WITH a mantelpiece full of plaudits for his direction of the film version of Chicago, Rob Marshall plies more razzle dazzle with a colourful and energetic adaptation of the award-winning Broadway musical Nine.
The stage show takes inspiration from Federico Fellini’s classic 8 1/2, and concerns a film director Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) who suffers a crisis of confidence a little over a week before he is due to start shooting his new film.
Beset with worry, he seeks guidance from his elegant mother (Sophia Loren) as well as various family and friends including his shamefully-neglected wife Luisa (Marion Cotillard), sultry mistress Carla (Penelope Cruz), costume designer Lilli (Dame Judi Dench) and his on-screen muse, Claudia (Nicole Kidman).
Black Eyed Peas singer Fergie and Kate Hudson co-star.
STAR RATING: ***
AVATAR (12A)
OSCAR-WINNING Titanic director James Cameron returns with what is rumoured to be the most expensive film ever made.
And every nickel and cent is up there on the big screen as the writer-director melds live action with state-of-the-art digital effects to evoke a 21st century world on the brink of extinction.
A magical world conceals vast deposits of an ore, which sells for 20 million dollars per kilo, and Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi) intends to mine the grey rock for vast profit.
Unfortunately, the richest seam lies directly beneath a gargantuan tree, which is home to the Omaticaya tribe led by Eytukan (Wes Studi) and his wife Mo’at (CCH Pounder).
Jake and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) must somehow defeat the miners heavily armed gunships.
Avatar is a dazzling spectacle that creates a fantastical kingdom where the Na’vi and Mother Nature live in harmony.
Awesome technical might bludgeons a sophisticated narrative or subtle characterisation.
Cameron promised us a visually stunning adventure like nothing we have seen before. He delivers.
For gut-wrenching emotion, you’ll need to look elsewhere.
STAR RATING: ***
ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS 2: THE SQUEAKQUEL (U)
GIRL power is alive and well in the Chipmunks sequel as Alvin, Simon and Theodore meet their match in three feisty females (voiced by Christina Applegate, Amy Poehler and Anna Faris), who challenge them for battle-of-the-band honours at their new high school. Director Betty Thomas treads a familiar path, driving a wedge between the tiny animated heroes and then reuniting them for a foot-stomping finale.
STAR RATING: **
THE BOX (12A)
CAMERON Diaz stars in a cautionary tale from Donnie Darko writer-director Richard Kelly about a family living in 1970s suburban America who are faced with a terrible moral dilemma. They receive a box with a red button: if they push it in the next 24 hours, someone they don’t know will die and they will collect one million dollars; if they don’t, the box will be taken away and they get nothing.
STAR RATING: ***
CARRIERS (15)
SIBLINGS Alex and David Pastor write and direct this thriller set in the aftermath of a global pandemic which has devastated the human race. Lou Taylor Pucci leaves behind his dying parents and heads off with loved ones including Star Trek’s Chris Pine and Piper Perabo (Coyote Ugly), facing difficult dilemmas in the diseased world when they meet a stricken man (Law And Order’s Christopher Meloni) and his infected daughter.
STAR RATING: ***
A CHRISTMAS CAROL (PG)
ROBERT Zemeckis’s technologically groundbreaking adaptation of Charles Dickens’s festive novella is a delightful early Christmas present.
STAR RATING: ***
THE INVENTION OF LYING (12A)
THE truth about Ricky Gervais’ new comedy, co-written and co-directed by Matthew Robinson, is that it is mean-spirited, misconceived and starved of big laughs. Predictably, Gervais casts himself in the lead role and as with Ghost Town, he’s an unsympathetic and unconvincing romantic lead. The notion that Jennifer Garner’s acid-tongued beauty might succumb to his so-called charms is more laughable than anything in the script. The Invention Of Lying is an unnecessarily crude subversion of polite social mores. Showing at Clwyd Theatr Cymru in Mold from Saturday to Monday.
STAR RATING: **
NATIVITY! (U)
CHRISTMAS comes early courtesy of British director Debbie Isitt (Nasty Neighbours, Confetti) and her improvised comedy about the preparations for a primary school nativity play.
STAR RATING: ***
ME & ORSON WELLES (12A)
High School Musical star Zac Efron steps away from cutesy, teen-friendly fare with this handsome period piece, directed by Richard Linklater. He tests his acting mettle as part of an impressive ensemble cast in a drama inspired by Orson Welles’s notorious 1937 Broadway staging of Julius Caesar, but is upstaged by Lancashire-born newcomer Christian McKay, who plays the bullying, egocentric titular legend.
STAR RATING: ****
