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Lip-gloss a’plenty as sexy assassin

Colombiana is newly released

2:28pm Wednesday 11th January 2012

Colombiana (Cert 15, 103 mins, Entertainment In Video). Starring Zoe Saldana, Michael Vartan, Jordi Molla, Lennie James, Callum Blue, Cliff Curtis, Beto Benites, Amandla Stenberg *** In 1992 Colombia, ten-year-old Cataleya (Stenberg) witnesses the deaths of her parents at the hands of drug lord Don Luis (Benites) and his thug henchman, Marco (Molla). The girl heads to Chicago to reunite with her gangster uncle, Emilio (Curtis), determined to avenge her parents’ deaths. Fifteen years later, Cataleya (now played by Saldana) has blossomed into a sexy assassin responsible for 22 murders in four years. FBI Special Agent Ross (James) is on her trail but Cataleya will not end the killing spree until Don Luis and Marco are both six feet under. Complicating matters, the assassin is romantically involved with an artist (Vartan), who wants to know more about the enigmatic woman in his life. Colombiana is a pacy revenge thriller distinguished by a far better performance from Saldana than the film deserves. The lithe actress wrings genuine tears from her tragic heroine and seems eminently capable of taking down an entire criminal underworld between applications of lip-gloss. The romance with Vartan’s creative hunk is undernourished and James’s crusading cop is hamstrung with some terrible dialogue but both men make the most of the scraps in the formulaic yet entertaining script. The many set-pieces are littered with bone-crunching fistfights, explosions and daredevil acrobatics.

P-p-p-pick up these penguins

9:25am Monday 19th December 2011

Mr Popper's Penguins (PG, 90 mins) Starring Jim Carrey, Carla Gugino, Angela Lansbury, Madeline Carroll, Maxwell Perry Cotton, Ophelia Lovibond

Soap spin-off is a lot of laughs

Paddy And Marlon’s Big Night In

10:10am Monday 14th November 2011

Paddy And Marlon’s Big Night In ITV Studios Home Entertainment, £19.99

Kids on the block save the world

9:16am Tuesday 20th September 2011

Attack The Block (Cert 15, 84 mins, Optimum Home Entertainment) Starring John Boyega, Alex Esmail, Franz Drameh, Leeon Jones, Simon Howard, Jodie Whittaker, Nick Frost, Luke Treadaway, Jumayn Hunter. ****

High-concept plot is flawed but a fun ride

8:06am Thursday 18th August 2011

Source Code (Cert 12, 89 mins, Optimum Home Entertainment). Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Vera Farmiga, Michelle Monaghan, Jeffrey Wright, Russell Peters, Michael Arden, Craig Thomas MMM Helicopter pilot Captain Colter Stevens (Gyllenhaal) wakes up on a train, sitting opposite Christina Warren (Monaghan). Confusingly, she calls him Sean and a visit to the bathroom reveals he is trapped inside the body of a teacher called Sean Fentress. “Everything’s going to be OK,” smiles Christina as the train explodes. Colter wakes almost instantly in a top-secret facility under the control of Dr Rutledge (Wright), who needs Colter to identify the bomber. “I don’t know who bombed the train!” rages Colter. “Then go back and find out,” sternly replies Rutledge, ordering uniformed officer Colleen Goodwin (Farmiga) to send the pilot back into the “source code”, which has been culled from the last eight minutes of the real Sean Fentress’s memory. The film is an adrenaline-pumping thrill ride that plays fast and loose with our notions of space and time. Aspects of the high-concept plot don’t make sense and some of the digital effects aren’t as slick and polished as you would expect. However, director Duncan Jones and editor Paul Hirsch don’t become too bogged down in the flawed science behind the slam-bang thrills, maintaining a brisk tempo throughout as the clock ticks down relentlessly towards doomsday. The central relationship between Colter and Colleen draws obvious parallels with Jones’s previous film, Moon. Gyllenhaal brings vulnerability to his role, including a heartbreaking scene when he breaks protocol to make an important telephone call. Farmiga is equally impressive in a role that requires her, largely, to stare down a camera lens.

Visual stunner that lacks a proper plot line

Emily Browning as Babydoll in Sucker Punch

9:56am Tuesday 9th August 2011

Sucker Punch (Cert 12, 128 mins, Warner Home Video). Starring Emily Browning, Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone, Vanessa Hudgens, Jamie Chung, Oscar Isaac, Carla Gugino, Scott Glenn, Gerard Plunkett ** Babydoll (Browning) is institutionalised at Lennox House For The Mentally Insane by her cruel stepfather (Plunkett). Abandoned to the mercy of head orderly Blue (Isaac) and psychiatrist Dr Vera Gorski (Gugino), Babydoll seeks refuge in her dreams. She imagines the facility as a brothel, where Madam Gorski trains the girls to dance for gentlemen callers. Fellow inmates Sweet Pea (Cornish), Rocket (Malone), Blondie (Hudgens) and Amber (Chung) are slowly drawn into Babydoll’s alternate universe, where they hatch a daring escape plan overseen by a mysterious wise man (Glenn), who advises Babydoll to seek out five treasures that will help the girls become mistresses of their destiny. Sucker Punch is a visually arresting action adventure, which mashes together influences and motifs from anime, video games and popular culture. Director Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen) combines dazzling computer-generated visuals with a pounding rock soundtrack. He and co-writer Steve Shibuya gorge our senses with visions of fire-breathing dragons, samurais and zombie soldiers, but they also starve our brains with a flimsy, nonsensical tale of reality versus fantasy. Characterisation and narrative coherence are completely redundant, promoting a message of female empowerment – so long as the heroines achieve their freedom in corsets, basques and panties.

Witty coming-of-age story

8:30am Monday 1st August 2011

Submarine (Cert 15, 83 mins, Optimum Home Entertain-ment). Starring Craig Roberts, Yasmin Paige, Noah Taylor, Sally Hawkins, Paddy Considine, Gemma Chan **** Schoolboy Oliver Tate (Roberts) is a dreamer determined to lose his virginity to spirited classmate Jordana (Paige). Needless to say, the lad is delighted when his pestering leads eventually to a nervous kiss. Meanwhile, his parents Lloyd (Taylor) and Jill (Hawkins) feel the strain when her first love, new-age guru Graham (Paddy Considine), returns unexpectedly with a feisty partner Kim-Lin (Chan) in tow. Based on the novel by Joe Dunthorne and laced with mordant wit, Submarine is a hysterical coming-of-age story set in Swansea.

Squaring up inside and outside the ring

10:23am Monday 20th June 2011

The Fighter (Cert 15, 111 mins, Momentum Pictures Home Entertain-ment). Starring Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Melissa Leo, Jack McGee *** Micky Ward (Wahlberg) is a talented boxer from Massachusetts, but he has always languished in the shadow of his half-brother Dicky (Bale), who famously knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard then lost everything to the ravages of drugs and crime. Trained by Dicky and managed by his monstrous mother, Alice (Leo), Micky accepts lacklustre fights for scant rewards until he is persuaded to cut himself loose from his loved ones and punch above his weight for the first time in his life. New girlfriend Charlene (Adams), who works in a local bar, encourages Micky to follow his dreams, and together they incur the wrath of the Ward clan. The film provides all of the usual emotional jabs and cuts as its working-class hero defies the odds for one shot at glory, culminating in the obligatory championship bid.

Grit indeed

10:07am Monday 13th June 2011

True Grit (Cert 15, 105 mins, Paramount Home Entertainment) Starring Hailee Steinfeld, Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper **** This is a bloody tale of retribution layered with black humour. It’s clear from his first appearance, shifting nervously in a courtroom witness stand, that Bridges is not paying homage to John Wayne’s signature role. Steinfeld, who was 13 years old when the film was made, is utterly believable in the role, holding her own against seasoned co-stars Damon, Pepper and Brolin.

Fearless Franco’s true-life account

9:47am Monday 6th June 2011

127 Hours (Cert 15, 89 mins, Pathe Distribution Ltd, Drama) Starring James Franco, Amber Tamblyn, Kate Mara. *****

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