Captain America: The Winter Soldier - Review

Director: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo Writers: Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely Studios: Marvel Studios, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Cast: Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Cobie Smulders, Robert Redford, Samuel L. Jackson Release Date (UK): 26 March 2014 Certificate: 12A Runtime: 136 min

Though recently defrosted from his days as a WWII super-soldier and supposed to be readjusting to the ways of the modern world, Chris Evans’ star-spangled man with a plan has found himself slap-bang in the middle of a ‘70s paranoia thriller — featuring Robert Redford, no less. In Marvel’s “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” there are some shady goings-on over at S.H.I.E.L.D. — shadier than usual, anyway. The super-spy organisation at the centre of Marvel’s ever-expanding cinematic universe is not to be trusted, if you’d believe such a thing: in an underground bunker, they’re building helicarriers worryingly capable of wiping out suspected threats before they’ve actually done anything; a covert mission to stop the hijacking of a ship turns out to be a cover for extracting top-secret data; hunted by mysterious foes, S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury breaks into Cap’s apartment and advises him to “trust no one;” and Redford’s high-up official Alexander Pierce, along with the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D., is starting to look awfully sinister. If Joe Johnston’s 2011 predecessor “The First Avenger” was in the pulpy vein of the Indiana Jones adventures, the Russo Brothers’ sequel has the paranoid political charge of old conspiracy movies like “All the President’s Men,” “Three Days of the Condor” or “Marathon Man” — albeit with a little more computer-generated leaping and flying and kicking and punching, mind you.

What ultimately makes “The Winter Soldier” work is that not only does it strike a good balance between its CG action and political intrigue — for every time Cap bashes a badguy in the face with his big metal shield, there’s a cutting dig at government surveillance or the fine line between freedom and fear — it actually blends them together in a way that’s very effective. A scene in an elevator between Cap and some curiously nervous-looking S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives builds up suspense through suspicious glances and dripping beads of sweat, and then pays it off with a thrilling, electrically charged punch-up; similarly, a tense attack on Fury’s car by supposed police officers in the middle of a Washington street explodes with some high-tech weaponry. And the plot itself, following Cap as he and Scarlett Johansson’s agile and sharp-minded super-spy Black Widow go on the run from the organisation they once trusted, is straight out of an old-school Sydney Pollack thriller, just with a mechanically winged paratrooper and a super-powered, metal-armed assassin added in for fun. The result is a gripping and exciting mishmash of resonant political paranoia and special effects blockbusting, even if the scales tip a little too much in favour of the latter towards the (nevertheless enjoyable) explosive finale. Phase Two of Marvel’s master-plan continues to impress: Cap worked well on the WWII battlefront; he works even better on the ‘70s conspiracy scene.

Rating: 8/10

Divergent - Review

Director: Neil Burger Writers: Evan Daugherty, Vanessa Taylor Studios: Summit Entertainment, Lionsgate, Red Wagon Entertainment Cast: Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Ashley Judd, Jai Courtney, Kate Winslet Release Date (UK): 4 April 2014 Certificate: 12A Runtime: 139 min

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: in a future dystopia ruled by a twisted totalitarian government, one resilient teenage girl finds herself plunged into life-threatening danger; with the odds stacked against her, she soon becomes a symbol of resistance and bravely rises up against society’s cruel oppressors. For a film which so fervently promotes individualism over conformism, and for a film called flippin' “Divergent,” it's ironic how slavishly — and hypocritically — Neil Burger's teen-oriented sci-fi blockbuster complies with proven Hollywood formula. The latest in a long line of big-screen YA adaptations, “Divergent” is, let's be honest, filling the gap between the previous and upcoming “Hunger Games” movies, which would be fine if Burger had given the film a voice all for itself — as he hasn't, it comes across as little more than a cheapo clone of the Suzanne Collins-adapted movie series.

The premise is solid enough, derivative though it may be: in a world where society is divided into five distinct “factions,” Shailene Woodley’s 16-year-old heroine Beatrice Prior discovers that she’s a Divergent, fitting into no specific category and thus a threat to the powers that be. Trouble is, the execution is so blandly generic that differentiating it from the rest of the YA crowd proves a difficult task; stick this next to “The Host,” “Twilight,” “The Mortal Instruments” or any other film of that ilk and you’ll go cross-eyed. The gifted Woodley tries her darndest, adding a little personality to the largely lifeless mix, but it’s a losing battle; this is “The Hunger Games” lite and at no point is it as exciting, gripping or interesting as that series has proven to be. Do yourself a favour: “Catching Fire” recently came out on DVD and Blu-ray; watch that instead and see how it’s really done.

Rating: 4/10

Need for Speed - Review

Director: Scott Waugh Writer: George Gatins Studios: DreamWorks Pictures, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Reliance Entertainment, Electronic Arts, Bandito Brothers Cast: Aaron Paul, Imogen Poots, Scott Mescudi, Dominic Cooper, Ramon Rodriguez, Michael Keaton Release Date (UK): March 12, 2014 Certificate: 12A Runtime: 130 min

And here I thought we’d finally got a good movie based on a video game; turns out “Need for Speed” can’t even top the two best entries in video game-to-movie history, the equally lousy “Prince of Persia” and “Silent Hill” — hardly towering hurdles to leap over, but like a drunk driver trying to avoid a parked car, “Need for Speed” crashes straight into them. Taking its name from the massively popular EA street racing series, Scott Waugh’s action-thriller arrives with promises that it’s a proper old-school actioner with proper old-school stunts and proper old-school action throwbacks; indeed, all of the high-speed mayhem appears to be practically filmed and indeed, early on in the film, the classic ‘60s thriller “Bullitt” is seen playing at a drive-in movie theatre. But although its stunts sure are impressive, this frankly feels like a cheap “Fast and Furious” wannabe. Any gamer going into “Need for Speed” expecting the full-throttle exhilaration of the video game racing series will instead be treated with a film that’s merely diverting in fits and starts.

The problem isn’t Aaron Paul — though this is certainly a step down from his iconic role as Jesse Pinkman in “Breaking Bad,” he has the brooding charm down pat — nor is it the action; in a genre dominated by computer-generated imagery, it’s refreshing seeing an action blockbuster which keeps things wholly practical. The problem is the script, whose characters are so thinly drawn that Scott Mescudi’s character may as well be called “laughing black man in helicopter” and Rami Malek’s character “man who walks around naked for no discernible reason.” Also, the pacing: the story, a rather inert tale of revenge, takes far too long to kick into gear and when it finally does the film moves along at an awfully languid pace. Surprising, considering the title, which after viewing becomes riddled with irony: what should be a fast and furious b-movie has a serious need for speed, plodding along for over two hours, with only some neato driving stunts to hold our attention. This begs the question, will there ever be a good movie based on a video game or will the curse prevail forever? Duncan Jones’ “Warcraft,” you must lift this curse once and for all.

Rating: 5/10

300: Rise of an Empire - Review

Director: Noam Murro Writers: Zack Snyder, Kurt Johnstad Studios: Legendary Pictures, Cruel and Unusual Films Cast: Sullivan Stapleton, Eva Green, Lena Headey, Hans Matheson, Rodrigo Santoro Release Date (UK): 7 March 2014 Certificate: 15 Runtime: 102 min

Buff, baby-oiled beefcakes prance about in bulging leather underpants, letting out roars of pure testosterone and swinging their mighty swords as various bodily fluids spurt all around. As we journey for a second time through hyper-stylised, Zack Snyder-ified Ancient Greece in “300: Rise of an Empire,” it’s nigh impossible not to feel the flaming homoeroticism once again scorching the Athenian air. If anything, the homoeroticism has been knowingly amped up since Snyder’s 2006 comic-book hit: in an early scene of the Noam Murro-directed side-quel, one testy Athenian senator tells another to “shut [his] cock hole;” later, encountering General Themistokles (Sullivan Stapleton) watching tussling Spartan soldiers, Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey) wryly remarks, “You’ve come a long way to stroke your cock while watching real men train;” having emerged from a pool of liquid gold, the bejewelled Persian god-king Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) walks away strutting his golden arse back and forth; and as if history had a sense of humour, the final clash is called the Battle of Salamis, for crying out loud.

And yet in spite of what appears to be an increased self-awareness in its own risible campiness, “Rise of an Empire” is quite a bit duller than the rip-roaring first “300,” telling a story that’s much less resonant than that of the brave 300 Spartans, and telling it clumsily. Though it starts off as an origin story for Xerxes, he’s all but forgotten until the final 15 minutes; the main story instead focuses on Athenian General Themistokles, who leads an army against war-crazy Persian naval commander Artemisia (Eva Green), with whom he develops a bitter and all too personal feud. Of course, there’s plenty of the slow-mo, fast-mo, CGI blood-splattered battle scenes which featured so prominently in the first film, only here they’re quick to grow monotonous; though they're pretty, we’ve seen them before, and here they’re fought by drab Athenian warriors, none of whom hold a Spartan torch to Gerard Butler's commanding King Leonidas (present only in brief flashbacks). By far the best thing in the film is Eva Green, whose viper hisses and piercing glares would be enough to scare off any Spartan army. With Stapleton’s grizzled hunk, Green also gets to take part in one of the most mental, and certainly one of the most aggressive, sex scenes in recent memory. Tellingly, Themistokles makes a point of switching position midway through to bend her over and take her from behind. Oo-er.

Rating: 5/10

Non-Stop - Review

Director: Jaume Collet-Serra Writers: John W. Richardson, Chris Roach, Ryan Engle Studios: Universal Pictures, Silver Pictures, StudioCanal, York Studios Cast: Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore, Scoot McNairy, Michelle Dockery, Nate Parker, Corey Stoll, Anson Mount, Lupita Nyong’o Release Date (UK): 28 February 2014 Certificate: 12A Runtime: 106 min

File this under “dumb but fun.” “Non-Stop,” the new Liam Neeson action-thriller, is pretty much non-stop stupid. It’s so stupid that Neeson’s character, Bill Marks, is — get this — an air marshal who’s scared of flying. Marks is also a raging alcoholic and his co-marshal is discovered to be smuggling cocaine — if ever there was a film to make us put our utmost trust in air marshals, it ain’t this. I’d trust Air Marshall John from “Bridesmaids” over these two guys any day of the week.

Things get really bonkers when Marks boards a non-stop flight from New York to London, where he starts receiving mysterious texts on a secure network: the texts are from someone threatening to kill a passenger every 20 minutes unless $150 million is transferred to a specific bank account. The texter is true to his word: 20 minutes later, there’s a body in the lavatory. It’s up to Marks, along with the aid of a trusted passenger (a sadly wasted Julianne Moore) and Michelle Dockery’s flight attendant, to figure out who the mystery passenger is before more lives are lost.

As has been said on the film’s press tour, it sounds like the premise of a Hitchcock movie, but truth be told “Non-Stop” is more poppycock than Hitchcock — the villain’s master plan makes zero sense, relying on coincidence after coincidence, and the explosive climax is just plain preposterous. Still, director Jaume Collet-Serra keeps the engine running smoothly and even manages to ratchet up some suspense as Neeson interrogates passengers with varying levels of aggression, and begins to suspect, along with us, that it might all be in his head. It’s Neeson who really sells this, with his grizzled persona and no-nonsense attitude: “Taken” on a plane, it turns out, is much better than “Snakes on a Plane.”

Rating: 6/10

My Top 25 Worst Movies of 2013

So, my unfashionably late “best of 2013” list was posted last night. Now it's time for the opposite side of the spectrum: the worst of 2013. You know when I said 2013 was a great year for movies? Well, you wouldn't know it from this sorry lot. Let the self-righteous hatred commence!

25. “Oldboy”

Like uncooked leftovers spilled on the floor, Spike Lee’s stale, English-language remake of Park Chan-wook’s earth-shatteringly brilliant South Korean revenge thriller “Oldboy” lands with a splat. With personality-free anonymity, Lee recreates Chan-wook’s strange and stylish modern classic practically scene-by-scene, but with the original’s explosive sting replaced with a bitter blandness it goes down about as well as a live octopus. Case in point: restaged is the extraordinary single-take corridor hammer-brawl from the 2003 film — the one which Choi Min-sik spends half of with a kitchen knife sticking out of his back — but Lee bafflingly manages to make it boring and perfunctory. And that final, heart-wrenching revelation which sent heads spinning in ‘03? Falls as flat as a steamrolled pancake. Also: I don’t know what in the holy mother of god Sharlto Copley was trying to do in that role, as that character, with that accent, but whatever it was it was not of this earth.

24. “The Hangover Part III”

Among the countless complaints rightly hurled at 2011’s “The Hangover Part II,” the most common one was that it was far too similar to its predecessor, that it was basically the first film all over again but set in a foreign country. Director Todd Phillips clearly took this to heart, because for “The Hangover Part III” he drove the comedy franchise in a more action-oriented direction; the plot now featured violent gangsters, stolen loots, high-stakes break-ins and a climactic parachute escape. In fact, Phillips was so determined to make the concluding third chapter of his “Hangover” trilogy different from the first two “Hangover” movies that he appears to have forgotten he was making a comedy; cos I can honestly tell you I didn’t laugh once.

23. “The Counsellor”

On the basis of “The Counsellor,” Cormac McCarthy should never be allowed near a copy of Final Draft ever again. When not trudging its way through its confusing and incoherent plot, McCarthy’s first stab at screenwriting has vapid non-characters spouting nonsensical, faux-existential riddles at each other which seem to last for an eternity. The sole entertaining moment in “The Counsellor” comes when Cameron Diaz drops her knickers and dry-humps a ferrari windshield — watching the film, you might be tempted to do the same, just for something to do. Eventually the film reaches a depressingly bleak bummer of an ending which renders the whole thing not at all worth the punishing effort. I have no doubt that McCarthy’s script read well on paper; read aloud on-screen it’s a right old slog.

22. “Grudge Match”

Y'know, I never thought I’d see a Sylvester Stallone boxing movie worse than “Rocky V;” I thought very wrong. In studio comedy “Grudge Match,” the Italian Stallion goes toe-to-toe with Robert De Niro, which might sound like a movie lover’s dream come true — it’s Rocky vs. the Raging Bull! — but director Peter Segal somehow manages to make it a drag to sit through: before we get to that climactic punch-up, there’s an hour and a half of inane banter and filler sub-plots. The two stars’ natural charisma, present even when they’re telegramming it in, can’t make up for the pitifully lightweight gags on display here, nor a script which sounds like it was written by a six year old. I was kind of impressed: who knew Jake LaMotta calling Rocky Balboa a “super pussy” could be so boring?

21. “The Internship”

Not since Ronald McDonald breakdanced his way through a McDonalds restaurant in the 1988 sci-fi adventure “Mac and Me” has a piece of movie product placement been so blatant, nor so crass. In the glorified two-hour Google advert “The Internship,” Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn play a couple of fired watch salesmen who become interns at the Google headquarters. Cue unending mentions of Google Mail, Google Maps, Google Shopping and the Google search engine, all while the Google logo hangs conspicuously in the background. At one point, Wilson literally says, “Google is the greatest place to work in the world.” I’d complain about the film being half an hour too long, but really, considering its advertising purposes, this shouldn’t have been any longer than 30 seconds.

20. “R.I.P.D.”

Rooster Cogburn and Van Wilder run about town busting ghosts in “R.I.P.D.,” a sci-fi comedy based on the Dark Horse comic strip about the bounty hunters of the afterlife. Sound fun? Yeah, no: this is a thinly disguised “Men in Black” knock-off without the laughs, the heart or the golden Smith/Jones buddy combo. Instead we have Ryan Reynolds doing his usual wise-ass shtick as an undead cop while Jeff Bridges, playing the spirit of a US Marshal from the Old West, shamelessly regurgitates his performance in the Coen Bros’ “True Grit” — only in “True Grit” it was funny. Kevin Bacon, meanwhile, phones it in just as much as he does in those bloody EE adverts — I was half-expecting him to turn to the camera and try to sell me 2 for 1 cinema tickets.

19. “Justin and the Knights of Valour”

Take “How to Train Your Dragon” and “Shrek,” stick ‘em in a big blender and suck out all the enchantment, wit and imagination but leave Rupert Everett swimming in the goop: the result is “Justin and the Knights of Valour,” a cheap and charmless computer-animated medieval fantasy adventure which I was shocked to discover was not in fact some obscure, foreign, “Top Cat: The Movie”-esque rush-job quickly re-dubbed for the UK market — though a Spanish production, that British voice cast, which includes Freddie Highmore, Saoirse Ronan and Mark Strong, is the original voice cast. Coulda fooled me. The sole joy of the film is Antonio Banderas, whose roguishly seductive purrs reminded me of just how fun “Puss in Boots” turned out to be and made me realise, by unfair comparison, just how rubbish “Justin and the Knights of Valour” really is.

18. “Planes”

You thought “Cars 2” was bad? Hoo boy, just wait’ll you see “Planes:” it’s so bad it makes you wish you were watching “Cars 2;” it’s so bad it makes “Cars 2” look like “Toy Story 3.” Though a spin-off from the fantasy world of sentient automobiles presented in Pixar’s “Cars” movies, “Planes” is not, thank god, made by Pixar; it is in fact made by DisneyToons, a studio which specialises in straight-to-DVD Disney sequels. Indeed, “Planes” was originally planned to be nothing more than a home video release, but seemingly sniffing a fast buck the studio converted it to 3D and released it in theatres. It shows: the whole thing feels like a hurriedly produced DVD extra stretched out to feature length, and the story is so aggressively formulaic, repetitive and predictable that sitting through it from start to finish should prove an endurance test even for little kiddies. There are currently two sequels planned: hopefully they stay on the DVD shelves where they belong.

17. “Identity Thief”

“Bridesmaids” breakthrough Melissa McCarthy starred in two buddy comedies in 2013, one of which was surprisingly smart and funny. The other was “Identity Thief.” As McCarthy and co-lead Jason Bateman take a cross-country road trip together as a crafty scam artist and her justice-seeking victim, Seth Gordon’s charmless crime comedy ticks off every well-worn cliché in the road movie handbook — singing along to the radio, wacky motel shenanigans, wild animal attacks in the woods, you name it — and impressively achieves not a single giggle. The sole highlight is the sight of Bateman bashing McCarthy in the face with an acoustic guitar, which I have kindly provided for you in gif form above. There: now you don’t have to see the film.

16. “The Big Wedding”

Justin Zackham’s all-star American rom-com “The Big Wedding” is a remake of a French farce from 2006, which leads me to suspect that something might have been lost in translation; cos in its awkward and charmless mix of broad comedy, knockabout slapstick and raunchy humour, there exists not one good gag. The bewilderingly game ensemble cast, which most prominently features Robert De Niro, Diane Keaton, Susan Sarandon and Katherine Heigl, all appear to be having a ball, which is more than can be said for stony-faced audiences. I for one will never be able to fully scrub the sight of Robert De Niro’s face buried between Susan Sarandon’s legs from my mind — but I will try.

15. “A Good Day to Die Hard”

Towards the ending of my screening of “A Good Day to Die Hard,” when all the explosions and car crashes and general loud noises were coming to a close, the 20-something man sitting directly in front of me stood up and started enthusiastically whooping and cheering at the screen. The only thing stopping me from giving him a good clip around the ear (aside from my crippling shyness, my fear of being punched in the face and my basic human decency) was, I’m sorry to say, my complete and utter paralysing boredom. I’d ask for the “Die Hard” franchise to stop here but having it end on such a depressingly low note feels wrong. Maybe we can get John McTiernan back in action for McClane’s final send-off. He’s not busy, is he?

14. “Texas Chainsaw 3D”

The best part of “Texas Chainsaw 3D” is the opening, which shows in glorious, sweat-drenched technicolour the terrifying, nerve-shredding final moments of Tobe Hooper’s iconic 1974 horror masterpiece “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.” The worst part of “Texas Chainsaw 3D” is the rest of the film, which for 90 suspense-free minutes sees masked slasher Leatherface chasing after nubile teens, outing their innards and being pursued himself by local rednecks. Is it a reboot? Is it a sequel? Either way, it’s a stinker. Any self-respecting fan of the original ought to openly weep when Leatherface hurls his CGI chainsaw at the camera — in 3D!

13. “The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones”

Here’s a tip: if you’re lucky enough to have “Game of Thrones” queen Lena Headey starring in your crummy little “Twilight” cash-in, don’t kill her off after 15 minutes — she might make the following hour-and-forty-five minutes or so a lot more tolerable. Based on the YA fantasy novel by Cassandra Clare, “The Mortal Instruments” follows Lily Collins’ teen New Yorker as she’s plunged into a secret and incomprehensible world of vampires and werewolves and demons and what-have-you and falls in love with a hunky, hooded “Shadow Hunter” named Jace. Wikipedia tells me there remain five entries in Clare’s book series; if any of them are turned into movies — unlikely, considering the box office takings — hopefully Miss Headey will turn up as a ghost or something.

12. “The Last Exorcism Part II”

Dropping its predecessor’s found-footage format for more traditional filming techniques, horror sequel “The Last Exorcism Part II” is basically to “The Last Exorcism” what “Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2” was to “The Blair Witch Project,” i.e. rubbish. Interestingly, there’s a strange parallel between it and the Eli Roth-produced 2010 mini-hit: while “Part I” spent most of its runtime being surprisingly creepy and interesting before coming to a disappointingly crappy ending, “Part II” spends most of its runtime being utterly crap and then comes to a rather interesting finale before abruptly stopping. To make your viewing experience more fun, I propose a game: count the jump scares, or to be more specific, count the number of times Ashley Bell is startled by a loud noise. You’ll need more than two hands.

11. “The Smurfs 2”

I’m not entirely certain which part I found more dispiriting: the part where one of the several indistinguishable little Smurf characters turned around and shouted, “See you later, Smurfigator!” (one of the roughly 13 billion Smurf-centric puns that make up the entirety of the script) or the 50th-or-so time Hank Azaria’s evil wizard Gargamel whipped out his all new Sony Tablet and started waving the Sony logo directly at the camera. Can “The Smurfs 3” just be Gargamel stomping on the Smurfs’ tiny blue heads for an hour and a half? That’d be swell.

10. “Getaway”

The sheer head-banging monotony of action-thriller “Getaway” cannot be expressed in words, so to give you an idea, just look at that gif on the right there and don’t look away for, ooh, an hour and a half. Did you do it? For an hour and a half? My condolences: you just sat through “Getaway.” Courtney Solomon’s supposed thrill-ride is one big extended car crash, in more ways than the filmmakers intended. As Ethan Hawke’s ex-race car driver crashes and smashes his way through the streets of Bulgaria, I lost track of the amount of shots of Hawke shifting gears, spinning the wheel and turning his head. I also lost track of the amount of times Hawke’s character is surprised to hear police sirens start blaring behind him; I can’t imagine why he’s surprised, since it’s happened at least 15 times since the movie began. Notably, villain Jon Voight doesn’t show his face until the film’s final two seconds: considering how unutterably awful the film is, I can’t say I blame him.

9. “Diana”

In “Diana,” director Oliver Hirschbiegel takes a potentially stirring and provocative real-life love story — that of the beloved Princess Di and her secret affair with Pakistani heart surgeon Hasnat Khan — and turns it into something one might find playing on the Hallmark Channel on a wet Sunday afternoon. Bland doesn’t quite describe it; boring, maybe; baffling, certainly. As the people’s princess, Naomi Watts gets all the expected head bobs and dulcet tones down pat, but her staggeringly soulless performance is so devoid of personality that it’s nothing more than a hollow impersonation; it’s like she’s playing the pod person version of Diana from “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” which makes the central romance a little difficult to buy into. Howlers are abound in Stephen Jeffreys’ woeful script; worst among them, uttered with complete sincerity by Naveen Andrews: “You don’t perform the surgery, the surgery performs you.” Oy.

8. “The Host”

If, due to some silly back-room packaging mix-up, your newly purchased DVD copy of “The Host” contains not the 2013 teen sci-fi romance you intended to purchase but instead the 2006 South Korean monster movie of the same name, don’t be upset: it’s much better and much more deserving of your attention. Not even the enormously gifted and versatile Saoirse Ronan could quell the tedium, nor the fits of unintended hilarity, caused by Andrew Niccol’s lifeless adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s YA bestseller. Deathly dull and frequently risible, it’s “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” updated for the “Twilight” crowd — with added teen love triangle!

7. “A Haunted House”

13 years after kick-starting the “Scary Movie” franchise with brothers Shawn and Keenen, Marlon Wayans returned to the horror spoof genre with “Paranormal Activity” piss-take “A Haunted House,” and looking at the results, one wishes he hadn’t. What might have worked as a three-minute Funny or Die sketch is extended far beyond its limitations, and then extended some more, as Wayans and co-star Essence Atkins find themselves tormented by a pot-smoking, sex addicted spook. What’s frustrating is that there are hints of a good idea in here — there’s the sense that it’s actually about male commitment issues — but that’s quick to drown in a bottomless sewer of fart jokes, homophobia and ill-judged rapey humour. In interviews, Wayans has said that he’s disappointed in the way the “Scary Movie” franchise has progressed over the years — watching “A Haunted House,” one wonders, how is this any better?

6. “I Spit on Your Grave 2”

Inexplicably, Steven R. Monroe sequelised his crappy 2010 remake of the notorious 1978 Meir Zarchi rape-revenge splatter-shocker about a young woman abused in the woods of Louisiana. Though the action has moved to the bustling streets of NYC and later Bulgaria, “I Spit on Your Grave 2” is basically a retread of the remake as another young woman is viciously abused and then takes bloody revenge against her abusers. Original star Sarah Butler was smart not to return, if that was ever the intention: this is a crass, vile and dead-eyed exercise in joyless grotesquery and an entirely worthless movie-watching experience to which the only logical response is exasperation and misery.

5. “Scary Movie V”

“Why?” seemed to be the collective response to “Scary Movie V,” the fifth entry in the horror spoof franchise which lost any and all inspiration halfway through part one. I’ll tell you why: though it was quick to descend into neanderthalic, Friedberg/Seltzer-style pop culture finger-pointing, the “Scary Movie” franchise has proven a very lucrative business. The first “Scary Movie” in 2000, for example, was made with a production budget of $19 million and bagged a whopping $278 million at the worldwide box office. And with an average budget of $35.4 million, not one entry in the series has made less than $140 million worldwide. Ooh, hold the phone, all except this one: it only made $77 million worldwide, less than half of the fourth movie’s overall take. Maybe that’ll encourage them to stop. Please stop. Please.

4. “Movie 43”

What is this? I don’t know what this is. The marketing for “Movie 43” asked us, “What is Movie 43?” I’ve seen the film, I still don’t know. It has a lot of famous faces starring in it — Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Richard Gere, Halle Berry, Naomi Watts, so on, so forth — and that’s all good, but why are they in it? And why are they taking part in such inane, unfunny comedy sketches about pooping, testicle-necks, horny cartoon characters and child abuse? I’m kind of baffled. I’m stunned. What is “Movie 43?” I really don’t know. If someone does, please call me. I’d really like to know.

3. “May I Kill U?”

In black comedy “May I Kill U?,” Brit comic Kevin Bishop — who to me, no matter how hard he tries, will forever be little Jim Hawkins in “Muppet Treasure Island" — plays a London cycle cop who, following the 2011 riots, decides to deliver his own personal brand of justice: he brutally murders local criminals on the street and uploads the video footage onto the internet. Are you laughing yet?  I never did: this embarrassingly amateurish Brit flick is so hopelessly confused not even it knows when it’s supposed to be laugh-out-loud hilarious or when it’s supposed to be grimly satirical (either way, it achieves neither). May u kill me? Yes plz.

2. “The Starving Games”

You’ve gotta give Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg credit: they are dedicated. Never mind that not a single one of their directorial works has a Tomatometer rating above 7%. Never mind that not one film they’ve made has an IMDb user rating above 3.5/10. And never mind that they have absolutely nothing of any worth, merit or relevance to say about “The Hunger Games” — cos gosh darn it, they’re gonna parody it anyway! It won’t surprise you much to learn that among its endless slew of pratfalls, fart jokes and pop culture nods there lives not a single solitary chuckle in “The Starving Games.” It might surprise you, however, to learn that Seltzer and Friedberg’s latest affront to comedy/humanity is not my worst film of the year — having endured their projects for eight whole years, I’m not giving them the satisfaction anymore.

1. “Grown Ups 2”

I don’t know who I’m more disappointed in: Adam Sandler or the world. “Grown Ups 2” is a film which opens with the sight of a computer-generated deer urinating into Adam Sandler’s mouth and then gets worse from there. It is a film in which the emotional journey of the protagonist sees him learning how to “burp-snart” (for the uninformed, that’s burping, farting and sneezing at the same time). It’s a film so lazy its makers couldn’t even be bothered to give it a basic plot, a theme, a drive, an anything. It is a film so bad even Rob Schneider said no. And it is a film which, in the summer of 2013, made over $240 million at the worldwide box office. World, you done fucked up.

My Top 25 Best Movies of 2013

Am I too late to be posting this? Most people post their “best of the year” lists in late December, early January, right? And this is March. Bugger. Oh well, better late than never. And hey, the Oscars were on last night, so I can just seamlessly tie it into that. Yeah, that’ll work. So, 2013 was a great year for cinema and yadda yadda yadda, let the fawning commence!

25. “Upstream Colour”

Multi-talented indie auteur Shane Carruth’s anticipated follow-up to his brain-boggling time travel head-scratcher “Primer” was another strange, low-key sci-fi which was just as confounding and intoxicating as his cult 2004 debut. Through lyrical editing and sensuous images, “Upstream Colour” tells a story of kidnapping, identity theft, farmyard pigs and mind-altering parasitic grubs, and for what it’s worth, it’s the best mind-altering parasitic grub movie of the year. Having now seen it twice, I’d say that it’s best to let the film’s entrancing aesthetic wash over you rather than get too caught up in the frankly baffling plot details; even on the second viewing I still hadn’t the foggiest what was going on in those last 20 minutes — but I’ll be damned if I wasn’t fascinated by it.

24. “Nebraska”

I read online somewhere — don’t ask me where, I can’t remember — that “Nebraska” is like director Alexander Payne went back in time and made a student film, to which I say this: if only student films were this good and if only they had Bruce fucking Dern in them. In Payne’s bittersweet, handsomely shot black-and-white dramedy, the chronic bit-parter finally lands a leading role worthy of his performance in Douglas Trumbull’s under-appreciated 1972 sci-fi classic “Silent Running,” playing a kooky old fart who falls for a mail scam and travels to Lincoln, Nebraska with his son, played by Will Forte, to collect his supposed $1 million sweepstakes prize. As a lovably clueless, snowy-haired dolt, Dern has never been better, and as an ode to humdrum midwestern America that’s equal parts mocking and loving, Payne’s film is completely authentic.

23. “Stories We Tell”

Canadian actress Sarah Polley’s enthralling and powerful documentary “Stories We Tell” is a deeply personal account of her family history, as shown through home movie footage (some real, some staged), recalled by friends and family members and narrated by her British-born father Michael, who reads from his memoir. The film’s primary focus: Polley’s mother Diane, an actress who died when Polley was 11, and the true identity of Polley’s biological father. Unashamedly self-indulgent though it may be, Polley’s bravely intimate documentary teaches us that everyone has a story, and that with the right techniques that story can be riveting, moving and full of surprises, as it so very much is here.

22. “Filth”

It’s crystal clear that James McAvoy had an absolute blast making “Filth:” you can see it in his demented grin and the crazed twinkle in his eyes. In Jon S. Baird’s ferocious adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s darkly twisted novel, McAvoy plays Bruce Robertson, a manipulative, junkie scumbag Edinburgh detective with a penchant for abuse: he abuses those around him, he abuses his power, he abuses himself and he’s loving every scheming, coked-up, self-loathing minute. “Filth” may share the same deliriously fucked up sense of humour of another Welsh adaptation, none other than Danny Boyle’s “Trainspotting,” but Baird gives it an energy and a style all on its own. And at the centre of it all, McAvoy is exhilaratingly unhinged, like Professor X on one hell of a bender.

21. “Mud”

There were a number of terrific coming-of-age indies which came out of the US last year: James Ponsoldt’s “The Spectacular Now,” Nat Faxon and Jim Rash’s “The Way Way Back” and Jordan Vogt-Roberts’ “The Kings of Summer,” to name three. My favourite of the bunch was “Mud,” Jeff Nichols’ tale of two Arkansas boys who discover a strange man named Mud living in hiding on a small island. Starring Matthew McConaughey as the mysterious pistol-toting hobo, Nichol’s drama is part of the former go-to rom-com lead’s dubbed “McConaissance” — which last night culminated with his highly deserved Oscar win for “Dallas Buyers Club” — and while it goes without saying that he’s utterly brilliant, it’s the young Tye Sheridan who burns bright as the teenage protagonist learning the harsh truths of reality. Keep an eye out for this kid: if he sticks to it he could be a big star.

20. “Side Effects”

I’ve seen “Side Effects” twice now, once oblivious to its many knotty surprises, once having witnessed all the knots neatly unravel, and on both watches I was utterly gripped. As Rooney Mara’s unstable anti-depressant user does something horrible and as she and her doctor, brilliantly played by Jude Law, have to deal with the consequences, Steven Soderbergh’s layered thriller asks two questions: is a person under the influence of prescription drugs responsible for their actions, and is the doctor who prescribed the drug responsible for the actions of his patient? Soderbergh has gone on record as saying that he’s done making movies; if this is true, it’s a great loss, because here he’s crafted a sly Hitchcockian thriller that’d make the big man himself proud.

19. “The World’s End”

Much to our collective relief, the concluding chapter of Edgar Wright’s loosely connected Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy proved worthy of its two predecessors, the seemingly insurmountably brilliant “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz” — if anyone could do it, it was Edgar Wright. Bursting with energy and blue alien-robot goop, sci-fi comedy “The World’s End” follows a bunch of estranged old mates as they go on a nostalgic pub crawl together in their sleepy home town, and as that pub crawl is disturbed by a hostile intergalactic force. Wright throws at us a thrilling mix of rapid-fire gags, laugh-a-minute hilarity, hyperkinetic action and surprising poignancy. Simon Pegg, meanwhile, gets to say probably my favourite one-liner of the whole year: “Get back in your rocket and fuck off back to Legoland, you cunts.” Perfick.

18. “The Great Beauty”

In the opening scene of Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Great Beauty,” a tourist taking photographs in Rome becomes so overwhelmed by the beauty of the Italian capital that he literally falls down dead. Sorrentino is, of course, taking the piss, but watching “The Great Beauty” it’s difficult not to have a similar reaction: the sheer, dazzling extravagance of Sorrentino’s latest is enough to make one light-headed, with wild party scenes that’d make the great Jay Gatsby need a lie down. That it’s also an engrossing journey through the gorgeous European city as led by the magnificent Toni Servillo is certainly a boost. Comparisons to Fellini have flooded the film since its release; I like to think of it at “8 1/2” turned up to 11.

17. “All is Lost”

Robert Redford sits quietly in a boat in the middle of the ocean for an hour and a half and it’s utterly riveting. Lost at sea, Redford’s unnamed lone sailor must fight for survival, battling the elements armed with a broken boat, a life raft and some flares. J. C. Shandor’s gripping and soulful survival drama is the anti-“Life of Pi,” less fantastically spectacular and more low-key, featuring almost no dialogue, a single cast member and no accompanying CGI zoo animals. There’s just Redford and his uncanny ability to hold an audience’s attention. The whole film is like a testament to how watchable Redford really is: I would have gladly watched him sitting quietly in a boat for another hour and a half.

16. “A Field in England”

Ben Wheatley takes us on a mind-melting head trip through what must be the strangest field in England I’ve ever seen. Set in the middle of what appears to be the English Civil War, Wheatley’s experimental black-and-white brain-boggler follows a gang of extravagantly costumed men who flee a battle in search of an ale house; soon enough, there’s blood on the grass, the sun's turned black and Reece Shearsmith is running around like a rabid dog tied to a rope. As if it wasn’t weird enough, in the hallucinogenic finale, Wheatley turns the WTF dial up to 11 and breaks off the control: it’s like staring at rorschach blobs after having consumed mass quantities of magic mushrooms. Also, fair warning: the look on Reece Shearsmith’s face as he emerges from that tent will haunt your nightmares.

15. “The Place Beyond the Pines”

Spanning three decades and two generations, Derek Cianfrance’s sprawling, New York-set drama “The Place Beyond the Pines” at first follows a motorcycle stunt driver turned bank robber played by Ryan Gosling, then Bradley Cooper’s rookie cop who fights corruption in his police department, then Gosling and Cooper’s troubled teenage sons, who cross paths at their high school. The director’s follow-up to his “Blue Valentine” is certainly ambitious in its epic scope, but Cianfrance manages to keep it on the same level of quiet intimacy of his 2010 dark romance. His third film has the feel of an old American classic; years from now it may be looked back on as one.

14. “The Selfish Giant”

On its grim and gritty surface, “The Selfish Giant” looks to be a typically Loachian kitchen sink drama about a young, recently expelled working-class Bradford boy collecting scrap metal to sell to a local scrap dealer. But writer-director Clio Barnard, adapting from a story by Oscar Wilde, turns such expectations on their head and makes “The Selfish Giant” an enchanting and haunting tale of friendship, greed, death and street-racing horses. The young British actor Conner Chapman is a tremendous find, spirited, cheeky and capable of projecting a whole range of adult emotions, albeit as filtered through the eyes of a child. He also manages the rare feat of being a bratty little shit and making us love him for it, a feat also accomplished last year by Leonardo DiCaprio. But we’ll get to that later.

13. “Rush”

So perfectly cast are Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl as the British F1 racer James Hunt and his Austrian opponent Niki Lauda, respectively, that when stock footage of the actual Hunt and Lauda is presented to us, we can barely tell them apart from their on-screen counterparts. Chronicling Hunt and Lauda’s heated rivalry from a small Formula Three race in 1970 though to the 1976 Grand Prix, director Ron Howard spins for us both an exhilarating thrill-ride and a mesmerising story of masculinity and obsession. Much like Asif Kapadia’s spellbinding documentary “Senna,” “Rush” did something once thought impossible: it made me excited about Formula 1.

12. “Beyond the Hills”

Two estranged friends, one a stubbornly devout and emotionally repressed nun played by Cosmina Stratan, the other a free-spirited godless sinner played by Cristina Flutur, are reunited in the desolate hills of Romania. As the latter lives in the former’s Orthodox convent with the rest of the nuns she becomes unstable and soon enough the head priest begins to suspect that her increasingly erratic behaviour is the result of demonic possession. Cristian Mungiu’s haunting Romanian drama, based on a real case, is not the easiest film to sit through; it’s long and slow and bare in its presentation. But it is unforgettably chilling and Mungiu’s subtle direction keeps us gripped, all the while Mungiu remains completely non-judgemental as characters commit questionable acts in the name of their belief system.

11. “Captain Phillips”

As he did so successfully in “United 93,” director Paul Greengrass takes a real-life drama and turns it into a blisteringly intense thriller. Here, the story is that of Captain Richard Phillips, whose container ship was boarded by armed Somalian pirates in 2009 and who was himself taken hostage in the ship’s lifeboat. As Phillips, Tom Hanks is an absolute powerhouse, while Greengrass ratchets up the suspense to near-unbearable levels of intensity. The unexpected snubbing of Hanks for an Oscar nomination is the stuff of scandal: he deserved a nod for that heart-wrenching final scene alone.

10. “Short Term 12”

Certainly one of the more memorable images of last year was of Brie Larson and John Gallagher, Jr. chasing after a young, wailing boy with the American flag tied around his neck and the stars and stripes flowing behind him like Superman’s cape. Adapted from his own short film, Destin Daniel Cretton’s underseen, emotionally draining indie drama is set in a foster-care facility for troubled teens. As a care worker who is herself dealing with her own emerging, long-buried troubles, Larson gives a beautifully layered performance, steely yet on the verge of shattering at any minute, while Cretton’s sensitive direction avoids cheap sentiment but still manages to jerk a few well-earned tears.

9. “Blue is the Warmest Colour”

At last year’s Cannes Film Festival, Abdellatif Kechiche’s three-hour French romance “Blue is the Warmest Colour” bagged the coveted Palme d’Or prize, awarded in an unexpected move to both the film itself and to the film’s two stars, Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux. Some critics argued that the voters were merely won over by the film’s stark depictions of raunchy lesbian sex; I argue that it was because Kechiche’s film is a beautiful and enthrallingly intimate portrayal of young love and desire, performed with heart-bursting passion and astonishing authenticity by its two enormously talented leads. I’m sure the raunchy lesbian sex scenes didn’t hurt though.

8. “The Wolf of Wall Street”

Jordan Belfort is an asshole: a straight-up, full-on, coke-snorting, wife-cheating, money-swindling asshole. As the real-life stock broker/scam artist at the centre of Martin Scorsese’s darkly comic epic crime drama, Leonardo DiCaprio gives the best performance of his career, deliciously manic and equal counts loathsome and roguishly lovable; plus, in a scene where an overdose of Quaaludes sends him into what he calls the “cerebral palsy phase,” he reveals himself to be an unprecedented master of physical comedy. The film itself, it’s magnificently entertaining: a gloriously fucked up ride through the mind of a lowlife living the high life. Jordan Belfort is an asshole, unpunished and proud, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have a blast watching him be one.

7. “Frances Ha”

Ahoy, sexy! Noah Baumbach’s “Frances Ha” is a whimsical, wryly funny blend of Lena Dunham’s HBO smash “Girls,” Woody Allen’s monochrome Manhattan and a French New Wave picture by Truffaut or Godard. Greta Gerwig, who also co-writes, is endearingly awkward as the babbling, self-deprecating Frances, an aspiring pro dancer living in NYC who is, in her own words, not yet “a real person.” When not following Frances as she stumbles her way through social situations and money problems, Baumbach’s comedy-drama follows her drifting relationship with her best friend, the also excellent Mickey Sumner, which looks set to disappear. The result is tender and hilarious and utterly wonderful and, if I may make a prediction, a mini-classic in the making.

6. “The Act of Killing”

From 1965 to 1966, more than 500,000 people accused of being communists were murdered in Indonesia by government-sanctioned death squads. The perpetrators of these heinous crimes were never punished; in fact, as we see in Joshua Oppenheimer’s extraordinary documentary “The Act of Killing,” they were celebrated as heroes, and still are to this day. For his film, Oppenheimer invites two of these proud, self-titled “gangsters” to re-enact their crimes in front of the camera, and it’s through these re-enactments that the true, horrifying nature of their crimes finally dawns on them. Oppenheimer’s raw, revealing and often surreal film is a work of earth-shattering power and knee-buckling emotional force; fighting back both fury and tears is a losing battle. If you don’t walk out of this an absolute mess you are a stronger man than I.

5. “Her”

It’s eerily believable in this day and age: a man falling in love with a piece of computer software. It’s also eerily romantic in Spike Jonze’s future sci-fi “Her,” the story of a lonely dweeb played by Joaquin Phoenix who starts up a relationship with an artificially intelligent, Siri-like device voiced by Scarlett Johannson. Jonze, the brilliant bastard, takes this weird and potentially creepy predicament and turns into one of the most engrossing and sweetly compelling love stories of recent years. As the bespectacled, moustachioed, passionately romantic lead, Phoenix is nerdishly charming, and even with the limitation of being just a voice, Johannson has astonishing presence — methinks she’s been cruelly overlooked in this year’s awards season.

4. “Inside Llewyn Davis”

Oscar Isaac is an absolute revelation in “Inside Llewyn Davis:” who knew that one guy from “Drive” could belt out a tune like that? In the Coen Brothers’ melancholic tribute to the ‘60s New York folk scene, Isaac plays the titular struggling musician, who with a ginger cat in his arms goes from couch to couch and gig to gig searching for his big break but constantly hitting brick walls. As we’ve come to expect from the Coens, “Inside Llewyn Davis” is an achingly brilliant piece of writing, directing and acting, filled with their usual dark humour, human emotion and lovingly drawn eccentrics. What it also has is a live folk soundtrack which sounds like it was produced in the heavens: you’ll walk out with a tune in your ear and a couple more echoing through your heart.

3. “Before Midnight”

If “Before Sunrise” was about young love and “Before Sunset” was about young love recaptured, “Before Midnight” is about young love fading, falling under the strain of marriage and children and middle age. It’s also about Jesse and Celine, once again played to perfection by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, talking and strolling their way through a sunny vista, this time Greece, which I for one could sit and watch for an eternity. I love this couple and I love listening in on their long conversations. I look forward to hearing more in ten years time if Hawke and Delpy and director Richard Linklater feel the need to return to Jesse and Celine’s lives once more. If not, “Before Midnight” is a beautiful and completely satisfying close to their love story, which has lasted almost 20 years and captivated us all.

2. “Gravity”

More than just a staggering achievement in visual effects, Alfonso Cuarón’s breathtaking 3D space spectacle is a ground-breaking testament to the power of cinema, its power to dazzle, its power to amaze and its ability to take audiences on a thrilling big-screen adventure (in space!). Joyless cynics say that “Gravity” is nothing more than empty CGI; what has escaped them is that Sandra Bullock’s endearing leading performance gives the spectacle a heart and a soul, and that the film is not just a flashy special effects showcase, it’s a new way to tell a story. Watching “Gravity,” my jaw was at my ankles and my brain was exploding out of my ears. “Gravity” is the future, and the future is mind-blowing.

1. “12 Years a Slave”

The visceral brutality of Steve McQueen’s “12 Years a Slave” is merciless, as it absolutely should be. The slave masters showed no mercy in the treatment of their slaves — why should McQueen? For we the audience’s comfort? For the sake of our squeamishness? Or perhaps because such depictions are, say certain individuals, inherently cruel and sadistic? Some have complained that the film’s depiction of this ugly time in American history is “too much,” that it should be toned down. To hell with that — this is the hard and painful truth, and in bringing the story of the slave Solomon Northup to the big screen, McQueen portrays the terror and the pain in all its grim detail. “12 Years a Slave” is the best film of 2013 because of the raw power of its storytelling and its unflinching portrayal of humanity at its ugliest. If it has one flaw it’s that at its end there appears text outlining the events in the aftermath of Solomon’s imprisonment; how, pray tell, does McQueen expect me to read this when I have tears in my eyes?