Film Review of the Week

Animation

200% Wolf (U)

Review: Every dog has its day, including a werewolf trapped in the body of a white toy poodle, in a scruffy sequel to director Alexs Stadermann’s life-affirming computer-animated adventure based on the books of Liverpudlian children’s author Jayne Lyons. Returning screenwriter Fin Edquist trades The Lion King-lite coming-of-age of the first film for an otherworldly escapade replete with a mischievous moon spirit whose madcap mannerisms recall Disney’s earthbound alien Stitch and a witch antagonist cosmetically enhanced from Madam Mim in The Sword In The Stone.

Humour is broad to appeal to young audiences. Thus, a self-anointed guide dog implores fellow mutts to follow his lead by hastily escaping from city sewers by holding onto one end of a fully extended dog leash and clicking the handset button to retract to the surface. 200% Wolf is a shaggier dog story than its predecessor, dispatching characters onto parallel sub quests to pad out the running time and justify the addition of cute critters including a giant purple bat that wants to play fetch with dislodged fungi. Jennifer Saunders savours every generously elongated vowel of her cackling villainess, who harnesses dark earth magic to feed a hunger for power and transform innocent bystanders into monstrosities dubbed Whoopsies.

Painfully self-conscious werepoodle Freddy Lupin (voiced by Ilai Swindells) trains hard to succeed his father Flasheart (Peter McCallum) as high howler of the Wilford wolfpack but he isn’t ready to accept the mantle. Other wolves openly question Freddy’s abilities because his huge heart is trapped inside the body of a toy dog with a crown of shocking pink hair. This distinctive physical appearance makes him a liability during covert night-time missions. “How will they respect me if they don’t see me succeed?” Freddy berates his father. In a fit of petulance, Freddy seeks out the ancient Summing Stone at Wolf Rock and calls upon moon spirits to hasten his graduation to greatness.

Mother Moonspirit (Sarah Georgina) and the elders ignore his plea but mischievous baby moon spirit Moopoo (Elizabeth Nabben) is moved by Freddy’s prayer and summons enough energy to transform the young pretender into a fully-fledged werewolf. The spell propels Moopoo down to Earth where the celestial being’s inner light begins to wane. To save Moopoo, Freddy vows to locate exiled wolf Max (Saunders) in the company of best friend Batty (Samara Weaving) and a canine troupe comprising Twitchy (Sarah Harper), Bruno (Alexs Stadermann) and Hamish (Akmal Saleh).

200% Wolf promises twice the enjoyment but Stadermann’s sequel is too light on its paws to make an indelible mark beyond surface level. Crisp and colourful visuals support the linear storytelling and a solid vocal cast permits Saunders to shamelessly scene steal with her amusing theatrics. When fur flies, violence is cartoonish and subtlety howls enthusiastically at the moon.

Horror

The Substance (18)

Review: Pretty girls should always smile. So says a leering male TV executive to an ambitious female starlet in Coralie Fargeat’s grisly body horror. His words reflect an unhealthy and unrealistic fascination with youthful beauty in the entertainment industry, which compels some performers to undergo cosmetic procedures to temporarily defy the ageing process and extend their 15 minutes of fame by a few precious seconds. The Substance gleefully satirises this objectification of the female form and unapologetic sexism in the movie business by reshaping the harsh lessons of The Picture Of Dorian Gray as a futuristic feminist parable.

Oscar Wilde’s late 19th-century novella permitted the libertarian title character to sell his soul to remain forever young and hedonistic while his portrait aged and recorded physical signs of his sinfulness and depravity. In Fargeat’s hallucinogenic daydream, Demi Moore’s discarded actress gives birth to a younger self and shares her existence with this mirror image until naked ambition poisons the symbiotic relationship beyond repair. Moore’s tour-de-force central performance energises ferocious scenes and provides emotional glue for the film’s deranged and divisive finale. Admirably, Fargeat doesn’t ease her foot off the accelerator as her picture careens towards its outrageously blood-soaked crescendo, fully justifying warnings from censors about brutal scenes of graphic violence and gore.

Award-winning Hollywood star Elisabeth Sparkle (Moore) has found a new calling as a Jane Fonda-esque home fitness guru in a skin-tight leotard and leg warmers. Every week, she encourages viewers to sweat and stretch with her as host of Sparkle Your Life. After taping one show, odious TV exec Harvey (Dennis Quaid) cancels her contract, claiming consumers “always demand something new” and that isn’t 50-year-old Elisabeth. Cast adrift in an industry that venerates unblemished beauty and vigour, Elisabeth is encouraged to try a self-administered medical procedure called The Substance.

One injection of a green activator serum promises to unlock Elisabeth’s DNA and release another version of herself: the younger and perter Sue (Margaret Qualley), who crawls out of Elisabeth’s body then sews up her cracked spine. Elisabeth and Sue must alternate between spending seven days savouring life in Hollywood and lying prostrate on a cold bathroom floor ingesting food through an intravenous tube. They must not deviate from this perfect balance. When Sue selfishly extends her stay, Elisabeth suffers dire repercussions and propagates seeds of resentment towards her other self.

The Substance spares neither characters nor us as Elisabeth’s ill-fated quest for longevity descends into stomach-churning delirium. Moore and Qualley are fearless, both embracing full frontal nudity to explore each unflattering facet of their mirror images. Special makeup effects designer Pierre-Olivier Persin works magic in the second half, which recalls the nauseating excesses of Brian Yuzna’s cult 1989 horror Society. Beauty frolics with beastliness and the play fight turns gorgeously ugly.