Check out this week’s DVD picks from Joker to A Shaun The Sheep Movie: Farmageddon

JOAQUIN Phoenix is riveting as the embryonic supervillain in Joker. Shaun The Sheep goes interplanetary in his second feature-length outing. And Lupita Nyong’o adds a patchy outlier to her otherwise stellar resume with the lacklustre zombie comedy Little Monsters.

DVD Of The Week: Joker (15) 121mins, out Monday

JOAQUIN Phoenix has been rightly lauded for his mesmerising turn — combining grim slapstick with a sensuous, sinewy, simmering malevolence. But this isn’t a complex portrait of real-world psychosis. Phoenix’s embryonic supervillain is comic-book bonkers right from off.

Likewise, some of the darker turns are visible a mile off, though that doesn’t make them any less mean when they land. A couple of sequences are astonishing, perhaps even more so for their sense of looming inevitability.

Much of the heavy lifting is done by Hildur Gudnadottir’s swooning score. But the violence, when it comes, is suitably shocking.

A few key scenes land with a thud, including the climactic meeting with Robert De Niro’s talkshow host. What should be a moment of pitch-black catharsis instead feels jarringly out of step. If Heath Ledger remains The Joker, and Adam Sandler in Uncut Gems a more convincing portrayal of a fracturing psyche, this is nevertheless a daringly disturbed use of Hollywood dough.

★★★★☆

A Shaun The Sheep Movie: Farmageddon (U) 83mins, out Monday

ADORABLE alien-themed romp for the animated ovine, getting his second feature-length outing.

Unencumbered by dialogue, the antics on Mossy Bottom Farm are naturally at young fans but this is as cine-literate as you would expect from an Aardman production, packed with knowing nods to genre classics for older viewers.

The claymation characters are more expressive than most flesh-and-blood humans and the gags come thick and fast. If it lacks the texture and depth of Aardman’s absolute finest, this is still a delightful addition to the flock.

And extra credit for the unexpected presence of The Chemical Brothers on the soundtrack. What responsible parent wouldn’t want their little ones dancing round to the living room to Out Of Control?

★★★★☆

Giant Little Ones (15) 89mins, out now

SINCERE rite-of-passage tale about hormonal teenagers, their infuriating ringtones and fluid concepts of sexuality.

Franky (Josh Wiggins) and Ballas are the best buds and swim-team allies who look up from their phones for long enough to drunkenly end up under the duvet — a twist neither of them sees coming, though it’s telegraphed more or less from the opening frame.

Wiggins does a nice job, as does Taylor Hickson (Deadpool) as Ballas’ troubled sister. Kyle Maclachlan does his affable-waxwork thing as Franky’s endlessly patient gay dad, while Maria Bello is his hot single mom.

This captures some of the confusion of teenage sexuality but none of the intensity. It is all rather bland, barring an ill-judged rape subplot and some (presumably) accidental comedy from Franky’s gender-fluid best mate Mouse. That rolled-up sock inside her jeans — deployed as a surrogate penis as she experiments with gender — pushes this briefly into the realms of snickering absurdity.

★★★☆☆

Abominable (U) 97mins, out Monday

PERHAPS it is unfair to compare all animated blockbusters with Pixar’s finest. After all, not every Mob movie is The Godfather. But then… tough.

This calculatedly bland yeti adventure from the How To Train Your Dragon lot feels like the very definition of design by committee. Last year’s Missing Link at least had that oddball stop-motion aesthetic.

Weirdly, this generated a certain amount of controversy over Chinese territorial claims — outside China, that is. It got banned outright in Malaysia.

But don’t expect any sly commentary on Chinese oppression or even a few gentle nudges about looking after the environment. Far more creative than the predictable plot and some tosh about a magical violin is its depiction of China as the happiest, freest, cleanest country on Earth. You won’t see anyone wearing a mask against pollution here. Even the villains are the only two white characters in the whole film.

That won’t trouble younger viewers, nor should it. The action moves along at a fair clip and there are a couple of spectacular set-pieces. Eddie Izzard conjures some gentle laughs with his vocal work. The rest is merely functional, mechanical even.

★★★☆☆

Little Monsters (15) 93mins

“ZOMBIES in a petting zoo,” isn’t just the synopsis — it’s more or less the only joke in this barely adequate Aussie horror-comedy.

That’s not a bad starting point but the writing isn’t nearly sharp enough. Too often this falls back on shouting and swearing in place of actual jokes. The few laughs come from some grisly slapstick we’ve seen done elsewhere.

The stellar presence of Lupita Nyong’o just about makes it worth watching, primarily as a curiosity — an oddball outlier in her otherwise unstoppable ascent.

★★☆☆☆