X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Wolverine is currently one of Marvel's biggest characters, after starting out life as a bit player with the X-Men, he's now heading them up it seems in comic land. As far as I can gather, this is largely down to the success of the X-Men movies (which I'll cover in a separate post, probably all three on one post, which I've been meaning to do for AGES!).

Now, we have our first X-Men spin-off movie, and obviously they came out with their big hitter, Logan, Wolverine (I keep typing Wolverinie dammit). Now despite it coming off the back of the big X-Men trilogy, and still being a 20th Century Fox property rather than from the Marvel Studios like Iron Man, they still went for a more indie-esque director in Gavin Hood (of Tsotsi fame) and while I can see what they're trying to do, I don't think he was quite up to the task (compared to Jon Favreau's efforts on Iron Man!).

This IS (or supposed to be) the origin story of Wolverine, how he became who we see in the X-Men films. I have to say, not having read any of the Wolverine Origins, or Weapon X comics (currently reading the Old Man Logan storyline in Wolverine tho, AWESOME!) there were a few surprises in there, the length of time he's been about, his real name, bone claws?!? Fair enough. However one of the things that made Wolverine interesting was his LACK of backstory, nevermind, it was in the comics first I guess.

So in the film we see the process of the Adamantium bonding, his apparent reasons for having it done in the first place and a lot of roaring and running about with a snarly look on his face. For someone who's invested in his character as much as Hugh Jackman (producing this outing), and the fact this is his origin, it certainly felt like there was less to the character in this film than the X-Trilogy!

Liev Schrieber does lend a bit of gravitas to Victor Creed (Sabretooth, although he's never referred to as such), but the PG-13 friendly script loses some of the edge off the character.

Speaking of characters, X-M O:W is chock full of them and could pretty much do without most of them. It seems like they just wanted to throw in as many references as they could, ideally to characters as yet unused, such as the much loved Gambit, who was left out of the X-Trilogy for various reasons, yet crops up here as Gambit the MacGuffin, we also get Blob, for a comedy fight, John Wraith, for no real purpose, Bolt, for even less purpose, Agent Zero to die and a whole host of teen mutants, presumably setting up the X-Men: First Class movie that's in development (I could see Gambit being brought back in for that).

One character that definitly wasn't in it enough, was Wade Wilson, who is basically Deadpool (although not quite yet in the film), played by Ryan Reynolds, he OWNS the role and despite me not really getting into the character in the comics, I can't wait to see the announced Deadpool movie.

For an origin story of a major tortured hero, it severely lacks in depth and emotion, I made it all the way through, I kind of enjoyed the ride, it's an enjoyable romp around, a kids movie, but as regards any serious plotting or real character engagement... nope.


X-Men Origins: Wolverine - 6/10

Punisher: War Zone

Much to my surprise, this wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Based on the trailers and various self absorbed postings from Lexi Alexander, I thought this was going to be a total and utter mess. It's no masterpiece and it pales in comparison to Iron Man, Marvel's biggest success of 2008 (and so far really!), I did however find it reasonably entertaining, certainly more entertaining that The Incredible Hulk (the other big Marvel 2008 release), although overall a similar standard.

It's a grim film, going for a big tick in the violence box, which fits, as Punisher is pretty damn violent, but with all the violence going on and Ray Stevenson's portrayal of the character, you feel a little detached form it all. I don't care about the kid or his mum, or anyone else for that matter, and I don't care about Punisher's reasons for his actions, or have any sympathy for him, I'm just indifferent waiting for him to go shoot some more shit.

I don't know if I'm supposed to sympathise with Frank Castle, the film's certainly set up as such, throwing in a cheeky flashback to the killing of his family, but it's all a bit token gesture for reboot's sake. When it comes down to it, the man's a killer vigilante, out for revenge, that's not really the sympathy type.

I'm also a little torn, as I only gave The Punisher (the most recent previous version 4/10), yet after watching War Zone, I wanted to see Thomas Jane in the role instead, there's no man crush going on, I think I just preferred his Punisher to Ray's. I think I need to rewatch the other two again.

Villain wise, I think Dominic West's 'Jigsaw' is a better one than John Travolta's 'Howard Saint'

Punisher: War Zone - 6/10

Watchmen

Now I saw Watchmen around opening weekend over here in the UK, so it's been a good few weeks since then and I'm only just getting around to typing something up on it. To be honest, I did try pretty soon after but I couldn't figure out what to write about it...I still can't really, but here goes.

I'd read the graphic novel a while before seeing the film and, while I can see what all the fuss was about, it's not one of my favourite comics, it's a laborious read, weighed down with a lot of metaphor and waffle (yes I'll probably get flamed for that), and for once I actually agree with Jonathan Ross' view on the movie, in that it stayed TOO faithful to it's source material.

Whilst trying to satisfy the book's hardcore fanbase (and possibly Alan Moore as well..good luck) and depsite the changes that were made and the stuff that was left out, it's still a very heavy going film, very wordy and slow, with A LOT going on, I came out feeling that I possibly would've rather seen a stripped down plot, even adapted more for the film format, cos as a FILM, it's not the best narrative.

On the technical side of things, yet again Zack Snyder pulled out all the stops, he's clearly geeky about the technical side of things and pushing new technology, visually Watchmen is great, a real feast if you will, even if the speed ramped fights feel a little cliched now.

Watchmen - 7/10

The Spirit

Once you get over the fact that the trailers sold it as a reasonably serious action based comic book adap and realise that it's actually a very hammy comedy, it's not too bad.

Of course you also have to get over Frank Miller's ham fisted directing and the fact that he still think's he's writing a comic rather than a film, but all in all, it was okay, there are certain things that saved it though.

Gabriel Macht has got a certain amount of presence to him, depsite having some seriously bad dialogue and directing. Sam Jackson is loving it as The Octopus, and once you indulge him he takes you right along with him, along with, bizarrely, Scarlett Johansson is great as Silken Floss, an understated role, but compliments The Octopus brilliantly, which makes a change as she usually bores the hell out of me.

Skipping over the Sin City stylings (go-on original Frank!) (I was also surprised that Troublemaker Studios didn't pop up at the start), and some of the utterly rubbish animation/wire-work/whatever stuff, there are a couple of really good scenes. There's a nice one between the doc and her dad, and pretty much everything with the kids in is brilliant, I was genuinely surprised at how natural their stuff felt, and how much more mature their scenes and performances came across.

The Spirit - 5/10

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

It took me a while to come around to the fact that Hellboy is actually pretty good in both the movie, which I saw first, and then the comics. Now I'm a pretty big fan of both.

So I was pretty stoked at the news of a movie sequel, until I saw the trailer that is, then a big wave of 'Meh' washed over me as I watched all the bright golds and heavy Del Toro touch unfold on screen.

The first movie's story was mostly lifted from the comics, not entirely, but a lot of the elements and basic points were from the stories in the comics. AFAIK, this was a completely original story thought up by Guillermo Del Toro, and it shows.

I really liked Pan's Labyrinth, but full on Guillermo, I don't feel works for Hellboy. The comics are more shadowy and minimalist, whereas Guillermo does like his "Fantasy Gold" (expect to see a very Gold hued Hobbit). The whole Golden (there it is again) Army thing was a bit of a let down, a non event really, there was a load of slapstick comedy that felt a touch out of place, don't get me wrong, Hellboy is supposed to be funny, but I think this went too far in the wrong direction and overall it seemed a bit jumpy and rushed plot wise.

Back to the looks, but characters in this case, Hellboy seems to have lost weight, which in certain scenes puts his head out of proportion to his body, Abe's gone VERY blue and stripy, and Johann Krauss, well I wasn't totally disappointed, he was a lot better than I thought, look fine, voice ok (Seth MacFarlane was a bit of a concern when he was announced), attitude, not so much, felt a bit more uptight than he is in the comics, but maybe I need to re-read.

I don't know how it will lead into a sequel, if they're gonna do one, but we'll have to wait and see, if they do make a sequel, hopefully it'll be darker and introduce Roger ;)


Hellboy II: The Golden Army - 6/10

The Dark Knight

Before I start, there are probably spoilers here.

Y'know there's a very strong possibility that there's been more hype around this film than there was when Lucas announced he was making 3 more Star Wars films. This hype unfortunately primarily exists because of Heath Ledger's untimely departure from this world, ok there was interest in his portrayal of The Joker beforehand, but it then became known more for being "the role that killed him", which is a big shame.

I'm glad the film's doing well, especially on the IMAX performances (I buckled and saw it today at a normal cinema, cos I don't know when I'm gonna be able to get to IMAX), as it's good to see IMAX getting noticed for something other than droll James Cameron docs or making people sick. But the hype machine's in overdrive on this one.

Anyway, I'll move away from that amateur assessment of what's going on in the world and onto what I thought of the film.

I was as excited about this as the next person, I really liked Batman Begins, I like the comics, I like Christopher Nolan, I was intrigued to see where he was going to take it and the fact that it was stated that they were going for the "psychopath joker" rather than the "camp tv series joker" AND that one of the main influences on their Joker, was Alan Moore's "A Killing Joke" which is FUCKING AWESOME!

People are saying that TDK is much like The Godfather Part 2 or Heat. I haven't seen Godfather 2, and it doesn't have the same energy as Heat, and (at the moment at least), as a film, I actually prefer Batman Begins.

So why? Why am I not jumping up and down like a rabid fanboy like I probably should be?

The film's slow through most of it, and it's a bad kind of slow, not a good kind of slow (like Alien), it lumbers around, people chat, Bruce Wayne worries a bit, more chat, exposition, explanation, too much.

I really don't like the dialogue, (the screen I was in had a shitty sound system this could be contributing), there's a lot of "thinking out loud" type stuff in this and "summing up for the audience" at the end... what am I watching Scooby Fucking Doo?

There's some seriously bad editing too (I think this has been picked up on the IMDb boards as well), a few shots that look like they were cut back for the ratings, and then just some shoddy editing, or some amazing ventriloquism by Christian Bale, one of the two.

The opening scenes are great, starts setting things up pretty well, then it gets a bit boring for a bit, Scarecrow! damn, underused again with bad attempt at comedy, then Joker pops up again, he's ok, then we have the 1-on-1 with him and the Bat, this is, in no uncertain terms, FUCKING AWESOME, this is where I got an enormous... grin on my face and thought "Okay, here we go, this is the movie I want to see kicking off now!", cue faster pacing, explosions, jeopardy, pain and...oh.. it's slowing down again now... why is it not going well....it's alright now we have Joker and Two-Face!! C'mon!!...please? just a bit... No you don't need to explain it to me...no really you don't...

Characters;

Bale is Bale, he plays BW/BM much like he did in the first, only he's even more arrogant now he's been doing this for a year. His lisp has got worse, or maybe its just he has more dialogue as BM now and you get to hear it more. He doesn't offer much else, except in the interrogation scene, but then that's quickly forgotten about.

Gordon is possibly the best character in the film and obviously Gary Oldman does an outstanding job of playing him in every single of his scenes (even the one's where he's explaining to the audience)

Harvey Dent/Two-Face, has potential, which would be interesting to see if he's about for the 3rd film, but I don't know if they'll fully explore it or not, I like how they deviated from his origin story, but feel they didn't run with it enough. Aaron Eckhart did a pretty good job, but there wasn't really enough time for the split personality to settle in.

Scarecrow, painfully underused again :(

Random crime bosses and gangsters, were pretty pointless.

Alfred Pennyworth, same old same old from Mr Caine, nothing new to see here.

Rachel Dawes, thank the lord for Katie Holmes "scheduling conflicts", but depsite Maggie Gyllenhall's better performance, the character's a tad incidental, but possibly a good thing for part 3 ;)

Mayor, blah blah, Ramirez, blah blah

The Joker.... here's the biggie, Heath Ledger's portrayal of The Joker is such that people are screaming for him to receive a posthumous Academy Award, that it's one of the best performances of all time etc etc. It's very good yes, Oscar worthy, I don't know, as good as I was hoping for, no.

There's been a big thing made of how creepy and messed up Joker was going to be, how he was a proper psycho, hell bent on destruction and chaos, yet through most of the film he's actually pretty mellow. I was hoping for a full on electrifying performance, I wanted to be SCARED by him, this didn't happen. There's a level of violence to him, a small hint of comedy, only the odd gag here and there, but there's only really one scene/sequence that features the Joker I was hoping for and that's the interrogation scene.

Here's where he really comes alive, where him and Batman are 1-on-1, there's flaws with the dialogue here too, but the scene plays out beautifully, Joker keeps pushing and pushing and Batman starts to crack, Joker just takes the abuse, here we get a REAL Joker laugh (hairs on the back of my neck!), Batman going crazy because he can't deal with him, it's awesome, then Batman goes off to be all heroic and Joker is left to make his way out, still awesome, after everything's done in the police station, it all starts to fizzle out again and by the end we're back to not so great again. The reason? Who knows, maybe that's how they wanted it and they think it's realy psycho like, maybe we couldn't see the Joker I wanted to because at the end of the day, it's a Batman film and needs to be suitable for a certain demographic??

Hellboy.

When I first saw Hellboy (the first one) in the cinema, I thought it was okay, not great, but okay. Then i watched it again and started to really like it, now I love it, the film got me into the Hellboy (and BPRD) comics and I'm quite looking forward to The Golden Army.

My point is that I'm hoping that after another viewing I'll start to like TDK more, I sat wondering if I had seen it on IMAX first would I have liked it better, am I just being a little unfair on it (yes and no maybe). Did I enjoy Iron Man more? yes I did.

I will be going back for another viewing, hopefully on IMAX and I will be buying it on DVD, I hope I like it better as it goes on.

The Dark Knight - 7/10

Batman: Gotham Knight

An interesting one this, what is essentially an animated prologue to The Dark Knight (no spoilers in it afaik), there's several short stories, all slightly different styles, all slightly different animation/art styles, but all with a common thread.

The animation is pretty Anime-esque, slightly heightened from Batman: The Animated Series (which stands as one of the best cartoons out there), the stories are written by various writers including David S. Goyer, Josh Olsen and Brian Azzarello.

While it's good, it doesn't quite have the tension or action levels to compete with the movie versions, not that it's trying to 'compete' per se, that was a bad choice of words, but it struggled to keep me totally engaged at times.

Essentially though it's pretty well done and a nice bridge between Begins and TDK.

Batman: Gotham Knight - 7/10

The Incredible Hulk

Saw this at the cinema today, the girlfriend wanted to see The Happening, but we would've had to wait around for and extra hour, so we went with The Incredible Hulk.

She wasn't happy at the end of it. 

Vicky: "Well that was a load of old crap wasn't it?"

Matt: "It wasn't that great, no."

Why wasn't it that great? Well if you ignore the fact that Iron Man came out recently and was awesome, I'll tell you..

Firstly, Edward Norton is a crap Bruce Banner, in fact, he's just crap, overly wimpy, wet, weak sack of dead poodle.

Secondly, Liv Tyler is mind-numbing as Betty Ross, literally mind-numbing, but as a couple, they suit each other as the scene where they practically melt into the rain demonstrates.

The combo of Eric Bana and Jennifer Connelly was much better in my view.

Apparently Edward Norton started revising the script when he came on board, I'm guessing he did all the wimpy dialogue bits.

There's too much wimpy bits and not enough Hulk. Yes I know the character has two aspects, but I wasn't at all sold on the Bruce Banner side and when Hulk was on screen, he didn't really have the presence he should've done, no weight to him (physically).

The fights were almost pretty good, Tim Roth was pretty good as Emil Blonsky, but much like the Scarecrow in BB, underused, and I kinda lost interest in him when he turns into Abomination (that's in the trailer btw). In fact, I didn't really care about ANYONE in the film, none of the characters really had any merit to them, I was just sat there thinking, yeah yeah, blah blah, let's see Hulk kick some ass...

...Oh no, it's become Peter Jackson's King Kong. Damn.

There are elements of this one that are good, there are elements of Ang Lee's Hulk, that are also good, if you stick the two together, you're on your way to a decent Hulk movie, but then at the end of the day this is just a setup for The Avengers, at least Iron Man had some substance to it.

So a couple of good Hulk Smash! scenes and not much else.

The Incredible Hulk - 6/10

Batman Begins

After Mr. Schumacher officially killed the Batman franchise, along came David S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan to give the series a good solid kick up the arse.

David had previously given us the Blade films and Mr Nolan had made it big with Memento. Things were looking interesting, despite many people thinking there was no way they could top the Tim Burton films, but look, they did!

By steering away from the more fantastic side of the Batman stories and focussing on (or tweaking to) reality based ideas he gave us a more believeable, grounded and hardcore Batman. He also delved into the origin story, something that hadn't really been done anywhere before. The existing story being, Bruce sees parent's killed, grows up becomes Batman. Not terribly detailed. Various stories eluded to training and such and Nolan goes all out on showing Bruce Wayne's transition to Batman and indeed where he get's those wonderful toys.

He also gives us (an underused) Scarecrow and a clever Ra's Ah Ghul (I've probably spelt that wrong, I may check later), who unfortunatly ends up being a bit of a Qui Gon Jin (probably spelt that wrong too), for the first part of the film.

We also get Christian Bale as BW/Batman, and apart from Bale's American accent, he's pretty much perfect as a Year One Batman, being that he's unhinged an' all ;)

The film's bloody good, a little slow, but then it IS an origin story, and they're always a little slow because they've got to cover that initial ground before the meaty action starts. Although to be fair, Mr. Nolan does a good job of giving us some action in the lead up before the suit comes out.

Now this is clearly a re-watch for me, I saw this in the cinema when it came out, but as pretty much everyone on the planet is aware, The Dark Knight is pretty close now (July 25th in the UK) and I'm damn sure I'll be trotting up to the IMAX for this one!!! Anyway, I thought that Begins was due a re-watch to refresh my memory and attempt to satisfy the hunger that's going to eat me up for around another month yet!


Batman Begins - 9/10

The Invincible Iron Man

If the Iron Man film was a cartoon, set in China and not as good, then it would be pretty close to this.

For a part it follows a very similar plot line, indeed even some scenes are pretty close to the movie, I'm going to hazard a guess that they're common across the origin story variations in the comics too. But then there's this whole other super natural thing with a Chinese Mandarin and his elemental warriors, wait, that's it!...

If the Iron Man film, was a cartoon, set in China, not as good and basically Iron Man meets Big Trouble in Little China, then it would be pretty close to this. (Although Big Trouble.. is better ;)

I'm guessing seeing the movie before this didn't help, but then I've only watched this because of seeing the movie and I probably won't go out of my way to watch any more Iron Man stuff until Iron Man 2.

If you're into Iron Man, then it's probably worth a watch, casual viewers, maybe not so much.

The Invincible Iron Man - 5/10

Iron Man

I'm reasonably into comics, but not all and Iron Man hasn't been one to grab my attention, nor the Saturday morning cartoon, it just didn't appeal, the movie however...

It was announced that Robert Downey Jr. was t play Tony Stark. Hold on a sec Robert Downey Jr. in a superhero movie, ok you've got my attention.

Then it was the promo shots of the MkIII suit, nice, looks pretty sweet, still interested.

Then the trailers and good lord it looked good!

So this one I made sure I got in on opening weekend, saw it yesterday and, let's be honest here, it's fucking awesome!

As I say, I've not read the comics (I may look at a couple now), so I don't know how close Downey's Tony Stark is to the comic iteration, but in this he's perfect, he fits and he makes it work. He brings a certain quirkiness to the role, which starts out as arrogance and turns into remorse and determination as the film progresses, all of which with a cheeky smile and a witty quip thrown in for good measure.

Tonally, this Billionaire-crime-fighter flick is a world away from Batman, and rightly so, it's closer to Spider-Man, although I'd say even that's darker than this one. There's comedy and action, with a dashing of drama, although not too much (possibly not enough??)

My only complaint with the film is that pace wise it does seem to falter every now and again, but I think that's the main issue with all 'origin' movies, in that you have to cover certain ground before getting into the action, but then in Iron Man there is a couple of slow spots in the middle of all the action and while it doesn't drag, I certainly shifted in my seat a couple of times.

Also some of the latter action sequences reminded me a little of what I've seen in The Incredible Hulk trailer (2 btw), but better ;) Small fact, RDJ pops up as Tony Stark in The Incredible Hulk, not sure where, but it's on the IMDb page.

They're already talking Iron Man 2, and I'll be there to watch it, if rumours fill out, then it'll probably be slightly darker, going more into Stark's alcoholism and the stress and pressure of being Iron Man, but it'll still rock and I'll still go see it.

So far it's being raved about, best superhero movie of the year so far, one of the best superhero movies, one of the best movies this year so far, so it seems a lot of people like it.

Three words tho...

The Dark Knight

Iron Man - 9.5/10

30 Days of Night

I have to be honest, this was a bit of a let down. I love the comic and the film just didn't seem to have the impact it should've done.

My main issue was how they represented the main characters differently from the comic, it changes the dynamic and, in my view, not in a good way.

Apart from that it's a slow slow film, ok, it's set over 30 days, but it just doesn't have the tension it should do, and as such the interest levels drop lower and lower over the course of the film.

And yeah I agree with the comments on IMDb, too much velociraptor style screeching.

30 Days of Night - 5/10

Fantastic Four

I previously posted about the sequel to this, so now, a tad back to front, a short piece on the 2005, Tim Story directed re-boot (is it?) of Marvel's Fantastic Four!!!!!

Now Batman Begins this ain't!! But then it's a shitload better than Man-Thing and overall reasonably entertaining. I'm not a huge fan of F4, I'm more of a Batman, Spiderman and Hellboy person myself, but as films go, it's ok.

It's a bog standard origin story, they all go to space, soak up some rads and come back a bit peaky.

The best thing about this film is Michael Chiklis as Ben "The Thing" Grimm, the worst thing is Jessica "Why in God's name do I keep topping FHM lists" Alba.

Also welcome Chris Evans, then go watch him in Sunshine.


Fantastic Four - 7/10

Hellboy Animated: Blood & Iron

Apparently this is the second full length Hellboy Animated, the first being Sword of Storms, that I have yet to see and apparently isn't as good, but I'll find out at some point.

The animated version of big red uses the voices of most of the same actors from the movie, notably Ron Pearlman and Selma Blair, the actual animation doesn't have quite the same atmosphere as the comics, but does a pretty good job, bear in mind a lot of what's in the comics is just black.

We have a mix of a non-traditional vampire story, mixed with some good old fashioned god bashing and a Memento style flashback sequence showing the background to the vampire story and Professor Broom's first adventure.

Basically it works really well, the pace lacks occasionally but overall, it's Hellboy through and through, perfectly capturing the spirit of the comics and as in the live action (which took me a couple of viewings to come around to) Ron Pearlman IS Hellboy.

Hellboy Animated: Blood & Iron - 8/10

Elektra

It's a TV movie trapped in a cinematic release. Just a bit shit, not really terrible, but a bit shit and dull.

Story is Elektra (who died in Daredevil) is still with us and is an assassin for hire, she gets a new job, has second thoughts ends up having to protect her marks from The Hand, who are all supernatural classic martial arts type people.

Not a lot really happens and thankfully it's only 97mins, feels it too, as it's over pretty quickly, mainly cos not a lot happens, but not in a Wolf Creek way. (Have you figured out how bad I think that film is yet?) The acting is pretty mediocre, the characters dull and overall both Daredevil and Ghost Rider are better, possibly down to the direction I would guess (not thaty they're masterpieces by any stretch).

The best thing to sum up Elektra is "Feh." end of.


Elektra - 3/10

Y'know I could've swore I typed up Daredevil, apparently not, will do that one soon.

Transformers: The Movie

Oh good lord was this rubbish. It's been sat in my DVD collection for a couple of years, un-watched, mainly as we used it in the display DVD player at Gadgetshop, I think it was left there by someone and I swiped it when the whole business went kaput, I'm not really a fan so I've never really watched it, until now.

Why? Because last night I went and saw the new Michael Bay version (next review) of Transformers, so this morning I thought I'd watch the old cartoon movie to compare (I'll mention that in the other article).

It's around 85 mins...at about 60 mins or so I started typing up my thoughts on The Proposition, that's how engaging it is. I tried, I really did, but it was just too shite for me to keep a full eye on, I watched it all the way through, with MacBook on lap (eyes up, eyes down.. etc). It's rubbish, really bad, dated, crappy writing, none to special animation and plot wise, just a whole bunch of stuff, involving Galactus...sorry Unicron eating planets and most of the original G1 Transformers getting killed or changed.

I vaguely remember watching Transformers the series when I was younger, I had a couple of toys (Blitzwing for example) but none of the really major ones, so it's not really a big part of my life and the movie certainly didn't stir any fond memories that's for sure!

Transformers: The Movie - 2/10

V for Vendetta

Hmm, bit dull this, picked it up for £4 (I heartily suggest visiting your local CEX if you have one), which to be fair is about the most I'd pay for it (maybe £5 for a 2 disc edition).

The graphic novel is set in the 90's with the back story in the 80's, the film, back story in the 90's and current time, main story set slightly in the future.

Britain is now a fascist state, ruled over by the High Chancellor and is all very Nazi-esque. V has a lot of pent up aggression and apparently don't look to good, thus dresses in a cape and mask but still feels like something needs to be done about the state of the country.

Script/Story wise, various boxes are ticked to ensure that the government is suitably hateable and that certain points ("MUSLIMS!" "AMERICA'S WAR!") resonate with the viewers.

Well, okay I guess that these and similar things are top of the political agenda at the moment, but in the context of the film it all felt a bit forced and heavy handed. 10/10 for effort on Warner's part in going ahead with a heavily political film (maybe because it's set in Britain is why they let it through their net), but subtlety is clearly not the maker's strong point.

What we're left with is a bit of a mish mash of a political drama and a Warchowski event, all of which is well meaning, but just a bit dull.

V for Vendetta - 5/10

4: Rise Of The Silver Surfer

Ho-hum... that pretty much sums up the sequel to the rather entertaining Fantastic Four movie of 2005.

I've never really been an FF fan, didn't really get into the cartoons, never really read the comics, but thoroughly enjoyed the first of these two films, it was funny, energetic, and a good dvd night. cheers. The sequel however, is pretty boring, the best bit's probably in the trailers, the rest of the film, nothing much happens. This, funnily enough, makes the film drag a fair bit.

Mr S. Surfer is underused I feel and definitly not enough internal stuff going on with him. Of course I'm not looking for "Batman Dark" for this, it wouldn't be right, but just a little more depth would be nice.

Some of the same jokes are recycled and it's all a bit of a mish mash.

FF4 1 - Entertaining
FF4 2 - Disappointing :(

4: Rise Of The Silver Surfer - 4/10

Spider-Man 3

(A couple of weeks late, but still)

Now... I'm a huge fan of the previous two Spidey films, I also like reading the comics, and even though I'd heard and read some pretty average reviews, I was still pretty stoked about seeing this.

On the whole I agree with the reviews I saw, it's too long, it's messy and nowhere near as strong as the previous two.

Some of the criticisms made were about there being "too many bad guys", now I don't agree with this point, I feel that it could've been ok, each bad guy had a point to them as far as the narrative was concerned, the problem for me was all the mush and nothing inbewteen the important stuff.

There seemed to be a load of "stuff" that plugged the gaps between the action scenes and the important narrative devices and this made the film longer and feel very loose and disjointed.

The comedy was good, but i feel that it did need to be a little darker to up the jeopardy for Peter and overall Venom was pretty disappointing :(



Spider-Man 3 - 7/10

300 (IMAX: DMR)

My second, IMAX feature film experience (the first being Poseidon), third trip to the BFI IMAX in Waterloo overall.

300 in IMAX. Just think about that for a moment. You've seen the trailers, glorious sepia toned CD, big oily men (!?), a lot of speed ramped violence... 20 meters high! (ish after letterboxing)

300 is all about violence, the Spartan's are warriors (apart from the odd pussy politicians, some skanky-put-you-off-your-popcorn monks and some unfeasibly attractive women), and king Leonidis (Gerard Butler) in true Braveheart fashion leads 300 of them off to fend off the advancing Persian army led by the (I'm not really into Gay bondage, honest) Xerxes, who I've just this second discoved is Paulo in Lost!?!? I saw his name (Rodrigo Santoro) in the credits and wondered who he played.

Now I didn't go into this expecting Gladiator, or much else apart from some top-notch comic book action, and that's exactly what I got, cheers. As far as a Frank Miller adap goes, I haven't read anything of his except Batman: Year One, so I can't give an honest comparison. I hated Sin City (film) though and felt this was infinitly better.

In true Connery fashion, Butler's Greek accent is decidedly Scottish ("Madness? THIS IS GLASGOW!"), but it doesn't matter, once you get over noticing it when he speaks (you don't notice it in the wide mouth shouty bits so much), who cares.

My qualms are minor.. 300, they keep referring to 300, but there's two issues with this, The Captain refers to having assembled 300 men, plus captain and Leonidis, that makes 302, not as catchy I know. Also I'm sure the odd couple get killed off, which would then reduce the number, but possibly does round it off to the 300??

And the other thing with the accents... Pleistarchos (I think it's him), the deformed Spartan, I think runs a local shop... for local people... which was a bit off putting at times and a tad dissapointing when Steve Pemberton didn't appear in the credits.

Overall I've got a lot of time for Zack Snyder, I enjoyed the Dawn Of The Dead remake and I enjoyed this. Bring on Watchmen.

300 - 8/10