FILM: Tangled 3D (dirs: Nathan Greno and Byron Howard, 2011)

"Guys, I want a castle!"

Disney's 50th full-length animated feature is an absolute winner. The House of Mouse's first full CG fairytale is first of all a visual triumph, with its fantastic level of detail and 3D depth, with at least a couple of first-rate action sequences, and the 'releasing the lanterns' sequence is easily on a par with the ballroom scene in Beauty And The Beast for its sheer beauty and magic. The concept and script feels fresh and contemporary without feeling forced, a problem which plagued Disney's animated output in the 80s and 90s. It is a genuinely amusing film, with spirited and terrifically-judged voice performances from Mandy Moore as Rapunzel and Zachary (Chuck) Levi as her 'hero' Flynn Rider, and Donna Murphy creates Mother Gothel very strongly. The songs by Alan Menken and Glenn Slater are pure Broadway, but they emerge organically and work with the film effectively. There are sufficient nods to Disney's Golden Age to demonstrate its heritage (including, unfortunately, some questionable choices in terms of ethnicity and misogyny) , but Tangled is more than capable of holding its own in today's CG-animated marketplace and proves to be one of Disney's most entertaining and enjoyable animated features in many years.

FILM: How Do You Know (dir: James L. Brooks, 2011)

"Well, the bad days make the good days seem better, so don't worry."

How Do You Know is one of those puzzling rom-coms that is set on Planet Coincidence and is populated by characters who neither speak nor behave in any way remotely human. Veteran writer/director James L. Brooks returns with an unjustifiably expensive film that is over-long, over-written and generally unconvincing. Jack Nicholson makes surprisingly little impact, and Owen Wilson does pretty much what he always does. It is only the casting of Reese Witherspoon and Paul Rudd, two reliable and accomplished actors, that makes this film watchable, as they both miraculously wring out some credible and nicely-detailed performance moments from their remarkably silly characters.

FILM: John Carpenter's The Ward (dir: John Carpenter, 2011)

"Enough!"

"You can't be serious?"

The real thrill of this movie is to see John Carpenter's name above the title (in that font!) of a new movie in a cinema, nearly a decade after the distressingly disappointing Ghosts of Mars. This is far from Carpenter at his peak, and in some ways feels closest to his own film In The Mouth of Madness - although nowhere near as good - but as director-for-hire on this job he acquits himself efficiently, using the deliberately limited locations to good purpose, and the sub-genre 'psychiatric hospital with a ghost' conventions are duly in place (every night has a thunderstorm!). The film is hampered by a deeply below-average cast and a lightweight by-the-numbers script, of which the central conceit is so blindingly obvious and familiar from the outset that waiting for the inevitable resolution becomes incredibly tiresome. The shocks are of the loud-and-sudden variety rather than creating a sense of real menace, although one early 15-baiting image does surprise. Welcome back, Mr. Carpenter - but next time, better choice of material, please.

FILM: Black Swan (dir: Darren Aronofsky, 2011)

"You could be brilliant, but you're a coward."

Make no mistake: Black Swan is carried completely by Natalie Portman's extraordinary performance as 'sweet girl' ballerina Nina Sayers, whose whose fall into the dark side is exposed devastatingly in mostly harshly-lit and unforgiving medium and close-up shots for most of her screen time. There is much more to admire in this compelling drama, but Portman's utter mental and physical focus is truly admirable. She is surrounded by a number of notable performances, from Mila Kunis as the sexually-charged Lily and Vincent Cassel's sharp take on the company's manager to Barbara Hershey as Nina's tightly-wound over-protective mother. Indeed, the film's main themes of obsession and mental and physical punishment are pushed so far that the viewer suffers with Nina as the intensity spirals into oblivion. Aronofsky constructs another intelligent, dizzying visual and aural experience, with the camera constantly on the move and a harsh soundscape that mirrors the ongoing cracking of Nina's fragile world. The mise-en-scene is wintry and emotionally cold, filled with mirrors and broken glass which emphasises Nina's utter isolation and despair in the ballet world around which her entire life is centred. There are a couple of narrative leaps in the final act which fail to convince, and ironically - in a film about pushing oneself to the limits of experience - her ultimate breakdown holds back slightly from being potentially truly terrifying. Nevertheless, Black Swan is a wonderful and bold cinematic experience overall that grips every step of the way.

FILM: The King's Speech (dir: Tom Hooper, 2011)

"Your Majesty, I am speechless."

The King's Speech is utterly superb. Director Tom Hooper follows The Damned United with this wonderfully-crafted period piece, which is lovingly composed and beautifully constructed on screen. Helena Bonham-Carter, Geoffrey Rush and especially Colin Firth are at the top of their game and give outstanding performances which deserve fully every award thrown at them. They are supported by a raft of significant supporting performances from the likes of Timothy Spall, Jennifer Ehle, Michael Gambon and Guy Pearce, and Alexandre Desplat's musical score is subtle and sublime. Perhaps most surprising is that The King's Speech has far more genuinely funny lines than the average Hollywood 'comedy', balanced by the incredible depth of heart generated by Firth's performance and the central relationships with his wife and with his speech therapist. The packed cinema audience applauded at the end of the film, a true measure of just how affecting it is to watch.

FILM: The Green Hornet in 3D (dir: Michel Gondry, 2011)

"Where are we going?"

"I've no idea. I thought you knew."

The Green Hornet in 3D is an odd film - think The Dukes of Hazzard meets Iron Man and you're getting there - and it suffers because it does not quite seem to know exactly which audience it is targeting. It starts off promisingly, but very quickly the writing starts to veer between being sharp and amusing to flabby and turgid. The younger audience will love the slapstick (e.g. a nicely-staged extended argument fight) but also be unsettled by some of the more violent imagery on display. The relationship between Seth Rogen as Britt Reid a.k.a. The Green Hornet and Kato has a pleasing easy rapport, and Cameron Diaz is efficient as the exposition-spouting secretary. Although the film is generally amusing and entertaining, both the narrative and set-pieces increasingly jump-the-shark to the point that the final act becomes tiresome rather than gripping, and yet again the late 3D conversion is frequently shoddy and distractingly uneven.

FILM: 127 Hours (dir: Danny Boyle, 2011)

"Lesson: don't buy the cheap made-in-China multi-tools...."

One of the great achievements of Danny Boyle as a director is that he is not really concerned about genre but simply about great film-making from both technical and emotional points of view. With 127 Hours we are immediately moved from the large-canvas sweep of Slumdog to an intimate, tightly-focussed true-life scenario as adventurer Aron Ralston gets trapped by his arm in a freak boulder-fall in a remote crevasse in Utah over five days. As always with Boyle's films, 127 Hours is a technical triumph, using an array of technical conceits which dazzle and yet are controlled minutely in order to create such a satisfying cumulative effect, from the purposeful use of split screen to the aggressively foregrounded sound mix (even the sound of an ant crawling on skin is gripping). Playing Ralston, James Franco (one of the more interesting current twenty-something Hollywood actors) has most of the screen time to himself and absolutely nails the exuberance, self-realisation and sheer guts of the character, making his screen journey absorbing and engaging all the way through. The famous self-surgery sequence is quite brief but very intense, after which the audience's sense of relief and release matches that of the character on-screen. A.R.Rahman provides another stunning score, and as ever the choice of catalogue songs provides a brilliant mix of humour, pathos and nostalgia. Although 127 Hours is a very different story to Slumdog, Boyle's message seems similar: as individuals we are tiny specks in the expanse of time, space and even society, yet every human being has such extraordinary power and value, and that is what forms the heart of the wonderful achievement of this excellent film.

FILM: Gulliver's Travels 3D (dir: Rob Letterman, 2010)

"Don't look!"

This simplistic modern riff on the Swift classic is aimed squarely at the children's market and as a result is harmless, inoffensive and lightweight. Jack Black reins in his usual mugging to give a surprisingly sympathetic performance, as the child-friendly script gives him little opportunity to indulge in excessive dated pop-culture references and forced attempts at physical comedy. The supporting stalwart Brit cast (Billy Connolly, Catherine Tate, Emily Blunt, etc) play it just the right side of panto for the holiday season, and Jason Segel gives an unexpectedly good performance as Black's Lilliputian buddy Horatio. Where this film does score well is visually; use of camera and scale are both frequently interesting to see, even when the rather literal 3D rendering is harsh. Gulliver's Travels is neither exciting nor hilarious to sit through, but passes as well-made, "absolutely satisfactory" viewing that makes little impression overall.

DVD: Avatar - Extended Collector's Edition (dir: James Cameron, 2009)

"Sooner or later, though, you always have to wake up."

Avatar's second DVD release contains the first theatrical cut, the version shown in cinemas in Summer 2010 which was extended by 8 minutes, and this new edit which runs 16 minutes longer than the original. Like all of Cameron's extended versions, the re-instated footage makes for a slightly enriched experience but does not really add anything essential that was missing from the first-released cut - for example, the Earth-bound prologue adds little of consequence for context or character, and merely delays getting to Pandora. 3D was undoubtedly a huge part of the cinema viewing experience of Avatar, but for 2D home viewing the film still has considerable visual and emotional impact. Three main positive things stand out from watching the film again one year later: Sully's 'journey' is engaging throughout, the creation of a new world shows extraordinary depth and detail, and Sigourney Weaver creates another terrific character, both human and Na'avi. Apart from the occasional dialogue clunker, it is a great testament to Cameron and his actors that the true heart of this admittedly slight story cuts through all of the technology on show.