Welcome to the Wednesday Roundup from Burning Down the Cinema. Today’s roundup features a review of Big George Foreman: The Miraculous Story of the Once and Future Heavyweight Champion of the World (hereafter simply Big George Foreman). A box office update, the latest streaming releases and a preview of the upcoming bank holiday weekend are all included too.
Box office update
The Super Mario Bros. Movie remained at the top of the British and Irish box office over the bank holiday weekend. In its fourth weekend of release, it grossed £3 million. Over the weekend, the film crossed the $1 billion mark at the global box office.
In its second week of release, Evil Dead Rise remained in second place with a weekend total of £1 million. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is in third place with a total of £784,000. In its opening weekend, the film was the highest-placed new release at the box office.
In fourth place, Tamil-language action epic Ponniyin Selvan 2 grossed £618,000 in its debut weekend. Dungeon and Dragons: Honour Among Thieves remained inside the top five in its fifth week with a weekend total of £575,000.
Re-released to celebrate the film’s fortieth anniversary, Return of the Jedi earned £446,000. The third film in the original Star Wars trilogy finished at number seven. Nida Manzoor’s action comedy Polite Society earned £220,000 in its opening weekend. The total was enough to earn ninth place at the box office.
Big George Foreman was the only other new entry inside the box office top fifteen. With a total of £204,000, it placed at number eleven. Later in the roundup, there is a review of the biographical sports drama, which dramatises the life of heavyweight boxing champion George Foreman.
Now streaming
Peter Pan & Wendy premiered on Disney+ over the weekend. The film is a live-action adaptation of the 1953 animated film Peter Pan, based on the J. M. Barrie play Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up. Directed by David Lowery, it stars Alexander Molony and Ever Anderson in the title roles and Jude Law as Captain Hook.
Following its theatrical release in March, Rye Lane is available on Disney+ now. It is a romantic comedy set in South London starring David Jonsson and Vivian Oparah. Since its premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, the film has received wide critical praise. Rye Lane was directed by Raine Allen-Miller and written by Nathan Bryon and Tom Melia.
Following the arrival of The Insider (1999) on Disney+ last week, two more films from American filmmaker Michael Mann are available to stream now.
Mann’s feature debut Thief (1981) is available on Amazon Prime Video. The heist thriller stars James Caan as a safecracker trying to escape the criminal world. The supporting cast includes Tuesday Weld and Jim Belushi.
Meanwhile, Heat (1995) is available to stream on Netflix. Mann’s crime masterpiece stars Al Pacino as LAPD detective Vincent Hanna and Robert De Niro as career criminal Neil McCauley. Tom Sizemore, Jon Voight, Ashley Judd and Val Kilmer feature among the supporting cast. Last month, Deadline reported that Mann was developing a sequel to the film starring Adam Driver.
Based on the Raymond Chandler of the same name, The Long Goodbye (1973) is available to stream on Prime. Robert Altman directed the film based on a screenplay written by science fiction author Leigh Brackett. Elliott Gould stars as the private investigator Philip Marlowe who becomes entangled in a murder when he helps out a friend.
Finally, two of the best-known films of legendary Hollywood star Sidney Poitier are now available on Prime. For his performance in Lilies of the Field (1963), Poitier became the first black man to win the Academy Award for Best Actor. In the film, a group of nuns believe that Poitier’s character, a handyman, has been sent by God to build them a chapel.
In the Heat of the Night (1967) won five Oscars, including Best Picture, at the 40th Academy Awards. Poitier stars alongside Rod Steiger in the neo-noir, directed by Norman Jewison. The film follows two police detectives attempting to solve a murder in a Mississippi town. Poitier’s line “They call me Mister Tibbs!” was voted as the sixteenth most memorable quote from American cinema by the American Film Institute.
Review: Big George Foreman
Big George Foreman is a biographical sports drama based on the life of boxing legend and two-time world heavyweight champion George Foreman. Khris Davis stars as Foreman and the film covers a thirty-five year period of his life.
At the beginning of the film, Foreman is shown at a young age living in poverty in Texas. In school, he struggles to deal with his anger and lashes out when mocked by his peers. Foreman’s attempts to deal with this inner rage and the way that he channels it through boxing are key threads running throughout the film.
The first half focuses on Foreman’s rise to the top of the heavyweight division in the early 1970s. During this period, he is under the tutelage of Doc Broadus, portrayed stoically by Forest Whitaker. The culmination of this portion of the film is the most famous night in boxing history: The Rumble in the Jungle.
The remainder of the film focuses on Foreman’s ten-year break from boxing, his life as a Christian minister and his eventual decision to return to the ring. Foreman’s life story is scarcely believable. Frankly it is a surprise that it had not previously been adapted for the screen.
Big George Foreman struggles to progress beyond the familiar structure of countless other biographical films though. Due to the significant period of time covered, it rushes through many of the key moments of the story and regularly skips ahead in time. As a result, the film lacks any strong sense of style and the execution almost feels perfunctory.
Davis gives a good central performance as Foreman though. In the course of the film, he convincingly portrays the various facets of Foreman’s character. In a small role, Sullivan Jones does a creditable job as Muhammad Ali. Given the singular nature of Ali as a personality and a boxer, this is almost an impossible job.
Big George Foreman is an enjoyable film with a deeply compelling story at the centre. Despite this, the film fails to elevate the material and capture a deeper sense of the indomitable man at its heart.
Coming this weekend
The widest release this weekend is Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, the third instalment in the Guardians of the Galaxy film series. James Gunn returns as writer and director. Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldaña, Dave Bautista and Karen Gillan reprise their roles among an ensemble cast.
Return to Seoul is an international co-production that premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. Park Ji-min stars as a young woman born in South Korea but adopted by French parents. When she returns to her birth country, she decides to seek out her biological parents. Return to Seoul is written and directed by Cambodian-French filmmaker Davy Chou and was shortlisted for Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards.
Arabic-language film The Blue Caftan also premiered at Cannes last year. Directed by Moroccan filmmaker Maryam Touzani, it centres on a woman and her closeted gay husband. It was also shortlisted for Best International Feature at the this year’s Oscars.
Final comments
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James
Burning Down the Cinema 