Tower Heist (2011)

Tower Heist (2011)
Stiller force to be reckoned with Hey-ho, another day, another Ben Stiller movie. Or is it? Yes, it is – but this one’s actually quite a lot of fun. If you long for the days gone by when a film did pretty much what was advertised on the poster (The Towering Inferno (1974), Jaws (1975)) ...

Season of the Witch (2011)

Season of the Witch (2011)
Not-so enchanting Yet another Nicholas Cage movie, but this time an unsuccessful fantasy action-thriller, peppered with a lot of special effects (too many for the century in which it is set), Season of the Witch is a lacklustre creation from director Dominic Sena (Gone in 60 Seconds (2000), Swordfish (2001)).

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)
Back and fourth with Captain Jack I thought it was only fair to let the dust settle on the release of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) before stumping up some hard-earned and sharing my thoughts. The primary reason for this was that I know, only too well, how bad fourth installments can ...

X-Men: First Class (2011)

X-Men: First Class (2011)
A prequel with the ‘X’ factor? This year might come to an end on a sour note for your humble hack. Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.’s prequel to John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) is set to hit cinemas in October and, considering that the film is near enough my favourite horror of all time, I am, ...

Jûsan-nin no shikaku (13 Assassins) (2010)

Jûsan-nin no shikaku (13 Assassins) (2010)
Pale riders The latest addition to samurai lore, 13 Assassins is likely to be judged a modern classic – there’s no doubt that director Takashi Miike (who gave the world the simply marvellous Audition (1999)) delivers a beautiful work with this, which is a new version of the 1963 film of the same name by ...

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010)

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010)
Santa’s claws Even though summer is coming, you may want to catch Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010) by Jalmari Helander next winter. That is, of course, if you don’t mind subverted-Santa movies. Two shorts by Helander (Rare Exports, Inc. (2003) and The Official Rare Exports, Inc. Safety Instructions (2005)) have been turned into the ...

Independence Day (ID4) (1996) 28

Independence Day (ID4) (1996)
What? So you don’t like fun then? Lordy, lordy, I have been wanting to review Roland Emmerich’s ‘masterpiece’ for some time now. My reasons are two-fold – firstly, a little like owning up to voting for the Conservatives or UKIP, saying Dire Straits when asked during the 1980s what music you enjoyed or admitting that you support Glory ...

The Way Back (2010)

The Way Back (2010)
Keep walking Well, this is an amazing movie. With his great cast, thrilling adventure, impressive settings and plot that teaches us a lot about human survival skills, director Peter Weir (Master and Commander (2003) and The Truman Show (1998)) is likely, with The Way Back (2010), to garner Oscar nominations.

The Expendables (2010)

The Expendables (2010)
Action! I have seen the best film ever made. The only problem is that this wasn’t it. It is, however, an action movie that tries quite hard to make you believe it’s a spoof of an action movie – but I certainly don’t mean that in a bad way. Yes, there certainly will be people ...

The A-Team (2010)

The A-Team (2010)
A+ Don’t you just love it when a remake comes together? Revisions, such as A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), have been getting rather bad press of late, largely because most of them have suffered somewhat from being crap. Deep joy, then, when a director (Joe Carnahan, he of the excellent Smokin’ Aces (2006)) first-time ...

Clash of the Titans-3D (2010)

Clash of the Titans-3D (2010)
Mythic Things have certainly come some way since the last time your reviewer donned an extra pair of glasses to complement his own for a movie – writer Stephen King, who is very short-sighted, once declared that if 3D ever came back to cinemas in a big way, he was going to invest in a ...