I’ll say this for Marvel film culture: its commitment to franchise maintenance and integration has significantly reduced the letdown factor of inevitable sequels. To say two films have been drawn with the same stencil is perhaps the wrong analogy for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 (Disney, 12): rather, this loosey-goosey, eye-searingly spangly new instalment of “Star-Lord” romping has been drawn by a restless, fanciful child with no hand on the template.
That’s a good thing. Even when its silliness tilts toward outright obnoxiousness, this remains the most characterful series in Marvel’s empire, actively delighting in the broad banter, why-not cameos and extra-extra-extra-snazzy action spectacle it splashes all over the screen. As in the first, what actually happens between gags is practically incidental, as a cosmically grizzled Kurt Russell arrives on the scene to blow the mind of Chris Pratt’s dudeish space warrior with news of his past. Yeah, yeah, whatever, we say; just give us more popping octopus fights and random, upbeat intrusions of 70s dad-rock. We aren’t disappointed. Here’s a blockbuster franchise that demands precious little of its audience, yet gives abundantly in return.
Sticking in a cheerfully loopy register, we move on to Mindhorn (Studiocanal, 15), writer-actor Julian Barratt’s bumptious, meta-upon-meta send-up of 1980s British TV procedurals. The title refers to the ludicrously psychic fictitious detective played, all too long ago, by washed-up, egotistical ham Richard Thorncroft. Whether Barratt is more cringeingly hilarious as the actor or his creation is a close-run thing. His obtuse deadpanning is a thing of versatile comic beauty. The film itself, which sees Thorncroft drafted into a real-life serial killer hunt for reasons that more capable seniors swiftly regret, is less spry with its shtick, stretching a few running jokes until they no longer twang. Still, it’s affable, mischievous nonsense.
Would that anyone or anything could be described as playful in The Promise (Entertainment One, 12), a mealy historical love triangle set in the looming shadows of the Armenian genocide. It’s a backdrop that dictates a tone of tight-jawed dourness, yet the film’s engagement with history is on the skimpy side. Even the usually electric Oscar Isaac seems sluggish, weighed down with portent and a hummus-thick accent.
Also scarcely cracking a smile, though to much more enticing dark effect, is The Ghoul (Arrow, 15). A richly strange, darting psychodrama from British newcomer Gareth Tunley, it moves from spiralled thriller mechanics to more Lynch-inspired experimental imaginings as a mentally troubled cop (the fine Tom Meeten) faces the possibility of supernatural interference in a perplexing murder case – or not, as scene after scene second-guesses what has gone before.
I was never going to make it dry-eyed through Nick Broomfield and Rudi Dolezal’s documentary Whitney: Can I Be Me (Dogwoof, 15), and it duly got me good, though this despairing emotional autopsy didn’t quite go for the jabs at the heart I expected. Rather than a simple elegy for a ruined talent, the film rather boldly reframes Whitney Houston’s story as one of thwarted queer identity, centred on her conflicted allegiance to toxic husband, Bobby Brown, and protective childhood friend Robyn Crawford. The film makes a convincing case for the greater intimacy of the two women’s relationship, though Broomfield isn’t on full provocateur duty here; it’s a mostly melancholic inquiry.
Finally, popping up to stream on NowTV after hitting cinemas last year and skipping a DVD release, Anne Fontaine’s The Innocents (15) deserves greater exposure. Stately, disciplined but never dour, this study of a collective crisis of faith, set in a post-second world war Polish convent plagued by decidedly non-immaculate pregnancies, handles potentially lurid material with a rigorously questioning, subtly spiritual intelligence. It would make a fine companion piece to Ida, though feel just as free to pair it with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 as a kind of cinematic detox.
