★★★★
Albert Hughes’ first solo venture – finally apart from his brother and usual co-director Allen after a couple of false starts – is a remarkable cinematic achievement. Visually stunning from open to close, Alpha sees Hughes weave three familiar tales together – a son trying to appease his father, the bonding of boy and canine and the quest to journey home – into a captivating whole.
‘Unfortunately this is it.’ So said Simon Bird at the premiere of The Inbetweeners 2, seemingly marking the end of an era for the crude antics of the boys from North-West London.
From 2008 to 2014, Bird, Joe Thomas, James Buckley and Blake Harrison leant their talents to the roles of Will, Simon, Jay and Neil – aka ‘the inbetweeners’ – for three television series and two hit films, all under the gleeful eyes of series-creators Iain Morris and Damon Beesley.
Coinciding with the series – which exploited the grim realties of British state school adolescence for smutty humour – reaching its tenth anniversary, Morris and Beesley have teamed up with Thomas for a new project, albeit one not a million miles from The Inbetweeners in tone.
Continue reading Chickens and Scandal! What the Inbetweeners did next…
★★★
An illness has killed ninety per cent of the world’s children. Only a special few remain. Sound familiar? The Darkest Minds is a new entry into the lineage of dystopian teen adventures to be adapted from a successful young adult novel. It is a could-be franchise that probably won’t be, due to talented cast and crew not quite managing to stand out in the cluttered dystopian field.
The Film Blog 