Zach Cregger's thriller Weapons leaves audiences breathless as Tom Hiddleston dances in The Life of Chuck

News.com.au

20 hours ago

With a faithful, if flawed, adaptation of a Stephen King story and one of the year's best and most original thrillers, there's quality on offer on the big screen this week
THE LIFE OF CHUCK (M)
Director: Mike Flanagan (Doctor Sleep)
Starring: Tom Hiddleston, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan, Mark Hamill.
***1/2
If the end is near, only the start will make it clear
There can be no getting around the fact that The Life of Chuck is a flawed movie.
However, it is also a movie capable of flooring you when least expected.
Moments of true bliss, great insight and intense feeling are often conjured from out of nowhere.
And yet, because of its unconventional structure, The Life of Chuck can also often seem as if it is heading nowhere.
Nevertheless, if you've found yourself complaining about the relentless glut of prequels, sequels and reboots flooding cinemas in 2025, The Life of Chuck just might be the movie you have been unconsciously pining for: an original work prepared to take risks and try something different.
Writer-director Mike Flanagan has crafted a faithful adaptation of the 2020 Stephen King novella of the same name, which means the narrative direction of The Life of Chuck will moving backwards through the life of its protagonist.
This will pose a considerable challenge to some viewers. And not just because Chuck (played by Tom Hiddleston) is absent from an extended opening to the movie.
Just to up the ante, The Life of Chuck begins with a soberingly haunting half-hour (titled Act III) where it seems almost certain the world is about to end.
The internet barely works anymore. The planet's climate and geology are also seriously malfunctioning. Every person is making choices about how they wish to spend their final days.
For schoolteacher Marty Anderson (Chiwetel Ejiofor), this means reconnecting with his ex-wife Felicia (Karen Gillan), a hospital worker who has already seen the writing on the wall and accepted the inevitable.
It is when the plot mercifully reaches Act II that we finally get to meet Chuck, an accountant in his late 30s. Why we are meeting him at all proves to be just as mysterious as that cataclysmic first part of the movie.
However, what we receive instead of a fully back-storied introduction to Chuck is one of the great stand-alone scenes of 2025: an extended dance sequence in an open-air shopping mall soundtracked by nothing more than a busking drummer.
Once we are properly embedded inside the closing Act 1 section of The Life of Chuck, we will finally discover what links the seemingly random events depicted before.
It is here we will also delve into the childhood years of Chuck, and the lasting influence of the kindly grandparents (Mark Hamill and Mia Sara) who raised him after a family tragedy.
Though The Life of Chuck is arguably destined to be admired than adored, there are levels of wisdom, vitality and originality in play here that few movies ever attempt, let alone reach.
The Life of Chuck is in cinemas now.
WEAPONS (MA15+)
****1/2
General release.
Wow. A truly masterful and legitimately frightening thriller, Weapons is one of the best releases of this year. While some may consider it to be a horror movie, the lasting blast of Weapons is derived from what it is hiding from you, as opposed to what it is showing you. Writer-director Zach Cregger (who similarly slayed audiences with his previous effort Barbarian) knows there is no more primal a chill to be felt than that caused by the unexplained disappearance of a child. Weapons multiplies the freeze factor with an eerie tale of 17 third-graders who have vanished from the same small town without trace. All the authorities know is that the missing group were members of a class taught by rookie schoolteacher Justine (Julia Garner), and each casually strolled from their homes into the dead of night of 2.17am. While one tormented parent, Archer (Josh Brolin), goes looking for clues within a vast pool of spookily similar CCTV evidence, other members of the community start experiencing events that indicate adults may not be safe from the unknown threat in their midst. While the restraint shown by Cregger in keeping this riddle unanswered for so long is remarkable, the release of energy achieved when all is finally revealed is staggeringly impressive. See it knowing as little as you can, and the brilliance will simply broaden. Highly recommended.
MR BURTON (M)
***
Selected cinemas.
This moderately fascinating biopic focuses on the formative, pre-fame years of 20th century acting legend Richard Burton. However, he is not the Burton namechecked in the title. Our subject was actually known as Richard Jenkins while growing up the son of a miner in rural Wales.
The Burton referred to here is the aspiring thespian's English teacher, Philip (aka PH) Burton. As played by Toby Jones, this Mr Burton identifies the raw talent in Jenkins (Harry Lawtey) well before he is fated to take the London stage scene by storm.
Though there is a friendship of sorts shared by the pair, it is the elder mentor's steely determination to level up his moody young protege's skills that ultimately defines (and later damns) their relationship.
Though the movie is not without some sizeable holes in its plotting, what it does convey most vividly is how Richard Burton found the remarkably evocative voice that saw him become one of the best-spoken actors of all-time.