In the latest release from Marvel, the studio that brought you the blockbusters of Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and The Avengers, comes a new team, the Guardians of the Galaxy.

It’s an action packed epic space adventure where American pilot/outlaw hero Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) after stealing a mysterious orb, is hunted down and thrown into an inter-galactic prison.

In order to secure his freedom, Quill reluctantly joins forces with alien bandits. The revenge-driven Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), the deadly and enigmatic Gamora (Zoe Saldana), gun-toting genetically engineered raccoon Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper) and a tree-like humanoid with a limited vocabulary, Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) to form an alliance of misfits known as the Guardians of the Galaxy, and with the all-powerful villain Ronan (Lee Pace) hunting the orb.

When Quill discovers the true power of the orb and the menace it poses to the cosmos, he must do his best to rally his ragtag rivals for a last, desperate stand–with the galaxy’s fate in the balance.

Guardians borrows heavily from adventure film favourites of the past. The stolen relic and chase of Raiders of the Lost Ark the disparate creatures, beings, and arch adversaries of Star Wars stitched together with lots of humour and a soundtrack that while it may be new for some, will be very familiar for those who lived through the 70’s.

As the story unfolds, the bandit’s self centred objectives give way to teamwork, to fight a common enemy and no longer purely for selfish purposes but for a greater good.

Visually it’s a special effects masterpiece. A fast paced, shoot em up action packed adventure with characters and story that are warmly familiar and entertaining. Take the whole family.

Word of advice though, stay for the credits.

In “The Hundred-Foot Journey,” Hassan Kadam (Manish Dayal) has a culinary gift, an innate instinct for food and cooking. Displaced by political unrest in their native India, the Kadam family, led by Papa (Om Puri), set out to make a fresh start in Europe. Fate has them break down in the quaint village of Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val in the south of France. Papa decides this is the ideal place to settle down and open an Indian restaurant, the Maison Mumbai.

Filled with charm, it is both picturesque and elegant. That is, until the chilly chef proprietress of Le Saule Pleureur, a Michelin starred, classical French restaurant run by Madame Mallory (Helen Mirren), gets wind of it.

Her haughty opposition to the new Indian restaurant a hundred feet from her own escalate to all out war between the two establishments. That is until Hassan’s passion for French haute cuisine and for Madame Mallory’s enchanting sous chef, Marguerite (Charlotte Le Bon), combine with his unmistakable, talent blending the very best of their two cultures that even Madame Mallory cannot ignore. At first Madame Mallory’s culinary rival, she eventually recognises Hassan’s gift and takes him under her wing.

There is something to be said for the popularity of both traditional and reality cooking shows that has seen a greater awareness, a greater appreciation for what we eat, particularly the ingredients and preparation. Central to the cast as any of the actors, food plays its role in anchoring the story around culture, creativity, innovation and excellence.

The movie, as the name says, is a journey. A journey through a series of conflicts and resolutions, through ignorance and intolerance. Each time leading to a better place and an ultimate realisation. None are laboured and the momentum is always positive.

There’s romance, a liberal sprinkling of humour and visually, the movie is a feast with each scene a piece of art in itself.

Some may have criticised the movie as predictable, a piece of confection. Few movies these days aren’t predictable. So yes, perhaps it is confection. It looks good, it feels good. It leaves a pleasant taste in your mouth and reminds us while there are cultural divides, with understanding, the more we are different the more we are the same.

Gauging by my session’s applause at the end, many will find this movie to their taste.

The Hundred-Foot Journey
Rating: PG
Cast: Manish Dayal, Helen Mirren, Om Puri, Charlotte Le Bon
Director: Lasse Hallstrom
Running time: 2 hours, 2 minutes

From the moment the lights went down you begin the hilarious journey of Mrs Browns Boys. Unlike the TV show this one is all about Mrs Brown and her fruit and veg stall in Moore Street, Dublin.

Don’t expect a complex plot as it’s not unlike what has been seen before, with Anges Brown having a large tax bill that needs to be sorted or risk loosing her stall.

Plus there is a developer who has a crooked politician in his pocket, and uses Russian thugs to encourage stall holders to sell out or get out.

This movie is a great slapstick comedy with some great moments that will have you laughing so hard your ribs will hurt, even with some of the more predictable moments.

With some blind ninja’s and a barrister with Turrets Syndrome how can you go wrong? It is a bit silly in parts and almost cringe worthy at times, but the well placed comedy that Mrs Brown is known for lets you forget and forgive.

They have even left some of the bloopers in the film, this just enhances the movie and makes you laugh more.

I couldn’t sit still through this movie as I was laughing so hard I was almost falling out of my chair. I truly enjoyed the movie as I do the sitcom.

For all the benefits we gain from modern technology and communications, “Sex Tape” demonstrates the kind of unintended consequences of what just seemed like a good idea at the time.

The ever youthful Cameron Diaz teams with Jason Segal to play Annie and Jay a married couple trying to revive their once copious sex lives, long subdued with the onset marriage, kids, work and the demands of daily life.

Their solution to spice things up in the bedroom, or any other room for that matter, is to make a Sex Tape. Naturally for their own entertainment.

Thanks to the gods of technology that have deemed syncing all of your music, pictures and videos, to all your devices, all of the time, is essential, their personal consumption project quickly boils over into a much wider audience jeopardising their privacy, careers and reputations.

The frantic search to retrieve the video and prevent its wider distribution across the internet, takes the couple to places they would never go and do things they would never do … they’re just that desperate.

If your offended by the frequent use of the F word then this may not be your movie, but after all with a title like Sex Tape you can be assured that having sex, F ing, is the central point around which the plot revolves.

While there’s plenty of coarse dialog about sex, don’t expect a lot of explicit scenes about sex. Apart from a couple of nudie runs, the explicit action is left pretty much to the imagination.

As with any movie where technology is part of the subject material I was worried that being a “techie” I’d be cringing over technical inaccuracies. Thankfully, the movie doesn’t delve too deep and with a basic understanding of the internet, syncing and the cloud, you’ll be good to go. The movie even seems to acknowledge this with one of the best lines in the movie clearly poking fun at technospeak by targeting the “cloud”.

There’s not a roller coaster of great gags and subdued moments, rather a flowing ride with plenty of very funny dialog and visual humour.

I’ve been asked whether it’s more a chick flick? The movie is clever in leveraging stereotypes and portraying most situations from both a man’s and woman’s perspective. In a word, I  think most people will find it entertaining.

The name and reputation of Godzilla as the epitome of the monster genre, precedes this new adaptation of the Godzilla legend. True to legend, your guaranteed that there will be one angry monster that wreaks havoc and destruction wherever it goes.

What we find out though, is that its not wan ten destruction, rather Godzilla is on a quest to restore the natural order of the world, to prevent a pair of much more inherently sinister monsters, that feed on radiation, from mating and spawning across the planet to humankind’s ultimate demise.

It would appear to me that the movie borrows heavily from every piece of disaster footage from news broadcasts and internet vision from the last twenty years. Whether its plane crashes, skyscrapers collapsing, masses running in fear, tsunamis rolling over coastal towns, nuclear plants in meltdown, it all looks eerily familiar.

Don’t expect great dialog or a heavily developed story. The dialog and the people mostly serve to keep you informed on the monster’s progress from its historical Japan, across the Pacific through Hawaii, to their ultimate showdown in San Francisco.

The art of the movie seems to be in its ability to maintain suspense through infrequently getting a good look at the monster protagonists. You know they are out there, unseen, hidden, camouflaged and menacing. There’s an atmosphere of anticipation, of fear and then they’re just there. Humans are powerless, perhaps a metaphor for issues such as nuclear power over which humankind has no guarantee of managing and that in the end, nature will step in to reassert its ultimate control.

You can look for the inner messages and meanings in the movie or you can just treat it as a monster flick, it works either way.