'Gladiator' review by Captain Raptor

'Gladiator' review by Jake Boyle

Fox have just released Exodus: Gods And Kings, Ridley Scott's new grand-scale, blood-brothers at war historical action-drama. The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that this is not a review of that film. This is because it looks like trash. Glossy, fancy trash with Aaron Paul admittedly, but trash nonetheless. The buzz (or lack thereof) around the film also suggests this, so rather than risk the waste of time and money, I watched the film that filled all those same criteria, but apparently is, you know, good.

In terms of epicness, Gladiator certainly hits it target, arguably even giving Peter Jackson a run for his money (which is saying something, because he has a lot of it). The Colosseum is shot to look imposingly monolithic and the occasional long shots of landscapes are a beauty to behold. The overtly grandiose cinematography does break immersion to some degree, but it definitely does establish the ostentatious tone Scott was aiming for. This lofty atmosphere is grounded by some nicely balanced characters; despite being typically honour-bound and stoic, Russell Crowe's warrior hero is a gentle and thoughtful man who stares wistfully at passing robins and simply wishes to go home and tend to his crops. This humbleness and restraint doesn't give Crowe many opportunities to flex his acting muscles (although his regular ones are perfectly utilised) but his performance is wholly capable throughout. Joaquin Phoenix's villainous emperor is also pleasantly atypical, maintaining the necessary level of sinister whilst being wholly petulant and insecure. These are not traits easily spun into an interesting character, let alone a convincingly threatening one, but Phoenix's performance is both so nuanced and so intense that he manages to be both pitiful and intimidating. 

It's this sense of grandness offset by realism that really makes Gladiator tick - spectacular fight scenes followed by grim depictions of casualties; loud roars and frenzied movement preceding quiet scenes of tension. It allows Scott to have the best of both worlds, mixing intricacy and extravagance. However, this at times clashes with the will of the story, which wants to make Maximus as heroic as humanly possible. In order to heighten his valiance, characters make senseless decisions just so Maximus can then overcome his obstacles in a way that looks cooler and has a stronger symbolic resonance. However, the exaggeration that this leads to feels more than faintly ridiculous, especially in the film's fairly trite ending, which upsets the equilibrium of style and substance that had previously been so expertly maintained. This isn't the only issue - dialogue remains unremarkable throughout the film, it's longer than it needs to be and Hans Zimmer's score is incredibly generic - but it's certainly the most frustrating one.

For the most part, Gladiator is a highly enjoyable film that manages to deliver both action and drama in a very precise and well-conceived manner. Occasionally things tip over into the melodramatic or just plain silly, but it's never to any major detriment and the film remains exciting even when it temporarily loses its intelligence. Some strong lead performances from Crowe, Richard Harris and especially Phoenix, and highly polished set-pieces are the highlights in a good film that could have been great with a little more fine tuning. 

'Revolutionary Road' review by Captain Raptor

'Revolutionary Road' review by Jake Boyle

Revolutionary Road made excellent proof back in 2008 that you can make a film as Oscar baiting as you like, but the Academy will still totally ignore DiCaprio. While the world wasn't exactly crying out for more portraits of beautiful, well-off couples squabbling about how trapped they feel in their pretty desirable situation (director Sam Mendes having already created the epitome of this in American Beauty), the cast alone is certainly a draw.

Alright, so that might not be an entirely fair summation of the premise, but it definitely is the cast that keeps this film afloat. Kate Winslet and DiCaprio are just as strong leads as you'd expect them to be, her pleading eyes and quivering expression combating his looks of lostness and confused frustration, setting the tone well for the inevitable breaking of the dam as both actors do what they're best at - high emotion, namely unrepentant sorrow and anger. There's strong support in the form of the ever-versatile Kathryn Hahn, Kathy Bates wringing a lot of complications out of a pretty simplistic character, and an excellent Michael Shannon stealing his few scenes as walking tension, injecting needed electricity into every scene with the merest of mumbles. Both the drama and the acting of the film follow an effective pattern (but still notably a pattern) of lengthy restraint followed by outbursts of extreme frankness.

Predictability is an issue with Revolutionary Road. The obstacles that the characters encounter in their attempt to break off the 'shackles' of their suburban existence (more on that shortly) are entirely foreseeable, so there's not really any drama to be gained from them. On the whole the film's problem might be an inflated sense of importance - although the emotion delivered really packs a punch, it's not ever really unnoticeable that the character's circumstances, while obviously troubled, are not exactly as dire as portrayed. The choice of 'well-paying job or risking living out our dreams', while utterly real and complex, is not actually an especially interesting one to watch play out. There's a comment on the fraudulence of The American Dream here, but the dialogue and especially the sets are too clean-cut and flowery for any critical message to really come through. There's a lot of slow, longing shots from camera angles that heighten how lovely everything looked. It seems to be aiming for thoughtful and beautiful but more often than not it ends up coming across as somewhat self-satisfied and ponderous. It's a shame because there's evidence of potential for smarter and more intuitive storytelling present; one excellent scene has the camera focus on a silent but solemnly fuming Winslet as the other characters scream in confrontation in the background, simultaneously demonstrating a capability for raw emotion and for subtly stylistic transmission.

The acting in Revolutionary Road is sublime, so much so that it'd be worth watching for that alone, and there are moments (and occasionally whole scenes) of excellence, when the writing and direction reaches the same heights as the actors. However, it's never enough to compensate for the story's own obviousness and unimportance. A promising and still enjoyable film is let down by a failure to properly convey the darkness and genuine arguments lying at the fringes of the chosen theme.

'The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies' review by Captain Raptor

'The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies' review by Jake Boyle

Even fans of The Hobbit films (which I'm on the fence about being) generally don't contend that they're on much of a comparable level to the Lord Of The Rings. The first film has its moments throughout and there was a solid half an hour of enjoyment at the beginning of The Desolation Of Smaug but the less said about anything else the better; my apathy was such that I nearly didn't go and see this concluding chapter.

I'm glad that I did, though. On a purely visual level, The Battle Of The Five Armies is equal to (although not surpassing) the incredibly high bar set by Jackson's earlier trilogy - the special effects are so glossy and deeply-textured that they rival the beauty of the panoramic shots of the landscape. In most other areas, there's still a reasonable amount to be desired but definite improvements have been made. Most upsetting of the flaws that the film does have - above Bard's irritating children and the lifeless, hackneyed romance between Tauriel and Kili - is the briefness of the encounter with Smaug. After building tension and dropping out right before it boils over in the previous film, Smaug is promptly defeated in the time it would take a hobbit to finish an entrée. It baffles me why waging war against a dragon seems to have been considered something that needed to be got out of the way rather than indulged in, and why this was seen as a way to open this film rather than conclude the second one.

In more positive news, the titular battle is astounding. It's got the grand momentum and sense of epicness that hallmarked Lord of The Rings, but the most exciting moments are the most individual and offbeat ones - Legolas running up a collapsing bridge, Billy Connolly headbutting his enemies whilst calling them 'buggers', Thranduil (who Lee Pace plays with a bit more depth than before) charging into battle on his majestic moose. Martin Freeman is just as magnificently bewildered and contemplative as ever, and there's a noticeable step-up from Richard Artmitage, capturing Thorin's obsession with steely-eyed pathos and conviction running through every line of dialogue. The 'greed is bad' message at the core is as subtle as a troll in a china shop but it does engage the viewer; the exact same sentiment being applicable to Ryan Gage's comic relief as the slimy, cowardly Alfrid.

The way it deals with Smaug is a total disappointment, but as the film progresses it grows stronger. The Battle Of The Five Armies is a strong exit for the franchise, building upon and bettering what the other Hobbit films had to offer. It's got the stereotypical Jackson perks of being visually stunning and blisteringly exciting, but the performances and emotional tone of this film possess more feelings and naturalness than they have in past excursions. Uniquely, the running time does not feel stretched or padded, but this raises the question of whether this trilogy could have been improved by condensing it to the originally planned two films. Regardless, it's going out on a high.

Neafcy's Youtube Movie Deal Tag, by Captain Raptor

Neafcy's Youtube Movie Deal Tag, by Jake Boyle

My good friend and even better YouTuber Teddy Woolgrove (www.youtube.com/user/EdwardisnotmynamE) recently challenged me to take on the following set of questions, asked to all by another great YouTuber Neafcy (www.youtube.com/user/neafcy). This suits me very well, having not seen anything to review this week (I'll start acting like a professional when y'all start paying me).

What is the first film you remember seeing?

Much to my chagrin, it's The Phantom Menace. Not exactly the greatest start to my career as a film enthusiast, but I'm pretty sure that I enjoyed it at the time. 

Is it possible to have a favourite film and, if so, what is yours?

I'm a habitual ranker and list-maker, especially when it comes to popular culture, but even putting that aside I certainly think it's possible to have a favourite film. I don't think it's necessarily quantifiable (hence my aversion despite polite suggestion to include a numerical rating at the end of my reviews) but I find it easy to think about the impact a film has on me and how excited I feel about and deduce from my reaction to it which is my favourite - The Dark Knight. Briefly explained, I think it's a precisely-executed masterpiece that manages to exist on every level of enjoyment - able to stun you visually with beautiful cinematography and action sequences precisely made to get the heart racing without ever straying into ridiculousness, but also able to provoke thought about serious issues and give some real emotional depth to a story and setting that takes a fanciful concept and makes it as grim and intense as possible. And of course, it goes without saying that Heath Ledger's sensational, irreplaceable performance is a huge factor.

What film(s) make you cry?

Oh, Lord. Serenity, Kick-Ass, Juno, Schindler's List, The Shawshank Redemption, The Fault In Our Stars, 12 Years A Slave, The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, The Breakfast Club, Toy Story 3, The Lion King... The list goes on. I am very much a crier. Additionally, 'The Big Lebowski', but I'm assuming the question doesn't also incorporate crying with laughter.

What film would you magically like to climb inside the world of?

Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, definitely. A world were everybody is so hipster alt-cool is tempting enough for me as it is, but the inconsistency of the laws of physics and reality, coupled with an existence that seems to be equal parts anarchic excitement and generally slacking off sounds like an ideal life to me. That's the dream.

What movie characters do you wish you were more like?

Juno Macguff, aside from being the wittiest individual in history, has a self-confidence, boldness and honesty that I envy quite strongly. Captain Malcolm Reynolds has integrity and conviction that I can only dream of (plus he is a dashing, smirking, gunslinging, space-exploring big damn hero). And just to satisfy the rule of three, to a lesser extent I wish I had the inner calm and simple wisdom of The Dude (or El Duderino, if you're not into the whole brevity thing).

How have films influenced you on YouTube or elsewhere in your life?

The limit to which films have influenced my life is so large that it's inextricable from my life. Film has been important to me from a young age, and as such my sense of humour, who I made friends with and my goals and aspirations were all pretty much determined by what movies I was watching. These are pretty substantially influential factors on a developing personality, and I don't really have any conception of who I'd be if I had a different taste in films.

What film(s) do you hate and why?

There is only one film (and I hasten to use the word) that I've seen that I've found so displeasing that I would go so far to say I hate it - Disaster Movie. I've seen others that have given me comparably awful experiences in pure content (Funny People, Monsters, and My Father The Hero spring to my mind) but Disaster Movie is so uniquely depressing in its idea of what qualifies as humour and entertainment. Aside from the sheer crassness and laziness of the humour (there are so many stretches of the film where three or four minutes will be spent doing the same poor joke ad nauseum), the film attempts to make a virtue of not just insulting better films (which I would be more or less fine with, the world not moving to the beat of just one drum and all that), but inexplicably demonizing these films for attempting to be something vaguely meaningful or individual. The humour itself is bad enough (incoherent, poorly developed and poorly delivered as it is) but the attitude behind it is so smug without a single justifiable reason that it makes me want to punch something, or angrily blog about it and take it far more seriously than anybody making it presumably did.

So, there we have it folks. Hopefully next week will see a return to your usually scheduled reviewing content, but I hope this is equally entertaining and interesting to read and gives you more of an understanding of the critical perspective I write from.

'The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1' review by Captain Raptor

'The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1' review by Jake Boyle

The Hunger Games franchise was in an awkward position in the run-up to this release. There was a lot of expectations riding on it - the previous two films have grossed in excess of one and a half billion dollars, and more dauntingly, both placed highly on the Captain Raptor Top Ten Films of the Year - but the notoriously less popular third book is having to pull double its weight in viewers. Obviously people were always going to (and have) come to see Mockingjay Part 1 in droves, but a disappointing performance could limit the interest and intake of the second half next year.

Despite straying from the arena combat of the first two installments, some things have stayed the same. Jennifer Lawrence gives a consistently good performance, a bit more subdued than before but the script doesn't give her as much opportunity as it previously did. Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks and especially Josh Hutcherson remain fantastic in their supporting roles, which are unfortunately all too brief here. While this does make the moments they are present even more entertaining, it leaves us stuck with the series' most dreary characters like Gale and Prim for far longer than is desirable. The politics of revolution and dystopia are brought forth from sideline to front-and-centre this time, which has irritated some but I personally find to be a winning move. Despite the drought of action in the film, it brings the saga's real battlefield (media, politics and class struggle) into clear focus and makes this film feel the weightiest and most climactic thus far.

 Proceedings are quite dull to begin with, but after a while the tragedies caused by Donald Sutherland's glowering Machiavelli figure allow emotion and tension to surge forward. At times it's quite predictable, which for a relatively subversive blockbuster is a disappointment, and Mockingjay is certainly a little more dour than its predecessors, presumably owing to the minimal presence of Harrelson and Banks - although Effie's reintroductory scene is a thing of beauty. These are problems, but it's worth noting that these flaws are all routed in not being quite as good as it used to be. The best parts of The Hunger Games are all still very much in tact, and this time with a subtler tone and more purpose in its message.

 Mockingjay is a placeholder of sorts, but it's a highly entertaining and well executed one. Jennifer Lawrence proves yet again why the whole world's obsessed with her, and the focus on the social issues at the heart of the concept gives this film a more mature feel. There are missteps along the way and it could definitely be bolder about the message it's conveying, but the competence and confidence of the narrative and the subtext craft an engaging and exciting experience.

'Interstellar' review by Captain Raptor

'Interstellar' review by Jake Boyle

The build-up for Interstellar feels like it's taken longer than the voyage undergone by its space-faring characters. Any Christopher Nolan film is a cause for excitement, but when it's starring some of the most sought-after actors of the moment and promises to deal with space-travel in a way both scientific and cinematic, it really does become a full-blown event. And most importantly, it shows an emerging pattern of Nolan making stand-alone films titled with an increasingly long, uncommon word beginning with 'I'. I can't wait for him to start work on Immunifacient.

One of Interstellar's best features is its epicness, but it comes at a price. The film's visuals are nothing short of truly beautiful, the ideas presented and explored are fascinating and the grand existential scale of the film's events rendered me speechless. It provokes thoughts and wonderment with equal frequency and is constantly moving from imaginative, interesting point to imaginative, interesting point. Unfortunately, all this grandeur - excellent though it is - leaves little room for character, and often for emotion. Most of the characters seem to exist for purely functional reasons and there's barely any effort to flesh them out beyond this. They're all well-acted, especially by Matthew McConaughey and Mackenzie Foy, but if they weren't involved in a story of such magnitude and weightiness, there'd be no reason at all to care for them. They're as devoid of life as the Earth is imminently to be.

Interestingly, the closest that the film does come to engaging characters are a pair of blockish, featureless robots. Their artificial sense of humour and morality implanted purely out of functionality creates a conflict and complexity far more akin to humanity than any of the actual humans. The dedication to hard science is both impressive and commendable, and it is this which allows the film to make you think seriously about intergalactic travelling, humanity's role in the universe and the physics of singularities whilst still awing you with the outstanding visualisations of all things extraterrestrial. The issue of of weighing your love for those close to you against the benefit of mankind is explored in a heartfelt and intelligent manner, right up until the last 10 minutes, where Nolan seems to have opted out of genuinely addressing the matter in order to provide a temporarily uplifting but ultimately empty conclusion.

Interstellar is an enchanting and fiendishly clever foray into uncharted (or at least barely-charted) territory for cinema. Despite the appealing family drama of the opening act, there's very little interest drummed up in the characters or in the world they inhabit. This is a problem, but not an insurmountable one, and the sheer gargantuan scope of the journey is itself enough to cause investment. While a lot more ponderous and, well, scientific than a lot of mainstream science-fiction aims to be, it hits most of the same markers: beautifully rendered alien worlds, fascination in the discovery and explanation of new concepts and some dryly funny robots. All this done with added sheen, excellent pacing and intellectualism - the sky's the limit. 

'Hard Candy' review by Captain Raptor

'Hard Candy' review by Jake Boyle
Recently I had a discussion where I was attempting to discern what the most gruellingly uncomfortable scene in cinema was. The self-surgical procedure in Prometheus, the tree-molestation in Evil Dead and the climactic whipping scene in 12 Years A Slave were some of the honourable mentions, but Hard Candy blows them all out of the water several times over. The meeting between a sexual predator and a 14 year-old girl goes wrong in so many ways, just not quite the ones you'd imagine.

Hard Candy is a fantastically stark film, the majority of its runtime consisting of two actors within one house utilising slow-moving shots (which at time creates nerve-racking tension when the camera's path takes it behind furniture, obscuring any view of unfolding events), and almost no music throughout. The acting and events of the story both start out at an equally restrained pace - Patrick Wilson exhibiting a well-chosen calm demeanour (the situation is creepy enough as it is - any enhancement of that would probably just ham the whole thing up) and Ellen Page's character pretending to be the young girl who thinks she's all grown-up. As the film progresses, everybody and everything involved becomes violent, panicked and desperate, but this evolution is done gently enough that it remains oh so dark and serious. Wilson is excellent, playing confidently at the high end of every scale of emotion and never once coming off as anything less than spectacular. And there really is no other actress like Ellen Page, even at such an early juncture in her career. She goes for it both barrels and succeeds entirely, evoking sympathy despite the sheer cold-blooded terror she induces.

At this point, when things start to get twisted, the claustrophobic setting and chilling silence really highlight the total horror and grimness of the situation.  The wince-inducing scenes I made vague reference to in the introduction come in many shapes and sizes - the opening sequence when they're flirting online is creepy enough to provoke a physical reaction, equally so the tension that abounds when they end up at the guy's home for a 'photoshoot', and I won't divulge much about what happens later but it really puts the vile into violent. The utter hatred, anger and pain that runs through the latter stages of the film (especially the dialogue) is electrifying and unavoidable. That's an area where the film really excels: it's brazenness. The topics and themes at the centre of the film are delicate matters, but there's no pussy-footing around them to be found, and the uncomfortableness and awfulness of it all is confronted head-on to achieve maximum dramatic effect.

I think things are getting a mite repetitive here on Captain Raptor. Now the last three films I've reviewed have all been dark, twisted and superlative dramas that excel both in regards to technical aspects and performance. I promise I'll try and watch something different next week. In the mean time, please, go and get a copy of Hard Candy. It's a distinctively shocking film that's both smartly shot and smartly written, The two performances are absolute masterpieces and the nightmarish atmosphere of the experience is a how-to guide of creating tense excitement. An experience that's equal parts as enthralling as it is disturbing.

'Nightcrawler' review by Captain Raptor

'Nightcrawler' review by Jake Boyle

While unfortunately not a spin-off about everybody's favourite German Catholic teleporting mutant, there's still a lot about Nightcrawler to get excited about. Jake Gyllenhaal playing determined and creepy has been a winning direction in the past, and with the release sandwiched between Gone Girl and the next installment of The Hunger Games, we're clearly at a peak time for social commentary on the media. It's not a small undertaking for a directorial debut (not even just of a feature film, Dan Gilroy's only previous experiences are writing credits) and definitely eye-catching in premise.

Louis Bloom, the protagonist of our story, is a spellbinding creation. Like a restrained Patrick Bateman, he is a nightmarish embodiment of stereotypical American entrepreneurial spirit. Taking a can-do attitude to a dangerous, sociopathic extent, Bloom talks entirely in professional-sounding business-speak, whether he's selling stolen scrap metal, attempting to seduce somebody or make threats of physical violence. This alone is so removed that it's blood-chilling, but it also makes the few moments when the mask slips even more evocative. Gyllenhaal is an absolute sensation, demonstrating that he can play both totally unhinged and smoothly subtle. There's great support from Riz Ahmed and Rene Russo as (respectively) Bloom's nervous assistant and the professional-minded fear-monger he sells his footage to, but Gyllenhaal blazes right past them and into the stratosphere as he lectures them about work ethic and alternates between treating them good-naturedly and with sheer contempt.

Tonally, Nightcrawler is nearly unparalleled. Countless wide shots of the Los Angeles cityscape create an infectious sense of isolation and smallness, heightening the electric tension that surrounds the increasingly ghoulish actions of Bloom. The murky, disaffected world of sensationalist news is dissected and lambasted sharply, but never to the degree where it becomes irritatingly preachy or self-righteous, focusing more on the specific nasty deeds of Bloom's and letting the satire seep in through the praise he receives, and the guidelines he's set for them. The dialogue is well-crafted, managing to fully convey menace in innocuous (if odd) positivity. Given the film's overall darkness and subject matter, there's an odd restraint in the level of violence and gore actually shown; maybe it's to avoid any potential hypocrisy given its condemnation of local news reveling in violent crime, but it does perhaps prevent a viewer from fully appreciating the inhumanity of these characters' detachment, which is one of the film's greatest sources of shock and drama.

I don't like the phrase "essential viewing", but Nightcrawler is so utterly fantastic that it's tempting me. Gyllenhaal is indescribably good (thereby making my work hard), reaping great rewards from an inventively twisted character that has to be seen to be believed. An incredibly smart film with a wonderfully dark heart and an expert knowledge of how to both build tension and how to pay it off, this is definitely going to be one of 2014's major highlights, and a big winner at awards season, if there's any justice. Which, according to this movie, there isn't. 

'Gone Girl' review by Captain Raptor

'Gone Girl' review by Captain Raptor

It's nicely appropriate for a film about hidden secrets and changing one's perception to star Ben Affleck. Who would have known that an award-worthy actor and director was hiding within a man whose CV includes Daredevil, Gigli and Pearl Harbour? But what's good for McConaughey is good for everybody else, and it's been an enjoyable reinvention thus far. The good streak is continuing, but as we saw with the reaction to his appointment to Batman, he's still got a long way to go before he's fully redeemed in the public conscience.

There's one short moment in this film that perfectly summarizes it: Rosamund Pike's character, Amy, has just experienced a truly awful, horrific moment. She sobs twice, then shakes her head, and suddenly it's a stony-eyed game face. It's a film full of duplicitous and unstable people trying to appear like everything's fine, to the point where one of the film's most honest characters is a lawyer who specializes in acquitting wife murderers. This ambiguity and tension massively benefits the film's two sections - the nail-biting mystery thriller of the opening hour, and the social satire that events have transitioned into by the end, where Nick (Affleck's character) tries to convince people of his innocence by making them like him rather than disproving anything. It's a remarkably smart film, filled with menace and intrigue in equal spades, and more than a few shocks thrown in for good measure. Despite being told from multiple unreliable perspectives and a non-linear time frame, it's a film that never unintentionally confuses or becomes wrapped up in itself. The dialogue is well-crafted, often blackly funny, and the film remains deeply atmospheric and gripping whilst cycling through numerous moods and tones.

The brilliance of Gillian Flynn's screenplay, and the mood set by David Fincher's superlative-as-ever direction, is enhanced by a slow, dangerous-sounding score and great performances from a well-cast crop of actors. Kim Dickens mixes stoicism, barely contained fury and deadpan wit as the detective in charge of the investigation, while Tyler Perry is a scream as the aforementioned lawyer, delivering every line with a cool exaggerated charm and perfectly personifying the total lack of morality that Gone Girl wallows in. However, the couple at the center of it all are undoubtedly the best performers, the glue that holds all the brilliance together without letting it spiral into absurdity. The plot takes so many surprising turns that even revealing the nature of their performances is something of a spoiler, but suffice it to say that Affleck and especially Pike demonstrate considerable proficiency and show so much range that their characters feel transformed by the end of the film. Even Affleck's physicality seems tailor-made for the role, his boyish charm and dopey smile makes him look innocent, his hulking physique and "evil chin" (a genuine line from the film) making him look capable of anything - although by judging his culpability on looks, I'm playing right into the very mindset this film disparages.

Gone Girl is a film that expertly builds suspense and then doesn't fail to deliver. It'll keep you second-guessing from beginning to end, and the answers are just as fascinating and troubling as the process by which we find them out. Flynn and Fincher have managed to create a tense and complicated world full of hatred, sex, violence and lies, and it's just an inventive story well told. The drama is sublime, and the satirical observations it makes are both true, and most importantly, interesting. An intelligent, unpredictable affair that's well performed, well put together and well, brilliant. 

'Big Fish' review by Captain Raptor

'Big Fish' review by Jake Boyle

Tim Burton is an irritating kind of film-maker because he's obviously talented and has made some excellent films, which causes his (not infrequent) failures to be all the more upsetting. The man's got an iconic sense of style but often seems afraid to step outside his comfort zone, marring a record containing Batman and The Nightmare Before Christmas with recycled nonsense like Dark Shadows and Alice In Wonderland. I've had numerous experiences with Burton where I've watched a perfectly decent film, but still felt let down because I was expecting something revelatory.

Luckily, Big Fish was not one such film. I think a major reason for this is because the film's narrative suits Burton's storytelling style whilst simultaneously reigning him in. The exaggerated anecdotes told through flashbacks allow Tim to get quirky and over-the-top, showcasing his imagination and penchant for striking visuals, but all the scenes set in reality curb any self-indulgence and make sure that there's a genuine emotional thread through the movie. There's further straying from familiar territory with the total absence of Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter only appearing in a small role. Burton's coaxed good performances out of these actors before but by utilizing a cast he's less accustomed to working with, the director yields fresher results - Ewan McGregor exudes charm and wit as the young father and Albert Finney wholly fills the role as the older version. Steve Buscemi gives a nicely droll performance but the role doesn't make the most of the man's talents; even more so for Jessica Lange and Marion Cotillard.

There's certainly no wasting of the story's drama, though. The family dynamic is played out almost beautifully, a blend of love and frustration made evident through Billy Crudup's pained expressions, dialogue that feels like the characters are stifling and repressing what they want to really say, and when the tension fades away in the film's final scenes it's both uplifting and poignant. The comedic moments aren't quite as strong, but the weirdness of the set-ups (carnival freakshows, Stepford-eque hidden towns and impromptu bank robberies) mean that even in the moments when the movie fails to be funny, it is at the very least incredibly interesting. The wholly valid criticism that parts of the film just seem ridiculous can be countered by acknowledging that the exaggeration is not only wholly intentional but a crucial plot point, but while certain elements (10-foot giants and Korean war heroics with Siamese twins) are obviously and playfully far-fetched, the character's dogged and obsessive pursuit of romance comes off as somewhat unsettling whether real or imagined, and whether or not something is intentional becomes something of a moot point when the moment in question is dull or nauseously wacky.

Big Fish is imaginative and idiosyncratic with enough framework that its narrative retains a drive and sense of purpose. The themes are affecting and heartfelt, and the old fashioned Americana-style sets and costumes are invigorating and cheerily colourful. It's certainly no masterpiece - the characters lack a certain depth and the performances don't inspire major cause for celebration - but there's fun to be had in spades, with wit woven throughout and a gloriously tender climax that gives closure to both its characters and the audience. In a reversal of many Tim Burton experiences, I went in with low expectations and came out having thoroughly enjoyed myself. Leaving what he knows best by the wayside has forced him to try something new, and consequently, something better.

'Captain America: The First Avenger' review by Captain Raptor

'Captain America: The First Avenger' review by Jake Boyle

For somebody who spends about 10% of every day gushing about how much I love Marvel, it's a personal failing that it's taken me over three years to watch any of the Captain America films. The character's never appealed me, due to nauseating patriotism and a pretty uninteresting backstory, but his appearance in Avengers Assemble and a delightful cameo in Thor: The Dark World has made it clear that I should at least give him a try.

The crucial difference between Cap's first solo outing and the films mentioned above is humour, or namely the former's lack of it. While Chris Evans delivers every droll comeback he's given with perfect capability, there's not a lot of humour to sustain the film through it's most familiar and generic moments, which there are more than a few of. The initial transformation from an eager but scrawny scarecrow of a figure (the CGI used to shrink Chris Evans down to such a meagre build are fantastic) to the beefed up superhero is done smartly, pushing its 'anybody can be a hero' message just shy of breaking point, but once he is combat ready, things get less interesting. The Marvel Cinematic Universe's previous outings, barring the equally underwhelming The Incredible Hulk, compensated for similar problems with humour, charisma and style, but there's only a small amount of these to be found here. The action sequences aren't fantastic either - a fighting style predominantly built around shield-based combat doesn't leave you with a multitude of options - but they're done competently enough. It would have been nice to see one or two more of them, especially given a disappointing segment where the film's entire military campaign finale is mostly reduced to a montage.

The First Avenger isn't just a dumb action flick though, possessing evident smarts through its visual jokes (Cap using a taxi door with a star logo in the centre as a shield, Arnim Zola's face initially appearing onscreen as a holographic projection) and the mind-over-muscle mentality of its hero, although he does certainly find more than a few uses for muscle too. Gratifyingly, the patriotism has been reigned in to a degree where it can't really irritate, but one could argue that this defeats one of the major points to the character. The action is often a little reliant on explosions, and they don't appear to have been spectacularly rendered for such a big budget movie. It's a fairly well-written movie, with dialogue that isn't especially memorable but certainly isn't clunky or overly po-faced. The performances are all up to scratch all round, but nobody's particularly excellent, apart from the eternally sardonic Tommy Lee Jones, who doesn't exactly try very hard, but an actor of his calibre doesn't really need to in order to give an entertaining performance.

Captain America: The First Avenger is a moderately entertaining but pretty forgettable movie, especially when compared to its other Marvel brethren. It feels more like a weak attempt to replicate Indiana Jones (handsome professional Nazi-puncher tracking down a mysterious MacGuffin) than a superhero movie, and nothing else about the film has anything particularly definitive or original. In most regards, the film is so-so, with a few elements being less successful and even fewer being better. Avengers Assemble proves that Captain America can be funny and engaging whilst remaining true to the all-American hero of the comic books. This film does not.

'The Inbetweeners 2' review by Captain Raptor

'The Inbetweeners 2' review by Jake Boyle

Forget grieving families, starving children and oppressed minorities. True struggle is being a British teenager who thinks that The Inbetweeners is a little bit shit. My life is hard. If you're somebody who takes an opposing view on the boys from Rudge Park (which, demographically speaking, is possibly all of you) this might be a review to skip. Not that I think The Inbetweeners 2 is bad, exactly, but I'm likely going to be fairly insulting to its fan base. Sorry, snobbery never rests.

That said, I do think it's kind of bad. The immaturity is demonstrably self-aware, but there's still not enough smarts on display to pacify the increasingly grating stupidity of some of the humour. I probably shouldn't have high expectations for a franchise in which the most popular joke is putting a variety of words in front of 'wanker', but by the time a guy with a faeces-covered face starts projectile vomiting, it's hard not to feel that it's hit a new low. Aside from being actively puerile, some of the jokes simply aren't funny - Will and Simon repeatedly shouting "grow up" at each other quickly descends from dull to actively irritating, and Jay's graphic and obviously false stories about the sex he's having got old by the end of the first series. There's some good moments surrounding all of this - reliably dimwitted Neil is as entertaining as ever, in particular during an incident involving a dolphin, and Simon being forced to deal with a lunatic girlfriend allows him to display some highly amusing exasperation. But a comedy where a third of the jokes don't make me laugh, and a further third of them actually annoy me is taking more than a few steps down the wrong path.

The performances are all fine, if perhaps slightly lazier than in past installments. There's dabblings with character development, although some of it is the same character development from the first film, only more so. The boys still remain (in my opinion) as mildly loathsome prats, but the comedy is mostly at their expense, so there's not much need to feel any sympathy for them. Towards the end, there are a few more tender moments, even reaching towards heartfelt, that I'm sure would have made an impact on somebody who actually likes The Inbetweeners. A problem with the film - especially noticeable when one is attempting to construct a review of it - is that there's nothing to the film without the jokes. Other comedies, both better and worse, tend to contain stories, character arcs, maybe even some messages and beliefs at their core. Any of those that can temporarily be glimpsed whilst watching this have all definitely faded by the end, and that's a notable drawback to somebody who didn't think the things that were there were particularly funny.

Unwise as it is of me to point this out, a review of The Inbetweeners 2 seems fairly pointless. If you liked what has come before, you'll probably like this one. If you didn't, you probably won't. It's more of the same with enough unexplored territory (both in dialogue and in geographical terms) that it's suitably original. I sort-of liked it, but I sort-of liked the first film more. More than anything else I think this suggests it's time to pack it in and quit while they're (relatively) ahead; the actors are mostly in their thirties, there's only so many times you can get laughs from using assorted synonyms for 'vagina', and the law of diminishing returns is gently rapping, rapping at the chamber door.

'Sin City: A Dame To Kill For' review by Captain Raptor

'Sin City: A Dame To Kill For' review by Jake Boyle

Spy Kids aside, Robert Rodriguez's career is practically defined by his close working relationship (and even closer similarities) to Tarantino; if this is indeed the case, then Sin City was his Pulp Fiction - interlinking stories told in a non-linear fashion, violent antiheroes (some of which are played by Bruce Willis) and a world where everybody is a criminal of some sort. Frank Miller's involvement, both as creator of the original graphic novel and as co-director, might be what elevated it to Rodriguez's (arguably) best work - sleek comic book visuals and a captivating setting made of equal parts twisted craziness and twisted darkness.

Sin City: A Dame To Kill For is concrete proof of the law of diminishing returns.  The returning characters are every bit as grizzled and tortured as they were (and Jessica Alba even has her turn at the rough-voiced bitter narration as Nancy descends into the vengeance-fuelled violence that seems to control all the citizens), but they just feel like they're going through the motions. Fan-favourite Marv is played with just as much gusto by Mickey Rourke and kicks just as much ass, but the majority of his presence in the film seems very forced, and this rubs off on how much his gruff bravado can be enjoyed. Bruce Willis reappears as a ghost (never mentioned as such, but that which we call a ghost would by any other name be as dead), and although there has always been some leftfield components in the mix (That Yellow Bastard, for example), introducing what seems to be supernatural is distracting and moderately confusing, especially when it's barely explained. The visuals are still spectacular, but to keep them interesting, the ante has been upped - more animated sequences, more flashes of colour amidst the monochrome surroundings - meaning that there's less of the stylish noir look that made everything look so good. That said, very few directors know their way around a camera like Rodriguez, and some sequences such as a rooftop massacre or a midnight swimming session are sharply, dynamically and even somewhat beautifully shot. 

Like its predecessor, A Dame To Kill For consists of three major plotlines with interwoven characters, and it's the one story about an original character that's the stand-out success. Joseph Gordon-Levitt gives a typically masterful performance as a cocksure gambler out to win big, acing both the highs (smug grins and sly one-liners) and the lows (grievous bodily harm and humiliation - the inevitable outcome of challenging Basin City's elite Roark family) with inimitable coolness. The story itself is the most intelligent, and consequently the most surprising - the ending is so wonderfully nihilistic, and reinforces all that we've come to know and love about this dark, seductive city. The new side characters to this one are also sublime - although they only have one scene each, a grumbling Christopher Lloyd and a barely recognisable Lady Gaga provoke more thought than all the returning 'heroes' combined, and provide just as much entertainment. However, not all the new elements are as successful - Eva Green's eponymous dame is such an exaggeratedly malevolent femme fatale that she feels like she belongs more in an Austin Powers movie. The recasting of many characters is a problem too - Dennis Haysbert gives a good performance, but he's incomparable to the sheer menace of the sadly departed Michael Clarke Duncan's screen presence; Jamie Chung fails to bring as much threatening stoicism as Devon Aoki did to the role of Miho; and as much as it pains me to say this, Josh Brolin was nowhere near as good as Clive Owen. The action is as pleasingly brutal as ever, and people mangle each other with the same level of enthusiasm, but the darkly funny nature of both this and the film in general has gently faded.

Although this review mostly contains criticisms, I did enjoy watching this movie; I just enjoyed the original so much more. Despite the brilliance of the Joseph Gordon-Levitt section, Sin City: A Dame To Kill For is inferior to its predecessor on every level. However, so are many other films, and if you remove the weight of expectation, this movie comes out looking pretty good. The main problem is that which plagues many prequels - we're moving backwards when we should be moving forwards. Marv, Hartigan, Dwight and Nancy are awesome, but we've already told the best stories they have to tell. Anything else is just disappointing, especially when Rodriguez and Miller prove that they're still capable of adding interesting characters to the universe. I'd like to see a third film where they've learnt from the mistakes and successes of this one, but I'm not entirely upset that the lousy commercial performance of A Dame To Kill For rules out that possibility. 

'The Expendables 3' review by Captain Raptor

'The Expendables 3' review by Captain Raptor

An appreciation for the past is certainly a positive thing, but Sylvester Stallone's levels of nostalgia borders on a psychological disorder. With Grudge Match, Escape Plan and sequels to Rocky and Rambo, his entire 21st Century career seems to be based around films he made decades ago. The Expendables has been the best result of this - although that's not saying much - partly because it is at least self-aware enough to mock itself before the audience does. While they've never exactly been astounding, the past two in the series have been reliably amusing forays into ridiculousness, in spite of everything. 

So, there are obvious points to get out of the way first: the characters and plot are threadbare, pathos and emotion are kept to an absolute minimum, it hasn't a single original thought in its brain and the whole affair displays as much intelligence as a squashed grape. But these are the predictable gripes about a series that's never tried to succeed on these levels. The surprising thing is that The Expendables 3 fails at the things it's supposed to be good at. The action is appalling - at first I wondered why the camera angles changed so frequently that you couldn't see what was happening, but after a while I noticed that nothing was happening. The first act has a lengthy action scene in which very little action actually occurs - few bullets are fired, the enemy's casualty rate is almost as low as the film's paltry box office intake, and the whole sequence mostly entails the eponymous mercenaries running away whilst spouting bizarrely nonsensical bravado. The second act is even worse and is one of the most grueling trials of patience I've ever had to endure. Stallone's character kicks out the rest of his team and goes on a recruitment drive, and is taken on a tour of characters who are so boring and undeveloped they can't even qualify as generic. There's literally no set-pieces or action here aside from a few momentary alleyway scuffles, so we're left with something truly god-awful - Stallone delivering dialogue.

This is so awful for two reasons, the first being that the dialogue in this film is absolute garbage. Gone are the ridiculously cheesy one-liners, the angry yelling and the testosterone-fulled repartee, that while all being hit and miss, at least they occasionally contained a hit. They've been replaced with banal, humourless statements that primarily seem to exist purely to take up space. The few attempts made to engage in that style of banter are weak - lines like "But you're still an idiot" are delivered as if they were some sort of cutting insult. The other reason the second act is so resolutely miserable is Stallone himself. He delivers every line as slowly as he can, possibly in a misguided attempt to make it sound more measured and serious. Combined with his signature mumbled register, the actual effect it has is turning an already dull line into a world-class example of  how to bore a viewer into frustration. One of the tiny, minimal redeeming features of this film is a different performance; Mel Gibson's moustache-twirlingly evil villain adds a few moments of spark and panache that livens things up a bit. Credit should also go to Antonio Banderas for being the only other cast member to summon up any energy or vigour, even if he isn't given the material to do anything worthwhile with it. In terms of other things that aren't awful, the final battle of the third act is the only other one I can think of - the action reaches a more substantially entertaining level, and the larger scale makes it easier to forgive all the grating dialogue. 

The Expendables weren't exactly at dizzying heights to begin with, but this third installment has still fallen a remarkable distance. All the expected flaws haven't been improved upon - the repetitiveness, the caricatured characters, the nationalism and other casual bigotry, the self-aggrandizing nature and the general stupidity - but to an extent these can be worked around with good enough action and humour. Unfortunately, both of these aspects are unmitigated failures. An action film can be many negative things and still be enjoyable, but it's unforgivable for a movie so brainless to also be so unrelentingly tedious. The Expendables 3 isn't just bad; frankly, it's pathetic. 

'Hercules' review by Captain Raptor

'Hercules' review by Jake Boyle

Deciding whether or not to see Hercules was no easy task. It was a matter of pitting my innate fondness and trust in Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson against my distaste and resentment of director Brett Ratner, the man who royally ruined the conclusion to the initial X-men trilogy. However, like he always did in the ring, The Rock won in the end, and besides, the film's fairly low concept doesn't leave that much that Ratner could screw up.

The concept in question, of Hercules actually being a simple mercenary who spreads fanciful tales of his own mythology to make himself seem more impressive, is peculiar in some regards. It shows a deliberate move towards realism, and in combination with several other elements such as Hercules' (attemptedly) moving backstory, there's clear attempts to make this version of the Hercules story a grittier affair. This is totally at odds with the rest of the tone of the film, which is an all-guns blazing (all-crossbows, maybe?) action throwdown, low on drama and high on muscles. This contrast does balance out and it all works perfectly fine, but I definitely get the impression that very few, if any, of the creatives involved had a particular idea of what they wanted to do. What they did end up doing, however, is perfectly pleasing: the action is blistering and done with both supreme confidence and glee, and there's enough variety in the methods by which our heroes dispatch their foes that it remains interesting and exciting from start to finish. This is partly down to a smart, compact running time, meaning that the film doesn't have much padding. Aside from exposition and PG-13 violence, the only other thing on display is comedic banter from Hercules' entourage of warriors. A limited range, admittedly, but all in working condition and highly enjoyable.

It's the performances that really make Hercules worth watching. Johnson is everything I hoped he'd be - charismatic, slyly funny, and punching things with as much force as humanly possible. There's strong support from Hercules' band of merry men, in particular a droll Ian McShane, the only element of this movie that shows any subtlety, and Rufus Sewell as what must surely be one of the most sarcastic characters in the history of film. John Hurt hams it up so much that it's fairly obvious he think he's above this (although to be fair he might be). A few reoccurring jokes about McShane's character trying (and failing) to embrace his death and Hercules acting humble about his totally false achievements add a sprinkling of comfortable humour to the film, the latter especially improved by Johnson's well-practised eyebrow raising technique, which would undoubtedly win Oscars if such a category existed.

Although it greatly pains me to say it, Ratner's come good on this one. Hercules, while incredibly generic and excelling at nothing in particular, is a bundle of joy and giddily entertaining. The action and the humour all work and it's all performed with confidence by Johnson and a good supporting cast. It's fun and enjoyable, and very little else, but for 90 minutes of pure satisfaction, it's worth a watch.

'Guardians Of The Galaxy' review by Captain Raptor

'Guardians Of The Galaxy' review by Jake Boyle

I normally open my reviews with some sort of introduction to the film but it's going to be short and sweet this time, because I'm far too excited to wait to talk about this one. I have been waiting for it with bated breath for nearly two years, I love the source material and I'm fans of so many of the people involved in the project. So, in case it's not apparent, I might not be an entirely neutral, unbiased reviewer here.

How can I begin to sum-up the two hours of heaven that is Guardians Of The Galaxy? From a heart-wrenchingly tender opening scene to a high-octane, truly dazzling conclusion, this marvel of a movie is packed to bursting with jokes, thrills and great ideas. Gratifyingly, both jokes and gravitas are provided by all the characters, instead of dividing the cast into earnest straight faces and comic relief. Every fantastic line of dialogue is delivered equally fantastically by a cast that's as eclectic as the sort-of heroes they're playing. Everybody from charmingly dim leading man Chris Pratt, through Vin Diesel and Bradley Cooper's absolutely stellar voice work, to masterfully entertaining small roles courtesy of John C Reilly and Karen Gillan - they're all at the top of their game. While everybody is probably of equivalent excellence overall, two performances particularly impressed me - Lee Pace manages to be genuinely threatening as the fanatical villain, despite seemingly being one the most genteel people in existence, and Dave Bautista adds more evidence to the slowly-growing, Dwayne Johnson-sized pile that suggests wrestlers can make surprisingly good actors.

Films are more than their actors, of course, and this can clearly be seen here. James Gunn, the Marvel team and the myriad of special effects experts working on this film have crafted a truly awe-inspiring world, full of epic, spell-binding settings filled with small, inventive touches, such as blades that are controlled by whistling. The depth and wildness of this film's universe puts its other sci-fi competitors to shame. The visuals are beautifully crafted, and all of the special effects - the motion capture, the CGI characters and the bright, ballistic, brilliant action sequences - are phenomenally rendered. One thing that could be said against the film is that it follows a definite formula, but rarely has the formula been played so seamlessly, and with such madcap and charismatic elements. The film's approach to the realities of space isn't exactly accurate, but one expects the script-writers were aware of this, and it's telling that this is the most substantial flaw I can think of. 

Guardians Of The Galaxy is the best film of the year so far, quite possibly the best Marvel film so far, and to put it simply it is an outrageously fun, exciting, joyous experience. The writing, the characters, the acting, the visuals, the soundtrack, the action and the way it ties in to the larger Marvel canon (stick around for a post-credits sequence that should bring a smile to any comic book reader's face) are superb. A lot of us were hoping for it to be a revolutionary game-changer, and it might not be that, but it sets a nigh unreachable benchmark for the rest of the game, and it takes itself wholly seriously without ever letting that lessen the fun or the general insanity. Basically, it's a fucking masterpiece.

'Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes' review by Captain Raptor

'Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes' review by Jake Boyle

2011's Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes was a film that was better than it had any right to be. Despite being a prequel to an already ruined franchise, the groundbreaking motion-capture and strong performances raised it beyond my expectations. The follow-up actually proposed quite a tantalizing prospect - 10 years after the ape-ocalypse, and the two races have to balance conflict with co-operation. Any exploration of morality would hark back nicely to the original, and post-apocalyptic futures not only make great backgrounds for allegories and metaphors, but also generally fill me with excitement.

Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes starts off with all the characters in a nice, interesting grey area and slowly and disappointingly moves them all into black-and-white camps. It does attempt to give legitimate motivations for everybody involved, but when half the characters are always choosing the peaceful option and the other half are always opting to go down the violent route, good guys and bad guys become pretty firmly defined. The film's intelligence seems to fade away at intervals, and particularly during the last half an hour or so. There's one great action sequence where the apes charge the human stronghold, and in addition to being thrilling, it points out the senseless and horrific nature of war through showing you far more of the consequences than a conventional blockbuster might (One advantage of using monkeys as characters is that you can show them dying by the dozen and not get in as much trouble, but still provoke a substantial reaction from the audience). However, cut to the end, and (spoiler alert) Caesar killing his opponent after 2 hours of spouting messages of peace and forgiveness is portrayed as a moment of unabashed triumph, and he starts being treated like the monkey messiah.

Andy Serkis' Caesar is still the main event, confidently performed and spectacularly animated. The other apes are just as fancy-looking, but they don't possess much (if any) complexity to their characters. It's completely different human characters this time around, the film pleasingly choosing not to undergo the huge coincidence that would be any of the first film's principle human characters surviving. The opening scene where a fancy graphic shows the spreading of 'simian flu' around the world in tandem with the extinction of the species is both chilling and one of the most strongly atmospheric points of the movie. In terms of the new cast additions themselves, they're all the standard stock post-apocalypse characters - the hero, the scientist who has a miraculous knowledge of every single branch of science and medicine, the leader with grand ambitions, the violent asshole - but Gary Oldman brings his character nicely to life, especially in one wordless scene where he just stares at pictures of his family.

In all honesty, the worst thing about Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes is how good some of it is. It's a perfectly enjoyable blockbuster action flick with occasional flashes of brilliance from its high concept, occasional moral dubiousness and wonderful motion-capture effects. However, the first two of those are inconsistent and somewhat patchily done, so rather than feeling like a more generic film with interesting additions, it's like having something promising dangled in front of your face only to have it whipped away. All things considered, Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes was an enjoyable (if overly prolonged) experience, but it's frustratingly close to being something much better. 

'Brick' review by Captain Raptor

'Brick' review by Jake Boyle

The great Bo Burnham has a joke about phrases that have never been said before, such as "peanut butter tribadism" or "hold my fanny pack while I have sex with this human woman". I'm sure that prior to 2005, the same could have been said of "high school noir". It's not the most obvious choice of genres for a crossover, but Rian Johnson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt's later team-up Looper would prove to be an intuitive and mesmerising event, so I was eager to trace their partnership back to the source.

Brick really does go for the noir with both barrels - it's dark, it's serious, nobody trusts or even particularly likes one another - the only difference is that it's high school students filling in for world-weary gumshoes and gangster's molls. It's played entirely straight-faced, showing you a world full of backstabbing, crime and violence, and it takes a little while to be seriously convincing but once you do buy into it, it's fantastically atmospheric. There is one scene where the mother of a drug dealer is fussing about getting the faux-mobsters orange juice, but mostly the balancing of tone is done by a certain self-aware wryness, such as Richard Roundtree's principal, the spitting image of a disgruntled police chief. There's a few scenes such as these that are very important plot points and wholly serious, but are still made funny by the Johnson's whip-smart semi-pastiche of the genre. The mystery at the centre of the film's narrative was suspenseful, although it comes to a somewhat muddled resolution. The way the story is told though, is smart, with mostly no direct exposition and the audience having to make the connections alongside the protagonist.

 Joseph Gordon-Levitt is, predictably, great. His stoic manner and expressions make you forget how young and totally unimposing he looks, and he makes a great demonstration of his range when he shows desperation and pain (more physical than psychological) in the film's later, more emotional moments. The rest of the cast are all on-form, but nobody else particularly jumps out - it's definitely Gordon-Levitt's film. An overacting Brian White does put something of a damper of a proceedings, but he only has a few scenes, so the damage he does to the tone is limited. The whole film is sured up by some sharp cinematography, giving a bleak impression of the world by using wide shots filled with empty space. The jumpy effects used when JG-L gets into fights, repeatedly getting knocked down then standing right back up, were also particularly eye-catching.

All things considered, your enjoyment of Brick is mostly dependant on how seriously you can take its relocation of a classic detective narrative to a high school. It's well-acted, well-written, well-shot, but if you can't buy into the premise of all these teenagers trading stony-faced barbs and engaging in power play over drugs and information, you'll presumably find this film laughably po-faced. I wouldn't know. I really enjoyed it, but I can see a lot of reasons why other people might not.

'Non-Stop' review by Captain Raptor

'Non-Stop' review by Jake Boyle

It's weird remembering both a pre-Taken and post-Taken Hollywood. Aside from Liam Neeson's more-than-incongruous overnight transformation into an action star, it opened the floodgates for the following onslaught of 'geriaction' movies. I haven't seen Taken and thus can't comment on its quality, but it's not impossible that had it not been successful, we wouldn't have The Expendables, or Grudge Match, or whatever else Stallone's planning on doing, which doesn't best endear me to either that particular film or the entire sub-sub-genre that is elderly Liam Neeson hitting people.

The thing is, Non-Stop doesn't quite qualify as an action movie, or at least not by my standards. There are a few combat scenes, which were competently and entertainingly done, but for the most part this film pans out as a thriller. It's sort of like Murder On The Orient Express but on a plane, with a murderer among the passengers picking them off, with a dashing of Die Hard With A Vengeance, as the ransom-seeking terrorist taunts our troubled and hard-boiled hero via telephone. If mixing those two pieces together sounds like a bad idea, you'd be right. Somewhat. Non-Stop veers between grittiness and warm familiarity like a drunk driver, which might serve as a warning as to why you don't hire the producers of reality TV shows to write a claustrophobic thriller with references to 9/11. Scenes in which Neeson comforts a lonely child or flirts with Julianne Moore (in a very humourless, po-faced fashion) are at total odds with his character (the fantastically monosyllabically named Bill Marks) shoving, bullying and often assaulting the passengers during his investigation. The moral dubiousness of this is discussed just enough so that Bill becomes less likeable, but not so much that the film actually does any exploration of morality, or even appears to try to make Bill an antihero or otherwise murky and not just 'the good guy'.

One thing I will say in Non-Stop's favour is that the killer's identity was not obvious or apparent to me, which is an important element in a whodunnit. This is partly because their reasoning turns out to be pretty stupid, but this isn't exactly the kind of film where stupidity feels out of place. Neeson was good enough in his role, bringing needed gravitas to the film that went some way to making me take things seriously. The passengers themselves are all characterised (if loosely) and performed perfectly adequately, but none of them are worthy of extolling much praise, which is a shame when talented actors like Lupita Nyong'o and Scoot McNairy are involved. The possible exception is Nate Parker, who just seems to have a little more flair than everybody else.

Non-Stop wasn't bad, but it wasn't really good either. The plot, while nutty, is kind of interesting and mostly stays unpredictable, and Neeson plays everything seriously enough that the film doesn't drown in its own daftness. There was a much better, darker and thrilling film lurking under the surface, and this is normally the type of thing I'd attribute to producers and studios playing it safe, but looking at the pedigree (or lack thereof) of the writers and director, I'm more inclined to believe that it's just been poorly made. It's decent entertainment and nothing about it is a bad experience to watch, but don't expect too much more than that.

'Dr Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb' review by Captain Raptor

'Dr Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb' review by Jake Boyle

Reviewing a classic is somewhat of a fool's errand - if you like it, you're another indistinguishable voice in the masses; if you dislike it, you've just annoyed a lot of people and open yourself up to cries of being a philistine. Maybe that's a little over-dramatic. Either way, I noticed that the oldest film I've reviewed on here was made in 1982, and while I certainly intend to focus on contemporary cinema, it's always a good idea to broaden one's horizons. Which brings us to now.

Nuclear war isn't the most obvious topic of choice for a comedy, but the silliness of the jokes are nicely complemented by the dark undertones, cancelling out the threat of becoming either too bleak or too jejune. The satirisation of Cold War politics works equally well, especially when the film reaches its loopy final scene. It's shot very atmospherically, with lots of murky darkness as a further reminder of the sombre subject matter amidst all the tomfoolery (although I'm open to the possibility that maybe I perceive it like this because I'm accustomed to high definition cameras, and, well, colour). Stanley Kubrick's penchant for the unusual, the unsettling or the just flat-out crazy can also be felt across the film, from character names such as General Jack D. Ripper to a running joke about Soviets trying to poison America's "precious bodily fluids". This all goes some way to heighten the experience but can't entirely compensate for a substantial flaw; a lot of time Dr Strangelove just isn't funny. It's a very witty film (I found it similar to Monty Python at times) with some truly funny moments, but they come in patches, and there are swathes of the film (particularly those set among Slim Pickens' B-52 crew) that can't really raise a smile.

That being said, whilst not always funny, for the majority of its duration Dr Strangelove is at the very least amusing or entertaining. In combination with a charming and well-written script, this is largely due to incredibly energetic performances by Peter Sellers and particularly George C. Scott (which Kubrick notoriously fooled them into giving). Scott's mugging and shouting is incredibly watchable at all times and works well with the occasionally farcical script, and Sellers performs so distinctly in his three different roles that it wasn't until the credits that I knew which ones he was playing. Dr Strangelove himself is probably the finest of the three, a remarkably baffling character who veers from funny to frightening with great ease. It's a very emotionally removed comedy, with little sympathy or heart to the characters, which is just as well or it would be hard to laugh at them leading the world step-by-step to nuclear annihilation.

Dr Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb was a highly enjoyable film that's commendable both for its wit and its intelligence. At no point was it uproariously funny, but its a product of its time and as a satire it works splendidly. The absurdity of it all is highly amusing in and of itself, and Kubrick has managed to create a pleasing movie that's both dark and light-hearted at the same time. I wouldn't say that it's especially wonderful, and it's certainly not hilarious, but watching it was a positive experience and markedly different to most other films that I've seen.

'The Fault In Our Stars' review by Captain Raptor

'The Fault In Our Stars' review by Jake Boyle

When previously existing stories are adapted into new films, I try to judge the results by their own merits rather than by comparing them to the source material. This is an incredibly difficult thing to do when the story in question is my favourite book, bar none. If you want the comparison, it's simple enough to amend; every time I praise something about the film, simply add 'but not as good as the book' after it.

'Not a dry eye in the house' is a phrase that's used quite liberally, but it was the literal truth about my viewing experience - it was a small crowd, but I don't think I've been to a cinema and seen such universal investment. That being said, The Fault In Our Stars isn't an exceptionally good movie, but it does know exactly how and when to pull at the heartstrings. The movie's drama is sublime, especially in its heart-crushing crescendo of an ending. The comedy is perfectly fine once it builds up some steam (a few of the earlier scenes fall awkwardly flat), but the film bounces back between funny phases and sad phases without ever really being able to blend the two. Matters certainly aren't helped by a mawkish soundtrack that sounds as artificially uplifting and hollow as the sentiments the characters are repeatedly disparaging. While often cynical about comforting lies, the film does have a deep and genuine sense of warmth that, without wanting to sound overly sappy, is actually quite life-affirming. Despite crying for a consecutive twenty minutes or so, I left that cinema with joie de vivre in my heart.

Emotions aside, the stand-out thing about The Fault In Out Stars is Shailene Woodley, who gives a quiet but in no way reserved performance that hits all the dramatic high notes while perfectly delivering the wit-laced dialogue. The same can't quite be said of the other lead, Ansel Elgort, who gives a great performance in the third act but before that is quite two-dimensional and I think is one of the main reasons that the tragedy and comedy can't seem to blend together. With Woodley, there's always the sense that she's on the verge of tears when she laughs or smiles, but Elgort, while passable, never really seems to feel much behind the smirk. There is great support from the rest of the cast however, particularly Nat Wolff in one scene where he just smashes the props and set to smithereens - the latter of which was elegantly and appealingly designed, so praise be to set designer Merissa Lombardo.

The Fault In Our Stars, while occasionally a little trite, is an engaging and genuinely moving film. It manages to be tragic and uplifting simultaneously, whilst still retaining a good sense of humour, which is no small feat. It's taken to an even higher level by Shailene Woodley, whose masterful range and subtlety might make her performance here one of the best of 2014. It could do with shedding a layer of Hollywood sheen, and allowing the funny and the sad to flow into and through one another rather than compartmentalizing them. But it's well-written, emotional and captivating, and I think it should delight all but the most cynical of moviegoers. 

'22 Jump Street' review by Captain Raptor

'22 Jump Street' review by Jake Boyle

21 Jump Street was a comedic gem that came out in 2012 but managed to elude me for a year, thereby missing out on its a deserved place in the hallowed Captain Raptor Top Ten Films Of The Year. Phil Lord and Chris Miller (who must have been working non-stop in order to bring this sequel, The Lego Movie and Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2 all to the silver screen within 9 months) had achieved a rare feat: a remake (well, in this case a reboot, but it's much a muchness) that's widely regarded as superior to the original.

22 Jump Street lives up to stereotypes of sequels by trying to recreate the first film but with more attention paid to the most popular elements. However, nobody is more aware of this than Lord and Miller, mocking both themselves and the film industry in general with numerous asides about repetition and a lack of originality. This is best seen when Nick Offerman delivers lines like "As if throwing more money at things would make them better" looking almost directly into the camera (ironically, Offerman and his fourth-wall-breaking comments are one of the fan favourites that the sequel places more emphasis on). It's done with all the subtlety of a wrecking ball but more often than not it pays off. A further example of what's either self-deprecation or double standards within the film - I'd opt for the former out of loyalty to the consistently excellent writers - is the blend of common contemporary Hollywood comedy (read: Judd Apatow and associates) with something smarter and more socially aware: there's more than a few (admittedly funny) scenes that hinge around Schmidt and Jenko getting mistaken for a couple, but there's also a pivotal scene in which we're supposed to root for Jenko when he blows both his cover and the investigation due to his outrage over homophobic language. There's typically few female characters, but the film's fight scenes are interrupted by lines such as "if you saw me as a person instead of as a woman". It's having its cake and eating it, but I found it intensely satisfying to have a film, especially a frat-pack comedy, attempting to make a genuinely important point whilst still being light-hearted, and, more importantly, funny about it.

Writing aside, there's still a lot to like about this film. Channing Tatum is absolutely fantastic, both in high energy scenes (running around Jump Street screeching and laughing) and low (his brilliantly appalling Mexican accent). Ice Cube's thundering and berating is also endlessly entertaining, so strangely enough it's Jonah Hill, the performer with the comedy background, who is the least amusing. There's a lot more of the self-aware, parodic humour in this instalment, and while it's definitely amusing, there's a certain warmth that it lacks. This is true of the story and side characters also, neither of which are as interesting or original as last time round. Plus, Hill and Tatum attempting to pass off as college students is nowhere near as funny as them trying to pass off as high school students.

22 Jump Street won't be Lord and Miller's funniest film this year, because of The Lego Movie. Hell, it's not even the funniest college-based comedy featuring Dave Franco and Craig Roberts in supporting roles, because of Bad Neighbours. It's nothing spectacular and it wasn't as good as the first one (as Nick Offerman will so readily remind you), but it's still a hugely funny and enjoyable movie that's definitely worth watching. Additionally, it's nothing if not admirable - by making fun of its own existence it's automatically challenging itself to be better,and through gelastic fake trailers for Jump Streets 23-42, savvy humour and a one or two messages about representation, it's challenging Hollywood too.

'Mystery Team' review by Captain Raptor

'Mystery Team' review by Captain Raptor

These are dark days for fans of American cult comedies. Community breathed its last breath a couple of months ago, and Parks And Recreation is gearing up for its final season. Wouldn't it be nice to go back to a time before NBC started getting axe-happy with our favourites? A time like, say, 2009, when both these shows premiered and two of their stars (Donald Glover and Aubrey Plaza) co-starred in Mystery Team, a comedy about former child detectives who never grew up.

A lot of the film relies on the charisma of those two to pull it through. Plainly put, Mystery Team is dumb, mainly reliant on crudeness and shock factor for humour. At times it does do these things very well (in particular an outrageous encounter with an over-friendly office worker played by Matt Walsh) but often the deciding factor in the funniness of a scene is Donald Glover's delivery, which for the most part is decent enough but on a few occasions can be too exaggerated and kill what was an already weak joke to begin with. The premise of the man-child has been done to death in recent years, but by dragging its protagonists through strip clubs, murder investigations and grieving families, their naivety is tinted with higher levels of inappropriateness and callousness, the darker edge helping to extract more comedy out of the proceedings. There are certainly funny parts, and the film does boldly go for both-barrels rather than restraint - a perk of independent film-making that's definitely worth utilising. For a childish comedy film made on such a shoestring budget, the camerawork is impressively engaging, often opting for sweeping and moving continuous shots rather than alternating between static camera angles.

Glover's undoubtedly the funniest and does show a relative amount of range in his performance (although the more sentimental scenes are so awkward and tangential they feel as if they were added in with a crowbar), but the rest of the leading cast are a mixed bag. Dominic Dierkes is good for a few laughs but severely lacking in energy as the dumbest member of the crew; Aubrey Plaza is fine and makes an admirable effort but her role isn't interesting enough to allow her to do much, and D.C. Pierson is the weakest link, giving an over-the-top performance that lacks sufficient charm (or a script with sufficient nuance) to counter-balance. The darker elements of the film's plot do add some humorous contrast to the affairs but when considered by themselves they are ill-explained and nothing original.

Getting down to the brass tacks of judging a comedy, Mystery Team is funny in parts. More often than not it's something simple like a foul-mouthed eight year old, but the confidence and unabashed goofiness makes up for some of the shortcomings that stupidity provides. It's a decent, watchable film with a substantial number of amusing moments, but it's not essential or even particularly recommendable viewing, and given some of that people involved it's a little disappointing. 

'Edge Of Tomorrow' review by Captain Raptor

'Edge Of Tomorrow' review by Captain Raptor

Edge Of Tomorrow is all about repeating the past (as Tom Cruise always seems to be trying to do) and learning from your mistakes (as the producers and marketers seem to have done with the title change from the clunky 'All You Need Is Kill'). Well, strictly speaking it's about a soldier fighting a war against aliens who gets stuck in a loop of dying in battle and waking up on the day before. But come on, it's nice to take away a lesson.

Edge Of Tomorrow is a hodge-podge of great science-fiction movies that have come before: most obviously Aliens and Groundhog Day, but the fingerprints of The Matrix, The War Of The Worlds and many others are all very evident. While it takes inspiration liberally from across the board, the trial-and-error approach to warfare and high octane action sequences give the film a more distinctive, video game type quality. Any staleness is further prevented by the addition of a good sense of humour, some of which is a little darker than one might expect. Fast-paced montages of William Cage's various demises set to his cries of irritation are well met by some witty dialogue and great reactions from the supporting cast when confronted with Cage's apparent craziness. The concept is well carried out, as Cage learns day by day (and death by death) how to fight better and the safest routes to take, although things do get more clichéd by the end of the film, which bends all sorts of logic to give a happy ending.

While they're not astoundingly original, the film's humour, plot and action would make it eminently watchable, and the intelligence with which these elements are carried out is only a further bonus. What elevates the film to even higher levels is strong performances from the cast. Tom Cruise is at his charming and likeable best, quite possibly because he's playing a more flawed and interesting character than his typical two-bit action heroes. There's strong support from Emily Blunt's cold and collected war hero and from Jonas Armstrong's (BBC Robin Hood? Anybody?) confrontational grunt, but by far the best is Bill Paxton, managing to maintain a dryly funny air of subtlety as he bellows put-downs. The crew definitely know what they're doing too - it's a very nicely shot film, and the special effects are absolutely fantastic.

Edge Of Tomorrow is derivative but highly enjoyable, both in premise and in execution. It's got the wits and charisma to more than get away with it, and while I was mildly reluctant to see it at first I was much more reluctant for it to finish. A disappointing ending and needless succumbing to cliché (still, at least we've moved on from 'pointless romance subplot' to 'pointless implication of romantic feelings') are minor but not insubstantial flaws in what is otherwise an entertaining and well-crafted sci-fi shoot 'em up with brains in roughly equal measure to bullets.

'X-Men: Days Of Future Past' review by Captain Raptor

'X-Men: Days Of Future Past' review by Captain Raptor

I've outlined my thoughts on the X-Men franchise as a whole in my previous review of The Wolverine (check here if you haven't read it), and suffice it to say that Days Of Future Past has had me (as well as the vast majority of the geek community) salivating with excitement since its announcement. The return of Bryan Singer? All the popular and best-acted characters from the franchise thus far? The addition of Peter Dinklage? This couldn't be a more heavenly prospect. 

The inclusion of pretty much all of the franchise's major characters is both a blessing and a curse. It's pure joy to see them all next to each other, and everybody gets their moments to shine. It even repairs some past mistakes by giving Ellen Page's Kitty Pryde (which, in a more just universe, would have been my favourite thing in the world ever) some interesting and dramatic material. The problem with trying to squeeze everybody in is that great characters such as Beast or Ian McKellen's elderly Magneto really don't have much to do, and provide far less excitement and fun than we've come to expect from the characters. There aren't any bad performances, but there aren't any truly spectacular ones either due to everybody's limited screentime. It's telling that despite all the returning favourites, the highlight of the film is probably newcomer Evan Peters' hilarious performance as Quicksilver, either due to a lack of expectation or because he's a fresh new element. Speaking of fresh new elements, Peter Dinklage makes a welcome addition to proceedings, adding sprinklings of pathos and menace to what could have been a thoroughly bland role. The dramatic performances are all strong but the highest praise in that area deserves to go to James McAvoy, particularly for his first scene, showing great range in the time that he has.

The things that the X-Men films have always excelled at are just as good as they've ever been: the wit is on-point, the writers excellent employ their one permitted use of the word 'fuck', and the action is awesome in both senses of the word, incorporating jaw-dropping, large scale destruction as well as up-close-and-personal combat to full effect. The story and the logic that drives it is a little preposterous, but that really comes with the mantle of a superhero movie. As is the case with the better X-men films, the fantastical (but admittedly somewhat ridiculous) plot is undercut with messages about prejudice and acceptance, that whilst not being groundbreaking or complex still have the potential to be touching, or at the very least engaging. Singer's touch doesn't feel as definitive as it did in his earlier films, and a fair proportion of the film feels like repetition (the scene in which Mystique infiltrates the corporate building of her enemy feels like an almost exact duplicate of the similar scene in X2), but that's partially the consequence of being the seventh film in a franchise that's had five directors.

Considering the multitude of components that this film is trying to juggle, X-Men Days Of Future Past does a remarkable job of remaining straightforward and entertaining. That said, it could still do with being a little longer to allow the audience to indulge in a more vibrant or complex film. Aside from this, the film does very little wrong, and it's certainly the best X-men film for over a decade. It's every bit as funny and action-packed as I'd hoped for, even if it's a smidgen less epic and dramatic than I'd have liked. Strong performances abound from both the old and the new, and Singer easily demonstrates why he's a perfect fit for the series. It's truly wonderful to see the gang like this, all together and all thoroughly entertaining. This should enrapture fans on every level, and I should dare say introduce more than a few new ones to a wonderful, wonderful world.

'Memento' review by Captain Raptor

'Memento' review by Captain Raptor

In conclusion, Memento is an intelligent and masterfully executed film that will arouse every passion in your brain even if it evokes very little in the heart. It would have been nice to see stronger characterisation or more emotive performances, but Memento's unique storytelling methods and fascinating narrative are a real treat, rivalled by very little else that I've seen. It's not something to watch casually, and (you might see this as a good or a bad thing) it demands a lot more from the audience than most films, but it's a really rewarding watch.

All the other elements are functional, if not astounding. All the cast put in solid performances, but none of them are anything particularly special (although I was surprised to see the extent of the acting ability of Stephen Tobolowsky, Groundhog Day's own Ned Ryerson). Guy Pearce was convincing as the memory-lapsing lead, but this might have more to do with his naturally confused-looking face. The characters aren't hugely memorable, or very highly developed, but they all serve their purpose well enough. This isn't much of an emotive film, and the need to pay close attention to what's happening means that there isn't a lot of time to explore feelings. Speaking of which, I'm feeling this review coming to an end...

The movie's primary achievement lies in its triumphant storytelling. The protagonist's inability to form new memories means that, much like the audience, in every scene he doesn't know what's previously happened. We start not so much with unanswered questions but with no clear idea of what is happening. Then we get unanswered questions, and then we get confusing answers, and all in all the film is a wonderful, enthralling mix of intrigue, twists, lies and half-truths. It's trademark Nolan intelligence, framed well by his constant ally, director of photography Wally Pfister, especially in the opening scene that's played entirely in reverse. Things do get quite confusing, and I'd be lying if I said I was totally confident about what had happened, but that's undoubtedly intentional, and the challenging narrative just piques the viewer's interest.

If you weren't aware, Memento is a film that takes place in reverse chronological order. It ends with conflict resolution, and each succeeding scene shows the events leading up to the scene you just watched. It's directed by Christopher Nolan, because who else would make a non-linear memory-based ambiguous thriller? He's one of my favourite directors, even though I've only seen about half of his body of work, so I jumped at the chance to see another of his acclaimed movies, especially in advance of this year's Interstellar. So, on with the review.

'Bad Neighbours' review by Captain Raptor

'Bad Neighbours' review by Captain Raptor

A crude, partially improvised comedy wherein Seth Rogen plays a childish man. Must be Tuesday. By no stretch of the imagination is Bad Neighbours breaking open the idea bank, but something I learnt last year was that the road most traveled can often be the funniest one, due to We're The Millers' surprising surpassing of the more original but ultimately less entertaining The World's End and Rogen's own previous effort. An amusing trailer and positive press sealed the deal, and so onwards I went.

True to form, Seth Rogen is Seth Rogen, and whether you like or dislike him is unlikely to be altered by his performance here. I felt he was funny, but the highest praise must undoubtedly go to Rose Byrne, who gleefully ups the ante on the petty warfare between fraternity and family at every turn. Her delivery is impeccable and it's especially pleasing given the R-rated comedy genre's tendency to relegate all wives to nagging reactionary characters. Zac Efron is funnier than you might expect but he's nothing special, and he's somewhat undercut by strong support from secondary frat boys Jerrod Carmichael and Dave Franco. The cast gel together extraordinarily well and they're a joy to watch, but they're only enabled to do this by a riotous script from newcomers Andrew J Cohen and Brendan O'Brien. The comedy is provided far more by events than it is by dialogue, and while these events are often extremely lewd, there's enough of the film devoted to other elements (perhaps most pleasing is the scene involving a 'Robert De Niro party') that it never dissolves into pure puerility. 

Perhaps one of the things that make Bad Neighbours so enjoyable is that there's a genuine warmth behind the chaos and dick jokes. All the characters are presented as sympathetic, and the film fleetingly touches on the issues of growing old, stagnating relationships and fear of the future. Director Nicholas Stoller never allows this to interrupt the flow or put a dampener on the fun, but it adds some arguably needed intelligence to the backdrop as well as enabling the viewer to relate to the otherwise mostly one-dimensional characters that populate this film. With a firm base to start from, the anarchic back-and-forth of the escalating pranks has a sense of structure rather than just feeling like a set of sketches. It's not a perfect film by any means - it's quite slow to begin with, a few of the jokes are really obvious, and although Rogen and Byrne's baby acts as the major plot motivation, the script seems to pretty much forget it exists at times - but once it gets going it's consistently funny throughout, without ever really losing its sense of purpose.

Bad Neighbours is a very funny film, which ultimately overshadows any other flaws it has. It pulls no punches, and the filthiness is nicely blended in with other types of humour rather than being the sole arrow in the film's quiver. A strong, charismatic cast makes the most of the script's frantic fun, and Rose Byrne's spirited performance is a particular treat. It's quite silly, but unabashedly so, and the jokes have an occasional darker or smarter streak that prevent the more tried-and-tested material from stagnating. It doesn't break new ground, but it doesn't try to - its aim is a simple one, and it's one that it fully accomplishes.