Joe Wright overcomes an unremarkable plot with distinctive direction in Hanna, a beat-driven action/art-house hybrid that blends East-European iconography with Grimm fairytale fancy.  A departure for the English director, best known for his austere costume dramas including Atonement and the most recent Pride and Prejudice adaptation, the film follows an adolescent girl (Saoirse Ronan) who has been trained by her secret-agent father (Eric Bana) as a cold blooded killer while [...]

Taking the recent wave of movies depicting “realistic” vigilantes to new and twisted heights, James Gunn’s Super tells the cautionary tale of a downtrodden citizen with apparent psychological disorders who decides to don a mask and take on crime, with less than heroic results. Perverse, violent, inappropriate and bizarre, the film — to take an oft-repeated comparison — plays like a more cultish and extreme version of Matthew Vaughn’s [...]

I think, in the grand scheme of things, we have reached the end of what can possibly be achieved with a movie about horse racing. We have Seabiscuit for the classic underdog tale, we have Phar Lap for delving into the seedy underbelly of the business and now we have Secretariat for overcoming obstacles that have little to do with actually racing horses. Added bonus? They’re all true stories. Or [...]

Captain America: The First Avenger, contrary to what the title suggests, is actually the fifth and final film to be released in the lead up to next year’s Marvel superhero mash-up The Avengers. To recap, three of the previous films – Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk and Thor – have told the origin story of the titular superhero, whereas Iron Man 2 [...]

Although it features all of director Ken Loach’s typical filmmaking and storytelling trademarks, Route Irish has the same basic plot — and the same ultimate point — as countless other post 9/11 thrillers and episodes of 24.

After his best friend Frankie (John Bishop) is killed in Iraq, Fergus (Mark Womack), haunted by flashbacks of his own time in the war, begins to suspect that the private army for which they [...]

Feudal Japan: a time when war was a way to wisdom, loyalty was a way of life, and dishonour was punishable by death. It is during this perilous period that the prolific and often controversial director Takashi Miike (Audition, Ichi the Killer) sets his latest project 13 Assassins; an ambitious Samurai film brimming with all the poetic dialogue and unflinching violence of the time. Loosely based on historical events and [...]

Jake Kasdan’s Bad Teacher is a breath of fresh, cynical air. And that’s not because it’s outrageously hilarious – the jokes miss just as often as they hit – but because it’s a film that, for once, actually lives up to its title. From start to finish, the teacher in Bad Teacher is bad. She’s not somewhat bad, she’s not repentantly bad and she’s certainly not sympathetically bad.  Nope, she’s [...]

It’s funny how the decision to get married can send shockwaves through your family and circle of friends, prompting major lifestyle changes and contradicting firm beliefs. It’s almost like popping the question puts you on the same level as a terrorist setting off a bomb. Once the decision is made, you better be ready for what comes next – there will be casualties, the repercussions will be traumatic, and you [...]