Vue Islington

The Hangover Part III

A surprise blockbuster hit, the original ‘Hangover’ took a brotastic scenario then mined it for gross-out comic gold. Success breeds sequels, or in the case of ‘The Hangover II’, the exact same movie reset in Bangkok. This third – and if there is a b...

The Purge

America, 2022. Violent crime and unemployment have been eradicated since the introduction of the annual Purge Night: a 12-hour spree of cathartic anarchy and violence during which the well-armed rich emerge from the their gated communities to vent th...

Royal Opera House: Gloriana

Munch 150

After Earth

What’s the must-have gift for Hollywood’s rich kids this year? A pony? A Ferrari? How about the lead role in a major summer blockbuster conceived, produced by and starring your megastar dad? ‘After Earth’ sees Will Smith as the improbably named Cyphe...

Before Midnight

Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy reunite for a third film, after ‘Before Sunrise’ and ‘Before Sunset’, in Richard Linklater’s occasional series about occasional lovers Jesse and Celine. Only now, the pair’s love is not so on-and-off: the American writer a...

Behind the Candelabra

Christmas will be green with envy if it ever gets a peek at the camp pleasures of Steven Soderbergh’s ‘Behind the Candelabra’. Anyone the less leathery side of 50 might struggle to place Liberace, the flamboyant – as the tabloids surely tagged him –...

Despicable Me 2

Despicable Me 2

Epic

Can the tiny warrior Leafmen protect their queen and her magical rosebud, which will one day give them a future monarch? Or is the rosebud’s flowering threatened by the invasion of a dark force? Welcome to ‘Epic’, a Freudian lineage anxiety drama for...

Globe On Screen: Twelfth Night

The Great Gatsby

‘Romeo + Juliet’ and ‘Moulin Rouge!’ showed us that Australian director Baz Luhrmann can throw a hell of a party. Now, after the epic drabness of ‘Australia’ he pulls the stereo out of storage and does it again. The best scene in this fast and furiou...

Man of Steel

It’s a cliché followed by a yawn when the makers of comic-book movies boast about how ‘real’ and ‘psychological’ their stories are. Yes, we know, Spider-Man and Batman were just troubled sons with daddy issues. But it’s harder to make those claims fo...

Much Ado About Nothing

What do you do when the studio demands you take a break between the shooting and the editing of a huge superhero franchise movie? If you’re Joss Whedon, you pick up the phone, call your actor buddies, get them round to your place and adapt yourselves...

Sammy's Great Escape

Kids’ animation doesn’t come more basic than this second undersea outing for Sammy the Turtle. The opening song simply stops mid-riff as it cuts to grandad Sammy herding his family’s hatchlings from beach to briny. Since no wildlife cartoon is comple...

Snitch

This crime drama falls frustratingly short of striking. The premise, while based on a true story, is beyond ludicrous – a decent dad (Dwayne Johnson) turns drug trafficker and informant to reduce his college-bound son’s maximum jail sentence – but th...

Spike Island

Top one, nice one, get sorted. Yes, all the creakiest melon-twisting Madchester clichés are rolled out for this gushing tribute to the heady summer of 1990, when The Stone Roses reigned supreme and north-west England was the centre of the musical uni...

Star Trek Into Darkness

‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ is a brisk, no-nonsense sci-fi action sequel built around a conflict between the crew of the Starship Enterprise with a slick, slippery new villain, John Harrison (although there’s more to him than meets the eye), who’s play...

World War Z

So here it is: Brad Pitt v zombies. The traditionally low-budget zombie genre has been treated to a blowout $200 million blockbuster makeover. The result looks less like a horror flick and more like a thinking man’s action-thriller – the ‘Newsnight’...