Category: Comedy

Johnny English Strikes Again

Rated: PGJohnny English Strikes Again

Directed by: David Kerr

Written by: William Davies

Produced by: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Chris Clark

Starring: Rowan Atkinson, Ben Miller, Olga Kurylenko, Jake Lacy and Emma Thompson.

Rowan Atkinson returns as MI7 super-spy Johnny English in this third instalment of the series, Johnny English Strikes Again.

Now in retirement, he works as a geography teacher while secretly (always undercover) training new recruits in all things Intelligence, from camouflage, to late-night capture drills including man-traps (that he inevitably falls into), and the subtleties (or not so subtle) seduction techniques needed by all British spies worth their salt.

When MI7 is hacked and all the secret service agents are blown, the Prime Minister (Emma Thompson) already with her hands full running the country with a glass of red in hand, brings back agents from retirement to help find who’s behind the cyber-attacks.

English and Co.’s total lack of digital-savvy is pointed out by ever-loyal side-kick Bough (Ben Miller) as an (accidental) advantage when supervillains plan on taking over the world using technology – ‘I am Sander, I love data’, says the device held by tech-giant, Jason (Jake Lacy) – indeed.

Although the ever-persistent bumbling idiot, Johnny can still drive an Aston Martin and power-up magnetic boots when required – the villains ‘have to get up pretty early to outwit British Intelligence’.

Olga Kurylenko as the too-beautiful-to-be-bad Ophelia does well to keep a straight face.

This is a feature-film debut for director David Kerr, and this is certainly the best Johnny English so far. The material from writer William Davies and the surprising amount of attention to detail gives the film clever humour as well as being silly.

‘Oh look!  Sweeties!’ exclaims Bough when Johnny reveals a suitcase full of cotton-tip explosives, sherbet bombs with locating device and jelly teddies that blow your head off and the roof of the car if eaten.

And Rowan Atkinson is hilarious with his perfectly timed, subtle change in facial expression mixed with moments like the response to an obviously French waiter serving Champagne with, ‘Danke schön’.

It just tickles!

I was crying with laughter when Johnny was attacking the British public when accidently escaping a training compound with VR glasses on; the switching between the VR vision of him attacking an enemy to his covert behaviour in a bakery had me and my nephew in stitches.

I had a lot of fun watching this film with the constant asides (a selfie taken with the PM with the electronic, ‘needs photoshop’) that once tickled got me in hysterics with the more obvious, silly humour.

Teen Titans Go! To The Movies

Rated: PGTeen Titans Go! To The Movies

Directed by: Peter Rida Michail and Aaron Horvath

Screenplay by: Michael Jelenic & Aaron Horvath

Based on characters from: DC Comics

Produced by: Michael Jelenic, Aaron Horvath, Peter Rida Michail and Peggy Regan

Starring: Greg Cipes, Scott Menville, Khary Payton, Tara Strong and Hynden Walch with Will Arnett and Kristen Bell.

Teen Titans Go! To The Movies is filled with satire and exclamations in large-as-life bold capitalised statements of… Things!

Based on the characters from the animated TV series we have Robin (Scott Menville), forever the side-kick (of Batman) and his team of super-powered friends: Beast Boy (Greg Cipes), Cyborg (Khary Payton), Raven (Tara Strong) and Starfire (Hynden Walch).

But forever the joke of the super-hero community, their fart-jokes and constant breaking into song means they’ll never get a movie made about them – not like the Justice League:

‘Superman’s a national treasure!’

Even Alfred’s getting a film Coming Broom.

And the Bat-mobile.

And Batman’s utility belt.

So, the Titans embark on a mission to travel back in time to wipe out all the super-hero origins so they’ll be the only ones left to make a movie about.

There’s the importance of friends and loyalty and team, overcoming pride and ego to self-acceptance… bla, bla, bla…

But just when I thought the film was going to get cheesy and turn into a kid-musical, the teddy singing the super up-beat song about life, gets run over!

It’s not easy reviewing kid-animation; this is not my usual film to watch.  And I have to say first impressions of stari-eyed Starfire with her constant mangled sentences like, ‘that is more like the it’ and the classic-style animation got me yawning at times.

But what I also found was that I had a grin and was smirking with some laugh-out-loud moments – that catch phrase from Robin is hilarious: ‘Crack an egg on it: Ka Kaar!’

Dripping with sarcasm there were jokes for kids but also jokes for adults, ‘Kids, don’t forget to ask your parents where babies are made!’.

So, although I wasn’t blown away by the animation, I was amused at the jokes (some too mature for really young kids who had more fun laughing at fart jokes and the Titans imitating Lois Lane over the phone to superman) – and the plot came full circle as well.

It’s all about making fun of the super-hero genre – a welcome change while being surprisingly clever.

C’est La Vie

Rated: MC’est La Vie

Directed by: Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano

Written by: Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano

Produced by: Nicolas duval adassovsky, Yann Zenou, Laurent Zeitoun

Starring: Jean-Pierre Bacri, Jean-Paul Rouve, Eye Haidara, Benjamin Lavernhe,  Gilles Lellouche, Vincent Macaigne and Alban Ivanov.

What would you do if you were minutes away from serving main course to a wedding party of 200 guests and the food was ruined? While this would have to be any event planner’s worst nightmare, this is merely one of the catastrophes looming over the ‘sober, elegant, chic’ occasion that Pierre (Benjamin Lavernhe), the self-obsessed groom, has ordered for his special day.

C’est La Vie is a behind the scenes look at 24 hours in the life of wily, irascible wedding planner, Max Angeli (Jean-Pierre Bacri) and his unruly, uncooperative and inattentive staff as they attempt to orchestrate a 21st century wedding extravaganza in a 16th century château, complete with dodgy wiring.

If Max is to survive this reception with his reputation and his business intact, he will need to draw on 30 years of his of experience in the trade, but he has his own troubles too. His lover has insisted that he leave his wife and until she sees some action Josiane (Suzanne Clement) is brazenly pursuing one of the waiters. At the same time, Max is feeling so jaded that he is secretly negotiating the sale of his business. Or he would be, if only he could master the predictive text function on his phone. Unwittingly, Max has invited his buyer to, ‘come and lick me up’.

Much of the humour in this ensemble comedy derives from language wielded with the precision of a chef’s knife fileting the hapless creatures laid out on the cutting board; especially, the exquisitely barbed insults flying between the staff from the various departments—catering, music, photography, even lighting and special effects—as they each seem to vie to undermine the other. Filmed at the Château de Courances, the setting is breathtaking, while the subtle cadences of Avishai Cohen’s musical score add layers of texture to the slow burn of the script.

Contrary to the expectations set up by its publicity, this film does not follow the well-established Hollywood tradition where a series of disasters, each more cringe-making and improbable than the last, ramp up to a great, big, rousing finale.  While I heard several chuckles and a few belly laughs from the small audience during the pre-screening, the experience was more a smile in the dark than a roll about in the aisles kind of thing. Rather, this film plays with verisimilitude, relying on artful misdirection to produce something that is so deliciously absurd and quirky that it confounds expectation.

In a scene that does break with the sense of realism, two of the hopelessly distracted staff manage to lose the groom. Quite literally. And nobody, not even his bride, seems to mind. It is in this moment, when chaos threatens to ruin everything, the staff show that they have the single qualification that counts in their line of work. They know how to party. Under any circumstances.

As the bemused international crew observes, ‘The French, they’re really something else.’ And this comedy is quintessentially French, right down to its beautifully crafted, easy to read, subtitles.

Crazy Rich Asians

Directed by: Jon M. ChuCrazy Rich Asians

Screenplay by: Peter Chiarelli and Adele Lim

Based on the novel, ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ by: Kevin Kwan

Produced by: Nina Jacobson, p. g. a., Brad Simpson, p. g. a., Jong Penotti, p., g., a.,

Starring: Constance Wu, Henry Golding, Michelle Yeoh, Gemma Chan, Lisa Lu, Awkwafina, Harry Shum Jr., Ken Jeong, Sonoya Mizuno, Chris Pang, Jimmy O. Yang, Ronny Chieng, Remy Hii, Nico Santos, Jing Lusi, Carmen Soo, Pierre Png, Fiona Xie, Victoria Loke, Janice Koh, Amy J Cheng, Koh Chieng Mun, Calvin Wong, Tan Kheng Hua, Constance Lau, Selena Tan, Nevan Koit, Amanda Evans.

Like Rachel Chu’s (Constance Wu) ‘auspicious nose’ I’m feeling very lucky watching Crazy Rich Asians just before going on holiday to Singapore – but trust me, I’m flying economy!

Watching Crazy Rich Asians does make you feel glamorous and extravagant, thrown into the world of the superrich.  And not just rich, old money rich.

Rachel may be an NYU Economics professor, but she doesn’t know what she’s getting into when travelling from New York to Singapore to go to her boyfriend, Nick Young’s (Henry Golding) childhood friend’s wedding.  And to meet his family…  The family… The Youngs.

Like Rachel’s college friend, Peik Lin Goh (Awkwafina) says, Nick’s like the Asian Bachelor.

And when everyone realises that Rachel’s a Chu but not any Chu worth noting, the claws come out.

Nick’s family are posh and snobby: they’re ‘snoshy’.

To survive, Rachel needs to fight back to prove that love can conquer money.

There’re some great characters here with already mentioned college friend Peik explaining the Singapore world – that they think she’s a banana: yellow on the outside and white inside.  And Peik’s ‘new rich’ family are hilarious with Neenah Goh, AKA Aunty (Koh Chieng Mun) and hubby, Wye Mun Goh (Ken Jeong) and creepy single brother (Calvin Wong) lurking and talking photos at every opportunity.

Based on Kevin Kwan’s New York Times and international bestseller novel, I can see why the story’s so popular.

There’s humour, love, history, the difficulties of relationships – the trial of meeting Chinese-mum-knows-best Eleanor Young (Michelle Yeoh) and the matriarch and Grandmother Ah Ma (Lisa Lu) who knows better.  There’s the story of the beautiful and warm sister, Astrid Young Teo (Gemma Chan) trying to make her husband feel like a man.  And the story of a mother who had to fight and give up her own ambitions of a career for family.

So even with all the money and glitz the story is still relatable.

It’s just that beautiful mansions lit up like a fairy tale castle in the middle of the jungle and rare orchids blooming at night and crazy fashion with golden sparkly outfits and party ships in international waters and fireworks look like so much fun on the big screen.

Sure, it’s over the top.  But why not!

The film’s like a bejewelled party box with a heart-warming romance inside.

I had a lot of fun watching this movie to the extent I’m wondering if I’m becoming a romantic because Nick Young was just so gorgeous and polite and lovely and Rachel’s such a relatable, likeable character: I loved that they were in love.

And there’s more to this film than romance and, ‘love conquers all’, Crazy Rich Asians is also about integrity being worth far more than money.

The Spy Who Dumped Me

 

Rated: MA 15+The Spy Who Dumped Me

Directed by: Susanna Fogel

Written by: Susanna Fogel, David Iserson

Produced by: Brian Grazer, Erica Huggins, Guy Riedel

Starring: Kate McKinnon, Mila Kunis, Gillian Anderson, Justin Theroux, Sam Heughan, Hasan Minhaj.

 

Who do you trust when the person you thought you could trust, tells you to trust no-one? Not even the bartender who just served you a few hours ago or the naked man your best friend has brought home so she can teach him to, ‘use his passive aggressive masculinity for good rather than evil’.

The film opens in Vilnius, Lithuania with Audrey’s (Mila Kunis) boyfriend Drew (Justin Theroux) in a local market assembling a makeshift weapon with his woollen scarf and some eight balls, before he fights his way out, leaps from a tall building and speeds away on a conveniently located scooter. Audrey thinks he works in publicity, producing some kind of jazz and economics podcast that nobody listens to.

Back in Los Angeles it’s Audrey’s birthday and her uninhibited, attention-seeking best friend, Morgan (Kate McKinnon), is trying to cheer her up after Drew dumped her by text message. Not that dumping her was Drew’s real agenda.

From the moment Audrey takes over Drew’s mission to deliver his gold statuette to Verne in Vienna, she and Morgan find themselves on the run with nothing but their passports and the clothes they are wearing in a crazy chase across Europe with spies, assassins and double agents at every turn.

The Spy Who Dumped Me

The action is over the top and overwhelming, the script is dazzling, not a plot hole in sight, and the sound design ranges across the full palette from explosions and the ping of high-calibre bullets to the Czech version of Nancy Sinatra’s ‘These Boots are Made for Walkin’’, but the heart of the movie is the friendship between Morgan and Audrey. The innate trust they share is in complete contrast to the illusions and fabrications perpetrated by the spies all around them. Even the cheese fondue turns deadly when the spies in the ‘fancy café’ reveal themselves.

Despite lacking most of the basic qualifications required for a career in the international spying trade, Audrey is a terrible liar (she puts way too much detail into her stories) and Morgan cannot keep a secret from her mum (not even dick pics), the pair of accidental spies discover that they do have one of the skills that every spy must have; they have a natural talent for improvisation. A series of speed humps provide an effective way to remove that unwanted motorcycle assassin from the roof of their Uber and a craftily coordinated hugging style of mugging allows them to to lift the passports from two unsporting Australian backpackers when they won’t hand them over voluntarily.

But it is not until Drew’s counterpart in MI6 escorts the pair to headquarters that things begin to turn around. Against her best intentions, Audrey might be beginning to forgive the gorgeous secret agent (Sam Heughan) who introduced himself by kidnapping her. While Morgan is awe-struck from the moment she realises that she is in the presence of the Judy Dench of British Intelligence (Gillian Anderson), an austerely beautiful woman with the perfect sneer, who doesn’t need to sacrifice her femininity when she orders some of the most violent operatives in the world to do exactly as she tells them.

If your thing is wild action comedies where two unlikely women have it over them all, then you won’t want to miss them in the most impressive Scandinavian flick turn I have ever seen.

BlacKkKlansman

Rated: MA15+BlacKkKlansman

Director: Spike Lee

Written by: Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott, Spike Lee

Based on the Novel by: Ron Stallworth

Produced by:  Sean McKittrick, Jason Blum, Ray Mansflied, Jordan Peele, Spike Lee, Shaun Redick

Music by: Terence Blanchard

Starring: John David Washington, Adam Driver, Topher Grace, Corey Hawkins, Laura Harrier, Ryan Eggold, Jaspar Pääkkönen, Ashlie Atkinson.

Winner of the Grand Prix Award (Cannes Film Festival 2018)

Based on the true story written by Ron Stallworth, BlacKkKlansman is set in 70s America where the Civil Rights movement of African-Americans’ fight against oppression.

Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) has just landed a job at the Colorado Springs Police Department as the first African-American detective where he has to tolerate fellow cops calling African-Americans’, Toads.  To his face.

Asked to work undercover, Ron infiltrates The Black Student Alliance (AKA the Black Panthers), to bear witness to the words of Kwame Ture (Corey Hawkins) – a hint of the undercurrent and message of the film that unfolds under the careful direction of Spike Lee.

From the beginning, from the effect of showing words of film projected across the face of a Ku Klux Klan member (Alec Baldwin) as he’s making a propaganda film like so much red paint, like the words leave a curse of blood on his face; to the warmth of faces turned upwards in admiration of the words spoken by Kwame Ture at the Blank Panther rally, who wants the power to be fair and equal, to say black is beautiful; to say fuck the po-lice; to say, Boomshakalaka.

The audience is left in no doubt of the clear division between the white supremacists/KKK/general public and the African-Americans.

This is a political film. 

Yet the depth of the divide leaves plenty for the ridiculous and funny.

I couldn’t help but be tickled by the idea of a black cop pretending to be a white supremacist, asking to join the KKK over the phone.  To watch as the Klan’s Grand Wizard, David Duke (Topher Grace), is only too happy to help another member of the Klan, no not the Klan, the Organisation – and of course he’d be able to tell the difference if he was talking to a black man because they can’t pronounce their, ‘r’s’ properly?!

You can’t make this stuff up!

BlacKkKlansman

And there’s a cool vibe kicking with the funky-soul disco soundtrack (Terence Blanchard) and 70s red and orange outfits; the film embracing the times of the Mercury marauder, 70 Chrysler 300 and a well-shaped afro.

But there’s a strong undercurrent and message beneath the humour of this film; the rhetoric spewed by members of the Klan sounding all too familiar.

Ron’s partner in the infiltration of the Klan, Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver), is forced to deny being a Jew over and over when undercover.  He admits to Ron his heritage is something he’s never thought about before.  He’s always been just a white kid.   And then to deny, deny, deny, he’s forced to lie under threat of death by the KKK – it’s all he can think about. 

One could draw comparisons with the Denial of Peter.

The more I think about this film, the more there’s to be understood.

And the way Spike Lee has shown this layered true story, with eyes shining with warmth and conviction and others reflecting the hate of a burning cross, adds a distinctive visual layer drawing you in further.

Setting the film in the 70s lulls the mind into thinking all this hatred is something in our past, only to powerfully highlight this is a terror that continues in our present.

There’s a unique perspective and voice I feel like I haven’t heard before.  Sure, we all know history: the lynching’s, the slavery, the segregation.  But do we?  Really?

Being born in Australia, I can see we have our own history to face.  And our own present.

All I can ask is, are we going to let it happen again?

Re-counting the past from the lips of a survivor in the context of our present makes a powerful and thought-provoking film.

I feel like my eyes have been opened with a new understanding – the way the behaviour of racism looks on screen is so ridiculous it’s funny.  And very, very scary.

Dr. Knock

Rated: PGDr. Knock

Directed by: Lorraine Lévy

Based on the Play by: Jules Romain

Produced by: Olivier Delbosc, Marc Missonnier

Starring: Omar Sy, Alex Lutz, Ana Girardot, Sabine Azéma, Pascal Elbé, Audrey Dana.

 An adaptation of the famous French play written by Jules Romain, Knock ou le Triomphe de la médecine (1923), director Lorraine Lévy has brought the story forward in time to the 1950s and has replaced an older white gent with a tall and handsome black, Dr. Knock (Omar Sy). 

The play is a French favourite and I can see why: the setting a quaint village with its inhabitants fully formed characters that are both delightful, terrible and most importantly all know each other a little too well. 

Dr. Knock, although a stranger, arrives charming and smart and different, sweeping the villiagers off their feet. 

But I wasn’t always convinced of Dr. Knock’s good character. 

Knock, formally a gambler down-on-his-luck, finds fortune when escaping his debts by applying to be a doctor on board a ship, enthusiastically waving to his debtors as the ship departs.

He has found his calling.  After finishing his post, he takes himself to medical school to five years later fill the job of country GP in the beautiful provincial village of St-Maurice.

Conman-turned-GP, Dr. Knock plans on getting rich by making up as many illnesses and treatment plans as he can suggest to his willing patients.  

‘Healthy people are merely unaware sick ones,’ he exclaims to much agreement.

He has an uncanny ability to infect the healthy, explaining to a rich widow the cure for insomnia is to imagine a crab or giant spider eating away at her brain, while extending his fingers and dancing them in front of her eyes like spider legs.

His charm and business sense allow him reverence in the village, all the people thinking of him as a saint.  Except, ironically, the priest (Alex Lutz).

When meeting beautiful Adèle (Ana Girardot) it is the first time we see Knock lost for words and we begin to see the softer side of the man: she recognises him for who he truly is.  Yet the audience is still left to wonder: Is he a charlatan?  A doctor?  Or both?

The film is sweet and amusing with the slapstick humour of the French, alcoholic post office worker falling head first with his bicycle in the village fountain, included.

In the end, I was won over like the villagers as the film elevated above the usual human condition (and health issues!) into something more: you can’t make happiness happen, it just happens.  But you can try.

Funny Cow

Rated: MA15+Funny Cow

Directed by: Adrian Shergold

Written by: Tony Pitts

Produced by: Kevin Proctor, Mark Vennis

Composer: Richard Hawley

Starring: Maxine Peake, Paddy Considine, Stephen Graham, Tony Pitts, Alun Armstrong, Kevin Eldon, Christine Bottomley, Lindsey Coulson, Macy Shackleton, Hebe Beardsall, Kevin Rowland and Richard Hawley.

 

Seeing the title and hearing the song, Funny Cow, my reaction was defensive.  Being called a Funny Cow is not a compliment.

But growing up in Bradfield during the 80s, being called a Funny Cow is about the best a female comedian can hope for because, ‘unstable bitches aren’t tolerated in the pack’.

Opening to ‘Funny Cow’ (Maxine Peake) on stage, famous now, she reminisces about her past: her father (Stephen Graham) a great communicator with his fists; her mother (Christine Bottomley as younger mum, Lindsey Coulson as older mum), an alcoholic.

After sending her father off with a, ‘goodbye you miserable bastard’, she meets her husband, Bob (Tony Pitts), where the cycle starts all over again.

Sometimes life is so bad it’s funny.

The film follows Funny Cow through her life, surviving not because of a backbone but because of her funnybone.

Funny Cow

Funny Cow is raw, written by Tony Pitts (also starring) with truth and an extraordinary performance from Maxine Peake.  The times of the working men’s clubs during the 70s and 80s captured so well it felt like the story was based on an autobiography.

What makes the film so interesting is the poignant moments, to see behind the veil, to see the truth.

Being an outcast is tough.

Trying to be a female comedian, to stand-up in front of those audiences is even tougher, particularly when the threat of a broken nose is waiting for you at home.

Director Adrian Shergold pieces together a life over four decades.   Looking back the film shows Funny Cow walking past her younger self contrasting her new polished self, driving a red sports car, with the mud and poverty of her younger years: if only we could tell that young girl, the one we used to be, that everything will turn out okay.

We can be who we pretend to be and die, or we can hold onto the truth and live.  That’s the message I got.  Being able to laugh at life when it’s at its worst takes the bravest person.

The character, Funny Cow, is so relatable that I can say she’d be the last person to want to be an inspiration, describing herself as a monster.  Adding to the legend that all great comedians are depressives: to see life, to live it and see the truth of it and be able to share that truth with an audience takes talent.

But this isn’t a comedy.   Funny Cow is the journey taken to become a comedian, with all the good and bad shown with a rare honesty.

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

Rated: PGMamma Mia! Here We Go Again

Written and Directed by: Ol Parker

Based on the Original Musical Mamma Mia!

Story by: Richard Curtis and Ol Parker and Catherine Johnson

Based on the Songs of ABBA

Music and Lyrics by: Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus

Produced by: Judy Craymer, p.g.a., Gary Goetzman, p.g.a.

Starring: Christine Baranski, Pierce Brosnan, Dominic Cooper, Colin Firth, Andy Garcia, Lily James, Amanda Seyfried, Stellan Skarsgård, Julie Walters, with Cher and Meryl Streep.

 

Going to see a musical makes me brace myself like some people cringe at the thought of watching a gory horror – it didn’t help I attempted to watch the original Mamma Mia! The Movie (2008) recently and just couldn’t stand the enthusiasm of idiots for more than half an hour…

So, from the perspective of someone who doesn’t go for musicals, I found Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again a far more subtle version of the original with the humour based on the silly rather than the ridiculous.

Opening on the beautiful Greek island of Kalkairi, Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) has transformed her mother’s Hotel Bella Donna in preparation of a grand opening with views of an aqua sea, plantation blinds (that actually work) and a gentleman-manager: Señor Cienfuegos (Andy Garcia); the share of his niceties and fire bargained over, the final offer an 80/20 split between returning Dynamos, Tanya (Christine Baranski) and Rosie (Julie Walters).

But there’s a sadness that descends when Sophia is left without her Sky (Dominic Cooper also cast in a favourite series of mine, Preacher – talk about a different character!) who has a job offer in New York, the conflict reflected in the weather as rain falls, threatening to ruin the opening.

The film then follows threads back and forth between current day to 1979 where young and free Donna (Lily James) and best friends Tanya (Jessica Keenan Wynn) and Rosie (Alexa Davies) graduate from University.

There’s clever splicing and layers between the two times showing the young Donna as she meets Young Sam (Jeremy Irvine), Young Bill (Josh Dylan) and Young Harry (Hugh Skinner), to reveal what really happened with possible dad: one, two and three.

The film embraces the circle of life as fate turns from mother to daughter and all that brought their world together to fall apart to be brought back again all threaded together with the music of ABBA.

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

I found the songs here calmer and more melodic compared to the original soundtrack with tracks such as ‘Fernando’ (by Cher and Andy Garcia), ‘Andante, Andante’ (Lily James) and ‘My Love, My Life’ (Amanda Seyfried, Lily James and Meryl Streep).

But don’t worry disco fans, Cher still manages a grand gesture: frilled, fluffy-haired and freed into the spot-light with ‘Super Trouper’ (Cher, Meryl Streep, Christine Baranski, Julie Walters, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgård, Andy Garcia, Amanda Seyfried, Dominic Cooper, Lily James, Jessica Keenan Wynn, Alexa Davies, Josh Dylan, Jeremy Irvine and Hugh Skinner).

I’m just thankful the whole film wasn’t over-done like teens spliced with the older versions high on champagne and some hybrid of stimulant and steroid to beef up the screech of ridiculous in song!

Instead, Here We Go Again is kinda sweet (Lily James warm like sunshine reminding me of her role as Debora in Baby Driver (2017)) and funny with original Greek owner of the hotel, Sofia (Maria Vacratsis) commenting on young Sam’s wandering eye and restless groin.

And the harking back to young Harry’s virginal awkward days where he saw, ‘very little reason not to crack on’.

I admit I got caught up because I found the film able to take a crack at itself, to allow some of the enthusiasm to calm, to allow the charm and humour and silliness through like a village goat who gives chase through a grove of orange trees.

Not my style of film but I admit there were some laughs, and with a glass, a friend or partner (or piece of cake!), Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again is a good bit of fun with a few emotional bits, some singing and life decisions all mixed with the turquoise beauty of Greece.

Show Dogs

Rated: PGShow Dogs

Directed by:  Raja Gosnell

Screenplay by: Max Botkin and Marc Hyman

Produced by: Deepak Nayar and Philip Von Alvensleben

Co-Produced by: Paul Sarony

Executive Produced: by Tom Ortenberg, Nik Bower, Raja Gosnell, Max Botkin, Scott Lambert, Kassee Whiting, Yu-Fai Suen, Robert Norris, and Norman Merry

Starring: Will Arnett, Natasha Lyonne

Voiced by: Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Jordin Sparks, Stanley Tucci, Shaquille O’Neal,  Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias, Alan Cummings, RuPaul Persphone, Anders Holm, Kate Micucci and Blake Anderson.

It’s school holiday time which means it’s time for some silliness at the cinema.

Show Dogs is no exception complete with talking dogs including Max the NYPD Rottweiler loner police dog who’s, ‘Good at taking a bite out of crime.’

And his human partner, Federal Agent Frank Mosley (Will Arnett) who does his best to keep up with his four-legged friend without ‘mounting him’.

Puns proliferate as the dynamic duo search for baby panda Ling-Li stolen from his mother by an animal smuggling ring, to be sold at the Canini Invitational Dog Show in Las Vegas where all the glitz and glamour of the best dogs in the world are shown by the equally competitive and glitzy handlers.

To track the smugglers and find Ling-Li, garbage eater and proud toilet drinker Max must be entered into the competition by the clueless Frank.

Without help from special canine consultant Mattie Smith (Natasha Lyonne), a professional dog handler and groomer, along with a disgraced and abandoned aging Papillon, once known as ‘Philippe De Fabulous’ for being a three-time world champion Show Dog, the-one-who-bites (AKA, Max) and the-one-who-doesn’t-know-where-he’ll-be-bitten-next (FBI agent, Frank), doesn’t stand a chance.

Show Dogs

Director Raja Gosnell takes us back to the family-fun times of live-action movies, which is rare these days with most kid-movies’ animation.  So, I was expecting some big-time silliness escaping a dreary winter Sunday afternoon: talking dogs – tick!  Silly?  Not silly enough!

I realise I’m not the targeted audience but there was an undercurrent of serious in Show Dog, a holding back I didn’t expect.

I’m not saying the film wasn’t light-hearted, with dogs wearing sunglasses and pigeons getting, well, ‘pigeon bumps’.

But there was a forced moral to the story kinda thrown in with Max re-writing what it is to be a Show Dog while learning to trust people who see the world a different way.

Being such a fan of his character in Arrested Development I expected more humour from human Frank, played by Will Arnett.  Yet, he was more reserved here with the focus on the dog Max who wasn’t a funny character, more the, I-listen-to hip-hop, take-me-serious, character.

The humour didn’t always hit the mark but jez the panda was cute, and yes, I’m one of those people who don’t own a dog but get down to the dog park whenever I can to hang out and be entertained by their pure delight of running, smelling and fetching.  And the director here explains, “the only things we’re doing in post-production, in terms of the dog’s performance, is eyebrows and mouth and a few eye shapes. The rest is 100% the dog’s performance.”

Not my cup-of-tea but tolerable to take the kids for an outing.

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