Dead Man’s Shoes (2004)
May 4, 2008Revenge Film
One of Shane Meadows' harsh depictions of life in the English Midlands with Paddy Considine as a former soldier turned vigilante eliminating bullies who killed his intellectually handicapped brother
Toby Kebbell
Wilderness (2006)
Feb 2, 2007Human Hunting/Bare Hands Survivalism
Tough brutal British film where a group of youth offenders are hunted while on a wilderness survival course on an island
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010)
May 28, 2010Videogame Adaptation/Arabian Nights Adventure
Adaptation of the popular videogame that ventures into Arabian Nights adventure, this was a box-office flop. It swashbuckles entertainingly but Jake Gyllenhaal feels badly miscast as a buffed adventure hero
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (2010)
Jul 17, 2010Apprentice Wizard
Live-action version of the Fantasia segment from Jerry Bruckheimer is a film of empty-headed special effects that ironically fails to conjure any magic of its own
Wrath of the Titans (2012)
Mar 29, 2012Greek Mythology Adventure
Sequel to the Clash of the Titans remake. Much the same as before except with bigger monsters and more explosions … flash and spectacle that washes over you with all the substance of the light from a disco ball
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
Fantastic Four (2015)
Aug 15, 2015Comic-Book Superheroes
Despite all the hate this received, I am maybe the only person out there that liked this. It is three-quarters of a good film that strips the Four of costumes and tells a character-driven story about people dealing with powers
Warcraft (2016)
Jun 18, 2016Computer Game Adaptation/Epic Fantasy
I had two main problems with the film of the computer game – firstly, with all the gameplay edited out, what we are left with is a third hand rehash of the basics of Tolkien. Secondly, it looks like a giant CGI cartoon where almost anything interesting about the world has been sidelined in favour of fantasy action
A Monster Calls (2016)
Jan 28, 2017Boy Befriends Giant Monster
The story of the relationship between a giant monster and a boy whose mother is dying of cancer, this is perhaps the darkest children's film ever made. The film is the weaker than the award-winning book it is based on because it never replicates the extraordinarily stark black-and-white illustrations of the original
Kong: Skull Island (2017)
Apr 15, 2017Giant Ape
Not a sequel but a reboot where King Kong is now part of a shared universe. This means we get less a tragic love story about Kong falling for a girl and being brought down by civilisation than Kong has become a heroic defender fighting off other monsters
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"
Bloodshot (2020)
Apr 11, 2020Augmented Super-Soldier/Comic-Book Adaptation
That starts out seeming a standard mindless action film in which Vin Diesel is resurrected as an augmented super-soldier only for everything we assume to get turned on its head in interesting ways
Becoming (2020)
Jun 5, 2020Body-Hopping Entity/Possession Film
The early 2020s saw some strong,d intelligent variations on body-hopping themes. This is one variant filled with a series of wildly disorienting spins that frequently jerk the carpet out as Toby Kebbell becomes possessed by an entity