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The Truth is out there, by all accounts, and so are the aliens. So don’t expect to find any in here. For about the first half of the film I found myself waiting for the investigators to uncover the extraterrestrial connection to the mystery, but at a certain point you just have to wake up to the realization that it’s not going to materialize. No UFOs to see here and, to be honest, not a tremendous amount of paranormal activity. There’s scant little of the big action setpieces we saw in the first movie Read the rest…
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As discussed in our review of Hancock, a sprinkling of real-world grit is fairly commonplace in a superhero movie these days and while Batman Begins did a fair job of that, attributing the hero’s abilities to a spell of martial arts training and providing a Batmobile so obviously a development for the military, its sequel The Dark Knight really makes life hard for itself by taking a stab at re-crafting such potentially ridiculous creations as the Joker and Two-face as real characters. But here’s the twist: it succeeds. Read the rest…
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You know how it is, when they suck you in by putting all the best bits in the trailer, so that when you get to see the movie you find there’s nothing very much left in there to surprise you. And when the movie feels like it wasn’t a whole lot longer than the trailer, well, you’ve got problems. Hancock was a bit like that. There was enough material in there for a reasonable short story, but that’s about it, so by the time you’ve finished re-watching all the flash fx scenes they crammed into the trailer, Read the rest…
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Ideally, I should have reviewed Prince Caspian directly after I’d seen it. There’s been quite a lot of metaphorical water under the figurative bridge since then and for all the wonders and marvels on offer in the film, looking back I can’t say that I find it all that memorable. It’s very like the book in that it’s not as good as the first: the means of transporting the children to Narnia lack the simple magic and inspired mystery of stepping through an old wardrobe Read the rest…
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Ever since Toy Story, our cinema screens have been awash with pixel-perfect CGI animations and usually I get the feeling they just replace one set of cutesy characters with another - swap penguins for pandas, zoo animals for woodland critters, toys for cars etc and you’re good to go. So I tend to be a bit skeptical whenever there’s a new Pixar or Dreamworks extravaganza on offer, but luckily there’s more than enough warmth, enchantment and humour in Wall-e to cure even the most skeptical of skeptics. Read the rest…
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The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, the third installment of the Mummy series, joins a more mature Rick “Ricochet” and Evelyn O’Connell, uneasy in retirement and secretly longing for the excitement of their younger days. Unfortunately, they don’t look any older, and it is difficult to believe 20-year-old Alex is really their child. That aside, The Mummy provides well-paced excitement, excellent fight choreography, believable CGI, and a superb cast.
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I didn’t want to watch Flushed Away. Until the word “Aardman” flashed on the screen. Then I knew I had been wrong to prejudge the film (I had thought from the title it was one of those well-past-marginal animated films that could only amuse toddlers of less-than-average intelligence) and that I would be in for a treat. From that point, I was not disappointed.
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Mamma Mia! Here I go again! My, my, how can I resist you?
This must be the feel-good film of the year. The plot is lightweight. The integration of the songs is sometimes clunky. But you will leave the theater humming, your step bouncier than when you went in.
In case you’ve been on a space mission, or living in a cave, Mamma Mia! is the film adaptation of the highly popular stage musical which combines a plot which may have been inspired by Read the rest…
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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull rejoins the life of the famous adventurer/archaeologist/university lecturer nearly 20 years after his last adventure, The Last Crusade. It is now 1957 and the Nazis are history, but the world is not without its villains, in this case led by the amazing Cate Blanchett as Col Dr Irina Spalko. Indy has chased the lost Ark of the Covenant, hunted the Holy Grail, and retrieved the magic Sankara stones, and this time … well, if you haven’t heard, I won’t give it away. Read the rest…
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Not all action is from Marvel and not all heroes are super. Forbidden Kingdom combines the scale of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with the action and comedy you’d expect from a Jackie Chan film. But this is not *just* a Jackie Chan film. Master Jet Li adds a serious element to this fantasy tale of a modern teen (Michael Angarano) drawn into another land and another time to return a magical staff to the imprisoned Monkey King. Yifei Liu joins the pilgrimage as the formidable Sparrow, Read the rest…
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(2 votes, average: 3.5 out of 5)