Jupiter Ascending

A film where a mostly oblivious humanity is little more than cattle to be harvested by a cold, calculating and far more technologically advanced civilisation - where people with what amount to superpowers have fights over a special individual who unwittingly holds the fate of the world in their hands... Gosh, how would you ever know this was a film by the Wachowskis?!

What's most surprising about this film though, is that it's NOT an adaptation of a young adult novel. It clearly owes much to the recent successes though, as the eponymous Jupiter is the chosen one - who is swept up into a galaxy spanning adventure, where everyone needs her but she has almost no agency.

The reasons for her being the chosen one are even more hilarious than usual. Despite being a highly technological society, apparently this galaxy spanning civilisation is practically religious about DNA and what amounts to reincarnation exists... and so, Jupiter is what amounts to the prophesied reincarnation of the matriarch of what amounts to this universe's interstellar equivalent of big pharma.

And, if you hadn't already guessed from the Matrix reference earlier, humanity (existing on presumably hundreds or even thousands of planets) is harvested for the purposes of a super duper youth formula that allows people to live for tens of thousands of years - so long as they're alright with entire planets, whole CIVILISATIONS just being erased from existence so they can go on living.

That might actually be an interesting idea for a film if it was explored but the film is far more interested in Jupiter scrubbing toilets and being a damsel in distress. Say what you will about things like the Hunger Games and its myriad rip-offs but at least they understand that the heroine should DO something.

Jupiter spends most of her time being a credulous fool, waiting to be saved and getting saved. She's not tough, she's not clever, she's not strong - she just wants to make googly eyes at Channing Tatum, her genetically engineered half-dog protector (it's OK, she always liked dogs).

Anyway, after having recklessly endangered all of humanity JUST to save her extended family and been saved about a dozen more times by Channing Tatum - Jupiter is the heir to an interstellar empire (on account of reincarnation  allowing for you to write yourself into your will) and decides to just... go back to scrubbing toilets.

One might argue something about humility, except for the fact that Jupiter is ignoring however many billions of humans are still out there, being harvested when she is now eminently placed to help put an end to this. It would be like Frodo getting back from destroying the One Ring, finding Saruman running the Shire and going "That's cool, man. You gotta do your thing." Which is to say, as stupid as it is negligent.

She doesn't even THINK of doing it. There's no suggestion of alternatives and yet, we KNOW that she's one of the richest and most powerful people in the galaxy. OK, maybe explaining to the people of Earth that she owns their planet would be counterproductive but she's now afforded a place amongst the nobility (although, they seem to use companies/houses/nobility/royalty entirely interchangeably) and just goes back to cleaning toilets.

The heroes journey shouldn't be seen as the beall and endall of storytelling but to have a protagonist go through all their trial and tribulations, end up back where they began and just shrug and say "Back to scrubbing toilets!" with a smile on their face? Whether it's an attempt at a subversion of the genre or just idiot writing... well, given the rest of the film - idiot writing but it's just baffling as to how this could be considered a GOOD ending?

Elysium: The Heaviest Handed Message

Neill Blomkamp is best known for District 9, a well received film with a none too subtle message about racism and the racial segregation of Apartheid... With Elysium, the message about healthcare and illegal immigration is less subtle than repeated punches to the groin...

Rich people live on the space station called Elysium where they have magical medical bays that can seemingly heal any injury short of death. Whereas - at least from what we see - Earth is grim and gritty. There's actually very little to say about the plot... because it's so generic and unimaginative.

Matt Damon is... well, Matt Damon. He's a small time crook, working a lousy job... he gets exposed to a lethal dose of radiation (no superpowers?!) and is told he has four days to live but obviously, if he gets to Elysium their magical medical bays can save him... so, he decides to do a job.

Fortunately for Matt, he chooses the guy that runs his lousy factory who is on Earth, which is apparently the best place to do coding... as he is the guy who coded Elysium and all it takes to change who the president of Elysium is putting back factory settings... The funny thing is, we see that this data is encrypted and LETHALLY protected. When does that become relevant? The end of the film. Everyone is able to tell what the data is though...

Oh and despite having a lethal dose of radiation sickness, Matt Damon is running around fine... The kind of radiation exposure he had should mean he's pretty much incapacitated in a matter of hours, regardless of what futuristic pain meds he's on... Anyway, the one last heist goes wrong because Jodie Foster needs the factory reset that is now in Matt Damon's brain... so, he's pursued and eventually turns himself in because his girlfriend and her daughter get captured.

Then he's taken to Elysium where he predictably escapes, fights a bit and then dies allowing everyone to become a citizen of Elysium... at which point it becomes apparent that Elysium has giant shuttles with HUNDREDS OF MAGICAL MEDICAL BAYS IN THEM.

Why are the greedy bastards hogging them all for themselves then?

For that matter, if people flying onto the station illegally are such an issue - why is it open plan? It's all rather silly and EXTREMELY heavy handed.

Total Recall - The Total Remake

Let's initially give the 2012 remake of Total Recall a pass on being a remake of the 1990 Arnie film and also for the somewhat questionable elements of the premise - namely the ability to construct "The Fall", a tunnel that goes through the CENTRE OF THE EARTH but not create more housing... With that out of the way, let's begin, shall we?

The film starts with textual exposition on the world before we cut to Doug Quaid (Colin Farrell) having a dream about a mysterious woman (Jessica Biel) and him, trying to escape robots from Mass Effect. He wakes up to see his hot wife Lori (Kate Beckinsale) and bemoans his boring life. He's located in the "The Colony" (which is in Australia - but looks like a mix of Bangkok and Hong Kong if they got fused with Blade Runner on steroids and for some reason, has to commute to the United Federation of Britain which is the only other place in the world that is still habitable (because of some kind of nuclear/chemical/biological war at the end of the 21st century). As if living in a post-apocalyptic world wasn't bad enough, trouble is brewing between the UFB and the resistance (led by Bill Nye) - whose goals and motivations are never really explained beyond being there to oppose the UFB.

Quaid continues to express his discontent to his best friend Harry (Bokeem Woodbine) and mentions that he's thinking about going to "Rekall", to have memories implanted. Harry tells him that this is a bad idea but another co-worker says it was super special awesome! He also gets turned down for a promotion - despite having put in lots of extra work and his boss telling him that he's better qualified but the other guy got the job as he's from the UFB.

Quaid wastes some talking to Harry at a bar, where he again gets warned against going to "Rekall" and FINALLY, at the twenty minute mark (after a very random scene paying homage to the infamous three breasted woman in the original), Quaid gets to "Rekall" where we have a John Cho cameo that is pretty much wasted and something ACTUALLY happens.

So, seconds after Quaid is strapped into the chair - a bunch of soldiers burst in and shoot everyone except Quaid. He's able to Jason Bourne them to death (although, with direction and editing that not only doesn't induce seizures but actually allows you to see what's going on!) a second team turns up before he manages to escape and heads home to see his wife... who responds by trying to kill him. Marriage ain't what it used to be... She immediately spills her guts and tells him that their marriage is an implanted memory and she's a secret agent there to keep an eye on him before he runs off again.

A phone in his hand rings and an old friend - called Hammond - tells him that he needs to go check out an old safety deposit box and get rid of the phone. Apparently cutting a hand phone out is easy though, all you need is a piece of broken glass and it comes right out! So, he goes to get the safety deposit box which is full of all kinds of things that help progress the plot - namely a video of himself, telling him to go to his old apartment in the UFB... he doesn't seem to question how the video got to the safety deposit box despite the fact it ends with him GETTING CAPTURED.

As should be obvious, what happens next is another chase sequence (after a joke only people that have watched the original will get) this one feeling very Minority Report influenced with cars moving vertically as well as horizontally. During this long and rather dull sequence, Jessica Biel is able to turn up at JUST the right time to save Quaid but she gets injured (as she is but a weak and feeble woman) and he has to carry her to his old apartment. He activates a message from himself that basically explains that Quaid is actually Hauser, someone in the UFB who defected to the resistance and had a kill-code for the synthetics that Cohagen was going to use to invade the Colony - handy for the rebels!

Police are surrounding the building and Harry tries to convince Quaid that this is all just a delusion brought on by the memory implantation and that to escape, he has to shoot Jessica Biel for uh, some reason - it's not explained... Instead, also for no adequately explained reason, her tearing up leads him to shoot Harry in the face and despite the fact the opening scene of the film shows us that there exists a very effective non-lethal takedown, Quaid and Jessica Biel manage to escape (despite being surrounded) via another - you guessed it! - long and tedious chase scene involving Willy Wonka lifts. YAWN.

To give us a break from this, Quaid gets to see Bill Nye - sporting an American accent but we'll get to that shortly. They try and get the kill-code from Quaid but faster than you can say "IT'S A TRAP!" the storm troopers have busted in and killed everyone and Quaid's faux wife (who has been trying to murder him the whole film despite orders not to) and Chancellor Heisenberg (Bryan Cranston) are there for good measure. Heinsenberg delivers a big dollop of exposition, this was all just a means to kill Bill Nye and launch the invasion of The Colony. Sadly, there is no evil laugh... but he instructs his soldiers to restore Quaid to his original personality and to take Jessica Biel with him on his invasion of The Colony (because all invasions are led by politicians with dangerous rebels along for the ride).

Taking a leaf right out of the Doctor Evil handbook, everyone leaves except for a couple of guys... even though there is NO rush to invade The Colony and it would make a lot more sense to just sit here and make sure they restored Quaid to Hauser... but nope, they all leave and apparently Hammond was one to go above and beyond the call of duty because he's there and loosens Quaid's straps - what a stroke of luck!

Hammond gets shot when Quaid is freeing himself - too bad, so sad - and then rushes off to The Fall to rescue Jessica Biel and stop Chancellor Heinsenberg from invading The Colony. How best to achieve this? BOMBS! Lots of bombs. Shame no one in the resistance was clever enough to come up with such an ingenuous plan before... so predictable as ever, Quaid frees Jessica Biel and after a pointless fight scene to pad the already overly long run time - we get a fake-out where Quaid is unconscious and wakes up to Lori pretending to be Jessica Biel... no explanation as to why she didn't just kill him while he was asleep but that's it.

This film has a lot of problems but most of it comes down to the pacing and the flat characters. The chase sequences are quite often quite visually impressive but as the characters are so unengaging, there's just no real reason to care what happens. Farrell phones in his performance - spending most of the film looking surprised but neither Biel nor Beckinsale do much better, struggling to muster two facial expressions between them. Given that we take a full twenty minutes to get to the action part, this is especially inexcusable.

The pacing is also very off, this film is only two hours long but it feels a lot longer. Some scenes - such as when Quaid goes to Rekall - feel as if they're too short and the action scenes almost all feel overly long, becoming rather numbing... On top of this, there's no real sense of scale or anything at stake. We've no real idea who the resistance are or what they want, we just know the UFB are the cartoonish bad guys and that the invasion is bad... for some reason.

About all you can say is that it looks nice and even that is somewhat backhanded as the visual style is really just a collage of designs out right lifted from other better films. Even without comparison to the original, this is a subpar action film that just falls flat.

World War Z Trailer

Any fan of the zombie genre worth their salt will at least know of World War Z.. in a world where zombies are now an overused and somewhat tired (but still tremendously popular) monster, it actually offered an interesting take on the zombie apocalypse both in its scope and its narrative style. Rather than the usual, struggling-to-stop-the-infection or ragtag-group-of-survivors-must-reach-safety that have been done a hundred times a piece, it took the perspective of a writer chronicling the tales of people AFTER humanity had survived the catastrophic effect of the titular zombie war.

It's really the logical conclusion of the Romero ideal, where the slow moving zombies are merely an external means by which to expedite internal conflict. Except that this story plays out on a global setting and we're perceiving the world through a number of very different individual (and at times, unreliable) perspectives. In a genre which has inexorably moved toward the more immediately threatening running zombies since 28 Days Later, World War Z was a good way of showing a (relatively) realistic scenario for the way the slow mving undead might be able to almost destroy mankind.

So, naturally the film adaptation was ALWAYS going to be fraught with problems and the production seems to have done little but lurch from one disaster to another, enduring serious amounts of rewriting and reshooting - something that would almost certainly have sunk a film with a lower budget or less star power. Regardless of these problems, the trailer has just been released!

And while trailers are by no means a good way to judge a film, this seems judged to systematically disabuse anyone of the notion that this is based on the source material in anything but name alone. First of all, this is set  at the BEGINNING of a zombie apocalypse - not at its end. Secondly, these zombies are not the slow shambling kind - they're track and field zombies ON STEROIDS. Hell, these zombies look like they could outrun a car! Thirdly, from the looks of things... this isn't going to be a multi-faceted narrative, it's going to be a vehicle for Brad Pitt single handedly saving the world. That's not exactly surprising and is one of the reasons why an A-lister was always going to be a bad idea.

The most notable thing is how TERRIBLE the special effects in the trailer are - for a film with a budget of $125m you'd expect something good. If these are actual effects in the cut that is released... just, wow. We're talking about the kind of effects people cringed at in The Mummy and those looked better AND had the excuse of being from 1999. We're talking about zombies behaving like some kind of gigantic kind of giant ball that has properties of a liquid and a gas... it's truly bizarre and sticks out like a sore thumb. All the WORST excesses, everything that people complain about when it comes to CGI... this trailer seems to almost perfectly sum it up.

It's hard to know exactly what this film will be like but if this is the best it has to offer then it looks as if Paul W.S. Anderson is in for some stiff competition as regards bad big budget zombie films...

Cowboys & Aliens

Genre mixing and versus battles are all the rage these days. Pirates vs. ninjas, zombies vs. anything and now Cowboys vs. Aliens.

There REALLY isn't a lot to say about this film - it's very much a case of "does exactly what it says on the tin". You've got the Wild West setting with cowboys and injuns and then - BOOM! ALIENS!

Daniel Craig - with plot convenient/lazy writing amnesia and a bracelet that fires lasers - and Harrison Ford are the driving forces here but there's no real characterisation. Harrison Ford is a gruff cattle rancher with a pissant son (who gets abducted) and about all his character does is say that he looks at a native American guy is like his REAL son. Daniel Craig is suffering movie grade amnesia and is plagued with a severe case of flashbacks... it's nothing that hasn't been done a hundred times before and as always, it's just a case of the writer either not having the talent or inclination to write something better. He's a bad ass with a criminal past - that he can't remember - and the only weapon that works against the aliens.

After the aliens have abducted a bunch of people from the town, Indiana Jones and James Bond get a posse together and head out to find the aliens and that's really the meat of the film. We find out that the aliens are there FOR GOLD... which... doesn't really make a lot of sense. If you're capable of interstellar travel and can detect gold from orbit... why the hell do you want to waste all the time and energy of going down into a gravity well as big as Earth? Just go asteroid mining! And if you're thinking "aliens coming to Earth for our gold... that sounds familiar!" that'll be because it was the plot for the cinematic masterpiece known as Battlefield: Earth.

Also, the reason for the abductions is apparently because the aliens want to find out our weaknesses. This kind of thing always strikes me as silly. Unless you're going to develop biological agents SPECIFICALLY for humans, it really shouldn't be that hard to work out that humans are incredibly frail. We're meatbags that can die by falling down a flight of stairs - it's not like we're Kryptonians or Terminators, we die REAL easy. There is the insinuation that the aliens will also descend en masse to wipe humanity out - there's no explanation given, that's apparently just how these aliens roll.

So, naturally after following a wounded alien, they manage to find their ship and decide to engage in what might as well have been dubbed "operation suicide", which is basically most of the people riding around outside the ship and getting massacred by the nigh invulnerable aliens, that are apparently capable of just ripping people apart... all of this after they recognise that they want to keep to the high ground.

Naturally though, main characters are immune and Han Solo and James Bond are fine, aliens are killed and that's about it. Very average.

John Carter Of Mars

John Carter of Mars - the live action Disney adaptation of the oldie timey work of the same name - is likely to be remembered for how catastrophically it tanked at the box office, putting it up there with other similarly high outlay/low return flops as Treasure Planet and Atlantis: The Lost Empire in the Disney hall of shame...

The thing is - as with Treasure Planet and Atlantis which between them pretty much killed off Disney's traditional animated features for a decade - John Carter of Mars... isn't bad. It's actually considerably better than either of those two offerings but it's really not good either.

There's nothing that sticks out as memorable beyond the visuals. Despite clocking in at two hours, there's no real investment in any of the characters and there's never any real suspense or tension. Not to mention that the fish out of water device isn't particularly well used - John Carter arrives on Mars and seems to work it all out pretty quickly and once a magical plot device (never explained) allows him to understand the language of the people on Mars, it's all pretty straight forward. The strange thing about the universal translator is that it doesn't translate the weird words and so, almost half the dialogue is people saying silly words or names.

There's nothing wrong with that occasionally but the words in question are just so ridiculous that it makes it hard to take it seriously... and the film plays it very straight, that alone makes the film feel rather stilted which is worsened by the pacing. Really, the two hour run time does drag and it feels as if this could have been cut down to ninety minutes and it would have been for the better.

It feels as if this really WANTED to be a kind of fun sci-fi romp - possibly in the manner of Pirates of the Caribbean - but it got bogged down in the source material. The plot is pretty straight forward - John Carter dicks around a bit to give us some minor character development and then ends up on Mars, find out he's super strong and can jump like a kangaroo on steroids and saves a princess...

This princess is not only hot (pretty much a given) AND a super science boffin (having discovered the "ninth ray", which is apparently super special awesome) but is also an accomplished sword fighting bad ass, so... she's a keeper. Anyway, evil shapeshifting monks want McNulty from The Wire to marry her, allowing them to rule the planet... or something, the motivations of the "Thurn" are never really explained beyond vague insinuation that once they've got a puppet ruler on Mars, they'll turn their attention toward Earth.

Anyway, John Carter and the princess run away from the four armed green guys, find out the plans of the evil shapeshifting monks (because apparently a race capable of instantaneous interplanetary travel don't know about passwords) and have the mandatory chases and escapes. It's all very paint by numbers and really, there's just nothing to set this apart from the crowd and the ending just feels like clunky framing with obvious sequel baiting for a sequel that will never come.

It's not good, it's not bad... it's just average and despite some nice visuals, it's easily forgettable. Something to watch when you're not really feeling like paying a lot of attention, really.

Avatar has been over ten years and $300m in the making and the hype for it was fairly bold, claiming that it was going to revolutionise cinema FOREVER! In truth, the visuals for this film are often very impressive but while the appearance of the film is often astonishing and does mark a watershed in effects, this is offset by the remarkably clichéd and banal story.

There have been been many rather unkind comparisons to Ferngully and many to Dances With Wolves. In fairness, aspects of both are in the film... but it borrows very heavily from the general area of film that equates the military and big corporations as BAD. The scientists are all very reasonable, seeing the unique ecology of the planet and thinking that IT and not the uber valuable unobtanium is the important thing on Pandora... and yes, they called the material they're there for unobtanium... So, they go for a LITERAL connection to the planet... because the Na'vi can literally plug into trees, animals, the big flying beasties... presumably evolution on Pandora has managed to bypass the biological equivalent of not having a laptop recognise the printer that's plugged in. It's ALL very hippy and it's the kind of tree hugging Gaia type claptrap that would have felt dated... well, back around the time of Ferngully.

It's very much set up to make it obvious that the corporation is BAD AND EVIL and the colonel is clearly spoiling for a fight from the get go, complete with his big scar and bad ass attitude. It's very clear that there's no compromise possible, the imperialist forces of capitalism are bad and evil, the noble savages can do no wrong with their hippy ways.

The events of the film are related by a handy capable ex-marine who apparently fell into it because his twin brother got shot and he's a genetic match, blah blah blah and he's there because it pays well and he needs money to get his legs fixed. So he goes to Pandora, which is apparently 5 years away... eh, whatever - this film has giant flying mountains and biological USBs and a military too stupid to know what orbital bombardment is. Anyway, John Generic is on his whole - gain trust of noble savages schtick. Obviously, initially he is working for the EVIL corporation but one he gets himself some sexy blue space babe, he's all about saving Ferngully - uh, sorry the rainforest... or whatever the hell it is he's saving.

So, we basically go through what amounts to about two hours of Pandora's Walking With Dinosaurs. Really, that's literally about it for the first two hours, John Generic just explores the world, the Na'vi and gets it on with hot Na'vi (your mileage may vary). Then the military/evil corporation get unhappy and go to war! This is an action film with very little action, basically this film pulls all the action punches until the final act. It's visually impressive but there's just no real plot here and the characters are all so forgettable. It just goes to show, you can spend hundreds of millions of dollars and never bother with a script... hmm, that sounds like the Star Wars prequels... this is better than them, certainly visually and at least the plot is coherent.

It is - of course - tradition for horror franchises to contrive some way to return the killer and thus allow there to be additional films and thus, more money - what makes the Saw franchise a little different is that the third film ends with him being pretty unambigiously killed and the FOURTH one shows him in the process of being autopsied (and no, he's not jumping up like Michael Myers or Jason). So... it's somewhat impressive that having died in Saw III, his machinations are still afoot and as elaborate and nigh infallible as ever in Saw VI.

There ISN'T really much to seperate this film from the others... there is actually something of a narrative thread here, which is to say - this film is a BIG author filibuster about health care in the USA and the role of the insurance companies in screwing people over on their health insurance... all of which takes something of a back seat to Jigsaw basically exceeding a BATMAN level of planning, forethought and prediction.

It's not hard to see why the writers want to keep Tobin Bell around, he's pretty much the only character who has been in every film and he's a fine actor and really, the most iconic thing about the entire film series is the creepy puppet with Tobin Bell doing the Jigsaw voice - that and the twist at the end of the film.

This is pretty much what anyone who has seen a Saw film would expect, which for most means this probably won't be worth going to the cinema for.

Some names when involved with a potentially interesting film, lead one's heart to sink... so, naturally any expectations for Pandorum should evaporate when one sees that Paul W.S. Anderson is producing. In fact, it may be worth remarking upon the fact that some time ago Anderson directed the somewhat obscure sci-fi horror Event Horizon. Despite the time which has passed - that film remains superior.

The premise of the film is like some manner of composite of tropes and cliches. The monsters are the offspring of those creepy beasties from The Descent and Ghosts Of Mars, most of the film involves the ever popular running around dark tunnels and everyone's favourite AMNESIA! Really, the amnesia is just there to justify the exposition and there's so little plot here, it's really not needed. Oh, wait! Flashbacks! We get a few of those too! Even though they serve no real purpose beyond padding.

So, Earth gets massively overpopulated - and the Elysium is built to go and find a conveniently discovered Earth-like planet that could sustain a human colony. What isn't revealed immediately is that the purpose of this giant ship full of people is to colonise the planet. One area where the film should gain some kudos - the ship is actually flying at sub-light speeds but don't worry plenty of time to make up for that lapse! Which really isn't too long - apparently the monsters are actually the colonists which made them EVOLVE! Or something. It's not really explained but then, it's not the kind of film that should ever try and have a clever story.

The protagonists wake up with aforementioned amnesia and find everything is broken and realise that they're in the "generic something went terribly wrong and we're fucked" scenario. The sci-fi horror clichés pile up and what little plot is given by snatches of exposition. We get a mandatory ticking clock and a twist and then it plods its way dutifully to the end.

It's hard to say anything about the film - it's just so very unremarkable. It's not bad... it's just a waste of time but hard to hold any strong feelings about it.

District 9 has been one of the most highly anticipated films of 2009 - and that can be said without adding the qualifier of sci-fi. The basic premise being aliens pull up over Johannesburg but... due to the nature of their society, they don't really have any leadership. So they sit around on their ship for three months before people cut it open.

We then jump forward a couple of decades and the ship is still sitting there and District 9 is a big shanty town for the million or so "prawns" that were inside the ship. People seem pretty blasé about the aliens, in fact - even actively hostile, with resentment and a demand for segregation. Needless to say, while none of the characters in the film ever MENTION Apartheid - the parallels are blatant and utterly undisguised.

If you can live with that, then this is an interesting film. Enjoyable, action packed and certainly one of the smartest films of the year thus far. There are a few plot holes and the change in the style (the film starts in a documentary style and then for reasons that are fairly obvious, it becomes more conventional) can be a little jarring... but certainly an all around entertaining film that looks AMAZING for the comparatively modest budget of $30m. Honestly, the fact that the aliens in this film are almost entirely CGI is easy to forget and films with bigger budgets have done far less convincing work, with far more money.

There is an urban myth... of a video tape - that if you watch, you die. Street Fighter: Legend Of Chun Li won't kill you (probably) but it will make you WANT to die.

The first problem is Kristin Kreuk as the eponymous character. Her acting was barely acceptable by TV standards, so expecting her to carry even a low budget film was never a good idea. Secondly, you may be surprised to find out that Kreuk is half-Chinese - because she really doesn't look it. In fact, she never looks the part and really - they could have said she was Cammy for all the difference it makes.

So, Kreuk is basically daughter to a wealthy business man - but turns out daddy goes and get taken hostage by the EVIL M. BISON! M. Bison is Irish by the way... and blonde and apparently his "evil" involved some petty thieving before transiting into property development. Yes - the megalomaniac who wanders around going "OF COURSE!" with a giant red cape and cap and general martial arts stuff is gone. Now, some might say - that's due to a demand for realism? Actually, no. Chun Li tosses fireballs around and manages to drop about thirty floors without missing a beat - after a very Les Yay fight with one of Bison's henchwomen, which also involved her hurricane kick. Yes, she was upside down, rotating with her legs akimbo a few feet above the ground for several seconds. Is no one AMAZED by that? No.

So, basically the film goes from one idiotic scene to another. It's all just so WTF. After Chun Li's dear dad gets kidnapped she goes on the whole "find the guy who did it" thing. This involves some guy who used to be in M. Bison's EVIL property developer gang. Damn them! So he teaches Kreuk how to kick ass and chew bubble gum... and FIREBALLS. Also, fighting blindfold. Presumably they didn't put in bullet time because they didn't have the money, so we have a bizarre scene with Kreuk catching stuff tossed at bells.

There's a bunch of stuff to try and make you give a damn about how all these people are being evicted from their homes and given the fact Chun Li seems to have pretty much forgotten about her father by this point, that seems sensible. So, we get the inevitable bit where Chun Li's master sacrifices himself and we get some more time wasting and then Chun Li has the paint by numbers fight with the designated M. Bison - the END. THANK FUCK.

This film is pretty much a crime against humanity. If you're not intoxicated in some manner when you watch this, you might be driven insane by it, such is the awfulness. Kreuk does not look the part, she does not act the part and really, most of the martial arts of note are the hilarious fly by wire stuff, nothing else is anything more than the choreographed equivalent of beige. The plot is practically non-existent and one has to ask WHY? Hell, Street Fighter the FILM did a better job of Chun Li's backstory and M. Bison was... M. Bison - NOT A BLONDE IRISH PROPERTY DEVELOPER. That would be like making Emperor Palpatine a flamboyant encyclopaedia salesman... although, we'll have to wait for future "improvements" to Star Wars to see if Lucas goes for that.

Bottom line: STAY AWAY! Far, far away

Terminator is one of the few franchises that managed to accomplish that ever elusive superior sequel, while The Terminator was and is held in high regard, the slightly less gritty and depressing and rather more upbeat and explody Terminator 2: Judgement Day is probably one of the most beloved and popular films in the science fiction or action genre. Naturally, such popular franchises seldom stay on the shelf forever and a few years back we had the rather less well received Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines... which was kind of a rehash of 2 and really seemed like a gratuitous set up for today's topic, Terminator: Salvation.

The "problem" Terminator 2 had was... Judgement Day was averted - that's kind of why they gave Arnie a molten metal bath. So, while Terminator 2 espoused free will and a maleable future... 3 went "Oh, yeah - sorry guys, the war is inevitable, sucks, right?" thus making the events of the film fairly pointless but nicely setting up the events of Salvation, a jolly post-apocalypse fight against giant killer robots. Ok, people sized killer robots... well, some of them are giant - which is awesome.

In fact, one of the best things about the film is that we aren't limited to the iconic shiny skeletons, walking around with plasma weapons. We've got mecha terminators, motorcycle terminators and even kind of little snake ones. It would have been pretty easy for the designers to be lazy and just stick with the established staples, so it's good to see that they didn't skimp on this aspect.

More interesting than the design is the fact the focus of the story is rather less on John Connor. He's got a good amount of screen time but Kyle Reese has a decent amount and a new character Marcus gobbles up plenty of it... in fact, it's really more his story. Which is something of a surprising choice. Really, the logical angle of attack is Kyle Reese and John Connor with their somewhat bizarre relationship...

So, the story? How about the story? Ok - we start out with Marcus on death row. Then we jump to the future, Christian Bale is shooting robots and being awesome... sadly, no one else quite passes the "must be this awesome to live" test and they all die. Yup, there's an inspiring saviour of humanity - managing to preside over the death of everyone in his squad.

Anyway, Marcus and a young Kyle Reese meet up and Kyle doesn't think there's much suspicious about a muddy guy, wandering around the post-apocalyptic wasteland, oblivious of the fact humanity got its ass beat by Skynet and now there are killing death robots, looking to kill any meatbags they see.

Inexplicably, Kyle Reese is a high priority target... but that means Skynet would know the future. So... why would it keep the deathcamps and not just murder everyone if it knows that future stuff? Anyway... we go through some nice actions scenes. Marcus finds his way to John Connor - turns out Marcus is actually a machine... and there is some signal that stops Skynet. The big plan is to use this signal to stop Skynet - even though it's a really obvious trap... guess they should have had admiral Akbar with them.

So, Marcus was designed to go to the Skynet HQ all along - who'd have thought! But he's actually got his free will. This doesn't stop Skynet from going all SHODAN and going through exposition on its plan. Long story short, the battle is won but the war is not yet over - and John Connor gets Marcus's heart... making him mostly just a McGuffin.

JJ Abrams pretty much said from the get go, he never really liked Star Trek as a child... which probably - somewhat perversely - made him a rather good choice for the inevitable reboot of the franchise. Why inevitable? Because Star Trek is just about the longest running sci-fi franchise, with one of the most rabid fanbases...

Which has been the problem in recent years. The TNG films especially were perceived as lengthy episode, aimed at the fanbase - rather than the actual general public. Which isn't a particularly good way to make money. Hence, Hollywood's current golden boy being given the keys to the broken franchise.

There isn't a great deal to say about the film, as it happens. It's solid and enjoyable but... it's forgettable. It skirts close to being little more than a big dumb action film but... it avoids that - not due to the idiotic story - because of the solid casting. Bones and Spock are dead on... Kirk is passable... the other characters are as transitory as they are in the series. So, it's not quite built around the pretty (if rather too frequently prone to lens flare and shaky cam) action scenes entirely. Which isn't to say Nero isn't a two dimensional non-character... because, he is. Even IF you were to read the comic that precedes the film for his background his motivation still equates to BEING INSANE.

Thin story - good characters, good action... decent film. There isn't much to say about it. It's just kinda... And that sums it up. Not QUITE big dumb action but really - not far off. Better than Lost... but so is slamming your genitals in the door.

Ah, Wolverine - a word that sets a million fanboy hearts racing. Fanboys are shit and need to die.

Of course, the fact Hugh Jackman is Wolverine means... well, girls melt for him. Guys think he's awesome. Fanboys... are like lawyers. Not really human. Not worth the consideration of being human.

This film apparently needed ten minutes extra... it really didn't. It needed a STORY. Wolverine's story is one of the most tediously over covered parts of Marvel continuity these days. Given the fact his origins are SECRET... anyone that touched a comic book probably knows the Weapon X story by heart.

Sadly, even the recent animated Hulk vs. Wolverine managed to do a better job at the Weapon X story... and everything except Wolverine popping his claws back in the mid 19th century is skipped over. Granted, 150 years would be a fair bit to cover but there you go. After we get to Vietnam, gross insubordination leads to the an execution for Sabertooth and Wolverine - who are half brothers, by the way. So, we get to them joining the Weapon X project. Wolverine gets a bit bored of murdering people - he has apparently fought in a good portion of all major conflicts in the 19th and 20th centuries... so, makes sense he might get bored of seeing his brother go crazy.

There's no real point getting to know his team mates because they're one dimensional and their screen time is easily counted in seconds. Get used to that. There are a whole gamut of mutant cameos that are short even by cameo standards. Even characters that are significant to the plot - like Gambit... who actually is essentially there PURELY as a plot device to move Logan from A to B - don't get a great deal of screen time. It's really all about Wolverine... like all the X-men films, really. Anyway, he hooks up with Silverfox and is a happy lumberjack - for... no reason but predictably... walking away from a secret black ops group doesn't work out too well and Sabretooth is murdering former team mates - but who REALLY cares. There's no investment in these characters... so, Sabretooth kills Silverfox and Wolverine goes to Weapon X to get adamantium so he can murder Sabretooth.

Then he goes to fight Sabretooth - fights Sabretooth... Then Weapon XI turns up. Yeah, not a real character from the comics... and he has a half dozen powers - oh and he's supposed to be Deadpool... even though Deadpool just has a healing factor... and the fight was fairly anticlimatic.

Then, naturally - Wolverine's memories get wiped by a magical plot device bullet. Silverfox dies... again - oh and Emma Frost is her sister... and another swathe of meaningless mutants... including Cyclops... for no real reason. They do nothing more than run out of the base after Wolverine frees them. So, Gambit comes back to pick up Wolverine - and Wolverine goes off to forget everything and wander around until the X-men film...

It's the problem all prequels suffer from... you always know where things are going to be come the end... so, we knew that Logan was going to end up having his memory wiped... ah well... That's really the least of the problems. The characters really just seem to orbit Jackman, pushing him in the direction he needs to go. The story is pretty weak and it's hard to give a damn about anyone other than Wolverine and maybe Sabretooth because no one is really around long enough to do more than show their abilities. Wolverine's claws look terrible throughout - it's very obviously they're CGI... Really, just a chronically weak story, pretty average fight scenes and just a slew of not very compelling cameos that amounted to little make this a pretty luke warm film. Fanboys might get hung up on some of the details... but really, they're not worth paying attention to compared to a number of rather more glaring inadequacies.

As is obvious to any cinema goer - Marvels march of films continues... they're pretty much booked up until the Avengers film and they've just got a whole lot of stuff going on in terms of live action, animated features, animated series and the like - even if the Iron Man: Armoured Adventures looks like the most horrific piece of trash ever conceived... since The Batman.

Where is DC and its slew of - much better known and more recognisable - superheroes? Naturally, the world gets excited when there's a new Chris Nolan Batman film about to come out... Superman was met with general indifference and the sequel is going to need to give the titular Man of Steel something more than a fucking mountain of kryptonite to fight.

DC has however made a few forays into the animated features - the previous outting was the pretty damned awesome Justice League: New Frontier, which is definitely worth checking out and now, we've got Wonder Woman. While the live action film sits in purgatory, quietly waiting to be made... we have this to tide us over.

Wonder Woman is often pushed in with Batman and Superman to form DC's "big three"... but really, that's more of a publicity stunt than anything. Despite having been around since the Golden Age... she's not really on a par with either of those characters... so, it's nice to see her get a film to make her own...

And this is QUITE a film. The JLU cartoon had more than its fair share of crowning moments of awesome in terms of fights... but just the opening battle sequence of this film easily puts those to shame in terms of animation and awesome. As with most of these features, it's about 70 minutes... so, the story is pretty simple. We get the backstory of the Amazons and Wonder Woman and the long and short of it is, Wonder Woman has to go into the world of men to take back stray jet pilot Steve Trevor and also stop an evil unleashed that threatens to etc. etc.

It really isn't going to win any awards for the complex weave of stories... it's very simple but there's not a lot of time to tell a complicated story and the simple one works. Naturally, we get Wonder Woman starting out to be a bit "MEN ARE EVIL!" but of course, she relents a bit on that one by the end. The romance angle is there - Trevor is a bit of a goof to start with but he's a decent character and does a good job of cutting WW some slack... because a lot of people might have been tempted to call her a bitch.

Something a little surprising about the whole thing - although, the DCAU tends to be rather more relaxed about such things in straight-to-DVD releases - is that there are quite a few deaths... and beheadings. The beheadings are - in fairness - only done in silouette but there are people being stabbed and having their spines broken... nothing that would get close to warranting the term gore... but it's nice to see battle scenes where those without powers can actually die.

So... in summary, a good yarn with some absolutely wonderful action and battle scenes. The final battle especially, I suspect - will be a crowd pleaser... and there's even a nice little tease at the very end... that many fans of WW and probably the DCAU will smile at. For DCAU and WW fans, a must... and for general superhero fans too. If you finished the recent Hulk Vs. and felt it was too action light? Give this a try. Wonder Woman tosses and gets tossed through more buildings than her insurance can realistically cover. All good wholesome fun with a simple but steady and pretty well paced story. Enjoyable to the point where it's worth hoping that there is more to come.

All comments about Watchmen - the film - will invariably be preceded by "based on the greatest graphic novel of all time." And... it's fair to say that that Alan Moore's piece will take quite something to be supplanted for that honour... Much of Moore's success with it is because he weaves a story of incredible complexity and density, using the medium to the fullest extent possibly. Which is why many people were worried about the film. Adaptations are a tricky business at the best of times and Watchmen was very specifically written to be a comic, not merely a story TOLD in a comic... SPOILERS AHEAD!

That said, Watchmen (the film) does a FAIRLY good job. Rorschach sounds rather too much like Christian Bale's Batman... but the wonderful effects of his mask make that a forgiveable offence... and the film uses a lot of the dialogue and iconography from the comic pretty much verbatim. The entire intro monologue is pretty much directly in line with the book.

The issue of course becomes one of time. There are just a lot of elements that had to be dropped for this film to be of an acceptable length. That's a given of the change of medium. They do however manage to cover the backstory of each character rather well... but the ENDING... the ending is where it all falls apart.

Moore spent considerable amounts of time hinting at some plot beyond the mere mask killings and that while Rorschach might rabidly obsess about it - the reader especially has plenty of incite to the fact that there is something more afoot and that it's not going to be pretty... of course, what this turns out to be is the fact that Adrian Veidt - former superhero - has come up with a plan to SAVE the world from nuclear armaggedon. Which involves manufacturing a threat of alien invasion by teleporting in (thanks to Dr. Manhattan tech) a giant alien which explodes (because teleporters work about as reliably as they do in Star Trek) and also, psychically imprinting images of cosmic horror on the survivors... basically, to make humans do what they do best, unite in fear of something different to them! It's also explained that The Comedian stumbles upon the island where all this is going on and that this is what breaks his spirit...

Some fans of the graphic novel got very upset about the squid... as some fanboys will. Really, what it was... was no big deal. It just had to be a threat to unite the world against an external threat by introducing the outside context problem. Hence pulling humanity BACK from the brink of destruction - albeit it at the cost of millions of lives.

Now... the ending in the FILM... They kind of ignore the advanced tech that Dr. Manhattan made possible and have "free energy" as a recent development... which Veidt uses as a means to simulate an attack by Dr. Manhattan - essentially to the same end as the alien attack. Except... this doesn't really make any sense, although - he never actually says "I'm Off To MARS!" in this... it's fairly clear that everyone knows he has fucked off... so, why would he come back just to sucker punch New York? It might seem trivial but it's FURTHER exacerbated by the fact Nite Owl sees Dr. Manhattan waste Rorschach, does a "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"... and then goes to bitch slap Veidt and declares the terrible perversion of humanity this constitutes.

Which might be somewhat acceptable if it wasn't for the fact about 30 seconds earlier, he was saying "Yeah, I'm down with keeping this secret." Part of the CRUX of the film is the moral greyness of the actions of Veidt and the obvious similiarities to the Tale Of The Black Freighter. He is a man GUIDED in his own eyes by right at every turn and yet, in the end - he has become a murderer but feels entirely justified. This pretty much slaps us in the face - almost as much as with Dr. Manhattan's genitals - and says "THIS IS BAD!"

For some people, this will not be a big issue for others it will be. It doesn't really mesh with the overall story. It's kind of hammered in and a number of compromises - beyond those required to compensate for the different mediums - are made in terms of continuity for no other reason than... uh...

The ending aside... For those that pay attention, Zack Snyder (the director) gives you a little hint of his previous film - 300 - by having The Comedian's flat be... 300! Don't worry, if you miss that little tipoff... you'll probably manage to work it out from the repeated and gratuitous use of the slomo/speedup action cuts the made seems to have a raging hardon for - and also the overly long, rather awkward sex scenes. If you don't mind the stylistic slomo of the action scenes, they're fun... although, there are a few more added in but that makes sense - this IS a long film... and the book is not particularly action packed. So, it's an understandable compromise.

Much like the dropping of the Tales of The Black Freighter comic and the newstand owner and not really having the detective involved in The Comedian's murder do much outside the first five minutes. Or reducing Rorschach's running around and beating people up... or his backstory... You could have made Lord of the Rings in its entirety seem short if you'd wanted to FULLY explore the backstory of every character in the same depth as the graphic novel.

It's really... just OK. About as good an adaptation as one could really expect. Nowhere near the same level as the graphic novel... and certainly not the kind of film you want to see if you're expecting a brainless superhero action film... but... just... OK.

If you've not heard of Resident Evil - a franchise more prolific than the fictional viruses it is focused on - the chances are you've been hiding under a rock, while frozen in ice at the edge of space and your TV has been on the blink. If that's the case, the basic story is - evil corporation wants to make perfect weapon via use of mutagenic virus (mostly the T-virus but there are several other flavours but mostly the T-virus and the G-virus). Unfortunately, one of the side-effects of the virus is that it turns people into zombies... of course, given that the MAIN series of games is soon to be in its fifth instalment - things have become a little more complicated than that... but, that's the gist.

In contrast to the fifth instalment of the game, Resident Evil: Degeneration hasn't been overly publicised and is in fact wholly CGI... and seemingly canonical - unlike the live action films... This actually includes characters from the games and ties up some loose ends from the games. It certainly isn't going to win any points for story telling or voice acting and it definitely isn't the prettiest CGI you've seen - Advent Children puts it to shame - but you're not here for a whole lot of story... you're here for zombie killing.

The story starts off with Claire in an airport, incidentally meeting a cookie cutter sleazebag politician. People aren't too happy about all manner of biological research being done on their back door - what with various zombie related incidents and all. So there are a number of protests. We start out with a fake out - a guy pretending to be a zombie lumbering toward the sleazebag politician. Which is followed five seconds later by a REAL zombie - it starts chowing down on the nearest available person and all hell breaks loose.

Hell breaking loose involves a 747 CRASHING INTO THE TERMINAL - and exploding AND then zombies jumping out of it to shamble toward Claire and her little kiddy and the sleazebag politician... Yeah, you had a feeling they might all manage to survive this far, didn't you?

Anyway, they manage to make a momentary escape but - naturally - a building full of zombies isn't the easiest place to get out of and the whole place is locked down because this isn't a Romero film and hence, the military aren't inept/chaotic evil. Although, that's somewhat overshadowed by the fact they send in Leon - who is a bad ass - and give him the generic bad asses who KNOW NOTHING ABOUT ZOMBIES.

How many times does this happen? You'll have an expert or some situation where one person/group are shown to know the score... and tell people "Do X". So, it's inevitable that they will then either not do X or do the exact opposite of it. You have to ask WHY they bother to use experts sometimes... Leon's squad is pretty keen to follow this trope because there is a lot of trying to help zombies, shooting zombies anywhere BUT the head... amazement that they can survive a few clips of ammo and this is DESPITE being TOLD. Needless to say, Leon repeatedly saves their sorry asses.

The two groups meet up and escape - the senator does a fantastic self-saving bit that really deserves an award... mostly because he DIDN'T get chowed down upon... generally when these guys go "Fuck ya!" and make their own dash for safety, they're dead sooner than you can say lowlife. Naturally, one of the idiot SWAT-substitute team gets bitten and does the "LEAVE ME BEHIND!" and everyone else gets out in time for tea.

At which point Claire discovers that WilPharma was actually making a vaccine for the T-virus - and she'd been protesting against them! Bitch. They actually have some trucks full of the stuff but wouldn't you know it - they get blown up... and this is all part of a bio-terror plot to expose the truth behind Raccoon city. While it's fair to say that this IS probably a good way to scare the authorities into doing that - you'd think people familiar with what happened would want to make sure they prevented a recurrence?

Regardless, we get about the only "character building" in the story - where we found out the SRT girl is in fact the sister of Curtis, the crazy bio-terrorist... who is rather peeved that the government has covered up Raccoon City because his family died there. It's worth saying that true to most Capcom stuff - the dialogue here is absolutely dire. Whether that's the result of translation coupled with the half-hearted voice acting remains to be seen but it's regularly so awful you'll be laughing at the "drama"... but it's all about the zombies. Actually, the airport is really the last of them.

We have our heroine go to WilPharma. The researcher chap chit-chats with her and after a call from the Senator spills his guts about the G-virus being there and how they wanted to develop a vaccine and so on. Then he goes "Oh... I need to go fix the server." In the most awfully stilted piece of dialogue the entire film has to offer - which is saying something. 7 seconds later he's telling her there's a bomb about to go off and she sees Curtis running through the building... so much for security.

And cue giant explosion. The level of damage is fairly inconsistent but... no one is perfect. Naturally, Leon and SRT girl head over after the phone line cuts out... because this high security research facility has revolving doors. SRT girl finds her brother - who for some idiotic reason thinks injecting the G-virus into himself is a good idea. He has enough time to talk to her a bit before a couple of dozen soldiers appear - watch in shock as he grows a giant eyeball on his shoulder and one of his hands becomes enormous. Seriously, when that starts happening - you start shooting the bastard.

As one might expect - giant mutated things take more than a little automatic fire to slow down, so he plays possum and then pretty much wipes the floor with the troops. Luckily, Leon turns up and manages to get a walkway to drop on the bastard. The building is then about to ignite itself... oh dear and Curtis ISN'T REALLY DEAD! Yes, you're shocked by the revelation... just how is a GIANT EYE so invulnerable? Powers! The powers of a giant mutant zombie eye.

So, the entire facility is apparently built over your standard infinite drop to the CENTRE OF THE EARTH! Not even a little exaggeration. Naturally, as the base has magical means of detecting the virus - it starts "jettisoning" parts of the base... INTO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH. It must have been some planning application to get that. Naturally, you can guess - evil is killed and all named characters manage to live to see the light of day.

And if you don't see the twist at the end - you're as smart as a zombie.

All-in-all - not an unreasonable effort. Not thrilling and it sags a lot between the two main action sequences... because, this is really just two action sequences stuck together. For Resident Evil fans, a must... zombie fans will find there rather less to get their teeth into here. It's fun enough but rather lacking in substance and zombie killing.

Not content with having alienated everyone over the age of 12 as far as Star Wars goes, George Lucas continues his relentless crusade to milk the cash cow.

Someone has said, "You can't ruin Star Wars"... in a sense, that's true.

Regardless of the loathsome prequels... we have (another) cartoon. This time, in CGI. For those who have stopped paying attention - and who can be blamed - this was all launched by a film, setting up the basic premise of Anakin with an apprentice... who, as with most things jammed into continuity is - naturally - never mentioned.

As with the previous - rather wonderful - Clone Wars cartoon, this is set in the eponymous conflict and so... action abounds. Unlike the cartoon, Clone Wars gives more prominence to the actual clones. They actually take off their helmets and demonstrate some personality here, which is good because they're sufficiently competent to be likeable.

The films demonstrated the rather monumental idiocy of the battledroids - here, it's turned up a notch and definitely played for laughs... it DOES humanise them a bit more but then, droids AND clones are both killed, so... we're reckless with all synthetic life, it seems.

The premise of the film is simple - if pointless - after a little introduction of Anakin and his new apprentice - Asoka - we find out that Jabba's son has been kidnapped. Why does this matter? The Hutts control a lot of trading routes. If the Jedi rescue the infant Hutt, they get access to those trade routes or something.

The most obvious thing to notice with the film - and cartoon - is that it takes some time to get used to these stringless marionettes. Their expressions are extremely limited and at times, you could be forgiven for thinking that this was just a game that you were playing... except that they're probably look less stiff and lifeless.

Despite that, the quality of acting is considerably better than pretty much everything in the prequel trilogy... not that that is particularly difficult. Regardless, the inexorable march toward being a purely eight and under franchise continues... There's pretty much no character development, there's the inexplicable pink R2 and of course, the plot is laughable.

Essentially, there's just a progression of the film from one action sequence to another... and yet, it all feels rather hollow. The battledroids are 10 times the fodder stormtroopers were and even the clones seem to be more than capable of taking out dozens of them with ease...

The cartoon is somewhat more interesting - although, unlike it's animated counterpart Grievous is again somewhat bungling and cowardly... One has to wonder how the Seperatists are really able to support their war effort. Or why... Oh, obviously the manipulations of Palpatine are behind it all but there's still little sense of underlying causes beyond "BECAUSE!" Which is rather too endemic in the Star Wars prequels, people are idiotic or gullible to forward the plot... so, it would probably be rather too much to ask the spawn of the prequel franchise to try and explain away the nonsensical war.

The action doesn't always focus on Obi-wan or Anakin. We've had episodes about clones, other Jedi... Jarjar (sigh) and so on. So, there's a diverse focus... but that's presumably because, there's only so much more than can be done in the Clone Wars period.

How does it compare to the highly acclaimed - and straight forward awesome - Clone Wars cartoon? It seems almost unfair to compare them. The cartoon was great, it actually managed to take the card board cutouts that Lucas hamfistedly stuck into a trilogy more geared toward shifting merchandise than telling a story and made them INTERESTING! In a couple of the episodes, we had more development of Anakin and his fall from grace than in the entirety of the prequels... the CGI fare is markedly more standard Saturday morning fare.

If you're even marginally interested in Star Wars - it's worth watching and it does include some pretty cool fights and action sequences but it lacks the characterisation and special X-factor that made the cartoon so enjoyable and memorable. That, coupled with the puppet-like CGI means that this may be fun but will struggle to rival it's predecessor in the affections of viewers.

Dark Knight was never going to have an easy time of it. Batman Begins set a high bar and the hype for Dark Knight and the building anticipation of it began almost as soon as the premier ended. Combined with the untimely and unfortunate demise of rising star Heath Ledger, it's hardly surprising that Dark Knight had such massive box office success in its opening weekend... what IS surprising is the general agreement - the film lived up to the hype.

Heath Ledger's performance is truly excellent... which, given the strong portrayal by Nicholson in the 1989 Burton film is saying something. It's new... and very much in keeping with the nature of the atmosphere Nolan has created. Very concerned with realism and a dark, brooding atmosphere... this results in the Joker being simultaneously very different from previous incarnations but very much the same and similarly, Two Face - whose appearance in the film wasn't even touched upon in the trailers - is done in a way that bears little resemblance to the comic book treatments but remains true to the character.

Some might be concerned about the replacement of Katie Holmes... from a continuity point of view... it's unfortunate but in a more circumspect sense? Her substitute is infinitely more suited to the role, so the change of actress is a net benefit... had Holmes been playing against Ledger's sublime Joker, it would have been almost as embarrassing as everyone in Superman Returns trying to act with the talent of Kevin Spacey.

There are a few twists in the film... but most of them are fairly obvious to those paying attention but sitll enjoyable... and overall, the only real failing of the film is maybe that it's pacing at times is a bit on the slow side but overall, the almost universal adoration it received is well deserved and certainly - this deserved to punt the tedious Spiderman 3 into the long grass because it surpasses it in every facet of its existence.

When George "It's my story" Lucas embarked upon the Star Wars prequels... Stars Wars fans rejoiced in collective orgasm. For years fans of the original trilogy had speculated about the first three chapters in the Star Wars epic - all of them dying to see the origins of the characters they dearly loved... the fall of Anakin Skywalker, the Clone Wars... all these things.

Perhaps people should have been a bit wary after Return of the Jedi, when apparently darker takes - wherein Han Solo died - were rejected... and Wookies were replaced with Ewoks. Or the somewhat limp wristed ending to The Empire Strikes Back - which had enormous potential for some manner of cliffhanger ending... beyond Han being encased in carbonite... although, in fairness - it remains above and beyond all other Star Wars films by orders of magnitude.

So where did it all go wrong?

In the overall sense… there are several failings.

The most obvious is that – despite twenty years – George Lucas fucked up. He had twenty years to get something that would mesh with the original trilogy and yet, there are several glaring contradictions that are just idiotic. The relationship between Amidala and Anakin, his “fall”, Amidala’s death, Anakin builds C3PO… the list is long.

The second most obvious? The Phantom Menace is pointless. It introduces only ONE character of merit and kills him… Just imagine the original trilogy starting with Luke dosing around and doing nothing much… It’s clear that in his way, Lucas tried to parallel A New Hope… but sadly, he wasn’t quite able to pull it off… because, truth be told – he wasn’t stealing directly from Samurai films.

The third – there is just so little to recommend these films. Star Wars was never exactly winning people over by virtue of its story telling. It was an epic story, played out across a galaxy in turmoil. The Prequels are about a TRADE DISPUTE, not just that but the dialogue is so awful and so utterly unconvincing… people act illogically because that’s what’s required of them. Even the acting is awful… and to be honest the total prevalence of CGI makes the term “special effects” useless.

The Phantom Menace:

Plot wise? As above stated – the film serves no real purpose. Sure, it introduces the characters but… that didn’t require a whole film.. why? Because the only one that has any real depth DIES! Liam Neeson is about the only person in the whole film who acts worth a damn.

There’s no real comparison to a galaxy in turmoil over civil war, compared to… A TRADE DISPUTE!

And Anakin… AS A CHILD! The baddest brother in the galaxy? As a douche bag white kid? As if him being a happy old white guy in Return of the Jedi wasn’t enough of a kick in the teeth. Not to mention he’s Mary Sue’d up… he can build C3PO… he can build a pod… why? WHY?! There’s no reason for these things… well, the pod allows us to have one of the prequel trademarks.

Scenes that feel like video games… that you can’t play! Presumably because many of them go on to be part of games you can play… regardless, it’s not really good to watch. No one really engages with what’s happening because… nothing is happening for them. They’re playing jump around in front of the green canvas… so, almost every one of these scenes – and they all drag on for considerable amounts of time – has people looking rather indifferent to quite dangerous situations. Of course, the quality of acting in the prequels isn’t exactly legendary at the best of times but these scenes serve only to highlight it…

And then of course, while there are the bloated CGI action scenes… we also have the CGI nightmare of Jarjar… it’s hard to tell whether Lucas became so surrounded by yes-men and fanboys that he simply thought that this was genuinely a good idea or whether he’d merely grown so contemptuous he wanted to show the world he could give loyal fans the one fingered salute and still produce a box office smash – or so combination of the two… but regardless, it’s hard to cover any new ground as far as Jarjar hating goes. It’s all been said.

Then of course we have probably the most controversial and stupid aspects of the entire Prequels debacle. The fact the Force is apparently a bunch of teeny tiny little organisms in someone’s blood – telling them what to do… uh, ok… and somehow that relates to their power level… why no one ever thinks to harvest them and inject a bunch… And the fact that said teeny tiny little organisms decided to have a party in Anakin’s mother’s womb and conceive the little douche… the latter may have served some purpose if it wasn’t NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN. Like many aspects introduced in the Prequels, it’s never an issue in the original trilogy and hell, after five minutes – it’s not even an issue in the film it was mentioned it.

And of course, we’ve got everyone being motivated by idiocy. The Trade Federation are a fairly ill defined entity but it’s hard to understand why they have an army as the name implies they’re a corporate organisation of some sort… but the reason they decide to occupy a planet – then pretend they didn’t – is never clarified.

Similarly, Amidala’s course of action isn’t exactly logical. She runs off to Coruscant and when she doesn’t INSTANTLY get help, decides to go back to Naboo… ok, that helps thin the ranks of the Gungans but it’s the singular most illogical course of action for a leader to take. Her duty is to try and get the occupation of her planet ended and her best chance of that is with the Republic, not heading back to a warzone… Which doesn’t even BEGIN to cover quite why they take a child along with them.

And of course… Anakin taking out the control ship. Shields in Star Wars now seem to act like… actually, it’s impossible to say really, they seem to just do whatever they’re required to do by the plot. So, while the idiotically dressed Noob pilots fly around bitching about how the shields are too strong for them to penetrate – Anakin manages to FLY INSIDE THE SHIP. You’d think there’d be something to stop someone doing that… especially as the hangar seems to lead right to the reactor bay… it feels a lot like Lucas felt a need to draw parallels between Luke and Anakin… but while there was quite a lot of tension and build up to Luke blowing up the Death Star… this is just a little kid being irritating and managing to blow something up… by accident. Which magically stops the droid army. Talk about a glass jaw.

The fight with Darth Maul is actually great – except for the stupid way that Darth Maul is offed. He’s supposed to be a bad ass Sith Lord and he just stands there – looking at Obi Wan, jump up, grab Quigon’s lightsabre and then cut him in half. He still looks surprised when he’s falling in two pieces. Again, it’s just something where someone is an idiot because that’s required.

And then we wrap up with a camera shot that makes it obvious to all but the most mentally retarded of viewers that PALPATINE IS SIDIOUS. That was probably obvious, what with any Star Wars fan worth their salt knowing that it was Emperor Palpatine… but then, that simply makes the manipulations less subtle… He pretty much says “Hey, Amidala – why not impeach the current Supreme Chancellor, then I’ll fix everything by being a bad ass!” Which – by the way – happens in about five minutes.


Attack Of The Clones:

So… for some reason, an immensely inept assassin is trying to kill Amidala… It’s never really explained WHY – presumably the Trade Federation aren’t too keen on her but there’s no real reason for them to hate her that much… and this is something like how many years after the events of Episode 1?

Anyway, the immensely inept assassin detonates a bomb on Amidala’s ship AFTER she lands… You’d think that SPACE would be a good place to detonate a bomb but apparently not. It doesn’t matter anyway as Amidala has pulled her ol’ switcharoo again… So her handmaiden gets toasted… who cares?

Lucas said he wanted this film to be a love story… to say that it was a failure is kind of like saying that Jarjar Binks wasn’t a big hit – and one of the few things to show Lucas actually paid any attention to the criticisms of the first film is that he has a vastly diminished role in this one.

First off, Anakin might now be full grown but he’s basically still the same whiney little douchebag he was before. Not only that, he regularly bitches people out for his own failings, espouses a dictatorship and, let’s not forget – a bit of wholesale slaughter of men, women and children. Yet despite this, the age gap and the fact she met him at an eight year old… Senator Amidala can’t wait to marry the fucker.

The big problem though is… the Separatists. Why do they want to break away from the Republic? Why is the Republic ready to go to war? The reasoning for the war is essentially non-existent because the Separatists are commercial entities – why would they WANT a fight? Wars are expensive to wage. Also, isn’t the Republic democratic? Shouldn’t these people just be petitioning to get out and then be let out? It’s not as if the Republic seems to be a particularly strong entity… they didn’t give a flying fuck when Naboo got invaded, after all.

Also, what’s with Count Doofus? He basically spills his guts to Obiwan about the plan… treachery or manipulation – either way it’s a ham fisted effort. No wonder Palpatine has him sliced and diced. He’s either treacherous or grossly incompetent.

Not to mention the “investigation” into the clone army lasts all of five minutes… they make a big deal out of it. THEN FORGET IT. Whatever happened to their concern about a plot to destroy the Jedi?

And did Amidala suffer brain damage? What kind of fucktard puts Jarjar Binks in charge? Of course, she DID marry a fuckwit like Anakin so, clearly she’s an idiot.

Jango Fett? What’s the real point – beyond giving the fanboys something to think about on long winter nights… It’s pretty pointless and making him a Maori is just… idiotic. He’s introduced, has a fight or two and then gets beheaded… guess you should have had a neck piece in there, ol’ chap.

There’s also an issue with the fight on Geonosis… first of all… even if the Republic ships dropped out of hyperspace right on top of the enemy – they’d have SURELY known to the point they got more of a warning that the enemy merely turning up in the sky – it seems logical to assume there’d be some kind of space battle given all the Federation ships in orbit. Not to mention the idiocy of having a big part of your ship planetside…

Revenge Of The Sith:

Really Attack of the Clones ends where the Prequels should begin and Revenge of the Sith where it should end… Which is to say, the Clone Wars should be what this trilogy covers but it really doesn’t even touch upon it.

Anyone that watched the seminal Clone Wars cartoons will know this begins where it left off… but rubbish. It’s also the explanation for why General Grievous sounds like a French child molesting, asthmatic. He’s supposed to be a bad ass that kills Jedi and was giving the Republic a run for their money… but he just comes across as your average bungling Saturday morning cartoon villain. It’s easier imagining him facing off against Inspector Gadget than a Jedi.

The original trilogy really put some emphasis – and indeed, pretty much everything Obiwan tells Luke about his father is used to make the point – that Anakin Skywalker was a good guy who over a period of time was seduced by the power and lure of the Dark Side and became Darth Vader… This film pretty much takes that idea and tosses it out the window. One minute Anakin is ready to take down the Chancellor when he (AFTER THREE FILMS) works out he’s a Sith lord. Then all of a sudden, he’s cutting off Mace Windu’s hand, swearing allegiance to the Dark Side and rounding up younglings to slaughter. Looks like someone set this Anakin Skywalker from good to evil!

Except, it’s not as if one can ever really say he was good – last film he went and did a pretty good job of killing some kids too! Ok, granted last time it was because he was angry at the death of his mother and this time it was because Palpatine said “Yeah, go kill those little fuckers.” But that’s not exactly a fall, so much as maybe miss stepping because you thought there was an extra stair.

Lucas may be tacitly admitting that he phoned that part in by having Padme reiterate that this is all new and bad… Except it merely highlights the idiocy of all this because Padme knew that Anakin had killed kids and espoused dictatorship… not to mention just generally being petty and spiteful – oh and violating a bunch of Jedi codes by shagging her.

And all that’s FURTHER compounded – and by this point the contrivance is getting to such a level that it seems as if skill has actually be exerted to make it this idiotic and stupid – by the fact the only reason Anakin supposedly signed up with Palpatine was to save Padme… which he kind of tosses out the window when he FORCE CHOKES HER.

Then she LITERALLY dies of a broken heart. It’s almost as if they were taking bets to see how many horrible clichés they could use in the most literal sense for this film… What’s important though, is that this contradicts another established piece of continuity. Leia says she KNEW her mother… that seems a little unlikely if she dies all of 5 seconds after popping her babies out.

Regardless, Anakin and Obiwan have another poe-faced fight over lava – because hey, it’s just liquid rock at a few thousand degrees. It only hurts you if you touch it! For some reason having the high ground is a big deal to people who can jump around with no regard for the laws of physics… But, why doesn’t Obiwan finish off Anakin? It makes no sense. Maybe he doesn’t have the heart to finish Anakin off… but then, that doesn’t really make any sense as leaving him to burn to death with his arms and legs cut off seems infinitely more cruel… in fact, it just plain doesn’t make any sense. There is no logical reason for Obiwan to leave Anakin there. Furthermore, if Obiwan left him for dead in a horrific amount of pain – you’d kind of figure someone that gets ticked off by little things like the escape of the Millennium Falcon, would want to see Obiwan die long and slow.

The wrap up is really little more than an exercise in pushing the piece to where they need to be for the original trilogy to happen… but then, why even BOTHER with that if there’s going to be stuff like killing off Luke & Leia’s mother…

Summation:

In truth, there’s a lot to find fault with in the prequels on almost every level. From continuity with the original trilogy to basic logic to just plain horrible dialogue and acting. Even if one ignores the inherent betrayal of the originals that this amounts to, there’s little to recommend the films beyond the action set pieces.

The battles suffer from being little more than run of the mill CGI fests… these aren’t exactly special these days and there’s nothing to really recommend the Prequels battles beyond anything else. They’ve had more money thrown at them but they’re not particularly interesting and they include such futuristic tactics as “running directly at your enemy while shooting wildly”… no cover for these guys!

And in what way are these robots ANY threat to the Republic? It seems that Anakin and Obiwan could just hack through a million of them and really, the only thing at stake would be time. The only time it seems as if they’re actually capable of killing Jedi is in Episode 2 when they have people totally surrounded by them…

It’s rather sad that the prequels couldn’t even get the details right… yes, the pieces are pushed into place for the original trilogy but there’s just so many things that are unnecessary. Anakin BUILDS 3PO?! Anakin was the virgin birth? Anakin was the Chosen one of some prophecy?

Ok – those things COULD have been ok… but they were just dropped. They were all dead ends. Just loose ends, raised but never resolved. At best they’re just pointless ways to fill screen time – at worst, they’re terrible clangers that make no sense and detract from the overall mythos. Midichlorians being a PRIME example. One could scarcely ruin a mystical energy field more comprehensively than having it be tiny little things in your blood.

The choice to use Ewoks in Return of the Jedi, rather than Wookies was really just the start of Star Wars graduating wholly toward a demographic barely into double digits. The logical conclusion of this path being the new Clone Wars CGI fest but the facile and shallow nature of the Prequels… it’s hardly surprising that Lucas calls them kid’s films… that’s what he made them. Albeit a franchise which includes decapitations, incest, genocide and Jarjar Binks.

For anyone who had even passing interest in the Star Wars franchise before the prequels, it’s easy to see why people feel betrayed… there is something of an inherent danger to prequels. Unless they’re artfully planned, they’ll fail because they’re forced to either fit in between existing continuity or merely ride rough shod all over.

There are easy examples – like C3PO and Anakin – but there are more problematic ones… Most specifically, Anakin and Obiwan… Or possibly just to simplify it? Anakin… Really, didn’t everyone think this was going to be the tale of his fall from grace? It sure should have been.

That might have been a perfect situation… a teenage Anakin joins the Jedi order – his training rushed because of the Clone Wars… he’s reckless but his intentions are well founded… but slowly the power of the Dark Side beckons to him… a series of moral compromises that eventually lead him to fall from grace.

But no, we get a guy who is turned to the dark side essentially by Palpatine saying “Oh, go on – kill some irritating little kids!” Which in a single scene manages to accurately capture the hamfisted conception of the prequels… that or Qui Gonn dropping a clanger about midichlorians.

It all just goes to show, you can throw as much money you want at special effects but it’s all for naught if you haven’t got the writing to back it up, it’s not going to be anything more than a glut of explosions. Hollow cash ins that lessen everything that made the original trilogy good.