This Week's Film Reviews (13 - 19/02/2015) (Fifty Shades Of Grey/Focus/Project Almanac)

Fifty Shades Of Grey – Already clearly dominating the box office, this adaptation of E.L. James’ controversial bodice ripper may delight some of the book’s amorous fans, but for people outside of the devoted fanbase, it is an absolute torture. Embarrassingly bad dialogue covers a film in which leads Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan have absolutely no chemistry in a plot that strives for some sort of erotic fantasy and instead just comes off as unnervingly worshiping of  Dornan’s young billionaire, Christian Grey; one of the most sinister characters I’ve ever seen in a film. Despite the film being centred around BDSM (very inaccurately portrayed, even so) the film lacks the gall to go even beyond vanilla expectations, so it’s somehow both disturbing whilst lacking in actual power. The slightly cheeky kinkiness and sexuality of it might have some appeal, but this is overall, a very poor effort. *

Focus – Con artist thriller meets romance when veteran grifter Will Smith takes Margot Robbie under his wing as both protégé and lover. Whilst the balance between crime caper and love affair is an uneasy one, it’s an entertaining watch largely because of the infamously abundant charm and charisma that Will Smith brings to his role. Margot Robbie also gives a rather powerful performance, more-so than might be expected from a film as potentially throwaway as it is. *** (Opens in the UK and the US on the 27^th of February)

Project Almanac – Having started in the domain of horror films, the current wave of “found footage” movies has moved towards family sci-fi, first with Earth To Echo (2014) and now with this Michael Bay-produced movie about a group of teens who happen upon a homemade time machine. Whilst the Bay association may spell trouble for a lot of people, this is one of the stronger efforts to be associated with the current Hollywood king of noise. At times, almost like a teenage version of Shane Carruth’s time machine mind-bender Primer (2004), it has some intelligence and fairly likable characters. The only real problems are the wholly unnecessary “found footage” angle and the adolescent attitude that the film has. Yes, these are teenage characters, but the concerns seem so petty in a film that is also at times too heavy-handed. A nice middle ground would probably have served this film a lot better. ***