Kenneth Branagh (“Hamlet”, “Thor”) directs and stars in this overly complicated and all-round disappointing retelling of the classic “Frankenstein” story. There is something great about the simplicity of the earlier “Frankenstein” films that makes this one unnecessary.

Dr. Frankenstein (Branagh) is obsessed with creating his own life but when he does finally create a man, he disowns the creature (Robert De Niro “Taxi Driver”, “Raging Bull”). As a result, Frankenstein’s Monster eventually comes to get revenge. After his family is attacked, Frankenstein finds the only way to right his wrong is to make a female companion for the creature.

I really like Branagh’s portrayal of Frankenstein and his performance is easily the best part of the picture. The other characters were dull, I was especially disappointed by the fellow mad scientist played by John Cleese (“Rat Race”) as he could have been whacky but he was just a real bore. De Niro is a bad choice for Frankenstein’s Monster (who is never actually even referred to as a ‘monster’ or ‘creature’ in this film) in my opinion. I dislike the look of the monster and I hated how sophisticated he was as I adore the primitiveness of the creature in various other versions.

This version of “Frankenstein” gives me loads of information I never cared to know and it is the Monster that is the nail in the coffin. The scenes with Frankenstein are good but I found after the scene when the creature escapes the lab, the film when drastically downhill and spiralled into a mess. I thought a classy filmmaker like Branagh would understand the beauty of the older “Frankenstein” material but here it seems he didn’t quite get it. I enjoyed the Frankenstein character and the scene where the creature is created is very enjoyable and memorable but the rest of the film didn’t do it for me. It’s a different kind of “Frankenstein” picture… I’ll give you that.

Not in any way connected to the television series of the same name starring Sammo Hung, the film “Martial Law” is awful cop movie with some underwhelming martial arts action. It’s so low-budget that it looks like it was made in the 70s rather than 1990.

Sean ‘Martial Law’ Thompson (Chad McQueen “The Karate Kid”) is a tough cop that fears that his younger brother might be involved in gang activity. Thompson and his colleague and lover, Billie Blake (Cynthia Rothrock “China O’Brien”, “Sworn To Justice”), must defeat the ruthless Dalton Rhodes (David Carradine “Death Race 2000”) and his deadly gang.

Chad McQueen is absolutely abysmal as Thompson. He’s arguably the dullest actor I’ve seen in an action film. Granted, he has a poor script to work with but he makes Jean-Claude Van Damme (“Bloodsport”) look like Orson Welles (“Citizen Kane”). He has no personality whatsoever and his martial arts skills don’t seem all that impressive. Cynthia Rothrock is a little better and she certainly does know how to fight. Too bad that the rest of the movie is so terrible. David Carradine is bland as the villain and he is not a real martial artist. The fight scenes involving Carradine look seriously lame. I recognised Benny Urquidez (“Dragons Forever”) and Toru Tanakaa (“The Running Man”, “Last Action Hero”) as henchmen.

“Martial Law” is a lousy movie from beginning to end. It’s a painfully generic cop flick with a completely forgettable plot. Some of the acting is truly horrendous. I almost have a new level of appreciation for some of the Steven Seagal films such as “Hard To Kill” and “Marked For Death”. Cynthia Rothrock is a capable martial artist but she needs a film that doesn’t look like it was filmed on a budget equal to the cost of a cheap car.

Steven Seagal (“Under Siege”, “Hard To Kill”) returns in another underwhelming action flick. If you’ve seen a Seagal film or pretty much any police action movie then you’ve seen “Marked For Death”.

In this mediocre picture, Seagal stars as anti-drugs agent that goes into early retirement. After his family get hit by a voodoo-worshipping Jamaican gang, he’s back to his old ways of beating bad guys senseless. There are pretty much all the obligatory action movie scenes (car chase, good guy’s house gets attacked etc…) in here with a few bits of voodoo thrown in but it doesn’t do anything for me.

Seagal runs like a middle-aged woman in high heels, repeatedly slaps people in a way that’s more annoying than it is tough and walks around with smug look on his face with an equally arrogant tone to his voice; he’s no Charles Bronson (“Death Wish”) or Jackie Chan (“Rush Hour”), that’s for sure. He reads his lines like he can’t wait to leave the room any faster and he throws punches with an equal amount of enthusiasm. His family get an incredibly small amount of screen-time so it’s hard to care about them when they get attacked. The bad guys are pretty forgettable; they’re just stereotypes of Jamaicans and I’m sorry but the whole voodoo thing comes across as more goofy than it does anything else.

“Marked For Death” has people being shot up and kicked in the face but there are so many movies out there with that sort-of stuff. Seagal films always deliver a laugh or two but that’s because they’re tacky as they never seem to have the effort and consideration that the movies with someone such as Arnold Schwarzenegger (“Predator”) do. While I’m sure there are plenty of worse films out there but I certainly am not going to recommend a movie as stupid and boring as “Marked For Death”.

Most people have at least heard of Spider-Man, Iron Man and the X-Men but I doubt many have heard of Man-Thing. At a time when superhero movies were becoming increasingly popular, “Man-Thing” struggled to get much of a release. It really does not feel like a superhero movie, it’s more of a monster movie like “Lake Placid” and “Anaconda”.

People keep disappearing around the swamp in the small American town of Bywater. The young Sheriff Williams (Matthew Le Nevez) is trying to piece together what exactly is going on and he discovers that is related to the oil drilling of a Native American holy site.

In nearly any other comic book film, the focus would be on the superhero but here, ‘Man-Thing’ as he is called, barely features in it. His role in the film makes him more like the shark in “Jaws” than any of the Marvel superheroes. I will admit that the effects and costume design of Man-Thing are terrific but that’s about it. The other characters are really boring and they feel very clichéd; how many more times will we have to see a greedy businessman as the villain? You will find it so very difficult to care about any of the characters.

The creature effects are actually very good but everything else just feels really clichéd and quite predictable. “Man-Thing” is not the worst Marvel movie (it’s no “Howard The Duck”) but why was this film made? You think Marvel would have wanted to bring characters such as Iron Man and Thor to the big screen before Man-Thing. Only the most devout Marvel fans are going to want to try and dig up this fossil, for everybody else I suggest sticking to more popular films such as “Spider-Man” and “Hulk” if you want some superhero action.

Few films have gained the notoriety the “Manos: The Hands Of Fate” has. Often viewed as one of the worst movies in existence, this is easily in the same league as movies such as “Troll 2”, “The Room” and “Birdemic: Shock And Terror”. It is also easily one of the blandest pictures ever made.

The plot is almost indescribable but I will try my best. A family on holiday gets lost and encounters a demonic cult. The family try to leave but the car will not start and they are in the middle of nowhere. Very little happens in the film and so much of the time is taking up by lengthy pauses.

A lot of the time during this film, the characters are just stood there staring into space. The movie was filmed without sounded so audio had to be added later. Everybody has been dubbed and the frequently the mouth movements do not quite match up with the dialog. The film includes a cripple character that is essentially like the hunchback characters found in old horror movies such as “Frankenstein”. However, instead of being a hunchback, he has dodgy knees. Watching him wobble all over just seems absolutely ridiculous. Most of the cast members never made another film and I’m honestly not surprised, being in this movie must have been seriously traumatic.

“Manos: The Hands Of Fate” was made as part of a bet and it shows. This is one of the lamest movies ever made with some of the most annoying music I’ve ever heard. The music choices also feel completely inappropriate a lot of the time. The acting in this film is some of the worst that you will ever see. If you are trying to hunt down the worst movies then you will undoubtedly need to see this one but everybody else needs to run to the hills.

A lot of people probably have not heard of “Maniac Cop” but this is a competent thriller. Many people consider this is a slasher film but I think it’s a lot more intelligent and a lot more action-packed than the majority of slasher flicks.

Somebody dressed in a police uniform is brutally murdering innocent citizens of New York City. Quickly dubbed ‘Maniac Cop’ by the press, the evidence suggest that the killer is actually a police officer and so Jack Forrest (Bruce Campbell “Army Of Darkness”) is wrongfully arrested. Meanwhile Frank McCrae (Tom Atkins “Halloween III: Season of the Witch”) is close to uncovering who the real murderer is.

For most of the movie, Atkins plays the main protagonist but in the last third, the focus shifts to the Jack Forrest character. Campbell is usually great but here he is not given a great deal to do and does not even show up until the second act. Richard Roundtree (“Shaft”) is good as Commissioner Pike. The killer is played by Robert Z’Dar (“Samurai Cop”) and he does a good job considering he just hands to stand in the shadows and look menacing. Some may feel the decision to not have Maniac Cop speak makes him too similar to slasher villains like Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers. Sam Raimi (“Drag Me To Hell”) gets a cameo.

Some of the scenes with Maniac Cop terrorising New York are pretty entertaining and the action-packed finale is quite enjoyable. I did like this film but do not go into expecting too much; this is a low-budget picture that has a few bland moments. Also, Bruce Campbell fans are likely to be disappointed at the lack of screen time he gets and he does not get any great one-liners. I’ll give “Maniac Cop” a marginal recommendation but it’s still a recommendation.

“Manhunter” is the first film to feature the popular character Hannibal Lecter (or Lecktor as he is spelt here) and it is also one of the worst. This film was also an early effort by director Michael Mann, who I feel has moved onto much better things (“Heat”). I much prefer the remake of this film, “Red Dragon”.

In this film, F.B.I. agent (William Petersen “Fear”, “Young Guns II”) is called back into action in order to track down a ruthless serial killer nicknamed the ‘Tooth Fairy’ (Tom Noonan “Last Action Hero”). With seemingly no pattern and no of catching him, agent Will Graham must turn to his arch nemesis Hannibal Leckter (Brian Cox “Troy”, “Braveheart”).

The characters in this film are meant to be harsh and disturbing but they come across as wooden and lifeless. The only one that really interested me was of course the Leckter character but he gets very little screen-time here and also many will be surprised that there is no mention of him being a cannibal. The film spends most of its time with agent Graham but the performance seems so forced yet so stale that you find yourself detached from him and that’s one of the movie’s biggest flaws.

“Manhunter” is awful when it comes to its sound editing as frequently, it will blast out songs from their middle randomly during a shot and this combined with the weak characters, makes this just a very poor film. It is so pretentious in its pursuit of being artistic that you lose respect for it; it tries to ram so many artistic clichés down your throat then you’ll be shocked to find that David Lynch (“Dune”) didn’t work on it. The best film in the “Hannibal” series has got to be “The Silence of the Lambs” so see that if you want to see great use of the character. If you just want to see this story done better than watch “Red Dragon” because even though that is a flawed film it is massively superior to this.

Woody Allen is at his best when he isn’t trying to be funny like in “Casino Royale” and “Sleeper” but when he’s doing a harsh yet honest analysis of the human psyche as seen in “Blue Jasmine” and “Annie Hall”; “Manhattan” is one of his great movies.

“Manhattan” is essentially the same as “Annie Hall” in terms of the plot as it centres on a nervous writer played by Allen and one of the main women in his life has Diane Keaton (“Something’s Gotta Give”) filling the shoes. Like the other really good movies by Allen, this one is all about real people and dissecting life. On one layer, it’s a biting satire but to me at least it seems at its best when you see at an almost cynical perspective (a lot like “Full Metal Jacket”).

Woody Allen is someone so already fascinating that he requires little change from his real-life persona to bit fit for a character in one of his own movies. When he stops trying to be the next Charlie Chaplin (“The Kid”) and does what he does well, you can’t help but be entertained. Keaton is good here and the interactions between her and Allen are really well done. The other characters in this movie are alright but everyone in here is given superb dialog and delivers it well enough to convince you that you’re listening to an actual person’s conversations.

You may see this film as an almost remake of “Annie Hall” but if you enjoyed that film like I did then this is just an excuse to hear some more of that fantastic talking. Allen can make a certain type of film very well and like most people when you deviate from what you’re good at, you fail so I can understand why he played it safe with this one.