THE LOST CITY

Stars: Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, Daniel Radcliffe, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Oscar Nuñez, Patti Harrison, Bowen Yang and Brad Pitt.
Writers: Oren Uziel, Dana Fox and Adam Nee
Directors: Aaron Nee and Adam Nee

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ½

There is something so refreshing in watching true movie stars give their bigscreen charisma room to breathe, and Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum take some very deep breaths in the jungle adventure, The Lost City.

Bullock, who looks absolutely stunning in a way she hasn’t exploited in many of her films, plays Loretta Sage, a bestselling romance novelist who’s just about had enough of her own vacuous airport reading. She’s ready to kill off her franchise staples, including ‘Dash’, her broad-chested, blonde adonis hero brought to life by cover model Alan (Channing Tatum). Not what Alan wants to hear, with his shirtless public appearances being his primary source of income.

But in Loretta’s latest pulp writings are clues to a hidden city and jewelled headdress that don’t go unnoticed by scumbag billionaire Abigail Fairfax (a very funny Daniel Radcliffe). Abigail kidnaps Loretta, assuming she’ll guide him to the buried treasure, and setting in motion a rescue attempt by Alan that borders on buffoonish.

When chemistry is strained and the material is weak, these sort of romps look and feel like Dwayne Johnston and Emily Blunt in Jungle Cruise, but in the hands of a gifted comedienne like Bullock and a goofball hunk like Tatum, The Lost City occasionally feels like the Michael Douglas/Kathleen Turner classic-of-its-kind, Romancing the Stone. When our leads aren’t on screen, and the story has to be moved along, the very thin and silly veneer of a plot becomes obvious, but as a means by which to get to the next Bullock/Tatum giggly bits, it’ll do.

Of added benefit is Brad Pitt in an extended cameo as an ex military black-op who is called upon to lead the snivelling Alan in the early stages of the rescue mission. Pitt riffs on his own physical assets with as much energy as Channing Tatum, and while it’s all very broad schtick, it is also very funny.

MORBIUS

Stars: Jared Leto, Matt Smith, Jared Harris, Adria Arjona, Al Madrigal, Tyrese Gibson and Michael Keaton.
Writers: Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless; based on the comic by Roy Thomas.
Director: Daniel Espinosa

Rating: ★ ★ ★

Despite the long hours that Sony Pictures have spent pumping life into the veins of their Marvel properties, the resulting films - whether box office behemoths like the Spiderman franchise or murky gunk like Venom - have, of late, been pretty crappy. It means that to non-comic types like your critic, the notion of having to first watch then conjure a few hundred words about Sony’s latest second-tier MCU anti-hero…well, I have hair to wash, too..

Wasting away in the grips of a degenerative blood disorder, Michael Morbius is driven to find a cure not just to relieve his own suffering, but to better the life of his friend, Lucien, aka ‘Milo’. They first form a bond as bed-bound boys under Dr Emil Nikols (Jared Harris), and remain chums into pained adulthood, where Morbius (a skeletal Jared Leto) becomes a Nobel prize-refusing researcher and Milo (played with menace, even when being nice, by Matt Smith) a couch-bound invalid.

It is the contention of Dr Morbius that vampire blood may hold regenerative properties and so, in a ship moored in international waters and alongside his loyal colleague Dr Bancroft (Adria Arjona), he instigates an experiment upon himself. And it works…kind of. The downside being that it transforms the doctor into a hunky vampire whose blood lust must be refreshed every few hours. Milo wants in on the new drug, but Morbius won’t allow his friend to suffer through the horrible side effects for a few hours of pain-free life. But Milo has his own ideas…

The most interesting aspects of director Daniel Espinosa’s film mirror those of David Cronenberg’s 1986 classic, The Fly. Vampirism as a form of body horror, the loss of one’s own physicality with an outcome that harms both the afflicted and those they love, gives Morbius a subtextual hook that adds to one’s investment in the good doctor’s moral journey. You have to search for it at times, given there’s not a lot of narrative meat on the Morbius bone, but the doctor’s connection to both Bancroft and Milo while still coming to grips with his new lethal self brings with it a compulsive watchability.  

Of course, it’s a comic-book trope as old as comic-books; while being questioned by Tyrese Gibson and Al Madrigal, playing the two dumbest detectives in film history, a blood-craving Michael scowls, “You wouldn’t like me when I’m hungry,” a pointed reference to the Bruce Banner/Hulk mythology from which Morbius is drawn. Jared Leto does as much with the duality of the character as asked of him, committing to make-up prosthetics and stepping aside for his CGI stand-in when required.

While the film won’t upgrade the property from that second-tier comic realm alongside the likes of Venom (or, for DC fans, Swamp Thing or The Shadow), there is a layered psychology to Morbius which may be further drawn out in future (and better) iterations. It is almost a shame that Morbius is tied to the Marvel universe at all, given that the inclusion brings with it franchise expectations that don't serve the character’s key traits at all.

THE BAD GUYS

Featuring the voices of: Sam Rockwell, Marc Maron, Awkwafina, Anthony Ramos, Craig Robinson, Zazie Beetz, Richard Ayoade, Alex Borstein and Lilly Singh.
Writers: Etan Coen, with Yoni Brenner; based on the books by Aaron Blabey.
Director: Pierre Perifel

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

Introducing his film at the Sydney premiere of The Bad Guys, the Australian actor-turned-author Aaron Blabey, upon whose 15-issue graphic novel series director Pierre Perifel’s animated romp is based, recounted the tale of his journey into the studio jungle of La-La Land pitching his animal-centric crime story. “Every studio said, ‘No’”, said Blabey, “until Dreamworks got it, and I couldn’t be happier.”

And ‘happy’ he has every right to be because, despite an occasionally patchy history in the field of animation (Shark Tale, anyone?), Dreamworks Animation has captured the anarchic glee, character chemistry and old-school narrative skill of Blabey’s bestselling books. Perifel brings a decidedly non-Hollywood animation style to the story of five friends leaning into the preconceptions of them as nature’s criminal element, but it is a style that allows for dazzling flourishes of colour and action, delivering an older-skewing family pic the likes of which we haven’t seen since Brad Bird’s 2004 classic, The Incredibles.

The film opens on that staple of the crime genre, ‘the diner scene’, maybe referencing the start of Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs (but…in a kid’s movie?!?). Slick career crim Wolf (Sam Rockwell) and safe-cracker street hood Snake (Marc Maron, doing brilliant voice work) are riffing on the highs-and-lows of birthdays, before sauntering over the road to a bank and rolling the joint. A wild car chase ensues, during which we meet the gang - computer guru Tarantula, aka ‘Webs’ (Awkwafina); blubbery master-of-disguise, Shark (Craig Robinson, earning the film’s biggest laughs); and, twitchy tough-guy Pirahna (Anthony Ramos).

A Clooney-esque package of smug egotism, Wolf is triggered into action when the new governor, upwardly-mobile fox Diane (Zazie Beetz) insults him and his crew on local TV. Wolf sets his sights on the ultimate heist - the pilfering of a bejewelled trinket during a gala in honour of guinea pig philanthropist, Professor Marmalade (Richard Ayoade) - only to have it backfire. Soon, the whole ‘honour amongst thieves’ creed is being challenged and the friends are faced with the intellectual might of a true criminal mastermind.

Adults familiar with the high-stakes crime genre will draw more from The Bad Guys than their kids; the under-12s might have a bit of trouble registering the double-crosses and underworld machinations in Etan Cohen’s screenplay. But that certainly won’t detract from their overall enjoyment, so thrilling are the action set pieces and lovingly rendered are the characters. The film becomes increasingly loony (cue the army of mind-controlled hamsters with glowing eyes!) while losing none of its smarts. It’s the perfect franchise kickstarter and the best Dreamworks cartoon since forever.

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 2

Stars: Jim Carrey, James Marsden, Tika Sumpter, Natasha Rothwell, Shemar Moore, Adam Pally and Lee Majdoub.
Featuring the voices of: Ben Scwartz, Idris Elba and Collen O'Shanussy.
Writers: Pat Casey, Josh Miller and John Whittington
Director: Jeff Fowler

Rating: ★ ★ ½

It’s been a scant 23 months since the Sonic the Hedgehog movie came out. Who can forget the whirlwind of fan disgust when the first glimpse of the speedy blue Eulipotyphla (not ‘rodent’, as I learnt today) hit the web, forcing a hasty redesign, and the subsequent whirlwind of fan glee when the film turned out to be pretty good. On the back of a well-told tale of family values and good-vs-evil and a cartoonishly villainous turn by Jim Carrey, rediscovering his ‘Ace Ventura’ wackiness, Sonic The Hedgehog took $320million worldwide - a legit blockbuster, considering COVID cut it’s run short in some territories.

With two years of pandemic-impacted box office revenue to catch up on, Paramount Pictures rushed into production on this sequel to their last pre-plague hit. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 reunites all the major creatives, including director Jeff Fowler, Carrey as megalomaniac Dr Robotnik, Ben Schwartz voice-acting Sonic, James Marsden as the human element, and all below-the-line effects talent that brought Sonic to life the first time around.

New characters in the adaptation mix are Tails, the ‘flying fox’ (Collen O'Shanussy) who was glimpsed at the end of the first film and who lands in Sonic’s hometown of Green Hills Montana, just as things are about to turn dangerous for our spiky hero. In a pre-credit sequence set on the Mushroom Planet, the banished Robotnik aligns with red-hued tough guy Knuckles the Echidna (Idris Elba) to get back to Earth, promising to deliver Sonic while fiendishly scheming to purloin the all-powerful Green Emerald and see out his plans for world domination.

There’s a lot in there that fans of the game, which debuted 31 years ago and has been a Sega cash-cow ever since, will recognise and appreciate, and Fowler and his writing team fill the screen with easter eggs to keep their attention. What they don’t fill the screen with is any of the charm or laughs that made the first film a happy diversion for non-gamers. Instead, Paramount have pushed their spiky teen hero into an MCU-style ‘end of the world’ effects extravaganza, banishing to the periphery all that was engaging about the first film in favour of rote heroics and tired CGI.

It is also runs an unforgivable 122 minutes, the length blown out by time wasted in a Serbian bar watching Sonic win a dance contest and a frantic and unfunny ‘Hawaiin wedding gone wrong’ set piece, featuring Natasha Rothwell as a shrill ‘African-American bridezilla’ caricature. Notably, neither sequence features Carrey, who is absent for long passages and/or called upon to play straight man to Knuckles, thereby robbing the film of its strongest comedic asset.

And poor Sonic, the cocky teenager occasionally called upon to be the plucky superhero, is dwarfed by the ill-fitting scale of his own movie, often all but disappearing amidst the mayhem. In the inevitable Sonic the Hedgehog 3, not so subtly hinted at in the final moments of #2, just give the franchise back to the simple charms of its titular hero.

ATTICA

Featuring: Clarence B. Jones, Lawrence Akil Killebrew, Alhajji Sharif, Al Victory, George Che Nieves, David Brosig and John Johnson.
Writer: Stanley Nelson
Directors: Traci Curry and Stanley Nelson

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

In upstate New York in 1971, the entire population of Attica Prison took control of the facility and held prison employees hostage, to protest the cruel, inhumane treatment they were receiving at the hands of a brutal penal system. The vast majority of prisoners were black or brown; all the correctional officers and administration were white. After five days of non-violent negotiation, Governor Nelson Rockefeller, with President Nixon’s blessing, ordered armed police battalions and sniper units to take back Attica Prison; of the 43 men who died, 33 were inmates, while 10 were correctional officers and prison employees.

In director Stanley Nelson’s retrospective analysis of the event, it becomes very clear race and politics were the underlying concerns of those in charge of solving the Attica Prison stand-off. 50 years of memories and muted facts are revisited in interviews with prisoners who survived the killings; the personalities of the incarcerated but educated men who tried to attain basic human rights for the prison population, only to be slain where the stood, are remembered. And the finger of blame for the murder of 43 men is pointed squarely at those in power, who unleashed a tired, angry, well-armed mob upon a courtyard of defenseless men.

The stories and images are shocking and violent. Nelson and co-director Traci Curry refuse to skimp on detail, be it in the lead-up to the prison uprising, the chronology of events over the five day shut-in, or the horrendous slaughter that brought the revolution to an end. Oscar-nominated for Best Documentary Feature, Attica further exposes the insidious racial underpinnings of American society and the true worth that politicians, then and now, place on the value of black and brown lives.

DEEP WATER

Stars: Ben Affleck, Ana de Armas, Tracy Letts, Grace Jenkins, Dash Mihook, Lil Rey Howley, Rachel Blanchard, Kristen Connelly, Jacob Elordi, Brendan Miller and Finn Wittrock
Writers: Zach Helm and Sam Levinson; based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith.
Director: Adrian Lyne 

Rating: ★ ★ ½

Deep Water is the fourth film starring Ben Affleck and his belle du jour, and none of them have been very good. In 2000, his love for the pre-Goop entrepreneur Gwyneth Paltrow led to the ill-fitting romance Bounce; as the miscast lead in Daredevil (2003), he made his missus Jennifer Garner do all the work; then, the infamous Gigli (also, 2003), a mega-dud in which the off-screen hots that he had for Jennifer Lopez somehow became a turgid, chemistry-free pairing in one of Hollywood’s biggest bombs.  

In his latest melding of the personal and professional, Affleck stars with now ex-girlfriend Ana De Armas, who was on a roll of spirited, sexy types when she shot this and No Time to Die a few years back (both, pre-Knives Out, a much better vehicle for her talents). Ben plays Vic, the cuckolded husband to Ana’s libidinous wife, Melinda; they have an arrangement that allows her to indulge with younger, fitter men than her hulking, surly husband, and she flaunts it at every opportunity. Most of the first half of the film is her drunkenly pashing strangers at parties while he watches on, blank-faced and increasingly agitated.

But there’s a dark cloud hanging over their upmarket Louisiana suburb - the unsolved murder of a young man, one of many who had been openly intimate (is that a thing?) with Melinda. Everybody kinda thinks Vic did it, but mostly turn the other cheek. Vic doesn’t really play it down - in fact, he frightens off Melinda’s latest conquest, blonde dufus Brendan Miller, by reminding him he’s the number one suspect in the murder of her last shag. Then, the death toll rises - piano player Jacob Elordi drowns, despite a very well-defined upper chest and arms, and goody-two-shoes hunk Finn Wittrock makes the mistake of going for a long drive with Vic.

Vic is a millionaire military-drone inventor, giving the film a streak of irony that never really plays out (he tortures himself by watching her, and all the town is watching him, while his toys watch the world). In the family mix is moppet daughter Trixie, played by Grace Jenkins giving a great ‘creepy kid’ performance (is she in on it with her dad??). And, to top it all off, Vic has a creepy hothouse out back where he breeds hundreds of snails that may or may not do his murderous bidding for him. Oh boy…  

Deep Water is the first film in 20 years for British director Adrian Lyne, a passion project adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel that has gone through umpteen false starts and several studio regimes. He last directed Diane Lane to an Oscar nomination for Unfaithful (2002), and, for two decades prior, crafted some of Hollywood’s most sexually-charged dramas - Foxes (1980) Flashdance (1983), 9½ Weeks (1986), Fatal Attraction (1987), Indecent Proposal (1993) and Lolita (1997). He was the go-to guy for manipulative relationship dynamics, gender politics, the dark heart of contemporary American marriage and frank sexuality, the likes of which few mainstream directors would covet.

Ultimately Deep Water is an unfocussed, occasionally confusing drama, which must rile Lyne, who would have seen the dramatic potential of the murky morality in Vic and Melinda’s life at some point in the project’s 20-year journey to the screen. His best films intellectualise the juicy plotting of your average airport novel; Deep Water just feels like an airport novel. 

It’s not without its watchable moments, most involving Ben and Ana striving for inclusion in the ‘married co-stars’ club alongside Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in their Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? prime, and tanking spectacularly. Deep Water is not Razzie-terrible, it’s just mildly OK, which is even more disappointing.

THE ADAM PROJECT

Stars: Ryan Reynolds, Zoe Saldana, Walter Skobell, Jennifer Garner, Mark Ruffalo, Alex Mallari Jr. and Catherine Keener.
Writers: Jonathan Tropper, T.S. Nowlin, Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin.
Director: Shawn Levy

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ½

At the risk of putting offside all the theoretical physicists who read Screen-Space, time travel is stupid, can’t exist, doesn’t work…except in the movies. So movies can make up whatever rules they want about time travel, and that’s fine by me, as long as it forges its own logical path and, in doing so, is entertaining.

Which brings us to The Adam Project, the latest high-concept action/comedy/thriller to draw from the Ryan Reynold’s charm and sarcasm trough like it’s a bottomless resource. This Netflix blockbuster is the latest pairing of Reynolds and director Shawn Levy, who last pulled off this critic’s favourite Hollywood hit of 2021, Free Guy.

In 2050, a 40-ish Adam is a pilot, who steals a ship so that he can make the jump to 2018, stop his dad Louis (Mark Rufalo) from inventing a hard drive that makes time travel possible and foil his colleague Maya Sorian (Catherine Keener) from betraying their goals for her own personal gain. But 40-ish Adam punches in 2022 instead of 2018 and finds himself face-to-face with his 12 year-old self (Walter Skobell), a smart mouth mini-Reynolds who is coping with the sudden death of his dad by making life hard for his mum, Ellie (Jennifer Garner).

Banding together because they share the DNA code that overrides his starship's security, the starship that will carry him back to the future, Adam 2050 and Adam 2022 pair up with love interest Zoe Saldana (future-Adam's wife Laura, who travelled back previously to make sure...oh, never mind) to derail villainy.  

Like Free Guy, The Adam Project takes a convoluted fantasy premise and turns it into an engaging, exciting romp with more effortless likability and heart than one should expect from stuff like this. Which is all on Reynolds, who somehow combines a Jimmy Stewart warmth with a Burt Reynolds aloofness to pull off a rather unique leading man type - he’s still the handsome, funny movie star who projects larger-than-life to us, but he also connects to audiences through empathy and emotion. Tom Hanks did it in Splash; Jim Carrey did it in The Truman Show. Reynolds has it in spades.

The first half is pure ‘80s-era Amblin-inspired set-up and adventure, and it’s the best part of the film. The second half gets clunkier, a bit too special effects-y and loses touch with its characters in favour of some heavy-handed plot resolution. But it plays out nicely, recovering that deft storytelling touch and sleight-of-hand human emotion that sneaks up on you when all the time travel malarkey is cleansed from the narrative.

DEADLY CUTS

Stars: Angeline Ball, Erika Roe, Lauren Larkin, Shauna Higgins, Aidan McArdle, Victoria Smurfit, Thommas Kane Byrne, Aaron Edo and Ian-Lloyd Anderson.
Writer/Director: Rachel Carey

Rating: ★ ★ ★

Life is pretty shite for the women in Pigslingtown, and especially shite for the lasses of the Deadly Cuts Hair Salon. This Irish working class enclave is ruled over by a gang of misogynistic bullies, violent scumbags who extort money from the local businesses, crippling an already struggling sector, and the four plucky gals find themselves in the crosshairs (the puns just write themselves!).

Erika Roe plays Stacey, the 2IC of the salon, a twenty-something with grand dreams of taking on Ireland’s best stylists at the AAHHair Show and turning around the shop’s fortunes. Her scissor sisters include the boss, Michelle (the still-stunning Angeline Ball, who most will remember as the blonde back-up singer in Alan Parker’s The Commitments); fiery redhead Gemma (Lauren Larkin); and, the timid but primed for a big heroic moment, Chantelle (Shauna Higgins).

One evening, brutal gang leader Deano (a truly terrifying Ian-Lloyd Anderson) pushes the four friends too far and…well, let’s just say the town of Pigslingtown doesn’t have a gang problem any more. The path to hair show glory and a new destiny seems assured for the women of Deadly Cuts, if they can keep a secret even as the webcams of FabTV follow their every move.

In her feature debut, writer/director Rachel Carey shows a lovely eye for character and crisp ear for working-class banter, but struggles with the tone of her film. Shifting gears from aspirational, feel-good drama to bawdy girl-power ode to smalltown murder black-comedy, Deadly Cuts is never all those things in the single scene. It also wants to be a little bit of a piss-take of the hair stylist hierarchy and affectatious twats that anoint themselves industry leaders, which it does sporadically but without any incisive focus.

Nevertheless, there is a lot of fun to be had in just spending time with the four friends. The chemistry between the actresses, with Roe out front as the group’s heart-and-soul and Ball pulling focus like a true movie star every time she’s on-screen, negates the film’s other shortcomings. Be warned, though, that a) a couple of acts of violence are staged with alarming detail, and b) no fecking quarter is given in its embrace of the Oirish brogue. I understood about 60% of the dialogue, so thickly accented were the characterisations.

DEADLY CUTS is in limited release in Ausstralian and New Zealand cinemas from March 17 through Rialto Distribution.

STUDIO 666

Stars: Dave Grohl, Pat Smear, Taylor Hawkins, Rami Jaffee, Chris Shiflett, Nate Mandell, Will Forte, Jeff Garlin, Jenna Ortega, Whitney Cummings, Jason Trost and Marti Matulis.
Writer: Jeff Buhler and Rebecca Hughes, based on a story by Dave Grohl
Director: BJ McDonnell

Rating: ★ ★ ★

Foo Fighter fans get the 80s-style horror-comedy they’ve been screaming for Dave Grohl to make since NEVER with Studio 666. Yes, it’s a real movie and a pretty good one, as far as ‘possessed recording studio massacre’ movies go, and it’s in Australian cinemas for a limited time before heading to streaming, where you can watch it with mates between bong hits, as it should be seen.

The Foo-eys have a contractually obliged 10th album due and, no matter how much foul-mouthed record company CEO Jeff Garlin yells at them, they can’t get inspired to write some songs. So Garlin sets them up at a secluded mansion in Encino, hoping the long history of hits that have emanated from the site will rev up the group. But the mansion is home to more than just music history; it is a portal to demonic terror and soon Grohl is having nightmares about red-eyed entities, growing a gnarly set of fangs and killing bandmates in the most ridiculously gruesome way possible.

Everyone’s having fun, unburdened by any expectation that musicians need to be actors (there’s Will Forte, Whitney Cummings and, briefly, Jenna Ortega pulling acting duty). Mature-age men Taylor Hawkins, Nate Mendel, Pat Smear, Chris Shiflett, and Rami Jaffee are asked to channel ‘stupid teenagers’ in pulling off this lark, none more so the Grohl himself, who’s a funny, fierce leading man.

On the scale of ‘Rock Star Vanity Projects’, with The Beatles’ A Hard Days Night at one end and Neil Diamond’s The Jazz Singer at the other, Studio 666 falls somewhere in the middle, which’ll be good enough for the band’s fans. Gorehounds will dig the R-rated splatter, too; it’s all directed by BJ McDonnell, who last did the very bloody Hatchet III, which feels about right.

CYRANO

Stars: Peter Dinklage, Haley Bennett, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Ben Mendelsohn, Bashir Salahuddin and Monica Dolan.
Writer: Erica Schmidt
Director: Joe Wright

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ½

Director Joe Wright does ‘soaring lit-based romance’ like few others. He made Atonement - the last film to really make me gulpy-sob - as well as gorgeous-looking and emotion-filled reworkings of Pride & Prejudice and Anna Karenina. These are the stories that engage his artistry and passion for storytelling like none of his other films. He did Hanna, The Soloist, Darkest Hour - all fine films but works that felt like a hired gun was at the helm.

Cyrano may be the best Joe Wright film yet. It is, of course, a reworking of Edmond Rostand’s romantic classic Cyrano de Bergerac, a favourite amongst literary academics but probably best known to modern movie audiences as the inspiration for the beloved 1987 Steve Martin film, Roxanne. In 2022, Wright has worked with writer Erica Schmidt to create a 17th century Parisian spin on the story of the swordsman/poet who pines for the beautiful Roxanne but who doubts she would fall for someone as physically unappealing as he.

Instead, she falls for one of Cyrano’s new regiment, the guard Christian, a strapping specimen but not the shiniest sword in the battalion. So Cyrano agrees to be his voice - mostly in letters, but also literally on occasion - to help his beloved Roxanne find true love, even if it means his own longings must go unrequited.

In a year of big, brassy, lushly orchestral musicals, like West Side Story and In the Heights, the original music, composed by The National and the lyrics, written by Matt Berninger and Carin Besse, is often understated to the point of being almost lost in Wright’s lavish production. But the songbook works as a subtle add-on to the characters in Cyrano, not a grand flourish in a sing-for-singing’s sake kind of way. Some of the film’s deepest emotions are found in the repeated refrains of the central tune, ‘Madly’, or in Roxanne’s declaration of her depth and strength, ‘I Need More’.

The Cyrano of legend was cursed with a big honker, but in Wright’s version he is played by Peter Dinklage, the little person star of Game of Thrones (and that unforgettable cameo in Elf). Dinklage is married to Schmidt, and she crafted the script to suit not only her husband’s dwarfism but also his towering talent and on-screen charisma. His performance as the forlorn, faultlessly romantic Cyrano is arguably the greatest ever screen incarnation of the figure, putting him ahead of such actors as Gerard Depardieu, Jose Ferrer and Christopher Plummer.

Dinklage’s scenes with his Roxanne (the luminous, spirited Haley Bennett) are both lovely and heartbreaking; as Christian, Kelvin Harrison Jr brings depth to a role that is very often underserved in adaptations of the text. And in fourth billing is one Ben Mendehlson, doing that thing he’s been doing for the best part of a decade now, taking a small villainous role and making every frame of film unforgettable.