Cats the world over breathe a sigh of relief as Curiosity lands on Mars. What will the NASA rover tell us? What will it find? Dust? Martians? The tattered remains of John Carpenter’s dignity? We humans had a real thing for the fourth rock from the Sun in the late 90s, ushering in a host of dreadful films about Mars whose Wikipedia blurbs end with ‘a critical and commercial failure’.
In which Jon Snow still isn’t getting any.
Outback murderer forced to turn down role as ‘Policeman’ in film about a murder in the outback
It’s 2012. The planets are aligning; if you glance upwards into a star-filled sky, you’ll see Venus, Jupiter and Mars are all visible. If you read the Daily Mail, you’ll know that a “Death Star” has been seen “refueling” at the surface of the Sun (genuine news story). And, if you’re awesome, you’ll know that dystopian epic “The Hunger Games” is hitting cinemas everywhere. End of the world? Time for a drink then…
It’s a sniper showdown! Except that the characters are so one-dimensional that they may as well be shooting cardboard cut-outs at a shooting range.
It’s almost impressive, the way Nic Cage can go on relentlessly lowering the standard of his output the way he does. If you thought National Treasure: Book of Secrets was as bad as it was going to get, you still had Season of the Witch to look forward to. And then Trespass. And now Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, in which FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA’S NEPHEW MANAGES TO MAKE A FLAMING SKELETON BORING.
Underworld is back, and having tempted Kate Beckinsale back into the franchise’s trademark catsuit it isn’t long before she is jumping off of really tall buildings only to land silently as though nothing has changed. While this might still constitute somewhat of a return to form for the series, however, we are still left wondering how exactly it earned one sequel, let alone three.
Who knew that sci-fi films were allowed to be set outside New York City? Every timeworn trope of the ‘alien invasion’ genre beloved of Cold War screenwriters has hurdled the Iron Curtain and descended on Moscow for The Darkest Hour, a virtually irredeemable mess of contrived clichés, crap CGI and Cyrillic cignage. And some things that don’t begin with C (as well as some others that do which we can’t mention here – looking at you, Bekmambetov).
In Time is any studio exec’s dream. High-concept but easily simplified sci-fi, PLUS a distinctly un-futuristic set with just one really memorable visual tag which can be dragged out for all the posters, PLUS a plot point which means you can literally cast Olivia Wilde as Justin Timberlake’s mum? Gold, all of it. And the amazing thing is, In Time could have had all these and still been good. Unfortunately, twelve thousand temporal puns do not a watchable film make.
Snipe London
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