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Paddington 2 (2017)

You may not have seen the first Paddington (2014) and if not, we strongly recommend you do, and then we would recommend you go straight out and watch Paddington 2.

The first film was great, but we couldn’t help thinking how will they make a sequel anywhere near as good, what could Paddington get up to now he has found a home? Well, it turns out there is always room for a little bear to get up to mischief in London, and it is so brilliantly done.

The film begins back in the deepest darkest Peru showing us how Paddington was first found by Aunt Lucy and Uncle Pastuzo, and then moves onto his new life in London where he is trying to buy Aunt Lucy a Birthday present, because it’s not every day that a bear turns 100. From a slapstick style routine with a shaver in a barber shop to him cleaning the windows of the Shard with his furry bottom, Paddington is even more charming than last time. The story develops and Paddington finds himself caught up in some trouble led by Phoenix Buchanan (Hugh Grant). Without giving too much away, Paddington in Prison is a particularly amusing part of the film.

Hugh Grant is excellent. Not his usual bumbling rom com self, but a has-been, self-obsessed actor now spending his days in dog food adverts. From his Shakespearian outbursts to impersonating a Nun, he adds a great sense of comedic villainy, a perfect match for Paddington.

As you might expect from a family film there is a happy ending, but it is not the ending we expected and it is so overwhelmingly emotional that even Lily had little tears streaming down her face.

It is not often that a sequel is better than the original, but Paddington 2 is. This film is beautifully witty as well as action packed, with that Great British feel to it. It is one of the best films we’ve seen all year, a must see in the cinema.

PS. We strongly recommend that you stick around for the credits.

“I liked the bit with the Marmalade Sandwiches” – Lily, 5 years old, 2017

#filmreview #cinemaclub #paddington2

Dunkirk 2017

A chilling piece of cinema, depicting the evacuation of British soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk in June 1940.

Numerous films have been made of WWII, and I can’t say I’ve seen them all. But, out of the ones I have seen, Dunkirk stands head and shoulders above the rest.

One of my favourite things about this film is that it does what the title suggests. It is 106 minutes of British soldiers trying to evacuate the beaches of Dunkirk, and it feels real and is emotional to watch. There is no romance, no scenes of families wishing for their sons to come home, it is all about the event itself.

This film encourages an enormous amount of British pride without vilifying Germany too much. I have often found in other war films that they depict one evil German officer, be that Hitler or one of his cronies, who you can focus your anger towards. However, there is none of this in Dunkirk. There are German pilots bombing the beaches and ships but you never see who they are, they are never given faces, which I think is very effective.

What Christopher Nolan has done exceptionally well is have only a few ‘main’ characters each with a different perspective of the events. The soldiers, “The Beach”, the family sailing their boat across the channel to Dunkirk, “The Sea” & the RAF spitfire pilots, “The Air”. Although they seem like three different stories initially, Nolan marries them together perfectly.

Tensions are kept high throughout by Hans Zimmer’s music score, it’s not a soundtrack that you would go out and buy, but it is a masterpiece in tension. Right from the beginning, it kept us constantly on edge even in scenes where ‘nothing’ happened.

In terms of the acting, I would say Tom Hardy, as an RAF pilot, was my favourite character, but all actors did great performances, including Harry Styles. It wasn’t an out of place Ed Sheeran Game of Thrones cameo…sorry Ed… Harry actually has quite an important part to Nolan’s story, a much bigger part than I expected. There is a moment of ‘oh, that’s Harry Styles’ but there is so much else going on in this film that it didn’t take us long to get over it.

Overall, Nolan’s Dunkirk is a brilliant piece of cinema showing the true horrors of war and the true spirit of the home front. A must see in the cinema.

“The best film I’ve seen this year” Emma (July 2017)

#dunkirk #filmreview #cinemaclub

The Mummy (2017)

The Mummy…but not as you know it.

Long gone are the days of charming Brendan Frasier and scary, bald guy mummy. And in comes ‘kind of old now’ Tom Cruise and sexy, creepy, lady mummy.

This story is so detached from the original films that we shouldn’t compare them, but we can’t help it. There are enough similarities; kind of attractive, but does stupid things, male lead accidentally unleashes a mummy which tries to destroy the world, and keeps sucking face with everyone it meets to get stronger…what more could you want?

Well this film definitely falls short on expectation. Yes it had some good special effects, it was ‘action packed’ and ‘jumpy’, if you like that sort of thing. But, our overall view is that they tried to throw too much content into 2 hours.

They try to lighten the tone of the film with Jake Johnson, who plays Tom Cruise’s right hand man. He is trying to be ‘the funny American guy’ but we don’t think this works at all, mainly because he’s not funny…

We don’t want to go into too much detail and spoil the film for those wanting to see it, but there were areas which had potential which weren’t explored enough. (SPOILER ALERT) About half way through we find out there is a secret organisation of people, based in London, who hunt ‘evil’ creatures. E.g. Vampires. And destroy them to keep the rest of the world safe and oblivious to their existence. Headed up by none other than Dr. Henry Jekyll (of Dr. Jekyll & Mr Hyde fame).

What’s that about? We are as clueless as you reading this review.

Not only have they decided to do a new Mummy film, they’ve thrown in some other fictional characters with little back story or explanation.

It’s not all negative, it was certainly entertaining but we left the cinema with more questions than answers.

In summary, a quote from our guest reviewer this week:

“It was alright – a bit naff.” Tassy Long Legs (June 2017)

#themummy #filmreview #cinemaclub

Wonder Woman (2017)

An action packed amalgamation of 20th Century history and Greek Mythology. Starring the most attractive woman we’ve ever seen, causing us to immediately regret our choice in cinema snacks.

This films main strength is Gal Gadot, Wonder Woman herself (as you might hope from the title character). Firstly she was so attractive it hurts, her hair stayed perfectly curled throughout and she was effortlessly sassy.

Wonder Woman’s relationship with Steve Trevor, played by Chris Pine, was humorous and they worked well together onscreen. Although we are still trying to work out why the British spy was played by an American.

We did not get the crazy German Chemist/Psychopath/poison lady at all. What she created was relevant to the story, but as a character she seemed pretty pointless and the porcelain mask on her face was quite distracting, I’m not even sure how it related to the story.

The story in general was gripping and entertaining. But, I’m undecided on how I feel about the mix of WWI & Greek Gods, it did seem disjointed at times.

In summary, we enjoyed this film. It was refreshing to have a powerful female lead and it was surprisingly humorous. Certainly not the best film I’ve seen but worth a watch, unless you have particularly low self-esteem, in that case I would stay away from watching anything with Gal Gadot in.

“Wonder Woman made me feel that anything is possible with a good pair of heeled boots” – Ciara Brown, June 2017

#wonderwoman #filmreview #cinemaclub

Previous ratings...

We have decided that our first post will be the ratings we have given to a selection of previous films that we have seen at the cinema, to give you an insight into what we do & don’t like. Our rating scale is Popcorn (Ciara) & Icecream (Emma) based on our favourite cinema snacks.

Baywatch