Reviews - 2005

Aeon Flux

Looking back it's hard to believe I only saw this film a few short hours ago considering how little I know about what the hell it was all about. I'm not even going to attempt to explain the plot of this muddled sci-fi slop because I honestly don't think it's important. Yes, we're well and truly ensconsed in the land of MTV with its flashy images, snappy editing and high gloss sheen. What you get in MTV-land is long, jumpy, confusing action scenes with lots of slo-mo and zooming in and out punctuated by short scenes of important seeming sound-bite type dialogue and overdone reaction shots. What you don't get in MTV-land is a decent story, any real emotion or much in the way of logic. So what you've got, in the end, is not much in the way of a film.

Batman Begins

It's been so long since I went near a Batman film after the horrific experience of Batman and Robin that I approached this project with some trepidation. When I found out it was to be helmed by Memento's Christopher Nolan most of my fears were laid to rest. Christian Bale as Batman? Sounds good. And, for the most part, it is good. Liam Neeson is a believable baddie and Bale is an excellent Batman. All the ingredients for a good Batman movie are in place and work well. Nefarious plans are hatched and Batman is put to work for the city of Gotham to foil them. It's a dark film with a broody atmosphere and great visuals. Really it's about as good a film as you could hope for from a summer blockbuster straight out of Hollywood.

Be Cool

This is truly awful. Actually it's embarrassing for the vast majority of its running time. The jokes are lame and forced sounding, the direction is lazy; most of the situations are merely reworked scenes from Get Shorty or references to other Travolta films. The performances are almost uniformly bad - possibly due to the slack direction and useless script. John Travolta - who was pretty cool in Get Shorty - is now looking old and seems uncomfortable in this movie. Harvey Keitel turns in one of the worst performances of his career, Uma Thurman - not a great actress at the best of times is dreadful and Vince Vaughn's performance is squirm-inducingly bad. So, why award it 1/10, instead of 0? The Rock - that's why. His performance as a gay bodyguard who dreams of being a star is actually very funny, and infinitely better than the rest of this tripe.

Brokeback Mountain

Well, I finally got round to seeing this one - I didn't really fancy the film - and frankly it was about what I expected. There's a lot to admire I suppose: The scenery is spectacular, the cinematography is expertly done, the whole film is directed with a great deal of subtlety and panache, and both leads are fantastic - hence the highish mark, but when all's said and done I found it really dull because honestly nothing of note happens during the whole film. I'm not a huge fan of love stories as a rule - I don't tend to find them interesting to watch, and the same holds true of this film. It really didn't make any difference to me that it was two men in the lead roles rather than a man and a woman, I just wanted something to happen. I'm not sure what all the fuss is about and I don't think it should be winning all the Oscars I know it's going to win. I would say all four of the other films Brokeback is up against this year were more enjoyable than this.

The Brothers Grimm

I like Terry Gilliam as a director - he's done a few very good movies (Time Bandits, Fisher King, Twelve Monkeys), and at least one truly great film (Brazil) but I didn't care for The Brother Grimm at all. In fact if I were given the choice between watching this or Baron Munchausen again I'd have to go for Munchausen (which I thought was pretty bad). It's a tale of two brothers - essentially conmen - masquerading as medieval travelling salesmen-type exorcists. The brothers' adventures are intercut with scenes from their most famous stories, but none of it makes any sense and it doesn't go anywhere. The casting seems a bit odd too. I like Matt Damon a lot but he's wasted here, Heath Ledger is more interesting with a convincing English accent, but the two are supposed to be German. Weird. I'm sure this was a great film in Terry Gilliam's head but unfortunately something has been lost in the translation to the screen.

Capote

Excellent film from newcomer Bennett Miller about the writing of the classic non-fiction novel In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. The film delves into the motivations and mighty ambition of Capote and the lengths to which he'll go to detail the events surrounding the cold-blooded murder of a family in a small rural Kansas town in the late fifties. Absolutely astonishing performance from Philip Seymour Hoffman as Capote will guarantee him his first Oscar next month, and it's about time too. Catherine Keener is also very good as Capote's companion Harper Lee, and Chris Cooper is as good as always as the town sheriff. Immensely watchable.

Charlie & The Chocolate Factory

Johnny Depp continues to play characters you want to watch and he always plays them very well. However, in the case of Tim Burton's version of the tale there's not much more to enjoy than his performance as the none too child-friendly Willy Wonka. I think the film as a whole is better than the 1972 original with Gene Wilder as Wonka, but the songs were better in the old version. I don't know who's idea it was to have songs in the movie but it seems to be a mandatory thing now. Still, there are far too many musical numbers for my taste, with each child invited to the factory having their own theme song and dance routine. It's darker than the original film with more time devoted to explaining Wonka's motives, and more interesting for that but still the tale's too slight in the end to justify such weighty productions. In my opinion any version of Charlie & The Chocolate Factory should have been a cartoon.

Cinderella Man

I'm sure Ron Howard is a very nice man. Everyone who's worked with him says so and who am I to disagree? I just wish he'd retire from making movies, and go and live it up in the Carribean or something - after all he deserves it, by all accounts. There's not much wrong with this film, I suppose...it's overly sentimental, but it's well acted and put together. It's just so unimaginative and dull, like all his other films. There's no spark of originality. It typifies a Ron Howard film - it's like he's some computer software that's been programmed to spit out film templates and execute them to the letter using some official movie-making guidebook. The only good bits in the film are some of the fight scenes and that's only because he's ripped off Scorsese's fight scenes from Raging Bull.

The Constant Gardener

This film wasn't exactly what I was expecting. I thought it was going to be more of a spy thriller Bourne Identity type of thing. In fact it's a much more low-key kind of affair with Ralph Fiennes trying to discover how and why his anti-capitalist liberal journalist wife was killed whilst in Africa on some do-goody crusade. It's very slow and truth be told not very interesting for much of the time. I personally found the film a little hard to follow at times but I really think that was due to my lack of interest rather than any narrative defficiencies. Ralph Fiennes is good as always. Rachel Weisz isn't - why she's up for an Oscar is a bit of a mystery.

Constantine

A rare film for me in that I wasn't expecting much but I actually thoroughly enjoyed. I'm not familiar with the comicbook on which it's based and I believe they've changed some things around from the page to the screen (most notably the title from Hellblazer to Constantine which, while the former is catchier, may have sounded a little too much like Hellboy - released not long before this), but as a film it struck me as a fine example of a comicbook adaptation. It has a professional, glossy production, the special effects are inventive, and the premise of the main character stuck between heaven and hell battling demons for redemption is an intriguing one. On the surface it may seem like a mistake to cast Keanu Reeves in the lead role, (he is a certified WoodenTop after all) but to his credit he's very good at picking the right parts to play. He doesn't have to do much in this film but run around weilding fantastical shotguns or sit about looking miffed and these things are within his narrow range as an actor. Add some good supporting players - Tilda Swinton as the angel Gabriel and Peter Stormare as Satan himself and you've got yourself a quality product. Nice one.

Curse of The Were-Rabbit

The first big screen outing for Nick Park's Wallace & Gromit and it's not quite as fresh and joyful as the previous three Wallace & Gromit shorts were. The Wallace & Gromit franchise will always lead the way in comedy animation - and this will be a strong contender for yet another Oscar next month - because of two factors; a sublime sense of humour and an exquisite attention to detail. There's a dozen little visual jokes in the background of each frame for the eagle-eyed to uncover while those out for a brain-free bit of fun can enjoy the bad jokes and truly awful puns. However, being a feature length film means the jokes are being spread a little more thinly and I feel the short format is much better suited to Park's frenetic action sequences and off the wall humour. He should probably stick to that and the Creature Comfort series. Short and sweet.

The Descent

A group of female pot-holers set off to a new cave system one wet weekend and get in trouble in numerous ways; they didn't bring the guidebook, they nearly get stuck, one of them breaks a limb, the cave starts to flood, part of the cave collapses after they're through leaving them no way back. Now that's a decent horror film right there. If it's done well there's more than enough tension, atmosphere and grim entertainment to be had without the need to add otherworldly orcish creatures out for blood to the mix. After a little backstory to flesh out a couple of the characters the film gets going without too much messing around, then everything ticks along nicely with events progressing much as you'd expect. Of course the filmmakers do decide to throw in the creepy cave-dwelling orcs for good measure which kind of wasted it for me as things get more and more silly up until the conclusion but as horror films go this is a very good effort.

The Devil's Rejects

Rob Zombie's follow up to House of 1000 Corpses is quite refreshing in it's depravity. In this age of safe big blockbusters and sanitized 15 certificate 'horror' films made with one eye on the budget and another on the demographics, Zombie's film is about as politically incorrect as you could imagine and much better for it. The main characters all have names from Marx Brothers movies and Bill Moseley, who plays Otis Driftwood is uncannily reminiscent of a young James Brolin, in looks and manner - something I found more disturbing than anything else in the film. On the whole this is something of a winner - it looks like a 70's B-movie, but is much more professional a job than 70's B-movies ever were, it's very violent in a gritty but stylish way, it has a cruel streak of black humour a mile wide, and with a few exceptions it pretty well acted. For a film which clearly doesn't have a lot of money to splash around this is a job very well done.

The Fantastic Four

After years of develepment hell, legal wranglings and negotiations we're finally presented with a big screen adaptation of The Fantastic Four - one of the most popular comicbooks and one with a very loyal following and what we get, in the end is a particularly damp squib. Nothing much happens in this film at all. The foursome get their powers, bicker a lot with each other then unite at the end to defeat a common enemy - a villain who really doen't seem to be doing much apart from needling our heroes now and again. It's mildly diverting as far as that sort of thing goes - I mean it's not really objectionable or anything, remarkable perhaps just for being so unremarkable. A true non-event of a movie.

Flightplan

The premise of this film sounds so ridiculous I wondered how on earth the story could possibly resolve itself into a watchable film. Jodie Foster boards a plane with her young daughter, she falls asleep and when she awakens her daughter has disappeared. None of the passengers remembers seeing the daughter and the flight crew have no record of her ever being on the plane. As it turns out this film is just about exactly as dumb as it sounds, which is disappointing because Jodie Foster usually doesn't associate herself with silliness, but as far as silliness goes this one's a doozy. The filmmakers tried gallantly to shape the story into some sort of sense but honestly they never had a chance. The fact that there are holes in the plot a blind man could pilot a 747 through means that if you're paying any attention at all you just can't enjoy the film. The whole thing just doesn't work. Trust me when I say you're better off avoiding this one.

Goodnight & Good Luck

Second directorial effort from George Clooney concerns the attempts of Edward Murrow and Fred Friendly to bring about the downfall of senator Joseph McCarthy in the late fifties. The film is shot in beautiful black and white - nice work from cinematographer Robert Elswit, and there's a stark, documentary feel about the film as a whole - which probably is the influence of Clooney's pal Steven Soderberg. Clooney also had a hand in the writing of the script - and the script is a very good one - so you'd have to say in film terms he's a bit of a polymath. One of the best things about this film though is the outstanding performance by David Strathairn as Murrow. Should he win the Oscar? He's definitely in with a shout, and it's a very strong field this year.

Harry Potter And The Goblet of Fire

I know, I know - I said I wouldn't see this film, but hey - you have to watch all the biggies to judge for yourself. So is it any good? The short answer to that is no, but it's better than the last Harry Potter film. Still, I reckon the only reason I knew what was happening most of the time is that I already was familiar with the book. And maybe that's the point - who knows? Maybe the producers assume everyone who watches these films has read all the books - a reasonable assumption - so they consider devoting time to such things as characterisation, logical plot development and the like to be a waste of effort and money. Maybe, but that's not a good policy for making films that stand on their own merits. No, I believe the books will stand the test of time because they have been invested with the things that matter in storytelling; attention to detail, good characterisation, involving plots and so on. The films on the other hand are only ever going to be at best effective promotion for the Potter book market, at worst cheap throwaway entertainment of the most cynical kind.

Harsh Times

This was something of a must-see film for me as it stars Christian Bale, who is one of these actors who's always good in whatever film he's in. He doesn't disappoint - he's fantastic here as Jim Davis, a disturbed war veteran looking to join the police now that he's back on civvy street. The problem is he's so unbalanced no police force in the civilised world would want him working for them if they knew just how out of whack he was. So we follow him and his hispanic buddy Mike Alonzo (played by Freddy Rodriguez - another fine young character actor who also turns in a great performance) as they ostensibly look for employment, but actually spend most of the time drinking, getting high, mixing with undesirables and getting into scrapes with the locals. It's edgy stuff; Bale plays the kind of character that puts everyone around him on edge. As a viewer, you never know what he's going to do next and feel tense every time he gets involved in a potentially dangerous situation - indeed the very fact that he's present makes every situation potentially dangerous, and you soon realise that his days are numbered despite the grand plans he has for the future. The only question left is whether or not he'll drag his friend down with him when his time comes, and this is the source of the emotional intensity in the second half of the film: You're willing Mike to break free from Davis and seize the opportunities dangling before him because unlike Davis he's a good person who wants to do the right thing. In the end, watching this film is quite a draining experience and as a commentary on the disillusioned and disenfranchised in modern America its message is a depressing one, but one that rings true. Harsh Times indeed.

A History of Violence

I like David Cronenberg - I always have. I think he's a man with an interesting perspective on life and people, and I think that's why this film seems a little different from what it would have been in someone else's hands. After all, it's a standard issue revenge type movie set in a normal town in modern day America. On paper it sounds kind of like a Steven Segal movie, but it has a weird atmosphere and is focussed on issues that a less interesting director would traditionally ignore. It does inch over to the wrong side of believable towards the end but in a kind of perversely satisfying way. It's odd to see Viggo Mortenson as anyone other than Aragon after 10 hours of Lord of The Rings but he does a good job. The supporting cast are all top notch from Maria Bello as Mortenson's confused wife to Ed Harris as a half blind gangster to William Hurt as Mortenson's criminal kingpin brother (Hurt was nominated for a Best Supporting Oscar for this briefest of cameos - go figure). In short it's well worth your time.

Jarhead

There have been so many war films over the years about what it's like to be a young recruit thrown in at the deep end that it's very difficult to come up with anything new to bring to the table, and that's where Jarhead suffers. There's really nothing wrong with this film. It's just that if you've seen your fair share of anti-war films (as this would surely be classed) then it's a bit like watching a compilation of them all. There's the drill instructor section from Full Metal Jacket, the first day seeing combat from Platoon, the clowning around in the desert from Three Kings, the voiceover from Apocalypse Now. It's a never ending trip down memory lane of all the modern war movies you've seen. Technically, the film is sound. The acting is solid. The script isn't some dreadful hack job. It's just that this film has rendered itself pointless by making the same point about war as a dozen other films in the same way that they made it first.

King Kong

Peter Jackson's first film since the epic Lord of The Rings trilogy - a remake of the 1933 classic King Kong. At over three hours it's a bit too long for the tale it's telling, and it takes a good while to get going, but it can be forgiven for that because everyone's waiting to see Kong and it builds the tension nicely. When Kong does arrive it's not a disappointment - CGI has made huge strides towards reality in the last couple of years and Kong is probably the most impressive example of realistic CGI rendering yet. The fact that Kong is a fully formed character with more emotional depth and range than the rest of the cast is remarkable from a technical point of view and yet depressing from just about any other point of view. The set-pieces featuring Kong battling dinosaurs on Skull Island or rampaging through the streets of New York are outrageous to behold but lack any emotional punch. On the whole it's a worthy remake which, while it strays from the original at times stays faithful to the spirit of the film in the end.

Lord of War

And I thought Nicolas Cage never got involved in good films any more. Lord of War is entertaining and engaging and directed with verve and confidence. It also has a nice line in intelligent social commentary. The script is a good one, and Cage does his job very well. The audacious opening is one of the most memorable in recent years and there's a very contemporary feel to the whole affair with an excellent selection of great music tracks sprinkled liberally throughout the film. For me this was one of those films that looked from the huge billboard advertisements and posters everywhere much like any other formulaic Hollywood blockbuster, but the hype doesn't do it justice. This film oozes quality. A pleasant surprise.

Madagascar

In the twilight world of the CGI film, caught halfway between live action and cartoon, this film is closer to a cartoon - but it's up there with the best of the classic cartoons. The animation may not be in the same class as your average Pixar production in terms of realism but the more sparse style of Madagascar is one of the things I like about it. The main characters have a more natural feel about them because more effort seems to have gone into capturing just the right movement or expression than trying to look more realistic. I liked the fact that it didn't seem so determined to appeal to your average Disney Family and not offend anyone. The voice characterisations - Ben Stiller as Alex the lion, Tom McGrath (who co-directed the movie) as Skipper, the leader of a squad of penguin commandos, and Sacha Baron Cohen as Julien, the head of the lemurs - are excellent. The bottom line is that I find I can watch this film over and over again without tiring of it. And you can't get any higher recommendation than that, can you?

The Matador

This is a little gem of a film. I wasn't expecting it to be anything special but everything works very well. Greg Kinnear is a salesman on a business trip who bumps into hitman Pierce Brosnan at the airport, and the two form an uneasy friendship. Brosnan's performance as a down at heel hitman whose losing his nerve is certainly the best of his career and a joy to watch. Greg Kinnear also hits the right note as his at first unwilling accomplice and it's always nice to see Philip Baker Hall, here in a cameo as Brosnan's handler. Hope Davis is also very good as Kinnear's wife, who has more than a passing interest in the contract killing business. The Matador is one of these films that doesn't really put a foot wrong. The story is interesting, the characters are well drawn and well played, the direction is assured, the location shooting and cinematography is spot on. But most importantly, it's consistently engaging and very funny. And if all that's not tempting you the scene where Brosnan struts across a hotel lobby in his pants with his gut sticking out is worth the price of admission alone.

Munich

The latest from camp Spielberg, which seems to have regrouped after a string of mediocre, or just plain bad films over the last decade or so. Actually I would venture to suggest that this is one of his best films. It does seem as though Spielberg works best under time pressure and when the subject matter is close to his heart. This is a thoughtful piece on Mossad's retaliatory tactics following the 1972 Munich olympic kidnapping and murder of a team of Israeli weightlifters. Eric Bana is the leader of a small group sent to hunt down and kill those responsible one by one and Spielberg shows these revenge killings in quite a stark light. The style of this film and the brutality of some of the set-pieces I found quite surprising: The film, in tone and execution, reminded me of some classic seventies thrillers like Marathon Man and French Connection. You can keep your Minority Reports and your Terminals with their high gloss, high concept sheen. Give me a film that has something to say about human nature and says it in a realistic way. Give me a Schindler's List or a Saving Private Ryan, or indeed a Munich any day of the week. This should win Best Picture this year but it wont.

North Country

Charlize Theron is excellent as a mine employee in this movie about sexual harrassment. Not only does Theron give an Oscar worthy performance, but the rest of the cast is also very good, especially Frances McDormand - also Oscar nominated for her role as an ailing union representative. All of which is a real shame because performances aside this film is just a bad TV movie of the week. All the acting talent and hard work that the cast puts in is wasted because North Country is a really feeble attempt at a hard-hitting realistic drama with something to say about the issue of sexual harrassment in the workplace. If this films script had been written with some subtlety and grounding in reality, rather than with manipulative table-thumping rhetoric then it could have been a powerful and engaging film. As it is though the filmmakers once again take the easy and cynical route of trying tp push the right buttons for an emotional response and when they do that I for one tune out in disgust.

Sin City

A bit of a breath of fresh air among the endless sequels, remakes and cheap horror knock-offs doing the rounds right now, you can tell this was a project close to the heart of those involved. Mickey Rourke is tremendous fun as the human juggernaut that is Marv, and Bruce Willis does a great cop-on-the-verge-of-quitting turn in this dark, seedy, violent, fundamentally adult take on the comic book world of Frank Miller, who is the best in the business when it comes to the darker aspects of illustrative fiction. Robert Rodriguez obviously has an abiding interest and knowledge of comic book styles and conventions too, which guarantees Sin City won't be much like any other comic book adaptation you've seen so far: Imagine Sergio Leone had set out to make a film noir while coked up and playing X-Box in a brothel, and you'll have some idea where this film is coming from. As for the story its sometimes muddled, pretty implausable and downright silly at times, logic frequently takes a back seat and so on - shortcomings common to most comic books - but these things are really not important in a film like this. The things that are important are the atmosphere, the mood, the style, the panache; the sheer audacity it took to pull this particular rabbit out of the hat. This is a film borne of love, talent, energy and excitement at the endless possibilities when making a film so it goes without saying that it's well worth your time. You should make the effort and see it on the big screen.

Star Wars Episode 3 - The Revenge of The Sith

After nearly thirty years we finally come to the sixth and final (well actually the third, but you know what I mean) episode of the Star Wars Saga. I've not been a huge fan of episodes one and two, and I had got to the stage where I wasn't even bothered about seeing this film, but it actually has turned out to be pretty good. This is where all the pieces of the puzzle should tie up and - miraculously some would say - they do. The usual weaknesses inherent in all the Star Wars films are still present; clunky exposition, bad acting and painful dialogue, but not to the same extent as in The Clone Wars for example. It's a polished product for sure and there's more fun and thrills in this episode than the last two combined. It's a pity there'll be no episodes 7, 8, and 9 because this film has really put the franchise back on track. Very enjoyable.

Syriana

It's that man Clooney again, in the best performance of his career so far - a career which is looking very much more interesting with each passing year. It seems to be the year of the political film, with this film, Munich, Jarhead, Goodnight and Good Luck and The Constant Gardener all giving the current state of global affairs a good hard look - and quite rightly so. It's about time American films had something meaningful to say about the world around them. These filmmakers aren't afraid to criticise the way things are and the people that are in charge and the films they are making are much better for having that extra substance about them. This is an anti-conglomerate polemic involving dirty arms sales, global oil consortiums, government corruption and so on, and it's filmed in a style I've come to think of as Steadicam Guerrila, and it works well. The supporting cast are all good, especially Matt Damon as a financial advisor out of his depth. Clooney steals the show though.

Vera Drake

This is Mike Leigh's new film, about a kind old biddy who performs abortions for the needy in 1950s London. Obviously it wont be to everyone's taste, given the subject matter and the era in which it's set - both being pretty depressing - but it's well worth immersing yourself in because you can't deny the power of this film, and indeed the quality. Mike Leigh has crafted an exquisite piece where the attention to detail is impressive and the story is compellingly told in a sparse, steady style. Imelda Staunton won this year's BAFTA for her performance as Vera Drake, and if all was right with the world she would win the Oscar too, but I've a feeling Hilary Swank will pick that one up, which is a pity because as good as Swank is, Staunton's performance in this film is in a different league.

V For Vendetta

Very stylish parable set in a future London where government has expanded out of control. Hugo Weaving stars as 'V' - a masked crusader intent on overthrowing the totalitarian regime by re-enacting the gunpowder plot of 1605 and blowing up the houses of parliament. I thoroughly enjoyed this film - even more so because I'd heard it wasn't very good so I wasn't expecting much. The film's directed with a lot of confidence and flair by James McTeigue who either learned a lot from the Wachowski brothers on the Matrix films (where he served as assistant director) or he sat back and let them do most of the directing themselves. Either way this is a sumptuous piece of filmmaking with a lot of articulate - sometimes prosaic dialogue, some elegant acting, an intriguing set of circumstances played out with wit and poetry, and for a film based on a comic book that really is quite a trick to pull off.

Walk The Line

It's a biopic, and as biopics go it's okay I suppose but when all's said and done it's your standard issue biopic. At the biopics core is the central performance, and the film usually succeeds or fails on the strength of this lead role. Joaquin Pheonix's portrayal of Johnny Cash is very good, and his Johnny Cash singing voice is pretty astonishing. All the co-stars orbit this central performance and do their jobs well. The songs are fine if you like Johnny Cash and everything ticks along nicely but there just isn't any spark of originality to make this film stand out from the crowd. Your average biopic (and this definitely comes under the heading average) has this truncated, condensed Cliff Notes approach to a person's life that robs it of any emotional resonance or depth and in the end renders the whole exercise kind of pointless. Incidentally, if there's any budding young filmmakers that are just dying to make a film about their hero here's the standard biopic formula: Introduce subject as a child. Show subject as a young adult stumbling across what it is they will be known to the audience as being famous for. Detail drugs and or alcohol abuse of subject leading to numerous dramatic situations. Tell audience what happened to subject after the events you're interested in, by way of a couple of paragraphs onscreen. Movie by numbers, really.

War of The Worlds

With the exception of Catch Me If You Can in 2002 - which I thought was very good - I would say this is Steven Spielberg's best film since 1998's Saving Private Ryan, but that's not saying much at all. Spielberg's track record of late has been abysmal, and this really isn't very good either. The film starts off well. There's a little character development then the invading alien machines appear and immediately begin blowing to pieces anyone in their general vicinity with no mercy. Nice. Everything is portrayed as realistically as possible, and it's all looking very promising. Then the Hollywood part of Spielberg's brain takes over and it's all downhill from about the half way point. The killing becomes much more selective, therefore much less believable, once Cruise and family are in the firing line later on: It's as if the invaders know it's Tom Cruise the superstar in front of them and so can't kill him. The half hour or so section with Tim Robbins as an unhinged survivalist is completely unnecessary, Cruise's children are both annoying and the ending is once again unsatisfactory. All in all a poor effort, and further proof that if most of what you have in a film are special effects and explosions then you don't have much.

The Weatherman

Gore Verbinski's new film is a funny, sad, caustic, tragic, witty tale of an ordinary man trying to cope with life's tribulations. It stars Nicolas Cage as a television weatherman whose life is just not going the way he thought it would. His marriage has failed, his children are dysfunctional, people throw things at him in the street. The answer to his troubles? Archery. This is one of those films where you get annoyed when people ask you, 'but what's it about'? Cage turns in another fine performance - he's very good at hang-dog characters to whom life deals the wrong cards. Michael Caine is excellent as his dying father and Hope Davis pops up again as his suitably abrasive ex-wife. Surprisingly compelling in an easy-going sort of way.