Pride and Prejudice and Zombies Movie Review

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is only as entertaining as it is silly; when the movie abruptly switches to a serious tone in the third act zombiefying boredom sets in.

Lily James is charming as Elizabeth Bennett but her love interest Mr Darcy is played by a very wooden Sam Riley. Matt Smith as Mr Collins steals all the scenes he's in.

2 and a half stars out of 5 stars for me.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens Short Movie Review

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is basically a remake of Star Wars: A New Hope, with better special effects, a more diverse cast and a bucketful of nostalgia, with tons of nods and winks to the original trilogy.

Have to say though that the good guys are all idiots even if it serves to help move the plot; if the BB-8 is so bloody recognizable, for The Force's sake keep it safely hidden in a compartment somewhere instead of letting it toddle alongside you like some stupid shining beacon broadcasting to the entire galaxy who and where you are.

Still, it's entertaining enough, so 4 out of 5 stars for me.

Short Movie Review: The Good Dinosaur? More Like The Really Bad Dinosaur Movie.

Just as Inside Out is easily the best Pixar movie yet, so is The Good Dinosaur easily Pixar's worst film.

With a disjointed, weak narrative and characters painted in broad strokes with no real depth to speak of, The Good Dinosaur waddles on a crutch of stereotypes, cliches and tired archtypes to tell its story.

Young kids might enjoy it but I highly doubt adults will, which is a real anomaly in a Pixar feature.

2 out of 5 stars for me.

The Hunger Games Movie Series Ranked

1. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire



My review of Catching Fire

2. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2



My review of Mockingjay Part 2

3. The Hunger Games



4. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1



My movie review of Mockingjay Part 1

Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 Movie Review

While not as good as Catching Fire, Mockingjay Part 2 is the second strongest movie in the quartet and provides a satisfying conclusion to a great, if sometimes uneven, movie series.

A rare YA dystopian movie that is able to grow out of its roots and evolve into a full-fledged adult war movie, it is a must-watch for hardcore fans, casual fans and even just moviegoers in general. You do need to have watched Part 1 because Part 2 continues right where Part 1 ends.

4 out of 5 stars for me.

Mr. Holmes Short Movie Review

Fans of Benedict Cumberbatch's BBC Sherlock series; if you think this movie could be the thing to tide you over until the next season, you need to look elsewhere. The pace of this movie is rather languid and sometimes rather disjointed, with, the movie is split into three different narrative strands. The only reason to watch this movie is quite simply Sir Ian McKellen, who turns in a great performance here and is the only thing propping this movie up.

3 and a half stars out of 5 stars for me.

Short Black Mass Movie Review

I have to confess, the only reason I decided to watch this was because Benedict Cumberbatch is in it. He's in a handful of scenes at the start of the beginning of the film and in a couple of scenes near the end. The real star of this movie though is Johnny Depp, who plays a menacing Whitey Bulger rather well, although it seems rather one-note at times.

Unfortunately, the movie badly wants to emulate Goodfellas, a far superior gangster movie (to this day I don't understand how it lost to Kevin Costner's Dances With Wolf for Best Picture); instead what we get is a very mediocre run-of-the-mill gangster movie.

3 out of 5 stars for me. Do yourself a favor and go check out Martin Scorsese's infinitely better Goodfellas instead if you haven't seen it before.

Insomnia

Insomnia, my nemesis

My nocturnal menace

You're no nightly rendezvous

No lovely illicit paramour



I stare wide-eyed

Helpless and hapless

Into your endless

Gaping black maw



Tossing and turning

We wrestle mightily

As I strive to reject

Your leeching embrace



Akin to a vampire

You suck all vitality

Until I am no more

Than a withered husk



Bedraggled in defeat

Glassy-eyed with fatigue

Bleakly I blearily greet

The painful dawn

Minions Review

Just last week, Minions overtook Toy Story 3 to become the 2nd highest grossing animated movie ever, behind Frozen.

There can then be no doubt that the movie is a huge commercial success. But how does the movie stack up critically?

While it is true that in the 1st Despicable Me movie the Minions stole the movie from its human characters, and Despicable Me 2 suffered from featuring too little of the Minions as their usual yellow silly selves, Minions shows that there can be too much of a good thing.

Centering an entire movie on characters that sprout mostly gibberish that are occasionally punctuated with the word "Banana" is no mean feat and alas, unlike the superior Shaun the Sheep movie which also featured no real dialogue, Minions doesn't manage to successfully pull it off. Instead we get a mostly mediocre movie where the really funny moments are very few and very far between.

2 and a half stars out of 5 stars for me.

Jurassic World review

After hearing friends say that they enjoyed Jurassic World, I decided to give the movie a try even though I wasn't really crazy about dinosaurs.

The movie stars Chris Pratt as Owen, a dinosaur trainer, a dinosaur whisperer of sorts, and Dallas Bryce Howard as Claire, Jurassic World's operations manager. All chaos breaks loose when the park's latest genetically modified dinosaur escape its enclosure and it is up to Owen and Claire to join forces to save the day. To complicate matters, Claire's two nephews Zach and Gray are visiting the park when this happens.

While the movie is enjoyable enough, serving a nice blend of action and comedy, what I found hard to get out of my head throughout the movie was: "How on Earth did Claire spend several hours running around the park in her high heels without ever falling once?" I felt this detracted from the rest of the movie and might have marred my enjoyment of the movie quite a bit.

Also, all the characters are rather two-dimensional, with Owen and Claire playing polar opposites, Owen as an easygoing guy and Claire as an uptight corporate type. Claire’s eventual character growth and development is too predictable and makes her character rather boring.

Unfortunately for me, I found the plot rather sexist at times. Claire's female assistant is attacked by a dinosaur in an extended scream-fest scene more suitable in a horror than a PG-13 movie like this. Also, oddly enough, after seeing their aunt Claire be all bad-ass and save Owen from becoming dino-chow by shooting a dinosaur with a gun (minor spoilers), her nephews adamantly want to stick with Owen instead of her, just because she lacks a Y-chromosome. I also found it rather unrealistic that one of Claire's nephews was easily able to fix up an old vehicle and have it running and fully operational in no time flat without any outside help.

Right from the get-go, you’ll know who is going to make it and who doesn’t, which takes some of the suspense out of the movie. The army subplot provided by the character of Vic Hoskins, who wants to use the raptors as military weapons, is rather over-the-top and silly.

Despite the rather predictable and at times really asinine plot, the movie is entertaining enough and enjoyable at times, mostly from its nicely orchestrated action sequences.

3 and a half out of 5 stars for me.

Inside Out Short Movie Review

Inside Out is an excellent movie. Funny, whimsical. innovative and touching at times, a movie that can make you cry over a part elephant, part cat and part dolphin imaginary animated character is no mean feat.

Hope Jurassic World doesn't divert too many people from checking it out.

A must-see for both adults and children!

5 out of 5 stars for me.