What’s it about?
Five friends seek the solitude and peace of a cabin in the woods to help their friend overcome her drug addiction, but end up in a by-the-numbers reworking of an iconic cult classic.

What did we think?
Stewart says: The unexplainably delayed and ridiculously limited Australian release of this remake has finally arrived. By now all the reviews and spoilers and even camera shot bootlegs, have been available online to ruin the experience for you for weeks. Despite that I’ve been desperate to see Evil Dead since the first ‘red band’ trailer hit the net and blew my mind with its intensity.

Sadly Evil Dead doesn’t live up to its source materials legend. It’s nicely put together (aside from a few instances of confusing editing), solidly performed and has some great cringe worthy violence (having a hypodermic needle phobia is a big disadvantage). However Evil Dead suffers greatly from a confusing (although anticipated) protagonist change 3/4 of the way through, that left the final act without much-needed resonance. The swooping ‘evil force’ camera work that really defined the original trilogy is almost non-existent and I think ultimately the film’s biggest failing is feeling like it belongs to the world of its famous namesake. The much touted ‘all practical effects’ was very obviously not in one or two instances.

I didn’t like the score by Roque Baños. Often heaping on unwanted schmaltz in key emotional/character moments.

Evil Dead works as a fun time at the movies, but I feel ultimately fails as an Evil Dead film.

In all honesty, you already know if you want to see this film no matter the reviews. Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger together, punching people in the face and shooting everything that moves is an action fantasy fan’s wet dream. As such a bad critical reception won’t dissuade attendance (not forgetting of course that the film boasts a tonne of other action stars doing shooty/explody things and yelling stuff).

Expendables 2 is not Oscar material, nor is it ever pretending to be; however the it is very self aware and plays that card fast and often (on some occasions a tad too hard). Norris despite his cultural cache is essentially irrelevant to anything going on in the film and his screen time fails to add to the film. Arnie and Willis share probably the easiest and most engaging action banter, whilst Lundgren continues to impress in the interesting (for an action film) role of Gunnar. Statham is perhaps a little lost amongst the pile of muscled torsos all vying for screen time, but whenever he’s kicking people in the face he’s doing it as hard as he can just for you. Jet Li is in the first five minutes… maybe. Van Damme feels a bit under written, but his show down with Stallone is really all you want to see and it’s pretty damn cool.

Ultimately E2 isn’t quite up to the consistency of the first outing, but it’s super fun nonetheless.

What’s it about?
In a twist to the fairy tale, the Huntsman ordered to take Snow White into the woods to be killed winds up becoming her protector and mentor in a quest to vanquish the Evil Queen.

What did we think?
Far better than you expect it to be, though not as good as it could have been. Obviously curtailed from stepping into the darkness and mayhem it so longs for in order to maximise audiences, Snow White nonetheless manages to engage on a more adult level than most popcorn flicks.