I Saw The Devil (악마를 보았다) (Ang-ma-reul bo-at'da) (2010)

I don't mind ultra violence in movies when revenge is being meted out to those especially deserving of it, like in Harry Brown or Bedevilled, The Brave One or a zillion other bloody revenge fests, and for the first hour or so, that's what's on offer here when a secret service agent goes beserk, seeking revenge on a Korean Max Cady serial killer who has horribly killed rhe agent's pregnant girlfriend, but by film's end, when the secret service agent's very short-sighted plan for revenge has resulted in pain, suffering and death for myriad extraneous others and when so much depravity is on show - so much that the serial killer becomes just one part of a greater universal serial killer problem - the thrill of revenge becomes more than absurd: From Dusk Til Dawn presents a more reasonable, grounded world.

★★★☆☆

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G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013)

By the time some fun stuff arrives - cliffside martial acrobatics, Mission: Impossible-style infiltrations of black tie events and the fast and furious flashbacks that made G.I. Joe: the Rise of the Cobra such unexpected fun - you'll have been burned by a dull boysy first hour where men chortle about their "girl" conquests, snigger about "girls and their guns", leer at legs and you will have already decided Hasbro's action doll franchise needs to stay in 2013.

★★☆☆☆

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The Magnificent Seven (2016)

"Staged" is one word that springs to mind watching this update of the updates of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, with sets and props so pristine and removed from the action that they look like cartoons and with costumes that look like dress-ups, close-ups of sweaty brows that look like Sergio Leone playacting, and scenes of men entering buildings via saloon doors and exiting seconds later via windows looking like comedic sore thumbs...and other words that spring to mind are "dreadfully boring", "horribly unengaging", "by the numbers" and "far from magnificent".

★☆☆☆☆

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G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)

News in April was that Hasbro had started work on a cinematic universe a la DC Comics and Marvel, and in light of my being bored last week by X-men: Apocalypse, I thought, "Perhaps there is room for another action-hero franchise," and watched this 2009 fantasy action based on Hasbro's G.I. Joe action figurines, characters that for a time were the property of Marvel...and it is surprisingly engaging even for someone with no prior knowledge of the franchise, delivers fast and furious comic book action crammed with detail (the backstories are delivered in flashback at furious speed), and there are tonnes of storythreads begging to be followed-up, although Hasbro is sure to reboot the series with the next instalment so don't get too attached to Channing Tatum as Duke, Dennis Quaid as The General, Lee Byung-hun as Storm Shadow (!) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Cobra Commander.

★★★☆☆

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