Two Night Stand (2014) 7/10

Starring : Analeigh Tipton, Miles Teller, Jessica Szohr, Scott Mescudi
Director : Max Nichols
Running Time : 86 mins

Megan (Tipton) is convinced by her best friend Faiza (Szohr) that she needs to meet a man, so she joins a dating website and hooks up with Alec (Teller) for one night of meaningless sex. She doesn’t really like him much and can’t wait to leave, but unfortunately a huge snow storm traps them in Alec’s apartment together and they are forced into a situation neither one of them relishes.

Although slow to get going, and having two lead characters that aren’t particularly sympathetic, this slowly turned into a fun and likeable romantic comedy that felt hopeful until the big twist towards the end almost dashes all of our expectations against the rocks of disappointment. Thankfully this was realistically turned around, and we’re left with a rom-com that may not be the best or the most memorable but is still good enough to watch more than once.

You’ll like this if you liked : In Search Of A Midnight Kiss

Absolutely Anything (2015) 8/10

Starring : Simon Pegg, Kate Beckinsale, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Rob Riggle, Robert Bathurst, Eddie Izzard, Joanna Lumley, Robin Williams
Director : Terry Jones
Running Time : 82 mins

Neil Clarke (Pegg) is a teacher who dreams of being a published author and getting together with his downstairs neighbour, Catherine (Beckinsale). When an invading force of aliens use him as a test subject to see what kind of race mankind is, and to decide whether to welcome them or destroy them, Neil finds himself possessing superpowers that allow him to make absolutely anything be true.

Even though this movie doesn’t come up with any new or exciting ideas, and somehow misses the opportunity for the main character to make himself into a famous author, this is still a fun filled movie that, if not for the frequent use of bad language, could have made for a great family movie. Pegg works well in the lead, though it seems unlikely that Beckinsale would willingly be attracted to him, and the supporting cast of big names makes this a wonderful little known movie.

You’ll like this if you liked : Bruce Almighty

We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011) 7/10

Starring : Tilda Swinton, John C Reilly, Ezra Miller
Director : Lynne Ramsay
Running Time : 108 mins

Eva Khatchadourian (Swinton) is forced to take any job she can as the public treat her badly for something that happened in her past. The story goes back to the birth of her son, Kevin (Miller), an anti-social odd little child, and explains how the warning signs concerning his behaviour are ignored by everyone except Eva, eventually culminating in an act so vicious and malevolent it causes Eva to be shunned from society.

This movie is so slow paced, but because it doesn’t give away too many details it keeps you watching just to find out what the hell has happened to Eva to make everyone act towards her the way they do. I actually felt sorry for her once the big reveal occurred as, to be fair, it wasn’t really her fault that Kevin was a nut job, and she did seek help about him but no-one would believe her. An interesting movie if you can cope with the pacing.

You’ll like this if you liked : Hard Candy

Pan (2015) 7/10

Starring : Levi Miller, Hugh Jackman, Garrett Hedlund, Rooney Mara, Adeel Akhtar
Director : Joe Wright
Running Time : 112 mins

Orphan Peter (Miller) hates his life in a crooked orphanage run by nuns, so when he and his fellow orphans are kidnapped by pirates he thinks his life might be changing, but it isn’t long before he finds himself in a world of flying ships and fairies and discovers something about his past which might change his life forever.

Although it’s an interesting idea to see how Peter ended up in Neverland, it is oddly executed and just opens up more questions. Where, in the original story, it’s never questioned how Peter got to Neverland, by explaining in this it raises the question of how Blackbeard and his pirates got there. The singing really detracted from the story when they first arrive in Neverland and almost spoiled the whole movie for me, but thankfully once things got going a plot started to show itself and the story did in parts become interesting. Children will love the adventurous nature of the film, though adults might feel cheated by the lack of explanations throughout the movie.

You’ll like this if you liked : Maleficent

Nativity 3 : Dude, Where’s My Donkey?! (2014) 6/10

Starring : Martin Clunes, Marc Wootton, Catherine Tate, Adam Garcia, Ralf Little, Lauren Hobbs, Jason Watkins, Celia Imrie
Director : Debbie Isitt
Running Time : 110 mins

St Bernadette’s has a new teacher, Mr Shepherd (Clunes), who is strict and by the book, but when he loses his memory it is up to Mr Poppy (Wootton) and the kids at the school to help him get his memory back and win the heart of his fiancée Sophie (Tate). But her friend Bradley Finch (Garcia) is in love with Sophie and wants to take her away from Mr Shepherd, so Mr Poppy has to wangle a free trip to New York so they can get her back.

As far as kids films go this was okay, but it had nothing really for adults. The story was basic and had no real character, and a lot of the jokes had already been played out in the previous two films, especially the fact that Mr Poppy once again manages to kidnap a whole class of children, this time taking them out of the country. Plus, and I know there was a flash mob contest, but there was far too much singing and dancing which detracted from what little story there actually was.

You’ll like this if you liked : Nativity 2 : Danger In The Manger!

A Holiday Heist (2011) 5/10

Starring : Lacey Chabert, Rick Malambri, Preston Lacy, Vivica A Fox, Chris Kattan
Director : Christie Will
Running Time : 90 mins

A group of college kids take a job helping out at the campus gallery over Christmas and decide to have a meal together in the gallery when it is closed, but what they don’t realise is that Dean McBride (Fox) plans to get two of her idiotic childhood friends to rob the place so she can retrieve the paintings and become a local hero while securing her position and a hefty pension.

Well, I’m hoping that this movie was aimed at children because the story felt like it was written by one. The villains were the flimsiest I’ve ever seen, and the point of the robbery made very little sense. Throw in a whole bunch of stereotypes and you have something of a cookie cutter movie with little or no depth and some random pairing ups at the end that make The Breakfast Club look like it made sense. So, even though most adults will find this movie repellent, small children might find it funny.

You’ll like this if you liked : Home Alone 3

Kath And Kimderella (2012) 5/10

Starring : Jane Turner, Gina Riley, Magda Szubanski, Glenn Robbins, Peter Rowsthorn, Rob Sitch, Richard E Grant, Erin Mulally, Jessica De Gouw
Director : Ted Emery
Running Time : 83 mins

When Kath (Turner) wins an all expense paid trip to Italy, she takes her daughter Kim (Riley) and her friend Sharon (Szubanski) with her on the holiday of a lifetime. When they arrive, Kim draws the attention of the hideously deformed Prince Juleo (Mulally), who thinks she is an actual princess.

Fans of the Kath And Kim series might find something to enjoy about this movie, but I was disappointed that they kept the characters of Prue and Trude who were possibly the worst creations from Turner and Riley. There are some funny moments, but people who haven’t seen the television series will probably not want to watch this either.

You’ll like this if you liked : Guest House Paradiso

The Love Punch (2013) 7/10

Starring : Pierce Brosnan, Emma Thompson, Timothy Spall, Celia Imrie, Louise Bourgoin, Laurent Lafitte
Director : Joel Hopkins
Running Time : 95 mins

When Richard (Brosnan) discovers that he has lost his retirement fund when rich businessman Vincent Kruger (Lafitte) buys the company he works for and liquidates it, he teams up with his ex-wife Kate (Thompson) and their best friends Pen (Imrie) and Jerry (Spall) to steal back the money they are owed. They track him to a holiday destination where he is getting married, and plan to steal a very expensive diamond he gave to his fiancee Manon (Bourgoin).

This is a fun heist romp with a sterling cast of older actors putting in some great performances in this romantic comedy. The plot is simple and executed with a tongue in cheek approach, and it’s nice to see older actors being given leading roles in such movies as this instead of being hung out to dry.

You’ll like this if you liked : Tower Heist

Minions (2015) 6/10

Starring : Sandra Bullock, Jon Hamm, Michael Keaton, Allison Janney, Steve Coogan, Jennifer Saunders, Geoffrey Rush, Steve Carell, Pierre Coffin
Director : Kyle Balda & Pierre Coffin
Running Time : 91 mins

Realising that their lives need someone despicable to make them worth living, Minions Kevin (Coffin), Stuart (Coffin) and Bob (Coffin) leave their community and head off in search of someone who can lead them to true evil. They find Scarlett Overkill (Bullock), a successful super villain who uses them to aid her in her next criminal enterprise; stealing the Crown Jewels.

Compared to the Despicable Me movies this was certainly lacking something. The Minions work well when they are background characters, and when they are paired with the much more character driven Gru, but here they are weak. Scarlett Overkill isn’t a very interesting character and the best part of the film is the end when the Minions meet a young Gru for the first time. My suggestion – unless you are under five and really liked the Despicable Me movies, this probably isn’t for you.

You’ll like this if you liked : Rio 2

2 Guns (2013) 8/10

Starring : Denzel Washington, Mark Wahlberg, Paula Patton, Edward James Olmos, Bill Paxton
Director : Baltasar Kormakur
Running Time : 110 mins

Bobby (Washington) and Stig (Wahlberg) are two criminals who come up with an idea to rob a bank, but when it turns out that one is undercover DEA and the other is Naval Intelligence, things take a very complicated turn. When they finally realise what is going on, the two find themselves being hunted down by both the people they work for and the criminal gangs they’ve been trying to infiltrate.

This is a fun and unusual buddy movie, with Washington and Wahlberg doing sterling jobs in their roles. The plot is complex and intriguing, and at no time are we as viewers entirely sure who our heroes can fully put their trust in, let alone if we can even trust them. A great little movie that will keep you on the edge of your seat from start to finish.

You’ll like this if you liked : The Departed

San Andreas (2015) 6/10

Starring : Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino, Alexandra Daddario, Ioan Gruffudd, Archie Panjabi, Paul Giamatti
Director : Brad Peyton
Running Time : 115 mins

A team of scientists in California discover a means to predict when an Earthquake is about to strike, only to discover that a quake of a magnitude never before experienced in America is about to hit. Those that survive the quake are then faced with an oncoming tsunami, and rescue-chopper operator Ray Gaines (Johnson) is forced to team up with his ex-wife Emma (Gugino) to rescue their daughter Blake (Daddario) who is trapped in the path of the disaster.

Ioan Gruffudd is so over the top horrible in this that it defies belief, and some of the one-liners feel totally out of place. Fans of action disaster movies might enjoy this latest offering, which portrays the events surrounding a devastating earthquake and the resulting tsunami, yet completely ignores the fact that the land has been so damaged that it won’t be able to be built on again. Saying “we’ll rebuild” or words to that effect aren’t exactly going to do much if the infrastructure is so stuffed and saturated that the land is unfit to build on. Way to raise our hopes, Hollywood.

You’ll like this if you liked : 2012

Tuck Everlasting (2002) 7/10

Starring : Alexis Bledel, William Hurt, Sissy Spacek, Jonathan Jackson, Scott Bairstow, Ben Kingsley
Director : Jay Russell
Running Time : 91 mins

While planning to run away from home, Winnie Foster (Bledel) meets the Tuck family and falls for youngest son Jesse (Jackson). Her parents assume she’s been kidnapped, but the truth is that Winnie enjoys spending time with the Tucks. When she discovers that they are in fact a family of immortals, Jesse tempts her to stay with him forever by drinking from the fountain of youth they discovered in the woods.

So this must be where Stephenie Meyer got the idea for Twilight. Unlike that disaster in which a girl ends her life for love, this takes the sensible approach of having Winnie question immortality. Throw in Ben Kingsley as the villain trying to track down the immortals and discover their secret, and you have a likeable movie with a logical ending. And thankfully the writers decided to make Winnie older, so as to avoid the creepy paedophile feel of the novel.

You’ll like this if you liked : Peter Pan

Tomorrowland (2015) 8/10

Starring : George Clooney, Britt Robertson, Raffey Cassidy, Hugh Laurie
Director : Brad Bird
Running Time : 132 mins

Casey Newton (Robertson) is a young girl who discovers a pin that transports her to a magical world called Tomorrowland. She meets a girl called Athena (Cassidy) and a man named Frank Walker (Clooney) who tells her she has been recruited into a group called Plus Ultra who seek out dreamers and inventors to shape the world’s future.

This was surprisingly fun, though not that surprising when you realise it was directed by Brad Bird who has made some of the best animated movies of the past decade or so. The story is fun and harks back to a time when children’s films were so much simpler and more innocent, though it could be argued that it’s just a two hour advertisement for Disney Land.

You’ll like this if you liked : Night At The Museum

John Wick (2014) 7/10

Starring : Keanu Reeves, Michael Nyqvist, Alfie Allen, Willem Dafoe, Dean Winters, Adrienne Palicki
Director : Chad Stahelski
Running Time : 103 mins

John Wick (Reeves) has quit his life as a mob hit man after falling in love and getting married. When his wife dies years later, he is left with a pet dog that she bought him as a parting gift, but when a group of men beat him up and kill his dog in order to steal his car, Wick’s murderous ways bubble back to the surface and he decides to go after them out of revenge.

This comes across as a typical revenge movie, much like Taken or anything starring Segal or Van Damme in the nineties. Reeves isn’t brilliant, but he doesn’t have to be; he just has to be broody and pissed off as he tracks down the people responsible for killing his pet dog. That’s right, his pet dog. That’s why he’s out for revenge. Watch it, it’ll make sense.

You’ll like this if you liked : Taken 3

Terminator : Genisys (2015) 6/10

Starring : Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jason Clarke, Emilia Clarke, Jai Courtney
Director : Alan Taylor
Running Time : 121 mins

Kyle Reese (Courtney) travels back in time to protect Sarah Connor (Clarke) from the time travelling Terminator (Schwarzenegger) that wants to kill her, but an accident leads him to find himself in a parallel timeline where Sarah Connor was raised by a Terminator and is better able to defend herself than he is! Now Reese has a challenge ahead of him; to reset the timeline or watch as everything her knows is destroyed...

Although this isn’t totally terrible, you can tell that the writers were trying too hard. Where the original Terminator movie managed to spawn the catch phrase “I’ll be back” without seeming to try, this movie repeated the “I’m old, not obsolete” line so much it became clear they were trying to create another memorable line; a line that is now only memorable for being over used. Clarke and Courtney have almost no onscreen chemistry, and their already troubled developing romance seems even less likely because of this. Fans of the originals will hate this for basically retconning everything that has gone before, but for a standalone sci-fi movie I’ve seen worse.

You’ll like this if you liked : Transformers : Revenge Of The Fallen

Agent Cody Banks 2 : Destination London (2004) 6/10

Starring : Frankie Muniz, Anthony Anderson, Hannah Spearitt, Cynthia Stevenson, Daniel Roebuck, Anna Chancellor, Keith Allen
Director : Kevin Allen
Running Time : 101 mins

Cody Banks (Muniz) is tasked with tracking down his former handler, Victor Diaz (Allen), who has gone rogue and plans on using a top secret mind control device to take over the world. Banks is forced to go undercover in London as a member of a musical prodigy group, which is run by a man who is suspected of working with Diaz.

Although I did prefer the original to this sequel which seems to be less plot based and more comedy focussed, it is still a fun kids film that anyone under the age of twelve will enjoy. Granted, Frankie Muniz has very little charisma, and Hannah Spearitt isn’t the best as the undercover Scotland Yard operative, but Anthony Anderson and some of the supporting cast do a decent enough job of keeping the laughs coming.

You’ll like this if you liked : The Spy Next Door

Pitch Perfect 2 (2015) 7/10

Starring : Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Hailee Steinfeld, Brittany Snow, Skylar Astin, Adam DeVine, Katey Sagal, Anna Camp, Ben Platt
Director : Elizabeth Banks
Running Time : 115 mins

Following an embarrassing performance that resulted in Fat Amy (Wilson) showing off her lady parts to the world, the Barden Bellas are banned from the acapella circuit which they’d been fronting. In order to regain their former position in musical society, they must win an international title, something no American team has ever managed to achieve.

This starts off slowly, and feels like it’s about to go the way of Glee after the first season, but thankfully this picks itself back up, dusts itself off, and makes for a likeable sequel. There’s thankfully not too much focus on any one character, though Fat Amy gets more focus than most, so we are actually given some more character development for most of the leads, and not just one or two. Well worth watching if you like the first movie.

You’ll like this if you liked : Mean Girls

What If (2013) 8/10

Starring : Daniel Radcliffe, Zoe Kazan, Megan Park, Adam Driver, Mackenzie Davis, Rafe Spall, Lucius Hoyos, Gemima Rooper
Director : Michael Dowse
Running Time : 98 mins

Wallace (Radcliffe) has never had a good romantic relationship, both because of the women he dates and because of his own life choices, so when he meets Chantry (Kazan) at a party he thinks things are on the up, until she reveals she lives with her long time boyfriend Ben (Spall) and just wants to be friends. Their friendship blossoms over the months that follow, but the two find it difficult to just remain friends as they hold a secret spark for each other.

This is one of those romantic comedies where you pretty much know what’s going to happen from the moment the two leads meet, but that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable. Radcliffe and Kazan make a likeable and believable pair to watch, though the idea of Radcliffe flying all the way to Ireland seems a little farfetched, especially as we have no idea where his income comes from. Fans of Kazan’s work will find this an agreeable addition to her works such as Ruby Sparks and The Pretty Ones, and fans of Radcliife will enjoy seeing him do something a little bit funny for a change.

You’ll like this if you liked : Two Night Stand

Spy (2015) 8/10

Starring : Melissa McCarthy, Jason Statham, Rose Byrne, Miranda Hart, Jude Law
Director : Paul Feig
Running Time : 119 mins

When international super-spy Bradley Fine (Law) is apparently murdered, CIA desk operative Susan Cooper (McCarthy) agrees to go undercover to find Rayna Boyanov (Byrne), the woman believed to be responsible for his death. With the assistance of fellow desk operative Nancy (Hart), Susan infiltrates the arms dealer’s life and tries to prevent a global crisis involving operatives going rogue and the sale of a nuclear weapon.

Some of Melissa McCarthy’s more recent films have been something of a let down. The Heat was okay, but Identity Thief could have been better. This brings her back on Bridesmaids form, with a surprisingly straight laced turn in the comedic lead. The supporting cast are very good, especially Byrne who shines in every scene, Fans of Feig’s movies will thoroughly enjoy this, one of his better recent efforts.

You’ll like this if you liked : Johnny English Reborn