Guy Pearce

An unnerving Western with a sharp female perspective, this film is a series of gruesome surprises from Dutch filmmaker Martin Koolhoven. Told in four chapters that unfold out of sequence, the film's brutality is almost balletic as it explores the horrors of this rampantly male-dominated society. It's also gripping, and the characters and themes are seriously haunting.

The main setting is a small desert town, where the mute Liz (Dakota Fanning) is the local midwife. She lives with her gentle husband Eli (William Houston), their daughter (Ivy George) and his son (Jack Hollington) from a previous marriage. Then a new Reverend (Guy Pearce) arrives in town, and immediately takes exception to Liz. As their feud escalates, the Reverend preaches hellfire and damnation messages specifically about Liz. He's also secretly stalking her and making threats that escalate into serious nastiness. But all of this is connected to Liz's past as a young girl (Emilia Jones) living in a brothel, and earlier with her mother (Carice van Houton) as she encounters a desperate fugitive (Kit Harington).

The further back we go, the more interconnected everything becomes, with unexpected revelations that link the characters. There are also huge plot twists and earth-shattering events that don't always ring true. All of this is anchored by Fanning in a remarkably alert performance that requires her to convey (or attempt to conceal) her thoughts and feelings with her expressive eyes. Opposite her, Pearce is practically twirling his moustache as the sadistic villain, a terrifying psycho without any other sides to him. Thankfully, he's surrounded by characters who are layered and fascinating, providing both a blast of earthy realism and some very deep emotions.

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Master filmmaker Ridley Scott is back to continue the story 10 years after the events of 2012's Prometheus. And while this film carries on with the bigger themes about creation and identity, at its heart it actually has much more in common with the film in which he kicked off the franchise, 1979's Alien. Yes, this is a horror movie. It's slickly made and packed with engaging characters, and it gets gruesomely scary too.

The setting is somewhere in space in 2104, as the colonising ship Covenant carries a few thousand sleeping earthlings to a new world, tended to by the android Walter (Michael Fassbender). Then a space flare awakens the 15-person crew, and they hear a rogue radio transmission from a nearby planet that's eerily perfect for colonisation. Captain Oran (Billy Crudup) thinks it's worth checking out, potentially shaving seven years off their journey. First officer Daniels (Katherine Waterston) isn't so sure. But off they go, exploring the spectacular mountainous terrain, where they find a crashed ship and a city populated only by the Prometheus' android David (also Fassbender) and some creepy, acid-salivating creatures that he has something to do with.

The plot plays out like a slasher movie, as the crew members are picked off one by one, starting with the ones we don't know and building up to the starrier cast members. Each main actor gets to invest some back-story into his or her role, establishing relationships and personality quirks that hold the interest. Waterston is clearly the protagonist from the start, grieving over the death of her husband (James Franco in video clips) and showing natural leadership skills. Crudup is the impulsive captain who mellows into someone much more intriguing as the story progresses. And McBride has the other standout role as a tenacious pilot. But of course it's Fassbender who walks off with the film, excelling in scenes in which Walter and David engage in a kind of twisted bromance with nasty sibling-rivalry undertones.

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There's a loose charm to this comedy that disarms the audience, raising smiles instead of laughter as three nutty characters swirl around each other. But writer-director Andrew Bujalski (Computer Chess) seems happy to just let things meander without much sense of momentum and no real underlying point. So the characters become less endearing the more we get to know them.

It's set in a gym in Austin, Texas, where the dim owner Trevor (Guy Pearce) has a dream to create the ultimate holistic fitness centre, a goal constantly belittled by his sharp-tongued employee Kat (Coby Smulders), a fitness-obsessed personal trainer with whom he once had a brief fling. Their newest client is the recently wealthy Danny (Kevin Corrigan), who is just looking for ways to spend money and kill time. But Kat once again blurs professional boundaries, and Danny sacks her. Trevor steps in, offering Danny some whole-life training, which inadvertently convinces Danny to invest in his super-gym, working through a quirky lawyer (Giovanni Ribisi) and an estate agent (Constance Zimmer) who happens to be Trevor's current squeeze. What could possibly go wrong?

Bujalski reveals details about each character slowly, with back-stories and flashbacks thrown randomly into the unfocussed narrative. The film has a brisk pace, but is fairly aimless until more details are revealed about these people. Pearce is very funny as the too-serious Trevor, and his earnestness is the perfect foil for the cynical Kat, who is played with stinging cynicism by the up-for-it Smulders. The problem is that while their mutual physical attraction is believable, the underlying romance isn't. And while Corrigan completes the triangle nicely, he's so disinterested in everything and everyone that it's difficult to imagine him ever developing a proper friendship. Thankfully, the interaction is packed with barbed wit and some intriguingly dark emotion.

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While this atmospheric Australian Outback thriller has plenty of edgy action, it's also meandering and arty, refusing to fill in the details until filmmaker David Michod is good and ready. This makes it feel rather slow and uneven, although it's at least consistently fascinating. And as a story of tenacity and survival, it's also a gripping drama.

The story is set 10 years after "the collapse", so there's little sense of law and order in the Outback. When his car is stolen by three outlaws (Scoot McNairy, Tawanda Manyimo and David Field), the strong-silent Eric (Guy Pearce) goes in pursuit. Along the way, he picks up the injured Rey (Robert Pattinson), brother of one of the thugs, who knows where they're headed. As they hit the road, Eric and Rey have a series of encounters with people who are alternatively helpful and menacing, from an inquisitive brothel madam (Gillian Jones) to a nervous doctor (Susan Prior) to an in-over-his-head soldier (Anthony Hayes). There are also plenty of marauding thieves and trigger-happy commandoes who don't hesitate before blowing away anyone who looks odd. But as Eric and Rey begin to bond, they still find it impossible to trust each other.

While the overarching plot is fairly simple, the film plays out in a series of set-pieces as Eric responds a variety of tense situations. The big question hovering above everything is of course why he's so determined to get his car back (the odd answer comes at the very end). Michod's style of filmmaking is more interested in provoking thought than fully satisfying the audience, so scenes are packed with inconclusive twists and turns, vaguely undefined characters and situations, and elements that clearly have some sort of meaning but feel rather impenetrable. Pearce's performance fits this style perfectly; Eric is a man who says very little, letting a steely glare convey more than any number of words would. In jarring contrast, Pattinson's Rey is a hyperactive mess, a simple-minded guy who never stops moving and talking.

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