The BBFC consumer advice for Trance, the new film from Danny Boyle, reads: “contains strong bloody violence, gore, sex, nudity and strong language”. That summary will automatically turn off one audience, and cause another to rub its hands together at the prospect of some gleefully disreputable fun. Sadly for the latter viewership, Trance is a very minor work on the Boyle canon. It shares DNA with the much stronger Shallow Grave, but unlike that film the characters are hard to care about, and I found the plot surprisingly predictable.

To say too much about the story would be unfair, as perhaps not everyone will see the big twists coming, but the essential setup is this: auction house employee Simon (James McAvoy) recruits a gang of criminals to help him steal a Goya painting, only for the painting to mysteriously vanish. Believing they have been double crossed, the criminals led by Franck (Vincent Cassel) torture Simon, but when no information is forthcoming, they suspect amnesia, and send him to hypnotherapist Elizabeth (Rosario Dawson), to try and discover where the painting is hidden. From there, events rapidly take Inception-esque twists and turns, as memories reveal long buried secrets.

The big problem with Trance is that the screenplay is inherently superficial. That isn’t necessarily a problem in itself. Oceans Eleven, for instance, is gloriously superficial, but in that film one cares about the characters and the twists are genuinely unexpected. Here the main characters are quite reprehensible for one reason or another, and not in a good way. I say this because it is entirely possible to create a reprehensible character and make the audience sympathise, or at least empathise (Kind Hearts and Coronets for example has a serial killer for a protagonist).

Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, I found the plot predictable. The moment Simon steps into Elizabeth’s office I knew what the big reveal would be. This knowledge certainly blunted my enjoyment of what is admittedly a stylish, slickly directed, reasonably well-acted piece.

There is a sort-of moral (“no work of art is worth a human life”), and themes of obsession and revenge crop up, but they aren’t seriously explored. After all, this is hardly a cautionary tale. It’s a deliberately lurid, trashy, gruesome tale of criminals turning on one another once they’ve got away with a daring heist – often amid a hypnotherapy landscape that blurs fantasy and reality.

And it isn’t much cop.

“You don’t know Jack” runs the tagline for Bryan Singer’s take on Jack and the Beanstalk. Neither, it seems, do critics. The decidedly sniffy notices given to this film are extremely unfair. Jack the Giant Slayer is a hugely satisfying adventure romp for all the family that sadly seems to have died at the box office (in the US at least). If you’re looking for an uncomplicated, action-packed spectacle with brave, likeable heroes, hissable villains and huge giants, this really hits the spot. Fee Fi Ho Hum it ain’t.

The plot follows the fairy tale to a point, with Jack (Nicholas Hoult) trading a horse (instead of a cow) for mystical beans that end up producing a massive beanstalk. However, added into the mix is a love story with Princess Isabelle (Eleanor Tomlinson), who ends up a prisoner of the giants at the top of the beanstalk. The King (Ian McShane) lets Jack attempt a rescue with his knights, alongside their commander Elmont (Ewan McGregor) and the villainous Roderick (Stanley Tucci), who has his own agenda for making contact with the giants.

Really I’m at a loss to understand why people haven’t taken to this film. It has a sharp, witty screenplay with fine performances from the appealing leads and supporting cast (McGregor in particular is great fun). Special effects are tremendous, and John Ottman contributes an appropriately old-fashioned, rousing music score. (MINOR SPOILER AHEAD) The final act will satisfy the inner eight-year old in everyone, with a cracking castle under siege that roars to life in a melee of throwing star windmills, hurled burning trees, machine-gun type bow and arrow devices, grappling hooks, battering rams and one or two hugely inventive ways of despatching those pesky giants. The final coda is also very clever.

If I had to pick nits, I’d say the prologue, where the history of the giants is recounted, doesn’t work quite as well as a similar prologue in Hellboy II: The Golden Army. This is because Singer chose to use deliberately unfinished CGI to stylise the sequence, but I would have preferred either hand drawn animation or stop motion. Still, that’s a minor nit.

As expected, old fashioned virtues of courage and loyalty are extolled, alongside an implied but clear message that everyone is here for a reason and has a destiny to fulfil. There is also a fascinating, perhaps unintended parallel with Christian spiritual warfare, in the Ephesians 6-esque idea that between Heaven and Earth reside principalities and powers of the air (so to speak) that threaten mankind. This idea has always been present in the original fairytale, but is brought to the fore here with explicit references to God, Christian beliefs and prayer.

Jack the Giant Slayer isn’t going to change the face of cinema, but it’s still a far better addition to the recent canon of fairy tale movies than, say, the anaemic Snow White and the Huntsman. If you want a good bit of adventurous fun, you could do far worse. My eight year old and I both left the cinema with huge grins on our faces.

One final point: see it in 3D if you can. It’s worth it for a single, amazing shot where a character flees in the foreground whilst a giant lurks in the background, before pounding towards his prey, scooping him up, and moving his face towards the camera until his eye appears be right next to the viewer’s face.

Sam Raimi’s long awaited Wizard of Oz prequel is neither great nor powerful. In fact, Oz the Overlong and Mediocre might be a better title. Perhaps that’s a little harsh. It’s certainly not a terrible film, but it is a very, very average one, and doesn’t really generate any sense of magic in spite of some truly magnificent special effects.

Because the 1939 film is such a cinematic sacred text, Raimi arguably had the dice loaded against him from the start. For copyright reasons he could only use elements originating in L Frank Baum’s books, which means no ruby slippers or the phrase “pay no attention to that man behind the curtain”. He even had to ensure he didn’t use the particular green hue used for the Wicked Witch of the West. To be fair, a Wizard of Oz prequel is certainly a better proposition than, say, an ET prequel. Indeed, a 1985 sequel, Return to Oz, is actually a hugely underrated (and deliciously scary) gem of a film. However, it would take an act of God to top the original, and Raimi knew this. Instead, he tries in his film to make a very affectionate tribute/reboot – Oz Begins, if you will.

Taking its visual cues from the classic film, Oz the Great and Powerful opens in monochrome, in Academy aspect ratio. Once con-artist magician Oscar (James Franco) is transported to Oz via tornado in a hot air balloon, the screen widens and the images turn to colour. At first, Oscar thinks he’s fallen on his feet as he is hailed as King of Oz by witch sisters Theodora (Mila Kunis) and Evanora (Rachel Weisz). But it turns out he first has to defeat a wicked witch.

The familiar iconic Oz imagery is present and correct, from the Emerald City to the Yellow Brick Road. Glinda (Michelle Williams), the munchkins and flying baboons are back too. New characters include good flying monkey Finley (Zach Braff) and China Doll (Joey King). As with most Sam Raimi films, there are also cameos from his brother Ted and the legendary Bruce Campbell. On the whole performances are perfectly fine, and Franco makes a good fist of adding a degree of charm to his essentially unsympathetic character.

The problem – and it’s a big one – is the screenplay. Somehow in spite of astonishing visual effects and spectacularly colourful vistas, not to mention old-school, poke-in-the-eye use of 3D, the film manages to fall flat. It lacks the light touch that made the 1939 film so remarkable. The opening black and white section shows promise, especially in a devastatingly poignant moment where a crippled girl asks Oscar to heal her (believing him to be a genuine magician). Once he gets over the rainbow, Oscar meets the Oz version of the same girl (China Doll), along with other characters that are equivalent to those left behind in Kansas, in keeping with the original film. However predictability, not enough humour, an uneven tone and a bloated running time extinguishes any genuine magic the film might have had.

On a moral/spiritual note, this does have a couple of worthwhile things to say. Specifically, it is critical of Oscar’s cavalier attitudes to women, yet also essentially redemptive in that it demonstrates how even a morally corrupted liar can find his destiny by doing the right thing. More interestingly, it also shows that sometimes careless actions have long term consequences regardless of any attempts to make amends.

Unfortunately, these ideas aren’t felt as keenly as they might have been with a sharper, wittier, leaner screenplay. Consequently Oz the Great and Powerful is ultimately a noble, well-directed failure.

If Side Effects proves to be Steven Soderbergh’s swansong, as he has claimed, then he’s going out on a high. This tangled web of drugs and deception is a cracking thriller in the Hitchcockian tradition, though I’m loathe to say exactly which Hitchcock films it borrows from for fear of spoiling the plot.

The most I can say is that it centres around depressed Emily Taylor (Rooney Mara), who has waited four years for her husband Martin (Channing Tatum) to be released from prison following his conviction on an insider trading charge. But after his release, Emily’s depression gets worse. Her doctor Jonathan Banks (Jude Law) prescribes an anti-depressant which is known to have peculiar side effects and… No, that’s all I can say.

Performances are all good, not just from Mara and Law but also Catherine Zeta Jones, who pops up too as Emily’s former doctor. Soderbergh directs with a cold, clinical precision that suits the subject matter – including a memorable opening and closing shot, and a couple of odd angles that provide interesting narrative clues. Scott Z Burns screenplay is a well-judged mixture of thriller tropes, with plenty of twists, red herrings and one or two surprisingly shocking moments. It’s worth adding the usual warnings about sex, violence and bad language – though I’d argue nothing was gratuitous.

On a moral/spiritual note this eschews any kind of big message, though it flirts with themes of greed as well as satire on the pharmaceutical testing business. Ultimately more film noir staples of deception and revenge become apparent, and again it’s difficult to say more without spoiling the plot.

In short, if you enjoy a grown-up twisty-turny potboiler then Side Effects fits the bill pretty well.

Stoker is the first English language offering from Korean director Chan wook-Park, who is perhaps best known for the brilliant and thrillingly distasteful Oldboy. Despite the deliberate allusion to Bram Stoker, this is not a film about vampires, but there are nevertheless parallels to that classic story in this intelligent, gripping and twisted slice of horror. Those who prefer scantily clad girls being chased by maniacs with chainsaws need not apply.

The plot is essentially a very, very warped variation on Hitchcock’s classic Shadow of a Doubt. Following the death of her father, India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska) and her mother Evelyn (Nicole Kidman) allow their enigmatic Uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode) to stay with them for a time. India becomes suspicious of Charlie since he is such an unknown quantity, whilst Eveyln seems oblivious to his increasingly creepy and suspicious behaviour. Gradually they both develop an infatuation with him, which escalates into all manner of disturbing shenanigans.

Chan wook-Park’s compositions are always interesting, especially in one transition where a close shot of Nicole Kidman’s hair elegantly morphs into an overhead shot of a field of long grass. However, the entire film is dripping with Freudian clichés with everything from wine to shoes taking on thuddingly obvious symbolism. Spiders crawl up legs, and trips into a dark, cold cellar to put items in the freezer become clear metaphors for various subconscious sexual desires. On the other hand, the film oozes with menace and these clichés are arguably well deployed. Roman Polanski’s Repulsion is another touchstone for the film, especially given India’s phobia of physical contact.

Obviously Stoker is not for the faint of heart. Whilst it is generally restrained and subtle, there are still enough splashes of shocking bloody violence, swearing and disturbing sexual undertones to warrant warnings for those likely to be offended. On a spiritual level this isn’t great either, as the inherent message seems to be none of us are responsible for our actions, because we can’t help who we are. To be fair, there are perhaps elements of generational curses and other Biblical themes that can be read into this, but that’s a bit of a stretch.

All that said Stoker is well put together with fine performances and good direction. Not one for those craving obvious, jump-out-of-your-skin, he’s-behind-you scares, but one for those who enjoy brainy, psychological horror.

Richard Gere is a much underrated performer. True, he has starred in some utter rubbish, but he has a much greater range than people give him credit for. His role in writer/director Nicholas Jareki’s Arbitrage ranks alongside films such as Primal Fear, Internal Affairs, and Brooklyn’s Finest as vintage Gere.

As troubled hedge fund magnate Robert Miller, Gere doesn’t exactly mine new ground in this pseudo-Faustian tale of gaining the world but losing one’s soul. However, his performance raises the film well above average. The plot involves Miller trying to cover up his involvement in a fatal car crash that occurs just as he is trying to sell his company; a deal that involves illegal accounting shenanigans that could easily end up with him being charged with fraud. As an increasingly intricate web of lies is spun, Miller seems to find a way out of his predicament, but the cost could well be those nearest to him.

Gere is well supported by the likes of Susan Sarandon, Brit Marling, Nate Parker and Tim Roth. Furthermore, Jareki has crafted a gripping piece of work that doesn’t rely on an intricate knowledge of the money markets, but plays on the universal human tendency to lie and cover up. Themes of greed are nothing new, but with recent economic problems still very much in the public consciousness, the film is also as good an example as I can think of lately proving the Biblical adage that the love of money is the root of all evil.

In short, whilst Arbitrage occupies similar territory to the recent Margin Call and less recent films like Wall Street, it still feels fresh and dramatic, thanks largely to Richard Gere’s excellent performance.