Moana

(PG) ★★★★Director: Ron Clements & John Musker.Cast: (voices of) Auli'i Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Rachel House, Temuera Morrison, Jemaine Clement, Nicole Scherzinger, Alan Tudyk.Maui and Moana embark on an epic adventure in the excellent Disney film Moana.THE pantheon of Disney princesses is a big one, and each new arrival must find her place in the pecking order.So is Moana more Ariel and Elsa (ie. intriguing and memorable) or more Sleeping Beauty...

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Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

(M) 3.5 out of 5Director: Gareth Edwards.Cast: Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Donnie Yen, Mads Mikkelsen, Alan Tudyk, Riz Ahmed, Jiang Wen, Forest Whitaker.The gang's all here, led by Felicity Jones, for the first Star Wars spin-off story.There's a school of thought that taking Star Wars away from George Lucas was the best thing to happen to the franchise.After the incredible Episode VII: The Force Awakens and now this strong spin-off...

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Office Christmas Party

(MA15+) ★★★Director: Josh Gordon & Will SpeckCast: Jason Bateman, Olivia Munn, T. J. Miller, Jennifer Aniston, Kate McKinnon, Courtney B. Vance, Jillian Bell, Rob Corddry.McKinnon, Bateman, Miller and Munn get ready to party down.THIS is how I presume this movie was pitched.A group of writers walked into the office of Dreamworks Pictures, sat down and said: “Here’s the idea – the biggest, craziest office Christmas party ever”.“I love it,” said...

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Trolls

(G) 3.5 out of 5Director: Mike Mitchell & Walt Dohrn.Cast: (voices of) Anna Kendrick, Justin Timberlake, Zooey Deschanel, Christine Baranski, Russell Brand, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, James Corden, Jeffrey Tambor.Did someone puke up a rainbow in here?The current plan at the big studios is to pick cultural touchstones from the '80s and '90s and repackage them as movies for a new generation.It's an ingenious plan – you lure in the parents who grew...

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The Founder

(M) ★★★★Director: John Lee Hancock.Cast: Michael Keaton, Laura Dern, Nick Offerman, John Carroll Lynch, Patrick Wilson, B. J. Novak, Linda Cardellini.Set in a time when going to a McDonald's restaurant was a thing to be celebrated.AFTER the incredible double of Birdman and Spotlight – both of which won the best film Oscar – directors must have been tripping over themselves to cast Michael Keaton.Not only is he potentially a lucky charm for big awards...

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Fantastic Beasts & Where To Find Them

(M) ★★★Director: David Yates.Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Colin Farrell, Ezra Miller, Samantha Morton, Carmen Ejogo."Gotta catch 'em all!" said Newt Scamander (probably).THERE must be a saying in Hollywood to the effect of “No franchise is ever finished”.Warner Bros, having made close to $8 billion at the box office from the eight Harry Potter films, had this adage in mind when it came knocking on JK Rowling’s...

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Arrival

(M) 4.5 out of 5Director: Denis Villeneuve.Cast: Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, Michael Stuhlbarg, Tzi Ma.Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner talk to some strange visitors in Arrival.HOW many times has the Earth been visited/invaded by aliens?The answer is “so many we’ve lost count”, and for that reason alone you could be forgiven for switching off at the thought of another cinematic close encounter.But don’t. Because if you do, you’ll miss not...

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The Accountant

(MA15+) ★★Director: Gavin O’Connor.Cast: Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, J. K. Simmons, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Jon Bernthal, Jeffrey Tambor, John Lithgow.DC were already having regrets about their spin-off film Batman Does His Tax.BEN Affleck has been on a roll in recent years.He directed an Oscar-winning film (Argo), worked with auteur directors Terrence Malick and David Fincher, was perfect in Gone Girl, and was a great Batman and the best thing...

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Dr Strange

(M) ★★★★Director: Scott Derrickson.Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams, Benedict Wong, Michael Stuhlbarg, Benjamin Bratt, Scott Adkins, Mads Mikkelsen, Tilda Swinton."And for my next trick - pretty colours."MARVEL Studios is becoming increasingly like Evel Knievel – with every successful stunt it lands, it makes the next one bigger and more difficult.First it was Asgardian gods with faux-Shakespearean overtones – no worries....

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Jack Reacher: Never Go Back

(M) ***Director: Edward ZwickCast: Tom Cruise, Cobie Smulders, Danika Yarosh, Aldis Hodge, Patrick Heusinger, Holt McCallany."Says here you're 6'5" - now that can't be right."ONCE fans of Lee Child's books got over the fact 6'5" Jack Reacher was going to be played by 5'7" Tom Cruise, most people were able to sit back and enjoy the first big screen outing of Child's ex-military man-turned-drifter.Jack Reacher was not as spectacular or memorable as...

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The Magnificent Seven (2016)

(M) ★★★★Director: Antoine Fuqua.Cast: Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D'Onofrio, Byung-hun Lee, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Martin Sensmeier, Haley Bennett, Peter Sarsgaard.Little known fact: The Wild West often celebrated racial diversity.EVERYONE loves a good team-up.Whether it’s Marvel’s Avengers, DC’s Justice League and Suicide Squad, cult ‘90s cartoon Captain Planet, or an NBA All-Star game, people enjoy watching uniquely talented...

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Storks

(G) ****Director: Nicholas Stoller & Doug Sweetland.Cast: (voices of) Andy Samberg, Katie Crown, Kelsey Grammer, Anton Starkman, Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele, Jennifer Aniston, Ty Burrell, Danny Trejo, Stephen Kramer Glickman.Parenting: not for the birds.DO parents still tell their children that babies come from storks? I thought that changed to cabbage patches back in the ‘80s. And wouldn’t there be a more modern update involving the internet...

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Pete's Dragon

(PG) ★★★★Director: David Lowery.Cast: Oakes Fegley, Bryce Dallas Howard, Wes Bentley, Karl Urban, Oona Laurence, Robert Redford."Man, your dog is ugly. And fucking huge."WHEN Disney started digging into their treasure chest to find story nuggets to re-model, polish up and re-mount as live action films for the big screen, there was the typical burst of cynicism that comes with the announcement of reboots and remakes.But this heritage mining has yielded...

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The Secret Life Of Pets

(PG) ★★★Director: Chris Renaud.Cast: (voices of) Louis C.K., Eric Stonestreet, Jenny Slate, Kevin Hart, Steve Coogan, Ellie Kemper, Bobby Moynihan, Lake Bell, Dana Carvey, Hannibal Buress, Albert Brooks.It's a dog-meet-dog world.Ugh. I hate myself.WHAT do your pets get up to when you’re not around?It’s not a bad premise for a CG animated movie – it’s also not that far removed from the premise of the Godfather of CG animated movies Toy Story...

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Sully

(M) ★★Director: Clint Eastwood.Cast: Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart, Laura Linney.The Moustached Middle Distance Staring Competition was in full swing.IT’S an odd truth of filmmaking, but sometimes incredible true stories don’t make for incredible films.Case in point is Eastwood’s take on the extraordinary “Miracle On The Hudson” – the 2009 incident in which Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger and First Officer Jeffrey Skiles lost both engines of their...

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Kubo & The Two Strings

(PG) ★★★★½Director: Travis Knight.Cast: (voices of) Art Parkinson, Charlize Theron, Matthew McConaughey, Rooney Mara, Ralph Fiennes.They were gonna call it Bug, Boy & Monkey, but it sounded like a '70s folk band.(I may have made this up)PEOPLE talk about Pixar’s impressive strike rate and how the Pixar name is a signifier of quality – which is all totally true – but we also need to be talking about Laika in the same way.Laika is the company...

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War Dogs

(M) ★★★Director: Todd Phillips.Cast: Jonah Hill, Miles Teller, Ana de Armas, Kevin Pollak, JB Blanc, Bradley Cooper."Mention the Fantastic Four remake one more time and my client will punch you in the face."HOW did two 20-something stoners from Miami end up scoring a $300 million contract with the US government to supply weapons to armed forces in Afghanistan?That’s exactly what the media was asking back in 2008 when the story of David Packouz...

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Sausage Party

(MA15+) ★★★★Director: Greg Tiernan & Conrad Vernon.Cast: (voices of) Seth Rogen, Kristen Wiig, Jonah Hill, Bill Hader, Michael Cera, James Franco, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Paul Rudd, Nick Kroll, David Krumholtz, Edward Norton, Salma Hayek.No one knew what to expect at Elton's Oscar party.LOOKING back at the incredible filmmaking technology unleashed by Pixar’s magnificent debut Toy Story in 1995, it's inevitable we would end up with something...

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Suicide Squad

(M) ★★Director: David Ayers.Cast: Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Jared Leto, Jai Courtney, Jay Hernandez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Cara Delevingne."I just know there's a decent DC movie around here somewhere."AT the risk of firing up the DC troll brigade again, Suicide Squad is another disappointment in the DC Extended Universe.So that’s three films down, and three fumbles, for those of you playing along at home. On the plus...

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Jason Bourne

(M) ★★★Director: Paul Greengrass.Cast: Matt Damon, Alicia Vikander, Tommy Lee Jones, Vincent Cassel, Julia Stiles, Riz Ahmed.Matt Damon spotted Jimmy Kimmel in the crowd.FOURTEEN years on from his cinematic debut, it’s easy to forget how big an impact Jason Bourne had on the world of movie spies.While James Bond was driving invisible cars around ice castles and Ethan Hunt was in between impossible missions and unfathomable stunts, Bourne burst on...

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Hunt For The Wilderpeople

(PG) 4.5 out of 5Director: Taika Waititi.Cast: Sam Neill, Julian Dennison, Rima Te Wiata, Rachel House, Oscar Kightley, Rhys Darby."Is it a velociraptor, Mr Neill?"FOR a country of 4.4 million people, New Zealand has long punched above its weight when it comes to producing great movies.In recent years Whale Rider, The World’s Fastest Indian, Boy, and What We Do In The Shadows have all attracted large audiences and critical acclaim in and out of their...

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