Good Kill ... Droning on

GOOD Kill is about the US' use of unmanned flying vehicles (drones) to dispose of its enemies in

Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen. It's set in 2010, when the CIA steps into the picture and increases the use of drones to kill practically anyone whom it thinks is a threat to the US.
   Writer, director and producer Andrew Niccol definitely has strong ideas about this contraption flying 10,000 feet above and unseen by the naked eye.

Child 44 ... Russian boredom

THIS investigative thriller set during Stalin's repressive era in 1953 put me to sleep halfway through it. It must have been the inconsequential subplots, slow pacing and haphazard juxtapositioning of

scenes.
    A familiar refrain in the film is "There are no murders in paradise".  This is because the Russians then preferred to condemn their own citizens for treachery and send them either to their deaths or somewhere similar to Siberia. The authorities were overzealous in prosecuting trivial matters compared with hunting down serial killers.

Danny Collins ... Out of tune

IT'S funny seeing Oscar-winner Al Pacino slumming it out in writer-director Dan Fogelman's Collins. You'd never in a million years imagine Pacino playing an elderly singer (think Neil Sedaka, although he also reminds me of France's Johnny Hallyday) with a raspy voice whose target audience comprises senior citizens swaying to his main hit from the 1970s.
Danny 
   Actually, there's nothing interesting in seeing Pacino play the titular hero, a thrice-married alcoholic drug addict who's comfortable with his young fiancee having intercourse with another man on his bed.

The Avengers: Age Of Ultron ... Wham, bam, thank you, maam

THE prevalent feeling I got from watching writer-director Joss Whedon's Avengers: Age of Ultron is that of being pummelled into submission. The action is relentless, from the start to the end.
Explosions, gun fights, fist fights and all kinds of fights take place in this sequel to The Avengers (2012).
   After awhile, however, they all looked the same, and my mind started wandering, thinking of the eggs, ham and sausages I had for dinner.
   This doesn't mean that this blockbuster is disastrous. I enjoyed the conflict and rivalry among the testosterone-filled white superheroes, especially the dreams each experienced.

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel ... You can check out of it

THE cast from the first film is back for this sequel, but the magic and witty repartee in the first are missing. I thought I would have enjoyed the interaction between the veteran actors, but instead, I
found their stories monotonous, blase and old.
    The story of  elderly white Britons invading their former colony to set up home in their old age is a new form of colonisation, but it had its novelty in the first film. Now, however, the film sags throughout.

The Cobbler ... Stepped upon

WORDS can't describe how I felt sitting through director Thomas McCarthy's The Cobbler, starring

Adam Sandler. The name Sandler is associated with crude humour and flops, and while this film is at the outset sweet and gentle, you'd want to throw all the shoes you have at him.
    The idea is novel: Sandler plays fourth-generation Jewish American cobbler Max in a depressed area of New York City. Business isn't exactly booming, but he's got good heart, a good business neighbour Jimmy (Steve Buscemi) and he dotes on his senile and forgetful mum (Lynn Cohen).