Simon (McAvoy), an art dealer, is embroiled in a plot by Franck (Vincent Cassel) to steal a famous Goya painting. During the crime though, a blow to the head gives Simon serious amnesia, and he is taken to a therapist (Rosario Dawson) who’ll use hypnosis to get him to remember a very important detail…. With…
Read moreWelcome to the Punch
Welcome to the Punch had lots of promise – a really awesome A-list Britpack cast, great London locations, a few well-staged chase scenes and noisy gun fights. But the plot is convoluted and it just isn’t that engaging. I fell asleep in the middle, and that’s about that.
Read moreX-Men: First Class
Resuscitating the X-Men series almost single-handedly, I give you Matthew Vaughn, the Brit director of Stardust (ahhhhh), Kick Ass (wooop!) and now X-Men; First Class. This is one of those tedious “Origins” movies, but it rises above similar dross (check out, if you dare, the tedious and unimaginative Wolverine movie – mostly an extended ad…
Read moreThe Conspirator
Continuing with the American History theme in this week’s film-watching, I caught Robert Redford’s The Conspirator this morning. Awesome. I admit, I cried a bit. You know, Redford’s previous attempt to criticize the Bush government’s abuses of power – Lions for Lambs – was a complete clunker and virtually unwatchable? This time though, he couches…
Read moreStarter for 10
O-M-G! I was heading for University at almost exactly the same time as Brian Jackson (an earlier, weedier incarnation of James McAvoy) in the Brit movie Starter for 10. So I recognised the gauche awkwardness of the student parties, the worthiness of the constant political campaigning outside the Student Uni, the strangely inept sexual fumblings,…
Read moreWanted
Scrappy tyke James McAvoy butches up nicely in Wanted, the first American movie by Kazakh director Timur Bekmambetov. Bekmambetov previously made the partly-brilliant, partly-poor Night Watch / Day Watch vampire movies and this latest opus is equally patchy; sometimes it is edge-of-the-seat thrilling, other times it’s just dozy. Although it’s apparently based on a comic book, for…
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