Brokeback Mountain

Yes I watched it.

And oddly enough it hasn't made me gay.

It did make me bored however.

Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal play two wholly unlikeable characters who become ranch hands up a mountain and then decide to get their gay on. Probably out of boredom.

If it weren't for all the scenes of Jake Giuliani going up and down Heath Ledger's mountain then this would very much be a Made For TV movie, what with the paper thin plot, grating soundtrack, and uninteresting camera work.

Let me sum up the motivations of each character for you:

Heath Ledger plays a self obsessed prick who is broke, gets a job as a ranch hand, shags a bloke to give him something to do (seriously, they go from 'God I'm bored' to 'Hey want to try something?' without any real 'whats your sign?' getting to know one another moments), then Heath gets married, neglects his wife and kid, and keeps running out for man love.

Jake Jellybelly plays a guy who basically wants to have his cock and eat it. He signs on as a ranch hand, shows his bum to Heath Ledger and Heath falls or something, then he goes out gets married to a well-to-do lady because he likes the idea of having money, and keeps running out for man love.

Tensions run high because Jake TootiFrooty is secretly cheating on Heath, and Heath suspects that someone else has been dipping his sausage in the brown sauce. It's really dragged out yet the only things that happen are that Heath continues to neglect his wife and Jake Jamjar continues to be a douche.

At last finally Jake Juxtaposition gets beaten to death by intolerant cowboys who don't like them hoe-moe-sexuals gaying up their rodeos, or something along those lines. I was thrilled because with the death of one of the major characters this late on meant only one thing, this movie was nearly over.

And still it was dragged out.

And then it ended.

I'm told that Brokeback Mountain isn't a 'gay' movie, but a movie about gays for straight people. Frankly I wouldn't recommend it for either, it's just dull.

Rating: E

Gamer

Not completely retarded, plus Dexter was quite fun in it.

Also, Peter Petrelli playing a character called Rick Rape just seemed so right.

The 'game' world somehow has this indescribable feel of a game world, and the movement of the characters under gamer control is an accurate representation of in-game avatars.

Chris 'Ludacris' Bridges makes his second appearance in something involving a game, and not only does it make sense this time but you actually don't feel like he is just the token black guy. I mean he is, but it doesn't feel like it. Nah I'm kidding, one of the main antagonists is this really angry psycho dude who happens to be more black than Ludacris, and for the purposes of this movie, more badass.

I can't insult the acting... I would like to but at the end of the day I enjoyed the performances delivered.

Instead I'll insult the premise of the movie.

Once upon a time, roughly two years ago, it was leaked that James Cameron was working on a movie that involved humans taking control of the bodies of mindless drones breed for such a purpose. Somebody else in Hollywoodland said "Hey, that's a good idea, there are probably a few ways we can cash in on that. I wonder what it's like to have an original idea? Ah well, time for more cocaine."

So a quick fix action movie starring zero big names slips out just in time to beat Avatar to the box office.

Apart from that it's dead on. There's the usual Bill Gates bashing that you expect from every pseudo-real world computer movie because everyone on the planet wishes that they could make the kind of money Bill Gates made out of Microsoft (and anyone who claims otherwise is nothing but a liar) but probably never will because there are only a limited number of generation defining inventions that can exist at one time.

Did I say Dexter was fun? Because he really was.

Gerard Butler wasn't bad either... at least he didn't have a guitar this time.

One thing that did give it a hairline fracture compared to real world gaming, at no point did any of the main characters pause over a corpse and repeatedly crouch over them...

Rating: C

(Seriously, the guy controlling Gerard Butler is supposed to be 17, I don't believe for a second that he never tried to tea-bag any of his victims)

Taking of Pelham 123 (The)

Crappy camera work, lots of zooming and fast moving to really show how unoriginal the director is (I'm so uninspired by this POS that I couldn't be arsed to look him up), and lots of sudden pauses to show the time.

Denzel does his best but is let down by the fact that his character is the only person in the entire movie who gets any kind of character development.

And why did John Travolta say 'motherfucker' so often?

I'll write more later, coffee time.

Rating: E

Avatar

I heard it said shortly after the world premier that the critics were calling this James Cameron's STAR WARS, and by fuck they were right. They've merchandised the shit out of this movie before the first reels even cooled.

"Get yourself a Casio Watch because the guy in Avatar doesn't wear one because it's all holograms and shit in the future but you can bet your ass if he wore a watch it would be this one."

Then there's the toys, comics, clothing, badges, posters, toilet roll, kitchen sink, vibrator, Na'vi blow-up doll and CD soundtrack. Not to mention a game that sounded so generic that I actually yawned reading the back of the box before setting it down and biding my time for the glorified text adventure that is Mass Effect 2.

The forums and blogs are alive with the mediocrity that is fanfiction, and Avatar has not been spared this blight.

Yep, just like Star Wars.

That being said the movie is actually good.

The world of Pandora is absolutely beautiful, even the things that want to kill and maim the hero have a bizarre beauty to them. It's not so beautiful that I want to kill myself because I can't go there unlike some net-nerds to have professed this (I wish I was fucking kidding).

It's your typical story of an advanced race walking in and stomping all over the tree-hugging locals and stealing their resources. If you are having trouble getting to grips with the story try swapping out the name "human" with "America" and "Na'vi" with "oil rich nation". Or "human" with "Western Europe" and "Na'vi" with "Africa circa 1800". You get the idea.

Humans are portrayed as the bad guys of the story, which is an easy sell because there is no one human beings hate more than other humans. Of course not all are bad and this gets us our main protagonists otherwise we'd lose interest 10 minutes in because no one could empathize with a big, blue, naked, CGI guy.

The opening scenes with the humans and the arrival on Pandora made me happy because it was very beautifully realized and I thought 'this is just how a Planetside movie would have looked'... which is slightly sad on my part.

James Cameron's style is very evident in the design of the craft and technologies and I had a chuckle to myself when I realized how close the design of the big green flying death platform resembled a UD-4L dropship (that's from his other Star Wars, Aliens). And I liked it.

I'm glad that after getting Sigourney Weaver for the movie James Cameron chose not to reuse any of his usual stalwarts for the cast for fear that people would think it was another Aliens. As much as I like Michael Biehn and Bill Paxton I do feel the essence of familiarity would have harmed Avatar somewhat, and Sam Worthington did pretty good in the end.

The score is beautiful and deep, and when the action happens the whole thing meshes together wonderfully. There are certain scenes that will really move the emotions, from one of 'wow, that is awesome', to another of 'oh wow, I hate my species right now'.

You get slapped in the face with how the movie is going to end about maybe 30 minutes before it does and I did not appreciate that because it really took the edge off some of the action.

Overall though I'm going to be very favorable to Avatar because 1) it is a good movie; and 2) I want James Cameron to direct a script I'm writing (it could happen). Mostly it's option 1 though.

It's easy to see how Avatar not only grossed over $1 Billion at the Box Office but did so in a world record of 17 days.

Rating: A

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

TOE NEE TODD!! TOE NEE TODD!!!

There, that's the good stuff out of the way.

I think that I'm going to write the script for the next Transformers movie in the hope that something can be salvaged from this dirge of mediocrity. I'm going to send that script to Michael Bay sealed with hearts and kisses, and then I am going to cry when I see Unicron appear as a billowing cloud of death who is preceded by some Decepticon herald, who probably rides a flying surf board and is voiced by Laurence Fishburne.

Lets pick apart the plot, shall we.

The Autobots have joined forces with a top secret human organization in order to- hang on, lets back up a minute so I can explain that...

This is a top secret organization ran at the highest levels of (US) government in conjunction with the Autobots who have to maintain their secrecy in order to avoid panicking the populace with the knowledge that alien robots are living amongst them. Of course this will inevitably lead to all the conspiracy theories about government cover-ups including the painfully annoying "l33t" hacker support character who is convinced that the government is hiding something....

Apparently no one in Los Angeles happened to notice the giant death machines brawling in the streets and generally ripping the city to shreds in the first movie (although this does follow on from the somewhat unbelievable 'cover-up' skit during the end credits of the first God-awful movie).

So, back to the Autobots and this secret organization. Basically they are traveling the world and destroying any Decepticons that they come across, note that I said 'destroying' and not 'capturing'. I find it odd that the good guys would be so actively involved in ethnic cleansing.

Spike (Sam) meanwhile has continued to act as one of the most grating characters ever conceived and has now decided that he doesn't want to hang out with Bumblebee anymore because... Bumblebee is retarded or something, it's wasn't made very clear but it didn't shine a favorable on everyone's favourite Volks Wagon... sorry, product placement, product placement, everyone's favourite Ford Mustang GT500 Buy Today.

The sole purpose for Megan Fox being in RotF is to give the nerds like me something to ogle because we're never liable to actually get close to a real woman and it's nice to see tits every once in a while, luscious, perfectly formed, sumptuous...

Sorry, lost my train of thought there.

Megan plays the role of the stereotypical female support character of any 80's action flick, she just wants to be loved by the hero, even if he is Shia LeBouf and his nose, and contributes nothing else to the movie other than her aforementioned cleavage. Which is a shame because she was one of the more interesting characters from the first movie.

I'd love to say something more about the Transformers themselves, but much like the first movie they are largely background scenery and most remain unnamed. And why not, it's not like it's supposed to be a movie about the Transformers or anything. Devastator (yes he was a tank and died in the first movie but shut up, he had a brother or something) had all the potential to be awesome, from the moment I saw the dump truck and the digger I knew something good was about to happen... how he became a walking mouth I'm not quite sure but I suspect that a more appropriate nomenclature would have been 'Dyson'.

John Turturro makes his contractual reappearance as the nutty secret agent who for some reason now runs an internet site giving out details of all the alien involvement on Earth from files stolen before he left Sector 7, and then he rejoins S7 when Spike turns up and everyone accepts him as an agent no questions asked. Glad that all worked out for him. Of course he teams up with the annoying "l33t" hacker guy who always knew that something was going on and now he wants to be a part of it but is going to act a total pussy any time that something happens because he is the other comic relief or something.

Basically you can tell that the action sequences with the robots where all shot before an actual script was drafted. That isn't a lie. They filmed the action then wrote the script around it, hence the lurching plot, hashed dialogue, and many, many fight sequences. Guess that they wanted to squeeze more money out of the Optimus Prime model after they realized that it cost $35,000 every second he was on screen in the first movie.

And Spike conveniently has a second and unknown surviving shard of 'THE CUBE' and it has allowed him to see ancient Cybertronian symbols... and why not.

I guess it's about time I got to the summary because the patience of the average internet user is usually somewhat shorter than the average gnat's willy. Transformers RotF is watchable but frankly there are better ways to waste 2 hours, like having your genitalia pummeled by a middle aged woman named Mistress Pain.

I actually preferred that other pile of nonsense Terminator Salvation, at least it's plot tried.

Rating: D

Terminator Salvation

10 minutes into T4 I found myself pondering a very important question: exactly why do robots need a dirty and wet sewer under a computer core?

Methinks that perhaps the set designers felt that sewers were an underused cinematic feature lately monopolized by the video games industry.

Terminator Salvation is a dumb action movie that is crippled by the flaw of a ropey script and music by Danny Elfman, but I'll insult him later.

I can understand completely that in the post-apocalyptic future people are going to be a bit cynical, especially when there are wandering death machines everywhere, but some people act like complete douchebags for no reason whatsoever, including the mighty John Conner (praise be to him). Strangely, for all the cynicism portrayed it seems that the people of Earth are quite ready to accept John Conner as the next Jesus if the opening text scrawl is anything to be believed. Well, almost everyone. The military commanders of course don't like his foreknowledge, and since Michael Ironside says that John Conner needs to learn his place it must be so because he is Michael Fucking Ironside.

I was disappointed that we weren't treated to the original infiltrator units, the ones with the rubber skin, instead jumping from skeletal anthropomorphic personifications of death to Arnold Schwarzenegger's penis. Except depressingly T4 is a '12' rating and therefore contains no real gore, no real swearing, and no real penis.

For some unknown reason the robots never really leave the cities, and I can't for the life of me figure out why since they don't need supplies and they are powered by nuclear fuel cells. It's not like the harsh wilderness poses any kind of threat to a thing with no concept of death, and is in fact designed to kill until either there is nothing left to kill or it is killed itself. Indeed even the smaller Terminators have no fear about shooting off their own feet if it allows them to continue the murder.

Yes, there are plenty of desert fights, but "what are they doing out here? They never venture this far." Apparently Kyle Reese's big monologue in the first Terminator, "It can't be bargained with, it can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pain, it doesn't feel pity or fear, and it will not stop ever until you are dead." doesn't apply if you are outside the city limits.

One moment I did like was when Reese and Marcus pull up outside the same gas station/7 Eleven that Sarah had her picture taken outside away back in 1984, it was a nice touch. Then Christian Bale said "I'll be back," and I groaned, and then he played 'You Could Be Mine' on a stereo to attract one of the bike terminators, and I groaned. And both moments happened in quick succession. So, so cheesy and out of place.

I hate what Danny Elfman has done to the Terminator theme, but then the last time that he wrote an iconic theme was the opening intro to The Simpsons.

So, having said all that, Terminator Salvation is actually pretty decent as an action movie, most of what I have said can be forgiven so long as you don't read too much into the Terminator franchise. If you want to watch something get blown up then there is worse that you can do, but I wouldn't blame you if afterwards you took out the disk and used it to scrape up your dog's poo.

Rating: C

Far Cry

Hey look, it almost worked.

The above statement could be used to describe the gist of:-

A) Dr Krieger's twisted supersoldier experiments, or say it like it is, Übermensch (we know what you're at Uwe, you mad German). The soldiers almost worked except for being insane apart from the one guy who conveniently had love in his heart or some nonsense and so had a vague sense of being a plot device.

B) The tropical island... oh wait.

C) The mood. Far Cry almost has a sense of threat, except for the fact that at no point do any of the characters/victims have enough depth or development time for you to feel any kind of concern or sympathy whatsoever. There aren't even enough comical deaths to give any sense of morbid amusement.

D) The romance subplot. It almost worked, because Jack Carver is horny, and then he gets some. There might be a few lines of dialogue still lying on the cutting room floor that actually explain how Jack got from A to Vagina, but they mustn't have been very good to warrant exclusion from this masterpiece.

E) Michael Paré. He almost worked, well he got a wage for it anyway. It's been a long time since The Philadelphia Experiment.

F) The Script. The script almost worked, except that it was bad. But it was bad in that classic kind of way, as in if this shit had a lower budget the filmmakers would have been forced to use all kinds of fancy camera tricks and simple drum and cello music then it might have been really atmospheric and brooding. Too bad really.

So, Far Cry then.

It's shit.

Rating: U

Bottle Shock

This is a movie about wine.

And long story short, it's about the Americans proclaiming that they are better than the French... because they inherited that particular trait from their English ancestors.

It's also a very good movie... and not just because the new Captain Kirk is the lead or that I would like to do nasty things to Rachel Taylor.

Alan Rickman delivers an 'as expected' performance, balanced against a 'very American' performance by the other most prominent leads (I don't mean that as derogatory but more stereotypical, grass roots hicks, that sort of thing). But it works, though Bill Pullman hasn't aged well... or maybe I just can't get Spaceballs out of my head.

Bottle Shock is humorous, sharp, is laced with real emotion, and is an enjoyable movie to watch. It's hard to find anything worth stating that would detract from this movie.

If you want to watch a decent movie with your girlfriend, or a few mates who don't fancy another 40 heads exploding from spray and pray gunfire, then Bottle Shock will go down well.

I recommend a nice Pinot Noir or Sauvignon Blanc to go along with it.

Rating: A

Amadeus

Wow.

Really.

Sublime, subtle, powerful. A pure joy to watch from start to finish, from the impish yet self possessed and obsessive Mozart portrayed by Tom Hulce to the covetous Salieri played by F Murray Abraham.

This movie beautifully charts the unnatural ability of the cocksure Mozart as he struggles to survive against the intrigues of Salieri, a man driven mad by his lifelong desire to be everything that the vulgar Mozart seems to have swaggered into.

Whilst technically true that this story is not historically accurate (the devout Salieri marrying in 1774 and fathering 8 children in real life) history only ever records fragments of any story, and since to this day no one knows where Mozart is actually buried I think it is safe to allow a bit of artistic interpretation.

The DVD Directors Cut may seem a tad long for some, but believe me it is worth watching.

Rating: S (And I don't do that often)

Wasted Youth Movies Special Feature

Here at Wasted Youth Movies we always try to do our part to bring the cinema closer to the hearts and souls of moviegoers everywhere, with honest, no holds barred reviews and occassional nonsense.

We are proud to present for you here our first celebrity acting lesson. We're teaming up with the legends of modern cinema in order to bring to you, the fans, an indepth and concise guide to broadening your range and abilities, to learn from the very icons who bring us with them on the cinematic journey.

And I have to tell you now, what a way to start.

We have for our first lesson a true exemplar of cinematic history, a man renowned for his depth and ability, a man not afraid to push the very boundries of modern cinema.

He has played an astronaut lost and alone, he has played a cop on the verge of meltdown, he's been a man coming to terms with the murder of his mother, and a soldier captured in Iraq. He brought intensity to a gunman on the run and gave a powerful performance as a fisherman caught in a storm.

And his brother is in New Kids On The Block.

Ladies and Gentlemen, from Wasted Youth Movies...

THE MARK WAHLBERG EMOTIONAL RANGE

JOY


ECSTASY


RELIEF


SHOCK


AWE


ANGER


RAGE


LUST


AROUSAL


'O' FACE


BOREDOM


SUSPICION


EXCITEMENT


THOUGHTFULNESS


MISCHIEVOUSNESS


BROODING


BROODING INTENSELY


MELANCHOLY

Gone Baby Gone

Whilst I am loathe to admit that anything involving Ben Affleck could possibly be good I have to admit that his directorial debut is actually... good.

Casey Affleck is still a better actor than Ben though.

So the story revolves around child abduction and why it is bad, with an added sprinkling of child abuse just to make sure that we fully understand the whole emotional aspect of the story.

I'm being flippant, the movie actually is really good and almost feels like one of those gorgeous film noirs I hold so close to my heart.

The story is sound, the direction works well, the score is haunting and appropriate, most of all the acting is superb.

Casey Affleck is wonderfully understated, Michelle Monaghan is fairly superfluous but carries her character with a believable intensity, and Morgan Freeman as ever plays the knowledgeable black guy. The real star to shine in this movie is Ed Harris, he is a good actor but by God is he good here.

This is one of those movies that deserve to be seen without the taint of pre-warned plot points, so I'm not going to say anything (yes I do play that card a lot, but if I'm ever wrong then you can feel free to call me on it, or just do us both a favour and get over it).

This is going to be the first movie that I've given an 'A' rating to in a while, largely because most of Hollywood seems to care more about effects or romance driven movies rather than a compelling story, and also because I think that Casey Affleck deserves it.

Maybe Mark Wahlberg should hang out with Casey sometime and pick up a few pointers...

Rating: A

Quantum Of Solace

I struggled as to how best review this movie.

On one hand it is a pretty decent action movie that opens with a car chase quite possibly designed to be used as some form of bizarre foreplay.

On the other hand it is now the third in a series of movies starring James Bond but not actually being a Bond movie, kind of like Never Say Never Again.

All my gripes about this latest Bond offering are best summed up in the cartoon below...



You can plainly see where the film makers have taken their inspiration from.

It also feels very much like a middle film, lacking anything remotely like a satisfying ending. The acting is good, the story is largely solid and it is a well put together movie.

Overall I'd say that you will enjoy most of Quantum of Solace, just don't expect to have your world rocked.

Rating: B

Max Payne

An insipid and poorly written action movie trading on the popularity of a video game franchise.

God I would love to see that quoted on the DVD sleeve.

I'll clear this up right away so everyone knows where we stand. Max Payne 2 is one of my top 5 best games ever. But I'm not here to review the games, I'll leave that to people with better taste in hats than I, I'm here to review the movie.

It opens well, a nice film noir sort of feel, and uses a couple of nice effects that really help to set the tone. Then it quickly abandons these in favour of randomly changing between rain and snow. I'm not kidding, watch for it, on one occasion in particular we swap from a miserable downpour to snow piled high in the space of about 5 minutes movie world time (about 4 seconds real time). The schizophrenic weather conditions are truly laughable, more so when you notice that there's never any slush, just puddles or pristine white snow depending on the producer's mood.

I won't touch on how the movie has butchered the story of the first game because then you could call me on the bias issue, instead I will judge the story on it's own merits. Max Payne suffers from the rare condition known as Mansion Scene Syndrome, whereby a movie tries to cram too much plot into too short a time (named for the Da Vinci Code) except in this case they've tried to fit an entire game into an hour and 40 minutes.

When I say that they tried to fit the game into 100 minutes, I mean a very distilled version of the game that quite frankly left the whole experience confusing and unfulfilling like a sandwich made of ejaculate between two slices of damp bread.

At no point can you understand any of the characters' motivations, Mona Sax seems largely unfazed by the murder of her sister which is probably a good thing as Mona is almost completely superfluous to the plot. Bravura becomes convinced Max is a good guy and not a cop killer because of... well, gut instinct or something. Payne you are told constantly is an emotional wreck with a death wish but determined to first bring his family's killers to justice, and you can't help but feel that this is the movie makers trying to cover for the fact that Mark Wahlberg is a bad actor.

Plus at times you will suspect that Chris 'Ludacris' Bridges was very much aware of the fact that they changed Bravura from a white guy to make sure that they had a black guy in a prominent supporting role. Why does Hollywood still feel the need to throw in a token black guy? There are plenty of good black actors out there making good movies, why change an existing character just so you can parade him around on screen going "Hey, we're ok, we got one, look."?

I'm not quite sure what the point was with Rothaford Gray's scene in the opening, except to say that Max is an emotional wreck with a death wish but determined to first bring his family's killers to justice. The characters are ALL FUCKING TWO DIMENSIONAL and you couldn't care for any of them, not even Max.

The plot stumbles forward drunkenly before tripping over it's own feet and falling flat on it's face just in time for the big gunfight finale. Speaking of which, for the series defined by Bullet Time the movie thankfully keeps it to a scant few (and well executed) scenes, sadly these are also the only real action scenes in the movie.

I should say that the whole scene when Max takes the Valkyr and starts tripping is AWESOME, it is really well done. The effects of the Valkyr are well portrayed but I can't help but wonder why anyone would take a drug that incapacitates you with mortal fear. Though why do all the 'V' slogans sprayed over the walls still show a syringe (other than trying to copy the game) when the movie makers decided that Valkyr should be a tasty beverage so that they could get a lower rating from the MPAA?

My final point, why the fuck would you try to get a low rating on a movie that is based on a gritty and gruesome series? The games aren't meant for children, so why would you try to make the movie so?

And the musical score is crap.

I really, really wanted Max Payne to be good. I wanted a gritty film noir that captured the essence of the game, what I got was watery dross and a desire to seek a refund.

Rating: D

Postal

An utterly pointless movie punctuated by some genuinely hilarious comedy. Forget the whole "tasteless" nametag that has been applied to this movie (largely by the creators), this has been added by the film makers to increase the movie's hype since it pokes fun at Arabs.

The whole 9/11 scene at the start was supposed to grab everyone's attention and think that this movie pushed the boundaries, it doesn't. The scene is designed solely to outrage an American public who are still reeling from one of their few moments of true homeland terrorism.

Most of the movie is entirely forgettable, even though a midget gets raped by a thousand monkeys and about 30 children get killed in a shoot-out at Germanyland (or whatever it was called).

I did appreciate when Uwe Boll poked fun at himself during the Germanyland scene, that was one of the genuinely hilarious scenes. Anyone remotely familiar with gaming and the internet knows that there are many theories about Uwe Boll, like how he must use Nazi gold to finance his movies because no one in their right mind would pay to make such flops, or how he must hate video games because he butchers the plots. In Postal he admits to using Nazi gold (and even pays a performer with gold teeth) and after getting shot in the balls admits that he hates video games, and for a couple of minutes, God help me, I actually liked Uwe Boll.

But that quickly passed because, as I said earlier, Postal is largely forgettable. I can feel the entire movie draining from my mind as I type this, I'm fairly certain that there was an angry cult as well as Arab terrorists.

You can pass a couple of hours watching Zack Ward try desperately to forward his career or you can go watch something decent.

Ugh, Erick Avari, you should have known better. I actually respected you.

Uwe, content. Content! Content! Content! People recognize that you can be a good writer, hell with a doctorate in literature you could be a great writer, but you keep going for cheap half baked shite and running with it because you want to get the film out. My only other advice is stop butchering video games, it's an experience that can't be recreated on the big screen, and if you alter the story you will only end up pissing off your fans (aka, your audience).

Rating: U (but a step in the right direction, it wasn't all horrible)

Iron Man

Superhero movies and I have something of a gentleman's agreement in place. They don't bother me and in turn I don't point out how they are nothing but a pathetic cash in on the popularity of an established franchise (with the obvious exception of the latest Batman movies).

Whether it be Bryan Singer deciding that Superman should lift islands of kryponite to save the world or Blade suddenly having to face off against Dracula, or the Fantastic Four having to face off against a giant cloud of death in an effort to disguise how shite the movie is. Superhero movies always seem to follow a pattern of "we need something really big to show how great these guys are". A superhero is only as great as his spectacle.

Fuck that shit.

Superheroes should be allowed to face the same problems as the rest of us. For example, Blade struggles to pay for the seemingly infinite amount of silver that he has available because of the credit crunch. Bruce Banner can't become the Incredible Hulk because he is depressed and has had to go on Prozac. Superman can't save the world because he is left looking after Bryan Singer's bastard child whilst Lois goes to knock out a living at the Daily Planet.

Then we come to Iron Man.

How do you rate a superhero when his alter ego, Tony Stark, is the kind of guy who relishes in the hero thing and openly admits to his identity. You can't apply the same laws of normality to such a character as normal for him is attracting the ire of every would-be Dr Doom out there.

I went into Iron Man (seen in the States before all you fuckers back home) with incredibly low expectations (you really have no idea, I watched the trailers for Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk one after the other and said, "Hmm, I see a strikingly unimaginative pattern here".).

I was drawn in as soon as I heard the first riff of "Back In Black" and it all got better from there. The dialogue is sharp, the humour is black as my Doc Martens, and the acting is flawless.

Robert Downey Jr (as I'm sure you've heard by now since I've left it to the DVD release to review this) is superbly suited to the arrogant, self-assured, egotistical Tony Stark. Gwyneth Paltrow is frankly divine as the sagacious Pepper Potts and Jeff Bridges makes an excellent ally turned villain (I hope I didn't spoil that obvious plot point for anyone).

Yeah, it may have been a plot point that you could see coming from roughly the same distance as you can see the sun in the morning but you do appreciate it because the story is fell executed. As I've said before, a well executed tale can even make the most cliched story seem good (watch 3:10 To Yuma if you don't believe me).

The effects are good and the soundtrack is top notch. Frankly if you don't enjoy Iron Man then you are strange and different. All your friends think that Iron Man is great.

Rating: A

Tropic Thunder

Lets get one thing out in the open right now, I don't like Ben Stiller. He's probably a real cool guy and so sweet that when he comes he shoots strawberry milkshake, but every time that I see him I just think that he is one smug bastard short of an Olympic event for smug bastards. I have yet to ever like a character that he has played and I really doubt that I ever will, so Tropic Thunder immediately lost points here.

Now, lets talk about my cinema experience for the evening. Got my ticket, got my coke and wee small tub of Pringles for people who accept that they are a fat bastard but don't want to do anything about it, got to the screen. I was the only one there.

FUCKING SCORE!

It could only have been better if the brunette usher girl gave me a lap dance during the end credits.

Things started off well with a spoof ad for Booty Sweat by the 'real' black man of the group Alpa Chino, followed by three spoof trailers that I have to admit were brilliant send ups of their respective genres.

So lets get into 'the shit' as they say in 'Nam.

The story is complete and utter balls. Really.

But that's ok because in reality this is a character driven movie and I have to admit that the characterizations were superb from start to finish.

Jack Black is fabulous as the funny man of the group who is very much aware of the source of his humour and covers his pain through liberal doses of angst and heroin. The show however is stolen by Robert Downey Jr, the blonde Australian who has had pigmentation surgery in order to play the black sergeant, and who takes his role just a little bit too seriously.

The effects are beautifully over the top, especially in the opening minutes where at one point the explosions filled so much of the screen that I actually felt my penis twitch.

The dialogue is witty and sharp, with one especially memorable occasion when Downey's 5 times Academy Award winning actor character is giving Stiller's washed up action hero actor character a few tips, like how he should never have went full retard in the fictional 'Simple Jack'.

Now whilst I said Robert Downey Jr steals the show, I have to tell you that the best character is the boss Les Grossman. I heard him speak and said 'he sounds like Tom Cruise', he smiled and I said 'he smiles like Tom Cruise'. Then during the end credits I saw that it was fucking Tom Cruise, didn't recognize him at all, and it was awesome. I laugh just thinking about the character because he is just the most phenomenal bastard on all levels.

Anyway, you've probably gathered by now my opinion on Tropic Thunder, so I'm going to go away now.

Rating: B

You Don't Mess With The Zohan

You Don't Mess With The Zohan (henceforth simply 'Zohan' or 'YDMWTZ) as I really couldn't be arsed writing that every time) has been getting mixed reviews, and I'm really trying not to be swayed one way or another. I like to think that I am honest in what I say to you and that if you were actually foolish enough to take my word for something then I would have to stand by it.

So here's my honest review of Zohan...

I loved it.

Most modern comedies seem to need a seen with either semen, vomit, or some other bodily excretion in order to provide you with humour and it is nice to see a comedy that shoots for the plain ludicrous.

Adam Sandler's movies can be very hit and miss but there has always been an undertone of genuine comedic genius to his work and it is nice to see a movie that largely lived up to his potential.

Zohan brings humour to a situation that has defied solution for centuries and really does try to lighten things up, and really, if people had a better sense of humour then most of the world wouldn't be in the trouble it is in. Yes, feel free to attack me for that seemingly flippant remark "Yes thousands are dying in ethnic cleansing but we should all just sit back and have a giggle". I don't mean it like that and you should be ashamed of yourself for not giving me more credit. What I meant was that if people had a better sense of humour and a bit more understanding then most of the silly tit for tat problems in the world would never escalate to anything larger.

Anyway, Zohan is a lighthearted comedy with big laughs (though if I'm being honest you could only ever watch it once or twice) that can perfectly pass a quiet evening.

Emmanuelle Chriqui (pronounced 'Shreeky') is amusing as Zohan's Palestinian employer who does not realize that Zohan is in fact Israel's top Mossad agent (and like any balanced individual does not care about the conflict and just wishes people could try to forgive and move on).

I don't want this review to sound like a political statement so I'll balance it all out by saying that if you are really the maladjusted niggler awaiting the slightest opportunity to be offended then you are really going to be offended when I tell you that you may as well spam my inbox with hate mail now or come to my house and wee through the letterbox you brain-dead fucking retard.

Zohan will amuse you, it's a comedy, it's not going to redefine the genre but it certainly won't bore you.

Rating: B

Get Smart

Every few years, mostly between Bond movies, some bright spark sitting in a Hollywood studio comes up with a really good idea for a movie. It will be a poignant tale with action, romance, just the right amount of tension and a story that will feel complete and maybe leaving you thinking about it long after you have left the cinema.

Then the script will get shit-canned because the studio can't afford to make it having blown the last of it's budget on this year's hey-guys-I'm-a-spy-lol Bond spoof.

Now it is the turn of comedian de-jour Steve Carell to take the reins, this time in a remake of 1965 spy comedy series 'Get Smart'. Yes, it's a remake of an old TV series, how's about that.

I could be hard on Get Smart... actually being honest, I can't.

You might say that I am going to give a favorable review solely because I have a thing for the delectable Anne Hathaway, but that is not the reason. That is not the only reason.

Get Smart is, brace yourselves, genuinely funny. The script is witty, the set pieces are superb, the plot is actually good (though the big plot twist you can see coming from roughly 22 minutes into the film), and the performances are well played.

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson once again delivers a brilliant performance (see everyone, I told you that he wouldn't be another Hulk Hogan) and at times had me in stitches, but without a doubt the man who ended up with all the best lines was Alan Arkin.

Now earlier I referred to 'this years Bond spoof', and that was being unfair on my part. Get Smart is not a spoof, it is a parody of Bond in much the same way that Galaxy Quest was a parody of Star Trek.

Max Smart is potentially the greatest secret agent within CONTROL but time and time again something goes wrong during the actual execution of his plans, and this is the source of our comedy on his part. In fairness to Carell he plays the role very well and you could see a genuine screen chemistry between himself and Anne Hathaway.

I can't avoid mentioning how great Anne Hathaway actually is in her role as the distrustful and slightly emotionally damaged Agent 99, who is very good at her job and can't stand to be sent out with the rookie Smart but begrudgingly gains a certain respect for the man and his tenacity.

And finally I will say that when Max Smart figures out how to overcome his adversary in the end I laughed so hard that I had to check afterward to make sure that a little pee hadn't leaked out.

Rating: B

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army

Uugh. I haven't been looking forward to this review, I've been putting it off and putting it off in the hope that I might get Alzheimer's or something. Sadly I'm more or less still all here so lets put on our wellies and go wading in shit.

Hellboy 2, a movie with a relatively cool bad guy and not a lot else going for it. I should have known that something was wrong when David Hyde Pierce didn't return to provide the voice of Abe Sapien (don't bother watching the movie for it, he's uncredited), I know that he can't have made that much money working on Frasier that he no longer needs the work, so I can only assume that he has standards.

The biggest threat to Hellboy in this film is an Elemental (that's a God of one of the cardinal elements for those of you who don't follow fantasy or play that financial black hole World of Warcraft), in this case it is an Elemental of Nature. A Tree God who has the rather glaring weakness of having a giant hole in his head like the Nihilinth, and much like that Half Life über-beastie firing a weapon into this hole tends to cause extreme anger followed by death.

So the general gist of the movie is that Hellboy is running around all full of angst about being hidden from humans whilst this halfway cool bad guy is trying to raise an army of paranormal beings to crush mankind. The usual fare, but this time done by elves instead of Nazi's, Mummies or Jet-Li.

You can imagine exactly where this is going and there really is no point in me trying to repeat this tripe to you, it's an old story that has been done many times before and almost never done well. Of course his angst eventually gets the better of him and he manages to get himself exposed in dramatic fashion to all of the world, and typically the humans don't particularly like him.

What I will say is that it is a very sumptuous looking film, Guillermo del Toro has a unique visual style that lends itself very well to the pseudo-paranormal realm of the Hellboy universe.

I don't like ragging on Hellboy because I like Ron Perlman, he is a good actor and most of his parts are generally unique and recognizable characters, but this movie frankly is beneath his ability.

From start to finish Hellboy 2: The Golden Army feels like it is just filling time until Hellboy 3: The Cash-in, it's a pointless movie. Completely and utterly pointless.

Rating: E

(Note how I managed to avoid mentioning Northern Ireland?)

Babylon AD

Babylon AD is an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a very shallow script.

The movie has a good story that is mired only by the aforementioned shallow script which appears to have the sole purpose of propelling Vin Diesel from one bombastic stunt sequence to the next.

You can see some genuine genius in places, most of which has been carried from the novel, and some fantastic set pieces such as the train passing through a radiation zone that appears to be a former industrial complex that had suffered a nuclear attack (with the train bridge passing over the crater).

But for all the potential the film keeps coming back to the same idea of trying to be a darker xXx. When you aren't watching a fight sequence it feels like you are just killing time until the next fight sequence.

And honestly, does every bloody action film made these days have to have a free-running sequence in it? Yes District 13 looked good, and it was done very well in Casino Royale, but we get the point. I suppose it shouldn't shock me really, free-running is after all the new 'bullet time', and unsurprisingly Babylon AD had to squeeze plenty of that slow motion nonsense in too.

Vin Diesel's acting isn't terrible, but if it were any more wooden he would be Keanu Reeves.

There is however one rather amusing moment involving a nuclear missile.

Overall I'd say that if you wanted to watch an action movie with a genuine story then you could do worse than Babylon AD, just don't try to convince anyone that the dialogue is good. Oh, and the ending is very forced.

Rating: C