Having done that, this is the point where I say I’m finished with the franchise. Tokyo Ghoul VA (technically √A, as in root A, which doesn’t translate so well to URLs) commits all the sins of the first season, and then some.

What we have here is a string of well-made sequences that had zero emotional impact because I cared not one jot for the characters involved. I’ve sat through uninspiring anime many times before, only to be stunned by a heartfelt sequence out of nowhere (I’m looking at you, Tales of Earthsea and Guilty Crown). That didn’t happen here, however.

Tokyo Ghoul starts off with vague character outlines, and then instead of colouring in those lines, giving us a bit more to work with, it simply introduces more characters. And more. And more. So when the show is aiming for operatic tragedy (which it attempts on many occasions in this collection) it simply falls flat.

When we left Kaneki, he had joined Aogiri Tree in an attempt to both embrace his monstrous half and protect the ‘good’ ghouls of Anteiku. In √A, we get no real explanation of how he thinks this will pan out. Nor does it deliver any twists and turns. The narrative meanders aimlessly, with ghouls murdering the people of the CCG (Commission of Counter Ghoul) and the CCG murdering the ghouls.

I mentioned in the review for season 1 that the show flirted with the question of who the real monsters are, especially considering how unhinged some of the ghoul hunters can be. This could make for some interesting moral quandaries. Alas, in √A it means that I hate both sides – ghouls and hunters. They’re equally dislikeable, so I’m just left to soak in the senseless violence.

The animation is impressive, however I’m not a fan of the general approach, which is to prioritise speed a fluidity over everything else. Characters are often clearly moving against flat backgrounds with little regard to their placement in the space. That being said, it all looks and sounds brilliant on Blu-ray. The commentaries with the English-language voice cast are always entertaining on Funimation releases, and the ones here are no exception.

Getting through these 10 episodes was such a struggle for me. If you were particularly enamoured of the first season, then you might enjoy this one, but I’ve lost interest in this property.

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Based on the writing of Giambattista Basile, the film comprises three fairy tales about royalty, obsession and tragedy. The Queen of Darkwood (Selma Hayek) is determined to have a child, no matter what the cost, and so the King (John C. Reilly) goes out to slay a sea monster. The King of Highmountain (Toby Jones) is so desperate to cling to his now adult daughter (Bebe Cave) that he puts his subjects to an impossible task – a task that one of them will accomplish. Finally, the lustful King of Stronghold (Vincent Cassel) becomes entranced by a mystery woman with a beautiful voice.

The film is episodic in nature, moving back and forth between the three tales, and at 134 minutes, it’s not in any hurry. Thankfully, the film is a feast for the eyes. Most of it was filmed in real locations around Italy – castles, a stone labyrinth, a ravine, forests – and with digital set extensions, it’s truly impossible to tell what’s real and what isn’t. Being a $14 million film, of course the VFX aren’t flawless, but it does a lot more – proportionally – than Hollywood does with its $150 million-plus blockbusters.

Thing is, like a lot of fables, Tale of Tales keeps the viewer at arm’s length. It’s hard to feel for the characters, and you’re painfully aware of the moral nature of the narrative. In an interview on the disc, Cassel says he asked Garrone what the moral of the story was, and the director’s reply was, “It’s all amoral.” That doesn’t ring true, because the three stories here all have a sting in the tail – it’s pretty clear to me that these are cautionary tales…

The performances are strong, but it’s Cave that really impresses as Violet, the daughter of the King of Highmountain. Her performance is so assured that, with her on screen, the usually problematic artifice slips away. It feels like she could have played the role of Yara in ‘Game of Thrones’, actually. I hope she goes onto bigger and better things.

Unfortunately I only had the DVD to review, so I can’t speak to the quality of the HD picture. Given the spectacularly visual nature of the film, I would imagine the Blu-ray would be preferred. That being said, the DVD isn’t too shoddy, and the short interview pieces with the stars are enlightening.

Tale of Tales might be too absorbed with the visuals to truly let the viewer in, but it’s a perfect film for those who think they’ve seen it all. A bold, creative yet flawed vision.

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The beautiful, dreamlike quality of The Returned is down to two things: the stunning cinematography, including some majestic panoramic vistas, and Mogwai’s tense and haunting soundtrack. Though a ground-breaking band back in the day, the Scottish post-rockers seem revitalised by the inspiration provided by the French show, and their music here is a worthy listen on its own – something you would rarely say about television soundtracks.

The show boasts some incredible performances in the roles of both the living and the dead. Teenager Camille (Yara Pilartz) returns home after dying in a bus crash some years ago, and her reunion with her sister Léna (Jenna Thiam) is as emotional as it is horrific. Céline Sallette’s turn as nurse Julie Meyer provides a brilliant counterpoint to other narratives: Julie has given up on life, and finds more in common with the newly-returned than with the living. Then there’s Adèle (Clotilde Hesme), who faces the strange task of introducing Simon (Pierre Perrier), her undead ex-fiancé and father of her 10-year old child, despite the fact that he died and returned a teenager, barely a few years older than his daughter.

It’s an intriguing setup, and it’s impossible to not be taken in by the mystery afforded to us at the beginning of The Returned. Unfortunately, it never again hits the highs of the opening couple of episodes. The series has been showered with critical acclaim, and one of those singing its praises was none other than Stephen King. This point is illustrative, because like King’s fiction, The Returned doesn’t know how to nail an ending. The climactic episode to season 1 falls flat, and then poor French viewers had to wait three years for season 2 to appear.

And 2015’s season 2 doesn’t get any better. There are some interesting plot developments (though by far the most amazing factor is that the young cast haven’t aged too much in the three years between episodes) but it’s clear that there’s a lot of retconning going on. Moments from season 1 are reinterpreted and added to, and it doesn’t do a good job of convincing viewers that this was all part of the plan from the beginning.

The main problem with The Returned is that it’s a one-note show. For me, great TV shows can run the whole gamut. Even for a show that’s ostensibly a thriller, or a horror, we need moments of levity, we need fast-paced moments, we need touching moments. Here, the characters do very little but portray shock and awe episode-in, episode out. There are no scenes of triumph, no scenes of elation, and barely anyone cracks a smile. Over the course of 16 episodes, this can become trying. In fact, this has a lot in common with John Ajvide Lindqvist’s follow-up to ‘Let the Right One In’, ‘Handling the Undead,’ which answered the question of, “What would it be like if the dead came back to life?” with the answer, “Really, really depressing.”

Technically-speaking, The Revenants is an incredible achievement. The eerie tone, the beautiful visuals, the chilling moments and the incredible score all combine to create a very stylish TV show. But it’s stuck in the same gear. And like the Paranormal Activity sequels, each subsequent episode here is more concerned with asking new questions than it is with providing answers. It may have started out a 5-star show, but it ended up somewhere in the middle.

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Mockingjay Part 2 is a lot like Part 1. By that, I mean that it follows the novel very closely, and all of its flaws are the same flaws that were present in the book. It’s not that I never liked ‘Mockingjay’ – even now, I’m impressed by the decisions author Suzanne Collins’ made to end the series. It’s just that, let’s face it, ‘Mockingjay’ is a bit of a downer. Not only that, it doesn’t have the same narrative drive that was present in the first two books. It doesn’t move along at breakneck speed, but rather lumbers towards the ever so depressing conclusion. Much like the film.

I’m sure a different director could have given this two-partner a bit more dramatic oomph. There’s no denying that Katniss’ attempts to take the fight directly to the Capitol aren’t as powerful as they should be. Then there’s the fact that, much like the previous films, the gore has to be hidden, so blink and you’ll miss some very shocking moments.

I also couldn’t get over the fact that so much of this film was shot in near darkness. Whether they were hiding the fact they skimped on the budget, or covering up shoddy VFX, there are three or four scenes where I had no idea what was going on.

Jennifer Lawrence is strong here, and she finally gets do stuff. One of the criticisms of the second and third films was that everyone so busy saving Katniss, it took away from what made her so cool in the original Hunger Games. This isn’t her worst work – take a look at the recent X-Men films to see how you waste a great actress – but there are only two or three really great scenes for her to work with here.

Jena Malone is still brilliantly unhinged as Johanna Mason, so much so that I wish they’d inserted her character into more of the film. Michelle Forbes is a welcome newcomer – it’s great to see Ensign Ro in Panem – whilst Gwendoline Christie’s single scene is appreciated. It felt like both Gale (Liam Hemsworth) and Prim (Willow Shields) weren’t present for enough of this film, considering how significant they are to the narrative, but this issue would presumably be resolved if you rewatched Mockingjay Part 1 and 2 back to back.

At the end of the day, Mockingjay hits all the right moments, but I felt just as deflated with this as I did with the book. Collins’ series is a depressing look at the futility of violence, and as such, this was never going to be a ‘fun’ night out at the cinema. Then again, when the best you can say about a film is that it’s faithful to the source material, perhaps you know something’s wrong.

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Haemoo (translated: sea fog) was selected as the South Korean entry in the 87th Academy Awards but failed to gain a nomination. Co-written and co-produced by the man behind Snowpiercer and The Host (Gwoemul), Bong Joon-ho, it’s set during the Asian financial crisis. A group of South Korean fisherman are struggling to make ends meet when, unbeknownst to them, their captain agrees to take on human cargo. Sneaking 25 Korean-Chinese immigrants on board, the crew has to get them back to South Korea whilst avoiding not only the maritime authorities but the tensions amongst the crew.

Thanks to a fantastic opening montage, we get a true sense of the type of lives the fishermen lead. They’re hardworking and loyal bunch, and they make the most of the rust bucket they call a boat. Once they turn their attention to people smuggling, however, the tone becomes equal parts melodramatic and gauche. The characters have very little depth, and it’s hard to understand why everyone turns on each other quite so quickly and viciously. It’s a tragic tale with a truly heart-stopping halfway mark (assuming you didn’t read about the true story on Wikipedia first) but from that point on, it teeters between hard-hitting drama and genre thriller.

The production values are impressive. The set design looks great (even if the engine room appears waaaay to large) and it feels like they’re really out at sea – something that’s obviously difficult to replicate on film. The cinematography is impressive also. The DVD presentation is sharp so the lack of Blu-ray release shouldn’t bother you.

If more of a conventional thriller like Contraband, Haemoo would have worked fine. As a hard-hitting piece of cinéma vérité, it would have similarly impressed. But the film is somewhere in between. Some dramatic moments feel forced, whilst other shocking beats really strike home. It’s a thought-provoking drama that doesn’t leave the viewer with the impression it could have.

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Like Primer, Leviathan does a good job of talking around the issue at hand for the first 20 minutes, so it takes quite some time to figure out what everyone’s so worried about. The film is sort of a cross between The Castle and House of Sand and Fog: at the centre of the narrative is a property dispute, and the two parties are locked in a vicious struggle over a desolate piece of real estate. Like House of Sand and Fog, proceedings become thoroughly depressing, but unlike that 2003 film, the screenplay doesn’t make any of the characters likeable. Aleksey Serebryakov plays the everyman, Kolya, as a bitter drunk who isn’t above giving his son a slap over the head if he misbehaves, whilst Roman Madyanov plays the corrupt mayor/adversary with unabashed glee. Even Kolya’s lawyer, Dmitriy (Vladimir Vdovichenkov), is terribly flawed.

It’s not that these performances aren’t good – they’re great – it’s just that the script is so damn determined to have everything go to shit. There was a moment, about three quarters of the way through, when I realised that things couldn’t get any better, and that Leviathan was a tragedy of sorts. It’s a fable, of that much I’m certain, but whether it’s about the failure of institutions, à la ‘The Wire’, or about man’s inhumanity to man, or simply an indictment of religion, I’m not sure. The one thing I am certain of is that Leviathan turns the Depression Dial up to 11 (most only go to 10, see?) The characters spend a lot of time drinking vodka by the bottle and weeping.

The cinematography is beautiful, and the landscape is stunning. The film opens with a harsh yet awe-inspiring landscape, accompanied by a piece of music that isn’t miles away from Philip Glass’ work on Powaqqatsi or Candyman. Alas, that’s all the soundtrack we get until the end credits, as the narrative doesn’t want any music to distract from its formula: bleak x despair x 1000 = movie.

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Set a decade or so after Rupert Wyatt’s film, Dawn presents us with a post-apocalyptic world. The simian virus has all but wiped out humanity, and the new super-intelligent apes have created their own semi-civilised society in the new wilderness that has been allowed to flourish. It doesn’t take long for some humans to stumble across a group of apes led by Caesar, however. Though both have the best of intentions, it seems that war is inevitable.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is a tragedy of sorts. We all know the trajectory that the series is taking, so it’s unsurprising that there are few real surprises in the film. The script instead focusses on giving all the enemy combatants good reasons to be doing bad things. House of Sand and Fog this isn’t, however it does show an admirable sense of balance in depicting the two warring sides.

Jason Clarke, Keri Russell and Tobi Smit-McPhee make up the central human characters, and it is a little disappointing that their story isn’t more interesting. Instead, it’s Andy Serkis, Toby Kebbell and Karin Konoval that steal the show as the all-important apes. Serkis again outdoes himself; he truly is the master of motion capture performance. For the most part, the apes speak in sign language, only vocalising occasionally, and it’s incredible just how emotive these creatures can be. It’s the perfect marriage of human performance and digital trickery.

I can’t even begin to imagine just how big the effects budget was for this film. The visuals are, for the most part, as good as they can be in 2014. There are a dozen moments that don’t truly convince, but I guess that’s to be expected when the film is this ambitious.

The movie takes its time, and isn’t concerned with having an action sequence every ten minutes. This is to be applauded, and it’s the slow build to the inevitable clash that makes the big action sequences all the more exciting. If they could only make the human drama as exciting as the simian drama, then they’d have a perfect film on their hands…

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The most amazing part of Steins;Gate is just how much genre hopping the show does throughout its 25 episode run. In the beginning, it’s like a sitcom version of Primer. We have a group of young people, headed by self-styled mad scientist, Rintarō Okabe (Mamoru Miyano), who are in their tiny apartment, scrounging together bits and pieces in an effort to create the inventions of the future. Okabe is perpetually dressed in a labcoat, having pretend conversations with covert agents on his mobile, and cackling maniacally whenever he gets the chance. Mayuri Shiina (Kana Hanazawa) is his childhood friend and a typical Japanese kawaii innocent, perpetually in good spirits, and Daru Hashida (Tomokazu Seki ) is Okabe’s high school buddy and experienced computer hacker. Together the three of them manage to create a time machine of sorts.

The time machine in question is a microwave, and it has the uncanny ability to send text messages into the past. It’s a subtle means of affecting the future, and one of the more realistic presentations of time travel we’ve seen on screen. Before long, the group are sending lottery tickets into the past in an attempt to make themselves rich.

The first half of series is along these lines – always entertaining but rather shallow. But it’s at the halfway point that everything begins to change. I won’t spoil it for you here, but rest assured that the type of plots twists you’ve seen in the likes of ‘The Sound of Thunder’ and its various incarnations are taken to the extreme. Ethical quandaries, temporal paradoxes and grandiose tragedy are all on the menu, and Steins;Gate goes through all of them one by one.

The series features what would have to be a record number of female characters this side of Strike Witches. As well as Mayuri, we have the scientific prodigy that is Kurisu Makise (Asami Imai), a student of neuroscience. There’s also the shy and secretive Moeka Kiryū (Saori Gotō), who communicates only through text message, and Ruka Urushibara (Yū Kobayashi), a boy who desperately wishes he was born a girl. Finally, we have Suzuha Amane (Yukari Tamura), who came to town looking for her long lost father. They are a disparate bunch, but the variety makes for some wonderful character interactions and a balanced narrative.

For series that starts out feeling a little flippant, I can assure you that there are some incredibly dramatic moments in the second half. The narrative takes full advantage of the time travel conceit, and we are subject to quite a bit of circular insanity, as tragedy is piled upon revelation over and over again. The writing really is stunning, and the time travel mechanic means that the script can have its cake and eat it too, again and again.

The animation isn’t as flashy as some other shows out there. There’s only one 3D element in the entire series, that of an oscillating fan, and we see it way too often. The colour palate is deliberately washed out also. In fact, the whole show is oversaturated, as if you’d walked from a darkened room to bright sunshine outside, white being the dominant colour. There isn’t much in the way of special features on the Blu-ray aside from audio commentaries, but to have the entire series in one box set is a blessing, as this is really a show you need to watch in several big gulps, rather than spreading it out.

A genius piece of science fiction in more ways than one, Steins;Gate is a constantly surprising and memorable experience. It perhaps overstays its welcome, insofar as the first half could have been slightly abbreviated, but that only means when the proverbial hits the fan, it’s all the more shocking. Highly recommended.

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If you don’t know the entire plot of Carrie, you must have been living on another planet for the past 37 years. I’d go so far as to say that the majority of the Western world is familiar with the plot, even if they haven’t seen the original film or read Stephen King’s breakthrough novel. And if you happened to be part of that miniscule minority, then seeing the trailer for this new version would have spoilt the entire film for you anyway.

It was the presence of Chloë Grace Moretz, Julianne Moore and director Kimberley Peirce that got the attention of many of us cynics. Moretz regularly stuns audiences, Moore’s been Academy and Golden Globe-nominated dozens of times, whilst Peirce wrote and directed Boys Don’t Cry. A crappy remake of Prom Night this isn’t.

It’s Peirce’s direction that really makes this film work. Keeping the camera right up in the actor’s faces, she elicits some brilliant performances from all involved. As an analysis of teenage bullying, the film is a masterstroke. Carrie’s high school tormentors aren’t simply evil kids – they range from those who stand by and do nothing, to those who tease in an attempt to be accepted, all the way down to the borderline psychopaths. Lawrence D. Cohen’s and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s screenplay gives us the shades of grey (no, not that kind) that really resonate, rather than simply updating the film with the inclusion of cyberbullying and then patting themselves on the back. (The film does include cyberbullying, but so much more.)

Moretz plays the role perfectly, hunching her shoulders and hiding behind her hair – exactly the type of shy, downtrodden high schooler that we’ve all seen before (or indeed been ourselves.) Moore plays her mother with an uneasy intensity that at first seems over the top, but becomes creepier and more insidious as the film moves along. Special mention should also go to Gabriella Wilde (Sue) and Alex Russell (Billy) , the two kids that actually reach out to help Carrie. Some of their scenes are among the best in the film.

Where this version of Carrie really falters is the final act. It’s not just a case of the audience knowing what’s coming – but this is surely part of the problem – but that we suddenly move into Final Destination territory. Bloody CGI carnage comes to the forefront and all directorial nuance goes out the door. With films like this, where a director best known for working with actual actors makes a film with a high proportion of visual effects, I always wonder if they really have much say in what’s going on. Was it all storyboarded by the experts in the field, with very little input from Peirce? I don’t know. Suffice to say that the climax feels like it was completed by a second unit.

Whilst not a perfect film, the majority of Carrie features some strong storytelling. As one may have expected, they upped the gore and cut out the nudity of the original (like another of Moretz’s remakes), but the heart of this morality tale/tragedy is stronger than ever.

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Gazillionaire Eric Packer (Robert Pattinson) is comfortably ensconced in the back of his limousine as it makes its way across New York. He has everything he needs here – even his associates come to the car for meetings – and on an apparent whim he decides to get a haircut, despite growing safety concerns from the world outside. The film spends most of its running time inside the car, and is quite episodic in nature. Generally speaking, each scene features a different character in conversation with Eric, talking in a frustratingly oblique fashion about life, capitalism or the state of the world.

That description of the conversations may sound broad, but that truly is the nature of the dialogue in Cosmopolis. There are recurring themes and topics, sure, but for the most part it’s Eric et al talking about stuff of very little interest. There isn’t any sense of urgency (or of any narrative destination at all, really) present in the film and the pacing feels languid at best.

Worst of all, Pattinson simply isn’t up to the task. I was fully prepared to believe that he’s a much better actor than the Twilight films would have you believe (as indeed Kristen Stewart is on occasion), but if that’s the case then he doesn’t prove it here. Cosmopolis needed a magnetic central performance to keep it all together; Pattinson regularly sounds like he’s merely reciting the lines of a script and relying on nothing more than a steely gaze to get his point across. There are some fantastic bit players that pop up throughout, to varying degrees of success. One of my favourites, Samantha Morton, makes very little impression, whereas the screen lights up when Paul Giamatti enters the frame. To be fair, such skilled performers eke a better performance out of Pattinson, but it’s not enough to save the film.

Rather like a play featuring characters you care nothing about, Cosmopolis is self-indulgent and tedious. The original trailer for the film hinted at some old school Cronenberg excess, but that never really eventuates. It’s a subtle film, and I mean that in a bad way. If you’re a diehard Cronenberg fan, you may wish to give this a look, but otherwise there’s not much to recommend.

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