“Saving Private Ryan” is big budget war movie made by the gifted director Steven Spielberg (“Raiders of the Lost Ark”, “Jaws”). For the most part, I believe it works well, I was just let down a lot by the final act. It’s a mixture of decent characters and overdone action sequences.

During World War II, a group of soldiers are led by Captain Miller (Tom Hanks “Toy Story 2”, “You’ve Got Mail”) as they go behind enemy lines. Their mission is to find a missing paratrooper, named James Ryan (Matt Damon “The Bourne Identity”, “We Bought A Zoo”) after his three brothers are all killed in action.

I think Tom Hanks is really good in this film as Captain Miller. He is the guy responsible for everybody else’s life and as a result, has come up with a way of rationalising causalities. I like the other soldiers in the team too (just not as much as I liked Hanks) as they all showcase the various side effects of being at war. Matt Damon is okay as Private Ryan but that could have honestly been anyone in that role. Sadly, I felt the characters were made a lower priority than the action.

The action scene near the beginning is really gory, really disorientating and just gets the feel of WWII right but all the later action scenes have a very unrealistic feel to them. I felt like I was watching another Michael Bay film such as “Bad Boys” or “Transformers”, which certainly wasn’t a good thing. I like the very first scene of the picture and afterwards, it just never lives up to that greatness. I’m sorry to say but Spielberg seemed to get two-thirds of the way through this picture and then fell into the trap of making another movie where it becomes just about the explosions. That’s when I stopped caring about the characters.

DC’s animated “Batman” movies continue to be hit or miss and sadly “The Long Halloween” is another miss. It has some interesting elements but at times, it feels more like it’s trying to be “The Godfather” rather than an adventure suitable for the Caped Crusader.

Batman (Jensen Ackles) and Harvey Dent team up to try and bring down mobster Carmine Falcone. Things get complicated when Falcone’s associates start being murdered every time there is a big public holiday. What starts on Halloween, continues to Thanksgiving and beyond. Batman tries to figure out the identity of ‘Holiday’ as the body count continues to rise.

Batman almost feels out of place in his movie here. While we all know that Batman is a brilliant detective, we don’t really get to see all that much of him trying to figure this stuff out, we spend more time with all the mob drama. Falcone is made to look like Marlon Brando in “The Godfather”. The Joker, Catwoman, Calendar Man and Solomon Grundy all appear but add very little to the movie. I’m really not a fan of the animation style for the characters. It often seems cheap and that’s a shame because the backgrounds look stunning at times.

This is only the first part of this story so maybe it will all come together by the end but as it stands, this first section of “Long Halloween” is a disappointment. Too much is going on here and it just becomes a mess. There is so much foreshadowing of Harvey Dent becoming Two-Face and so much mobster material but then you also throw in an elaborate fight with The Joker and more romance with Catwoman. I know this is based on a comic book storyline so its not the filmmakers’ fault. However, I think they should have taken some executive decisions and made some necessary alterations.

I was expecting a fun disco adventure after all the great things that I had heard about “Saturday Night Fever”. However, this movie is anything but fun. Very little of it is actually about dancing, it’s more of a depressing drama about some very unlikeable characters. This movie is the disturbed brother of “American Graffiti”.

“Saturday Night Fever” follows the exploits of a young Italian-American paint shop clerk by the name of Tony Manero (John Travolta “Swordfish”, “Grease”). Tony and his friends spend their nights cruising the streets, going to the disco and acting like complete jerks but Tony his eye on the trophy for an upcoming dance competition.

This movie made Travolta a star. He gets to show off some impressive dance moves but Tony Manero is anything but interesting. I did not want this guy to succeed because he is so incredibly unpleasant. Tony’s friends are also very mean-spirited. Karen Lynn Gorney (“The Hard Way”) is only vaguely tolerable as Stephanie, who becomes Tony’s dancing partner. All the characters in this film are severely lacking in personality. They offer nothing more than accents. So many of the interactions between the characters are just awkward and unnecessarily aggressive. We see dinner table arguments, beatings and even rapes.

The best parts of “Saturday Night Fever” are undoubtedly the dance sequences but they are not even filmed particularly well. I was looking forward to the big dance competition at the end of the film but it’s incredibly anti-climactic. The fact that nearly all the songs used in the movie are by the Bee Gees becomes really repetitive. I just do not understand why this is such a popular movie and why it is so iconic. This was a really challenging movie for me to sit through as it feels so long. I had really high hopes for this flick but what I got was a nasty surprise.

“Furious 7” is the seventh instalment in the unstoppable “Fast and the Furious” franchise. I’ve never really been a fan of these films but if you’re willing to turn your brain off, you can get some joy from the spectacle of the ridiculous action sequences. “Furious 7” is even more outrageous and juvenile than its predecessors. I really think a young boy with some toy cars writes these films.

In this movie, Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel “xXx”, “Pitch Black”) and his crew are being hunted down by the deadly Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham “The Transporter”), who is out for revenge. Toretto and the others are also recruited by a shadowy government agent (Kurt Russell “Escape From New York”) to steal a sophisticated cyberweapon.

I still don’t care for Vin Diesel, Paul Walker (“Running Scared”) or Tyrese Gibson (“Baby Boy”, “Transformers”). However, I think both Jason Statham and Kurt Russell are great here. I really wish Statham got some more scenes because whenever he’s on the screen, it’s just great. Michelle Rodriguez (“Machete”) and Dwayne Johnson (“Rampage”) are back too. Tony Jaa (“Ong-Bak”) has a small role but due to the editing, you don’t really get to appreciate his martial arts skills. Go and watch some of his films made in Thailand to see just how great he can be.

“Furious 7” is a stupid movie with attack helicopters, miniguns, cars parachuting out of planes and cars driving out of one skyscraper only to land in another skyscraper. The whole movie feels like a kid playing with whatever is in his toybox. It’s not an interesting movie but I cannot deny the fact that I had a good time watching all the explosions. It works on the same level as the “Transformers” movies so if you like watching robots slam into one another, you might like cars tearing up the streets and stuff blowing up.

While it is nothing truly revolutionary, “Santa Claus: The Movie” delivers heart-warming and fun Christmas adventure. The film does not seem to have been received very well and so I went into it with mixed expectations.

Santa Claus (David Huddleston “The Big Lebowski”, “Blazing Saddles”) delivers presents to the good boys and girl all over the world with help from the elves in his workshop. When the elf Patch (Dudley Moore “Arthur”) accidentally embarrasses Santa, he leaves the North Pole. In New York, he meets a corrupt businessman (John Lithgow “Cliffhanger”) that is eager to takeover Christmas with a dangerous product. Only Santa and his new friends, Joe and Cornelia, can save Christmas.

David Huddleston does a fine job as Santa Claus and he definitely looks the part. We actually get to see him before he becomes Santa, which is quite interesting. Dudley Moore is okay as Patch. Judy Cornwell (“Wuthering Heights”) is good as Mrs. Clause. John Lithgow steals the show as the dastardly B.Z., who should have really had more screen time. The kids in the movie are fine. The reindeer are quite good but there is no Rudolph (maybe they were saving him for a sequel). Burgess Meredith (“Rocky”) has a cameo.

“Santa Claus: The Movie” contains good special effects, lots of charming scenes in the workshop and a great performance from Lithgow. This is good wholesome Christmas fun. I think children will definitely enjoy it and I imagine most adults will find it hard to resist its charm. Again, I would have liked to have seen Lithgow more, particularly considering how much screen time Dudley Moore gets as Patch. I do not really know what people were expecting from it as I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. If you are looking for some light-hearted Christmas entertainment then look no further than “Santa Claus: The Movie”.

Supposedly one of the worst films of all-time, this is a messy display of bad writing, unforgivable goofiness and enough weirdness that at least offer to some comedic value. If you a major filmgoer like me then you might want to see this just to say you’ve seen a movie with this title.

In “Santa Claus Conquers The Martians”, it gets near Christmas time and Martian kids aren’t happy as they want Santa Claus (John Call) just like the children of Earth. This then makes a group of Martians kidnap Earth’s Santa and instead of him conquering them like the title suggests, he just opens a workshop there and madness occurs. There is no other way to describe it.

The acting and characters are very weak. Santa stays jolly all of the time, even when people attempt to kill him. Did Santa bang his head recently? The two innocent Earth children in it are very dull and depressing virtually all of the time. They just make Santa’s happiness even more inappropriate. The rest of the characters are excessively weak too. Also, you have a polar bear that walks more like a human and one of the worst robots you’ll ever see in a sci-fi movie.

“Santa Claus Conquers The Martians” isn’t one of the worst films I’ve ever seen as it does have some comedic value but it’s still really bad. Like “Robot Monster” and other memorable low budget films, it’s clearly bad on purpose and with a title like this you know what you are going to get so I wasn’t disappointed in that respect. If you are just an average moviegoer, stay clear of this one and certainly don’t whip it on at Christmas when you have your big family gathering as I somehow suspect they might not stay for turkey.

“Sanjuro” from director Akira Kurosawa (“Ran”, “Tokyo Story”) is a sequel to “Yojimbo”. Both films are terrific samurai pictures but I have to point out that I enjoyed this one just a little bit more. This is a smart film that is all about outsmarting one’s adversaries.

An intelligent and skilful samurai (Toshirô Mifune “Hell In The Pacific”) decides to help a group of men battle against corrupt elements within their clan. They are unquestionably outnumbered but with the right tactics, they may just be able to defeat their opponents. With danger at every turn, one wrong move may lead to certain death.

Toshirô Mifune is a talented actor and I have enjoyed his performances in other Kurosawa films such as “Rashomon” and it’s great to see him reprise the role from “Yojimbo”. I think “Sanjuro” does a better job of showing just how smart the character is. Sometimes, it gets olds seeing heroes just dash in and save the day so the ronin in “Sanjuro” makes a rather refreshing protagonist. The other characters are good and some of them are actually pretty funny at times. I like how the villains are not just idiots that fall for the samurai’s tricks at every opportunity.

I have now seen several of Kurosawa’s films but this is the first one that I have watched that I would consider a masterpiece. He is clearly a great director and he clearly perfected the samurai genre. Samurai movies appeal to me because they play very much like the Japanese versions of Western films (another great genre). I would strongly urge that you watch both “Yojimbo” and “Sanjuro”. You may end up preferring the first one but for me, “Sanjuro” is the superior instalment. I cannot wait to see if Kurosawa has any more truly magnificent films in his library.

Paul Schrader (“Auto Focus”) was given the task of making a prequel to “The Exorcist”. When the studio saw it, they hated it and commissioned Renny Harlin (“Deep Blue Sea”) to make a new version that was likely to be more commercially viable and have stronger ties to the older films in the franchise. Harlin’s film, “Exorcist: The Beginning”, flopped at the box-office and so the studio then released Schrader’s “Dominion”. It’s not exactly a director’s cut but it is interesting.

Merrin (Stellan Skarsgård “Thor”) leaves the priesthood and his faith after he’s forced to select people to be executed by the Nazis during WWII. Years later, he is working as an archaeologist in British East Africa. He helps to uncover a mysterious church. He may have helped unearth an ancient evil and now he will need God on his side if he is to defeat it.

Skarsgård is pretty forgettable as Merrin. This is the same role Max von Sydow (“The Seventh Seal”) played in the original film. Gabriel Mann is good as Father Francis. I also like the British military chaps. I like the possessed being that Merrin battles. It seems far more biblically accurate than the possessed girls in “The Exorcist” and “Exorcist: The Beginning”. However, some of the special effects are not so great and in one brief shot, the demon looks like Jim Carrey in “The Mask”.

“Dominion: Prequel To The Exorcist” is not the most exciting film with large sections where not much happens. That being said, parts of it reminded me of some of the old “Mummy” movies with all the archaeology going on. I also will praise this film for its more subtle depiction of evil. The demon in this feels about as close to Christian theology on demonic possession as I’ve seen in any Hollywood movie. It’s certainly a more intellectually ambitious picture than Harlin’s version. While I can’t quite recommend “Dominion”, I acknowledge its strengths.

“Curse Of Chucky” brings the “Child’s Play” franchise back to its more traditional horror roots. It definitely isn’t an outright comedy like “Bride Of Chucky” and “Seed Of Chucky” were. Parts of this movie are actually quite good but as it goes on, it loses it and becomes just another entry in this underwhelming series.

Nica Pierce (Fiona Dourif) finds her life taking a dangerous turn soon after a mysterious package with the doll of Chucky (voiced by Brad Dourif “Child’s Play”, “Alien: Resurrection”) inside it. As those around her start dying in horrible ways, she realises that the doll must be the key to the violence surrounding her.

The Chucky doll just isn’t scary. He’s the least intimidating slasher villain because he’s just a doll. That being said, some of the early sequences are surprisingly suspenseful. The effects for the doll have not got any more convincing since the late 80s and that’s a disappointment. The human characters are just not that interesting. Two of them engage in a secretive romantic relationship that adds very little to the movie. It just seems like an excuse to get some kissing in this otherwise quite sexually tame horror flick. By the way, Fiona Dourif is actually the real-life daughter of Brad Dourif.

The dinner sequence is genuinely really suspenseful and keeps you on edge. Although I predicted who would die, the way it unfolds is actually very clever. Soon after that, we see more of Chucky actually moving and it then becomes the same nonsense we’ve seen several times before. If you’re a big fan of the earlier “Child’s Play” movies, you may like the return to a more serious tone. However, these films have always been pretty campy and silly. It’s certainly not absolutely awful but I cannot recommend it.

“The Bunker” is not the first nor the last film to focus on the final days of the leader of Nazi Germany but it is an excellent picture. It shows very little of the fighting with the strengths of the movie being both the performances and the writing.

During the final days of WWII, Adolf Hitler (Anthony Hopkins “Silence of the Lambs”, “Remains of the Day”) is hiding out in a bunker in Berlin. He is constantly faced with news of German defeats. He dismisses these reports and remains adamant that ultimate victory is assured. He slowly comes to accept the reality of the situation as the Allied forces close in on the city.

Anthony Hopkins is superb as Hitler. This is a man that looks like he’s becoming weaker by the moment. His aggressive rants to those around him often seem like attempts to convince himself that Germany can still win. There are also great performances from other members of the cast such as Richard Jordan (“Logan’s Run”) as Albert Speer, Cliff Gorman (“Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai”) as Joseph Goebbels and Michael Lonsdale (“Moonraker”) as Martin Bormann. Also, Michael Sheard (“High Road To China”) looks exactly like Heinrich Himmler.

This is a brilliant movie about the hardship of accepting defeat. Hitler and the Nazis are often depicted as powerful and threatening but here, we see them in a more vulnerable state as the Soviets, the British and the rest push through Europe. We see the anti-Semitic and generally hateful ideology that once looked like it was destined to become dominant across the world in its retreat. We of course know how the movie will end but it’s about how we get there. A bunker is not the most exciting place to shoot a movie. However, it allows us to focus on the acting and the dialog as we are away from the noise and spectacle of the combat.