'Cub' concerns Sam, a member of a Belgian scout troop venturing out into the woods of France with three of the least responsible adults to ever lead a scout troop into almost certain death. They stray from the designated camping ground and into the forest lair of a mysterious man and a feral child in a mask made of tree bark, which is a fantastically creepy piece of design, who has an unclear connection to the main villain who has set an elaborate array of traps to capture and/or kill anyone who dares walk amongst the trees.

Sometimes a film just loses you and 'Cub' lost me at the end. Unfortunately this makes it very difficult to explain why I ultimately didn’t like the film without ruining the ending, so to compromise the next four paragraphs are spoiler free but beyond that I’m going to make no effort at all.

There’s a relatively typical “Lord of the Flies” dynamic amongst the kids with Sam being the token outsider with a nerdy friend who are picked on by a bully on a power trip. Sam seeks out and befriends the feral child at first, which has the potential to lead the plot in an interesting direction, but the story is basically just a ticking clock to the slaughter, which once it kicks in is inventive but feels inconsequential and is actually a little ridiculous in retrospect.

But the characters are all interesting with no weak link, not even the token girl. The villain, though criminally underdeveloped, is creepy and monstrous enough to be an engaging presence. The feral child is a really interesting thread, it not being clear if he exists separate to the killer or as some sort of minion of his since he clearly has only an animalistic level of intelligence, but unfortunately this isn’t explored nearly enough and doesn’t really amount to much of anything. Let’s get to the crux of the problem, I was on board to enjoy this film even though it did drag a little, the premise was solid, the maze of traps throughout the forest made for an interesting and tense situation, and the characters were all interesting in their own way, in fact you could easily have made a drama out of the group dynamic going on. But the end … oh man, the end ruined it.

Here’s the last spoiler free paragraph. This film was very strange for me. About halfway through it was looking at a strong 4 out of 5, strong characters, intriguing mystery, terrifying villain, some clever kills, and then it started to drag... It wasn’t clear where it was going, aside from nowhere fast, and it fell to a 3. And then the final scene ran and it was almost immediately a 2. As I’ve said, the film is pretty solid up until this disappointing ending, so if you want to risk it then consider this a 4 out of 4 rating with the caveat that I hate the end and I can’t explain why without completely ruining it for you. Consider this fair warning.

'Cub' ends in what is a predictably unresolved “dark” way that I’ve seen too many horror movies to have been surprised by, in fact I saw it coming almost immediately. Sam ends up in the lair of the villain who proceeds to try and manipulate him into killing the last of the grown ups, Jasmijn (the token girl), but instead he winds up in a fight to the death with the feral child, even though they were kind of friends before. This fight becomes blurred and difficult to follow as one of the children falls but we don’t know which one! The unknown victor emerges from the fight and is revealed to be the feral child but Jasmijn has escaped and our two villains hunt her down. But during the struggle she removes the feral childs mask to reveal it is Sam underneath, he then kills her and walks off with the other guy into the sunrise with no explanation of who they are or why they are there and I’m left feeling hollow and empty.

There’s a trend in horror movies that I really want to campaign against and that’s the belief that an ambiguous or bleak ending is somehow automatically clever, and it really really really isn’t. Now we can all agree that 'Rosemary’s Baby' is a classic and films like 'The Stepford Wives', 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' or the more recent 'Se7en' are all the smarter for their bleaker endings but somehow it has become acceptable to think that simply being obtuse or depressing makes you clever.

You know what else are good films, 'The Exorcist', 'The Shining', 'Jaws' and a host of other horror movies that have respect for story structure. Now you don’t need to spoon feed your audience all the details of your plot, but at the absolute bare minimum as a filmmaker you have to know the details of your plot yourself, and I’m not convinced stories like this aren’t just being abstract for abstractions sake. That doesn’t work for me. For one thing it’s lazy, and at this point in a horror film it’s cliché not clever, regardless of the message you think you are conveying.

I’ve said before that there’s a fine line between artistic and messy and there’s an even finer line between meaningful and nonsense. I get the impression the filmmakers thought they were saying something with this ending but they’ve ended up with a meaningless mess as far as I’m concerned. The horror genre is not the only culprit of this but it’s certainly the biggest offender.

But like I say, if you can get past this then the film is good and the “twist” for lack of a better term doesn’t really matter enough that knowing it has ruined the film for you, just be aware that the end is much ado about nothing. I really wanted to like this film but can’t bring myself to forgive the end.

One of the most well-known and frequently used sayings in recent cinema comes from 'Batman Begins', wherein Katie Holmes' Rachel Dawes states that "it's not who you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you". No matter the individual, whatever their circumstances and background, regardless of age, race or social standing, that is one of the greatest unifying factors in the world today. People as a whole are both shaped and defined by the decisions they make and the actions they take. Sometimes they are small and have little in the way of worldwide relevance. But sometimes they can be huge, and the outcome of them could very well affected the entire population...

'13 Minutes' is the breath-taking story of a man who, in 1939, when Hitler tricked millions of people at the height of his power, dared to do the unthinkable: say no! A man who very nearly could have changed the world. 

Two years after the widely-panned Princess Diana biopic, 'Diana', Oliver Hirschbiegel returns with another autobiographical and tragic tale. This time however his subject is a fellow German native and far less recognisable figure: Georg Elser. You could easily be forgiven for not recognising the name. Joining the likes of Stanislav Petrov, Georg Elser was a man who took the burden of responsibility for the safety of the world onto his own shoulders and acted with heart and compassion.  Also like Stanislav Petrov, Georg Elser is a man with whom the world took decades to get even slightly acquainted with. But, unlike the Russian former soldier, Georg Elser is a man that failed to hit his target.

The film, however, not only hits its target, but does so in such a way that it's nigh on impossible to walk away without a lingering mark. In what could almost be described as a pseudo-prequel to Oliver Hirschbiegel's previous, Oscar-nominated work, 'Downfall' (Yes, of internet meme fame), '13 Minutes' returns to Germany to shed light on the other side of conflict. But instead of following the story of Hitler in the final weeks of World War II, we follow the story of a ordinary citizen as he journeys from simple, womanising carpenter and musician to makeshift assassin and resistance fighter.

Running at just under two hours, it's a relentlessly paced and graphically unrelenting film, racing along from a visually stunning and extremely tense opening to a sudden conclusion that is both simultaneously tragic and a relief. Hirschbiegel smoothly and expertly ties in flashbacks that, while occasionally navigating the passing of time with baffling awkwardness, serve as a refreshing respite from the harrowing torture and punishment. As well as believably shedding light on the moments and situations that led Georg Elser to his fateful decision on that fateful November day.

As Georg, Christian Friedel is on top form, adding a degree of charm, humour, and a sense of ineffectual cowardice to the flashbacks, a stark contrast to the fiercely determined, compassionately righteous, and increasingly broken figure during his time in captivity. A man of sanity and reason in a country of brainwashed fervor and terrifying propaganda - the latter most terrifyingly demonstrated courtesy of children in Nazi uniforms dancing and singing in celebration of ongoing atrocities. Every emotion - from desire to confusion to disgust and beyond - flashes bright within Georg's eyes and is etched on his increasingly tired face as he sacrificially battles single-handedly against himself and then the tides of war. 

Equally magnetic is Katharina Schüttler as Elsa, the woman to whom Georg gives his heart. With a life brimming with abuse and tragedy, and yet eyes full of hope and compassion, it's impossible not to root for her. Numerous other characters flit in and out of the narrative, but are generally one-note and vastly unexplored. Whilst there is no truly weak performance, it is only Burghart Klaußner as Nebe that truly stands out from the recurring supporting cast, blessing his German Officer with a subtle shred of concealed decency and empathy. 

All in all, '13 Minutes' is a sombre, harrowing and recognisably human piece of cinema. Occasionally brutal, unflinchingly (and sometimes unnecessarily so) it is also a rare and fascinating exploration of morality and war. Seen through the eyes and actions of people of the opposing country, it offers individuality to people who are far too often dismissed as a single, hostile force. Many war films have tried to create such a sentiment - most recently 'Fury' starring Brad Pitt - but though a little more attention to detail and some transitions would have been beneficial, this might just be one of the few to manage it successfully and with genuine grace. And all without a single overblown battle scene in sight.

In cinemas now!

Three years after Mike bowed out of the stripper life at the top of his game, he and the remaining Kings of Tampa hit the road to Myrtle Beach to put on one last blow-out performance...

In the wake of the rising juggernaut that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe - and comic-book adaptations in general - sequels are increasingly being seen as an inevitability to every successful film to grace the silver screen. Sequels are, for want of a better term, and as Joss Whedon could probably attest, extremely fickle beasts. As such, they are extremely difficult to tame. The expectation is typically to go bigger, bolder, and better. Such is an expectation, as not-so-subtly referenced in the title, that 'Magic Mike XXL' is determined to live up to.

The lights are brighter. The music is louder. And the abs are firmer and infinitely more oiled. 

Quickly bringing the audience up to speed with the developments in the life of the once-magic-but-now-quite-regular Mike (Channing Tatum), returning writer Reid Carolin, and previous producer/incoming director Gregory Jacobs, are swift in setting in traditional road-trip of calamitous mishaps, random encounters, and stripping. Lots and lots and lots of stripping.

Therein lies the film's biggest issue. Equal to the bigger, bolder, better mantra,  the stripping is, whilst not any more risqué, a lot more prevalent. It will no doubt be divisive in its reception, with the majority of people - most likely men - turned off by the more frequent display of male flesh. The semi-nudity, however, isn't so much the issue, paling in comparison to the amount of nudity usually gracing screens both big and small in this day and age. The problem is that the stripping scenes have moved towards being the core of the story. Where, in the first film, Mike was a person first and a stripper second, the reverse feels very much true in this time around. Though the routines are more elaborate, and Channing's dance-moves as technically brilliant as ever, stripping feels almost like the point this time, like the defining characteristic. More often than not, the stripping scenes go on far too long, and grants the interim scenes the task of justifying the bump-and-grind and an unfortunate aura of padding.

Thankfully, the magic still very much lingers within Channing Tatum, navigating his world with an air of effortless panache, maintaining the charm, compassion and wit from the first film. Serving to support, encourage, unite and uplift those around him - be it helping new love interest Zoe (Amber Heard) rediscover her smile, healing old wounds with old-flame Rome (Jada Pinkett Smith), or pushing his fellow "male entertainers" to find their personal bliss at the heart of their performances.

In the absence of Matthew McConaughey's highly-acclaimed and bravura performance as Dallas and without Alex Pettyfer's The Kid serving as an introduction to the world, as well as through the actions of which Mike can reflect upon his own life, the focus of the spotlight is turned more prominently turned onto the rest of the Kings of Tampa...

Receiving more screen-time and dialogue in ten minutes than they probably were blessed with in the entirety of the first film, Big Dick Richie (Joe Manganiello), Tarzan (Kevin Nash), Ken (Matt Bomer), and Tito (Adam Rodriguez) serve as companions on Mike's whistle-stop tour to former glory. It's a change that's as hit-or-miss as their respective dancing abilities. Though all elevated to having distinct personalities, giving voice to hopes and regrets, it doesn't always click as well as intended, often coming so out of the blue that it serves to disrupt the tone rather than add heart to the respective moments. Truly, it's only really Matt Bomer as Ken that manages to provoke a desired level of sympathy from the upgraded supporting roles, as he copes with a loss and tries to channel that energy into something positive.

The more comedic exploits fare much better. Most notably in the case of of Joe Manganiello who, as Richie, is blessed with the majority of the film's most laugh-out-loud lines and moments. As well as delivering no doubt the film's highlight when he attempts to prove that shopping and seduction aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. Portrayed without a shred of true vanity and a carefree attitude, it's impossible not to like and cheer for him.

All in all, the tone of the film is as much a blessing and a curse as the asset for which Richie is infamous. The film sizzles with style and snappy dialogue but very little poignancy and introspection. The film is packed with a lot more wit and humour, and inspired stabs at certain popular franchises, but seems to have subsequently lost the majority of the substance and heart of the original.

If Magic Mike was almost a coming of age tale, then 'Magic Mike XXL' is most definitely a mid-life crisis. But, thankfully, one very much done in well-choreographed, occasionally hilarious, and still thoroughly entertaining style.