Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)

A dark force threatens Alpha, a vast metropolis and home to species from a thousand planets. Special operatives Valerian and Laureline must race to identify the marauding menace and safeguard not just Alpha, but the future of the universe.

Guys, guys, this film is fucking fantastic. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is completely over the top, but I came out of the IMAX completely and utterly blown out of hyperspace. That's the short review. I will also admit that I have not seen many of Luc Besson's films but those that I have seen (Léon: the Professional, The Fifth Element) number among the ranks of those visual creations that are memorable for being *good* cinema. At least in my mind.

Valerian is best described as Star Wars after dropping a few caps of LSD, and since I enjoyed The Fifth Element, I was right at home with Valerian. This isn't a film that takes itself too seriously; if it did, I don't think it would have worked too well. The visuals are straight out of pulp SF with a slightly poppy edge, and as my husband creature mentioned, the main antagonists look like they come from a world where old ladies' bath pearls are produced.

The themes are a little on the nose with the authoritarian military commander up to (obvious) nefarious plans – I won't spoil – and the seemingly "primitive" civilisation that's been done wrong. Toss in the Han/Leia dynamic between our charming Valerian and devastatingly efficient Laureline, and you have a recipe for one helluva ride. The primary location, the oversized space station Alpha, is a fascinating place, and the beings that inhabit it are diverse and begging for further discovery – some *stunning* world building.

Granted, there's a bit more emphasis on style over substance, and this film simply oozes visual impact, but the pace is cracking, and you don't have a chance to overanalyse any plot holes. It's also abundantly clear that the comic book series from the 1960s, upon which this film was based, was also hugely influential on the Star Wars franchise. Um, hello, I can now see where the Millennium Falcon has its roots.

The only character that I felt was a bit of a loose end in the film was Bubble (Rihanna) – she was kinda tacked on for eye candy and given a small part that didn't exactly go anywhere and The Thing that Happened felt a bit like a kind of GRRM move due to no one actually knowing what to do with the character (for those who'll get what I mean) but her performance piece was lovely, if a bit superfluous. Kinda like shoving a music video right in the middle of an action movie. But then again, it kinda suited the general mood of the film and I really didn't mind that much. And, of course, eye candy. This film is full of eye candy.

Dane DeHaan (Valerian) looks like a baby Leonardo DiCaprio [oh gods, I've always thought of Leo being a baby but he's all hairy and grown up these days ... and oh fuck I feel old for saying this]... But though I do feel that Dane was a bit young for the role (I'd imagine Valerian to be a bit more older and, as the husband creature suggested, rugged), he still pulled off the part with a certain roguish charm that made me forgive him for being such a youngling.

Cara Delevingne is young ... as in I wouldn't have expected her to fit the role either; she carries herself as a woman who's much more world weary than what she looks. That being said, she's dynamite, and put so much emotional tone in the role, that her character seems entirely plausible. I keep thinking she looks like a young Michelle Pfeiffer, and I'll be keeping an eye on her career.

The overall styling is just the bomb; this is definitely the kind of film that begs to be watched again, just for the sheer detail the creatives put into it. Also, the opening sequence coming in the strains of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" nearly had me all teary-eyed – and I just knew, with absolute certainty, that this was going to be a piece of cinema that's going to sit right up there in my heart, along with Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and all the others that deserve space on my shelf at home.

Wonder Woman (2017)

Before she was Wonder Woman she was Diana, princess of the Amazons, trained warrior. When a pilot crashes and tells of conflict in the outside world, she leaves home to fight a war to end all wars, discovering her full powers and true destiny.

I will admit fully that I was horribly afraid that Wonder Woman would be a wee bit overhyped. I mean the cess pit that is media already gave me severe misgivings about whether I wanted to see the film. No, I don't care that she shaves her armpits nor that her thighs jiggle. I mean, FFS, if tooting some sort of identity politics horn is the only reason why you're going to give this film love then well, fuck that.

This is a good film, though. Thankfully. From a pacing perspective and considering character development, this is possibly one of the best blockbuster new cinema I've seen recently (except perhaps for The Arrival).

While I wasn't absolutely floored when I left the cinema, (I've a little issue with super hero films in general and the Curse of Too Much Awesome that seems to bedevil them), I had to recant a little once the husband creature and I had an opportunity to trade our thoughts.

This *could* have been that awful movie that was just put out there to tick feminist boxes. It isn't that movie. Instead we have a very refreshing female hero whose naïveté when faced with a world radically different from her own results in her having reevaluate her stance on the way forward. She goes into battle, amped to take on the Big Bad she's been prepared her entire life to fight, only to discover that the evil she's supposed to root out is a little more complex than that. Now, that's some writing that I like.

The support cast (a Scotsman, a Middle Eastern guy, a Native American ... stop me if you've heard this one) were a little thin on the ground for plausibility, but from a storytelling perspective they served the purpose of reminding Diana of shared humanity is worth fighting for, blah-di-blah ... that sort of thing. That being said, I kinda wanted them to have more than a support cast role and get to know the characters better than just being cardboard cut-outs with a little backstory. But then I'm equally cognisant that you can only do so much in a film, and I've been spoilt horribly by TV series.

Gal Gadot as Diana, however, is as the title of this film suggests, just wonderful, bringing to the screen the perfect balance of vulnerability and strength. Chris Pine as Steve Trevor is your typical bland blond boy who makes me think of a generic Matt Damon type. He was thoroughly unremarkable. Frankly, I found the brief interactions Diana had with Sameer (Saïd Taghmaoui) to be far more refreshing, and I needed to see more of this. But ja, time. There's only so much you can do without bloating a movie.

Out of all the superhero films I've seen (and I must warn you, I can't tell my DC from my Marvel on the best of days except to say that I fucking HATE all Superman movies) Wonder Woman is most certainly one of the best written and executed where I felt that they didn't just gloss over poor screenplay with piles of CGI. And fuck it, I'm a woman. I dig seeing ladies kicking ass. If I was a little girl... ag, who'm I kidding, I'm still a little girl at heart, it was frigging awesome to have Amazons fuck shit up. It's nice to have films that break from the same tired old stories. And this is about as much whooooo girl power you'll get out of me tonight. Now go watch the film, eat some popcorn and have a good time. Wonder Woman won't disappoint.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017)

Captain Jack Sparrow searches for the trident of Poseidon while being pursued by an undead sea captain and his crew.

Auntie's not going to lie, she's had a bit of a thing for Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) since the silly bugger first staggered onto the screen in 2003. Oh gods. Yes. The movie franchise is *that* old. I'm *that* old. Ah, well, never mind.

My first thoughts when I walked out of the cinema was that this fifth instalment in the series isn't awful. I mean, it could have been worse. I was entertained, yes, but the movie wasn't *sharp*. The humour was slapstick at best, and while loads of peeps in the cinema were laughing, I wasn't. It really wasn't that funny.

I mean, I was entertained, and the CGI was pretty. And there were some awesome things happening, but if you're looking for the same snap that you'd get with Guy Ritchie's King Arthur, you're going to be left hanging.

Plot wise, Dead Men Tell No Tales is a pretty standard hero's journey, evenly divided by the two main characters – Henry Turner (Brenton Thwaites) and Carina Smyth (Kaya Scodelario). Henry is the son of ... yussss, no surprises there. Ta-dum! Will and Elizabeth (Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley). And he's after the Trident of Poseidon that will allegedly break all curses so that he can reunite his daddoo and mummoo. Carina is our orphan in the storm, the intellectual lass who's got her father's journal with the "map that no man can read" (get it, she's a chick not a dude, so she can read it, huh, huh) and she's on a mission to also find the Trident.

Captain Sparrow, as always, is the trickster figure who's an agent of chaos with the compass that leads to his heart's desire that he keeps ignoring to his own detriment. His denial of this call to adventure results in the release of his spooky arch-nemesis Captain Salazar (Javier Bardem) whom he cursed to undeath (as one does) who's now hell bent on Captain Sparrow's demise (revenge being, of course, one of the noblest causes). Of course to get to Sparrow, Salazar hunts down all the pirates that he can, thereby drawing our old friend Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) into the equation, and what follows are the usual double-crossings and unbelievable coincidences one comes to expect with any of the PotC films (mainly because I don't think the writers could be arsed to actually develop a nuanced screenplay).

Look, the CGI effects are awesome, but they don't quite make up for the lack of substance for the underlying story. To be fair, if you're in the mood for mindless entertainment, slapstick humour and plenty of explosions and stunts, look no further. This instalment most certainly hangs together more cohesively than Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (which is not saying much, I know), but there were still moments where I felt that some of the transitions were jagged, and relied on the wow factor to gloss over what the narrative lacked.

Okay, I'm feeling slightly rotten about my ambivalent review, so I'll say it again, this is not a horrible film. It's fun. There are loads of gags, and it had people laughing. And Carina steals the show, honest to goodness, while Henry is just a bland little porridge boy. Hey, one day I'll be jumped up on too much coffee and sugar, and I may even watch all the Pirates of the Caribbean films back to back because I've always got a soft spot for my favourite pirate captain because I quite enjoy Depp slurring and staggering about, oblivious and yet somehow endearing. (Though I find now that he only ever seems to reprise Sparrow with most of his roles that he takes on these days.)

At time of writing, I've noticed that IMDB has an entry for PotC 6 with nothing cast in stone yet. I hope they lay the movie franchise go to rest, with the fifth movie. No. Really. If anything, maybe look at a spin-off TV series and hire some good writers to develop a solid script, but please don't try to flog this pony you've only just managed to scrape up off the ground. Dead Men Tell No Tales ties up the assorted narrative arcs nicely. Let it end here. Please.

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017)

Robbed of his birthright, Arthur comes up the hard way in the back alleys of the city. But once he pulls the sword from the stone, he is forced to acknowledge his true legacy - whether he likes it or not.

If you came to this movie expecting a slavish reproduction of the timeless classic that's already been done to death, then you're probably one of those farts who're walking away from the film sputtering in self-indignant fury. I went into the cinema today expecting lots of explosions, a killer soundtrack and gratuitous displays of slabs of man meat. I was not disappointed. The only elements that were even remotely related to the legend were the Lady in the Lake, a magic sword, a round table and a castle called Camelot.

But there were ginormous elephant demons, a massive snake that appeared out of nowhere for no apparent reason... Suffice to say, if your evil henchmen are all cosplaying Kylo Ren, they're going to die in droves in the most spectacular fashion (kinda like Stormtroopers, if you think about it). Cue also the awfully flash slo-mo action scenes and distorted sound, and King Arthur (Charlie Hunnam) brooding his way most delightfully through the role of the prince-raised-in-a-brothel-turned-saviour-of-a-kingdom, and this is just oodles of fun to watch. Even the part where he gets carried away by giant vampire bats and fights off oversized rats.

I also really appreciated that there wasn't a gratuitous insta-love sexual attraction by our hero and The Mage (Astrid Bergès-Frisbey) an archetypical the witch of the wilds – who's really absolutely one of the best thing about the film when her eyes roll back and she summons birds animals to do her bidding.

Everything that I absolutely loved about films like Highlander and Lord of the Rings is present (I'm thinking especially of the Boss Fight Scene near the end which made me think of Connor vs. The Kurgan), but only bigger, and way more dramatic, happened in King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. High-brow cinema this is not. King Arthur goes through all the stages of the hero's journey, from denial through to a near-literal romp through the Underworld. Vortigern (Jude Law) is our tragic antagonist, whose lust for power sees him sacrifice everything that he loves to the freaky octopus ladies in exchange for his Boss form as a demon from a Frank Frazetta painting.

The editing and CGI are of the best I've seen in ages, and the world itself feels tactile (and most certainly not the England you'd imagine in history books). Yes, most of the dialogue is just one-liners and doesn't really have any cohesion, but I was not watching this film expecting deep existential answers. And I mean, what was the point of that giant snake? It was cool, but served no purpose other than being super cool.

Switch off your inner critic when you watch King Arthur. It's slick, insane and over the top. Also, it doesn't take itself too seriously. I'm also still ragingly incoherent and jumped up on the salt they put on my popcorn. Don't listen to the haters; just go have a blast. Guy Ritchie raped the legend, and he didn't even need to call it King Arthur, because to say it's based on the legend is a bit of a stretch, but it's still awesome.

Edit: Also, seeing Aidan Gillen was a treat. Some of you may remember him as the devious Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish from Game of Thrones.

Warcraft: The Beginning (2016)

As an Orc horde invades the planet Azeroth using a magic portal, a few human heroes and dissenting Orcs must attempt to stop the true evil behind this war. 

With films like this, I'd rather leave my review a while after release, purely to avoid the hype – good and bad. While I never stepped into the black hole that is World of Warcraft, loads of my friends did, and I listened to their tales of derring-do with a fair amount of envy. My own experiences with the game franchise began and ended with Warcraft 3.

So when they announced a film for the game, I was interested, especially considering the cast (um, hello Travis Fimmel, Clancy Brown). Not only that, but this was the first of Duncan Jones's films that I've seen, so I was quite inclined to give the entire production the benefit of the doubt.

It seems in the media that it's become incredibly fashionable to totally bash films like this the moment they come out – the reviewer gleefully tearing the work a proverbial new one mere hours after its release. And oh my dog, if you're looking for issues, you're going to find them with *everything*.

I will say straight up that I enjoyed this film – and I am the target audience (gaming, SFF fan). I was entertained, and in that sense, the film did its job. The graphics were... Well, I grew up during the 1980s with all the blue-screen and stop-motion action. This was a visual feast that hit all the right buttons for me.

I've heard a lot of people bash the story as being weak, and I'm going to disagree. Yes, it was a simplified story considering the large cast of characters and how much is going on with the lore – so to a degree the writers had to paint in broader strokes. This is a movie, after all, not a TV series. But to me the plot was internally consistent. There were some lovely reversals and betrayals – not completely unexpected, but FFS, this was fun. I *enjoyed* myself. That was the point. Games generally are quite pulpy, and watching Warcraft felt like being immersed in one long cut scene. I admit I'm patchy on lore so *a lot* of what happened most likely went way over my head, but I went along with it. Friends of mine who've played WoW were transported saying that the world building was spot on, so that pleases me.

In case you're wondering why the OST is so epic – the composer is none other than Ramin Djawadi of Game of Thrones fame, which only made my experience at the local IMAX all the more awesome.

This is not a deep film by any stretch of the imagination. Stock standard themes abound – of how power corrupts and how we all win when we are able to take a moderate stance (a weeeeedle bit on the propaganda side there, if you ask me). But this one's a keeper, and I'll most certainly watch it again some time in the future. At any rate, there's no stretched-out landscape porn a la The Hobbit and the pacing will keep viewers on the edge of the seat.

Also, griffins. I'm a sucker for griffins. There. I said it.