Bumblebee (PG)****
Dir: Travis Knight
With: Hailee Steinfeld, Jorge Lendeborg Jr, John Cena
Runtime: 114 minutes
TRAVIS Knight’s action adventure is a sweet, funny, nicely played origins tale that all ages can enjoy. It is the 1980s, California. Out there in the galaxy The Transformers war is raging. Young Bumblebee is sent to Earth for his own safety and winds up in a transformed state, as a yellow VW Beetle, in a junkyard. It is there that car-mad Charlie (Hailee Steinfeld), still feeling the loss of her beloved dad, finds him and nurses him back to health. Steinfeld is terrific as the troubled teen who finds a new purpose in as Bumblebee’s protector, and the soundtrack is packed with top tunes.
Lizzie (15)***
Dir: Craig William Macneill
With: Chloë Sevigny, Kristen Stewart, Fiona Shaw
Runtime: 103 minutes
THE oft told true tale of Lizzie Borden, accused of the axe murders of her parents, is given yet another airing in Craig William Macneill’s drama. Macneill places a feminist angle on the story, presenting Lizzie (Chloe Sevigny) and the family’s Irish maid, Bridget (Kristen Stewart) as victims in a society where men are indisputably in charge. Lizzie offers a handsome depiction of 19th century Massachusetts, but the determination to tell the story in a low-key way, in contrast to some of the more lurid offerings of the past, makes for a glacial pace.
GFT till December 30; Filmhouse, Edinburgh, January 4-6
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