Win a Jumanji: The Next Level prize pack

Win a Jumanji: The Next Level prize pack

To celebrate the release of Jumanji: The Next Level in cinemas Boxing Day, you can win a prize pack.

Each Jumanji: the Next Level prize pack contains

• Hat
• Backpack
• Double pass to the movie.

About Jumanji: The Next Level

In Jumanji: The Next Level, the gang is back but the game has changed. 

As they return to Jumanji to rescue one of their own, they discover that nothing is as they expect. 

The players will have to brave parts unknown and unexplored, from the arid deserts to the snowy mountains, in order to escape the world’s most dangerous game.

Jumanji The Next Level is in cinemas from December 26.

Win a double pass to see Little Women in cinemas

Win a double pass to see Little Women in cinemas

To celebrate the release of Little Women in cinemas January 2nd, 2020, thanks to Sony Pictures, you can win a double pass.

About Little Women

Writer-director Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird) has crafted a Little Women that draws on both the classic novel and the writings of Louisa May Alcott, and unfolds as the author’s alter ego, Jo March, reflects back and forth on her fictional life.  

In Gerwig’s take, the beloved story of the March sisters – four young women each determined to live life on her own terms --  is both timeless and timely.  

Portraying Jo, Meg, Amy, and Beth March, the film stars Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Eliza Scanlen, with Timothée Chalamet as their neighbor Laurie, Laura Dern as Marmee, and Meryl Streep as Aunt March.

Little Women is in cinemas January 2 - read a dazzling review of the Little Women movie here.

Spies in Disguise: Film Review

Spies in Disguise: Film Review

Cast: Will Smith, Tom Holland, Rashida Jones, Ben Mendelsohn
Director: Troy Quane, Nick Bruno

If the thought of Will Smith playing a talking pigeon in a spy movie repels you, this is still utterly the film for you.

A veritable cinematic cartoon blast of pacy fun, Spies in Disguise gets 2020 off to a great start in ways you could never imagine.

Smith is Lance Sterling, a smooth go-it-alone spy, who's framed for a theft of a drone. Holland plays Walter, a socially inept tech genius who finds himself in the middle of the conspiracy when Sterling decides he has no one to trust...

So far, so Odd Couple, and so not really re-inventing the wheel - yet Spies in Disguise respects the spy genre and the mismatched buddy trope with absolute aplomb.

Packing in spy stunts and heart before the Bond-riffing titles even begin, it's clear that Spies in Disguise knows and respects its target market, as well as the history of what's gone before for the respective genres.

What emerges is a whipsmart film that's aimed at the kids but keeps the adults (and the young at heart) firmly in its grip too - puns riff of Fifty Shades of Grey in one moment, another involving Glitter and Kittens is rolled out to great effect.

Based on animated short, Pigeon: Impossible, Spies in Disguise's strength is that it keeps the pace up, knows the dynamic is where the fun lies, and knows its animation isn't groundbreaking but showcases it to dazzling effect.

Sure there are messages about accepting being weird, and teamwork over loner behaviour, but Spies in Disguise is smart enough not to ram them down throats and concentrate on the goofy edges above all else. But it also knows that the smart thing to do is not dwell on one element above all else, and as a result, the coherency is compelling.

Spies in Disguise deserves to be a hit - fresh, funny and frantic, it's animation at its most basic - there to entertain from beginning to end.

The Kitchen: DVD Review

The Kitchen: DVD Review

Melissa McCarthy digs deep once again from the well of seriousness which served her so well and nabbed her an Academy Award nomination.

McCarthy stars as Kathy, the wife of an Irish mobster in Hells Kitchen in New York in the 70s. When Kathy's husband, along with his two co-conspirators, are jailed, Kathy, along with her friends Ruby and Claire (Haddish and Handmaid's Tale's Moss respectively) decide enough's enough and look to take over business.

But their desire to do the right thing and also make some money on the side puts them in the eyeline of the police and the Mafia.

The Kitchen's approach to drama is piecemeal at best.

Whereas Widows had dramatic heft, emotional bite and weight, The Kitchen flounders in comparison.

Sadly, by dipping in and dipping out of the characters, and even with a restrained McCarthy trying to build on Can You Ever Forgive Me, The Kitchen doesn't hit any of the straps it wants to.

Opening with James Brown's It's A Man's World over shots of NYC, as well as mobsters, it's clear that this is a male perspective and those in charge are determined to smash it. But underwriting, as well as scenes that fly by quicker than they should, those involved really don't know how to construct a drama that has tension and suspense.

Shouting stereotypes and with dialogue that's ham-fisted as the characters' so-called intentions, this attempt at gender-flipping falls massively short.

Humorous moments that are supposed to be dark and gallows are delivered with such heavy-handedness they fall flatter than they should or deserve to. There's a lack of nerve, and even moments of violence, brief as they are in their brutality, fail to deliver the punch they could have.

IT's almost as if The Kitchen were too afraid to go as dark as it could, to deeply enrich its characters and to blur the moral lines that the best gangster films do - because of that, it ends up feeling inconsequential, a waste of the talents within and a flight of empowerment that's grounded before it even begins.

Little Women: Film Review

Little Women: Film Review

Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, Emma Watson, Eliza Scanlan, Laura Dern, Chris Cooper, Timothee Chalamet, Meryl Streep
Director: Greta Gerwig

The latest adaptation of Little Women is a delightful and emotionally devastating, engaging affair that sees director Greta Gerwig reteaming with her Lady Bird star to create a contemporary take on a timeless novel.

Ronan is Jo March in this tale which loops back and forth to weave a linear tale of the March sisters and their lives that many will be familiar with (it is, after all, the eighth outing for the 1868 novel).

But this story, set as it is in the aftermath of the American Civil War in the 1860s in New England, feels more contemporary than any other revival put on screen.

Largely due to the trifecta of Greta Gerwig's scripting and staging, Saoirse Ronan's wonderfully understated and weighty performance, and Florence Pugh's multi-dimensional turn.

However, where Little Women excels is in its pace, and its zipping about in storyline; it's not that anything here feels rushed, or skated over, more that it delivers with a generosity of spirit to make it one of the year's best.

It ducks between the delightful courtship of Laurie (Chalamet) and Jo with aplomb, turns Pugh's Amy's petulance into something truly moving and generally gifts everyone with a moment or two to shine. Its only error is in its denouement, a sequence that feels unearned and a little too emotionally flat. (And in honesty, it could stand to lose 20 minutes of its run time).

It's hard to single out any of the players, but both Ronan and Pugh deserve some form of accolade for their work within; both send very familiar characters on very familiar arcs but deliver in fresh and enticing ways for a story that's nigh on 160 years old - something which is no mean feat.

"People want to be amused and not preached at," an editor decries early on, as Jo presents her latest book in the aftermath of the civil war. The duality of the meaning's not lost, given some could view this as feminist cinema - but Little Women has no time for such inane trivialities as this.

A breath of cinematic fresh air to cleanse the cynical pallet, Gerwig's Little Women deserves to be shouted about from the heights; it's alluring, enticing, thrilling, emotional and unconventionally unstuffy - in short, it's a delight you can't afford not to see.

Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan: DVD Review

Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan: DVD Review

The war film is an obvious beast to master.

It requires a reasonable amount of character setting up, then a soupcon of tension, some action and some emotional catharsis mixed in with a denouement of tragedy and the human condition.

Red Dog's director Stenders knows that, and setting the Anzac story of a little-known battle in Vietnam, the film chooses to recreate the feeling of courage under fire as the skirmish plays out. (The 120 plus inexperienced New Zealand and Australian soldiers believed they'd only face a handful of Vietcong - whereas the reality was somewhere in the region of 2500.)

Travis Fimmel is Major Harry Smith, a would-be leader frustrated by the backroom machinations of the officers as a battle near the Vietnamese plantation Long Tan draws ever closer.

When his company finds a chance to be involved, Smith, who's determined to prove himself seizes it with lustre - but most of his troops aren't ready for conflict, or willing to commit to Smith's methodology.

Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan recreates the battle scenes with a sheen that's polished and accomplished, as bullets fly left, right and centre. Limbs are torn, soldiers are felled and outrage boils as those behind in the camps bluster and effectively abandon their compadres in the heat of one upmanship.

But because of the script's broad strokes and brash characterisation, the sacrifices feel slight, and the beats of the movie are obvious - enemies within the same side soften, and you can almost hear what's coming next a mile away.

And don't even think about getting any kind of insight into the Vietcong as this film is less interested in portraying anything of the faceless enemy other than frenzied, screaming and in slow mo.

Much like Red Dog dealt in the interactions of the everyday, Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan tries for similar, with more patchy results.

Fimmel goes from boggle-eyed to humbled, and his companions fare equally less well.

Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan hits every cliche going, and then some, but still manages the kind of solid war film propaganda that it intends to do when it tries to educate.

The action is well-presented, relentless and with a small scope (and maybe some budgetary restraints), Stenders relives the theatre of war with a kind of palpable horror and intensity. But it's the more human side of the conflict that lets the film down badly, robbing it of poignancy, pose and purpose as it hurtles to its inevitable conclusion.

Jumanji: The Next Level: Film Review

Jumanji: The Next Level: Film Review

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan, Jack Black, Danny Glover, Danny DeVito, Awkwafina, Rhys Darby, Rory McCann
Director: Jake Kasdan

Jumanji: The Next Level is like any video game sequel.

It retains the core elements of what made the original popular, but tries to add in new elements to continue the franchise. In the second sequel to hit the Jumanji franchise, the gang returns to the game to rescue Spencer (Alex Wolff) who's been drifting and feeling lost since the first game concluded.

But this time around, Jumanji faces a new threat in the form of Rory McCann's warlord Jurgen the brutal - and it's up to Dr Bravestone and the group to save the day.

Essentially redoing the first film in many ways (even overtly in the movie's final third), Jumanji: The Next Level takes what works the first time around and retools it (only slightly though) for the sequel. Yet at times, the film feels like it's coasting by and repeating itself, only really allowing The Rock and Kevin Hart the chance to switch it up a little.

In fairness, the relationship between the two of them and the bickering banter works well as they put Danny Glover and Danny DeVito's warring oldies into the game, and giving Karen Gillan the chance to take the lead.

A couple of set-pieces impress with ostriches and mandrills, but in truth, the second is a repeat of the first, no matter how well Kasdan orchestrates them. The game may dwell on its body swap mentality, but the film this time around mixes up the avatars and brings in Glover, DeVito and Awkwafina's characters to relative comic aplomb.

However, the film's disjointed game level style plot tries awkwardly to inject a need for Hart and Johnson's characters to bicker and then try and make up, as the surprise of how and why the avatars work is out of the bag.

Ultimately, Jumanji: The Next Level is fun enough family fare, it offers enough reason to exist for the broad market it's trying to hit - it may not level up enough and will need to shake things up for the teased sequel.