Cinema Releases March 16: Teen cops, demonic women and zookeepers

21 Jump Street (15, Sony, 106mins)



Channing Tatum is on hand as the muscled leading man and a slimmed down Jonah Hill as the comedy sidekick in this re-imagining of the Eighties TV show that brought Johnny Depp his big break. They star as two rookie cops who keep fouling up on the job and so get handed the shit job, in this case going under cover in a high school to root out a gang of drug dealers. It’s chaotic stuff, but terrifically funny too. 




Contraband (15, Universal, 109mins)




Mark Wahlberg does serious and solemn in this action thriller as a man who has turned his back on a life of crime – smuggling to be specific – but who is coerced back out of retirement to save his younger brother who got in a whole heap of trouble when he went down the same family business. Wahlberg can do these roles in his sleeps though and had been branching out away from this sort of slick thriller, cops n' crime flicks recently. Over the last few years he’s done The Lovely Bones, was ace as the troubled boxer in the Oscar winning The Fighter, and managed to hold his own against Will Ferrell and Steve Coogan in The Other Guys. Still, it has a young director in the shape of Baltasar Kormakur looking to make a name for himself, and is a cut above most heist movies. 




The Devil Inside (13, Paramount, 87mins)




Shaky-cam home footage meets The Exorcist in this possession horror in which bad things happen to nice people, bodies get contorted, little girls speak in demonic ancient languages, and priests come and look really, really worried. Thirteen years on from The Blair Witch Project and ‘pretend-real’ movies are still big business, helped in no small part by Paranormal Activity’s success, but this pseudo-real horror picked up some bad reviews Stateside, which cited a shaky story and unsatisfying ending as the film’s most disappointing moments. 




We Bought A Zoo (PG, Fox, 123mins)



Cameron Crowe’s feelgood film is surprisingly uplifting for a story about grief and mourning. In another director’s hand it could have been a dour drama but in the Almost Famous helmer’s direction, this Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson drama - about a freelance journalist who abandons his big city job after his wife’s death and moves out to the countryside with his two young children where he has bought a zoo he intends to run - is a thoroughly life affirming experience. For our full review of the film, check it out here.