Bovie Movie

This lower-than-low-budget feature was made with a combined cast and crew of just 28, in a south London house that doubled as both production facility and primary set. And while one must applaud the fact that it got made at all, unfortunately the corny and contrived end product wasn’t worth the effort. TV producer Chris (Martin Freeman) is desperate to sell his house but is stuck at work dealing with an obnoxious presenter, so has ordered his artist flatmate Bob to let in anyone who calls round. Bob takes this instruction literally, so an American gangster and his British lackey (the ubiquitous Danny Dyer) get mistaken for estage agents, and when assorted other callers show up — from Jehovah’s Witnesses to a children’s entertainer — they all wind up being accidentally held hostage by the criminals. The whole thing is unbelievably stupid; the two parts of the story seem like separate films and there is absolutely nothing funny about either of them. 

In the third film based on author Robert Ludlum’s bestsellers, former CIA agent Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) hits the ground running — and from then on the pace never slackens. The subtle and simple script is dazzling, as Bourne zips through stunning global locations to discover the truth about his past and take revenge on those responsible for his brainwashed plight. Damon has really made the role of the troubled assassin his own, and returning director Paul Greengrass employs the same hand-held camera technique he used in The Bourne Supremacy to add immediacy and up-close-and-personal thrills to the terrific stunts. With flashbacks to both previous episodes, and stars Joan Allen and Julia Stiles returning to marvellous effect, this final instalment is essentially one long chase that never loses its grip or credibility. Nothing is overplayed, from the scary surveillance tracking methods to the high-level corruption, making this a superbly crafted masterclass in intelligent action film-making. 

A thief finds one of his best friends is in jeopardy when a disastrous robbery turns out to yield the score of a lifetime in this action thriller. Jack Tolliver (Wesley Snipes) is a former Delta Force commando who has jumped to the wrong side of the law to take part in a massive heist intended to carry off the winnings of several major London casinos. However, the robbery goes haywire and one of Tolliver’s partners is taken hostage by handful of brutal Russian gangsters. It seems the gangsters want something that Tolliver mistakenly grabbed during the foiled heist — a case containing a rare painting by Van Gogh worth millions — and Tolliver is forced to team up with rival Kelly Anders (Tamzin Outhwaite) to save both his friend and himself.

Blade II director Guillermo del Toro tackles another comic-book adaptation with this faithful take on Mike Mignola’s unlikely superhero Hellboy. A visually appealing marriage of action, horror and romance, it’s both intelligent and fun. In a wry and often poignant performance, Ron Perlman brings unusual depth to the titular character, a cigar-chomping demon intended by the Nazis for acts of evil, but instead raised by the Allies to be an agent of good. From his arch-enemy Rasputin (Karel Roden) to his pyrokinetic love interest (Selma Blair), every aspect of Hellboy’s world is exotic and exciting. Though the film loses momentum towards the end, it’s still a strong example of its genre. 

In the good old days, the Mummy merely met Abbott and Costello. Now, thanks to the wizards of the special-effects industry, this digitally manipulated villain can meet his adversaries in a world of vibrant action and epic adventure. It’s all here: ancient curses, an embalmed high priest, two rival parties searching for archaeological treasure and dashing legionnaire Brendan Fraser romancing prim librarian Rachel Weisz. Screenwriter/director Stephen Sommers has embroidered the original story to excess at times, with flesh-eating beetles and battling zombie slaves just two of the gruesome modern additions vying for screen time with the more traditional elements of the tale. Yet Fraser does his goofy macho best as an Indiana Jones clone, tackling every scene with endearing enthusiasm, while Arnold Vosloo has the perfect bone structure for the brooding menace returned from the dead. 

A seemingly insignificant act may cause the fabric of history to unravel in this sci-fi adventure. Charles Hatton (Ben Kingsley) owns and operates a successful firm known as Time Safari. Thanks to time travel technology developed by Hatton’s employee Sonia Rand (Catherine McCormack), Time Safari allows big game hunters to journey back to prehistoric days and shoot living, breathing dinosaurs. Rand picks out the dinosaur in question, who is soon to die, and creates a floating walkway for the hunters, so the impact of their presence will not be felt by the land around them. But on one expedition, things go horribly wrong when a nervous hunter steps off the walkway and crushes a butterfly, a tiny act that proves to have massive consequences over the course of several million years. As the earth’s climate and animal life begin to mutate due to this shift in natural history, Time Safari’s leading hunting guide, Travis Ryer (Edward Burns), works beside Rand in a desperate attempt to halt the “ripples of time” before modern civilization completely collapses. A Sound of Thunder was based on a classic short story by pioneering science fiction author Ray Bradbury.