A thrilling ride if you can stomach the violence April 13, 2014 FILM THE RAID 2: BERANDAL Cert 18 | By Alex Dymoke Three Stars TWO and a half hours? 150 minutes? That’s more like a war of attrition than a “raid”. More western front than embassy siege. Still, Indonesian martial arts extravaganza The Raid 2 flies by quicker than most films half its length, thanks mainly [...]
Pangaea is a transcontinental hotchpotch April 13, 2014 ART PANGAEA Saatchi Gallery | By Joseph Funnell Two Stars SINCE moving to its Chelsea residence in 2008, Charles Saatchi’s eponymous gallery has often grouped artworks by country or region. But with Saatchi having scoured every corner of the earth for big art bounty, London has been left wondering where the gallery has left to [...]
Musical adaptation of film is a certain hit April 13, 2014 THEATRE DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS The Savoy Theatre | By Alex Dymoke Four Stars STARRING Robert Lindsay, Zoe Wanamaker and the guy from the BT adverts, My Family was the sitcom equivalent of Michael McIntyre; good-natured mass-market comedy so inoffensive it ended up offending the chattering classes. Lindsay played flustered middle-class dentist Ben Harper, a far [...]
Days of future caste April 3, 2014 FILM DIVERGENT CERT 12a Three Stars IN DIVERGENT a special young woman battles against a repressive society to achieve her true potential. Based on the first in a series of “Young Adult” novels by Veronica Roth, and with a sequel already confirmed, Divergent is unoriginal but sophisticated, engaging and surprisingly fun. I don’t wish to [...]
Richard Ayaode is a Double visionary April 3, 2014 FILM THE DOUBLE Cert 15 Four Stars RICHARD Ayoade’s first film, 2011’s Submarine, shuffled bashfully through the beaches and bedrooms of suburban seaside adolescence, stopping for cuddles, puppy love and the odd mumbled voice-over. For his second, loose Dostoevsky adaptation The Double, he dives arms flailing into the chaotic nightmare of adult anomie. It is [...]
Disappointing on a biblical scale April 3, 2014 FILM NOAH Cert 12a Two Stars You probably remember Noah’s Ark from school. It’s the one where the nice man with the beard builds the giant boat to save the furry animals from the massive flood. It’s a simple, morally unambiguous story, and as such it’s is one of the best-loved tales in the Bible. [...]
The Winter Soldier is Captain fantastic March 27, 2014 FILM CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER Cert 12a | By Melissa york Four Stars CAPTAIN America is no one’s favourite Avenger. He’s a white bread, vanilla, all-American goody-two shoes. Born of a genetic experiment to create the perfect soldier during WWII, he doesn’t even have any real super powers other than being able to beat [...]
Family drama is a surefire future classic March 27, 2014 FILM THE PAST Cert 12a | By Alex Dymoke Five Stars NAMING a film after a big, weighty abstract noun like “the past” demands something serious and monumental – The Past is just that. It’s a slow-burning, intelligent and unexpectedly gripping family drama about the power exerted by the past over the present, and the [...]
Line, colour and an encyclopedia for modern life March 27, 2014 ART OBJECTS OF OUR TIME Alan Cristea Gallery | By Alex Dymoke Four Stars IN THE 1970s and 80s, Michael Craig-Martin’s output earned him a reputation as the most hated man in British art. His brazen conceptualism infuriated the critics. One particularly memorable piece was “Oak Tree” – a glass of water on a plinth [...]
Fashion biopic more style than substance March 20, 2014 FILMYVES SAINT LAURENTCert 15 | By Simon ThomsonTwo Stars THERE just isn’t enough of a story to support a biopic of Yves Saint Laurent. The first half, addressing his early career and emergence as an independent force in the fashion industry, is an underpowered French remake of Mad Men. The second, where he descends into [...]