“Miss Congeniality” is a movie that thinks it is funny but it’s far from that; this doesn’t even work as a movie for girls only as it is so unorganised and quite frankly gross at points as it takes an actress (Sandra Bullock “Speed”, “While You Were Sleeping”) who at the time was still relatively attractive and turns her into an utter pig.

In “Miss Congeniality”, F.B.I. agent Gracie Hart (Bullock) must enter the beauty pageant known as “Miss United States” as Miss New Jersey in order to catch a bomber known as ‘Citizen’ (Kane perhaps). She is not a very feminine woman and must undergo a series of makeovers and lessons into how to act like a lady from coach Victor Melling (Michael Caine “Batman Begins”, “Escape To Victory”).

Sandra Bullock is clearly trying but the material she is given makes her highly unlikeable. The other girls in the pageant are really dull and lack any personality. This whole film tries to make you understand pageant girls aren’t just pretty faces but here that’s all they are. William Shatner (“Airplane II: The Sequel”) is amusing in it but has very little screen-time. Benjamin Bratt (“Catwoman”) is horrible in this picture. Michael Caine is alright at best.

“Miss Congeniality” is a movie I could recommend if I felt girls would enjoy it but I really don’t feel they would as if anything probably men would. The jokes fall flat, the main character is not fun to watch, the plot is a bit boring and heck, even the premise is a bit boring. “Miss Congeniality” gets thumbs down from me for just lacking key ingredients to make a good comedy despite having a few moments that work. I’m sure there are plenty of other movies similar that are superior to this one.

When discussing the film adaptations of Stephen King’s novels, people often mention “Misery”. I went into this film with very high expectations but was left bitterly disappointed. It’s not a terrible film but some of the performances just drained the material of the tension.

Paul Sheldon (James Caan “Bottle Rocket”, “The Godfather”) is the successful author behind the “Misery” books. Wanting to move away from the popular series, he decides to write something new but ends up in a horrific car accident when travelling to his publisher. He is rescued by Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates “Titanic”), an obsessive fan with a mean temper.

James Caan does a good job as a humble writer that finds himself in every famous person’s worst nightmare. The scenes with just Caan are the best in the film. My most significant problem with this film is the performance from Kathy Bates. It’s often cited as one of the great thriller performances but to me, it just comes across as overdone. Bates’ acting transforms Annie Wilkes from a genuinely disturbing character to a cartoon caricature of a psychopath. The other performances are not very good and I really did care for Sheriff Buster (Richard Farnsworth “The Straight Story”). We get a lot of screen-time with him but the pay-off is incredibly poor.

“Misery” should have been terrifying but instead it comes across as a little cheesy. I do not get why people were so impressed with the performance from Bates. I have seen plenty of other films including “Psycho”, “Cape Fear” and “A Clockwork Orange” that present much more chilling villains than this. Maybe I’m wrong but I do not think that this is one of the better Stephen King movies out there. Try “The Shining” if you want something disturbing, “The Green Mile” if you want something moving or “Maximum Overdrive” if you want to laugh.

“Miracles” (also known as “Mr. Canton And Lady Rose”) is a Jackie Chan (“Rush Hour”, “Mr. Nice Guy”) crime/comedy based on Frank Capra’s “A Pocketful Of Miracles”, which itself is a remake of Capra’s “Lady For A Day”. This movie shows that Jackie Chan is capable of directing a stylish film with lavish sets and costumes. His signature action is also on display and it is as impressive as ever.

Set in Hong Kong during the 1930s, we follow a good-natured man (Chan) who inadvertently becomes a mob boss after purchasing a rose from Madam Kao (Ah-Lei Gua). He becomes superstitious and will not go anywhere without buying a rose from her. In order to repay her for giving him good luck, he decides to help her with family problems but it proves to be a bigger task than he could have imagined.

Jackie Chan plays the nice guy that falls into the dangerous world of gangs and he does a great job. His stunts and fighting moves are terrific here despite the film having relatively few action sequences when compared to his other films. Some of the other characters are pretty funny and the costume design for everybody is great.

“Miracles” is supposedly Jackie Chan’s favourite of his own films and it’s an interesting choice because the movie was not a big hit at the box-office. Fans of Chan’s martial arts work will not be disappointed by the creative and elaborate fights. Those less obsessed about the fighting might find this one more a little more to the taste because it’s a little slower and has more substance than many of his big action flicks such as “Project A”, “Police Story” and “Rumble In The Bronx”. Maybe it drags on a little too long and not all the jokes are great but this is a fun picture with some great slapstick action.

Steven Spielberg, the man behind classic gems such as the “Indiana Jones” movies, brings us another wondrous work in the form of the thrilling sci-fi adventure “Minority Report”.

Set in 2054, “Minority Report” features a Washington D.C without murders thanks to three special beings, called the ‘Pre-Cogs’. They can see murders before they happen. A special police division called ‘Precrime’ are the ones enforcing their predictions as they cypher through footage the Pre-Cogs have found to find the location of the future murder. Officer John Anderton (Tom Cruise “Top Gun”) is framed for a future murder and the clock is ticking for him to prove his innocence. Along the way, he must hide from the enforcers of the ‘perfect’ system he has helped create.

Tom Cruise is surprisingly fantastic as the man on the run. He makes the character believable and is all-round 100% entertaining to watch. Tom Cruise can be good in movies but I frequently find his performances to be laughable. Colin Farrell (“DareDevil”) is good as the sneaky Danny Witwer, who is determined to bring in Anderton. Max von Sydow (“The Seventh Seal”) is also entertaining to watch here. The Pre-Cogs are genuinely quite creepy at times.

“Minority Report” made me think of Fritz Lang’s classic “Metropolis” as well as more recent movies such as “The Fifth Element” and “Judge Dredd”. Even “Total Recall” came to mind but despite the similarities, “Minority Report” is incredibly unique and creative. The movie’s suspense is brilliant throughout. The acting is solid, the characters are interesting, the plot is terrific and the special effects are incredible. The film is absolutely wonderful on every level and I’m surprised that this film, despite having a very good critical reception, isn’t even more widely loved. I do however caution parents that this movie is very strong and it has its rating for a reason so if your child is easily scared, best let them wait a while before they see the magnificent but shocking “Minority Report”.

“Midnight In Paris” is a wonderful movie with a touch of fantasy almost like a combination of “Lost In Translation” and “Groundhog Day”. The movie was directed with real elegance and charm by the great Woody Allen (“Annie Hall”, “Blue Jasmine”) in what is clearly one of his finest films.

A nostalgic screenwriter and wannabe novelist by the name of Gil (Owen Wilson “Cars”, “Zoolander”) is on holiday with his fiancée (Rachel McAdams “Red Eye”) and her parents in Paris. At midnight, every night, he gets inside an old-fashioned car and finds himself swept into the 1920s where he meets many of his artistic and cultural idols.

I’m not really much of a fan of Owen Wilson’s work but I think the material here is so good that he didn’t irritate me as much as he usually does. Rachel McAdams was fine as Inez and I like Kurt Fuller (“Ghostbusters 2”) as her father. We get to see F. Scott Fitzgerald (Tom Hiddleston “Thor”), Salvador Dali (Adrien Brody “The Pianist”), Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll “Non-Stop”) and many others and they’re all great and help create the fantastic 20s look and feel. I like Michael Sheen (“Underworld”), who basically serves as Gil’s rival as they try to outsmart one another when discussing art. Also, keep an eye out for Nicolas Sarkozy’s wife, Carla Bruni.

This is a beautiful movie about a man’s love of the culture and history of one of the world’s greatest cities. Movies like this take you to a place that maybe of fantasy but never seems too far from reality and that’s what makes it so special. If you’re a fan of Woody Allen or any of the great artists of the 20s then this is definitely worth checking out but I imagine the movie is charming enough to entertain the masses.

“Messenger Of Death” is a serious disappointment. It stars Charles Bronson (“Death Wish”, “Death Hunt”) and instead of being the usual action flick, it tries to be more creative a more of a detective sort-of film and it fails miserably. The worst thing about it is that it is so unmemorable.

In this film, Bronson plays an investigative journalist by the name of Garret Smith. While investigating a recent massacre, he ends up discovering a complex feud between two Mormon brothers and it’s about as exciting as it sounds. Is there more to this feud than it first seems? Who cares?

Bronson is a great actor and here he is completely wasted. He’s given so little to do that you could’ve stuck just about anybody in the film. Don’t get me wrong, he certainly makes the film better than it would’ve been but this is surely a waste of his time. Trish Van Devere (“The Changeling”) plays another investigative journalist and does nothing. The other characters are remotely interesting, there isn’t even anything interesting about the film’s villains. There is virtually nothing to talk about; the whole Mormon angle goes nowhere and I can’t remember anything about anybody else in it.

“Messenger Of Death” has a car chase scene that goes nowhere, it has a few fistfights that go nowhere and it has some classy parties where nothing happens. The whole film is sort-of in this weird limbo. Nothing is really bad about it because there is nothing to be bad, nothing is good about it because there is nothing to be good. “Messenger Of Death” isn’t smart enough to be interesting and it doesn’t have enough happening to be anything else. Actually, there is something good about the film, I like the atmospheric music during the title credits. There you go, watch the opening credits and then turn it off.

“Mercury Rising” is a silly and predictable yet fun thriller movie starring Bruce Willis (“Die Hard”, “The Sixth Sense”). Despite a couple of real idiotic things, this movie succeeds because of the performances.

In “Mercury Rising”, Willis is F.B.I. agent Art Jeffries, who finds himself caught in the middle of a massive government conspiracy, all because an autistic boy named Simon (Miko Hughes “Apollo 13”, “Kindergarten Cop”) innocently cracked America’s defence code and rang up a secret government department. Now Simon’s life is in danger and Jeffries is the only one who can save him but not far behind is one of the government’s top assassins (Lindsey Ginter “S.W.A.T.”).

I really like the performances given by Bruce Willis and the young boy Miko Hughes and their interaction is also great. My favourite character/performance however is the ruthless government superior Nick Kudrow, played by Alec Baldwin (“The Hunt For Red October”, “Beetlejuice”) and it’s a shame he doesn’t get more screen time. The conversation he has with Willis in a wine cellar is actually quite interesting as we see Baldwin isn’t playing a villain as such but rather someone who has to do questionable things to protect his nation. I also like the assassin, who really reminds you of the T-1000 from “Terminator 2”.

“Mercury Rising” is stupid in the sense that without any form of key Simon cracks the code but it’s things like this that show the film isn’t taking itself too seriously and therefore we can sit back and relax. I also would like to praise the action scenes, although there aren’t too many of them and they aren’t amazing. I’d put this in the same league as movies such as “Chain Reaction”, which a thriller with a goofy side as well as featuring a big star (that one has Keanu Reeves from “The Matrix”).

Steven Seagal (“Under Siege”, “Urban Justice”) stars in “Mercenary For Justice”, an action film that packs a decent punch but suffers from a variety of other issues. It’s actually quite enjoyable to begin with but as it goes on, more and more problems appear.

“Mercenary For Justice” has a needlessly complicated plot involving covert warfare on an African island controlled by the French, retrieving the body of a fallen comrade, a bank heist and a prison break that both take place in South Africa as well as mother and son taken hostage in America. There’s just way too much going on for us to understand any of it or care.

Seagal takes out many bad guys without ever breaking into a sweat. He shoots, punches and blows up various enemies. One rather amusing scene has him force an enemy into submission without even having to get out of his chair. There are way too many characters in this film and everybody keeps double crossing everybody else and it just becomes a real mess. I just lost interest because I had no idea what was going on because you are just overloaded with way too much information. The film is at its best when all the characters just shut up and starting shooting at each other.

“Mercenary For Justice” opens like a war movie with a massive shootout. It’s a great scene with some explosive action and the prison break sequence later on is quite good too. However, most of the movie is just your average action flick stuff. As I keep emphasising, the plot is just all over the place with a massive surplus of threads. Big fans of Seagal might want to check this one out but most people are going to find it a forgettable picture with a convoluted story that they won’t care to decipher.

Steven Seagal (“Under Siege”, “On Deadly Ground”) stars in the rather average “Mercenary: Absolution” (or just “Absolution” as it is also known), which is so formulaic that you’ll feel as though you’ve seen everything in the film about a dozen times.

In “Mercenary: Absolution”, Seagal plays a contract killer by the name of John, who is doing a routine hit in Ukraine with his partner (Byron Mann). He crosses paths with a young girl fleeing a group of thugs and decides to protect her. John then decides to set himself the task of killing the ‘Boss’ (Vinnie Jones “Snatch”), who beat her and killed her sister, in order to absolve himself of his years of killing for cash.

Seagal may want to absolve himself of the years of mediocre action pictures but here, he merely adds to his list of sins. Seagal’s performance is somewhat amusing in that he looks incredibly bored in nearly every single scene as if he even acknowledges that this film isn’t all that great. Thankfully he seems to have dropped the sappy environmental themes that plagued some of his earlier pictures such as “Fire Down Below”. Vinnie Jones is also amusing in a role that requires him to be a crime boss that is sick enough to torture girls but dumb enough to record himself doing it (his videos sort of reminded me of “Videodrome”).

“Mercenary: Absolution” is a moderately entertaining action film with some okay action sequences. There isn’t anything bad about the movie, it’s just none of it is better than average. I think the movie’s low budget is symbolic of its ambitions, it aims to deliver shootouts and explosions but nothing fancy enough for you to remember any of it. Fans of Seagal will probably enjoy this movie and those that don’t care for his work almost certainly will not be impressed.

I’ve said before that I enjoyed the first “Men In Black” but the sequels are weak. This one is not a rehash like the second one but it’s not enjoyable like the second one. Despite having a continuation and some good ideas it just doesn’t work.

Will Smith (“Wild Wild West”, “Men In Black”) is Agent J and Tommy Lee Jones (“Volcano”) is Agent K. When Boris The Animal (Jemaine Clement “Despicable Me”) escapes a maximum-security prison on the Moon he goes back in time to 1969 and kills Agent K. In order to prevent an alien invasion Agent J must go back in time and help a young version of Agent K (Josh Brolin “The Goonies”) defeat Boris The Animal and save the Earth from an invasion.

Will Smith is alright at best as Agent J. Tommy Lee Jones was great as Agent K the first time around but in the sequels he’s dull. The two like the chemistry they had the first time just like in the second one. Josh Brolin does a surprisingly good job as the young version of Agent K. Agent J and young Agent K actually have better chemistry than Agent J and present-day Agent K. The villain in the film is just awful. Emma Thompson (“Junior”) is horrendously bad as Agent O.

The special effects are reasonable, the action is okay and there are a few intriguing things about time travelling here but most of the film is let-down. It’s a real shame as I hoped they would have realised that the second one was bad and this one needed to get the series back on track. This movie failed to entertain me and I think most people will dislike it as it is just effect after effect that lacks something that made the first film good.