★★★★
What with this and Paul McGuigan’s recent Gloria Grahame biopic, British cinema seems to be retconning itself a reputation for killing off Hollywood’s hall of fame greats. Very much like with Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, Stan & Ollie boasts a pair of career best performances, delightful wit and heartbreaking pathos. I preferred the former but it’s a close call.
★★
It’s hard to quite say whether there’s an audience for whom Dan Fogelman’s new film will wholeheartedly work. Anyone who can swallow the mawkish, muddled sentimentality that drives Life Itself will surely find its propensity to brutally slaughter major characters off putting. That said, this is not nearly so bad a feature as some might have you believe – barring, perhaps, a bewildering transatlantic shift mid way through. The ambition here is, at least, to be admired.
★
Holmes & Watson is easily the best film made in 2018. Ah, ok, you’ve caught me in a lie. It is, in fact, one of the biggest flops of the year. It’s absolutely no wonder that the press weren’t given a sneak peek of the movie before its release because it would have been akin to throwing a defenceless, bleating lamb to a pack of ravenous, salivating wolves. It’s elementary, my dear viewers; this purportedly humorous – and I use that word very loosely – take on Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic mysteries, featuring observant fictional detective Sherlock Holmes and his faithful sidekick John Watson, is a load of tosh. Holmes & Watson is a proverbial slap in the face for deep-dyed fans of the original stories. It was a real struggle to reach the end.
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