Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 26/2/2015)

The Prologue opens with the poet Hoffmann (Robert Rounseville) going to the theatre to watch his beloved, Stella (Moira Shearer; sung by Dorothy Bond), dance in The Ballet of the Enchanted Dragonfly. He asks her servant to pass a message proclaiming his love. but it is intercepted by the scheming Councillor Lindorf (Robert Helpmann; Bruce Dargavel), just as Stella's dragonfly character in the ballet kills her partner (Edmond Audran) after mating.

Unaware of the deception, Hoffmann repairs to the beer cellar owned by Luther (Meinhart Maur; Fisher Morgan) where his friend Nicklaus (Pamela Brown; Monica Sinclair) is watching some students singing a rousing chorus in praise of beer. Peevish because Stella has not replied to him, Hoffmann sees Lindorf skulk into the tavern. But he thinks nothing more of his presence, as he is invited to sing and agrees to tell three stories of thwarted love.

Hoffmann harks back to his own student days in Paris for `The Tale of Olympia', in which he recalls visiting a workshop owned by a puppet maker named Spalanzani (Léonide Massine; Grahame Clifford) and an inventor called Coppelius (Helpmann), who has created magical glasses that can bring inanimate objects to life. Spalanzani dupes Hoffmann into believing that a marionette is his daughter, Olympia (Shearer), and, when he puts on a pair of Coppeliuss spectacles, he is enchanted by the way she dances and becomes besotted with her. Nicklaus tries to warn Hoffmann that he is making a fool of himself, but he refuses to listen and finds himself caught in the middle of a feud over money between Coppelius and Spalanzani that culminates in Olympia being pulled to pieces when she dances into the street and her dismembered body parts continue to gyrate by themselves.

The heartbroken Hoffmann travels to Venice for `The Tale of Giulietta', which sees him fall in with Dapurtutto (Helpmann), a collector of souls who dallies with the alluring, but callous courtesan, Giulietta (Ludmilla Tchérina; Margherita Grandi). She attempts to seduce Hoffmann and uses a magic mirror to steal both his reflection and his soul. Moreover, one of her jilted lovers, Schemil (Massine; Owen Brannigan), challenges him to a duel, which results in Hoffmann obtaining a key from his dying opponent. He throws it at the looking glass and it shatters and he manages to flee with his soul and reflection intact.

The locale looks decidedly Hellenic in `The Tale of Antonia', as Hoffmann loses his heart to Antonia (Ann Ayars), a consumptive soprano who lives with her conductor father, Crespel (Mogens Wieth; Owen Brannigan), who fears that she will share the fate of her late mother (sung by Joan Alexander) if she ever performs again. However, Dr Miracle (Helpmann) informs Antonia that Hoffmann will fall out of love with her if he cannot hear her voice and shows her a vision of the anguish being endured by her mother. Convinced that her art is paramount, Antonia sings. But she perishes at the end of her song and Miracle cradles her lifeless body as he removes his mask to reveal himself to be Lindorf - and rapid cuts prove him also to have been masquerading as Dapurtutto and Coppelius.

Having been imbibing steadily during his performance, Hoffmann lapses into drunken despair at the conclusion of his rendition. Consequently, he fails to see Stella enter the inn and cast him a look of dismay at his condition before she leaves with the smirking Lindorf.

With Emeric Pressburger pretty much confined to scripting duties, this is very much Michael Powells film. It was suggested by the conductor, Sir Thomas Beecham, who commissioned a new translation of Jules Barbier's libretto and recruited some celebrated singers to pre-record the soundtrack with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Sadler's Wells Chorus. Powell then shot the film as a silent in a cavernous soundstage at Shepperton Studios, which was filled with sets and trompe l'œil designs by Hein Heckroth that earned him an Academy Award nomination. He would snag a second for his costumes and, thus, for all the richness of Christopher Challis's Technicolor photography and the dexterity of Reginald Mills's editing, the look and feel of this picture was entirely dictated by Heckroth, who even insisted that each story had a distinctive colour scheme, with golden yellow dominating the first, plush reds, greens and blacks the second, and cool blues the third.

Powell hired Frederick Ashton (who tops Beecham by cropping up in a dual cameo) to choreograph the ballet and moved the camera in an elaborate dance that would have made Vincente Minnelli or Gene Kelly envious. The dancers mimed to the soundtrack as they performed to allow Powell to shape the entire visual panoply around the music. In this 138-minute edition (supervised by his widow, Thelma Schoonmaker), the Act III encounter between Hoffmann and Antonia is considerably extended, although there is also now a coda to the Epilogue, in which the off-screen talent gets its moment in the spotlight. Some of Powell's gambits feel excessively theatrical on first viewing. But, once one is attuned to the exquisite stylisation of the technique, this becomes a polished exercise in pure cinema that should even captivate those with little knowledge of or love for opera and/or ballet.

The arch Archer aesthetic is a million miles from the minimalism favoured by actor Harry Macqueen in his directorial debut, Hinterland. As this slow-burning two-hander bears a passing resemblance to Richard Linklater's `Before' trilogy, much has been made of the fact that Macqueen had a bit part in the same director's Me and Orson Welles (2008). However, Macqueen seems to strive to avoid such comparisons and even throws in the line `We are the children of Ayn Rand and Margaret Thatcher' in the hope that someone will notice its similarity to the intertitle about `The Children of Marx and Coca-Cola' in Jean-Luc Godards Masculin Féminin (1966). Following a couple of childhood friends on a February weekend jaunt from London to the Cornish coast, this owes even less to the late nouvelle vague than it does to the romance between Ethan Hawke and Julie Deply. But Macqueen deserves credit for producing the picture over 13 days on a shoestring budget and for trying to say something about the struggles facing twentysomethings in an age of recession and cheap celebrity.

Aspiring novelist Harry Macqueen and musician Lori Campbell have known each other for years. Thus, when he learns that she has returned from a lengthy stay in America, he invites her to spend the weekend in the house in Cornwall where they enjoyed so many childhood holidays. Campbell readily agrees and cinematographer Ben Hecking parks his camera in the back seat, as the pair motor across country listening to a radio panel show lamenting the fact that so many young people embark upon their adult lives in debt from their student days.

In fact, Macqueen and Campbell seem to have avoided such a trap, as she has enjoyed a modicum of success as a singer and he clearly comes from a family that can afford a holiday home. Nevertheless, Macqueen the director keeps trying to slip contentious political topics into the seemingly improvised dialogue to make the characters feel like everyday people, even though they would clearly be more at home in a Joanna Hogg film than anything more grittily social realistic.

Having been a bit hesitant with each other on the road, as they caught up with news and rediscovered their old rapport, Macqueen and Campbell relax on arriving at the coast. They walk through a fondly remembered landscape and sit and reminisce about innocent days when everything seemed possible. However, as they circumvent in-depth discussion of her music and his writing, they leave languid silences that sound designer Helen Miles fills with the cries of gulls and the crashing of the waves that both contrast with the earlier bustle of the city and remind the couple contemplating the vast expanse of sea stretching to the horizon that they have the rest of their lives in front of them.

Back inside the imposing white house, Campbell plays the odd song on her guitar and they chat into the night while lying in separate beds. They giggle like children at a sleepover and Macqueen wishes he could be more gregarious and envies Campbell's fearless readiness to spread her wings. But she is less secure than he believes and, while she insistts she abhors boredom and will do whatever it takes to succeed, the suspicion lingers that she is as close to giving up on her dream as Macqueen is on his. Consequently. as their words flirt around the subject of their feelings for one another, it will come as no surprise to anyone that they wind up in the same bed - or that they fall asleep chastely after deciding not to spoil what they have by risking it on a passion that might not exist.

Heading home, they agree to meet up at a concert. But they fail to keep their promise and the viewer is left to wonder when they will get together again. However, so thinly are the characters delineated that it's hard to invest much emotional energy in them. A similar problem recently hamstrung Max Nichols's Two Night Stand, in which Analeigh Tipton and Miles Teller are stranded in his Brooklyn apartment by a freak snowstorm. Macqueen and Campbell are mercifully less glib, but their problems amount to no bigger hill of beans. What's more, these seem to be rooted as much in their own limitations as artists as in their misfortune to be young at a time of severe economic crisis. Campbell is wary of commitment and wants to keep travelling while clinging to the hope she may become a success, while Macqueen is content to live at home and write. Yet both are fearful that their escape routes are being cut off and that they will soon have to settle down to the daily grind like everyone else.

The performances are adequate, but anaemic, with Campbell (who is a musician by trade) sometimes struggling to stay in the moment. But Macqueen has problems of his own, both in trying to introduce some of the off-screen intrigue into the on-screen proceedings and in striving for the visual poetry he evidently hopes to achieve by cutting between Hecking's evocative seascapes and close-ups of the soulful friends gazing into the distance or into each other's eyes by the light of a crackling bonfire. He similarly fails to invest their conversations with any deeper socio-political meaning. Yet, this is not without its pleasures and would make a decent double-bill with James Gillingham and Jimmy Hay's High Tide, a mother-son seaside saga that goes on general release next month.

The theme of honour killing is starting to recur with dismaying regularity in British cinema. Since Deeyah Khan recalled the tragic fate of British Kurdish woman Banaz Mahmod in the award-winning documentary Banaz: A Love Story (2012), Avtar Bhogal's Honour Killing and Shan Khan's Honour (2014) have tackled the topic from a British Asian perspective. Scripting with his brother, Matthew, music-video director Daniel Wolfe approaches the contentious issue from an outsider's viewpoint. But, while the fact-based Catch Me Daddy has flashes of artistic inspiration, it is far too formulaic in terms of its chase structure and lazily stereotypical characterisation to add much to the debate.

Pink-haired teenager Sameena Jabeen Ahmed is so besotted with wastrel Connor McCarron that she defies her restaurateur father, Wasim Zakir, and runs away with him. They live in a caravan on the outskirts of a rural Yorkshire town, where McCarron spends his days getting high and promising to look for a job, while Ahmed finds work with hairdresser Nichola Burley. However, Zakir is furious that his daughter has defied him and besmirched the honour of his family and he instructs Anwar Hussain to make contact with bounty hunters Gary Lewis and Barry Nunney in order to track her down for suitable punishment.

Following a tip-off, Lewis and Nunney call Hussain to meet at a service station and they rendezvous along with Adnan Hussain, Shoby Kaman and Ahmed's older brother, Ali Ahmad. The two cars roll into town and the men start showing Ahmed's photograph to the passers-by. However, she is back at the caravan arguing with McCarron about going to a nightclub with Burley. He tells her it's too dangerous to venture out, but still insists on going to buy beer while she stays at home.

McCarron spots Nunney lingering outside the 7/11 and takes him unawares with a punch to the head before running away. But Ahmad and Anwar Hussain have found the caravan and the former goes inside to see his sister sleeping. He pleads with her to return home because Zakir is unwell, but she is unconvinced and grows increasingly nervous when McCarron keeps calling her. As Ahmad tries to snatch the phone, the siblings struggle and Ahmed is appalled when her brother crashes through a glass table and is killed by a shard through his neck.

Answering her phone, Ahmed tells McCarron what has happened and they arrange to meet in the town. She clambers out of the rear window and escapes the chasing Kaman when he slips over in the field. However, Hussain finds Ahmad and a bundle of letters, which he steals. Meanwhile, Ahmed and McCarron have gone to the nightclub to borrow some cash from Burley to make their getaway. While Ahmed is inside, however, Nunney tries to abduct her and a fight breaks out. Stealing Burley's purse, Ahmed heads for the exit and joins McCarron in a taxi to Leeds. However, he gets twitchy when Ahmed chats to the driver (Shahid Ahmed) in Punjabi and doesn't realise that they are discussing a possible safe haven. He accuses the cabby of taking a wrong turn and grabs him around the neck from the back seat, causing the car to crash into a wall.

The driver defends himself with a pepper spray and the blinded McCarron staggers on to the moors. Ahmed is livid with him for mistrusting her and considers abandoning him. But the sight of Lewis and Nunney approaching convinces her to grab McCarron's hand and lead him into the darkness. As they flee, however, Hussain and Kaman arrive on the doorstep of McCarron's mother, Kate Dickie, and send him a snapshot of her tied up and terrified. Distraught at the methods her father is employing, Ahmed calls Zakir and promises to go with Hussain if Dickie is released.

But, when Ahmed and McCarron reach the deserted country pub where they have arranged to meet Hussain, he launches at McCarron with a hatchet and hacks him to death. In the confusion, Lewis (who is a grief-stricken cocaine addict) pulls a gun and takes Ahmed hostage. He drives to his dealer's house and makes Zakir an offer he can't refuse and delivers Ahmed to the restaurant.

Zakir is crestfallen when Ahmed admits that her brother is dead and Hussain takes Nunney and the Hussains to collect his body. However, they murder Nunney en route and dump his body at the side of the road. Ahmed begs her father to remember that she was his special little girl. Thus, while he forces a noose over her head, he can't quite bring himself to execute her.

There are several reasons to laud Daniel Wolfe's feature bow, the chief of which is his collaboration with cinematographer Robbie Ryan. Shooting on 35mm, the pair not only capture the contrasts between streets and fields, but they also succeed in adding little artistic touches to the otherwise textbook realist imagery. The turquoise nail varnish oozing across the table top, the spreading pool of crimson blood and the flashes of red shoelace stand out, but this moorland noir (which owes debts to Ken Loach, Andrea Arnold and Clio Barnard, as well as less expected ones to John Ford and Debra Granik) remains visually compelling from the opening lines of the Ted Hughes poem, `Heptonstall Old Church'.

Sadly, despite a superb performance by the debuting Sameena Jabeen Ahmed (who is a 24 year-old sports coach in real life), the dramatic side of things is less accomplished. In addition to being short on suspense and psychological intensity, the screenplay is also strewn with caricatures and Wolfe struggles to prevent full-time and non-professionals alike from overplaying their hands. Even Ahmed has problems when it comes to expressing extremes of emotion. However, Wolfe - who worked with Ryan on `Time to Dance', a 2012 promo for the French band The Shoes that starred Jake Gyllenhaal - has an eye for a telling image and the sequences shot in a milkshake bar and the exhilarating moment of release when the spaced-out Ahmed and McCarron dance maniacally to Patti Smith`s `Horses' suggest that Wolfe will improve upon this Wild West Yorkshire saga next time round.

The last of this week's British pictures is the latest from Tristan Loraine, the former airline pilot who is building a decent reputation as a film-maker. His forte is undoubtedly the documentary, as he ably demonstrated with Shady Lady (2012). But he also makes thrillers and, while A Dark Reflection returns to the contentious theme that Loraine first broached in the 2007 actuality, Welcome Aboard Toxic Airlines, it raises many of the same cinematic concerns as 31 North 62 East (2009), despite representing a marked improvement. Indeed, this exposé of contaminated cabin air is set to make headlines, as not only does it have the support of various air unions and serving airline crews, but it is also the largest co-operative film ever made in the United Kingdom. In all, over 100 individuals and businesses from contributed goods and services, as well as financial investment and Loraine deserves great credit for tapping into their generosity and expertise in creating a model other aspiring film-makers would be well advised to follow.

The action opens somewhere in the Middle East, as intrepid reporter Georgina Sutcliffe and photographer Luke White drive into the wilderness to meet with a politician in hiding before crucial elections. However, they have been followed and a gunman bursts in to kill both men. Traumatised and hoping to rebuild her career, Sutcliffe moves to Sussex to be nearer boyfriend TJ Herbert, who is an air traffic controller at Gatwick Airport. But, no sooner has she been hired by Sussex Standard editor Paul Antony-Barber than Herbert is suspended for a near miss that he is convinced was caused by a JaspAir pilot who seemed to have momentarily lost concentration, if not consciousness.

Convinced this might be a major exclusive, Sutcliffe asks Antony-Barber if she can follow up her leads and he agrees to let starstruck cub reporter Rita Ramnani assist her. However, Jasp is a powerful player in the airline business and owner Nicholas Day calls in a few favours to ensure that any report into the Flight 313 incident cannot embarrass new executive Mark Dymond. Sutcliffe begins delving into past cases of suspected Aerotoxic Syndrome and tries to get hostess Leah Bracknell to discuss the recent death of her pilot husband, Stephen Tomkinson, who had been investigating flight security for several years. Meanwhile, Ramnani coaxes male nurse Sam Lucas Smith and fireman Cengiz Dervis into revealing what they know about the effects of fumes in confined spaces.

Herbert is furious with Sutcliffe for snooping into an area that could cost him his job. But Dymond is sufficiently concerned to consult with senior Jasp engineer Rupert Holliday-Evans, although he hides his misgivings from both Day and his wife Marina Sirtis, as well as his own spouse, Jo Bourne-Taylor, who can tell that something is bothering him on top of the fact that their daughter needs to have hospital tests for a mysterious ailment. Being a company man, Dymond continues to say the right things in public. But he has no idea that Day has ordered henchman Tomi May to hack into Sutcliffe's computer and monitor her attempts to purchase a ticket on a Jasp service. When she does book a flight to Glasgow, Day allows her to proceed after having her bag searched by airport security. He also has her watched on the plane. But Bracknell has agreed to co-operate and smuggles a sample taken from the upholstery of the seat in front of Sutcliffe to prevent it from being confiscated on landing.

Although Antony-Barber keeps nagging Sutcliffe to stick to local news, he allows her to keep working on the story. But, even after he is cleared to return to duty, Herbert remains nervous about her prying, as does pilot Christopher Dickins when Sutcliffe tries to question him while profiling his daughter Romina Hytten, who is a teenage gliding sensation. Sutcliffe also tries to shame Day when he appears on a TV chat show, but May has the plug pulled before he can be asked any incriminating questions. However, she knows she is on the right lines when she sees a video made by Tompkinson shortly before his death brandishing a piece of a Jasp bleed air duct that he claims proves that toxic fumes feeds back into the cabin from the engines.

Sutcliffe shows his findings to academic Angela Dixon, while Ramnani meets campaigning aristocrat Anna Barry, who agrees to raise the matter in the House of Lords because of her own brush with organophosphate poisoning while dipping her sheep. However, having received the results from her sample and being the combative sort, Sutcliffe decides to reveal her findings at an aviation conference held in a country mansion and she delights in making sure that both Day and Dymond are aware of her presence as they step out of their helicopter. She keeps her counsel as Day boosts his company before the assembled delegates. But, once she is joined by Dixon, she begins asking awkward questions and May moves into place to have her removed. But Dymond takes the wind out of her sails when he announces that he has arranged for air filters to be fitted on the entire Jasp fleet.

Day suppresses his shock at hearing the news, which is going to cost him a small fortune. But Dymond assures him the expense can be covered simply by adding a pound to the price of every ticket and tells him that Apollo 13 was also affected by an air quality problem. However, as Day flies away, Sutcliffe warns Ramnani that they may only have scored a Pyrrhic victory, as fitting the filters would be an admission of guilt that the rest of the industry would never counterance.

Closing with lines from a speech delivered in the Lords by the Countess of Mar in March 2014 (which gave the film its name), this is a thoroughly laudable effort to raise awareness of an issue that has long been swept under the corporate carpet. Writing in conjunction with Vivienne Young, Loraine clearly knows his stuff and gets across the science with admirable clarity. He also strikes a note of gravitas that is much more suitable to stating his case than melodramatic scaremongering.

Yet, for all the positives, this has its share of flaws. Cinematographer Nicholas Eriksson (shooting on 35mm) make good use of the many locations that Loraine clearly has to pack into the plotline to uphold his end of the collaborative bargain. But, while the stately homes, steam railways and airfields reinforce the sense of a sinister story breaking within a close-knit community, the constant cutting to new sites disrupts the diegetic rhythm. The surfeit of short scenes frustratingly reinforces this staccato effect, which is made all the more jarring by the presence of so many minor characters, several of whom appear for only a single scene, including Stephen Tompkinson, who seems decidedly out of sorts in his guest cameo

Even the principals are poorly defined, with only Sutcliffe's journalist having a backstory and, despite the expense of filming in Jordan, it's not a particularly convincing one. Her relationship with Herbert also rings hollow, but her byplay with Antony-Barber is no more convincing. Moreover, there never seems to be any dynamism in her pursuit of a scoop that would presumably remake her name and enable her to return to Fleet Street. Consequently, much of the impetus is provided by Moritz Schmittat's score, although this too often feels like a relict from a 1970s action movie and quickly becomes a distraction, while also emphasising the disjointed nature of the narrative and the lack of genuine suspense. So, while the cause is noble, the execution is deficient and Loraine should work on his dialogue and his directing of non-actors before undertaking his next fictional outing.

The scene switches to Budapest for Kornél Mundruczó's White God, which surprised many by taking first prize in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival. With its title alluding to Samuel Fuller's controversial race-relations allegory, White Dog (1982), this may be no more subtle than Mundruczós previous reworkings of the Joan of Arc (Johanna, 2000) and Frankenstein (Tender Son, 2010) stories. However, as in his seething study of rural tensions, Delta (2008), Mundruczó proves that he is capable of moments of provocative poetry, while also springing narrative surprises that goad the viewer into shedding their preconceptions.

Thirteen year-old Zsófia Psotta is far from pleased when her mother announces that she is leaving Budapest to take up a job in Sydney. But she is even more dismayed when she learns that she is going to have to stay in a cramped apartment with her father, Sándor Zsótér, a former academic who now works in an abattoir and has no time for Psottas beloved Golden Labrador-cross, Hagen. Indeed, he dislikes the dog so much that he refuses to pay a fine imposed under a recently passed act outlawing mixed breeds.

The tension between father and daughter increases when interfering neighbour Erika Bodnár claims that Hagen bit her and the police warn Psotta that her pet will be impounded unless the fine is paid. Unwilling to leave Hagen at home, she takes him to the concert hall, where she is due to rehearse with the youth orchestra in which she plays the trumpet. She confides her concerns to pianist Károly Ascher, who has a crush on her. But music teacher László Gálffi refuses to allow Hagen into the hall and summons Zsótér to take his daughter home.

He is so angry with Psotta for causing such inconvenience that he stops the car and leaves Hagen at the side of a busy road. Accepting his fate with stoicism, Hagen befriends a stray Jack Russell and they join forces to steal some meat from dyspeptic butcher Ervín Nagy. Fleeing the scene, the new friends find acceptance with a pack of feral hounds, only to be pursued by dog catchers Gergely Bánki and Tamás Polgár. As Hagen bounds away, he is captured by beggar János Derzsi, who drugs and beats him to force him into becoming aggressive. Once he is suitably snarling, Derzsi sell him to restaurant owner Bence Csepeli, who also trains fight dogs as a sideline and cruelly mistreats Hagen to prepare him for his first bout against a bruising Rottweiler.

As Psotta cycles around the city searching for her faithful companion, Hagen manages to escape and roams the streets before he is finally taken to the pound. A kennel worker is ordered to put him down, but he has learned to defend himself and he mauls the luckless stranger to death before freeing dozens of caged dogs and reuniting with his pack. They go on the rampage, with Hagen leading them to the concert hall in the hope of finding Psotta. She is playing inside and follows on her bike when the dogs are driven away.

Such is their desire to avenge the brutality meted out to Hagen that the dogs hunt down everyone who has wronged him, from Bodnár and Nagy to Derzsi and Csepeli, and savage them. With Hagen at their head, they gather outside the slaughterhouse where Zsótér works and he lights a flame thrower in case they should attack him. However, Psotta cycles up and takes out her trumpet. As she plays, Hagen lies down and his canine companions follow suit (and one can only presume from the pre-credit sequence that she continues to keep them under her spell).

Some may find the denouement's mischievous misquoting of the opening line of William Congreve's The Mourning Bride (1697) a touch twee. But, if music does have charms to soothe the savage beast, it clearly has little effect on those subjecting Hagen to a dog's life. Mundruczó evidently equates them with the compatriots who have been voting for Hungary's notorious neo-Nazi Jobbik party and shows them little mercy when the underdog bites back. Such a message is disappointingly heavy-handed, but the director and co-scribes Viktória Petrányi and Kata Wéber have little time for nuance, as the action starts out with Incredible Journey charm and acquires some seething Amores Perros menace before coming to rest with an unsettling calm that resembles The Birds.

Although her budding romance proves something of a distraction, Psotta makes a perky heroine, while the supporting cast play their cookie-cutter roles with a pantomimic menace that is reinforced by Asher Goldschmidt's bombastic score. Yet, for all the moody clarity of Marcell Rév's scurring dog's-eye-view camerawork, the undoubted stars of the show are animal co-ordinator Teresa Ann Miller and trainer Arpád Halász, who excel in turning the benign family pet (superbly played by a pair of Labrador, shepherd and Shar-Pei cross-breeds called Bodie and Luke) into a fang-bearing monster without losing the audience's sympathy. Rarely can the Palm Dog at Cannes have gone to a more deserving or more astutely non-anthropomorphised winner.

Finally, there's the latest in the ever-lengthening line of documentaries about pop combos trying to relive former glories on the comeback trail. However, while Stephen Kijak's Backstreet Boys: Show 'Em What You're Made Of keeps threatening to reveal a few home truths, it invariably shies away from confrontation and controversy to concentrate on the hard work involved in making it to the top and the five-way bromance that has kept Nick Carter, Brian Littrell, Kevin Richardson, AJ McLean and Howie Dorough together through thick and thin.

Since 1993, the BBs have sold over 130 million albums and those with fond memories of the tight harmonies and slick dance routines will enjoy wallowing in nostalgia, as the quintet reunite to record a new album and rehearse for a 20th anniversary tour. But casual viewers will be disappointed by the control the boys exercise as producers, as they manage to avoid in-depth analysis of the secret of their resilience in the face of financial scandal, health scares, substance abuse, failed solo ventures and the tensions that naturally arise from living in each others pockets in the full glare of the media spotlight. Yet, while this may never quite `Show 'Em What You're Made Of', it still makes solid use of its extensive archive material to flit across two decades in order to contrast the kids who came together to realise a dream and the men who are desperate to keep it alive.

Despite his seemingly unlimited access, however, Kijak fudges the issue in several places. The story of how the band was formed by Orlando millionaire Lou Pearlman makes no reference to the fact that Richardson and Littrell are cousins who often sang together in choirs in and around Lexington, Kentucky. Nor is it readily apparent that McLean, Dorough and Carter performed as a trio in Orlando before Pearlman held his open auditions to manufacture a boy band to take a tilt at the charts. Moreover, little importance is placed on the fact that while Richardson was a 21 year-old working at Walt Disney World, Carter had only just turned 13 when the line-up was confirmed.

Nevertheless, Kijak captures the excitement of the early days through clips of the Backstreet Boys (who were named after a market in Orlando) performing at high schools in Florida and beyond, as Pearlman tried to create a local groundswell that would attract record label interest. In fact, the BBs had to go to Europe to make their name and it is fitting, therefore, that they decided to rent an apartment and a rehearsal space in London in 2012 in order to write new songs and prepare for their first tour since Richardson had walked out six years earlier. They revel in the control they now have over their material, although they remain grateful to producers Max Martin and Denniz PoP, who supervised their first recording session in Stockholm in 1995, which spawned the single `We've Got It Goin' On', which broke them in Canada and, eventually, the United States.

Surprisingly little attention is paid to the music and those unfamiliar with the hits will be somewhat bewildered by the barrage of clips from videos, concerts and TV shows that Kijak employs to confirm the seemingly overnight transition from wannabes to superstars. The songs will, of course, be instantly recognisable to aficionados, but it might have been useful for the older BBs to analyse their quality and appeal, especially as they are now having to perform them as grown men. It's evident from the London sequences that they are happy to be changing direction and more might have been made of how their early material was chosen and the extent to which Pearlman (who had no musical experience) dictated their sound, as well as their look.

Indeed, Pearlman's role in taking them to the top is very much played down. No mention is made of the rumours regarding sexual impropriety and even his decision to form `NSync as their direct competition is rather skated over. As they tour the empty mansion that Pearlman left behind when he was jailed for 25 years for perpetrating a Ponzi scheme, they complain about the cash he stole from them. But no one goes into any detail and the same is true with regard to Dorough's sense of exclusion, McLean and Carter's addiction issues, Richardson's motives for quitting and the health problems that have blighted Littrell, who had open-heart surgery in 1998 and has since been stricken with a combination of vocal cord dysphonia and dystonia that impacts so deleteriously upon his singing that it leads to a stand-up rehearsal row with Carter, in one of the few moments of genuine discord in the entire picture.

Kijak kids us into believing that he is getting the bandmates to open up and reveal their innermost thoughts by taking them back to their childhood haunts. But these visits are far too stage-managed to convince, in spite of the fact that Richardson is genuinely moved by his return to the summer camp where his father died of cancer and Carter is clearly upset by the recollections of his feuding parents and the home movie of him performing in a school play. But McLean and Littrell's reunions with old teachers are fondly unremarkable, while Dorough's anecdote about his father ordering him to kill a pet rabbit falls resoundingly flat.

Indeed, the film itself rather fizzles out after the Littrell-Carter bust up. Kijak tosses in a couple of gig scenes and pads out the closing crawl with inserts showing the band mingling with fans. But there is little sense of how it feels to be revisiting tracks first performed as teenagers or how daunting it must be to be starting over as yesterday's idols. Instead, the BBs scramble to the top of a clumsily symbolic rock face in some woodland and joke about not being as young as they used to be. They seem decent enough lads and appear admirably sane considering their journey. But those hoping for a serious appreciation of their achievement or a candid insight into their psyches should look elsewhere.