Dawn of the Planet of the Apes has no good guys

Dawn of the Planet of the Planet of the Apes is not content with letting you root for one side or the other. It shows you, in detail, exactly why each side of the conflict is doing what they are doing, and how small misunderstanding or rash decisions can impact events in entirely unpredictable ways. It doesn't let you see one side as good guys and one side as bad guys - your in depth knowledge of the reasons for the actions that people take makes everyone a good guy with understandable motivations. And when the bullets start to fly, the slaughter on both sides feels real and horrible and completely unnecessary. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is a smart film.

 

How to Train your Dragon 2 doesn't quite soar

The first How to Train your Dragon may be the best film that Dreamworks has ever released. It was a surprisingly good coming-of-age film that followed Hiccup, son of the Viking Chief Stoick, as he learnt that dragons were not the monstrous enemies they once thought, but instead gentle, friendly creatures that were misunderstood, forced to attack Berk by an unknown force. Its strong, character based story allowed it to remain focused on the central theme of compassion over violence, making it one of the best films released in 2010.

How to Train your Dragon 2 picks up 5 years after the events of the first film. An older Hiccup is dating Astrid now, and the village and villagers have fully embraced dragons into their life. Stoick is ready to make Hiccup the new Chief, but Hiccup has other ideas - he is exploring the world outside of Berk with his dragon Toothless, trying to put together a map of the world while also searching for another Nightfury, a partner for Toothless. While exploring, he finds out that someone is amassing a dragon army, and naturally tries to talk them out of it. Meanwhile, Hiccup meets someone from outside of Berk, known as the Dragon Rider.

Chef is a real feel-good film

About 30-45 minutes into Chef, there is a scene where Jon Favreau, director and leading man of the film, shouts and rants angrily at a critic for a solid 3 minutes about how he does nothing but shit on other peoples dreams, so I feel incredibly thankful that Chef was a very good film.

Chef is the story of Carl Casper, who buys a food truck and tours the USA with his friend and his son after losing his job at a restaurant and losing his mind at a food critic, becoming an overnight internet celebrity. And that's it really - the story is simple, allowing the emotional hook of the film (Carl's relationship with his son) to be front and centre.

22 Jump Street is the first great comedy sequel

Comedy sequels are strange beasts, usually unwilling to take the risks that made the first film popular, instead relying on references to jokes from it's predecessor to get "That was funny in the first film and I remember it" laughs from the audience. They often end up feeling tired or unoriginal, and as such are usually less memorable and less funny than the first film, devoid of the creativity that made the first film a success. 22 Jump Street acknowledges this issue with comedy sequels, playing it through with a nudge and a wink, giving the audience a comedy sequel that is genuinely funnier than its predecessor.

Edge of Tomorrow makes Tom Cruise likable again

We are living in a strange, strange world. The new big budget, action/sci-fi blockbuster starring Tom Cruise isn't expected to do very well in the box office despite a lack of other action/sci-fi films released this year. This is shame, because Edge of Tomorrow is actually really good. Without giving away anything that the trailers haven't, the basic premise is that there has been an alien invasion. We join the film as a last-ditch assault on the land the aliens have invaded is about to be undertaken, with our main man Bill Cage being sent to the front-line for the assault, where he gains the ability to go back in time to the start of the day whenever he is killed. Another soldier in the battle, Rita Vrataski (better known as the Full Metal Bitch), recognises his power as something she used to have, and helps him train.
 

X-Men: Days of Future Past gets the X-Verse back on track

X-Men: Days of Future Past is kind of a sequel to X-Men: First Class and kind of a sequel to The Wolverine and kind of a sequel to X-Men: The Last Stand, but not really.

Let me start over.

X Men: Days of Future Past is an almost complete reboot of the laughably poor X-Men "continuity". By the end off this film, it is safe to assume that the events of X-Men, X2, X-Men: The Last Stand, X-Men Origins: Wolverine and The Wolverine simply never occurred, and that we have no knowledge of this universe from 1973 until 2023. This is known in comic books as a retcon, or Retroactive Continuity - bits of the film universe that they don't like have been written out, which funnily enough ends up being almost all of it.

Godzilla understands the importance of restraint

There has been a lot of criticism aimed at the new Godzilla film regarding the use of the titular character. Everyone from film critics to Facebook friends have slated it thanks to the limited screen time Godzilla actually gets. I disagree, and to understand why we are going to have to talk about the over exposure of destruction and the concept of action fatigue in modern films.

Man of Steel is a great example of a film that suffers from action fatigue. About halfway through, Zod and his group find Superman in Smallvile and proceed to level the town in a pretty good action scene. It lasts a decent amount of time and has innovative action beats, with characters being suitably strong and cool to watch. Later, we have a much longer action scene focusing around Zod and Superman, battling in a destroyed Metropolis. What should have been the most interesting fight scene in the movie ended up being a mostly forgettable mess - partly because of the characterisation issues the film has, but also because we have been over exposed to Superman and Zods power. We've been watching them fight for so long that we have lost our frame of reference, and end up tired of the fight and lose interest in the story. Action fatigue is an issue that a lot of films fail to address, and I'm sure that Gareth Edwards knows this on some level, giving us Godzilla as the counter.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 kind of sucks

Disclaimer time: I pretty much hated the first Amazing Spider-Man. It's one of the most forgettable films that I have seen in recent years, and was only made so that Sony could keep the rights to the character. It was a business move rather than a film made by people who care, and it showed. I went into The Amazing Spider-Man 2 with pretty low expectations, and a good idea of what was going to happen in this film thanks to the spoiler filled advertising campaign.

From the second it starts to the very last frame, this film does an awful lot wrong. It may be the messiest, least restrained film I have seen in a long time - scenes interrupt each other, plot points are started and then dropped, only to be picked up an hour later and never finished, characters come and go and then disappear entirely - and it all ends up feeling illogical, unstructured and dissatisfying. It honestly feels like the film wasn't even really edited - a scene involving a pre-Electro Max Dillon feels like it never should have seen the light of day, and a very out of place evil scientist feels like he walked straight off the set of a bad James Bond porn parody.