FILM: The Skin I Live In (dir: Pedro Almodovar, 2011)

"The things a madman's love can do!"

The Skin I Live In may bring to mind Eyes Without A Face and the cool control of classic Hitchcock and Cronenberg, but this film is unmistakably Almodovar and one of his best.  It is sumptuously filmed, seductively smooth and leads the viewer calmly through its audacious, shocking and smart narrative, so that even the most outrageous plot twists become acceptable.  Almodovar's key themes - family, identity, gender, the bearer of the look - are interwoven seamlessly in this fascinating and bizarre tale, even if the issues raised are ultimately placed to service another of the director's tragic melodramatic outcomes.  Performances are terrific across the board, with Banderas proving that he is still capable of so much more than Hollywood children's fodder.  The Skin I Live In suits Almodovar perfectly, and he delivers a beautifully-constructed film that delivers real horror in an understated and exquisite manner. 

FILM: Conan The Barbarian 3D (dir: Marcus Nispel, 2011)

"Conan?  That's it?"

Nispel's latest workman-like re-imagining does little to add to the 80s sword-and-sorcery efforts - it is more gritty, less camp and less cartoonish - and it certainly ticks all the genre boxes, with plenty of digital squelch and blood for today's audience.  This is a painfully simple revenge tale which consequently holds no narrative surprises, coupled with very basic characters, yet it merrily zips along from one set piece to the next leading to a berserk showdown at the end.  Jason Mamoa gives the title character imposing physicality and glowers a lot, and Stephen Lang and Rose McGowan are passable as one-dimensional baddies.  There is some excellent location shooting and design, and the soundscape is created to very good effect, including a suitably epic score by Tyler Bates that throws in the soaring heavenly choirs and the orchestral kitchen sink.  However, this film displays some of the most uneven post-3D-conversion work since The Green Hornet, which can be distractingly disappointing at times.  Conan The Barbarian 2011 is lively and well-mounted but ultimately does little that is new or truly engaging.

FILM: One Day (dir: Lone Scherfig, 2011)

"That's a very serious face.  You're not having a wee, are you?"

Scherfig's follow-up to the excellent An Education is as pleasing visually but is a considerably shallower affair.  The novel's conceit of revisiting the same day each year over twenty years works surprisingly well on screen - an one of the simple pleasures of the film is the varied appearances of the animated datelines - and the short, episodic nature of the narrative gives the otherwise thin material some drive.   Jim Sturgess gives a terrific performance as Dexter and handles his character's arc extremely well, but Anne Hathaway seems mis-cast as Emma and her work varies wildly from scene to scene (and not just the accent).  The dialogue in the early scenes is insufferably smug and self-consciously witty, but the film does gain more emotional sensibility as it progresses.  One Day is a cynically female-targeted film - all men are wrecks who rely on women, Sturgess gets his shirt off a lot - and lacks real depth and conviction overall.

FILM: Final Destination 5 3D (dir: Steven Quayle, 2011)

"I'm surprised I'm here at all."

Thanks to the power of box office, The Final Destination proved to be not so conclusive after all, and this fifth entry is a big improvement on its predecessor.  3D is used very effectively, from the typical poke-you-in-the-eye gags to the creation of considerable and purposefully-used depth in the excellent opening set-piece set on a suspension bridge.  This movie has two main strengths: a script which treads a very fine line between knowing awareness of the franchise and taking the events seriously, plus the strongest ensemble cast since the first sequel, with Nicholas D'Agosto making an assured and sympathetic lead.  The Final Destination franchise is in danger of becoming the new Saw, in which the audience is only waiting for the next outrageous death, but here there is a good mix of sudden shocks and suspensefully drawn-out tension.  The new kill-or-be-killed narrative twist is a positive move if played out rather late in the film, and the way that this movie finds its place in the franchise mythos as a whole is done in a very clever and satisfying way.  As a fifth installment, it may not hit the heights of Fast & Furious 5, but Final Destination 5 is a solid and entertaining formula horror.

FILM: The Guard (dir: John Michael McDonagh, 2011)

"This is better than f**king Christmas!"

If you 'get' this style of film, you will know within the first couple of minutes that you are going to love The Guard.  Apt comparisons have been made to In Bruges and Father Ted, and writer/director McDonagh has indeed nailed the maniacal boredom and resignation to everyday life on display here, but the tone is more Twin Peaks than Hot Fuzz.  A lot of 'fish out of water' and 'mismatched cops' cliches are utilised, but with the characters' knowing and self-deprecating dialogue and dead-pan delivery, the players and the unfolding story remain interesting throughout.  Brendan Gleeson strides through this movie as Garda officer Gerry Boyle with incredible strength and wit, matched by an impeccably-delivered turn by Don Cheadle as the visiting FBI agent and Mark Strong clearly relishing his role as a world-weary drug dealer.  Even the piquant sub-plot featuring Boyle's cancer-stricken mother (played by the superb Fionnula Flanagan) is handled with great honesty rather than sentimentality.  The Guard is a clever, exquisitely-handled and beautifully-performed film that is truly satisfying and maintains its high quality throughout.

FILM: Spy Kids: All The Time In The World in 4D (dir: Robert Rodriguez, 2011)

"Our stepmother's a SPY?"
"Impossible.  She's not cool enough."

It is remarkable that Rodriguez continues to extend the Spy Kids franchise, and this quasi-reboot prolongs it for another round.  For a long time, the script of Spy Kids 4 is so anodyne that it leaves little impression, until plot overload kicks in for the finale.  As always, the Spy Kids films work best when they acknowledge that they are nothing more than live-action cartoons, and there are a couple of nice sight and sound gags here, together with some useful and interesting (3D) design.  The original 'kids' are here looking much older, and the new generation (the stepchildren) appear to improve as the film progresses.  Jessica Alba and Joel McHale are bland parental leads, whilst Ricky Gervais provides a little bite as the talking dog.  The dialogue contains more clunky time-related puns than could be squeezed into a 1960s Batman episode, meaningless to the target audience but irritating for the adult viewer.  There is a reason why the scratch-'n'-sniff  '4D Aroma-Scope' gimmick has never caught on: it simply doesn't work, and apart from a couple of the 'sweets' smells on the card provided for viewing this film, the weak and similar scents simply distract from watching the film.  This is another harmless, colourful and innocuous entry in the Spy Kids series that - box office permitting - will simply run and run.

FILM: The Inbetweeners Movie (dir: Ben Palmer, 2011)

"How's this for a wet look, then?"

The Inbetweeners Movie is adequately entertaining, getting by on the goodwill built up over the three TV series for its four main characters, whilst sadly failing to avoid some of the usual pitfalls of the transition from TV to big screen.  It does have good typical gross-out and embarrassing moments and serves the main characters well, but very little actually happens over the course of the film, suggesting that the screenplay was perhaps a little rushed to capitalise on the TV version's peaking success and to use the ageing and increasingly successful actors whilst they can still play the characters with some conviction.  Indeed, The Inbetweeners Movie feels more like a TV special than a movie, as it adds very little that is cinematic to the experience, and it does retain the show's almost gentle regard for the characters. Neil is undoubtedly a superb comic and acting creation; Joe Thomas as Simon remains the best performer overall;  Will is actually allowed a little character development; and James Buckley gives Jay some very nice character moments, most notably when trying to muscle in on an older, 'cooler' gang.  The four female counterparts that the lads encounter are all played excellently, giving the boys' character 'arcs' more strength.  It is a shame that the movie simply peters out rather than giving a strong ending.  Just as the four women in Sex and the City are supposed to represent four aspects of the typical woman, the four characters in The Inbetweeners could act similarly as representing the archetypal male Sixth Form student, and whilst the movie does not serve any real additional purpose to the satisfying TV finale, it is passable Summer holiday entertainment, and it does finally unite these four disparate friends with a one purposeful final message: appreciate what is right there in front you.

FILM: Cowboys & Aliens (dir: Jon Favreau, 2011)

"I told you not to call her that."

Whilst last year's True Grit remake was able to sell itself on being an authentic and iconic film property with the direction by the Coen Brothers thrown in for good measure, this comic-book-inspired Alien franchise/spaghetti Western/abduction mash-up was always going to be a tougher sell to the mass market, as its soft U.S. opening showed.  Indeed, the fact that there is much more Western than Sci-Fi on screen may make the movie a challenging experience for younger viewers, but therein lies the movie's strength.  The Western elements are established very effectively, with good-looking design, wonderful hard-bitten performances by Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford as amnesiac 'stranger' and town leader respectively (with notable character work by Clancy Brown and Sam Rockwell) and Favreau's usual strong direction and attention to detail.  The action beats are brief but enjoyable, and the violence is very direct for the 12A rating, yet the whole affair feels strangely low-key and small-scale.  The script is tight and well-structured, if a little clinical in terms of plot progression.  Cowboys & Aliens as a concept is of course utterly daft, but on its own terms, this movie is solidly entertaining and to a reasonable extent delivers on the ideas it offers.

FILM: The Devil's Double (dir: Lee Tamahori, 2011)

"I will never let you go.  I will never let you go, mmm?  I love you too much."

This remarkable tale of the House of Hussein in late 80s Iraq, shown through Saddam's son Uday (with his Scarface-style descent into excess and madness) and his enforced body double, gives director Tamahori possibly his best film to date.  The conceit of having Dominic Cooper play both lead characters works fantastically, with two excellent individual performances by Cooper and the interaction between the two contrasting characters utterly convincing and showing remarkable nuance (only a couple of poor head-paste shots in one scene stick out), with many excellent supporting performances on show throughout.   The beautiful cinematography is mostly bathed in a sumptuous golden tint, a bleached palette introduced for scenes in which the atrocities occur.  Christian Henson provides the film with an intriguing score which augments many scenes effectively.  There are moments which truly shock, but there is an overall feeling that the film merely touches the surface - the arcs of both of Cooper's characters are complementary and well-handled, but the film sadly fails to deliver an explicitly strong pay-off that both the movie and the audience deserve.  Nevertheless, this is a strong, interesting and bold film, elevated by Dominic Cooper's superb and challenging work.

FILM: The Smurfs 3D (dir: Raja Gosnell, 2011)

"What do you get if you cross a Smurf with a cow?"
"Blue cheese."

With a storyline reminiscent of Enchanted, the Smurfs are transported from their village (charmingly realised in the opening scenes) to New York in this predictable but gently entertaining adventure.  The movie is well shot and effectively directed, and the integration of CG Smurfs and live-action works very well throughout.  3D looks fantastic in the city scenes but is inessential.  Hank Azaria delivers a mildly-evil Gargamel, and Neil Patrick Harris and Jayma Mays use their comedic experience well as the couple who look after the Smurfs - Harris's reaction on finding the Smurfs still in his flat the morning after their arrival is priceless.  Even if the relentless replacing of words with 'smurf' rapidly becomes annoying, The Smurfs is harmless, simple, well-made and shows some real thought has been put into it.

FILM: Horrid Henry The Movie in 3D (dir: Nick Moore, 2011)

"Don't even think about laughing."

From the hit series of books and TV shows, Horrid Henry The Movie stretches the concept woefully over an hour-and-a-half.  The C-List Brit-comedians adult cast mug shamelessly in hysterical panto style (with Richard E. Grant and Rebecca Front emerging relatively unscathed, as Angelica Huston's interesting Scottish accent wanders), whilst most of the child actors - apart from a relentlessly spirited but irritating Theo Stevenson as Henry - are generally weak.  The meagre script criminally forgets to be funny - the only real response from the children in the audience came when Henry picks his nose and flicks it at the audience - and even the use of Glee-style musical numbers is abandoned after the first half-hour.  The excellent 3D - a first for a UK live-action children's film - is a surprising positive aspect in this disappointing movie, which completely pales in comparison with the Diary Of A Wimpy Kid films. 

FILM: Rise of the Planet of the Apes (dir: Rupert Wyatt, 2011)

"Hold on.....What the -?"

Of all the big movies of Summer 2011, Rise of the Planet of the Apes stands head-and-shoulders above the general sea of lame comedies, exhausted franchises and mediocre super-heroes - and to say that is a complete surprise.  It was interesting to observe how the indifference to the announcement of the project and the first bland trailer gave way to sudden interest at the much sharper second trailer, and the resulting film ultimately exceeds all expectations.  Rupert Wyatt may not have seemed an obvious directorial choice for this project, but he controls the developing story superbly, from the seamless moving forward of time to the carefully-controlled and often imaginative use of camera.  The film is packed throughout with wonderful moments, from big-scale rich visuals to small character details.  James Franco makes an excellent lead, proving that with the right direction and focus he can deliver, John Lithgow is touching as his Alzheimer's-afflicted father, with solid support from the rest of the (human) cast with their limited roles.  The trump card is the fact that this is Caesar's story from start to finish, and the audience is able to invest in this emotionally not only because of another stunning mo-cap performance by Andy Serkis and the mostly-seamless CGI, but also because of the skillful script that tells his story from infancy which treads a fine line between his 'human' and simian development.  There are a couple of nicely-placed nods to the original film, but Rise of... has its own style and a clear contemporary take on the mythos.  Stay in your seat for a rather obvious sequel-setting scene after the main closing credits, and a second film will be most welcome if it maintains the standard of this entertaining, intelligent and well-realised movie.

DVD: Super (dir: James Gunn, 2011)

"You don't see them getting bored in comic books."
"That's what happens between the panels."

It is easy to see why this low-budget project attracted such a top-notch cast, as writer/director James Gunn takes another genre and gives it his own bizarre, leftfield and irresistible take.  The 'culture of speed' that Gunn created on set -borne out of budget-constrained necessity but also of his own creative approach - plus the guerrilla-style visuals give the film tremendous energy and impact.  Timing means that most viewers will see this following Kick-Ass and make inevitable comparisons, but whereas Kick-Ass revelled in its stylised comic-book sheen, Super is determinedly grounded, in spite of its weird-out moments (such as Frank's brain literally touched by the finger of God, voiced by Rob Zombie!).  As a result, this very human (and adult) take on super-hero conventions provides superbly relatable characters and abundant humour - the riff on Superman's costume-change is perfect, for example.  There has been criticism of the level of violence presented, but its explicitness merely highlights appropriately that the actions presented have real-world physical consequences.  Rainn Wilson gives a staggeringly heartfelt and hilarious performance as Frank/The Crimson Bolt, Ellen Page is a joy as his desperate manic side-kick wanabee Boltie, Liv Tyler is a revelation as Frank's estranged wife and Kevin Bacon delivers yet another great character performance (not forgetting an unrecognisable Nathan Fillion as The Holy Avenger!).  The uber-violence escalates into a Grand Guignol finale, but the film's closing scenes are utterly beautiful and heartbreaking, highlighting the true heart and humanity that make Super such a wonderful film.

DVD: Battle Of Los Angeles (dir: Mark Atkins, 2011)

"Guess we found out what we're dealing with, huh?"

Battle Of Los Angeles is another redundant mockbuster from The Asylum, but even by their standards this is a weak entry.  The template here is clearly Independence Day rather than Battle: Los Angeles, and whilst the very low-end CGI scuppers the big visual shots of the mother spaceship, some simpler effects of the small fighter ships attacks are integrated reasonably well.  A well-developed music score injects some energy, but a very weak script and dull pacing of its dialogue weaken the film overall.   This movie's blast-from-the-past actors feature Nia Peeples (TV's Fame) and Kel Mitchell (of Kenan and Kel!), who do their best with the limited opportunities available here.  Lacking the daft fun of the studio's monster mash-ups, Battle Of Los Angeles comes across as cheap, unnecessary and uninteresting to watch.

FILM: Super 8 (dir: JJ Abrams, 2011)

"Production values!"

That Super 8 is a love-letter to early Spielberg is without question.  This is no slavish homage, however; by taking the simplicity of storytelling and emotional clarity of those movies such as E.T. and Close Encounters, Abrams has fashioned a film that deftly marries shocks with sweetness, innocence with experience and an honest exploration of themes such as grief, friendship and coming-of-age.  The end of the 70s is lovingly created (Heart of Glass sounds brilliant on a Walkman, even if the equipment has to be explained for the modern audience!) and provides a setting for the children's adventures that would not quite ring as true in contemporary times.  Although the first half is more credible and convincing than the later stages of the movie,  the gang of children have a joy, openness and energy that runs through the film, with Joel Courtney and Elle Fanning in particular giving performances of pleasing strength and depth.  Trademark lens flares make an appearance, and Abrams has created another movie with real characters, heart and spectacle - if nothing else, the extraordinary train wreck that sets events in motion (rather like the aeroplane crash that opened Lost) is worth the price of admission.  By eschewing 3D and producing a non-franchise Summer movie, Super 8 shows how going back to the basics of commercial film are all that are needed - when done as well as this - to entertain successfully.

FILM: The First Avenger - Captain America 3D (dir: Joe Johnston, 2011)

"I'm Captain America!"
"I beg your pardon?"

Marvel's latest addition to its Avengers set-up cycle thankfully slots into its universe organically, reaping the benefit of its wonderfully-realised 1940s setting and using clever bookends to position its lead in the modern era as well.  Chris Evans gives a remarkably humble performance as Steve Rogers on his journey from (rather spookily-created) weakling to vacuous celebrity to super-soldier, Tommy Lee Jones gets all the best lines and delivers them with his trademark dry sarcasm, Dominic Cooper works well as Stark Snr and - in yet another male-dominated superhero movie - Hayley Atwell proves to be a strong presence, forging a nicely-played Top Gun-style McGillis/Cruise relationship with Evans.  3D is used well to provide an effective sense of huge scale, with the story's comic pulp origins being mined stylistically to good purpose throughout.  Joe Johnston's direction is assured, but - like his last film, The Wolfman - the whole enterprise would benefit from a little more pace and energy to truly engage emotionally and pack more punch.

FILM: Mister Popper's Penguins (dir: Mark Waters, 2011)

"There's nothing wrong with a man who recycles."

Alarm bells ring in the opening scenes, as Jim Carrey falls quickly into his dated manic gurning schtick, but do not be put off - what follows is a simple, sweet children's entertainment, sustained by three main elements: cute comedy penguins, a performance by Jim Carrey that showcases both his comic timing and genuine dramatic ability, and strong direction by Mark Walters which gives the film just sufficient edge to the general fluffiness (which he achieved similarly with The Spiderwick Chronicles). The wintry New York backdrop is beautifully shot (if slightly misplaced for a movie released at the height of Summer), and the unsurprising unfolding of events pass by fairly breezily.  Mister Popper's Penguins is also (justifiably) the first film that I can remember to bear a BBFC warning for 'flatulence jokes'!