Check out what's showing at cinemas across the region this March...

MICKEY 17 CERT 15 (139 mins)
Released Fri 7 March
Starring Robert Pattinson, Toni Collette, Mark Ruffalo, Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Angus Imrie 
Directed by Bong Joon Ho

Academy Award-winning writer/director Bong Joon Ho - who picked up his Oscar for the 2019 black comedy Parasite - is once again breaking new ground with his latest film. The movie sees Robert Pattinson starring as unlikely hero Mickey Barnes, a man who finds himself in the extraordinary circumstance of working for an employer who demands of him the ultimate commitment to the job: that he should die, for a living...

Mickey 17 is based on Edward Ashton’s book Mickey7, but Ashton is realistic enough to know that the film is going to be very different from his 2022 novel...

“Bong is going to change a lot about the book,” he told Nerdist. “When I spoke with him, he made it pretty clear: “You’ve got a 350-page book. I’m gonna have a 120-page script. There’s a lot that’s gonna go!”... In my view, the man’s a genius. I don’t believe he’s ever made a bad film. And I sincerely hope that this isn’t going to be his first.”

BLACK BAG CERT 15 (93 mins)
Released Fri 14 March
Starring Michael Fassbender, Cate Blanchett, Tom Burke, Pierce Brosnan, Regé-Jean Page, Naomie Harris
Directed by Steven Soderbergh

Details about director Steven Soderbergh’s latest film have been fairly thin on the ground. Black Bag’s official publicity describes it as ‘a gripping spy drama about legendary intelligence agents George Woodhouse and his beloved wife Kathryn’. 

When Kathryn (Blanchett) is suspected of betraying the nation, George (Fassbender) faces the ultimate choice: loyalty to his marriage or his country.

“it’s a very, very specific take on people who are in the intelligence business but also have complex personal, emotional lives,” Soderbergh told The Hollywood Reporter in talking about the UK-set film. “It’s the kind of thing that I like a lot.” 

Strike actor Tom Burke and former James Bond star Pierce Brosnan offer Fassbender and Blanchett solid support.    

OPUS CERT 15 (103 mins)
Released Fri 14 March
Starring Ayo Edebiri, John Malkovich, Juliette Lewis, Murray Bartlett, Melissa Chambers, Tony Hale Directed by Mark Anthony Green

Advice for ambitious young writers: never accept an invitation to the remote compound of a legendary but notoriously reclusive pop star who’s aiming to make a return to the limelight with an album he’s convinced is the greatest record ever made. If the experience of junior writer Ariel is anything to go by, it’s definitely a situation to be avoided. 

When Ariel accompanies her magazine editor to the desert compound of aforementioned pop star Alfred Moretti (played by John Malkovich), she is determined to make the most of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. But, surrounded by the star's weird community of robe-wearing sycophants and intoxicated journalists, she instead finds herself slap-bang in the middle of a twisted little game... 

A commentary on the cult of celebrity - and one which comes complete with an escalating body count - Opus is director Mark Anthony Green’s debut feature. 
Reviews have not been kind. 

THE ALTO KNIGHTS CERT 15 (123 mins)
Released Fri 21 March
Starring Robert De Niro, Cosmo Jarvis, Debra Messing, Kathrine Narducci, Matt Servitto, 
Wallace Langham 
Directed by Barry Levinson

Now here’s a treat for film fans: two characters played by Robert De Niro for the price of one.

The Alto Knights features double Academy Award winner De Niro in a dual role, starring as two of New York’s most notorious organised-crime bosses - Frank Costello and Vito Genovese - as they vie for control of the city’s streets. 

Having once upon a time been the best of buddies, the pair are now fierce rivals on a deadly collision course - one which will see the world of organised crime reshaped forever...

With the prospect of De Niro doing what he arguably does best - playing Mafia-style gangsters (think Goodfellas, The Irishman, Casino) - The Alto Knights has been hotly anticipated since receiving the green light a couple of years back. 

The fact that Barry Levinson (Good Morning, Vietnam and Rain Man) is helming the movie, and that it’s been scripted by Goodfellas and Casino writer Nicholas Pileggi, further whets the appetite. 
All of which hopefully counterbalances word coming out of recent test screenings, the general consensus of opinion being that the finished product badly misses the mark.

DISNEY'S SNOW WHITE CERT tbc (120 mins)
Released Fri 21 March
Starring Rachel Zegler, Gal Gadot, Andrew Durnap, Ansu Kabia, Colin Michael Carmichael,
and the voice of Patrick Page
Directed by Marc Webb

Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s off to the cinema we go... 

The Brothers Grimm penned the fairytale of Snow White in the early 19th century. In the mid-20th, Walt Disney turned the terrific tale into what has since become a greatly adored animation. 

Now, Disney are running with the story again, releasing this live-action reimagining of their own 1937 classic. 

But the film has not been without its controversies, including the casting of Rachel Zegler as the titular character. The Latina star of West Side Story has been criticised for not being pale enough for the part, given that the princess is described as having skin “as white as snow”. She’s also been slammed for some of her comments connected to Snow White, with critics claiming she’s derided the 1930s version and shamed anybody who liked it. 

And Disney itself hasn’t been immune to criticism regarding the new movie either. Its decision to use only one actor with dwarfism was met with a loud chorus of disapproval.   

Away from the controversy, the Mouse House will be hoping this live-action remake scores as big a success as the animated original. The presence of Wonder Woman herself, Gal Gadot, as the Evil Queen looks to be a clever piece of casting. And with Marc Webb (The Amazing Spider-Man) in the director’s chair and Greta Gerwig (Barbie) co-writing the script, there’s certainly been no shortage of talent driving the project.

THE END CERT 12a (148 mins)
Released Fri 28 March
Starring Tilda Swinton, George McKay, Moses Ingram, Michael Shannon, Bronach Gallager, Tim McInnerny 
Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer

Documentary filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer here makes his narrative-feature debut with that rarest of beasts: a post-apocalyptic musical. 

The storyline follows the fortunes of a wealthy family with generic character descriptors - Father, Mother, Son - who are living out their lives in a luxurious but claustrophobic underground bunker, deep within a converted salt mine, after an environmental catastrophe renders the Earth's surface uninhabitable. The family - and various other connected individuals - follow a regular schedule (safety emergency drills included) and decorate the bunker to evoke the changing seasons. 

But then they discover a Girl - unconscious in the mines - and find that the reassuring predictability of their subterranean existence is suddenly compromised...