You’d think they’d run out of movies to release at some point, wouldn’t you. But here we are again: Another Friday, another ten features.
Breathe: Andy Serkis makes his directorial debut with this weirdly tin-eared biopic of Robin Cavendish, a very nice English fellow who became an advocate for the disabled after polio left him paralyzed. Andrew Garfield affects the sort of voice that an actor would only choose if he was being absolutely faithful to a real person.
Ex Libris: At three and a quarter hours, Frederick Wiseman’s look at the New York Public Library system is a little on the long side, but it’s worth the investment. If you stick with it long enough, Patti Smith turns up!
The Fortress: Korean action dynamo Lee Byung-hun dials it down in Hwang Dong-hyuk’s historical action epic, which is opening in limited release and which has not been getting the best reviews.
Geostorm: Dean Devlin, apparently jealous of all those times his buddy Roland Emmerich destroyed the world, unleashes his own hell on Gerard Butler and Jim Sturgess. Warner declined to screen it for us. I wonder why.
Human Flow: Ai Weiwei considers the refugee crisis from a position of empathy in this sprawling documentary, which will inevitably prove divisive for its compassion and insistence on seeing displaced people as — what’s the word? — people.
Leatherface: I know there are worse movies in the Texas Chain Saw Massacre franchise — the previous Leatherface, for a start — but this sorry prequel feels like a total miscalculation, removing most of the horror elements and playing it as a lovers-on-the-run crime picture. I can’t quite believe this came from the team that made Inside and Livid.
Only the Brave: After the empty eye candy of Tron Legacy and Oblivion, Joseph Kosinski tries to reposition himself as a banger of the American drum with this tribute to an Arizona wildfire crew. Got a lot of big stars to help him, too. Wish it had amounted to anything.
The Snowman: Speaking of crushing disappointments, how about this dead fish of an all-star literary thriller? You have to try very hard to make a movie this bad … or not try at all, I suppose. I wonder which one it was.
Take Every Wave: The Life of Laird Hamilton: Rory Kennedy, director of Ghosts of Abu Ghraib and Last Days in Vietnam, gives herself a break and makes a surfing documentary. She’s earned it.
Tyler Perry’s Boo! 2: A Madea Halloween: That title gives me such a cluster headache. (Not screened for press, can’t say I’m in any hurry to catch up.)
Una: Ben Mendelsohn, Rooney Mara and Riz Ahmed star in Benedict Andrews’ adaptation of David Harrower’s play Blackbird. Susan caught it at TIFF last year, thought it was okay … up to a point.