Hotel Transylvania (2012) 8/10

Starring : Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Kevin James
Director : Genndy Tartakovsky
Running Time : 92 mins

Dracula (Sandler) has built a hotel where monsters can stay without fear of attack from the human world and his operating it for over 100 years. When his daughter Mavis (Gomez) turns 118, she decides she wants to explore the human world, so he fakes a human village to deter her from this desire, but when human Jonathan (Samberg) happens upon the hotel, Dracula has to ask him to pretend to be a monster in order to hide the idea that not all humans are bad from his daughter and his friends, but tragedy strikes when Mavis falls in love with Jonathan.

This is actually a pretty touching morality tale that not only shows that even a monster can love someone, but that judging people based on past experience is something we should never do. The voice casting was good, and the development of the story was enjoyable, plus the animation was fluid and fun to watch.

You’ll like this if you liked : Despicable Me

Paranormal Activity 3 (2011) 7/10

Starring : Lauren Bittner, Christopher Nicholas Smith, Chloe Csengery, Jessica Tyler Brown
Director : Henry Joost & Ariel Schulman
Running Time : 94 mins

It’s 1988, and cinematographer Dennis (Smith) moves in with his girlfriend Julie (Bittner) and her two daughters Katie (Csengery) and Kristi (Brown) and while making a sex tape discovers that there appears to be a strange figure lurking in their bedroom. He sets up cameras around the house to catch sight of anything else out of the ordinary, and discovers that Kristi has an imaginary friend she talks to at night called Toby.

In this instalment of the ever increasing Paranormal Activity Saga, we are informed that the ghosts from parts one and two were not the family’s first encounter with the other side. With the setting being 1988, and with young versions of Katie and Kristi, it seems that they’ve been haunted since birth, and that the ghosts want to steal their kids as part of a satanic ritual which their grandmother seems to be part of. Fans of the series will enjoy this extension of the series, but God only knows where they’re going to go from here.

You’ll like this if you liked : An American Haunting

The Possession (2012) 7/10

Starring : Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Kyra Sedgwick, Natasha Calis, Madison Davenport
Director : Ole Bornedal
Running Time : 93 mins

Divorcee Clyde (Morgan) has divorced from his wife Stephanie (Sedgwick), and their two girls Hannah (Davenport) and Emily (Calis) live with the mother, visiting Clyde on the weekends. One weekend, the three stop at a yard sale where Emily buys an antique carved box. Becoming obsessively protective of the box, Emily finally finds a way to open the lock and unwittingly releases an evil spirit that takes over her body and her behaviour starts to concern her father, but no one will listen to his suspicions.

Em’s ‘unusual behaviour’ is completely beyond the realm of having a problem and way into the area of your daughter being a devil child. Her lack of reaction to a room filled with bugs and her lashing out with a fork at her father for no apparent reason all spell possession to me, but useless Sedgwick doesn’t want a hear about it. Surely she would have listened to her other daughter even if she didn’t want to listen to her ex-husband. There seem to have been an awful lot of these child possession movies in recent years – I can remember when The Exorcist was an original idea – but as far as possession movies go, this is one of the better efforts, thanks in part to Morgan’s intriguing performance and no thanks in part to Sedgwick’s ridiculously hammy carrying on.

You’ll like this if you liked : The Exorcism Of Emily Rose

I Spit On Your Grave (2010) 6/10

Starring : Sarah Butler, Jeff Branson, Andrew Howard, Daniel Franzese, Rodney Eastman, Chad Linberg
Director : Steven R Monroe
Running Time : 109 mins

When writer Jennifer Hills (Butler) takes a retreat to a remote cabin in the woods in order to start on her new book, she attracts the attention of the city hating locals who, one night, break into her cabin in order to scare her, but things escalate out of control and they soon turn to sexually assaulting her and plan to kill her. She manages to escape and survive, and decides to seek vengeance against the men that have ruined her life.

Practically the first half of this movie involves Hills arrival at the cabin and her subsequent sexual assault, and this is very uncomfortable viewing. Her eventual escape from her attackers felt a little bit ridiculous – I couldn’t see how she could just slowly wander off and they wouldn’t be able to find her – and her eventual overpowering assault on the men beggars the question how she couldn’t have overpowered them in the first place. This isn’t the best rape-revenge movie around, and as a remake it lacks what the original has going for it – the shock effect.

You’ll like this if you liked : Run! Bitch Run!

Sinister (2012) 7/10

Starring : Ethan Hawke, Juliet Rylance, Fred Dalton Thompson, James Ransone
Director : Scott Derrickson
Running Time : 106 mins

True-crime writer Ellison Oswalt (Hawke) moves his family into a house where a bizarre murder took place. When he discovers a collection of fifty year old 8mm snuff films in the house, he starts to get the idea that the murder he is investigating stems back to at least the 1960s and may in fact be the work of a serial killer rather than just a one-off event.

What starts of as a slightly creepy thriller soon evolves into an out-and-out horror as we are introduced to the supernatural child manipulator, Bughuul. This is well paced and makes for some slightly uncomfortable and jumpy viewing, but a lot of the subtleties are just not subtle enough and could have been handled far better with a little less of the supernatural in the opening to really give the viewers a shook when Bughuul starts to show up.

You’ll like this if you liked : The Skeleton Key

The Phantom Of The Opera (2004) 6/10

Starring : Gerard Butler, Emmy Rossum, Patrick Wilson, Miranda Richardson, Minnie Driver
Director : Joel Schumacher
Running Time : 142 mins

When a mysterious ghostly figure haunts a French Opera House, causing havoc to the cast and crew, lead soprano Carlotta Giudicelli (Driver) quits the show, fearing for her life. Taking her place is young chorus girl Christine Daae (Rossum), who has been secretly tutored by The Phantom (Butler), a hideously disfigured man who hides beneath the opera house, who has been staging accidents and mishaps with the aim of boosting Christine into a lead role. But when Christine falls in love with the Vicomte de Chagny – a man named Raoul (Wilson) – The Phantom becomes jealous and kidnaps Christine in order to make her his bride.

For the first time the musical version of The Phantom Of The Opera is brought to the big screen. There have been other non-musical versions, but it is interesting to get to see how this would play out in the West End. The singers are able, the sets are reasonable, and Minnie Driver adds a little humour, but sadly the majority of the cast – specifically the three leads – have very little personality and make this a slightly dull movie to watch.

You’ll like this if you liked : Sweeney Todd : The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street

Frankenweenie (2012) 8/10

Starring : Catherine O’Hara, Martin Short, Martin Landau, Charlie Tahan, Atticus Shaffer, Winona Ryder
Director : Tim Burton
Running Time : 87 mins

When schoolboy Victor Frankenstein (Tahan) unwittingly causes his dog Sparky to get run over and killed during a baseball game, he decides to bring the beloved pet back from the dead, but when his school friends find out about Victor’s success in reanimation they start trying it out for themselves in the hope of winning the school science fair.

You’d think that Tim Burton’s love of stop-motion horror cartoons would get old, but this is just as good as Corpse Bride or The Nightmare Before Christmas. Granted it starts off slowly with a gradual introduction to the world of Victor and Sparky, but once Sparky dies and Victor has brought him back, the mayhem soon hits its stride. There’s lots going on for kids and grown-ups alike, and I think the whole family will enjoy this latest offering from Burton.

You’ll like this if you liked : The Nightmare Before Christmas

The Artist (2011) 7/10

Starring : Jean Dujardin, Berenice Bejo, James Cromwell, Missi Pyle, John Goodman
Director : Michel Hazanavicius
Running Time : 100 mins

When Peppy Miller (Bejo) accidentally runs into screen legend George Valentin (Dujardin), she is inspired to audition for a small role in the movies. She soon becomes an overnight success and starts moving further up the billing at the cinema, but when 1929 and the advent of the talkies hits, Valentin finds himself becoming less and less popular as he refuses to move with the times and start speaking in his films.

I grew up on old black and white movies, though the only silent ones I ever watched were Laurel and Hardy, as I've always found Chaplin to be a bit too boring (controversial?). This is a perfect homage to that era, with some great use of cinematography and a clever nod to the transition to sound period of 1929. Personally I’d attribute George’s reluctance to make talkies to the fact that he may have been worried that his visual acting style may not translate well if his vocal skills didn’t match, though many thin it was due to his French accent. Either way, this is a nice conceit of a movie, but don’t expect to enjoy it unless you have at least a passing familiarity and fondness for the silent era.

You’ll like this if you liked : Citizen Kane

House At The End Of The Street (2012) 5/10

Starring : Jennifer Lawrence, Max Thierot, Elisabeth Shue, Gil Bellows, Eva Link
Director : Mark Tonderai
Running Time : 102 mins

When Sarah Cassidy (Shue) and her daughter Elissa (Lawrence) move to a new town, they discover that the boy next door, Ryan Jacobson (Thierot), suffered a tragedy when he was younger and his little sister Carrie Anne (Link) killed their parents after suffering from a head trauma then ran off into the woods where she was presumed dead. But when Elissa starts a relationship with Ryan, she discovers that Carrie Anne isn’t dead and may actually be killing others as well.

Although this has an interesting twist towards the end in regards to the crazy Carrie Anne,this isn’t suspenseful enough to really hold the viewers’ attention. The action is at times too slow and at others the use of flashbacks seems to occur because the director is too lazy to let us draw our own conclusions. Teen thriller fans might enjoy this, but it is pretty mediocre.

You’ll like this if you liked : The Shortcut

The Fighter (2010) 6/10

Starring : Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Melissa Leo
Director : David O Russell
Running Time : 116 mins

Dicky Eklund (Bale) was a professional boxer who, due his inability to box as a result of a major crack addiction, now co-manages his half-brother Micky Ward (Wahlberg) along with their mother Alice (Leo). Micky finds the overpowering combination of his brother and mother may be holding back his career so, with the encouragement of his girlfriend Charlene Fleming (Adams), Micky decides to go in a new direction and starts to slowly climb the boxing rankings.

Hollywood once again recycles the old boxer does good storyline in this slightly less than gripping movie. I actually found Bale to be pretty good, reminiscent of his role in The Machinst, and Adams and Leo are pretty good in their supporting roles, but I didn’t really find Wahlberg than intriguing. Perhaps it is due to his lack of willing to work with Russell after his bad experience on Three Kings but, whatever the reason, he makes this a below average watch.

You’ll like this if you liked : The Wrestler

Resident Evil : Retribution (2012) 6/10

Starring : Milla Jovovich, Sienna Guillory, Michelle Rodriguez, Aryana Engineer, Bingbing Li
Director : Paul W S Anderson
Running Time : 96 mins

Alice (Jovovich) finds herself captive in an Umbrella Corporation facility somewhere in Russia and, with the help of ex-Umbrella employee Anna Wong (Li) and a group of anti-Umbrella fanatics, must escape from the facility before it is blown up. Along the way she discovers that clones are being used to test out biological weaponry, and that one of the clones, a girl called Becky (Engineer), believes that Alice is her mother.

This felt far too much like I was just watching someone playing the computer game. Whereas the other movies have had plotlines that felt theatrical, this felt like we were just being drawn through levels of the game and facing the bosses at each level. Fans of the series will enjoy this, but newcomers might find it a bit of a drag.

You’ll like this if you liked : Resident Evil : Apocalypse

ParaNorman (2012) 7/10

Starring : Kodi Smit-McPhee, Tucker Albrizzi, Anna Kendrick, Casey Affleck, Christopher Mintz-Plasse
Director : Chris Butler & Sam Fell
Running Time : 93 mins

Norman Babcock (Smit-McPhee) has the uncanny ability of being able to speak with the dead, but other than his new friend Neil (Albrizzi), nobody believes him. When he hears of an annual ritual that he has to undertake in order to protect his town of Blithe Hollow from the vengeful spirit of a murdered witch, Norman is forced to take up the challenge. Unfortunately, things do not go according to plan.

This feels like a Tim Burton / Henry Sellick movie, due to its dark storyline and its colourful and spooky characters. The two leads look like something out of Diary Of A Wimpy Kid, and the ghosts are imaginative, and what is essentially a movie about an outcast kid saving his town from destruction is well thought through and features some well-rounded and reality grounded characters.

You’ll like this if you liked : Corpse Bride

The Raid (2011) 8/10

Starring : Iko Uwais, Joe Taslim, Donny Alamsyah, Yayan Ruhian
Director : Gareth Huw Evans
Running Time : 101 mins

An Indonesian SWAT team is sent into the thirty storey tower block that operates as a safe house for a powerful drug lord and his motley crew of deadly killers. When one of the young residents of the tower block warn of the arrival of the police, the SWAT team find themselves trapped in the building with no back up and a limited supply of ammunition to protect themselves with.

When it comes to action packed ultra-violent movies. This has to be up there with the best of them. This starts of slowly, but once the police get trapped in the building the over-the-top fight scenes and the ultra-violent action really gets going in full force. At some points I didn’t even bother reading the subtitles, as the action really spoke for itself as the lone copper tries to fight off the seemingly endless series of villains that are out to get him. A must watch for any action fans.

You’ll like this if you liked : Dredd

Safe (2012) 6/10

Starring : Jason Statham, Catherine Chan, Robert John Burke, James Hong, Anson Mount, Chris Sarandon
Director : Boaz Yakin
Running Time : 94 mins

Child genius Mei (Chan) is kidnapped by the Triads and held captive in order for them to use her incredible memory to store secrets so as to avoid leaving a traceable digital footprint. She is spotted in a train station by ex-cop turned cage fighter Luke Wright (Statham) who, seeing she is in distress, attempts to help her, leading to him having to avoid both Chinese and Russian gangs, as well as the NYPD itself.

This is a nice idea, but having a cage fighter turned kidnapped-child-rescuer was just too much for me. Statham annoyingly gruff cockney voice started to grate on me after about ten minutes, and the little girl was pretty pathetic until the final showdown with one of the villains. Fans of Van Damme and Seagal style action flicks will like this, but don’t expect Shakespeare.

You’ll like this if you liked : Man On Fire

Road Of No Return (2009) 6/10

Starring : Michael Madsen, David Carradine, Michael Blain-Rozgay, Ernest Anthony, Shane Woodson, Jose Andrews
Director : Parviz Saghizadeh
Running Time : 91 mins

Four hit men, known to each other as The Foreigner (Blain-Rozgay), The Indian (Andrews), Blacky (Anthony) and Whitey (Woodson), are hired to try and prevent America’s growing drug problem by killing some known drug traffickers, but when they rescue an orphaned child from the drug dealers they’ve been sent to kill, their bosses decide they could compromise the mission and order the four men to be killed.

By giving the characters typically racist names, this really brings out the xenophobic ideals of the four hit men involved. Thankfully they manage to fight against the odds and work together, as well as finding out things about themselves that they otherwise would never have known. The script is a little bit stunted, which is a nice way of saying it is badly written, and some of the acting is abysmal, but fans of the genre might find something redeeming about this pretty mediocre thriller.

You’ll like this if you liked : Bitch Slap

Looper (2012) 9/10

Starring : Bruce Willis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emily Blunt, Paul Dano
Director : Rian Johnson
Running Time : 114 mins

In 2074, the only way to kill someone without ever being caught is to capture them, tie them up with a sack on their head, and illegally send them back 30 years in time where hired killers, called Loopers, get paid to dispose of the bodies. The problem is that two of the Loopers, Joe (Gordon-Levitt) and Seth (Dano), have discovered that a new boss in the future is tracking down the Loopers thirty years in the future and sending them back in time to be killed – something they like to call closing the loop.

This is such an interesting story, and it’s hard to believe that this is an original idea. Johnson has managed to come up with a thought provoking look at how the mobs of the future use time travel to get away with murder, and how the selfish people that help them out don’t even care for their own future lives so long as their getting paid in their present. Fans of Philip K Dick will love this, and action fans in general will get a kick out of Joseph Gordon-Levitt made up to look like Bruce Willis.

You’ll like this if you liked : Minority Report

The Big Bang (2010) 7/10

Starring : Antonio Banderas, Thomas Kretschmann, William Fichtner, Sienna Guillory, Delroy Lindo, Robert Maillet, Sam Elliott
Director : Tony Krantz
Running Time : 102 mins

Ned Cruz (Banderas) is a private detective who is hired by former pro-boxer Anton Protopov (Maillet) to track down a woman named Lexie Persimmon (Guillory). His investigations lead him to an eccentric billionaire called Simon Kestral (Elliott), a man who is obsessed with recreating the Big Bang, and Cruz starts to doubt if Persimmon ever truly existed or if Protopov made her up.

For a movie I’d never heard of, this was pretty entertaining. Granted, the ending is a little hokey, and I can’t listen to Banderas anymore without thinking of Puss In Boots, but fans of thrillers will enjoy this, even if the ending gets them saying ‘What the hell?’, especially if they haven’t been paying attention to the actual Big Bang part of the plotline.

You’ll like this if you liked : Cypher

The Sweeney (2012) 6/10

Starring : Ray Winstone, Ben Drew, Hayley Atwell, Steven Mackintosh, Paul Anderson
Director : Nick Love
Running Time : 108 mins

Jack Regan (Winstone) is the kind of cop that other cops despise – he’s unconventional and uses methods that are frowned upon, but manages to get good results. So when he is faced with suspicions that known criminal Francis Allen (Anderson) is responsible for an armed robbery that resulted in the death of a civilian, he makes it his duty to bring Allen and his colleagues to justice, regardless of what he has to do and what his superiors have to Say about the matter.

Fans of the original series will enjoy seeing their favourite characters reimagined in this modern update. Winstone does a reasonable job in the lead role, with a supporting cast that manage to keep the movie gritty, but in some ways this might have been better if it had have been set in the mid to late 1970s, although then many might have just thought this was a version of Life On Mars. There are some good moments, but some of the storyline was a little confusing, especially with Regan’s arrest and release, even though he did commit a crime.

You’ll like this if you liked : Street Kings

Chalet Girl (2011) 6/10

Starring : Felicity Jones, Ed Westwick, Tamsin Egerton, Ken Duken, Sophia Bush, Nicholas Braun, Bill Bailey, Brooke Shields, Bill Nighy
Director : Phil Trail
Running Time : 94 mins

Former champion skateboarder Kim Matthews (Jones) has been forced at the tender of age of nineteen to support her single father by taking whatever dead-end job she can, so when she is offered a well-paying four month catering job at an Austrian ski resort she jumps at the opportunity. Things start off shaky as she is judged for her working class background, but she soon finds a new joy when she discovers an uncanny ability at snowboarding and decides to enter a competition to make some much needed cash.

I suspected that this was going to be a typical British teen rom-com, and I wasn’t disappointed. Granted, this is clearly written for girls, and it made little sense that the two lead girls who dislike each other at first become firm friends so quickly, but if you like movie like Wild Child or Ice Princess, then this will be perfect for you.

You’ll like this if you liked : Wild Child