Best films on the box: Oct 27 - Nov 2

LET LOOSE: Scarlett Johansson stars in her first action hero role in Michael Bay's The Island, screening on TV2 on Tuesday night.

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Top 10 TV picks: Oct 27 - Nov 2

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Film and television critic Philip Wakefield assesses the best movies on offer on the box this week, for Tuesday, October 27 to Monday, November 2.

Tuesday, October 27

The Island
2005, AO, 8.30pm, TV2
Transformers director Michael Bay's first flop borrows heavily from futuristic conspiracy thrillers like Minority Report and Logan’s Run, and is undermined by an execrable ending. But for the most part The Island is an exciting, startling take on genetic engineering that’s worth a look just to see how Scarlett Johansson acquits herself in her first action hero role. Ewan McGregor, Sean Bean and Steve Buscemi co-star.

Wednesday, October 28

The Brave One
2007, AO, 8.30pm, Sky Movies
Arthouse director Neil Jordan (The Good Thief, The Crying Game) lends a stylised grace to the mean streets clichés that are at the heart of this thriller about an intellectual (Jodie Foster) whose infatuation with the world’s safest big city – New York – turns to fear when she and her fiancée are viciously beaten by thugs. She survives - but only by summoning the stranger within, a night stalker in waiting who blows away bad guys because right’s on her side. The first half-hour will blow you away with its suspenseful scene-setting but thereafter The Brave One becomes not just another vigilante movie but one that loses its nerve.

Thursday, October 29

Taken
2008, AO, 8.30pm, Sky Movies
Taken would have been a terrific thriller if it didn’t take so many liberties with reality. Liam Neeson is a fantastic tough-guy hero with heart, a resourceful ex-spy who tries to rescue his estranged, teenage daughter (Lost’s Maggie Grace) from white slave traders who abduct her while she’s in Paris. How he ingeniously tracks her down strains credulity but it’s the extreme, albeit expertly edited, over-the-top action that turns Taken into token escapism.

Friday, October 30

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
2002, PGR, 8.30pm, Sky Movies Greats
Harry Potter II improves immensely on its predecessor, which screens at 6pm. As well as being darker and less episodic, it delivers a more satisfying, smartly paced mix of thrills, suspense and magical special effects. Meanwhile, the latest in the franchise, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, releases here on DVD and Blu-ray on November 18, two weeks ahead of the United States.

Saturday, October 31

The Shining
1980, AO, 8.30pm, TV One
Honey, he’s baaaack! Jack Nicholson’s descent into maniacal overkill took off with this plodding Stanley Kubrick dramatisation of the Stephen King shocker that was more mannered mayhem than edge-of-the-seat exhilaration. Shelley Duvall co-stars.

Scary Movie
2000, AO, 8.30pm, TV2
Keenan Ivory Wayans’ horror spoof is crammed with jokes and expertly mimics the tone of teenage slasher movies like I Know What You Did Last Summer. But it’s also as vapid, monotonously mistakes vulgarity for wit and predictably exploits easy targets - like the torch beam-up-the-nose poke-in-the-eye at The Blair Witch Project.

Evan Almighty
2007, AO. 8.30pm, TV3
The feeble Bruce Almighty begat a sequel in which Steve Carell plays a new-age Noah who builds an ark in suburban Virginia. His newly elected, meticulously groomed congressman’s sanity is questioned when he suddenly sprouts a scruffy beard, starts wearing robes and sandals, and says God (Morgan Freeman) has commanded him to prepare for a flood. Mercifully, Carell’s deft comic prowess, some witty touches and surprisingly robust visual effects stop Evan Almighty from being the godforsaken sequel it might have been.

Scary Movie 3
2003, AO, 10.15pm, TV2
This gag-cum-gaspfest franchise graduates from skewering teenage slasher drivel to higher-concept creepshows like The Sixth Sense, Signs and The Matrix. There’s also a change in director, with Flying High’s David Zucker taking over from Keenan Ivory Wayans.

Kinsey
2004, AO, 10.30pm, TV3
AKA: Everything you wanted to know about Kinsey but were afraid to ask … From Bill Condon, the writer and director of Gods and Monsters, comes a masterful, brilliantly structured dramatisation of Alfred Kinsey’s heroic quest to expose all about human sexuality. Condon’s Gods and Monsters star, Ian McKellen, was his first choice for the lead but it’s hard to imagine anyone conveying the nuances of this difficult, complicated character better than Liam Neeson. Laura Linney and Chris O’Donnell co-star.

Sunday, November 1

The Pacifier
2005, PGR, 8.30pm, TV2
Action star Van Diesel follows in the flat-footed steps of Arnold Schwarzenegger (Kindergarten Cop) and Hulk Hogan (Mr Nanny) to play a Navy SEAL turned babysitter in a kidult comedy directed by Adam Shankman (Hairspray, Bedtime Stories). Lauren Graham (The Gilmore Girls, Evan Almighty), Faith Ford (Murphy Brown) and Brad Garrett (Til Death) co-star. Reno 911! stars/scribes Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant wrote the screenplay.

I Know What You Did Last Summer
1997, AO, 8.30pm, C4
Trashy slasher thriller in the tradition of Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street, about a hook-wielding maniac on the bloodstained trail of four teenagers who covered up the death of a pedestrian they hit while driving drunk. The cast - Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, Freddie Prinze Jr, Anne Heche - have gone on to better days but chances are you won’t know what director Jim Gillespie did next (not a lot, and pretty much the same, with 2005's Venom being his most recent hatchet job).

Monday, November 2

Black Hawk Down
2001, AO, 8.30pm, TV3
Ridley Scott’s to-hell-and-back benchmark about US soldiers under siege in Mogadishu mercilessly captures the madness and horror of killing for a cause. It’s a standard anti-war theme but is artfully dramatised with an intensity and authenticity that makes Scott’s previous crowdpleasers, Gladiator and Hannibal, look like chicken feed. Josh Hartnett, Eric Bana, Ewan McGregor and Orlando Bloom star.