Jack Reacher

There have been complaints, I’ve heard, about Tom Cruise’s height and its impact on the long-awaited on-screen debut of Jack Reacher, author Lee Child’s supposedly skyscraping ex-military anti-hero. While the couch-jumping Mr Cruise stands at a measly 5’ 7”, the hulking Reacher of the page famously towers at a comparably mighty 6’ 5” — indeed, from what I’ve read, it’s one of the few physical features regularly attributed to the man. Fans of the film’s best-selling source material, who are many and who are loud, are justifiably displeased with the missing 10 inches: perhaps they would have preferred WWE-fighter-turned-leading-man Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (6’ 2” says google) stepping into Reacher’s boulder-sized boots — even then, that’s three inches too short.

But, and this is a question furiously fretted over throughout the centuries, does size really matter? For Cruise as Reacher, I think not. Now, I am admittedly unfamiliar with all 17 of the popular potboilers in which Reacher has appeared (so far). But what I am familiar with is Tom Cruise, and as the Reacher of Christopher McQuarrie’s hard-edged big-screen adaptation, the “Mission: Impossible” star fits the bill: Cruise brings to the titular role a roguish swagger, unflinching confidence, fierce physicality and a smooth charisma that does much to compensate for his limited stature. So what if he’s dwarfed by the beloved book-Reacher? He’ll kick your shins in in an instant and chew your ankles to the bone.

The story, based on Child’s “One Shot,” begins with a chilling, and all too relevant, act of violence. One morning, America is awoken by six gunshots: from a parking garage in Pittsburgh, a sniper shoots and kills five innocent bystanders, apparently at random. All evidence left at the scene leads to James Barr (James Sikora, “Shutter Island”), a military sniper who is promptly arrested. With a mountain of evidence stacked against their suspect, District Attorney Alex Rodin (Richard Jenkins, “The Cabin in the Woods”) and Detective Emerson (David Oyelowo, “Lincoln”) can’t believe their luck, though Barr stubbornly protests his innocence when interrogated. Seemingly about to confess, Barr instead scribbles three words: “Get Jack Reacher.”

And so Jack Reacher appears, all 5’ 7” of him, following a teasing sequence in which we follow the back of his head. Once a decorated military cop, Reacher now operates off the grid as a wandering drifter, travelling the lands on foot and by bus and carrying nothing but the clothes on his back and a fold-away toothbrush. He is tasked with aiding attorney Helen (Rosamund Pike, “Wrath of the Titans”), Rodin’s daughter, who is defending Barr in an attempt to get him off death row and consequently spite her overbearing father. As Reacher delves into the case, believing for good reason that Barr has indeed committed the crime, he begins to suspect that America’s most hated gunman is in fact the victim of a set-up.

This is a conclusion achieved through actual detection: unlike Tyler Perry’s Alex Cross, who waltzes into a crime scene and instantly knows all that has occurred, Tom Cruise’s Jack Reacher does appear to do some investigatory legwork, while Cruise thankfully persuades for the most part as an analytical mental machine. Perhaps less convincing is the wise-cracking, pearly toothed A-lister as a brooding lone wolf and self-declared hobo: when one sees Mr Cruise sitting in a city bus, attempting to blend in with the poverty-stricken passengers, one can’t help but snigger at the sight.

He’s in far more comfortable territory roaring through the streets and back alleys of Pittsburgh in a black-striped, blood-red, beat-up dodge charger (stolen, I should add), and engaging in brawls and shoot-outs with henchmen and thugs. In a sharply choreographed street fight, he effortlessly takes on five barroom bullies at the same time, or should that be three: “The last two guys, they always run,” he warns. And they do.

His investigation leads him to discovering the real shooter (Jai Courtney, soon to be John McClane’s son in “A Good Day to Die Hard”), the gun range owner with whom Barr practiced (screen legend Robert Duvall) and, most surprisingly, Werner Herzog, the Bond baddy who never was. The esteemed, hopelessly eccentric German filmmaker and documentarian (who once cooked and ate his own shoe) makes a truly terrifying appearance as chief villain The Zec, a violent Russian mobster. In one scene of knuckle-gnawing intensity, he forces an incompetent underling to chew off his own fingers (“Show me you’ll do anything to survive”). Notably, Herzog wears a milky-white contact lens in one eye, presumably to make him appear more menacing. It seems unnecessary: spend enough time in the company of Herzog, he’ll have you convinced to chew your own fingers off too.

It’s a pity he’s so underused and that the run-of-the-mill story, infused with the twisty-turny sensibilities of an airport page-turner, leaves the film lying somewhere in the middle of the road. The film also comes to a disappointingly generic close: in an action-packed showdown at a rain-soaked rock quarry, Helen ends up a helpless damsel in distress, while Reacher, when faced with an unarmed key antagonist, decides to drop his gun and start a fistfight. Why do they always do that?

But “Jack Reacher” is an above-average crime thriller, directed with slickness and written with pristine pulpy wit by McQuarrie (whose deviously clever script for “The Usual Suspects” earned him an Oscar in 1995). It grips and occasionally it thrills: if a new blockbuster franchise is intended, this is a solid enough start. Many will not be sold on Cruise as Reacher, if only for those missing ten inches, but remember: big things can come in small packages.

6/10

Pitch Perfect

“Pitch Perfect” is set in one of those movie colleges where students don’t read, don’t study and don’t attend class: they’re far too engrossed in making friends, making out, hanging on the campus and, as in this movie, singing a cappella. Debut director Jason Moore’s bright and sparky, “Glee"-inspired musical comedy, which is a musical in the same way that “School of Rock” was, is set in the fictional Barden University. Here, the art of a cappella is treated with the same fist-pumping enthusiasm and cutthroat rivalry that, say, football is in most schools of higher education. As far as I could tell, the closest anyone gets to a classroom in this institution is when students chill in their dorm rooms. How they expect to get their degrees I do not know.

For the uninformed, a cappella is a musical medium in which music is created vocally rather than with instruments, although I could have sworn I heard some instrumental intrusions in the film’s big finale. Barden U. is part of a fiercely competitive a cappella contest held every year, the real-life NCCA. Commentating at each stage are John Michael Higgins (“Bad Teacher") and Elizabeth Banks (also an executive producer), whose insensitive wise-cracks and wildly inappropriate remarks will remind many of the great Fred Willard as the batty dog show commentator in Christopher Guest’s mockumentary “Best in Show.”

Our heroines are The Bellas, the all-singing, all-dancing, all-woman underdogs to crowned champions and “big-headed garbage dirtballs” the Treble Makers (in the activities fair, they taunt passers-by by spontaneously bursting into mockful singsong). The Bellas endured crushing public humiliation the previous year when control-freak group leader Aubrey (Anna Camp, “The Help”) projectile puked on-stage mid-performance (and impressively reached the third row). Looking to finally bag the top prize this year, Aubrey and bubbly co-chief Chloe (Brittany Snow, “John Tucker Must Die”) hold auditions for new members in the assembly room, where a gaggle of social misfits and all-round oddballs come a-singin’ and a-dancin’.

Chief among them is Beca (Anna Kendrick, “End of Watch”), a cynical “alt girl" newly enrolled in Barden. Beca’s forte is seamlessly mashing together individual songs on her laptop to create a whole new track (a talent that comes in handy when The Bellas require a little rejuvenation in their music selection). Her sole reason for auditioning is to get her father off her back: he promises to let her quit college and pursue a music-producing career in L.A. if she embraces an extra-curricular activity and it doesn’t work out. Of course, soon enough she’s fully committed to The Bellas and the contest, and becomes an integral cog in their success.

Her fellow Bella newbies are weird and wonderful, and multicultural. Rising Australian comedy starlet Rebel Wilson (Kristen Wiig’s intrusive roommate in “Bridesmaids”) is Fat Amy, so-called so that, in her words, “twig bitches like you won’t call me it behind my back.” Ester Dean (“Rio”) is Cynthia, who’s the subject of a running gag in which fellow Bellas believe her to be a lesbian. And then there’s Lilly (newcomer Hana Mae Lee), a softly spoken Asian girl whose voice is so low no-one can hear a word she says, let alone sings (how she passed her audition is anyone’s guess).

The film follows The Bellas as they work their way towards the final in New York’s Lincoln Centre, and as Beca falls for Treble Maker nice guy and “The Breakfast Club" fanatic Jesse (Skylar Astin, “Wreck-It Ralph”). Naturally, as the newly assembled Bellas progress, they improve in their harmonies and presentation, although an underground, improvised “riff-off” with the Treble Makers strains believability (think of it as an “8 Mile”-style rap battle but with bubblegum pop tunes).

Moore, nominated for a Tony in 2004 for directing Broadway production “Avenue Q,” adds sparkle and pizazz to the stage-set musical numbers, which flaunt the painstaking choreographic precision of a Michael Jackson video. Kendrick and co. perform with style and energy, each proving they have quite a set of lungs on them, bellowing out both oldies and modern hits, and (thanks to Beca’s music-mixing skills) sometimes both at the same time.

Screenwriter Kay Cannon, who also writes for “30 Rock” and “New Girl,” provides much smart-mouthed snark in the vein of the Tina Fey-scribed “Mean Girls” and presents characters who may be stereotypical but who shine in personality. Giggles are aplenty, but in one notably sickly scene Cannon and Moore overdo the gross-out factor: late in the film, Aubrey’s upset stomach returns with a vengeance, which one character rather unexpectedly uses as an opportunity to make snow angels (yeuch!).

Admittedly, “Pitch Perfect” is pure formula, and it does little to raise it above basic expectations: it slavishly adheres to every cliché in the dog-eared underdog book. What it has in its favour is a winning, unpatronising “girl power" message and a sprightly ensemble cast confidently led by the reliably radiant Miss Kendrick. Stealing the show is the sizzlingly sassy Miss Wilson, who appears to have been given much room to ad-lib (a mid-credits blooper confirms this). As for the a cappella routines, they’re irresistible, toe-tapping stuff: one could almost forgive The Bellas for ignoring their college education.

7/10

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

The problem with “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” — and it’s a problem many fans have likely foreseen — is that it follows in the Middle-earth-shattering footsteps of a giant. Peter Jackson’s masterfully assembled “Lord of the Rings” films, based on J. R. R. Tolkien’s classic fantasy book series, arguably made for the greatest trilogy to have ever graced the silver screen: staggeringly epic, meticulous in its world-building, showered in Academy Awards and instantly amassing a legion of hardcore enthusiasts, it was a crowning achievement that, for some, was the true “Star Wars” of the noughties. By sheer comparison, this first entry in a three-part adaptation of Tolkien’s more kiddy-friendly “The Hobbit,” while boasting its own thrills and charms, comes up a little short — it’s a hobbit pitted against a giant it couldn’t possibly outmatch.

It’s a comparison that might have been uncalled for if it weren’t for the direct connections Jackson makes between this new prequel trilogy and the earlier films: a wholly unnecessary prologue finds Ian Holm’s Bilbo Baggins and Elijah Wood’s Frodo having a chat in the former’s humble home, while Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving and Christopher Lee briefly return in a visit to the opulent Elven outpost Rivendell. Even some of the musical cues are the same: the re-introduction of the Shire is soundtracked by Howard Shore’s whimsical piece “Concerning Hobbits,” and the appearance of the one true “precious” ring is greeted with that ominous string melody from “The Prophecy.”

Indeed, the “Hobbit" series looks set to wander down the same route traversed by “The Lord of the Rings,” regardless of whether or not it is fit for such a lengthy trek: what we are getting once again is a trio of closely released three-hour epics covering a perilous on-foot adventure across the treacherous mountains and thorny forests of the orc-infested Middle-earth (here 60 years younger). What we’re not getting is as compelling a story: in “The Lord of the Rings,” the Fellowship’s quest was necessary in stopping the evil Sauron from gaining ultimate power and turning the land into a post-apocalyptic wasteland; in “The Hobbit,” the quest embarked on by our heroes is merely to reclaim a dwarf kingdom from a pillaging dragon that snoozes in amongst its piles of golden treasures.

Still, while the destination isn’t as pressing this time round, this unexpected journey is always enjoyable, and our travelers make for good company. Our unlikely, 3ft-tall hero is Bilbo Baggins, as played by the always appealing Martin Freeman (“Sherlock”). A pipe-smoking, pointy-eared, hairy-footed resident of the sunnily picturesque village of Hobbiton, the timid Bilbo lives a snug but largely uneventful life that is one day disturbed by wise wizard Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen, “X-Men”). Gandalf seeks Bilbo’s help: he requires a burglar to sneak into the Lonely Mountain with him and steal the treasure from the villainous dragon Smaug (that’s pronounced “smowg,” not “smog”), and the pint-sized Bilbo seems an ideal candidate.

Reluctantly, Bilbo agrees to be Gandalf’s burglar, finally venturing out from the comfort of his home to embark on an adventure that may well claim his life. Accompanying them is a band of thirteen warrior dwarves cruelly driven out of Erebor kingdom by Smaug. Flaunting ferocious appetites, bellowing singing voices and boundless energy, these diminutive goofballs are a hairy-faced delight, although differentiating between a few of them proves a difficult task. Leader of the pack is the brooding Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage, “Spooks”), essentially Aragorn but half the stature. As their quest begins, Thorin is ruthlessly hunted by the vengeful pale orc Azog, whose right forearm was lopped off by Thorin’s blade mid-battle.

Their journey, like that of the Fellowship, brings them to sensational set-pieces. In the woods one night they encounter a trio of lumbering, horse-thieving Cockney trolls who develop a taste for dwarf and hobbit. On a mountainside they find themselves in the midst of a tussle between towering giants made of stone, dodging chunks of the mountain hurled by both opponents. In the film’s most bombastic sequence, they escape from an underground cave system, chased by an army of goblins across rickety wooden bridges atop bottomless gorges. Jackson maintains his rousing visual flair in framing these sequences, lending the action an epic scope and a sweeping pizzazz.

But where “The Hobbit” shines brightest is when Gollum, that bug-eyed ex-hobbit, crawls out from the darkness of his cave to engage in a game of riddles with Bilbo. It’s a tense scene, the most suspenseful in the film, as our intrepid little hero takes part in a battle of wits against an instinctively deceptive, clinically schizophrenic creature of the dark. The great Andy Serkis, again voicing the iconic character and providing his every spidery movement, damn near steals the show, and, as stunningly rendered with state-of-the-art special effects, Gollum has never looked so good (well, considering...).

Trouble is, many of these set-pieces feel like needless diversions from the central quest, especially in that aforementioned visit to Rivendell (found nowhere in Tolkien’s book). One senses that Jackson and co-writers Fran Walsh, Phillipa Boyens and Guillermo del Toro are overstretching Tolkien’s original text for the sake of shaping it into the soaring “Lord of the Rings" mould (after 169 minutes, we’ve reached the beginning of chapter seven). Speaking of which, there’s a dilemma at the film’s core: does Jackson want this to be the lighthearted, rompish “The Hobbit” of Tolkien’s story, and thus grant the film its own identity, or does he want to stick to the grim, gritty violence of “The Lord of the Rings”? The Kiwi director, I’m afraid, fails to make a decision, resulting in slapstick shenanigans and graphic beheadings occurring within mere seconds of each other (and, as in one poor goblin’s delayed decapitation, at the exact same time).

What holds it all together, the magnificent production values and Jackson’s eye for stunning spectacle aside, is Freeman. The British actor’s good-natured charm and uncanny knack for deadpan comic delivery make for a brilliant Bilbo Baggins whose growing courage and lion-hearted heroism is completely convincing. Like Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin from the previous films, Bilbo is hopelessly out of place in a band of experienced warriors on a trek to save the day, but we as an audience are with him all the way. A key question in Tolkien’s original book is why Bilbo decides to join Gandalf and the dwarves on their dauntless expedition. His reason is the same as ours: for the adventure.

Endnote: I saw “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” in 3-D and in 48 frames per second. The 3-D is immersive and not a distraction. The same cannot be said for 48 fps: while it undeniably gives the image a crisp, crystal clarity, it also makes the film look like a televised (dare I say cheap) BBC production, while the often unnaturally speedy movements of the characters and the camera give the impression that the film is stuck on fast-forward (think Benny Hill being chased by nurses). My advice: see it in the standard 24 fps first time round to bask in the story and characters undisturbed and, if curious about the higher frame-rate, see it in 48 fps the second time round.

7/10

Rise of the Guardians

Despite the confusing connection between their vaguely heroic titles, “Rise of the Guardians” is not a sequel — nor, for that matter, a prequel — to Zack Snyder’s straight-faced 2010 computer-animation “Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole." Rather, it is a DreamWorks-produced, CGI-rendered adaptation of William Joyce’s bestselling children’s series “The Guardians of Childhood,” in which the eponymous protectors are much more festive and much less feathery: standing side by side are timeless fairy tale figures Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and the Sandman, reimagined and reinvented as super-powered action heroes bravely battling the forces of darkness. Think of them as the Avengers for preschoolers.

When not dealing with their own seasonal business (building toys at the North Pole, making chocolate eggs, etc.), the Guardians unite to protect the children of the world from those who seek to harm them. They’re an international team: North, popularly known as Santa (Alec Baldwin, “30 Rock”), is a Russian macho man; E. Aster Bunnymund, aka the Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman, “Real Steel”), is a boomerang-wielding Australian warrior; Tooth, aka the Tooth Fairy (Isla Fischer, “Rango”), is a bubbly American mishmash of Tinkerbell and a bird of paradise; and Sandy, aka the Sandman, is a short, stout mute who can instantly construct any object out of sand, from a windproof umbrella to a fully functioning fighter plane.

They’re about to get a new member. The Man in the Moon, who recruits all Guardians, has chosen winter spirit Jack Frost (Chris Pine, “This Means War”), bringer of blizzards, to join the squad. Jack, a 300-year-old teenager with silver hair and a magic staff, has a bit of a problem: he’s invisible to children, who walk right through him as if he were thin air. This is apparently thanks to their lack of faith in him: while many believe in Santa, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and the Sandman, nobody believes in Jack Frost. With the aid of the Guardians, he hopes to one day gain the faith of the world’s children and ultimately prove himself to be a hero worthy of the legendary troupe.

It’s a gimmicky but promising concept that should illicit squeals of delight from younger viewers when realised on-screen. Oddly, however, the interaction of the Guardians is lacklustre. There’s not as much joy in the company of these classic holiday icons as there was in watching the interaction of, say, Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and The Incredible Hulk in “The Avengers,” or Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis in “The Expendables.” It doesn’t help matters much that, as a personality and a presence, Jack Frost is as blank as snow, nor that the ill-tempered Easter Bunny is strangely intimidating, nor that jolly ol’ Saint Nick — with his burly figure, heavily tattooed forearms and Eastern-European growls — looks and sounds like a serial killer.

The villain is an evil spirit named Pitch Black, who often refers to himself as the boogey man. With a deathly pale complexion, piercing yellow eyes and a full set of sharp fangs, Pitch certainly looks the part, and, as voiced with diabolical menace by Jude Law (“Contagion”), he sounds it too. Tired of being routinely ignored by children, he plans to strike fear into their hearts and rid them of their faith, thus giving him strength and destroying the reputation of his arch-nemeses, the Guardians. A typical English villain, Pitch sneers and monologues endlessly, and has a dark, demonic swagger that younger viewers might find rather frightening.

There are spectacular sequences, as when the Guardians first take Santa’s sleigh for a spin, darting at breakneck speed through twisting tunnels of razor-sharp icicles. Or a sequence in which they frantically collect teeth from under children’s pillows before Pitch steals them as part of his heinous scheme. With the helping hand of master cinematographer Roger Deakins, the animation is richly detailed, vibrantly rendered and bursting with life. Debut director Peter Ramsey presents an animated fantasy world as gorgeously realised as I can recall.

But I dunno. There’s something mechanical about “Rise of the Guardians,” which lacks the kind of warmth and charm that DreamWorks Animation has boasted in recent years: it doesn’t have the high-octane exhilaration of the “Kung Fu Panda” films, nor the spell-binding enchantment of “How to Train your Dragon.” For the studio, this is an altogether middling effort, completely inoffensive but missing that all-important childlike sense of wonder. For kids, it might provide some light, if forgettable, popcorn-friendly entertainment. For parents, I’d advise getting the “Arthur Christmas” DVD instead.

5/10

Life of Pi

It is as remarkable a culture clash as I can recall. In a small, wooden lifeboat straddling the waves of the vast Pacific Ocean sits an Indian teenage boy named Pi and a fully-grown Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. Victims of a shipwreck, they sit at opposite ends of the 27-foot boat, watching the horizon in search of land, food and rescue. Together as man and beast, they drift across the deep blue sea for 227 days, embarking on a death-defying voyage so magnificent and so moving its telling is said to have made many believe in God. While “Life of Pi” did nothing to alter my faith (or lack thereof), it did much to confirm my beliefs in the power of cinema and the miraculous possibilities of storytelling.

The director is Ang Lee, the Oscar-winning Taiwanese filmmaker who gave us the ground-breaking “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” in 2000 and the heart-wrenching “Brokeback Mountain” in 2005. It is based on the worldwide bestseller by Yann Martel, published to much acclaim in 2001 and arguably something of a modern classic. With its countless metaphysical elements and physical near-impossibilities, Martel’s spiritually rich novel was, like “Watchmen” and “Cloud Atlas,” popularly deemed “unfilmable.” But when one sees the story unfolding on-screen with such fluidity and grandness under the firm grasp of Lee, one struggles to recall why a faithful and elegant transition from page to screen was considered so unassailable and unthinkable.

Our guide is a middle-aged Pi (Irrfan Khan, “Slumdog Millionaire”), who recounts his treacherous odyssey to a Canadian writer (Rafe Spall, “Prometheus") in search of a story. First, we witness Pi’s early years growing up in India, where his middle-class family owned the Pondicherry Zoo. Teased at school for his Christian name, Piscine, he adopts the nickname “Pi,” like the seemingly limitless mathematical constant (which Pi can recite to a thousand places). He is curious about all things, but it is the concept of God that piques his interest: he prides himself as a Hindu, a Christian and a Muslim, simultaneously embracing all three religions, much to the annoyance of his scientifically minded father.

When the zoo business dries up and it seems life in India is no longer feasible, Pi’s family decide to sell their animals and set sail for Canada. Their cargo ship, in which the animals are caged, is struck by a monstrous storm and is claimed by the sea in a sequence that is the most spectacularly staged of its kind since “Titanic.” Towering, roaring tidal waves devour the Japanese vessel as monkeys cling to the railing and as giraffes kick and bleat in the waters below. A truly haunting image comes when Pi, immersed underwater, watches hopelessly as the giant freighter containing his family slowly but surely sinks to the depths of the Pacific.

Pi boards a lifeboat with four fellow survivors: a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan and of course Richard Parker, the whimsically monickered Bengal tiger. Soon enough, for reasons I’m sure you can imagine, it’s just Pi and Richard Parker left in the boat. When Pi was young, his father taught him a crucial lesson: a wild animal is indeed a wild animal, unthinking, vicious and concerned only with its own survival. No longer naive, Pi knows that if he is to make it home alive he must tame the ferocious, 450-pound beast that looks upon him with increasingly hungry eyes (it is made absolutely clear that this is no tiger from a Disney cartoon).

What follows is a riveting oceanic tale of survival against the odds, of adaptation, of endurance and of good old fashioned adventure. For Pi, the journey is both literal and spiritual, as his body, faith and spirit are brought to breaking point and put to the ultimate test. Screenwriter David Magee (“Finding Neverland”) sticks close to Martel’s original text, sacrificing none of its philosophical complexities, while Lee for the most part stays true to its more harrowing aspects, adding into the mix dashes of honestly earned sentimentality.

The immense weight of the film leans heavily on the shoulders of 17-year-old Suraj Sharma, who, in his debut film role, fearlessly portrays the teenage Pi. So committed to the role was Sharma that he starved himself in the name of our malnourished hero’s drastic weight loss, his ribs all too visible through the skin of his chest. Often, he is reacting to thin air: I was stunned to discover that the majestic Richard Parker was, in most scenes, a digital creation. Their interaction, which occurs in spite of Pi’s protestations, is seamless, and on the boat Richard Parker is a frightening presence with a mighty roar that sends a tremor through the entirety of the Pacific Ocean.

What Lee adds to Martel’s ideas and musings is a visual banquet so luscious and luxurious it is worthy of the king of the jungle. Working with Chilean cinematographer Claudio Miranda (who shot “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”) and an art department whose work is sincerely breathtaking, Lee paints pictures of such staggering, awesome beauty one feels they must be framed and hung on the walls of a gallery. Take, for example, a scene in which the ocean’s placid surface is gorgeously lit up in the dark of night by the bright neon glow of bioluminescent jellyfish, an image almost immediately topped as a blue whale rises from below and leaps over the lifeboat like an illuminated Free Willy.

A sudden visit by a gigantic school of flying fish that catapult out from the water, and out from the screen it appears, takes full advantage of the film’s 3-D; Lee utilises the medium with the same skill and ingenuity used by James Cameron (“Avatar") and Martin Scorsese (“Hugo"), and with it creates one of the most immersive experiences I have ever had in a movie theatre. Lee doesn’t use the technology as a cheap gimmick like so many have done. Rather, he uses it to advance the story and immerse us in its watery world.

And then there’s the mysterious, algae-smothered island populated by a million meerkats, who stand, watch and run as if they were one. Like much of Pi’s journey, this island sails the fine line between reality and fantasy. Called into question at this point, and at several other points, is whether Pi’s journey is real or whether it is a hallucination. Does it really matter? Is it really important? What matters is the experience that is “Life of Pi” and the joy and exhilaration that it so effortlessly brings. As the middle-aged Pi remarks towards the film’s conclusion, “Why does it need to mean anything?”

I had the great pleasure of watching “Life of Pi” with a large audience of men and women, boys and girls, movie-goers of all ages, sizes and races. Together, we gasped as Richard Parker leapt out at the screen; we laughed at Pi’s failed attempts at taming the feral beast; we wept as hope seemed drained from Pi’s system; and we smiled as that hope came thundering back. “Life of Pi” is a film bold in its ambition and pure in its heart. It is a wonderful, faithful adaptation of a rightly beloved book, and it may well be the year’s best film.

10/10

End of Watch

“End of Watch” is a no holds barred, vivaciously visceral thriller centred on two workaday cops as they patrol the mean streets of South Central Los Angeles. Writer-director David Ayer has been working towards this film his whole career. In his previous efforts, such as “Street Kings,” “S.W.A.T.,” and “Dark Blue,” Ayer strived to enter, explore and examine the mindset of the American law enforcer, with mixed results. In “End of Watch,” he nails it, providing a captivating insight into the daily life of an L.A. police officer. This is the best and most absorbing L.A. cop movie since the Ayer-scripted 2001 morality tale “Training Day.”

At the film’s heart is a buddy cop duo worthy of Mel Gibson and Danny Glover. Jake Gyllenhaal (“Source Code”) and Michael Peña (“Tower Heist”) are LAPD officers Brian Taylor and Mike Zavala, partners in crime-stopping and best of friends. In the past, Ayer’s focus has been on dirty cops, the kind more interested in stuffing their wallets than serving and protecting. His focus is shifted in “End of Watch:" Taylor and Zavala, smart and courageous, are good cops, though they may occasionally bend the rules to make certain that arrests are made and justice is served.

They operate in a particularly nasty district of South Central, where, according to Taylor, cops are forced to pull out their guns more on just half a shift than most cops do their entire careers. For much of the film, we follow Taylor and Zavala as they are on watch, observing the area from their patrol car, responding to call-outs and pursuing suspects. Often, we sit in the vehicle with them, listening to their conversations, which proves just as enthralling as the blood-pumping action.

Our POV is frequently that of a video diary filmed by Taylor for a documentary of sorts, placing “End of Watch” in the presently popular found footage genre. Cameras are set up on the dashboard of the patrol car while Taylor and Zavala strap mini-cams to the pockets of their shirts. Sometimes, Taylor films crime scenes with an HD camcorder, much to the annoyance of his camera-shy co-workers. Presumably for logical reasons, many scenes are shot partly in a traditional style, which retains the same raggedy, frenetic quality that comes so naturally to the found footage format.

The plot is loose and only springs into action during the third act, though there is much build up to its outcome. A fatal drive-by ordered by notorious Latino gang leader Big Evil (a terrifying Maurice Compte) intensifies a feud between the local black gang and the overtaking Mexican cartels. Smelling something fishy, Taylor and Zavala secretly embark on an investigation above their pay grade, soon uncovering an illegal operation involving drug smuggling, human trafficking and bloody massacres. Their persistent tampering with the cartel’s business leads to a target being painted on their foreheads, and Big Evil is looking to collect.

Gyllenhaal and Peña share the kind of brotherly chemistry that can only have been an accident; one senses that their characters have been close friends since time immemorial. What’s most startling about “End of Watch” is how well, and how quickly, we get to know Taylor and Zavala through just the conversations they have on their beat: as they trade advice, stories and insults, we learn of their home lives, of their personal preferences, of their past and what they wish for in the future. We know everything about them, and yet they still surprise us, as in one especially harrowing scene in which they selflessly run into a burning building together not once but twice to save two children trapped inside.

They are supported by a strong cast. Frank Grillo (“The Grey") is the grizzled police captain who warms to Taylor and Zavala once they start getting results; David Harbour (“The Newsroom") is hard-nosed veteran cop Van Hauser; and America Ferrera, almost unrecognisable from her days as “Ugly Betty," is tough cop Orozco. Playing Taylor’s new squeeze, bright college student Janet, is the reliably radiant Anna Kendrick (“Scott Pilgrim vs the World”), and playing Zavala’s long-time wife and high school sweetheart, Gabby, is Natalie Martinez (“Death Race”), who gets a great scene in which she, using wildly imaginative hand gestures, giddily shows Janet the many ways of pleasuring Taylor once he gets home from patrolling the streets.

The jittery, handheld filming style, which is always up close and personal, lends both intimacy and grit to the proceedings. However, it can also be problematic: when it is revealed that the gangbanging badguys are also filming their every move (“Get that fuckin’ camera out of my face!” is often uttered), the found footage format seems contrived, and whenever the film is shot in a traditional method, one can’t help but wonder what the point of the found footage aspect was. But you can’t deny the immersive atmosphere and raw, authentic edge wielded by this grimy, guerilla aesthetic.

Humour is an important element in “End of Watch,” and the film is indeed very funny when it wants to be. Taylor and Zavala’s merciless banter is sure to raise a smile, as are their goofy pranks back at headquarters. But there’s thematic resonance to the more comedic moments of what is an otherwise grimly violent police procedural: as Taylor and Zavala sit in their patrol car, waiting with tense uncertainty to find out what horror they will next encounter, it is humour that keeps them calm and keeps them sane. It is here that “End of Watch" provides real insight into the lives of these boys in blue: for the LAPD, the job is tough and often haunting, and it seems laughter is the best medicine.

Considering the perilous dangers Officers Taylor and Zavala are seen to face on such a regular basis, “End of Watch” isn’t likely to persuade many to join the force. But it will give many a newfound respect for both the institution and the guys on the streets risking their lives every day in a quest to protect the peace. This is a gripping, scarily plausible portrayal of how life is for those who enforce the law and ultimately how they deal with the unexpected, and the expected too.

8/10

Alex Cross

Detective Alex Cross must be some kind of superhuman. He waltzes into a homicide scene, informed only of the basic details of the situation, and instantly knows all that has occurred. He knows how many were involved in the killing. He knows if the victim was drugged and whether or not they screamed. He knows who shot who and the order in which they died. He knows the killer’s personality, mindset and work history: “He’s ex-military, a stimulus-seeking, sociopathic narcissist," he correctly calculates after just one brief glance at the villain of his latest investigation. Heck, he probably knows what the killer had for breakfast last Tuesday morning.

His skills aren’t limited to crime scenes. As he stands at the centre of a city block placed on lockdown to prevent a predicted assassination, Cross suddenly, inexplicably figures out that the killer’s master plan is to fire a bazooka from a passing elevated subway train. Sure enough, seconds later a rocket comes blasting out from the open door of a speeding carriage (and quite remarkably hits its target). Which leads to one important question: just how exactly does Cross know these things? Perhaps he has a Sherlockian eye for detail. Perhaps he has psychic abilities. Perhaps he read the script. But then here’s another question: if he can figure all of this out in an instant, and do so with stunningly little effort, how has he not found out that his dear, beloved wife is three months pregnant?

Loosely based on the twelfth entry in James Patterson’s bestselling thriller series, franchise reboot “Alex Cross” is the third — and undoubtedly worst — big-screen outing for the crime-busting forensic psychologist. Playing Cross is cross-dressing funnyman and filmmaker Tyler Perry, who for the first time leads a feature he hasn’t written or directed. He takes over the role from Morgan Freeman, who made the character a cinematic icon in “Kiss the Girls” and “Along Came a Spider.” In those films, Cross accomplished similarly far-fetched investigatory feats, albeit through a little more actual detective work. But Freeman, one of the great American actors, has such a persuasive, all-knowing gravitas to him that his Cross’ godlike detective skills were never called into question.

The same cannot be said for Perry, who is commendably sincere but whose dramatic talents are lacking and who, frankly, fails to convince as a puzzle-solving mastermind. Maybe this shouldn’t be so surprising: he is, after all, stretching his acting legs not just by appearing in a non-comedic role but also by not wearing a flower-patterned granny gown. The internet tells me that Idris Elba, the esteemed English actor from “Luther” and “Prometheus,” was originally cast in the title role before Perry came along. Personally, I would’ve preferred Elba as Cross, but then again, I wouldn’t want Elba’s reputation to be dragged down by this lousy, joyless affair.

In the previous films, we knew next to nothing of Cross’ family and homelife. In “Alex Cross,” he is reimagined as a family man living happily in the sleepy suburbs of Detroit. He has a gorgeous, loving wife, Maria (Carmen Ejogo, “Sparkle"), and two beautiful children, Damon and Janelle. As mentioned earlier, a third child is on the way. Living with them is Cross’ feisty, no-nonsense grandmother, Nana Mama (Cicely Tyson, “The Help”), who provides wise words when they are needed. Her position could easily have been filled by Perry’s signature character, Madea, which may have helped to make “Alex Cross” a little more lively and altogether more entertaining. Alas, the "mad black woman" is nowhere to be seen.

Cross’ life is turned upside down thanks to Picasso, the new hitman on the streets. He is played by “Lost" veteran Matthew Fox, but not as you’ve seen him before. Having lost roughly 44lbs, Fox resembles nothing so much as a bare skeleton tightly wrapped in a body of tattoo-scribbled skin and pumped full of muscle-enhancing steroid juice. We are introduced to Picasso as he confidently bets on himself in an underground MMA match, enters the ring and effortlessly beats his opponent to a bloody pulp (side note: is mixed-martial arts now the go-to sport for cinema?). This of course foreshadows a climactic hand-to-hand brawl between Cross and Picasso, which is so incoherently shot that one might think it was filmed in the midst of a major earthquake.

Cross and Picasso wind up playing a city-wide game of cat and mouse, like Batman and the Joker, although much less effective (Picasso’s baffling insistence that he “made” Cross falls miserably flat). Cross first learns of Picasso when the career assassin tortures to death a flirtatious, heavily bodyguarded businesswoman in her own bedroom. After magically cracking a cryptic code hidden in a charcoal drawing left behind at the crime scene (apparently accomplished by folding the paper in half), Cross discovers the real target: enigmatic French billionaire Leon Mercier (Jean Reno, “The Da Vinci Code”), who’s so clearly Picasso’s anonymous employer that I genuinely don’t know if the big revelation at the film’s conclusion is supposed to be a surprise.

All throughout the film, Picasso insists that he’s a hopeless sadist, that he’s “fascinated by pain.” I’m not buying it: Fox’s performance, which randomly steers from calm and focused professionalism to googly-eyed madness, is far too inconsistent, and oddly not very menacing. Even less convincing is Cross’ brief stint as a bloodthirsty, badass vigilante, which sees him sawing a shotgun barrel in half in his basement like Travis Bickle, breaking into buildings under the cover of darkness and brutally assaulting a police officer who happens upon his thievery. As he angrily hurls a whimpering drug dealer into apartment furniture, one struggles not to picture Perry in high heels and a $7 wig.

“Alex Cross" is directed by Rob Cohen, who specialises in efficient, high-octane action thrill rides (such as “The Fast and the Furious,” “xXx” and “Stealth”). His work here, which stays true to his reliable juvenility, is more amateurish than efficient, and it certainly isn’t thrilling. In a later scene which sees Cross smashing his car into the side of Picasso’s as the latter casually exits a parking lot, Cohen desperately tries to impress by filming the whole stunt from the back seat of Picasso’s vehicle. We might’ve been impressed if our minds weren’t on other matters: for instance, how exactly is it that Cross knew what parking lot Picasso was using? We might have bought that from Freeman; we’re not buying it from Perry.

3/10

The Master

The eponymous cult leader of Paul Thomas Anderson’s spellbinding sixth feature, as played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, is many things. “I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist, a theoretical philosopher,” he introduces himself. “But above all, I am a man.” He’s not wrong, but he missed out one integral thing: the self-titled Master is an enigma. Much like the film in which he appears, the Master is attractively mysterious and bandaged in intriguing ambiguities. He wields the power to seduce, enchant and ultimately persuade what is a loyal and sizable audience. He is, of course, met on his journeys by skeptics, who may well be right in believing his words to be nothing but poppycock, but they can’t deny his commanding spirit, nor his enigmatic charm.

He is the founder and driving force of The Cause, a philosophical movement not unlike Scientology. His life, or at least what we see of it, is a deliberate parallel to that of the great charlatan L. Ron Hubbard, but if you’re looking for a Hubbard biopic this isn’t it. In the 1950s, the Master teaches a close-knit circle of followers who cling to his every word like they were that of a prophet, or a messiah. He tells them of past lives, that their bodies are one in a long line of spiritual vessels. He writes, and profits from, self-help books centred on “secrets” he has supposedly unlocked, and claims that his teachings can help cure leukemia. His real name is Lancaster Dodd, but we don’t learn that until halfway through the film, when the Philadelphia police force come knocking on his door.

But while “The Master” is named after Lancaster, it is not he who is the central figure of Anderson’s latest epic drama. That honour belongs to Freddie Quell, a seaman-turned-drifter who, after being discharged from the U.S. Navy following a psychiatric evaluation, thinks he might find answers in The Cause. As played and frighteningly realised by Joaquin Phoenix, Freddie is a boozing, sex-obsessed bum seemingly suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Drunken and damaged, he aimlessly wanders his way through a post-war America that doesn’t understand his condition, unable to hold down a job due to his erratic behaviour.

In the opening scenes, we witness his untamed madness: on a beach with his fellow Navy men he dryhumps a sand sculpture of a woman for longer than is comfortable to watch and masturbates by the sea, and in the depths of a naval ship he curiously guzzles juice dripping down from the inside of a dismantled torpedo. As Freddie, Phoenix is a grotesque sight: his posture is hunched, his hands are frequently affixed to his hips as his elbows inhumanly point outwards, and his expression is a permanent snarl. Some may not recognise him as the man who was Johnny Cash in “Walk the Line,” though the mumbling and the inebriation remain.

Freddie and Lancaster meet by chance. One cold and dark knight, Freddie drunkenly stows away on a brightly lit yacht in San Francisco, maybe seeking work, maybe wishing to sail away. The yacht has been hired by Lancaster, who uses it to host his daughter’s wedding. Lancaster takes an instant shine to Freddie, and his homemade hooch (key ingredient: paint thinner). What Freddie sees in Lancaster is a stranger who shows him affection, understands his condition and does not judge him. What Lancaster sees in Freddie is less clear. Perhaps he sees a stranger he feels he must help. Perhaps he sees himself: “You seem so familiar to me,” Lancaster tells him.

When reviewing “The Master," it is important to note that the film does not follow a conventional narrative template. Rather, it is an enthralling, poetically edited observation of two contrasting individuals who cross paths, develop a bond and struggle to let go of each other. It follows Freddie as he is integrated into The Cause, undergoes bewildering psychological experiments intended to cure him of his rage, is treated with suspicion by fellow members, and as he and Lancaster’s relationship becomes one built on dependency. Some viewers will be reminded of the relationship between Mark Wahlberg’s Dirk Diggler and Burt Reynolds’ Jack Horner in Anderson’s breakthrough feature, 1997’s “Boogie Nights,” although what Jack saw in Mr. Diggler was very clear.

At first glance, and perhaps a few glances later, Freddie and Lancaster appear to be polar opposites. Lancaster is suave and charismatic, sporting sharp suits and a winning smile; he’s a stirring public speaker, flourishing limitless self-confidence and a pin-sharp wit. Freddie, on the other hand, is a feral beast, a mumbling, shuffling brute visibly uncomfortable in his own skin. But there are parallels between the Master and the disciple: both have a short temper, bursting into fits of fury when confronted by opposers, with Freddie the more physically aggressive of the pair. And both are lost, lonely souls, finding something so closely resembling solace in The Cause.

The film is a technical masterclass. Anderson, working for the first time without cinematographer Robert Elswit, shoots “The Master" with Mihai Malaimare, Jr. and creates a widescreen visual experience that absorbs and astonishes; shots of Freddie and Lancaster riding motorcycles through a vast desert landscape are the stuff cinema was made for. Johnny Greenwood’s score is raw, unsettling and imposing, always at the forefront of the action. Expectedly, Anderson indulges in his penchant for long, unblinking takes. Two scenes stand out as examples: Freddie, working as a portrait photographer, inexplicably picking a fight with a harmless customer, and Lancaster’s “informal processing” of Freddie, who mustn’t blink as he is ruthlessly hammered with repetitive questions about his past.

Key to the film’s success are Phoenix and Hoffman, whose performances engross both when they are alone and when they are together. They are almost guaranteed nominations at next year’s Academy Awards, although who will get Leading and who will get Supporting is debatable. But one mustn’t overlook Amy Adams as Peggy, Lancaster’s ever-present wife, who wishes for nothing but fame and success for her beloved husband. Perhaps deliberately, Peggy calls to mind Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth — she has something of a conniving streak about her, and, like so many things in “The Master,” there’s a mystery to her every move.

Many will find “The Master” a challenging watch; indeed, in the screening I attended, nine of my fellow movie-goers ventured out of the room before the film had finished, never to return. A select few, and I count myself among them, will find it the sort of enriching and exhilarating experience we cinephiles get only once in a blue moon. This is a passionate, audaciously assembled masterwork from one of America’s great filmmakers. What it is about is hard to grasp, but for me that just makes it all the more fascinating.

10/10

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2

In bringing the story to a neat and tidy close, the eagerly awaited fifth and final chapter in the monstrously prosperous, perpetually polarising “Twilight” saga is a sound success: it deals with the badguys, ties up dangling narrative strands, brings a sense of closure to the heroes and provides a glimpse of what the future holds for them. In that sense, “Breaking Dawn - Part 2” is about as pleasing a conclusion to the fantasy romance series as any hardcore fan could possibly yearn for. But that’s the easy part: all that needs to be done to satisfy the fanbase is to stay true to Stephenie Meyer’s award-winning bestseller with as few diversions as possible, and the devotees will booze upon its blood like vampires at a damsel’s throat.

The hard part, and it’s a ploy that director Bill Condon (returning from “Breaking Dawn - Part 1”) and franchise screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg may have not even considered attempting, is attracting the rowdy detractors and casual non-enthusiasts over to the fans’ side. In a rousingly barmy climax ripe with earth-shattering carnage, the film almost achieves this, but a misjudged surprise twist snatches it away in an instant. The only other things left for consumption are running features for which the franchise has been cruelly, and sometimes fairly, mocked: those would be the risible dialogue, the dodgy computer effects, the ceaseless melodrama and the cardboard box acting, none of which is likely to bewitch non-fans into finally giving a hoot about pasty-faced bloodsucker Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) and human-turned-vampire lover Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart).

Nonetheless, part two of “Breaking Dawn” is better than last year’s part one, which spent two thirds of a padded runtime acting as a glorified, workaday soap opera — the forbidden couple tie the knot, consummate their marriage in a picturesque honeymoon suite and discover to their shock that they are to have a baby — before a 12A-pushing third act took the franchise kicking and screaming into the icky realms of David Cronenberg’s body horrors. Bella, drained of her strength and gaunt as can be, gave birth to a half-human, half-vampire hybrid baby questionably named Renesmee. To save his sweetheart’s life, Edward turned Bella into the undead. Now, in “Breaking Dawn - Part 2," she awakens, transformed and reborn, her eyes an inhuman blood red.

Indeed, no character in this epic finale — Bella’s oblivious dad (Billy Burke, “Drive Angry") aside — is free from the red-eye effect that naturally accompanies vampirism, nor the orange-tinted irises of lycanthropy; with Bella now one of them, we lose our all-important human gateway into the weird and worrisome supernatural world. Instead, we watch as Bella experiences life as a “newborn,” experimenting with her newfound abilities: in an early scene, she tackles a mountain lion in mid-air and feasts on its jugular; in another, she and Edward engage in super-destructive vampire sex in a cosy cottage without breaking a sweat. It’s cruelly ironic that Stewart, once a lip-chewing sulk, is more alive playing a member of the undead than she ever was when playing a human being.

There’s a problem with Renesmee that’s not her goofy name or curious physical features (as an infant, she’s a hideous CG creation that dwells at the deepest point of the uncanny valley): she’s growing at a rapid rate, and when law-enforcing vampire coven the Volturi are made aware of her existence, they’re none too happy. Believing her to be a much-feared “immortal child,” they promptly recruit an army of fanged foes to do battle with the Cullen clan in Washington. The Volturi’s sadistic leader, Aro, is again played by a campily sinister Michael Sheen, whose maniacal giggle upon first setting eyes on little Renesmee is sure to send a shiver down many a viewer’s spine.

Warned of the impending attack by psychic sister Alice (Ashley Greene, “The Apparition”), Edward and Bella begin assembling an army too. In an overlong, glacially paced sequence, they gather vampire clans from all over the world: joining forces are Americans, Egyptians, Amazonians, the Irish, Romanians, etc. Notably, some members of this new ensemble have abilities not typically associated with vampires; one can control the elements, able to spurt fire from his fingertips and construct walls of water, while another has electrically charged arms. Bella discovers she can concoct protective shields with her mind. They’re like the X-Men of the Abercrombie and Fitch world.

Also offering a helping paw is the local werewolf clan, led by ab-tastic hunk Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), whose infamously suspect love-bond with young Renesmee is smartly handled with a good deal of humour (though the inescapable creepiness remains firmly intact). In their hairier forms, the digitally rendered wolves still struggle to convince as a weighty physical presence, but the real computer-generated clanger of “Breaking Dawn - Part 2” is the super-speedy running of the vampires, who sprint through the forest followed by a strange, elongated blur, strongly resembling Shaggy and Scooby-Doo when they would clamber down those endlessly repetitive corridors. One wonders why a fantasy series so financially endowed has such a seemingly limited effects budget.

And then one realises that most of it has likely went into the hotly anticipated climax, which at first appears to be cleverly subverting the much-maligned anti-climax of Meyer’s book. Diverting from the source material’s actionless version, this ending is big, bold and decapitation-heavy, as the Cullens and co face off against the cloaked Volturi atop a vast snowy plain. Coming after an hour’s worth of largely uneventful tedium, it’s a genuinely thrilling sequence with a giddy lunacy to it and an aftermath that looks like the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow had a field day. Unfortunately, a final, admittedly unforeseeable twist undoes all this good work, making for a hard slap in the face for those who thought the “Twilight” franchise had finally grown a pair and shone a middle finger to Meyer’s original text. Alas, ‘twas but a dream.

To be fair, catering only to the fans may well have been Condon and Rosenberg’s plan all along, and the Twihards will no doubt cherish every second of this finale’s overstretched runtime. Others — be they newcomers or “haters” — will be bored and baffled by much of “Breaking Dawn - Part 2," which does little in the way of altering negative opinions about the franchise’s merits. It’s a shame that the “Twilight" saga never managed to achieve the undying universal appeal enjoyed by “Star Wars" and “Harry Potter." Its legacy will perhaps be that it gripped an entire generation of teenage girls — along with some boys too — with a love triangle between a human, a vampire and a werewolf, and made a ton of money while doing so. Perhaps the reboot will be embraced by a wider audience (I advise more decapitations).

5/10

Here Comes the Boom

Mixed martial arts comedy “Here Comes the Boom,” brought to you by the hollowed-out minds at Happy Madison Productions, is — to shine a bad film in a good light — the best of a lousy bunch. The latest product from Adam Sandler’s less-than-esteemed production company, founded in 1999, it is lucky in that it stands at the end of a long-flowing stream of cinematic filth: the studio’s most recent stinkers include “That’s My Boy,” “Just Go With It,” “Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star,” “Grown Ups” and, simultaneously both king and queen of the stinkers, “Jack and Jill.” Comparatively, “Here Comes the Boom” is a farcical zenith. But that’s not to say it is good: merely, it is tolerable and inoffensive, which, by Happy Madison’s standards, is a triumph worthy of a self-congratulatory high-five.

The unlikely hero is tubby funnyman Kevin James, previously given his own star vehicles in the form of family-friendly duds “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” and “Zookeeper.” Since his days playing deliveryman Doug Heffernan in blue-collar sitcom “The King of Queens,” James has shaped a profitable career out of playing the nice guy and the everyman. He continues this trend in “Here Comes the Boom,” in which he displays not just a heart of gold and the build of a bull but balls of solid steel, climbing into MMA death cages to do battle with muscle-bound fighters half his age and twice his size.

It’s a typical underdog story. James is Scott Voss, a 42-year-old biology teacher at Wilkinson High School. Scott is a slob and a slacker, frequently arriving late to class, where he makes no effort to inspire or enlighten his students. The school, under tight budget constraints, is making cutbacks to extra-curricular activities. This means Marty the kooky music teacher (Henry Winkler, aka the Fonz) is to be laid off while his students are to be stripped of their beloved music lessons. Scott, having learned that Marty recently became a father-to-be, suddenly grows a conscience and promises Marty he will save the program.

To do this, $48,000 must be raised. Scott is stumped. As a starting point, he takes up instructing a nighttime citizenship class. There, he meets Niko (retired MMA warrior Bas Rutten), with whom we watches televised MMA fights (essentially wrestling without the props) while giving extra tutoring. He discovers a trick of the trade: while the winner of an official UFC fight receives $50,000, the loser still receives a hefty sum of $10,000. A light bulb lights up inside Scott’s head: if he were to fight in the UFC, he wouldn’t have to win a single match to raise the money.

Cue the music. Cue the montages. And cue the slapstick. With the expertise of Niko and the motivation of Marty, Scott trains to lose against experienced, bloodthirsty fighting machines who would otherwise tear his head clean off his shoulders. It turns out he can take quite a beating. Some viewers will be reminded of the episode of “The Simpsons” in which Homer becomes a boxer after discovering he can act as a human punching bag, thus tiring out his opponent. Early fights prove rewarding, as the paychecks roll in and as Scott comes home bashed and bruised from yet another loss at the hands of a hulking beast. But hang on a minute: as later fights prove, the lunky, chunky biology teacher might not be so bad at this MMA thing after all.

Most features associated with Adam Sandler, here an executive producer, aren’t known for their ambitious narratives, and “Here Comes the Boom” takes the cake for slavish commitment to formula. All the expected plot beats are well and truly present. Scott begins to win the respect of his students. His late-night antics grant him fame in the school hallways and disapproval from the headmaster. He recaptures his enthusiasm for education, as shown as he strides across the classroom on the tops of students’ desks. The shapely object of his affection, played by Mexican goddess Salma Hayek (Sandler’s wife in “Grown Ups"), starts to take a shine to him. A twist in the third act puts the raised money in jeopardy, and it looks like Scott may have to win a fight after all. With such a wealthy collection of well-worn clichés integrated into its plot, the film could easily be a parody, but a surprising sincerity reveals it is making no attempt to send anything up.

Instead, it strives to stand on its own two feet as a feelgood charmer. While perhaps commendable, such efforts are in vain: with precious little to offer outside of a by-the-numbers script (co-written by James), a half-hearted message about the importance of education and an ending that throws all remaining morsels of believability out of the wrestling ring, there’s little reason to care. This is in spite of James’ reliably genial presence and a splendid cast of supporting players: Winkler, with his twinkly-eyed eccentricity, is a joy as the batty, passionate music teacher (“Without music, life would be a mistake”), while Rutten, an MMA champ from 1993 through to 1999, is a great, goofy sport.

Crucially though, the problem with “Here Comes the Boom" is its laughter count, which for me came to a grand total of zero. It’s not painfully unfunny, it just doesn’t appear to be trying very hard; truth be told, “Rocky” had more honest laughs and a good deal more heart. It doesn’t work as a drama either, with inevitable comparisons to the recent “Warrior” (coincidentally also about a science teacher fighting in the UFC) beating it to a pulp. While it’s arguably Happy Madison’s finest release since the generally decent “Click” (also directed by Frank Coraci), “Here Comes the Boom” packs neither the comedic or dramatic punch necessary to launch it above basic expectations.

5/10

Silent Hill: Revelation

“Come to Silent Hill,” invites bloody text smeared across a living room wall in horror sequel “Silent Hill: Revelation.” I’d really rather not, to be perfectly honest; I’ve been there before, and all I got was a lousy B-film. Unsurprisingly, Michael J. Bassett’s inexplicably titled, Halloween-released follow-up to Christopher Gans’ financially rewarding, utterly baffling 2006 creature feature — a live-action adaptation of the enormously popular survival horror video game series — is even lousier than its puzzling predecessor. For one, the titular ghost town isn’t as silent as its name suggests this time round; echoing through its empty streets and abandoned buildings is a deafening drone that’s not the famous air raid siren, nor the wails of a murderous monster — rather, it is the thunderous snoring of slumbering audience members.

And then there’s the plot, which is about as murky and headache-inducing as the 3D visuals. Centred on the now-teenaged girl who went missing in the first film and who now returns to Silent Hill to save her kidnapped father and battle a demon toddler, it’s a deceptively simple story rendered needlessly, frustratingly nonsensical by a script devoid of a basic understanding of coherent storytelling. This is in spite of the fact that characters’ conversations are entirely functional, serving only to fuzzily explain what the devil is going on, to no avail. Returning viewers buying tickets for more “Silent Hill” lunacy will be left scratching their heads again; “Silent Hill" newcomers will end up a little too comatose to care — perhaps they can dream up a better, altogether more comprehensible storyline while this one clumsily unfolds before their tightly shut eyes.

At the brain-boggling conclusion of the first “Silent Hill,” heroine Rose Da Silva and rescued daughter Sharon arrived back home to discover they weren’t home at all; in fact, they were still trapped inside the fog-smothered underworld of Silent Hill. In “Revelation," Rose is able to send Sharon back to the real world thanks to a magic amulet and, through a magic mirror, tells husband Christopher (Sean Bean, “Game of Thrones”) to keep their daughter safe. Meanwhile, the undead (I think) cultists of Silent Hill plot to lure Sharon back to their haunted hometown so that she may kill the evil, all-powerful little girl who reigns over them.

About to turn 18, Sharon has now assumed the name Heather (Australian actress Adelaide Clemens) while her dad names himself Harry. Although she has no memory of her time in Silent Hill, Heather suffers from nightmares set in the town’s fairground, where she rides a merry-go-round encircled by a ring of flames. During the day, she is plagued with disturbing hallucinations of monsters chasing after her. A private detective (whose trench coat couldn’t be less subtle) follows her around, apparently hired by a cult. Upon returning home one night, she discovers her father is missing, and written in blood on the living room wall is that aforementioned invitation: “Come to Silent Hill.”

So, she does, and the place appears to be no different from before. By day, black ash falls from the sky like snow while the air is thickened by a ghostly grey mist; by night, the town is shrouded in darkness, from which monstrous, mutant freaks emerge to frighten and feast. Missing, however, is the consistently eerie atmosphere Gans achieved in the otherwise dreary first film, present here only in fits and starts. What we’re left with, then, is mostly dreariness, although die-hard gamers are sure to cheer (perhaps out of relief) when the iconic Pyramid Head turns up, wielding an impossibly colossal blade and sporting a gigantic cheese grater atop his shoulders.

Other monsters include a spider-like creature seemingly constructed out of mannequin parts, and the knife-wielding, faceless nurses who contort and stab at the sound of nearby movement. There’s also a strangely sinister bunny rabbit doll with large, staring eyes, which would fit right into a David Lynch film, but not here. In the “Silent Hill” games, I am told, the monsters are a manifestation of the main characters’ fears and innermost thoughts. In “Revelation,” they serve no discernable purpose other than setting up supposedly suspenseful situations in which Heather and stale love interest Vincent (Kit Harrington, “Game of Thrones") run down darkly lit corridors, their hearts pounding while ours stay all too steady.

The best thing in “Revelation" is a nigh-unrecognisable Carrie-Anne Moss (aka Trinity in “The Matrix") as villainess Claudia, the tyrannical leader of the Silent Hill cult. Moss has a menace and a madness to her performance, but she is wasted, given a measly two scenes and inexplicably transformed into a leather-clad monster during the overblown, muddled climax (in which an important character is killed through means which escape me). Wasted too is a reliably hammy Malcolm MacDowell (“A Clockwork Orange”), who plays a blind man chained up in a mental asylum whose job it is to deliver plot info I couldn’t even begin to understand. It’s not that I didn’t pay attention; it’s that by this point I didn’t care, and neither, I strongly suspect, did the filmmakers.

I will end this review on a note I made in my review of Paul W. S. Anderson’s “Resident Evil: Retribution," which I stated successfully recreated the experience not of playing a “Resident Evil" video game but of watching someone else play a “Resident Evil" video game. I have yet to encounter a film based on a video game that successfully recreates the gaming experience, which is often engaging, involving, enthralling, intense and exciting. “Silent Hill: Revelation” is not that film: we watch in boredom, waiting for someone to hand us the controls.

3/10

Skyfall

In a breathtaking, action-drenched prologue that boosts the heart rate and then brings it to a sudden, chilling halt, James Bond adventure “Skyfall” triumphantly vanquishes the bitter aftertaste left behind by the enduring M16 agent’s previous escapade, the chronically arse-numbing “Quantum of Solace,” and boldly promises that great things are to come. It’s an audaciously extravagant opening, rivalling the Madagascar-set parkour chase from “Casino Royale” for thrills and energy, as Daniel Craig’s 007 pursues a mercenary who has stolen a precious computer hard drive from a field agent in Istanbul.

It’s a complex pursuit: it begins on foot, moves onto a motorbike, onto a speeding train and then finally inside a digger on top of that train. As the chase nears its conclusion, Bond’s accompanying, deliberately unnamed agent (Naomi Harris, “28 Days Later”), who watches from afar through a rifle lens, finds herself faced with a dilemma: either she risk losing the hard drive or risk losing Bond. I shan’t say what she chooses, but her decision packs a hard-hitting punch and provides a sumptuous set-up for a riveting tale of vengeance and betrayal. This is Bond at his brilliant best, and indeed, “Skyfall” is arguably the best of all the Bond films.

We have three Oscar-winners here and one man who should be an Oscar-winner. Directing is Sam Mendes, whose Best Picture-snagging “American Beauty” rightly earned him the Best Director prize in 1999. Judi Dench (Best Supporting Actress for “Shakespeare in Love") returns as the cold and blunt M, head of MI6, this time given a much more hands-on role than in previous instalments. Javier Bardem (Best Supporting Actor for “No Country for Old Men”) is villainous, blonde-locked cyber-terrorist Raoul Silva. And the man who should be an Oscar-winner (though he’s been nominated nine times) is Roger Deakins, the master cinematographer whose richly vibrant and hauntingly atmospheric digital photography makes “Skyfall” a succulent feast for the eyes — in 50 years, Bond has never looked so luxurious.

I say that, but for most of the first act Craig resembles an unmade bed. Scruffy, unshaven and baggy eyed, he’s not the suave and ravishingly handsome Bond we’ve come to know and love. This is a broken, more vulnerable Bond whose physical fitness has taken a kicking, who is a shameless alcoholic, who can barely shoot straight and who must rebuild himself and prove himself worthy of his position in M16. The script — scribed by series regulars Neal Purvis and Robert Wade along with Oscar-nominated screenwriter John Logan (“Hugo”) — makes frequent references to Bond’s age, that he’s an old, tired dog in a young pup’s game. The film ends on the note that Bond may be old, but his fierce, undying determination means he will prevail and he will live on.

About that hard drive. In it are the identities of every undercover agent currently embedded in terrorist organisations all over the globe. With it in the wrong hands, those agents are now in great danger. M, who headed the disastrous mission in Turkey, is pressured by Intelligence and Security Committee Chairman Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes, “Coriolanus”) to resign while her dignity is still intact. She stubbornly refuses, which is probably for the best: it soon transpires that a murderous madman, now the owner of the hard drive, is not only leaking the agents’ names via YouTube, but is also after M’s head.

Bond, returning from what could be considered a vacation, is tasked with finding this madman and bringing him in. His mission leads him to Shanghai, where the Bond of yesteryear is strongly evoked: he sips cocktails in casinos, has sex with a mysterious prostitute inside a swanky sailboat, and — in a winking homage to Roger Moore’s infamous crocodile hopping in “Live and Let Die” — uses a komodo dragon as a stepping stool. In one suspenseful scene that combines the franchise’s age-old glamour with its recent grit, Bond engages in a fistfight with an assassin inside a glass skyscraper. Deakins shoots this in one unbroken take as Bond and the assassin are presented as stark silhouettes projected against a glowing, neon-lit backdrop.

Speaking of one-takes, Bardem — truly frightening as unstoppable hitman Chigurh in “No Country for Old Men" — is granted an instantly classic villain’s entrance as the scary-haired, lip-licking Silva. As Bond watches from the foreground, tied to a chair, the towering figure of the Hispanic super-hacker exits an elevator in the background and slowly but surely strolls 20 ft towards our hero, waving his hands and wagging his finger while reciting a soon-to-be-relevant parable about rats in a barrel. Bardem has a manic, almost campy menace, greeting Bond by caressing his legs and undoing the top buttons of his shirt. Silva is a 21st century villain, his base of operations not a fortress by a smoking volcano but a grubby warehouse lined with stacks of computers that grant him direct access to any computer in the world. He calls to mind WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange — the garish hairstyle certainly helps.

Both Silva and Bond are presented as momma’s boys, their momma being M (who callously betrayed Silva years ago). Here, the emotional core of “Skyfall” rears its head in the form of Bond’s relationship with his bitchy boss. Theirs is a relationship built on dependency, as shown in Bond’s return to her from an assumed death and her decision to reinstate him when he fails every test he undertakes. They spend precious time together when Silva comes gunning after M and when Bond assigns himself her sole protector. Their vicious verbal sparring remains, but there’s added weight and depth this time: they may mercilessly banter, but as two forces on the same team they need each other.

Things come to a fiery, booby-trapped end in a stirring third act set in the gorgeously framed Scottish Highlands. This is unlike any climax to a Bond film you’ve seen before; unexpectedly bringing the franchise into the home-invasion genre, it bizarrely resembles Sam Peckinpah’s disturbing, blood-splattered classic “Straw Dogs” or — dare I say it — Chris Columbus’ “Home Alone.” It also does what no other Bond film has done before, strongly hinting at the nature of Bond’s troubled childhood and what ultimately made him into the man he is today. Yet neither of these two elements feel out of place within the film itself: this is a new Bond who inhabits a new world, who sweats when he fights and who bleeds when you prick him, and whose perilous adventures have a newfound emotional resonance to them.

This is Mendes’ first time helming a Bond film — with luck, it will not be his last. “Skyfall” is a sensational spy flick and a fabulous 50th anniversary present from a franchise that keeps surprising and hopefully has more to offer. It is a Bond film that moves forward while nostalgically peering over its shoulder to the unforgotten, well-trodden past. It is a Bond film unlike any other, but it is still a Bond film; about that there is no doubt. Once again, the end titles promise that “James Bond will return.” We look forward to seeing you again, Mr. Bond, in whatever form you please.

10/10