Quadruple Bill Mini Musings:

The World's End:
What's it about?
Terminal man-child Gary King gets his mates back together to re-attempt "the golden mile" pub crawl which bested them the last time, back when they were teenagers. However, all is not as it seems in their home town of Newton Haven - cue alien replicants and fisticuffs aplenty.
Who would I recognise in it?
Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman, Eddie Marsan, Rosamund Pike, and shedloads more.
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
Shaun of the Dead became an instant classic mixing romantic comedy with zombie-thwacking carnage and a poignant sense of brink-of-30 fear. Hot Fuzz was full-bore action comedy, a hyperactive shoot-em-up that threw every piece of lead at the screen ... but despite the machine-gun guffaws, it was lacking in emotional heft. The World's End - the third and final in the "Cornetto trilogy" - rediscovers the Wright/Pegg sense of English heart, combines it with gloopy-comedy-gore, full-on and non-stop laughs, and a surprisingly dark undertone. Pegg deserves considerable plaudits for making Gary King not only an entertaining character, but a sympathetic one - earning pity, laughs, and respect - in spite of the character's selfish, drug-fuelled, arrested development ways. Likewise, Frost stretches himself as a weary white collar lawyer who becomes a boozed-up, head-smashing Hulk. A sense of freshness underlines the alien invasion plot - something other recent 'alien invasion comedies' didn't bother with (The Watch, for example) - and really, the only minus-point is the threadbare arc for Pike's Sam. The World's End is a well crafted and extremely pleasing close to the Cornetto Trilogy. Great.

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Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj:
What's it about?
Half-arsed sequel to raunchy comedy Van Wilder: Party Liason, taking Taj to England where he and his band of misfits must take on the snotty rich kids in a campus competition.
Who would I recognise in it?
Kal Penn, Lauren Cohan.
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
Have you seen Animal House - or any college campus comedy of the last thirty years? Well then you've seen this movie. Hell, if you've only seen the original Van Wilder, you've seen this movie. Copy-and-pasting most of the plot, and numerous gags (another canine spunk joke awaits you) from the original, it's all incredibly unoriginal. The misfit band of college losers? Check. The college campus competition? Check. The snotty rich kid baddies? Check. The love interest who must be wooed away? Check. Snotty rich kids cheating, and tricking the love interest into thinking the lead has done something underhand? Check. The losers winning the competition, and the lead getting the love interest after the truth comes to light and the snotty rich kids are punished? Check. The only good parts of the movie feature Lauren Cohan (Maggie Greene from The Walking Dead), and Holly Davidson. If it wasn't for the two leading ladies, it'd be shite, so it makes it into alright.


Frankenweenie:
What's it about?
Tim Burton's stop-motion love letter to deceased childhood pets and black-and-white B-Movie horror (particularly Frankenstein). A kid turns to science to resurrect his dead pooch pal, only to unwittingly unleash a horde of monsters upon his sleepy town when his classmates copy his experiment.
Who would I recognise in it?
Catherine O'Hara, Martin Short, Winona Ryder, Martin Landau, Conchata Ferrell (voices).
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
Lovingly animated and presented in gorgeous black-and-white, Frankenweenie packs an emotional punch along with it's horror-referencing chuckles. It's perhaps a touch slow in a few spots, and the girl-next-door gets too little screentime, but this is essentially all about a child and his love for his pet. Extremely stylish, fittingly ghoulish, and gently humorous, it is - by far - Burton's best outing in years. Out of the three family horror films of 2012 (this, along with ParaNorman, and Hotel Transylvania), this is easily the best of a good bunch. Great.


Killing Them Softly:
What's it about?
Brad Pitt's mob enforcer must track down the perpetrators of a card game robbery against the back drop of a down-at-heel Louisiana, as America's financial sector implodes and the 2008 election reaches its climax.
Who would I recognise in it?
Brad Pitt, Scoot McNairy, James Gandolfini, Ray Liotta, Richard Jenkins, Vincent Curatola, Sam Shepard.
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
Andrew Dominik's third film - following his wonderful western The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford - is a darkly comic and deeply cynical outing. Soundtracked by doom-laden news bulletins ripped from the 2008 financial crash, this world of gangsters is ruled by penny-pinching, economy-class flights, and squeamishness over hits. At times the film feels in no real rush to get anywhere, but then moments of understated humour, hyper-stylised violence, or straight-faced brutality will explode across the screen. Solid work from all involved, this film will probably grow into itself over time - we're perhaps still too close to the 2008 crash (heck, we're still reeling from the effects, even if we've long been out of recession), but in-time Pitt & Dominik's bleak vision of fiscally-ruined mobster America will stand as a testament to the time. Pitt's brilliant closing lines say it all. Good.