FILM: Ant-Man 3D D-BOX (dir: Peyton Reed, 2015)

"Cool....yeah.  If it ain't broke....."

Rather than try to match the epic scale of Guardians and Ultron, Ant-Man serves as a very effective and hugely enjoyable origin tale, in which Marvel wisely scales it down (sorry) to a more domestic and intimate feel, with very careful and well-drawn setting-up which allows characters and (an admittedly slender) plot to develop effectively.  It cements its place in the MCU with a couple of pleasing cameos and some rather blunt references, and if the film does feel familiar in tone, look and sound, one suspects that Edgar Wright's long-gestating take on the material has had the more interesting edges smoothed off a little on order to achieve it.  Visually, Ant-Man is stunningly realised with some occasionally very creative ideas, and the use of 3D is absolutely exemplary.  Paul Rudd, like Chris Pratt before him, is an engaging and amiable lead as expected, and Michael Douglas does sterling work as Hank Pym (including some remarkably impressive CG-de-ageing at the start of the film).  For a lesser character, Marvel has taken the right approach here in this the potentially uneasy mix of sci-fi, superhero, comedy and melodrama that gives the audience a more grounded hero in the MCU that still delivers on big-screen entertainment.

FILM: Taken 3 D-BOX (dir: Olivier Megaton, 2015)

"I hate going through the motions."

Like the Die Hard franchise, at we have the original film to look back at fondly.  Taken 3 is a slight improvement on the silly first sequel, and the twist on the idea of 'taken' appeals, but it is delivered in an utterly generic and completely narratively unsurprising way.  In its favour, Neeson is as dependable as ever but actually gets little to do until the latter stages, Maggie Grace does her best and most watchable work of the trilogy, L.A. is used well and looks great, and there is one good car/chase/smash-up sequence in the middle.  The meagre action shown is so flash-cut even Michael Bay would think twice, the frequently melodramatic score is overbearing, and the resolution is somewhat underwhelming.  The tagline says, "It ends here," and that is how it should be.

FILM: Exodus - Gods And Kings 3D D-BOX (dir: Ridley Scott, 2014)

"There is more here than goats and sheep."

Exodus plays like The Ten Commandments via Middle Earth: this is good old-fashioned Biblical epic with modern film tech and a strong committed central performance by Christian Bale as Moses which conveys an effective arc for Moses from atheist general to a leader of faith.  As expected, Ridley Scott tells the story very well, wonderfully economic with narrative when required but occasionally somewhat languorous when given the opportunity, and CGI creates a wonderful sense of scale and realises the plagues brilliantly on-screen.  There is a surprising lack of emotion that particularly makes the finale have less impact than expected, but overall this is a very confident and well-mounted staging of another familiar story.

FILM: The Hobbit - The Battle Of The Five Armies D-BOX 3D (dir: Peter Jackson, 2014)

"I'm not a warrior - I'm a hobbit!"

It does what it says on the (title-changed) tin - five armies battle - and it does it most effectively.  Whilst The Desolation of Smaug ended not so much on a cliffhanger as crowd-baiting expectation, the final part of the film trilogy picks up where its predecessor left off, and interestingly in retrospect it might have been more effective to have seen through Smaug's attack on Lake Town fully at the end of the previous film.  All the characters are given a suitable airing, Martin Freeman's work should not be underestimated here, and there is fine work from Evangeline Lily, Aidan Turner and Richard Armitage.  It is a relatively lean film with good momentum, and it is thankfully bereft of a more-farewells-than-Frank-Sinatra ending, which links to the Rings trilogy beautifully.  For all its good work, The Hobbit films will never quite stand up against the Rings trilogy, but this final Hobbit film rounds off the series very successfully.

FILM: Need For Speed 3D D-BOX (dir: Scott Waugh, 2014)

"No offence."
"Some taken."

....more like need for a decent script polish and edit.  Think of it like Jan de Bont's Twister - best watched on DVD so that you can fast forward through the tin-eared dialogue, by-the-numbers plotting and shabby performances to get to the perfectly-decent action scenes.  There is clearly a decent action movie in here, and how much you will like it will depend on how forgiving of its faults you can be.  The opening sequences show men playing with cars and women giggling in Daisy Dukes, which is about as good as the gender politics get for the rest of the film (with some Transformers-style racial stereotyping thrown in for added hilarity).  It is far too long (over two hours) for this kind of film, and with frequently painful dialogue and some weak acting on display - even Dominic Cooper fails to find much to do with his woefully underwritten antagonist, and Aaron Paul (whilst mostly solid here) manages to blow the scene of his friend's death in hilariously overwrought fashion.  However, the reason for the film - the race/chase set pieces - are fine, truly enhanced by 3D and it is a movie that at last finds a genuine and effective reason for D-BOX, combined with strong cinematography and exceptional use of some POV shots.