It’s been a big year for Stephen King adaptations about people in deadly foot races. Earlier, we had the impressively gruelling and poignant The Long Walk and now comes The Running Man, not only a King adaptation but a remake of the 1987 Arnie film. The original film was an entertainingly silly piece of glossy 80’s sci fi action that
Read moreThe Gen X franchise regeneration continues with a surprisingly entertaining addition to the sci fi action franchise Predator in Predator: Badlands. As with the Terminator movies, what was once the otherworldly villain has now become the hero as the Predator known as Dek (New Zealand actor Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi), who is a member of the a Yautja people, is at the
Read moreThe Now You See Me franchise, which started in 2013, has proven an occasionally inventive but often annoying crime caper series that uses stage magic as device for introducing visual gags and action sequences and as an excuse for improbable plot points. Based largely on the franchise’s ability to lure likeable stars such as Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, Morgan Freeman
Read moreThe Fantastic Four has been the problem child of the Marvel cinema family. There have been two previous false starts with the 2005 film starring Chris Evans and Jessica Alba and the 2015 reboot starring Miles Teller and Kate Mara which began promisingly before weirdly falling apart half way through. Now, in the wake of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s takeover
Read moreThe DC cinematic universe has so far failed to achieve the world conquering success of its Marvel counterpart. The DC films have, like the Marvel movies been noisy, lumbering, confusingly plotted, CGI-drenched behemoths but unlike the Marvel movies, their characters have failed to connect with audiences. Actors playing the DC characters have changed but no one seems to have cared
Read moreThe John Wick films set an unusual new standard in cinema violence; they were brutal yet choreographed like a dance routine and completely ignored most laws of physics and any sense of realism. They took the’ indestructible human fighting machine’ trope to previously unknown levels of silliness with outrageous scenes of Keanu Reeves’ Wick singlehandedly pulverising armies of goons. Ludicrous
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