Because Everybody Else Has One

Neill Blomkamp is clearly a very talented director and he undoubtedly has at least one truly great film in him. Sadly, Elysium ain't it.. It's not just because of the sorry state of the rest of the South African film industry that South Africans - and the rest of the world - reacted so warmly to Neill Blomkamp's first feature film, District 9. It was, to be sure, a fairly flawed film but it wasn't only a well handled piece of science fiction and a smart allegory for apartheid - it also heralded a fresh new voice in genre filmmaking. Blomkamp and its star, Sharlto Copley, may be South African but bigger things clearly awaited them both. Sadly, bigger doesn't always mean better and Blomkamp and Copley's second film together may have a significantly bigger budget than its predecessor and a number of A-list Hollywood actors but it has little of District 9's charm, smarts and ingenuity. Again, Blomkamp turns his attention to allegorical science fiction but...

Don't worry, neither woman is nearly as terribly photoshopped in the movie as they are in the poster. Also up at Channel 24 . What it's about A cocky but uptight FBI officer (Sandra Bullock) is paired up with a coarse, unconventional Boston cop (Melissa McCarthy) who need to overcome their differences if they are to take down a ruthless, but mysterious, drug lord. What we thought Reaching back to old fashioned buddy cop films like Lethal Weapon and Bad Boys, The Heat is a very conventional, slightly bland take on the genre that rises above its own meagre ambitions purely on the strength of its lead actresses. There is unquestionably something welcome about a full-on action comedy that not only stars two women in the traditionally male lead roles but doesn't treat them any differently because of that, but there's definitely something overly familiar about the film that isn't quite overcome by its refreshing feminist slant. After Hot Fuzz's brill...

Wait, a good Michael Bay movie?! Well, if it helps any, I'm pretty sure it was an accident. Also up at Channel 24 .   What it's about Based on a true story, a trio of bodybuilders try to live their own version of the American Dream by kidnapping and extorting a thoroughly unpleasant but very wealthy Florida high roller but, having0 spent significantly less time perfecting their brains than their muscles, things start to go very wrong, very quickly. What we thought Pain and Gain tells an incredible true story – the kind that is so unbelievably far fetched and unbelievable that it could only be true – that, had it been tackled by mega-talented filmmakers like the Coen Brothers or Martin Scorsese, would have easily been one of the best films of the year. In the hands of Michael Bay though, it becomes rather less great, instead turning into something far more interesting and far more unique. Michael Bay, you see, is easily one of the most reviled filmmakers in H...

Another year, another horror remake. Only this time, I am something of a fan of the original... I suppose we should be celebrating the fact that Evil Dead is one horror remake that is actually rather well made and generally watchable, but it's still a pointless retreading of something that has been done far better already and, at this point, do we really need to be rewarding this kind of bad behaviour. Taking a step back, the original The Evil Dead (note the definitive article) was a micro-budget, little horror film released in 1981 by a then-unknown filmmaker named Sam Raimi about a group of friends whose trip to a cabin in the woods is violently interrupted by the forces of the undead that they unwittingly unleash. Since then, it's director has become one of the most sought after names in Hollywood, its star has become the most beloved b-movie star to come along since the heyday of Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee and the film itself, along with its two sequels, have bec...

I really hope this means we're going to have to sit through "Trains" as well. Also up at Channel 24 . What it's about Dusty is a cropduster whose dreams to compete in a high-speed aerial racing are very close to coming true as he surprises everyone by qualifying as a contestant in a prestigious flying competition – if only Dusty could get over his deathly fear of heights. What we thought The Cars franchise has always been something of a black mark in Pixar's otherwise fairly exemplary catalogue of films. Neither Cars nor its much maligned sequel are exactly terrible films but they were both pretty badly conceived conceptually and neither film has either the greatest story or particularly interesting characters and, to this day, I still don't know what age group the first film was actually aimed at. With this in mind, my expectations for a spin-off of Cars, created by Disney without the aid of Pixar and originally aimed at the home video mark...

And now for your regularly scheduled capsule reviews. Now You See Me. This ridiculous but hugely entertaining thriller about a group of stage magician anarchists/ thieves who rob banks as part of their stage show has largely been overlooked but for all of its unabashed daftness - that final twist really makes no sense - it's light, frothy and funny with a kick ass cast and a snappy pace. But please, enough with the Prestige/ Inception/ Oceans Eleven comparisons - Now You See Me is far too unassuming to warrant it. (7/10) Great Expectations. As the five millionth adaptation of Dicken's classic novel, this Great Expectations is a fairly straightforward, if condensed, take on the story that has plenty of style and a very strong cast but is let down by its shallowly and quite annoyingly drawn lead characters and an abundance of plot that drags the film's energy down to zero far too often. Literary purists may like it but give me the very flawed but at least somewhat interes...

Another year, another terrible Adam Sandler film...  Also up at Channel 24 What it's about Grown Ups 2 has no plot whatsoever. Seriously. What we thought The good news: Grown Ups 2 is a far, far more enjoyable experience than Adam Sandler's last two “comedies”, That's My Boy and Jack and Jill. The bad news: having route canal surgery without an anaesthetic is a more enjoyable experience than watching Jack and Jill and That's My Boy so that's really not saying much. Just because Grown Ups 2 never plumbs the icky comedic depths of Jack and Jill and doesn't revel in the casual misogyny of That's My Boy doesn't mean that Adam Sandler suddenly developed a sense of humour or basic taste. It's just that if Sandler was somehow able to make a film more hateful, more unfunny, more grotesque than That's My Boy, it would, most probably, bring about The End of Days. Or, at the very least, cause eyeballs to melt out of their sockets and en...

What Transformers should have been but this ain't no Pan's Labyrinth It's been five long years since Guillermo Del Toro's last film, the severely underrated Hellboy II, so it was something of a disappointment - to this fan at least  - to hear that rather than taking that time to make another, more personal film like The Devil's Backbone or Pan's Labyrinth, the Great Man was instead making the kind of big, dumb blockbuster upon which Michael Bay has made his very bad name. And make no mistake, Pacific Rim is as big and as dumb as its premise suggests. If you assume, going in, that there's got to be much more to the film than huge robots punching huge monsters then prepare to be horribly let down. The film does spend some time setting up its plot involving giant alien monsters (Kaiju) attacking humanity who then strike back with similarly gargantuan robots (Jaegers), piloted by the best and brightest that the world's military has to offer, but neit...