THE FLASH
(12A) 144mins
★★☆☆☆
SHOULD some films never see the light of the projector? There’s a strong argument this one should not.
Real-life allegations of violence, grooming, drug taking and harassment against the film’s leading star Ezra Miller put a very different slant on this family blockbuster.
And while it is a perfectly acceptable two and half hours on the big screen, I can’t help but feel, well, more than a bit icky at watching Miller in his role.
Not only has the actor not been cancelled, he shares the screen with Hollywood A-listers Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck.
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Geeky gurner
In this first solo film of the DC superhero character, Miller plays Barry Allen, who was previously struck by lightning in a science lab. The mixture of shocking weather and jars of chemicals has given him the ability to move faster than the speed of light.
During the day, Barry still works in a forensic lab in the city, but when superhero duty calls he instantly dons a fireproof suit and is the “janitor” for all the prob-lems in Gotham City.
While Batman (Affleck) is chasing the baddies, he’s fixing the electrics in the basement of a hospital. Now the geeky, gurning character wants to use his powers to right the wrongs of his past.
Barry’s mum was murdered when he was a child and his dad is likely to go down for it, even though he is innocent. His alibi doesn’t stand up.
While Barry is running at super-speed, he realises that he can outrun light and go backwards in time. With his new powers, he decides to return to the day of his mother’s murder to ensure she is not killed.
In doing this, he creates a butterfly effect — and dis-turbs the world so much that when he returns to reality all human life is about to end.
Oh, and he meets an 18-year-old version of himself — a Bill & Ted type caricature of a teenager who travels with him on his bid to stop the destruction of mankind.
On the way, they visit Batman, who is now a dishevelled Michael Keaton, living in flip-flops and paranoia.
There are decent visuals, surreal and spectacular CGI and a couple of titter-out-loud moments.
But hypocritical Hollywood seems to have forgotten all about the #MeToo movement in a flash.
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GREATEST DAYS
(12A) 111mins
★★★★☆
IT only takes a minute to ditch your inner cynic and get swept up in the feel-good vibes pulsing from this jukebox-style musical themed around Take That’s greatest hits.
Just like Mamma Mia! did with ABBA songs, writer Tim Firth and director Coky Giedroyc (How To Build A Girl) use the band’s lyrics to tell a new story about a group of female friends, bouncing between their schooldays in Clitheroe, Lancs, and the present day, woven around the premise of a reunion concert both for their (fictional) favourite teen band The Boys and for the girls themselves.
Aisling Bea is perfect as Rachel, a paediatric nurse, who gathers her old gang Claire (Jayde Adams), Heather (Alice Lowe) and Zoe (Amaka Okafor) together after thirty years to see their teen idols on stage in Athens.
Favourite numbers including Never Forget, Back For Good and Shine are neatly reworked as the soundtrack to their lives, eventually revealing why there’s one member of their group missing.
Cracking one-liners, superb choreography and affectionate Nineties nostalgia are plentiful (think Smash Hits, TOTP, and Phone Box references).
Keep your eyes peeled for the amusing cameo from the real-life “Boys” too.
INLAND
(15) 82 mins
★★☆☆☆
SET in the Forest of Dean, this curious psychological thriller is an ambitious, atmospheric, low-budget first-time feature from director Fridtjof Ryder.
Newcomer Rory Alexander plays a young man, whose name we are never told, who has just been discharged from a psychiatric hospital.
Flashbacks to his childhood via unsettling dream sequences and ill-conceived voice-overs suggest he has suffered with mental health issues since his mother’s disappearance at some time in the past.
We see him reacquainted with father-figure friend Dunleavy (Mark Rylance), who helps him find a job in a garage.
Tension creeps in as his paranoia grows and we are soon in a mild folkish horror, with creaking branches, dead birds and a surreal medieval-themed brothel.
Sometimes all this is strangely mysterious, sometimes just confusing.
The pacing stutters and never quite soars to that promised psychodrama peak. Rylance brings real credence to the screen.
But the male-skewed script and trope of women as mothers, sisters, partners and sex workers is an oddly old-fashioned note in what is otherwise an experimental, bold effort.
- Laura Stott
