White House Down - A Review

2 Stars - Meh

So Roland Emerich has ditched the cast of thousands disaster film in favour of a medocre action film unfortunate enough to come out in the same year as the far superior Olympus has Fallen.

Terrorists take over the White House and it's up to Channing Tatum to save President Jaime Foxx, also some overly complicated plot about coups and nuclear launch codes and it's all just a bit meh.

It's not all bad though, James Woods is a fairly compelling villains who actually puts a lot into his part and the rest of the villains are kind of fun, just the heroes who are dull and only the little girl who I actually severely disliked. Not a good child actor.

Try as he might, Channing Tatum is no John McClane

In short, give it a miss, watch Olympus has fallen instead

Pain and Gain - A Review

4 Stars - Good

... I ... I don't quite know how to say this, but... I liked this Michael Bay film...

To clarify, this is a ridiculous, over the top story, so I guess it makes sense that it was told by such a ridiculous, over the top director.

Marky Mark and the Rock are gloriously funny as the two leads, but also manage to come off as almost sympathetic in their attempts to make their lives better.

Totally a true story

In short, I never thought I'd say this, but worth a watch

Elysium - A Review

2.5 Stars - Meh

So, privatised healthcare is bad and action is shaky and poorly shot...

This is one of those films that thinks it is clever just because it is trying to talk about a social issue in a sci-fi setting. But that is nothing new and here it isn't anything interesting. Just kind of feels like an overly long episode of the Twilight Zone, and not a good one, one of the lesser ones no-one ever really talks about...

I guess the performances are okay, but really the characters aren't much to get invested in. Needs more William Fichtner

some joke about Matt Damon being bald or something...

In short, overblown and not nearly subtle enough. I'd say give it a miss

We're The Millers - A Review

3.5 Stars - Decent

It seems like when Jennifer Aniston goes for the more adult comedies the result is actually fun. This is a pretty strong film with a competent cast who all seem like they're having fun.

A lot of the jokes are solid, the cast all play well off each other and there isn't too much that feels out of place... but why would you cast an actress with a no nudity clause in her contract as a stripper?

yeah, that was a weird choice...

In short, it's fun, I'd say worth a watch

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones - A Review

2 Stars - Mediocre

Yet another of these teenage books to film adaptations that has most likely been watered down to make it a 12a. It is just meh.

It boils down to a checklist of like all the cliches you could fit into this genre, you could downright turn it into a drinking game.

Hey look it's Jared Harris as the British character actor who's too good for this shit

In short, this isn't very good, but it could have been worse, it could have been Twilight...

Two Guns - A Review

4 Stars - Fun

So you want to make a solid action comedy? Then take Denzel and Marky Mark as a double act and throw them into wacky shenanigans. Done.

This is good fun, nothing groundbreaking or overly complex. Just good actors having fun.

Great double act

In short, fun and worth a watch.

Planes - A Review

1 Star - Lazy

So... this is a film I guess. Not much to say, everyone knew it would be awful, it's just Cars, with planes, and no character arcs.

There is no excuse for this film to be so lazy, much as Cars and Cars 2 are bad films at least they had some interesting visuals and the characters went through arcs. Here there's just a crop duster who wants to race and within 15 minutes or so he's a racer, then the rest is just stuff, then he wins. The end.

Oh and racist stereotypes too, don't forget those

In short, this is bad, don't see it.

Kick-Ass 2 - A Review

3.5 Stars - Okay

Kick-Ass was a big surprise when it came out. It was violent and crass, but had enough sincerity behind its ideas and enough heart in its characters to elevate it into something greater than its source material. Kick-Ass 2 on the other hand is missing  a lot of that.

Mark Millar's comic Kick-Ass 2 is dark, vulgar and just plain nasty and the film somewhat follows suit although from what I can gather a lot of stuff has been toned down it still breaks out unneeded levels of violence and shock deaths that are just nasty and don't fit with tone set by the first film, which had similar levels of violence but pulled them off in a more cartoonish manner.

The performances are all top notch and I would give some particular note to Jim Carrey, who through some prosthesis and putting on an accent is all but unrecognisable as Colonel Stars and Stripes and though he has a small role it's a fairly memorable one.

If you even mention the penguins I will club you

In short, I'd say worth a watch, but fans of the first film might be slightly dissapointed

The Lone Ranger - A Review

1 Star - Awful

This film shits on The Lone Ranger. Figuratively when Tonto tells him to never say Hiyo Silver Away. Also literally when he gets dragged through a pile of horse shit.

I've not seen the classic Lone Ranger films, and the only reason this film would get me to would be to see if there was actually something fun their once.

This film is boring, it isn't funny, the characters are joyless and it doesn't much seem to like the Lone Ranger. But then again this isn't a film about the Lone Ranger. It's about Johnny Depp as a racist stereotype of a Native American. Seriously, how is this okay? He is in red face and talking in fractured English. This is surely offensive.

Well personally I can't see the difference...

In short, let's stop lining Johnny Depp's pockets for playing the same character continuously shall we?

A Non-Trekkie's Perspective - Star Trek Series 2

So, having watched and enjoyed the first series of Star Trek I was very keen to get into the second. First thing I noticed was a slightly different opening credits with DeForest Kelley now billed as part of the starring cast. Which is wonderful to see as he is often one of the highlights of any given episode.

Series 2 Episode 1: Amok Time

The series started very strongly with Amok Time. In this episode Spock reached a frenzy of lust that drove him mad and would eventually kill him and had to be taken to Vulcan to meet his pre-arranged mate. He then has to fight Kirk in Mortal Combat and it has the most epic battle music ever. This was a strong start as it revealed new information about the Vulcans and put Kirk and Spock's friendship as the main focus of the episode.

The next largely memorable episode was Mirror, Mirror wherein Kirk and the landing party are transported to a mirror universe where the Federation is evil and Spock has a beard. This gave the cast a good chance to play around with their characters and let us see them in different ways.

For some reason the one episode they chose to do a follow up to from the previous series is perhaps the worst one of series 1. I, Mudd sees the Enterprise crew once again meet Harry Mudd, this time on a planet with robots set to serve them, who will perhaps not let them leave. This was surprisingly good and fun considering the tripe it was a follow up to.

Series 2 Episode 8: I, Mudd

Other episodes I would definitely say are worth talking about include Obsession where Kirk is Captain Ahab in the first of, what I'm lead to believe, will be many Moby Dick analogues in Star Trek. This gave William Shatner a chance to do something different with Kirk, making us question his reliability as a result of his obsession.

Then The Trouble With Tribbles offers a nice comedic episode where the ship becomes overrun with adorable balls of fluff who multiply ridiculously quickly, but are really "no Tribble at all"...

By far the best episode of the series, however, is Patterns of Force wherein Kirk, Spock and Bones find themselves on a planet that has somehow modeled itself after Nazi Germany. This was a good mystery, an interesting look at the characters and actually gave something of a balanced look at Nazi Germany as actually having some good traits before the madness sets in and it leads to deaths.

Series 2 Episode 21: Patterns of Force

Overall I am still enjoying Star Trek, however I felt the second series was slightly less impressive than the first as I seem to remember less of the episodes, however the ones that I do remember are top notch and really make up for some of the less memorable ones. I very much look forward to continuing on into Series 3.

Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa - A Review

5 Stars - Hilarious

Steven Coogan has now been playing Alan Partridge since the mid 90s. He shows no signs of getting bored of him and quite frankly why would he? Alan Partridge is great.

This film does something I very much enjoy, takes a big dramatic action idea for a film, place taken under siege, one man has to go in and save the hostages, and sets it in a small English town, making it hilarious.

The performances are all top notch, the writing is perfect and I was laughing pretty much the whole way through. Just great fun.

Remember, keep it light.

In short, hilarious. A Must see.

The Wolverine - A Review

3 Stars - Okay

The Wolverine is the latest film in the X-Men series. It follows X-Men 3 in the timeline seeing Wolverine distraught by guilt pulling his life together through a samurai adventure... only a kind of boring samurai adventure with no good villains.

For starters this film, as with most of the X-Men films gets a good amount of stuff right, the character development for Wolverine is solid and the follow up of his guilt over killing Jean in X-Men 3 is welcome. However the plot of the film is fairly bland and the action is okay at best. The villains might just be the worst in any of the films, nothing remotely memorable anywhere.

Sorry, what is it you do again?

In short, I'd say maybe wait for TV unless you're a die-hard X-Men fan, also when you do watch wait for a mid-credits scene, it's better than the rest of the film.

Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox - A Review

1.5 Stars - Meh

I guess it was bound to happen that they would make a film based on the Flashpoint event, the event that created the New 52. The trouble is that Flashpoint wasn't very good and neither is this film.

There are a lot of interesting ideas in Flashpoint, but they aren't explored very well, especially in the confines of a film where you don't have a lot of time to properly look into things. The Superman is woefully underused, Hal Jordan's short storyline is pointless, Wonder Woman and Aquaman's backstory isn't given enough focus and the really cool relationship between Batman and the Joker is barely touched on. Also where did Citizen Cold go exactly?

The animation is fine and the voice acting is at DC's usual high standards, but the story is awful. Since the whole thing takes place in this parallel world that we know will be returned to normal by the end there are no stakes and you're just waiting for the inevitable to happen, and it just feels slow and boring as a result.

Flashpoint Batman's still kind of cool though

In short, I'd say give this one a miss.

The World's End - A Review

5 Stars - Excellent

The Cornetto Trilogy is back for its final installment, the mint flavoured ice cream that is The World's End. I went into this film with very high expectations following Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, two of my favourite films. This is every bit as good, if not better than both.

The comedy is dead on, keeping you laughing all the way through, except at certain points where emotion seeps in and you're almost crying. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are both on exceptional form, this time somewhat reversing their usual roles as this time Frost is more of a straight man and Pegg is the childish and silly one. They both create wonderful characters that you really sympathise with and genuinely want to see survive, the same can be said of the great supporting cast, which features Martin Freeman, Rosamund Pike, David Bradley and several others.

The writing and direction are wonderful. Edgar Wright just gets comedy and parody in a way not many people do these days, because his parodies of genres are made with such love and appreciation towards those genres that they could be viewed as one of them, not just jokes at their expense.

someone start singing little green bag...

In short an absolute must watch. In fact, why are you sitting here reading this? Go see it right now!

Monsters University - A Review

3.5 Stars - Okay

So this is the film I was probably most worried about all summer. I love Monster's Inc. and was afraid this would ruin it. It didn't, but the whole thing still feels like a somewhat pointless and in some ways slightly tragic enterprise...

This film does a fair few things right, the characters are well designed and the animation is as beautiful as you would expect from Pixar, the performances are very solid and gives a good amount of emotional development within the film.

However from the word go in this film Mike wants to be a scarer, but we know he never will be because we've seen the original film, so really the whole thing is just watching him fail, which is kind of sad when you think about it.

There's also a lovely little short called the Blue Umbrella, which is one of the most visually stunning things Pixar has ever done.

Just so damn pretty

In short, I'd say worth a watch, but only at the cinema if you're a die hard Pixar fan, otherwise maybe wait for TV

Pacific Rim - A Review

4 Stars - Fun

This is the film the power rangers wishes it could be...

Pacific Rim is a great fun action film with giant robots, called Jaegers,  fighting giant aliens, called Kaiju. That's basically all you need to know about it, even the most hardened cynic would be hard pressed not to just sit back for some of the action packed awesome.

There are also good performances, especially from Idris Elba who continues to prove why he's more awesome than everyone else in whatever film he's in.

However the CGI can sometimes get a bit tiring on the eyes as the entirely CG action scenes can sometimes go on for way too long. I didn't see it in 3D, but my eyes were a bit sore by the end regardless.

He just exudes awesome... even with a porn tash

In short, great fun, worth a watch.

A Non-Trekkie's Perspective - Star Trek series 1

When I was a kid I never watched Star Trek. For many that's somewhat hard to believe, it's one of those shows everyone seems to have grown up watching and loving. I was never into it though, my classic show of choice as a kid was Batman. First thing of Star Trek I saw was the 2009 J.J. Abrams reboot, and it wasn't until recently that I actually tried to watch Star Trek the show and see if it was worth it. My plan here is to watch each series and give my opinions on them as a whole, highlighting episodes that I thought worked well and ones that didn't. Once I work through the series I shall move onto the films. Then when it gets to the point with the films that Next Generation series starts I'll start watching that too as I want to do this as close to the original timeline as possible.

Series 1 episode 1: The Man Trap

I felt that the series got off to a fairly mediocre start with The Man Trap. It didn't really take the time to introduce the characters and concepts and wasn't all that interesting an opening episode. However it soon started to pick up and before I knew it, I was kind of hooked. The characters are all great fun, the acting often cheesy and campy and many of the stories have interesting ideas that raise some interesting moral questions, some handled better than others.

The First of these more interesting stories for me was Episode 3 Where No Man Has Gone Before In this episode an ordinary crewman, who is an old friend of Captain Kirk's gains mysterious godlike powers and the story looks into how these develop and how power can corrupt a man's mind. It also forces Kirk to make hard decision and kill his friend. There was also some good stuff with the medical scanners making for a creepy underscoring to some tense scenes.

Series 1 episode 3: Where No Man Has Gone Before

Star Trek, like most good Sci-Fi can range from the clever, to the scary, to the downright goofy. Such as the episode Shore Leave. This episode features, amongst other things, The White Rabbit, from Alice in Wonderland, Don Juan and Sulu battling a Samurai as the crew's thoughts are brought to life. It's good for them to not take everything so seriously all the time and it gives the series a sense of fun that extends beyond it just being 60s camp.

However they were not all good episodes, for example Mudd's Women was less than stellar. A con man brings three bewitching women aboard the enterprise and they take drugs to make themselves more beautiful and want husbands, but the beauty can come from confidence and I stopped caring about 5 minutes in.

Another of these lesser episodes is unfortunately the series finale Operation: Annihilate! where there would have been potential for some strong emotional development for Kirk, as it featured his brother, sister-in-law and nephew, but the only one with any lines is the sister-in-law. This could have had a vulnerable and hurt Kirk trying to save them above the cost to others and eventually having to let go. But instead they're just sort of forgotten about to make way for not all that interesting plot they have.

What would have made a far better finale would have been the penultimate episode The City On The Edge Of Forever this sees Kirk and Spock travelling to the 1930s to stop a deranged Bones from altering history. However Kirk falls in love with a local woman and soon realises that saving the future will come at a great personal price. It has good drama, some good comedy and genuine character moments.

series 1 episode 28: The City On The Edge of Forever

Overall I would say this is a very entertaining series. Has some very fun and clever stories and highly energetic and likable characters. While I'm not yet in the awe of it that many people are there's still a whole lot of the show left and I look forward to boldly going where I've never gone before.

Now You See Me - A Review

3.5 Stars - Fun

So if you took Ocean's Eleven and mixed it with the Prestige, you'd get something like this. Fun times.

There's nothing especially new on display here, it's a basic heist film with some elements of a basic magic film thrown in. What makes it fun is the performances and film making. Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine are all as good as you would expect and the rest of the cast are all great fun too.

There is certainly a lot to admire here, and while it is fairly simple and predictable it makes for it by being plenty of fun.

More things need Woody Harrelson in a hat

In short, good fun and worth a watch, but maybe wait for TV

Snitch - A Review

4 Stars - Solid

The Rock and Chalky White both in a film together? I am sold.

Snitch is a drug thriller about The Rock trying to get his son out of prison by helping the D.E.A. arrest some serious players. It is pretty darn good.

The story, inspired by true events, is emotionally charged and really pulls you into the drama, helped out a lot by one of The Rock's best performances to date and a strong supporting cast, featuring Michael K. Williams and Susan Sarandon.

Although I will say this of the writing, there are some very obvious influences of Breaking Bad and The Wire and at times it can almost feel distracting, because you're just getting into a scene, then someone says something straight out of one of these shows and you can't help but notice.

don't be fooled by the poster, this isn't The Rock does Taken

In short, a good solid film, well worth a watch

World War Z - A Review

3.5 Stars - Decent

why is it that whenever zombies attack buildings suddenly set on fire and none of the lights work?

World War Z is a relatively entertaining zombie film. The performances are okay, the zombies are somewhat intimidating while in motion and there's some genuinely tense moments. However it lacks some of the visceral gore and unsettling scares that make the best zombie films work.

The Zombies are good when they move fast and you don't get much of a look at them, but when they're moving slowly and you get close ups on their faces they just look kind of silly and all tension gets lost because you're laughing.

okay, so this might be Sean of the Dead...

In short, I'd say worth a watch, but maybe wait for TV

The Man of Steel - A Review

4 Stars - A Good Start

Faster than a locomotive, able to leap speeding bullets and more powerful than a single bound... or something like that...

Superman is back on the big screen after a good seven years away. This is an attempt to recreate Superman in the modern eye and make him accessible to today's film going audience, and for the most part I'd say it succeeds, though there are a few issues I have with it.

The film has a fairly sombre tone, which works quite well, but sometimes goes a little too far. I'd prefer something a bit more fun from a Superman film. Still the story is decent enough, Superman is given a lot of dignity, the villain is great and the action is, mostly, very good though sometimes it feels like you're just watching CGI.

I Will Chew Scenery!

In short, worth a watch, and worth a sequel, let's see this improve.

After Earth - A Review

1 Star - Really Bad

This isn't so much a film as a vanity project by Will Smith to try and get people to think his son can act... he can't...

This film is incredibly dull, the action isn't exciting the story is boring and predictable, there's a whole bunch of plotholes and Jaden Smith is, as ever, really unlikable.

Also this film says that fear isn't real and you can just stop having fear, which is nonsense. It also mentions Moby Dick a lot, but that, as far as I'm aware, is about obsession and madness, not overcoming fear...

Also Will Smith spends about 80% of this film sitting down speaking without emotion, that is not how you use Will Smith. Will Smith should be up and about filling the screen with his unique energy.

Story by Will Smith: Again, not so much story as way to make his son famous...

In short, don't go see it, it sucks.

The Great Gatsby - A Review

1 Star - Dreadful

I was never going to like this, so my opinion is probably not one to listen to all that much.

The film is dull, not very well written and not all that well performed. For starters Tobey Maguire is the main character and he was seriously bland and not very good, and Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan can do a lot better than this.

Baz Luhrman is a bad director, he focuses on style more than substance and the style doesn't work. The visuals aren't very interesting and the modern music in the twenties setting is just massively out of place.

The biggest word that hits me here is inauthentic. It just feels so inauthentic.

You could have been watching Inception or Blood Diamond instead...

In short, don't see it. Just don't.