CINDERELLA (U)

3 stars

Disney are currently in the process of remaking many of their animated classics as live action, a project that combines the reassurance of the familiar with the cynicism that must come with trotting out well known properties for easy financial success.

Both are at work in Kenneth Branagh's version of the Cinderella story, which has already done sensational box office in the States by trading on the Disney brand. Yet Branagh brings much that's admirable to this straight-up, irony-free telling that offers another decent princess movie on the heels of Frozen and Maleficent.

Ella (Lily James) is a happy young woman living with her mother and father, and early scenes are colourful and joyous and indicative of the clear narrative intent here. Everything is beautifully appointed, like a pastel period drama, but into every fairytale a little darkness must fall, as Ella's mother dies and her father (Ben Chaplin) remarries.

This new stepmother is in the shape of the imperious Cate Blanchett who, along with her two daughters, sends Ella to live in the attic, effectively becoming their servant once her father dies, the time spent cleaning up after them and the dirt she accrues earning her the Cinder name.

It may lay it on thick in these stages, but the undercurrent of sorrow is well earned. For the film to work, Cinderella has to convince as a young woman who is fundamentally good, but not at the expense of being simpering or saccharine, and she does just that thanks to the very well cast Lily James, who radiates the qualities necessary.

Similarly, there's a real danger of Prince Charming being smarmy, but Richard Madden (once of Game of Thrones and ditching his Scottish accent) is another fine bit of casting. He's handsome in a real way, not a parody prince like Chris Pine in Into the Woods, and he and James have a good chemistry that gets us through their potentially sticky first encounters.

Every element of the story as we know it is in place. In the forest Ella meets the prince, although he only reveals himself as Kit. Thematically it's got family at its core, and Kit shares some effective scenes with his father (Derek Jacobi) who wants him to marry a princess.

To this end he throws a ball, to which Ella is forbidden to go by her step-family. The injection of fantasy is a welcome one when Helena Bonham Carter shows up as the fairy godmother, and she gets a nice cameo scene with all the pumpkin-into-carriage stuff. In another film she and Blanchett might have been cast the other way round, so there's some fun to be had with the unexpected here.

Another key plus point is the design, with spectacular use of real sets rather than resorting to CGI making for a lavish production that's determinedly old-fashioned.

It wears its sincerity like a badge, which is both the movie's greatest strength and occasionally its biggest weakness. It's earnest to the point that attempts at levity seem misjudged, and yet it's never po-faced about it either, making the tone, a la Goldilocks' porridge, just right.

But so straightforward is the path to happily ever after that it becomes a little too easy and the third act emerges as disappointingly lacklustre. It's not as though it should suddenly turn into an action film, but the addition of some sort of extra danger or obstacle could have helped considerably.

The story is what it is though, and perhaps there would have been an outcry if suddenly if it was dressed up with unnecessary embellishments, yet it points to a slight lack of imagination and ambition.

Ultimately though, that's not what the film is about. Inner beauty and kindness is the message, and it would be churlish indeed to talk that down.

Director: Kenneth Branagh

Running time: 113 mins

THE SPONGEBOB MOVIE: SPONGE OUT OF WATER (U)

3 stars

A decade on from the first feature length outing for the hit animated TV show, this zany sequel returns us to the denizens of the underwater world of Bikini Bottom, where SpongeBob and his pals love their burgers, but nemesis Plankton is intent on stealing the secret formula.

All this is for some reason told to us by Antonio Banderas's live action pirate, but his grand plan part in the story becomes clear later.

Utilising basic but expressive and imaginative animation for the underwater sections, and some niftily integrated CGI for the live action stuff on land, this is a near constant barrage of jokes, fired at a machine-gun rate.

There's an anarchic, whizzy spirit to it all, and if it has no great ambition or interest in anything beyond the jokes and being as demented as possible, it certainly works on that level.

Directors: Paul Tibbitt, Mike Mitchell

Running time: 93 mins

GET HARD (15, 100 mins)

2 stars

The fifth Kevin Hart movie to hit cinemas in the past year is, faint praise fans, not the worst of the batch.

Still, laughs are fairly thin on the ground in Get Hard, a clamorous but not intolerable buddy comedy in which mega-rich Will Ferrell is wrongly convicted of fraud and faces ten years in jail.

With a month until his sentence begins, he hires Hart's struggling family man to teach him how to survive in prison, resulting in scene after scene of Ferrell trying to convince as a hardened criminal.

It's trying to say something interesting about racial stereotyping, and most likely has good intentions, but in terms of actual humour this is generally a dead loss.

Hart has carved himself out a particular fast-talking persona, and he gets to demonstrate slightly more range here than previous outings, but the combined talents of him and Ferrell can't overcome the weak material.

Director: Etan Cohen

Running time: 100 mins

WILD TALES (15)

4 stars

From Argentina, this Oscar-nominated prank of a movie is a collection of six unconnected short stories, each presenting unflinchingly twisted tales of rage and revenge.

Ricardo Darin is the most recognisable face, but it's filled with any number of committed performances that bring to life bold characters driven to madness by a backdrop of corruption, financial hardship and bureaucracy.

It's probably a little front-loaded with the strongest episodes, involving an unexpected plane journey and a restaurant with a loose sense of morals when it comes to poisoning, while the highlight, a bout of road rage that gets spectacularly out of hand, has the vindictive glee and pungent humour mixed with horror of a good Stephen King story.

A couple of the tales in the middle could do with better punchlines, and the final one involving recriminations at a wedding should be shaved of ten minutes, but for the most part this is wickedly entertaining stuff.

Director: Damián Szifron

Running time: 122 mins