Monday, Feb 06th

You are here: Cinema now The Bad

The Bad

W.E.

2/10

Dear Madge, Given your longstanding failure to show any talent either as film actor or as film director, I don't know whether to admire you for your persistence, or point out that the cinema is not a medium in which you flourish. But I will say that even by your standards, this is a pretty atrocious film.

Read more...

J. Edgar

3/10

I had hoped that after the disappointments of Invictus and Hereafter Clint Eastwood might have rediscovered his mojo with a film about one of the most famous and vile Americans of the 20th Century. Sadly, this is another dud.

Read more...

War Horse

3/10

Here are a few adjectives to describe Spielberg's new film: infuriating, cheesy, magnificent, dull, noisy, hamfisted, old-fashioned, long, clumsy and spectacular. And most of those, you will gather, are not recommendations.

Read more...

Another Earth

4/10

It seems uncanny that at the exact moment that this film is released in the UK, a new planet is located which could be a mirror image of our own. I know that publicity departments are resourceful, but that is mightily impressive. Sadly, it's about as interesting as the film gets.

Read more...

New Year's Eve

I have made a strategic decision not to go and see this film. Contrary to normal practice, true, but since I know exactly how it will be, there seems little point in wasting my time and money. What follows is not a review but a prediction.

Read more...

Sherlock Holmes: Game Of Shadows

3/10

Given the choice between watching this film again, and marrying Madonna, I would opt for another viewing - but only narrowly. Yes, it really is that bad. Certainly worse than the original Guy Ritchie movie which was an inexplicable hit a couple of years ago, and probably worse than Transformers 3. We're talking stinker.

Read more...

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

3/10

Brad Bird, who made The Incredibles, is the director for this fourth movie in the Cruise-driven franchise. I will merely mention that by comparison with The Incredibles, this is a film for children. Or at least the very simple-minded who like lots of explosions, silly disguises and techy nonsense, all wrapped up in a plot that makes less than no sense. It's all yours, boys.

Read more...

In Time

4/10

There comes a time when a man and a woman running around hand in hand with a gun stuck in the waist of his trousers (see also The Adjustment Bureau) simply fails to cut the sci fi mustard. It's not enough to have an interesting idea if it results in a dull film. Which is what this is.

Read more...

Immortals

3/10

I unwisely allowed myself to raise my hopes for this films, based on director Tarsem Singh's previous movie, The Fall, but I was misguided and foolish. This is a dreadful film, incoherent, violent, camp and dull all the same time.

Read more...

Three Musketeers, The

4/10

There are films which are silly - like this one; there are films that are spectacular - like this one; and there are films that are spectacularly silly - and in that category, this film is a champion. Not so much dreadful, just really really ridiculous.

Read more...

Real Steel

4/10

This film saves up everything up for its punchline - and I mean that literally. All plausibility, narrative logic and emotional coherence are sacrificed for the knockout blow at the end - except that since we know it's coming from the start, we are not so much knocked out, as dozing on the canvas.

Read more...

My Afternoons with Marguerite

3/10

If your idea of a good night out is watching an overweight middle-aged man sit on a park bench talking to an old lady about pigeons and Camus, with a background of assorted stereotyped French characters and endless flashbacks of an unloved childhood, then this will be your tasse de the. But not mine.

Read more...