Shazam! (12A)
Directed by David F Sandberg
★★★★★

WITH, among others, Superman, Captain Marvel, Batman, Iron Man and Captain America, we aren’t starved for cinematic superheroes.

But for my money — and I’d happily pay to see Shazam! — comes the most enjoyable superhero outing you could hope for in the shape of 14-year-old streetwise kid Billy Batson, whose magical powers transform him into a sizzling superhero simply by shouting: “Shazam!”

What makes director David F Sandberg’s superhero film so hugely entertaining is the fact that while Shazam may be all magic, muscle and airborne at will, he’s still an all-American teenager at heart.

Just as well, since when super-villain Dr Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong at his sinister best) starts giving Philadelphia a diabolically bad time Billy Batson (perfectly played by Zachary Levi) has to transform into the superhero.

But he’s still a teenager at heart who confides, in full Shazam costume: “I don’t even know how to pee in this thing.”

Fortunately, he doesn’t need that particular skill since he’s far too busy in adult mode saving Philadelphia from Sivana in a series of sizzling fantasy-action sequences enjoyably delivered by our superhero, who’s having fun as only a teenage champion can.

You’ll have super fun too.

Alan Frank

The Keeper (15)
Directed by Marcus H Rosenmuller
★★★★

BASED on the remarkable true story of how German soldier and POW Bert Trautmann overcame fierce post-WWII protest and prejudice, The Keeper shows how he won the nation’s hearts as the goalkeeping hero of Manchester City.

But this is no run-of-the-mill sports biopic. It’s set against the backdrop of how Trautmann (a superb David Kross) met and fell in love with his first wife, Englishwoman Margaret (Freya Mavor). She initially wanted nothing to do with him as he was the “enemy” —a sentiment shared by her friends and neighbours.

Yet, eventually, her love for Trautmann got him through the most difficult time in his life.

It’s very much a film of two halves, with the first concentrating on their complicated love story and the second homing in on his footballing career.

A gripping and complex drama, it examines how sport can contribute to the reconciliation of two hostile nations. Trautmann was eventually awarded an OBE for his contribution to Anglo-German relations and became the first foreign player to be voted Player of the Year.

Maria Duarte

Last Breath (15)
Directed by Richard da Costa and Alex Parkinson
★★★★

“BREATHTAKING” is all too often an adjective deployed by reviewers seeking a shortcut to describe a film.

For once, the word could hardly be more appropriate as a response to Richard da Costa and Alex Parkinson’s extraordinary documentary, which chillingly reconstructs the nerve-jangling true story of commercial diver Chris Lemon in the North Sea stranded on the seabed.

With access to only five minutes of oxygen, he has no chance of rescue for more than 30 minutes.

Lemon “plays” himself with conviction as he battles to stay alive while rescuers struggle to  find him at the bottom of the North Sea.

The blend of documentary footage, restaged sequences and to-camera narrative deliver a riveting true-life story with more genuine emotional impact than any fictional feature could hope for.    

AF        

Pet Sematary (15)
Directed by Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer
★★★

IF YOU recall the 1989 film adaptation of Stephen King’s book, penned by the horror master himself, you might be wondering about the need for this remake.

Despite a couple of key changes, Jeff Buhler’s screenplay captures the essence of King’s work in following Dr Louis Creed (Jason Clarke) as he moves with his wife Rachel (Amy Seimetz) and their two young children from Boston to rural Ludlow in Maine.

The film opens with a major fright, the first of many, as the Creeds arrive at their new home and eight-year-old Ellie (a haunting Jete Laurence) spots a disturbing procession of youngsters in creepy masks. They're carrying a dead animal to the local pet cemetery, which sets the macabre tone for what is to come.

When tragedy befalls the family, their mysterious and eerie neighbour Jud Crandall (played superbly by John Lithgow) offers them his help, which sets them on a dark and murderous path.

Directors Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer do a fine job in delivering a solid shocker as it explores the horrors of death and grief while asking how far you would go to bring your loved ones back.

MD

The Sisters Brothers (15)
Directed by Jacques Audiard
★★

FRENCH film-maker Jacques Audiard’s first English-language film won the best director Silver Lion at last year’s Venice Film Festival.

But for me, this hyper-trendy and overlong Western says rather more about festival attendees than about a film that really merits awards for galloping self-indulgence for Audiard and co-writer Thomas Bidegain.

Their screenplay, from Patrick De Witt’s novel, follows assassins-for-hire brothers Eli (John C Reilly) and Charles (Joaquin Phoenix) across Audiard’s weird Wild West to kill a chemist who’s invented a new gold-mining method.

Reilly and Phoenix work hard to liven stolid sequences that too often go nowhere and to inject much-needed humour into their increasingly unbelievable personae. But it says much for their less-than-credible characters that Eli learning to brush his teeth was my entertainment high spot of the film.

In fairness, Audiard’s is definitely a different Wild West. But then, it was filmed in France, Spain and Romania.

AF

Holy Lands (15)
Directed by Amanda Sthers
★★★

AN AGEING Jewish cardiologist leaves New York and his family to go and raise pigs in the Holy Land in this surreal drama by Amanda Sthers.

It’s a move that sparks the anger of local communities, yet Harry’s (James Caan) conflict with the town Rabbi Moshe Cattan (Tom Hollander) slowly blossoms into a longstanding friendship that leads him to re-evaluate his relationships with his ex-wife (Rosanna Arquette), his financially dependant 34-year-old daughter (Efrat Dor) and his gay playwright son (Jonathan Rhys Meyers).

Writer-director Sthers, who’s adapted her critically acclaimed French novel of the same name, delivers a wildly humorous but multi-layered drama about a dysfunctional family, driven by a standout performance by Caan as the grumpy and uncompromising former patriarch.

MD