Movie of the week: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (105 minutes, 12A) Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon. Starring Thomas Mann, Olivia Cooke, Ronald Cyler II.
Greg (Thomas Mann) is a savvy student focussed on getting through high school in one piece. When his mother bullies him into spending time with the titular dying girl, Rachel (Olivia Cooke), resentment predictably leads to respect. Me and Earl is smarter than your average high school comedy. Jesse Andrews’ bright script (adapted from his own novel) is razor-sharp, consistently funny and cliché-free. The quirkiness might be a bit much for some, but the three young leads are magnificent. The immensely likeable Mann is the stand-out. No doubt Marvel is already fitting him up for the Spider-Man reboot after the inevitable failure of the forthcoming reboot.
Ricki and the Flash (101 minutes, 12A) Directed by Jonathan Demme. Starring Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Mamie Gummer.
Meryl Streep continues to slum it in the doldrums of musical comedy as a bargain basement Joan Jett. After abandoning her family to pursue the dream of rock stardom out in LA, Ricki returns home long enough to get her estranged daughter a haircut and pedicure, then leaves again. Diablo Cody’s seriously flawed script sets-up scenarios rich with dramatic potential, and then abandons them in favour of songs… Oh so many, many songs. Imagine a sequel to Stop Making Sense (1984) with Berlin instead of Talking Heads and you’re halfway there.
Dope (103 minutes, 16) Directed by Rick Famuyiwa. Starring Shameik Moore, Tony Revolori, Kiersey Clemons.
A series of wacky mishaps leaves MC Hammer impersonator Malcolm (Shameik Moore) holding $100,000 worth of drugs in this messy mashup of Boyz n the Hood (1991) and After Hours (1985). Rick Famuyiwa’s movie suffers from an acute identity crisis. Social commentary shifts to trite melodrama via coming-of-age sex comedy with the attention span of a Snapchat session. The unintentional laughs come from the cringe-inducing musical score (remember when Family Guy parodied the Fresh Prince?). By the time Famuyiwa walks home his solitary provocative idea, any potential has been squandered under a mound of ham-fisted morality and weak material. Like a Nickelodeon after-school special directed by Kevin Smith with cussing and N-bombs.
The Transporter Refuelled (96 minutes, 15A) Directed by Camille Delamarre. Starring Ed Skrein, Ray Stevenson, Loan Chabanol.
Ed Skrein whispers his way through an approximation of the Stath in this redundant prequel to Luc Besson’s action franchise. The Transporter Refuelled is essentially a movie about a guy with a car who can drive well. This might have stood a better chance if the producers had ditched the Transporter label altogether and just started from scratch. As it stands, the action is too slick and the fight scenes too choreographed to stimulate any sense of danger or excitement. There’s some gubbins about a prostitution ring run by the Russian mafia, but that’s all pretext to the MTV-style faux lesbian titillation and car porn. If that sounds like your thing, then fill your boots. Otherwise, The Transporter Refuelled is best avoided.
Mark Ryall will criticise movies for food. See his blog WhyBother.ie for a closer look at this week’s releases.