If you only catch one, catch: Gladiator II 15 November Has Paul Mescal got what Russell Crowe had? Director Ridley Scott thinks so, picking the young Irish heart-throb to topline a new swords-and-sandals adventure set in ancient Rome and based on the legacy of the characters from Scott’s 2000 Oscar-winner. Mescal plays Lucius, grandson of Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris’s character in Gladiator), who finds himself forced into the arena. Speak No Evil 12 September The Danish original of Speak No Evil was a shocking lo-fi horror with an almost unspeakably cruel mystery involving a mute child at its core.
This new version looks to have been given the glossy Blumhouse treatment with a likable cast (James McAvoy, Mackenzie Davis, Aisling Franciosi, Scoot McNairy) playing the two sets of parents who vibe with each other on a family holiday and decide to maintain the friendship, to the huge later regret of one couple. In Camera 13 September Biting yet playful, this brilliant debut about a would-be actor’s awful auditions announces director Naqqash Khalid as the kind of talent sorely missing from UK film. Back in the day, British cinema had the likes of Nic Roeg producing formally inventive film-making, while the so-called “angry young men” drew attention to injustice.
But why not do both? In Camera manages just that, with sly brilliance. Wolfs 20 September Brad Pitt and George Clooney are some of the last real blue-chip movie stars out there, and ever since Ocean’s Eleve.