Terminator Genisys

Director: Alan Taylor (2015)
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Emilia Clarke, Jai Courtney
Find it: IMDB

Thanks to JJ Abrams and his 2009 Star Trek effort (which I thought was okay at the time, but really isn't), the reboot-quel is a thing. This, when it's at home, being an instalment in a franchise which rewrites previous entries but acknowledges that no, it did all happen - it just doesn't really matter anymore. At best, that gets us Mad Max: Fury Road (which, granted, barely counts). At worst, Terminator Genisys. And yeah, the lack of a colon in that title is bugging me too.

Disregarding the events of previous sequels, the story here sees John Connor (Jason Clarke) send best friend and secret dad Kyle Reese (Jai fucking Courtney) back to 1984 to save mother dearest Sarah Connor (the film's other, even worse Clarke) from the plot of Terminator. Only when he gets there, things are not as we remember them. Sarah is not only already savvy to the existence of Terminators, but has her own in tow - the aged 'pops', played by a returning Arnold Schwarzenegger. Just one or two Terminators isn't enough though, and it's not long before Sarah, Kyle and Pops are battling swathes of machines, new and old (including a digitally de-aged Arnie and a tacked-on T-1000). This being my own personal dystopia of movie blockbusters, that involves heaps of CGI, stupidly bloodless violence and big, loud action sequences so busy that it's impossible to tell what's going on most of the time. Not since Transformers 2 have I been so actively bored by a film with so many action sequences. And this is a franchise I actually like, most of the time.

Jai fucking Courtney is Kyle Reese: 

Truly, we are living in the darkest timeline.

There's a bit of amusement to be had in the earlier sections, which replay moments from the original Terminator with a nudge and a wink (the fight between old Arnie and de-aged young Arnie being a highlight) but that falls apart the moment the characters start speaking. Courtney and Clarke have no chemistry whatsoever, completely failing to sell the love story element. While we expect Courtney to be wooden, there's no excuse for Clarke (Emilia, not Jason), who fails to convince on every level of being Sarah Connor. She's not helped much by a script which turns Sarah Connor into a woman who uses the word 'like' as a form of punctuation. Like, not cool.

This generation's Michael B- No, I can't. Not even in jest.

By the time the film skips to 2017, fucking about with a Smartphone app, Matt Smith (simultaneously wasted and awful in a glorified cameo), and a time-travelling John Connor (not a spoiler), I had pretty much given up on Genisys. As Kyle and Sarah are arrested for the second time in one film, I was screaming at the movie to end already (it's three times for Kyle, who is arrested almost as soon as he gets to 1984). Only J.K Simmons and a wry Arnie manage to enliven matters, the latter even tugging a couple of heartstrings in spite of the contrivance of it all. It ends baiting a sequel (of course it does) but here's hoping that particular future can be averted. Now, where's that time machine at?

Terminator Genisys may be lacking a colon, but that doesn't stop it from being full of shit.

Under the Skin

Director: Jonathan Glazer (2013)
Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy McWilliams, Lynsey Taylor Mackay
Find it: IMDB

Say what you will about the Avengers, but they're a savvy bunch. Deftly mixing up their big blockbuster movies with relatively smaller indie pictures, the Marvel superheroes of today can be found avoiding typecasting in the likes of The Judge, Foxcatcher, Snowpiercer and - in the case of this Black Widow 'centric piece - Under the Skin.

In this classy version of Species, a mysterious alien takes the form of a beautiful human female, steals a van and sets about seducing and murdering men in the back of it. In an interesting twist, the alien's point of invasion is Glasgow, Scotland, and the form it takes is Scarlett Johansson, from off've The Avengers. If that's not distracting enough, Johansson speaks in a disturbingly good English accent, talking about things like Asda, Tesco, The Post Office and things you'd never normally hear Black Widow chatter about.

It's the sort of film which is so arty it doesn't need a story; instead, we follow The Female as she seeks out and seduces men along the streets of Glasgow, tempting them into the back of her van where, well, something happens, and they end up literally losing their skin. Keeping it from getting repetitive is the gonzo style of filmmaking (most of the characters being played by non-actors - fair play to them, gamely getting their kit off opposite Scarlett fucking Johansson on camera) and the haunting, hypnotic score which accompanies it all. It's pretentious, but manages it in a way that it works, like a Lars von Trier movie or Alan Moore comic.

It'll probably never get under one's skin, but this movie gave me a curious itch that I doubt no other will ever scratch in quite the same way. Although, you know, that could have just been hearing Black Widow talk about Tesco and Asda like they're places she'd ever actually visit. In that respect, it's no wonder Scarlett Johansson gives the perfect performance.

The Purge: Anarchy

Director: James DeMonaco (2014)
Starring: Frank Grillo, Carmen Ejogo, Kiele Sanchez
Find it: IMDB

"Oh goody! A sequel to The Purge!" said no-one who had ever seen The Purge. Yet here it is - the inevitable sequel to a bad film with good ideas but a flawed execution; a great cast and strong ideas are wasted on a dull story, uninspired visuals and a lack of wit and invention. There's not much more of the latter on display in Anarchy, but almost everything else is vastly improved by moving the fight outdoors.

It's Purge Night, and we follow three groups of people as they attempt to survive; a lovely young couple and their broken car, a mother and daughter forced outside after their home is destroyed, and a mysterious gunman seeking revenge for the death of his son. This final individual makes all the difference - injecting a shot of competency into a franchise which could have just had its poor protagonists running around like victims waiting to die at the hands of nasty gangbangers. Frank Grillo's 'Sergeant' effectively drops The Punisher into the world of The Purge, making it the best sequel to War Zone never made.

If The Purge was a slick redo of The Strangers and other such grimy home invasion movies, then Anarchy is more inspired by The Warriors and its ilk. The bad guys might look like reject goons from a Joel Schumacher Batman movie, but they're vastly preferable to the smug shit of the previous film. Michael Kenneth Williams shows up briefly, but I suspect they may be saving most of him for the inevitable sequel. Now that The Purge has one half-good film under its belt, it might just have a shot at that franchise it so desperately wants to be.

Still, for all the action and genuine awesomeness, it's entirely obvious that The Purge still doesn't have anything of note to say. It has a killer conceit, but the whole thing feels about as political as the latest Hunger Games (if not less). Now that the series is back on track, it would be nice if they could maybe work on the mechanics of it all some more. Keep the explosions and the gangs though; don't get me wrong.

Anarchy is a good second step after a faltering start. Where it goes from here is anyone's guess, but we shouldn't count this franchise out just yet. Still, I did spend most of the film trying to work out ways I could make a hypothetical Purge work for me without getting killed in the process, so it's not as though it held my attention for, like, the whole time.

Riddick

Director: David Twohy (2013)
Starring: Vin Diesel, Jordi Molla, Katee Sackhoff
Find it: IMDB

I had no idea that the perfectly okay Pitch Black and entirely boring Chronicles of Riddick warranted another sequel, but there you go - David Twohy and Vin Diesel have gotten their way - Riddick is back. I'll never agree that Richard Riddick is a character who deserves his own franchise, or that Diesel makes for particularly good leading man material, but who am I to judge? I'd happily watch thirteen-hundred Friday the Thirteenth films, and have loved every dubious Wrong Turn so far. I went into Riddick not expecting much but hoping to have a good time.

Wisely doing away with the Necromonger nonsense of the previous film, Dick Riddick is betrayed, battered and dumped on a nameless planet somewhere in the middle of nowhere. We watch as Riddick picks himself up, dusts himself off and gets back to fighting fit. The first quarter of the film plays like a Bear Grylls documentary, with Riddick kidnapping puppies, fighting off feral animals and swimming on the mud pits of not-Mars. It's here we get the best acting from Diesel, thanks to his barely speaking. Then the mercenaries turn up, and things get more entertaining and infury(an)ating, at once. Riddick vs Arsehole Mercenaries is by far the best part of this pie, in that Riddick pretty much disappears for half an hour. It's during this time that we're able to be intimidated by him again - gone is the macho posturing and ridiculous tough guy flourishes - it's just a team of heavily armed mercs, dragged off one by one into the darkness by a formidable, fearless foe.

Then he starts talking again, and doing stuff on camera, and the film becomes much harder to like. The dialogue and action is like a fifteen-year-old boy's interpretation of "cool" - all rapey smack talk, Call of Duty one liners and 'banter' which sounds tough but makes no sense. "I don't fuck guys, but I occasionally fuck guys up," says Dahl (Sackhoff). Which is fine, but makes little sense in the context of the conversation. I much preferred the CGI monsters of the last quarter, which are all action and no shit-talking.

From there, it's a complete remake of Pitch Black. The action is slick, fun and frequently gory. Again, Riddick's posturing makes it a bit of a chore to watch (dude, was there any need to bring Sackhoff's nipples into this?) but it's solid enough. If you liked Alien: Resurrection and Pitch Black, you should be absolutely fine with this. There's a cute dog, Dave Bautista, Bokeem Woodbine and some nifty-looking aliens. That doesn't hide the fact that Dick Riddick is the weakest element of his own film, but it helps. Look, if Dahl had been the lead character here, Riddick would have been all the better for it.

Prometheus

Director: Ridley Scott (2012)
Starring: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Idris Elba
Find it: IMDB

It's a prequel to Alien - only not, except sort of, it is. After discovering some drawings on the wall of a cave, scientists Elizabeth Shaw (Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) realise that the meaning of life, the universe and everything lies in the far reaches of outer space. All aboard the starship Prometheus, then, where the scientists hope to find the answers they seek. Also, ow, my chest.

They are joined on their Star Trek by an achingly cool Idris Elba, a chilly Charlize Theron, Timothy Spall's son and robot butler Michael Fassbender (with his pants on, for once). If JJ Abrams ever decides to reboot The Next Generation characters, he could do far worse than Michael Fassbender as Data. The actor gives the film's best performance, although that isn't to take anything away from the others. One time girl with the dragon tattoo Noomi Rapace does admirably well as Not-Ripley, bringing an earnest vulnerability to the role. It would have been nice to see more from Elba and Theron, but with such a large cast all vying for time, it's difficult to fit everyone in.

They could have perhaps done without Guy Pearce as one of the Weyland clan,buried beneath heaps of rubbish make-up and doing his worst Monty Burns impression. It would have made more sense to cast the always game Lance Henriksen, seeing as (a) he has history of playing Weylands and (b) he's genuinely quite crinkly nowadays.

While I'm not the biggest Alien fan ever, I was interested to see what Scott might make of his return to that universe. His original bit is effectively a slasher movie in space, but Prometheus has a little more going on under the hood than that. Those big ideas and philosophical musings could lead some to dismiss Prometheus as pretentious, but I found it to be enjoyable and a little bit fascinating. There's plenty of action and horror to go with the navel gazing, and a lot more linking it to the Alien films than I had expected.

Prometheus is an intelligent, fun and very pretty piece of sci-fi, being absolutely enjoyable on its own merits as well as a worthy entry to the Alien series, more than washing out the bad taste left in the mouth after Alien vs Predator and Alien: Resurrection.  In space, everyone can hear you pontificate.

The Hunger Games

Director: Gary Ross (2012)

Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Woody Harrelson

Find it: IMDB

Well, if I am going to watch a kids' film, it had better have half of the children in it violently murdering one another. Unlike pretty much everyone else in existence, I would like to conduct this review without comparing The Hunger Games to either Twilight or Battle Royale. The former proves easy, since The Hunger Games is cock all like Twilight. The only similarities I can see is a hefty female fanbase (although men can enjoy The Hunger Games too), silly character names and a female lead. Katniss Everdeen (Lawrence) shits all over Bella Swan though, with her competence and personality.

Not comparing it to Battle Royale proves difficult though, since I am a lazy reviewer and it is a bit like Battle Royale. In a dystopian future, the working class are split up into 12 Districts. As a punishment for an earlier uprising, the ruling government forces each of those districts to give up two of their children for participation in the annual 'Hunger Games'. The Hunger Games pit 24 children against one another in a battle to the death. There can only be one survivor. When her cute wee sister is picked out for the year's Games, gutsy Katniss Everdeen has no choice but to offer herself up instead. She and fellow tribute Peeta (Hutcherson) are whisked away from their district and trained for the fight of their lives.

Like the book, it takes an age to get to the actual fighting. It spends as long getting Katniss and Peeta ready for the Games as it does for Bruce Willis to get to the asteroid in Armageddon. It feels like a series of Metal Gear Solid cut-scenes in this respect. "Yes, it's very pretty but STFU up and let me kill something, will you." And then, when the action does get underway, it's shot and edited in a manner that makes it impossible to see anything. Most of the participants die, offscreen, with little explanation. I wasn't expecting to see gore or explicit violence, but I hoped to see something. Well, maybe not that bit with the stupid dogs.

My favourite hunger game.

My impatience and bloodthirst aside, The Hunger Games is a very enjoyable piece of kiddies' cinema. Woody Harrelson is typically excellent as the drunken Haymitch (although I would have liked to have seen them keep the scene from the book where he collpases in a pool of his own vomit), as are the ever reliable Stanley Tucci and Elizabeth Banks. Donald Sutherland phones it in a bit, whilst - shit, is that Lenny Kravitz? Jennifer Lawrence is good in the leading role. It's a shame that the film has her screwing up and being rescued all the time, as it would have been far more entertaining to see her go all Rambo with that bow and arrow. If the film does have a Damsel In Distress, it comes in the form of Josh Hutcherson and his wimpy Peeta. I suppose there's another Twilight similarity there; neither of the potential love interests seem remotely desirable. It looks great though, particularly the shiny, shiny scenes in the Capitol and those with Stanley Tucci and his blue hair. It's funny too, and even touching at times. Wooden as some of the young actors might be, none of them are actively irritating.

That braggarty tagline has come good, it seems. The world is indeed watching. Even me, and I normally hate this sort of thing. Watch The Hunger Games: yes, it has kids in it, but most of them die.

Sucker Punch

Director: Zack Snyder (2011)

Starring: Emily Browning, Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone

Find it: IMDB

AKA Speed Ramping: The Movie. It's like 300 except with super hot women instead of super hot men. It's a movie that probably employed more makeup artists than actors. Even when lead hottie Babydoll (Browning) is incarcerated in a hospital for the clinically insane, she's done up to the nines. I've seen the Joker wear less makeup in Arkham Asylum.

I really enjoy Zack Snyder's movies, but it's starting to feel as though he has trouble delivering anything beyond fancy visuals. His debut, the Dawn of the Dead remake still remains my favourite Snyder movie. Watchmen never really transcends the source material enough to become its own thing, and I've never been a fan of 300. It's the same reason I can't play Call of Duty; too much macho makes me feel ill. Sucker Punch might be all about the hot girls, but it still feels sickeningly macho. If 'girl power' is female macho, then Sucker Punch has girl power in spades. I actually think it would have been improved by putting some Spice Girls on the soundtrack.

But Sucker Punch has no such self-awareness. And its supposed female empowerment is undermined by a wardrobe that's all fishnets & schoolgirl outfits and the leering gaze of the camera. After accidentally shooting her sister and attempting to murder her rapey stepfather, Babydoll is committed to an asylum for the criminally insane. There she awaits the arrival of a lobotomist to relieve her of her troublesome mind. Can she escape before he arrives? In an attempt to do so, Babydoll retreats into a fantasy world and then another fantasy world inside that fantasy world. It's like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest if One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest had been stupid. It's like Shutter Island as made by somebody who didn't read Shutter Island but played a lot of videogames instead.

In her fantasy world, Babydoll is friends with Vanessa Hudgens, Jena Malone and Abby Cornish. Apparently Vanessa Hudgens plays the streetwise one, although I didn't really pick that up, given that she only has a handful of lines of dialogue. To escape the institution, Babydoll and her friends must steal a number of tools. Every time Babydoll wants to steal something, she does a hypnotic dance at a warden/the cook/the mayor and her friends steal said item. Instead of seeing anyone steal anything, the film retreats into the fantasy-inside-the-fantasy and we see the girls fight Samurai or robots or zombies or serpents. This always happens in slow motion and it's always stupid except for maybe the one with the giant robot Samurai.

Sucker Punch looks lovely but its story verges on unbearable. None of the characters ever feel real - like videogame avatars they do little other than pout or kill things. Occasionally they pout and kill things at the same time. There's as much emotional investment as a game of Tomb Raider. Sucker Punch is like watching someone else play a videogame: it's very pretty and all, but entirely boring unless playing yourself. I may not physically have been punched, but I feel like a sucker for watching this movie.

Jason X

Director: James Isaac (2001)

Starring: Kane Hodder, Lexa Doig, Lisa Ryder

Find it: IMDB

The first Friday the 13th movie I ever saw*. For a full two years, Jason X was my favourite slasher movie. And then Freddy vs Jason came out. And then I re-watched it and realised that Jason X is kinda crummy. But it is also kinda awesome. Because as we all know, slasher icon in space = movie gold.

In futuristic 2008, Jason Voorhees has been captured and is being held at Crystal Lake Research Facility. Scientist Rowan LaFontaine (Doig) decides to cryogenically freeze the slasher bastard, keeping nubile teens everywhere safe from his seasonal rampages. But Jason escapes and violently kills a team of soldiers. Of this I approve. Watching Jason fight trained soldiers is infinitely more entertaining than watching Jason fight stupid teenagers. Before Jason can kill her, Rowan freezes them both. To the future!

In the year 2455, Rowan and Jason's frozen corpses are discovered by a field trip of intergalactic pupils and their teacher. The Earth has become dangerously polluted and now humanity lives on another planet. The kids and their teacher take the Jasonsicle and the Rowansicle back to their spaceship and set sail for outer space. Both Rowan and Jason make a full recovery. In Rowan's case, this means shivering and pouting a lot. In Jason's case: killing nubile teenagers.

It's not as good as I once thought it was, but Jason X is still a bit of a blast. As an introduction to Friday the 13th, it was a revelation to sixteen-year-old me. Jason hacks and beats his way through a spaceship full of soldiers, teachers, students and androids alike. He even makes to the holodeck and fucks that up too. There's room for a replay of my favourite Friday the 13th kill evarr (that'll be the sleeping bag against the tree, then) and a cameo from David Cronenberg. Yes, that David Cronenberg.

You may be scornful, but this is proof that sometimes the sequel-in-space route does work. The great thing about Jason Voorhees is that his shtick works anywhere. Be it Manhattan, Elm Street, Hell, Texas or space, I'd be quite happy to watch Jason stab the bollocks out of someone wherever, whenever. Jason X is the closest I'll ever get to a Star Trek crossover so shut up and let me have my moment of happiness.

Wherein the tie-in is actually worse than the fan-fiction.

That said, robo-Jason is horrible. Robo-Jason is proof that not everything needs an upgrade. You can keep your 3D, Facebook timeline and your hashtags; I prefer my Jason to be all smelly and raggedy. It's fortunate that his transformation to stupid glittery space robot is only for the last 20 minutes of the film. Although it does allow me to imagine an alternate ending where his remains crash near a small squad of Cybermen and he rises to become king. King robo-Jason of the Cybermen. After lopping Amy and Rory to bits, Jason kills The Doctor with his own bowtie (repeatedly, until he can't regenerate anymore) and steals the TARDIS. He takes it back to the inception of the Earth whereupon he and his Cybermen become overlords of Crystal Lake; always and forever. Just a little idea of mine. Feel free to use that, New Line Cinema and Steven Moffat.

It's no 2001: A Space Odyssey, but Jason X will always hold a dear place in my own heart. As the last proper Friday the 13th movie, it goes out with a damn big bang.

* So much so that I didn't realise that the 'X' stood for '10'. I thought it was just a fancy futuristic way of making Jason sound futuristic.

Cowboys & Aliens

Director: Jon Favreau (2011)

Starring: Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, Sam Rockwell

Find it: IMDB

James Bond and Indiana Jones team up to fight aliens in the Wild West, directed by the bloke who made Iron Man. And yet Cowboys & Aliens struggles to be as fun as that sentence would have you imagine. Still, it's more successful than the unreadable comic book upon which it is based. Cowboys & Aliens is one of the few comic books I couldn't bring myself to finish reading. And I managed to read The Dark Knight Strikes Again.

What I did read doesn't much resemble the film I saw. Tough guy Jake Lonergan wakes up in the desert, barefoot and with no memory of who he is or how he came to be there. Attached to his wrist is a device that looks (and works, as it happens) like what the Predator wears in Predator. He finds his way to a nearby town where he is promptly arrested by Sheriff Keith Carradine and harassed by grumpy Colonel Dolarhyde (Ford). Then aliens arrive and kidnap Keith Carradine and a handful of other settlers. Lonergan, Dolarhyde and the remaining villagers band together to rescue their missing relatives and send the dastardly alien invaders packing.

Rather than feeling like a proper film about cowboys fighting aliens, Cowboys & Aliens feels like product. It's like Transformers. It's easier to watch than Transformers, but there's that similar sense of cliche and perfunctory action. Perhaps if Olivia Wilde did something. Literally, she just stands around with a dumb expression on her face. Even when she's grabbed by an alien spaceship, she's very blasé about it. Perhaps if Daniel Craig could make up his mind whether he's doing an English accent or an American one. Perhaps if Harrison Ford pretended to give a shit. But at least it has Walton Goggins from off've Justified, Sam Rockwell and Clancy Brown in it. Between the cast, Cowboys & Aliens manages to muster up some of the fun it could have been.

Cowboys & Aliens is review proof. No matter what anyone says about it, it'll always have that title. There'll always be that doubt in the back of your mind: "it's a film called Cowboys & Aliens. It can't not be good." And it is good. Occasionally. But not like it should have been.

The Thing (2011)

Director: Matthijs van Heijningen Jr (2011)

Starring: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Ulrich Thomsen

Find it: IMDB

A remake and prequel at the same time. More remake than prequel though, because it's exactly the same story as John Carpenter's The Thing, except less good and with a crappy CGI finale tacked on at the end.

An alien spacecraft is discovered near an Antarctica research site. When alien remains are pulled out of the ice, paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Winstead) is called upon to assist in the excavation. No sooner have they returned the alien remains to their research base than it comes to life, breaks free and starts murdering scientists. The team quickly burn it to death, but not before one of their number becomes infected. Tensions become fraught, a helicopter crashes and soon Kate has a fight for survival on her hands. Unable to decide who's human and who's an alien, the stupid humans bicker and fight until only Kurt Russell can save the day! Bully for them, Kurt Russell isn't in this movie.

Mister Eko from LOST is in it though, which pleases me. Anyone who knows me knows that I have a massive fetish for ex-LOST castaways in my movies. I'll even take Matthew Fox in Smoking Aces with a giggle of delight. Eko isn't given much to do, but he rounds off a solid cast along with Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Ulrich Thomsen. Joel Edgerton is fairly bland, not even managing to muster a decent beard out of it all. There are some manly beards that are nearly as good as Kurt's though, worn by the Norwegian characters. The most interesting thing about this Thing is the decision to make the cast (and director) so Norwegian. It's an effect that's spoiled, however, by the Norwegian fellows essentially being cannon fodder for the Americans.

The creature designs are fine without being as iconic as the original monsters. There's far too much CGI; none of the kills as fun as the 'hands through the chest' moment in Carpenter's bit. But they sound very good, and I particularly enjoyed a scene in which a man's hands fall off and attack the rest of the humans. If only it hadn't all been CGI, I would probably have enjoyed the monsters more. Rated a mere 15, there isn't enough gore to make up for the crappier effects. I much preferred the videogame sequel for the PS2 - the only sequel or remake that The Thing really needs.

The Thing is a serviceable piece of sci-fi horror, similar in quality and design to the likes of Aliens vs Predator and Whiteout. Even if you've never seen Carpenter's Thing (WHAT), you won't be wowed. The thing is, the best thing about The Thing is that it made me want to watch The Thing again.

Green Lantern

Director: Martin Campbell (2011)

Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Peter Sarsgaard, Blake Lively, Mark Strong

Find it: IMDB

After being pleasantly surprised by his performance in Buried, I had started to worry that hunky aftershave salesman Ryan Reynolds might be a little too charismatic to play rube superhero Hal Jordan in Green Lantern. Rest assured cynical me, Ryan Reynolds is every bit as dull and uninteresting as comic book Hal Jordan in this adaptation.

After getting his ass kicked by a yellow fear monster, intergalactic space cop Abin Sur crash lands on Earth and proceeds to die all over cocky test pilot (is there any other kind?) Hal Jordan (Reynolds). With his dying breath, Abin Sur passes on his power ring to Jordan and informs him that he too must become a space cop. The other aliens take an instant dislike to Hal, because all aliens instantly regard humans as stupid and useless. To be fair, this movie almost starred Jack Black. I can picture a version of Green Lantern in which Jack Black creates a giant set of arse cheeks to fart green gas all over Sinestro, before conjuring up a guitar and teaching the uptight Lanterns how to 'rock'.

Under the tutorship of purple-headed grump Sinestro (Strong) and a giant with a name that sounds vaguely like a racial slur, Jordan trains to become a Green Lantern. In a thoroughly obvious character arc, Hal decides that superheroism is too much responsibility for the likes of him, and heads off back to Earth. He lasts precisely ten minutes before Hector Hammond (Sarsgaard) shoots a helicopter out of the sky with mind bullets. Eventually Hal Jordan saves the day because of course he does.

Ryan Reynolds is the perfect Hal Jordan. I can totally see this Hal Jordan getting his rube butt kicked in All-Star Batman & Robin. There are a few stupid jokes and wisecracks, but Reynolds is suitably charmless. The costume looks ridiculous, particularly the mask. It's a worse superhero costume than even Captain America's. And with hair as distinctive as Ryan Reynolds', it's utterly crap for keeping an identity secret.

Still, the film is enjoyable in the same goofy kind of way as The Fantastic 4 (hey, I enjoyed it) and boasts some fun action sequences. Peter Sarsgaard, Mark Strong and Tim Robbins bring a little gravitas to what is essentially Van Wilder: Green Lantern Liaison. Is Ryan Reynolds doomed never to have his own comic book franchise?

Memory Lane

Director: Shawn Holmes (2011)

Starring: Michael Guy Allen, Meg Barrick, Julian Curi

Find it: IMDB, Horrortalk.com

It's a low budget version of The Butterfly Effect crossed with Flatliners crossed with that bit of Constantine where Keanu Reeves drownes Rachel Weisz in a bathtub. Ex-soldier Nick (Allen) vows to avenge the death of girlfriend Kayla (Barrick) when he finds her dead. Also in a bathtub. Bathtubs are very important to Memory Lane. Costing a mere $300 to make, Memory Lane is as independent as cinema gets - but is far better than that low budget might suggest.

Returning home from the wars, soldier Nick meets and falls for Kayla, who handcuffs herself to him and steals his car the next day. Faced with such a catch, Nick is instantly smitten, and asks her to marry him, despite not even knowing her surname. Heartbreak and even more confusion is in store when Nick finds her dead in the bath, wrists slashed. When he attempts to take his own life as a result (again, in the bath) Nick visits a magical memory afterlife where he can relive past encounters with dear dead Kayla. There he learns that her death might not have been as self-inflicted as one would think. Upon his friends finding and resuscitating his lifeless body, Nick vows to piece together the clues and solve the mystery of Kayla's death. The problem being that he needs to repeatedly die in order to do so.

With a little help from his friends, Nick builds a bathtub TARDIS which he uses to kill himself. Again. And again. And again. And again, revisiting past events to look for signs he might not have noticed before. Can he piece together the clues to find Kayla's killer before he kills himself one time too many? Surely the after-effects of repeatedly stopping one's own heart can't be too pleasant. That recurring nosebleed would suggest as much. If we learned nothing else from The Butterfly Effect, it's that screwing around in one's own memories causes a nasty hangover. In Ashton Kutcher's case; that bit where all his arms and legs got blown up and he married Demi Moore.

For a movie that cost $300 to make, Memory Lane is nothing short of astonishing. It surpasses the limitations of its (ultra) low budget with good old fashioned writing and storytelling. It's a bit on the melodramatic side and the acting won't win any Oscars, but the story is gripping and the pace taut. Unlike most low budget thrillers, Memory Lane has ambition and heart - and times, more than the very moves which inspired it. It's refreshing to see an independent movie that's not about zombies or serial killers.

Memory Lane puts paid to the argument that a movie needs a large budget and expensive special effects in order to succeed. This is one Lane well worth visiting.

11. Avatar

Director: James Cameron (2009)

Starring: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver

Find it: IMDB

Space marines are unleashed upon the faraway world of Pandora, where a futuristic fuel source is protected by seven-foot tall blue aliens called Na'avi. Paraplegic marine Jake Sully (Worthington) takes the place of his dead brother on a mission that involves him wearing the body of a specially grown Na'avi and dancing around all over the treetops of Pandora. But Jake gets in too deep with the Na'avi, begins to sympathise with their hippy cause and even falls in love with Neytiri (Saldana).

I have no problem with the people who say that Avatar is a technically amazing movie. It really is incredible; a beautiful exercise in world building. What I do take umbrage with is the people who insist that Avatar is a good movie. It isn't. It's Pocahontas and Dancing With Wolves with giant blue aliens. It looks very pretty but has a story every bit as stupid as a blockbuster by Michael Bay or Brett Ratner. Space marines go to a faraway world called Pandora looking for an element called Unobtainium. Pandora. Unobtainium. This is not good screenwriting people. The scientists who found and named Pandora and Unobtainium must have been real pessimists.

Jake falls out of the sky and lands on a dragon and uses it against the evil Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) and his forces. There are big robot suits like the one in Aliens. Sigourney Weaver plays a tough, no-nonsense scientist. The giant blue aliens look stupid. There's a claim that Avatar makes beautifully realistic use of CGI. Avatar does not make beautifully realistic use of CGI. It looks gorgeous and so does the fighting and the aliens, but it always looks like CGI. Even Stephen Lang looks like CGI, and he's apparently a real person.

I liked Avatar as much as it is possible for one to like a three hour remake of Pocahontas with giant blue aliens and magical space elements called 'Unobtainium'.

Apollo 18

Director: Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego (2011)

Starring: Warren Christie, Lloyd Owen, Ryan Robbins

Find it: IMDB, HorrorTalk review

There's a reason we've never gone back to the Moon. That reason isn't Transformers, apparently. Relocating The Blair Witch Project to our Moon, Apollo 18 sends a gang of unsuspecting Astronauts camping up there. What they find is more Paranormal Activity than Wallace And Gromit; less a grand day out and more screaming and being pulled into dark craters. Are you shitting me, Apollo 18? If Aliens taught us anything, it's that violent monsters and creepy creatures are more likely to get people up there poking about, not less.

Despite my never having really been a fan of found footage films ([Rec] and the odd cannibal piece aside), I was eager to see Apollo 18. The thought of a horror movie set on the Moon is an intriguing one, and the found footage bit works here, since there's largely a reason to be dragging around cameras and it's a cool way to see the environment. It sounds the part too, all crackling communication systems and R2D2 beeps. It's nicely acted by its cast of unknowns. But it's the job of an actor in this sort of film to be sort of an everyman, so they're all nice but forgettable, other than their various nasty fates and rubbish characterisation.

Unfortunately, whilst the presentation is good, the story and everything else is over familiar and predictable. It alleges a 40-year cover up from NASA. But you'd think someone (not least the 400,000 people it takes to put an operation together) would have noticed a honking great spaceship being shot up there. NASA aren't happy either, stressing that the movie and its bad science is "not a documentary." They were however, fine with Michael Bay's Dark Of The Moon. Mind you, Rosie Huntingdon Whiteley's acting was so bad there that I don't suppose you're in any danger of anyone thinking that's she's a real actual person.

I enjoyed it, although it's not particularly scary and not at all suspenseful. As space horror goes, it's certainly better than Red Planet or Mission To Mars, but falls well short of the standards as set by the likes of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Duncan Jones's beautiful Moon.

Ultimately, the most disappointing thing about this film is that no-one at any point says "Houston, we have a problem." I was on tenterhooks the whole 75 minutes too, waiting for that.

Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes

Director: Rupert Wyatt (2011)

Starring: James Franco, Andy Serkis, John Lithgow, Freida Pinto, Malfoy

Find it: IMDB

Having learnt nothing from 28 Days Later, James Franco experiments on chimpanzees, injecting them not with rage but with clever juice. Planet of the Apes ensues. Will Rodman (Franco) injects a test monkey with a strain of virus that allows the brain to heal itself. Not only does he hope it will cure his father's (Lithgow) Alzheimer's, but it makes the monkey darn smart too. But after Test Monkey goes apeshit and is killed whilst destroying a boardroom and attacking those present, Will's project is rubbished. All looks hopeless. And then Will discovers that Test Monkey had a son. Will adopts the thing, calling it Caesar and bringing him home. Caesar, though, is a very clever monkey, even going so far as to get James Franco a date. In your face, Nim Chimpsky.

I've not seen a Planet Of The Apes film in years, and even then nothing beyond the Charlton Heston original and the Tim Burton atrocity. The Burton remake is particularly confusing in that I truly had the hots for Helena Bonham Carter as an ape.

There are no sexy apes in Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, although it is effortlessly a better movie than Burton's. Whilst it's not as good as the Heston original, this prequel has a few bits new to the franchise and a sense of intelligence missing from most other blockbusters. It's set in almost present day, on an Earth still ruled by humans. As humans go, James Franco and John Lithgow are jolly good ones. You'll really get to feel for their plight as the movie progresses. As a threesome, Will, Rodman Sr and Caesar become a very sweet family unit. They're eventually joined by a mostly pointless Freida Pinto love interest, who plays a cute vet. Shit gets real as Caesar begins to question his origins, eventually leading to his incarceration in monkey prison. Monkey prison, by the way, is ruled by Brian Cox and Draco Malfoy.

Poor Malfoy, typecast so young. Malfoy plays Malfoy, but with pubes and an American accent. He terrorises Caesar and the other monkeys so hard that you'll have started to side with the apes by the time that the third act rolls about. Aside from the Rodmans, Pinto and a chubby scientist, the humans in this movie are all pretty unsympathetic. Andy Serkis's Caesar is the most sympathetic character in Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes.

This despite some iffy CGI. Much has been made of the motion capture and CGI technology in this film, but not once was I convinced that I was watching real apes. And honestly, I liked the crappy makeup in the previous Apes films. Still, it has its moments. I particularly enjoyed the creepier scenes, like the chimps' parliament in monkey prison. The action, whilst delayed, is very well done. I'd have been quite happy to sit through a two hour movie in which the apes do nothing but trash the place. There are nice little touches too, referencing the Heston original. I had genuine shivers at one particular, climactic moment.

Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes is an invigorating shot up the arse for a franchise dulled by cheap sequels and Mark Wahlberg. A good modern Planet Of The Apes movie. God help them, they finally did it.

The Caller

Director: Matthew Parkhill (2011)

Starring: Rachelle Lefevre, Stephen Moyer, Luis Guzman, Lorna Raver

Find it: IMDB, Amazon

A psycho-stalker thriller with a twist this, in that The Caller has its persecuted protagonist stalked via the telephone, courtesy of a woman living in the past. It's like that Dennis Quaid movie if Dennis Quaid had gone around threatening to make people not exist. But like every hottie worth her salt, Mary (Lefevre) has a number of people staking out her flat. There's an abusive ex-husband and a burgeoning romance with hunky Stephen Moyer from off'a True Blood. I suppose he beats the usual class of vampire she's been known to hang about with, although I didn't realise how short Stephen Moyer was until now. Also, Luis Guzman does his nice-but-dim routine as a genial gardener.

Moving into her new apartment building after a messy breakup, Mary is perturbed when her landline refuses to stop ringing. She's even more confused when the person at the other end of the line claims to be Rose, literally living in the past. Initially, Mary plays along. But when she tries to break off contact with clingy Rose, things get a bit sinister. See, this is why I never answer my landline. It only ever seems to be cold-callers or a whingeing grandparent. Rose is the ultimate nuisance call. Even her voice is a pain in the ass.

The concept is very well done here, especially the scenes in which Mary is physically attacked by Rose, despite not even living in the same century as her antagonist. There's a real sense of threat to the later scenes, and a disturbing moment or two buried beneath all the melodrama. It's a fun movie, well-acted by all involved and directed in a cracking manner by Matthew Parkhill. It's quick paced with a good line in tension, thrills and spills. This Caller is one I'm very glad I picked up.

The Box

Director: Richard Kelly (2009)

Starring: Cameron Diaz, James Marsden, Frank Langella

Find it: IMDB, Amazon

At silly o' clock in the morning, Norma and Arthur Lewis (Diaz & Marsden) are rudely awoken to find a mysterious wee box on their doorstep. It's adorned only with a big red button. A mysterious stranger (played by Frank Langella) later arrives at their house and offers them a deal: press the button and receive $1 million. But someone, somewhere in the world will die. Can the seemingly quite nice Norma and Arthur bring themselves to do it? Maybe they can spend some of the money buying Norma a less stupid name. Although these are the 1970s. I suppose people called Norma were all the rage, otherwise we wouldn't have so many pensioners called Norma now.

Also, Norma doesn't have any toes on her right foot, which really pissed off that totally pretend foot fetish I made up yesterday. She's not alone though, Frank Langella is missing half of his face. The inevitable moral wonderings soon give way to cosmic nonsense of the highest order. A later scene sees James Marsden step into a liquid box reminiscent of something out of 2001: A Space Odyssey. This isn't 2001: A Space Odyssey though, so its trying just seems daft. Admittedly, the psychedelic music and wallpaper and James Marsden's sideburns are fun.

The Box is ambitious but silly, disposable guff. It's an amusing concept, but not deserving of its extended runtime. Stick with the Richard Matherson short story Button, Button or Twilight Zone episode instead. Like Frank Langella constantly turning up at the Lewis' home, this one outstays its welcome too.

Transformers: Dark Of The Moon

Director: Michael Bay (2011)

Starring: Robots. Shia LaBeouf, Rosie Huntingdon Whiteley.

Find it: IMDB

Nothing to do with Pink Floyd, Dark Of The Moon posits that the 1969 Moon landing was a front for the US first discovering the existence of Transformers. The opening credits aren't over yet, but already Transformers 3 is a better movie than the utterly dire Revenge Of The Fallen. It opens with a wacky sequence which sees Transformers flying about in a giant spaceship of their own before crashing it into the Moon. A rubbish President Kennedy impersonator tells NASA to go check it out, whereupon they find a dead Transformer and some freaky space-technology. Here, Dark Of The Moon almost has a plot.

Post-credits, we're re-united with Sam (LaBeouf) and his newest squeeze, Carly (Huntingdon-Whiteley). What with nearly having a plot and Megan Fox nowhere to be seen, Dark Of The Moon has already improved upon its predecessors. Now that he's graduated from college and the world is safe from Transformer peril, Sam needs to find a job. There's a lot of whingeing from Sam about how jobs suck and he just wants to be special again. Sam moans a lot in this movie, always about how he's too good to work like the rest of the world and most jobs are too menial for him. This instantly puts audience sympathy elsewhere, as does a scene where he meets President Obama and acts like a prick. Apparently Obama is giving out medals for just "being there", as I seem to recall it being the Transformers who saved the world twice, not Shia LaBeouf. Although people getting awards and medals for doing not much seems to be the 'in' thing where Obama is concerned (politics, y'all).

Anyway, while Sam is looking for a job, The Decepticons are plotting a return. This coincides with The Autobots retrieving and reviving old leader Sentinel Prime (Leonard Nimoy!) from the Moon. Eventually there are a lot of explosions, robot fight scenes and Shia LaBeouf screams like a girl. As the usual charisma-free idiots (Duhamel, Gibson et al) run around blowing things up, better actors (John Malkovitch, Frances McDormand, Alan Tudyk) slum it with the odd "comedy" cameo thrown in too (Ken Jeong and, uh Buzz Aldrin). The robots' dialogue still sounds stilted, like excerpts from videogame cut scenes - and I've only just realised that Hugo Weaving is Megatron. And has been for three whole movies. That's what you call a subtle performance.

I thoroughly enjoyed Dark Of The Moon. But Dark Of The Moon is not a good movie. It's overlong, nonsensical and full of plot holes and really stupid moments. At one point new girl Rosie Huntingdon-Whiteley saves the day with a rousing speech, which is perhaps the daftest moment of all. She seems like she could hardly outwit a regular truck, let alone one with a mind. Her performance is bad, but she's still a step up from Megan Fox. Sure, she's incapable of emoting, but at least she manages to appear alive, which is more than we can say for Megan Fox and her dead eyes. Less Shia LaBeouf and no Megan Fox has vastly improved the Transformers series tenfold. The real action takes far too long to get going, but once it does, there are a number of genuinely impressive set-pieces and jaw-dropping explosions.

Transformers: Dark Of The Moon is critic proof. It's a Michael Bay movie based on a line of toys in which giant robots alternately punch each other in the face and turn into cars. Really, what do you expect?

Skyline

Director: Colin & Greg Strause (2010)

Starring: Eric Balfour, Scottie Thompson, David Zayas, Turk from Scrubs.

Find it: IMDB, Amazon

One fine morning in LA, some aliens arrive and begin abducting citizens. With a giant sky vacuum cleaner and some pretty blue lights, hundreds of thousands of humans are sucked into the sky and the depths of the alien ships therein. Not, shockingly, for anal probing, but something even stupider.

Talking of stupid, Skyline's cast consists of a lot of stupid characters played by actors who played other stupid characters in equally stupid TV shows and movies. Eric Balfour plays a man called Jarrod, whose stupid (long) face and stupid hair matches his stupid name. And Turk from off've Scrubs plays Jarrod's friend, who is also stupid and drives a fucking convertible when aliens are sucking people up into the sky. Scottie Thompson and Brittany Daniel play the respective stupid girlfriends, whilst Dexter's David Zayas makes a neat appearance to play the sole character who isn't a complete idiot in the movie.

Why the long face?

At least three times our intrepid heroes are shown struggling with bloody doors. And the first of those happens after the dipshits manage to lock themselves on a roof. The characters in Skyline are more witless than Justin Bartha in The Hangover. And considering that this is allegedly a serious role, Turk manages to show less intelligence than his character from Scrubs. Skyline is a movie so stupid that if you type 'skyline' into google, the first few pages of image results you'll get is for stupid sports cars for stupid people. I'd imagine that the cast of Skyline all drive Skylines.

But stupidity is apparently epidemic in LA. It's an invasion that should be defeated with a pair of sunglasses (much of the aliens' weaponry depends on their victims looking 'into the light') and yet the city is mostly destroyed within a matter of days.

But there are some good action sequences in Skyline, and the aliens do look pretty cool (if reminiscent of those from Independence Day). The final quarter owes a lot to both Spielberg's War Of The Worlds and the more recent District 9. The CGI isn't the best ever, but it comes fast and loose enough that you won't really notice. David Zayas gets at least one good moment to be badass and there's plenty of schadenfreude in watching the more dipshitty of the dipshits die as they do. In its final quarter or so, Skyline starts to get pretty good

And then gets very, very stupid again. Videogame stupid, crossed with Michael Bay stupid and then multiplied by its own particular brand of stupid; Skyline is, well, stupid.

The Wraith

"Who was that guy?"

"I dunno, but he's weird and ticked off."

Director: Mike Marvin (1986)

Starring: Charlie Sheen, Nick Cassavetes, Sherilyn Fenn, Randy Quaid

Find it: IMDB, Amazon

Charlie Sheen (Sheen) is murdered by teenage yobs and returns as the mystical Wraith to enact his vicious revenge. Revenge which involves driving around in a totally sci-fi black car, terrorising people and blasting shit with a shotgun. Also, picking up chicks and wearing bad 1980s clothes. All in a day's work for Charlie Sheen.

Charlie Sheen has made roughly four good movies (which is still a better batting everage than brother Emilio Estevez). This is not one of those good movies. It's like Death Proof if it had been made twenty years ago and starred Charlie Sheen. Or Night Rider, if it had starred Charlie Sheen. It's like Grease if... well, if Grease had starred Charlie Sheen. The TV networks always seem to show this movie late at night on BBC1, and every time I'm fooled into watching it by the synopsis. I mean, how can Charlie Sheen returning from the dead to run people over with a Night Rider car not be awesome? Well I suppose it is fairly awesome, but only ironically.

There are such American staples of the 1980s as roller-skate burger joints, illegal street races and swimming holes. Kids wear bandanas and say things like "he ain't cool!" and treat their girlfriends like pieces of meat. As our hero, Charlie Sheen is fine enough. He plays the same character he usually does, only a little bit younger and (probably) less stoned. Randy Quaid is in it too, as the town's sheriff, but not even he is particularly memorable here. The yobs of the piece are amusingly trashy, particularly the one fellow who looks like the Kim-Jong Il puppet from Team America.

As a horror movie, The Wraith fails. The 18 rating seems daft, since there's hardly any violence, gore and not all that much nudity to speak of. There's more T&A in an average episode of Two And A Half Men (one would imagine. Not that I've ever watched Two And A Half Men. Ahem). All the good bits are in the trailer. And the only good bit in the trailer is the part with the shotgun.

The Wraith is enjoyable in an ironic 1980s sort of way, but not very much so otherwise. If you want to see some truly entertaining Charlie Sheen antics, just go watch the news.