FILM: The Purge - Anarchy (dir: James DeMonaco, 2014)

"Tonight we will write our message in blood."

The Purge - Anarchy is the best John Carpenter film that John Carpenter never made.  If last year's home-invasion original was Assault on Precinct 13, the sequel touches on Escape From New York as the premise of Purge Night is expanded to follow an unsurprisingly mis-matched band of people stranded outside on the night when all crime becomes legal.  Where this sequel scores is the mix of melancholy and uneasy threat (reminiscent at times of Monsters) with relentless and visceral action allied to a script that is spare, taut and very well-crafted.  Frank Grillo is great in a well-deserved lead, and credit is due to Carmen Ejogo as his female civilian foil.  Tension is maintained from the outset, the retro synth-led score is terrific and some surprises are introduced successfully along the way.  Although widened out to the city and beyond, it appears that few people actually partake in the purging, but this is mostly a consequence of the very effective maintaining of focus on this limited band of people and their story.  Anarchy shows that this is the little franchise that could, and a proposed third entry will need to work very hard to maintain this level of quality and entertainment.

FILM: Earth To Echo (dir: Dave Green, 214)

"Did your phone barf yet?"

It has taken some time for the found-footage genre to hit the children's market, and although Earth To Echo uses every cliché in the book of that style, its hyperactive approach and two likeable leads (a third is quite weak, and a girl is shoehorned in to very little purpose other than widening the demographic) makes it reasonably successful.  Idiot Plot is pushed to the limit with bemusing results, especially as the action takes place over one night, but special effects are used sparingly yet effectively to have impact and to keep the film reasonably grounded under the circumstances.  It shamelessly cribs from E.T. (and Chronicle, and The Blair Witch Project, and so on....), but overall Earth To Echo passable fare for the younger audience.

FILM: Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes 3D (dir: Matt Reeves, 2014)

"They're talking apes!  With big-ass spears!"

Just as Rise Of... was an unexpectedly high-quality re-boot, Dawn Of... raises the bar and delivers an absolutely terrific film.  As a big Studio Summer tent-pole, this is an extraordinarily brave, thoughtful and emotionally-engaging movie.  One of the master-strokes is positioning the viewer to the apes' point of view right from the start, which provides some thought-provoking responses to situations and divides audience loyalties between the human survivors and the apes.  The physical creations of the apes' woodland home and the nature-ravaged city are wonderful, and Weta's CGI/mo-cap creature creations are (almost without exception) phenomenal and can be seen as another leap forward in the craft.  Serkis (as Caesar) and Kebbell (as war-mongering ape Koba) are able to give real and hugely effective performances, and the humans (Jason Clartke, Gary Oldman, Keri Russell, Kodi Smit-McPhee) do fine work in a largely sombre, meditative and occasionally surprisingly brutal story.  Matt Reeves repeats the combination of control and creativity he showed as director of Let Me In to great effect, and Michael Giacchino pulls off yet another wonderful score.  Dawn Of... is easily one of the strongest films of 2014 and proves to be an immensely satisfying film to watch.

FILM: Boyhood (dir: Richard Linklater, 2014)

"Life doesn't give you bumpers."

Linklater always excels at handling character and relationships, and Boyhood is one of his very best.   As a viewer, it is necessary to remind oneself occasionally that this is not a documentary, so overwhelmingly convincing is the USP of watching Ellar Coltrane as Mason Jnr grow up over a dozen years (alongside Linklater's own daughter as Mason's older sister) with terrific supporting character performances led by Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette as the estranged parents, who also handle their roles development over time superbly.  The movie's biggest gamble - the casting of the likeable Coltrane and investing in his development over the years - pays off beautifully, as the audience initially basks in the glow of a nostalgic (but not perfect) childhood before the harsh reality of spousal abuse hits home in a sudden shocking scene, and the ensuing awkward teenage years are negotiated honestly and with thoughtfulness.  A couple of early scenes feel somewhat staged, perhaps owing to the lead's very young age, but the director does not spoon-feed the audience, allowing the transitions of passage of time from year to year to flow naturally on-screen, marked by the simple reality of physical and fashion changes.  The soundtrack aptly reflects the changing 2000s and the whole lo-fi faux-indie middle-class experience reflected here, but the successful characterisations drive this hugely engaging movie. The film acts as a pertinent and thought-provoking reminder of the impact of adults on children's lives and the inherent potential of every child.  For the adults, Arquette's final pay-off is something of a brutal slap-in-the-face, but for teenagers Boyhood is a massively reassuring and optimistic film.

FILM: Transformers - Age Of Extinction IMAX 3D (dir: Michael Bay, 2014)

"You think you were born.  No.  You were built."

In spite of an effort to introduce some different story elements and pull back on the awful comedy, Transformers 4 retains all the triumphs and flaws of the previous outings.  It has to be remembered that this franchise is basically giant robots beating the nuts-and-bolts out of each other to entertain nine-year-old boys, and on that level it succeeds, as the robots are again superbly realised, with the brief addition of the Dinobots as a plot (and merchandising) opportunity, but even then this over-long and meandering film runs out of steam before the end.  Mark Wahlberg is a reliable and reassuring screen presence as always (The Happening aside), and the father-daughter dynamic with Nicola Peltz provides a little more credibility and grounding than Shia LeBoeuf's unlikely relationships in the earlier movies, although as her 'secret' boyfriend Jack Reynor makes very little impression.  The first half is flabby, the story wanders all over the place, characters are intermittently developed (with the disappearance of Sophia Myles for most of the mid-section being very perplexing) and plot-holes and a lack of logic abound, yet there is a real sense of trying to reference the earlier events in the trilogy - especially Dark Of the Moon - and also to move forward.  Maybe there really is nowhere else for these stories to go, but if you want a big noisy visual feast, this franchise at least still delivers on that score.

FILM: How To Train Your Dragon 2 IMAX 3D (dir: Dean Deblois, 2014)

"You just keep doing what you're doing..."

This follow-up to the very enjoyable 2010 movie is every bit as delightful and does what a good sequel does - it moves on (and forwards - five years in fact, with Hiccup now a floppy-fringed older teen) and increases the narrative and emotional stakes considerably to very good purpose.  The voice cast truly delivers; Baruchel is great, and noticeably aided by the ongoing improvements in animated lip-synching/movement on-screen, although Blanchett's accent proves interesting.  The standard and employment of animation, 3D and lighting techniques are all astounding here, and John Powell provides another excellent, soaring score.  That Dreamworks has managed to get this franchise so right is to their credit - we can only hope that they do not Shrek up the third episode.  Dragon 2 is not only a hugely successful sequel, it is also one of the strongest and most enjoyable films of 2014 .

FILM: Tammy (dir: Ben Falcone, 2014)

"I didn't MEAN 'thank you'."
"I didn't MEAN 'you're welcome'."

In this alarming female-cross-generational-road-trip movie scenario in which Susan Sarandon plays Allison Janney's mother and Melissa McCarthy's grandmother (!), Tammy is a very broad generic comedy that relies too much on its star's loud mugging and physicality to drown out some interesting ideas in order to appeal to a mainstream audience.  Sarandon (as expected) relishes the role of the vice-embracing pensioner, McCarthy always works better in the quieter moments, and Kathy Bates scene-steals supremely as the lesbian cousin.  It is a shame that the potentially sweet burgeoning relationship between the reserved Bobby (an excellent Mark Duplass) and Tammy is not given more screen time, as these are the points that the movie really breathes and develops, as the actual comedy set-ups are largely unfocussed and patience-testing, creating an uneasy and underdeveloped relationship between the comedic and dramatic elements that never really gels.

FILM: Mrs Brown's Boys D'Movie (dir: Ben Kellett, 2014)

"I said cheap.  I didn't mean this f**king cheap!"

Bereft of the focus and brisk energy of the studio-bound TV sit-com format, D'Movie is mostly a disappointing drag.  The aspects that work best transfer surprisingly well from the TV incarnation - the fourth-wall breaking, the corpsing, the occasional meta-bits such as the opening that transfers the audience from a set to the 'real' world - but as soon as it moves away from the focus of the family members and tries to be more of a movie, such as an underwhelming opening song-and-dance number, it meets with far less success.  There are a few laughs to be had (though often through mindless offensiveness: Parkinson's, Tourette's, visual impairment, racial and sexuality stereotypes), with far more to like than The Harry Hill Movie, and the cast try hard, but yet again the transfer from one format to another is not truly successful.