Pete Travis (and possibly Alex Garland) directs Karl Urban, Olivia Thirlby and Lena Heady in this lower budgeted second punt to bring Old Stoney Face to the big screen.

I was raised on 2000AD and six pages of Judge Joe Dredd a week was always the highlight of a Saturday morning. Thrill power packed stories with a subversive edge and an iconic lead character you could always rely on. So after the daftly epic but unfairly unloved Stallone effort it was pleasing to see the character and his Mega City One given another chance to get it right on the big screen. And boy oh boy do they get a lot right. Tone, violence, design and most importantly casting this feels much more like my own Dredd and – even though it is a completely original tale with some mere practical tweaks in uniform and universe – Dredd ripped straight out of the comic books. Karl Urban bring the essential Eastwood toughness and confident training of an unstoppable killing machine to his middle aged Joe. This stand out turn should have made him an action star. Olivia Thrilby has all the emotional heavily lifting to do as a rookie version of psychic Cassandra Anderson and to sort of quote the film “She’s more than a Pass.” The unconfident rookie and the hardliner old hand trapped in a deadly tight spot both work well with each other and sparking off each other. Heady is great villian; scarily nasty and with more distinctive heavies to put between her and the heroes than any Bond baddie can muster. If you are not already a fan of the existing property, is there much to enjoy? I would say more than so. If you are a lover of hard edge action sci-fi like Escape From New York, Aliens or Total Recall there will be more than equal pleasures here for you in the finely realised future world, the bloody and kinetic confrontations and terse exchanges. For action fans, Dredd is about as strong flavoured a flick as there has been since Arnie went into politics, Jim Cameron started preferring a romance and Carpenter lost the plot. A big, dirty popcorn flick that impresses me more and more with each rewatch far beyond my own nostalgia for its inventive, 2D source.

10

 

Andrew Davis directs Keanu Reeves, Morgan Freeman and Rachel Weisz in this students on the run from the CIA thriller.

I’m surprised the studio system did not give up on blockbusters after the summer of 1996. Independence Day aside, every big release disappointed that season critically and financially. Take this supposed action thriller with a hot off of Speed Keanu and an even hotter from The Fugitive Davis joining forces to no great shakes. There are two hydrogen explosions for our hero to escape book ending the chase and still it all feels underwhelmingly low stakes and distinctly unthrilling. Keanu stumbles about on a cold, bascule bridge then stops to chat about the plot, then goes on a risk free chase across the ice, then stops to repeat the plot, then slides about on a decommissioned, (therefore highly unlikely to move) indoor exhibition aeroplane, before stopping to repeat the plot again. As a narrative it just stumbles awkwardly forward like our cyphers on the run and it is genuinely hard to tell if a) the lacklustre set pieces have been written first and merely strung together? Or b) the directionless conspiracy plot has forcibly had them shunted in every 10 pages or so for the sake of some action? A young Rachel Weisz is reduced to mere eye candy for the man who likes his babes covered in three thick layers at all times. The classy double act of Morgan Freeman and Brian Cox give their considerable all in some boardroom confrontations while a test audience in Delaware no doubt decided which one will actually turn out to be the villain to get his comeuppance. A shame of a film.

3

John Carpenter directs Kurt Russell, Steve Buscemi and A.J. Langer in this belated sequel to his ripped and satirical cult classic. 

The once dream team of Carpenter and Russell revives Snake Plissken for this depressing trundle over old ground. The satire is weak and dated. The action sparse and haphazardly executed. The whole thing has that nasty mid 90s palate (burned purple / electric greens and blues / mustard yellow) of a film made with potential action figures as the overriding design concern. Godwaful early, rushed CGI over easy to produce practical effects. Fuck… Why is this quite so bad given the talent? There are sparks of hope in Bruce Campbell’s cameo as a psychotic plastic surgeon and A J Langer’s True Love Waits rejecting, gun totingly rebellious president’s daughter but they get either too little screentime or seem permanently excluded in the mid ground of every shot respectively. Buscemi enters into the spirit of the original despite the reality of the actual film shambling apart about him, Russell does the best he can while essentially wearing a bin liner for most of the runtime. He’s still gravelly enough and can fire an assault rifle with that old dismissive cool but as an invested co-writer / producer here maybe he could have at least suggested with only 10 hours to live a man under the gun like Snake really wouldn’t spend his first 90 minutes seemingly getting dressed (in that bin liner). The movie entire actually feels to modern eyes like a series of glitching video game cut scenes (character after character leap out of nowhere to tell an avatar where to go next) and that is a criticism I would also level against A Good Day to Die Hard. And what was depressing as such in that recent misguided sequel is just plain unusual here as EfLA precedes such console games by at least a decade. That does not make this joyless mess in any way ahead of its time… just a clunky continuation of a far better film that apparently should have been left as a solo adventure.

3

 

Park Chan-Wook directs Mia Wasikowska, Matthew Goode and Nicole Kidman in this sultry and dark coming of age fairy tale.

All the visual razzmatazz of Chan- Wook’s Vengeance Trilogy is imported over to this seductive mixture of Hitchockian perversion and Wes Anderson-esque whimsy. It takes a real master to swirl those flavour into such a delicious dish. Another stand out performance by Wasikowska helps, who here goes on a journey from trapped child plucked from a Tennessee Williams play through to a female empowered Dexter cut loose. Her intentions are so hidden and guarded throughout the process that a moment where she takes a post-murder shower and the camera pans down her body has to be the most exciting cinematic reveal since… well… when we find Mother Bates in the fruit cellar. A saucy good girl gone bad movie elevated by its director’s exquisite taste in mise-en-scene, acting and baroque editing.

9

Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala direct Susanne Wuest, Elias and Lukas Schwarz in this tense thriller of pre-adolescent twins who think their beloved mother has been replaced by a monster.

Bless the Austrians. While most nations push their most blandly prestigious or tragically historical movies at the Academy as their contender for Best Foreign Language Oscar each year, here is one country who thought “Our incredibly well made nasty domestic horror is Austria’s best shot for 2015.” So bleak, bloody and challenging it had no chance of getting even nominated but for the horror fan this is a well performed, interestingly shot and edited treat. I have criticised a lot of movies this week of not delivering on their promise, whereas this little shocker completely pulled the wool over my usually wide open and jaded eyes. The central mystery is so compelling it distracts you from the actual outcome with a magician’s deftness. The sparsely populated rural setting, the off the spectrum casting and eventual full on violence all create a stirring symphony of disturbing cinema.

8

 

 

Dan Trachtenberg directs Mary Elisabeth Winstead, John Goodman and John Gallagher Jnr in this woman trapped in an underground bunker mystery.

Like its franchise “blood relative” Cloverfield, this is a flick you admire more in concept than actual experience. A nicely shot and edited, twisty maze for us and the ever impressive Mary Elisabeth Winstead to work out, John Goodman and John Gallagher Jnr both also excelling as the apparently untrustworthy pre-existing tenants of the trap. Potentially there’s a lot to love but I ended up merely liking it. For as the truth all unravels you suddenly realise the threads are all falling exactly where you’d expect them to, and it is pretty poor praise to say that when all hell does finally break loose it is exactly the hell you can already imagine from the trailer. For a film thats hook is the “unexpected” that proves a pretty jutting out barb to snag the viewer on. It also lacks maybe one midway set piece to be what I’d measure effectively tense. Maybe a rewatch with lowered expectations might help this all feel more than satisfactory once the credits roll. I’m willing to concede my own fault for wanting a great night at the movies when this is just a perfectly well made and OK one.

7

John Milius directs Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Earl Jones and Sandahl Bergman in this warrior versus a mystical snake cult adventure.

Impressive in scale and intent but disappointing in pace and action, you admire this early Schwarzenegger vehicle more for it ambitions than its execution. Sword and sorcery hits our screens in such small, rare bursts that even if this fails to live up to be anywhere near to the Lord of the Rings gold standard, it still makes the medal podium compared to its lesser rivals. Moments such as a dangerous sex scene with a witch, James Earl Jones going full python, the animated attack of the warrior ghosts all linger in the memory effectively. Arnie’s acting is still finding its feet, he often seems happy enough to just be making such an epic romp, but if a scene really demands an emotion you can at the very least see the gears grinding hard to achieve it. A promise of greater things he would deliver on personally… even if the genre and franchise have yet to really. As a viewing experience though this essentially sells us steel, gives us bronze.

6

 

David Cronenberg directs Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis and John Getz in this tale of a scientist who gets spliced with fly.

Jeff Goldblum fires in with one of genre cinema’s finest performances. His speech and body language faultlessly goes from acerbically precise to the sugar rush burble of a man losing his humanity to the fly inside. The effect works is gorily solid, the smart design and lighting sell even the less than believable gunk. It all boils down to a taut three hander as much about AIDS, jealousy and the weakness of an ageing body as the teleportation science fiction on the surface. You are gripped as it is convincingly told in measured surges of humour, romance, drama, terror and cold observation. Neatly small scale with an abundance of expected sick imagination, this is easily Cronenberg’s most accessible work.

8

Nicholas Hytner directs Winona Ryder, Daniel Day Lewis and Joan Allen in this faithful adaptation of Arthur Miller’s play about the Salem Witch trials.

Near perfectly cast, with an authentic mud and timber look, this should on paper be a 10 out of 10 classic. And while the cast give it their all, the classic play itself just seemingly doesn’t lend itself to cinema. The direction sensibly opens up and mixes up the settings, losing much of the intense claustrophobia of even an averagely acted stage production, but adds no bit of fun or involving extra visual drama. This The Crucible all just sits up there on screen rather coldly like a museum piece. I was left immaturely checking the fluctuations in how bad the Day Lewis method teeth were; they noticeably slalom from rotting sulphur to pearly whites over scenes set on the same day. My attention shouldn’t be given wriggle room for such nitpicking in what should be an utterly involving tale of injustice and repression. Once a feisty Ryder abandons the third act the univintingly loyal prestige overwhelms the endeavour.

6

Baz Luhrmann directs Paul Mercurio, Tara Morice and Barry Otto in the stylised look at a dancehall romance.

Sweet, but with a bit too much icing to get through from the top… You could say that of all of Luhrmann’s confections really. The now standard screeching, overacted,  48 frames a second, trippy  opening act always hamstrings his films for me (others love it) and that painful birth into whichever world he eventually settles us in jarred with me when I was younger. Now I know, once he gets all the throb and garishness out of his system, the bulk of his narratives are much calmer, more inviting prospects I can revisit his debut knowing not to outright hate it from the start. The well told ugly duckling / be true to yourself ballroom dancing romance has real heart and passion once it smooths out. Excellent use of Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time too.

6