Breck Eisner directs Vin Diesel, Rose Leslie and Elijah Wood in this fantasy actioner about an immortal witch hunter who finds himself investigating a conspiracy to revive the witch who cursed him to live forever. 

As a Vin Diesel vehicle where the big loveable lunk (a self confessed nerd) gets to live out his Dungeons and Dragons fantasies, this is better than you might have feared. As a shameless blend of Highlander and Constantine, it equally is still nowhere near as entertaining as those two influences combined should be. Oh well, the world building is strong, there’s rarely a scene without some clever bit of design or visual storytelling. But once the stakes are set up the detective story dawdles as we follow one clue bloodlessly to the next and so on and so on. The surprise baddie is guessable from the first shot. And Rose Leslie, so captivating and dynamic in Game of Thrones, gets fobbed off with a poor man’s Marion Ravenwood part here… one where she seemingly was only allowed one take per line reading. It is watchable but never exciting, squandering its strengths and potential inoffensively.

5

 

John Carney directs Ferdia Walsh- Peelo, Lucy Boynton and Jack Reynor in this 1980s set musical romance about a Dublin school lad who starts a New Wave band to impress a girl from the local home. 

Yep – really charming and fun this. Full of on-the-nose humour, sensitive grit and triumphant moments you can’t help but be won over. The making of the ramshackle music videos are out of this world exercises in both parody and affectionate amateurish child’s play. The kind of warm hearted film that has room to give even the most sidelined character their scene to ring true, Grand stuff, so it is.

8

Olivier Assayas directs Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart, and Chloë Grace Moretz in this arthouse drama about a mature, glamorous actress practicing lines with her personal assistant for a revival of the play where she originally made her name, about an older woman and her personal assistant, in the hope of finding relevance when cast next to a young star hoping to make her name. 

This is pretentious bobbins but at the very least, pretentious bobbins that gives it two beautiful female leads some juicy, discombobulating scenes to spar off each other in… And a central, unresolved mystery that will keep you puzzling over and on for days after the credits role. A side note:  Assayas’ committed interest in how attached we are to our apps and devices continues to make his films seem both realer and yet otherworldier than anyone else currently working.

6

 

Joel Hopkins directs Diane Keaton, Brendan Gleeson and Lesley Manville in this posh romance incongruously based on the true story of a man who warded off property developers who wanted to move him out of a shack he built on Hampstead Heath decades earlier. 

A rich people’s movie, no doubt made from the hiding of property developers tax loophole wonga, for the viewing pleasure of wives of retired property developers, about a man terrorised by property developers. It reminds me of American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman’s love of Les Mis in its weird politics. Having said all that, North London is filmed rather well and both Keaton and Gleeson are given decent roles. She is more substantial here than she has been since the Eighties. He is better than the material but adds real humanity and heft to what could have been a broad caricature. Gleeson raises this above passable pap and you expect nothing less of him. Still despite all the lush locations and charming chemistry you cannot help but feel certain plot strands are rather swiftly, glossed over. Who is violently bullying Donald off his land? When did he start making the front pages of tabloids? The focus has sensibly been shifted to focus on the romance but the message is so iffy that you wonder if the true story, sans geriatric canoodling, might make the better movie? If so, keep Gleeson.

5

 

André de Toth directs Alexander Knox, Marsha Hunt and Henry Travers in this wartime drama imagining a German WWI veteran’s rise to Nazism and his orchestrating of the persecution of the Jews and a small Polish town. 

Propoganda that inadvertently, and suprisingly successfully, became the first Holocaust movie. It is all but forgotten now (less than 400 people have rated it on IMDB while Baby Driver released just this weekend already has 22000 votes). It is a convincing drama following one man’s desolate corruption into becoming a high ranking SS stooge. Unflinching in its bleak portrayal of rape, murder, anti Semitism and fascism. Given when it was made it is a very adult work with no easy solutions or rote optimistic conclusions. Its only real flaw is it does often suggest one man’s personal gripes are responsible for the brutality inflicted on the innocent, rather than Nazism as a national epidemic. But as a treatise on how “Only following orders” will not be seen as a valid excuse come peacetime, it is a stirring indictment.

7

 

Budd Boetticher directs Randolph Scott, Karen Steele and Pernell Roberts in this western where a bounty hunter arrests a killer’s brother in the hope of luring the worse man out for revenge. 

A strange western this. Outwardly it is primary coloured and jovial. Inwardly it is a grim and vicious revenge plot. There’s a satisfying chase structure as Red Indians and gang members relentlessly pursue the group of “heroes”. And further tensions amongst the protagonists, as everyone has their own devious end games for the bounty. Characters are superficially polite and respectful to each other but their back stories are all dark and twisted, out of sync with what is depicted on screen. As they race towards civilisation together, maybe the point is they need to put all the savagery, hate, lawlessness and vengeance of their own pasts behind them if they want to make new lives. A fair point. On the whole what makes this particularly interesting to modern eyes is smaller turns from Lee Van Cleef and James Coburn, plus a striking female lead in Karen Steele.

6

Luc Besson directs Bruce Willis, Milla Jovovich and Gary Oldman in the sci-fi extravaganza about a cab driver who has to protect the embodiment of universal perfection from the end of the universe, mainly at a luxury space resort. 

Has there ever been a more schizophrenic big budget success than The Fifth Element? Most of it is base level thrilling – the futurist visuals are excessively exciting, not afraid of being gaudy or ridiculous. You are a pinball, ricocheting around a wildly conceived galaxy of blue opera singers, floating traffic jams and dog faced terrorists. From Jean Paul Gaultier designed ripped shirts and rubber bikinis to the Jean Giraud inspired alien mechasuits, this is dirty cooked, neon tinged eyecrack that makes the production design on Blade Runner look like Blunt Crawler. And actionwise there’s enough kicking and banging and burning to cataclysmic countdowns that you get your July adrenaline fix too. Willis, probably for one of the last few times, doesn’t phone it in as the too cool for school ageing himbo Korben Dallas. While Milla Jovovich does that Wonder Woman naivety and heroics ting every fool be raving about  a whole two decades earlier and better. She is a marvel in it – sexy, innocent, vulnerable, badass. BUT… Chris Tucker as Ruby Rhod has to be the most annoying character ever committed to screen. More distracting than Rob Scnieder’s Fergie in Judge Dredd. More shrill than Jim Broadbent in Moulin Rouge. More grating than Jar-Jar… “Ooh mooey mooey I love you!” That’s right Mr Binks, you are NOT the utter nadir of turn of the century blockbuster humanoid  shitness. Well done you! Chris Tucker, Chris Tucker, Chris Tucker. Fuck, he’s even still there squawking around in the grand finale, despite serving no purpose. He could have been left back on the exploding cruise spaceship, surely?! You are at a gorgeous banquet, you are loving the amuse-bouche, devouring your starters and savouring those mains and then someone comes and spits on the cheeseboard, shits on your pudding, pisses in your little espresso cup. Chris Tucker, Chris Tucker, Chris Tucker. Hard to know how to feel when one latter half element literally rapes everyone else’s hard work. But I’ll close on a few other things I do like; 1) How superfluous Gary Oldman’s ostensible villian is. Seemingly playing a corporate Southern Bugs Bunny he pointedly never crosses paths with Korben. Though does sack him. A comment on how we never get to meet the true villians face to face? 2) Gary Oldman’s weird little crippled candy floss coloured pet that lives in in his desk. 3) Just how haphazard it all is, yet holds together so well. Clearly, The Fifth Element is a labour of love and a career gamble on Besson’s part. It is not perfect but it is persuasive, sweetly enthusiastic in its ambition. Like a 13 year old has somehow raised $100 million dollars to make a film version of the adventure they acted out in their back garden and their imaginative sun addled head one summer afternoon. But still… Chris… Fucking… Tucker.

8

 

Jeb Stuart directs Danny Glover, Jared Leto and Dennis Quaid in this cross country thriller where a mystery serial killer, possibly one of two men in a car lined full of Playboy photos, lures a rogue FBI agent across state lines. 

There’s two solid, decent films vying for attention here. One a Hitchcokian road movie where an overly friendly driver (Glover – strong) and a nervy hitchhiker (Leto- acceptable) try to figure each other out as they head through the snowy wastes of the States. We know one or both might turn out to be a murderer and that adds to stuffy air of tension nicely. The other movie follows The Fugitive template (Jeb Stuart wrote the brilliant remake of the TV series as well as Die Hard) as an FBI agent (Quaid – not on form) struggles against local law enforcement to track the rogue, hampered by the fact there is an election going on between rival sheriffs. That half of the narrative is a little less exciting but strong support work from Ted Levine, William Fichtner and especially R. Lee Ermey (Hey, anyone of those could play a serial killer?!) adds a bit of juice to the rote exposition. It all eventually pans out in the most predictable way with a jarringly large scale, stunt driven setpiece on board a cargo train. In all honesty this kinda thing has been done far better in the likes of No Country For Old Men or Se7en but there just about enough goodwill from the salty cast to make it chime.

6

Luc Besson directs Scarlett Johansson, Mogan Freeman and Choi Min-sik in this sci-fi thriller about a party girl whose mind is expanded by an experimental drug, giving her demigod-like superpowers.

For the first half hour it feels like the Luc Besson of Nikita and Subway and Leon is back with a vengeance. A bubblegum rush of nasty intensity as an increasingly jittery Johansson is pressganged into muling drugs by some very bad men in a Taiwan penthouse suite. The constant escalating threat, expertly orchestrated disorientation and burst of comic book mayhem mislead you into thinking that all of Lucy will be a five star thrill ride. Then with the popcorn swiftly finished, we settle into an existential drama where an increasingly oblivious, dehumanised Johansson turns into a time tripping organic super computer. While this throws up some mind bending imagery, it also completely devalues the stakes. Our herioine is no longer at risk from the chasing hit squad, she is almost oblivious to them. So when car chases and bazooka shoot outs jut awkwardly into all the cod philosophical posturing, they feel like irritants to our now dead eyed protagonist rather than obstacles.  There’s enough bang, whizz and wallop that Lucy isn’t a completely redundant Paris set exercise in style and pretension. And that gripping opening act is so, so, so good that you just have to walk off into the rain and just accept that we’ll always have Taipei.

7

Nicolas Roeg directs Julie Christie,  Donald Sutherland and Hilary Mason in this Venice set chiller about a young couple haunted by grief and psychic visions after the death of their daughter, based on a short story by Daphne Du Maurier. 

One of my all time favourite films. I love the use of colour amongst the drab, decaying Venice cityscape; the palpable tension of not being able to communicate between generations, nationalities and the grave when life and death seem at stake; the elliptical editing suggesting the fractured nature of both movie storytelling and time itself; that gorgeous yet melancholy lovemaking scene between a tender committed couple; and the bursts of psychosexual violence that discombobulate the plot and the viewer. Roeg keeps us constantly on edge, even on your hundredth watch, where you know the painful inevitably of what is playing out. It all coalesces into a brilliant puzzle I love getting absorbed into, full of heartbreak and mystery. Julie Christie is superb as the lost mother, vulnerable and desperate to believe in something. While Sutherland is eerily evocative as the rational man trying to ignore the horror he keeps glimpsing in the corner of his eye. For all the masterful disorientation and the sinister atmosphere what makes Roeg’s finest film a true masterpiece is the warmth he instill between the two movie stars on the top of their game. Their chemistry seduces you so much that even without serial killers and tragic visions you’d quite happily watch two hours of Christie and Sutherland getting ready to go out for a meal in their chic 70s attire.

10