After a biological warfare research lab goes tits up when a virus gets loose, plucky security guard Milla Jovovich has to fight off hordes of the living dead in this fast-paced adaptation of the video game. No faulting the SFX or the action, but all the dialogue here is irritatingly clunky exposition, and the plot lies somewhere between predictable and brain-dead.
If not, as it's perennially voted, one of the 10 greatest films ever made, 1952's Singin' In The Rain is at the very least the sharpest Hollywood musical bar none. Fifty years on, it's still as gooey a plot as they come but with a lethal dose of feel-good factor as sumptuous as its kaleidoscopic colours and Gene Kelly's ingenious choreography, who's complaining?
Highly absorbing film about respectable family man Vincent (Aurelien Recoing) who, after losing his job as a consultant, invents a prestigious new career and betrays close friends with fictitious investment deals. Juggling fact with fiction creates ever-spiralling tensions until Vincent's double life closes in around him. A deceptively profound drama.
Multiple Oscar-winner (beating out Scorsese's Raging Bull) from 1980, directed calmly (and, for some, soporifically) by Robert Redford. It's a sombre, actorly affair in which wealthy Donald Sutherland and Mary Tyler Moore grieve for their son's death; his brother Timothy Hutton blames and shames. An early, earnest look at the dysfunctional family: American Beauty without the laughs.
In 2054 murder is obsolete thanks to Precrime, whose precognitive psychics enable police to arrest killers before they can kill. Then Precrime detective John Anderton (Tom Cruise) is himself accused of planning a murder, and only the psychic Agatha (Samantha Morton) can clear him. Spielberg's masterful sci-fi suspense turns Philip K Dick's short story into something Hitchcockian and technologically dazzling.
The 'medieval dead' conclusion to Sam Raimi's legendary trilogy is more action/comedy than horror, with heroic amputee Ash (Bruce Campbell) wielding his trusty chainsaw on Sumerian demons back in the year 1300. The special effects are worthy of Ray Harryhausen, and the comedy's in a league of its own. Great fun!
Third time around for Mike Myers' sweaty secret agent send-up, and the scattergun approach means two flat jokes for every live one. Still, he knocks down your resistance through sheer quantity: part Benny Hill, part Peter Sellers (although losing the fat Scotsman would do us all a favour). Beyoncé Knowles is the leg interest; cameos from Tom Cruise to, well, every current Hollywood name.
Die Hard director John McTiernan remakes the '70s extreme-sports classic with a sledgehammer where the subtle social comment should be. Chris Klein, the poor man's Keanu, is the Rollerball superstar learning that league-owner Jean Reno has all the morals of a snake. Loud, brash and dumb, though cameos by LL Cool J and Pink might thrill pop completists.
Fascinating, propulsive, inside-out account of southern Santa Monica's badboy "Dogtown" skateboarders, their explosive mid-'70s emergence at the Del Mar Nationals, and their ultimate domination and artistic definition of their sport. Director Stacy Peralta and writer Craig Stecyk, both former skateboarders, provide access and insights, Sean Penn provides narration.
