It comes as little surprise that Interstellar is easily Nolan’s most emotive piece of filmmaking to date, since the project was shepherded by none other than Spielberg during the early screenwriting process. As big a Nolan fan as I am, his films do have the tendency to be rather cold, calculating affairs. Batman Begins had quite a lot of heart, and Inception had moments here and there, but The Prestige, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises barely registered on the emotional scale.

Interstellar shows us an Earth mid-apocalypse, and Matthew McConaughey stars as Cooper, the leader of a space faring expedition that sets out to save the human race. He’s surrounded by the likes of Anne Hathaway, Wes Bentley and David Gyasi.

The screenplay, written by the brothers Nolan, is practically flawless. Whilst the film may be epic in length, it doesn’t waste any screentime, and there are a half a dozen moments where the film, almost shockingly, cuts straight to the meat of a scene straight away. There’s no faffing about.

Part of the genius of the filmmaking is that Interstellar seems future-proofed, in the sense that the film won’t date. There’s nothing about the costuming, set designs or hardware that screams 2014 – in fact, it doesn’t seem to be from any particular time period whatsoever. There are moments that feel distinctly late 70s/early 80s, but this may be because that’s the last time we were truly excited at the prospect of going into space.

The film also holds back the visual effects too, whenever possible. Despite the fact our heroes are zooming through space, we hardly ever see their craft from the outside. Most of the time, our field of view is the same as the astronauts’. This admirable restraint means firstly that the visual effects won’t date as badly as other films of its ilk (I’m looking at you, Contact), and secondly that the effects never push the envelope too much and become dodgy-looking, something that happens in the majority of effects-laden films.

By this stage in his career, it will shock no one to learn that McConaughey is great in the lead role. Mackenzie Foy also deserves props as his daughter, providing some of the film’s most powerful scenes. The fact that the totally inhuman looking robots, TARS (Bill Irwin) and CASE (Josh Stewart) steal the show is testament to the voice actors’ performance and the brilliance of the script also.

Hans Zimmer stuns us all again with his score. Though the audio mix means that it frequently drowns out the dialogue, the music is phenomenal – and not immediately recognisable as his work either, which is a nice change. If anything, it has echoes of Philip Glass, with organs repeating the same phrase over and over.

I can see that Interstellar will be divisive. Some storytelling decisions are bound to disappoint some, but for me they make perfect sense, considering the impossible situation constructed by the narrative. At the end of the day, it’s all about the fear of being alone. This is a profound science fiction film that echoes 2001: A Space Odyssey, Contact and the more sombre moments from The Black Hole, and one that deserves to be seen on the big screen.

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A movie set on the eve of the Apocalypse, These Final Hours follows James (Nathan Phillips), a man who is trying to make the most of the end of the world but can’t quite seem to decide what to do. As society crumbles, he’s travelling to be with his girlfriend at the party to end all parties. As you would imagine, the world’s turned in a pretty bleak place. Everyone’s killing themselves, killing others or doing whatever they can to numb the horror they feel as zero hour approaches. The film presents us with a very flawed James at the outset, and it’s clear that we’re going to be seeing some kind of path to redemption. That feeling only increases when he stumbles upon young Rose (a wonderful Angourie Rice), who’s been separated from her father.

To be honest, there aren’t many surprises in These Final Hours, but it’s a strong film nonetheless. If, like myself, you’ve seen movies like Perfect Sense or even Deep Impact, then the similarities may irk you.

Phillips does a solid job as James, but it feels like there’s something missing in those early scenes. A montage of sorts, it makes it difficult to home in on the character, and as a consequence he comes off as a bit of a meathead. In his scenes with Rice, however, his performance shines, and the movie is at its best when they’re sharing the screen.

His interactions with other people have varying results. The film can be tonally inconsistent, so that some scenes come off a weird hybrid of funny and/or awkward. This may have been on purpose, but such moments feel like they were supposed to be taken seriously.

Though the apocalypse depicted here must have been reasonably cheap to create as far as cinematic end of the world goes, the stifling atmosphere comes across perfectly. It really feels like the world is burning, and civilisation is going down the toilet. The visual effects are used sparingly and to great effect.

These Final Hours has a lot to recommend, and I certainly enjoyed it more than The Rover. Though it’s at times inconsistent, the significant emotional moments really hit home.

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Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) is an American scientist working in a Japanese nuclear facility when something goes dreadfully wrong at the plant. Whilst the area is quarantined for over a decade, Joe never truly believes the story provided by the government and/or the company; he thinks it’s a cover-up. Just how on Earth you’d cover up something as big as Godzilla is a good question (perhaps “the usual story. Gang-related…PCP?”), but Edwards’ film does a pretty good job of making us believe such a ridiculous conspiracy. By cleverly tying the film in with real world events, like the nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll in the 50s, the film feels a teensy bit more believable than any of the other Godzilla films, aside from maybe the original Gojira.

The story cleverly introduces characters one a time. As we follow the trail of destruction from one country to another, we meet new characters just in time for the former ones to drop off. It’s a technique that works well, and something you don’t often see in disaster movies. The classic template – of following half a dozen characters through intertwined narratives – got tiresome a long time ago, so this is a welcome change.

The problem with Godzilla, however, is that the human characters really aren’t that compelling. You may wonder why this disappoints me – what did I expect from a movie about a giant, f*ck-off dinosaur eating skyscrapers? – but I had hoped that Edwards’ presence would mean he’d be able to focus on the small details, the quieter character moments. A buffed-up version of Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays Joe’s son, Ford, with all the nuance of half-brick. It’s strange, since his performance in Kick-Ass was so perfect, but here he’s rather useless, dramatically speaking.

There are lots of quiet moments in Godzilla, but the most successful scenes are the big budget set pieces. We get to see the monster quite early on, but he’s only ever on screen for moments at a time. In fact, this film is basically two hours of giant monster reveals. It’s as if they had a list of 30 or so awesome ways in which to introduce Godzilla, and decided to go with all of them.

The brilliance of the high octane moments is that you never – I repeat, never – lose track of what’s going on amidst all the chaos. Pacific Rim could learn a lot from Edwards’ skills as a visual effects artist. Whereas Guillermo del Toro’s film was almost impossible to follow, what with the titans fighting at night time, in the rain and waist deep in the ocean, Godzilla captures every such moment perfectly.

Godzilla is an entertaining, big budget popcorn action movie in the way that Michael Bay’s Transformers sequels tried to be and failed. At its best moments, the carefully orchestrated scenes of destruction echo Jurassic Park/Close Encounters of the Third Kind-era Spielberg, and Edwards’ skill behind the camera cannot be denied. It’s just such a pity that he couldn’t make the human characters any more compelling.

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After the conclusion to the epic cliff-hanger at the end of Collection One, Guilty Crown changes the format rather impressively. With the fresh outbreak of the Apocalypse virus, GHQ have taken the drastic step of walling off one segment of the city. Trapped within are Shu and his classmates. With the walls literally closing in, and the Government mechs picking them off one by one, Shu is called upon to make some tough choices if they’re all going to survive.

The problem with Guilty Crown has always been that it comes up with interesting narrative peaks, but fails to make the connections between them. Thus, what could have been a thought-provoking exploration of Shu using the King’s Right Hand to make the tough decisions becomes a case of having his safety switch set to ‘evil’, just like a Krusty the Clown talking doll. This kind of character development doesn’t feel the least bit organic.

Then, before you know it, we have the age old anime trick of the show trying to be deep. Science, magic, religion, whatever – Guilty Crown isn’t particularly concerned with the hows or whyfors; it just knows it wants to get all philosophical and arty. Characters return from the dead and both Shu and Inori’s backstory are explored, but none of it really rings true.

The production values are as impressive as ever – this remains among the most visually impressive of anime TV shows – and perhaps that’s why there’s such a frenzied attempt to tick off all the anime clichés along the way. Like a big budget Hollywood movie, it has to appeal to as broad an audience as possible, so they cram in as many mechs/massive swords/cyberpunk hacking/fan service moments as they can, even if it doesn’t add up to much.

The ending is less than satisfying and more than a little confusing, and manages to be both open to interpretation and a cop-out, which is no mean feat. At the end of the day, Guilty Crown is a case of fast food anime – you know it’s bad for you, but for a while it remains enjoyable. This second half, however, is like the regret you feel afterwards, bloated and greasy.

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Noah and his family eke out a simple existence on the desolate proto-Earth, scrounging for food and endeavouring to avoid the marauding Mad Max-like hoards, the descendants of Cain. One night, Noah gets some maddeningly obscure head-movies supposedly delivered to him by God. Like a doomsayer’s weather report, they seem to suggest that the Sky Bully is planning on reformatting Earth’s hard drive, which means that it’s up to everyone’s favourite vegetarian superhero, Noah, to save all the world’s animals.

How does he do this? Well, he builds a big shipping container, that’s how. The plan is to become the world’s first high seas smuggler, cramming as many species as he can into the floating box, ‘The Wire’ season 2-stylee. Only he and his family get to go because, well, apparently they are the only Nice Guys left on Earth. How does he know this? Well, he doesn’t. But there you go. I’m sure he had his reasons. After all, all those other people were eating meat and stuff. God is pretty vindictive in his absence here, though anyone familiar with Aronofsky’s work knows that the writer/director isn’t about to include a big spectral bearded chap explaining to Noah the difference between Sumerian cubits and Egyptian royal cubits.

Whilst this is Aronofsky’s first truly big budget movie, the auteur is still very much present in the finished product. After flirting with the mainstream in the past – he very nearly directed Batman: Year One (which later became Batman Begins) and The Wolverine (which later became, um, The Wolverine) – Aronofsky apparently had a cool $120 million to play around with here. And it’s great to see that Big Budget Aronofsky isn’t too different from Low Budget Indie Aronofsky.

The film is aided by Clint Mansell’s fantastic soundtrack, which has more than a passing resemblance to his work on The Fountain. In fact, Noah is tonally quite similar my favourite Aronofsky film, but with bonus tsunamis and stone giants. It’s kind of The Fountain meets The Lord of the Rings meets The Road, and I had a lot of fun. As a disaster movie, it’s definitely more enjoyable than anything Emmerich has put out, and there are some great performances to be found.

Crowe puts in a decent performance as the last antediluvian, whilst Jennifer Connolly is similarly strong as his wife. Emma Watson continues to prove that she was arguably the most talented of the Harry Potter young ‘uns, whilst Anthony Hopkins is his usual effortlessly charismatic self.

Aronofsky throws as much symbolism as he can at the screen to see what sticks, which isn’t surprising given the source material. Some of it works, some of it doesn’t.  That said, there are some startling images, particularly in the first half hour. In fact, the only complaint I had with the film was that the final act was rather dull; all the good stuff is in the first half.

It’ll no doubt infuriate atheists and god-fearing folk in equal measure, but for my money, Noah was a pretty decent use of 2.5 hours. There are enough weird elements to keep this from being a ‘safe’ (read: boring) Biblical epic, and Aronofsky remains a brilliant actor’s director. Plus, it’s hard to go past the image of bearded men yelling at the sky in anger whilst a flood rages around them.

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Guilty Crown is the ultimate teenage boy wish fulfilment. Ten years after the outbreak of the virus, high schooler Shu (Yûki Kaji) is walking home one day when he bumps into the gorgeous pop star, Inori (Ai Kayano). It turns out she’s so much more than that, however: she’s secretly been working for the Funeral Parlor, a terrorist organisation working to bring down GHQ. Through her, Shu learns that he has the power to retrieve and control voids – people’s souls turned into awesome weapons/tools. Whether it be a pair of pliers, shears or a giant, f*ck off sword, Shu has the ability to yank them out of people’s chests and take them into battle.

Apart from being an unashamed wish fulfilment fantasy, Guilty Crown isn’t particularly original. The idea of voids is pretty cool, and enables the show to circumvent the awkward ‘why didn’t Voltron simply use his sword straight away?’ flaw that pops up in a lot of anime, but the rest is a hodgepodge of ideas we’ve seen before. The creators mention that one of their favourite shows was ‘Neon Genesis: Evangelion’, so its influence is all over here. Pop in some ‘Bubblegum Crisis’, some standard issue mechs, occasional awkward fan service and you’ve got an anime best of compilation.

That being said, Guilty Crown is a bit of a…well, guilty pleasure. It’s just damn fun. Shu may occasional fall into the same bad habits of Shinji from the aforementioned ‘Evangelion’ – “I need to fight for what’s right!/No, I refuse to fight!/Okay fine, I’ll fight but I’m really angry now!” – but that just means it’s all the more exciting when he pulls out someone’s void and kicks some arse. To be fair, the story does explore some interesting ideas, foremost being the fact that the Funeral Parlor’s aims often seem just as sinister as GHQ’s. So for that reason, some of Shu’s hesitation makes sense.

The animation is stunning and constantly impresses. There were no corners cut here, and it all looks fantastic on Blu-ray. Since one of the characters is a pop star, it actually makes sense when a song kicks in during a climactic scene, unlike some other anime, and the score is otherwise great. There are a good collection of characters, all which fall within pretty traditional genre tropes, and the voice acting is impressive.

There are so many things that go unexplained in this first half of the series. The terrorists don’t seem at all concerned about concealing their identities, Inori walks around dressed like a superhero for no apparent reason, Shu’s mood oscillates wildly and his mum only ever appears in her underwear because reasons. But it’s all wrapped up in such a gleefully exciting and addictive package that it doesn’t really matter.

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You don’t really need any more information, do you? Despite the fact that Bait passed up the opportunity to use the title ‘Sharks in a Supermarket’, it does have a number of other things going for it. Firstly, the sets are fantastic. We spend most of the running time in the supermarket and the car park beneath it, and the ‘destroyed’ locations look brilliant.

In a film like this (as with Shark Night), you’re not too worried about realism. The tsunami is made up of visual effects elements both good and bad, whilst the shark is successfully brought to life. The various severed body parts are gory enough, whilst the slow motion, CGI-assisted action is silly in a good way. In fact, all of the action is captured perfectly, which comes as no surprise when you realise that director Kimble Rendall worked as second unit director on the likes of the Matrix sequels, Ghost Rider, Knowing and The Killer Elite. (He also directed the Molly Ringwold starring horror flick Cut, but it’s best we all forget about that.)

The screenplay is patchy. Some scenes show real wit whereas others have characters delivering consistently dodgy lines. In an example of accidental synergy, the cast also provide performances of wildly different standards. I’ve never been impressed by Xavier Samuel, though he hasn’t been given much of a chance to do so. In The Loved Ones and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, he barely spoke, whilst Road Train and A Few Best Men were awful, awful films. As Josh in Bait he’s simply Good Enough: nothing to write home about but successfully keeping the narrative afloat.

Some great actors surround him. Phoebe Tonkin is perfect as the rebellious Jaimie (the complete opposite of her role in Tomorrow, When the War Began), and Julian McMahon is solid in a role that’s never fully explained. Sharni Vinson does a decent job as the object of Josh’s affections, Tina, though the screenplay doesn’t give us many reasons to sympathise with her. Others let the film down considerably. There are a couple of characters whose deaths can’t come quickly enough, whilst the usually wonderful Dan Wyllie is, mystifyingly, way off the mark with his portrayal of Kirby.

All things considered, Bait is a good B-grade film that isn’t remotely scary. There are some flashes of genius (though the flick never gets cleverer than the premise itself) but there are also some truly cringe-worthy moments. Bait is a much better film than Piranha, though I’ll never understand how that mean-spirited and mind-numbingly boring US film found an audience (and indeed, a sequel). A sharper script would have made for a much better film, one that would have both embraced its inherent stupidity with glee and also come up with more interesting character interaction. Those wanting to actually be scared by a shark movie should look no further than 2010’s The Reef.

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Ewan McGregor plays a chef, Michael, who sparks up a romance with Susan (Eva Green), an epidemiologist, just as an epidemic has broken out. All around the world, people are losing their sense of smell. Not only that, but the disease’s initial symptoms include a profound sense of sorrow. People are struck down and burst into tears as if they have suddenly been confronted with all the bad things they have done or the general wretchedness of human existence. Whilst this doesn’t initially have a drastic effect on society, things soon begin to fall apart as the symptoms spread and become more varied.

Perfect Sense is a film that comes with a weighty dose of melancholy. Seeing people wracked with grief as they are infected is a hauntingly memorable image. The knowledge that they are completely powerless to do anything about it only adds to the poignancy of the moment. The film is a reflective study of the human condition, of modern society and that which we take for granted, and it succeeds on almost every level.

The performances of McGregor and Green, as well as that of the supporting cast – the likes of Ewen Bremner and Connie Nielsen – are all pitch perfect. Susan and Michael are realistically portrayed characters, each with their own personal fears and flaws. Watching their love begin to blossom as the world turns to shit is one of the beautiful paradoxes that make the film so impressive.

This film may not be for everybody. Whilst it didn’t distract me to any great extent, the serious moments sometimes have the potential to be unintentionally comedic, and many may find the inflated tone of self-importance to be a little pompous. But for me, the film struck exactly the right chord.

The Blu-ray is an impressive presentation. The darker moments have a tendency to be grainy – this not being a big budget production, after all – and the special features feel a bit slapdash, but like many whose movie collections have been growing at an exponential rate over the years, I have to confess to having trouble finding the time to watch such things these days anyway.

As heart wrenching as Perfect Sense is, it’s also uplifting, something we can’t be said for the similarly themed Blindness. It also has the courage to follow its premise through to its natural conclusion, despite the narrative difficulties that such a course offers. Though not science fiction in the strictest sense (there’s no sense that we’ve trespassed God’s domain), it’s a genius piece of ‘what if’ storytelling.

Perfect Sense is available now on Blu-Ray and DVD from Madman.

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The thing is, of course, that not many people would really expect a movie version of Hasbro’s ‘Battleship’ to be all that similar to the game. The story features giant spaceships rising out of the ocean, for Pete’s sake. Surprisingly, however, screenwriters Erich and Jon Hoeber manage to shoehorn in some very clever references to the game. There are several sequences that work, not only as a ‘wink, wink, nudge nudge’ reminder of the movie’s origins, but also as great scenes.

There are a dozen or so excellent moments in Battleship, in fact. It just isn’t held together very cohesively. We’re introduced to our hero, Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch), one night when he’s out drinking with his brother, Stone (Alexander Skarsgård). Alex is supposed to be the ‘loveable dropout’ type. For some reason unbeknownst to us, he’s super-intelligent but can’t hold down a job. His brother decides that enough is enough and orders Alex to join him in the Navy. Cut to Michael Bay-type pornographic shots of battleships and destroyers, oozing mechanical sexuality from their every porthole and gun turret. In a way that’s never explained, Alex does advance some way in the Navy, however it’s when aliens attack Earth that he’s required to step up to the plate and save the planet.

Battleship never explains what the aliens are intending to do. They turn up, and through a series of mishaps, shit happens. As I said earlier, there are some great moments – the 20 minute ‘first contact’ sequence being a masterclass in tension, delivering information to us in a steady, escalating manner – but none of it makes much sense. Peter Berg is an interesting director, one who understands how the Hollywood blockbuster works, but can sometimes slip in something that bit more intelligent (for instance the title sequence of 2007’s The Kingdom). Here, however, he gives us nothing extra. This is just his attempt to do a Michael Bay, really.

The performances are fine. Kitsch, Rihanna and Brooklyn Drecker all manage to look pretty whilst not being awful, whilst Skarsgård and Liam Neeson are criminally under-utilised. The only real standout is Jesse Plemons who, besides looking like a brother to Matt Damon, does a great job as the comic relief. Oh, and Hamish Linklater, whose journey from low key indies such as Groove through to high profile flicks like The Future and finally to blockbusters has been a somewhat slow trajectory.

Battleship is big, stupid and occasionally fun. There are a handful of excellent scenes, but the screenplay comprises nothing more than tenuous links between the set pieces. The visual effects are occasionally impressive, but are often obscured by lens flares or otherwise over-saturated. It gets the job done, but there are better things to spend your money on.

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In the same way that the significance of segregation in South Africa was explored through the arrival of aliens in District 9, the irony of two Americans enlisting people smugglers to help them cross the border into their home country isn’t lost in Monsters. The two films are remarkably similar in their attempt (and success) in using a fantastical premise to explore real world issues. This is what science fiction is all about.

Whilst the title is Monsters, the film concerns itself, paradoxically, with the humans. The towering extraterrestrials are never far away, but it’s Sam Wynden (Whitney Able) and Andrew Kaulder (Scoot McNairy) that are the focus, as well as the people they meet on their journey. It’s quite an emotional tale, too, as what starts out as an odd-couple dynamic really becomes interesting as they are forced to challenge not only each other but themselves as the landscape becomes more and more hostile.

Edwards has previously worked in visual effects, and it shows. Whilst Monsters is never flashy, the CGI is fantastic. This includes some of the best digital matte paintings I’ve ever seen, and whilst the titular creatures are often hidden in darkness, the end result is spectacular. The cinematography is a triumph also, and manages to keep the action up close and personal, whilst regularly taking a step back to look at the broader picture.

Able and McNairy are fantastic in their respective roles. The film really succeeds on the back of these two wonderfully flawed yet charismatic characters, and taking this arduous journey with them is a joy. It’s strange that they are the only ‘proper’ cast listed in the credits, whereas everyone else is considered a ‘featured extra’. It makes me feel uneasy when one considers the film’s not so hidden subtext about how easily the wealthy, industrialised nations can simply ignore the plight of the millions of faceless, poorer people who live next door.

Coming across as a kind of combination of District 9, Cloverfield and Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, Monsters is a wonderful piece of science fiction, though if you were to go in hoping for some kick arse action, you’d be sorely disappointed. It’s a thoughtful and gripping piece of drama that is hopefully indicative of a future trend of pushing science fiction film beyond mainstream genre constraints. Though it may occasionally deliver its message in a heavy-handed way, it’s a wonderful tale that left me breathless.

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