FILMS

Film Reviews by Jordan Adcock

THE DUKE

FILM OF THE MONTH - Star Rating: 4/5

The Duke is the increasingly rare film that’s comfortable being a breezy 90 minutes long. That might not sound like great praise. However, this film was director Roger Michell’s (Notting Hill) last before his untimely death last year and while The Duke isn’t destined to live on as a ground-breaking classic, it’s a sweet comedy drama that (a couple of aspects aside) isn’t indulgent, tells a quintessentially quirky British true story and reliably excellent performances from seasoned British actors (plus more swearing than usual for a 12A-rated film!).

In this film, it’s evergreen character actor Jim Broadbent as Kempton Bunton, the jovial aspiring script-writer from Newcastle who’s well-read and outspoken, especially about making TV licences free for pensioners. He’s not impressed when in 1961 the nation buys Francisco Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington for £140,000. One visit to London later, the painting goes missing and Bunton’s red-handed (or is he?).

Broadbent is perfect for the lead role which suiting his unassuming, gently comical onscreen presence, and ensures that Bunton’s likeable despite his motormouth and overall stubbornness, including physically removing the means to receive the BBC on his own TV to not pay the licence (spoiler alert: it doesn’t work). Mirren is equally welcome as Bunton’s wife Dorothy, who’s grown weary not just of his refusal to pay their own TV licence or give up his seemingly hopeless campaigns, but also working through their shared, unresolved trauma of their daughter’s death. Her character, particularly her interactions with Kempton and their spirited son Jackie (Fionn Whitehead), helps ground the film from ever lurching into outright triviality. ✪

THE BATMAN LUCA MORTAL KOMBAT

Star Rating: 3/5 Star Rating: 2.5/5 Star Rating: 2.5/5

When a character’s as lucrative as Batman, reboot after reboot is only inevitable. Director Matt Reeves’ new take, starring a worthy turn by Robert Pattinson as an especially moody and troubled Batman, certainly puts the ‘dark’ in ‘dark knight’. Namely, its impressively gloomy atmosphere in Gotham that rains almost every night and the Riddler (Paul Dano), here reworked as an unnerving internet-dwelling killer eliminating the city’s corrupt elite. The film gets sloppier the further it drags on with certain plot points introduced right as they’re paid off, which is less forgivable given the three-hour runtime and how it continually extends shots and scenes longer than necessary. It’s not up there with Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight films but mercifully much better than Warner Bros.’s rushed universe-building featuring Ben Affleck as Batman. ✪ Luca is the latest Pixar film sent straight to streaming on Disney+ (and later Blu-ray/ DVD), presumably for mid-pandemic business reasons rather than artistic ones. Still, if this isn’t Pixar’s worst film it might well be their slightest. Luca the young sea creature discovers one day that he turns human when out of water (literally “fish out of water”?) and makes friends with Alberto and Giulia, though is forced to hide his true self from the seaside town that fears his kind. Too much of the story, and themes of friendship overcoming fear and suspicion, have already been done in other animated films with more imagination and depth, including by Pixar in Monsters, Inc. The attention to detail of its Italian riviera setting and the sweet character relationships aren’t enough. ✪ Released last year and now available to stream, this is Hollywood’s second stab at filming the very violent beat-em-up video game series. Whereas the 1990s Mortal Kombat films remain very poor adaptations but are very silly and funny regardless, this one’s a better adaptation with fight scenes that are better choreographed and blood and gore closer resembling the games. Yet, despite its main cast including someone who gains robotic arms, an ice-wielding assassin and a foul-mouthed brawny Australian, the film’s determined to mostly focus on its bland-as-anything ‘Chosen One’ protagonist, with his motivations to protect his family even blander than his dialogue. Thank goodness this film’s main stakes are in its realm-hopping, magic-powered martial arts. ✪

UNCHARTERED

Star Rating: 1.5/5

Speaking of video game adaptations, adventure film Uncharted is much closer to the typical Hollywood butchering they’ve subjected to series like Tomb Raider, Warcraft, etc. The film stars Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg, despite them not at all resembling the original game characters Nathan Drake and Victor Sullivan, professional thieves who form an uneasy partnership to find hidden gold before the powerful Moncada family does. The lead pair coast on their honed screen charm (Holland’s performance is essentially him as Peter Parker again), because the script certainly gives them nothing to work with. The action’s ridiculous, the plot and logic even more so, and Antonio Banderas gets wasted; Uncharted chases gold but this film’s treasure is eye-rolling rather than dazzling. ✪

Beating the PRICE SQUEEZE on fuel costs

ADAM TUDOR-LANE offers some timely tips on fuel saving for your vehicles to try and beat the price squeeze at the petrol pumps.

As war darkens the skies on European soil once more, the effects of sanctions work both ways, and they’re first being felt here at the pump. VAT currently adds 26p to every litre and fuel duty another 58p. So we pay 84p a litre in tax alone…

With the government unlikely to reduce either of those costs by a significant amount, what can you do to up your MPG (miles per gallon) and save money? Here are a few top tips - aside from buying an electric car.

Tyre Pressure

One of the biggest impacts on MPG can be tyre pressures; ‘yup’, those black round things that you get replaced every few years and rarely take much notice of.

You should be checking them regularly as tyres can naturally lose around 2 PSI a month. A study in the U.S. found that a 10% drop in pressure increases fuel consumption by 2%. These may sound like small numbers, but at £90 a tank, 2% is £1.80; add that up over a month or two of driving, and you could end up saving a decent amount.

You’ll be able to find the correct tyre pressures for your car in your manual or somewhere on the door shut. If not, pop your reg in online here - tyresafe.org/car-tyre-pressure/

One of the best 12v tyre inflators for the money that I’ve tested is the Ring RTC1000, that way you don’t have to keep going to the petrol station and spending a quid a time to check your pressures.

Find it on Amazon by scanning the QR code Fuel System Cleaner

Some call it snake oil, but a fuel system cleaner will actually boost your MPG.

If you’ve never used one in your car, then it’s worth doing. A fuel system cleaner such as Redex can remove deposits that build up in the engine and along your fuel lines over time.

All you do is bung it in your tank and drive. Think of it as an MOT for your fuel system. If you never use higher octane, premium fuels, it’s worth doing at least once a year.

Redex is available for petrol and diesel vehicles, so make sure you buy the right one.

Find it on Amazon by scanning the QR code De-clutter

If you always drive around with lots of rubbish in your car, ditch it. That goes for roof boxes, racks and rails too.

Extra weight and drag will use more fuel, it doesn’t make much of a difference around town, but longer journeys or particularly hilly drives will sap away at your MPG.

A roof box may only knock around 0.2 off your MPG, but when coupled with less weight and correct pressures, the small gains for little effort can mean money in your pocket.

Air Conditioning

No, it’s not a myth. Using your air-con on a city drive can make it dip by a massive 8%. So if you’re ‘pootling’ around achieving 30 MPG, it can drop to around the 28 mark just through having the air conditioning on.

You’re much better off opening the windows; even fully open you’d only lose around 0.5 MPG compared to the 2 eaten up by the AC.

On motorways using air-con barely makes a difference, so crack on.

For the sake of a few minutes checking your tyres, unloading unnecessary stuff and bunging in some fuel cleaner, you could squeeze out a few extra miles from your tank. While you won’t save a tenner overnight, as Tesco says – every little helps.

But the most significant factor when it comes to MPG is driving style, it’s a big topic to cover, so I’ll explain all in next month’s issue.