ANGEL HAS FALLEN
(15)
★★★★★
GERARD BUTLER reprises his role as gung-ho Secret Service agent Mike Banning, inset, in an actionpacked sequel to Olympus Has Fallen and London Has Fallen directed by Ric Roman Waugh.
Mike heads to work alongside President Allan Trumbull (Morgan Freeman), who has left the corridors of power for the peace and quiet of a fishing trip.
A meticulously orchestrated drone attack decimates the security detail and almost results in Trumbull’s assassination.
When Mike regains consciousness after his ordeal, he is in handcuffs, accused of the attempted murder of his boss.
Framed for a crime he did not commit, Mike is forced to go on the run to clear his name, and turns
SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK (15)
★★★★★
GUILLERMO DEL TORO, Oscarwinning director of Pan’s Labyrinth, produces this spooky horror based on the children’s book series by Alvin Schwartz.
Norwegian filmmaker Andre Ovredal (Trollhunter) is in the director’s chair for ghoulish escapades on an eventful Halloween in 1968.
Horror-obsessed teenager Stella Nicholls (Zoe Colletti) and her friends Auggie Hilderbrandt (Gabriel Rush) and Chuck Steinberg, (Austin Zajur, above) visit the supposedly haunted home of the Bellows family.
School bully Tommy Milner (Austin Abrams) locks them inside the house where they find a to a most unlikely ally – his estranged, survivalist father Clay (Nick Nolte).
Angel Has Fallen grinds through two gears – calm and storm – taking its emotional cues (or lack thereof ) from Butler’s muscular but soulless performance.
The twists are clearly telegraphed, including the identity of the mastermind responsible for Banning’s downfall.
Action sequences are assured.
Entire buildings fall along with plausibility and we’re expected to rummage through the rubble for fleeting entertainment. book of scary stories.
When they escape from the house, the teenagers are disturbed to find fresh scrawl in the book, which casts Tommy as the victim of a malevolent scarecrow.
Fiction bleeds into reality and Stella realises they are all in grave danger.
Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark elicits a tickle of trepidation but never comes close to achieving the kind of white-knuckle terror audiences expect from big-screen horrors.