Dune: Part Two (2024)

Almost ridiculously epic and far too long, this second part of the Frank Herbert sci-fi adaptation is again directed by Denis Villeneuve.

Paul Atreides unites with the Fremen people of Arrakis to wage war on House Harkonnen. 

There are too many shots of Zendaya scowling at Timothée Chalamet.

It’s visually stunning but also quite ponderous in places.

Dune: Part One (2021)

Denis Villeneuve’s remake of the Frank Herbert novel previously filmed by David Lynch. It’s certainly more coherent than the Lynch version, but some of the wild imaginative magic of that film has been lost. Instead, everything looks great, and is incredibly epic, but it comes across as rather ponderous. Every word or sentence uttered seems intended to carry great gravitas, and sometimes you wish there was a little more life in the drama. That said, the spectacle is remarkable and the vast planetscapes are undeniably impressive.

Timothée Chalamet seems oddly weedy as Paul Atreides, but that’s presumably the point. He’s young and naive but carrying the potential of greatness, and he grows in stature as the film progresses. Better is Rebecca Ferguson as his mother and Oscar Isaacson as his father. Josh Brolin and Charlotte Rampling have small, but important parts, but seem somewhat underused. 

The second part will be released in 2024.

Milk (2008)

Biopic of Harvey Milk, who campaigned for gay rights in California until his assassination in 1978. 

Sean Penn is superb in the main role, with a fascinating twitchy energy and a set of mannerisms that make him incredibly watchable. Josh Brolin is excellent as Dan White, a San Francisco city supervisor and political rival. 

The assassination is referenced right at the start, so you know what’s going to happen. As such it’s painful to watch the film proceed to its inevitable conclusion.

Gangster Squad (2013)

Gangster thriller set in Los Angeles in 1949.  

Sean Penn is Mickey Cohen, a brutal mobster. Sergeant John O'Mara (Josh Brolin) is a World War II veteran who leads a team of cops (including Ryan Gosling) to hunt him down. Emma Stone is Cohen’s girlfriend and “social etiquette teacher”, who becomes attached to Gosling, putting both of them in great danger. 

It’s exciting when there’s action taking place, and the chase and shoot-out sequences are exceedingly well filmed, but it's let down by a sub-standard script. The characters aren’t really developed, so you don’t see any of these excellent actors at their best. The group scenes are especially flat, with no one seeming to have anything to say. Even the Stone/Gosling pair-up – so potent in La La Land – fails to sparkle. 

There’s an interesting theme about the war not yet being over, and O’Mara not knowing what else to do but fight. Oddly enough, the most three-dimensional character is Connie (Mireille Enos), his pregnant wife, who goes from warning him about the dangers of what he’s doing to hand-picking the “gangster squad” who work with him.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010)

Oliver Stone’s disappointing and unnecessary sequel to his original 1987 Wall Street hit, which was itself patchy. Michael Douglas returns as Gordon Gekko. He’s out of prison and says he wants to reconnect with his estranged daughter (an unconvincing Carey Mulligan). That daughter’s fiancé (Shia LaBeouf) is himself a Wall Street wizard and begins his own wheeler-dealing with Gordon Gekko. Josh Brolin plays a smooth, ruthless banker who gave evidence against Gekko in the past.

It’s a frustrating film that feels slow in parts and plain odd in others. Naff visuals don’t help: sometimes there are fussy split-screen effects, and at a couple of points we see crudely literal representation of “dominoes falling” and “science”. 

Susan Sarandon has a bit part that doesn’t really work, and Charlie Sheen has an awkward cameo purely as a nod to his role in the first film. He wasn’t very good in that either. 

Michael Douglas is always compelling, but it’s a genuinely baffling story that simply did not need to be told. The bolted-on happy ending suggests that Oliver Stone is muddled about how he feels about Gordon Gekko. He seems to be in love with the character and unable to make up his mind about whether he’s a nice guy or a baddie. Instead, he gives him a line about all of us being mixed bags who should give each other a break. After two films, that just seems like a cop-out.

Everest (2015)

Disaster/survival film about the true-life events of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster involving two climbing groups, led by Rob Hall (Jason Clarke) and Scott Fischer (Jake Gyllenhaal). Everything turns nasty when a storm blows in and the mountaineers find themselves badly underprepared. 

It’s an extremely tense drama that’s all the more affecting because these events actually happened. 

Josh Brolin plays Beck Weathers, who survives but loses his hands and nose to frostbite. Robin Wright plays his wife back home, hoping to coordinate a helicopter rescue attempt. 

Keira Knightley plays Rob Hall’s wife and does the “terrified spouse stuck at home” part better than most, probably because the role is fully developed and she’s given a character to explore. 

Also excellent is Emily Watson as Helen Wilton, the base camp manager. Her experience of the escalating horror conveys just what it must have been like to witness this nightmare and be powerless to stop it. 

The film doesn’t moralise or pass judgement on why the deaths occurred. Instead, it pieces together a narrative that lets you make up your own mind.

Sicario (2015)

Tense drug thriller starring Emily Blunt as an FBI agent who gets mixed up in a Mexican gang war beyond her comprehension. Benicio del Toro and Josh Brolin play the assassin and CIA agent she finds herself working with. In fact, she soon learns that she’s simply being used to grant legal authority to their actions.

It’s brutally violent and makes for uncomfortable watching. The two male leads are convincingly ruthless, but Blunt seems an odd choice and is slightly awkward as tough-but-sensitive Kate Macer – although that awkwardness may well be the point.

Director Denis Villeneuve gives even the grittiest scenes a panoramic lavishness, as he did in Arrival and Blade Runner 2049.

You are left despairing at the drug wars – a problem that only seems to escalate over time – and this grim, super-realist film is easier to admire than to enjoy.