Four new movies – though one is over a year old – hit South African cinemas this Friday, one week before the Easter holidays. They’re not alone in terms of big screen offerings, however. Ster Kinekor is bringing audiences Afrikaans concert special Krone 2025 at Loftus, and a trio of Throwback rereleases. Look out for Shrek Forever After, 1957’s An Affair to Remember (starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr), and Julia Roberts in Eat Pray Love. Now onto the new movies!
Spanning the genres of horror, action and pitch-black comedy is They Will Kill You. Deadpool 2’s Zazie Beetz is ass-kicking heroine Asia Reaves, an ex-con who applies for a maid job at the Virgil, a New York City high-rise apartment block, only to discover that it houses a demonic cult, and they intend her to be their latest sacrifice. Far from timid, Asia resolves to fight her way out of the death trap. Tom Felton, Heather Graham, and Patricia Arquette are some of the other familiar faces in the cast.
Look out for our They Will Kill You review soon.
Coming to South African cinemas finally – screening at select Nu Metro movie houses – is 2025’s winner for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars. Made by a tiny team in Latvia, Flow chronicles the adventures of Cat, a solitary animal, who is forced to share a boat with various creatures after its home is devastated by a great flood. Flow is considered one of the great filmmaking underdog tales, beating out the likes of Pixar, Aardman and DreamWorks Animation to deliver something truly pioneering in terms of visual storytelling.
We hope you like whimsy, because fantasy adventure The Magic Faraway Tree is stuffed to overflowing with it. This all-star British film is inspired by the classic children’s books by Enid Blyton, and sees a modern family (headed by Claire Foy and Andrew Garfield) relocate to the British countryside. There, the family’s three children discover a magical tree that can transport them to fantastical lands, helping kids and parents reconnect. Other recognisable faces in the cast include Sweet Tooth’s Nonso Anozie, Bridgerton’s Nicola Coughlan, Baby Reindeer’s Jessica Gunning, Jennifer Saunders and Rebecca Ferguson.
Dane DeHaan, AKA Temu Leonardo DiCaprio, stars in cheesily named crime thriller Wardriver – which will be hitting VOD in a matter of days. In the film, Cole, a brilliant hacker who steals from banks, not people, gets noticed by a powerful criminal and is forced to apply his skills to emptying individuals’ accounts. Unsurprisingly, the crimes turn violent, and Cole finds himself trying to bail a woman (The Flash’s Sasha Calle) out of the danger his actions put her in.