Review: Lawless

Despite sticking him on the poster, Gary Oldman probably gets more screen time in those new O2 adverts than he does in this, so those wanting to see another Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy acting master class will be left disappointed.

Fans of Tom Hardy mumbling are in luck though, as despite delivering another convincingly menacing performance, it would be nice to be able to hear what he was saying more often. Shia Labeouf gets the most screen time as the youngest of three moonshine-selling brothers in Prohibtion-era America, trying to win the heart of the local preacher's daughter, as well as the respect of his two big brothers - and coming from the pen of Nick Cave, you can guess there's a few grisly moments along the way.

In a similar way to Public Enemies, Lawless has to count as something of a disappointment considering the names involved, but the general air of negativity around the reviews so far underplaying the many things the film does well. So adjust your expectations accordingly and you'll find another decent crime thriller lies within.

Review: The Dark Knight Rises

With the hype sky-high after the success of The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan's third and final installment in the Batman franchise was always going to struggle to match up to people's expectations - but quite how short The Dark Knight Rises falls will be a surprise to many.

The main problem with this final film is that whilst the success of the series has been in its realistic setting of the superhero's story in the modern world, too much of The Dark Knight Rises plot stretches the believability to breaking point, taking the viewer out of the film to question whether what happened actually made any sense.

That's not to say this is a bad film - there's plenty to enjoy in the action set-pieces and the performances of Anne Hathaway and the return to the fore of Christian Bale as The Caped Crusader himself, who is back inform after taking a backseat to performances from Aaron Eckhart and Heath Ledger in the previous film. Tom Hardy is good as his nemesis Bane, playing him more like a Bond villain than you may expect - it would be unfair to compare him to Ledger's Joker as they are very different type of villains, but Bane could've done with a bit more development to show why exactly he has managed to amass a cult-like army of followers.

The Dark Knight Rises also suffers from trying to cram too much stuff into one film - it would arguably have been better following the lead of the final installments of the Harry Potter and Twilight franchises by splitting the story into two parts, as it feels like there is at least 4 hours of film crammed into 2 and 3/4 hours, with several minor characters introduced and subsequently getting lost in the shuffle, leading to some underwhelming moments the should be much more powerful as the film hurdles through several of its multiple endings, of which the final one seems a little bit too much like trying to repeat Nolan's trick from Inception, copping out from the proper ending that actually suited the story.

Review: Warrior

Warrior certainly won't win any prizes for originality as you've seen a similar story told several times before in fight films - It's also far too long at 2 hours 20 mins, taking well over an hour to get to the tournament where it all kicks off, figuratively and literally.

Tom Hardy eschews the Christian Bale approach from The Fighter, instead offering up his best De Niro impression as the Jake La Motta-esque Tommy Riordan, a brilliant fighter but a broken human being, scarred by his war experiences. Nick Nolte comes close to out-mumbling Hardy as the father cum coach with his own demons - but the real acting credit here should go to Joel Edgerton who much like Wahlberg did last year, offers a restrained performance in support while others around him give their best shot at impressing judges going for awards.

When they finally make it to the cage is where the film finally starts to show its potential with fights brilliantly shot to give a real sense of the brutality involved in the world of Mixed Martial Arts. Whoever cast Kurt Angle deserves credit, as anyone who watches wrestling will tell you that there is no one better at putting on a fake fight than the former Olympic Gold Medallist.

Much like the characters involved, Warrior starts flawed but ends up pretty good.