How do you stop a film about an accountant being a snoozefest? How about making him a superhuman killing machine. That is the dubious premise behind Gavin O’Connor’s moderately exciting, often confusing and occasionally silly hitman thriller The Accountant. Ben Affleck stars as the eponymous number and skull cruncher Christian Wolff a savant maths genius whose autism saw him persecuted
Read moreThe original Magnificent Seven is a Hollywood classic which transposed Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai to the wild west of America; Seven Samurai having itself been inspired by Hollywood westerns. Now director Anton Fuqua has remade The Magnificent Seven with a cast that includes Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Haley Bennett and Peter Sarsgaard. Given the dire record of classic
Read moreBack in 2002 The Bourne Identity established in Jason Bourne, a new kind of movie spy, one with the destructive skills and resourcefulness of James Bond but none of the imperialism, sexism or playboy antics. This approach was refreshingly gritty and confronting and not surprisingly has heavily influenced the style of recent Bond films. The Bourne franchise struck a major
Read moreWith their emphasis on cgi spectacle and their failure to reproduce the wonderful indelible characters and philosophical story lines that made the TV series (particularly the original and the Next Generation) such a success, the Star Trek reboot films have often been an empty experience. The latest instalment in the series, Star Trek: Beyond is much the same although a
Read moreDespite the fact that The Gunman is set amid the tragic turmoil of the war in the Congo and the fact that it stars and was co-written by noted Hollywood activist Sean Penn, this film is not an exceptionally political film. What appears in the first few minutes to be a Syriana-style exploration of third world political corruption and the
Read moreThe Ninja Turtles were ripe for a re-incarnation. The sight of four human sized, fun-loving ass-kicking, crime-fighting turtles living in the sewer with their giant rat ninja master Splinter, is still an enormous attraction for the tweens while the concept, which began in the 80’s, packs enough nostalgia value to lure cashed-up gen X-ers. Throw in Megan Fox and some
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