Because Everybody Else Has One

Reteaming once again with Paul Feig, will Spy be the movie to cement the over-exposure of Melissa McCarthy or will it rejuvenate her once incredibly promising movie career? Yes... Reuniting for the third time with her Bridesmaids director Paul Feig, Melissa McCarthy once again applies her considerable comedic talents to a major Hollywood comedy: this time tackling the time honoured tradition of the spy comedy. And even if I can't quite give Spy the glowing thumbs up of most reviews, as it is very, very inconsistent, I can say that it's almost definitely the best comedy released this year so far and, though she comes close to being outdone by two of her co-stars, it's also a nice step forward for McCarthy who was very much in danger of being typecast as the profane, often repulsive "trailer trash chick" that already started to grate in her second collaboration with Paul Feig, the Heat.     McCarthy plays a mousy but sweet CIA desk-worker who works mostly as...

Not to be all monosyllabic about this or anything but meh... Also at Channel 24 What it's about Joey (Jason Statham), homeless and on the run from a military court martial, embraces the opportunity to assume someone else's identity and, while forming a relationship with the nun who helps out a local soup kitchen, begins a crusade against the scum of his local neighborhood. What we thought First, before we get into the film itself, can we just deal with its title. “Redemption” is an unspeakably terrible name for a film. It has all the generic pointlessness of calling a film “Film” or “A Man“ but without any of those titles' post-modern zing. It's especially stupid as it has the more cryptic and much more interesting title of Hummingbird in the UK – I have no idea what its marketing people were thinking or if, indeed, they were. “Redemption”? Rubbish! Title aside though, the film itself is... kind of OK. Nothing great, nothing special, nothing even parti...

I'm reviewing these two together because a) they complement each other nicely and b) I can complete last week and make further headway into this week at the same time. Neat, huh? Here are two action films that are oddly pretty perfectly encapsulated by their titles. Safe is every bit as unchallenging and as straightforward as its title suggests. Jason Statham stars as Jason Statham and, though his particular "mission" in this film involves his protecting a gifted young girl with an aptitude for numbers from warring mobs, it's a film about the Stath beating the ever loving crap out of an endless torrent of bad guys and that's really about it. It does exactly what it says on the can and it does it it well enough with all the gruff charm that we have come to expect from today's best action star - though the Stath's status as reigning ass-kicking champ is about to be put to the test. By a girl, no less. Which brings us to Haywire. The second, and as f...

The first of two films I reviewed for Channel24 this week... What it's about: A retired elite special-ops agent (Jason Statham) is called back into action when his friend and mentor (Robert de Niro) is taken captive and the only chance of freeing him is to dispatch the three highly trained assassins responsible for the deaths of the captor's sons. What we thought: "Based on a true story". If ever there was a phrase that has no place in front of a Jason Statham movie, that particular stamp of "respectability" must surely be it. Statham's stock in trade is over the top, hyper-real action films that allow him to show off his considerable charms and physical prowess without allowing silly things like real-world physics or believability to get in his way. Killer Elite , however, has the dreaded "based on a true story" emblazoned all over its trailers, movie posters and advertising – to say nothing of the beginning of the fi...