King Kong (1976)

King Kong (1976)
Rating:
Nov 6, 2001Giant Ape
The infamous Dino de Laurentiis remake of King Kong was so miscalculated it became an industry joke for years after. The beautiful stop-motion of the original has been replaced by Rick Baker in an ape suit, while Fay Wray and the fairytale romance is replaced by Jessica Lange as a ditzy flower child who cracks jokes

Tron (1982)

Tron (1982)
Rating: ★★★★
Dec 18, 2002Journey into Cyberspace
A flop in its day, nobody at the time saw how revolutionary this was in that it predicted the idea of cyberspace and the internet. The design of the world inside the computer all in candy apple colours and geometric shapes is extraordinary

Starman (1984)

Starman (1984)
Rating: ★★★
May 5, 2000Alien Visitor
John Carpenter abandons horror to make one of the better E.T.-inspired cute and cuddly alien visitor films. The film’s grasp of science is sometimes shaky but the film gains an enormous amount from Jeff Bridges’ performance as the alien trying to adjust to being in a human body

The Fisher King (1991)

The Fisher King (1991)
Rating: ★★★★½
Sep 14, 2002Modern-Day Grail Quest
Terry Gilliam's finest moment, a modernised knightly quest where radio dj Jeff Bridges is dragged into helping homeless man Robin Williams find the Holy Grail. A film made by its performances and warm and eventually soaring characterisations

The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)

The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)
Rating: ★★★
Nov 14, 2009US Army's Psychic Warfare Division Comedy
Film based on the supposed Psychic Warfare Division of the US Army. Based on a non-fiction book, this is played by director Grant Heslov as a broad farce and sits on an uncertain line as to whether the powers are real

R.I.P.D. (2013)

R.I.P.D. (2013)
Rating: ★★
Jul 20, 2013Afterlife Police Force
This feels like someone has simply copied the idea of a secretive law enforcement agency from and substituted the dead escaped from Hell for aliens. The two have remarkably similar story arcs, although this is far more goofily entertaining that the absurdly overblown slapstick that overtook the Men in Black sequels

Seventh Son (2014)

Seventh Son (2014)
Rating: ★★
Feb 8, 2015Epic Fantasy/Monster Hunter's Apprentice
Harry Potter, The Hunger Games et al have been object lessons in how to properly adapt a Young Adult series; this could be considered a lesson how not to – take a book series about an apprentice witch hunter set in an alternate England and turn it a generic Lord of the Rings copy

The Little Prince (2015)

The Little Prince (2015)
Rating: ★★½
Mar 20, 2016Animation/Young Boy Alien Visitor Fable
On its own terms, this is a frequently lovely film. What gets me is how the director made a big thing during publicity of how much he loved Antoine de Saint-Exupery's original fable but offers up a completely different story that at best has occasional Little Prince interludes

Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017)

Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017)
Rating: ★★½
Dec 2, 2017Spy Film/Comic-Book Adaptation
Kingsman with its witty parody of gentlemanliness and action movie sensibilities, was the smartest of the modern spy movie parodies. This sequel feels like it has gone from Austin Powers for grown-ups to the excesses of the Roger Moore Bond films in the space of one film