Critical Week: Always say yes

After wrapping up the first SXSW London festival over the weekend, I had a flurry of screenings to keep me busy this week. This included the action comedy Deep Cover, with Bryce Dallas Howard, Orlando Bloom and Nick Mohammed as improv comics on police business in the London underworld. It's ridiculous but a lot of fun. Even more absurd was the silly action romp Shadow Force, rescued by the sheer charm of Kerry Washington and Omar Sy as parents with secret black ops skills, pulled back into the mayhem. The tired premise nearly sinks it, but the actors make it watchable, including a villainous Mark Strong.

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The week's other big screening was the live-action remake of How to Train Your Dragon, which looked amazing on a huge Imax screen. While not strictly necessary, the film is still rousing enough to be worth a look. Karan Soni and Jonathan Groff star in the romantic comedy A Nice Indian Boy, which is funny, engaging and delightfully pointed. The French romcom Jane Austen Wrecked My Life takes a low-key approach to its engagingly astute story of a blocked writer. Shakespeare's classic is reimagined as a lavishly produced pop musical for Juliet & Romeo, simplifying things in the process, but remaining entertaining too. And the clearly low-budget independent drama Franklin centres on two aspiring actors in Los Angeles as they navigate career and love-life issues.

I also attended the premiere of the third season of Squid Game, which included a terrific on-stage Q&A with stars Lee Jung-Jae, Lee Byung-hun and Park Gyuyoung, plus creator Hwang Dong-hyuk. And the dance show Inside Giovanni's Room, based on the landmark James Baldwin novel, was simply gorgeous at Sadler's Wells East.

This coming week will be rather busy with the Pixar animation Elio, Scarlett Johansson in Jurassic World Rebirth, John Travolta in High Rollers, Harry Melling in Harvest, Naomi Ackie in Sorry Baby, Leonie Benesch in Late Shift and the Tunisian drama Red Path, plus the first week of movies at the 33rd Raindance Film Festival and the annual opening night cabaret for the London Clown Festival.