A BIG BOLD BEAUTIFUL JOURNEY
(15), 109mins
★★★☆☆
3
GIVEN its title, this romantic comedy really has to go pretty large.
But casting Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell as the leads goes a long way in doing what it says on the tin.
The pair are huge stars able to put in bold performances and are undoubtedly beautiful/handsome.
A Big Bold Beautiful Journey starts in an off-beat way that suggests the audience is going to be in for a ride that dares to be different.
It opens with David (Farrell) needing to hire a car to attend his best friend’s wedding.
Gentle laughs in quirky humour
Sitting behind the desk in a huge empty space at the rental office is Fleabag actress Phoebe Waller-Bridge who is very “f***ing” insistent that David opts for the sat nav.
The reason for this gradually becomes clear as it has a special power. The route the sat nav wants David to proceed to is a romantic one with Sarah (Robbie), who he flirts with at the wedding.
The stops take the pair of them to various magical doors, through which they pass into crucial moments from their past.
Unlike on most first dates, the potential couple get to learn each other’s deepest secrets really quickly.
It is an entertaining concept when you have David, still in his adult form, singing and dancing on stage in a high school musical.
And there are plenty of gentle laughs in the quirky humour, such as when they are put in a defunct Saturn car from 1994.
But there are no light moments in Sarah’s life, which is filled with commonplace melodrama.
The movie is gradually weighed down by the emotional baggage of the couple and the well-trodden idea that your parents mess you up.
The question is whether David and Sarah will let their previous experiences get in the way of “risking” falling in love with each other.
Even though their chemistry is not always entirely convincing, audiences are sure to be rooting for this romance because Margot and Colin are so good.
They’re great stars to go on a road trip with.
Even if some of the destinations are a little underwhelming.
THE LOST BUS
(15), 130mins
★★★★☆
3
THERE can’t be much scarier than being trapped in a traffic jam as a wildfire engulfs the forests either side of the road.
Even worse for Matthew McConaughey’s Kevin McKay, he’s driving a school bus with 25 primary age children on board.
Based on a true story, this drama recounts what happened when the town of Paradise faced what in 2018 was California’s deadliest wildfire.
McKay is a down-on-his- luck divorced dad, trying to care for his sick mum and moody teenage son.
He wants to get home to them, but can’t ignore a call to collect the children from a school facing destruction.
Directed by Paul Greengrass, best known for United 93 and three Bourne movies, this is an edge-of-your-seat thriller that feels real. When the camera isn’t on a stressed Kevin, it’s cutting from one shot of panicked residents or first responders to another.
Brit Greengrass is a master of the disaster movie. Only California fire chief Ray Martinez is able to keep his cool when everything is out of control.
No bus journey has been as hair-raising as this since Speed.
STEVE
(15), 92mins
★★★☆☆
3
CILLIAN MURPHY is the “inspirational” head teacher Steve, who faces the most stressful day ever at a boarding school in the English countryside housing Britain’s most disruptive teens.
A TV news crew are filming on the day, in 1996, when the future of the experimental project is being decided, and a pupil called Shy has a full-on meltdown along with several others.
In one memorable scene, pushing and shoving in the canteen queue blows up into a chase around the kitchen and ends with a very bloody nose.
Amid the violence there is humour in the imaginative use of foul language.
Murphy puts in a great performance as Steve and the young cast are all really impressive.
But the local Tory MP, journalists and trustees are all one-dimensional caricatures in this Netflix film, which bleeds liberal values from every pore.
Attempts to add the dream-like quality of Max Porter’s poetic book Shy, on which it is based, feel like an afterthought.
It’s undeveloped compared to Netflix’s more grown-up Adolescence.
