The Legend of Tarzan ... Swinging by a thread

AT first glance, director David Yates's live action film The Legend of Tarzan is about a beautiful blonde

and her studly husband going through the pains of a miscarriage.

  A deeper look, however, reveals its roots to Dancing With Wolves, The Last Samurai and Avatar. All the films are about a white man assimilating with a local culture and helping the natives ward off attacks from heavily-armed soldiers.

Independence Day: Resurgence ... Fireworks washed out

INDEPENDENCE Day (1996) was loud and brash, just like one of its main characters, but at least it

was fun, and viewers could go home happy in the knowledge that the US military was still still the master and commander of the world.
  The sequel, Independence Day: Resurgence, is bigger and louder: the alien ship is more than 3,000 miles in diameter and the alien queen is the biggest and ugliest gangly thing you'll ever see on screens. The cast is also bloated, and director Roland Emmerich dumps contrived and forced emotional background stories on the characters.

Me Before You ... Rich guy helps poor chick

IT'S not uncommon to hear sniffles at the end of romances ensconced in medical dramas, for example, The Fault In Our Stars (2014), about two teenage cancer patients.

    However, director Thea Sharrock's Me Before You goes one step further and delves into euthanasia, and confirms that life's not worth living, even if you have a sultry Game of Thrones actress in a red dress straddling you.

Money Monster ... 'Money' wasted

DIRECTOR Jodie Foster's Money Monster is an indictment of the greediness that courses through

Wall Street and its unedifying ramifications on the working class.
   It's also about the transformation that takes place in a financial pundit, who is initially uncritical about a huge financial loss and insensitive to the plight of those who have dumped all they had into the stock market.