Film reviews

Scarlett Johansson is blessed with superhuman strength in Lucy, Daniel Radcliffe and Zoe Kazan fall in love in the romantic comedy What If…, Mother Nature unleashes her fury in Into the Storm and Eric Bana comes face to face with dark forces in Deliver Us From Evil.

Film reviews

Scarlett Johansson is blessed with superhuman strength in Lucy, Daniel Radcliffe and Zoe Kazan fall in love in the romantic comedy What If…, Mother Nature unleashes her fury in Into the Storm and Eric Bana comes face to face with dark forces in Deliver Us From Evil.

Lucy

Derriere-numbingly long films may be all the rage but at a lean 89 minutes, Lucy, the new action thriller from Luc Besson, is all the better for bucking this Hollywood trend.

And with a kidnapping, killing sprees and questionable drugs thrown into the fray, there’s certainly enough in that hour and a half to halt you from slipping out of the cinema.

Lucy (Scarlett Johansson) is a carefree student living in Taiwan, who is tricked by her new boyfriend Richard into doing his dirty work and carrying a briefcase, jam-packed with potent new drugs, into a hotel for him.

But there’s no time for pleasantries here and before the concierge has greeted Lucy, Richard has been dispatched and Lucy is held hostage by the neighbourhood’s merciless mob of local drug lords headed up by the unsparing Mr Jang (Choi Min-sik).

Waking up, Lucy discovers that the mob has taken the liberty of surgically implanting thousand of pounds worth of a deadly blue drug, CPH4, which increases the user’s brain capacity, into her stomach.

In a deft twist to Johansson’s role as a human-like operating system in Spike Jonze’s Her, Lucy sees the actress’ voice take on a lifeless tone, shedding personality and lightness as her brain’s potential expands.

Much has been made of the film’s neurological theory not stacking up, but scientific soundness isn’t the mission here – entertainment is.

And while there are some rather odd moments – the flashes to a prehistoric Lucy, the strained conversation Lucy has with her mum and the missed opportunity to kill Mr Jang while she can – Lucy is nevertheless a punchy film, which demands your attention every minute of the way.

Star Rating:3/5

RottenTomatoes.com Rating: 64%

Into the Storm

Eighteen years ago, Dutch director Jan de Bont capitalised on the success of Speed to harness the full fury of Mother Nature in Twister.

The special effects-laden action thriller followed rival teams of daredevil storm chasers as they converged on Oklahoma during a spate of devastating tornadoes.

This time, director Steve Quale to send us back into the eye of the cinematic storm in this adrenaline-fuelled disaster movie.

Quale and his army of digital effects wizards unleash a wave of cyclones on an unsuspecting Midwest town and witness the carnage through the lenses of crazed storm chasers and terrified residents, who cannot outrun the swirling winds.

As a visual spectacle, Into The Storm boasts all of the sound and fury you crave and expect, including one vortex bearing down on an airport and throwing around passenger jets as if they were toys.

However, in the calm before this digitally-rendered hell, screenwriter John Swetnam doesn’t spend enough time fleshing out his multitude of characters to ensure we care deeply that they survive the onslaught.

Into The Storm plays to its strengths, capturing the decimation of large swathes of Silverton from multiple angles in the air and on the ground.

The first-person conceit doesn’t always work – shaky handheld footage reduces some action sequences to a blur – but it does afford Quale one excellent opportunity to pluck our heartstrings when Donnie and classmate Kaitlyn (Alycia Debnam-Carey) record tearful farewells to their parents.

The rest of the cast are largely forgettable.

Logic is smashed to smithereens well before Allison traces the predicted path of the storm and gasps dramatically, “It’s heading straight for the school!”

Star Rating:

RottenTomatoes.com Rating: 21%

What If…

If you subscribe to a notion of free will – that we are architects of our own destiny rather than slaves to unseen forces – which in itself would be an act of free will, then it’s easy to fixate on the never ending jumble of ‘what if’s.

What if I had worked harder at school; what if I had chosen another profession; what if I had taken a leap of faith and said, “I love you”; what if an actor other than Daniel Radcliffe had been cast in Michael Dowse’s romantic comedy?

Casey Affleck was reportedly interested in playing the film’s emotionally bruised hero but eventually passed on the role.

It’s our loss.

Radcliffe allows some of the woodenness of his Hogwarts years to creep into his portrayal of a medical school dropout, who stumbles upon love when he least expects it.

On-screen chemistry with the luminous Zoe Kazan simmers pleasantly but never reaches boiling point, diminishing our investment in the characters as they struggle to overcome the fear of rejection and verbalise their churning emotions.

With a different lead actor, who allowed the laughs in Elan Mastai’s script to build naturally rather than forcing them, What If could have been an emotionally richer, funnier and sexier slice of modern day twenty-something angst with the potential to usurp the genre’s reigning champion: (500) Days Of Summer.

What If follows a time-honoured romcom recipe and has many of the ingredients to delight but Michael Dowse’s lightweight confection fails to rise properly.

While Kazan eases into her role, Radcliffe is an awkward fit and his comic timing is slightly off throughout.

Outlandish stretches of credibility in the final act certainly don’t help, but screenwriter Mastai has an ear for snappy dialogue than ensures plenty of smiles if not quite guffaws.

Star Rating:3/5

RottenTomatoes.com Rating: 72%

Deliver Us From Evil

Based on the book Beware The Night by retired NYPD police officer Ralph Sarchie, Deliver Us From Evil is a supernatural horror about Sarchie’s real-life encounters with the forces of darkness on the streets of New York.

Great swathes of Scott Derrickson’s film are hard to swallow, especially scenes inside the bedroom of Sarchie’s cherubic daughter, who becomes a prime target for malevolent retribution.

“I think it’s ridiculous to blame invisible powers for the things people do,” remarks the sceptical lead character, echoing our concerns.

However, the director and co-writer Paul Harris Boardman treat the source material with utmost seriousness and expect us to do the same.

Derrickson is well versed in the tropes of the genre, having previously made The Exorcism Of Emily Rose and Sinister.

He engineers some mildly creepy shocks between set pieces, culminating in a camera-shaking showdown between good and evil that leaves many questions unanswered.

Deliver Us From Evil unfolds at a consistent, steady pace, opening Sarchie’s bloodshot eyes to a world of unspoken horror.

Eric Bana is suitably gruff in a two-dimensional and largely unsympathetic role but he doesn’t have sufficient screen time with Olivia Munn and Lulu Wilson to convince us to invest in the family’s wellbeing.

Sean Harris is genuinely unsettling as the possessed antagonist, whose presence lights the fuse on blood-spattered madness.

Star Rating:

RottenTomatoes.com Rating: 29%

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