You'd think that having the merchandising rights to Star Wars and having metaphorically just excreted 3 new films, that George Lucas would have had enough money to be going on with... but apparently he needs another golden Jarjar or some such, which is the only reason they'd revive Harrison Ford from his slumber to make a new Indiana Jones film.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about this film is the fact it doesn't suck. Yes - pretty much everyone was expecting it to suck harder than a legion of berserker fellatio kamikaze hooker but clearly someone made enough threats on the lives of Lucas and Spielberg to make sure it wasn't holocaustically bad. Let's not be hasty - it's not Raiders of the Lost Ark or The Last Crusade... not by a long shot... but it somewhat surpasses Temple of Doom - by far the weakest of the original three films.

The film doesn't really waste any time... it's not long before some commies are get Indy to try and find some relic, atomic bombs are blowing up and so on. The problem the film has is rather intangible... oh, there are some obvious ones - that there's a dramatic disconnect as soon as they transition to the jungle... and that there's an abundance of silliness toward the end... but it simply doesn't have the "magic". Oh, there's Indy cracking his whip... having fisticuffs... all the regulation stuff but somehow it's just never quite able to recapture the feel of the old films... maybe it all got lost when they stuck in an obscene amount of CGI in there... or the ridiculous interdimensional aliens... or perhaps it's the vaguely irritating Indy junior or the fact the jungle chase scene goes on and on and on and the... on and on some more.

Perhaps it just feels slightly less substantial than its counterparts... it's an enjoyable film but it's easier to think of it as a decent summer blockbuster than it is to brand it a successor to the original trilogy... fun but ultimately, feeling too... sanitised to be true to the legacy. Worth watching? Certainly but somehow falling short of being entirely worthy of the title Indiana Jones...

Time was, when the world was ending... it would end in America. Usually involving nukes, American soldiers or teens... or people and somehow, amazingly - things would clear right up when (their) red, white and blue was flying again etc. etc. Or not.

In recent years though, for some reason, it seems the British isles have become subject to the apocalypse. Be it infertility or viruses, the United Kingdom seems to be where it's at in terms of destruction and death... it makes a kind of sense. Britain allows for a contained environment for the apocalypse to play out but the rest of the world to be unaffected... or at least, such was the case in 28 Days Later...

Doomsday revisits the same basic idea as 28 Days Later - DEADLY VIRUS! Except this one just happens to be particularly virulent rather than turning people into flailing, murderous red eyed zombies... just kills them in a rather unpleasant way. So, after the outbreak in Glasgow someone thinks it's a great idea to just wall off Scotland and hope that fixes everything... Nuking Glasgow was probably a better prospect but oh well... Apparently this solution works just super until 20 years later, there's an outbreak of the virus in the now terminally overcrowded London and the PM sends generic crack troops in to find a cure.

As it turns out, things on the other side of the wall have gone Mad Max/Lord of the Flies... the total breakdown of social order and reversion of a sort of feudal existence... with some cannibalism thrown in... Plenty of the people die when the cannibalistic inhabitants of Glasgow ambush the APCs the team is in and naturally, they're on the menu but eventually the handy person on the inside lets them out and our heroine gets to go and see Malcolm McDowell, who was supposed to be finding a cure... when actually he's gone all kinds of batshit crazy. What is it with scientists in these situations? Do they go "Oh, well - time to go totally insane?" whenever this kind of stuff happens? Regardless, McDowell doesn't want to help Rona Mitra because he's got a castle now and pretty much set himself up as the king... oh and being batshit crazy, he thinks that technology is evil and that it's time for Rona to fight one of his nights.

Meanwhile, Bob Hoskins manages to accidentally cover Prime Minister Julian Bashir in blood when one of the infected magically enters what should probably be the most secure location in the country and subsequently the thinly veiled Gordon Brown scumbag underling takes over, planning to let the virus kill more people to thin the ranks... which for some reason he decides to tell Mitra "Oh, yeah - I was planning on getting the cure you slogged your guts out for... then sitting on my hands to effectively seal my grip on power. Kthxbye!"

Idiotic to say the least... and Mitra hasn't exactly found a cure. She knows that the people who survived had a natural immunity but there are people with a natural immunity to AIDS. That doesn't mean to say you take a litre of blood from someone with that immunity and magically get a cure. Oh, it would definitely help but this isn't like some GCSE science project you can knock out on a weekend.

Of course, when you've got someone who's saying that they're going to let a bunch of people die after you put your life on the line to save them - it's fairly clear that common sense isn't a plentiful resource in this film... Anyway, Mitra gives Bob Hoskin's a recording of evil not-Gordon-Brown saying he's going to let a bunch of people die, kills the punk who has been busting her chops for the entire film and decides to show his head to his old gang... which apparently means she's their leader.

A few logical asides here... The Reaper virus is supposedly deadly because of it's virulence... and yet somehow there was time for them to rebuild Hadrian's Wall AND outfit it with some fancy defence mechanism? Not to mention the logistics of an effective patrol around the coast of Scotland.

Then of course, one has to ask why people are still hanging out in cities... it would be beyond Captain Obvious levels of obviousness to state that society has broken down in the hot zone... yet cities by their nature require civilisation to sustain them. Even though the population was decimated, even relatively small numbers of people need a considerable amount of food and as it has been 10 years since the quarantine

And of course, the usual silly things - like retina scanners working for someone dead/unconscious... That situation was entirely stupid anyway. We're supposed to believe that there'd be a whopping 2 guards protecting the door to what should probably be the most secure location in the country? If you're that incompetent - you pretty much deserve everything you get.

Of course, films like this aren't meant for logical analysis. It's essentially a romp. The virus serves little other function than to offer a post-apocalyptic environment for our heroine to run about and fight in. The rapidity with which her team is disposed of is hilarious, they might as well have just shot themselves in the head the second they went through the gate... The film owes a depth of gratitude to the inevitable comparisons of Escape From New York and Mad Max... but it's clearly derivative but no less enjoyable in the typical action romp manner.

Marvel Studios - the film arm of Marvel - made its first real foray into the superhero movie market with Iron Man... a character who (despite his recent prominence in the Marvel comic world) is far less well known than by the general public... while this claim could equally be levelled at Daredevil, Constantine, The Punisher and so on... none of them were hyped up to anywhere near the extent of Iron Man (even the new Incredible Hulk movie has been quiet by comparison)...

Most superhero origin films have felt a little weak... there's some need to build a character up before they fall into a bath of radioactive goop that gives them great powers and the ability to fit into incredibly tight costumes. In other words - you're spending a significant amount of time pretty much sitting around waiting for the person to go "OMG SUPERPOWERS!" Of course... perhaps by the nature of Iron Man... there's none of that. It's a more logical process... but then, that makes sense as there's a lot more logic to a guy building a big, bad ass power armour suit than there is to someone getting bitten by a spider and getting spider and emo superpowers.

So, anyway... the story goes pretty straight forwardly. Genius billionaire arms dealer Tony Stark - played by Robert Downey Jr. - goes off to Afghanistan to show the American military just how spiffy his new missiles are... why this can't be accomplished in America isn't ever explained because there are plenty of mountains to blow the hell out of in the USA... but there are fewer Afghani militants in the USA waiting to ambush the American military... So, Tony Stark gets taken hostage and is coerced into building his super duper Jericho missile because if there's one thing Taliban types want to do, it's blow the ever loving snot out of the mountains that cover their country.

The Taliban types aren't very bright because Tony Stark has an epiphany and realises it's time to repent for being an arms dealer and right wrongs... How does he do this? Well, he makes a big suit of power armour... quite how you can confuse a giant suit of armour with a state of the art missile is never explained but such plot details are neither here nor there. After a bit of heart to heart with a fellow captive, Stark gets his act together and runs off in a giant metal suit having killed a lot of people - naturally, his fellow captive heroically sacrifices himself to allow the armour to power up and kicks the bucket after a few last words to Stark.

As you'd expect, Stark skeedadles after setting a lot of stuff on fire. Somehow surviving a considerable fall and the disintegration of his armour on the way to moments later be fortuitously rescued by an American army chopper. He seems pretty fine when he gets home - despite having had the trauma of some time in captivity and so on. As you might guess - his business partner is all smiles and sunshine when he returns... until Stark says they won't be building weapons anymore... Of course, his business partner was responsible for Stark's imprisonment in the first place and selling weapons to the Ten Rings - a very unsubtle reference to the Mandarin for anyone that has any knowledge of the comics.

So, Tony jets off to save his dead friends village in another fairly cool action sequence which climaxes in the Tonster facing down to F-22s. Then, naturally Tony finds out that his business budy Stanes has been the one pulling the strings all along and that he has reverse engineered Stark's original powersuit. Which naturally leads to the climactic finale battle. No prizes for guessing who wins... and for those who choose to endure lengthy end credits, Samuel L. Jackson pops up to tell Downey that there's another film in it for him.

All-in-all, it's a good film. The action is slick and the effects all work, the look of the suits especially seems to work very well and while the "arc reactor" may in effect be just as magical as spider bites resulting in the ability to hang from walls, it seems much more plausible... so this film will likely be a lot more acceptable for people who find the notion of people firing beams from their eyes or acting like giant magnets to be rather childish.

In fact, Downey himself sells the character of Stark as rather relateable. There's no specific way to pin it down but he's very much the playboy and yet still, personable and human and not in the Bale's Batman is... with him, it's an act - as necessitated by the character... and that gives Downey more room to manoeuvre. He has that drink welded to his hand, sleeps around and yet, goes out and saves the day... oh, certainly we can't deny the comic book nature of his suit and his brawling antics... but he feels more real than most.

The real issue seems to be villains... It is important to have a villain (or villains) to face off again... and no one likes Darth Maul syndrome... actually, no one likes George Lucas anymore... but he can just play with all the Ewoks his money bought him. But beyond the final minutes, Iron Man has no real opponent... Sure, he gets away with the appearance of his business partner in the Iron Monger suit... but he's more of a finishing piece than someone who has been there all the way through...

Still, it easily surpasses Spiderman - if not in box office receipts than at least in interest and action... while it may not quite match Batman Begins it seems proof that Marvel can produce films that are more than just box office hits... it seems that it's own production studio has allowed it to be GOOD... whether The Incredible Hulk will prove this to be a trend or a fluke, remains to be seen.

If you've watched (or read) the seminal Ghost In Shell - probably one of the best known, loved and critically acclaimed anime made - you might well have been experiencing physical pain of a non-specific nature... or perhaps a more general "I've got a bad feeling about this" for no specific reason.

The reason for this is probably that you're at some level aware that aforementioned seminal anime is going to become... a Dreamworks "live action CGI". That phrase is probably filling you with a sense of unease and foreboding... most likely because the last time you heard it was to describe the holocaustically bad Transformers.

Don't worry though, Steven Spielberg is REALLY keen on the project and his last great film was... uh... Jaws?

Prepare for disappointment.

The funny thing about Jumper - other than the fact Hayden Christensen has inexplicably been cast in a major film after his Manakin Skywalker car crash performance in the Star Wars prequels - is how the protagonist basically forgets his old life then stops by to his old high school sweetheart... and no one remarks upon the fact he disappeared for ages... or the fact that he managed to escape death and so on. Clearly, people just returning from the dead is a regular occurance and one doesn't hold the lack of contact in the interim

Of course, Manakin manages to survive because he's like a less cool, less interesting version of Nightcrawler... yup, he can teleport. Although, Manakin can apparently teleport to anywhere he's seen (with just a photograph) in the whole world. Naturally, having bailed out of school and such, Manakin decides it would be a super idea to rob banks using his abilities. Which makes sense. What DOESN'T make sense is Samuel L. Jackson being part of a centuries old religious order that wants to lay the smack down on the Jumpers.

The Paladins have all manner of doo-dahs to track jumpers and incapacitate them. The only problem being... it's unlikely any of them could have been portable 20 years ago and unlikely most of the could even have existed 30 years ago. Hence the notion of Samuel L. Jackson's ancestors kicking the ass of Manakin's grandfather seems... idiotic. If it's a long standing movement... there were surely some like Griffin who weren't content to stand around and be murdered and even WITH the doo-dahs, they're still at a considerable disadvantage. Sure, Paladins might have had numbers on their side but it just seems hard to imagine them doing a good job.

Regardless Samuel L. Jackson doesn't want no MOTHER FUCKING JUMPERS ON HIS PLANET. So, he tracks Manakin down because... well, Manakin is an idiot having left a trail of breadcrumbs big enough to feed the 5000. Anyway, as you might guess - Manakin isn't too bothered about that - he's sleazing on his old sweetheart (if he liked her so damned much, why did he just forget her for more than 10 years? And how the hell does everyone INSTANTLY recognise him when he wasn't even knee high last time they saw him?) and he's found a somewhat stereotypical Scottish Jumper.

It really doesn't take a genius to work out what happens. Manakin takes his girl to Rome, where he and Griffin bump into some Paladins (his girlie doesn't notice) and then he lets her go home on her own... and she gets pissed. So he explains to her - as all men have to eventually - honey, I can teleport all over the shop... and no, I'm not as cool or as interesting as Nightcrawler. He 'ports her from her house to Griffin's lair... What a schoolboy error - because guess what? Samuel Mother Fucking Jackson has a big box of plot device that allows him to go through the "jump scars" (Manakin did that earlier to follow Griffin, so you can't say that it was entirely unexpected but that merely makes a direct jump to the lair even more stupid).

As you might guess, there's a bit of a fight where Griffin goes mental and does some ass kicking while Manakin kind of douches around and looks helpless while his girlfriend from the OC gets taken by SLJ back through the wormhole. Griffin decides that with the baddest mother on the other side and most of his Paladin pals, it would be a rather super idea to lob a bomb through and let the God they're ever so fond of sort them out. Manakin likes his girlie too much and so steals the detonator for the bomb. Cue the two Jumping all over the world, fighting for the detonator.

Why? Is the only question to ask here... Sure, you can't exactly go to your local hardware store and say "yeah, I'd like a detonator please." but the guy can go anywhere in the world, stop by somewhere and pick up a whole new bomb. Naturally, Griffin being on the side of girl killing - Manakin eventually manages to trap him in an electricity pylon... Electricity is shown to inhibit the ability to jump... but only due to the fact it inhibits the ability to concentrate... or something, in any respects... the chances are the pylon would either kill Griffin or that there wouldn't be any electricity running through it. Him standing there going "Ouch!" is just idiotic.

Griffin out the way, it's time to save the girl! As you can imagine, Manakin has a GREAT plan. Jump right in there! Which isn't so much a plan as idiocy. He's a good guy though, so his plan to jump the entire apartment works just fine. He 'ports it right into a lake and naturally, saves the girl... the fate of the other Paladins is somewhat unclear but he takes Samuel L. Jackson to a cave in the Grand Canyon and tells him that "I told you I was different." Presumably Samuel L. Jackson will agree... because no one else would have been stupid enough to leave him alive.

Finally, we have the touching reunion between Manakin and his estranged mother. She didn't leave because his father was a douche - she left because she was a Paladin and didn't want to kill him. Presumably if she'd quit being in a super secret organisation, she'd lose her health care and a good pension... so, abandoning her son was the logical course of action... and of course, having announced to her that he's alive... she naturally has to kill him... ah, the bond between mother and child - truly unbreakable.

The premise of the film is interesting enough... although, in all honesty it's like a somewhat less interesting take on Heroes... that is to say, ordinary people, extraordinary abilities... except they're all the same and half of them are Hayden Christensen. It's a predictable yarn and essentially follows the ol' boy meets girl but tosses in "boy disappears for 10 years due to teleportation ability" and "loses girls to secret religious order of technological murderers". The only reason to watch is to see people bamph all over the planet. Which is ok but hardly a reason to waste your time.

The heart of any good zombie film - or pseudo zombie film - worth its salt, is the sense of a world turned upside down. A place where the rules have changed instantly, inexplicably and irreversibly. People go through disbelief and denial and eventually - if they manage to live long enough - they come to accept the grim truth, that there is only survival now.

Diary of the Dead may employ the now tired narrative method of "billy films everything"... but then, it does it for FAR more sensible reasons than Cloverfield did "I've got der camera, better film everything DUR!" No, Diary makes more sense in its documenting of the events that occur. In fact, in many senses - it's integral to the story.

Pretty much off the bat, things go South. The dead being so rude as to come back to life. A couple of sensible people decide to head out to the well fortified mansion. The rest decide to just mess around and go home. In a big ol' Winnebago... not the best zombiemobile but it seems to do OK. Naturally, people start out not knowing what's happening - not believing and so on.

The dynamic is different to most other zombie films... we start with a half dozen people, who actually all know one another. There are people along the way but the disparate group of survivors, thrown together by fate isn't present... and that is rather a staple of zombie films - fuelling tension between people. Once everyone gets the whole "dead rising from the grave to feed on the flesh of the living" thing though, they're about as cohesive a group as a group of college students can be.

They take a rather different view to the normal groups... there's no holing up in the nearest mall or barn. People want to get home... or at least they do for a while. Eventually they realise that survival and not family reunion is the way forward. About time. Naturally - it's a Romero film - the military are NO help... negative help... did the military kill his family? Although, in a situation such as envisioned by a zombie apocalypse - it makes sense that the military would end up running the show but really, the interactions with other groups are transitory. In fact, at the perfunctory 90 minutes the film itself feels rather transitory...

There's no real chance for the characters to develop... even those who don't have a camera glued to their face - in yet another example of people wantonly ignoring survival instinct... but that's necessary for the method of storytelling... in fact, it's pertinent to the social commentary of the film. In much the same way that Night of the Living Dead made points about racism and Dawn of the Dead pointedly mocked mindless consumer culture - not to mention the shameless anti-military message of Day of the Dead - Diary of the Dead makes very obvious observations about the nature of the media... the distortions of the government, the distance that one gains from events by filming them... and how voyeurism has become so common place.

As zombie films go... danger seldom feels pressing here. Occasionally there are moments - most notably in the barn when there is a horde of zombies encroaching and the Winnebago needs fixed - but on the whole, the group are merely in a situation where potential danger is present... although, they seem to be totally safe inside their vehicle. Zombies do seem to inexplicably appear en masse at rather convenient intervals - really, you wouldn't think there would be dozens of people hanging out in shambling distance of a barn or remote mansion. In Dawn of the Dead it made sense - zombies were heading to malls because of residual memory... there doesn't seem much reason for them to show up in the middle of nowhere... but then, they're necessary for tension and so on... just as their general absence is necessary for the voyeurism and documentary making to occur.

The commentary is pretty tame compared to the rather stark messages of Romero's original trilogy. It's not exactly as bare faced as zombies walking around a mall, it's just "ooo - the youtube generation!" The compulsion to document. It feels as if the story is really just a vehicle for that observation, it's focused on more than the zombies... naturally, there's a bit of "people are rubbish" too but then that's hardly original. It's all very rushed... even though we're dropped almost immediately into a situation where the characters are aware of events - even if some are sceptical - and yet still it feels as if the film is rushing to get everything tied up in a neat ninety minute package. Which is easily to the detriment of the film. Developing the characters, adding in more action... would have greatly improved things.

In terms of action... well, there's precious little. Which is at least realistic... the kids never come across a handy cache of automatic weapons and instantly know how to use them... but then, neither are they instantly beset with hordes of zombies from nowhere - ok, it happens in the middle of the film and at the end but not nearly as much as in your average zombie film. So, in other words - don't expect this to be on a par with the Resident Evil films or the Dawn of the Dead remake because there isn't a whole lot of zombie shooting here. In that respect, it follows the similarly shot Cloverfield... no excesses of information or action... just pervasive tension.

If you're in the mood for Blair Witch (minus the excessive amounts of incessant screaming and nausea inducing camera shaking) meets zombies... it's probably a good match but it's far from Romero's best work... and even the cringe worthy Land of the Dead was better - although just barely. For Romero and zombie fans only, really.

Spectacular, Spectacular Spiderman!

So, the Spiderman movies managed to make an already popular character even MORE so... as if Spidey really needed it. Naturally - it having been some time since the previous incarnation of an animated Spiderman - it was time for a NEW Spiderman cartoon - Spectacular Spiderman.

Another new cartoon, another beginning. Peter Parker has had a summer to hone his wall crawling skillz by the time things start and wouldn't you know supervillains have started popping up, just as high school begins.

Unlike other rehashes, this remains fairly similar to the general Spiderman mythos. Spidey is the smart, fast talking webslinger whenever the city needs him and of course, struggling to balance that with being in the far more hostile environment of high school and also, helping his Aunt May help ends meet.

Somewhat surprisingly, Gwen Stacy is centre stage - in terms of potential love interests - and Mary Jane has only been mentioned in passing... although, it seems inevitable that she will turn up as she's been mentioned several times... not that Spidey really seems to have much time for fraternising between his crime fighting, school, the Bugle and so on.

Currently - and as one might expect of a new series - the show has very much revolved around the creation of Spiderman's well known rogue's gallery. This translate to roughly a villain a week for Spiderman to defeat - just as well he doesn't have much of a social life, eh?

Stylistically, it favours the more... facile animation style that is ever more prevalent in cartoons. That said, while it may be somewhat less detailed than the 90s, the animation is very slick - so the trade off is fair.

We have some interesting development of characters and relationships, the foreshadowing of the Kingpin (who has been behind half of the villains that Spidey has faced) and so on. It's not exactly Earth shattering stuff but thus far, it's proven to be entertaining. Again, it's not a show that should be compared to it predecessors because, while Spectacular Spiderman is much closer to its roots than, say, Transformers Animated - it's simply not executed in the same way. One to watch.

Fresh from the rape of Michael "SFX aren't plot?" Bay, the Transformers franchise rolls ever onward, battered and bruised... but still massively profitable because it will take more than one hack director, inexplicably hired time and again to ruin good films - forget 9/11, THAT is a conspiracy.

Anyway, as proof that Michael Bay failed in his mission to sink one of the most awesome franchise ever created to the briny deep - we have a new Transformers cartoon, Transformers Animated.

As seems to be the trend these days, all previous history of the show has been summarily disregarded and the only thing that has remained is the basic premise and a few of the core characters... well, actually - just the basic premise. Giant sentient robots from Cybertron come to Earth and defend it from the evil forces of... THE DECEPTICONS!

It's best not to talk about Transformers Animated in terms of the original (Generation 1 aka G1) cartoon because they're very different animals... Transformers Animated has a sexy teen Optimus Prime (well, a somewhat inexperienced and scrawny Optimus at least) along with Bumblebee (essentially a hyperactive 6 year old but still the noob of the group), Rachet (who is essentially Kup from G1), Bulkhead (the heavy hitting sensitive one) and Prowl (NINJA ROBOT!) stranded on Earth, protecting the All Spark.

The differences in design and style are big and owe more to Teen Titans and The Batman than G1. ALL the robots - although, more the Autobots - are far more humanised. Pretty much everyone has a face, is capable of gesticulating and body language and even the massive Bulkhead is still extremely human. This is a far cry from the huge, blocky, monolithic very robotic designs of G1 where few concessions were made in terms of anthropomorphism.

The Autobots don't just LOOK more human, they ACT more human. There is a lot of talk about emotions, friendship... They seem entirely capable of feeling pain and are far more prone to damage than their G1 counterparts ever were. In fact, few episodes have passed where damage hasn't been incurred upon our brave robot defenders... which brings us to the next point.

While in G1, humans were... at best, an after thought, in Transformers Animated - they're very much a part of the show. Hell, the Autobots are based IN Detroit. Ok, they're in an abandoned factory... but that beats G1 where they were out in the middle of nowhere, fighting Decepticons in the middle of nowhere and so on. No, the cityscape of Detroit is full of people. The most important of whom is Sari.

Sari gets a key charged by the Allspark - allowing it repair/heal the Autobots and do all manners of mischief to anything with a keyhole. Given the propensity of the Autobots to get totally schooled - this is a fairly skill and probably why they keep Sari around. She also helps acquaint the Autobots with Earth customs and her father happens to run a major robotics company - Detroit is now heavily automated by his robots, to the point where there are robotic police drones - the success of which is predicated upon... MEGATRON! Or rather, the disembodied head of Megatron.

Yes, another BIG difference is that there isn't a weekly smack down between the Autobots and Decepticons. In fact, at the start we don't really have any and even by the end of the first instalment we've only got four, I suppose five if we count Black Arachnia... which we shouldn't. So, instead of Megatron's weekly plan to get enough energon to TAKE OVER THE UNIVERSE, we have various villains of the week - some of whom are orchestrated by Megatron remotely, Sari's father is totally unaware of this... mostly because he's a putz but he's also the second of three main human characters.

The third being the bumbling, technology hating police chief. As one might guess, in a city where technology is so prevalent - especially in the police force - he's something of a comic relief character, prone to a short fuse and slapstick comedy... although, occasionally effective at his job, or at least as effective as one can expect a meatbag to be against a race of hyper advanced alien space robots.

The effect of human characters and the lack of persistent Decepticon threat makes the show dynamic entirely different. G1 was essentially robots! Humans may have been there but they were along for the ride... Sari and a variety of rather less friendly homo sapiens prove to be far more in the driving seat in terms of plot. Sari driven by her inherent need for fun and mischief - the villains mostly by money and/or revenge. It allows for more variation than G1 and the introduction of characters has been far slower - it's only by the end of Megatron Rising Part 1 we have a full team of Decepticons... although, thus far the Decepticons have generally been shown to be far more powerful individually than the five Autobots.

Megatron and Starscream are very much unchanged from their original incarnations. Even though Megatron might be sans body, he's still the consummate schemer, planning and manipulating for his own ends - even if that is just a new body, mostly. Starscream remains the powerful, underhanded, backstabbing and opportunistic turncoat that everyone loves. Even if he's often sporting a cutesy sneer now, he's still quite menacing in his single mindedness to lead the Decipticons.

In terms of the Autobots... Prime is unrecognisable. He's a leader but not the confident, powerful one from G1... he's unsure of himself, dependent upon the advice of the rest of the team and hesitant... Not to mention angsty. Bumblebee is more hyperactive but in many ways, that's in keeping with the younger feel of the show... Ratchet is Kip, there's not much more to say.

As the constant references to G1 should illustrate... while the basic idea of robots that become vehicles is still there - the execution, structure and style are a world away and while the end is still to get children to buy the merchandise, they go about it in very different ways. While the G1 team would be happy to smash some Decepticons, let Spike think he'd helped and go home... Transformers Animated is more interested in plots and lessons. Not only that but the characters are substantially more human in all senses and humans play an infinitely bigger role - it makes it a far more relatable show...

People who cut their teeth on Megatron and Optimus Prime going toe to toe may well baulk at the changes but this is not attempting to be Transformers G1 any more than the live action film. If you watch it, not expecting G1 - you may be pleasantly surprised by some of it... if you're hoping for G1... you'll hate it unconditionally.

Bye Bye Bionic Woman.

After a - by US standards - poultry 8 episodes, the remake of the 70s show is now merely (allegedly) awaiting the official confirmation of its cancellation.

Some might blame the poor timing of the writers' strike but that seems likely to only be an aggravating, rather than causal factor. The simple fact of the matter is that the show was weak, derivative and rather prosaic.

Ever since Buffy and Xena popularised the idea of ass kicking wise ass heroines, we've had a slew of them on our screens. Bionic Woman just goes to show that you can't simply cross your fingers and hope that it'll magically work... and it's very easy to see the similarities to Buffy here. Girl living an ordinary life, gets abilities, has to start fighting bad guys... except of course, whereas Joss Whedon had a rather well articulated metaphor of High School literally being Hell, Bionic Woman went for the rather more tedious Alias angle... fitting that spying in with class, home life and of course, romantic dalliances. At least we didn't have to suffer any Bionic wigs...

It's simply somewhat tedious that there seems to be a compulsion to portray strong women as capable of doing so many roles, so flawlessly that they're essentially perfect and hence, rather shallow and uninteresting characters. Our Bionic Woman is pretty much capable of - on any given day - keeping her somewhat rowdy sister in line and fulfilling her role of surrogate mother, doing an A-grade paper and of course, smashing whatever evil criminal/terrorist gang there is out there and probably managing to flirt with some preternaturally handsome romantic interest too. Women are supposedly better at multi-tasking but that might be pushing it - still, at least she was more likeable than agent Sydney Bristo.

In truth, the ease with which parallels can be drawn to other female led shows the inherent problem with Bionic Woman. It was very much paint by numbers - specifically other people's numbers. Beyond her superhuman abilities - and these days, that's not exactly a unique selling point - there wasn't much to recommend it. The mish-mash of elements never really allowed anything to shine through. There's action but it's not awe inspiring, there's drama but it's not going to knock your socks off, there's humour but it's fairly bland.

Bland, prosaic, mediocre... all apt words to describe the show. It's an inoffensive way to pass the time but so much so that you may find yourself unable to really recall WHAT exactly happened... Oh, there were probably some terrorists in there... something about a bomb but details will be dim. Really, the best thing about the show was Starbuck being the "evil" Bionic Woman and her roll was rather transitory. All in all, the show is - or was - a perfect storm of bland and it's cancellation should not be mourned.

While SG-1 may have - thankfully - been put out to pasture and shot repeatedly in the head, it's legacy lives on in a series of straight to DVD releases. Never stop milking a cash cow until it's dead.

Naturally, the last season of SG-1 ended on a bit of a "meh"... with plenty of loose ends and no real resolutions to the current problems the Milky Way faced at the hands of the Ori. Enter - THE ARK OF TRUTH to give us some kind of closure on the whole thing.

Despite having managed to follow the paint by numbers instructions on their deus ex Ascended being killing plot device 4000, the Ori's followers are still going around the galaxy with more zeal than a televangelist and a LOT more fire power.

Where one deus ex plot device failed... another will surely succeed. Enter the Ark of Truth. SG-1 are -naturally - the only people in the entire universe to be entrusted with finding it and hence we start with them, looking... when they bump into Erin's old boyfriend. After some jiggery pokery, they manage to get him to join them and they head back to SGC for cakes and rigorous interrogation by the new IOA douche.

For those who don't know or have forgotten the IOA are the latest in a series of governmental/bureaucratic foils for the brave, anti-paperwork SG-1 heroes... there have been many variations on the theme but essentially they're always meddling for nefarious purposes or just plain stupid. Robert Picardo's petty bureaucrat pales in comparison to the aggressively asinine behaviour of the new boy.

As it goes, the SG-1 team have to take him along as they look for the Ark and the friction between him and Mitchell couldn't have been more by the numbers if it tried. It's been pretty much the same with all the douchebag bureaucrats. Anyway, he's along for the ride and as it turns out after things finally get going... he decides to sabotage his own side by... DUN DUN DUN! Unleashing Replicators. Yeah. Fan favourites.

To be honest, it takes some of the impact out of defeating probably the greatest enemy the SGC EVER faced to just be able to recreate them... and to be honest, you have to question the wisdom of using them to defeat the Ori... Yes. They probably could take down the Ori... but the Replicators aren't really interested in one galaxy. They'd probably prefer to take all galaxies and given their original appearance, it seems likely that after overtaking the Odyssey they'd not hesitate to come to the Milky Way - again. So, in the long sad history of bad ideas... it seems to be another very big one.

On the plus side, at least these are ACTUAL diabolic mechano and not the rubbish T1000 ripoff human form replicators that low budgets have subjected us to in recent years. Nope, these are bonafide evil mechano spider things. Which is for the best. When Replicators became people, it made them tedious. Their whole schtick was that they were faceless and inhuman... Of course, in what amounts to poetic justice IOA douche gets mauled and taken over by Replicators... It's actually fairly stupid. Robozombie.

While this Replicator related fun is transpiring, Daniel, Teal'c et al are searching for their much needed insta-win device on the Ori's home planet. The lone Replicator has been true to its name and there are plenty of them... Quite why they didn't chase after it when the ARG failed isn't elaborated upon. Idiocy seems the likely answer... Anyway, the Ori show up as part of IOA's diabolical plan to use the Replicators to take the Ori out, so the ship skedaddles.

It's around this point that you'll notice it's taken 40 minutes for stuff to actually happen... regardless, it's with incredible ease that Daniel et al find the Ark of Truth. They pretty much waltz in, pick it up and then get captured... except Teal'C, who gets left for dead. Despite the pivotal importance of what happens on Celestus... it feels pretty much like an after thought to the action on the Daedulus.

Which isn't a bad thing... Replicators have always been a fun enemy. The SGC personnel pulling out their shotguns and pumping out hundreds of rounds of ammo - it should be noted that there is actually a scene where Mitchell RUNS OUT OF AMMO! Possibly for the first time in Stargate history. Fully automatic P90s can fire 900 rounds a minute and have a clip of 50 bullets... why it choose this moment to stop having an infinite amount of ammo... we may never know. Also, watch out for the most unnecessary and gratuitous use of profanity since the Transformers Movie.

So, ignoring the somewhat tedious Celestus events... The Daedulus is being taken over by Replicators, they're resistant to the Anti-Replicator Guns but there's a shut-off code. Of course, as it happens the person who knows where the shutoff code is, is the IOA type... who has now become ROBO-IOA HUMAN-REPLICATOR THING! It looks fairly stupid and the notion of Replicators being able to integrate into a person like that to extract knowledge is even more so. Robo-Douche starts beating Mitchell up... I can't blame him. As you may expect, a guy full of metal isn't really phased by getting shot or punched. Or even - as it turns out - getting exploded. Fortunately though, unplugging the Mechano from his brain lets him tell Mitchell that the plot device to deactivate the Replicators is on the back of the crystal. After getting beaten up a little more he manages to tell her this and then blows up the queen Replicator and gets TOSSED from the room.

Someone had clearly been watching Terminator because the explosion leaves a big Replicator style Terminator endoskeleton rip off leering at Mitchell and random soldiers shoot at the innumerable normal Replicators - but then, Sam finds the off switch! The Replicators all fall to pieces. Which just leaves the Ori ships surrounding them, happily firing away.

Probably best to elaborate upon the fact that Daniel has escaped captivity and has had a tete a tete with Morgan Le Faye, the Ancient who has made their journey ridiculously easy... Of course, this is when find that Adria has Ascended and has taken the God complex to its logical extreme. Fortunately, the Ark of Truth is sitting on an unstable table and while laughably distracted, Daniel works out how to switch it on, a Prior comes in and Teal'C shoots the Ark so it falls and the Prior - literally - sees the light. If it sounds contrived, it's because it is. Then - because it's an insta-win plot device - everything is ok!

There's a little time to wrap up but that's about it...

All in all, it feels rather rushed. In fact, it feels as if you've dropped into the middle of things. Given that it takes a long time for the action to get under way, this is probably a blessing in disguise but the action isn't particularly amazing - especially for a movie, even a straight to DVD one. There have actually been more action packed, special effects laden episodes... namely the original appearance of the Replicators... this feels rather cobbled together. The use of Replicators proof - if needed - that the SG-1 vehicle has been tapped dry of ideas. The introduction of an IOA douche seems unnecessary - he has literally no chance for character development before he's locked away and Replicatorised. It seems there had to be someone else they could have used that had some history and despite the fact the IOA are consistently depicted as bureaucratic idiots, this one takes the biscuit. It feels as if they wanted to wrap up the ill advised Ori arc but didn't really know what to do, so they just contrived another deus ex plot device - Stargate is pretty much littered with them, really - stuck in some mandatory action and had it all wrap up in the obligatory 90 minutes.

It feels as if all of this could have been done just as well in an episode - which somewhat highlights the obvious point of this DVD. Money... Which isn't surprising but it doesn't offer the impact that has been achieved in the series. There was little real tension here, no characters were in danger of being developed and no special effects risked awesomeness when they could stick to tried and tested. In short, it's a disappointment. It doesn't have much of a plot to speak of and the action - while putting B5's rather dreary Lost Tales to shame - is nothing the numerous Replicator episodes haven't done before... often better. In fact, it feels as though some of those episodes were gutted and then copied and pasted to fill the immense holes in plot and pacing here.

It's a small mercy that we weren't subjected to the irritation of budget pleasing human form Replicators but really, that's the only good thing you can say about this effort. It's got the A to B to C style plot feel of The Matrix: Reloaded... Earth is threatened but nothing much happens about it. There was a great chance for another great big guns blazing Earth defence battle like they had when Anubis got around to attacking Earth... but no, the Ori sit on their hands for no discernible reason, giving the magical win device time to do it's thing and for Adria to be banished or whatever.

It just feels flat. There's conflict... but it feels so by the numbers... or that you might just have accidentally put a regular episode in... surely this kind of project - which will rake in the dough -should be giving the viewer more bang for their buck? There really isn't a huge amount of that. It simply lacks any real punch. Yes, it's more Stargate but really, after 10 years - we've had enough.

After a mere 9 episodes, the first season of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, has concluded.

It's been a tradition, especially in recent years, to end on a bang. To make sure that people are on the edge of their seats for the next few months until the show returns to the air... logically a show that involves a small group of people, fighting to stop robots from the future killing them/creating a computer that will precipitate a nuclear war that kills billions and then round up the survivors for summary execution - that should involve one helluva bang, right?

There was no bang... barely even a fizzle. Quite what the point of having the two episodes together was is unclear as well... perhaps as a fiddle for ratings because they seemed no more related than any of the other episodes. In any event those expecting a return to the action packed, tense and compelling action and drama of the pilot, you can forget it. That seems to be a momet that will never be remembered.

Not that the final episode doesn't tease you with the prospect of some action... but when said action occurs, it's witnessed indirectly... in an artsy style. It merely serves to show how weak the link between Cameron's films and this TV series is. Time and again, this show has tried to replace action with tension... it goes without saying that an excess of action can become tedious... and hence, there is a need for the tension, the suspense or simply the waiting in between... but then, at the opposite end of the scale... there's the excess of tension. Sarah Connor Chronicles doesn't even do that well... there's this tension, between almost all the characters... but it's not building or changing... it's just there.

The pilot set a bar for the show, a high bar. There was action, drama, explosions and tension... all nicely knitted together. The change of pace for the rest of series was like hitting a brick wall in a jet fighter. There are clearly numerous issues with the format that weren't considered... mostly, what do you do with a TV budget to imitate a franchise well known for its action set pieces... the answers is just hope people forget that part.

The lack of action might have been forgiveable... but... the core cast was... at best unengaging and at worst, irritating. Sarah was easily the most irritating. For someone who is supposed to be teach her son how to save humanity, she's really doing a lot of mollycoddling and teaching him how to be a pussy.

The Summernator - aka Summer Glau... it's hard to tell whether the girl has a pathological inability to act or whether her stint on Firefly made her a prettier, blander Buffy. While she is quite frankly preferable to Sarah Michelle Gellar - that's a lot like saying it's better to slam your hand in a door, rather than having poured boiling water on it. Clearly, at some point someone thought "it would be great if we could get her to do the unintentional humour again!" but then didn't bother getting people with the comic skills to do it... Not to mention the fact that her personality in the first episode is apparently turned off in the rest of the show. Shows of her trying to be "more human" are so prosaic, hackneyed and utterly cliché in all honesty, they'd have achieved better results sticking her face over Data's in scenes from TNG.

And of course, the "great" John Connor. It's somewhat hard to believe a whinging, momma's boy will lead humanity. Terminator 3 may not really have made him seem much better but at least he wasn't on his mother's apron strings. The John Connor of T2 was computer savvy, had attitude, leadership... you could see the emergent qualities of a leader in him... with Chronicles John... he's just another teen... WHY IS HE AT SCHOOL!?

His mother is over protective of him, to the nth degree... and yet, she puts him into school? Why? Is that going to help in the war against the machines? Somehow it seems unlikely that even LA will have classes on how to wage guerilla warfare against a numerically and technologically superior enemy. Anyway, while it might be an "ordinary" life... it seems like a strange move as it's clearly putting him in a fairly exposed environment.

Although, his mother acts - by and large - erratically. She wants to destroy Skynet before it's created but, oh - John, off you go to school! There seems to be an inherent conflict between preparing your son to be the saviour of humanity and trying to let him have a normal life... much as there is an obvious clash of interests between her deranged maternal instincts and constantly taking him out on dangerous missions.

The only interesting or likeable character is the hapless FBI agent who is following in the footsteps of the Connors. It's interesting to see how he finds the clues and starts to piece together the truth of Sarah's life. Not that he likes what he finds... Which makes it all the more interesting.

To another, more technical aspect... Perhaps one of the most iconic aspects of Terminator was the Terminator's eye view. The red tinged perspective, scrolling data, analysis... it portrayed the cold, calculating nature of the machine that walked as man. So... to show a Terminator's perspective without it? It's beyond lazy... it just removes that feeling and the way it was used felt like lazy storytelling and a betrayal of something so intimately associated with the film franchise.

The final episode - as mentioned, unrelated to the penultimate - sees the Connor crew finally get their hands on a meaningful lead on that pesky machine, The Turk. To be honest, the Turk subplot has been pretty dull since Andy died... and Sarah's mourning over him is beginning to grate and obviously, we're going to have to endure more of it as the Turk is still MIA.

The other aspect is our FBI friend tracking down the Cromartie... final score, FBI 0 - Robot from the Future 12. Of course, we see literally NO action. Just people getting tossed into the pool. Just typical of the anti-climactic nature of the show thus far and in truth, if you can't go out on a bang people's interest will wane as quickly as the ratings of this show.

HD-DVD is dead... long live Bluray.

While it's certain that Toshiba will knock out HD-DVD players, in just a few weeks the fortunes of the rival formats have removed all ambiguity. Many "technical experts" RUSHED to state the bleedin' obvious... wait for it! Every PS3 sold had a bluray player in it!

Gasp. Really? Many men have achieved the rank of Grand Admiral Obvious today.

In all honesty, that was always going to be a tipping factor... while the PS3 might have had slovenly sales compared to the X-box 360 and the immensely popular Wii - it had still managed to sell (as of January 1st, 2008) 10.5 million. So, even though HD-DVD had several studios on it's side and it managed to sell over 2 million players (roughly half were standalone players, others add-ons for existing products)... it was still in a whole other ballpark to Bluray.

Given that Sony has had more than one setback in trying to pioneer a new format, it made sense that they'd win this one... While the PS3 will likely struggle to make up the lost ground that the Wii's hugely broad appeal affords it or the head start the 360 got... it has certainly given Sony the last laugh in this pointless, costly and totally avoidable format war... Still, at least the sudden shift by studios has precipitated a quicker end than many had predicted... ultimately, format wars hurt everyone - the industry and the consumer.

Since sometime around the release of Star Wars: Episode 2: Attack Of Further Merchandising, there have been rumours and murmurs of a Star Wars live action TV show... apparently slated for 2009 but clearly not content to wait that long before mugging Star Wars fans - or as some of them like to think of themselves George's piggy bank - there is to be an animated (CGI, naturally) film covering the Clone Wars.

If you're reading that and thinking "that sounds familiar...", it's because it is. The Clone Wars was covered in some depth by the eponymous cartoon - from the chaps that brought us Samurai Jack - and was in fact almost as good as the prequels were bad. Of course, surely this begs the question... why rehash this already trodden ground. As with anything Hollywood - the reason for repetition is always the same - tried and tested = cash in the bank.

In fact, this couldn't be any more of a perfect storm of bankable cash cow if you injected pound coins into a bovine fetus.

Firstly, it's Star Wars... and if you stick that name on something, it'll pull in a few million punters straight off the bat - after all, people were still turning up to Revenge Of The Sith, despite the fact all evidence was... it would suck.

Secondly - it's CGI... Every kid's film for years has been CGI... so, hitting the family demographic again. Not to mention that action, explosions and so on that would be budget busting in a live action film are - while still time consuming - far more cost effective... Which means you get more of 'em.

Thirdly - it's pretty obviously going to be a rehash of - or at least, take several elements from - the immensely popular and critically acclaimed Clone Wars cartoon.

On the bright side, the fact it's derivative of an excellent piece of work where General Grievous doesn't sound like an asthmatic French kiddie fiddler means that there's no particular need to worry about excessive ham fisted dialogue... best to just hope for lots of action and Jedi japery. Perhaps it can instil some confidence in the somewhat resentful and cynical Star Wars fanbase...

For many months, people have anxiously awaited Cloverfield... apparently the preview screening had people searched for recording equipment and people roving the aisles with night vision equipment. All suitably in line with the viral campaign that got the hype for this film sky high.

In retrospect, it's fairly obvious that the reason for this secrecy was for a single reason... they didn't want people to realise that it was rubbish. Although, that probably shouldn't come as a surprise when it's produced by the man behind Lost and Alias... It's been said already but bears saying again - this film can be summed up in the following sentence - Godzilla meets Blair Witch.

It really is that simple. Actually, to be fair - The Blair Witch Project was better because it was an original concept at the time... and of course, used two cameras and had the people using said cameras for a reason - that reason being they were making a documentary. In Cloverfield, it doesn't really make much sense... Ok, the guy is videoing the party... I'm fairly sure that when it comes down to a life and death situation - you don't keep that camera rolling regardless... you drop it and get the hell out of there. Perhaps it's conceivable that you'd want to document the Godzilla wannabe but why you'd feel it necessary to keep the camera on constantly and such seems a trifle idiotic. It's also worth noting that if you felt motion sickness during Blair Witch - it's going to be worse with this.

What about the much touted monster? As it turns out, earlier speculation of a "Whalezilla" was way off... which is a shame because that design was a lot more interesting than the design they used here... not that you really get more than a couple of good looks at the thing... sure, less can be more but here it was just... barely anything. With Godzilla, you can accept the ability to shrug off an entire country's firepower. With the Cloverfield monster, it doesn't even look like it could support itself - let alone survive a few dozen bombing runs from the USAF. Hell, you can tell your designer sucked more than a legion of quantum singularity powered super whores when some joker on the internet makes a better design in his free time than the professional you got to do a piss poor rip-off of the monster in Godzilla 2000.

As if a poor man's Godzilla teleporting around the city to menace our shaky handed hero isn't enough, the creature in question has a bunch of mini-monsters on it. They're not particularly original either. Somewhere between a bug from Starship Troopers and an angry woodlouse. They're there for the occasional fright and to put in a more pervasive sense of danger... After all, something of roughly human size can sneak up on you a lot more than something big enough to punch the face off the Statue of Liberty. Kind of a cheap way of adding more excitement... in much the same way never showing the monster was a cheap way of making this film.

It's funny. This film is... probably worse than the American Godzilla film. At least that gave you money shots and such. This is just a Blair Witch clone with a monster instead of a witch... And it can't claim originality... It can certainly claim to have generated a hilarious amount of hype... but hype is about all it's good for. The inevitable sequel may well fall in Blair Witch 2 territory but then... at the same time, it would be hard pressed to suck more.

All in all, coming in at LESS than 90 minutes - this isn't value for money. It doesn't even get close to a good way to pass time from now unto death. If you want motion sickness though, this would be great.

It's a matter of public record that if you want to bollox up a good idea - you give it to Paul WS Anderson. Hence the first AvP being a kid friendly waste of time that was more critically slammed than a bearded, kiddy fiddlin' murderer. Despite that, it did OK at the box office - despite an idiotic concept.

As it happens, Alien vs. Predator: Requiem - aka AVP:R - doesn't have much to do with Paul Anderson... and is also rather good. What a coincidence! AvP doesn't really waste any time, following on directly from the end of the previous film... Predalien included. Despite the obvious idiocy of the Predators taking one of their fallen comrades on board without checking to see if he had a xenomorph embryo in him, it gets things going post haste. The Predalien gets loose and promptly, makes the Predator ship crash. A ship chock full of facehuggers. Which quickly find a couple of unwitting hunters to impregnate.

Billy Administrator Predator on Predator World has his "something has bolloxed up" alarm go off. Has a hissy fit and jumps in his "emergency fix it" space ship... as you do. Given that the purpose of the mission seems to be to exterminate, it's surprising only one person goes... also, whatever happened to their self-destruct? If Billy's bud on Earth had just blown up, it would all have been over... As would the film.

To pass some time, we see something about the peaceful life in Nowheresville. Which involves jocks beating up people they aren't fond of. Shortly after that, the father and son hunters who were face hugged get to birth some chestbursters. After about five minutes... actually, probably a bit longer. Not quite the insta-burst of AvP but neither the more realistic. Anyway, shortly after some homeless are also impregnated.

Not to worry, Billy Predator HAS ARRIVED. Still alone. He finds the Predator ship - and tools himself up. Uh, shouldn't you do that BEFORE you go on a mission? Then sets the ship to implode. Which it does. In a massively unimpressive lightening thing.

Naturally, a father and son disappearing doesn't go unnoticed even by the slack jawed, simple minded folk of Nowheresville. So, in the middle of the night - they decide to have a look. Real good idea. Amazingly, they find nothing... until morning.

While some other tedious human stuff happens. The Predator checks the sewers... this Predator makes the ones in AvP look like schoolboys and then some. With some pretty fun fighting in a sewer... when things go a bit pear shaped, the Predator punches out of the sewer... Yeah, he rocks.

Then one of sluts in Nowheresville decides she wants a date with paroled, beat up pizza waiter... which is nice. Until an alien turns up to eat people... but it ate the jock stereotypes. That could happen to you jocks! Yes, strong anti-jock message... Being a jock, gets you killed.

Also, the Predator was having some laughs taking out an Alien - blew the power grid. Eh, if you had a plasma caster - you'd probably manage it too. Easy enough.

The national guard show up shortly after the heroes hole up in a gun shop. It's fair to say, the National Guard get schooled like remedial students in the Hitler Youth. Yeah, the only hope for the town is dead. A lot like the entire population of the hospital... The Predalien can instaimpegnate women, it seems. Naturally, in keeping with AvP the chestbursters seem to instagrow.

After a little murderin' - of humans and Aliens - at the gun store, the Predator finds its plasma casters both broke. Y'know, thank fuck these aliens arrive in America. If they'd landed in Britain... well, cricket bats and knifing is about all that could have been expected. Incidentally, it is made patently obvious that the USA is going to nuke the area to purge infestation... your tax dollars at work.

The sexy teens decide to go to the hospital, while the sheriff decides to swallow government lies and head for the centre of town. Course, the hospital is chock full of aliens... that INSTASPAWNED... Aliens weren't exactly so close to being believable as it was. What with going from puppies to 7-8 feet of lethal killing machine in a matter of hours... but the whole 5 insta-spawn thing makes it a bit silly, really.

As it goes, Sheriff gets nuked... and most of the sexy teens escape and the cute little girl. Aww! But... KEEP WATCHING THE SKIES... oh and the somewhat painful reference to the other half of Weyland and Yutani...

This film probably won't pleasure purists who'd have liked to see something more along the lines of the original AvP comics but as it goes, the lack of the USMC isn't so damaging. These things have a tendency to reduce down to a bunch of armed, rag tag survivors anyway... it's a shame we didn't get to see a more graphic portrayal of the xenomorphs chowing down on the National Guard... But you can't have everything.

The real reason to watch this film is the Predator. Had a real lot of noobs in AvP... this boy isn't just taking on Arnie or Danny Glover, he's taking on a bunch of aliens AND the usual human dullards... and doing it with style. There are several points where he just owns or has a bit of a larf... he doesn't have the personality of the original Predator, no... but he has the technology and just generally kills things... which is about a hundred times better than the cretinous wastes of space we had in the previous film.

You're not going to see this film for the directing - passable - or the acting - going from tolerable to just rubbish. You're going to see it because it has aliens in it, it has a Predator and general mayhem. It doesn't pull punches on the action... sure, it's a meagre 90 minutes and after the initial burst of death and destruction, the pace slows... but it's fun. It's a classic example of how a film can be enjoyable but not good. It's best to say that, if you have an hour and a half of your life you want to film with action/survival horror of a sci-fi nature... this is how to do it. It doesn't try to be anything else and of course, it's about seventeen times better than the original.

Christmas has now come to mean the Doctor Who Christmas Special - amongst other things.

This year saw the Doctor - somewhat inexplicably - have the TARDIS crash into the Titanic... Not THE Titanic, A Titanic... which is in SPACE. So despite managing to plough into the interior of the TARDIS (which seems rather silly), it seems to be OK. Naturally the Doctor starts to schmooze and nose around on this space bound Titanic... as it turns out, said Titanic is in orbit around the Earth and filled with aliens... most of whom are indistinguishable from normal humans... but then, so is the Doctor...

After the mandatory foreshadowing of the - let's face it, inevitable - disaster to come, the Doctor meets Kylie Minogue (who is a serving wench). She doesn't burst into song... which - given RTD - one might have expected at some point but no, she does a solid job of acting the part, nothing to wow... but hey, this is Doctor Who... you can't ever expect any really stellar performances because the format practically necessitates hamming up.

Anyway, tis Christmas eve and people want to go visit Earth. The Doctor takes Kylie along for the ride. Meanwhile, Captain Birdseye has gone a bit bonkers - which is what we were all waiting for. The ol' cliche of someone condemning a whole load of people to death - just so their family is looked after. We should probably be glad that a giant space iceberg wasn't what struck the ship, I suppose... not that a comet would have been so out of place...

Naturally, big rocks vs. space ship = bang! Of course, while most of the people are killed the Doctor and Kylie are fine. Along with them are two space Scousers (also, space working class - they won a contest) man and wife... Then there's space jerk... the kind of arrogant high flyer that everyone hates. The space tour guide - who knows the square root of bugger all about Earth and got his diploma from the same place as "Dr" Gillan McKeith... and of course, what voyage in space would be complete without a space alien. In this case, a red midget cyborg space alien... who is some kin of bastardisation of Darth Maul, Mini-me and a gay Satan.

As if being stuck on a damaged ship - sans TARDIS - wasn't enough... the creepy looking angels - fittingly called "The Host" - that populate the ship have gone from mildly unhelpful to straight forward murderin'... with their halos, no less... Oddjob would be pleased. It's not too long before Darth Midget has used his cybernetic bits to generate an EMP to take down some of the Host... quite how a piece of equipment designed to keep him alive can generate an EMP pulse isn't explained... or how it only takes down the Host... Best not to get hung up on these details - especially given the fact the Sonic Screwdriver can do anything from open doors to make a cup of tea.

So, obese space Scouse heroically sacrifices himself by falling into the engine... then Darth Mini-me... then the other space Scouse can't bear to go on living without the other space Scouse and tosses herself into the giant reactor too... what is it with health and safety in the future? Is there such a massive backlash that you're just allowed to have a giant open reactor? With regulations like that, it seems unlikely you'd need meteors to crash into you for a serious accident to happen.

By this point the Doctor has - naturally - twigged that there is more going on here than just a nasty accident... because it's not just the ship that's going to go down... for some reason, the ship crashing into the planet will kill EVERYONE on the planet (that's probably also down to a lack of health and safety regulations... who'd have thought they were ever useful?).

The Doctor being the Doctor - and everyone else being relatively safe for the time being - goes off to get to the bottom of the matter. He does this by just asking the Host some questions. It seems pretty silly, really. You've got your robots set to kill... but if someone says a magic phrase, they stop killing and answer your questions... even aliens are sloppy coders, it seems.

Nevertheless, he manages to get there and finds out Max Capricorn - the same Max Capricorn who owns the company - is hiding out on the ship, in an "impact chamber" that will allow him to destroy the ship and Earth and hence ruin the board that spurned him and land them in jail and then let him quietly sneak off to retire... I suppose we should be glad... at least it wasn't the old insurance scam.

Anyway, Kylie tagged along after the Doctor and appears just after his spiel has run its course. Quite why the Host ignored their order to kill the Doctor and gawked at Kylie driving a forklift at their boss is a mystery... as is why he doesn't ask for help - he's stuff in a life support unit the size of a big fridge/freezer combo. In any respect, enter heroic sacrifice the third.

For some reason, having just killed their boss - the Host decide to help the Doctor who then sets about stopping the ship plummet into Buckingham Palace... with a real cameo from the Queen... didn't the BBC get in trouble for that earlier? Naturally, the Doctor averts crisis for the third year running... Not that a giant ship crashing into London could really make it any more of an urban death maze than it already is... Also, best not to think too much about how the Doctor was able to violate the second law of thermodynamics.

The Doctor then realises he can save Kylie! For obvious reasons of real life practicality - the attempt to revive her fails. Which is a crying shame. Kylie "dies" and Catherine Tate didn't even get horribly mutilated. Well, no one can say the show doesn't make life unfair. So, the day is saved... the Doctor cringes when he realises that the self-serving douchebag survived but a girl he could have had sex with - died. Well, who wouldn't be crushed... Kylie may need to stand on a box to kiss... but she's a fine filly. Much of the nation would have paid for Catherine Tate to fall in an actual nuclear furnace... where was your quality destroying populism then, eh RTD?

The Doctor and the doddering space tour guide abscond via teleportation - whatever happened to TRANSMAT? - to the TARDIS's landing place on Earth where it's snowing. In keeping with previous years, the snow is actually from the spaceship rather than being real. Space tour guide has a credit card with a million pounds on it... how does that work? Regardless, the Doctor says "I travel alone" - a bigger lie than his Scottish accent - and waves goodbye to the senile coot, who is babbling about a house. The blithering space idiot doesn't know a million pounds wouldn't buy you a potting shed in central London.

It worked quite well as a bit of Christmas fun... it felt like it was aiming for a send up of the Poseidon Adventure... but in truth, probably ended up being more of a parody of itself... the overly dramatic music (even the intro and outro). Repeated heroic sacrifices (clearly more is more), the cheesy villain, all the clumsy editing/directing, the stereotype characters, the cliches... OH, the cliches. Still, passes the time... and as Doctor Who goes, it's pretty passable.

It's fair to say that - like an increasing number of people in TV and film - Ricky Gervais opened up with a closing down sale... Or rather, started with something that he was never -realistically - going to top. The Office was - to say the least - a seminal success on every level. Popular, critical and... the other one.

The fact that even the closing episode of The Office was generally met with contempt - quite why it needed a Christmas special, beyond further enriching Gervais, is beyond anyone's ken - showed he was already a one trick pony.

Of course, like many people that have met with some degree of success in comedy the BBC couldn't deny him. Which isn't surprising given the perpetual absence of good or even tolerable comedy on the BBC these days... outside of panel games. So when someone who wrote, directed and starred in a show that won about a dozen awards in two consecutive years...

So, the "safe bet" of Gervais got another show... Extras. In many ways, it follows the traditions of cringe worthy comedy... but it falls short in so many ways... not least the pointless popularism. The main flaw was always going to be... while many people might have spent a summer in an office job, how many people have ever been an actor? It totally removed the element that everyone could relate to. Millions of people in the West must surely have done SOME office work, if only for a a few weeks. How many people ever tried to be an Extra?

Anyway, after two - quite frankly dire - seasons of Extras... Gervais presumably chose to end the agony of the backlash and contempt for him... Not that it's ever likely to stop. Ironic that he set himself on a pedestal of not doing commercials... presumably because that's "selling out". If Extras and The Office Christmas Special weren't selling out... what is?

The Extras Christmas Special... well, fairly dire and pretty much what anyone who has had the misfortune of watching Extras would have expected. It's hard to see the funny side of celebrities making fun of themselves being fame obsessed. They are... it's just the kind of show that would make you want to stab yourself rather than watch another minute of the laboured, played out jokes with CELEBRITIES. It's just unrelentingly trying to hammer home a message as facile as the faux sitcom.

It would be ironic - not to mention gratifying - if Gervais's career was to follow a similar fate of his screen counterparts. Suffice to say, the same mistakes were made as in The Office Christmas Special. He shows little innovation, originality, humour. People need to stop feeding people that live on the gravy train. Gervais had a single good idea that he did well... Extras, Flanimals (how isn't that a sell out?)... his atrociously awful stand-up routines... all simply proved he was a chancer. Let's hope this timorous effort is a final nail in the coffin.

For many years, Microsoft have been considered by most of those with the technical prowess to use a computer for more than five minutes before demanding they be assisted in the strenuous task of sending an e-mail to be the industry's great Satan.

In fact, so ingrained in the psyche is this disdain of MS that we even have companies like Apple basing their corporate image on "Hey, Microsoft suck! We're for the cool people! Or stupid people with money who want to think they're cool! Or maybe just exclusively the latter." Which is fair enough given that most people would generally agree that, yes - Windows sucks.

Which of course makes it somewhat amusing - not least to Bill Gates et al - that it still accounts for 90% of operating systems and pretty much has, since home computers became something that were affordable by the masses. Needless to say that this leads to an almost inexorable truth that most people will eventually be coerced into upgrading Windows when they buy a new PC.

The latest offering being Vista - presumably after you announce the name of a product and then go "oh, uh... did we say 2002? We meant 2003, oops." and then "2003? Noooo, we said 2004!" and so on, someone twigs that perhaps it's best to go with something that can remain the same, regardless of the release date. Vista has pretty much made alllll the promises that all other versions of Windows have made.

It'll be more secure! Faster, stronger! Consume more resources than you ever dreamed! More pointless shiny things to impress slack jaw simpletons and so on. The real problem here is surely this... generally by the time a new Windows platform is released, the old one is getting to be fairly robust. The bugs are ironed out, most of the giant gaps in security have been patched, code has been optimised and things run on it without you needing to run off and get some special new patch or the like. So - just as XP becomes something you could actually think of as a solid, reliable platform... here comes a brand new set of problems!

Vista isn't quite the car crash that 98 and XP were but it's a massive resource whore. All the gains one might make with a new machines evaporate and a machine you thought would be able to calculate the square root of infinity finds itself spending half the time making shiny pointless things flash... and even if you deactivate those, you're likely to find that Vista seldom uses less than a gig of RAM. Granted RAM might be comparable in price per meg to the hourly rate of a Dundonian crack whore but that hardly excuses such wanton squandering when two gigs is only starting to become the standard on new machines.

All there is to look forward to now is the next Windows platform... which will be everything that every Windows promises to be...

Thus far, films of games and games of films have generally failed on many fronts.

Licensed games tend to be thin, unimaginative cash ins... and Uwe Boll is the foremost maker of films of games... If that doesn't sum up the dire nature of them... then you're truly experiencing the bliss of ignorance.

Now Hitman has been "blessed" with a film based on the popular franchise... The game revolves around the antics of bald headed super assassin, Agent 47. Genetically engineered to murder and look damned good in a suit.

The film gets the bald part right, he also kills people and wears a suit... of course, there isn't really much more to it. Naturally, things do not go smoothly for our super assassin. Which means that the film is really more of a poor man's action film. 47 supposedly botches the assassination of the Russian premier but this is actually all a ploy. A vague, dull, generic ploy that is pretty much irrelevant.

It means 47 and some Russian girl run away from people shooting at them... with precious little assassinating and far more bland, generic action which in no way redeems the film. Beyond the protagonist being roughly the same in appearance to 47... there's little to connect it to the game and even less to recommend it as something to watch.

They should have just left it to gamers.

It would be fair to say that Saw has become the bankable horror franchise of the decade. The torture porn exploits of serial killer Jigsaw plenty of fun for the whole family... more or less.

The writers of the series are aware that the secret of a good serial killer film is that, the death of the serial killer is little reason for him to stop murdering. Somewhat differently from other killers, this is a non-supernatural revenge. Nope, as far as can be discerned - Jigsaw is dead as it gets. Lying on the autopsy table, organs all over... and unlike Jason or Michael Myers - he isn't going to sit up and kill anyone... that's not his style.

The plot of the film is... rather irrelevant. Oh, sure - you could follow it and try and work out the twist but that's not really the point. Nope, you want to see the confusing, winding narrative and the torture porn. Yup and the twist.

It lacks the originality of the first film or the polished nature of the second... it's just not that great unless you want to see gore... and the lack of Tobin Bell, well.