The Warriors Way Or The Highway, I Say

If Bunraku is a lesson in not how to produce a hyper-stylised, Western/Chinese, comic book mash-up then The Warrior's Way is the proof that the concept can indeed work. A revisionist Western, it has Chinese master swordsman, Dong Gun Jang, flee to America to save the life of an infant who his clan has sworn to kill. Living the quite life (Clint Unforgiven style) in a rundown township of ex-circus performers it isn't long before he's forced to return to his old fighting ways.

The Warrior's Way is ultra cool, great looking with memorable action, characters and moments. Painted with a similar CGI brush that 300 was blessed with it allows for some super human swordplay, gunfights and battles. Kate Bosworth makes up for her shabby Lois Lane with a spirited turn as a vengeful local girl, Danny Huston delivers his villain masterclass once again and Geoffrey Rush is both quirky and cool in a role that's much smaller than the star billing would suggest. This was largely ignore on it's US release. Hopefully, overtime, that will change.

The Upside Of The Change Up

It has not been a good year for film comedy. 2011 was supposed to herald the triumphant return of R Rated comedies to Hollywood studio release schedules when, somewhere along the line, turds like Bad Teacher, Horrible Bosses and the ugly Hangover Part 2 completely cussed it up. So with poor reviews and disappointing box office returns in the US signaling its arrival, I didn't have a great deal of enthusiasm going into The Change Up. Which was quite nice because the film kicks is hefty boot square in the comedy testicles.

The Change Up revives that eighties high concept of the body swap; two people with totally different lives swap bodies, love it for a bit and then discover that they liked who they used to be and find out something about themselves and each other in the process. Simples. It stars two of my favorite comic actors, Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds, who are finally given a script and a director (The Wedding Crashers David Dobkin) that can do their sizable talents justice. Both are excellent as their own characters and as each other when the body swap occurs...but it's Reynolds playing the lazy slob that amuses the most. It's crude, sweary and full of boobage but Dobkin makes it all feel rather nice and lovely too...sort of without the rough edges of a Kevin Smith or Judd Apatow film.

Add to that you've got the exquisite Olivia Wilde in a supporting romantic role who confirms the seductive and cheeky star status Tron Legacy promised last year. Yes, it's the same old shit, but isn't it always? There's elements of romcom in it's tired body swap premise but, hey, wasn't Airplane! a romance at heart too?
Thank you Universal Studios. Thanks to you I haven't given up on the R Rated comedy just yet.

5 Days Of Bore

Ah, the highs and lows of Renny Harlin's career. He came from humble Finish roots to America directing low budget horror movies like Prison and Nightmare On Elm Street 4 before going on to direct mega budget epics like Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger and Cutthroat Island. After royally screwing the pooch a decade ago with Stallone starrer Driven, Harlin returned to his smaller budget roots with the likes of the dumb (Mindhunters), the dumber (The Covenant) and the dumbest (Exorcist 4).

With 5 Days Of War, Harlin attempts to get his mojo back with an action drama that relives the Invasion of Georgia back in the summer of 2008. Told mainly from the viewpoint of a pair of independent TV journalists, it's a critique of the apathy of the international political and media community who were much more interested in showing the opening ceremony of the Chinese Olympics than the inhumane atrocities that were occurring at the same time. The film is certainly big in scales with tanks, attack choppers and battalions of troops filling the screens on occasion in authentic rubble strewn locations.

But the script and the cast are often quite lacking. Despite the invasion that forms the background to the plot, the drama is rarely gripping. It's not helped by the casting of Rupert Friend (where the cuss did they find this stiff) as the lead journalist and Emanuele Chriqui as a local Georgian girl he's determined to see to safety. Fortunately the supporting cast are up to some heavy lifting with Richard Coyle, Heather Graham, Andy Garcia and Fatty Fat Fat Kilmer all great in their roles.

Harlin still hasn't lost his touch for composing a striking image or a strong action sequence but in an attempt to remain relevant he's sacrificed a lot of his trademark visual style for a more contemporary and predictable hand held feel. That technique might go hand in hand with the video journalists of the script and the more serious nature of the story but one can't help but wish for the high octane bullshit of his past triumphs. Worthy but annoyingly dull.

Hanks Retains The Crowne

Larry Crowne appears to be a movie willing it's audience not to like it. Co-written and directed by Tom Hanks it's a slight tale of a divorced man having to completely reinvent his life when he's made redundant. It's a comedy drama where the comedy isn't broad and the drama isn't very powerful and for a while, in the early parts of the film, reaching for the remote control's off button is a serious option.

But along the way something happens. You begin to care. About Larry, about Ms Tainot his constantly pissy Community College teacher and about the friends he meets. And by the end you realise you actually get a kick from this low key, old fashioned, horribly nice and decent little movie. What you in fact realise is that you've been watching is Tom Hank's version of a Cameron Crowe movie...a poor man's Jerry MacGuire, if you like, and that's no bad thing.

Tom Hanks, as Larry, plays on his nicest guy in the world persona, and proves to the world why he's the best at this kind of thing. Julia Roberts, as his teacher, has fun stomping around in a strop before, she too, activates her star wattage that we've come to know and love. In fact Hanks gets great performances out of all his actors from Cedric The Entertainer to Bryan Cranston as Robers porn obsessed husband...but there's two actors that really shine here.

The first is Star Trek legend George Takai in a cameo as Hank's economics professor and is clearly relishing the opportunity to flex his comedy muscles. The second is British actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw (from the BBC's Doctor Who and JJ Abrams' failed TV series Undercovers) who wows as Larry's guide and inspiration in his new college life. Like Rosario Dawson in Clerks 2, Anne Hathaway in Princess Diaries, Sandra Bullock in Speed, Rachel McAdams in The Wedding Crashers or Julia Roberts herself in Pretty Woman, here is an actress that exudes youth, sex appeal, charisma, energy, charm, a girl next door quality mixed with that indefinable x-factor. Here is a movie star in the making, mark my words.

Larry Crowne might be a slight movie, but it's warm, immensely likable and lots of fun.

Abduct My Brain. Plleeeaaaase!!!

There are many downsides to the success of the Twilight movies. One of the biggest is the fact many of these dreary actors get other acting jobs in other big budget studio fare....and that means that sooner or later some dumb studio exec is going to offer Taylor "Team Jacob" Lautner a job. Well the inevitable has happened and the smiley plank has got himself a leading man gig in Abduction.

There's two types of people who got involved in Abduction. There's the A-List talent like cinematographer Peter Menzies Jnr, composer Edward Shearmur and director John Singleton who can't really be bothered to put any creative effort into this dead end star vehicle. You can lump the majority of the cast into the same category with Jason Isaacs, Maria Bello, Alfred Molina, Michael Nyqvist and Sigourney Weaver all phoning in half arsed performances.

Then there's the young cast of teens who aren't really up to carrying an action blockbuster. Denzel Whitaker demonstrates a blankness as Lautner's best friend that really shouldn't be allowed anywhere around a movie camera, Lily Collins, despite being the cutest new girl on the plot for years, in unremarkable as the hero's girl while Lautner himself is epically wooden easily trumping Channing Tatum's staggeringly dead-eyed GI Joe starring role.

The Bourne Identity inspired chase plot is solid if predictable, but is undermined by it becoming an exercise in teen-spy wish fulfillment. Plus it's not helped by Launter's character being a cocky, moody, high school jock type who garner no sympathy in the early stages of the film. With a better teen leading man this might of worked but, as it stands, it's a average actioner with a terrifying black hole of talentlessness at its centre.

Wishing Animated Tin Tin Was More Animated

Why isn't The Adventures Of Tin Tin - Secret Of The Unicorn one of the very best films of 2011? It has director Spielberg on top, inventive form fueled by the creativity that comes from James Cameron's Avatar animation process. It has a relentless, intricately plotted adventure from Stephen Moffat, the best writer classic British science fiction show Doctor Who has ever seen. Added to his wit in the script department you've got the humour and offbeat imagination of Joe (Attack The Block) Cornish and Edgar (Scott Pilgrim) Wright, two of the most unique genre writer/directors in modern cinema. And to top it off it's co-produced by Lord Of The Rings visionary Peter Jackson.

Well, to be honest, there isn't that much wrong with Tin Tin apart from Tin Tin himself. There's a certain lack of depth and a lack of emotion that comes from a lead character that's hard to identify with. That lack of connection with the fact that the lead character, who's in practically every scene is a squeaky clean, earnest, one dimensional goody two shoes. He has no character arc, or no interesting character of which to speak...he's just a persistent voice of curiosity with which to propel the plot. And no matter how strong the plot, the locations, the animation, the action or the supporting characters...you just can't get over the fact that Tin Tin himself is a bit dull.

It's brilliant to see Spielberg freed of the constraints of the physical universe with his new digital camera. He rarely abuses it's abilities, keeping its movements in line with what's possible with a real camera in the real world (mostly). But it does allow him the luxury of not editing a shot, but instead smoothly recomposing the action by swiftly gliding his digital camera to the next important story detail.
The script if full of great gags and rockets from one piece of exposition to the next without ever becoming dull or over complicated. The action set pieces benefit from Spielberg's new found freedom, especially in one ludicrous chase scene through a crowded African town with the camera weaving and ducking around, through and over houses, river rapids and military vehicles.

Best of all is Andy Serkis as Captain Haddock. It's the Captain that gets to be flawed and needs redemption. It's him that has the emotional connection to the plot. And it's him that has the amusing, sarcastic and unexpectedly entertaining characteristics that make an adventure movie worth watching. He's funny, tragic, fascinating and damned likable and if Tin Tin had been made the annoying, eager sidekick instead with Haddock as the lead, a better story might have emerged.

To end I'd like to moan about John William's score. Spielberg's musical collaborator for nearly 40 years now and Williams has clearly run out of steam. There's no doubt is wonderful to hear a traditionally orchestrated score in this era of electronics and Hans Zimmer clones, but Williams can't compose a coherent melody anymore...a feat made all the more tragic as he was once the king of movie melodies. Once the composer of great themes like Raiders, Star Wars, Jaws, Jurassic Park and Harry Potter, he now poops out forgettable noise like War Of The Worlds, Minority Report, The Terminal and Munich. It's all frenzied, relentless bluster with no melody to get hooked on and when a theme does emerge it's a pale shadow of past works like Catch Me If You Can, Raiders and Last Crusade. Still, he's still got Spielberg's upcoming War Horse to redeem himself but I wouldn't get your hopes up.

The Lincoln Lawyer Meets The Comeback Kid

Ever since I saw him in courtroom drama A Time To Kill, I immediately thought Matthew McConaughey was a genuine, 100% movie star. For better or for worse the guy has that Tom Cruise thing going on; the grin, the charm, the cockiness along with a certain measure of intelligence. And even though he's received a lot of stick over the years for his awfulness (thanks Family Guy) due to his popularity in humdrum romcoms, he's always been immensely watchable. His latest, The Lincoln Lawyer is the first legitimately strong work McConaughey has starred in for years. Another court room thriller, it pits the Shirtless One (as a sleazy, morally dubious defence lawyer) against a client that's out to beat the justice system.

It's a great character piece for all involved...and all involved are excellent from Marisa Tomei, Ryan Phillipe, William H Macy, Michael Pena, Josh Lucas, Bob Gunton, John Leguizamo and Bryan Cranston. The script is lean, gritty and tight as a tiger, the courtroom brinkmanship taut and exciting and it's a pleasure watching a movie star at the top of his charismatic game in material that can showcase his talent once again.

Once the central twist is revealed relatively early on the question isn't whether Matt is going to win or lose the case (we kind of want him to do both) but how he's going to navigate himself out of the deep moral quandary he finds himself in. A great drama and thriller and a welcome return to a genre that died out with the Grisham thrillers of the nineties.

Dominus Eagleus Averagus

There's the short version of my review for The Eagle and there's the long version.

First, the long version. The Eagle is based on the stories and myths that surround The Ninth Legion, a battalion of Roman soldiers who marched North of Hadrian's Wall during Rome's occupation of Britain, who were never seen or heard from again. After getting to see the accomplished son (Channing Tatum) of that lost unit in action some years later, the story then follows him and his slave (Jamie Bell) as they try and retrieve the Ninth Legion's emblem from a remote Scots village deep in enemy territory.

It's a well made, expensive, thoughtful and weighty drama about the prejudices (both positive and negative) countrymen have about their own states, as well as other countries as well as how they define honour as individuals. Surprisingly, Channing Tatum doesn't embarrass himself in the role of military leader and highly driven soldier, but that's by no means a compliment. There's still nothing going on behind the eyes and you can't help but think a more shilled thespian would be riveting in the part. Bell is just fine as his partner in battle but, oddly, it's Mark Strong who's the weakest here in a role he very nearly fumbles. The action is well staged, the direction has a contemporary feel and it's a relief that the beautiful landscapes are brought to life with little or no CGI trickery. But it's a film with a slender plot and slim characterisation despite the worthiness of the telling.

The short version of the review is this; watch Neil Marshall's Centurian instead. Michael Fassbender kicks Tatum's arse from here to Pluto!

Tourist (Not So) Hot Spot

It seems like a good idea on paper. Take the biggest male and female box office draws in the world (Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie) and put them in a highly popular genre (spy thriller), chuck in a touch of romance and have your stars play to type.
Your movie can't possibly fail can it? Well if it's The Tourist, then yes, you can right royally fuck it up.

It's an intriguing premise as the CIA stalk, track and trace the slinky Ms Jolie in order to find plot macguffin, arch criminal and thief Alexander Pearce. In order to throw the rozzers off the trail Jolie is instructed to by Pearce to find someone that looks like him and get the police to follow him instead, causing the necessary distraction for her to slip away. It's you classic case of Hitchcockian mistaken identity as Depp is chased by bad guys and good guys much to his bewilderment.

The Tourist is certainly a classy film with gorgeous locations, ravishing, lush, old fashioned photography, a melodramatic score and leisurely, romantic pacing. Depp does a toned down version of his resourceful, slightly effeminate, coward routine while Jolie vamps it up to the max as a sultry seductress, complete with poss totty English accent and blinding Scarlett lipstick. It's not a stretch for either of them. Paul Bettany sleepwalks as the intelligence agent tracking them, Timothy Dalton and Rufus Sewell turn up for some brief cameos, and Steven Berkoff is brilliantly subtle but menacing as the bad guy.

But it's written with all the subtlty of a third rate Mills & Boon novel. Corny, cringe worthy with character decisions that are completely nonsensical and a central mystery that's obvious from the start. All the pieces are present and correct for a strong movie but it's built on a foundation of irredeemable corny shite.

Conan The Cheap Imitation

This years remake of Conan The Barbarian can be compared with last years remake of The A-Team; when you're watching them you can't help but want to watch the original instead. Sure, both movies are solid productions with decent casts, impressive visual effects, big action sequences and a flashy, modern updated look....but they're nothing compare with the films (ot TV shows) that preceded them.

Jason Mamoa is OK as the lead character; he's certainly got the build, the likability, the physicality and the presence to play a character of Conan's stature...but he's no Schwarznegger. On ever conceivable level his performance, solid though it is, can't match that of Arnie's. Momoa doesn't have that icon Frank Franzetta physic, the Schwarznegger charm and charisma, the distinctive voice or even the range (Arnie can play the fool comically as well as do the invincibility convincingly). The same for everybody else...Stephen Lang, Rose McGowen and Rachel Nichols just don't measure up to James Earl Jones, Sarah Douglas or Sandahl Bergmen in the original films. The production is too CGI heavy to be truly impressive, the set designs uninspired and gloomy and the score forgettable.

But at least it's brutal and that counts for something. Just like the A-Team movie Conan The Barbarian 2011 is worth checking out on a popcorn and beer night with the lads, but just have the original close at hand to watch afterwards.

65 Million Years In The Making

Following the release of the spectacular (and under-rated) Indiana Jones and the Temple Of Doom in 1984, master director Steven Spielberg entered the wilderness years of his career. With movies like The Color Purple, Empire Of The Sun and Always he attempted to deliver stories with more depth and more worth but could never reconcile his more sentimental impulses. Then, when he returned to blockbuster film making, he couldn't judge the appropriate tone of the piece; Last Crusade lacks balls and Hook lacks somebodies foot on the break pedal of excess.

Then in 1993 he returned to form with Jurassic Park, an adaptation of Michael Crichton's classic novel about dinosaurs resurrected by the science of cloning.
It's not just the brilliant high concept that makes this exceptional adventure movie work, nor is it the splendid return of Sir Richard Attenborough to acting after 14 years. It's not even the ground-breaking special effects which, for better or for worse, finally allowed Hollywood to convincingly create any thing they could conceive of on the silver screen. No, it's the fact that Spielberg finally got the tone right by pitching it as a thriller; not a Bondian romp like Last Crusade, not a children's fantasy like Hook but a full on, severed limbs, jump scares, don't trip up or the pointy teethed monster will chew your face off thriller. Jaws on land, if you will.

It's not as perfect as critics might have you think. The casting is a mixed bag with Sam Neill (an actor I Admire) being far too low key for the lead in an effects blockbuster, Laura Dern ditto and Bob Peck...thoroughly entertaining though he is...seems to be auditioning for a Roger Corman flick with his eye bulging grimacing.
Dean Cundy's photography is a little too bright, colourful and Hollywood to be entirely appropriate for the horror-thriller that this is and Spielberg can't quite shake off the need to include some twee family bonding moments.

Apart from that it's all gravy. John William's score is exemplary, Crichton's subtext is thought provoking, Koepp's script is admirably lean, Jeff Goldblum steals the show in the acting department and Spielberg's direction goes to show why he's one of the best the world has ever seen ever. Iconic shots litter the film and the set-pieces dominate modern cinema like a stampeding brontosaurus. In particular, the T-Rex attack shows just why Spielberg is a master of constructing action sequences (only Cameron consistently gives him a run for his money) and the arrival scene in which Neill and Dern lay eyes on a dinosaur for the first time is profoundly powerful, moving and awe inspiring.

A brilliant return to form by Spielberg which, even 18 years later, he's still maintaining.

Tooth Fairy Is Right Lairy

When watching Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark you can absolutely see why writer/producer Guillermo Del Toro wanted to make it. Blending elements of a monster movie with fairy tale of the Grimm variety together in a blend of old fashioned gothic horror...it's right up his street. A reworking of the tooth fairy myth, it's told mainly from a child's viewpoint as "Afraid" has young Sally (an impressive Bailee Madison) encounter little creatures that play on her lonliness and deepest fears in the basement of her father's refurbished old house.

I've got to say I loved this film. While it's not scary, tense or gory enough to be a horror film it is stylish and atmospheric enough to be an engaging fantasy film...much like Gremlins was in the 80's but without the comedy elements. It may be about a child, but this is still definitely for adults much as Del Toro's own Pan's Labyrinth was a few years ago, although "Afraid" doesn't have the depth or sophistication that that classic does.

Beautifully directed by Troy Nixey in a style reminisant of 80's Donner, Zemekis or Dante the film has a superior design asthetic, a lush, old fashioned score by Marco Beltrami some top notch creature effects (as you'd expoect from a Del Toro production) and some solid performances by Katie Holmes and Guy Pearce. If I have to grumble it's that the film sticks to the central mystery structure that plagues most films of this type (Mirrors, Orphan, Final Destination) where the 'believer' character goes to the library (or on Google) to research the mystery only to uncover the horrific truth of what they're facing.

A lovely little gothic fantasy, if lovely is the right word...

Bunraku Equals Wild West Kung Fu

There's a recent tradition in contemporary movies to have stories in hyper-real, ultra-stylised worlds. From Dick Tracy to Immortals and every Frank Miller film in between (300, Sin City, The Spirit) director can now put their live action characters in surreal artisic worlds. The latest film to do this is Bunraku which puts Josh Hartnett, Demi Moore and Ron Perlman in a landscape inspired by the look of children's pop up books. Colours are uniform and bright, the sky a patchwork collage of shapes and the building are simplistic and theatre-like in their construction.

Into this world, director Guy Moshe presents a futuristic worlds where western gangster/gunslinger culture meets easter samurai philosophy in a mythic action revenge flick that you'd expect from the likes of Snyder, Tarantino or Rodriguez. Unfortunately, Moshe isn't as disciplined or focused a director as any of those visionaries which means the film occasionally looks tacky, is half an hour too long and lacks a certain wit with which to pull this kind of thing off.

The cast are solid, especially Hartnett who does the Eastwood-esque man with no name thing pretty intensely, and the scale of the story and the inventivness with which it's told is impressive to be sure. But a bigger budget, a less po-faced script and another set of eyes in the edting suite might have produced a cult classic. Bunraku is still worth a look for the effort to produce something new though.

30 Minutes Or I Couldn't Care Less

30 Minutes Or Less would have you believe this is cut from the same cloth as 80's action cinema. After all the characters spend all their time watching DVDs like Lethal Weapon, Die Hard and quoting Point Break as their inspiration. You've also got a structure which follows two (yes two) mismatched buddies as one pair trick the second pair into robbing a bank. Finally it's clearly striving for that balance between crime thriller and comedy that the original Beverly Hills Cop managed so well back in 1984.

It fails. 30 Minutes is likable, well cast (hey, it's got the great Fred Ward for God's sake), short in duration and has a high concept to die for. But it's neither a great thriller nor a great comedy...something Eddie Murphy's star vehicle achieved in truck loads. You can see it's trying to be witty, smart and original...much as director Ruben Fleischer's Zombieland was a few years back...but it never quite gets up to those lofty levels. Not bad though.

The Kids Of Spydom - The Next Generation

Director Robert Rodriguez has a schizophrenic body of work. On the one hand is the crazy, adult exploitation films like From Dusk Till Dawn, Machete and Desperado (which I love). On the other hand he has his crazy family features like Shorts, Shark Boy & Lava Girl and Spy Kids (which I Don't love). He's now returned to the family franchise which has given him the greatest success with Spy Kids 4 - All The Time In The World and produced one of his better mass appeal films in the process.

Following in the footsteps of Star Trek, Tron Legacy and X-Men First Class by being both a remake AND a reboot acknowledging the existence of earlier stories in the franchise, Spy Kids 4 introduces yet another spy family with sexy stepmom Jessica Alba as the head of the household. From then on Rodriguez chucks everything at his audience including gadgets, chases, masked villains, double crosses, talking robot dogs (voiced amusingly by the droll Ricky Gervais) underground hidden bases, original trilogy cameos, dysfunctional family bickering and more CGI then the human mind conceive of. The script is pretty up together balancing the end-of-the-world plot with the intimate family drama at the heart of the tale while delivering everything at twice the speed of sound.

Fast, fun, and more likable than most kids stuff as it's aimed at the cheekier more rebellious end of the pre-teen market, Spy Kids 4 is the second best of the series after the first film. That's perhaps due to Jessica Alba in a catsuit, but I'd still rather have the gore, guns and slutiness of Machete thanks very much.

Go Smurf Yourself

Yes, I've gone and done it again. Being a glutton for punishment I've gone an watched the latest in slick, Hollywood, cute talking animal kids films with The Smurfs. And yes, just like Furry Vengeance, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Garfield and Yogi Bear...it's crap. To be fair, The Smurfs is one of the better talking animal efforts due to the energetic human cast. Neil Patrick Harris gets the absurdity of the concept an so injects a strong dose of irony and comic timing to the putrid slapstick, fart gags and childishness which surrounds him.

Better still is Hank Azaria as the evil wizard Gargamel. Like Harris, Azaria knows exactly what sort of schlock he's in and delivers a wildly silly, yet post-modern and self-aware performance that's almost too sophisticated for the lowest common denominator tone that director Raja Gosnell seems to be striving for.

However the story is paper thin, predictable and utterly inconsequential, the effects weak (maybe because they're bright blue both the Smurfs don't blend with their surroundings) and the Smurfs themselves annoying little twats. And to think, in my youth I used to collect the little cyan chappies at National Service Stations around the West Country. Now they're scum to me. Ah, the innocence of youth.

Immortal Greek Chique

Judging just by the trailer, Immortals would appear to be a simple rip off of 300 with it’s classic Greek heroics, ultra slow motion carnage and hyper stylised reality. It turns out it has more in common with Clash Of The Titans since it uses the Greek Mythology (with Gods, Mortals and Titans doing battle) than it does 300 with an enraged Spartan King going berserkoid.

Directed by cinema auteur Tarsem Singh, the film is designed within an inch of its life. Like the works of Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam or Henry Sellik the moment you see Tarsem’s films you know exactly who’s made it. There’s a stately theatricality to the look and tone of the film as if it’s a respected classic being performed in a stage production. There’s a ‘fakeness’ to the production design which always threatens to pull you out of the movie, but the narrative is strong enough and the dialogue delivered with such earnest gravitas, that suspension of disbelief kicks back in immediately. It's a delicate balance though...the film is humourless and the dialogue itself clunky...but the weird historical reality remains convincing throughout.

Henry Cavill proves to be a strong leading man and bodes well for the Superman reboot in which he'll star as Kal-El. He's got both the physical presence and a quiet, confident charisma that puts him legitimately on the Hollywood Young Leading Man A-List that the likes of Cooper, Worthington, Tatum, Pattinson and Wahlberg should be excluded from. The supporting cast is equally solid with John Hurt, Luke Evans, Isabel Lucas and Stephen Dorff (great to see him back in big budget stuff) while Frieda Pinto is outrageously beautiful to the point of distraction. Micky Rourke dominates the film as villain Hyperion with his laid back sadistic performance that's the best thing he's done since he was Oscar nominated.

Not as good as 300 but still pretty engrossing, Immortals tells the classic Greek mythology with style and conviction in a manner that's utterly unique.

Nowt Right With Shark Night

Oh dear. Shark Night 3D is strong a contender for worst film of the year. It’s an exploitation film without any exploitation, a horror movie without any horror, a thriller without any thrills. There are even moments, in the early section of the film, where it has the tone of a teen college comedy like Road Trip, but there’s no comedy either.

This sticks close to the horror formula that Tucker & Dale Vs Evil parodied so very well recently with a bunch of obnoxious teens going to a remote cabin/house for a weekend break only to be menaced by monsters and rednecks. The teens are either thoroughly unlikable (the bimbo, the jock, the nerd, etc) or thoroughly bland (Sara Paxton from TV’s Clueless) and it’s difficult to care about the fate of anyone in this cussfest. The dialogue is cheesy, lacking in any wit or originality while the story a kind of variation on the superior Lake Placid is mundane. The characters constantly do stupid things that make no sense whatsoever just to create contrived action sequences as do the poorly rendered CG sharks. There’s no gore, no boobage (at least not on the Kelly Brook in Piranha kind of way) no jokes, no good music, no interesting characters, no memorable kills. It’s just a functionally directed, safe, no risk enterprise that fails to deliver…except for one inspired shot. Taking it’s cue from the much better (yeah, you heard me right) Megashark vs Giant Octopus there’s a glorious, beautifully composed, slow motion kill that would make a great desktop wallpaper for a die hard horror fan. But don’t expect any more from Shark Night, ‘cause that’s all you’re getting.

Shoot Em Up vs The Transporter

God bless Jason Statham. You can see he's trying to pick projects that rise above the bog standard action bullshit fare like The Expendables and The Transporter and do something that's a little more serious and a little more adult in tone...but he's no quite there yet. Even with a script based on a true story and actors of the caliber of Clive Owen and Robert De Niro to support him, Killer Elite still hovers firmly in the genre of bullshit action.

It's a solid action thriller that eventually has Statham and Owen going head to head (in the best parts of the film. Although Owen is set up as the bad gut, it's great to see the actor pull off a character that is sympathetic and who you also want to see succeed. Chuck actress Yvonne Strahovski gets the thankless girlfriend in peril role, although it's nice to see her perform in her native (and far cuter) Ozzie accent.

There's some great location work (Australia, Omar, London) and some subtle but convincing retro production design (it's set in 1980) but this fails to rise above the standard Statham film like The Mechanic or Blitz. At the end of the day Statham is Statham and whatever he makes I'm sure he'll be great in it, but to break the cycle he's either going to have to make Crank 3 or make a pack with Michael Bay to make the most expensive bullshit action movie ever filmed. Transformers 4 anyone?

The Name's Pixar. Disney Pixar

The critics were right. Cars 2 is Pixar's weakest work to date. But they're only partly right in that the lowest rung of Pixar is still far, far higher than most animated features, including those of rival studios Dreamworks, Sony Imageworks and Blue Sky. The problem with Cars 2 isn't that it's bad (it's not) but that it's not as good as other Pixar films. Specifically, there's very little sophistication and very little in the way of powerful emotion to give the story gravity and depth.

There's much to recommend it though. It mixes the tense car races of the first film, this time expanding the action to a global scale to include Formula One racing, the Italian tradition of car manufacturing and classic British automobiles, along with the conventions of the spy movie. It's great to see these conventions adapted and subverted to serve in a universe populated entirely by talking vehicles. From tracking devices and other gadgets, the Bond pre-title action sequence, double crosses, a mega-maniacal villain and in true Hitchcockian form, a case of mistaken identity the spy genre is throughly exploited and it's always fun and engaging to where they'll go next with the wacky concept.

It looks great, is fast, funny, has one of the best soundtracks of the year with Michael Giachinno's 60's sounding spy score and it is endlessly inventive. If you're going to spend time, money and effort animating something you'd better make sure it's something that can't be done with live action otherwise what's the point?..Cars 2 knows this and flaunts it. But it's also the most childish of the Pixar movies and the emotional depth is about as great as your average Bond caper.
Great fun, just not the classic we've come to expect.

Kung Foo Fatty Too

After surprising everyone with the outstanding How To Train Your Dragon a while back, Dreamworks Animation seem to have settled back into a comfortably average groove once again with Megamind and now Kung Fu Panda 2. Ok, that's a bit cruel...Panda 2 is definitely better than average with a beautiful visual look that riffs off traditional Chinese art, massive CG landscapes, epic action sequences,intricately choreographed fight sequences and, most surprisingly, some powerful and affecting character moments as hero Panda Po comes to terms with his tragic past.

But, as with most Dreamworks cartoons, its story is a little too predictable to truly engage, too much time is spent arsing around with fart jokes and slapstick and you're always distracted by the starry voice cast rather than sucked into the plot.
That said, it must be mentioned that Gary Oldman's villain steals the show, once again proving that we're very luck to have the actor back on our screens hamming it up once more.

November Pick N Mix

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