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"Star Trek Into Darkness" Is Bad Star Trek But A Good Actioner (14 May 2013) The 2009 Star Trek film brought a sense of hope back to this moribund franchise that was in serious danger of being left to the annuls of entertainment history. Now with “Star Trek Into Darkness”, I feel as if Star Trek itself is gone, but the franchise will still continue given Abrams’ ability to encourage a younger generation through the turnstiles with lots of explosions, flashy visuals, and shiny things flying around on screen. Everything that was clever in the 2009 film is absent from this noisy and action-packed sequel that manages to work well as a sci-fi action film but is woefully bad as a Star Trek film...

"Iron Man 3" Is Solidly Entertaining, But Routine (1 May 2013) The problem of Hollywood blockbuster films these days being more or less the same despite different directors has finally affected the Iron Man franchise with its third outing. This is particularly surprising given it’s written and directed by Shane Black, a prolific Hollywood screenwriter who is known for witty scripts and dialogue. The story is interesting, the performances are good, with Robert Downey Jr. still at his affable best, but the execution is just the same old too much noise, explosions and computer effects thrown at the screen...

"Olympus Has Fallen" Is Relentlessly Repetitive (25 Apr. 2013) You can easily imagine how the pitch for “Olympus Has Fallen” was made to the studios: “It’s Die Hard in the White House!”. And that’s essentially what it is. It might not have Bruce Willis in the cast, but Gerard Butler of “300” fame is more than tough enough, and witty enough, to meet that challenge as he goes about taking out the bad guys one by one. It’s not that this movie isn’t tense or entertaining, it’s just that we’ve seen it all before...

"Oblivion" Is Gloriously Visual And Intelligent, But Lacks Tension (17 Apr. 2013) During the climax of Joseph Kosinski’s “Oblivion” when all the plot elements were coming together to offer a complete picture of the scenario being depicted in the story, I was reminded of old school science-fiction novels that simultaneously combined an intelligent premise, a futuristic setting and an examination of the human condition. This film may not be setting any high-water marks in this regard, and it definitely lacks a certain amount of dramatic tension throughout, but this film offers so much more than the usual Hollywood shtick...

Watch Bradley And Jennifer Go Bi-Polar In “Silver Linings Playbook” (3 Apr. 2013) A scene in the first third of “Silver Linings Playbook”, all done with looks and camera-work, demonstrates how well a character drama can be told and visualised on screen. When Bradley Cooper’s “Pat” meets Jennifer Lawrence’s “Tiffany” for the first time, there is an instant moment of attraction and appeal between these two characters, as if they know right there and then that they belong together...

"The Croods" Is Fun And Visually Stunning, If Not Innovative (3 Apr. 2013) In an allusion to the earliest human fascination with images, “The Croods” opens to the narration of lead character Eep (voiced by Emma Stone) as she charts the course of her family history. Visually this is done through animated cave paintings that are wonderfully rendered and imaginatively conceived. I’m not sure there isn’t anything too deep to read in to this, but the cave animatic that opens the film is a nice touch. What follows is a fun and visually stunning animated film, complete with the sensibility you would come to expect from a Dreamworks film, but it’s not particularly innovative in any way...

"Oz The Great And Powerful" Serves The Original Wizard Well (19 Mar. 2013) I initially approached Sam Raimi’s prequel to MGM’s legendary musical “The Wizard Of Oz” with a general lack of enthusiasm. Hollywood has gone full force with the prequel/sequel/remake ideology, and hasn’t done a good job of it for the most part. Creating a prequel to such a classic film was always going to be precarious, but for the most part, Raimi and his crew have managed to craft a film with wonderful visuals, some magical fantasy elements, and a number of performances that together make a film that serves the original well...

"Flight" Gives Denzel Washington The Chance To Truly Soar (7 Feb. 2013) One of the most unusual aspects to Robert Zemeckis’ return to live action filmmaking is its adherence to character-based drama. In a world of whiz-bang movies about comic books characters, killer robots, endless special effects scenes and wall-to-wall action, “Flight” reminds us of a time when story and character were more prevalent...

"Safe House" Delivers The Action But Falls Short On Its Potential (23 Jan. 2013) “Safe House” can best be described as being less than the sum of its parts. This film could have been nothing short of amazing if there were less guns and car chases and more of these greyish character moments that are rich with drama and tension...

"Jack Reacher" Is A Cool Crime Thriller, But Tom Cruise Is Mis-Cast In The Lead Role Despite His Best Intentions (9 Jan. 2013) The new film “Jack Reacher”, based on the 9th novel in the series of Jack Reacher novels from Lee Child is in the same vein as those 70s films. Director Christopher McQuarrie has updated it for modern audiences of course, but the unstoppable protagonist who will dispense his own sense of justice is just as present in this film as in those earlier films. This makes the film a lot of fun, but with a modern sensibility, we also get a sense of down-to-earth realism infused in to the piece that helps accentuate the crime mystery elements of the story. Even without the character of Jack Reacher in the film, the story presented is quite engaging...

Not As Rich, But "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" Is A Worthy Addition To Cinematic Tolkien (5 Jan. 2013) I hadn’t read the novel of “The Hobbit” but knew that it was nowhere near as long or deep as “The Lord Of The Rings”. I knew that the film would come up trumps technically given Peter Jackson’s abilities as a filmmaker, so my only curiosity was how he planned to turn a third of a slim novel in to just under three hours of quality cinema...

Good Old Foul-Mouthed Fun With "Ted" (5 Jan. 2013) Watching a foul-mouthed Teddy Bear with the voice of Peter Griffin seems like a formula for comedy gold, and for the most part it is. From the voice-over narration by Patrick Stewart, to Mark Wahlberg’s perfect man-boy performance to Seth MacFarlane’s extremely funny voice performance as the title character, “Ted” is a very funny film...

"Skyfall" Sees The Return Of James Bond (25 Nov. 2012) With “Skyfall”, the Daniel Craig era of the franchise has finally infused elements from the Connery era of films. By the end of “Skyfall”, we can all but expect that subsequent films are going to take on a tone that is more in line with what we remember as opposed to the more modern feel that Bond has taken in the last few films...

Ben Affleck Directs "Argo" With Style And Substance (25 Nov. 2012) “Argo” tells the story of a CIA operation to rescue six hostages during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis by faking the production of large scale Hollywood film and using it as a cover to give the hostages fake identities to escape the country. With the immense substance provided by this material, Affleck effectively sets about telling a seemingly unbelievable tale of how the CIA created an elaborate cover story to get the hostages out of this dire situation...