Disney’s Moana was a justifiable smash hit. A cute, charming and extremely visually inventive animated adventure that drew on the familiar Disney trope of the feisty but sensitive young woman going on a journey of self-discovery. It was distinguished, however, by its South Pacific island setting (the fictitious island of Motonui) and its references to Polynesian history, culture and mythology.
Read moreAs if eight inexplicably popular movies, in the mind-numbing Fast and Furious franchise weren’t enough, the series, like a mutant beast, has sprouted another limb in the form of the ludicrous but not particularly fun spinoff, Hobbs and Shaw. This film is as punishingly loud, soulless, chaotic and utterly preposterous as previous instalments in the franchise, even though it moves
Read moreIt will be obvious to anyone who has seen the trailer that Skyscraper is really just a remake of the 1988 Bruce Willis film Die Hard as once again an intrepid, resourceful and apparently indestructible hero battles evil terrorists in a towering building. The hero in this case is security assessor and former FBI agent Will Sawyer (Dwayne ‘The Rock’
Read moreLike many of the nerd persuasion I would stay up to ungodly hours as a kid to watch a zero-budgeted Japanese movie in which Kong fought a giant cockroach. It’s in this fine cinematic tradition that we now have films like Rampage, ludicrous guilty pleasure monster fests but with a bigger budget than the old Kaiju films and CGI replacing the
Read moreSan Andreas is an old school disaster movie cliché fest. It’s basically a remake of the questionable 1974 film Earthquake just with better effects, less interesting characters and few nods to recent real life disasters such as 911, Hurricane Katrina and the Fukushima earthquake. Set in California the film plays on the well-established fear that the San Andreas Fault, which
Read moreThe Fast and the Furious films have always been ludicrous but the latest instalment Furious 7 is as implausible and ridiculous as a Michael Bay film. Never have so many bad guys with machine guns shot so inaccurately, never have so many people survived savage beatings, back-breaking falls, missile attacks and car wrecks that would pulverise a normal human being.
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