These are the movie premieres that hit the screens starting this April 14.
By Salvador Llopart
This totally unexpected new cinematic version of The Three Musketeers rolls forward unstoppably. It advances at full speed driven by a script with strength and sense, where the mere cloak-and-dagger serial -which is how Dumas's classic has always been understood in the cinema- approaches the serious seriousness of a state conspiracy. The visual inventiveness, moreover, is considerable. Martin Bourboulon, the director, knows how to endow the images with the beauty and elegance of a thoroughbred that does not run, flies through visually unsuspected places.
And then there are the performances: this umpteenth film version of d'Artagnan's adventures has weighty actors and actresses. D'Artagnan himself, a classic film character formerly in the hands of physical strength performers such as Douglas Fairbanks or Gene Kelly, now falls to the lanky and nervous François Civil, who reminds one of the authentic Achero Mañas in his youth. And not only him: at all times there is someone from the wide cast -full of proper names from French cinema- doing or saying something of interest. Let us highlight, to begin with, the name of Vincent Cassel, like the sober and troubled Athos. And that of Eva Green as a devious and mysterious Milady de Winter.
We are in the 17th century, in France. Where the adulterous -and patriotic- queen is understood with the Duke of Buckingham, the British archenemy of her husband, King Louis XIII. A well-intentioned king, fragile, with a doubting character. Wonderfully embodied on this occasion by Louis Garrel, another proper name to highlight from this French-style Game of Thrones that does not need dragons or magic to convey the complex essence of the struggle for power. Louis XIII is in the hands of Cardinal Richelieu, and the famous musketeers confront the cardinal's guard, which are like the sewers - to use current terminology - of a state on the verge of breaking up in a new and fratricidal war of religion.
The imminent battle, blurred in previous adaptations, is well highlighted by these three musketeers who, as always, end up being four. There is a stolen necklace involved, also as always, and duels and bloody swords and a love story intertwined with palace intrigues. That doesn't change. As it doesn't change the effect of the "to be continued" ending that leaves one asking for more.
By Jordi Batlle Caminal
Sixty years ago, when double bills were a way of life, of understanding life and understanding cinema, some second-rate films, tasted in a modest and stuffy neighborhood room, such as The Conquest of Atlantis (Cottafavi), The curse of the skull (Francis) or Lucky, the intrepid (Franco), could have had more appeal, more imagination, and fewer pretensions than others sprayed with “qualité” perfume and exhibited in comfortable premiere salons, such as Becket (Glenville) or A man for eternity (Zinnemann); perhaps they would not be better, but yes, whipped by a breath of delirium, more subversive, and without a doubt they gave greater pleasure and fun to the fan.
The long-awaited continuous sessions have disappeared for decades, today it is difficult to find products that, in some way, restore that popular and healthy playful spirit. In the enormously prolific filmography of Nicolas Cage in recent years we could detect some titles that would fit the profile, for example Willy's wonderland (where the actor did not utter a word throughout the film, nor did he need to) or Prisoners of Ghostland ( where an explosive blew up his testicle).
Renfield promised an appetizing Cage festival but, unfortunately, more than nonsense it is idiocy. As expected, Cage, in the shoes of Dracula, puts on an unbridled show, without control, that will not disappoint his fans, but everything else, an insane mix of crazy comedy, police and gangster thriller and action cinema (with the titular character, the notorious bug-eater, one might say imitating John Wyck), is completely unfunny.
As a hemoglobin orgy with multiple heads and gleefully torn off arms, one fondly recalls the Stuart Gordon of Re-animator and Re-sonator, in which relentless dismemberment was accompanied by clever gags and an irresistible power of conviction and blind faith in the subgenres.
Por Philipp Engel
After his monumental version of Jack London's Martin Eden, the great Marcello –perhaps the best Italian director of his generation (along with Alice Rohrwacher)– has made Alexander Grin's The Red Sailing Ship his own, transferring it to the French countryside between wars to seduce us again, now in a more intimate key, with a new dialogue between images from the past and celluloid shot on 35mm for the occasion.
A story as tender as it is hard of a parent-child love story that can be seen as the simple and humble heiress of an ultra-mild, romantic, and unintellectualized Tarkovski.
Por Philipp Engel
As if it were the expansion of the battlefield of El Club del Paro (2021), Marqués now invites us to the Valencian campsite where shattered dreams are shipwrecked: Antonio Resines is now a crusty football businessman, and Coque Malla, the freelance journalist , although the real protagonist is Edu Soto, a police officer in his last days.
Deeply contemporary, and with a certain melancholic charm, although also irregular, somewhat rough and cathodic, this is another likeable comedy with the desire to win over the public through the unexpected path of the most poignant social criticism.
Por Philipp Engel
If the wonderful Cairo Confidential (2017) portrayed the fall of Mubarak through the murder of a singer, Saleh surpasses himself with another great political thriller set in the Egyptian capital, which now explores the sewers of the state of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. , from the struggle for power within Al Azhar, the most important university in the Sunni world.
The magnetic Fares Fares, protagonist of the previous one, has gone from the police to state security, and has let his hair grow, although he continues to be a mistreated underling by his corrupt superiors.
By Salvador LLopart
Overwhelming exercise of imagination, with all the virtues of Japanese anime and also with its defects, all to a great degree, at least for one who is not a fan of the genre. Daily life of a young girl in love, the Suzume of the title. And at the same time, the apocalypse just around the corner.
An exhausting narrative that refers both to the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, with their trip to the land of the dead, and to the children's universes of Hayao Miyazaki: Spirited Away (2001). The fans will enjoy.
By Salvador Llopart
Detailed chronicle, with a restless and nervous camera, always alive, of the hunt for the terrorist after the attacks of November 2015, in Paris, with a balance of 130 deaths as a result of the unfortunate carnage.
The journalistic spirit and choral character of Bloody Sunday (2002), about the conflicts in Belfast, and Flight 93 (2006), about the attacks in New York in 2001, both by Paul Greengrass, hovers over this film that gains depth dramatic - in a human sense - as the drama unfolds.
