Table of contents for September 2022 in Empire

DRACARYS! As anyone who knows their Drogon from their Rhaegal will be aware, that’s the high Valyrian word for dragonfire, deployed in Game Of Thrones to unleash white-hot hell-flames. And that’s precisely what we’re doing in this issue of Empire, bringing you a deep dive into the all-new, just-as-lethal and more-dragony-than-ever Westeros. HBO’s House Of The Dragon will feature more bone-melting heat and political machinations than a British summertime. And we dispatched our finest dragon-rider, Dan Jolin, on a mission to penetrate the series’ veil of secrecy. Sadly, he didn’t end up on the Iron Throne (“Too spiky,” he grumbled), but he did send a raven to Empire Towers to drop off a scroll bearing a thrilling long read, complete with interviews with the cast and showrunners. Though frankly, we…

Nick de Semlyen stated, in jest, that we may see Saruman apply for a building permit for Orthanc in the Rings Of Powers TV series. But it is my pedantic duty to inform him that Orthanc was built by the Númenóreans towards the end of the Second Age, and Saruman only came to Middle-earth 1,000 years after the Third Age had begun and was given the keys to Orthanc in 2759 of the Third Age. JAMES WEBBER, VIA EMAIL We stand nerdily corrected! As someone once said, the time will soon come when pedants will shape the fortunes of all. James, for your wizard-level quibble, have a Picturehouse membership on us. Empire’s star letter wins a Picturehouse Membership, plus one for a friend! Valid for one year at 23 Picturehouse…

IT SOUNDS LIKE one of Gru’s harebrained schemes. In 2010’s Despicable Me, Steve Carell’s loveable supervillain and his little yellow Minions plotted to steal the Moon. In 2022, the animated slapstick icons went even further: they stole the internet, with TikToking teens worldwide dressing in suits and flocking to cinemas in their droves to watch Minions: The Rise Of Gru. “Who could’ve expected it?” says Pierre Coffin, who voices the Minions in the film (and directed the first Minions). “I think it’s awesome that the movie is seen and appreciated by an unexpected age group.” The explosion of the ‘GentleMinions’ phenomenon left unsuspecting cinemas flummoxed. It began with a TikTok video, in which besuited teenagers rolled up in style to reverently watch and cheer for the ultimate cinematic event: the…

WITH JUST THREE words (“I am Groot”) and a strip of bark to work with, Guardians Of The Galaxy’s Groot isn’t the most obvious candidate for his own spin-off. But through a new five-strong series of short films for Disney+ (set before the first Guardians Of The Galaxy movie), directed by Kirsten Lepore and with Vin Diesel returning to voice his character in child form, he’s got just that. Speaking with Empire, Lepore reveals the stages of turning Baby Groot into the hero of his own story. GET WEIRD Lepore, who formerly worked on Cartoon Network’s surreal animated show Adventure Time, delighted in bringing her off-kilter sensibilities to a Marvel favourite. “As much as it’s still Groot and he’s still cute, he’s also a little bad baby who’s very mischievous,”…

THE FINAL SEASON After those feature-length episodes in Season 4, the Duffer Brothers have already indicated in post-finale interviews that Season 5 will be different, with shorter, faster-paced episodes. And forget loads of set-up or new characters. Instead, the final run is all about our Stranger Things heroes trying to save Hawkins (and the world?) from the monsters of the Upside Down. The brothers have also promised to tie up all of the show’s loose ends, from Vecna’s fate to Nancy’s love-life. THE SPIN-OFF Now that the world of Stranger Things has expanded past Hawkins, a spin-off was surely inevitable. However, the brothers say that the project will be “1,000 per cent different” from the original series, and not built around existing characters (rumours of a aSteve, Eleven or Dustin…

THIRTY YEARS AFTER Penny Marshall’s World War II baseball movie hit big screens, A League Of Their Own receives a fresh, serialised reimagining that opens up the world of its all-female ensemble.“From the beginning, we’re leaning into the stories that were not really told,” says Abbi Jacobson, who co-created the show and stars in it as hopeful player Carson. “There’s a nod to them in the film — we’re doing a backflip into them.” Included in those stories is the deepening friendship between Carson in the show, and Max (Chanté Adams), a talented Black player who, in 1943, is fighting to get on the pitch. In the film, a single scene touches on the divide between Black and white women playing the game. In the show, however, Max is a…

ONE KEY SEQUENCE in Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or winner involves a horrifying medley of bodily fluids. On a super-yacht, the elite enjoy a swanky dinner, only to bring it back up as stormy seas take hold. Speaking with Empire, Östlund breaks down Triangle Of Sadness’ outrageous set-piece. THE INSPIRATION Östlund was eating at an Italian buffet on a luxury cruise — part of his research for the film — when the idea of a tense, visceral sea-sickness sequence came to him. As strong waves rocked the ship, the filmmaker witnessed his fellow passengers falling silent. “You could see that people were dealing with this sickness at the same time as they were trying to use the right knife and fork,” he tells Empire. To him, the clash of social etiquette…

WHEN I INTERVIEWED James Caan late last year, over a long-distance phone call for Empire’s issue celebrating 50 years of The Godfather, it was apparent that the 82-year-old was experiencing poor health. Yet his condition didn’t prevent him from uttering one of his signature, slyly witty remarks. As we tried to speak over a bad phone line, he quipped, “There’s something between us, darling.” Talking to him, even with a bad connection, was a thrill; before the call ended, he quipped: “Put a full-page ad out for me, honey. I could use the work.” In the movies, Caan always seemed too tough to die. With that New York baritone and delinquent walk, his square-jawed macho swagger, and his fit-to-burst volatility, who could ever get one over on this guy? Of…

ON DISCOVERING MS. MARVEL I got into the comics in 2018. A friend sent them to me and was like, “You would really relate to this.” I absolutely adored Kamala and her story, and Nakia was my favourite character. When there were rumours of a show, I immediately emailed my manager and said, “I don’t care where you can fit me in, but please fit me in somewhere. I need to be a part of this.” ON THEIR MARVEL NEIGHBOURHOOD Spider-Man: No Way Home was shooting right next to us; our sound stages were 50 feet from each other. I could see the Captain America Statue Of Liberty, and without any context that was really weird. And there was lots of talk about Andrew and Tobey! ON NAKIA’S MIXED HERITAGE…

What character were you in your first school play? I was in Oliver! in high school as the undertaker. I went to school with Matt Bomer and he played Bill Sikes. At the end of the play, when his character was dead, we always tried to make each other laugh. If you had told us back then that we would still be doing this now, we wouldn’t have believed you. When were you most starstruck? I was in my trailer on the set of Twilight, looking at myself in the mirror in these tight jeans, red contact lenses and Hot Topic jewellery, when my phone rang. This familiar voice said, “Hi, it’s Julia.” “Julia who?” “Julia Roberts.” “Well, what can I do for you, Julia?” I had worked with Tarsem…

★★★ OUT NOW (PRIME VIDEO) / CERT TBC / 96 MINS DIRECTOR Billy Porter CAST Eva Reign, Abubakr Ali, Renée Elise Goldsberry This surprisingly low-key directorial debut from Pose star Billie Porter doesn’t exactly reinvent the high-school romcom wheel — eye-sore outfits and boppy needledrops abound — but its exploration of young trans love broadens the genre’s horizons with a deft, light touch. Newcomers Eva Reign and Abubakr Ali impress as headstrong trans girl Kelsa and her charming Muslim beau Khal, and it’s their nervous, fizzing chemistry that really makes the film. Issues faced by the trans community — homophobia, bathroom bans, performative allyship — no sooner surface than resolve themselves, but while cinematic LGBTQ+ narratives have traditionally been trauma-bound, this celebration of queer joy lands sweetly. JK…

★★★★ OUT 26 AUGUST / CERT TBC / 117 MINS DIRECTOR Emma Holly Jones CAST Freida Pinto, Zawe Ashton A year before Bridgerton became everyone’s favourite Regency romp, there was Mr. Malcolm’s List. Sort of. For her feature debut, Emma Holly Jones has expanded on her 2019 short film of the same name to delightful results. Set in 1818 London, it sees Julia (Zawe Ashton) enlist her friend Selina (Freida Pinto) in a scheme to get revenge on eligible bachelor Mr. Malcolm after Julia failed to meet an item on his criteria for a bride. You won’t be surprised by who ends up with each other, but there’s a ton of fun in watching it unfold. It’s a consistently hilarious film, shored up by charming performances that serve the tender…

★★★★ OUT 26 AUGUST / CERT TBC / 78 MINS DIRECTOR Nana Mensah CAST Nana Mensah, Meeko Gattuso, Oberon K.A. Adjepong If there’s any justice, Queen Of Glory will be a star-making directorial debut for writer/director/star Nana Mensah. With considerable poise, she plays Sarah, a doctoral student at Columbia University who inherits a Christian bookshop in the Bronx when her Ghanaian mother dies. This is a typically New York-indie kind of film — it’s beautifully shot on 35mm with an earthy palette — but Mensah’s empathetic touch makes everything feel lived-in. The film lightly explores the immigrant experience and questions of identity (Sarah organises both a traditional Ghanaian funeral and a “white people’s funeral”); what’s most impressive is the care she affords all her characters, from the ex-con co-worker in…

★★★ OUT 19 AUGUST / CERT TBC / 98 MINS DIRECTOR Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet CAST Anaïs Demoustier, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, Denis Podalydès, Anne Canovas Somewhere between a screwball heroine and a manic pixie dream girl, perpetual grad student Anaïs (Anaïs Demoustier) sets out to seduce Parisian intellectual Emilie (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) in Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet’s debut. Exploring the delights and pitfalls of living in the now on one’s own terms, this couldn’t be more French. But Bourgeois-Tacquet seeks to reclaim the jeune fille perspective from the likes of Éric Rohmer and Philippe Garrel in charting Anaïs’ breathless dash between eccentric encounters and whirlwind dalliances and weightier matters like an abortion and her mother’s cancer. The leads couldn’t be better, as Anaïs comes to realise that, for all her idiosyncracies and imperfections, she’s not…

★★ OUT NOW / CERT PG / 105 MINS DIRECTORS Jared Stern, Sam Levine CAST Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Kate McKinnon, John Krasinski, Keanu Reeves, Natasha Lyonne, Marc Maron PLOT When the Justice League is captured by evil guinea pig Lulu (McKinnon) and Lex Luthor (Maron), Superman’s equally superheroic pet dog Krypto (Johnson) must join forces with a team of newly superpowered orphan animals, including fellow pooch Ace (Hart) and a super-fast turtle named Merton McSnurtle (Lyonne). HERE IS THE logical next stop in the superhero cinema gold rush: a family-friendly cash-in. The ‘Legion Of Super-Pets’ was one of the lesser-known teams in DC comics, which since 1962 included such bizarre characters as Beppo the Super-Monkey, Detective Chimp and the Bat-Cow; sadly none of those characters appear in this very…

★★ OUT NOW / CERT 15 125 MINS DIRECTOR Olivia Newman CAST Daisy Edgar-Jones, Taylor John Smith, Harris Dickinson, David Strathairn PLOT Kya Clark (Edgar-Jones) is a reclusive outsider, living alone and raising herself in the marshes of 1960s North Carolina after being abandoned by her entire family. When a man she was previously involved with dies mysteriously, she is suspected of his murder. TRANSLATING A MUCH-loved novel to the big screen is always a tricky task. With Delia Owens’ Where The Crawdads Sing, which has sold more than 12 million copies to date, the audience is big and the expectations are high. This cinematic version, produced by Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine, unfortunately doesn’t succeed in meeting them. Daisy Edgar-Jones, a star on the rise after her incredible performance in…

★★★★ OUT 5 AUGUST (NETFLIX) / EPISODES VIEWED 6 OF 10 SHOWRUNNER Allan Heinberg CAST Tom Sturridge, Gwendoline Christie, Vivienne Acheampong, Boyd Holbrook, Charles Dance, Asim Chaudhry, Sanjeev Bhaskar PLOT The Lord of Dreams, Morpheus (Sturridge), captured by an evil wizard a century ago, is freed into the modern world. While away, his kingdom has fallen into ruin and the dreams and nightmares he once presided over have been set loose in the waking world of mortal men. To reclaim his power, Morpheus must not only travel to Hell and back, but find hope in humanity once again. AS FAR AS comic books are concerned, there is nothing quite like Neil Gaiman’s Sandman saga, a 75-issue, sprawling, dark fantasy epic considered the best of what the medium can be. For…

★★★ OUT NOW (NETFLIX) / EPISODES VIEWED 4 OF 8 SHOWRUNNER Andrew Dabb CAST Ella Balinska, Lance Reddick, Tamara Smart This latest adaptation of the long-running zombie video-game franchise is still firmly in ‘guilty pleasure’ territory, but there is fun to be had from its signature trashy approach. Unlike the Paul W.S. Anderson films or the recent big-screen reboot, this series is both pre- and post-apocalyptic, depicting the lead-up to the T-virus outbreak in 2022, and its dystopian aftermath in 2036. The earlier timeline is less engaging, playing like a high-school soap (Zoomer zombies!), but even with some occasionally shoddy CGI, it’s not short on ambitious imagery and gleeful gore. While it won’t quite fill the void left by The Walking Dead’s exit this year, this is still an enjoyably…

PADDY CONSIDINE CAN’T BELIEVE WHERE HE’S SITTING. For the very first time, the Burton-upon-Trent-born actor has just parked his rear end on what is arguably the most recognisable chair in popular culture. Forged from more than a thousand swords of Aegon the Conqueror’s vanquished foes, it is the deliberately uncomfortable seat of power for the King of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men. Namely, the Iron Throne, for which many a deadly game has been played, many a bloody battle fought. Director/showrunner Miguel Sapochnik trots up the seven steps to join him on his lofty plinth. “How does it feel?” he asks. “This is great!” grins Considine, bewigged in platinum blond as King Viserys Targaryen, the First of His Name. “I never imagined in a million years I’d…

SCOTT ADKINS HAS SMASHED HIS BODY AGAINSTCONCRETE AND SPLINTERED HIS SHINS. He’s drop-kicked men on moving motorcycles, twisted his back unleashing outrageous flips, and given as good as he’s got in punishing fist-fights (and we do mean punishing, considering he once accidentally ripped Dolph Lundgren’s bicep tendon clean from the bone). He regularly spends nights awake, too sore from shooting action sequences to sleep, with hours ticking until it’s time to wake up and do it all again. “And all that has been the easy part,” he grins, before vaulting over a park bench to the gasps of nearby dog-walkers. It’s a sunny day in Sutton Coldfield, the Midlands town the cult hero calls home, where our Empire photo shoot is drawing intrigued looks. “Who’s that?” one passer-by enquires. “Scott…

EVENT HORIZON HAS a whopping 29 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes. Why, then, is a four-page interview about an unalloyed stinker leading this section, some 25 years after its release? Well, less of the “unalloyed” for a start. Event Horizon won’t be the first movie that critics were wrong about, and it won’t be the last. (For the record, this magazine gave it three stars back in 1997; by comparison to most reviews of it, that’s a rave.) Paul W.S. Anderson’s (he was just Paul Anderson back then) sci-fi horror, about a spaceship crew who venture onto the mysteriously abandoned eponymous spacecraft and come face-to-face with a malevolent force that may or may not be straight from Hell itself, was battered upon its release, but from the off won over…

Inside Out CHRISTOPHER NOLAN ONCE announced a film “set within the architecture of the mind”; Pete Docter could have described his extraordinary Inside Out in similar terms, and delivers more literally on the promise. A story focused on the competing emotions inside an 11-year-old girl’s head as she faces the greatest challenge of her young life, this is a metaphor extended to feature length and somehow, magically, able to sustain itself. It came, as so many of the best films do, from a personal conundrum. Docter started wondering what was going on inside his young daughter’s head as she approached adolescence and her personality shifted in ways he didn’t quite understand. Being an animation genius, what could have been an idle musing became the engine for a years-long storytelling odyssey.…

Pig Chosen by RACHEL McADAMS Rachel McAdams: “The scene where Nicolas Cage is talking to the restauranteur who does all the modern food. There’s such a kindness to it, but it was so unexpected. He’s playing this really gruff character, you feel like he’s turned his back on the world... And then you realise that he cares so deeply, it pains him so much to see how human beings sabotage themselves. There’s such a wealth of emotion in that scene, and to watch Nicolas Cage be like, ‘You guys think I only do this’ — it was a chef’s kiss.” INT. TRENDY RESTAURANT EURYDICE — DAY Rob’s (Cage) search for his abducted truffle pig has led him and his friend Amir (Alex Wolff) to restaurant Eurydice, at which he, face…

THIS MONTH’S FILM MOMENTS THAT MATTER CORIN HARDY’S CAREER as a director so far has been filled with all kinds of murderous mayhem. From child-snatching goblins in The Hallow to demonic sisters of the cloth in The Nun, Hardy has served up enough blood to keep Castle Dracula in business. So, when he sits back and reflects on the claret-soaked chaos he’s about to unleash in the second season of Gangs Of London, and then worries that he’s possibly gone too far, the mind fairly boggles. What the hell has he got in store this time? “I love blood,” laughs Hardy, sitting down with Empire in a London post-production house. “Blood is such an important colour to use in the canvas of action. You get this immediate reaction when you…

ON PAPER, The Wonder might seem like your standard period movie — bonnets, hardscrabble lives, Toby Jones with mutton chops. But Disobedience and Gloria Bell director Sebastián Lelio’s latest promises a bold new take on the costume drama. First of all, adapted from Room author Emma Donaghue’s 2016 novel, it has a crackerjack premise. In the 1850s, Lib (Florence Pugh), an English nurse, is summoned to an Irish village to preside over Anna O’Donnell (Kila Lord Cassidy), an 11-year-old girl who has survived without food for four months. Some view it as a medical anomaly, others see the girl as a miracle. “Lib arrives and, as a rationalist, thinks she’s going to uncover the hoax in ten minutes,” says Lelio, talking to Empire in-between final mixing sessions. “She becomes more…

ASIDE FROM ITS huge influence on (and appearances in) Stranger Things, the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons has never played well on the screen. There was that cheesy ’80s kids cartoon, then in 2000 the eponymous big-screen box-office flop. And let’s not even get started on the straight-to-DVD films that followed. Writer-directing duo John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein (whose last film was, appropriately, Game Night) are well aware of all this. “We take it as a challenge,” says Goldstein. “In some ways it’s a good thing, because people come in with low expectations and we get a chance to knock their socks off.” Daley and Goldstein both know and love D&D. Goldstein was “an early adopter” who, like Elliott in E.T., insisted on joining his big brother’s games…

[ TREND REPORT] CHIEF INSPECTOR BYERS DERRY GIRLS The final season of the Troubles-set comedy sees Neeson bite off more than he can chew while interrogating the spunky, outspoken girls (and the wee English fella). HIMSELF ATLANTA In a surreal scene, Neeson addresses the controversial comments he made during a real-life 2019 press interview. As if that wasn’t enough, his exchange with Paper Boi (Brian Tyree Henry) is in a bar called Cancel Club. QUI-GON JINN OBI-WAN KENOBI Neeson’s Qui-Gon Jinn appears in ghostly form for a quick chat. It’s a sweet moment between him and Ewan McGregor, who hadn’t shared the screen since 1999’s The Phantom Menace. The Force stayed strong in these two, it’s safe to say.…

IT’S A FAITHFUL REMAKE Produced by and starring Hindi megastar Aamir Khan, who bought the rights to the original Forrest Gump from Paramount, Laal Singh Chaddha directly adapts Robert Zemeckis’ Oscar-winning 1994 hit. In fact, many sequences are essentially a shot-for-shot remake, such as the famous “Run, Forrest, run!” scene (here translated as “Run, Laal, run!”). IT FOLDS IN INDIAN CULTURE Remember, “Life is like a box of chocolates”? Here, it’s, “Life is like a box of golgappas”. And instead of Forrest’s baseball cap, Laal wears a turban. While it stays largely true to the original, this is also fundamentally an Indian film, with Laal on the frontline at key points in the country’s turbulent recent history. IT WAS A HUGE PRODUCTION Just as Forrest ran across America, so Laal…

FREE TICKETS FOR REDHEADS During the UK’s hottest ever two-day heatwave this July, Showcase cinemas offered free tickets to redheaded customers, who are more sensitive to high temperatures. Who needs sunscreen when you’ve got the big screen? GLOW CONES Like your ice cream with a dose of riboflavin? In 2014, a cinema-friendly (or not) glow-in-the-dark ice cream that omitted a B2-powered yellow glow was unleashed. With the aftermath looking like a Minion had exploded in your mouth, the jury’s still out on this glacée gimmick. TINY TICKETS FOR BIG MARVEL FANS What is this, a movie ticket for ants? Well, yes. For Ant-Man’s release, a series of online clues led fans to 100 miniature IMAX tickets around London, with winners seeing the film for free. The promotion didn’t extend to…

5 - 26 AUGUST BIG SCREEN. SMALL SCREEN. YOUR REVIEWS BIBLE STARTS HERE ★★★★★ EXCELLENT ★★★★ GOOD ★★★ OKAY ★★ POOR ★ AWFUL ★★★★★ OUT 12 AUGUST / CERT 15 131 MINS DIRECTOR Jordan Peele CAST Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun, Michael Wincott PLOT Siblings OJ (Kaluuya) and Emerald Haywood (Palmer) inherit a Californian horse ranch from their industry-legend father. One day, they glimpse a mysterious object lingering in the sky above their abode. Attempting to capture the mystery on film, the two make horrific discoveries about the phenomenon’s true nature. IT’S OFTEN SAID that showbiz can eat you alive. Jordan Peele’s third film runs with that metaphor further than anyone might have expected. For his latest sci-fi horror, Peele characterises the film industry as a ruthless beast, and…

★★★ OUT 19 AUGUST / CERT 15 / 105 MINS DIRECTOR Jono McLeod PARTICIPANTS Alan Cumming, Lulu, Clare Grogan, Joe McFadden Headline-making deception lies at the heart of Jono McLeod’s mixed-media documentary. The film follows Brandon Lee, McLeod’s high-school peer, whose real identity shocks the world. Told via interviews with former students, Daria-style animation and a performance from Alan Cumming, who lip-syncs an interview with Lee, McLeod intricately presents the fabric of school life in the early ’90s, choosing to focus on the impact that Lee had on the people he met rather than any broader questions of his betrayal. Taking a light, comic tone distracts from the story’s power, as does the the sense of era nostalgia, but this is still a deeply personal and thorough study of a…

★★★★ OUT NOW / CERT TBC / 93 MINS DIRECTOR Sara Dosa CAST Miranda July, Katia Krafft, Maurice Krafft The story of Maurice and Katia Krafft is volcanic in every possible way. Their life together was one of love and adventure, as the French couple — perhaps the globe’s only partnered volcanologists — devoted themselves to discovering the most dangerous parts of the natural world in order to learn to love it a bit more. Writer-director Sara Dosa turns the Kraffts’ archival footage into a fairy tale, partly by enlisting actor Miranda July as narrator; her voice is so tender, the whole thing feels like magic. Maurice and Katia filmed all of their discoveries, and each other, in order to remember, worried that, he says, “the spectacle could vanish”. With…

★★★ OUT 19 AUGUST / CERT 18 / 93 MINS DIRECTOR Lee Haven Jones CAST Annes Elwy, Nia Roberts, Julian Lewis Jones, Steffan Cennydd Like The Wicker Man or Midsommar, The Feast — performed entirely in Welsh — takes an idyllic pastoral setting and contrasts it against a spot of violent eco-horror. But director Lee Haven Jones takes his time getting there, first establishing a curious ensemble through static camerawork and some foreboding tranquillity. Annes Elwy plays a young woman hired to help out at a dinner party held at the country pad of a Welsh MP who’s hoping to make a deal with a local landowner. Where it’s going isn’t clear at first, but some eye-catching imagery — awoman voyeuristically watches a naked man shave his pubes in one…

★★ OUT 12 AUGUST / CERT 15 / 108 MINS DIRECTOR Martin Bourboulon CAST Romain Duris, Emma Mackey, Pierre Deladonchamps “Life taught me to avoid surprises,” Romain Duris’ Gustave Eiffel says when showcasing the model of his iconic tower to investors, demonstrating pioneering plans to safeguard it against the elements. Unfortunately, lack of invention is exactly the problem with Eiffel. This is a semi-fictional, “freely inspired by a true story” telling of the French monument’s conception, construction and the romantic connection threaded through Eiffel’s life that (the film supposes) inspired it. Emma Mackey’s luminous in her first French-speaking role as long-lost love Adrienne, but vastly underused, and her surplus of charisma can’t make up for Duris’ dearth of it. Despite some lovely cinematography, this is a forgettable forbidden love affair.…

★★★★ OUT NOW / CERT 12A 119 MINUTES DIRECTOR Taika Waititi CAST Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale, Tessa Thompson, Taika Waititi, Chris Pratt, Russell Crowe PLOT Now gadding about with the Guardians Of The Galaxy, Thor (Hemsworth) is back in ‘God-bod’ mode. But he’s wrestling with a midlife crisis — not helped by the fact that villain Gorr The God Butcher (Bale) is living up to his name, or that old flame Jane Foster (Portman) has shown up with his old hammer Mjolnir and going by ‘The Mighty Thor’. SUPERHERO MOVIES ARE like guitar solos. They can be a bit noodly, and tend to go on a little too long — but when they’re done just right they absolutely soar, imbued with the kind of joy and wild abandon…

★★★★ OUT 26 AUGUST / CERT TBC / 90 MINS DIRECTOR Charles Officer CAST Saul Williams, Ronnie Rowe, Thamela Mpumlwana, Vic Mensa The opening titles of this intriguing crime thriller — archive footage and newspaper headlines, evoking the history of Jamaica from colonialism to gang violence — perfectly cue up a sensitive exploration of how young men get swept up into a life of crime. Saul Williams is a magnetic presence as Akilla, a conflicted C​anadian drug-dealer who takes under his wing a teen stick-up kid who tried to rob him. Flashbacks to a teenage Akilla cement the theme of generational violence. It sometimes veers into didactic territory, but it’s handsomely shot and powerfully executed. As his mother explains, Akilla’s father is a “product of people torn apart by poverty,…

★★★★★ OUT NOW (NETFLIX) / EPISODES VIEWED 9 OF 13 SHOWRUNNER Peter Gould CAST Bob Odenkirk, Rhea Seehorn, Jonathan Banks, Giancarlo Esposito, Patrick Fabian, Michael Mando, Tony Dalton PLOT As public defender Jimmy (Odenkirk) completes his transformation into dodgy lawyer-for-hire Saul, his wife Kim (Seehorn) hatches a plan to ruin former colleague Howard (Fabian). Meanwhile, poor Nacho (Mando) takes the blame for the raid on Lalo (Dalton), who pretends to be dead so he can plot his revenge on Gus (Esposito). BETTER CALL SAUL loves a disorienting cold open. A couple of elderly cyclists in shell-suits riding round their neighbourhood complaining about the gaudy red colour of a newly painted house. A steady pan across a scrubby wilderness alighting on a seemingly random bit of weed, and a bloody sliver…

★★★★ OUT NOW (APPLE TV+) EPISODES VIEWED 6 OF 6 SHOWRUNNER Dennis Lehane CAST Taron Egerton, Paul Walter Hauser, Ray Liotta, Greg Kinnear, Sepideh Moafi PLOT Chicago, 1996. Drug trafficker Jimmy Keene (Egerton) faces a ten-year prison sentence. Then the FBI approaches him with a strange offer: transfer to a maximum-security prison for the “criminally insane”, gather evidence to finally quash the appeal of suspected serial killer Larry Hall (Hauser), and Jimmy can earn his freedom. IF OUR RAVENOUS, almost Victorian appetite for true-crime stories must be sated, we might as well get someone like Dennis Lehane to tell them. The author-turned-screenwriter has repeatedly proven his talent for mystery and crime fiction, channelled into collaborations with the likes of Martin Scorsese (Shutter Island) and David Simon (The Wire) — and…

As first impressions go, Cassian Andor’s was certainly memorable. When we meet the rebel spy (played by Mexican actor Diego Luna) ten minutes into 2016’s Rogue One, he’s collecting vital intelligence from a fellow anti-Imperial informant. Within seconds, the pair are surrounded by stormtroopers, and the informant's broken arm means escape will prove doubly difficult. But this is — as the film’s subtitle says — A Star Wars Story. So, surely, Cassian will do what all Star Wars heroes do: conjure a cunning plan to spirit him and his injured teammate to safety. Not so much. Without even blinking, our protagonist raises his blaster and coolly executes his companion, before fleeing to transmit the intel. Alone. The casual murder of colleagues is something we might expect from the Empire. But…

IN A CAREER lasting 46 years and ten films, Terence Davies has made hypnotic, deeply personal meditations featuring people who don’t feel at ease in the world or with themselves. “I’ve always been on the outside looking in,” he begins. “When you are a child, you are not aware of it, you just do it. I just listened all the time. But what it does, of course, is it isolates you. You grew up an observer and, to that extent, I have never lived a life fulfilled.” While he is still preoccupied with guilt, shame and introspection. there has been a change in the MO by which the 76-year-old Liverpudlian filmmaker has picked at his psychic scars. The first three films — The Terence Davies Trilogy, Distant Voices, Still Lives…

The films of Sam Raimi Chris: Sam Raimi is my favourite director of all time. He may or may not have made my favourite film of all time. Where do you stand on Raimi? When did you first get into his films? Dan: For me it was Army Of Darkness. I quickly got to Evil Dead II from that. But I just loved Army Of Darkness because it was funny, and had fantasy stuff in it. Helen: I have almost precisely the same story. I had heard of the Evil Deads but hadn’t watched them. I got into Army Of Darkness because I had a friend at uni who adored that as much as he hated the others. Ben: For me, it was Spider-Man. Then later in life, I had…

THE SWIMMER OUT 29 AUGUST / CERT PG / 95 MINS An enigmatic, poetic, disturbing 1968 fable from a John Cheever story, this has Burt Lancaster, naked but for trunks, ‘swimming home’ via a river of backyard pools. With each pool, he encounters different people from his past… and the apparent perfection expected at the swim’s end seems more in doubt. It’s a memorable premise and sets up a series of elliptical scenes that drop hints about the state of things without saying anything. Lancaster shows off his ageing but impressive physique and crawls inside his cracking-up character. Director Frank Perry — assisted by an uncredited Sydney Pollack — finds sylvan beauties and suburban crassness along the way, leading to an oblique but powerful homecoming finish. KIM NEWMAN INDIANA JONES…

PETER FARRELLY IS not, he is at pains to point out, Rob Reiner. Farrelly, whose new war drama The Greatest Beer Run Ever arrives in the wake of his Oscar-winning Green Book, hails the versatility of Reiner, a director whose first four films, from Stand By Me to The Princess Bride, proved that he could take on any genre. “We just did a series of comedies, as those were the ideas that came to us,” he says of his and his brother Bobby’s body of work, which includes There’s Something About Mary and Dumb And Dumber. Yet the past four years have seen Farrelly pivot into the “anything’’ category. Green Book — a1960s-set true story about racial tension in the Deep South — won Best Picture and Best Screenplay at…

Ben Travis (Deputy Online Editor): I’m quite excited about this film. I’m always going to have an affection for Jay and Silent Bob and the View Askewniverse stuff. And the Dante and Randall stuff tends to be a bit more emotionally grounded. Alex Godfrey (Features Editor): I have less hopeful thoughts about this film. James Dyer (Digital Editor-In-Chief ): Did you like Clerks II, Alex? Alex: As a man of a certain age, I was obsessed with Clerks. It was like bottled lightning. Smith maxed out his credit cards to get the film made, and it had this incredible energy to it. It never warranted a bigger-budget sequels. Beth Webb (News Editor): There’s a Kevin Smith toilet at the Prince Charles Cinema in London. Ben: What does this involve? Beth:…

MAVERICK WENT STRATOSPHERIC Soaring into the $1 billion box-office club, a first for a Tom Cruise blockbuster, Top Gun: Maverick topped its iconic predecessor and exceeded all expectations. “This was exactly the kind of movie that reminded people why the cinematic experience can’t be replicated at home,” says box-office analyst Shawn Robbins. “The promise of real-world, practical action sequences added to its zeitgeist-capturing aura.” Those gravity-defying stunts, potent camaraderie from not just Cruise but a young, action-thirsty ensemble of supporting actors, plus satisfying emotional pay-offs, proved that it wasn’t speed we needed, but Maverick. AN INDIAN EPIC HIT BIG S.S. Rajamouli’s ‘Tollywood’ (Indian Telugu-language) epic RRR is one of the summer’s biggest success stories. Replete with pumped-up spectacle, including motorcycles used as weapons and a punch-up with a tiger, RRR…

IT’LL TAKE YOU TO ANOTHER PLANET “You’ve done well. Now rest. But don’t rest for too long,” Martin Scorsese warned Bong Joon-ho following his 2019 Oscar sweep. He didn’t need to worry, because the South Korean filmmaker is about to embark on what might be his most ambitious venture yet, an interplanetary adventure based on Edward Ashton’s 2022 novel Mickey7. The film — set to shoot soon at London’s Leavesden Studios — is partly set on a frozen world (think Snowpiercer but, well, snowier) that humankind hopes to colonise. IT STARS ROBERT PATTINSON(S) IN CLONE FORM Joining Bong alum Steven Yeun, Toni Collette and Mark Ruffalo on the film, Pattinson plays Mickey7, the sixth clone of a man named Mickey who has signed up for high-risk missions on the understanding…

IF YOU LOVED...THE BOYS TIMELESS (NETFLIX) The Boys creator Eric Kripke has an extraordinary CV of TV sci-fi/fantasy series, from 15 seasons of Supernatural to the post-apocalyptic Revolution in 2012. This time-travel escapade he co-created in 2016 aired on E4 without much fanfare, and is unusual in the Kripke oeuvre for having a female lead. Abigail Spencer plays a history professor in charge of the team trying to track down a stolen time machine invented by an Elon Musk-ish tech billionaire, delightfully played by Peep Show’s Paterson Joseph. Each week features a fun trip to a different time period, but the show lasted for only two seasons. POWERS (iTUNES/PRIME VIDEO) There have been many superhero-themed TV series in recent years, but this slightly obscure one from 2015 is the closest…

IF KAMALA KHAN could have watched the Ms. Marvel finale, she’d have freaked out. Because, being the biggest MCU fan there is (albeit one who literally exists within the MCU), she would have been the prime target for its double-whammy of revelations. First came the news that Kamala’s (Iman Vellani) friend Bruno (Matt Lintz) had found an oddity in her DNA — in his words, a “mutation” (accompanied by a musical flourish of the old X-Men animated series theme). Then, in a mid-credits sting, came a cameo from Kamala’s idol, Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel (aka Carol Danvers) — who appeared suddenly in Khan’s bedroom just as our young hero is sucked into her wardrobe. Have they somehow switched places, bringing Carol back to Earth and sending Kamala to who-knows-where? Or,…

★★★ OUT NOW / CERT 15 94 MINS DIRECTOR Emer Reynolds CAST Olivia Colman, Charlie Reid, Lochlann Ó Mearáin PLOT Running away from his alcoholic gambling father, a young Irish boy named Mully (Reid) steals a taxi — only to find a mother (Colman) and her newborn baby both sleeping in the back seat. An unlikely road trip ensues. YOU MIGHT THINK you have Joyride figured out. From the outset, this Irish comedy-drama seems to promise schmaltzy feelgood fun, a witty crowdpleaser in the Richard Curtis tradition. The first scene offers a cheesy pub singalong; its screwball comedy premise — an envelope of stolen charity money; a boy trying to escape his father; a mismatched road trip with a woman, a boy and a baby — is then breathlessly established…

★★ OUT NOW (NETFLIX) CERT PG / 109 MINS DIRECTOR Carrie Cracknell CAST Dakota Johnson, Cosmo Jarvis, Henry Golding, Richard E. Grant, Nikki Amuka-Bird PLOT Based on the 1817 novel by Jane Austen, Anne Elliot (Johnson) is still struggling to accept the end of her relationship with Frederick Wentworth (Jarvis). Now faced with his return, Anne must navigate the advances of her handsome cousin (Golding) or hold out for her old flame. ONE OF MANY fabrications of Netflix’s take on Persuasion is a scene in which our heroine, Anne Elliot (Dakota Johnson), describes a dream. In it, Anne finds herself caught in the arms of an octopus before realising that the tentacles belong to her — that she is “sucking my own face”. One wonders if such a phrase would…

★★★★ OUT NOW (NETFLIX) / CERT 15 / 120 MINS DIRECTORS Joe Russo, Anthony Russo CAST Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Jessica Henwick, Regé-Jean Page, Billy Bob Thornton PLOT When a CIA assassin known by the codename Sierra Six (Gosling) — aka ‘the Gray Man’ — learns troubling information on a mission, he goes on the run. His superiors send ruthless contractor Lloyd Hansen (Evans) to hunt him down. A deadly global cat-and-mouse chase ensues. AFTER THE MISSHAPEN but fascinating left-turn of their last film, Cherry, Joe and Anthony Russo are back with a bang — several, in fact, all loud and expensive-looking. The directing brothers responsible for the remarkable one-two punch of Infinity War and Endgame return to blockbuster cinema in fine fettle with this assured, energetic,…

★★★★ OUT 5 AUGUST / CERT TBC / 82 MINS DIRECTOR Sarah Beddington CAST Fadia Loubani, Sarah Beddington This is a documentary 15 years in the making, a journey that began when a Palestinian refugee named Fadia turned to filmmaker Sarah Beddington in a Beirut cafe and asked her the deceptively simple question, “Are you happy?” This chance encounter triggered a thoughtful exploration of what it means to have a home in the middle of the world's most intractable conflict, with a lost mulberry tree that sat opposite Fadia’s family home — spoken of in whispered, almost mythical tones — as a profound symbol for that idea of home. Title screens occasionally set the political context, but what’s more powerful about this film are the quiet moments of visual poetry:…

★★★ OUT 19 AUGUST / CERT TBC / 108 MINS DIRECTOR Christopher Nelius PARTICIPANTS Jolene Smith, Jorja Smith Harmon, Jodie Cooper Flitting between archive footage and modern-day interviews, Australian filmmaker Christopher Nelius’ sports documentary is a sobering tale of historical and systemic sexism and homophobia in the surfing community. It’s a chilling exposé, but Nelius allows the female surfers’ passion for the sport, and their eternal zest for life, to shine through. It’s a bittersweet documentary, and while at times formulaic in its filmmaking techniques, the way it tells these stories first-hand is worthy of praise. A simultaneous celebration and subversion of popular surfing culture, it makes for a dynamic cinematic experience, featuring waves, skylines and punk rock — while always foregrounding the sport’s unsung heroes: women and women only.…

★★★ OUT NOW (CINEMAS) / 5 AUGUST (PRIME VIDEO) CERT TBC / TBC MINS DIRECTOR Ron Howard CAST Viggo Mortensen, Colin Farrell, Joel Edgerton PLOT Thailand, June 2018. The Wild Boars junior football team and their coach (Teeradon Supapunpinyo) go missing while exploring caves. When the Royal Thai Navy SEALs rescue mission fails, an expedition led by British cave-divers Richard Stanton (Mortensen) and John Volanthen (Farrell) offers one last hope. IN A DIRECTING career that kick-started with Tom Hanks falling in love with a fish (Splash), Ron Howard’s interests have gravitated more recently towards true-life stories, both in his dramas (Frost/Nixon, Rush, Hillbilly Elegy) and in his newfound predilection for documentary (portraits of The Beatles and Pavarotti, plus Rebuilding Paradise and We Feed People, two films documenting very different disasters).…

★★★ OUT 12 AUGUST / CERT TBC / 96 MINS DIRECTORS Robert Coe, Warwick Ross PARTICIPANTS Joseph Dhafana, Marlvin Gwese, Tinashe Nyamudoka “It’s like Egypt putting together a team of skiers in the Winter Olympics.” This quote from a wine expert neatly sets up the premise of this charming doc: essentially Cool Runnings, but with wine. A group of Zimbabwean refugees enter the country’s first team at the ‘Olympics of wine tasting’ — where they must blindly identify the grape, country, region, producer and vintage of 12 mystery wines. It plays like a sports movie, with training montages, emotional backstories and a tense, competitive final act. The filmmaking is low-key, almost to a fault — but the stories of the four sommeliers maintains attention, shattering the old-fashioned stuffiness of the…

★★ OUT NOW (PRIME VIDEO) / EPISODES VIEWED 8 OF 8 SHOWRUNNER David DiGilio CAST Chris Pratt, Taylor Kitsch, Constance Wu A brawny, boring ‘thriller’ (in intent, if not execution), The Terminal List strips Chris Pratt of all his appealing qualities. All humour and self-awareness wrung out of him, he’s just another beefy action guy, bringing none of his movie-star charisma to a show that really needs it. Pratt plays James Reece, the head of a SEAL team who finds himself embroiled in a bizarre conspiracy after his team is decimated on a mission to kill a terrorist. But the plot is so simplistic, there’s really no challenge to following it. The far bigger challenge is maintaining any interest. If you enjoyed Jack Ryan and Reacher, this is the show the…

★★★★ OUT NOW (NETFLIX) / EPISODES VIEWED 2 OF 2 SHOWRUNNERS Ross Duffer, Matt Duffer CAST Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, David Harbour, Winona Ryder, Brett Gelman, Charlie Heaton, Natalia Dyer, Joe Keery, Noah Schnapp PLOT After the reveal of Vecna’s identity at the end of Volume 1, Eleven (Brown) prepares to push her newly regained powers to the limit, while Mike (Wolfhard) and Will (Schnapp) try to find her. The rest of the gang suit up for battle and devise a plan to return to the Upside Down and save Hawkins. AROUND 15 MINUTES into Chapter Eight, the first instalment in the mega double-feature-length Volume 2 of Stranger Things Season 4, we finally find out what Will was painting on that canvas he’s been carrying around. Don’t worry, we…

“THE MOST DISRESPECTED PERSON IN AMERICA IS THE BLACK WOMAN... The most unprotected person in America is the Black woman. The most neglected person in America is the Black woman.” Those are the words of Malcolm X, quoted to Empire by Gina Prince-Bythewood, director of Love & Basketball and The Old Guard. “He said that in the ’60s,” she tells us. “In terms of our industry, that’s still true today.” Perhaps after The Woman King — Prince-Bythewood’s biggest, most ambitious movie yet — that may be less true of tomorrow. Films centred around Black women have historically been the hardest to make in Hollywood. However, (very) slowly but surely, times are changing. In part, that’s thanks to the Black Lives Matter movement, which has forced studios to think a little…

“HOLD ON TO YOUR butts.” Backlit by electric blue, Jurassic Park’s chief engineer Ray Arnold shuts down the system, talking around the cigarette eternally dangling from his mouth. As disaster unfolds, he’s not terrified but annoyed, as if he’s seen all this shit before. He offers to journey to the other side of the compound to reset the power like he’s just making a run down the street to pick up smokes. We don’t see him again after that — or at least, not all of him — but Ray Arnold leaves an impression. Though it’s a small part, Samuel L. Jackson transforms it into one that feels lived in, his charisma already at full potency. On paper, “Hold on to your butts,” may not have been the screenplay’s best…

The Northman WHEN HE FIRST spoke to Empire about the film in 2021, director and co-writer Robert Eggers promised us that The Northman would be “a true epic” — and he certainly delivered. Inspired by the old Icelandic sagas, it is a muddy, bloody, brutal tale of revenge that frequently bludgeons all hell out of you. Here, Eggers unpacks his ferocious beast of a movie. A PSYCHEDELIC COMING-OF-AGE A few minutes into The Northman, the magnificently titled King Aurvandil War-Raven (Ethan Hawke) gifts his young son Amleth (Oscar Novak) a ritualistic journey into manhood, courtesy of royal jester Heimir (Willem Dafoe)… and the psychedelic plant henbane, which soon has them on all fours, barking like dogs, burping and farting. “That was a ritual that [Icelandic co-writer] Sjón invented, that we…

White Heat ACCORDING TO Warner Bros.’ publicity spiel of the time, there are 260 scenes in Raoul Walsh’s 1949 White Heat. But there is only one moment that has lodged itself in the pop-culture Hall Of Fame. At the film’s climax, psychotic hoodlum Arthur ‘Cody’ Jarrett (James Cagney) is crouched atop a gas-storage tank, surrounded by the police. Wounded by a blaze of bullets, Jarrett staggers around the platform, giggling and shrieking. The oil refinery starts to explode around him, but rather than cower, Jarrett stands up and shouts, “Made it, Ma! Top of the world!” A howl into the void, the line was later voted as the 18th-greatest movie quote by the American Film Institute. “Made it, Ma! Top of the world!” — it’s often misquoted as, “Top of…