It is in the anarchic rejuvenation of animation itself that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem fully embraces the rebellious spirit of its outcast heroes, emulating the sort of colourful scrawls and grungy imperfections that might be found in a teenager’s sketchbook, and vividly manifesting the coming-of-age tale which underlies its kinetic superhero action.
As Grant Singer methodically unravels the brutal murder of a real estate agent into a conspiracy that sprawls across the Maine property market, suspects and detectives alike chillingly shed their skins to reveal their true natures, giving metaphoric significance to the cold-blooded title Reptile.
Within May December’s dual character study, Todd Haynes draws disturbing psychological parallels between one method actress and the paedophile she is researching, carefully observing both predators win the unearned sympathy of audiences and neighbours alike through performances of astoundingly shallow substance.
It takes a special sort of inhuman cruelty to live in such close proximity to largescale genocide, profit off its spoils, and continue each day with no remorse, so the vast wall that divides Auschwitz from the camp commandant’s country house makes for a chilling visual metaphor of this in The Zone of Interest, as Jonathan Glazer shrewdly considers where history’s greatest evil truly lies.
Christopher Nolan looks set for a sweep at this year’s Oscars, but still we are left wondering – where is Wes Anderson?
The struggle up the corporate ladder has a long list of casualties in Fair Play, so when a promotion comes between secret lovers Luke and Emily, personal relationships and fragile egos are the first to be sacrificed to the vicious battles of sexes in the white-collar workplace.
The young vacationers of Afire are happy assuming for the time being that they will be safe from the distant forest wildfires, and yet it is only a matter of time before this inferno wreaks havoc on their delicate lives, developing a haunting metaphor of blazing summer romance that Christian Petzold wields with ethereal elegance.
Much like the first instalment in this series, Extraction 2’s action is as ambitious as its narrative is thin, though Sam Hargrave’s marvellous set pieces thrilling advance mercenary Tyler Rake’s rescue with thrilling momentum and a touching confrontation of fatherly responsibility.
Whether or not recent widow Sandra was the one to push her husband to his death in Anatomy of a Fall, Justine Triet’s chilling autopsy of their lifeless marriage uncovers an enormous, guilty weight in her soul, positioning us through flashbacks and cutaways as the jury of her moral conscience.
So intoxicating is the allure of fame in Priscilla that by the time Elvis Presley’s naïve future wife is trapped behind the gates of Graceland, she can barely distinguish between its privileges, constraints, and everyday banalities, as Sofia Coppola blends each into musical montages and dreamy vignettes that beg the question – why did he pick her from among his fans?
