Resident Evil: Retribution, Looper and Taken 2

Remind me that the Resident Evil series is now dead in the water. The last couple at least had some kind of story. But this 3D sequel had none at all. A complete waste of time.

There are just not enough decent science fiction movies around, maybe one a year. So it was good that Looper turned out to be worth seeing. A sharp time travelling thriller from writer/director Rian Johnson, there are plenty of twists and just enough action to keep us interested. The screenplay is more than adequate and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis and Emily Blunt bring some top acting talent to the party, although the latter strangely only appears half way through. A decent story with the right ending.

When I reviewed Taken in 2008, I said "you just sit back and enjoy the ride". It was very reasonable hostage thriller and it was little wonder that a sequel would be on the cards. Unfortunately, Taken 2 is underwhelming in comparison. Lian Neeson was convincing in the original, but here seems very wooden when he has to speak, but that may be down to the poor writing. Some of the action sequences are OK and Istanbul is photographed superbly. But the plot hardly exists. A sorry sequel.

ENB's The Sleeping Beauty at Milton Keynes Theatre

The last time we went to the ballet was four years ago when we went to see English National Ballet's production of The Sleeping Beauty at Oxford's New Theatre. So last night was a repeat of that wonderful performance, but this time with more comfortable seats. As the orchestra pit took up the first rows of seats, we actually ended up in the fifth row, with perhaps the best view in the house of the raised stage that projected into the auditorium.

Everything about this production is first class. The dancing, costumes, lighting and of course the great music. Listening so near to ENB's 60 piece orchestra playing Tchaikovsky is almost worth the ticket price alone. The principals for this performance were Fernanda Oliveira as Princess Aurora and Dmitri Gruzdyev as Prince Desire. I don't think Fernanda had danced this role since 2008, and this was her first time on this tour. So she may have been a little rusty. Don't get me wrong, she is a brilliant dancer having progressed from Principal to Senior Principal in the company. But the following review from 2008 explained what we had seen:

"being so close it was possible to see that she was really pushing herself ; must have been quite nervous as she her hand was shaking slightly. I cannot imagine why as she delivered one of the best danced Auroras I have seen for a long while!"

Gruzdyev is a very experienced lead and was confident all the way through. But the one dancer that caught my eye was Ksenia Ovsyanick dancing for the first time as as the Lilac Fairy, one of the main roles. So it was to my surprise after the performance to see she is listed on the ENB website as one of the lowly artists. In 2008 she was just one of Lilac Fairie's attendents. But last night she danced a role normally reserved for Principal Dancers, and at one matinee on the tour she actually dances the lead. She is still quite young, but to my uneducated eye, this is a future star.

Lawless, Savages and The House At The End Of The Street

It was such a promising story. We are in Virginia at the time of prohibition, and the Bondurant brothers seem to have the trade in bootleg alcohol sown up. But the writer of Lawless (Nick Cave) has tried to portray them each as vastly different characters. Tom Hardy and Shia La Boef are wholly unconvincing (but that is not their fault) and they end up wooden and ridiculous. Instead of concentrating more on the plot, we have a ponderous script punctuated by scenes of casual violence. The director, John Hillcoat, has actually made quite a good looking movie and the odd action sequences are quite thrilling. There are some neat cameos from actors out of the top drawer. But the characters for Gary Oldman, Jessica Chastain and Mia Wasikowska just drop in now and again. What could have been a very good movie ends up a bit of a mess.

Oliver Stone's Savages had received some awful reviews. But I found it a quite reasonable thriller about drug gangs. It has a good plot and the story unfolds with pace and some surprises along the way. The two main leads, Taylor Kitsch and Aaaron Johnson, are pretty poor, especially when they are up against (in both ways) Benicio Del Toro, Salma Hayek and John Travolta. And newcomer Blake Lively does her bit as the damsel in distress. The photography is excellent (we would not expect anything else) so the movie looks great. There is some rapid and intense dialogue (Stone has been watching a lot of Tarantino's work), some good action sequences. Immediately forgettable, but enjoyable at the time.

It is hard to describe The House at the End of the Street. First of all where does the title come from when there are only two houses near each other in the woods? I thought it might be haunted house mystery, but no. More a reworking of Psycho. So that got me confused. But not as much as the truly awful script and atrocious editing. There was obviously only one reason it got it's funding, and that was when they had signed up Jennifer Lawrence. She really tries her best, given the dreadful dialogue, and almost saves the film from being that bad. But director Mark Tonderai and his writers have conspired to make it one big mess.