Purple People Eater (1988)
Aug 14, 2001Cute Musical Alien
An inanely awful film based on the Sheb Wooley song. This is a really lame copy of E.T. in which a young Neil Patrick Harris forms a band with the title alien
Neil Patrick Harris
Starship Troopers (1997)
Jul 29, 2010War with Aliens
Travesty of Robert Heinlein's classic SF novel from Paul Verhoeven. Heinlein's philosophical argument for militarism is junked in favour of blackly comic mindless violence
Undercover Brother (2002)
Nov 24, 2002Blaxploitation Spoof
Conceived in the aftermath of the Austin Powers films, this is a rather funny parody of the Blaxploitation film from Spike Lee's cousin Malcolm D. Lee
Justice League: The New Frontier (2008)
Jul 5, 2009Animation/Comic-Book Superheroes
Animated Justice League film, which adapts a comic-book storyline that reconceived the various DC superheroes as they were back in the era of their original creation
Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore (2010)
Jul 31, 2010Talking Animal Spy Capers
Cats & Dogs was amiable but this sequel struggles against the irritatingly cutsie elements that have come to dominate this mini-genre of live-action talking animals films
Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010)
May 19, 2011Comic-Book Superhero/Animation
One of the best of the animated Batman films, telling the story of the overlooked Robin Jason Todd and his resurrection as the villain Red Hood, a film that has an adult tone and comes with immensely exciting action scenes
Beastly (2011)
Mar 13, 2011High-School Version of Beauty and the Beast
The interesting idea of the fairytale Beauty and the Beast retold in a modern high school setting. Despite itself, the film manages to wring a reasonable sincerity out of the premise
The Muppets (2011)
Nov 19, 2011Muppet Movie
Surprisingly fun revival of the Muppets that reboots the series after the insipid entries of the last few years and succeeds by going back to recapture the sly double-level of humour that Jim Henson patented
The Smurfs (2011)
Aug 10, 2011Cute Blue-Skinned Creatures
Live-action version of the popular Hanna-Barbera cartoon series. In its favour, it is at least slickly polished and comes with far less in the way of irritating smartass humour that one expected
A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas (2011)
Nov 4, 2011Gonzo Stoner Film
The third film in the series of stoner comedies trips off into gonzo genre territory. A relentlessly and unashamedly vulgar film that also manages to be occasionally quite funny
The Smurfs 2 (2013)
Aug 11, 2013Cute Blue-Skinned Creatures
The first film was vaguely passable but this is an agonising piece of commercial product that has reduced everything to lazy slapstick sequences, cutsie laughs and smartass lines played for the single-digit age groups
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 (2013)
Sep 27, 2013Animation/Island of Living Food
The original film was a good deal of fun; this sequel feels like it is simply a repeat of the same but slightly different. Still there is a good deal of creativity to the visual puns and living food creatures
The Matrix Resurrections (2021)
Jan 1, 2022Virtual Reality
One of The Wachowskis returns to the world of The Matrix and rather wittily turns it into an anti-blockbuster about her reluctance to do so