End Credits:
Hail, Caesar!

The Coen Brothers bring us their latest offering Hail, Caesar! this week. Set in the glitz and glam of 50s Hollywood it’s unsurprisingly both stylish and hilarious. When the star of a movie studio’s major new film is abducted, production is halted and fixer and head of production Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) must find his star and keep the scandal quiet. Getting to watch some of today’s most recognisable faces such as George Clooney, Scarlett Johansson, and Channing Tatum riff on characters from golden era classics is as much fun as the actors seemed to have filming them. Other A-list talent playing in the behind-the-scenes roles is just as weird and wacky.

About three years ago two movies came out within months of each other about terrorist attacks on the White House – leaving one man on a mission to save the President – and both were dreadful. One of them, White House Down, kind of knew it, went along with it and ended up better for it. The other, Olympus Has Fallen, now has a sequel. London Has Fallen, which in the US has the tagline “prepare for bloody hell”, still takes itself too seriously. Once again Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) must save President Aaron Eckhart from kidnappers during a terrorist attack, only this time on a visit to London. It’s the kind of tacky shlock story you’d expect from a Call of Duty video game, and the absence of hormonal teenagers screaming obscenities at you over the internet doesn’t make it anymore bearable.

Mark Wheeler