GAME NIGHT (15)
Trivial pursuits escalate into life-or-death gambles in a rollicking comedy thriller co-directed by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, which is funnier and smarter than it initially lets on.
After a largely depressing year for broad Hollywood comedies save for the potty-mouthed hysteria of Girls Trip, Game Night deals us a winning hand full of likeable characters, uproarious set-pieces and snappy dialogue laden with pop culture references.
Screenwriter Mark Perez orchestrates a madcap murder mystery in sleepy American suburbia, where middle-class couples congregate to play competitive charades and Scrabble while swigging glasses of chardonnay and tucking into a cheese board. Max (Jason Bateman) and his wife Annie (Rachel McAdams) are board game fiends, who solve the mystery kidnapping.
Game Night whirls violently from slapstick to turbo-charged action via heartfelt confessional.
Some of the gear changes are a little jarring and the needlessly convoluted plot threatens to trump plausibility in the film's deranged final act.
Thankfully, the winning chemistry of Bateman and McAdams papers over the cracks while Plemons mercilessly scene-steals as the socially awkward neighbour who yearns for an invite to one of Max and Annie's soirees. Perhaps he'll get to roll the dice in a sequel.
MONSTER FAMILY (PG)
Emma Wishbone (voiced by Emily Watson) is down on her luck and beginning to believe that her situation will never change. In order to raise her family's spirits, Emma suggests they should attend a Halloween costume party thrown by her perky co-worker, Cheyenne (Celia Imrie). She telephones a costume hire shop but inadvertently calls Count Dracula (Jason Isaacs), who becomes fixated on the mother and wreaks havoc. In order to break the spell and return to their human forms, the warring Wishbones put their differences to one side and work together for a change.
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