Fuze, Kim Novak’s Vertigo, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Amélie: Four new films to see this week
Fuze ★★★☆Directed by David Mackenzie. Starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Theo James, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Sam Worthington, Saffron Hocking, Elham Ehsas. 15A cert, gen release, 96 minTaylor-Johnson turns out as a hardened bomb-disposal expert named Major Will Tranter. You know the type of fellow. He’s a loose cannon, a rough diamond. But he gets the job done in a fashion none of the box-ticking jobsworths could even imagine. We begin with him defusing a bomb left over from the Blitz and, somehow, end up in a mess of twists with a gang of bank robbers. The screenplay blows it at the close with an absurdly clunky flashback, but this remains a decent class of red-meat actioner for a now underserved audience. Full review DCKim Novak’s Vertigo ★★★★☆Directed by Alexandre O Philippe. Featuring Kim Novak, Alexandre O Philippe. No cert, limited release, 76 minDiverting, if formally conservative, documentary about a contender for the last of the postwar superstars. The body of the film comprises a wide-ranging conversation between film-maker and star that takes us from birth in Chicago to work as a promotional model and, eventually, a contract with Columbia Pictures in Hollywood. Then success with Picnic, in 1955, and Pal Joey, in 1957. A year after that she embarked on the incomparably beautiful nightmare that is Vertigo. Philippe brings few stylistic flourishes to the film, but the fascinating conversation should be enough to satisfy the serious cinephile. Full review DCREAD MOREIreland’s retrofit reality: From ‘amazing’ home energy results to ‘miserable’ and costly experiencesDermot Kennedy: ‘I was freaking out about my voice. I did two weeks where I didn’t speak’James McAvoy: ‘I’m 75% Donegal. We’re so similar yet so different. I think the difference is independence’Chubbys review: This is one of the country’s top restaurants – just pray you get a tableThe Super Mario Galaxy Movie ★★☆☆☆Directed by Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic. Voices of Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Day, Jack Black, Keegan-Michael Key. G cert, gen release, 98 minThere are moments in the new Super Mario film, sequel to the billion-dollar behemoth from 2023, when its heroes snap back into their eight-bit origins, reduced to blocky figures traversing rudimentary landscapes. Ironically, these retro interludes offer the film’s clearest, most coherent storytelling, an unintentional rebuke to the visual velocity and chaos around them. Nintendo aficionados may welcome allusions from far beyond the Mario canon. For everyone else the abundance curdles into an overload of untethered references. This bit looks like Lawrence of Arabia; that bit looks like Star Wars. At least it’s short. Full review TBAmélie ★★★★☆Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Starring Audrey Tautou, Mathieu Kassovitz, Lorella Cravotta, Serge Merlin, Jamel Debbouze. 15A cert, limited release, 122 minTwenty-fifth anniversary rerelease – remastered in 4K – for Jeunet’s smash comedy about Tautou’s quirky Parisian waitress. The film goes nowhere in particular as its cutesy heroine beats the streets of a hyperstylised Montmartre. But it has aged well enough. Time has not wearied the magical (and unrecognisably white) Paris she inhabits. The characters are moods, not people, although Tautou works wonders within Jeunet’s panopticon. The sets and costumes are exquisitely cartoonish. The relentless quirkiness that won over international audiences remains a particular French flavour, like an andouillette. Except served in improbable rainbow colours. Full review TB
