The Art Of Self-Defense (5 Stars)

It's often said that martial arts isn't just about learning how to fight. It's also about improving the mind. The students are encouraged to elevate their thoughts to reach a higher level of spirituality.

That's not the case with the Karate dojo that Casey Davies visits. The students use their fighting skills to become bullies. They're also misogynistic, even looking down on female students in their own dojo. Women are considered second class beings, physically and emotionally.

Those are the views of their teacher. They idolise him, so they also accept his negative traits.

Casey has to choose. Does he want to accept the negative character traits while becoming a better fighter, able to defend himself?

Success Rate:  - 0.7

Vivarium (5 Stars)

It's all about the Martins.

One Martin dies, and the next steps up to take his place.

Where do the Martins come from? We don't know. We first see Martin as a young baby. Maybe he had a mother, but we don't see her. We can't even assume that the previous Martin was his father. Maybe, maybe not.

I had a rough idea what a vivarium is, but today is the first time I've looked up its definition.

"A vivarium is an area, usually enclosed, for keeping and raising animals or plants for observation or research".

That definition doesn't exactly describe what we see in the film. Tom and Gemma are being kept in an artificial environment, but it's not with the intention of studying them. They've been put in this artificial nest to raise the cuckoo, Martin, to adulthood. The timeframe isn't exactly specified, but we can assume, based on the markings on the door, that it's about a year. In this time the first Martin dies while the new Martin grows up to take his place. Without Tom and Gemma, Martin would have died. A cuckoo mother places her egg in another bird's nest because she's unwilling to bring it up herself. So maybe there is a mother behind the scenes in "Vivarium" after all?

This is a very good film. Creepy. Unnerving. But brilliant.

Success Rate:  - 9.2

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The Art Of Self-Defense (5 Stars)

I persuaded my son Benjamin to watch "The Art of Self-Defense" (sic) with me today. It doesn't have to be a horror film every time. He liked it, but he wasn't as enthusiastic as me. I don't think he understood the humour. It was too subtle for him. Whenever I laughed he gave me a sideways glance as if he was wondering what was wrong with me. I'll have to watch it with him again next year. Maybe he'll get it next time.

Success Rate:  - 0.7

The Art Of Self-Defense (5 Stars)

Have you ever watched a film a few times, and then it suddenly hit you how good it is? I watched "The Art of Self-Defense" (sic) twice in March this year. Both times I gave it a four star rating. Don't get me wrong, in my rating system any film that receives four stars is a good film that I would recommend to anyone. The missing star just means that something magic is missing. Or maybe the magic was there all the time, but I didn't see it. That's what happened to me this evening. I put the Blu-ray disc in my player and sat back to relax. I found myself laughing out loud at the humour. I laughed the previous times I watched it, but this time it was funnier and I laughed louder than I've ever laughed for any film. Then it hit me. "This film is brilliant. It's one of the best films I've ever seen".

There aren't many comedies in my top 100 list. There's "Deadpool" and "Deadpool 2". And "Mad Heidi". Those are the only overt comedies, but there a few films with subtle humour, such as "Snatch". Maybe I should say that the comedy in "The Art of Self-Defense" is subtle as well. The jokes are delivered with deadpan faces and aren't immediately recognisable as jokes. They need a few seconds to sink in, by which time other things have been said. For instance, when Sensei is explaining the purpose of women he speaks this line:

"There are things that men and women can do together, like riding tandem bicycle and sex. Men ride tandem bicycle to please the woman, with sex it's the other way round".

Maybe I didn't rate the film as highly the first time because of Jesse Eisenberg's wooden acting. In the disc's extra features he tells us this was a requirement from the director, Riley Stearns. Jesse had to speak and act like an inexperienced actor in his first role, struggling to remember his lines.

As many of my readers know, I'm a female supremacist. That made it difficult for me to give the film a five star rating on first viewing. Imogen Poots plays Anna, the only woman in a man's world. She has great strength, both physical and emotional, but she chooses to submit to the misogynistic men around her, which encourages them in their way of thinking. This is unpleasant, on the surface, but when you look deeper you can see that the men around her are stupid and she's only waiting for an opportunity to show them how stupid they are.

A brilliant film. I've pushed it up to ninth place in my top 100 list, the first change in my top 10 for years. If you check my list today you won't see it yet. I'll update my list in the next few days.

Success Rate:  - 0.7

The Art Of Self-Defense (4 Stars)

It's not usual for me to watch the same film twice in a row. "The Art of Self-Defense" (sic) is a special film that deserves special treatment. I'll just add a few thoughts to the review I wrote yesterday. The main humour in the film revolves around toxic masculinity. It's repeatedly stated by the karate trainer that women are inferior, and his word is unchallenged, because he's the sensei, the teacher. Nobody who practises martial arts disagrees with his sensei. It's not done. His best student is Anna, played by Imogen Poots, but he will never promote her to a black belt because she's a woman.

One thing I don't like about the film is the spelling mistake in the title. It's a common mistake for Americans to misspell the word "defence". Many Americans defend it by saying it's American English, but that's an oxymoron. There's no such thing as American English; there is English and there are mistakes.

The Art Of Self-Defense (4 Stars)

There's one thing I can say about Jesse Eisenberg: he has a knack for appearing in off-beat films. I wonder how it happens. Is his agent always looking for unusual film roles? Or is it the casting agents who say, "This is a weird film. Let's ring Jesse Eisenberg"? Whichever way round it is, this is yet another film with a role that nobody but Jesse could have played.

Casey Davies is an insecure man who works as an accountant. He's 431 months old – that has a significance in the film – but he doesn't have a girlfriend. He lives alone with his dog, a cute little dachshund. One evening he's attacked by a motorcycle gang on the way home from buying dog food. He recovers from his injuries, but the worst damage is below the surface. He's afraid to leave his house. He stops going to work, and he only goes out to get food for himself and his dog.

Then he has an idea. He joins a karate class. He's immediately impressed with the charismatic teacher who calls himself Sensei. Casey's fighting skills quickly advance. But he finds that the dojo has dark secrets.

The film is very slow moving. Too slow? It seems like the slow pacing is deliberate. It makes the interspersed action sequences even more shocking. The lack of background music or even background sounds makes the film enthralling. Even though the film is serious, some of the dialogue is so funny that I had to laugh out loud. It's a ridiculous film. It's a film that showcases Jesse Eisenberg's unique abilities.

When the film came to an end my first thought was, "Wow! I need to watch it again!" Okay, I haven't awarded it five stars, because I'm still not sure what to make of it. It's a film that shocked me. Let's see what I think next time.

The Double (4 Stars)

What should you do if you don't exist? That's a question Simon James asks himself in this film. He thinks he exists. He thinks people notice him. Then he realises he's not there. He's just a ghost floating around the world.

Simon writes a suicide note, but will anyone ever read it? Probably not.

Simon is love with his beautiful work colleague Hannah, but he can't speak to her. He watches her in her apartment with a telescope. Creepy. He collects the pieces of her paintings that she throws in the trash. Even creepier.

If you don't exist, the best you can do is to stand aside and look upon yourself. See yourself as you want to be. Instead of trying to be perfect and failing, accept an imperfect version of yourself.

Or just kill yourself. That's easier.

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Vivarium (5 Stars)

This is the second film in my collection that I noticed has a lot of opening vignettes naming the film's production companies. I pitted it against "Imperium", to see which film has the most. It was an easy win for "Vivarium". "Imperium" had only seven production companies, whereas "Vivarium" has a staggering 12. This is reflected in the poor Success Rate of -9.2 for "Vivarium". That's tragic. "Vivarium" is a brilliant science fiction film with a touch of horror. It's overlayed with an atmosphere of Kafkaesque frustration, making it a wonderful film.

Success Rate:  - 9.2

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Vivarium (5 Stars)

This is a film that could have been written by Franz Kafka. It's a chilling horror story about a man and his wife caught in a trap with no way out. They don't know who has trapped them or why. The doors to their prison seem to be open, but every attempt to walk out is met with frustration.

Tom and Gemma visit an estate agent to inquire about a house. They're taken to a house which is surrounded by identical houses. When they attempt to drive home they get lost and can't find the way. Whichever way they drive, they end up in front of the same house. Frustrated, they decide to stay the night in the house, but unseen forces are controlling their destiny. Every morning a box of food is placed in front of the house. Then a baby is left on their doorstep, but it isn't a normal child. He grows rapidly into a teenager within a few months. The boy, who isn't given a name, acts so strangely that they don't know whether to love him or hate him.

The film is unsettling. While watching it I felt revolted at times. I thought to myself that it was disgusting and I didn't want to watch any more, but I was drawn in with morbid fascination. It's an excellent film with awe-inspiring performances by the two main actors.

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Cursed [2005] (4 Stars)

This is a film I haven't watched for a long time. I couldn't even remember what it was about or who starred in it. I picked it up when I was making a selection of films I want to get rid of. Once every few years I pick up every DVD and Blu-ray in my collection, look at it, and ask myself if I'm likely to watch it again. I don't fill my bookcases with films just to have a collection I can boast about. The last time I trimmed my collection was in 2016, and the next time will be in early 2020.

This is definitely a film I'll keep. It was directed by Wes Craven and produced by Kevin Williamson, which is always a good team, although it's not up to the quality of "Scream". The film seems inconsistent. It starts off with suspense and frequent horror film jump scares. Then it settles into a mystery. Then comes the main action/fight scene, which lasts a good 20 minutes, longer than expected, but so good that it could have lasted longer. The film is rounded off with a slow moving epilogue that seems out of place after the previous fast pacing.

Ellie (Christina Ricci) lives with her younger brother Jimmy (Jesse Eisenberg). It's not clear what's happened to their parents, but it was probably a tragedy, because they frequently look at an old family photo. Ellie and Jimmy are involved in a car crash when they hit an animal and skid onto the other side of the road, knocking another car into the bushes. They witness the driver of the other car being dragged away by a large wolf. Both of them are scratched by the wolf.

Over the following days both of them display strange symptoms. They develop a taste for raw meat and a pentagram forms on their right hands. The second symptom alone would be enough to make me run to the doctor... or the nearest Catholic priest. They suspect that there are other werewolves among their friends, but no one will admit it.

Though not a great film, "Cursed" is enjoyable and worth wathing more than once. The acting is excellent from the young people who look like teens even though they're older. Hollywood makeup works miracles. I wonder if I could be made to look like a teen. I don't understand why the film was a box office failure. The critics didn't like it, but that doesn't usually put people off. The viewing public is fickle.

Success Rate:  - 1.3

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Zombieland: Double Tap (5 Stars)

I have to criticise the usually very film literate employees of Metropol, the cinema where I watched this film today. I walked up to the counter, and the girl asked me what film I wanted to see. I tapped the counter twice. The girl asked me again. I tapped the counter another twice. I repeated it a few times, and the girl was flustered. She said she didn't understand me. A woman standing at the next counter, who obviously understood what I meant, started laughing. I had to explain it. Oh well. I got my ticket in the end.

This is my 14th horror film for November 2019. It's a sequel to "Zombieland", which was made 10 years ago, although I didn't watch it until last week. I have to admit that I didn't expect a lot of it. Sequels are a risky affair at the best of times, but the longer the sequel is delayed, the greater the chance that it's a piece of junk spewed out by the film studios when they've run out of original ideas.

I was pleasantly surprised how good it was. It reunites the four members of the original cast, and they're as fresh as ever. No dates are mentioned explicitly, but it seems like they've been on the road for 10 years since the last film. That's necessitated by the ageing of Abigail Breslin, who plays Little Rock in both films. She was only 13 when she appeared in the first film, and she looks a lot older now. The other three actors could have got away with it, with the help of a good makeup artist. Come to think of it, Jesse Eisenberg doesn't need any help, because he doesn't look a day older than he was 10 years ago.

After the boys-vs-girls fighting of the first film, they now get on together. They settle down to live in the White House, which is a cosy family residence. Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) even proposes marriage to Wichita (Emma Stone). It's time for them to settle down and raise little zombie killers.

When they finally venture out of the White House, the film returns to the main plot line of the first film: they want to find other survivors. There might not be many, but there are a few out there.

This is a fun film. At first I felt tempted to rate it four stars, but after sitting down at my keyboard I asked myself what makes it less enjoyable than the first film, and I didn't have an answer.

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I'd like to thank whoever it is who's been ordering items using my Amazon links in America. This morning I received another $30 Amazon gift card as my commission. I know it's not a lot, but I greatly appreciate it. I wish more people would do the same in England and Germany. Either use the links in my sidebar on the upper right, or click on the appropriate Amazon link in the box at the bottom of most of my film reviews. (Not this one, sorry). Then go and fill your shopping cart with whatever you want, and order the items as usual. It will make no difference to you, but I'll be paid approximately 5% of the purchase price.

Zombieland (5 Stars)

This is my seventh horror film in November 2019. Don't get it mixed up with "Zombieland: Double Tap", which is in cinemas at the moment. I'm writing about the original 2009 film, which I didn't watch until today. It's not a coincidence that I watched it. It was added to Netflix Germany for the first time last week, and I decided to watch it before I go to see the sequel in the cinema.

It's a fun film throughout, much better than I expected it to be. It takes place a few years after a zombie apocalypse has wiped out almost all of the world's population, or at least almost all of America's population, where the film takes place.

It's also a boys vs girls film. Woody Harrison and Jesse Eisenberg play two tough but naive men fighting to survive in a world full of zombies. Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin play two scheming young women who use their female wiles as a means of survival. They manage to con the men not once, not twice but three times before they finally decide it's better to team up with them.

This is a great film that deserves a better review, but I'm so short of time today that I'll have to keep it short and promise to write more next time I watch it.

Success Rate:  + 2.3

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Vivarium (5 Stars)

This is the tenth film in the Stuttgart Fantasy Film Festival.

Tom is a gardener. Gemma is a schoolteacher. They're not yet married, but they're considering moving together. They visit an estate agent to look at houses. They drive to a housing estate in the suburbs, but they can't find their way back home. Their car runs out of petrol, so they stay overnight in the fully furnished house they looked at. The whole area is deserted. Nobody lives in any of the houses.

The next day a box is left outside the house with food. That's useful, because there are no shops. The day after that a box is left outside the house containing a baby and a note saying that they can't leave until they've brought up the baby.

There's so much I could say about the film, but I'll refrain for fear of giving away spoilers. It's a bizarre mystery, a living nightmare. This is the sort of role for which Jesse Eisenberg is perfet. He reminds me of his character in "The Double".

Justice League (2 Stars)

I almost didn't go to see this film. I waited until its last week in the cinema. In the end curiosity got the better of me. I didn't expect it to be good, but it was even worse than I expected.

It's obvious what DC is trying to do. They saw the success that Marvel was having with its interlinked Marvel Comics Universe (MCU) films, so they thought they could do the same. First films about individual heroes, then a team film. An idea doesn't have to be original to work well, but DC doesn't have directors or producers of sufficient calibre to repeat Marvel's success. DC rushed into the team film too fast. Only Batman and Wonder Woman had appeared in individual films already. (I don't include Superman, because he was dead before the film started). The Flash TV series could have been used to build up to the team film, but DC messed it up by having a different actor play the Flash, alienating the audience. Green Arrow could have been added to the team after the preparation of the Arrow TV series, but they made yet another blunder by omitting him.

The film was a mess from beginning to end. The big baddie, Steppenwolf, was hardly introduced to the audience. In the Marvel films the villains are well rounded characters, often with an emotional depth that they don't have in the comics. Steppenwolf is just a bland, two-dimensional character that we don't care about.

"Justice League" tries to add a human element by showing a Russian family, but fails completely. The family is so far removed from the action that whenever they're shown they're just annoyances and we want them out of the way so the story can continue.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Marvel makes the best films and DC makes the best TV series. DC should give up making films. There might be rare peaks of brilliance like "Wonder Woman", but on the whole the films are embarrassing. I'm already dreading the next Justice League film.

Batman vs Superman (3 Stars)

This film has been a topic of conversation among my friends for months. It was one of the most eagerly anticipated films of the year. What I mean is that my friends were eagerly anticipating it. I had a queasy feeling in my stomach that it wouldn't be such a good film. I expected something that would be average quality and overall forgettable. I was right.

"Batman vs Superman" doesn't really do anything wrong. It's just that it doesn't do anything right. Henry Cavill is very remote and lacking in charisma as Superman. This was already the case in "Man of Steel", but since he has less screen time in "Batman vs Superman" it seems more extreme. Ben Affleck is just as remote and unsympathetic. He's a boring character, with or without his mask. The only ray of light in the film is Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor. He's such an attractive, charismatic character that I wanted him to crush the two annoying heroes beneath his feet.

To be honest, a battle between Batman and Superman is a no-contest. Superman has super-strength, super-speed and super-everything else, while Batman is just a normal man who works out. One punch from Superman should be enough to kill Batman. The only way the two can fight is by somehow giving Batman extra strength or by weakening Superman. This is what happened in "Batman vs Superman": Superman was weakened by being exposed to kryptonite.

At least I wasn't alone in my opinion when I walked out of the cinema tonight. My friends in the film group may have gone into the film with high expectations, but they walked out feeling that it was average at best. They were disappointed, but I wasn't. I got what I expected, nothing more, nothing less.

The Double (4 Stars)

"The Double", a 2014 film directed by Richard Ayoade, was marketed as a comedy. Imagine there's a physically disabled teenager in your school. He walks into a shop and accidentally knocks everything off the shelf. Someone films it and posts the video on YouTube. Is that a comedy? The other children in the class will laugh when they see it, but that doesn't make it a comedy. It's an act of bullying. Now apply that example to this film. Simon James is a shy, awkward young man. Everything he does turns out wrong. Do we laugh at him? I'm sure that many people who watch him take the part of the majority and think the film is hilarious. I take Simon's side, and I feel the people laughing at me. For me the film isn't a comedy, I consider it cruelty to laugh at it.

Is that funny? Ask the classroom bullies. They'll say it's hilarious. I'm not saying that to criticise the film. It's a wonderfully deep and introspective film. Maybe my rating isn't high enough. I'm criticising the cold-hearted people who laugh at the film and call it a comedy.

A lot of fuss has been made recently over Tom Hardy playing two roles in "Legend". Film fans seem to have forgotten that Jesse Eisenberg did the same a year earlier. In "Legend" it was two people who looked physically different. In "The Double" it's two people who look and dress identically, but they talk and act differently.

Simon James is an intelligent young man, but socially inept. He does brilliant work in his office, but nobody notices because he doesn't know how to market himself. He's worked in the same company for seven years, but nobody remembers his face. He's a nobody. He could have continued with his life of anonymity for another 40 or 50 years, but fate has other plans for him. A doppelganger called James Simon enters his life with the intention to replace him. He gets a job at the same company, and he becomes everybody's friend. James sits around being lazy, but he knows how present himself and wins a promotion within a few weeks. The two men look identical, but the colleagues don't see a resemblance. James is a somebody, Simon is a nobody.

This where I can relate to Simon James. I feel like I'm a nobody. I'm intelligent and polite, but I don't stand out. If I were stupid and rude people would remember me. This was never more apparent than in my first job at Informatik-Systemtechnik GmbH in Stuttgart (now called Informatik Consulting Systems). When I began my job, fresh from university, I put my head down and worked as hard as I could. I thought that would get me noticed by my bosses. It didn't. The ones who were noticed were the ones who sang their own praises. I watched what was going on around me in amazement. I realised within a few months that my capabilities far exceeded everyone else in the company. Despite this, I saw my colleagues being promoted. I bit my tongue and carried on. Finally, after about six years, I asked my department leader, Hans Rebel, about promotion. He was surprised. He told me that he thought I was happy doing what I did. After nine years in the company I received the promotion I deserved, but on the same day a less gifted colleague, Hans Riekert, received a double promotion. I became group leader, he became a department leader. This was a slap in the face. I loved my job and wanted to stay, but on the day of my promotion I decided to look for another job.

There's a lot more I could say about the inter-personal relationships in my first company. It was the best company I ever worked at, as far as the job itself was concerned, even though I earned almost three times as much in my next company. I knew what Hans Rebel earned and when my salary exceeded his I felt like I had achieved my goal, but the pleasure was short lived. Money isn't everything. I would have been happy earning less, as long as I knew my work was being appreciated.

I wonder if any of my colleagues that I used to work with remember me. It's doubtful. I was a shadow in the dark that crossed their paths, someone they only saw out of the corner of their eye. How could I have been different? I could have worked less and talked more. I could have been rude. I could even have been crazy. I often wish I were brave enough to do crazy things. Maybe I've done a few in my life. When I was 25 I once bought a bottle of good champagne and some plastic cups and sat on the ground in Stuttgart's main pedestrian zone drinking it with my wife-to-be Brigitte Hengel and her best friend Anke Mohnhaupt. We weren't sitting on the side, leaning against a building, we were sitting in the middle with people walking around us. That was crazy. I'd guess that more strangers remember me from that one day than colleagues remember my many years at work.

With the encouragement of a good woman I might have done many more crazy things, at least in my spare time. Brigitte wasn't suitable. She enforced respectability on me. She changed drastically on the day of our marriage. Not a few years or even a few months later. It was the very first day. She had fixed ideas about how a married couple should behave, in particular how I should behave, and she enforced conformity on me. I did whatever she wanted because I loved her, but as the years went by I realised she didn't love me in return and I became more and more miserable. Eventually, after 15 years together, it was a choice between suicide and leaving her. I still don't know if I made the right decision.

Getting back to the film, there's a love interest in Simon's life, Hannah from the photocopying department, played by Mia Wasikowska. He makes excuses to see her by pretending the other photocopiers are broken. She hardly notices him. He's known in her department as the creepy guy. Awkwardness can easily be mistaken for being creepy. Of course, when James arrives everything changes. Hannah has a crush on James and goes on a date with him. James doesn't deserve her, he's seeing other women at the same time, but he's brash and self-confident, not creepy at all.

It's worth talking about the film's cinematography. It's brilliant. Every picture, every image, is framed perfectly. It's a dark world, and the background is often swallowed up by shadows. Many of the scenes are shown in a way that tell the story without words. In fact, I even felt tempted to just publish a dozen screenshots without writing anything. Maybe I'll do that next time I watch  "The Double". I'm sure there will be a next time.

American Ultra (2½ Stars)

A funny thing happened to me on the way to the cinema.....

No, I shouldn't make a joke of it, it was a very pleasant experience, even if it was unusual. While walking to Cineworld to see "American Ultra" with my fellow members of the Birmingham Film Group I was stopped by a pretty young woman offering me a jelly bean. I immediately accepted. We got into a conversation with one another. It seems like I was the first person to accept a sweet from her. Everyone else thought she had an ulterior motive. Why? What's bad about handing out sweets in the street? Can't we show a little love in the world? The young woman who introduced herself as Jaz made me so happy that I photographed her for all the world to see.

When I met my friends I told them about my brief encounter, and their reaction stunned me. They made remarks like, "Mike, you can't accept sweets from strangers, they might be poisoned". That's a sad commentary on the world we live in. Is the world so evil that whenever we see a random act of kindness it's assumed to be something bad? I'm naive, I know I'm naive, but I don't want to be any other way.

It's not the first time in my life I've experienced a stranger handing out sweets. About 10 years ago there was an elderly Pakistani who used to stand outside his house on Coventry Road offering sweets to passers-by. When the weather was good he stood outside for hours. I asked him why he did it. He said that his brother used to hand out sweets to strangers. After his brother's death he decided to carry on the tradition. He added that by giving away sweets he could make people happy by doing something that cost him only a few pennies.

Now to the film itself. I was hesitant to go and see it after my fellow blogger, Emma Roberts, gave it such a bad review. I didn't find it quite as bad as she did, but it's not a film I can recommend.

Someone should ban Kristen Stewart from acting. She manages to sabotage whatever she appears in. If she were at least drop-dead gorgeous I could tolerate her, but she's average looking and an abysmal actress. She's incapable of showing the least emotion on screen. She's a female version of Keanu Reeves. I feel guilty for posting the picture above. It makes the film look so cool, and it makes Kristen look like a cool hippy chick. That's false advertising. The film isn't cool, and Kristen Stewart definitely isn't cool.

The film's plot is typical for high-tech spy thrillers. When Mike Howell (Jesse Eisenberg) was 18 he enlisted into a secret CIA program to create super-soldiers. The project was abandoned, so his memory was wiped and he was sent to live in Liman, West Virginia. He works in a convenience store and he spends his spare time getting stoned with his girlfriend Phoebe (Kristen Stewart). When he attempts to leave the town a CIA executive, Adrian Yates (Topher Grace), decides to eliminate him by sending in a team of highly trained killers. Mike's former mentor at the CIA, Victoria Lasseter (Connie Briton), arrives first and re-activates his fighting abilities by saying a pre-programmed sentence to him. This doesn't bring back his memories, he still doesn't know who he is, but at least he now has the ability to defend himself.

The problem with the film is that it's in a grey zone between a serious action thriller and a comedy. If the comedy had been either eliminated or ramped up to the extreme it would have worked better. The main actors (Jesse, Kristen and Connie) play their roles with deadly seriousness. Topher Grace and most of the supporting actors use comical over-acting. There's no consistency. Then there's the love story. Why does Mike love Phoebe? What does he see in her? She really should have been played by a better actress.

I've recently been criticised for always writing good things about the worst of films. I don't deny this. Even when I see a film that I don't like I try to ask myself what's good about it. There must be something that makes any film worth seeing. In the case of "American Ultra" I don't have to look far. Even when she dresses plainly Connie Britton is a glamorous woman who can turn heads. Her acting talent is phenomenal, she's the centre of every scene she appears in. I'm also impressed by Jesse Eisenberg. I never thought of him as an action hero, but this film proves that he can adapt to roles untypical for him.

Of course, the best thing about the film was the sweet I was given on the way to the cinema. Thank you, Jaz.