The Martian (2015) 7/10

Starring : Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Michael Pena, Sean Bean, Kate Mara, Sebastian Stan, Chiwetel Ejiofor
Director : Ridley Scott
Running Time : 142 mins

After being presumed dead by his crew on a manned mission to Mars, astronaut Mark Watney (Damon) is forced to fend for himself and attempt to survive on his own, assuming that everyone thinks he is dead, but when those in charge discover he is still alive they are faced with a race against time to rescue him before he runs out of food, oxygen, or both.

Although this doesn’t strictly speaking stick to the storyline of the novel, and misses out on large chunks of the action, you have to accept that for a movie to do justice to the novel it would have to be incredibly long. This movie, probably thanks to the efforts of Ridley Scott, manages to do a reasonable job of adapting the material, and it is an interesting watch, just not quite as fun as the book. Damon does his best, but this was always going to be a difficult novel to adapt.

You’ll like this if you liked : Moon

The Cell (2000) 7/10

Starring : Jennifer Lopez, Vincent D’Onofrio, Vince Vaughn, Jake Weber, Dylan Baker, Marianne Jean-Baptiste
Director : Tarsem Singh
Running Time : 108 mins

Dr Catherine Deane (Lopez) uses an experimental treatment to enter the mindset of children that are in comas. When a serial killer, Carl Rudolph Stargher (D’Onofrio), falls into a coma with one of his victims still held captive, they call her in to help enter his mind and find the location of his final victim. There she finds his mind split in two – a childlike innocent side, and a murderous power-hungry side which wants her dead.

This was a better movie than I imagined it would be, with a pretty solid procedural investigation wrapped in a sci-fi flick. The sets were imaginative, though Singh’s later sets bear remarkable similarities in their Dali-esque inspirations, and the notion of a machine that you can take you into someone’s mind may not be an original idea, but it is handled with imagination in this intriguing film.

You’ll like this if you liked : Identity

Focus (2015) 7/10

Starring : Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Adrian Martinez, Gerald McRaney, Rodrigo Santoro
Director : Glenn Ficarra & John Requa
Running Time : 105 mins

Jess Barrett (Robbie) is an amateur thief who meets professional conman Nicky Spurgeon (Smith) when she tries to rob him. He takes her on as his protégé and soon the two start developing feelings for each other. Nicky decides to end their business relationship and the two don’t see each other for three years, when Nicky is hired to con an Australian businessman to his opponent in the motor racing industry can beat him, and Jess is dating the man Nicky is trying to con.

This has some solid scenes throughout, specifically the gambling scene with BD Wong, but on the whole it tries too hard to bluff the audience. The two lead performances are pretty good, and I can’t imagine the rumoured Ben Affleck or Kristen Stewart in the leads. Fans of heist movies will enjoy this if they can cope with the twists, but there’s also the romantic element that might attract some viewers.

You’ll like this if you liked : Now You See Me

The Good Dinosaur (2015) 8/10

Starring : Jeffrey Wright, Frances McDormand, Raymond Ochoa, Jack Bright
Director : Peter Sohn
Running Time : 94 mins

In an alternate earth where the meteor that killed the dinosaurs missed, humans developed alongside dinosaurs, who became intelligent and developed agriculture and everyday skills. When Arlo (Ochoa) witnesses the death of his father (Wright), he blames a human boy names Spot (Bright), as they had been tracking him down. When Arlo falls into a river and is swept away from the rest of his family, he forms an unlikely friendship with Spot as he tries to find his way back home.

Although probably not the best of the Pixar movies, this sits somewhere in the middle, which still makes it a very enjoyable film. My two year old absolutely loved it and knew the characters names off by heart within thirty minutes and was talking about Arlo and Spot like he’d known them forever. The animation is slick, and the simple storyline is enjoyable and full of action.

You’ll like this if you liked : Brother Bear

Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter (2014) 7/10

Starring : Rinko Kikuchi, Nobuyuki Katsube, Shirley Venard, David Zellner
Director : David Zellner
Running Time : 105 mins

A young Japanese woman, unhappy with her life, discovers a VHS copy of the movie Fargo and comes to the conclusion that the bag of money buried in the movie is real and still buried in the USA. With her bosses company credit card she embarks on a journey from Japan to America in search of the treasure in the frozen wastes of Minnesota.

This slow paced drama succeeds by having the same level of dry humour as the movie it discusses. The story might not be that exciting, but it is interesting to watch how Kumiko’s obsession with the film Fargo and her belief that the story is real leads her to ruin her life and travel across the world in search of a fictional treasure. Plus the ending will have people discussing what actually happened to her character and whether or not she did survive as the ending implies, considering what happened to her in real life...

You’ll like this if you liked : Fargo

Kidnapping Mr Heineken (2015) 6/10

Starring : Jim Sturgess, Sam Worthington, Ryan Kwanten, Anthony Hopkins
Director : Daniel Alfredson
Running Time : 95 mins

In order to make some much needed money as their property is inhabited by squatters that the police will do nothing about, a group of friends hatch a plan to kidnap Freddy Heineken (Hopkins), a beer tycoon who they plan to hold to ransom. But as their demands go unanswered for days on ends, the group begin to fret about what they should do if their ransom demands are turned down.

An interesting story about the world’s largest paid ransom is handled in a slightly boring fashion. In spite of some award winning actors, the execution of this movie is more than a little dull and gives us no real action and nowhere near enough tension considering the situation. Historically this is worth watching, but otherwise don’t bother.

You’ll like this if you liked : Firewall

Me And Earl And The Dying Girl (2015) 8/10

Starring : Thomas Mann, RJ Cyler, Olivia Cooke, Nick Offerman, Connie Britton, Molly Shannon
Director : Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
Running Time : 106 mins

School kid Greg Gaines (Mann) is asked to befriend Rachel Kushner (Cooke), who he was friends with when they were little. Rachel has been diagnosed with leukemia, and neither Greg nor Rachel really want to hand out with each other, but they soon develop a bond that sees them seeing each other on a regular basis and, in order to cheer her up, he starts showing her the home movies he and his friend Earl (Cyler) have made over the years, parodying Hollywood greats. Eventually Greg and Earl decide to make a video especially for Rachel, in the hopes of making her feel better.

This is a fun movie with the kind of characters you don’t usually get in teen films. The three leads purposely don’t fall into any of the usual high school cliques that are portrayed in American films, and as such they feel more real to me. This movie has both comedy and drama, and will have even the most stony hearted reaching for the hankies or simply staring at the screen in disbelief as the story unfolds.

You’ll like this if you liked : Be Kind Rewind

The Wind Rises (2013) 6/10

Starring : Joseph Gordon-Levitt, John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, Martin Short, Stanley Tucci
Director : Hayao Miyazaki
Running Time : 121 mins

Jiro Horikoshi (Gordon-Levitt) dreams of being a pilot, but his poor eyesight has robbed him of this dream. Instead he takes a job as an engineer and soon becomes a much used airplane designer. As he lives through some of Japans most key moments in the early to mid twentieth century, he finds the time to meet and fall in love with Nahoko (Blunt) and make a lifelong friend in the form of Honjo (Krasinski).

Although the animation in this Studio Ghibli movie is as good as any other, it is clear that this was something of a passion project form Miyazaki, whose love of planes even led him to naming his company after one. Children will find the story extremely slow going, but adult might enjoy the look at the man responsible for some of the more innovative Japanese planes to come out of the twentieth century.

You’ll like this if you liked : Porco Rosso

Vacation (2015) 7/10

Starring : Ed Helms, Christina Applegate, Skyler Gisondo, Steele Stebbins, Chris Hemsworth, Leslie Mann, Beverly D’Angelo, Chevy Chase
Director : John Francis Daley & Jonathan M Goldstein
Running Time : 99 mins

In a desperate attempt to bring his family closer together, commercial pilot Rusty Griswold (Helms) decides to revisit his childhood by taking them on a cross-country trip to Walley World, where his parents took him and his sister when they were young. Unfortunately he seems to have forgotten all the things that went horribly wrong on their original trip, and is doomed to repeat every bad thing that happened in all new ways.

I enjoyed the original Vacation movies, even the straight to video Vegas Vacation had its merits, but this is a very different creature, though still quite entertaining in parts. Although it has some of the disaster-prone humour of the originals, it focuses far more on making jokes out of slapstick nonsense than on witty banter or situational humour. People falling off cliffs and getting killed in car accidents is the level of comedy found here, which can work if it isn’t the focus of the film. Still, it’s a decent enough road movie with some okay moments of comedy.

You’ll like this if you liked : We’re The Millers

Ant-Man (2015) 8/10

Starring : Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Evangeline Lilly, Corey Stoll, Bobby Cannavale, Anthony Mackie, Judy Greer
Director : Peyton Reed
Running Time : 118 mins

Scott Lang (Rudd) is a professional thief who is tricked into stealing the suit of former superhero Ant-Man, also known as Hank Pym (Douglas). With the new suit that enables the wearer to shrink at will and communicate with insects, Lang and Pym, along with Pym’s daughter Hope (Lilly), team up to stop Darren Cross (Stoll), a man who plans to create his own version of the Ant-Man suit and use it for his own nefarious ends.

This is such a fun movie. Unlike other superhero movies that concentrate on getting to grips with powers or problems with relationships, this jumps right in to the fun part of battling villains. Although the villain is a normal human being with no superpowers (until late in the movie) that doesn’t make it any less dramatic. By casting a comedy actor in the lead – a character who is meant to be a loveable rogue – we have an awesome opportunity to see Paul Rudd play a hero, a romantic lead, and his own comic relief. Granted, Michael Pena does a good job in this role too, but it seems to be the ensemble cast as a whole is what makes this so much fun and so enjoyable.

You’ll like this if you liked : Super

Maleficent (2014) 8/10

Starring : Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Sharlto Copley, Lesley Manville, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple, Sam Riley
Director : Robert Stromberg
Running Time : 98 mins

When a fairy named Maleficent (Jolie) is betrayed by her best friend Stefan (Copley), who steals her wings so that he can present them to the dying king and claim she is dead, she takes revenge on him by cursing his first born daughter Aurora (Fanning) to fall asleep forever on her sixteenth birthday, but as she watches the girl grow up Maleficent starts to regret her actions.

This is a fun movie, though fans of Disney’s version of Sleeping Beauty might be disappointed with the liberties they take in changing the ending. Jolie is perfect in the lead, with Fanning making a believably ditzy princess and, with some wonderful special effects, children are sure to be enthralled by this film. The only issue is that so many of the characters have been changed in such drastic ways, and the fact that Maleficent doesn’t even so much as appear to die at the end is something Disney should have learned can be achieved without actually killing the character by such reinvented fairy tales as Wicked.

You’ll like this if you liked : Ella Enchanted

Ted 2 (2015) 7/10

Starring : Mark Wahlberg, Seth MacFarlane, Amanda Seyfried, Jessica Barth, Giovanni Ribisi, Morgan Freeman
Director : Seth MacFarlane
Running Time : 112 mins

In order to stabilise his marriage to Tami-Lynn (Barth), Ted (MacFarlane) decides that they should adopt a baby together. Unfortunately this raises a red flag about whether Ted has rights in the eyes of the law, and whether he is his own person or simply property. With the help of his best friend John (Wahlberg), Ted decides to fight for his rights to adopt and to stay married and takes the case to court.

This was a lot more enjoyable than the first Ted movie, and thankfully kept some of the better elements (namely Ribisi) and got rid of the worse elements, such as the Family Guy-esque comedy references that are played for jokes rather than plot. There’s an actual story other than talking bear smokes pot, and although this isn’t brilliant it definitely is a step in the right direction for MacFarlane, although his poor handling of the whole civil rights storyline could to some be more offensive than enlightened.

You’ll like this if you liked : Step Brothers