CLOUD ATLAS:

The sprawling adaptation of David Mitchell’s novel has arrived. The Matrix’s Lana and Andy Wachowski and Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run, Perfume) divvied up directorial duties on the novel’s six storylines, which span time and place. In theory it is all supposed to add up into a comment on what it means to be human. And there are moments of beauty, such as Doona Bae’s emotional escape to self-discovery and Ben Whishaw’s writing of romantic love letters. Too often, the quasi-profound message about cosmic interconnectedness is lost amid jump cuts and some ridiculous prosthetics (most controversially the use of ‘yellowface’). Yet despite its flaws, Cloud Atlas remains an engagingly epic spectacle. Extras include a making-of.

BROKEN CITY:

This overwritten and uninvolving thriller revolves around Mark Wahlberg’s disgraced cop-turned-private investigator Billy Taggart, who becomes embroiled in a series of nonsensical twists and convolutions when he agrees to investigate Catherine Zeta-Jones, the wife of the venomous mayor (a scenery chewing Russell Crowe). Subplots involving Taggart’s troubled relationship and his struggle with alcoholism are initially given weighty coverage, only to be inexplicably abandoned. Characters have no emotional depth. Their betrayals and redemptions feel empty. And the Neanderthal machismo and misogyny of the male characters is sad.

DJANGO UNCHAINED:

Quentin Tarantino’s talky, ultra-violent take on the spaghetti western is wildly entertaining. Jamie Foxx is freed slave Django who, under the tutelage of German bounty hunter Schultz (Christoph Waltz, sublime), hatches a scheme to rescue his wife (Kerry Washington) from sadistic plantation owner Calvin Candie (a deliciously devilish Leonardo Di Caprio). The film is brazen, bloody, funny, tense, explosive and superbly acted. It is, in other words, what Tarantino does best: a loud, hyper, visually punchy and juicy spectacle that combines high and low art. But there is something deeply unsettling about a film on slavery that is so slick. Tarantino touches on so many intriguing issues, only to abandon them like a child with ADD. Samuel L. Jackson plays a terrifying Uncle Tom figure; a slave-despising product of the psychological abuses of slavery. However, with comically cantankerous exclamations of “motherfucker!”, Tarantino reduces him to just another outrageous punchline. Extras include soundtrack spot.

ZERO DARK THIRTY:

A harrowing tale imbued with real emotion, Kathryn Bigelow’s political war drama doesn’t attempt to glorify anything. From the devastating opening that plays an audio track of the anguished phone calls of people caught in the World Trade Centre on September 11, to scenes of American interrogators waterboarding prisoners, Bigelow merely presents uncomfortable truths. Jessica Chastain is incredible as Maya, a CIA field operative who becomes the driving force behind the hunt for Osama bin Laden – a search that begins to consume her. Her transformation from reluctant newcomer to isolated obsessive is harrowing. The film beautifully flows through the frustrating nine-year search that’s hindered by bureaucracy, suicide attacks and bad guesswork, Extras include making-of.