Fuze
(96 mins, 15) Directed by David Mackenzie; starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Theo James, Gugu Mbatha-Raw
The latest picture from the prolific director David Mackenzie, Fuze is pure popcorn pleasure. A slick, deviously twisty heist flick, it shares its quick wits and lean storytelling with Mackenzie’s previous film, the propulsive Relay, starring Riz Ahmed. Both are urgent, high-concept urban thrillers populated by wily, untrustworthy characters; both barrel along with a stylish, Soderberghian rhythm; neither entirely holds up to in-depth scrutiny. But this last concern is relatively minor: Fuze is built on a solid foundation of star power and meaty performances, which distract us from any far-fetched plot developments.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson, reuniting with Mackenzie following Outlaw King, is magnetic as Will Tranter, the unflappable British army bomb disposal expert called to a construction site in London’s Paddington area where an unexploded second world war bomb has been unearthed. While Tranter and his team work against a ticking clock to control the damage, Met Police chief Zuzana oversees the evacuation and lockdown of the area (Gugu Mbatha-Raw makes the most of a role that largely involves staring at a bank of monitors).
Then there is Theo James (wrangling a South African accent and a shifty expression), Sam Worthington and their assorted sidekicks: men whose reasons for hiding out and evading the evacuation order become clear as the film unfolds. Notwithstanding a couple of silly moments – an investigation reveals that one character has kept a neat scrapbook full of incriminating evidence – this is an enjoyable if pulpy watch.
Night Stage
(119 mins, 18) Directed by Filipe Matzembacher, Marcio Reolon; starring Gabriel Faryas, Cirillo Luna, Henrique Barreira
“I don’t do second dates.” This is a rule for Rafael (Cirillo Luna), a charismatic politician tipped to be a mayoral candidate in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre. But the guarded secret of Rafael’s sexuality is threatened when he meets a stage actor, Matias (Gabriel Faryas), through a gay hookup app. Rafael not only bends his one-date rule – he becomes obsessed with risky, reputation-ruining public sex. Matias has less to lose from these alfresco erotic acts, until he wins a leading role on a new telenovela and is required to sign a contract with a “conduct clause”.
Night Stage, the latest picture from the directing duo Filipe Matzembacher and Marcio Reolon (2018’s Hard Paint) follows a fairly predictable mutually destructive “amour fou” trajectory. What makes it distinctive is the way it depicts a collision of two worlds: Matias’s experimental theatre with its intimacies between gender-fluid bodies; Rafael’s stuffy boardrooms full of pompous funders and posturing powerbrokers. Plus, there’s the not-insignificant detail that the two leads are unfeasibly attractive, with enormous chemistry.
Two Women
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(100 mins, 15) Directed by Chloé Robichaud; starring Karine Gonthier-Hyndman, Laurence Leboeuf, Félix Moati
A remake of a 1970 Quebecois sex comedy, Two Women follows neighbours Florence (Karine Gonthier-Hyndman) and Violette (Laurence Leboeuf) as they embark on infidelity sprees to counter the indifference of their respective partners. The use of music – breezy, jazzy – is chirpily at odds with the nature of their conversations. “I wasn’t suicidal,” Florence insists to her boyfriend when he gently suggests that coming off her meds and hitting the wine might not be the best idea. “I just wasn’t afraid to die.”
The sex – with obliging delivery men, plumbers and pest control contractors – is largely played for laughs rather than titillation. Still, there’s something rather joyless and dated about this picture. It’s a sex comedy viewed through a feminist lens that still manages to show its female characters as neurotic, brittle and unstable – and an erotic romp in which the adventures of infidelity feel more like hard work than fun.
Kim Novak’s Vertigo
(77 mins, TBC) Directed by Alexandre O Philippe; featuring Kim Novak
The cinephile documentarian Alexandre O Philippe (The People vs George Lucas; Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist) is granted impressive access for his portrait of the 1950s and 1960s Hollywood superstar-turned-recluse Kim Novak. Not only is Philippe permitted an audience with the now 93-year-old, who walked away from acting to dedicate herself to painting (woozy watercolours of birds, nature and her own face). He is also allowed to rummage through the contents of her attic for movie memorabilia, such as the dove-grey suit she wore for her most famous role in Hitchcock’s Vertigo. It should be fascinating.
Unfortunately, the self-absorbed Novak has very little insight to impart. We learn, repeatedly, that there’s a difference between actors and “reactors” (she classes herself as the latter), that she feared she might “lose herself” in her roles and, finally, that James Stewart had unusually handsome toes.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie
(97 mins, PG) Directed by Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic, Pierre Leduc, Fabien Polack; voiced by Chris Pratt, Jack Black, Anya Taylor-Joy
How do you carve a coherent plot from an enduringly popular video game franchise that has about 40 years’ worth of lore and generations of fans? In the case of this film, the sequel to the dispiritingly successful The Super Mario Bros Movie, it doesn’t matter because the plot is an afterthought. This planet-hopping adventure pings around outer space, with winks to the fans and a half-baked hint of romantic tension between Mario (Chris Pratt) and Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy). The problem is not that it’s messy, but that it’s stultifyingly dull.
Photographs by PA/Dogwoof