The Cell (2000)

The Cell (2000)

Dir. Tarsem Singh

J-Lo dives into the mind of a very mentally disturbed, comatose serial killer (Vincent D'Onofrio) hoping to convince him to take her seriously now that she's an actress in a real, genuine, honest to grud film! If she fails to reach and reason with him in time, someone dies.

It's aged badly (or maybe that's me?), and is shallower than it pretends to be — step in it and your toes will barely get wet — but the movie has a few memorable moments, most of which come from D'Onofrio, who has an intensely overbearing cinematic presence. Without him it would be little more than a bunch of pretty moving pictures attached to a plot that draws from The Silence of the Lambs (1991) movie.

Visually, it's both bad and good: the CGI is awful, but many of the visual and optical effects are pretty wonderful, with a surreal quality that on occasion seemed inspired by the likes of the Quay Brothers; there's a tiny bit of Lynch, too.

Assassin's Creed (2016)

Assassin's Creed (2016)

Dir. Justin Kurzel

Besides the goal of making lorryloads of cash for its producers, game developer Ubisoft was probably hoping that the live action Ass Creed film would entice lorryloads more people to check out their long-running game series, which in turn would increase profits there, too. Anything is possible, I suppose, even when the movie they hoped would sway people is a 125 million dollar turd.

Given that it might be someone's introduction to the world, I'll mention how it presents itself, rather than how it translates its source to the screen. But in that respect, it's dire.

It begins in Spain, 1492. We meet Aguilar de Nerha (Michael Fassbender), a member of the Assassins Brotherhood, a secretive group who are collectively at war with the Templars. The Assassins fight for individual freedoms and expression, whereas the Templars seek to control society through imposed order.