Celia Imrie Page 2

It's no surprise that this creep-out horror thriller is packed with whizzy visual invention, since it's directed by Gore Verbinski, who made the first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies, as well as Rango and The Lone Ranger. And the screenplay by Justin Haythe (Revolutionary Road) starts well, stirring in some resonant themes amid the growing, gnawing nastiness. Unfortunately, over the film's overlong running time, it just gets sillier and simpler.

The story centres on Lockhart (Dane DeHaan), a rising star workaholic New York broker who's been caught in some dodgy dealings. To redeem himself, he is sent to collect the company's boss (Harry Groener) from a Swiss sanatorium, where he seems to have gone native. Or something. But when Lockhart arrives at the picturesque Alpine castle, things quickly begin to spiral out of control. He's injured in a car crash, forcing him to become a patient at the spa alongside the rather too-cheerful elderly residents, who are undergoing some sort of odd treatment. As Lockhart digs deeper, he runs afoul of the director, Dr Volmer (Jason Isaacs), especially when he befriends the doctor's star patient, the oddly naive Hannah (Mia Goth). And as things get freakier, Lockhart begins to worry that he'll never get out of here.

Verbinski develops a darkly gothic atmosphere from the first frames of the film, and things get increasingly offbeat from there. Some elements are blackly comical, but the overall tone is grotesque, with a special emphasis on slimy eels, which appear alarmingly everywhere Lockhart looks. Meanwhile, Haythe stirs in a convoluted mythology about the mad baron who lived in the castle 200 years earlier. When combined with underlying themes about the stresses of modern-day life and the relative morality of Wall Street bankers, this is all rather intriguing. Unfortunately, these clever textures slip away quickly, leaving little more than a series of repetitive set pieces designed to give the audience the jitters as they remind us of other movies.

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Nearly 25 years after the sitcom debuted, Edina and Patsy arrive on the big screen to continue their drunken antics, although without the usual enthusiastic laugh-track everything feels eerily muted. Thankfully, there's still a lot of fun to be had, including well-aimed jabs at celebrity culture. Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley are still hilarious in their signature roles. And it's hard to get too worried about the limp plot when every scene is packed with amusing cameo appearances.

With her PR agency fading and her money spent on expanding her home, Edina (Saunders) discovers that her credit cards are "broken" and her champagne fridge is empty. So she and her pal Patsy (Lumley) set out to make some cash. After failing to sell her memoirs, Edina sets out to woo Kate Moss as a client. But this goes spectacularly wrong when Kate ends up falling off a balcony into the Thames. Now under investigation, Eddie and Pats flee to the South of France to find Patsy's wealthy ex (Barry Humphreys). They're chased by a detective (Robert Webb), who's the boyfriend of Edina's daughter Saffron (Julia Sawalha), whose teen daughter (Indeharna Donaldson-Holness) has run off with them.

Written by Saunders, the script is very loose, bouncing around without much focus before a series of impatient, nonsensical conclusions. Basically, it's little more than a flimsy framework that includes brief scenes for series regulars (including Jane Horrock's airhead assistant, June Whitfield's dotty mum, Celia Imrie's rival PR and Kathy Burke's bulldog editor), plus a few new characters like Chris Colfer's stylist. All of these people have their moments, but never quite emerge as much more than comedy sketch figures. On the other hand, the big-screen format allows Saunders and Lumley to give Edina and Patsy a bit of surprising emotional depth amid the usual slapstick nuttiness.

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An old-school caper comedy, this goofy romp struggles to surmount its badly contrived screenplay. Fortunately writer-director Joel Hopkins also has gorgeous locations and a cast of pros who are unafraid to make complete idiots of themselves. They keep us chuckling even when things turn far too silly.

It starts with a hostile corporate takeover in Britain that costs Richard (Pierce Brosnan) and his ex-wife Kate (Emma Thompson) their income and pensions. Still feuding years after their marriage fell apart, they decide to team up, head to Paris and confront new owner Vincent (Laurent Lafitte) about their predicament, as well as the sudden poverty of all of Richard's employees. But Vincent cruelly dismisses them, noting that he liquidated Richard's company to help pay for his extravagant wedding to trophy wide Manon (Louise Bourgoin), who now sports a $10m diamond. So Richard and Kate impulsively decide to crash the marriage and steal the diamond with some help from their old pals Penelope and Jerry (Celia Imrie and Timothy Spall) and their computer-expert son Matt (Jack Wilkinson) back in Britain.

The idea is so preposterous that we just have to go with it, but Hopkins' script never bothers to fill in the gaping plot holes, merely charging into each corny set-piece with gusto. Thomson gets all the needed information about the wedding by joining in on the hen weekend. Spall has a series of dark-horse skills up his sleeve. Wilkinson seems able to do all manner of technical wizardry except the one thing that forces our four heroes to scuba-dive across the bay and scale a cliff, James Bond-style.

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Seven retirees meet at the airport as they move to Rajasthan to retire in a newly restored hotel. Evelyn (Dench) is financially strapped due to her late husband's debts. Muriel (Smith) is getting a faster, cheaper hip replacement.

Douglas and Jean (Nighy and Wilton) can't afford to retire in Britain. Graham (Wilkinson) has unfinished business in India. And Norman and Madge (Pickup and Imrie) are both single and looking for love. But manager Sonny (Patel) has slightly exaggerated the hotel's facilities.

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But our hero had a job to do, and he never shied away from danger. He swallowed his fear, hopped into his silver, gas-fueled chariot, and sped off through the rain and inky darkness to the multiplex, that house of horrors where Cedric the Entertainer and John Travolta lurked. The critic pushed open the heavy doors and made his fateful way to face off against Nanny McPhee.

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