Iron Man (2008)

 ★ ★ ★ ★

Pretty much as good as an origin-story based Iron Man movie could be. The tone captures Marvel's hyper-reality better than most superhero movies of the last 15 years, and the action remains clear and uncluttered, side-stepping the blurry jump-cuts of most modern action-cinema. Great cast, great effects, nicely paced, funny... I suspect Favreau could have knocked the Transformers franchise into good shape.

Universal Soldier (1992)

★ ★ ★

Dumb but adequately made amalgam of 'Robocop', 'Aliens' and 'The Terminator'. The dialogue is goofy, the plot-holes are gratuitous, and the potentially interesting central premise is wasted in favour of standard 90's action fare.

Transformers (2007)

★ ★ ★ 

Gorgeous rubbish. There are too many (human) characters and an overly fetishised military presence. Megan Fox and The Beef make an attractive duo, but steal too much run-time from the giant robots. Sadly this is probably Michael Bay's artistic zenith.

Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen (2009)

★ ★ 

Loud, annoying and dumb.

Avatar (2010)

★ ★ ★ ★

'Avatar' looks stunning in 3D on a large screen, but story-wise it relies on a well trodden plot and broadly drawn charicatures. Yes, it strongly resembles both 'Dances With Wolves' and 'FernGully', but James Cameron never patronises his audience by overly sign-posting its stock plot devices, and the films clunky exposition is rattled out in the first 20 minutes, allowing us to kick back and drift into its enchanting world. Some have called it preachy - I think that depends whether you sympathise with the film's anti-corporate, anti-military stance or not. Certainly, the Na'vi are obviously Native Americans painted blue, and the hunt for Unobtainium is arguably a metaphor for Western military interests in the Midlle East. These themes are handled with the subtlety of a T-800, but it is at least welcome to see a mainstream film with the guts to express a "controversial" opinion. When special-effects of this quality are common-place, 'Avatar' may no longer seem so impressive, but right now, it lives up to its "game-changing" hype. The 'Star Wars' of its geneartion.

Escape From New York (1981)

★ ★

John Carpenter mounts an exciting premise, and then runs out of ideas. Perhaps given a higher budget, 'Escape From New York' might be able to overcome its non-plot with visual dazzle. As it is, the film lifelessly flops around impersonating 'Blade Runner', 'The Warriors' and 'Mad Max', sadly never managing to be as interesting as the first 15 minutes suggest that it could have been.

Predator 2 (1990)

★ ★

After an hour of dull and unecessary 'Robocop'-esque near-future cops vs. drug gangs non-action (censor-appeasing cuts have excised all the gore), the film finally hits on a reasonably entertaining urban equivalent of the original's mano-a-mano guerilla death-match.

The script, acting and direction are limp. 'Aliens' is plagiarised, and the Predator develops a potty-mouth. Scwarzenegger was wise to choose 'Terminator 2' over this crap.