FILM: Miss You Already (dir: Catherine Hardwicke, 2015)

"I think I'll put the kettle on."

This superior soapy chick-flick gets by on the strength of the writing and strong casting.  A failsafe dramatic triple-strike of best friends, pregnancy and cancer actually offers little new, but there is a zippy script and  a moderate use of cliché (tolerable use of London landmarks, and forgivable conceits like the juxtaposition of an autumn-sun-dappled happy couple with wintry blue-hued shots of a marriage in trouble, for example).  Toni Collette is majesterial in the breadth and sincerity of her performance, with Drew Barrymore just about keeping up.  The male characters are inevitably female-fantasy-figures (roadie-turned-family-man, solid-supportive-provider, floppy-haired toyboy) but Dominic Cooper and Paddy Considine are reliable presences, and  Jacqueline Bisset is a pleasing surprise as the ascerbic free-spirited matriarch.  No surprises then, but Miss You Already is a well-made, strongly-written and nicely-performed example of a well-worn genre.

FILM: Solace (dir: Afonso Poyart, 2015)

"They let me carry a gun."
"Wow.  So sexy."

When this movie decides that it needs to open with a dictionary definition of the word solace, it is either patronising its audience or showing how dumbed-down culture has become.  This psycho-thriller-shot-like-a-car-ad infuriates with its uneven and inconsistent mix of style and ideas, abrupt narrative lurches and a very unclear message.  Anthony Hopkins elevates the material when the script actually gives him an opportunity, Abbie Cornish creates a solid character in a largely thankless role, Jeffrey Dean Morgan does what he can with an underdeveloped central character, and amazingly Colin Farrell arrives late in the day to steal the movie with coherent and effective (if all too brief) character work.  Like the two key psychic characters, the audience can see what is coming all too easily thanks to the entire plot being openly signalled very early on, leaving a rather dull plod for the viewer to get to the end.

FILM: Legend (dir: Brian Helgeland, 2015)

"You're like Ford...or Shell...or Woolworths...."

Legend is one of those movies you can settle back and relish throughout with confidence after the successful first couple of scenes: wonderful cinematography and design, a confident script, tight direction and Tom Hardy giving two of the most complete and enjoyable performances that you will see all year.  By concentrating on the initially rather sweet relationship between Reggie Kray and the love-of-his-life Frances - in a carefully-paced performance by Emily Browning - it is Reggie who perhaps feels the most rounded character here, but Hardy magnetically imbues both brothers with their individual traits and likewise the film trades on a fine balance of charm, bravado and menace.  It is a surprisingly funny film, partially to defuse the gangland penchant for uber-violence but also owing to the nostalgia-filter that now makes the 1960s almost quaint.  Nevertheless, the technology that allows Hardy to play both brothers is never even remotely an issue here, as Legend enables him to showcase two terrific performances (and especially when he is interacting with 'himself') for the price of one admission.

FILM: Everest IMAX 3D (dir: Baltasar Kormakur, 2015)

HAPPY 6th BIRTHDAY TO MY BLOG!

"Because it's there!"

Largely out of respect to the fact that this film is based on the true events of a commercial trek to the summit of Everest that went horribly wrong, this film eschews disaster-movie histrionics and opts for a sombre, more muted tone of helpless despair in the face of the overwhelming power of the elements.  As expected, IMAX 3D makes the scenery look stunning, but the presentation format is largely used to evoke the sense of scale and power of nature rather than climbers-in-jeopardy shots.  The strong unshowy ensemble cast works well, with Watson, Knightley, Worthington, Nori and Brolin doing a lot of thoughtful work, and Jason Clarke giving a strong performance in a role which finally suits him well.  The first half is a bit of plod, and quite a lot of the exterior-set dialogue is incomprehensible, but once the snow hits the fan - apart from occasionally jarring clearly-fake studio shots - Everest is a quietly sad and sincere docudrama.

FILM: Maze Runner - The Scorch Trials 3D (dir: Wes Ball, 2015)

 "Yeah, yeah.  I know."

This is proving to be the little YA franchise that could, largely thanks to Wes Ball putting as much of the budget on screen effectively as possible and showing himself to be a strong director or action sequences, and Dylan O'Brien again giving a very engaging and expressive performance as the central protagonist through whose eyes the audience goes on this expanded journey of discovery.  The first act is terrific, capped by a superb sequence in an abandoned mall - brisk, energetic and world-building from the tight high concept of the first movie - even if we are on rather more familiar virus/sci-fi territory.  The rest of the film is a little less inventive, for example a cracking-window-skyscraper sequence similar to The Lost World's trailer-over-cliff, apart from a couple of good reveals, a full-on outpost attack and a strong set-up for the final chapter.  Design is glorious - the film looks great and 3D works extremely well in the film's favour.  Picking up from the end of the original, it does little to welcome new viewers, and a couple of scenes are surprisingly full-on for a 12A, even in this pre-cut version.  Nevertheless, this is a lively and effective sequel that moves forward with real purpose and is never less than entertaining.

FILM: American Ultra (dir: Nima Nourizadeh, 2015)

"We were the perfect f**ked-up couple.  She was perfect, and I was the f**k-up."

American Ultra tries reasonably hard, but this action/comedy/stoner hybrid doesn't quite hit the mark until its fairly well-staged finale.  Little is added to what is seen in the trailer, and only occasionally the film shows flashes of achieving the promise of its premise with a somewhat undernourished script that plods along for the most part.  Kristen Stewart fares best out of the leads and acquits herself particularly well in the second half, but Jesse Eisenberg and Topher Grace, both strong actors generally, feel ill-cast here.  Lacking the deftness and consistency of a Vaughn/Goldman vibe that it seems to be striving for, American Ultra ends up as a rather lukewarm experience.

FILM: Straight Outta Compton (dir: F. Gary Gray, 2015)

"We gave the people a voice.  We gave the people the truth."

The surprise Summer hit justifies its popularity, proving to be a very well-made and engaging docudrama of the NWA story.  It is visually and aurally immensely strong, with brisk and well-considered direction by F. Gary Gray, that elevates this movie well beyond being just a hip-hop Jersey Boys rise-and-fall tale.  For a film of this length, it is to its credit that the incident-packed story has sufficient edge and only occasional melodrama that makes it consistently interesting to watch, teamed with absolutely powerhouse performances, particularly O'Shea Jackson Jnr as Ice Cube, Corey Hawkins as Dr Dre, and a magnetically superb and potentially awards-bothering turn by Jason Mitchell as Eazy-E.  Ambitious in scope and burning with energy, the film does not shy away from issues of race and authority, but its only major flaw is that it is deeply one-sided and non-critical, at times uncomfortably so.  Nevertheless, Straight Outta Compton is an extremely well-executed, nostalgic and thoughtful movie.

FILM: Me And Earl And The Dying Girl (dir: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, 2015)

"I'm just trying to be funny...."

Me And Earl.... will easily prove to be one of the best films of 2015, and its moderate box-office suggests that a lot of people are going to miss out on this absolutely wonderful movie.  The performances from both the younger cast (Thomas Mann gives a superb performance in the central role, RJ Cyler so natural as his 'co-worker' Earl, and Olivia Cooke poised and sympathetic as the 'dying girl') and the adults (Connie Britton, Jon Bernthal, Mollie Shannon and the scene-stealing Nick Offerman all do wonderful and hugely enjoyable character work) are uniformly exemplary.  If The Fault In Our Stars was the Hollywood-ised treatment of teen terminal illness, Me And Earl... is the more lo-fi but credible take on the issue.  Aside from the dramatic through-story, there is so much to enjoy: the movie is very film-literate, with the boys' fixation on classic arthouse movies and their own 'Sweded' parodies of them; direction and editing show real creativity and thought; and even what could have been the stereotypical high-school-cliques scenes are given a refreshing honesty and deadpan humour.  The transition in tone as the movie progresses is so skilfully handled that it comes as quite a shock to suddenly realise how far the viewer has been swept along on this genuinely emotional journey.  The last twenty minutes are desperately poignant and unfold so beautifully that only those with hearts of stone will leave the cinema unmoved.

FILM: The Transporter Refuelled IMAX (dir: Camille Delamare, 2015)

"I'm good at following the rules."

As the Transporter franchise ran out of box-office steam and gave rise to a TV series, it comes as something of a surprise to find it determinedly rebooted and with an IMAX release as a presumable statement of ambition, but apart from replacing the seemingly-irreplaceable Statham with a younger model, little has changed under the hood.  Refuelled is a simple old-school action potboiler, complete with outdated weak Russian villains and literally every female character a prostitute!  A stripped-down revenge story is effectively structured but holds no real surprises, the father-son relationship is pleasant fun but hardly Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, and Ed Skrein makes for a competent Frank who is far more likeable as the lead than the trailer suggests.  The film looks handsome (the South of France films well), and the action done reasonably well in the current whiplash-edited style, although there could be more of it. This film would love to be a Fast & Furious or Mission: Impossible franchisebuster, but overall this is a low-key, moderately entertaining and distinctly standard third sequel.

FILM: We Are Your Friends (dir: Max Joseph, 2015)

"Should've gone to college."

With the dubious honour of having the fourth-ever-lowest box office wide release US opening weekend, We Are Your Friends seems to have completely missed its likely audience, perhaps the result of a marketing campaign that failed to get across the tone of the film, rather like the actual movie itself seems to search for.  Like videogame adaptations, this hedonistic sunshine-and-neon-bathed DJ-and-drugs tale is perhaps targeted at an audience who would rather be out there doing it as opposed to watching it on screen. It's life/coming-of-age messages and construction are hardly subtle (hilariously, there is a shot of the Las Vegas Eiffel Tower outside the hotel window for the sex scene), but it takes a lot of wading through a mish-mash of tones and ideas before thankfully arriving at a final poignant realisation of  moving on from the indestructible carefree youthful idealism to a more grounded adult reality in touch with the real world.  Efron is earnest and effective, Wes Bentley puts in good work as his older DJ mentor, and Jonny Weston stands out with an energetic turn as Efron's club-bound best friend.  The soundtrack is well-chosen, and as end-of-summer lightweight filler and an Idiot's Guide To Laptop-DJing, We Are Your Friends fits the bill,  but it lacks a consistent energy and drive that the set-up suggests and needs.