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Having enjoyed the film career of Angelina Jolie since discovering her in the TV miniseries Gia (thanks a lot for that one, Ms Jolie!), I was naturally keen to see her once again don the action-girl suit and lock-and-load. Salt, her latest action venture, was originally written for a male lead character, although when Jolie decided to get involved, this was swapped for a female one. I think this decision proved wise, considering just how similar in tone Salt is to the Bourne films starring Matt Damon. It’s this similarity that works both for and against the Jolie actioner, as it struggles to escape the shadow of the Ludlum character but feels like a warm blanket of familiarity. Jolie’s winning looks, her ability to pull off the role of action heroine, and director Noyce’s history with fast paced films of this nature, all click together here; Salt is a film lacking subtlety and charm, instead holding firm to its fast-paced narrative to hold your attention. Is it a good film? It’s okay, but there are enough flaws to prevent it achieving the franchise potential the Bourne films currently enjoy.

Add some Salt to your day… Click here to read on!!!

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I was always told by my parents that “violence never solves anything.”

My parents never saw Kick-Ass. Nor are they ever likely to. Which is probably a good thing, because the violence and anarchistic behaviour displayed by Matthew (Layer Cake, Stardust) Vaughn’s latest flick is so bloody and graphic that at times you’re wondering if it’s right to be laughing at what you’re watching. Of specific point: Chloë Mortez’s character of Hit Girl, a deadly assassin-type character who despatches with bad guys like a girly-version of Rambo, blood and all. There’s plenty about Kick-Ass that people will be turned off by, and then there’s plenty to enjoy and laugh at: the trouble is, the people who think this is a detrimental film to Hollywood’s eroding standards will point the finger at Vaughn and comic-book creator Mark Millar for their glorification of the included violence. Bodies are dismembered, shot, burned and obliterated in a variety of gory, graphic and completely realistic methods by both Hit Girl, and her on-screen father Big Daddy (Nic Cage), surrounding the lead character of Kick-Ass with bodies and blood. It’s all supposed to be tongue in cheek, right? It’s a fantasy, an escapist concoction of justified rage against an insipid system of law that allows criminals to run rampant through our social landscape… isn’t it?

Get your ass kicked some more: Click here to read on!!!

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There was a time, you may recall, when Harrison Ford was a genuine box-office draw. Before films like Six Days, Seven Nights, K19: The Widowmaker, Hollywood Homicide and Firewall dented his A-list status to the point where he’s now something akin to box-office poison. His career in free-fall, especially in light of the less-than-stellar result for the most recent Indiana Jones film, now might be an opportune time to go back to his last truly great action film, Air Force One. Directed by German born film-maker Wolfgang Petersen, whose resumé included classics like Das Boot, The Neverending Story and.. er, The Perfect Storm, Air Force One is a popcorn thriller of the highest order. It puts its leading man in the middle of the action and never lets up for a second: the ultimate Pres-vs-Terrorism plot that had audiences gasping around the world.

Make a Presidential decision and click here to read on!!

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I’m not sure which is better, the idea of Tim Burton directing something, or the realisation of that idea. Personally, I’d go with the former, rather than the latter. It seems to me that while Burton is capable of delivering some truly awe-inspiring visual ideas, when it comes to characters and actually getting them to emote, he’s a little bereft of success. Films such as Sleepy Hollow, Big Fish, Planet Of The Apes, Sweeney Todd and most recently Charlie & The Chocolate Factory have all been astonishing projects for their complex visuals, but have nominally left us wanting on an emotional level. The ideas and concepts in his film are often unsupported by character development beyond the cartoonish, and his inability to direct truly straight material may stem out of this. In any case, I was, like the majority of the Western world, keen to see how he did with a right-up-his-alley-weird Alice In Wonderland remake.

Is this Alice worth the trip down the rabbit hole? Click here to read on!!!

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Stylish, action-oriented fantasy comic-book epic, Hellboy II: The Golden Army is a film bereft of simplicity and bogged down with a plethora of style. Guillermo Del Toro, reprising the characters he originally originally brought to life in the original Hellboy, has not only recaptured the vagrant wit of the original film, but also the sense of whimsy the production design presents. Filled to the brim with eye candy of a magnitude afforded normally only the bigger budgeted films, Hellboy II remains, unfortunately, the domain of fanboys and genre aficionados. For the mainstream, I tend to think Hellboy will be over (or should that be beneath?) your heads. So, if you’re not a comic book geek or a fantasy film fanatic, then it’s fair to say this film isn’t aimed at you and you’d probably find more enjoyment with dreck like Valentine’s Day or The Bounty Hunter. Which is a subtle hint that perhaps you should broaden your cinematic outlook and give Hellboy a chance.

Enter the realm of the Golden Army… Click here to keep reading!!!

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Oh how I lament the years we lost having Robert Downey Jr. on our movie screens, due to his drug and jail issues. He is such a prodigious talent, his ability so beautiful to watch, he makes the art of acting seem so effortless. His recent resurgence in films like Zodiac, Iron Man (and its sequel) and now Sherlock Holmes, makes me glad he’s straightened himself out. In a way, the same can be said of director Guy Ritchie, whose work while married to Madonna was less than exemplary. In fact, the dearth of work from Ritchie during his “married period” indicates just how much of an influence the pop queen had on him. Now he’s free to pursue more work, and it’s starting to be seen. After Rock’nRolla came and went with a whimper (which is a pity, because Rock’n'Rolla isn’t a bad film!) he turned to an update of Sherlock Holmes. And what an update!

Check out the rest of our review on Holmes by clicking here!!!

This article was originally published on moviesmackdown.com, and you can follow the link to it here. We’ve modified it from that original post, which can be read below.

Vigilante justice is always a divisive issue. When crime is committed, often the most vile and reprehensible, and our justice system appears to be unwilling to take a hard stance against it, people often feel like taking matters into their own hands, to seek their own brand of justice instead. Many films have tried examining this duality of humanity: the desire to see justice done where it appears not to have been meted out, against the rule of common law and our conditioning to uphold it. Such deep and meaningful issues are very rarely taken lightly by cinema these days. So when we sit down to watch The Boondock Saints, it appears that the trend towards socially meaningful, morally forthright and restrained discussion of said topic is the last thing director Troy Duffy intended. With the recent release of The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day on DVD and BluRay, we’ve decided to look at both films and try and determine which film is better at examining this serious social issue. Get out ya guns, get ready for violence and thick Irish accents, and let’s play, folks!!

When The Boondock Saints burst onto cinema screens in 1999, it was met with the muffled yawns of an audience seemingly unable to make sense of what was, to my mind, one of the great debut directing jobs ever seen. A trial of love for director Duffy, whose career stalled after this film and never recovered, The Boondock Saints was a brutal, stylish action yarn with a sense of the insane thrown in. Brothers Connor and Murphy have become disenchanted with the amount of crime corrupting their beloved city of Boston, and after an encounter with the Russian mob, decide to do something about it. Using their Irish luck and some high powered weaponry (and some rope!), they tackle the criminal underworld in ways the police are prevented from doing. In other words, there’s no such thing as “due process” in the MacManus vocabulary. Together with their friend Rocco, they must also survive the impending encounter with vicious Mob hitman El Duce (Billy Connolly), who is sent to track them down and eliminate them.

Released last year to a blaze of mediocre reviews and much hyped online anticipation, All Saints Day sees the return of characters introduced a decade earlier in The Boondock Saints, a cinematic explosion of ego, machismo and flair. All Saints Day returns almost all the original cast in this outing, including the deceased character of Rocco (played with glorious abandon by David Della Rocco again) in a bizarre dream sequence. Irish born brothers Connor and Murphy (Sean Patrick Flannery and Norman Reedus respectively) are now living in Ireland, with their father Noah (Billy Connolly), having fled there after the assassination of crime kingpin Papa Joe Yakavetta in the original film. When a Boston priest is killed by a mysterious new assassin, the boys seek revenge by returning to the States and once again taking on crime the only way they know how. With guns. Meanwhile, police detectives from the previous film (Bob Marley, David Ferry and Brian Mahoney) try and cover up the news that the brothers are returning, since they are complicit in the events of the previous film’s final act of violence, and they don’t want to be found out. Making things complicated is new FBI agent Eunice Bloom (Julie Benz), a protege of Paul Smecker (Willem Dafoe, who doesn’t have a lead role here) who shows up to lead the investigation. It seems a new criminal threat has come to power in the years the brothers have been away, and their mission once again brings them into conflict with the most deadly of foes.

Find out which film wins this battle of the Boondocks!!!

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One of Disney’s shortest animated features, featuring a lead character who doesn’t speak through the entire film, is still as appealing now as it was at the time of release, way back in 1941. This fact is a testament to the creative quality that makes Dumbo such a genuine family classic. It’s a simple tale, gorgeously animated and well performed, featuring some truly jaw-dropping ideas and imagery, which allows the audience to become drawn into the more “human” elements of the film. Considering the main cast are all animals, that’s no small feat.

Continue our exploration of Dumbo here…

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It’s hard to imagine that prior to reinventing the Batman franchise for Warner Brothers, Christopher Nolan was a damn fine filmmaker anyway: films such as Memento, Insomnia and The Prestige are mini-classics in their own right. Since Batman Begins and The Dark Knight swept public consciousness towards his talent like never before, Nolan’s follow-up to The Dark Knight was always going to be one of the years most anticipated films. Many people wanted to know if Nolan could back up after Dark Knight with another film of equal, or increased, quality, even if it wasn’t a Batman related movie. And so we are given Inception, a long-in-the-pipeline saga Nolan and his brother Jonathan have been working on for almost a decade. Starring the always solid Leonardo DiCaprio, and a supporting cast of Nolan’s gradually building troupe (including Michael Caine and Cillian Murphy), Inception is a brain-bending journey into dreams and alternative reality. Is it a good film? Assuredly. Is it a great film? That will remain to be seen in the fullness of time, but hyperbole and fanboy hysteria aside, Inception could quite possibly be the best film of the year.

The problem with reviewing such a complex film as Inception is that I constantly run the risk of including spoilers along the way, so let me just say this before you read on: if you haven’t seen Inception yet, then it’s probably going to be a bad idea to continue reading this review. In order to deliver a valid and comprehensive assessment of the film, I’m going to have to reveal some key plot elements that are unavoidable.  So, consider yourself fairly warned.

Click here to enter the fifth level of Inception…

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You remember that Bryan Adams song, Summer of ’69? The fond remembrance of your childhood, the rose-coloured tint of historical inaccuracy seeping into the memories of your youth? Friends you had, and lost? Before, of course, finding them again on Facebook? Imagine a movie that could take you back to your childhood, a cinematic time-machine able to transport you into a time when your parents were your whole world, your friends were your true family, and the dust and angst of formative years still hung thick in the air. Stand By Me is just that movie. Stephen King’s non-horror works often make the best translation to screen, as we’ve seen in The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile and even The Mist (which is borderline horror, more a great character study); they all rank as some of the better adaptations of the masters works. But prior to all those, Stand By Me, released in 1986, remains the classic coming-of-age story it was upon release.

To read more of our gushing praise for this film, click here!!

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Like almost every dance film before, it, Mao’s Last Dancer is another testament to the power of the art of human movement to music. Footloose, Fame, Step Up, heck, even Showgirls; all dance movies seem to follow the same kind of story points. A guy or girl, usually with a problematic family situation, must choose between the dancing they love, and the forces raging against then, be it social, political or simply physical. With Mao’s Last Dancer, the trailers promised us something more, some sort of epic personal journey filled with glorious ballet and powerful dramatic acting. In a sense, we get a little of each, although the sum of the parts don’t  always equal a great film. I know I’m going to cop a lot of flack for this, especially from the female quarter, but I didn’t really find Dancer all that briliant.

Keep dancing to Mao: Click here to read on!!

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I thoroughly enjoyed Adventureland. There, I’ve blown my critiqueing wad early. I’m not normally inclined to enjoy modern teen-angst films, especially realistic ones which don’t involve vacuous crudity (American Pie) and annoying cliché characters throughout (Forgetting Sarah Marshall), but I found that Adventureland is a sweet natured, spot-on dramatic film with plenty to like. Charming performances from leads Eisenberg and Stewart, as well as great support from the second-tier cast, afford Adventureland a great life in future word-of-mouth success, because it’s a genuinely decent story. For those of you who’ve ever worked a dead-end job, minimum wage, found yourself attracted to the “wrong” girl, or been sucker punched in the balls by a friend, then you’ll find something to identify with in this film.

Find out if Adventureland is worth a look! Click here to read on!

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There were a few people scratching their heads when they heard the news that Peter Jackson, the Oscar winning director of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, was going to take on a film like The Lovely Bones. After all, it wasn’t the director’s normal territory. For a man more attuned to splatter horror, widescreen epic fantasy and adventure, The Lovely Bones represented something of a departure from his normal fare. Sure, he’d attempted serious dramatic before with Heavenly Creatures, but hadn’t achieved his fame with that kind of film. The director himself had stated that he needed a break from large-scale film-making, after 8 years on LOTR and another couple making the ego-scratching debacle that was King Kong. Yet, The Lovely Bones isn’t a story I’d have expected from Jackson. Perhaps this is a good thing: a director who doesn’t leave his comfort zone eventually becomes stale and uninteresting. Just look at Woody Allen, for example. His career may have spanned half a century and his film output resembles a football score, but his creativity is starting to become a little hit and miss, due mainly to the fact that a lot of his films are pretty similar. I’d never heard of The Lovely Bones prior to Jackson’s announcement that he’d take it on. I’d never read the book. I still haven’t, so I can’t comment on the film adaptation being an accurate portrayal of the original text.

Unearth the secret behind The Lovely Bones here!!!

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Well, this is going to be hard. How to tell you what I thought of Duplicity without giving away vital clues and plot twists. This film bends and turns like a cliff-side highway during the rainy season; centred around the conceit that a cosmetic company has begun production on a fabulous new project sends it chief rival into a frenzy of commercial piracy. Julia Roberts and Clive Owen play the two agents working for each of the competing companies as they try and one-up each other to obtain the secret code to a new line of cosmetics worth billions of dollars. Doesn’t sound like a great film so far, right? Cosmetics? Can’t they come up with something else? Sure, they could, but the real story isn’t who is going after the “secret code”, but how and why. Duplicity isn’t a straightforward film, and it’s certainly not designed for people of limited intellect or cookie-cutter film-making: this is highbrow spy versus spy stuff that makes Oceans 11 look like a trip to Santa’s Cave. With the twisty-turny plot of this film meaning that almost any information I give out is spoiler-worthy, I think it only prudent to say now, before the main review section, that I’ll be giving things away a little as I go. So if you want to be surprised, don’t read on. Consider this your warning.

Get into the twists of Duplicity by clicking here!! SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

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After the success of his previous film Taken, starring Liam Neeson (reviewed here on the site), a film which we absolutely loved to bits, we had high hopes for Frenchman Pierre Morel’s next project, starring the always reliable John Travolta and the curious choice of Jonathan Rhys Meyers: From Paris With Love. Given his tutelage under uber-Frenchman Luc Besson, Morel had the challenge of somehow rising above the b-movie listings some of his contemporaries had struggled with, people like Chris Nason and Xavier Gens. Taken affirmed his breakout status among the Western mainstream, following on from the hilarity and energetic action flick (in his native French) District 13, another film we’ve already reviewed here. So with From Paris, we’d come to expect a little of the extroverted, a little high-octane violence and adrenaline, if not always an entirely cohesive script. We got exactly what we asked for.

Get some guns and dive into this glorious film with us!!! Click here to read on!!!