The Marx Brothers (“Duck Soup”, “Monkey Business”) cause more trouble in “Animal Crackers”. My admiration for Groucho Marx only grows with each Marx Brothers’ film that I see as well as my tolerance of the antics of Chico and Harpo. It’s fair to say that “Animal Crackers” is not without its faults but it has enough great gags in it to keep you entertained.

Explorer Captain Spaulding (Groucho Marx) has just returned from his African expedition and is being treated to a party hosted by Mrs. Rittenhouse (Margaret Dumont). However, disaster strikes when an expensive painting purchased by Mrs. Rittenhouse is stolen and it seems like everybody is a suspect.

Groucho Marx is absolutely hysterical. Some of his speeches in this movie contain some of the funniest lines I have ever heard in a movie. In response to allegations of bigamy, he says ‘yes, it is big of me’ and he also claims that ‘Africa is God’s country and he can have it’. However, Chico only provides a few chuckles and Harpo is rather tedious. Zeppo is in here too but obviously does not really do anything funny. It’s quite funny to watch Margaret Dumont react to Groucho’s rantings. The other characters are all pretty forgettable.

Parts of “Animal Crackers” are a little mundane but the stuff with Groucho makes up for a lot of it. Overall, it’s no comedic masterpiece but it does contain some excellent gags throughout. I did really enjoy parts of this film because some of the writing is just terrific and fans of the Marx Brothers definitely need to check this one out because it is one of the better movies. If you have never seen any of the Marx Brothers pictures then this is as good a place as any to start although “Duck Soup” is still probably their best film.

“Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie” is based on the hit “Angry Video Game Nerd” internet videogame review series but unfortunately the format doesn’t work… it doesn’t work at all. You see, an internet video about guy getting mad at videogames doesn’t translate so well when it’s turned into a big action adventure film.

In “Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie”, a severely aggressive retro videogame enthusiast by the name of the Angry Video Game Nerd (James Rolfe) is an internet sensation but his fans want him to review the infamous “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial” (based on the film of the same name) and it ends up becoming a crazy adventure with aliens, robots and giant monsters.

The Angry Video Game Nerd may work as a silly internet star as he swears like there’s no tomorrow and gives all the geeky gaming facts but as a big film character, he isn’t exciting. The other characters are really dull. I’m sure many big fans of internet videogame videos will enjoy all the cameos, I’m sure I only vaguely recognised a few of them. The giant monster is somewhat creative in its design and it certainly has that cheesy feel that you get from the “Godzilla” films.

If you like the internet videos then you’ll get some of the references such as his “Top Gun” joke but sadly the whole thing just feels off. It doesn’t look quite fancy enough to look like anything beyond a mere independent film but at the same time, it’s too fancy to offer the same novelty that the internet videos do. There’s a certain charm about a video where a man gets incredibly frustrated playing a videogame but the charm is lost when you try to put the same man in a wannabe blockbuster. If you’ve never seen the internet videos then you won’t possibly care for this and even if you have, you may find yourself disappointed with this.

Adam Sandler (“Happy Gilmore”, “Punch-Drunk Love”) still has not learnt that acting mean and hitting things does not constitute comedy. In “Anger Management”, he stars opposite Jack Nicholson (“Batman”, “Chinatown”) and the two create a frustrating mess of a film.

Dave Buznik (Sandler) is a businessman that is forced to attend anger management classes after a misunderstanding. His instructor is Dr. Buddy Rydell (Nicholson), a specialist with some incredibly strange methods. Dave Buznik has to complete the program or he will go to prison but will his relationship with his girlfriend (Marisa Tomei “The Wrestler”) survive.

Sandler is as annoying as usual. Jack Nicholson unfortunately gets dragged into this film and while he gives a good performance, the script is just awful. The interactions between the two are occasionally amusing but a lot of the time, I was just confused about what the film was trying to do. Marisa Tomei is good as Linda and I’m now convinced that Sandler makes these films just so he gets a kissing scene with an attractive actress (Kate Beckinsale in “Click”, Bridgette Wilson in “Billy Madison” etc…). We also have to suffer through seeing Woody Harrelson (“Natural Born Killers”) in drag. John Turturro (“Transformers”) is okay as one of Dave’s fellow anger management patients.

“Anger Management” has a few funny moments in it but the film as a whole is fairly bad. Like many of Sandler’s other movies, it is just so darn mean-spirited at times that it is then really hard to get behind the more traditional feel good moments. The plot also gets needlessly complex for this type of movie. It’s certainly not Sandler’s worst movie but that really is not saying too much. Fans of films such as “Happy Gilmore” and “Big Daddy” are likely to enjoy it but for everybody else, this is another dud from Sandler.

Ron Howard (“Rush”, “Parenthood”) and Tom Hanks (“Big”, “The Green Mile”) are back with “Angels & Demons”, the sequel to “The Da Vinci Code”. I found “The Da Vinci Code” to be a boring film covered in ridiculous theology and equally ridiculous history as well as a strong anti-Catholic sentiment. “Angels & Demons” is far superior to its predecessor as it won’t put you to sleep and it meddles less in the theology department.

In this movie, symbologist Robert Langdon (Hanks) is taken to Vatican City to help foil a terrorist plot. The election of the new Pope is approaching but the ‘Illuminati’ (expecting something less preposterous?) have kidnapped four cardinals and have planted an explosive device somewhere within the grounds of the Vatican City. Get ready for a twisty plot that seems like pure nonsense by the time the credits roll.

The Robert Langdon character just doesn’t work. He spends the film running across Rome trying to locate the cardinals and the bomb but by the end of the movie, he feels almost inconsequential. It’s such a shame to see such a talented actor as Hanks waste his time with something as boring as this. Ewan McGregor (“The Island”) and Stellan Skarsgård (“Thor”) play their parts well. Most of the other characters are fairly dull.

“Angels & Demons” is so far-fetched and inaccurate in its depiction of the Vatican that you feel as though the author of the original novel must have exclusively consulted disgruntled ex-employees of the Vatican and conspiracy theorists. The movie is thankfully nowhere near as slow as “The Da Vinci Code” and there are some impressive moments but I doubt that many people are going to enjoy this. For the devotees of the first film, I’m sure you’ll love it but pretty much everybody else will probably leave scratching their heads.

The boys from “Monty Python” bring us this truly hilarious film with some of their best sketches all redone. So, get ready for one of the wackiest and stupidest films you’ll ever see in your entire lifetime.

Normally, I give you a summary of the plot in this section but with “And Now For Something Completely Different” I can’t. It’s basically a feature length version of the television series “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”. In this we can sketches about how to defend yourselves from fruit, how to complain about a dead parrot to the shopkeeper who sold it to you less than half an hour ago, a television series where people are blackmailed, a competition to find the top upper-class twit of the year and much more.

All of the guys from the show are here. There is Graham Chapman (“Life of Brian”), John Cleese (“Clockwise”, “Rat Race”), Terry Gilliam (“Brazil”), Eric Idle (“National Lampoon’s European Vacation”), Terry Jones (“The Meaning of Life”) and Michael Palin (“Monty Python and the Holy Grail”) who are all hilarious. All of them play an array of crazy characters in the variety of sketches. Some even play more than one character in the same sketch.

From animation to live-action, to political, to racial, to sexual every aspect of humour is covered in this movie. It’s a shame that we didn’t get to see some of my favourite sketches. Where was “Confuse A Cat”? “The Cheese Shop”? “Pantomime Horse”? “The Prosthetic Nose Man”? I also wish that some of these sketches were new but they are just recycled. If you like the work of the guys from “Monty Python” but you’ve seen all the sketches before you’re not really missing out as the changes are absolutely tiny. However, if you’re unfamiliar with the franchise then this isn’t a bad place to start.

This is a movie so unfunny that I felt that I’d found something more humorous in war movies. I’ve said before that the point of a comedy is to make you laugh but I don’t find “Anchorman” funny at all, which is a shame as it features lots of famous faces.

The film follows an anchorman named Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell “Elf”) and his news team during the 70s. The sexist bunch attempt to stop a woman named Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate “Hall Pass”) from becoming the new anchor. Through various silly ways they try and chat her up and then Burgundy starts going out with her but when she becomes the new anchor the tension gets stronger and the duo use every childlike way to get back at each other.

Will Ferrell is unfunny as the titular Ron Burgundy. I’m not really a fan of Ferrell. Veronica Corningston is a dull character but the rest of the characters are boring too. Steve Carell (“Get Smart”) stars as Brick, who is part of the news team. He’s not funny and just spouts out garabage. Various other comedic actors such as Jack Black (“School of Rock”), Vince Vaughn (“Wedding Crashers”) and Ben Stiller (“Duplex”) all make cameo appearances and are poor.

This movie is boring. The jokes are weak, the characters are dull and the plot is annoying. I really disliked this picture. It doesn’t have individual moments that scream out at me as being among the worst things I’ve seen but it’s so boring that as a whole it’s one of the worst things I’ve seen. I can’t believe that this film is often regarded by both critics and audiences as ‘good’. If you like watching boring films that don’t offer you anything that could even be considered as maybe being okay then I’m sure you’ll get on fine with “Anchorman” but if you’re normal you’ll hate this picture.

“Jaws” was a clever and terrifying movie because it had reasonable characters, it had a convincing monster and it was serious. Meanwhile this stupid rip-off has dumb characters, a very bad looking snake and comes off as rather corny.

“Anaconda” sets itself up really well but never delivers as we see a wildlife documentary film crew going into the Amazon searching for a lost tribe. They stumble upon dodgy Paul Serone (Jon Voight “Mission: Impossible”, “Transformers”), who secretly wants to use this ship and passengers to lure in a massive anaconda snake to catch it alive and become rich. After what seems like an eternity, we then find ourselves looking at badly filmed sections involving an awful looking snake eating people.

I actually enjoyed the performance from Jon Voight as the over the top snake hunter and I also appreciated the performance Jonathan Hyde (“Richie Rich”, “The Mummy”) as Warren Westridge but aside from them, the characters are really boring because they spout out stupid line after stupid line. The C.G. shots of the snake apparently cost at least tens of thousands for a second and I can safely say the filmmakers wasted their money; I’ve seen lots of films that have tons more special effects in it and they all look a hundred times more realistic than this.

“Anaconda” loses it when we see that it can’t deliver a satisfying creature and a decent group of characters. It’s a real shame as there was definitely potential to make a good film here as the prologue explains the giant snakes are a problem and we know wildlife documenters can sometimes run into problems. With films such as “Jaws”, the original “The Thing” and “Alien” why bother to see “Anaconda”? There isn’t one unless you feel you really have to see a snake film (it’s definitely a step up from “Snakes On A Plane”).

“An Eye For An Eye” is a relatively uneventful action picture starring Chuck Norris (“Lone Wolf McQuade”, “Firewalker”). Films like this are often the hardest to review because they are so unremarkable.

Sean Kane (Norris) is a tough San Francisco cop, who hands in his gun and badge after a partner is killed during an ambush. After another friend is also murdered, he decides to take the law into his own hands as he pursues leads in an attempt to find the men responsible. This hunt even sees him teaming up with his old martial arts mentor (Mako “Conan The Barbarian”).

Chuck Norris is completely forgettable here as he is given surprisingly few lines for a main character. His fighting skills are rather impressive still but it’s a shame that he doesn’t get to show them more throughout the duration of the movie. Richard Roundtree (“Shaft”) is somewhat amusing as Captain Stevens, who often gives Kane a grilling for his unorthodox methods. I found Mako’s performance to be more irritating than anything else. Christopher Lee (“The Wicker Man”) is pretty good as the villain but it’s a shame to see such a talented actor in a dud movie like this. Maggie Cooper is okay as Heather, the film’s love interest. The other characters aren’t very impressive.

“An Eye For An Eye” is not Chuck Norris’ best so if you haven’t seen them, try “The Delta Force” and “Lone Wolf McQuade” instead. I’ll admit that I enjoyed the action scenes and some of the other moments provided (unintentional) chuckles but overall, there is very little here to maintain your interest. What we essentially have here is a low budget rip-off of the “Dirty Harry” movies with some karate moves thrown in so if that’s what you want then “An Eye For An Eye” is the movie for you.

Combining the “Harold & Kumar” films with the “Bourne” franchise might have seemed like a good idea to the writers of the movie but “American Ultra” is a messy film. It stars Jesse Eisenberg (“The Social Network”, “Zombieland”) and Kristen Stewart (“Personal Shopper”, “Camp X-Ray”). The two first appeared together in the wonderful “Adventureland” and sadly “American Ultra” is nowhere near as good as their first pairing.

In this film, Mike Howell (Eisenberg) is a stoner that lives with his girlfriend Phoebe Larson (Stewart). When he is targeted for extermination by a slimy C.I.A. man (Topher Grace “Spider-Man 3”), Mike will uncover that he is actually a government agent with all types of skills that he never knew he had.

The main joke of the film is that Eisenberg is a scrawny and pathetic guy that is actually deadlier than the Terminator and it sadly gets old pretty fast. Eisenberg gives an okay performance but the material just feels mediocre. Watching him use more props to fight than Jackie Chan is somewhat funny but gets a little stale by the end of the film. Kristen Stewart does a good job but again the material is not anything special. Topher Grace is mildly amusing but he becomes more irritating as the movie continues. The other characters are not very impressive.

“American Ultra” contains some moderately amusing comedy and some moderately entertaining action sequences but this is a film that needs to have me laughing at one moment and thrilled during the next. Sadly, the movie just cannot hit the mark. If you are a big fan of Jesse Eisenberg then maybe check this one out and will say that the ending scene (including the end credits) is rather enjoyable. If you have not seen “Adventureland” yet then I would urge you to see that instead of “American Ultra”.

Clint Eastwood (“Bronco Billy”, “Sudden Impact”) directs this harsh true story of currently the most deadly sniper in American military history. Its narrative means that perhaps it isn’t as engaging as something such as “Black Hawk Down” but it is a good film.

Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper “Limitless”, “A-Team”) is just a regular southern American. When he sees attacks against the U.S. on tv, he decides to join the army. He’s stationed in Iraq fighting various insurgents throughout his tours and builds up a real reputation but everything isn’t okay in his mind. Slowly, he becomes unable to properly interact with his family and friends until there is only his job.

I’ve never really cared for Bradley Cooper. This film isn’t a great platform to showcase one’s acting talents as Chris Kyle is just a regular guy. He’s not quirky or anything like that and he’s a man of few words. Apparently, according to family and friends of the real Chris Kyle, he managed to captured the guy really well so if that’s true then I guess this is a good performance. The other characters don’t really matter that much, the focus is on Chris Kyle pretty much the whole time.

“American Sniper” is shocking. There is a scene involving a small child and a power drill and it is incredibly distressing so don’t think of this as being some Rambo-style version of events. It’s well-directed by Clint Eastwood, who manages to capture that realism to violence seen in his films “Unforgiven” and “True Crime”. The film has come under some fire with some calling it mindless propaganda; I have no clue as it to why anybody would think that. “American Sniper” is a pretty darn good war movie, it’s no “Full Metal Jacket” but it is a powerful piece that has the same approach, realism of fanciness.