Bill Cage (Tom Cruise) wakes up in Heathrow airport, which is now a military base on the frontline in the war against alien invaders known as Mimics. He's about to be shipped off to France in one final push against the ever-growing extra-terrestrial threat. He feels like he's been here before though, and that's because he has. An encounter with the "Omega" Mimic has left Cage in a time loop, waking him up back at the base a day earlier every time he dies.
The opening 45 minutes of Cooties is downright hilarious. The blend of 28 Days Later style horror, chaotic humour and Children of the Corn makes a worryingly natural fit, complete with OTT gore and Rainn Wilson rugby tackling 10 year olds. It's just a shame that the film can't keep this relentless comic pace up for the rest of its runtime, as Cooties ends up limping across the finish line in a rather disappointing fashion, becoming an unfortunate victim of its setup's unambitious constraints.
Director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett are sitting on top of the world at the moment. Following on from the critical and commercial success of genre mash-up You're Next, their latest film, The Guest - a wonderful homage to 80s B-movies featuring an incredibly brilliant performance from Dan Stevens - has just premiered at Sundance to widespread acclaim.
Young Ones is all over the place, and not in a particularly good way. There’s far too many ideas crammed in to allow any of them staying power, leaving the film in a muddled ball of awkward dialogue and half-finished concepts. This mash-up of dystopian western/sci-fi feels less like a piece of divine inspiration and more like a movie that never knows quite what it wants to be.
For all its talk of grand concepts and higher spirituality, the film's awkward tonal shifts and questionable line of argument lead to a movie that's often interesting, occasionally beautiful, and an utter mess.
Hader and Wiig deliver a pair of wonderful performances in The Skeleton Twins, a film that strikes a nuanced balance between subtle comedy and emotional-fueled drama.