Monday 11 August 2014

"The Unbeatables" (The Guardian 08/08/14)


The Unbeatables **
Dir: Juan José Campanella. With the voices of: Rupert Grint, Peter Serafinowicz, Anthony Head. 97 mins. Cert: U.

By 2018, everybody will have completed at least one CG animation: your mum, the postie, Eighties funnyman Duncan Norvelle. This dubbed timewaster seems an unlikely way for Juan José Campanella to follow his Oscar-winning The Secret in Their Eyes, though it’s almost as tangled: a gentrification parable – with sentient table footballers rallying a developer-threatened community – which betrays a marked uncertainty over how best to integrate its human and toy stories. Ping-ponging camera moves temporarily distract from the haphazard structuring and translation, and there’s one smart line, care of a shady agent who insists “Trust me – I’ve worked at FIFA”. The rest is decidedly midtable. 

The Unbeatables is now playing in Irish and Scottish cinemas, ahead of its full UK release this Friday.

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