EATEN BY LIONS (12A)
Three stars
Half-brothers embark on a haphazard road trip to the bright lights of Blackpool in director Jason Wingard’s bittersweet and multicultural buddy comedy.
Co-written by David Isaac, Eaten By Lions purrs gently for 95 minutes with a couple of uproarious interludes that play to the strengths of Britain’s Got Talent finalist Jack Carroll, who pokes fun at his cerebral palsy in his stand-up routines.
He delivers some cracking one-liners in his feature film debut, boasting about his powers of seduction to co-star and foil Antonio Aakeel – “I’m like George Clooney in a frame” - who maintains his poker face as Carroll delivers risque material about children’s homes with precision timing.
The young leads are surrounded by an ensemble cast of homegrown talent including character comedian Tom Binns as a bogus fortune teller, whose hilarious predictions linger in the same realms of ridiculousness as his spoof spirit medium, Ian D Montfort.
Various facets of the Lancashire coast provide picture-postcard backdrops to the characters’ emotional turmoil including the arresting image of two people kissing as fireworks explode over the criss-crossing red arches of the pleasure beach’s Big One steel rollercoaster.
Thankfully, Wingard’s picture is a gentler ride. Omar (Aakeel) and Pete (Carroll) are orphaned at a young age when their parents’ romantic hot air balloon getaway crash-lands in the lion enclosure of a safari park. The boys’ grandmother (Stephanie Fayerman) takes them in and encourages Omar and Pete to look out for each other.
When she eventually dies, the half-siblings are condemned to the questionable care of their acid-tongued aunt Ellen (Vicki Pepperdine) and her henpecked husband Ken (Kevin Eldon). They propose adopting Pete but not Omar because, in Ellen’s words, “You’re not our side.” Desperate to find a place he belongs, Omar ventures to the coast to track down his biological father, with Pete in tow.
Omar’s quest for an identity leads to a bumbling man-child called Irfan (Asim Chaudhry), who runs the first Pakistani and Indian gift shop in Blackpool. Eaten By Lions is threaded with the same earthy humour as East Is East, albeit with fewer belly laughs and a narrower focus on the power dynamics within Irfan’s dysfunctional family. The script periodically stumbles, but winning on-screen chemistry between Aakeel and Carroll cajoles it back to its feet.
DUMBO (PG)
Three stars
You’ll believe a digitally-rendered elephant can fly as quixotic director Tim Burton unleashes his wondrous imagination on a live-action reworking of Disney’s 1941 animation.
Like its hand-drawn predecessor, Dumbo opens with a soaring flock of storks and one of the first creatures to befriend the titular pachyderm is a peanut-chomping mouse in a red ringmaster’s outfit. The hallucinogenic, champagne-fuelled Pink Elephants On Parade sequence is cleverly repurposed by Burton as one of his film’s most visually striking and moving vignettes.
In almost all other respects, Ehren Kruger’s script packs its trunk and says goodbye to the outdated circus of racially stereotyped black crows, razzle dazzling our retinas with a giddy visual whirl akin to The Greatest Showman.
The title character is instantly lovable as he emerges from a mound of hay and trips over his oversized ears. Children will tumble headfirst into the pools of the creature’s baby blue eyes and cheer every time he swoops over the heads of cruel detractors, giving wings to a core message to never judge by appearance.
Kentucky horseback rider Holt Farrier (Colin Farrell) returns home from the First World War to a travelling circus run by Max Medici (Danny DeVito). In Holt’s absence, his children Milly (Nico Parker) and Joe (Finley Hobbins) have coped alone with the death of their mother.
Holt begrudgingly tends the elephants and one of the females gives birth to a floppy-eared baby, which Medici christens Jumbo. Milly and Joe discover the newborn can fly with the aid of a feather and their father incorporates Jumbo’s gravity-defying talent in the clowns’ daredevil fire-rescue routine. News coverage of Medici’s miracle piques the interest of showman VA Vandevere (Michael Keaton), who persuades Medici to join his big top with a promise of jobs for the entire troupe. Dumbo lacks the old-fashioned charm of the animated film and some of its heart-tugging emotion but as a spectacle filled with hastily sketched human protagonists, Burton’s vision is bountiful. The director tempers his deliciously macabre tendencies to deliver a family-friendly fairytale that ends on a note of animal liberation not exploitation or captivity.
THE VANISHING (15)
Three stars
Produced by leading man Gerard Butler, The Vanishing is a psychological thriller directed by Kristoffer Nyholm, which is inspirated by the Flannan Isles mystery.
In December 1900, three men – grief-stricken Thomas (Peter Mullan), doting husband James (Gerard Butler) and emotionally scarred orphan Donald (Connor Swindells) – are posted to a rugged island 30 miles off the Scottish coast to man a lighthouse. It’s a punishing existence and the three men rely on each other to overcome the elements and their boredom.
The discovery of a dead body and a chest containing gold bars stokes greed and paranoia between the co-workers. Two threatening strangers, Boor (Olafur Darri Olafsson) and Locke (Soren Malling), arrive on the island asking uncomfortable questions about a missing crew mate and a chest. Consequently, Thomas, James and Donald give in to base instincts and spark a brutal and bloody battle for survival.
Nyholm’s film is available to stream and download from April 1.
AT ETERNITY’S GATE (12A)
Three stars
Willem Dafoe was deservedly nominated as Best Actor at this year’s Academy Awards for his performance as Vincent Van Gogh.
At Eternity’s Gate concentrates on the final years of the artist’s life. He travels to Paris to visit his younger brother, where he befriends fellow creative Paul Gauguin.
Vincent continues his travels to the South of France but his emotional state spirals out of control. A deeply concerned Theo persuades Gauguin to visit.
His arrival temporarily soothes but when Gauguin departs, Vincent severs his ear and the painter is consigned to a mental hospital for his own safety.
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