Magic In The Moonlight

(PG) ★★

Director: Woody Allen.

Cast: Colin Firth, Emma Stone, Simon McBurney, Hamish Linklater, Eileen Atkins, Marcia Gay Harden, Jacki Weaver.

"Wait... where did I park my bulldozer?"

Even 46 films into his career as a director, Woody Allen still finds interesting subject matter.

It's part of the secret to his success. His knack for catching intriguing story ideas and his prolific nature (he still puts out at least one film every year and has done so since 1977's Annie Hall) means you never have to wait long for a triumph to make up for a misfire.

Speaking in those terms, Magic In The Moonlight is definitely a misfire, but at least it has some great concepts and an interesting conceit at its core.

Set between the wars in Southern France, it stars Firth as Stanley Crawford, a man known to the world as the master illusionist (and fake Chinaman) Wei Ling Soo.

After a show he bumps into old friend Howard (McBurney), who convinces Stanley to use his skills and cynicism to help debunk Sophie Baker (Stone), a young American proclaiming to have psychic powers and the ability to speak with the dead.

Sophie has ingratiated herself with the rich and influential Catledge family and Stanley is certain she must be a charlatan chasing the Catledge fortune, but upon meeting Sophie, Stanley finds himself questioning everything he knows.

As a set-up, it's fascinating, and the mysteries surrounding Sophie help maintain interest, even though the script is blunt and hurried, and the dialogue occasionally distractingly unnatural.

The battle of the minds between Sophie and Stanley is equally gripping, at least initially, and Stone and Firth are good, but again, it's undone by the script.

The flaws in the screenplay eventually win out over the potential of the premise and the talent. Despite being only 90-something minutes long, Magic In The Moonlight drags, and neither Stone nor Firth can save it as the rushed feeling of the first half gives way to an unnecessary slog in the second half.

But worst of all are the incongruous characters and their actions. Stanley's arrogance and mirthless intellectualism feels like it should be funnier and less of a caricature, while Sophie is equally shallow, showing little beyond her mystical abilities and opportunism.

This is all in spite of Stone's bubbly performance and Firth's excellent stiff upper Britishness, which aren't enough to overcome the unnecessary aspects of their characters and relationship.

Beautifully shot with gorgeous art design and featuring a good cast and a promising set-up, Magic In The Moonlight should be a dazzler, but instead it fizzles thanks to an undercooked script.

The Inbetweeners 2

(MA15+) ★★★

Director: Damon Beesley & Iain Morris.

Cast: Simon Bird, Joe Thomas, James Buckley, Blake Harrison, Emily Berrington.

The day was hotter than Satan's ballbag.

When you're on a good thing stick to it - that's the motto of the makers of The Inbetweeners, which began as three seasons of British television before leaping to the big screen in 2011.

If you've seen any of the previous misadventures of Will, Simon, Jay and Neil then you'll know a) what you're in for and b) how much you'll probably love it.

Having run rampant in the Greek islands after finishing high school, this time the boys are up to more of the same in Australia.

Via a cleverly filmed introduction we learn Jay (Buckley) is supposedly living the high life in Sydney, leaving his down-on-their-luck mates keen for a pick-me-up holiday. Will (Bird) is hating his loner's existence at uni, Simon (Thomas) is struggling to deal with his worryingly clingy girlfriend, and Neil (Harrison) is, well, still Neil, ie. not the sharpest tool in the shed.

Heading Down Under provides the boys with plenty of opportunities for shenanigans and embarrassments, and the movie is gushing with gross-out gags, toilet humour and plenty of just-plain-wrongness.

Thankfully it's refreshingly light on with the Australianisms, except for Jay's hilarious koala-punching intro. While it can't resist slipping a couple of ocker bogans in there, The Inbetweeners 2 is more concerned with taking the mickey out of annoying backpackers as opposed to piling on the Aussie stereotypes. The "spiritual" tourists, dreadlocked campfire bongo players, and the hostel lifestyle are right in the firing line, as are "Pommie morons" who get lost in the outback.

Thankfully the interaction of the four leads is still great because it's an incredibly flimsy film otherwise. There are no lessons learnt, no character arcs and no deeper themes, which is welcome in a way due to the nature of Will, Simon, Jay and Neil and their states of arrested development, but it means the movie is pretty inconsequential.

The laughs are reasonably constant for the first hour at least and luckily what's left doesn't run on too long after that because the film runs out of petrol (quite literally) and collapses in an anti-climactic heap at the end.

What's going to matter most to fans is how often they laugh and how hard. The digs at Byron Bay hippy tourists are pretty good and some unfortunate incidents at a water park will certainly stick in the memory, so there's no doubting this will appease fans.

If you haven't seen any of The Inbetweeners, you're either missing out on some hilariously juvenile humour or you're probably enjoying the fact that you've been missing out on some puerile juvenile humour. Take your pick.

The Expendables 3

(M) ★★

Director: Patrick Hughes.

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Antonio Banderas, Mel Gibson, Wesley Snipes, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Kelsey Grammer, Terry Crews, Harrison Ford, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Kellan Lutz, Ronda Rousey, Glen Powell, Victor Ortiz, Jet Li.

Los Angeles just wasn't the tourist destination it used to be.

Look at how long that cast list is.

And look at some of those names - Rambo, Zorro, Mad Max, Blade, Indiana Jones, The Terminator.

It's weird seeing a line-up like that these days. In the '80s it would have meant you were about to watch The Greatest Action Movie In The History Of The Universe. But watching these people together on the screen in 2014 reminds you how cruel the passage of time can be and how far some have fallen since their 1980s glory days.

None have fallen further than Mel Gibson, who is the best thing in this movie.

Regardless of what he said or did in the past to earn his effective blackballing from Hollywood, there's no denying Mad Mel can act and seeing him as villain Conrad Stonebanks is a perverse delight.

Stonebanks is the trigger for this Expendable outing - he's supposed to be dead, but when head Expendable Barney Ross (Stallone) and his team spot Stonebanks alive and well in Somalia it leads them to pursue him across the globe on behalf of the CIA, who plan to put Stonebanks on trial at The Hague for war crimes.

There's also history between Ross and Stonebanks as they started The Expendables together, but Ross is not willing to risk his current team to bring him in and instead hires a bunch of newbies to do the dirty work (hence the low-wattage names of Lutz, Rousey, Powell and Ortiz in that lengthy cast list).

This last point ends up being one of the film's biggest downfalls. While physics and logic go out the window whenever you step into a darkened cinema to see an Expendables film, the idea of Ross sending a group of talented yet inexperienced kids on a suicide mission instead of his trusted (and frankly over the hill) teammates doesn't sit very well with him being the movie's good guy.

It also strips away one of the best aspects of these films to date, which has been the interaction of his endearing team of muscle-bound, machine gun-toting lugheads. With them out of the picture for most of the picture, we're left to watch a pack of nameless 20-somethings who we don't care about.

Things work best when the old hands are in the mix. New addition Banderas is a scene-stealer as the garrulous Galgo, Schwarzenegger gets some good lines (including the old favourite "get to the chopper!"), Grammer is great, Ford looks like he's having fun filling in for Bruce Willis, and Snipes' acting may be shaky but he also looks like he's having a blast, even getting in a joke about his recent stint in jail for tax evasion.

As mentioned, Gibson steals the show, and the film lights up whenever he's on screen, in much the same way as previous series villains Eric Roberts and Jean-Claude Van Damme. It makes you want to see him back on the big screen more, or to play more villains.

While it's great watching these familiar faces together again, The Expendables 3 lacks the spark of The Expendables 2, which is the best of the series. The second film was in on the joke, having taken itself too seriously first time around - these guys are predominantly past their prime and can't do the things they used to do, meaning their legends now cast longer shadows than their present-day action personas.

This made The Expendables 2 genuinely funny, in a laugh-with-it way. As line after line clunks to the ground, as the stunts get more impossible, and as the bravado becomes sillier, you're laughing at instead of with Expendables 3.

It's a shame. The cast is likeable, the stunt work is exemplary, and the wave of nostalgia brought on by seeing The Italian Stallion, The Austrian Oak, Mad Mel and Han Solo share scenes almost makes it all worthwhile.

For these reasons, it's hard to totally shoot down The Expendables 3. And even though this one's not very good, I'd still line-up to see The Expendables 4, which will probably star Jackie Chan, Michael Dudikoff, Steven Seagal, and Pierce Brosnan.

But yeah, this isn't very good.

The Trip To Italy

(M) ★★★½

Director: Michael Winterbottom.

Cast: Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon, Rosie Fellner, Claire Keelan, Marta Barrio, Timothy Leach.

"Dear Diary, I can't help but feel like Coogan is looking over my shoulder constantly, reading everything I write."

Coogan and Brydon are back for another serve of good food, great locations and hilarious impersonations in this sequel to The Trip.

If you've seen the first one, you're already on board for this one because effectively The Trip To Italy is more of the same.

Winterbottom has taken the six episodes of season two of the TV series and boiled them down into a feature length film, in which Coogan and Brydon re-team to travel through Italy under the pretence of writing some more articles (or possibly a book) about the food and frivolities they enjoy, all the while listening to Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill (as it's the only CD they have with them).

Once again, the starring pair play fictionalised versions of themselves, with the main difference being that Brydon is the focus character this time - the ups and downs of his marriage and career provide the closest thing the film has to a narrative.

Through the examination of these stylised renderings of the leads, The Trip To Italy meditates on the nature of fame and ageing, but it doesn't delve too deep - the whole thing is really just a wonderful excuse to show off the Italian countryside and coastline while Coogan and Brydon bust out their impeccable impersonations.

Their Michael Caine impressions are a favourite, but we also get to hear their skills as Hugh Grant, Robert De Niro, Anthony Hopkins, Roger Moore, and Michael Parkinson, and it's hilarious.

The whole thing is a thin and flimsy travelogue but the banter between the pair make it better and far funnier than it has any right to be.

Monty Python Live (Mostly)

(MA15+) ★★★

Director: Aubrey Powell.

Cast: Eric Idle, John Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Graham Chapman.

There are no words.

A joke is never as funny the second time you hear it, yet somehow the humour of Monty Python still gets laughs, despite being roughly four decades old and everyone knowing every line, every nuance, and every punchline (or lack thereof).

It's testament to the ground-breaking talent of these Beatles Of Comedy that people still want to see those same sketches, and that fans have been clamouring for a reunion - any reunion - of the five surviving Pythons.

So it here it is - 10 shows live in London's O2 Arena, the first of which sold out in 43 seconds and the last of which has been filmed and beamed into cinemas around the world.

It's three hours of nostalgia-inducing hilarity, or, to be more accurate, it's more like one and a half hours of nostalgia-inducing hilarity by the time you take out the ostentatious dance sequences, the 15-minute intermission, the instrumental musical interludes, and the awkward final ovation.

Being there would have been a very different experience and the complex dance/musical numbers might have seemed more fitting and exciting, but on the big screen - when all you really want is the absurd humour - they just seem to break the flow of the production. Where are the innovative linking jokes that made Monty Python's Flying Circus such a revolutionary sketch show?

Obviously the dance numbers are stalling for time while sets are prepared and the five Pythons can get into the appropriate costumes, but some of them really drag on (particularly The Penis Song). Mind you, they do prevent the show from relying too much on old clips (although seeing a bit more of the late great Graham Chapman wouldn't have gone astray), which would have also felt like a bit of a rip-off.

These big production numbers are obviously the work of Eric Idle, who was responsible for the live show's staging and who has spent the past decade turning The Holy Grail and Life Of Brian into a Broadway musical and oratorio respectively. Some of them work wonderfully - a ballet version of Sit On My Face is suitably "Pythonesque" - but some don't - an extended number that merges the Nudge Nudge sketch into an intro for Blackmail feels tacky.

It's the sketches we want, and that's when this is at its best. The Spanish Inquisition, Dead Parrot, Exploding Penguin On The TV Set, Four Yorkshiremen, Crossdressing Judges, Argument Clinic - if these phrases mean anything to you then you'll be in stitches.

Cleese and Palin are still as great as ever and put everything into their performances while Gilliam seems over the moon about being on stage and his enthusiasm is infectious. Sadly Jones seems a little lost and befuddled by it all, while Idle seems more interested in getting the 15,000-strong audience to singalong when he's playing guitar.

The sketches are predominantly great. Some new material wouldn't have gone astray (a video post-script to The Galaxy Song is a rare and hilarious addition), which makes the bits when they go off-script or mess up welcome and endearing. Cleese and Palin taking their time to get through the Dead Parrot and Cheese Shop sketches is a definite highlight.

Like most reunions, Monty Python Live (Mostly) is good at reminding you how great these guys were, with 'were' being the key word. It's unmissable in one sense because it's the only reunion we're going to get, and the warm fuzzy feeling of seeing the Python team re-staging these classic sketches or singing Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life makes it well worth seeing.

Keep your expectations low, and you'll be transported back to their glory days. Then go home and watch the TV show and listen to the albums, and all will be right with the world.

Guardians Of The Galaxy

(M) ★★★★

Director: James Gunn.

Cast: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Lee Pace, Michael Rooker, and the voices of Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel.

"Who is Keyser Soze?"

WHILE comic book powerhouse DC were dithering about rebooting Superman and Batman yet again rather than daring to do something different, its rival Marvel looked at its vast roster of characters and said, "whatever - let's make a superhero movie starring a tree and a talking raccoon".

Almost every article about Guardians Of The Galaxy has called it "a gamble". Marvel's film-making arm has taken its fair share of risks in setting up its Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) - Iron Man wasn't exactly a household name, The Hulk was rebooted not long after the Ang Lee debacle, Captain America had to overcome perceptions of being a mere jingoistic flag-waver, and Thor's mixture of Norse myth, faux-Shakespearean dialogue and hammer-throwing was seen as unwieldy.

Even with all that in mind, taking the little-known Guardians Of The Galaxy to the big screen was seen as a bridge too far.

But, as with pretty much everything it has done, Marvel has gambled and won with this comedic space opera. Sci-fi hasn't been this fun since Star Wars and it hasn't been this funny since Galaxy Quest.

The premise isn't ground-breaking - a Usual Suspects-style gang of criminals pool their talents to take on a bigger baddie who is after a powerful weapon they have stolen.

What makes Guardians Of The Galaxy cool is that said criminals are a quirky bunch. There's the human thief Peter Quill aka Starlord (Pratt) whose most prized possession is a Walkman, the tree-like Groot (Diesel), a raccoon named Rocket (Cooper), a literal-minded mountain of muscle called Drax The Destroyer (Bautista), and a green-skinned assassin with trust issues named Gamora (Saldana).

The performances are top notch. Pratt, in just one film, has leapt from wacky supporting character to the A-list with an endearing and funny turn as Quill, who comes across as a goofier Han Solo. As expected Rocket and Groot steal the show, but the big surprise is wrestler-turned-actor Bautista, whose Drax is unknowingly hilarious and a real highlight of the film.

With such a set-up, Guardians Of The Galaxy's brilliantly succeeds in not taking itself too seriously, except when it needs too.

The perfect example of this can be found in the first five minutes. The opening scene poignantly sets up Quill's relationship with his mother, but immediately follows that by introducing the film's irreverent nature with a sequence that introduces Quill and his beloved Walkman.

The Tarantino-esque soundtrack he's listening to is a good example of how clever Guardians Of The Galaxy is. Not only do we get to watch spaceship shoot-outs and visit alien worlds accompanied by the smooth sounds of Marvin Gaye, The Runaways, David Bowie, The Jackson 5, and 10CC, but the music is part of the story and a clever plot device.

With its timely bad language, a hilarious Kevin Bacon reference, Groot's three-word vocabulary ("I am Groot"), and a very funny dig at the "stirring speech" cliché, this film is shaping up to be the funniest of the year. It even uses its post-credit sequence as a joke, although one likely to go over the heads of all but the nerdiest of Marvel fans.

Underneath the gags however, Guardians Of The Galaxy uses its MacGuffin-centric plot to address themes of friendship and loss, giving its five Guardians just enough development and baggage to make us care about them and their growing bond.

The biggest criticism of the film is the way it delivers some of its important information such as character backstories or details about the galaxy. There's always going to be a fair amount of necessary exposition in this type of movie, but the script feels a little bit clunky at times, such as when a new character arrives and immediately spouts their motivations and background seemingly unprompted.

Despite this, Guardians Of The Galaxy is pleasingly restrained in its world-building. It hints at so much more that is going on its galaxy but doesn't get bogged down in it, nor does it labour over connections to the pre-existing Marvel Cinematic Universe - aside from The Other and Thanos (who were seen in The Avengers) and The Collector (who popped up in Thor 2's post-credit sequence), this is a stand-alone property that doesn't require watching the previous nine MCU movies.

Overall, Guardians Of The Galaxy is just downright enjoyable. It's the kind of movie that makes you wish you were a kid again, because you know that if you'd seen it at the right age it would have definitely become your favourite movie of all time.

Lucy

(MA15+) ★★★

Director: Luc Besson.

Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Freeman, Choi Min-sik, Amr Waked.

"Would you like to hear some stories about penguins?"

Let's get the obvious out of the way first - the idea that humans use only 10 per cent of their brains is a myth.

And while it might be untrue, it certainly makes for an interesting plot device, as seen already in Neil Burger's 2011 film Limitless.

In Lucy, French writer-director Luc Besson (The Fifth Element, Leon aka The Professional) takes the same idea and goes totally nuts with it - whereas Bradley Cooper's character in Limitless used his increased mental capacity to write a novel, clean his apartment, and get rich on the stock market, Scarlett Johansson's Lucy uses it to develop telekinesis and telepathy, and inevitably explore the very furthest reaches of time and space.

As a result, despite sharing a plot springboard, Lucy is far more extreme than Limitless. While Limitless was a murder-mystery, Lucy is essentially an action movie with some pseudo-science and psychobabble thrown in, mostly via the gravitas-adding voice of Morgan Freeman, who plays a scientist who specialises in mental capacity.

These sci-fi touches make this Besson's answer to The Matrix. He uses the 10 per cent myth as a launch pad for examining life, the universe and everything in between a thrilling car chase, some John Woo-style slow-mo shoot-outs, and some impressive CG effects.

The deeper themes are a mix of the profound and the bonkers, and make up part of the reason why Lucy is destined for cult classic status.

It certainly has all the ingredients for becoming an underground fanboy favourite - the big ideas, the cool action sequences, some innovative moments we've never seen before (in particular a non-fight with a hallway full of goons, and a climactic mental journey through space and time), and a certain wonkiness that stops it being truly excellent.

Those imperfections include a few weird and nonsensical moments such as the unnecessary editing of stock footage into the first act, a near-total lack of character development, and the decision for Johansson to play the titular Lucy like she's some kind of robot, which puts her at arm's length from the audience.

This portrayal, while it makes total sense in the context of the film, is pretty weird (which again helps with the cult classic thing) and leaves the film with the emotional depth of a broken iPhone. Admittedly it's a good performance from Johansson but a strange one nonetheless.

But then again Lucy is a strange film. It's certainly the best thing Besson's directed since The Fifth Element and has far more intellectual edge and intrigue to it than most of the stuff he's been writing and producing over the past decade, but ultimately Lucy feels a bit like a cheap thrill masquerading as a philosophical discussion.

PS. I feel obliged to point out there are a few gory surgical-type moments which made the woman in front of me hide her eyes a couple of times, so consider yourself warned if you have a weak constitution.