Fear (1997)

Sarah McLachlan's "Wild Horses" plays whenever Nicole (Reese Witherspoon) believes things are good between her and David (Mark Wahlberg), like during rollercoaster sex, but at other times angry thrash metal plays and David doles out a black eye to Nicole, drives like a maniac, cheats, engages in grimy partner-swap sex, and in a laughable homage to "Cape Fear" meant to confirm David a right looney tune, he self-tattoos "NICOLE 4 EVA" across his torso with black biro ink as dissonate chords crescendo, but the genuinely tense abusive relationship that develops between the teens is muddied in the last half of this psycho thriller with David turning out to be as much a lawless gangbanging squatter with daddy issues as he is obsessive about Nicole.

★★☆☆☆

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Uncharted (2022)

Tom Holland is a far too baby-faced Nathan Drake, the supposed-to-be manly hero of Naughty Dog's Uncharted game series adapted here for the big screen, and casting Mark Wahlberg, too young and clean-shaven, as the game's Victor "Sully" Sullivan robs the movie of some of the game's emotion given the character is supposed to be a father-like figure in grown-up orphan Nathan's life, but despite this horrible casting, the movie succeeds as an engaging popcorn adventure with moments of great excitement and, for lovers of the series, plenty of nods to the game.

★★★☆☆

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Daddy's Home 2 (2017)

The 2017 Bad Moms sequel also perpetuated its comedy by introducing an older generation and in doing so, took the focus off what audiences liked in number one - the moms - but Daddy's Home manages to retain the feel by making the granddads replicas of the dads - it's the same joke being played out again in a movie that is most funny when Will Ferrell is doing his Chevy Chase National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation impersonation.

★★★☆☆

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Deepwater Horizon (2016)

It comes across as a rather simplistic account of what caused the Deepwater Horizon disaster of 2010, especially with John Malkovich playing a corporate Dastardly Whiplash whose amoral calculations - on - the - day - cause the blowout and Gulf of Mexico oilspill, but as a glimpse at life on an offshore oil platform, Deepwater Horizon is gripping and as a tribute to those that died, it succeeds wonderfully.

★★★☆☆

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Patriots Day (2016)

This moment-by-moment account of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing is a moving tribute to the city, its first responders and citizens injured or killed in the two explosions, and coming so soon after events, is naturally not a movie interested in turning the camera away from the victims and heroes to explore more deeply the genesis of the crime or the backgrounds, rationales or personalities of the perpertrators, their relationship to each other, with their families or to Islam.

★★★☆☆

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Ted 2 (2015)

We know from Ted (the original) that Seth MacFarlane's brand of humour - crude - isn't any funnier from the mouth of a teddy bear, even one with such carefully constructed hair, and this amusing bemusing sequel, which is all about Ted going to the Supreme Court to win the right to be considered human (and so have the right to marry the wife he mistreats), leaves you wondering why he isn't just that - a person - and why not Seth MacFarlane with his carefully constructed hair?

★☆☆☆☆

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All The Money In The World (2017)

ATMITW starts thrillingly with director Ridley Scott sweeping us back and forwards through time and around the world from Morocco to Saudi Arabia and New York and back to set up the details of the famous Getty kidnapping of 1973, but after an hour, when the movie goes back to square one and Michelle Williams' and Christopher Plummer's impressive performances become strained and repetitive through their having nothing new to do, it becomes clear that what we are watching is akin to the chess game that Plummer's Getty is momentarily seen playing by himself - no amount of lavish period Italian detail can hide the fact Scott is treading water and using exposition, nebulous developments and inconsistent characterisation to protract to epic length a stalemate.

★★★☆☆

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Daddy's Home (2015)

A daggy stepdad (the host of a smooth jazz radio show) and a biological dad (a beefcake handyman) one-up each other in front of the family they share in this 2015 Will Ferrell/Mark Wahlberg comedy that is funny enough for me to want to see the 2017 sequel.

★★★☆☆

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The Other Guys (2010)

Early on, hot-shot buddy cops, the sort of beefcakes that traditionally tear up the silver screen in action movies, die being stupidly heroic and into their macho places step desk cops Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell, a pair of Prius-driving, Little River Band-appreciating, wooden gun-bearing, bickering man-children, so the not very funny running gag here is that as a buddy cop movie, this drags its feet and is no The Nice Guys, no Central Intelligence, no Jump Street.

★☆☆☆☆

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The Lovely Bones (2009)

Like Patrick Swayze's Sam in Ghost, the girl in this movie moves into a limbo state after her murder, but unlike Sam in Ghost, her limbo (a dreamlike state like in The Cell) has no narrative purpose: while her presence is felt by her family members, it does nothing to help their investigation into her disappearance, and with no real connection to the events of the film, her limbo and her particularly daft Oda Mae Brown moment towards the movie's end are meaningless gimmicks in a long mystery-free drama about an absurd trap-building serial killer.

★☆☆☆☆

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The Departed (2006)

Some tension is eventually delivered in Martin Scorsese's remake of the terrific 2002 Hong Kong action suspense thriller, Infernal Affairs, but only after a long and unconvincing set-up featuring too much farcical humour, too many implausibilities and inconsistencies, and too many Hollywood heartthrobs and not enough gravitas for the cat-and-mouse story of a crooked cop and an undercover agent.

★★☆☆☆

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The Happening (2008)

The Happening is the point most people think M Night Shyamalan's career derailed, but I love its kookiness and deliberate pace, controversially think Mark Wahlberg is good in it, find the idea of airborne threats from plants not so ridiculous, and see in the movie many of the combined elements of comedy and horror I loved so much in Signs.

★★★☆☆

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