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Lancaster (PG 110mins)
Rating:
Verdict: Compelling and moving
Top Gun: Maverick (12A 131mins)
Rating: 
Verdict: Cheesily enjoyable
A terrific 2018 documentary called Spitfire told, wonderfully, the enduringly uplifting tale of the iconic aircraft that helped Fighter Command to win the Battle of Britain.
Now, from the same team, comes Lancaster, switching the focus to Bomber Command and the RAF’s mission to ‘take the war’ to Nazi Germany. It is an even better film, because it tells with admirable sensitivity a more morally complicated story, and of course at the heart of it is the mighty Lancaster bomber and the courageous men who crewed it.
RAF BBMF’s Lancaster PA474 banks away at dusk
Lancaster highlights the bravery of the crew
At the heart of the film is the mighty Lancaster bomber and the courageous men who crewed it
More than 55,000 of them died at the time and not many of them are still alive now, but 37 of those who are — or were when the project got under way — share their compelling recollections. They include bomb-aimer ‘Johnny’ Johnson, now 100 and the only surviving original member of the famous 617 ‘Dambusters’ Squadron.
He is scathing about those who, applying what he considers to be modern sensitivities to wartime imperatives, criticise the ruthlessness of Bomber Command under the direction of Air Marshal Arthur Harris, who ordered the thunderous 1945 attack on Dresden.
Other veterans in this tremendously poignant film, sonorously narrated by Charles Dance but heavily reliant on talking heads, are more ambivalent about what they were ordered to do. Yet they still lament the way Winston Churchill distanced himself from Bomber Command’s activities as soon as the war was over, allowing Harris to take the ‘blame’.
The Dambusters squadron and the crew of Lancaster ED285/`AJ-T’
More than 55,000 of the Lancaster bomber crew died at the time and not many of them are still alive now, but 37 of those who are — or were when the project got under way — share their compelling recollections
One, flight engineer Jack Watson, recalls his wife turning to him at an RAF reunion, astonished, because he had never even told her he’d served with Bomber Command. He had become too accustomed, he explained, to being looked at as if he was a murderer. At the time they had been married 35 years.
To their huge credit, co-directors David Fairhead and Ant Palmer manage to navigate their way through all this with real finesse, laying the moral complexities out before us (and interviewing a German woman who remembers what the inferno looked like from the ground) yet leaving us in no doubt that these very old men, all of them in their mid-90s at least, were heroes before most of them had left their teens, risking their lives night after night. At the start, they recall, it was left to them to divide into seven-man crews. They milled around checking each other’s ‘brevets’ (uniform insignia) to see who did what, and then picked a team like kids in the school playground. Charles Clarke, a bomb-aimer, finds another analogy. ‘It was like a dating agency,’ he says.
This brilliant documentary is full of nuggets like that. But it is also beautifully orchestrated, with stirring aerial footage (by John Dibbs) of one of the only two Lancasters still airworthy, and a terrific original score (by Chris Roe).
Tom Cruise plays Capt. Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell in Top Gun: Maverick
The film ends with a male-voice choir singing a wartime aircrew song, We Are The Heavy Bombers, which might not sound like a contender to bring tears to the eyes. But it did to mine.
The anonymity of the 37 heroes interviewed in Lancaster rather underlines the absurdity of the spectacular hoopla surrounding Tom Cruise when he arrived at the Cannes Film Festival last week to promote Top Gun: Maverick. There was even a fly-past of fighter jets. Still, within the realms of make-believe heroism, it’s a very enjoyable film. After seeing it in Cannes I’d say it’s nothing if not formulaic, and at times the script is cheesier than a croque monsieur. But the action scenes are splendid, and Cruise, at almost 60 but as willing as ever to whip his shirt off, looks predictably great.
Tom Cruise proves Captain Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell is still the guy to lead a ridiculously perilous bombing raid — ‘egress is a steep high-G climb!’
Merely by showing his gleaming teeth he makes a mockery of one especially clunky line, when an upstart in a bar calls him ‘Pops’.
A long-awaited sequel to the 1986 hit, this one, directed by Joseph Kosinski, has Captain Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell (Cruise) confounding his stiff commanding officer (Jon Hamm) by proving that he’s still the greatest pilot up there. Yep, he’s still the guy to lead a ridiculously perilous bombing raid — ‘egress is a steep high-G climb!’ — on a uranium enrichment plant in an unnamed rogue state, even though he a) is just an instructor these days and b) has been grounded.
The plot gives us some friction with ‘Rooster’ Bradshaw (Miles Teller), who blames him for the death of his father ‘Goose’, Maverick’s erstwhile colleague and best pal, all those years ago. And there is friction of a different kind with Jennifer Connelly’s Penny, the obligatory love interest (Cruise’s squeeze in Top Gun, Kelly McGillis, presumably being ruled too old for him now).
But really this film is about the flying. And in that respect, if in no other, it soars.
 Lancaster is in selected cinemas from today, and on digital, DVD & Blu-ray from Sunday. Visit altitude.film for more info. Top Gun is in cinemas now.
Brian Viner’s Cannes Film Festival Review
The 75th Cannes Film Festival hasn’t unleashed many humdingers, despite the fuss around Elvis and Top Gun: Maverick, so it feels fitting that the best film I’ve seen on the Riviera this year is a quiet, beautifully observed, low-budget British charmer called Aftersun.
AftersunÂ
Rating:
A hugely promising debut feature for Scottish writer-director Charlotte Wells, Aftersun is the story of a divorced Scotsman, Calum (Paul Mescal, superb), and his 11-year-daughter Sophie (newcomer Frankie Corio), on holiday in Turkey.
Francesca Corio and Paul Mescal in Aftersun
The charm lies mostly in Corio’s miraculously natural and self-assured performance, because although she and her dad have a lovely, easy-going relationship, it gradually becomes clear that he is bedevilled by difficulties at home, as well as memories of his own childhood. Nothing much happens, but it is a film that radiates warmth and human empathy.
I also really liked Armageddon Time, James Gray’s semi-autobiographical drama about a boisterous, loving but fractious blue-collar Jewish household in Queens, New York, during the 1980 presidential election campaign.
Armageddon Time
Rating:
A fine cast is led by Anthony Hopkins as the kindly, doting grandfather to rebellious schoolboy Paul (Michael Banks Repeta), with Anne Hathaway and Succession’s Jeremy Strong as Paul’s parents and a cameo for Jessica Chastain as Donald Trump’s sister Maryanne.
I was reminded a little of Paul Thomas Anderson’s delightful Licorice Pizza, and various films by Noah Baumbach and even Woody Allen. The episodic narrative makes strong points about racism and anti-Semitism, but never in a bludgeoning way. It’s a really engaging picture.
Triangle Of Sadness completes Swedish director Ruben Ostlund’s trilogy, following his acclaimed movies Force Majeure and The Square, the latter of which won Cannes’ prestigious Palme d’Or. I wouldn’t rule this out, either. It’s an English-language film set partly aboard a luxury cruise (captained by a drunk, played by Woody Harrelson), which starts as a comedy of manners, develops into a social satire about wealth and beauty, and finally mutates into a full-on farce about capitalism.
Triangle of Sadness
Rating:
It’s a little heavy-handed at times, but at its best, scabrously funny.
Elizabeth, new star of the big screen
To add to Jubilee fare, there’s a new documentary, Elizabeth: A Portrait In Parts, which tracks the Queen through moments of intimacy to pageantry over her 70-year reign.
Elizabeth: A Portrait In Parts ( 12A, 90 mins)
Rating:
The director, the late Roger Michell, perks up the usual royal footage by intercutting it with newsreel and clips from contemporaneous films such as Cleopatra, tossing in some ska and rap music, too, but his technique is more clunky than illuminating. It’s also now hard to detach the fictional Queen in The Crown, if you’ve seen her, from reality.
Air time: The Queen with Prince Philip and Anne, Andrew and Charles
Elizabeth: A Portrait In Parts tracks the Queen through moments of intimacy to pageantry over her 70-year reign
Some parts still surprise: Her Majesty having a laugh before recording her Christmas Day speech, leaping up in girlish excitement at the races, and her side-saddle riding skills as she controls a terrified horse. You can only feel deep admiration at the dedication, the tens of thousands of hands shaken, the smiles bestowed, the boredom politely hidden.
From her annus horribilis speech when Prince Charles and Diana were on the verge of separating, to other moments scripted by courtiers, you become increasingly aware of the disconnect between the stiff public persona and a charming enthusiasm when off duty.Â
In cinemas May 27, Amazon Prime June 1.
Between Two Worlds ( 12A, 107 mins),
Rating: 
Between Two Worlds develops a rich female friendship as a journalist goes undercover
We go from upstairs to downstairs in Between Two Worlds starring Juliette Binoche as investigative journalist Marianne who goes undercover as a zero-hours cleaner. Living in poverty, her worst job is on the fetid ferry from France to Portsmouth: staff get four minutes to clean each cabin — including the toilet and sheets. The film can be as grinding as the job itself, but develops as rich female friendships grow.
The Bob’s Burgers Movie (PG, 102 mins)
Rating:
The Bob’s Burgers Movie takes the long-running family animation from television to the big screen and is probably for those who appreciate the dry humour of the series.
Three children fight to keep their parents’ burger bar from after a giant sinkhole appears in front of it
 Three intrepid children fight to keep their parents’ burger bar from failing as a giant sinkhole appears in front of it. This may be cartoon fast food, but there’s a great voice cast including Zach Galifianakis and Kevin Kline.
Kate Muir
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