Dune: Part Two (2024)

Almost ridiculously epic and far too long, this second part of the Frank Herbert sci-fi adaptation is again directed by Denis Villeneuve.

Paul Atreides unites with the Fremen people of Arrakis to wage war on House Harkonnen. 

There are too many shots of Zendaya scowling at Timothée Chalamet.

It’s visually stunning but also quite ponderous in places.

The Deer Hunter (1978)

A gripping and disturbing war drama directed by Michael Cimino.

Three Slavic-American friends (Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken and John Savage) find their simple, low-key lives are shattered after they are shipped off to fight in Vietnam. 

Brilliantly, the film establishes a long set-up in their hometown. You get to know the characters and their context. The war segment is merely the second part of the film. The third part then deals with what happens after they come home – the emotional fall-out of everything they've experienced.

Meryl Streep is excellent as a companion from their pre-war existence. De Niro and Walken are at their very best: highly convincing as young men under unbearable pressures. There's a strong anti-war message, handled with subtlety, but it seems to be primarily a story about friendship and the strength of the human soul.

The Russian roulette sequences won't be quickly forgotten.

True Romance (1993)

Written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Tony Scott, this is a mini-masterpiece that defies genre categorisation. 

Clarence (Christian Slater) and Alabama (Patricia Arquette) meet and experience love at first sight. But in attempting to flee the dangerous underworld contacts Alabama was mixed up with, they inherit a suitcase of cocaine and become associated with lethal gangsters (intimidatingly played by Gary Oldman, Christopher Walken and James Gandolfini).

The film cleverly works as both a sort of fairytale (the “true romance” of the title) and also as an absolutely brutal crime thriller. This uneasy combination gives it a fresh energy. Tarantino's usual preoccupations are evident, with martial arts, comic books, and Elvis Presley all figuring notably in the plot.

Slater is excellent – like a young Jack Nicholson, in terms of his charisma. Arquette is also superb, and the chemistry between the pair is unmistakable.

Perhaps most striking of all is Hans Zimmer’s beautiful soundtrack.

Eddie the Eagle (2016)

Good-natured comedy-drama telling the true story of Michael “Eddie” Edwards, a British ski jumper who represented his country at the 1988 Winter Olympics. 

Taron Egerton is endearing as the well-meaning, socially awkward anti-hero, who became an unlikely star despite – or because of – the fact that he came last. 

Hugh Jackman is his coach, a surprisingly wholesome alcoholic, and Jo Hartley and Keith Allen play his mother (supportive) and father (repressed). Improbably, Christopher Walken has a brief role too. 

There are funny and poignant moments and the film sidesteps having to deal with any of the more difficult topics it encounters (addiction, social disorders, etc), opting for a more lightweight, frothy approach. An idealised but enjoyable portrait.

Jersey Boys (2014)

Clint Eastwood proves he can do pretty much anything by directing the film of the musical about the lives and careers of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.

It’s an extremely well-told story, with the characters breaking the fourth wall to narrate their history as it’s happening. John Lloyd Young, who was also in the popular stage show, manages to sing with Valli’s distinctive falsetto – a voice that’s both iconic and a little ridiculous. Vincent Piazza plays tough-guy bandmate Tommy DeVito, while Christopher Walken is their gangster friend Gyp DeCarlo – a somewhat romanticised portrait in that you never get to see him do anything nasty (this isn’t a Scorsese film, even if it occasionally reminds you of one). 

It rightly puts the music to the fore, and you are left singing classics such as “Sherry”, “Walk Like a Man” and “December, 1963 (Oh What a Night!)”. The final dancing-in-the-street sequence appears to emulate the curtain-call section of the musical, and is a blast of good-natured cheer.

A View to a Kill (1985)

Roger Moore plays James Bond for the seventh and final time. He looks too old for the role (Q and Moneypenny aren’t getting any younger, either), but despite that it’s a better film than I recalled.

Christopher Walken plays Max Zorin, a demented tycoon who plots to flood and destroy Silicon Valley in order to control the world market in microchips. Grace Jones is his right-hand woman. Unfortunately, she is given almost no dialogue and so spends most of the film merely looking fashionable and angry.

There is a genuinely tense and dramatic finale at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, involving Bond dangling by a rope from an airship, which is not for vertigo sufferers. There’s also a surprisingly brutal scene in which Zorin sprays miners with machine-gun fire while laughing his head off.

Tanya Roberts plays a slightly weedy geologist called Stacey. And Patrick Macnee plays a horse trainer named Sir Godfrey Tibbett.

There are plenty of ridiculous moments, as you’d expect. The most absurd is a motorised iceberg that Bond uses as a boudoir in Siberia. Or maybe it’s when Bond quickly cooks a quiche.

I’m a little saddened that I have now seen all of the films, but at least there’s the forthcoming (much delayed) No Time to Die to look forward to.