Megamind

Perhaps it is because I am essentially a big kid but at the moment I am really enjoying animated movies. I particularly adore Pixar's efforts but really, any cartoon movie can grab me. I'll usually make my selection based on reviews in the papers or trailers but every so often, as with other genres, I'll go to the cinema or pick up a DVD with no expectations.

This was just such the event that saw me wandering into the flicks to see Megamind. I had just emerged, with numb buttocks from Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 1 and had a need to use the last remaining free ticket I had. I was drawn in by the fact that the showing I was heading into was in that new-fangled 3D. So with baited breath and feeling a little bit silly I donned my glasses and took my seat.

This is, in essence, a movie about redemption with the the titular character starting off as a baby sent from his home planet a'la Superman. Unfortunately for our big and blue headed protagonist, another baby is launched form the doomed planet and this baby winds up landing in a nice rich family's home on Earth whilst Megamind? He winds up landing in prison where the convicts bring him up. This has the effect of making him into an evil genius intent on taking over Metrocity whilst that lucky kid? He ends up as his nemesis who thwarts him at every turn. However, once Megamind vanquishes his foe, he is left with a sense of emptiness, of needing a foil to play off. He also falls in love with an intrepid reporter and then tries to recreate another opponent but that goes awry when his creation turns out to be evil instead of good. He also has an epiphany when he realises he wants to be good instead of evil in order to make the reporter fall in love with him. He initially uses a disguise to do this but after a while, he sheds his disguise to show his true self. So in this movie, as well as a nice story for the kids to enjoy we have a pretty good theme of redemption and really sweet love story. The animation and effects are all pretty good and there are some genuinely nice touches like a good riff on the Obama election poster. This is an undemanding film but at the same time it is a lot of fun and you wont leave it feeling short changed. I thoroughly enjoyed it and when it come out on DVD I'll be hunting it down. I recommend you do the same.

A Nightmare On Elm Street (2010)

There is a huge vogue for 're-imagining' certain horror franchises and using the opportunity to delve into the background of the killer or villain. I am a big slasher movie fan and I ate up the re-makes of Halloween and Friday The 13th but my favorite always was Freddy Krueger which is kind of odd when you consider he was meant to be a child molesting serial killer!

This movie was released around 15 years or so after the last in the Nightmare On Elm Street series, a franchise which had gotten increasingly daft as time went on. Towards the end you increasingly sided with the razor gloved killer rather than his hapless victims. So it was with baited breath that I waited to see how the helmers of this new chapter in the Krueger legacy would crack on. Would they continue the campness and one liners or would they return to the spirit of the first 2 or 3 films and go for scares?

Firstly I was disappointed that they couldn't find any role for Robert Englund as to me, he utterly synonymous with the 'Nightmare' films in particular and horror in general. Although, upon reflection, the filmmakers would have wanted to go for a clean break and that would mean severing ties with Englunds legacy although I still maintain it would have been nice for him to have had some form of role within this movie. Instead they went with Jackie Earle Haley to play the role of Freddy and a host of unknown but attractive teens to play his victims.

The design of Freddy is also quite different than that of any previous incarnation with the emphasis very much on what a realistic burns victim would look like, given that part of his background, as explained in the film, is vengeful parents burned him alive after they suspected him of molesting their kids. Thankfully the fedora and tatty sweater are still present and almost act like some form of comfort blanket to us fans of the original movies.

There some genuinely nice touches here like distorted camera angles and off-key music when the teens dream and there is a good sense of rising panic as they realise they cannot stop themselves from falling asleep nor dreaming. This, added in with the jumps which abound here, and the grim, nightmarish settings adds up to an increasingly unsettling and scary experience and for that the film-makers should be applauded. This is scary and something that the makers of torture porn crap like Saw or Hostel can't appreciate, that you don't necessarily need gore and torture all the time, that you can achieve your goal of scaring your audience by things like clever editing, music and atmosphere. This movie is a worthy addition to my favorite fictional serial killers canon.

Predators

Some movie franchises crank out the sequels like nobodies business, like the Saw films. Some knock out a sequel and ruin the first film by producing something of stunning ineptitude like the Matrix films and some improve on the formula, like Alien. Yet others leave massive gaps in between the movies and Predators falls into that category.

There was a Predator 2, which was an alright film but lacked that certain something. That film was released way back in 1990, and a whole 20 years later there was a third in the series, a hat-trick. Thankfully, this movie ignores the second one which had a slightly silly premise of the Predator being in Los Angeles and instead goes back the setting and feel of the original by dropping, quite literally, a group of ne'er do wells in the jungle.

Instead of special forces soldiers lead by Arnie, this time round we have a group of mercenaries and rogues. In the third iteration they are not being hunted by a solitary Predator, instead they're being chased down by several of the alien hunters. We don't find that out for at least half an hour though and the opening thirty minutes are spent watching our hero's first of all wondering why they are where they are and then trying to figure exactly where that is. There is a good moment where the gang crest a hill and find out they are on an alien planet. I am also enamoured of the way most of the group are sufficiently different enough for each of them have a good personality, even if you can see the one evil one a mile off.

There are moments of pulse pumping action and some moments of levity. I found myself genuinely caring for the gang and I was genuinely sorry when my favorite, a Latino gang member played by Danny Trejo, was killed. The chap taking the the Arnie role here is Adrien Brody who does a very curious accent which is not quite American and not quite English. Laurence Fishburne does a turn as a crazed man who has been on the planet for 10 years and has gone cuckoo. The rest of the cast run the gamut from inscrutable Oriental type to mystical African warlord to monosyllabic Russian. There are nods to the original like the Russians Gatling gun and some previous victims being skinned alive.

The whole feel of this movie is much closer to the original and that's only a good thing. After all, why change a winning formula? I had gone to see this in the cinema had had my experience then ruined by some twats chatting away during the movie. However i had enjoyed it so much that when it was released on DVD I went out and bought it and I think that tells you all you need to know.

Shark In Venice

Way back when DVDs first arrived on the scene they were prohibitively expensive, but as time rocked on they dropped and dropped in price to the point where some movies can be had for as little as £2 brand new. Most of theses titles, if not heavily discounted by chain-stores will end up being the sort of bargain basement, filler type fare. Think of the old B-movies of the 50's and you'll be about there.

I rented this gem from Gillingham library based purely on the title and subject matter. It actually made me laugh out loud when I read it. After all, how pissed must the makers have been when they put this one forward. We open with a dive team hunting for treasure hunting below the floating city of Venice. They get munched on by a shark and then, all of a sudden, we switch to a University lecturer being told his father has gone missing. He heads off to Venice to find out what happened and along the way he and his betrothed fall afoul of some mafia types and the titular sharks.

If that alone doesn't make you fall in love with this movie then you have no soul. There are moments in this film where one almost has to shout at the telly in disbelief, like the moment when a large shark (incidentally they Sharks are Great Whites) leaps out of the water and bites a gondola clean in half. Or there the but where the villain launches into exposition mode and tells our hero's that he introduced the sharks to the canals. No explanation of where they came from or how he feeds them or why they don't just swim away.

There are also scenes that just seem to be repeated for no apparent reason and Stephen Baldwin? Let's just say that his running style when being chased makes him look like he rides to work on the Sunshine Bus! The lines delivered here are done almost wince-inducingly badly and there plot holes and logic leaps of such monumental stupidity you wonder how it is that this film ever managed to get released. You would think that adding all of this up would mean that this is a movie to be avoided but you would be wrong, so very very wrong. In fact, this is a movie wort hunting down purely because of how bad it is. It's not quite at the level of shark based lunacy of say, Shark Attack 3 but it does come a fairly close second.

Godzilla

Unsurprisingly, seeing as it came from the same people who gave us the cinematic excrement that was Independence Day, this movie is yet again reliant upon special effects to grab your attention but it's not all bad.


Godzilla is by no means as overblown as Independence Day and the jingoism is dialled down a notch but it is the cinematic equivalent of chewing gum. Utterly forgetful trash. It may be fun initially but after a while it become more than a little tedious.

The special effects here are necessarily good, given the titular monster and they are impressive, even now, nearly 12 years later. The story is also more involving then the makers previous effort and the characters are much more fleshed out. Having said that, this film does feel flimsy but at the same time you are so relentlessly battered over the head by spectacular set pieces you kind of end up going along with the ride.



Much like other films like Transformers this is a movie that caters for a very specific audience, the teenage boy market. This isn't a bad movie, nor is it a great one. It's a mildly diverting couple of hours but that's all it is. The effects are good, the storyline alright and the acting perfectly passable but it wont amount to more than that. Much like bubblegum, it has initial attraction but pretty soon after it's all over, you've forgotten it


All in all, it's just not as bad as Independence Day and we should all be thankful for that!

My Bloody Valentine

There are horrors like Wishmaster and Scream that use humour in a very much tongue in cheek style to add to the scares in the film. There are also out and out spoofs that take a Naked Gun style to things. Somehow though, the people involved here managed to make a complete hash up and made some parts of this supposed slasher horror funny, albeit unintentionally.

This is the tale of a vengeful miner on the rampage. That really does about sum up the plot of this film. There's some apparent motivation for this to do with being buried alive in a mining collapse but the background of the killer is not fully explored, we are supposed to buy into his evilness without question. Ten years later, after butchering over 20 people with a pickaxe, the killer is back, on Valentines Day, or is he? Actually no he is not, but let's not spoil the twist in the tale.

This was originally made with the 3d market in mind and it shows through, and at times that is very jarring. It's not as bad as that earlier, more famed, 3D epic called Jaws 3 but you really do wonder if they could have concentrated more on the storyline and plotting, characterisation, writing and editing rather than trying to make flashy 3D effects that barely work as it is. Perhaps I would have gotten more out of this piece of crap had I watched it in 3D but for me that should be irrelevant. A good film should work no matter what and here the emphasis is so much on severed heads flying out of the screen and suchlike that you pretty soon find it all a bit of a muchness.

This movie is very Horror-By-The-Numbers and the gore aspect? Apart from some admittedly grim deaths by spade there is very little here to keep your interest and this supposed horror movie isn't even remotely scary and to me that's a crime. In fact, some of the effects, dialogue and plot leaps are enough to make you laugh out loud.

There are much better films out if you want your slasher movie fix so don't bother with this.

Navy SEALS

A few months back I was at a boot fair nearby to me and I picked up a video recorder for the princely sum of a quid. Since then I have gone an orgy of buying up tapes, of snapping up films that remind me of my childhood, of classics I've yet to see and of anything that looks vaguely interesting.

This film falls very much into the this category, as it stars one of my favorite actors, Charlie Sheen. I say favorite actors, but it's not his acting ability I like but it's the fact that he is a proper nutter, a real hell raiser with some awesome tales to tell.


In this film he is cast as one of a team of Navy SEALS, a sort of special forces branch of the American military. The plot, and I do use that term loosely, is to do with some missiles left behind when the SEALS rescue some hostages. The pesky Arabs have gotten hold of them and our hero's must go in and get them back. If that plot sounds too simple then it really is.



The rest of the actors in this are OK, and do their job competently but they are hampered by some godawful lines that are so cheesy to make you almost wince. The action sequences are alright but are hampered by too much of it happening in the dark. Also, there are sequences in this movie that seem really out of place, with switches from an earlier mission which went poorly, straight into the SEALS arsing around on a golf course and Sheen's character stealing his own car back. Everyone in this film suffers from that all too familiar sense of one dimensional characterisation that afflicts a lot of action films. There are many leaps of logic here and some utterly gaping plot holes. Some scenes bear almost no relation to the rest of the film and seem to have been tacked on.





So does that mean you should avid this film? Does it mean that this is one that is destined to remain on the shelf? No it does not. Whilst this movie will never be considered a classic, it is a lot of a fun and works well as a big, dumb, action film. It's one of those that is 'so bad it's good'. If you happen across it, then go and pick it up as you wont regret it.

Independence Day

Bombastic movies can be fun, can be perfect popcorn munching fodder. In the vein of Jurassic Park, this movies is very much a full on summer event movie, one that was hyped to the nether regions by talk of the special effects. I went to see this at my favorite cinema ever, the ABC at the Elephant and Castle. A proper fleapit cinema that was and one that is sadly no more.

I wish I could say that Independence Day matched up to my rose tinted memories of the cinema but sadly it lacks in so many different areas. The special effects are spectacular and they do make your jaw drop, at least upon the first viewing, but since the films release they have been bettered many times over. Unlike Jurassic Park, the special effects here drive the film instead of the other way around and that lends itself to a heartless, soulless piece of trash. The dialogue is clunky and almost winch inducing at times.

Jingoism also rears it's ugly head here with the Americans portrayed as world saving hero's and the rest of humanity as feckless cowards, huddling in the dark, waiting to be rescued. When the foreigners are shown it's like they have been lifted straight form the Big Book Of Stereotypes with Arabs in tents (intense?) and fey British officers. The American actors within this stunning piece of craptitude don;t fare much better are almost all utterly detestable. In fact, you find yourself rooting for the aliens within half an hour of the films opening. Will Smith is like Marmite, you ever love him or loathe him. For my part I find him to be a touch too clean-cut and in this film, early on in his career, he plays a fighter pilot, one of the hero's that slays the alien menace.

Really, watching this film back now I am struck by the fact that I am miles too old for it. This is really a crash, bang and wallop picture, one that surely holds appeal to 15 year old's and moronic ones at that. Ridiculous moments abound like the President jumping into a fighter jet and taking the fight to the enemy.

Do yourself a favour and watch something else, anything else than this garbage.

Air Force One

Some movies require you to suspend belief for a little while, even though they are rooted in the real world. Air Force One is one such film.

In this action film, the president (played here by Harrison Ford) goes up against Russian terrorists when they hijack Air Force one, the Presidents jumbo jet. It helps if you think of this film as Die Hard on a plane. Once you have that in your head, you're about there. That's not to say that this film lacks originality, after all they've cast Harrison Ford as the President! Actually Ford is quite here as the President. His counterpart, the main villain, is played by Gary Oldman who always does a good turn no matter the role and here he chews the scenery with gay abandon as the evil Russian seeking to use the President as a hostage in order to free an imprisoned Russian separatist.

The effects in this film are OK but then again, given that most of the action happens aboard Air Force One you'll not need much crash, bang and wallop. There are explosions a'plenty so you needn't worry, you do get your fill of testosterone fuelled braggadocio. Aside from the aforementioned Oldman as mad Russian, the rest of the villains here are indistinguishable but maybe that's more to do with them living in the shadow of Gary Oldman hamming it like a good 'un! Glenn Close plays the Vice President and does well although some of the others in the Situation Room with her grate a little. Almost predictably, this movie has a jingoistic overtone but then again, given the subject matter, it would have been hard not to. At least the jingoism is dialled down a notch, unlike in Independence Day!

All in all, this is a good action film, a switch ones brain off and engage popcorn kind of thing. It wont change your life but it will do is entertain and thrill you which is all it really set out to do.

Nuns On The Run

A lot of movies lack for originality and draw their inspiration from, or blatantly rip off earlier, more successful efforts. This movie is one such celluloid piece of pilfery and whilst it does borrow really quite heavily from Some Like it hot it is a good movie in it's own right.

Brian and Charlie are two small time crooks working for a vicious Mr Big. They want to get out out the crime game but their guvnor wants them to carry out a dangerous robbery, ripping off Triads. They use this as a cover for stealing the money and doing a runner from their psycho boss. However, things go awry and they are forced to hide out in a convent and dress up as nuns. One of them falls for a someone staying at the small medical wing and the other gets very into being a nun. Eventually their boss, the Triads and the police all catch up with them and they go on the run again, this time making their escape to Rio, via an airport.

That really is about it as far as the plot goes, it certainly is a very undemanding film. The setting is very dated, but then again the film is nearly 20 years old. Filmed mostly on location in and around West London there are scenes that provide big belly laughs but mostly the comedy is more of the gentle smile variety than laughs variety. As a football fan I was also pleased to see a small scene filmed in the car park of Stamford Bridge but then again that's probably just me that's pleased by that.

This is a fun if not exactly sophisticated British film, one that I feel has been ignored by some, a kind of forgotten gem if you will. You could certainly do worse than spend 90 minutes watching this. It's really quite good fun.

Jurassic Park

This movie kicked off a trend that's still going on today, namely the summer blockbuster that boasts jaw dropping special effects. Each year tries to outdo the last and sometimes to the cost of the story and movie itself. So do we have a lot of blame to lay at the door of this movie? No we do not so let me elucidate. The story here is central and the effects, whilst also essential are there because of the story, not the other way around.

By now I think most people will have seen this one so I wont waste a whole heap of your time going over the plot, suffice it to say a venture capitalist has the bright idea of resurrecting dinosaurs using DNA extracted from their fossils in order to create a theme park. Once he gets things up and running he brings in some people to give the park the once over. Only thing is, something goes wrong, very badly wrong.

From a relatively slow start the film builds up a good head of pace and by the end it is a frenetic race for survival. The first proper reveal of a dinosaur is a proper jaw-dropping moment and you're left wondering just how they did it as the dinosaurs in question and throughout the film look utterly convincing. As i have already mentioned, the effects are driven by a damned good story and that's a trademark of the director, some chap called Steven Spielberg. In this movie he touches on themes of peril and adventure although there is a slightly underlying touch of ecologically aware preachyness, in that mankind really shouldn't interfere in nature.

The criticisms I have of this film and they are minor ones at that are that some of the writing can be a little bit clunky at times and some of the characterisation is a little shallow. Also there are occasions of blatant product placement that jars somewhat. On the plus side the child actors in this movie pull off the rare trick of being likeable and most of the other protagonists match up to their example. On your first viewing there thrills and jumps aplenty but they pale a little on repeat viewings. The special effects were groundbreaking for the time but they have been surpassed by now but at the same time the story more than makes up for that.

Jurassic Park more than stands up to minor criticisms and you will find yourself returning to it time and time again.

Naked Gun

There are some actors I can watch endlessly, a pantheon of greats if you'll allow. People like Robert Englund, Jack Lemmon, Alec Guiness and the star of this film, the wonderful Leslie Nielsen who sadly died a few days ago.

Nielsen is Frank Drebin, a good natured but bumbling and accident prone cop who investigates the near death of a friend of his. I say that but really the plot is almost secondary here to the onslaught of jokes. This film is very much the vein of spoofs, a vein opened up by the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker trio. The trick with their movies is that unlike Scary Movie, they'll play it absolutely straight, as if the main characters really are cops in a proper action film. This gives rise to some superb double takes from those involved as they check that they've just heard what they think they have. The master of this is Leslie Nielsen who can make your sides split with laughter just with a single glance to camera.

This movie stands up to repeat viewings, just for jokes you may have missed, jokes that happen in the background. It's also worth watching the credits, as unlike with other movies, these credits are a continuation of the comedy with jokes and puns inserted in amongst the actual job titles. That's not to say that the rest of the film isn't up to scratch. This movie rocks and is easily in my top 3 of comedy films. There are slapstick moments like a murderous doctor riding a missile launcher into a fireworks factory or Lieutenant Drebin accidentally killing a fish with pen. There are lines that make one roar out loud with laughter with the the incomparable "Nice beaver!" line being a favorite of mine.

Leslie Nielsen is a great loss to the world of movies, for he gave us so much. However there is no greater testament to his memory than the wonderful films he left us with. He may be gone but his work lives on.

Batman Begins

This is not a movie that continues the franchise started by Tim Burton's Batman movie of the early 90's. This is a reboot of the Caped Crusader and this movie takes an altogether more dark, almost gothic tone as opposed to Burton's comic book style.

Batman himself is played by Christian Bale who adds a very sombre, brooding tone, in keeping with the movie. He is a chiseled chap, not a nancy-boy and you can really buy into him as the flawed hero. There are moments in this movie where Bruce Wayne/Batman's vulnerability shines through and that's a great testament to Bale. Gotham, Batman's hometown also adds a lot to this movie instead of being just a backdrop. The massively tall buildings and dark alleyways make the humans living there seem almost insignificant and powerless, a metaphor for the struggle against the corruption of the police etc.

In keeping with the current vogue for rebooting movies franchises, we get much more of a backstory. We learn of how Bruce Wayne became the Caped Crusader and of how he fomented his hate of crime. This is done well enough to leave one somehow connected to both him and the other characters, from Alfred the butler to James Gordon the only good cop left in Gotham. This movies plot moves from Batman's early years to his formative training with the mysterious R'as Al Ghul and then onto his return to Gotham. There he faces down his own personal demons and the very real threat of the returning R'as Al Ghul who he left for dead back in Tibet.

The special effects, such as they are, pass you by here and to me that's a good thing. You don't want a movie to become one where the main draw is the effects, just like in Independence Day. In some parts, especially after Bruce Wayne's return to Gotham, the movie does sag in parts but then again this film is not one that you can watch with your brain switch off. Batman Begins is an intelligent action film, but it is also a movie that examines the human condition and deals with topics like loss and revenge. The characters within are pretty much all judged well and highlights for me are Gary Oldman as James Gordon, the weary cop and Liam Neeson as R'as Al Ghul. Neeson adds a very malevolent air of menace to his character which is departure for him as he always seems to play nice guys.

This is a fantastic movie and a brilliant addition to the Batman canon.

Indiana Jones And The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull

As I have said before, Indiana Jones was a cinematic hero of mine when I was a child, and the last film, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is easily on my fave films list. I've yet to review it but bear with me. This movie, was released in 2008, a full 19 years after the previous outing for our whip and wise cracking archaeologist.

Indy escapes from some pesky Russians at the start of the film and also narrowly escapes a nuclear blast at Area 51. We then cut to the college and Indy in his guise of a professor. He meets up with a motorbike riding young man and after yet another brush with the Reds they set off a quest to find out what has happened to a mutual friend and what a mysterious crystal skull and some aliens have to do with it all.

I had really high hopes for this film but maybe I should have learned my lesson from The Phantom Menace. This film is entertaining enough but it falls far, far short of the high standard set by all 3 previous outings, even Temple Of Doom. There are plus sides to it, like the pace of the storytelling not sagging and there are a couple of moments that make the hairs on your arms stand up but this movie is one that was released for no other reason than to cash in. I understand that a fourth film had been planned for years and should have come out not long after The Last Crusade but this effort just feels rushed.

A lot of what is in this movie was in one of the other three and that just smacks of laziness to me. Just for a short checklist to prove my point, and this is by no means an exhaustive list, here's some of the derivative tosh. The monkeys that Mutt swings along with in the trees? Those are the same species as the one from Raiders. In fact the chase sequence that bit appears in? That was in both Raiders and Last Crusade. The bit at the end where the heroes escape the temple by way of the water? Temple of Doom.

I could go on and on with that list but there's also the fact part of what made the previous movies so enthralling was the fact that the object that Indy was after was rooted in the real world. This time round he's after a crystal skull that has connections to some aliens. To me that's too much of a departure from the previous films. Also, the main twist in the film is blindingly obvious and some of the writing grates. The villains are lazy stereotypes of Russians and their leader, played by Cate Blanchett, comes straight from the Keanu Reeves school of non-acting.

This movie wont stomp all over your childhood dreams like Phantom Menace but neither will it seem like a worthy addition to the series. All in all it seems unnecessary and bodged. I hear that a fifth movie is in the pipeline. I sincerely hope they make a better job of that then they did with this.

Shanghai Knights

I've never been a man who learns from his mistakes easily and boy oh boy, did I ever fall prey to that here! This is the sequel to Shanghai Noon, a previous 'comedy' action film starring the laid back Owen Wilson and barely comprehensible Jackie Chan. That particular film was an irritatingly crap piece of cinema, the film equivalent of stubbing ones toe.

You would hope that this film improved on the original but unbelievably it's actually worse. This time Wilson's character is in New York and Chan's has somehow become Sheriff in Carson City. Chan's father is killed and the gruesome twosome rush to London where Chan's sister has sworn vengeance on their fathers killer. There's some nonsense about am Imperial Seal and a plot to kill the Royal Family and along the way the two (and then 3 when they meet up with the sister) meet Charlie Chaplin, Arthur Conan Doyle, Jack the Ripper and other assorted lazy Hollywood stereotypes of Londoners.

The main villain, who plots the downfall of Queen Victoria so he himself can assume the throne is so one dimensional he could have come straight from a book. The other Londoners on show are either stuck up toffs with barely a brain cell between them, gurning Cockney villains or maidens with black teeth. This movie is damned offensive to us Londoners! Come to think of it, this movie is offensive to anyone who actually enjoys being entertained.

There are plot holes and leaps of logic a-plenty here and whilst the movie is of an undemanding length you'll be left thinking 'why on earth have I just watched that tripe?"? Do yourself a favour and avoid this film, there are plenty of others that do mindless buddy action so much better than this piece of puerile trash.

Zombieland

Zombie films, whilst being a part of the horror genre, can be categorised into one of two sub-genres themselves. There's the zombie film that's played for scares and the one that's played for laughs. This movie falls very much into the second category.

Columbus is a college student who survives the zombie apocalypse by following his very anally retentive set of rules which make reappearances throughout the film. He hooks up with Tallahassee, played by Woody Harrelson, a redneck who survives by.... being a redneck! Tallahassee spends much of the film searching for his Holy Grail, a Twinkie bar. Along the way Columbus and Tallahassee meet up with Wichita and Little Rock, two sisters who before the zombies arose made their way by ripping off gullible men and they continue on their merry way here.

Our little group form a family of sorts, something which all them in one way or another had missing from their lives before the apocalypse. As they make their way across America, or Zombieland as it is referred to in the movie, they trash a trading post, dispatch Zombies in increasingly inventive ways and meet up with a rather famous person. That cameo, which I wont spoil, is easily one of the funniest things in this movie or any movie. This whole film had everyone in the cinema rocking with laughter and that's quite some achievement. The writing cracks and fizzles, the pace is hectic and there are touching and emotional moments amongst the laughs and gore. As well as laughs and occasional touching moments there are also moments that will have you whooping with glee, like Tallhassee's battle in the Fairground.

You totally and utterly buy into the 4 main characters, none of which use their actual names, instead they refer to each other by the names of their hometowns. Jesse Eisenberg is excellent as the nerdy Columbus, Woody Harrelson is fantastic as Tallahassee and the sisters are played by Emma Stone who manages to show a mix of toughness and vulnerability. Her sister is played by Abigail Breslin who is a revelation. Whilst in this film she is still obviously a kid she has a tough exterior but you do see glimpses of the child beneath if that's too Sidney a way of putting it.

This movie plays with your emotions, running the gamut mentioned above from amusement to fright to emotional jerks. This is not a zombie film of the like that Romero would do, rather it's a balls out and brazen ride through a wasted America. It's easily my favorite zombie film, and fits into m top 10 of fave films of all time and I can give it no higher praise than that.

Creep

I like horror, with my tastes running to slasher films and zombies. Sometimes I will branch out into some of the more extreme versions of horror but for the most part they leave me cold. A bonus of being a horror fan is coming across the occasional gem of a horror movie, and this is one of those. It's also a film that will have added scares for anyone who travels on the London Underground.

We meet 2 sewage workers, who discover an abandoned tunnel.. They decide to explore but they get attacked by something that was lurking down there. We then switch, rather abruptly, to a party in a house and Kate, a German woman who decided to head away from the party. She jumps on the tube but falls asleep waiting for her train and to her dismay she is locked in. That's when her REAL trouble starts and she gets stalked by the same thing that attacked the sewage workers, one of which survived and is locked in a cage. Several other people are dispatched in increasingly grisly and graphic ways, with a homeless woman being given a home made abortion and her boyfriend being beheaded. Suffice it to say that our German girl is the only survivor but at the end there is a truly haunting shot of her slumped on the station platform, bedraggled and exhausted and the first commuters of the day mistaking her for a homeless person.

This is not a film for the faint hearted, nor is it one you should watch just before taking a trip on the Underground. This is nasty, scary and at the same time, a brilliant horror film that does exactly what all horror films should do, it scares the bejeezus out of you. There are moments of gore but the overarching tone of this movie is of terror 'creeping' up on you, that terror that comes from not knowing what's going on or what is coming after you. The monster is only revealed fairly late on, and even then we only glimpse him through the flickering glimmer of a failing lighter which adds to the tension and heightens the jumps. The tone of this movie is grim but at the same time, that's exactly how it should be. I understand that this movie was inspired by (or ripped off!), an earlier English horror film called Death Line but this is one horror film that achieves scares and jumps in equal measure AND tells a good story.

Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot

Sometimes movies, like music or your favourite t.v. show, can be something of a guilty pleasure, one that you know you should hate but cannot bring yourself to decry. On the music front I have a liking for the techno group Scooter which my sister derides at every opportunity. On the guilty pleasure movie front it will have to be this particular gem.

The plot, such as it is, revolves around Sylvester Stallone's cop being visited by his elderly and interfering mother and the havoc that ensues. The mum is played by Estelle Getty and she takes to the part with much gusto. It's also quite good to watch this movie through the eyes of an adult, seeing as this film is now nearly 20 years old. I first saw this at the cinema when I was about 14 and I was blown away then and watching it back, it's funny as hell to see the early 90's fashions on show, also quite sobering seeing as I used to wear some of those horrendous shell-suits!

This isn't a film that's demanding, it's not exactly a high-concept thriller. The writing isn't exactly polished, and some of the lines and jokes are almost painful to hear. The acting is wooden and there's are gaping plot holes all over the place. However, you get the impression the actors involved know full well they are in a film destined for cinematic turkeydom and therefore ham it up for all they are worth. As I have said, this was never a movie destined for the Oscars but what it does do very well is leave one with a feeling of warmness and fulfillment. It's the celluloid equivalent of hot chocolate, something to cheer you up after a crappy day.

Robocop

As I have mentioned before on here, I spent my childhood as I am spending my adulthood, either reading or watching movies. I could reel off now a list of movies that I would return to time and time again as a kid. These are the sorts of movies that imprint themselves upon you to the point that you can almost memorise every word, every frame and watch the movie in your head.


Robocop is one such movie. It's the tale of Alex Murphy, a good, honest cop in Detroit who gets gunned down in the line of duty. Instead of croaking, the suits at the company that now runs the Detroit police department decide to use him in an experiment to make the perfect cop, one that doesn't need to eat or sleep. Once they've made their Robocop he goes out onto the streets and starts making arrests. However they didn't erase all of his memories and he starts getting flashbacks which results in him going off a revenge trip against the villains that attacked him. However, these villains are in with the second in command of OCP, the company that made Robocop and as such there's conflicts of interest. Well I say that but you could just say that the second in command at OCP is a twat.



Which brings me onto something interesting. You could almost see Robocop as a Jesus type figure (stay with me here). After all Murphy dies a horrific death so there's your crucifixion. He then gets resurrected so there's your Easter and at the final confrontation he walks across a shallow pond, giving the impression of walking on water. the number 2 at OCP? Well if you take the top man as G_D, you can take the rebelling number 2 as Satan and given that the final scene is of him being shot and falling out of a window on a skyscraper then that's him being cast from heaven.

That may be a bit of a stretch but this movie is definitely one that stands up to repeat viewings. The cast is perfect and whilst it can look a little dated now it certainly does have the capacity to thrill and entertain. None of the lines in here feel forced and the heroes are spot on and the villains are splendidly hateable.

Looking back on it now this film is surprisingly violent and gory. There's a memorable scene in which a criminal is flung into a vat of toxic waste and comes out melting! This film also has a tendency towards satirising America at that time with great big factories left empty and mass unemployment leading to huge crime waves. I think what I'm getting at it is there's a really nihilistic feel to this movie, an almost fascistic tone to the proceedings. This isn't a movie for the faint hearted, but it is a damn good sci-fi film that is almost equal parts social commentary.

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

It's this movies fault, this is the one that kicked off my obsession with the Zombie sub genre. I had picked the DVD on the off chance it might be a decent watch and I was proved so very right. We open with an attractive young nurse making her weary way home after a long shift. Everything seems normal on the surface and she gets back to her home and snuggles with her husband.

Come the morning however and things are very, very different. Her husband wakes up to find a blood soaked young girl in their room and he gets bitten by the little cow. He then turns into a zombie and attacks the nurse. Said nurse escapes and heads out of town. She teams up with a cop, played by Ving Rhames and they make their way to a shopping mall where they meet further disparate survivors. Once there they have to figure out what they're going to do to survive this apocalypse.

Whilst the original was a commentary on the rampant consumer culture in America at that time, this version takes a different tack. This is more about how different people from very different backgrounds knit together and make a community or family of sorts. That could be taken as an allegory for the insular and selfish nature of life in the modern age. This film has a very stylish and modern feel to it and the music score? Superb! It really helps the movie along and adds a sense of dread and at times light relief.

As with other zombie films, the actors here aren't well known, with Ving Rhames being about the best known of the lot. To me this is a bonus as you want your zombie films to make you think you could be there, and that's hard to do when you see Tom Cruise having his innards chewed on, as nice a thought as that may be! As with other horror films, you end up having people you want to see die and you have the ones you want to survive. In keeping with the Zombie tradition though, the film ends with an abrupt volte face.

This film blew me away when I saw it and it still has the power to hold me now. The writing here is first rate, making the action engrossing and engaging. There are moments that pack a real emotional punch and there's your quota of scares and full on gory moments. The director, Zack Snyder, decided to take a faster, more intense tone with this remake, and you can see that shining through in each and every frame of this cracking movie. As I said at the start of this interview, Dawn Of The Dead kicked off my love of the undead. It's not my favorite zombie movie, that honor belongs to Zombieland, but this runs it a very close second.

Star Wars : A New Hope

I don't know why I've held off on reviewing this film for so long seeing as it has had a huge influence on my life, more so than any other film. As a child I would pretend to be the different characters with an emphasis on Darth Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin. It probably says a lot about me that I would identify with the villainous characters first and foremost!

I think that by now everyone has seen this movie and knows the plot and dialogue and all that inside out and back to front, I know I certainly do! Essentially this a simple Good Guys v Evil Empire battle set in space. That's the simple view of it but this film is so much more than that. It's a coming of age story with Luke the farm boy yearning for adventure. It has a roguish pirate type in Han Solo and a damsel in distress that isn't all she seems in Princess Leia. The villain in chief in Darth Vader is one of the all time great baddies and his reveal at the start is awesome as he strides through the smoke of the doomed blockade runner. As we all know, Luke comes good and destroys the Empires Death Star weapon, with the help of Han Solo but we also see that Darth Vader survives, setting the scene for the sequel The Empire Strike Back, of which another time.

The dialogue is almost wince inducing at time but it works somehow. The special effects were wondrous for it's time but they have been bettered since which is not surprising given that this film is now 33 years old. For their time however they were groundbreaking and today they still hold up. The characters could perhaps do with a little more depth but then again this is not a film intended to compete with the likes of The Godfather. This movie is one that captures ones imagination for the run time and beyond. Just look towards the massive merchandising, including countless video games and novels. This film has left an imprint on my psyche and there can be no higher praise than that.

Wishmaster 2 : Evil Never Dies

The first Wishmaster film was a box office success which inevitably means it is sequel time. This movie opens with the Djinn trapped in his gemstone which itself has been re-interred in a statue. However some burglars awaken him during a botched robbery and the Djin does his best to make sure all hell sets loose.

This time, instead of granting 3 wishes to the original waker, an improbably sexy woman, the Djinn sets forth to garner 1001 souls. He does this by taking credit for the robbery, so that he can get sent to jail an therefore have easy pickings when it comes to desperate souls before he can go after the original waker. Once you get over that, this film follows the same formula as the first. That's not such a bad thing but you do wish the film-makers had used a little more imagination.

The effects are as good as in the first movie with a special glee given to an apocalyptic scene set in a casino. How can you not love a roulette wheel rampaging round and severing limbs? Or cards flying out of the deck so fast they behead someone? Whilst Andrew Divoff is again excellent as the Djinn, the rest of the cast ain't exactly up to much. Some of the lines are painful and there's not much of the fun of the first movie. Perhaps that's because we had already seen the first and knew what to expect. This still mixes the horror action with a sense of fun but this feels like a slightly anaemic version, a Diet Wishmaster if you will. The first film told a stnad alone story, and if perhaps there had been a wider theme to tie in then this film would have been better but thats all a bit moot now.

That doesn't make this a bad movie, you'll still get your jumps, you'll still get your enthusasically gory special effects and you'll get the laughs as well but, much likesleeping with a previous partner, it just wont be as good as it was before.

Con Air

There are action stars that are obvious action stars like Jason Statham and Hugh Jackman. Then there are action stars that are, not conventional shall we say. Right here I am thinking of the star of this movie, namely Nicolas Cage.

Con Air is the story of Cameron Poe, an Army Ranger sent to prison for killing a guy whilst protecting his wife. Seven years later Poe is freed and hitches a ride home on a plane transporting prisoners across the country. Things go awry however and Poe is left trying to save the day and make it through the madness in one piece. Things go tits up because the cons, led a fantastic John Malkovich hamming it up as Cyrus the Virus have hijacked the plane.

This movie is two hours of non-stop action, thrills and spills. We have fantastically defined villains in the Virus, Diamond Dog and Billy Bedlam, who are brilliantly over the top and we have a quirky yet wholesome hero in Poe. This movie rocks along and whilst you have the aforementioned villains to boo and heroes to cheer you also have a fantastic, knowing sense of humour. Cyrus the Virus in particular is one of the best screen villains, leering and evil but also strangely like able. Cage is a revelation as Poe, you totally buy into the character. My only criticism would the somewhat mawkish sentimentality at the very end of the movie but that's a very minor quibble to what is a fantastic movie.

Mean Machine

I'm a big football fan having been going since the late 80's. In fact I'm that old I can remember when I stood up to watch the match and you had to piss where you stood most of the time. The problem with football themed movies is that they are almost always utterly tedious piles of turgid rubbish with exception of Das Wunder Von Bern and this movie, starring the modern day Gielgud, our very own Vinnie Jones.

Jones plays Danny Meehan, a disgraced footballer sent to prison. After coming into contact with violent screws, bent governors and the different cons Meehan begins to find his feet. The governor has other ideas for the new star in his midst and wants him to coach the screws team. the screws don't want this and warn Meehan that his life will be made a misery if he takes up the option. So Meehan offers the governor a Cons v Screws match as a way of working up fitness levels. The rest of the movie follows the build up to the big match and the game itself.

Prison movies are really hard to get right. You don't want them to become too realistic or they'd be dull. You don't want to ham it up too much or you'll lose credibility. This movie strikes just the right balance, with comedic touches and menace oozeing from some cons and screws. i can also state with no small amount of authority that it's depiction of British prison life is spot on.The ending is massivley uplifiting and it says something when this is the only movie that Danny Dyer is watchable in. Some of the characters are from the Big Book of Prison Stereotypes but that's a minor quibble to what is a fun film.

Wishmaster

The horror genre is a funny one, a horror comedy perhaps? It goes in cycles, from the monster features of yesteryear, to the Hammer horrors of the 50's and 60's and onto slasher films. Once they had waned a big move towards knowing winks back at horror classics with the Scream tongue in cheek style.

Wishmaster very much falls into that category and it's directed by one of the all time great horror auteur's, Wes Craven. We open this film seeing a Persian prince watching his people get tortured by a shady character in a cloak. A priest stops him, and casts a spell that traps him in a gemstone. Hundreds of years later we cut to America and an accident involving a statue falling on a man. The statue breaks open, revealing the stone which is half inched by a dock worker. it passes onto Alex, a gemologist who accidentally awakens the evil cloaked figure who is revealed to be a genie, or Djinn. This genie is not the one of fairy tales, this genie is evil as he uses wishes to steal peoples souls and to usurp this world for his own. The film then becomes race against time for Alex to stop the Djinn and his evil plot.

This film is notable for several reasons. Firstly it has a host of horror icons in it as supporting actors. We see Robert Englund, Todd Farmer and Kane Hodder who form a holy trinity of 80's horror stars. It also features superb special effects, with things like skeletons ripping out from their owners bodies, and statues coming to life. There's also a rich vein of humour running throughout this movie, and at first you find yourself uncomfortable with laughing at a guard being trapped in glass and then shattering but pretty soon you just go with it and enjoy the ride. That's where this film excels in my opinion. It does chill, and there scares but it doesn't take itself too seriously and there's a real sense of fun here.

Andrew Divoff who plays the Djinn oozes menace from every pore and does a fine line on leering and glowering. The oneliners he delivers are done so with glee and the rest of the characters here also have snappily written lines to deliver which they do well. Wishamster is quite unlike the modern run of horror films with their taste for toture porn and realistic gore. Those films seems to think they have some self important message for the world. Wishmaster has none of that, instead it's a bloody good and enjoyable horror.

Cloverfield

This is an interesting movie, a different take on the crash bang wallop monster blockbuster. This film takes it cue from Blair Witch Project in that it is all filmed from the protagonists point of view, via a handheld camera.

In this case, said camera is recording a farewell celebration for a New Yorker that is leaving for a job in Tokyo. Except the party gets interrupted by a rather large gatecrasher, an alien that proceeds to attack New York, a perfectly understandable sentiment. The film then cuts to documenting several of the partygoers as they first try to escape and then to rescue a mutual friend along the way.

This film is infused with a sense of panic and of helplessness among the partygoers. Perhaps this is informed by the events of 9/11 and the fact a lot of that was documented via camcorder. At first we see them cocky and confident at the party but then we see that facade crumble like so much cheesecake as the monster attacks their city. We see the soldiers using all their military might in an effort to beat the monster but it all comes to naught and they end up half destroying the city. I could take that as an analogy for the war in Iraq if I was in a mood to over-analyse a movie.

This film does make the faux-reality side come across as natural, as if it was real. This is done mainly by the actors making their lines flow naturally as if you think they're really there, that they're really fleeing for their lives. There's also a good couple of popcorn in the air jumpy bits which serve to further heighten the sense of panic. Although the characters come across as real they are really quite unlikeable and it's almost a relief when they croak. The pace of this movie is frenetic and your barely left with a moment to collect your thoughts, just as the protagonists aren't left with time to relax. This movie plays out in real time which adds to the tension. The monster is only really glimpsed every so often and there's no backstory to it which means the viewer is left to draw their own conclusions on whats going on.

This is a great movie, one that takes an interesting and different tack on the monster movie. Perhaps the camcorder style filming of it, which does get jumpy at times, might not be for everyone but if you persevere then this is a cracking movie.

Die Another Day

Britain is to be celebrated for many fine exports to the world, from democracy and civilisation to fish n chips and football. Perhaps the greatest of these exports is the spy, James Bond. There have been 22 bond movies, and this is the 20th. A few actors have portrayed the MI5 agent and everyone will have their favorite Bond. For my money it's Pierce Brosnan, who exudes charm and wit but also has and edge of violence to him.

This film differs quite a bit from most other Bond films, in fact all of them up to this point, in that Bond is captured early on and spends months in captivity in a North Korean interrogation centre. He was in North Korea to assassinate Colonel Tan Sun Moon, a rogue element of the army in that besieged country. It goes awry after Bond is given away by a traitor within MI5 and that's how James Bond came to be captured. Once he gets swapped for Colonel Moons aide we follow Bond as he unravels the mystery behind his capture.

We see action set piece after set piece, and the usual gadgets and beautiful women. Brosnan is his usual suave self here, in a role he is absolutely perfect for. The title music is also up to the usual standard and there are a couple of twists in the plot, that whilst not exactly Shyamalan in their complexity does add a frisson of surprise. There are also some superbly sneering villains that are very much in the rich tradition of Bond opponents. Given that this was a landmark in the series there quite a few nods to the preceding movies that Bond aficionados will pick up on.

As far as criticisms go, the only one I can really think of is that some of the CGI looks a bit rushed, a bit rubbish but that's not that big an issue as your too caught up in the storyline to really notice it too much. This is a cracking action film, spy film and a great addition to the Bond series. In fact, seeing as this is my blog and it's my opinion that matters, I'll go as far as to say that this is the best one in the series. Plenty of style, plenty of babes and plenty of spy based action. What more could you want?

Shanghai Noon

If I go back a few years, I would in the midst of the grip of my mania for Jackie Chan films. For the life of me I cannot recall where it started but I can recall where it began to wane. You would think a movie starring Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson would be a recipe for laughs and thrills. That's if you hadn't read this review first.

Chan plays a proud Oriental guardsman sent to bring a kidnapped Princess home to China. As he and his uncle plus some other guards bring the ransom money across America, they get waylaid by some bandits who shoot the uncle. Chan swears revenge and that's pretty much that. Along the way he hooks up with blond, louche and wisecracking Owen Wilson who basically plays....Owen Wilson.

The plot here, such as it is, is formulaic at best. You can almost predict what is happening before it actually occurs. The acting grates, the villains are one dimensional and the scenery is cookie cutter in it's stereotypical portrayal of the Wild West and the only good things in it are the action/fight sequences starring Chan, but then again, once you've seen one Jackie Chan comedy fight, you've seen them all. That brings me onto another bugbear of mine. Jackie Chan basically cannot act when talking English. It's almost painful to listen to him mangle his words.

This isn't an awful film, it's certainly not the worst film I have ever seen (hello 6th Day) but is certainly in the bottom 10. You wont need to know much more about this movie, aside from maybe either switching your brain off or perhaps pretending your a 15 year old boy. It wont ruin your life by stretch but at the same time, don't expect a satisfying experience. Watching this film is a little like shopping at Kwik Save whilst everyone else shops at Waitrose.

Predator

As a child, if I didn't have my nose in a book, I would be sat in front of a video. I wore out tapes like there was no tomorrow and I would love to escape into the world on screen. Given that I was born at the end of the 70's (yes, I know, I'm old) most of the celluloid icons I latched onto hailed from that 80's era of testosterone fuelled aggression, all rippling muscles and huge explosions. Arnold Schwarzenegger,the Governator, is probably the action star par excellence given that he was in such films as The Running Man, Terminator and Conan The Barbarian.

This film is perhaps not one that would appeal to the female of the species, being that it is almost unashamedly macho in ti posturing. We follow a group of special forces soldiers as they troop into the jungles of South America looking for some hostages. they find the camp, but their trip is cut short by an alien on the hunt, the titular Predator. The alien is remorseless and relentless and many other things that begin with the letter R as he hunts down and butchers the soldiers one by one. Much the same way as Jaws keeps the reveal of the monster until fairly late, this film does the same and we see the Predator through it's own eyes, we catch glimpses as it runs and jumps through the trees and we see it's eyes shimmer as it engages it's cloaking device. if you've never seent his movie before (under a rock were we?) you'll be left guessing which of the soldiers makes it and which ends up like a human shish kebab.

Interestingly, this film really does make you cheer the soldiers on, more so than in other action films. They really do seem to have knitted together as a team and you totally buy the fact that they lived and fought together for years. This adds to the fear running thorugh them as they die one by one and there are some genuinely touching moments, albeit drenched in machismo sweat. The final smackdown, between the remaining soldier and the alien is brutal,and rivals the final act of any other action film of that time. The writing here is well done, with just the right tone struck and some the lines are fantastic. Take Jesse 'the Body' Ventura's "i aint got time to bleed" classic if you don't believe me! The lines, in addition to being well written are sparse eneough to allow the macho posturing to take over at times. You really do feel the situation running out of control as the soldiers face up to a foe they can't have concieved of before.

This film is one of the ones that marked my childhood, one I would return to again and again and I still do. That, if nothing else is a mark of how good it is. Do yourself a favour and see this.

Witness

I seem to reviewing a lot of Harrison Ford movies don't I?

Anyhow, this film, released way back in the mists of time, or 1985 to be precise, follows Ford as John Book, a detective trying to protect a witness to a murder, and to unravel the mystery behind who killed the murder victim. Only problem is that the murderers know that Book is on to them AND they're also policemen. So Books only option is to take the witness into protective custody amongst his own people. Well I say only problem, the thing is that witness I mentioned? He's a small Amish boy and that community among which Book must secrete the witness, the witnesses mother and himself? It's a strict Amish village deep in Pennsylvania.

This film moves slowly, as we see Book at first recover from wounds sustained in the escape from the city and then adjust to life among the Amish. He forms relationships with the people and works alongside them. The boys mother and Book also form a relationship, but don't follow through on it. That for me is a highlight of this film. you can really sense the chemistry between them. There's one scene where Book walks along a corridor and spies the mum, played by Kelly McGillis, showering. The look of longing and unrequited passion that passes then is powerful as hell. They can't get together, no matter how much they might wish to because of she would be cast out by her community. After a while the killers track Book down and a shootout occurs at the Amish run farm. In the end, the Amish men come together to protect Book and repel the murderers.

This film isn't a thriller that has an action set piece every 5 minutes, nor is it filled with excessive violence or sex. Is it's a slow, potboiler of a thriller and is all the better for it. The scenery of Pennsylvania is a beauty to behold and the portrayal of of the Amish is, to my understanding, fairly sensitive. This is not a movie for those with the attention span for Transformers perhaps but is definitely a movie that thrills and moves. It is almost equal parts thriller and love story. This movie isn't shown on tv often and can prove a bastard to track down on dvd, in fact I got my copy on VHS when browsing a chairty shop. This film is worth the effort once you have found it however.

Dod Sno

We again return to the zombie genre with Dod Sno, or to give it it's anglicised name, Dead Snow. This is a movie, that just wins you over with it's premise. I mean, how can you not love Zombie Nazis? Quite obviously, this movie is subtitled so that might be enough to put some people off. it shouldn't though as this movie is a hell of a lot of fun.

We meet the usual Zombie fodder, in some attractive students. They're on their way to a remote cabin up on the Norwegian mountains and whilst there they first meet a camper who warns them of dire consequences if they don't leave. Needless to say they ignore him and get attacked by undead hordes of Schutzstaffel. There's only so many ways someone can get dispatched by a zombie so what's all important is the style in which the deaths are dealt with.In Dod Sno, the emphasis is very much on humour with a nice twist in fast paced scares. My personal favorite is the man who accidentally stabs his girlfriend in the eye with a screwdriver, mistaking her for a Zombie. Or the man who chops his own arm with a chainsaw whilst fighting off the undead, then carries on.

The scenery is beautiful, the characters are believable and likable which is always hard to do with a horror film and the action is fast paced but at the same time there's enough of a gap between scares to allow the tension to build. Unlike some horror films which just relentlessly batter you over the head with shocking imagery and gore, this one treats to some good old fashioned jumps, and a sense of impending doom. My only criticism is, that despite the eminent likeability's of the actors, their characters aren't fleshed out enough and there's no back story for the Einsatzgruppen undead.

That said, this is an imaginative and funny take on the Zombie genre, one which can run stale if not treated well. You just have to look at some of the substandard entrail munching movies out there to see my point. Dod Sno most definitely strike out on it's own and that's something to be thankful for. You'll get your quota of laughs, your quota of jumps and scares and you'll have a whale of a time. If nothing else, how can you not love a movie that has the tag line Ein! Zwei! Die!

Jason X

I love horror, and along with Zombie films I have a particular hankering for slasher films. It's the fact there's a sense of creeping dread, that you can almost try to guess who will get bumped off next and just how that person will croak. The most prominent slasher movie villains have superseded their prey and become more popular, almost iconic in stature. Most people can name the big three, Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers and the star of this movie, Jason Voorhees.

Given the quick and nasty nature of shooting most slasher films, and the profits they generate, it's no surprise that studios flog them to death, in much the same way that the killers relentlessly slaughter their victims. This is the tenth in the series starring Jason and this one is set in space. Now I know that sounds like the writers had run out of ideas and you'd be right in thinking that but can Jason X carry the ridiculous premise off?

Well no, not really.The film kicks off with Jason chained up in captivity and some soldiers readying to transport him elsewhere. there's no explanation of quite how he was captured or why he hasn't yet seeing as he breaks the chains with consummate ease. He kills all the soldiers and the only survivor is a sexy female scientist who manges to set off a carbon freezing system that preserves both her and Jason. 500 years later and a group of students find the bodies, take them back to their starship and defrost like 2 two turkeys, an apt analogy for this film. Of course, Jason quickly resumes his murder spree, killing everyone aboard the ship, which along with the students, includes a group of (stereotype alert) tough space marines. The only survivors at the end are the sexy scientist, a male student and the head of a android. The films final scene is of Jason's body crashing into a lake on Earth 2 which hints at a thankfully unmade sequel.

I know that slasher films aren't meant to be art, and I know that the acting will never win Oscars for the thespians within but this film, sucks on so many levels. First of all, the writing is almost cringe worthy and the characters are dislikeable enough to make you want Jason to kill them. The music grates and the set design and special effects are unremarkable and the deaths, with one notable exception that uses liquid nitrogen and a face being smashed into a table, are boring. That's almost a crime given that the more grisly and inventive a death is in a slasher film, the better. There's a sense of tongue in cheek humour throughout this but it's not enough to rescue it from being easily the worst of the franchise. It's not a film that ruins your night or makes you question your own sanity, it's just one of those sequels that's utterly pointless and makes you wish the studio had never made it.

Monsters Inc.

Those that know me best would be able to describe me as a big kid. I basically stopped maturing at about age 10. I still find farting funny and I still love animated films. About the best studio for these is Pixar which, as I understand it, is a sort of offshoot of Disney.

Monsters Inc, which i have just finished watching is about those scary monsters we were all so afraid of when we were little kids. In this movie they scare kids in order to capture their screams which in turn power their town. Sulley and Mike are our 2 leads here, Sulley is big and hairy and Mike is green and has one eye. Round where i live they'd be considered normal but in Monsters inc they form the best scaring team and are approaching the record for numbers of screams until a small kid sneaks in through one of the doors and ends up in their world. See, whilst they elicit screams from the kids, they, in turn, are petrified of the little mites.

The rest of the film is a comic caper following Sulley and Mike as they first overcome their fear of the wean, who goes by the moniker of Boo and then try to return her to her room. Along the way they also have to contend with a rival, Randall who wants to use Boo as a guinea pig for his invention that rips screams from kids. As our heroes go on their journey, they grow attached to Boo and Sulley in particular forms a strong bond with her.

That's where this film really shines. it has a real warmth to it, a brilliant sense of love and emotion that shines through in every frame between Boo and her protectors. There are moments in the film, both when you can feel the walls coming down and then at the end when Sulley briefly scares and then has to say goodbye to Boo where one has to wipe away a tear. not that this film is a pure tearjerker, not at all. There are moments that make you laugh out loud, like when Mike briefly improvises a song and dance routine.

In keeping with all the Pixar films, the animation is rich and compelling with every frame detailed beyond belief and you can almost feel the care and attention that must have gone into it. For example, Sulley, who is covered in blue-green fur? You can see the individual hairs moving. The voice actors in this are superb and unlike in other animated movies, I didn't find myself trying to work who was playing which part, I just went with it, they were that good.

Monsters Inc leaves you with a warm glow inside, it's a real feel good flick. This is a film that kids will eat up and adults will love as well. i can't recommend it enough, it's easily my favorite animated movie, at least until we get a new Wild Thronberrys effort! (kidding!)

Indiana Jones And The Raiders Of The Lost Ark.

Sometimes a movie character comes along that grabs at ones attention, delves so deep into your psyche that they make an indelible mark upon you. As a movie obsessive I have a few characters that have done to me, from Freddy Krueger to Darth Vader to Frank Drebin. However, at the top of this list is none other than the eminent archaeologist Dr Indiana Jones. Hard to believe isn't it?

Part of the attraction of Jones is the fact that things don't always go his way, that he will, on occasion lose out, albeit temporarily. Harrison Ford is superbly cast and there's an aura of heroic, everyman charm about him which drives each movie. In this, the first of the four movies the archaeologist and history professor ends up hunting the Ark of the Covenant and has to contend with nefarious Nazis as well as his arch rival treasure hunter, Belloq.

I wont go into the meat and potato's of the plot as I rather suspect most of you have seen it by now. However I will ruminate upon some other parts of this movie or else this post would pointless. The love interest here is Marion, played by Karen Allen. She is quite unlike most other leading lady types. For example, she isn't your typical damsel in distress who screams down the place (I'm looking at you Willie Scott) and she's certainly not playing second fiddle to Indiana Jones.

The villains here, as i said above are mostly one dimensional Nazis with the exception of Toht, an SS torturer type sent to recover the Ark, along with Belloq, a French version of Jones. Toht is spectacularly, lip smackingly evil here. It's easy to hate him, and Belloq? Whilst slightly effeminate he does a good line in being bad but you wish he would man up a bit.

The action scenes thrill and scare in equal measure with the fight on the aeroplane followed by the truck chase being the highlights. A sticking for me though is that the historical aspects, are somewhat skewed but given that this is a thrilling movie, is a minor quibble.

A few minor criticisms aside this film rocks along at a fair pace and no matter how many times you see it it still has the power to capture your mind and imagination. Harrison is superb as Jones and unlike most heroes he someone that you could be, someone you would want to go for a drink with.

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark is a superb movie that is almost perfect for those lazy sundays in front of the telly.

Untergang

History has a way of portraying some of it's most influential figures and events as almost mythical, superhuman figures.

If you want a good example of this then you need only look to Adolf Hitler and the NSDAP. Whilst we are all aware of the evil they did, little is done to address how they rose to power, and we see them portrayed in media, it is almost always as some sort of virtually supernatural villain.

So it is refreshing to see the human side of evil, and that's evident here in Der Untergang, or if you prefer it in English, Downfall. This epic film charts the last few days and hours of the Third Reich, the death throes of Nazism if you will. We meet all the infamous Nazis, from Goebbels to Speer to Himmler, with the chief himself, Adolf Hitler being played superbly by Bruno Ganz.

Initially the film is shown through the eyes of Traudl Junge, one of Hitlers private secretaries but over the course of the film we get to see the downfall of Berlin through the eyes of many different characters, from a terrified parent, to a brave doctor and the men and boys of the Wermacht making a last ditch defence of Berlin. Detailing the plot of this movie is kind of unnecessary given that most people are aware of what happened in WW2.

From what I have read and studied of that era, most of the actors here are absolutely spot on with their portrayal of some of modern histories most evil men and women. For example, Dr Joseph Goebbels is shown as a spectacularly vain man, with an undying devotion to the Fuhrer. Himmler is portrayed as the self serving and snivelling toad we all know him to be and Eva Braun? A ditzy, ineffectual blonde who partied whilst Berlin burned.

This is not a movie that can be watched lightly, it is certainly not Saturday evening popcorn fodder. Nonetheless this is a film that sticks the memory. With what we already know happened, you could be forgiven for being bored by this films premise but there's certainly no tedium here, despite the near enough 3 hour run time. In fact the director, Oliver Hirschbiegel, has delivered a sense of impending doom, an all pervading menace that infests the faces of all. What Hirschbiegel and Ganz also deliver, amazingly, is a human side to Hitler. That's somewhat troubling, the sympathy evoked but at the same time you're reminded of the terrible crimes committed in his name.

Films in a foreign language aren't everyone cup of schnapps but I would heartily recommend seeking out this one.

28 Days Later

Along with the remake of Dawn Of The Dead, this movie kicked of my love affair, some would say obsession, with Zombie films. Although strictly speaking this is not a Zombie film as such, it's about The Infected, but to all intents and purposes they're near enough to being Zombies.

The film starts off with some animal rights activists breaking into a lab. During a tussle with some of the staff a monkey is released. Said simian is infected with Rage, a virus that makes whoever catches it ultra violent. The film then cuts to a hospital, coincidentally the one i was born in. We see Jim wake from a coma,having missed the outbreak of the Rage virus. He stumbles through the hospital, and then the streets of London looking for someone, anyone. Eventually, after surviving an attack by the Infected, Jim hooks up with 2 other survivors, one of whom doesn't even last the night before he is bitten and is hacked into small pieces by Selina, the other survivor.

Jim and Selina then meet up with Frank and Hannah, a father and daughter holed up in a tower block. Our group then decide to make for an encampment 'oop north' to be with soldiers who they believe will protect them. Not all is as it seems though and Major Henry West has some rather devious plans for our plucky survivors.

This film is almost unremittingly bleak. Interesting questions are asked here about violence. The Infected are violent but our heroes can either become violent when faced with a threat and survive or they can try another way and probably have their entrails munched on. It also shows how violence is corrupting and dehumanising with the effects of the post apocalyptic Britain on the soldiers. Really, in order to survive the Infected, one must become violent like them.

Although the young girl who plays Hannah is amazingly bad, the rest of the actors here are fantastic and cast perfectly. In as much as Africa was a character in The African Queen, i firmly believe that in the opening scenes London is also a player. Quite how the makers of this film managed to capture the streets utterly deserted and devastated truly is a marvel to behold and it qualifies as one of the creepiest scenes you will see. Some zombie films are played for laughs, some are played for scares and some are played for thrills. This one stands alone as being played for psychological thrills and chills.

This shouldn't put you off as this easily one of the best, if not THE best British films of the last 10 years or so.

Speed

Some things in life constantly amaze me. Stuff like why people will insist on drinking that vile Ginger Beer stuff or the continued popularity of Lady GaGa. Chiefly among those things that perplex me is how it is that Keanu Reeves manages to be basically the same character in pretty much every movie he is in. He isn't the only 'actor' to fall into this trap, with Vinnie Jones and Danny Dyer jumping to mind.

In Speed, he plays Jack Traven, an LAPD officer who gets drawn into a game of cat and mouse with Dennis Hoppers mad bomber character. After an entertaining scene with a bomb on a lift and Hopper escaping we meet Sandra Bullock, playing Annie, a ditzy bird on a bus in LA. Once Reeves boards the bus we are treated to action set-piece after action set-piece. In essence we are battered about the head with them until we just give in.

The movie ends with Hopper get beheaded in a most amusing way and Traven and Annie end the film by making out in a wrecked tube train.

Hopper by the way spends much of his time chewing the scenery with gay abandon and is almost laughable in his attempts to come off as evil. Also, i think i noticed that his injured hand changes from left to right randomly through the film. Continuity errors much? Bullock is perfectly good in this movie and Reeves? Well, I'm still flabbergasted he is an actor! The action in this comes over quite well, especially when one considers much of it takes place on a bus. There is one scene though that actually had me swearing out loud at the ridiculousness of it. The bus is careering along the freeway and our protagonists notice that part of the freeway hasn't been finished and the bus.... jumps the gap!

This sort of thing is typical of this sort of action film. See, there are 2 types of action film, those take themselves seriously like the Die Hard films and then there are those that almost send themselves up with the over the top action and ridiculous characters. If you can switch your brain off, then both types are perfectly enjoyable and in the case of Speed, although it has dated horribly and Reeves has the range of a myopic hamster, is still a good if undemanding action film.