Operation Mincemeat (John Madden, 2021)

Based on the true story of an elaborate plot by British intelligence to fool the Germans into thinking the Allies were about to invade Greece instead of Sicily in 1943, this is a war film and espionage film not based on the ground where the fighting takes place, but in the offices where the planning is done. A corpse is found and given a full false identity, to be dumped off the Spanish coast with fake documents to substantiate the target of the assault. Colin Firth leads as the officer in charge of the operation, duty-driven and constantly anxious about its success.

There was a risk that it could have ended up feeling stagebound, but the complex story and dry wit of the dialogue put paid to that. That, and the novelty of seeing how much wars are actually decided behind closed doors instead of through pyrotechnics and blood.

6/10

Deadpool & Wolverine (Shawn Levy, 2024)

This was bound to happen as the various franchises of the MCU get fused, bringing the X-Men in along with rogue elements such as Deadpool by utilising the multiverse concept introduced in Doctor Strange. So real-life chums Reynolds and Jackman, both playing their unkillable hero characters, get to rib each other on screen for two hours while seeking to save the timeline in which the latter's death in Logan has sparked off the impending end of that reality.

This being essentially a third instalment of the Deadpool series, it means that no opportunity is passed by to play with breaking the fourth wall, the leads referring to each other's actual film careers, the studios bringing all of the MCU together and any other character in previous Marvel films. It's both campy fun on a meta level and very tiresome. There are glaringly obvious parallels with how Family Guy continually takes the piss out of Fox, its parent company, and you may put up with it out of goodwill towards the actors as well as the freshness of a superhero film just ridiculing the ludicrousness of all productions coming from the same stables, but this is also no way to go ahead in the longer term.

5/10

Past Lives (Celine Song, 2023)

A Korean boy and girl attending the same school are separated when her family emigrates to North America. 12 years later, she finds out he's been trying to track her down and they begin chatting again over the internet. They find they get on just as they did as children and plans are made to visit each other, but life events get in the way, including her getting married to a fellow writer, and it's another 12 years until he finally makes it to New York to see her again.

This is far removed from the conventional love story outline. But then it isn't really about romantic love, more about attachments that never die and how people end up where they are through both choices and circumstances. The director's touch is light and sensitive and the performances of the leads nuanced. No emotional climax is forced through dramatic turns, instead things are just allowed to develop organically. Past Lives is refreshingly free of histrionics and true to real life.

8/10

The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer, 2023)

Holocaust days are here again, with a largely factual account of the life of the commandant of Auschwitz living with his family in contentment right next to the death camp. Martin Amis's source novel took more liberties with the facts, so Glazer went straight to the documented events. Unlike any previous film tackling the issue, The Zone of Interest shows nothing of the mass extermination going on on the other side of the wall. It's only heard as screams, dogs barking and gunshots, and the implied constant stench of the crematorium. The family, in their ornately flowery garden, are not only unaware of what's actually going on, but uninterested and quite deaf to it. Yes, the eternal banality of evil, but also a study of the evil of materialism and self-interest.

This means virtually nothing of consequence happens on screen, so it's dramatically very flat, but also means it works as a new approach to explaining how the atrocities could keep being committed undisturbed.

7/10

El hoyo 2 (Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia, 2024)

With depressing predictability, given the success of The Platform in 2019 and that Gaztelu-Urrutia, as a fledgling director, obviously has no other strings to his bow, a sequel is rolled out that does nothing but regurgitate the plot of the first film. That being prisoners within an underground complex with hundreds of floors, dependent on the fairness of those on the floors above them to leave enough food for them to take as the platform carrying the food descends through the prison. No more religious, social or political ideas are added, but of course the horror quotient is pumped up even more as if that will suffice as compensation, like so many cover singers believing that stretching a single syllable across several notes and increasing the volume to 10 somehow adds soulfulness.

The Platform 2 will only do for hardcore horror fans who haven't seen the inspired first film, but for those who have, it should be avoided at all costs.

5/10

Brightburn (David Yarovesky, 2019)

A childless couple in the rural American Midwest have their prayers for a child answered when a spaceship crashes near their house and they find a baby inside. They raise the child, who starts developing superpowers as he grows up. Sound familiar? Yes, it's a retelling of the Superman origin story, which then deviates from that template with the prepubescent alien becoming subject to the malevolent influence of a recurring message from the wreckage of the spaceship and gradually turning evil as a result. After that the film switches to full horror mode and concomitantly loses direction or interest. A pity, because the original premise had more potential.

5/10

Wonka (Paul King, 2023)

The director of the rather marvellous first two Paddington films takes on a bigger task in competing with the fondly remembered Gene Wilder-led original and Tim Burton's competent remake. Yes, it is a prequel which does not bother to explain how the titular chocolatier became the deranged misanthrope of the previous films, Willy Wonka being thoroughly nice and full of dreams, but Timothée Chalamet, who proves to be highly adept at both singing and dancing, drives the musical on, supported by the ubiquitous Olivia Colman as one of the villains and Hugh Grant as a haughty Oompa Loompa, of all things, as well as a huge cast of British comic stalwarts.

Wonka arrives in town intending to set up his own chocolate shop and soon, through his naivety, ends up in serfdom in a launderette alongside a host of other unfortunates. Undeterred, he puts his mind to escaping and never gives up despite numerous setbacks caused by the malicious chocolate cartel running the town.

The musical numbers are endless and the production design is as garishly over the top as Wonka's confections, but it does all click, at least on a cute level for kids young and old.

6/10