July 2009


The Taking of Pelham 123
Everyone is on auto-pilot here but Pelham is energetic and tense enough with a rich vein of verbose sparring from its two heavyweight leads to be enjoyable lightweight one, two, three-star entertainment anyway.
***

Land of the Lost
Like a prehistoric Hitchhikers-by-design, Land of the Lost is itty bitty, set-piecey, saturday matinee, inventive demented, anarchic dumb, bubblegum fun, out there family fare.
***

The Proposal (according to CBK)
Predictable and cheesy, The Proposal is exactly what you want and need from a Sandra "I don't do chick flicks" Bullock starring rom-com.
*** (and a half) CBK stars

Moon (full review)
If action or alien-invasion sci-fi leaves you bored and unenthused and hankering for the good old golden age of thought-provoking futurescapes then prepare to be pleased by throwback space flick Moon.
****

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (full review)
The biggest and best Potter so far, Half-Blood Prince is also the funniest and most fun-to-watch of the film series to-date (at least until that ending). With things inevitably set to “go darker” as well, don’t expect that to change marking this instalment out amongst the eventual eight.
****

Bruno
Following exactly the same format as Borat, Bruno comes nowhere near as close in number of laughs (maybe just ten in total) or overall quality however. Perhaps now is the time for Sacha to change/drop the shtick?
**

Public Enemies (full review)
Instead of breeding contempt, Mann’s familiar themes and filmmaking style has instead refined into arguably his best picture yet. Mann is the man, of that there is no doubt and despite falling outside the “blockbuster” fight, Public Enemies steals its way to film of the summer so far.
*****

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (full review)
The coolest Ice Age so far, DotD scales heights that the (enjoyable anyway) previous episodes failed to and proves to be a movie series that, for once, is actually improved by a third chapter. The 3D on-show continues to convince that this is undoubtedly the way all computer-rendered animation should go too.
****