FILM: Bad Santa 2 (dir: Mark Waters, 2016)

"Aw, we still got it, kid!"
"I guess so."

Thirteen years on from the original, Bad Santa 2 works best when it delivers more of the same (and there is plenty of that), with the bonus of added Kathy Bates.  It takes a surprising while for the script to engage and to hit the right tone, but once that arrives the film starts to lift.  What does work well is the grown-up Brett Kelly returning as Thurman Merman, who is by turn heartbreaking and hilarious, otherwise Bad Santa 2 is a somewhat routine sequel slog.  It does feature the most unpleasant but funny use of Chekhov's Gun in the final photo montage.  Bad Santa 2 will still make you feel festive, but it is not strong enough to become a Christmas classic.

FILM: A United Kingdom (dir: Amma Asante, 2016)

"Not every fight has to be about violence."

Although based on real events, this movie's success depends the ability of Rosamund Pike and David Oyelowo to sell the central romance, which they manage admirably, and watching these two excellent actors deliver nuanced and warm performances is very enjoyable, with Jack Davenport and Tom Felton suitably slimy as the odious pen-pushing politickers.  Post-WWII London is simply and effectively realised on screen, juxtaposed with well-shot sweeping African landscapes.  When racism, both institutional and personal, rears its ugly head it is powerful and shocking, yet the central couple's colour-blind bubble does tend to soften the film to a degree, relying on their emotional attachment to drive the film.  Nevertheless, A United Kingdom is a handsomely shot, well-played and well-meaning film that is both enjoyable and impactful.

FILM: Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them IMAX 3D (dir: David Yates, 2016)

"I ain't got the brains to make this up!"

Fantastic Beasts lulls you in with the Harry Potter music motif and a few nods to existing lore, and then pretty much goes its own way.  It is handsomely mounted, with a lot of very good special effects work, some spirited set pieces and an ambitious finale.  Considering the number of disparate narrative threads in play, Rowling does more or less manage to pull them together (and spring a couple of surprises), but as this also serves as an origin story, many characters are somewhat underdeveloped but have potential for the other episodes to follow.  Redmayne makes for an oddly insipid hero, but Colin Farrell is on-form, Ezra Miller gives another strong performance and Dan Fogler gives a great comedic turn. As a series opener, this is a good, enjoyable movie that may lack a little in character and emotion, but the money is all there up on the screen.

FILM: Arrival (dir: Denis Villeneuve, 2016)

"Am I fired?"

Being uttered in the same breath as 2001 in many quarters, Arrival does indeed share its same majesterial pacing and slow unfolding of events around this mysterious first contact scenario, yet Villeneuve creates a surprisingly intimate tale with the excellent Amy Adams hugely effective as the everyman/audience experience viewpoint.  The demanding and steady pacing of the narrative and enigma reveals are utterly mesmerising, leading to an immensely satisfying resolution that completely justifies all that led up to that point.  With intelligent ideas and writing and as another example of wonderfully-controlled direction from Villeneuve, Arrival is a strong and impressively-realised story.

FILM: A Street Cat Named Bob (dir: Roger Spottiswoode, 2016)

"Reading his spirit loud and clear...."

A Street Cat Named Bob pretty much delivers what you expect of what is essentially a tale of personal redemption and beating drug addiction wrapped up in a curiously contradictory cuddly tale of a man who carries a cat around Central London on his shoulders to the adoration of cat-lovers. The film wavers between moments of vaguely hard-hitting social comment - the opening scenes of Bob homeless are particularly poignant - and mawkish sentimentality, in an attempt to cater for a wide audience.   The casting of the very capable and charismatic Luke Treadaway as James Bowen is smart, and Joanne Froggatt gives a nicely-balanced performance as his committed case worker, yet in spite of the thin story and the extremely irritating cat-POV shots, this is a sweet film but somewhat predictable and lightweight.

FILM: Nocturnal Animals (dir: Tom Ford, 2016)

"...but I live in the real world...."

Nocturnal Animals is an interesting but not wholly successful venture.  The story-within-a-film conceit is hardly new, and here it is done successfully, but from the outset the film almost breaks under the weight of its themes, contradictions and juxtapositions (art vs artifice, emotion vs abstraction, real-life vs fiction and so on).  This is also seen in the actual film-making in a film that unsurprisingly deigned and directed to within an inch of its life (sometimes smartly, sometimes eye-rollingly obviously) but has a strong but anachronistically melodramatic music score.  Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal are both technically strong and at moments heartbreaking, both clearly relishing the challenges offered by the material, but overall Nocturnal Animals is clever rather than smart and ultimately does not wholly satisfy.