If there's one thing America loves, it's a sequel. It's more American than apple pie and shooting up a church with an assault rifle. And so therefore, despite Apollo Creed's statement to Rocky in the first film that there wouldn't be a rematch, and contrary to Rocky's assertion that he didn't want one, you knew it had to happen. Although, to be fair,...

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When you've spent so long watching the ridiculous (but glorious) excesses of Rocky III and Rocky IV, you kind of forget how down to earth the original film is. To be sure it can't exactly be called gritty, as it's something of a grown-up fairytale, but at least it has its feet somewhere near the real world.The film starts with Rocky fighting in...

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The Dark Knight is an improvement on Batman Begins, but it’s not the giant leap that people would have you believe. It has too many flaws. The final sequence, for example, is a gigantic mess. Every attempt is made to ensure that it’s exciting, but the editing is all over the place and its not even clear what’s going on. Then there’s Two-Face....

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The final scenes in United 93 have to be some of the most harrowing in cinema. What you witness is a frantic desire to live conflict with an insane desire to die. People become animals – rational thought gives way to instinct and barbarism, resulting in tragedy.One of the most despairing images in this magnificent film has to be that of the passengers...

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On the brink of death an aged gangster bemoans the state of America. He sees that corporations are taking over and that the little man is being cut out. ‘Where’s the pride of ownership?’ he wails. Damn soulless, faceless McDonald’s are everywhere.This might seem like quite an honourable concern. It sounds like the old man is grieving over the homogenisation of the modern...

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Fear gets mentioned quite a few times in Batman Begins. In fact, it gets mentioned about a hundred times. 'I seek the means to fight injustice. To turn fear on those who prey on the fearful.' 'Now you must journey inwards, to what you really fear.' 'There is nothing to fear but fear itself.' Etc. Etc. And then the whole of Gotham gets...

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There are three types of people who frighten me: people who have an intense love of popular romantic fiction; people who can't bring themselves to swear under any circumstances whatsoever and instead invent their own homespun swear-lite; and people whose heinous actions are supposedly ordained by god. All of these afflictions hint at an arrested development, an inability to deal with reality and...

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