Chloe (4 Stars)

As I've already stated, it's currently difficult for me to watch films at home. Writing about them is just as difficult. It took me almost three days to get through the film.

Despite lukewarm reviews from critics, I like it a lot. It's not even the acting performances that attract me. It's slow paced, but fascinating from beginning to end.

I strongly recommend watching the alternative endings (plural) on the disc.

Success Rate:  - 0.9

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Unknown (5 Stars)

This is one of the most exciting films I've ever seen. It's a perfect mix of action, suspense and mystery. I can't believe that I've waited 13 years before watching it again. How could I forget a film like this?

Dr. Martin Harris, an American biotechnology professor played by Liam Neeson, travels to Berlin with his wife for a scientific conference. On arriving at the hotel he realises that he forgot to pick up one of his suitcases from the airport, so he leaves his wife behind to take a taxi back to the airport. On the way he's involved in a traffic accident and is in a coma for four days. He returns to the hotel as quickly as possible. His wife doesn't recognise him. She's in the company of another man who claims to be her husband. He can't prove who he is because he lost all his papers in the accident. The stranger doesn't just have papers to prove who he is, he also knows all about his scientific work.

Eventually Martin begins to think he's crazy and returns to the hospital for treatment, but while he's there someone tries to kill him, and even kills the nurse who tries to protect him. This makes him sure that something is happening, so he hires a private detective to prove that he really is who he thinks he is.

Although the film is in English, most of the cast are top German actors such as Bruno Ganz, Sebastian Koch and Diane Kruger. This is a brilliant film, and the final explanation will come as a a total surprise. The viewers will also feel the terror of being lost in a foreign country with no identification and being denied by your wife and friends.

Success Rate:  + 2.5

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Memory (3½ Stars)

Amazon Friday #29

This is a remake of a 2003 Belgian film called "The Alzheimer Case". It follows Alex Lewis, who was formerly a highly skilled hitman, but is now suffering from the initial stages of Alzheimer's.

The hitman, played by Liam Neeson, is an American who works for Mexican crime syndicates. He assassinates businessmen and politicians on both sides of the Mexico-America border. One of the people he works for is Davana Sealman, a highly respected businesswoman in America who's also the head of a people trafficking ring. She arranges for Mexican girls as young as 13 to be smuggled into America to work as prostitutes for exclusive clients. This also allows her to blackmail the clients into giving her better business deals.

When Alex is sent to murder a 13-year-old girl called Beatriz, the witness to a murder, he flips. He's killed many people over the years, but he refuses to kill children. That's a line he won't cross. After he refuses to kill her, she's murdered by someone else. Alex know he doesn't have long to live, so he decides to spend his last months avenging Beatriz, killing everyone who was directly or indirectly involved in her death, up to Davana Sealman herself.

In the process, Alex confronts an FBI agent called Vincent Serra who's spent almost a year trying to get evidence against the people trafficking ring. Vincent does everything by the book, so he's slow. Alex tells him that the case will quickly be closed when he kills the heads of the ring. Will Vincent arrest Alex or step back and let him kill the guilty ones? It's not an easy choice for an agent who despises the exploitation of young girls.

Liam Neeson is a spectacular action hero, but I don't like films that feature dementia, even in mild forms. In the overall plot the Alzheimer's disease is irrelevant. It could have been omitted, and the film would have been just as good, in my opinion even better.

Success Rate:  - 2.2

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Chloe (4 Stars)

This isn't necessarily one of my favourite films, but it's a film I keep returning to. I've watched it more often than films I rate higher. I have to ask myself if four stars is too high, because it has a cheap feeling to it, like a television movie, but it still fascinates me. It's a good story with great acting, but something about the cinematography lets it down. It's difficult for me to describe exactly what it is.

Catherine Stewart suspects her husband of having an affair, and maybe he's even had several affairs. I'll give away a spoiler: it's not true. He's been faithful all the years they were married. He flirts with other women, but it never goes past words. I can relate to that, because I see myself in him. I've always been flirtatious, even while I was married, but I still remained faithful.

Catherine hires Chloe, a beautiful young call girl, to test her husband. She asks Chloe to meet her husband and seduce him. That's a dangerous game. Chloe is being paid to succeed, so she'll do anything within her power to get him into bed. Could any man resist temptation like that, especially when the girl is as sexy as Amanda Seyfried?

Here's a small anecdote. In the 1980's the British army hired three girls to test the security at military bases, in Britain and Germany. The idea was that they should try to seduce the security guard to leave his post. Any guard who failed the test would be court-martialled. What the army didn't reckon with is that the girls treated it as a competition. They kept in contact with one another, comparing their results. The girl who won the competition had a 100% success rate. Was it a fair test? No, the guards were set up to fail, but it could just as well have been Russian spies trying to break into a base.

Back to the film: what Catherine didn't expect is that Chloe has her own agenda. She's not satisfied with just doing her job; she also seduces Catherine herself and Catherine's teenage son. She takes over the family.

This film is included with Amazon Prime, but I strongly recommend that you watch it on DVD or Blu-ray. The discs include two alternative endings. They're both better than the ending in the film. They're not really alternatives. To understand the film's message you have to watch both of them. I can imagine what happened. The director filmed both endings, and he couldn't decide which one to use, so he used neither. They should both have been used, even if it meant restructuring the film. One of the endings could have been slightly refilmed and put into a mid-credits sequence. There has to be a way this could have been done better. As it is, you need to watch both alternative endings after watching the film. If you don't do that, you'll miss out.

Success Rate:  - 0.9

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Sadly, this film has only been released on DVD in the UK. If you want to watch it on Blu-ray, buy the German release.

Clash of the Titans [2010] (4 Stars)

It's getting very difficult for me to write reviews at the moment. The people I'm living with are panicking. The first Coronavirus case has been reported in the village where I live. As a result a doctor's surgery has had to be closed until the staff have been tested.

People are afraid of dying. Why? I don't see any logic in the fear of death. If you're a religious person, you know what's going to happen after you die, so you can make plans for it today. To use religious jargon, "Get right with God".

If you're an atheist, you know that there's nothing after death. Dead is dead, so why worry about it? If you die you won't even know you're dead.

Maybe the problem is that you believe in a fickle, unpredictable God waiting for you after your death. That's the situation in "Clash of the Titans". Zeus created man, and he even says that he loves man, but he's selfish and does what he wants. So the crops fail two years in a row, even though the farmers prayed to him? Sorry, he was too busy chasing virgins to listen to prayers. And when you die you're in the hands of Hades, a cruel God who's fuelled only by his hatred for Zeus.

But nobody believes in Zeus and Hades today, do they? Maybe the trouble is that people don't know what they believe. People in the West have abandoned their faith in Christianity, but they're worried it might really be true. They get sentimental and feel religious when they walk into a beautiful church for a wedding, but the feeling wears off the next week at work.

"Clash of the Titans" is about a war between the man and the Gods. It's not that people don't believe in the Gods, they just don't want to obey them any more. The film's hero, Perseus, fights against the Gods, even though Zeus is his father. Would I have followed Perseus? That's the question I asked myself while watching the film. I think not. I would have followed the Gods, but it wouldn't have been blind devotion. I wouldn't have fought the Gods, but I would have attempted to educate the Gods. I would have told them to listen to mankind instead of partying all day long.

Maybe I'm someone who ought to be afraid of death. I'm an agnostic, someone who doesn't know what's after death. I'm still not worried. If there's a God waiting for me, he needs me to educate Him. (Or Her. Or Them). He needs me to tell Him what He's been doing wrong.

The first time I watched this film I thought it was almost as good as the original 1981 version. Today I changed my mind. It's a very slick, polished film with high quality special effects, but it's lacking the naive beauty of the original. In the original version, Perseus is rewarded for his labours by being allowed to marry Princess Andromeda of Argos. In the remake he turns his back on her, having fallen in love with Gemma Arterton as Io. I think my readers know which choice I would have made.

Success Rate:  + 1.9

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Men In Black: International (4 Stars)

The first three films in the Men In Black series centred around the organisation's headquarters in New York City. After all, 70% of the aliens living on Earth are in lower Manhattan. This film reveals that it's an international organisation. There's an office in London which is responsible for monitoring alien activity in Europe.

Molly Wright was a young child who witnessed an operation by the Men In Black in 1996. They were hunting for a young runaway alien. Molly witnessed her parents being neuralysed, but she retained her memory, because everyone thought she was asleep. Ever since this time she wanted to know who the Men In Black were. 20 years later she finally sees them in operation and follows them to their headquarters. She makes a good impression on Agent O, so she's made an MIB agent on probation. She becomes Agent M.

She's sent to London to learn how the organisation works. (There's actually another reason, but we don't find that out until later). She assists Agent H (Chris Hemsworth) in looking after an alien leader who's having a good time in a sleazy London nightclub. Aliens just wanna have fun. He's assassinated by two other aliens, and the fun begins.

This is a good film, though it doesn't quite live up to the original trilogy. Some of my friends say that this is because the new film doesn't have Will Smith. I disagree. Tessa Thompson is an adequate replacement for Will Smith as a rookie within the organisation. It's good to see that a woman can do everything a man can. I think that the film suffers by not having such a strong plot. The overuse of the neuralyser has turned into a parody. The agents are fast to use it on civilians, even before they've seen anything they shouldn't.

I hope this is the start of a new trilogy. I want to see Tessa Thompson in action again.

The Lego Movie (4 Stars)

The Lego Movie is awesome. It's so awesome that everyone needs to see it. Everyone who's an adult, at least. It isn't a children's film, far from it. It deals with topics that young children couldn't even begin to understand. The Lego Movie has a G certificate in America, meaning there are no age restrictions, but the film has many references to other films which do have age limitations. That means young children are allowed to see the Lego Movie, but they're not allowed to see the films that would explain what it's about.

There's a sequel in the cinemas at the moment which I intend to watch, if my health allows it. I hope that it retains its adult nature and hasn't been dumbed down for children.

I've written more about the film in the past. If you're interested in the Lego Movie, please click here to read my last review.

Success Rate:  + 5.8

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Widows (4 Stars)

A thief called Harry Rawlings steals $2 million in cash from Jamal Manning, a gang boss in Chicago. After a police chase the getaway van is destroyed, killing Henry and his three accomplices and burning the money in a fire. The next day Jamal, who wants to go straight by being elected as alderman, threatens Harry's wife Veronica. He says he'll kill her if she doesn't pay him back the $2 million within a week. He tells her the police won't help her because they don't care. She's a black woman and they won't listen to her.

This is the biggest plot hole in the story. Why would a gang boss think that Harry's widow would have so much money lying around? In her position I would have run to the police regardless, and if they didn't help me I would have left town as quickly as possible. Even if she doesn't have $2 million in cash lying around Veronica is fairly affluent, so she could easily afford to rent a hotel room in another town, preferably somewhere where the police are less racist.

Veronica gives in. She promises to deliver the money that she doesn't yet have. In her husband's notebook she finds details of a crime he intended to commit, a robbery of $5 million in cash. She contacts the other three widows and asks them to help her. Two of them agree. Then they begin to make plans.

This is a complex story with many minor details, but I won't say any more about the plot. It's a tough, gritty film with harsh violence. Viola Davis puts on an Oscar winning performance as Veronica Rawlings. If she's not at least nominated for an Oscar I'll be severely disappointed. I was also greatly impressed by Colin Farrell as the alderman candidate Jack Mulligan. I've seen him in a lot of films, and this is a very untypical role for him. His face is easy to recognise, of course, but his stance and his mannerisms are so different from anything I've seen him do before.

This isn't a perfect film by any means, but if you want to spend two hours watching a good action thriller, you won't be disappointed.

Ted 2 (4½ Stars)

As a sequel, this lives up to what is expected. It has a good mix of old jokes regurgitated from the original and new jokes to keep things interesting. The old characters return and new characters are added. At first I was disappointed that Mila Kunis didn't return as John's wife Lori, but after watching the film a second time I have to say that she wouldn't have fit in. "Ted" was written as a standalone film with a happy ending. One of the main themes in the first film was showing John as a pathetic lonely man. To present him in the same way his marriage had to have broken up. Maybe we could have seen the divorce at the beginning of "Ted 2", but I think Seth MacFarlane made the right choice in the way he connects the two films; "Ted" ends with a wedding, "Ted 2" begins with a wedding.

The subject matter of the sequel is serious, but it's presented in a comical way. Ted and his new wife Tanny Lynn want to adopt a baby, but it's not allowed because he doesn't qualify as a person. The courtroom drama is at the heart of the film, despite not taking up much of the screen time.

Ted's lawyer Is Samantha L. Jackson, played by the beautiful and highly talented actress Amanda Seyfried. I watch any film she appears in, even though I don't like her attitude towards money. In 2014 she earned $46 million, then complained to a British newspaper that she wasn't earning enough. I go into the subject in more detail in my review of the film "Gone", so I shan't repeat myself here. I'll just quote something written by Cicero in 46 B.C.

"A man is rich if he has enough to live a decent life and is satisfied with what he has. Those who are commonly called rich are really poor, because they are never content with what they have and always want more".

Amanda Seyfried is very poor indeed. Unless her attitude changes, she will live a sad life and die unhappy. I wish her the best, I really do. I hope she will change.

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Clash of the Titans [2010] (4½ Stars)

It's taken me a long time to get round to watching this film. It was strongly recommended by my guest writer Kaylena in her review, but I was still reluctant to watch it. The problem is that I love Ray Harryhausen's version so much. For me it's perfection that can't be improved upon. On the other hand, the new version stars Gemma Arterton in one of her early films before she quit Hollywood, which is a reason to watch any film. It's not just her beauty and grace. She has acting skills which set her far above her peers.

Any doubts I had about the quality of the film were washed away within the first five minutes. The cinematography and special effects are perfect, as realistic as computer graphics can make them. Forgive me if it sounds blasphemous, but my first thought was "This is the sort of film Ray Harryhausen would make if he'd been born 50 years later". The flying horse, the Djinn, the winged monsters -- whatever they're called -- they all looked perfect.

Unfortunately, I found that the final scene was a letdown. I don't know what happened, why the portrayal of the Kraken was so disappointing. Maybe the special effects budget had run out by the end of the film. Maybe the director thought that an overpowering, invincible monster would be better portrayed by close ups with only a few complete  shots. Whatever the reason was, I'm disappointed. Compare the two Krakens:

Ray Harryhausen's 1981 Kraken.

The 2010 Kraken.

Do you see what I mean? Even though the older version is obviously a model, it looks more terrifying. It looks more real. Surely today's computers could have done a better job.

I think I detected something of a message in the film. Some of the dialogue seemed to be referring to religion in general, including today's Christianity, not just to the ancient Greek Gods. I'm not certain. Next time I watch it I'll pay attention to this aspect, and I might write something about it.

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The Commuter (4 Stars)

Mike McAuley commutes to New York City every day, a 69 minute train journey from Peekskill to Grand Central Station. He's been selling life insurance in the City for the last 10 years. After thousands of journeys on the same train at the same times every day he recognises the familiar faces of fellow travellers, and he even exchanges words with some of them. It's a pleasant enough journey. For almost the whole journey the train follows the bank of the River Hudson. You just have to sit on the right side of the train to enjoy the view.

In a single day his whole life changes. His boss tells him his company is downsizing, so he has to leave. When an American company says "leave" they mean "leave now". No notice is given. Out is out. Mike complains that at 60 he has no chance of finding a new job, but who cares? Out is out.

At the train station a man bumps into him who steals his wallet and his mobile phone. I have some advice for my friends. If you wear a jacket, don't keep your wallet in the jacket pocket. You're too vulnerable. Trouser pockets are much better.

On the train a woman sits down opposite him. She offers him a small job, based on his experience as a regular commuter. He has to identify a person who doesn't belong on the train. He isn't told if it's a man or a woman, just that the person is travelling to Cold Spring. If he succeeds he will be given $100,000. If he fails, or if he tells anyone else about his task, his wife and son will be killed.

That's a very weird task. When I saw the film's trailer I thought it was stupid. However, as the train rolls on from stop to stop it all falls into place. It all begins to make sense.

Liam Neeson amazes me. He's 65 now, five years older than the character he's playing in the film, and yet he's still tough enough to play an action hero. As the plot unravels he gets into repeated fights with other passengers on the train.

The film might be a mystery, but in the foreground there's non-stop action. The film is thrilling from the beginning to the end of the train journey. By the time the film ends you'll be breathless. It's incredible.

After.Life (3½ Stars)

I spelt the film title correctly. It's the words "After" and "Life" separated by a dot. I hate it when film titles are deliberately misspelt or written in unnatural English. That's just me though. Laugh at me if you will. In a world of grammar Nazis I'd be Adolf Hitler.

A young school teacher, Anna Taylor, is involved in a car accident. She wakes up on a table in a funeral home with a funeral director standing over her stitching her wounds. She wants to go home, but he tells her she's dead. She tells him he's mad, but he insists. He tells her he has the gift of talking to the dead, and only he can hear her talk. She has to remain with him three days while he prepares her for her funeral, making her look as beautiful as possible for being put on display before burial.

Anna is confused. She's lying in a room with other corpses. She sees the director talking to the corpses, seemingly holding conversations with them, but she can't hear their replies. Over the next three days she swings from one extreme to the other. Sometimes she tries to escape, sometimes she accepts that she's dead and remains calmly where she is.

I've never seen Liam Neeson look so creepy. I'd be terrified if I woke up and found him standing over me with that sickly smile. He's best known as an action hero, but he plays the role of the funeral director Eliot Deacon perfectly. The more pleasant he attempts to be the more terrifying he becomes. He should appear in more horror films.

Eliot is very diligent as a funeral director, treating the corpses in his care with the greatest of respect, but he does have a few strange traits. For instance, he takes Polaroid photos of each corpse before the funeral and hangs them in a gallery in his bedroom, so that he can admire the beauty of the dead.

By the time Anna is moved from the cold metal table into a comfortable coffin she's given up arguing. The viewer is kept uncertain throughout the film whether she's really dead or not.

In addition to the horror of the film there's a sick aspect of voyeurism. For much of the film Christina Ricci is naked. Her beauty is only tarnished by wounds she received in the car accident. The question the film is asking me is whether I can be sexually aroused by a corpse. Of course not, I automatically reply. Then the film continues by saying that maybe the woman isn't really dead, so I'm allowed to lust. Should I take a chance and let myself go before I know the answer? It's an eerily unsettling dilemma.

The film isn't without its faults. My main criticism is that it repeatedly relies on dreams to scare the viewer. I've never liked dreams in films, they're a cheap plot device. The viewer is told that something is happening, then suddenly it's as if the director shrieks with laughter and says, "Haha! I got you! That never happened!" That's bad.

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Silence (4 Stars)

This film offers a glimpse into a forgotten part of history: the persecution of Christians in Japan. Although the story is fictional it references places and events in the 17th Century. The Roman Catholic Church first sent missionaries to Japan in 1540, along with Portugese traders. Christianity flourished, in particular in Nagasaki and the surrounding districts. It's claimed that by the end of the 16th Century almost everyone in Nagasaki was a Christian. The Japanese government outlawed Christianity in 1587, but this wasn't enforced at first due to local governors being Christian. In February 1597 persecution began with the crucifixion of 26 Christians, a mixture of foreign missionaries and local preachers. The initial murder of Christians made the church flourish, and by the early 17th Century the Japanese government preferred to ask Christians to publicly give up their faith rather than kill them. Any Christians who didn't immediately recant were tortured until they changed their minds, for instance by being covered with boiling water or by being hung upside down while their blood was drained from small cuts.

The film begins in 1640. Two Jesuit priests, Father Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Father Garupe (Adam Driver) travel to Japan to search for their former teacher, Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson), who has disappeared for 15 years. When they arrive in Goto, near Nagasaki, they're astonished to find a large Christian community. At first the priests are hidden by the villagers, but eventually they're captured by samurai led by the inquisitor Inoue. The inquisitor offers freedom to anyone who publicly renounces Christianity by standing on a picture of Jesus, but those who refuse are beheaded.

After Rodrigues is forced to watch Garupe being killed by drowning, he's entertained in comfort by Inoue. He's fed well and the two engage in daily theological debates. Inoue doesn't believe that Christianity is wrong, he just believes that it's "wrong for Japan". He says that the people of Europe need Christianity, but Buddhism is better for Japan. He goes on to explain that even the Japanese Christians realise this by adapting Christianity to their previous beliefs. When Japanese missionaries arrived in Japan they called their God Deus, because the Japanese language contained no word for a supreme God. The Japanese were confused by this foreign word, so they translated Deus into their own language as Dainichi, the word for the Sun. To Inoue this means that the Japanese Christians are really praying to the Sun.

Inoue has no intention of killing Rodriques. He wants him to publicly renounce his faith as an example for the Japanese Christians. When he's unable to persuade Rodrigues by friendly discussions he resorts to pressure. Inoue no longer frees the Japanese Christians who renounce their faith. They have to be tortured until Rodrigues gives up his faith. Inoue tells Rodrigues that his stubbornness is causing hundreds of death.

The silence in the film's title is God's silence. How can God remain silent when his followers are suffering so much?

Christianity is the religion of a silent God. Its believers are called on to have faith, believing in someone that they can't see or hear. This leads non-believers to mock them. because they say the reason that they can't see or hear God is because he doesn't exist.

Let's just assume for a moment that God does exist. Let's assume that God is sitting observing his followers and isn't answering them. Why not? The official answer of Christianity is that it's a test of their faith. That's a weak answer. For me the answer is that God is weak and foolish. God's silence has led to thousands of years of war and suffering. God's silence (assuming that he's the Christian God) has led to his religion being corrupted by superstition and hate. God's silence has allowed new, even more corrupt religions to rise up.

Maybe God is unable to answer. That's forgivable. Maybe he's dead, as Friedrich Nietzsche claimed. Maybe God got bored of the Earth and wandered off to create another planet somewhere else. Maybe God isn't omnipresent, and he's currently sitting in Alaska chatting to an Eskimo. That's a lucky Eskimo. If God travels round the world talking to one person at a time I can tell you that he hasn't got round to me yet.

I'm not an atheist. Far from it. All the evidence points to the fact that one or more Gods walked the Earth at some time in the past. So where is God now? I sincerely hope God isn't watching the world at the moment, because if he is watching us in silence he's an evil being who has to take full responsibility for the world's suffering.

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The Huntsman: Winter's War (3½ Stars)

Isn't it funny to see Chris Hemsworth fighting with axes instead of a big hammer? However many films he appears in I can't help thinking of him as Thor. Unless something big happens in the next 40 years Thor will remain his signature role.

Chris might be a good actor, but one thing he isn't good at is doing accents. He's Australian, which is obvious at the beginning of "The Huntsman". In the middle of the film he seems to be attempting an Irish accent. After that his accent sounds Scottish. Throughout the film he speaks in an artificially deep voice, as if trying to disguise the confusion in his accents. If he were putting on any accent at all it ought to be German, because that's where the original fairy tale of Snow White is supposed to take place. But to be honest, I wouldn't have a problem if he just spoke with his normal Australian accent. In a fantasy world it doesn't matter if the people sound like they come from different countries. It also doesn't matter in historical films, in which the language used isn't the language spoken at the time. To take the example of another actor, Russell Crowe always speaks with his own accent. Does it bother you that a Roman general speaks with a New Zealand accent in "Gladiator"? It's okay with me.

Now to the film itself. It's been incorrectly labelled a prequel to "Snow White and the Huntsman", which was made four years ago. It's actually a sequel, because it takes place after Snow White has become queen. What might have confused reviewers is that the opening scenes are flashbacks to things that happened before Snow White was born. This will especially have confused reviewers who only watched the first five minutes before writing their reviews. The poor overworked reviewers must have so many films to review that they have to make sacrifices in their time allocation.

In "Snow White and the Huntsman" we heard that the Huntsman was a widower. In the flashbacks we see his wife and how she died. We also meet Queen Ravenna's younger sister Freya. Then, when the film's story finally begins, we see that after Ravenna's death at the hands of Snow White in the first film Freya has become a mighty queen and has conquered almost all of the kingdoms surrounding Snow White's kingdom. Freya now intends to attack Snow White using the power of the magic mirror. The Huntsman makes it his goal to find the mirror and return it to Snow White.

This is a cute little fantasy tale. The set pieces succeed, such as the romantic interludes and the humour surrounding the dwarves. Unfortunately, the end result is disjointed. Allegiances change during the film, and the old enemies seem to eager to forgive one another. It's a reasonable film, but far from a masterpiece.

The Lego Movie (4 Stars)

This is a confusing film. What I mean is that the film's target audience is confusing. On the surface it seems to be made for young children, but the film's underlying messages are so deep that they can only be understood by adults, or at least by intelligent teenagers 14 and upwards.

Emmet is a construction worker who lives his life according to the instructions given to him. He sleeps when he's told to, he wakes up at the correct time every day, he works according to the rules, he watches the recommended television shows, he even listens to the same music as everyone else. The turning point in his life comes when he falls down a hole in a construction site and finds a previously unknown Lego block, the piece of resistance, which attaches itself to his back and can't be removed. This identifies Emmet as the prophesied master builder who will save the world.

The message early in the film is obvious, to adults at least. Emmet lives in a society where everyone is assigned a role and does what is expected from him. I almost called this a Fascist society, but it's also the principle by which Communist countries are run. It's any country with a strong ideology which refuses to let anyone think differently, and it even applies to our western countries which use subtle persuasion to tell us what to think. Emmet doesn't question what he's told. He accepts the world that is presented to him, and he accepts its ideologies unquestioningly. He only progresses from being generic to becoming special when he opens his mind and begins to think for himself, without the instructions.

As the film continues we see much wider visions. It isn't just a matter of the ideologies of the world about him, he has to question the reality of the world that is presented to him. The world around him seems to be real, but he's living inside the Matrix. Without being aware of what's happening in the real world he can't battle the enemy forces in his own universe. The Lego Movie borrows so heavily from "The Matrix" that it's possible to figure out who represents who in the two films.

However, the film goes one step further, exploring a path uncharted in "The Matrix", apart from hints in "The Matrix: Revolutions". We see destiny. We see the hand of God guiding the universe, even controlling the success or failure of Emmet in his attempt to change the universe. Emmet saves the world because God wants him to. But the question that's left open in the Lego Movie is whether God only decides to save the universe because Emmet is so determined to do it. Is there a symbiosis between God and His creatures? Can God change his mind, influenced by the creatures that He has created?

But it doesn't end there. What is the nature and the morality of God Himself? Let's assume for a moment that the Bible's Old Testament is true in its portrayal of God. We see that God created the universe, then He created man in His own image, and then He gave laws telling man how to conduct himself. God defined what was right and wrong in the commandments He gave to Moses. Effectively, He defined good and evil. Good is what God wants, evil is what God doesn't want. If we are true believers we follow God's instructions because they're awesome. We do what we're told and we go to Heaven. If we don't obey we go to Hell. It's as simple as that.

Today it's become common for people to reject the biblical concepts of good and evil because they don't believe the stories are true. But let's carry on assuming that the stories really are true. Should those who believe that God exists automatically accept everything that God says? To take just one example, the Bible says that homosexuality is wrong, that it is evil. It's the responsibility of believers to stand up to God and tell Him that He made a mistake. He should think it over and put things right in a Third Testament.

As the Lego Movie shows us, the first person to challenge God's authority is a male, representing the Devil. The film ends on a cliffhanger as a female enters who challenges both God and the Devil.

Ted 2 (4¾ Stars)

He's back! The foul-mouthed, pot-smoking teddy bear that you wouldn't invite home to meet your parents. The first film ended with a wedding (John and Lori), and the second film begins with a wedding (Ted and Tami-Lynn). It's a shame that Lori is missing from the sequel. My guess is that Mila Kunis (Lori) didn't have the time to appear. That's the bad news. But the good news is that John's new love interest is the lawyer Samantha, played by the beautiful actress Amanda Seyfried. John certainly gets all the best girls.

I don't want to say too much about the film, because it's still in the cinemas. The basic plot is that Ted wants to adopt a child, but to do this he needs to be legally recognised as a person. To do this he hires the already mentioned lawyer Samantha. "Ted 2" repeats a lot of jokes from the first film. That's also a small warning for people who intend to see it in the cinema. You'll enjoy the film more if you see "Ted" first. Characters from the first film appear without being introduced again. Personally, I find the film even funnier than the original film. The jokes are sexist, homophobic and racist. What more do you want? I would have given the film five stars if not for the horrible song in the middle. You'll know what I mean when you hear it.

This is very much a film-goers' film. What I mean is that there are a lot of jokes about recent film blockbusters. For instance, Amanda Seyfried is repeatedly compared with Gollum from "Lord of the Rings" because of her big eyes. Quite unfairly. She has beautiful eyes. What do you think?

Chloe (4 Stars)

This is an erotic thriller with a twist. Or maybe that isn't so unusual. Most of the classic erotic thrillers of the 1990's used plot twists to distract the viewer from the low budgets and poor production quality.

The Stewarts are a perfect family. David Stewart is a professor at a film school in New York. His wife Catherine is a successful gynaecologist. Their teenage son Michael is a music student. But Catherine suspects that her husband is being unfaithful to her when he returns home from work late. As we soon find out, her suspicions are unfounded, but once jealousy has taken hold in a woman's heart nothing can persuade her she's wrong. From her surgery window Catherine can see a luxury prostitute leaving a hotel with her clients every day, so she forms a plan. She hires the prostitute, Chloe, to test her husband's fidelity. That's not fair. Chloe is played by the beautiful actress Amanda Seyfried, so what man could resist her?

As expected, Chloe soon reports to Catherine that her husband has fallen prey to her powers of seduction. But it soon becomes obvious that Chloe has an agenda of her own. She becomes part of Catherine's life, seducing first Catherine and then her son.

This is a very sexy erotic thriller thriller. When you find out the plot twist it'll be obvious that there were clues right from the beginning of the film. It's a film that you will want to watch more than once.

Taken 3 (4 Stars)

Liam Neeson returns to the screen once more as an action hero, running around faster than actors half his age. Once more he plays the role of ex-CIA agent Bryan Mills. In this film his ex-wife Lenore is murdered, and the police treat him as the main suspect. Rather than let them arrest him for questioning he goes on the run, because he can only track down the real killer while he's free. The film turns into a cat and mouse game between Bryan and the police detective Franck Dotzler, who treats Bryan's unwillingness to give himself in as an admission of guilt.

The film has fast action, car chases and non-stop thrills. It's everything you need for an enjoyable evening at the cinema.

A Walk among the Tombstones (2 Stars)

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The Lego Movie (4 Stars)

I don't usually bother with animated films. Not modern CGI films, anyway. I enjoy the old Walt Disney cartoon films from the 1940's up to the 1990's. I know that "Toy Story" (1995) was the first computer generated animated film from Walt Disney, but I think they made a few more films in the traditional way after that. I don't know what the last hand-drawn film was that they made. Maybe someone can tell me.

Anyway... after seeing the highly amusing trailer for "The Lego Movie" I decided to give it a chance. I sat down not knowing what to expect, but I highly enjoyed it. In the first half of the film, maybe more than half, the action was breath-taking. It hardly slowed down for a minute. It was chock-a-block with parodies of other recent films, made comical by the way they were mixed. I noticed references to "The Matrix", "Terminator", "Batman", "Star Wars" and "Lord of the Rings". There were probably others that I missed.

The film begins with the ruler of the Legoverse, Lord Business, discovering a super weapon called the Kragle. The wizard Vitruvius prophecies that one day a special person will find the only device able to counter this weapon, the Piece of Resistance. A few years later a simple construction worker falls into a hole in the ground and discovers this piece. It connects itself to his back and becomes part of him. Together with an assortment of heroes, including Batman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and Gandalf, he has to battle against the forces of Lord Business.

The film is so unique. It's a breath of fresh air in today's film world. Within the first week of its theatre release it has made $120 million profit, and we can expect this figure to rise higher. Bring on the sequel!