Film: Man Up (2014)

Director: Ben Palmer
Writer: Tess Morris

Lake Bell is 34-year-old single Nancy who meets the nice 24-year-old Jessica (Ophelia Lovibond, still waiting to be cast as Bond girl purely on the basis of her name) on a train and after being gifted with her book Six Billion People And You, mistakenly meets Jack (Simon Pegg, who is also an executive producer) who is under the impression is that she is his blind date and Nancy goes along with it.  Pegg also cracks a joke about train delay due to someone jumping onto the tracks, at which point anyone with a claim to decency would quite rightly have walked out and asked for a refund.  The film is directed by Ben Palmer of the television sitcom The Inbetweeners (2008-2010) and its televisual 2011 theatrical feature and it is shot in its entirety in a white hazy focus that is as soft as the comedy.  The moment in which Skyfall's Rory Kinnear is semi-nude in a public ladies' toilet wrapping a scarf around the necks of himself and Bell and pulling her close for reluctant kiss is when the sound should have cut out and as that film's theme music kicks in, Adele tells us "This is the end.  Hold your breath and count to ten..."  Kinnear had more dignity as the prime minister having offscreen sex with a pig in Black Mirror (2010).  There is one laugh when, having met Jack's soon-to-be ex-wife and got confirmation that she had had an affair, Nancy ups the pretense that she is Jack's new girlfriend by being extra affectionate and Simon Pegg reminds us that he has a face for comedy (he can be a good dramatic actor too).  Destined for the cheap section of the DVD shelves in Sainsbury's.

Film: Moomins On The Riviera (2014)

In a contemporary mainstream cinema dominated by the CG produce of Pixar, Dreamworks and the next "classic" from Disney as well as to a less extent, Blue Sky, here is an eighty-minute U-rated hand-drawn cartoon (remember when Disney did those?) from Finland and France which has "no material likely to offend or harm" according to the BBFC (except for brief vague mild shark threat) and is witty (Snorkmaiden is worried about going to a swimming pool as she does not own a bikini), charming and slightly odd.  Originated in Tove Jansson's comic strips, the Moomins have appeared in various forms of animation - perhaps mostly notably in puppetry and anime (the creepy Groke only gets a passing reference in this feature) and the latter's style is somewhat similar here.  After rescuing Mymble and Little My (still a little shit) from pirates, the naive family (for them, the pirates' treasure is a chest containing seeds for the earth rather than the chest containing gold) set off for the Riviera and mistakenly end up staying in a Grand hotel.  Little of dramatic consequence occurs and there's next to no character arcs, with the exception of a rich bohemian artist and elephant sculptor whom Moominpappa befriends.  Despite the seemingly conservative, almost nuclear family set up (Pappa wears a top hat and Mamma always wears an apron), there is an interesting, if curious and not entirely discernible, Queer theme going - the Moomins meet a dog whose secret is that he "only likes cats" and Moominmamma persuades another male dog to pose as cat and has purple stripes painted on him.  After being in the sea, his stripes wash off and the misled canine says he looks good without stripes (I'm not entirely sure he finds out the complete truth).  It is sure to be enjoyed by students who are members of a university animation society and go to animation festivals and parents, if you're near both a multiplex and an independent cinema that are showing it, take your kids to the latter.

Film: Mad Max - Fury Road (2015)

A franchise reboot (or extension) that follows 30 years on from a series of post-apocalyptic films that started with an ill-behaved, nasty little revenge movie (but with some room for emotional investment) with a climax that explained how Max became Mad before we got two self-contained Hollywood-ised action adventures (the PG-13-rated Beyond The Thunderdome recalling Indiana Jones's Temple Of Doom and coming out the most family-friendly, despite a cheeky F-bomb) in which Max seemed the most sane whereas humanity had descended into chaos.  Here, it's slightly less well-behaved than Beyond The Thunderdome and we're back in R-rated territory and, even if adolescent in tone, it's more in line with The Road Warrior and is also the first installment since the original to bring up the subject of Max's state of mind (thanks to voices in his head and quickly-cut flashbacks).  Essentially a 90-minute film stretched out to two hours, (perhaps in part owing to some interminable chasing), it exchanges the minimal locations of the previous sequels for the open road as Max (Tom Hardy) teams up with "Imperiotor Furiosa" (Charlize Theron channeling Sigourney Weaver as Ripley) to protect a group of "babes" (including a surprisingly quite good Rosie Huntington-Whiteley) in an exodus to the promised land.   There is almost nothing for any newcomers unfamiliar with the other three films to have missed and, as entertainment, it might just scrape by as a night-in for teenage boys.

Film: Unfriended (2014)

Despite not being released at Halloween, here we have what might be the next franchise to fill in the gap left by Paranormal Activity and Saw, which is perhaps appropriate given that the story kind-of has a bit of both.  Less of a "found footage" horror but more a "live feed" teen slasher (and with the original title Cybernatural it could usher in a new subgenre), the cinematic experience resembling that of a big screen projection of someone's Mac - perhaps a theatrical live performance  - with our protagonist being the only occupier of the stage while all her co-stars Skype in their performances - might be a nifty idea.

Opening with what may or may not be an homage to The Exorcist (1973) - our protagonist "Blaire" mimics a demonic voice and has a crucifix on her wall - and soon developing into what comes across as the most inventive Saw sequel in years in which someone operating under the username Billie227 (recalling Jigsaw's puppet, Billy) informs our set of young people (with their own guilty secrets) that they want to play a game and - for at least some of it - leaves it to the characters to form their own destiny.  As well as possible supernatural occurrences, household appliances get put to particularly nasty usage.  Jigsaw operating from beyond the grave via Skype would be a fun idea but in this instance, the apparent troll may or may not be the ghost of Laura Barns, whose suicide the year before was caught on camera after a prior video uploaded to YouTube made her an object of public degradation.  What one can do on a computer screen gets fairly maxed out - Skype, Facebook, Spotify, YouTube and Instagram.  Tumblr and Twitter are absent and YouTube seems an odd place to display an apparent sex tape (perhaps any popular adult site would have garnered a more restrictive rating).  The most questionable moment is when a black-and-white YouTube video of Laura Barns holding up cards to the camera evokes a real life case.  The film stays on the computer screen for almost the entire film and, barring the odd ominous hum to let the audience know when its getting suspenseful, any music used is diegetic.  Expect quite a few songs to have "Unfriended sent me here"-type comments on their YouTube page.

Most of the characters aren't particularly emotionally investing but the pulse-raising suspense will be good for the heart in the safe space of a cinema.  Alternatively, it might be suitable to watch on full-screen on a home computer in the dark.  By yourself.

Film: Two By Two (2014)

A take on the story of Noah's Ark that seems less taken from the biblical text than picture book paraphrases of said text.  It takes an Ice Age-esque premise of throwing cartoon animals into an apocalyptic scenario with some slapstick along the way as well as some modernizing humour not dissimilar from the sort seen in The Flintstones and perhaps more appropriately in Veggie Tales - there are no Ninevites slapping each other with fish but the ark does employ a lion as it's captain (humans are mentioned but remain offscreen) and a monkey as a butler (one of the highlights).  It's no more offensive than the already inoffensive interpretation seen in Noah (2014) and can serve as a diversion for kiddywinks while preparing Sunday dinner.  They might well be amused or weirded out by the surreal sight of an unconscious lion being strung up and used as a puppet as well as a slug-like monster with a big gaping mouth who at first appears to be a talking hill.