“Hardware” has to be a contender for the worst killer robot movie ever made. Most of it is really dark and you can barely see what’s going on. I had no idea what was going on most of the time in the terms of the story. Everything just seemed to be all over the place. It’s a thoroughly unenjoyable picture.

A space marine (Dylan McDermott “Olympus Has Fallen”) buys a disassembled robot and gifts it to his girlfriend (Stacey Travis “Intolerable Cruelty”, “Mystery Men”) so that she can make something out of it. However, the robot rebuilds itself as goes on a killing spree.

The characters in this movie are dull beyond belief. One of them is so creepy weirdo that likes spying on the main woman. The robot itself looks okay when it’s not moving in some of the shots but the animatronics are abysmal. Also, we do not get to see the robot all that much. This is meant to be a killer robot movie yet it does not do anything until well into the second act. It also does not help that when we do see the robot, it’s often too dark for us to see what it’s doing. The parts where we see things from the robot’s perspective also look really grainy. It definitely made me wish I was watching “The Terminator” instead.

“Hardware” is easily one of the worst sci-fi films of the 90s. A few of the opening shots make it look somewhat promising but my expectations dwindled quickly. It’s worse than I could have ever feared that it would be. Some claim that this movie has developed a cult following over the years but I certainly cannot see the appeal of it. The whole thing is a mess and I just could not stand it. There are plenty of better killer robot movies out there including “The Terminator”, “Westworld” and even “Chopping Mall”.

“Con Air” is an extraordinary action film with tons of great performances and explosive action scenes. It stars Nicolas Cage (“Leaving Las Vegas”) and this was around the same time he did “The Rock” and “Face/Off” but this one is easily the best of the three and one of his best movies.

Cameron Poe (Cage) is a decorated soldier that has spent years behind bars after accidentally killing a man in self-defence. He’s never seen his daughter but has received many letters from her. Now, he is finally going home as he boards a prison plane filled with murderers, rapists, drug dealers and terrorists. However, the prisoners hijack it with the hopes of fleeing the country. Poe must stop them and get home to his family.

Cage is terrific as Cameron Poe. You really believe that he’s a tough action guy. John Cusack (“2012”) plays Marshal Larkin and he’s very entertaining too. John Malkovich (“Johnny English”) is ‘Cyrus the Virus’, a criminal mastermind leading the hijacking and he’s brilliant. Ving Rhames (“Pulp Fiction”), Danny Trejo (“Heat”), Steve Buscemi (“Reservoir Dogs”) are all enjoyable too. Dave Chappelle (“Half Baked”) is forgettable as ‘Pinball’. I love the scene when the villains get introduced as you learn everything you need to know about the major players.

Many action movies let you down with the villains but the bad guys in “Con Air” are amazing. There are plenty of great action sequences involving helicopters, guns, motorcycles and even a fire truck. The only thing that disappointed me a little was that it does taken Poe a very long time before he starts to really fight back. I know he’s trying to be smart about it but if John McClane can start responding almost right away in “Die Hard”, I should not have to wait forever for this hero to start saving the day. “Con Air” is a spectacular action movie and one of the best Nicolas Cage films out there.

“In The Loop” is a very funny British comedy that makes a smart mockery of politicians on both side of the Atlantic based on the series “The Thick of It” (I’ve never seen it though).

“In The Loop” focuses on an upcoming war that the British Prime Minister and the American President fancy but not everybody is too keen on it. When British Minister for International Development Simon Foster (Tom Hollander “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest”) says the war is ‘unforeseeable’ it sparks a series of events and debates between pro-war and anti-war factions of the governments. Can this mess be sorted out by the foul-mouthed Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi “World War Z”)?

The characters in this film are great satires of politicians both British and American as we see the mundane Brits and the over-glamorised and full-of-self-importance Americans. The language these characters use is very strong and filled with curse words but somehow it works and doesn’t just seem like an excuse to use them. Peter Capaldi does a great job as the irate Malcolm Tucker and James Gandolfini of tv’s “The Sopranos” fame does a good job as General Miller; the scene in which they have a conversation prompts some funny lines. The small appearance of Steve Coogan is funny.

“In The Loop” will definitely appeal to Brits more than Americans but I imagine they’ll enjoy a lot of it as well. It’s a funny movie that although perhaps isn’t the hardest-hitting satire I think the film is far from the finest example of British comedy I’ve seen it does at least offer a lot of goods. If you like the programme, which from the ads I’ve seen are very similar, you’ll really like this movie and if you’ve never seen but have a reasonable understanding of politics and satires of politics like me then I think you’ll also like it.

Wolfgang Petersen (“The NeverEnding Story”) directs this great thriller film that has some wonderful performances and some reasonable ideas. It more than satisfied my desire for a good thriller movie.

Clint Eastwood (“Dirty Harry”, “A Fistful Of Dollars”) stars as Secret Service agent Frank Horrigan, who didn’t manage to save Kennedy. Now years after that tragic event Frank and his partner must ensure the new President isn’t killed by a clever and sick assassin (John Malkovich “Being John Malkovich”, “Con Air”). The race is on to find and stop this new threat before the country ends up with a dead man in charge.

Clint Eastwood does reasonably well as Frank Horrigan but his character isn’t particularly complex so we don’t need a great performance. John Malkovich is absolutely fantastic as the villain. He constantly changes appearances (via fake moustaches, wigs etc…) and he also changes body language and voice, which shows how great of an actor he really is. What I love in these movies is the little conversations the good guy and the bad guy have and we get lots of them here. The other characters aren’t particularly compelling but the two leads will entertain the audience enough.

“In The Line of Fire” starts off like it could be another “Dirty Harry” film but as it goes along it turns into a wonderful thriller. One of the movies silliest aspects though is how they’ve blatantly incorporated Eastwood into various pictures of the infamous parade in Dallas 1963. “In The Line of Fire” isn’t an action picture; it’s just a really entertaining thriller. I enjoyed the film for the performances and for the never-ending line of thrills. It’s not perfect by any means but I enjoyed “In The Line of Fire” quite a lot and I hope you will do.

Hardly anybody has seen or even heard of “Impulse” and there is a reason for that. You can’t get much cheaper, much sillier and much weirder than “Impulse”, a movie that appears to try and be artistic but ends up being anything but.

In “Impulse”, Matt Stone (William Shatner “Airplane II: The Sequel”) is a severely disturbed man that likes to con women out of their savings and when they’re no longer impressed by him he brutally murders them. His latest victim’s daughter becomes suspicious of Matt and seeks to prove that he’s not the nice guy that her mother has mistaken him for.

William Shatner is known for overacting but he’s also known for making his roles memorable. He does a great job considering the bad script he’s been given and it is a really bad script. No human being could possibly make a good performance out of that script but Shatner at least provides an amusing one. Harold Sakata, who played Oddjob in “Goldfinger” has a small part in the film so it’s surprising to me that this movie managed to bad two relatively famous people on what was obviously a very budgeted picture. Everyone in the film is very pretentious.

“Impulse” is a terrible film by every meaning of the word. It is a strange picture that could have been worked into a good black comedy. The acting is terrible, the film takes itself too seriously and all-round it just is a real mess. What shocked me more than anything is that you can find “Impulse” on DVD (that’s how I found it) and it looks worse than a worn VHS tape. Here’s hoping they don’t resurrect this turkey for Blu-Ray. There is a positive about “Impulse” and it’s the fact once you look upon it, your eyes become fixated on this car crash of a movie no matter what your heart and brain request.

“Ikiru” (or “To Live” as it sometimes known) is a powerful, moving and thought-provoking little film from the masterful Akira Kurosawa (“Ran”). It actually reminded me a lot of “Citizen Kane” in the way that some of the story is presented and this film is worthy of the comparison to “Citizen Kane”.

An aging bureaucrat (Takashi Shimura “Godzilla”) discovers that his life is coming to an end when he is diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer. Unhappy with how he has squandered the last few decades of his existence, he searches for meaning in the short amount of time he has left in this world.

Takashi Shimura has appeared in many Kurosawa films including the excellent “Seven Samurai”. Shimura perfectly plays Kanji Watanabe, the miserable office worker in search of something. It’s interesting because we also get to see what other characters thought of him after his passing, which is what reminded me so much of “Citizen Kane”. Some of the other characters include other bureaucrats and the film creates a very damning portrayal of bureaucracy. It achieves this early on with a scene showing citizens being directed from one department to another. However, it solidifies it with its depiction of a slimy politician that is eager to cover up the work of Watanabe, fearing that it may make him look bad to the electorate.

Some of the moments in “Ikiru”, especially near the beginning of the film, are filmed with such skill that you simply have to admire them. This could have been a melodramatic piece but Kurosawa and Shimura have created an intelligent film that actually achieves a lot with very little. If you have not had the chance to see it, I strongly recommend you watch “Ikiru”. It also makes a nice change of pace from the samurai films Kurosawa is known for.

“Idiocracy” is another feature-length comedy by Mike Judge, creator of tv’s “King of the Hill”. Taking notes from tv’s “Futurama” Judge doesn’t reach the bar he set with “King of the Hill” or his other film “Office Space” but this is certainly funny than his “Beavis And Butt-Head” show.

In “Idiocracy”, an average guy named Joe (Luke Wilson “Old School”, “Legally Blonde”) gets frozen as part of military experiment but he gets forgotten about for 500 years and when he awakens he is a horrible future. This isn’t one where the rehabilitation programme is questionable like “A Clockwork Orange” or where we question what makes us human like “Blade Runner” but instead we are all a bunch of morons.

Luke Wilson isn’t especially funny but then the role almost requires him not to be anything special; if this had been Steve Martin (“Parenthood”) or Jim Carrey (“Liar Liar”) then this wouldn’t have worked. Maya Rudolph (“Bridesmaids”) stars a prostitute, who also gets frozen for 500 years and she is okay too. I do like Terry Crews (“The Expendables”) as the wrestler turned president because this character perfectly demonstrates what the whole future is like. Sadly, there is no cameo (or any role) reserved for Judge himself like there was in “Office Space”.

“Idiocracy” could be a lot funnier but its ideas about the future are startling and funny simultaneously because it backs up with the theory that dumber people tend to breed more. I like the gag in this movie where the number one movie that won all the Oscars in the year 2505 is a film that simply shows a rear end for whole ninety minutes and I also like the joke about how water has been replaced by an energy drink in the future because water was deemed a threat to the energy drink company’s profits. Judge is better when he is commenting about what’s happening ‘now’ but this film is still very funny.

Will Smith (“Bad Boys”) stars in this futuristic sci-fi action movie that presents some interesting ideas but unfortunately does little with them and the dependency on C.G.I. during not just the action scenes but the movie as a whole sadly drag this movie down a few notches from a good movie.

In “I, Robot”, Spooner (Smith) is a police officer in 2035. He lives in a world where robots coexist with humans using three simple rules: 1. Robots can’t harm humans, 2. Robots have to obey a human unless that contradicts with the first rule and 3. Robots can protect themselves without contradicting the first rules. But Spooner doesn’t trust them. Dr. Lanning (James Cromwell “Babe”), who has invented a new line of robots has apparently committed suicide but Spooner has to find the truth. He unearths a conspiracy about robots as it leads to a nauseating C.G. filled finale.

Will Smith is horrendous in this film. He isn’t funny as the character isn’t great. This is a major problem I have with the movie. Susan Calvin (Bridget Moynahan “The Recruit”) is a disappointing female character that is very wet. The cast is disappointing despite featuring big names such as Smith, Cromwell and Bruce Greenwood (“Star Trek”).

I like the idea of conspiracies about robots in the future but “I, Robot” is a badly written film and instead starts involving robots that have dreams and emotions without great explanation and that makes the film come across as silly. The action is boring and is something like out of a videogame as it is nonstop and obnoxious. The film uses way too much C.G. without good enough reason for me. All-round I was disappointed with “I, Robot” but it has received mixed views so maybe if it is on television you could catch and see what you make of it. For me it wasn’t much.

“I Know What You Did Last Summer” is a movie with an ending that only horror movies have, the sheer desperation to have a sequel by putting everything back to square one and make the film you’ve just watched entirely needless. I haven’t ruined anything because if you know anything about horror movies (more specifically the slasher sub-genre) this film is going to go through every cliché you can think of.

In this picture, four teens run over some guy one July 4th and decide to dump his body in the water and then try to move on with their lives. A year later, guilt has torn them apart but now somebody is going round claiming to know what they ‘did last summer’ so the group is forced to reunite.

Jennifer Love Hewitt (“The Tuxedo”, “Garfield) is probably the best of the teens on offer but even she can’t help but descend into non-stop screaming during the third act; here’s a hint, if you want to evade a serial killer, screaming really loudly when you’re trapped on a boat at sea with him is only going to attract him to your exact whereabouts. Freddie Prinze Jr. (“Scooby-Doo”) and Sarah Michelle Gellar (“The Grudge”) also play teens and won’t impress. The killer is a guy in a fisherman costume with a hook as his weapon of choice; let’s call him ‘Hooky’ just to give him an ounce of personality.

To the film’s credit, there are some reasonably suspenseful moments and at times there’s an alright sense of mystery/whodunit but the acting is awful, the killer is unmemorable and the ending buries it for me. The film’s at least better than many of the “Halloween” and “Nightmare On Elm Street” films so if you’re desperate for some more teens getting bumped off then there are certainly worse films to see.

“I Am Legend” is a remake of “The Omega Man”, which itself is a remake of “The Last Man On Earth”. I saw “The Omega Man” and was disappointed, “I Am Legend” is a little better but it still ultimately disappoints for pretty much the same reasons as “The Omega Man”.

In “I Am Legend”, a virus has allegedly infected all of Earth’s inhabitants with the exception of Robert Neville (Will Smith “Men In Black”). He desperately seeks a cure for a disease in order to defeat the horrible creatures that lurk around in the darkness. The film starts off really strongly but takes a dive in quality in the second half.

Will Smith is alright as Robert Neville, he’s not a great actor and here is no exception. I liked his dog in a little more. The creatures in the film are really poor; they’re sort-of zombie-like but all look the same. The biggest problem I have with the film is that there are other characters just like how the film advertises and just like how “The Omega Man” has other people. It ruins the whole one man feel of the film, which is what both films were doing successfully up until the introduction of other characters.

“I Am Legend” has one intense and incredible sequence in which Neville’s dog runs into the darkness and he goes in to get it; the camerawork is exceptional. The second half of the film ruins it all because we lose the great feel of isolation. “I Am Legend” begins and for some time offers a sinister look at being isolated from mankind as we watch Neville go through the empty streets of New York but then it descends into zombie movie territory and that’s when I lost interest in it. The film had me and then it threw it all away.