Reviews

The man who brought the world the Ocean's trilogy, Steven Soderbergh, directs what can only be described as the most messed up film of 2013 to date. It will take some beating to grapple that award from Soderbergh's hands, as Side Effects is one of the most exhilarating films you will see this year.

Emily Taylor (Rooney Mara) has her life turned upside down. Her husband Martin Taylor (Channing Tatum) is sent to jail for inside trading, leaving her to have to fend for herself and sending the young wife into a downward spiral towards depression. That is what we discover early on; but the film starts as Martin is set to be released from prison after serving four years. Emily, although pleased to have her husband back in her life, fails to adjust and after what appears to be a suicide attempt, once again receives treatment for depression at the hands of Dr. Jonathan Banks (Jude Law). A battle to control her demons seeks her to try several different types of prescription drugs, but to no avail. What unravels in front of our unexpecting eyes, however, is not a battle of depression but a tale of lies, deceit and manipulation. It is definitely not all that it seems...

Two stand-out performances lead the way in this impressive film: Jude Law's and Rooney Mara's. Jude Law delivers one of his finest performances in recent times as a doctor pushed to the limits both as a professional and a human being. The power of Rooney Mara's performance is evident until the very end. Whilst you should have no sympathy for Emily's despicable ways, the rawness of Mara's superb performance is just too contagious to not leave the film without having some sort of deep-lying feeling towards the character.

There is no other film this year that will leave you as gripped to your seat as Side Effects does. More twists and turns than a garden maze; Soderbergh has delivered an early candidate for film of the year, whilst Rooney Mara must surely be an early front-runner for an Oscar nod. There will not be too many better films this year.

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Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson have starred together in classic comedies such as Starsky and Hutch and Wedding Crashers. Director Shawn Levy has reunited them again in the latest American comedy The Internship which centres around two salesmen (Vaughn and Wilson) whose careers have been torpedoed by the digital age. Through enrolling at a University, they find their way into an internship opportunity at Google where they must compete against some of the brightest young students in the country in order to get a shot at employment.

The Internship's running time is 119 minutes and it ran in 3 stages. The first half an hour struggled to get you engaged in the film or the characters at all and was lacking the crucial element: comedy. Even a cameo appearance from the brilliant Will Ferrell was just a desperate attempt to get a laugh but the scenarios just didn't work. The second stage is where the film picks up some credibility as you do begin to get into the story and the tempo picks up along with the humour. It's typical Vince Vaughn comedy when he's picking apart the head of the Internship program Mr Chetty (Aasif Mandvi) or interacting with his designated group to complete the assignments that are all social outcasts yet, ironically, have an unbelievable night out filled with hilarious antics. Owen Wilson, meanwhile, is trying to woo executive Dana (Rose Byrne) in his usual charming ways. Unfortunately though the comedy doesn't last and we are back to a slow, dragged out finish.

Certain characters in The Internship are spot on however in how society works today. The group consisting of our two main stars also has an Asian American named Yo-Yo who is home-schooled by an overbearing mother, an Indian girl called Neha who is into nerd related fantasies (and that's all they are), Stuart who is just constantly on his phone and rarely speaks and the team leader Lyle who overcompensates for his insecurities by trying to act hip and cool.

Yet again another reasonable idea for a comedy but it falls miserably short of the classics that we all love. The incredibly complex industry that is Google offers too much of a formulaic script for Vaughn and Wilson to thrive.

Seth Rogen has always been the subject of debate when it comes to how funny his scripts and he actually are. There can be no argument, however, about the success of his latest comedy: This is the End. Written and directed by Rogen and Evan Goldberg, who has worked with Seth on a number of projects such as Superbad, Pineapple Express, Knocked Up and Green Hornet, the latest film stars a number of high profile celebrities who are faced with an apocalypse after attending a house party hosted by James Franco.

The wage bill for this movie spared no expense with the inclusion of mega stars such as Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, James Franco, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Jonah Hill, Emma Watson, Channing Tatum, Jason Segel, Paul Rudd, Michael Cera, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and pop star Rihanna who all play fictional versions of themselves. It seems to have paid off though given that in its first month it has grossed just shy of $80 million.

What makes up for the obvious flaws in this film is the fact that it does exactly what it intends to do which is make you laugh. There are some truly hilarious moments during This is the End for various reasons. Firstly, Michael Cera plays a drug fuelled version of himself that forces everyone at the party to hate him which is so different to the Michael Cera we all know. Then there's the spoof of the Exorcist, possibly the greatest horror film of all time. The re-enactment of the famous 'Power of Christ' scene is side splittingly funny due to the twist on words and implements used. What really makes the film work though is how everyone is willing to make a mockery of their career. Every actor's stereotypes are brought to the table and made into a joke. Seth Rogen is the man who plays the same role every time, Jonah Hill is America's 'sweetheart', James Franco has had indiscretions with high profile stars and it goes like this for the whole cast.

This is, by far, the funniest comedy of 2013 so far. It does use the type of comedy that certain people find boring these days given how over used it can be but with this scenario and the actors involved, it just works. You just have to accept This is the End for what it is: not a film with any depth to the story but a massive spoof involving many Hollywood stars that we love or hate.

Walk the Line director James Mangold was tasked with bringing Logan back to the big screen in what is Hugh Jackman's sixth outing as the Wolverine after last making an appearance in an uncredited cameo role in the 2011 hit film X-Men: First Class.

The film, which Mangold has said follows on from the 2006 hit film X-Men: The Last Stand which saw the disbandment of the group and the deaths of Jean Gray and Professor Charles Xavier, sees Logan struggling to cope with his past in an uncertain future. With the love of his life dead (Jean Gray, played by Famke Janssen), he finds it tough to find motivation to go on. Haunted by terrorising nightmares and flashbacks of Grey, The Wolverine's strength is most certainly in its dark, gritty portrayal of Logan's problems.

After establishing that Logan once saved a Japanese soldiers life by covering him from the blasts of the Atomic Bomb that hit Hiroshima in 1945, that same solider, now the dying billionaire Yashida (Hal Yamonouchi), sends his loyal staff member Yukio (Rila Fukushima) to track him down. Logan's understanding is that it is to say a final goodbye to an old friend, however on arrival he finds that he was taken there under false pretences. He quickly finds himself entangled in the task of saving Yahida's beloved Granddaughter Mariko (Tao Okamoto) from harms way, a journey that may just turn out to save himself from his demons as well as the girl he has begun to fall for.

The film asks several key questions of Logan and shows a side to him not often seen: vulnerability. Is immortality what Logan truly desires? On his way to self discovery he finds that what he was beginning to see as his greatest weakness is in fact his biggest strength.

The Wolverine will have not let any die-hard X-Men fans down in its portrayal of Logan. Jackman's strong performance that gives an intriguing insight into his characters mindset is the real backbone to what is an engaging, yet rather menacing piece of film. Certain questions are left unanswered, as into the motives of certain characters, but the effective blend of intense, but certainly not over-played, fight-sequences and the strength of Jackman's portrayal of the Wolverine sees you looking past these minor faults and being able to easily enjoy the spectacle that Mangold has pieced together.

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The World's End is the third and final film in what has been tagged as the 'Cornetto Trilogy' by its creators Simon Pegg and director Edgar Wright, which also features the hit films Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.

The film follows a similar path to Hot Fuzz in that it is set in a small secluded village, with The World's End being set in Herefordshire's Newton Haven. The film follows Gary King (Simon Pegg) and his four childhood friends Oliver (Martin Freeman), Peter (Eddie Marsan), Steven (Paddy Considine) and Andrew Knightly (Nick Frost). The five-some embark upon the task of completing The World's End bar-crawl, which sets the challenge of drinking twelve pints in twelve pubs in one night, finishing at the The World's End pub. They tried and failed when they were teenagers and Gary, determined to put this failure right, sets upon re-uniting his team of misfits to complete the mission. What he finds however is a reluctant bunch of men who, unlike himself, have grown up and moved on, leaving King struggling to accept his new found mature, reality-stricken friends.

As with Hot Fuzz, the innocent looking village they enter is not all that it seems. Something strange was afoot of which, in their own unique way, they stumble upon in a drunken fashion. Despite what happens to the gang of middle-aged men, King is determined to finish what he came to the village to complete despite the increasing obstacles of robot invaders and at whatever cost. The journey to The World's End is a literal one for King, who at first sees the trip as a way to forget his past, finds out it opens his eyes to the reality of his future.

Drunken tales of sexual conquests, lost youths with a dashing of kick-ass Edgar-esq fight sequences makes The World's End an enjoyable sci-fi comedy that takes its rightful place as the final piece of the cornetto jigsaw. It does not quite live up to the high standards of Hot Fuzz in terms of its insane, outlandish comedy-action that saw an entire village turn into ravenous murders, but it keeps to a similar spirit, albeit in a more subdued fashion. The inclusion of another former Bond in Pierce Brosnan as Guy Shephard is another nod to the brilliant Hot Fuzz, but as with the rest of the film, it does not quite reach the same standards as Timothy Dalton's hilarious portrayal of supermarket owner Simon Skinner. The World's End is Hot Fuzz without the murder and sinister charm its predecessor had in abundance.

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12 years after the extremely successful animated hit Monsters, Inc was released, Disney Pixar under the directorial guidance of Dan Scanlon, have released the highly anticipated prequel Monsters University, seeing the return of monsters Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) and James P. "Sulley" Sullivan (John Goodman).

The 2001 original follows both Mike and Sulley as they work on the scarers floor of the Monsters Corporation. Human screams are what power their world and it is down to the scarers to capture those screams. However, they are faced with the problem of an escaped child who enters their world and as havoc ensues with the help of main antagonist Randall Boggs (Steve Buscemi), it is upto the pair to come to the rescue. Despite the fantastic tale that unravelled in the original, we still did not know how Mike and Sulley became scarers and best friends. This is what Scanlon's new film sets out to tell us.

Both Mike and Sulley end up at Monsters University, the renowned scaring institution, and clash immediately. Mike, who has dreamed of becoming a scarer since he visited the scarers floor on a school visit, and Sulley, who lives off of his families name, certainly do not see eye to eye, of which eventually ends in disastrous consequences. The prequel is an enjoyable ride through their experiences of university and successfully answers the vital questions set out above. It is a fun-filled experience, but lacks the same charm and humour that made the original film so successful. Randall Boggs added the sinister factor to Monsters, Inc, but MonstersUniversity fails to capture that same feeling with the strict Dean Hardscrabble (Helen Mirren). The relationship between Mike, Sulley and the 'O.K' fraternity of which they become apart of is the most charming aspect of the film. The lovable quartet the pair join with for the Scaring Games, a competition to prove your scaring capabilities, consisting of Don (Joel Murray), Terri (Sean Hayes), Terry (Dave Foley) and Art (Charlie Day), will bring a smile to even the most miserable of audience members faces.

Monsters University is a film of strength and persistence personified by the relationship between Mike and Sulley. Both are shown as vulnerable in contrasting ways, but by the end of the film that all changes. Scanlon has done a good job in capturing the spirit of the original, and although it still does not quit hit the heights of Monsters, Inc in regards to quality, it is a worthwhile cinematic experience suitable for the whole family.

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Now You See Me, the latest film directed by Transporter director Louis Leterrier, brings the extravagance of 21st century 'magic' to the screen in this modern crime/thriller held together by an extremely talented ensemble cast including Morgan Freeman, Michael Cane and Mark Ruffalo.

The magic is the distraction in what is a film that turns out to be a highly enjoyable revenge flick. The plot involves the 'four horsemen' J. Daniel Atlas (Jessie Eisenberg), Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher) and Jack Wilder (Dave Franco), who are four extremely talented magicians hand picked as part of a mystic cult led by an unknown entity. The opening of the film sets the characters up well, each exposing their talents in the field leading them to come together with one thing in common: they each possessed a mysterious tarot card that led them to become the 'four horsemen'. From then on without knowing whom they were working for or why, the four magicians set upon amazing acts of illusion that left both the country and more importantly, the FBI agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) mystified, including the first act: robbing a French bank. As an audience you will be led down a path of mystery. Are they acts of greed, defiance, or for a greater good? This is what Leterrier does so well in transcending to the screen, as in not just the mystery surrounding it all, but displaying it in a very modern, extravagant and high-tech way.

The film has been dubbed by some as the new 'Prestige'. Although it is not in the same class as Christopher Nolan's fantastic old school magicians tale, it shares similarities in its mysteriousness. Jessie Eisenburg and Woody Harrelson steal the show performance-wise. Despite their individual screen time decreasing as the film goes on, both demonstrate their ability to hold an audience with ease, adding wit and charm to their characters so comfortably. Now You See Me is more than a magic film. Some viewers may get lost behind the bright lights and glamour of it all, but this has more depth to it than that.

Steven Soderbergh returns to direct the Liberace biography drama Behind the Candelabra. The film is based on the autobiography of one of Liberace's former lovers, Scott Thorson. The film documents their six year relationship as well as delving deeply into the mind of one of the world's most loved pianists. With any biographical film, you must be wary of dramatisation, but Soderbergh delivers yet another film full of emotion, led by two fantastic performances from Michael Douglas as Liberace and Matt Damon as Scott Thorson.

The film begins and ends, touchingly, with Liberace doing what he does best: performing. The film portrays all sides to the great musician: the good, the bad and the down right outrageous that makes the film so entertaining. The controversy behind their relationship was that Thorson was so much younger than Liberace. What began as as a lustful romance, later turned into a relationship filled with jealousy, pain and self-torture as the pair drifted apart.

The different phases of the relationship are documented in such an intimate way that you can really feel Thorson and Liberaces relationship breaking up right in front of you. Both Damon and Douglas are an engrossing partnership and behind all the glitz and the glam, keep the film together with two fantastic performances.

In a film that could have been so easily lost behind Liberaces fame and extravagance, Soderbergh and Douglas both manage to capture the heart of Liberace whilst telling a story which evokes a full range of emotions. Camp-tastic.

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Quantum of Solace director Marc Foster returns with the multi-million dollar budget zombie flick World War Z, starring Brad Pitt. The film is based on Max Brooks' novel of the same name, which follows Former UN employee Gerry Lane (Pitt) as he is called back into action when a zombie virus spreads across the globe.

The film has received a mixed reaction from critics, with the argument it has failed to live up to its highly publicised budget of a reported $190 million. Despite this, Paramount are reportedly set to give the go ahead for a sequel, whilst its money intake at the box office is growing at a reasonable rate.

The film itself focuses on the role of Pitts character Gerry Lane, who as a successful former UN employee, is called upon in the worlds time of need after he and his family escape to safety following their near escape from the zombie threat. As with most zombie-related films, a cure is needed for the virus and the powers that be have little idea how, where and why it all began. After discovering a lead in the quest for a cure, Lane is sent on a task to help uncover the truth of its origins. On his way he is met with accumulating problems, but all are unsurprisingly, Zombie related. Thankfully the film is left on a slight knife-edge. Hope for the world is assured, but it leaves Foster, Pitt and company open for a sequel whilst still holding the audience somewhat captivated as to what may happen next.

Thankfully Foster, with a huge budget at his disposal, decided not to CGI the max out of World War Z, which allows for a more believable story. However, despite its entertaining nature it still misses that certain knock out blow that you would expect from a movie of its size. It is an interesting plot that focuses not on just the zombie infection, but on the strain in puts on Lane and his family and his reluctance to leave them behind. But unfortunately World War Z lacks a certain bite too it, that leaves audiences in a state of intrigued, yet slightly underwhelmed, flux.

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I Give It a Year. As a cinema lover, I'd give it a miss! Dan Mazer (famous for writing Borat and Bruno, starring Sacha Baron Cohen) gives his directorial debut with this rom com that looks at the trials and tribulations of a newlywed couple during their first year of marriage. Rafe Spall and Rose Byrne play the 'happy' couple and the film also features the likes of Anna Faris, Minnie Driver, Simon Baker and Stephen Merchant.

In a word: terrible. The film is very cruel in the way that the first 5 minutes are actually quite funny with Stephen Merchant giving an incredibly awkward and humorous best man's speech at the wedding of which anyone who has been part of a wedding can relate to and find amusing. You think to yourself that if the movie keeps this tone then you could be in for an hour and a half of laughs.

Instead, what you get is 92 more minutes of very average dialogue that is trying to pass itself off as humour. 95% of the jokes are to do with sex and that is becoming a problem with a lot of films these days like Movie 43 as a prime example. They just aren't clever enough and leave you feeling very disappointed because the scenario of the film can be made into a really funny story with all the things that can go wrong in a marriage. Only a handful of things are portrayed though i.e. leaving the toilet seat up or not taking the bin out when it's full.

As far as rom coms go, it fails miserably at the 'com' part. Stephen Merchant is the only character remotely funny with his typical way of delivering jokes but as for the rest of the cast, it's just appalling! A married couple, played by Minnie Driver and Jason Flemyng, seem to hate each other constantly for no apparent reason and their insults to one another just lack any comedic effect. A disappointing performance as well from Olivia Colman, the newlywed's marriage councillor, who is just a foul mouthed nut case herself with her own marriage problems but, again, the humour isn't there.

Far better rom coms have been made and far better rom coms will be written in the future. Sorry Dan but not the greatest start to a directorial career that I have seen. Maybe stick with Sacha Baron Cohen because even he is funnier than I Give It a Year!

This Is 40 is the latest offering from Judd Apatow, following on from his ever growing list of incredibly mediocre and often far too long for their own good comedy films such as Funny People, Knocked Up and Pineapple Express.

Although This Is 40 keeps to the Apatow tradition of disappointing comedy spectacles, this is, for the sort of, but not really, the follow up to the 2007 film Knocked Up, said with a hint of sadness.

This Is 40 should not be amongst that list. It is not a bad film, far from it. It is disappointing because it has the potential, but fails to deliver. The story follows Pete and Debbie in the week they both turn forty. Debbie (Leslie Mann) and Pete (Paul Rudd) have both hit lows in their lives. Debbie struggles to cope with the idea of getting old, whilst Pete's financial worries start to escalate out of control as his recording studio nears bankruptcy. These problems put a strain on their marriage, their two children Sadie and Charlotte, and their lives as a whole.

The family dynamic played out by Rudd, Mann and Apatow's own kids, Maude and Iris, works well in a comedic-sense. However as the film drags on, so does the dialogue. Scenes are often overplayed, ruining funny dialogue by over playing the moment and thus losing the whole perspective of why it was actually funny in the first place. As like Funny People, when you feel the film is winding to a close This Is 40 drags itself through what seems like a lifetime of unnecessary footage, making the film far too long for its own good. Humour turns to despair as the film goes on, becoming less funny by the minute and more like a bad family drama as it dies a slow, painful death as Debbie and Pete rekindle their love for one another in an extremely cheesy final sequence.

It is a crying shame Apatow feels the need to drag his films out so much. A good ninety minute film is alive and well in this two and a quarter hour comedy/drama mess of a film. A talented cast is left to stew in a big pile of dog poop led horribly off course after a promising start full of hope and most importantly for a comedy film, humour. Must try harder, Judd.

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