Hostel: Part III (2011)

Some sequels are what you might call "SINOs" or "Sequels in Name Only". It happens quite frequently in the horror genre - a successful film or series of films have low-budget follow ups with none of the original characters or settings (ie: Halloween III: Season of the Witch) and for the most part are churned out to go straight-to-DVD. That's pretty much the case here with Hostel: Part III, as it was for that other sequel to a successful Eli Roth film, Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever. As with the sequel to Cabin Fever, Roth has no involvement here. Instead, the reins are handed over to Scott Spiegel, who co-produced the first two films. The only thing that makes this film recognisable as a Hostel film is the presence of the "Elite Hunting" club. And even then, the link is pretty tenuous. In the first two films Elite Hunting were based in mysterious Eastern European countries, where no-one notices you go missing and the authorities look the other way. Unsuspecting American tourists are abducted and then sold off to be tortured, eaten, killed and subject to whatever else the customer can think of. The idea plays on that fear of travelling to the unknown, particularly to an area such as the former Soviet Bloc. What made it really scary was just how plausible it was and it was a decent commentary on both the situation in said countries and of the paranoia of tourists. The third film transports the action away from strange foreign lands. In fact, Hostel: Part III is set in... Las Vegas. It's about as far removed from the first two films as you can imagine.

The story centres around four friends: Scott (Brian Hallisay), Carter (Kip Pardue), Justin (John Hensley, a.k.a. Matt from Nip/Tuck) and Mike (Skyler Stone, who looks a lot like Alan Tudyk). The four are on Scott's stag do in Vegas and everything's going fine until Mike disappears. So basically it's Hostel meets The Hangover. After half an hour of the four of them gambling, drinking and travelling to a club in a deserted backwater, Mike is kidnapped. Thank god because he's the annoying one. Well, they're all annoying really but Mike's the really annoying, obnoxious one. Groom-to-be Scott is the bland one, best man Carter is the douchebag and Justin is the "sympathetic" one, although that's played up so much and he's such a buzz kill that he just comes across as patronising. They even give him a walking stick to try and make him even more sympathetic for goodness sake!

Anyway, Mike is kidnapped and taken to a room and strapped to a chair to be played with. Then the film deals its Joker - instead of him being tortured in private, he's put on display and tortured in front of other customers who proceed to bet on things like what weapon the torturer will use and how he will beg for his life. It's an interesting take on things but it doesn't really work. Turning the killing into a spectator sport drains the scenes of any tension. Watching onlookers cheer and enjoy drinks served by scantily-clad (and I mean really scantily-clad) women makes it less like peering through the window as a sadistic killer toys with his victim and more like watching some extreme reality show. Secondly, above all else, the Hostel films are best known for their realistic and extremely bloody torture scenes. Unfortunately, the budget is so low for this film that there's hardly any blood whatsoever. Someone has their face cut off but there's less blood than when Sean and Christian give someone breast implants on Nip/Tuck. Other death scenes include: choking on cockroaches (what is this, I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here?) and being shot with a crossbow. Yeah, seriously. It's as lame as it sounds. Combine these two factors and the end result is that the film sucks. The death scenes aren't gory enough to be enjoyable when an annoying character dies and they're not dramatic enough to make you care when a less annoying character dies.

The stupidest moment comes late on in the film. As one character is about to be tortured, management decides to release the victim from his bonds. This begs the question: just how do the viewing customers feel about this? The member has paid handsomely for the privilege of this person being kidnapped so they can torture and kill them and now, despite their membership and their money (this person is a top-tier customer), the club decides to give their victim a sporting chance. Bizarrely, rather than being worried and disturbed by this, concerned that they too could be betrayed for the pleasure of other watching customers, the live audience laps it up. Had I been there, knowing that the club can turn on its paying members just as quickly as it can unsuspecting members of the public, I'd have made my excuses and left! Seriously, how do they expect to sustain this business model when they quite willingly use their own members for sport?!?

Logical inconsistencies, the lack of tension, annoying characters, silly deaths and the general lack of blood and gore aside, this is really just a low-budget thriller. And not a very good one at that. It's not all bad, though. There are a couple of good moments, including the opening scene and Playboy playmate Cassie Keller, who serves drinks in barely more than two pieces of ribbon, but it's not enough to dredge it out of the stinking swamp of mediocrity. If you're looking for torture porn, you'll be disappointed. If you're wondering what happened to Beth after the events of the previous film, you'll be disappointed. If you're looking for a competent thriller, you'll be disappointed. Honestly, I can't see who this appeals to other than completists who want to see all the Hostel films. Even then, you'll still be disappointed.

Not awful but with nothing to recommend it and nothing outstanding about it, Hostel: Part III is a pretty pointless film.

3 out of 10.

Haywire (2011)

I'd never really heard of Gina Carano before she was cast in Haywire. She's quite a famous mixed martial artist and I reasoned that her skills in the ring should translate well into an action film. Director Steven Soderbergh, perhaps conscious of her lack of acting experience, surrounded her with A-list talent: Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas, Channing Tatum, Michael Fassbender, Antonio Banderas and Bill Paxton.

The story's simple enough: covert operative Mallory Kane (Gina Caruso) works for Kenneth (Ewan McGregor) and his private company. US government official Coblenz (Michael Douglas) and his Spanish contact Rodrigo (Antonio Banderas) hire them to rescue a man being held captive in Barcelona. She and Aaron (Channing Tatum) do so and she is sent to Dublin on another mission with Paul (Michael Fassbender). When the man she rescued turns up dead, she is framed for his murder and must go on the run, seeking to clear her name, protect her father (Bill Paxton) and take revenge on those who blah, blah, blah. It's your typical action movie plot and it's not too taxing.

The film opens in a diner. Mallory meets Aaron and beats the shit out of him, with the assistance of some bystander called Scott (Michael Angarano). They flee in his car and she then proceeds to tell him what's happened to her and how she was framed for murder. The film unfolds mostly through flashbacks: the initial mission in Barcelona, her trip to Dublin with Paul, how she worked out Kenneth had set her up and her return to the United States where she anticipated meeting Kenneth in the diner they just left. She and Scott are eventually captured by the police but manage to escape as Kenneth's men attempt to ambush them. She sends Scott on his way and makes her way to her father's house for the final showdown with those who betrayed her.

This film utterly baffled me. It has an ass-kicking martial artist beating people up, a stellar cast and a simple premise and yet it still managed to be mind-numbingly boring. It doesn't help that the soundtrack is awful. It completely kills the atmosphere as it alternates between total silence for long stretches and loud, thoroughly inappropriate music during others. As Mallory and Paul get ready to go to a party, they do so in total silence. Soderbergh was clearly trying to build some tension here. Sexual? Dramatic? Either way, it comes off as stilted and awkward. When Mallory's being chased through the streets of Dublin, nothing happens as she just wanders around for several minutes in complete silence. She finally starts running and this peppy, upbeat jingle starts playing. I burst out laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of it. The ten minutes she spends aimlessly running around and jumping across rooftops to avoid the Irish police are completely infuriating. Soderbergh obviously blew the budget on the A-listers so he can't afford to have more than two SWAT police on screen at any one time and it's clearly always the same two. We're almost an hour into the film at this point and there have been three fight scenes, one of them in Barcelona that laughably finished when she threw a flimsy metal platter at the guy's back. The other two, against Aaron and Paul, weren't bad but they suffer for being mostly in silence, but for Carano's loud grunts of "oosh" every time she hits someone. It brings to mind professional wrestlers making loud noises to cover up the fact that they aren't really hitting each other and it just cheapens everything. Soderbergh went for toned down and naturalistic, hoping for something akin to the Bourne films. Well, Bourne it ain't. The three fight scenes aside, the first hour is surprisingly free of action. She spends more time hanging around her apartment and at a party in a nice dress than she does doing anything else and it only serves to make the film drag.

Ultimately, she escapes from the police in Dublin by putting her hood up. No, I'm not joking. Fleeing to London, she makes her way to New York and the diner where she runs into Scott. All caught up on the backstory, the film plods onwards. Unfortunately, it doesn't get much better. They're caught by the police when they have the most laughable collision with a deer I've ever seen in my life. I won't spoil it because it's so bad it really has to be seen to be believed. Mallory escapes from the police and Kenneth's goons and heads to New Mexico to protect her father from her former employer. It should get interesting but it doesn't. It's still painfully boring. There's half an hour left but instead of cramming it full of action to make up for the action-free first hour, Ewan McGregor spends half of it talking to Bill Paxton about god only knows what, Michael Douglas, who spends most of the film sat behind a desk, speaks to practically every other character on the phone and the final fight between Kenneth and Mallory lasts half as long as his infuriatingly dull exposition detailing why she was set up.

The only reason to watch this film is if you're a fan of Ms. Carano. She's nice to look at and does all her own stunts but her fight scenes are surprisingly dull and she can't really do much else. She methodically reads her lines like they're in front of her on a teleprompter and her facial expressions were clearly prompted by Soderbergh calling out things to her from off-camera. Watch for the moment in the diner when she suddenly becomes resolved. With such an array of acting talent at his disposal and Carano's ass-kicking skills clearly evident, why Soderbergh chooses to waste both is a complete mystery. Fassbender's in the film for ten minutes, Banderas fifteen and Paxton and Tatum get about the same. Ewan McGregor, normally dependable, is obviously going through the motions. It doesn't help that his antagonist is called "Kenneth". Perhaps if Soderbergh hadn't spent so much money bringing the supporting cast in to try and paper over Carano's limitations as an actress, he could have afforded to stage some more action scenes which would have actually shown off her talents!

Recommended only for the chronically sleep-deprived, this film will have you yawning your head off and counting the seconds until the credits roll. Boring, boring, boring.

2 out of 10.

The Pact (2012)

Caity Lotz first came to my attention when she played ass-kicking Officer Kirsten Landry in MTV's horror mockumentary series Death Valley. The series is a parody of the COPS-style shows that follow law enforcement round as they do their jobs. Death Valley was slightly different. Instead of chasing bad guys, the members of the UTF (Undead Task Force) pursued vampires, werewolves and zombies. It was brilliant and I was gutted when MTV decided not to renew it for a second series. Lotz not only performed all her own stunts on the show but has a background in dance, stunt-doubling and martial arts and before becoming an actress, was a member of a girl group that had top ten hits in Germany. A talented young woman, I kept my eye on The Pact when I heard that she had been cast in it and I watched as it debuted at Sundance and was picked up for distribution. Having expected it to go straight to DVD, I was delighted to hear that not only would it be coming to the cinemas but that I had been invited to a preview screening. Brilliant!

The film begins with Nicole (Agnes Bruckner) at her childhood home, planning her mother's funeral and arguing with her sister over the phone. Her sister doesn't plan on coming to the funeral because of the way their mother treated them when they were younger. Nicole hangs up and skypes their cousin Liz (Kathleen Rose Perkins) to speak to her daughter, Eva (Dakota Bright). Eva sees someone behind Nicole and Nicole enters a darkened room. Annie (Caity Lotz) arrives at the house and finds that Nicole has vanished. Liz hasn't heard from her either and they speculate that as a former drug addict, Nicole has perhaps fallen off the wagon. Annie goes to sleep in her old room but is awoken by strange goings on.

The next day, after her mother's funeral, Annie meets up with Liz and Eva. There's still no word from Nicole and they go back to the house. That night, Annie dreams about the house, about a shadowy figure in it and her phone suddenly delivers her an address. When she wakes to go to the bathroom, Annie thinks she sees someone and investigates. What she finds is that Liz has disappeared. Suddenly, she is violently thrown around the living room by an invisible force and she runs from the house, re-entering to rescue Eva. Annie turns to the police, telling her story to detective Bill Creek (Casper Van Dien). He is unhelpful but after a series of ghost-filled dreams, mysterious addresses appearing on her phone and finding a room in the house that she had never seen before, she visits Stevie (Haley Hudson), a frail young psychic. Whatever the presence is in the house, it's pissed off and it's somehow connected to Annie's mother.

The Pact starts very well. It's creepy and has a good atmosphere and there are even a couple of good jumps too. Caity Lotz is very good as Annie, steely but also vulnerable. Haley Hudson is also excellent as the psychic Stevie. An emaciated waif, she looks as though she barely has enough strength to stand up, let alone contact the dead. Casper Van Dien is so haggard-looking that he's almost unrecognisable from the rugged young actor who played Rico in Starship Troopers. However, his role as the initially uninterested detective is mostly unnecessary and he's pretty superfluous. As a whole, the film is surprisingly well made, considering its low budget and it's sufficiently creepy with both a new idea and an interesting ending, somewhat of a rarity in the haunted house genre. It does slip a little towards the end when it resorts to the obligatory Ouija board scene but it's a good first effort from director Nicholas McCarthy.

A fresh and interesting idea, good performances and solidly executed. What more could you ask for?

7 out of 10.

A Lonely Place to Die (2011)

It wasn't until after I watched A Lonely Place to Die that I realised that the only films of Scream Queen Melissa George's that I've seen have been her horror and thriller films - The Amityville Horror, Turistas, WAZ, 30 Days of Night, Triangle and now A Lonely Place to Die. There's not much you need to know about it before you watch it other than that it's a thriller about five people who go hiking.

First of all, I must say that the cinematography is simply wonderful. The opening scene, with its sweeping, bird's-eye view of the Scottish highlands is superb and the action, with Alison (Melissa George) and her friends Rob (Alec Newman) and Ed (Ed Speelers) rappelling up the side of a mountain draws favourable comparisons with the opening scene of Mission: Impossible II. The three head off to their cabin to meet up with couple Alex (Garry Sweeney) and Jenny (Kate Magowan). After a night of drinking and card games in their cabin, the five head off into the mountains, hiking through woods and across streams as they go. When they pause for a break, Ed heads off for a piss and hears what sounds like a distant, echoing voice. They spread out and Alison finds a pipe sticking out of the ground. From that moment on, their holiday is turned upside down.

Digging into the earth, they uncover a lid, which they pull open, revealing a small box with a little girl alone inside it. Terrified, the girl cannot speak a word of English and the group have no idea what to do. Eventually, they decide to split up. Alison and Rob, the best climbers, head off on the most direct route to the nearest village while the other three take the girl with them on the slower, safer route. Rob and Alison rappel down a cliff in a scene reminiscent of the opening scene from Wrong Turn. It's nerve-jangling and has a fantastic twist in it. Meanwhile, the others hike their way across open country. Two men in camouflage gear draw beads on them with their rifles but an excellent bait-and-switch sees them taken out by the men who are really tracking the group, led by Mr. Kidd (Sean Harris, who plays Micheletto Corellla in The Borgias). Alison changes course and heads off up the river and meets up with the others just as their pursuers find them. From the river, they sprint through the woods, still pursued, until they finally lose them. This is the hour-mark and what a fantastic hour it has been. Wonderfully shot and truly gripping. It's just a shame that the following thirty-nine minutes can't match it.

We're properly introduced to two new characters, Darko (Karel Roden) and Andy (Eamonn Walker), who are also trying to track down the girl, but for different reasons. The survivors finally make their way to the village and they go to the police station. There's a carnival on and only one old policeman on duty so they have to wait. Suspicious, they wonder if they should make a break for it. At the same time, Darko and Mr. Kidd meet each other in the village pub. It's a very strange scene and it completely lacks any resonance and feels very out of place with the fast-paced thrill-ride that the film has been up until this point. It's almost as if the film takes a break, pausing to introduce a completely divergent plot line. It serves only to make the film meander to its conclusion rather than barrel into it, full-throttle. It's a shame because when the end does come, a brutal and uncompromising one, it jars and feels tacked on, something the filmmakers would not have been hoping to achieve.

A film of two halves; the first is fantastic, right up there as one of the best thrillers of the last ten years and the second is a disappointing about-turn. The film pretty much comes to a screeching halt and we're forced to wait for the resolution while two characters we barely know and have no emotional attachment to have a chat in the pub over a pint. That aside, the film itself is gorgeous, wonderfully shot against the contrasting backdrops of the majestic Scottish highlands and a fiery night-time carnival in the streets of a little village. Melissa George is her usual excellent self, giving her character absolutely everything and throwing herself head-first (sometimes literally) into the action.

All in all, A Lonely Place to Die is a very good thriller with some exasperating faults. Don't see this as anything less than an endorsement of the film, however, because I would certainly encourage you to check it out.

7 out of 10.

The Bone Collector (1999)

A few days ago I was talking to some friends about Morgan Freeman and we started trying to think of some lesser known films he's been in. I wondered out loud, saying "The Bone Collector?". "Ah yes!" said one of my friends, "he plays a disabled cop doesn't he?" "That's the one, with Angelina Jolie", I replied. "Hang on", said our other friend, "he wasn't in that." "Yes he was!" we replied in tandem. "No, it was Denzel Washington!" he said and we both fell silent. "No, it was definitely Morgan Freeman..." I began but I instantly began to doubt myself. "There's only one way to settle this", I said, marching off to get my copy.

He was right and we were wrong. Ah well, can't get them all right. Anyway, it's been about 8 or 9 years since I saw The Bone Collector for the first and only time and I decided the time was ripe to re-watch it. The story's pretty simple: Denzel Washington plays Lincoln Rhyme, a disabled former New York City homicide detective and prolific author who was injured in an accident in the line of duty and is now confined to his bed. Paralysed below the neck he uses his one working finger to operate his custom-made computer and is assisted by his nurse, Thelma (Queen Latifah) and his technician, Richard (Leland Orser). When his friend and former colleague Detective Paulie Sellitto (Ed O'Neill) comes to him for help with a case he initially refuses but is drawn in by both the circumstances and the talents of the first officer on the scene, rookie cop Amelia Donaghy (Angelina Jolie). The grisly murders keep stacking up, as do the baffling clues. Together, Lincoln and Amelia must solve the clues and find the killer before it's too late.

Standard police thriller fare then. Stylistically it's quite unusual, blending Rear Window with Seven and throwing in a bit of The Crow for good measure. Unfortunately, it manages to capture neither Hitchcock's legendary suspense or flair and none of Seven's gritty realism or interesting story. The references to The Crow are more bizarre than anything else - for some reason Lincoln has a peregrine falcon watching over him.

It starts off with a flashback to Lincoln's accident (although the use of slow-mo does detract from it somewhat) and the abduction of a couple by a mysterious taxi driver. When we first meet Lincoln, he's unhappy and frustrated. He's suffering from seizures which will eventually leave him in a vegetative state and he wants his doctor friend, Barry Lehman (John Benjamin Hickey) to help him commit suicide. Across town Amelia is out on patrol when she is called over to a railway line where a kid has found a dead body, that of the abducted man from earlier. After stopping an oncoming train and photographing and recovering the clues before the rain can destroy them, the big guns turn up. Detectives Sellitto and Solomon (Mike McGlone) are impressed but Captain Howard Cheney (Michael Rooker) is not. Sellitto and Solomon take the case to Lincoln who is about to dismiss them when he has a seizure. When he has recovered, he looks over the file and his attention is drawn to the victim's finger, which had the flesh stripped off it and the clues, which seem to indicate a love of all things old.

Amelia, meanwhile, is in her first training class in preparation for her switch to Youth Services and a cushy desk job. Lincoln asks for her by name and she is summoned to his apartment where the investigation is beginning. Together they put together the clues and are led to the next murder victim: the man's wife. Lincoln rejects the help of the rest of the forensics department and the medical examiners and sends in Amelia alone, relaying instructions to her as she describes what she sees. When he asks her to sever the dead woman's hands is gets too much and she refuses to help him anymore. While Solomon visits her apartment to convince her to come back and help them save the next victim, Lincoln checks out her background and discovers that her father was a cop and that she was the one who found his body after he shot himself.

Another piece of bone and other clues at the crime scene lead them to a third victim. By now, Lincoln's methods have drawn the ire of Captain Cheney who takes control of the case away from Lincoln and threatens Amelia. He succeeds in only bungling things up so she continues to help Lincoln. When he gets techie Eddie Ortiz (Luis Guzman) to do a search for other murders involving removed flesh that exposes bone, they get several matches. Piecing together scraps of paper found at each crime scene they find a logo for an old publishing company. Amelia investigates further at an old book shop and finds a book called The Bone Collector, a book of true crime which features pictures of crime scenes exactly like the ones they've been finding. The next murders will be at the river and they arrive in time to save a little girl but not her grandpa. The final clue points Amelia to a police officer and she realises that his target is none other than Lincoln.

Aside from my earlier criticisms, The Bone Collector is just too clichéd and formulaic. The characters are all pretty much your run of the mill stock characters but the acting is top-notch. I'll gloss over the schmaltzy ending (it involves a reunion with a long-lost relative) which leaves you with this sickly taste in your mouth and focus instead on Amelia. Angelina Jolie does a fine job but her character's underlying issues (father's death, inability to commit to her fuck buddy, her being traumatised at the second crime scene) are all completely washed over. Solomon turns up and tells her that Lincoln thinks there's a third victim and she instantly goes from moping around her apartment, drinking by herself to getting dressed and going back to work. If you're going to include all the backstory crap at least make sure it has a decent resolution! Furthermore, the idea that a rookie cop would suddenly take over investigating crime scenes and cataloguing evidence from the forensics team is just silly. Finally, the complete lack of any suspense. I don't know what it is in particular but there's a sense of resolution about the film from the very beginning. We know what's going to happen and no amount of time spent pouring over clues from 1910s New York or walking around dank and dreary crime scenes is going to change that. I've probably come across as more critical than I actually am. Despite its flaws it's a decent, well-acted film and it breezes through its surprising run time of one hour fifty-seven.

All in all, The Bone Collector is a bit disappointing, but it's well acted and worth a watch.

6 out of 10.

In Time (2011)

Sometimes, I watch a film even though I know it will be rubbish. You've done it too, I'm sure. We all have. I've seen the mediocre romantic comedy Bride Wars three times for goodness sake! Why? It's not bad, it's comfortingly average and sometimes that's just what we're looking for. In that spirit, I decided to watch In Time. I'd read the reviews but still I was drawn to it, like a moth to a shit-stained light bulb.

The story's pretty similar to Logan's Run. The year is 2161 and thanks to genetic modifications, people stop ageing at 25. Instead, on their 25th birthday, a bar code on their arm is activated and begins counting down from 1 year. Time has become the new currency, paying for everything from coffee to travel through the "time zones", barriers that separate the ghetto-like Dayton from the futuristic and serene paradise of New Greenwich. Time can be gained by working or by betting, stealing or fighting with other people. When your time runs out, you die instantly. Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) lives in Dayton with his mother Rachel (Olivia Wilde). When his mother's time runs out and he saves 105 year-old Henry Hamilton (Matt Bomer) from the vigilante gang the Minutemen and their leader Fortis (Alex Pettyfer), Henry gives Will his remaining 116 years and dies, telling him that he is tired of living. Unburdened by ties to Dayton, Will travels to New Greenwich and gambles with the uber-wealthy Philippe Weis (Vincent Kartheiser), besting him and earning an invitation to a party at his house. There, he meets his daughter, Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried), and is confronted by the Timekeepers (Collins Pennie and Cillian Murphy) who suspect him of murdering Henry. He takes Sylvia hostage and goes on the run.

From then on, it's standard action film fare: car chases, gun fights and romantic interludes between Will and Sylvia. Unfortunately, the film suffers from two major flaws: it's very badly written and both Timberlake and Seyfried are awful. Timberlake struggles when given minor supporting roles where he's playing himself (The Social Network, Bad Teacher) and I don't know what possessed the makers of this film to think he could carry it. He can't. He wonders around absent-mindedly, talking like he's reading his script for the first time. As for Seyfried, she has a permanent glassy-eyed, vacant look on her face. A lump of plywood would have been more convincing as the bored and frustrated spoilt little rich girl yearning for excitement and freedom. About the only time she does anything is when she sprints (not runs, sprints) in her tottering six-inch high heels. I'm really frustrated with her. She's a very good young actress but in her last two roles, this and Red Riding Hood, she looks like she doesn't give a shit, like she's just there for the paycheck. The idea itself isn't bad but it's badly executed. Given a re-write and with a competent leading man and a leading woman who looks like she actually wants to be there, this could have been an intriguing science fiction film.

A wasted opportunity. Don't spend an hour and fifty minutes of your life on it.

3 out of 10.

Mission: Impossible I - IV

Having seen Mission: Impossible IV - Ghost Protocol at the cinema today, I thought it would be a good idea to review and compare all four films at the same time. I haven't in fact seen the first three since I saw them for the first time. I saw M:I on video in about 2000; I saw M:I-2 in about 2002 and I saw M:I-3 when it came out in the cinemas in 2006.

Mission: Impossible

I can't believe this film is almost 16 years old! It certainly shows its age: the depiction of the internet is very old fashioned. The plot is quite silly, full of holes and double-crosses. What it does have is two absolutely fabulous set-pieces: The first features Tom Cruise's master-spy, Ethan Hunt, being lowered into a computer room to steal data before the analyst can get back from the toilet. It's a scene that spawned a thousand parodies and it's thrilling stuff watching Hunt dangle as the analyst walks back into the room only a few feet below him, catching a droplet of sweat before it can hit the floor and trigger the alarm and the knife falling perfectly onto the table. It's the highlight of the film and it's very, very well done. The second is a fantastic chase scene between a helicopter and a high-speed train and also has the best laugh of the film: a fainting train attendant.

Jon Voight hams it up and Jean Reno is his usual sullen French self. It's preposterous nonsense, but very good nonsense with lots of thrills and explosions.

8 out of 10.

Mission: Impossible II

The weakest of the series. John Woo ruins another film with his pointless and infuriating slow-mo: Tom Cruise and Thandie Newton see each other across a room, cue the slow-mo; Tom Cruise and Thandie Newton's cars spin out of control, cue the slow-mo; Tom Cruise fights bad guys, cue the slow-mo; and, most inexplicably of all, Thandie Newton drives away from Tom Cruise, cue the slow-mo on Tom Cruise, who is stood perfectly still!

The plot's your usual thriller fare: bad guy (Dougray Scott) steals MacGuffin, good guys must take it back. In this case, the MacGuffin is a deadly virus and his motivation is money. It's very, very dull and to be perfectly honest, things go downhill from the spectacular opening scene where Ethan climbs a cliff face with his bare hands and no safety equipment or harness. Even the final fight scene, which is quite well choreographed, is almost ruined by Woo's convulsive and spasmodic direction. Perhaps the most bizarre scene is the one in which Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) is in a van that's blown up, and emerges from it with his eyebrows singed and his clothes covered in smoke.

An almost laborious effort. No amount of gun-fights and explosions can save it. Oh, and Tom Cruise's hair looks really silly when it flops around all over the place.

6 out of 10.

Mission: Impossible III

Ah, now this is more like it! A welcome return to form for the series. It's not ground-breaking or original: Philip Seymour Hoffman's bad guy seeks the Rabbit's Foot, a mysterious MacGuffin which will.. err... well, we're never quite told what. It could be some kind of "anti-god", which can apparently devastate entire continents. So, it's a virus? Well no, because it destroys buildings too.

But never mind that, because it's a thrilling ride! From a helicopter duel amidst wind turbines in Germany, to a kidnapping in the Vatican City, to a spectacular, explosive rescue on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel and on to a roof-top raid and ferocious finish in the crowded streets of Shanghai, it's a non-stop thrill-ride full of amazing stunts and fantastic fight scenes. Philip Seymour Hoffman is excellent and even the romance between Ethan and his wife-to-be Jules (Michelle Monaghan) is handled nicely. J. J. Abrams transfers over his considerable skills from small-screen action fare (Alias, one of my favourite TV series) to the silver screen in what was his first film as a director.

A cracking action film that more than makes up for Woo's tepid effort. Slight criticisms would be that it's perhaps 10 minutes too long and the ending is a bit silly.

8 out of 10.

Mission: Impossible IV - Ghost Protocol

The best of the series? Quite possibly! Following a catastrophic failure in Moscow, Ethan and the entire Impossible Missions Force are disavowed by the President. Their new, secret mission: stop Kurt Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist), a Swedish/Russian renegade physicist, from plunging the world into nuclear war. Once again, the plot's utterly ridiculous, but Brad Bird's first live-action film following his massive success directing animated features is a complete success. Simon Pegg's return is a welcome one, as is his larger role. It's a pity that it had to come at the expense of Ving Rhames, but Luther does have a cameo at the end to keep up his record of being in all four films.

As the race against time to stop Hendricks moves from Russia to Dubai, the film really excels. The tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa hotel makes for a fantastic second act. Ethan must climb up the building (didn't see that one coming!) and Agent Carter (Paula Patton) gets into a furious fist-fight with French assassin Sabine Moreau (Lea Seydoux, whom I recognised, but couldn't quite place - it turns out she's in Midnight in Paris and plays one of Monsieur LaPadite's daughters in Inglourious Basterds). From there, it's a foot and car chase through a sandstorm before they're whisked off to India for the final showdown. It's a roller-coaster ride from one set-piece to another. It might be the longest of the series (2 hours and 13 minutes), but it certainly doesn't feel like it.

Another great entry in the series. Go and see it!

8 out of 10.