VOD: The Christmas Chronicles (dir: Clay Kaytis, 2018)

"How do you think I can turn into coal dust, and leap from rooftop to rooftop?"
"...Pilates....?"

The big festive offering from Netflix tries to be all types of Christmas film - family, comedy, action, drama, even musical - and thus never manages to hit a consistent tone.  It very quickly pulls a big emotional punch, which pays off beautifully at the end of the film, but in between there is a fairly standard tale of a bickering older brother/younger sister pair of stowaways on Santa's sleigh which crashes, jeopardising Christmas, and their subsequent efforts to help to save the day.  Indeed, the pair of young actors are not easy to engage with at the start, but their performances seem to get better as the movie progresses, and the real selling point is of course the majesterial Kurt Russell as a cooler version of Santa, and he is indeed immensely entertaining in the role as expected.  Both the writing and CGI effects are variable, but there is enough festive dressing and narrative momentum to keep interest.  The Christmas Chronicles (deliberately?) even references festive favourites including Home Alone, Elf, The Santa Clause and Gremlins, and whilst the film is pleasant enough, it is unlikely to become a repeat Christmas classic like those movies.

FILM: Robin Hood (dir: Otto Bathurst, 2018)

"You don't have to like me."
"Good - because I don't."

This latest take on the Robin Hood legend is nowhere near as misjudged as Ritchie's King Arthur, but it is a rather odd mixed bag.  Some of the deliberately modern-inflected stylings work - the clothing, the visually-interesting steampunk version of Nottingham, and the score, for example - but others, e.g. the video-game action sequences and Robin's PTSD moment, feel less convincing.  The deepening of Robin's motivations makes for a more interesting narrative than most, more simplistic takes on the tale, but the political/religious machinations mean that the film takes an awfully long time telling it.  Egerton again charms effortlessly and is a good physical presence in the fight/action scenes, Foxx chews the scenery effectively, and Eve Hewson's Marian is given a fair amount to do, although she is the only notable female presence in the whole film.  It does boast two cracking set-pieces in the final act - an inventive horseback chase and the cleverly-staged final showdown - marking a reasonable end to an occasionally satisfying film.

FILM: Nativity Rocks! - This Ain't No Silent Night (dir: Debbie Isitt, 2018)

"Oh my God - there's ANOTHER one!"

The fourth entry in this peculiarly and uniquely British low-rent children's franchise is - astonishingly - the best of the weak sequels for three main reasons.  Firstly, the 'new' Mr Poppy (the previous unbearable incumbent's younger brother in story terms) is more engagingly child-like than annoyingly childish with better comic timing and presence; secondly, the unexpected tackling of big real-world themes such as parental absence, World War II and immigration give this film greater centre and relative dramatic heft; and thirdly, the musical finale - an actual Nativity of sorts this time - is more developed and better musically than previous efforts,  It is still, of course, cheap, ridiculous and utterly inexplicable - like pantomime - but, and I say this very quietly, I almost actually started to warm to it by the end!

FILM: Fantastic Beasts - The Crimes Of Grindelwald 3D (dir: David Yates, 2018)

"You might not want to watch this."

Considering the talent and experience involved in making this film, the outcome is a surprisingly and astonishingly dreary franchise-threatening second entry.  Although set design and realisation are absolutely magnificent to look at and the cast is mostly good (Law and Miller are great, Depp is deployed sparingly, Waterstone is criminally underused and Redmayne is still mis-cast and looks passively startled the whole time), the basic issue is that not a lot actually happens for most of the long film.  It is also difficult to warm to the characters, so that even the brief action sequences offer little in which to invest.  A frisson ran through the cinema audience when the Hogwarts sequences appeared, and the series would benefit clearly from further visits in the future.  This film is very much an exercise in treading water for the proposed five-film cycle, and perhaps a denser trilogy would have been a wiser proposition.  Nevertheless, the final twist does set up (hopefully) the next entry reasonably intriguingly.

FILM: The Grinch 3D 4DX (dirs: Yarrow Cheney and Scott Mosier, 2018)

"My eyes are burning!"

Illumination's 2018 take on the modern classic is cuter and somewhat less bizarre than the much-loved Ron Howard-directed live-action version, and this  very child-friendly take on the popular tale is sweet, slick and enjoyable.  The material is tailor-made for CGI animation, and both 3D and 4DX are utilised excellently if you see it in those formats.  Cumberbatch does fun voice work, and Max The Dog (The Grinch's pet/companion) got a great reaction from the audience.  Design and animation triumph here - the film is a gloriously detailed and vibrant red-and-green symphony against a snowy white backdrop, with a reasonably trim running time owing to the straightforward and smoothed-out telling of the tale Like Christmas itself, sometimes you just have to surrender yourself to the simple shiny sickly-sweet pleasures of the season and indeed this movie and enjoy it - even if it feels as if it has been released a month too early!  (The accompanying Minions short, Yellow Is the New Black, features a frantic prison break that is very entertaining).

VOD: Apostle (dir: Gareth Evans, 2018)

"Nothing in this world is pure."

A lot of critics are comparing this Netflix film's central idea to The Wicker Man, but if you imagine Ben Wheatley directing a remake of Children Of the Corn you might start to get an idea of the bizarre delights on offer in Apostle.  This is a much quieter film than director Evans's brilliant The Raid movies, but at over two hours it takes its time to set up an isolated cult community in the early 1900s, reveal its secrets and then observe the whole situation fall apart in spectacular and bloody fashion.  Evans draws solid performances from his strong cast, but once again Dan Stevens carries the film with his committed and powerful character work as the brother charged with joining the community in order to rescue his sister who is held captive for a ransom.  The use of colour palette works effectively, the violence is sudden, sharp and spectacular (with one truly wince-inducing 'cleansing' scene) and Evans flits effortlessly between intimate and wide-cinematic shots.  The ominous ticking-clock motif on the score gets a little wearing but serves to highlight the ever-impending descent into madness.  Apostle will not be to everyone's taste - more cerebral horror films usually alienate a number of core genre fans - but in many ways it is both effective and interesting.

FILM: Slaughterhouse Rulez (dir: Crispian Mills, 2018)

"Don't get your hopes up."

Destined to be loved by very undiscerning teenage boys everywhere, Slaughterhouse Rulez is a comedy-horror featuring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, but this is definitely no Shaun Of The Dead.  Starting off with lazy  stereoptypes and pantomime performances aplenty, the film soon develops into a very generic and unadventurous creature-feature that mostly fails to surprise, engage or amuse, to the extent of deploying Nick Frost in yet another unfunny comedy-drug-dealer role and Michael Sheen in an unwieldy over-the-top performance as the headteacher.  There are long sections during which tumbleweeds roll across the auditorium, and it takes an age before the action really rolls out, but towards the end there are some limited but decent creature FX.  This is a simple, undemanding film that delivers very little.

FILM: The Nutcracker and The Four Realms 3D 4DX (dirs: Lasse Hallstrom and Joe Johnston, 2018)

"I LOVE Christmas......what's Christmas?"

Disney's lavish festive treat is the kind of family movie to be watched snuggled up on the sofa with a box of chocolates around Christmas time.  As a film, it falls somewhere between the recent Alice and Narnia movies: huge-scale fantasy, abundant SFX, sumptuous detail and a basic but effective emotional through-story.  Quite how much of Hallstrom's original shoot remains is unclear, but there is little indication of how the story might have changed.  Performances are variable, but there is good work by Mackenzie Foy as our feisty antagonist, Matthew Macfadyen gives a touching performance as the grieving father, Omid Djalili and Jack Whitehall are good value as comedy guards, and Keira Knightley is unexpectedly remarkable infectious fun as Sugar Plum.  A couple of token ballet sequences are staged very well, and whilst Nutcracker proves to be as substantial as a marshmallow, it is an acceptable Christmas entertainment.