5 stars*****

The generous cast list might draw you to this movie, but the dolphin and the boy steal the scenes so consistently, the celebrity names weren’t required. If you like tears with your movies, then this Dolphin Tale is the best two hours of 2011.

So what’s it all about?

A lonely and friendless boy finds and untangles a hurt dolphin that is caught in a crab trap. He becomes very attached to the dolphin when the tail must be taken off to save the dolphin’s life. The boy believes the dolphin would be able to swim normally if it was given a prosthetic tail.

Karen Janszen and Noam Dromi have written a by the book Blake Synder special screenplay. They took the original story – which was quite something anyway – adding a boy and a financial crisis to draw the heartstrings even further, and have hit each page of Synder’s Save the Cat screenwriting 101. They’ve collected every idea possible and thrown them into the cook book – then failed to throw any out of the melting pot.

The audience will know what’s going to happen next all the way through the nearly two hours of this tale of hope and desperation.

This movie is surely the best family movie of the year. Even those with the hardest looking tattoos will be finding it difficult to fight back the tears even though you know the outcome will be good.

If you didn’t love dolphins before this movie, then you surely will as you leave the theatre. While not sure if animals can receive awards, Winter deserves the statue, ahead of acting friends Harry Connick, Jr., Nathan Gamble, Ashley Judd, Kris Kristofferson, Morgan Freeman and Jim Fitzpatrick.

If ever you need a way to bring your family together, rent or download the DVD.

RED just doesn’t reach the heights you’d expect with such a stellar cast. The screenplay lacks story. These great actors are linked together with large explosions and effects; they don’t get the chance to explore their characters. The premise behind the movie is huge. It’s a shame the movie didn’t play for the fun it could have been.

So what’s it all about?

Based on the cult D.C. Comics graphic novels by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner, RED is an explosive action-comedy starring Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich and Helen Mirren. Frank (Bruce Willis), Joe (Morgan Freeman), Marvin (John Malkovich) and Victoria (Helen Mirren) used to be the CIA’s top agents – but the secrets they know just made them the Agency’s top targets. Now framed for assassination, they must use all of their collective cunning, experience and teamwork to stay one step ahead of their deadly pursuers and stay alive. To stop the operation, the team embarks on an impossible, cross-country mission to break into the top-secret CIA headquarters, where they will uncover one of the biggest conspiracies and cover-ups in government history.

Knowing that you need to suspend your disbelief at the theatre door, the ridiculous and impossible doesn’t work in this movie. You just don’t believe it which means that you either haven’t settled into the characters or the disbelief is too preposterous.

The romance part of the story is a little shaky; never really making us wonder if they’ll get it on. The comedy almost gets there, but fails to make the audience laugh out loud.

John Malkovich shines, Bruce Willis does what he’s always good at; Helen Mirren just has to be seen as the machine gun hero; Mary Louise Parker plays her role with self-confidence; Richard Dreyfuss is the actor we all know; Morgan Freeman just goes on and on.

So with such a collection of talent, why didn’t the story just go the natural way; occasional gun shots maybe, but without all the silly explosions and surveillance beyond the believable?

Next time, just give someone else the budget and see a thriller, not an FX movie.

5 stars*****

It’s wonderful to see a combination in a movie where it is both moving and uplifting at the same time. This movie fulfills both criteria with abundance with the end it seems, leaving many of the audience with smiles galore.

I got to the news late; Clint Eastwood is a brilliant director. He takes this real-life movie to great heights without needing to add the usual poor touches that often cloud emotions with faulty dialogue and meager endings just to send the audience out with a smile. He showed us his skills with Million Dollar Baby and more recently with both the Changeling and Gran Torino. Invictus completes an incredible set of four superbly directed movies.

You can tell that Clint Eastwood likes a level of control, he often takes over production as well and invites his son to write the music. Together, the outside influences are greatly reduced and the director is able to complete the vision as he sees it.

John Carlin’s book led Anthony Peckham to write a masterful screenplay. His use of combining the main players, president and rugby player, interlaced with the action of the presidents security team and then latterly with a local township boy gaining the friendship of a white policeman, shows rather than tells how president Nelson Mandela tried to bring together black-and-white sites of a previous rule and worker relationship into a new joint life for South Africa. Of course, we all now know a lot of the arguing and fighting has been between various black groups and tribes of the nation and the world genuinely believes South Africa has made great strides forward from its previous ridiculous state of affairs. Security and crime remain substantial evils.

Morgan Freeman becomes Pres. Mandela and you spend two hours believing you are watching the president not the actor. No doubt South Africans will be able to fault the accents used, but to outsiders, he is the president. In similar fashion Matt Damon uses his considerable skills to come across as a talented rugby player, which is a situation far removed from any American actor.

This is the first movie that uses acting sportspeople (probably many actual rugby players) mixed in with live-action where players are actually playing the game and moving the ball as if a real match is in place. The use of green screens and CGI technology means we don’t have to watch players running and not actually see them kick or pass the ball.

Brenda Mazibuko, played by Adjoa Andoh, gives us an insight as to the advice given to the president at that time in history when he decided to mix politics and sports remembering that most people are not that interested in politics, but most are interested in sports. His advisor, seen recently as Martha’s mother in Dr. Who, convinced us of her officialdom, even when her advice was overwritten by the president.

No doubt, the screenplay left out any of the information which showed the president and the rugby World Cup of 1995 using any tactics that didn’t fit the feel good movie. We weren’t shown any of the horrors inflicted upon the poor South Africans by supporters of the president, instead we were taken through a dream that became reality.

The writer hit just the right targets and the director knew exactly how to present them to us. Usually it’s a lead actor that will grab our attention to make us go and see a movie. While we have that with the lead actors here I’m now in a groove that means I’ll go see any movie that Clint Eastwood directs.

Be warned that this movie plays heavily with your emotions, but you’ll see and feel and share how the world dealt with South African discourse and how a great man in Nelson Mandela, despite the way he’d been previously treated in prison, moved forward his nation. You’ll know you’ve seen a great movie when you share 133 minutes with Invictus.

Great special effects. In fact some of the best ever seen in a movie.

The action sequences were very good especially when Angelina Jolie opened her car door to catch a passenger. You’ve got to see it to believe it; the rest is unbelievable.

Angelina Jolie is a quality actress; unfortunately they only give her material to glide through here.

If you’re looking for characters, plot, dialogue; go see another movie.

With a budget of just (ha, ha) £75 million and gross takings of $323 million, I guess the film makers and the cast have the last laugh.

Most reviewers have been so kind to this film, however one critic suggested the title should have the word ‘Not’ tacked on to the front. I tend to agree, but then mindless killing doesn’t always make a movie for me. A brilliant screenplay does. This wasn’t it despite James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman and Terrance Stamp working (casually) to try and find a genuine story in amongst the killing.

I won’t be at Wanted 2, the return of the fraternity.

5 stars****

The ‘biff’ and ‘pow’ of Batman films has been replaced by outright violence and murder. What happened? Did I miss the intervening years when Batman movies were really quite friendly even to the baddies?

The antagonist, the Joker, played to the highest standard by Heath Ledger, is now on a par with any James Bond rival. I believe I heard the joker say that he’d only killed six people, but I’m sure the body count was almost up to a hundred or so. The Joker has also turned into an arsonist blowing up more buildings and cars than Bond even manages.

Christopher Nolan as director, producer and writer, with more than just a little help, has put together a rather good movie that is excellent in so many areas.

The acting is high quality; Michael Caine becomes Alfred who has taken on a much more pivotal role in the organisation. Michael Caine continues to be Michael Caine; he never disappoints, his delivery is magical. Morgan Freeman appears as a major part of the team. Gary Oldman, as Commissioner Gordon plays a real hands on policing role with twists we couldn’t have imagined. They all return from the original film, Batman Begins.

The music by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard is first class. That will be a CD worth buying/downloading. It captures the imagination and matches the changing pace throughout. You often miss the background music in a film; here it strikes you.

The blowing up of buildings, people, cars and trucks is outstanding. The Joker takes down a complete hospital towards the end of the film. I don’t know how they completed that scene, but it was worth the money.

The drive-in appreciated the tripping up of the Joker’s articulated truck as the masterpiece effect of the movie. I could watch that over and over again.

I’m sure I saw some robots that were so dangerous at the start of the movie which became as soft as tomatoes near the end; such were the mind baffling complexities of this script.

I don’t expect the late Heath Ledger will gain a win at the awards next year as his supporting actor role wasn’t really big enough; even though his acting skills were first class, but then you never do know about these things.

Nevertheless, despite all this good news about the movie, I didn’t feel I needed to hold on to my seat, jump up in fright or explode with excitement. The first half of the movie was worthy of three stars while the second half achieved five start status. It won’t be the movie of the year for me, but it was good, very good, in so many areas. It was well worth the few dollars and at almost three hours long I wasn’t bored, but I would like to have been more excited.

I guess tripping up and double somersaulting a truck at fast speed will be seen in many more movies soon.

Just where was Robin when you needed him?