Drive: there's an art-house sensibility to this sleek and stylish thriller with iconic savagery

“What do you do?”

“I drive.”

Adapted from James Sallis’ 2005 novel of the same name, Drive (Icon) is the story of a Hollywood stuntman (Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson) who moonlights as a getaway-driver-for-hire when the cameras stop rolling. A loner by nature, the Driver finds himself falling for his next door neighbour Irene (Carey Mulligan, An Education), and his life becomes even more complicated when Driver agrees to team up with Irene’s jailbird husband to pull off a small-scale heist to help him pay back a debt. In time-honoured fashion, the scam goes boss-eyed, and Driver finds himself embroiled in an increasingly bloody tug-of-war between a number of LA’s most dangerous criminals. Determined to protect Irene and her young son from the flak heading their way, Driver decides to tackle his enemies head-on.

James Sallis’ existential noir source material is one of the most perfectly distilled crime novels of the last decade, and Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn (Bronson, Valhalla Rising) takes the brave decision to slice off what little excess weight remained, and reduce the movie to its absolute core. Situated in the same seedy, timeless LA wasteland as Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, Drive depicts a deadly world of trigger-happy heists, shell-suits and morally-compromised anti-heroes.

Gosling is sensational as the toothpick-chewing stunt driver whose shy nature conceals a violent temper, and he is joined by small screen luminaries such as Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad) and Ron Perlman (Sons of Anarchy) in memorable bit-parts. Regardless of the hype that accompanied Drive, director Winding Refn’s movies are all essential viewing, and although he has squirmed out of the way of mainstream temptation in the past, Drive sees him crash into the Hollywood A-list on his own terms. Despite its sleek, stylish feel and art-house sensibility, Drive is an incredibly violent movie, full of episodes of iconic savagery. All in all, a marvellous, menacing treat, that bodes well for Gosling and Winding Refn’s upcoming Logan’s Run remake!

Rolling Thunder: a Quentin Tarantino fave for its blood-soaked vengeance mission, co-written by Paul Schrader

Co-written by Taxi Driver screenwriter Paul Schrader, 1977’s Rolling Thunder (StudioCanal) stars William Devane (best known to modern audiences as Defence Secretary James Heller in ‘24’) as Major Charles Rane, a Vietnam veteran who has endured a living hell after spending seven years incarcerated in the notorious ‘Hanoi Hilton’. He returns to his Texas hometown with his friend Sergeant Vohden (an improbably young Tommy Lee Jones), a mere shadow of his former self. Uncomfortable with his new status as a local celebrity, he struggles to adapt to civilian life, finding his wife engaged to another man, while his son doesn’t remember him at all. As a token of the town’s gratitude for his service, Rane is presented with a red Cadillac and 2555 silver dollars – one for every day he was held captive, plus one for luck – but his happiness is short-lived when a vicious gang of redneck and Mexican thugs show up at his house to steal the silver coins, horribly disfiguring him in the process.

Reputed to be one of Quentin Tarantino’s favourite films – he named his short-lived cult movie distribution company ‘Rolling Thunder Pictures’ as a tribute – it is easy to see why Rolling Thunder gets QT hot under the collar, and its sadistic, blood-soaked vengeance mission was echoed years later in his own Kill Bill double-whammy. The film was originally produced and scheduled for release by Twentieth Century Fox, only for the level of violence in the final cut to prove off-putting to the Fox bigwigs, who sold it on to American International Pictures instead. The film’s negative reputation lived on for many years, and slightly bizarrely, it has only ever been released on DVD in Spain until now. Although the carnage seems pretty tame by today’s standards, Rolling Thunder holds up pretty well, despite a few clumsy narrative mis-steps. That said, it’s well worth persevering for the brutal climactic showdown in a Juarez whorehouse – which recalls Schrader’s work on Taxi Driver a year earlier. All in all, a memorably bleak curio that definitely warrants its belated arrival on home video.

Post-Mortem: macabre and slightly queasy story set against the backdrop of Chile’s bloody military coup

Set in Santiago, Chile in 1973, Post-Mortem (Network) tells the story of Mario Cornejo, a morgue assistant with the unavoidably grim responsibility for typing up autopsy reports performed by the coroners. Set against the backdrop of Chile’s bloody military coup, the first half of the film follows the cadaverous-looking Mario as he becomes involved in a slightly queasy affair with a washed-up showgirl from the nearby cabaret. However, as it reaches its mid-way point, the film swerves into decidedly queasier territory, as Mario’s day-job takes a turn for the macabre, with the coup now in full-flow.

Chilean director Pablo Larraín’s last film, Tony Manero, earned a rapturous critical response following its premiere at the Cannes Director’s Fortnight, with D&CFilm labelling it a bleakly amusing Chilean movie about a glum 50-something sociopath who dreams of becoming Chile’s answer to John Travolta. Post-Mortem is arguably a more ambitious film than Tony Manero, but for all Larrain’s visual flair, the movie lacks Tony Manero’s immediacy, even if it goes on to plumb even darker depths. Whereas Tony Manero took a surreal delight in the antics of a murderous John Travolta wannabe, Post-Mortem is a far queasier affair, with little of the earlier film’s dark humour. Although it is unlikely to tap into the same audience that latched onto Manero, Post-Mortem reaffirms Larrain’s position at the forefront of the Latin American cinema movement, and allows character actor Alfredo Castro (leading man Raul in Tony Manero) another admirably warped role to sink his teeth into.

Largo Winch, The Burma Conspiracy: Bourne-esque action and intrigue, boardroom shenanigans, and Sharon Stone

Based on the enduringly popular Belgian comic book series Largo Winch, The Burma Conspiracy (StudioCanal) picks up where 2010’s entertaining Largo Winch: Deadly Revenge left off. Reformed playboy Largo (Tomer Sisley) is now the newly appointed CEO of his father’s global conglomerate, the W Group. However, when he announces that he intends to sell the company and funnel the proceeds into a humanitarian foundation, his laudable aims are derailed, when he finds himself hauled in front of a UN tribunal and accused of participating in crimes against humanity in war-torn Burma. In true Largo Winch style, our intrepid hero is forced to embark on a globe-trotting adventure to clear his name and wrestle his father’s company back from the brink… Yawn.

Despite its slick bend of Bourne-esque action and intrigue – by way of Rambo 4’s bloody Burmese setting – The Burma Conspiracy lacks its predecessor’s compulsive energy, and the relentless boardroom shenanigans overshadow the sporadically enjoyable array of fight scenes. Sharon Stone – whose career seemingly tanked with the disastrous Basic Instinct 2 – pops up in an incongruous supporting role (much like Kristin Scott Thomas did in the first Largo Winch movie), and adds little to the proceedings apart from her household name. Tomer Sisley offers another confident lead performance as the heroic Largo, but it won’t quite be enough to convince floating voters of the film’s merits. After a surprisingly enjoyable first outing, this laboured second act sees the franchise badly underwhelm, and unless the producers can unearth a more entertaining plot, future instalments seem pretty unlikely. Desperately average.

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Junkhearts: riddled with great scenes and super performances

Junkhearts (Soda Pictures) tells the story of Frank (Eddie Marsan, Happy Go Lucky) a traumatised, middle-aged ex-soldier who tranquilises himself with scotch each day to stave off terrifying flashbacks from his tour of duty in Northern Ireland.

On one of his regular visits to the off-licence, Frank meets Lynette (Candese Reid), a feisty black teenager who is sleeping rough in the neighbourhood, and after a tense start, the pair form an unlikely bond, with Frank offering the youngster his spare room. However, the duo’s pleasantly warped version of domestic bliss is thrown into chaos when Lynette invites her shifty drug-dealer boyfriend Danny (Tom Sturridge) to take advantage of the reluctant Frank’s hospitality – nudging the boozy war veteran into a debilitating downward spiral.

Newcomer Candese Reid won the 2011 BFI award for Best British Newcomer for her role in Junkhearts, and while she delivers a memorable debut performance here, the chameleonic Marsan and the menacing Sturridge confidently steal the show, and it will be interesting to watch the latter in Walter Salles’ upcoming version of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road.

Interestingly, director Tinge Krishnan discovered Candese Reid at Nottingham’s prestigious Television Workshop (which offered a springboard for Samantha Morton, Toby Kebbell, and a whole host of Shane Meadows regulars). The Meadows link is an apt one too, as Krishnan’s disturbing feature-length debut recalls the intense career of the man often dubbed ‘the Midlands Scorsese’.

Riddled with great scenes, Junkhearts’ only weakness is the superfluous sub-plot starring Romola Garai (The Crimson Petal and The White) as a drug-addicted businesswoman. What’s more, its significance is fairly predictable – arguably the film’s least subtle element. After a string of well-received short films, director Krishnan has been labelled ‘one to watch’ for some time; despite an unfortunately saccharine conclusion, Junkhearts sees him comfortably repay the faith shown in him, and deliver a memorably corrosive debut feature.

In A Better World: there's a sense of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s early work in the story which challenges the notion that Denmark society is harmonious

After a brief sojourn to Hollywood in 2007 to shoot flame-grilled melodrama Things We Lost In The Fire, Danish director Susanne Bier (After The Wedding, Brothers) returned home to make In A Better World (Axiom Films), a film conceived as a response to misconceptions that Denmark is a harmonious society.

Bier’s decision to spurn Hollywood’s inevitable advances proved well-judged in this instance, and she scooped the 2011 Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film and also the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar at the 83rd Academy Awards, meaning that In A Better World’s reputation precedes it.

The dual-narrative focuses on Anton, a Swedish doctor who bides his time between a Sudanese refugee camp and his idyllic family home in small-town Denmark. In Africa, Anton treats female victims mutilated by a sadistic local warlord known as Big Man, but finds himself troubled when the maniac arrives at the refugee camp demanding treatment for an infection. Meanwhile, back in Denmark, Anton is forced to wrestle with further conflict, with the revelation that his young son Elias is being mercifully bullied by his classmates. However, the situation is flipped on its head when feisty new boy Christian intervenes on Elias’s behalf, setting in motion a chain of events that sees everyone’s fragile world altered forever.

Buoyed by a number of strong performances – particularly from Mikael Persbrandt as Anton, and young William Jøhnk Juels Nielsen as Christian – In A Better World contains a number of electric scenes, not least a menacing early set-piece when Christian confronts the boy tormenting hapless Elias. However, for all of its dramatic strengths, In A Better World feels like a strangely muddled piece of work, and the split narrative sometimes feels like a tame re-tread of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s early work. Viewers familiar with Bier’s previous movies won’t be surprised by the powerful, confident filmmaking on display, but as the movie edges towards its suspiciously neat conclusion it is hard not to feel like a crucial piece of the jigsaw is somehow missing.

The Big Picture: flashes of The Talented Mr Ripley and its duplicitous drama

Based on the 1997 novel of the same name by US author Douglas Kennedy, The Big Picture (Artificial Eye) tells the story of Paul Exben (Romain Duris, The Beat That My Heart Skipped, Afterwards), a slick lawyer with a seemingly perfect life. As well as his sought-after partnership in one of Paris’s most successful law firms, Paul has a beautiful wife (Sarah, Marina Foïs) and two young children, on whom he dotes. However, all is not well at home, and Paul’s life takes a dramatic turn with the stomach-churning revelation that frustrated Sarah is having an affair with smug mutual acquaintance Greg Kremer (Eric Ruf).

After drunkenly making a fool out of himself at a dinner party, Paul goes to meet Greg to thrash out their differences, only to lose his cool and become embroiled in a violent altercation with his love rival. After accidentally killing his wife’s lover, Paul is forced to assume a new identity and concocts an elaborate scheme to flee the country – only to discover that fate has a cruel way of catching up with you…

Despite flashes of The Talented Mr Ripley and its duplicitous drama, The Big Picture lacks the 1999 movie’s sinister undercurrent. Further, in spite of an impressively intense performance from the ever-reliable Duris, Eric Lartigau’s meticulous thriller feels a little bit too po-faced at times. Elsewhere, French screen icon Catherine Deneuve cameos as Paul’s mentor, and Niels Arestrup (who starred as Cesar, the fearsome elderly convict in A Prophet) rounds out the cast as a deceptively boozy degenerate who takes a special interest in Paul, but the star-studded cast and elaborate set-up struggle to disguise the film’s hollow core. The Big Picture is a stylish, unusual thriller – with bags of insouciant Gallic flair – but the whole enterprise feels suspiciously pointless, leading you to question whether it is a misjudged case of (admittedly impeccable) style over substance.

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War Horse: Jeremy Irvine at Albert in Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Michael Morpurgo's novel

If Steven Spielberg’s Tintin was an enjoyable, if hollow, experience, then War Horse is the full thoroughbred: proudly old-fashioned, defiantly sentimental and intoxicating in its sense of scope. It also shows off the county of Devon to glorious effect, right from the opening frames when the lilting flute solo on John Williams’ soundtrack ushers in the breathtaking aerial shots of Dartmoor.

Spielberg has always demonstrated an excellent sense of location but War Horse is special. Many will write-off the film’s depiction of rural England as sanctified and sugary, but this kind of healthy sentiment prevailed in the likes of John Ford’s The Quiet Man, so why not here? Spielberg has acknowledged Ford as an influence, and, by taking us into the landscape in the manner of past masters, he creates an all-encompassing sense of drama.

For a film so intricately bound up with nature and landscape, it’s appropriate that we start off with the birth of the horse in question. When drunken farmer Ted Narracott (Peter Mullan) outbids his devious landlord Lyons (David Thewlis) for the colt, much to the dismay of his wife Rose (Emily Watson), it falls to his son Albert (Jeremy Irvine) to train the animal.

The family pin their hopes on the horse, named Joey, using him to plough a patch of rocky earth for turnips in an attempt to raise money. But World War I has a way of interrupting good drama at strategic moments, and when Ted sells Joey to kindly Captain Nicholls (Tom Hiddleston), so the action relocates to France and the epic journey begins. As Joey finds himself passed between the opposing forces of English, French and German, so too does Albert enlist, never giving up hope that he will eventually be-reunited with his friend.

Adapted from Michael Morpurgo’s acclaimed novel, the film has some big hoof-prints to fill, seeing as it comes after the stage play which famously used puppetry to acclaimed effect. Spielberg’s film has the added hurdle of not being able to tell the story through the eyes of the horse who lies at the centre of the drama; what was internal now becomes external, meaning we have to root for an animal who is both a plot device and a character. But Spielberg pulls off the balancing act remarkably well.

Not only does Spielberg effectively render Joey as a sympathetic, flesh and blood character (especially during a harrowing sequence where he is forced to haul German artillery up a slope which is then used to fire on the British ranks); he also draws attention to the equine cost of the War, something which has been casually glossed over in innumerable war movies past.

His penchant for bold yet tasteful imagery serves him well: a fleeting shot of riderless horses leaping over ranks of firing machine guns lingers in the mind. However, there are missteps in Richard Curtis and Lee Hall’s screenplay, which frequently pauses en-route to take in secondary characters who are distractions from the gripping central struggle. A crisis involving two German brothers never has time to develop into anything interesting, and a lengthy section involving a French grandfather (A Prophet’s Niels Arestrup) and his sickly granddaughter takes the focus away from Joey.

Admittedly these sections are lifted from Morpurgo’s story but, given they’re divorced from Joey’s viewpoint, they lack the personal intensity that would heighten the drama. But although the story gets lost as often as Joey himself, the film always manages to re-orchestrate itself with stunning power. The personal and the panoramic are mixed together with the deftness of a master filmmaker at the top of his game, Joey careening through the desolation of no-man’s land, only to be aided in his escape from barbed wire by both British and German officers, in a moment of terrific irony.

And although it may be something of a glib metaphor, the fact that Joey embodies the struggle felt on either sides of the trenches lends the film a degree of universal interest. Once again, Spielberg demonstrates an uncanny knack for choosing populist material that will appeal to a wide demographic. It’s a brickbat with which he’s frequently beaten but in fact, to make a film this brazenly sentimental in this day and age is a bold move in and of itself.

Quite simply, such earnest manipulation isn’t fashionable in today’s jaded climate, so Spielberg ought to be applauded for leading the charge for broad, escapist melodrama. It’s his chance to honour his cinematic heroes, and those willing to submit to it will find War Horse a gloriously old-fashioned experience.

The film’s accomplishments are many-fold (the magnificent work by the horse-wranglers for one), but even so, the extraordinary, auburn-tinged closing shots stand out as one of the high points in Spielberg’s career to date. Aided by warmly emphatic performances from Irvine, Watson, Mullan and the outstanding supporting cast (Benedict Cumberbatch included), War Horse is perfect family entertainment.

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Misfits: the story of the super-powered youngsters has gained cult appeal

BAFTA-winning comedy/drama Misfits – which tells the story of a group of young offenders who obtain super-powers after a freak electrical storm – has earned a cult audience since debuting in 2009, going on to rack up three enjoyable series – with a fourth commissioned for 2012.

However, prior to the filming of Misfits – Series 3 (4DVD), leading light Robert Sheehan (who played Irish Misfit Nathan) quit the show to try his luck in Hollywood (after appearing alongside Nicolas Cage in the dubious swords ‘n’ sorcery romp that was Season of the Witch), leaving creator Howard Overman with a huge hole to fill. Alongside resident delinquents Simon (Iwan Rheon), Kelly (Lauren Socha), Alisha (Antonia Thomas) and Curtis (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett), Overman has drafted in Rudy (Joe Gilgun, Woody from This Is England), an appropriately foul-mouthed replacement for lovable rogue Nathan. As the new guy at the ill-fated Community Centre, Rudy is the recipient of the lion’s share of the funniest lines, and proves a good choice to fill Sheehan’s shoes.

The central premise for this third outing involves the gang getting to grips with their new super-powers – they all participated in a trade-off with drug-pusher-turned-super-power-dealer Seth at the tail-end of the previous series – leading to some unwieldy scenes in the early stages. After the dust settles, Kelly has a genius-level knowledge of mechanical systems (AKA rocket science), Curtis has the power to swap gender, Alisha has the power to see through other people’s eyes and visualise what they see and Simon gains the power of precognition. Meanwhile, new kid on the block Rudy can split into two, with each half of his personality displaying polarised behavioural traits. Equipped with their new powers the posse are forced to confront an increasingly unlikely array of enemies, including reanimated zombies and even Nazis; the latter in a warped alternative universe where Hitler took over Britain.

While neither the second or third series has quite managed to match up to the sublime first series of Misfits, the quality control is still pretty high, with Rudy injecting a breath of fresh air into the proceedings. However, in light of two more integral characters abandoning ship to work on other projects after Series 3, precisely how Series 4 will play out is anyone’s guess. For now, Misfits remains one of the most interesting homegrown dramas on TV, and anyone who has yet to sample its quirky ‘X-men-with-ASBOs’ narrative should make a bee-line for the box set.

The Killing II: second outing of the revitalised police procedural

Critically acclaimed Danish cop show The Killing II (Arrow Films) received a rapturous reception when it first aired on BBC Four, going on to scoop the BAFTA for best international series ahead of the illustrious likes of Mad Men and Boardwalk Empire.

Hot on its heels the BBC aired series two this winter, and the box set is now available on DVD. The second outing, which picks up two years after the events depicted in series one, finds lead character Sarah Lund stripped of her detective role following disciplinary action, and demoted to an undemanding position as a passport control official on Falster Island. However, following a grisly murder – in which a woman is stabbed 21 times, reputedly as retribution for Muslims killed by Danish troops in Afghanistan – Lund’s former boss Lennart Brix lures her back into the fold in an advisory capacity. However, the increasingly labyrinthine case swallows Lund whole, and the dogged ex-cop finds herself sucked into a twisted case with its roots deeply embedded in Islamic terrorism.

At just 10 episodes long, The Killing II is just half the length of its predecessor, but despite the reduced run-time, the show’s commitment to narrative depth remains intact, with the new plot taking in ever-shifting Danish politics and traumatised soldiers, and leading Lund well out of her comfort zone and into unchartered territory. While the show may prove to be too strange for viewers fed on pulse-pounding thrillers, The Killing has arguably revitalised the police procedural with its engrossing episode-per-day approach. The recent US remake – set in rain-drenched Seattle – proved that the show’s numerous high points were all too easily lost in translation, and this new story strand sees creator Soren Sveistrup flex his storytelling muscles once more.

In The Killing II Sarah Lund’s trademark woolly jumper may have changed, but the show’s uncompromising colloquialisms remain firmly in place, and the show is still one of TV’s most refreshing imports. Intriguing stuff.

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The Deep Blue Sea: Rachel Weisz is 'luminous' in Terrance Davis' adaptation of a Terrance Rattigan play

I should love this film. I want to love this film.

It begins with a long musical section, to Barber I think, that sees a crane shot travel from a bombed out street to a dull window in a dull house. It’s a shot that screams melodrama. A device I’ve always hated. There’s nothing objectively wrong with it but it bores me. It is a deceptive confrontational opening, perhaps deliberately so. Terrence Davies has said that you should either buy into the film in the first two minutes or leave the cinema. I didn’t take his advice.

For the first hour of the film I feel alienated, distanced and bored. Too aware of the fake-ness of a flickering fire in an otherwise carefully real lighting set up. Too aware of the untrue anachronism of real pieces of 1950s architecture and objects in a world that is otherwise new. The real objects with their weight of 60 years giving lie to the otherwise newly formulated recreation of period. It’s such a lovingly, almost painted world, shot by director of photography Florian Hoffmeister, that in its realism – in the form of the period milk cart and underground station, and in its affectations – in the lighting effects of the gas fire and the passing train, we are distanced.

There’s also an issue with the casting. Undoubtedly Rachel Weisz is ‘luminous’ as Terence Davies says. Too luminous. She doesn’t fit in this drab and pallid world and she doesn’t fit either with the older judge William, to which she is married or to the manic dissolute pilot Freddie, she leaves her husband for. She’s too beautiful and unique for either of them. This is part of the point but it is pushed too far. Neither of these relationships quite ring true. Strangely, all the individual performances are strong.

All of the cast are almost completely superb. And this holds across the board from the sensitivity of Hestor (Rachel Weisz), to the wit of William (Simon Russell Beale), to the desperation of Freddie (Tom Hiddlestone), to the bit players of the doctor (Karl Johnson) and house keeper (Barbara Jefford).

Couple this with great dialogue (written by Terrence Davies after Terrence Rattigan’s play) and assured editing (David Charap) and the film is allowed to reach moments of true emotion and emotional truth.

Even the camera manages to become emotional in the slow endless rotating of Hestor’s death dream in a perfect sequence that evokes both the disorientation of asphyxiation and the glorious confusion of sex. The film becomes sublime in the final scene between Freddie and Hestor, when we see the real Freddie emerge from under bravado and there is a moment that is raw and true. This is what I want from cinema. The dilemma that The Deep Blue Sea presents is: is a single scene of truth worth an hour of boredom and good craft that is likely to be forgotten?

In the earlier scenes, where William and Hestor are visiting William’s mother or when Freddie and Hestor confront each other outside the pub, the dialogue is good and well delivered but amount to nothing more than caricature, embodying the melodramatic unreality of 50s cinema but denying the reality that is elsewhere achieved. Those scenes, coupled with the beautifully executed tableaux of the London Underground in song during The Blitz leave us stuck behind a layer of warping glass pressed up against an almost fetishized past. The image even exists in the film, in a shot where we see most clearly the romance between Freddie and Hestor from outside, through a pub’s window.

As a filmmaker it teaches me that performances are paramount and even though the actors may be great, the wrong mix of actors can be forever distancing. It says that you can aim for a fair realism but to do so would mean that references to older films that were more staged (the train platform reflection seems to recall Brief Encounters) will be jarring.

In the end I am left with a strange tumble of feelings. It is a lovingly shot vision of 1950s Britain, but suffers bizarrely and anachronistically from including places and objects from the time. It is perfectly acted and anchored by real honesty in performance, but suffers from unnatural pairings in the casting that is always distancing. It manages to recreate a deep honesty and emotion, which is what we should strive for, but for a large part, the film was simply boring. In the end I am glad that I didn’t follow Terrence Davies advice and I stayed to experience those moments of truth and beauty.

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Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol: Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his crew at IMF get hot under the collar, again

The Cruise/Wagner, Mission: Impossible franchise, has and continues to be a financially rewarding series, but whereas the 1960s TV serial was about spying and espionage, Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible, too frequently relies upon set pieces instead of character and narrative development. Arguably, since it’s rebirth in 1996, its sole purpose has been to make Tom Cruise, look good. So, is Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol any different?

Brad Bird’s, Ghost Protocol, is neither the best nor the worst entry in Cruise’s cannon. As with Mission: Impossible (De Palma 1996) and Mission: Impossible III (Abrams, 2006) there’s little evidence of the director’s fingerprints, this is a Cruise/Wagner production, an exemplary case for the producer as auteur (author). The one exception to this being John Woo’s ridiculously over the top Mission: Impossible II, which despite its many flaws, is still the best Mission: Impossible film, largely because it is clearly identifiable as the work of John Woo, the king of ballistic action cinema.

The film starts with Cruise’s, Ethan Hunt, being broken out of a Russian prison, before being quickly dispatched to his first mission, which involves breaking into the Kremlin to secure some data. However, the mission is hijacked by a mad professor, who steals Russian nuclear launch codes with the intent to start a nuclear world war and to cover his tracks he blows-up a large proportion of the Kremlin, which leads to Ethan, his team and the entire IMF, being disavowed by the US Government. With the titular ‘Ghost Protocol’ in play, it is up to Cruise and his merry band of stooges, to prove their innocence and prevent WW3.

Ghost Protocol adheres to the Mission: Impossible check list. So, it features globetrotting (which could rival a Bond film), Hunt being disavowed (again), action, a set piece which illustrates Cruise’s athleticism, an assortment of caricatures for characters, with Jeremy Renner’s character playing the spy with ‘secrets’, minimal espionage and of course, Cruise, running. And boy, can Tom Cruise, run. I think it’s fair to say he’s 85% professional runner, 10% male model and 5% actor. One does wonder, what will poor Tom do, when he can no longer run with such flare and finesses? He really is exceptionally talented, when running.

As ever, the real victims of Mission: Impossible – aside from the audience – are plot and narrative. At the top of Cruise’s agenda is spectacle, well, second to making Cruise look good, obviously. With the entire IMF disavowed and Cruise’s band of mercenaries essentially going rogue, you’d expect the US Government to be after them, considering it’s Hunt who is blamed for the Kremlin explosion. But this is blissfully ignored. And if the entire IMF has been disavowed, how come Hunt and co. can move so freely between country to country? Surely all their various identities would be flagged up as terrorists, but not once is there any emphasis placed upon how they will enter this particular country. However, knowing Tom Cruise, they probably just outwitted border control, by running between locations. After all, nobody expects a spy to run from Russia to Dubai, and he really is a beautiful runner!

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol is by no means a bad film, but if we are to be treated to another entry, Cruise and Wagner should take a step back and revisit what made the original TV show so compelling ie character development, narrative and plotting. That way, the next time the entire IMF is disavowed, if there’s actual character development and narrative, it will mean something, because the audience will be invested in the film’s story, not just in awe of the spectacle, at witnessing Tom Cruise, leap about on a very, very, tall building.

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1. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu, 2008)
A merciless depiction of life under the Romanian Ceausescu regime, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is horribly compelling viewing.

The story of two women, one of whom is seeking an illegal abortion, Cristian Mungiu’s film is composed of impassive long takes, forcing us to take long glances into the abyss where we’d rather not venture. Agonizingly tense and beautifully acted, the film doesn’t make a claim for the pro or anti-abortion debate. Instead, it takes a step back and leaves the viewer to make their own mind up, a brave position to occupy. Digging out the humanity amid an emotional wasteland, it’s a remarkable achievement, and deservedly won the 2007 Palme D’Or at Cannes.

2. Punch-Drunk Love (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2002)
When done properly, a genuinely unpredictable film is a joy to behold and throughout Punch-Drunk Love, director Paul Thomas Anderson keeps us gleefully off-balance. What’s it all about? Well, at the centre is a charming romance between Adam Sandler’s business owner and Emily Watson’s mystery woman. More than that though, it’s about the collision between formality and spontaneity, between random chance and the boredom of routine. Anderson’s mobile camera mirrors the unpredictability of his script but most important is the sound: a dazzling collision of musical genres and rich ambience that is quite hypnotic. He even directs Sandler into delivering a terrific performance – now that’s an achievement.

3. Footloose (Herbert Ross, 1984)
It was remade in 2011 but there’s no matching the fun and energy of the original Footloose. Even after all these years, it’s a major feel-good experience, with memorable set-pieces (the tractor duel; the Let’s Hear It For the Boy montage) and great performances. Underneath is cheesy facade, however, is a thoughtful exploration of free will versus public control, and of religion versus pop music, heady stuff for a film in which Kevin Bacon gyrates around a warehouse on his own. Like all great movies, there are moments of grit and charm, and the unveiling of Chris Penn’s inner dancing god is wonderful to behold. RIP Nice Guy Eddie.

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Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: one of the year's gems

Nothing is certain but death and taxes as the saying goes… But we’re always guaranteed an eclectic year at the cinema, full of highs and lows. And 2011 was no exception. As we were whisked around the world from Hollywood to Japan and beyond, many of the year’s blockbusters fell below the mark (Cowboys and Aliens was a notable flop) and mainstream American comedies sank further into reliance on lazy archetypes. In fact, when compiling my Worst List, I was shocked to discover how many so-called ‘comedies’ made the grade.

However, let’s not dwell on the negatives. Because 2011 was a superb year for cinema, in particular documentaries and British films. In one year alone, we had the likes of Senna, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, TT3D: Closer to the Edge and Rio Breaks swelling the doco ranks, and at the start of the year, The King’s Speech led the charge for Brit cinema, which was to encompass such gems as Submarine and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

And yet again, it was when we ventured further afield that we discovered some of the year’s most fascinating stories, from Miike Takashi’s remake of 13 Assassins to the two men isolated at a remote weather station in How I Ended This Summer. They don’t make them like they used to? Nonsense. We just have to look a bit harder nowadays for those especially magical stories.

Here are my round-ups of what I consider to be the best, and worst of the year. Yes, those films made with nothing but sneering contempt for the viewing audience do not get off lightly. I also extend the list to include my favourite film scores of the year (defined as orchestral soundtracks as opposed to selections of pre-existing songs) and also my favourite surprises. These are defined as films and orchestral scores which haven’t been released in 2011 but which I’ve only discovered in 2011. Enjoy! Roll on 2012!

Check out Sean’s:
10 best films of 2011
10 best film scores of 2011
10 worst films of 2011
3 movie surprises found in 2011
3 surprise film scores found in 2011

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1. Senna (Asif Kapadia)
Like all great documentaries, Senna transcends its nominal subject matter, in the process becoming less of a factual document and more a haunting elegy.

Detailing the fascinating life and tragic death of Formula One racing driver Ayrton Senna, someone who lived his life in the fast lane, Asif Kapadia’s film exposes us to a man who was by turns compassionate and reckless, considered by many to be the greatest F1 racer ever to have lived. The film’s greatest achievement is that one needn’t be a racing fan in order to enjoy it. Senna’s quest for success and his relentless pursuit of his goals carries universal relevance, and the insights into the battles with rival Alain Prost are genuinely eye-opening. Compiled exclusively from archive footage and devoid of platitudinous narration, it’s as passionate a project as we were ever likely to see in 2011. The cars bring the noise, but what really haunts us is the focus on the man behind the wheel.

2. We Need To Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsay)
Lynne Ramsay made her long-awaited return to the director’s chair with We Need To Talk About Kevin, following her aborted attempt to get The Lovely Bones off the ground. And what a comeback it was. A deeply unsettling tale adapted from Lionel Schriver’s book, an exquisitely brittle Tilda Swinton stars as a mother forced to scrutinise the tormented bond she shares with her son when he commits a massacre at his school. Riding high on Swinton’s heart-rending performance, Ramsay brilliantly clouds the nature/nurture debate by deftly jumping back and forth in time, filtering the events through the mindset of Swinton’s character and adding troubling layers of subjectivity. Beautifully filmed and brilliantly acted (Ezra Miller as the teenage Kevin is a standout), Ramsay’s ability to expose us to terrifying home truths was unmatched elsewhere in 2011.

3. Meek’s Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt)
Taking the viewer so brilliantly into the old American frontier that it literally takes the breath away, Kelly Reichardt’s Meeks Cutoff is a tough old slog but rewards patience. Trudging through the dusty wilderness, a group of settlers, led by Bruce Greenwood’s titular character, are seeking the promised land. That is, if they can conquer the landscape itself. Few scenes this year were more heart-stopping than a simple attempt to lower a covered wagon down a ravine but that’s how successful Reichardt is in immersing us in the period. The ever-excellent Michelle Williams heads a top cast doing a lot with very little, and the story later takes on eerie allegorical significance, lamenting the loss of the frontier. A movie with such a keen sense of visceral reality, you almost feel the need to remove the grit from your shoes.

4. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Tomas Alfredson)
Tomas Alfredson follows up on the promise of acclaimed vampire drama Let The Right One In with his tremendous adaptation of John Le Carre’s novel, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Meticulously adapted by Peter Straughan and Bridget O’Connor, the film transports us back to the grimy, tobacco infested 1970s: the height of the Cold War, in which the very mechanics of spying take precedence over glamour and attitude. An exceptional cast, toplined by a magnetic Gary Oldman, inhabit a smoky, seedy world in which loyalty and betrayal are conveyed with little more than a meaningful sideways glance. If the film is somewhat chilly emotionally, Oldman’s haunting performance pulls us through, and so successful is Alfredson in bringing the period to life that the film is nothing less than a completely engrossing experience.

5. Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen)
Throughout his career, Woody Allen has veered between a pragmatic and an idealistic, even romantic, outlook. It was best summed up in the opening scene of Manhattan, where he self-consciously revised his own narration. It’s therefore delightful to note that the Allen of Midnight in Paris advocates a romantic sensibility above all else – could it be this most neurotic of directors has mellowed over the years? On viewing Midnight in Paris, it certainly seems like it. Owen Wilson inhabits the familiar Woody persona brilliantly as he finds himself transported back to the Paris of the 1920s, a plot device that defies reason but which gives rise to a charmingly understated exploration of nostalgia and philosophy. However, it’s no didactic lecture; more a frothy, refreshing treat, underscored by Allen’s bracing intellect.

6. Rango (Gore Verbinski)
Many animated films subversively sneak in adult themes under the guise of a kiddie-friendly exterior. Rango, however, is that rare beast: animation which caters more for grown-ups than their sprogs. Gore Verbinski’s wonderfully twisted return to form marks Industrial Light and Magic’s first foray into feature-length animation, so it’s no surprise than the film is a visual treat throughout (ace cinematographer Roger Deakins was on-hand as visual consultant). However, backing up the stunning visual design is a diabolically witty script from John Logan, drawing on a plethora of references, from Sergio Leone to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. With a fantastic streak of surreal humour that embraces and parodies the staples of classic westerns, Rango is an off-kilter joy, and boasts a charming vocal performance from Johnny Depp.

7. Thor (Kenneth Branagh)
The most enjoyable blockbuster of the year (although Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol runs it close), Thor benefits from an approach that is neither self-serious nor overly campy. Instead, Kenneth Branagh walks a marvellous tightrope act between respecting the Marvel comics and playing the material for laughs. That a big budget property can be treated with such humility is refreshing, but that’s not to say Branagh skimps on the visual extravagance or excitement. Rather, he’s able to blend a sense of Shakespearean scale with tongue-in-cheek humour, and the performances are terrific, from a roaring Chris Hemsworth in the title role to a serpentine Tom Hiddlestone as the duplicitous Loki. A charming, exciting, hugely entertaining inclusion in the Marvel canon – now all eyes look forward to The Avengers!

8. Submarine (Richard Ayoade)
We all feel awkward during adolescence and in Submarine, Richard Ayoade (making his feature-length directorial debut) captures this feeling beautifully. Adapted from Joe Dunthorne’s book, an excellent Craig Roberts stars as Oliver Tate, the confused teen who aims to lose his virginity and prevent the break-up of his parents marriage. Deploying a multitude of camera tricks, Ayoade renders Tate’s life in self-consciously cinematic terms (let’s face it, many of us like to think of our lives in just such a fashion) before exposing the painful truth: that imagining our lives in terms of artificial reality doesn’t help anyone. Consequently, there’s a quiet poignancy underlying Ayoade’s vision, reflected in the stark Welsh setting and Roberts’ deceptively blank performance. Submarine therefore is no empty exercise in style but a hilarious, touching portrait of what it’s like to be a teenager.

9. Las Acacias (Pablo Giorgelli)
Every year, a film comes along that so completely immerses us in the lives of its characters that it takes on a kind of wondrous quality. In 2010, it was Mike Leigh’s Another Year; in 2011, it’s Las Acacias. German De Silva stars as grizzled long distance truck driver Ruben who transports a woman (Hebe Duarte) and her baby from Paraguay to Buenos Aires. The film draws strength from its minimalism: very little happens outside of the description above, but so well cast are the actors, so expressive are their features, that it becomes unexpectedly gripping. The amount of dialogue in this 80 minute feature would barely fill ten pages of a script, but why rely on words when beautiful close-ups can tell us the history of the characters in a matter of seconds? Rife with undertones of regret, kindness and second chances, Pablo Giorgelli’s film proves the human face is the greatest special effect of all.

10. Hugo (Martin Scorsese)
Elegantly fusing a children’s fantasy story with a heartfelt message about the importance of silent cinema, Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of Brian Selznick’s book Hugo is as magnificently crafted as one would expect. The much touted inclusion of 3D is rendered moot when compared to Scorsese’s ability as a storyteller. It’s not the illusion of added depth that draws us in but Scorsese’s passion for the films that inspired him, namely Georges Melies, who plays a key role in this story of the titular orphan boy (Asa Butterfield) seeking to unlock the mystery of the clockwork automaton left to him by his dead father. Ben Kingsley, Sacha Baron Cohen and Helen McCrory are just some of the stars putting in wonderful performances and fleshing out Scorsese’s vision. That the film is able to inform without being didactic is proof positive of Scorsese’s status as a master filmmaker.

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1. The Greatest Miracle (Mark McKenzie)
No other film score in 2011 resounded with such a sense of spiritual beauty as Mark McKenzie’s The Greatest Miracle. A magnificent work frequently verging on the rhapsodic, McKenzie’s score for the Mexican animated feature calls to mind Ennio Morricone’s masterpieces The Mission and Padre Pio, blending a lush orchestra with a moving choir to create a masterpiece.

McKenzie’s vast experience as an orchestrator, working with the likes of Danny Elfman and Jerry Goldsmith, serves him well, the music perfectly calibrated to send the emotions soaring. Scores such as The Greatest Miracle are indeed miraculous, proof that there is life left in the old-fashioned film score.

2. The Tree of Life (Alexandre Desplat)
The inclusion of Alexandre Desplat’s score in this list may be a tad misleading, seeing as very little of it ended up in the theatrical cut of the movie. However, there’s no denying that Desplat’s music captures Terence Malick’s intentions beautifully, flowing and ebbing away in the manner of a river and reflecting the multi-faceted lives of the on-screen characters. It’s been a busy year for the composer but The Tree of Life is a massively rewarding experience, albeit an intellectual and demanding one, balancing clusters of rhythmic beauty with uncomfortable darkness, and daring to fade away into nothingness at the end.

3. Soul Surfer (Marco Beltrami)
Marco Beltrami is mostly known for his horror scores (Scream, Mimic et al), but even they have frequent moments of beauty. And yet the score for Soul Surfer demonstrates Beltrami’s sensitive side to especially glorious effect, the composer depicting Hawaiian culture in breathtaking fashion. Utilising traditional ‘mele’ chants alongside a lush orchestra, the score is possessed of an authentic ethnic texture that is deeply beautiful. One of Hollywood’s most underrated composers, Beltrami shows marvellous skill in sketching surfer Bethany Hamilton’s spiritual journey, in the process conjuring up one of 2011′s best scores.

4. The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (John Williams)
Underestimate John Williams’ first Tintin score at your peril. On arrival, it received something of a lukewarm reception from rabid fans keen to hear a new theme that rivalled the likes of the Raiders March. Well, that hasn’t happened. There are themes, sure (a jazzy one for Tintin himself, a buoyant scherzo for Snowy, a thunderous piece for the Unicorn), but they don’t linger long in the memory. What Williams does instead is weave this plethora of ideas around each other in extraordinarily intricate fashion, belying his advancing years, and showing the young bucks why he’s still the undisputed master of Hollywood film scoring.

5. Captain America: The First Avenger (Alan Silvestri)
Big bold superhero themes aren’t in fashion at the moment – sadly, it doesn’t seem trendy or hip to manipulate a modern audience with big emotional music. So composer Alan Silvestri deserves a big hand-shake for coming up with the best superhero theme in many a year: the Captain America March. Brassy, martial, heroic, it gets the essence of the character to a tee, and adds a magnificent, additional layer of heroism to the film itself. When coupled with Silvestri’s familiar action music style (brass ostinatos, rhythmic strings, xylophones), it really takes off, and flips the bird to those who say music shouldn’t get in the way of the film.

6. The Rum Diary (Christopher Young)
With The Rum Diary, Christopher Young continues to prove why he is one of the most multi-faceted, exciting composers in Hollywood at the moment. Famed for the lush, Gothic extravagance heard in the likes of Hellraiser and Drag Me to Hell, here, Young returns to his jazzy roots, concocting a terrifically laid back score for Bruce Robinson’s adaptation of Hunter S Thompson’s novel. Few film scores in 2011 were as personal, Young clearly relishing the intimacy afforded by the jazz ensemble. There’s even time on the album for collaborative material with star Johnny Depp – one senses this score was enormous fun to record!

7. Jane Eyre (Dario Marianelli)
Dario Marianelli solidifies his reputation as the go-to composer for period dramas with Jane Eyre. However, this is a score that lacks the harmonic appeal of Pride and Prejudice or the tragic weight of Atonement. Instead, Marianelli demands much from the listener, gradually building empathy for Mia Wasikowska’s Jane through Jack Liebek’s exquisite violin solos, which gain in heart-rending urgency over the course of the score. It’s a beautifully subtle work that stands up as textured, complex listening experience, balancing the darkness of the ‘insuperable impediment’ with the burgeoning romance between Jane and Michael Fassbender’s Rochester.

8. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (Michael Giacchino)
The most entertaining installment so far in the Mission Impossible franchise also receives the best score. Michael Giacchino, re-uniting with director Brad Bird for the third time (after The Incredibles and Ratatouille), was clearly galvanised by the playful, globe-trotting nature of the latest entry, coming up with a thrilling score. Integrating Lalo Schifrin’s original TV themes to consistent, dynamic effect, and with a multitude of action/suspense pieces that reflect the film’s exotic locations, it’s a massively entertaining score, in which Giacchino is able to give equal weight to both his own voice and Schifrin’s.

9. Super 8 (Michael Giacchino)
Sometimes, all a score needs is a knockout conclusion. Super 8 is the second score from Michael Giacchino on this list and for the most part, pivots around a clutch of engaging, if hardly groundbreaking, themes (a central piece, one for the monster, one for the army and one for the relationship between Joe and Alice). These ideas circulate around each other, channelling the spirit of John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith while capturing the sense of childhood wonder and encroaching menace seen in JJ Abrams’ film. And then… it all erupts in a simply stupendous finale when the orchestra rises to magnificent heights, calling to mind, appropriately, the soaring conclusion of Williams’ ET score. Such a payoff is well worth the wait.

10. The Artist (Ludovic Bource)
The spirit of silent cinema is very much alive thanks to Martin Scorsese’s Hugo and Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist. The acclaimed project is itself a silent movie, one which pays nostalgic homage to early cinema, and Ludovic Bource’s hailed score follows suit. Channelling the likes of Franz Waxman and Max Steiner, Bource brings the rich Golden Age sound roaring back to life, introducing a whole new audience to the importance of early film scores. A pastiche score by nature, its intentionally overwrought sound precludes casual emotional involvement but it’s clearly a passion project for the composer, a score sure to be regarded as a classic in future.

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1. Zookeeper (Frank Coraci)
Aka Pookeeper. There’s nothing worse than watching a film made with complete contempt for the viewing audience, and Zookeeper is just that. It’s not that the film doesn’t understand its target audience; it doesn’t seem to care what its target audience is.

Consistently witless for adults and alternately boring and inappropriate for kids (is the sexual bear claw talk appropriate? Are children likely to care whether Kevin James gets together with his girlfriend?), Zookeeper is a complete turkey, and as much fun as having a bucket of manure tipped over your head. It would seem churlish to land the film’s failure at star James’ feet… until one considers his role as producer. As with many recent American comedies, it smacks of a smug, cliquey effort, in which several comedians slapped each other on the back in a boardroom and greenlit the film without even considering the script.

2. The Dilemma (Ron Howard)
Ron Howard makes a colossal misstep with The Dilemma, a dismal attempt to mesh several genres in one whole. It’s Kevin James’ second disaster of 2011, although he’s not the main star. That responsibility falls to Vince Vaughn, smug and deeply unlikeable as the oafish bloke who catches his best mate’s (James) wife cheating on him. Amazingly, for a film in which people whinge, carp and moan at each other incessantly for two hours, there’s not one memorable line of dialogue, and the wild swings between broad farce and limp black comedy are disastrous. Wasting a talented cast, Howard makes a pigs ear out of a sows purse, and that’s not even mentioning the pointless car interludes with Queen Latifah, which look like they came from another script entirely.

3. Anuvahood (Adam Deacon, Daniel Toland)
The sort of movie that gives British cinema a bad name, the fact that Anuvahood received any sort of funding at all is staggering. Presumably made under the belief that the word ‘blud’ is funny when repeated ad infinitum every other sentence (it isn’t), it’s an ugly and incoherent piece of work, with aggressive street slang attempting to mask the absence of real jokes. Deeply tiresome for the first three-quarters, the errant plunge into bloody fisticuffs towards the end confirms the suspicion that this is a movie wildly out of control. Hectoring, hysterical performances merely seal the deal – and it’s never good when a movie makes the likes of Kidulthood seem Shakespearean by comparison.

4. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (Rob Marshall)
I was holding out a smidgen of hope that the fourth Pirates film would hit the heights of the first. After all, who can forget the effervescent joy when Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow first staggered onto our screens back in 2003? Sadly, the franchise continues to take on water in this latest installment, sinking under the weight of senseless exposition, plot devices and a general lack of joie de vivre. How can a film involving pirates, mermaids and Blackbeard himself be so boring? Perhaps it’s because of franchise expectations: these films now generate so much revenue that having fun is surplus to requirements. Not even Depp can save it because the character of Sparrow himself has been corrupted, transformed from eccentric, boozy scoundrel into a figure-head for a billion dollar franchise.

5. Bad Teacher (Jake Kasdan)
There’s a disparity in Bad Teacher between the film we’re watching and the film the actors think they’re starring in. Cameron Diaz, Lucy Punch and others seem to revel in playing their characters as overgrown adolescents, but Jake Kasdan’s direction is completely flat and ordinary, lacking the satirical bite that would make sense of the performances. Consequently, the acting lacks a sense of context, and the film’s set-pieces feel strangely flat, from a slo-mo soapy car wash scene to a bit of dry humping between Diaz and Justin Timberlake. The only person who seems to have a handle on proceedings is Jason Segel who, in a few short scenes, steals the film from everyone else. He can’t save it though.

6. Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Michael Bay)
Crash, bang, whallop, what a video! Yes, Transformers: Dark of the Moon arrived in a maelstrom of noisy publicity, and yet claims that it had any sort of coherent plot (largely due to the 20 minute opening, ruined by the trailers) were predictably unfounded. Admittedly not as skin-crawlingly awful as the second (let’s face it, few films are), Michael Bay continues to indulge his penchant for head-banging carnage that is neither thrilling nor involving; just headache inducing. It’s also stupidly overlong and self-indulgent, the first hour of the film filled with bug-eyed shrieking performances which indicate that Bay has no more idea how to direct actors than he does how to use effects. Promising set-pieces involving sky divers and collapsing buildings are soon pummelled out of the collective consciousness – really, enough is enough.

7. Larry Crowne (Tom Hanks)
The cinematic equivalent of blancmange, if you want to watch nothing happening for two hours, watch Larry Crowne. Tom Hanks has of course established a reputation as a terrific actor and interviewee, but he’s way off base in this cringe-inducing story of a man’s mid-life crisis. Apparently, this means donning a helmet and riding around in a local student scooter club, scenes which feel like bloopers left over from the Quadrophenia DVD. Reuniting with former co-star Julia Roberts, Hanks can’t muster an iota of chemistry or pathos. It’s one of the most oddly misfiring films of 2011, filmed in a succession of drab hues and generally falling as flat as a pancake.

8. Your Highness (David Gordon Green)
A comic parody of historical fantasy films, Your Highness is in esteemed company alongside the likes of Monty Python’s Holy Grail and The Princess Bride. But to suggest that it attains those heights is not merely absurd; it’s offensive. Freewheeling between coarse stoner comedy and weirdly extravagant effects (which are rather good), it never lets the audience get a foothold, as it’s never clear what type of movie its trying to be. According to IMDB, most of the film was improvised, which should tell viewers all they need to know. The minute that self-satisfied actors feel the need to discard the script and go it alone on a movie of this sort is the moment when audiences need to walk away.

9. Sucker Punch (Zack Snyder)
Nonsensical films are one thing; boring nonsensical films are something else entirely. Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch falls firmly into the latter category, amazing when one considers that it throws everything but the kitchen sink at the screen. Given the queasy sheen of a trashy pop video and possessed of some extremely dubious sexual politics, this wannabe female empowerment tale actually confines its characters to hilarious stereotypes even while attempting to depict the battle for freedom occurring within the main character’s head. A slave to juvenile impulses, Sucker Punch’s most egregious error is that it’s dull.

10. Red Riding Hood (Catherine Hardwicke)
One of Hollywood’s current fads is the need to dress up classic fairy tales in teenybopper Twilight clothing. It’s happening in 2012 with Snow White and the Huntsman, but 2011 saw Red Riding Hood fall foul of current trends. Catherine Hardwicke’s revisionist story is unintentionally hilarious in its po-faced attitude, especially when the cast break out in a spot of dancing that is conspicuously 21st century. Amanda Seyfried does what she can in the lead role, but not even Gary Oldman can make his hammy character interesting. Kudos though for the intelligent casting of Julie Christie in the classically ambiguous Grandmother role.

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1. Ni No Kuni (Joe Hisaishi, 2010)
Ni No Kuni is a 2010 Nintendo DS game and so to describe the accompanying music as a film score may be pushing things a bit.

However, Joe Hisaishi’s exceptional music is further proof that video game scores are themselves becoming more and more cinematic. Continuing the tradition of Michael Giacchino’s Medal of Honour scores, Hisaishi comes up with a powerhouse soundtrack, featuring enough memorable themes for 10 films combined. Majestic, moving and beautiful, it earmarks Hisaishi as one of our finest composers.

2. Copernicus’ Star (Abel Korzeniowski, 2009)
An animated Polish film from 2009, Copernicus’ Star has been little seen in the UK but Abel Korzeniowski’s score is magnificent. Classically lyrical in the style of his haunting work for A Single Man, it proudly continues the tradition of rich, exciting scores for animation, blending memorable themes and rhapsodic beauty in a thrillingly old-fashioned package. In a short space of time, Korzeniowski has established a distinctive musical voice, and his own star looks likely to ascend following his Golden Globe nomination for Madonna’s W.E.

3. Stardust (Ilan Eshkeri, 2007)
There may not be anything especially original in Ilan Eshkeri’s score for Stardust, but that’s precisely what makes it enjoyable. A rollicking old-fashioned fantasy score brimming with romance, intrigue and action, Eshkeri packages the best bits from past masters into one, massively entertaining whole. It’s a brilliant accompaniment to Matthew Vaughn’s spirited comic fantasy, and contains a great deal of heart in an era when many film scores appear to be losing it. The triumphant, climactic Coronation piece will be familiar to many from a Strongbow commercial.

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It's A Wonderful Life: James Stewart's George Bailey in a tale of the tormented everyman

As the festive season draws in, here’s a reminder of a film (my second favourite of all-time, after The Shawshank Redemption) that redefined the way we look at Christmas.

Just as Charles Dickens altered our perceptions with his landmark story A Christmas Carol (oft-filmed itself), when famed humanist director Frank Capra decided to spin the story of George Bailey, he crafted a masterpiece for the ages. It’s a Wonderful Life is sometimes dismissed as sugary hogwash (indeed the film’s antagonist Mr Potter may have described it as such) but the magic of the film is in the way it extracts perhaps the greatest moral ever seen in cinema from a story about a decent man contemplating suicide.

Out of the bleakness comes an evergreen story that hasn’t aged a day since the film’s release in 1946…

WARNING: SPOILERS
Two of the close-ups in It’s a Wonderful Life simply rip the heart out of the viewer. Both occur fairly late into the story, when businessman George Bailey (James Stewart) is plumbing the agonising depths of despair, having misplaced a sum of money vital to the survival of his Building and Loan, the ball and chain that has seen him tethered to his hometown of Bedford Falls.

His gut-wrenching fragility as he frantically clutches his child to his chest is heightened in a scene later on where, out of sheer desperation, he verbally prays to God in his local bar. In the latter case, he is rewarded with little more than a punch in the face from the husband of his daughter’s teacher whom he earlier insulted on the phone. ‘That’s what you get for praying,’ he caustically remarks.

George’s cynicism and self-loathing gets a reprieve, however, when, on the verge of suicide, he plunges into an icy river to rescue an angel, Clarence Oddbody (Henry Travers).

It transpires Clarence is not just an angel but George’s own guardian angel, who has been sent to remind George of his very wonderful life. By showing him what life would have been like had he not been born, George is reminded of his importance in the world, importance he had previously taken for granted. In a neat twist on the Dickensian fable, Clarence’s quest is used as a framing device during Capra’s film; at the start he is instructed in the history of George’s life, and it is through this framework that we come to understand the tormented everyman.

As portrayed by James Stewart, arguably the Golden Age’s finest exponent of human decency, George becomes the most vital, believable and sympathetic protagonist ever seen in a motion picture. We trace his wonderful life from the start, when he saves his brother from drowning in a frozen lake, to his marriage to childhood sweetheart Mary (Donna Reed) to his eventual financial struggles. Along the way, he is forced to give up his dreams of travelling and is locked in an eternal struggle with the odious Dickensian villain Mr Potter (Lionel Barrymore). But it is only when Clarence reveals the ‘black hole’ left behind in Bailey’s absence that he realises what a plethora of riches he has bestowed on those around him.

It’s a simple home-truth, but a magnificent one at that, one that is rife with tremendous compassion and which transforms the cinematic tapestry into a joyous meditation on basic human decency.

No actor was ever better at conveying the complexity of such straightforward emotions than Stewart, and Stewart never did better work than here, able to move from light comedy to melancholia to freewheeling joy in such a breathless fashion that more acute empathy for a central character was never felt again in a film. Capra’s Italian-American eye again benefits the underdog and the everyman, observing small-town America with just the right amount of gentle humour and, eventually, overwhelming pathos.

It’s also a darker film than is commonly suggested, making George’s final push for redemption one of the most magical, gut-wrenching journeys seen on the big-screen. After all, it is about a man contemplating suicide and the circumstances that have brought him to such a position. Stewart, bringing his World War II experience to bear on the role, somehow makes the simple struggle to remain a good man the most gripping story of all. Throughout, we will George to fight against the darkness and bitterness within him, desperately wanting to cry out that he needn’t yield to life’s cruelty.

And it is George’s eventual moment of revelation that culminates in perhaps the most magnificently moving moment in cinema. Faced with the bleak horror of a world in which he never existed, George finds Bedford Falls has been transformed into Pottersville; his brother Harry was unable to save the lives of comrades on a transport in WWII (because George wasn’t there to save Harry as a child); his wife is a spinster; and his mother doesn’t recognise him.

It’s an existential nightmare of the worst kind, and George realises the richness of his life needn’t be measured in the money stored at the Building and Loan. Capra’s deft handling of the film’s moral tone however is never that glib or trite, the haunting black and white photography poised delicately between sadness and potential catharsis.

And when the catharsis does come, it is impossible for the viewer to leave feeling less enriched than George does. So careful has Capra’s application of emotional texture been, and so involving have been the performances of Stewart and his co-stars, that the film taps into a vein of wonder guaranteed to evoke floods of tears. But they’re not sickly, sentimental tears; they’re genuine ones, evoked by genuine emotion and the closest thing cinema has got to genuine characters. It’s a fabulous moment when George charges home simply appreciating the reality of his life (even if that means going to jail) but the coup de grace comes in the final 10 minutes.

Those are possibly the most inspiring and uplifting ever witnessed in a film, as George is reminded of his status as ‘The richest man in town’ by an assortment of colleagues, friends and family who each contribute money to bail him out of his troubles.

Miraculously, it’s never corny, just a celebration of love, courage and genuine emotion. As Auld Lang Syne reverberates on the heart-strings and Stewart comes to realise the magnitude of his apparently insignificant life, it’s impossible not to be moved. It’s not just reactions to the script rippling across the actor’s face: it’s the well-spring of humanity that has come bubbling up to wash over the audience. Never again would cinema work such wonders. If only we were guaranteed to get a film as good as this every time a bell rings…

• Get it’s A Wonderful Life on Amazon

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Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows: it's the chemistry wot done it! Robert Downey Jnr and Jude Law as Holmes and Watson have a special 'bond'

Director Guy Ritchie has seemingly pulled-off the impossible, by delivering two good films back-to-back. In fact his sequel to Sherlock Holmes (in general) is a far more confident piece, both in terms of its performances and humour.

We join Holmes (Robert Downey) as he’s following a spate of anarchist bombings across Europe. The brilliant but rather skittish detective inadvertently comes across a mysterious letter, which leads him to a gypsy (Noomi Rapace) and into the lair of his arch nemesis, Professor James Moriarty (Jared Harris). But where is Watson (Jude Law) in all of this? Well, he’s busy trying to get married…

Ritchie’s film is at its strongest when Holmes and Watson are on screen bickering, this was evident in the first film and clearly the director understands the importance of his duo’s chemistry. This is fairly evident because all of the female characters from the previous film are ‘dealt-with’ fairly briskly (one way or another). Rapace’s gypsy is brought along for the ride, but she never falls into the category of love interest, like the Rachel McAdams character (from the previous film). No, this is very much about the special ‘bond’ between Holmes and Watson, with neither man wanting to admit their ‘feelings’ for the other, which makes for some very amusing banter. The chemistry between Robert Downey Jnr and Jude Law is undeniable.

There are one or two negatives though; characters often take great care to emphasise the importance of certain objects, which can be a little too distracting. Watch out for a change of clothes, an underwater breathing device and Holmes’ wedding present to Watson. Then there’s Ritchie’s trademark use of slow-motion, which is as pointless and hideous as ever. While the action sequences worked perfectly well, the constant use of slow-motion became rather tiresome, thus detracting from my overall enjoyment of them. This editorial preference is also used to illustrate Holmes’, ‘detective vision’, where Holmes pieces together what happens prior to ‘its’ occurrence, which means we get to see certain sequences twice, which is dull at best. I had hoped that this ‘innovation’ from the first film, would have been ditched, but sadly not.

However, all grumbles aside if Ritchie continues to make films of this ilk, I might just be able to forgive him for all those awful cockney geezer films we’ve had to endure since Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is an entertaining film, filled with a surprising amount of comedy which will not disappoint.

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Hugo: restoring an automaton is all but clockwork

Upon entering the Barn in Dartington, I had a sense of trepidation about what I was letting myself in for with Hugo, a family film from the director of Mean Streets, Taxi Driver and Goodfellas. But I needn’t have been concerned, despite a cumbersome first half, Martin Scorsese delivers, if not quite a family film, then a film which is steeped in awe of the cinema and its majesty.

Fortunately, the Barn only projects it’s films in two-dimensions, so I didn’t have to endure the ‘wonders’ of 3D, even Martin Scorsese’s 3D. However, while watching the film it’s fairly easy to pick out where the 3D moments would be implemented; a swooping camera here, Hugo dodging between clockwork mechanics there, and even the old fluttering paper trick (which Spielberg recently put to use in Tintin). While I’ve not seen the 3D version yet, I cannot believe it adds anything of substance, especially when Scorsese’s fluttering paper, looks 3D when it is in fact 2D – oh the revolutionary joys of depth of field!

The titular Hugo (Asa Butterfield) secretly maintains the clocks in a railway station, while avoiding the attention of an over-zealous station guard (Sacha Baron Cohen), who has a chip on his shoulder about orphans. We learn that Hugo’s father (Jude Law) perished in a fire at the museum where he worked. Since then Hugo has practically been fending for himself, while attempting to restore an automaton, which him and his father had been rebuilding. But, Hugo only achieves this with the help of Isabelle (Chloe Moretz), however, this in-turn unlocks another secret.

Personally, the first half of the film felt a little tedious, but once Ben Kingsley’s character is introduced the film begins to morph into something entirely different. I suspect the film’s saccharine first hour, featuring daring adventures and chases is there to dazzle and captivate the younger audience members, before the film dramatically changes gear and begins its metamorphosis. This trick obviously worked, because the children in the screening I attended remained captivated throughout.

The film’s second half is where Scorsese really comes alive, with explicit references to the Lumière brothers, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Georges Méliès. Without spoiling anything, few directors have the opportunity to share their knowledge of cinema, or enthusiasm and passion for the medium, but Scorsese achieves this magnificently and all while weaving a narrative. Hugo features fine performances from the young and the not so spritely and while it might not be the ‘family film’ many expect, it is without a doubt, a joy to behold.

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