A month in film: May

A lead up of things to come this action-packed summer, May has been a severe anti-climax.

As the Cannes Film Festival kicks off in France, here we have been subjected to well established filmmakers tarnishing their seemingly perfect reputations.

They have relied on their own previous work to sell tickets and see them through this uninspiring spring period.

British horror director Neil Marshall's attempt at action cinema with Doomsday is quite frankly embarrassing.

Focusing his whole attention and budget on explosions and action sequences rather than an actual plot, his intentions of making an over the top but watchable film are unsuccessful.

Strung together through a series of disjointed action sequences which take themselves too seriously, some tongue in cheek is desperately required.

A supposed homage to countless amounts of other action movies there is nothing original worth watching here.

Similarly the sold out Wachowski brothers, with their Matrix days far behind them, have desperately attempted to reach out to a new child demographic with Speed Racer.

Immediate visuals are stunning but before long the repetitive structure becomes too apparent.

A film cannot be carried by its extraordinary design level it still needs an engaging plot and empathetic characters, which is definitely lacking here.

But the biggest let down this month has to go to Spielberg and Lucas' Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

the legacy of the Indiana Jones trilogy is one which the most successful filmmaker of all time himself could not live up to.

Ben Lamb

Completely missing out on the spirit of adventure it seems the cast and crew had a fun time making it, which in turn completely left out their audience.

This sequel does nothing to enhance or add to the original trilogy and has put a dent in our fond memories of it.

It seems the legacy of the Indiana Jones trilogy is one which the most successful filmmaker of all time himself could not live up to.

Although all is not lost as Iron Man is the underdog of the month.

In a time of endless clichéd comic book adaptations this is a cut above most.

With Robert Downey Junior finally appealing to a mass audience he is the new unsung hero of the blockbuster film, a force to be reckoned with.

Some decent characterisation twinned with mind blowing special effects that do not completely get in the way of proceedings Iron Man is a must see, in fact by saving this month from being a complete disaster it is the only one to see.

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