The Shiny Shrimps (15)
Directed by Cedric Le Gallo and Maxime Govare

★★★★

FLAMBOYANT French water polo team The Shiny Shrimps are notorious for being terrible, since they much prefer partying and the high life to their sport.

But, to their initial chagrin and then increasingly to their surprise, they find themselves changing for the better when world champion swimmer Matthias Le Goff (Nicolas Gob, excellent) is assigned as their new coach.

Le Goff isn’t happy with his new position. The eponymous Shiny Shrimps are a riotously gay water polo team and Le Goff has been sentenced to train them as punishment for making a homophobic remark on TV.

His mission is to prepare his team for the world’s biggest LGBTQ+ sporting event, the Gay Games in Croatia.

The team’s captain Jean, smartly played by Alban Lenoir, has created his team as much to bring a gay group together as “family” as to succeed at the games, meaning that Le Goff is faced with a truly tough task.

“Stop swimming like girls and show them who’s who!” he exhorts.

Co-writers and directors Maxime Govare and Cedric Le Gallo — a real-life Shrimp —conjure genuinely warm characters and engaging performances to match in a film that’s funny, charming and surprisingly heartening.

Alan Frank

A Minuscule Adventure (U)
Directed by Helene Giraud and Thomas Szabo

★★★★

THIS charming film is a sublime sequel to 2013’s Minuscule: Valley of the Lost Ants.

It centres on a young ladybird who, trapped in a consignment of goods, is accidentally shipped off to the Caribbean and she’s followed by her father who flies across the globe to the rescue in this Finding Nemo-esque style adventure, in which he enlists the help of old friends.

Despite there being no dialogue, it’s surprisingly easy to follow the fun-filled action in what’s a dazzling combination of live-action photography and 3D animation.

Writers and directors Helene Giraud and Thomas Szabo deliver another magical yet emotional and suspenseful ride full of colourful characters, including an opera-loving spider.

It’s guaranteed to captivate both adults and children alike and I can’t recommend it enough.

Maria Duarte

IT: Chapter 2 (15)
Directed by Andy Muschietti

★★★★

DIRECTOR Andy Muschietti ended his 2017 film of Stephen King’s classic horror novel with the young members of the Losers’ Club defeating killer clown Pennywise.

With profit as Hollywood’s most motivating creative force, Muschietti and screenwriter Gary Dauberman deliver the inevitable sequel that, 27 years later, sees people disappearing again in the town of Derry, leaving the Losers’ Club once more reuniting to obliterate Pennywise.

The adult Losers’ Club (James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain and Bill Hader) do everything required of them as they face an avalanche of horrors ranging from fortune cookies that come horrifyingly alive to Pennywise as his most repellent, while the youthful Losers’ Club members add effective scares in well-used flashbacks.

But the epic length tends, inevitably, to dilute the impact despite tasty inserts, with King as a shopkeeper and Jack Nicholson’s over-the-top yell: “Here’s Johnny!” from The Shining.

Nevertheless, it’s shock-film value for money.

AF

Rapid Response (12A)
Directed by Roger Hinze and Michael William Miles

★★★

IN THE early days of motor racing, one in seven drivers died every year and it took a trailblazing team of doctors and track safety specialists to revolutionise the sport.

Based on Dr Stephen Olvey’s memoir Rapid Response, this documentary traces the roots of safety at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the 1960s and how it was extended to other racing circuits in the decades that followed with the introduction of mobile safety teams and experienced doctors on the track.

Roger Hinze and Michael William Miles’s fascinating film features detailed interviews with Olvey and key track safety experts as well as racing drivers from the time, including Mario Andretti and Bobby Unser.

They break up the endless montages of heart-stopping racing car crashes in which drivers were seriously injured or killed.

Definitely one for petrol heads.

MD

Midnight Cowboy (18)
Directed by John Schlesinger

★★★★★

FIFTY years ago, John Schlesinger’s classic fable of naive Texan Joe Buck (Jon Voight, perfect) who comes to New York hoping to make his fortune as a sexual hustler and serendipitously finds a new friend in ailing con-man Ratso (Dustin Hoffman), deservedly became the first R-rated movie to win the Best Picture Oscar.

British director John Schlesinger rightly won an Academy Award, as did Waldo Salt for his riveting adaptation of James Leo Herlihy’s novel.

Midnight Cowboy is still compelling viewing, thanks in large measure to Schlesinger’s potent storytelling and brilliantly used Manhattan locations which add vivid impact to a compelling story.

It boasts two leading performances that not only confirmed Hoffman’s stardom after The Graduate but also established Voight as a star to watch.

Half a century may have passed but this deservedly remains a classic.

AF