Wait, how are we a week into May already? This Friday’s set of new movie releases has one of two themes: “Watch it at IMAX” and “We hope you like music documentaries.”
Straddling both categories is Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour, a world concert tour retrospective which the singer made in collaboration with filmmaker James Cameron. Then there’s more traditional Iron Maiden: Burning Ambition, which invites fans to experience one of the most iconic journeys in music history, set over the course of five decades.
Now onto the biggie features of the week, with the side note that Tom Hanks space thriller Apollo 13 is your throwback rerelease for the week.
Get over here! It took a while, but 2021’s Mortal Kombat movie reboot finally gets a sequel this week. Shot for IMAX, the VERY R-rated video game adaptation kicks off exactly where its predecessor ended, with the champions of Earthrealm, joined by washed-up action star Johnny Cage (Karl Urban), forced to battle in a tournament against Outworld emperor Shao Kahn (Martyn Ford) and his forces. Look out for the addition of fan-favourite characters like Kitana (Adeline Rudolph), Baraka (CJ Bloomfield), Jade (Tati Gabrielle) and more.
Our Mortal Kombat II review will be up soon.
An all-star farm animal-driven whodunnit was probably not on your bingo card, but here it is, in the form of The Sheep Detectives. Farmer George Hardy (Hugh Jackman) loves reading to his flock, and when he’s found dead under mysterious circumstances, the sheep resolve to solve the crime. Faces in the cast include Nicholas Braun, Nicholas Galitzine, Hong Chau and Emma Thompson, while Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, Chris O’Dowd, Regina Hall, Patrick Stewart, and Bella Ramsey voice the woolly sleuths.
On the homegrown drama front, there’s award-winning film festival entry Variations on a Theme, from writer-directors Devon Delmar and Jason Jacobs. An elderly goat herder (Hettie Farmer) falls victim to a scam promising long-awaited reparations for her father’s WWII service, and the movie is a portrait of endurance and loss. Screening in Johannesburg and Cape Town only.