Love it. Can't see any major issues with the piece. Looking forward to seeing the final result!

I'm sure I watched at least ten films last year. Can't think of that many though. Gonna try and think as I go.

Skyfall was tremendous. My film of 2012. I loved Dark Knight Rises, whatever anyone says. And The Avengers. (Or Avengers Assemble, as it's known over here.)

I liked The Hunger Games, but I suspect it helped that I read the source material first. The sequels are almost guaranteed to suck, if they stick that closely to the books.

Looper was phenomenal, even though I only watched it last week.

Dredd was excellent, for a low-budget hyperviolent nonsense movie.

John Carter was not as bad as everyone told me it was. That doesn't make it good, though.

Ted made me laugh lots.

Did I watch a Paul WS Anderson movie last year? Was there a Resident Evil film? Brain says yes. There were two, one CGI, one live action. Both were awful. And three Resident Evil games, only one of which didn't piss all over the franchise. Bad year for Resident Evil.

Was there a Twilight film last year? I think so. And that was terrible as well. Not even funny, just boring.

I recall disliking The Hobbit for the same reason that I disliked LOTR - too much deviation from a masterpiece, too bloated, too long. The parts in Hobbiton, the trolls and the Riddles in the Dark were all fantastic, though.

So... yeah. Didn't have much income last year. Spent it all on food and rent. Living large, me.

[Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2 Review]

Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2 Review

And finally the fad draws to a close, leaving a trail of easily seduced tweens and lonely housewives in its wake. With The Hunger Games and Fifty Shades of Domestic Abuse Somehow Disguised as Erotic Romance hot on its heels, how will the mighty Twilight franchise come to a close? You’ve probably already guessed the answer to that one: it will end as it began, knee deep in godawful screenwriting, appalling acting and stilted direction. At least it's consistent.

Breaking Dawn Part 2 opens hilariously enough, as Edward trains Bella in the vampiric arts of running around really fast, leading to the incredible sight of Kristen Stewart trying to act in pain as she resists human blood. That girl deserves an Oscar, seriously. You will feel her pain, because you’re trying not to imagine that she has the same facial expressions when suppressing a loud fart in a crowded lift.

From then on, the film descends into a fan fiction parody of itself as Bella and Edward rut like animals. It’s all good, though, because Bella’s now part of the satanic blood cult, so she can take her husband’s undead poundings without leaving any evidence for a prosecutor to present in a divorce court. God knows what happens after that. Honestly, the franchise made very little sense before, but it seems that the final chapter is not the place to straighten everything out. It seems that the vampire council – led by the always fantastic Michael Sheen, operating here on full camp mode – have gotten the wrong end of the stick about the mythical demon child Renesmee (stupidest name ever, seriously), who is actually not a mythical demon child, but a baby who grows at an accelerated rate. A baby who Jacob has fallen in love with and claimed as his own. There’s also Amazon women with mind manipulation powers, vampires who control air, even the water. And all of them seem to fall in love with the mythical demon baby.

Most of the film boils down to a load of people standing around muttering about a forthcoming fight. Naturally, this is reserved for the film’s climax, meaning that the previous hour and a half is utterly, utterly wasted. When Harry Potter Part VII was split into two, the filmmakers used this extra two hours to pack in some of the most incredible wizard action that’s ever appeared on screen. When Twilight gets an extension in the running time, it uses it to have characters stand around not saying much or declare undying love for one another while soft ballads play in the background.
 
Unfortunately the finale of Twilight suffers much the same problem as its predecessor: it’s so goddamned boring. Bella has achieved what she set out to do – marry Edward, become a vampire, sit around and mope – and so this ‘fourth act’ film is painfully unnecessary. Nothing happens. Literally nothing happens from the opening credits to the close. Even the final fight, when it comes, is so stilted and poorly directed as to become effortlessly boring, despite the amount of bloodless head removals on offer. With all the CGI wolves and the vampires dressed in black, it becomes increasingly difficult to work out what the hell is going on. In fact, because so much of the vampire powers are mind-based, a lot of the climax involves people staring at each other. Totally unlike the rest of the film, of course.

Though absolutely none of this matters one jot. The film doesn’t matter. Nothing happens in it. Whatever words are written here won’t matter either, because, as Stephanie Meyer’s target audience has proven, tween girls can’t read.

Of course, there are a few amusing parts in the film – the two appearances of Bella’s wonderful dad, who this time gets to see Jacob in his underwear in one of the funniest parts of the whole franchise. It’s also amusing how much of the film is set outside and how little sun there is, so that nobody sparkles at any point, despite how many vampires are on screen. One hilarious moment sees Bella forgetting how to appear human, just three days after becoming a vampire. And the CGI baby – oh, god, it’s a masterpiece of special effects failure, right out of a Robert Zemeckis movie, dead eyes and all.

So what have we, the viewers, learned from Twilight? We’ve learned that women have no willpower and should be pushed around. We’ve learned that domestic violence is totally okay, no matter the situation. We’ve learned that teenage heartbreak is a perfectly valid excuse for suicide. We’ve learned that everyone is wrong about the man you love because nobody gets him like you do. And now, at the close of the franchise, we have one final lesson – have a baby, then let someone else take them away from you. Yes, really. No moral responsibilities here.

But the main lesson, the one we would all do well to remember, lest literary darkness like this should ever creep up again (cough, Fifty Shades, cough) is that fads are far more dangerous, far more harmful and far more insidious than anyone could ever have believed. Now it’s dead. For that, at least, we should all be grateful.

Fantastic stuff, once again. Hilarious pictures, too.

We should have made Jaws say more things!

I wasn't being sarcastic at all, you've done a great job. Considering how much we talk over each other when there's just the two of us, the very fact that this three-way conversation is not only readable but flows as well is quite stunning. It's probably the best one of the lot, if I may be so bold.

Amazing song. Little bit repetitive, but easily superior to Jack White's piece of aural excremement in every conceivable way.

Would still have preferred Joe Cornish's theme though.

Yeah, that log-out copy-paste bit must have been a bitch to sort out.

One point, though:

AM:  Cringe-worthy.
 DNW:  ...sonofabitch...
AM: That line is phenomenal, you heartless jerk face.

I swear DJ said that final line, there. I don't recall having a pop at myself.

And I'm still laughing at it! Beautiful!

There's a mistake on your list-

1. Dalton
2. Everyone else

There, I fixed it.

I never saw the trailer before I saw the film.

Sorted.

*blushes* Thank you, Jaws.

Sheridan, the examination of Bond's character really work here, given the film's theme of transition. It serves to bring up the past and then quietly bury it. The audience knows Bond so well that this film act as if all the previous films took place, something that Casino and Quantum tried to side-step. The result is... well, you'll see for yourself. There's an epic bit involving a classic piece of Bond's legacy where the message is sent home.

And I'm sorry I got the composer wrong. I went on IMDb and everything. Silly me.

Thank you. My girlfriend read it over my shoulder and lapsed into giggles.

[Skyfall Review]

Skyfall Review

[Note: this review is largely spoiler-free, but certain unavoidable aspects will be discussed. If you don’t want to know, don’t read on.]

James Bond has battled megalomaniacs, terrorist masterminds, women with killer thighs and, in the novel of Doctor No, a giant squid. But it seemed certain that the one thing he could not overcome was the relentless march of time itself. When a younger, sharper, faster pretender named Jason Bourne came along, Bond’s creaky, decades-old mechanics were laid bare. Casino Royale’s reinvention was a bumpy, messy affair that added nothing, while Quantum of Solace tried so hard to be Bourne that it was almost unwatchable. Now, after a four year gap, Bond is back to try once more and, by God, this is the one we’ve all been waiting for.

The key difference this time is the vision. Not just that of director Sam Mendes – more on that later – but of the entire cast and crew. Daniel Craig’s Bond has so far struggled to find his own identity – is he a hardened killer or a man caught in a terrible situation? Is he an unstoppable weapon or a toughened warrior with a soft centre? – and this is the film that finally sets it all right. Craig’s Bond is now made whole, as the most fully realised, human and vulnerable licensed killer to ever hit the screen. As if to reinforce this point, he even gets to spend part of the film in a drunken stupor with two weeks’ worth of stubble. The effect is spellbinding, even stretching to Craig’s amazing blue eyes that become a gateway to the man inside. He’s not a hardened killer. He’s an angry child given free reign to take on the world.

Of course, Craig is backed up by the usual stellar cast and this time all the stops have been pulled out. Alongside Javier Bardem as the effortlessly sinister villain Silva and Judi Dench as the always-reliable M are Ralph Fiennes as political bigshot Mallory and two beautiful women in the tantalising shapes of Naomie Harris and Bérénice Marlohe. As if that wasn’t enough, Rory Kinnear returns in the much more fleshed-out role of Tanner and genius master-at-arms Q finally returns in the talented guise of Ben Whishaw.

Perfectly complimenting the exceptionally talented cast is director Sam Mendes, the man behind some of cinema’s most visually staggering films such as American Beauty and Jarhead. His visual style drapes across the screen like a loving hand, always complimenting the action, even bolstering it occasionally, providing a fiesta of sights that may well live forever in the Bond cannon. Bond’s violent melee in a Chinese skyscraper is played out against the beautiful neon lights of a jellyfish, while the haunting beauty of the moody climax is like nothing else in all of the franchise’s history. In fact, many of the action sequences – and there are boatloads, as you’d expect – are unique and exciting, managing to get the heart pounding in a way that Bond hasn’t achieved in years.

Returning composer David Arnold provides another knockout score designed to have fans punching the air at key moments. Restrained, understated and yet definitely 007, the moment the familiar chords enter your ears, it’s impossible not to be swept away by the music. Also, so-hot-right-now soul-voiced Adele belts out an absolute classic of a theme tune, one that has the potential to go down as the new ‘Goldfinger’, it’s that great.

Are there any issues to be taken with this new Bond? In the euphoria of finally getting a decent film from the super spy, it’s easy to overlook, but in the name of fair and balanced criticism, we should examine the downsides too. The first is that it’s a Bond film and that there are a few moments of unrivalled silliness that maybe didn’t need to be there – for instance, a CGI Komodo dragon and possibly a late tube train collapse. The second is that it’s very obvious how much everyone involved in the film loved Christopher Nolan’s epic The Dark Knight, as the cowl-wearing superhero’s influence is all over the movie, right down to individual plot beats and key twists. You can almost see Javier Bardem working overtime to not be Joker or Two-Face, even when his character is almost screaming out that he’s a mixture of the two. (Especially in that delightfully creepy bit of CGI.) At times you almost expect Michael Caine to stroll in and inform 007 that ‘some men just want to watch the world burn.’ There’s also a little bit of Straw Dogs chucked in there, too.

At almost two and a half hours long, it’s a lengthy time investment. But everything that’s here truly works. While Quantum trimmed all the fat down to a lean ninety minute running time, Skyfall adds in all the excess fat and the result is a long, intriguing, fully realised tale that unfolds at its own pace, never rushing, but never less than totally gripping, even in the slightly bloated second act.

There are a number of other points in the film that feel like a curious compilation of previous Bond films. For instance, there’s a rogue former agent, an attack on Mi6 headquarters, mention of an exploding pen and a few other small moments. What’s even stranger is that, unlike in Die Another Day, these are warm, gentle touches that remind you of the past without clouding it. Even though the franchise has moved on to overwhelming realism, traces of Bond’s roots still show through. Villain Silva still has an island base, except this time it’s portrayed in a fascinatingly plausible and even quite melancholic way – a man alone amidst his own desolation. Silva still has access to an army of grunts to throw at Bond, but it makes sense that he would because he could pay anyone to do anything. Even when Silva and Bond meet for the first time and Bardem goes into full-blown monologue mode, it’s never less than new, fresh and almost constantly surprising.

That’s what Skyfall does so well that no other supposed ‘reinvention’ film – not Licence to Kill, GoldenEye or Casino Royale – has managed to do. This is the film that truly represents Bond’s ground zero. This is the film that draws a neat, elegant line under everything that’s come before and finally points the way forward for the world’s most famous secret agent. It even makes sense now why the gun barrel comes at the film’s end – instead of heralding Bond’s arrival, it’s issuing a challenge to all the other action films that attempt to dethrone 007, thereby truly proving that nobody, yes nobody, does it better.

Once the dust settles and the curtain falls, there’s only one question that remains to be asked. ‘Is Skyfall the best James Bond film ever?’ The answer is an undoubted, unshakeable, resounding yes. This is – finally! – the true James Bond. This is the one we’ve all been waiting for. Welcome back, 007. You’ve been gone far too long.

Our rating: A

[Resident Evil 6 Review]

A rogue comment I made about the game in my Damnation review seems to have opened up a can of worms among players, so I thought I'd repost my own opinions here. If anyone is interested, I kept up a running commentary of thoughts as I played the game on my blog (http://ad4m22.wordpress.com), although those thoughts are much more knee-jerk angry fanboy reactions.

Resident Evil 6 Review

It’s all Shinji Mikami’s fault, really. He made Resident Evil 4 just too damn good, and now Capcom are trying to replicate his magic without the slightest understanding of what it was he did so well. It was simple: each chapter in the game had a standout moment that was completely unique, before the pace moved you swiftly on to the next bit. It was exciting, tense and most of all, fun.

Which is where Resident Evil 6 shambles into view, with Capcom’s most ambitious offering to date. There’s a colossal amount of content on offer here, with four full-length campaigns to play through, as well as online and offline co-op, and two bonus play modes. Alongside that is the ResidentEvil.net service that keeps a record of your gameplay stats for the whole world to see. While all this is most definitely value for money, the main problem is the game’s lack of focus and general unwillingness to slow down for five minutes.


You'll spend most of the game shooting an insane number of enemies.

Parts of the game are genuinely stunning. For instance, the first hour of Leon’s campaign brings back the thrill of old-style Resident Evil, with you dispatching slow-moving zombies on a University campus. Most of Ada’s campaign puts priority on playing stealthily and avoiding confrontations. Jake has a section where you try and slip past an unkillable Nemesis-esque monstrosity. Also, the moments where the storylines interlink and offer up four-player co-op are fantastic. Strangely, many of the standout moments feel like tributes from the earlier games, such as the first time you saw a zombie in Resident Evil 1, or the mine cart sequence in Resi 4. But these are tiny jewels, lost admit a sea of samey gameplay and non-stop action sequences. For everything that stands out as being good, there are dozens of things that irritate, like a snowmobile chase down a collapsing mountainside, or a jet battle against an aircraft carrier, or an on-rails flight sequence in a helicopter. Every time the game draws you into its world, (something that occurs more frequently in Leon and Ada’s campaigns than Chris and Jake’s) it throws an explosion at you to make you remember that this is now an action franchise. Long gone is the brooding tension and slow-paced exploration. This is now all about sprinting and blowing things up and following objective markers through linear locations.


One of the best-looking games of all time?

But this is not a bad game, that’s the important thing. For the most part, Resident Evil 6 nails exactly what it sets out to do. The new physical abilities are great, allowing you a variety of ways to create some room in a crowd, or just eliminate a single enemy in a stylish way. You can also now sprint, slide and roll across the ground, opening up a whole new way to take on the armies of grunts in your way. There’s also the new Skills that you can purchase, allowing upgrades of all the weapons, as well as your own health, your combat abilities and so on. Purchasing many of them requires a hell of a lot of skill points, so if you want to unlock most of the game’s content, you’ll need to put aside tens of hours.

Aside from the now-standard Mercenaries bonus game, there’s the new ‘Agent Hunt’ mode, where you play as a monster and attempt to kill people while they make their way through the game. While you can only jump in on specific sections (and only then when players have allowed access via the options menu), it’s a strange little distraction. Playing as the monsters isn’t as fun as it should be, killing players who are trying to navigate their way through the game can make you feel pretty bad about it and upgrading your monsters requires even more skill points – demanding a seriously longger time commitment from a game that already pushes past the thirty hour barrier.


Agent Hunt is worth it for the chance to mutate in unexpected and hilarious new ways.

But the game’s overwhelming problem is the pace. You aren’t allowed to enjoy the game at your own speed. Instead, you’re pulled along through the story at a breakneck pace, barely allowed time to gather your own thoughts or even explore the surroundings. For instance, one chapter in Chris’s campaign sees you battle an attack helicopter, chase an invisible snake through a building, flee a second attack helicopter, before jumping in a car for a ten minute chase sequence. It’s not providing players with relentless adrenaline, it’s throwing explosions at them until they actually begin to get bored of the pace. Worse, there’s so little difference in the campaigns that they all soon blur into one. Every character has a vehicle section, a run-into-the-screen chase, a slow motion gun battle, a maze full of invincible monsters and even a multitude of Quick Time Events. This latter is excruciating during the boss battles, as it highlights that the player can’t kill monsters as cool as the cutscenes can.


To be fair, the bit with the invisible snake is quite good.

The big question, then: is Resident Evil 6 a disappointment? Undoubtedly the answer is yes, it’s a huge letdown. But it’s not, repeat, not a bad game – not like other Resident Evil titles such as Survivor or Operation Raccoon City. But it’s not great, like 4 or Revelations. Instead it’s distinctly above average, better than 5 was, but unable to scale the heights of even the original three games. It all comes down to your own preference – if your defining image of the series comes from the early days, you’ll be disappointed. If you preferred the fifth game, then this will blow you away.

At the end of the day, once the credits roll, you may well be left with a nagging sense of loss. This marks the end of the series as it was. It might even mark the death of the franchise as a whole – it’s been pushed so far, given so broad a scope that it’s impossible to think what could happen next. Whatever happens next, the action blowout has struck so deep that the series’ survival horror roots have been mangled and may never recover. And all this because Shinji Mikami made his swan song far too good.

75%

You're a lucky man.

I'm trying to get the willpower together to look forward to ripping apart the new Twilight. I think that's why I'm here - to tear into bad films.

Resident Evil: Retribution Review

Starring: Milla Jovovich and other, lesser, actors who are all fortune enough to be in her presence.
Director: The guy who has sex with Milla Jovovich, Writer-Director Paul WS Anderson

Jesus.

Effing.

Christ.

In a former life, writer-director Paul WS Anderson enjoyed a highly successful career as a pain expert working for the Khymer Rouge in Cambodia. If somebody wasn’t talking, they would send him in and he’d get information in less than a minute. It's important to know, because this film makes you want to admit to things you haven’t done in order for the pain to end.

But before we get into the review proper, let’s make little disclaimer. This writer loves Resident Evil – he’s played all the games, watched all the films, read the books, even wrote his dissertation at University about the franchise. In fact, he’s had to pause Resident Evil 6 in order to crap out this appalling ‘review’. So don’t sit there throwing around accustions of the writer of not liking Resident Evil, because he probably knows it better than you do, okay?

This time around the film begins with a hatefully long ‘previously on…’ monologue from Alice (Milla Jovovich) in order to explain what’s going on. Truthfully though, none of this matters one jot, because the world ended in the third film and since then, Paul WS Anderson has been making it up as he went.

So Alice is captured by the Umbrella Corporation, a company that seems to come back from the dead as often as the zombies they create. Naturally, Alice soon breaks out, thanks to Ada Wong (Not Milla Jovovich) and Wesker (also not Milla Jovovich) and runs through a massive building while pursued by the Red Queen (hilariously, played by a different actor because the original girl is too old now). At the same time, an extraction team is sent in, consisting of a Black Guy (definitely not Milla Jovovich) as well as Leon S Kennedy and Barry Burton. No, really. The sight of these classic characters being raped by Paul WS Anderson will make you want to vomit in your lap. There's absolutely no point in them even being there, because the film's focus is on Milla jumping around in tight leather.

The plot is essentially just a piss-poor excuse to have a series of scenes set in various landmarks around the world that aren't really landmarks around the world because it's set in one big building, all explained in increasingly awkward dialogues exchanges. Every five minutes, someone pops up to provide exposition for a scenario that just doesn’t make sense – and there’s a hell of a lot of explaining to do, from differentiating between the different types of zombie on offer (‘Las Plagas Undead!’) to forcing in the reappearance of Rain, One and Carlos (‘clones!’)

Of course, that’s not all, because Paul WS Anderson still doesn’t have an original bone in his body and once again you can play a fun game of ‘what film is he ripping off this time?’ The two main ones this are Aliens and the Dawn of the Dead  remake, the former in giving Alice a Newt-esque little child to fawn over, and the second in an early sequence of Zombies in Surburbia that, weirdly, is far, far better than anything in the entire film. There’s also a bone-breaking x-ray bit towards the end which looks like it was from another film. It must be. It looks too good to be original. Ten internet points to however guesses it.

The acting, as you may well have guessed, straddles the line between appalling and hilarious. The conversations on set must have been a treat to listen to. ‘Show concern, Milla! No, no, that’s constipation, try a little– better, almost there. Sod it, that’s close enough. ACTION!’ When a child who talks and does sign language is more convincing than the adult cast, there’s probably something wrong.

If you’re trying to watch this film and you haven’t played the games, you’re screwed. Paul WS Anderson has completely given up trying to make the films accessible, so you’ll want to watch it with a gamer who can explain everything to you in order for it to make sense. The zombies ride motorbikes because there’s a sequence like it in Resident Evil 5. Jill Valentine is being mind controlled because she was in Resident Evil 5. The Las Plagas parasite is the disease from Resident Evil 4. Rain absorbs bullets because a villain did that in Resident Evil 4. There's a zombie with a chainsaw because there was one like it in both 4 and 5.

Paul WS Anderson’s visual flair is once again evident, smeared all across the screen like an uninvited guest crapping all over a birthday cake. There’s slow motion whenever somebody stops talking – this time in reverse, too – and Milla Jovovich spends as much time as possible look sexy, including dressing like a reject from TRON, presumably because her husband enjoyed touching himself while watching it. And it’s all in 3D, too! So every five minutes there’s a knife/ axe/ sharp stick chucked at the camera in order to make you feel like you’re really there.

Nothing makes sense in this film, but has anything ever really needed to? Things just keep happening to Alice and she powers through it. If there was ever a protagonist that was impossible to root for, it’s her. She’s survived Armageddon, had superpowers, lost her superpowers and even died four or five times. By the time the credits roll on this one, she’s lived through seven Armageddons and even gotten her powers back for the second time. Yes, really.

Are there any positives to say about this? Yes, there are exactly three. The first is that, at ninety minutes, it’s short enough for you to convince yourself that it didn’t really happen. The second is that Li Bingbing (Ada Wong) is utterly beautiful and well worth a Google image search. Finally, this film is not as bad as Extinction or Afterlife, although that's like saying that being stabbed in the knee is better than drinking bleach.

In short, it’s a mess. A travesty. And it ends on a cliffhanger. There’ll be another one. There will be six films in this franchise. Six. Bring a strong bottle of something that kills brain cells. You’re gonna need it.

F

Resident Evil: Damnation Review

If Resident Evil 6, Capcom’s latest game in the sprawling series is anything to go by, this franchise is now in serious danger of collapsing under the weight of its own shit. With nearly twenty games, five live action movies and now two CGI films all bearing the brand name of Resident Evil, the universe needs some serious pruning if it’s going to survive much longer.

Which is exactly what Damnation doesn’t do. In fact, this does the exact opposite, placing even more weight on an already overcomplicated franchise and leaving many new questions on the minds of any viewers. But don’t go into this thinking that you could just watch it like a normal film – unlike the rather enjoyable Degeneration CGI movie before it, this one fits so heavily into the canon of the universe that you’d need to play most of the games before this one made even a lick of sense.

The film is set in the generically named Eastern Slav Republic, where a civil war has escalated into a biological war, with both sides unleashing Bio-Organic Weapons (BOWs) in an attempt to end the bloodshed. One side appears to be using Lickers to fight, while the other has Majini on its side.

This is roughly where everything stops making sense, even for those who have played the games. What virus strain is being used here? Is it T-Virus, G-Virus, T-Veronica Virus, Plagas or Uroboros? Sometimes it looks like a mixture of all five, as the zombies stagger around, before displaying those Majini mouth-tentacles, but then stops making sense.

The plot appears to be a paper-thin excuse to throw out two of the franchise’s biggest stars – the Licker and the Mr X Tyrant – and have them square off against each other. When the fight finally does come, it’s pretty good to watch, admittedly, but fails to salvage the rest of the film, with incoherence dragging the plot from one incomprehensible setpiece to another.

While the story has absolutely nothing new to add to the franchise, save confuse it further, the visuals are definitely worth writing about. This film looks beautiful. Creepy lighting effects, realistic humans, amazing vistas and suitably disgusting monsters are all rendered in utterly convincing detail. If as much attention had been paid to the script, this could have become a true masterpiece. Ada Wong also has a truly brilliant fistfight that reminds fans why she's lived as long as she has.

Once it’s all done, the truth of this film dawns on you. It’s a cynical ploy to promote Resident Evil 6 even further. Everything that happens in this film is made irrelevant by the final twenty second clip, showing the game’s forthcoming villain, proving that all the previous virus strains are involved in the creation of the C-Virus. And that’s it. To make matters worse, a trailer for Resident Evil 6 plays during the end credits, thus ensuring that everyone goes away from this film feeling robbed. Degeneration was a decent tie-in. This is a poorly written, flabby mess. Exactly like the franchise itself, really.

C-

I liked Tron. And Thor.

Gotta say, Dalmatian, excellent review. Ignore those fools on the front page! Just look at all the reactions I got for Resident Evil and New Moon. The world makes me sigh sometimes.

The Hunger Games has been unfairly laden down with comparisons to Twilight, when in reality there only things they have in common are that both are adaptations of novels aimed at teenagers. The difference between them – the big, honking difference that’s impossible to miss – is that The Hunger Games is genuinely good.

It’s the distant future and, as a punishment for their rebellion, the twelve Districts are forced to give up one young man and woman every year to go to the Capitol and fight to the death on live TV for the entertainment of the world. Jennifer Lawrence stars as Katniss Everdeen, a tough young girl who hunts in the woods to keep herself and her family alive, who volunteers in to take part in the Hunger Games in her sister’s place. What follows are just over two hours of razor-sharp tension, expertly balanced characters and some excellent scenes of children killing each other.

Director Gary Ross does a wonderful job in keeping the pace going throughout the film. Whereas most films of this length feel flabby and start to drag after a time, this one maintains the flow right up to the final credits. With the use of quick edits and shaky camera work, Ross manages to make a relatively bloodless film feel far more visceral than it actually is.

The cast are all uniformly excellent in their roles, managing to play their distinct roles and make the important characters stand out. Like in the novel, there are only a few characters out of the twenty four participants to pay attention to, and some thoughtful character design combines with surprisingly good child actors to make the games an easy battle to follow. Lawrence is particularly excellent in the lead role, managing to play the complexities of Katniss with particular charisma. By turns manipulative, cold, cunning, vengeful and seductive, Lawrence gives Katniss depth of character that Kristen Stewart could only dream about.

Using the brilliant source novel as a starting point, the film manages to expand upon the world, giving insights into the creation of the Games that were missing before. Now, instead of just following Katniss’s survival, the audience is allowed to get a greater understanding of the world around, watching behind the scenes of the Games, visiting other Districts and even giving more screentime to the President (Donald Sutherland). These decisions pay off hugely, allowing the world to feel far larger than the book’s limited perspective would allow for.

If there is a complaint to be made against the film, it’s that the actors are too damn good-looking. It’s hard to believe that Katniss, Peeta and Rue all come from poor districts when they all have immaculate skin and hands. Perhaps a bit more dirt and grime wouldn’t have gone unnoticed?

If you want to see the next Twilight-esque fad, do the world a favour and bury yourself up to the neck in the desert. If you want a good, fast-paced thriller that’s well-acted and expertly made, then come and watch The Hunger Games. Ignore anyone who calls it ‘the next Twilight’ and enjoy the sort of story that Stephanie Meyer wishes she could write.

A-

The Three Muskteers.
The Three Muskteers.
The Three Muskteers.
The Three Muskteers.
The Three Muskteers.
The Three Muskteers.
The Three Muskteers.

I knew I didn't like that man and now I finally have my reason.