Hotel Transylvania 2

(PG) ★★½

Director: Genndy Tartakovsky.

Cast: (voices of) Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Kevin James, David Spade, Steve Buscemi, Keegan-Michael Key, Molly Shannon, Fran Drescher, Mel Brooks.

"The world is a vampire... oh sorry."

NO matter how much critics slag off the output of Adam Sandler, people still go and see his movies.

The problem is the number of fans seems to be decreasing while the number of haters (who aren’t professional movie critics) is increasing.

This is why his movies don’t draw the crowds they used to, and why he’s unleashed more box office bombs in recent times than he used to.

However, one of his more successful outings in recent times was Hotel Transylvania, a CG family adventure that piles every monster movie character (and cliché) into one all-ages comedy.

On the surface, there is no sign of Sandler, which is potentially why it was a box office hit – you don’t see his face or his voice (he puts on a classic “I vant to suck your blood” Transylvanian accent), luring in some of those haters who wouldn’t ordinarily take their kids to a Sandler film.

But dig deeper and his fingerprints are all over it. He’s a producer, his buddies Kevin James, Andy Samberg and David Spade are in the cast, and he’s a writer, with the latter going some way towards explaining why so many jokes are so easy and fall so flat.

Second time around, the jokes are just as easy and fall just as flat, but the film is saved somewhat by a cracking last act, a heartfelt message about accepting people’s differences, and a cool cameo by comedy legend Mel Brooks.

The marriage of the vampire Mavis (Gomez) and the human Johnny (Samberg), who paired up in the first film, results in Dennis (Asher Blinkoff). The boy is the apple of his grandfather Drac’s (Sandler) eye, but the old bloodsucker is worried Dennis will be more human than vampire, potentially ending the Dracula bloodline.

So while Mavis and Johnny visit Johnny’s parents in California to see if it’s a better place to raise a kid than Transylvania, Drac and his buddies take Dennis on an adventure in the hopes of drawing out the toddler’s inner vampire.

Despite being just under 90 minutes long, Hotel Transylvania manages to feel overly long and deliberately padded out. Despite whipping through Mavis and Johnny’s wedding, pregnancy and Dennis’ early years, the centre of the film is bloated and peppered with unnecessary moments – there’s a token dance-off, plenty of drawn-out bad jokes, and dozens of cutaway sight gags, most of which didn’t even draw a giggle from the kids in the audience at the screening I attended.

In some ways though, this is better than the original. Less focus on the last film’s central character, the ultra-annoying Johnny, is a massive plus, while the relationship between Drac and his grandson is actually pretty sweet.

The voice cast does a good job, particularly Sandler, despite the lazy characterisations, although Drac is a more well-rounded protagonist this time around. One of the best additions is Johnny’s mother Linda (Megan Mullally) – the well-meaning mother-in-law whose attempts to be accepting of the ways of the monsters continually comes off as accidentally offensive.

Which brings us to the ace up the movie’s sleeve – a nice message about acceptance and letting people be who they are, rather than who you want them to be. Either way you play it – as a parable on racism, a plea for gay rights, or a warning against pushy parenting – it’s a more-than-worthwhile ethos. As this underlying motif gathers steam, colliding with a climactic battle in the third act, the film starts to work really well, just as it’s coming to its end.

The strong finale almost makes you forgive the preceding 75 minutes, but the fact remains that this drags on lazily for much of its running time. Some kids might get a cheap thrill out of it, but they won’t be begging to watch this one again and again. And if they do, you have my sympathy.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2

(M) ★★★

Director: Francis Lawrence.

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland, Julianne Moore.

"How did they get this pile of rocks to burn? Is this a magic fire?"

SAYING goodbye is a difficult thing to do.

Peter Jackson got it right first time with Return Of The King, but wrong second time with The Battle Of The Five Armies. Harry Potter’s last film was spot on, but Nolan's final Batman was way off.

The fourth and final movie of The Hunger Games series is somewhere in the middle. It can’t match the thrills of the second film, nor the emotional punch of the third, despite the stakes being higher, yet does just enough to satisfy fans of the franchise based on Suzanne Collins’ young adult dystopian novels.

Taking off where Mockingjay – Part 1 left off (don’t bother seeing this if you haven’t seen the previous films), it finds Katniss Everdeen (Lawrence) struggling with her position as figurehead of the Panem uprising.

She wants to get out there and kill the tyrant Snow (Sutherland), but is seen as too valuable by the leaders of the uprising, personified by Coin (Moore).

Meanwhile her friend Peeta (Hutcherson) is struggling to recover from brainwashing at the hands of Snow, but is part of the rebel forces edging closer to Snow’s stronghold.

But Snow has one last trick up his sleeve for the rebels – a booby-trapped capital city, which effectively creates one last Hunger Games. The prize this time is control of the whole country.

Mockingjay 2 can’t harness the same energy as its predecessors despite even more being on the line this time. There are still some surprises left, including a strangely handled last act twist, but the momentum of the previous film is lost.

With the uprising in its final throes, the movie unfortunately takes its sweet time getting to where it’s going. The first act drags over old ground, while the action sequences of the second act are predominantly of the “running away” variety and become repetitive, except for a cool fight with weird creatures in a sewer.

It’s the big reveal and payoff at the end, which should be so satisfying, that feels so frustratingly fumbled. Given the way the plot of the final book is split into two films, the screenwriters and director Francis Lawrence had a lot of time to deal with the key elements but rush many of them. You can’t help but wonder if a punchier single film version wouldn’t have worked better or whether the last two films must be watched in one sitting to fully hit home.

There is still a lot to like about Mockingjay 2 aka Hunger Games 4. It’s key themes about the power of propaganda and the morality within war are as vital as ever and tested in interesting fashion, particularly the latter, and Katniss Everdeen remains a compelling character, wonderfully realised by Lawrence.

The love triangle between Katniss, Peeta and Gale (Hemsworth) is interesting and refreshingly strange, while the supporting cast is great. In fact, they’re so great but so plentiful you end up shortchanged by their collective lack of screen time – Harrelson, Moore, the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, Elizabeth Banks, Jena Malone, and Jeffrey Wright all play intriguing roles, but we don’t see enough of them.

At close to two-and-a-half hours, Mockingjay 2 feels long when it shouldn't, especially given the small amount of actual plotting that takes place. The studio, in its efforts to maximise profits, has unnecessarily split one book and created one great film and one not-so-great finale.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 does all it needs to in order to succeed, but is a let down compared to its predecessors.

Spectre

(M) ★★★½

Director: Sam Mendes.

Cast: Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz, Léa Seydoux, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris, Dave Bautista, Monica Bellucci, Ralph Fiennes.

Dinner at her parents' place had not gone well.

THE sixth Bond is back for his fourth outing and the world of 007 has never been so liberated.

Since effectively rebooting the series with the arrival of Craig in Casino Royale in 2006, Eon Productions have been able to do whatever the hell they want with the films.

If they play things straight and do away with the quips and gadgets, it’s a new Bond for a new era. If they throw in some quips and gadgets, it’s a nod to the past. They can’t fail.

Well, actually, they can fail. The confusing mess of Quantum Of Solace proved that, although that can be largely attributed to the 2007-’08 writers’ strike apparently.

But after the outright victories of Casino Royale (the most un-Bond-like of the series yet also possibly the best) and Skyfall (somewhat more Bond-like and also great), the filmmakers find themselves in the position of being able to do whatever they want and have it called “Bond”.

So here we have Spectre, a movie that continues in the super-serious vein of Craig’s previous outings yet throws in some typical Bond wit, that delves deeply into the psychology and history of its characters but can’t resist a gadget and a tricked-out car, and that has a visual style unlike any previous Bond film but 007 is still unable to resist shagging a woman he’s just met.

Plot-wise, the movie’s catalyst is a message from beyond the grave telling Bond to kill a terrorist named Marco Sciarra (Alessandro Cremona) and go to his funeral.

The funeral leads him to Sciarra’s wife Lucia (Belucci, making headlines as the oldest ‘Bond girl’ to date), who in turn points Bond in the direction of Spectre, an organisation that appears to link many of the most recent Bond villains.

But who is the Big Bad behind them all (hint: he looks like Christoph Waltz) and what is he up to?

Following in the footsteps of 23 predecessors makes it hard to avoid some obvious throwbacks. A mountaintop health clinic smacks of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, a relentless colossal henchman played by Bautista is like Jaws from The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker but without the dental work, a torture scene tries to outdo Casino Royale’s ballbuster, the “go rogue” subplot was Timothy Dalton’s bag, and there’s a villain and a villainous organisation we’ve seen before.

These are not criticisms. Spectre revels in the opportunity to be new and old (Bond orders a vodka martini shaken not stirred and a dirty unshaken vodka martini!) and it largely works well when both are mixed together.

Case in point is a mindbogglingly brilliant opening tracking shot that goes through a crowded Mexican square, into a hotel, into an elevator, up a few floors, into a room, out a window and along a rooftop. It’s a bravura moment and something we’ve not seen in a Bond film before - it's more like Orson Welles’ Touch Of Evil opening shot or one of Scorsese's signature tracking moves.

It’s then topped off by a fight in a helicopter that is one of the ballsier stunts seen in recent times and which is typically Bond, but dialled up to 11.

Sadly, Spectre can’t keep up the pace of its pre-credits sequence forever and the momentum slowly drops away, unaided by a two-and-a-half-hour running time. It’s almost a relief when we get to the final stand-off on a London bridge, having been to Mexico, Italy, Austria, and Morocco already.

Things get particularly wonky in the deserts beyond Morocco, where the villain seemingly welcomes Bond with open arms, despite having sent a henchman to kill him just moments earlier. The film fully leaps off the rails and from then on it is a struggle to get back on them.

Most disappointing is Waltz, who has habit of stealing movies. He couldn’t even steal a shot in this film. His character is never imposing or scary or intimidating or dangerous or charismatic or unhinged or psychotic (even when he’s torturing Bond), and every Bond villain needs to be at least one of these things. He plays his Big Bad like a benevolent uncle, which would be fine if there was a hint of menace underneath, but there isn’t. This is Waltz’s most disappointing performance since his breakout in Inglourious Basterds.

Holding it all together is Mendes and in-demand cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, who give the film a visual style that is beautiful to behold, and Craig, who has achieved the difficult task of creating a fresh post-Brosnan Bond that still somehow feels like Bond.

Spectre really impresses early on but loses its way and struggles to a satisfying conclusion. Still, it’s great bits are truly great and at least it’s better than Quantum Of Solace.

My wife and I watched and discussed every Bond film in positively riveting fashion in BlogalongaBond, which you can read here.

Scouts Guide To The Zombie Apocalypse

(MA15+) ★★

Director: Christopher B Landon.

Cast: Tye Sheridan, Logan Miller, Joey Morgan, Sarah Dumont, David Koechner, Halston Sage, Cloris Leachman.

Scouts - check. Zombies - check. Hot chick - check.

THIS film may be the best evidence yet that we’ve reached “peak zombie”.

You can hear the bottom of the barrel being scraped in the quest for a new angle on the undead sub-genre, but unfortunately the makers come up dry.

This was originally titled Scouts Vs Zombies before being given its present poorly punctuated moniker (Scout’s Guide... or Scouts’ Guide... would have been acceptable). But the first name is the most accurate – there is nothing more to it than the fact it contains scouts and zombies. It’s like Snakes On A Plane, or Zombie Strippers - the title says it all and you probably don’t need to watch it to figure out how it’s going to go down.

If you don’t want to waste time figuring it out, it goes down a little something like this: three teenage scouts go camping in the woods before sneaking off to go to a party. When they get back to civilisation, they find a zombie apocalypse has taken place.

It would be nice to say their scouting abilities help them save the day but they don’t really. The whole scouting subplot ends up being largely irrelevant to the zombie outbreak, although it does add some development to the three main characters.

Ben (Sheridan), Carter (Miller) and Augie (Morgan) are likeable, which is about the best thing the film has going with it. Dumont’s character Denise, a gun-toting stripper, is also a good character and serves as the biggest bad-ass and strongest member of the team, which is refreshing.

However comedy veterans Koechner and Leachman are criminally underused, but then again, comedy is criminally underused. It’s obvious that Scouts Guide… wants to be a mixture of Superbad and Zombieland but it has none of the good qualities of either of those films. It’s filmic world is just a superbad zombieland.

PODCAST: Have we had enough of zombies?

The worst attempts at humour involve gore and genitalia mixed together, as well as boobs and, bizarrely, Britney Spears. The film rarely lands a gag bar a couple of one-liners, and instead has to settle for the laughs that come from the over-the-top blood-and-guts moments.

Most annoyingly, the film can’t even get its zombies consistent. Are they walkers or sprinters or do they run on all fours like animals? Do they have memories or not? Are they capable of problem solving or not? The answers to these questions change constantly, making the film frustratingly nonsensical at times, such as in the Britney Spears bit.

Zom-coms can be great – just look at Shaun Of The Dead and Zombieland – but this is not a great zom-com. This is a Z grade idea with a C grade budget and B grade delivery.

The only strengths to recommend it on are its over-the-top gore and its so-so leads, who try to give the film a bit of heart. But really, this is one for teenagers and zombie aficionados only.