Saving Mr Banks

Emma Thompson has written a book about a nanny and a barely cockney chimney sweep that Tom Hanks thinks is just swell. Tom wants to make this book into a film with his company, Disney, don't know if you have heard of them, but Emma is a bit of a reluctant cow and likes the word no. Tom is persistent and convinces Emma to allow Paul Giamatti to drive her to meet him and discuss stuff. Emma eventually agrees but continues to be a miserable bastard and puts down everyone she comes across. Can Tom warm Emma's heart and get her to stop whining like a child? Only if he can get to the heart of why she's a bitch, which seems to have something to do with Colin Farrell and Whiskey.

If you hadn't guessed, or didn't know, this film is the story of the making of Mary Poppins. Emma Thompsons character, I forget her real name, genuinely was a bit of a stuck up cud chewer and really did give Walt Disney one hell of a hard time when it came to her precious titular character. I don't think I have ever met, and would want to meet, anyone who does not like Mary Poppins and this film is a brilliant companion piece. Emma Thompson is fantastic as usual and really does her upmost to bring a humanity to her character and story. Tom Hanks is naturally brilliant but he always is so it doesn't really count. The story is funny and heart warming in bucket loads and is just as charming as the original film. Not much more to say really than go and watch it, right now.

Verdict: 5/5

Captain Phillips

Tom Hanks is the captain of our ship, of our ship, and gets himself ready to take this ship through some dangerous waters nearish Africa, or somewhere, never was good at geography. This ship is owned by Maersk who want Tom to transport and deliver some things. Tom is happy with this other than the fact there may be pirates, not the ARRRGGGHH kind but the AK-47 carrying, somalian kind. As per usual Tom is bang on the money and the pesky pirates turn up to capture the ship and toddle off with all the booty. Then starts a game of survival between Tom and the pirates, who will win and come out on top?.........hang on.......is that?........yeh that looks like the entire american Navy, plus their seals.........guess that answers that then.

On paper this film is a cocktail of complete and utter awesomeness. Firstly it is completely true, small artistic license aside, and the awful events portrayed on screen all happened. Secondly it stars Tom 'Turner and Hooch' Hanks who is one of the greatest actors of all time and churns out great performance after great performance. The third and frankly most important is the director, Paul Greengrass, who is a genius and one of the smartest people to ever sit behind the camera. He masterfully creates a film that feels brutally real and crucially on both sides of the hijacking. In a lesser directors hands we would have had a good telling of a terrifying story that focused on what the victims went through, but with Greengrass we get to see the who, what and why behind the young men forced into piracy through desperation and fear. This is fantastically portrayed by main pirate Barkhad Abdi whose desperation oozes from the screen. The skill and genius of Greengrass can be seen in the way he handled the first meeting of the pirates and Hanks crew. He did not let them meet one another beforehand and did not fully script the scene, he allowed the actors to run with it and boy did they. I absolutely loved this and was shocked and I am not afraid to admit I shed more than a tear at the end, not out of sadness but out of compassion for the poor people this happened to. Outstanding.

Verdict: 5/5

Red 2

Bruce Willis is a retired CIA super agent type person. He has retired with a much younger lady and they are living the mundaneness of normal people lives when John Malkovich turns up acting all crazy like. He tells Bruce that there are probably some bad people out to get them all and Bruce doesn't believe him, that is until stuff gets shot and bad people try to get him. Bruce, John and Bruces other half then run around trying to get the people who are trying to get them before they are all got. Not only are there people getting them but there are people who are trying to get Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren too. Whats that? It doesn't stop there? No no no, there are also some people, or maybe one person, or two, or some, who are trying to get the Russians??? the world??? I lost interest and subsequently forgot.

The first red film was barely passable, and I mean barely. This then begs the question of why did they bother to make a second and why did the acting powerhouses they have on the cast say yes to the script instead of flushing it. I honestly do not understand why Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, Anthony Hopkins, Brian Cox, amongst others, agreed to do this shite. The only thing I can think is either they were offered a lot of money, they had a great time making it, or a mixture of the two. The story is awful and generic, the 'jokes' are tired, old and downright unfunny and the acting........well to be fair thats pretty good but it does not excuse the terribleness of the film. I genuinely do not get why this film exists and am slightly ashamed in the actors who agreed to do it. Utter codshite.

Verdict: 1/5 (and you only got the 1 because I still like you all)

Sanctum

Ioan Gruffudd has loadsa money and decides he wants to spend this money going into some caves and having a swim about. He hires Richard Roxborough (yeah I wasnt sure who he was) and his son, Rhys Wakefield (yeah not sure on him either), who are mega awesome cavey people. They decide to go down this cave that noone has been down before and take along Ioans girlfriend who is nothing short of dead weight. Whilst caving things start to go a bit tits up and most of it is Ioans fault, more money than sense springs to mind. Eventually, and predictably, people start to cark it in increasingly stupid ways until maybe some of them survive, maybe some dont, who cares.

I will start this by saying I just happened to come across this film late one night on film4 or channel 5 or some such and thought it would be a good idea to continue watching it. My first warning sign should have been the hiring of Ioan Gruffudd. Now I am not having a go at the guy, my mum for one was a big fan of his Hornblower days, but he is not the greatest actor in the world. He can only really do one character which is nice guy but bland and in this he cannot break out of that stereotype, the problem being that this is not the character he is being asked to play. He is meant to be a bit of a reckless thrillseeker with a slight dickhead complex and he just keeps reeling back to nice. The rest of the cast are pretty mediocre with noone really showing any acting skills beyond the mundane. The story itself is interesting enough, and apparantly true, and should plod along nicely but it turns out to be boring and extremely predictable, halfway through Sara stood up, told me the order they would die and who would survive and proceeded to go to bed early and annoyingly for me and the I told you so I received, she was bang on. It is standard fare and poorly done standard fare at that. Rubbish.

Verdict: 1/5