Here is a summary of the films reviewed on today’s show:
Grudge Match is not a very good movie but it is very entertaining. It is fun to see Sylvester Stallone and Robert De Niro poke some fun at their most famous roles and it has enough humor to make it worthwhile, at least as a matinee or a rental.
However problematic it may be and whatever its compromises, Saving Mr. Banks is a well-made film with a terrific performance by Emma Thompson. Like Finding Neverland, this is a picture that explores the way fantasy allows us to deal with life’s difficulties.
Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom improves over the course of the story and because it ends on a better note than it begins the film is satisfactory. The filmmakers fall into the common traps of biographical filmmaking and so what they’ve made is a fairly average movie about an extraordinary man.
Mandela and de Klerk is a very well made piece of historical filmmaking. The picture shows its age but the performances and the complex rendering of history make it worthwhile to seek out.
You can find the full reviews in the Sounds of Cinema review archive.