Thriller
Crime 101 (15)
Review: In writer-director Bart Layton’s high-stakes thriller, a jewel thief’s inexperienced accomplice asks if 11 million dollars would be a sufficiently large haul to retire from a life of crime and settle down. “That’s the thing about walk away money. You’ve got to be able to walk away with it,” he cautions. Based on Don Winslow’s novella, Crime 101 milks every sticky droplet of tension from the possibility that the film’s socially awkward anti-hero could sacrifice careful planning at the altar of greed and pay a bigger price than his bank balance.
Cool-headed jewel thief Mike Davis (Chris Hemsworth) has perfected rules and rituals to successfully carry out daring heists along US Highway 101 in California, which runs along the coastline of the Pacific Ocean. With meticulous planning, no one ever gets hurt and he leaves behind no physical evidence nor DNA traces. Each job is workshopped to perfection with the help of hacker-for-hire Devon (Devon Bostick) and long-time fence Money (Nick Nolte). Authorities cannot connect the robberies and Detective Lou Lubesnick (Mark Ruffalo) is facing an uphill battle to prove his lone wolf theory to superiors and colleagues.
“If I stick with you, I’ll end up languishing,” worries Mike’s partner Detective Tillman (Corey Hawkins). Money becomes concerned that Mike is losing his edge and he secretly hires another thief, hot-head Ormon (Barry Keoghan), to gather evidence about Mike’s next job so they can pilfer the haul. Meanwhile, Mike initiates a romantic relationship with publicist’s assistant Maya (Monica Barbaro) and reaches out to disgruntled insurance broker Sharon Colvin (Halle Berry) to become an accomplice in a life-changing payday as a sweet revenge against her chauvinistic, unappreciative boss.
Crime 101 is a stylish, slow-burning throwback to crime capers which skilfully manoeuvre characters on both sides of the law onto parallel collision courses then sit back to witness the devastation in nerve-jangling slow-motion. Action sequences are staged with brio with unexpected consequences but it’s verbal altercations where Layton draws the most blood. Drawing inspiration from Michael Mann’s Heat, he keeps Avengers co-stars Hemsworth and Ruffalo apart on screen until there’s a lip-smacking payoff.
The script demands multiple suspensions of disbelief, particularly when characters simultaneously face injustices that compel them to temporarily abandon their moral compasses and put money or self-promotion ahead of doing the right thing. Berry teases out desperation and resilience as her overlooked corporate high-flyer is dealt losing hands and Keoghan loosens the hinges on his rival robber and comes undone in spectacular fashion. However, Barbaro’s love interest is poorly served. Uncut stolen diamonds are not her best friend.
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Animation
GOAT (PG)
Review: Goats have had a glow-up. There was a time when being called a goat was an insult: maybe you could be a lascivious and lustful old man, or a patsy chosen to take the blame for a terrible outcome that was none of your fault. Now, being a goat is a glittering badge of honour – the greatest of all time in a chosen field.
Tyree Dillihay and Adam Rosette’s computer-animated coming-of-age story chronicles the rise to fame of a humble goat with a big heart and lofty ambitions in a basketball-type competition called roarball, which allows environmental factors to impact gameplay. Thus, a team called Magma plays on a court made of polygonal pillars of cooled lava that rise and fall without warning.
Teenage Boer goat Will Harris (voiced by Caleb McLaughlin) has been an ardent fan of roarball since he was a billy. He is a passionate supporter of the Vineland Thorns and their star player, black panther Jett Fillmore (Gabrielle Union). Will practices his roarball skills as a diner delivery driver but doesn’t earn enough to make rent and bigger animals muscle him off the neighbourhood’s practice court. “Smalls can’t ball,” growls one chest-puffing bully.
The Thorns hit a bad run of form and warthog owner Florence Everson (Jenifer Lewis) agrees to do whatever it takes to turn fortunes around. She sees a viral video of Will outperforming Jett’s sworn rival Mane Attraction (Aaron Pierre) and invites the rookie to join the ranks. “I think you might be a two-horned unicorn!” gushes Florence. The youngster is inducted by proboscis monkey coach Dennis Cooper (Patton Oswalt) and trains alongside rhinoceros Archie Everhardt (David Harbour), giraffe Lenny Williamson (Stephen Curry), Komodo dragon Modo Olachenko (Nick Kroll) and ostrich Olivia Burke (Nicola Coughlan). However, Will’s idol Jett is less than thrilled by his appointment.
GOAT is a familiar tale of sporting underdogs (and other species), festooned with anthropomorphic critters and sight gags rooted in animals’ personalities, which will be comfortingly familiar to fans of Zootropolis and its sequel. Eye-catching visuals are a slam dunk, adopting a similar painterly aesthetic to Spider-Man: Into The Spiderverse. Screenwriters Aaron Buchsbaum and Teddy Riley double dribble around familiar themes of grief, self-doubt and jealousy, building to an inevitable championship match showdown that delivers the film’s key message: teamwork requires compromise, trust and sacrifice.
The only surprise of Dillihay and Rosette’s film is how long it takes for stubbornness to persist and lessons to be learnt, while the Thorns’ adoring fans chant, “Roots run deep!” The new kid on the animation block isn’t the GOAT but it is a contender for undemanding half-term family fun.
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Animation
Looney Tunes: The Day The Earth Blew Up (PG)
Review: Two beloved characters from the Looney Tunes stable enjoy an original, self-contained big screen adventure in a rollicking romp directed by Pete Browngardt. The Day The Earth Blew Up affectionately nods and winks to the brand’s proud history stretching back 95 years, including two-dimensional, hand-drawn visuals that replicate the painstaking, homemade charm of a bygone era.
Daffy Duck (voiced by Eric Bauza) and Porky Pig (Bauza again) are raised together by Farmer Jim (Fred Tatasciore) on the outskirts of Grandview, home to the Goodie Gum factory. As a piglet, Porky suffers a blow to the head from a falling vase and develops his trademark stutter and the pair become inseparable, often getting into scrapes thanks to Daffy’s hot-headed actions. Inspector Mrs Grecht (Laraine Newman) conducts an annual standards review of the duo’s home and points out a huge hole in the roof, caused by a crash-landed UFO.
She gives them 10 days to repair the damage or the property will be condemned, seized by authorities and demolished. “No roof, no home,” she cackles. Daffy and Porky are sacked from a succession of jobs including paper boys, ride share chauffeurs and house painters. They commiserate in the local diner, where they meet Petunia Pig (Candi Milo), a scientist from the Goodie Gum factory, who is “on a quest to make the world’s most perfect flavour”.
She kindly finds jobs for Porky and Daffy on the production line of the new Super Strongberry flavour of chewing gum and it looks like the best pals might be able to raise the necessary funds to save their home. Alas, an alien invader (Peter MacNicol) meddles with the recipe for the gum to transform townsfolk into zombified acolytes. The Mayor (Wayne Knight) refuses to listen to Daffy’s warnings and the duck joins forces with Porky and Petunia to save mankind from the otherworldly threat.
Looney Tunes: The Day The Earth Blew Up achieves a pleasing balance between heartfelt nostalgia and contemporary irreverence. The diner in Grandview is named after director and animator Bob Clampett, who was integral to the success of the original cartoons. When the two hurriedly repair cracks in their walkway ahead of the inspector’s visit, Porky draws attention to his duck pal’s builder’s bum, which has been accidentally exposed by feathers slipping down his waist.
A script credited to 11 writers including director Browngardt references classic sci-fi films and some of the droll dialogue is evidently targeted at an older demographic, such as when Daffy suggests the luminescent green goo on the broken roof isn’t mould at all but “interdimensional ectoplasm”. It’s heartwarming and inoffensive fare that elicits a persistent grin. That’s all folks.
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Animation
Stitch Head (PG)
Review: Monsters come in all shapes and sizes, and the worst of all are humans, in a charmingly spooky animated adventure written and directed by Steve Hudson. Based on the celebrated graphic novel by Guy Bass, Stitch Head reanimates elements of Monsters, Inc., Coraline and Frankenstein with a Tim Burton-lite aesthetic that sends gentle chills down the spine without threatening to disturb a young target audience that appreciates the broad slapstick of googly-eyed creatures in mild peril.
Residents of Grubbers Nubbin – population 665 – are unimpressed when circus ringmaster Fulbert Freakfinder (voiced by Seth Usdenov) rolls into their sleepy village with his menagerie of so-called misfits comprising doom-mongering clairvoyant Madame Miranda (Fern Brady), double-jointed Doctor Dislocation (Ryan Sampson) and reluctant fire-walking twins Taj & Tej (Jamali Maddix). A young girl called Arabella (Tia Bannon) explains to Freakfinder that his speciality acts simply aren’t scary compared with the real-life monsters that lurk in a nearby castle perched atop a hill.
Pound signs flash before the greedy ringmaster’s eyes and he pays an urgent visit to Castle Grotteskew and entreats Stitch Head (Asa Butterfield), the first reanimated creation of a resident Mad Professor (Rob Brydon), to abandon his cavernous and gloomy home for the bright lights of travelling stardom.
Stitch Head feels underappreciated by his creator, who has just harnessed lightning to give birth to a loveable one-eyed, three-armed monster named Creature (Joel Fry). The patchwork protagonist bids a sombre farewell to his “almost alive” family, who abide by the mantra “Stay hidden. Stay quiet. Stay safe!” and ventures into a world where adulation must be earned. Freakfinder instructs his prized asset to keep the villagers at arm’s length but the boy secretly defies orders to forge a tender friendship with Arabella.
Stitch Head is a delightful coming-of-age story that cherishes individuality and self-expression, urging unity, compassion and understanding in a fictionalised universe where monsters are considered undesirable simply because they look different. Modern-day parallels are unavoidable but Hudson’s script doesn’t belabour the mob mentality towards unfairly pigeonholed minorities. Heartstrings are forcibly plucked in the film’s predictable closing moments between the title character and his “bestest best friend”, Creature, but it is hard to begrudge the wholesomeness underpinning the emotional manipulation.
The ensemble cast delivers lively vocal performances led by a spirited central turn from Butterfield and Alison Steadman illuminates her brief scenes as Arabella’s worrywart grandmother. Original songs strive for the lyrical dexterity and ghoulish glee of The Nightmare Before Christmas (“If you want to make ’em love you, make ’em scream!” bellows Freakfinder during his solo) but only make an impact in the moment and are easily forgotten. Hudson’s picture ultimately follows the same credo as the monsters: “Stay safe!”
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Horror
Whistle (15)
Review: Death comes to us all and in director Corin Hardy’s high school horror, it’s summoned far earlier than anticipated by blowing an ancient Aztec whistle that has a nasty habit of reappearing in the lockers of unsuspecting students who attend Pellington High School. Screenwriter Owen Egerton has a blast imagining gruesome endings for ill-fated characters, beginning rather tamely in a boys’ changing room before ramping up the gore to pulverise and eviscerate nubile bodies until they resemble little more than pulped flesh and bone.
New girl Chrys Willet (Dafne Keen) arrives in the close-knit steel mill town of Pellington to live with her cousin Rel (Sky Yang), carrying with her an unfortunate reputation as a recovering drug addict who killed her father. The truth about her tragic past is more nuanced but Chrys is determined to start afresh. She inherits the locker of a student, who perished in disturbing circumstances, and on the top shelf is an engraved vessel containing a skull-shaped artefact. One of the teachers, Mr Craven (Nick Frost), identifies the curious trinket as an Aztec death whistle that can purportedly summon the dearly departed.
Classmate Grace (Ali Skovbye) foolishly blows the whistle in earshot of boorish boyfriend Dean (Jhaleil Swaby), Chrys, Rel and Chrys’s crush Ellie (Sophie Nelisse). A local woman (Michelle Fairley) with knowledge of the whistle reveals the five students will soon come face-to-face with their own grisly demises. Try as they might, they won’t be able to outrun these terrifying phantoms. Regardless, Chris, Rel and the gang work together to evade death’s icy grip. Meanwhile, local pastor Noah Haggerty (Percy Hynes White) peddles drugs to his young flock and is partially responsible for a steadily escalating death toll of minors.
Whistle puts its lips together and blows out a gentle storm of squelchy special effects and teen angst, appropriating themes and elements from It Follows, Flatliners and Final Destination to condemn named characters to an inglorious exit. Some parting moments are wickedly imaginative and laden with gore. The central quintet including Keen’s gloomy outsider don’t feel fully formed but there is sufficient character development to warrant mild concern for students’ wellbeing. It’s easy to predict who stands the greatest chance of survival.
Hardy peppers the screen with visual Easter Eggs to honour favourite horror directors: Verhoeven Steel, Muschietti Cigars and, of course, teacher Mr Craven, an affectionate nod to the much-missed mastermind behind The Last House On The Left, The Hills Have Eyes and the Nightmare On Elm Street and Scream franchises. Whistle can’t sit comfortably in that exalted company but it doesn’t suck.
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Romance
Wuthering Heights (15)
Review: Wuthering is a lyrical and underused word outside of Emily Bronte’s canon, referring to the roaring strength of a wind or a place at the mercy of a gale. The winds of change that blow through Saltburn writer-director Emerald Fennell’s sexy spin on the 19th-century romance are certainly wuthering and spatter almost every conceivable bodily fluid across a visually stunning tale of doomed childhood sweethearts on a collision course to heartbreak. Fennell blows any cobwebs away with gleefully puckered lips in a grotesque opening scene replete with visibly stiffened anatomy to introduce headstrong young Catherine Earnshaw (Charlotte Mellington). She is raised by her alcoholic father (Martin Clunes) at Wuthering Heights with Nelly Dean (Vy Nguyen) as a constant companion.
Mr Earnshaw “acquires” an orphaned boy named Heathcliff (Owen Cooper) during one of his gallivants and gifts the waif to Cathy as her pet. The children become inseparable and Heathcliff puts himself in harm’s way to protect Cathy from booze-fuelled beatings at her father’s hands. Deep scars on his back are a lasting reminder of his sacrifice. “I named him. He is mine,” spits Cathy. As they grow up, Cathy (Margot Robbie) and Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) continue to yearn for each other, painfully aware that he cannot provide financially for her future.
She seeks a romantic match with local landowner Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif), who is guardian to his ribbon-obsessed younger sister Isabella (Alison Oliver) at nearby Thrushcross Grange. Nelly (Hong Chau) silently resents the bond between Cathy and Heathcliff, which has always trumped her own friendship, and she enacts a plan to drive a wedge between the soulmates with only a slim chance of reconciliation.
Wuthering Heights is quite unlike any previous rendering of the source text, punctuated with demonstrations of primal sexual desire and cruelty that may leave some Bronte purists feeling lightheaded and in urgent need of smelling salts to survive the dramatic turbulence of an excessive 136-minute running time. The two leads are soaked to the skin more than once but still look radiant in the gloom thanks to Linus Sandgren’s impeccable cinematography. Jacqueline Durran’s exquisite costumes create striking tableaux including a wedding dress with a bountiful train that undulates like rippling water over the moors. It’s glam up north.
Oliver’s finely calibrated comedic performance relishes the naivete of a virginal lamb being led to her own slaughter. Fennell unleashes a wrecking ball through any lingering sympathy we might have for Robbie’s heroine in a bile-soaked second act, and she adds kinky barbs to Elordi’s tortured paramour to convince us that he deserves a share of the blame. His accent is impeccable, if geographically adjacent to Adolescence star Cooper’s younger incarnation of Heathcliff.
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