Strained, laboured, and drenched in buckets of its own flop sweat, Johnny English Strikes Again is an almost offensively awful and dispiritingly cynical sequel that few people (outside of Europe) wanted and even fewer still asked for.
Veteran British director Richard Eyre’s uneven, but mostly commendable big screen adaptation of author Ian McEwan’s The Children Act tries its best to marry the two ill fitting tones of the novelist’s screenplay.
Actor and filmmaker Vincent Perez’s third directorial feature Alone in Berlin boasts heavyweight performers Emma Thompson, Brendan Gleeson, and Daniel Brühl in starring roles that on paper seem worthy of their immense talents, but instead saddles them in an underwhelming, competently mounted reflection on loss and grief during wartime. Alone in Berlin could have been an impassioned drama, but instead errs on the side of curious stoicism, and ends up coming across at best as a decent episode of Masterpiece Theatre.
Opening this weekend in theatres: Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman star in the romantic comedy, The Switch; a swarm of hungry prehistoric critters dominate the horror-comedy, Piranha 3D; Omid Djalili plays a Muslim man who discovers he might actually be Jewish in The Infidel; plus a look at the children’s comedy, Nanny McPhee Returns.
Coming to home video this week, Brad Pitt goes through the aging process for the epic drama, The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button. Also out now, Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson star in the drama Last Chance Harvey; Michelle Williams and Ewan McGregor try to survive London’s terrible future in Incendiary; and in the Hindi film Chandni Chowk to China, a lowly cook has to become a kung fu hero.
