Category: Action film

A View to a Kill (1985)

Possibly the worst film of the entire franchise, not helped by Moore’s being well and truly past it

Director: John Glen

Cast: Roger Moore (James Bond), Christopher Walken (Max Zorin), Tanya Roberts (Stacey Sutton), Grace Jones (May Day), Patrick Macnee (Sir Godfrey Tibbett), Patrick Bauchay (Scarpine), Willoughby Gray (Dr Karl Mortner), David Yip (Chuck Lee), Desmond Llewelyn (Q), Robert Brown (M), Walter Gotell (General Gogol), Lois Maxwell (Miss Moneypenny), Geoffrey Keen (Minister), Manning Redwood (Bob Conley), Alison Doody (Jenny Flex), Papillon Soo Soo (Pan Ho), Fiona Fullerton (Pola Ivanova)

After watching A View to a Kill Roger Moore declared he probably should have stopped after Octopussy (others would say For Your Eyes Only would have been even better). He’s not wrong. Putting aside the whole question of age (of which more later) A View to a Kill is one of the worst outings Bond ever had on Her Majesty’s Secret Service. A blatant Goldfinger rip-off, it’s full of the sort of ridiculousness Moore made his own but with plenty of the sort of violent rough-and-tumble the other action stars of the 80s were doing. It manages to be neither remotely funny or particularly exciting.

Bond (Roger Moore) is roped into investigate dodgy goings on in Zorin Industries, run by grinning psychopath Max Zorin (Christopher Walken), aided by his terrifyingly tough girlfriend and chief henchwoman May Day (Grace Jones). Zorin, it turns out, is planning a dastardly plan to sink Silicon Valley (wait a minute: Max all is forgiven!) by blowing a hole in the San Andreas fault. From Paris to San Francisco, Bond is on the trail to foil this scheme, helped and hindered (mostly the latter) by oil heir Stacey (Tanya Roberts).

The elephant in the room of course is Roger Moore’s age. It’s genuinely jaw-dropping to think Moore was younger when he made this film than Tom Cruise was when he made his final Mission: Impossible. Moore looks like a gun-toting Methuselah, the most active part of his lined and winkled face being his immortal arched eyebrow. A film with more courage or wit would have lampshaded this – though of course Bond was never going to go full on “I’m too old for this shit”. There is something insanely icky at watching this ageing lothario take to bed a ludicrously young glamourous agent in the film’s prologue (sliding into the sheets of their mini-sub’s bed, he looks like a dirty old man) or, for that matter, Stacey (so much younger than him, he cooks her a post-fight quiche omelette to sooth her nerve, like a loving uncle). As for when he beds Grace Jones… Genuinely it’s the only point in the film you feel worried about his safety.

On top of this, you can’t help but wonder how much work Moore did on this film. He clearly never visited the Arctic, where the films skiing action entre takes place: a stunt-double zooms around the glaciers, while Moore pops up to raise an eyebrow in close-ups in front of a blue screen. It’s painfully obvious to see the stunt men take over all the driving and a large portion of the fighting (Glen probably deserves some sort of medal for framing so much of this action to not show Bond’s face). His horse-riding sequence is obviously Moore on a hobby horse (to be fair, it’s the same for Walken), while his stunt doubles climb around a fire truck ladder on a racing truck in San Francisco.

It’s all even more painfully in-your-face, because the costume designers clearly decided to dress Moore like a man thirty years younger to disguise his creaking joints. Tank tops and leather jackets? Even when he was in his 20s, Moore (a polo shirt or suit guy) would have looked ridiculous in this garb. They even throw in Patrick Macnee as an even older action star (he might as well be called John Unsteady). At one point these two dress up in dark leather jackets to raid a warehouse, theming look like two lost granddads trying to brazen out a tough Friday night on the town after the pubs have closed.

It’s particularly noticeable how doddering Moore is when he’s constantly being compared to the energetic youngsters he’s up against. Grace Jones is of course a lean strip of muscle and macho attitude. She may not be the greatest actor in the world – her range rarely stretches beyond ‘angry’ – but she sure can kick, punch and throw. Similarly, Christopher Walken lets his signature staccato delivery rip under a mop of blond hair and a wild-eyed grin. Zorin is a demented Nazi genetic experiment – like the wet dream of the baddies in The Boys from Brazil (he even has a Mengele-style daddy in Willoughby Gray’s monocle-clad scientist) – who throws himself into judo and action sequences with a sweaty-browed enthusiasm Moore could never match.

Zorin is possibly one of the meanest, most psychotic villains in Bond films. So much so, he sometimes feels a little out of place in the comic world of Moore’s Bond films. (Rather like everything in Moonraker being double-taking pigeons until a woman gets ripped apart by dogs). View to a Kill gives us goofy gags such as a bizarre Poirot parody (with the ludicrous name Achille Aubergine which is stupid rather than funny) who gets knocked off by a poisonous model butterfly (don’t ask) during a high society dinner. Then later it’s happy to give us a prolonged sequence of Walken machine-gunning underlings at point blank range while giggling like a schoolboy. That’s how far A View to a Kill can ying and yang.

It’s blatant Goldfinger rip-off is most obvious in its virtual replay (but less than half as good) of the villain’s briefing of his crony’s scene (right down to a flunky saying he’ll have no part of this madness and getting instantly dispatched), but it’s there throughout. Substitute horse-racing for golf, Silicon Valley for Fort Knox, a zeppelin for a bi-plane, throw in a last-minute bomb foiling and various offed side-kicks in cars and you’ve got Connery’s calling card. With the exception that Stacey Sutton is no Pussy Galore. A tiresome, whining and terminally stupid character (in a Bond Girl low point she fails to hear a slow-moving zeppelin noisily approaching her from behind) with whom Moore has no charisma (and, in fact, barely seems to like).

A View to a Kill stumbles through our geriatric lead tagging in and out with stunt-men, bumbling through set-pieces that never quite click into place, such as the otherworldly lack of danger to anything. How can a chase up the Eiffel Tower feel so dull? A car chase through San Francisco feel like it’s just killing screentime? Jokes rarely land, the villains feel like they are in a different film, the tone never seems consistent and most of it makes no real sense. It’s not really Moore’s fault – frankly, even a Connery or Craig couldn’t have saved this from being a pretty bad film. But it doesn’t change the fact that the only memorable thing about this that’s good is a knock-out Duran Duran song.

Superman II (1980)

An odd mish-mash of styles and strange jumps in logic make this a less successful sequel

Director: Richard Lester

Cast: Christopher Reeve (Clark Kent/Superman), Gene Hackman (Lex Luthor), Ned Beatty (Otis), Jackie Cooper (Perry White), Sarah Douglas (Ursa), Margot Kidder (Lois Lane), Jack O’Halloran (Non), Valerie Perrine (Eve Teschmacher), Maria Schell (Vond-Ah), Terence Stamp (General Zod), Susannah York (Lara), Marc McClure (Jimmy Olsen), EG Marshall (President), Clifton James (Sheriff)

Superman started with Brando’s Jor-El condemning Kryptonian criminals General Zod (Terence Stamp) and his sidekicks Ursa (Sarah Douglas) and Non (Jack O’Halloran) to ‘living death’ in the Phantom Zone. Decades later, Superman (Christopher Reeve) accidentally releases them by deflecting a Parisian Hydrogen bomb into space. They arrive on Earth with the same powers as Superman, hell bent on revenge. Unfortunately, Superman is unaware of this, whiling away time in the Fortress of Solitude with Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) who has learned his identity. Sacrificing his powers to live a normal life, how will he stop the world’s population “kneeling before Zod”.

Superman II was to be filmed simultaneously with Superman. At least that was the idea. But as producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind’s tenuous control of finances spun further and further out of control, efforts refocused on finishing the first one. When that was a hit, work was due to re-start on Part 2. That’s where the trouble began. The Salkind’s relationship with director Richard Donner was already heavily on the rocks. Further disputes over the tone of the sequel – Donner claimed he wanted a serious film and that the Salkinds wanted a kid-friendly, gag-heavy chortle – led to Donner’s sudden sacking and replacement with the Salkind’s favourite director, Richard Lester.

To say the style of these two didn’t mesh would be an understatement. Donner was all about making the high-blown and ridiculous feel full of po-faced seriousness (you could say self-importance). Richard Lester, on the other hand, was the man who turned Juggernaut, a film about a murderous bomber, into a work-place black comedy. Any film that used an odd combination of both man’s material was probably doomed to be a Frankenstein’s monster, neither one thing or another.

That’s pretty much what Superman II is. In many ways, with Lester taking over 75% of the way through – and then looping back and re-shooting several scenes to ensure he had directed over 60% of the film and guarantee (after Donner refused to take any credit) that the film would have someone as a credited director – it’s a miracle it makes any sense at all. As it is, the tone varies wildly at times from scene-to-scene: a prat fall gets followed by a death, a romantic riff by a mortal threat. From it’s Parisian opening with its incompetent bombers (one of whom is played by Richard Griffiths of all people), through to its goofy comedy as villains trash a mid-Western town, each set piece is two thirds drama to one third farce. In addition, the long break in filming means the actor’s appearance switches and changes frequently and important plot developments suddenly spring out of nowhere.

A lot of that came from contract disputes. Original top-billed star Marlon Brando was suing the Salkinds, convinced they were stiffing him on his 11.75% box office share from Superman. Since Brando was entitled to the same share of this film if he appeared in it, every single frame of him was cut. Which would have been fine – if Brando’s Jor-El hadn’t been pivotal to a de-powered Superman regaining his powers. Lester had already re-shot several Fortress of Solitude scenes with the more amenable (and cheaper) Susannah York taking over as tutoring hologram. Clearly, they ran out-of-time – or just didn’t think anyone would care enough – about also getting her to reshoot a scene to take the place of the last vestige of Jor-El in the Fortress’ computer erasing itself to restore Clark’s powers. Instead, Clark just gets them back off-camera, no problem.

There are touches of this throughout the film. Hackman had refused to return after Donner’s firing, his scenes all too obviously finished by a stand-in with his back to the camera while another actor gives a nearly-but-not-quite impersonation of Hackman on the soundtrack. Several times scenes with Hackman suddenly stop, which feels odd – and then you realise they were impossible to finish. It also means poor Ned Beatty and Valerie Perrine also fade into the background or disappear (presumably because it would have been hard to do her scenes with the camera fixed behind a double’s back).

The thrown-together madness of the film can be seen in the bizarre story. Zod’s entire time on Earth seems to take place more-or-less in real time: arriving, terrorising a small town, capturing the White House. Meanwhile, Clark and Lois romance at Niagara Falls on a very poorly explained journalistic sting operation (including an embarrassing pre-fame Antony Sher as a lascivious hotel bellboy) and retire to the Fortress for a night of passion, a depowering and then travel from the North Pole to America (by boat and car presumably!), presumably all in the same day. You can’t blame the staff at the diner they stop at being flabbergasted at how many world-shattering events they’ve missed.

As to be expected, Donner’s grand, Fordian vision is sacrificed to Lester’s love for sight gags. Donner sure wouldn’t have used Zod and crew creating a mighty wind to blow away a Metropolis mob as an opportunity for ice cream cones, wigs and hen-picked husbands clutching telephones to be swept away. Throughout, people are forever crashing into puntastic advertising boardings or (a classic Lester touch) letting loose little muttered asides we only half catch. He even ropes in Clifton James to repeat his JW Pepper from James Bond performance in all but name.

That final Metropolis fight is still impressive in places, despite its obvious sound-stage setting – it’s important to remember it’s the first time anything like this was ever attempted on screen. The actors work hard to maintain a sense of menace and danger from our villains, despite the odd dorky moment. One decision that works extremely well, is Stamp’s underplaying of Zod as a perpetually unimpressed aristocrat, almost immediately bored by his God-like powers. By not straining hard for laughs, Stamp is frequently the funniest thing in the film (and its most memorable performer).

Reeve and Kidder do their best, but the film gives them considerably less to play with. Largely because their relationship feels very rushed, Clark’s decision to de-power himself coming almost from nowhere and lacking any real explanation for why it’s necessary, and neither the script or character being quite nimble enough to not make both Clark and Lois’ reaction to his being duffed up in a bar fight feel like two people who suddenly feel like in losing Superman they’ve got the raw end of the deal.

Superman II powers itself on with a dorky sense of energy, but really it’s a bizarre hotchpotch of the grand and mighty and the ludicrous and silly, that frequently tries to put both in the same scene at the same time. Not surprisingly, it means a film that’s half Donner and half Lester ends up feeling much worse than if it had been made alone by either one of them. Which is not to say either of those films would have any good either.

Masters of the Universe (2026)

Catnip to fans (like me) but honestly a tonal mess of a film with just enough fun to almost work

Director: Travis Knight

Cast: Nicholas Galitzine (Adam/He-Man), Camila Mendes (Teela), Idris Elba (Duncan/Man-At-Arms), Jared Leto (Skeletor), Alison Brie (Evil-Lyn), Kirstin Wiig (Roberto), James Purefoy (King Randor), Charlotte Riley (Queen Marlena), Morenca Baccarin (Sorceress), Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson (Fisto), Jon Xue Zhang (Ram-Man), Sam C. Wilson (Trap Jaw), Sasheer Zamata (Suzie), Christian Vunipoa (Huessein)

When I was very young I loved He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. I had almost every toy, watched every cartoon, seen the live-action movie – I even continued watching the Further Adventures which took He-Man into space. So, I think its fair to say I am the exact target market for Masters of the Universe: a middle-aged man who hasn’t really grown up, who wants to soak in childhood nostalgia. On several of those scores, I can’t be disappointed with Masters of the Universe, even while recognising this is a deeply flawed film, with far less to entertain the non-fan.

Anyway, Adam (growing up to be Nicholas Galitzine) is the Prince of Eternia, who fled via a sword-of-power wormhole, to Earth after his planet was conquered by the evil Skeletor (Jared Leto). After losing the sword and being stranded on our world for 15 years, earning a crust as a sensitive ear in HR, Adam tells anyone who will listen he is actually a Prince from a far-flung world. When he finds the sword, he is rescued by old friend Teela (Camila Mendes) and taken back to Eternia where he finds the remains of the Eternia’s mightiest heroes struggling in the resistance to Skeletor. But perhaps Adam is the chosen one, who by the power of (Castle) Greyskull will become the mighty hero to defeat Skeletor?

Spoilers: of course he is. I’ll repeat, for the fan, there is so much to like about Masters of the Universe. First and foremost, the loving detail the characters have been bought to life, in all the bright primary colours and demented designs of the original. Did I ever imagine a world where I would see a live action film with a blue skinned Trapjaw with a green face, pinkish helmet and jaw and a mechanical arm that can turn into a hook or canon? Heck no, but I’m all for it.

Every single character has been bought to the screen like they’ve literally been ripped from the pages of my old comics, and given a steroids boost (although Skeletor’s old toys were as ripped as this). Not only that, but the film brings us obscure heroes like Moss Man (exactly what you’d expect) and Mechaneck (whose weapon is an extending mechanical neck). My hat guys. You can’t deny the love clearly there: so many of the cast and crew have talked about their deep-rooted affection for it (if I was a famous actor, I’d have loved to be in this). It’s strangely heart-warming.

But with my more critical grown-up head on – the one that isn’t bashing the action figures – is Masters of the Universe a mess? Yes, 100%. A fun mess for sure. Some decent laughs. Nicholas Galitzine is charmingly endearing as the gentle Adam. Camila Mendes revels in playing the film’s real tough guy, the good at almost everything Teela. Jared Leto has never been more enjoyable than as Skeletor, walking a tight rope between making the character absurdly pathetic and deeply horrible. It bounds along with real pace. As it should, since you can see much of its visual design, use of rock music and strongly tongue-in-cheek affectionate mockery is ripped straight from Thor: Ragnorak (you feel like its desperately trying to be a remake).

But thematically, it’s all over the shop. You feel the push-me-pull-me of different writing crews during the film’s tortuous production. It wants to explore questions of toxic masculinity and true strength coming from within. But does so ham-fistedly. For starters, the idea that Adam’s true powers come from his HR trained empathy is rendered hard to take seriously since (a) the film rips the piss out of HR speak every chance it gets, (b) Adam sounds ridiculous and uncertain and fails every single time he tries to defuse a conflict and (c) all his problems are solved through super strength. Not a single dilemma is resolved through negotiation or compromise.

Toxic masculinity coverage is also all over the shop. James Purefoy is presented as the model appalling dad, eternally disappointed in his sensitive son… until the film judderingly changes gear and tries to present this as well-meaning tough-love. Idris Elba’s Duncan collapses into a decade of drunken self-pity after his cocky self-assurance is torn apart. Does he get out of this spiral by acceptance or humility? No, he gets over it by blasting the hell out of stuff. Adam’s flatmate’s hiding his love of romcoms should be perfect for this but is only ever a punchline. Even Fisto’s masculine dismissal of Adam gets no blow back (the suggestion he’s full of cowardly bluster is similarly dismissed by the finale reaffirming he’s tough and therefore a hero).

Which makes the film’s moral (just like the cartoon, it ends with one!) feel pretty empty. Adam doesn’t even learn from his first brutally ill-thought out, violent attack on Skeletor’s HQ, which only succeeds in hurting people he cares for, that anger and pride are dangerous. He also quickly gets over his endearing squeamishness about ripping arms off androids or gunning down goons. Struggling to get out here is an idea of He-Man as still being the same sensitive twelve-year old – but it’s constantly cancelled out by the film needing He-Man to flex his muscles and skewer goons to the wall. A better film would have given He-Man his powers much later or explicitly have him earn them through demonstrating the qualities the film is pretending its praising (communication, honesty, sensitivity) rather than in his willingness to give a punch a go.

I could probably go on. I enjoyed the film. I did. But it’s sort of observed the arcs of Thor and Thor: Ragnorak, mixed it with some of the charm of Travis Knight’s Bumblebee, but still ended up completely missing the points it’s claiming to be making. And no amount of nostalgia-bait character design or (I can’t believe I’m typing this, even before news leaked he might have the same attitude to women as his character) fun from Leto or charm from Galitzine really makes up the difference.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026)

Charming and likeable Marvel action film with a genuine heart at its centre

Director: Destin Daniel Cretton

Cast: Tom Holland (Peter Parker/Spider-Man), Zendaya (MJ), Sadie Sink (Jean Grey), Jacob Batalon (Ned Leeds), Jon Bernthal (Frank Castle/Punisher), Florence Pugh (Yelena Belova/Black Widow), Tramell Tillman (Bill Metzger), Marisa Tomei (May Parker), Mark Ruffalo (Bruce Banner/Hulk), Michael Mando (Marc Gargan/Scorpion), Naomi Watts (EV), Oliva Booth-Ford (Sara Grey)

It’s been four years since Spider-Man: No Way Home and they’ve been tough for Peter Parker (Tom Holland). After the entire world were magically forced to forget him (in order, of course, to save the multiverse!), Parker has spent those years dedicated to the idea that with ‘great power comes great responsibility’. While also obsessively maintaining his anonymity to avoid anyone being put at risk by knowing him, his only contact with former girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) and best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon) via cyber-stalking. He’s terribly lonely beneath his wise-cracking cheeriness. Peter’s life starts to shake up when his spider powers begin to alarmingly mutate and grow in strength just as a mysterious antagonist (Sadie Sink) with the power to control minds and an agenda against the government Department of Damage Control pops up.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is in many ways a very hard reset of the MCU’s Spider-Man. Before this, the friendly-neighbourhood spider-man was awash with friends who knew exactly who he was. He lived in comfort and had the backing of Tony Stark’s unlimited cheque book. Brand New Day takes him closer to the classic image: low on resources, lives in a beat-up apartment, fights crime on the streets of New York, has no friends and relies on his own ingenuity to build his equipment. It really is a Brand New Day.

It also gives a great opportunity for Tom Holland to flex his muscles (in more ways than one). Holland is as witty, charming, sweet and decent as ever, but his new isolated Spider-man is sadder, more maladjusted and awkward and (above all) deeply and desperately lonely. He talks endlessly to an AI companion, chats with friendly professionalism to cops he works with, dodges any chit-chat from his neighbours and seems to do nothing but fight crime. Holland is really good at showing the fractured, desperate loneliness Peter is feeling under his enthusiasm. These feelings come pouring out of him as he sits endlessly re-watching Ned’s Instagram live-streams or assures anyone who asks that he’s absolutely fine.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is also very endearing because Holland and Zendaya are extremely likeable, very talented actors you easily invest in. It’s very hard in Brand New Day not to want Peter to tell MJ everything and for her memories to come flooding back, especially because Zendaya is very good at subtly implying MJ ‘knows’ something is missing in her life but can’t put her finger on it. Not surprisingly they have fabulous chemistry. When the film finally does bring them together, Holland’s sudden pained emotion followed his buttoned-up attempt to hide what he’s feeling is genuinely affecting, as is Zendaya’s polite, honest but uncertain responses.

The compellingly personal story between these highly likeable characters – who we have already followed across three movies – powers the movie’s emotional high spots. As does the equally affecting friendship between Peter and Ned. Perhaps’s Brand New Day’s best sequence just involves the three of these characters and a Lego set, a little touch of normality and simple joy that feels particularly affecting considering how much we’ve seen Peter’s loneliness. (It’s also rather nice that Brand New Day implies at points that the bonds of lifetime friendship may be the strongest love there is).

Brand New Day has a lovely beating heart, which means you can let go the fact it’s probably too long and some of its twists and turns are probably neither twisty or turny (in particular, one character is so clearly not what they seem you’ll be hard pressed not to mutter “that’s the villain” the second they appear). Daniel Dustin Cretton directs with zip, even if he fast cuts some of the action so quickly it actually makes it harder to appreciate the loving work that has clearly gone into the fight choreography.

However, like many of the best MCU films, the antagonist (I choose my words carefully) works because they are a neat commentary on the hero. While Peter – who even when visiting Florence Pugh’s Black Widow in a bath house still wears his facemask – lives in isolation repressing his feelings, Sadie Sink’s mind-controlling mystery character is revealed to be desperately searching for a lost loved one. While Peter feels terrified and stressed by his powers – his head throbbing with his super-senses and disgusted by his new found web-shooting skills – Sink revels in her growing strength. And, unlike Peter burying himself in duty, she is willing to put others at risk to heal herself.

Some of Brand New Day’s best sequences are set around Sink’s ability to ‘jump’ her mind from body-to-body within a 30-foot radius. A huge team of actors and dedicated choreographers play the dozens of people inhabited by Sink’s character, and the body language and physicality of these actors is so expertly done you always know, at any point, exactly who is being controlled in any crowd. Combine that with the jerky movements of people’s bodies as Sink’s mind ‘jumps’ in and out of them, and you’ve got some striking soft-psychological horror (especially as the ‘possessed’ have no memory of their actions) that reminded me of devil-possession drama Fallen.

Sadie Sink is very good as this mysterious character (although her name is now public knowledge), full of pain, loss and anger, desperately chasing a clue whose mysterious nature when revealed is chillingly effective. Brand New Day is also supported with a host of fine MCU cameos, especially Jon Bernthal’s Punisher a gruff, sweary, ends-justify-means contrast to Parker (especially as it hilariously points up Parker’s family-friendly refusal to say any naughty words) who, like our hero, is bottles up his loneliness under a moody exterior that doesn’t invite any questions.

Brand New Day really works however, because in Holland and Zendaya it has two very talented actors, playing hugely likeable characters, going through dilemmas that are very relatable, even if one of them can shoot webs from his wrists. It’s that heart which makes Brand New Day so enjoyable. The stakes are winningly personal, which carries so much more impact than special effects laden nonsense. It’s even brave enough to make its final confrontation three people talking. And you get Spider-Man fighting Ninjas. What’s not to like?

Mayday (2026)

Branagh throws down big time in this unsurprising but fun popcorn buddy action flick

Director: John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein

Cast: Ryan Reynolds (Troy “Assassin” Kelly), Kenneth Branagh (Nikolai Ustinov), Marcin Dorociński (Alexander Volkov), Maria Bakalova (Anna Ustinov), David Morse (Harold Kelly), Clark Johnson (Keith Hardwick), Wendy Crewson (Karen Meadows), Louis Cancelmi (Pete Sanders), Josh Hamilton (Dan Hennessey)

Did anyone have on their 2026 film-bingo card “Kenneth Branagh throws goons around in an action movie”? Saying it’s a big change of pace feels like an understatement, with Branagh confessing in interviews he was delighted to get the opportunity to do something so different. So we get to see the actor most associated with Shakespeare slamming punches and kicks into bad guys and also showing some mean comic chops mixing the banter with Ryan Reynolds.

It’s 1987 and Reynolds is ace American pilot Troy “Assassin” Kelly, shot down over Russia during an off-the-books spy mission. The badly injured Troy wakes up tied to a bed in the home of Nikola Ustinov (Kenneth Branagh). Nikolai is obsessed with all-things-American (“I have not eaten McDonalds but I expect I would find it delicious”), his favourite film is Top Gun which he has seen multiple times on a dodgy bootleg VHS and having an American pilot buddy is his dream. He also, fortunately, is a deadly former KGB operative, willing to help Troy escape his former employers so long as Troy can deliver American passports for Nikolai and his estranged dissident daughter Anna (Maria Bakalova). Cue a buddy road-trip through the dangers of the Soviet Union.

Mayday delivers what you hope it will do: fast-paced, witty entertainment for a Saturday night, with two charismatic actors having a whale of a time bouncing off each other. Reynolds can nearly do this sort of off-the-cuff, improvisational cool in his sleep, expertly making Troy someone wittily cool but also brilliant at his job and deeply caring about his men and (dying) father. Few other actors are as comfortable with the casual quip, the gentle leaning on the fourth wall or leave us in no doubt about his competence even while he spends most of the film floundering out of his depth, limping around and bleating in limited Russian.

Reynolds is undeniable funny and charismatic, but he generously gifts much of the finest moments to Branagh. Covered with a Grizzily Adams beard (obviously referenced by Reynolds), Branagh’s under-appreciated gift for comedy is utilised to superb effect. He makes Dimitri hilariously endearing in his naive thrill at his American guest, or the dry enthusiasm he gives to subjects as diverse as McDonalds, Springsteen and Tom Cruise. But he’s also equally deadpan when discussing every single element of espionage spycraft, commenting on events around him (from fights to lovemaking) with a hilarious matter-of-fact laconic bluntness. Branagh’s sensitive eyes also show the vulnerability of a lonely man, plagued with guilt for his failures as a father.

And Branagh, it seems, can throw down. Mayday gives him multiple opportunities for impressively choreographed fights. From a bar-room brawl that uses snooker cues, bottles, arrows and anything else to hand to a machine-gun grabbing train dust-up to using everything from pens to seatbelts in various other fights. Mayday races from entertaining set-piece to entertaining set-piece, after its initial misdirection opening which suggests we might be in for a sort of lightweight Misery with Reynolds as a bed-strapped Jimmy Caan and Branagh as a genial Kathy Bates.

It’s all so entertaining and snaps along so pacily in just over 90 minutes, well-assembled with a witty series of shots and edits by directors John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein that it almost doesn’t matter that the film truthfully has very little in it that is truly new. In fact, with its 1980s setting, it almost adds to the fun that this feels like a meta-riff on half a dozen other 80s buddy movies with Reynolds and Branagh playfully swopping the roles of Maverick and Goose between them depending on the situation. All of the film scenes could have been merrily ripped out of a studio rolodex of set pieces and character riffs, that sort of stuff that has powered hundreds of films before.

There are a few riffs on the distrust and flaws in both systems either side of the Cold War. Nikolai may love America and be deeply ashamed of the brutality of his own system, but he’s fairly clear-eyed that both sides are willing to push a propaganda view of the other. Troy, a firm believer that America is generally flawless and the USSR unquestionably wrong, has his viewpoint challenged throughout – from discovering his government’s sense of right and wrong is far from perfect to finding not all Russians are brainwashed commie fanatics. The villain – a smug Marcin Dorociński doing a lot with not a lot on paper – plans to use events to shatter Gorbachev’s Glasnost, leaving Troy in the unusual position of helping the system he started the film convinced was terrible.

But really Mayday is all about having good fun. And that’s generally what I had when watching it. It’s all familiar and, aside from the novelty of seeing Branagh do it, there isn’t much in its comedy, action, car chase or fighter pilot antics you’ve not seen before. It skirts around more hard-hitting stuff, such as the fraught relationship between Nikolai and his daughter – largely resolved through an off-screen conversation. The most daring thing in it goes largely unspoken: Reynold’s character is a hotshot fighter pilot at least in his forties with no girlfriend or partner, expresses no sexual interest in any woman in the film and has a faultless gaydar – is Reynolds winkingly playing the full subtext of Top Gun here?

Mayday is assembled with real light comic energy, by people who really know what they doing, to put together a film that’s not pretentious, outstays its welcome or trying too hard to anything other than pop a grin on your face. Which you’d be hard-pressed not to have at some point.

For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)

Lusciously shot epic, that feels more like an adventure romance film than the political work the novel was

Director: Sam Wood

Cast: Gary Cooper (Robert Jordan), Ingrid Bergman (Maria), Katina Paxinou (Pilar), Akim Tamiroff (Agustin), Arturo de Cordova (Agustin), Vladimir Sokoloff (Anselmo), Mikhail Rasumny (Rafael), Fortunio Bonanova (Fernando), Eric Feldary (Andres), Joseph Calleia (El Sordo)

“No man is an island entire of itself” is the opening of John Donne’s Meditation XVII in Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions. That’s where the phrase “never seek to know for whom the bell tolls” comes from, and it lies at the heart of Hemingway’s Spanish Civil War novel, where he and hundreds of other like-minded individuals came together to (unsuccessfully) fight Fascism with self-sacrifice for the common good a calling card. After the novel became a hit, it’s not a surprise Hollywood came calling, moulding Hemingway into an expensively mounted blockbuster.

There was no question who would play the lead, stoic American Spanish lecturer and explosives expert Robert Jordan. After all, Gary Cooper was basically Hemingway’s model when he created the character. Ingrid Bergman beat off a string of competitors to play Maria, victim of Fascist assault, now living with partisans in the Spanish hills. Jordan joins these partisans, to blow a critical bridge. But the journey not only throws up romance for Robert and Maria but also troubles with guerilla leader Agustin (Akim Tamiroff), worried the mission will imperil what’s left of his people, and his wife Pilar (Katrina Paxinou) convinced the mission must be carried out.

Sam Wood, described as a near Fascist by Groucho Marx, seems an unlikely directorial choice for a film celebrating a group of Communist guerillas. But the Second World War makes for strange bedfellows. And, in any case, For Whom the Bell Tolls is less interested in politics than Hemingway. In fact, it practically bends over backwards to remove as many references about the political stakes as it can, re-crafting the book into much more of a men-on-a-mission romp, a tragedy-tinged Guns of the Navarone.

It’s a big-budget crowd pleaser, with a handsome, exotic setting beautifully shot by Ray Rennahan, who managed to make the Sierra Nevada mountains pass as the hills of Catalonia. Mix that with the tragic romance between Cooper and Bergman, in a series of beautifully-lit lingering shots, his reserved decency contrasted with her vulnerability and nerves. Interestingly, despite being hand-picked for the role, this is one of Cooper’s dullest performances, the neutered script removing many of the character’s doubts and fears. It’s only at the end, that Cooper is given any amount of real emotional depth to play with (even if it is via a rather forced voiceover), but otherwise Wood’s film crafts Cooper into the epitome of Fedora-wearing masculine toughness and stoic strength.

Ingrid Bergman fairs a little better as the Spanish lady who wins his heart. Unlike the rest of the cast playing Spaniards, Bergman isn’t caked in layers of brown make-up (something that looks particularly awful in Rennahan’s stylish filters), but the script plays up her character’s melodramatic elements. Bergman does her best to lend dramatic weight to this, but Wood’s film keeps pushing her towards tearful outbursts of fear at the possible loss of Jordan. For Whom the Bell Tolls makes a valiant effort at exploring Maria’s tragic background but shies away from the sexuality of the novel (it did after all coin the phrase “the earth moved”). It’s ironic Bergman was desperate to land this role, but now is best remembered for her other (Morocco-based) 1943 role.

What becomes clear the longer you watch For Whom the Bell Tolls is, that for all the handsome visuals and rich scoring of Victor Young, Wood can’t find the sort of poetic, narrative depth the source material demands. Put frankly, the literary and political force of the novel feels lost to him. It’s hard not to compare this to the sort of thematic depth Lean found in the far-less-complex story of Bridge on the River Kwai. It’s telling that what Wood delivers makes Hemingway feel more like a high-brow Alistair MacLean novel. This doesn’t mean For Whom the Bell Tolls isn’t frequently enjoyable: but it does feel Wood mistakes length and sweep for complexity and depth.

The film’s complete shelving of politics plays into this. There are half-hearted attempts to understand where the guerillas are coming from, but its telling that when it comes to atrocities, more screen-time is given to the past excesses of the communists – hurling decent representatives of the old regime off cliffs to their death – rather than the ruthlessness of the fascist oppressors (even though Jordan starts the film shooting a wounded comrade rather than let him fall into the hands of the Francoists). But it’s very possible to watch For Whom the Bell Tolls and not be completely sure when exactly it is set, or what the issues are everyone is fighting about. Can that be what Hemingway had in mind when it came to the screen?

Instead, guerilla drama boils down to questions of guts and character. Akim Tamiroff (Oscar-nominated, like Cooper) gives a fine performance of ambiguous bluster as a guerilla leader who may be concerned about the lives of his men, or may just have completely lost his nerve. Tamiroff is magnificently larger-than-life, with a streak of low-cunning mixed with cowardice. Katrina Paxinou won an Oscar as his wife, the fiercely determined Pilar who deals out romantic device with the same hard-boiled grit that she plans military actions. The guerilla leadership sways between these two throughout, with just enough tension between where they will land.

But For Whom the Bell Tolls remains, at heart, a men-on-a-mission film – something that feels quite reductive considering the passion of where it comes from. Everyone seems to still believe they are actually making a literary statement. The strained sense of self-importance behind the film can make it wearing, and its telling it is at its most engaging and emotionally fulfilling when emersed in action, be that a desperate stand by a group of guerillas in the mountains or the final assault on the bridge, with the heavy cost that brings to the group.

There is another world where For Whom the Bell Tolls could have united its epic scale, military action, doomed romance, passionate humanism and boys-own adventure into something that really coherent and deep, the sort of intellectual epic David Lean would win truckloads of Oscars for 15 years later. But it feels instead torn between echoing the melodramatic sweep of Gone with the Wind with the bravo-filled heroism of Sergeant York. It can’t really square that circle, making it, like the Spanish Civil War, a doomed noble effort. An inadvertent political point, more impactful than any in the film.

Captain Blood (1935)

Errol Flynn buckles swashes in this stirring and exciting pirate adventure

Director: Michael Curtiz

Cast: Errol Flynn (Peter Blood), Olivia de Havilland (Arabella Bishop), Lionel Atwill (Colonel Bishop), Basil Rathbone (Lavasseur), Ross Alexander (Jeremy Pitt), Guy Kibbee (Hagthorpe), Henry Stephenson (Lord Willoughby), Robert Barrat (Wolverstone), Hobart Cavanagh (Dr Bronson), Donald Meek (Dr Whacker), Jessie Ralph (Mrs Barlow), Frank McGlynn Snr (Reverend Ogle), David Torrence (Andrew Baynes), J. Carrol Naish (Cabusac), George Hassell (Governor Steed), Halliwell Hobbes (Sunderland)

Dr Peter Blood (Errol Flynn) is having a bad day. Plucked from his bed to tend to a dying man by close friend Jeremy Pitt (Ross Alexander), he’s arrested. That’s because it’s 1685 and Jeremy and tat dying man are part of Monmouth’s ill-fated rebellion against James II. Blood, Pitt and many others are shipped to Jamaica and sold into slavery. Blood is purchased by the ambitious Colonel Bishop (Lionel Atwill), whose daughter Arabella (Olivia de Havilland) is strangely drawn to the proud slave. Blood struggles to find freedom for his friends, helped by his medical skills successfully treating the governor’s gout, until a fortunate Spanish attack gives them the chance to escape and set up a career as pirates – all while dreaming of one-day clearing their names.

It’s all gist to the swashbuckling mill, in this rip-roaringly entertaining adventure, the first collaboration of Curtiz, Flynn, de Havilland and Rathbone, that would eventually lead to the genre-defining brilliance of The Adventures of Robin Hood. Flynn was essentially plucked from nowhere, taking the part after an asthma-suffering Robert Donat turned it down, coached (or bullied) through the performance by the relentless task-master Curtiz, opposite a de Havilland with less than a handful of credits to her name. Everything pretty much comes together in a celebration of old-school matinee thrills, with a star oozing charisma at its heart.

Because, say what you like about Flynn, if there is star quality they guy had it in spades. Whether that’s swinging by rope from ship to ship, staunchly standing against injustice against Judge Jeffries (shooting off a few cutting one-liners on Jefferies ill-health along the way), defiantly stating he will never be broken when tied to a pole for a lashing or delicately navigating a spikey love-hate relationship with the haughtily playful Arabella, you can’t take your eyes off him. Captain Blood’s dialogue is frequently slightly heightened, but Flynn’s ease with it (which he learned the hard way – Curtiz reshot several earlier sequences later when he had relaxed and got better) lets it sing, as he stands tall and talks of equality and justice.

Captain Blood is in many ways the perfect Flynn vehicle, setting the template for the roles the star would later triumph in: an egalitarian man of nobility and principle, who fights when he must, with determination and never bitterness. Captain Blood uses this to maximum effect, surrounding Flynn with a cast of seasoned pros virtually none of whom were taller than his shoulders (just to make him look even more heroic as he towers above them). This was the guy Hollywood had been waiting for since Douglas Fairbanks, a hale-fellow well-met slice of masculine charm and energy.

He triumphs in a film which is often wordier and plot-heavier than you think. It’s a credit to the relentless energy Curtiz bring to it, that you almost don’t notice it takes nearly an hour before piracy enters this pirate movie, almost half its run time dedicated to Blood’s struggles in Jamaica. It works because the character dynamics are very well-drawn. George Hassell’s slightly pathetic governor, constantly whining about his gout is as entertaining as the two useless doctors (Hobart Cavanagh and Donald Meek) easily bested by Blood’s practical brilliance. Curtiz is also able to lay-on the grim injustice of indentured servitude on Jamaica, embodied by a gigantic mill wheel the prisoners turn round and round, to the constant soundtrack of lashing (it has to be said, Captain Blood does feel a bit awkward, especially today, in its near complete absence of Black slaves).

But you can don’t feel any drag when sequences like Blood’s defiant trial in England or the carefully measured flirtation between him and de Havilland (full of intelligence and allure) is so well done. And then of course, when you get to the piratical antics, it’s well worth the wait. Flynn, as noted, was made for making principled speeches in the nominal role of rebel (these pirates solemnly swear, among other things, never to mistreat a woman). The naval battles – brilliantly assembled from a mix of miniatures, old footage from silent films and studio-bound sets – are quite gripping, full of exploding ships, cannon fire, boardings and frantically energetic sword fights.

That’s almost nothing to the location-shot, shoreline duel among the rocks between Flynn and Rathbone. Basil Rathbone was surely only cast for his ability to fight duels like this – his character, a French pirate captain, is so unnecessary to the plot and turns on Blood for such trivial reasons, it’s hard not to feel it’s been shoe-horned in to give the actor something to do before the swords come out. The duel is full of deathly cut and thrust, with its final shot of Rathbone lying in the sand, the turf washing over his face (it’s no spoiler to say that Hollywood’s finest fencer again loses) beautifully done.

Captain Blood is full of visual style and flair, Curtiz the master-craftsman showing us all how it’s done. The Rembrandt-inspired locations of Stuart England are filled with angular lighting and giant-cast shadows. The camerawork through the mix of studio sets and location footing seamlessly ties locations together. His management of the film perfectly marries the scale of the adventure set-pieces with the elements of character stories that run throughout. It’s a film that manages to be exciting and witty, rollicking adventure and light comedy.

It also helps that it has a host of leading Hollywood character players doing fabulous work. Lionel Atwill is full of pomposity, self-importance and casual, unthinking cruelty as the ambitious Colonel Bishop. Ross Alexander – who tragically died only a year after the film was released – has a fair degree of earnest charisma. Guy Kibbee is hugely entertaining as grouchy Hagthorpe, a stand-out in a parade of crewmen (Frank McGlynn, David Torrance, Forrester Harvey and J Carrol Naish) who fully embrace their concisely written characters. And, of course, Olivia de Havilland is romantic allure itself, determined and independent and more than a match for Flynn.

As is the way with this era of Hollywood, there are several period details that are all over the place (a street light outside Blood’s London home?), with things like coaches and de Havilland’s dresses parachuted in from several decades later. But these little details are almost by-the-by in a film as full of energy, entertainment and excitement as this, a swashbuckler that continues to thrill and delight almost 90 years on.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)

Second-tier Spielberg sequel, one-for-the-money but still entertaining for fans of Dinosaur action

Director: Steven Spielberg

Cast: Jeff Goldblum (Dr Ian Malcolm), Julianne Moore (Dr Sarah Harding), Pete Postlethwaite (Roland Tembo), Arliss Howard (Peter Ludlow), Richard Attenborough (Dr John Hammond), Vince Vaughn (Nick Van Owen), Vanessa Lee Chester (Kelly Curtis), Peter Stormare (Dieter Stark), Harvey Jason (Ajay Sidhu), Richard Schiff (Eddie Carr)

Sometimes I wonder if Spielberg even remembers he directed The Lost World. I guess he wanted something to ease him back in after a few years off, which came with a nice big pile of cash to set up Dreamworks. There isn’t anything particularly wrong with The Lost World. It just feels from top-to-bottom like something rolled off a production line, largely devoid of any of the spark or magic you associate with the director. It’s like a Spielberg-pastiche and, while still better than several films in the franchise that followed, it’s unlikely to last 65 million years in the mind.

After the disaster of Jurassic Park, turns out there was a Site B. John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) plans to let the dinos there live freely, under observation. But InGen, now led by his greedy nephew Peter Ludlow (Arliss Howard), plans to exploit the dinos for cash. Hammond recruits Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) as part of an island team to build a case for protecting the dinosaurs – having already recruited his Malcolm’s girlfriend Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore). Malcolm high-tails it to the dangerous island to get her back (accidentally dragging his kid Kelly (Vanessa Lee Chester) along), only to find Ludlow also on the island, guided by big game-hunter Roland Tempo (Pete Postlethwaite) to capture dinosaurs. Soon “oohs” and “aahhs” turn to “arragghhs!”.

It was adapted pretty much in name only from Michael Chrichton’s Jurassic Park sequel – in fact, several of its most memorable scenes (such as Stormare’s character being munched by compeys, or its child-attacked-on-a-beach opening) are in fact unused material from Chrichton’s first book. The film feels like a wall where a collection of fun-sounding ideas have been chucked to see what it sticks, right down to the sudden gear-change final act with a T-Rex causing havoc in the streets of San Diego. To make this work, major characters consistently make sudden, contradictory or flat-out-stupid decisions, or abruptly disappear once their plot function has been served.

In fact, it’s basically a film of set-pieces with a very, very thinly plotted through-line. The main beats are either thuddingly obvious (can Malcolm bond with his kid?) or get completely lost (the very-lightly sketched non-intervention plans that kickstart the film quickly get dropped completely). What’s important instead is that this is a series of chases against dangerous dinos, with the T-Rex and the velociraptors playing narrative tag between them as flesh-eating antagonists with various (mostly unsympathetic) humans filling out their lunchboxes.

Spielberg is still Spielberg though, so when he gets into a set-piece it tends to be a good one. The T-Rex assault on our heroes caravan base (in a particularly great Spielberg touch, Moore finds herself on a slowly cracking glass windscreen with a deadly drop below) is genuinely exciting – and, in the fate of Richard Schiff’s luckless team mate, genuinely a bit sad. The rag-tag remains of both parties desperately trying to escape the island gives us exciting T-Rex attacks, Stormare (as slimily detestable as only he can be) eaten by a hundred compeys is well-executed and, finally, a brilliantly conceived sequence of raptors ploughing like torpedoes through a forest of long grass to pluck off stragglers is really striking, despite being very short.

These sit alongside (admittedly fun) set-pieces that also feel a little silly. The entire final sequence of the T-Rex fits neatly into this, full of cartoonish nonsense (a doghouse hanging by a lead from the T-Rex after a dog is consumed, or a giant pool ball sent rolling down a road in its carnage) as people scream, run about and generally panic as the T-Rex bombards down a busy high street. That’s without even thinking about the silliness that the T-Rex, like Dracula on the Demeter, kills everyone on the ship transporting it (including getting its massive body inside some really tiny rooms, to leave grisly remains like a hand hanging from a wheel) then calmly goes back inside its storage hold and (presumably) locks itself back in again.

But then this is also a film that throws in a chase between three of our leads and a group of velociraptors (which feels narratively its there to kill time while a miscast Vince Vaughan – as an all-action animal rights activist of all things – phones for help) which builds towards the totally absurd sight of a 12-year-old dispatching a velocitator to a spikey death via her gymnastic skills. It really hammers home how wildly the velociraptors’ skills vary: against Postlethwaite’s hunters they are ruthlessly effective; here Moore slows them down with well-aimed roof tiles, a limping Goldblum deters one with a car door and of course, Kelly uses them to show why she should never have been cut from the school sports team.

The Lost World barrels along leaving logic in its wake. Julianne Moore’s Sarah Harding is set-up as an expert on animal-survivalism, but in her first scene is nearly killed by that humble “children’s favourite dinosaur” the Stegosaurus, after startling their baby with her noisy camera (she learns nothing from this about the protectiveness dinosaurs have for their young). She presents a list of strict survival “rules”, all of which she promptly breaks, culminating in walking miles in a shirt soaked in T-Rex blood, after telling us their sense of smell is a superpower. Meanwhile Goldblum’s feelings towards Hammond veer between frustration and deep respect depending on the immediate requirements of the scene.

The film is in fact a parade of characters behaving stupidly and slightly miscast actors. –Moore’s chippy feistiness makes her seem reckless and out-of-her-depth rather than plucky and brave, Goldblum isn’t quite right as action hero (interestingly. I can’t really think of them playing as conventional action adventure roles as this again). As a result, its most compelling character is actually Pete Postlethwaite’s Allan Quartermain-throwback. Postlethwaite is by far the film’s most assured and authoritative performer, makes his character the film’s most professional and logical, and our heroes so frequently look frustratingly smug (and incompetent), that you end up seeing things more from his side. Postlethwaite is greatly missed when he departs the film abruptly before the final act.

That all sounds really harsh doesn’t it? The Lost World may well be very much second tier Spielberg, full of moments that don’t quite work, are very silly or feel half-baked. But despite that, it’s swift, pacey and generally entertaining even when it’s stupid. Because when Spielberg fills a bowl of popcorn, he generally knows just how much butter and salt to add in. It’s never going to be anyone favourite Jurassic Park film, but it’s still going to be good entertainment for a Saturday night.

Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)

Sumptuous silent-epic, full of exciting set pieces that was basically the model for the more famous version

Director: Fred Niblo

Cast: Ramon Novarro (Ben-Hur), Francis X Bushman (Messala), May McAvoy (Esther), Betty Bronson (Mary), Claire McDowell (Miriam), Kathleen Key (Tizah), Carmel Myers (Iras), Nigel de Brulier (Simonides), Mitchell Lewis (Sheik Ilderim), Leo White (Sanballat), Frank Currier (Arrius), Charles Belcher (Balthazar)

Of course, General Lew Wallace’s tombstone historical novel is now best known as the Heston-led, Oscar-winning behemoth Ben-Hur, the self-proclaimed most epic epic ever to arrive on the screens. But it was not the first time this novel had made its way to the screen. Wyler’s film owed a vast amount to this 1925 epic, which inspired so many of its key sequences you’d have to call his version a re-make. This gigantic silent film was itself the second attempt to screen Ben-Hur, but with all the strengths of the 1959 film (namely the set-pieces like that chariot riot) but without some of its weaknesses (its crushing length and heavy-handed self-importance) it’s the better film.

Opening with the birth of Christ, the story is, as always, that of wealthy Jewish noble Judah Ben-Hur (Ramon Novarro) whose old friendship with Roman Messala (Francis X Bushman) collapses into life-long loathing when Messala has Ben-Hur arrested on trumped-up charges and, for good measure, chucks his mother Miriam (Claire McDowell) and sister Tizah (Kathleen Key) into a dungeon. Judah becomes a galley slave until he saves the life of Roman General Arrius (Frank Currier). Adopted as Arrius’ son, Judah returns to Jerusalem for revenge against Messala and to find his missing family. With the best revenge possible being defeating Messala in a deadly chariot race.

Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ is gargantuan in a way only the great silent epics could be. It features huge reconstructions of ancient Jerusalem, crowded with armies of extras – in its opening shots alone, elephants ride through the gigantic gates of the city. Sprawling sets, shot with perfect wide scale to hammer home their size, run throughout the whole film, with the chariot race set a towering grandstand further increased by a skilfully used matte painting. Its set pieces – the naval battle and the chariot race – are both awe-inspiring in their scale, the match of anything in the 1959 film. It’s impossible not to be slightly taken aback by the weight of what it thrown up on screen here.

In this grand-scale, the expressive pose-striking of Ramon Novarro actually feels rather fitting. Particularly as his moments of distraught guilt and fear feels earned, considering the misery of the galleys and the emotion-packed struggle of his family to try and escape unjust arrest. But also, because Novarro has the handsome, matinee-idol looks of a guy you can root for (he replaced George Walsh, who was deemed insufficiently heroic looking). It works because Ben-Hur, for all its ‘Tale of the Christ!’ background, is basically a great big Roman-era soap, an entertainingly, rollicking tale through the turn of the millennium ups-and-downs of a handsome prince who always lands on his feet.

He does so via some truly excellent set-pieces. The naval battle, where Judah wins his freedom, is set on a truly impressive scale. Naval ships crash into each other, soldiers and pirates flood the deck of the flagship. During the battle limbs are hacked off, bodies are skewered and crushed (including one poor soul, tied to the head of the pirate’s ship batting ram, as it ploughs into the Roman flagship) and a newly released Judah escapes the watery doom of the galleys to spray pirate-defying death left, right and centre. It’s a gripping sequence, told on a huge scale.

Even more impressive though is the marvellous chariot race, a sequence so compellingly edited and assembled it not only was essentially used as a shot-for-shot reference in the remake, but its arguably inspired countless race sequences since. From its camera tracking alongside and in front of the racing chariots, low angles that see the chariots racing above, the frantic cutting that keeps momentum flying without ever losing narrative clarity, and the skilful way it keeps returning to Judah and Messala’s very personal battle, its masterfully done. In a nice touch, Judah drives the only white horses meaning we can always spot him. As chariots rip round bends, leaving dust spraying, crash into terrifying pile-ons or leaves competitors mangled and crushed on the track, it’s impossible not to feel impacted by the relentless momentum (certainly Willaim Wyler was – he was one of the assistants working on the sequence).

Away from these dramatic highlights, Ben-Hur remains a soapy, melodramatic tale. The tragic force is dialled up, with Judah’s family suffering for years in a blue-lens-tinged prison, succumbing to leprosy. Bushman’s Messala is devoid of complexity, embracing his role as pantomime villain with relish. Iras (Carmel Myers) bats her eye-lids to seduce both Judah and Messala, playing the two off each other. Its one of two soft-focus romances, that the film frames with unabashed sentimentality. Judah throws himself into a passionate advocacy of the coming of the Lord, the film frequently throwing him into military garb (at the head of a self-funded army to fight the Good Fight) that looks bizarrely like he’s stepped out of Fritz Lang’s Die Nibelungen.

What makes this nonsense work is the film doesn’t take it too seriously and, unlike the 1959 version, doesn’t dwell on it all at great length. However, what it does share with the remake is the reverence for the story of Jesus. Some things never change, and Hollywood worked out an action epic could seem far loftier if it was marketed as “truly the film ever Christian should see!” The Messiah is a frequent just-off-camera figure (just as he would be in 1959), his hand heading into shot to heal the sick or pass a dying Judah some water. The final sequence plays out with the crucifixion front-and-centre and a grieving but rapturous Judah telling us all He will rise again.

Many of the recreations of the Bible – starting with its nativity opening – are filmed in a post-production painted early colour, with the references for the colour clearly being the very best religious art of the Renaissance, most clearly in its beatific Mary complete with halo-like effect. The film returns to these time-and-time again, taking a break from the soap opera to give us worthy shots of the history of Jesus, that look rather like reverent stained-glass windows. It’s all part of adding an important spiritual purpose to the film, to cement it as more important than just sword-and-sandals epic.

In that it’s not dissimilar from the remake. What it does though is manage to wear this slightly lighter and slightly less of an air of bumptious self-importance. Match that with the film’s compelling action highlights and truly stunning scale and you might have a leaner, faster and perhaps just as entertaining version of the story – even if it is in silent and black-and-white. It can certainly claim to be the finest version of Lew Wallace.

The Thief of Bagdad (1924)

Fairbanks swings into action in this grand-scale epic that’s still gloriously entertaining

Director: Raoul Walsh

Cast: Douglas Fairbanks (Ahmed), Snitz Edwards (His associate), Charles Belcher (Holy man), Julanne Johnston (Princess), Anna May Wong (Mongol slave), Sôjin Kamiyama (Mongol prince), Brandon Hurst (Caliph), Tote du Crow (Soothsayer), Noble Johnson (Indian prince)

There was perhaps no bigger star of the silent screen than Douglas Fairbanks. The Thief of Bagdad was his Magnum Opus, lushly filmed (over a year in the making) adaptation of the Arabian Nights into a swashbuckling epic where our bare-chested hero leaps and bounds over every obstacle on his way to heroic glory. It remains wildly entertaining, a pacey thrill ride crammed with excellent stunts and impressive special effects.

Fairbanks is Ahmed, a good-for-nothing thief who disdains the rules, saying ‘What I want, I take’. How can this guy learn a little humility? Perhaps from the sight of a beautiful woman. Ahmed sneaks into the palace (via a magic gravity-defying rope) to filch treasure, falling instantly in love with the Princess (Julanne Johnston). Ahmed passes himself as a Prince to join the suitors looking to win her hand. Among them is the villainous Prince of the Mongols (Sôjin Kamiyama) who plans to conquer Bagdad, with the aide of the Princess’ treacherous slave (Anna May Wong). After he reveals his identity, and is banished, will Ahmed still do everything he can to save the city?

Of course he will! Along the way he’ll perform a parade of stunts and fits of athletic derring-do that helped make Fairbanks a beloved household name. Fairbanks is larger-than-life; in more ways than one, he’s a master of the gesticulating school of silent cinema, throwing his arms up and twisting his body into a series of emotional poses. Here he has the chiselled frame (on display for virtually the whole film) that comes from over a year of running, jumping, climbing and throwing himself through things.

A large part of the fun of The Thief of Bagdad is soaking in Fairbanks’ natural charisma, from his introduction feigning drowsiness at a water fountain to pick pockets, to the magic carpet riding athleticism that ends the film. The film offers a parade of stunts carefully worked out to the minutest detail. A bounds in and out of giant pots. He climbs up ropes and launches himself through windows. He fights monsters and jumps from walls in athletic leaps. He balances precariously on high ledges. Only Buster Keaton rivalled his obsession with showstopping stunts.

It’s not surprising Raoul Walsh’s film sits back and keeps the camera largely in mid-shot so we can soak up all the action. This is massively to the benefit of the enormous sets, brilliantly designed by William Cameron Menzies, which tower up several stories. The mighty buildings and city walls of Bagdad, with its gate looking like a giant gaping maw, are particularly impressive. The city walls constantly have people walking them to confirm what we are looking at is real. The frame stretches to the mighty scope of the film (and of course, Fairbanks’ was hardly designed for the intimacy of the close-up).

The set-piece special effects and sets also bring the more magical Arabian Nights moments to life. A rope, charmed to spring up and suspend itself in mid-air (in actuality an illusion captured by filming upside down, which is almost more impressive when you think of Fairbanks clinging upside down to a rope). A collapsing pot, a cloak of invisibility thrown around Ahmed, magic dust that brings to life your heart’s desire. And, of course, the impressive flying carpet (a steel platform on intricate wires, dangerous enough that it was the last thing filmed). There is a real magic about these practical effects, just as there is something impressive about the real tigers guarding the palace.

The Thief of Bagdad arguably starts slow: our introduction to the thief takes up much of the first thirty minutes and it is nearly an hour before the real meat of the story takes off. Much of the final act sees the thief engaged on an epic quest via a host of locations – caves of fire! An underwater kingdom! A palace in the clouds! – that doesn’t always make a lot of narrative sense, but looks impressive. Of course the real focus is less on the story and more the thrills of Fairbanks jumping through cavernous flames or duelling a series of fierce creatures (which, to be honest, look like the sort of rubbery abominations Doctor Who would spend the 80s tackling).

The story frequently flies by with very little sense. The machinations of the Prince of Mongols (an effectively sinister Sôjin Kamiyama) are not always clear, but certainly threatening enough. The Thief of Bagdad sees this wicked prince’s schemes come to fruition in a surprisingly terrifying palace siege (though it also features such laugh-out-loud ridiculousness as a villainous sidekick stirring boiling oil in a jar the size of a swimming pool). The he film’s most interesting performers are on the side of the villain – Anna May Wong is particularly fine as the duplicitous servant – making their dastardly deeds engaging, even if they are not always logical.

It’s perhaps not surprising that the real villains are played by actual Asian actors, while the heroes are all white Americans playing Asians. But that’s par for Hollywood’s course – and one of those is Noble Johnson virtually ‘whited-up’ as the Prince of India (interestingly the other potential suitor is played by a woman, Mathilde Comont in a fine comedic performance). Julanne Johnstone’s Princess, on the other hand, makes little impact (there must have been very little left to play with when sharing the scene with Fairbanks), with the same true for the rest of the court while Snitz Edwards is a rather uncomfortable stereotype as the thief’s assistant.

There are other dated moments – it’s hard not to imagine that no film today would have its lead character storm into a mosque and announce all its teaching bunkum – while a call to prayer sequence, obeyed by all mid-chase, is awkwardly played for comedy. Other parts must have looked silly at the time, not least Fairbanks’ awkward slow-motion walking when fighting under the sea (no idea how the thief breathes down there). But then you’ll get a daring climb of a giant statue or Fairbanks leaping on a horse and riding through some gorgeously filmed desert at breakneck speed and it’s all fine.

The Thief of Bagdad isn’t trying to be more than entertainment – and its careful ‘show the money’ framing and filming offers very little in the way of cinematic invention (unlike its stunts and cutting-edge special effects). But it’s extremely impressively mounted and very good fun, exactly the sort of rip-roaring entertainment its star made his stock-in-trade.