Vanguard (15)
Directed by Stanley Tong
★★★

IN THIS seventh collaboration between action titan Jackie Chan and director Stanley Tong, the Middle Kingdom gives its answer to the Mission: Impossible franchise in an international espionage romp with all the lunacy of a Fast & Furious sequel.

Chan is Tang Huanting, the London-based leader of the elite titular security service, whose team are called into action to protect an asset’s daughter from a Middle Eastern warlord in pursuit of next-generation WMDs.

Globe-hopping action straddles three continents in a cheeky adventure thriller, laden with over-the-top stunts, ludicrously implausible set-pieces and even some CGI lions to boot.

Having been behind some of Chan’s more notable actioners, including his American breakout, Rumble in the Bronx, Tong more than knows how to stage a handsome-looking kinetic thriller and he certainly doesn’t disappoint.

Pairing Chan with the volume of visual FX used here, however, does both actor and director a disservice, particularly in Vanguard’s otherwise tremendously fun third act, which rapidly establishes a barrier that removes a lot of the joyful tactility of an excellent stunt team and a very game supporting cast that includes a likeable bromance between Ai Lun and Once Upon a Time’s Yang Yang.

Vanguard makes little to no sense, considers the laws of physics an afterthought and boasts a script so profoundly cheesy it could be served as a raclette. But it’s not in any way concerned about that  — it merely wants you to have a good time.

And that mission isn’t just possible, it’s effortlessly accomplished.

Van Connor

Pieces of a Woman (15)
Directed by Kornel Mundruczo
★★★

IS IT possible to survive the unimaginable loss of a child? And where do you turn to after for help?

Those are the central questions at the heart of this powerful and compelling drama by husband-and-wife team Kornel Mundruczo (White God) and playwright-screenwriter Kata Weber, which explores grief and how people deal with it in a world where discussing child bereavement is still somewhat taboo.

The film follows Boston couple Martha (Vanessa Kirby) and Sean (Shia LaBeouf, on explosive form) on the verge of parenthood.

The opening scene is a 24-minute emotionally and physically gruelling home birth, shot in one continuous take, which sadly ends in tragedy.

The film, driven by a powerhouse performance by Kirby (Princess Margaret in The Crown) who delivers a truly convincing warts-and-all portrayal of someone giving birth, struggles to maintain its thrilling momentum following its impressive opening act.

Martha spends the next 12 months navigating her own loss internally while dealing with her husband who wears his grief on his sleeve.

And she locks horns with her domineering mother (the fabulous Ellen Burstyn) and confronts the midwife (Molly Parker), accused of her baby’s death in court.

But Kirby’s wonderfully multilayered interpretation results in a moving picture of grief.

Maria Duarte

Wild Mountain Thyme (12A)
Directed by John Patrick Shanley
★

JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY returns with his first feature effort since 2008’s acclaimed Doubt and it’s a turgid reminder that, in better times, January was typically the dumping ground for films inevitably due a critical kicking and patently lacking box-office potential.

Such would be a deserved fate for Wild Mountain Thyme, based on Shanley’s own Broadway play.

Outside Mullingar, the focus is initially on the ailing father of feckless Irish farmer Anthony, played by the  charisma-vacuum that is Jamie Dornan, who intends to leave the family farm to his more motivated American cousin (Jon Hamm).

It’s a dilemma which stokes an emerging love triangle between the pair and Anthony’s unrequited love Rosemary (a decidedly slumming-it Emily Blunt.)

Too hollow to work as drama, yet too dull and absent of charm to pull off any kind of romance, Wild Mountain Thyme serves instead as a showcase for laughable attempts at Irish accents and what feels like a B-roll of lacklustre Countryfile-grade stock footage.

It’s an hour and 42 minutes enjoyable to nobody bar Christopher Walken, who also makes an appearance and who is presumably laughing all the way to the bank, and it’s enough to make you grateful cinemas are currently closed, ensuring —  at least theatrically— that Wild Mountain Thyme garners the multiplex audience it so richly deserves.

VC