Search Results

Excalibur (1981)   John Boorman’s Excalibur is a work of fearless magnificence, utterly unyielding to concerns it might be held up for ridicule due to its unstinting embrace of every fully-fledged flight of Arthurian legend. And it has been. You’re probably equally likely to find those who love it for its romantic-mythic excesses – Zack Snyder, although don’t hold that against it – as those who mercilessly mock the same. In some respects, the tack is all the more surprising, as it comes in the wake of Monty Python and the Holy Grail; every time a limb is chopped off

Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022)   The subtle move isn’t really George Miller’s strong suit, which is no problem when it comes to the amped-up fizz-pop action of a Mad Max: Fury Road. Nor is it a negative in his depiction of this djinn’s fantastic tales in Three Thousand Years of Longing, which are lush, vibrant and palette-enhanced with similar acumen to Fury Road while steering for a markedly different tone. It’s less welcome when it comes to announcing theme or character, however. That works like gangbusters for the mythmaking of Mad Max 2/ The Road Warrior, but quickly

Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)   Thor: Love and Thunder is very much the mess general responses have suggested, compounding the problems exhibited by Thor: Ragnarok when it came to juggling the soberer subplots. Except that here, the soberer subplots are all over the movie like a rash, and Taika Waititi is all at sea, as all he really wants to do is lark about and play as many whacky characters as possible, under the vain illusion (see also M Night) he’s a really dynamite, multihyphenate phenomenon. Love and Thunder is both less successful (if you can call Raimi’s movie

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)   In which Sam Raimi proves that he can stand proudly with the best – or worst – of them as a good little foot soldier of the woke apocalypse. You’d expect the wilfully anarchic – and Republican – Raimi to choke on the woke, but instead, he sucked it up, grinned and bore it. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is so slavishly a production-line Marvel movie, both in plotting and character, and in nu-Feige progressive sensibilities, there was no chance of Sam staggering out from beneath its suffocating demands with anything

Clash of the Titans (1981)   A Harryhausen step too far? Dynamation deflation? At the time, being a devotee of Jason and the Argonauts and lured by the cash-in mini/movie-adaption ads from Smiths Crisps – I was a DC Thompson comics reader; they appeared, it seems, in Warlord, although it could as easily have been Buddy or Victor – I was as eager to see this as any right-minded kid was the next Star Wars. And Ray had evidently considered the zeitgeist (hence Bubo). But not enough. I know many swear by Clash of the Titans, but too much of it is stale or ineffectual – regardless of the occasional splash of

Encanto (2021)   By my estimation, Disney brand pictures are currently edging ahead of the Pixars. Not that there’s a whole lot in it, since neither have been at full wattage for a few years now. Raya and the Last Dragon and now Encanto are collectively just about superior to Soul and Luca. Generally, the animation arm’s attempts to take in as much cultural representation as they possibly can, to make up for their historic lack of woke quotas, has – ironically – had the effect of homogenising the product to whole new levels. So here we have Colombia, renowned the world over for the US’s benign intervention in

Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977)   Generally, this seems to be the Ray Harryhausen Sinbad outing that gets the short straw in the appreciation stakes. Which is rather unfair. True, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger lacks Tom Baker and his rich brown voice personifying evil incarnate – although Margaret Whiting more than holds her own in the wickedness stakes – and the structure follows the Harryhausen template perhaps over scrupulously (Beverly Cross previously collaborated with the stop-motion auteur on Jason and the Argonauts, and would again subsequently with Clash of the Titans). But the storytelling is swift and sprightly,

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)   The ultimate superhero crowd-pleaser? I think so, pretty much. He’s everyone’s favourite superhero – well, aside from those who prefer Bats, who are, of course, nuts – and it’s replete with by-and-large, the right kind of fan service, fan service that pays off far more than it drops the ball. Nevertheless, Spider-Man: No Way Home still isn’t the best Spider-Man movie. It might only be the second-best Tom Holland Spider-Man movie. It gets what it gets right really right: all those multiverse past Spidey characters. Well, except for the one(s) who were rubbish anyway. But the side effect is the parts that made MCU

The Black Cauldron (1985)   Dark Disney? I guess… Kind of. I don’t think I ever got round to seeing this previously. The Fox and the Hound, sure. Basil the Great Mouse Detective, most certainly. Even Oliver and Company, so I wasn’t that selective. But I must have missed The Black Cauldron, the one that nearly broke Disney, for the same reason everyone else did. But what reason was that? Perhaps nothing leaping out about it, when the same summer, kids could see The Goonies, or Back to the Future, or Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. The Black Cauldron seemed like a soup of other, better-executed ideas and past Disney movies,

Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)   It may have been entirely germane to the writers’ room process, spitballing hither and thither, but it’s very noticeable that Raya and the Last Dragon runs with Avengers: Endgame’s – and Steven Moffat’s, for that matter – principle that nothing stays dead for long, so divesting young, impressionable minds of one of the basic unassailables of life. Who knows why such false narratives have attained such currency currently. Could it be a means to dilute the sting of mass devastation by creating a mythic salvation, one where the world one has known may still become tangible once more,

Loki (2021)   Can something be of redeemable value and shot through with woke (the answer is: Mad Max: Fury Road)? The two attributes certainly sound essentially irreconcilable, and Loki’s tendencies – obviously, with new improved super-progressive Kevin Feige touting Disney’s uber-agenda – undeniably get in the way of what might have been a top-tier MCU entry from realising its full potential. But there are nevertheless solid bursts of highly engaging storytelling in the mix here, for all its less cherishable motivations. It also boasts an effortlessly commanding lead performance from Tom Hiddleston; that alone puts Loki head and shoulders above the other limited

White of the Eye (1987)   It was with increasing irritation that I noted the extras for Arrow’s White of the Eye Blu-ray release continually returning to the idea that Nicolas Roeg somehow “stole” the career that was rightfully Donald Cammell’s through appropriating his stylistic innovations and taking all the credit for Performance. And that the arrival of White of the Eye, after Demon Seed was so compromised by meddlesome MGM, suddenly shone a light on Cammell as the true innovator behind Performance and indeed the inspiration for Roeg’s entire schtick. Neither assessment is at all fair. But then, I suspect those making these assertions are

Cats (2019)   But not a cute iccle one. There are plenty of allegedly terrible movies whose consensus status I have no strong wish to verify. Nor do I have a particularly yen for the musical oeuvre of Andrew Lloyd Webber. And even less of one for the very existence of portly putz James Corden, let alone witnessing him smugging his way across the big screen. But some car crashes just need to be witnessed first-hand, so the horror acts as a warning to any who’d drive without due care and attention in future. I’d seen the trailers for Cats, so I was

Over the Moon (2020)   What the hell is this turgid piffle? The type that somehow musters Oscar nominations for Best Animated Feature, it seems. Here we find Netflix with one eye on the future, nursing dreams of further – yes, further! – avarice. Because this is a Chinese co-production. You know, Netflix which isn’t available there. Likely because the maker of Cuties is rightly regarded as a corrupting influence. Or because China took a look at their output and decided (rightly again) they aren’t missing out. Besides, with a transhumanist communist utopia on the horizon, why even bother? Soon all the

Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)   Well Patty and Gal brought their undiluted vision for Wonder Woman to the screen… and suddenly the Snyderverse doesn’t look quite so bad after all. No, that’s an exaggeration, but the fact remains that Wonder Woman 1984 is every bit as flawed as anything arrested-development Zach has delivered to DC. Just considerably less grimdark. On the flip side, moments of curdling sentimentality in this sequel will have you longing for the balm of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’s relentlessly portentous foreboding. There are quite a few things to enjoy in Wonder Woman 1984, but they’re almost all on display during

The Santa Clause (1994)   Tim Allen’s status as a big screen star really starts and ends with The Santa Clause, in which he’s frequently buried under prosthetics. After all, you can only hear him as Buzz Lightyear and the rest of his hits are fairly random (Wild Hogs), with only one bona fide, much loved critical darling among them (Galaxy Quest). Maybe that’s because, much like, say, Jerry Seinfeld (albeit not so much politically), he always comes across as a TV guy. Which isn’t necessarily such a bad thing, as it’s only his deadpan Home Improvement persona that keeps this movie’s more

Jack Frost (1998)   Horrifying variant on The Santa Clause, in which no one believes a kid, Charlie (Joseph Cross), when he claims his dad has transformed into a hallmark of Christmas. Horrifying because, while Tim Allen probably isn’t anyone’s idea of a perfect Santa, Michael Keaton definitely does not make a good snowman, even as rendered by ILM and Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. There’s also the small detail that Troy Miller, a TV comedy director drafted in at short notice, appears to have zero aptitude for the material. Or movies generally. I sensed he much preferred shooting the band footage we see

Avengers: Endgame (2019)   I had a good time with Avengers: Endgame, what with its Back to the Future Part II revisiting of its own history, various of its character developments, and particularly with its resourceful throwing of spanners in the works of the team’s best laid plans to return the lost populace of the galaxy to their present. However, I wasn’t overly impressed by the Russo brothers’ ability to explain their pet version of time travel. Indeed, I went away thinking this element was something of a train wreck. I’ve since moderated that view, but with a few caveats (there’s a particularly

Shazam! (2019)   Shazam! is exactly the kind of movie I hoped it would be, funny, scary (for kids, at least), smart and delightfully dumb… until the final act. What takes place there isn’t a complete bummer, but right now, it does pretty much kill any interest I have in a sequel. A superhero version of Big is such a no-brainer selling point, there’s even un homage to its giant keyboard in Shazam!, But tonally, the movie is much more closely affiliated to the darker Amblin/ Spielberg fare of the prior five or so years, the likes of Young Sherlock Holmes, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,

Thor (2011)   Thor gets several things very right, suggesting Marvel were shrewd to offset their nervousness over a magical/supernatural, cod-Shakespearean departure from their semi-realist pictures so far by casting Sir Kenneth Branagh as director. Being a luvvie, he’s right at home with theatrical tones erupting from thespians hamming it up. Unfortunately, he’s also a movie director of negligible pedigree, one who thinks moving the camera a lot represents style, and that Dutch angles are evidence of auteurism. There’s not all that much hyperactivity in Thor, the less the pity – even the Dutch angles are more subdued than one’s accustomed to

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I (2010)   What’s good in the first part of the dubiously split (of course it was done for the art) final instalment in the Harry Potter saga is very good, let down somewhat by decisions to include material that would otherwise have been rightly excised and the sometimes-meandering travelogue. Even there, aspects of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I can be quite rewarding, taking on the tone of an apocalyptic ’70s aftermath movie or episode of Survivors (the original version), as our teenage heroes (some now twentysomethings) sleep rough, squabble, and try to salvage a plan. The

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)   I get the impression this sixth instalment might not be the most obviously crowd-pleasing one in the Potter-sphere – among fans, rather than critics – but my second visit only reconfirms it as up there in the top tier. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is certainly atypical, eschewing action for the most part (there are a couple of quidditch interludes, but they’re almost apologetic) and showing a keen aptitude for something the series has previous shown inconsistency towards: intrigue. For much of the running time, this is more like a spy movie – of

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)   The beginning of the homogenisation of Harry Potter, assuming you didn’t think he was a wholly homogenised product to begin with. And by that, I’m not necessarily levelling a charge –Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is qualitatively second only to Prisoner of Azkaban at this point in the running – but rather pointing out that David Yates has been the appointed ship’s captain ever since, even into the new prequel quintilogy. It means you’re going to get a reliably similar result. Fine, if you adore what’s on offer, but if you’re

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)   Significant, ante-upping events occur in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, but so much of the movie is filler, or prelude, that it would have taken a director truly worth their salt to make it seem something more than it was. Mike Newell wasn’t that director. The best you can say about his work is that it’s serviceable, efficient, and you wouldn’t know his ballpark hitherto resided mostly in romcoms. He plays with the second unit and the effects department surprisingly well, never a given in the history of journeymen embarking

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)   Now, this is more like it. If the first two Harry Potter movies are exhibits A and B in examples of stolid, unremarkable translations of text to screen, Alfonso Cuarón contrastingly takes full opportunity to inject personality and style into Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. He’s helped not inconsiderably by a much more intriguing, effective storyline, one that incorporates the fake-out, red-herrings device of Philosopher’s Stone much more deftly while utilising a time-travel subplot in a manner that doesn’t feel like a cheat. Sirius Black: The tail, I could live with. But the fleas? They’re murder. I

Bright (2017)   Is Bright shite? The lion’s share of the critics would have you believe so, including a quick-on-the-trigger Variety, which gave it one of the few good reviews but then pronounced it DOA in order to announce their intention for Will Smith to run for the Oval Office (I’m sure he’ll take it under advisement). I don’t really see how the movie can’t end up as a “success”; most people who have Netflix will at least be curious about an all-new $90m movie with a (waning, but only because he’s keeps making bad choices) major box office star. As to whether it’s any good, Bright’s

Santa Claus: The Movie (1985)   Alexander Salkind (alongside son Ilya) inhabited not dissimilar territory to the more prolific Dino De Laurentis, in that his idea of manufacturing a huge blockbuster appeared to be throwing money at it while being stingy with, or failing to appreciate, talent where it counted. Failing to understand the essential ingredients for a quality movie, basically, something various Hollywood moguls of the ’80s would inherit. Santa Claus: The Movie arrived in the wake of his previous colon-ed big hit, Superman: The Movie, the producer apparently operating under the delusion that flying effects and :The Movie in the title would

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)   More of the same, really, continuing Chris Columbus’ unswerving mode of following Steve Kloves’ sticking like glue to JK Rowling’s early structural template. Another mystery on the Hogwarts premises (you’d have thought the teachers would try to keep the kids clear of mortal peril until they’d at least graduated) that inevitably ties in to Voldermort. It’s marginally more honed this time, though, which means that when Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – even the title is eminently resistible – finally knuckles down, it flows better. Unfortunately, it also has several major

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone aka Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001)   If you want a functional, serviceable, unremarkable version of Harry Potter, look no further than Chris Columbus’ chocolate-box, Hollywood-anglophile vision. It’s studiously inoffensive and almost entirely lifeless. I should emphasise at the outset that I’m not a Harry Potter fan; I don’t have anything particularly against the series, but by and large it failed to captivate me on screen, so I’ve had little inclination to reach out for the novels. However, I was curious to revisit each film successively, having seen them exactly once. Columbus’ offerings are much

Thor: Ragnarok (2017)   Thor: Ragnarok is frequently very funny. It’s also very colourful. And quite wacky. But very funny, very colourful and quite wacky are, clearly, the current Marvel formula du jour, such that Kiwi director Taika Waititi isn’t so much unleashing a miraculous, newfound irreverent spirit onto the studio’s assorted favourites as rearranging its recently-upholstered furniture. What makes this case a little different is that the rearranging is in the service of their least interesting title character; Ragnarok comes across as if a whole movie had been based on the scene in the first Thor where the god of thunder goes into a

Kubo and the Two Strings (2016)   Laika studios have received much acclaim for their undoubtedly first-rate stop motion animation technique, but I’ve tended to the lukewarm on their output’s overall quality. Coraline was a strong feature debut, but both ParaNorman and The Boxtrolls came up short for me. Kubo and the Two Strings represents a significant uptick, one that shows off a mastery of tone and atmosphere, but it also suggests Laika still need to beef up their script department. Kubo’s a movie about the power of storytelling that ironically exhibits significant deficiencies in storytelling, and an animation about the power of intergenerational forgiveness that fudges

Big Trouble in Little China (1986)   Much as I’m okay with Dwayne Johnson, even if he gets a bit touchy about critics lambasting his shitty comedies (no one’s asking you to make them, Dwayne), I find it frankly impossible to believe he’s a huge fan of Big Trouble in Little China. If he were, he wouldn’t go near the prospect of remaking it with a Rock-sized barge pole. How are you going to replicate such unbridled lunacy and offbeat idiosyncrasy? Try really hard? It’s tantamount to redoing Hudson Hawk. Or, for that matter, scribe W D Richter’s other cult fave, The Adventures of Buckaroo

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017)   I can certainly see why Guy Ritchie’s latest has flopped. Audiences weren’t interested in what he was selling, and what he was selling was very clear from the trailers. It’s the same with Ghost in the Shell: all these post-mortems offering a list of reasons why really boil down to whether those two-and-a-half minutes are appealing, not whether Charlie Hunnam’s a star or Scarlett Johannsson can open a movie. Much weaker movies become hits every year, so it was his take on King Arthur – which, like everything Ritchie gets his paws on,

Now You See Me 2 (2016)   I don’t really know why I bothered catching up with Now You See Me 2, since I found the original an active crock. Masochism, I guess. Both occupy such a counterintuitive basis for a movie: “clever” magic tricks expressed by way of bad CGI, so revealing an inverse ratio of cleverness. Compounding which is an utterly unsympathetic lead character, essayed by a surprisingly unassured Mark Ruffalo, whose Dylan Rhodes, in the last movie, took revenge on those he perceived to have been culpable in his father’s death (aside from his father doing bloody silly

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)   It can definitely be a positive to approach a picture with lowered expectations. I could quite easily have skipped JK Rowling’s self-penned Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them on the big screen, as I did the latter five Harry Potters. While I’ve never been a devotee of the series, I’ve never had much against either, and a few of them (The Prisoner of Azkaban, The Half-Blood Prince) I was even rather impressed by. But there was a nagging feeling that, whenever I caught up with the latest instalment, it was foremost intended for devotees

Doctor Strange (2016)   It isn’t as if Doctor Strange is breaking the Marvel formula in any real way – indeed, it’s adhering to it quite rigidly – but the fourteenth official entry in their cinematic universe is just different and fresh enough to invigorate it. Scott Derrickson’s movie is almost entirely absent of the bloat and over-stuffed continuity encumbering the most recent clutch, which even though they have been mostly entertaining and engaging, have also begun to feel rather tired and undifferentiated, beset by obligatory cross-fertilisation of characters, plots and MacGuffins. Indeed, it’s something of a disappointment when our titular character meets Thor

Tale of Tales (2015)   A rich, absorbing, decidedly adult take on fairy tales that might put one in mind of Neil Jordan’s The Company of Wolves, but more for want of other similarly grown-up-skewed fare than direct tonal similarities. A selection of three cautionary stories based on the works of Giambattista Basile, which in turn influenced the more renowned likes of the Brothers Grimm, Matteo Garrone’s film features as its protagonists three different women in three different states of empowerment/disenfranchisement, but it might be a mistake to construe meaning overtly from that; this is more about the traps our desires set

Krull (1983)   Krull is the embodiment of what happens when a studio has a vision of money to be made but lacks a visionary to make it. It wasn’t just that it came late to the sci-fi-fantasy party, released the same year as the finale of Star Wars, the trilogy that spawned a thousand imitators. More damagingly, it was armed a paucity of inspiration and no grasp of the alchemy required to turn a huge budget into a blockbuster, or mould the tried-and-tested principles of the hero’s journey into something that would resonate with audiences. What Peter Yates’ film actually is

Hook (1991)   Good grief, this is a bad movie. Lest defective memory had been forgiving, and you’d assumed Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was Spielberg’s nadir, rest assured, it ain’t. Hook is so appallingly, unapologetically, repellently self-indulgent and grotesquely aberrant in sentiment, that the really very good performance of Dustin Hoffman can do little to save it. As unbelievably well-suited as Hoffman is to Captain Hook, channelling Terry-Thomas by way of Peter Cook, and so embodying a marvellously eccentric vision of preening pomposity, Robin Williams is benightedly miscast as the grown-up Peter. It was a hiding to nothing conceptually

Peter Pan (2003)   The advent of the latest, disastrous, iteration of JM Barrie’s classic had me wondering if the whole idea of translating the story to screen is doomed, and that Disney simply got lucky first time. So in dutifully investigating a few previous versions, I began with one I hadn’t caught before; PJ Hogan’s commendably faithful attempt, as much as Joe Wright’s is entirely disrespectful. Well, partially commendably. Perhaps a mid-ground between diligence to the original text and invention is the optimum path, as Hogan’s picture is admirable in many respects – and vastly superior to Wright’s –

Warcraft: The Beginning aka Warcraft (2016)   Warcraft: The Beginning (promises, promises) is surely exactly what the great unwashed (I know, it’s actually the other way round), pre-Lord of the Rings genre respectability, would have expected from a fantasy epic. Indistinct characters cast adrift in vast empty landscapes, engaging in mighty battles for dreary and/or impenetrably elusive reasons while magical incantations transpire portentously all around, but not terribly impressively. And the whole strung together on the slenderest of threads. Duncan Jones’ film is as deathly dull as ‘80s fantasy misfire Krull, but without the homemade personality that gives that picture, if not a

Game of Thrones  Season Five   By this point, a sense reigns that Game of Thrones’ very unpredictability has in itself become predictable. It wouldn’t be the same show if horrible things didn’t happen to favourite characters, and there have to be at least a few significant scalps taken per season. Likewise, the biggest fireworks tend to bring up the rear, with all the stops pulled out for the eighth episode. Particularly this year, that has given rise to complaints of a slow pace (I watched the season over three nights, so this didn’t really affect me, but I can see

Magic in the Moonlight (2014)   I couldn’t say I’m an avid follower of Woody Allen’s films these days, mostly due the sheer variability of his output. He churns out a picture a year, come rain or shine, so Woody would have to be pretty damn consistent to follow avidly. I’ve found it increasingly takes a lot more to disguise the sound of his voice than it did, and a general air of repetition that has crept in. I guess that’s partly down to him being (almost) eighty and all, but no one is asking him to work so much.

Twin Peaks  2.2: Coma   Lynch’s pre-penultimate episode in the director’s chair, penned by Harley Peyton, continues with the high standard set by the opener, and you have to think that’s mostly down to the extra quirk instilled by the show’s co-creator. Albert: Your former partner flew the coop, Coop. He escaped. Vanished into thin air. Agent Cooper: That’s not good. On the other hand, there are significant advances in the show’s mythology to help the episode along. Top of the heap is the first mention of Windom Earle, who won’t be seen in the flesh for another nine episodes. But, with

The Secret of NIMH (1982)   Don Bluth, Disney renegade, left the Mouse House in 1979 for noble reasons. He sought to restore animation to its former glories, bringing the respect due to an art form that had waned in the wake of his former employer’s cost cutting, increasingly careless approach. The first fruits of his defection were realised in The Secret of NIMH, an adaptation of Robert C O’Brien’s Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. Bluth more than achieved his goal.  He put animation back on a pedestal (and no doubt his competing presence gave Disney a much-needed kick in the

Vampire Academy (2014)   My willingness to give writer Daniel Waters some slack on the grounds of early glories sometimes pays off (Sex and Death 101) and sometimes, as with this messy and indistinct Young Adult adaptation, it doesn’t. If Vampire Academy plods along as a less than innovative smart-mouthed Buffy rip-off that might be because, if you added vampires to Heathers, you would probably get something not so far from the world of Joss Whedon. Unfortunately, inspiration is a low ebb throughout, not helped any by tepid direction from Daniel’s sometimes-reliable brother Mark and a couple of hopelessly plankish leads who do their best

47 Ronin (2013)   47 Ronin was pronounced DOA well before it actually bombed at the box office. It’s rare for critics to push against the tide and come out in support of such fare, invariably because the warning signs of a troubled production tend to be an accurate yardstick for the quality of the finished movie. And so, 47 Ronin was dutifully slaughtered. I’d be hard-pressed to present the case that the picture is an unsung classic, a masterpiece waiting to be re-discovered and re-appraised, but it has certainly been given short shrift. As many column inches have gone into reviewing its

Game of Thrones Season Four   At this point, it seems much of the Game of Thrones discussion relates to its divergences from George R R Martin’s novels. These have increased gradually throughout the latest season, and there is a general furrowing of brows and clutching at straws in attempts to working out just where it is the series will go from here. It has hit many of the books’ most acclaimed events, the ones spoken of in hushed tones so as not to spoil it for the unsullied. I haven’t made much headway with the novels, and as such I’m rather

Ace of Wands Season 3 (1972)   If Ace of Wands were half as good as its theme song it would be an enduring classic whose legend was alive and well today, rather than a half-forgotten ember in the annals of children’s television history. Only the final season of the series exists (transmitted the year I was born), so perhaps I’m doing it an injustice and the previous two were dynamite. After all, loveable cockney rogue Tony Selby appeared in those as a regular. Trevor Preston’s idea was to make a kids’ show that wasn’t obviously playing to kids (hence the leads

Game of Thrones Season Three   Coming late to the party for a series (or rather, season) that has become media-saturated means it’s fairly difficult to remain spoiler-free. Whether it’s Breaking Bad or True Detective, the luxury of gorging oneself on a box set can become a minefield, especially if, as HBO does, they wait a whole bloody year before releasing the thing, So I’d heard about words “Red Wedding” in advance and that it was game changing, and the Starks had been mentioned, but that was about as much as I knew. I still haven’t got beyond the mid-point in the

Beautiful Creatures (2013)   Another week, another failed Young Adult adaptation. This one floundered on its release about this time last year and it’s easy to see why. Possessed of the Southern flavour flaunted by True Blood, but without the libido, Beautiful Creatures is entirely mechanical in its construction of a supernatural world where teenagers both mortal and immortal (see Twilight) interact in a post-Whedon landscape of chosen ones and dark destinies. Richard La Gravenese, who made a splash early in his career with The Fisher King for Terry Gilliam, does his best on scripting and megaphone duties, but he’s unable to wring out anything very

The Box of Delights 6: Leave us not Little, nor yet Dark   The final episode exhibits many of the strengths and flaws of the previous instalments. The first half wonderfully ups the stakes, only to have them effortlessly blown away. It’s a more serious error than releasing Joe minutes after he has been locked up because, even given Abner’s poor choices, he needs to be demonstrated as an effective villain. But, during the first ten minutes at least, he is at his peak. First of all, he draws an upturned pentacle on a stone wall to produce a hidden

The Box of Delights 4: The Spider in the Web   The pace picks up again in the fourth episode, including a ream of exposition expertly delivered by Stephens. Before that, there’s the little matter of the treacherous weir to deal with. Woo-hoo! This is as typically Sunday Children’s Classic looking as the serial gets (well, that and some of the journey-through-time scenery in the following instalment). What keeps it from becoming too twee is the presence of jovial antagonists (“Nothing like children for leading one a dance, what?”) Returned to full size and back at the freshly burglarised Seekings.

The Box of Delights 3: In the darkest Cellars underneath   Despite a grimy, evocative title the third episode is the least of the six. We’re treated to a nice little triptastic dream sequence, but there are a few too many longueurs along the way. To an extent such aspects are charming (a whole scene devoted to brewing up a cold remedy) but a run of such scenes makes the whole a little too lightweight. Abner: I tell you, Sylvia. I’m tempted to get rid of Charles and his infernal ha-ha-what. The first part of the first scene finds Abner questioning

The Box of Delights 2: Where shall the ‘nighted Showman go?   The scenes within King Arthur’s Camp were filmed during June, five months apart from the snowbound Aberdeen locations that give the series such a traditional Christmassy vibe. Snow so deep the crew had to film in and around the grounds of the hotel where they were staying is supplanted by foam at Reading Castle. The sequence is most notable for the hack’n’slash enthusiasm with which Kay takes care of some wolves (Herne, now adorned in Knight’s garb, has no compunction with handing him a sword and instructing him

The Box of Delights (1984)   If you were at a formative age when it was first broadcast, a festive viewing of The Box of Delights may well have become an annual ritual. The BBC adaptation of John Masefield’s 1935 novel is perhaps the ultimate cosy yuletide treat. On a TV screen, at any rate. To an extent, this is exactly the kind of unashamedly middle class-orientated bread-and-butter period production the corporation now thinks twice about; ever so posh kids having jolly adventures in a nostalgic netherworld of Interwar Britannia. Fortunately, there’s more to it than that. There is something genuinely evocative

Rise of the Guardians (2012)   I held a slim hope that this DreamWorks effort, a relative misfire at the box office, might diverge from their cookie cutter animation formula. I suppose it is less “laugh-a-minute” than usual, which is no bad thing when audiences are expected to lap up a Kung Fu Panda 2 that is impossible to differentiate from the original. But first time helmer Peter Ramsey has nothing to fill that hole; the hook of Rise of the Guardians is all there is to it. Once you’ve seen the poster’s character line-up you don’t actually need to see the movie. Most likely a

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013)   The key to a scene-stealing supporting turn is often precisely that the movie isn’t all about that character. You’re left wanting more, but if you were to get it you’d likely find the character watered down to fit the mould of a traditional protagonist. It’s why Hannibal Lector is so effective in Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs, but much less so in Hannibal. I doubt that The Incredible Burt Wonderstone would have worked if it had revolved around Jim Carrey’s David Blane-esque shock magician, but it would surely have been more inspired than what we get. The big problem

Jack the Giant Slayer (2013)   I can’t say I’m very surprised to discover that the director of Superman Returns has no sense of fun. Bryan Singer has mostly disguised this for the best part of two decades by shooting thrillers, or making sure his comic book movies take themselves very seriously. Jack is his stab at a family fantasy movie, and he’s all-at-sea. Not that Singer has any great claim to auteurship. A few of us thought he had the makings of a voice when his sophomore film, The Usual Suspects, sprang out of nowhere. It showed astonishing confidence, and still ranks as far and away

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)   The second Indiana Jones is a disappointment. Not a crashing disappointment in the way that the fourth instalment is; by most standards this is an entertaining blockbuster, well-performed and frequently exquisite to look at. The problems with Temple of Doom are fundamental ones to do with narrative and structure. Raiders of the Lost Ark was essentially one long chase; Temple gets the chasing out of the way in the first fifteen minutes, after which it confines itself to one big soundstage until the climax. It’s difficult to define it in terms of acts, in fact, as the temple

The Thief of Bagdad (1940)   A renowned classic, of course, numbering amongst its biggest fans the likes of Scorsese and Coppola. Its troubled production (shifting location to Hollywood due to the outbreak of WWII, three different credited directors – Michael Powell, Ludwig Berger and Tim Whelan – due to the exacting demands of producer Alexander Korda) belies the supreme confidence of the finished film. But, for all the artistry involved, this is little more than a 70-year old blockbuster; its plot is as straightforward as its characters, lacking finesse but serving to move us from one set piece to

The Princess and the Frog (2009)   Disney’s brief return to the hand drawn animation that made its name is an unextraordinary, box-ticking affair: bells-and-whistles reinvention of a traditional fairytale (The Frog Prince/The Frog Princess); sparring romance between two lead characters; charismatic villain; anthropomorphically endearing supporting characters; a liberal sprinkling of half-cooked songs. Its main claim to fame is that it features Disney Animation’s first African-American protagonist, albeit she is shrouded in amphibian apparel for much of the running time. Returning directors Ron Clements and John Musker (who rode the crest of the early ‘90s rejuvenation of the animation division,