KATE

Stars: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Miku Patricia Martineau, Tadanobu Asano, Jun Kunimura, Michiel Huisman, Miyavi, Mari Yamamoto and Woody Harrelson.
Writer: Umair Aleem
Director: Cedric Nicolas-Troyan

Rating: ★ ★ ★

Kate is a great movie if you want to test out your new soundbar, or get back at that neighbour for renovating during lockdown. Director Cedric Nicolas-Troyan’s female assassin revenge thriller is best watched with the volume amped up to levels that both maximise the visceral rush of the ultra-violent action and drown out that pesky need for logic and depth in cinema.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays the titular avenger, a stealthy hitwoman trained since childhood in all manner of lethal means by Varrick, played by Woody Harrelson projecting a ‘I’ve done this before, just let me act’ vibe. When a hit goes wrong, Kate must pay the price; a one-night stand with Michiel Huisman (who also one-night-stood with Kaley Cuoco in The Flight Attendant) turns bad when she is poisoned with a radioactive drug and given 24 hours to live.

A billion miles away from the adorably cherubic Ramona in Scott Pilgrim vs The World, Winstead continues her transformation into A-list action heroine that began in earnest as The Huntress in Birds of Prey; she is a lean, mean, battered and bleeding killing machine, perfectly embodying the movie she’s in. It’s uncertain whether the actress’ planned career trajectory was as a butt-kicking, head-cracking vigilante; one can't help feel that after a 2016 that saw her topline the theatrical hit 10 Cloverfield Lane and the promising but ultimately unsuccessful network series BrainDead, Hollywood might have had loftier ambitions for her unique appeal and talent.

Act 2 kicks off with Kate seeking vengeance for her impending death by tracking down the Yakuza boss she believes ordered the hit. The journey takes her deep into the neon-lit Tokyo night, an odyssey that brings with it a brattish teen named Ani (Miku Patricia Martineau), the daughter of one of Kate’s recent whacks, and who can conveniently supply at lot of narratively-helpful information about her gangster relatives. Set in motion is a bone-cracking series of splattery encounters between Kate and knife-wielding gun-toting henchmen, all of whom die by some horribly violent and beautifully choreographed means (the in-the-chin/out-the-forehead knifing is a highlight). 

Early on, Kate hints at a need for a more sedate, less blood-soaked lifestyle, and the relationship she develops with Ani goes some way to fulfilling those longings. While the actresses work hard to make these moments count, Umair Aleem’s script is less committed. Also working against real-world feelings are plot developments that don’t make a lot of sense (if they can find Kate in a classy bar to poison her, why not just cap her ass there and then?) Wild shoot-outs and stabby hand-to-hand conflict unfold randomly and regularly in heavily-populated locations, suggesting Tokyo is one of those police-free big cities often found in these sorts of films.

All others aspects of this mid-range Netflix programmer adhere to the wronged female assassin template, maximised in pics like Bridget Fonda’s The Assassin, its French source material La Femme Nikita, Soarise Ronan’s Hanna and, most recently, Karen Gillan’s Gunpowder Milkshake. Also in the mix is the central plot device of the 1949 film noir classic D.O.A., remade in 1988 with Dennis Quaid as the poisoned protagonist. Kate is a movie that nods to other, better movies, but which does enough to punch a hole in lockdown boredom for 100+ minutes.

WITCHES OF BLACKWOOD

Stars: Cassandra Margrath, Kevin Hofbauer, Lee Mason, Susan Vasiljevic, Francesca Waters, Nikola Dubois, John Voce, Nicholas Denton and Francesca Waters.
Writer: Darren Markey
Director: Kate Whitbread

WITCHES OF BLACKWOOD will release day-and-date on September 7 on DVD and Premium TVOD, followed by a full digital release.

Rating: ★ ★ ★

Reaffirming the long held cinematic maxim that anyone who lives in a small country town has something horrible to hide, Kate Whitbread’s flavourful, female-focused ‘Australian Gothic’ chiller Witches of Blackwood spins a slow burn narrative steeped in dark memories and sinister secrets to increasingly potent effect. 

Cassandra McGrath stars as Claire Nash, a cop relieved of duty while the suicide of a young man (a terrific Nicholas Denton) in her presence is being investigated. A phone call from her Uncle Cliff (Brit actor John Voce) brings Claire home to the bush township of Blackwood; her dilapidated family home, scene to moments of mystery and menace in the past, needs tending. 

Despite its pretty eucalyptus backdrop, Blackwood is a soulless place, its streets empty but for a few sallow-eyed women, wandering aimlessly. Horrors begin to arise around Claire; gruesome animal remains, a blood-soaked woman in her bathtub, ethereal visions in the bushlands. As hinted at not-so-subtly in the US title (it was ‘The Unlit’ during its limited cinema season Down Under), the dark spirits that haunt Blackwood are emerging and tied directly to the legacy left by Claire’s family.

The first act of Darren Markey’s script hits character beats that establish Claire and her mental anguish, but meanders on its journey to Blackwood. The film finds surer footing as the spectre of the supernatural surfaces. McGrath plays ‘unravelling sanity’ well and the confluence of her past and Blackwood’s present gives the actress some emoting opportunities that don’t always arise in genre pics. The twist that bridges the ‘then and now’ and brings Claire’s journey full circle is as well-handled as any of M. Night Shyamalan’s recent efforts.

The on-trend ‘folk horror’ vibe, including the full extent of the coven’s bloodlust, delivers in gruesome detail. While it lacks the mythological backstory of Ari Aster’s Midsommar or warped psychology of Darren Aronofsky’s Mother!, the oppressive darkness that smothers the township and courses through Claire makes Witches of Blackwood an intriguingly nightmarish entry in the genre.

WHEN I'M A MOTH

Stars: Addison Timlin, TJ Kayama and Toshiji Takeshima.
Writer: Zachary Cotler.
Directors: Zachary Cotler and Magdalena Zyzak.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

Taking as their starting point a small window of ambiguity in the private history of a very public figure, directors Zachary Cotler and Magdalena Zyzak imagine a formative time in the Alaskan boondocks of 1969 for one Hillary Rodham. A commanding central performance by Addison Timlin and the skill of DOP Lyn Moncrief, whose lensing affords the film the evocative aesthetic of a European chamber piece, ensure When I’m a Moth is a captivating, if determinedly atypical study of political drive.     

Based upon a throwaway (and frustratingly unprovable) passage in her 2003 autobiography Living History, in which Rodham claims to have gone full blue-colour on a fish cannery production line after her accomplished college years, When I’m a Moth presents 20-something Hillary energised by ‘Summer of Love’ free-spiritedness yet still tied to her privileged upbringing and focussed ambition. She has travelled north to Valdez to experience ‘life’, but social graces, a crisply-worn red jacket and her writing desk downtime, penning  pristine handwritten letters home to her parents, suggest you can take the girl out of Wellesley, but…

America is embroiled in the Vietnam War, which may be why Rodham reaches out to two Japanese fishermen who eye her off daily (and why Cotler sets the men’s hometowns as Nagasaki and Hiroshima, also victims of America’s military might in years past). Mitsuru (Toshiji Takeshima; above, left) is the hardened elder, unmoved and a little disdainful of Rodham’s intellectual chit-chat; the younger Ryohei (TJ Kayama; above, right) is intrigued, and soon he and Rodham are connecting...kind of. She woos him, albeit unwittingly, with her sweet, sexy smarts, exuding promise and the potential for greatness, but when his dreams start to include her, she withdraws; ultimately, she won’t even reveal her surname to him. 

There is a strong vein of symbolism in When I’m a Moth, no less so than in the romantic connection between the two leads. Hilary’s appeal to Ryohei and her ultimate rejection speaks to the lure, disillusionment and disappointment many immigrants experience when chasing the ‘American Dream’. The film's landscape is bathed in a dreamlike haze, often the mist rolling in off the Alaskan waters but also soft-focus candles, pitch-black backgrounds and discordant angles; the world of Hilary's northern sojourn is as imagined as the narrative.

Addison Timlin is a revelation as Hilary; physically, she appears as one imagines Rodham may have 50+ years ago but, more importantly, she sells the musings of a fresh-out-of-college young WASP woman as focused and singularly linear. Rodham’s drive to succeed in public service life and ambitions of life in the highest office she can envision is conveyed with piercing clarity in Timlin’s performance. 

Also conveyed is the centrifugal force that Rodham would become, often to her detriment. Her journey to Alaska was to garner other-world experience yet, like a missionary spreading the gospel, she is equally enriched by how those around her react in her presence. As an imagined construct of a tiny portion of Hilary Rodham’s maturing, When I’m a Moth embodies the very essence of how both supporters and detractors would come to perceive America’s most popular un-elected Presidential candidate.

YOU CANNOT KILL DAVID ARQUETTE

Featuring: David Arquette, Christina McLarty Arquette, Rosanna Arquette, Patricia Arquette, Courtney Cox, Coco Arquette, Jack 'Jungle Boy' Perry, ‘Diamond’ Dallas Page, Rj Skinner, Eric Bischoff and Jerry Kubik.
Writers/directors: David Darg and Price James.

YOU CANNOT KILL DAVID ARQUETTE will be available on digital platforms September 6 in Australia via Blue Finch Film Releasing.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

From its title on down, this study of a man determined to right a wrong while reigniting his celebrity is filled with layers of meaning. The words ‘You Cannot Kill David Arquette’ is certainly a rousing declaration from the actor that there is still life and promise in him yet. They could also work as a contract stipulation for any pro wrestlers involved in the production, so hated was Arquette in the wake of a 20 year-old publicity stunt that made him wrestling’s most reviled figure.

In 2000, David Arquette was leaning into the perception that the exciting young actor who had emerged in the booming ‘90s indie sector was also a bit...kooky. He had broken out as goofball cop Dewey in the Scream franchise and decided to double-down the on-screen daffiness with a lead role in the wrestling comedy, Ready to Rumble. To promote the film, he got in the ring with real-life wrestling giants and walked away with the WCW World Heavyweight Championship; fans were less than impressed (and baulked on watching Ready to Rumble, which bombed).        

You Cannot Kill David Arquette finds the man nearing 50, happily married to Christina McLarty Arquette (the film’s producer), but in the career doldrums. It is not immediately obvious why he would want to return to the scene of his infamy other than honouring the old adage, ‘any publicity is good publicity’, but motivations emerge; he loves wrestling, has since childhood, and is tormented that he will forever be, in his words, “a smear on its legacy.”

In tracking Arquette’s arduous return to, first physical activity, then the professional circuit, directors David Darg and Price James capture aspects of the man that drag their film, kicking and screaming at times, beyond a chronicle of eccentricity. Arquette’s mental health and the potential impact upon his addiction issues is examined; the very real concern for his physical well-being, given pre-existing conditions; and, how his family (including sisters Patricia and Rosanna, teenage child Coco and ex-wife Courtney Cox) view his typically unpredictable career choices.

And Arquette puts in the hard yards. The physique goes from ‘dad bod’ to an athlete’s frame over the course of the film. He earns pro-wrestling cred by pitting himself against backyard battlers (who absolutely f**kin’ hate him) and plunging into the choreographed theatricality of Mexico City’s luchadores troupes. In one legitimately shocking sequence, he suffers a near-fatal neck-wound when an exhibition match goes bad. Emotions take a hit, too; the film is dedicated to Arquette’s friend, the late Luke Perry. 

If it is the spirit of pro-wrestling that the actor wants to honour with his return to the canvas, You Cannot Stop David Arquette works wonderfully to that end. It is, in equal measure, a rousing sports-drama narrative and pure bells-&-whistles; a study in struggle and pain to achieve a personal goal and managed spectacle in the name of putting on a great show. If that doesn’t capture the essence of the sport, it’d be hard to pinpoint what does, and ought to correct the anti-Arquette sentiment amongst his fellow leotard-lovers.

VAL

Featuring: Val Kilmer, Jack Kilmer, Mercedes Kilmer and Joanne Whalley. 
Directors: Ting Poo, Leo Scott

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ½

Val Kilmer has forever existed in a weird Hollywood limbo, a professional realm between brilliant, talented character actor and A-list heartthrob star. His darkest period professionally was also his biggest box office success - Batman Forever. His career has fluctuated between films that didn't find an audience (The Doors, The Ghost & The Darkness, Wonderland); for which he seemed awkwardly ill-suited (Willow, The Real McCoy, Red Planet); or, benefitted from his vivid support work (Tombstone,True Romance, Heat, Top Gun).

In the documentary Val, he provides a first-person account of his life - the work he’s known for, the loves he has had, the man he is now. All the footage is taken from a personal archive of material shot either by him or of him (collated by directors Ting Poo and Leo Scott), from his earliest high-school plays through to the contemplative but ebullient cancer survivor he is today. His personal journal provides the narrative, read in voice-over provided by his son Jack.

Just as the man is a unique film industry figure, so is Val that rarest of beasts - a star profile that eschews, even undermines, the subject’s celebrity to provide not an actor’s portrait, but an everyman journey of a complex individual. Industry milestones, like working with his idol Marlon Brando on the infamous Queensland shoot of The Island of Dr Moreau, ultimately seem like existential asides compared the lifelong grief of losing his teenage brother Ben, wooing then divorcing his wife Joanne Whaley, raising their children and coming to terms with the legacy of his father. 

The darkness of his past is balanced by a mature-age man’s boundless playfulness. At one point he collapses in front of the camera, only to rise from the floor giggling at his son’s panicked reaction. He can be a bit of an arsehole, as some of his directors and co-stars can attest, and which he acknowledges and attempts to put into perspective in the doco.

His late-career, last pre-cancer project Citizen Twain, in which he dons heavy make-up for his self-penned one-man show that explores the life of America’s great humorist, embodies not only the immense talent but also the rare empathy that Val Kilmer brought to his most invested characters. Those elements are what shine through in Val.

CLASS REUNION 3: SINGLES CRUISE (LUOKKAKOKOUS 3 - SINKKURISTEILY)

Stars: Jaajo Linnonmaa, Aku Hirviniemi, Sami Hedberg, Ilona Chevakova, Eino Heiskanen, Niina Lahtinen, Antti Luusuaniemi, Pihla Maalismaa, Mari Perankoski, Jukka Puotila, Kuura Rossi and Pertti Sveholm.
Writers: Renny Harlin, Aleksi Bardy and Mari Perankoski; based on characters created by Claudia Boderke and Lars Mering.
Director: Renny Harlin.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ 

The low-brow hijinks of middle-aged man-children has been a comedy staple the world over, nowhere more so than Finland. There, two bawdy, lamebrained romps - Luokkakokous (Reunion, 2015) and Luokkakokous 2 (Reunion 2: The Bachelor Party, 2016) - earned Finnish blockbuster status, boasting over 800,000 admissions. And when the words ‘Finnish’ and ‘blockbuster’ are paired up, the words ‘Renny’ and ‘Harlin’ aren’t far behind.

And so we find the action veteran making his first film in his homeland since 1986’s Born American, a forgotten B-action lark that was inventive enough visually and successful enough commercially for L.A. to notice. Soon, with the cult horror pics Prisoner (1987) and A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: Dream Master (1988) to his name, he would become Hollywood’s hottest director - Die Hard 2 (1990); Cliffhanger (1993); The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996); and, Deep Blue Sea (1999) represented a run of hits few directors experience (not to mention that cinematic asterisk, 1995’s Cutthroat Island, which was a whole other experience entirely).

For his homecoming present, the Finnish industry has gift wrapped Harlin a surefire hit in Luokkakokous 3 - Sinkkuristeily (Class Reunion 3: Singles Cruise), only asking in return that he brings his consummate style in service of jokes about catheterization, masturbating, flatulence, urinary retention, laxatives...you get the idea. Reuniting for #3 and leaving no doubt as to why the Reunion franchise is a crowd favourite are original cast members Jaajo Linnonmaa, the most popular breakfast radio host in Finland; Aku Hirviniemi, one of Finland’s acting superstars; and Sami Hedberg, the nation’s most popular stand up comedian.

Our immature mature-age trio are facing the hard truths of growing older. Antti (Hedberg) is fat and lonely, jerking off to infomercial hostesses and seeming barely coping with anything adult, like interacting with his young son (Kuura Rossi) and estranged wife (Ilona Chevakova). Tuomas (Linnonmaa) remains a free-spirited rock’n’roll wannabe, imagining life a non-stop party and sex with his wife to be far more spectacular than it is. By far the most interesting character development involves Niklas, aka ‘Nippe’ (Hirviniemi), who is sensing that his latent bisexuality may finally need acknowledging.

To get Antti some action, they decide that a singles cruise is the best option. Clearly, the film was conceived and greenlit pre-COVID while somewhat ironically, was one of the few that completed principal shooting during the pandemic. On the high seas, and with Antti’s senile father (Pertti Sveholm) doin’ alright with the ladies...to a point, the lovely Pilve (Pihla Maalismaa) falls for Antti; Tuomas almost scores with two Swedish poledancing influencers; and, Nippe goes full-Winslet with a handsome steward (Eino Heiskanen) in the cargo hold. 

Much of Class Reunion 3 is very beautiful to look at, with Harlin employing DOP Matti Eerikäinen to fill the screen with eye-popping colour and opulent sets, often bathed in smoky sunlight. It is a lot of effort to capture glistening gold fountains of urine or a shit-smeared bedroom wall, but this is where the Reunion films make their money (and likely a hefty sum for the director). There is a fun through-line in nostalgia, with oddly-placed but warmly recognisable references to the Village People, The Love Boat, The Shining and, rather distastefully, Carl Douglas’ gimmick-hit Kung-Fu Fighting. Just as much fun is had in spotting Harlin’s nods to his own career highlights, with none-too-subtle shout-outs to Cliffhanger and Die Hard 2.

Every repugnant moment and non-PC aside seems so calculated to offend as to make the very effort to upset redundant. Instead, there’s a goofy charm to the antics of the three friends; such is the level of their blokish idiocy, the joke is mostly on them. And when it’s not, the barbs are aimed at the most deserving - vulgar tourists, boorish stepdads, shrill social media types. This isn’t uncharted territory for Harlin - with shock comic Andrew Dice Clay, he upset everybody in 1990 with The Adventures of Ford Fairlane - and watching him once again indulge in humour puerile and extreme will be a guilty pleasure for many.

THE DEEP HOUSE

Stars: Camille Rowe, James Jagger, Eric Savin and Carolina Massey.
Writers: (French) Alexandre Bustillo, Julien Maury; (English) Julien David, Rachel Parker.
Directors: Alexandre Bustillo, Julien Maury.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ 

What do you call two internet influencers at the bottom of a lake? If you answered, “A good start”, you’ll likely find some dark-hearted glee amongst the legit chills in The Deep House, the latest from horror cinema’s most promising new directors of the ‘00s, Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury.

Brattish Urbex YouTuber Ben (James Jagger) has convinced his gf Tina (Camille Rowe) to travel the European countryside, exploring society’s forgotten relics, the kind that often hold supernatural potential. Ben is the sort of boyfriend who enjoys frightening Tina in abandoned mansions, because that’s what earns likes and shares on his travel site; on more than one occasion, Tina justifiably mutters, “You’re so annoying.” 

Their latest destination is a submerged home deep in a remote French lake. Led there by Pierre (Eric Savin), that most dangerous of horror tropes - the ‘mysterious local’ - Ben and Tina (with their underwater drone camera, ‘Tom’, as in ‘peeping’) are soon exploring the murky depths yet oddly pristine corridors of Montegnac House. The setting is pure ‘haunted estate’, but the claustrophobic intensity of scuba diving and the constant ticking-clock that is the oxygen reader exponentially increases the tension.

When their debut 2007 work À l'intérieur (Inside) was judged amongst the best of the new wave of French ‘hardcore horror’ films, the sheer brutality and filmmaking bravado of Bustillo and Maury earned them critical bouquets and cult status (both of which were less forthcoming with the arty hollowness of their 2011 follow-up, Livide). 

With The Deep House, they embrace a more barebones aesthetic; a first-person immediacy, the kind of filmmaking usually associated with the ‘found footage’ genre. Go-pros, drone lensing, body-cams, hi-tech mask-mics - the cutting edge tools of the video adventurer are used to record a fateful expedition, an undertaking filled with the kind of shocking revelations and otherworldly vistations that, ironically, would have ensured Ben the social media eyeballs he craved.

In the 14 years since they burst onto the scene, Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury have only improved as cinema craftspeople. With almost an hour of its 83 min story spent underwater, the directors and their DOP Jacques Ballard were submerged for 33 production days, capturing Hubert Pouille’s detailed production design and Ilse Willcox’s set decoration with consummate artistry. That The Deep House manages to be a white-knuckle ghost story as well seems like a value-added bonus.

INFERNO WITHOUT BORDERS

With Charlotte Epstein, Chels Marshall, Dan Morgan, Gavin & Leanne Brook, Glenn Willcox, Graham Parr, Jane Whyte, John Merson, Julie & Jo Berchu, Khloe Syllebranque, Stuart Robb, Noel Webster (aka, Uncle Nook), Tassin Barnard and Tom Butler.
Co-director: Sophie Lepowic.
Director: Sandrine Charruyer.

Screening with BLACK SUMMER as part of the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival at Cinema Nova on August 1. Check with venue for screening details.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ 

The cataclysmic devastation wrought by the bushfires that swept across Australia in the summer of 2019-2020 was a once-in-a-generation event that was foreseen and avoidable, posits Sandrine Charruyer’s understated but enraging documentary, Inferno Without Borders.

Responsible for 18 million hectares of charred landscape, 2779 destroyed homes, 1 billion stock and wildlife deaths and the taking of 34 human lives, the tragedy is revisited through the eyes of those whose futures were forever changed by the disaster. But in addition to acknowledging the human impact of those hellish weeks, Charruyer and co-director Sophie Lepowic argue that 200 years of mismanagement of our unique bushland in the hands of white colonists fuelled an inferno that led to what would become an unprecedented level of national grief and horror.

Inferno Without Borders presents evidence that accepted fire control techniques, such as ‘backburning’, employed by modern bush management officialdom, defies the millenia-old understanding that Australia’s indigenous population have regarding the co-existence of fire and country. The documentary allows extraordinary insight into the methodology and benefits of the ‘cultural burn’, a slower, surface-level reduction of the dry-leaf fuel that does not render the soil beneath devoid of moisture. 

The practice has long been a traditional part of Aboriginal lore, a skill that allows for the land to retain its life-giving properties and for the fauna to co-exist with fire, instead of succumbing to its rage. Charruyer speaks with elders, traditional bush management consultants and current land owners who have all recognised the holistic relationship between man and country that can be derived when the respect and understanding of those who have lived the land longest is embraced.

Inferno Without Borders is also deeply affecting when it addresses the current incarnation of white settler politics and colonial mismanagement. The Morrison government’s blinkered stand on global warming, ongoing coal industry reliance and misguided faith in dated bushcare policies are exposed, again. While the production pulls up just shy of laying the blame for the 2019-20 bushfires at the feet of conservative politics, it leaves no doubt as to how destructive nature will become should the Federal Government continue to defy both indigenous culture and modern science.

SIR ALEX FERGUSON: NEVER GIVE IN

Featuring: Sir Alex Ferguson, Cathy Ferguson, Jason Ferguson, Mark Ferguson, Darren Ferguson, Gordon Strachan, Archie Knox, Ryan Giggs and Eric Cantona.
Writer: Mark Monroe
Director: Jason Ferguson

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ 

Lately a wave of British sports documentaries have offered fly-on-the-wall insight into the personalities and dramas of premier league football. Some are the cinema of a club’s marketing division, notably the fan-service Liverpool FC pic, The End of The Storm, but most have been surprisingly revealing - Amazon’s All Or Nothing, about the Mourinho era at Tottenham Hotspurs, and Netflix’s Sunderland ‘Til I Die, a heartbreaking look at the inner turmoil of a great club in freefall, are two of the best.

Stemming from the UK’s life-governing passion for football but taking an altogether more personal approach is Sir Alex Ferguson: Never Give In. England’s greatest ever manager, Ferguson retired from the role at Manchester United in 2013, after a 37 year reign that oversaw the emergence of the club as a global football giant; in his wake were 38 trophies, including 13 Premier League titles, five FA Cups, and two UEFA Champions League titles.

In 2018, he collapsed at home, and was found to have five blood clots on his brain, a condition that ends the life of about 80% of sufferers. He would regain consciousness and ultimately recover, but Alex Ferguson was a changed man. He realised how much he cherished his past; not only the incredible football legacy he forged, but his working class parents, Scottish seaside upbringing and the origins of his core values.

The title sounds a bit rah-rah sporty, but Never Give In is, in fact, a very emotional story steeped in the universal themes of family, memory and destiny. Directed by son Jason, who was so moved by his father’s hospital melancholy that he initiated the production, the film is a portrait of not only the great manager’s glory days (his hatrick on debut for his local team, Rangers FC; the 1999 UEFA Champions League final against Bayern Munich, believed to be one of the greatest football wins in the sport’s history); it also about an old man taking stock of a life well lived.

Much of the footage is archival, as is to be expected; this was the United of Cantona, Beckham, Schmeichel - some of the most photographed sportsmen in history - and the change room and onfield action is seamlessly woven into the narrative. However, it is the to-camera interviews - with wife, Cathy; sons Mark and Jason; those he mentored, like Gordon Strachcan and Ryan Giggs; and, of course, the man himself - that sets it apart from other recent real-world accounts of top tier world football. 

Never Give In is less about the day-to-day anxiety of being at the pinnacle of a sport, more about the simple complexities of a man that helped him stay there for four decades.

SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY

Stars: LeBron James, Don Cheadle, Cedric Joe, Khris Davis, Sonequa Martin-Green and Ceyair J. Wright, Steven Yeun, Sarah Silverman and Zendaya.
Writers: Juel Taylor, Tony Rettenmaier, Keenan Coogler, Terence Nance, Jesse Gordon and Celeste Ballard.
Director: Malcolm D. Lee

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ½

Director Malcolm D. Lee’s amped-up odyssey through Warner Bros. licensed property goldmine subs in LeBron James for Michael Jordan as the NBA superstar zapped into a ‘toon netherworld, but in every other respect Space Jam: A New Legacy is a just a fresh coat of CGI-paint on the 25 year-old concept. ‘You Do You’ is the meaningful thematic depth of the studio's literally on-brand reboot, and that will be fine for the family audience drawn to this mostly fun, often frantic romp.

In a brief prologue, tweenage LeBron gets a talking-to when his coach catches him distracted by the latest handheld tech - a Nintendo Gameboy (aaww...). From that moment on, vidgames were out, replaced by life lessons learnt through the prism of achieving basketball greatness. That proves a problem when adult LeBron’s middle-child Dom (Cedric Joe) excels at game design and is meh about basketball (though he designs a basketball game, oddly). 

A trip to Warners to hear a pitch from two execs (played by in-house HBO stars Steven Yeun and Sarah Silverman) turns incredible when LeBron and Dom are digitized and kidnapped by the evil algorithm, Al G. Rhythm (a hit-&-miss Don Cheadle) and cast into vastness that is ‘The Warner’s Serververse’. It is inside this extraordinary vision of a digital galaxy that Space Jam 2021 hits its stride; planets repping such WB profit centres as Harry Potter, Game of Thrones and DC Comics are superbly-realised concepts.

In line with the ‘95 original, LeBron must collect and coach the misfit Looney Tunes team and defeat Al G. Rhythm’s bad guys in a ball game for very high stakes. Lee and his six screenwriters (!!) take a little too long getting to the big game, although there are fun moments along the way that allow for time in both ‘classic’ animation mode (beautiful to watch) and updated 3D CGI (remember when they made Homer Simpson 3D? It’s just as disappointing here).

When Jordan teamed with Bugs Bunny in 1995, the stable of Warners’ animated characters had stagnated. The project was initiated to give that rascally rabbit, Daffy Duck, Tweety Bird, The Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote a fiscally advantageous jolt; it was directed by ad-guy Joe Pytka, a commercials and music vid director, before and since. The studio paid big bucks for an extended Bill Murray cameo and Seinfeld’s Wayne Knight, but there are no similar comic-relief/fallback players in 2021.  

Instead, the Warners’ ‘toon ensemble enlists all their studio buddies to bolster box office potential, and herein lies the unexpected joy for film buffs. The last thing one expects to see in your Bugs Bunny cartoon are supremely silly and very funny riffs on Mad Max Fury Road, The Matrix or Casablanca, or a barrage of back catalogue faces (The Herculoids!! The freaking Herculoids!!) When gathered for the final match, the Warner Bros properties are a sight to behold; looking past the foreground action to discover another great WB character becomes second-nature. Parents will have fun on the drive home explaining the cultural significance of The Droogs from Kurick’s A Clockwork Orange.

While Space Jam: A New Legacy doesn’t come within a stuttering pig of the live-action/animation genre’s high-water mark, Robert Zemeckis’ Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, the tech is of such a standard in this day and age there is no doubt that LeBron (by far the least animated presence in the movie, in every sense) is interacting alongside his co-stars.