THE RAILWAY CHILDREN RETURN
★★★
OUT 15 JULY / CERT PG / 98 MINS
DIRECTOR Morgan Matthews
CAST Sheridan Smith, Jenny Agutter, Tom Courtenay, Beau Gadson, Kenneth Aikens 1970’s The Railway Children is ‘Tea & Crumpets: The Movie’. The presence of OG Railway Child Jenny Agutter reprising her role in this tougher but still kid-friendly re-spin suggests this is a legacy sequel, but while the movie embraces ideas and motifs from the first film, it mostly does its own thing. The film’s smartest decision is to locate the action around the evacuation of children from major cities during World War II. The first half-hour is a likeable set of hi-jinx; things get more dramatic when the gang discovers injured African-American GI, Abe (Kenneth Aikens). Some of it is too on the nose, and it’s perhaps not as heart-warming as the first film, but it’s engaging and entertaining in different ways, winningly played by its fresh cast.