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Irish Examiner
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Film review: Superman is a mixed bag — with fish-out-of-water charm
Could it be that Superman (15A) is getting a bit too big for those red boots? In James Gunn's re-imagining of the original superhero, the Man of Steel is an alien who was smuggled into the country and is now making unilateral interventions in the affairs of other sovereign nations, preventing Boravia from invading Jarhanpur without first asking for permission. If that sounds like a rather unusual Superman storyline, brace yourself: the movie's opening scene finds a bruised and battered Superman (David Corenswet) nursing his injuries in the Antarctic wastes, having suffered his very first defeat at the hands of the Hammer of Boravia, a metahuman operating at the behest of Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult). With the Pentagon unimpressed by Superman's meddling in Boravia, which is an ally of the United States, Luthor makes his big pitch: the world should replace Superman with Luthor's own Planet Watch security team of metahumans. The opening half-hour of Superman is hugely enjoyable as Gunn – who writes and directs – leans into the absurdity of the superhero's schtick, this courtesy of an interview conducted by Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan), who asks Superman some hard questions about why an alien being feels entitled to get involved in human affairs. Alas, there's also some preposterous action sequences to navigate too, such as when Superman takes on a Godzilla-like fire-breathing monster, and later finds himself aided and abetted by the 'Justice Gang' (comprised of a Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion), Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced) and Mr Terrific (Edi Gathegi)). It's a mixed bag, in other words, as James Gunn tries to reinvent the unashamedly old-fashioned Superman for a world in which noble deeds and self-sacrifice are considered naïve at best. David Corenswet makes for a solid but uncharismatic Superman; Rachel Brosnahan, on the other hand, is smart and tough as the no-nonsense Lois, while Nicholas Hoult is hilariously slimy as the megalomaniacal Luthor. Armand. Armand ★★★★☆ Cinematic release We need to talk about Armand (15A), a six-year-old boy who doesn't actually appear on-screen in Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel's film, but whose behaviour in school is so shocking that it's described as 'a case of sexual deviation'. And so Armand's mother Elisabeth (Renate Reinsve) is called in for an emergency meeting with Armand's teacher Sunna (Thea Lambrechts Vaulen), the headmaster Jarle (Øystein Røger), and the parents of the boy – Sarah (Ellen Dorrit Petersen) and Anders (Endre Hellestveit) – who Armand terrorised. An intense psychological drama that won the Camera D'Or at last year's Cannes, Armand takes place for the most part in a classroom as Elisabeth defends her son against horrific allegations, Sarah and Anders demand that action be taken, and the school authorities wish the entire issue would simply vanish. It's a gripping, claustrophobic story, and especially when the focus moves away from Armand and onto the adults' complex relationship, all of it beautifully sustained by writer-director Tøndel – the grandson of Liv Ullman and Ingmar Bergman – in his debut feature-length film. Salvable. Salvable ★★★★☆ Cinematic release Salvable (15A) stars Toby Kebbell as Sal, a washed-up boxer marooned in the backwater of an English seaside town. A care worker who moonlights as a sparring partner (read: punchbag) for up-and-coming fighters, Sal is struggling to maintain a relationship with his 14-year-old daughter Molly (Kila Lord Cassidy). So when Sal's old pal and ex-con Vince (Shia LaBeouf, boasting an extraordinary accent of no particular origin) shows up offering Sal a slice of the underground white-collar boxing market just when Sal desperately needs a cash injection, the battered old pugilist has no choice but to get back in the ring again. Written by Bjorn Franklin, who co-directs with Johnny Marchetta, Salvable retreads many of the old boxing movie tropes to good effect, and largely because Toby Kebbell is a quietly magnetic presence in the lead role, rendering Sal a brutally tough boxer in the ring but a tender and generously thoughtful personality to those in his care.
Indian Express
28-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
How a 1989 Malayalam film examined the aftermath of the state's repression of a helpless individual
Hours before the evening bus is supposed to arrive, the old man has seated himself at his usual spot, waiting for his son to come home as promised. Raghu, the younger child of Raghavan Chakyar, is a student at an engineering college in a distant town. 'Isn't today the right day?' Raghavan asks his daughter while returning alone from the bus stop for the first time. 'It is probably just a day's delay,' a neighbour tells the old man on the second day that Raghu fails to turn up. On the third day, Raghavan goes to the bus stop in the morning, only to return — once again — alone. 'Did I not tell you the bus won't come in the morning?' comes the gentle chastisement from the boatman who has been ferrying Raghavan to the bus stop. Slowly, over the course of its 110-minute runtime, a terrible absence — a person-shaped hole — takes form at the centre of Shaji N Karun's 'Piravi'. Generally believed to be inspired by the infamous case of the disappearance of P Rajan, a student at the Regional Engineering College Calicut, during the Emergency, 'Piravi' (1989) was Karun's directorial debut. Already a lauded cinematographer, especially for his work with auteur G Aravindan (who also co-composed the music for his protege's debut), Karun won wide acclaim for the Malayalam film, including the Mention D'Honneur – Camera D'Or at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival. While the filmmaker denied being inspired by any specific story when making 'Piravi', saying that it was about the wider problem of custodial deaths, the parallels with the Rajan case are undeniable. 'Piravi' is set in 1988, 11 years after the Emergency had ended, but like Raghavan in the film, T V Eachara Warrier had set out on a dogged quest in 1976 to find out what happened to his son, Rajan. His long battle that finally unearthed the awful truth about his son's disappearance — wrongful arrest, torture and death in custody — resulted in one of the most well-known habeas corpus cases in India. It rocked the Kerala government, leading to the resignation of Chief Minister K Karunakaran a month after he led the Congress-led coalition to a landslide victory in the 1977 Assembly election. ALSO READ | Priya Sachdev called Karisma Kapoor-Sunjay Kapur's kids her own, said 'friendship' is the key: 'We have four children' Karun, in 'Piravi', was less interested in the legal and political aspects of the nightmare that Warrier endured, than he was in exploring, through the visual medium, the problem of depicting a disappearance: How do you show someone who is not there? Raghu's is an unfathomable absence and the film, as it delineates the anxiety and grief of the bereaved, takes shape around the vacuum that comes to represent the missing son. The film marks a visual and sonic challenge, masterfully tackled: Like Raghu, the rain announces its arrival — monsoon winds slam doors and windows, waves crash on the beach, the afternoon darkens — only to disappoint. The landscape is suffused with sound, both human and non-human — the gentle gurgling of the river, the susurration of the wind through the reeds, the tick-tock of Raghavan's wristwatch. Yet, what throws these into sharp relief, making each one ring out loud and clear, is the utter silence of the one who never returned home. Many films have been made about that dark period from June 25, 1975, to March 21, 1977, most of them focusing on the political machinations or stories of state repression. As its creator stated, 'Piravi' may not be explicitly about the Emergency, yet few other films have so effectively examined the haunting question of what happens after an episode of state repression. What happens to the ones left behind? Decades after Warrier trudged from pillar to post, desperately seeking out the truth and trying to hold to account those responsible for his son's death, 'Piravi' reminds viewers of other fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, haunted by the disappearance of their loved ones.
