Movies/Reviews

The most memorable film to have come out of Hong Kong in a long while, and certainly the best psycho-thriller in recent memory.

A Hollywood twist on sobering real-life events, but one with enough depth to inform as well as entertain.

A lot of things can happen in the space of a year. Formerly unknown arthouse actors can morph into huge action movie stars - take, for instance, Jeremy Renner, who went from indie (The Hurt Locker) to powerhouse (Avengers Assemble, The Bourne Legacy, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol) during Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters' spell in cold storage. Delaying the release of a film for almost one full year is almost always a bad sign. Happily, beyond getting to see a pre-Hawkeye Renner strut his stuff, there's much to enjoy in this rude, violent, gory and very funny twist on an old fairy tale.

Video game movies have long had a bad rap, and one would be hard-pressed to name a flick based on a game that isn`t terrible, let alone any good. When one thinks of the bottom of the cinematic barrel, video game movies are often lining the base, from Super Mario Bros. to Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li. The Resident Evil film franchise is by far the most successful among video game films. That is, however, not to say these are good films by any stretch. Unfortunately, Retribution is nothing but further evidence of that.

Power Rangers’ updating of the beloved TV show is not a seamless one, but it works more than it doesn’t, serving as an efficient set-up for the mythos of this reboot. It’s also just edgy enough without being ridiculously mopey.

Sharp-shooting in parts but this is, ultimately, a misfire.

A rare dissonant voice in the sea of Hollywood movies branding the entire Islamic world as jihadists, but unfortunately undermined by minor cultural insensitivity and a controversial casting policy.

It’s rare for both the English and Chinese titles of a film to fit its theme and aesthetic so well, but Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from Above is one of the few that manages to pull it off. Yes, there are some amazingly beautiful aerial shots of Taiwan that will prompt even the most travel-averse among us to book tickets on the next flight to Taoyuan Airport, but this documentary goes beyond the beauty of the natural landscape to look at a Taiwan that is ever more ravaged by the environmental degradation of those who call her home. So those who were expecting Taiwan from Above to be some kind of extended tourism advertisement (a demographic which this reviewer admits to having been a part of), you couldn’t be more mistaken.

Surprisingly, given Anderson's penchant for dark, rich character studies, 'Inherent Vice' plays far better as a comedy.

The true story of Winter, the rescued dolphin with the prosthetic tail, was dramatised in 2011’s Dolphin Tale, this sequel following up on Winter and some of her new companions at Florida’s Clearwater Marine Aquarium.

Summary: Romantic, heartwarming and gorgeously filmed, THE TEACHER'S DIARY is at once old-school and unconventional, sweet and compelling instead of mawkishly sentimental.

Megamind is the most brilliant super-villain the world has ever known...and the least successful. Over the years, he has tried to conquer Metro City in every imaginable way, each attempt a colossal failure, thanks to the caped superhero known as Metro Man, until the day Megamind actually defeats him in the throes of one of his botched evil plans. Suddenly, the fate of Metro City is threatened when a new villain arrives and chaos runs rampant, leaving everyone to wonder: Can the world's biggest 'mind' actually be the one to save the day?