Reviews

Seems that this spring-early summer has turned into a sort of 'pistols at dawn' between DC and Marvel. DC fired first but shot themselves in both feet and blew their noses off too for good measure. If only they had stuck to Miller's excellent template it would have worked beautifully but David 'hands of death' Goyer and Zack Snyder had to show off how clever they were...'Have to save...MARTHA!' 'Riddle me this...Dad beat me and God must die...Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!' 'You won't ever make Holly Hunter drink P***!'

So Marvel has basically already won it by default but fortunately their volley turned out not to be so bad. Not brilliant but good. Certainly better than 'Age of Ultron', a movie that was not so much birthed as miscarried. Seems they've learnt their lesson and this third Avengers movie (never mind the Captain America tag. It could just as easily be called Iron Man Civil War) matches the character interaction and big fight fun of the original with the darker 70s thriller vibe of 'Winter Soldier'.That movie was a good thriller but non existent as a superhero flick and was marred by yet another 'there is no terrorism out there its just the guys in charge trying to scare you into submission line' that seems to have become the default position for many before the sheetstorm sweeping the world right now, the mantra to shout out as you see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil. There are politics here too but they are more balanced and a real dilemma is presented to which they thankfully do not offer a solution. That dilemma, can super powered individuals operate at their own discretion as judge jury and executioner or must there be government accountability?, is one that has powered many comic book masterpieces including the 1987 double whammy 'Watchmen' (which Snyder made into a great movie) and 'Dark Knight Returns' (which Snyder turned into a pile of sheet) It powers the conflict between the characters until more personal and visceral ones take over.

The scene everybody really wants to see is the 'Burly Airport Brawl' where the two sides go at each other with all their skills in a noisy and surprising battle that is light-hearted and fun in a way the rest isn't. That could be a mini movie in itself and its worth waiting for. There are a few action scenes around including yet another African rundown, this time against the masked Cross-bones and his crew, and the spectacular 'down the stairwell' and 'Tunnel chase/Audi Q7 advert' scenes in Bucharest but like 'WS' the rest of it is mainly downtime, yet the tension never drops and we feel the pressure building on everyone.

There isn't really a villain here as the two sides are providing the opposition. Someone helps stoke things up and he is Helmut Zemo played by the brilliant Daniel Bruhl. The film doesn't 'stick like glue' (HA!) to his comic book character and they are only using the name here. In fact it could be argued that Zemo isn't even a villain and he is ultimately deemed too pitiful to even kill by his opponents once they see who he is and why he has done what he has.

Spiderman is finally brought into the MCU and takes his place as an Avenger after years of protest with his backstory already done off screen (God, would we want to see it AGAIN?) with Tom Holland as Peter Parker and Marisa 'still so hot' Tomei as the comically sexy Auntie May. Black Panther also makes his début and despite his costume looking a little goofy he fits in well as does the now properly realised Wakanda. Hope they will be as well used in their own movies. - Ant-man makes the appearance promised at the end of his standalone but he is there to take part in the 'Big Brawl' and doesn't do much after. Falcon, Scarlet Witch and Vision are all beefed up and given more time and character depth here while Black Widow sort of hangs around the edges and doesn't get very involved in things for once though she too is in the action. Excuses for why Gwyneth Paltrow doesn't appear continue and are getting more and more stretched. Just recast and have done with it please!

Again, a summer blockbuster that is marketed at kids but is geared entirely at adults (after BvS and Zootopia) and will mean very little to younger audiences though the big fight will be sure to entertain.

So a victory on points for Marvel but a well deserved one and definitely worth going to see.

"Brilliant! A work of true genius! The greatest most thrilling movie not only of this year but of the entire century! A fearless and daring work that reinvents the genre and reinvigorates it and sends it launching into a new age! A triumphant masterpiece and a film for the ages that cements JJ Abrams as one of the most brilliant talents of his generation, a true joy and the best night ever at the cinema!" – OK, just bill it to the usual address please Walt Disney inc, thanks!

I have to admit off the bat that I had no faith in this project since Disney obviously only bought it as a shameless excuse to sell things (Ok Lucas did a bit of that but it was for a reason) and JJ Abrams has never made a film I have enjoyed ever and worse destroyed 'Star Trek' with a series that goes beyond insulting. I am one of those people who saw the first 'Star Wars' as a kid and have followed it ever since, maybe not as religiously as some but it was always something important accompanying me throughout my life rather like the Bonds or Star Trek. I am also one of those few people who liked the prequels which, despite having many flaws, were interesting as they took the series in another direction and looked at how and why the Republic fell and the Empire arose from its ashes. It saddens me when people say 'Politics and philosophy are so boring! I just wanna see cool sheet blow up!' as if that's all sci-fi ever was (it wasn't when the original Star Wars came out. It was largely about boring politics and philosophy back then) However I decided to give it a chance since several movies I prepped myself to hate have surprised me this year and we went to last night's anticipation filled midnight show at London's new Picturehouse cinema.

This is only my opinion – Positives – The special effects are amazing (especially on a huge screen) and it's nice to see the original trilogy vehicles rendered in CGI. 3D is also great. Air battles now taking place in the sky and not space and the Empire now has a sizable female contingent including female Stormtroopers. A genuinely strong female lead also at last.

The negatives – Absolute lack of originality. Already obvious from the merchandising, there are no new vehicles or uniforms or worlds, this Universe hasn't advanced at all since 1983. Fan service alone. Nothing is made clear, who are the First Order, what is the Rebellion and the Republic, how did they split? When and how was the Death Moon built? In Episode IV this sense of mystery was acceptable, but that is no longer possible in so complex and established a universe. The story is a rehash of Episode IV and deliberately so 'let's give them more of the same!' Like 'SPECTRE' brings nothing new to the table just karaoke versions of what's already been. A modern YAL like 'stringing along' structure in which nothing is resolved and everything is always being saved for later, unlike the Lucas movies where each had a clear self-contained narrative. Characters are fairly dull compared to those of other series. New kids are off the peg stereotypes (surly girl, cool jive talking black dude, daring quipping handsome pilot, funny robot sidekick) and are never developed beyond. The villains are also incredibly weak, not just Kylo Ren who is the biggest sissy ever to wield a light sabre but the entire Empire (sorry, 'First Order') who are led by a wimp and his team of wimps and controlled by a poorly rendered CGI something who is also weak. This is more like an insurance office than an evil empire! – Most of the scenes and dialogues in the trailers aren't even in the film and a lot of the stuff in the merchandising isn't either. As a sort of 'anti-prequel' most of it is shot live but unfortunately looks as if it was shot in someone's back garden and is as alien and exotic as weekend in Brighton (UK seaside resort) – The musical score is awful and has none of the usual majesty or emotional power. I know they went to Williams for name value but if this is all he can come up with at his time of life then give Giacchino the next one please. Two iconic moments made pathetic and underwhelming, ie the lame and sorry opening crawl and the 'swirlout' ending which spins and spins and spins around the same unimpressive final image for 2 minutes in a desperate attempt to make it epic.

It feels more like some neat fan-made short on 'Youtube' or cutaways to one of those countless 'Star Wars' video games we've had since 1985 than anything in the original series. On its own it is a fun little science fiction adventure comparable to say 'Pacific Rim' or 'Jupiter Ascending' but, IMHO, it is in no way worthy enough to be considered part of a series that has become iconic exactly because they were original and daring and had something to say. Lucas and Spielberg birthed the series from their own love and passion and it showed in every frame of 6 movies. This is a shameless cash in and it shows in every frame. Doubtless it will make billions and receive rave reviews and be hailed as one of the greatest films ever made, something most people had already decided before they had seen it thanks to 2 years of relentless carpet-bomb marketing, rather like Obama was being hailed as the greatest president in history before he had even been elected.

There are dozens more of these to come so sit back and wait for your three yearly dose of 'Star Wars' with accompanying hype. Enjoy :-)

The 'Craig years' started out as a reaction against the campiness of Brosnan's 'Die Another Day' and though daring initially it is a difficult tone to sustain for a franchise like Bond. As ever revolution breeds counter-revolution and a whole host of new pretenders have been packing in cinemas with their defiant cry of 'old school Bond is best!' With 'Fast and Furious' 'Kingsman' and 'Mission Impossible (4+5)' biting at their heels, some serious script rewrites have taken place and a massive change of tone introduced for this fourth 'new continuity' Bond. What we have is a strange, bizarre, almost surreal film that plays out like some odd Bond fever dream that you keep expecting him to wake from back into his bland reality, walking a tight rope between seriousness and outright parody, the latter very often resembling 'Austin Powers'.

The story is already very well-known both via a leaked script and the spoiler filled trailers and publicity materials. Bond follows a lead from the recently deceased 'M' (never mentioned in Skyfall) to chase an Italian hit-man named Marco Sciarra in Mexico and after getting into trouble with the new M goes to Rome where a very brief seduction of Monica Bellucci (why do Italian actresses only get bit parts in modern Bonds?) leads to a Spectre meeting where he meets his long lost adopted brother Christoph Waltz who is now going under the name Blofeld and after the much publicised Aston vs Jaguar chase through Rome he follows a vague lead to find former enemy but now actually all round decent good guy (?) Jesper Christensen who puts him onto his shapely daughter and MI4 hand me down Lea Seydoux at the Piz Gloria clinic and after a plane-car chase through them mountains they go to Tunisia where, after some romantic train sex and a Jaws style train fight with David Bautista, they follow leads to Blofeld's high-tech base in a hollowed out volcano Meteorite crater from where he plans something to do with absolute surveillance but is never clear. It's all about getting back at Bond for stealing daddy's love etc, then the extra finale in London which gets sillier by the moment then the oddest ending ever in a Bond which literally says 'Craig's done and he's leaving the building. Goodnight everyone!'

There is plenty of action this time around but despite being 'old school' and spectacular, there is a lack of genuine thrills. The helicopter fight, the car chase, the plane chase, the train fight, the exploding villain's lair, final against the clock battle and boat-helicopter duel all feel well, 'ordinary' and bland. You watch them nodding your head then carry on with blood unpumped and nerves unjangled. Maybe it's Newman's poor score (great composer but not for this sort of thing) or Mende's lack of action experience but it makes what ought to be incredible just OK.

There are endless nods and namechecks to previous Bonds, in fact half the film is just Bond namechecks and though it's fun as a Bond lover to spot them they don't actually add up to anything fresh or original. They ought to be creating NEW iconic Bond moments here, not just repeating old ones! Plus there are influences from all over the place, mostly 'Austin Powers' , not only in the meta-parody nature of much of it but also in the relationship between Dr Evil and Powers which is pretty much how the official 007 series now replays Bond and Blofeld! – As in the previous 3 Craigs a 'villainous plot' is barely even existent, something to do with 'worldwide surveillance', causing terror attacks to convince governments to sign on to the world wide spynet he is building etc, all recycled from other similar fashionable 'conspiracy theory' ideas, a flogged horse now not only dead but in advanced stages of decomposition! Not that it matters anyway and it's just an excuse for Bond and Blofeld to trade handbags at fifty paces. – Gadgets are back as is an iconic tricked out car and an exploding watch plays a key role and best of all, the long removed 'Gunsight opening' is back at the start in its traditional glory so HURRAY and about XXX time! – There is also a more traditional Bond opening titles sequence with a shirtless Craig, sexy women, octopuses and more octopuses, women becoming octopuses, being held by octopuses and dancing on octopuses… featuring Sam Smith.

Acting is fine. Craig is now playing the old 007 and is not too bad at it, less brooding more fun. Lea Seydoux makes for a good old school spunky and resourceful Bond girl and fares well in drama, action and romance moments. Monica Bellucci is only a cameo really. David Bautista is similarly underused playing a mute Jaws style killer and frankly any muscular man could have played his role, a pity given what he showed he could do in GOTG. Waltz simply camps it up hence the Dr Evil comparisons but how could you play Blofeld straight these days anyway? The rest of 'team Bond' are on form and get to do their own thing throughout the film.

Totally different from the previous Craigs, this is both his Swann-song (literally) and a turning point as Broccoli and Wilson ask 'Quo Vadis 007?' from here on in. Let's hope they decide to go forward into the future to make new adventures and not just back to revisit what has already been again.

The 70s, it seems, is where the cinema zeitgeist is at the moment. From bleak sparse thrillers ('Jack Reacher' – 'A walk among the tombstones') to Horror (Under the Skin' -'You're Next' and 'The Guest') to Sci-Fi ('Guardians of the Galaxy) to anarchic comedy ('Wolf of Wall Street') everyone is wearing retro. Now it's Christopher 'The Messiah' Nolan ™'s turn with a brave and ambitious stab at the cerebral sci-fi of the early 70s. A difficult enough genre at the best of times ('cold' and 'dry' are kind terms, 'pretentious', 'boring' and 'painfully dull' less kind) it takes someone of Nolan's current stature to sell such a project today. Has it worked? Well yes and no.

The story is, like the originals, very hazy and has Humanity slowly dying out from nature itself turning against us, something we see through the rather limited prism of a dirt farm in the mid-west (dirt farm and dirt cheap!) Although the fate of all humanity is at stake we concentrate only one family, that of widowed ex-Nasa pilot Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) and his unnaturally smarty pants daughter Murphy (Mackenzie Foy as a kid, Jessica Chastain as an adult) who through some weird messaging from beyond end up with boffin Dr Brand (Michael Caine) After a very long time we finally blast off on 'mankind's last hope', an exploration ship that goes through a wormhole that has very handily just appeared near Saturn. From there it's off to three planets, 'water world' 'ice world' (where Matt Damon appears as 'poorly sketched but necessary human antagonist') and finally 'rock world'. Then Cooper, who despite all of humanity being in his hands thinks more about his daughter than anything else (Selfish? Not really because love is the 5th dimension apparently) leaves his co-pilot Amelia (Anne Hathaway) and leaps into a giant black hole which, rather than utterly destroying him, leads him to some sort of time-gate built by humanities distant descendants who have learnt to master the 4h dimension so that he can set everything in motion. Then there's possibly the most forced happy ending in cinema history and what could be a sequel lead in.

The original 70's movies were roughly divided between pessimistic (We're all frakked and we deserve it) and the optimistic (Humanity will thrive no matter what and there are higher forces out there helping us out too) and 'Interstellar' falls squarely into the second category. . As many have pointed out the main players (Cooper-Amelia-Murphy-Dr Brand, the red shirted crew) are one-dimensional cyphers (as they were then) but here Nolan has found his forte anyway since it can be argued that the same is true of all Nolan movie characters. It's clinical coldness it counter-weighs with 'emotional heft', also known as 'schmaltz' and 'cheese'. Not quite as sick bag inducing as the absurd 'Gravity' it still manages to raise plenty of groans and face palms from the get-go. Everyone gets a chance to cry and weep and make important, unlikely speeches about the power of love, the nature of the human spirit, etc. Also a lot of major short cuts are taken with the science especially towards the end where it reaches such heights of tenuous straw grabbing that you could imagine Adam West and Burt Ward's Batman and Robin making similar deductions ("The message said 'Stop!' And what do you do when you 'stop'? – 'You Wait!" – "Exactly Robin! Wait- WEIGHT! Weight is obviously the secret to time!" "Holy time machine Batman, we have to use gravity to stop time!" "Exactly Robin, that's what Dr Brand was missing all the time!")

What the 70s sci-fi films lacked in narrative cohesion or character building they made up for in striking images and music and this film delivers that in abundance. The movie's look is carefully designed to evoke the 70s, complete with that 'grainy' 70mm film some people are complaining about and a design aesthetic that is 40 years old. While impressive in its recreation, a lot of it looks frankly ridiculous in 2014, especially the 'walking block' robots that became such an integral part of the tale. Even the special effects all look practical (or are CGI made to look practical or a combination of both) and ships look like models clumsily blue screened and matted that move at odd jerky right angles (on controlled pole arms) over painted backdrops. Again, this is wonderfully nostalgic and accurate to the source but it looks cheap and amateurish to a mainstream audience. Thematically also it has that 70s combo of 'Space Race optimism' (when we all believed we'd be having holiday's on Mars by 2000) and 'New Age' philosophy, both lingering hangovers from the 60s.

The brooding Organ led music by Hans Zimmer (who else) is a good imitation of Phillip Glass and suits the film well, doing a lot of the 'talking' for it. Acting wise it is a lot of familiar faces really going through the motions but then Nolan movies are never acting tour-de- forces.

The Nolan brothers are to be congratulated on attempting to do something like this and to explore some (sadly) rarely visited themes including the power of wonder and striving that fuels science and exploration, mankind not being isolated but part of a greater unity we can perceive but barely understand (yet) the bonds of love in a Universal context, (etc) even when the result comes out looking rather too silly and melodramatic, melding stony seriousness with frankly ridiculous events and impossible coincidences. One to watch, but with a big pinch of salt!

"Maleficent" is the latest in the cycle of "re-invented fairy tales" which have been filling our screens (and stages and bookshelves) for the last few years, turning against the cutesy sudsey happy gay clappy versions of yore to return to the darker nature and mythopoeic roots of these stories. This one comes from the same producer who gave us Disney's "Snow White and the Huntsman" and "Oz the Great and Powerful", two marvellous and engaging movies that have been rare success stories in the otherwise Box Office disappointment laden 'New Fantasy Boom". Those took the established narratives and made them darker and more psychological, finding good reasons for the classic villains to be who they were. 'Maleficent' on the other hand changes the story completely and tells its own narrative, a sort of 'alternate version' that presents the villain of the piece, evil sorceress Maleficent, as the heroine and King Stephan, the fairies and everyone else as guilty parties. It could be interpreted as her own version of events, a sort of 'The Book of Judas' deal, but the narration turns out to be by Princess Aurora herself. So is everything we are seeing here true or not? Do we trust someone like Maleficent to be 100% honest?

The revised storyline begins before the traditional version, with a land split between a human kingdom and a fairy/magical one. Young thief Stephan meets young Maleficent, the guardian fairy who unfortunately looks like a devil (in disguise?) and the two fall in love but then part ways years later. A war breaks out between the two with Maleficent general of the magical armies (tree creatures in cavalry and infantry divisions) giving the humans a drubbing. The enraged king offers his crown to however offs her, and ambitious Stephan woos her and steals her wings (but spares her life) getting the crown and the Princess as his prize. Maleficent turns to the dark side, transforms the fairy land into an oppressive military dictatorship and dons a sinister black costume, from that day forth becoming known as Maleficent (except that she already was! But anyway…) She crashes her ex's first child's Christening and does the whole spindle curse thing, the sits back with her Crow/Human assistant Diaval (Sam Riley) to gloat as the three (here) useless fairies try to raise young Aurora, but through a series of accidents becomes attached to her, inevitably seeing what should have been her child as a substitute daughter and annexing the rights of motherhood from her rival. Maelficent's heart starts to warm and she begins to dream of this idyll continuing but her past actions come to bite her on the magical behind. The curse she laid cannot be undone and King Stephan has become mad with grief, guilt and anger and is determined to kill her at any cost. As Aurora slips into a spindle induced coma, 'true loves kiss' comes to mean something quite else, but there is still Stephan and the arsenal he has been building to contend with before the two kingdoms finally become united under one ruler.

The scenario plays out more like some 'dark fantasy' version, with a Feminist spin (A Woman's wings clipped by a selfish man!) where men are **&^% (except Crows) and the true love of the fairy tales does not exist. There is also a barely disguised Lesbian element that makes one think this was some odd self-published fan fiction that got picked up and expanded. It spits in the face of the traditional message of the story, which is no bad thing since that message was false and disingenuous but many audience members may not like that all, especially from Disney. Traditionally the home of good wholesome all-American values, the house of mouse seems to have turned into a chapter of the Revolutionary Communist Party of late in both its own and its Marvel outings. One may fancifully imagine the board held hostage somewhere while Radicals direct the day to operations in secret "Diamonds are Forever" style, but the truth is probably much more to do with commercial considerations and a cynically planned strategy to follow 'current trends'. Once the dial starts spinning back to more conservative ideas you will see them doing so also.

The film looks spectacular and like other movies in the 'New Fantasy Boom' carries the chromosomes of the original 80s fantasy boom within its DNA, right down to its English setting and support cast. The special effects are lovely and the 3D well used. Acting wise it is clearly the Angelina Jolie show and everybody knows it. She gives her character heart but she never truly plays evil because of course this Maleficent is not truly evil, so we see rage and anger but the rest is love, tenderness and regret. She looks the part even with horns and wings, and as many have noted she played an almost identical role in the similarly 'deconstructed' "Beowulf" (2007) Elle Fanning is OK as Aurora, but she is just a foil for Maleficent and has barely any scenes that don't play beside her, but then frankly Aurora was never much of a character anyway. Sharlto Copley is a little disappointing as Stephan, perhaps because his meaty scenes were edited out. His Lear-esque descent into madness is interesting but ultimately just a plot device. Sam Riley is good as Maelficent's henchman while Lesley Manville, Juno Temple and Imelda Staunton play the 3 Stooges with wings. Brenton Thwaites comes and goes as the now redundant Prince Phillip while Kenneth Cranham gives some malice to the King who triggers everything off.

Too dark, violent and psychologically complex for small children (not the intended target anyway) it is a fascinating piece that you will probably either love or hate.

Another year another Tom Cruise mind-frakk Sci-Fi puzzle picture with a top androgynous Brit actress! After last year's pleasing though not universally admired 'Oblivion' now comes 'Edge of Tomorrow', based on Hiroshi Sakurazaka's novel and directed by Doug Liman, author of the original 'Bourne Identity'

'TBI' was a very different movie to the two Greengrass sequels, more gay-spirited, lightweight romantic Euro-adventure than the dark, oppressive and more politically oriented films that followed and this film is very much in that tradition. It is a light, fun, breezy film that wants to take you on a crazy ride and have a good time getting there and that's it.

The setup is simple enough. Yet another alien invasion threatens the Earth after a meteorite/troopship hits Germany and squiggly luminous polip-lion creatures are taking over Europe just as the Germans and Italians did in WWII (No subtlety at all here) Humanity responds with mini-mech suited legions and plans a great beach landing at Normandy (still no subtlety!) Slick PR guy Major Cage (Cruise) manages to pees off General Brigham (Brendon Gleeson) and ends up press ganged into the landings where he dies in the act of killing an 'Alpha', the blue hued officer class of the alien hoard with a direct link to their leader 'The Mind'. However he wakes up at the same point on the same day and finds himself repeating the same thing every time, yet learns by his mistakes and survives longer every time and becomes a better soldier as a result. Then he meets the Allies star warrior, Rita Krasinsky (Buffed and Womaned-up Emily Blunt) who had experienced a similar thing herself before her great victory at the decisive battle of Verdun (Subtlety totally absent!) Turns out Cage has inherited the powers of the Alpha, who is an avatar of The Mind and can 'reset time' once killed so it can have the strategic edge over its enemies every time.So the two team up and try to get to the 'boss level' Mind, getting a little further every time until they are tricked by false visions into a trap. Only way to locate The Mind now is to obtain the top secret device invented by wacky MOD scientist Dr Carter (Noah Taylor) which involves some 'Mission Impossible' shenanigans at Whitehall during which Cage is injured and gets a blood transfusion which robs him of his 'time reset' powers as it did Krasinsky. Now very mortal, the duo recruit the rough jarheads of J- Squad on a Dirty half-Dozen mission to Paris to take out The Mind by any means necessary.

As this précis suggests, Sakurazaka's story is very much a gamer universe with the 'fight-die-repeat-get better-advance through the levels till you reach boss level' reality of most console adventures and it is no surprise to learn that Sakurazaka's background was as a games designer. So what we have in effect is a film that plays like a game, instead of the endless movies based on games that don't, capturing perhaps for the first time the actual experience of gameplay. Of course it could have been fun to go beyond the actual narrative parameters of the story and have the character discover they were part of two universes, their own and that of 'the users', as we saw in 'Tron' and 'The Lego Movie', with the ensuing existential angst and metaphysical dilemmas, but that would have been another movie altogether. Liman is happy to play along with the concept and let it roll. Of course being so different to the traditional narrative structure yet without any extra dimensions or allusions it risks tiring an audience and wearing out their patience, so you have to know what you are going to get if you want to avoid disappointment.

The acting is not splendid but functional. Cruise nicely essays the journey from douche to hero better than most (those are his two set personas anyway so with either he is still in his comfort zone) but he is never stretched or taxed. Same goes for Emily Blunt, who has been to the gym and got herself a hard body which she shows off through wife- beater vests in a way that would make even Michelle Rodriguez proud. Of course someone like Rodriguez would have been a more natural first choice for this role, so it is brave casting to go for the normally very petite and elegant Blunt, who is however no stranger to odd-sci-fi. The two do not exactly have much of a chemistry, but given the situation and the whole 'wartime' milieu, it is perhaps intentional. Gleeson does his part well as does Bill Paxton as the hard ass Sargent. No mystery why he was cast, though sadly he never says 'Game Over' (Too obvious?) The rest are familiar character actors playing tough Space Marines and are never meant to rise above pure stereotype.

Action wise we see the same impressive aerial landing and beach battle (the one in the trailers) many times, and there is a nice 'ruined city' fight at the end, but none are THAT spectacular and after you've seen them again for the thirtieth time (including the trailers) they begin to lose their lustre. Special Effects are also OK but nothing extraordinary. The look of the movie is very much 90's, and that is probably down to Liman (or a tight budget) London gets to do Blockbuster duty again with Trafalgar Square, Waterloo Bridge and Whitehall all getting a pounding.

The second time travel 'change the future by replaying the past' summer flick after "X-Men Days of Future Past", it pales a little in comparison but is still easy and original fun (If you forget 'Groundhog Day' and 'Source Code' of course) if that is what you seek for a night out.

There were a lot of expectations resting on this movie's shoulders. A return from original director Bryan Singer, a resurrection of the original trilogy cast and a union of original trilogy and "First Class". Plus it features the beloved 'Sentinels' storyline and deals with time travel (always tricky) and the often used 'go back to the past to change the future' line, as well as heavy issues about war and peace and the power of choice over destiny etc. However, happily enough, this difficult and tricky balancing act has been pulled off with aplomb.

The 'ravaged Earth' future (which is at odds with original trilogy but anyway..) is shamelessly derivative of 'The Terminator' and 'The Matrix' series, and they do not even try to hide it. Not so important given that it is just a bookend for the main story. Professor X and Magneto are now allies, facing an army of unstoppable anti-mutant robots called Sentinels which are like the offspring of the T1000 and Thor's Destroyer. Reduced to just a handful, it is decided to send Wolverine back to 1973 because he is the only one who can make the journey and also never ages (and because he is the main star of the series) His mission is to unite young Charles, a drug addicted wash out who is afraid of his mental powers, and young Lehnsherr, who is imprisoned beneath the Pentagon suspected of having assassinated Kennedy (?) Breaking him out with the aid of young Hank McCoy/Beast and Quicksilver, who can move at lightning speed, they have to stop Mystique, who is now a breakaway radical, from assassinating diminutive genius Bolivar Trask, inventor of the Sentinels, an act which will at once radicalise the human governments and provide Trask's team – headed by young Colonel Stryker – with her unique DNA that helps them create the T1000 like future Sentinels! After interrupting the first attempt at the Paris peace talks to end the Vietnam War (where Trask is trying to sell his Sentinels to the Reds) they then track her down to Washington where President Nixon is unveiling the first generation robots. However Magneto is following his own radical agenda and crashes the party by dropping a Stadium around the White House and hijacking the robots. With the future on a literal knife edge it will be a series of individual personal choices that decides everything.

There is a predictable but cute coda in a totally new future that sees a lot of dead characters alive again (guess who in particular?) and the events of the previous 5 contemporary timeline movies seemingly rubbed out to start anew.

The film returns to big ideas and concepts, something that defined the original trilogy but largely disappeared from subsequent entries. In many ways it evokes "Watchman", right down to Nixon and a cold war milieu (here Vietnam) demonstrating human aggression and self destructiveness which a well meaning but misguided scientist hopes to end by uniting mankind against a common enemy (here mutants) It also returns to the core concept of X-Men, do you meet aggression and hostility with more aggression and hostility or do you reach out and change hearts and minds? Singer shows pros and cons of both sides but of course ends on a victory for peace and mutual tolerance. It is far more thought provoking and free thinking than the simplistic black and white agitprop of the overpraised "Captain America the Winter Soldier". The old free will/destiny dichotomy gets a fair airing as well with a message that even the smallest of gestures and choices can change not just our own lives but those of countless others. It is no coincidence that a classic Star Trek episode is playing in the background of a key moment!

The film is not over abundant in action but then no previous X-Men ever was either. The "Terminator" future scenes are pretty much all in the trailer and seem done with little real care. There are some interesting set pieces in the 70's section, notably Quicksilver's bullet time rescue and a fight around the Paris peace talks that's caught on 8mm 'found footage'. The biggest battle comes at the end with Magneto's stadium lift and White House destruction, even if the resolution is ultimately intellectual rather than pyrotechnic.

Acting wise, Jackman is again the star playing a more chilled out Wolverine this time in his 6th turn! Stewart and Mckellen are cameos more than anything else , leaving the real screen time to Mcavoy and Fassbender, who here play intermediate versions of the characters. McAvoy has most to do as a self doubting pathetic druggy wreck that gets a little tiresome quickly. Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique gets another expanded role, driving the story along, but her performance is laconic and lacks passion. Nicholas Hoult is a nerdy Beast who can change at will while Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage plays unintended villain Trask well and never loads his character or reaches for camp. Other brief returnees from the original trilogy include Ellen Page, Aaron Stanford, Shawn Ashmore and Halle Berry, though like the big two they're just there for recognition value and do little.

Perhaps a little action-light for some fans and a seeming step back from the reboot project, this film is nonetheless an engrossing and unusual left turn for the series that leaves us wanting to know more as the credits roll.

As a lifelong Godzilla (and Kaiju movie in general) lover, I was both excited and wary when the new version rolled around, still bearing the terrible scars of disappointment with the 1998 "reimagining". Back then nobody would have spent a nickel on a genuine 'Kaiju' homage, but a lot can happen in two decades and now 'Geek is King'! So like last year's equally niche but fun Kaiju/Anime homage "Pacific Rim' this one nods many knowing winks at the 'cognoscenti while keeping it generic enough for the layperson to part with their entrance fee.

The new take sticks closely to the traditional 'Kaiju' template.The characters are all stock as well, save Taylor Johnson's Brody who is an American military everyman archetype, with scientists and generals meeting regularly to discuss unfolding developments and devise ineffective solutions. 'Godzilla 1998' borrowed from the first movie's premise, Godzilla as atomic destroyer, but it also showed how limited such a template is, becoming 'just another frakking disaster movie'. Even Ishiro Honda and the guys at Toho realised this as the format changed immediately with the second movie, going for a 'whoever wins we lose -Godzilla does battle with another monster who may or may not be more dangerous than he is' style. Eventually the series merged with "The Mysterians" to become 'Godzilla and humanoid heroes vs a series of kind of sympathetic but still dangerous alien races who control monsters intent on taking over the Earth' battles, and this is probably Godzilla's most famous phase, giving us classics such as "Destroy all Monsters" "Invasion of the Astro Monsters" and "Godzilla vs Gigan". This film borrows the basic outline of phase 2, Godzilla vs a more dangerous monster while humanity looks on not sure who to back if anyone?

The 'MUTOS' (a designation rather than a name) are based unashamedly on the 'Cloverfield' monster, a clever little jab at that 'found footage' disaster (in more ways than one!) and its pretence to the Godzilla crown. One male hatches and destroys a Japanese nuclear reactor in 1999 while the other incubates until it's ready to mate. This initial story line involves Bryan Cranston's Joe Brody, a scientist and family man who becomes an obsessed maniac when his wife dies, trying to convince the world of the existence of a monster only to be ridiculed and mocked. It's a little homage to one of the best of the original series, "The Terror of Mechagodzilla', the ultra –dark film with which Honda closed a series that other hands had turned into increasingly cheap and ludicrous bubble gum cartoons for kids. Alas he is only in it for the first twenty five minutes or so, swiftly written out once his character arc is done. (His screen wife Juliette Binoche is in it for even less!) The baton is handed to his son, Aaron 'Kick Ass' Taylor-Johnson, a bomb disposal expert and family man who becomes our 'on the spot' hero armed with the necessary scientific knowledge to make him the human epicentre of events. David Strathairn takes the role of 'General who sits in endless meetings and gives audience exposition' usually played by Yoshifumi Tajima while Ken Watanabe plays the 'wise and knowing' scientist role usually played by Takashi Shimura. Like the originals, two very talented character actors give kudos to utterly empty roles requiring only gravitas and a straight face. Spunky and intelligent female characters were a regular in the series, but for our American hero archetype we have the 'devoted wife and mother' role played by a similarly underused Elizabeth Olson. Perhaps to counterbalance we have Sally Hawkins as Watanabe's assistant, who joins the rest in having little demanded of her talents. Whatever this movie is, a powerhouse acting tour de force it isn't! (save Cranston)

The structure is clunky, the characters two dimensional at best and the dialogue often hokey, but these faults are mostly inherited from the structure they were trying to copy. A bigger fault that is all its own is that we rarely see the battles between Godzilla and the MUTO lovers, a kind of 'always in the background' technique director Gareth Edwards used in his ground breaking sci-fi home movie "Monsters'. Like Spielberg, this route was taken due to a simple lack of means, and so there is no call for it here. Sure, what we see is great, but we see so little of it! Most appears on TV screens or in the background when all we want is to sit down and get a ringside seat for the big fight, 12 rounds between the champ and the contender, like the originals. It turns out to be extremely frustrating, especially since the human characters we focus on are just place-fillers!

That said, the digital CGI Godzilla looks and moves just like the original (gone is that chicken lizard POS from 1998!) and also has that same intelligence in his expression, reminding us he is no dumb brute. He also has blue fire which powers up along his dorsal fins and punches and throws his opponents, a 'motion capture' update of the 'men in suits' technique, which endears it to the fans. The film ends, as all good Godzilla films do, with the battered hero returning to the sea after his bout is done, leaving the wide eyed humans to see him off. Nobody actually waves and shouts "Goodbye Godzilla!" alas, unless it is in a deleted scene somewhere.

At last a Hollywood tribute to Godzilla done right, it is nonetheless riven with problems which may hurt its chances at the Box Office. We hope not, because if this works then future bouts against King Ghidorah, Hedorah, Gigan could become a mouth-watering prospect for future summer seasons!

For those of you who are Monty Python fans of course that was the infamous sketch which almost got the series pulled featuring a gruesome parody of then shocking Sam Peckinpah featuring increasingly ridiculous violence and gallons of blood and guts. This thriller is a lot like that, and by the end equally as absurd.

Crucified in the States (like one the characters in fact!) this would be mind-frakk puzzle picture cum ultraviolent narc actioner is a sad case of over ambition by the normally solid and dependable David Ayer. In Europe this movie has been largely marketed as 'David Ayer's new film' yet it falls by the wayside compared to other outings like "End of Watch" and "Street Kings" even though it is contains the same DNA. The problem is that the main 'mystery' isn't all that mysterious when it comes down to it and some baffling stuff involving Guatemalan Special Forces mercenaries (or are they?) and taking them down serve only to bring the film up to the bare minimum run time and to throw in a red herring to what is a very small barrel of fish.

The film is very reminiscent of 90's post "Silence of the Lambs' thrillers, right down to the spunky female detective and her beta male black assistant who spend a lot of their time in mortuaries attending grisly post mortems and looking through computer files with very big print and padded by endless helicopter shots of Ford Crown Victorias driving down barren country roads to an ominous musical accompaniment. There is also the prurient obsession with blood and horror that nowadays is sated by forensic porn TV shows, including numerous shots of pulped and mutilated bodies in various states of dismemberment over which the camera hangs like some rubbernecking motorist driving past an accident. The other half is the sort of macho military thriller focusing on the camaraderie and tensions between elite warriors, men and women who would be bottom feeding social rejects if that same society did not employ them as its guard dogs and so give them a lucrative and enjoyable calling. None of them are meant to be likable, given that they kill for a living, but they are good at what they do and kill other worse killers.

The 'action' part, which involves numerous shoot outs, also shares this desire to 'shock' with endless 'buckets of blood' shooting out with every bullet hole. Maybe that's more realistic, but it's done so sensationally here that you get the feeling the expected reaction is 'Wow! Cool! Did you see that dude's head blow up? Rad man!" rather than revulsion at the real life horrors of war. This reaches saturation point by the final shoot-out/insane car chase which reaches that 'Monty Python' level and keeps going right into the even more absurd Peckinpah tribute coda.

It all probably looked better on paper and maybe that's where it should have stayed! (or been restructured) The stars do what they can, with Schwarzenegger doing his strong and silent routine well and he still looks tough and menacing with a gun or a knife. The other 'Terminator' Sam Worthington actually shows some acting prowess at last and makes his goateed tender-tough guy likable and vulnerable. Terence Howard coasts and treats everything like a comedy (obviously not happy with his script!) while Joe Manganiello, Josh Holloway and Max Martini look and act tough before achieving spectacular over the top demises. Olivia Williams does the 'spunky female detective' routine nicely, though her character is increasingly demeaned and rendered stupid and weak which is a shame (another 90's nod?) Harold Perrineau (of 'The Matrix' sequels) plays the beta male black partner who is really just a straight man to her wisecracks and a Watson to her Holmes-ian deductions. The real standout is Mireille Enos, who takes the role of the insane drugged up psycho bitch martial arts bi-sexual nymphomaniac killer freak and runs with it throughout the movie, hitting 11 on every dial. Maybe she wants to branch out or maybe she is just channelling the anger from everyone saying she was too ugly to play Brad Pitt's wife in "World War Z"?

Not as bad as everyone says, it can be enjoyed if one lowers ones expectations. There are far worse movies out there, but the problem is few of them have such illustrious stars or carry the weight of being 'David Ayers new movie!". Disappointing but only compared to what it should have been.

I admit that the trailer for 'Transcendence" made it look like a poor remake of 'The Lawnmower Man", some terrible penance that Johnny Depp had to serve for his multiple crimes against beloved cultural icons. Turns out it is a lot deeper and more interesting than that, though the end result is still very flawed.

The films biggest problem ironically enough is its ambition. While most movies today are happy to coast on the same old formulas, spelling out in huge flaming words what you are meant to think and how to think it, this one attempts to introduce ambiguity and ask serious questions on a number of time-honoured issues such as 'Man's relationship to technology', "What does it mean to be human?', "Is Utopianism destined to cause only destruction as it tries to achieve perfection?" "Would it be right to kill a Hitler or a Stalin if you knew what they were going to do in the future?" "Is love between two people real or is it just a dream that one has of the other?" and other questions without forcing any one answer on you. Fine, except that the end result looks like several completely different films spliced clumsily together with no real central thread or structure, and as a cinematic work (which any movie no matter its intentions must also be) it is devoid of pace, urgency or drive, which makes it appear boring and pointless.

Structure is one of its main drawbacks. It starts off interestingly enough with a serious of attacks by an anti-Tech Terrorist group called "R.I.F.T" led by Bree (Kate Mara) comprised almost exclusively of young computer nerds who have seen the future and realised it is not pretty. One of the victims is AI genius Will Caster (Depp) who is shot with a polonium bullet KGB style to kill him with Radiation poisoning. His loving wife Evelyn (Hall) persuades their mutual friend Max (Paul Bettany) to copy a previous AI experiment and upload Will's neural net into the drives of their existing mega AI experiment. Is what emerges Will or the AI imitating him? Then however it gets messy. Max is kidnapped by R.I.F.T and turned to their side. Years pass as Evelyn and Cyber-Will set up their huge 1970s style Underground lab complex in the middle of New Mexico where they create Nanotech miracles. Then Will begins to experiment with human-machine hybrids, using Nanomites to turn people into cybernetic super beings that operate as part of a single Collective consciousness with the aim of expanding and repurposing all of existence to serve it. Good idea, except that it already EXISTS in popular culture as Star Trek's Borg, and the film does nothing to get around this eye rolling sense of Deja-Vu. Then they invite their former friends including Dr Tagger (Freeman) and FBI cyber Chief Buchannan (Cillian Murphy) to a 'Borg Open Day' (?) which leads to an immediate declaration of war by the terrified powers that be. Resistance turns out not to be futile as R.I.F.T (Who were the villains at the start and killed lots of people including Will) joins forces with the F.B.I/C.I.A under Colonel Stevens (Cole Hauser) to mount a covert attack on their complex using deliberately old school weapons (even the trucks are from the 80s!) and a VIRUS, which 18 years after 'Independence Day" is still the best cinematic way to overcome an otherwise invincible enemy. (Will can create the Borg and control nature itself but he can't use a decent anti-Virus!) The end is the most confused of all, seemingly overturning everything we have seen before to eventually close on a nod to 'Wuthering Heights' two graves finale. Looking back maybe the whole film was a sort of 'WH' riff, with Evelyn as Cathy and Will as Heathcliff and R.I.F.T as Hindley?

Watching a second time I got the impression that perhaps the original script involved an element of 'Terminator' style time-travel, with Bree and the R.I.F.T being from a future over run by Will's Borg, which they use to shock Max into understanding the need to kill Cyber-Will and Evelyn (Here it seems he turns out of flattery since R.I.F.T is inspired by his writings) in this time before it all went wrong. With that extra dimension the story makes a lot more sense and gains more of the moral ambiguity and tragic poignancy and pathos the makers were obviously aiming for towards the end. If this was the case it is understandable why it was removed (too 'fantastic', too much like 'The Terminator' series) but if you imagine THAT is the set up as you watch it, I guarantee it will work a lot better.

The film looks nice, as you would expect from Wally Pfister (Nolan's lenser) and has a good cast, though none are working to their full strength. Everyone seems to be deliberately underplaying their roles, avoiding sensationalism and melodrama, which was obviously a directorial choice though not necessarily a correct one, adding to the leaden pace and lack of dynamism to make the film seem flat and lifeless.

Not a bad film but a frustrating and disappointing one which veers frequently in tone and thematic content and does not address serious structural issues. Worth going to see despite all this if you like films that try (however poorly) to make you think.

A rare case of a film that's even worse than its trailer suggests, this heavily hyped high concept disaster movie proves that some directors, even talented ones like Paul WS Anderson (whose dumb but fun B-pics I've always loved) should not stray too far from their comfort zone. It also sadly recalls 'Titanic"and "Pearl Harbour" in that it turns a true life human tragedy of unimaginable proportions into an effects ridden extravaganza that ignores the real tales of suffering and sacrifice to focus on a cheesy and unrealistic romantic melodrama instead, thereby proving both a gross insult to the dead and the audience's intelligence!

You can already imagine how the pitch meeting went, "Sword and sandals is big at the moment! Why not do a movie based on the destruction of Pompeii, but in 3D! And since its set in Rome we can bring some stuff from "Gladiator" in, plus being a real life disaster we can riff on "Titanic"! too! You know, pretty spirited girl from the nice side of town falls in love with the poor bad boy who captures her heart and they have to flee from the evil moustache twirling pure evil suitor she's promised to?. While we're at it we can mix in a bit of 'Brave heart' too with a Celt hero whose family were slaughtered by evil foppish nobles growing up to get his convenient revenge! Its a sure fire hit! What could possibly go wrong?"

What indeed?

The obvious problem is that you have a film that strives for meaning, pathos and human tragedy while consisting entirely of shopworn clichés and hackneyed conventions that people were already laughing at in the 1850s! Add to this dialogue so awful and tired that you'd swear this was a Monty Python parody and a pair of lead 'actors' (allegedly) with no presence, character or passion and whom together have less chemistry than an average British school leaver and already things are floundering. Why not compound the problem with pedestrian direction (from a director who is anything but) and absolutely no sense of building tension, urgency or import at all? OK? So the story bit stinks, but people didn't come for that, did they? They came for the exploding mountain and the devastating eye candy carnage, and surely that rocks, right? Surely we wouldn't' just get some cheap fireballs, ash clouds and unrealistic CGI tsunamis for ten minutes after an hour plus of pointless bull sheet filler, right? WRONG!! And as a final finger to those with any knowledge about Roman times at all it offers up historical, social and political inaccuracies so chasmicly vast that they make "300 Rise of an Empire" look like a documentary!

Blame cannot be apportioned too squarely on the makers who clearly did the best they could with what they had to work with. The biggest problem is that this isn't a multi million dollar Hollywood blockbuster but a Canadian-German low budget B-movie from a team who specialise in fun video game popcorn actioners writing a huge cheque it cannot possibly cash.

The over reach is painful and it seems everyone was aware of it. Anderson uses none of his visual inventiveness nor the spark of wit and cleverness that made flicks like "Mortal Kombat" "Event Horizon" "AvP" and "Resident Evil" so memorable, and the few talented stars roped in for an easy payday just coast and hope for the best. This is particularly true of Jared Harris and Carrie-Anne 'Trinity' Moss playing heroine Cassia's merchant parents who smile and walk through like guests attending a party they'd rather not be at. Kiefer Sutherland actually plays his evil suitor-guy who killed heroes family Villain as a running Boris Karloff impersonation! Obviously he did it to make his risible part bearable (that or they originally wanted Hank Azaria and he was the sub?) But It speaks volumes that Anderson LET him! Kit Harrington and Emily Browning look good (though nothing like a Celt or an Italian) and that's it. Its not cruel to suggest they stick to modelling! Only the ever dependable Adewale Akinnuoye Agbaje invests any energy or élan into his performance as the "black best friend/Gladiator with just one more day on the job before he retires' and as with other movies he outshines the jobbing cast around him and provides the only human being in a world off cardboard cut outs.

Looking to its 'inspirations' it tries to achieve a tragic poignancy, a Gnostic victory in death over a corrupt and cruel world, yet (for us at least) it was just the final rotten cherry on the burnt cake. Perhaps after having watched "Amazing Spiderman 2" and Sam Mendes London stage production of "King Lear" in the proceeding days we were comparing it unfavourably with shows that can do tragic endings properly?

An amusing incidental irony is that the star of the real 'Gladiator' headlines another classical disaster blockbuster in cinemas at the same time as this, and while 'Noah' has its flaws it still achieves everything 'Pompeii' tries and fails to in droves.

Not a total disaster it can be enjoyed if you know what you are letting yourself in for.

Sony's first reboot installment in 2012 was justly criticised for being a poorly scripted rehash of Raimi's original a decade earlier, cheap and tacky looking with hardly any spider action and a poorly motivated villain, a chick flick masquerading as a superhero blockbuster existing solely so Sony could maintain the rights. However, in a rare case of people listening, the second movie is a massive step up in quality and integrity which puts to shame most of official Marvel's underwhelming recent offerings.

The storyline sticks quite closely to that of the comics (something the original trilogy didn't) and closes many of the loopholes of movie 1 while opening a myriad doors to future instalments.

There are four main plot strands here (1) Peter Parker's success as Spiderman and his conflicted feelings about his relationship with Gwen Stacey, especially the vow he made to her dying father, a vow whose casual dismissal now literally haunts him. (2) The succession of Peter's childhood friend Harry Osborn to the OSCORP throne and the dirty politics and inherited genetic condition that killed his father and is now starting to blight him too, leading to the desperate search for a cure that seemingly only Spiderman can provide. (3) The tragedy of lonely and ignored OSCORP tech Max Dillon, whose stalkerish obsession with Spiderman after a chance encounter turns deadly when an unlikely industrial accident involving electric eels turns him into 'Electro', a being of living electricity who can drain a city and control a cities fate. (4) The true story of Peter's parents, who on a pre-credit sequence are shown fighting an evil OSCORP assassin in a Learjet and whose motive for running is revealed by some underground detective work. Book ending the movie is a blink and you'll miss it turn by Paul Giamatti as Russian mobster Aleksei Sytseivich, who is recruited to Osborn's 'League of Evil' as "Rhino" in a mech suit 'Avatar' would envy. But don't get too excited because the film ends just as they are starting to battle!

The acting all round is fine. Garfield, criticised for being too cocky last time, is more mature and grounded this time, and his emotional scenes have real power. He is well matched by Dane DeHaan, who has made a career out of troubled angry loners, and gives Osborn enough pathos to make you pity him even as he does awful things. Emma Stone as Gwen is again excellent, funny and intelligent yet hiding a secret pain that's always there in the corner. Jamie Foxx as Dillon makes for both a sad and pitiful loner, desperate to be even acknowledged by anyone, and an increasingly angry and embittered Electro. His 'master plan' involves making the city bow to him and acknowledge his power, which is sad enough in itself. Sally Field again plays a younger, trimmer, more energetic Aunt May, doing some fiery dramatics of her own. Also appearing are Chris Cooper as Norman Osborn, bitter,dying and green, Colm Feore as the shady OSCORP king maker whose more actual villain than either Electro or The Green Goblin, and an unrecognisable Martin Csokas as a stereotypical sadistic German scientist.

Unlike TAS, the pacing and the mix of action and drama is far better, and it reaches the emotional and dramatic heights of Raimi's trilogy with actors better suited to the material (You do not want to throttle Stone, unlike the whiny selfish needy Kirsten Dunst! And they have the Parker-Osborn dynamic right here, unlike the Raimi series which switched the original roles around with disastrous consequences.) The special effects are OK but not brilliant, and Electro could have been more ground breaking and breathtaking, but surprisingly it doesn't make too much difference here. Kudos must also be given for following through with a faithful enactment of the Goblin-Gwen Stacey storyline, something of an open secret already, hence the heavy Greek tragedy style foreshadowing throughout the movie. They do not sell it short and it delivers the required emotional punch.

A strong superhero movie at a time when such things are increasingly scarce, an astounding step up from the feeble initial instalment that provides fine Summer thrills with a solid dramatic backbone and promises much from director Webb and his team for future episodes.

Let's face it, when Darren Aronofsky said he was making a big budget version of the story of Noah, nobody was expecting Cecile B. DeMille, Charlton Heston and Miklos Rosza…or where they? Seems reading some of the pages here that an awful lot of people were hoping for a traditional, faithful old school Biblical epic, hence their disappointment. Well a lot more than disappointment actually, especially for those followers of the Abrahamic faiths who with some justification are furious at having one of their most important stories turned into a sci-fi fantasy epic. But is it really the nakedly political green agenda Atheist propaganda piece everyone here is decrying? I have to say that while there are 'environmental' ideas pushed in here and there, they are hardly ever at the forefront, and though not Biblical canon there is no way this can be called an Atheist movie, even if the man making it is 'non committed'. (He claims repeatedly to be an Atheist but there has always been a very Malick-esque spiritual strain running through his works that defy this assertion. I'm convinced many of the anti-God' people out there are actually believers but dare not say so in public for fear of ridicule from their 'trendy' friends)

The most interesting thing about it is that the film takes an unapologetically Sci-fi-Fantasy route, setting the story in some weird undisclosed era that might be the past or the future (though it is only a few thousand years after the expulsion from Eden so maybe not?) The Cain family, purveyors of murder and lustful living, have set up an 'industrial society' that covers the world. Al Gore alert rings immediately, but it is never mentioned again so it might just be something sneaked in. The world however is utterly frakked and in a post-Apocalyptic state. Noah and his family are the last guardians of nature, protecting God's natural creations from man (it's like a job and he treats it as such here) rather like Native Americans in some other movies might. Then Noah gets a vision from 'the Creator' (Useful for talking about God without getting denominational) which a handy visit to grandfather Methuselah, former super warrior and now Shaman, is interpreted as the historic mission to save the animals in the Ark. This Ark looks like a Borg Oblong rather than a ship, and is constructed by 'The Watchers', Angels who came to help Man out but got caught in rock and now look like stone Transformers! But he is getting grief from the King, Tubal Cain who was also the man who murdered his father before his eyes when he was but a boy! (Boo!-Hiss!) He sets up a camp specialising in debauchery, cannibalism and other vices while preparing his army of black clad henchman (These clichés are literally prehistoric!) to attack. Son Ham finds a wife but she gets run over (?) while Sham gets to impregnate adopted sister Ila after some Methuselah magic heals her ruptured womb. As the flood begins a great battle takes place between Cain's army and The Watchers in which they get released from their rock shells and 'ascend' like the Gargoyles from 'I Frankenstein' (Actually, are they related? Could be…) while humanity is wiped out. Noah however is convinced that all mankind must be die, including himself, to save creation (is he a Cylon?) and when Ila announces she is pregnant he handily promises to kill the child if it is a child bearing daughter! To make matters worse Tubal Cain sneaked on board and is corrupting wife- less Ham to 'The Dark Side'. Things turn out nice in the end but not before lots of shouting, crying, overacting and an extended fight to the death between Noah and Cain!

No, not what you learnt in Sunday school! However, with traditional faith suffering a crisis of faith, updating these timeless mythologies in a more commercial way would be a savvy move, far more effective than simply angrily shouting dogma over and over implacably at people who couldn't care less. C.S Lewis made great advances for Christian theology via this route, and though not denominational "Star Wars" and "Lord of the Rings" have led to a far greater interest in the spiritual and the numinous among a young urban population who otherwise would never have been seen dead near a church or temple. And what was "Man of Steel" if not a DC New Testament?

OK, so this Noah is a conflicted, fallible human being prone to hubris and rage instead of an all-wise unblemished bastion of virtue, but in our world that line no longer sells either. We want our heroes troubled and human, like us, and that includes Biblical ones too. Personally I've always preferred the 'humanistic' approach to religious icons, sharing their pain and sacrifice and torment, something the Greeks specialised in but which largely vanished with Christianity and Islam. He is the Noah we need in 2014.

Acting wise, Crowe does a good job, evoking the similarly Godly Kal-El in 'MOS.' Jennifer Connelly gives us a strong and determined Naameh, no mere passenger she! Emma Watson is OK as Ila, but she is probably only it for the Hermione factor. Anthony Hopkins plays Methuselah as Anthony Hopkins, so no change from there. Best casting stroke though is Ray Winstone as Cain. Raising an instant smile from British viewers, the Cockney hard man evokes both violence and brutality, yet also finds the dignity and pride in a character whose main drive is his belief in the natural superiority of man and his dominion over the world.

Destined to be more famous for the controversy than the film, it is an interesting and exciting piece which dares to bring out the Blockbuster in the Bible, though the son of Noah is not the only Ham in it (nor Cheese) I suspect God ultimately approves, but that might just be a hunch..

Captain America is perhaps the hardest character to do in 'the modern age' due to the post 60s fashion for 'hip-anti patriotism' in the Anglo- Saxon world. An integral part of 'The Avengers' he got his own rather underwhelming 2011 standalone that served as part of the run up to that all-star tag team. But what story could you give him between Loki and Ultron?

Unsurprisingly Marvel has opted for 'hip anti-patriotism', a sort of inversion of the flag waving he represents, which would be quite interesting and refreshing in itself if only every other popcorn movie around for the last decade hadn't taken the exact same line! In fact any movie with even the tiniest little recognition that there are threats of any kind that have to be faced somehow would be a surprising change. Instead here, couched in the continuing Marvel plot arc, we have movie that tells us again that 'we are the only problem!', that those who try to stop world threats are in fact Nazis (literally here!) and only bending every sword into a ploughshare and sitting down to buy the world a Coke will lead to everyone singing in harmony. While admirable, it is precisely this sort of naive, insular 'splendid isolationism' that led directly to both world wars and is seemingly leading us towards the third one right now! If anything all of these movies will become historical documents of our time, like those 'Atomic science will cure everything' pictures of the 1950s.

But enough of the socio-political analysis, how good is 'Winter Soldier' as a night's entertainment? Well it openly boasts of being more thriller than a superhero movie, and in that it works well. Captain America gets to do his thing a lot, and his shield finally becomes his signature weapon. There are spectacular car chases, especially early on featuring Nick Fury in a tricked out Tahoe vs a fleet of fake cop cars. Close quarter fist fights of every kind abound, even if they are shot with 'wobbly cam'. Three drone Heli-Carriers that are integral to the plot are well realised if destroyed a little too easily, and those 'Quinn- Jets' also turn up strafing our heroes everywhere they turn. Evans continues his maturity as Rogers/America, a doubting hero in the wrong time (he says so every other line in fact!) aided by Black Widow, who is more at home as a spy than as a 'super heroine' slaying Chitauri left and right. Johansson, who has been opting for every odd role going lately, looks oddly uncomfortable in the black leather this time, but that may just be the character arc. Samuel L. Jackson finally bends Fury around into his Tarantino mode that goes full 'gangsta' by the end. Robert Redford is in it is an acknowledged nod to the 70s conspiracy thrillers he once headlined and that 'WS' models itself on, playing the villain in far too relaxed a manner to be genuinely menacing. Marvel fans will already know exactly who 'The Winter Soldier' is and who he was before he became it, and he proves an interesting enemy here, yet with a lack of other 'heavies' he is left to carry the villainy alone and it is a tough load even for someone with a metal arm. Anthony Mackie finally brings 'Falcon' to the screen, even if he ends up looking more like turbo 'Condorman' and is not even that big a presence anyway despite Mackie's winning performance.

The film continues the post-Avengers trend of 'scorched earth', seemingly destroying everything that came before it, presumably to then rebuild again in 'Age of Ultron' (if anyone cares anymore by that stage?) A couple of rather confusing post-credit scenes (one after end title design and at the very end as usual) hint at what is to come in future attractions.

Not a conventional 'superhero' film, it is a modest entry that is slightly above 'Iron Man 3" (it actually features some Captain America!) and "Thor Dark World" (it has an actual story and some energy behind it) if one lowers their bar suitably. The films heavy handed politics will certainly alienate many but they are not exactly hidden so you take it as you find it.

This film looks good, keeps a cohesive aesthetic unity with its famous predecessor and has stunning 3D. The idea for this spin off is exciting and interesting, but the end result is sadly lacklustre compared to the first movie

"300" told of a famous battle in a greater war, both of which have been immortalised in the writings of Herodotus, not only the father of history but the father of 'turning history into popular entertainment!' and so great, great granddaddy of movies likes these. Its key strength was the idea of history already becoming myth by the retelling of it, which explained why everything was so strange and fearful. The idea was also simple, die for freedom no matter what, and there was a decidedly fascistic character to it which both repelled and attracted at the same time, all creating an over the top in your face experience which even "Wolf of Wall Street" cannot match.

Another good thing about it was that it introduced a lot of people to an area of history which they probably didn't know about and hopefully pricked an interest in the subject. The rest of the Greco-Persian war was fascinating and full of incident and adventure, so there were plenty of places where the writers could go. The most obvious was of course the Battle of Salamis, which was happening at the exact same time on sea and led by the Athenians under Themistocles, and which helped turn the tide (eventually…) in the Greeks favour. I confess as a lover of history that I was really looking forward to seeing Salamis get the '300' treatment, especially when Queen Artemisia appeared in the trailers played by Eva Green. Then we saw the film.

It fits itself around "300" rather like "Pulp Fiction" or the "Three Colours" trilogy did with each of their separate but linked tales, featuring cameos and glimpsed moments. However a big problem is that the film is at once too historically accurate and ridiculously incorrect and off the mark! Too accurate in that it follows the events around the battle of Thermopylae and supposes a knowledge of them to an audience which probably doesn't have any, resulting in a timeline and chain of events which look confused and disjointed. Who is Themistocles? Why do Athens and Sparta hate each other so much? What was the dream of a united Greece? What was the race against time to stop Xerxes and what did it depend on? All are touched upon but never really explained, so the stakes, the motivations and the bigger picture are all lost. In their place they have put a rather hackneyed soap opera of personal revenge and lust where Themistocles kills King Darius with an arrow at Marathon but didn't finish off his vengeful son Xerxes (WTF?) Also Artemisia is no longer a Queen and willing ally of Xerxes but a former Greek captive whose family was slain and then gang raped until left for dead where she was saved by the very same Nubian messenger/general that Leonidas famously kicked down the pit (not such a bad guy after all here as depicted here..) who trained her up to be Darius's head general (WTF x2??) She then convinces Xerxes to fight the war and turns him into the golden giant we know and love through a quarter-assed ceremony of underwhelming proportions. Lording over the entire Persian navy single handily but sadly lacking a Persian cat to stroke, she is determined to get revenge on 'the Greeks' (never mind that no such idea existed outside of a circle of philosophers like Themistocles at this time) After countless reverses (which are historically accurate, including the circle of ships formation and the luring into the narrow rocks) she invites Themistocles over for a congress of the sexual kind, with Green replaying her famous 'Dark Shadows' moment almost beat for beat minus Barry White. This failed he goes to convince Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey again) to join the fight, which she only does at the last second because it's more dramatic that way. Sad to say that although we've watched some sparring and skirmishing, the actual epic battle of Salamis which Herotodus so brilliantly retold doesn't happen because before you can say "Desolation of Smaug" the film ENDS just as its &^%$& starting!

Acting wise, Sullivan Stapleton is OK if bland as the hero. It's obvious he is meant to be the 'anti-Leonidas' to emphasise the Democratic- Fascistic divide, but here is just too weak and indecisive. The real Themistocles was a giant among men, not a hamster. Rodrigo Santoro appears both as the real historical Xerxes (looking very good) and then the mythological one (not so good) but he again is a presence in the background. Heady represents Spartan heroism in a dress and actually wields a sword this time. The rest is the Eva Green show starring Eva Green. She looks the part, exotic and athletic, but this Artemisia is a re-run of 'Dark Shadows" Angela Bouchard, pantomime level villainy and hip swinging scenery chewing, and both are equally faithful to their original incarnations, but in the absence of any other star power or charisma here she runs away with the film and doesn't give it back. Junkie XL's score is also fantastic, dramatic and epic and stirring in a way the film itself rarely is.

Part of a wider franchise being planned, this is probably just a curtain raiser to future episodes. It's not "300" and it's not meant to be. An entertaining 'peplum' in itself, it falls short only because of its illustrious and unique predecessor.

PS – What happened to the galleys? The ships here look like Dutch canal barges with oars!! Nice to see the Hellespont bridge get a mention, but the oracle's prophecy, Xerxes uncle and his vision, the rest of Greece and Sparta's second king are alas absent.

Wes Anderson, like the Coens and Spike Jonze among others, operates on what might be termed 'magical realism', a quirky and odd style that is very un-American but which is familiar to European audiences. After 2012's charming Disney-esque children's film "Moonrise Kingdom" Anderson has returned to his former form with a strange little tale filled with sex (light) violence (occasional but nasty) swearing (lots) and black humour (plentiful) The marketing for this film makes it appear a jolly gay comedy romp, and to some extent it is, but there is also a darker side, a melancholy that comes with the death of a golden age and the sufferings of Eastern Europe under the twin evils of Fascism and Communism, mostly captured in the historical bookends featuring a writer inspired by the Austrian satirist Stefan Zweig (whose tales also inspired this movie) It is also a film about how stories are passed down from one to the other, inspiring new hearts each time (rather like "Cloud Atlas")

Set in a fantasy Ruritanian country called Zubrowka (which is clearly either Hungary or Czechoslovakia) it begins and ends with a girl student in present day Zubrowka admiring a statue of a great national writer whose 1985 book "The Grand Budapest Hotel" she is reading. We see him in '85 as a mature man (Tom Wilkinson) recounting how he came to know this story as a young man (Jude Law) staying at the decrepit ruin of the once magnificent hotel for his health. Here he meets the owner, the legendary Arab Zero Mustafa (F.Murray Abraham) who is now an impoverished and lonely man. Over dinner her recounts the tale that begins in 1932 when he was a young immigrant lobby boy at the then splendid old GBH under the tutelage of Gustave H. (Ralph Fiennes) a camp prissy bisexual concierge who is noted for his success with the older ladies that frequent it, something he does for money and prospects but also for pleasure, enjoying the company of these Grande dames from a bygone era of Imperial splendour. One such lady, Madame D. (Tilda Swinton in body foam) becomes nervous and shortly after returning home is murdered. In her will she bequeaths him her most prized possession, the Dutch old school masterpiece "Boy with Apple" much to the chagrin of her brutish and estranged son Dmitri (Adrian Brody) and his psychopathic henchman Jopling (Willem Defoe), both members of the burgeoning Nazi movement (or "ZZ fraternity" here) that is straining to take power and achieve 'Anschluss" with its larger neighbour. Egged on by the butler Serge X (Mathieu Almariac) he and Mustafa steal the painting, unaware Serge has hidden a copy of Madame D's secret last will in the back, one which would make them a lot of money and lose Dmitiri everything. Framed for the murder and imprisoned, Gustave gets help from Mustafa and Agatha (Saoirse Ronan) the pretty baker's girl for the legendary Mendels patisserie and his newfound paramour as well as group of cons led by Ludwig (Harvey Keitel) to escape and prove his innocence, pursued doggedly by both Jopling, who is murdering his way through all the leads to get to Serge and by sympathetic police inspector Henckels (Edward Norton) who as a boy was a fond friend of Gustave's during his families summer vacations at the GHB. After much chasing, fighting, shooting, running, hanging out of windows and ledges, disguises and other 'man on the run' tropes, the heroes win….or do they? As this pulp thriller caper was going on, history was turning and the Nazi's have taken power, and to their cost they find that the old imperial splendour and everything it represented has truly gone forever!

The look of the film is of course wonderful, with a deliberately artificial candy coloured dreamland version of inter-war Eastern Europe that the Swastika and The Hammer and Sickle eventually crush into drab grey conformity and gloom, complete with cardboard models and sets straight from the German Expressionist movement. The all-star cast on that big poster are good, though some like Bill Murray (another concierge who lends a hand) Own Wilson (another concierge) Lea Seydoux (Madame D's maid) Jason Schwartzman (1985 concierge) and even Wilkinson to an extent are just glorified cameos. The star of the film is Fiennes, a serious actor with a love for comedy who creates a unique and fun spin on his signature foppish persona that's like a gay, self-absorbed gigolo version of Steed from "The Avengers". Newcomer Tony Revolori makes a good straight man to this comic buffoon as young Mustafa, while Ronan plays an unusually normal and sweet girl for once. Brody makes for a hateable heavy while Defoe returns to his roots as the 'gorilla' who is genuinely menacing and frightening and gets an appropriately spectacular send off. Keitel is funny and tough in a small but important role, and Jeff Goldblum plays the family lawyer who plays both sides to his cost.

Being at heart a sort of Daschle Hammett pulp thriller there are also lots of un-Andersonesque action sequences including a crazy speed of light downhill ski chase (done with models no less) and a final firefight battle inside the GHB between Dmitri's ZZ henchman and Henckle's police. Many have complained about the sombre ending, but that is I suppose the whole point of the story and it is telegraphed from the very start if you look close enough. Still, the 'comic pulp noir Ruritanian' tale at its heart is fun and entertaining if it is mirth and levity alone you seek.

PS – Stick around for the animated Cossack who appears dancing to the catchy Balalaika theme during the end credits (3-4 minutes in)

Another year another Liam Neeson thriller (usually released between the Jason Statham ones) This year the high concept is "air marshal threatened by mysterious texter threatening to kill a passenger aboard the transatlantic flight every 20 minutes unless $150.000 is paid into his account. Who is the mystery killer? Who can he trust? What is the bigger picture behind events?"

The trailers say it all really, and the whole thing is strictly of a B- movie standard, a Euro-thriller released by a US studio (as in fact are most Neeson movies including "Taken" and "Unknown" with whom this shares a director) Apart from Liam and Julianne Moore (who it is great to see back so busy on our big screens) most of the rest of the cast are Brit thespians of high quality, especially the flight crew which is made up of "Downton Abbey" star Michelle Dockery,"12 yrs a slave" Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o, Scoot McNairy and heading them all the wonderful Linus Roache, the RSC headliner who occasionally brightens up movies with his consummate skill. The name of the game is "guess who?" And to that end we are fed a line up of shifty individuals who may or may not be the mystery attacker/s. Thriller making is rather like Magic and the secret is misdirection and sleight of hand, and director Jaume Collet-Serra does an OK if not spectacular job. Action is naturally limited given the environment but they do use the tightness to create impressive close quarter combat between Neeson and various opponents that would make Steven Segal proud. The special effects are quite ropey though, especially the cartoon airliner and Typhoon fighters which look more like something from a safety information video rather than a major movie!

The villains motivations, when revealed, are quite interesting if somewhat lacking in logic, but to their credit they are damaged individuals and so deserving of some pity as well as a pass for their poor scheme! Some have complained about the fact that a Muslim doctor is shown positively while the terrorists this time are not Islamic, but in its defence a real Muslim terrorist would not have gone through all this twisty turny misdirection plot stuff but would simply have blown the plane to bits 10 minutes after take off, which though more realistic frankly wouldn't have made for much of a movie!

Reminiscent of those mostly forgotten airliner thrillers from the early- mid 90s, this will doubtless share the same fate but may amuse for now, and Liam Neeson still looks and moves great for a 62 year old! (And Moore isn't so bad either!)

PS - Hollywood writers, please please impose a moratorium on using "I lost a child boo-hoo crying over cute photos and stick drawings" as a substitute for actual characterisation! It drags any movie its used in down and covers it piping hot cheese! Be frakking original, its what you're paid so much to do!

Finally got to see this at our multiplex on the very day it won (deservedly? – discuss) Oscar for best original screenplay.

If there is a word to describe Spike Jonze latest then it is 'Aquarian', in that it takes inspiration from the metaphysical/philosophical/existential movies of the 1960s and 70s, especially from the European New Wave (it even has a 'New Wave' look to it)

Set in 'the near future', that elusive period that's always about 30 or so years ahead of us and which inevitably looks like our time expanded and is always a hoot when proved to be utterly off the mark as the time itself arrives (Audiences in 2044 will doubtless say that about 'Her'), this story is a mixture of genres and themes, none of them seemingly a natural fit. There is the 'dystopian future' angle showing a future where people have become socially disconnected by technology. Then there is the 'speculative Sci-Fi' angle with a line of easily available Artificial Intelligence systems that can think like humans, and then the central tragedy of a man who is so paralysed by fear that he wilfully destroys all relationships and hopes of happiness then is left crying over the consequences (aka the self-perpetuating tragedy) However all these elements end up merging into what many here have criticised for being basically a romantic love story (albeit with a weird premise). This is a fair comment, though the movie wears its big red mushy chick flick heart on its sleeve quite openly and unashamedly. There are probably a thousand and one ways to tell this story, but Jonze chose to take it in this direction, perhaps feeling the need to tell an optimistic love story at this point in his life.

The 'romance' between Theodore Twombley (Joaquin Phoenix) and the impossibly advanced AI system naming itself 'Samantha' (voiced by Scarlett Johansson) is actually quite touching, and not as perverse or unnatural as many here seem to think. 'Samantha' is not a 'computer' but an artificial sentient life form, born with a need to learn and evolve through 'her' contact with humanity, hungering for life itself as only such a being could. Far from being a speculative look at AI, 'she' is really a modern form of Frankenstein's monster (or the Bride of Frankenstein perhaps?) and all those that have followed in our fiction to serve as mirrors of ourselves to shame us into feeling more alive than we sometimes do. The other characters in this future world are aware of the nature of these 'creations' and are equally in awe of them, though mainly they selfishly see only what they can provide for them (as Theodore does most of the time) in terms of companionship and interaction. Rather like the artificial beings of 'Solaris', they bond naturally with their hosts, taking their initial shapes from their desires and trying to please them while at the same time growing beyond those needs, so when Theodore's neighbour Amy (Amy Adams) needs a friend her ex-husbands AI becomes that. Recently divorced Theo wants true love, and with a messy divorce from wife Cathy (Rooney Mara) and a self- destroyed blind date with a hot girl (Olivia Wilde) he finds it naturally in 'Samantha'. Much of the film is both 'Samantha' and Theodore learning to be alive and human together in a series of 'tender' scenes which look odd since one of the two lovers is a consciousness without a body, a virtual 'ghost' in the machine, a state she is only too aware of. A lot of the story is about how 'Samantha' tries to overcome the physical/non-physical boundary, including a variation on 'phone sex' and even hiring a human body surrogate she 'remote controls' in a steamy session destined from inception to end badly.

Like 'Solaris' (Book and both movie versions) the strange but tender love story has to go somewhere for the tale to mean anything (unless it becomes a sitcom) and again there are many roads it could take. The one it does eventually take is part of what makes it so 'Aquarian', and leads to the metaphysical, spiritual, and Jungian, with our own creations beckoning us to go beyond our fragile mortal forms into the greater unknown after them. It is sad and hopeful, generally optimistic but not without pain, rather like life really.

Acting wise, Phoenix does another marvellous job, creating the famed 'dead man waiting to come alive' part, and then carrying off an entire romantic picture where the other lover is invisible and not physically present! (Ghostly love stories usually allow the 'living' lover to have someone to interact with even if no one else can see them) Likewise Scarlett Johansson, everybody's dream girl manages to make 'Samantha' a warm and loving being despite being only a disembodied voice and proves she doesn't need her looks to act (but they help!) Amy Adams provides another 'highbrow' performance playing a pleasantly normal and down to earth woman, a computer games designer (her 'perfect housewife' inter actives are a hoot!) that may be the soul mate and friend Theodore needs. Rooney Mara and Olivia Wilde do well in their small cameo parts, providing a lens to the hero's personal insecurities and neurosis.

Not a film for everybody, it is a love story between two beings in desperate need of growth and life, one of whom is not human but wants to be, and is a disembodied entity that communicates only by earpiece! Hopeful, and yes romantic, it is a story that could touch your heart if you want it touched, otherwise it is an interesting and unusual piece by a director who specialises in them.

Yes, this is a stupid film just like the trailers suggest. Yes, it is an 80s comedy buddy cop throwback set in an alternate universe where police brutality, beating and shooting suspects, attacking members of the public and other multiple code violations have no consequences, where death and injury are laughed off, where dull criminals with snazzy suits and low IQs meet for buys in disused factories and beautiful intelligent young women are madly attracted to dim losers and are both incredibly accommodating and utterly marginal. Is it funny? Yes if you like dumb humour. Is there action? Yes, though its not super spectacular. Is it a fun night out at the cinema? Yes, if you like the kind of old school buddy thrillers like this.

Directed by veteran Tim Story, maker of lightweight fluff (including the overly lightweight Fantastic 4 movies) it follows the genre beats pretty closely. Tough undercover super cop James Payton (Ice Cube) is tracking down the mysterious gang boss 'Omar' who is looking to buy weapons from some nasty Serbians, alongside his cop buddies Santiago (John Leguizamo) and Miggs (Brian Callen) Meanwhile his hot smart sister Angela (Tika Sumpter) is madly in love with idiotic short video game addicted wannabe cop Ben Barber (Kevin Hart) but he won't consent to their marriage (black families are obviously traditional like Italian and Hispanic ones) In order to scare him off he takes the rookie cadet on a 'ride along' through Atlanta, testing his gamers bull machismo with set up situations like comedy Hells Angels, an angry bankrupt tearing up a supermarket and questioning a sassy ghetto kid about his brothers whereabouts. However the sheet gets real when clues that Barber's gamer weapons knowledge extracts leads them on a breadcrumb trail to 'the big buy' and the mysterious Omar (a very unthreatening Laurence Fishburne earning an easy paycheck) making off with loot and in the end having to rescue Angela from the villain's clutches.

As you see, pure 80s formula, even including a robbery in a strip club (80s thriller rule 5 - always visit a strip club) an opening truck vs car chase and a 'walking down the street amid ambulance and police cars at night with final wisecracks' ending. In many ways it is a spiritual partner to last years "The Heat" except with two black guys instead of two women. Its also a lot funnier, perhaps because Ice Cube and Kevin Hart have more charisma and talent than Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock, and because the writings tighter and the direction better.

Acting wise, Ice Cube, a fierce counterculture rapper when the originals were playing, shows again his sure hand as a charismatic and winning leading man (as well as a deft comic) while Hart does the shout whiny thing that would be considered monstrously racist if not done by and mainly for African Americans, and makes a nice comic engine to Ice's cool straight man. Fishburne, Leguizamo and Callen just coast along doing what little is required. Sumpter on the other hand is underused in the sort of limiting role women had in 80s genre flicks (accommodating lover- prize -hostage) and while looking the part she seems able and willing to give so much more. Who knows? Maybe she can be a breakout in any sequels.

Lightweight (but well made lightweight) stuff it won't change anything but it may make you feel a little better, and joins the growing list of 'retro 80s' movies hitting our 21st century screens.

This film is based on a play. It is glaringly obvious because despite the opening up via film, the dialogue and narrative development are 100% theatrical, and what works in theatre rarely works on film and vice- versa. Evidence of this is found in many films pre 1960 when theatre still dominated as the 'true art' and most successful plays became films: These movies today strike us immediately with their artificiality and staginess and are hard to watch straight – Ditto this film.

There are two criteria to judge this by, the source material and the adaptation. The direction by John Wells is excellent and the starry cast give it their all, and it works well in that respect. Alas it can never surpass its source material, the hugely successful play by Tracy Letts (who adapted it for the screen).

The piece, though recent, plays out like some dinosaur from the 1940s or 50s, a Tennessee Williams fan fiction that apparently has nothing actually very penetrating or incisive to say about anything, least of all the nature of family relations. To its credit it presents very flawed characters and does not judge their behaviour (something good drama should always do) but the problem is that it means nothing because none of them are human beings. They are all caricatures, stock archetypes from 'the playwrights handbook 1952' such as 'acidic matriarch at war with daughters' 'noble poet' 'kind hearted simpleton' 'middle aged teenager who cannot grow up' 'edgy rebellious teenager' 'desperate intellectual' 'silent observing servant' etc. Not only are they completely artificial but so is their dialogue, which smacks of 'stage brilliance' but which is not how human beings communicate. The situations and the 'big scenes' are also contrived and unreal, and they feel just like scenes in a play and never as potential moments in the lives of these created people. The themes are also pretty shop-worn and passé as well. Prepare to meet such old favourites as 'long buried dark family secrets that come spilling out all at once at convenient get together' ' The talented writer's child who abandoned their potential to start a family much to famous parent's chagrin' 'the mentally deficient son as punishment for sin' 'evil as a heredity of blood' (aka the discredited genetic determinism chestnut) 'family dinner where everybody insults each other in bon mots until people are fighting on the floor' 'separated couple try to reach accord but can only trade more bon mots' 'saintly dead characters saintliness suddenly questioned by dark revelation' 'Siblings that are neatly divided up into individual single characteristics and are shocked and surprised by things they surely must have been aware of after all this time' 'Poignant stories from the past suddenly told at length in utterly inopportune moments before unquestioning other characters' 'authors favourite film clumsily name checked in absurd fashion by modern teenager' and many, many more!

The acting is of course fantastic, but since they are all great actors and they are what is selling this entire picture then that must be a given and not a positive. Again, these are theatrical characters and stock ones too, so rather than show us their humanity or inner feelings they just show off. This is one big acting rap battle and nothing more.

The talented stars 'facing off' include Meryl Steep as the hateful drug addicted wicked matriarch that would have been utterly abandoned or murdered years ago, Julia Roberts as self-righteous eldest daughter and mirror image of mother without realising it, Ewan Macgregor as weedy bespectacled intellectual who once strayed with a student, Abigail Breslin as rebellious teenage daughter who is rebellious and teenage, Sam Shepard as noble saintly drunken poet, Chris Cooper as henpecked noble man of the earth, Margo Martindale as wacky aunt who constantly chides son for no reason, Juliette Lewis as dumb slutty airhead (atypical casting for her…) Dermot Mulroney as middle aged yuppie desperately trying to hang onto youth, Julianne Nicholson as daughter left behind to look after folks that finally is going to go her own way until something happens to stop her in tragic final act revelation, Misty Upham as native American servant girl with heart of gold and Benedict Cumberbatch as 'Simple Jack'.

Awarded Tony's and Pulitzer's as a play (where it probably worked better, though not by much) and now Oscars and other awards as a film, this is the perfect confection of theatrical artifice, a piece that presumes to be about people but is in fact about theatrical contrivance.

Still, there are worse films and as an actor's showcase alone (which to be fair it is..) it is entertaining as well as handy lesson for any budding playwrights on how NOT to write a convincing human tragedy!

'Robocop' 2014 is one those films you already go into the cinema hating. The now decades long trend for inferior, puerile rehashes of flawed but culturally important films that insult not only their inspiration but the audience as well has produced numerous cinematic atrocities, not least the 2012 crime against humanity "Total Recall". So we went in with our rotten tomatoes and witty insults to hand, ready for the appalling poorly rendered 12a travesty that the underwhelming trailers promised. However, as the film went on, we found it was actually quite good, and so we waited patiently for the whole thing to fall apart, yet it never did. At the roll of the credits this remake had turned out to be (deep breath..) GOOD!

The one to blame for this is obviously Brazilian director Jose Padhila, a veteran and experienced maker of home grown action thrillers who knows how to tell a story and shoot cool action, but we must also point fingers at novice screenwriter Joshua Zetumer who instead of a simplistic video game powered by a collection of the latest 9/11 truther internet memes has actually (the horror!) dared write an intelligent and perceptive piece analysing the role of technology in prosthetics and warfare and the pros and cons of progress.

This new incarnation tells the same story but focuses on different angles. The original was about corporate crime, greed, backstabbing, untouchable drug gangs and something that was just spare parts finding its humanity again. However, in the three decades since, technology has made enormous strides and we now have advanced bionic prosthetics, brain wave activated machines and military drones slowly replacing traditional warriors, as well as high-tech gadgets of every description a part of our everyday life. So 'the old man' is now a Steve Jobs/Bill Gates type, Raymond Sellers (Michael Keaton) and the Ed-209s and android soldiers OMNICORP manufactures actually work very well. The question is no longer 'can the human element make these dumb machines actually work?' but 'they work but the American people don't trust them and neither does Congress. Can adding a human element to a machine make the person on the street warm to robo warriors?" So we have our 2014 version of Officer Murphy, played by Joel Kinnaman, who is not killed in a failed bust but terribly injured in a car bombing by corrupt officers he is tracking down. His wife Clara (Abby Cornish) is not kept in the dark but signs the release forms, and when Murphy wakes up he is not back from the dead but merely reanimated in an almost totally cybernetic body (We are treated to a very disturbing view of just what little is left of Murphy's shattered body in a way the 18 cert originals never showed) mind intact. In fact it is his mind, his emotions that get in the way, forcing his benign creator, Dr Norton (Gary Oldman) to tone them down until he is little more than a zombie, which creates even more problems. The question is not 'can we control him?' but 'can he control himself?' With the vote on the anti-robot act passing through Congress, there is everything to play for in swaying public opinion, not just to make money by putting robots on the streets, but to improve law enforcement and offer hope for paraplegics. But with new horizons there are problems no one can foresee, and difficult and morally compromising decisions have to be made by everybody.

The backstabbing company politics are mostly gone in this Microsoft-y OMNICORP, and even the vicious cackling psycho druggy crime gangs of the originals are replaced by rather dull, professional criminals who deal in guns and drugs, led by Boddicker stand in Antoine Vallon (Patrick Garrow) who prove no threat. The ones responsible for his condition are his fellow officers, and their 'high up ally' will prove quite surprising. The action however is top notch, thanks to Padhila's pedigree, shot cohesively (no quick cuts crap) and with a palpable sense of sweat and danger. The inclusion of Murphy's wife and young son as key players looked like another 'cute kid and family values' play but it turns out to be anything but. This change in dynamics means that Officer Lewis is now a black guy since the 'unrequited crush' angle no longer works, but to compensate the shouty black chief is now a woman (Marianne Jeanne Baptiste of all people!). Verhoven's acid humour, inspired by the Judge Dredd comics Robocop 87 was meant to originally be about, is gone now, as are those crazy adverts, but in their place we have Samuel L Jackson as Pat Novak, a rabble rousing TV shock jock who tries to sway the pulse of the nation OMNICORPs way. Detroit, which in real life is now far worse than even the Delta City 1 stand in of the original, is here shown to be quite a nice, affluent white collar city with only pockets of crime here and there, so the general seediness and sense of decay is also gone. Murphy is no longer Robo-Jesus but more the cripple who gets off his bed and walks. The more modest storyline however means that the final act dramatics feel wrong and shoehorned in, an excuse for a chase and a fight when sitting down and talking seem better. The cast all round is great, including Jackie Earl Hayley as a robot wrangler, and Jay Baruchel as a cocky marketing guy.

This film is a Robocop for 2014, not replacing the classic original but addressing ideas and dilemmas of our modern times. An intelligent thriller and a decent remake, this is a rare surprise indeed, and gives us faint hope for future 'reimaginings'.

We've only just got this in the UK, but better late than never

This is one of those 'blue collar' movies that depict the bleak hopelessness of the working classes and the ceaseless grey misery and despair that is their life. Such films are inevitably always made by directors from nice comfortable upper middle class backgrounds that see the 'inferior' life of the workers this way and go out of their way to squeeze empathy for it. You can always tell the ones made by directors from actual working backgrounds because, although life is tough and hard, they tend to be lively, full of laughter and gaiety and making the best of things, because that is the natural spirit of the working class.

This belongs squarely in the 'piss and cardboard' (as one British comic once called the genre) category, though as the film progresses, you realise all this blue collar misery is just an arty backdrop for a very routine, very unoriginal, seen it all before story of 'revenge'. It's set in Braddock, a rapidly diminishing and impoverished steel town, where father follows son into the mills. Our 'hero' is Russell Baze, (Christian Bale) a tough but good hearted working man looking after his sick old pa, loving his hot sweet teacher girlfriend Lena (Zoe Saldana) and keeping his troublesome younger brother Rodney out of trouble, as far away from a cliché as you can get (Ha!) But, utterly unexpectedly, he gets drunk one night and kills a family in a driving accident and does time in jail. Coming out, to everyone's shock, his girl has done him wrong and shacked up with the much older town Sheriff Barnes (Forest Whittaker) while Rodney has fought in Iraq where he comes back 'all messed up' and is working for local (but good hearted) hood John Petty (Willem Defoe) as a bare knuckle boxer taking dives, but the the red mist takes over and he accidentally finishes the guy – The freshness of all this astounds the unprepared viewer, who was expecting only hoary old stock situations, but then enters evil Harlan DeGroat (Woody Harrelson) a bald in bred psycho meth addict mountain man from 'the mountains' who is always looking for a fight and administers violent beatings on a whim, and his gang of evil grizzled unshaven meth dealing mountain men from 'the mountains'. Petty owes him a favour, and Russell wants a shot at the big time, so he takes up there and gives him a tough fight, but DeGroat is not satisfied and Russell ends up caught in the two criminal's crossfire. With no news of his fate, and Sheriff Barnes proving impotent and incapable, Russell and his wise old hunting partner uncle 'Red' (Sam Shepard) decide to take justice in their own hands and go looking for his younger brother, moved by old memories of them playing as children as seen in scratchy 8mm film. This utterly unexpected and original plot concludes with a showdown between noble Russell and evil psycho DeGroat in a disused steel mill!

The main problem with this film is that, as the above précis shows, it is a painfully Deja vu scenario that has been around since movies began, and director Cooper adds nothing to it. What's more, it is more suited to the 'revenge in the bayou/mountains' sort of movie that were popular during the 80s and 90s, yet here Cooper tries to make it some sort of achingly prosaic message drama and grand existential odyssey, succeeding in (A) making the film painfully dull and slow for those seeking a revenge thriller and (B) making it look ridiculously pretentious and laughable for those seeking a meaty drama. Hence it falls between two bar stools and breaks its nose, which at least is amusing to watch on one level!

The cast though are good, especially young Casey Affleck as Rodney, who has most of the arc and the real drama. Bale tries to be a noble everyman but ends up looking catatonic, and you wonder if he sustained brain damage in the opening accident. Harrelson plays the stock 'evil psycho' well, but he is never menacing nor terrifying enough to justify the fear his character supposedly inspires. Saldana is barely in the movie at all, and is probably just there for the name, but to her credit she 'glams down' and looks credible as a real person. Whittaker plays Whittaker again, but Sam Shepard injects some nobility into his noble uncle role.

Sadly none of the characters ring true and it is obvious neither writer nor director really know small town blue collar workers or tough 'mountain men' (from the mountains) who surely are far more complex and human than these stock archetypes. It's died a death in the US and its week long performance in the UK is hardly inspiring thus far, but it is not an unwatchable movie, just a frustrating one.

The "Underworld" series were critically mauled yet also successful B- Movies that delivered the cheap undemanding thrills required and also took their dystopian fantasy stories refreshingly seriously, creating a complex web of ancient and modern tragedies and the dilemmas and conflicts they created, to be resolved in bloody epic battles.

After Len Wiseman's aborted attempt to restart a series that had already played itself out entirely by film 2 (film 3 was just a prequel) two years ago, the rest of the team has gone on to a 'spin-off' happening within the same universe but with different players.

Like the 'Underworlds', this is the creation of Kevin Grevioux, the hulking gravel voice actor who proves that brains and brawn can co- exist. The idea is painfully simple, immediately after the end of Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein's monster is sucked into a war between demons (from Hell obviously) and Gargoyles, who are actually soldier angels who fight them and protect mankind disguised as…Gargoyles (yes) Giving the reanimated finger to the Gargoyles and their Queen Leonore, he kicks his heels for 200 years until the Demons start stalking him again. Their leader, Prince Naberius, disguised (originally enough) as a rich businessman, is funding research by Professor Terra and her assistant into the reanimation of dead flesh with a view to creating soul-less bodies for all the vanquished Demons to return to Earth in to do battle. Caught between the two sides, he gets more and more peesed off until he hooks up with Terra and prevents his creator's journal from being used to bring about the Demon-clypse. Most of this is achieved by fights in alleys, disused buildings, lane, dank alleys a cathedral and an impersonal high rise tower lab. That's it plot-wise, since most of the film is about 'atmosphere' and 'action'.

The action is run of the mill, and director Stuart Beattie lacks Wiseman's skill in creating interesting visual excitement. The Demon warriors mostly look like the same 'grunge skater kids that explode when killed incredibly easily in their dozens' from 'Blade' and like people wearing crap rubber masks when in Demon form. The Gargoyles on the other hand look like cast members from "Clash/Wrath of the Titans" looking for work, before they become rather silly looking rubbery Gargoyles. With modern technology there are of course plenty of ways that inventive and innovative living Gargoyles can be created on screen, but sadly this film doesn't use them. However there is plenty of action and fighting and chasing around and it is never boring, which is important. The atmosphere is better, and like its father series, is dark and gloomy and set in some time-less Eastern European city that's conspicuously free of people most of the time. (ditto with 'Underworld', but since these are meant to be secret wars going on out of Human sight, it makes sense they take place away from hubs of Human activity. And it's cheaper than casting extras of course.)

Aaron Eckhart no less plays the Monster, dubbed 'Adam', as a surly angry guy with reasons to be so. Eckhart has excelled in portraying tortured souls, and here is another one to the list. However anyone expecting pain and pathos won't find it here, his existential angst is entirely internal. Being shot in Australia, most of the rest of the cast are Antipodians we have seen here and there. Yvonne Strahovski has nice legs and a pretty face, though how convincing such qualities are for a supposed leading electro-resuscitation expert is anyone's guess? Miranda Otto, she who was Eowyn, is suitably regal as Gargoyle queen Leonore and brings the necessary gravitas required. Jay Courtney, he of 'Jack Reacher' and 'Good Day to Die Hard' fame, takes a smaller role as Gideon, Leonore's number 1 Gargoyle who acts more like number 2 throughout (Well Angels can be assholes too I guess) 'Underworld' veteran Bill Nighy is naturally back as Prince Naberius, though he tones down the over-dramatics this time since he is meant to be undercover as a dull businessman, which is pretty much how he is for 90% of the film, while series creator Kevin Grevioux plays a large hulking black henchman (surprise!) but it at least shows he is not above typecasting himself.

It has been brutally savaged by critics, which at least shows it is truly part of the 'Underworld' universe. If you are looking for a cheap, un-demanding B-movie with some action and intrigue between slumming serious actors and rubbery CGI bendy toys then this is fun and entertaining. Obviously anyone expecting more should know they won't get it.

30 years ago, rival heavyweights Kid McDonaugh and Henry Razor Sharp were bitter rivals, each winning a match. But the great rematch never happened because Sally Rose, Sharp's great love punished his obsession by sleeping with his greatest enemy, giving birth to an illegitimate son which he is kept from. Now, after a punch up between the rivals at a video game motion capture goes horribly wrong, all the world wants a rematch. It means getting back into shape, and facing some old demons which must be put finally to rest if they are to ever find peace.

Yes, this is one of those films where you know exactly what is going to happen and how the moment it begins. Yes, it is rather silly and the two big stars are laughing at their own proud filmographies. No, it has no real reason to exist and no, you won't remember it the day after you saw it. It is lightweight fluff, but the question is, is it well made and entertaining fluff?

As befits a film starring three stars of the 80's, it has a very Eighties feel to it. The humour is quite tame and respectful and it is unashamedly sentimental and manipulative ( you can predict to a nanosecond when the piano and strings are going to come in) but always keeps on the right side of maudlin and vomit inducing saccharine. There is humour, most of it the obvious " old guys can't do it so well anymore kind" and easy shots on their former roles as Rocky and LA Motta. Of course after some long overdue training the old guys CAN do it, and better than the youngsters like the arrogant MMA fighter they knock out, or L L Cool J who gets floored in his own gym. However, for the most part its a straight drama (80's style) with obstacles and tests put in the returning champions way like arena challenges from The Hunger Games. Kid has to belatedly get to know the estranged son he had with Sally back in the day ( and his annoyingly cute 8 yr old grandson) while Sharp has to finally face his demons and rekindle his suspended relationship with the now handily widowed Sally, and accept his share of the blame for her vengeful wandering. Then there's Kid's wandering ways and Sharp's partial blindness to contend with too. Naturally the fight goes ahead, though anyone expecting fireworks will be disappointed. This looks exactly like two pensioners slugging it out in boxer shorts, which is as slow, clumsy and frankly disturbing as you would imagine. Of course, having established both the crusties as good guys, you watch wondering how they will deliver the inevitable happy ending for both despite the fact that one has to win and one lose.

Acting wise, everyone does their part well. Stallone naturally plays a riff on Rocky, solid blue collar dignity and humble reserve while De Niro is in sleazy drunken womaniser thug LA Motta mode. Basinger, who unlike the others has been notably absent from the big screen, gives Sally a quiet nobility and maturity, and makes us care about her return to Sharp's life and future happiness. Jon Bernthal is equally noble and dignified as Kid's illegitimate son, a sort of better version of his father with all the graces and none of the vices. Alan Larkin, who thank God is still brightening up movies in his dotage, is on sharp wisecracking form as a sort of Mickey mixed with a Borscht-belt comedian, while Kevin Hart, the youngster of the line up, does his usual screechy ghetto wiseass routine as the son of the crooked promoter who engineers the rematch.

Don't except a laugh out loud comedy fest nor a hilarious meta satire, nor a tough boxing movie. It's a warm and fuzzy old school feel good pic, and if that's what you're after the this one should please.

Jack Ryan is the analyst hero of the late Tom Clancy's best novels, a happily married middle aged nerd who somehow always finds himself in harm's way as he uncovers plots by the Soviets, the Bogota cartels, the Libyans, the IRA,etc. He had a cinematic career in the 90s, filling in for the 007 franchise that seemed to have finally run its course during its notable absence from our screens. Those films put clear blue water between themselves and Bond, being more serious, intellectual and less glamorous, not to mention more 'studied' and 'paced' (or 'dull' and 'boring' as some would put it) However, with the new generation of Bond movies being more like the old Jack Ryan movies, the clever makers of the new Jack Ryan movies have made them more like the old 007 films!

Hence we now have a sexy young Jack Ryan (Chris Pine, whose wooden surname is a perfect description of his talents, but as a hetero guy I suppose I don't 'get' his appeal) with a sexy young wife (Keira Knightly, who fits perfectly beside Pine in the acting forest, and who as a hetero guy I still don't get the appeal of, but there you go?) and a gruff mentor in the form of gruff mentorly Kevin Costner. His character used to be black, so at least it shows that pointless racial changing can work both ways in franchises.

We also get plenty of action, with two tyre squealing car chases (2 more than the entire rest of the franchise), another brutal bathroom fight to the death, lots of running around, night time sniper shooting, and of course defusing the ticking time bomb with only seconds on the clock! Plus we also get 'Thin man' style hero and wife in action comedy moments (Mr and Mrs Ryan?) and even a 'meet the villain while pretending to be doing business under an alias while both really know who the other is and exchanging clever pithy knowing remarks" scene so beloved of old Bond. The look and pace of the film owes more to the modern techno thrillers which that other spy of yore, Jason Bourne. helped introduce such as shaky cam, frantic TV news reports, fast intercutting between busy techs in offices and centres etc.

Like the 007 movies, the producers have ditched the original novel stories (which no longer worked in the modern world) and just taken the basic characters and scenario to use in their own 'ripped from the headlines' stories. The story they present is hardly going to stun anybody with its originality, and it is no lie to say that you've seen all of this before. The plot, once we get Ryan's 'origins' as patriotic economy student who served in Afghanistan before miraculously recovering and being recruited by Costner into the CIA as an infiltrator in financial institutions out of the way, is set in our old friend 'Hollywood Russia'. However this version of 'Hollywood Russia' is not as bad nor as rotten as the usual sort ("Salt" "Chernobyl Diaries" "A Good Day to Die Hard") even though it's still basically corrupt and dangerous.

Seems the Kremlin (yep, still the Kremlin) is unhappy at the USA's backing for rival oil pipelines which challenge its monopoly on Baltic crude, a heavy blow for the Soviet (sorry, Russian) economy. So Mikhael Barishnikov, who is now a senior Kremlin minister, hires oligarch and KGB (sorry, FSB) bagman Viktor Cherevin to put into action their dreaded "Lamentation" plan. (As in Lamentation-s of Clancy fans and Russian audiences) This will involve faking a major terrorist attack in New York carried out by a sleeper cell which will cover Cherevin's mass selling of the US Dollar, hence bankrupting not only the USA but also China and the EU as well, leaving Russia as the world's only economic superpower (Boo! Hiss!) Fortunately Ryan, monitoring dodgy activity from his Wall Street firm, smells a rat and goes to Moscow to meet with Cherevin. Like 007 he fools no one as a spy and is soon fighting for his life, engaging in sinister encounters with Cherevin, dodging his unimpressive henchmen and constantly rescuing his fiancée Cathy, who has turned up unexpected and is oddly pleased with her future husband being both a liar and a CIA covert agent, something that any girl would naturally be thrilled about. Then it's 'stop the plot before it can happen' as in "Octopussy" or "Casino Royale", and involves a literally ticking bomb (Cherevin is obviously not smart enough to use cell phone triggers like 99.9% of the world's terrorists) to save the world's economy and stop the Soviets (sorry, Russians) taking over the world (Boo! Hiss!)

Brannagh does well on both counts, both as the evil but charismatic and also troubled and tragic in his own way Cherevin, and as director. After his Marvel labour of love "Thor", Brannagh seems to be branching out as a high end commercial director, which he is showing great skill in, and which is not demeaning to his other career as noted Shakespearian, for what would Shakespeare be making today if not films like this and 'Thor'?.

Not the world's best thriller, but enjoyable enough in its own silly way, rather like the old 007s, or the Mission Impossible series (with which it shares a writer un-coincidentally) and will make for a fine undemanding evening at the cinema, presuming you are not (A) A Tom Clancy fan (B) Russian (C) Adverse to very ugly violence being in a 12a film.