Reviews

I love cinema.

I have given oodles of my time and, at points (probably too frequent in all honesty) have neglected my personal life to worship at its high altar.

But I really am getting hacked off at movies that sl*g off, without proper consideration of facts, my home country of England (or Great Britain if you include Wales and Scotland. The UK if you also add in Northern Ireland).

Mortal Engines, with its tawdry, tabloid and obviously anti-English-in the-wake-of-Brexit sentiment, is one such movie.

Hindsight is always 20/20 - at least according to Billy Wilder, who knew a thing or two about directing great movies.

Perhaps the producers of Creed II (also producers of the original Rocky series, from which this new boxing film series has been sired) had that rapier-sharp insight when approaching how to make a sequel to the 2015 'son of Carl Weathers' blockbuster.

Where the original Rocky sequel was degraded with syrupy gabble about settling down, buying a house and making babies, the first Creed sequel has bypassed that mucus for a better scripted, sharper return to the ring.

Stunning performances all round, especially Stallone and Jordan but most impeccably (and surprisingly) from a near-sociopathically deranged Lundgen who returns as the Russian "breaker" Ivan Drago.

Disney's live action remake of Cinderella set the box office tills on fire in 2015, so it was inevitable they would mine deeper into their archive of former glories for another hit.

This mostly shot for shot remake of 1991's Best Picture Oscar nominated classic is less wooden and more lovingly handled, although with 45 mins of extra running time, the padding is sometimes painfully obvious.

Emma Watson proves to be a charming Belle, far more accomplished in this non-Harry Potter outing than her previous ones (and is not hampered by a death knell American accent, cf The Bling Ring) and is matched by a hugely enjoyable Luke Evans as her preening suitor Gaston.

Life won't win many awards for scares, but it is certainly an unnerving and creepy film at times.

Taut and consistently busy, in a talky, conversational manner, the only real fault with it that I had is the general lack of 'oomph' in the proceedings.

Everything ticks along in a very neat and ordered manner, as the crew (a hard-working cast includes Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan Reynolds) logically work through various too-organised- to-be-credible solutions to rid themselves of a reanimated martian organism.

Too neat, too ordered, but all handled very professionally and hats off to director Daniel Esposito for delivering a smashing surprise ending.

You would think, considering the almost hysterically positive reviews, that the new Citizen Kane had been released with La La Land!

I very much liked this film, a toe-tapping, sun-drenched, thoroughly entertaining ode to the musicals of yesteryear with a modern twist in the inventive dance numbers and slyly adult song lyrics.

Ryan Gosling and (particularly) Emma Stone are on ripe, breezy, fun form and clearly relish playing opposite each other.

The photography and lighting are stunning, showing off the varied colour schemes throughout.

I just felt a better, more subtle marriage of the light musical and heavy dramatic moments was needed to meld all the wonderful elements together.

I still hanker after those halcyon days of the 1970's tragi-pic after being mesmerised at the capsizing dining salon sequence in The Poseidon Adventure as an inquisitive 12 year old.

How that effect was achieved became a consuming desire and kick-started my interest in cinema.

I didn't care a jot about the hackneyed dialogue, characterisation or preposterous scenario.

But that type of blockbuster disaster drama is on the wane. In an age of openness and transparency, fact-based calamity cinema is all the rage, with Sully following Deepwater Horizon by sticking closely to the events that happened during and after tragedy.

Tom Hanks, cinematic short-hand of the everyman character, was the right choice to play Chesley Sullenberger, the pilot who breached accepted aviation protocol by ditching his stricken airline in the Hudson River. He is ably, amusingly supported by Aaron Eckhart.

The quality of some of the animation in Moana is phenomenal.

We already know animated/CGI film has come on in leaps and bounds ever since Disney's 'Beauty and the Beast' (1991) but in Moana it looks so real.

If this continues, will animation and live-action film become indistinguishable?

We have a little while left until or if that happens so can enjoy the vibrant, amusing fantasies that studios such as Disney continue to produce with what seems such easy excellence.

The Rock, Dwayne Johnson, was the only man big enough in real-life to portray a (apparently) huge demigod but he is bested by the relatively unknown Hawaiian singer Auli'i Cravalho in the title tole.

I might thank this movie next week for getting my sorry, lazy a** from out of the cinema seat it has been hitherto wedged into most evenings and back into the gym, to give my (slightly) flabby form a good working out.

For even a wimpy, non-sporty man such as I has had his head turned by boxing in this solid and strong pugilism picture.

All movies have a tendency to cliché and perhaps they feel more obvious in sport film because I don't like sports, so I don't like sports film.

Bleed For This appealed to me because, not only does director Ben Younger give the film an immediacy and alertness, but squares up to those clichés head on. Hew pays them due respect, a little lip-service, and then cracks on with the film at hand.

4/5 stars. 'nuff said.

OK, so I can bit a grump where fantasy films are concerned.

Not that I don't like them, I do. My ideal kind of cinema is one that lifts me up out of my cinema seat in the dull plane of existence I inhabit and, for 90-120 minutes, transports me to another time, place or world.

But does it have to lob layer upon layer of encyclopaedic background cr*p at me? Am I supposed to do something with it? Why isn't this experience fun for me?

I admit I'm in the minority, but I find these fantasy universe films tiring. 'Fantastic Beasts...' is exceptionally well made, the production design is astonishing and is very well acted by a game cast (Ezra Miller, take a bow), but make it easy for an old man!

I often struggle with sci-fi films.

I love esoteric, 'out there' productions like 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Under the Skin (2014) but get bored rigid by anything 'Star Warsy'.

Arrival is definitely one of the former films, a sublimely cerebral, questioning piece about language, how we communicate and why talking and writing to each other is so important.

In this heavily digital age, Arrival posits that, simplistic a solution it may seem, the spoken and written word are more powerful than guns, nukes and Presidents.

Given the recent US Presidential election and the waves of worries and concerns that have rippled out across the digi-sphere, the film has an important message within its stunning visuals and superlative acting from Amy Adams.

There's a definite whiff of TV movie, issue of the week stuff about this drama in which lighthouse keeping couple Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander adopt a baby who appears on their isolated, rocky outcrop home in an adrift rowboat.

That it does not go too far into that territory is thanks to some superb acting all round.

There is some stunning photography throughout and director Derek Cianfrance creates a spellbinding atmosphere...even if the film does dawdle with some too extended establishing scenes (you'll find yourself thinking 'get on with it man').

Difficult to pin point which is the better performance, but special mention must definitely go to the children playing Lucy/Grace - incredible stuff from little ones.

4/5 stars.

I've been scared by horror movies before...but never physically incapacitated by one.

I may never write another review with that line in it, and I doubt I have previously.

Although I haven't seen the original film of which this is a prequel to, it looks at the characters from that film and what went wrong when a trial of a Ouija board by a family of fake mediums accidentally conjures up a real ghost with the most.

Little Lulu Wilson (superbly creepy) is the youngest of the family used as a cute conduit by evil spirits.

The quality of the acting does not, unfortunately, continue up the ranks of the cast but director Mike Flanagan and the technical team's ability to create some genuinely, physically unnerving moments is never for once in question.

Despite a strong, anarchic start, which got me laughing, I felt uneasy watching this comedy.

Why did the smartly exaggerated, anti-authority gags that would inevitably follow the exploits of two corrupt, lazy cops fail to flow?

What we get is infantile, juvenile and sometimes blatantly nasty economy pot-shots at Muslims, the English aristocracy (whose addition is unaccountable), the country of Iceland, obese children and, of course, the US police who are "all fat racists". Now there's a witty and sharp observation...no one will say. Ever.

If I've lost my sense of humour, where? Probably on the train as I travelled out to see this as my home cinema wasn't screening it.

2010 was not the best year to be British, given all the poor headlines associated with us/our footballers/our supermodels generated.

BP's involvement in the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion, fire and resultant catastrophic oil spill in April of that year was no doubt not our finest hour. Certainly not according to US news coverage who, rightly angered and asking the right questions, pointed their fingers too squarely at the B(ritish) part of the companies acronym.

Peter Berg's account of the immediate disaster wisely avoids this and ends being an unexpectedly fair and even handed film.

Mark Wahlberg and Kurt Russell turn up for the manly rescue duties and turn in very dependable, muscular turns in a solid film.

In Hell Or High Water, it's difficult to call who out of the principal four male actors provides the best performance, but my money would be on Ben Foster.

Sure, Jeff Bridges turns in a terrifically gruff, grumbling turn as the Texas Ranger about to retire who must tie-up the loose ends of a series of low-key, baffling local bank robberies, but Foster really inhabits his role as one of the robbers.

He literally seems to slip into his skin and show what a commanding cinematic actor he can be.

Expect at the least a brace of Oscar nods for this gritty, but also frequently amusing bank robbery tale.

Fate and circumstance stretch out in front of our 'heroes' like the dusty, formless, endlessly bright Texan landscapes.

Of course, any film version of Ben-Hur would suffer in comparison to William Wyler's epic in every sense of the word 1959 version...or, indeed, Fred Niblo's 1925 silent version which covers more or less all of the same ground.

Praise should go to the writers here for attempting a different angle and injecting more of a personal and political angle into their script.

It isn't easy making a film that you must know right from the outset is going to be critically mauled for jumping on the coat tails of a vast and beautiful production as Wyler's was.

For those unacquainted with that version, the reduced running time (from 3 hours 42 minutes to a little over two hours) will be heaven sent. For those that are, you'll be flinging your bibles at the screen.

For more, I've reviewed the 4 big-screen, live action versions and compared them, 1907- 2016:

If ever there were a film to make a child appreciate the unique pressures their beloved mother goes through (or has gone through) on a daily basis in order to run a ship-shape household, Bad Moms is probably not it.

That's not to discredit the film as it's still an entertaining and frequently laugh out hilarious 100 minutes. But when push comes to shove, the Mommy dearest's in this film don't go half as far as Joan Crawford would on a 'normal' day.

Thankfully, every joke thrown at us in a torrent of dirty talk and foul language hits the (low) mark, largely thanks to the whip-smart dialogue and the brilliant, core performance of Kathryn Hahn as the raunchiest, baddest of Moms.

Am I the only person on IMDb message boards who actually liked War Dogs?

I know I'm not the only critic in the UK who liked it, as the Radio Times and Daily Mail marked it up as 5 and 4 stars out of 5 respectively.

Jonah Hill turns in a performance full of garrulous vim and vigour and Miles Teller, as the dubious conscience of the piece, perfectly holds the film together during Hill's brief sojourns from the screen and matches him when he returns.

Director/co-writer Phillips keeps the sleazy narrative on course throughout and leavens the questions about ethics and being a good citizen for his 'heroes' with some of the best wise- cracking one-liners and some critically questioning scenes.

My reservations about this film (and Gervais, as I'm not a fan) proved unfounded, for Life On the Road proves to be a bang-on continuation of the themes, humour, style, carefully constructed scripts and wince-inducing dialogue and pratfalls of its TV forbear.

'Cringe-worthy' is a phrase that could have been invented to describe The Office and Gervais' own brand of humour. Prepare to cringe big time in this film folks as no target or minority group is left untouched.

Gervais does, however, in a rare show or mercy and charity, gift Brent a happy ending he would never have received on TV. Gervais must be turning into an old softie, that Hollywood tinsel rubbing off on this movie.

Great White Sharks must have the worse PR team in natural history. That team certainly has the worse sense of timing - another film portraying their species in a negative light for the summer blockbuster season. 'Jaws' (1975) has a lot to answer for!

At points this much leaner film gives Jaws a run for its money, impressive considering there is much less screen time and precious little in terms of plot or production design.

The Shallows presents the shark as much more than a mindless, destructive eating machine. Here, it is manipulative, calculating and cunning, outwitting it's human quarry at every move.

Lively is kept on her toes by this mighty fish and turns in a muscular performance in a film that will keep you squirming in your seat.

We have all been young and pumped up with bravado when young and beautiful, not giving a f*ck about older people and 'responsibility' (whatever that is), flexing our wonderfully, God-given slim physiques at the world.

This pretty much describes Efron's career path. If films like this are anything to go by (another of his frat boy/party boy comedy onslaughts), getting old is going to hit him pretty hard, unless he concentrates on broadening his range rather than his impressive physique. (For those of you salivating for the money shot, you'll have to wait patiently as it's near the end of the movie).

The main gripe I have with Mike and Dave…is that it isn't funny or crude enough. I'm a broad-minded man. Not as broad as Mr Efron's chest, but I can let a lot go, especially with gross out comedies...

Robert Louis Stevenson's old Victorian, horror-in-the-smog horror classic gets its first sound movie adaptation.

In the hands of director Rouben Mamoulian, it is a sexy, sophisticated and stylish affair - but with the odd melodramatic creak along the way (no surprises considering the script is based on a stage adaptation from the 1800's).

Fredric March gives spirited and energetic performance(s) in the titular roles and he is more than matched by the cheap, tarty, indolent sexuality of Miriam Hopkins as the bubbly swilling object of Hyde's lustful attentions.

Brilliant camera-work and make-up jiggery-pokery are the icing on the cinematic cake for this movie tour de force.

If 20th Century Fox's Ice Age: Collision Course valiantly attempted to keep up with the series by throwing as many ideas into the mix, you would think an animated studio steeped in success as Pixar is would be more than capable of stepping up to the plate and besting themselves with a sequel.

I'd say not after seeing Finding Dory, which is essentially the script of Finding Nemo (2003) re-hashed for a generation who either missed that film the first time around or the passage of time has led them to forget it.

Some smart new characters make their debut here but the few-and-far-between ingenuity that is usually the hallmark of Pixar is overdone in a film as barren as the Dead Sea.

I'm in a final frontier compared to most avowed Star Trek fans, so I appreciate I can be a bit harsh on the franchise films when they come out. Not so with Beyond.

Co-written by co-star Simon Pegg who plays the frequently exasperated engineer Scottie, the writing might fail in terms of drama, but it has the sound of geek academia ringing throughout its awesome set-pieces and technical mumbo-jumbo.

For anyone who was worried that the last film Into the Darkness wobbled when it should have warp-speeded, Beyond picks up the flack to deliver a thrill a nano-second crowd- pleaser.

I'm happy to report the feeling of a positive outcome was generated by viewing this latest cinematographic production. Oh dear, I'm beginning to sound like Spock (Zachary Quinto) - beam me up!

As a pre-teen 'human bean' of the eighties, there were a number of prerequisites to growing up during that decade:

1. Watch Blue Peter (apologies to non-UK people, I'm not sure if there are other equivalents. But most UK kids watched this programme...without admitting to it).

2. Always play within a territory pre-determined by your parents.

3. Read, remember, adore Roald Dahl books.

Dahl's The BFG never really appealed to me as it seemed to whimsical when what I really desired was something darker and more menacing.

I was never going to be too disappointed by this, quite workmanlike and enjoyable adaptation by none other than Steven Spielberg.