Genesis Rodriguez

With a script by Brad Ingelsby (Out of the Furnace), this thriller has more substance than most, although it's also been compromised by the inclusion of a lot of contrived action mayhem. At its centre, there's a nice exploration of two retirement-age men looking at the world they have created, and how things have changed since they made key decisions as younger men. But director Jaume Collet-Serra (Non-Stop) seems uninterested in these serious themes, and would clearly rather stage another shoot-out or chase instead.

Liam Neeson stars as Jimmy, a lifelong criminal who's now a wheezy husk of his former thrusting self. But he maintains his childhood friendship with Shawn (Ed Harris), who turned his crime empire legit but is having problems keeping his son Danny (Boyd Holbrook) out of trouble. Now Danny has made a dodgy deal with some Albanians, and when that goes predictably wrong, it accidentally puts Jimmy's estranged good-guy son Mike (Joel Kinnaman), his wife (Genesis Rodriguez) and kids in danger. So Jimmy sets out to set things right, although this means that he ends up on opposite sides of the conflict from Shawn. And he and Mike also have to outrun his detective nemesis (Vincent D'Onofrio) and a ruthless assassin (Common).

There's a nice sense of respect and inevitability to the relationship between Jimmy and Shawn that goes a long way in making this overlong movie watchable. Neeson and Harris are terrific at playing men who are too old to be running around with guns. Their quietly tense conversations are by far the most riveting scenes in the film. By comparison, the action sequences feel rather routine: brutal and fast, with flashy editing, outrageous stunts and more firepower than is strictly necessary. And for a man who can barely stand when the film opens, Jimmy is suspiciously able to run, jump, drive and shoot like a trained professional a third his age.

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Fans of bright, flashy things will love this colourful, kinetic animated adventure, although anyone seeking originality or involving characters should probably look elsewhere. This is the first Disney animation based on a Marvel comic book, although they have essentially only retained the title and a vague semi-Asian setting. The result is a film that feels like something you've already seen before, with the usual Disney plot formula, characters and action beats, plus lots of sentimentality. At least it's witty and fast-paced enough to keep us entertained.

The futuristic setting is San Fransokyo, a slightly more Japanese version of San Francisco in which 15-year-old computer-geek orphan Hiro (voiced by Ryan Potter) lives with his Aunt Cass (Maya Rudolph). Both are shaken when Hiro's brother Tadashi dies in an explosion Hiro thinks he might have caused. Then he meets Tadashi's health-care robot invention Baymax (Scott Adsit), a cuddly inflatable creature who just wants to take care of Hiro. He goes along with Hiro's plan to turn him into a fighting machine that helps find the masked man who stole Hiro's microbot invention and actually caused the explosion. Baymax also helps Hiro assemble the Big Hero 6 team, adding Tadashi's nerd-inventor pals: goofy Fred (T.J. Miller), rebellious Go Go (Jamie Chung), nice-guy Wasabi (Damon Wayans Jr.) and girly Honey Lemon (Genesis Rodriguez). Together they set out to stop the villain before he enacts his nefarious plan.

All of this is animated with bright colours and a snappy sense of the technology. There are several exhilarating set-pieces along the way as the young heroes work out their special powers by inventing all sorts of gadgets. But nothing about the script meaningfully deepens these characters. Each person on-screen is essentially one personality trait, while potentially colourful side roles (including Aunt Cass) are left badly undefined. What holds the interest is the superb interaction between Hiro and Baymax, mainly because of the obvious affection between them. And also because Baymax has all of the film's funniest lines.

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Korean filmmaker Kim played with the Western genre before in his wacky 2008 pastiche The Good the Bad the Weird, and this film is just as chaotically uneven, mixing cartoon-style silliness with grisly violence. But the high-energy approach holds our interest, as does Schwarzenegger's immense screen presence in his first starring role since his political career. The film is far too jumbled to hold together, but its sardonic sense of humour makes it a decent guilty pleasure.

Arnie plays Sheriff Owens, who has a quiet routine in his sleepy Arizona-Mexico border town. So when a stranger (Stormare) appears, he sends his deputies (Alexander and Gilford) to investigate. Things get violent quickly, so he deputises a drunken veteran (Santoro) and a moronic gun-nut (Knoxville) to work alongside another deputy (Guzman). What he doesn't yet know is that the baddies are part of an elaborate plan to help a drug kingpin (Noriega) escape from a Law Vegas FBI Agent (Whitaker) and cross the border to freedom in Mexico.

The whizzy plot actually has promise as a straightforward action movie, but Kim throws so much nuttiness at the screen that we can't take anything seriously. The story zings from set-piece to set-piece without much concern for credibility or coherence. It's all very cool, especially the baddie's glimmering, super-fast prototype Corvette, which travels "faster than a chopper" on isolated country roads that are improbably smooth. And his climactic plan to get over the border is astonishingly silly, but played dead straight.

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Ex-cop Nick (Worthington) is only a couple of years into an excessively long prison sentence for stealing a giant diamond from a ruthless jewel magnate (Harris). But he manages to escape, positioning himself on a 21st-floor ledge above a busy Manhattan street. As the crowd gathers and cops (Banks and Burns) come to talk him down, Nick's brother Joey (Bell) and his bendy girlfriend Angie (Rodriguez) are breaking into a nearby building. Basically, it's Nick's last-ditch effort to clear his name.

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