Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension review

Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (15/R, 88 mins)
Director: Gregory Plotkin
★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The advertising for the latest found footage spook-snooze in the Paranormal Activity series boasts that for the first time you will see the activity. Basically if anything at all were to happen on screen it would be an exponential increase in excitement from the thoroughly dull and lifeless affairs that the franchise has devolved into. The first was a nice surprise and for a while they were being knocked out at one a year, at the cost of about £6.50, and therefore to healthy box office returns even as audience interest started to wane. They’re less frequent now, but this one follows the same template of a family in a house being bothered by poltergeisty antics. When they find a bunch of old VHS tapes featuring two young girls who seem able to see what they're doing, they set up cameras at night to record the mysterious goings on in their daughter’s bedroom. We then get to watch that footage in all its glory, and in fairness we do get to see the activity, consisting mostly of fuzzy shapes and sudden loud noises. It’s all relentlessly, criminally boring and riddled with more plot holes than there’s room for here - do they never actually look at what they’ve filmed afterwards? And worst of all because it’s supposedly being filmed on an old 80s camera, we’re forced to watch it through a headache-inducing blur. Almost as bad is an exhausting gimmick where the 3D only kicks in when the ghost does its thing, but at least constantly putting on and taking off the glasses is a nice distraction from watching the movie.

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials review

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (12A/PG-13, 131 mins)
Director: Wes Ball
★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Released this time last year, The Maze Runner was one of the more successful examples of young adult fiction properties looking for a slice of the action in the wake of the triumph of The Hunger Games.

Where Divergent started out mediocre and then just got worse, and the likes of The Host and The Giver exploded on the launch pad, The Maze Runner offered a well-realised world while sowing seeds for further exploration. Unfortunately that early promise has been somewhat squandered in this lumpen sequel that does nothing to separate it from the herd.

It doesn’t provide much in the way of re-cap, so the pertinent facts are that a group of youngsters found themselves trapped in a walled area called the Glade, which was separated from whatever lay beyond by a monster-filled maze.

As we join it here, a small band led by Thomas (Dylan O'Brien) have escaped the Glade to learn that they're part of a program run by Patricia Clarkson’s Dr Paige intent on finding a cure for the Flare, a virus which has ravaged the planet.

Where the first movie was keen to promote a mystery, with characters not even knowing their own names at first, this starts us out with a hint of backstory and flashback, as Thomas as a young boy is put into the care of Dr Paige by his mother.

Now he and his friends are at a facility run by Aidan Gillen, which seems as much a prison as anything, immediately raising questions of who can be trusted. It transpires they weren’t the only maze, but just one group among a handful of young people who appear to be immune to the virus. True to futuristic sci-fi tropes, Thomas discovers a conspiracy in which they're being harvested in order to find a cure, leading them to bust out and into the Scorch, a desert world that’s all that remains of our planet.

Where the first film seemed fresh and had a number of distinctive characters to get behind, this feels like Young Adult by numbers, full of crumbling cities and grubby resistance groups. It’s dark and grim and hope is thin on the ground, though that isn’t a bad thing, and it’s probably one of the least youngster-oriented of YA adaptations. With victims of the Flare exhibiting zombie-like behaviour, for a while the movie turns into World War Z, which does it absolutely no favours either.

So not only is it dry during the setup phase, the midsection is just a lot of running and hiding and fighting monsters. Where the first film had a clear selling point, this rambles vaguely between locations and antagonists, presenting scenarios that are much too familiar from other dystopian fantasies.

In fairness the visual effects are first rate, but dialogue is mostly exposition. It’s a big sprawling mess with a couple of good sequences, but lacking the characters groundwork essential to true success. Thomas does prove himself to be a worthy hero on several occasions, but that’s not quite enough and there’s no clear view of what if any end game is in sight.

With one more of James Dashner’s books still to be filmed, let’s hope they wrap the trilogy up in a stronger manner than has been teased with this middle chapter.

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation review

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (12A/PG-13, 131 mins)
Director: Christopher McQuarrie
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

It’s a sad state of affairs that Tom Cruise is the biggest star on the planet in every measure other than box office returns. For charisma, charm and sheer star wattage, on and off the camera, he’s still at the top of a tree he’s occupied for over 30 years now.

And yet for some reason cinemagoers, or perhaps more correctly, American cinemagoers, don’t want to look at his films anymore outside the Mission: Impossible franchise. In the face of this apathy he seems to have made it his mission to astonish audiences into submission by attempting things on screen that no human, never mind a pampered A-lister, should be doing.

That included dangling from the world’s tallest building in Ghost Protocol, the previous M:I movie, and now this fifth entry in the series showcases Cruise as superspy Ethan Hunt hanging on seemingly unharnessed from the side of a plane in take-off.

It’s pretty much what the entire film is being sold on, and looks like part of an elaborate climactic sequence, but in actual fact it happens in the first two minutes as Hunt and his team target a group of terrorists. He’s trying to get on the plane to rescue its dangerous cargo and, as prologues go, it’s magnificent stuff, brief but jaw-dropping and clearly completely real. See it in IMAX with the sound making the floor beneath you shake and you’ll feel like you’re taking off with him.

Such heights are hard to sustain, and for some of the next hour or so as plot elements are clicked into position, it can sometimes feel like you’re back down to earth and sitting in a traffic jam instead of flying high.

First off there’s the emergence of a shadowy organisation known as the Syndicate, rogue operatives responsible for worldwide atrocities. Then the Impossible Mission Force gets dissolved at the behest of Alec Baldwin’s CIA boss who doesn’t believe the Syndicate exists and thinks Hunt is himself rogue, leaving him on the CIA’s wanted list and on the run with only Simon Pegg’s analyst Benji to help him.

Ethan has already encountered Ilsa Faust (the excellent Rebecca Ferguson), a potential double agent who looks to be working for the Syndicate, led by a chilling bad guy in Solomon Lane (Sean Harris, who seems as though his many years of playing quietly dangerous nutters have been leading to this).

None of this is dull, but there’s a lot of it, interspersed with a bunch of fights and some country hopping. A polished sequence at the Vienna opera sets the film back on track while also setting up the mystery of just what exactly Ilsa is up to. And central to the Mission movies is having to steal a bit of tech from an impregnable stronghold, leading to a top notch underwater escapade that owes a lot to Gravity.

There’s a high-speed motorbike pursuit in Morocco that will leave you breathless, assuming you’ve got it back after the underwater stuff, but not all of these action moments feel like they're advancing the story, the bike chase in particular. So for all that these sequences look cool and offer fleeting excitement, there’s a bit of padding here, and a few too many computer generated cars despite protestations that it’s all for reals.

Critically though, as much of what makes these movies good is built on tension as it is on action. But even more importantly than that, it’s built on characters, and makes a virtue of Hunt’s doggedness and willingness to do what it takes for the mission. The result is a delicately balanced and extremely suspenseful chess game (not literally!) between Ethan and Lane that ratchets up as we head towards one of the best finales of the series.

Cruise is reliably excellent throughout and Jeremy Renner gets some funny lines but absolutely nothing to do in the action stakes (for some reason Benji has been promoted to second fiddle), which seems like a shame considering how able he was in Ghost Protocol. Overshadowing all of them is Ferguson, with the little-known Swede demonstrating serious combat chops as well as convincing us as an agent with a lot of secrets.

With 15 minutes shaved off and a little more clarity of focus, Rogue Nation might have claimed Best Mission: Impossible Movie. We’ll just have to settle for it being a first rate action movie and a terrific spy movie.

Mad Max: Fury Road review

Mad Max: Fury Road (15/R, 120 mins)
Director: George Miller
★ ★ ★ ★ ★

There have been reasons to be cheerful and reasons to be fearful regarding the release of Mad Max: Fury Road. On the one hand George Miller, director of the original trilogy of Mel Gibson movies, returns at the helm, and we know he knows how to shoot action.

But cameras started rolling on this reboot over three years ago, and that’s rarely a good sign, with potential release dates coming and going. Yet hopes were raised when the footage started to surface, until earlier this when we were granted quite simply the greatest movie trailer ever unleashed on the public, a fast and furious tease that promised us an action assault like no other.

For once the trailer wasn’t lying; in fact, it doesn’t begin to do justice to the finished film, a kinetic cinema experience probably unseen since Gravity. Taking place in a properly and completely demented world, it’s essentially a two hour chase, and there has quite simply never been anything like it.

Fury Road is not remotely a Mad Max remake, more a continuation of the universe, with backstory swiftly dealt with in an opening voiceover. We’re filled in on the apocalypse and on Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy), the one-time cop whose family was murdered, sending him into a spiral of madness and barely surviving in the wasteland that is now Australia.

Chased through the desert by goons, Max is taken prisoner to a cliff-side community run by Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne, who played villain Toecutter in the original Mad Max). Fuel was the driving force of the original movies, but the writers seem to have finally realised that water is more precious than oil, and the Immortan rations out the water as a way of keeping the people in check.

Charlize Theron is Imperator Furiosa (look at these character names!), a lieutenant of the Immortan who defies him and goes on the run with his wives in hope of finding the Green Place. With Max in tow, first as a prisoner and then a helper, what follows is not a series of action set pieces held together by a threadbare plot, it’s one action set piece that spans almost the entire course of the movie.

This is filmmaking to melt the eyeballs, packed to bursting with breathtaking stunt work and imagery and rapid, bruising fights. With Max, Furiosa and others driving a tanker, and the Immortan and his hordes chasing in heavily armoured cars, the carnage unleashed as people and vehicles leap and tumble every which way is enough to make you marvel at how they could have achieved it. And it’s CGI-augmented rather than CGI-driven, so even though once in a while you can see the join, it’s there to enhance the spectacle.

The pounding score propels the chase along, some of it provided by the Immortan’s own band, with one of his trucks loaded up with drums and a flame-spitting guitar. It’s exhilarating and insane and in constant motion, with maybe two points where they stop long enough to have a conversation and for the audience to remember to breathe.

If there's a sticking point, it's that Max is barely a character; he's a figurehead, a recognised name to hang the film on. This isn’t a world of heroes though, it’s survival that’s the only imperative, and with his growls and grunts and handful of words, Hardy makes him as enigmatic and dangerous as he needs to be. Theron is immense too, with Furiosa every bit as capable as Max and in many ways the real hero.

Also it could be argued that the best action is used up before the climactic melee, where the level drops slightly from astonishing to just very good. But that’s a small complaint, and if the world belongs to the mad as the film’s marketing suggests, then prepare to go crazy for this world of blood and sand.

Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb review

Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (PG, 98 mins)
Director: Shawn Levy
★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Talk about stretching an idea so thin you can start to see through it. The premise of the first Night at the Museum movie eight years ago was that a magical tablet could bring the exhibits of a New York museum to life at night, which was realised through what at the time were fairly nifty computer generated effects.

Ben Stiller was Larry, the night security guard at the museum who got caught up in the middle of the mayhem when dinosaur skeletons and Attila the Hun starting running amok. Now Larry is in charge of putting on a show for dignitaries, who think the animated exhibits are special effects.

Before we get to that there’s a prologue set in 1930s Egypt that gives us a bit of half-hearted background on the tablet, as some Indiana Jones-style tomb raiders disturb it amid the standard warnings of a curse.

For reasons never explained this curse involved absolutely nothing happening for nearly 80 years, but now the tablet is corroding and the exhibits are going screwy. The solution, invented by the film’s writers for no reason other than it would be nice to go to London, is that they must go to the British Museum to try to free the curse.

Or something. Because none of it follows a remotely logical or coherent path, and there’s really very little to it in terms of threat or excitement. The situation is paper-thin, the jokes are lame and the special effects aren’t even particularly special. It looks pretty horrible too, the direction is lacklustre and it seems scaled down from previous instalments.

There’s the need for some uninspired padding involving Larry’s teenage son, and whether he will or won’t go to college. Another exciting subplot to look out for in the fourth film; will Larry do the dishes or leave them until the morning?

Yet for some reason it’s perfectly watchable and affable, mostly thanks to a game cast, and mostly thanks to Dan Stevens. He pops up as Sir Lancelot and has some fun with the action shenanigans while also demonstrating a nice way with comic timing as he fails to understand anything going on around him.

We also get the final acting appearance of Robin Williams, who reprises his role as Theodore Roosevelt. It’s hardly a fitting send off, with he and just about every character other than Larry and Lance given insufficient material to make any impression.

In the end this is unlikely to be remembered as one of the great trilogies. Really it barely passes muster, and in a few years there might not even be many people who remember it was a trilogy at all.

But it rattles along quickly and it’s never dull, which actually counts for something. And if it looks like it’s only scraping a third star by the skin of its teeth, which it is, that’s because it’s Christmas, and it’s because we get to see Dick Van Dyke dance.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies review

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (12A/PG-13, 144 mins)
Director: Peter Jackson
★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

It’s been a fair old trek to get to here, this final part of the Hobbit prequel trilogy. And, much like the experiences of its characters, it’s been a frequently exhausting and arduous journey punctuated by individual moments of relief and enjoyment.

The late decision to make three films rather than two has meant it’s often felt like you were journeying across Middle Earth in real time, and it all began to smack of cashing in. We certainly get value for money in terms of minutes in the cinema, even if this finale is a relatively brisk sub-2.5 hours, but an awful lot of that time feels like we’re treading water.

Has it been worth it in the end? Will many people plough through the six-film marathon of these plus the Lord of the Rings trilogy or will they, like now happens with Star Wars, judiciously skip the weaker entries in order to get to the good stuff?

Certainly one element where this is likely to score with fans is in the linking done to Rings. Some of it might be a bit clunky and forced, but more often than not the bridge building is both fun and evocative and likely to put a Christmas re-watch of Rings on a lot of people’s agendas.

But for now, we rejoin this poor relation directly after the end of last year’s second film, as dragon Smaug wreaks his desolation on the village of Laketown. Exposing the somewhat arbitrary stopping point of Part 2, this episode is swiftly resolved, leaving dwarf leader Thorin (Richard Armitage) in control of the mountain hall of Erebor and its enormous piles of gold.

The trouble is he’s turned mad with power, and a lot of time is spent on Thorin’s intransigence, which is threatening to be the catalyst for war, with the elves and men also ready to stake a claim to the treasure. But it’s nowhere near as compelling as the hold the One Ring had over Frodo and mostly there’s a lot of sitting about, which at least makes a change from all the walking in the first two movies.

Having really shone in the second movie, Martin Freeman is sidelined here as Bilbo becomes a minor character in his own movie. But when Bilbo does get involved, he proves the worth of Hobbits and offers a reminder of why we love them.

It’s difficult though to have any great investment in these characters beyond Bilbo and wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen), which is a major issue. Billy Connolly turns up as a dwarf king with bizarrely computer enhanced features, to swear and stick the nut on orcs but, as ever, almost none of Bilbo’s companions stand out.

Lord of the Rings succeeded because we cared deeply about the Fellowship, but that’s sadly lacking here. It also worked because it blended real world locations with brilliantly realised visual effects; now it looks like none of it might be real at all, especially darker scenes. Just because Peter Jackson has the ability to create anything with CGI, it doesn’t mean he should. Frankly at times it looks ridiculous, and when you’ve got dwarves riding rams up mountainsides you’ve probably gone too far.

This is highlighted even more by the truly horrific High Frame Rate process, which makes proceedings look like a filmed play, shiny and inauthentic and totally lacking in filmic texture. It’s not too bad when no one has to move but most of the time it’s embarrassing, and it’s astonishing that someone thought something that looked as bad as this was acceptable to project for top dollar.

Still, Jackson is more than capable of conjuring greatness in bursts, starting with Smaug’s terrifying, fire-breathing onslaught, even if we then have to wade through the added guff and padding of the arguments among the Laketown survivors.

But the movie is called The Battle of the Five Armies, and when the men, elves, dwarfs, orcs and various sundry beasties go head to head, it really earns its corn. Pretty much the final hour is a massive ruck that impresses with its sheer scale at least, though some of the armies look a little too mathematically precise in the way they're computer generated. Things get much more involving when it splinters off into individual fights, some of which are exciting and entertaining, some of which go on forever.

In the end, if it works at all, it’s because of the world we’re in, it’s because of what Tolkien has created and it’s because Lord of the Rings exists and we know there’s so much more to see here.

No doubt Jackson cares about the product he’s delivering with this prequel trilogy, but ultimately it will probably be looked upon by audiences as an obligation rather than a necessity.

Horrible Bosses 2 review

Horrible Bosses 2 (15/R, 108 mins)
Director: Sean Anders
★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

The law of diminishing returns for comedy sequels comes into effect with this grim retread that once again stars Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis and Charlie Day as a trio of hopeless friends who turn to crime when their luck deserts them. After the events of the first movie they’ve quit their jobs with the intention of running their own company and have invented a shower device, the demonstration of which on a chat show makes for a very early example of just what level of coarseness this return is going to be reaching for. When a flashy businessman (Chris Pine) and his father (Christoph Waltz) go back on a deal, they decide to kidnap and ransom Pine and, to no one’s surprise they're even worse kidnappers than they are murderers - they were dim in the first film, but they surely weren’t this dim. You can 100% guarantee that Day and Sudeikis will behave like morons, with every plot point driven by their idiocy, and it soon becomes tiresome. It’s thoroughly undisciplined, with people just allowed to talk until one of them hopefully says something funny, which is very rarely the case. Paying no regard to logic, which again can be overlooked if the laughs are plentiful enough, the series has gone from pretty funny to pretty much a laugh free zone. Quite the most remarkable cast is topped up with a visit to Bateman’s old boss in prison (Kevin Spacey), while Jennifer Aniston returns to lash on the crudity. A relaxed Bateman does his low-key exasperation while Day screams every line in deeply wearying style, and in the end it’s far closer to headache-inducing than funny.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 review

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 (12A/PG-13, 123 mins)
Director: Francis Lawrence
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

The final book in Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy gets a now standard two-movie split, and if you haven’t seen the films that have preceded it, you haven’t got a chance with this first part.

It begins immediately after the events of the second film, Catching Fire, with Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) taken from the Games arena and waking up to find herself in the supposedly destroyed District 13.

We’ve had glimpses of the bigger picture before, but now that what was essentially training in the Games is out of the way, we can get down to the real business. And that aim is full-on revolution, the overthrow of the corrupt and authoritarian government of the Capital, led by President Snow (Donald Sutherland).

The rebels are fronted by Philip Seymour Hoffman and newcomer to the series Julianne Moore as President Coin. Katniss’s actions in the arena have been the spur for uprising in the Districts, and they want her to be the face of their campaign, to film propaganda videos that let the people see there’s hope.

She’s more interested in the fate of Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), who is being held in the Capital, and it’s this tension that drives the drama rather than a reliance on set pieces. Because, goodness knows, it sure ain’t an action film, which is far from a bad thing.

As the third part in a four-part trilogy, there were always likely to be some pacing issues, and occasionally events that could take up one minute of screen time can be stretched into three or four. Some characters are afforded more screen time than might otherwise be the case or we’re introduced to people who don’t feel entirely relevant.

It’s a bit like trying to make a full meal from a limited set of ingredients, but it’s compensated for by a dramatic escalation of the threat level. Snow is going to town to destroy every threat posed by the Districts, stopping at nothing short of genocide, and the dangers are very real indeed.

This is serious, sturdy stuff, looking at fascism and totalitarianism and evoking World War II with its air-raids and underground shelters and wars of information. It’s also reminiscent of the third Matrix film or Return of the Jedi with its hidden rebel base antics, and the groundwork is worth it for a number of powerful, stirring moments.

Lawrence holds it all together as ever, with another committed and impassioned performance that reveals the steel of Katniss and demonstrates that she’s the best young actress on the planet. By the time this series closes out next November, we’ll hopefully be left with a sci-fi saga to be treasured for years to come.

The Expendables 3 review

The Expendables 3 (12A/PG-13, 126 mins)
Director: Patrick Hughes
★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

To borrow a quote from one of this week’s other releases, Hector and the Search for Happiness, nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.

And yet it’s pretty much all this creaky franchise has going for it. This third entry in the action star retirement home series is not well written, it’s 30 minutes too long and the action isn’t even particularly good. And yet, for reasons that are mostly to do with the unnameable magnetism of sheer star wattage, it remains oddly watchable throughout.

It begins with a massive attack on a prison train by a handful of ageing mercenaries, the Expendables (Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham et al), to bust out old comrade Wesley Snipes. It’s cheesy and daft to the extent that it must be a parody, brimful of macho posturing, which to some degree has been diluted this time around by the lighter tone, even if the attempts at banter are generally pretty feeble.

It lumbers to another set piece where an old foe turns up in the shape of Mel Gibson, a former Expendable turned arms dealer. Gibson adds real value here, with an admirably composed nutjob performance that demonstrates how much he’s been missed from our screens in recent years.

And still the superstars get rolled out, with Harrison Ford securing a nice payday as a replacement for Bruce Willis, cameoing as a CIA boss who gives Stallone the mission to go after Gibson. Whatever passes for a theme in the movie arrives with an acknowledgment that the Expendables might be getting a little long in the tooth for such silliness; the problem is they (and the film) don’t really believe it.

But still we get a dead midsection where nothing happens while Stallone disbands the crew and teams up with Kelsey Grammer to recruit new younger members. This takes an age, but at least comes with the addition of Antonio Banderas, who adds a touch of pep to the otherwise taciturn team.

For a movie with a teen-friendly rating, the action is sturdy enough and the body count is astronomical (the climax see the Expendables take on literally an entire army) but a bit more blood might have helped. The problem with the action is a physical and logistical one, with little sense of space given and too often overloaded with CGI or cut together much too maniacally.

But it all boils down to watching these stars do their thing, and the pleasure in that is undeniable. Considering the cast is so massive it’s still very much the Stallone show, since he came up with the story and co-wrote the screenplay. Terry Crews, Dolph Lundgren and Jet Li barely get a look in, but every once in a while, just seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger and Harrison Ford sharing the screen can be enough to raise a smile.

There are many winks and nods to past glories, and while you can only coast on nostalgia so long, hearing Arnie trot out some of his classic lines will be good enough for many.

X-Men: Days of Future Past review

X-Men: Days of Future Past (12A/PG-13, 131 mins)
Director: Bryan Singer
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

For those not yet tired of mutant superhero action, here then is the seventh movie set in the X-Men universe. Some have been great, some have been misfires, but the series was shaken up a couple of years ago by X-Men: First Class, which showed us younger versions of the well-worn characters as they were in the 1960s.

Days of Future Past is a sequel to that prequel, and is being sold on the fact that it brings both casts together, so we get Patrick Stewart and James McAvoy as original and young Charles Xavier, and ditto Ian McKellen and Michael Fassbender as Erik/Magneto. The one constant has been Logan aka Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), because he doesn’t age.

It begins in the future following a devastating war, where the few remaining mutants are on the run from Sentinels, massive almost unstoppable machines that are threatening to wipe them out entirely. As Stewart asks in voiceover, is this future set or can it be changed?

The X-Men believe it can be changed and so come up with a plan to send Logan (or his consciousness at any rate) back to the 1970s to stop the chain of events that led to the creation of the Sentinels. In a nutshell this means stopping Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from killing the scientist (Peter Dinklage) who initiates the programme.

But of course it turns out to be a lot more complicated than that, leading to difficult decisions for many of the X-Men. This is a film that’s always more interested in its characters than its action, and that has to be thanks to its director. Bryan Singer hasn’t directed any of the films since X-Men 2 in 2003, but he shows why he was the right choice to return with a guiding hand, grounding it in the choices made by its protagonists while also being in complete command of the sprawling narrative.

The set pieces aren’t just elaborate displays of special effects and action, but driven by character and plot while moving the story forward at the same time. Generally the films end up turning into the Wolverine show, which as the original trilogy and two Wolverine spin-offs have demonstrated, can get a bit dull after a while. But this is the Mystique show, and everything depends on her.

An early sequence where the lightning-fast Quicksilver helps break Magneto out of the Pentagon is gloriously inventive and thrillingly executed. And it doesn’t skimp on humour either, offering good laughs without descending into camp.

There are a couple of niggles, generally to do with plot points that might find you asking “why?” a couple of times. If you attempted to draw a line through the chronology of the previous films, you’d probably find the timeline has been a bit squiffy anyway, so as with all time travel movies it might be best to just not worry about it. And Stewart, McKellen and co in the future end up getting a bit sidelined.

But there’s real-time danger and darkness linking the future and the past, and the stakes are massive. And thanks to the numerous highpoints and an ending that could possibly be described as perfect, in most regards this is as good as superhero movies get.

300: Rise of an Empire review

300: Rise of an Empire (15/R, 102 mins)
Director: Noam Murro
★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

The reams of backstory and exposition that make up much of this somewhat uncalled-for action sequel fill us in on how Greek general Themistocles (Sullivan Stapleton) made an enemy of Xerxes, who became the god-king that Gerard Butler and his Spartans fought in the original 300 seven years ago. None of this is particularly relevant to what’s being told here, a battle being waged by Xerxes’ second-in-command, Artemisia (Eva Green), and her massed Persian forces, with Themistocles wanting Sparta to join the fight. What follows is essentially the same sea battle played out over and over, doused in torrents of computer generated blood that passed muster back when this sort of thing was a novelty, but which is now just kinda boring. Grand-scale carnage and destruction it may be, but there’s very little to engage with thanks to woeful dialogue and scarcely more believable performances. A couple of stunning shots offer little respite, and it’s rather cheapened by the fact it’s all taking place at more or less the same time as the events of 300, meaning we’re watching this third division stuff while the Champions League is on. It seemed these words would never be written, but Gerard Butler is badly missed.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug review

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (12A/PG-13, 161 mins)
Director: Peter Jackson
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

A decade ago, Peter Jackson made our Christmases with his astonishing realisations of The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

This time last year he came to us more like Scrooge or Alan Rickman in Robin Hood with his cry of “call off Christmas”, with the plodding, ruinously boring The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the first part of his new prequel trilogy based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s beloved (but quite thin) book.

With so much extraneous gubbins crammed in, fears grew that Jackson was milking a dead cow, but miraculously he’s managed to get the series back on track with this second episode, one that both cleanses the palette after the first film, and frustrates that it turned out to be so disappointing.

It begins with a flashback, which could be viewed as just another piece of stuffing designed to justify what is yet again a hefty running time. But it’s a fairly brief tidbit that shows us how the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) met dwarf Thorin (Richard Armitage) to persuade him to try to unite the kingdoms and reclaim the throne that was taken from him.

Also give thanks that this serves as a very potted recap of all the setup done in Unexpected Journey, so that we can then get straight back in to the action and not have to worry about Jackson’s indulgences on the level of what we witnessed first time, when Elijah Wood’s Frodo and old Bilbo were wheeled out for no justifiable reason whatsoever.

So we find Gandalf, hobbit Bilbo (Martin Freeman) and his newly acquired dwarf pals being chased across Middle Earth by murderous orcs as they continue deep into their quest to reach the dwarf kingdom, Erebor.

This is an immediately pleasant reminder of what many have come to love about these movies: brilliantly costumed and made-up actors running across breathtaking New Zealand landscapes being filmed by swirling helicopters.

And it’s as a visual spectacle that The Desolation of Smaug really triumphs. It’s clear from the first frame that this is a richly textured world, brim-filled with exceptional production design, albeit much of it of the computer generated variety. That’s particularly true if you avoid the heinous High Frame Rate presentation that so hamstrung last year’s movie, making it look not so much like Middle Earth as a home-videoed pantomime.

The quest itself has also turned into a far more compelling one, as we bounce from chase to fight in a whiz-bang opening hour that introduces us to bear-men and giant spiders while backgrounding the threat of the Necromancer, a malevolent force hanging hanging over the world.

We also never lose sight of the dark power of the Ring, the trinket binding these movies together, and the effect this has on Bilbo. His encounter with the spiders reminds us that this isn’t just an action fantasy, but a work unafraid to tackle themes of greed and corruption, and we’re blessed to be in the hands of such splendid actors as McKellen and Freeman, though they do disappear for a stretch in a midsection that represents one of the few dips in pace as we arrive at a man-village.

But again, bigger themes are at hand, as we pause to blend in a real-world message of poverty and the gulf between the rich and the underprivileged, wrapped in the politics of a fantasy village. We even get an appearance from Stephen Fry.

Plenty has been added, as is Jackson’s way, but not too much that seems pointless or superfluous – silly dishwashing scenes and the like that slowed the first film to a crawl. But otherwise the movie rarely loses sight of its primary action goal. There’s loads of peril, even among the numerous pitstops, and the threat of a deadline helps too. And outwith that slight middle sag, this is rattling, exciting and executed with near-unparalleled technical bravado.

And Jackson has remembered how to do action again. A dwarf-orc-elf fight alongside and down a raging river is a masterclass in momentum, thrust and imagination, and stands as one of the highlights of all our time in Middle Earth.

Bilbo the character earns his corn too, after being a bit of a passenger in his own movie first time out. He displays increasing courage and fortitude, and actually does some burgling, fulfilling the role he was brought into the quest for in the first place. The titular Smaug, the dragon that laid waste to Erebor, is a fine creation too, and we get to see plenty of him in a second half where the raised stakes really come into play.

Mind you, more than half the dwarfs are still anonymous or interchangeable, perhaps inevitable with so many of them. Other new characters work fairly well though, particularly the snobby, dwarf-hating elves, each with their own motivations and desires. Old Fellowship member Legolas (Orlando Bloom) returns alongside newcomer Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly) to knock countless orc heads together (this is a remarkably violent film, by the way, surely setting the record for decapitations in a family-friendly certificate), one of a few nice touches to tie us in with the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

And we’re back to honouring those great films after the initial misstep. Though the decision to break a slim Hobbit story into three films is still an ethically shaky, financially driven one, at least audiences will be getting something for their money this time around. Christmas is saved, for now.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire review

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (12A/PG-13, 146 mins)
Director: Francis Lawrence
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

On its release last spring, The Hunger Games was undoubtedly expected to be some sort of success. In fact it turned out to be a bona fide blockbuster, to the extent that not two but three more films were immediately greenlit from the two remaining books in the young adult trilogy by Suzanne Collins. That’s right procrastination fans, in a practice started by Harry Potter and for which Twilight then took up the baton, Mockingjay, will be two films; one released this time next year, and the final film the year after that.

That speaks of the massive cash cow the series has become, but any heightened expectations for a return to the world can also be attributed to the fact the first film was really rather good. If you skipped that first movie, there’s no hope for you here, as we’re thrust back into the life of our heroine, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence, now an Oscar winner, and an iconic presence throughout).

Katniss won the 74th Hunger Games and is now back in her District alongside Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), with the pair of champions tasked with a promotional tour of the 12 Districts of Panem.

The president (Donald Sutherland) sees her as a threat and, smelling rebellion and uprising in the air, hits on the idea of making the next Hunger Games a battle between previous champions, to eliminate as many of them as possible. Newly on board is Philip Seymour Hoffman as the Gamemaker, aiding the president in his schemes.

It’s a world of poverty and hunger, except for the rich and pampered in the Capitol, and is presented as even more of a sinister and dystopian future than before. This is not some bright and colourful fantasy land, but one cut through with a deep and abiding sorrow.

The story is told in ways that are intriguing, dangerous and smart, touching on the chasm between ordinary people and those in power, and the way in which our obsession with celebrity can be used to hide away from the real problems in the world.

Once the Games begin, it moves into a gripping and exciting jungle adventure that offers more than just a re-run of the first, only occasionally dipping in pace while keeping one eye on the bigger picture. Slightly letting down the side are combat scenes that can be a bit shaky and poorly edited, toning down what should really be brutal violence to nab the audience-friendly 12A certificate.

But it’s the themes and characters that count more than the action, and this is a stirring instalment that leaves it all to play for in the final two films.

Thor: The Dark World review

Thor: The Dark World (12A/PG-13, 112 mins)
Director: Alan Taylor
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Now that we’re firmly into Phase Two of Marvel’s plan for total cinema domination, the titles are coming thick and fast.

The next Captain America will be along in the spring, and in a year that’s already brought the terrific Iron Man 3 we now have this sequel to Thor, a movie that was bright, funny and carried along with a real zip by director Kenneth Branagh. This first return to that world doesn’t quite measure up, thanks to some uninspired storytelling, but it’s still a breezy and fun couple of hours.

After the events of Avengers Assemble, Norse god Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is busy keeping peace across the realms. Since almost all the necessary introductions were made first time round, we can get straight to it, something that also allows characters slightly down the cast list to get their moment to shine.

The main bit of setup required is a prologue that goes all Lord of the Rings on us, as we learn about the Dark Elves led by Malekith (Christopher Eccleston). He’s after some cosmic goo called the Aether, which will allow him to get up to no good when the nine realms align for the first time in 5000 years, something called the Convergence.

Back in Asgard, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) has had to answer for his crimes in Thor and Avengers Assemble, and left to rot in prison until the plot requires him. Meanwhile, on earth, Natalie Portman’s scientist, Jane, is trying to adjust to life after Thor. But she gets dragged back into events when she’s alerted by her colleagues about some sort of portal they’ve found. Through a vague and confused bit of plotting, she comes into contact with the Aether via the portal, and gets somehow infected by it.

Thor brings her to Asgard in an attempt to cure her, but don’t look for much sense during this stretch that also brings an attack from Malekith that makes a mockery of the supposed Asgardian defences.

It’s one of two or three key sequences that, while never exactly botched, just point to a lack of directorial craft and poor editing choices. For all its story, and backstory, the writing isn’t the strong suit here. The big picture is often little more than gibberish, but individual scenes please and are still capable of moments of wonder.

Much of what draws audiences in comes from its technical brilliance. Glorious production design is used to realise Asgard and the other worlds we visit. Then of course there’s the action, generally rousing if a little repetitive at times. Thor swinging his hammer at a monstrous foe is enjoyable, but there’s only so many times we can watch that before it becomes monotonous. But come the Convergence, a grand finale awaits that makes the more sluggish passages worthwhile.

But the real selling point is the humour. Where the first film largely was largely comprised of Thor’s fish out of water antics, this time everyone gets the opportunity for a one-liner or two, and most comedies wish they were as funny as this.

It’s on a modest scale compared to the Avengers, but then so is almost every movie, but Thor: The Dark World will do very nicely until the next one of those comes along.

Insidious Chapter 2 review

Insidious Chapter 2 (15/PG-13, 105 mins)
Director: James Wan
★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

The first Insidious a couple of years ago wasn’t the most sophisticated piece of horror cinema ever made, but it was a relentless scare machine. This sequel deepens the mythology with an awful lot of backstory, but dilutes the scares, beginning with the teenage version of Patrick Wilson’s Josh back in 1986 when his family first encountered the evil forces that still haunt them. We then pick up immediately after the events of the first film, with Lin Shaye’s medium murdered and Rose Byrne wondering whether she can trust her husband or if he’s possessed. Slow and creepy is the order of the day, and director James Wan’s skill with the frame and woozy angles still generates a handful of chilling moments, though not as many as you might think amidst a surfeit of spooky toys. This second chapter is clumsily structured, which would be less bothersome if the scares were more forthcoming, and there’s a stretch in the middle spent wandering round an old hospital that’s really sort of dull. But it’s rescued by a clever final third in which past events are neatly integrated, and there’s every indication it’s a series with the potential to run and run.

Riddick review

Riddick (15/R, 119 mins)
Director: David Twohy
★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆


An under the radar near-classic was born when Vin Diesel’s hard-hitting convict antihero Riddick first appeared over a decade ago in the lean and effective Pitch Black, before an attempt to turn it into a big budget franchise saga stalled with the bloated and incomprehensible Chronicles of Riddick. This third in the series attempts to take him back to basics to an extent, and begins with Riddick left for dead on a baking and near uninhabitable planet, where no end of computer generated beasties are out to kill him. This unexpectedly extended sequence showcases some imaginative creature design and Riddick’s survival instincts before we get to the meat of the plot in which a bunch of the universe’s most ineffectual mercenaries arrive on the planet intent on collecting his head. This is more hunt and bait than straight action, and proves to be rather interesting, at least giving some relief from Diesel’s rather portentous noir voiceover. Disappointingly this can’t be sustained into a final third that runs out of ideas and relapses into uninspired evade-the-monsters shenanigans that try to recall Aliens but come up short. But Riddick remains a hulking and iconic presence throughout, and further adventures in his company wouldn’t be entirely unwelcome.

Kick-Ass 2 review

Kick-Ass 2 (15/R, 103 mins)
Director: Jeff Wadlow
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Based on the graphic novels of Mark Millar and John Romita Jr., Kick-Ass was one of the freshest and most entertaining films of 2010.

It took superheroes out of the realm of fantasy and into the real world, where ordinary New York teenager Dave (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) dressed up as a masked vigilante, Kick-Ass, and took on crime. The problem was that, though Kick-Ass was trying to be a hero, he was never very super, something that made him the least compelling aspect of his own movie.

So it was left to Mindy Macready, aka Hit Girl (Chloe Grace Moretz) to provide both the fighting skills and be the star of the movie. The opening scene in this sequel mirrors one of the most iconic from the first film, in which Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) shot a gun at his bulletproof vest-wearing young daughter, Mindy. Only this time it’s Mindy who’s holding the gun, and she’s shooting Dave as part of his training.

Mindy, now 15, is still taking on criminals and kicking ass, but Kick-Ass himself has hung up his suit, even though he has inspired others to take to the streets in costumes and fight wrongdoers. But Mindy makes a promise to her guardian, Marcus (Morris Chestnut) who was once her father’s partner in the police force, that she won’t be Hit Girl anymore.

Touching on the insanity of what they're doing, that Mindy should be a girl with a normal childhood, is the first clue that this sequel intends to take a more thoughtful look at these characters’ actions, and not simply be a hyper-violent cartoon.

Yet Dave is keen to get back into Kick-Ass ways, and joins up with a team of masked amateur avengers led by Jim Carrey, who goes by the name Colonel Stars and Stripes. This is where Cage is missed, no doubt about it, with Carrey not really offering the same level of crazed wit as his would-be replacement.

Meanwhile Chris D’Amico (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) is hungry for revenge since Kick-Ass killed his crime-boss father. He reinvents himself as a supervillain, the Motherfucker, and gathers together a team of baddies to hunt down Kick-Ass and his pals.

Also new to the scene is director Jeff Wadlow, taking over the reigns from Matthew Vaughn. Wadlow certainly delivers with a smart screenplay, but isn’t quite able to bring the same level of panache to the action scenes that the first movie offered.

Being modestly budgeted means it’s fairly low key action-wise, in the first two-thirds of the film at any rate, but the scale of the action matters less than the imagination, the originality and the impact that it has. Moreover it allows the focus to fall on the characters, and is what elevates Kick-Ass 2 beyond simple exploitation.

Though it still has its share of outrageous moments, and a truly inspired all-action finale, the element of surprise, particularly in regard to Hit Girl, has been lost. But that’s precisely why they spend so much time out of costume this time round, so we can get to the core of the people under the masks.

More of the same just wouldn’t cut it, and it’s entirely right and necessary to expand the world and move the characters forward. It’s a movie that’s aware of its comic book origins, but this isn’t the world of Spider-Man and his oft-repeated “with real power comes real responsibility” mantra. This is the real world, with real-world consequences and responsibilities.

It’s the growth of the characters through this realisation that makes Kick-Ass 2 a successful piece of storytelling, far more than it’s a successful bit of comic fun. For that it should be applauded.

Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters review

Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters (PG, 106 mins)
Director: Thor Freudenthal
★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

The mash-up of Greek myth and Harry Potter (lots and lots of Harry Potter) that was Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief from a couple of years ago was always intended to kick off a series of movies, and so we return to the world for this rather tired sequel.

Modern day teenager Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman) discovered in the opening entry that he was the son of Poseidon, but without the need for lengthy setups this time round, we jump straight into Percy at Hogwarts, sorry, Camp Half-Blood. After saving the day in the first movie, his worry is that he was a one-quest wonder, not as worthy a hero as believed, but an attack on their enchanted camp sends Percy and his pals on a quest to recover the Golden Fleece, which involves travelling to the Sea of Monsters where the bad guys are trying to resurrect the Titan, Cronos.

Though far from original, this is reasonably agreeable fantasy fare, especially when compared to the lumbering Clash and Wrath of the Titans from which it takes much inspiration. But it’s just all so forgettable, so where the first film still managed to be acceptably fun, despite its glaring similarity to Potter, this is dull as well as derivative. Grave import is given to very goofy events, with none of the heft of Potter, nor the breadth of characters to invest in, with only a cameo by Nathan Fillion briefly piercing the torpor. Drenched in CGI, the action set pieces are unmemorable, just stepping stones on the way to a dumb finale and the threat of yet more adventures to follow.

The Smurfs 2 review

The Smurfs 2 (U, 105 mins)
Director: Raja Gosnell
★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Having hauled in over half a billion dollars worldwide with their first adventure, the return of the tiny blue Smurfs was inevitable. This agreeable sequel finds Smurfette (voiced by Katy Perry) worrying about her place among the Smurfs, since she was a creation of evil wizard Gargamel (Hank Azaria) until Papa Smurf turned her blue and made her one of their own. Gargamel meanwhile, defeated in the first film, is now a famed magician in Paris and has a plan to harness the Smurfs’ essence and take over the world. There’s also Neil Patrick Harris and his family returning from the first film and pitching in to help the Smurfs, though this does mean the film can get rather too bogged down in human subplots that will make tots itchy. But if they liked the first Smurfs movie they’ll like this, and the computer graphics used to realise the Smurfs is tip-top, while Azaria doesn’t short change with a full-blown zany performance.

The Wolverine review

The Wolverine (12A/PG-13, 126 mins)
Director: James Mangold
★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Though it seemed to have run its course by the conclusion of The Last Stand in 2006, the X-Men series continues to rumble on through sequels, prequels and spin-offs.

Chronologically The Wolverine is set after all of the films that have come so far, which at least dispenses with the problem of prequelitis, the main reason the previous standalone in the franchise, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, didn’t really work.

But though a more worthwhile endeavour, and for all that Wolverine, or Logan to give him his Sunday name, is arguably the most popular and compelling of all the X-Men figures, this is the sixth time we’ve seen this character on the big screen, so perhaps he’s starting to lose his lustre.

We’ve seen him so many times that fatigue is beginning to set in, even with the benefit of a pure, unadulterated movie star in the lead. Make no mistake, Hugh Jackman is sensational as the mutant with claws of the hardest metal and astonishing regenerative powers, but he’s yet to find the story to fully exploit his appeal.

As Origins demonstrated, this is a guy who has been around for a very long time. We first meet Logan here as a prisoner of war in Nagasaki just as the Bockscar flies into view, his healing powers and near indestructibility saving both himself and a Japanese soldier, Yashida (Ken Yamamura), from the atomic blast.

Then we head to the Yukon wilderness in the present day, where Logan is a wanderer and a tortured soul, a loner keen on justice. He’s also dreaming of Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), whose descent into dark and dangerous power forced him to kill her at the end of the third X-Men movie, The Last Stand.

That’s a gritty setup for a hero who has never exactly been defined by his sunny disposition. A no-nonsense title (certainly when compared to the clumsy X-Men Origins: Wolverine) promises much more than it delivers, but this is at least another successful attempt at portraying Logan as a prowling, rage-filled beast.

Maybe there’s something to be admired in a comic book movie that (for the most part, anyway) doesn’t follow the standard path of hero trying to foil super-villain, that does try to be more about character. But it’s a lot harder to actually turn this dark potential into a workable superhero tale which, let’s face it, is why we’re here. And what else is there to learn about this character that we haven’t already?

The other admirable aspect is the strong female characters, beginning with Yukio (Rila Fukushima), who tracks Logan down in Canada to persuade him to return to Japan at the request of the now very old and very ill Yashida. His old friend says he can make him mortal, which sets in motion a dense plot involving the Yakuza wanting to kill Yashida’s granddaughter Mariko (Tao Okamoto), power struggles and mysterious ninja protectors, and which ends up with Logan on the run with Mariko.

This exposes one of the major flaws at the heart of the entire enterprise; a plot that would be easier to justify if it were driven by Logan. But he is a passenger in his own story, a tag-along in this Japanese conspiracy plot and family saga, as allegiances switch at the swing of a sword, and who is on which side at any one time is anyone’s guess.

The rest is kinda tiresome, low on incident and long on intricate but largely unfathomable plotting. A few samey fights break up the tedium, as Logan’s claws clang against samurai sword. It’s the least X-Men-like of the movies so far, with barely another mutant to be seen save for Viper, whose encounter with Logan leaves his powers of healing on the wain, which at least gives some momentary interest when he isn’t indestructible.

The movie’s centrepiece comes fairly early, a fight atop a speeding bullet train that for sheer kineticism is hard to beat. But for all that it tries to avoid the usual tropes, inevitably the climax involves a clattering showdown between Wolverine and a super-foe that’s as tired as everything else in the film.

A post-credit tease for next year’s X-Men: Days of Future Past is almost worth the wait, but until that point The Wolverine is boring and incomprehensible, and that’s the two worst things it could have been.