Pete’s Dragon film review: a sweet-hearted Disney film that trades on nostalgia for the films of your childhood August 11, 2016 After the wildly successful Jungle Book remake comes Pete’s Dragon, itself a reboot of a little known Disney film from 1977, a strange, dated musical featuring a dragon who was half live-action and half animation, but mostly invisible. It wasn’t well reviewed, but a reheated Turkey is often easier to stomach than a remade classic. [...]
Nerve film review: Emma Roberts and Dave Franco star in YA thriller about what happens when Pokemon Go turns evil August 9, 2016 Nerve is a savvy internet morality tale tacked on to a giddy teen blockbuster, a parable about the corrosive power of online anonymity and the dangerous side-effects of a generation addicted to the dopamine rush of “likes”. It’s the first original feature from Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman since 2010’s massaged-reality documentary Catfish (they also [...]
Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates review: a backwards buddy movie that wastes Aubrey Plaza and Anna Kendrick August 9, 2016 Mike and Dave are brothers, but more than that, they’re lads. When these liquor salesmen aren’t drowning in their own supply, they’re driving a banterbus made of LOLZ. Understandably, younger sister Jeanie hates them, but she’s getting married and feels some familial urge to invite them, despite them being total dicks. Mike and Dave have [...]
Yerma at the Young Vic review: Billie Piper shows her acting chops but the production lacks poetry August 8, 2016 Inspired by Federico García Lorca’s play of the same name, the Young Vic’s new production of Yerma (Barren) is well acted and inventively staged, but undermined by a misguided impulse to modernise. The original was set in rural Spain, following a young woman penned in by society and her beliefs, whose increasingly desperate desire for [...]
Young Chekhov at National Theatre review: this triple bill of Platonov, Ivanov and The Seagull gives fresh perspective on one of the great dramatists August 5, 2016 Chekhov has a reputation as a miserabilist, due in large part to his recurring themes of suicide and existential dread. But this does a disservice to the comedy that runs through his work – and thank goodness it does, because if his plays were as gloomy as people tend to think, eight hours of them [...]
Rotterdam at Trafalgar Studios review: A touching and laugh-out-loud comedy about being transgender August 4, 2016 “Rotterdam is anywhere/anywhere alone” sang The Beautiful South back in the days of Britpop. Anywhere is right: the Dutch port city acts not only as a setting for this West End transfer, but also as a metaphor for transition, a halfway house where no one feels they truly belong. The story follows three British expats [...]
Exposure review: A cringe-inducing musical so awful it ascends like some horrible bird into a delirious realm of brilliant, unintentional comedy August 4, 2016 Like Chekhov’s prophetic gun above the mantle, any character who proudly shows off an ultrasound of their unborn son guarantees their own near-immediate demise. In this wonderfully terrible musical, a photographer barely has the foetal-snap out of his pocket before he’s bitten to death by snakes. His already grieving, prenatal son then explodes from rear [...]
Suicide Squad movie review: Jared Leto’s strong Joker game can’t save a film that’s too fixated on Margot Robbie’s behind August 2, 2016 There are lots of reasons to dislike Suicide Squad. It shamelessly fetishises guns, for instance, which in the current climate feels pretty distasteful. There are guns emblazoned with “love” and “hate”, guns made out of gold, guns that fly through the air in slow motion. It shamelessly objectifies women, particularly Margot Robbie and more particularly [...]
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child review at the Palace Theatre: A sappy script but possibly one of the best staged plays the West End has ever seen July 28, 2016 JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series stood apart from the canon of children’s literature by allowing its characters to grow up. Peter Pan famously never aged and Just William was 11-years-old for about 50 years. Harry, Ron and Hermione, on the other hand, were in their late 30s by the end of the seventh book, sending [...]
Now We Are Here at the Young Vic gets to the human stories behind the refugee crisis July 28, 2016 This latest play in the Young Vic’s refugee season was written by refugees themselves, in collaboration with local writers. In the first half, three actors take it in turns to tell the stories of Desmond, Mir and Michael (played with real charm by Gary Beadle, Manish Gandhi and Jonathan Livingstone). They sit on chairs and [...]