Empire Australasia - 03.2020

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG

★★

OUT NOW / CERT PG / 99 MINS

DIRECTOR Jeff Fowler

CAST Ben Schwartz (voice), Jim Carrey,

James Marsden

Hollywood’s track record with video-game

adaptations is risible and Sonic The

Hedgehog fails to move the dial in the

right direction. This time the blue-furred

speedster (Schwartz) teams up with local

cop Tom (Marsden) to foil the plans of Dr

Robotnik (Carrey) to harness Sonic’s powers

for evil. Carrey chews the scenery at every

opportunity and is almost worth the price

of admission by himself. But frustratingly

the central bromance between Sonic and

Tom is undercooked, and while they’re not

without their charms, the super-speed

sequences feel derivative of Quicksilver’s

big scene in X-Men: Days Of Future Past.

The fi nal moments make it clear that this is

being eyed as a potential franchise, but on

this evidence it’s a threat, not a promise. AW

LITTLE JOE

★★★

OUT 10 MARCH (DVD) / CERT TBC / 105 MINS

DIRECTOR Jessica Hausner

CAST Emily Beecham, Ben Whishaw,

Kerry Fox, Kit Connor

Filmmaker Jessica Hausner taps into the

commodifi cation of mental health with this

densely stylised yet subtle sci-fi horror.

Emily Beecham (Daphne) plays Alice, a

gifted plant designer whose latest creation

holds antidepressant-type qualities. Under

Hausner’s purposefully glacial direction,

we witness the mass-produced neon red

fl owers cause slight yet notable changes

in the people they pollinate, including

Alice’s son Joe (Connor). By eschewing

fast-paced suspense Hausner takes the

sting out of her story, which may deter

those after a good scare. As a showcase

of her bold aesthetic capabilities,

however, Little Joe feels like an exciting

indication of what’s to come, helped by

a striking collaboration with Beecham. BW

NOBODY ASKED FOR an English-language

remake of Force Majeure, the painfully well-

observed 2014 comic drama from Swedish

director Ruben Östlund. But if you have to

remake it, you might as well lump for the kind

of talent that Downhill boasts. There’s Peep Show/

Succession creator Jesse Armstrong as co-writer;

indie darlings Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (The

Way, Way Back) on directing duties; and comedy

royalty in Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus,

playing a married couple on a family skiing

holiday that goes spectacularly wrong.

It’s an enviable roster, and while the remake

never quite escapes the snowy shadow of its

source, there’s still a lot to admire. For a start, it is

not exactly the fi lm you might expect from these

two actors — or even from the trailers, which

promised a bog-standard goofy chucklefest. The

laughs, when they come, are muted, icy and

deeply passive aggressive. It’s a comedy relying

almost entirely on marital tension.

This frosty-in-every-sense environment

makes very diff erent demands of the two

leads — especially Ferrell, who hasn’t been this

restrained since 2006’s Stranger Than Fiction.

His character, the ultimate Embarrassing Dad,

is lightly clueless from the outset. It’s only when

the physically harmless but emotionally

catastrophic avalanche hits (much has changed

in the transfer, but that moment is extremely

faithful to the original) that he becomes like

a cornered animal, unable to stop burrowing

deeper holes for himself with terrible choices

and worse lies.

If he’s the childlike, emotionally idiotic

almost-villain of the piece, Louis-Dreyfus’

mum is the fi lm’s heart, a constant source of

sensible pathos and relatable exasperation. Left

half-traumatised by the avalanche, she puts on

a brave face until the stuff left unsaid becomes

too much left unsaid. Her palpable jumble of

rage and sadness is heart-stoppingly well-played.

It all spills out in a scene so excruciatingly

awkward that your toes may fully curl back

into the soles of your feet. We already knew

Louis-Dreyfus was a god-level performer, but

if you needed further proof, take this movie.

The strength of the fi lm lies in these two

central performances, and in the simple beauty

of the Alps (“We’re in a stock image right now,”

observes one character). But it suff ers a little

outside of that core duo. The Americanisation

of the story leads to some fairly cheap fi sh-out-

of-water tourist gags. Two Eurotrash caricatures,

in particular — a sexually liberated hotel rep

and a hunky ski instructor — feel like they’ve

skied in from a diff erent fi lm, given all the

restraint shown elsewhere. The ending of

the original fi lm is stranger and more nuanced,

too, leaving things on a bittersweet, ambiguous

note. Downhill dodges that ambiguity for

something more conventional. If you’re

unfamiliar with the fi rst fi lm, though, you

may fi nd more to favour. JOHN NUGENT

VERDICT Like a lot of remakes, Downhill

doesn’t quite make the argument for its

existence. But career-topping performances

from Ferrell and Louis-Dreyfus and an

unusually frosty comedic tone make this

a mostly rewarding day on the slopes.

DOWNHILL

DIRECTORS Nat Faxon, Jim Rash

CAST Will Ferrell, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Miranda

Otto, Kristofer Hivju, Zach Woods

PLOT A family of four heads to the Alps for a skiing

holiday. When the dad Pete (Ferrell) abandons the

family during a small avalanche, it’s up to the mum

Billie (Louis-Dreyfus) to bring the fractured family

back together.

OUT NOW

★★★ CERT TBC / 86 MINS

[FILM]

Wish you weren’t here: Pete (Will

Ferrell) and Billie (Julia

Louis-Dreyfus) on holiday.

ON SCREEN