Film, Action, Rob Carnevale

GI Joe: Retaliation (3D)

The Bruce Willis and Dwayne Johnson-starring sequel is a pleasantly surprising improvement

If GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra represented the brain-dead summer blockbuster at its absolute worst, then the marked improvement of belated follow-up GI Joe: Retaliation is a pleasant surprise. Jon M Chu’s sequel abandons the effects-heavy, charisma-free…

Dragon

Fast-moving martial arts flick with dazzling action scenes

A welcome entry to the martial arts genre, Peter Chan's Dragon is a fast-moving action thriller that has the brains to match its brawn. Set in the Yunnan province in China in 1917, the film picks up as peaceful handyman Liu Jinxi (Donnie Yen) is forced…

Stolen

Nicolas Cage's reunion with Con Air director Simon West is disappointingly lacking in tension

What with Nicolas Cage's recent output conforming rigidly to the law of diminishing returns, it was with hopeful optimism that some fans regarded the name Simon West on the poster for Stolen. West's directorial debut was a little film called Con Air…

Iron Man 3

Director Shane Black recovers from a lacklustre second instalment with wit and subversion

The third instalment in Marvel’s Iron Man franchise has its work cut out in both bettering its own relatively lame sequel and following the massive success of The Avengers. Thanks to director Shane Black (who also co-wrote the script with Drew Pearce)…

A Good Day To Die Hard

Disappointing addition to the Die Hard franchise starring Bruce Willis and Jai Courtney

From wretched title to poorly conceived premise, A Good Day To Die Hard is a dispiriting exercise in franchise flogging which should never have seen the light of day. Based on a script by Skip Woods and directed by John Moore (of Max Payne and The Omen…

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…

The Amazing Spider-Man

Marc Webb breathes new life into this Marvel comic favourite

Originally envisaged as the fourth film in the Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire franchise, The Amazing Spider-Man became a re-boot once those two names departed. Rather than a weak imitation however, incoming director Marc Webb succeeds in breathing new life…

Dredd

The latest 2000AD adaptation packs a mean punch

For a long time, Judge Dredd looked destined to become the type of comic book that struggled to make a successful transfer to the big screen. A widely-panned attempt starring Sylvester Stallone in 1995, which contained several violations of Dredd 'law…

Battleship

Michael Bay-inspired blockbuster burdened by bog-standard plot and uneven tone

(12A) 131mins Inspired by the Hasbro board-game, Battleship is part Michael Bay-inspired planet-trashing mayhem and part love letter to the US Navy, with whom director Peter Berg shares an intimate family history (his father was both a former Marine…

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…

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…

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…

Premium Rush

Slick action about a New York bike messenger, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Michael Shannon

There are three major factors that make David Koepp's Premium Rush worthy of recommendation: breathtaking real stunts that do justice to the film's name, a charismatic leading man in Joseph Gordon-Levitt and a formidably villain in Boardwalk Empire's…

The Expendables 2

Fun but dumb sequel from Stallone and co

Sylvester Stallone all but guaranteed himself a new franchise by making 'the expendables' of the first film nowhere near as expendable as the title suggested. But while their return in this bigger, bloodier, more star-studded sequel is enjoyable enough…

Wrath of the Titans

Sloppy sequel with poorly defined characters, starring Sam Worthington and Liam Neeson

From its flimsy concept to its similarly sloppy use of post-conversion 3D, Wrath of the Titans is a sequel that fails to improve on the original in any way. Set 10 years after the events of Clash of the Titans, this pointless follow-up invents a…

21 Jump Street

Deceptively smart big screen revival of the once popular TV show, with Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill

(15)109min Taken at face value, 21 Jump Street is another mis-matched buddy cop outing that mixes elements from the original television series, Superbad coming-of-age values and the gung-ho rhetoric of Michael Bay's action movies. But there's a…

This Means War

Unsuccessful mash-up of the rom-com and spy action genres

(12A) 97min McG attempts to satisfy both sexes in This Means War – a testosterone-driven action meets girl-pleasing rom-com, that ends up not being good in either genre, despite featuring two of the hottest young actors around (Tom Hardy and Chris…

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

OTT second outing for Nicolas Cage's flaming-skulled anti-hero

(12A) 95mins Nicolas Cage’s latest stab at lending Ghost Rider mainstream credibility suffers from the decision to employ Crank duo Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor as co-directors. For while certainly high on manic energy, Spirit of Vengeance lacks…

Safe House

Brutally slick but flawed action thriller starring Denzel Washtington and Ryan Reynolds

(15) 115mins Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds make a formidable partnership in Daniel Espinosa's Safe House, a brutally slick, if flawed, action thriller.

Thor

It’s hammer time! Kenneth Branagh's Thor has a theatrical charm

(12A) 130min Kenneth Branagh may have seemed like an unlikely choice to direct Marvel's Thor but he pulls it off with considerable style to kick-start the summer in fun fashion. By no means perfect, and inferior to both Christopher Nolan's genre…

Source Code

Jake Gyllenhaal and Michelle Monaghan star in body-swapping thriller

Duncan Jones’ dazzling debut Moon is, by any standard, a tough act to follow, but while sophomore effort Source Code can’t quite match up, it does ensure the director’s career remains on the right track. The film is an intriguing race-against-time…

The Adjustment Bureau

Philip K Dick-inspired sci-fi thriller starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt

The work of Philip K Dick has inspired some of cinema’s great sci-fi films, from Blade Runner to Minority Report via Total Recall. The Adjustment Bureau, which is derived from one of the author’s short stories, doesn’t quite measure up to the former or…

The Expendables

The Expendables is as much an A to Z of every action movie cliché as it is a who’s who of the leading men who used to populate them. Boasting a line-up of Sylvester Stallone, Jet Li, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Eric Roberts and Steve Austin, as…

Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince

The sixth instalment in the Harry Potter franchise suffers from as many growing pains as its young wizards. While Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince does venture into darker, more adult areas than its predecessors it also injects more humour and…

Terminator Salvation

With a track record that includes Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle and the straight-to-DVD We Are Marshall, McG was always going to have his work cut out proving he was the right man to reboot the Terminator franchise. Now his judgment day has arrived…