The Best Of Me

(M) ★½

Director: Michael Hoffman.

Cast: James Marsden, Michelle Monaghan, Luke Bracey, Liana Liberato, Gerald McRaney, Sebastian Arcelus, Sean Bridgers.

50 Shades of Grey - bringing people together since 2011.

The quality of a movie based on a Nicholas Sparks book is becoming as predictable as the posters promoting them.

Just as you can bet that the poster will probably feature two people inches from kissing as one of them caresses the other's face, it's equally likely the movie will be a pile of mushy romantic tripe peppered with terrible dialogue, hackneyed plots, and maybe even a weird twist in the tail.

These films have their fans - particularly the overrated love story of The Notebook - and do well at the box office, so maybe all critics are wrong when we continually give them terrible reviews.

But having sat through The Best Of Me, I would be amazed to hear even the most ardent Sparks fan defend it as anything more than rubbish.

The premise follows Dawson and Amanda, whose love burns brightly for a few heady months in 1992 until something happens - and this is the film's big slow-burn mystery - that tears them apart.

Twenty-one years later, Dawson and Amanda are reunited by the death of mutual friend Tuck (McRaney), rekindling old feelings, past mistakes, and the prospect of adultery given that Amanda is apparently unhappy marriaged.

As a youngster, Dawson is played by former Home & Away hunk Luke Bracey, who appears way too old to be a high school student and looks nothing like his supposed older version, played by James Marsden, which is jarring, but not a deal-breaker.

What's worse is Bracey's unconvincing chemistry with the bubbly Liana Liberato, which never really sells the idea that this is some kind of undying love that will endure despite two decades apart - more like it's the kind of high school fling that was bound to fizzle out as they got older and went to different colleges.

Furthermore, the plot involving a middle-aged man never getting over his first crush is presented as super-romantic but comes off in places as being super creepy. From the point of view of the grown-up Amanda (Monaghan), it's kind of sad and slightly wrong that despite having been married for a long time she still carries a torch for Dawson.

Being a thirty-something male, I am not the target audience for these Sparks adaptions and I can see how these are (and I'm broadly stereotyping film demographics here) intended as the female equivalent of the superhero genre - they're about fantastical situations, escapism and a kind of wish fulfilment. But if one demographic daydreams about being Iron Man or Spider-man and saving the world, the other demographic apparently (according to The Best Of Me) yearns to commit adultery with hunky men from the wrong side of the tracks who garden with their shirts off, can fix cars, and read books about physics and quantum mechanics. This may be true - I don't know, but it's what the film would have me believe.

There's definitely something fantastical about the whole thing - no one in real life talks like the people in The Best Of Me, and even the best efforts of Marsden and Monaghan (who surely have better things to do) can't make these words fly. Equally out-there is the ending, which admittedly isn't quite as insane as the finale to last year's Sparks adaptation Safe Haven but is still mind-bogglingly redundant and contrived.

There are themes about fate and destiny among it all, ideas about things happening for a reason, but they're as laughable as the villains in the film.

A couple of highlights mildly offset things - the film looks pretty, Tuck is a good character and nicely underplayed by McRaney, and there are a couple of nice moments amid the clichéd bits we've come to expect in almost every Sparks adaptation (kissing in the rain, swimming together, sleeping on the floor together).

These positives are not enough to recommend The Best Of Me, which unfortunately brought out the worst of me as a critic.

Fury

(MA15+) ★★★

Director: David Ayer.

Cast: Brad Pitt, Logan Lerman, Shia LaBeouf, Michael Peña, Jon Bernthal, Jason Isaacs.

"I'd kiss you, but they won't allow that stuff in the army for at least another 60 years."

WAR is hell, and movie-makers love to remind us of this.

From early classic war movies such as All Quiet On The Western Front and The Big Parade through to recent efforts such as Lone Survivor and The Railway Man, the futility and brutality of war seems to have been shot from every imaginable angle.

So it's somewhat refreshing to ride along in the tank named Fury for a couple of hours and get a Sherman's eye-view of WWII's final months - a viewpoint rarely seen in war movies.

But Ayer's film still can't quite escape the "seen it all before" sensation that comes with the territory, and as the clichés start to pile up around Fury like dead Nazis, this tank runs out of gas.

Pitt stars as Sgt Collier, commander of the M4 Sherman tank, who has led his crew of Bible (LaBeouf), Gordo (Peña) and Grady (Bernthal) since the campaigns of North Africa.

When their fifth crew member is killed, new guy Norman (Lerman) is thrown into Fury and it's through his eyes we see the dehumanising effects and harsh realities of war.

From its opening shot recalling Lawrence Of Arabia through to its increasingly ludicrous Rambo-esque final showdown, Fury can't escape the tropes of the war film, such as the cruel-to-be-kind commander, the sacrifices and last stands, the Saving Private Ryan-like massacres, the "loss of innocence" moment, men devolving to animals, and the vain attempts to recapture civility. Even the cramped confines of the tank recall classic submarine drama Das Boot.

This isn't necessarily a criticism - more the reality of the genre - but in this film's case, there is an almost overwhelming collection of clichés, leading to a strong sense of deja vu and an air of predictability.

Where Fury really excels is when it tries to give us something different, which is during its fantastic and fascinating tank warfare scenes. War films have regularly run through the trenches and battlefields, consulted with the generals, taken on secret missions, sat in the cockpits of fighter planes, and disappeared beneath the waves in a sub, but riding inside the armoured hull of a Sherman gives the film a novel perspective. The way it handles its "first kill" moment also stands out.

The cast is also great. The under-rated LaBeouf, who seemed like he'd gone off the deep end in recent times, gives the film's stand-out performance as the tank crew's teary-eyed religious zealot, although Lerman (in his meatiest role to date) and the always excellent Pitt are also stellar. The cast chemistry is strong, even if we hardly get to know the characters.

But under the weight of its familiarity and its strangely over-the-top ending, Fury's weaknesses become all too obvious.

It remains somewhat memorable for its armour-plated manoeuvres but also oddly forgettable at the same time due to its reliance on tropes. Fury is destined to be remembered as "that so-so tank movie" rather than a modern classic of the war genre.

The Judge

(M) ★★★½

Director: David Dobkin.

Cast: Robert Downey Jr, Robert Duvall, Vera Farmiga, Vincent D'Onofrio, Jeremy Strong, Billy Bob Thornton, Dax Shepard.

The Suit of the Year competition was on.

THERE'S nothing quite like a funeral to bring the family back together.

And if it's a funeral in a movie, that family reunion is bound to result in the airing of plenty of dirty laundry and a few skeletons falling out of the closets they were hidden in. It made up most of Death At A Funeral, we saw it recently in August: Osage County and it will be a central plot point in the upcoming This Is Where I Leave You, to name just three.

This overused trope also is the kick-off point for The Judge, where hotshot lawyer Hank Palmer (Downey Jr) returns home for the first time in 20 years to help bury his mother.

His homecoming reignites his troubled relationship with his father, local long-serving judge Joseph Palmer (Duvall), whose authoritative standing in his family is exemplified by the fact they all call him "Judge".

The relationship takes an interesting turn when Judge is arrested the day after the funeral for allegedly running down and killing a known felon, forcing Hank to step up and defend his dad in court.

If a lot of those ideas sound familiar it's because they are. The Judge has to fight hard to overcome the fact its a big old ball of clichés all rolled together.

The funeral bringing the family together for the airing of grievances, the high-flying former local returning home to confront his past, the father-and-son team needing to put their differences aside and work together for the good of the family, and even the courtroom becoming a place to mend emotional family hurts - they're all here, piled on top of each other as if they're the double-episode opener for a new TV show called Small Town Lawyer or something.

Even Downey Jr's character feels like a cliché, one that's becoming his stock-in-trade - the arrogant, sarcastic hotshot who secretly has a heart of gold could be describing his roles in the Iron Man movies, Chef, Due Date, and Sherlock Holmes - AKA almost every movie he's been in for the last five years.

Having said that, Downey Jr does that type of character incredibly well, and here he dials his performance up to 11, giving one of the best performances of his career.

It's his turn, particularly when he goes head-to-head with Duvall's grumpy patriarch, that elevates this movie. Thanks to the efforts of the two Roberts and their solid supporting cast, The Judge is better than it should be and transcends its numerous clichés and resulting melodrama.

The aforementioned performances are the only degree of subtlety about The Judge. For example, the opposing lawyer (Thornton) has a history with Hank Palmer and a pointless affectation involving a metal cup that clangs and opens violently. Then there's the storm that blows in to town at the peak of the father-son turmoil, only to disappear with no ramifications other than serving as some overly simple symbolism. And then there's the relationship between Hank and his ex (Farmiga), which picks up like the last 20 years never happened.

Dobkin, best known for directing comedies such as The Change-Up and Wedding Crashers, can't do much in the face of these script contrivances except let the cast do its thing. He handles the rare comedic moments nicely, which does help to defuse the excessive emotive moments.

Having said all that, the clichés and melodrama are reasonably inoffensive and overall the film is relatively enjoyable. Its biggest problem is that it's way too long at two hours and 20 minutes - whereas the 149 minutes of Gone Girl barely drags, the 140 minutes of The Judge definitely feels like more of a slog.

If not for Downey Jr and co, The Judge could be a seen-it-before waste of time, but their performances help illuminate the colour and heart in the story and overcome its shortcomings.

Gone Girl

(MA15+) ★★★★½

Director: David Fincher.

Cast: Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Carrie Coon, Kim Dickens, Tyler Perry, Patrick Fugit, Neil Patrick Harris.

"Sancho bought a message from The Fatman/Sorry, boys, to leave you high and dry..."

David Fincher loves a good mystery, and no one does a mystery quite like him.

Take the depraved killer thriller Seven, or the methodical search-for-a-psycho Zodiac, or the highly effective if ultimately redundant American remake of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - all three of these films have been not only intense whodunnits, but also mesmerising journeys to the dark side that unravel with equal amounts of dread and intrigue.

Add to this collection Gone Girl, another gut-clenching mystery that doesn't so much unravel but rather corkscrew its way through some delicious plot twists.

And while Fincher is the master of this, credit is also due to Gillian Flynn, adapting her own novel into a rivetingly kinked screenplay.

It centres on the disappearance and suspected murder of pretty Baltimore housewife Amy Dunne (Pike) and the increasing suspicion that her husband Nick (Affleck) may have been responsible.

The ensuing media circus and police investigation raise more and more questions, as Gone Girl becomes less about the who and more about the how and why.

Perhaps more interesting is what all these queries say about its many themes, such as the nature of marriage and our dreams and goals, and what happens when they don't go to plan, plus there's a disturbing insight into the power of the media and the potential darkness that exists behind the closed doors of a seemingly happy home.

Flynn's plotting that takes the cake, but it's Fincher's direction that bakes it to perfection. Even though much of the film takes place in the sunny outdoors of suburbia or similarly everyday settings, there's an ominous tone that Fincher invokes with ease.

He's ably assisted by regular scorers Trent Reznor and Atticus Finch, who turn in their most discordant soundtrack to date, which is predominantly good and aids the sense of dread but unfortunately threatens to overpower the dialogue at times.

It would all be for nought with the wrong cast. Fortunately, we have Affleck in career-best form, which some would say is damning him with faint praise, but if you've ever doubted Affleck's talents, this is the movie that will change your mind. His naturalistic but nuanced performance is Oscar-worthy.

As is Pike's, who deserves to graduate to the A-list with her multi-faceted turn as Amy. No longer will she be written about as a forgettable Bond girl in a terrible 007 film, unless it's to remind you how far she's come when she starts collecting awards for performance in Gone Girl.

Dickens, Coon and Fugit are also good, Perry adds some much-needed tension-relief, while Harris is the only weak link in what is a blissfully small role.

Aside from Harris and some occasional issues with the score, Gone Girl's only other downside is its length. For much of its two-and-a-half hours there is no sense that things are dragging on too long, and it's only late into the final act that you wonder where it's all going and how long it will take you to get there. Fortunately, a gob-smacking ending will leave you knowing it was all worthwhile.

Is Gone Girl on the same level as Fincher's flawless masterpieces such as Seven, Fight Club, Zodiac and The Social Network? Not quite, but it's damned close.

The Boxtrolls

(PG) ★★★★

Director: Graham Annable & Anthony Stacchi.

Cast: (voices of) Isaac Hempstead-Wright, Elle Fanning, Ben Kingsley, Toni Collette, Jared Harris, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Richard Ayoade, Tracy Morgan.

The Republican convention was in full swing.

Despite the onslaught of the digital era, the painstaking process of stop-motion filmmaking refuses to die, and thank goodness for that.

If stop motion animation had gone the way of the movie intermission, we would have missed out on such recent gems as Frankenweenie, The Pirates! Band Of Misfits, Fantastic Mr Fox, Mary & Max, Coraline, and ParaNorman - some of the best films of the last five years.

Laika, the production company behind the latter two, are responsible for The Boxtrolls, another brilliant addition to the list of modern stop-motion classics.

As with their previous two films, Laika has infused The Boxtrolls with a welcome layer of darkness amid the all-ages appeal. Based loosely on Alan Snow's book Here Be Monsters!, it follows the story of Eggs (voiced by Hempstead-Wright), a young boy who has been raised by the subterranean-dwelling Boxtrolls.

While the Boxtrolls are merely meek scavengers, they have been portrayed as baby-stealing cannibals by Archibald Snatcher (Kingsley), who heads up a team of troll exterminators and is waging his own war against the little monsters in the hopes of climbing the social ladder and become part of the ruling class.

It's up to Eggs and his new friend Winnie (Fanning) to save the Boxtrolls and reveal the truth about Snatcher.

There are some interesting ideas and fascinating themes at play here, but from a kid's-eye view it's an enjoyable tale about doing the right thing, helping others, and looking out for your family, peppered with funny pratfalls and slapstick, plus a few "yucky" bits that the young 'uns (and oldies) will likely find funny.

But a great kids' film should reveal extra layers as its audience ages, and The Boxtrolls has that in spades. Government wastefulness, the power of fear, racial prejudices, self-determination, non-nuclear families, and the nature of evil all get explored, and there are a number of very clever jokes that will sail over younger heads, including many from a pair of comically philosophical henchmen voiced by Frost and Ayoade.

They're just two names in a stellar voice cast. Kingsley's voicework is particularly outstanding, while youngsters Hempstead-Wright and Fanning lead the way well.

The look of the film is impressive. Set in the faux-British town of Cheesebridge, the film encompasses a mixture of Victorian-era, gothic and steampunk elements, but unlike some stop-motion movies, The Boxtrolls is not afraid to dabble with computer-generated elements to enhance its world, pushing the boundaries between the old and the new.

As a result there are some shots and techniques not commonly seen in these styles of movies and which expand on some of the intriguing tricks and effects achieved in Coraline and ParaNorman.

The script is also sharp, barely wasting a second, developing its characters in unexpected ways, and using plenty of symbolism to "show not tell" - it's intelligent filmmaking that never talks down to its audience, which means the film will keep on giving with future re-watches.

In short, it's the kind of film that's a joy whether you're 11 or 77.

Step Up: All In

(PG) ★★½

Director: Trish Sie.

Cast: Ryan Guzman, Briana Evigan, Adam Sevani, Stephen Jones, Izabella Miko, Chadd Smith.

No one could believe they were making a fifth Step Up film.

The Step Up series is now five films long - at the time of writing, that's as many movies as Die Hard, Dirty Harry, and Twilight.

Judging by this longevity, the franchise is evidently doing something right, and that something is dancing.

Throughout the series, which launched the career of Channing Tatum way back when it began in 2006, Step Up films have thrived on their truly stunning dance sequences, which have been consistently impressive and innovative.

The biggest drawback has been that when you remove the popping, locking, crunking and breaking from the equation, what is left is a level of melodrama, shorthanded plotting, and lame characterisation usually reserved for movies made for the Disney Channel.

Fans of the series don't care about that though. They'll just be happy to see lots of dancing and so many returning faces - Andie from #2, Camille from #1 and #3, Monster from #2 and #3, the Santiago twins from #3, Sean from #4, and that guy that does The Robot really, really well in #3 and #4.

These people, and then some, team up to form a crew called LMNTL (that's pronounced 'Elemental', not 'Lemon Tell' apparently), who enter Las Vegas dance competition The Vortex, which promises the winner a three-year residency in Vegas.

Sean (Guzman), who was the focal point of the last film, has set up LMNTL after falling out with his old Miami crew The Mob, so naturally The Mob will be competing against LMNTL in The Vortex at some point. And Sean doesn't get along with his new crewmate Andie (Evigan), so naturally they'll fall in love and learn to trust each other at some point.

This level of predictability has been ever-present in the Step Up series, where every plot is just a minor variation on the previous one and merely a vague excuse to unleash its trump card of killer dance routines. These movies are to teenage girls what shoot-'em-up action movies are to teenage boys - predictable plotting surrounding slight reasons for the actiony bits.

When the film puts on its dancing shoes, it wins. A "mad professor" themed sequence LMNTL uses as its entry submission for The Vortex is very cool, and the grand finale is a jaw-dropper, especially considering the film has managed to up the impressiveness with each preceding routine.

The stellar choreography and dance performances are almost enough to distract from the endless Vegas montages, the lame subplots that are resolved in two seconds, the unintentionally hilarious "villains", and "laughs" that fall flat on their faces.

It feels futile poking holes in the non-dancing moments or the wasted opportunites, such as a subplot about The Vortex competition being filmed for reality TV which is underused and proves inconsequential. The people who loved the previous films will probably turn up en masse to see this.

And realistically, it's all about the cool dance moves, which Step Up: All In has in spades.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

(M) ★★

Director: Jonathan Liebesman.

Cast: Megan Fox, Will Arnett, William Fichtner, Tohoru Masamune, Alan Ritchson, Noel Fisher, Jeremy Howard, Pete Ploszek, (and the voices of) Johnny Knoxville and Tony Shalhoub.

One of these kids is doing their own thing.

It's hard to figure out what's the most annoying thing about this TMNT reboot.

Is it the ear-shattering sound design or the endlessly moving camera?

Is it what the animators have done to the turtles' faces or what plastic surgeons have done to Megan Fox's face over the years?

Or is it the fact that producer Michael Bay has added yet another treasured childhood cartoon memory to his back catalogue of crap films he's affiliated with?

The whole thing starts promisingly enough - during a nicely stylised introduction mutated rat sensei Splinter (voiced by Tony Shalhoub) narrates a brief introduction to the ninja turtles and their war against the evil Foot Clan.

From there it goes downhill pretty quickly as Fox takes centre stage as journalist April O'Neil. Not only is O'Neil in the running for the title of "worst movie journalist ever", but Fox can probably expect a Razzie nomination for worst actress when the anti-Oscars comes around.

While trying to crack a big story about the Foot Clan's nefarious plans, she accidentally uncovers the existence of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and soon finds herself embroiled in their efforts to save New York City from the evil Shredder and his foot soldiers.

It's not a total waste of time because in one sense this is the TMNT movie some fans have been waiting for. Gone are the cumbersome rubber suits of the original trilogy, which relied on clever editing to make Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michelangelo move like ninjas. In their place are strange, hyper-real-looking computer-generated turtles that take some getting used to, but which move and fight better than ever.

Their characterisation is spot on too and the film is at its best when the heroes in a half-shell are interacting - a brief humourous respite featuring the turtles killing time in an elevator is a great example of this.

The other highlight is the CGI, particularly during an insane downhill running battle featuring a runaway truck, a mini-avalanche, and electrified harpoons.

But with such impressive effects it's a shame Liebesman feels compelled to keep the camera constantly moving so we can't get a good look at things, most notably during a distracting fight in the sewers featuring Splinter and his turtles versus Shredder and his foot soldiers.

Obviously the idea of mutated adolescent amphibians with a knack for martial arts requires a fairly large suspension of disbelief, but this can't excuse the huge amount of frustrating plot contrivances and "what the" moments crammed in here.

O'Neil's connection with the turtles is a good example of this, as is the bad guys' ability to move so quickly from capturing the MacGuffin to executing their diabolical plan (this makes no sense out of context but trust me on this). Then there are the endless efforts to cram in every touchstone from the previous comics and cartoons, including a groan-worthy attempt to get the title of the film into the dialogue.

Managing the inherent goofiness of the concept behind these pizza-loving turtles and the current trend towards the "oh-so-serious" approach to all reboots and comic-book movies is a balancing act Liebesman and the multiple writers can't quite nail, particularly when Fox's O'Neil seems to have wandered in from a completely different movie.

The result is an annoying mess. A few memorable moments can't save it from the frustrating editing, a ridiculous script, and way too much Megan Fox and her bizarrely enhanced features.