Coalitions are rather in vogue at the moment, first from the government and now from the film studios. ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ is the second blockbuster out this year from the collaboration between Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer, the first being the Prince of Persia. The jury is still out on the success of the ‘Con-Dems’, but this reporter has truly made up his mind on the ‘Dis-Bruck’.

The story is very much on the basic side, with a plot that is by no means in the same league as ‘Inception’. In 740 AD, the sorcerer Balthazar (Nick Cage) is an apprentice of Merlin. He and two other apprentices help Merlin battle Morgana le Fay, but due to the betrayal of Horvath (Alfred Molina), one of his apprentices, Merlin is killed. Because of this, Morgana is only trapped, not defeated, and in doing so takes the body of the third apprentice with her. Balthazar then spends the next 1,000 or so years searching for Merlin’s heir who has the power to help him defeat Morgana. The heir turns out to be wet physics nerd Dave Stutler (Jay Baruchel) who has no choice but o be trained in order to defeat Morgana. The plot has little, if no, surprises, and readers of this brief synopsis can likely guess how the rest of the film pans out.

Unusually for Jerry Bruckheimer, who usually charges up his films with high calibre star power, there are only two big names in the cast: Nicholas Cage and Alfred Molina. The effect of these two stars could not have contrasted more. In the past decade, Nicholas Cage has increasingly failed to resurrect the acting talents that won him an Oscar for ‘Leaving Las Vegas’ in 1995, and this film hasn’t helped. His performance is wooden and lacks the depth and slightly oddball, troubled quality that the character desperately calls for. Alfred Molina, on the other hand, plays Horvath extremely well, making him both sinister and believable in a performance that effortlessly steals the light away from the other actors on screen. The other main cast members are new to important big screen roles, and such inexperience is painfully exposed in their performances. Baruchel’s portrayal of Dave as an ordinary boy in extraordinary circumstances comes across as merely wet, whiny and pathetic, while Teresa Palmer, who plays Becky (the love interest) is one of the most pointless heroines of recent times. Palmer’s character adds nothing to the plot and any acting ability she might have is lost in the dire script.

The strength of the film, however, lies in the magic, the effects of which beat those used in the’Harry Potter’ films. All of the spells and enchantments are creatively rendered, making the magical fight scenes a delight to watch. The movie also tries to add depth to the magic by fusing it with science, though this has limited success; it’s difficult to find a scientific explanation for turning a pack of wolves into puppies. However, the depth to the magic doesn’t extend very far and intricate details and histories that could have been added are simply skimmed over. Instead, these are replaced by the inevitable goofy scene of out of control brooms and water, a ‘crowd-pleasing’ moment that impresses none.

Although the magic and special effects are top notch, they can’t save this film from its tediously clunky dialogue and neglected script. The deficiencies in these areas mean the film lacks any shred of tension, clearly a major problem for a supposed action movie. The fights, the chase scenes and the near misses do nothing to thrill the audience or keep them on the edge of their seats because character development is neglected. This bland film utterly fails to live up to its potential, and no amount of CGI that the ‘Dis-Bruck’ coalition try to throw at it can save this mess.

It was not without a measure of trepidation that I made the pilgrimage to the Reading Festival this year. I hadn’t been particularly taken by the headline acts, nor had the extortionately-priced tickets convinced me that the trip would be worth my while; indeed, pitching camp in a boggy quagmire at 8pm on a Wednesday night in the pissing rain did nothing to lift my spirits. Yet, thanks to a (similarly drizzly) Thursday spent in the growing excitement of my friends, a lukewarm flame of anticipation began to flare in my mind, and come Friday had grown into a full-blown restlessness for the start of proceedings.

Half past noon on the opening day brought the unenviable first act, attended by an unusually large crowd on the Festival Republic stage. Our entertainers were the terrible Gaggle, an armour-clad choir of fifteen or twenty warlike women bearing an over-pretentious standard (reading ‘This Is Merely a Distraction from the Inevitable’) and yelling about the mental whirrings of the adolescent fairer sex. Surfer Blood, thankfully, did provide an early-afternoon alleviation from the untenable dross served up by Gaggle, blasting out several memorable tracks from their January debut ‘Astro Coast’, before Girls graced us with gorgeous material from 2009’s simplistically-titled LP, ‘Album’, including their Skeeter Davis cover, ‘The End of the World’. Later in the evening, a furious air-guitar battle ensued during an all-singles set put on by Queens of the Stone Age. Josh Homme, Dean Fertita et al did not disappoint, thrashing out crowd favourites such as ‘No One Knows’ and ‘Go with the Flow’. LCD Soundsystem were similarly upbeat, showcasing James Murphy’s knack for finding a driving dance beat and his Seinfeld-esque talent for witty monologue and lyricism.

The highlight of my Friday, however, was Yeasayer, playing a late-afternoon slot on the NME Stage. A fan of their delightfully experimental second album, ‘Odd Blood’, I was hoping that the danceable New York quintet would keep their audience guessing in a similar manner in their live performances. I wasn’t disappointed – their gig was jam-packed with dreamlike hooks and echoey guitar riffs, one track surreptitiously melting into the next. ‘Wait For The Summer’, from the ‘All Hour Cymbals’ LP, sounded fresh from the Middle East, while the live version of ‘Rome’, with its thumping bass riff, was infectiously funked-up. Of course, the reception for 2010 singles ‘Ambling Alp’ and ‘O.N.E.’ were rapturous, the latter’s reverberating riff accompanied by psychedelic visuals.

Everything Everything kicked off Saturday afternoon in disappointing fashion. My hopes that more of their material would resemble ‘MY KZ, UR BF’ were dashed by a lukewarm live performance, compounded by poorly-balanced sound that amplified the usually pleasantly flighty vocals into a piercing puppy’s yelp. In the afternoon, I was similarly unimpressed by Modest Mouse; my pre-festival scouring of their back catalogue had only yielded a couple of songs that I took to, and, perhaps ‘Tiny Cities Made of Ashes’ aside, their set gave me little more to catch hold of, delivered with minimal effort or flair. Succeeding them on the Main Stage, though, were the captivating Maccabees, Orlando Weeks’s personal charm endearing his band to a big audience almost as much as the beautiful ‘Toothpaste Kisses’ and the more upbeat ‘Can You Give It’. So enamoured was Mr. Weeks with his audience that he treated us all to one or two – as yet nameless – new songs in anticipation of the band’s third album.

Disappointed as I was at substituting the chance to see Villagers for the less poetic (but similarly Mercury-prize nominated) Dizzee Rascal, I was desperate for a decent position to see the ‘official’ reunion show by the Libertines at around half past eight that Saturday evening. The band kicked off – aptly enough, some might say, given the events of the past six years – with a frantic performance of ‘Horrorshow’, and proceeded to storm through such ‘Up the Bracket’ numbers as ‘Vertigo’ and ‘Boys in the Band’. A bleary-eyed, fairly pale but jovial Pete Doherty advised us all to ‘take care of each other out there’ (their set had been briefly stopped at Leeds the night before due to an over-zealous crowd response). Doherty, Barat and co. then followed up a melancholy performance of ‘Music When The Lights Go Out’ with crowd-pleaser ‘Can’t Stand Me Now’. Throughout the gig, the band looked revitalised, enthusiastic and happy to be playing together once again. Their set, like its Leeds counterpart the night before, was not without incident – a power outage within ten minutes of the end caused a two- or three-minute disruption – but the band returned to the stage to finish an unforgettable reunion set with ‘What a Waster’ and ‘I Get Along’, after which all four Libertines embraced each other warmly.

Saturday’s headliner was Arcade Fire, who, despite the positive critical acclaim of current album ‘The Suburbs’, seemed genuinely shocked to be headlining such a prestigious festival: ‘We’ve not even had a hit single,’ Win Butler grumbled incredulously to the masses. As if determined to hold their audience’s attention, the abundant members of the band scurried about the stage, capering wildly under a huge screen displaying artistic looped video clips and special effects. Win, dressed in heavy boots and a military jacket, kicked off with a frenetic performance of ‘Ready To Start’ and soon sang lead on ‘No Cars Go’, from 2007’s ‘Neon Bible’. His wife Régine Chassagne, in a silver sequined dress, gave a mesmerising elegy to her homeland with ‘Haïti’. Tracks played from the new album included ‘The Suburbs’, ‘We Used To Wait’ and ‘Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)’, before the Montreal-based outfit encored with ‘Month of May’ and 2005 single ‘Wake Up’.

A series of some of my favourite up-and-coming acts were due to grace the NME Stage from early Sunday afternoon, yet even with the weak sun finally shining over the arena, the final day was to prove largely anticlimactic. My imaginary award for best rock-‘n’-roll moment at the festival was surely won by The Joy Formidable’s Ritzy Bryan, who thought nothing of smashing her sleek yet chronically faulty electric guitar to pieces at ten to one p.m., after merely the first song. Thankfully, epic, arena-built tracks like ‘The Greatest Light Is The Greatest Shade’ and ‘Austere’ proved the replacement more than worthy of the task. A disappointing Los Campesinos! were succeeded by a spellbinding performance from Wild Beasts – live versions of ‘Hooting and Howling’ and ‘Brave Bulging Buoyant Clairvoyants’ showing off every permutation of Hayden Thorpe’s falsetto. The Drums may have disappointed some fans by not playing ‘Let’s Go Surfing’, but the strength of the rest of the album, combined with their typically camp prancing around, carried the band through. Foals proved to be the final band I watched fully: Yannis Philippakis kept the band’s euphoric fanbase interested via the unconventional means of stage-diving, climbing stage rigging, and daring everyone to sit down. I can’t deny I get an almost irrepressible urge to shout ‘shut up and get on with it’ to pretentious frontmen who demand such logistically challenging acts of their fans; however, I managed to keep my patience with my bearded fellow Oxonian, on the basis of his group’s entrancing recital of the clammy ‘Spanish Sahara’, the buoyant ‘This Orient’ and a nostalgic return to my Year 9 math-rock playlist with ‘Hummer’ and ‘Balloons’.

But despite a very pleasant afternoon, by nine o’clock my evening of live music was effectively over. Equally disinterested by the prospect of headliners Blink-182, Klaxons and British Sea Power, my girlfriend and I found ourselves wandering aimlessly around the arena, before deciding to abort mission back to camp in anticipation of the Sunday night silent disco. And for me, that was the problem with this year’s festival – the dearth of engaging main stage acts. Saturday aside, I approached the prospect of watching the more established bands with apathy. The mix of hugely commercial international acts – premeditated dickheads Guns ‘n’ Roses, kid-rockers Blink with their cringe-worthy live performance, or the overbearing Limp Bizkit and NOFX – with more ‘niche’ but in many cases more talented acts seemed to show a lack of a general direction from the Reading & Leeds organisers and an attempt to please all those who ally themselves under the vague label of ‘rock fan’. Don’t get me wrong, I had an enjoyable experience over the course of the weekend, but next year, a more concerted effort to book a greater variety of main stage acts would be welcome.

It starts so well. ‘They had made a movie about us’. The passivity, the casual glamour, the vague and menacing distrust, the clipped, blank tone: all these are instantly familiar from Bret Easton Ellis’ stunning debut ‘Less Than Zero’. It’s a shame, then, that this sequel, written and staged 25 years after the original, soon falls flat.

Before ‘American Psycho’ established Ellis as a best-seller and agent provocateur in chief, he had made his name with ‘Less Than Zero’, rightly praised as ‘the Catcher in the Rye of the MTV generation’. He shocked readers with his portrayal of the hollowness at the heart of a society in thrall to the superficial. The novel’s narrator, a student called Clay, returns home to Los Angeles for Christmas and gradually finds himself caught up again in a world of dead-eyed privilege, populated by teenagers who, with nothing much to gain or to lose, cruise from event to event searching indiscriminately for drugs or sex. A lethal ennui suffocates the city; little is said, done, or felt.

The pattern repeats itself in ‘Imperial Bedrooms’. Clay, now a successful screenwriter, has flown into Los Angeles from New York to help cast his latest film. Familiar faces dot the party circuit. The descent begins once more. ‘Less Than Zero’ felt like a roving documentary – or, in fact, more like a reality TV show, a chilling forerunner of The Hills (which Clay does actually watch 25 years later). Ellis makes a more concerted effort to shape the narrative of the sequel. As an epigraph from Raymond Chandler hints, the plot is ostensibly a thriller. Early on Clay describes the brutal murder of his friend Julian – a murder Clay is somehow implicated in. The novel loosely sets out to reveal who killed Julian, and why. The reader is soon conscious, however, that an atmosphere of noir paranoia is one of the few devices capable of giving the narrator’s life any sense of direction or linearity. The detail is negligible. In ‘Less Than Zero’ this didn’t matter: the blurred void at the centre of Clay’s life was precisely the point. Here, however, the story struggles under the conceit. It never repays the attention required, as the most satisfying thrillers do.

Fans of Ellis – myself included – might say that the notoriously subversive author is playing with the expectations of genre: the pornographic emptiness of modern life offers no real climax. In truth, it reads more like laziness. The tension of the novel surrounds Rain Turner, an aspiring actress who is sleeping with Clay in the hope of a role in his film. It turns out Rain has been sleeping with almost everyone, and some of Clay’s friends, people who have never encountered a limit in their lives, have taken drastic action. There is manipulation in Hollywood, and privilege can create a vicious narcissism. No reader should be particularly surprised. It’s a far less interesting premise than the listless anomie and casual amorality which made ‘Less Than Zero’ such a powerful assault on convention. In ‘Imperial Bedrooms’ people seek favours from those in power, who in turn abuse their status. If anything, this world is simpler and more obviously codified than that inhabited by the teenagers of ‘Less Than Zero’.

Bret Easton Ellis has shot himself in the foot. If these themes seem tired, it is because he has spent his career telling this story so well. This sequel can’t help, then, but feel gratuitous. ‘Less Than Zero’ needed to be written; Imperial Bedrooms has none of that urgency. We understand the corrosive effects of a society based on manufactured beauty, fame, and wealth. In this novel, Ellis does little more than repeat the point.

That’s not to say ‘Imperial Bedrooms’ is a bad book. It falls well below the author’s high standards but it remains enjoyable. His distinctive minimalist style is still compelling. Clay’s voice is both sinister and naive, a numb tone which infiltrates the reader’s thoughts. At his most incisive few can match Ellis’ ability to skewer modern life. 25 years later, communication is no less stilted or unproductive. Iphones have not changed the fact that the characters are fundamentally egocentric. Text messaging is just another way to stalk, baulk, or simply misread others. The way Clay’s thought is permeated by the language of cinema is another flash of inspiration. Views pan out, people act roles, scenes fade and dissolve. This is not so much the habit of a professional screenwriter as the conditioning of saturation media. There is always a cold distance between act and observation. Perhaps this is why Clay can describe Julian’s murder in such clinical detail, quoting newspaper reports and describing how his Tom Ford suit made the corpse look like a flag. Ellis also has a wonderful eye for description. A brilliantly surreal passage describes the nightmarish face-lift of Clay’s dealer, Rip. In his tranquillised present tense Clay concludes, ‘It’s almost defiantly grotesque’.

The same could well be said for this novel. Bret Easton Ellis appears, for once, to be trying too hard. In an offering to the cult of American Psycho several scenes of degradation attempt to hammer the author’s moral home, but the latent violence of ‘Less Than Zero’, coursing below the surface, was far more effective. The book is stagnant and self-indulgent, revisiting previous characters but adding nothing of value. It is a literary facelift, altering the appearance but not the content. The author has spent his career puncturing the myth of a society obsessed by surfaces, but here he seems to have been consumed by it. This is by-the-numbers Bret Easton Ellis.