Wolf Creek 2 *** McLean strives for a more mainstream audience with this horror sequel - but it is superficially enjoyable.

Greg McLean’s original Wolf Creek was a consummately brutal horror film that used the wide panoramic Australian landscape and transformed it into something profoundly empty and bleak. From within this chasmal backdrop came Mick Taylor(John Jarrett), a serial killer that was a dark, satirical pastiche of the Crocodile Dundee – indeed, Jarrett described Taylor as an “anti-Dundee” character when promoting the first film. Much of what was compelling about the original was the sense of realism and tension that was constructed through the scratchy documentary camerawork and the directors strong focus on character development, so when it came to the splatter, you really felt the pain and the whole experience was a lot tougher because so much time had been invested in the onscreen victims.

Wolf Creek 2 begins in a manner that suggests a significant tonal shift has been made between the sequel and its predecessor. Instead of prolonging and sustaining a void-like tension, McLean slices away any character development and pushes his antagonist, Mick Taylor, to the forefront of the drama. The camerawork is slicker and flashier, the gore is nastier and from the film’s opening splattery setpiece, the wheels are set in motion for a blood-soaked thrill ride.

However, it is a much shallower film than its predecessor and it is difficult to ignore the fact that it has lost most of its distinctive qualities in favour of cranked-up, cheap mainstream thrills. Though it is superficially entertaining – John Jarett’s portrayal of Mick Taylor has lapsed into self-parody somewhat and the final act is nonsensical in its weirdness – but it is an efficiently machine-tooled horror sequel.

Man of Steel ***

The new Superman film helmed by Zack Snyder and Christopher Nolan endeavours to reboot the franchise in this loud action-packed origins story.

The last Superman film to date was Bryan Singer's largely overlooked Superman Returns(2006)  - a much darker, more subversive film than many gave it credit for. Snyder's new movie wants us to forget about red underpants and attempts to wipe the slate clean on the franchise, focusing on the genesis of the Kryptonian superhero. The high-water mark for reimagining a superhero franchise is Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins(2005) and it is particularly interesting that Nolan is back with ‘Dark Knight’ screenwriter David S. Goyer for Snyder's new movie; With Nolan and Goyer’s demonstrable ability to reinvent a superhero as interestingly as they did with Christian Bale’s Batman, one would expect a similar level of innovation in Man of Steel.

Synder’s origins tale begins as war and destruction is breaking out on Krypton – lit in refulgent gold light where dialogue takes place on top of huge towering structures as spaceships and winged beasts fill the frame - Synder’s vision of Krypton is at once awesome and spectacular and overly cluttered and indulgent. However, the elaborate CGI vista is just the backdrop for depicting the escape of Krypton’s first naturally born child in years as the planet subsequently explodes. The narrative shifts to Smallville where the baby (Cal-El on Krypton, Clark Kent on earth) is raised after his adoptive parents discover a crashed alien spaceship.

Man of Steel is a complicated film and not necessarily complicated in an intelligent way.Superman’s story is deliberately made more difficult and convoluted than it needs to be; the Superman ‘S’ no longer means ‘S’ for Superman and whenever the word ‘Superman’ is uttered – it is said out almost out of embarrassment. The film is preoccupied with the fact that Superman is a superhero on earth because the atmosphere is richer which makes him stronger because gravity is lighter. The problem is is that although the first hour of the Man of Steel fleshes out the character with lots of plot exposition, I never felt truly engaged or invested in the character in the same way as I was totally invested in, for example, the first hour of Batman Begins. Although there is a lot of plot to get through and Snyder certainly has an affection for the story he's telling, the nonlinear structure of the origins narrative makes it difficult to get emotionally involved in the superman character. Superman’s formative years are mainly told through a flashbacks inter-cut with the present-day narrative  which prevents you from feeling the true trajectory of the character developing and therefore limits you from becoming truly immersed in the emotions because of this lack of continuity. There are individual scenes, particularly with Kevin Costner, that have a sepia-lit, melancholic lightness of touch - but these moments are not sustained long enough to evoke anything particularly riveting.

On the upside, Man of Steel is certainly impressive to look at. Snyder is a director who is very interested in visuals and it is true that he does have a flair for creating arresting images onscreen. Whereas previously the director had just been interested in meretricious surfaces and lavish imagery – in the case of the fatuous Sucker Punch – the new Superman film does match the CGI tricks with some kind of thematic substance. This evocation of Superman is fallible and despite the fact that he isn’t human, he is still subject to very human emotional frailties. British actor Henry Cavill has the ability to convey a level of convincing naivety and sensitivity that is crucially needed to humanise an apparently indestructible man. The third act is a totally explosive orgy of devastation that starts off as a great piece of blockbuster spectacle, but descends into a baggy mess. The running time is overlong and Man of Steel suffers from having to wrestle with so much plot and whereas the enjoyment is derived from the CGI spectacle, ultimately, the film spreads the drama a little too thin.

The Purge **

Set in the near future, the ‘reborn’ United States Government have implemented an annual ‘Purge Night’. In order to control crime and unemployment rates, for one day, between 7pm and 7am, anyone can commit the most heinous crimes without facing any of the consequences. The film centres on Ethan Hawke’s character, a businessman, who has made his family wealthy by selling a security lockdown system to keep citizens safe during the purge – however on this ‘purge night’ he and his family are put in danger.

The film explores ideas pertaining to the American economy, the division of wealth and other themes such as repressed societal aggression leading to more intense, explosive violence. The Purge intends to consider the classlessness of violence as the opulent upper-class are portrayed as being just as bloodthirsty, and even more so, than the individuals revolting from outside their steel fortresses. However, although film is sometimes reminiscent of exploitation revenge-horrors like The Last House on the Left, Michael Haneke’s consummately uncomfortable Funny Games and even David Fincher’s Panic Room, writer/director James DeMonaco offers little in the way of substantial tension. The acting is largely inert, the narrative lacks a freshness of innovation – despite the fact that it facilitates the ideas proficiently – and the bloodshed consists of ineffectual splatter. The Purge has a compelling premise and yet proceeds to do nothing particularly interesting with it.

Hours ** One of Paul Walker's final performances is also one of his best, however this mystery drama is a mixed bag.

Set in 2005 as Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans - Paul Walker plays Nolan Hayes, a father to a premature new-born who finds out that his wife tragically died during the conception. As the storms thrash against the outside of the hospital and patients and doctors evacuate the building, Hayes must stay behind and look after his incubated baby until help arrives.

The film proceeds to set up an array of narrative devices. First of all, a power-cut causes the hospital generator to kick-start, but Walker's character realises that the incubator relies on a faulty battery which he repeatedly has to wind-up by hand to keep the ventilator working. This, surprisingly, racks up a fair amount of tension as the film consistently keeps our minds hooked to the fate of the baby as the battery life threatens to count down to zero. At its best, Hours is a sparse depiction of human endurance against adversity that nods towards films like Terminal(2004) and 127 Hours(2010)  with its self-contained claustrophobic setting - however, despite the its ambitions, it never quite reaches the dramatic impact of these films. Walker does well in what is essentially a one man show, giving a particularly low key and restrained performance - but about halfway through, the film begins to feel overstretched as its central idea wears thin. To avoid having Walker just sitting in a room talking to a baby or himself, the narrative has to start introducing more and more unbelievable plot contrivances which climax in a very misjudged scene of violence. This horror sensibility could be largely explained by the presence of the film’s writer and director Eric Heisserer, who thus far has writing credits on Final Destination 5 (2011) and the redundant remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010).

Hours has a dark, shadowy, almost paranormal visual aesthetic which often works in its favour to accentuate the looming tempestuous presence of the hurricane as well as the metaphorical storms that the central character is experiencing. Although the film goes about its subject matter with the best of intentions, its brooding stillness too quickly becomes inert and even, at times, a little tedious as the emotional core is ultimately mired by the flagrant weaknesses in the scriptwriting.

The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty ** (125 minutes)

Based loosely on James Thurber’s 1939 short story about a prosaic individual attempting to escape the mundanity of life through his fantastical daydreams - Ben Stiller’s new film is executed with a degree of style and precision, but suffers from a lack of essential humour.

With Stiller both directing and starring in the titular role, the character of Walter Mitty in this version is a photographic research manager at Life magazine who has a tendency to zone out of real life and imagine himself in more heroic dream scenarios, whilst looking longingly at his co-worker (Kristin Wiig). The way the film portrays Mitty’s daydream fantasies is through a string of action set pieces were the central character, for example, has an infuriating conversation with his boss which leads Mitty to imagine an explosive superhero style punch-up with him – a scene reminiscent of something from mind of Timur Bekmambetov(Wanted 2008) with its over-the-top, weightless CGI brawling. Although these dreamy visual asides sound entertaining, there is a strange tonal clash within the first half of the film. On the one hand, Mitty’s flights of fancy are there to provoke a humourous reaction, but the rest of Stiller’s movie is far too formal and po-faced for the comedy to translate effectively - leaving you feeling oddly detached from the proceedings. It also has an ultra-clean, stylish visual aesthetic with a lot of the camerawork directed to linger incessantly on Ben Stiller’s face. These languorous moments indicate that Walter Mitty is a bit of a vanity project for Stiller and although the central Freudian idea of men indulging in egoistical fantasies may allow the film to itself procure a certain level of narcissism, it doesn’t alleviate this misplaced sense of self-importance.

Although the first hour lacks a certain wit, the plot does get into gear in the second hour as Mitty has to go searching for a crucial photographic negative that has been misplaced from the archive, leading him to Greenland to find photographer, Sean O’Connell(Sean Penn). The character of Walter Mitty is immediately more engaging in the latter hour and the way his dreams overlap into reality is achieved with a level of efficient fluidity and interest. I could have done without the aggressive use of product placement from Papa John’s Pizza and eHarmony – both used in such a cringingly unabashed manner that entire plot points were dedicated to promoting the brands.  Despite the fact that Walter Mitty does become much more emotionally involving towards its resolution - it is still a very flawed endeavour.

V/H/S ** Another found-footage film? – this portmanteau piece attempts to do something new with the verisimilitude of horror but suffers ultimately from a lack of surprises.

V/H/S opens with that oh-so familiar shaky camera style that has featured so heavily within the found-footage horror compendium. Although the notorious video nasty Cannibal Holocaust(1980) was probably the first incarnation of this full-on, documentary style of filmmaking - since the success of The Blair Witch Project(1999), the found-footage genre has generated some interesting output; such is the case with Matt Reeves’s Cloverfield(2008) which shared similarly enigmatic qualities to Blair Witch. Nevertheless, the sheer volume of found-footage horrors in the last ten years has dispelled most of the genre’s initial fear and mystery. V/H/S has an over-arching narrative that involves a violent gang who commit crimes, cause damage and do reprehensible things to women. Very early on the gang are given the job of burglarising a house to find a VHS tape and we subsequently become witness to the contents of a scratchy video comprised of a series of short spliced together horror vignettes.

In its defence, V/H/S does try to reimagine the found-footage format. The individual stories are told though several different camera mediums and often the damaged or disintegrated aesthetic of the individual recordings are used effectively to obscure the appearances of the horrors within. This is relatively innovative if you can get over the issue that V/H/S seems to paradoxically break the rules of its own genre- why is there a webcam chat, a home video recording and digital camera footage all on a single VHS tape?

Although some of the individual stories are quite creepy, they rely an awful lot on salacious voyeurism. The film also has a particularly prurient sensibility in the portrayal of its female characters which only has the effect of making you squirm instead of inciting actual fear. V/H/S is far too long and although the chilling unexplained strangeness of some of the stories is passingly compelling, many of them were just trite, boring rehashes of other, better, horror ideas. 

Pain and Gain *** Pain and Gain sees director Michael Bay working on a stripped back budget with this bodybuilding crime caper.

Based (apparently)on a true story - Mark Wahlberg plays Daniel Lugo, a bodybuilding personal trainer who believes achieving physical perfection, unlocking his full potential and making use of his “gifts” will help him strive towards the American dream. However, these desires are undone by the fact that Lugo is a total plank. With the help of  the equally dense Adrian Doorbal(Anthony Mackie) and Paul Doyle(Dwayne Johnson) the trio hatch an ill-conceived plan to extort a fitness client, which all goes horribly wrong.

Pain and Gain struggles initially with figuring out its comedic tone and there are a few missteps where it doesn’t really know whether it is a dumb gross out comedy, a black comedy or indeed, trying to satirise the bodybuilding community. The result is that it ends up doing a bit of all three. For better or for worse, all of the Michael Bay directorial traits we have come to expect are present – although there are less explosions than his typical blockbuster staples - the film is still incredibly loud, brash, pumped up fare with deliberately meretricious, oversaturated visuals. Dwayne Johnson plays a real knuckleheaded character and is the funniest thing in the movie and Mark Wahlberg is also very amusing, demonstrating once again, a real flare for comedy. It is hindered by its overlong run-time and often the humour and indeed the purpose of the film get lost amidst its own ramped up, erratic stupidity and violence. Pain and Gain is nonetheless, entertaining.