Gary Oldman

Criminal

Director: Ariel Vromen (2016)

What isn’t extraordinarily stupid in this brain dead thriller is astonishingly misjudged or alarming dull.

It’s a grey spongey mess of ageing stars, woeful dialogue, cheap looking stunts and preposterous plotting.

Gary Oldman and Tommy Lee Jones play CIA bosses who need to recover the memory of  of a murdered agent to locate a computer hacker who is selling nuclear codes to the Russians.

So using untested technology, they implant the dead agents memories into the mind of an emotionless killer, played by  grunting Kevin Costner.

Developing a conscience and language skills as a result of the operation, he goes off mission and pursues a creepy Patrick Swayze ‘Ghost’ style romance, giving a new meaning to the word spook.

Meanwhile Spanish anarchists try to muscle in on the nuclear action. There is expensive London location work and the screen is busy with military hardware.

It all goes Alan Partridge Alpha Papa (2013) as Costner evades a squad of police cars in an ambulance.

Various Brits bystanders are beaten up for comic effect. Plus there is a cut price reprise of Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991) when Costner steals a sandwich, a beanie hat and a van.

Fresh from playing Wonder Woman in Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), Gal Gadot chats about her lingerie, parades on the beach and is tied to her bed.

Flush with success from his mega smash Deadpool (2016), Ryan Reynolds appears briefly at the beginning but is curiously underplayed on the advertising.

Antje Traue is an incompetent leather clad assassin called Elsa and while it’s great to see Alice Eve on screen, she needs to have serious words with her agent about this non-role.

The uncertain tone, scattergun editing and woeful storytelling hint at heavy handed interference in production. Costner’s performance seems out of control. There a host of executive producers credited.

Just when you start considering the value of your own lobotomy, TV host Piers Morgan appears as himself to convince you there’s always a more suitable candidate.

★☆☆☆☆

 

 

 

 

 

Robocop

Director: José Padilha (2014)

This grim-faced mechanical reboot of the 1987 sci-fi classic stomps through the motions with all human interest surgically removed.

The action sequences are incoherent, dull and lacking in tension. And the gleefully satirical edge of the original is sadly absent.

Set in Detroit in 2028, the remake offers no sense of a wider society or vision of the future – it’s just like today but with robots and amazingly little internet use.

Joel Kinnaman is trigger-happy, straight backed and taciturn. And that’s before his character Alex Murphy is transformed into the relentless crime-fighting cyborg.

When Murphy’s life is saved by the technician’s of OmniCorp, he’s turned into a crime-fighting war machine and put back on the streets as the ultimate deterrent.

When investigating his own attempted assassination he uncovers a trail of corruption and once again becomes a target.

There is some lovely design work in the new streamlined suit. And when we first see the extent of Murphy’s injuries there is a promisingly nightmarish feel. But it’s quickly lost thanks to the plodding direction.

Computer-generated images mix unconvincingly with live action and although Robocop looks very cool when riding his neon and black motorbike, we see him doing it far more often than is necessary.

There is wit in the casting of actors associated with that other faceless crime-fighter Batman – but even the considerable talents of Michael Keaton and Gary Oldman can’t tease any humour from a dour script.

Keaton plays the duplicitous CEO of the powerful OmniCorp and Oldman co-stars as a technical genius with compromised principles.

And Samuel L. Jackson has fun as a TV commentator – but his scenes seem disconnected from events happening elsewhere.

Key catchphrases are lifted from the original to be chucked around. But the new dialogue is as leaden as Robocop’s thudding footsteps as Murphy hunts down the men who had tried to kill him – and unleashes powerful forces that are hellbent on finishing the job.

★★☆☆☆

Dawn of the Planet of The Apes

Director: Matt Reeves (2014)

Few creatures are more terrifying than an angry ape with a grudge and a gun – and this spectacular sci-fi epic has a forest full of them.

It pits ape against human and each against their own kind in a series of hugely exciting battles.

The movie is also majestic to look at and the intelligent script touches on issues such as an energy-supply crisis and how the treatment of prisoners can lead to radicalisation.

It is ten years since super-intelligent chimp Caesar (Andy Serkis) escaped to the Californian forest.

His species has developed art, architecture and a peaceful society while a virus has devastated human civilisation.

In a sly nod to George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the apes have rules marked on to a wall. No1 is: “Ape does not kill ape.”

Human survivor Malcolm (Jason Clarke) leads a recce into the apes’ domain looking to kickstart a hydro-electric dam.

There’s a bloody stand-off and in a desperate attempt to avoid more violence, Malcolm and Caesar tiptoe to a tentative truce.

In San Francisco, Dreyfuss (Gary Oldman) gives Malcolm three days to succeed or he’ll use his arsenal to annihilate the apes.

Meanwhile, the brutal Koba (Toby Kebbell) plots to overthrow Caesar, isolate his son Blue Eyes (Nick Thurston) and make war on humans.

Serkis is brilliant as Caesar. With his heavy brow and slow deliberations he echoes Marlon Brando in The Godfather – but with added teeth and muscle.

Director Reeves cleverly uses long edits to create tension and put the audience at the very centre of the action such as when an ape on horseback attacks a tank.

Marvellous visuals, engaging performances and dramatic plot twists made this one of the action movies of 2014.

★★★★☆