Film Review of the Week

Adventure

Lilo & Stitch (U)

Review: If cherubic cuteness could be bottled and sold, Maia Kealoha would be a multi-millionaire. The eight-year-old Hawaiian actress oozes adorability from every sun-kissed pore in a title role of director Dean Fleischer Camp’s feel-great live-action reworking of the acclaimed 2002 Disney animation, which remains faithful to beloved source material but isn’t afraid to upcycle and refurbish for modern tastes. Screenwriters Chris Kekaniokalani Bright and Mike Van Waes appropriate meaningful dialogue from the original including a heart-tugging life lesson about togetherness (“Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind”) and Stitch’s wholesome declaration of love.

The script also hulas with the times (Lilo quips that she knows about her sister’s crush because she reads text messages), reconfiguring existing characters and introducing new faces including an elderly neighbour for broad comic relief. Tia Carrere, Jason Scott Lee and Amy Hill, who voiced older sister Nani, boyfriend David and forgetful fruit vendor Mrs Hasagawa in the 2002 picture, invest warmth and bountiful humour to their supporting roles and provide a nostalgic connection between old and new. Chris Sanders reprises the voice of Stitch and the digitally rendered incarnation of his alien rapscallion is almost as irresistibly cheeky as its hand-drawn counterpart, seamlessly gelling with human co-stars to elicit gurgles of glee from the target audience. The new Lilo & Stitch is a close encounter of the lovable kind.

Illegal genetic experiment 626 (voiced by Sanders) escapes United Galactic Federation (UGF) confinement, steals a red spaceship and crash-lands on a wildlife reserve for endangered mosquitoes known as Earth. The “flawed product of a deranged mind” ends up in an animal rescue centre in Hawaii and escapes recapture at the hands of creator Dr Jumba Jookiba (Zach Galifianakis) and UGF agent Pleakley (Billy Magnussen) by pretending to be a dog so it can be adopted by six-year-old orphan Lilo Pelekai (Kealoha).

The girl christens her mischievous companion Stitch and the pair wreak havoc on Lilo’s legal guardian, older sister Nani (Sydney Agudong), who is struggling to pay bills and appease child protective services represented by social worker Mrs Kekoa (Carrere). “You’re not bad. You just do bad things sometimes,” Lilo sweetly informs Stitch. Kindly neighbour Tutu (Hill) and surfer grandson (Kaipo Dudoit) provide emotional support to the Pelekais but the sisters’ movements are being tracked by US government agent Cobra Bubbles (Courtney B Vance).

Lilo & Stitch is a wholesome and charming remake that leaves a lump in the throat by retaining the underlying sentiment and replaying memorable sequences such as the alien’s exhilarating introduction to surfing. Newcomer Kealoha is a wonder, confidently riding waves of comedy and tragedy to endear us to her bullied and lonely heroine. Breathtaking Hawaiian locales will make you wish you were there, even with Stitch unleashing chaos across Oahu.

Action

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning (12A)

Review: Considering Tom Cruise’s willingness to hurl himself into the slavering jaws of death for our big screen entertainment in the Mission: Impossible films, the franchise’s bombastic title has always seemed like a slight exaggeration. The Hollywood star broke his ankle performing one daredevil stunt for the sixth film but still managed to complete the take before heading to hospital. Anything is possible. The stakes feel monumentally high in the eighth chapter, which welcomes back director Christopher McQuarrie to tie up narrative threads from Dead Reckoning and circle back to the 1996 reboot that suspended Cruise on cables inside a maximum-security CIA vault.

The ripple effect of that nerve-jangling heist generates an extinction-level tsunami in The Final Reckoning and empowers a rogue artificial intelligence dubbed the Entity to seize control of every nuclear arsenal on the planet. In response, Cruise risks life and limbs to perform two of the most thrilling stunt sequences of the entire series: scrambling through the flooded belly of a submarine rotating through 360 degrees in the uncharted depths of the Arctic Ocean; and clinging on to the wings of two airborne biplanes as they somersault, swoop and dive over the breathtaking Blyde River Canyon in South Africa. Cameras remain thrillingly close to the actor so we can see he’s genuinely in the midst of these jaw-dropping sequences, flaunting a gym-toned physique that boggles the mind given Cruise will celebrate his 63rd birthday this summer.

Defying time’s natural wear and tear and career-ending injuries has surely been the real mission: impossible. As a pulse-quickening spectacle, The Final Reckoning exceeds many previous instalments. As a satisfying narrative experience, McQuarrie’s script co-written by Erik Jendresen is overly earnest in the opening 10 minutes and montages of Ethan Hunt’s earlier missions are nostalgia overkill, accounting for the unwieldy 170-minute running time.

IMF agent Ethan Hunt (Cruise) is in exile with both halves of the 3D cruciform key that can unlock the source code of the Entity. “Surrender, or the blood of the world will be on your hands,” pleads US President Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett) in a VHS message that self-destructs in time-honoured fashion after five seconds. Instead, the IMF agent returns to London to reunite with Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) and former thief Grace (Hayley Atwell). The Entity’s human henchman, Gabriel (Esai Morales), is still on the loose so Hunt bolsters his ranks with vengeful French assassin Paris (Pom Klementieff) and US intelligence agent Theo Degas (Greg Tarzan Davis).

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is a globe-trotting gallivant designed for the largest cinema screen that puts Cruise front and centre of each outlandish set piece. Scriptwriters aren’t afraid to sacrifice key characters in the melee and a callback to the first film is unexpectedly poignant. If this is Cruise’s breathlessly staged swansong then he departs before the action-packed series self-destructs.

Comedy

The Phoenician Scheme (15)

Review: There is only one Wes Anderson. It’s a blessing to witness the boundless imagination of an auteur whose films are immediately distinguishable by their artful aesthetic and quirky sense of humour, and a curse when a rare talent takes a big creative swing and misses, even by a hair’s breadth. Fifties-set comedy thriller The Phoenician Scheme plants one sensible shoe in each camp, marrying impeccable production design and deliciously droll humour to a perplexing globe-trotting caper that inflicts “unholy mischief” on a dysfunctional father-daughter relationship.

Anderson’s screenplay bears all the hallmarks, from the running joke about a young boy on the loose with a crossbow (“Be careful of your eyes, he’s a very good shot!”) to the dazzling array of characters who inhabit this chocolate box world filled with plentiful hard centres. Ethereal black and white interludes in the afterlife, after each failed assassination attempt on the lead character, herald Bill Murray as a generously coiffed Almighty. A ridiculously stacked ensemble cast boasts moments to shine for F Murray Abraham, Mathieu Amalric, Richard Ayoade, Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg. Fans of Anderson’s previous work will be in their element. I felt emotionally removed for extended periods.

Zsa-zsa Korda (Benicio del Toro) is a titan of commerce who oversees the “mediation of clandestine trade agreements”. Jealous rivals wish him outrageous misfortune. Cue various assassination attempts, including a targeted explosion aboard Zsa-zsa’s private plane, which forces the magnate to assume command from his pilot (Stephen Park) and crash-land in a cornfield. Succession planning is vital to implement the Phoenician Scheme – his ambitious three-part infrastructure vision comprising a hydroelectric dam, mountainside locomotive tunnel and inland waterway.

He hopes funding can be divided between wealthy investors and family including Prince Farouk (Riz Ahmed), basketball-loving tycoons Leland (Tom Hanks) and Reagan (Bryan Cranston), shipping magnate Marty (Jeffrey Wright), second cousin Hilda (Scarlett Johansson) and half-brother Nubar (Benedict Cumberbatch). Blessed with 10 children from three wives, Zsa-zsa pins his hopes on his only daughter, Liesl (Mia Threapleton), a novice nun poised to take her vows. Liesl reluctantly joins her father on a globe-trotting expedition to woo investors, accompanied by Norwegian insect specialist Bjorn Lund (Michael Cera), who is hired as a tutor for Liesl’s siblings.

The Phoenician Scheme is a meandering meditation on mortality and the tiny legacies we leave behind. Anderson’s visually stunning curiosity plays most gags with a straight face but a centrepiece fight to the death can’t resist bursts of exaggerated physical comedy. Del Toro and Threapleton are a wonderfully deadpan double-act, the latter scolding her old man for sacrificing human connections at the altar of material wonder. Anderson’s picture makes those same trade-offs.