FILM: Prisoners (dir: Denis Villeneuve, 2013)

"Everything matters."

It starts off with a deer getting shot in a chilly winter wood to a recitation of The Lord's Prayer, and then proceeds to find progressively darker levels of utter bleakness as this familiar but very well-made tale unfolds.  Prisoners is on the surface an odd mix of almost forensically-clinical raw emotion in the style of Atom Egoyan and some tepid torture-porn for the arthouse crowd, but the extended running time enables the stark end-of-year visuals (courtesy of Roger Deakins) and the very deliberate pacing to grip the viewer and for the uniformly high-quality performances to breathe - indeed, for Jackman and Gyllenhaal, this may prove to be some of their finest character work.  The only major flaw is that Gyllenhaal's detective with an outstanding record fails to connect the most two obvious clues that could not be more foregrounded, but overall this is a supremely effective kidnap/thriller and marks Villeneuve as a director to watch.

FILM: Girl Most Likely (dirs: Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, 2013)

"So......yeah...."

Girl Most Likely looks like it aims to be a quirky screwball comedy and fails dismally on all three counts.  Poor Kristen Wiig tries to wring something - anything - out of the woefully insubstantial material but even with her talent so many lines and scenes tail off into nothing, Annette Bening simply looks lost, Matt Dillon's role is at best ridiculous, and even though Darren Criss makes a reasonable stab at the only vaguely believable character in the whole film he is little more than female-fantasy cougar-totty.  The daftness and lack of credibility of the situations, coupled with resolutely unengaging characters across the board who are hard to warm to, make this a truly bemusing and vapid viewing experience.

FILM: R.I.P.D. 3D (dir: Robert Schwentke, 2013)

"Expected more?"

This potential franchise-starter falls short of the mark and is a rather dispiriting watch.  Its obvious mash-up of Men In Black, The Frighteners, Ghostbusters, Dragnet and many more is not the main problem, as most big Hollywood committee movies are as equally derivative these days;  however, this movie take on R.I.P.D. seems to have no idea what its target audience is, and consequently just about everything - direction, performances, plot, humour, creature design - lack consistency and purpose.  At times the material screams out for a serious, gritty tone to be maintained and at others pure family farce, but instead turns what could have been either an inspired Pirates Of the Caribbean-styled romp or a strong action-fantasy fest into a somewhat uninspired and flat drag.  Ryan Reynolds is charmless and uninteresting - he is no Will Smith - Jeff Bridges replays Rooster Cogburn in dour fashion and is never really allowed to fly, Kevin Bacon is as reliable as ever but his role is underdeveloped, and Mary-Louise Parker is the only real stand-out with enjoyable timing and delivery.  Children in the cinema audience were chuckling quite a lot, but by aiming for safe middle ground, this movie is a disappointingly missed opportunity.

FILM: Insidious Chapter 2 (dir: James Wan, 2013)

"Is there something wrong with daddy, mom?"

Chapter 2 picks up from the original film and runs off in ridiculous directions - some interesting and effective, others just plain bizarre, referencing a whole range of genre glories from Poltergeist to Psycho.  The wheels seem to fall of the plot quite early but, with a lot of forgiving, it miraculously all comes together at the end.  Performances are mostly solid (but won't be troubling the Academy voters next year), although the actors have to battle with largely lacklustre dialogue.  The new generation of viewers will at least be acquainted with a range of possession/haunted house clichés, from Paranormal-style repeated motifs that strain tolerance to old-fashioned nicely-set-up in-camera effects, but there is one superb shock (and shocking) sequence about a third of the way through that demonstrates the real potential here that is generally not displayed elsewhere.  It is all very silly and would barely be tolerable if it had been released for the Halloween season, but Chapter 2 is more interesting than the original, even if the laughter-inducing final scene set-up for the next instalment ends the film on a rather easy-to-dismiss note.

FILM: Rush (dir: Ron Howard, 2013)

"Goes like the clappers!"

Even if the events are well known, Ron Howard has fashioned a gripping and wonderfully-made movie about the rivalry of racedrivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda in the 1970s.  Storytelling is tight and economical, and Howard applies the same energy and drive to both the race-track sequences and dialogue scenes to very good effect, creating a relentless and engaging pace.  Although characters are drawn quite simplistically for movie purposes, there are a number of wonderful performances, but the two leads are exceptional: Chris Hemsworth gives the passionate and impulsive Hunt swagger and enough depth, and Daniel Bruhl gives the uptight, steely Lauda a crucial dose of humanity.  The racing scenes are created superbly, with Lauda's horrifying crash and the insane Japanese season finale quite extraordinary.  Whilst sold as 'The James Hunt Story', it is the clever interweaving of both Hunt and Lauda's stories and points of view that give the movie real strength, and the inevitable final shots of the men themselves are effectively poignant and a fitting pay-off to an immensely successful piece of film-making.

FILM: White House Down (dir: Roland Emmerich, 2013)

"You just killed the Secretary of Defense."
"Well, he wasn't doing a very good job."

White House Down is a better movie than Olympus Has Fallen, but it is not without its problems.  Indeed, the ultimate White House siege movie would fall somewhere between the two, if it could have Roland Emmerich's storytelling sensibility and the consistently gritty approach of Olympus. Nevertheless, White House Down is an utterly preposterous and yet very entertaining ride with what is an obvious Die Hard scenario (which would have been perfect for McClane and his granddaughter).  Channing Tatum is as committed and watchable as ever - see him wield a toaster with menace - especially in the (generally strong) action scenes, and James Woods and Maggie Gyllenhaal do pleasing work.  It is good to see Emmerich applying his usual well-controlled bombast to a rather straight actioner to good effect.  However, there is a significant lack of consistency of tone, which switches dramatically and unjustifiably in an instant, and there is a lot of wry and very funny humour which frequently undermines tension and dramatic weight.  (It can, however, boast one of the most hilarious lines of recent times delivered brilliantly - wait for Donnie The Tour Guide 'clocking' a bad guy).  That such a daft movie can almost recover from jumping the shark (the car chase on the White House lawn) as the stakes keep getting raised is to its credit, but as a piece of popcorn entertainment White House Down passes a couple of hours well.

FILM: About Time (Richard Curtis, 2013)

"I've got plenty of time."

It starts off as another worryingly very-Curtis very-Four Weddings type of film (ridiculous upper-middle-class characters living totally non-credible lives), but quickly About Time develops into something rather wistful and impressively beautiful as a thoughtful meditation on life, family and relationships.    The central time-travel conceit is introduced very quickly and simply, and it is ironic that for a film that has a nonsensical idea that drives the narrative, About Time is probably the Curtis film that shows the most heart, honesty and grounding.  The film packs in a lot of ideas and set-ups - some expected, some far less so - and it is uniformly exquisitely written, directed and performed (even just about getting away with an 'in the dark' restaurant scene).  Domhnall Gleeson proves to be an utterly watchable and superbly precise actor, Rachel McAdams is simply wonderful, Bill Nighy gives one of his most nuanced performances, and even the subsidiary characters hit the target.  The final scenes are emotional belters, and the film ends on a deeply satisfying note, not only validating this lovely film but also life itself, which is quite a feat.

FILM: Riddick IMAX (dir: David Twohy, 2013)

"Where did you get that theory from?  A unicorn's ass?"

Ignoring the bloated space-opera of The Chronicles..., like its title suggests, Riddick is basically a stripped-down back-to-basics Pitch Black 2 that is reasonably enjoyable but falls sort the character development/interest and delicious tension of the original.  There are three distinct acts: the first, how Riddick survives on the planet on which he has been abandoned (with a half-hearted explanation of how he came to be there), and it is to Diesel's credit that he maintains viewer interest; the second, a by-the-numbers Riddick vs. anonymous bounty-hunters; and finally, a moderate re-tread of Pitch Black's night monsters, here summoned by a massive rainstorm.  The mid-low budget is used wisely but not always convincingly, the music score does not impress, and apart some killer one-liners the dialogue is generally quite awful.  Nevertheless, Diesel makes the character of Riddick very watchable, and there are some flashes of real creativity and style which are sadly not sustained.  It is also another Summer of 2013 movie that would have benefited from being shorn of at least twenty minutes (especially in the mid-section) which would have made the film slicker and more dynamic overall.

FILM: Pain & Gain (dir: Michael Bay, 2013)

"For real?"

Pain & Gain plays as a glossy Hollywood teen-boy fantasy, which jars with the fact that it is "unfortunately" based on a true crime story, of which the viewer is regularly reminded.  It is recognisably Michael Bay - the walk-away-from-an-explosion shot, the silhouetted-against-a-sunset shot, more low-angle shots than should be legally allowed - but this utterly preposterous caper is told with energy and verve.  Anthony Mackie, Dwayne Johnson and Mark Wahlberg play it straight and are often hilariously dumb and they are clearly (and infectiously) having a ball, and there is very strong support from Tony Shalhoub, Ed Harris and Rob Corddry.  At times the script could do with some work, but it is all delivered at such breakneck speed that weaker moments of dialogue soon get left behind, although the multiple narrators' voice-overs are a little intrusive.  Steve Jablonsky provides a terrific score, at times very aptly retro-Moroder/Jan Hammer. 
Get past the uber-macho and pro-USA posturing that riddles the film, and you are left with a ridiculous and entertaining caper whose real-life basis nevertheless leaves a somewhat guilty feeling.