Movie Rating 8 out of 10 Family Rating Adult Themes, Violence, some coarse language M Night Shyamalan started his directing his career with the incredible The Sixth Sense, then in 2000 came Unbreakable with Bruce Willis in the lead. Since then, many of his films failed to register with audiences, Signs, The Village, The Happening and then he went from poor to awful with The Last Airbender and After Earth. His career looked at an end until he went back to his roots and made the amazing Split, with James McAvoy and this last piece of the trilogy, 20 years in the making, Glass. While Unbreakable and Split can be watched without knowing the full story, I would recommend that you watch both of these before seeing Glass. If you haven't seen the first two there may be some spoilers ahead but not the outcomes of each movie so I hope it encourages you to see them rather than puts you off. Unbreakable, starring Bruce Willis tells the story of David Dunn, the sole survivor of a major train crash, who becomes the obsession of Elijah Price, Samuel L Jackson, who is a brilliant man but has a condition that has weakened his bone structure so that they will break under the slightest pressure. Price confronts Dunn and tells him that he believes that he is a superhero who has a role to play in helping others. This movie has a real twist at the end that I will not reveal. Split is the story of a man, James McAvoy, who has 24 distinct personalities. He has kidnapped 3 young girls and the movie goes through how each of the personalities interrelates, with some trying to save the girls while others welcome the arrival of the personality known as the Beast. James McAvoy is amazing as he revolves through so many characters, who refer to their collective self as the Horde, each with its own voice and characteristics. The film plays out as a stand-alone story until the very last scene where Split and Unbreakable become linked. So this is a long build-up to my review on Glass. This movie focuses on the character of Elijah Price, from the Unbreakable movie. Dr Ellie Staple, Sarah Paulson, brings Dunn, the Horde and Price together in a program designed to reform people who believe that they may have superhuman powers to see that they are just normal. While none of them is the standard superheroes/villains of Marvel status they believe that they have significant powers which are brought into question by the doctor's treatment. The film has continual twists and without adding any spoilers we find out at the end who has been manipulating who. The three main actors in Bruce Willis, James McAvoy and Samuel Jackson, play their roles brilliantly and the film becomes a real…

Vice - Amazing performances, ordinary story Movie Rating 7 out of 10 Family Rating Adult themes, strong coarse language, depictions of war violence. This movie is based on the story of Dick Cheney and so the name 'Vice' refers to the office of Vice President of the United States in which he served during the period that George W Bush served as President. I really wasn't planning to see this film, as modern American politics leaves me cold, but as it will be nominated for some Academy Awards I have the reviewers duty to share with you all my opinions. The story follows the development of Dick Cheney from a lethargic university student with little ambition to the point that he becomes one of the most powerful men in the world. This review will be in two parts today as I will firstly review the movie and its cast and then secondly the politics of the presentation. Christian Bale is an amazing actor and will go close to winning the Best Actor award for his portrayal of Dick Cheney. Some of you may recall the little rant I had last year about Gary Oldman's performance of Winston Churchill, fat suit and all. In contrast, Bale has the mesmerising ability to physically become the character he is playing, losing heaps of weight in The Machinist and now putting on weight to play Cheney. Halfway through the movie, I forgot that this was an actor and not the real character. In support, Amy Adams does a great job as his ambitious wife without turning it into an episode of House of Cards. Steve Carel is also impressive as Donald Rumsfeld and Sam Rockwell as George W Bush. So with such good performances, you would expect that I would have given Vice a higher rating. Unfortunately, the movie really doesn't know what it wants to be as it swings from a Michael Moore documentary to a spoof on the Bush presidential reign to an episode of the Soprano's. It is hard to watch the movie with an unbiased view as it obvious that the writer and director, Adam Macky, does not think highly of Dick Cheney or the Republican party. Early in the film, he tells us that the story is based on facts relating to decisions and actions that Cheney took in his life however he then adds his own interpretation of what he believes motivated Cheney to make those decisions and none of it implies that Cheney had any concern for people at all. The movie runs for over two hours and during that time he tries to cover over 40 years of Cheney's life and so there are many stops and starts that makes it hard to understand segments in context. Throughout the movie, there are continual montages of cuts from real film clips that…

Movie Review 6 out of 10 Family Review Strong violence for a superhero movie, scary underwater creatures and a few swear words. I am afraid my first review for 2019 will tear the superhero community in two as I have heard people rave about Aquaman and others pan it as poorly made. Already I have been involved in an international incident where an NZ local took my comments on the film and Jason Momoa's acting as an affront to Maori culture. For this reason, it is important that I am upfront in declaring that I am definitely a fan of Marvel movies over those produced by the DC banner but I do try to be unbiased when reviewing their movies. It is also important for me to mention that it has grossed $940 million worldwide so people obviously want to see it Now that I have made all my apologies let me share with you my opinions on this mega-blockbuster. I am not a Game of Thrones watcher so I do not know how good an actor Jason Momoa can be but I believe he was picked for the role based on his image rather than his ability to play a character. Momoa portrayed his character as 'one of the boys' that is not interested in taking any responsibility for events that don't immediately affect his world. While we find that he is mentored as a young boy/man to understand his heritage and place in the undersea world of Atlantis he has no desire to be part of it, even though he doesn't seem to have any career or desire to achieve anything on land. In Aquaman, DC is trying to establish a knockabout character modelled on a cross between Thor's self-assurance and Deadpool's bad behaviour but Momoa does not have the comedic timing to land the zingers. The movie is directed by Australian, James Wan, who is known for his horror movies Saw, The Conjuring, Insidious and recently Furious 7. Knowing his background it is understandable that the violence in the film is more intense and personal than most Marvel movies. The increased violence. along with the nasty creatures from the Trench, lead me to recommend that this movie may not be suitable for younger children. Some of the underwater scenes are reminiscent of Avatar and the movie does follow a plot that establishes Aquaman as a much stronger character than previously portrayed in DC shows. However, the story is very predictable and rolls along without feeling the need to explain how certain things happen or why. (For a list of these see Spoiler Alert below). There are two bad guys with Patrick Wilson playing Aquaman's half-brother who believes that he is entitled to be King of Atlantis and a pirate known as Mantra that has high tech gadgets but not much else going…