Isle of Dogs (12A)
Directed by Wes Anderson
★★★★★

WRITER-DIRECTOR Wes Anderson's brilliantly animated comedy-adventure follows the story of Atari, the 12-year-old ward of the corrupt mayor of a futuristic Japanese city, who flies to the filthy Trash Island where exiled canines live to find his pet dog

The narrative logic matters not, because Anderson hits every splendidly surreal comic mark with unerring aim, delivering a marvellously funny collection of canine capers decorated with a persuasive indictment of political chicanery.

It's served up with wit, visual invention and perfectly-cast voices headed by Bryan Cranston, Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson.

You’d be barking to miss it.

Alan Frank

Journeyman (15)
Directed by Paddy Considine
★★★

PADDY CONSIDINE was deservedly hailed for his directorial debut with 2011’s Tyrannosaur, which he also wrote.

Now he's seeking triple triumph as director, screenwriter and star in what begins as a boxing drama and segues into what he describes as “a story about a sense of self — and of losing yourself and finding yourself.”

He works hard playing not-so-young world middleweight champion Matty Burton who, after winning a nightmarish fight with feisty challenger Andre “The Future” Byte (Anthony Welsh), collapses with brain trauma.

He faces his hardest battle as he fights to regain his speech, memory and movement and bond again with his wife Emma (Jodie Whittaker) and baby daughter.

Considine’s story of tragedy and redemption naturally focuses on his damaged character, whom he brings to life with sufficient dramatic impact — he makes tea without boiling the water and becomes incontinent — to keep you watching, despite a storyline that becomes increasingly foreseeable as it progresses.

Whitaker, however, creates a moving and genuinely three-dimensional character who adds much-needed emotional impact to a journeyman story that ultimately fails to rise far above a well-intentioned and proficiently made television film. Not entirely surprising, since it’s co-produced by Channel 4.

AF

Blockers (15)
Directed by Kay Cannon
★★★
 

THREE teenage girls and childhood friends strike a sex pact on prom night and their parents spend the rest of the time trying to stop them in this hugely entertaining slapstick comedy.

Surprisingly heartfelt and huge on laughs, it's director Kay Cannon's debut feature and it's impressive in capturing every parent's worst nightmare, while striking the perfect balance between pulling at the heart strings and gross-out comedics.

There's a lot of nudity, particularly from John Cena, who plays one of the beleaguered parents alongside Leslie Mann and Ike Barinholtz.

The WWE superstar-turned-actor shows great comic timing and potential and the abundant chemistry between all three that keep you engaged.

The many visual scenarios are laugh-out-loud funny in what's a smart, hilarious and surprisingly empowering film.

Maria Duarte

The Bachelors (15)
Directed by Kurt Voelker
★★★★

THE painfully crippling effects of grief are explored in this gentle yet understated gem of a father-and-son drama which packs a hefty emotional punch.

The sublime J K Simmons plays Bill, a widower who suddenly drags his teenage son Wes (Josh Wiggins) to the other side of the country to take up a teaching post at a private school a year after the death of his wife of 33 years.

Both are hanging on by a thread, merely going through the motions of living, when they meet two women (played by the marvellous Julie Delpy and Odeya Rush) who force them to take stock.

Writer-director Kurt Voelker examines the pain of grief and the spiralling black hole that is depression with a frank but humorous touch.

Simmons delivers another compellingly nuanced performance, this time as a heartbroken man who feels totally lost without his soulmate, while Wiggins holds his own impressively opposite the Oscar-winning actor, especially when Wes finally confronts his father about his behaviour and his own fears in a raw and emotionally charged showdown.

For anyone who has lost a parent or a lifelong partner, this bitter-sweet drama will ring only too true.

MD

Midnight Sun (12A)
Directed by Scott Speer
★★★

BELLA THORNE is US teenager Katie Price (no, not that one) who, suffering from the incurable disease Xoderma Pegmentosum, has to live in the shadows because exposure to sunlight could kill her.

Home-schooled by her widowed father Jack (Rob Riggle), she sleeps by day and then emerges at night to play guitar and sing her own songs at the local train station, where she meets high school athlete Charlie Reed (Patrick “son of Arnie” Schwarzenegger).

They fall in love until, tragically, she is accidentally exposed to the dawn and faces inevitable death in what's and old-fashioned, sentimental and predictable drama, reminiscent of 1950s Hollywood schmaltziness.

But the combination of likeable portrayals by Thorne and Schwarzenegger — like his father, he’ll surely be back — Eric Kirsten’s warm-hearted screenplay, adapted from Japanese film Taiyo no uta, and Scott Speer’s sensitive direction delivers a warm-hearted and all-embracing rom-com weepie. Ideal for hormonal teenagers.

AF