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Four new films to see this week: Poor Things, The Beekeeper, Freaks vs the Reich, Lift

Reviews of the pick of this week’s new films

Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo in Poor Things. Photograph: Atsushi Nishijima/Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures
Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo in Poor Things. Photograph: Atsushi Nishijima/Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures

Poor Things ★★★★★

Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. Starring Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef, Kathryn Hunter, Christopher Abbott, Jerrod Carmichael, Hanna Schygulla, Margaret Qualley. 18 cert, gen release, 141 min

Stunning psycho-sexual feminist fantasy, adapted from an Alasdair Gray novel, featuring Emma Stone as a women reanimated by Willem Dafoe’s eccentric Victorian scientist. A dizzying feast of cinematic excess, but there is also intellectual traction and psychological grit. This is an essay on the politics of control expressed in the language of avant-garde circus. Though we are never more than seconds away from a good joke and though the film has its compass set for a hopeful destination, Poor Things is imbued with a constant worry about male control heightening into violent abuse. This is as serious as comedies get. Full review DC

The Beekeeper ★★★☆☆

Jason Statham and Jeremy Irons in The Beekeeper. Photograph: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc./Daniel Smit
Jason Statham and Jeremy Irons in The Beekeeper. Photograph: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc./Daniel Smit

Directed by David Ayer. Starring Jason Statham, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Josh Hutcherson, Bobby Naderi, Minnie Driver, Phylicia Rashad, Jeremy Irons. 15A cert, gen release, 105 min

Statham plugs the John Wick-sized hole at the centre of this hail of bullets. He plays “Mr Clay”, the apiarist of the title, who is spurred to vengeful action when his kindly neighbour dies by suicide after falling for a phishing scam. Dodgy accent aside - there’s some muttering that Statham’s American military retiree came from “the British Isles” - it’s a good fit for the action veteran, who strolls brusquely into armies of enemies with the air of a man taking out the bins. Fast cuts and more than 50 credited stuntmen and stuntwomen keep the octane high. Read the full review. TB

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Freaks vs the Reich/Freaks Out ★★★☆☆

Freaks vs the Reich. Photograph: VMI Releasing
Freaks vs the Reich. Photograph: VMI Releasing

Directed by Gabriele Mainetti. Starring Claudio Santamaria, Pietro Castellitto, Giancarlo Martini, Aurora Giovinazzo, Giorgio Tirabassi, Max Mazzotta, Franz Rogowski. 16 cert, gen release, 141 min

Freaks vs the Reich, in which a 12-fingered Nazi pianist with the ability to see into the future pursues a circus troupe with superpowers during the second World War, reads like it could be an offering from the people who brought you Sharknado 5. Despite a scene that can only be described as “robust were-man and were-woman sex”, Gabriele Mainetti’s bouncy, carnivaliesque alt-history is closer in tone to Hellboy than throwaway Syfy channel Naziploitation. A big-hearted adventure in which the bad guy cribs Sweet Child O’Mine and Creep from his visions of the future. Read the full review. TB

Lift ★★★☆☆

Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Kevin Hart in Lift. Photograph: Netflix
Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Kevin Hart in Lift. Photograph: Netflix

Directed by F Gary Gray. Starring Kevin Hart, Vincent D’Onofrio, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Úrsula Corberó, Jean Reno. Netflix, 104 min

Interpol agent Mbatha-Raw persuades Hart’s criminal crew to, ahem, lift a large sum of gold from an aeroplane bound for evil Jean Reno’s vulgar mansion. The thing is far too reliant on boring CGI. Nobody has anything approaching a personality. The attempts to get us interested in fictional NFT art are no more successful than the international cabal of idiots’ efforts to draw us to the real thing. For all that, there is a sort of honest energy to Lift that deserves just a sliver of respect. Watch out for the scene filmed in Belfast’s Crown Liquor Saloon. Read the full review. DC

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Donald Clarke

Donald Clarke

Donald Clarke, a contributor to The Irish Times, is Chief Film Correspondent and a regular columnist

Tara Brady

Tara Brady

Tara Brady, a contributor to The Irish Times, is a writer and film critic