Film, Action

Review: Django and Django Prepare a Coffin

As Django Unchained hits the cinema we take a look at the original Spaghetti Western series

Taking advantage of the release of Django Unchained we get the release of a couple of the original Django movies on DVD and Blu-ray. Quentin Tarantino’s Unchained certainly isn’t a remake but you can see the influences in these hardboiled tales of the…

The Last Stand

Schwarzenegger's comeback vehicle is a genuine guilty pleasure

Arnold Schwarzenegger rolls back the years and rolls off the one-liners for his return to leading man status in The Last Stand. A throwback to his own violent back catalogue as well as the classic Western style of High Noon and Rio Bravo, The Last Stand…

Zero Dark Thirty

A gripping, authentic-feeling account of the dark side of the war on terror from Kathryn Bigelow

If Kathryn Bigelow’s Iraq-set bomb disposal unit drama The Hurt Locker caught everyone by surprise, the anticipation for her follow-up is tangible. An exacting procedural about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, it’s been in development long before the…

Flight

Some great effects and an intriguing moral quandry are sold short by a self-righteous finale

This action flick/courtroom drama/morality tale from the director of Back to the Future and Forrest Gump boasts a fine performance from Denzel Washington, a pivotal effects set piece of nail-biting intensity, and a third act so crushingly pious…

Django Unchained

Fine performances and moments of sudden brutality outshine Tarantino's over-indulgent running time

There are two major films about slavery this season. At one end of the spectrum is Steven Spielberg’s po-faced, self-important abolition drama Lincoln. And the other? Quentin Tarantino’s giddily violent, shockingly profane spaghetti western, Django…

Gangster Squad

The Ryan Gosling-starring LA noir has great performances but a nasty violent streak

As stylish as Ruben Fleischer's Gangster Squad is, it lacks the substance of similar genre films such as The Untouchables and LA Confidential and contains a nasty, even exploitative streak. Inspired by the true story of a group of cops who sought to…

Dabangg 2

Enjoyable Bollywood action sequel starring Salman Khan and Kareena Kapoor

Dabangg, released in 2010, introduced us to hyper-macho super-cop Chulbul Pandey (Salman Khan), a sharply dressed unorthodox policeman living and working in rural northern India. The sequel, produced and directed by Arbaaz Khan (who also stars in both…

Jack Reacher

A slow, solid crowd-pleaser that achieves its middlebrow ambitions, starring Tom Cruise

Thirty years on from Risky Business, Tom Cruise is still a potent force in Hollywood, and launches a potential new franchise as Jack Reacher, the ‘top shelf army cop’ from the bestselling books by Lee Child. Adapted from Child’s book One Shot by…

Alex Cross

Film lacking flair and panache and bearing all the hallmarks of a cult bad film in the making

James Patterson’s series of novels about the titular detective has twice before been adapted for the screen, starring Morgan Freeman in both Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider. Now rebooted in the guise of one-man media empire Tyler Perry, Rob…

The Man with the Iron Fists

A gory kung fu action flick that quickly wears thin, from The Wu Tang Clan's RZA

RZA’s The Man With The Iron Fists boasts high curiosity value but ultimately proves much less than the sum of its parts. The feature debut of director, co-writer and star RZA (of Wu Tang Clan fame), the film is designed as an homage to the wuxia Chinese…

Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan

Documentary about the work and influence of the special effects pioneer

Ray Harryhausen saw King Kong (1933) and was instantly hooked on the magic of movies. Eventually going on to work with the man who brought Kong to life, Willis O’Brien, on another great ape movie: Might Joe Young (1949). From there on Harryhausen became…

Writer/director Martin McDonagh on Seven Psychopaths

While film fans might be wondering where Martin McDonagh has been in recent years, theatre aficionados won’t be. A successful playwright before he embarked on filmmaking (he has won two Laurence Olivier awards and been nominated for four Tony awards)…

End of Watch

Jake Gyllenhaal continues trying to prove something – who can say what? – with this swaggering police potboiler, in which he plays reckless, foulmouthed, macho LAPD officer Brian Taylor, and looks, as ever, like a big pretty kitten on its way to have…

Seven Psychopaths

Unabashed violent comedy from director of In Bruges

Martin McDonagh’s follow-up to In Bruges is as fiercely violent as its title suggests, and a whole lot funnier. Its film-within-a-film concept finds alcoholic screenwriter Marty (Colin Farrell) troubled by writer’s block; he’s got a title – Seven…

Things we learned from the Iron Man 3 trailer

The trailer for part three of Marvel's mega-franchise out now - here are the important bits

0:09 Iron Man suits are rubbish for making snow angels. 0:21 the events of The Avengers are at least partly alluded to. 0:39 Tony Stark wears two Blu-tooth headsets, just like Nathan Barley. Well Jackson! 0:41 Iron Man suits can be rather…

Interview: Scott Tracy Griffin - Tarzan: The Centennial Celebration

To celebrate 100 years of Tarzan we ask why the character has remained so popular for so long?

Tarzan is one of the most enduring action adventure characters of all time: created by Edgar Rice Burroughs 100 years ago he still lives on in popular culture after all these years. We chat to Scott Tracy Griffin, author of Tarzan: The Centennial…

Skyfall

Sam Mendes delivers a belting addition to the Bond franchise

Fifty years since James Bond first appeared on screens, there was always going to be pressure on Skyfall, the 23rd official 007 movie. Even more so because Daniel Craig’s second outing as the MI6 agent, 2008’s Quantum of Solace, was a let-down.

Review of reviews: Argo

What we said and what they said about Ben Affleck's third directorial effort

We said: 'There are some terrific performances, though if anything irritates, it's the rather 'Hollywood ending' that takes quite a few liberties with actual events. A shame, because until this final reel, this is one truly taut experience.' The…

Thaandavam

Overlong masala movie starring Vikram, Amy Jackson and Santhanam

Kenny Thomas (Tamil superstar Vikram) is a blind man leading a double existence: by day he plays the organ at a rural Kentish church; by night he uses echolocation to assassinate targets in London. His life becomes more complicated with the intrusion of…

Resident Evil: Retribution

Vacuous but delivers when it comes to action

Films based on videogames have a bad rep. That doesn’t stop some of them being hugely popular. Resident Evil, the most successful game-to-movie franchise, has so far grossed over $670 million worldwide. And it can put that success down to knowing its…

Taken 2

Liam Neeson returns in this pale imitation of his 2008 surprise hit

The original Taken was one of the surprise films of 2008 and successfully redefined Liam Neeson as a no-nonsense action hero (at the age of 56), as well as proving to be a decent and suitably violent thriller in its own right. The inevitable sequel…

Interview: Vic Armstrong - Stuntman behind Indiana Jones, James Bond and Superman

Stuntman and director on high falls, Superman, Indiana Jones and Harrison Ford

Vic Armstrong is one of the hardest working men in Hollywood. In the 60s he started working as a stunt man going on to be Harrison Ford’s stunt double in the Indiana Jones movies and Christopher Reeves’ in Superman. Later in his career he moved onto…

Rian Johnson, director of Looper

The filmmaker talks about working with Bruce Willis and the logic of time travel

A story set in 2044, about assassins whose targets are sent back from thirty years further in the future, Looper is a very intricate sci-fi. How did you approach writing it? Writing the screenplay, part of what I wanted to do with it was really focus…

Looper

Impressive time-travel tale from Rian Johnson, starring Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt

After his impressive debut Brick and his mildly disappointing follow-up, The Brothers Bloom, Rian Johnson’s time-travel tale Looper feels like a giant leap forwards. Warmly embracing elements of sci-fi, horror and romance, in a story inspired equally by…

Hit and Run

Bland action comedy from Hollywood star Dax Shepard

The personable star of TV show Parenthood, Hollywood hunk Dax Shepard bites off more than he can chew in Hit and Run, writing, co-directing (with David Palmer) and starring in a lightweight action movie sporting wilfully loquacious dialogue á la Quentin…