Jonathan Melville: McAvoy is a very busy boy

JAMES McAvoy returns to cinema screens this week in Danny Boyle’s insane-looking thriller, Trance, just a few weeks after his previous return in Eran Creevy’s Welcome to the Punch.

While Punch left me impressed at the cast list and visuals, I wasn’t as happy with the plot, though one scene in the home of a character’s gran’s house did almost redeem the picture.

Trance stars McAvoy as an art thief who decides to betray those around him – including Vincent Cassell - only for a bout of amnesia to rid him of the memory of where he stashed the loot.

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I’m looking forward to watching the combination of Boyle and McAvoy in what could be an above average slice of Friday night entertainment.

As for fans of McAvoy’s turn as Charles Xavier in 2011’s X-Men: First Class, he’ll be back next year in the sequel, X-Men: Days of Future Past. It sees the cast of the original X-Men films (Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellan included) meet their younger counterparts via various timey-wimey means.

Before that, McAvoy will be seen as an Edinburgh copper in Jon S Baird’s film adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s novel, Filth.

The actor stars as the bigoted Bruce Robertson, determined to win back his wife and get a promotion, and he’s called it “the biggest risk of his career” due to the nature of the character and his numerous exploits.

It’s also worth looking out for The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, a film which will be released in two parts, His and Hers, and show events from the perspective of McAvoy’s character, Conor, in one film and his wife in the other.

It’ll either be style over substance or a novel way to portray different perspectives and we should know for certain by the end of 2013.

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