March On The Capitol: Mockingjay Part Deux.

*Spoiler alert*

There is no way to talk about the positives of this film without spoilers. You have been warned.

You may remember that I didn't get around to seeing 'Mockingjay: Part 1' until very late in the day and when I did it turned out to be exactly the protracted, dull, lumbering bore that I expected it to be. However once you've committed nearly seven hours of your life to something, you feel duty bound to see it play out. In all honestly, I went to see this one in the first few days of release just to get it out of the way as quickly as possible, but I was pleasantly surprised to find it a rewarding and fascinating film.

A kaleidoscope of thoughts ran through my mind as I was watching it (and there is plenty of time for your mind to wander) and there was much musing on the nature of revolutions as the film shambled towards a grimly satisfying bittersweet resolution.

A week after the Paris attacks I was watching a film that has revolutionaries/terrorists pretending to be refugees in order to commit a violent attack. It features bombs being dropped purposefully on children as a means of influencing public opinion. It has the ruling elite watching guerrilla generated footage that implores citizens to turn their guns to the Capitol. There are subterranean, forgotten, mutant humanoids (the monstrous underclass?) that just want to destroy anything that crosses their path. It has good people who want to change the world being literally annihilated by those twin enablers of power - armaments and oil (I don't know what that black stuff is - but I'm reading it as oil.)

All of which makes 'Mockingjay: Part Two' the most timely, politically provocative charged film currently out there

It's also badly paced, clumsy, frustrating as hell and strangely dispassionate....but hey you can't have everything.

It is a remarkably political film, and one that has the courage to logically follow through on its premise to a convincing conclusion. I feared this final film was going to throw all of the rhetoric out of the window and just be content to have Katniss decide between two suitors whilst battling the forces of oppression. It is admirable that the film sidesteps such a classical Hollywood narrative. There is no pat moral story or reassuring comfort at the end of this film. One set of lies is traded for another set of lies and nothing is ever the same afterwards. We are shown the other side of the (President Coin) coin when a new Hunger Games is devised. The cycle of violence is broken but it only feels temporary whereas the damage done is permanent. What Katniss has lost is evident. What she has gained seems fleeting. She is damaged. The world is damaged. Life goes on but not as celebration.

When Peeta and Katniss are together in bed and he asks her if she truly loves him, or is still only pretending to love him ....we're not quite sure that there is any real conviction in her answer. Peace is found....but no real progress and the ultimate message of the film is that "We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self destruction."

But it's not a bleak film, just an honest one. It's also resolutely not dumbed down for a young audience and is all the more admirable because of it.

It's a shame that the Hunger Games series as a whole lost momentum by being drawn out over so many years. Personally, I'd rather have had two 'three-hour' films rather than four 'two-and-a-bit' hour films. The final instalment works hard at rekindling some excitement but it never quite gets out of the lugubrious rut it fell into with 'Mockingjay: Part 1 " and it never hits the emotional notes the way it should (well, not for me anyway - others in the cinema were crying - so it could just be me).  There's some callback to the original 'Hunger Games' when the journey through an evacuated city full of booby traps evokes the survival of the fittest atmosphere again and it recalls the arena setting but even the best action sequences seemed a bit formulaic and lacked tension. The 'fighting our way through the drain' scenes sequence in particular felt like it was grafted on from some other blockbuster (of the 'I Am Legend' meets 'Aliens' variety) and were riddled with sub standard, seen it all before, video-game CGI.

It also doesn't help that it slows down to cram in a number of cameos only in order to say adios to characters from the previous films, some of whom you barely remember. Who the fuck was that tiger-lady for instance? I'd completely forgotten about her and some of the campy costumes and characters now seem out of place in such a grim film.

Jennifer Lawrence is clearly a great actress but probably underplays Katniss a bit too much in this film. It's not quite the bewildered, somnambulist performance of 'Part One' but she does maintain this resolutely blank, detached approach to Katniss that becomes aggravating at times. Katniss is strong - yes, seen too much - yes, done bad things - yes..... but she's still a young girl - she should be a volcano of emotion. Admittedly she does explode in a scene towards the end but I felt that we needed to properly connect with her again long before this point.

Minor gripes aside, you've got to say that fans of the books should be more than happy with how the series has translated to screen, when it could so easily have become a 'plucky young girl defeats bad-guys in the near future whilst wearing skimpy outfits - let's all go home now' load of forgettable nonsense. At least we didn't have to suffer that!

I think it will remain a series I'd like to revisit  every so often (preferably with a ffwd button), I think its remarkable that it exists in the form that it does, I think it is relevant to the times we're in and I'm glad that youngsters will keep discovering this story. I'm also glad that it's all over but it's a good, interesting, thought-provoking conclusion to the series.

It's A Shit Business.

'Kill Your Friends' is an okay|(ish) British gangster movie....that doesn't have any gangsters in it. Man of the moment Nicholas Hoult plays an A&R man for a major record company at the height of Britpop. As you might expect it's a shark eat shark world of decadence, immorality, excess and drug-fueled paranoia. The only way to be the last man standing is to be the biggest bastard in the room, have the biggest hit and (the spoiler is in the title) literally kill your friends. It is a homegrown 'American Psycho' by way of 'Gangster No. 1' and is basically just people being nasty to each other for the running time with a pretty cool soundtrack. I quite liked it but then I'm quite susceptible to in-jokes about the music business (there's a great gag about much derided Camden chancers Menswear), self conscious Columbo moments and seeing the late 90s as period drama.

Nicholas Hoult doesn't quite find the dark charisma to create another Patrick Bateman character but he does look the part. I once knew an actual living, breathing A&R man and he looked and dressed exactly like this. To be fair he was actually a nice guy (at least to your face) but he did have a psycho girlfriend and was actually clueless about music so they at least got that right.

It's one of those films that I guess you would have to call dark comedy or satire but it's not about very much at all really. There's a visual punchline about the music business being literally cutthroat but you're not going to find anything beyond that level of illumination. It's a shit business, sex and  drugs are integral to functioning in that world, nobody knows anything, luck always wins out and you have to lie like other people breathe. Is it anything we don't already know? It does however speak the truth about meetings - that bit is true regardless of what profession you are in.

One of those films that is perfectly watchable, quite enjoyable at the time but doesn't stay with you the next day....which is why I haven't got that much to say about it.

Good soundtrack though.

There Will Be Bright Scarlet.

'Crimson Peak' is the sort of film I like to watch through sleepy eyes whilst curled up on the sofa on a miserable winter's day. I actually saw it in a recently refurbished cinema, seated just in front of a man who smelled like smoked mackerel....and I still liked it. In fact, I loved it.

Imagine a fairy tale done in the gothic horror style for Hammer studios and directed by Mario Bava. Imagine Edgar Allan Poe had been a steampunk comic book artist and imagine that Walt Disney had worked with Roger Corman on an adaptation. Imagine 'The Shining' as a romantic period piece directed by Dario Argento using technicolour film stock. It has that vibe about it.

'Crimson Peak' is the latest atmospheric outing for Guillermo del Toro and although it is indisputably an exercise in style over substance it doesn't really matter when it all looks so ravishing. It's languid at times, has poor dialogue, some clunky acting, fails to resolve a number of loose plot threads and you could argue that the supernatural element is entirely redundant. But for me that all added to the slightly woozy feeling of  drifting in and out of watching an old film melodrama on the television whilst feeling snug under the blankets with a Lemsip, on a snow-day.

It has a crumbling mansion, murder, incest and stabbing; lots of stabbing. It's gorier than you might expect and has several jump moments that are more effective those found in more overtly "horror" films.

I loved the colour palette and the detail in dress and decor and basically succumbed to the sheer visual grandeur of it all. If you're expecting it to be horror you'll be disappointed. If you're expecting it to be 'Twilight' you'll be disappointed. If you're expecting 'Fifty Shades' you'll be disappointed. If you're expecting it to be Tim Burton fantasy you'll be disappointed. If you like slow-burn cinematic poetry and operatic excess than you'll love it

Stirred. But Not Shaken.

Spoilers? Much.

On the whole 'Spectre' is effective, superbly crafted entertainment that gives you everything that you would want from a James Bond film. So why then is it so peculiarly unsatisfying?

Let's try and break it down into its constituent parts:

Pre credits sequence. A bravura opening - bold, confident, technically brilliant and jaw dropping to watch. It's all downhill from here.

Bond theme. Sam Smith. Not the worst (third from worst) and it works in context but still rubbish. Forgettable even as you are listening to it.

Title sequence. Didn't really work for me. Naked Daniel Craig and lots of Octopus appendages. Surely they should have run with 'Day Of The Dead' imagery (that being the theme of the whole film). It's not 'Octopussy' and it's not H.P. Lovecraft. One for fans of Japanese tentacle porn and/or Octonauts fans only.

Bond. Dour, sullen and insubordinate hitman. Does very little actual spy stuff. They've spent four films trying to make him a rounded, psychologically convincing, actual real-world character. He isn't.

Bond girls. Monica Bellucci. Oooh look .... its a "Bond girl" in her fifties....how revolutionary. Yeah and then she's summarily fucked and chucked after just two scenes. Bond hits on  a recent widow, says 'I'm here to protect you", they shag, he leaves the number of "someone who can help you", Bond disappears.
Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux). The weakest, least convincing "capable of looking after myself" Bond girl in years. A bland Bond blonde. Zero chemistry between her and Daniel Craig. The film fails to establish enough meaningful romance between them. This becomes a major problem later on when we're supposed to buy into his emotional need to save her.
Miss Moneypenny. Built up as a character in the previous films only to be wasted in this (but we know she's a person in her own right because she sleeps with someone other than Bond).
Judy Dench's absence is very noticeable in this film.
It's just a bit disappointing. I mean, it's not as if anyone's expecting Bond to pass the Bechdel test... but really.

M: Excellent. You could argue that he dos more to save the day than Bond. Ralph Fiennes is strong in all his scenes.

Q: Ben Whishaw is very good but it feels like a whole part of his story hit the cutting room floor in this one.

The Villains. Disappointing. Dave Bautista is an imposing adversary for Bond to fight. Andrew Scott is excellent but you just want him to reveal himself to be Jim Moriarty. I do love Christoph Waltz but his polite, charming, psychopath schtick is becoming a little overfamiliar by now. He's chilling in the impressive Spectre boardroom scene, but as soon as he steps out of the shadows it's apparent that the great and powerful Oz has been revealed to be nothing more than a pathetic little man behind a curtain. Hans Landa had coiled menace, Blofeld is just a weirdo wearing slippers and no socks. Rubbish.

The Plot: Quite linear but I'm okay with that (Bond isn't suited to complexity - see 'Quantum Of Solace' where they foolishly attempted it) but there are no surprises. Unconvincing motivations and a misguided attempt to link Bond and Blofeld's back stories and make their conflict personal seems unnecessary and contrived. There's an attempt to join the dots by implying that the previous Daniel Craig films were linked as part of a master narrative. Retroactive Continuity the geeks call it. I don't care for it. I don't have a problem with plot holes in Bond films (it's the flow of the thing that's important) but I do take issue with a film that is full of stuff that serves no purpose and has no consequence. Even though the film is two and a half hours long it still feels as if chunks of it are missing and that it is leading us towards something much greater than it delivers. As an example of the former look at the sequence where Q is tailed and trapped on an Alpine cable car by some heavies, thus preventing him from meeting Bond at a pre-arranged rendezvous. We cut to some action with Bond, who escapes trouble and then makes it back to be greeted by Q at the prearranged place. We expect a trap, a betrayal or at least something that will pay off later. Instead there is just a flippant comment along the lines of  - "Oh I was tailed but I lost them" and nothing of consequence happens. The film is riddled with moments like that, as if another draft of the script or a more critical edit was needed. And what was going on with Bond's microchipped blood? This was a neat idea that could have raised the stakes on Bond's action by having him under constant surveillance (the big theme of the film) and render him incapable of being one step ahead of the bad guys ..... but within the very same scene that it is injected into him he basically just asks Q to turn a blind eye to it.

Locations. Excellent. Mexico City, Rome, Austria and Tangiers, but then then way too much time in miserable, drab, grey, subterranean London. Instantly takes us from the high glamour of Bond to an average episode of 'Spooks'.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles. All of those - including an iconic Aston Martin car chase that goes form mundane, to Mr Bean, to Batmobile. 'Fury Road' it isn't.

Gadgets. An exploding watch is the deus ex machina that gets him out of trouble. Ffs its 2015 not 1965. Surely they could have come up with something better than this.

"I expect you to die." Prolonged torture scene with precision needle insertion. Very nasty and straight out of 'Colonel Sun' (Kingsley Amis' attempt at a bond novel). It would have been more effective if Christoph Waltz had played it with more tactile sadism and hadn't been just a grinning monkey pushing the buttons on the torture machine.

Fisticuffs. Good fight on a train sequence. It needed to be a little more violent if anything but it is a well executed sequence.

Memorable lines. M has all the best lines

Bond Villain's Secret Lair. Solar powered desert residence seems to be protected by a handful of temp agency henchmen. Security check doesn't run to taking watches off people. One gas tank outside - hit it and the whole thing goes up in flames. Truly spectacular explosion though.

Themes. The dead are alive. On the money stuff about surveillance, data protection and leverage on governments by shadowy organisations.

Subtext. Theresa May thinks she is M, everyone else knows she is C. London is the best place in the world to obtain personal information. Data is a commodity. Intelligence services are complicit in manipulating governments. The past will return to haunt us.

Overall 'Spectre' is much better if you view it as a celebratory overview of fifty years of Bond rather than as a film in its own right.  Fifty years of any mass market entertainment is likely to provide moments to cherish as it well as flat periods full of frustration, and the history of Bond is no exception. We all have our own favourite Bonds, films and eras. 'Spectre' seems to knowingly condense all of that history into one film. It's bound to be an uneven ride. After a confident, bravura opening (easily the best pre credits sequence the franchise has ever provided) it all builds to a whimper not a bang, which is a shame, but it is solid entertainment and top tier Bond.

If this is Daniel Craig's last outing as Bond, then he is going out on a high (certainly compared to those other "last" Bond films - 'Diamonds Are Forever', 'A View To A Kill', "Licence To Kill', and 'Die Another Day') but it does feel like we've gone through a revolving door over the past decade. The re-invention, the tonal shifts, the psychological probing, the stripping away of all the surface trappings all seem to have been for nothing. Every "tired" element seems to have crept back in.

I'm not saying this is even necessarily a bad thing. 'Spectre' is the most Bond-like film of the Daniel Craig era and ultimately the most entertaining because of it. Like I say, for all its faults, this film does deliver everything you think of when you think of Bond.

I think Bond 25 is going to be fascinating. Will the creative team go for a complete re-boot again, will they move towards a more crowd pleasing formula, or will they try and play off on the tension between both? Will they tempt another credible world class director into the fold ( I can't see Mendes returning), will they go with a "visionary" director or will they just go with some MTV twat who's seen a lot of Bond films?

Whatever lies ahead it has to be said that Bond at fifty years old is in very good shape indeed.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Maybe the Fantastic Four finished me off.

Maybe I just got bored of coming up with new ways to say rude things about bad films.

Maybe I'm just lazy. Or maybe it's because it takes effort and nobody pays me.

Maybe if my local cinema had been less of building site for the last two months I might have gone and visited it more.

Maybe I'm just acutely aware that all I'm really doing is adding to the incessant noise of the internet rather than doing something creative and worthwhile.

Maybe the monotonous merry-go-round of superhero flicks, franchise movies, sequels, prequels, Pixar, Disney, tv show, reboot, lame horror, space peril and frat boy comedy has just become too wearisome.

Maybe that old cliche about it being easy to say why something is bad is easy... but saying why something is good is hard.... is actually quite true.

Maybe I just really, really needed a break to recharge my batteries.

Some or all of the above might apply.

Which is a way of saying that I apologise for the dearth of recent posts but writer fatigue, real-life and other projects got in the way.

In the interim I haven't seen that much and nothing has particularly excited me.

In summary:

'Legend' - Watchable enough, but only because of Tom Hardy's compelling screen presence....and yes, it prints the "legend" rather than picks apart the dark underbelly of the myth.

'Maze Runner: Scorch Trials'. Loved the first movie, but this outstayed its welcome. Over two hours of teens shouting "Come on! We need to go!" It doesn't even have a maze in it.

'The Martian'. Not as tense as 'Gravity'. Not as emotional or sentimental as "Interstellar'. Not as captivating as 'Castaway'. And, despite what some might tell you, not a return to form for Ridley Scott. I thought it was visually muted, strangely repetitive (here's a problem, here's how we solve the problem.... ad infinitum) and just couldn't see what the fuss was about....but your tolerance of looking at Matt Damon's face for two hours might be higher than mine.

'Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension'. In which we learn that if you fill your house with cameras you will most likely attract paranormal activity. Okay until the CGI kicks in.

....and that's it. That's all I've seen recently.

I know there is better stuff out there: 'Sicario' looks good, I'll maybe give 'Crimson Peak' a go and I should go and see 'Suffragette' too.

And then there is 'Spectre' looming like a.... well, like a spectre on the horizon. I'll almost certainly have something to say about that.

I'm not done yet.

The Fantastic 4FucksSake!

So for the past month my local multiplex has had one of those promotional photo-opportunity statues that they have in the foyer nowadays instead of information or a seating area or basic customer service and what a forlorn figure it is. This is of course Ben Grimm, a.k.a. "The Thing", from 'The Fantastic Four' reboot standing there, unloved like a stubborn, knobbly, giant turd that just won't flush away. As an advertisement for the movie it is more than apt.

It's not the worst superhero movie out there, but it is the worst one featuring Marvel licensed characters, and yes, I have seen 'Ghost Rider'. It's a joyless, soul-less film that really does make you berate yourself for not opting to watch something else instead.

This is the third 'Fantastic Four' film to be distributed by 20th Century Fox and whilst the original two films weren't exactly classics of the genre they did at least offer campy, high-spirited, family-orientated fun....and there's nothing wrong with that. The sequel, 'Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer ', did good box office but took less money than the first one and it obviously rankled Fox that their franchise was deemed lightweight compared to the 'Batman' franchise, the 'X-Men' franchise and the increasingly impressive Marvel universe. So what to do? Reboot the franchise, of course, make it dark, make it as realistic as possible, keep it serious, find four leads with no chemistry between them and don't do anything ambitious with it. That'll work. That's what people want.

Stop getting 'The Fantastic Four' wrong. Just stop it.

I like the 'Fantastic Four'. It was one of Marvel's best titles. The best 'Fantastic Four' comics are are full of colourful psychedelic weirdness and out-there imagination but kept grounded by the family unit squabbles that keep it real . That was always the genius of the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby title: mythic storytelling and imagery blended with soap opera. It works every time. 'The Fantastic Four' does not lend itself to dark and moody any more than Superman does and like 'Man Of Steel' you can feel this film crumbling under its own portentous weight. Oh....and it's shit.

The film starts off in blandly interesting fashion. There's some character background stuff we have to wade through, with Reed Richards and Ben Grimm as kids, to show us how this forms their characters as adults. It's the usual stuff of a brainy kid messing about with salvaged scrap and turning it into technological wizardry whilst his best friend has his back. It's alright I suppose, but if you grew up in the 80s you've seen this stuff countless times before: think 'Explorers', 'Flight Of The Navigator', 'D.A.R.Y.L' and any number of those films that try to mimic Spielberg. It just takes too long to play out, and there's not enough laughs along the way and you feel like you've been through college with these guys and you just wish something would happen and all you really learn is that Reed is super brainy and that Ben was bullied by his brother, who, get this used the phrase ,"It's clobberin' time!" Oh so that's where he gets it from! Dark and gritty stuff. Cringe.

The film takes some really bold decisions I suppose. Like having Ben Grimm played by Jamie Bell as some sort of gormless hanger-on who doesn't seem to do anything other than sleep all day. Like having Sue Storm being the mental match for Reed Richards because she can do "pattern recognition" whilst listening to Portishead. Like having Johnny Storm as someone we're supposed to care about because he wants to drive really fast cars but his Dad won't let him. Like having Victor Von Doom as some sort of sullen emo kid who needs a slap.

Can we talk about Doctor Doom a moment? One of the finest villains in the Marvel universe and every time these film-makers get it wrong. The only film-maker who got it right was George Lucas and he had to call the character Darth Vader to get away with it. So that's what you should have done Fox. You should have put Darth Vader in this movie and called him Dr. Doom. Instead of a mask we get a badly face painted Dr Doom who has somewhat ridiculously fused with his own space suit so that we can see his lips but they don't move but still he speaks. Or something. It's just awful. He looks awful. He sounds awful. They've made him comically super powered but still he has no presence at all. Just awful.

Anyway, eventually, eventually they build this quantum space, inter dimensional teleporter thing, get drunk and take it out for a test run.  Think of the possibilities for this, think visually, think of the Jack Kirby inspired kaleidoscopic mindscapes this could open up, think of how stunning the special effects will be - the modern equivalent of the stargate sequence from '2001: A Space Odyssey'. Keep thinking about it because what you actually get is....the craft teleporting to a barren prehistoric landscape. You know the sort of thing. Red rocks, black skies, lightning. I mean, your average episode of  'Doctor Who' can conjure up something a bit more inspired than this, but not to worry folks, we're basically going to spend the rest of the movie here. Yawn.

Oh well, at least the transformation scenes will be good, you foolishly think. But no, what happens is that our intrepid explorers get slimed by some living green electrical stuff. Not very fantastic, I know, but an hour into the film we at last get to see Bendy Man, Fire Man, Rock Turd Man and Superfluous Girl go through their paces.

I don't even understand how superfluous girl got her powers. She just sort of gets them by proxy because going into quantum dimensional space is clearly a men only affair. She's not invited along by the gang even after a big speech about how those who develop the technology that moves mankind forward are never appreciated. Reed Richards decides that his freeloading bum of a friend from way back in the day is more integral to the project than science girl and asks him along instead.

It's one fucking stupid movie.

And then we get the title card "One Year Later" and basically that's the good part of the film done with. It's all downhill from here.

I don't exactly know what happened because I wasn't in the room but I think it's a pretty safe bet that 20th Century Fox executives developed the film to this exact point and then turned to the creative team and said -

"From this point on just fill up the screen time with any old shit you can think of; just drag it out as long as you can. Make sure you only use two locations. Don't even think about using daylight, we have to keep this dark, it's what the kids want. We don't want to spend too much on special effects so just include some token stuff to show what powers they have. We'll save doing the good stuff until the sequel. I want to see Dr Doom as a superhuman badass who explodes peoples heads off at will like he's auditioning for 'Scanners' and most importantly I want a great big pillar of light shooting up to a big circle in the sky like in every other film because the Illuminati are paying for this shit and that's what they want to see. Any questions? No? Good. Now, get to work."

I imagine it was something like that. If it was, they did an excellent job of fulfilling the brief.

Honestly, the second half of this movie is such an avalanche of bad decisions, monotone delivery and confusion that you can't believe a major studio had the gall to release it. It's not fit for purpose. It is purely motivated by greed, franchise building and bandwagon jumping. Every frame of the last half is just a big fuck you that screams 'we've got your money, now sit through this shit, 'cos we don't care".

I have no idea what Doctor Doom was trying to achieve at the end of this film. I have no idea why flame boy and turd man were complicit in  working for the military. I have no idea why Mr Fantastic was fanny-ing about in Mexico. I have no idea why or how the Fantastic Four saved the day or from what exactly they saved us from.

I do know that it was not fantastic in any way.

This film does not fail because of bad acting, bad writing or bad direction; it would be better if it did,  because at least then you could laugh at it. This film fails because it has no idea what it wants to do with the property other than have the name 'The Fantasic Four' on the poster outside ( or more acurately -  'Fant4stic' - ffs). It's just back story and exposition that tells you nothing you need to know and leads nowhere. There is no story. We meet the characters, they get their powers, they have a fight with Doctor Doom, they spout some guff about working as a team and it ends. That's not a movie; that's a trailer. That's all this is....a lengthy padded out trailer for some future movie that might have the Fantastic Four and an idea in it. It's flawed because there isn't a pure thought behind it....just greed. It's a greedy, grabbing, grasping moronic fantastic bore of a movie.

I didn't like it.

Mission Statement. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

The great strength of the Mission: Impossible franchise is that it is always the same but always different. Every film in the series has to pass Cruise quality control, set a high standard and deliver all the thrills and spills that you demand. What's smart about it is that every instalment has a decidedly different tone to it. Cruise is presumably instrumental in choosing directors who have vision, who have proven competency, who are at the top of their game and who can give the series a unique spin.

So in the first Mission: Impossible (way, way back in 1996) we had Hitchcock wannabe Brian De Palma updating and subverting spy movie tropes with the emphasis on suspense rather than action. M:I-2 was also a Hitchcock homage (it is a loose reworking of 'Notorious') but John Woo turned it into an exhilarating James Bond styled action. M:I-3 had J.J. Abrams coming off the back of 'Alias' and gifting the series a more grounded approach and a markedly nastier tone to the proceedings (anchored by Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance as one of the best villains of the decade). M:I-4 lightened things up with a cartoonish but inventive comic book caper.

Like I say, always the same but always different. If I had to rank them I'd probably go MI3, MI1, MI4, MI2 as best to worst but it fluctuates a lot.

So here we are with number five, 'Mission:Impossible - Rogue Nation' and, despite Tom Cruise finally starting to show his age, it may just be the best in the series yet. Curiously (considering my preamble) it kind of lacks a distinctive flavour of its own and feels much more like a mash-up of elements from the previous films. But it works just fine. It retains all the best elements, rejects some of the excesses and gives the ever escalating cast of characters interesting stuff to do (except for Ving Rhames who is a bit superfluous this time out).

The bold directorial choice this time is Chris McQuarrie who has written several scripts ('Valkyrie', 'Edge Of Tomorrow') that have become Cruise projects and directed him before as 'Jack Reacher'. Amongst film connoisseurs he is best known as the writer of 'The Usual Suspects' (and who wouldn't want that on their CV) and director of the little seen and underrated gem 'Way Of The Gun'. He knows how to tell a story, even a complex one, in a refreshing and non-patronising way. And by God can he direct a set-piece.

There is an opera assassination sequence in this that is simply stunning; a masterly blend of choreography and visual storytelling. It is every bit the equal of the hanging by a thread sequence from the first film and a bravura showcase for why old-school film craft will always trump big explosions and CGI trickery. It also makes you desperate to see an opera.

One stunning set piece would be enough for most films, but this film just keeps stacking them up. There's a pre-credits scene that flips the bird at the Bond franchise with it's Tom-Cruise-does-his-own-stunts-don't-you-know audacity and says "top that!". There's a dive into a turbine and a breathless underwater sequence. This also has possibly the best bike chase ever filmed; a mini 'Fury Road' on two wheels. And still it keeps coming.

The plot is convoluted, satisfying and at times very surprising; just wait until the "rogue nation" reveal hits you.  It is a little overlong (what isn't?) but I never became impatient with it. Even during the downtime, the exposition and the moments that allow you to catch your breath it remains interesting.

It may be number five in the franchise but it has a star, a writer/director and a cast that care passionately about the project and want to do their best work. Tom Cruise shows flesh, kicks ass, cracks jokes and flexes acting muscles in a manner that leaves you in no doubt as to why this particular man in his fifties is still the most bankable star in the world. Simon Pegg has more screen time than in previous outings but somehow he doesn't become irritating at all. It is a testament to him that he has expanded the character so much above and beyond 'comic relief tech guy' that you would miss him if he wasn't involved. Pegg may just become the next David Niven yet. Rebecca Ferguson (not the singer) has come from nowhere (some middling tv credits and that 'Hercules' film) to this and she is a revelation. Surely the world is her's for the asking after this. Her British agent is every bit the equal of Ethan Hunt, perhaps more so and not just in a lazy scriptwriting let's-give-the-girl-a-fight-scene way. She doesn't fade into the background, she isn't a love trophy, she drives the plot and she is in all the film's best scenes.  She can act too, and I mean really act - light up the screen act - which always helps.  I think I may have a new crush.

Sean Harris has cornered the market in creepy, intense, British psychopaths and his turn here is suitably chilling; not sure about the voice though. Jeremy Renner's character is interesting despite having more or less the same role here as Hawkeye in The Avengers. He's not ostensibly the most important member of the team but he is the glue quietly holding it together, fighting the little battles, being the group's conscience, saying the right thing at the right time. He's very good in the scenes that he's in and justifies being kept on the payroll. In addition we have a great turn from Alec Baldwin as a CIA director and a brief but well judged performance from Tom Hollander as the British prime minister.

In other words, even if this was a film about people talking politics in a room it would have been good. But it's not people talking in a room, it's 'Mission:Impossible' and it's better than good. It's excellent. Probably my favourite in the series so far.

I hope I'm wrong, but I can't imagine 'Spectre' is going to be more entertaining than this. Hell, I can't imagine that the next MI is going to be more entertaining than this. Some reviews and comments I've seen have been pretty indifferent, sniffy and "meh" about it. What do you want? This is state of the art summer blockbuster entertainment. It's unlikely to get much better than this. Go see it.

'Self/less' than the sum of its parts.

If you've seen the film 'Seconds' (John Frankenheimer 1966) you won't be surprised by much of anything that happens in 'Self/less'. If you haven't 'Seconds' may I suggest that you spend more time indoors watching old black and white movies rather than socialising and stuff.

'Self/less' is a neat little film, certainly nothing great but quite interesting and entertaining never the less. 

Sir Ben Kingsley plays Damian,  a super nasty, super rich, "one percent" property mogul dying of cancer. He finds out about a shadowy organisation offering elite patrons the chance to transfer their consciousness into a new healthy body. He signs up for the procedure and gets the athletic body of Ryan Reynolds on condition that he sever all ties with his former life. Unfortunately it turns out that this body is not quite the empty shell that it was sold to him as. Hallucinations and paranoia intensify. Is this part of the normal recovery process or is there really a latent consciousness from a former host trying to reconnect with the body? Damian starts digging for answers and doesn't like what he finds.

It's a pretty simple set up and an interesting idea, but one that needs much deeper exploration than this film can give. It it quickly opts to drop the moral dilemmas and instead become a running and jumping and shooting type of film....which it does very well. What I liked most about this film was that it actually took a fresh approach to some of the action genre staples that we've seen played out countless times before. There's a particularly well executed siege in a farmhouse and a car crash that actually seems to have some point to it other than vehicles bumping into each other like dodgems.

It's the sort of movie where you can imagine that if Tom Cruise had been cast it would have worked very well as his obligatory sci-fi/action crossover for the year and would have been well received by audiences. Unfortunately we have Ryan Reynolds in the leading role, who is absolutely fine, but just not very exciting to watch. He does a good job in his early scenes where he apes Ben Kingsley's mannerisms with subtlety but then just becomes vanilla as the film progresses.

It's directed by Tarsem Singh ('The Fall'', 'The Cell') who seems to have been told to tone down the visual excesses of his previous work, which is a mistake, because it actually needs a bit of flair to make it come alive.

On a 'B-movie' level I enjoyed it a lot. It's 'Seconds' grafted into a 'Bourne Identity' body and works just fine. I could have done without the 'Shawshank Redemption' ending and I wish it had a bit more philosophy on its bones but it's more interesting than anything else aimed at adults this week and sometimes that's good enough.

Honey, I Shrunk The Marvel Universe.

Ant Man

Ant Man

Ant-Man

Marvel's Ant-Man

Do you remember those 'Fathers 4 Justice' guys that used to dress up as superheroes and stay on rooftops for days in order to protest the injustice of access rights? Those guys are going to love Ant-Man which is about a guy sent to prison for doing the right thing, a guy who reluctantly dresses up as a superhero, an estranged husband whose ex-wife is now dating a cop and a guy who only wants to see his cutesy gap-toothed daughter more often.  He just wants to be a hero to his little girl but the only thing he is good at is stealing stuff, which is just as well, because instead of a plot we basically just have scenes of people stealing stuff from other people.

Ant-Man is a minor Marvel character given a minor Marvel treatment. It's a strangely old-fashioned film, like it's a couple of decades out of time. It takes ages to shift into gear, it's full of safe decisions and plays like a 'Mission Impossible' knock-off. There's the usual stuff of people breaking in to secure facilities, dropping stealthily from cables, being pursued down corridors etc... whilst hackers in a van watch a progress bar  reach 99.9% even as the doors are being kicked in. It's probably very exciting if you've never seen a Mission Impossible film, or a spy film....or any film ever.

Bland comedy chancer Paul Rudd is Ant-Man. He's this generation's Steve Guttenberg.

Notorious sex addict Michael Douglas is in this too. He must have been very confused to appear in scenes with Evangeline Lilly looking exactly like Catherine Zeta Jones in her 'Chicago' days. I bet Michael couldn't keep his hands off her, the dirty old git. They must have distracted him by giving him that same "you don't know what chaos you'll unleash" speech to do in every scene he appears in. Surely they could have made better use of him? Maybe they could have made him the villain. He'd have done a much better job than Corey Stoll who gives us the blandest villain yet in the Marvel universe.

The trouble with 'Ant-Man' is that it is not a bad film but that it needs more of everything. It needs more action, it needs more laughs, more SFX (or at least some impressive ones), it certainly needs more plotting and more energy. It's very sluggish for a Marvel film. Every time it hits on a good idea it just drops the ball. Breaking into The Avengers headquarters, great idea. What happens? Ant-Man has a silly fight with Marvel's (other) least interesting hero and somebody gets punched through a shutter. That's it. Ant-Man reduced to the sub-atomic/quantum level, great idea. What happens? Some lame attempt at pixelated trippy imagery and that's it. Ant-Man has to fight the villain on a toy train set, great idea. What happens? A piss poor sub-Wallace and Gromit routine.

It feels like it was made by committee. It feels like it was made just to keep the Marvel universe rolling without adding anything to it. It feels like a stop-gap. It feels like all the eccentricities and life and joy of the project have been bleached out of it. Marvel have set the bar with every film. Here they can barely be arsed to step over it.

I get that it's supposed to be a "fun" movie, I get that it is  the action-comedy aspects are the focus this time ....but I saw it in a cinema full of kids who seemed barely engaged with it. They laughed twice. Once at the word "shit!" and once at Thomas The Tank Engine's face. That's your review right there. That's the highlights.

Most kids were more interested in jumping down the auditorium steps. I've got to admit, they had a point.

Charlie Says....Build My Gallows High.

Another week another found footage movie.

The good news is that 'The Gallows' delivers plenty of effective jump scares, has a strong sense of atmosphere and enough technical competence to hold your attention for its running time.

The bad news is that it's dumb as a bag of spanners, has terrible dialogue, a plot no more developed than your average 'Scooby Doo' episode and we're asked to identify with a bunch of arsehole jocks and bullies for much longer than is necessary.

In other words it delivers exactly what you'd expect from this sort of film, no more and no less. It's not going to scare you if you've seen a lot horror films, and won't convert you if you haven't,  but it will make you jump in a satisfactorily prescribed manner.

The simple set up is as follows: A small time high school theatre production of 'The Gallows' (which seems to be a Poundland hybrid of 'The Crucible' and 'The Scarlet Letter') goes horribly awry when lead actor Charlie actually gets hung during a freak accident (or basic lack of a risk assessment).
Cut to twenty years later and how has the school and the local community moved on from this tragic event? By staging another performance of the same play. Of course they have. What a sensitive thing to do. It's a production still lacking basic health and safety precautions, basic security, basic respect for the dead and basic moral responsibility. Add in a mysterious woman who sits through all the rehearsals, a football jock with a crush on the lead actress, his prick of a best mate who films everything and a cheerleader girlfriend. Mix it all up with a plan to sabotage the set before opening night and you can pretty much join the dots yourself.

Logic is not the film's strong point. Nothing makes much sense when you scrutinise it in the light of day. There's a twist ending that confirms you've been wasting your time if expecting some intelligence behind this shambles.  A key motif of the slasher film is that the sins of the past return to wreak vengeance on the present, but even this is fudged here. The hooded Charlie figure seems a particularly spiteful entity considering that it was an accident and anyway, surely he shares some responsibility for sticking his head through a noose without checking for a safety harness first. Charlie is no Freddy or Jason. Charlie is just some dickhead ghost, whinging about how he wasn't even supposed to be there on that day. Let it go mate, let it go.

Where the film does play an ace card is in its exploration of the backstage area and school corridors after dark. This is a really creepy environment of rickety catwalks, dank basements, pipes, cables and spiralling corridors rendered in green (night-vision) and red (theatre safety lights). There didn't seem to be much logic to the geography of the place but this actually strengthens the horror logic of the piece and makes the whole setting quite disorientating.

A problem the film does have, and one that will probably become more apparent should there be any sequels, is that there are only so many times a noose dropping into frame can be scary and only so much damage a man with a rope can do. Which is basically me saying that it isn't gory enough. But it does have big jump scares and plenty of them. In that respect the film gives you more thrills for your money than highly trumpeted bigger productions such as 'Annabelle'.

It Was Not A Dream. 'Knock Knock'.

Oh Keanu, Keanu, what have you gone and done now? You magnificent, glorious, daft bastard!

...but we'll get to him in a moment.

First let's try and make some kind of sense of 'Knock Knock'.

According to my Cineworld app, 'Knock Knock' is "a tense horror-thriller" full of "nerve-shredding horror" and I should go and see it if I liked 'Funny Games' and 'Hostel'. The BBFC warns me that it contains "strong sustained and sadistic threat" along with "sex, sex references and nudity". It is an '18' certificate in an era where that badge of honour has lost meaning, as everything passes as a '15' anyway. It sounds hardcore in every sense, which is odd because I found it laugh out loud funny, gloriously silly and enjoyably twisted. Maybe I'm just a sicko, but I don't think I'm alone because the whole cinema was rocking with laughter....apart from the couple who didn't find it funny at all and walked out because it was all getting a bit too much. It's that sort of film.

But here's the thing. I don't think we were laughing because it was bad and I don't think we were laughing because it was "so bad it's good"...although there are elements of that. I think we were laughing because we were supposed to be laughing....no matter how uncomfortable that might feel. This is blacker than black comedy which flip flops all over the place but is so deliriously fun you can't help yourself. It's proper big belly laughs time, proper crying with laughter time. How much of this "humour" was intentional is open for debate (I'd say 90% intended) but let's just say I'm giving director Eli Roth and actor Keanu Reeves the benefit of the doubt because this was the most fun I've had at the cinema in a long time.

Keanu Reeves (for it is he) plays Evan, an architect living the perfect life. He lives in a perfect designer house, has a perfect beautiful artist wife and beautiful loving children. You kind of hate him already.

Unfortunately he has a shoulder injury which means he is celebrating Father's day weekend alone in the house whilst the rest of the family are on vacation. Left to his own devices he cranks up his hipster vinyl music collection really loud and ponders whether to partake in some recreational drugs. Suddenly there is a knock at the door.

Two gorgeous, rain-soaked, scantily-clad lovelies are on his doorstep and they're all lost...poor things. What's a man to do? Before you can say "shut the door on the Manson family psycho bitches" they have ingratiated themselves into his house and are coming on strong to him. He calls them a cab but by the time it arrives he's already giving in to their siren call. There's a threesome in the shower and the cab leaves without its passengers. A night of lust follows...and you just know Evan is going to end up paying a big price for the transgression.

Come the morning, the girls are still there, having breakfast, making a right old mess and feeding the family dog bad food. That's right, Keanu has a dog (called 'Monkey') just like in 'John Wick' and you're pretty sure that it will come to a bad end, provoking action-movie badass Keanu to take over and seek his bloody revenge. But this is not John Wick and this is not the way things pan out here.

Up to this point the film has been played straight, a real slow burn of tension, but it now starts to make you feel uncomfortable. The film really sticks a fork into those modern pressure points of how to deal with unwelcome guests, how to deal with confrontation and, in this instance, how to deal with women who might have an agenda beyond just being a porn fantasy. He asks them to leave. They don't. They make fun of him. They start trashing the place, including defacing his wife's (admittedly bloody awful) art and pretty soon he's all for strangling one of them. He says he's going to call the police. They say they'll cry rape. Matters escalate and when his nasty misogynist side comes out they agree to leave and he drives them to a house in the suburbs and speeds away.

Later that same day there is another knock on the door.....

All of which has primed you for a really nasty, really intense home invasion thriller. Which it is. But it also takes a U-turn and becomes....whatever it is that 'Knock Knock' becomes, which is part black comedy, part satire, part twisted sit-com and plays out like a sort of 'Home Alone' for adults. It becomes sicker and sicker and funnier and funnier. It is mad genius I tell you. Just wonderful, perverse, bonkers fun.

And then there is Keanu. We need to talk about Keanu. We might need to reassess Keanu.

Remember Keanu of a few decades ago? The tortured, misunderstood artist who just wanted to play Hamlet or be in a rock 'n'roll band but had the misfortune to keep getting cast in some of the most successful films of the day. What happened to that Keanu? Post 'The Matrix' films he struggled to find his feet and struggled to find another big hit ('Constantine', 'A Scanner Darkly, 'The Day The Earth Stood Still') but he now seems happy and contented to appear in any old genre shit that comes his way: '47 Ronin', 'John Wick' and now this. All of which means he's making some really odd choices, some really odd films and it has to be said some really interesting ones. I can't imagine any of his more bankable leading-man peers taking on the same role in 'Knock Knock' and having such a fun time with it. As Evan, Keanu spends most of the second half of the movie being humiliated, strapped to a chair and tortured. He's incompetent, un-heroic and pretty much a total tool throughout. He has panties stuffed in his mouth, is forced into incest role-playing games and has to say lines like  "no, please don't tell my wife you both sucked my cock!" It's hard to imagine many A-listers subjecting themselves to that and hoping to walk away unscathed. But somehow Keanu manages it. Maybe it's because it's just impossible to look at him without imagining he's going to exclaim "whoah!" at any given moment.

In 'Knock Knock' Reeves seems to be deliberately playing with his screen persona like never before. I think. He could just be bad. Or having a mental breakdown or something. But I choose to believe that Keanu is fully aware of what he's doing and having a ball with it because nobody can be that wooden, that blank and that bad at swearing after thirty years in the business without some level of self awareness can they? I mean, I've seen good Keanu acting ('Point Blank', 'Speed', 'Parenthood', 'River's Edge' etc) and I've seen bad Keanu acting ('Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula', 'Johnny Mnemonic' etc) but I've never seen anything as jaw dropping as his performance in this. This is something to behold. We are blessed to be alive in such times.

Imagine Keanu doing a really bad impersonation of somebody doing a really bad impersonation of Keanu and you're still not even close. I've never seen anybody unable to even swear convincingly before. I have now. Keanu has a sweary angry rant at his attackers whilst strapped to a chair...for like a minute or something. It is the funniest thing I have seen in years. I think I'm now a little bit in love with Keanu. The daft bastard.

You're just never sure where you are with this film. Are you laughing at it or laughing with it? Is it laughing at you? All of these things apply. You've got to hand it to director Eli Roth for blurring the lines and messing with expectations and for coaxing Keanu into this madness.  He's a director who divides opinion but I liked the 'Hostel' films and "get" their black humour. All of his films tend to build to an elaborate joke ending and 'Knock Knock' is no exception. There is a "knock knock" joke payoff but there is an even better joke at the climax. It's hilarious and a bang up to date comment on our obsession with, and our fears about social media. *Like*.

It's also interesting that the film gets to have its cake and eat it too in that it is a morality fable but it also doesn't let Evan off the hook. This is not "Fatal Attraction'. There is no conservative reassurance and return to normality here. You get the sense that Roth enjoys baiting highbrow critics and this certainly plays around with on-trend debates about sexual politics in film.  None of it gets in the way of your enjoyment.

I've not seen 'Ted 2'. I'm never going to see 'Ted 2' but I can tell you that 'Knock Knock' is a funnier, more relevant, more satirical film than 'Ted 2' could ever hope to be. It's a glorious, surprising, confusing mess of a movie; a WTF? movie that I already want to see again and almost certainly my B-movie fave of the year. It was not a dream.

Go see it if you're brave enough.

I Survived 'Survivor'

It's taken me a while to get around to reviewing 'Survivor' even though I saw it a week or so ago; I've just not thought about it much since. It's that sort of film.

If Hitchcock was alive today he'd be making films like 'Survivor'. It's an espionage thriller in which a falsely accused murder suspect goes on the run, plays cat and mouse with a ruthless enemy and everything builds to a suspenseful finale in a memorable location.

Not that I'm saying that 'Survivor' approaches the level of the great auteur; clearly not. This is just a bit of cinematic fluff to pass the time featuring Milla Jovovich and Pierce Brosnan. It's not 'North By Northwest'; it's not even 'Topaz' or 'Torn Curtain'. I make the comparison only to illustrate that this is the sort of film that studios used to make all the time. This updating of the formula is perfectly serviceable for what it is. It's strange that it has been so savaged across the board by reviewers. It doesn't pretend to be anything other than a lightweight thriller and if you stumbled across it on a movie channel you'd probably stick with it. It's not a very good film, but it's not a turkey. It's a liitle bit more cinematic and slightly more enjoyable than the 'Spooks' movie that was out not so long ago. If this was a Bruce Willis vehicle it would probably have it's fans.

Milla Jovovich is Kate Abbott an American Foreign Service Officer stationed in London. She rides a motorbike, she lost friends in 9/11 and has an artist friend and....um....well....that's it. What a fascinating, complex character she is. We know she's super great at her job because we see her in action refusing to give someone a visa stamp. It's exciting stuff.

Pierce Brosnan plays the world's greatest assassin: The Watchman. He's called The Watchman because he makes bombs....and....get this...makes watches. No wonder Interpol have failed to find him. No one knows what he looks like....despite him looking like Pierce Brosnan. He wears an overcoat, fiddles with gadgets and occasionally wears glasses and/or a moustache. What a fascinating, complex character he is. We know he's the world's greatest assassin because we're told that he is....but all we see him do is make bombs that kill innocent people and miss his targets at close range with alarming regularity. He does stab someone in the ear. It's exciting stuff.

Kate asks too many questions, steps on too many toes and refuses too many visas. The bad guys decide that she has to go. The Watchmaker is summarily despatched to assassinate her. But his cunning plan to blow her and her Embassy co-workers up in a swanky restaurant goes awry because.....she's buying a gift in the shop opposite. The restaurant blows sky high anyway and it is only when The Watchman (a master assassin remember) finds Kate standing in the rubble that he thinks that maybe shooting her would be the best option. He misses and so the chase is on.

Everybody that you think is going to be a double crossing traitor turns out to be a double crossing traitor and pretty soon Kate is framed for murder and running for her life. This forces her to fall back on ingenious spy craft like asking her only friend in London to meet her at a rendezvous with a change of clothes. Before you know it she's being chased through the Underground and trying to break in to her own workplace.

And then some gubbins about terrorists wanting to blow up New York on New Year's Eve or summat.

All in all it's rubbish.... but it's enjoyable rubbish.

Milla Jovovich is an okay actress but is completely charisma free in this. Brosnan has clearly been cast to play against type and give the Watchmaker an aura of "Bond gone bad". He's just bad; a ludicrous unthreatening villain. Robert Forster again makes you wonder how Tarantino managed to get a first rate performance out of him in 'Jackie Brown' because he's clearly just on auto-pilot again here. Bizarrely, Frances de la Tour is in it and she's always good....so that's something.

'Survivor' then: implausible, barely competent but still enjoyable and definitely the best Pierce Brosnan abseiling down a stairwell whilst shooting at lamps film you are ever likely to see.

One Of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing. 'Jurassic World'.

Twenty two years on, Jurassic Park has re-branded as Jurassic World but it is still a health and safety nightmare. Even before Chris Pratt can finish a risk assessment of the latest top secret attraction's paddock, Indominus Rex has escaped. The corporations have moved in and money is now the principal motive behind everything. Jaded and unimpressed tourists are demanding bigger, nastier, more ferocious attractions and the geneticists have been more than obliging; engineering a designer dinosaur - the very beast that's now free and killing for sport. Meanwhile, the velociraptors can be trained (but not tamed) and are drawing the interest of the military who want to weaponise them for combat zones. There are dinosaurs in the sea and dinosaurs in the air. Two children have gone off-roading and there's a female executive in charge who is too uptight to form meaningful relationships with anyone. What could possibly go wrong?

Oh, just shut up and take my money already!!!!

Yes, 'Jurassic Park' finally gets a decent sequel that manages to be something more than a mediocre cash-in. It's a blast of nostalgia, an exciting thrill ride and a whole lot of smile-on-your-face fun. It's not as well crafted as the original and it needs Spielberg's special touch to shift it into the exceptional. It struggles to replicate the awe, the showstopper set-pieces and the scares that we remember....but that's only to be expected. It does keep supplying the thrills however and definitely doesn't short change you on dinosaur action.

It's a shame that it is so sexist, it's a shame that the characters are such cardboard cutouts, it's a shame that it takes too long to get started....but strangely, those very elements all add up to give it a lot of old fashioned B-movie charm.  With a little bit more care this could have been a great film. As it stands, it is just a very entertaining one. But you can't really fault a summer blockbuster for being entertaining, can you?

Insidious and Insidiouser. Insidious:Chapter 3

'Insidious' is probably my favourite mainstream horror film of the past five years. When it was released it was a refreshing move away from the torture-porn cycle of films and a return to the more measured, subtle chills of classic horror. It was built on characters we cared about, suspense, a creepy build up of events and some effective sudden jolts. It was a deserved hit  and paved the way for the current vogue for cattle prod cinema.

I have seen 'Insidious 2' but can't remember much about it at all. Something about the cross-dressing ghost of a serial killer, or something. I remember it was quite disappointing.

'Insidious 3' is somewhere in between. It's not as surprising or as engrossing as the first one but it's not a waste of time either.

This one is a prequel of sorts. I'm not quite sure where it fits in the chronology. There's a girl who wears a Pixies t-shirt and has P J Harvey posters on her wall, so I'm guessing its sometime in the mid 1990s but then again the wi-fi is pretty good so who knows? Maybe it's just to show that she's the "alternative" type, although she clearly isn't.

Anyhow, the plot, this time is about a teenage girl who wants to communicate with her dead mother, gets knocked down by a car, has half her soul stolen by "the man who can't breathe, the man who lives in the vents", enlists reluctant psychic Elise to stop the demon stealing the other half of her soul and tries to find the time to rehearse for her drama audition. It's that plot. I think Shakespeare did it first.

On top of all that we have the scary cross-dressing woman in black screaming in people's faces and the horrible Darth Maul-styled demon from the first one relegated to a cameo in the final reel.

The real strength of the 'Insidious' franchise is when it depicts characters crossing over to "the other side". This is something that has always done well by these films and it is truly nightmarish when it starts to happen in this one. This film is at its best when it focuses on Elise the psychic lady as she wanders into the various levels of the spiritual abyss within which the demons live. Those scenes have genuine power and come close to a David Lynch like level of menace and surrealism. It helps that Lin Shaye is a really good actress and that we really don't want any harm to come to Elise.

I tried hard, but wasn't really that bothered by the other parts of the story. The film seemed to take forever to get started. Now, I don't mind horror films taking their time, actually I like it in fact, but when you spend the first twenty minutes of the movie building up to a "big scare" that's been telegraphed for months in the trailer it becomes a bit of a chore. Once it kicks in properly though the film is pretty good with lots of suspense, a few unnerving moments and big jump scares that actually are scares rather than false alarms.

There's a new monster introduced into this one: "The man who can't breathe". I'm not sure about this. "The man who leaves messy footprints everywhere" would be a more accurate moniker. At times it's a really, really, creepy creation but for the most part it's just not. His actions are certainly horrible. There's a strong scene where the victim lies defenceless on the floor of a room whilst this horror slowly, methodically shuts down all the light sources in the room. At other times it just looks like a shuffling patient who has lost his way in a hospital corridor; it's Darth Vader in a night gown. Overall he just seems a blander adversary to overcome in comparison to the foes faced in the other instalments.

One of my complaints about Chapter 2 was that there was too much explanation, too much backstory for what remained more frightening as an unknowable force of evil. Hypocritically, I would have like more information about who "the man who can't breathe" was. Why does he make people commit suicide? Why does he vomit up dust? Was he an asbestos engineer? is he related to the Mothman?

But....as much I can find ways to knock "Insidious: Chapter 3' I have to admit that it was still a hundred times better than 'Annabelle' or 'The Conjuring' or 'The Woman In Black 2". It's a good entry in the series, had some unique moments and is worth seeing if you liked the other ones. The couple behind me upped and left three quarters of the way through because it was becoming too much for them. Always a good measure of success for a horror film when people walk out.

'Insidious 3' is an okay horror. It's not great, but it will do.

'Tomorrowland' Never Comes.

'Tomorrowland' is unquestionably a two hour long commercial for Disneyland....but don't let that put you off, because, here's the thing... it's actually quite good.  It's a refreshingly optimistic, inventive and original movie. It's inspiring, philosophical, has challenging themes and operates on dream logic. In other words - it's box office poison. Reputedly on course to lose Disney something in the region of 140 million dollars. The film has already been dismissed as this year's blockbuster turkey; this year's 'John Carter' or 'The Lone Ranger'.

But here's the thing, I loved 'John Carter' and I loved 'The Lone Ranger' (which I saw in a cinema full of kids who were totally enraptured by it.). It's like Disney are deliberately sending a film out each year just for me. Bless 'em. Whilst I'm not overly concerned for the mouse empire  (they own Marvel and Star Wars amongst other assets so I think they'll be okay) it is a shame that superbly crafted films like these that offer something different can't find an audience. I guess people really do just want an endless succession of big eyed princesses singing show tune ballads and computer animated anthropomorphism.

Essentially the film explores that "Where's my jet-pack?" question. Where's the future of we were promised? Why is the 21st Century not as exciting as science-fiction told us it would be? What went wrong? Who's fault it?

The film provides plenty of answers, sometimes uncomfortable ones and wags it finger a little too much at the audience for it ever to become a hit. But if you're open to it, it's a great ride; entertaining, thrilling and thoughtful. And it shows us the jet packs.....and much more besides.

The plot is difficult film to summarise without making it sound silly and trite. Essentially it's about a teenage girl who comes into possession of a badge (or pin, if you're American) that gives her brief access to 'Tomorrowland', an advanced utopia full of awe and wonder. Interested parties steal the pin from her and she has to team up with grumpy old George Clooney to help her get back there and understand what's going on.

Britt Robertson is wonderful in this. Her heroine is a likeable, believable, girl next door struggling to stop her family from falling apart. She's feisty and capable, without having superhero traits, or teenage angst. She's just able look after herself and is a determinedly glass-half-full kind of person. She doesn't need to rescue a boy, or be rescued by one. There's another girl in this too, played by young actress Raffey Cassidy. She delivers a great performance as a sort of mini child Terminator. Great stuff. In other news, George Clooney is George Clooney and Hugh Laurie is Hugh Laurie. It would have been a more interesting film if their roles had been reversed, but even so, they're both good in this.

The film does lose it's way a little bit in the final act where it becomes a little bit confusing and a little bit repetitive (but that's true of most films these days). There's a fine emotional ending but dramatically it is a bit of a let down. The fault would seem to be with the writing. This is from the same scriptwriter as 'Prometheus' and it is similarly frustrating and great in equal parts. The direction is excellent though. Brad Bird again proves himself a great director of inventive action sequences. There is a "home invasion" scene that is as kinetic and breathless as anything in 'Mad Max:Fury Road'. The 'Tomorrowland' he creates is full of cinematic magic. It does the job of making you wish that this is a place you could actually visit.

It's unashamedly a message movie, but it's not heavy handed or patronising. Not to me, anyway. If anything it's like a kids' version of 'Interstellar' and there's nothing wrong with that. I guess it's too "Un-Disney" for most tastes. It certainly seems to too "socialist", too "green party wacko", too "lefty" for Americans to take. It is of course none of those things, just an impassioned plea for personal responsibility, optimism and change  - served up with some stunning eye candy.

I don't suppose Disney will make anything like it again. I don't suppose anyone will. A shame.

Christopher Lee. 1922-2015

Christopher Lee was Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, Sherlock Holmes, Fu Manchu and Rasputin. He was a Bond villain, a Star Wars villain, Saruman and Lord Summerisle. He sang opera and heavy metal. He served in the SAS and his war record is still classified. He was prolific and appeared in films of variable quality but I have never read a bad word about him. He was a true gentleman and impossibly cool and is woven forever into our collective memory. A fond farewell to Christopher Lee. 1922-2015.