Captain Fantastic (15)
three stars
Dir: Matt Ross
With: Viggo Mortensen, George McKay
Runtime: 119 minutes
BEN (Viggo Mortensen) is living what might be called the Extreme Good Life with his six kids in a forest in the Pacific Northwest. The survivalist family hunt for their own food, stay away from society as much as possible and generally believe in the old hippy credo of sticking it to “the man”. Their grandfather Jack (Frank Langella) has other ideas, though, and circumstances are about to set the two sides on course for a collision. Half the time one does not know whether to be amused at the family’s ways, or irritated by their lethal smugness, and things become decidedly more silly and less convincing as the piece putters on. But if not fantastic, Matt Ross’s gaze at fatherhood has lots of winning moments.
Ben-Hur (12A)
two stars
Dir: Timur Bekmambetov
With: Jack Huston, Nazanin Boniadi
Runtime: 123 minutes
MENTION chariots and the mind automatically races to the Charlton Heston classic of 1959 with an incredible 11, count ‘em, Oscars to its name. Russian-Kazakh director Timur Bekmambetov hasn’t a hope of filling those sandals with this remake when it comes to drama, tone, and overall class. That said, Bekmambetov is the director of Wanted and Day Watch, so there is a little compensation in the action scenes - that climactic chariot race in particular. A thrill ride in parts, as long as you can forgive the hokiness, wooden dialogue, and long-slog running time.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here