The Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 1 - Danny's Review

I was hoping for some light hearted entertainment and this delivered in style.

On the upside there's some good emotional moments when Katniss is being heroic, and she is a suitably reluctant hero. The love triangle storyline is much less annoying than the books.

On the downside it suffers slightly from being the first of a two parter, in that lots of the time is spend building things up and clumsily explaining the politics of Panem and Katniss' different colour super-arrows. There also seems to be a shortage of characters from District 13, so all of the main players from the other two films are drafted in to form an instant President's Council, with drunkard Haymitch advising on strategy and Phillip Seymour Hoffman as a general advisor specialising in whimsical filming.

Stanley Tucci has said in interviews that the Hunger Games premieres are a lot like the overblown parties they have at the Capitol, and there's a certain irony to the whole Hunger Games franchise becoming such a consumer hit. He said that Katniss is unaware of the political themes, but maybe becomes more aware during the trilogy, as will some of the teenage audience. However, the author Suzanne Collins is no Iain M Banks and the dystopian world she describes is not very well imagined. Still, it's lots of fun.

Suzanne Collins (author), Gale, Katniss, Peeta, Francis Lawrence (director)

The Imitation Game - Danny's Review

This is a very good bio-pic of Alan Turing. By the end you feel like you've learned about someone who did very important things you didn't know about. In fact, the final scenes more or less claim that Alan both won World War Two and invented computers.

However, I did know about Alan Turing, because he was a mathematician and Computer Scientist. I therefore have four minor gripes with the film:

• Turing's interest in thinking computers wasn't really relevant to cracking the Enigma code. The method there was just to use a computer to run through all the millions of possible combinations, using some logic to rule out the impossible ones.
• Keira Knightley mispronounces Euler (a little thing, but couldn't someone have checked?)
• It's claimed that Turing's Universal Machine was a machine to solve all problems; in fact it was more of a thought experiment which demonstrated that any solvable problem can be solved with a very simple computer, it just takes longer.
• They failed to include Turing's most visual eccentricity, that he kept his mug chained to a radiator so no one could take it.

I did enjoy the general mathematical rivalry between the group of super-nerds. There's a good bit where Turing mutters that the Engima machine has one hundred and fifty million combinations. "One hundred and fifty nine million to be precise" says the sexy chess champion. Knightley is also good as the human counterpart to autistic Turing, while also being really clever herself.

The three interwoven stories are all interesting. When Alan is a child and middle aged you mostly feel sorry for how he is mistreated. The main section when he is in his prime at Bletchley Park you get a glimpse of his darker side, where he was actually quite unpleasant. Benedict Cumberbatch (who plays Turing) said of the 2013 public apology that Turing was pretty appalling and he should have been apologising [Edit - I've crossed this out as I can't find the source of the quote and it seems like everything else Cumberbatch said about Turing was very positive, so maybe I've got it wrong - see comments]

The film also provides plenty of social commentary, about sexism, homophobia, paranoia and espionage. So there's tense scenes mixed with funny bits when Turing does something odd or clever. Overall, it's a winner.

The Equalizer - Danny's Review

I did my first day's work since June yesterday, so as a reward today I went along to the new Denzel at 10am. There weren't many of us there, mostly single middle aged men, and an elderly couple who left early.

Denzel, along with Liam Neeson, is the new breed of middle-aged action hero. Unlike Arnie and Stallone (and Seagal) who rely on brute strength (and lightning reflexes) these guys use the unique skills they learned ages ago, and were hoping not to have to use again. But they've been pushed too far, so reluctantly destroy everyone in their path.

In The Equalizer Denzel plays an ordinary guy working at a hardware megastore, with a secret past. It's a bit like Viggo Mortensen in A History of Violence, but whereas Viggo actually is fairly normal Denzel's character is a bit weird. He's excessively precise, lives like a hermit, never sleeps, and carefully wraps up a single tea bag in a napkin to take to his favourite late night diner, where they give him hot water and he reads a really old looking book.

It's in the Diner he meets another creature of the night, Russian mini-hooker Chloë Grace Moretz, who is intrigued by the very obviously symbolic books Denzel is reading. The Old Man and The Sea where the old man "faces his greatest challenge late in his life", Don Quixote, about a man who "wanted to be a protective knight in an age where there were no knights", and right at the end The Invisible Man.

Denzel is curiously affected by her plight, and snaps when she gets beaten up one too many times. There's a good scene when he confronts the Russian pimps. He decides to let things lie and opens the door to leave, but then pauses, pushes the door closed and goes back inside... From then on we know he's some sort of elite killer, and it's a case of him working his way up the organisation outsmarting and outkilling them.

The film is pretty lean, and pretty much everyone Denzel talks to in the first half, when he is being normal, later returns when he is being a badass. There's one woman who Denzel greets near the start "Hi Julie, how are you?" "Better now" (for having seen Denzel). Later she gets a Diamond ring stolen in a routine robbery unconnected to the main plot. Denzel of course gets it back, but by now it's well established how effective Denzel is, so all we need to see is the shorthand of her rediscovering the ring, and Denzel cleaning off a bloodied sledgehammer and popping it back on the shelf. Presumably it's still fit to be sold to another customer.

Denzel meets his nemesis, a steely evil Russian fixer (Martin Csokas) who brings loads of goons with him for Denzel to kill. Denzel deals with him, in an epic hardware finale with lots of good props. Then after you think it's finished there's a little epilogue when he goes to Russia to kill "the head of the snake". The final scene shows Denzel answering an uninformative email "Can you help?" simply by writing "Yes". He's found his inner peace, and has become some sort of lethal agony aunt.

Before I go to Sleep - Danny's Review

I was supposed to watch The Giver today, but couldn't face another teen drama. Instead I went for the solid grown-up Before I go to Sleep, helmed by the three heavyweights Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman and Mark Strong.

It was a wise choice. Mark Strong was good and menacing, Colin Firth was so nice he came across as menacing, and Kidman was very innocent and confused. She has daily amnesia, and every morning has to be reminded of who she is. It's like 50 First Dates, but scarier.

Because she has no memories of her own Kidman has to trust what other people are telling her, and this makes her very vulnerable. You only know as much as she does, and feel her sense of fragility; you're always braced for the next revelation that will shatter what she thinks she knows.

In order that she can build up her knowledge she starts a little video diary which she watches each day. It's a bit like Leonard tattooing himself in Memento, but less painful. But once that starts getting erased she's in big trouble, and you can sense her frustration as she knows that tomorrow she won't remember a thing. It builds up nicely, but ... [scroll down for massive spoiler]

...the ending is very poor. The big twist is that actually the man she's been living with is not really her (ex)-husband. In fact he's the one who she had an affair with years ago, who then beat her up causing her amnesia.

For the last four years he's effectively kidnapped her, photoshopped himself into her wedding photos, and tells her the same lies every day. This is an ingenious idea, and makes for a good surprise, but collapses under scrutiny. Why does her actual husband and son not realise that she's out of the care home and living with a maniac? Surprisingly, this dramatic but ill-conceived twist also features in the book the movie is based on.

And while I'm at it, why does this therapy of giving her a camera (or in the book a written diary) have such a drastic effect (her amnesia improves during the film)? Surely it would have been tried before, 14 years ago when she first had amnesia.

Overall though, a good tense drama. The amnesia angle is a good one, and is dealt with more thoroughly than say Trance, which instead packs in a lot more plot twists.

Kidman, Firth, Anne-Marie Duffy, author S.J. Watson and director Rowan Joffe

Sin City 2: A Dame to Kill For - Danny's Review

The first issue is, is this a sequel? Bruce Wills who plays protective cop Hartigan only appears as a ghost in this one, which make sense as he died in the first film. But Marv also died and he's back alive. And the characters of Dwight and Manute are played by different actors. It's confusing.

In a way this doesn't matter too much, as like the first film it's just about giving a slice of dirty life. There are three interwoven stories. In the first Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a cocky gambler who can't lose, until he goes face to face with the outstanding Powers Boothe. In the second Dwight is enraptured by a mostly naked Eva Green. In the third Nancy seeks revenge on Powers Boothe, which is obviously a mistake.

For both the second and third plot lines Marv is knowingly used as extra muscle by the protagonist. This is fine, but I was unhappy with the fact that he was built up as being Nancy's protector (and brother?) but was quite happy for her to storm Power's house with him. Also, when they get there Powers goes on about how that yellow man was his son, "his son!", even though he doesn't seem to care that Joseph Gordon-Levitt was also "his son!". These are minor points, but are examples of how this film is not as well put together as the first one. Certainly the end is not as satisfying.

On the plus side, each scene is still great to watch. The Black & White with a bit of colour is still very entertaining, the neo-noir sets are atmospheric, and the story lines all move along quickly. It's extremely hard boiled, but unlike over-boiled pasta it doesn't become limp. My favourite character is a minor one; the cop who is besotted by Eva Green, he is the rare good man in Sin City who pretty quickly gets turned.

I enjoyed this for the action and excitement, although I would have preferred it to deepen and expand on the first movie (as all good sequels should), rather than be a slightly worse version of the original.

Lucy - Danny's Review

The average person uses 10% of their brain capacity. Imagine what she could do with 100%.

You don't have to imagine - during the film Scarlet Johannsen gets gradually more and more powerful until she reaches 100% and transcends into a spangly USB stick. Spoiler alert. First, I'm going to debunk this brain capacity myth. We already use 100% of the brain. We know this, as brain damage to any part of the brain affects its overall function. We don't use all of the brain at the same time, but that's because the different parts do different things. Claiming we could use it all at once is like claiming a football team would do much better if all 22 legs kicked the ball at the same time.

Despite this, the film is enjoyable. It's fun watching Lucy get more powerful. The progression is described in advance by bumbling professor Morgan Freeman, who explains it in a science lecture, while stressing this of course is only theoretical. He correctly hypothesises that you get: heightened senses, more control of your own body, control of other people's bodies, control of matter, then ... unknown (spangly USB). As she becomes more ultimate Lucy feels herself losing control of her humanity so gets in contact with Morgan, who just like he does in Transcedence (review here) presents the human face of science and reflects on the morality of it all. He gets the crumby lines about how much progress have we really made, and annoyingly contrasts maths and physics with emotions.

Lucy first gets her powers when she is unwittingly used as a drug mule, and the experimental new super-drug leaks into her. This first half hour of set-up is really good, and Luc Besson handles the slick Chinese supercrims nicely. I particularly like that none of the Chinese gangsters speak English, including evil honcho Mr. Jang (Min-sik Choi from Oldboy). There's no subtitling, except for one very weak moment when Lucy shoots a cab driver and they add a subtitle like "aarg my leg" just to make it clear that she's not overly mean and didn't actually kill him.

Once she starts growing in power you want to see what she can do, and she has two missions: to get revenge on the drug traffickers and to collect more of the drug for herself, to fuel her rapid metamorphosis. She also picks up a French cop sidekick, who at one point makes the excellent point that Lucy doesn't really need him. She responds that she needs him "to remind her", remind her about being human I suppose. She has quite a bit of existential angst but that doesn't get in the way of a good and fast moving plot, which is clearly signposted when big numbers flash up on the screen to show what percentage of full brain capacity she is at.

Overall it's an OK watch but not one to take too seriously. Best moments when she claims she can feel gravity, and starts to see phone calls as lots of lines going up into space.

Edge of Tomorrow - Danny's review

Contains spoilers.

I expected this film to be called The Edge of Tomorrow, but there's actually no The at the start. Presumably it wasn't edgy enough. My only other complaint is that the invading alien life form are called Mimics when they don't look anything like humans and are just a mix of metal and monster. At no point in the entire film do they attempt mimicry.

Apart from these minor issues I enjoyed the film greatly. Within a few minutes you're right into the storyline and the momentum is kept up throughout. There's no slack at all, and every scene moves things forward or introduces something you're going to need to know later on. It's compelling viewing as you're always learning more about what's going on to the main character, played by Tom Cruise.

What's happened to him is this: he's an army bureaucrat who's been busted down to private and is now on the front line of the human army's big D-Day landing against the aliens. He's rubbish at fighting and dies, but gets splattered with a bit of glowing alien and so comes back to life at the start of the day he's just lived. This is the major sci-fi conceit of the film; that the aliens are magic and their power is now transferred to Tom Cruise. He keeps reliving this same day over and over again, going back to the start of the day each time he dies.

On one of his iterations he meets tough soldier Emily Blunt, who fortunately knows what Tom is talking about as she once experienced the same time-looping phenomenon, which let her become a hero before she lost the power. It's good that they meet, because it lets the plot proceed quickly as they discuss this strange thing that happened to both of them, and fill in the audience of the rules of the game. From them on it goes a bit like a computer game, with Tom continually dying but getting a bit further each time. There's no save points along the way, so he has to go through everything in the day each time, but of course this is heavily edited so we just see him making progress.

Since Tom's relived the same day so many times he effectively knows what's going to happen at all points, so it more or less seems like he can predict the future. This leads to some fun scenes where he anticipates what people are going to say, ducks punches with his eyes shut and so on. It's an entertaining notion, even if it's been done a few times before, notably by Tom Cruise in Minority Report when he's getting lead around by the Precog, and of course in Groundhog Day.

Initially Tom tries to explain to people what's happening to him, but no one believes him. Then he tries to just survive the beach landing, and finally teams up with Emily Blunt and tries to track down the alien superbrain and blow it up. Each time Tom dies the day resets, and he finds a new Emily Blunt and explains what's going on to her. My favourite scene is when he mysteriously finds some fresh coffee and a helicopter in an old farmhouse, and she twigs that although this is the first time she's experienced it, he's actually had this day loads of times before. There's also a nice bit where he gets sick of going to a warzone every day so gives himself a holiday and sneaks off to a London Pub (probably called London Pub) where some veterans' relatives chide him for deserting. Apart from these veterans there are many aspects of the film that remind you of WW2, with the distinct exception being that the German army is represented here by whirring tentacles, mini-godzillas and time-bending water brains.

The conclusion of the film is not as tight as the rest of it. There's some quick rule changes introduced about visions. The ones Tom and Emily were having are declared to be false, but if you are about to lose your time-looping power, or if you ram a plug into your leg, you get a true vision.

Any film with time travel is rather hard to end, as whatever conclusion you reach could easily be unwritten. You need something drastic and final to happen to show that all the time looping is definitely over now. This happens with them blowing up the alien brain, and for no good reason Tom now loops back two days. In fact, if I think about it some more I might find some other problems. Why does the alien power sync up with Earth days? Never mind. It was a very enjoyable film.

The Trip to Italy - Danny's review

In 2010 Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon went on a tour of restaurants in the Lake District. It was filmed by Michael Winterbottom and made into a short series and normal length film. In 2014 they repeated the same thing, but in Italy. The film versions of these Trips wasn't widely released in the UK, but I saw The Trip to Italy as part of a special synchronised screening. After the film Coogan and Brydon went on stage live at a cinema in Hackney, and answered audience questions while we all watched in our different cinemas.

The basic premise is that the pair of them have been commissioned to go around Italy to visit six expensive restaurants and write reviews about them. A large proportion of the film is them at dinner, engaged in conversation trying to do down each other's careers, and competing to see who can do the best impressions. Although Rob Brydon is known as an impersonator Coogan began his career twenty five years ago working on Spitting Image (Brydon says his Neil Kinnock is "The best thing he does.") and is also very good. There's a little bit of plot involved but it's basically just them talking and being funny.

Winterbottom previously directed Coogan on 24 Hour Party People and them both in A Cock and Bull story, and this has a similar anarchic style. It's a hybrid of documentary and fiction. You're not quite sure how real it is, as Brydon and Coogan play lightly fictionalised versions of themselves. Coogan says his character is very like him but slightly more annoying. The interviews after the film made me realise it's a bit more scripted than I first thought. For example, their one week holiday in Italy was actually filmed over about six weeks, and Brydon was supplied with music to produce to listen to on the journey - Alanis Morrissette, an inspired choice.

Coogan said in the interview that it's often cut at counter-intuitive points, continuing long after the natural end of a scene once a joke is no longer funny. This gives it an odd sense of reality, and surprisingly works well. What's interesting about the film version compared to the TV version is that despite being half as long it maintains the same slow pacing, with lots of same establishing shots. This still works because the dialogue is so fast paced and bewildering that it's OK to have a minute of relaxation in between.

For the record, my favourite bit is on the boat when they are doing Anthony Hopkins from Mutiny on the Bounty.

Godzilla - Danny's review

Warning - this review contains lots of spoilers.

Godzilla is a big movie. Right from the beginning it feels like you're watching something important.

In the first half hour the tension builds up nicely with some eery unexplained phenomena. Some people say they're earthquakes, but we know better and so does scientist Bryan Cranston. He's on top form, and the movie loses a lot when he goes and his son Ford takes over as the lead. Whereas Cranston is obsessed with the conspiracy of what's actually going on, the son doesn't care and just wants to get home to his family, but by a series of tenuous coincidences he repeatedly ends up at the heart of the action. Worse again than Ford is his irritating wife, played by Elizabeth Olsen. There's one scene where Ford phones her and is trying to explain something but keeps getting interrupted by her hysterical blubbering. He looks pretty pissed off at having to wait for her to calm herself down so he can continue, and I felt the same way.

It's revealed that Godzilla has been around for ages, and the nuclear bomb tests in the 1950s were actually failed attempts to blow him up. The major twist in this movie is that there are some other big monsters, who are known as MUTOs. Their story begins when some archaeological team somewhere find a couple of big eggs. One of these contains the first MUTO, who trundles off to Fukushima Power Station (not actually called that) and causes a meltdown. He hangs around at the power station feeding off the radiation. The other one is put in storage and years later bursts out, fully 300 feet high. The two MUTOs try and meet up, for some incestuous breeding, but they have to deal with the ineffective US military and also Godzilla.

I've a few problems with this. How did the second MUTO get so big while being stored in a box? Secondly, why does Godzilla wants to kill the MUTOs?. It's certainly not to eat them. Also, the MUTOs feed on background radiation from the meltdown, but also seem to literally eat nuclear warheads. How do they even know there's radiation in a sealed warhead, unless it's leaking? It's not clear if Godzilla eats radiation; he does have some pretty fierce atomic breath but has no interest in eating the warheads.

Ken Watanabe plays a monster expert who when called upon reveals what the MUTOs and Godzilla are up to. As the movie goes into the endgame there's no need for his explanation, so he's a bit redundant, and just wistfully talks about restoring the balance of nature. That's right, it's an eco thriller. There's a suggestion I think that Godzilla, who is referred to as a God a few times, really is some sort of furious avenger, who kills the MUTOs as they are messing things up. There's one scene where Godzilla's big spines protect some humans and it looks a bit deliberate. So is Godzilla actually not so much a protector of nature, but a protector of humans? A giant green batman in the sea? He certainly has a nice look about him, scary but also quite chunky and lovable, compared to the spiky and nasty MUTOs. I wonder what his BMI is.

When the monsters are fighting at the end it's a bit like Pacific Rim (see our reviews here and here); the fighting is good and solid and lots of fun, but you don't really feel a lot of danger or excitement.

For me the most interesting bits were the scenes shot from the perspective of kids. There's also a few nice quiet bids in the middle where Elizabeth Olsen isn't in it, and the tension slowly cranks up.

Finally, I should mention the most remarkable aspect of the film - the tremendous amount of rumbling. It's nearly constant. There's rumbling during the seismic activity, rumbling when the score is menacing, and lots and lots of rumbling when there's giant fighting. If you watch this at home it's going to sound terrible on your TV.

Overall, a competently handled big budget thriller, but ultimately disappointing. I'd have liked a bit more suspense.

Sabotage - Danny's review

I'm a massive Arnie fan. I just had a look on IMDB and the only Schwarzenegger films I've not seen are a TV movie from 1980 and his two post-governorship comeback films: The Last Stand with Johnny Knoxville and Escape Plan with Sylvester Stallone. I've not seen these two as I've been ignoring his comeback so far, until I couldn't resist Sabotage. It proved to be a bit of a disappointment.

It's a shame as Arnie gets a plumb role as the captain of a DEA attack squad. It's acknowledged by his team that he's a bit older, and he is a father figure to them all. He's rugged but approachable. The premise of the film is quite interesting too. The DEA squad decide its time to get paid, and after a typically violent drug bust on a cartel they steal $10 million for themselves. But one of the team double crosses them all and the money disappears. There's an internal investigation which reveals nothing, and the rest of the film is spent in mild suspense wondering who did it and why. Then the team start dying one by one, and Arnie teams up with a cop to investigate.

Arnie's team all have nicknames and have a lot of macho banter. The most exciting one is the woman, who is extremely feisty. In fact considering its a film aimed at boys the women have quite good roles throughout.

David Ayer previously directed End of Watch and wrote Training Day and makes a good cop drama. Everyone is dirty, even Arnie for a change. Here they're actually more army than cops, and there's a lot of special operations. These mostly consist of someone pushing open a door and screaming "Cover me!" or "Breach!" then the rest coming through. They go through a lot of doors like this, and it's no surprise Arnie's tough guy nickname is Breacher, presumably because he breaches so many doors. If you hate closed doors, you'll like this movie.

The plot details gradually become clear in quite a steady way which I like. There's no dramatic reveal. Unfortunately, the character motivations are totally at odds with how they behave. This is a shame, as if the mystery of who dunnit was well handled this would be the sort of film that would reward a second watch. As it is, I'm scared to even think about all the things that don't make sense.

Of course any film with Arnie in is primarily an Arnie film, and as I've said he's on poor form. This pretty much cripples the film. He's got weird eyebrows and a haircut that makes him look like a boy from the 1950s. He's quite hard to understand, and at one point when he tells another cop that they "like cups" I thought he'd said "like caps" which also made no sense. If he uses any sort of slang it's hard to work it out. And worst of all is when Arnie delivers a tough guy swearing bit, he speaks so slowly it just sounds awful and there's no zing at all. However, all this is very nearly redeemed with a very cool final section, which is strongly reminiscent of his underrated 2002 film Collateral Damage [Edit - I called it Collateral by mistake the first time]

Overall then, a bit of a disappointment, but seeing Arnie's face again did lift my spirits. Finally it's worth noting there are no acts of sabotage at any point in the film.

Pompeii - Danny's review

At the start of the year I selected twenty films to watch in 2014 (see here). I now wish I'd picked this list more carefully. There's some real duds, including Pompeii. What was I thinking? I duly went to watch it last week, but with very little enthusiasm. However, I was pleasantly surprised, as my minuscule expectations were slightly surpassed.

The film starts in a pleasingly olde worlde way with lots of ancient fonts and a quote from Pliny the Younger, who wrote about the volcano's eruption in 79 AD (Spoiler Alert). The evil Romans are wiping out some doughty but ill equipped Celts. The chief Roman is a splendidly dressed Kiefer Sutherland, who relishes the chance to ham it up. He talks in an English accent, keeps referring to the Majesty of Rome and raising an eyebrow, and wears increasingly splendid gold tunics. The doughty Celts are all wiped out apart from a big-eyed child, who survives by acting limply so they assume he's dead. This child grows up to be Kit Harrington, better known as John Snow from Game of Thrones. I could have said that he also spends the rest of the film acting limply, which would be a good joke but not quite fair. He's OK. His acting style is to steadfastly ignore everything and carry on with his business in a stern way, which for a stoic hero works quite well.

Once Kit has grown up he becomes a gladiator and gets transported to Pompeii, with echoes of Conan the Barbarian but obviously falling well short of that. On the way to Pompeii he passes a foxy Roman princess whose horse gets injured. Because he's from a horse tribe Kit is able to gently comfort the horse and then manfully break it's neck. The princess is naturally overwhelmed by both his sensitivity and power.

Needless to say, their love does not run smooth, as Kiefer also fancies her, and he's got the Majesty of Rome behind him. Alongside the blossoming romance Kit is also getting ready to fight another gladiator. They are both so manly though they quickly becomes pals and are soon calling each other brother and killing lots of Romans together. This is all intercut with shots of Mount Vesuvius, which you see every ten minutes rumbling in the background. There's no missing it. Only the greasy slave dealer Graecus senses the danger of the volcano, and there's a fun scene of accidental comedy where he is in a hurry to leave town but insists on being carried in a litter, which goes at barely walking pace while he shouts to go faster.

When the eruption finally happens there's a succession of dangers to avoid. First it's shaky ground, then crumbling buildings, flying fireballs, tsunami and finally a wave of ash. There's some scenes towards the end where they are running away from destruction that are entirely CGI and you might as well be watching an animation. At least most of it is quite exciting. The key for a film like this is the pacing, you've got to have the right amount of build up pre-disaster then keep the excitement up while the disaster is happening, and I think Pompeii acheives this.

The very end of the film is stylishly done, and only a horse survives (presumably he then wrote it all down so the film could be made). Overall, I'd say it's a nicely put together action film, as you'd expect from the director of Resident Evil and AVP (Paul WS Anderson). Having said that I'm pretty sure it will be a massive flop.

Transcendence - Danny's review

We all live in two worlds. The physical world of sounds and sights and smells, and the digital world of the internet. Transcendence is about a dying guy uploading his mind onto a machine, to move entirely from the physical to the digital world. It's an entertaining idea, and is vaguely relevant to science today as Artificial Intelligence is improving.

However, the film suffers from the widely held but annoying idea that there is a nice dividing line between being a dumb machine (Skynet before 2:14 am) and being sentient (Skynet after 2:14 am). There's a thought provoking bit where a machine is challenged to prove it's self aware, and gives a killer comeback that humans also can't prove they're self aware. I think as science improves actually we will realise that there is no threshold to cross, just increasingly complex computers which are more and more capable of 'human intuition' and making 'the mistakes that make us human'.

But back to the film. Johnny Depp plays the main scruffy scientist, and Paul Bettany is in good stooping stuttery form as his genius pal. Rebecca Hall is less convincing as a scientist, and more convincing at looking like Scarlett Johansson.

Early on there's a science demonstration with lots of weird equations and graphs spinning round behind each speaker, which probably means they thought what they were saying was too boring. The director, Wally Pfister, is a Cinematographer who worked on some Christopher Nolan films. I knew this already and maybe it influenced me, but it certainly seemed like a lot of time was spent on establishing shots and visual cues. Science scenes begin with lots of computers, when the FBI are tired they carry big cups of coffee, and terrorists unnecessarily dye their hair blonde.

It's an interesting journey seeing Johnny Depp uploaded. It's not clear how much of the sentient face on the monitor is really Johnny (human and compassionate), and how much is the basic computer program they mixed in (cold, calculating and evil). The wife believes it's definitely really him, but she's bound to say that. There's also a subplot of neo-Luddites trying shut him down, and possibly a hint of a love triangle. That would all be enough for me, but unfortunately there's loads more plot thrown in now and the film really goes downhill.

Having made the transcendence from physical to digital, Cyber-Johnny then makes the transition back to physical. I expect this is because the film-makers didn't want just a cerebral internet-enemy, they wanted more of an action film with some real physical baddies. This transition back to physical consists of creating an army of zombies and some ridiculous nanobots. I didn't like the nanobots at all.

Another complaint - in the first half of the film it's clearly established that Cyber-Johnny is trying to connect to the internet, and will link in every connected device. The film then forgets this rule, and before long he can simply control anything electric, even if it's not a networked device. At this point the neo-Luddites start reading books by candle light.

In the bizarre finale Johnny releases his nanobots across the whole world, and they are even seen swimming in the water and replicating. I don't understand how/why this is cured by Paul Bettany releasing a virus and shutting down the internet. The purpose of shutting down the internet seems only to be able to finish with a post-apocolyptic world with no electricity, which is portrayed as actually quite nice. I think this shows the film coming down on the side of 'computers are bad', and indeed Paul Bettany mutters some guff about the human spirit.

It's better than Robocop but worse than everything else I've seen this year. Afterwards I planned to watch Pompeii but couldn't face it.

Noah - Danny's review

There's been a spate of old world epics lately, maybe partly inspired by the success of Game of Thrones. I expect I'll watch Pompeii soon, though it looks terrible. At first glance Noah looks like the same kind of trash, but then you notice its directed by Darren Aronofsky, who for me is among a small group of directors who I'd watch anything by.

I was well rewarded. It was a good movie, with a lot to think about in it.

The first issue when retelling a well known story is how faithful to be to the 'original', especially when it's a biblical story which some people might be sensitive about. This gets dealt with early on, when the film begins with a rapid cartoony catch-up in a silly font about how mankind began, which does not match Genesis (instead I think they've embellished ideas from the non-canon Book of Enoch). The Noah myth is pretty confusing. I think most people know it's based on an even older Babylonian myth of King Gilgamesh (who possibly did really exist), but its been retold lots of other times too, including an ancient Greek version. The version that appears in the Bible is probably merged from two different stories, hence the confusion about things like how many pairs of each animal there were (two of each, or seven of the clean and two of the unclean) and the length of the flood.

As well as the flood, Noah is also known in the Bible (and the Koran), as the man who first discovered wine and got drunk. There's a weird bit where he gets drunk, his son Ham sees him naked, so he curses Ham's son. This is presumably some sort of biblical euphemism that I don't understand.

What all agree on though is that Noah was chosen by God, and was a man on a mission. At the start of the movie him and his family are the only good vegetarian descendants of Seth on Earth, with a very extreme moral code. He chides his son for picking a flower out the ground, and is deeply dismayed when three of the bad descendants of Cain kill a dog to eat it. Such are Noah's morals that he casually kills all of them and doesn't mention it again - though there is a touching funeral for the dog. Clearly Noah has given up on the rest of mankind.

Incidentally, it's not clear how Noah's family managed to keep their blood line pure, without some serious inbreeding. The kids all look very healthy though. The problem of inbreeding reoccurs when Noah's family are the only ones left at the end to repopulate the Earth, and of course at the start, when the only men on Earth leave the Garden of Eden and have children.

Noah is a really tough patriarch, and his word goes in the family. He's intense and single minded, a bit like his Inspector Javert, and indeed he does sing briefly, but not very loudly. His one act of kindness is rescuing Emma Watson as an extra family member and wife for his oldest daughter. In the good Christian tradition every man needs a (fertile) wife, and there's some interesting sexual tension between Emma Watson and the son she's not marrying. Ham wants a wife too, but Noah pointedly doesn't rescue the girl Ham likes. To be fair this is a girl Ham's just met, and she would presumably be a bit alarmed to discover Ham wanted to kidnap her and live with her forever on a huge animal boat, but still, Ham takes it personally, and doesn't forget. There's no confronting Noah so he just simmers in resentment.

Noah's counterpart is the local bad man Ray Winstone, who looks a lot like a Klingon villain. Ray also tries to talk to God, but God keeps ignoring him, so he takes matters into his own hands and is a King among men. Noah literally has God on his side though, and is fearless. When Noah tells Ray that the end is coming, he's so sincere you really believe him, and Ray does too, and makes plans to steal the Ark. You've a lot of sympathy for Ray, as he's in the position most people are in. God certainly doesn't speak to me, why should I do what other people claim God wants me to do? If God really cared, he could deliver the message personally. I think that, although Ray is obviously the evil version of Noah, it's an interesting parallel and they're not so different. Ray only wants to feed the city-folk who can fight for him, which seems callous, but remember Noah is only letting his own family on the massive boat he's built. He doesn't even give the rest of the world a chance to repent or build their own boats.

The Ark itself is not much of a boat, just a big box. It looks like a Maersk shipping container. There's a nice practical touch when Mrs. Noah sedates all the animals when they get on. I thought they could have made more of the montage of building the Ark, although I can understand why they didn't as it heavily involves the Watchers, who I've so far avoided mentioning. Let's just say, the film would be better with just humans (and animals and demi-god Anthony Hopkins).

On the Ark the tension cranks up, like it should do in any good submarine film. Noah reaches the uncomfortable conclusion that his family are not so different from everyone else. His reaction to this is not to try and save other people, though he can hear them screaming outside the boat and the rest of the family are urging him to help them. Instead, he concludes his family are equally wicked, and they all have to die too. There's a harrowing scene around the dinner fire where Noah calmly explains the suicide pact they must all enter into, with the order they're going to lay each other to rest once the task is completed and they've made dry-land.

This is when the film gets really interesting, when Noah starts to over-interpret the visions he's had from God. You've got to blame God for this again, he could have just told Noah exactly what to do rather than giving him riddles in his dreams. Noah becomes a religious fanatacist, and is a dangerous man. The film shows what can happen if people start to believe things with a religious fervour. It's an eloquent argument against the dangers of being obsessive, which is a theme of Aronofsky (Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler, Black Swan). When Noah decides he needs to kill some babies too his family draw the line and turn against him, and the madness and anger on the boat is no better than Cain and Abel. In the Bible God told Abraham to kill his own son Isaac, and Noah has his own moment like this with a knife poised above his grand-daughters. In fact, in the last five minutes on the boat it all happens in some action-packed scenes. No one's even that surprised when Ray Winstone pops up from behind a goat, having hidden there for the last nine months.

When they do shortly hit dry-land, the family are still a bit shaken. Noah sets himself apart, discovers wine and nudity, and is found naked by Ham. I'm still not sure of the significance of this.

Overall, a good looking and thought provoking film.

Grand Budapest Hotel - Danny's review

This is a typical Wes Anderson film. If you found The Royal Tanenbaums irritating and unbelievable you certainly won't like this. The characters are wilfully odd and the sets deliberately cartoony. The pace of the film is uneven and jerky, with unexpected turns of action and comedy.

In the middle of it all there's Ralph Fiennes playing the concierge Gustave H. He's an eccentric living by his own with strict code of morals, which includes first class service at all times and a weakness for romantic poetry. He's a throwback to a time where concierges not only existed, but were important.

Gustave H. is from a bygone era, and of course so is the Grand Budapest Hotel itself. There's something instantly nostalgic about a huge dilapidated building, that was once full of life. Places like that don't exist any more, mostly I think because since the introduction of a Minimum Wage it's no longer viable to have a huge hierarchy of servants. There's also a traditional sweet shop, known by the name of the proprietor, that only makes one type of cake. You don't get them any more.

To add to the feeling of delving into the past the main film is couched inside two outer stories. In the present day a writer records his memoirs, which are about meeting with the hotel owner in the 60s, who then recounted his story from the 30s. I'm not normally a fan of the story-within-a-story technique, I see it as a cheap way to give a sense of gravity to the conclusion when you zoom back to the present day. I'm not sure how I feel about the story-within-a-story-within-a-story.

There's a very impressive cast, with some big name actors taking quite small roles. As well as all the names on the poster I think I spotted George Clooney at one point. Most of the characters are too odd to really relate too, but you see enough of Gustave H that you being to sympathise with him by the end. I also really liked the bittersweet love story, which was tangential to the main plot but added a lot to it.

My favourite bit was when Gustave H. was in prison, being unfailingly polite to the other prisoners. At this point you know the character well enough that the situation is already funny. The escape sequence (spoiler alert) was good too.

Overall this was good, but not as fantastic as I'd hoped.

12 Years a Slave - Danny's review

I saw this on the day it was awarded Best Picture at the Oscars. Given that's it's a major film about American History, and it's not terrible, it was always likely to be an Oscar contender. But should it have won? Having seen only about half of the nominated films I can't really say. But I can say that it wasn't as good as Gravity.

12 Years a Slave is a fairly straight-forward story of a guy called Solomon who get's his identity stolen. And it's a thorough identity theft. This isn't just someone dealing with unauthorised purchases on his credit card, he literally loses his identity as a free man, and, as the title suggests, becomes a slave for 12 years.

The first part of the film is a concerted effort to convince us what a fine gentleman he is, and there's lots of dandy clothes and curt nodding to other fine gentleemen. In one flashback to happier times a shopkeeper invites him to peruse a new cravat.

Once he gets kidnapped you get to see all the different thoughts in Solomon's mind, as represented by what happens to other captives. There's one who tries to stand up to the captors (it doesn't end well for him), and one who is lucky enough to be re-captured by his previous master.

Solomon decides to keep his head down on the plantation, can't resist occasionally showing what a superior man he is. My favourite part of the film is a very standard prison-drama type section where one of the guards (Paul Dano) is picking on him, because he's annoyed that Solomon is so good at everything, in this case something about a creek. Solomon is also really good at being humble, which further enrages the guard. Things come to a head with an extended hanging scene, where McQueen deploys his technique of lingering on a shot for noticeably longer than you expect. Sometimes this is quite effective, sometimes it just slows things down.

There's a few other unusual shots, for example when you first see Solomon playing the violin it's shown from inside the violin itself. I'm not sure if this is important, or just the director keeping himself busy. There's one bit where he needlessly cuts to some leaves in the tree, and I got a bit worried there'd be a ten minute fade out on a single leaf, like a Terrence Malick film. The sound is also quite intrusive, and during the church scenes you sometimes get overlapping sounds.

Any time you hear any scripture it's used for justification of evil slavery, and the Church is overall shown in a very bad light. The happier alternative to this is the slave singing, which is very powerful, especially during a funeral scene where Solomon (Chiwetl Ejiofor) looks incredibly anguished.

Since you already know Solomon's story arc (free-slave-free) it's more interesting watching what happens to the other characters. The star is undoubtedly evil plantation manager Michael Fassbender, who Steve McQueen also directed in Hunger and Shame . There's some good bits where he forces the tired slaves to get up in the middle of the night to dance in a party that clearly only he is enjoying. Echoes of the madness of Django Unchained. I also enjoyed the character of his wife, Mistress Epps, who is always there in the background chiding him for his incompetence, and urging him to take it out on the slaves, especially the pretty slave girl he likes the most. She's played by Lupita Nyong'o, who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.

The message of the film is nicely layered, as you see different types of slaves, including those who try and play the system to their advantage and become favoured, and those who can't take it and just want to die. There's a good bit where an overseer tells his story, which gives some insight into slavery from a slavers perspective. This food for thought is always subtly delivered, at at least until Brad Pitt arrives. He plays a very pious voice-from-the-future character who patiently explains to a frenzied Michael Fassbender why slavery is wrong.

The final line of the film ("There's nothing to forgive") may also be significant, if it's taken to be about slavery in general. Could this be McQueen, in the voice of Solomon, forgiving the slavers? It's unlikely Solomon is feeling too forgiving, he's had a rotten decade.

In summary, this is a very good film. The scenes in Mississippi (I think) all look great, and there's plenty of stylistic touches and colourful characters to make me want to see it again. Most of all, it's a cracking story.

If only it was set in space.

The Wolf of Wall Street - Danny's review

The trailer makes this look like a silly film about a rich banker who likes to play hard and work hard, and everyone has a wild time. I thought they were just showing you the funny bits, but actually the whole film is like that. It's a three hour comedy romp, and it's good.

The cult of personality around Belfort is the main excitement of the film, and you notice the lack of energy from the few scenes without Dicaprio in them. There's some crazy moments when he walks into a room and everyone goes wild with excitement, and starts shouting "Wolfie! Wolfie!". I'm sure the real Jordan Belfort (who has a cameo at the end in New Zealand) would have loved that.

Actually, I'm not sure Wolfie is such a good guy. He's a massive fraudster, and when he's in trouble he easily betrays all his friends. But then, they're not good guys either, and there's a hint that his best pal, played by Jonah Hill, is also working with the Feds. His gold-digger second wife leaves him when things turn sour, and although Wolfie acts surprised I think everyone knew she was a fair-weather bride. It's a shallow world they live in.

The madness of Wolfie's life means there's always something fun around the corner, and it's entertaining from start to finish. The main story arc of Wolfie's rise and fall is strong enough that I could do without the sub-plot of him stashing his money in Europe, which becomes a bit of a distraction with some odd cameos from Jean Dujardin (The Artist) and Joanna Lumley.

There's some classy touches, for example the bits where Wolfie turns to the camera and explains something directly. Overall, I'm going to rate it as the second-best Dicaprio-Scorsese collaboration. Here's my full ranking:

1. The Departed
2. The Wolf of Wall Street
3. Shutter Island
4. Gangs of New York
5. The Aviator

Robocop - Danny's review

The premise here is that America is robo-phobic, and the public don't want to deploy the robo-police they export to the rest of the world. To get round this Omnicorp put a blown-up (exploded) cop inside a machine. They're a bit naughty though, and when the man-machine hybrid is reacting too slow they develop a combat-mode mode where the computers takes over and bypass his slow human decision making. Then when he gets a bit unstable, and misses his family, they pump him full of dopamine to keep him on message. Don't worry though, the human spirit is irrepressible and he soon overrides his programming and solves his own murder and takes on his creators.

The original Robocop was sleazy and violent, had the distinctive style of Paul Verhoeven, and was well worth an 18 Certificate. This 2014 remake is a 12 Certificate, and has been made to appeal to a much wider audience. It's very much a studio picture, and you can almost feel the scenes which have been altered or added to make it easier to understand. The low point is when Murphy's wife and daughter are waiting for his home-coming. It's been thoroughly explained what's going on, but just to make sure you're keeping up there's an absolutely enormous "Welcome Home" sign, Then, unbelievably, the wife turns to her son and unnecessarily says "That's a nice sign you've made". That's their whole conversation! It's a really poor bit of dialogue.

The ending also smacks of studio tinkering. They want Murphy to get his revenge, sacrifice himself, and also stay alive in case they want a sequel. He goes on the rampage against his creators and shoots the Omnicorp chief executive, and the Doctor who's been working on him also turns whistle-blower against the company. This ought to be the end for Murphy, how and why would Omnicorp keep repairing him now? But, sadly and predictably, you see him recovering again at the end.

It plays out a lot like a super-hero film, though his powers are very limited, and consist mostly of watching lots of CCTV feeds at the same time. He's a less fun Iron Man in grey and black instead of red. The one amazing scene is when Murphy sees just the real bits of himself, and doesn't like it. There's quite a bit of philosophising in the film about who's really in control, man or machine, and it really hits home when you're looking at what's left of Murphy - just his brain, one arm, and lungs pulsing unpleasantly.

Gary Oldman is good as the Doctor. He starts off ethically using technology for medicine, but gradually gets talked round to building a Robocop. I also enjoyed Michael Keaton as a very laid back and scarcely believable Chief Executive. Having played Batman twice himself, he knows what it's like to be known only by the shape of your chin. He's fun to watch, much more so than the hectoring Samuel L Jackson. His role as a newscaster is to tell bits of the story (often bits we already know), in a way which is supposed to be dazzling as it's got holograms in, and of course SLJ himself. I was unimpressed.

In summary, on the plus side this is a slick production with some interesting ideas about the future of robotics. But on the minus sign it's made for kids.

Inside Llewyn Davis - Danny's review

This review contains spoliers

I really enjoyed this. Every scene is beautifully made. The Coen Brothers have an amazing knack of making very slow movies which are never boring. In this one the music comes centre-stage, and it sounds good.

In the first scene of the movie Llewyn gets punched outside a nightclub, and in the second scene he wakes up on a friend's couch. At the time it looks like that's the very next morning, but by the end of the movie you realise that that second scene actually takes place a week earlier, and most of the movie is showing that week leading up to being punched. At the time this comes as a bit of a surprise, and it took me a minute to realise what's going on. Normally in a film when you get shown the ending first something massive happens in that scene (usually the main character dying), so that you realise that the next scene must be taking place in the past. Here though, there's no clue that's what's going on. It's a clever device that makes me want to see the movie again straight away just to work out the chronology.

I think the idea of looping back to the start is that he's made no progress. It's a sort of Groundhog Week; a Road Movie with no destination. He tried to go to Chicago, he tried to rejoin the navy, but he didn't get anywhere. As Llewyn says about his music "If it's never new and it doesn't get old, it's a folk song". But there are a few signs he's moved on - he manages to stop the cat getting out the door the second time, and after it's cut short twice we finally get to hear him play his old partner's song all the way through at the end.

Oscar Isaak is good as Llewyn Davis. It's a tough character, as he's got to be both charismatic and lazy, a bit like The Dude in The Big Lebowski. You feel for him as he keeps getting given opportunities, and keeps on throwing them away. The surrounding cast is much more colourful, and I'd even say the normally very good Carey Mulligan is a bit over the top.

The ginger cat Ulysses looks very handsome, and there's some very atmospheric scenes in the car where characters are drifting in and out of sleep on the way to Chicago and back. Although the film is always exciting by the end you do feel the fatigue of Llewyn, and this probably isn't a good movie to watch if you're very tired.

Llewyn's folk songs are good, and the pacing of the movie allows you to hear them all the way through. Each of his songs describes his mood, especially when he has an audition and rejects commercial music by doing a wilfully obscure song about Henry the Eighth. "There's no money in it", says producer F. Murray Abraham, and I think he's right. The folk songs from other artists are much worse, not sure if they're meant to be deliberately bad or not.

Overall, a fantastic film, and I look forward to enjoying it again.

All is Lost - Danny's review

Warning - all reviews could contain spoilers, this one definitely does in the last paragraph.

This is a remarkable film, featuring only a boat and a 77 year old man with blonde hair. It starts with Robert Redford on his yacht, with no hint as to how he got there. We don't know who he his or what he's doing. He could have terminal cancer, he could be a millionaire or about to reunite with his long lost son, we don't know. He doesn't even have a name, and is just listed in the credits as Our Man.

He hardly speaks at all in the whole film. There's a little bit of talk on the radio, but this is strictly functional, and there's no attempt to tell the story via his monologue. If they wanted to do that, he would have had a dog to explain things to. There's no dog.

You need to watch quite carefully to notice things, as it's all explained by visual cues. This is OK though, as there's no dialogue you have a lot of time to concentrate on the picture. For example, at one point he heads towards a shipping channel, which is made very clear to the audience by repeated looks at his map where a series of X marks on the map show his approach to the channel.

Our Man is pretty resourceful. He starts whittling a broom handle in a mechanism to bale out the ship before you even know that he is going to do any baling. He's one step ahead of the viewer, and as you watch in admiration you're trying to work out what he's up to. He has a slightly weary air about him, but never gives up and meets each new crisis with dogged resolve and a grim fatalism. As he floats around you get a sense of the vastness of the ocean, and it's very vast indeed. Just at one point the film gets a bit Life of Pi with some CGI sharks circling him, which doesn't last too long then it's back to a standard marooning.

The only hint of any connection to friends or family is when Our Man is unpacking a special old wooden box of navigation equipment. In the box there's an envelope with a card in, which to me looked like some sort of birthday card. He picks it up, then shrugs and puts it down to pick up his sextant (or whatever it is). He never returns to the envelope. In a film with so little human contact this is quite a big moment, and very eloquently shows Our Man's lack of sentimentality. Even his message-in-a-bottle doesn't have much warmth to it.

I'm not sure if Robert Redford's acting is brilliant, or if in fact there's any acting involved at all. This film might have worked just as well with any old man playing the lead. He just goes about his business on the ship, in a fairly natural way, and the power of each situation lends gravity to his impassive face.

He's looking spritely for a 77 Year Old, but I did notice he dozes off an awful lot. I suppose some of this is from exhaustion, but in the second half in particular nearly every scene begins with Our Man coming out of another long nap.

Spoiler alert - in the end he nearly drowns, but is suddenly saved when you see a bright light and a hand reaching down. To me this is actually just a metaphor for him dying and accepting his death, and he's not really saved. Though sadder, this interpretation is more satisfying in completing the story then the corny ending of a last minute rescue.

In conclusion, this was a very good film. Probably not the best kind of thing to put on at a party, but good to get into on your own.

Gravity - Danny's review

This is exactly the sort of film you should see in the cinema. It's full of huge visions of Space and Space Stations and Space Shuttles and what Earth looks like from Space. There's lots of 3D effects and lots of spinning round. I'm not sure it would be enjoyable on TV, and it would be very poor to watch on a little screen on a plane, where it would also be unsuitable as there's a lot of Space crashes.

The plot is fairly simple. It's the crew of a Space Mission coping with an incident and trying to get back home. That's all I'm saying. Much of the story is told visually, and those are the best bits. There is also a fair bit of chatter with mission control to tell the audience what's going on. George Clooney and Sandra Bullock handle the dialogue well, but I do wonder if the movie could be even more striking if they cut out lots of the dialogue and relied even more on the visuals - in the manner of All is Lost (review to come), where Robert Redford's marooned sailor barely says a thing.

It's a fine line to tread in a film making astronauts seem realistic, but also have some human qualities. I've recently read retired astronaut Chris Hadfield's book about being in Space. He's the guy who recorded Space Oddity, and also filmed lots of everyday things in zero gravity like brushing your teeth. I can report that he's actually not a very fun guy, and likes to ruthlessly over-prepare for everything. When he gets in a lift he checks the safety instructions just in case it crashes. When he went to see Elton John he practiced playing Rocket Man over and over just in case Elton recognised him and invited him on stage (he didn't). Reading his book was a lot like reading Lance Armstrong's. These guys are machines.

So I'm not sure the George Clooney character would be regaling Mission Control (Ed Harris) with his hilarious story of New Orleans Carnival, and quipping about Sandra's blue eyes, or are they actually brown. Every second of every minute of a space walk is meticulously planned, and it's at once exciting and very boring. Of course the point of Clooney's clowning is to make it clear what a laid-back veteran he is, and in fairness he does snap into mission-mode quickly when he hears of an emergency. There's only one moment where it's all a bit hard to believe, when Clooney is shooting around on his jet-chair and another guy swings around on a cable shouting "look at me!" and they all chuckle. Sandra is at least trying to do some work, while the other two are really just pissing about in Space.

Some other Space observations - I think the film must be set in the future as it features a lot more Space Stations and technology then we have now. I think sometimes the film-makers forgot the Golden Rule of zero gravity, that you don't weigh anything. So, if for example, someone is hanging on to something for dear life, and someone else is hanging on to them in a classic cliffhanger scenario, the second person doesn't actually weigh anything and wouldn't be pulling the first one down. Also it doesn't need a lot of fuel to move along in 0G, once you get going you just keep going. In fact you need half the fuel to speed up and half the fuel to slow down - they're not very good at the slowing down part. The best Space Physics moment is when Sandra throws away a fire extinguisher in the opposite direction to the way she wants to go.

I liked seeing all the Space detritus floating round. At one point you see a hand gripper tool, which I think they really do use in Space to keep up hand strength in 0G. That's a nice touch. A vodka bottle has a special nozzle to drink from, because just drinking from the bottle normally wouldn't work. Another nice touch. Not so good is when you see a table tennis bat floating along. Table tennis in zero gravity? I don't think that would work very well.

I realise that most of this review has focused on Space, and not much on the film itself. So in conclusion let me say it was a very enjoyable film, gripping from start to finish. Excellent use of CGI for all the Space bits, which could only be done with modern computers (or a budget of hundreds of billions). The film is a very eloquent case for the benefits of CGI in films, which is however nearly totally undermined by a gratuitous and very irritating computer generated frog in the last minute. That's the dark side of CGI, doing stupid stuff just because you can, there was no need for that. Unforgivable.

American Hustle - Jamie's review

Christian Bale has already appeared in an 'American' film, fact fans. But Bale's fat, shambling conman Irving Rosenfeld doesn't have much in common with Patrick Bateman other than a propensity for getting other people to believe his lies.

When his new mistress, Amy Adams, gets fingered by a greasy FBI man (a ferociously jerry-curled Bradley Cooper), Rosenfeld has to agree to use his unique skillset to catch more crooks to keep her out of prison. Soon he's in way over his head, and the game is whether he'll figure a way out.

Amercian Hustle, based on the huge Abscam sting which caught a half dozen crooked congressmen and a senator in the 1970s, is a light and lively affair with plenty of outrageous vintage fashion (obese kipper ties compete with giant haircuts and plunging necklines for square metres of the cinema screen). It wisely chooses to skip over the fact that Rosenfeld was a despicable conman who cheated desperate people out of their savings, preferring to cast him as a sympathetic sadsack on heart pills who loves his son, is browbeaten by his manic wife (Jennifer Lawrence, on top form still/again) and who just wants the ride to stop.

What sets Hustle apart from other films in the con genre (apart from the top notch cast, which also includes Jeremy Renner as a likeable mayor and Louis CK as a doormat of an FBI chief) is its startling decision to show what makes the con artists tick. It's the most nakedly emotional con man movie ever made. Even the best of them (e.g. The Grifters, The Sting and pretty much anything by Mamet) fail on that front because a con movie almost always ends with a reveal that one character was fooling another all along.

But though it's only apparent in retrospect, Hustle dispenses with fakery and shows its grifters at their most vulnerable. Bale and Adams are messy people who don't hide their needs and dreams at all. They may fool their marks, but they don't try to fool each other or the audience.

American Hustle - Danny's review

I got a book about Seagalogy for Christmas. In the last week I've watched ten Steven Seagal films, along with some of his excellent Lawman series. Although it's difficult to watch a film that has no chance of featuring Steven Seagal, I thought I should give it a go. I've been looking forward to American Hustle, as it looked like a guaranteed good time, and it certainly was. There's loads of larger than life characters, catchy music, and the thrill of the con.

There's some amazing 70s styling. The best bit is when it pans across a couple of impressive three piece suits, then cuts to the Mayor Jeremy Renner and his associate, looking fantastic. Probably didn't need the obligatory 70s disco scene, but the rest of it is all very welcome.

Like any good con-artist story, it's not always clear who's conning who. Not just in terms of monetary scams, but in their relationships. I was accidentally conned too, and didn't realise that Amy Adams' character was only pretending to be English as she adopted her English accent so early on. She has a saucy relationship with both the male leads, played by Christian Bale and Bradley Cooper, and talks a lot of talk about being real. It's hard not to stare at her breasts.

Christian Bale is excellent, playing a strangely resigned and downbeat middle-aged man. He must have eaten loads to get that paunch. He's a bit washed up like he is in The Fighter, but don't worry he's still got it, and as time goes on you trust him a lot more than the unhinged Bradley Cooper. Bradley's mad streak comes out, like it does in Silver Linings Playbook, which also starred Jennifer Lawrence. She plays the wacky first wife, who is a sort of comic relief but is actually pretty good, and in the end you feel sorry for her too she's so messed up.

The 'big con' that they pull off at the end is a bit disappointing, as it's built up too much. In fact, there's a few references to what a great trickster Christian Bale is, but we don't see much evidence of it. Maybe they wanted to keep it as an ensemble piece, focusing on the characters, rather than turn it into a crime caper, which it nearly is. The worst bits are the dodgy mafia involvement, with a token Robert De Niro mobster.

There's one interesting plot point. Amy Adams seems to be flirting with Bradley Cooper even before he is revealed as an agent (spoiler alert). Is it because she really fancied him, or was she on to him and already playing a very clever long game?

In summary, it's a lot of fun, and I'd certainly watch it again if it was on TV, mostly for Christian Bale. It's not my favourite 'American' movie, that would be American Psycho, followed by American Beauty, then American History X. But it's much better than American Pie.

2014 Preview - by Danny

Here's 20 films I'm going to try and see this year.

January 17	Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit	Kenneth Brannagh
February 12	Robocop	José Padilha
February 21	Pompeii	Paul WS Anderson
March 7	Grand Budapest Hotel	Wes Anderson
March 28	Noah	Darren Aronofsky
April 11	Sabotage	David Ayer
April 18	Transcendence	Wally Pfister
May 16	Godzilla	Gareth Edwards
June 6	Edge of Tomorrow	Doug Liman
June 20	The Purge 2	James DeMonaco
July 18	Jupiter Ascending	The Wachowskis
August 8	Lucy	Luc Besson
August 15	The Giver	Phillip Noyce
September 26	The Equalizer	Antoine Fuqua
October 3	Gone Girl	David Fincher
November 7	Interstellar	Christopher Nolan
November 14	Dumb & Dumber: To	The Farrellys
November 21	Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1	Francis Lawrence
December 12	Exodus	Ridley Scott
December 25	Unbroken	Angelina Jolie

A few blockbusters, one remake, and lots and lots of excitement.

A big prize for me if I manage to see them all.