Animation
Buffalo Kids (PG)
Review: Boundless optimism and naivete cocoon two stranded siblings from the harsh realities of 19th-century life in a Spanish computer-animated escapade co-directed by Juan Jesus Garcia Galocha and Pedro Solis Garcia, which has been cheerfully dubbed into English for family audiences. Expanded from the award-winning 2014 animated short Strings, which was inspired by the relationship between co-director Garcia’s daughter Alejandra and youngest son Nicolas, who had severe cerebral palsy, Buffalo Kids plucks heartstrings with the same eagerness as a banjo on the rootin’ tootin’ soundtrack composed by Fernando Velazquez. Touchingly, the film is dedicated to Nico’s memory.
Scriptwriters Jordi Gasull and Javier Lopez Barreira, working with English language script consultants Neil Landau and Hawa Macalou, canter roughshod over common sense and realism. Somehow, a wee scrap of a girl vertically lifts a boy in a wheelchair onto a raised platform without assistance, gun-toting bandits possess the engineering nous to construct a crank-driven 30-foot mountainside wall to conceal their covert mining operation, and three characters conveniently lodge in the same place at the same time to facilitate a dewy-eyed reunion. Such unremitting sweetness may cause dental cavities. The two directors apply a gentle touch to deeply personal material, while lightly addressing the reluctance of some parents to adopt a child with disabilities.
Orphaned siblings Tom (voiced by Conor MacNeill) and Mary (Alisha Weir) arrive in 1886 New York City from Ireland aboard the ocean liner Alexandra just as the Statue of Liberty is unveiled with a pyrotechnic-laden fanfare. The youngsters have come to America to live with their uncle Niall (Stephen Graham) but their relative fails to materialise at the docks, leaving the tykes stranded with a stray dog which they christen Sparky.
Unperturbed, the children plan to travel by train to Niall’s home in Sacramento and they sneak aboard the Express Coast Railway among a group of travelling orphans under the care of governess Eleanor (Gemma Arterton). As the train chugs towards a first stop in Omaha, Mary befriends a non-verbal boy in a wheelchair named Nick, who has cerebral palsy. Dastardly outlaw Wilson (Sean Bean) and his men hold up the train and Tom, Mary and Nick orchestrate a daring rescue plan with the help of Cheyenne tribal chief Yellow Wolf and his granddaughter Red Moon.
Buffalo Kids harnesses the luck of the Irish to slalom around plot holes and neatly extinguish tension between the United States Army and indigenous peoples without a single careless pull of a trigger. Scenes of mild peril shouldn’t disturb the young: one child limps after incurring an animal bite, another lingers briefly between life and death following a selfless act of heroism. Explosive flatulence ultimately saves the day and jeopardy is gone with the wind.
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Horror
Salem's Lot (15)
Review: Stephen King’s 1975 vampire novel ’Salem’s Lot has twice taken flight on TV: in 1979 with David Soul as emotionally traumatised novelist Ben Mears, who wages war against an infestation of bloodsuckers in his sleepy hometown, and again in 2004 with Rob Lowe as the reluctant hero. Gary Dauberman, writer-director of Annabelle Comes Home, breathes hot air but, alas, no new life into a suspense-free film version, which almost suffocates on its reverence to the source text. ’Salem’s Not A Lot would be a more fitting title for Dauberman’s disjointed and scattershot picture, which feels stuffy and old-fashioned in its pedestrian execution.
Both small screen incarnations were creepier although Dauberman does achieve one moment of disquiet, affording us a tantalising first glimpse of the master vampire through a tear in a sack containing a whimpering prepubescent sacrifice. The terrified boy’s breathing accelerates as a gnarled figure descends a staircase and closes in on the sack, culminating in an exuberant arc of freshly jettisoned blood on to furnishings. Vampires are exceedingly messy eaters. Character development and a romantic subplot are dangerously malnourished to the point of desiccation and teenage actor Jordan Preston Carter outperforms more established co-stars, investing his role with sufficient emotional intensity to compel us to care about his wellbeing when the sun sets.
Author Ben Mears (Lewis Pullman) returns to his childhood home in Jerusalem’s Lot, Maine – population under 2,000, and dwindling – to research his next novel and face ghosts of the past almost 20 years after the loss of both parents in a car accident. He secures a room at a boarding house run by the imperious Eva Miller (Marilyn Busch) and sparks romance with college graduate Susan Norton (Makenzie Leigh), who is working hard to obtain her real estate licence so she can head back to Boston.
Ben’s arrival coincides with the disappearance of little Ralphie Glick (Cade Woodward), who is snatched after dark by RT Straker (Pilou Asbaek), the human familiar of ancient vampire Kurt Barlow (Alexander Ward), who is secretly entombed in the basement of hilltop Marsten House. Ralphie’s horror-obsessed classmate Mark Petrie (Carter) is one of the first residents to deduce an infestation of fanged fiends along with his elementary school teacher, Matt Burke (Bill Camp). They join forces with Ben, Susan, Dr Cody (Alfre Woodard) and local priest Father Callahan (John Benjamin Hickey) to cleanse Jerusalem’s Lot before the community is transformed into bloodsucking predators and infects neighbouring towns.
’Salem’s Lot is a lacklustre rendering of King’s tome, which unfolds in fits and (bloodless) spurts. Dauberman’s script draws heavy-handed parallels between on-screen predators and modern-day figures who are sucking small-town America dry. Placid performances suggest cast may have been hypnotised by a vampire before filming began.
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Horror
Terrifier 3 (18)
Review: All publicity is good publicity for Terrifier 3, especially when that hype shares anecdotal evidence of audience members fainting, vomiting or fleeing cinemas because of the extreme on-screen violence, and France’s film classification committee enforces a rare ban on under-18s from public screenings. Strong stomachs and steely nerves are required for the third instalment of writer-director Damien Leone’s gore-slathered horror, which has gained a cult following since the release of the low-budget original in 2016. Like its predecessors, the third picture revels in sadistic brutality meted out by Art the Clown, realised with nauseating prosthetics and special effects fashioned by award-winning makeup artist Jason Baker and the team at Callosum Studios.
David Howard Thornton reprises his role as the amusingly camp harbinger of gratuitous carnage, performing impromptu surgery on half the cast with an axe, chainsaw and sledgehammer. The barbarity is unrelenting to the point that I became numbed to the misery inflicted on characters in close-up. Third time is a charm for Leone’s script, which is leaner than the bloated second instalment and mines ghoulish humour from a Christmastime setting that gift wraps tidings of extreme discomfort and joylessness, including a ho ho horrible visit to a department store Santa’s grotto.
Sienna Shaw (Lauren LaVera) emerges from Sunny Valley Treatment Centre to rebuild her life after her near-fatal encounter with Art the Clown (Thornton) last Halloween. Aunt Jessica (Margaret Anne Florence) provides emotional sanctuary during the Christmas holidays and the fractured family looks forward to a peaceful Yuletide with Jessica’s husband Greg (Bryce Johnson) and daughter Gabbie (Antonella Rose). Sienna’s younger brother Jonathan (Elliott Fullam), who also bears physical and psychological scars from Art, is studying hard at college and politely rebuffs invitations to share his harrowing story on a true crime podcast hosted by his roommate’s girlfriend (Alexa Blair Robertson).
Alas, Art is revived by infecting the only other survivor of his carnage, Victoria Heyes (Samantha Scaffidi), and the diabolical clown goes on the rampage dressed as a nightmarish Santa with a very long naughty list and a sack containing all manner of sharp implements. Sienna senses approaching evil and is plagued by disturbing visions. As blood flows and bodies are gleefully dismembered, Sienna’s behaviour becomes increasingly erratic and aunt Jessica contemplates committing her niece to a secure medical facility.
Terrifier 3 is two hours of hacking, slashing nastiness interspersed with equal opportunities nudity in a shower that quickly becomes a bloodbath. Brief flashes of humour are a welcome respite from the evisceration as cast members scream to the point of hoarseness under Art’s withering gaze. Fervent fans of the franchise will lap up every maniacal and menacing moment.
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Comedy
Timestalker (15)
Review: A fateful infatuation ripples across space and time in writer-director-actor Alice Lowe’s wildly ambitious comedy drama, which ricochets through seven eras including brief flashes of a Paleolithic age when feral cavepeople wrestle with primal desires. Lowe’s heroine Agnes is condemned to squander her life in pursuit of a man who does not return her admiration. Repeatedly dismissed as a fusty-lugs mopsy, Agnes only comes to her senses after she lingers briefly in heavenly limbo.
Timestalker left me in limbo between amusement, admiration and bewilderment for a fiercely original, genre-melding vision of emancipation, female empowerment and generational trauma, spiked with deadpan humour. Lowe’s script appropriates the plot mechanics of Groundhog Day to allow Agnes to return after impalement, decapitation or a squelchy close encounter with the wheel of a Victorian horse-drawn carriage. Production designer Felicity Hickson works miracles on a limited budget to recreate each time period although the most charitable audience will struggle to accept locations in Wales as a plausible stand-in for the Big Apple under Jimmy Carter’s presidency.
The madness begins in 1688 when Scottish spinster and peasant Agnes (Lowe) attends the execution of controversial preacher Alex (Aneurin Barnard) and is instantly smitten with the condemned heretic. She storms the gallows to protect him, trips over her dog George and impales her head on a poleaxe, setting in motion a domino rally of tragedy and despair across time. Agnes is reborn as an aristocratic lady of leisure in 1793 rural England with a syphilitic, bullying husband George (Nick Frost), illegitimate son Scipio (Jacob Anderson) and secretly smitten handmaid Meg (Tanya Reynolds). “We are all prisoners of our destiny,” confides the servant. Agnes’s swooning infatuation with dandy highwayman Alex allows grim history to repeat.
Prim schoolteacher Agnes comes to a grisly end in 1847 England chasing after Alex in the street and her fortunes are equally dire in a 1940s cabaret club during the Blitz as a magician’s assistant. She is strapped to a giant wheel as jealous George throws knives at her with venomous intent after she locks eyes with soldier Alex. In 1980 New York, Agnes returns as the dangerously obsessive fan of New Romantic pop star Alex Phoenix, blissfully unaware that alcohol-soaked tramp George is stalking her.
Timestalker affirms Lowe as an artist with a unique viewpoint, who won’t pander to an audience’s expectations. I made stronger emotional engagements with characters in her feature directorial debut, Prevenge, than this time-hopping odyssey. The ensemble cast clearly relish multiple roles. Lowe anchors the picture while Frost wholeheartedly embraces his carnival of grotesques. Humour errs more towards funny peculiar than funny ha ha and running time feels considerably longer than 90 minutes.
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Animation
Transformers One (PG)
Review: Before Batman, there was millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne. Before Wolverine, there was 19th-century Canadian outcast James Howlett. And before Bananaman, there was unassuming schoolboy Eric Wimp. Many fictional superheroes rise to greatness from humble or tragic origins and the same is true for the hardworking robots of Transformers One, which burrows deep beneath the surface of planet Cybertron to unearth the formative years of Autobot and Decepticon leaders Optimus Prime and Megatron.
Directed at a brisk pace by Josh Cooley, this slick and entertaining computer-animated prequel serves up a fizzy cocktail of turbo-charged action, humour and heartfelt emotion. Screenwriters Eric Pearson, Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari fire up the circuit boards of familiar characters from the long-running series including Bumblebee, Starscream, Soundwave and music-loving Jazz, fraying bonds of brotherhood until lifelong friends become sworn enemies and unresolved conflict neatly lays the groundwork for Transformers Two and Three.
A plot twist is clearly telegraphed and won’t surprise anyone old enough to recall the 1984 animated TV show which supported the launch of the original toy line. Digitally rendered visuals spark pangs of nostalgia for that bygone small screen incarnation. Keegan-Michael Key gleefully scene-steals as a motormouth automaton, who has created a trio of imaginary friends from scrap metal. He banters to delightful effect with an A-list voice cast spearheaded by Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry and Scarlett Johansson.
Orion Pax (voiced by Hemsworth) and best friend D-16 (Henry) are mining robots in the city of Iacon, who proudly harvest Energon from the core of planet Cybertron to power their subterranean world and serve noble leader Sentinel Prime (Jon Hamm). He is sole survivor of an epic battle between the first Transformers, the Thirteen Primes, and invading alien race the Quintessons. Since this cataclysmic skirmish, robots have lived beneath ground while diabolical victors rule the surface of the planet.
Flanked by loyal spider-like lieutenant Airachnid (Vanessa Liguori), who transforms into a jet, Sentinel Prime leads expeditions on the surface to locate a fabled artefact called The Matrix Of Leadership and tip the balance of power back in favour of robots. A twist of fate propels Orion Pax and D-16 above ground in the company of robots Elita-1 (Johansson) and B-127 (Key). The plucky quartet stumbles upon ancient sage Alpha Trion (Laurence Fishburne), who bestows the Thirteen Primes’ cogs to them so Orion Pax, D-16, Elita-1 and B-127 can finally shapeshift.
Transformers One out-muscles every live-action outing of the robots in disguise except for 2018’s delightful coming-of-age story Bumblebee. Stakes feel satisfyingly high, even with the certainty that key characters must survive to preserve the franchise’s 40-year legacy. Cooley’s animated odyssey shifts smoothly through the gears, building to a thunderous final action sequence that would be prohibitively expensive as a live-action spectacle.
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