Films to see over Christmas

THE GREATEST SHOWMAN (PG)

Roll up and rock out for director Michael Gracey's hyperkinetic, foot-stomping musical based on the topsy-turvy life of circus impresario and master of shameless self-promotion Phineas Taylor Barnum (Hugh Jackman).

Razzle smooches dazzle in every breathlessly choreographed, crowd-pleasing frame of this rags-to-riches fairytale set to a wickedly infectious score composed by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who pirouetted away with Oscars for La La Land.

The duo should clear the mantelpiece for more golden statuettes because their songbook here is a barnstorming selection of earworms.

Unquestionably, the script co-written by Jenny Bicks and Bill Condon is light on characterisation and polishes the morally questionable legacy of manipulator PT to a sanitised lustre.

Somehow, despite manifold failings, Gracey's picture is a joy-infused, whoop-inducing blast of pure pleasure that calibrates every swoon of romance and doff of a top hat with masterful precision.

I was gleefully and giddily suckered.

Rating: Four stars

MOLLY'S GAME (15)

Oscar-winning screenwriter Aaron Sorkin makes his directorial debut with a slick dramatisation of the rise and fall of Molly Bloom, who dealt herself a winning hand in 2009 as hostess of Hollywood's most exclusive poker game with a 50,000 US dollar stake to sit at a table frequented by film stars, directors and business titans.

The first-time film-maker deals a full house of snappy dialogue to his cast, overplaying his hand on occasion so Jessica Chastain is forced to deliver screeds in voiceover as the title character.

Some one-liners zing, others are clumsily forced ("I felt I was in a hole, so deep, I could go fracking") but his cast are committed, including one showy scene for co-star Idris Elba that makes amends for a lack of fireworks during a sluggish first hour.

Sorkin's words speak louder than his choices behind the camera and his film is overlong.

However, like some of the people around Molly's table, he bluffs his way towards a winning position.

Rating: Three stars

JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE (12A)

More than 20 years after family-friendly fantasy Jumanji starring Robin Williams rampaged through multiplexes, Jake Kasdan directs an action-packed rumble in the jungle tailored to the short attention spans of digitally minded teenagers.

Five screenwriters pay affectionate tribute to the late actor, respectfully passing the narrative baton to a new set of wise-cracking misfits (Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Karen Gillan), who become trapped inside a video game.

Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle is less than the sum of its fitfully entertaining parts.

Johnson and Hart catalyse an amusingly fractious double-act while Black has a hoot channelling the sassiness of a classroom queen bee, including one stand-out sequence in which he tutors Gillan in the fine art of flirtation.

Kasdan's film is merrily divorced from realism and relinquishes the childlike innocence of the original for an all-guns-blazing assault on the senses including ribald humour that will be too saucy for very young children.

Rating: Three stars

PITCH PERFECT 3 (12A)

After a rollicking reunion in the effervescent 2015 sequel Pitch Perfect 2, delightfully dysfunctional a cappella champions The Barden Bellas are, frustratingly, off-key and out of sync for their teary-eyed farewell tour of the musical comedy franchise.

The uproarious original film was one of the sleeper hits of 2012, part of a modern vanguard of fabulously female-centric comedies including Bridesmaids.

Despite some cute moments and a nostalgic montage of behind-the-scenes footage over the end credits, director Trish Sie's film is one rousing chorus of sisterly solidarity too far for these harmonious heroines.

Screenwriter Kay Cannon hits emotional bum notes for the first time.

A cacophony of hastily composed character arcs falls flat and the luminous Anna Kendrick is almost relegated to backing singer in the ensuing madness. What a crying aca-shame.

Rating: Three stars

STAR WARS EPISODE VIII: THE LAST JEDI (12A)

As the end credits roll on Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, replete with a poignant on-screen tribute to "our princess Carrie Fisher", a bell tolls on nostalgia-steeped memories of George Lucas's epic space saga.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to. That's the only way we can be who we are meant to be," proclaims masked antagonist Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) during one breathless stand-off.

His doom-laden words reverberate throughout Rian Johnson's bloated, special effects-heavy picture.

The Last Jedi doesn't sever ties completely with the past - there are reverential bows to A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, and Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher confidently bear the film's emotional weight to heart-tugging effect.

Their triumphs are, however, at the expense of newer fighters on both sides of the conflict.

It's certainly not a misstep on the scale of The Phantom Menace and Johnson engineers some jaw-dropping set pieces.

More is less in a flabby caper of contrivances and coincidences that clocks in at 152 minutes, uncomfortably and unnecessarily the longest instalment so far.

Rating: Three stars

FERDINAND (U)

Based on the children's book The Story Of Ferdinand penned by Munro Leaf and illustrated by Robert Lawson, director Carlos Saldanha's computer-animated journey of self-discovery centres on a Spanish fighting bull (voiced by John Cena), who prefers to smell the roses rather than stomp on them.

He refutes the laws of nature, which say he is destined to lock horns with a matador in the ring, and wants to be judged by the generosity in his heart, not the potentially lethal power of his hooves.

Working from a linear script that repeatedly preaches open-mindedness and acceptance over prejudice and preconception, Ferdinand spins an engaging yarn that will happily stampede the affections of younger audiences.

Teenagers and parents may prove harder to wrangle in the absence of sophisticated humour and heart-tugging emotion to elevate the film into the bull pen of modern classics.

Rating: Three stars

THE DISASTER ARTIST (15)

In 2003, actor and film-maker Tommy Wiseau attended the world premiere of his independently financed romantic drama The Room.

The first-night audience howled in derision at the wooden performances, clunky dialogue and indulgent sex scenes.

James Franco adopts dual roles as director and actor for a tongue-in-cheek dramatisation of the making of The Room, based on an award-winning memoir.

The Disaster Artist lovingly recounts the genesis of Wiseau's magnum hopeless, mining uproarious humour from the camaraderie between cast and crew as the shoot lurches from outrageous misfortune to catastrophe.

Franco delivers a touching performance as the quixotic ringmaster of the circus, starring opposite younger brother Dave and sister-in-law Alison Brie, who play a young couple sucked into Wiseau's self-destructive orbit.

Rating: Four stars

STRONGER (15)

David Gordon Green's uplifting drama relives the 2013 Boston marathon bombing from the perspective of Jeff Bauman, who was a well-wisher in the crowd that fateful day and lost both of his legs in the blast.

Adapted from Bauman's memoir, Stronger chronicles events before and after the race, capturing the unbearable toll on Jeff and the people around him.

Jake Gyllenhaal delivers an Oscar-worthy performance, bristling with raw emotion, as the survivor, who became a symbol of Boston Strong - the manifestation of a city's unity in the face of barbarism.

It's a muscular and harrowing portrayal that powerfully captures every strained sinew and aching muscle of Jeff's nervous return to the land of the bruised but living.

Director Green earns our tears without resorting to shameless emotional manipulation. His film stands tall and proud like the defiant everyman at its centre.

Rating: Four stars

WONDER (PG)

Lovingly adapted from the award-winning 2012 novel by RJ Palacio, Wonder is an exquisitely calibrated drama that eschews mawkish sentimentality but still has us weeping uncontrollably by the end credits.

An elegant script penned by director Stephen Chbosky, Steve Conrad and Jack Thorne confidently navigates the choppy emotional waters that threaten to separate four members of a Manhattan family, who have learnt the hard way that beauty comes from within.

A simple bookmark structure alternates between narrators, exposing chinks in the characters' armour as they wrestle with insecurities and learn life lessons from a 10-year-old boy (Jacob Tremblay) with a rare genetic syndrome, which has resulted in 27 agonising surgeries to rebuild his face.

Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson are an appealing parental double-act and Izabela Vidovic beautifully illuminates the guilt that gnaws at her older sister.

The two-hour running time passes with copious laughter and tears. Only a stone cold heart will be able to resist the film's sincere and heartfelt charms.

Rating: Four stars

THE MAN WHO INVENTED CHRISTMAS (PG)

Putting aside the veracity of the title, The Man Who Invented Christmas is a family-friendly jaunt that melds historical fact and literary fantasy a la Shakespeare In Love.

The halls of Susan Coyne's script are decked in Victorian-era period detail and unabashed sentimentality, drawing parallels between Charles Dickens' upbringing and Ebenezer Scrooge's painful journey of self-realisation.

Downtown Abbey pin-up Dan Stevens adopts a shaggy mane, not too dissimilar from his flowing locks in Beauty And The Beast, as one of the titans of English literature, whose career was in the doldrums before Jacob Marley's ghostly chains rattled in his imagination.

Bharat Nalluri's film is both comforting and achingly familiar, wringing out decent laughs in scenes where Christopher Plummer's acid-tongued miser belittles the author, who gave birth to him.

The overriding tone is saccharine, so audiences won't need to buy anything from the concessions stand to get a full-blast sugar fix.

Rating: Two stars

BATTLE OF THE SEXES (12A)

Husband and wife directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris serve and volley a fine romance in their dramatisation of the televised 1973 match between Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) and Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell), which was billed as a showdown of youth versus experience as much as a battle of the sexes.

Or as Riggs pithily summarises the rivalry in the film: "Male chauvinistic pig versus hairy-legged feminist, no offence."

Scriptwriter Simon Beaufoy, who previously penned The Full Monty and Slumdog Millionaire, elegantly navigates the personal lives of the two protagonists as he explores gender inequalities and sexual identity in the run-up to the winner-takes-all contest at the Houston Astrodome in Texas.

It's a sophisticated, crowd-pleasing rally of heartache and triumph against adversity, underpinned by universal messages of acceptance and respect.

Rating: Four stars

DADDY'S HOME 2 (12A)

The rotten apple never falls far from the tree and Sean Anders' mouldering sequel to his testosterone-fuelled 2015 comedy lands with a mightier thud than its ham-fisted predecessor.

Drenched in enough sickly festive spirit to make even the most ardent fan of Christmas gag and splutter "bah humbug", Daddy's Home 2 reunites a gurning Will Ferrell and po-faced Mark Wahlberg as hapless parents with very different approaches to raising the same children.

Father knows best - or loudly claims to - in Anders' script, co-written by John Morris, which ramps up the mean-spirited games of one-upmanship with the addition of an older generation of dysfunctional family members played by Mel Gibson and John Lithgow.

Themes of divorce, infidelity and macho pride are clumsily flung into an unappetising mix that once again relies heavily on Ferrell's repertoire of exaggerated physical pratfalls for meek laughs.

There are only so many times he can be pummelled in the face before our season of goodwill wanes.

Rating: One star

THE STAR (U)

Timothy Reckart's computer-animated road trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem glimpses the nativity through the eyes of talking four-legged and feathered critters, who will eventually congregate around the holy manger.

Very young children might be scared by a sword-wielding henchman and his snarling dogs, who are dispatched to slaughter pregnant Mary (voiced by Gina Rodriguez).

However, in almost every respect, Carlos Kotkin's faith-heavy script is piously and politically correct to a fault, lightening a reverential mood with groansome gags that wouldn't be out of place as Christmas cracker mottos.

The Star is geared towards Christian congregations but audiences of all faiths will be able to engage with a menagerie of cute protagonists, who play instrumental roles in the birth.

The script preaches thanksgiving, peace and goodwill to all (wo)men. Those sentiments, if not the quality of the film-making, merit a hearty hallelujah.

Rating: Two stars

JUSTICE LEAGUE (12A)

The superhero blockbuster picks up a few months after the devastation at the end of Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice, with the world mourning the death of Superman (Henry Cavill) and a newly awakened threat on the horizon in the shape of Steppenwolf (Ciaran Hinds) and his army of red-eyed flying Parademons.

The imminent disaster prompts Bruce Wayne/Batman (Ben Affleck) to enlist the help of Diana Prince/Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) to recruit a team of people with special abilities to defeat the new enemy, in the shape of Aquaman (Jason Momoa), Cyborg (Ray Fisher) and The Flash (Ezra Miller).

And for fans of the comic books there is much to enjoy, as long-awaited scenes finally make it to the big screen for the first time.

Miller is really the break-out star here and the dialogue sparkles the most when it comes from him - he's baffled by people eating brunch and is afraid of bugs, guns and "obnoxiously tall people".

While the movie sometimes seems disjointed, it succeeds where it needs to - in setting up the raft of standalone films to follow - Aquaman in 2018, Wonder Woman 2 in 2019 and Flashpoint in 2020.

Devotees will want to wait for the two scenes after the credits for a taste of what's to come.

Rating: Two stars

PADDINGTON 2 (PG)

The bare necessities of a fulfilling life will come to you if you follow Paul King's unabashedly sweet, wholesome and crowd-pleasing sequel.

Paddington 2 is a lip-smacking, tear-jerking delight for audiences of all ages, which promotes compassion and understanding as the foundations of a truly great Britain.

It's a resolutely old-fashioned message of hope and community spirit, and a nimble script co-written by Simon Farnaby never deviates from trumpeting the central character's unerring optimism in an era of paranoia and selfish desires.

The pantomime villain this time is a scheming theatrical ham, played to the comic hilt by Hugh Grant, who dons a wimple and knight's armour to steal hidden treasure that should have been claimed by an ancestor.

Colourful production design is almost as vivid as the performances and Ben Whishaw's warm, soothing vocal performance tugs our heartstrings.

King's fleet-footed sequel delivers with a marmalade-smeared flourish.

Rating: Four stars

MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (12A)

The little grey cells of moustachioed sleuth Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) - and cinema audiences unfamiliar with Agatha Christie's fiendish 1934 novel - are rigorously tested in a handsome reimagining of the snowbound murder mystery.

Lovingly shot on 65mm celluloid to capture the splendour of the opulent production design, this beautifully tailored Murder On The Orient Express welcomes a first-class passenger list of Oscar winners and nominees from both sides of the Atlantic.

Screenwriter Michael Green couples himself to Christie's plot, which is precision-engineered to achieve a full head of steam before a satisfying final twist that challenges Poirot's assertion: "There is right, there is wrong - nothing in between."

Director Branagh shoots inside a movable locomotive and four carriages, built from scratch to allow his camera to glide in seemingly impossible directions.

By opening up the central location, the film sacrifices claustrophobia and tension at the altar of directorial brio.

Rating: Three stars

THOR: RAGNAROK (12A)

Three is the magic number for Marvel Comics' dreamy incarnation of the hammer-wielding Norse god of thunder.

Portrayed on screen since 2011 by Chris Hemsworth with flowing golden locks, gym-sculpted abs and laid-back Antipodean charm, Thor finally gets into an otherworldly groove in this third solo outing directed to the comic hilt by Taika Waititi.

The celebrated New Zealand film-maker and a trio of screenwriters adhere to a classic three-act structure for their heady brew of rip-roaring action adventure, bone-dry humour and dazzling spectacle that positions this gung-ho chapter closer to Guardians Of The Galaxy than its brawny predecessors.

The heavenly convergence of direction, writing and performance would align perfectly if Cate Blanchett was allowed to fully inhabit her snarling villainess, who sets in motion the prophetic downfall of the kingdom of Asgard.

Two additional scenes are nestled in the heaving bosom of the end credits to ensure diehard Marvel fans leave on a high.

Rating: Four stars

MY LITTLE PONY: THE MOVIE (U)

Jayson Thiessen's simplistic animated musical fantasy follows plucky Princess Twilight Sparkle (voiced by Tara Strong) as she attempts to save the kingdom of Equestria from the diabolical Storm King (Liev Schreiber).

Judged against other animated features which have cantered across the big screen in recent months, this hoof-tapping ode to friendship and self-sacrifice isn't quite thoroughbred material.

A script credited to three writers is saddled with greetings cards platitudes - "Friendship didn't fail me. I failed friendship!" - that mean nothing but somehow nourish the film's underlying message of steadfast unity in the face of adversity.

Songs are relentlessly upbeat but instantly forgettable, relying on snappy lyrical wordplay like "We got this/You got this/We got this together!"

Parents will certainly be in this with their excitable tykes.

Rating: Two stars

THE JUNGLE BUNCH (U)

A maniacal koala bear with delusions of grandeur threatens the safety of creatures great and small in The Jungle Bunch.

Based on a hit French TV series, director David Alaux's jaunty computer-animated adventure follows in the pawprints of a menagerie of brightly coloured tales populated by anthropomorphised critters including Zootropolis, Sing, The Secret Life Of Pets and Kung Fu Panda.

Could this be animal magic too? Sadly not.

A simplistic screenplay, co-written by Alaux and Eric Tosti, is light on uproarious comedy and pulse-quickening set pieces, repeatedly opting for wide-eyed cuteness over narrative sophistication and invention.

Parents who are dragged into the jungle by excitable tykes will be enjoying big catnaps in the dark rather than purring with delight.

Rating: Two stars