G.I. Joe - The Rise of Cobra

I fear that Hasbro may be confused about who their core audience here is.  One of the adverts prior to the trailers was a cringe inducing advert for G.I. Joe toys, complete with that irritating American voice over man extolling the sound effects and "real firing missiles" of the toys.  However G.I. Joe - The Rise of Cobra is a 12A film, so there normally won't be that many kids in the audience who would be of the right age to be interested in action toys.  You show me a twelve year old kid still playing with action figures and I'll show you a kid whose going to be still living with his parents when he hits 30. 

Moving on.... 

It's great when a Hollywood studio turns a cherished cartoon from my youth into an action packed blockbuster, and it's even better when it actually works.  It's like the studio are saying "This is for you.  Just you Kevin.  This is to make up for having to get up early and all the rubbish Saturday morning television you sat through for this to come on, especially ITV who split these cartoons into two halfs and put twenty minutes of NOTHING in between the parts." 

I wouldn't say that G.I. Joe is a better summer blockbuster than Transformers 2 partly because it doesn't feature giant robots beating seven shades of hell out of each other, but mostly because Sienna Miller in a skin tight leather outfit does not trump Megan Fox running in slow motion.  I'm sorry, but there it is.  I'm not going to sugar-coat this fact. 

I will say that G.I. Joe is a very entertaining popcorn movie.  There's plenty of action and the explodey, hints of a love interest or two, couple of unexpected twists and some brilliantly outlandish fights.  The accelerator suit sequence you've seen in the trailer is particularly impressive.  The really odd thing is that for an action film that keeps jumping to do back story of the characters, it's easy to follow.  It's been put together really well. 

Christopher Eccleston's acting isn't nearly as distracting as I thought it would be based on the trailer.  And for a meglomanic evil super genius, his plot is actually fairly sensible. 


So, the only movies made from cartoon from my childhood left to do are M.A.S.K., Ulysses 31 and Mysterious Cities of Gold. 

Score:  B- 
Loses marks for a couple of pretty bad acting parts, and Christopher Eccleston's silly accent. 
Gains marks for the action sequences and the not-so-neat ending. 


OQ:  Knowing is half the battle.... 

Trailers: 

District-9:  The trailer for this is fantastic!  Really, just have a look for it online.  Amazing. 

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

This was touted by one of my friends as "More robots, more action and more Megan Fox", so why wouldn't I go and see it?

It delivers on all three scores, and is a good sequel to the first film which expands on the story, however it has failed to learn from the mistakes of the previous film. Huge metal robots fighting each other is great, but often they are moving so fast in the combat that you can't see what's going on. I had to wait for a high def version of the first film to truly appreciate it, and I believe the same will be true here.

Without giving away any spoilers, the Decepticons are back, and they're searching for something. The story follows on well from the first film, with many plot threads picked up again. Jon Voight's absence was handled quite well, I thought.

The same mix of humour, action and adventure is retained from the first film, and expanded upon. There are a few surprising appearances, and there are even more transformers in this sequel, which was to be expected, I suppose. As a result, many of the robots don't get a lot of screen time.

There's a fairly enormous collapse of the fourth wall near the end of the movie which could have been avoided by some simple location planning and fore-thought. Plus, and this may simply have been the Odeon's stupid audio set up, but I left with a bit of a headache due to all the explosions.

As usual, there already seems to be an influx of cheap toys onto the market to support this film, including a new console game. One can only hope it's better than the first game. Having said that, this wouldn't be hard.


Score: B

OQ: "Don't tempt me..."

Terminator Salvation

I was a bit apprehensive going to see this due to the bad reviews it's been getting in places and to be honest when I left I was confused because this film is really quite excellent.

Terminator fans have been saying that the timeline is inconsistent with the one already established in the previous films, but I don't see this as a problem. There's always been an inconsistencies between the Terminator films versions of the timeline, some of which are added deliberately and some accidentally, and they all combine in to the mix to create a fluid timeline that keeps changing because Skynet keeps screwing around with its time machine. There was actually an interesting article on the Sci-Fi Channel (US) website going in to some detail about the inconsistencies, particularly around how old the characters are*. There is actually a line from the trailer that was dropped from this film (mistakenly, in my opinion), where John says "This isn't the future my mother prepared me for." The implication being that something Skynet has done in the past has radically altered this future.

There are a couple of parts of the film where reality comes crashing in through the door like a ten ton elephant. One at the very start with the titles where the Terminator theme gate-crashes the opening theme. It feels very shoe-horned in. And another when Connor is crouched on a ruined bridge at night where I half expected him to leap off and open his cape to glide down. I have to say that Arnie's digital cameo in this is handled excellently. I wasn't expecting it, I though it would be a glancing shot of him in the middle distance. It's not, and it's brilliant. Looks really great.

The only thing I can think of that might cause Terminator fans to be unhappy with this film is that it is a break from the standard formula. Well, that and that this film was directed by 'McG'. The first three movies are essentially "chase" movies, with an unstoppable villain relentlessly pursuing the heroes. They worked because they drew on a basic human fear, drawing from a common nightmare about being unable to get away from someone no matter how fast you run. Terminator Salvation is a break from this formula, and to be honest, it's a welcome change. The standard format barely worked for Terminator 3 and I can't really see it working again for the franchise. There's always the worry, of course, that in mentioning this "mythic" war but never seeing it in previous films, it gets set it up as being so epic that when you finally see it, no matter how well it is filmed, the war never seems big enough or sufficiently vast. It's a trap that Star Wars fell into with the Clone Wars. Terminator Salvation has rather neatly got around this problem in a novel way. Even being able to put Skynet into the movie for the first time, without really drawing back the veil of mystery surrounding it, is handled rather well.

Score: B++

OQ: Watch me...

*In fact, the implication from the various films is that by 2029 (the period you see briefly in Terminator 2), Skynet is losing the war badly and has become desperate, hence the time travel to kill John Connor in the past. It's a last ditch effort by Skynet to win the war.

W.

An interesting, if somewhat blinked view on one of the most controversial presidents that the USA has seen. I too was a little perplexed that the film concentrated solely on the Iraq war for the segments set during his presidency, but I realised that Oliver Stone was not trying to make a documentary. There are plenty of those about Bush Jr. already. Stone is trying to show the man behind the presidency.

I really really hope that the characters of Cheney and Rumsfeld are exaggerated, because if they're like that in real life, then the world is a far scarier place than I thought it was. Cheney is portrayed as some kind of sinister puppet master, pulling at W's strings, and Rumsfeld comes across as someone you'd normally see in a straight jacket.

Probably the most disturbing part is when the group are in the situation room and discussing the invasion of Iraq. Colin Powell's desperate attempts to bring some kind of sanity to the situation, repeatedly pointing out that Bin Laden is hiding in a cave in Pakistan somewhere, and being told by Dick Cheney that the American people want revenge for 9/11 and don't particularly care if Iraq was involved or not.

The special features are well worth a look. They too are shorter than I'd have liked, but are very interesting, especially the section about how many believe that Bush nearly broke the American government system by assigning too much power to the executive branch. There's not too much about the breakdown of intelligent gathering that lead to the invasion, except to say that it is incredulous that the US military would defer to a report from British intelligence, which came from a single source, rather than their own intel gathering network which was actually contradicting that report.

Angels & Demons

Brief Review

Saw this at the weekend with my sister. It's good. I enjoyed the first one, and I liked this one. It's a tad darker in places, both in story, visuals and physical lighting.

Soundtrack is a bit over the top at times, otherwise it's well scored.

Still think I liked the first one better, the mystery was done with a little more thought, but overall it's very enjoyable. Critics are saying that Ron Howard has managed to make running between a museum and a church seem exciting. Which is kind of a stupid flaw to pick upon, since plenty of entertaining films involve a race between a researcher and 'the bad guy'.

Ewan McGregor is very good in this, easily outshining Tom Hanks. Female lead is fairly forgettable.

Score: B-
Entertaining, worth a watch and has a brilliant climax.

OQ:
I'm sure you will serve him wisely.
I will serve him briefly...

Star Trek

Disclaimer: This review may be coloured by the fact that I had organised to see this on Saturday with friends, only to be thwarted by a dodgy electrical fault in Cineworld's emergency lighting system which closed the multiplex for most of the day. You'll have to use your own judgement on this matter.

I just know I'm going to get flamed for this......

There's a lot to like about the new Star Trek film. The ships look AMAZING. The special effects are brilliant. The new transporter effect in particular is very nice. The acting of the main cast is superb, and the jokes are well paced, appropriate and kept in line. McCoy in particular is excellently portrayed. The action is....actiony. It's full of whizz bang poppery. It's very well done, is what I'm trying to convey.

Sadly, as a Trekkie, there's also a lot not to like.

When it comes to breathing new life into a series, there are four commonly recognised way to do it:

• Spin-off In a spin off you create a new show based on characters or concepts from the old show. Sometimes works well (Stargate: Atlantis, CSI, and of course Star Trek itself), sometimes is a horrendous mistake (Joey or Team Knight Rider*).
• Rebrand Replace some or all of the principle cast, possible alter the name slightly and relaunch in a new season. Can be fantastic (Stargate SG-1), can also be a disaster (SeaQuest 2032**).
• Reboot Reset the universe and declare that the original show does not exist in this context. This is probably the trickiest to pull off, but can reap the most benefits because it doesn't have to concern itself with canon rules established in the original and can tell the stories the way it wants to. Best example would be Battlestar Galactica, but also Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (which ignores Terminator 3).
• Revamp In a revamp, you still create a new series, but tell the stories in a different format while keeping the original series "canon". In other words, you bring the series "up to date". Examples would be Enterprise, which revamps the Trek universe, but keeps everything that follows it chronologically essentially intact. The new Knight Rider is another example. Both old and new Knight Rider were set in the time they were made, so they reflect the culture at the time, but they both exist in the same timeline.

The trouble I have with the new Star Trek film, is that it is trying to revamp and reboot itself at the same time. And I'm not sure, but I think it may be throwing in a little rebranding into the process too.

I think if this film had just been about Kirk, Spock and McCoy's first mission, I would have accepted it more, even if the ship looked different, because it would have been a revamp. Or if they'd decided to ignore all of Trek canonicity and reboot the series, I'd have been fine with that too. But in creating what is a highly tenuous link to the Trek we all know, they've tried to have their cake and eat it too.

Why is this a problem, you may ask. Well, it's because Star Trek fans are geeks, and it is here that I must digress into a brief side alley. As long as there has been Trek, there has been a divide between Trekkies and Trekkers. No-one will be able to tell you the difference, because frankly no-one really knows. Kate Mulgrew, Leonard Nimoy and Gene Roddenberry all had radically different ideas, but the way it was explained to me was Trekkers are fans of the original TV show (and films). Trekkies are fans of all of Star Trek. Because of the events that follow Star Trek: Nemesis, creating an alternate timeline, for many Trekkies, is sacrilege. Because it either implies that the events leading up to and after Nemesis are no longer going to happen, or that the events you are currently watching are part of a "doomed" timeline that the future Federation is going to correct. However, for Trekkers, this isn't a problem because they largely ignore everything that happened after the original series. So time travel that undoes everything after Kirk's era isn't a issue for them.

And that's the problem. Time travel in a Star Trek film. It's got to be the biggest cliché imaginable, and they don't do it well.

And it's not just that. The film is full of absurd plotholes. A transporter that can compensate for a ship travelling at warp speed, but can't deal with someone accelerating through gravity. While Zachary Quinto's Spock is excellent 90% of the time, the 10% of the time it doesn't work, it really doesn't work. I can accept a Spock emotionally compromised by the destruction of his home world, but a Spock that is engaged in a romantic relationship?

Star Trek doesn't just ignore Trek canon (which I would have been fine with), it also ignores the physical rules of the universe already described in detail. So you've got warp drive that behaves more like Star Wars' hyperdrive, you've got shields that don't seem to do anything, you've got phaser pistols which for the first time in history seem to have a recoil and you've got a transporter that operates on a range of different principles during the film depending on what it needs to do to progress the plot. Perhaps one of the most obscure ideas introduced is that the viewscreen on the bridge is now literally a window.

This entire argument may sound very beardy, but we are talking about Star Trek fans here. We are some of the beardiest people on the planet, and enjoy nothing more than debating philosophical differences between the series, testing each others' knowledge of all things Trek and generally trying to out-beard each other; a task which I regularly outshine my peers at, much to the dismay of my mother who hasn't quite given up hope of being a grandmother one day.

This film is like Never Say Never Again. It's James Bond, and yet it's not James Bond. It features familiar characters, and yet is missing equally essential characters. It's instantly recognisable, yet at the same time it is weird and foreign.

So while I cannot say for certainty that I liked the film (I honestly don't know), it does raise some difficult questions for me. Which as a Star Trek fan is brilliant, because it means I get to argue with people on the Internet***.

Score: [error]
I'm planning to see this again on Wednesday. That should say something about the film. Although your guess is as good as mine as to what it says.

OQ: I take it you have prepared new insults?

*I still get a bad taste in my mouth when I think about Team Knight Rider. It is, without a shadow of a doubt, the worst television show I have ever watched and the people responsible should be hunted down and shot.
**Actually SeaQuest did this at the start of both season 2 and 3 when they changed cast members. It's just that the rebrand at the start of season 3 was so much bigger and managed to wreck the original concept so utterly.
***I can actually hear my mother's groan of despair at that concept, which is quite a feat because she's 450 miles away.

Lesbian Vampire Killers

Probably should have read the IMDB entry for this before I went to see it. The entry reads as: a director who's hardly done anything before in film* directs a bunch of never-heard-of-them-before actors in a film written by people more used to writing sketches for TV, with a couple of up and coming comedy stars thrown in to commercialise it. And Paul McGann.

From IMDB:

Writers Stewart Williams and Paul Hupfield were challenged to think of the dumbest and yet most commercial title possible for a film, Lesbian Vampire Killers was the answer. They then went away and wrote the script.

Can I just take a moment here to say that this is quite evident in the finished product. And although it says they wrote the script after coming up with the name, it fails to say what they wrote the script on. I've got money on it being a napkin. And I can't be the only one who's getting an image of large amounts of alcohol being consumed prior to this "challenge" being thrown down.

I don't know what I was expecting going in to see this, but I think I can safely say I was expecting something better. Horne and Corden are basically playing their respective characters from Gavin and Stacy, and given their comic abilities, I was expecting more laughs. Paul McGann is entertaining as the vampire obsessed vicar but the rest of the cast are largely forgettable. The plot is, well let's face it; fairly unimportant. The acting is pretty dire and to steal a phrase; the special effects aren't. A couple of decent effects, and for the most part the rest is white gunge being thrown about, largely at James Corden**.

Blokes all know why they go to see a vampire film. There's certain things they want to see;

• Gorey blood-sucking.
• Vampire's getting staked in the heart.
• Other vampires getting 'offed' in entertaining ways.
• and if there's any time left, maybe some T&A.

Lesbian Vampire Killers is very light on all of these key measures. There's precious few vampire deaths, and even then they all die like the wicked witch from Oz; dissolving into pools of goo. Almost no-one is ever seen being bitten and the only nudity on show is in the opening few minutes of the info-dump narration, after which it is gone forever. Honestly, it's like they've brought back rationing.

To be honest, given the quality of the script and the effort put into the special effects, I would honestly have expected a film with a name like this to turn up in my other DVD collection, which actually already features a vampire film.***

Score: D
A couple of giggles, but for the most part you're looking at the screen watching stuff happen. Uninteresting stuff.

OQ: It's like a medieval gay bar...

*I mean it. he's directed three films, this being the second, and is listed about four other times as various film crew.
**If I were being cruel, I'd say it's because he's the easiest target to hit.
***Dark Angels in case you're interested, or have a very understanding missus. Bizarrely, it's probably a better "vampire" genre film than this was...

Monsters vs. Aliens 3D

Meh.

Would have been an average animated film if not for the 3D effect, which is used quite well in most places.

Aliens arrive on Earth and the only defence the US has is to send monsters in to battle. There's the Big Giant Susan, aka Ginormica, the Missing Link, a mad scientist cockroach, an indestructible blob and Insectasaurus.

Some good parts, the President making first contact was hilarious. Set pieces were pretty and very detailed. Susan roller-skating with cars was very well done.

Plot's not the most original, score is instantly forgettable and the cast are reasonably well known. Reese Witherspoon, Hugh Laurie and Kiefer Sutherland being most obvious, but Renée Zellweger was in there and I didn't spot her.

Score: C
Entertaining, but nothing new and the ending contains that stupid "accept who you are" rubbish that every animated film has to have BY LAW.

OQ:
News reporter: Once again, a UFO has landed in America, the only country UFOs ever seem to land in.

Bolt (3D)

A young girl called Penny, armed with high tech gadgetry and her faithful dog, goes head to head against an evil scientist with a cat and his minions.

Hang on, isn't that the plot to Inspector Gadget?

Cineworld actually have more showings of this film per day in 3D than in regular format., which makes sense because this is the first Disney animated film to be designed and 'filmed' in 3D. Their other efforts; Chicken Little (2005) and Meet the Robinsons (2007) were both converted to 3D after they were produced. As such, the 3D effect is used very well in this movie. The last film I saw in 3D was Beowulf, which I felt didn't work well. It only used the 3D effect in about half of the film, and the effect was to add depth to objects and people who still looked flat and two-dimensional. It was very distracting. Bolt has none of that . It doesn't rely on throwing things at the audience to exaggerate the depth illusion, but instead uses it in a subtle and effective way to add depth to each and every scene.

You've probably heard the basic plot. Star of a hit TV show, Bolt thinks everything is real, mostly due to the production crew maintaining that illusion for him. When an accident separates him from Penny, he sets out across the country to rescue her with a couple of companions he picks up on the way. Now if that sounds formulaic and predictable, then think again. Bolt takes a fresh approach to this story, Mittens the cat desperately trying to convince him his powers aren't real, while Rhone the hamster believes Bolt is the genuine article.

For those of you planning to see this at the weekend, be warned: The screen last night was almost sold out, and the Orange Wednesday folk were trailed all through the zip-barriers, all the way to the cinema door and out to the complex's door. Anyone coming to the queue after I got there would have been queueing outside. Luckily, I'd picked up both the tickets and the glasses for this on the way home last night, so I bypassed the lot of them. I had to work very hard to hold in the evil laugh. Seriously, I nearly gave myself a hernia.

In a rather interesting twist, all the trailers for other Disney/Pixar movies were also shown in 3D. Monsters vs Aliens looks to be a hoot, and as usual the Pixar trailer for Up gives away almost nothing of the plot while still managing to instill a deep desire to go and see it when it's out.

Score: A -
A genuinely funny movie, light on the Disney touch and a fabulously realised world. Extra points for the comedy hamster.

OQ: Now I'm concerned on a number of levels.

Frost / Nixon

This was the Orange Wednesday film my friends went to see, and the last in the current round that I was eager to watch. That was, until I read the reviews of Milk.

Unlike most of the people watching this, I actually have a pretty good impression about what Watergate was about, which wasn't as helpful as I'd thought it would be. The opening sequence consists of a montage of news-reel clips about the Watergate scandal, cut with excerpts from Frank Langella as Nixon giving his resignation speech live on television. What is conveyed well in these opening moments is the anger of the American people towards a president who was not going to be held to account for his criminal actions.

How much of the plot is factual and how much is embellished is always going to be hard to tell. Initially Frost is only interested in interviewing the former president as he would interview anyone else. A chat show interview. He has no intention of eliciting an apology or confession from him. But the appearance fee he needs to pay Nixon means that for various reasons, no network will buy the show he is producing and slowly he comes round to the idea from his team that the interview must give Nixon the trial he never had. Nixon looks on the interview as a means to rebuild his reputation, regain the public trust and move back into politics. However the historical accuracy is largely irrelevant. This film may be about a historical event, but it is not a documentary. It's a character biopic. Both Frank Langella and Michael Sheen repeat the roles they created on the stage play. Ron Howard said he would only agree to direct if the studio would allow both actors to appear in the film version. Sheen, better known to most as Tony Blair in The Queen, shows that he really can get a person's inflections and mannerisms down to a tee. And Langella's performance as Nixon is so convincing, it's chilling. The two actors kept up their character even between filming, so as to maintain the rivalry between them.

One of the lasting themes is the differences and similarities between Frost and Nixon. Both want accolades that may be forever beyond their grasp, yet while David Frost is shown as constantly attending parties and galas and Richard Nixon is shown as a private man surrounded by only a few friends and colleagues, they are both portrayed rather excellently as lonely men. There's a beautiful contrast between an opening shot of Nixon boarding Marine One as Frost watches on television and sees the smile for the cameras fade as he turns away, and a similar falling smile on David's face later in the film.

In many ways, this is like a boxing film between two fading champions. Both want to destroy the opposition, both want a comeback, but only one of them can win.

Ultimately, it is possible to leave the cinema feeling pity for both men. Nixon's realisation that he can never regain what he lost and Frost knowing that he may never achieve anything this historic again.

There is also a mention at the end, overplayed on a close-up of Nixon's face in the interview, that while television is used as an entertainment tool for the masses it can, if used correctly, accomplish something that no journalist, no prosecutor could ever manage. To show a man in complete defeat, ravaged by loneliness and self-loathing in defeat. It's a message that comes across in another of my favourite films Good Night, and Good Luck and that, if nothing else, would be reason enough to add it to my DVD shelf.

Score: A

OQ:
David Frost: It wasn't that bad....
James Reston: Wasn't that bad?!? I overheard two crew in there saying they hadn't voted for Nixon but if he was running for office today, they'd vote for him!

Seven Pounds

*Contains emotionally intense scenes. They're not kidding. I was bawling my eyes out at the end.

Some fabulous performances from Will Smith, Rosario Dawson and a rather under-used Woody Harrelson.

OQ: It's time.
Score: A+

Defiance

This was the finale of my marathon film weekend and the second to feature World War II. Actually I wasn't going to see it this weekend, but as I was leaving Seven Pounds on Sunday, I bumped into a couple of friends who were on their way in to this, and I decided to take full advantage of my Unlimited card and not return home to play XBox as I had originally intended.

It's a fantastic story, made all the more amazing for being true. A group of Belorussian Jews flee the German death squads and set up camp in a forest. I found the story does focus more on one of the brothers, played by Daniel Craig, to the detriment of the other brother's story.

The only downside to the film is that because it is mostly shot in a forest, there are parts of the film that end up looking like they were done on the cheap. The ending is a little bit Hollywood, but then I can't say with any confidence that's not what actually happened.

Score: B-
OQ: Every day is like an act of faith.

Valkyrie

The first in what turned out to be another marathon film weekend.

Saturday, and what turned out to be a very popular Tom Cruise film. The queue to get in was enormous! It was out the bloody door!

For what seems like a long time Cruise's films have suffered from what has affectionately been termed the "Tom Cruise Effect". This usually results in people not liking the film and giving it bad reviews simply because Tom Cruise is in it. It's an effect I first found out about when I wrote a review of War of the Worlds.

However, Cruise has finally found a way around this in Valkyrie. People aren't giving it bad reviews because Tom Cruise is in it. They're giving it bad reviews because it's historically inaccurate!

Not that most people will probably realise this. The few parts of the assassination plot that I remembered from school were all present. In any case, historical accuracy is all a matter of perspective and balance. Completely accurate historical films are called documentaries. Almost any other film has to, at some point, deviate from the historical record in order to tell the story well.

What was more interesting was the performances from Cruise, Bill Nighly, Tom Wilkinson, Eddie Izzard and Terence Stamp. The story of how small details built up into unsurmountable obstacles.

OK, so half the time you can tell that Tom has just shoved one hand up his sleeve and is folding two fingers into his palm to play the injured Stauffenberg. But a film that held a minutes silence before every day's shooting in his memory isn't going to take massive liberties with the truth.

Score: B-
OQ: We have to show the world that not all of us are like him.
Trivia: The June 20th assassination plot was the last of the fifteen known attempts on Hitler's life.
You'd think he'd get the hint after the first five or so, wouldn't you?

The Wrestler

Hmm...

I think my comments to my sister as we were leaving summed this up. I'm glad I saw it, but I can't say I enjoyed it.

The talent on display is quite impressive. I was a little worried by the marketing blurb that Mickey Rourke gives the performance of his career, since it's a little like saying Aaron Eckart's performance in The Dark Knight was better than in The Core. It's not saying much. Cheese left out in the sun for three days gives a better performance that Aaron Eckart did in The Core. The phrase can be interpreted in different ways.

The trailer leads you to believe that it's a "Man screws up in the past, then gets his life back together" movie. It's not.

Still, it was very emotive. Powerful performances from many of the cast, and Mickey Rourke does a very good job portraying his character. He conveys the emotions superbly.

A little squeamish in places, and with an odd mixture of camera styles. Sometimes it's very documentary with the camera following a character and all you see is their back, other times it's very cinematic, panning around and showing the characters in a landscape.

Totally impossible to score on the Saxon Film Scale, and not one that I can think of a suitable quote for.

The Spirit

I suppose if I'd ever read any of the comics graphic novels beforehand then this might have made more sense to me. As it was, I had to piece together the back-story as I went along. This is no bad thing, it avoids the dreaded "info dump" that so many films use to let the audience know where the hero comes from, but I felt that without this meticulous piecing together of back-story and motiviations for hero and villain that the film would have been much, much shorter. The basic story boiling down to

1. Bad guy wants something.
2. There's an accidental complication.
3. Bad guy gets thing.
4. Hero thwarts him.

While Samuel L. Jackson isn't half bad as the villain, and certainly better than he was in Jumper, I can't help but feel this is mostly because of the well written script and the tight direction of Frank Miller.

The graphic novel touches are easy to spot. Not just the occasional decent into black and while with a splash of red tie, but also in the visual metaphors, like Eva Mendes' locket being a symbol that she still remembers her roots and her love for the hero.

Overall I can't really fault it, it's a comic book come to life. The visuals are very stylish and the acting is decent, but there's nothing desperately new to see and the plot's been done a thousand times before.

Score: A disappointing C+