Since the world-dominating success of the Harry Potter films, teen magic fantasies have been an El Dorado for film makers: guaranteed gold if the right approach can be found but as the likes of The Golden Compass and A Wrinkle in Time have shown, too often disastrous. There were high hopes, however, for the cinema adaptation of John Bellair’s 1973
Read moreAdapting the young adult, sci-fi/ fantasy, adventure novel to the screen is a tricky feat. If done right, as in the Harry Potter films, they can provide wonderful cinema. Too often, though, film-makers trying to adapt popular teen novels to the big screen fumble the task badly, exhibit A: The Mortal Instruments. It would be reasonable to expect that a
Read morePirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is yet another lumbering, plotless farce in what has to be one of the most undeservedly successful franchises in cinema history – first film excepted. These Pirate films should be rollicking campy adventures but they’re so waterlogged with cgi and so incoherently plotted that they lack both sense and charm. Also,
Read moreWith funny, street smart, cartoonishly violent gangster movies like Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch Guy Ritchie was, in the 1990’s, being touted as Britain’s answer to Quentin Tarantino. Unfortunately, his recent, confusingly-plotted, over-the-top, near-indigestible offerings such as the Sherlock Holmes movies and the irritating Rock’n’Rolla have seen him become more like Britain’s answer to Michael Bay. Consequently,
Read moreBelieve it or not there’s another Underworld film about to hit our cinemas. Audiences would be forgiven for thinking these outrageously silly, borderline unwatchable S and M vampire fantasies had been consigned to the Golden Raspberry hall of fame but apparently there’s enough fan interest to warrant a fifth film in this ‘vampires versus werewolves’ saga, namely Underworld: Blood Wars.
Read moreParents be warned, Jack the Giant Slayer is not as kid-friendly as you might expect. Although it’s based on the Jack and the Beanstalk fable, it’s no cute fairy tale. This is a loud, violent action fantasy that’s closer to Robert Zemeckis’ intense reimaging of Beowulf than any fairy story and may traumatise children under 12. The violence begins in
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