The Impossible

The Impossible represents the first real attempt to deal with 2004's Boxing Day tsunami in film. Despite being a Spanish production, it follows a Hollywood pattern of being very anglo-centric - the focus is squarely on western holiday-makers caught up in the tragedy rather than the locals having their countryside devastated and the Spanish family whose true story this is based upon have been morphed into a very English one.

Those gripes aside, the film is actually very successful. Director Juan Antonio Bayona (whose last film was Spanish horror The Orphanage) and his screenwriters grasp that the best way to convey something of  the scale of the disaster is actually focus small, to view everything through the eyes of the one family separated by the waves and unsure if each other are alive or dead, and the emotions they go through and the sometimes questionable choices they make. Which is not to say that this is a small film - the moment when the tsunami hits and the immediate aftermath as Naomi Watts' mother and her eldest son are swept miles inland is one of the most powerful and bravura pieces of film-making you're likely to see this year.

In fact Bayona handles both the small emotional scenes and the big action ones with consumate skill, from the opening use of noise over a blank screen to create an atmosphere of apprehension. However, there is one emotional blow when mother and son have reached that hospital that I'm unsure of - I don't know if it was something that really happened to the Spanish family, but if invented by the film-makers feels like an emotional twist/manipulation for dramatic effect that the film doesn't really need.

The cast are also superb - Ewan McGregor more sympathetic and less irritating than he's been for a while and Watts is superb, but the real star is 16 year old Tom Holland who shoulders much of the emotional weight of the film in very convincing fashion. A great future awaits him if he continues like this.

Overall - 8/10 A very powerful, well acted and well put together film with an early contender for one of the sequences of the year.

Quartet

Quartet is a slightly odd choice for Dustin Hoffman's solo debut in the director's chair, being as it is such a very English movie. Aiming squarely for the same audience as last year's Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, the film is set in a retirement home for retired musicians and centres around 4 retired opera singers, two of whom used to be married before it ended disastrously. Together they must perform the quartet from Rigoletto in order to raise the money to keep the home open.

As a director, Hoffman is a steady hand and makes good use of his stately setting, displaying a good eye for framing a shot. He also, unsurprisingly, pulls some good performances from his cast. Maggie Smith is essentially playing the same part as in Marigold down to the same accent and same need for a hip replacement, but is as watchable and moving as ever, but the real class here is added by a brilliant turn from Tom Courtenay as her ex-husband. It is there relationship that provides the film with its heart.

The Quartet is rounded off by the more comic notes of a flirtatious Billy Connolly, who has moments but becomes a bit wearisome, and Pauline Collins, whose character comes to close to taking cheap laughs from the onset of dementia for my tastes. Hoffman wisely decides against actually having his stars sing, but fills out the rest of the cast with real musicians and singers and Michael Gambon is on good form as the irascible producer in charge of matters.

Rather like its ageing stars, the film is pleasant company, but somewhat slow and lacking drama. It fails to reach either the laughs or the emotion of the Marigold Hotel.

Overall - 6/10 More a gently pleasant chorus than a stirring aria. Likeable and entertaining, but somewhat lacking in other areas.

Men In Black III

This is a rather belated threequel, coming a full decade after the crushingly disappointing  part 2. The question is can it recapture the fun and the chemistry of the highly entertaining original. The answer is only partially - the film is nowhere as good as you might hope but it is at least better than you feared it might have been following part 2.

The film starts promisingly enough, introducing the villain, Boris the Animal (Flight of the Conchords' Jermaine Clement) in an escape from a lunar prison. At first glance Boris seems an appropriate villain who offers both weirdness and a sense of menace, but after the initial set-up Boris seems to fizzle out as a character apart from one or two moments (including an argument with himself) a by the finale totally fails to live up to his billing as a major threat.

Then there is the plot - which features Will Smith's J heading back in time to stop Boris killing off his partner, Tommy Lee Jones's K before they even met. The film keeps promising answers to questions such as why K is so grumpy and why only J can remember him in the present, without ever delivering satisfactory answers. Then the film commits the epic fail when it comes to time travel movies and finishes as a complete paradox loop whereby the ending totally negates the beginning which in turn negates everything else in the film including the ending, so none of it really works. That is bad plotting.

The other weakness of the film is Tommy Lee Jones, who seems far too old for this shit and clearly can't be bothered and even Smith seems tired and jaded in his company. This actually makes the films' biggest gamble of ditching Jones for most of its running time it's biggest success, as Josh Brolin playing the younger K gives a pitch perfect Tommy Lee Jones and is actually here far superior to the original. Smith appears to perk up when playing off him.

Elsewhere, Emma Thompson shows her comic skills as Agent O and Michael Stuhlbarg is good value as an alien who simultaneous sees many possible universes and timelines. There are also some good moments, such as Smith's speech after being pulled over by the police in the 60s. However, most doesn't hold up to too close an inspection.

Overall - 6/10 Entertaining in parts, but patchily so.

Avengers Assemble

After years of build up through several movies, Marvel's Avengers movie (now called Avengers Assemble which is almost inviting the sequel in the title) is finally here. It arrives carrying a weight of expectation that few films could live up to.

Marvel have made a few smart choices in their recruiting for this film. Firstly, in Joss Whedon they have a director and screenwriter who is used to managing large ensemble casts (Buffy/Angel and Serenity/Firefly) and giving each character their own arcs and moments to shine. He manages all the characters who've capably led their own films well as well as incorporating the newer characters (Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye and Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow). So Robert Downey Jr's Iron Man is allowed to steal all the limelight (or even all the best lines) and this feels like a true ensemble piece - even Samuel L Jackson's Nick Fury and Clark Gregg's Agent Coulson are given their share.

The socond success is Mark Ruffalo as the third recent big screen attempt at the Hulk. Following Eric Bana's interesting attempt and Edward Norton's largely unsuccessful, Ruffalo is a great fit for Bruce Banner and finally makes the big green monster work for the big screen (plus he gets one of the best lines in the film).

The villain also works well with Tom Hiddleston's Loki returning from Thor to provide menace combined with wit and intelligence. If there's a disappointment it's that his much vaunted army of aliens are rather unimpressive - some of the visuals are good, but overall they're a bit characterless and end up as rather anonymous cannon fodder. The other main weakness is that there's maybe just a wee bit too much of the ego-clashing and fighting each other from the good guys before they actually gel - maybe one or two punch-ups too many. It does however produce a beautiful pay off in the closing battle with one particular Thor-Hulk moment.

Otherwise watch for some entertaining action, witty dialogue, a strong ensemble cast, some interesting interrrogation techniques by Black Widow and surprise early exit for one of more minor, but loved, characters. 

The Avengers has been an interesting cinematic experiment - building up over several years with different characters in separate films. The build-up has been mixed, ranging from the surprisingly impressive (Iron Man) to the disappointingly messy (The Incredible Hulk). The payoff is well worth it though- a thoroughly entertaining spectacle that comes very close to meeting expectations.

Overall - 8/10 With new offerings on the horizon from the big three superheroes (Superman, Batman, Spiderman), Marvel's team effort has set the bar quite high.

Lockout

Lockout is the latest Luc Besson production (based on his own "original" idea) and he's got tired of having Liam Neeson beat people up and has returned to the world of sci-fi. He leaves the direction to relative newcomers Stephen St Leger and James Mather.

I say "original" because there is actually little original in the whole set up. The central premise - a rogue agent (Guy Pearce) is sent on a mission to a space prison in full revolt in order to rescue the president's daughter (Maggie Grace) - is basically Escape From New York in space. Once actually in the prison, the action becomes Die Hard in space with all the politcal conspiracy subplots of 24  in space, before a finale which just gives up and decides to be Star Wars and the attack on the Death Star.

Lockout is not a good film. It's stuffed full of cliches, far too many sub-plots for its own good and none of the action actually makes all that much sense - bits of dialogue seem inserted to make sense of what is about to happen, rather than relating to what has just happened which is what is ostensibly being discussed. And could somebody please explain to me why when people jump from a space station in space they fall? And why they don't burn up when they re-enter the atmosphere?

No, Lockout is not a good film, but it really quite enjoyable. (In other words it's a typical Luc Besson film). This is helped in no small part by a fantastically dry and sardonic turn by Guy Pearce who hogs most of the best lines, but also enjoys some good banter with a surprisingly unirritating Maggie Grace. Vincent Regan and Joseph Gilgun also add good value as the Scottish (of course) psychopaths who take over the prison.

Overall - 6.5/10 A true guilty pleasure - there's a lot wrong with this film, but it's still very enjoyable.

The Cold Light of Day

There are some action films where you leave feeling that it would have been a decent film if only somebody had shot the cameraman early on in proceedings, or at least given him some tranquilisers. The Cold Light of Day is not one of those films for two reasons - (1) I doubt you'll get more than thirty minutes in without wishing something nasty before whoever is responsile for the unbearably shaky visuals on the screen and (2) even without the migraine-inducing camerawork this would still be a bad film.

Will (Henry Cavill) is on holiday with his family in Spain when he returns to their boat to find them missing. Going to the police seems to land him in more trouble, until his dad (Bruce Willis) turns up to sort things out, tell his son he's really a CIA agent and then promptly get shot, leaving Will to try and put all the pieces together, aided by some Spanish girl he picks up along the way who turns out not to be the romantic interest (thankfully, given one of the plot twists) and by this point I'd given up caring enough to bother with much more of a plot summary.

On the positive side - Henry Cavill shows some potential as at least watchable in the leading role, let's just hope Superman gives him more decent material to work with. And Sigourney Weaver makes for a badass villain at times. And that's about it. Bruce Willis looks like he can't really be bothered. There are so many continuity errors and nonsensical plot twists that you'll be continually scratching your head and going 'If they really are that, then why are they doing that? And more importantly, why should I care?'

Overall - 4.5/10 A good case study in how not to make a thriller, the most entertaining aspect of watching this film is spotting all the things wrong with it.

The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games is the latest big screen adaptation from a successful series of teen-lit, but don't let that put you off. Unlike many, it's actually both an entertaining film and a genuinely cinematic one.

Whilst the plot has a definite debt to the likes of Battle Royale (outlying districts are each required to provide two youngsters each year to compete in a contest to the death for the entertainment of the rich capital) the setting also owes something to Metropolis in its distinction between rich and poor.

Our hero is Katniss (the excellent Jennifer Lawrence combining her steeliness from Winter's Bone with the action elements of some of her other roles) who volunteers in order to save her little sister. She's joined from her district by Josh Hutcherson (not bad but the weakest link in the film), who is secretly in love with her, whilst she has her own fellow back in the district. These emotional sub-plots remain just that - they add depth to the action, but unlike certain other teen franchises don't swamp it.

The action within the games remains firmly 12A certificate so as not to alienate the target audience as Katniss fights for survival against the specially trained volunteers from the richer districts. Meanwhile, outside the arena, we are shown the manouevring and conspiring to provide a spectacle whilst remaining in control. The adult cast is very strong with particularly good turns from Woody Harrelson as the drunken mentor to Lawrence and Hutchison and from Donald Sutherland as the cynically manipulative president.

At the end of the day the satiric points about violence as entertainment and the use of the media to enable to control, etc... are not very subtle, but crucially the story and the film are entertaining and thrilling enough to bear the load.

Overall - 8/10 What it may lack in originality it makes up for in being so well done throughout that it still feels fresh. A genuinely good film.

Delicacy

Delicacy is the latest "quirky" French film starring Audrey Tautou. She plays Nathalie, who we see in the opening 10 minutes meet, fall in love with and marry the love of her life, Francois. Then he's killed in a road accident whilst out jogging and Nathalie starts to lose her way. Unfortnately so does the film.

It starts with the heavy-handed voice-over at the funeral - "what if I freeze this moment and wall myself up in my grief". We're about to be shown her doing this for the next half an hour, we don't need her spelling it out for us. Then the film can't really decide what it wants to be. It's been marketed as a sort of rom-com and it has elements of that as Nathalie years later rediscovers love through the affections of the unlikely Marcus (Francois Damiens). And the film has moments of humour and moments where it tries to touch on the deep emotions involved both for Nathalie overcoming her grief and for Marcus overcoming his shy clumsiness. However, the moments when it successfully manages to merge these into a coherent film are few and far between.

The main problem seems to be with Damiens' character and how the film treats him. Damiens was the comic-relief sidekick to Romain Duris in Heartbreaker and was great at it. The problem is that the directors here seem to want him now to be both comic relief and romantic lead, which is a very difficult balance to find and they miss it by quite a margin  by going for a humour that is too broad and makes Marcus look too ridiculous for them to then be able to find pathos in the character when it is required. Part of the point of the film seems to be an encouragement to look deeper than the surface awkwardness and lack of looks, but that is kind of undermined when we are also asked to laugh repeatedly at just that awkwardness.

Still, the film has some good moments and Tautou is as watchable as ever, although we've seen her do this role many times before.

Overall - 5.5/10 It has some funny moments and some moments of feeling, but all too few moments when they combine successfully.
 

21 Jump Street

Have a few film reviews to catch up with here. So, starting with 21 Jump Street, the latest in the conveyor-belt of big-screen adaptations from long past TV series. To be honest, I don't remember the series being that much of a thing in the UK, but it did lauch the career of a certain Johnny Depp.

As is tranditional in these adaptations, it features the obligatory cameo by the star of the TV series - although in this case it is one of the highlights of the film and wins extra marks for having Depp on the screen for some time before you realise it's actually him.

The film as a whole keeps the central idea of cops going undercover in High School and then just tries to have a laugh with it. The humour varies hugely from some quite witty and "meta" cleverness about reviving old programmes from the 80s and passing them off as new to appear clever. Most of it however is very broad humour (at times going way too far), however it is done with such an endless enthusiasm and energy that it will probably get you laughing for at least some of the running time. It's just that afterwards you might feel a bit embarasssed about laughing at it.

Channing Tatum proves a surprisingly reliable comic hand as one of the cops, whilst Jonah Hill is on less irritating than usual form as his partner. However, it's Ice Cube as the angry black lieutenant ("embrace your stereotypes") who comes close to stealing the whole film.

Overall - 6/10  Done with lots of energy and enthusiasm and the odd moment of inspiration. It's a bit hit and miss, but could be worse.
 

The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists.

Pirates! marks Aardman's first claymation film since 2005's Wallace and Gromit outing, following the luke-warm success of their digital animation efforts (Flushed Away and Arthur Christmas, both of which were rather enjoyable and underrated IMHO). But this is Aardman back on their own territory and back on great form.

There is something very British about the whole effort - from small visual gags including a Blue Peter badge to the overall silly and anarchic sense of humour that owes at least some of its comic DNA to the likes of Monty Python (the illustrated map journeys are at least somewhat reminiscent of Terry Gilliam's illustrated interludes).

There's also much here to love - from the character names that part inspired, part lazy (Pirate Captain, Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate, Pirate with Gout) to the visuals that feels both homemade and impressive at the same time to the more clever and subtle gags about Darwin's theory of evolution. There are moments of genius in the mix - like the monkey who speaks through the medium of speech cards.

The voice cast is strong (Brendan Gleeson, Martin Freeman, Imelda Staunton, David Tennant) but special praise should go to an almost unrecognisable Hugh Grant who brings something special to the Pirate Captain.

Overall - 8.5/10 The whole film is filled with such an inventive and exuberant sense of fun that it will keep you laughing right through the closing credits.

Contraband

Contraband is just about as predictable as you might expect from the trailer, but is also surprisingly more enjoyable than expected. It also confirms the recent dearth of Hollywood creativity in genres they once ruled, as this film which feels so American is actually a remake of Icelandic thriller Reykjavik Rotterdam.

Mark Wahlberg plays Chris Farraday an ex- master smuggler who is forced into the ever familiar one last job in order to extricate his brother-in-law (Caleb Landry-Jones) from a debt to drug dealers (Giovanni Ribisi) he was smuggling. From there on the twists and turns are fairly predictable as three smuggled cargos end up being juggled through a sea of mishaps and betrayals. The film can't really decide what it wants to be - at times there is a real menace to it (especially when Ribisi is threatening Kate Beckinsale (Farraday's wife) in the film's nastiest moments). At other times it goes for a twisty kind of playfulness and at others still for out and out action.

There is a strong cast - but none of them are really stretching themselves - we've seen Wahlberg's blue-collar criminal hero, Ribisi's redneck psycho and Ben Foster's redneck with issues all before. Beckinsale is underused, as is Diego Luna, whilst JK Simmons comes close to stealing the movie as the freighter captain on whose boat the smuggling takes place.

Somehow, though, it all kind of works and director Baltasar Kormakur (who was also producer on the original) keeps things moving quickly enough that you don't have time to think about why nobody notices huge bundles of forged dollars floating in the middle of a major waterway.

Overall - 6.5/10 Solid but predictable genre piece that is surprisingly enjoyable.

John Carter

John Carter marked quite a gamble financially speaking - a $300 million film based on books from the start of the last century, with a lead best (un)known for an underwatched TV series (Friday Night Lights) and a director making his debut in live action films (albeit with a strong track record in Pixar animations with WALL-E and Finding Nemo).

The initial box office returns from the States show that this gamble may not have been entirely successful financially. And that's actually rather a shame, because, despite being heavily dependant on modern special effects, John Carter is actually a rather entertaining movie in a slightly old-fashioned blockbuster kind of way. This shares more cinematic genes with the original Star Wars films than the more modern prequels and is all the better for it.

The story (once you get past the double framing device which only really pays dividends at the end) follows the titular hero as he is accidentally transported to Mars where the much lighter gravity gives him almost super-powers and he gets involved in the ongoing conflict between warring tribes. It's hardly ground-breaking stuff, but director Andrew Stanton brings at least some of the visual flair from his Pixar works and creates an exciting vision of life on Mars, but also some of the humour, making this a fun watch. Taylor Kitsch shows that he has potential as a leading man, even if he's not quite the finished article yet. Elsewhere Mark Strong does another pleasing bad-guy, Dominic West is still playing McNulty and James Purefoy is clearly enjoying himself too much, but the end result is a really rather enjoyable film.

Overall - 7/10 State of the art, but rather old-fashioned in feel makes for an entertaining watch.

Safe House

Safe House, from relative unknown director Daniel Espinosa, desperately wants to be a Bourne-style spy-thriller. It has the visuals, certainly, having cleverly pinched Bourne's cinematographer, and the exotic location (Cape Town in this instance). However, it lacks Bourne's smarts and cohesiveness.

Tobin Frost (Denzel Wahington) is a rogue CIA-agent and expert in psychological warfare/interrogation, etc... In order to escape people who are after him, he turns himself in to the US consulate and soon finds himself being interrogated in a safe house run by bored but ambitious operative Ryan Reynolds. Within minutes the safe house is hit and the pair are on the run across the city and surrounding countryside to evade the bad guys, the CIA and each other.

The story-line from there on in is all rather predictable - you can see who the bad guy at Langley is a mile away. The action holds up fairly well though and makes for an entertaining watch. Washington is on cruise-control, but then again Denzel on cruise control is more watchable than many actors on full throttle. The problem is that the character never feels fully developed. If you make your central character an expert on psychologically manipulating others then you need to expect that their every move will be scrutinized. Frost doesn't bear up to the scrutiny - there is one point where he apparrently clumsily gives a massive clue as to where Reynolds might be able to find him later, perhaps suggesting that maybe he wants to be caught and that there's more going on here than the obvious motivations, but these hints are never developed and the character ends up neither one thing nor another.

Washington does pull a decent performance from Reynolds, who is a frustrating actor who occasionally shows glimpses that he's capable of more (Buried, The Nines) but too often coasts through poor material on the strength of charm alone. Elsewhere a strong supporting cast is essentially wasted, especially true in the case of Vera Farmiga underused in a role very similar to her one in Source Code.

Overrall - 6/10 Entertaining action flick that could and should have had more to offer.

Star Wars Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace in 3D

Revisiting the most disappointing movie in the history of cinema (although not necessarily the worst) many years on. First thing to say is that for once the 3D actually works. The iconic opening crawl of text going up the screen is surely the kind of thing 3D was made for and is undeniably cool. The 3D also enhances the most thrilling visual sequences of the film, like the pod race.

What it doesn't do is hide the films many shortcomings. Like the dreadfully, exposition laden script, some of worst crowd acting ever and the leads not much better, the overly convoluted plot and of course, Jar Jar - a cinematic crime so horrendous that not even double ended light-sabers can redeem the film. There is some fun to be had spotting the before-she-was-famous Keira Knightly and wondering if Jake Lloyd ever recovered from the trauma of growing up to be Hayden Christensen, but overall time has done nothing to improve the film (although the visual effects still hold up well). The one consolation - it was still better than Episode II!

Overall -5/10 The 3D works, the film still disappoints though.

Rampart

Woody Harrelson really has come a long way since Cheers. Rampart marks his second collaboration with director Oren Moverman. Last time, with Iraq-war film The Messenger they received much critical acclaim, an Oscar nomination for Harrelson, and a worldwide audience of around 10 people.

Rampart is possibly Harrelson's best performance of his career, but it's neither an easy character or an easy film to like. He plays Dave Brown, a corrupt, racist cop caught on camera using excessive force on a subject in the midst of the Rampart corruption scandal of the late 90s and the film charts his decline into ever increasing paranoia as he fights to clear his name whilst alienating all those close to him.

It is both a strength and a weakness of the film that we are so tied up with Brown and his point of view that there is little space to work out to what extent he might be being set-up or scapegoated and to what extent he is becoming delusional. The skill of Harrelson's performance is to make a character who is never likeable, engaging enough for the audience to bear with for the running time. He even manages to bring pathos to scenes where his daughters come to visit only to leave pretty immediately.

Harrelson is aided by a strong supporting cast - Sigourney Weaver, Steve Buscemi, Anne Heche, Robin Wright and Ice Cube all play minor roles well, but this is Harrelson's movie. It's not perfect, there are scenes that feel unnecessary and confusing, but maybe that is an illustration of Brown's state of mind, and there's maybe not quite enough story to sustain the character.

Overall - 7/10 A very strong central performance and a challenging film, but maybe not enough to it to be great.

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island

Being the sequel to Journey to the Centre of the Earth, the 2008 version. Journey 1 got by on being one of the very first of the new wave of 3D films, which at least created enough interest in the effects to get over the seriously wobbly story and allow Brendan Fraser's charm to carry the audience the rest of the way through the dodgy CGI.

In Jouney 2 gone is the novelty factor, Brendan Fraser and the woman nobody remembers. Remaining are angsty Josh Hutcherson, the central idea that the novels of Jules Vernes were actually real life accounts and the basis for modern day expeditions (this time they throw Swift and Stevenson into the mix for good measure), and the dodgy CGI and plot holes. Added to the mix are Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, Michael Caine and Luiz Guzman all competing to be the comedy sidekick and Vanessa Hudgens as Hutcherson's romantic interest.

The Mysterious Island is not without its funny moments - Johnson and Caine do their best to enliven things and there are some nice touches, like the miniature elephants and the ruined city of Atlantis, but overall the film still feels too reliant on the same 3D trickery that made the first one a success, but without the novelty factor its not enough to cover over the plot holes - like every time there's a problem, Johnson will suddenly turn out to be an expert in something really handy (including bizarrely enough soil liquefaction and summarising the plot in song for those who dozed off). And why is it when the island has been rising and sinking quite happily for millenia is this occasion so cataclysmic. And how do all the weird animals and insects survive two hundred years at the bottom of the ocean. And how in the name of genetics could Hudgens possibly be Guzman's daughter?

Overall - 5.5/10  This franchise has hopefully run its course now.

The Muppets

I was never a huge Muppets fan as a child (or indeed as an adult) so I approached this film (good reviews not withstanding) with no real expectations. I left the cinema having laughed more than i had at any film for quite a while.

The plot, such as it is, is rather inconsequential. Gary (Jason Segal), his girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams) and brother Walter (who happens to be a puppet, for reasons that are never explored, thankfully) go on a trip to LA. Whilst there they uncover a plot by dastardly oil baron Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) to tear down the Muppet studio, so get the Muppets back together to put on a telethon to save the studio.

As a story, its both predictable and full of inexplicable holes, but that's the Muppets. The joy here is that after a slightly slow start, it keeps hitting the right notes comically. The laughs keep on coming - from the 80s robot, the sight of Oscar winner Copper rapping, travelling by map, gathering the gang by montage to save time, Animal's anger therapy, Emily Blunt reprising her Devil Wears Prada  role as Miss Piggy's assistant, a nice final gag with the telethon scoreboard and so on. The laughs keep coming.

The human cast are also good - Segal and Adams go a long way to confirming their position as the nicest people in Hollywood (even as their love story plays second fiddle to that of Kermit and Piggy), Cooper is a delightful bad guy, Jack Black and Zach Galifianakis haven't been in anything this funny for a long time. The decidedly quirky edge of Flight of the Conchords Brett Mckenzie also proves to be a great fit for the songs.

The bonus is a delightful Toy Story short film from Pixar at the start, which would almost be worth the admission price by itself.

Overall - 8/10  Consistently funny in a wonderfully good-hearted way. The Muppets are back!

Man on a Ledge

A man checks into an expensive hotel, eats a meal in his room, wipes his prints off everything and then climbs out the window threatening to jump. There follows a tense psychological will-he won't-he thriller as the police try to talk him down. Except there doesn't, no sooner has the premise been established than the filmmakers loe interest in it and cut away to show you what's really going on (just in case you haven't seen the trailer and already know the plot).

You see the man (Sam Worthington) is an ex-cop and escaped prisoner wrongly framed for stealing a huge diamond from an evil businessman (Ed Harris). Whilst the police negotiator (Elizabeth Banks) tries to talk him down, he's more interested in providing a diversion for his brother (Jamie Bell) and his brother's girlfriend (Genesis Rodriguez) to actually steal the diamond and thereby prove his innocence. As plans go this is maybe not the best thought out. Meanwhile Worthington's ex-partner (Anthony Mackie) is wondering creating questions about whose side he's really on (the only question not really answered by the trailer).

Actually, the constant cutting to a new supposed twist probably works in the films favour - the whole thing is ridiculous and doesn't really bear close examination (not least the huge variations in accent in one family), but by constantly shifting the action it's entertaining enough to keep the audience involved.

Sam Worthington's continued popularity as a leading man rather escapes me. It's not that he stinks as an actor, just that he's rather bland. Fortunately he isn't required to carry the film, and the supporting cast are great - Ed Harris chews the scenery delightfully in the bad guy role, Bell and Rodriguez provide most of the comic relief and William Sadler keeps cropping up in random places.

Overall - 6.5/10 It's nonsense, but quite entertaining nonsense.

This Means War

Tom Hardy and Chris Pine play two best friends who also happen to be spies. Both fall for the same woman (Reese Witherspoon) and end of using the full resources of the CIA in order to win her (or at least stop the other one winning her). The love triangle is hardly a new plot device, but the spy element should add a bit of fun and a bit of action. After all, director McG (however bad his track record on the big screen) has some form in the knockabout spy comedy from TV series Chuck.

Watching the film, it has moments and it has potential, but is overall disappointingly flat. On the fun side, there are definitely laugh out loud funny moments - a few of them were even not included in the trailer - a paintball date and a viewing of Klimt paintings stand out as being amongst the funnier moments. However, as far as the action goes, the spy plot kind of feels crammed in round the edges of the film. Only the final car chase feels really satisfying, with earlier sequences feeling rushed, clumsy and poorly cut.

The characters are largely underwritten, but the cast are game. Witherspoon and Pine are old hands at this kind of thing and gamely give it their all and their side of the triangle is probably the one with the most zing. The usually great Tom Hardy suffers the most. This is partly due the character, who is supposed to be the earnest, straightforward one to Pine's more playboy-ish, the Bourne to his Bond if you will. However, it feels a bit more than that and you can't help the nagging sense that maybe, great actor though he is, he is a little bit miscast here. Certainly the bromance with Pine falters when it should fizz.

Overview - 6/10 There have been a lot worse comedies made. This one has genuinely funny moments, but takes a long time to get going and never really totally loses a slightly flat feel.
 

Martha Marcy May Marlene

As the tongue-twister of a title might suggest, this is a film that raises questions about identity and belonging. It also raises questions about the effects of experience on our perceptions.

Martha is a young woman who has recently left a cult led by the charismatic Patrick (John Hawkes) where she was renamed Marcy May. Now staying with her sister and her husband (Sarah Paulson and Hugh Dancy) at their lake house, she struggles to adapt to 'normality' and what is expected of her.

Relative newcomer Sean Durkin, acting as writer and director, has produced a challenging, but subtly engaging film. The structure switches between Martha at the lakehouse and her surfacing memories of life in the cult, drawing both links and contrasts and leading the audience to deduce the reasons for her behaviour which starts a little out of the ordinary - going swimming without a costume - and becomes gradually more unhinged. Much is left suggested rather than spelt out and Martha remains throughout rather silent on her experiences, whilst some details are foregrounded, others are glimpsed in the back of shots, like a chair propped against a door.

Durkin also marshalls some strong performances. Hawkes is superb as Patrick combining a real charisma with a menacingly sinister edge - watch out for the moment when he gives shooting lessons. The secret weapon here though is a mesmerisingly human and vulnerable performance by an Olsen sister (and that's not a sentence I thought I'd ever be typing). Elizabeth Olsen (younger sister or Mary-Kate and Ashley) is simply brilliant in portraying the traumatised young woman.

Its's never comfortable viewing and it has a deeply ambiguous ending that will divide and frustrate the audience, but it will get you thinking and/or talking.

Overall - 8/10 Challenging and thought0provoking cinema, often beautifully put together and wonderfully acted.