Because Everybody Else Has One

Another day, another disappointing DC cinematic offering. But hey, at least it's better than Batman V Superman. Yay? This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about With the rise of superheroes and super villains, a secret government agency enlists a group of some of the America's deadliest killers, thieves and madmen as their own defence against god-like villains and renegade heroes. What we thought For the first third of Suicide Squad, it looked like DC was finally well on its way after the major failures of Man of Steel and Batman V Superman. Sadly, the film doesn't end there and goes on to squander its potential for another 90 minutes after that. The overall grey colour palette and murky lighting is still a problem (at least it certainly was at the cinema in which I saw it) but at least it's shot through with a bit of colour this time. More importantly, the dour tone of its predecessors is somewhat counterbalanced by a sense of the ab...

Aiming for an Oscar... But a swing and a miss! That's the wrong sports metaphor, isn't it? This review is also up at Channel 24 . What it's about When African immigrant and world-class pathologist, Dr Bennet Omalu discovers extensive brain damage in a series of ex-football players who died under severely strange circumstances in a short amount of time, he uncovers a truth that the National Football League hoped would never get out: that playing football is extremely tough on the brains of those who play it. Based on a true story. What we thought Before dealing with the merits (and notable flaws) of the film itself, I have to ask: how on earth was it a surprise to anyone that a full-contact sport like American Football, a sport that features head-on collisions as a routine part of the game, is a source of massive brain-damage in its players? Seriously, isn't this more or less the equivalent to finding out that boxers have a predilection to getti...

Out of focus. This review is also up at Channel 24 . What it's about After Jess Barrett's attempt to rip off Nicky Spurgeon - who turns out to be a master conman himself - fails spectacularly, Jess and Nicky soon find themselves entangled in a relationship, both romantic and professional, that is constantly undermined and complicated by a game of cat and mouse (or is that catch and release?) that may just prove that there's no honour among thieves after all. Or is there? What we thought Harking back to the light crime capers of the past, Focus plays out like a mix of the Sting and Oceans Eleven, with a bit of Intolerable Cruelty thrown in for good measure, but it never really lives up to its obvious influences and predecessors. That it's shallow and ultimately forgettable pretty much comes with the territory, but it's ultimately undone by, ironically enough, a lack of focus. This isn't to say that there isn't anything to enjoy her...

Check out the user comments of my review of the film at Channel 24 if you want to find out a) how awful a critic I am and b) how very, very wrong I am about Shyamalan's latest cinematic catastrophe. Read on here, though, for my own unabashedly negative review of one of the worst science fiction films I've seen in years. What it's about A millennium after humanity were forced to leave an inhospitable earth, a young military cadet, Kitai, and his estranged father, Cypher, find themselves stranded on the planet after their spaceship is brought down by an asteroid storm. With Cypher badly imaged, it's up to Kitai to traverse one hundred kilometres of poisonous air, rapidly shifting temperatures and a host of deadly animals to send out a beacon and secure their rescue. What we thought There's something kind of hilarious about After Earth being released in this country the same week as Star Trek Into Darkness. Not just because it's going to be fun...

Well, who the hell saw this coming. Also up at Channel24 What it's about After Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) is murdered in his youth by a time-travelling, villainous alien, it's up to Agent J (Will Smith) to go back to 1969 to prevent this from happening. Teaming up with a young Agent K (Josh Brolin), J finds himself in a race against the clock to both save his partner and prevent a future alien invasion from taking place. What we thought However much comic book movies are all the rage right now, it's hard to imagine that anyone was clamouring for a resurrection of the cinematic adventures of the Men In Black – certainly not after the frankly woeful Men In Black II did everything it could to torch all the goodwill that the original film engendered way back in the mid 1990s. And yet, here we are, ten years later and the Men In Black are back and in far, far better form than anyone could reasonably have hoped. If nothing else, it's a true pleasure to ...