World Movie News: The Last 24 Hours
Zach Cregger reboots Resident Evil for a stacked UK Friday with additional US-only releases; Transformers marks 40 years with a Thursday re-release; and ‘Happy Birthday’ to Jada Pinkett Smith and James Marsden.
Morning all — a proper franchise-heavy Friday of new releases today, on both sides of the Atlantic at once. Here’s what happened in the world of movies during the last 24 hours.
A packed Friday at UK cinemas: Leading today’s slate — and releasing simultaneously in the US too — is Sony’s Resident Evil, Zach Cregger’s ground-up reboot of the long-running video game franchise, starring Austin Abrams, Paul Walter Hauser and Kali Reis. Given Cregger’s pedigree after Barbarian and Weapons, expectations are running high for a genre franchise that’s had a mixed critical history at best. Elsewhere, Aardman’s Shaun The Sheep: The Beast Of Mossy Bottom brings Halloween mischief to Mossy Bottom Farm and carrying on the comedy-lite-horror theme is Miracle’s animated comedy Little Monsters 2 (called Finnick 2 or Finnik 2 internationally). On a more romantic theme, Dogwoof’s love-road-trip The Cycle Of Love and Sonorous’s rom-com Premature add smaller dramatic counterprogramming. There is also the release of Paramount’s black-comedy-drama Bad Apples starring Saoirse Ronan, that I greatly enjoyed at last year’s LFF, Curzon’s dementia-drama Queen At Sea, starring Juliette Binoche and Tom Courtenay, and the Spanish crime-drama Barrio Triste. Finally, EFD’s De Gaulle: Part 2 – Liberté – – a film that I am genuinely excited to see after the brilliant De Gaulle: Résistance from earlier in the month. A genuinely varied nine-title slate.
Meanwhile, over in the US: American screens get their own smaller but notable additions today, with no UK dates for either yet. Kino Lorber’s documentary Black Zombie expands wide after last week’s limited debut, tracing zombie folklore from its Haitian roots through to modern horror cinema, while Indican Pictures’ indie crime thriller Nika & Madison brings a scrappier, character-driven counterpoint to the multiplex’s bigger franchise offering.
A 40th-anniversary treat from earlier in the week: Also worth flagging that yesterday The Transformers: The Movie returned to cinemas for its 40th anniversary re-release. A lovely bit of nostalgia programming, if you like that sort of thing. (I must admit, I’ve never seen any of the Transformers movies, having zero interest in them.)
Happy birthday to Jada Pinkett Smith and James Marsden: Rounding things off, happy birthday today to Angel Had Fallen and The Matrix actress Jada Pinkett Smith, who turns 55, alongside X-Men and Enchanted star James Marsden, turning 53.
That’s all for today. Having been away on holiday abroad for 2 weeks, the list of films I need to catch up with is growing daily. Some of these I might need to slum it with by watching on streaming later: but De Gaulle: Liberté is the ‘must watch’ on the big screen for me!
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