The Bourne Ultimatum

Well, I wasn't the most excited by the prospect of this, the series has been good so far, but not really my kind of film...

...until I saw this.

This is what blackbusters should be like.

9/10

Eagle vs Shark

I can't wait for this to come out on DVD. There are so many jokes in this geek rom-com. The characters aren't pretty, sometimes not even likeable, but they are so well played they are hilarious.

There are so many jokes and so many great little touches that I want to see this again and again. It might not be the best film I've seen all year, but when it is this bloody funny, it doesn't matter at all.

8/10

The Simpsons Movie

It isn't a movie, it is just an episode stretched to 90 minutes.

However, it is a good episode, so I'm not complaining. I just think that they didn't really expand the Simpsons in any way in this film (apart from length and widthways).

I actually saw this film again the very next day after I had just seen it and still laughed all the way through it.

It is a good laugh - 8/10

Transformers

Lots of money was thrown at a script with an uneven tone and lack of plot.

The money didn't help.

I wasn't impressed. I didn't think the effects were worth the money spent on the film and to be honest, I got bored. I wanted the film to end.

A film with bloody big robots fighting each other shouldn't be boring.

3/10

Hairspray

I really enjoyed this - I had a big grin on my face all the through it.

It has a bit of a story and even a message to get across - but it doesn't let that get in the way of entertainment.

Yes - entertainment, a word that many of the big summer films have completely forgotten is important.

My only question - what the hell is John Travolta's accent supposed to be?

I hope we see some of the cast back in other musicals soon - there were some terrific performers.

I was singing some of the songs for days afterwards - 7/10

Die hard 4.0

I loved the trailer for this film. It told me what I was going to see when I went to see Die Hard 4.0 - a big, stupid, brash, loud bit of entertainment.

And it didn't disappoint.

It isn't to say that this is the greatest film ever, and it did get ridiculous towards the end, but whatever, sometimes I want to see explosions and giggle.

6/10

The Lives Of Others

This film wasn't on my local cinema during its release, but I managed to catch it on a "Wednesday Special" and I am glad I did.

Set in East Germany, The Lives Of Others follows a Party agent who is assigned to monitor a playright. What follows is European cinema at its finest.

I don't want to say much more about the plot - this is a film that haunted me for days afterwards.

Brilliant. 9.5/10

Dead Silence

Well, I've seen worse films I suppose, but this was a bit pointless.

It was very nice to look at though.

BUT REALLY - A HORROR FILM WITH VENTRILOQUIST'S DOLLS IN IT SHOULD BE SCARY>

Ok, rant over.

I'm sorry.

2/10

The Flying Scotsman

I haven't been to the cinema very often recently, mainly because I'm not interested in Spiderman, Fantastic 4 et al. I saw ghost rider earlier in the year. I don't need to see anymore bad comic films.

My reaction to seeing this weeks cinema listings was one of relief when I saw that there was a film that looked like it didn't involve explosions and car chases.

This is a biopic of Graeme Obree - a Scot who broke the one hour distance record with a home-made bike in the mid-nineties. He battled with depression and the Internation Cycling Union (who ruled his bike design illegal) during his racing career.

The film is beautifully shot (and partly set in Glasgow - which is always a good thing) and the performances are pretty good - I just felt that Obree's depression wasn't handled as well as it could have been.

All in all, it is a sports movie - and fits the blueprint for such a film perfectly. At least it wasn't about American Football!

I really liked it, and definately recommend it.

oh, and there WAS a car chase!

7/10

Shrek the third

As they didn't bother to write a script, should I bother writing a review?

There was no story, the animation was often ropey.

I was bored.

lazy - 1 / 10

FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SUFER

This was the first new film I'd seen in a number of weeks. On account of there being no new films out I wanted to see, plus there being films on at my local cinema that I'd seen but were worth watching again

I went to this cinema this evening on the bat of having worked the last 7 days in a row. I was tired and had been sat in front of a computer for 10 hours with a bit of a hangover. Still I tired to suppress all my expectations, I thought I'd go with an open mind and hoped to be pleasantly surprised.

Suffice to say I WAS NOT PLEASANTLY SURPRISED.

There was wooden acting, bad blue screen, wooden characters, super-heroes with rubbish super powers, rubbish plot lines. Even Jessica Alba didn't look good for the whole time I was watching. There were cheesy lines, the guy who played William Wilberforce in Amazing Grace was like the wooden guy from the Cuprinol adverts. The story didn't hang together. The final action sequence was shot on the same stage as the final scene of Superman I.

I hadn't seen the 1st film in this series so was confused by the continuing plots.

Stan Lee has a cameo role in this film - he must've been hanging his head in his hands when he saw how the makers of this film had destroyed his many hours of creative work on the original comics.

DO NOT GO TO SEE THIS FILM.

It does not even merit a mark out of 10. A thoroughly disappointing film

Zodiac

After Panic Room, David Fincher has bounced back and made a stylish, intelligent and very well made film. He has reigned in a lot of his crazy camera moves (that probably wouldn't have been appropriate in this 1970s based film), and kept a restrained hold on a story that spans about fifteen years.

Yes, it is sprawling, yes it is long, and yes, the end isn't as good as a fictional one but this is a quality film.

I'm glad Fincher is back, I just hope it doesn't take so long for his next film to come out.

8/10

Paradise Lost

After viewing the trailer package with this film, I am a bit worried. Films are getting a bit sick at the moment. All the trailers were for torture horror - it's getting a bit old now, so it looks like they are just going to get gorier and sicker.

That's ok every so often, but where have the supernatural horrors gone?

They don't even have proper zombies anymore...

I'm sure it'll all be cyclical and there'll be remakes of Nightmare on Elm Street and stuff in two years time.

Probably with even more gore.

Anyway, on to the business in hand - Paradise Lost.

It begins a bit like The Beach - a bunch of tourists are in a bus crash and so are left stranded somewhere in Brazil. Luckily, they find a spectacular beach nearby, with an amazing bar and get absolutely hammered. They awake the next morning to find that they have been robbed, the bar is gone and they are lost.

And hunted.

Then, unfortunately it becomes a bit of a torture horror. Which is a shame, it could have been done much more subtly and made this film a lot better. Although I was complaining about torture horror a couple of minutes ago, it is okay, if done well; however, the huge amount of them coming out at the moment leaves this film in the middle of the pile in that genre and as such, will be forgotten about.

I'm not going to give away the reason for the tourists being hunted, but I thought that the premise was good, and could have made a really good horror film, rather than this mediocre film.

I will leave this review with a positive note though - there is a chase sequence set in underwater caves - it is pretty cool.

Anyway, enough rambling about this film.

4/10

Catch a Fire

Catch a Fire is set in South Africa in the 1980s and is about an apolitical guy, just living his life until the ANC bomb the oil refinery where he works.

With fantastic performances and a great ending, Catch a Fire is definately worth seeing.

7/10

The Magicians

As we left the cinema, my girlfriend said, "Wild Hogs was funnier."

She was right. We both like Peep Show and so were really looking forward to this film.

Oh well.

3/10

28 Weeks Later

Wow.

This film begins with one of, if not the greatest old school zombie attacks I have ever seen.

Except that they attackers weren't zombies, they were Infected and so the scene moves at somthing approaching a million miles an hour.

Truly awesome.

The rest of the film was big, stupid, but very fun.

8/10

SPIDERMAN 3

I had 2 atempts at going to see this film, and finally managed it on the 3rd. It confirms all the critics suspicions about itself. It is too long, there are too many plot lines going on, the bit where Peter Parker goes evil is like a Lynx advert, it is not anywhere near as much fun as the first 2 films.

Had it been shotrter, with less plot lines and no Lynx advert it would've been awesome.

If you've seen the first 2 and you've been sucked in by the hype (as I was) go see it. If you haven't it's not worth the bother.

I'm going to give this 4.6 out of 10

Wild Hogs

I can't believe we went to see this, but after a mishap involving someone forgetting to give someone else a lift we arrived to the cinema too late to see 28 weeks later, and the next film on was Wild Hogs.

Well, it wasn't quite as bad as expected, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

3/10

Goya's Ghosts

I'm trying to not see Spiderman 3, even though that seems to be the only film on at the cinema at the moment, so I went to see Goya's Ghosts.

It's about the Spanish Inquisition, and is pretty interesting, although slightly ridiculous.

I enjoyed it, even though it didn't really know how to end and so the credits seemed to just suddenly appear to end it.

7/10

This Is England

The performances were absolutely fantastic, the film looked pretty damn good and there was some cool tunes on it.

And yet, I was left wanting.

I don't know what it was, maybe I was expecting it to end up somewhere else, but I was left disappointed.

I was looking forward to this one too...

I don't really know how to rate this, it is better than average, erm, maybe 6.3/10

shame