It's hard to know whether Peter Jackson really wanted to spend another 10 years of his life, given that the original director Guillermo Del Toro chickened out, filming the world of Middle Earth. The first installment of The Hobbit just didn't feel right and featured so much introduction, we didn't get to see much action. However this time around, it gets serious and all the better for it. It's as if The Two Towers had a little brother with enjoyable ways of decapitating Orcs, separate journeys within the group and even some Legolas action. The final third is mixed as it features the introduction of Sherlock, sorry, Khan, sorry Smaug the Dragon but also a boring and lazy stopover to Laketown with Stephen Fry. Martin Freeman once again shines as Bilbo but when you leave the cinema, if you think back, he didn't say an awful lot in terms of dialogue. Best bit? The 'barrel' sequence halfway through which brings to the fore the fact that this is much more family orientated than its older brother LOTR.
6. 
Ahhh yes, supposedly the film of the year. Well it is quite good but it's the visual bells and whistles that provides all the hype. What you 'see' is what you've heard from anyone who has seen it, a visual masterpiece. This breaks new ground for D, digital filmmaking, even space photography. In fact the 3D is so well presented, that the man who hates the medium more than anyone, Mark Kermode actually advised you to watch it in three dimensions. So what makes Gravity miss out on the top 5? Well it's literally one astronauts journey from A to B. But not a journey that's filled with backstory or witty dialogue, it is LITERALLY about getting from A (danger) to B (safety) and that's it. The dialogue as mentioned is really quite awful but this is all about the mise en scene. It deserves to be seen on the big screen and if you haven't yet seen it, you're probably too late. The weird thing is that if someone watches Gravity in 6 months time on Lovefilm, they will say "God this isn't all that!" simply because I don't think the experience will translate to the small screen.
5. 
A slow burning drama concerning the abduction of two young children in a wintery American suburb. Sounds like a load of ole melodramatic phooey. And it is melodramatic but I was hooked. I started watching this in bed on my ipad at 9am and I had to leave the house at 12pm and this film is three hours long. I watched it all in one sitting and I hardly ever watch films in one sitting at home anymore. But I literally couldn't stop and I felt I owed it to the movie to do it before I left. The acting in the film is top drawer, even Hugh Jackman but the star of the show is Jake Gyllenhaal who really shines in a somewhat understated standard detective role which could easily have been boring as balls. The fact is that we don't even know if the prime suspects did it until the very end and it leaves it hanging very nicely. I'm not saying there's gonna be Prisoners 2 : Electric Boogaloo just that I loved it beginning to end. I know some people won't (and don't) like the film, they may even go as far as to say its slow and boring. But give it a try and see what you think.
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