So here it is, yet another Spider-Man reboot with a completely new cast, this time featuring young British actor Tom Holland in the title role. It seems there’s a global conspiracy to conscript everyone on earth into the role of Spider- Man. Although not quite an origin story or a remake, this film Spider-Man: Homecoming is, in many ways (which
Read moreWith funny, street smart, cartoonishly violent gangster movies like Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch Guy Ritchie was, in the 1990’s, being touted as Britain’s answer to Quentin Tarantino. Unfortunately, his recent, confusingly-plotted, over-the-top, near-indigestible offerings such as the Sherlock Holmes movies and the irritating Rock’n’Rolla have seen him become more like Britain’s answer to Michael Bay. Consequently,
Read moreHow do you stop a film about an accountant being a snoozefest? How about making him a superhuman killing machine. That is the dubious premise behind Gavin O’Connor’s moderately exciting, often confusing and occasionally silly hitman thriller The Accountant. Ben Affleck stars as the eponymous number and skull cruncher Christian Wolff a savant maths genius whose autism saw him persecuted
Read moreThe original Magnificent Seven is a Hollywood classic which transposed Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai to the wild west of America; Seven Samurai having itself been inspired by Hollywood westerns. Now director Anton Fuqua has remade The Magnificent Seven with a cast that includes Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Haley Bennett and Peter Sarsgaard. Given the dire record of classic
Read moreBack in 2002 The Bourne Identity established in Jason Bourne, a new kind of movie spy, one with the destructive skills and resourcefulness of James Bond but none of the imperialism, sexism or playboy antics. This approach was refreshingly gritty and confronting and not surprisingly has heavily influenced the style of recent Bond films. The Bourne franchise struck a major
Read moreWith their emphasis on cgi spectacle and their failure to reproduce the wonderful indelible characters and philosophical story lines that made the TV series (particularly the original and the Next Generation) such a success, the Star Trek reboot films have often been an empty experience. The latest instalment in the series, Star Trek: Beyond is much the same although a
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