Reviews

In an unusual departure from any comic based movie, this version of The Batman went the route of delivering a solid graphic novel experience rather than a brashy superhero movie. The story is a solid Noir Detective drama and has plenty of mystery and a few interesting surprises.

Performances by Colin Farrell and Paul Dano (as Penguin and Riddler) were superb and the sound design of the Batmobile starting gave me goosebumps, but Pattinson is forced to play the title role in a down-tempo, low-key, moody and miserable sort of way which almost made him feel underused.

At the end of the experience, I actually felt like I'd read a graphic novel rather than seen a movie.

The Unabomber was coming up with fascinating ideas on society from as early as the 1970's and as time goes by, those ideas become more prescient and more true. So, how does this film go about exploring these great insights into society? How does this film explore the intellect of its subject? The sad answer is, it ignores it.

Ted K, was a fantastic opportunity to do something intellectually stimulating, but for some reason, a choice was made to ignore the intelligence and make the story about a crazy hobo who lives in the forest, struggles with sexual frustration and makes mail bombs because he can't find a girlfriend.

If I were conspiratorial, I could easily imagine the powerful overlords of our society were getting so worried about people reading the Unabomber's manifesto, that they set out to destroy his character by making this film.

The film is competently produced and Sharlto Copley's performance is strong; the problem is the approach. This film didn't attempt to study Ted Kaczynski's character, they set out to assassinate it.

The Outpost series of films is Movie-Marmite. It's about undead zombie Nazi's, which means you either love films like this or you don't. But if you love that crazy yet serious tone of early John Carpenter pics, or enjoy the balls-out wartime action of Where Eagles Dare, then you're going to have a blast with this film

In Rise of the Spetsnaz, a bunch of Russian special forces in WWII ambush a Nazi convoy and discover a secret base. They're captured, locked up and must escape, especially once they discover the Nazi's plan to experiment on them.

The origin story is simple, straight forward and told very well. Unlike the first Outpost, or the sequel, their are no ghost-zombies or extraneous sci-fi devices to absorb because the Nazis in 'Spetsnaz' haven't invented it yet. The more outrageous quantum-physics tech used in the other movies is still a future dream of the Nazis and is what they're striving to create; so rather than this being a man against science/supernatural film, it's more a balls-to-the-wall WWII action thriller.

Like the other films, the actors and film makers are taking this all deadly seriously. The acting (especially for this kind of film) is superb. Bryan Larkin channels Gerard Buttler and looks like a major action hero in waiting whilst uber-Nazi Michael McKell has the gravitas of the best Bond villains.

All in all, Rise of the Spetsnaz is the best popcorn actioner I've seen in a long time. It's great fun, suspenseful and the most accessible installment to the Outpost universe.

When I started watching this I didn't expect to learn anything I hadn't already read about and so went into it with low expectations. But from the moment Barak Obama turned up talking about what he was seeing and having to make decisions on, it was obvious this was going to be far more revealing than expected.

Put together through a series of interviews with the principles, archive footage, computer animations and reconstructions. The entire intelligence manhunt is presented with a sense of ever increasing tension as the search narrows down to a single building in Pakistan.

When Obama first appeared I suddenly felt cynical, bracing myself for a propaganda piece in an election year, however it only took a short time to allay these fears. This isn't propaganda, it's simply the story well told. In fact, the film makers seem to have taken steps to avoid it being labeled as a political piece. Anything we know from the story that is contentious (Did Osama hide behind his wife, for example) is skipped.

The interviews are brilliant. The politicians and intelligence analysts give their first hand account; and whilst not speaking to any of the military personnel who took part in the raid, the retired Seal Team Six members explaining training, tactics and mindset is more than adequate. A real plus point is Mike Durrant, the captured helicopter pilot in Black Hawk Down, is interviewed to explain how and why the helicopter crashed and what the soldiers were doing in that situation. But without doubt the ace in the hole is having the first sit down interview with Obama on how he perceived it and how he came to make the decision to attack.

My only real criticism is the film makers at times made the military action look like a video game. Anyone who's played Modern Warfare will recognise the slow-motion take-down technique used for the fatal shooting of Bin Laden. Throughout the picture the film makers allow the drama of the event tell the story whereas the stylized action scenes feel like they're pushing to increase the drama.

All in all this is gripping and exciting stuff that at times will have you living the moment with sustained tension.

If you enjoyed the original, then you'll enjoy this to the power of ten!

Catherine Steadman is Lena, a Nazi hunter trying to locate and prosecute the very last of the escaped Nazis from WWII. Whilst tracking down one very elusive figure named Klausener, she becomes embroiled in something much larger. A search for a machine that Klausener built. Everybody seems to be looking for it, from the Americans to Klausener himself. It seems that Klausener was the person who originally hired Hunt (from the first Outpost) to search for the bunker and secure the machine. The machine is important as it creates a "unified-field" that makes exposed soldiers invincible whilst they remain within the field. The machine was first activated during WWII meaning there are undead and invincible Nazi soldiers running around killing everyone in their way. So begins a race against time to get into the bunker and grab the technology. The race is made more essential by the fact that the unified field is growing, meaning the zombie Nazi's can now attack over a wider and ever expanding area.

With that in mind you can already guess that this is Movie-Marmite. If you're up for a film about undead Nazi zombies then you'll love it. In fact this film is without doubt the best in the Nazi-zombie sub-genre. The production values are very high, the mood is tense and fraught with danger and despite the comic book set-up everyone is taking things very seriously. The writing, the acting, the direction... nobody does anything less than 100% commitment. Like the original Outpost you get the feeling that this was filmed on a micro-budget, yet they've somehow managed to make a movie that can hold its own against a Hollywood effort with ten times more cash. The really great news is that the heart that was put into the first movie is evident here too. This is a movie made by people who really care about what they're doing and care about entertaining their audience.

If I have one criticism it's that the film struggles with the weight of it's ideas. There are enough story threads here to make another five movies without running out of plot lines. It's almost as though you're watching a mini-series compressed into 90 minutes. But when compared to most low budget horrors, seeing a film with too many good ideas isn't necessarily a bad thing.

To begin with, I'm a fan of the first two and felt insulted by AVP. So I went into this with some trepidation; in fact, I almost wasn't even going to bother with a cinema viewing on this based on how rubbish AVP had been. But goooooooo, ruuuuuuuun, get to the sineeeeemaaaaa.

The movie opens with a bunch of people parachuting into the jungle. They're armed, look mean and have no idea why they're there. Slowly the film starts to make revelations as to who they are, what they're doing, what this place might be... and I mean slowly. One of the great joys was the film didn't feel under pressure to blow things up and have explosions in the first five minutes, it carefully took its time to show us around and start building the mystery. Just because it went slowly didn't mean it was boring; in fact, the pacing was great, the story was tight and suspenseful so that when things start to go wrong, beginning with an attack by aliens hounds, you actually know who these people are. By the time the predators make an appearance halfway into the movie, it's already a great survival and hunting story that now ratchets the tension higher. Throw in a couple of surprise twists, a few cool moments (Lawrence Fishburn's entrance is sublime) and some terrific action and you've got the genuine summer blockbuster to please any predator fan.

I saw the first movie when I was 14 and it freaked me out. I'm 37 now and there were times when I felt like I was back in the day, loving every creature roar and macho one-liner.

The big surprise for me was Adrian Brody. The weedy thin actor turned out to be an inspired choice for the lead. Rather than the muscles and brute force of Arnie, we've got a hero who is lithe, athletic and relies on intelligence rather than brute force. The guy also commands screen presence and brings acting gravitas and depth to something that could have been paper thin. Kudos to you, Mr. Brody.

My one serious criticism is that the movie pays homage to the original a few too many times and too directly. It's nice to hear "over here, turn around" in a hat tip to Bill Duke from the first film; but when the Yakuza-assassin character pulls his samurai sword in an almost shot-for-shot and musically note-for-note duplicate of a scene from the original it over-eggs the pudding. Don't worry though, once our Yakuza goes toe to toe with a predator in bladed combat you'll be back to loving every second.

In what is sure to be one of those films that is widely acclaimed but little seen, Clint Eastwood has crafted one of the most hopeful and inspirational films of recent times that rises head and shoulders above all around it on the strength of good writing, great performances, tight direction and above all, an honest to God brilliant story.

After 27 years in prison, the newly elected president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, has inherited a country where racism, bitterness and vengeful hatred could send the land into civil war. Armed with little more than his charm, wit, humility and intellect, he must somehow unify the deep divisions in society and knows he must do so by example; his quest, so to speak, is to discover the strategies that will inspire his countrymen to share in his dream of a rainbow nation.

When he sees the dreadful national rugby team get beaten, something that emotionally hurts the white South Africans whilst pleasing the blacks, he spots an opportunity to create an iconic focal point in which all South Africans can take pride. So he telephones the team captain, invites him for tea and recruits him into his thinking. All they need to do now is get the support of millions of blacks who hate rugby.

The movie could have fallen into familiar sporting drama territory, by showing the underdogs in a training montage, or having a crisis of confidence; but this isn't your usual sporting drama. This isn't Rocky, or The Mighty Ducks. Instead, Invictus is about Mandela providing as much inspiration and positive leadership to unify his country as possible. As we marvel at his humility in the face of adversity and his courage to make difficult choices we become invested in the story and start cheering. The rugby is just a sideshow, the real sporting hero is Mandela.

The heart of the film is to show that when you lead by example, that when you keep pushing hard to inspire goodness in others, when you encourage the bitter and the angry to allow themselves hope, then ultimately, with perseverance, you can move mountains. It is here, as you watch those mountains crumble to dust you become overwhelmed by the power of the story.

Mandela wanted to unify black and white through sport and Eastwood has crafted some joyous storytelling moments. In one beautiful vignette, a young black boy tries to listen to the big game on the radio of some white security guards. At first the guards shoo him away but he hovers close by, pretending to pick up trash. As the match progresses and the tension mounts, the boy gets closer and closer until eventually he and the guards are living the moment together. He ends up sitting on the car bonnet and sharing a coke with the security guards as they chew their fingernails with the stress of the match.

As for the rugby, there's a perfect balance between the sport and drama. Eastwood obviously knew that Rugby isn't played everywhere and very skillfully squeezes in as much as you need to know. But the scoring and rules don't matter; the stunning slow motion action with bone crushing sounds on the tackles are just eye-candy between the emotions.

Invictus is a modern day morality play that shows us what can be achieved by kindness, forgiveness, humility and diplomacy. It is made all the more poignant by being a true story. In fact, directly after seeing the movie I started watching the real event on youtube and I would strongly recommend anyone who has seen this movie to do so. When Matt Damon tells a sportscaster "there aren't 60,000 people cheering for us, there are 43 million cheering for us." its an immense moment fitting of a Hollywood movie, but to then watch on youtube, the real Francois Pienaar say it, you will be moved to tears.

Invictus is an inspired and inspirational heart warming movie that is truly refreshing to the soul and spirit. The writing, performances and direction are sublime and the overall experiences is truly uplifting. Expect it to do deservedly well come awards season.

Coming in somewhere between Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and the Taxi films, this oddball comedy drama is guaranteed cult status thanks to a very witty script and a terrific performance by JCVD.

At every turn there's some inane comedy to the proceedings, whether its hostage takers forcing a jet-lagged JC to kick a cigarette out of someones mouth, or the police running along the street yelling "Help! Jean-Claude Van Damme is robbing a post office." almost every situation provokes either a subtle chuckle or a full on belly laugh. But the real strength comes in the brilliant and self deprecating performance from Van Damme. It would seem likely to see JCVD appearing in more dramatic roles in the future, for as much as we've got to know him throwing kicks and punches over the last 20 years, this movie will make you fall in love with the flawed, sad character wearing the movie star mask.

In one of the most touching moments, Van Damme worries that despite being an action star, he will die in a post office having contributed nothing to the world. Watching from the audience, we realise that despite being an action star, this guy has got an awful lot more to contribute. In one film, this two-dimensional chop-socky B-lister becomes a quality actor, a man of substance and a legend of the silver screen.

A truly unique and refreshing movie that you'll be telling people about for a week. 8/10

It's rare to see a film so equally loved and misunderstood by so many people and it reminds me of a few other great puzzle movies that take time to decipher and accept. Two big similar puzzle movies are 2001 A Space Odyssey and Mullholland Drive - both completely indecipherable at first, then slowly (often with help or by reading the book) it all begins to make sense until they begin to feel like masterpieces.

Silent Hill is one of these movies but its the first to be a Saturday-night pop-culture crowd pleaser and this is what makes it unique.

The video-game original was essentially a big puzzle made up of smaller puzzles; you wander around a town collecting clues and solving riddles to be rewarded with a fragment of story. Clearly and very cleverly, the film does the same thing and has skillfully managed to involve the viewer in a puzzle solving mystery. The plot is all there, it's logical and it makes sense, but the exposition is totally illogical and scatter-shot.

This story would have been so easy to tell with a normal five act narrative, with answers to all of its questions and coming from Gans (who's previous films have been solidly executed) it seems strange he would lose plot-logic on a story so mundane.... The truth is, he didn't lose the plot... he's warped it. The story exposition is deliberately given out like random jigsaw pieces with just enough thread of narrative to keep a basic idea of what's happening. Clues are hidden in the background, in the sets (take a close look at the paintings) and in the dialogue. Everything you need to know to understand this movie is right there... but it doesn't make sense because you've been presented with a twisted enigma, a nightmarish puzzler that keeps you awake long after the vicious visuals have lost their impact.

This puzzle wasn't the random aberration of a lunatic scriptwriter and a backwards film editor. At some point the creative team sat down and asked the question "how can we bring the game experience into a movie?" They made a conscious decision to trick our minds by messing with the standard film narrative and challenge us to something more interesting; they've forced us to think about it and work-out the story from the clues. This is a video-game conversion unlike any other in that they've captured the very core and essence of the game playing experience.

To judge this film as a movie, and to give it a 'movie review' based on 'what we expect from a film' then the score would be pretty low. Silent Hill does not follow convention or help us by making a pleasant story to sit back and enjoy. It hurls us into a twisted nightmare world of shifting environments and parallel dimensions without explaining why. It does away with exposition and character development in any ordinary sense. If you are the kind of person who needs the answers given to them then Silent Hill may not be for you. But if you're a thinker, a solver, a gamer or someone with a curiosity of intellect then Silent Hill is the movie you've waited for.

This film isn't about running down corridors and shooting monsters. It's about you, being smart enough, to break its code.

The film makers have thrown down the challenge.

Dare you. Dare you. Double dare you.

Here in the UK many films with explicit sexual acts are being passed with an 18 (but not adult) rating in their uncut format, providing the sex is within context to the piece. Cafe flesh, the epitome of late 70s early 80s porn is probably one that would pass with glowing colours.

What makes this film so extraordinary is it tackles themes that are interesting beyond pornography that probably couldn't be expressed any other way. Mainly it's focus is on sexual frustration, but also inadequacy and betrayal are taken in.

The story follows a rag tag band of nuclear war survivors who can no longer make love. Sexual contact makes them feel violently sick (the negatives). A lucky few (the positives) are forced to perform sex acts on stage as entertainment for the negatives.

Enter Nick, a negative ex football star, and his negative girlfriend Lana. They spend their nights watching the action at cafe flesh wallowing in their own self pity at being sexually incapable ....except...! Lana is really positive and hiding the fact to stay with the man she loves. When sleazy club compere Max discovers this, he antagonises Nick and entices Lana until she eventually is brought out of the audience and onto the stage by desire and sexual need. The final shot of Nick, crouched down and distraught while the club laughs at his inadequacies, his girlfriend being screwed on stage willingly, and with Max revelling in Nicks failure as a man, gives an emotional kick of considerable force you wont forget quickly.

As it stands, the technical film making skill is at the poor end, the production values are low, and even the best DVD transfer is cheesy to say the least. But that doesn't matter as the strength of ideas and the emotional jolt it gives you seems far too talented for a sci-fi porn romp. The sex is normal, short, and played by ordinary people with lumps and bumps, not like the glossy super babe pictures of today. If you're expecting an earth shattering porn movie you may be disappointed.

A very interesting film.