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CIVIL WAR

(15) 109mins

★★★★☆

REMEMBER that eerie sequence in 28 Days Later where a be-mused Cillian Murphy discovers a ruined bus while wandering a deserted London?

Alex Garland, who wrote the script for Danny Boyle’s 2002 zombie flick, is at it again in this intense action movie set in a war-torn US.

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This time Brit Alex (as writer and director) shows us an abandoned Winter Wonderland theme park, a helicopter smouldering in a retail park and fly-bitten bodies dangling from a freeway flyover.

But this isn’t yet another post-apocalyptic sci-fi.

Civil War hurls us into the middle of an apocalypse, right from its explosive opening sequence.

And the thrills keep coming.

The causes of this near-future American civil war are never fully explained.

From snippets of conversation, we learn the President (Nick Offerman) is in his third term, has disbanded the FBI and has bombed his citizens.

The states of Texas and California have declared their independence, joined forces and sent their combined armies to the capital to seize power.

Our heroes aren’t soldiers, but journalists who are hoping to beat the rebels to the White House and get the final interview with the soon-to-be ex-president.

Battle-scarred photographer Lee (Kirsten Dunst) isn’t thrilled to discover that her boozy reporter colleague Joel (Wagner Moura) has invited two other hacks along — ambitious newbie Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) and old-school New York Times reporter Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson).

Because of the ruined freeways, they need to take a nightmarish 857-mile road trip through small-town America from New York.

On the way, they embed themselves with rebel troops and have an unbearably tense encounter with Jesse Plemons’ unhinged loyalist soldier.

It builds to a riveting finale in Washington, where the Lincoln Memorial is blasted into rubble and soldiers fight their way through the White House.

The battle scenes are thrillingly staged but we never lose sight of the human drama.

Decades of covering foreign conflicts have given ruthless Lee the ability to detach herself from the horrors she photographs.

But seeing carnage in her homeland begins to take its toll.

Lee is hard to like, but Dunst’s performance is captivating.

BACK TO BLACK

(15) 122mins

★★★★☆

I FIND it unreasonable when it is expected that an actor should look and sound exactly like the person they are playing.

We can’t expect interpretations of characters we have long admired to be carbon copies.

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But it doesn’t surprise me that there has been criticism of Marisa Abela’s portrayal of much-loved but troubled singer Amy Winehouse.

No, she doesn’t look exactly like her. No, she doesn’t sound exactly like her. And no, this film is not a mirror of Amy’s life.

But director Sam Taylor-Johnson has followed in the well-trodden path of making a Hollywood-friendly version of a biopic about a damaged superstar.

Like Bohemian Rhapsody about Freddie Mercury, there was plenty of distressing behaviour not depicted on screen.

The first 15 minutes of Back To Black certainly feel like a rose-tinted version of the Winehouse family.

But the moment Blake (Jack O’Connell) enters, the foot is on the pedal of this destructive love affair that led Amy to write one of the best albums ever made.

With solid performances and a cracking soundtrack, this story of a downfall through drugs and dodgy men is still desperately sad.

SWEDE CAROLINE

(15) 97mins   

★★★★☆

FEATURING giant squash, allotment sabotage, sex parties, big country piles, double entendres and a madcap conspiracy centred around a marrow called Ricky, this comedic “mockumentary” is about as brilliantly British as you can get – and it is hilarious.

Jo Hartley (After Life) plays courgette nurturer Caroline, who becomes embroiled in a scandal at the Shepton Mallet Big Veg Championship (aka Glastonbury for growers) after thieves target her prize-winning produce.

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Setting out to get to the root of the theft with friend Paul (Richard Lumsden), a man who loves a social media paranoia deep dive, and partner Willie (Celyn Jones), they uncover a collusion that runs far deeper than anything they could ever have planted.

A script this bonkers could easily descend into nonsense, but restraint from the cast – also including Fay Ripley (Cold Feet) and Aisling Bea (This Way Up) – plus careful judgment from directors Brook Driver and Finn Bruce, ensure it is funny, not over fertilised.

It is daft, but the perfectly observed characters and home-grown humour make it impossible not to laugh.

Laura Stott