Last Train To Christmas (2021)

Written and directed by Julian Kemp, Last Train To Christmas is an enjoyable way to update A Christmas Carol. It mixes things up slightly by setting the tale on a train. And there’s the additional peril of the butterfly effect, as our lead character figures out that moving to the forward carriages takes him into his future while moving back takes him into his past.

Michael Sheen stars as Tony Towers, a character best described as a cross between Peter Stringfellow and Pete Waterman. About to open a number of extra new clubs, and about to celebrate his engagement to Sue (Nathalie Emmanuel). He has a strained relation with his brother, Roger (Cary Elwes), but is about to realise that it might make sense to listen to his words of caution, especially when he moves into his future and realises that his club empire is doomed to fail after he overspends and tries to expand too quickly. Attempting to fix things in the present, Tony soon figures out that he might do better to improve things by changing past decisions. And things start to go a bit wrong.

Although almost entirely set on a train, and with a fairly small central cast, Last Train To Christmas doesn’t feel small in scale, or inhibited in any way. It helps that the main characters are shown in so many different iterations (played well by a variety of actors, but Sheen and Elwes are the undeniable stars of the show) and the whole thing has a building momentum that energises the material. And, yes, keeping some money from the budget to spend on some popular, proper, Christmas hit songs also helps.

Kemp has come up with a wonderful way to mix the familiar with something a bit fresh, unafraid to take things to a very dark place (in line with the classic tale influencing it), but managing to keep viewers seeing the chance for even the smallest ray of hope. A light at the end of the train tunnel, as it were.

Sheen has a blast in his role, sporting a variety of looks that see him going from glitz to pure business, from prime ‘80s TV presenter to someone who has decided to age with the help of cosmetic surgery. Every actor portraying his character does a good job, but Sheen is the heart of the film. Elwes is equally good though, and almost unrecognizable for most of the runtime. Emmanuel is sadly underused, but as welcome as ever, and there are small roles for Katherine Kelly, Phyllis Logan, Danny Ashok, and John Thomson, as well as cameo appearances from Robin Askwith and Hayley Mills.

While the performances make the most of the material, the script deserves more praise than most Christmas movie scripts. First of all, it’s interesting to have a central character who isn’t necessarily an oblivious villain at the start. Tony Towers is egotistical and a bit selfish, but he’s no monster. Secondly, there are a number of little details that are nicely worked throughout the script to build the bigger picture, yet viewers are also asked to extrapolate whatever chain of events has changed the ripples of time as Tony moves from carriage to carriage. It’s very clever stuff.

This is a really enjoyable film to watch in the run up to Christmas. Maybe not as funny as some might expect, but it blends everything together really well. And you certainly get plenty of Michael Sheen for your money.

8/10

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Dolittle (2020)

Here is a perfect example of a film that, while not necessarily as bad as the very worst of them, stands out in the way it saps some fun out of the central concept and makes everything worse by over-reliance on CGI to make everything possible.

Robert Downey Jr. plays the man who can talk to the animals, and he has decided that his Dolittle should have a strong Welsh accent. He also doesn't want to deal with people any more, spending many years locked away after the loss of his adventuring wife. He is forced to change, however, when young Tommy Stubbins (Harry Collett) sneaks in to his home, carrying with him a squirrel that he accidentally shot. Dolittle is also forced to accept a request to help save the life of Queen Victoria, who has been struck down by a mysterious malady that can only be cured by the fruit of a tree that nobody has ever managed to reach. It's time for an adventure, and Dolittle has plenty of animals to help him on his quest. He also has at least one person, Dr. Blair Müdfly (Michael Sheen ), trying to stop him from succeeding.

After a slightly unsteady start, scenes giving viewers a quick summary of the life of Dr. Dolittle and then showing him talking to animals IN animal noises before we then get to the more enjoyable format of Dolittle and the animals all talking in English, Dolittle becomes a decidedly okay bit of family entertainment. The animals are enjoyably exotic (with three of the main characters being a parrot, voiced by Emma Thompson, a gorilla, voiced by Rami Malek, and a polar bear, voiced by John Cena),  things look bright and lively enough, and there's a sense that the whole adventure could be a lot of fun.

It's a shame that the script, written by Doug Mand, Dan Gregor, and director Stephen Gaghan, seems to have been written with the idea that the visuals and lead performances will carry everything along. The lead performances, voice acting aside, don't feel as strong as they could be. Downey Jr. may be having fun, I guess, but he doesn't feel right for the role, as much as I often like his onscreen presence. Sheen is more enjoyable, a proper pantomime villain, and Antonio Banderas is a welcome addition, although not involved for long enough. The same can be said for Jim Broadbent. Young Collett does fine, but he's really there to be caught up in the middle of the animal shenanigans. And while it is a bit of a coup to rope in such a variety of big names, including Ralph Fiennes, Tom Holland, and Selena Gomez, for the animals, few of them really add to their roles, unlike the standout, an ostrich voiced by Kumail Nanjiani.

It's also a shame that the makers of the film have decided to let the visuals carry so much of it when the visuals are, despite the fact that some may find me overly critical here, a bloody mess. So many scenes lose any sense of magic because it feels like CGI interacting with CGI, against a CGI background, with some more CGI being used to add flourishes here and there. I wouldn't mind if it was better, and some of the scenes have to contain what I assume is a lot of seamless CGI complementing the action, but some moments are jarring in how obviously fake they look. There's one scene in which Tommy is being taken on the back of a giraffe to catch a departing ship that looks, well, it looks as if it could have been lifted directly from some high-quality BBC programme from the early 2000s.

Younger viewers should find enough to enjoy, and there's an amusing fart gag during the finale that will prompt giggles, but this is a horrible attempt to reinvigorate a property that was handled better back in the late '90s. Maybe we'll get something better next time, when someone more suitable is put in the lead role.

4/10

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Slaughterhouse Rulez (2018)

Not content with upsetting people who took a dislike to his output in the music industry, Crispian Mills (son of Hayley, frontman for Kula Shaker, who I actually really enjoyed) seems intent nowadays to equally upset people who dislike his output in the movie industry. This is his second feature, both with Simon Pegg in a lead role, and I can only say that, judging from this one alone, Mills is a much better musician than he is a director.

The plot of Slaughterhouse Rulez is quite a simple one. You have a new boy (Don Wallace, played by Finn Cole) trying to fit in at a posh public school. He finds a friend (Willoughby Blake, played by Asa Butterfield), finds a girl that he immediately starts pining for (Clemsie Lawrence, played by Hermione Corfield), and finds himself incurring the wrath of a bully (Clegg, played by Tom Rhys Harries). And this all coincides with trouble at a nearby fracking site that has unleashed some dangerous beasties.

The cast don't do a bad job. Everyone mentioned fits nicely in their roles, even if those roles are quite thin stereotypes to help this feel very much like an old comic tale brought to life onscreen. As well as those mentioned, you get Simon Pegg as a teacher, Nick Frost as an environmental activist, Michael Sheen as the headmaster, and very small roles for Jo Hartley and Margot Robbie, as well as a number of lesser-known actors doing their bit to add to the fun.

Look, you can't see a film like Slaughterhouse Rulez and call it one of the worst things ever made, you just can't. It has a degree of technical competency that is achievable for people who can get a decent budget in place (no blockbuster money but certainly not at the lowest end of the indie scale), it has fleeting moments that hint at how much better it could have been, and it has a delightful performance from Sheen.

You can, however, see this and be massively disappointed. In much the same way that 101 different British crime caper movies came along after the success of Guy Ritchie, a horde of British movies have all tried to capitalise on the success of Edgar Wright, some of them doing so by blending horror elements with some particularly British comedy stylings, and some doing so by trying to get Simon Pegg and/or Nick Frost involved. This does both, allowing it to be doubly disappointing.

Mills must take most of the blame. He directed. And, with Henry Fitzherbert, he also co-wrote the script. The pacing is off, without any decent set-pieces to make things move along quicker, the supporting characters aren't interesting or well-developed enough to make the time spent with them worthwhile, and, worst of all, very few of the jokes land. The monster moments work, but are too infrequent, which leaves the whole thing feeling like a wasted opportunity, especially considering the cast assembled.

4/10

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Netflix And Chill: Apostle (2018)

The latest film from writer-director Gareth Evans is a world away from the action movies that made him a favourite among film fans. There is violence here, but it's often slow and excruciating, rather than the wham bam fist and foot work displayed in the likes of The Raid. He has, of course, done horror before (in V/H/S 2), and there are a number of elements here that run alongside that particular segment, but this is a much more restrained and strange bit of work.

Dan Stevens plays a young man, Thomas, who is sent on a mission to retrieve his kidnapped sister. He is to locate her and make sure she is safe, and only then is he to make a payment of the ransom demanded for her. Unfortunately, the isolated religious cult that has her in their grasp is aware that someone will be coming. That makes his mission all the harder, as does the mysterious truth that he starts to uncover about the mystery at the heart of the cult.

Stevens is as good as he always is in the lead role, Michael Sheen plays the leader of the cult with aplomb (and, god, I wish Sheen picked up more roles, it feels like forever since I have seen him really sink his teeth into a role as good as this one), Mark Lewis Jones is menacing as an acolyte who starts to think things should be done differently, apparently for the benefit of the people, and there are excellent supporting turns from Bill Milner, Kristine Froseth, Lucy Boynton, Sharon Morgan, and Paul Higgins.

There's a good film here, it's all put together well by Evans, helped enormously by that great cast that he's assembled, but the biggest problem with Apostle is that it's never as good as the many films that seem to have so clearly influenced it (the main title being The Wicker Man, of course, but there are also shades of Witchfinder General, The Blood On Satan's Claw, and every movie that has come along in the intervening years, from The Village to A Field In England). A number of those movies are hard to equal, of course, but if you're going to evoke them so clearly then you'd better be prepared to pull out all the stops and try your best to get even close to them. It doesn't feel as if Evans tried as hard as he could, instead being distracted by plot elements that come together for a disappointingly predictable climax (which is not the same as a disappointing climax, and it must be said that it fits well enough for the film we are given).

There are a few standout scenes, a couple of them so wince-inducing that even hardened gorehounds may be surprised when they occur, but this is a 130-minute film that still manages to feel as if it doesn't give you enough meaty chunks in the broth it is offering, if that analogy makes sense to anyone but me. You will be entertained at times, you will be intrigued, but most viewers will find that neither of those feelings last all the way through to the end credits.

Apostle is definitely worth your time. Just don't listen to the many articles that have already popped up declaring it as the new unmissable, most terrifying, most brutal movie on Netflix. Hyperbole is where the traffic is, a lack of hyperbole is usually where the truth lies.

7/10

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Netflix And Chill: Home Again (2017)

There are times when Reese Witherspoon stars in the type of movie that you don't mind sitting through for 90 minutes in between other, often better, movies. She can do "fluff". She has also starred in some genuinely great films, but most of her choices tend to be in the "fluff" section. Look through her filmography for the 21st century and you will see that every second or third movie she has done falls under this category. And I have enjoyed quite a few of them.

I didn't really enjoy Home Again though, which is a horrible rom-com that misses out both the rom and com elements, relying on the star power of Witherspoon to gain the goodwill of viewers.

Witherspoon stars as Alice, she's the daughter of a celebrated film director and the mother of two girls. She is separated from her husband (Michael Sheen) and gets through each day with the help of her own organisational skills and occasional help from her mother (Candice Bergen). After a big birthday night out, Alice wakes up alongside Harry (Pico Alexander). His friends, George (Jon Rudnitsky) and Teddy (Nat Wolff), slept on the sofas. They are all trying to get their first feature film made and, before you can say plot contrivance, all end up staying with Alice as they try to capitalise on a big break with a hotshot movie director (Reid Scott).

There have been worse rom-coms released than this one, a lot worse, but it's hard to think of one right now, especially one with such a relatively big name in the lead role. Witherspoon, Sheen, and Bergen all deserve better, although it's only Sheen who manages to fight his way above the material, and that is despite him playing the designated asshole of the main storyline. Pico Alexander, however, doesn't seem to deserve much better, simply because he doesn't exude the kind of appeal that is required for his role. Rudnitsky and Wolff are both much more enjoyable onscreen, and I wouldn't mind seeing them in some better roles, in some better movies.

Writer-director Haillie Meyers-Shyer shows that being the daughter of someone as comfortable with this kind of material as Nancy Meyers (her mother) does not automatically qualify her as someone talented in the field. From the script, which could have been put together by a malfunctioning computer program, to the casting of ineffective lead players, to the obvious lack of warmth throughout, even during the moments most obviously designed as heartwarming highlights.

I can give you at least 50 rom-coms that are funnier and/or more romantic than this one. At least five of those star Reese Witherspoon. So there's no reason to ever make this a priority viewing.

3/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy it here.