Prince of Persia: Already A Letdown?

Coming soon to a large multiplex cinema near you: Jerry Bruckheimer's take on Prince of Persia:



I have to apologize for the slightly dodgy picture quality here; what I was trying to pull off didn't quite work I'm afraid. Anyway, any film by Jerry Bruckheimer will no doubt have its share of thrills and spills and also a large spoonful of wooden dialogue (including clangers, plus some explanations that we're frankly patronised by) but his films always make for a good night out, right?

Well maybe not if, like me, you're a disgruntled fan of the original Prince of Persia games. First of all, the Prince never had a name, secondly, he wasn't so wooden in the way he talked. No doubt Jake Gyllenhaal can wield a sword very well (he'll have to, otherwise it'll be "Prince of Persia: The Laughable Rogue") and Gemma Arterton as his love-interest Tamina will prove to be a good sidekick. Plus we'll be able to tell who the bad guy is because he'll be the one wearing the most eye-liner. We've got all that, but none of this:



That's right: BEAST BASHING! In Bruckheimer's version, the Prince will not slay a single zombie or kick a demon into the pits of oblivion - all of the enemies are human. To my mind this defies one of the points of Prince of Persia: it's a platformer where you get to kill some inhuman beasties using some flashy swashbuckling moves. It would have been better if, like in the video game, the Prince used the Dagger of Time to stop a zombie or demon from jumping on him. Surely the film needs to have an element of the supernatural in it? Even if the villain eventually turns into that devil-god monster from the fourth installment in the end, at least it'll keep the purists happy.

I suppose if you're not familiar with the game, then you'll enjoy the film as a piece of escapism. If not, well, at least they've got the Prince's clothes right!

Whip It: Pre Release Speculation

On April 7th, Drew Barrymore's directorial debut, Whip It, will be released in the UK. Unlike what it might suggest, Whip It is actually the tale of Bliss (Ellen Page), a teenager who pleases her mother (Marcia Gay Harden) by entering beauty pageants. She takes up roller derby and takes on the name Babe Ruthless. Thanks to her skating skills, the Hurl Scouts - who always come last - turn their fortunes around and steadily climb up the league. However, her mother eventually finds out about her new-found passion.



Now, all of this sounds strangely predictable - you might think that this is just going to be one of those films where a teenage girl finds her place in the world, hits a little bump in the road and then it all turns out just fine in the end. Well, maybe not. According to some reports, it's not going to be as straightforward as it sounds. Well, any film that combines a teenage drama, a romance and full-contact sport has to has some twists in it right? Right? Well, we'll just have to wait and see.


Barrymore's directorial skill is apparently a highlight of the film, as she always knows the best place to put the camera and the most effective way to shoot the high-speed roller-derby scenes. Ellen Page is also likely to put in another great performance - she lights up pretty much every film she's in (okay, I'm a bit of a fan, then). Plus it features the talents of Kristen Wiig, a very funny woman who livened up Saturday Night Live and was oddly hilarious in Adventureland (even though she was only in it now and then!). All in all, Whip It looks like it could be a great night out - watch this space.

Kick-Ass: The Pre-Release Speculation

A lot has been made of the upcoming release of comedic, ultraviolent comic-book flick Kick-Ass (particularly in Empire: subscribers have been bombarded with images of the eponymous hero - pictured above - for months now). But will it live up to the wacky premise when the film is released on April 2?
It stars Aaron Johnson as Dave Lizewski, a hapless teen who decides to try and be more of a man by fighting crime as a costumed vigilante named Kick-Ass. He becomes an internet phenomenon and quickly finds that being a superhero can get you into some serious bother when he gets on the wrong side of a ruthless mobster. Luckily, he meets two genuine superheroes, Big Daddy (played by Nicholas Cage) and his eleven-year-old daughter Hit-Girl (Chloe Moretz).
Just how hilarious and enjoyable it is remains to be seen but for those of us who have been battered with messages and advertising for Kick-Ass will be relieved when its release comes around - even if it's just so we can get around to the next big thing (Iron Man 2 or Clash of the Titans, anyone?)! Perhaps Kick-Ass will turn out to be Kill Bill with more laughs. You know, so OTT that it doesn't matter how violent the action is and so obviously a parody that it's oddly satisfying (even though it really is based on a real comic book). No doubt it will be one of those marmite films - true fans of the comic book genre will probably hate it for being so wildly different while others will love it for its bare-faced audacity. I hope I fall into the latter category, since I'm not overly convinced with the whole comic-book thing (it's a bit like the film versions of video games: will they ever make a good one?)

Stand by for more come April...

Razzies: Time For the Anti-Oscars

The Razzies have been going for years now, "celebrating" the very worst of cinema, naming and shaming the worst offenders in many different categories. The Razzie Foundation has named 2009 "a banner year for terrible movies" and, judging by their nominations for worst film they're probably right. Here's their list, loving compiled. Have a bit of fun and see if you can guess just which one of these is truly the most awful film of the year.

Worst Film of 2009

1. All About Steve
2. GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra
3. Land of the Lost
4. Old Dogs
5. Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

Personally I would like to see Transformers "win" in this category - you don't even have to watch the movie to see that it's a shoddy attempt to get some explosions and rubbish jokes on screen. Of course, some people might really love Transformers and the first one isn't supposed to be that bad...

In a double-whammy of awfulness, Empire readers have also named Batman and Robin the worst movie of all time - it's strange how a film with such a lot of talent could turn out so... wrong. This is what Anthony Lane of The New Yorker said of the film:

"[The cast] is quite a line up, boasting a broad range of dramatic styles, and what lends the movie cohesion and intergrity is the fact that all those involved have come up with their worst imaginable performances... You sit there feeling brain-damaged and parying for the mayhem to cease."

Ooh, that's quite damning....

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

I think I'm a fan of the X-Men series and I don't know why. Normally I dislike action films and wouldn't dare watch one but I own the first on DVD and I have been watching the others curiously, thinking to myself "I know I don't like films like this, so why do I like this series?"

Well, maybe it's because there's some sort of moral or ethical question lying underneath there somewhere. So when I went to see the latest installment - er, well, prequel - I was looking forward to it. And I wasn't that disappointed.

I say this almost half-heartedly, because the storyline was nicely put together and explained some things about why Logan acts in the way he does in the original X-Men trilogy. No, the narrative was fine. Except I don't like sentimentality. It gets a little overly sentimental at times, which I suppose is needed for the story to make sense but, you know, it puts you off the action.

Here's why I'm half-hearted: well, there's actually two reasons. Firstly, Hugh Jackman. What the heck happened to the wise-cracking, cigar-smoking, almost playful Wolverine that we saw in the original series? I read another review of this on the NME blog and the guy who writes on the Movie Projector was dead on - in this film, Jackman only acts with the scowly face and the constipated face. Sorry Hugh, but some variation in your mood might have been nice. After all, you're supposed to be a happy lumberjack in the first half hour of so! Couldn't you have least have looked like you were leading a normal life? At some points it's hard to imagine how the Wolverine we all loved from the trilogy was born from this raging beast...

Secondly, and there could be a good reason for this, the CGI. It was flawless, and I mean flawless, in the trilogy, but here it's laboured and so fake that it looks like someone banged it together in a back room in a spare half hour. The best CGI is saved for Victor's claws - his claws, yes. Now if they paid so much attention to detail here how come Wolverine's adamantine claws look so fake? In the scene in the farmer's bathroom where he's coming to terms with his transformation, the metal doesn't blend with his skin at all - it looks like the claws have been stuck on. The terrible blue colour is also highly off-putting.

Then in the scene where our hero explodes the helicopter, the fire and carnage is so blindingly, obviously placed on to a green screen that you wonder if the setting is even real. And then the final sequence should have been flawless. And yes, Weapon Eleven does look pretty real (I'll give them that) but the effects on the powers and again, the setting, is so tacked on that it's cringe-worthy. Wolverine and his enemy are standing there and the sky is.... not there. Because they're standing in front of a green screen!!! Argh!!

Maybe I'm not being fair. After all, it's possible to say that because of the massive leak that happened with the movie that they had to put everything together quickly before the film lost its Box Office weight. Can't spend millions on a movie without expecting to get millions back, can you? Perhaps the leak hasn't done anyone a favour.

To pick on some of the positives, some of the acting aside from Hugh Jackman is solid and somewhat engaging if a little dry. Perhaps the introduction of fan's favourite Gambit was a good move. But we needed more Gambit. He was the friendliest character by far: likeable, cheeky and with some pretty cool powers (using a staff - lovely stuff to an RPG nut like me). We probably needed a bit more from Cyclops as well. He's on the poster and yet only appears for the best part of, oh, seven minutes? And never once does he wear those special specs. That's false advertising!

This film would have benefited from a less clunky script, a better lead performance and some more time spent on integrating the CGI. The storyline was good and, presuming you'd seen the trilogy beforehand, left no plotholes. But despite some good action sequences I was left slightly flat because of all the technical difficulties. Get your claws into it if you want, but it's a real disappointment in comparison to the first three films.

Sorry about the bunchy-up writing again. I've tried everything to get rid of it!

Confessions Of A Shopaholic/ He's Just Not That Into You

Hmm, so against every moral film bone in my body I have seen both "Confessions of a Shopaholic" and "He's Just Not That Into You" in the past couple of weeks. And I am afraid to say that I actually enjoyed "Confessions"! Shock horror!

So here's the reason why... okay, I don't have a reason why - Rebecca is a silly clothes-obsessed woman that is daft and in massively in debt. Hmmm, nice portrayal of women there Miss Kinsella... Still, it's light and frothy and since I was feeling so awful that day Isla Fisher's performance actually put a smile on my face. And I deny anyone to say that the Miami dancing scene isn't hilarious - the woman sitting next to me (not my friend, a person I didn't know) was in so much of a kink that she nearly keeled over on the floor. It's quite sweet as well - she does sell all of her clothes collection to pay off her debts and prove to the man that she loves that he means more to her tan Prada and Gucci (although they were an odd match... he wasn't anything like her at all!)

So then on to "He's Just Not That Into You", which is not nearly as insightful as it believes it is - after all, doesn't nearly every girl realise that boys hitting you really means that they hate you rather than like you? Well, this is the "revealing" segment that the film begins on. The stories with Jennifer Aniston and Jennifer Connoly in them are quite tedious and predictable, but Gigi's story is quite funny (I liked her, she was a little bit like me), and Drew Barrymore is very likeable. Actually, she probably didn't get enough screen time. All of the stories were linked, so you had to work out who was seeing who and manipulating who etc.

The best part, actually, was after the little titles introducing the various segments of the storyline (when he's not calling you, when he's not sleeping with you etc.) Here, semi-known celebs such as that woman who plays Angela Petrelli in Heroes (know what I mean about semi-known now?) reveal some little stories that link to the title of that particular segment. This was the most inventive part of the filming. This was the only part that felt more independent movie-maker rather than big-bucks Hollywood rom-com.

Still, both films are enjoyable as part of a night out - best enjoyed chilled with friends on a gloomy day (rain, depression, whatever) and preferrably with a bag of popcorn to chow down on!

Lazy Post... But I Think You'll Laugh

Why is this post going to be really lazy but funny? Well, this little bold bit is the only piece that I'M actually writing, and the rest, including the pic, has been nicked from the Empire Blog - I sent this to my mum and she agreed. Hopefully you'll laugh and nod at the same time too!

I am, I think it’s fair to say, what you could describe as a cinema fascist. For me a trip to the local multiplex isn’t so much a night of enjoyment but an endless litany of irritations, injustices and insults perpetrated against my person by the general public. I suppose it’s an inevitable side effect of spending the better part of a decade being coddled by private studio screenings where we’re presented with nibbles, wine and the occasional Pret sandwich tray.

Such screenings, where you're often one of only a handful present, have become the norm in my mind, so you can imagine the horror when I’m occasionally dropped headfirst into the howling, sticky sea of degradation and depravity that is your average fleapit performance. Frankly, it makes me want to have a shower. And then kill everyone in the room. And then have another one to wash the gore off my hands. An overreaction? Possibly, but why, I ask you, do people go to the cinema when they clearly have no interest in actually watching the movie?

But I’m getting off track. Having been scarred by years of public cinemagoing as a civilian before finally finding solace at the bosom of Empire, i think it's time that something was done to improve the cinemagoing experience. I propose that we all unite to draw up a list of cinemagoing commandments (enforceable by some kind of nasty biblical torture), to which anyone viewing a film in a public place must adhere. It should go something like this:

1. Thou shalt not have stupid trendy hair that sticketh up and obscureth my view

All cinema patrons should be required, on pain of buzz cut, to sport a sensible haircut whereby the hair itself stays flat upon the scalp. Regardless of how much you think you look like that muppet from McFly, I do not need to spend half the film trying to peer past congealing spires of hair gel thank you so very much. The same goes for headwear – caps off when you sit down. And no, I don’t care if it’s street or cool or you’ve left the tags on to make it look like you stole it.While not a commandment in its own right, a sub-directive of this should be something along the lines of thou shalt not sit bolt upright unlest thou sufferest from some kind of chiropractic condition. Headwear or no, cinema seat backs are high for a reason: you’re meant to slouch. This is in part so you can enjoy the slobbish act of watching movies to the full but also so half the movie isn’t projected onto the back of your bloody head. Heed. Doon.

2. Thou shalt not shout encouragement to yonder protagonists

What’s wrong with you? It’s a movie. It’s an entirely one-directional experience and Matt Damon neither needs nor is in any way able to hear your vocal support. If you’re American then you recieve a grudging free pass on this as it seems to be an evolutionary trait caused by generations of watching Jerry Springer, which you're all now powerless to resist. The rest of you keep it zipped, okay?

3. Thou shalt not use sugar-coated chocolates as rudimentary weapons of war

A year ago I was forced to sit through a public performance of Spider-Man 3 (which was unpleasant enough to begin with) only to be struck squarely in the head by some kind of heat-seeking M&M. All I can say is down with this sort of thing! Perhaps I’m still scarred by an incident at the Harrow Granada in the late 80s when some muscled gorilla called Len came up and accused the 11-year-old me of doing something similar. I hadn’t, but that didn’t stop him from using my head as a knuckle warmer. The fact that his girlfriend later dragged him over to apologise did not make me feel a great deal better.

4. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's cupholder

Your bag of Minstrels does not outrank mine and you will not use the cupholders on both sides of your seat no matter how many snack food items you’re juggling. If you go both ways then some poor bugger is going to end up with a beverage perched precariously on his lap and that’s just an accident waiting to happen. Cup goes in holder, sweets go in lap, it’s the natural order of things and woe betide any who seek to challenge it.

5. Thou shalt not skulk around the back of the screen wearing night vision goggles

Are you in Splinter Cell? No? Then what on Earth are you doing? You look like a tit. Yes, I’m aware that the threat of movie piracy hangs above society like a headsman’s axe and if Harry Potter 7 ends up on the Internet before it's released in the cinema than the whole of reality will implode on itself, but do we really need the bloody SAS glaring at us throughout the feature? What are they going to do if they catch someone anyway? Drag them outside and put two in the back of their head? I’ve got a word for you, it’s called OVERKILL.

6. Thou shalt not use the lavatory whilst the feature is in progress

No, I don’t care if you’ve got a weak bladder, a nervous stomach or you’re on bloody dialysis, there is no excuse for getting up in the middle of the film and thereby forcing your entire row to do the same while you shuffle off to the loo. Just sit there, hold it in and next time don’t drink that four gallon bucket of Coke you indulgent fool.

7. Thou shalt not accept calls from thine drug dealer during the film

Admittedly this one’s a tad specific but it’s nevertheless something I witnessed during a Sunday matinee screening of Fallen (don’t ask) in 1998. Glossing over the imprudence of such an act given that the whole of special branch could have been downing popcorn in the back row, it’s also extremely annoying! That goes for any kind of phone conversation. If it rings you grab frantically at the offending pocket and fumble apologetically until you manage switch the thing off then sit really still for the next minute while hoping no one is staring at you. You do NOT even THINK about answering the accursed thing and ‘catching up’.

8. Thou shalt not purchase individually wrapped sweets on pain of torture

Anything that rustles is enough to provoke a sound beating but to intentionally purchase confectionary that requires crunching, crackling paper before every single mouthful is tantamount to a war crime. Do it at your peril and I’ll see you in The Hague.

9. Thou shalt not talk amongst thyselves no matter how boring thou findest the movie

Just don’t, okay? If you’re not enjoying it then just leave – quietly. I once sat behind two people who nattered all the way through Schindler’s List. It’s about genocide for god’s sake, have some bloody respect. If I told Ian Freer you’d talked through one of Steven’s movies he’d have branded something I can't print on this website across both your bloody foreheads.Also, while we're on the subject of noise, I'd like to add another sub-clause: though shalt not bray like a donkey. f it’s a comedy then by all means feel free to laugh – it’s actually encouraged. Do not, though, howl like some kind of lovesick baboon, thus eclipsing all other sound that’s not currently broadcasting above 20 decibels. This is especially infuriating when what you’re laughing at isn’t actually supposed to be funny, or at least not funny enough to warrant Fanta dribbling from your nostrils.

10. Thou shalt not sit thyself next to or in front of me if the cinema is half empty

This is absolutely non-negotiable. I am not your mother and thus will at no point hold your hand during the movie if you get scared. Bearing this in mind you will not attempt to sit next to me, a complete stranger, when there are plenty of non-adjacent seats elsewhere. You will instead adhere to a minimum three seat buffer around my person at all times unless the cinema is sufficiently crowded that this proves impossible. Likewise you will not place your presumably non-translucent self directly between me and the screen unless all seats outside the direct field of my vision are currently occupied. Should you neglect to follow this directive then I reserve the right to place hard metal objects in any space around me that I see fit, regardless of whether said space is occupied by a part of your anatomy.

I'm sure there are more but it's traditional to stop at ten so I'll leave any further additions up to you. Go forth and preach the gospel! Let us spread the word among the heathens and turn the multiplexes back into the hallowed cathedrals of entertainment they were meant to be. And yes, feel free to burn any heretics who seek to defy you. Amen.

Burn After Reading

Maybe this is the first time I've ever gone to the cinema to see a film that has really only just been released? I think four or five days after the initial release is a pretty good amount of time, and the cinema screen was still practically empty (because all the tiddlywinks wanted to go and see High School Musical - shudder).

Lets get straight to the point: Burn After Reading is as strange and oddly protracted as any Coen Brothers' movie, and still has a very dark thread running through it. After all, they don't really hold anything back do they? The story follows how the secret documents of sacked CIA man Osmond Cox (John Malkovich) are lost by an incompetent secretary at a gym and are found by two employees there (Frances McDormand and Brad Pitt). In the mean time Cox's wife (Tilda Swinton) is having an affair with their friend Harry (George Clooney) and things start to get.... complicated.

Well, there's lots of paranoia involved, particularly from Clooney, and just general stupidity, particularly from Pitt. The voice that he puts on to essentially blackmail Cox, for instance, is idiotically contrived and I had to stop myself from laughing at the incompetency - no wonder he gets punched in the face. And worse, but I'll not give it away.

There are some hilarious moments as with all of the Coens' less serious movies. Let's put it this way: you just have to see Clooney's home-made chair to believe it. Then there's the scene that I've colourfully called "the chopping of the carrots" and the whole way that Pitt acts in the movie - I can't believe that he didn't know that his character was gay when he was acting it out.

When we finally get to the climax you wonder how everything will be resolved. There isn't a definitive twist, as such, but there is a rather weird final scene. I can't give it away. But it's certainly not as thoughtful as the last little sequence in Fargo - in fact, you have to wonder about the morality of the whole thing. But it's pretty funny.

It's true that it isn't as good as Fargo or even the Big Lebowski, but it's still distinctly a Coen movie, and it's still got all the twisted, juicy elements that you would expect - probably isn't good enough for the Oscars like No Country For Old Men but definitely deserves some good recognition. Can more people go to see it before it tumbles into obscurity in the face of all the tween movies that are being paraded at the minute? Please?

Epidemic! Run For The Hills!

So right now I'm recovering from the common cold (which I find as being an odd name because there's nothing common about the type of colds I get - it's much more than the regular sniffles and drippy nose!) and everyone around me is coming down with it.

My three best friends are either in the grip of the cold or are developing all the symptoms that point to them getting it! One was absent from work and bedridden today thanks to this supposedly harmless little virus that everyone says you should just get on with.

The thing is, when you've got the cold you instantly think that it's going to develop into something worse or you're paranoid about passing it on to other people. Watching "28 Days Later" yesterday turned my friend into a nervous wreck, not just because we'd watched a scary movie at 10am but also because it made her think that she was going to spread the cold to everyone and anyone she came into brief contact with.

Unfortunately if you're working in the confines of an office or are sitting in a meeting room you can't escape other people's germs and they can't avoid yours. I ate the whole "grit your teeth and get on with it" attitude to the cold, so can someone please invent a vaccination for it?!

The Dark Knight

Here at SCG I've gone a bit movie-fanatical. Whether it's because I'm immersed in my own work which has me racking my brains with them and their marketing or whether it's just the fact that I'm suddenly turning into a movie freak who can't discuss film in real life but can when I'm writing, everything at the minute seems to revolve around them.

And so here we come to this. Like my review of Indy IV it's probably come a few months too late but here it is, finally! The Dark Knight! And I must say:

Give Heath Ledger the Oscar now pleeease!!!

Such compelling acting, a tour de force in acting! Disturbing, freakish, amoral (not even immoral, which has got to be a hard one to pull off) and possibly the most ironic portrayal of The Joker ever. Really you have to wonder what he could have done if he'd still been around - topping this role would be hard, but then wondering if there was still more left in the tank is tantalising.

Going back to the film, he definitely steals the show although there are other pretty special performances in here as well. Take Aaron Eckhart's chameleonic Harvey Dent, scarred in more ways than one by a horrific event that practically takes his humanity away from him. The CGI used on his face is just that little bit too realistic - I have to honestly say that I wasn't expecting such a graphic representation of such a heavily burned man. Kudos to the SFX department! Of them all, Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne (ahem, aka Batman) is the least impressive, and even he's pretty good!

In discussing Hellboy 2 before I touched upon the subject of whether monsters can really live amongst humans in perfect harmony. Now translate monsters as being human psychopaths and, yeah, superheroes, and you essentially have the subplot of The Dark Knight. Or at least what I'd like to think it is - while you have The Joker blowing up everything in sight and laughing as he slashes people up recklessly, Batman is going through a crisis all his own, eventually leading into the film's dark ending. Similarly, Harvey goes through an identity crisis and is brainwashed by The Joker into becoming an anti-hero, the complete opposite of the man who you see put 500 of Gotham's criminals in jail in one swoop. None of them are accepted by anyone and no-one apart from Wayne's butler knows the true identity of Batman. Thus when discussing the Joker, one of his henchmen says "Friends? Have you met the guy?"

I haven't been this entranced by a film in ages. I have always been that little bit skeptical of superhero movies, but The Dark Knight is different. It's a dark tale made even more twisted by stellar performances and the extremely capable directing of Christopher Nolan. I enjoy a film that can make you think - I suppose some of the little intricacies may have bypassed some people but it's what kept me hooked. By the end, I was gripped, not wanting it to end and with my hair all over the place from being so thrilled.

I only have one problem: it was so stupidly LOUD!!!!!

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army

Heh, I hope you like the little cartoon version of Hellboy - just that little bit more interesting than me plonking a still from the movie straight in here.

Before I begin my, ahem, dissection of the movie, I must first apologize for being away from my desk longer than anticipated. I feel horrible that I haven't been around to blog, although I did post a little teensy video on my other site, so I hope you checked that one out...

Review commencing now: This is the second Hellboy film that Guillermo Del Toro has directed and is none the worse for it. Unlike the first movie, Del Toro's somewhat childlike fantasy qualities shine through. The first movie could have described as standard fare, not too impressive but not incredibly bad either. In this one, Del Toro plays around more with both his characters and his creatures to create a much more fantasy-based world that questions whether the race of demons and magical monsters can ever live peacefully with the humans.

Case in point; Tooth Fairies that fly around eating people so there's nothing left shouldn't be even vaguely cute but they are. So they have big massive fangs, so what? There's a scene here that shows that they're slightly cuddly, when Johan Krauss (come back to him later) revives one and it starts "talking" to the others giving them information about who bought him and his little ravenous chums. Lurvely.

By no stretch of the imagination is this creation cute but the Angel of Death is also something to behold, even if his appearance is slightly spoilt by the movie's only walk into sickly-sweet "please don't die on me" territory. At first I thought, "nice eyes" (plastered liberally on his wings, a nice touch) but then there was something just a little more menacing about it - it was around seven feet tall and loomed over everything...

And then there's Johan, possibly one of the funniest and strangest characters I've seen in ages. He's German, wears a rather large diving/space suit and oh, did I mention that he's made entirely of gas? This gaseous element of Johan provides possibly the most comical moment of the whole film - no, not that bit where he keeps whacking Hellboy with the locker doors, the bit just after where he minces along thoroughly pleased with what he's achieved. Although, he does come out with same rather good lines as well. I enjoyed his transformation from a tied-to-the-rules figure to a more liberal, carefree person. Gas person. Whatever...

But hey, I was disappointed because when I read a preview in the Empire about the film I saw a character named "Cathedralhead" (I won't patronise you by explaining it) and thought he was going to be a prominent chracter. So imagine my disappointment to learn that he only actually appears on screen for a maximum of, well, a minute!! I was fuming. The film needed more Cathedralhead action...

But overall, the narrative turns out to be ever so slightly predictable. While you couldn't quite figure out overall what was to happen between the people, you always had this feeling that they weren't going to die or let the bad guys win. Hey, what kind of superhero movie is going to let its main chracters die and let the baddies get away huh? Um, actually I'll come to that in my next post.

Too bad that everyone pretty much neglected Hellboy this summer - despite being a great bit of fun no-one was really that bothered. Luckily Del Toro has the prospect of directing The Hobbit in front of him, so maybe more people will pay attention to that. I loved it really. I would hate to think what a terrible mess it would be if Peter Jackson had got his blood-stained paws on it and mauled the poor film with horrible creepy-crawlies and grotesque monsters like he did with King Kong (officially the most horrible film I've ever been to see - I don't want to ever see a man having his head bitten off by a giant maggot again. How on earth I was the only person in a packed cinema to sit through that sequence with eyes wide open is beyond me). Guillermo knows how to do it nicely.

Election

So last night I watched Election, a 1999 film starring Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick. And it was hilariously funny from the beginning to the end.

The story goes that high-flying Tracy Flick (Witherspoon) is running to be Carver High School President, something she has been aiming towards for as long as she can remember. At first she is running as the only candidate but her morals and ethics teacher Mr.McAllister (Broderick) has other plans - he gets the captain of the football team to run against her (can you see the irony here?) Things start to go horribly wrong in McAllister's life as his candidate's sister also runs, and he begins to fall in love with his best friend's ex-wife.

The film is told in a light-hearted fashion from the viewpoints of the different characters showing their conflicts of interest and their thoughts on each other (which also turns out to be hilarious, particularly when it comes to McAllister talking about Flick). The fact that all of the characters - particularly the candidates for presidency - are all so different, it means that there's some wonderful meeting of minds.

The film put me in the mind of Rushmore which was directed by Wes Anderson (who is brilliant, you've just got to sit down and watch some of his movies) as they both have similar quirky, light-hearted feels. I can see that this would be a film that doesn't wear thin quickly, and that you could watch it time and time again and still laugh! Surely the best comedies do this? If you get the opportunity I recommend you track it down and give it a go - as proof that it isn't one of those teen movies that are alienating to other age groups, my mum watched it with me and was laughing just as hard as me. Enough said!

Indy IV - The Last Reflection On Earth (Or Maybe Not)

I must have been one of the last people on the planet to see Indy IV, right? Okay, that was an exaggeration. There are probably plenty of people who haven't seen "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull", right?

Anyway, when I did see it I enjoyed it. Just like I enjoyed the first three Indy films. Still, despite a friend once telling me that it was the worst Indy movie, I prefer "Temple of Doom" - it has this strange quality to it that makes me really enjoy it even though the story is so farfetched and so stupid.

So enter Indy IV and a new quest for ageing action man Harrison Ford. After a shaky opening sequence where Ford doesn't really look up to the job, he settles back into his role, possibly because renegade sidekick Mutt Williams (aka Shia LeBoeuf, of "Disturbia" fame) is busy doing the acrobatic vine navigating with the monkeys for him. Yes, there really is a scene where monkeys save the day. Young audiences everywhere would be pleased, I was less easily impressed. While we're on the subject of silly, only-in-an-Indy-based-romp sequences, how about the bit where he survives a nuclear explosion? In a fridge! A fridge people! Duck and cover, eat your heart out.

Ahem, daftness aside, it's not really a bad movie at all. The plot is a bit ludicrous but then there aren't any loose ends and everything is tied up in a nice little package by the denouement. The sequence where all the little ants come out and start eating the Russians is perhaps to be expected but at least it wasn't horrible like, say, Peter Jackson's giant head-eating maggot things in "King Kong" (I think I should get brownie points for being one of what seemed like few people in the cinema to watch that scene, albeit with a horrified face). Still, the best bits come out in the conversation. Probably strange little conversations between people, such as Indy and one of his students at Marshall College library about three seconds after he crashes Mutt's motorcycle. But it's great that after months of saying to people "What kind of a name is Mutt?" that Indy actually comes out and says it himself in the film! Hooray! Luckily this is just a nickname that he's given himself, not a silly name that his parents placed on him as a haunting joke that would plague him for the rest of his days. Poor kid.

Since this is probably going to be the last Indy film though, I expected more from his fear of snakes. Instead, only one semi-gag was made about Indy's lifelong hate of the cold-blooded reptiles and I found that disappointing. Surely the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull should have been swarming with them, just to make it even more perilous for the protagonists.

Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable film. Probably not one I would consider buying when it goes to DVD but then I'm quite picky. If I had to buy one Indy DVD, it would still be "Temple of Doom" no matter what people say. Despite good performances, Indy was better in his younger incarnation, not this older and supposedly wiser form. Ford's co-stars save the day, particularly LeBoeuf and Cate Blanchett as Russian agent Irina Spalko. If you haven't already seen it, you could go just for a couple of hours of enjoyment. Don't expect to be particularly enlightened though.

Thanks to www.reelmovienews.com/images/gallery for the pic!

Sunshine

Danny Boyle directed "Sunshine" last year, a sci-fi set 50 years in the future with an almost apocalyptic feel. In "Sunshine", there's always a threat, whether it's the sun dying out and consequently killing all life on earth or the little disasters that happen to the crew of the Icarus 2.

Seven years after the Icarus 1 fails to deliver their payload and save the world, a new crew is sent to deliver another payload in the hope that they will succeed. Robert Capa, a physicist played by Cillian Murphy, is the main character. He's in charge of the payload, making sure it works and deploys when the Icarus 2 reaches its destination.

As you'd expect though, things don't go to plan and the crew is jeopardized by a massive fire in the oxygen garden, so they come to the conclusion that killing off other members of the crew is the only way to ensure that they make it to their destination. One by one the crew succumb to increasingly inventive deaths, but the remaining members are finally faced with a new threat...

The whole film becomes increasingly claustrophobic, particularly, and somewhat ironically, when the characters are floating in space. The cameras are always positioned close to the characters so although you feel more of a connection with them, you also feel increasingly trapped inside the Icarus 2. This probably ties in with how trapped the crew are becoming in space and the fact that they will probably never return to Earth.

The lack of action at the beginning of the film is successful at establishing the characters and their personalities but the movie probably takes a little too long to heat up (pun not intended). However, when it does pick up the pace, "Sunshine" is gripping and at times disturbing. You find yourself rooting for Capa and the remaining crew members to finish their mission and slightly frightened that they could fail against the danger of the mysterious blurred figure.

At times poetic, at others almost disturbing, "Sunshine" doesn't fail to capture your attention. But then, you'll need it to work out exactly what's going on.

http://54.openphoto.net

Maybe Not Such A Good Idea

I watched Shane Meadows' "This is England" last night and shuddered at the brutality of some members of the National Front (BNP). The film started off somewhat lightheartedly, despite being punctuated by newsreel from the Falklands War, and showing how 12-year-old Shaun fell in with a group of adult skinheads led by Woody (I had to laugh at Woody's impression of Harvey, who'd been in a fight with Shaun on the last day of term).

So Shaun seems to be enjoying himself. But then everything takes a particularly dark turn when xenophobic nationalist Combo comes on to the scene and literally brainwashes Shaun into thinking that everyone with coloured skin is, well, pretty much evil - a view I detest entirely. Shaun becomes more aggressive and adopts Combo's view of the world, which is terrifying considering how young he is meant to be in the film. Luckily a terrible event helps him to open his eyes and Shaun eventually casts off his belief, to my relief.

The film was given a rating of 18, but I really don't think that it's that bad. There is a lot of language that is deemed as offensive by some but there isn't too much violence in it at all, only at the end really. It could be suggested that it should be shown to 15 and 16 year old schoolchildren to show them that showing just how wrong it is to be a nationalist - support your football team by all means, but these radical views are really not on!

Of course, there would be a lot of kids out there who would probably watch "This is England" and admire Combo and his stance on life. Certainly in my town there is a lot of xenophobia and this film would only help to glamorise these kinds of views. That can't be good for anyone, and I wouldn't stand for it. Perhaps showing it to kids wouldn't be such a good idea after all.