Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One

With the weather looking a bit changeable, we went to the cinema to see Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, the seventh installment in the Mission: Impossible film series.

This story is a direct sequel to Mission: Impossible - Fallout and stars Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, alongside regular IMF sidekicks Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) as well as IMF Director Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny). Also returning are British agent Isla Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), and the shady black market fixer called the White Widow (Vanessa Kirby).

The mission is to recover one part of a cruciform key, trade it to a dealer and then follow him to see where it leads in the hope that they'll get both parts of the key and find out what it opens as their superiors believe it crucial for humanity's survival. If we don't have the key, which they think will give whoever has it, will have control over a mysterious and extremely powerful AI program called "The Entity". They also really don't want it falling into the hands of Gabriel (Esai Morales), a shadowy and somewhat nihilistic enemy from Ethan's past.

Needless to say, nothing goes to plan and when international thief Grace (Hayley Atwell) pickpockets the dealer before the meet and steals one part of the key,we're on board the usuall high quality stunts and special effects rollercoaster that Mission Impossible is famous for. We get car and motorbike chases, a runanway train, a time-limited nuclear bomb disarming, lots of edge of the seat tension and a high body count of thugs and henchmen (mostly).

It's must-see for fans of the franchise and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Can't wait for Part Two. 9/10 😀

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

We went to see Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the fifth installment in the Indiana Jones film series whuich has had a mixed reviews from critics but I'm glad we ignored any of them as it was very much in the mould of the previous movies and very entertaining.

The film's story centres around the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient Greek artifact that we now know is hand-powered orrery and described as the oldest known example of an analogue computer used to predict astronomical positions and eclipses decades in advance. That said, in the movie, it's also called the Dial of Destiny and attributed to Archimedes, an ancient Greek scientist well-known for running around in the buff while shouting "eureka", and supposedly it can be used to reveal the location of time fissures, wormholes through which one could travel back and forward in time.

The tale begins in 1944, near the end of World War II, and the Nazis are plundering arts and treasures as they retreat and pile it all on a train bound for Germany. In steps Indiana (Harrison Ford or at least his CGI-enhanced younger self) as he's heard they have the Spear of Destiny, the weapon with which the Roman centurion Longinus pierced the side of Christ on the cross. Here is also where we first meet this movie's Nazi villain, Dr. Voller (Mads Mikkelson). He and his thugs are also after the Spear.

Without wishing to reveal any spoilers, they also discover the Dial of Destiny on the train and as both Indy and Voller struggle to possess it, it's lost in the scuffle. Then we jump forward 25 years and, as Indy is set to retire, fate steps in as again Voller and his henchmen show up looking for the Dial and so does Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), his old collegue Basil Shaw's (Toby Jones) daughter.

So, we have the hero, the villain and the femme fatale in place and things just go action mad from there on as the two, sometimes three groups vie for possesion of the mystical device.

John Rhys-Davies is back as Sallah as is Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood and, with Denholm Elliot sadly gone, we have a very good replacement geek sidekick in the form of Toby Jones and even Antonio Banderas pops up as a Greek sponge diver.

All I can say is we both enjoyed it. It's a standard Indiana Jones romp and yes, it has some flaws and unlikelihoods but they all do. Yes, pedants, we don't know if Archimedes invented the Antikythera mechanism and maybe you could fly without a passport back then but it's all enjoyable hokum so just sit back and eat the popcorn.

Thoroughly entertaining 9/10 😀

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

After waiting for weeks to go and see this, the weather finally let up and it felt cool enough to go sit in a dark cinema and enjoy it.

 

Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) and rest of the team from the previous movies are back again, with a reborn Gamora (Zoe Saldana), along with her sister Nebula (Karen Gillan), Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), Mantis (Pom Klementieff) and Groot (Vin Diesel) on a rebuilt Knowhere. With Yondu (Michael Rooker) no longer with us, Kraglin (Sean Gunn) takes over his Ravager crew and has inherited his whistle-controlled weapon and Cosmo the Spacedog (Maria Bakalova), who has psionic powers, gets a much larger role. However, this movie is all about Rocket (Bradley Cooper).

Just as the team are settling into the new Knowhere, they're attacked by a super-powered being (Will Poulter) who tries to kidnap Rocket. The team manage to fight him off but Rocket is left seriously injured and he can't be healed normally due to having a killswitch embedded in him and so the tale is all about finding the killswitch override in the place that Rocket was made - Orgocorp. Of course, that's also home to this movie's baddlie, The High Evolutionary (Chuckwudi Iwuji).

During all this, we get Rocket's origin story. How he was modified and enhanced by Orgocorp, and how The High Evolutionary was enraged that Rocket might actually be smarter than he is, so much so, that he wants his brain removed for more experimentation.

So, as before, we get a stonking sound track of mostly retro music tracks and loads of humour woven through the storyline. Peter is pining for the Gamora he lost, Gamora has no memory of Peter, Nebula is still trying to run things, Mantis still has her empathic control thing, Drax is still an idiot and Groot is still "I am Groot!" and it all works brilliantly.

Altogether one of Marvel's better movies and, even though some people are saying it's the end of Guardians of the Galaxy, the closing line does say "Star-Lord will return!"

9/10 😀

 

White Noise

Lorna decided we'd watch something different the other evening so, after some prodding, I gave in and jumped onto Netflix and let her have a trawl through the offerings. She came up with White Noise!

I should have listened to my internal alarms going off as it reminded me of another well-received/highly-awarded movie called Ordinary People and that was excruciatingly boring. But hey-ho, I went with it...to my cost.

It's not that the performances were poor or the cinematography was ropey. No, all of that was fine and the three main characters gave very decent performances. It's the fact that the dialogue is incessant, following an ordinary family of two Americans, Jack and Babette, with four kids. They're both on their fourth marriage, Jack's a college professor specializing in Hitler studies (seriously, only in America), and Babette and the kids are just annoying.

It's billed as an absurdist comedy drama but, while it's certainly absurd, it's no comedy. The plot centres around Babette's unreasonable fear of death and her use of an experimental drug to try and help with that.

Then a cataclysmic train crash casts a cloud of chemical waste over the town causing an "airborne toxic event" that forces a massive evacuation of the town with all the associated panic and huge traffic jams. While this is going on, Jack is trying to find out where Babette is getting her drugs from.

My head was nipping after about 20 minutes so I wouldn't recommend it as entertainment - 4/10 🙁

Quantum Of Solace

We went to see the latest James Bond movie at the weekend - Quantum Of Solace. Despite the odd title, it's the sequel to Casino Royale (the second one) and starts off from where that finished up. If you haven't seen Casino Royale, then I wouldn't read any further but here's a short description of the plot…

With Vesper gone and the mysterious Mr. White captured, the British Secret Service learns that a previously unknown organization called Quantum has insinuated itself into almost every layer of business and government on the planet, including themselves.

When all the evidence points at Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric) as the face of Quantum, Bond (Daniel Craig) goes on a mission of vengeance and even alienates himself from the service and M (Judi Dench).

With Quantum gaining control of seemingly worthless tracts of land around the globe, Bond teams up with a Bolivian girl called Camille (Olga Kurylenko) to try and solve the mystery behind their operation.

The Bond character has definitely changed. Gone is the debonair spy of Connory or Moore's time and in is the licensed thug that is Daniel Craig. Also gone is Q and that is a pity as a visit to the quartermaster always added a little lighter moment to the story. What we have now in these two movies is a much harder, probably more realistic, storyline. There's also a serious lack of sex here as well and, while it was never explicit in previous movies, it was always a given that Bond would get more than his fair share of seduction along the way.

On top of all that there is no really evil arch villain of the piece either. Dominic Greene is more like a corporate leech and he has no huge thug of a henchman to back him up either. He is a pretty cold fish but just lacks that element of seeking global domination that should be the raison d'etre of any Bond villain. Not that all of this is bad, it's just different but it doesn't really seem like a Bond movie so much. To offset this uneasy situation, there's loads of action - roof chases, car chases, boat chases, hand-to-hand fighting, explosions, etc.

Quantum Of Solace is a reasonable sequel to Casino Royale and finished off the story well enough although I suspect they could have squeezed it into one movie easily enough.

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller
My Rating: 7/10

Buying DVDs No Longer Makes Sense

Having recently signed up for a 30 day trial of DVD and games rental site LOVEFiLM, I have to admit that it's a very appealing service and one that will probably change the way we buy and watch DVD movies. They have over 65,000 titles available and you simply build yourself a list of the films you want to see or games you want to play and, based on what rental plan you're on, the discs get mailed to you by first-class post as soon as you have a rental slot available. You can even set the priority of the titles you want to get and you can then keep the disc as long as you want and then mail it back to them in a postage-paid envelope once you're done with it.

I chose the simplest option for the trial - unlimited rentals of one disc at a time, which I thought was enough to try it out and it works out at roughly two films a week assuming that we watch it the day it arrives and return it the next day. Frankly I doubt if we could watch more than that as we really don't want to turn into that kind of couch potato. There are lighter plans available that limit the number of rentals per month and heavier plans of unlimited rentals of up to three discs at a time. You can even add video games onto your rental plan if you want to.

Of course there'll always be discs that we'll want to buy and own for watching again and sometimes again or just for the loads of extras some of them come with but for the most part, once we've watched a disc, it gets stuffed away in a cupboard and will probably never be watched again. We've got over 300 DVDs at home now that adds up to quite a sum of money spent over the last few years. Sure, you can always sell them via eBay or Amazon, etc., and I have done quite a few times, but that's a lot of hassle for very little return and now that there's no Post Office near my work, it's simply not worth the bother.

The one disc at a time plan comes in at just under £10 a month, which equates to roughly £120 a year for about 90 discs and I'm factoring in a fair chunk of holidays there. Now think about how much it'd cost you to buy 90 DVDs and it works out at well over £120 doesn't it? Even if you wait until they're cheaper, say £7 each, then that's a massive £560! If we slowed the watching momentum to one movie a week, which I reckon we'll eventually get to once the novelty wears off a bit, it still works out that we're saving an awful lot of money renting instead of buying.

The only downside I can see to renting is the fact that rental copies often don't contain extra material or extended/director's editions and the discs themselves go through a lot of hands so can get a bit worn out. However, buying DVDs, for me, is now a thing of the past unless it's a very special disc that I simply couldn't rent or one that has enough interesting or entertaining extras on it to make it worth the purchase.

The standard trial period for LOVEFiLM is 14 days but if anyone wants a 30 day trial, then get in touch and I can send you a code for it. It gets me a month's free rental as well so even better!

Wanted

We went to see Wanted on Saturday, after a bit of shopping in town. It was too early to get dinner so we had a coffee and a bun and headed in for an earlier show. Strange to go so early but it certainly was a bit quieter than normal. Probably due to the fact that the film was an 18 certificate and most of the film-goers in the ticket queue were taking their kids to see Kung-Fu Panda or Prince Caspian.

Wanted tells the story of Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy), a downtrodden accountant with a dead-end life. His overbearing boss treats him like crap and he won't stand up to her; he knows his girlfriend is cheating on him with his best friend but he won't do anything about it; his father ran out on him days after he was born; and he gets an anxiety attack at the slightest piece of excitement.

All this changes when he gets caught up in a gunfight at his local drugstore and is abducted by the beautiful Fox (Angelina Jolie) who tells him that his father had just been killed on the roof of an office block and that he was a member of The Fraternity, a secret society of assassins. Fox and her boss Sloan (Morgan Freeman) tell Wesley that a rogue agent is killing the members one by one and that he has the power within him to stop this killer and avenge his father's death. They also tell him that his anxiety attacks are a sign that he is one of them and that his body can operate at a much higher metabolic rate when required.

Wesley eventually accepts his destiny and joins The Fraternity, eschewing his past life, job and girlfriend, but things are not as straightforward as he thinks and perhaps Fate has played him a twisted hand!

Wanted is based on the comic books by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones and as such a certain amount of belief suspension has to be taken for granted. These assassins have what amounts to super powers and they do what they do at the orders of Fate itself. None of how all this is possible is explained so don't try to fathom it out as you never will.

As for the movie, it's a roller-coaster ride of high-speed action that delivers on pretty much everything it tries to be. MacAvoy is excellent as the anxiety-ridden, downtrodden and frustrated office worker character and just as believable as the super-charged assassin he gets turned into. Morgan Freeman is, as ever, the consumate manipulator and Angelina Jolie adds the much needed female touch to this testosterone enriched plot. Not that Fox is anyone's fluffy bunny and she's just as lethal as any of them.

Wanted has been compared to The Matrix and there are parallels between Wesley and Neo and those characters' path from ordinary Joe to super-hero as well as the link between Trinity and Fox. The special effects are very well done and there are some excellent shots of bullets curving through space and colliding in mid air, a traing crashing over a bridge and of course, the exploding rats.

Wanted is a brainless action romp that's very watchable. It has enough pace to keep you wanting to see where it's going and a bit of a twist in the tale as well. Worth catching if you like action movies.

Genre: Action, Thriller
My Rating: 7/10

Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull

We went to see the long-awaited fourth movie in the Indiana Jones series - Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull.

The story is set in the Cold War era of 1957 with the Russians seeking to learn the arcane secrets of the universe. When their agents track a young man (Shia LaBeouf) carrying a coded message from a Professor Oxley (John Hurt) to Professor Henry "Indiana" Jones (Harrison Ford), they know they're onto something big.

Led by the thoroughly nasty Colonel-Doctor Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett), the Russkies follow Jones and the young man, Mutt, to Peru. With Oxley's message decoded, Indiana and Mutt follow the trail to discover a legendary skull made of a single piece of crystal quartz and a possible clue to the whereabouts of Akator, also known as El Dorado, the City of Gold.

Of course, Spalko and her thugs aren't far behind and our heroes are captured and discover that they also have Oxley and Mutt's mother (Karen Allen), who turns out to be an old flame of Indiana's. The Russians believe the skull to be an alien artifact of great psychic significance and a source of immense knowledge. And so the fun begins with Indie and good guys escaping with the skull and trying to find out the secret of Akator while preventing the Russians from getting hold of it again.

Sure it was nice to see Harrison Ford back in the role of Indiana Jones and goodness knows we've waited long enough for this movie to get made. However, even with Steven Spielberg directing and a reasonably decent cast, this movie just doesn't live up to the reputation of the previous ones.

Can't really fault the cast. Ford is on form as Henry Jones, Blanchett is the archetypal bad guy (or gal), Hurt does his best bewildered professor bit as usual and even LeBeouf doesn't overdo it. Even Ray Winstone, playing a duplicitous character of no real import, manages to downplay his normal cockney barrow-boy image and do a decent bit of role -playing. To be honest we'd expect a bit of over-acting in an Indie movie but it's the unlikely stunts and action scenes that make it look bad - a sword fight taking place on two moving vehicles over rough terrain, using a snake as a rope, surviving a nuclear blast inside a fridge, a boat going over three waterfalls without anyone getting a scratch, etc.


I can't say it was bad as it thunders along at a decent if unlikely pace but it is by far the weakest Indie movie in the series. Even the plot involving crystal skulls, Russians, Incan treasure and aliens wasn't so bad either but it was so underwhelming after the big build-up it got and a 19-year wait. Wouldn't recommend it as a DVD purchase but it's worth a rental just to see Indiana Jones ride again, possibly for the last time. I don't imagine Harrison Ford will don the fedora and bull-whip again but young Mr. LeBeouf may well be being groomed as his successor. We can but wait and see but hopefully it won't take so long or suck so much next time.

Genre:Action, Adventure, Fantasy
My Rating: 6/10

Iron Man

Yet another Marvel Comics superhero takes to the big screen in Iron Man…

When brilliant technologist Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) takes over his father's business empire, he does it with serious relish. Aided by his father's former partner Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges), he takes the company from strength to strength whilst also living the life of a super-rich playboy.

However, a media stunt in the Middle East goes seriously wrong and he's badly wounded and captured by terrorists. With shrapnel moving inexorably nearer his heart and forced to work for the terrorists, designing and building them weapons, he instead builds himself a powered iron suit and escapes.

Realising the error of building weapons for anyone that can pay, and finding out that Obadiah has been selling arms to the terrorists, he shuts down his weapons plants and focusses on his new power supply and better designs for the suit. However that doesn't sit well with Obadiah, who doesn't care who gets hurt while he makes a buck and that's when things start to get nasty.


Iron Man was a character born out of the Cold War arms race during the 1960s with Tony Stark being modelled on brilliant industrialist and playboy Howard Hughes. Iron Man was a comic I read avidly as a boy and never would I have thought of casting Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark. Nothing he's ever done would make me think of him in a super-hero role but in this, he's brilliant. He plays Stark exactly as he should be - a brilliant engineer and millionaire playboy and it works perfectly.

It was nice to see Jeff Bridges, even it did take a while to recognise him with no hair (got it from the voice), as partner turned bad guy Obadiah Stane. Bridges plays the role very well as Stark's mentor turned power-crazed monster and, while Stark plays the field of starlets and models, his long suffering and silently adoring PA Pepper Potts is played pretty well by Gwyneth Paltrow.


All that aside the tale has all the usual elements that make an American action movie work - great visual effects, good battle scenes, bad guys that are both stupid and can't shoot and an arch baddie, or even two in this one. The technological gadgets are excellent as well; you'll believe a man can fly, or at least he can if he has rockets in his boots. The love interest between Stark and Potts is sideline material but it adds both amusing and tender moments to the mix.

Iron Man the movie is definitely up there with the best of the comic book conversions and well worth seeing if that kind of movie is your thing.

Genre: Action, Science Fiction
My Rating: 8/10

The Spiderwick Chronicles

Adapted from the Spiderwick series of books by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black, The Spiderwick Chronicles is essentially a children's movie. Still it had monsters and magic in it so that was enough to woo us big kids in to see it. Here's a summary of the plot…

When recently divorced Helen Grace (Mary-Louise Parker) and family move into the old Spiderwick house, left to her by their elderly aunt Lucinda (Joan Plowright), it's more a matter of need than design. The place is old, creaky and just a little bit spooky and while the kids are exploring, Mallory Grace (Sarah Bolger) discovers a hidden dumb waiter behind a wall. In the waiter, they discover a horde of stuff, some of which they'd been blaming each other for taking, and among the loot, Jared Grace (Freddie Highmore) finds an old monogrammed key.

Not satisfied with their finds, Jared ventures up the dumb waiter and discovers the study of his great-uncle, Arthur Spiderwick (David Strathairn). In the study, Jared uses the key he found earlier to open a chest in which he finds Spiderwick's Field Guide, which has a note attached with a warning not to read the book. However, being of an inquisitive nature, Jared opens the book and starts a chain of events that puts the whole world of faerie at risk of destruction, not to mention endangering the lives of himself and his family.

We were both pleasantly surprised by this film. I've never read any of the books so can't compare the storyline here with any of them but we decided to go and see it after watching the trailer. Sometimes a bad idea I know but in this case it proved a good choice. The story is told from the point of view of the central character Jared and follows what happens when he and his siblings discover that they live alongside a hidden world of magical creatures, some good and some extremely evil indeed.


Freddie Highmore does an excellent job portraying both the Grace twins, Jared and Simon, and manages to play those completely different characters very well. Mary-Louise Parker does a good job as the displaced mother, trying to rebuild her life and provide for her children after their father has left them. Veteran Joan Plowright makes an appearance as the elederly aunt and proves that she's still got a fair bit of mileage left as an actress while Nick Nolte is reasonably menacing as the Mulgarath the evil, shape-shifting Ogre. On the more amusing front, Martin Short provides the voice talent for Thimbletack the Brownie, probably the most interesting and entertaining of the faerie characters here.

The special effects are very well crafted with the live action and CGI mixing together beautifully. From Thimbletack shifting from Brownie to Boggart when he gets mad or the various forms taken by Mulgarath, it all seems to blend into the sets and action very well. The storyline moves along at a reasonable pace with enough action and interesting moments to keep both kids and adults happy enough, although there are a few scenes that might be a bit frightening for very young children.

Well worth catching on the big screen!

Genre: Adventure, Family, Fantasy, Thriller
My Rating: 8/10

10,000 B.C.

We went to see Roland Emmerich's prehistoric adventure, 10,000 B.C., the other night. The plot is fairly simple so here a short summary…

D'Leh (Steven Strait) is a young Mammoth hunter trying to earn his place in the tribe after the disappearance of his father. To secure the White Spear and a bride, he must show unwavering courage and bring down a Mammoth to help feed and clothe the tribe. This he does but more by accident than by design and he is troubled by it.

When the tribe is attacked and his bride-to-be Evolet (Camilla Belle) is taken captive along with many others, he vows to rescue them. So, along with Tic'Tic (Cliff Curtis) and the youngster Baku (Nathanael Baring), he sets off after the marauders and what they discover is far beyond his understanding.

I'm not sure where director/writer Roland Emmerich got the idea for this movie from but it misses the mark by a long way. First we get involved in D'Leh's right of passage with the Mammoth and then the bad guys come, kill a few people and steal some more. After that it turns into a plodding filler scene after filler scene affair until it gets to the ridiculous homeland of the invaders with its Stargate-like god character.

Unlike similar prehistoric movies like Quest For Fire and 1,000,000 Years B.C., these people can talk, well at least the good guys can, so there is some dialogue here to help move the story along but the script is pretty basic. The bad guys are all seriously ugly dudes and can only talk in low and menacing, subtitled tones. Okay, it's more accurate to the era as there are no dinosaurs and no one is wandering around in fur bikinis but at least Raquel Welsh added some much-needed glamour. This post ice age land is harsh and cold so lots of furs are needed to keep warm and for wildlife we get Mammoths, some giant carnivorous birds and a Sabertooth Tiger. Of course that's all done by CGI and it could have been better given the budget of over $100,000,000.


What's also weird is the fact that the slavers (for want of a better word) have travelled huge distances overland in very bleak country into what was probably central or eastern Europe from the Middle East when they had the whole of Africa and Asia to raid but then I suppose the heroes wouldn't have been white folks then would they.

Frankly, if you've seen the trailers, then you've pretty much seen most of the action in the movie. I'm just surprised we didn't see any Death Gliders and a platoon of Jaffa warriors in the final scene just to round off how ridiculous it all was. I've no idea what they spent all that money on with a such an unknown cast and average CGI work. I certainly couldn't recommend anyone spending any more by going to see it.

Genre: Adventure
My Rating: 5/10

The Bank Job

With a dearth of sci-fi or action blockbusters and animated features in the cinema at the moment, we were lured in to see The Bank Job, a movie of what is reputed to be a true story of a bank heist gone wrong. Here's the gist of the tale…

Set in 1971, the film tells of a British Secret Service operation, led by Miles Urquhart (Peter Bowles), to retrieve some compromising pictures of a certain royal princess from the safety deposit box of black revolutionary activist Michael X (Peter De Jersey). Michael had been using the photographs as insurance against any interference in his drug-dealing and prostitution rackets by the law so no-one could touch him and if they were made public, the scandal would affect the royal family.

Certain security details of the bank were leaked by a member of MI6 through his lover Martine (Saffron Burrows) to a shady gang of small-time crooks led by Terry Leather (Jason Statham). The plan being to get the crooks to rob the bank for them and if anything goes wrong, it can't be traced back to H.M. Government. Of course, if the heist is successful, then all they need to do is waylay the thieves, relieve them of the goods and then clean up any loose ends.

Written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, a pair more known for their TV comedy scripts, you might think that this would be a bit of a laugh. Well, it isn't! There are a few humourous moments in there but there are also some pretty violent bits as well. The basis of the story is that, in September 1971, thieves tunneled into the vault of a bank in London's Baker Street and looted safe deposit boxes of cash and jewelry worth over three million pounds. Nothing was ever recovered and no-one was ever arrested. The robbery made the news headlines for a few days and then suddenly disappeared from notice, the result of a government 'D' Notice.

That story is nicely developed up for the movie. Leather, a second-hand car lot owner, owes money to an underworld boss so he's under pressure to pay up or else. He's had a bit of a shady past and he and his mates have done a few small jobs now and then to get some extra cash but this is well out of their usual league. On top of that, Michael X was recommended that particular bank by Lew Vogel (David Suchet), a particularly nasty pornographer, who's kept a journal of all the pay-offs he's made to the local bent coppers and guess where he keeps it.

The film brings all these characters and their parts in the story together very well - the Secret Service, Michael X, Lew Vogel, Martine and Terry and his gang and, while it may not be an absolutely accurate re-telling of events, it's pretty entertaining. Jason Statham doesn't break into martial-arts mayhem at any point but proves that he can be a decent jobbing actor. Peter Bowles plays the upper-crust Whitehall slimebag Urquhart to a tee and David Suchet is excellent as crime boss Vogel. Peter De Jersey plays a suitably menacing Michael X and Saffron Burrows gives a decent performance as Martine, although neither have a lot of screen time.

Everything gels together well and the whole thing is played like a British movie from the seventies, including the slightly gritty film processing effect and limited colour palette. On the whole it's a decent gangster movie, which plods a bit at the start but, once the heist gets underway, it really gets going at a good pace. Well worth going to see!

Genre: Crime, Thriller.
My Rating: 8/10

National Treasure: Book Of Secrets

It was a toss-up between going to see National Treasure: Book Of Secrets or Cloverfield and the over-hyped monster movie lost. Book Of Secrets is the second National Treasure movie so here's a brief description of the plot…

When a missing page from the diary of John Wilkes Booth comes to light, Ben Gates' (Nicolas Cage) great-great grandfather Thomas is implicated in the plot to assassinate of Abraham Lincoln. Determined to prove his family's innocence, Ben reunites with Abigail (Diane Kruger) and Riley (Justin Bartha) and they follow a trail of clues that take him to Paris then London and eventually back to the United States.

All the while, he's being pursued by Mitch Wilkinson (Ed Harris) and his crew of mercenaries. Wilkinson is a man determined to make his mark on history as knows that the clues could lead him to the greatest horde of treasure the world has ever seen, a lost city of gold.

This sequel picks up a while after the events in National Treasure. Ben is hailed as one of the world's greatest treasure hunters but his relationship with Abigail has faltered and the pair have split up. The treasure trail takes them to Paris, Buckingham Palace, the White House and Mount Rushmore in a somewhat impossible sequence of events but it's part of the magic of Hollywood.

With National Treasure being Disney's attempt to cash in on the hype around Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, they did not a bad of job of it and it did reasonably well at the box office. Okay, everything was just too implausible to happen in reality but Book Of Secrets follows the same formula and will appeal to the same masses of movie-goers that went to the first movie.

Nicolas Cage plays Ben in his usual slow and methodical manner but it works and helps ground some of the comedy elements thrown in via his sidekick Justin Bartha as Riley the tech wizard. Diane Kruger provides the love interest as Ben's ex and co-hunter and she does it quite well. Jon Voight returns as Ben's father Patrick and Helen Mirren appears as his mother Emily. They've been estranged for about 25 years but both are integral to the plot of the movie and, as well as solid performances from both, there's the added bonus of the the will they, won't they get back together element.

Ed Harris is the bad guy here and gives his usual excellent performance. Also putting in appearances are Harvey Keitel as FBI agent Sadusky, who appeared in National Treasure, and Bruce Greenwood as the US president.

If you fancy a roller coaster ride of an action movie with a ridiculous plot, some well known actors and a bit of comedy thrown in, then you'll probably like this movie. Both Cage and Voight have been nominated for Razzies for their performances here but I can't the justification for it; it's a family film and everyone in it was hamming it up a bit to go along with the corny plot. Don't take it too seriously, it's an entertaining movie.

Genre: Action, Adventure, Mystery, Thriller
My Rating: 7/10

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Another Sunday that we couldn't manage to get out into the countryside and ended up spending a few hours looking at sofas (sigh). So, a movie was needed to cheer up the evening and Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd sounded just the ticket. Here's a summary of the plot…

The story is based on the hit Broadway musical which tells the infamous story of Benjamin Barker (Johnny Depp). A simple barber, Barker and his wife Lucy (Laura Michelle Kelly) are living peacefully in mid-nineteenth century London with their little daughter but when evil Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) covets Barker's wife, he has him falsely imprisoned and deported.

Many years later Barker returns to London under the new name of Sweeney Todd but when he visits the pie shop of old friend Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), she tells him that his wife had poisoned herself and that his daughter Johanna (Jayne Wisener) was now the legal ward of Judge Turpin. Mrs. Lovett encourages Todd to open up his barber shop in a spare room above her pie shop and the two enter into a diabolical blood and pie fest as he takes out his rage on unsuspecting customers while plotting to free Johanna and kill the evil Turpin.

Okay it's a musical! We weren't entirely sold on that idea but it works and Tim Burton was the right choice of director to do it. He's already has some experience of the genré with the animated tales Corpse Bride and The Nightmare Before Chistmas although this is a live action version. Burton really knows how to do a gothic movie and this is no exception - limited colour palette, the cast with pale makeup and dark shadowy eyes and with costumes and hairstyles to match.


Johnny Depp is marvellous as the tortured and enraged Todd while Bonham Carter plays Mrs. Lovett beautifully. Also excellent is Timothy Spall as the appalling nasty Beadle Bamford, Alan Rickman does the evil Judge Turpin to a tee and Sacha Baron Cohen turns in a wonderfully, over-the-top performance as Signor Adolfo Pirelli, Todd's competitor in the barbering business. It's no suprise to see Depp and Bonham Carter here as they are both Burton favourites. They both played in his Corpse Bride and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory while Depp also starred in Sleepy Hollow, Ed Wood and Edward Scissorhands and Bonham Carter appeared in Big Fish and Planet of the Apes.

The story of Sweeney Todd was written sometime back in the mid nineteenth century so it's a pretty well-known tale. It's been done several times before this and I remember Freddie Jones doing an excellent portrayal of Todd in a TV version back in 1970. However, Depp certainly does the business with the character and he can even sing. The musical aspect of the movie does help to avoid it being a slasher flic as the blood certainly does flow once he gets going.


If you're squeamish at all, then you might be better avoiding this one as it is pretty grim in the gore stakes. I'm not sure it deserved an 18 certificate but it's definitely not one for the kids. Fans of Depp or Burton will love it.

Genre: Crime, Musical, Thriller
My Rating: 8/10

I Am Legend

I Am Legend is based on a 1954 story by Richard Matheson, which has already spawned a couple of other versions and is widely held as a forerunner to the zombie movie genre. The plot is simple - mankind has been all but wiped out by a plague and what's left of us are vampiric zombies, all but Dr. Robert Neville. Here's a summary of this version…

It's 2012 and Dr. Robert Neville (Will Smith) is the sole survivor in a deserted New York City, the legacy of a retroviral cure for cancer gone wrong three years earlier. By day he roams the streets, looking for food and supplies, and by night he barricades himself into his fortress of a home, hiding from the remnants of humanity that prowl the darkness, hungry for his flesh.

Those of us that the pandemic didn't kill have mutated into flesh-eating zombies with an almost vampiric aversion to ultra-violet light. Neville, a brilliant military scientist before the plague, now labours constantly to find a cure while also holding out some hope that there are others out there that, like him, are immune to the virus and that he is not alone.

I Am Legend was a movie that we hadn't really been thinking of going to see. Will Smith saving the world yet again wasn't really that high on our list of things to see but we fancied a movie and the show times were a bit awry for Sweeney Todd so I Am Legend won out.


The movie is shot showing Neville surviving as best he can, alone in New York City and intercut with flashbacks to three years before when the cure for cancer was announced to the world and the events that followed when some of those given the cure start to show signs that all is not well. It's a pretty well told story and Smith shows that he can still hold the show, mostly on his own for the run of the movie. His main co-star for most of it is his dog, a German Shepherd called Sam.

The visual effects are also very good indeed as they've transformed New York City into a run-down and over-grown scene of dereliction. Grass and trees grow out of the sidewalk, car wrecks litter the streets and wildlife runs freely down the boulevards. Where it falls short is in some of the CGI work. The lions just didn't look right to me and the Dark Seekers, while they were pretty well done, just lacked a bit of realism. Of course that could have been deliberate as they did seem very like the monsters out video games like Resident Evil.

On the whole I think it works well. Smith portrays a man that's been alone for three years, surviving day by day, very well indeed. His mental state has definitely taken a few knocks over the time, raiding the stores for canned food and DVDs to watch and daily going to the docks to see if anyone has heard his radio message telling them that he's alive and that they're not alone.

I've seen seen the earlier version of the story, The Omega Man, starring Charleton Heston and this is definitely better. It's a wee bit on the slow side at times but it works well and there's plenty of action and tense moments to keep the thrill seekers happy enough. Not a classic of the cinema but worth going to see.

Genre: Drama, Horror, Science-Fiction, Thriller
My Rating: 7/10

AVPR: Aliens vs Predator - Requiem

It was a boring, wet Friday night so the movies were calling to us. Trouble was, the only one that really suited the mood was AVPR: Aliens vs Predator - Requiem, the sequel to AVP: Aliens vs. Predator. I'd seen the trailer so we knew it was going to be a bit of a uber-violence flick but that's what both of these guys do. Anyway, on with the brief intro to the story…

AVPR picks up exactly where AVP left off, where the Alien infested Predator gives "birth" to a hybrid Alien-Predator monster aboard the spaceship heading into orbit and then no doubt homeward bound. Of course, this little guy gets bigger very quickly and runs riot, freeing up some captive face-huggers on the way, and causing the ship to crash-land somewhere near the little town of Gunnison, Colorado.

Before being killed, one of the crew manages to send out a message, which is received on the Predator homeworld by a lone warrior (Ian Whyte) who immediately embarks on the journey to Earth to rectify and clean-up the situation. Meanwhile, the hybrid and face-huggers escape from the crashed ship and impregnate a father and son hunting team before heading down into the sewer system and some more mayhem around town.

The unfortunate townsfolk of Gunnison have to contend with a rapidly growing infestation of Aliens and a rampaging Predator, neither of which cares a jot for any humans getting in their way so it's left to ex-con Dallas (Steven Pasquale), his younger brother Ricky (Johnny Lewis) and soldier-on-leave Kelly (Reiko Aylesworth) to try and save the day.

As with AVP, the reviews leading up to this release weren't that encouraging but I'm a sucker for science-fiction movies and again, the violence has been toned down a bit so it gets a 15 certificate so it still doesn't deliver on the gore front. It's directed by Colin and Greg Strause in their first shot at directing a larger budget movie. They're better known as visual-effects designers/supervisors and have a decent track record, having worked on 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer, 300, X-Men: The Last Stand, Poseidon, Æon Flux, Syriana, The Fog and Flightplan among others.

As for the cast, there are no no big-budget names here and most of them look to have come from US TV series roles. That said, they're probably right at home here as the movie itself plays along just like an episode from a series and, since we never get any real character development, we don't care who gets killed off and a lot of them do. There's no grand storyline as in AVP or any of the previous Alien movies, although the writers did inject a wee teaser at the end for a possible follow up movie but it'd need to be something much better than this to satisfy any true Alien or Predator fan. I mean the whole movie takes place over about a day and then it's over.

On the plus side, the special effects are excellent and both Aliens and Predators are up to spec but they've changed the biology to suit the faster pace of the movie. Full-grown Aliens seem to appear very quickly after a victim is injected, something that appeared in AVP so AVPR isn't entirely to blame for this, but it happens ever quicker here. Then there's the hybrid! Okay, we don't know how Predators breed but really, making it the equivalent of an Ichneumon wasp and firing its eggs into pregnant women as hosts is a bit far-fetched and then there's the speed at which these hatched. Damn that's fast!

On the whole, if you like Alien and Predator movies, then this'll pass an hour and half in a kind of no-brain required mode. It's full of plot holes and the script is awful but we get to see more Predators and more Aliens giving it to some small town Americans so what not to like at that level. I think I liked AVP a bit better than this one just for the more expansive story behind it.

Genre: Action, Horror, Science-Fiction
My Rating: 5/10

The Golden Compass

The Golden Compass is the first installment in a new children's movie trilogy based on the His Dark Materials novels by Philip Pullman. This first movie is based on the novel called Northern Lights, although it was re-titled for the US market to The Golden Compass.

The story takes place on a parallel universe where everyone possesses a dæmon, a shape-shifting animalistic manifestation of their soul. Our tale begins when young Lyra Belacqua (Dakota Blue Richards), an orphan residing at Jordan College, Oxford, secretly enters the Retiring Room, despite resistance from her dæmon, Pantalaimon (Freddie Highmore).

Hiding inside the room, she espies someone attempting to poison her uncle, Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig), and stop him revealing the existence of mysterious elementary particles called Dust. Lyra warns her uncle, preventing his murder, and he tells the scholars about his findings.

When her friend Roger is kidnapped by the mysterious Gobblers, Lyra vows to rescue him and gets her chance when Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman), a powerful figure in the Magisterium, offers to take Lyra away from Jordan College to become her apprentice. Before she leaves, the Master of the college gives her an alethiometer, a mystical device resembling a golden compass and which he says can give the answer to any question posed it. But the Magisterium and Mrs. Coulter know of the existence of the alethiometer and have very definite plans for both it and Lyra.

I was a bit wary about going to see yet another children's novel made into a film as we seem to be being flooded by them lately. However, this isn't quite as silly as the first Harry Potter movie and it has a fairly decent story behind it. Besides, it was the Christmas break so it's kind of expected.

It's always difficult transferring books to film because of the time constraints but it comes with a pretty good cast including Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Sir Ian McKellan, Tom Courtenay, Ian McShane, Sam Elliott and Christopher Lee and, along with some very good CGI visual effects bringing the dæmons and the ice bears to life, it tells a very watchable tale. I wouldn't recommend it for very young children though as there is a fair level of violence

I haven't read the books but, going by this film, the story seems capable of holding an adult audience as well as any Harry Potter book did so they may be worth checking out as well. Hopefully the sequel will be as good. It's called The Subtle Knife and is due for release in 2009.

Genre: Adventure, Drama, Family, Fantasy, Thriller
My Rating: 7/10

Enchanted

Faced with an evening in listening to our upstairs neighbour fitting a carpet, we decided to head into town for dinner and a movie. We had a nice meal in Viva Ristorante in Bothwell Street and then headed up to the Cineworld to see Enchanted an animated/live action movie from Disney.

The tale is set in the fairytale land of Andalasia where the evil Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon), scheming to keep her throne for as long as she can, has kept her step-son Prince Edward (James Marsden) well away from any marriagable fair maidens.

However, when fate (and her singing) causes the prince to encounter the fair Giselle (Amy Adams) while out hunting ogres in the forest, the pair of them fall in love and plan to marry the next day. Not to be so easily thwarted, Narissa, disguised as an old hag, persuades Giselle to try the old wishing well in the castle gardens but, when the girl has her eyes closed, she pushes her in, banishing her to a world where there are no happy ever afters - New York City.

In New York, Giselle meets divorce attorney Robert (Patrick Dempsey) and his 6 year old daughter and tries to come to terms with life in the real world while absolutely sure that her true love Edward will come to her rescue. Of course Narissa has plans to make sure that she never returns.

I suppose it was only a matter of time before Disney once again milked the success of movies like Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Cinderella but it works quite well here. Giselle is an amalgam of all three Disney heroines and the tale mixes in many different characters and story elements from all three movies - a damsel in distress, a handsome prince (or two), an evil witch queen and her nasty henchman, lots of friendly forest animals, a fair smattering of magic and a dragon.

The visuals are excellent. From the two dimensional, cel-animation land of Andalasia, where everything looks like those classic Disney animations of old, to the three-dimensional animations when some of the characters and effects reach through into the real world. As for the cast, Susan Sarandon is nastily good as the evil queen Narissa and Timothy Spall does a good job as her besotted servant Nathaniel. James Marsden plays the perfect fairytale prince with lots of gusto and Amy Adams is spot on as Giselle, a maiden who believes happy ever after is for real. Patrick Dempsey does the down to earth lawyer role very well even if he doesn't get any laughs.

It's all very cleverly done and, with a goodly amount of visual gags that will appeal to kids and adults, it's an ideal movie for the Christmas break and well worth catching in the cinema with the kids for the big screen experience.

Genre: Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Family, Fantasy, Musical, Romance
My Rating: 7/10

Bee Movie

Having had the kitchen tiled on Saturday morning, the fumes of the adhesive were still permeating the house on Sunday so we headed into town to grab some lunch, do a bit of shopping, catch a movie and grab a bite to eat in order to avoid the smell.

We had thought to go and see The Golden Compass but when we got there Bee Movie was showing sooner so that was that.

When young bee, Barry B. Benson (Jerry Seinfeld), graduates from college he's dismayed to discover that he's expected to choose a career in honey production and do that same job for the rest of his life. So, determined to break the mould he's been cast in, Barry ventures outside the hive along with a squadron of nectar gathering bees.

However, when an accident with a tennis ball separates Barry from the rest of the bees and he's in pretty dire peril, he ends up being saved by Vanessa (Renée Zellweger), a human. Barry decides that he has to break a strict bee law banning bees from talking to humans and thanks Vanessa for saving his life. She's a bit shocked to discover that bees can talk but the two soon become fast friends.

But, on a visit to a supermarket with Vanessa, Barry is horrified to discover that humans eat honey, honey they have to have stolen from hard-working bees. Determined to right this great wrong, he files a class action lawsuit against humans but the ramifications of his actions lead to serious problems for bees, humanity and the earth itself.

Okay so the concepts of talking bees growing up in little family units or of male bees doing any work at all is taking some liberties with nature but this movie really isn't about bees at all. It's a bit of a mix of a coming-of-age movie, a romance, a courtroom drama and an ecological disaster movie. The bees are just there to attract the kids as a animated movie with a teenager fighting against the establishment just wouldn't work as well.

That's not to say it isn't funny. it is and very much so in places but I think the writers have tried to squeeze too much of a plot into what should have been a simple animated comedy and it misses the mark a little with the younger audience. I never got into Seinfeld when he was on TV so have very little experience of his humour but it works here, especially for adults as the one-liners kept coming at a pretty fast pace.

The animation was pretty good, especially in the flying through the hive scenes, but it wasn't anything spectacular like the kind of stuff Pixar puts out. I got the impression that all those flying scenes and dodging stuff were crafted more with a video game franchise in mind than for the benefit of the storyline.

It also attracted a lot of well-known names to do the voices. Aside from Seinfeld and Zellweger, there are roles for Matthew Broderick as Barry's friend Adam, Kathy Bates and Barry Levinson as his parents, John Goodman as humanity's lawyer, Oprah Winfrey as the judge, Chris Rock as a mosquito, Larry King as bee version of himself, Ray Liotta and Sting as themselves as well as Larry Miller, Megan Mullally and Rip Torn.

All of the above concerns regarding the plot and animation aside, it's all about the humour and there's plenty of it. I'm not sure a younger audience would appreciate it but we enjoyed it and laughed quite a lot so it has to have something going for it.

Genre: Animation, Comedy, Family, Fantasy
My Rating: 7/10

Beowulf

We went to see Beowulf, the CGI animated version of the old, Anglo-Saxon, epic poem, the other night. It's set during the sixth century in Denmark and is supposedly the oldest surviving piece of English literature. Here's the gist of this version of the tale…

When the hall of King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins) is terrorised by a fearsome monster called Grendel (Crispin Glover), who comes in the night wreaking havoc and murder, he sends out a call for a hero to kill this foul creature and bring peace back to his court.

When the call is answered by Beowulf (Ray Winstone) and his Geats many are thankful for his fame as a hero was widely known but his boasting makes others like Unferth (John Malkovitch) sceptical and jealous.

Of course, Beowulf triumphs over the evil Grendel but Hrothgar has a secret that could lead Beowulf into deeper trouble and things go from bad to worse when Grendel's mother (Angelina Jolie) descends on Hrothgar's hall, seeking vengeance for the slaying of her only son.

I read Beowulf many years ago when still at school and it's one of those stories that has stayed with me all this time. This story doesn't exactly stick to the original text and I thought their interpretation of Grendel as a deformed and grotesque creature didn't sit well with my memory of the story. That aside, it's an entertaining enough movie.

The film is directed by Robert Zemeckis and, with a screenplay co-written by fantasy author Neil Gailman, whose mind this form of Grendel probably came from, and a decent cast of voice talent for the major roles, it turned out better than I'd expected it to. Obviously it'd been better if filmed in live action with some awesome special effects but I expect the budget wouldn't stretch that far and CGI does allow for more control over camera angles and art direction.


The biggest problem I had with it was Ray Winstone as the voice of Beowulf. The man has no talent for changing his accent and he'll always sound like a London gangster no matter what role he plays. Take his classic line "They say you have a monstah. They say your lands are cursed. I am Beowulf, and I will kill your monstah." as an example. Don't get me wrong, I like Ray Winstone as an actor and he's usually pretty entertaining but I just feel he's been miscast for this role.

I suppose the star of the show was Angelina Jolie as she got her kit off, even it was just CGI. Let's face it, if you want to see Angelina naked in a movie these days, then this is probably the best you'll ever get and she was so seductive with it. Anthony Hopkins was excellent as King Hrothgar, but then he almost always is, and John Malkovitch was good as the slimy Unferth. There are a few other reasonably well-known actors such as Brendan Gleeson and Dominic Keating doing some of the voices and they did pretty well too.


As I said above, the movie plot doesn't follow the original text. It introduces a bit more mystery and magic to it by including a curse and there's a dragon as well. There is a dragon featured in the original, just not this one. The quality of the CGI animation is getting better and better and there a re few scenes where you'd be hard pressed to spot that it isn't real. That said, it's still not quite there as far as true-to-life reality goes, even if they did use almost 300 cameras, but it's so much further along than Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and that was seen as groundbreaking in its time, even if it did bomb at the box office.

Zemeckis also directed the fully CGI movie The Polar Express, which was another poor box office performer, so it's good that he still sees the medium has having some potential as I suspect that once the technology improves even further, especially if they get the facial expressions and eyes more lifelike, we'll see even more movies done in this way. Animation fans will love Beowulf as it's a visual treat, especially once the dragon comes into play, but it's maybe a bit too violent and bawdy for a younger audience.

Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama, Fantasy
My Rating: 7/10