Killer Elite (2011)

Jason Statham's husky voice, Clive Owen's glorious 'tache and Robert 'God' De Niro cannot save this mess of a film. You expect to see an Expendables-lite action-fest where Stath goes against the 'tache, taking DeNiro's shaggy beard along the way, instead you get a trailer that runs just short of 2.5 hours. It refuses to slow down to reflect on a scene, a quip, or a plot twist. There are plenty of those, but the shambolic editing and an inability to tell a decent story quickly exhaust one's patience. This is by far the worst film I have seen all year.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)

There is hardly anything strange about this that is worth the admission price. Johnny Depp is reliably brilliant as Captain Jack Sparrow, but that's to be expected. That's not strange. I can't personally say the same about the rest of the film. This is lazy, by-the-books film-making that we have come to expect during this time of the year. And I had close to no expectations when I sat in the auditorium with those stupid 3D glasses on my face, but I still left with a bitter taste when I left the cinema to cycle back home.

Hanna (2011)

Hanna is a rebellious action thriller with an artist’s soul, and as such constantly strives to defy your expectations. A coming of age story about a trained teenage assassin hell-bent on destroying her mother’s killer, Joe Wright’s film is a high-concept globetrotter with a punk attitude. It’s violent, it’s funny, it’s thrilling and it’s engaging. It’s also underdeveloped and incredibly messy. Like Duncan Jones’ Source Code, it gets high marks for being different. But is being “different” really enough?

Battle: Los Angeles (2011)

Battle: Los Angeles is a surprisingly competent and impressive production, and not only because it doesn’t suck. Sure, you can highlight its shortcomings – the character clichés, the cheesy empowerment moments, the awkward “maybe I can help, I’m a veterinarian” beats and the occasional logic bumps. But Jonathan Liebesman’s film is also a “retreat hell” action flick with a committed cast and a secret weapon – the ability to, in a well-worn alien invasion sub-genre, feel remotely original.

The Mechanic (2011)

The Mechanic is a remake of a 1970s Charles Bronson flick, and it’s released in January – expectations should be tempered. But it also offers Jason Statham, continuing his work as the most reliable tough guy of his era, and Ben Foster, as the most reliable dangerously off-kilter nut job. Both men excel in a limited but useful niche, and The Mechanic is a familiar stomping ground.

Faster (2010)

“Slow justice is no justice” goes the tagline for the movie Faster, the latest vehicle for action star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. And if that’s true, then Faster offers very little in terms of “justice”… or anything pertaining to entertainment, for that matter.

The Expendables (2010)

That. Was. Awesome.

Filing out of the theater at 2am in a crowd full of adrenaline-fueled action movie junkies, that was all I could think about what I’d just seen, and pretty much all I was hearing from the movie-goers around me. The Expendables is the perfect midnight movie, the kind of flick that’s so loaded with action, so ridiculously over-the-top, so smoothly paced and fun that it literally won’t let you be tired. This isn’t an epic blockbuster or a groundbreaking mind-bender. This is action, straight no chaser. And it is just… awesome.