The Billie Eilish doco and other new movies everyone will be talking about this week

MA (116 minutes)

There is, as the members of Spinal Tap taught us, a fine line between stupid and clever. Mortal Kombat II stars Karl Urban as Johnny Cage, a former B-grade action star plucked from obscurity to fight in a life-or-death tournament pitting the champions of Earth against a line-up of extradimensional warriors led by the masked Shao Kahn (Martyn Ford).

That’s potentially a funny idea, however often we’ve seen versions of it before, and it licenses director Simon McQuoid and writer Jeremy Slater to incorporate shout-outs to numerous action movies, from Big Trouble in Little China to the John Wick series. But beyond signalling their self-awareness, the parody doesn’t have much of a point.

A recurring character in the Mortal Kombat video game series, Cage was created back in 1992 as a parody of Jean-Claude Van Damme. But beyond his sunglasses and leather jacket, Urban’s version of the character bears little resemblance to Van Damme or to any other actual ’90s action star who springs to mind.

PG (114 minutes)

There’s a paradox to the concert documentary Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard And Soft, filmed last year in Manchester midway through the tour that accompanied Eilish’s album of the same name. The film is conceived as a massive, overpowering spectacle, shot in 3D by blockbuster supremo James Cameron (co-directing with Eilish herself).

But it’s also meant to be raw, intimate, even minimal. There are no thrusting back-up dancers or elaborate costume changes: mostly it’s just Eilish on her own, marching around in her basketball jersey and baggy shorts, a tiny figure in command of a stadium.

Interspersed with the concert footage is a fair amount of behind-the-scenes material: we get to see Eilish crawling around beneath the stage and doing her own makeup, as further reassurance that she’s just a regular person.

PG (109 minutes)

The Sheep Detectives adds a new dimension to the cosy crime genre. It also redefines the term “woolly headed”. In this murder story, the crime is solved by a flock of sheep whose powers of deduction rival Miss Marple’s.

The film is a rather loose adaptation of Three Bags Full, a 2005 bestseller originally written in German but set in an Irish village. Its author uses the pseudonym Leonie Swann, preferring to keep her real name secret even though the book has been translated into 26 languages, as well as prompting a follow-up.

The screen version, however, is quintessentially English. Its human characters are variations on the types who have populated countless British sitcoms. There’s a dim-witted young policeman, a pious vicar and a butcher who would dearly like to turn the sheep into mutton. The only exotics are the sheep themselves – a diverse selection of breeds who come across as such fierce individualists that the word “sheep-like” becomes as redundant as “woolly headed”.

The other surprise is the identity of the victim – Hugh Jackman, cast as the flock’s shepherd, George Hardy, whose early demise means that Jackman is largely seen in flashback. A vegetarian who detests the butcher, he regards his sheep as his best friends, relaxing every evening by reading them crime stories. On these occasions, Lily, a light-brown Shetland voiced by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, usually manages to guess the culprit – a skill that will prove invaluable in the days ahead.