Utopia — Amazon Prime Video
Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn adapts the distinctive and unsettling 2013 dystopian British series for the US market. The results are predictably less smart, on-the-nose and, in an unforeseen twist of fate, horribly mistimed. John Cusack stars in the twisty tale of a group of comic-book geeks who discover that the plot of a graphic novel is, in fact, a reality. The problem is the story involves the uncovering of a global government conspiracy in which a deadly virus has been manufactured and deceptively spun to eliminate vast sections of the world’s population. A not very helpful idea in the middle of a global pandemic when political temperatures are running high and conspiracy nutters are running wild, threatening the lives of science-guided policies.
Hillbilly Elegy — Netflix
JD Vance’s miserable memoir of life in the hard-knock world of the Appalachian Mountains was widely acclaimed for shedding an empathetic light on the ignored realities of working-class life in the US that inspired so many to vote for Donald Trump. Now, with Trump gone and the US breathing a collective sigh of relief, director Ron Howard has squeezed the life out of Vance’s book to turn it into a sickeningly syrupy piece of heavy drama that, despite committed performances from Glenn Close and Amy Adams, fails miserably in bringing to screen what was so singular and powerful on the page.
The Undoing — Showmax (started on November 30, with new episodes added weekly).
David E Kelley’s twisty cliffhanger about the deceits that pop the bubble of a seemingly have-it-all Manhattan upper-set couple is a little slow and predictable, but easily watchable. That’s thanks mostly to game performances from Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant, and some suitably menacing grumpiness on the part of Donald Sutherland. It’s not much we haven’t seen before and its lessons are well trodden and better executed elsewhere, but it will do well enough.
Bill & Ted Face the Music — Apple TV
Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter reprise their much-beloved, goofy-stoner time-travelling roles for this enjoyable enough but supremely silly adventure. It’s still charming and filled with enjoyable anachronistic gags that briefly offer escape from the realities of the times we find ourselves in.
We are the Champions — Netflix
A gently inspiring, playful celebration of the drive for human achievement that takes us into some of the more odd corners of competitive events. From cheese rolling to frog jumping and fantasy hairstyling, it’s hard not to be taken in by its easily uplifting charms and testament to the universal drive to just, however briefly, be the best at something.
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