Truth or Dare

Director: Robert Heath (2012)

Starring: Tom Kane, Jack Gordon, Florence Hall

Find it: IMDB

The reason I don't play Truth or Dare. Or go to parties. Or have friends. In Truth or Dare, a gang of friends play a game of terrible truth or dare. Tied to chairs and bullied to death, all in the name of vengeance, it may just be the worst game of their lives. See, you don't get this shit playing Scrabble. At least, not unless you're taking it really seriously, in which case you should probably chill out a bit.

Led into the woods to attend the birthday party of a chap nobody really liked, the protagonists of Truth or Dare bring everything they get upon themselves. The villain of the piece isn't much better - a homophobic posh army veteran (think James Blunt, except not quite as beautiful) - so we're left with very few people to sympathise with. As secrets are revealed and truths are unsheathed, that list of the not-as-loathsome becomes smaller and smaller. One person, to be exact: the lovely and fairly decent Florence Hall. Well, it's impossible to hate someone called Florence. My nan's name is Florence, so there, I have proof.

Better Florence than her horrible ex-boyfriend, Chris (Gordon), the guy responsible for setting a whole chain of events into motion. He does have an impressive David Hess style perm though, so at least he has his redeeming feature. Much like the film has a few of its own. For all the annoying characters, bad acting (none of the kids can do villainous for shit) and Saw type torture bollocks, it does offer a few surprises by the time the denouement rolls about. At least one of these I saw coming, but there are some nifty left-field shocks that might make the film worth your while.

The truth is (predictable joke) I would recommend this film in spite of its more irritating flaws; it's worth a watch, even if it is only for a dare (predictable joke).

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.