Rebourne: Bad Boys for Life (2020)

“Ride together. Die together.”

Directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah
Starring Will Smith (Gemini Man), Martin Lawrence (Big Momma’s House), Vanessa Hudgens (Sucker Punch), Alexander Ludwig (The Seeker: The Dark is Rising), Charles Melton (The Sun is Also a Star), Paola Núñez (El cumple de la abuela), Kate del Castillo (The Book of Life), Nicky Jam (XXX: The Return of Xander Cage) and Joe Pantoliano (The Matrix)

The Original

Bad Boys was a 1995 action buddy comedy, notable as the feature debut of Michael Bay (Transformers et al), as a part of the inexorable rise to greatness of rapper and sitcom star Smith, and as pretty much the zenith of the movie career of stand up comic Lawrence. Smith and Lawrence played Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett, Miami detective sergeants in a classic and utterl unironic maverick mould. Lifelong friends, the playboyish Lowrey and happily married Burnett are forced by a series of shenanigans to swap identities to make contact with a witness (Tea Leoni) in a major heroin case. Hilarity ensued through a series of misunderstandings and a lot of people got shot.

‘Bad Boys’ by The Inner Circle – famous as the theme tune to the documentary show Cops – was their theme song.

In 2003, producer Jerry Bruckheimer went back to the well, reuniting Bay, Smith and Lawrence with co-star Joe Pantoliano as the pair’s long-suffering captain, for a case which saw them taking on Cubans, Russians and ecstasy smuggling, and throwing in some relationship drama as Mike dated Marcus’s sister Syd (Gabrielle Union), an undercover DEA agent.

I have actually never seen Bad Boys II, but it sounds like much of a type with the original.

Shit – you may have heard – just got real.

The Late Sequel

There was then a seventeen year break, before Bruckheimer got the band back together – or most of them, Bay being replaced as director by Belgian duo El Arbi and Fallah – for the obligatory ‘we are not too old for this shit’ installment.

Marcus is considering retirement after the birth of his first grandson. Mike is determined to keep going as he is, despite Marcus’s attempts to make him see that he ought to take a second chance on a relationship with fellow career cop Rita (Nunez). Meanwhile, bruxa jailbird Isabel Aretas (del Castillo) is broken out of prison by her son, Armando (Jacob Scipio), whom she sends to Miami to take revenge on those who destroyed her family, culminating with Mike Lowery.

JoJo Rabbit (2019)

“An Anti-Hate Satire”

Directed by Taika Waititi (What We Do In the Shadows)
Starring Roman Griffin Davis, Thomasin McKenzie (The King), Taika Waititi, Rebel Wilson (Pitch Perfect 2), Stephen Merchant (Fighting with my Family), Alfie Allen (John Wick), Sam Rockwell (Iron Man 2) and Scarlett Johansson (Hail, Caesar!)

JoJo Betzler (Griffin Davis) is a keen, ten-year-old member of the Hitler Youth in the closing years of the Second World War. His father has lost contact on the Italian Front, and his sister Inge has recently died, leaving JoJo with his mother, Rosie (Johansson) and his imaginary friend, Adolf Hitler (Waititi), for company after he is injured in a grenade accident at a Hitler Youth training camp.

The Gentlemen (2019)

“Criminal. Class.”

Directed by Guy Ritchie (King Arthur: Legend of the Sword)
Starring Matthew McConaughey (The Dark Tower), Charlie Hunnam (Pacific Rim), Henry Golding (Last Christmas), Michelle Dockery (Downton Abbey), Jeremy Strong (The Big Short), Eddie Marsan (Sherlock Holmes), Colin Farrell (Total Recall) and Hugh Grant (Paddington 2)

Fletcher (Grant), a London PI, breaks into the home of gangland enforcer Raymond (Hunnam) to try to sell the dirt he has collected on Raymond’s guvnor Mickey Pearson (McConaughey), an American ex-pat who has built a marijuana empire by selling to and working with the British aristocracy. In particular, he offers information on Mickey’s attempts to sell his business to American billionaire Matthew Berger (Strong), and the interference of a Chinese gangster called Dry Eye (Golding).

A Look Ahead at 2020

2019 is done and dusted; viewed, reviewed and rounded-up. Now it is time to look ahead to 2020.

I mean… There’s an impressive volume of leftfield options this year.

Once more, I will be looking at the major releases upcoming in each month – they say – and pondering on what I expect from them, which ones I want to see, and how I might resolve potential clashes.

2019 in Cinema

“Wait! I slept through 2019?”

And so this is January, and what have I done? Another year of movies over, a new one about to begin. As is my custom, time to break down the movies of 2019 and then look ahead to 2020’s prospects.

I watched 39 new movies at the cinema this year, four older movies on special screenings (The Terminator, Terminator 2, The Matrix and Howl’s Moving Castle,) and caught one more on DVD.

Of the new movies (including the one on DVD) there were:

• 4 adaptations
• 23 sequels or franchise entries
• 4 remakes or reboots (that are not part of a lareger franchise)
• 9 original or at least largely original works

In terms of genre, it breaks down to:

• 15 action/thriller movies
• 11 adventure movies
• 6 superhero movies
• 2 comedy/musical movies
• 3 horror movies
• 3 historical/biopic movies

Cats (2019)

“You Will Believe”

Directed by Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech)
Starring James Corden (Ocean’s 8), Laurie Davidson (The Good Liar), Judi Dench (Murder on the Orient Express), Jason Derulo, Idris Elba (Hobbs & Shaw), Robbie Fairchild, Jennifer Hudson (Sing), Stephen McCrae, Ian McKellen (The Da Vinci Code), Taylor Swift (Valentine’s Day), Rebel Wilson (Pitch Perfect 2) and Francesca Hayward

Abandoned on the streets of London, white cat Victoria (Hayward) is found by the Jellicle cats, including Munkustrap (Fairchild) and wannabe conjurer Mister Mistoffeles (Davidson), and invited to the Jellicle Ball, where various Jellice Cats compete to be the Jellicle Choice and be allowed to ascend to the Heaviside Layer and begin a new Jellicle Life. Jennyanydots the Gumby Cat (Wilson), the Rum Tum Tugger (Derulo) and gourmand Bustopher Jones (Corden) sing ‘the song of themselves’ , only for Jennyanydots and Jones to be snatched by mystic criminal MacCavity (Elba).

Jumanji: The Next Level (2019)

“Everything you know about Jumanji is about to change”

Directed by Jake Kasdan (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle)
Starring Dwayne Johnson (Hobbs & Shaw), Jack Black (The House With a Clock in its Walls), Kevin Hart (The Secret Life of Pets 2), Karen Gillan (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2), Nick Jonas (Les Misérables: 25th Anniversary Concert), Awkwafina (Ocean’s 8), Rory McCann (Solomon Kane), Alex Wolff (My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2), Morgan Turner (Halal in the Family), Ser’Darius Blain (Bolden), Madison Iseman (Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween), Colin Hanks (Elvis & Nixon), Rhys Darby (Trolls), Danny Glover (Predator 2) and Danny DeVito (Twins)

Three years after their adventure in Jumanji, Bethany (Iseman), Fridge (Blain) and Martha (Turner) are planning a reunion during college winter break, but Spencer (Wolff) has fallen out of touch due to suffering from depression. Seeking him at home, the friends find Spencer’s Grandpa Eddie (DeVito) and his estranged friend Milo (Glover), before realising that Spencer has re-entered Jumanji. They follow to help him, with Martha once more becoming the character Ruby Roundhouse (Gillan), but Fridge becomes Shelley Oberon (Black), while Eddie and Milo in turn inhabit the heroic Dr Smolder Bravestone (Johnson) and his sidekick Mouse Finbar (Hart).

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

Far more than usual, SPOILER WARNINGS from the cast list onwards

“Every generation has a legend”

Directed by JJ Abrams
Starring Carrie Fisher (The Force Awakens), Mark Hamill (The Last Jedi), Adam Driver (BlacKkKlansman), Daisy Ridley (Murder on the Orient Express), John Boyega (Pacific Rim: Uprising), Oscar Isaac (Ex Machina), Anthony Daniels (I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle), Naomi Ackie, Domhnall Gleeson (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows), Richard E. Grant (Logan), Lupita Nyong’o (Black Panther), Keri Russell (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes), Joonas Suotamo (Solo), Kelly Marie Tran (The Last Jedi), Ian McDiarmid (Dragonslayer) and Billy Dee Williams (The LEGO Batman Movie)

Oh boy. Where to begin?

Seriously, I am not even kidding about the spoilers.

DJ Emperor Palpatine (McDiarmid) is back from the dead and back on the air! Sending out a message of tyranny and despair from beyond the grave and playing some slamming Sith beats. Kylo Ren (Driver), ultimate Sith fanboy and Supreme Leader of the FIrst Order, finds him via montage and is recruited to destroy the Resistance with a super-secret fleet of Sith star destroyers, but a spy gets word to Resistance bros Finn (Boyega) and Poe (Isaac), and General Leia (Fisher) sends them, along with her apprentice, Rey (Ridley), Chewbacca (Suotamo) and C-3PO (Daniels) to find the Sith wayfinder which will allow them to assault the fleet while it is still relatively contained.