Jurassic World: Rebirth ★★★☆☆
Directed by Gareth Edwards. Starring Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, Rupert Friend, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Ed Skrein. 12A cert, gen release, 133 min
Friend plays a representative of big pharma tasked with extracting organic material from certain dinosaurs that may help in the production of life-saving drugs. He recruits “covert operative” Johansson to fire the guns, palaeontologist Bailey to do the brainwork and rough-hewn Ali to pilot the boat. The film, while no classic, works as a refreshing blast of matinee exuberance after the pomposity of the previous three films. The cast do some good work with pseudo-Hawksian dialogue. Third best in the whole series (or maybe even second). For whatever little that is worth. Full review DC
The Shrouds ★★★★☆
Directed by David Cronenberg. Starring Vincent Cassel, Diane Kruger, Guy Pearce, Sandrine Holt, Elizabeth Saunders, Jennifer Dale, Eric Weinthal. 16 cert, limited release, 119 min
A sombre tech wizard (Cassel) has devised a system for allowing the bereaved to watch their loved ones decaying in the grave. This could hardly be a more personal film for Cronenberg. He has explained that the recent death of his wife inspired the piece, and, with his slicked-back grey hair and precise diction, Cassel has something of the director’s physical presence. This is just the sort of unclassifiable oddity that the greatest directors, now less concerned with expectations, manage late into fecund careers. Not a traditional horror. Not a traditional anything. But essential. Full review DC
RM Block
Beat the Lotto ★★★★☆
Directed by Ross Whitaker. G cert, limited release, 82 min
Cracking documentary on the 1992 scheme by a syndicate to buy all the Lotto numbers on a rollover weekend and practically guarantee a profit. Whitaker has a fascinating subject in Stefan Klincewicz, who headed the scheme, and a winning aesthetic in his judiciously selected low-fi cuts from Irish TV, skilfully assembled by editor Nathan Nugent. Against this grim-looking place, hit by emigration and high unemployment, this was and is a much-needed good-news story. Archive footage of Ray Bates, the accordion-playing face of the Lottery, adds further gaiety. Full review TB
Sudan, Remember Us ★★★★☆
Directed by Hind Meddeb. Limited release, 78 min
This vital time capsule taps the emotional and revolutionary fervour of Sudan’s 2018-19 uprising, sometimes livestreamed or captured on phones, against the 30-year rule of President Omar al-Bashir. The film opens, four years later, in an uncertain Khartoum. Gunfire on emptied streets signals Sudan’s complex civil war, a conflict that receives scandalously little coverage in the West. Sudan, Remember Us gives voice to the ordinary revolutionaries it portrays. Several of those depicted have fled to Egypt, but the art created to sustain the revolution remains. As one activist hopefully insists, “Poetry is eternal.” Full review TB
