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This week's new releases
- The cinematic recycling of Spice It Up is delightfully unusual
- Claustrophobic people may hate Mine 9, but it's poignant nonetheless
- Cold Case Hammarskjold is a chilling revival of a wacky conspiracy theory
- After the Wedding is a half-baked revival hardly deserving of the same name
- Entertainment can be found in The Angry Birds Movie 2, but it's still formless
- Good Boys has friends-forever themes and is an ultra-horny comedy
- Blinded by the Light follows the difficult teenage years of a young Springsteen-obsessive
- The recycled killer-shark genre is made even worse in 47 Meters Down: Uncaged
- Cate Blanchette is dull in a movie – Where'd You Go, Bernadette – that doesn't let her breathe
Lisa Pictures
Spice It Up
- Written and directed by Calvin Thomas, Lev Lewis and Yonah Lewis
- Starring Jennifer Hardy, Adam Nayman and Albert Shin
- Classification PG; 82 minutes
Spice It Up stands as a delightfully unusual act of cinematic recycling, with the directors turning their original schoolgirl production into the fictional thesis film of a Toronto student named Rene (Opens Aug. 16 at the TIFF Lightbox)
Emphatic Films
Mine 9
- Directed by Eddie Mensore
- Written by Eddie Mensore
- Starring Terry Serpico, Mark Ashworth, Kevin Sizemore, Clint James, Drew Starkey and Erin Elizabeth Burns
- Classification PG; 83 minutes
Mine 9, from Eddie Mensore, is about desperation and survival. On one level, the survival of miners trapped by a cave-in; on an allegorical level, the survival of a gasping coal industry and a dying Appalachian way of life. Mensore has not made a masterpiece of the genre, but there’s a poignancy to his gritty calamity tale that makes the movie worth watching. (Opens Aug. 16)
Tore Vollan/Courtesy of Mongrel Media
Cold Case Hammarskjold
- Directed by Mads Brugger
- Starring Mads Brugger and Goran Bjorkdahl
- Classification PG; 127 minutes
Danish filmmaker, journalist and provocateur Mads Brugger’s Cold Case Hammarskjold is a documentative inquiry into the mysterious 1961 plane crash in Africa that killed United Nations secretary-general Dag Hammarskjold. Maybe it’s real or maybe it’s wackadoodle, but a cold-case investigation is heated up considerably and imaginatively by Brugger’s charismatic film. (Opens Aug. 16)
Kevin Nunes/Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics / Mongrel Media
After the Wedding
- Directed by Bart Freundlich
- Written by Bart Freundlich, based on the original screenplay by Susanne Bier and Anders Thomas Jensen
- Starring Michelle Williams, Julianne Moore and Billy Crudup
- Classification 14A; 110 minutes
If someone, somewhere decided it was necessary to remake Susanne Bier’s excellent 2006 Danish family-secrets drama After the Wedding, the least they could do is add something new to the proceedings. American writer-director Bart Freundlich does about half the work necessary to make a remake feel vital with After the Wedding, but is half better than none? (Opens Aug. 16 in Toronto and Vancouver, and Aug. 23 in Montreal)
Courtesy of Sony Pictures/The Associated Press
The Angry Birds Movie 2
- Directed by Thurop Van Orman
- Written by Peter Ackerman
- Featuring the voices of Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad and Leslie Jones
- Classification PG; 96 minutes
The Angry Birds Movie 2 is definitely a quicker, more entertaining upgrade but remains formless as an actual motion picture. Just like its mobile incarnation, the movie simply pelts you with loud, shrieking diversions. The filmmaking has levelled up, but you’re still wasting your time. (Opens Aug. 16)
Ed Araquel/Universal Pictures
Good Boys
- Directed by Gene Stupnitsky
- Written by Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg
- Starring Jacob Tremblay, Keith L. Williams and Brady Noon
- Classification 18A; 89 minutes
If you’ve watched 2007′s Superbad, then you’ve already seen much of the same friends-forever themes and ultra-horny comedy that Good Boys mines, albeit aged down about five years here to Grade 6. And if you’ve seen any of the many trailers that have been sprinkling the internet since March, then you’ve already seen most of the film’s best jokes. (Opens Aug. 16)
The Canadian Press
Blinded by the Light
- Directed by Gurinder Chadha
- Written by Gurinder Chadha, Paul Mayeda Berges and Sarfraz Manzoor
- Starring Viveik Kalra, Rob Brydon and Hayley Atwell
- Classification PG; 117 minutes
Blinded by the Light is a feel-good coming-of-age movie that often feels way too good about itself. Based on the memoir Greetings from Bury Park: Race, Religion, Rock 'n' Roll by British-Pakistani writer Sarfraz Manzoor, the film follows the difficult teenage years of a young Springsteen-obsessive named Javed. (Opens Aug. 16)
Gareth Gatrell/Courtesy of VVS
47 Meters Down: Uncaged
- Directed by Johannes Roberts
- Written by Johannes Roberts and Ernest Riera
- Starring Sophie Nélisse, Corinne Foxx and John Corbett
- Classification PG; 89 minutes
It is not often that you watch a killer-shark movie and start feeling sympathy for the shark. But 47 Meters Down: Uncaged is no ordinary killer-shark movie – it is much, much worse. Director Johannes Roberts’s quickie sorta-sequel to his sorta-remembered 2017 film 47 Meters Down, this new film borrows from the best entries in the genre (Jaws, sure, but also The Shallows and Deep Blue Sea) and mangles them into something unworthy of chum. (Opens Aug. 16)
The Associated Press
Where’d You Go, Bernadette
- Directed by Richard Linklater
- Written by Richard Linklater, Holly Gent and Vince Palmo
- Starring Cate Blanchett, Billy Crudup and Kristen Wiig
- Classification PG; 100 minutes
Uncertainty is the key word to understanding, or surviving, Where’d You Go, Bernadette. Adapted from the bestselling, highly acclaimed 2012 novel by Maria Semple, the narrative bops up and down in such an agitated, sloppy manner that it seems bored with or alternately disgusted with itself. (Opens Aug. 16)
This weekly guide was complied by Samantha McCabe, with reviews by Barry Hertz, Chandler Levack and Brad Wheeler.
