Nicholas Hoult

Superman

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Superman is jeered by a crowd

An all-you-can-eat buffet of Superman, or James Gunn’s Superman, as it’s invariably called, presumably to set it apart from the crowd. Not that Gunn seems interested in standing out from the crowd too much. His Superman’s tights are baggy, like the cheapo ones from the black and white era, though most of Gunn’s inspiration comes from the 1970s Christopher Reeve Superman, in the look of Superman/Clark Kent himself, the production design and most obviously in the use of the John Williams theme, which new composers David Fleming and John Murphy take off the peg now and then, usually when the big guns are needed. On the subject of guns, after playing him a … Read more

Juror No. 2

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Close up of Nicholas Hoult

Juror No. 2 is a rare thing these days: a good old-fashioned courtroom thriller. Director Clint Eastwood, 93 when he made it, does it old-style, the way his mentor Don Siegel might have done it, and the result is a streamlined drama revolving around a central dilemma, just the sort of lean and fast second feature Siegel might have cranked out in the 1950s. It is a very neat plot, which I’m not going to ruin by explaining. What I can say is that Nicholas Hoult is the titular juror, a man who suddenly realises mid-trial that he can free the man accused of murdering his girlfriend at a stroke, but only if … Read more

Nosferatu

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Ellen Hunter (Lily-Rose Depp) screaming

The films of Robert Eggers can get a bit overwrought and Nosferatu is no exception. Both The Northman and The Lighthouse (The Witch not so much) overdid it. All well and good if you subscribe to the view that too much gothic is still not enough. And you’ll be doubly re-assured by Eggers’s decision to go back to the sensational source as the inspiration for his turreted gothic assemblage. That’s not entirely true. Eggers does lean narratively and visually on FW Murnau’s 1922 Nosferatu, but that itself was a blatant steal from Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula. Murnau and co hadn’t paid for the rights and hoped that changing character names would be enough … Read more

The Order

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Terry fires a rifle

Masculinity on the downswing meets white supremacism on the up in The Order, a typically unsettling film by Justin Kurzel, who’s never quite topped his devastating debut, Snowtown, though this comes pretty close. The casting is unusual for something set in redneck USA. Nice, pretty Nicholas Hoult as Bob Mathews, head of a white-power outfit that’s broken away from a parent group of Nazis because it wasn’t extreme enough. And nice, diffident fellow Brit Jude Law as FBI cop Terry Husk, whose hopes of a quiet life on a new posting in Idaho are dashed when he realises he’s tangling with guys who are planning the overthrow of the US government. Both are … Read more

Renfield

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Dracula cackles over Renfield

Universal’s ongoing attempt to build a cinematic universe to rival (in its dreams) Marvel’s or even DC’s continues with Renfield, which has a task all of its own – how to get Dracula’s familiar into the spotlight all on his own, without his master stealing his thunder. Even casting handsome, likeable Nicholas Hoult as Renfield it’s an impossible task and you’ve got to question the wisdom of getting Nicolas Cage in to play Dracula. Here’s a man who needs no invitation to overdo it being handed the keys to the scenery-chewing kingdom. And Cage runs wild in it, giving a performance of manically comic proportions. The premise: after a disastrous encounter with some … Read more