Interstellar and Kingsman win big at the Empire Awards

BAFTA chose Boyhood, Golden Globes elected the latter and The Grand Budapest Hotel, Oscars voted for Birdman while our own pick was Guardians of the Galaxy. Empire, a ceremony that brilliantly mashes together the arthouse and the mainstream, has just revealed its recipients. Previous winners of Best Film have included Seven, The Matrix, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Bourne Ultimatum, The Dark Knight, Avatar, Inception, Skyfall and Gravity. For a bit of background on the honorary awards, Hero marks a current contribution to cinema (Simon Pegg, Daniel Radcliffe, Keira Knightley, Michael Fassbender, Jude Law), the Icon/Legend celebrates a lifespan of great work (Brian Cox, Ewan MacGregor, Viggo Mortensen, Ian McKellen, Gary Oldman, Hugh Jackman) and Inspiration is for a modern master filmmaker (Monty Python, Aardman, Pixar, Michael Mann, Ray Harreyhausen, Guillermo Del Toro, Sam Mendes, Ron Howard, Kenneth Branagh, Edgar Wright, Stephen Frears, Spike Lee, Paul Greengrass).

Best Film:

Interstellar
Boyhood
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
The Imitation Game

Best British Film:

Kingsman: The Secret Service
Paddington
The Imitation Game
The Theory of Everything
Under the Skin

Best Director:

Christopher Nolan – Interstellar
Matt Reeves – Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Morten Tyldum – The Imitation Game
Peter Jackson – The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Richard Linklater – Boyhood

Best Actor:

Andy Serkis – Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Benedict Cumberbatch – The Imitation Game
Bradley Cooper – American Sniper
Eddie Redmanye – The Theory of Everything
Richard Armitage – The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Best Actress:

Rosamund Pike – Gone Girl
Alicia Vikander – Ex Machina
Emily Blunt – Edge of Tomorrow
Felicity Jones – The Theory of Everything
Keira Knightley – The Imitation Game

Best Male Newcomer:

Taron Egerton – Kingsman: The Secret Service
Dan Stevens – The Guest
Daniel Huttlestone – Into the Woods
Ellar Coltrane – Boyhood
Jack O’Connell – Unbroken

Best Female Newcomer:

Karen Gillan – Oculus and Guardians of the Galaxy
Carrie Coon – Gone Girl
Essie Davis – The Babadook
Gugu Mbatha Raw – Belle
Sophie Cookson – Kingsman: The Secret Service

Best Comedy:

Paddington
22 Jump Street
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Inbetweeners 2
The Lego Movie

Best Horror:

The Babadook
Annabelle
Oculus
The Guest
Under the Skin

Best Sci-fi/Fantasy:

X-Men: Days of Future Past
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Guardians of the Galaxy
Interstellar
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Best Thriller:

The Imitation Game
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Gone Girl
Kingsman: The Secret Service
Locke

Empire Legend:

Ralph Fiennes (The English Patient, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Schindler’s List, Skyfall)

Empire Hero:

Game of Thrones (Peter Dinklage, Emilia Clarke, Kit Harrington, Lena Headey, Charles Dance, Natalie Dormer, Sean Bean)

Empire Inspiration:

Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight trilogy, The Following, Inception, Insomnia, Interstellar, Memento, The Prestige)

Here’s a few images from the night itself, hosted by James Nesbitt. Guests include: Henry Cavill (Man of Steel), Olga Kurylenko (Quantum of Solace), Jessica Chastain (The Help), Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead), James McAvoy (Atonement), Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter), Reece Shearsmith (A Field in England) and Matt Berry (The IT Crowd).

Review of the Year – The Eleven Best Action Sequences of 2014

Today we celebrate our favourite chases, fights or all out battles of this year. There’s been plenty to choose from so we’ve tried to whittle the numbers down and include a few more out of the box suggestions. We must warn you of spoilers ranging from minor to major taking place in each film mentioned. Enjoy!

11) Zero kills Willem Dafoe – The Grand Budapest Hotel

Our real hero, Zero (newcomer Tony Revolori), comes to the rescue of Ralph Fiennes’ concierge in this mountain-top chase. With director Wes Anderson, screen legend Willem Dafoe plays Adrien Brody’s horrific henchman (who in fact bumps off Jeff Goldblum earlier) flees from the slopes of a monastic village and almost kills the extravagant M Gustave before Zero arrives with a shamefully gleeful kick off the mountain-side.

10) Attack on Cloud Cuckoo Land – The Lego Movie

The year’s undisputed surprise hit shines best in this glorious destruction of Uni-Kitty’s (Alison Brie) sugary-sweet homeland. When Emmett’s (Chris Pratt) attempt at a rousing and heroic speech gets a mixed response from the Master Builders (Morgan Freeman, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Nick Offerman, Charlie Day, Cobie Smulders, Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum), the forces of Lord Business (Will Ferrell), led by passive-aggresive secret agent Bad Cop (Liam Neeson), launch.

9) The final chase – The Two Faces of January

Hossein Amini’s directorial debut concludes in this gorgeously shot chase sequence through Istanbul. The brewing tensions of the potential criminals (Viggo Mortensen and Oscar Isaac) culminate in a pursuit prompted by the secret service arriving on the scene. It wasn’t too surprising though that only one would survive.

8) Tidal waves – Interstellar

Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi passion project Interstellar isn’t strictly an action film and the it’s more overwhelming sequences are in the tremendous emotional gut punches of the later scenes but this phenomenally crafted landing on the first of three planets the crew of Endurance explore. The mountains of Miller’s world are soon revealed to be waves that makes us winder if we can put our lives in the hands of robots before things really get dark with the first of the astronaut’s lives claimed, Doyle (Wes Bentley). Then the science really comes into play when Cooper (Matthew MacConaughey), Amelia Brand (Anne Hathaway) and TARS (Bill Irwin) return to the Endurance to the realisation that Miller died just minutes ago and that Romilly (David Gyasi) has waited twenty years for them.

7) Kyln prison break – Guardians of the Galaxy

When Quill (Chris Pratt), Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and Groot (Vin Diesel) foil Gamora’s (Zoe Saldana) attempts to backstab her master Ronan (Lee Pace), Corpsman Dey (John C Reilly) transports them all to the Kyln, a high security prison dominated by the fearsome warrior Drax (Dave Bautista). To save their own skins they recruit Drax to assist them in their breakout. Groot’s unintentionally adorable sabotage of their efforts seemingly sets them back at square one before a mad scavenger hunt for the Orb (one of the six most dangerous objects in the entire universe) and a prosthetic leg.

6) The second beach assault – Edge of Tomorrow

Edge of Tomorrow’s (besides making Emily Blunt as good an action star as co-star Tom Cruise) greatest achievement is sustaining the thrill of seeing the same battle take place over and over again but this Doug Liman helmed sci-fi hit takes flight in the second incarnation of the Private Ryan-style beach assault as we finally get the just of what’s going on in Cage’s blood. Bonus points for Liman’s excellently executed action.

5) A skirmish of multiple forces – The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

The barrel chase remains the series’ best moment but Peter Jackson turns the stereo to epic in The Defining Chapter’s finale. Thankfully Bilbo (Martin Freeman) and Gandalf are no passengers when these five forces converge on Erebor: the Dwarves (Richard Armitage, Aidan Turner, Dean O’Gorman, Ken Stott, Graham McTavish, James Nesbitt, Billy Connolly), Elves (Evangeline Lilly, Orlando Bloom, Lee Pace), Men (Luke Evans, Ryan Gage, Stephen Fry), Orcs (Manu Bennett) and Eagles.

4) Quicksilver VS the Pentagon – X-Men: Days of Future Past

You may have been wowed by Nightcrawler’s White House raid in the opening of X-Men 2 but new fan favourite Quicksilver (Evan Peters) blows that out of the water. Escapee mutant Erik (Michael Fassbender) and his rescuers Charles (James McAvoy) and Logan (Hugh Jackman) are seemingly doomed at the hands of Pentagon guards until we get a rare view at how Peter Maximoff perceives our slow world. The music, the brilliantly appropriate Time in a Bottle by Jim Croce, is what defines this sequence from Usual Suspects director Bryan Singer.

3) Koba HIJACKS A TANK

We presumed Apes on horses and Serkis’ note perfect Caesar would be the highlight but here Cloverfield’s Matt Reeves creates truly iconic cinema magic with a masterful swivelling shot as lead villain Koba (Toby Kebbell) hijacks a tank, loses control and veers it into the doors of the human fort.

2) “Let Them Fight” – Godzilla

Like all great horror films, Gareth Edwards’ new incarnation of Japan’s greatest legend, Godzilla, built up the tension with style and suspense before a genuinely breathtaking pay off. Descending into San Francisco in the stunning HALO jump set-piece, Ford (Aaron Taylor Johnson) witnesses Godzilla’s power with a mighty fire breath to finish off the MUTOs.

1) Elevating tensions – Captain America: The Winter Soldier

“Before we get started, does anyone want to get out?”

Our number one is Captain America’s finest hour yet. Idealist Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is unphased by the threats of Robert Redford’s new SHIELD head Alexander Pierce and enters a life, soon to the occupied by Brock Romlow (Frank Grillo) nine of his new agents. Eleven enter the elevator and only one leaves: pure action awesomeness.