Sea of Love (1989)
May 11, 2001Psycho-Thriller/Romance
Standout thriller with great scripting and performances where detective Al Pacino goes undercover in the dating scene to track a killer and comes up against a sultry Ellen Barkin
John Goodman
Always (1989)
Apr 9, 2000Man Becomes a Guardian Angel
One of Steven Spielberg's more overlooked and quieter films, a remake of the 1940s guardian angel fantasy A Guy Named Joe. Spielberg never much ignites the love story but the film has some magical moments and a scene-stealing John Goodman
Arachnophobia (1990)
Aug 6, 1999Spider Takeover
Executive produced by Steven Spielberg, a popular revival of the 1970s bugs amok genre about a town overrun by deadly spiders, although this avoids the horror label and plays itself with much humour
Barton Fink (1991)
Apr 26, 2000Writer's Block/Paranoia Black Comedy
Hollywood noir from the Coen Brothers, this takes us inside the crumbling mental state of a screenwriter in the 1930s. Like a David Lynch remake of Day of the Locust, this comes rich in the Coens' black uncomfortable humour
King Ralph (1991)
May 7, 2000American Slob Becomes the King of England Comedy
A comedy where the Royal Family is wiped out and vulgar American nightclub singer John Goodman inherits the crown. Much comedic play between American vulgarity and British ceremony ensues.
We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story (1993)
Jan 20, 2001Animation/Talking Dinosaurs
Juvenile animated film from Amblin Entertainment concerning dinosaurs whose intelligence is raised to human level and they are let loose in the present-day
Matinee (1993)
May 23, 2003B-Movie Homage/Genre Fandom Childhood
Joe Dante film set during the Cuban Missile Crisis about a childhood in B movie fandom and with John Goodman paying homage to filmmaker William Castle
The Flintstones (1994)
Feb 1, 2000Prehistoric Comedy/Cartoon in Live-Action
The first in what later became a fad for replicating cartoon tv series as big-budget live-action films, this does an exacting live-action version of the Hanna-Barbera series
The Borrowers (1997)
Jul 16, 1999Miniature People Adventures
Amiable adaptation of Mary Norton's books about a family of miniature people that live in hiding in a human house. Aimed for big scale effects and slapstick set-pieces but sufficiently engaging nevertheless
Blues Brothers 2000 (1998)
Mar 31, 1999Gonzo Road Movie
John Landis and Dan Aykroyd minus the late John Belushi revisit their cult classic but the reunion exercise smacks of poor judgement and emerges as a haphazard arrangement made only to exploit the appeal of the original
Fallen (1998)
Feb 1, 2000Cop vs Body-Hopping Demon
A smart and intelligent supernatural thriller with Denzel Washington cast as a detective who sends a serial killer to the execution chamber only to find he now faces a demon that can inhabit any person that it touches
Bringing Out the Dead (1999)
Oct 25, 1999Urban Hell/Haunted Ambulance Driver
Martin Scorsese returns to the vision of urban hell he gave us in Taxi Driver with Nicolas Cage as an ambulance driver haunted the dead he sees. Powerful, blackly funny at times, if not quite up there as another Taxi Driver
The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (2000)
Jul 2, 2000Characters From a Cartoon Series Enter the Real World
Cinematic revival of the old Rocky and Bullwinkle series having the two animated characters emerge into the real (live-action) world. A film that you feel should have been funnier and more energetic than is
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
Feb 2, 2001Depression-Era Version of The Odyssey
The Coen Brothers hilariously adapt The Odyssey into the Depression Era with George Clooney leading a trio of escaped convicts as he tries to return to his wife
What Planet Are You From? (2000)
Mar 4, 2000Alien Visitor Comedy
A sex-changed version of My Stepmother is an Alien in which Garry Shandling is an alien come to Earth to breed with a woman. Despite being directed by Mike Nichols this is as lame as it sounds and stumbles through tired routines that were not even funny the first time around
The Emperor’s New Groove (2000)
Dec 15, 2000Disney Animation/Man Transformed into a Llama
One of the head-scratching animated oddities produced by Disney during the 2000s. Not unlikeable, the story concerns a self-centered Aztec emperor who is transformed into a llama
Monsters, Inc. (2001)
Nov 4, 2001Pixar Animation/Monsters in the Closet
This was the fourth animated film from Pixar and is a winning and delightful Maurice Sendakian tale about the monsters in the closet and their friendship with a young girl
The Jungle Book 2 (2003)
Apr 27, 2003Disney Animation/Jungle Boy
From the late 90s/early 00s period where Disney were churning out cheap sequels to their animated classics of yesteryear, a wholly unnecessary continuation of The Jungle Book
The Year Without a Santa Claus (2006)
Nov 18, 2007Christmas Film
Dull live-action tv remake of the Rankin-Bass stop-motion animated Christmas special
Bee Movie (2007)
Dec 15, 2007Animation/Talking Bees
Appealingly nonsensical DreamWorks animated film written by Jerry Seinfeld who also voices a bee who befriends a human woman and then stands up against the exploitation of bees
Death Sentence (2007)
Nov 23, 2008Vigilante Film
Although the character names have been changed, this is based on the book sequel to Death Wish. Saw director James Wan goes for broke on the grim vigilantism and turns in an immensely satisfying work
Evan Almighty (2007)
Sep 23, 2007Modern-Day Noah's Ark Comedy
Sequel to Bruce Almighty in which Steve Carell is transformed into a modern-day Noah. This was pitched to the Christian audiences but feels like a series of lame gags playing on Noah and the Ark devoid of any biblical context
Speed Racer (2008)
Dec 4, 2009Cartoon in Live-Action/Racing Driver Hero
The Wachowskis live-action remake of the anime series is a sublimely madcap confection, a film that is alive with vibrant visuals and all the colours of the rainbow. A box-office flop but glorious, even groundbreaking visually
The Princess and the Frog (2009)
Dec 20, 2009Disney Animation/Animal Transformation
One of the more enjoyable Disney animated films from the latter half of the 00s. Featuring Disney's first Black heroine, this embraces its New Orleans setting and turns Hans Christian Andersen's fairytale on its head with enjoyable results
Red State (2011)
Sep 25, 2011Religious Cult
Kevin Smith discovers a newfound maturity in this work about a religious cult. Smith subdues his adolescent humour in a series of darkly laced dramatic twists, while the show is capped by some great performances
ParaNorman (2012)
Aug 16, 2012Stop-Motion Animated Children's Film/Kid Sees Dead People
Stop-motion animated children's film from Laika that demonstrates a willingness to be scary. The film starts to move out of the amiably likeable after around the halfway point when it begins to play a number of horror tropes against expectation to deliver a reasonable message about fear and prejudice
Monsters University (2013)
Jun 21, 2013Pixar Animation/Monsters in the Closet
Pixar's creative decline has been the point they started making these sequels to their hits. This is a disappointing prequel to Monsters, Inc. that largely recycles the cliches of the Revenge of the Nerds films and seems lacking in any of the wacky humour or moments of cuteness we expect of a Pixar film
Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)
Jun 28, 2014Live-Action Transformer Robots
Are there any new creative directions that Michael Bay feels he he has to explore for a fourth Transformers film? All the Transformers beating the crap out of each other and copious mass destruction has become hard to tell one of the films from each other
10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)
Mar 19, 2016Trapped in a Survival Shelter/Mysterious Catastrophe
Sequel in name only to Cloverfield, this takes place in a survival shelter where an unspecified catastrophe has happened outside but we cannot be certain what or even if anything at all. Okay but films like Take Shelter and The Divide did this much better
Ratchet & Clank (2016)
Jul 10, 2017Animation/Videogame Adaptation
Animated film based on the popular computer game. On screen, this emerges as essentially an instantly forgettable variant on one of the Star Wars prequels retooled for the Under Tens with the emphasis all on frenetic slapstick and visual eye candy
Transformers: The Last Knight (2017)
Sep 23, 2017Live-Action Transformer Robots
The fifth of Michael Bay's Transformers films. This comes with more of an outright comedy focus than any of the other films where Bay seems to be second-guessing his critics and spoofing his own peccadilloes in quote marks, only to produce the silliest entry in the series yet
Kong: Skull Island (2017)
Apr 15, 2017Giant Ape
A reboot where King Kong is now part of a shared universe. This is less a tragic love story about Kong falling for a girl and being brought down by civilisation than Kong as a heroic defender fighting off other monsters
Captive State (2019)
Jun 9, 2019The Resistance Against an Alien Invasion
A highly politicised films that takes place several years after an alien invasion and concerns the resistance against them. However, the aliens feature very little and the film resembles more of a 'hood drama
Smurfs (2025)
Sep 7, 2025Animation/Cute Blue-Skinned Creatures
An animated revival of The Smurfs. This was greeted with a very negative reception. With a massive celebrity voice line-up packed into almost any corner of the film the casting director can manage