The Pledge (2001)
Jan 19, 2001Psycho-Thriller
Slow and subtle Sean Penn directed thriller where Jack Nicholson plays a retired detective haunted by a child murder case
Aaron Eckhart
The Missing (2003)
Mar 10, 2003Western/American Indian Sorcerer
Ron Howard makes a Western that has some horror overtones featuring an evil Indian sorcerer. In the hands of a classic director like John Ford this could have been an epic work but Howard’s plodding predictability kills interest
The Core (2003)
Jun 9, 2003Journey to the Centre of the Earth
A CGI disaster film about a journey to the centre of the Earth to restart the magnetic core. This is a film construed as no more than a series of spectacular self-contained disaster set-pieces, often irrespective of any of them making sense
Paycheck (2003)
Apr 6, 2004Precognition/Action Film/Philip K. Dick Adaptation
This Philip K. Dick adaptation has a great premise – Ben Affleck is an engineer with a blanked memory blanked only to find he has left himself clues from the future of things that are starting to come true. Alas, this is reduced to an action vehicle in the hands of John Woo
Suspect Zero (2004)
Oct 31, 2005Serial Killer Thriller
Serial killer thriller with Aaron Eckhart on the trail of an ambiguous Ben Kingsley. This offers some interesting twists but fails in the core issue of developing it into an absorbing thriller plot
The Dark Knight (2008)
Jul 18, 2008Comic-Book Superhero
Christopher Nolan brought the cinematic Batman franchise back to life with Batman Begins and here expands it into something amazing. The show is capped off by Heath Leder's towering Academy Award winning performance as The Joker
Battle Los Angeles (2011)
Mar 13, 2011Alien Invasion/War Film
Essentially this is a big-budget alien invasion film like Independence Day having been reconceived as a gritty, shakycam-shot war movie along the lines of Saving Private Ryan
I Frankenstein (2014)
Jan 25, 2014Frankenstein Monster's Modern-Day War with Demons
An empty-headed work that seems entirely premised around the provision of CGI effects spectacle and actively resists engagement on any other level. A spectacularly ridiculous film in almost every way