chimera-4

I really wanted to like this after the travesty of the 1998 reboot and while Gareth Edwards' other flick Monsters was a good solid effort with good human drama this falls short on a number of levels the most unforgiving being that it's just plain boring. The reason for this I think is that besides the opening centered on Bryan Cranston's character and situation you really don't care about anyone else in this movie and it takes toooo long to kick off.

Even Godzilla who shows up fully far too late in the game after a series of frustrating near and minor reveals (one of which literally has Edwards shut the door on what had built up to be the kicking off of the main event, teased with a split second of monster on monster action before shutting us out)just seems like a giant punchbag/wrecking ball for the other monsters and there just isn't enough of him or enough characterisation to make us give a sh*t. He turns up out of nowhere for no good reason and then just disappears like nothings happened at the end.

In my opinion the painfully slow burn hurts this. I mean it's not like we don't know what Godzilla looks like from either the myriad other movies before it or even from the trailer for this one. Lets face it if you go to see a Godzilla movie you want lots of monsters a$$kicking each other to kingdom come and breaking sh*t all over (admittedly there IS plenty of destruction) you don't want to have to wait three quarters of the movie to see it.

On the acting front after the strong drama at the beginning the young lead just can't compete with Cranston and you feel that black hole throughout the rest of the movie. You initially feel like you might actually be getting A list performances but that ends quickly and you're left with exposition and flunked by the book emotional beats.

On the plus side Godzilla himself looks phenomenal and the FX are awesome as are the fight scenes but overall I think this movie is a disappointment.

Why has Terry Gilliam shafted us with this travesty. What we have here is a complete and utter mess. While the premise is an interesting one the movie is basically a one trick pony that goes nowhere. The acting is abysmal (apart from Christopher Plummer) even from big name stars. The FX and imagination on show is impressive but there's just nothing to gel it all together. An hour into the movie I found it so excruciatingly painful to watch that I left.

From the trailers it looked like Gilliam had gone old school again and given us a memorable fantasy along the lines of Baron Munchausen but alas it wasn't to be. You may argue that you can't judge a movie on the merits of only half of it but even if it got better after the half way mark the first half was so bad that I neither cared nor held out much hope.

Come on Terry, I know you can do better than this.....

I don't know what I was thinking going into 2012. I guess I hoped it wasn't as generic as the trailers made it seem. Every trailer I'd ever seen for the movie made it look pretty much exactly like The Day After Tomorrow and it pretty much was.

Famous landmarks getting destroyed, mass destruction, hero outrunning/driving/flying mass destruction, family rifts that get healed up at the end, Inconvenient spouses offed and then completely forgotten about/ignored for the sake of reconciliation with exes. All the cliché trademarks are all present and correct, doing their duty by merely showing up. To be fair it's a competent enough, if silly, disaster movie which offers no surprises whatsoever while laying on more (admittedly impressive looking) empty spectacle for the sake of empty spectacle.

It felt way too long at nearly 3 hours and at least half of that was the build up. Predictable and seen it all before buildup at that. We've all seen it before. Strange geological anomolies. Nerdy tech guys coming up with unbelievable numbers that mean bad sh*t is gonna be going down. Officials that don't buy it then eventually do, the crazy survivalist dude that everyone thinks is nuts that really knows what's going down (here played by a very entertaining Woody Harelson, probably the best thing about the movie) etc.

You can pretty much go with your impression of the trailer for this movie. What you get here is what you expect to get from what the trailer shows you.

At best 2012 is totally by the numbers and at worse absolutely ridiculous, cliché and even a bit insulting really.....

This movie came right out of left field and, to be honest, surprised the hell out of me. Everyone was raving about it but it really didn't seem like my cup of tea so I gave it a miss at the movies. Round a mates one night he had a selection that he'd rented out and Slumdog Millionaire was one of them. "That's meant to be quite good." I said, so we went with that.....

Visually, the movie at first glance seems to lack panache and polish but I think this might have been intentional as the gritty in your face style really conveys the feel of the slum lifestyle. The music as well is excellent and has a definite Indian flare to it even down to the bollywood ending. The acting is good across the board with the young kids in particular being standouts....

The plot initially revolves around young Jamal, an Indian boy who is competing in "Who Wants to be a Millionaire". The story jumps between his appearance on the show, his interrogation after the show by the police who are convinced he's cheating, and the flashbacks which are the stories of events throughout his life that he tells the police of how he knew the answers to the questions. In hindsight some of the reasons for his knowing the answers might seem a bit contrived or a bit of a leap but when you watch how it's all weaved into the story it unfolds beautifully and for the most part convincingly enough...

To an ignorant westerner like me who knows nothing of life in any part of India, slum or otherwise, there was also a fascination in the "slice of life" attitude of the flashback portions of the movie. Some of it is horrifying, like the whole child-beggar industry and how that all works and the general squalor of some of the disctricts. Some bit's are funny like working at a fast food shop where they fill plastic mineral water bottles from the tap then seal the lids on with glue, plus acting as a tour guide round the Taj Mahal making it up as they go along and then stealing peoples shoes. Not to mention a dive into a latrine then a manic run, covered in sh*t, to a fleeting visiting movie star to get their autograph. There are also heartwarming moments too and a satisfying ending.

No matter what kind of movies you're into this one is well worth your time....

This film had f**k all to do with Death Note whatsoever. It felt like they just slotted a few of the characters and a few references into a completely unrelated script. If they'd have treated the movie separately it might have been better but as it stands it's just a blatant excuse to cash in on the good will generated by the first 2 Death Note movies which I thought were excellent....

It's a shame because I like the director, Hideo Nakata, I thought the Ring movies were great, even the US remakes were alright and the direction here is not the problem. The problem is branding the whole thing to rope in an established audience to generate some cash....

Come on, please don't treat your punters with such disrespect....

Now, I have nothing more to say on the subject, thank you move along.......

I just don't get the high marks and high praise for this movie, it was total and utter sh*t!!

I really liked Oldboy but Thirst just did not grab me at all, after half an hour I knew that it wasn't going to get any better and bless it it really didn't. In fact it seemed really loooooooooong. The acting is kind of peculiar and the characters bizarre and odd and not in a good way. The directorial choices also seemed really odd and personally didn't sit right with me at all. The director seems to have deliberately chosen to downplay what should have been dramatic scenes, robbing them of their potential power.

I was hoping for something along similar lines to either Let the Right One In or Cronos but sadly it didn't come close. I guess I just didn't "get it" and I accept that. On a good note though the last 25 minutes or so did get a bit better but on the whole the movie for me was a huge disappointment. Thankfully I saw it as part of the NZ Film Festival during a weekend where I also saw Red Cliff and Moon which were both excellent so it wasn't a total loss...

Be warned, this movie probably isn't what you expected at all......

I managed to catch this as part of the NZ film festival and was interested in seeing it for a couple of reasons. Firstly I was interested in the gaming angle and the whole "escape reality online" scenario. Secondly I recently discovered that the feeling that I was just "wrong" that I've had all my life is in fact Aspergers Syndrome. Ironically for an Aspie, Ben X moved me like no other movie I can think of, a couple of time I almost burst into tears. It does a great job of portraying the everyday logistical nightmare that is "pretending to be normal" as well being misunderstood by most people in general, and also illustrates well some of the mental and physical traits that are part of an Aspies make up. I could identify with so many things in this movie, the sensitivity to detail, the overwhelming nature of the outside world and even overlaying a video game engine onto everyday situations. I felt validated by the film makers acknowledgements and portrayals of the Aspie ways.

I also identified with some of the very dark places the story takes you as well. The story sometimes skips between being a celebration of the Aspie way and an illustration of the dangerous road travelled with naivete that can be the Aspies journey. As already mentioned the film sets up some very dark avenues, making you aware of the potentials without actually showing them all to you. These situations are all too often only narrowly missed by people with Aspergers.

The acting was very good as was the attention to detail, the main character was portrayed very well (the actors debut by all accounts)and the story has a satisfying and heart rending conclusion...

If you like your movies raw with the meat of human experience then you owe it to yourself to see Ben X....

Oh boy. Yet again I seem to be writing another scathing review about how the studio's have dressed up a turd in a tried and trusted name in order to line their fat, already diamond studded pockets with more of the little peoples hard earned cash.

And wow, this time how so.....

Make no mistake, AvP:Reqium makes Paul S.W. Anderson's first entry into the franchise look like a masterpiece. Hell it makes Uwe Boll look like Stanley Kubrik. No doubt about it, this movie simply just should never have been made and whoever greenlit this should be put out of their obvious misery. Of course the term misery here is used in the, very rich due to screwing the movie going public sense of the word.

The Alien movies are well known and loved for their relentless action, suspense, set design, kickass monsters, cool vehicles and tech, weapons etc and memorable characters with often cool and quotable dialogue. The Predator movies while not as in your face with some of that stuff were also solid memorable actioners again with cool action heroes and just great entertaining cinema in general. Even the first AvP movie which got so much wrong and dumped all over previously established mythology for both series had plenty of entertainment value even if it just was nowhere near the same league as the original Alien and Predator movies.

Here we have what literally feels like an aborted pilot episode of some generic and by the numbers teen drama that someone somewhere figured they could get some use out of by chucking some monsters at it. Not just any monsters, some well loved monsters that would guarantee bums in seats no matter what. Just put enough cool looking bits in it to make the trailer look suitably enticing and we're off...

To be fair the movie is competently enough made it's just that the AvP universe was not made to gel with this genre to begin with let alone a lazily scripted seen it all before entry. I'm just so angry at what's happened here (as, it seems, are others here)as I feel this movie could have been so much better. There's tons of AvP material out there that the film makers could have tapped for an infinitely better movie going experience. They probably figured that as long as the movie did what it said on the tin (AvP battles etc) then the rest of the movie doesn't matter.

I'd have to say that probably most of the movie indeed doesn't matter and any self respecting AvP fan would do well to either ignore or forget this movie ever existed....

And those of you out there thinking "Well at least we get to see Aliens and Predators on screen going at each other again." I would rather have nothing than this travesty.....

After seeing the original Dune Mini-series and hating it (preferring, unlike most, the David Lynch movie instead) I really wasn't expecting a lot from this. I never could get on with the books giving up about half way through the first one although I loved the idea and story from what I'd seen in the Lynch movie.

Children of Dune was showing one night in it's entirety and I was at a loose end so figured I'd record it and see what it was like since I was keen to find out what happened after the events portrayed in Dune. Well I can only say I'm glad I did since Children of Dune is much better than it's predecessor. It still isn't perfect but it's infinitely more watchable . Here we still have some crappy acting but there's also some pretty good acting. There's some crappy FX but there's also some really good FX as well.

What I really found compelling though was the political intricacies of the plot and characters and this is what makes the show win out over it's flaws. I never did like Ian McNeice as Baron Harkonen but thankfully he's not in this much. The guy who plays Paul Artreides though was good, better than he was in the original series. Gurney was still crap and can't act although Alice Krige was as good as ever and I even got used to James McAvoy as young Leto, Pauls son, after a while.

Aliyah was more human here than the scary-assed kid she was in Lynches movie (although I liked that portrayal of her too). I felt that casting beautiful young stereotypical actors/actressess from the BH 90210 brigade didn't do the show any favours though, although they were probably cheap. This is one reason why I prefer David Lynches version of events, that and probably the stark contrast between his more whacked out version and the more down to earth presentation of the original show which is probably what put me off it in the first place. Maybe I'll check it out again someday.

But for now I'm really keen to see what comes next (is it God Emperor of Dune?) if indeed there are any plans to continue the series...

Cloverfield is a mish mash of several ideas, none completely original but everything seems to gel together nicely giving the viewer what feels like a fresh experience.

What we have here is the good old classic monster movie of old, you know, big man in monster suit (though the monster FX are awesome)up from the depths (although it could have been outer space, we never do find out for sure) because of some nuclear tests gone west. Monster proceeds to chew it's way through (insert major city here although this time round it happens to be Manhattan, big enough to give the creature ample stomping ground but small enough that if they have to nuke it there's plenty more America left to go around) and laughs off all manner of firepower in the meantime leaving the viewer wondering how the hell humankind's going to get out of this one (in other words which of the standard monster movie/invasion endings are going to save our butts, you know, micro-germs, superior firepower, monster gets bored and goes home etc). We've all seen this movie in one of a thousand iterations before.

What makes Cloverfield unique though is the perspective through which we see the events unfold. The whole thing is presented as thought it were a leaked (although they couldn't really hush up events of this scale)clump of handycam footage taken by a small group of people affected by these happenings. There's no credits till the end, instead at the beginning we get a Department of Defence watermark along with some official blurb stating what this "found" footage is. The movie then is this "raw" footage in it's entirety from the testimonials at a surprise party through the events of the evening to it's conclusion (?!?!) which may or may not be the end of the story. Now because of this, there are bits which feel a bit disjointed. I mean we get everything throughout the evening of the main characters and these things sometimes cross over with the whole monster stomping scenario but there are times you want to see more of what's going on but instead our limited viewpoint denies us these things. This isn't as big a problem as it was with Speilbergs War of the Worlds though. Here you get to see lots of things you wanted to see in that movie but didn't. Massive military might up against this thing, I mean up close and personal (which you did see in WotW but it wasn't as satisfying as it is here)as well lots of convenient and circumstantial encounters with the creature which give you either some "Did I just see that" moments or some real in your face OMG moments.

The parts without the main plot (monster) are still interesting enough though that most of the time you don't mind not seeing what's going on elsewhere though and the film does a good job in the first 10 minutes portraying normal people in a real world situation that when stuff starts going down you think "oh yeah, the monster stuff".

It's also testament that when the main event isn't on screen the story still continues off screen thanks to excellent sound design. One scene where our troupe are down in an underground station talking and stuff, you can still here stuff happening above. Explosions, gunfire, creatures roaring etc. You really feel like you're in the midst of this thing. Some of the jerky handycam footage might make some people a bit sick if you're sitting close to the screen but all up it really helped add to the "in your face and personal" nature of the format.

The look of the creature has been a closely guarded secret which was either because they wanted it be a total surprise or because it looked really pants. Well I'm happy to report that all monsters/creatures and things appearing in this movie looked really cool if a little bit derivative. You rarely see the big picture but you do see up close and detailed bits of the little picture. You're frantically trying to build a picture in your head of what the thing looks like, it's like trying to mentally piece together a jigsaw puzzle.

My only gripe (and it's pretty small) is that due to the way the action is framed around the smaller more personal story of our small group of friends there's little room for exposition and when it does come it's a bit obvious and set up but I really don't know any other way they could have done it. Also there's little real plot or character development but since the movie takes place mostly over the course of one night and again due to the way it's presented I didn't really find it that much of a problem.

J.J.Abrams and team did an admirable job giving the retro Monster Movie a solid reboot here. Some people might find the abrupt ending (which is realistic in light of how it's presented) a turn off but personally I think it's a good opportunity to load up the DVD with extras to fill in some of the blanks (like the Blair Witch Project did)...

There's some real iconic moments in Cloverfield and while this movie is being hyped up to the high heavens so can't possibly live up to all it's expectations, there's definitely a top flight experience offered here that most will surely enjoy.

OK so it felt a bit cheap and the animation wasn't great. The awkward mix of cell animation and CGI didn't always fit but all in all this really felt like the book and I actually quite enjoyed it. The characterisation of several characters was cut down quite a bit but I think they were pretty much spot on with what they chose to omit and what they chose to leave in, after all they had to cram it all into 90 minutes.

Kiefer Sutherland does quite a good job at portraying Raistlin (my favourite character) even if the movie doesn't quite go in to the ambiguous nature of his character as much as the book does although it does hint at future episodes and even Fistandantilus gets a mention. Most of the other characters bio's are flimsy to say the least with only Tanis and Goldmoon/Riverwind getting any backstory although something is mentioned about Sturms Father in passing.

There are a few threads set up that seem to hint at future installments in the movie world too. This series would be some ambitious studios ideal response to the challenge that Lord of the Rings laid down so come on, which of you big movie players is game enough...

It's been nearly 20 years since I read the book and this movie adaptation got enough right to give me warm feelings of nostalgia.

It's not perfect by a long shot but it's all the Dragonlance we've got so far outside of the literary world (and to a lesser extent the gaming world). So I'll gladly take it.

Well, this is the third adaptation of Richard Mathesons novel and we are still left wanting something decent. The Omega Man though was a good movie (IMO) but it has dated a little and "I AM LEGEND" was in need of a modern take on the story.

Here we have Will Smith's Robert Neville, A military scientist who (it's alluded) had some role in a supposed cure for cancer that mutated into a virus that killed 90% of the planet and turned most of whoever was left into ravenous sub human creatures that skulk in the dark, feeding on the immune and being unable to expose themselves to the sun. Now this was the first mistake as far as I'm concerned. The infected in the novel (and the Omega Man) were still Human and had human intelligence. One of them was a friend of Nevilles who used to take great delight in taunting him nightly on his doorstep("Come out Neville, what's the point, you're the last" etc). There were still some human connections between the protagonist and the infected. Here the CGI creatures garner no sympathy whatsoever and there's barely any link between them and humanity at all.

The flashbacks were totally unessecary although they did provide some contrast between the normal bustling streets, alive with human activity and the bleak empty post apocalyptic world Will Smith finds himself inhabiting. I found the film to be dull in a lot of places with very few scenes that contained any real meat or action and a lot of it especially early on was just tedious. The film just starts to heat up and then finishes which brings me on to my biggest problem with the movie. The ending.

There's going to be some ****MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD so IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW THE ENDING STOP READING NOW****.

In the novel the title "I am Legend" had some meaning. I mean the whole story was about the last Human on Earth. When Neville dies at the end, normal humanity disappears into Legend. When I first picked up the book I thought the title would mean that the hero would be some a$$ kicking bad boy that would reclaim the earth in the name of humanity and actually found the ending quite powerful and sad.

Now the movie here doesn't quite go to those lengths but it does have the "Good guy sacfrifices himself for the good of humanity as he finds he isn't the last after all" bit which, in the face of the original ending just seemed contrived and cliché and quite honestly something the suits likely ordered tacked on.

***SPOILERS END*** Now Will Smith actually does a pretty good turn as Neville seeing as he pretty much carries the entire movie, it's just a shame his material is bland and mostly really boring. Production values are also pretty good across the board with the bleak deserted streets of New York looking really eerie. The FX were also OK if misplaced in this movie...

The director (Francis Lawrence) isn't to fault either as I felt he did a pretty good job and the bits I did find that held my attention were probably down to him. I also loved Constantine. The problem lies in the contrivances taken with a script that really wasn't very good to start with and should have had a couple more rewrites to really nail the substance of the tale being told.

Shame. Maybe we'll get the version we should have gotten by now in about 20 years.

OK let me first start by saying that I only watched the first half of this movie and what I saw turned me off enough that I really didn't care one bit how it was all going to pan out.

What? How you can you slate it if you haven't even seen it all the way through I hear you ask? Well quite easily actually since what I saw was the most ineptly handled mess I've had the displeasure of subjecting myself to for quite some time and I doubt very much that anything could have redeemed it, a sentiment echoed by a lot of the people who've commented on this movie (feel free to jump in and correct me anytime) from what I've seen.

So what's wrong with it then? Well for a start the acting is beyond poxy, there are very few decent actors here and even they are wasted due to really bad cheesefest and cliché style dialogue. Most of the characters are too stupid to live, I mean if you open a door and get bombarded by millions of flies who were chowing down on a hanging rotting corpse you close the freaking door you don't stand there for 5 minutes trying to swat a billion flies. You also don't sleep in the open when there's zombies swarming everywhere either.

The scene with all the birds was embarrassingly laughable. I mean here's a thousand infected crows swarming everywhere yet despite people being outside and obviously in the firing line the birds remain in their crappy CGI swarm high up in the sky until the script calls for someone to cop it in which case a few suddenly appear on cue and attack someone while completely ignoring everyone else including people trying to help the victim, it's pathetic.

The direction is really bad and the action is handled so awkwardly that boring and disjointed doesn't even begin to sum it up.

I enjoyed the first Resident Evil for the guilty pleasure it was despite the fact that it really short changed us on the monster front. The second one as well although not as good as the first due to it's descent into C movie cliché was OK for what it was but this one is just totally pointless and could have been one of a million other generic zombie movies if it weren't for the R.E. branding. And unless I missed some huge money shot at the end, the FX were pretty naff as well although some of the Zombie make-up was good.

I have to say as well that 90% of what I saw had me thinking that I was watching a fan-made remake of Day of the Dead since half the plot elements seem to have been lifted from that (far superior) movie including an underground complex in the middle of the desert where the science team are at odds with the suits (DotD it was the military) while trying to domesticate zombies since they've apparently given up on a cure. The excruciatingly painful scene where they present a supposedly domesticated zombie with relics from his life (cellphone, childs toy etc) featured some guy as a zombie that didn't seem to know what one actually was. Even if he'd watched Sean of the Dead he would have got some idea how to portray one. The scene really left me pining for "Bubb", the trained zombie of DotD.

Unless this film pulled some ballbustingly amazing sh*t out of the bag in it's final act then I thank the Lord that I had the good grace to see what was coming and not waste another minute on this poorly conceived piece of tripe.....

Once again it's "Thank You Drive Through!"

I cannot believe this came from the people that gave us Saw.

I just finished watching Dead Silence and all I can say is that Saw was obviously a fluke. This movie flat out sucked. Unintentionally hilarious in a lot of places and filled with just about every cliché any serious horror director would want to avoid. Saw managed to be original and fresh and for the most part devoid of cliché. This movie makes up for that in droves.

Honestly the dialog is awful, the characters are really dumb and what is Mark Whalberg doing in this crap. I would have reformed New Kids on the Block than have to pay my bills appearing in drivel like this. He must have either lost a bet or owed the director a favor.

The mythology here had a really good premise and killer dolls are always good for a few creepy scares if done right but the opportunity for anything worthwhile is completely and utterly squandered on "seen it a billion and one times before" kind of garbage and the premise is never developed into anything past the initial setup.

Through the parts I didn't laugh at due to their sheer crappiness I was just bored stupid and couldn't wait for it to end since it hadn't improved some 50 minutes in and I didn't think it was going to.

I had really hoped this was going to be along the lines of the Puppet Master movies but obviously with a bit more panache and style since it was coming from the Team that gave us Saw.

I haven't been this disappointed in a movie for some time and pulling this kind of stunt is just making me lose faith in the movie industry. No wonder piracy is on the increase, people are scared that sh*t like this is going to more often than not be the only return they get for their money and are becoming less and less likely to take a risk on what may or may not be a rare gem sitting on the shelf at the video store...

It has to be said though that there was a little (unnecessary though it was) twist at the end that was kind of cool if stupid but alas it wasn't enough to save this complete waste of time.....

AVOID like your life depended on it!!!!

I don't understand all the high ratings for this movie it was totally stupid. Now I'm up for as much silly fun as the next guy but all this movie did was try to rehash Mary Poppins and it had none of the magic of that movie (although it didn't have any songs either which some might call a plus). Nanny McPhee herself was completely devoid of any personality or character and the whole thing just didn't add up to anything more than the sum of it's parts (which consisted of an idea that had already been done, a decent budget and a couple of good character actors). It just didn't gel together. I just sat there waiting for something clever or amusing to happen and it never did.

I did get some satisfaction out of the fact that someone somewhere (even if it was in a movie) recognized some of the pain I'm going through at the moment (we have 4 kids and while nowhere near as naughty as the kids in this movie they still test our patience at times)and thought it would be flippin great if some Nanny McPhee type character turned up to sort them out once in a while. While she was a cardboard cutout I can't deny some of her powers would come in handy once in a while. I've also got to say that the idea at the beginning of the movie that the kids had eaten the baby and you saw bits of what later turned out to be chicken with booties and fluffy pink mittens on was a bit sick for a kids film. My 4 year old was pretty horrified at the idea that people ate babies even it was only a movie.

So all up a stale idea with a crap script that someone figured if they chucked enough money at it and got some respected actors in there then it wouldn't matter. Well it would seem from some peoples ratings on here that apparently it didn't which is just going to set us up to receive more of the same.

Thank you, drive through.....

It's been a long time coming but finally after 18 years of the Simpsons we get the long overdue movie. Is this a case of the horse having already bolted from the stable? Well, a little bit but to be fair after 18 years of material coming up with new stuff is going to be difficult and while the Simpsons movie does admirably to entertain for it's short running time it feels like little more than an extended episode with one or two bits of obviously superior animation.

The plot is nothing more than what we'd expect from an episode of the show but being movie length means that Groening and co can stuff more than the usual amount of Simpsons tomfoolery into the bits between the plot. Just about every single regular character ever from the Simpsons mythos gets at least a cameo look in although shame on Groening and co for giving Mr Burns such a stupidly small part in the movie. There are a good few belly laughs throughout the movie including a few that take more than the usual "Shown in TV land before the watershed" risks.

It's unfortunate that after so many years of the Simpsons some of the gags are getting a bit predictable (not to mention recycled) but it's to the shows credit that even those bit's are still funny a lot of the time. I mean Homer's as much the clueless buffoon as he ever was which is always funny right. I was surprised that the movie didn't take more shots at pop culture but I guess thats a good way to date a movie quickly so maybe they deliberately chose not to go down that road.

If I was rating this movie alongside the series I'd say it was at least as good as one of the better than average episodes but a long way off the really good ones......

Within the first 5 minutes you can tell the series has undergone a dramatic tone shift and I have to say I think thats appropriate since Voldemorts return at the end of Goblet of Fire means that it's time to put aside childish things. The big bad men are here and they don't care about hurting children. it's time to get nasty.

Gone is the frivolity of the first couple of movies where magic was cool and everything in this new and magical world was just wonderful to behold, a la World of Disney. The new director has taken some risks with style and approach and they've paid off brilliantly. Order of the Phoenix is probably the darkest of the five movies we've had so far, even more so than Azkhaban which was a step in the right direction for where the series would eventually be heading. There's very little "fun" in Phoenix and you can see why. The Dark Lord is back, it's no laughing matter and this movie actually sells that fact.

This (in the movie world at least) is where Harry Potter crosses the line from kids movie to grown ups movie.

Harry now has some serious mental scars (as well as his actual one of course) since the events of the previous movie which while lighter than Azkhaban, followed on well from that movie. The Ministry of Magic is in denial about Voldermorts return and are trying to control the flow of rumour stemming from the events of Goblet. To this end we have new teacher and Ministry stooge Dolores Umbridge. Pink and fluffy on the outside, crunchy and evil on the inside. She makes no qualms about re-ordering the law at Hogwarts putting the kybosh on anything even remotely fun and making the students lives a complete misery. What she put Harry through in detention was simply pure evil.

She wasn't quite how I pictured her from the book but Imelda Staunton played her with a deliciously bitter/sweet twist, all charming and proper in her righteous delusions with that "stab you in the back" thing going on. She was a nasty piece of work.

It is a shame that a lot of the content of the book was missing but it was a big book and although I can't put my finger on what wasn't in the movie (I read it a while ago now) it does sometimes feel that there should have more substance to a few areas, mainly the characterisation of some of the characters. Most of the major bits I remember from the book were in the movie. There's a pace here we haven't seen before, a new musical approach also puts a new twist on things and I think Harry Potters world seems to fit it's new clothes well. I'm eagerly anticipating what's next as I hear David Yates is also directing the Half Blood Prince (last I heard anyway) and since that book has zombies in it I think the new dark style will suit it awesomely thank you very much.

The characters all look much older than they're supposed to be in Phoenix but it also kind of works in it's favour. They all look like they have a bit more history and life experience behind them, they're coping with stuff that will age any kid and it shows. That's also testament to the acting as well. Here mostly all the acting is pretty good, Ron Harry and Hermione all put in good efforts obviously having gotten the hang of the whole acting lark. Gambon is good as Dumbledore but I do miss Richard Harris and keep playing what might have been his versions of Gambons scenes over in my head. When I read the books it's Harris I'm picturing. Helena Bonham Carter gives a kooky insane kind of air to Bellatrix Lestrange (must get that from hubby Tim Burton) who was a pretty good character. One thing about this film though is that the actual Order of the Phoenix isn't in it all that much really. A flaw that wasn't in the book. The line about Snape being in the order, if you missed it you wouldn't even know he was in the order at all and a subsequent scene later on might seem confusing.

Kreacher was well done I though, coming across as a real miserable old bugger which was appropriate. The producers apparently weren't going to put him in the movie at all but JK Rowling said they'd be stuffing themselves up for the final movie if they did that.

All in all I think Phoenix is the best so far of the five movies, followed by Azkhaban, Goblet, then the other two in no particular order.

Now I've just got hold of The Deathly Hallows and although it's quarter past five I'm off to bed so see you later....

That about sums up Transformers.

What you get here is about 45 mins of totally awesome giant-robot-mashing a$$ kickery interspersed with 95 minutes of Stupid.

I don't know what I was expecting though I mean Transformers is for kids right? OK yeah it was but most of those kids that watched the show when it was in it's heyday have now grown up. Well Transformers hasn't although I don't know if thats a good thing or a bad thing but it will possibly mean that people that remember the source material fondly will look at parts of this movie and think, man is this what passed for cool when I was a kid?

It often feels like Michael Bay has blended two movies together here, you get the stock action movie, with tense war room situations, stereotypical characters, big explosions, cliché dialog etc. And then you get the actual bits with the Transformers in which, while epic in spectacle are clearly aimed at kids with dialog and exposition worse than the original series. Some of it will make you cringe it's so corny.

The opening of the movie where one of the decepticons assaults an army base in the desert is really well done and when you see the first robot transformation your jaw will hit the floor. We're talking thousands of moving parts with panels twisting, hydraulics working, sections coming apart and coming together. The FX are freaking awesome. And thats what carries the movie and keeps you watching cos I'll tell you what, it ain't the story. There's isn't one. Thats right but what did you expect.

Transformers the live action movie was always going to be as successful as the FX and the action and thats what we get here by the bucketload. You can see most of the budget up on the screen. There are a few nitpicky things that fans will probably complain about. Bumble Bee isn't a beetle car since the film makers couldn't get permission to use the car for the movie. Optimus Prime has no faceplate for most of the movie. I didn't think that one was too bad myself but I've heard fanboys really whine and complain about it.

Shia Labeouf puts in the only decent performance of note throughout the whole movie which is the only reason to get behind his one dimensional character. I suppose John Tuturo is alright in his small role.

When the robots aren't on screen doing their thing we're treated to derivative "seen it all before" filler crap that aims for clichés and cheap gags to link the awesome bits together. None of them are really so lame as to spoil the movie but it's really totally by the numbers and surely the writers could have come up with something a bit better but they probably figured they could get away with it because with the subject matter they were onto a surefire license to print money.

In the end it's a movie you'll see and most will probably really enjoy it for what it is. A shallow but epic action movie with giant robots galore breaking stuff, destroying buildings and looking really good while doing it. A popcorn movie. Thats about all you get and for a lot of people thats probably enough.

Technology in movies now is getting to the point where epic spectacle and action is fast becoming the norm and if we don't get some story with our eye candy then things could be in danger of becoming very bland indeed.

Oh man, I really didn't think they made movies like this any more. Sound of Thunder is a stinker in virtually every single department and I mean stinker. And I mean every department.

Ed Burns is the only decent actor in the whole thing. Even Ben Kingsley looks embarrassed to be here and rushes through a mediocre by the numbers (and thats being kind) performance so he can get on with some real movies. Everyone else in the movie is utterly forgettable. The special FX are bloody awful and half of them don't look like they are even finished. There are one or two that look OK but- actually no I'm not going to stand up for this movie. Sound of Thunder really has no business whatsoever being on the DVD shelf at your local rental store (was it even released in theaters?) and Franchise pictures (who the hell are they, never heard of them and if this is any indication of their products then I don't ever want to hear from them again) should be shot for allowing an obvious work in progress, and not a very good one at that, out into the market in this state.

And what the hell does Peter Hyams think he's pulling here. I mean he has some decent flicks under his belt (Capricorn One, 2010 and The Relic, even the mediocre TimeCop was OK on a base level) but this movie feels like it's been directed by a two year old. A two year old, I might add, whose slightly older brother was dragged in to do the editing as well. Most, if not all, of the outside shots that had actors in them were shot using a CGI backdrop which looks so obvious it's laughable. Like they couldn't take a couple of cameras downtown and shoot something more convincing (and probably less expensive).

The sound also was uneven with the sound levels going up and down during scenes for no reason whatsoever.

I'd rather gouge both my eyes out than sit through this again it was that painful. No actually I'd rather watch Alone in the Dark than watch this movie.

Although, if you've got some mates round with some tins and a pizza then you might want to give this a rental so you have endless fun ripping it to bits. It deserves no less......

Thank you drive through....

I was one of the minority that enjoyed the first FF movie albeit on a guilty level. I also agreed with the majority of criticism thrown at it but still found it relatively inoffensive despite all this. It had a level of hokeyness that sometime worked for it and sometimes against it. I'll admit also that some of the dialog was terrible (and it hasn't got much better here either)and some of the action just silly (that hasn't changed either although it is better in the second one). I thought it an OK setup for a franchise that entertained on a really base level.

**MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD** Well I had really low expectations for this one since there were a lot of reviews panning it all over the place for various different reasons from crappy FX to deviation from source material. I actually found it to be really enjoyable and much better than the first one. There were still flaws, some pretty major but nothing that I really felt spoiled the film. The biggest bug bear is bound to be the representation of Galactus, basically he's just a big cloud although there are a few times where you can see a hint of the old comic book Galactus but they're like blink and you've missed them. They could have gotten away with having him more obviously in the centre of the cloud at the end and that would have satisfied most people. It made more sense to have Galactus in the form he is in here but I felt they could have alluded more to the old Galactus as well, you know, for fans, the people this movie is surely mostly aimed at if it wants to make any money.

The other gripe people will have with this movie is the whole power swapping thing. Yes it's silly but it did make me laugh and would have worked if it hadn't been such a big deal at the end and they'd just left it as a silly gag that you could have forgotten about later.

There's also continuity errors galore. We see countless shots of the Silver Surfer flying around knocking out power grids etc yet when he's being chased through the tunnel by the Torch the cars are all mysteriously working fine (unless I missed something). There's other things that anyone paying even a bit of attention will be able to point out, the biggest offender being **BIG SPOILER** when the Surfer seems to off Galactus so easily at the end after earlier saying that he had no choice but to be his herald as it meant his world was spared. Why didn't he just do what he did at the end of the movie? **END SPOILER**. I have a feeling that he is not so easily dealt with in the comic mythology and that the end of the movie was a contrivance bunged in there by the writers and film makers because they really didn't know what to do with the character. However it is left slightly ambiguous so you can kind of make up your own explanation. There is room for a bit of license on the part of the viewer.

FX are generally pretty good across the board, they really nailed the look and character of the Silver Surfer although the lip sync on some of his CGI is a bit crummy. Jessica Alba still seems a bit miscast in her role but it's not too annoying. I think Gruffud fits the nerdy scientist role of Reed Richards pretty well. Chiklis as the Thing I've always thought was good casting although his acting as the Thing is better than his role in his human guise. Johnny Storm annoyed me a bit in the first movie, he was just a mouthy disrespectful punk that thought he knew it all. Here he's much the same although not quite as annoying and I really felt a smug satisfaction when he got lumbered with the Things powers.

All the characters here have clearly had more time to get used to their powers with Alba being able to make other things invisible (was that in the comics?) and being able to explode people with internally generated forcefields (although we don't see that). Now onto Dr Doom. I'm not really sure why he was in the movie except as build up to the scene where **SPOILER** he get some of the Power Cosmic from the Surfers board. Just seems they needed another antagonist in there to fill a few minutes in an action scene. His character really doesn't develop at all and he still is nowhere near the Doom people will know from the comics.

I also have to say that the film did an admirable (if not always successful) job at juggling all the characters here. We have four heroes and three villains and, with the exception of Doom, they feel they all fit well. Something I felt Spiderman 3 failed to achieve.

In fact I felt I preferred this movie to Spiderman 3 which I just found tedious and crowded

The title says it all really. I felt the first two hours of Worlds End were actually pretty dull but then things pick up for the last hour and thats when I thought things started to get better. The movie itself has some neat ideas but it's also clear that the writers didn't really know how to wrap up some of the ideas introduced in Dead Man's Chest which is a real shame. For example when we first see Captain Jack he's in Davy Jones Locker (presumably he's delivered there by the Kraken) which is supposed to be some kind of hell but basically just looks like a big desert which conveniently has a big ship in the middle of it. This part felt really awkward and a bit contrived as do many parts in the movie. The directorial style feels different from the first two and I wonder if Gore Verbinskey didn't just let 2nd unit directors have a shot this time round.

There are only a few action set pieces, mainly the beginning and the end. The one at the start again felt contrived and was unnecessary and boring and only served to introduce us to Chow Yun Fats character who is basically just window dressing to the story and is mostly completely pointless. Characters don't feel right here either, they just don't feel like they did in the first 2 movies and in an effort to make the story a bit more exciting and unpredictable the characters are constantly shifting their allegiances for no good reason and sometimes with no good motivation either and that really got boring eventually.

The second major action piece is the naval battle at the end centred around a huge whirpool (you might have seen it in the trailers). This was pretty spectacular and exciting and was really well done.

Keith Richards is OK as Jacks Father with really cool costume and make-up, he makes for a really neat looking grizzled pirate although he took his role far too seriously and would have been better lightening up a bit.

FX in this movie are pretty much phenomenal across the board, you can really see where the money went with huge naval battles and inventive duels galore.

And then of course there's Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow who is as good as ever despite his material not being that great in some places.

The movie in general is a lot darker than the first two and that seemed to have sucked some of the fun out of it for me although there are still some funny moments in the movie.

Overall Worlds End really isn't as good as 1 and 2 but despite its misgivings it is fairly fun in quite a few places and does wrap up well. It even leaves room for a Pirates 4 so you never know.

P.S. Since when could Davy Jones walk through walls? Another unessecary plot mechanic that insults the previously established mythology and serves no purpose whatsoever in terms of plot mechanics.

I don't get it. Same actors, same director, the writers I don't know about but I really felt this was a huge disappointment. It feels rushed, spread too thin with too many villains and the emotional content of the first two that gave them their impact is gone.

The movie feels really uneven and they totally screwed up Venom which was the guy I waited nearly 2 hours to see. Venoms origin was handled OK but I HATED the way the actors face would pop through the CGI to taunt Spider-Man and basically deliver crap one liners. The first two Spider-Man movies were better than that. In the end I couldn't care less about Venom which I felt was a total missed opportunity though the look of the symbiote was spot on. Likewise Sandman, an OK origin scene, some totally lame subplot about his sick daughter thats supposed to make us give the guy some sympathy and then a totally unnecessary huge monster sandman of the week creature at the end. These guys should have admitted they'd run out of ideas and farmed the job out to someone that gave a sh*t.

The actors all seem like they've really had enough in this movie and likewise the direction felt lazy and rushed. To be honest Venom should probably have been left for another day, or one of the bad guys anyway. I did like how the Peter/Harry/MJ story came to an end but again it felt rushed and kind of convenient for the rest of the plot. The action scenes though were well done and give the movie it's more memorable moments but without a good solid narrative you can get behind to gel them together they're just little more than empty spectacle.

Why can't we have a live action spider-man series instead so we can flesh these stories and characters out a bit more.

Anyway I hope they pull their finger out with Spider-Man 4.

While this movie isn't going to win any awards it's pretty enjoyable at the level you expect from it. You know what you're getting when you go into it, lots of silly faces and sight gags, no brain required.

Me and my 2 youngest kids when to see this one Saturday, one's 12 and the other one was 4. All I really wanted out of this movie was enough to keep their attention for the 90 odd minutes it was on for and it did that admirably. I even enjoyed it myself since I quite like Mr Bean. It does have to be said though that Mr Bean does what he just always does in anything else he's in really but Rowan Atkinson's obviously got it down to a fine art now and I'm not tired yet of his shenanigans. Most of the comedy comes from Bean making a complete knob of himself and generally being a major idiot. Anyone else trying to do it would likely crash and burn but Atkinson pulls it off as usual. It's a shame that Rowan Atkinson seems to have been unable to break out of the Bean mold but at least he knows he's got a home when he needs to eat.

Needless to say not everyone is going to like this movie as it's quite a shallow vacuous experience really but it does do what it says on the tin. I'm also glad that there's a movie out there that tries to make you laugh without resorting to smut gags and cheap toilet humour (although it has to be said that Atkinsons other meal ticket, Black Adder is pretty much just that). Bring back the Tommy Cooper school of comedy I say.

I don't know if I would have appreciated this movie as much if I'd gone to it with a bunch of my mates but looking at it from a kiddy movie point of view I was satisfied with it and the kids thought it was hilarious. I'd probably even watch it again....

I'm sure deep in the recesses of Jack Blacks mind the character of Nacho Libre is absolutely hilarious but no it isn't. You can tell ol Jacks having a whale of a time hammin it up playing a smarmy, slimy Mexican friar with dreams of becoming a wrestler but this movie is a total misfire in just about every single department.

I just sat there through most of the movie thinking "Is this supposed to be funny" and "This is the guy from Tenacious D right?". The truth is this film has NOTHING to offer. AT ALL! It's a lousy script with crappy characters and really naff acting and direction. You'll watch endless moments where you think something funny is surely about to happen but it just doesn't. I was bored stupid about 10 minutes in but though it would surely pick up. It didn't. 90 minutes later I'd barely managed to stave off an aneurism it was that painful.

It's like, remember years ago when you'd see anything with your fave actor in it, even some of their really early pap from before they were famous, and you'd be really embarrassed that said actor was actually in such a load of plop. Yeah it's like that.

I've enjoyed some of Jack Black's earlier movies like Shallow Hall and I'm really looking forward to seeing Pick of Destiny but come on man. If you do this to us again Jack I'm gonna have to come round there and hammer your kneecaps or something. At the least give you a serious talking to.

I know it's a cliché but this is one of the worst movies I've ever seen and for so many reasons....

I don't know how to describe this film really. You can tell within the first 10 minutes that this is going to be something different and indeed it is. This is not a movie for the 2-second-attention-span/Big dumb explosion brigade. It doesn't hold your hand with bland exposition and it doesn't give you all the pieces of the puzzle so you can neatly fit them altogether and go away with answers to all your questions.

What it does give you though is a deep and thought provoking experience surrounding the issues of mortality and how we deal with it. There were a lot of things in this movie that I didn't really understand but it managed to touch me at a level I can't quite define. Like 2001:A Space Odyssey I think there were parts of this film that were deliberately left ambiguous in order to give the story some mystery and wonder.

The cinematography was absolutely beautiful as well and I can't believe the movie was made for $35m dollars, it looks far more expensive.

It has to be said that the acting across the board was exceptional too with Hugh Jackman being of particular note although I really can't take Ethan Suplee seriously in the kind of role he had after seeing him in My Name is Earl but thankfully his part isn't too distracting.

I don't think Brad Pitt would have done half the job Hugh Jackman did in this movie. I heard he left because of creative differences and I can imagine Aronofsky saying "Look Brad this is my movie, I'm gonna do it my way, if you don't like it then f**k off." and Brad being the ego his is couldn't let someone else have control so left, the big wuss. Well our gain since I think "The Fountain - The Brad Pitt cut" would have been crap quite frankly.