Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings (2021)

The baffling appearance of Ben Kingsley - he turns up about halfway through playing a Shakespearean actor who believes real monkeys were cast in the Planet of the Apes - marks where this, until then by-the-numbers Marvel superhero movie, unravels, descending from that point into a Disney mess aimed at pre-teens involving a massive flying threadworm, ludicrous bow-and-arrow mastery, flip-flopping bad-no-good-no-bad-no-good guys, a headless turwomken (a turkey, wombat, chicken cross) and other cgi Star Wars-style creatures trying to make interesting a lengthy middle stretch of exposition, vague ten-ring powers, and a hero whose martial arts prowess goes viral (but whose friends don't seem to know) and whose early childhood years of training as a ruthless assassin are breezily referenced (but which have no obvious effect upon the present) - all up, a mess of too many hasty, childish ideas in a movie which, like Black Panther, ends without it having been firmly established why the superhero origin story is the lead character's movie and not the movie of one of the other more interesting, more impressive characters (but certainly not that embarrassing Ben Kingsley one).

★★☆☆☆

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Without A Clue (1988)

Full of laughs but light on mystery, this comedy posits that Ben Kingsley's Dr Watson is the real great detective of 221B Baker Street - he merely attributes his genius for solving mysteries to the mythologised Sherlock Holmes of his stories - while his colleague who presents himself as Sherlock Holmes to the adoring London public is an out-of-his-depth, drunken, womanising dolt played by Michael Caine. 

★★★☆☆

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Self/Less (2015)

An unscrupulous mind-transplant company gets its comeuppance when it makes the mistake of transplanting a rich old dying man's mind into the body of a self-conscious, adorable pupp-- I mean, into the body of Ryan Reynolds, a military-trained husband and father, in this high concept, low-budget action thriller that after a convincing opening, flags and ends up feeling as interesting as a tv episode of The Pretender.

★★☆☆☆

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Hugo (2011)

Watch this, a precious, highly stylised and drama-free whimsy about an orphan boy who discovers the magic of cinema, or simply recall instead that part of each Oscar award ceremony where the presenters heavyhandedly expound film's curative properties. 

★★☆☆☆ 

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Species (1995)

A group of way too laidback misfit investigators (including Forest Whitaker as celluloid's least insightful psychic ever), chase after - no, stroll around after -- a scantily clad Natasha Henstridge who plays an escaped and rapidly evolving half-human, half-alien science experiment and temptress killing machine, in this police procedural "sci-fi" that spawned a number of unwarranted sequels.

★☆☆☆☆

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