DanielRobertRoss

I love anime.

Spirited Away, Akira, Hellsing, Dragonball, Naruto, Ghost in the Shell, Howl's Moving Castle, Demon Slayer, Pokemon, Ponyo, Way of the House Husband and Attack on Titan to name a few.

Fantastic stuff.

But the lead character in Stand by Me Doraemon is an aggressively obnoxious lead character (Nobita, a cliched dork with no off button) and he drags the film all the way down with him.

What an annoying cluster of obnoxious, cliched characters, including a schoolyard bully who's so one dimensional he looks like he walked right out a 1950's flashback scene in a Stephen King adaptation.

Whoever worked on this maelstrom of noise (Directed to death by Tony Oliver, Takashi Yamazaki and Ryuichi Yagi) has some undiagnosed adhd.

Or maybe they think that they need to fill the film with endless emotion, action, emotional manipulation, snot dribbling out of noses, whizz-bang time travel animation, visual gags, comedy yuks, sound effects and OTT voice acting to distract from the worn out, paper thin plot.

Films, especially ones marketed towards children, need to have moments for both the characters and the audience to breathe.

This is key jangling: the movie.

The main problem however, is the main character is just way too unlikeable during the film's first 2 acts for him to redeem himself in the third act.

He's Charlie Brown, if Charlie Brown was an obnoxious crybaby with adhd and annoying level of obsession with a girl.

At least Charlie Brown was content to merely pine over the red haired girl from afar.

I feel genuinely sorry for the young girl Nobita is obsessed with.

Most anime has hectic moments, but there are almost always pauses for the audience to breathe.

And I understand cultural differences.

The way Asian filmmakers tell stories is different in many ways from western filmmakers.

Which is of course understandable.

But this film hurt me. It feels like it's 3 hours of a crybaby running around like a 2 year old.

Screaming, crying, punching, more yelling.

I was exhausted.

Some funny lines of dialogue, and the animation is (mostly) nice to look at, but I hated this film.

Don't show your kids this, there's so much better anime out there.

This is probably the best thing I've ever seen.

One star removed because there wasn't enough Rich Evans.

Sharks fascinate me, they always have. I remember watching "The Shark Chronicles" as a kid when it first aired on TV back in the early '90s. The amazing footage of sharks blew my mind. James Coburn's gravely voice narrates, he could read the phone book and make it sound Shakespearean.

Re-watching it now, it's still one of the best shark documentaries ever made. There's groundbreaking footage of hand feeding Bull sharks, expert stuntmen filming simulated shark attacks for Hollywood films and a first hand account by famous shark expert Rodney Fox of being almost killed by a shark.

Al Giddings, who is the main focus of the feature, tells several anecdotes about his close calls with sharks. The horrifying accounts of near fatal shark attacks are compelling, but so are the revelations that sharks are not the mindless killing machines that so many movies would have you believe.

This documentary also touches on sharks being killed just for their fins, which saddens me. They are incredible creatures that are endangered due to overfishing, and if we aren't careful, we may lose one of the most amazing creatures of the deep, and the world will be poorer for it. A fascinating insight into one of the most amazing animals on this planet. Highly recommended.

Since the 70s, there's been great Stephen King adaptations (Shawshank, Green Mile, The Shining, Misery and Carrie), there's quite a few mediocre (Cujo, Children of the Corn, Pet Cemetery) and quite a few that are just rubbish (The risible Maximum Overdrive, Dreamcatcher, Dark Tower etc). King's not to blame for the variable quality of course, not every director is Stanley Kubrick.

So where does It: Part 2 rank?

I enjoyed the first film for what it was, despite some silly moments and excessive jump scares. I appreciated director Andy Muschietti's style for the film and looked forward to seeing where the second film would go. Unfortunately this anticipated follow up is quite frankly, more of the same. Despite strong performances from all the cast (In particular Bill Hader) and some well executed set pieces, the genuinely creepy moments are dwarfed by CGI jump scares, but I have to admit, I jumped back in my chair several times. Cheap or not, those damn boo moments work.

However I still miss the era of films like The Shining, where slow tension and atmospheric chills were more important than cheap boo scares. Not a bad film by any stretch, it's leagues above the frankly crap TV miniseries (Apart from a bonkers Tim Curry as Pennywise, the 90s version is pretty forgettable). A solid addition to the genre (With a fun cameo from a genre master), but it's not exactly going to dethrone the great Stephen King adaptations. But goddammit, I jumped back in my seat three times. And my partner loved it. Recommended. I guess.... Yeah... go see it. Shrug.

Spielberg remains to this day one of the most misunderstood film-makers of his generation. He has been labeled both a peddler of popcorn and a saccharine manipulator (Those who say the latter have clearly forgotten Alex Kitner erupting in a geyser of blood in Jaws, exploding Nazi heads, the horrors of the Holocaust in Schindler and the river of corpses in War of the Worlds).

There are two Spielbergs. There's the man who makes somber, academy award winning dramas (Empire of the Sun, Saving Private Ryan, Munich, War Horse, Lincoln etc). Then's there's the 10 year old playing in the sand box (The Indy films, Hook, Jurassic Park, Tintin etc). What I enjoy most about the 'Berg, is how he can zigzag between disparate genres. But after a stretch of SF films (A.I, Minority Report and War of the Worlds), I was looking forward to a return to the free wheeling fun with Crystal Skull. It turned out to be an uncharacteristic dud that despite the boffo box office, proved to be deeply unpopular with fans of the series.

This made me cautious about Ready Player One. Had Spielberg lost his touch? I was wrong. This may be one of the most visually amazing and effortlessly fun films I've seen in a long time. I have not read Ernest Cline's novel, so fans of the popular novel may have issues, but I rarely read the books before seeing the film.

The cast are great. Tye Sheridan are Olivia Cooke are the standouts. Mark Rylance and Simon Pegg are fun in supporting roles. Alan Silvestri's robust score is one of his most memorable. I miss John Williams, but it's still a great score. Longtime 'Berg collaborator Janusz Kaminski's cinematography is beautiful. And it's the only film where you'll see a DeLorean chasing a T-Rex on the big screen. That image alone is worth the ticket price. He never went away, but it's nice to see him back playing in the sand box.

It's no secret that I have an obsession with sharks and shark movies. Jaws is my favorite film of all time, not just because there's a shark in it, but also because it's a damn good movie.

Throughout the intervening decades since Spielberg's seminal 1975 thriller, we've been greeted with an endless stream of shark attack movies of varying quality. From entertainingly silly (Deep Blue Sea) to genuinely good (Open Water, The Reef), to schlock (Shark Night 3D, Shark Attack 3: Megaladon and the infamous Sharknado).

I'll just get to the point. The Shallows is the best shark attack movie since Jaws. It's suspensfully directed by Jaume Collet- Serra, who clearly knows how to ratchet up the tension. Blake Lively is great as a surfer stranded on a rock endlessly hounded by a Great White.

If the ending stretches credulity and goes full Hollywood, it still does it with more class than the Jaws sequels. And damn this movie is intense. Put it this way: I consider myself a hardened movie veteran. But I jumped back in my seat twice, spilling popcorn on my girlfriend. Kudos movie. This shark has bite.

After the divisive critical reaction and box office mediocrity of Batman v. Superman, I went into Suicide Squad not expecting much. Surprisingly, I liked a lot about the film. Thankfully, the portentous gods vs men "do we need heroes?" waffling from BvS is nowhere to be found.

David Ayer knows that action can be fun, as apposed to Zack Snyder's heavy handed growling and yelling matches. And the "rogues called together to do good" has echoes of 2014's Guardians of the Galaxy, one of the best MCU films. And the anarchist spirit is a fun break from the somber tone of the previous films, to a point where it starts to feel like it's not actually part of the same universe, despite Ben Affleck showing up as Batman in a cameo.

Jared Leto's Joker is a different beast then Heath Ledger's portrayal in The Dark Knight, and in the DC cinematic universe, it works surprisingly well. Picture Hannibal Lector combined with Patrick Bateman. It's a shame there isn't more of him in the film. If they make The Joker the main villain of a Batman film, I'd pay all the money to see that.

Margot Robbie is the standout performance of the film, she nailed the character of Harley Quinn perfectly. Will Smith is good, given how little character background he's given. The rest are hit and miss. Crocodile man-monsters, ninjas and pyromaniacs.

The negatives? The choppy editing of the first 15 minutes is annoying, the villain is pretty forgettable, the character intros are hit and miss, and the overuse of pop songs gets old fast. But once the rogues gallery team up to kick ass, it's a surprisingly fun film. For all its flaws, this is the first time I've walked out of the cinema after a DCU film smiling. Now that's an achievement.

Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith is generally regarded as the best of the prequels, but that's like saying it's the best dump you had all day. All the problems of the previous two films are still here: the awkward romantic scenes, the turgid script, uneven acting and waaay too much unnecessary CGI.

My main issue is the villain. Grievous was introduced in Genndy Tartakovsky's brilliant Star Wars: Clone Wars animated series as a Jedi killing, stone cold badass. Here, he's introduced coughing. Lame. Only if you watched the aforementioned cartoon would you realise it's because Mace Windu force crushed his body armour. Plus (spoiler) he kills no one. Quite why a scene where he murders a Jedi was cut is a mystery.

The final two intercut lightsaber battles are fun, I can't deny that. And Ian McDiarmid almost steals the film as Darth Sidious. When he snarls at Mace Windu "Are you threatening me, master Jedi?!", I was on the edge of my seat. And the opening space battle is such an exciting tour de force, it almost makes you forget that the middle of the film is just bored people standing around discussing politics.

There are great moments and strong action scenes throughout Revenge of the Sith, but it isn't enough to save the film. J.J Abrams's The Force Awakens by comparison is far superior.

No discussion should start with "Which is worse, Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones?" Because it's easy: Phantom Menace. It's not even close, this film improves on the original on almost every level.

Sure, the problems from TPM continue in the second film (Weak characterisation, thin story, overload of digital effects, uneven acting etc). But Christopher Lee's presence instantly adds a star, and the lightsaber fight between Count Dooku vs Yoda is brilliant. Jake Lloyd is gone, so is most (but not all) of the moribund political waffling. And Jar Jar is relegated to a brief few minutes of screen time.

Hayden took a lot of flack for his portrayal of Anakin, but I don't hate him in the role, it's clear that almost all actors in the three prequels struggled to do well, chewing their way through Lucas's stodgy dialogue while surrounded in blue screen. Apparently only British actors like Ian McDiarmid and Christopher Lee can polish a turd- laden script. Lee could read the phone book and i'd give him an Oscar.

There are those painfully awkward romance scenes with Padmé and Anakin though. Anakin riding a fake CGI cow alien through a over lit fairy tale backdrop is the low point of the film. After re-watching it, I realized just how much of the film is just bad dialogue.

However there are great moments of fun sorely missing from TPM. There's the fast-paced and exciting speeder chase through Coruscant, a fun space fight between Obi Wan and Jango Fett, Jedi fighting en masse and the aforementioned lightsaber duel finale is great. And John Williams outdoes himself again with another fantastic score.

None of this of course makes it a good film, but it is undoubtedly a substantial improvement over Phantom Menace. Unfortunately, there are too many slow dialogue scenes that grind the film to a halt. Overall, it's flawed but there are some fun moments where Lucas reminds you of how he used to make films.

Hollywood remakes. For every Ocean's 11, there's 10 Willy Wonkas. So here we are saddled with another previously untouchable classic getting a slickly made, soulless studio remake. But is it fair to judge it just because it's a remake? Or does it succeed on its own merits?

I love the William Wyler '59 original classic, and watch it often. The quoteable lines are brilliant. "Your eyes are full of hate, 41. That's good. Hate keeps a man alive". Charlton Heston is great as Ben Hur. And that chariot race is one of the greatest action spectacles ever put on the silver screen.

I just can't envisage myself re- watching this. The effects are impressive, but any tosspot on a computer can conjure up digitally creative wowzers, so that is no selling point. And the action is predictably impressive, but it's so stagnant, slick and with no standout unforgettable moment. Jack Huston brings nothing new to the role of Ben- Hur, and Morgan Freeman clearly has a new flat screen TV to pay for, so he shows up to phone it in.

For the past 16 years we've seen sword & sandal epics go from fun genre revival (Gladiator) to moribund cliché (Hercules, 300 Rise of the Empire). In fact Rodrigo Santoro (Xerxes from 300) shows up as Jesus Christ this time. From Persian tyrant to Jewish prophet, now that's an improvement.

I left the cinema knowing that I'll forget about this in 3 weeks. Remakes can improve on the original (The Fly, The Thing, the '59 Ben-Hur is itself a remake of an early silent B&W version). But you risk falling into trap of being so slavishly loyal to the original that to redo the film becomes pointless (Pyscho).

I can't recommend paying full cinema price. Stay at home and watch the '59 original. On the small screen, Chuck Heston commands a stronger presence than anyone in this large screen bore.

So we come at last to the third part in a once promising SF series. After endless cod philosophy rot, bloodless Xbox battles in Matrix Reloaded and more pointless dialogue scenes than Phantom Menace (Another film that failed on almost every level).

And speaking of battles, let's discuss battle fatigues. It's action movie 101. When you constantly have armies yelling "Raaaahhhhh!!!" at machines while shooting more bullets than John Rambo and John Matrix combined, man does it get old fast. The Wachowskis should've taken lessons from Peter Jackson's Two Towers. In the middle of the melee of Helm's Deep, it cuts to Treebeard with fellow ents, talking to hobbits.

The point is, you have to give the audience time to breath or they suffer from ennui. It's exhausting sitting through the last 38 minutes of battles in Zion, battles with sentinels, battles with agent Smith. Sure, it's all very slick and well choreographed, but it's like being beaten over the head with a 2×4 while playing PlayStation.

I understand movie goers want a big action spectacle finale, but not this excessive. it goes on for waaaay too long. By the halfway point, I just didn't care anymore. Neither did the rest of the audience.

Mike Stoklasa of Redlettermedia did his definitive 90 minute Plinkett review of Phantom Menace. A legion of enraged fanboys have expressed their vitriol in endless nitpick critiques. Mainstream media critics heaped praise on the film and then sheepishly backtracked over time. What else is left to say?

The tiresome political intrigue, the bland story, the pointless side characters, Jar Jar, mediocre bluescreen effects, its all been said before. I don't disagree with the sentiments of other reviews. In fact the more times I watched it, the worse the film seemed to get.

The final three way fight between Qui Gon, Obi Wan and Darth Maul is the only reason to sit through the film, but even that is ruined by constantly cutting away to infantile slapstick of Jar Jar arsing about on the battlefield and uninspired battle antics and accidental victories.

Positives? John Williams' fantastic score gives momentum to an otherwise moribund film, Liam Neeson is dependably good and Ian McDiarmid is one of the few actors capable of chewing through Lucas's turgid dialogue and remain respected.

There's a reason I haven't sat through this film all the way for more than 10 years: it's a boring turd.

I have sat all the way through Birdemic, Troll 2, Catwoman and Manos: The Hands of Fate. But Roger Christian's cinematic diarrhea Battlefield Earth was too much for me.

The constant Dutch angles, Travolta's horrible overacting, the crap visual effects, the flat cinematography, it was badness overload. I'm not even going to go into the whole howl at the moon insane Scientology aspect of the film.

An hour and a half into it, I turned off the TV and went outside for a walk to the library, with the intention of burning all of L Ron Hubbard's SF novels. Worst Sci Fi film ever. Life is too short for this flaccid, D grade cinematic cancer. Avoid like herpes.

A lot of noise has been made concerning the historical inaccuracies in Zack Snyder's adaptation of the graphic novel 300. But that's totally beside the point. This is not a WW2 documentary, everyone who fought at Thermopylae has been dead for 2,496 years. Both earlier historical war films Braveheart and Gladiator were crtiticised for their historical inaccuracies.

But while witnesses were present during the battles of those films, Herodotus never saw Thermopylae. He wrote about it years after the fact from unreliable sources, and then some Hollywood jackass wrote the movie script for "The 300 Spartans" in the '60s.

Comic book writer (And outspoken Islamaphobe) Frank Miller wrote and illustrated the graphic novel the film is based on after having seen "300 Spartans". Miller has been notoriously rabid in recent years for his anti Islamist views, which he pumped into his book, despite the fact that the Persians in 480BC lived almost 1000 years before Muhammad.

Then Snyder made a film based on the most convoluted game of history's Chinese whispers ever played. Not to mention that the narrator of the film (David Wenham) is a biased Spartan commander, whipping up his war hungry fellow warriors into a battle frenzy with exaggerated tales of Persian monsters. In defense of the film's portrayal of Xerxes, no contemporary portraits of the king were made, so no one really knows what he looked like. For all we know, he may have looked like an 8 foot tall Rodrigo Santoro, wearing more gold than Mr T.

The film is actually comparitively close to the events recorded, unlike the more recent (and rubbish) 300: Rise of an Empire, which is more He Man than Herodotus. I have a few complaints though. The portrayal of Ephialtes as a hunchback is cartoonish. The ephor's line to Leonidas " This is August, Leonidas..." is laughably anachronistic, considering that Roman Emporer Augustus (After which the month was named) wasn't even born for roughly 350 years. But I admit it's a nitpick.

The 300 Spartans in the film die just like Herodotus said. The details may have been changed, but the important beats are surprisingly close to Herodotus. And Gerald Butler kicks ass, even if he sounds more Scottish than Spartan. In short, it's a movie, if you want a serious documentary, watch Discovery Channel.

Prolific horror writer Stephen King's novels have been adapted to the screen with varying degrees of success, ranging from brilliant (Carrie), mediocre (Secret Window) to forgettable (Dreamcatcher, Tommyknockers etc).

Which brings us to Misery. Riding high after a string of popular films The Princess Bride, When Harry met Sally and Stand By Me (Another King adap), director Rob Reiner brings one of King's best novels to the screen.

Kathy Bates is terrifying as unhinged psychotic Annie Wilkes and James Cann is brilliant as Paul Sheldon, the imprisoned writer. Like several of his novels, the protagonist is a writer (Secret Window also has a tortured novelist). King's tendency to use his novels in the '80s as parallels to his own experiences is liked by some, but not all fans. However with this film, it works to its advantage.

Shawshank Redemption is my favorite film based on one of King's books, but when it comes to his horror stories, this is the best. Kathy Bates deservedly won an Oscar for her role and the film is one if the best thrillers of the '90s. Highly recommended.

Time to finally talk about this travesty. I'm gonna treat this less as a review and more as cathartic therapy. What annoyed me more than any CGI monkeys, fridge nuking or Shia Lebeoufing, is that this film ignores it's own mythos.

In the first three films, we are clearly in a world where the Judeo- Christian God exists. The Ark of the Covenant is real, and so is the Holy Grail, as proved by their supernatural abilities. Admittedly, Temple of Doom is debatable, but I would argue that it still falls into the same mythical world, because if God exists, then so does Satan, the "Kali" who gives Mola Ram his powers is most likely a demon.

Which brings us to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Never mind that it turns the series into Sci Fi when it has always been fantasy, what rankles me much more so, is the blatant disregard for its own world building. After walking out the cinema 8 years ago, I finally understood why Phantom Menace annoyed Star Wars fans so much. Midichlorians are the same as aliens, shoving in stuff that has no place in the universe the characters live in.

But admittedly my reasons for not liking Crystal Skull are pretty esoteric. For the average film fan, is there anything to like? Well, John Hurt's performance as an eccentric professor is good. Ray Winstone as Indy's duplicitous turncoat sidekick is fun, but I do miss John Ryhs Davies. Sallah was a great character in the series. And Sean Connery would've been great too, it's a shame that League of Extraordinary Gentlenen was such a bad experience it made him retire from acting.

The always brilliant John Williams gives an otherwise dull movie momentum, and there are one or two enjoyable character moments and action scenes. But there's a reason that this film angered so many fans of the series (Myself included). Aliens do not belong in this universe, this is Indiana Jones, not War of the Worlds.

Raiders and Last Crusade are genre classics, beloved by millions. I'm not going to pretend that Temple of Doom is a masterpiece, but at least the mine cart chase and rope bridge scene are fun. What memorable moments from Crystal Skull are there? Apart from the atomic blast survival, which is only well known because it was so over the top it started the "nuking the fridge" meme. Whenever I think of this film, all I remember is bad CGI, fake Russian accents and aliens.

And let's talk about that CGI. Every digital shot and animal sticks out like a sore thumb. ILM must have had their A team on this film, so what possible excuse could they have for such shoddy effects work? Visually speaking, the film looks nothing like the first three.

Spielberg is still one of my favorite filmmakers, but this, along with 1941 and Hook is one of his biggest missteps. Tintin, War Horse, Lincoln and Bridge of Spies were great movies though. All is forgiven Spielberg. I can't stay mad at the man who gave the world Jaws, Close Encounters, Raiders and Jurassic Park. But the rumored Indy 5 better not have sodding aliens.

I had concerns about this, especially after the trailer with all its "Fast and the Furious in space" vibe, which seemed inevitable, given Justin Lin has directed several films in the muscle/car/action/boobs franchise.

I was wrong, Star Trek Beyond was awesome. There were heartfelt character moments, and the action scenes were entertaining and well filmed. It goes without saying that the effects for the series are impressive, but they take it up a notch this time. Co writer and super fan Simon Pegg brings some great humour to the series after the overly serious Into Darkness.

The heartfelt send off to Leonard Nimoy was handled well and Idris Elba brought menace and gravitas to a role that could have been "villian of the week". A resteady of the series after the shaky Wrath of Khan film. May Star Trek continue into the future.

I wasn't that bothered when I heard about another Tarzan movie. In my opinion, i'm sick of Dracula, werewolf, horror/adventure genre movies. Was I thinking pessimistically? Well, as it turned out, it was enjoyable. Nothing incredible really, but the action was impressive. Special kudos to the visual effects gurus, the CGI gorillas were brilliant.

Harry Potter director David Yates knows how to put action scenes together well. Story-wise it felt a bit cluttered, do we need a slavery in the Congo subplot? The lead actor playing Tarzan was surprisingly good. Strider from Lord of the Rings meets Alan Quatermain. Samuel L. Jackson clearly wandered off the set of The Hateful Eight and kept playing a watered down version of his battle-hardened Civil War veteran. I walked out of the cinema feeling impressed. Will I forget about it in 3 weeks? Yeah.

Remember how much fun the first Smokey and the Bandit film was? Well, he's back, and this time he's an alcoholic burnout who makes bad career choices and treats his friends like trash. So, he's basically Burt Reynolds from 1980-Boogie Nights. Remember how much free wheeling fun and energy the first film had? Well this sequel has all the energy of a pregnant elephant. Speaking of elephants, Dom DeLuise is in the film. And a pregnant elephant. The entire cast looks like they can't wait to get paid, it's such a "go through the motions" film, reminiscent of another sequel, "Ghostbusters 2.

The final police car pile up is impressive but even that outstays it's welcome after a while. No, it's not one of the worst sequels ever, it's just so gosh darn bland and average.

I'm a huge fan of the Jackass guys, especially Steve O, Knoxville and Bam Margera, and The Jackass Lost Tapes is a great compilation of the unseen pranks and stunts not shown during the original run of the show. Highlights include the self defense with Knoxville getting stun-gunned, Dave England swallowing the ingredients of an omelet and then vomiting it up, then cooking and eating it. Their brand of dumb humor and bodily harm is my cup of tea (Or horse semen). I get why some people don't find it funny, and some of their pranks and gross out stuff is just off color, but I love it. Not for everyone, but essential for any Jackass fanatic.

I was working at the cinema when Scorsese's epic period film Gangs of New York came out in 2002, and the first time I watched it, I was blown away. From the visceral opening battle, to the brutal finale, I loved every minute of the film. Scorsese has never been shy about violence on screen. After all, this is the director who gave us the brutal gang murders in Goodfellas and the torture scene in Casino.

I had never read Herbert Asbury's book about 19th century gangs in New York City, nor did I know about this obscure period of New York history. Focusing on the saloon halls, gambling dens and winding alleys of the Bowery and the Five Points district of Lower Manhattan, the book evokes the destitution and violence of a turbulent era. This film made me want to know so much more about the people, the battles, the politics and the blood-soaked tribal warfare.

Leonardo DiCaprio, in his first collaboration with Scorsese, is unfortunately the weakest part of the film. It's not that he's bad, and I do not agree that his accent is shaky, it's just that he was still reasonably green in his career. The supporting cast is a very strong ensemble of great character actors like Brendan Gleeson, John C. Reilly and Jim Broadbent. Daniel Day-Lewis, well known for his method action and complete immersion in his roles, gives the greatest performance of his career as the brutal gang leader Bill the Butcher. When Bill yells at Liam Neeson's Priest Vallon "Then may the Christian Lord guide my hand against your Roman Popery!", I was gripped to the screen, watching the warring clans hacking and stabbing until the snow is stained red.

I would love to see the original 4 hour cut of the film, before it was whittled down to it's current length, and that's a rare thing for me to want a longer film. Michael Ballhaus's cinematography is amazing, and Howard Shore's rousing score is incredible. The best film of 2002 (The Academy award winner, Chicago, is overrated rubbish). Gangs of New York is my favorite film of the decade. Highly recommended.

Scorsese is my favorite director working today. From his first great film Mean Streets to Wolf of Wall Street, he's given the world some amazing movies. Some are better than others of course, but I would be hard pressed to say that's he's ever made a bad film. Casino, when first released, was unfavorably compared to Scorsese's Goodfellas, and it's easy to see why. Based on another Nicholas Pileggi crime novel, the returning cast members Robert DeNiro, Frank Vincent and Joe Pesci, a long running time and "rise and fall of a gangster" plot.

But while Goodfellas is my number one Scorsese film (Followed closely by Raging Bull), Casino has slowly become one of my favorites. The violence is still sometimes hard to watch, two scenes come to mind that in my opinion, rival anything in Goodfellas in terms of visceral, shocking brutality. The infamous torture scene is still shocking, comparable to the ear amputation in Reservoir Dogs. Scorsese's eye for detail and use of narration serves him well, and the acting is across the board excellent. Sharon Stone deservedly won an Oscar for her role as hustler Ginger McKenna. And Joe Pesci is on fine form as hot tempered, coked-up muscle Nicky Santoro.

The eclectic soundtrack is great, filled with 70s classics like Jeff Beck's "I Ain't Superstitious" and Boogaloo Down Broadway. Robert Richardson's cinematography is amazing, capturing the gaudy style of the era perfectly. And longtime collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker edits the film beautifully and doesn't shy away from the sometimes brutal violence.

There are a few flaws. You could trim about 10 minutes of Nicky Santoro and his gang (We get the point, they're bad guys). And Robert DeNiro looks about as Jewish as Vladimir Putin. But these are minor complaints. A great film that i'll watch over and over for years to come. Highly recommended.

I didn't see this in cinemas. I was so disappointed in the overlong nonsense of An Unexpected Journey, I refused to watch the second and third movies. Reluctantly I eventually watched Desolation of Smaug on DVD, and well, I don't know. It's technically better than the first film, but still has all the same flaws; the unnecessary characters, the bloated length, the side quests that go nowhere and the jarring tonal shifts.

Things start off promisingly enough, but soon devolve into an awkward mix of slapstick and pratfalls. And it seems that all the FX work on Smaug consumed the production, and the rest of the CGI was rushed in a week. I hate that Azog is a CGI character, he has no depth whatsoever. And the barrel ride with the dwarfs has some of the worst blue screen work I've seen in recent years.

Once the film gets to lake Town, I gave up, the film just stops dead in it's tracks. The pointless politics, the endless discussions, and the ridiculous master of the town. I love Stephen Fry, the man is a genius. But from his first scene, I couldn't stop giggling. He's less Master of Lake Town and more Monty Python.

After an eternity of needless exposition and characters that go nowhere, our forgettable (Thorin and Balin excluded) dwarfs finally encounter the title character. Just like the riddles in the dark scene with Bilbo and Gollum in the first film, Smaug is worth the wait. He's everything I wanted and more. It's just unfortunate that Jackson just can't figure out what the tone of the film is. The scene with the dwarfs fighting Smaug goes on way too long, shifting from genuinely exciting to comical, to ridiculous (And back again).

So do I recommend it? Not really, if you're a Tolkein purist, you'll probably hate it (I am one of them), if you're a casual film fan, you'll be bored by the excessive running time and bloated second act. And if you're a kid who read the book and you want to see a film version, the film is too violent and intense. For a film based on a children's book, it's all over the place. Rent the DVD, chapter skip to where you first see Smaug, then watch it to the end. Everything else is rubbish.

The much maligned X-Men: The Last Stand is the unloved film that caused so many screen writing headaches later on, due to the premature idea that this would be the last X-Men film in the series. But did it deserve the reviews that it received on it's initial release, or was it simply fan backlash because of Brian Singer's replacement Brett Ratner?

The film has a bizarre throwaway attitude to characters, both mutant and human. Vinnie Jones is rubbish as Juggernaut, uttering that stale meme "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!" And why give a pre- credits set up to Angel, when Ben Foster is barely in the film? Halle Berry is again, given nothing to do, and Mystique, one of the best characters in the series, is thrown away halfway through. And was it really worth getting Bill Duke in the film for two minutes of screen time, or an off camera R. Lee Ermey shouting at soldiers? I mean, I know that after Full Metal Jacket he's been repeating his "shouting army guy" role ever since, but still, it feels like a waste of talent. James Marsden (Cyclops), due to filming commitments with the concurrently shooting Superman Returns, is sidelined quickly too.

No, it's not as bad as the reviews would have you believe. The action is impressive, the film's score gives momentum, the special effects are top notch, and even if the aforementioned characters do get sidelined early on, the acting is good. Ian McKellen gives a very strong performance, and Hugh Jackman is dependably good. At the end of the day though, Ratner made a solid, if unspectacular film, whereas Brian Singer would've made an amazing one. Days of Future Past proved that.

The X Men series has had it's share of ups and downs, from the highs (The brilliant X2 and Days of Future Past) to the forgettable (Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine). Presumably the last film for returning director Brian Singer, the series will no doubt continue on without it's creator, but it's hard to see the quality continue to be this good following his departure.

The cast is excellent. Returning Michael Fassbender as Magneto is even better, because he has more to do than in DoFP. Despite the title, this film is more about Magneto than Apocalypse. Oscar Isaac as Apocalypse was fantastic, it's rare that I find a comic book villain genuinely intimidating. Likewise McAvoy as Professor Charles Xavier faces his biggest challenge yet.

I loved how the ending brought the series full circle, even if X Men and X2 now make no sense if you watch them straight after Apocalypse. Even with the time traveling shenanigans of Days of Future Past changing events, Nightcrawler's introduction makes no sense compared to his appearance in X2, and Alexandra Shipp's Storm looks and sounds nothing like Halle Berry. But considering the lukewarm reception to Berry's portrayal, maybe that's for the best. And considering that the timelines and character changes are at this point so convoluted that Deadpool is now making meta jokes ("McAvoy or Stewart?"), perhaps it's best not to get too wound up about the whole timeline thing.

This is minor carping though. The action and special effects are top notch, and Evan Peters steals the show with another crowd pleasing Quicksilver scene. My second favorite comic book movie this year, bested only by Captain America: Civil War. Kudos, Brian Singer, once again, you have taken this series to another level.