The Dark Knight (2008)

Including the 1966 Adam West starring movie there has now been seven live action Batman movies brought to the big screen. Despite Batman Begins being very good and even Tim Burton's 1989 Batman being pretty solid entertaining summer blockbuster, it is now with The Dark Knight that we have been introduced to a flick about the brooding caped crusader that can honestly be hailed as a cinematic masterpiece.

A truly amazing experience. The Summer blockbuster of 2008, easily. Unfortunately hyped and promoted with the very sad an untimely death of Heath Ledger in his final and career best, if over hyped performance as The Joker, Director and co writer Chris Nolan as presented as with a truly exhilarating piece of modern cinema.

Not wanting to play it safe like most of the hoards of super hero flicks that grace our screens over and over again, such as all three spider-man movies being pretty much structured the same and offering nothing new other than a different baddie, from the gripping opening scene, which is probably the craziest bank robbery you will ever see, Nolan, forced me to only use the edge of my cinema seat and grabbed my comfort zone and took it back to the popcorn stand. The Dark Knight hasn't just broke the mould of super hero movies but shattered the thing to tiny pieces. So bold and dark, it often feels like it has more in common with disturbing phsychological thrillers such as Silence of The Lambs than it does with movies about men running around in funny costumes. And it works extremely well, making it as realistic as it can with a host of brilliant and complex characters. It is often quite funny and the action sequences are second to none. The broody and heroic yet unnerving score by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard compliments the movies frightening and disturbing atmosphere perfectly. The movie builds such an unrivalled momentum, 60 odd minutes in and my heart was pounding and I was right there in the heart of the movie where Nolan wanted me to be. The movie had just gone form strength to strength, introducing us to new characters and opening several subplots. A superb cast giving top notch performances, one highlight being the often dismissed in his role as Harvey Dent, Aaron Eckhart, who's performance and character is the real centre of the movie and what carries Batman's good on one shoulder and the Jokers evil on the other. I was disappointed with Maggie Gyllenhaal's underused talent as Rachel Dawes. Bale and Caine were brilliant again and have a magnificent screen bond together and of course Ledger, of whom was very good but in my opinion not better than Jack Nicholson's performance of the clown prince of crime, just different. If he wins an Oscar, I am sure it was a sympathy vote.

I remember sat in the theatre during the movie, thinking to myself that I was experiencing something very special, a lot of hard work and talent had gone in to making sure this movie wasn't just another action fantasy super hero movie but a movie that people of all ages could enjoy and would be talked about for a long time. I remember thinking this was shaping up to be one of the greatest cinematic movies I have ever seen, a blockbuster that was simply kicking all others out of the competition. It is by far the biggest grossing comic adaptation of all time and deservedly so. It is a dark and mature solid piece of entertainment that just about holds onto it's 12a certificate, because of lack of blood but that is where the movie kind of works at is best, not at its gore, but its solid threat.

Yup you guessed it, I was pretty blown away by this amazing motion picture.....but then it went wrong...

sadly just before the third act the movies momentum hit it's peak and a masterful climax, I was sure in my head it was nearly finished but the movie kept going. It started to get confusing, a few plot holes appeared and the new subplots and set pieces just weren't as gripping and entertaining as the movie had shown us it was more than capable of earlier. This was extremely disappointing. One of the story threads, that of Harvey Dent, carries the third act OK, but I found by this time, it wasn't strong enough to carry the excellence that we had been treated to up to this point. Had the movie have been 30 minutes shorter it may not have had this problem, or maybe if the first 2 acts weren't so accomplished and brilliant, the 3rd act wouldn't have felt so deflated.

I went a couple of weeks later to see it in the cinema again and only found my first opinions of the movie confirmed. This movie really must be seen and experienced to be believed and no doubt about it it has something very special going on but sadly can't keep up the pace and thrills for the full duration of the movie, if only the ending could have been reworked, it would have easily stormed into my top 10 movies of all time. Instead, it remains in my top 30 and the best Batman movie to date for what it has to offer and what it starts, just a complete shame it couldn't finish it too.

The Dark Knight "A truly masterful, epic and deeply atmospheric summer blockbuster with a blistering score and superb action sequences and sturdy performances, just sadly disappointingly flawed" ****

The Incredible Hulk (2008)

Thank God for Homosexual cowboys! Well at least that must have been what director Ang Lee uttered under his breath once the enormous critical and box office success of Brokeback Mountain helped him sweep his dull, confusing and all too dramatic 2003 Hulk movie under the red carpet. Unfortunately though, it left a bit of a mess for Marvel to clean up with too, regarding getting one of their most recognisable and popular comic hero's back to the big screen and favourable once again with the fans.

Ang Lee's Hulk was actually very critically acclaimed, it was hailed as a super hero movie with intelligence and explored the deep and emotional side of Bruce Banners inner rage...the only thing is though, is that was never a direction a Hulk movie should have gone in. Well not to the extent that it did. It was like serving a truck driver a plate of caviar at a road side cafe when he was expecting a bacon toasted sarnie. The Hulk was meant to be an action packed "fun" movie with the big green guy smashing the scenes off the screen. Instead we got some weird over long trip into his tortured mind and when we did get to see the Emerald anti-hero...he was barely angry and mostly in a solemn reflective mood. The few action sequences that were in it were unsatisfying and mainly very dark and hard to make out (OK the tank smashing scene was arguably the highlight of the movie but not enough to carry the movie to an agreeable state) and featured stupid and daft enemies such as 3 ravage mutant dogs (whoever thought a killer poodle would make a great rival to The Hulk was a damn fool) or his clearly unbeatable shape shifting father for the unexciting and weird climax of the movie.

I was always hoping The Hulk would be given a second chance to prove himself a worthy big screen franchise, so I was pretty excited when I heard The Incredible Hulk was hitting the big screens as a follow up/reworking of the previous movie, with Edward Norton starring as The Hulks alter-ego Bruce Banner. My wife Caroline and I went to see it in the cinema on the night before my birthday and I was thoroughly satisfied with the experience. Transporter 2 director Louis Leterrier handled the responsibility of unleashing The Hulk with a lot more respect and with the fans interest at heart, using different origins of the character, noteably the "always on the run" stories from the 70's world wide successful television series. The movie doesn't retell the 2003 Hulk story but gives a brief alternative history to the characters' creation in the opening credits before getting the movie started some 5 years later in Brazil, so it does kind of feel like a sequel without actually being one. The movie is fast and fun as we meet Ed Norton's Bruce Banner in hiding trying to cure himself of the beast or at least learn how to control it. Soon located by William Hurts' General "Thunderbolt" Ross and the military an awesome chase sequence through a small Brazilian town leads us to our first glimpse of The Hulk. The Hulk comes across very threatening and you could feel the danger of his presence on the screen, something that was totally void in Ang Lee's The Hulk. This movie didn't try to be anything it wasn't, it had a simple structure and moved along at a very digestible pace and although I loved all the action sequences served up, I found myself enjoying the non Hulk sequences that joined them very much too. I think the cast handled their roles respectively, none of the talented cast having to push themselves at all but all being pretty solid to support the mighty green fella. I was mostly surprised with how much I enjoyed Tim Roth's character Emil Blonsky, as throughout the movie he is slowly transformed into an arch enemy more that suitable to rival the Hulk, in the form of the menacing Abomination. The climatic battle was all I could wish for for a perfect Hulk movie, the cgi characters never actually looking convincingly realistic but solid enough to get you roaring in The Hulks corner as he really finds his match in the bigger enemy. I left the auditorium fully pumped up, wanting to clench my fists and roar at the top of my lungs and rip the seats out of the floor as I walked past them on my way out and throw them across the cinema! Yup, I was a satisfied customer!

I know The Incredible Hulk will either having you wanting to see it or not interested at all from the get go, but at least this time around, it definitely does what it says on the tin, and despite not setting the box office alight, it still out grossed the previous effort nicely to hopefully confirm a further outing for the character.

The Incredible Hulk "Full force, fast paced, exciting and fun action movie for the family...at last!" *** 1/2

Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull (2008)

I tried not to get caught up in the hype, I tried not to let my expectations get too high, I mean the last time Lucas brought back one of the worlds biggest movie franchises, we got the huge stinky pile of dirty pants in the form of the barely watchable, cringe-worthy The Phantom Menace. I went to see Indy's forth cinematic outing on it's opening Friday and as my mate, The A-Man and I discussed all three original movies and our thoughts for the new one on our long walk to the cinema, we couldn't help but start to transform back to kids again and get excited about seeing the fedora wearing whip cracking, hero of our childhood. So as hard as I tried not too, I sat in the theatre my expectations through the roof, already humming the magnificent theme tune in my head over and over again (thanks again, John Williams! :-)), I would only be satisfied with a mile stone in movie history, a new summer blockbuster to shape how future summer hits would mould themselves, just like Raiders Of The Lost Ark did 27 years ago. Silly fella, there was no way I could leave the auditorium anyway other than disappointed.

And sure as Steven Spielberg loves aliens, I was disappointed. It plodded along at a watchable pace, slightly amusing at times, the action sequences were fun if silly and far from exciting and the film didn't really introduce any real new ideas, well nothing that wasn't done and done better in the first three movies. Harrison did a fine job of bringing back Indy as an old man, I had my doubts that he could do it but he had added age to the character beautifully as although he still often had is short tempered no nonsense attitude, he at times showed signs of being mellowed by the years and having a softer side. Most of the characters were a tad by the book, ie Ray Winstones George "Mac" McHale seemed like he shoulda been in Indy rip off movies "The Mummy" Series rather than an actual Indy flick and although it is lovely to see the still gorgeous Karen Allen back as Marion Ravenwood she soon starts to get on your nerves as she is a tad giggly and annoying, far from how her character was portrayed in Raiders. The always brilliant Cate Blanchett was bordering on terrible as the obligatory cliched baddie, in fact the surprise was the sure-to-be-annoying-side-kick, upcoming and in-everything actor Shia Labeouf was very likable and fun in a role who's revelation half way through the picture was inevitable. A few nods to the previous movies were very welcome. In fact, that was were the movie succeeded and really only had it's strength, and that was by being nostalgic. We are going through a pretty dire time in Hollywood where no real "new" blockbusters are being made and instead the industry is making it's money off of nostalgia by keep bringing back 80's iconic movies such as Die Hard, Rocky (ok, it started in the 70's but had its hiatus in the 80's), Rambo, and the forthcoming Beverley Hills Cop and Ghostbusters sequels, because they know us kids can't resist making that trip to the cinema and handing the cash over for another instant trip back down memory lane.

Indy IV featured several great looking shots of Harrison's instantly recognisable silhouette or shadow as he pops on his trusty hat or stands in heroic mode holding his whip, as the score plays it's goose-pimple inducing theme and don't get me wrong it was watchable if enjoyable, just not really necessary and not as good as could have been and should have been.

I have watched it again since and with my expectations non existent I found myself really enjoying it for what it was, I found it flowed nicely and was good old fashioned fun, although it tries very hard to have the same feel of the original trilogy, it just isn't possible unless they cut the budget by half losing lots of the cgi, and added some better dialogue and most importantly fired the guy who has a passion for swinging monkeys and mole-hill making Gophers!!!

Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull: "It tries hard yet doesn't succeed but remains watchable. If you haven't seen the original movies but want to see what the $784 million dollar grossing fuss was about, check out the old ones instead!" ***

Crank (2006)

Love him or hate him, of which I know people do so in equal measures, Jason "The Stath" Statham has propelled himself from bit part indie player to fully fledged pumped up Hollywood action hero! And good on him eh! A Rough Diamond cockney Brit going over seas and showing them how it is done!

I may get to watch family movies over and over again during the weekend day time with my kids, but I know that I could quite easily watch The Stath movies over and over again in the evenings as my Caroline, my wife, fancies the right royal pants of the shaven headed hard man!

Despite The Transporter movies being his signature role, and they are good enough fun to watch ,this is easily his best movie to date.

I have always had a soft spot for "leave your brain at the door" action movies, I guess like how my grand dad grew up watching cowboy movies, I grew up with the Van Damme, Arnie and Stallone movies of the 80's early 90's. Then something went wrong.

Hollywood action movies lost it's brawn and testosterone and became all CGI effects and ballet dancing fight sequences. Thankfully though, The Stath is bringing back old skool style action flicks and for anyone wanting a quick 80 minute burst of mega fast paced action packed, laugh out loud crude comedy, this is a must!

Simple synopsis, Professional hit man, Chev Chelios (one of the best movie character names too don't you think :-)), played by The Stath, thankfully, in his native tongue so no dodgy American accents here, wakes up one morning to find a DVD of when watching, his enemy informs him that he has been injected with a "Beijing Cocktail", a lethal injection of which leaves our hero with only a matter of hours to live. So like a starting pistol the action begins as Chev Chelios (heeheehee, can't help but chuckle as I type his name) heads out to find and end the baddies lives before his does, thankfully, he finds out that if he keeps his adrenaline pumping, he prolongs his life, so follows some outrageous, hilariously funny and thoroughly entertaining set pieces of variously ways Chev keeps his heart pumping.

Seriously, you'd be pretty hard to satisfy if you don't find this piece of popcorn cinema mildly entertaining. It has very smart and fast and inventive directing from director/writers Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor and the script, although featuring the usual cardboard cut out characters for most action movies, is actually quite clever and genuinely funny.

This movies knows how to take the pee out of it's self and with doing so comes across very fresh indeed and while through Vin Diesel and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Hollywood searches for its young and new action hero, the search need go no further as here it is with Jason "The Stath" Statham!

Crank: "Extremely fresh and fast paced with adrenaline pumping action and laugh out loud humour" *** 1/2

Unbreakable (2000)

Sticking with the Super Hero theme of my last review, although, this is less a Super Hero Movie and more a Movie of a Super Hero! Following hot off the world wide enormous success of the absolutely brilliant The Sixth Sense, writer, director M. Knight Shyamalan brought us Unbreakable, and in my opinion, arguably his finest picture to date.

I went to see this movie in the cinema on the strength of Sixth Sense and I was blown away. I went on my own, the only way any good movie can be enjoyed in the cinema, something I haven't done now for years, and I sat there and really immersed myself into the film and I cried no less than three times during the picture. So very powerful, yet so gentle and subtle a line M Knight can tread so perfectly. One of the most important things I want from watching a movie is to be emotionally involved and very rarely have I been so passionately touched by a movie as I was by this.

Most of mates can't understand it, most of them laugh, but I will struggle on to try and get people to see and hopefully be as moved by this flick as I was.

It plays as M Knights homage to comics, it is taking the first act of your usual super hero movie and uses that as the structure for the whole movie. David Dunn, An every day man is the unharmed survivor of a horrific train accident. On the strength of this, Elijah Price, a frail and lonely Comic Artwork Store owner believes him to be a super hero and tried to convince him of this. That pretty much out lines the story but with the heart wrenching and beautiful sound track by James Newton Howard feeding its way through your veins and towards your heart, it becomes apparent that this is far from your average super hero movie.

It's dark and subdued tones, it's gentle pacing and realistic approach really make this suspense thriller come drama a unique experience, a genre mix you don't come by often, drama and super hero movies, and it works beautifully.

I found it easy to relate to Bruce Willis's character, David Dunn, feeling a deep void in his life, that he should be doing something but didn't know what and carrying this burden is bringing his family down and tearing it apart, he can't bond with his son, of whom adores him for all that he is anyway, and he is drifting apart from his wife of whom loves him dearly.

We follow David as he investigates his past, at first in denial but then slowly drawn to Elijah's theory that if there can be someone born as fragile and "breakable" as he is, there must be someone at the other end of the spectrum that can't be harmed and is "Unbreakable".

Directed perfectly M Knight Shyamalan puts love and thought into virtually every shot and makes you feel part of the movie. The movie can be found as slow by some but it was clear never set out to be a fast paced action film. Although it does build up to a very gripping and scary climax, which follows on from one of the movies best scenes set in the the train station, where David Dunn goes to start working on his super powers. The Obligatory M Knight twist is superb and thought provoking and ends the movie fantastically.

I can not rave about this under appreciated master piece enough. If you are thinking of watching a movie and pick up M Knights Shyamalan's The Happening, do your self one huge favour, gently put it back down on the shelf and dig out this little gem, you could do a hell of a lot worse.

Unbreakable: "A subtle mix of self discovering drama and thrilling super hero suspense, M Knight Shyamalan's masterpiece" *****

Superman The Movie (1978)

Hmmm...as I sit here having just chosen Richard Donner's Superman The Movie to be the first movie I review it has hit me how much this blog, that I have spent on and off today designing, looks very much a super hero movie blog! I can assure you all now that it wont be! Just so happens that it has been a good year for comic adaptations (and a decade, I guess) and I have spent the last few weeks being absolutely crazy over ol' Supes! Funny, a movie that was released 30 years ago and I grew up on as a kid has come back and made such an impact on me! I came over it again recently because I picked up both Superman The Movie and Superman 2: The Richard Donner cut on the dead format hd-dvd for £2.99 each. I watch loads of movies in the evenings with my wife Caroline, but I mainly get to watch family movies over and over again during the day with my children Matt, Rebecca, Alannah and Leonie, so thought I could stick these two old classics on, on a Saturday morning with them.

Just so happens, my youngest, Leonie, has also gone Superman mad! She loves him, always asks to watch a superman movie now, but, bless her ,she calls him "Soup man" heeheehee.

On first re watching Superman, I was blown away at how very well it holds itself 30 years down the line amongst recent big box office superhero movies such as the Spider-man trilogy, Hulk movies and the reworkings of Batman. Obviously, the special effects, that were its main selling point back in the late 70's now look very shoddy indeed, but that is the real only thing the recent Superman Returns has over this little gem. It remains arguably the greatest Super hero movie of them all. It is Epic, thrilling, funny, warm, romantic. nicely paced for a 2 and a half hour movie and features the superb, instantly recognizable and powerful theme music by Movie Composer Legend, John Williams!Everything about it works, the great story telling, how it has made such a far fetched idea seem plausible and endearing, a feat poor old Spider-man didn't quite achieve in 2002 with the uncomfortably dreadful and silly looking Green Goblin (although Willem Defoe did as best as he could with the character). The movie tag line was "You'll believe a man can fly", but it could quite convincingly have been "You'll believe a man would wear bright red pants on top of blue tights"! A superb cast with fantastic performances from Gene Hackman as the greatest criminal mind of our time, Lex Luthor, Ned Beatty as his hilariously dim sidekick Otis, as well as Legend Marlon Brando as Superman's father Jor-El, and the not very sexy but extremely spunky Margot Kidder as Lois Lane. But supporting cast, great composer, excellent script and directing aside, it is single handed virtual newcomer Christoper Reeve as Clark Kent/Superman that shoots this movie out of this world! What a performance, so strong and powerful as the man of steel and endearingly clumsy as Clark, I think a lot of what made such an impact on me watching this movie as an adult now, is thinking how perfect Reeves was as Superman and how heartbreaking tragic was this mans poor life to turn out to be. Watching him fly around the globe at the final shot of the movie as he smiles at the camera almost brought a tear to my eye. What a Super hero Reeves was indeed. Virtually unknown for any other of his roles but will be remembered world wide for his turn as son of Jor-El, Kal-El.

I wasn't too impressed on 2006's Superman Returns, thought it was a tad slow and the 3rd act was weak and had no real build up or satisfying climax. But not only did new Superman Brandon Routh have to be a convincing Clark Kent and Superman, he had to be a convincing Christopher Reeve, and there will never be another Christopher Reeve.

Superman The Movie: "Still, the best Superhero movie put to Celluloid" **** 1/2

Every Legend has a beginning...

Welcome friends and fellow movie lovers!
This is my very first venture into the realms of "blogging", after being inspired by the blogs of my friends Mandy and Hayley! Thought I'd give it ago myself! I wasn't sure at first whether to use it as a way to vent my everyday battle with the evil forces of every day like a shared diary, or even to show and share my poetry, but decided I would use it as a chance to promote and share my love and reviews of movies with everyone! A light and entertaining and hopefully helpful insight into what I believe to be Magnificent movies or forgettable films! I intend to update a couple of times a week and give reviews to new or old movies I have watched and hopefully build a nice easy accessible collection of movie reviews to help steer you in the right direction of what surely every movie watcher wants, a few hours of great escapism!
I have also included links to my favourite movie sites, movie polls and questions and the list of my top 100 movies too!

Thanks for visiting and I hope you enjoy reading my reviews and share your thoughts and opinions of movies too!

BIG love

DNO