The Movie Round-up #2

The second edition of this new feature serves as a good example of the varied selection of mainstream films in the last few years. Some I had high expectations for while others were experiments to see if they would satisfy my curiosity. Quite often I was left wondering why I don't just look at Rotten Tomatoes more often but hopefully these bitesize opinions will help you avoid the same headaches and questions of morality I'm sometimes left with...

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, directed by Luc Besson, looked like a box office flop waiting to happen and this highly ambitious yet totally bonkers adaptation was just that. Dane Dehaan and Cara Delevigne star as special operatives in a diverse future investigating a potential threat to their peaceful planet. While the two were criticised for their lack of chemistry, Valerian has an odd yet almost redeeming quality in its energy which only a director as confident in their vision such as Besson could achieve. With that said, this was one weird experience I wouldn't really recommend. It aims high which I admire but this needed a better screenplay to make it worthwhile.

In comparison, The Fate of the Furious knew exactly what it was supposed to be and benefitted from being the eighth film in the successful Vin Diesel franchise. I could devote to a whole article to the series but I've never been the biggest fan. The original still holds a dated charm, the second wasn't bad, the third not really my thing but still decent, the fourth was forgettable, the fifth changed gears and upped the stakes and the sixth dipped a little but recovered with the seventh. Fast 8 continues to raise the stakes with submarines chasing cars and it's all the better for it. While not perfect, this one still had a lot going for it and was very enjoyable in that mindless yet entertaining way this series knows best, and any fan would be a fool to miss out.

Directed by the writer of one of my favourite films of 2016, Hell or High Water, Taylor Sheridan's Wind River was quickly added to my watchlist to avoid missing what this gritty drama would offer. Much like his work in 2016, Wind River is a suitably bleak journey where a Native American girl is murdered on their land by a potentially white man. FBI agent Elizabeth Olsen is sent to investigate with the help of Jeremy Renner's veteran hunter to uncover what happened in a world rarely touched on in films as big as this. In some ways this does lack the sharp pacing and focus of High Water but there is still a satisfying and engaging drama to be found here, boosted by Renner who is on fine form once again.

Probably the one I didn't care for the most out of this article would be the poor-man's attempt at Alien with Life. In short, a team of scientists find a rapidly developing life form while in space but things soon turn nasty and it's down to Jake Gyllenhaal, Ryan Reynolds and Rebeca Ferguson to prevent it from reaching Earth. Life looks the part but it's hard to escape the comparisons and unfortunately fails at offering anything original or memorable. Just avoid and watch Alien again, you can thank me later.

And to conclude is Kenneth Branagh's Murder on the Orient Express remake complete with period splendour and a starry cast which looked like a safe bet. This caught my interest as I couldn't recall the ending of the previous versions and I wanted to see how Branagh would also pull off acting in the lead role with that ridiculous moustache. Much as the title suggests, there is a murder and every passenger onboard becomes a suspect in Poirot's attentive eyes. I really wanted to enjoy this one as I had liked the TV series before and other murder mysteries but there was just something missing which would have usually had me engaged from start to finish. Instead, it is passable and an easy watch but I hope the confirmed sequel finds that 'je ne sais quoi'.