The Da Vinci Code (2006)

The Da Vinci Code (2006)
Rating: ★★
Jun 21, 2006Secret History of Christianity/Historical Conspiracy
Ron Howard directed film version of Dan Brown's best-selling book. This is historical nonsense woven into a fancifully absurd conspiracy theory where Howard does no more than offer an illustrated version of the book

The Avengers (2012)

The Avengers (2012)
Rating: ★★★★
May 4, 2012Marvel Comics Superhero Team-Up
The culmination of one of the most ambitious cinematic exercises ever conducted, with Marvel weaving storylines through several films to finally merge here with flawless regard. The characters get far more depth than in all of their previous films

Iron Man Three (2013)

Iron Man Three (2013)
Rating: ★★
May 3, 2013Comic-Book Superhero
A major disappointment. Firstly, stripping the superhero of the show of his suit is dull, makes for no more than a regular action hero, while the film's treatment of comic-book canon and reduction of Iron Man's No 1 villain to a cardboard threat ranks somewhere down alongside a Batsuit with nipples

Transcendence (2014)

Transcendence (2014)
Rating: ★★
Apr 19, 2014Scientist's Mind Uploaded Into a Machine
A film that bites off some Big Ideas from the transhumanist movement – A.I., nanotechnology, and especially Mind Upload – and fails to do anything with them except for reach for hoary cliches of Frankenstein science. A film that, despite its self-importance, ends up as only a better budgeted version of The Lawnmower Man

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
Rating: ★★½
May 2, 2015Marvel Comics Superhero Team-Up
The first Avengers film came with a massive anticipation in seeing the characters come together and the snappiness of their interplay; here this seems more flat, while the rest is overrun by wall-to-wall action

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

Captain America: Civil War (2016)
Rating: ★★★½
May 14, 2016War Between Comic-Book Superheroes
Less Captain America 3 than The Avengers 3 – the entire film has been conceived as a massive superheroic punch-up. The results move with an exhilarating pace, but the Russo Brothers haven't yet mastered Joss Whedon's hand with character humour

Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
Rating: ★★
Nov 3, 2018Marvel Comics Superhero Team-Up
Marvel’s third Avengers film, uniting almost every superhero under their roof, resulting in some thirty characters on screen and a plot that becomes a blur of changing locations and superheroic punch-ups

Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
Rating: ★★
Dec 8, 2018Star Wars Spinoff Film
The second of the Stars Wars spinoff films tells a Han Solo origin story. After behind-the-scenes production troubles and a change of directors, it emerges in the hands of Ron Howard who has spent nearly four decades being the world's most ploddingly sedate director. Nothing particularly terrible but exactly what you expect of Howard