Bad Times At The El Royale (2018)
Genre: Crime, drama
Director: Drew Goddard
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Dakota Johnson, Jon Hamm, Lewis Pullman, Chris Hemsworth
Duration: 140 minutes
Class: 15
KRS Releasing Ltd

Drew Goddard’s newest offering presents us with an ultra stylish crime drama, a murder mystery wrapped in an enigmatic but strange location.

Bad Times at the El Royale begins with a prologue, a crime in progress about to go terribly wrong that ends in tragedy and an air of mystery. Ten years later, an eclectic group of strangers check into the El Royale hotel, a building that runs right through the California-Nevada border. A once stately and fashionable residence, it has fallen into disrepair and become a shanty haunt, a mere glimmer of its former self.

In 1969, the turning point of a decade, four strangers arrive at the El Royale. Fr Flynn (Jeff Bridges), an innocuous priest, bespectacled vacuum salesman Laramie Seymour Sullivan (Jon Hamm), down-on-her-luck lounge singer Darlene Sweet (Cynthia Erivo) and a yet unnamed femme fatale (Dakota Johnson) all have secrets to keep but before the night’s end, everyone’s darker natures will come to light.

Critics and audiences have near identical scores for the film, praising its smart style, solid performances and layered subtextual social commentary.

David Sims of The Atlantic  praised the film, in particular Goddard’s direction and his handling of the “intriguing elements at play”. His review highlights the characters and clever plot construction but he muses that the extended run time drags out the final act. Still he must “applaud Goddard’s ambition, even when it overreaches”.

David Edelstein of Vulture had a less favourable opinion of the film, calling it “long, laboured and self-concious - but not boring”. He called the feel of the film “synthetic” but said that it ultimately holds up as a genre piece, with genuine affection for its characters.

“Bad Times at the El Royale isn’t an event,” Edelstein wrote. “But I was never too bored”.

Ratings
IMDB: 7.4/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 76%
Empire: 4 stars

Two colourful worlds collide amid the mountains of Smallfoot.

Smallfoot (2018)
Genre: Adventure, musical
Director: Karey Kirkpatrick
Voices of: Channing Tatum, James Corden, Zendaya, Common, LeBron James, Danny DeVito
Duration: 109 minutes
Class: U
KRS Releasing Ltd

High up in the Himalayas a colony of Yetis host a bustling society far from the gaze of prying eyes. Migo, a bubbly joyful bigfoot voiced by Channing Tatum, is eager to take his place in Yeti society. However, a small misadventure makes him come to face with a creature that makes him confront the veracity of the very nature of his society, the titular smallfoot.

A smallfoot is the yeti word for a human. Percy (James Corden), lost in the mountains after a plane crash, comes face to face with Migo, the very creature he was in search of as a documentary film-maker.

Their unlikely friendship blossoms as Migo takes Percy back up the mountain, he wonders what else the village elders might be hiding after being told that humans were imaginary. Percy must also make some tough decisions as he must choose whether to keep his new friends safe or be the first to confirm the long held myth of their existence.

Smallfoot received mainly positive reviews with many enjoying the heartfelt message of friendship at the core of the film.

Cath Clarke of The Guardian called Smallfoot “nicely done”, saying the “unexpectedly heartfelt message about empathy and looking at the world through someone else’s eyes just about makes up for its bland animation, smart script and generic clappy-blah songs”. She found the film’s main conceit to be slightly too immature and felt it was “optimistic in a way that is only possible in a film targeted at kids”.

Peter Debruge of Variety had a far less optimistic consensus on the film. He summarised the film by calling it “ a confused plot and an overcooked question-everything message”. While conceding to the flow of animation, Debruge cared vary little for the motions and songs that bring the film together, saying:  “If Smallfoot proves anything, it’s not the existence of yetis, but the need for a fresh alternative to such lazy storytelling”.

Ratings
IMDB: 6.8/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 75%
Empire: 4 stars

Mackenzie Foy takes viewers on an adventure across different dimensions in The Nutcracker and the Four Realms.

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2017)
Genre: Adventure
Director: Lasse Hallström, Joe Johnston
Starring: Keira Knightley, Mackenzie Foy, Morgan Freeman
Duration: 99 minutes
Class: PG
KRS Releasing

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms tells the story of a young woman named Clara (Mackenzie Foy). Young Clara is constantly in search of a mysteriously elusive key which has the potential to unlock a box in her possession. The box contains a precious and valuable gift from Clara’s late mother and she is eager to prise it open.

At her godfather Drosselmeyer's (Morgan Freeman) Christmas Party, she is gifted with a golden thread that soon leads her to the key she so covets. The key, however, promptly disappears into a strange and mystical parallel dimension.

Entering the strange new world in search of her prize, Clara soon encounters Philip (Jayden Fowora-Knight), a soldier who agrees to help her on her quest.

Clara and Philip set out together, encountering new people and places in the other realms; the Land of Snowflakes, the Land of Flowers and the Land of Sweets. The pair, however, must band together and face the ominous fourth realm, where the tyrant Mother Ginger (Helen Mirren) rules and hopefully retrieve Clara’s precious key and restore harmony to the increasingly unstable realms.

The film also stars Miranda Hart, Jack Whitehall and Misty Copeland.

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms opens in Malta on Friday.  

Ratings
IMDB: 5.4/10
Rotten Tomatoes: N/A
Empire: N/A