Queer (18, 136 mins)
Verdict: Do say never again
Shaken Bond fans may require a large Martini to brave Queer.
Daniel Craig is clearly on a drastic mission to kill off his 007 image as he takes on the role of a needy, alcoholic, heroin-addicted, predatory gay man who cruises bars for young men, then engages them in eye-poppingly graphic sex.
Let’s say, it’s not one to watch with the family on Christmas Day.
Slavishly based on the Beat-era novella by William S. Burroughs — though minus its most revolting parts — Queer is a squalid tale of fear and self-loathing in 1950s Mexico City (even though it’s quite obviously shot on a studio lot in Italy).
Here, American ex-pat Lee (Craig) becomes obsessed with an emotionally distant young ex-US Navy serviceman (a pretty, yet blank, Drew Starkey).
Is the lad queer? Lee can’t tell, but he’s determined to find out. Thereon in, the two men alternately get drunk and have sex, or get drunk and don’t have sex, ad nauseam.
Jason Schwartzman provides welcome warmth and comic relief as a jovial, fat-suited (I thought that wasn’t allowed any more?) homosexual who gets robbed repeatedly by the strangers he has sex with.
Daniel Craig is clearly on a drastic mission to kill off his 007 image as he takes on the role of a needy, alcoholic, heroin-addicted, predatory gay man who cruises bars for young men, then engages them in eye-poppingly graphic sex
However, the whole, plotless enterprise is going nowhere fast, until a bizarre third act, where the duo take a freaky trip to the South American jungle, prompted by Lee’s interest in telepathy, encounter a gun-toting Lesley Manville, wrestle with a venomous snake and crawl inside each other’s skin.
To be fair, Craig has some magnificent moments.
A highlight is an awards-worthy scene where Lee shoots up heroin and stares, painfully and poignantly, into the camera.
And Burroughs would be wildly flattered to see his alter-ego embodied by such a beefcake. Craig’s physique speaks more of a man built on kale smoothies and bench-pressing than cigarettes, hard drugs and tequila.
Slavishly based on the Beat-era novella by William S. Burroughs – though minus its most revolting parts – Queer is a squalid tale of fear and self-loathing in 1950s Mexico City (even though it’s quite obviously shot on a studio lot in Italy)
Director Luca Guadagnino (Challengers, Call Me By Your Name) is a master at exploring powerplay and desire.
But I struggle to see what he’s getting at here, beyond the fact that Lee is a man who yearns for intimacy and is tragically incapable of it.
And yet, despite Craig’s committed performance, you fail to feel Lee’s agony.
Guadagnino is a daring auteur and there are a few flashes of true beauty in this sweaty, soulless misfire.
However, as a means of Craig putting Bond to bed and re-establishing himself as a serious actor, it’s mission accomplished.
From Roger Moore With Love (12A, 79 mins
Verdict: Licence to thrill
If It’s a Bond fix you’re after, my recommendation is From Roger Moore With Love.
This celebratory portrait entertainingly reflects its subject: self-deprecating and irresistibly charming, if a touch one-dimensional. I loved it.
If It’s a Bond fix you’re after, my recommendation is From Roger Moore With Love. Pictured: Sir Roger Moore
Narrated with one eyebrow cocked, it explains how The Saint star first created his iconic debonair persona; then played it to perfection, on and off the screen, for his entire life.
‘He just had ‘it’,’ declares ex-Bond girl Jane Seymour, one of several ‘dear friends’ interviewed, including Joan Collins and Pierce Brosnan.
No one has a bad word to say about the man and, unlike Mr Craig, Moore happily played 007 until the age when his latest Bond girl told him he reminded her of her dad.
A lover of fast cars, luxury homes and gorgeous women, he died with no regrets in life and enjoyed every golden moment. How refreshing.
Kraven The Hunter (15, 127 mins)
Verdict: Supervillain turkey
On track to be the latest flop in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe franchise, after Madame Web and Morbius, Kraven The Hunter is the origin story of comic book villain Kraven (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), who starts life as Sergei, nice eldest son of a nasty Russian drug lord (Russell Crowe with dodgeski accent).
Kraven The Hunter is the origin story of comic book villain Kraven (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, pictured), who starts life as Sergei, nice eldest son of a nasty Russian drug lord (Russell Crowe with dodgeski accent)
Dad instructs his boys: ‘We are predators. They are prey.’
When Sergei is mauled by a lion on safari, a series of unlikely events bestow ill-defined super-powers upon him and he sets out to hunt down bad guys who kill big game animals, or something. It’s hard to tell you more, as the plot has more holes than a moth-eaten rug.
There’s an enemy called ‘The Rhino’ (Alessandro Nivola), an assassin, ‘The Foreigner’ (Christopher Abbott), and a token strong female character, Calypso (Ariana DeBose), who is a tarot-card reading ‘investigative lawyer’ with a mysterious secret.
She can keep it.
The CGI is ropey and the script so dire it provoked giggles at my press screening. Don’t hold your breath for Kraven 2.
