Comment je suis devenu super-héros (Douglas Attal, 2020)

How I Became a Superhero does have one newish take on the flagging genre, in that superpowers are not just existent in some individuals, but that stupid teens in particular are desperate to acquire ones of their own. This means that the villain is a gang boss who abducts people with powers to tap them for their blood and turn it into a street drug. After that, though, it's strictly run of the mill fare, two cops tracking the bad guys down with the help of retired superheroes. Its stabs at a comic tone fall pretty flat too.

4/10

Treasure (Julia von Heinz, 2024)

 

A New York jounalist takes her father, a Holocaust survivor, back to Poland to try to dissect what happened 50 years earlier. She insists on getting to the bottom of it and he  tries constantly stave it off.

It's a new approach to the subject of the mass genocide, especially by having a comic tone until the closing stages, but is hindered by the lead actress's pointlessly teenage behaviour and really having nothing of import to say. Worthy but beige, just like its TV movie presentation.

5/10

Hell or High Water (David Mackenzie, 2016)

Two Texan brothers, one up to his neck in debt and the other just a thrill-seeking loose cannon, embark on a spree of bank robberies across their home state. You know from the very start, with the drawn-out shots of miles and miles of featureless plains and Jeff Bridges as a wise old buzzard of a lawman on their tail, nearing retirement, that things will not turn out well for them. This is the America of Badlands and No Country for Old Men, all hicks with guns, endless roads and dead-end small towns with no prospects.

Still, knowing what the outcome will be, doesn't make it a pointless exercise at all. It's packed with sparse but pithy dialogue, the action scenes are efficiently shot and it doesn't resort to too many cliches in terms of plot turns. It also helpfully reminds you again, if any reminder were needed, not to go to Texas.

6/10

Empire of Light (Sam Mendes, 2022)

Most critics did not particularly like this, simplistically misinterpreting it as yet another paean to the magic of cinema à la Cinema Paradiso. Yes, it revolves around a seaside cinema and its staff, and wonderful classic films are there in the background, but it's really about mental illness, misogyny and racism. The backdrop is Thatcher's Britain in 1981, riven with economic depression and race riots. The peerless Olivia Colman plays the duty manager at a Margate cinema, on lithium following a schizophrenic breakdown and constantly dragged in by her sleazy boss for illicit sex in his office. When a sensitive younger black man joins the staff, they become friends and eventually lovers. But given toxic atmosphere of the era and her mental fragility, there are dark clouds on the horizon.

The film does tail off to some extent in its closing part, as unwilling to acknowledge a tidy ending as many great works are wont to do, but there are some genuinely moving moments along the way, and Colman's performance in particular is quite remarkable, as is the luminous photography of the incomparable Roger Deakins.

7/10