Scott Pilgrim starts off simply enough, a comedy about a bunch of twenty-somethings barely making a living in Toronto. That alone would have been a good enough premise to put into the capable hands of Edgar Wright but Scott Pilgrim is a lot more than a simple comedy.

Our hero, who the film is named after, is bumbling through life and just on the verge of recovery after a brutal break-up with a long-time ex. The final part of his grief is dating a wonderfully named 17-year-old girl, Knives Chau, played by Emily Wong.

The easy relationship is good enough for Scott until Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth-Winstead) skates her way into Scott’s dreams and heart. The two meet, romance blossoms and her seven evil exes want to turn Pilgrim into dust because of it. The only option is to fight back.

Bryan Lee-O’Malley’s comics on which the film is based come in six volumes, chock full of loveable characters and a plethora of film and video game references. Edgar Wright’s Spaced was similar in vein so the task of bringing the hyper-active books to the big screen couldn’t have been in better hands. The film may suffer in some areas but his direction and editing is second-to-none, perfectly capturing the vibe of the series.

Nobody was worried about that partnership but they were worried about the casting of Pilgrim, and rightfully so. Michael Cera has a talent, unfortunately it’s a talent limited to only one type of character. The awkward geeky teen. The character of Pilgrim has some of those traits but there’s a lot more to him that Cera has never really shown before. That said he still does a decent job but throughout the audience is still very aware of Cera’s presence.

The rest of the cast is top notch. As Pilgrim’s gay roomate Wallace, Kieran Culkin steals every scene he’s in. Emily Wong as Knives Chau is similarly great and Alison Pill as the deadpan Kim Pine rounds off a strong supporting cast. It’s this supporting cast as well as the direction that makes the film. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is good at times but her Ramona Flowers isn’t quite the same as the one in the books. It’s a tricky character to pull off but in the film she comes across as cold making the romance between her and Scott harder to invest in.

More than anything Scott Pilgrim Vs The World is a triumph for Edgar Wright. The plot suffers due to having to cram all seven exes into a single film but the fight scenes are varied enough and fun enough to watch. This mixed with the intensely colourful visuals make Scott Pilgrim a success. It may not be the new kind of film-making that one well-known film magazine claims it to be in typically hyperbolic fashion, but it’s fun and exhilerating all the same.

The Expendables is a rarity. A film that could have made millions without a single screenshot or piece of footage being shown before it’s release. It’s trailer could quite easily have been a powerpoint presentation showing nothing but the cast and the title and it still would have had men all over the world weak at the knees.

Action films have changed over the years but there’s always been a minority harking back to the days of Arnie spouting one-liners and Stallone’s insane Rambo hair. Except it was never a minority at all, it was a majority that simply didn’t know it wanted those things. Sylvester Stallone made The Expendables for these people.

Joining Stallone on screen are a host of confirmed badasses. Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Mickey Rourke, Steve Austin, Randy Couture, Eric Roberts and Terry Crews. But the posters mentioned two more men who with Stallone form the three biggest action stars of all time. Bruce Willis and the Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger share one scene with Sly and while not exactly high on acting skill it’s a dream scene many thought they would never see, with plenty of what makes each of the men a legend of the business.

Unfortunately the rest of the film doesn’t quite live up to that level of nostalgia. For a film that draws so much from the legacies of its actors, it takes itself surprisingly seriously. The ideas are ciche, soldiers who have been fighting for decades living with the memories of what they’ve done, and the acting quality available doesn’t help that, although Mickey Rourke who does well with the short screen time he has.

Criticising the acting would be missing the overall point slightly. However bad it may be at points, acting is the last reason any right-thinking gentleman would want to see this film. We came for guns, explosions and several tons of manliness smashing into our faces. We get that. The action is loud, hectic and enthralling. Punches land with the force of bullets, bullets land with the force of C4 and C4 goes off with the force of a nuclear bomb. The final act is a non-stop assault on the ears with a constant stream of profanity and gunpowder for nearly 20 minutes. The death toll rises as fast as your pulse.

Stallone may not have intended The Expendables to be a mindless piece of actiontainment but that’s the final result. It may be held back slightly by a slightly misused supporting cast but you get to see Stone Cold Steve Austin take on Sylvester frickin’ Stallone! That’s has to be worth the admission price!… and the popcorn, and the drink, and the new pair of pants you’ll be wanting once you’ve crapped yourself out of unbridled joy!

It may be the most obvious candidate but it’s also one of the best examples of how a poster can kill a film off before it’s even released. That claw-like hand of Nicolas Cage’s appears to be clutching an invisible gun while his other hand is sucked into a blackhole located in his right armpit. It’s very obviously an awful photoshop job but even more worrying is that at some point in time, somebody out there, somebody with a brain in their head, thought this was good enough to be seen in public.

Posters are meant to sell films by giving people an idea of what the film is about and a look at the stars. Here we have a film called Venus and a very confused looking Peter O’Toole. What is the film about? I can only assume his necktie is in fact an alien and the film tells the adventures of crazy old Pete as the alien takes him back to the home world.

Burt Reynolds is awesome. But I know he loves the ladies and I find it very hard to believe that he stopped which this poster is implying. There’s some text at the top that might explain it but the credits at the bottom are in a bigger font so why the heck would anyone bother reading that?

At first glance this is a perfectly acceptable poster. She is pretty, there will be Abba and there will be a fine ensemble cast. But then I tell you to look at the size of her neck… go on, look at it.

It scares me too.

Suited movie exec: What’s scary?
Knowing film person: Eyes can be scary.
Suit: I think you’re wrong, what about screaming?
Film Person: Screaming doesn’t really worky in a visual medium.
Suit: I think you’ll find I’m the one wearing a tie here, I make the decisions. Replace her eyes with screaming mouths and watch this film make BILLIONS!

Well to be perfectly honest this poster is awesome. But it’s definitely awesome in its awfulness. Geroge Scott (who I thought was Michael Douglas upon first look) looks like a melted wellington boot. I must see this film.

What makes you want to see a film more than three bored actors looking down at you? They’re looking down at you because you’re not as beautiful as them by the way, if that already wasn’t clear. OOH IT’S ON AT THE IMAX!!!

Slumdog Millionaire is a brilliant, brilliant film but Jesus Horatio Christ this poster is bad. Bright colours all over the place make it look like it should be in a night club and the two at-the-time unknown actors are seen in shadow and running for some reason. Why is she running? Why is he in shadow? Well you’ll just have to go buy the DVD.

Why does Arnie have to be drawn in this? Why do his hands have to glow? Why does his forehead have to be the size of his abs? Why does his torso look like it was half-heartidly carved from a dead cow? The poster even cuts out the most important part of the whole film, he’s Hercules but he’s Hercules IN NEW YORK! Wow…

The biggest release of the month is The Expendables, a tribute to eighties action movies, bringing together the greatest action stars of past and present for a 90 minutes of blood and explosions. I did not see this movie. Instead I watched another homage to a long-forgotten genre. In the 70s Blaxploitation films were born, a genre made with the sole intention of getting the black community to part with their money on a regular basis.

It’s a genre very obviously ripe for parody but the art of spoofing is exactly that, an art. It’s far more difficult than you would think, just look at Scary Movie 4, Date Movie, Superhero Movie and whatever other piles of shit they’ve come up with. Those films point at their jokes with massive neon signs, almost threatening to hurt you if you don’t laugh. Black Dynamite plays it deadpan and the results are nothing short of spectacular.

I couldn’t possibly write any more without first applauding the attention to detail put into a film with a budget of around $3 million. Tell someone it’s a film from the seventies and they will believe you. The sets, the colours, the filming techniques and the performances all come together to give it an authentic 1970’s feel. It feels like an undiscovered gem and masterfully plays around with the idea of the audience not knowing if something is intended to be funny. Black Dynamite is a comedy, but if you didn’t know that going in you would be forgiven for thinking you’re laughing at a film without its tongue firmly in its cheek.

Regardless the film is still hilarious thanks mostly to the array of charmingly hammy performances. Everyone is in on the joke and thoroughly enjoying being part of such a wonderfully silly film. Black Dynamite is a film that can’t help but raise a smile. It may not be an everlasting classic but as ways to spend 100 minutes come, you won’t do much better this year.

Twilight. Sex in the City. Dance movies. To put it mildly I do not like these films. Despite that I still understand why they all exist, I see the appeal in them even if it doesn’t appeal to me at all. But if there’s one series that I don’t understand and never will, it’s the Saw films.

There are seven of them. SEVEN FILMS. Why? Well the first was by all accounts a good horror film and one of the sequels was meant to be pretty good too but all too quickly the focus of the film changed. It went from the horror of being trapped in a room, having no idea how you got there and having gory tasks handed to you from a puppet to OH MY GOD LOOK HOW THEY MULTILATED THAT GUY!

Somewhere there are people who come up with new ways to torture, maim and kill people in the Saw films and the host of gore porn flicks around the world. If what they came up with was in a notepad and they worked in a supermarket they would be sectioned, there can be no question about that.

These films are cheap to make but rake in the cold hard cash so why they exist in the eyes of studio execs is clear, and I don’t blame them for churning them out because, apparently, it’s what people want. Lots of people. I don’t know why! Out there, down your street, maybe in the next room, is someone who enjoys seeing people’s ribcages cracked open or their eyes being melted.

From what I know I think there are two types of people who enjoy these films. There are those who get the sick thrill I’ve already mentioned and there are those who watch with friends and laugh their arses off at people in incredible amounts of pain. The latter is slightly better but I don’t see what’s so funny, there’s not even a sick comic timing to the kills like there is in the Final Destinations.

But what do I know? To me gore does not equate to horror. I understand why people see horror films, it’s because being scared is the most effective way of a film connecting with an audience, but I simply don’t see the appeal in what has come to be known, as gore porn.

Tom Cruise is an oddity to say the least. Opinions of him are split but watching his interviews it’s clear the guy has charm by the barrel load. That same charm is meant to be the driving force behind Knight and Day but despite his best efforts it just can’t overcome such a nonsensical, forgettable film.

Cameron Diaz stars as June who gets caught up in the exploits of secret agent Roy Miller, played by Cruise. What follows is a succession of decent action scenes barely strung along by the two lead’s hammy performances. Diaz is slightly better to start off with but there’s a weird switch before the film’s final act. Miller is borderline psychotic at the start managing to reign himself in before the end but as he does June becomes just as insane in her pursuit of him. The two deserve each other. Both desperate to fulfil some sort of sick, adrenaline-junkie spy fantasy.

The film is fuelled by the silliness of its action and plot which is half of the action-comedy genre it’s clearly in. The other half comes from jokes that mostly fall flat but if not being funny was bad enough, there’s an underlying sense that everyone involved in the production thought it was hilarious. The actors exemplify this too turning charm and quirkiness into arrogance and stupidity. Cruise is the big knight in shining armour (which is the point) and Diaz becomes a ditzy, borderline mentally-ill blonde.

About half way through the film it’ll suddenly click. The tidal wave of arrogance coming from the film will hit you in the face. It turns into a celebration of all things Cruise and Diaz. “Look at them, look how beautiful they are, mmmm look at their sexy toned bodies, aren’t you glad you saw this film?” No, no I am not. Tom Cruise is approaching 50, Diaz approaching 40, it comes across as a last ditch attempt to look amazing on film before it all starts to sag or be injected with something.

It probably would have worked with younger stars, a solid action-comedy for the CVs of actors on to bigger and better things. Instead Knight and Day is crushed under the weight of the star power of its leads. It should have been called Cruise & Diaz.

The Karate Kid has a story you could write on the back of fly swatter. A young boy and his mother move to China where the boy encounters kung-fu-learning bullies and subsequently learns the way of true kung-fu from a maintenance man. It may be obvious what’s going to happen at nearly every turn but this film is all about the journey and as family films go, it’s a good journey.

China is a touchy subject so seeing it portrayed as such a lovely place with such lovely buildings is a bit disconcerting but the polar opposite would have been equally so. But there’s no doubting the country’s beauty which provides a wonderful backdrop for some well-made kung-fu learning montages.

Stepping into the shoes of the original film’s Mr Miyagi is Jackie Chan as Mr Han. Chan, as well as the star of the show young Jaden Smith, truly shine, turning an average family film into something much more enjoyable. Smith channels everything that made his father Will one of the biggest stars on the planet into a great performance that will hopefully serve as a platform for future success. However it’s Chan who really surprises, bringing an unexpected level of emotional depth to his character, culminating in a remarkable scene that really packs a punch.

The climax of the film is the kung-fu tournament in which Smith’s character Dre takes on his bullies and their arsehole trainer. Well-shot and genuinely exciting fights mean watching children hit each other has never been so entertaining. And if that’s not enough reason to go Chan takes on a whole group of pre-teens in one scene.

The Karate Kid is a good family film well worth a trip to the cinema this summer. It may suffer on occasion from the unavoidable perils of child actors but Chan and Smith’s performances make up for that. For my money it’s better than the iconic original and remakes don’t get heftier praise than that.

Chris Tucker (Particularly in The Fifth Element)

Jar Jar Binks (He made the Ewoks look like fucking Shaft)

Tweedledum and Tweedledick (The Twins from Transformers 2: Quest for Megatron’s Lost Gold)

Gollum Dobby (Harry Potter and the Character That Serves No Bloody Purpose)

Spawn of Tom Cruise (War of the Worlds)

Brian “We’ve got a Donkey Kong killscreen coming up” Kuh (King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters)

The Cast of Spaceballs (Worst Spoof Ever)

Focussing on the plot of this boisterous modernising of the classic 80’s TV show would be missing the point entirely. It has something to do with money-printing plates and there’s a baddie with weird green eyes but the film moves at such a belting pace you’d be lucky to notice even that much. The focus of this big, dumb action film is on the characters and the action. Neither out-shines the other and both are in your face from the get-go.

The opening scene is a shot of adrenaline to get the audience interested and to introduce them to the characters. It works well but the pace barely lets up over the film’s duration. Pacing is crucial to an action film and A-Team’s ends up being a curse rather than a blessing. There’s an awful lot of editing too with barely a single shot lasting over 10 seconds. It becomes a bit disorientating as the film goes on but it never becomes unwatchable thanks to the stars of the show.

Each character has their familiar traits and are played very well by their actors. Quinton “Rampage” Jackson’s BA Baracus may seem a bit tame compared to the ass-kicking Mr T but he certainly has his moments and the natural charm of the UFC fighter shines through when it needs to. Sharlto Copley puts in a fun performance as Murdoch, likewise with Bradley Cooper as Face.

It’s Liam Neeson who steals the show though. As Hannibal the veteran actor exudes cool in every scene, deservedly snatching the limelight away from the youngsters.  The strength of the team’s chemistry effortlessly carries the film through to its conclusion.

Early on an action scene is cut together with another scene of them planning the operation. It’s a cool scene, perhaps the best of the film, but the technique is used again in the finale to ill-effect. The final set-piece is unfortunately lacklustre and a bit messy due to some half-arsed CGI. The earlier, far better, set-pieces of the film were kept relatively simple in comparison. The ending should have been a far simpler affair focusing the character’s revenge rather than a one massive set-piece.

Thankfully the film is still very fun and its great to see such a good product at the end of such a troubled production. A lot of people were rightfully sceptical of remaking such a loved TV show but there’s more than enough here to please them.

Believe me when I say I love video games. I don’t shrug them off as a lesser entertainment or believe in the redundant stereotypes but my God do they make horrific films. But why are video game movies so damn bad? Some might say it’s the content, some might say it’s that the directors who might be able to do them justice aren’t interest and others might just point at Uwe Boll. They’d all be right, but the main reason is a simple one.

Video games aren’t film material. They appear to be at first glance, they have action, they have multiple characters, they have a beginning, middle and end but they are too free-flowing and dependant on player input to be translated to the silver screen. The average game also lasts a lot longer than the average film. You can’t cram lengthy, not-always-linear storylines into much shorter films.

Games and films are at opposite ends of the story-telling spectrum. Films require audiences, games require players. The former sits back and soaks in the details presented on the screen, the latter takes control of what happens on it. Gaming is dependent on being someone; filling the boots of a character and shaping their own destiny, often with a trigger button.

This isn’t to say there are plenty of great ideas in gaming. The worlds of some games like Bioshock or Half Life would look great given big-screen treatment but the stories of both can’t be told through any other medium. Bioshock plays with the notion of linear, objective-based gameplay within the story itself but going any further into that would be entering spoiler territory. In Half Life the lead character doesn’t even talk and without Gordon Freeman’s silence, the whole franchise would fall apart.

Games still imitate films however. The Mass Effect and Uncharted series’ have a cinematic feel, good writing and are supported by great voice acting. However neither would be the same if control was taken away from the millions of players and put into the hands of a single director. It takes away what’s best about video games.

If that wasn’t enough reason, how about Super Mario Bros, Tomb Raider, Doom, Far Cry, Max Payne, Prince of Persia, Bloodrayne, Alone in the Dark, Resident Evil 1, 2 and 3?