Bridesmaids (2011) 9/10

Starring : Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Rose Byrne
Director : Paul Feig
Running Time : 131 mins

When her best friend Lillian (Rudolph) announces that she is getting married, unlucky in love Annie Walker (Wiig) leaps at the chance to prove herself as her maid of honour. Unfortunately, due in part to plain bad luck, the events leading up to the wedding day do not go according to plan.

This movie has been dubbed The Hangover for girls, and rightly so. Not only is it a gross out movie filled with random scenes of increasingly disgusting content, but it is laugh-out-loud funny to boot. If you have even a sliver of a sense of humour, you will enjoy this hilarious comedy. The only thing that could ruin it would be if someone somewhere made Bridesmaids 2…

You’ll like this if you liked : The Hangover

Stan Helsing (2009) 5/10

Starring : Steve Howey, Diora Baird, Kenan Thompson, Desi Lydic, Leslie Nielsen
Director : Bo Zenga
Running Time : 91 mins

On Halloween night, video store clerk Stan Helsing (Howey) goes out for a night of celebration with three friends, but first he has to deliver some videos to his boss who lives on the other side of town. They soon discover that this part of town is haunted by the ghostly monsters from a movie studio that burnt to the ground ten years earlier, and that they’re after Stan.

Granted, Baird and Lydic looked hot in this movie, but unfortunately this was a weakly plotted flick from the producers of the Scary Movie franchise (they might as well have just called it Scary Movie 6!). There have been worse movie movies in recent years, and at least this one seemed to have direction, but the largely toilet humour hit and miss jokes were just too hit and miss for my liking.

You’ll like this if you liked : Scary Movie 3

The Veteran (2011) 4/10

Starring : Toby Kebbell, Brian Cox, Ashley Thomas, Adi Bielski, Tony Curran
Director : Matthew Hope
Running Time : 95 mins

Robert Miller (Hope) returns from a tour of duty in Afghanistan and finds himself fighting a war of sorts on the streets of London when he takes a job in undercover surveillance – his first job being to track some people suspected of being involved in terrorist activities. When he finds out that those he’s working for might be involved in future attacks themselves, he sets out to stop them by any means necessary.

Man, this movie got on my nerves. It was bad enough that Ashley ‘Bashy’ Thomas possesses an accent that slips from Jamaican patois at the beginning of the movie to a West London tone by halfway, and that Toby Kebbell acts like he’s in a badly scripted comedy, but the storyline itself was just annoying – I mean, why would Brian Cox and co employ someone who is clearly so patriotic as an ex-soldier as part of their terrorism scam? And as for the ending, I just wanted to punch out that stupid little kid! So basically terrorism wins!

You’ll like this if you liked :

Centurion (2010) 8/10

Starring : Michael Fassbender, Dominic West, Olga Kurylenko
Director : Neil Marshall
Running Time : 94 mins

Centurion Quintus Dias (Fassbender), the last remaining survivor of a Pict attack on a Roman fort, joins the Ninth Legion of Titus Flavious Virilius (West) when they rescue him from his aggressorsas they head in search of the Pict, but when they are betrayed and decimated by their Pict guide, Etain (Kurylenko), the survivors find themselves running for their lives.

This was actually a really entertaining movie that manages to mix action with historical accuracy (or as near as you can get – who knows what kind of accent Picts and Romans had?). Fassbender is very good in the lead role, and the supporting cast manage to give each of their characters a uniqueness that makes them stand out as individuals rather than just a collective of soldiers.

You’ll like this if you liked : Gladiator

American Pie Presents The Naked Mile (2006) 5/10

Starring : John White, Jessy Schram, Steve Talley, Christopher McDonald, Eugene Levy
Director : Joe Nussbaum
Running Time : 102 mins

Unlike the rest of his well-known family, Erik Stifler (White) is still a virgin, but not through choice. His girlfriend, Tracy Sterling (Schram), is reluctant to go ahead and do the deed, so she makes him an offer – one weekend free pass to do whatever he wants to do, in the hope that he can get his need for sex out of his system. On this weekend he journeys down to his cousin Dwight’s (Talley) college campus, where the annual Naked Mile walk is due to take place.

This is the worst so far in the American Pie series – there is little or no plot, and basically this is an excuse to have lots and lots of nudity without having to worry too much on writing a script. The actors are just not as good as they have been in the previous movies, and White just isn’t likeable due to his seeming lack of personality.

You’ll like this if you liked : National Lampoon's Animal House

8 Mile (2002) 7/10

Starring : Eminem, Brittany Murphy, Mekhi Phifer, Kim Basinger
Director : Curtis Hanson
Running Time : 106 mins

Jimmy ‘Rabbit’ Smith (Eminem) wants nothing more out of life than to become a rapper, but times are hard. He can’t afford to make a demo tape so is forced to move back in with his mother (Basinger), his dead end job is getting in the way of his progress as a musician, and he continually chokes at the local rap-off contests. But things seem to start to turn around when he meets aspiring model Alex (Murphy), until he catches her with another man…

Eminem is pretty good in this almost biographical movie about his overcoming adversity. The ‘white man trying to survive in the black man’s world’ is a bit of a departure from the norm, and ordinarily this sort of story wouldn’t be written with the intention of us supporting this particular underdog, but in this instance the angle works, and it works well.

You’ll like this if you liked : Hustle And Flow

Green Lantern (2011) 7/10

Starring : Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Peter Sarsgaard, Mark Strong
Director : Martin Campbell
Running Time : 114 mins

Test pilot Hal Jordan (Reynolds) finds himself called upon to join the Green Lantern Corps, a group of intergalactic heroes charged with protecting the universe, but when an evil force known as the Parallax threatens to destroy mankind, Hal finds himself in battle against a power perhaps even the Green Lantern Corps can not destroy.

This movie has had a bit of a bad press, but I’ve seen worse. Ryan Reynolds manages to save it in some ways, but I think the public are a bit sick of intergalactic heroes which seem to have become almost a joke, and much prefer grounded heroes that are more accessible. Even though Hal Jordan is human, his alien friends in the Corps make him just that bit too alien to make him accessable as a believable hero.

You’ll like this if you liked : Superman Returns

The Last Exorcism (2010) 5/10

Starring : Patrick Fabian, Ashley Bell, Iris Bahr
Director : Daniel Stamm
Running Time : 85 mins

Reverend Cotton Marcus (Fabian) agrees to allow a documentary film maker and her crew to film a movie about his life. He lets them in on the secret that exorcisms are all fake and are just performed to appease the families involved, but when he is summoned to the exorcism of a young girl named Nell Sweetzer (Bell), giving him a chance to show off his parlour tricks, he and the film crew start to suspect that there is something a little off about the Sweetzer family.

This was something of a non entity in the horror department. I was expecting some sort of frightening movie until I saw this was rated PG13 in the States. Basically this is not in the slightest bit scary and in fact aims to disprove exorcisms as being real – that is until the ending where everything goes a bit screwy for about five minutes. To put it bluntly, the pay-off isn’t worth the eighty minutes it takes to get there.

You’ll like this if you liked : The Blair Witch Project

Drive Angry (2011) 6/10

Starring : Nicolas Cage, Amber Heard, William Fichtner, Billy Burke
Director : Patrick Lussier
Running Time : 105 mins

John Milton (Cage) has escaped from hell in the hope of tracking down the men that killed his daughter and kidnapped his grand-daughter in order to sacrifice her as part of a satanic ritual. Along the way he picks up waitress Piper (Heard), and finds himself being pursued by a mysterious man in black who calls himself The Accountant (Fichtner).

Seriously, I was expecting a Fast And The Furious type movie (having not watched any of the trailers before hand). Little did I know that this was a supernatural thriller with ridiculous over the top violence and nudity to boot. Fans of exploitation movies might enjoy this silly romp that has little or no plot or direction to talk about, otherwise I’d recommend steering clear.

You’ll like this if you liked : Planet Terror

National Lampoon's Endless Bummer (2009) 5/10

Starring : Khan Chittenden, Colton James, Ray Santiago, Allison Scagliotti, Caitlin Wachs, Matthew Lillard
Director : Sam Pillsbury
Running Time : 88 mins

It’s the summer of 1984, and when someone steals JD’s (Chittenden) surfboard, he convinces a group of his friends, and the local surfing expert and veteran surfer Mike Mooney (Lillard), to leave their cosy little beach town of Ventura and travel to San Fernando Valley where they suspect the thief might live.

That’s it. That right there is the entire plot of this National Lampoon movie. Granted, there’s supposed to be some character building along the way, and some if not all of the supporting cast do a reasonable job of moving what story there is along, but the fact is this movie doesn’t really go anywhere and, even with the tacked on Stand By Me style ending, saying what happened to each of the characters, there isn’t any satisfaction, especially as I thought Santiago and Scagliotti should have got together.

You’ll like this if you liked : Dazed And Confused

Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011) 6/10

Starring : Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, Gary Oldman, Jackie Chan
Director : Jennifer Yuh
Running Time : 84 mins

Po Ping (Black), now an accepted member of the Furious Five as the Dragon Warrior, now lives his life protecting the Valley of Peace, but when news arrives that the evil Lord Shen () has returned to China and plans on using a weapon that will put an end to kung fu, Po and his friends are called back into action to protect the animals of China once again…

This wasn’t as good as the original Kung Fu Panda. The story didn’t feel as well fleshed out, and for some reason the characters felt a lot more one-dimensional once they have become friends with Po. This is also a lot darker than the original, and in some ways this makes it a better movie, it just isn’t as kiddie friendly in my opinion.

You’ll like this if you liked : Alpha And Omega

Glenn The Flying Robot (2010) 5/10

Starring : Billy Boyd, Dominic Gould, Patrick Bauchau, Gerard Depardieu
Director : Marc Goldstein
Running Time : 84 mins

Jack (Boyd) is a pianist who has always been outdone by his sometime friend Henry (Gould) in the professional world, so when he discovers that his domestic robot Glenn is a better piano player than either of them he decides to use this to shame his more popular friend by training the robot to play his music for him. But when this plan doesn’t quite work out, a drunken order from Jack leads Glenn to become a threat to everyone.

The story behind this movie could have had some potential; the problem seems to lie in the poor direction and bad special effects, combined with the pretty poor dialogue and a really bad robot fight scene. With a lot more work put into it, this could have been an entertaining one-upmanship story much in the same vein as The Prestige, but sadly falls down at the first hurdle due to its seeming lazy appearance.

You’ll like this if you liked : Bicentennial Man

Take Me Home Tonight (2011) 8/10

Starring : Topher Grace, Anna Faris, Dan Fogler, Teresa Palmer, Chris Pratt
Director : Michael Dowse
Running Time : 94 mins

It’s 1988. Matt Franklin (Grace) graduated four years ago and, despite being a talented student, still works in a video shop in the local mall. So when he runs into his high school crush Tori Frederking (Palmer), he uses his twin sister Wendy (Faris) as an excuse to attend an annual Labour Day party, hosted by her boyfriend Kyle (Pratt) in the hopes of getting together with her.

This was a nice little blast from the past movie that will remind everyone who ever watched an eighties movie of such classics as License To Drive and anything by John Hughes. The Dan Fogler subplot could have been handled better – to be honest it didn’t really go anywhere – but the main romance story worked excellently, and even Anna Faris’s storyline intertwined with ease.

You’ll like this if you liked : I Love You, Beth Cooper

The International (2009) 7/10

Starring : Clive Owen, Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl
Director : Tom Tykwer
Running Time : 118 mins

Interpol agent Louis Salinger (Owen) and Assistant District Attorney Eleanor Whitman (Watts) join forces in an attempt to bring down a bank that is suspected of funding terrorism across the world. As they travel the globe in the hope of finding conclusive evidence that will stop the bank in its tracks, they soon discover that those working for the bank will stop at nothing to stop their activities from being made public.

This starts off very slowly, but about thirty minutes in things start to take a turn for the better. Though the two leads, Owen and Watts, aren’t great and tend to over-act more than anything, the plot is solid and the action speaks for itself. Well worth checking out if you’re a fan of movies like The Bourne Identity or anything with political intrigue involved.

You’ll like this if you liked : Shooter

X-Men : First Class (2011) 9/10

Starring : James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Rose Byrne, Kevin Bacon
Director : Matthew Vaughn
Running Time : 127 mins

It’s 1962, and Charles Xavier (McAvoy) and Erik Lehnsherr (Fassbender) are secretly mutants – the next evolutionary step in humanity – but when CIA agent Moira MacTaggert (Byrne) discovers the existence of mutants their secret becomes public and they are enlisted by the government to help stop terrorist acts. Their first task – stop the evil Sebastian Shaw (Bacon) from using his mutant powers to start a nuclear war.

This movie was brilliant – even the girlfriend enjoyed it. The story was intriguing, the characters felt real, and the action was non-stop. Plus it had the kitsch element of being set in the 60s. Fans of the original X-Men movie will enjoy this, but it may also get some new fans as it doesn’t feel quite as dark as the original, ins spite of having some even darker undertones.

You’ll like this if you liked : Kick-Ass

Flight Of The Living Dead (2007) 5/10

Starring : David Chisum, Kristen Kerr, Kevin J O’Connor
Director : Scott Thomas
Running Time : 90 mins

A scientist who has been infected by an experimental virus that can reanimate dead tissue is secretly transported on board a red eye flight to Paris. When she is shot and killed, her corpse comes back from the dead and starts infecting everyone on board, turning them into flesh eating zombies.

This movie is about as hammy as you can get. The concept of managing to sneak a human body onto an international American flight is incredibly unlikely in this post 9/11 day and age, and that coupled with the pretty bad special effects and implausible gun play on board the plane makes this a definite cae of switching off and suspending disbelief. Horror fans will find this funny, and non-horror fans will just think it’s stupid. I’d suggest watching Quarantine 2, which is basically a slightly better made rip off of this.

You’ll like this if you liked : Quarantine 2 : Terminal

Diary Of A Wimpy Kid : Rodrick Rules (2011) 7/10

Starring : Zachary Gordon, Devon Bostick, Robert Capron, Rachael Harris, Steve Zahn
Director : David Bowers
Running Time : 93 mins

Greg Heffley (Gordon) is back at school after his summer holidays, and his brother Rodrick (Bostick) is treating him even worse than ever, so their parents decide it might be a good idea if they start bonding with each other – especially as they are now both at the same school.

Although not as entertaining as the first film (I think most sequels suffer from this as they cease to be original), this is still a great family film. Little kids will like the silly escapades of Rowley and Freggley, while older teens will like the inept spoutings of Rodrick as he claims to know everything about high school. Plus there’s always something for those who are no longer kids but will always be children at heart.

You’ll like this if you liked : Angus

Dinner For Schmucks (2010) 5/10

Starring : Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, Zach Galifianakis, Jemaine Clement, Stephanie Szostak
Director : Jay Roach
Running Time : 115 mins

Tim Conrad (Rudd) is up for promotion at his company, and is invited to a special dinner – and is expected to bring an idiot for the other guests to make fun of. Initially, Tim is against the idea, but when he literally runs into Barry Speck (Carell), an IRS worker whose hobbies include making dioramas out of dead mice, he can’t help but think that Barry could clinch him his promotion.

There are some okay moments in this slapstick remake of the classic French comedy Le Diner De Cons, though apparently it does little to follow the plot of the original. Rudd and Carell aren’t particularly engrossing in the lead roles, and even though Rudd’s character was toned down to make him more sympathetic he still comes across negatively for most of the film. However, I did think the dioramas were awesome, and Galifianakis was good in his supporting role.

You’ll like this if you liked : Step Brothers