MrHlad

This time, Ghostface is on the rampage in New York, where he takes on the surviving heroes from the previous film and plays with the rules not of sequels or remakes, but of entire franchises. After a terrific opening 20 minutes, the pace slows down a bit, but the murders themselves are pleasantly uncompromising this time around, with Ghostface as a total exterminator. The meta overlaps work, too, except that the entire sixth installment unfortunately hinges on not very interesting heroes who already were quite stale the last time around. Still, it's fine, and the Scream IV is more or less exactly what you'd expect. Whether that's enough or not enough is up to you.

The third Creed turned out to be a very solid and confident directorial debut. We know Michael B. Jordan can deliver in front of the camera in this role, but he can deliver behind the camera too. Especially in the first part, which is more about dialogue and the coming together of two old friends who meet years later, with some ugly events from the past coming back into both of their lives. Jonathan Majors is a worthy partner to Jordan, both in the dialogue exchanges and trying to rekindle an old friendship, and in the ring where he comes across as an unstoppable beast. Overall, however, Creed III is unexpectedly better on the non-boxing front, but towards the end it feels a little rushed and at times slightly pathetic and perhaps even a little laughable at some points. Definitely better than last time, though, and also better than I would have expected when it was announced that the inexperienced Jordan would take over directing. Despite the occasional stumbles, he's managed to grow to the point where he can get by without Rocky; even without Stallone.

Elizabeth Banks turned a potentially funny brutal comedy into a lazy and plodding film of unlikeable characters, dysfunctional humour and zero atmosphere. The couple of fine scares and the likeable bear tearing people apart aren't enough when you spend most of the time looking at your watch for the end credits. A below-average film that scores points more for its entertaining premise than for how it's handled.

In 1998 Dominik cheered for the Czech hockey team when they played for gold in Nagano, and he wanted to be like them, at least a little bit, so he settled for a tennis ball and playing on the floor. But a game against a team of older guys can be just as important as Nagano in the eyes of a Dominik Hašek fan. Dan Pánek delivers a fine family film that relies heavily on nostalgia and obviously lived-in experiences. And it manages to be so entertaining that you can quite willingly overlook the weaker acting and the underdevelopment of some subplots.

Four armed weirdoes trap a married couple and their daughter in a cottage and demand that one of them sacrifice himself to prevent the coming apocalypse. A game of nerves begins, but what if the end of the world is really near? M. Night Shyamalan takes an interesting subject and made a woefully uninteresting film. His new film tries to play on uncertainty, to not explain and to avoid clear-cut points. But this doesn’t make it thrilling, but rather boring and drawn out. Another misstep for the director. It is decently shot, but not very entertaining to watch.

Orson Fortune and his team must prevent the sale of a weapon that could threaten the entire world. To do so, they must get close to a dangerous adversary, and they're going to use a Hollywood superstar to do it. Guy Ritchie delivers an entertaining action-spy comedy that's driven forward by a particularly likeable cast. Unfortunately, they're a bit undermined by a muddled script, which often makes the story pause unnecessarily and deal with irrelevancies, only to have to unnecessarily plunge forward a few moments later. It's not boring, but one expects a bit more from Ritchie and Statham.

Babylon can make a very impressive first impression. Within the opening thirty minutes, Damien Chazelle serves up physical humour that even Dumb and Dumber would be proud of and a wild orgy of fun filled with sex, cocaine, alcohol, loud music and plenty of reasons for anyone who despises Hollywood to despise it even more. The Wolf of Wall Street would probably walk away from this party disgusted halfway through. But this is where we meet several protagonists who will spend the next few years trying to carve out a little fame, fortune, wealth or respect in Hollywood. And far from all of them succeed. Babylon looks like a grand Luhrmann-type film at first glance, but it's only superficial. Chazelle knows very well how to make the viewer admire his depiction of Hollywood in the 1920s and 30s on the one hand and despise it on the other. He knows how to make his characters laugh, but at the same time make the viewer worry about them, wish them luck or watch their slow, unavoidable fall. And while it looks truly spectacular – not only during the lavish parties, but even during the actual filming of one small scene, which the director manages to turn into an absurd grotesque – at its core this epic drama is actually a rather intimate story of people who have been "there" for a while, had a chance to create dreams and didn't notice that their own lives were turning into a nightmare. Great film.

Will Smith plays a slave flees to freedom and his family. A swamp of danger awaits him, with Ben Foster breathing down his neck, but his desire for freedom is stronger than any obstacle he faces. This potentially interesting historical drama offers some quite telling scenes and solid action, but audiovisually it is unremittingly repulsive. It gets increasingly boring as it progresses, and by the end it becomes downright annoying. Antoine Fuqua should stick to action films and tame his ambitions, he's not cut out for this.

James Cameron once again shows Hollywood who is the king of blockbuster movies. Despite its three-hour running time, Avatar 2 is entertaining from beginning to end, with breathtaking audiovisual and personal stories of old and new heroes at the ideal pace. Pandora is perhaps even more beautiful than last time, the newcomers are likeable, and Cameron keeps the pace from start to finish without a single flinch. And after thirteen years, he shows that he's still a long way ahead of most Hollywood filmmakers.

A gang of killers decide to ruin Christmas for a dysfunctional family and only Santa Claus can save them, and the chubby bearded guy is definitely not afraid of violence. Tommy Wirkola may be a little slow to get going in his actioner, and maybe he plays a little too much with genres and Christmas clichés, but he manages to shift into the mode we love him in time. David Harbour is clearly in his element here, the action sequences are full of ideas and clearly shot, the humour is pitch black and the references to Home Alone and Die Hard are a delight too.