My review for TechCentral this week is Conan the Barbarian:

 Under its slick special effects and art direction, Conan is near-incoherent, and for a film with so much violence, surprisingly bloodless. For the all the money that was obviously thrown at this production, there clearly wasn’t budget for a scriptwriter that understood plot and dialogue….

The comparison that seems unavoidable is with HBO’s dark fantasy TV series Game of Thrones, which also features [Jason] Momoa as a nomadic barbarian. Game of Thrones has high stakes and memorable antiheroes, but Conan trades in sloppy contrivances and dull stock characters.

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[Retribution] is the sort of movie that SA filmmakers should make more of rather than throwing tens of millions of rand at expensive and uncertain prospects like Jock and Spud… Shot in just 14 days and financed by the National Film & Video Foundation and private equity, the film illustrates that local filmmakers can make a high-quality product with a minimal budget. No washed-up international stars, no 3D visuals, no crowd scenes — just a decent script, a simple setting and a handful of proven SA actors.

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Rise of the Planet of the Apes has more heart and intelligence than its B-grade premise and awkward title suggest. At its heart, it’s a classic Promethean tale in the mould of Frankenstein. But it has an underlying poignancy in its first half that you don’t often find in a Hollywood blockbuster as it sketches out the relationships between its apes and its humans.

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My Friday review for TechCentral’s After Hours section this week is about the latest Marvel Comics movie, Captain America: The First Avenger.  

Despite the fact that the Captain is one of the less complex and interesting characters in the Marvel universe, director Joe Johnston has fashioned a rollicking, pulpy action film from his origin story.

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