Movie reviews: Films to watch when you’re bored

There are few things as boring as being bored. Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said life is a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves, but sometimes it happens.

When the shroud of boredom descends, you develop the attention span of a gnat, time moves backwards and it feels like your natural curiosity packed up and moved to a different town.

Being bored is the opposite of fun, so I made a list of supercharged movies to help you fire up the neurons, tweak the imagination and drop kick boredom into the next century.

1. “Run Lola Run” sees small-time Berlin criminal Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu) and his girlfriend Lola (Franka Potente) race against the clock, and time itself, to come up with 100,000 Deutschmarks they owe to a crime boss. Part love story, part crime drama and part avant-garde exploration of shifting time frames, it’s a movie that engages the senses on all levels. It’s 81 minutes of pure adrenalin, a mix of high concept and breakneck action, that defies the viewer to avert their eyes from the screen.

2. “It Follows” is a hybrid of genres. It’s a scary film through and through, but it’s the dual horror of teenage boredom and ennui coupled with a strange and terrifying supernatural virus that is transmitted sexually. Coming of age and body/mind horror steeped together in an unholy mix and it is an effective brew. An anxiety inducing synthesizer score adds to the atmosphere of unease, making this one of the most unsettling and original horror movies of recent years.

3. Years before he picked up an Oscar for his work in “The Whale,” Brendan Fraser played a scientist on a quest to find out what happened to his missing brother. With his nephew and their mountain guide, he discovers a dangerous lost world in the centre of the Earth. “Journey to the Center of the Earth” is a throwback to the action-adventure movies that used to run on “The Wonderful World of Disney” every Sunday night in the ’60s and ’70s. Jammed with corny jokes — “Haven’t you ever seen a dinosaur before?” asks nephew Sean as a T. Rex chases them. “Not with skin on it!” says Fraser’s character Trevor — and cool phosphorescent birds, vicious man-eating plants and treacherous sea creatures, the approximate thrill level is akin to a boredom-busting amusement park ride.

4. Based on the French graphic novel “Le Transperceneige,” “Snowpiercer” is a nervy actioner in a field crowded with movies that go crash, boom, bang. It’s an unapologetically weird environmental thriller set in a world where all life has been killed off, except for survivors who boarded a globe traversing train called the Snowpiercer. As a new class system emerges, the story keeps the audience off balance for the entirety of its two-hour running time. In the world director Bong Joon-ho creates, surprises are around every corner, characters come and go, but it never feels odd for odd’s sake. The story rips along like a rocket (or thousand car train, if you like), sometimes in several directions at once, but Bong controls the chaos, keeping the story plausible (OK, plausible-ish) and above all, entertaining.

5. Almost any Jason Statham movie. His movies are predictable as heck. “You gotta be kidding me!” you’ll be tempted to say at some of the plot twists, if only the movie’s characters didn’t beat you to it. They are cliché-a-thons, but because Statham understands his audience and persona, his films are dumb good fun. His über-macho presence is more important than the script. As long as he is in motion, running and leaping, kicking and punching, and giving voice to action movie platitudes in his distinctive English rasp, his pictures work and you’ll never be bored.

6. Lastly, “Coffee and Cigarettes” is one movie for those who, for whatever reason, enjoy being bored. It’s not dull by any means, but it is a great hangout film, a movie made up of a series of vignettes where people like RZA, Iggy Pop, Bill Murray and Cate Blanchett drink coffee, smoke cigarettes and converse. It’s funny, engaging and is the perfect companion when you just want some company but are too bored and unmotivated to see real people.