FILM: Murder On The Orient Express (dir: Kenneth Branagh, 2017)

"This is not a beach-side puzzle."

This 2017 version of the Agatha Christie classic maintains its period setting, and for anyone familiar with the material (including the famous 1970s movie) this is a handsomely-presented and well-performed piece that holds no surprises.  For newcomers, the clues are laid on surprisingly thickly and the solution signposted quite early on in a film which is dialogue-rich and surprisingly spritely.  Branagh makes some well-considered directorial choices, holding the camera on a character at points and occasionally using interesting shots and angles, and he performs well as Poirot, a little subdued but bearable compared with some interpretations.  The starry cast deliver well, with Josh Gad and Michelle Pfeiffer perhaps proving to be the most interesting.  Overall, this is a solid take that entertains but does little new.

FILM: Paddington 2 IMAX (dir: Paul King, 2017)

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"This is perfect."

Lightning does strike twice, and this Paddington sequel is as good as the original film.  It has the same charm, joy and child-like delight that made the first movie so enjoyable - and perhaps even more so in the first half here -  but the warmth and creativity is also evident throughout (the pop-up book sequence early on is one of the loveliest sequences seen in recent film).  The animation and compositing of the central character is exemplary, there are plenty of recognisable Brit actors doing delightful work (Hugh Grant and Brendan Gleeson in particular are absolutely wonderful), and London again looks gorgeous and is used very effectively (as the treasure-hunt story involves key landmarks).  The ambitious final set-piece perhaps ends a little abruptly, but the actual ending is a real heartstrings-tugger, and the credits include an hilariously camp song-and-dance routine that is so over-the-top that it leaves this delightful film on a big smile.

VOD: The Untamed (La Region Salvaje) (dir: Amat Escalante, 2017)

"You can't escape everything."

This Mexican-international co-production has been a festival favourite, and it is both intriguing and oddly absorbing.  With echoes of Andrzej Zulawski's Possession, a tentacled creature comes to Earth via a meteorite and is kept at a couple's isolated rural home, telepathically attracting emotionally troubled people and delivering extreme sexual fulfilment, sometimes with severe consequences.    Following the sexually tangled relationship between volatile Angel, his wife Alex, her brother Fabian and the mysterious Veronica who enters their lives, the film has an hypnotically strange feel, through steady pacing, unexpected juxtaposition of extreme shot types and curiously-placed sound elements.  The creature scenes are brief but impactful and well-realised for the budget.  Not all questions are resolved, and The Untamed will not be to everyone's taste, but it is a curious and interesting experience overall.

FILM: A Bad Moms Christmas (dirs: Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, 2017)

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"It's Christmas?"

The first festive offering of 2017 (first week in November!) sees the Bad Moms team return in a sequel that rigidly retreads the template but with added 'mothers of the mothers' and Christmas trees.  Oddly, the Christmas theme is often abandoned in favour of straight mother-daughter relationship scenes, giving the film a slightly stop-start feel, but this sequel capitalises on what worked best in the first film: Kathryn Hahn's wild character is a hoot, Mila Kunis sells the material brilliantly, and the chemistry between the three leads is terrific.  In spite of the relentless stereotyping (male and female) and the material is again slight, there are more laughs this time round and Baranski, Hines and Sarandon bring their considerable experience into comedic play effectively (and a potential spin-off movie is set up into the bargain).   Continuity fans will have a field day with snow and hair, but as the film breezes merrily along,  subtlety and detail are hardly the point here.  It is fun, it is forgettable... it's Christmas!

VOD: Tales Of Halloween (dirs: Axelle Carolyn and others, 2015)

"Halloween is about to get real!"

Packing in ten short Halloween tales, this portmanteau is little more than simple, silly goofy fun, just like the Halloween holiday itself.  It is not as stylish or as successful as Trick 'r Treat, but it knows its audience and its genre very well and is eager to please, from straight-played urban-legends-styled cautionary tales to engagingly daft parodies of Friday the 13th and John Carpenter movies, and appearances from a host of genre favourites (Greg Grunberg, Lin Shaye, Stuart Gordon, John Landis, Adrienne Barbeau, etc).  Inevitably, some shorts are better than others but there is no real weak link, and there is plenty of (mostly physical) gloop and splatter for the gore fans.  With little scope for real development within each story, Tales Of Halloween therefore delivers basic but well-realised fun for horror fans.

VOD: The Bye Bye Man (dir: Stacy Title, 2017)

"It's a little creepy, right?"
"Nah.  Just cold."

Cherry-picking the best ideas from Candyman, It Follows and The Conjuring series, The Bye Bye Man manages to create a very uncompelling film.  The first half is extremely dull, as three very uninteresting college students rent an unfeasibly huge house and, well, strange things start to happen and a shady past is very slowly uncovered.   The second half livens up a little, but as there is little investment in the characters and the screenplay roves all over the place it is hard to maintain interest.  Carrie-Anne Moss also enters the fray occasionally and seemingly wanders in from a different movie altogether.  With odd pacing and a soundtrack that is not too successful, overall The Bye Bye Man proves to be considerably weaker than many of its contemporaries.

VOD: Cult Of Chucky (dir: Don Mancini, 2017)

"I was six.  My babysitter was murdered....along with my teacher and my case worker and thirty-seven other people over the years...that I'm aware of...."

The Chucky films have proved to be a resilient little franchise, retaining key players on and off screen, and this seventh entry is far better than should be expected and makes for a reasonably interesting film.  Picking up from Curse Of..., whose main character Nica has since been placed in a secure psychiatric institution, here the action follows Nica and her transfer to an isolated mid-security unit, eschewing the previous film's gothic-shadowiness for icy white/blue tones and a wintry backdrop that adds considerable aesthetic interest.  Inevitably, Chucky turns up to wreak some effective physical and CGI-created carnage - here the USP is that there can now be more than one Chucky - and the narrative takes in previous entries, from Jennifer Tilly/Tiffany to the original actor who played Andy (Alex Vincent) in the original movie.  This is very much a bottle story with a limited-number cast who mostly do well, led by another strong performance by Fiona Dourif, but there is a clear effort made all round to do more than just make a routine slasher-sequel.

FILM: Call Me By Your Name (dir: Luca Guadagnino, 2017)

"Is it better to speak or to die?"

In style, Call Me By Your Name is classic European arthouse.  Set in 1983 (everyone smokes, dial-up phones, New Romantic music, teenagers read books), this is a classic long hot summer setting in deserted rural Italy, all faded grandeur, swimming in lakes and dappled sunlight.  The burgeoning romance between a visiting confident 20-something student (another surprisingly nuanced turn by Armie Hammer) and the less-sure 17-year-old son (a wonderful emotionally open performance by Timothee Chalamet - just wait for the final lingering shot) develops steadily and convincingly.  The director controls the different elements beautifully, from purposeful framing to careful character development, and the steady pacing makes this a leisurely but enjoyable experience.  Call Me By Your Name comes heavily lauded from the festival circuit, and deservedly so.

FILM: Breathe (dir: Andy Serkis, 2017)

"That was different!"

The 'based on true events' biopic genre now feels well established, and Breathe ticks all the conventions boxes, right down to the footage of the real couple and the life updates at the end of the film.  In many ways, however, Breathe is almost less about a polio victim's battle to gain some sort of quality of life than it is a genuine (and, as the song says) true love story.  Andrew Garfield again proves to be a truly versatile actor, conveying positivity in the harshest of personal circumstances and often wordlessly (in a far more sincere way than Redmayne's acting exercises of The Theory Of Everything), and Claire Foy gives one of her best turns that is an exemplary character performance of devotion, defiance and love, with strong smaller supporting performances that catch the eye from Ed Speleers and Amit Shah.  Serkis also delivers very well with his first directorial effort, contrasting the natural vistas of Africa and Europe with the confines of hospitalisation, in particular a jawdropping scene in a German clinic.  With the surviving family's strong involvement, Breathe comes across less an airbrushed bit of Sunday-evening revisionism and more a truly life-affirming slice of positivity that is a testament to its two central performers.

FILM: Happy Death Day (dir: Christopher Landon, 2017)

"Looks like you've been here before..."

At first, Happy Death Day seemed to be another Blumhouse cheap-and-cheerful enterprise that does what it says on the tin - the horror version of Groundhog Day, of which is it is blissfully self-aware - but it turns out to have considerable charm and is very enjoyable.   From the looped opening of the Universal ident, this film knows exactly what it is doing, carried along by two delightfully engaging and well-placed lead performances by Jessica Rothe and Israel Broussard and a format that effectively creates mini-movies which introduce the new generation of filmgoers to horror movie conventions and locations (the sorority house, the hospital, the bell tower, etc) and also allows horror fans the fun of spotting references, as classic movie themes are echoed and clichés are neatly skewered.  There is a good balance of humour and scares, with a thunderous soundtrack and some well-written dialogue, and whilst it is hardly groundbreaking, Happy Death Day is delivered with a deft light touch and is winningly engaging.