"Heretic" - Review

A pair of Mormon missionaries, the droll, sensible veteran Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and the bubbly wide-eyed idealistic optimist Sister Paxton (Chloe East), find themselves at the precipice of the home of "Mr Reed" (Hugh Grant), who has expressed interest in their church. Attempting to convert him, they step over the threshhold, and are in for a long night of the soul.

Marketing and selling a horror movie around the continued comeback of beloved English actor Hugh Grant is a bold movie, but something which pays off. There has always been a sense of malice and menace behind that stuttering, sputtering quaint English stammer; and here Grant uses it to excellent, enthralling effect. He's hypnotic and relishing the part, relishing the chance to be part of his "freak show" era as an actor. He's well worth the admission, and is genuinely putting in one of his best turns: he has a fantastic conversation about Monopoly which had me grinning ear to ear and gripping my seat.
This isn't to say that the film suffers as a result of him not being there: the script stands on its own as a tightly focused bottle movie, where I can happily watch our leads discuss religion and dogma and faith, before they even get to the spooky stuff. The 2 leads are solid and believable without being charicatures, and the movie has a lot of fun with deciding and subverting and flip-flopping on who its final girl is. I appreciate the baroque square and box imagery too (a visitor framed by the gate, the walls of Grant's home, the jumper our big man wears...)
The movie wobbles after 40 minutes (kudos though, that is some juicy build up!) when the 2 girls enter the doors, but quickly regains its feet after a while, about the same time that Grant takes centre stage again. It is fun and has a whale of a time discussing faith, and manages to stick the landing with a well-planted arc about a butterfly...
Come for Hugh Grant, stay for Hugh Grant, and have a tight 3-act play. Oh, and Topher Grace has a surprise cameo in this, and I like seeing him in things.

"Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Amongst Thieves" - Review

Bard and daring scoundrel Edgin Darvis (Chris Pine) and his best friend, the blunt and exiled barbarian Holga Kilgore (Michelle Rodriguez) recruit a crew of misfits to break into the tower of their old friend Forge Fairchild (Hugh Grant) so that they may retrieve a magic tablet to resurrect Edgin's deceased wife. Teaming up with self-conscious and nervous sorcerer Simon (Justice Smith), Tiefling nature advocate and shapeshifting Druid Doric (Sophia Lillis) and hot-sexy-Paladin who fucks, Xenk (Rege-Jean Page): they find themselves involved in planning a heist which unfolds into a plot to save the world...

Like your favourite game of "Dungeons and Dragons" come to life, when you try to tell that story to other people it can lead to an excruciating marathon of cringe. But here, the writers Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley (the kid from "Waiting"? Okay...) have thread the needle wonderfully with a good hearted heist movie where the humour comes not solely from quips or 4th wall breaking snark (though they allow themselves cute moments, like "that seems arbitrary" for spells) but from solid scripting, character interaction, punchlines and pacing. The cast bounce wonderfully off of each other and the events of the movie, rattling along wonderfully not quite at a breakneck pace but a fun, endearing one. Pine is pitch perfect in the most Chris Pine performance as the most Bard, channeling his inner Rick O'Connell; and Justice Smith is endearing as the sorcerer with self-esteem issues, basically being his character from that God-awful "Jurassic World" sequel but written well. But it's Michelle Rodriguez and Rege-Jean Page who were my favourites: the former I knew would be, and the latter in his first performance I have seen. Rodriguez was always going to be great as the blunt, plain-talking Barbarian who has a wonderful joke about a deer and is not merely a foil to Pine's bard, but genuinely good and a sweetheart companion/brother in arms, and refreshingly there is no romantic subplot between the two of them, instead being more a "two bimbling bisexuals have to babysit" situation. Page absolutely steals the show as not just a pitch perfect portrayal of a Paladin, but an inspired piece of casting which has the naturaly charismatic, handsome actor playing a brilliant, dashing, handsome, super-competent warrior who is also a complete and utter dullard in social situations. He gets some excellent laughs, and manages to make a walk amusing, and it is a shame he is not in the movie longer... Lillis is somewhat underused, as the "only competent part of the plan" but works well as the only idealist and genuniely decent one in the party. I'm happy to see her getting more work. Then there's Hugh Grant. I for one welcome a return of our beloved English treasure, here hamming it up and being deliciously, delightfully devillish and relishing the material at hand. If anything, he overshadows the actual villain of the piece, and the 3rd act loses a bit of steam with him out of the way, but the brisk and breezy and delightfully creative fights manage to save it. The set pieces are lively and effervescent: from a portal-gun sequence with flipping and rotating cameras (a nice little bit of scripting to how in EVERY D and D game the players will obtain a magic item and COMPLETELY fuck the difficulty curve with a soldering iron, using creative thinking which makes you want to end them... Side note there. Apologies), a fight with a fat dragon, a colourful wizard duel, a good punchline with the Owl-Bear, and a stand-out piece of comedy in a grave yard. Everything thrown into play comes back later in what is depressingly rare scripting in today's movies (a slingshot, a love of Halflings for a sweet gag at the end of the movie, an Owl Bear, the portal stick, even Simon's useless spells and a lute), and the end result of all of this is a comedy which works both on its own merits and as a sweet little love letter of sincerity to the source material for fans. It captures the silliness, the chaos and the energy of it all perfectly without having to resort to condescension or overwritten gags or awkward riffing and sneering at stuff. It's helped by the sincerity and how clear it all is in its intentions. Settle yourselves in for a nice, lovely time, with some fantastic performances. Oh, and keep an eye out for the other gang in the cage sequence, you'll recognise them if you enjoy shit cartoons...
End credits song slaps too