Playing ‘squeal like a pig’ for a couple of hours with Mr One-Eye would have been more enjoyable than what followed.

Hindsight, of course, is a beautifully useless thing.

An insult to mankind

Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Justin Bartha and Zach Galifianakis return as the Wolf Pack. A new member also joins the fold – but he’s so inconsequential to the ensuing shenanigans that I can’t even remember his name or face.

The movie stalks the shadow of its predecessor with the passion of a schizophrenic’s other self. Each and every beat riffs from the first installment, simply interchanging location to Thiland and comedic props with uninspired equivalents.

Director Todd Phillips seemingly dropped a bunch of objects into a box and asked a one-legged pony to pick them out. “Oh yeah guys, a smoking monkey, that’ll replace the tiger from the first film!”

“Sweet Jesus, it’s a picture of a tattoo, that’ll replace the tooth pulling scene, we are comedy geniuses, we’ve invented the best comedy formula ever, let’s exploit it”

The film is so plug and play that it may well have been written by a computer programme.

The Worst Hangover Ever

Playing out like some annoying guy in the pub who is licensed in the art of successively outdoing his drinking buddy’s story, The Hang Over 2 fails miserably in its battle of one-upmanship with it’s parent film. Needless to say, I was left more down and out than a cannery in a mine shaft.

As so many of us do after a heavy night’s drinking, I left the cinema vowing “never again”.

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

Just because something’s ‘slow’, it doesn’t always mean it’s bad.

Take Stephen Hawkins, for instance. While he lacks the sizzle of Eddie Murphy, what he says counts – his robotic ramblings more captivating than a three-legged banjo player in a trouser shop.

Then there’s Anton Corbin’s slow-burn thriller, The American. Sure it’s slow, but like Stephen Hawkin’s on a scuba diving expedition, it’s got depth.

George ‘The American’ Clooney

The American stars George Clooney as an assassin on the run from a mob of angry Swedes. Laying low in a quiet European town, Clooney is tasked with one final job before hanging up his guns.

Don’t be fooled by the pitch, though. The American has about as much in common with a Michael Bay film as a bold man does with hair gel.

Here, the action is only occasional, the sporadic violence a mirror reflecting back the inner turmoil of Clooney’s complex gunslinger. And that’s what The American is – a character study of a man so detached from the social order that he makes George W Bush look like a children’s entertainer.

The Hitman Genre

The American is far from original, ticking all the tropes of the hitman genre with the precision of a Bulgarian ballerina. Even so, Corbin’s unnerving attention to detail and refusal to be swayed by the lures of explosive action, elevates The American above it’s genre credentials.

On top of that, Clooney owns the role, tapping into the detachment of past characters inhabited in Michael Clayton and Up in the Air. Perhaps it’s just me, but I could watch Clooney peel onions for two-hours – the guy is a captivating screen presence.

Coming to America

If you’re looking for a balls-out action thriller, The American is likely to disappointment. The mixed reviews seem to be largely down to the confusion caused over the trailer which misleading paints the movie as nuts and bolts genre piece.

Personally, though, I found The American to be a beautifully meditative piece of filmmaking.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

In the fictional world, there’s no place for Karma. Wishing a grizzly end on an antagonist is all part of the cinematic experience.

So it was with glee that I observed the rise and fall of independent filmmaker, Tory Duffy – the evil emperor of Overnight. One small issue though: Overnight is a documentary and Duffy is a real person – well just about.

Troy Duffy : What a Lovely Fellow

Troy Duffy is the guy you love to hate. His personality is more impressing than a steroid enhanced chicken, his moral compass more erratic than an ice-hockey player wearing slippers.

Duffy is on the cusp of success, having just sold his script to Miramax fat cat, Harvey Weinstein. Convinced of his status as the ‘second coming’, Duffy enlists friends Mark Brian Smith and Tony Montana to document his accession to Hollywood heaven.

As Duffy’s dreams crumble faster than a biscuit in a washing machine, the co-directors stick around to document his humiliation. You can hardly blame them either. Convinced of his invincible talent and power, Duffy’s out-of-control ego quickly turns to a barrage of vicious assaults on his unsuspecting friends.

Duffy displays blatant disregard for anyone with a pulse – anyone, that is, apart from himself. The wannabe filmmaker points the finger faster than an out-of-control marksman, taking down his friends with a visceral aplomb not seen since the invasion of Poland. Like all egocentric nut jubs, Duffy offloads responsibility for his shortcomings on those around him.

What starts out as a document of success, fast becomes an anti-fable on how not to make it in Hollywood. Heralded as the new Quentin Tarantino, Duffy’s 15 minutes of fame evaporate faster than the contents of an ice-cream van in a heat wave.

Hollywood Horror Story

While Overnight is amateurish at times in its composition, the central story is compelling enough to make this a must-watch movie. If you enjoy paying witness to someone wriggle like a sausage in trouser press, then Overnight is for you.

And frankly, failure couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Either way, it’s this juxtaposition between comedy and action which ultimately belies the movie’s central problem. For the best part of an hour, though, I was more entertained than a gypsy in peg shop.

Knight and Day : A Tale of Two Cities

Knight and Day is a typical fish-out-of-water movie. June, played by Cameron Diaz, becomes embroiled in one high octane chase after another following a chance encounter with Tom Cruise’s fugitive, super-spy.

The actors revel in the absurdity of the movie, hamming it up like two pigs in a deli. Cruise and Diaz are hotter together than a band of Singapore hooker’s in mating season – chemistry bubbling off the screen like some fourth grader’s volcano experiment.

Couple this central-pairing with James Mangold’s directorial efforts and Knight and Day comfortably rises above its middle-of-the-road summer action credentials.

Too Much Transformers

Knight and Day plays out like an epic battle between a vegan and a meat eater atop a cloud engulfed mountain. While the vegan puts up a good fight for an hour, eventually the protein-high antagonist wins out.

What I’m trying to say is this: in the end, too much action, not enough laughs. The premise wears thin as the Michael Bay-esque crash and bang takes centre-stage.

Even so, Knight and Day is a fun film and, while it wobbles like an arthritic golfer at times, it’s sure to keep you on the edge of your seat.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Hal Ashby’s 1979 classic Being There is the perfect counterpoint to anyone who claims cinema is the lowest form of art.

Ashby’s beautifully minimalist work rises above the parapet of entertainment with the grace of a Russian ballerina.

The film quietly emerged as the curtains closed on the new wave of auteur cinema which swept America during the 70s. And what a fitting end Being There is.

Peter Sellers: A Flawed Genius

Peter Seller’s turn as the unassuming gardener, Chauncey, marks the real talking point of Being There. Ashby’s understated direction allows The Pink Panther star to shine in one of the greatest on-screen performances of all time.

He plays a simpleton gardener who’s taken residency in the home of a wealthy recluse since infancy. After the old man dies, Chance is forced out onto the street, his only knowledge of the world derived through his beloved television set.

An encounter with the wife of a wealthy industrialist – played by Shirley MacLaine – sets in motion a chain of events which results in Chauncey unwittingly becoming a political confidante to the US president.

His blank affect and gardening metaphors are taken by his new friends as literal pronouncements on the state of the economy.

Being There: A Biting Satire

Ashby’s satirical parable functions on so many levels. It’s smarter than a Siamese twin who got both the brains. A fascination with the power of television and a lingering concern over the notion of reality punctuate the script’s many beats.

Then you have Chance, a blank character, a mirror of sorts, on whom others project their own identity. Almost every character hears what they want to in the slipstream of his nonsensical ramblings.

It’s a damning condemnation of the egocentric nature of human beings.

Being There: One of the Greatest Movies of all Time

Being There etched a blueprint into the filmic landscape which would later be appropriated by Forrest Gump, among other films.

Unlike Forrest Gump though, the movie retains its artistic credibility by resisting the lure of over sentimentalising the action.

Being There has no need to manipulate viewers into feeling sympathy towards the lead character. The emotional response generated is organic and true.

The constituent parts of Ashby’s direction, Seller’s performance and Jerzy Kosinski’s script, perform in perfect harmony.

Quite simply, Being There is one of the greatest movies of all time.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Aja’s decision to dunk as many nipples in the fish tank as piranha tickled my fancies like a feather duster.

After all, if you’re eating sushi, you may as well get wet.

Piranha 3D: Reworking Joe Dante’s original

Aja’s re-working of Joe Dante’s 1978 original delivers exactly what it promises – the best and worst traditions of 70s exploitation cinema.

The Switchblade Romance and Hills Have Eyes alumni tones down his trademark visceral gore and ramps up the cheese factor.

Like a block of mature cheddar, Aja sets sail in his fishing boat and docks at Port Homage to Gimmicky Horror B-Movies. Piranha’s low-budget, eye-popping 3D effects, jump out of the screen in an affectionate Cormanesque throwback.

The premise, of course, is as shaky as an arthritic golfer. When a tremor in Lake Havasu, Ariz, fractures the lake floor, a prehistoric strain of piranha emerge to unleash a reign of terror on the half-naked Spring Break populace.

When all is said and done, though, the movie is a love letter to the excessive horror films which defined the 70s – nothing more, nothing less.

Piranha 3D: Fish Food

Piranha 3D is a gimmicky b-movie with about as much depth as a dried up lake. Luckily, director Aja never takes things too seriously and the tongue-in-cheek sensibilities mean it’s hard to dislike the movie.

If you’re expecting a crisp, effects-driven horror with an obligatory twist, then you’ll probably be sorely disappointed.

But, if like me, you enjoy the finer things in life such as breasts, beer and killer fish, give it a whirl.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

True to form, Resident Evil Afterlife is a blend of good and bad and like a Mars Bar, too many will leave you feeling sick.

Resident Evil Afterlife: WTF Just Happened?

Thirty minutes into Resident Evil Afterlife and I hadn’t a clue what was going on. Like a nudist who accidentally stumbled onto the set of a porn film, things were unclear.

From what I could tell, the action unfolds in a world ravaged by a virus infection where Alice, played by Mila Jovovich, continues her battle against the Umbrella Corporation.

To get a handle on the film, refer to the opening scene where the antagonist is established in unintentionally hilarious fashion. The camera settles on a ominous figure clad head-to-toe in black, a pair of obligatory shades hanging from his angular face – a clear signifier of villainous qualities if ever I’ve seen one.

Prowling an underground command centre with the menace of a lost duck, an insubordinate henchman makes the mistake of questioning his authority. Like any good boss, Mr Black responds in kind by shooting him in the face – ohhh, nasty. Casually turning around, he asks: “Does anybody else have any questions?”

Enough said.

Resident Evil Afterlife: Cliché City

After the confusion of the opening, Resident Evil Afterlife settles down into a half decent zombie-escape movie. With a nod to the claustrophobic settings of Dawn of the Dead and Escape from New York, Alice takes refuge in a ramshackle building.

As it turns out, her current place of residence is in fact a prison. Luckily enough, the guy from Prison Break – Wentworth Miller – turns up to break her out.

What are the odds of that?

If I ever wound up trapped inside a zombie-infested prison, I’d want old Wentworth as my cell mate.

Resident Evil: The film Franchise continues

It’s no spoiler to say the movie’s finale clearly hints that the audience can expect to see Resident Evil back in the cinemas at some point in the future. While the franchise continues to turn a profit, no doubt we’ll be inundated with sequels. Like a fat guy in a sweet shop, it makes perfect economic sense.

While I can’t really recommended Resident Evil Afterlife, I’ll say this: if you choose to watch it, remove your brain and place carefully in the nearest available washing machine because you won’t be needing it any time soon.

In the words of my good mate Ron Seal, Resident Evil Afterlife does “exactly what it says on the tin”.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Herzog and Cage were born to work together. It’s no secret they are both nuttier than a pecan pie and like two mad professors in the doldrums of some secret science lab, they get the chemistry just right.

Bad Lieutenant/ Good Lieutenant

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is as much as sly comedy as it is an exposé on the complexity of mankind. Corrupt police lieutenant Terrence McDonagh, played with aplomb by Nicolas Cage, fumbles his way through post Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans.

Herzog paints a portrait of a drug-ridden, morally ambiguous detective with the dulcet tones we’ve come to expect from the German director.

With drug addiction, mob debts and a murder investigation hanging round his neck, McDonagh swims through life like a fish with dementia – he doesn’t always find the net.

Bad Lieutenant – Nicolas Cage at his Crazy Best

Nicolas Cage revels in the role of a rogue detective who plays fast and loose with the law. Chewing up the scenery like a homeless guy who just struck gold, Cage reminds us of how great he can be.

Cage is a fearless actor – he’s never afraid to go one step too far. Sure, sometimes he ends up looking like a lobotomised extra from Scorcese’s Shutter Island, but when things click, Boy George do they click.

Bad Lieutenant harks back to the Cage of old, with films such as Wild at Heart and Raising Arizona springing to mind. I can’t help feel Cage benefits from the tutelage of great directors; after all, the majority of his best turns have taken place under the watching eyes of filmic geniuses.

This, of course, is the case in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. With Herzog behind the camera – perhaps the only person on the planet crazier than Cage – good things are all but a guarantee.

The bottom line is this: when Cage is good, he’s good, when he’s bad, he’s the Wicker Man.

Bad Lieutenant: a fitting re-imagining of Abel Ferrara’s 1993 classic

Werner Herzog re-imaging of Abel Ferrara’s 1993 classic, Bad Lieutenant, leaves no stone unturned when it comes to crazy. If the film achieves anything, let’s hope it casts some light on Ferrara’s shamefully overlooked movie.

While Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans fails to hit the heady heights of filmic perfection, it’s one of the better entries in the 2009 canon.

I had a blast with this movie and the pairing of Herzog and Cage sets off a chain-reaction the likes of which we haven’t seen since the crossing of proton streams in Ghostbusters.

The only thing lacking was a cameo by The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. But as my old momma used to say: “If you open a home for wayward sailors, you’d have to open a home for lost pets”.

In other words, you can’t have everything.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

It does, of course, make perfect economic sense to place Gerard Butler and Jennifer Aniston centre stage. If you listen closely, you can still hear the sound of cash-grabbing Hollywood fat cats lining their pockets with undeserved riches.

After all, who wouldn’t want to watch Mr Abs and Mrs Haircut ham it up in an outrageous action comedy? Well, not me. Had I been juggling handgrenades at the time of viewing, my person would now be a piece of modern art splattered all over the living room wall.

The Bounty Hunter: Pull the Pin

So what’s The Bounty Hunter all about? The plot, if you can call it that, may well have been written on the back of a cigarette pack. Gerard Butler plays Milo Boyd, a bounty hunter who stumbles on his dream job – the chance to track down his bail-hopping ex-wife, Nicole Hurly (Jennifer Aniston).

While the movie rides the coattails of comedic gems such as Midnight Run, the complete absence of laughs mean The Bounty Hunter is about as funny as a hammer to the head. Actually, a hammer to the head would be funnier.

Gerard Butler: The Ugly Truth

Gerard Butler struts his stuff in The Bounty Hunter with the grace of an elephant on a trampoline. His performance here may be light-years ahead of that in The Ugly Truth, but this guy gets deeper under my skin than a Chilean coal miner.

Butler exudes the charisma of a fossil, his delivery imbued with the lifelessness of a goldfish on a bus. Curiosity, however, recently got the better of me when I joined a Butler fan forum in search of enlightenment as to his appeal.

You know that moment when you walk into a village pub: the music stops, silence ensues, punters’ heads rotate Exorcist-style towards your person? Sure you do. Well that’s the icy response this wandering stranger encountered from fans of ‘Gerry’. I wasn’t welcome. So it was that I fought with the bravery of a Catholic priest to exorcise the truth from those who pray to the Shrine of Butler.

The general consensus seems to be this: Gerry has the ‘x-factor’, ‘he’s butch’, ‘sexy’ and, wait for it: ‘there’s just something about him that you can’t put your finger on’.

Well let me try. Butler has the touch of a black hole: he sucks the life out of every movie he’s in. Like taxes, the common cold and Simon Cowell, he just refuses to go away.

And why do producers keep insisting Gerry drops his Scottish accent in favour of an America twang? I’m yet to see a film in which he doesn’t sound like Dolly Parton stuck in a microwave.

Despite all my misgivings, I have a sneaking suspicion Butler may pull a decent performance from the hat at some point, but for now, he needs to fire his agent and commit to a script outside his comfort zone.

I’d like to see him play a cross-dressing, zoo keeper, who stops at nothing to save the world from a shortage of cornflakes. Instant classic!

The Bounty Hunter: 150 Minutes Later

As a romantic comedy, The Bounty Hunter has all the sizzle of a vegetarian sausage – it looks promising, but lacks substance.

It’s a pointless movie that would have been better left on the shelf along with an out-of-date jar of pickles and Eddie Murphy’s acting career.

Rating: 0.5 out of 5 stars

With a cast including Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Dave Spade and Rob Schneider, you’d be forgiven for expecting at least a few laughs.

Be advised against getting your hopes up though, otherwise you’ll be sorely disappointed. Grown Ups is about as enjoyable as sitting down to lunch with George W Bush.

Grown Ups: Sandler and co suffer a mid-life crisis

Adam Sandler is a funny guy, there’s no doubt about that. He’s even proven himself a versatile actor with Punch Drunk Love sitting atop an impressive resume.

Grown Ups, then, falls into the weaker Adam Sandler film bracket. Rather than push the comedic boundaries, Sandler and co rely on inane jokes and poorly executed physical gags.

And the plot is as lifeless as a cornfield in a drought. Sandler leads a band of friends and their families to a lakeside retreat for the funeral of their beloved high school coach.

A mildly interesting binary opposition emerges between the emotionally arrested adults and their children, who seem more interested in Playstations and i-Pods than climbing trees.

As the grown ups rediscover their youth, the children’s emotional arc leads them to finding fun outside the grasp of modern-day technology.

But as my old mamma used to say: any empty purse is as useful as a one-armed banjo player.

Grown Ups or Groan Ups? You decide

Watching Grown Ups you get the sense that the actors were lured to the project simply by the prospect of lining their wallets while hanging out together.

Sandler no doubt rang them up to sell them on the film: “Hey guys, let’s hang out and get paid. We’ll all sit on deck chairs and film it because we are so funny”.

Well, I laughed once, but that was only after the guy sitting in front of me accidentally spilt Coke all over his unsuspecting date.

Rating: 0.5 out of 5 stars