marie Antoinette and she anoints Joseph as Chevalier de Saint-Georges.
Joseph wins the queen’s fickle favour and she encourages him to compete against celebrated composer Christoph Gluck (Henry Lloyd-Hughes) for the coveted position of head of the Paris Opera. The candidates will be judged on a new opera and Joseph enlists Madame De Genlis (Sian Clifford) to oversee his ambitious staging. He woos ingenue Marie-Josephine de Montalembert (Samara Weaving) for the title role, in direct opposition from her husband (Marton Csokas), who reminds Joseph that “in any other country, a man of your colour would not be wearing such fine clothes”.
Chevalier conducts dangerous liaisons between Harrison Jr and Weaving as the heady scent of revolution wafts through the streets of Paris. Csokas’s jealous spouse is a cookie cutter villain but he serves a clear narrative purpose as Williams’ picture builds to a rousing performance of Bologne’s emphatic Violin Concerto No 9.
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Action
Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts (12A)
Review: The infinite monkey theorem in mathematics suggests primates randomly hitting keys on a typewriter could eventually produce a literary masterpiece. I’d contend that an army of robot monkeys, similar to the Optimus Primal gorilla in director Steven Caple Jr’s picture, could eventually replicate the work of the five human screenwriters of this seventh chapter of the blockbuster series. Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts lumbers through two hours of treasure-hunting hokum that introduces characters from the Transformers: Beast Wars saga and feigns suspense by threatening our existence with a gargantuan villain that devours planets like Earth.
Caple Jr’s film is chronologically positioned as a sequel to Bumblebee and a prequel to the first Transformers film released in 2007 so there is 100% probability that pivotal characters will survive to interact with Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox and Mark Wahlberg further along the timeline. Dramatic tension evaporates and this latest overblown jaunt resorts to the usual blitzkrieg of bombastic action set pieces and perfunctory human protagonists including a museum worker played by Dominique Fishback, who exists solely to forcibly shepherd a flimsy plot from A to Zzzzzz. She portrays the most important character in Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts and the least interesting. An entire back story is shoehorned into one throwaway scene in the hold of a cargo plane.
In 1994 New York City, ex-serviceman Noah Diaz (Anthony Ramos) urgently seeks work to support his mother (Luna Lauren Velez) and cover the spiralling medical bills of a sickly 11-year-old brother (Dean Scott Vazquez). He reluctantly accepts a job from neighbourhood chancer Reek (Tobe Nwigwe) to steal a sports car from a hotel parking garage. The high-end motor turns out to be robot-in-disguise Mirage (voiced by Pete Davidson), who propels Noah into the midst of a hunt for a precious Transwarp key, which will allow Autobot leader Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) and his mechanised compatriots to return home to Cybertron.
The precious artefact is in the possession of museum worker Elena Wallace (Fishback), who is blissfully unaware of the key’s importance. Alas, Terrorcon assassin Scourge (Peter Dinklage) and his deadly hench-bots also seek the trinket to summon their planet-devouring master Unicron (Colman Domingo). The fate of Earth hangs in the balance and creature compatriots the Maximals led by Optimus Primal (Ron Perlman) bolsters the Autobot ranks in the fight against Scourge.
Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts is an emotionally hollow retread that relies heavily on fans’ enduring affection for the robots. Ramos is an appealing hero with a strict moral compass but he eventually gets lost in the Iron Man-lite bluster of a lacklustre showdown. A post-credits tease establishes Caple Jr’s film as the opening salvo of a new trilogy, regardless of whether we want one.
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