TOP 5 MOVIES

Top five movies at the Irish box office weekend of May 4-6. Figures supplied by the Irish Film Board. For all you need to know about Irish film visit www.thisisirishfilm.ie

MARVEL'S AVENGERS ASSEMBLE (12A)

(€558,719)

FACED with an alien attack from the powerful Loki in Asgard, SHIELD boss Nick Fury calls in The Avengers -- aka Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Bruce Banner and more -- to form one elite team to protect Earth. Hugely entertaining, laugh-out-load funny and visually spectacular, Avengers is one of those rare movies that truly lives up to the hype.

Robert Downey Jr, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo and Scarlett Johansson lead an impressive cast.

AMERICAN REUNION (16)

(€416,388)

JIM, Michelle, Stifler and company return home for their high school reunion. Chaos ensues. American Reunion fails to do much new or interesting with the series, but is saved by the handful of characters who made it work in the first place. Jason Biggs, Seann William Scott and Tara Reid all return for the trip.

THE LUCKY ONE (12A)

(€94,810)

WHEN a Marine credits a photo of a mysterious woman with saving his life on the front, he sets out to track her down when he returns to the US in the latest Hollywood adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks novel. Bland, insipid and riddled with clichéd dialogue, this one's for die-hard Zac Efron fans only.

BEAUTY & THE BEAST 3D (G)

(€68,961)

THE original cut of the 1991 film is given the 3D treatment and is based on a French fairytale. A prince is punished by a beggar woman who transforms him into a beast. Given a rose that will bloom until his 21st birthday, he must find love before the petals have fallen off, or stay a beast forever. Regardless of how you feel about 3D, one of Disney's most romantic and attractive films is made to be seen on the big screen.

SAFE (16)

(€51,422)

JASON Statham sticks to straight-up action mode as an ex-fighter who sets out to protect a young girl with special abilities.

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Downey is clued-in as Sherlock

SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS (12A)

DVD Review

GUY Ritchie's zany combination of historical drama mixed with very modern humour and special effects is very much brought to the fore in Holmes's latest mystery-solving mission. The mix of action sequences and the charm of Robert Downey JR will be enough to entertain audiences here, while Jared Harris makes a welcome addition to the cast as the clever Professor Moriarty.

It's a shame, though, that the story is so bloated, with a serious dip in pace in the middle of the film. Downey reprises his role as the clever detective who this time risks being outfoxed. The movie opens with Watson's (Jude Law) planned nuptials being interrupted by a chaotic series of global events. Bombings in European cities and the fall of business and political leaders combine to make Holmes suspect that someone is plotting this combination of scenarios.

Meanwhile, those closest to Holmes quickly start to fall victim to the scheming of his new rival, Moriarty. Jared Harris is very good here, making what could have been an over-the-top character his own, instead bring a quiet menace to the part. Holmes forms a
testy alliance with a gypsy (Noomi Rapace) who may or may not be able to predict the future.

It's more twisty than it really needs to be and is a good 20 minutes too long, but Holmes second outing is saved by its central character. Funny, slapstick and well able to glide between moments of tension, comedy and action, Downey looks like he's having a riot here, and it's infectious.

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TOP 5 RENTALS

WARHORSE (12)

AFTER training and bonding with his farmhorse, Joey must let him go to fight with the army in WW1. Steven Spielberg's old-fashioned drama takes its time to get going but develops into a stirring movie with strong performances.

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL (12)

WHEN a job in the Kremlin goes badly wrong and his cell is shut down, Ethan Hunt and his team must go rogue to track down terrorists. Effectively mixing action and espionage with a sense of fun, MI4 shows there's plenty of life in the series. Tom Cruise leads a starry cast.

HAYWIRE (15)

WHEN she's double crossed while on a routine spy mission in Dublin, Mallory (Gina Carano) must use her wits to outfox those responsible. Steven Soderbergh's indie action thriller is hardly original but it's a lot of fun, and our capital city looks great on screen.

SHAME (18)

BRANDON is a well-off New Yorker unable to control his sexual urges, but when he sister comes to stay it impacts on both their lives. A dark and challenging character study, Shame will stay with you long after you've seen it.

THE IRON LADY (12)

IN the autumn years of her life, the elderly Margaret Thatcher (Meryl Streep) looks back over her political career as she struggles with illness and the loss of her husband Denis (Jim Broadbent). The movie flounders in trying to capture, through flashbacks, one of the most controversial periods in British political history.

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MOVIE NEWS

ARNOLD Schwarzenegger (right) is continuing his renewed movie career with a role in the forthcoming cop thriller Ten. The movie centres on a bunch of drugs officers who happen upon millions of dollars worth of illegal merchandise while on a raid. Arnie will appear in The Expendables 2 this summer and The Last Stand, due out next year.

MARK Ruffalo has told how his 10-year-old son was his main inspiration when playing Bruce Banner/The Hulk in the Avengers movie. "He's in this most horrible place as a young person where you have the force of nature streaming through your body, but the rest of the world is expecting you to behave, and I think that's a little bit like Banner."

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Sinking to new Depps

Johhny's new vampire spoof sucks

DARK SHADOWS (12A)

THE STARS: Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Eva Green, Helena Bonham Carter.

THE STORY: After being encased in a tomb for centuries, a cursed vampire (Depp) returns to his family home, to discover his ancestors could do with some help.

DARK SHADOWS is Johnny Depp's eighth film with British director Tim Burton and it's clear that the two have a mutual respect and affection for each other. If only this were as much fun for audiences to watch as it clearly was for them to make. Lacking in focus or even story, this is one of the duo's most self-indulgent projects to date. The world that Burton has created looks spectacular, of course, and there are moments of wry humour, but the shortfall of storytelling power, or characters we can invest in, is a real problem here.

Based loosely on a cult gothic TV series from the 1960s, the movie stars Depp as Barnabas Collins, a 17th century vampire who is locked away in a coffin after being cursed by a nasty witch Angelique (Green). An opening sequence sees her take revenge after Barnabas spurns her advances for another woman, sending the woman to her death and turning him into a vampire, doomed to live forever.

Fast forward to the US town of Collinsport in 1972, where Barnabas's relatives, led by the glamorous Elizabeth (a pouting Michelle Pfeiffer) have fallen on hard times. Despite living in a sprawling mansion and hiring a governess for her troubled youngest nephew, the family fish-processing business is in trouble and many of the characters who live in the house have dark secrets and problems.

They include Elizabeth's sneaky, selfish brother Roger (Johnny Lee Miller), her aggressive teenage daughter (Moretz). Even the live-in shrink they've hired to keep it all together (Bonham Carter -- enjoyable) is more fond of drinking than shrinking. When Barnabas escapes form his incarceration, he makes straight for the family home to the relatives with whom he shares a heritage. He's determined to help them, but dark forces are at work to prevent him.

Burton has long specialised in this style of fairytales for grown-ups, with varying success. Highlights have included the crazy Beetljuice and the heartfelt Edward Scissorhands, while his last film -- Alice in Wonderland -- was the tenth most successful of all time.

Sadly, this one feels like it was more fun to make than it is to watch. It's a bunch of actors playing at being actors in a movie that lacks focus and story value.While the production looks as lavish as you'd expect from this director, and there are a handful laughs and enjoyable 1970s references, the mannered style becomes grating.

While Depp shows his knack for comic timing by delivering some of the movie's funniest lines, his latest take on the oddball outsider has a seen-it-all-before feel to it. It would be a relief to see him taking a break from Granny's dressing-up closet and embracing some straight acting roles.

THE VERDICT:

Burton and Depp's contrived brand of quirky humour is starting to feel jaded, while the movie looks great but lacks heart.

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There’s no love here for Charlie Casanova

CHARLIE CASANOVA (16)

THE STARS: Emmett J Scanlan, Leigh Arnold.

WRITER/DIRECTOR Terry McMahon has courted controversy with this low-budget Irish movie about a psycho killer. Credit most go to McMahon for making this movie for less than a grand, and for coaxing a manic performance from his leading man. But this is a movie that's difficult to see the point of, let alone recommend.

The movie centres on the title character (played by an up-for-it Scanlan), a well-to-do sociopath who's sent over the edge when he knocks down a young girl. Charlie is the type of character who has long been raging about the various scumbags, thieves and petty crooks who are knocking about Dublin, and, as he goes into meltdown, these become his obsession.

Abdicating himself of all responsibility, he decides instead to use a deck of playing cards to determine his fate and make choices -- an approach that rarely ends well for those around him, and puts those closest to him in the firing line. It's a self-regarding movie that
thinks itself cutting edge. But it all falls apart in the execution.

McMahon has given us a character-driven movie with a character who simply doesn't feel remotely believable. And while the tone is grim and frequently nasty, there is little in the way of audience payback that you get in other, more successful movies in this genre. The biggest problem is the script -- which plays like an ongoing rant rather than anything approaching a story. When he's not lynching people, Charlie likes to go on ... and on ... and on.

THE VERDICT:

There's no questioning the commitment of all involved, but Charlie Casanova is a bonkers movie and a deeply challenging experience to watch. I don't mean this in a good way.

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Gibson's back behind bars

HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION (16)

THE STARS: Mel Gibson, Kevin Hernandez.

THE STORY: Locked up in a Mexican prison after a heist goes wrong, a crook (Gibson) fights to survive the tough regime -- and forms an unlikely friendship.

AS A FLAKY, AGEING ex-con with a twinkle in his eye, Mel Gibson is perfectly cast in this peculiar but enjoyable jailhouse movie. His career has become overshadowed by his outspoken views and real-life rants, but this movie serves as a reminder of what Gibson has always done best -- the craggy bad guy with a knack for getting an audience on his side.

Personality-wise, this is the closest we've seen him to Lethal Weapon's Martin Riggs in some time, and while he doesn't have the star quality he once did, Gibson ably keeps this movie afloat. He's the only mainstream US actor in this Mexican-set jail movie.

Gibson plays an unnamed getaway driver who comes off badly in a chase with police on both sides of the Mexican border. As the only US citizen imprisoned in a massive Mexican lock-up, he needs to rely on his wits to survive. He lands in even more trouble when he befriends a nine-year-old boy (Hernandez), whose liver will one day be transplanted into the body the prison's nasty top dog.

Granted, it sounds like a woeful idea for a movie, and when you factor in that this went straight to video on demand in the US, you'd be forgiven for lowering your expectations here. But the movie is a pleasant surprise -- it develops into a darkly-funny (and quite violent) action flick with an improbable but affective buddy relationship at its core.

He looks more worn than his heyday, but on screen, it's fun to have Gibson back as the type of rogue he does best.

THE VERDICT:

An odd and slightly warped mix of bawdy humour, action and drama, with Gibson a decent fit as the movie's anti-hero.

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