THIS WEEK'S NEW CINEMA RELEASES

Ok… here are the new movies opening at our cinemas this week!

MY TOP PICK TO SEE

You may be surprised that my top pick to see this week is the young adult novel adaptation of the novel THE MAZE RUNNER. Thomas is deposited in a community of boys after his memory is erased, soon learning they're all trapped in a maze that will require him to join forces with fellow "runners" for a shot at escape. I’ve just returned from the cinema after seeing this and I have to say it was a lot better than I thought it would be. I’ll post my review shortly, but let you know I give it ****. Thoroughly enjoyable.

OTHERS TO SEE

THE INFINITE MAN is a very quirky Australian philosophical comedy/sci-fi in which a man's attempts to construct the ultimate romantic weekend backfire when his quest for perfection traps his lover in an infinite loop. I will post my review shortly.

MAYBE/MAYBE NOT

Aidan Bloom is a 35-year-old man who finds himself at major crossroads, which forces him to examine his life, his career, and his family in the comedy drama WISH I WAS HERE. The Playlist’s Cory Everett says, Wish I Was Here is not a total disaster, but the tricky tone seems like it needed more time in the editing room to focus its story and trim some of the extraneous threads.

Do you remember watching the highly stylised graphic novel looking Sin City back in 2005. At last, another story hits the screens in FRANK MILLER’S SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR. In this “episode”, some of Sin City's most hard-boiled citizens cross paths with a few of its more reviled inhabitants. The general cinema goer is finding this movie quite appealing, but the critics are not so happy. According to New York Daily News’s Joe Neumaier, The sequel to one of the most visually striking movies of the last 10 years continues the graphic novel-inspired landscape of its predecessor. But the characters don't click, and the action feels dull.

THE BOX TROLLS is generally being slammed by the critics, too, rating it around **1/2 on the average. The general public seem to be enjoying it a bit more with average ratings of around ***1/2. THE BOX TROLLS tells the story of a young orphaned boy raised by underground cave-dwelling trash collectors who tries to save his friends from an evil exterminator. Based on the children's novel 'Here Be Monsters' by Alan Snow. The trailers looked cute but, according to Variety’s Peter Debruge, The meticulously crafted world is stunning to behold, imagined to the minutest detail and photographed with the sort of dramatic lighting and dynamic camera movement rarely seen in stop-motion. Trouble is, it's not a place most folks would care to spend any time. That’s a shame if it’s true.

ONE TO AVOID

Finally, yet another kids movie not worth your time seeing. PLANES: FIRE & RESCUE is all about When Dusty learns that his engine is damaged and he may never race again, he joins a forest fire and rescue unit to be trained as a firefighter. The trailers looked very cheesy and Movie Nation’s Roger Moore seems to agree when he says that Planes: Fire & Rescue is roughly twice as good as its predecessor, Planes, which was so story-and-laugh starved it would have given “direct-to-video” a bad name. Yes, there was nowhere to go but up.

That's it for this week. See you at the movies!

NB: synopses of movies are adapted from IMDB. Opinions are mine unless quoted from cited sources.