DAMSEL**

Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things) returns to our small screens with a rather disappointing Young Adult-aimed feminist fairy tale. I really loved the wit and pace of MBB's ENOLA HOLMES, but this film lacks any kind of energy or pace.  It also suffers from the fact that the heroine basically has to do her escape journey not once but twice, the first time saving her own skin from a dragon, and the second time saving her little sister.

MBB plays earnest, resourceful Princess Elodie, who agrees to an arranged marriage with a Prince from a far richer kingdom to save her own people.  Problem is, that kingdom is sacrificing Princesses to assuage the vengeful nature of an evil dragon. As Elodie finds herself thrown into a dragon pit slash cave system she realises just how many young women have been thrown to their fate before her. And thanks to their wall-carved advice, she somehow manages to escape and get her own revenge.

The message of this film is admirable. No handsome Prince is coming to rescue you. The sisterhood will save you. Maybe the vengeful dragon is just hurting too. Maybe the wicked stepmother is actually wonderfully protective. Maybe the beautiful blonde Queen is the real villain.

It's just a shame that the earnest good message and MBB's high-energy performance is tethered to Dan Mazeau (FAST X)'s extremely thin and repetitive script.  I had also expected more from pace and invention from genre director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (28 WEEKS LATER).

DAMSEL is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 110 minutes. It was released on Netflix a few weeks ago.

LOVE, SIMON

I was ready to love LOVE, SIMON, even predicting I might cry by the end. All I knew was that it was a very well received teen romance about a kid called Simon coming out - a long over-due mainstream look at a seminal moment for any gay teen. The movie starred Jennifer Garner as the mum - so was bound to be aw-shucks lovely and earnestness - and even had two of the cast of 13 REASONS WHY - Katherine Langford and Miles Heizer - for teen credibility. 

But as the movie unfolded I found myself alienated by its interior design perfection. Perfect house, perfect room, perfect parents. Simon listens to perfectly curated cool music and has perfectly curated politically correct diverse friends. I guess this is the point - when life is so perfect - why risk alienation from it by coming out? And so Simon resists coming-out, even though his parents are so huggingly-warm-hearted and liberal.  Rather, he submits to a blackmailer at school and sells his friends out.  I'm sure this is meant to come across as a genuinely tough decision but it struck me as just really shitty and selfish, for a kid who was probably going to have the easiest coming out in history. 

The rom-com grinds through its wheels. Third act alienation of all friends. Fourth act redemption. And ends with a happy politically correct resolution. But it just left me as limp and unexcited as the poorly executed mid-move college-set dance number - clearly inspired by (500) DAYS OF SUMMER.

It all got me wondering just how radical this film really was. When I grew up I was watching Ricki deal with high school bullying and sex on MY SO-CALLED LIFE with a level of authenticity way beyond anything here. Is this really the progress - or regress - we have made in thirty years? That, dear reader, is truly depressing. It also got me wondering how actors could go from a show that attempts something as raw, and truthful, and unpatronising as 13RW, into something as banal and airbrushed as this.  For shame. Still, for all that, I'm glad this movie exists insofar as it can give comfort and inspiration to any kids out there.  I just don't need to see it again.

LOVE, SIMON is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 110 minutes. 

JURASSIC WORLD

I'm not entirely sure what the producer's saw in Colin Trevorrow's indie comedy SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED that made them think, "this director has what it takes to direct a big budget effects-heavy action film" but boy, he can! JURASSIC WORLD is the best film in the franchise since the original, and while not entirely without its problems, it's a handsome way to spend a couple of hours in the cinema. 

The movie picks up as if the events of the second and third film hadn't happened.  We are twenty years on from the "teething problems" on Isla Nubar and arrogant money-hungry humans have learned nothing.  Jurassic World is now a successful theme park, but in order to keep the customers happy, park manager Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) has sanctioned the genetic modification of dinosaurs to create a new attraction - the Indominus Rex. Oh, and by the way, those insanely violent Velociraptors are still in the park because some idiot wants to use them for military purposes. Naturally, the Indominus escapes its enclosure and we soon learn that a) it's not socialised and b) it can plan complex strategic attacks.  All of which the wrangler Owen (Chris Pratt) had warned them of. And this being a Spielberg film, into the mix we throw two kids - brothers Zach and Gray (Ty Simpkins and Nick Robinson) and a T-Rex.

Everything about the dinosaurs, action, soundtrack and sense of awe and wonder is perfect in this film. It's less scary than the original, which I rewatched recently, but it's going for a younger audience.  The problems start when we look at the characters and the relationship between Claire and Owen in particular.  Dear Hollywood, does every successful businesswoman need to be emotionally frigid?  Does every powerful really woman really just need a hunky old-fashioned man's man to sort her out?  And it's not like Chris Pratt has it any better as Owen - shorn of the humour that made GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY such a hit, he's essentially just an objectified beef-cake.  And where the two kids in the original movie had a really lovely mixture of vulnerability and moxie, here they're essentially just Macguffins for the adults to protect. 

Still, for all that, I do like this film. It has all the cynicism about human nature that infected Michael Crichton's book. And where that dark element was only channelled by Jeff Goldblum in the original film (I HATED the transformation of the park owner into a cuddly wide-eyed grandpa) at least in this version Irrfhan Khan has the evil charisma of a true DNA-meddling entrepreneur.

JURASSIC WORLD has a running time of 124 minutes and is rated PG-13. The movie went on global release the weekend of June 11th and finally rolls into Japan on August 5th.

SUNDANCE LONDON 2013 - Day 4 - THE KINGS OF SUMMER

THE KINGS OF SUMMER is a marvellous, joyful coming-of-age movie that has shades of Wes Anderson in its whimsy and nostalgic evocation of summer and teenage romance but ultimately has it's own clear and unique tone.  Kudos to Jordan Vogt-Roberts on his feature directorial debut, and in particular to screenwriter Chris Galetta, who successfully combines larger-than-life quirky characters with real stakes to create a movie that's both funny and dramatic - that is both silly and contains profound truths about friendship and how children relate to their parents and each other.

The premise of the film may seem a little farfetched when written down but the movie is so strong you just go with it:  two high school friends, Joe (Nick Robinson) and Patrick (Gabriel Basso) are so disaffected by their parents in typical teen angst that they decide to build a kind of super-tree house in the forest outside their town and simply leave home.  Much to their annoyance they're joined by that kid we all knew at school - the one who's determined and weird and slightly creepy - Biaggio (Moises Arias).  As one would expect - it all starts of cool - they have fun and larks and subsist on farmer's market chicken but it all falls apart when the girl Joe likes goes off with Patrick, and Joe, in a fit of pique, rebels against Patrick's strict rules and ruthless nature intervenes.  To say more would give away an ending that contains genuine peril and the triumph of Biaggio in one of the most wonderful father-son pieces of dialogue in recent cinema.  

The wonderful thing about this film is that you genuinely care about the kids, and sympathise with their need to escape, while at the same time feeling for their parents. You simultaneously want them to succeed and to be found. It captures completely that feeling of teenage invincibility - that you can achieve anything - as well as the proud stupidity of those years.  There's a magic and wonder and behind that a naivety and risk - and this movie captures all of those facets in a deeply entertaining way. Not to be missed. 

THE KINGS OF SUMMER is rated R in the USA and has a running time of 93 minutes.  

THE KINGS OF SUMMER played Sundance and Sundance London 2013 and opens in the USA on May 31st.