The Festive Season rolls around again, and to celebrate, there’s a blockbuster family favourite every day at 6pm.
Madagascar 3 : Europe’s Most Wanted
3rd November at 18:00
This third instalment in the animated franchise sees the animals joining a struggling European circus in order to make their way back to New York. Along the way they pick up some new pals, but with an
Animal Control officer hot on their heels – hoofs/paws/claws? — a safe passage home is no foregone conclusion. With Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, Jada Pinkett Smith and Sacha Baron Cohen on voice duty.
The Mitchells vs. the Machines
14th November at 18:00
A somewhat dysfunctional family’s relatably awkward road trip takes an unexpected turn for the dramatic in this animated action comedy. Members of the eponymous Mitchell clan – comprising parents, kids, a pet hound and a pair of friendly robots – find themselves waging an epic battle to save the world from a takeover bid by renegade electronic gadgets.
Sherlock Gnomes
7th November at 18:00
Animated comedy sequel in which couple Gnomeo & Juliet (voiced by James McAvoy and Emily Blunt respectively) seek the services of renowned consulting detective Sherlock Gnomes (Johnny Depp) and his faithful sidekick Dr Gnome Watson (Chiwetel Ejiofor) to get to the bottom of a baffling mystery when garden ornaments start going missing. Could the shrewd sleuth’s arch enemy Moriarty (Jamie Demetriou) be behind it all?
Rio 2
12th November at 18:00
Macaws Blu and Jewel (given voice once again by Jesse Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway) return in this animated sequel, which sees the winged couple and their kids winding up in the wilds of the Amazon on a whole new adventure. As Blu struggles to adapt to this new environment, he must also contend with vengeful Cockatoo Nigel (Jemaine Clement.)
Also on the festive menu are action blockbusters and family classics.
Pacific Rim: Uprising
5th November at 18:00
A decade on from the first film’s epic Battle of the Breach, a new generation of Jaeger pilots, led by Jake (Son of Stacker) Pentecost, find themselves challenged to defend the earth against a renewed Kaiju threat. Which just goes to show that you can’t keep a good enemy down. John Boyega and Scott (son of Clint) Eastwood head the cast of this sci-fi action sequel.
Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit
24th November at 18:00
Lounge singer Deloris Van Cartier (Whoopi Goldberg) makes a comeback as Sister Mary Clarence in this sequel to the comedy hit, and this time round she’s tasked with giving music lessons to a bunch of Catholic students whose run-down school is threatened with closure. Acting veterans Maggie Smith, Barnard Hughes and James Coburn feature in the supporting cast.
The Tuxedo
27th November at 18:00
They do say that ‘clothes maketh the man’, and this action comedy would seem to be a good case in point. Jackie Chan plays a hapless chauffeur who tries on his secret agent boss’s smart – in both senses of the word – evening wear, and soon finds himself up to his dapper bow tie in high-stakes international espionage shenanigans. So the gadget-laden attire comes in pretty handy. With Jennifer Love Hewitt and Jason Isaacs.
Baby’s Day Out
19th November at 18:00
John Hughes-scripted adventure comedy in which a trio of inept crooks kidnap the infant offspring of a wealthy family, only for the canny youngster to waste little time in giving his captors the slip. Having done so, Junior proceeds to lead crooks and cops alike a very merry dance indeed as he sets out to explore the city he recognises from his storybook.
The Big Action Feast Weekend
War on Everyone
11th November at 19:45
A pair of corrupt New Mexico cops (Alexander Skarsgård and Michael Peña) never miss an opportunity to line their own pockets as they pursue their own singularly venal variety of law enforcement. However, in this abrasively cynical comedy, the dishonest duo find they’ve bitten off rather more than they can chew when they attempt to muscle in on a heist and pit their wits against its mastermind.
Blue Streak
12th November at 19:45
A big box-office hit, this action comedy sees jewel thief Miles Logan (Martin Lawrence) having to hurriedly hide a stolen diamond at a construction site when the cops are about to arrest him. Since the building in question is a police station, on his return two years later Miles must masquerade as a police officer in order to retrieve his ill-gotten gains. But events soon force him to keep up the pretence for a whole lot longer than he’d planned.
RED
18th November at 19:45
Bruce Willis heads an impressive cast of Hollywood veterans – including Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Brian Cox, Richard Dreyfuss and Ernest Borgnine – in this action comedy. He’s Frank Moses, a former Black Ops agent who emerges from retirement and reassembles his old team to spring, albeit a little arthritically, back into action after he’s targeted by mysterious antagonists.
The Losers
19th November at 19:45
The Losers are an elite black-ops US Special Forces team whose members include Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Roque (Idris Elba). In Bolivia for a search-and-destroy mission on a drug cartel’s compound, they’re calling in an airstrike when they realise there are enslaved children in the compound and try to call off the attack. But their superior, Max, ignores their pleas and tries to get rid of them too. And so, going undercover, they plot revenge.
