Harry and Meghan: A Royal Romance **
There was a point in this movie where I thought the filmmakers were deliberately trying to be funny. Was it when Meghan meets the Queen and she asks if she was in The Crown? Or when Camilla winks at Meghan and says: 'I love a double Martini'. Or when Harry gives her a bracelet and says, with complete sincerity: 'Every time I see you on Instagram or you see me on Tatler, it'll feel like we're together. Like a secret message'.
The movie's downfall however is not in the sheer scale of its melodrama but in trying to be as sweet as it is cheesy.
Murray Frazer and Parisa Fitz Henley do a fine job in the lead roles given the utterly nonsense lines of dialogue that they have to speak out of their mouths.
And the plot. My God the plot. Harry sneaking into a fancy dress party dressed as a frog? The Queen jokingly threatening to throw Megan into the tower on their first meeting? You can only marvel at the imagination of the writers.
Ultimately for a made for TV movie, this ticks all the safe boxes required to pass a couple of hours. But with an extra helping of cheese it could have been a masterpiece.
Deadpool 2 (15A) **
WHEN RYAN REYNOLDS first donned that red suit to play Marvel’s antihero, it felt inventive and new. But this disappointing sequel feels just as overcooked and disjointed as the comic book movies it aims to send up.
Still, for those who loved its predecessor, its very relentlessness will be part of its appeal.
We have a new director in the form of David Leitch (John Wick, Atomic Blonde) and some sassy new characters - Atlanta’s Zazie Beetz has terrific screen presence - but often what unfolds feels like a series of sketches rather than a complete movie.
Josh Brolin is proving to be the summer scene-stealer of 2018, following on his great Thorin in Avengers : Infinity War with another strong performance here.
In a lengthy pre-credits sequence, we learn that Deadpool has experienced a bloody tragedy that has sapped his very drive to go on living, followed by the events that lead to this.
It’s not long before he’s gathering a superhero team, including some from the X-Men universe, to fight off future threats.
His first job is to try and talk down Randall (Dennison), an angry young mutant who has, it emerges, reasons for his rage. His efforts end in disaster and both of them end up stripped of their powers and in a detention centre for out-of-control mutants.
The film livens up with the arrival of Brolin’s Cable, a super powerful soldier who wants to take out Randall.
Citizen Lane (G) ****
IT’S been quite a time for Irish actor Tom Vaughan-Lawlor with his third movie on release in cinemas here in a month.
The reliably good Dublin actor is certainly mixing up his roles, playing a zombie in The Cured, Thorin’s henchman Ebony Maw in Avengers: Infiinity War and donning period garb for this Irish movie.
He is excellent among a strong cast as Hugh Lane in this fascinating account of the life of the colourful art collector.
Thaddeus O’Sullivan’s film - from a screenplay penned by Mark O’Halloran (Adam & Paul) ambitiously blends drama and documentary to build an extensive portrait of the man and his legacy to Ireland.
