Natural Born Killers (1994)

Just what Oliver Stone intended with this wafer-thin heavy metal video clip - all symbolism, zero realism, and seemingly a grand thesis of one simplistic note - I don't know but it is loud, long and monotonous: a two-hour fight scene that plays out as though everyone is making it up as they go along, with one-dimensional characters screaming their way through one long unlikely situation, with the chaos of mass murderers Mickey and Mallory's "deep love" affair (read occasional "dry humping" and tongue kisses) and violent crime spree spliced meaninglessly with cartoon clips, black and white photography and - in a last-ditch attempt at relevance - media clips of actual celebrated tv crime reports. 

★☆☆☆☆

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Avengers: Endgame (2019)

The remedy for all of the chaos Thanos caused at the end of Avengers: Infinity Wars is time travel, so lickety split Tony Stark creates that - a kind of Fitbit, stop asking questions - and that out of the way, the rest of Endgame's three-hour runtime is able to focus on fan-pleasing stuff that has series' devotees tweeting how many times they laughed and cried and has them marvelling at which superhero did what, where and why, and who can now use whoever else's weapon and which two hugged - totally awesome - but none of it likely to jazz anyone who hasn't invested heavily in a bulk of the preceding twenty-one Marvel space opera cartoons which culminate here, for these non-fans, in a not-very-fun nor satisfactory cinema experience that wallows in the depressions and anxieties, traumas and mother- and father-complexes of myriad morose superheroes suffering in the aftermath of Infinity War, including, in what turns out to be the most peculiar and depressing story arc of the entire franchise, the thorough ruination of the character of Chris Hemsworth's Thor.

★★☆☆☆

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Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

It starts a little confusingly for anyone like me who doesn't know exactly where, chronologically, it fits in the Marvel canon - opening scenes reference Iron Man and alien debris in a ravaged city - and it is very long and drags in the middle section, but Homecoming is a mostly fun and often funny Spiderman reboot that sets up Tom Holland's Spiderman as the newest, youngest Avenger with superhero ambition that exceeds his experience and abilities.

★★★☆☆

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Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

Every scene involves an orchestral fanfare as another superhero steps forth from behind something and is introduced to a troupe of other superheroes with whom he or she has an interrelationship that you, the viewer, may know something about if you've pledged allegiance to the Marvel Universe and have studied the myriad releases in the series - if you get off on discovering the minutae of these relationships (like the fact Thor's new eyeball came from Guardians of the Galaxy or that Steve Roger's new uniform makes him more 'Nomad'-like, etc., etc.) then this mega event ten years in the making is just for you, but if Avengers: Infinity War feels to you like a dizzying three-hour fight scene and scene to scene you can't remember who is where or why, then like me you probably want to snap your fingers and have the whole marketing exercise simply stop for a while.

★★★☆☆

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Back to School (1986)

The reasons to watch this 80s comedy about a businessman who enters his son's university to deter the son from dropping out are Rodney Dangerfield's handful of amusing one-liners, his face as he performs the ridiculous Triple Lindy at the movie's end, and Robert Downey Jnr's not very sophisticated early career turn as try-hard university geek Derek Lutz.

★★★☆☆

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Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

You'll need a degree in Marvel to follow exactly the whos and whys and whats of this busy sequel which has enhanced twins - a freakishly fast moving boy and a mindwarping witch girl, both boring - wreaking havoc with the Avengers, causing each of the umpteen of them to experience worrying visions including of the world destroyed by an artificial intelligence; the answer, unbelievably, is for the Avengers to increase their number even though there are already too many of them to really be able to care much about their burgeoning romances (wooden), family lives (corny), backstories (meaningless) and idiosyncracies (no longer funny).

★★☆☆☆

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Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)

This pulpy crime comedy has mismatched investigators, one an injury-prone small-time crook, the other a tough guy P.I., hilariously bungling their way through a seedy LA investigation involving long lost sisters, body doubles, setups, and an enormous body count, and features scenes and situations that play out again very similarly in the 2016 The Nice Guys, also directed by Shane Black and it too inspired to some extent by the pulp crime books of Brett Halliday.

★★★★☆

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The Judge (2014)

Built around a court case but in fact a better family drama than a courtroom one, this story of an estranged father (a judge) and son (a lawyer) reunited under, er, trying circumstances is about as consequential as an episode of Picket Fences, but I liked Picket Fences and I like this, too, for its humour, warmth, and for avoiding - to its great benefit - any mawkishness, even with an ending that could very easily have gone Presumed Innocent on everyone.

★★★★☆

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The Avengers (2012)

See Marvel's The Avengers and marvel at how a superbudget superhero movie with not one but six superheroes manages to fit in all the requisite superhero movie things (mega set pieces, backstories, thrills, bad guys, humour, sass) into one coherent, fun, funny, not-to-be-missed mega movie event.

★★★★☆

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Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows (2011)

Robert Downey Jr mumbles incomprehensibly through most of it but this second instalment of Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes series is great fun and with murderous Turkish cossacks, gypsies, and turn-of-the-century science and technology, it stays true to the core look, feel and themes of Arthur Conan Doyle's creation.

★★★☆☆

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