28 Days Later (2002)

Even though the zombie action here is tried-and-true - an apparently lone survivor stumbles across other survivors, they argue about what to do, and eventually agree to seek out the source of radio-broadcast messages about a safe haven -  director Danny Boyle keeps things stylistically and visually fresh with rapid, rabid zombies - not the slow-moving hordes - and a gritty British rock aesthetic, right from the start, for example, pairing anti-establishment thrash with frenzied scenes of a virus breach at a research lab before cutting to a lengthy sequence of unnerving silence as Cillian Murphy wakes in a hospital in a completely deserted London.

★★★★☆

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Live By Night (2016)

A long, sprawling gangster epic that tackles weighty matters in the Prohibition era like religion, the Klu Klux Klan and the advent of organised gambling in America, shouldn't feel this lightweight, with Director, Producer and star, Ben Affleck perhaps still in Batman cartoon mode, relying on an array of brightly coloured fedoras to enliven his trademark lamppost presence in a movie that feels like you are watching someone play Grand Theft Auto V.

★★☆☆☆

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Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

The repetitive Groundhog Day nature of this sci-fi action, about a man who lives and relives the same day of an alien invasion on the beaches of France, is like watching a friend grapple repeatedly with a difficult boss encounter, but the live-die-repeat loop is made fairly interesting with some dry humour, good performances by the leads, and impressive cgi detail.

★★★★☆

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M:i-2 (2010)

Tom Cruise is the best thing in this, the worst of the five Mission: Impossible movies so far and one that plays like an Australian tourism advertisement marketed to an Asian movie-going audience, with pointed Australian accents and Aussie tourism icons placed throughout and with direction by John Woo despite his balletic "heroic bloodshed" style not being suited to the spy series.

★☆☆☆☆

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