Captain America - Agent With A Shield.

Only time will tell if 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier' turns out to be the 'Citizen Kane' of superhero movies but it is most definitely the 'Three Days Of The Condor' of superhero movies - or 'The Parallax View' or 'Winter Kills' or 'All The President's Men' of superhero movies.

It's an adult thriller steeped in paranoia, cover ups, abuse of power and conspiracy theories. It's a film made by intelligent adults for intelligent adults. It's a film that asks "What if?". "What if Captain America, the paragon of virtue and justice had to square up to political corruption and fight the military-industrial complex to which he is inextricably bound. It's a much better question to ask than "What if Captain America had to fight a giant robot? Or some silver tentacled alien thing. Or a madman with a bomb.

It's clear that everyone involved has aimed for something higher than a run-of-the-mill superhero sequel without alienating the core fans, kids market or people who like spectacle and action. It lays down the gauntlet on how to do this thing right. You've got to hand it to Marvel; they set the bar higher with every major step forwards in their film universe.

The action is pitched at the level of something like 'The Raid' with the disclaimer 'frequent moderate violence' something of an understatement. This is as intense as it gets for a 12A film. It has brutal and nasty fight scenes that are brilliantly choreographed, often surprising and thrilling to watch. The set pieces develop naturally out of the plot and there are genuinely tense moments building up to them.

It may be a 'solo' outing for the Captain but this is just as much about teamwork as The Avengers. The interplay with new (The Falcon) and old (Black Widow, Nick Fury) characters is well handled and interesting, without any need for reliance on Joss Whedon style smart ass backchat and one liners.

It would have been easy to have just run with the Captain America as an old school hero in a modern world idea and just poke fun at it and make it silly entertainment. It would have been easy to just have had a 'good' Captain America smacking a 'bad' Captain America around a city for an hour. Instead, this is an ambitious film about a character trying be a hero in a world where his values are obsolete. It asks interesting questions and the answers have big implications for the Marvel universe.

It may not be as much fun as 'Avengers Assemble' but it is a better film. It's maybe not as comic-book in feel as 'Spiderman 2' or 'Superman 2' but it does capture the feel of a contemporary graphic novel. It's grown up and interesting without being dark and moody. It makes you want to read a comic book; it makes you wish you could still run around in the playground and act all this stuff out. It engages the head as much as the heart. That surely makes it one of the very best superhero films ever made. It's easily top five. Maybe top two.

Friday night double bill: Rollerball / Death Race 2000

Tonight, two death sport classics from the 1970s

Monumentally bad. The Monuments Men.

 Listen very carefully, I shall say zis only once....

This is the second film I've seen this week that is basically little more than 'Allo! 'Allo! The Movie'.

Like, Grand Budapest Hotel it features a bunch of gently oddball characters racing around a cartoonish version of Europe in the hunt for stolen art. There are dodgy accents, national stereotypes, overcooked gags and a lack of drama as the ensemble cast bumble their way through one limp scene after another.

There's a school of thought in scriptwriting that says "arrive late, leave early". The Monuments Men is the party guest that turns up unnoticed, hangs around the edges of conversation, holds your gaze for a bit too long, says a few obvious jokes that fall flat, repeats an anecdote about how he tweeted George Clooney once and then goes on to tell you that art is really important because it defines our culture. You can't wait for him to leave, but he just won't take the hint. Every scene is like that; overstretched, a bit embarrassing, a bit lecturing, a bit patronising, apropos of nothing and neither funny or illuminating. 

You have to level the blame at Clooney who has directing, writing and production credits. It's his baby and you don't doubt his earnestness or intentions but it seems pitched at the retirement home nostalgia crowd. Everything feels a bit too cosy and safe. It's Sunday afternoon matinee material. There's nothing wrong with that as such, but this would have passed as average fare even in the 50s/60s golden age of WWII movies.  Post 'Saving Private Ryan', post 'Band of Brothers', post 'Inglorious Basterds' this is just unforgiveable and lazy.

At the very least it should give me characters I should care about. Filling the screen with Bill Murray's face, or Matt Damon's face or John Goodman's face as they deadpan some wry line is no substitute and wastes the talents of all involved.

Every scene is underscored with distant bugle music, or a slow military beat, or soaring strings. Even so, nothing can prepare you for the moment at the halfway point that features the water from a shower mixing with the tears running down Bill Murray's sad clown face as he hears his granddaughter's voice singing "Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas" over the field hospital camp P.A. This is intercut with footage of injured and dying soldiers and it is the very definition of laying it on with a trowel. Not even Spielberg at his most sentimental would attempt anything as cringe-worthy as this. It lacks any pathos, tests your patience and makes you despise Clooney for attempting to create an instant Christmas classic through such obvious means.

If you're expecting the monuments men to be a heist team in reverse you'll be disappointed. These aren't specialists displaying a mix of detective skills, insider knowledge, courage and linguistic know-how. This bunch track down their pirated treasure by overhearing conversations, by an SS officer surrendering a map and by being given a ledger book. Still, at least they manage to beat the Russians to the prize. That's very important.  Never mind that the Tzar's amber room was one of the greatest treasures to have been looted during the war and one of the saddest losses of cultural history.

Of course nobody points out that the majority of great art works survived because the Nazis removed them, stored them properly and only adopted a destruction policy towards degenerate art. There was too much money and cultural capital to be made out of the rest. Even now, most of the Polish and Jewish art looted is tied up in bureaucracy,  Swiss accounts or private collections. I know I'm being flippant and overly sensitive for effect but there's no balancing scenes of the monuments men trying to stop the blanket bombing of Dresden. Such black and white tub-thumping is tiresome in a contemporary film made by intelligent people. A little bit of shading wouldn't have hurt.

It's one of the worst war films I've ever seen; a cloying message movie that misfires on every level.

Stick with René and his search for the missing Fallen Madonna with the big boobies.

Friday night double bill - The Land That Time Forgot / At The Earth's Core.

Before Star Wars there was only Doug McClure battling rubber monsters.

Savoy Truffle. The Grand Budapest Hotel.

The Grand Budapest Hotel is a souffle of movie. It looks good, it's light and delicate, perhaps a little too sweet and is pleasant enough without being particularly satisfying.

Here's the recipe.

Ingredients:

One international cast of award winning stars.
One hipster director.
A range of aspect ratios.
A generous helping of wacky characters.
Snowy mis-en-scene with pink icing sugar.
A story about telling stories.
A fictional country.
A little zest.

Method:

Over egg your wacky characters and stir well into the story about telling stories. Add the fictional country into the mix and throw in just a little zest. Place in a range of aspect ratios and set to the the desired temperature. Wait for it to rise, have a brandy and watch an old film such as 'The Prisoner of Zenda' or 'The Great Race'. By now your film should be light and warm. Do not allow too much froth to build up on top. Try a little bit too hard to impress. Take out any belly laughs that might have worked their way in. Dust liberally with pink icing sugar. Serve immediately.

300 Men On A Boat. In Pants.

Oh fucking hell....

To say 300: Rise Of An Empire is a load of old toss is a bit like saying water is a bit wet and runny.  To say that it's historically inaccurate is a bit like pointing out that it goes dark after sunset. To say that it is even worse than it's predecessor is a bit like saying 'Hole In The Wall' was an improvement on 'Noel's House Party'.

What could possibly top men in pants hitting each other? Men in pants hitting each other on boats apparently.

After the battle of Thermopylae we're off to sea because this time it's all about the build up to the battle of Salamis, which you'll remember from your history books as being the great naval skirmish in which some men in pants fought bravely for democracy against a dominatrix and her S&M fetishist brother. Triremes crash into each other, wooden ships burst into flames on impact, Persians have explosives strapped to their backs and Spartan navy commanders suddenly become Spartan cavalry commanders. It's that battle.

At least GERRARRRRDDDD BUTTTTLLAHHH!!! isn't in it. Oh, except he is for a bit, unless it was a CGI Gerard Butler, it's difficult to tell. The lead this time is someone called Sullivan Stapleton (No? Me either) who squints like Eastwood and says lines like "I would rather die free than live as a slave" with a straight face. His character is called Themistokles (which seems to be pronounced as Domestoklees), somewhere between Domestos and testicles which is about right. Lena Heady is in it but can't be arsed to put in a performance. Eva Green is in it and is pretty good actually; so good that you feel sorry for her when she has to get her tits out for the lads. 

It is of course entirely possible that director Zack Snyder is in fact the end result of Beavis fucking Butthead. His settings are basiclly "cool", "this rocks' and "titties". Hur hur.

Black Sabbath's 'War Pigs' plays over the end credits. That should tell you everything you need to know about where this film is coming from. It's headbanging, one riff tedium. The one riff here consists of dark stormy backgrounds, naked oily torsos, slow motion sword swinging, penetration imagery and digitised gore. And titties. Nothing looks real, nothing feels real but it's not dreamlike or poetic or fantastic either. It's an aesthetic that wear thin very quickly. It's not pure cinema. It's total shit.

The cumulative effect is like being trapped in a teenage boys bedroom. It's Lynx and stale sweat and cans of pop everywhere. There's nowhere to hide as he sits in the corner with his console telling you how to cut through the waves of enemy combatants in order to get to the next level. This new band he's discovered plays in the background. It's cranked up really loud but you've heard it before. "This bit's really cool" he says as someone kicks someone else through a wall. "Fuck yeah! "Look at the blood pumping out of that guy's neck. Let's play that bit again. In slow motion. "Fuck yeah!, look at this bloke on a horse jumping over some flames onto a boat. In slow motion. "Fuck yeah! Titties! In slow motion!"

Fuck no! That boy is Zack Snyder and he is making multi-million dollar movies. He may not have directed this one but his jizz is all over it with writing and production credits. He's at the helm of 'Superman vs Batman' but he has the Midas touch in reverse.

So why did I go and see it? Because I'm an idiot, that's why. I'm not proud of myself. They'll make another one and I'll go see that one too. It doesn't mean I have to like it.

Friday night double bill: The Hills Have Eyes / The World Is Full Of Married Men

Will the well of odd pairings from UK cinema double bills ever run dry?

Who thought this would be a good night out? Ultra violent horror flick with an ultra soft core Jackie Collins melodrama? The lucky ones died first. Crossroads-minus-knickers. Indeed.

Ride Along. Nothing To See Here.

'Ride Along' is a buddy cop action comedy....allegedly. I didn't laugh once. Not once. Not once for the 99mins running time.

I don't just mean that I didn't laugh out loud, I mean that I did not twitch, did not snigger, did not raise a secret inward smile. Nothing.

Imagine a Beverley Hills Cop, Rush Hour, 48Hrs rip off that went straight to video. Imagine somehow that they made three of them each with diminishing returns. Imagine there was maybe two jokes in it. Well now, take it to the next level. Imagine they made 14 sequels. Imagine you were watching number 15. Imagine how poor that would be. It would still be better than 'Ride Along'.

Now let's try a different scenario. Imagine that you've never ever seen Eddie Murphy, or Chris Tucker, or Chris Rock in anything. Imagine you think Kevin Hart is a comedy genius and you refuse to listen to people who say he's just a careerist chancer. Imagine that the only thing that ever, ever makes you laugh is the sight of a black man pretending to go crazy. Imagine all of that....and you'll still be disappointed by 'Ride Along'.

I know all this because I watched it with an audience. Let's just say they weren't laughing either even though they were up for it. We were all so bored. We'd seen it all before, been bored by it all before and weren't going to lie to ourselves anymore.

I heard two laughs. Once when Kevin Hart goes flying backwards because of shotgun recoil (a gag so funny they do it again and then once more for the final scene at a barbecue). I also heard laughter when Hart's character says something like "I ain't getting in the back of the car" and then the next shot shows him in the back of a car. It's not exactly comedy gold is it. People falling backwards and saying they're not goint to do something and then doing it. Even the Police Academy tv series could manage laughs better than this.

Ice Cube is in it. Sometimes he smiles and sometimes he frowns.  Sometimes he gets his gun out of his jacket, sometimes he puts it away.

No decent car chases, no action that you've not seen in a thousand cop shows, no laughs.

That is all you need to know about 'Ride Along'.

The Shakes....On A Plane. Non-Stop

Liam Neeson plays a burnt out, alcoholic air marshal who has to figure out which of the passengers on his flight is a psychotic extortionist who plans to kill someone every 20 minutes.

It doesn't sound like much, but 'Non-Stop' is a superior 'trouble-on-a plane' thriller that owes as much to Agatha Christie as it does to 'Taken' or 'Unknown'. It may be a daft premise but it is undeniably gripping. The mystery element is strong. There are plenty of suspects, false trails, red herrings,  twists and surprises. I narrowed it down to two suspects and was completely wrong. Even when events accumulate the film stays on the right side of credibility. It starts well, builds adeptly and accelerates to a thrilling, explosive finale.

Neeson is as stoic as ever, but he never phones in a performance. He convinces both as a hard man and as a sad weary veteran haunted by the demon drink. He's the thinking person's action hero and on top form in this. When the supporting cast includes Julianne Moore you know this is going to be  a class act all round.

It's expertly directed by Juan Collet-Serra who wrings maximum tension from our fears of flying, the claustrophobic setting and real time action. The camera moves well without being overtly stylish and even the use of text messages serves as a strong visual motif to draw us in to the drama.

It's a top notch thriller that doesn't insult your intelligence and delivers superb entertainment from take off to landing.