THE MAGIC FARAWAY TREE
(U) 110mins
★★★☆☆
MAKING a beloved children’s book into a movie comes with an added weight of responsibility.
So transforming Enid Blyton’s 1943 story into something that could work for modern audiences must have been a delicate task.
Sensibly, the job went to the superbly skilful Paddington 2 screenwriter, Simon Farnaby, who managed to create a decent balance of sweetness and humour in this fantasy tale.
We meet the Thompson family in their very tech-savvy home where mum Polly (Claire Foy) announces to husband Tim (Andrew Garfield) that she has resigned from her corporate job because a fridge she designed — voiced by Judi Dench — is spying on customers.
Tim is a stay-at-home dad bringing up their three children, who refuse to look up from their phones, with one even becoming selectively mute due to overuse of screens.
So far, so principled. The couple realise they will soon be flat broke, so decide to move to the countryside where Tim buys an old barn with no electricity and, shock horror, no wifi.
Older children Beth and Joe are appalled but silent Fran decides to explore the woods.
There, she encounters a fairy, Silky (Nicola Coughlan), who invites her into a humongous magical tree that resembles nature’s tower block.
It is home to a variety of weird and wonderful characters, including Moonface and Saucepan Man (Dustin Demri-Burns).
Soon, Fran takes her siblings on the adventure but their sassy attitudes and eye rolls don’t wash so well with magic and things become a little chaotic.
This sweet story about believing in magic — and family being the backbone of a happy existence — never gets too sickly.
But it also feels a little cluttered.
Some jeopardy is shoehorned in very close to the end with a visit to the scary school of Dame Snap (Rebecca Ferguson), and Jennifer Saunders helicopters in a cameo as Polly’s disapproving mum.
I got the most joy from seeing two of our finest actors, the brilliant Foy and Garfield, play a happy couple.
But there’s enough humour and a sprinkling of magic to make a jolly trip to the cinema for all the family.
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ORWELL: 2+2=5
(15) 120mins
★★★★☆
AS the author who gave us political satire Animal Farm and the concept of Big Brother in novel 1984, George Orwell remains as relevant today as he was in his own lifetime.
This documentary, which looks at how his life and work from the 1930s and 1940s connect to the world we live in now, is narrated by Damian Lewis using Orwell’s own words from diary entries and letters.
It delves into his middle-class upbringing and schooling at Eton, formative time spent serving as a police officer in Burma (now Myanmar), employment at the BBC and years as a novelist, essayist and journalist.
All of this helps provide insights into how he reached his viewpoints.
Orwellian takes on current and historical politics, AI, surveillance and thought corruption are then compared and considered by director Raoul Peck.
Provocative and powerful, it is sometimes harrowing and always extremely relevant.
But the two hours of footage is not without some imbalance and it does, at times, demonstrate touches of its own biases, too.
LAURA STOTT
THEY WILL KILL YOU
(15) 95mins
★★☆☆☆
PLAYING the zombie-slaying, axe-wielding and gore-swallowing (yes, really) Asia Reaves, actress Zazie Beetz owns almost every scene in this action-horror comedy caper.
And slaughtering a cast of immortals, who include Heather Graham (Boogie Nights) and Patricia Arquette (True Romance), is no mean feat, either.
After serving jail time for shooting her abusive father, Asia searches for her little sister Maria (Myha’la).
Tipped off on her whereabouts, she takes a job as a maid in a posh but disconcerting New York apartment block called The Virgil, run by housekeeper Lily (Arquette).
Things quickly go awry when four caped intruders in pig masks try to murder Asia, which is more comedic and less chilling than it sounds.
It soon transpires that the building is a cover for a satanic cult, and residents Sharon (Graham) and Kevin (Tom Felton) are all indestructible.
And it appears Asia is on the menu as a human sacrifice for the devil up in the penthouse.
There’s certainly some entertaining Tarantino stylistic tributes here, but sadly the one-trick scenes become repetitive.
