This Boxing Day, Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, and Karen Gillan are reunited in Jumanji: Open World, the hilarious final instalment of the globally beloved action-adventure trilogy.

Our heroes have escaped the perilous jungles of Jumanji before, but this time Jumanji breaks free of its console, unleashing its chaos into our world.
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Hugh Jackman is the shepherd George Hardy, who loves his herd almost too much and dislikes almost all humans. His love is so strong that he has given them all names and treats them like his children. He even reads to them nightly from his collection of detective novels. While the sheep can converse with each other, the humans only hear the baas.

When George meets an early and untimely end and the police prove incompetent, the sheep have to pitch in and help the authorities. As the investigation expands, you learn more and more about the reclusive shepherd. The human characters are very by-the-numbers, but the mammals’ personalities are much richer.

You would have to be quite cold of heart not to let a little bit of sunshine in with The Sheep Detectives. Its life lessons are worthy of being told, and the human element supports the narrative quite well, if even a little bit one-dimensional. This should prove to be engaging and entertaining to all the members of an open-minded family.
Rob Hudson
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But when a mysterious incident disrupts life on the farm, the sheep realise they must become the detectives. As they follow the clues and investigate human suspects, they prove that even sheep can be brilliant crime-solvers.

Starring Hugh Jackman, Nicholas Braun, Nicholas Galitzine, Molly Gordon, with Hong Chau and Emma Thompson, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, Chris O’Dowd, Regina Hall, Patrick Stewart, Bella Ramsey, Brett Goldstein, Rhys Darby, The Sheep Detectives will be released in Aussie cinemas May 7!
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This Valentine’s Day, Oscar® winner Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All at Once, Loki) rockets into his first major leading man role as an unlikely hero, a seemingly mild-mannered realtor with a dark secret that he is desperate to leave behind. Spoiler alert: He won’t.

From 87North—producers of the groundbreaking action films Nobody, Violent Night, Bullet Train, Atomic Blonde and The Fall Guy—comes a visceral, high-octane story of wrath and revenge.

Quan stars as Marvin Gable, a realtor working the Milwaukee suburbs, where ‘For Sale’ signs bloom. Gable receives a crimson envelope from Rose (Oscar® winner Ariana DeBose; West Side Story, Argylle), a former partner-in-crime that he had left for dead. She’s not happy.

Now, Marvin is thrust back into a world of ruthless hitmen, filled with double-crosses and open houses turned into deadly warzones. With his brother Knuckles (Daniel Wu; Tomb Raider, Warcraft), a volatile crime lord, hunting him, Marvin must confront the choices that haunt him and the history he never truly buried.

The film features a killer soundtrack and impressive and diverse cast that includes former NFL running back and Super Bowl champion Marshawn “Beast Mode” Lynch (Bottoms, 80 for Brady), Mustafa Shakir (Emancipation, Luke Cage), Lio Tipton (Crazy, Stupid, Love., Lucy), Rhys Darby (Jumanji: The Next Level, Yes Man), André Eriksen (Violent Night, The Trip) and Sean Astin (The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Perry Mason).

Produced by 87North’s Kelly McCormick and David Leitch, Love Hurts is written by Matthew Murray (Sheltered, CloudStreet: Soaring the American West) & Josh Stoddard (Warrior, Kaleidoscope) and Luke Passmore (Archenemy, Slaughterhouse Rulez). Guy Danella (Violent Night) is also producing. The executive producer is Ben Ormand.

Making his feature film directing debut on Love Hurts is acclaimed veteran stunt coordinator and fight coordinator JoJo Eusebio, whose credits include some of the greatest action films of the past decade including Black Panther, The Avengers, the John Wick films, The Matrix Resurrections, Violent Night, The Fall Guy and Deadpool 2. Eusebio also served as the second-unit director on Deadpool 2, Violent Night and Birds of Prey.
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When they discover an old video game console with a game they’ve never heard of, they are immediately thrust into the game’s jungle setting, into the bodies of their avatars, played by Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Hart, and Karen Gillan.

What they discover is that you don’t just play Jumanji –Jumanji plays you. They’ll have to go on the most dangerous adventure of their lives, or they’ll be stuck in the game forever…

Starring Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan, Nick Jonas, Bobby Cannavale & Rhys Darby. Directed by Jake Kasdan.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle – in cinemas December 26!
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Flight Of The Concords alumni Jemaine Clement as the vampire Vladislav and Rhys Darby as the werewolf Anton deliver their usual understated take on comedy, as does the rest of the cast. This is a film that is constantly amusing but not necessarily laugh out loud funny at all times. It does however have a few big laugh moments and this night’s audience was demonstrative in their approval.

There are so many everyday life activities that the undead would experience if they lived normal lives in suburbia and this film covers an amusing number of those topics. This includes the police dropping in for a visit, going out for a drink (of the non-blood type) and walking down dark roads where you are the hunter not necessarily the hunter.

With vampires of all types still being such a commercial commodity, it was almost inevitable that someone would come up with an idea of this sort. It’s a testament to the writers, actors and director that they have succeeded so admirable in adding something worthwhile to this already crowded genre.

Rob Hudson
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