The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (Guy Ritchie, 2015)

Another year, another spate of remakes of things which were popular in past eras, and soon the recycling may have to resort as far as the '40s. It's a Wonderful Life with, say, Bradley Cooper, anyone? Although that's probably already in post-production anyway.
That said, and forewarned with having the unsteady Guy Ritchie at the helm, this is surprisingly entertaining at times. Of course, the camp has been sucked out and with it much of the humour too, but watch the original series and say in all honesty that it was funny. Really.
Instead of the kitsch, then, we have gritty back stories, abundant violence and two men twice the size of their predecessors as the heroes. So far, so standard, but Henry Cavill's Napoleon Solo is a nice twist on Jean Dujardin's suave OSS 117 character and Armie Hammer works well as his counterpart Illya Kuryakin, with much mileage gained from ceaselessly baiting him to lose his rag. It's still no great shakes, but far better than could have been hoped for, given the raw materials.

5/10

American Graffiti (George Lucas, 1973)

Lucas's second feature, based on the setting of his coming of age in a nondescript early '60s small town, offers no inkling at all of the globe-striding behemoth he was to become with Star Wars. This is both a good thing, as there is no budget to run roughshod over the script and the dialogue is natural, and then again not good at all, as it manages tediousness without any excuses.
Bizarrely, it was nominated for the year's Best Picture Oscar, which is surely testament to how many Americans will have found a resonance with their own youths in dead-end middle America in the gap between the bright-eyed optimism of the '50s and the impending arrival of Vietnam, civil rights and the concomitant counter-culture, which then upset the apple cart for good . But to the external eye, it just consists of a string of mildly amusing scenes spread over a night of minor comings-to between aimless kids, driving around and around endlessly because there's nothing else to do.

5/10

It Started in Naples (Melville Shavelson, 1960)

As in Houseboat, here Shavelson again chucks an ageing A-lister at Sophia Loren in the hope that sparks might be created between them. However, in the former film the perennial twinkle in Cary Grant's eye did a lot to engender indulgence towards the 30-year age gap in the romance; no such fortuity here as Clark Gable plays to type as a stolid lawyer impatient to settle his late brother's affairs in Naples. It's quite impossible to fathom what Loren's character might see in him, and meanwhile in the scenes in between we're stuck with Gable's little Italian nephew squeaking pidgin English, which is sadly less cute than severely irritating before long. Loren is wonderful when allowed to display her comic talents, but then she's also put through some truly excruciating song-and-dance numbers. There is a lightness of touch in the dialogue, and the settings are enchanting, but the whole doesn't quite gel.

5/10

Snow White and the Huntsman (Rupert Sanders, 2012)

Peter Jackson must shoulder part of the blame for a revival in forced resuscitations of well-worn fantasy material, which has resulted mostly in derivative dross like this 'reimagining' of the Grimm fairy tale. What reimagining in this context means is a cobbling together of meretricious staples from classics, the most transparent being the seven dwarfs, who are a carbon copy of the plucky band from The Hobbit, right down to having veteran British actors play the lot of them. Meanwhile, Snow White herself is badly served by the casting of Kristen Stewart and her slack-jawed gawp, upstaged at every turn by Charlize Theron's scenery-chewing hamming as the evil queen. It does look good, at least, but by now this is the least that one has come to expect and not sufficient compensation for a muddled and overly action-reliant script. Naturally, all this is of no consequence to its pre-teen target audience, and so a second instalment is under way, albeit thankfully without Stewart this time.

4/10