Inception (5 Stars)

In my opinion, this is Christopher Nolan's best film. It has mind-bending concepts of being in a dream inside a dream inside a dream inside a dream, and yet the story is never difficult to follow. That is to say, it isn't difficult to follow until the final scene. When Dom Cobb finally wakes up from his nested dreams and returns to his children, is he really awake, or is he still in a dream above all the other dreams?

Dom uses a spinning top to check whether he's in reality or a dream. In dreams the top spins indefinitely, in reality it stops spinning after a while and falls over. He spins the top at the end of the film, and the film cuts out before we see whether it continues spinning or not. Many fans of the film have asked Christopher Nolan whether the top stops spinning or not. His responses are always evasive, and rightfully so. If he'd wanted there to be a clear answer, he'd have put it in the film.

The answer is that it doesn't matter. Dom wants to be back with his children, and when he's with them it doesn't matter whether it's reality or a dream. All that matters is that he's happy. But what most viewers don't notice is the way Dom spins the top. Usually he spins it, then sits and watches the result. This time is different. He spins the top, then walks away. He doesn't want to see the result. What the director is saying is that Dom himself doesn't want to know whether it's a dream or not. If it doesn't matter to him, why should it matter to us?

Do I personally have an opinion whether he's in reality or a dream? No, I don't. There's evidence to support both answers. The main evidence for reality is the complexity of the architecture. Dom flies from one country to another, whereas the manufactured dream architecture is always a confined area. The main evidence for a dream is the way his children are dressed. They have the identical clothes to the ones in his dream, and they're playing in the same garden. I'm sure that Christopher Nolan planted these contradictory clues to keep us guessing.

Success Rate:  + 3.2

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Dear Dictator (3 Stars)

Tatiana Mills is a 15-year-old girl who lives with her unmarried mother in a sleepy little American town called Derbyville. Her mother used to be a rebel. She became pregnant when she was in high school. Now Tatiana is also a rebel, in her own way. She's a fan of 1980's punk rock. Okay, I think 1970's punk was better, but I'll let it pass.

Tatiana's life is messed up. She's dating a Jesus freak, who's always telling her that it's evil to have sex before marriage. Her mother is dating a married dentist. She's an outsider in school.

Tatiana's class is given an assignment. To show them that there's more to life than texting on their phones all day, they're encouraged to write letters to someone they consider a role model. Some of the kids get answers, others don't. One of the boys in her class writes to Mark Zuckerberg. Tatiana writes to General Anton Vincent, the Communist dictator of a small Caribbean island. Anton is touched by the letter and replies. The two become pen pals.

"Dear Anton. Thanks for the armband. I'm wearing it right now, even though my Mom hates it, but I hate my Mom, so that makes us even. Okay, to be honest, I'm not wearing it right now, because it fell off when I was running away from someone. Long story. I hope everything is going good with your country. From Tatiana".

"Dear Tatiana, I'm sorry you and your mother are feuding. I have a daughter who is a little older than you, and at times she does not like me either. Things in my country are difficult right now. There is a rebel faction that wants to overthrow the government and behead me and my family. It is stressful. It feels like there is no one I can trust".

"Oh, I can really relate about the trust thing. I just got dicked over by a teacher who's got a stick up his butt because I wrote to you. To give you an idea of the loserdom at my school, there's a group of girls who call themselves slushies. It stands for sluts and lushes. Sarvia is the one they all worship, which is a joke, if you ever saw her. She thinks whale tails look good, and somehow everyone agrees with her. Borderline retarded, right? Anyway, I'm sorry that people want to kill you and your family. That's messed up. By the way, what's your favourite colour?"

"Your letters have been a welcome respite from my struggles. In addition to making threats of invasion, the United States supports the rebel army and has placed an embargo around our borders. It is impossible for goods to come in or out. My people cannot get medical supplies, and many people are dying. My favourite colour is purple".

"I like purple too. Does the embargo mean that you can't download cool music? That blows. Maybe I can rip a CD for your daughter. Does she like classic 80's hardcore? Bands like the Meatmen, the Dead Kennedys, Gangrene, Dead Milkmen, the Butthole Surfers, Agent Orange? Oh, definitely the Circle Jerks".

"Thank you for your lively music. My daughter enjoyed it. The rebels have surrounded the capital".

"I know it sounds psycho, because we've never even met, but sometimes I feel like you're the only one who gets me".

"My correspondence will be less frequent".

"Big bummer! P.S. I drew you a picture".

The worst happens. With US help, the rebels overthrow the government, and General Anton Vincent has to flee. His only friend outside of his country is Tatiana, so he arrives at her house, and he hides in her basement. After a few days her mother discovers him. Her initial shock fades away when he starts to do repairs around the house. He's also an excellent cook. She starts to have romantic feelings for him.

While hiding in Tatiana's house, Anton pursues two goals. He tries to get enough weapons to win back his country by bidding for them on Ebay. He gives Tatiana advice about how to overthrow the Slushies and become the school's new Mean Girl.

What would you do if a Communist dictator arrived in your house?

First, tell him to disguise himself.

Losing the beard is a good idea.

Who do I prefer? Mother or daughter?

I've always liked Katie Holmes. She has a natural sexuality.

But I prefer Odeya Rush's attitude, in the film at least. I like a girl who stands out from the crowd. She's the sort of girl I would have dated at school. And the first thing I would have done is play her all my 1970's punk records to persuade her that they're better. 

Would I like to have a Communist dictator in my basement? Someone like Vladimir Putin? No way! I draw the line when it comes to mass-murdering war criminals.

I wouldn't turn away Kim Yo-Jong, the sister of North Korea's president Kim Jong-Un. She's welcome to stay with me as long as she wishes, as long as she doesn't bring her big brother.

The film's premise is so good that I had to buy it, even though it's received negative reviews. The acting by Michael Caine and Odeya Rush is outstanding, even if Michael Caine's accent is erratic. In his political speeches he imitates an Australian accent, but when he arrives in America he talks with his normal British accent. The biggest problem with the films is the annoying subplots, i.e. the boyfriends. The unfaithful dentist played by Seth Green is so annoying that I wanted to fast forward every time he appeared on the screen. The teenage Jesus freak also annoyed me. The film would have been better without both of them. It should just have been about the schoolgirl and the dictator.

The Man who would be King (5 Stars)

Dancer's Top Films #76

This is an epic tale of heroic adventure. It ends in tragedy, but it's still heart-warming to see the two former British soldiers fight against all odds to become kings. (Only one of them is eventually crowned, but any more details would be spoilers for the few of my readers who still haven't seen it).

I'm watching it out of order in my top 100 countdown. That's because my ex-wife Brigitte said she wanted to watch it with me. That was a week ago on 8th March, but I had to wait until she had time. She said that she wanted to watch it in German, if possible. Yes, my Blu-ray includes a dubbed German version, so I agreed. Normally I enjoy German dubbing, because it's much higher quality than English dubbing. In this case I think something was missing. Michael Caine's voice was well dubbed, but Sean Connery's voice was disappointing. I'm not blaming the voice actor, I'm sure he did the best he could, but the Scottish accent was missing. I also missed the richness of the Indian accents, in particular Seeed Jaffry. They all sounded German. Too German.

Despite this slight problem, I enjoyed the film. It's worth watching repeatedly. I forget how many times I've watched it, because I know I watched it several times before I started my blog in September 2010. The first time I saw it was on television, though not until the late 1990's. (It was made in 1975).

If you want to know more about the film, click here to read my first review. Better still, watch it for yourself. I'm sure you can find it online on some streaming service or other, but if not it's worth the price of the DVD or Blu-ray. Sean Connery says this was his best film. I agree.

Success Rate:  - 0.6

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Tenet (4 Stars)

Normally I wait to buy a film on Blu-ray until the price has dropped significantly. I rarely pay more than 6 Euros for a Blu-ray, except for the Marvel films, which remain expensive longer, and even then I won't pay more than 10 Euros. In the case of "Tenet" I made an exception. I was impatient to watch it again, so I paid almost 16 Euros.

Is it worth it? That's difficult to say. It's more a matter that I wanted to understand the film better than I did after only watching it once. I think I've got it now.

To put it simply, without giving away too many spoilers: unnamed adversaries from the future want to destroy the present day world. Is that a paradox? If we all die, will they ever be born? That's a question for philosophers and quantum physicists to answer. We never see these enemies, because they have an agent on Earth at the moment who will do their dirty work for them. It's Andrei Sator, a Russian arms dealer who has received weapons from the future.

These weapons have the principle of working backwards in time. The bullets of a gun fly back into the gun. For some reason, which isn't completely logical, being hit by a reverse bullet is more dangerous than being hit by a normal bullet.

As the film progresses we see that not only bullets can be inverted to move backwards through time, people can also be inverted. Even if you can get your head around this idea, it's impossible to explain it scientifically, but it leads to spectacular fights and car chases between forward moving and backward moving objects.

A weakness in the film is that the unnamed main character, played by John David Washington, doesn't have much charisma. I found it difficult to relate to him and his motivation. Robert Pattinson is a much better actor and should have been given the main role. Nevertheless, it's a good film, but not Christopher Nolan's best.

Success Rate:  - 0.2

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Inception (5 Stars)

"Inception" is an incredible film, and I'll start off by saying that it should have been included in my top 100 films list. It's unforgivable that I forgot it. It was directed by Christopher Nolan, who has a certain cult status today. He's well known for making films that show mind-bending views of reality. I own 10 of the 11 films he's directed. Many of his fans are so devoted to him that they buy all his films unquestioningly. I'm more selective, in his case anyway. The only directors whose films I buy without needing to see them first are Sion Sono, Zhang Yimou, Quentin Tarantino and Alex de la Iglesia. They're directors who have never disappointed me.

"Inception" is about a group of extractors, as they're called in the film. They enter a person's dream to extract knowledge that the person would never reveal while awake. This would be an interesting enough story in itself, but Christopher Nolan further complicates it by inroducing the concept of dreams within dreams.

The film follows the team as they try something more difficult. Instead of retrieving something from a person's mind, they want to implant a thought that will influence his decisions when he wakes up.

But getting back to my initial statements, blunders like this omission show how difficult it is to make a top 100 film list. I'll never attempt another list like this again.

Success Rate:  + 3.2

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Tenet (4 Stars)

Off to the cinema I went again. While it always used to be something of pleasure, now it's with trepidation. The Coronavirus has to be taken seriously. It would be foolish to arrange a meetup with a dozen participants. Maybe nothing would happen, but if one of us had the virus, all 12 would get it. It's a matter of risk assessment. I went to the cinema to see "Tenet" with only one friend, a member of my cinema group. Two people is a sensible maximum.

The cinema's booking algorithm has been written to allow for social distancing. As soon as seats are booked, one or several, the surrounding seats are blocked: two on each side, the seats directly in front and behind, and the seats diagonally in front and behind. Above is the actual screenshot of the cinema seating before I booked my tickets last week. I should have made another screenshot this afternoon before I went out. The cinema was sold out, with the blocked seats outnumbering the booked seats by about five to one.

I can understand people wanting to go out and have fun. Man is a social creature. There's been six months of restrictions, varying in intensity, from country to country. People are fed up with sitting at home every evening. There's only so much Netflix people can take. Now men want to meet their friends for a drink, or they want to go dancing and chat up girls. The politicians understand, probably better than me, that there's a fine balance between the dangers of Coronavirus and the dangers of civil unrest by people who rebel against the lockdowns. A lot of people are complaining that their leaders haven't done enough to protect them. A lot of people are complaining that they're doing too much. All I can say is that I wouldn't want to be doing their job.

It's not a matter of the law. It's a matter of common sense. The current German laws allow me to arrange a meetup with a dozen people. Even the cinema's booking algorithm would allow me to book 12 seats side by side in a row. I didn't do it, not because it's not allowed, but because I consider it foolish. I would feel guilty if there were an outbreak of Coronavirus in my film group. I would give myself the blame, nobody else.

Now let's get to the film itself. I don't want to say too much for fear of revealing spoilers, so I'll keep to a very general description. An unnamed spy, played by John David Washington, comes across weapons that are inverted, meaning that when fired they travel backwards in time. He goes on a mission to find the arms dealer who is receiving these weapons from the future. As the film progresses he discovers that it's not only weapons, he also has to fight against people who are moving backwards through time.

This is in many ways a typical Christopher Nolan film. It's a similar concept to his film "Memento", although that didn't have a science fiction slant to it. I'll just add two comments:

1. Throughout the film I was trying to figure out the name of John David Washington's character. I was sure I'd missed it by not paying attention. It wasn't until the credits rolled and I saw him listed as "The Protagonist" that I realised I hadn't missed anything, he hadn't been named. That was annoying.

2. I was presently surprised at how good the acting was by Robert Pattinson, who plays Neil, the Protagonist's superior officer. He has a lot more talent than I gave him credit.

This is definitely a film I want to see again. Some things weren't easy to understand on first viewing, but knowing Christopher Nolan I'm sure it all makes sense. If I lived in normal times I'd probably return to the cinema, but in the days of the Coronavirus I'll be patient and wait to buy it on Blu-ray.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (4 Stars)

This is a 1988 comedy film starring Michael Caine and Steve Martin as two amiable con men. The film is meant to take place in the modern day, i.e. the late 1980's, but it has a 1950's feeling to it.

Michael Caine is Lawrence Jameson, a sophisticated British con man who exploits rich unmarried women. He pretends to be the prince of an unnamed European country who is looking for money to finance the freedom fighters. They give him money or jewels, whatever they think he may need, and don't suspect a thing. His scams must be successful, based on the villa he owns in Beaumont Sur Mer, a fictional seaside town near Monte Carlo.

While returning home from Zurich by train Lawrence meets a small time American con man, Freddy Benson (Steve Martin). Freddy is happy getting women to buy him a meal or give him $20 to cover his expenses. When they're sitting in a compartment Freddy boasts about his successes, while Lawrence just nods and smiles appreciatively. Freddy is travelling to Beaumont Sur Mer, but Lawrence doesn't want him there. He doesn't think of him as competition, merely an annoyance. As he says, "If a poacher is hunting rabbits he scares away the big game".

Eventually Freddy finds out that Lawrence is a big time con man, and he's impressed. He wants to learn his tricks. They go into operation together, but it isn't a happy partnership. They don't earn anything together that Lawrence couldn't have earned by himself.

Michael Caine is a perfectly suave gentleman. He's so pleasant in his manners that nobody would suspect he's a con man.

Steve Martin is more of a rascal. He blusters his way through his cons like a buffoon, acting so foolishly that nobody can believe he has dishonest plans.

The two men are so perfect in their roles that it's difficult to believe that they weren't the first choices. The film was written for David Bowie and Mick Jagger. That would have made it a very different film. I can hardly imagine how they would have played the roles. After they turned down the film, the part of Lawrence Jameson was offered to John Cleese. Okay, I can imagine him in the role, but I'm glad he turned it down. Michael Caine is the perfect gentleman con man. I can imagine rich heiresses throwing their money at him.

The film is dated, but I don't say that as a criticism. I can't imagine con men working like them today. Modern con men would take women's money after sleeping with them. Not Lawrence and Freddy. They're too refined for that. They only take women's money, not their honour. They're gentlemen rogues, Lawrence especially.

The two con men are very likeable. They're criminals, but they don't do any real harm. They only take money from women who have too much. They don't want to leave their victims destitute. Their charm is overwhelming, and we can't help but smile at their successes.

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Inception (5 Stars)

The last time I watched "Inception" in October 2014 I said I would probably write a longer review the next time I watched it. I'm sorry. Maybe next time. This is an excellent film, one of my favourite films ever, but it's difficult to write about.

Success Rate:  + 3.2

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Austin Powers: Goldmember (4½ Stars)

There's been a two month delay, but I'm finally concluding my viewing of the Austin Powers Trilogy (which should only have lasted a week). I have a perfectly good reason for the delay: I forgot about the third film! I even put the Blu-ray box set back in the cellar last month because I thought I'd watched it all. No I hadn't. Yesterday I realised my mistake and ran down into the cellar in panic to get the box set back.

Don't worry, my cellar is well organised. I have five bookcases for my DVDs and Blu-rays, well sorted in alphabetical order. I found the Austin Powers Trilogy filed under A where it belonged.

My main intention of this post is to write about Verne Troyer, but I can't resist mentioning the Japanese twins Fook Mi and Fook Yu. Austin is admiring their rucksacks. I'm not so self-centred. I'd be looking somewhere else.

Now let's get back to Verne Troyer, or rather the character Mini-Me that he plays in the film. He was created by cloning Dr. Evil's DNA while he was frozen in suspended animation. This was a shock to Dr. Evil at first, but he soon accepted Mini-Me as a replacement for his son Scott who wasn't evil enough to take over the family business.

Mini-Me partook willingly in Dr. Evil's plans, even if it meant that he had to go to prison.

One of the advantages of being so small is that people don't notice Mini-Me sneaking up on them with a gun.

They really ought to make chairs in his size. And beds. And everything.

In this film Scott finally decides to become evil, so his father accepts him back. Poor Mini-Me feels rejected, so he changes sides. He becomes a British secret agent, which involves him dressing up to look like Austin Powers. Once a clone, always a clone.

Verne Troyer
January 1, 1969 – April 21, 2018

"Verne was the consummate professional and a beacon of positivity for those of us who had the honour of working with him. It is a sad day, but I hope he is in a better place. He will be greatly missed" (Mike Myers).

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The Man who would be King (5 Stars)

Sean Connery's name will always will be associated with James Bond. That's nothing for him to be ashamed of, it's his signature role. However, I consider this to be his best film. His performance is so outstanding that we can look at him and forget James Bond for two hours. It's a film that shows us how magnificent he is as an actor. Both he and Michael Caine have charisma as likeable rogues, but it's Sean Connery who wins our heart.

Peachy Carnehan (Michael Caine) and Danny Dravot (Sean Connery) are two ex-soldiers who have remained in India after leaving the British army. It's not stated why they left, but it's possible it was a dishonourable discharge because of their antics. They don't want to return to England because they face a life of poverty on their return. Isn't that what I was talking about in my review of "Berlin Falling"? They have an extravagant idea on how they can become rich. They want to conquer a country, become kings, then plunder the country's riches and take everything back home with them. The country can't be India, of course. Danny and Peaches are patriotic and would never try to take a country away from their beloved Queen Victoria. In books they discover an uncharted country called Kafiristan, which lies in the north of today's Afghanistan. Two men against a whole country might sound like overwhelming odds, but they're British!

The first 20 minutes of the film present Freemasonry as an almost comical institution, in which brothers hold together however immoral they may be. Rudyard Kipling, who wrote the book on which the film is based, was a Freemason himself and knew what he was talking about. He presents the Freemasons in a light-hearted way, but he was a dedicated Freemason, so it's not meant as an attack. He only wanted to point out the amusing situations that could arise in the daily life of Freemasons. I understand that the original novel contains much more about the Freemasons than has been included in the film. The omissions might put things in a different light.

"The man who would be king" is an epic, not just visually, but in its moral teachings. The film has similarities with ancient tragedies, except that the fates can't be blamed. In this film the main characters, especially Sean Connery as Danny, bring the disaster upon themselves. The sins of Greed and Pride can't be left unpunished. Then there's the sin of Blasphemy, a man pretending to be a God, which is belittled by Danny's excuses that it's not really blasphemy if you only pretend to be a false God. There's also the sin of Lust, when Danny puts everything he has at risk in order to get a woman.

This is a well-known classic, made 40 years ago in 1975, but if you're one of the few people who hasn't yet seen it you ought to. It has a well deserved place in my list of 30 films to watch before you die.

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The film has been released on Blu-ray in America and Germany, but only on DVD in England. If you live in England you can import the Blu-ray from either country. They can both be watched without problems. I owned the film on DVD before buying it on Blu-ray. The remastered version is superior to the DVD, but uneven. All scenes with facial close-ups are much better on Blu-ray, but the landscapes haven't been treated with the same loving care and sometimes show signs of dirt.

Kingsman (4½ Stars)

I have to admit that after watching a bad film I feel empty inside. Maybe I shouldn't say a film is bad, maybe I should just say it's a film I don't like. Whatever the case is, I felt that my day was ruined after watching "Warcraft". I couldn't go to bed feeling that way, so I looked at my bookcase and picked a film I knew I'd like before going to bed. This is it. "Kingsman". It has everything. James Bond-ish spy action, a megalomaniac villain and a cute little pug. It would be such a shame to shoot him. The pug's name is J.B. No, that doesn't stand for James Bond or even Jason Bourne. It's Jack Bauer. Famous initials.

I'm running out of films to watch at the moment. I'm moving out of my house next month, and I'm packing my DVDs and Blu-rays tidily into boxes. I have to pick my films from the ever decreasing number still on my shelves.

From the middle of next month onwards I'll be in Germany. I don't know how long I'll be there. It could be two months, it could be six months, it could be for the rest of my life. I'll decide when I get there. It will have an effect on my blog. I'll be watching more German films in the future. That's an exciting prospect for me. I love German cinema. Keep reading my blog, and you'll see what's happening by the end of July.

The Prestige (4½ Stars)

Yesterday I loved you. Today I don't. Tomorrow I'll love you. Next week is too far away to decide, but I can love you till Tuesday.

David Bowie is very calm and dignified in his portrayal of the inventor Nikola Tesla, the only real person in this film. He's a man I know very little about. He worked together with Thomas Edison in finding means to distribute electricity, but they didn't always share the same goals. Edison's aim was to distribute electricity by wires, which is the method taken for granted today. Tesla wanted to distribute electricity without wires, but this was too difficult to achieve in his lifetime (1891-1943). Maybe this is a project that could be tackled by scientists today. It's something we need to keep our mobile phones fully charged at all times.

Nikola Tesla was also critical of the striving of women to gain equality with men, because he believed that it's the destiny of women to be superior. He was a very wise man.

Interstellar (3 Stars)

This is Christopher Nolan's most ambitious film to date, exceeding even "Inception" in its scale. It's his first attempt to create a film that can be called an epic, depending on your definition of the word. It's also his biggest failure. In his attempt to write a film that stretches across billions of miles and dozens of years he's produced a piece of work that is painfully slow.

The film begins in the near future when the human race is in danger of extinction. Dust clouds are killing almost all the crops, leading to mass starvation. The film's hero, Cooper, is recruited to fly a mission through a wormhole to find habitable planets to relocate the human race.

The twists and turns in the plot, which I won't further discuss here, rely on a huge bootstrap paradox. Human beings from the far future are sending back information needed to save the human race. They don't seem to be very good at it. Rather than send barely comprehensible messages, couldn't they have phoned up the Earth's top scientists and told them what to do? Or better still, couldn't they have sent a big rescue pod back in time to whisk everyone away to a new home? The film doesn't make sense.

The contrast between the lazy farming community and the space exploration is deliberate, but I found the farm scenes too boring. The talks about ghosts annoyed me, and I only tolerated them because it was obvious that it would be relevant later in the film.

Stanley Kubrick left a legacy with "2001: A Space Odyssey". This is clearly what Christopher Nolan intended. Whereas Stanley Kubrick's film is a classic of cinema that will never be forgotten, Christopher Nolan's Space Odyssey fizzles out before it even starts.

The Man who would be King (5 Stars)

30 films to watch before you die, #6

This film was directed by John Huston and released in 1975, but the viewer can be forgiven for thinking that it's older. It's a film made in the style of the big Hollywood epics from the 1950's and 1960's, the cast of thousands films. A difference is that the old Hollywood films were based on historical records, either secular or Biblical, whereas "The man who would be king" is based on a work of fiction, a novel written by Rudyard Kipling.

Kipling himself appears as a character in the book (and the film), which was common in popular literature of the late 19th and early 20th Century. Another author who frequently used this prose style, first-person narrative, was Somerset Maugham. In 1886 Rudyard Kipling was a correspondent for the Northern Star in Calcutta, a fine British gentleman in an age when a man's manners and clothing meant everything. He meets two British men who are anything but gentlemen. They are ex-soldiers who served in India, but are now making money from crimes such as blackmail. When he realises that they, like him, are Freemasons, he feels a holy bond with them and pleads for them not to be imprisoned after an unsuccessful attempt to blackmail a Rajah.

The two ex-soldiers, Danny Dravot (Sean Connery) and Peachy Carnehan (Michael Caine) devise an audacious plan and request assistance from Kipling. They want to find a remote kingdom where they can first make friends with the king by helping him conquer his enemies, then betray the king by killing him and becoming kings themselves, and finally steal the kingdom's treasure and return to England as rich men. Rudyard Kipling gives them directions to Kafiristan, a small country north of Afghanistan (which has become a province in Afghanistan today).

More by luck than by skill the two men arrive in Kafiristan. They ingratiate themselves with a local chieftain by protecting women from an attack by a neighbouring tribe. They train his tribesmen as soldiers and conquer the other tribe. Danny and Peachy are given the praise for the attack, so the tribesmen kill their leader and appoint Danny their new leader.

The people of Kafiristan worship a God called Sikander, who left them 2000 years earlier and promised his son would return one day. Peachy figures out that they are referring to Alexander the Great, who conquered their country but returned to Greece in 382 B.C. After an incident where Danny is struck by an arrow but survives (because it struck a leather belt beneath his jacket) the natives think he is a God, the Son of Sikander. Soon all of Kafiristan submits to his rule.

I expect most of my readers have seen this film already, but I shan't say what happens next, for the sake of the few who still haven't seen it. It's a beautiful vivid spectacle, visually overwhelming, with perfect performances by the two lead characters.

After reviewing each of my 30 films I make recommendations for other similar films for future viewing. In the case of this film it's difficult, because it stands in a class of its own. The closest matches I can think of are epic historical films from the golden age of Hollywood.

• Ben Hur (1959)
• Spartacus (1960)
• Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

The Last Witch Hunter (3½ Stars)

The premise of this film is that witches are a different race that live on Earth alongside humans. In the past witches were powerful and threatened to conquer the world, either destroying or enslaving humans, but there were elite bands of witch hunters who fought against them. After the defeat of their queen in the 13th Century the witches grew weaker and their power was diluted, presumably by intermarriage with humans. The witch hunters were disbanded, and a secret society called the Axe and Cross took its place. Witches are allowed to exist, as long as they don't harm humans. Vin Diesel is the only remaining witch hunter. He was the one who killed the witch queen in the 13th Century, but before her death she cursed him to live forever. He now lives in modern day New York, even though his missions take him all over the world.

There are many different types of films. Some are true stories, some are science fiction, some are supernatural stories, some are fantasy, etc. There are different rules in each type of film that dictate what's allowed and what isn't. In a vampire film we don't see spaceships firing at each other, in a Victorian period drama we don't see mobile phones, etc. Every film that we watch uses the first five to ten minutes to lay out, usually implicitly, what the rules are. The viewer needs to be acclimatised. He needs to know what sort of a film he's watching. That's where "The Last Witch Hunter" fails. The opening scenes are totally confusing. We see Vikings, followed by confusing special effects. This disorients the viewer. By the time we get to the present day the rug has already been pulled from under our feet.

The problems deepen as the film continues. The film relies too much on special effects. It's often difficult to see what's happening. If the film had toned down the special effects it would have been more enjoyable.

Vin Diesel's acting pleasantly surprised me. He puts on a reasonable performance as the hardened fighter. He has a tender side that he suppresses, and this inner conflict is played out in his facial expressions. On the other hand, his love interest Chloe, played by Rose Leslie, is a very weak character. It's not just her acting, she's poorly introduced to us. After seeing her in the bar scene she's just a caricature. The same is true of the bad guy, Belial. He's just a random monster, and it leaves us cold when he's destroyed. The best films make us feel sympathetic for the bad guys, and we have a twinge of pity when they're killed. There's none of this in "The Last Witch Hunter".

It's not a bad film, but it's not a good film either. It's very forgettable. The film's ending loudly hints that there will be a sequel, but please, we don't want one.