Critical week: He's behind you!

It's been a busy week catching up with movies here in London. The biggest films were entries in decades-old franchises. Child's Play is a reboot, rather than sequel, updated to the artificial-intelligence era and starring Aubrey Plaza. Toy Story 4 tells another superbly engaging story, again bringing these indelible characters together with action and emotion. And Men in Black International attempts a fresh turn in the saga, with younger stars Tessa Thompson and Chris Hemsworth, rather too much digital nuttiness and an only OK plot.

Three small-screen movies will be covered in another blog entry: Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler reunite for the dopey Europe-set comedy whodunit Murder Mystery, Randall Park and Ali Wong star in the snappy-silly rom-com Always Be My Maybe, and Matthew McConaughey plays to type as the stoner title character in the somewhat unfocussed comedy The Beach Bum (out this week on VOD).

As for more arthouse fare, there was Joanna Hogg's new film The Souvenir, another exploration of British upper-class repression, starring Tilda Swinton and her daughter Honor Swinton Byrne, plus Tom Burke. All are excellent, and the film is deeply chilling. Swinging Safari is a wild and woolly Aussie 1970s-set comedy starring Guy Pearce, Kylie Minogue and Radha Mitchell. It's a bit over-the-top and chaotic. The American-set British thriller Division 19 is set in a near-future society in which privacy is outlawed. It looks great but makes little sense. From South Africa, the musical Kanarie is a powerful exploration of bigotry and self-acceptance, as a young man goes through his mandatory military service as a member of a choir. From India, Unsaid is a dark drama about deep family secrets, powerfully well played. And the British documentary Are You Proud explores the Pride movement with an intriguingly critical eye.

Coming up this next week, we have Benedict Cumberbatch in The Current War, Alicia Vikander in Euphoria, Angus Macfadyen in Robert the Bruce, the Oscar-nominated drama Never Look Away, the French water polo comedy The Shiny Shrimps, the Indian drama Roobha, and the doc Southern Pride, among others....

Critical Week: Community action

Wes Anderson's new all-star quirk-fest Moonrise Kingdom was screened to London critics at the same time as its Cannes premiere. It opened the festival on May 16th, and is another surprisingly warm exploration of relationships through Anderson's distinctly yellow-hued eye. While many critics are in the South of France, London press screenings continue full-speed, including several that are still being screened very late in the schedule.

For example, Sony only showed us Men in Black 3 four days before it opens. Was that because it's not as funny as the first two films? It isn't, but still gives fans plenty to smile about. And Sacha Baron Cohen's The Dictator wasn't screened to us at all - we had to buy tickets, and were pleasantly surprised that it's actually a sharp, often gut-wrenchingly funny social comedy. The other biggie this week was Snow White and the Huntsman, starring the achingly on-trend Kristen Stewart and Chris Hemsworth, along with Charlize Theron as the beautiful-but-evil queen. Our comments on this one are embargoed until three days before it opens.

Another Cannes entry screened in London was Ken Loach's enjoyable Scottish caper comedy The Angels' Share, which of course makes some strong social commentary in between the wacky (and somewhat contrived) antics and the serious drama. And from further off the beaten path, we had Bobcat Goldthwait's blisteringly hilarious God Bless America (a great double bill with The Dictator), Kristin Scott Thomas' latest involving-enigmatic French drama In Your Hands and the intriguing but slightly simplistic Christian-Muslim parable Where Do We Go Now? 

Coming up this week, we have Michelle Williams and Seth Rogen in Take This Waltz, Jason Segel and Emily Blunt in The Five-year Engagement, Simon Pegg in A Fantastic Fear of Everything, the all-star French comedy The Women on the 6th Floor, the Mormon drama Electrick Children, the British indie drama Strawberry Fields.