The Super Mario Galaxy Movie review – bland screensaver of a movie that’s actually worse than AI

At this point, it’s trite to say that a bad film feels as if it’s been AI generated, but this simplistic sequel is next-level – it’s nothing more than an Easter holiday cash grab Here is an inert and uninteresting animated follow-up to The Super Mario Bros Movie , based on the legacy video game about two wacky Italian-Brooklyn plumbers Mario and Luigi, voiced here by Chris Pratt and Charlie Day; this kind of stereotype is evidently the last in mainstream entertainment to be considered offensive. Now they and mushroom-kingdom ruler Princess Peach (voiced by Anya Taylor-Joy) have to rescue Rosalina (Brie Larson), the adoptive mother of the faintly Minion-y creatures called the Lumas. She has been abducted by Bowser Jr (Benny Safdie), the son of wicked turtle Bowser (Jack Black), who did very much the same sort of thing in the previous film. Of course it’s intended for little kids, but it surely didn’t need to be such a visually dull screensaver of a movie, with even more of the cheesy,...

Small Slow But Steady review meditative boxing tale as deaf fighter rethinks life

Film follows Keiko, deaf since birth, making her way in the ring when Covid-19 lockdown arrives in Japan and she must deal with confidence issues

The title is presumably meant to refer to the film’s fine-boned heroine Keiko Ogawa (Yukino Kishii), a scrappy boxer who has just turned professional, but it just as aptly describes the film itself: a delicate, atmospheric study that’s quite unlike most other fight movies. Based on a memoir by boxer Keiko Ogasawara, this very internal story unfolds during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, with a locked-down Japan adding a further layer of isolation to Keiko’s life. Thanks to Kishii’s luminous performance, Keiko comes across as a very self-sufficient but lonely figure, completely deaf since birth, who finds in fighting some kind of release and sensory thrill, even though her lack of hearing creates very specific challenges in the ring given she can’t hear shouted instructions from her coaches or even the bell.

Keiko’s family – mum (Hiroko Nakajima) and brother Seiji (Himi Satô), with whom she communicates mostly via sign – are supportive but don’t really get the sport’s appeal, and that sort of goes for the co-workers at her day job as a hotel housekeeper. The only person who really gets her is the “chairman” (Tomokazu Miura) of the gym where she trains; he is a man now not in the best of health, considering closing up shop as his other regular trainees gradually jump ship, some grumbling that Keiko is the one who gets all the attention now.

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