Dark Places ... 'Light' on substance

DARK Places sees Charlize Theron playing a True Detective. She goes from being an indifferent and  blase pretty blonde to an inquisitive pretty blonde who pokes her nose into many places.
   There really isn't much to say about this film other than it's predictable and boring. And I'll tell you in a moment why Oscar-winner Theron should not have played this role.

Ted 2 ... Bear-ing the consequences

THE novelty of a foul-mouthed living teddy bear has worn off by now, but the sequel, Ted 2, delves  into an area that I applaud whole-heartedly.

   Writer-director Seth MacFarlane asks viewers whether Ted is a sentient thing (human) or is it a property of the state. In effect, MacFarlane, who also voices Ted, is asking what makes a human different from inanimate objects.

Minions ... Jaundiced view

I DON'T know if it was because I hadn't had coffee or because I saw the film at 4.30pm, but I snoozed through parts of Minions. I could not ward off the inertia that swept over me. Or perhaps it was just boring.
   The minions appeared in Despicable Me and Despicable Me 2, in which they were cute, adorable and servile to Gru, the meanie voiced by Steve Carell. They get their own film in directors Kyle Balda and Pierre Coffin's Minions, and I can safely say that their novelty has worn off.

Poltergeist ... Horror of unemployment

POLTERGEIST is not so much a horror film as it is about a family of five haunted by the ugly spectre of unemployment and teenage angst.
  The scene is fairly typical in these kind of films: a family moves into a house that they don't know is haunted by a poltergeist, a scarier and angrier version of a ghost.

Jurassic World ... Chomp chomp

THE trailer to director Colin Trevorrow's Jurassic World tells viewers everything they need to know about the third sequel to Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park (1993).
    A new, big attraction escapes and wreaks havoc on Isla Nublar, the original setting of the first film.
   Two boys scream their hearts out, there's attraction between Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, a corporation thinks only about its bottom line, the military is unscrupulous, and there are a lot of action scenes between the new dinosaur and another dinosaur.

Maggie ... Arnie emotes

THE first thing that viewers will think of is Arnold Schwarzenegger battling and battering zombies.
     In fact, he kills only one nasty zombie, and whacks two more harmless ones in a forest. That makes it a pretty low and lame body count by The Terminator's standard.

Insidious: Chapter 3 ... Familiar fear

THE three protagonists in director Leigh Whannell's Insidious: Chapter 3 share the same pain of not

getting over the recent death of a loved one. What better way to learn to do that than being stalked by a man affably called The Man With A Mask and whose footsteps leave black oily stains.
    Whannell, who appears in this film and also wrote it, not to mention writing the two previous ones,  uses the usual fright tricks to get his story going.