Film Review of the Week

Comedy

Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy (15)

Review: Life comes full circle for Bridget Jones in the fourth and presumably final chapter of the blockbusting romantic comedy franchise, lovingly adapted from Helen Fielding’s newspaper columns and novels. For almost a quarter of a century, we’ve witnessed the chaotic London-based singleton, played with Oscar-nominated gusto by Renee Zellweger, careen through her 30s and early 40s, obsessing to a hilariously unhealthy degree about the minutiae of dating, relationships and her career.

Every face plant into Glastonbury mud or spirited descent of a fireman’s pole has been in service of finding someone worthy of her big pants, with whom she can host vicars-and-tarts parties with a buffet of turkey curry and blue soup as a fully paid member of the smug marrieds. In Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy, Zellweger’s indomitable heroine has fully realised her happy ever after and emerged the other side as a widow with cherubic children and tearful memories of late husband Mark Darcy (Colin Firth).

Fielding’s script, co-written by Dan Mazer and Abi Morgan, cajoles now-50-something Bridget into new minefields – motherhood, dating apps, school runs – with a familiar array of family and friends to help her back to her feet when she invariably stumbles and falls. For me, the opening stretch of director Michael Morris’s picture lacks bittersweet harmony between mournfulness and mirth but thankfully finds its rhythm thanks to Zellweger’s impeccable skills as a physical comedian and simmering sexual tension with Leo Woodall. By contrast, screen chemistry with Chiwetel Ejiorfor’s rival is inert. Many supporting characters are superfluous. Isla Fisher’s idolised neighbour Rebecca warrants one throwaway scene and Celia Imrie’s social butterfly Una barely flutters. They manifest here as fan service. The fourth film is the longest in terms of running time and feels it.

Bridget is raising nine-year-old Billy (Casper Knopf) and four-year-old Mabel (Mila Jankovic) with the help of incorrigible godfather Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant) and unflappable nanny Chloe (Nico Parker). Best friends Shazza (Sally Phillips), Tom (James Callis) and Jude (Shirley Henderson) encourage Bridget to set up a profile on a popular dating app. Enthusiastic younger man Roxster (Woodall) pursues Bridget to the envy of female work colleagues but her son’s officious science teacher, Scott (Ejiofor), also seems interested.

Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy is a satisfying but uneven resolution that falls frustratingly short of the irresistible charm of the 2001 film (v. v. funny, as Bridget might scrawl). Zellweger wrings every giggle and sob from her character’s vacillations with sparkling support from Grant and Emma Thompson’s returning gynaecologist, who gallop through uproarious scenes with relish. A striking imbalance of emotional investment in Woodall and Ejiofor’s competing paramours makes Bridget’s ultimate choice a far tougher sell than it should be. Roses are red but I feel a little blue.

Action

Captain America: Brave New World (12A)

Review: Hideously mutated brains trump digitally rendered brawn in Captain America: Brave New World. Director Julius Onah’s solidly entertaining and largely uneventful superhero mission steadies the Marvel Cinematic Universe ship and lays the groundwork for Thunderbolts* in May, the cacophonous conclusion to phase five, and the reformation of the Avengers in a multiversatile phase six dominated by Robert Downey Jr’s Doctor Doom.

Annoyingly, the satisfying narrative twists of this latest hurrah for Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) with his bulletproof vibranium wings are spoilt in the trailer. A couple of cameos by returning characters provide a narrative tether from Hulk’s second movie in 2008 to the current timeline via Eternals, reminding us of the horrific repercussions of exposure to gamma radiation during the Super Soldier programme. Five scriptwriters invest two hours going nowhere fast, contriving a geopolitical catastrophe with uncomfortable echoes of the present conceived by a tortured mastermind whose most pointed words are reserved for the end credits.

Mackie powerfully captures the self-doubt and steely resolve of a former pararescueman who fears he will never live up to his predecessor and fully deserve the title he now holds, while Harrison Ford lends gravitas to his rabblerousing head of state with a volcanic temper. The most emotionally wrought scenes of tear-filled regret and hard-fought redemption work because of them.

Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (Ford), the war-mongering General and Secretary of State who enacted the Sokovian Accords that tore the Avengers apart, is elected President of the United States under a banner of togetherness. He enters office as global leaders bicker over Celestial Island – the marbled remains of Tiamut, the Dreaming Celestial, in the Indian Ocean. To broker a treaty that guarantees equal spoils. Ross hosts a world summit at the White House attended by key figures including Japanese Prime Minister Ozaki (Takehiro Hira).

The President extends an invitation to the current Captain America, Sam Wilson (Mackie), and the new Falcon, US Air Force first lieutenant Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez). “Work with me, Sam. We’ll show the world a better way forward,” urges Ross, who claims to be a changed man. When a terrorist attack on home soil signals the emergence of a new threat, Sam defies orders to launch his own investigation and puts himself and allies on a collision course with the president’s formidable head of security and former Black Widow, Ruth Bat-Seraph (Shira Haas).

Captain America: Brave New World is a misnomer. Onah’s picture upcycles and repurposes, including a blitzkrieg of digital trickery in the final 10 minutes, to tease bigger and better things further down the MCU road. Airborne action sequences feel the need for pleasant speed while hand-to-hand fisticuffs on terra firma are slickly choreographed to deliver moderate bone-crunching violence suitable for a family-friendly 12A certificate. Same Old Comic Book World.

Horror

Heart Eyes (18)

Review: Scream actor Mason Gooding doubles down on misfortune this Valentine’s Day, trading Ghostface for another seemingly unstoppable masked maniac in a gleeful comedy slasher directed by Josh Ruben, which gives new meaning to loving someone to death. A script co-written by Phillip Murphy, Michael Kennedy and Happy Death Day filmmaker Christopher Landon enthusiastically bear hugs well-worn horror and rom-com tropes including a meet cute in a coffee shop, physical pratfalls, jump scares and a titular menace sneaking up behind victims to plunge a knife through politely yielding flesh.

Gooding’s sensitive and soulful singleton is chivalrous under pressure, in touch with his emotions and maintains an impressive six-pack with afternoon yoga sessions. “These muscles were not made for violence. They were made for cuddling,” he asserts dreamily. Screen partner Olivia Holt is the slap to his tickle, a battle-scarred cynic when it comes to the notion of everlasting, monogamous love: “It’s a farce, a lie.” The two leads kindle plentiful sparks as they work together to avoid a close encounter with blades, bullets and crossbow bolts on the night of February 14, when lovers traditionally exchange cards or engagement rings not fearful final words before a grisly demise.

The Heart Eyes Killer, abbreviated to HEK by police and the media, is a masked-clad maniac who has slaughtered loved-up couples in Boston and Philadelphia on Valentine’s Day. This year, the merciless predator has chosen Seattle as their playground, not that residents know it yet. The city is home to long-suffering advertising exec Ally (Holt), whose latest pitch to her bullying boss (Michaela Watkins) is deemed tone-deaf and offensive. To salvage the campaign and her career, Ally must work with consultant Jay Simmons (Gooding), who is in Seattle for one night (yes, they will be sleepless).

After a brainstorming dinner, the colleagues are embroiled in a minor first aid emergency, which escalates into life or death when Ally discovers Heart Eyes hiding in her closet. Ally and Jay loudly protest that they aren’t consciously coupled so should be spared but the killer pursues them regardless. Meanwhile, police detectives Hobbs (Devon Sawa) and Shaw (Jordana Brewster) piece together clues to the lunatic behind the mask.

Heart Eyes is a frothy, fast-paced treat that delivers laughter and slaughter in dizzyingly quick succession. Squelchy death sequences escalate in intensity and gratuitous gore, leaning in heavily to the unapologetic madness of the final 20 minutes, which the central duo aptly describe as “an all you can kill buffet”. Whoops are loud and plentiful including a scene-stealing turn from Gigi Zumbado as Ally’s no-nonsense best friend, who welds together romantic comedy film titles to say anything about love, actually. Cute.

Animation

The Sloth Lane (U)

Review: A family of Mexican sloths shift into top gear in an Australian animated adventure directed by Tania Vincent and co-directed by Ricard Cusso, which grazes in the same universe of anthropomorphic do-gooders as Combat Wombat and Daisy Quokka. Even more than its light-hearted predecessors, The Sloth Lane attempts to emulate the animal magic of Zootropolis, which featured a three-toed sloth named Flash, whose disposition was hilariously ill-suited for a job at the Department of Mammal Vehicles.

In Vincent and Cusso’s gently paced picture, the youngest member of the Romero Flores family is determined to disprove the theory that sloths are the slowest, laziest and most boring members of the animal kingdom. Consequently, young Laura races through life and barely pauses to smell the roses… or any of the flowers in her horticulturalist father’s lovingly tended garden. A freewheeling script co-written by Vincent and Ryan Greaves delivers a predictable lesson about “more haste, less speed” before a hare-brained heist that dominates a frenetic final half-hour that opts for a different form of zombification to the mind control practised in Combat Wombat: Double Trouble.

Vocal performances are as consistent and solid as the tempo, leaving American stand-up comedian and actress Leslie Jones little room to twirl whiskers as the “spotted maniac” responsible for lacing fast food with a hyper-caffeinated additive that temporarily boosts productivity. The Sloth Lane doesn’t deliver the same jolt of energy to audiences.

A devastating storm rages through the town of Tropicasa, destroying the Esto Es Vida! restaurant run by green-fingered father Luis (voiced by Ben Gorrono), forgetful mother Gabriella (Olivia Vasquez), lazy son Mani (Facundo Herrera) and impatient daughter Laura (Teo Vergara). The clan hit the road in a “rusted hunk of junk” taco truck and resettle in Sanctuary City, home to cheetah entrepreneur Dotti Pace (Jones) and her rapidly expanding chain of Zoom Fuel fast food outlets.

Gabriella’s home-cooked Mexican fare outshines Zoom Fuel’s unappetising signature burger, which is pumped full of a patented ingredient that turbo-charges customers for the rest of the day. Dotti is determined to get her greedy paws on the Romero Flores family’s cherished recipe boo. She appeals to youngest child Laura, who is stuck in the kitchen when she would rather be playing cricket with pals Arlo (Matteo Romaniuk) and Kayleigh (Evie). “With my name and your recipes, we can conquer the whole ecosystem!” says Dotti excitedly.

The Sloth Lane accelerates gradually then finds a sudden burst of speed for its madcap resolution. Young audiences will savour the colourful visuals and broad visual gags but parents largely go hungry for 90 minutes. The thorny issue of Gabriella’s faltering memory is addressed lightly to avoid distress. A protracted subplot introduces Laura’s newfound love of cricket. Howzat? Unnecessary narrative padding.