Jojo Rabbit (Taika Waititi, 2019)

Waititi, between directing two instalments of the MCU Thor franchise, takes a step to the side to cover the Nazi era from a skew-whiff angle, with a ten-year-old member of the Hitler Youth, who has Adolf himself as his imaginary friend, finding out that his mother has been hiding a Jewish girl in their house. This causes no end of self-questioning in the callow lad, and he ends up reversing his untested views.

Superficially, this is the same set-up as in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, but the emphasis is much more, as you would expect from essentially a director of comedies, on breaking down the grotesque absurdity of the times through ridicule rather than earnest, explicit outrage. It may thus seem frivolous, but there's such an abundance of serious, weighty cinema about the topic that there is still room for an attack on the sheer concept of Nazism done just through jokes, with Waititi himself playing the imaginary Hitler as an utter buffoon. Laughing at the enemy does not mean making light of their crimes, no matter what po-faced critics of this approach would insist.

6/10

The Matrix Resurrections (Lana Wachowski, 2021)

The law of gravity cannot be disobeyed. However, in Hollywood the law of diminishing returns usually is. Hence, 18 years on from the flat conclusion to the Matrix trilogy, we get a sequel that is almost a reboot, bringing Neo back in one piece, again unaware of existing in a virtual world and having to relearn all the chopsocky stuff to fight a new version of the matrix. Of course, there are the blue pills too, and Trinity needs to be rescued, so the rest writes itself once lashings of unremarkable chases and fights are thrown in. It doesn't help that Hugo Weaving and Laurence Fishburne aren't there either to add at least some air of gravitas to the proceedings.

A small saving grace is a recognition of its futility and having some fun with that, but it brings nothing new to the table in terms of fresh conceptual ideas, so let's finally call it a day, shall we?

4/10

Thor: Love and Thunder (Taika Waititi, 2022)

The Thor saga continues with the hero still in "The Dude" Lebowski mode, moping around and performing slapdash heroics here and there with the Guardians of the Galaxy until he finally gets a mission when someone starts killing all the gods across the universe. Meanwhile on Earth, his ex, Jane Foster, staves off her terminal cancer by using his hammer, which also gives her his powers. So two gods of thunder then.

Yes, it's as much of a muddle as it sounds. And of course flashy FX have to be to the fore, though Christian Bale as the god-killer does make a more layered villain than usual, with actual justifiable motives, and the hammy comedy throughout, as you can expect with Waititi directing again, makes for a more diverting ride. Still, it's hard to see where they can go with the character from here. There's nothing much more to be explored.

5/10

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (Sam Raimi, 2022)

 

MCU cinematic instalment #28 is notable for persuading Sam Raimi out of apparent retirement to bring his trademark wit and brio with fantastical material to continue the story of Earth's erstwhile Sorcerer Supreme. It cannot be a straightforward sequel to the 2016 film as everything in the MCU, including the ever-growing number of TV series, has to accommodate what has transpired in all the other linked sagas in the meanwhile.

So, as is increasingly the case, only Marvel completists will be able to get all the references, and getting the references is a large part of the fun with such a weighty catalogue. And now the rest of all pop culture is chucked into the pot too.

Beyond that, what we have is an overlong stampede of glittery FX, leavened with quips. Doctor Strange now has to migrate through a succession of universes, seeking to protect a teenager who can transverse the multiverse from the Scarlet Witch, who has a serious case of PTSD after the events of the WandaVision TV series and is now hell-bent on getting to a universe for herself where the children she created in the imaginary realm of the TV series actually exist, at the cost of all other realities.

Benedict Cumberbatch and Elizabeth Olsen do get plenty of substance to work with as the protagonist and antagonist and pour themselves readily into the roles, and the abundant humour is very welcome alongside the mind-bending drama. But even if it would mean diverging from the technicolour bombardment characteristic of the genre, a little less dazzle and a bit more mysticism would be a nice move next time around.

6/10

Buba (Arne Feldhusen, 2022)

 

Jakob 'Buba' Otto lives with his brother Dante in a small town in Northern Germany, working as a hopeless stuntman and also taking the fall for his scheming brother in all manner of petty thefts and swindles. He has gone through life in the belief, since their parents' death when they were children, that any time he experiences pleasure or happiness, others will suffer instead. So he actively seeks out whatever will cause him the most pain possible and is thus constantly a shuffling bag of cuts and bruises. Things get even worse when his brother has them join the local mafia as enforcers, with the promise that they can finally make enough sponds to go to Disneyland in California.

For most of the way, with the hapless Jakob soldiering on through countless torments in the good-hearted delusion that otherwise he'll lose his brother too, it works pretty well as a black comedy, peppered with references to Titanic and the brutal German fairytales they were told as children, and the repeated refrain that only the Disney versions end happily. Unfortunately, this also means that the plot no longer knows either how to tie things up happily and so it eventually turns into an all-out bloodbath of gang warfare, losing sight of what charm it had built up.

It's actually a prequel to a three-season TV series, How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast), so may well serve best as a primer for anyone to decide whether the series will be their bag. As a standalone film in itself, you could do worse if you fancy a thrown-together mash-up of Guy Ritchie and Jean-Pierre Jeunet and have a strong stomach.

5/10

No Time to Die (Cary Joji Fukunaga, 2021)

 

Daniel Craig reaches the end of his innings in Bond #25, now visibly creaking under the weight of the baggage dumped on him during the previous episodes. The last film's baddie is still alive and likewise his deceased lover from the first part of the reboot still haunts him. A new villain is therefore called for and eventually materialises in a pretty off-the-shelf form with a diabolical scheme involving spreading targeted assassin nanobots across the world. The rest is an overlong series of action sequences where keeping track of the kill count soon proves impossible and superfluous. The fact that Craig's weariness with it all no longer seems like acting and the occasional references in the dialogue and soundtrack to the back catalogue of the superagent just about retain enough tolerance to see it through to the bitter end of the character.

Except 'Bond' will return because of $s. But it would be so nice if he didn't.

5/10

Spider-Man: No Way Home (Jon Watts, 2021)

 

So, MCU#27 and yet another instalment in the Spider-Man saga. You sit back, armed with the knowledge that as there is, for once, an actor settled in the role for a protracted run and therefore no immediate need for another tiresome webslinger reboot with the obligatory origin round, at least you expect the backstory of one more out of the hero's endless cavalcade of villains with a bee in their bonnet against him and humanity.

And then...it confounds this expectation in quite a novel way. My spidey sense didn't warn me of that at all. It goes for playing with the multiverse conceit to bring all three live-action Spider-Men together into the same world, as well as their principal antagonists. Having created this mess through having talked Doctor Strange into casting a spell to make the whole world forget his real identity and then meddling with the spell after getting cold feet, Tom Holland's current incarnation of the hero sets about trying to rectify it all with the aid of the Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield versions. The comic interplay between the trio, as they alternately compare their lots and bicker, actually gives the film a point, alongside easy but welcome shots at 'fake news'. Of course, it must end in the usual loud showdown between the trio and those of their nemeses who've reverted back to type, but it's so much more fun getting there than on most of these outings. Just re-breaking the fourth wall and interdimensional boundaries can't be relied on next time around, though.

6/10