RocknRolla

If you liked Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels, loved Snatch and are gagging for more of the same, you’ll probably get a kick or two out of this movie. Personally, I wouldn’t waste my time. There’s nothing new about RocknRolla at all. Guy Ritchie is painting by numbers, once again dredging up and dusting off all the old “Mockney” crime-farce elements that made Lock Stock so, um, original. Once again, we’re dealing with an elaborate orgy of colourful characters, unlikely coincidences, tired soliloquies and poorly conceived MacGuffins (remember this one). Only this time we’ve seen it all twice before and it’s just not funny.

Critics (in the loosest sense possible) are hailing RocknRolla as a return to form for Mr Madonna, but seeing as he’s following up on two of the biggest cinematic disasters of the past decade (Swept Away and Revolver), the plaudits are tarnished by context. Sorry, dude.

The performances (particularly Tom Wilkinson’s) are mildly entertaining and the film has its moments, but they aren’t enough to save the package from mediocrity.

5/10 fingers from the Salami. But we’re rating movies here, not pleasuring the ladies, so that’s nothing to get wet about.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

I saw this one yesterday, and I really enjoyed it. I understand that a lot of people didn’t really enjoy the first Hellboy and the eponymous character isn’t particularly well-known to most, but golden-boy Guillermo Del Toro finally has a big budget to play with and immerses the Hellboy mythos in one of his vividly surrealist worlds, seamlessly blending the half-demon’s occultism with his own Tolkienesque imagination. The result is a fresh reworking of the comic and fantasy genres, drawing on the best of both and dispensing with many of their respective cliches (although Del Toro does embrace a number of these on the fantasy front). It’s Men in Black versus Indiana Jones in Narnia, but mature and visually enthralling, with some of the sickest fight sequences of the year (thanks in a big way to the efforts of career villain and former half of boy two-piece Bros, Luke Goss).

I totally accept that this kind of stuff isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, but Hellboy II: TGA (I didn’t just make that up) won’t disappoint you if it is. It’s not exactly Pan’s Labyrinth, but then again it’s not really trying to be. Although all the visual elements are there.

PS. I’d hit the wacky tabacky beforehand.