Smurfs: The Lost Village ****
There’s a nostalgic animated innocence to the whole affair that helps the Smurf personalities shine through – something the very busy, effects-heavy 2013 film lost.
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Man Of Steel ****
Prepare for a darker, more brooding Superman film than before, hardly surprising given The Dark Knight Rises creator Christopher Nolan’s hand in this, co-writing with his Batman collaborator David Goyer. If the mood does not absorb you into the trials and tribulations of being a superhuman on Earth, then director Watchmen Zack Snyder’s action-packed scenes …
John Carter ***
Writer-director Andrew Stanton tries his hand at live action this time, putting some of his fun Pixar magic from the likes of award-winning Finding Nemo and Wall-E into John Carter, an other-worldly adventure staged on Mars – or Barsoom, as adapted from Tarzan author Edgar Rice Burroughs’s work, A Princess of Mars. Whatever faults this …
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island ***
Our thirst for family adventure movies is never quenched, and the promise of yet another involving a mystical, far-off land packed with interesting creatures promises big things. Carving a niche in such a market is Canadian filmmaker Brad Peyton, the debut director of Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore that got mixed reviews …
Last Night ***
Temptation is the name of the game of The Jacket writer Massy Tadjedin’s quietly profound directorial debut, Last Night. The temptation of such an intriguingly sexy and good-looking cast of Keira Knightley, Sam Worthington, Eva Mendes and French actor Guillaume Canet is the film’s obvious draw, and what drives a story full of acute observations …
Sanctum 3D – 2*
This is one of those films that fill you with great expectations, especially with Avatar’s James Cameron at the producing helm, but leaves you thoroughly underwhelmed afterwards. Exciting visions of a watery ‘other-world’ wonder from Cameron, especially with The Abyss reference (Virgil), turn into a lengthy cave-exploring/father-son-hugging tedium. Still, it is based on a true …
Monsters – 4*
For a film with such an emotive title that conjures up all kinds of stereotypical sci-fi imagery of Earth being taken over by extraterrestrial life forms, Monsters by documentary film-maker Gareth Edwards is quite the opposite. It’s actually a surprisingly tender relationship study between two humans that blossoms amongst nature of the Earth and alien …
Avatar 3D – 4*
In the famous words of one American icon, “I have a dream…”, Hollywood got all giddy and happily jumped aboard the James Cameron vision express with his latest epic, Avatar, even though the blockbuster film-maker of Aliens, Terminator and The Abyss has been less than influential (studio-translated, ‘mega profitable’) on the movie scene over the …