Because Everybody Else Has One

This past weekend saw the release of only three films but, though none of them are exactly perfect, they all have at least something to offer different cinema goers. First off, we have this week's big release, Fast and Furious 6 , which is mainly notable for the fact that this seemingly limited premise still hasn't quite run out of steam yet. Indeed, I can certainly arguments for it being the best one yet. Its mixture of fast cars, buff blokes and beautiful babes somehow hasn't gotten stale yet and fans of the series will undoubtedly eat it up. Speaking for myself though, I remain pretty underwhelmed by the whole series. Undoubtedly, part of it has to do with my simply not being enough of an alpha male to enjoy such ridiculous levels of testosterone but, perhaps paradoxically, every time these films pull back from their utterly insane action set pieces and focus on the series' main characters and whatever plot they have going on, my mind starts to wonder prett...

There were only three films released this weekend, all of which were science fiction films and two of which I have somehow already reviewed. This will be a short one, in other words. To recap, Oblivion is a flawed but engrossing mix of "smart" and "dumb" sci-fi with a standout performance from Andrea Riseborough and beautiful visuals. Escape From Planet Earth , on the other hand, is just bland, bland, bland and is only worth bothering with if you're under ten years of age. And even then, I wouldn't really bother when you have The Croods out at cinemas at the same time. This leaves Robot and Frank , which is, in effect, a quiet indie drama but with an advanced but crucially inhuman robot in one of the lead roles. It has some very fine performances from the four actors on the left there, as well as Peter Saarsgard as the voice of the robot, but this is really Frank Langella's party. Langella plays an old cat burglar whose failing memory causes hi...