Our monthly round-up of the hottest entertainment releases. This month: Paddington in Peru, Severance S2, and more.

Movies

Paddington in Peru

There’s no mistaking the loveable bear who sports a red bucket hat and blue coat. Originating in the 1958 children’s book A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond, the fuzzy, affable Paddington has endeared himself to generations of kids. Now, he’s back on the big screen in the third instalment of the Paddington film series.

Paddington Bear (Ben Whishaw) receives troubling news from the Reverend Mother (Olivia Colman), who oversees the Home for Retired Bears in Peru. His Aunt Lucy (Imelda Staunton), the only bear family Paddington has left, has been acting erratically.

The Brown family — comprising Henry (Hugh Bonneville), Mary (Emily Mortimer), Judy (Madeleine Harris), and Jonathan (Samuel Joslin) — and their housekeeper, Mrs Bird (Julie Walters), accompany Paddington to Peru to check up on Aunt Lucy, only to discover that she has disappeared. It appears that Aunt Lucy has gone in search of Rumi Rock, deep in the Amazon rainforest. Paddington and company hire riverboat captain Hunter Cabot (Antonio Banderas) and his daughter Gina (Carla Tous) to guide them, but Hunter is haunted by his ancestors and is obsessed with finding the fabled Lost City of El Dorado. Paddington embarks on the adventure of a lifetime as he gets in touch with his roots.

“The previous two films have been London-centred, and this is an exploration of what happens when Paddington returns to the wild,” Whishaw tells Big Issue. “It is almost like an adventure film but with certain qualities and scenarios that are familiar from the previous two films.”

Amidst the excitement, Paddington is as polite as ever, staying true to his core traits — being “full of goodness in a way that is not irritating,” as Whishaw puts it. Like the first two movies, Paddington in Peru has received a warm critical reaction — warm, like a hug from a bear might be.

Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever

In their song for the movie Highlander, Queen asks: “Who wants to live forever?” 47-year-old tech centi-millionaire Bryan Johnson, the founder of neurotechnology company Kernel and mobile/web payment company Braintree, is one such person.

In his quest for immortality, Johnson engages in what is known as ‘biohacking’ and undertakes a project dubbed ‘Project Blueprint’. He keeps a team of 30 doctors on payroll, and his strict body-care regimen involves taking 130 pills daily, eating dinner at 11 am, going to bed at 8:30 pm, a 90-minute workout, weekly MRIs, weekly skin care treatments, and most controversially, blood transfusions with his father Richard and his son Talmage, which some describe as, to quote bluntly, “vampiric”. But Johnson claims that his motivation is not vanity but a desire to advance anti-ageing science.

This Netflix documentary examines the controversial figure and his pursuit of longevity. Documentarian Chris Smith, whose credits include Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, 100 Foot Wave, and Bad Vegan, followed Johnson for a year for this film. Smith was reportedly chosen over 64 other people/production companies who had approached Johnson to make a documentary about him.

“We do a good job of showing that some people think that what Bryan is doing has a lot of value and some people don’t,” Smith tells Variety. “One of my hopes is that people take away from the movie that a large amount of health benefits can be achieved through sleep, diet, and exercise. That is something that is attainable by anyone,” he adds.

Juror #2

At the age of 94, Clint Eastwood has been working steadily for over seven decades. His latest film as director, the legal thriller Juror #2, stars Nicholas Hoult as Justin Kemp, a journalist and recovering alcoholic. He and his wife, school teacher Ally Crewson (Zoey Deutch), have been trying for a child, and now, she is finally expecting.

Justin serves on the jury during the high-profile trial of James Michael Sythe (Gabriel Basso), a man accused of killing his girlfriend Kendall Carter (Francesca Eastwood) after an altercation at a bar. He realises that he was at the bar that night and that he might have inadvertently been involved. He is conflicted as to how to proceed as the other jurors are convinced of James’ guilt. Meanwhile, prosecutor Faith Killebrew (Toni Collette) has tied the case to her election as District Attorney.

Juror #2 is a solidly directed legal thriller featuring a compelling central performance from Hoult, who plays a flawed but sympathetic character with great sensitivity. Reminiscent of the classic legal drama 12 Angry Men, the movie delves into moral grey areas and challenges audiences looking for an easy answer.

Juror #2

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Movie Listing

Juror #2

Juror #2 follows family man Justin Kemp, who, while serving as a juror in a high-profile murder trial, finds himself struggling with a serious moral dilemma…one he could use to sway the verdict.

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TV

Severance S2

The wait is over. Three years after it launched to great critical acclaim, Apple TV+’s Severance, a cautionary tale about greed and the excesses of corporatism, is finally back.

Part satire and part thriller, the show takes a simple question — what would it be like if we could wholly separate our work and personal lives? — and turns it into the basis of its premise. Watch the first few episodes on KrisWorld.

The show follows Mark Scout (Adam Scott), who takes a job at a mysterious company called Lumon Industries after losing his wife in a car accident. The company offers a procedure called ‘severance’, which surgically divides people’s memories between their work and personal lives. The version of a severed person at work is called an ‘innie’, and their regular version is called an ‘outie’. Mark works in a department of the company which mandates the procedure. He, like his colleagues, is an innie at Lumon.

The first season’s finale dropped some shocking bombshells: Mark discovers his wife is not really dead and is also severed; her innie is actually his innie’s counsellor, Ms Casey (Dichen Lachman). Meanwhile, Helly (Britt Lower) discovers she’s the innie of Helena Eagan, the daughter of Lumon Industries CEO Jame Eagan. They try to blow the whistle on the horrible consequences of the procedure. In Season Two, we learn their efforts have failed. Mark and his friends learn the dire consequences of trifling with the severance barrier, leading them further down a path of woe.

The show’s premise isn’t completely original. Movies such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind have examined the terrible consequences of trying to remove painful memories. And TV series such as Dollhouse have also explored what it’s like for someone to have compartmentalised personalities.

But what elevates Severance is the confident direction by Ben Stiller, who plays up the dystopic vibes of the show. The show’s chilly mood, established by its clinical aesthetics and its discordant score, lends it a heightened sense of suspense. Season 2 continues sustaining this weird sense of unease while further exploring the show’s themes of corporate exploitation and memory.

What results is a series that’s gripping and smart, able to provide both crowd-pleasing thrills and food for thought.

The Night Agent S2

Based on the novel by Matthew Quirk, The Night Agent is a sophisticated, pulse-quickening action thriller centring on Peter Sutherland (Gabriel Basso). In S1, he was a low-level FBI Agent who worked in the basement of the White House, manning a phone that never rang — until the night that it did, thrusting him into the crosshairs of a dangerous conspiracy that he ultimately managed to foil. Season Two continues to follow the character, now a newly established night agent, as he investigates a CIA leak and a potential attack in New York.

The series was an unexpected success: Despite not having any particularly big stars in its cast, it emerged as the third most-viewed debuting series on Netflix in its first four days of release and is now the seventh most-watched Netflix series ever. That’s thanks to its intricate plotting and constant cliffhangers that keep viewers in suspense. While the chemistry between Basso and his co-star Luciane Buchanan is a little lacking, it’s not a bummer. The Night Agent is more preoccupied with clever plot twists and character development than the romantic entanglements of its two lead stars.

And The Night Agent doesn’t overstay its welcome. At 10 episodes, it tells a complete, self-contained story and makes for a brisk binge.