The Dark of The Matinee

It’s fair to say that Pixar have pushed their creative boundaries since the brilliant sequel Toy Story 2, which they rescued from the Disney direct-to-dvd bin, proving that sequels can be both bigger & better. The likes of Wall-E with it’s almost silent first act, or Brad Bird’s The Incredibles, which convincingly demonstrated that CGi can do both human animation and action, together, were both arguably a step forward, at least technically.

That, and the rule of diminishing returns had even a huge Pixar fan like myself more than a little concerned that Pixar were becoming very Disney-fied since the takeover, with their announcement of sequels to Toy Story 1 & 2, Cars and Monsters Inc, and their switch to staggered international releases (something which, in the digital projection era / electronic delivery of digital films direct to cinemas, cannot be justified and really rankles).

However, in the superb opening scene, Pixar dismiss out-of-hand any suggestion of dialling in this third instalment by deliberately opening with a re-working of a scene from the first film, yet also brilliantly tieing it into the sequel, smartly batting away any accusations of just retreading old ground. I felt like applauding at this moment.

And the joys keep on coming with lovely nods to the previous two films adventures peoppering the film, yet never at the expense of alienating new viewers. The themes of loss, rejection and obsolescence are again front and centre, but underlying this film’s adventures most of all is the theme of friendship. The gang end up, through a series of mishaps, in a day centre for children, which appears on the surface to be a welcoming place where the gang will be played with by eager children every day - yet also serves as a clever allegory for retirement homes and that theme of obsolescence. Of course, all is not what it seems in this place, with the corridors and playrooms ruled with the soft, fluffy, strawberry-scented fist of Lotso, a cuddly, oh-so-cute yet damaged bear, who has a cynical streak running through him since he suffered from being ‘abandoned’ by his owner.

Despite the plot and themes being familiar, Toy Story 3 feels fresh, the new characters added skillfully, the old ones all being given parts to play with Mr Potato-head in particular getting a lot of laughs in a wonderfully inventive and hilarious scene. And the romance between Barbie who finds her Ken in this film is fantastic, at times as clichéd as the dolls bio’s, at times oh-so-modern and so, so funny.

There is action and laughs a-plenty, yet the film also manages to be heart-rendingly moving; at one point the toys are placed in a scene of so much peril they seem totally doomed - Pixar being brave enough to up the tension to an unbelievable level (and even amongst this they still have the skill to throw in a moment of beautiful poignancy) and despite the auditorium being packed with kids it fell completely hushed at this point.

So yes, Pixar may have occasionally pushed the boundaries of their art further, but this is a masterpiece and a fittingly entertaining, funny and moving finale to what is easily the best animated trilogy ever conceived.

Film of the year thus far - 10/10

2009, Dir; John Hillcoat (The Proposition), Starring; Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron, Robert Duvall

Adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s novel of the same name, The Road follows the fate of ‘the man’ (Mortensen) and ‘the child’ (Smit-McPhee) as they struggle across a barren, ash-covered, sunless, wasted earth in which nothing grows and no animal lives, the earth is dying, devastated by an unknown cataclysm.

McCarthy’s biblical, stark, spare prose had already lent itself to a classic film adaptation in the Coen Brothers’ take on No Country for Old Men. The Road is perhaps an even sparser, and certainly more personal tale, and Director John Hillcoat maintains the bleak, unforgiving tone of the novel throughout the film. There is little redemption or salvation for the Man or the Child to seek, their only victory is surviving whilst maintaining their ‘humanity’ in the face of relentless adversity, biting cold and near constant starvation that has seen gangs of men succumb to hunting other humans for food.

The relationship between the Man and the Child forms the essence of both the novel and the film, with Mortensen bringing his trademark realism to his role. Never has McCarthy’s efficient way with dialogue (which is incorporated into the screenplay and Mortensen’s voiceover) made more sense - the protagonists are starving, cold, tired, numbed - you would not expect long discussions between them. The horrors that the man and the child encounter, are not presented sensationally but in a matter-of-fact manner that almost make them more real, more chilling.

This is not easy viewing; the Man’s wife is quick to realize the futility of their situation and commits suicide as seen in flashback during the Man’s dreams/nightmares; suicide, as unpalatable as it may seem, becomes a logical way out of the nightmarish life that is left to the survivors of the cataclysm.

It’s not a film I can recommend easily - my wife found it so horrifyingly bleak that she was rather cross that I chose it for an evening’s viewing, however it left a profound impact on me, and I found my thoughts coming back to it days later. It is a brave take on a subject that perhaps we would hope never to have to contemplate, yet at heart it is also a simple tale about the love between Man & Son, and the fight to survive whilst remaining recognizably ‘human’.

Cautiously recommended. 9/10.

MGM, 2010, Dir: Steve Pink  Starring: Nick Cusack, Clark Duke, Craig Robinson, Rob Corrdry

Billed as ‘this years The Hangover’, Hot Tub Time Machine sees three disaffected, fallen out of contact best friends, Adam (Cusack), Nick (Robinson), Lou (Cordrry) and Jacob (Duke), Adam’s 20 year old nephew, head to a favourite old ski haunt to recapture their youth after Lou ends up in hospital suspected of trying to commit suicide. When they arrive at the resort, they discover that it’s as decrepit and past it’s glory days as the group themselves. However, a spilt Russian ‘energy drink’ affects the control-panel of their Hot Tub, catapulting the group back into the past to the day-glo 80’s, where they, in a nod to Bill & Ted and Back to the Future soon realize they must relive events as they occurred previously or Jacob will cease to exist. As that past includes them singing (badly), getting stabbed in the eye with a fork, beaten to a pulp and the odd bit of shagging, this poses both ethical and moral dilemmas for each of the group, which are all dispatched with the emphasis on the comic mileage out of each scene.

There are some gross-out gags, a smattering of boobs and sex yet the film feels a bit like it’s trapped between two stools - it neither knows whether it wants to be an ironic take on the American Pie style sex/gross-out comedies, or a reverential parody of Back To The Future - it even stars BTTF’s Crispin Glover as a hapless hotel porter who’s destiny is well known and indeed highly anticipated by the gang! And there is some fun to be had with Glover channeling the young George McFly in this running gag, and it’s also nice to see Chevvy Chase in a cameo role as a very, very annoyingly cryptic hot tub repair man.

This isn’t a total misfire then, although Cusack really deserves better material than Hollywood has provided him with lately - he’s close to miscast in this although he pulls it off by basically phoning in an ‘everyman’ portrayal. And the soundtrack is great for anyone of a certain age (ie me) with lots of 80’s classics on it. But the film could have been so much more if it had nailed it’s colours firmly to either genre - the potential in the premise was strong enough to be this generation’s Back To The Future. As it stands, the jokes aren’t frequent enough and the plot lacks invention so you end up waiting for the - admittedly fairly satisfying - payoff from about half way in.

6.5/10

Took my 15 year old and his 13 year old mate to see Ridley Scott’s new incarnation of Robin Hood (review to follow).

Now whilst my lad was familiar with the Disney animated version, I don’t think they had any real expectations. Upshot was that they were rather bored and fidgety during the film.

Now, putting aside critique of the film itself - I was quite interested to know why it didn’t grab their attention.

Reason given? My son said that he was kinda expecting a live-action version of the Disney animated film - filled with japes, scrapes and derring-do. I conceded he had a point - none of the camp action of Errol Flynn’s The Adventures of Robin Hood was present, nor was the earnest but panto flavour of Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

Delving further, I found that of recently watched films even the brilliantly entertaining Kick-Ass wasn’t immune from criticism; “it had boring parts but I knew more exciting stuff was coming”.

I showed him Die Hard, as an example of a classic action film. He got bored and stopped watching 40 minutes in.

Now, I’m not trying to show up my son, as he’s a product of the films that he has grown up with - most teens and kids look forward to the next ‘event’ movie - and for every Pixar classic, there is a hyperactive, in your face Dreamworks film.

Does this mean that today’s young film watchers will not be able to ever understand the cinematic language of say David Lean? Would the suspenseful, slow building Alien deliver not shocks but - shock horror - mirth when ‘that’ creature makes it’s entrance - assuming they could endure the ‘boring bits at the beginning’?

Or is it just an age thing? I mean, I enjoyed my event movies as a sprog too - Superman: The Movie, Empire Strikes Back, Indy, Back to the Future, Ghostbusters etc etc, but I also found films on tv that hooked me too - O Lucky Man!, 2001, Lawrence of Arabia, Manhattan. Were the blockbuster films of the late 70’s/early 80’s really that much less hyper-kinetic than their 21st Century equivalents, that I found it easier to switch to watching languidly paced epics? Is it the speed of post MTV TV, and the always-on youtube generation that are spoon-fed laughs and thrills in short bites?

Maybe. Yet he was astute enough to notice that Transformers 2 was a mess (despite the distracting allure of his favourite actress in Megan Fox), he happily watched longish films like Casino Royale and The Dark Knight without complaint, and he loved The Matrix when he watched it fairly recently, and I do remember that film having it’s quiet, dialogue heavy (and heavy dialogue) moments.

So perhaps my concerns are misplaced; perhaps people who develop a love of the silver screen at an early age will go on to discover, and enjoy, the variety of styles and genres that the film world has to offer, and my worry of a hollywood that becomes totally dominated with rather mindless, brake-neck paced action films like Terminator Salvation and Wolverine, where it all happens really fast, without much of importance actually happening, is moot.

2009, dir; James Cameron. Format: Reg B Blu-ray disc 

James Cameron, after delivering the multi-oscar winning, box-office smashing Titanic, did a bit of a George Lucas on us (rather fitting given Star Wars was the film that encouraged Cameron to quit his truck driving job to pursue a career in movies) – instead of following up his smash with another movie, he went off to pursue various side projects, and also to investigate the future technology that would allow him to realise his dream of bringing the ambitious Avatar to the screen, including shooting documentaries in stereoscopic 3d. Avatar was the film that Cameron intended to be his next feature after Titanic, and he has been quoted as stating that he was waiting for the “technology to catch-up” in order to do justice to the project.

The film is set on an inhabited moon, Pandora, which orbits the planet Polyphemus and is rich in a valuable metal called, as something of an in-joke, “unobtanium”. It’s priceless, and this is what drags a future earth corporation to establish a mining base on Pandora, some 6 years of travel away from a decaying, war-torn earth. Unfortunately for the miners and share-holders, the biggest deposit of unobtanium is slap bang underneath the indigenous Na’vi people’s village, which is centred around a massive, ancient tree.

As a sop to the share-holders or perhaps the  concerns of the financial backers of the project, the otherwise ruthlessly wealth seeking corporation (simply referred to as RDA), finances a side project led by Sigourney Weaver’s Dr Grace Augustine to develop ‘avatars’ which are literally Na’vi bodies mixed with human DNA and grown in a laboratory, bodies which, via a wireless linking technology, can be ‘driven’ by the human who provides the DNA. Their purpose is to learn from, and teach, the Na’vi in the hope that their trust can be won and they can be persuaded to move from their prime mining spot without the need for bloodshed or war – something that Stephen Lang’s Colonel Quaritch is literally itching to deliver - with Giovanni Ribisi’s pencil pushing corporate head Parker Selfridge under pressure to deliver results at any cost.  Into this mix, following 6 years of cryogenic sleep, is thrown Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) – a marine rendered paraplegic in battle, and who takes the place of his scientist and avatar driver twin brother who is killed in a mugging – Jake’s DNA being of course a perfect match with his twin. Dr Weaver, who once taught the Na’vi English before the relationship soured, fears throwing an untrained marine avatar into the mix – yet it is soon up to Sully to win over the Na’vi, starting with Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) who is tasked with teaching him all about their ways.

There is a clear environmental message at the heart of Cameron’s story, something that is brought to life in every frame with the most beautiful photo-realistic rendering of the fauna and flora of Pandora, with it’s luminescent plants and glowing seedlings, alien versions of terran animals and creatures too unusual to have an earth equivalent, floating mountains and magnificent trees; it really is a place that is brought to life so incredibly that some people have expressed regret that they will never ever get to visit Pandora. Yet this message has been criticized, with critics suggesting the message is just a re-tread of films like Fern Gully and that the white-man-as-messiah plot is both outdated and politically incorrect. Also, many posters on various message boards have decried the film, or it’s visual achievements, as just “pretty pictures made by a computer”.

This latter argument is one that does not hold water for me – the computer, as with optical printers, back projection, matte paintings, green screen and model work is simply a tool with which to bring a world to life; the computer does not create anything, instead it takes a team of artists many man hours to bring these visuals to the screen – and what visuals they are. One cannot but marvel at the fluidity of the animation of the Na’vi – when Pixar are still using highly stylized characitures to represent the difficult to animate human models in their movies, Avatar brings 12 foot tall blue aliens to life, giving them grace, speed and realistic movement despite their scale. I’ve seen hi-resolution screen caps of frames from Avatar and the attention to detail is astounding – the artists go so far as to render the camera imperfections you would expect from shooting with movie camera lenses – adding a tell-tale purple line of chromatic aberration to Jake’s machine gun for example. I don’t think I’ve seen an environment as realistic, as vivid and as, well beautiful as this on film previously. And, it looks phenomenal on bluray – the colours absolutely zing and pop at you as the sharp, detailed image produces a fantastic depth of colour freed from the darkening effect of cinema projection viewed via polarising 3d glasses. This is reference quality from the amazing visuals to the quality of the presentation on bluray itself and is likely to be the go-to demo disc for a long time – you will not find a more convincing advert for bluray than Avatar.

The film and story too are equally, if not more compelling, at home as one relaxes into the story – the romance feels natural and unforced, Cameron’s clear love for the people he has created and the world they live in is always there but never feels overly-sentimental or cloying, and, when the shit does hit the fan and Colonel Quaritch sends in his armada of futuristic helicopters, space shuttles and exo-skeleton equipped robotic grunts (similar to those in Aliens and Matrix:Revolutions) the action is as you would expect from Cameron, taut, pacy, thrilling, huge, with some breathtaking camera-work yet still leaving room for those moments of despair, near death escapes and of course, a couple of mano-a-mano showdowns.

Sound, too, is never short of spectacular on bluray – the DTS-HD soundtrack gave my amplifier a good workout, with some excellent spatial and surround effects. If I had a quibble I would have to admit that James Horner’s soundtrack, whilst quite memorable, does rather hammer home the connection with films like Dances with Wolves, feeling rather derivative. It also reminded me of Karl Jenkins ‘Adiemus’ classical albums, with it’s other-worldy yet ethnic-sounding chanting.

That aside, this has to be possibly the most complete cinematic experience I have had at home (I should note I have still to watch Hero, Toy Story 2 and 2001 on the blu-ray format). The format really shines here, giving a great example of just how good a well-mastered film can look, with the HD audio also contributing to the experience. It’s a technical masterpiece for sure, and whilst the story does follow the thematic lines of films like Dances With Wolves it has a layer of sci-fi and that environment to elevate it into something quite unique. Add in the sheer panache and bravura film-making that James Cameron is capable of and this IS what cinema should be about – I felt fully immersed in the world of Pandora, strapped in for the ride and experiencing the full range of emotions that the protagonists did, often feeling that tightening knot in my stomach that only special films seem to give me.

I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Dir: Alex Proyas (Dark City, I, Robot)

When John Koestle’s (Nicholas Cage) son Caleb (Chandler Canterbury) comes home from school with a sealed envelope from the time capsule buried back when his school was opened some 50 years ago, rather than containing news clippings or ephemera, he finds his filled with but a double sided sheet of paper with a continuous sequence of numbers written on it. An MIT astrophysicist, Koestle later ponders the possible meaning of these numbers over a glass of bourbon from which he seeks solace, having suffered the loss of his wife one year earlier. As chance, or co-incidence - something which plays a part in the plot of this movie - would have it, a ring mark left by an over-filled tumbler highlights the sequence 9112001 - a sequence that most audience members will have no difficulty in identifying. A couple of glasses of whisky later and some strident googling reveals further sequences that identify the dates of various disasters around the globe. Cage must investigate further, and in doing so, ends up in the path of a crashing jet airliner and aboard a runaway tube train as the 50 year old parchment proves uncannily accurate at predicting future, yet to occur disasters.

As with most films with a high-concept plot, the viewer is required to suspend belief and buy into the plot device. Normally this is not a problem for me, but the screenplay is so clunky, and the acting - even from decent actors like Cage and Byrne, as well as the child actors who fail to convince, is pretty dreadful throughout - the cast don’t appear to know what type of film they are in - is it psychological thriller, horror, sci-fi? That Proyas, who showed he has the ability to create a believable Kafkaesque society in Dark City, or to shoot a slick, noirish sci-fi whodunnit in a futuristic metropolis in I, Robot, allows these takes through perhaps betrays his lack of confidence in the material - with his decision to shoot with hand-held cameras at odds with the x-files style outdoors sets, and the indoor set of Koestle’s dilapidated, almost gothic house, and also strips the edgy Cage of energy - his ability to act with his body, giving off nervous cues and his tendency to use the whole frame is diminished with this POV shooting style. This style also appears to have made creating the cgi effects for the action scenes more difficult - as the cgi train, in particular, is far from convincing, and the eerie, yet horribly jarring scenes of people, and stags, on fire, feel at odds with the broody mood elsewhere and are also poorly executed, with the computer created flames looking very unrealistic.

These flaws might have gone less noticed had the story been more cohesive, but the film doesn’t know what it wants to be to the point that the jarring jumps in sub-genre left me rather detached from the plot. It is never fully spelt out come the end what we were dealing with - biblical allegory or sci-fi, though there is a feeling that those involved with thie movie were perhaps hoping to create a profound tale in the vein of Close Encounters of the Third Kind/ 

Cage ends the film on his knees, after watching you might well feel the same.

2009, Dir; Christopher Smith

I’m going to try my best to describe Triangle with no real spoilers; however this film has one of the most twisting plots I’ve watched since Donnie Darko, infact it makes that film look flat and linear by comparison, so even describing the plot of this mystery-thriller is itself fraught with danger (of spoilers).

Triangle, described in Paul Ross/Daily Star terms, is a “mind-bending mystery-thriller with psychological horror undertones”. Written and Directed by Christopher Smith (Creep, Severance) and starring Melissa George (30 Days of Night) of Home and Away fame, as Jess, the film begins with the stressed out Jess trying to get ready for a short trip out on her friend Greg’s yacht – The Triangle, as a welcome diversion from her current situation. Her son is autistic and the demanding, and by requirement, rigid, repetitive nature of their life is affecting her ability to cope mentally. Naturally, once Jess and a few friends of friends depart into the open see, things don’t go to plan and soon the calm sea and sunny skies give-way to a foreboding-looking storm that soon engulfs and capsizes the yacht, only for them to be saved by a passing cruise liner. Upon boarding the cruise liner, the ship appears to be empty, although Jess has a strong sense of Déjà vu, convinced she has been here before.

Smith uses the endless ocean and the long, dimly lit period wood panelled corridors of the ship to excellent effect – using them to create a sense of isolation, and to develop a moody atmosphere that heightens the tension, using crash zooms and pull-backs to further illustrate it, bringing the camera in closer when he wants to add in a touch of claustrophobia. It’s reminiscent of The Shining and indeed the film is peppered with references to Kubrick’s psychological-horror masterpiece. The film also reminded me a bit of Neil Marshall’s The Descent, in the tonal style of shooting, and the disparate bunch of loose-friends going on an outing (although they are not nearly as well written here), and there are two direct nods to that film – one when a character is accidentally injured, and another near the end of the film which I won’t spoil. He also creates an iconic horror shot - a grotesque scene that quite possibly hastens the demise of one of the supporting characters - if she had survived, it would only have been to go completely mad.

Of course, in true horror fashion, once the characters board the ship, they forget to stick together and start wandering and investigating their surroundings, trying to find some sign of life, or the route to the bridge. Jess is convinced she saw somebody, with her conviction heightened when she bizarrely finds her own set of keys lying down the end of a corridor, though Greg believes Jess’ fragile state of sanity is simply unravelling due to shock of the capsizing and the pressures of having an autistic son. Her fractured mental state is nicely alluded to by Smith’s use of mirrors and reflecting/diffracting chrome fixtures on the ship as a motif, framing shots in the small cabins that show two or three reflections of Jess…which also serves as a hint to the first of many twists. Jess’ fears that someone else is aboard are proven when someone starts picking off the friends one by one…

George, considering her background in soap opera, does an excellent job of portraying the stressed-out young Mum, making her detached and slightly aloof, but still keeping you onside and rooting for her as she is shocked and troubled by each horrifying secret or piece of the puzzle she uncovers, clearly communicating the toll each shock has on her tenuous grip on reality – and as she has to carry the movie on her shoulders, it’s to her credit that through her performance she keeps the audience onside, at least until the final twist. The supporting cast are, to be fair, wooden at best, but then this is George’s film.

Movies with plot twists, and/or paradoxes, almost always split audiences, who – having endured a mind-bending plot, often feel bemused, or even cheated come the final twist/reveal. I think this film reaches a creditable final twist, (infact the plot could be seen as one big twist that just keeps on twisting), with a twist which forces you to reconsider  what just happened, perhaps even doubting where your sympathies lie.

One final mention has to go to Christian Henson’s soundtrack which really helps in creating the atmosphere, using the motif of the ever-present bass-note of the ship’s engines in a dissonant manner to keep the tension taught.

Cautiously recommended – it does have flaws in that the secondary characters are so poorly written it’s hard to feel for their plight, and it is a little po-faced with no humour in the script at all, but the plot keeps the tension high – and reveals itself at that perfect pace that the audience can keep up or start guessing just ahead to see if they can solve or predict the next part of the mystery before the protagonist does. And hey, if you do hate it, well don’t we all get some masochistic pleasure out of bad punchlines or groan-some twists anyway?

The hype for Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven was quite high, and rightly so, with his previous period piece Gladiator winning both Oscars (5) and acclaim for putting a exciting, modern slant on the sword and sandals epics of old up on the screen.

But it didn’t quite match up to the hype - the cut which the studio forced Ridley to re-submit (due to concerns over the length of his first cut, an odd decision considering the bum-numbing length of the highly sucessful Lord of the Rings films) was a commercial flop.

However, once Ridley was able to return to Kingdom of Heaven and release his preferred, or Director’s Cut, of the movie it was quickly re-assessed, being much more positively received. The acting, which was almost universally praised even in the shorter cut - comes to the fore, with Orlando Bloom’s Balian given greater depth - his is a leader of men but not of the mould of a stirring William Wallace as portrayed by Mel Gibson in Braveheart for example, but a reflective, intelligent man who gains his peoples respect by mucking in with them to improve their lot - digging wells on the land bequeathed to him by his father, the Knight Godfrey de Ibelin (Liam Neeson in an extended cameo) who gave Balian the opportunity to accompany him to Jerusalem, but dies from an infected arrow wound, sustained saving Balian from an ambush along the way.

The peace that exists between the Christian-held Jerusalem and the muslim peoples is exaggerated somewhat in the film, to provide a deliberate ideal of peace that would resonate with a contemporary audience - and Balian soon alligns himself with Edward Norton’s leper King Baldwin (in a wonderfully nuanced performance) and Jeremy Iron’s Tiberias who strive to maintain the fragile peace despite provocation from the war-mongering templars played by Brendan Gleeson and Martin Csokas. Indeed, the calibre of actor Ridley has drawn to this project is staggering - along with Neeson and Gleeson, the likes of Kevin McKidd, David Thewlis and Philip Glenister all play supporting roles that exist just to help Balian reach Jerusalem!

The muslim leaders - Saladin, played by Ghassan Massoud and his deputy Imad (Alexander Siddig - Star Trek: DS9) - a man who Balian spares after fighting him on his way to Jerusalem, are played as intelligent men who, whilst desiring to retake Jerusalem (”it is worth nothing, yet everything”) also wish to preserve the peace for as long as it is tactically sensible to do so. Ridley Scott would draw equal amounts of praise and condemnation for tackling the differences between both religions and handling them with maturity, and not just lazily writing Saladin as a caricature hollywood baddie with a hook nose and raggedy beard.

Of course, despite Balian’s best intentions, war was as inevitable then as it is now and it’s Eva Green’s coolly played Queen Sibylla, sister of King Baldwin, who plays a pivotal (and in this cut, an expanded) role in setting events into motion - infact Green possibly benefits most from the reinserted material, giving her character a genuine arc.

When the action arrives, it is stunning - wide shots of Saladin’s huge army, interspersed with shots of period seige engines and catapults bombarding the city walls with flaming missiles. In many ways it betters the action Ridley shot for Gladiator - the scale is huge, and the editing allows individual blows and moves to be followed, with axes connecting with skulls, swords hacking limbs and delivering blood-releasing pommel-blows to stunned faces. As a student of the sword myself, I was particularly pleased to see the knights using the shields in an attacking manner - these small details just ooze the authenticity and attention to detail that Ridley Scott has embued the film with. The fight choreography is very well captured and benefits from not being shot shaky-cam style with hyper-kinetic mtv editing.

I could not honestly say, even as a huge fan of Ridley Scott, that Kingdom of Heaven DC quite reaches the bar he set with the likes of Blade Runner, Alien and Gladiator -  for all Bloom’s best efforts (and he is much, much better here) he doesn’t quite convince in the same way Crowe’s Maximus does - he just does not have that same presence. And with Saladin being written quite sympathetically, the story at time lacks the focus provided by  a decent nemesis - with Sibylla’s husband Guy de Lusignan, who is more of a thorn in Balian’s side, played by Martin Csokas in a performance perhaps more suitable to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, not really filling the void.

However, this cut clearly comes close to restoring Ridley’s Crusades epic to the film he likely envisaged at the planning stage, with some fine performances from a superb cast, great sets and cinematography, epic battle scenes but one which, despite a career- best  performance from Bloom as a leading man, just falls short of the best films in Ridley Scott’s long career.

Highly recommended to fans of the genre, a more cautious recommendation otherwise.

(Reviewed on UK Bluray disc - excellent video and audio presentation throughout).

Trilogy; A group of three dramatic or literary works related in subject or theme.

I don’t know why this keeps popping into my head, but I still cannot find any one actor who has appeared in at least one film in 3 separate trilogies!

There are plenty of great actors who have appeared in 2 that I can think of; Christopher Lee in Star Wars and Lord of the Rings (I’m so glad an actor of his calibre had a second wind in his career), Ian McKellen in LOTR and X-Men (does that still count as a Trilogy with the Wolverine Origins film - or is that an argument for the next trip to the pub?), Hugo Weaving in the Matrix series and LOTR, Matt Damon in the Bourne films and the Ocean’s 11/12/13 films and so on.
There must be someone, surely, that qualifies? If nothing else, it could make for a cracking pub quiz question!

Dir: Matthew Vaughn Writers: Mark Millar & Jane Goldman

When Alan Moore’s seminal and game-changing comic book Watchmen was released in 1986 it drew critical acclaim for its realistic portrayal of costumed heroes - Dr Manhattan apart, these were ordinary people who had no ’super’ abilities whatsoever and inhabited, to all extents, our own world. Yet, there is no doubt that the likes of NiteOwl didn’t just decide on a whim to dress up like an owl and fight crime - these ‘costumed heroes’ were still trained in martial arts, backed by money and/or a family history of fighting - they didn’t just wander outside in a customized ski-suit costume looking for criminals to fight.

This is where Mark Millar’s comic book Kick-Ass comes in; in it three average high-school nerds, comic book fans naturally, discuss over lunch just why has no-one ever donned a costume and went out to fight crime – surely in all of us exists the desire to be a superhero? Dave Lieweski (played by Aaron Johnson), who feels like an isolated nobody reduced to jerking off to his English teacher’s bountiful bosom, sees such an idea as a chance to escape his life, perhaps even himself - and one evening dons a home-made costume and heads out to fight crime, chancing upon 3 hoodlums who, unfortunately for Lieweski, give him a brutal kicking and knifing before leaving him to stagger into the path of an oncoming car.

What Dave, who adopts the pseudonym Kick-Ass for his super-alter-ego, doesn’t realise is that as his fame spreads via mobile footage uploaded to youtube of his second, more successful outing, this will bring him to the attention of Mark Strong’s crimelord Frank D’Amico, who blames him for the losses he suffers in both personnel and product, and also to two seemingly real superheroes (who are actually the ones proving such a thorn in D’Amico’s side), in Hit Girl and Big Daddy. Hit Girl, played by Chloe Moretz in a film-stealing performance, makes her entrance into the movie by plunging a sword into the chest of a drug-runner, whilst wearing a purple wig and brandishing a sword-come-spear and a butterfly knife, uttering the soon to be immortal line “right you c***s, let’s see what you’ve got” before running up the walls and despatching all and sundry in a flurry of slashing, shooting,  somersaulting, slicing and severing, all set to the frenetic tones of the Banana Bunch theme tune. Nick Cage  channels Adam West for his portrayal of Big Daddy, Hit Girl’s loving Father, who schools his daughter in all the things a young girl needs to know – like how to take a bullet and the history of light armaments.

The film deviates through necessity from the comic book around the end of act 1, yet still reaches a dénouement which mostly ties-in with Millar’s ending. I won’t go into any spoilers here of the differences, but the screenplay by Vaughn and co-writer Jane Goldman (Stardust) whilst taking a different path and changing some points, still hits the same beats as Millar’s story – this luxury, this room for a creative, and quite possibly co-operative adaptation (one assumes Millar had some input) was one which was not afforded to Snyder as he strived to preserve the integrity of his Watchmen adaptation. This gives the film room to breathe and it feels more rounded as a result, with more scenes and moments at which the audience can relate to the characters and be drawn in; by comparison, Snyder’s otherwise excellent Watchmen had a stark sterility that kept the viewer strictly as an observer.

Vaughn has directed, and self-financed, (Hollywood were reticent to back a film featuring a pre-pubescent female superhero) a giddy, anarchic, blackly-comic, modern superhero movie, using his excellent technical flair and eye for visuals. Whilst I am not sure that Millar’s Kick-Ass, as enjoyable a comic-book as it is, will be the game changer comic book that Moore’s Watchmen was, it will be interesting to see what tone future superhero movies take – anyone who watches Kick-Ass can’t help wonder if there is still room for po-faced credibility-striving adaptations of Marvel and DC’s canon of lesser heroes in the same universe that the irreverent Kick-Ass inhabits.