Arabian Nights (2000)
Jul 2, 2005Tales of Arabian Nights
Hallmark tv mini-series adaptation of the classic tales has been granted a decent budget that allows the stories to emerge with lavish spectacle and the fantasy to fly with exceptional regard
Andy Serkis
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
Dec 24, 2002Epic Fantasy Adventure
Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings saga truly gains its feet here, expanding out onto an epic scale where he has fused special effects and story into a singular vision
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Dec 23, 2003Epic Fantasy Adventure
The weakest of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films. This is the most variant from the source material and the one where Jackson allows his tendency to visual effects bloat to take over
13 Going on 30 (2004)
Aug 14, 2004Young Girl in a Woman's Body
Essentially a rehash of Big in which a tormented teen wishes she was thirty and wakes up as Jennifer Garner. Amiably average without ever finding the wistful charms that Big had
King Kong (2005)
Dec 15, 2005Giant Ape
Peter Jackson's dream project, a remake of the 1933 film, and his finest work as a filmmaker. Jackson builds the original out considerably and his command of the effects gives us something quite dazzling
The Prestige (2006)
Nov 30, 2006Rival Victorian Stage Magicians
Christopher Nolan directs a beautiful period piece with Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman as rival Victorian stage magicians. The film is an elegantly crafted Hall of Mirrors and illusions, capped by sterling performances from all involved
Flushed Away (2006)
Feb 11, 2007Animation/Talking Rats
Aardman Animation abandon Claymation for regular animation in this story of a pet rat thrown out of his comfort zone down into the sewers. Alas, this only serves to make it just another talking animals animated film
Stormbreaker (2006)
Nov 10, 2006Teenage Spy
Film adaptation of a popular series of Young Adult books about a teenage spy. Made not long after the Austin Powers films, this seems unable to decide if it is being serious or a parody
Inkheart (2008)
Apr 27, 2010Man Can Bring Fictional Characters to Life
Another failed attempt to start a fantasy franchise. However, the interesting premise of someone who can bring fictional characters to life ends up going goes precisely nowhere
The Cottage (2008)
Jul 20, 2015Kidnapping Comedy/Backwoods Brutality
Andy Serkis and Reece Shearsmith are inept kidnappers in this black caper/horror comedy – imagine something like A Life Less Ordinary peopled with characters from a Guy Ritchie crime drama
Burke & Hare (2010)
Jun 1, 201119th Century Grave Robbers/Comedy
Lavishly produced, reasonably historically authentic retelling of the story of the grave robbers from John Landis, which also becomes a wasted opportunity that turns the story into a comedy where the title characters are just two likeable schmucks
The Adventures of Tintin (2011)
Dec 20, 2011Animation/Comic-Book Character
Steven Spielberg makes a solid effort to bring Hergé's much loved comic-book character to life in this motion-capture animated effort. This plays free and easy with the original stories but generally gets the spirit of the comics right
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)
Aug 12, 2011Planet of the Apes Prequel
Reboot of the classic franchise, a loose remake of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. Thanks to some remarkable CGI effects, the apes entirely outshine the humans
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)
Dec 14, 2012Epic Fantasy Adventure
Peter Jackson returns to J.R.R. Tolkien and epic-sized adventure in the first of his Hobbit films. The visual sweep is there but the film feels over-extruded and over-burdened by its own self-importance.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)
Jul 12, 2014Planet of the Apes Prequel
The Planet of the Apes series excels itself and stages a massively exciting inter-species war. The CGI/mocap apes come with an extraordinary range of nuance - quite whether it is performance or animation is up for debate but the results are outstanding
Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Dec 26, 2015Space Opera
It's not another Empire Strikes Back but it makes up for the prequels. A good part fanservice to the original – if overly reliant on rehashing elements from Star Wars – this also does many things right
Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
May 2, 2015Marvel Comics Superhero Team-Up
The first Avengers film came with a massive anticipation in seeing the characters come together and the snappiness of their interplay; here this seems more flat, while the rest is overrun by wall-to-wall action
Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017)
Mar 17, 2018Space Opera
I'm not one of the haters on this. It's the first Star Wars sequel since the 1980s to invigorate the series with fresh action sequences and place more focus on the characters instead of the action
War of the Planet of the Apes (2017)
Oct 14, 2017Planet of the Apes Sequel
The third film in the rebooted Planet of the Apes series. The motion capture effects are at an absolute peak of the art and the motion capture performances astonishing. The whole film almost seems to consist of heart-tugging moments to make you go "aww"
Mowgli (2018)
Apr 26, 2019Jungle Boy
This Andy Serkis directed version of The Jungle Book with motion capture animated animals had its thunder stolen by the more high-profile Disney remake of 2016 but is a far superior film
Black Panther (2018)
May 12, 2018Marvel Comics Superhero
The most successful Marvel Comics adaptation of all-time up to that point. Enjoyable if I fall short of calling it the best Marvel film ever and its receiving a nomination for a Best Picture Academy Award
A Christmas Carol (2019)
Dec 25, 2020Miser's Redemption/Dark Adult Retelling
A tv mini-series that offers a dark, adult and definitely not family friendly version of the oft-filmed Charles Dickens tale that reinvents the original in quite astonishing ways
The Batman (2022)
Apr 30, 2022Comic-Book Superhero
The reboot of the Batman franchise post Zack Snyder returns to the Christopher Nolan conception with Robert Pattinson as an emo Batman who resembles The Cure’s Robert Smith. Not completely successful on all fronts but a promising start
Venom: The Last Dance (2024)
Dec 21, 2024Marvel Comics Superhero
The third of the Venom films, which has become one of the worst of the modern Marvel spinoffs. By this point any pretence that the films are taking themselves seriously has been long forgotten