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A man and his girlfriend are invited to a dinner party hosted by the man's ex and her new husband. Things don't seem right from the go, as the hosts behaviour seems to get stranger as time goes by and more details emerge of the two ex's trouble past. At the party are a number of other guests, none of which are particularly likable or interesting, but the film does an effective job in ramping up the tension. Unfortunately, I found the payoff pretty disappointing, but the build up towards it is smart and effective. The lead, Logan Marshall-Green, who I only remember from Prometheus (where he was shocking), is actually pretty good here, the rest of the cast are forgettable. Not the worst way to spend an hour and forty minutes, would recommend.

Well, it's not a total bore-fest. The director of last year's impressive 'Macbeth', Michael Fassbender, Jeremy Irons, Marion Cotillard, Brendan Gleeson and Michael Kenneth Williams. All these big names make you wonder how they messed this up so badly. There's a good premise in there somewhere, but they inexplicably highlight all the worst aspects of the game; namely the scenes set in the future, instead of focusing on the more interesting of the past time-line. The heavily (and poorly) CGI'ed action feels inconsequential and is poorly shot, and just when you think the film is getting interesting, they jarringly break it up with scenes from the future. Avoid.

Having just watched an excellent Korean thriller (Memories of Murder), I had high hopes for this film. It follows a top secret agent who hunts down and tortures a sadistic killer who murdered the agent's wife. He wants to deliver the ultimate revenge, even it means becoming a monster himself. After this fairly simple plot is established about an hour in, the film then tries to bang it into your head for the rest of the running time with endless scenes of violence, rape and torture. So much so that I was bored with it by the end. The two main characters were flat and one dimensional, nothing about them was explored so instead of actual depth and interesting characters, we're left with an ultimately shallow revenge flick that doesn't really do anything to set itself apart (besides the profound, mindless violence). On a more superficial level, I can't say the film wasn't entertaining, visually it looked great, was well acted for the most part and the action was extremely well directed. That's as far as my admiration for the film went though which is a shame as the film could have been a lot better had they concentrated less on the violence and more on the writing. If you're a fan of Korean cinema, check it out (although I'm sure there are much better films to choose from). Otherwise, you'd probably be better opting for something like Old Boy or Kill Bill instead.