Bronagh Gallagher

Aside from being a hugely entertaining romp, this film also works as a far above-average Irish rural comedy as well as a freaky monster movie. With a fiendishly inventive script and hilariously complex characters, it grabs hold of our attention and never lets go. It's scary, grisly, silly and hysterically funny, often all at the same time.

The story takes place on Erin Island, a sleepy community off the coast of Northern Ireland where the pristine beauty is about to be invaded by tentacled creatures that arrived in a meteor. The drunken local cop O'Shea (Coyle) and his newly arrived partner Nolan (Bradley) check out a report by the colourful Paddy (Roddy) about something that's definitely not a squid. And a local marine ecologist (Tovey) confirms that it's not even from earth. But as Erin comes under siege from these "grabbers", the islanders have to come up with a clever plan to save the world.

Where this goes is both sublimely ridiculous and very clever, as the filmmakers gleefully play with the monster movie genre (there's a storm rolling in!) while stirring in elements of comedy, romance, sci-fi and horror. But this is never played as a spoof, which makes it surprisingly engaging as we bond with sharp-witted characters who face both these terrifying beasts and quite a few red herrings. As they improvise weapons from whatever is at hand, they also find time to bicker, flirt and even develop some lasting relationships. And Coyle, Bradley and Tovey are terrific in the central roles, as are the riotously eccentric villagers.

Continue reading: Grabbers Review

In 1898, Albert (Close) works at an upscale Dublin hotel, and no one suspects that he's actually a woman. Quietly going about his work while saving to open a tobacco shop, Albert is unassuming and relentlessly polite. Then he's asked to share his room with visiting painter Hubert (McTeer), who learns his secret and reveals one of his own: he's a woman too. But Hubert has managed to have a normal married life. This inspires Albert to pursue the hotel maid Helen (Wasikowska), which is complicated by her lusty relationship with handyman Joe (Johnson).

Continue reading: Albert Nobbs Review

This lively holiday romp has a steady stream of sharp verbal and visual gags that hold our interest. Even when the plot stalls in the middle, it's difficult to stop chuckling at the filmmakers' deranged sense of humour.

At the North Pole, Santa (Broadbent) is a bit complacent after 70 years on the job, letting his heir-apparent son Steve (Laurie) convert Christmas Eve into a high-tech black-ops style mission executed with military precision. To Steve, missing one child is an insignificant statistic. But Steve's younger brother Arthur (McAvoy) disagrees, and teams up with his feisty Grandsanta (Nighy) to make sure the last gift is delivered the old fashioned way.

Yes, the film is a riot of clashes between tradition and progress, the wisdom of the years and youthful vigour. Fortunately, the serious themes are subverted, hilariously playing with our expectations and never turning into a nostalgic paean to the olden days. That said, this British production does feel eerily co-opted by Hollywood, from the use of the American "Santa Claus" (no one ever calls him "Father Christmas", which might have made sense of the film's odd title) to the somewhat feeble attempts to ramp up the action and suspense. Not to mention a massive wave of sentimentality at the end.

But even this is undermined by Baynham (Borat) and director Smith's script, which maintains a dry British sense of humour and gives the strong vocal cast plenty of snappy material to play with. While most of the characters are a bit unmemorable, Nighy gets the best lines: Grandsanta as an old coot full of surprises, including some terrific rude jokes and an amusingly animated hound-style old reindeer sidekick. Staunton also has some terrific dialog as the underestimated Mrs Santa.

Visually the film is brightly colourful, amusingly designed with small sight gags and continual Christmas imagery. While the characters look a little plasticky, the settings are gorgeously rendered, and the flying sleigh sequences almost make it worth seeing in 3D. The problem is that the film feels stretched out by random antics and underdeveloped plot-threads along the way that add nothing to the overall story. So we get tired of the bumbling chaos, mainly because we know exactly where it's got to end up.