The Grand Budapest Hotel is a masterclass in cinema. Wes Anderson's idiosyncratic style reaches its zenith with an arty but perfectly poised and articulated movie that anyone can enjoy despite the rigorous adherence to its own defined cinematic rules. The camera is always directly facing, or directly side on, to its characters, almost like a stage show, and this style is kept up throughout. Not only is it meticulously planned and beautiful to view but it's perfectly in keepin

X-Men: Days Of Future Past is not one of those sequels you can just turn up to with no prior knowledge. With every character from both generations of X-Men movies coming together this is the franchise's Avengers. It also almost hits the heights that Marvel set with that superhero team up. Forsaking everything that happens in the original series in order to better represent the prequels, the ending to this one will leave you scratching your head all the way home from the cinem

Godzilla isn't quite as epic as the trailer would have you believe. Rather than the Cloverfield-esque creepy horror B-Movie it appears, this instead delivers the first traditional (i.e. non-superhero) summer blockbuster. It's all very Jurassic Park to begin with: exotic locations, scientists, marvellous scenery shots and the like but it just takes too much time to get going. Also, when it does, the movie is much less about the titular lizard and more about some other prehisto

Bad Neighbours will make you feel old. Casting Seth Rogen in a role where he's a father and angry at the partying, drug taking students next door really hits home how fast time goes. Thankfully, it makes no difference to his acting persona and he's still his incredible self and steals every scene in the film. Credit must therefore go to one time High School Musical floppy haired heartthrob Zac Efron who more than stands up to Rogen and plays his part superbly. Unfortunately,

Pompeii has to be a contender for the most frustrating film of the year. What is a great concept and incredible location gets lost searching for what type of film it wants to be. Part love story, part political drama, part gladiator action and part disaster movie it's too short to play all these parts successfully and so a lot is left unanswered and unfulfilled. The romance blossoms way too quickly and there is a lot of meaty historical context that is skimmed over. The other

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a difficult one to review. Building on the first film in every conceivable way, it's the classic 'more is more' approach from Sony and Marvel. The new tracking cameras for Spidey's web slinging is Gravity-esque and remarkably stunning (especially in IMAX) and really gives you a feeling of being in his shoes. The villains are better, as to be expected, and pose more of a threat although Jamie Foxx's Electro does go from Spidey-obsessive to supervill

Noah, considering the rather short story it is based on, is long. Bum-achingly long. Darren Aronofsky takes his fascination with delving into the human psyche to new depths as he investigates just what goes through a man's mind when tasked with standing by as the entire human race is destroyed. It has more in common stylistically with Aronofsky's most bizarre movie The Fountain than it does with his most famous (Black Swan) and, strangely enough, has a similar feel and colour

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is another triumph for Marvel's Phase 2 films. Building from the first Captain America rather than The Avengers the movie takes on the tone of a thriller rather than a traditional superhero flick. Cap' is only a (super strong) man after all and doesn't have the rather more super abilities of his Avenger's cohorts. As such, hand to hand combat is the film's forte, bolstered by Scarlett Johansson's irresistible Black Widow. Unfortunately, Ste

300: Rise of an Empire (surely they missed a trick by not calling it 302?!) tries so desperately hard to top the original. Dials are set firmly to 11 so expect more severed heads and waves of blood than you can shake the proverbial stick at. The idea of a 'side-sequel' is a great one. We start with Xerxes' story, cross over with King Leonidas' 300 and move past that to events after that legendary battle. However the ending of the original film is completely forgotten in lieu

Seems strange but Need For Speed is actually a decent adaptation of the videogame. It's almost a direct port: pink slips, cop chases, mysterious race organisers and all. Unfortunately it also transfers over the game's lack of story. You can count the number of good videogame films on the hand of someone who's had all their fingers cut off (Wreck-It Ralph and Scott Pilgrim don't count because they weren't existing franchises) but this kind of works if you go into it with the v

Gravity is a rollercoaster. If you want to see the absolute maximum that mankind can do with the cinema format then look no further than this critics and Oscar darling. As a visual spectacle this goes further than you could possibly imagine. However, I'm not sure the motion sickness-inducing tracking shots would have quite the same effect away from the three storey high perfection of the IMAX screen. Marvellous acting, direction and the rest of it but certainly an over-use of

Last Vegas is much more than 'The Hang-Over50's' it's billed as in the trailer. Forgoing the obvious 'ow my back' jokes in favour of genuine comedy and banter that could only come from lifetime friends the film has so much heart and plenty of emotion. Sure, the cliches of a Vegas based romantic-ish comedy are all there but a cast with Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro and Morgan Freeman can sell them better than most. It's charming and enjoyable, if a little short on laugh out