How about this for a series of wonderful Westside coincidences. In 2022, Johnny Depp dined at the Varanasi Indian restaurant, next door to the 12-screen Cineworld Broad Street multiplex.
Now, daughter Lily-Rose Depp is starring in the New Year’s Day release of Nosferatu at said cinema – 25 years to the week after dad Johnny was the leading man in the UK’s first movie release of the new millennium, Sleepy Hollow.
That was directed by Tim Burton from a work by Rip Van Winkle author Washington Irving, who often visited what is now the Westside of Birmingham when he lived at 12 Calthorpe Road for five years until 1824 – exactly 200 years ago. Proof that Westside’s life is all written in the stars! Talking of stars …
Better Man (15, 135 mins). Australian director Michael Gracey (The Greatest Showman, 2017) finally returns – with a biopic showing former Take That star Robbie Williams effectively in selfie mode, masked by an ape.
As well as a being a showbusiness tour de force, Better Man is also a father and son and grandma and son story, too – with Steve Pemberton and Alison Steadman co-starring.
The verdict: ☆☆☆☆
Considering The Greatest Showman weighed in perfectly at just 100 minutes, it’s hard to fathom why Gracey has let the increasingly coarse language diminish its own impact across 135 minutes of Better Man.
But the central idea is a genius plot device given that people often think more of animals than their fellow human beings.
Better Man has a strong emotional arc and illustrates why Williams’ songs carry far more weight than Gary Barlow’s, as lyrics can be more important than tunes or vocal ability alone (even helping the contrived ending to sugarcoat his errant father).
The drug lessons from Robbie’s own painful story are as plain to see as the ones in Trainspotting, and the inter-scene transitions work well.
Better Man begins with Robbie as a boy growing up on the unforgiving streets of Stoke. It’s classic British kitchen sink filmmaking, albeit with a young chimp as Robbie. The recurring comfort blanket of The Two Ronnies on TV screens is an inspired touch, too.
There’s no denying the quality of songs as good as Feel, She’s The One, Angels and Let Me Entertain You. But because Robbie’s larger-than-life career has been built more on showing off than pure talent he’d be far too annoying playing himself without the ape persona illustrating his inferiority complex.
If you’ve ever felt suicidal, taken drugs or lost a parent – dead or alive – Better Man could even move you to tears. After so many recent, utterly predictable dot-to-dot, a-b-c-d biopics of music stars, inventive cinema makes a welcome return.
Nosferatu (15, 132 mins). A haunted bride-to-be is at risk from an infatuated, chest-sucking vampire in a horror film that journeys far away from our own seasonal festivities and into 19th century necrophilia.
Directed by Robert Eggers, who offered lashings of violent action in The Northman (2022), Nosferatu stars Willem Dafoe as Prof Albin Eberhart von Franz and Bill Skarsgård as Count Orlock, a one foot in the grave merchant. Nicholas Hoult is fledgling estate agent Thomas Hunter with Lily-Rose Depp as wife Ellen, worried by his trip to deepest Transylvania.
The verdict: ☆☆☆
Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922), F W Murnau’s original – and unauthorised – silent-movie adaptation of Bram Stoker’s 1897 gothic horror novel Dracula, ran to less than 90 minutes. It’s a mistake here to add in more than 40 minutes extra given that much of the film is, naturally, relentlessly dark.
There’s still plenty to like, from the cinematography to the landscapes, sets and characters, but the pacing suffers and isn’t helped by the modern tendency for a series of un-scary ‘jump scares’.
The very best scenes are the retained Murnau-style long fingers, at their best in creepy, shadowy form. That’s all you need for good horror. The rest is overkill. The Hammer Horror classics and, indeed, the rollocking Sleepy Hollow, were all much more fun.
We Live In Time (15, 107 mins). A chef (Florence Pugh / Little Women) and a recently-divorced man (Spider-Man star Andrew Garfield) are expecting a baby together at the same time that their lives are overshadowed by an illness.
The verdict: ☆☆☆☆
Rare is the quality romantic comedy – still more one that makes you think about the miracle of everyday life across a period of time.
The emotional themes and chopped-up chronology bring back memories of two major disappointments in a similar field – PS I Love You (2007) and The Time Traveller’s Wife (2009). We Live In Time is exactly the type of movie those two were trying to be, so director John Crowley (Brooklyin) deserves a big hit.
His two leading actors offer a refreshing change from past genre favourites like Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks, or Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant. Pugh and Garfield are not just perfect foils for each other but also for the emotional intentions of writer Nick Payne (The Last Letter from your Lover, 2021).
With Pugh once again proving that she can match Kate Winslet’s stellar career, this is a film to enjoy with your heart unapologetically on your sleeve. And your hands in a big bag of popcorn.
Sonic The Hedgehog 3 (PG, 110 mins). A part animated, part live action comedy adventure with the inherently-likeable Sonic (Ben Schwartz) forced to tackle a new adversary called Shadow.
The verdict: ☆☆
There’s no shortage of star talent in this second sequel adaptation of the original 1991 Sega Genesis video game series. Series stalwart Jim Carrey is back as the bewhiskered evil genius Ivo Robotnik (aka Eggman), and voice artistes including the returning Idris Elba (Knuckles), Colleen O’Shaughnessey (Tails) and franchise newcomer Keanu Reeves (Shadow),
These quality actors all prove that if there was less kinetic mayhem and more heartfelt stuff like the opening scenes, then ‘Sonic 3’ might have found an even wider audience. Sonic the character is impossible to hate and the fanboys at my screening laughed half a dozen times.
But the film’s over-stretched running time (11 minutes beyond the 99-minute original) soon invokes the law of diminishing returns for the non-committed.
● Your reviewer: Graham Young has been reviewing films for the media in Birmingham for the last 36 years, serving the Birmingham Mail, Birmingham Post, Sunday Mercury, BirminghamLive and BBC WM. He was the 1996 Regional Film Journalist of the Year.
ENDS
