Sean Connery (“The Hunt For Red October”) is back as Britain’s favourite spy James Bond in “Diamonds Are Forever”. The film delivers reasonable well on action and a little bit on humour the film lacks the “Bond” pacing and edge seen in both previous and later instalments of the series.

James Bond is out for vengeance as he hunts down the evil Blowfeld (Charles Gray “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”) but is later dragged into an investigation about diamond smuggling extortion plot when he arrives in Las Vegas only to discover it is once again the work of his arch nemesis Blowfeld. Through battling the bad guys, faking death and kissing pretty girls Bond must defeat Blowfeld before it’s too late.

Sean Connery just seemed a little old by the time this one came out as I feel Bond needs some age to give him that sophistication and matureness but he needs to be at an age where it’s believable that he can actually take on the bad guys. Charles Gray is probably the worst incarnation of Blofeld as he lacks the menace of Donald Pleasant and I consider him to be campy. The Bond girls are rubbish in this one as they lack the charisma of past and future ones. None of the characters are particularly exciting I must say.

“Diamonds Are Forever” isn’t the kind “Bond” film I love as I find it is quite a weak one I must say. Although there’s action and some okay comedy “Diamonds Are Forever” is too campy for me and not the fun kind of campy sadly. James Bond deserves a more sophisticated mission as in this film they make like Bond finds it child’s play and Bond deserves far better than that because he’s too good for that kind of stuff. This Bond isn’t horrible it just can’t get its act together with the story for me.

“Dial M For Murder” is a devilishly good thriller from Alfred Hitchcock (“North By Northwest”, “Vertigo”). It reminded me a lot of his films “Rope” and “Rear Window”. Hitchcock knows how to reel in his audience and keep them fully engaged with very little action.

In this film, Tony Wendice (Ray Milland “The Big Clock”, “The Lost Weekend”) wants his unfaithful wife (Grace Kelly “High Noon”) murdered. He pays an old acquittance (Anthony Dawson “Dr. No”) to carry out the crime but things do not go exactly to plan. It quickly descends into a game of wits but Chief Inspector Hubbard (John Williams “Sabrina”) will not be easily fooled.

A lot of the film takes place within one room (similar to “Rope”) so it’s quite interesting to see the characters contained in such a small space. If you are going to do that then you need the characters to be interesting and the performances to be captivating and I can safely say that Ray Milland, Grace Kelly and John Williams are all terrific. However, I think Robert Cummings (“The Black Book”) could have been better as Mark Halliday, who is having an affair with Grace Kelly’s Margot Wendice. Many of the interactions between the characters are quite frankly fascinating.

It’s not a perfect Hitchcock film but it is remarkably entertaining. The fact that the majority of it only takes place within one room helps create a real sense of tension as there are only a few brief moments that take place away from the main setting. I seriously enjoyed all the great twists and turns that the story takes and it reaches a rather satisfying conclusion. If you are a fan of Hitchcock or the crime thriller genre then I strongly urge you to check out “Dial M For Murder”.

The first movie from the awful Happy Madison (Adam Sandler’s film company) was “Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo”. It’s a rather bad comedy film starring Rob Schneider (“The Animal”, “Surf Ninjas”) that combines unfunny antics with equally unfunny dialog. There are a few brief moments of humour that are crushed by the rest of the film.

Deuce Bigalow (Schneider) is an aquarium cleaner that housesits for a gigolo (Oded Fehr “The Mummy”). When he accidentally wrecks the place, Deuce finds himself forced to become a gigolo to pay to repair the damage he has done. Most of his clients are very weird but ultimately ends up falling in love with the vaguely normal one.

Rob Schneider is not particularly funny. As you might have guessed with this type of film, Deuce Bigalow is not very good at being a gigolo and manages to do anything and everything but make love to his clients. Schneider’s reliance on toilet humour is pretty lame and the scene where he seductively dances for a client is almost as bad as when Mike Myers danced in his underwear in the first “Austin Powers” movie. The client with narcolepsy is mildly funny but the rest of them are just strange and/or annoying. William Forsythe (“The Devil’s Rejects”) is terrible as Detective Fowler. Eddie Griffin (“Undercover Brother”) is also not funny as Deuce’s pimp. Oded Fehr is mildly amusing here.

“Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo” is a film that will appeal to those that enjoyed films such as “Billy Madison”, “The Animal” and “Big Daddy”. There are a few bits and pieces that are undeniably kind of funny such as when he tricks an attractive woman working in a pet shop to unintentionally wet her shirt. However, much of the movie is not remotely funny and there is just no getting away from that fact.

You get several Japanese giant monsters for the price of one with “Destroy All Monsters”. Fans of seeing guys in rubber monster suits will no doubt have fun with this film but I think it could have been a little better. The potential was there to create something spectacular and there are glimpses of it.

In “Destroy All Monsters”, an alien race take control of several monsters including Godzilla, Mothra and Rodan and have them destroy some of the Earth’s major cities. In order to save the world, the aliens’ control of the monsters must be broken but the aliens have quite possibly the most sinister monster on their side.

It’s great to see Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, Baragon and several others all in one film. We do get to see them cause some carnage as they attack various cities across the world but I think there could have been a few more scenes showing them flattening the major population centres. In the end, the monsters all join together to battle King Ghidorah in a highly enjoyable final showdown. It almost feels like an unfair match considering we have already seen Ghidorah lose to just two monsters. The humans are not terribly exciting and we seem to spend a little too much time with them.

“Destroy All Monsters” undeniably has funny and enjoyable moments and I think some more carnage could have made this film great. Unfortunately, the monster action feels a little light and that is a real shame considering so many monsters are present. It’s still nice to see so many creatures onscreen together, the special effects are rather pleasing and the plot is okay. Fans of the “Godzilla” franchise will probably be able to overlook the film’s flaws and just enjoy “Destroy All Monsters” for what it is.

“Desperado” is the funny, violent and stylish movie from director Robert Rodriguez (“Spy Kids”, “Machete”). This is a movie featuring insanely entertaining action scenes and slick characters; it’s quite simply fast-paced fun and far better than a lot of Rodriguez’s films.

In “Desperado”, guitar-playing, gun-slinging hero El Mariachi (Antonio Banderas “Shrek 2”) is out for revenge after his girlfriend was murdered. He spends his time opening up his guitar case jam-packed with guns and then diving around as he levels the place. It’s a standard set-up for the action scenes and it knows it but it offers plenty of great pieces of dialog too.

Banderas is great here as creates a magnificent anti-hero. Salma Hayek and Danny Trejo, who have both along with Banderas worked on several of Rodriguez’s pictures and they are quite good. My favourite character has to be the one played by Steve Buscemi (“Fargo”, “The Big Lebowski”), especially during the opening scene involving him talking an awful lot in a bar. I also really like Quentin Tarantino (“Pulp Fiction”) in his small role as the fast-talking jerk, he usually comes across as and he too has collaborated with Rodriguez multiple times. I’m surprised Rodriguez hasn’t made a role for himself in his films, the way that his friend Tarantino does in both Rodriguez’s and his own.

This film could easily occupy the same universe Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” does and that’s a real compliment. My favourite scenes in this film are the beginning and I also love the scene where Banderas and a bad guy keep trying to shoot each other but each gun is empty. The only part where this film disappoints is the final encounter with the villain but “Desperado” is almost as funny as it is violent and almost as violent as it stylish.

“Dennis The Menace” is based on the U.S. comic strip and cartoon as opposed to the British comic strip (both comic strips were created the same year). “Dennis The Menace” should be a harmless children’s film filled with some laughs but sadly all the characters seem very mean-spirited and it’s because of that it isn’t as funny as it should be.

Meet Dennis Mitchell (Mason Gamble), who keeps terrorising his next door neighbour Mr. Wilson (Walter Matthau “Charade”). When Dennis’ parents leave town the young menace finds himself in the company of Mr. Wilson where things go from bad to worse. Can Dennis mend his relationship with Mr. Wilson?

Dennis should be a loveable kind of menace but unfortunately for the majority of the film he just seems plain bad like Junior in the awful “Problem Child”. Towards the end he does have a loveable side to him as he foils the bad guy. The bad guy is Switchblade Sam played amusingly by Christopher Lloyd (“Back To The Future”). Every character from Dennis to the other kids even to Mr. Wilson has a scene where they are unnecessarily mean, which just ruined the film for me. I did feel very sorry for Mr. Wilson though as I think he gets more bad things happen to him than the bad guy. My advice to the characters would be for Dennis’ parents to seriously discipline their boy and for Mr. Wilson to get a restraining order.

“Dennis The Menace” is spoilt by the fact all the characters have times where they are just nasty and some of the things Dennis does are really dangerous but could potentially be done by a child so yet another reason to try to steer clear of this film. It’s a charming film to look at and the physical comedy is decent for a young children’s film but it’s the characters that prove to be the downfall.

Sylvester Stallone (“Rocky”, “First Blood”) and Wesley Snipes (“Blade”, “Boiling Point”) go against each other in a futuristic thriller that is severely lacking in some areas.

Police officer John Spartan (Stallone) and brutal criminal Simon Phoenix (Snipes) are both cryogenically frozen and their minds are altered for when they awaken over thirty years into the future. Something has gone wrong and Phoenix is even more violent than he was before so the police of the future who are not trained for his behaviour as they live in a ‘perfect’ world enlist the help of John Spartan. Now the two must fight one another for the last time because this future isn’t big enough for the both of them.

Sylvester Stallone is quite frankly boring as John Spartan. Wesley Snipes gives one of the few decent performances as you feel like he was having fun playing the villain. Sandra Bullock (“The Blind Side”, “Speed”) stars as one of the future’s police officers and she spouts out loads of unfunny things such as getting phrases from the 20th century messed up and saying Arnold Schwarzenegger was President Schwarzenegger at one time. Dennis Leary (“Ice Age”) gives a good performance but he has a small amount of time on the screen.

“Demolition Man” features good action scenes and Wesley Snipes is good as the villain. It does suffer from trying very hard to be amusing, the future is perhaps a little too perfect and lots of the characters just don’t work. “Demolition Man” doesn’t do it for me and that’s a shame as the premise seems quite good but maybe the whole perfect future isn’t my thing. I admit that there is definitely more potential in a dystopian future as seen in such films as the “Mad Max” franchise and another Stallone picture named “Judge Dredd”.

“Deepwater Horizon” is an incredibly realistic film about the infamous incident surrounding a BP oil rig in 2010. Prior to the actual catastrophe, the film seems slow and mundane but that’s what helps it create such an authentic feel.

In “Deepwater Horizon”, a group of workers on an oil rig are pressured by BP employees to carry out exploratory drilling but due to cost-cutting, when problems occur, it ends up resulting in the worst oil spill in American history. The oil rig workers must fight for their lives in order to escape the rig, which is now engulfed in flames.

Mark Wahlberg (“Lone Survivor”, “Three Kings”) plays a worker named Mike Williams and is totally believable and you want to see him return home safely to his family. Kurt Russell (“Stargate”, “Soldier”) plays Jimmy Harrell, who is in charge of the oil rig, and he does a great job. The best role is reserved for John Malkovich (“Burn After Reading”), who plays the BP employee. One aspect of the film that I dislike is that Malkovich’s character makes sure he gets in a reference to his ‘employers in London’ as even though BP is an American company, many still believe it is British and anti-British sentiment in America increased during the real-life disaster in 2010 due to the misinformation about the company’s ownership.

“Deepwater Horizon” looks fantastic during the explosive final act where the oil rig is crumbling and it greatly contrasts the earlier parts of the film that were very slow. If you want an exciting blockbuster then maybe this isn’t the film for you (even considering that this film probably contains more explosions than Michael Bay’s “Transformers” movies) but if you want a film that realistically depicts a real-life disaster then “Deepwater Horizon” is certainly going to meet your demands.

Unlike the first “Jaws” movie, “Deep Blue Sea” isn’t scary, it is without suspense and the special effects are unrealistic. Although better than all of the “Jaws” sequels I didn’t care for this movie much.

In “Deep Blue Sea”, we learn that at a special research facility some scientists are trying to find a way to get of Alzheimer’s disease using sharks but there is a side-effect, the sharks are getting smarter. The sharks soon start tearing up the place and the people at the facility must find a way out before they drown and before the sharks snap them up. So through various ridiculous antics we see person after person die in some of the most amusing death scenes I’ve ever seen.

Thomas Jane (“The Punisher”) stars as the shark wrangler Carter. He’s an average action hero and is sadly probably one of the better characters. Samuel L. Jackson (“Snakes On A Plane”) stars in this movie about fighting back against nature, which isn’t nearly as good as his other movie about fighting back against nature; “Jurassic Park”. He’s just okay in it. LL Cool J (S.W.A.T) is alright at best in this movie. The rest of the characters are mediocre at best. The sharks themselves look unconvincing.

The special effects in this film are laughable. Unlike “Jaws”, it’s only a matter of minutes before we get to see the sharks in this film. The suspense just isn’t there. In a movie like this I should care about when someone gets eaten, I found myself laughing as the unconvincing effects made way for some of the most hysterical death scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie. Again although it is nowhere near as bad as the sequels to “Jaws” and is probably one of the best movies about sharks ever made it just isn’t very fun to watch and you don’t get anything from it.

It took Jackie Chan (“Rush Hour”, “The Twin Dragons”) several attempts before he became a hit in America. His first attempt was the abysmal “Battle Creek Brawl” (also known as “The Big Brawl”), which is easily one of his weakest films. Director Robert Clouse was hoping for another success like his “Enter The Dragon” with this one but he definitely did not get it.

Set in the 1930s, Jerry Kwan (Chan) likes to fight and wants to keep his father’s restaurant safe from local gangsters. The criminals see potential in Jerry’s abilities and take action to force him into a brutal street fighting competition in Texas.

Chan is known for his fast moves but here, the fights are so darn slow. It also is not helped by the fact that he’s fighting big men that move slowly most of the time. Chan also did not have the best English skills at the time so his performance is quite weak as he is clearly struggling with the dialog. Mako (“Conan The Barbarian”, “Pearl Harbour”) plays Jackie’s uncle, who trains him for the fights. The other fighters are all pretty boring. The main opponent is a big muscle man that has a bizarre kissing gimmick when he fights.

“Battle Creek Brawl” has a really irritating theme tune that plays throughout the duration of the picture. It also has some of the worst fight scenes ever featured in a Jackie Chan film (even the final bout is rather unremarkable). None of the acting is very good and the plot is completely disposable. No wonder Chan failed to make a real name for himself in the United States with this movie. There really is not much going for this one at all and the only reason why Jackie Chan fans may want to see it is so that they can see just how badly Hollywood understood him at first.