Way out of line

Lights Out (2016)

Directed by David F. Sandberg this film stars Teresa Palmer, Gabriel Bateman, Maria Bello and Alexander DiPersia. A woman helps her younger brother deal with the monster their mother is bringing into the family house.

Taking a clumsy monster as mental illness metaphor this film ends by suggesting those with problems can protect their families by killing themselves which is pretty messed up. Wheeling out simple horror tricks the film is not too bad but the underlying implications are not cool. At times it also shows that this is a short film stretched out to feature length as there is not a lot to the plot.

2/5

Dancing round the world

Danses algeriennes 1. Danse des Ouled-Naid (1902)

Directed by Segundo de Chomon this is an early short film. We see short clips of a few different types of dancers from different nationalities.

The hand tinting adds a nice tough to this otherwise not very remarkable short. While the dancing styles are some what interesting there is not much of them and little connection between them. As a piece of historical record this is probably better than as an entertainment film.

3/5

Not making a big splash

The Fantastic Diver (1906)

Directed by Segundo de Chomon this is an early short film. We watch a man instantly jump in and out of water with a variety of magical costume changes.

Essentially this film relies on two simple camera tricks and is not overly remarkable. The content is entertaining but not overly so. While I enjoyed this short it does not have a huge amount to it.

3/5

Twice as much Hardy as usual

Legend (2015)

Written & directed by Brian Helgeland this film stars Tom Hardy (twice), Emily Browning and David Thewlis. During the 1960s in London we follow the life a celebrity gangsters the Kray twins.

I am not sure how factually accurate this film is, no doubt some liberties have been taken, but it does show a pretty good look into family and the criminal world. Clearly the main draw here is Tom Hardy in dual roles and he does an excellent job of showing the different natures of the twins. While I enjoyed the film I am not sure how much depth it really has.

4/5

Jack Runaround

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016)

Directed by Edward Zwick this film based on the novel of the same name stars Tom Cruise, Cobie Smulders and Danika Yarosh. Heading to DC our hero finds his buddy sent to jail for a crime she didn't commit and a girl claiming to be the daughter he never knew he had.

Taking a highly predictable plot this film rattles through the motions without much thought for having any sort of character arcs. Introducing Cobie Smulders as a female counterpart to the protagonist offers a brief flicker of interesting content but is quickly swept under the carpet in favour of the protagonist doing it all himself. I suppose the stunts are fine but the fact that nearly every scene opens with the characters running somewhere gets kind of silly.

2/5

Less than the sum of it's parts

Rythmetic (1956)

Directed by Norman McLaren and Evelyn Lambart this is an animated short film. Numbers appear on the screen and get into mischief doing athematic.

Of the McLaren/Lambart collaborations I have seen this is not one of the more entertaining or visually appealing. It has a decent premise and while not too bad to watch comes across more as a simple educational video rather than entertainment. Even the animation style is not that interesting.

2/5

The journey to death

Last Cab to Darwin (2015)

Directed by Jeremy Sims this film based on the play of the same name stars Michael Caton, Ningali Lawford, Mark Coles Smith and Emma Hamilton. A taxi driver with only 3 months to live drives 3000km to where euthanasia has recently been legalised.

Inspired by a true story this film does a good job of exploring the desires of someone with a terminal illness who wishes to die with dignity. Easily this film could have been overly melodramatic but it handles the topic sensitively without drawing any heavy conclusions. There are decent performances from the cast but it is the script that stands out the most.

4/5