It’s hard not to feel for Henry Cavill on watching James Gunn’s revitalised Superman, freshly rendered, as it is, in the sort of bright hues that have proven anathema to the character since 2013. As other turns attest, Cavill has charisma and charm aplenty but sprawled terribly across a decade of moribund self-indulgence. His last turn, a bum note cameo in Dwayne Johnson puff project Black Adam, was meant to herald production on a long-gestated Man of Steel sequel. Alas, it was but ill conceived clickbait and soon followed by Cavill’s unceremonious shelving. His replacement is the younger, less seasoned but more baby-faced David Corenswet. On this debut alone, we might hope for a more dignified run. Gunn’s Superman is quite notably flawed but at least knows its raison d’etre: to entertain.
The ingredients for a dynamite entry into the Jurassic Park canon are no great secret. They’ve been in the public domain since 1993, after all. Quite why it’s taken thirty years and six attempts to remix them into a genuinely thrilling, and legitimately original is less clear. To be clear, 2015’s Jurassic World was good fun but a legacy remake if ever one were. No matter. Not content with gifting LucasFilm the best Star Wars film of the twenty-first century, Gareth Edwards has done it again for the Steven Spielberg’s Franchisousaurus Rex. Putting a new tranche of stars through hell, Jurassic World: Rebirth is nothing short of a hoot.
There’s a nostalgia premium to the Pixar original experience these days. It’s in the combination of formula familiarity, winsome messaging and – for the grown ups at least – the reminiscence of a bygone era in which Pixar could do no wrong. Uniform commercial and critical acclaim has long evaded the Disney-owned studio, with no Pixar original enjoying box office success since 2017’s Coco. Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that their latest attempt at reasserted relevance recalls that particular Mexican favourite in more ways than one. Where Coco mined themes of belonging, familial fracture and loneliness from the Land of the Dead, Elio seeks the same in taking its hero to the cosmos and into a space where no one can hear you reach for your hankie.
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