Reviews in a nutshell
Still consumable – if you haven’t seen the 1959 powerhouse version – as the two leads try their damnedest to command a real screen presence. However, the film itself lacks spirit. Bekmambetov’s subdued cinematography does make the whole affair feel rather ‘televised’, rather than like an old-school, silver-screen epic
Now You See Me 2 is not a bad gig to attend, and even though there are new tricks to be thrilled by, it just doesn’t have anything new up its sleeve, plot-wise.
Untaxing action fodder that really has its tongue firmly in cheek – most of the time. It has to, what with some of the corniest lines delivered on screen in a while that will have you howling with laughter. Butler’s character Banning triumphs again.
We’ve become blasé about our sci-fi stories – anything goes that initially seems crackers but gets persuasive as things progress. Luc Besson has combined a sci-fi passion with that of one of his strong, kick-ass women in Lucy, starring Scarlett Johansson. You would be forgiven for thinking it was another Malick The Tree Of Life …
Jon Turteltaub’s Last Vegas is obviously pitched as a ‘mature’ The Hangover with a crowd-pleasing, all-star cast of Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Kline, and Mary Steenburgen as the love interest. It has the potential of being quite a geriatric farce, and there are parts that are very funny in a …
Best way to describe Louis Leterrier’s new thriller is a ‘magical Ocean’s Eleven’. It has the gloss, the sassy style, the balls and a little extra, magic. But with all the tricks up its confident sleeve, it’s still not a pitch-perfect performance, racing away a lot of the time like the director’s Transporter films to …
The future of mankind is ripe and fertile filmmaking ground, always holding some potential intrigue and hopefully throwing up new questions about our possible destiny. The latter is a must in the sci-fi genre, but not to the extent that some questions leave you unnecessarily hanging, in terms of simple plot explanation. It’s true to …
