Recent Cinema Viewings

From recent rentals to recent cinema viewings, this entry will go from one extreme to the other. You'll see what I mean in a second.

Burning Man

Showing in only one cinema (from what I can see anyway) in the whole of Queensland means that Burning Man will probably be seen by about 12 people, which is a real shame as I think it's currently one of the best films of the year.

Staring Matthew Goode, who has achieved some fame for appearing in the likes of Watchmen and A Single Man, this Australian film begins with a series of unrelated sequences which, for about half an hour, leaves you feeling completely lost. Once everything comes together though it's clear that the the impact intended was for the viewers sense of confusion and disorientation to mimic the same frame of mind the central character was going through after suffering personal tragedy.

Once the nature of his situation is revealed, which I wont get into as I think the movie will work best if you don't know, it then begins on his emotionally draining yet very moving story, moving back and forward in the time line to before, during and after the incident. The performances are all brilliant, and the heartbreaking story has some good dark humour mixed in as well to lift the otherwise sombre mood. Beautifully shot with incredible attention to detail, this is an amazing achievement. I'm leaving my prejudice against Australian movies behind for good.

***** out of *****

Immortals

A Greek mythology themed action movie filmed in a style inspired by 300? Yeah, I didn't have much interest in seeing this, however I got invited by my mate Dayle so I thought I'd go and check it out, as I stand by the notion that every movie deserves a chance. The story is pretty basic Greek mythology stuff, which will hold your interest just enough between the many over the top and bloody action scenes. I still maintain that if you're not going to bother too much with character, plot or dialogue in an action film then you need to make the action scenes as over the top as possible to compensate, and that is indeed what is on display here. If a thought provoking drama is what you're after look elsewhere, but if you have a desire to see blood spilt in numerous different ways over and over and over again then, Immortals will suit you down to the bone.
*** out of *****

Jack and Jill

Ok, to explain how I ended up seeing this film. Me and my buddy Ben were trying to figure out what move to see. He wanted to see Moneyball, however as I'd already seen it I was less than enthusiastic, however would have been willing to see it again. Whilst going through the session times of possible movies we could see Jack and Jill came up. I said there was no Chance we were going to see that, however Ben then planted the idea in my mind that seeing it could provide for an amusing experience if we could enjoy lauging at how bad it was. I mulled the idea over in my head, and when we got to the cinema he let me decide; Moneyball or Jack and Jill. I think he was pretty angry with my decision....

If you're unfamiliar with Jack and Jill, it is Adam Sandler's new movie where he plays the normal Adam Sander character PLUS his own annoying twin sister. Yep, it's as bad as it sounds and much worse. Not only is there not one funny line in the entire film, but we have to sit through endless amounts of blatant product placement, celebrities embarrassing themselves by appearing in cameos, cheap last minute attempts at sentimentality, and, perhaps worst of all, the sad realisation that Al Pacino's career is now reduced to appearing as an insane version of himself in this bullocks.

I'm half convinced that Adam Sandler is just playing a big practical joke on everyone and doing a kind of parody of himself, because there mere notion that any human would find this film even mildly appealing is a massive insult to all mankind. I'm not even one of Adam Sander's many haters, and usually enjoy his movies, but this, UGH, what more can I say. It's puerile and certainly not worth wasting anymore time talking about.

No Stars

Recent Rentals

As promised, just took me a while.

Fast & Furious 5

The fifth installment in the Fast and Furious franchise is the first one I've seen. I haven't bothered with any of the others as I'm not even close to being what you would call a car enthusiast, plus Vin Diesel is a bit of a tool. I had no plans to see this one either, however after reading good reviews and hearing that they had shifted the foucs of the film from car racing to instead being a heist film I decided to check it out.

The story seems to sort of follow from the previous films, not that I would know, with Vin Diesel and Paul Walker's characters on the run from the law for some reason. They end up in Brazil and decide to do "one last job" or someother such cliced nonsense and rip off this rich business guy. The business due is completely evil and corrupt though, so it's ok. This then leads to them recruiting a team, and at this point you pretty much know what kind of movie you've got. You know, one of those "We're putting a team togeather to achieve such and such a goal, you in?" If these shennanigans weren't enough, they also have The Rock AKA Dwayne Johnso relentless cop character on their tail.

Despite this movie being nothing new it was actually pretty enjoyable. The characters were all adequetly fleshed out, the action set pieces were suitablly over the top and exciting and The Rock's performance as a bad arse never say die cop was great. Looks like they'll probably be a sequel, so as long as they keep going in the same vain as this film we could be looking at a successful re-boot of sorts taking the franchise in a new direction.

***1/2 out of *****

Green Lantern

I skipped this one when it was at the cinemas as I thought it was going to be a bit of a disaster. Not being familar with the comics I only had the trailer to guide my expectations, and that made it look like a kids movie set in a bizarre world of green and purple aliens, and the special effects didn't do much to win me over either. Upon viewing the film these inital concerns were confirmed, and the film also sufferes from sub par script and a romantic subplot involving Blake Lively that had about as much life to it as a crematorium. Despite this, Ryan Reynolds brings his usual charasima to the titular superhero character which helps keep the film from sinking, and there are enough action scenes to keep us entertained. I also enjoyed the story of a regular everyday guy suddenly finding himself completely out of his depth and in a position of immense importance, but I think I'm a bit of a sucker for those kind of storylines. In summary, it was better than I thought it would be.

*** out of *****

Sleeping Beauty

No, not the Disney animated classic, but rather an Australian arthouse film that screened in competition at the Cannes Film Festival this year. In fact, I'd be horrified if the former movie's target audidence saw even a moment of this film, which focuses on a young lady in need of money and the lengths she will go to get it.

Sleeping Beauty takes the "less is more" approach to storytelling, which if done correctly can make for a very natural and satisfying expierence, however here it makes for a dull and completely pointless one. It appears the director doesn't understand the difference between subtle character development and revealing absolutely nothing so we can't connect to and care about the events unfoding at all. The two main elements that the film appears to be trying to explore are the aforementioned lengths a person will go to for money and the hidden sexual desires that men keep buried well beneath the surface, yet it does it in such a cold and detached manner that they left no impact whatsoever.

While I admired the cinematorgragy and apprecited the fact that the film was offering something original, it was ultimately a boring, pretentious and soulless mess. Don't bother with this epic waste of time.

* out of *****

Battle: Los Angeles

Aliens are invading and the army has to stop them. That's all you need to about Battle: Los Angeles as that's all there is to it. Doesn't sound very satisfying? That's probably because it's not. So how could this festering turd pile actually have worked?

Well perhaps give the lead character some sort of story arc. Perhaps he has a son that he's trying to get home to. Maybe this could be his last mission before going home to his son for good. Maybe then he finds out that the government had known about the possibility of aliens attacking for ages but kept it so top secret that nothing was done about it, which makes him super angry Our hero could even have a strained relationship with his son, and he ends up sacrificing himself to save the day, which earns his son's eternal love and respect after a tearful good bye. You could even throw some social commentary about the aliens being no worse than humans when they've invaded or colonised countires etc. If it sounds familar that's because it's the same storyline always used for these sort of films, and usually it works. It wouldn't have been a great movie but lets face it, this wasn never going to be. It would have at least been passable. What did we get instead?

Introduce a few stock standard characters who all seem to be a carbon copy of each other for about 20 minutes, followed by "We've got some meteores coming." "What, they're aliens?" BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG "Generic war speech" BANG BANG BANG BANG "I don't know if this guy has what it takes" BANG BANG BANG BANG - THE END. Ugh. Even if they had delivered the action in carefully choreographed set pieces rather than just endless chaos the lack of any soild storytelling could be excused. Some of the special effects and action scenes are OKAY but that's it. A simply awful example of flim making.

1/2* out of ***** 

New stuff

Yep, here we go again. I've got too many to get to so these reviews are going to be short and lazily written, but really what's new there (BURN.... myself?) Anyway...

Moneyball

I'll just come right and out and say that this film kicked all kinds of arse, but with Aaron Sorkin as the scriptwriter (who of course wrote The Social Network) what more what one expect. Based on a true story, Brad Pitt's character (I really can't be stuffed with character's names) is the manager of the Oakland Athletics baseball and employs a fellow working with another team, who is played by Jonah Hill, who has a theory about recruiting players based purely on their stats, thus saving money going after the marquee players and being able to compete with the much richer clubs such as a the New York Yankees.

And that is the basic plot in a nutshell. Where the movie works so well is of course in the script, which is Aaron Sorkin's usual mix of intelligent dialogue and humour, the performances (I think this is probably the best performance I've seen Jonah Hill give) and the character study of Billy Beane (fine I looked the name up.) While it's a sports movie the movie is more concerned with what goes on behind the scenes, and you could say it's a sports movie for people who don't like sport.

 I'd almost go as far as to say this is the Social Network of 2011, not because they have the same scriptwriter, but because both films focus on a man obsessed with an idea. While Mark Zuckerburg was obsessed with the technology and the changes in the way people related to and communicated with each other, Billy Beane was obsessed with changing the way the game of baseball was played. It doesn't have quite the same depth of storytelling as The Social Network, but the added touch of Billy's relationship with his daughter and her final message to him; stop obsessing, "Just enjoy the show" put the icing on one very enjoyable ride.

****1/2 out of *****

The Ides of March

The new directorial effort directed by and staring George Clooney is about two politicians competing to become the Democrats Candidate for an upcoming election. George Clooney falls on the more on the left side of politics while his opponent is more conservatively minded. Ryan Gosling is working on Clooney's campaign, and is wide eyed, optimistic and believes in what he's doing, and you'd be guessing correctly if you thought that didn't attitude didn't last for the whole film.

The film starts at a steady pace but somewhere along the line plats the pedal to the floor and never really lets up to the end. We follow a series of twists, allegiances and betrayals which, along with the loss of innocence of the main character makes this feel less like your average political drama and more like The Godfather, minus the people being whacked of course. I've read a few negative things about this film, mainly over at the cess pit of humanity known as the IMDB message board, and I can't really understand why. This is an intelligently written, edge of your seat style drama, with another brilliant performance from Ryan Gosling and a protagonist that takes us on a journey that may spew forth cynicism regarding politics, but at the same time may be a little closer to reality than we would like to believe.

****1/2 out of *****

Midnight in Paris

I keep hearing that Woody Allen's new films are no good and that he's lost the plot recently, however I must keep seeing the right movies almost all the newer Woody Allen films I've seen have been gold, including this one. It has all the usual Woody Allen charming dialogue, interesting characters and unpredictable plot turns, and plenty of beautiful shots and scenery of central Paris. Midnight in Paris has Owen Wilson playing the typical Woody Allen character, as he continually goes back in time at Midnight (whilst being in Paris - GET IT!) and meets several famous artists from the past such as Pablo Picasso and F Scott Fitzgerald, and gets tips on his writing from Ernest Hemingway. At the same time his fiance, played by Rachel McAdams, seems more taken with a wannabe intellectual friend  of hers with a ten foot poll up his arse.

Even though Owen Wilson is just playing Owen Wilson, like he usually does, for some reason he just fits the Woody Allen character so well. The Woody Allen movie that this probably resembles the most would be the Purple Rose of Cairo, due to the fantasy elements of both movies, and considering the quality of that movie  I think that comparison is a good thing. In Roger Ebert's review he said he considers Allen to be a treasure of the cinema and I couldn't agree more. There's so much whimsical fun to be had here and I hope he never stops making movies, until he, you know, dies.

**** out of *****

Attack the Block

An unusual choice to open the Brisbane International Film Festival this year, this British film sci-fi action film centres around a street gang attempting to stop an alien invasion. Errr... yeah. Don't expect an Independence Dayesque film that's for sure. The aliens look pretty cool and it's a pretty fun action film with the usual British wit mixed in, however the film seems to be trying to elevate itself further by looking at the social problems surrounding street gangs, although I'm not sure this is fully explored enough and kinda doesn't work for me. However, that aside, I enjoyed this alot. And that's all I have to say on this one.

***1/2 out of *****

Inside Man

A Spike Lee film, or "Joint", from a few years ago that's been sitting in my DVD collection for ages and I finally got around to watching, Inside Man is about bank robbers who've taken a group of people hostage. The main bank robber is Clive Owen. Denzel Washington is the cop assigned to negotiate with the robbers. Jodie Foster is a woman hired to protect the interests of the bank manager, who is hiding a dark secret. Willem Dafoe is in there somewhere too. So it's got a good cast, and it moves at a frenetic pace with enough twists to keep the viewer entertained and intrigued. At the same time it attempts to offer social commentary and explore questions of morality, although like the above film these feel a bit tacked on and not like an natural extension of the storyline. Well worth checking out though.

***1/2 out of *****

Limitless

Alright, almost there. The central character is Limitless is played by Bradley Cooper, who has found himself in a bit of a funk until he comes across a drug that allows people to unleash their full potential and his life completely turns around. A cool concept however the full extent to which someone could utilise such a drug is never fully realised, and it descends into a bit of a standard action fare at the end. You could say the film is LIMITED (HAHAHAHAHA!) in it's execution. On the plus side it has Robert De Niro in it.

*** out of  *****

Sanctum

Based on a true story about a bunch of adventurers stuck in a cave, who end up yelling at each other with every cliched line in the book. I guess the moral of the story is not to go into caves? Had it's moments, but ultimately was a waste of time.

** out of *****

And that's that. I currently have Green Lantern, Fast & Furious Five, Battle: Los Angleas and Sleeping Beauty on rental, so those reviews will be up..... sometime.

I win

Two posts in two days. I'm impressed with myself.

Contagion

How's this for ensemble cast; Matt Damon, Jude Law, Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Elloit Gould and Bryan Cranston? Yep, it's pretty darn good. Contagion is the new film from director Steven Soderbergh (who seems to be only rivaled by Gus Van Sant for his mix of arthouse and mainstream films) about an outbreak of an extremely deadly disease killing crap loads of people. With the ensemble cast it's pretty much a given that the plot is executed using the multiple storyline approach seen in Soderbergh's other film Traffic, and also in Magnolia, Love Actually, Crash, Babel etc.

The movie begins on day 2 of the outbreak of the virus, which creates a sense of being thrown right in the thick of things from the get go, and the tension never lets up, with the narrative moving at a rapid pace and a chaotic and distressing atmosphere being prevalent for much of the movie.

While the multi narrative approach means  that the character development suffers (some characters aren't given much screen time at all) it allows multiple different attitudes toward the situation to be explored, from Jude Law's conspiracy theories, Matt Damon's ultra paranoia, Marion Cotillard's mercy and selflessness, Laurence Fishburne's self serving antics, and also the various political responses. At under 2 hours it's a very efficient movie and there's hardly a boring moment. An early winner to emerge from the post Summer blockbuster season.

**** out of *****

Drive

I heard two responses from people in my cinema after this movie finished. One was from a guy in his early 20's, who remarked to his girlfriend/wife/defacto/arm candy "Well it was certainly different." The other was from a gal, possibly in her late teens, who said something to her friend along the lines of  "I only came because you said it was meant to be good." Also, about half way through the movie someone in front of me said "Finally something happened." I mention these statements as they all say something about the film, it certainly is different, it requires a patient viewer, and teenage girls wont like it, despite the presence of Ryan Gosling.

Drive is about Ryan Gosling's unnamed character (apparently a nod to Clint Eastwood's man with no name character in the dollar trilogy) is mechanic and Hollywood stunt driver by day and a get away for hire driver by night. The film opens with the driver going on one of his late night getaway drives, a brilliant sequence which is undoubtedly one of the best pieces of filmaking I've seen this year. The next hour or so is then dedicated to his developing relationship and possible romantic interest in his female neighbour, played by Carey Mulligan. The remainder of the film then turns into one of the most violent action films you're likely to see. Yes, it was "certainly different."

On the one hand this is a bold, original and well crafted piece of filmaking that doesn't let up on the thrills and tension toward the end, and Ryan Gosling's performance is brilliant as usual. On the other hand the approach to character development leaves a little to be desired and the odd mix of genres leaves a little too much of a WTF taste in my mouth for my liking. Still, Driver comes with a strong recommendation from me.

**** out of *****

Real Steel

Yep, a movie about robot boxing. Where to next for the creative geniuses known as mankind? The writers obviously went through a checklist of every action and sports movie cliche, as they're all on display here. The film even has the same ending as another famous fighting movie (name of movie withheld to avoid spoilers). Perhaps by having robots fighting instead of people they hoped no one would notice (or care)? The movie follows a basic and well worn formula, so it's blatantly obvious where the story is going at every single turn. However, the robot fight scenes are kinda cool, Hugh Jackman's performance is solid, and the characters make you care. So err, sit back and enjoy robots pummel each other, if that's your cup of tea?

*** out of *****

First update in forever

Yep, haven't updated this in ages. So just to get the ball rolling I will post some very quick reviews of some (but not all) of the movies I've seen since the last update.

Red Dog

Australian family film about an outback mining town seen through the eyes of the communities dog. Yep, sounds like a dull premises, however the right mix of comedy, drama and character made this a feel good movie almost anyone could enjoy, even if the sentimental clap trap is laid on a bit thick. Apparently based on a true story, although I'm not sure how much of it is factual. Well worth checking out

**** out of *****

Snowtown

Another 2011 Australia movie based on a true story, this time about a series of serial killings that took place in South Australia in the 90s. A lack of character development and some pacing problems (lengthy periods of not much happening) prevent this from being the Animal Kingdom of 2011. However what the movie does well is creating the creepy, disturbing atmosphere appropriate for the subject matter and exploring lower class suburban life, and, to an extent, the attitudes that would lead someone to commit such horrendous acts.

***1/2 out of *****

The Change-Up

I had no intention of seeing this movie whatsoever, however on evening I found myself in the mood to go the movies and completely shut my brain off, and not really caring for the quality of the film at all, so subsequently found myself in The Change-Up. After the film finished I was reminded it sometimes pays to keep your expectations extremely low, as I was pleasantly surprised with this one. I mean, it wasn't great, the concept of two people swapping bodies has been done to death and the film's message of being happy with who you are and what you have was obvious and simple. But there were some good laughs to be had, and Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman are always good, so, yeah, I could imagine many worse ways to spend an evening.

*** out of *****

The Losers

Run of the mill action film based on some obscure comic book (obscure meaning I've never heard of it.) I watched this with a group of people who all enjoyed and I'm at a loss as to why, the characters weren't interesting, the storyline - very pedestrian, the action scenes - mediocre at best and the dialogue - painful. Despite all that there was still some fun to be had with The Losers, just not enough to make up for it's many flaws.

** out of *****

Kull The Conqueror

Late 90's action/fantasy starring Kevin Sorbo, presumably an attempt to cash in on the popularity of Kevin Sorbo's action/fantasy show Hercules (at least I think that show was popular.) The storyline is basically irrelevant, Kevin Sorbo swings an axe around a lot and kills stuff. Terrible.

1/2* out of *****

So that's that, and as part of my goal to overcome procrastination I will aim to make another post tomorrow with new movies. I'll see how I go.

Some Bad Films I've Seen Lately

For some reason I've seen a number of really cruddy movies lately. I don't really want to devote too much time to discussing such putrid artistic endeavours, however it IS my civic duty to warn anyone reading of the visual torture they will endure if viewing said mo.nstrosities, so here we go.
The Good

Due Date

I refer to Due Date as "The Good" not because it is good, but because it's the best of a bad lot. It actually wasn't terrible, but it was bad enough to be included in this entry. Here we have an actor who has just recently gotten back in the public's good graces (Robert Downey Jr) teaming up with an actor who has recently been brought to the public's attention (Zach Galifianakis). Downey Jr plays the "straight guy", stuck in some part of America (who really cares), after an incident at the airport involving Galifianakis's "funny guy" character. They both end up road tripping together, as Downey Jr is desperate to make it home for the birth of his child. From there the movie becomes your typical road trip movie, and the "straight guy vs funny guy" routine makes up most of the laughs, which there are a few of, but less than you would expect from the two leads and the director of The Hangover. Basically, the movie has it's moments, and watching it wasn't a complete waste of time, however at the end of the day it was a very "meh" experience. The characters aren't very interesting, and there's nothing particularly memorable about the movie, but nothing really awful about it either.

**1/2 out of *****

The Bad

Red Riding Hood

I'm sure that the "From the director of Twilight" tagline put alot of people off this film, but it shouldn't off. The fact that it's a soulless, thrilless piece of nonsense that has almost nothing to do with the Red Riding Hood story, however, should. On the plus side it has Amanda Seyfried and Gary Oldman in it, who both give good performances. I also liked the setting of a fantasy/gothic snow covered world, where the people are frightened of attacks by werewolves. The storyline, however, is uninteresting and completely insane, and the attempts to inject romance into it fall flat. It was one of those movies where I couldn't even determine what the director was trying to do with it or who the target audience was supposed to be, except for perhaps the post Twilight audience who lap up anything remotely "supernatural romance" themed. Anyway, this movie was pretty pointless.

*1/2 out of *****

I Am Number Four

I remember seeing the trailer for this at the cinemas thinking it looked kinda cool. The concept of one alien race hunting down the remaining few of another alien race on earth is also not bad. However, pretty much the moment the movie started it was obvious this one was a dud. Cheesy special effects, lame dialogue, poor performances, not to mention plot devices that make no sense (why would an alien engaged in an intergalactic battle care so much about living a "normal life" to put himself at risk by being out in the open attending school, not to mention looking and acting exactly like a human) all add up to one unmistakable piece of garbage. I somewhat got sucked into the characters and some of the action scenes were ok, but this felt more like a pilot for after school teen sci fi show than film that was theatrically released. You can safely skip this clap trap.

*1/2 out of *****

Killers

Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl aren't actually known for their excellent choice of movie roles, and their appearance in this fecal matter isn't going to improve that reputation one bit. Killers attempts a merge of the romantic comedy and spy thriller genre, and needless to say Alfred Hitchcock probably could have pulled that off, but whoever directed this crap (runs to Wikipedia....), but Robert Luketic certainly couldn't. The movie gets off to a really bad start, with the romance between the two leads being introduced in a completely hap hazard fashion, and Kutcher's monologue where he tell's Heigl he's a killer are some of the most awkwardly delivered lines I've ever seen on film. Things pick up a bit once the action/spy segment of the movie starts, but the plot delves off into absurdist terriitory far to quickly for the movie to ever be redeemed. Full of cliche and contrived plot twists, you'd find more creative genius in a kindergarten finger painting class than you would here. Only recommended for hardcore rom com enthusiasts, and even then I'd say proceed with caution.

* out of *****

The Ugly

Your Highness

Your Highness has the dishonour being the worst film in my "bad films" entry, so err, congratulations? The only reason I rented this abomination was because the movie I went to store to borrow was all rented out, and I guess in my frustration I turned to the first film that looked slightly appealing. With cast including Danny McBride, James Franco, Natalie Portman and Zooey Deschanel, you'd expect something at least half decent. An hour and a half later and I was proven wrong. I guess you'd describe this movie as a fantasy comedy, and it's not a movie that expects you to care about the characters or the storyline, but instead proposes to entertain by taking you along for the ride and making you laugh. Which would be fine, if the ride it was taking you on was an even remotely fun one or if the jokes were funny. Instead we're bombarded with lame special effects, unexciting action scenes which come out of nowhere and serve no purpose, and a sense of humor that thinks dropping the F bomb after every sentence makes it automatically funny, and numerous jokes about oral sex never get tired. I'm especially embarrassed for Franco and Portman - Franco follows his Oscar nominated performance for 127 Hours with a role that requires him to act like a buffoon, and Portman follows her Oscar winning role for Black Swan with a performance so obviously phoned in I can't help but wonder if she was contractually obliged to appear in this debacle. Every element on display here feels so amateurish that if it wasn't for the cast you'd be forgiven for thinking this was some straight to DVD B-grade tosh. A movie with no redeeming qualities that completes none of the goals it set out to achieve can only receive one rating. Avoid this stinker like the plague.

No Stars

I've also recently seen some obsure Phillipino B grade movie called the One Armed Exicutioner. It's not a movie you would assign a rating to, however needless to say it was rubbish. It didn't even have the usual elements that make B grade movies entertaining, aside the usual campiness and poorly delivered lines. Just flat out boredoom. Nuff said. Now I've gotten all that out of my system I'll be back soon with some decent films.

Meh

I've become so slack with updating this that it may seem like I've given up. But I haven't, I'm just that stubborn. Lets have a look see at what I've viewed at the cinema as of late.

The Guard

Terms like "It works on so many levels" and "It's got something for everyone" get thrown around alot when promoting films, however this is one of the few times I'd be inclined to agree with those claims (although I haven't heard anyone claim that about this film.) It works as a laugh out loud (or LOL) black comedy, it works as police action/thriller, and it also works as a serious character study/drama revolving around Brendan Gleeson's cop Irish cop character Boyle. The only thing it's really missing is a love story, but that's only going to disappoint the rom com die hards.

Gleeson's character is introduced to us as an apathetic, lazy, foul mouthed racist cop who could care less about his job, or anything for that matter. When some drug traffickers come to his neck of the woods he gets wound up in the operation to track them down, spearheaded by an FBI over from the States played by Don Cheadle. As the investigation progresses and we see all sides of Boyle's character we slowly begin to like and sympathise with him. And I don't mean in the Hollywood "He's a bad boy with a heard of gold" vein of stupidity, I mean actual character development, and I think Brendan Gleeson does a brilliant job here.

With a great script including a plethora (thesaurus?) of genuinely funny jokes, a crime based storyline that moves along at just the right pace, enough action to keep fans of the genre happy, and a beautifully developed, sympathetic protagonist, I can't fault this film too much. I have feeling it will make my top 10 of 2011.

****1/2 out of *****

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Seriously what were they thinking with that title? Too many "ofs" and "thes" make it sound like a joke. If that wasn't enough to turn people off, the ridiculous looking trailer probably was. Yet it's turned out to be probably the biggest surprise of the year so far. Embarrassingly I've never seen the original Planet of the Apes. Less embarrassingly I've also never seen the Tim Burton remake. Never mind that though, as this movie follows that new trend commonly referred to as rebooting, with sequels planned, and is meant to be a new series all of it's own.

I can't think of any other movie that gives away the ending in the title of the film, but considering that most people are familiar with the concept of Planet of the Apes, and given this is set chronologically before the events of that movie, spoiler warnings aren't really needed. During the setup stage of the movie (the setup being of course to the apes running amok and taking over the world, in case I hadn't made that clear) James Franco's character is working on a cure for Alzheimer's, which his father, played by John Lithgow, has. The cure is tested on apes, which of course our morally upstanding protagonist is uneasy about (goodness me, what WOULD out viewers think of a protagonist that abides animal cruelty.) Our protagonist ends up having to care for the baby of one of the test subjects, and becomes super smart due to his mum having passed on the benefits of the drug to him. The heartwarming bonding between the two (I actually mean that to come across almost 100% sarcasm free) then sufficiently makes up the non apes-destroying-everything-in-sight portion of the film.

But apes destroying things is what the audience wants, and after our ape friend ends up in an ape sanctuary, is mistreated, becomes smarter still and forms an ape army, apes smashing stuff is what the audience gets. Action plus storyline minus Michael Bay is an equation that equals one of the best offerings of the summer blockbuster season. Plus the CGI apes look really cool. This film was definitely a big surprise and I'm looking forward to the sequels.

**** out of *****

Horrible Bosses

Bah, I can hardly be bothered writing about this movie. Not that it wasn't good. It wasn't GREAT, but it was decent. I think I enjoy writing about really good films and really bad films, but ones that are somewhere in the middle are tricky. Let's try and wrap it all up in the proceeding paragraph.

The movie is about three friends, none of whom are particularly interesting characters, who hate their bosses. Due to this, they decide to do what any reasonable person would, and have their bosses killed. Never mind looking for another job, that would make extremely dull cinema. This is one of those comedies about a group of guy friends who get themselves into a ridiculous situation and keep digging themselves deeper and deeper, in the same vein as The Hangover. It sufficiently brought the funny, although I think alot of the best jokes were given away in the trailer. The performances were all really good, and Kevin Spacey and Colin Farrell play jerk off bosses well. However, the absurdity of the plot plus the fact that the main three characters weren't as interesting as their bosses let the film down.

*** out of  *****

Procrastination & Some Films

Wow I've been slack in updating this. Possibly because my brother damaged my fragile ego in criticising my grammar (I'll probably develop a complex now you jerk). I'm still not going to proof read these entries though. Got a few to write about. They'll probably be a bit short because I watched these films a little while ago now and can't remember enough to go into detail. Oh well.

Captain America: The First Avenger

This is the last movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe before The Avengers movie next year (so far we have Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2 and Thor). Unlike the others, which are set in present day, this one is set in the 40's during World War 2, and the Americans are looking for a candidate for their experiment to turn someone into a super solider. Enter Steve Rogers, a weak, skinny bloke who can't pass the medicals to get enrolled in the army, however has enormous amounts of courage and a selfless attitude which fits the criteria the scientist dude, played by Stanley Tucci, is looking for to turn into, wait for it, CAPTAIN AMERICA.

So ah, yeah, dweeby Steve Rogers becomes the unstoppable CAPTAIN AMERICA (I'll stop that now) by going through some kind of procedure, the danger of which is well highlighted with dramatic music and such, and stars kicking Nazi arse. I've never read a Captain America comic book in my life but it seems like the character was either introduced as a WWII propaganda tool or to satirise WWII propaganda tools. Either way, it's the satirical nature of the situation that's on display here, as Rogers is used to promote war bonds and becomes the poster boy of the American Army, especially after liberating a bunch of POWs single handedly (remember, he had the procedure, so it's believable.)

I really enjoyed this movie, mainly due to the well developed sympathetic character of Rogers and numerous over the top but relevant-and-draw-you-in-with-one-scene-logically-following-the-other-take-note-Michael-Bay action scenes. Alot of it is very silly of course, but the serious approach to Rogers character, not to mention the good performance from Chris Evans, grounds the silliness. It's probably the best of these Marvel Cinematic whatever you call it movies since Hulk, and I've got high hopes for Avengers next year.

**** out of *****

Hanna

I think a movie is a lot like a house. No wait, that makes no sense, I'll start again. There are some movies which are like a home cooked meal. They're warm, inviting, don't require much of you, and depending upon the quality of the food can be satisfying or leave you wishing you'd eaten KFC instead. Then there are some movies which are like house work. They require attention to details, can be an effort to get through, and depending on the quality of the er, house (no, I couldn't think of a better analogy, shut up) can be either either very rewarding or just leave you exhausted an annoyed.

In the case of these two action movies, Captain America is the meal, Hanna is the housework. Directed by Joe Wright, whose previous films include Pride and Prejudice and Atonement, Hanna is something of an artsy action drama the feels like a cross between the Born Identity and Lost in Translation (stylistically, there's no implied adultery on display here.) Hanna tells the story of Hanna, surprise surprise, a 16 year old girl who has been raised in the wilderness by her father since she was little, and trained to become a resilient fighter as the government is after her for "some reason" (spoiler free zone here).

Like Captain America there's plenty of action and the character of Hanna is well developed, however in this case I actually preferred the more warm, inviting approach to storytelling of Captain America over the somewhat detached approached here. The film is beautifully shot, however at times the artistic nature of the film bordered on pretentious. I read a quote from Joe Wright regarding his film making style where he said something along the lines of "Basically, I'm showing off." Whether he meant that as a joke or not, it really feels like he is at times.

***1/2 out of *****

Foxtel Box Office - Hall Pass

As the title says, I got this as one of my free Foxtel Box office films, as I figured it probably wasn't worth the rental fee, yet I was still curious to check it out. The premise of this comedy, being the wives of two friends give them a week off marriage to do whatever they want, feels like it's borrowing from one of those old frat house or American Pie films. However, what actually eventuates from this is a little unexpected and somewhat funny. In fact I'd call the whole movie "somewhat funny", and despite being incredibly stupid I found the storyline oddly engaging. Like most gross out comedies the jokes sometimes work, and are sometimes just gross for the sake of gross. I don't want to spend much time talking about this movie as there's not much to say other than Hall Pass gets a pass (HA!), however only just.

**1/2 out of *****

The Tree of Life

It's way too early to be calling this but I'm doing it anyway, The Tree of Life is the best film of 2011. If a better movie comes out I'll happily eat my words, but I just cannot see it happening. That being said, this isn't a movie for everyone. If you were excited about seeing the new Transformers film then this most likely isn't for you. If you found Black Swan to be too weird or "Arsty" then this isn't for you. If you want to see this film because it has Brad Pitt in it then this DEFINITELY isn't for you. I don't say this for the sake of sounding arrogant or pretentious, but rather to ram home the point that The Tree of Life wasn't made with the general movie going public in mind, and alot of people will hate it with a passion. And that's fine.

It appears that many people who dislike this movie have been quick to praise the film for it's visuals and artistic merits (as who can deny the amazing cinematography? If it doesn't win the Oscar in that field then we may as well declare the whole ceremony a sham) but have also heavily criticised the storytelling devices used or, more specifically, the lack of a storyline. Usually I will be first in line to slam a film for lacking a good narrative, however it wasn't director Terrence Malick's intention to tell a well crafted story. He had something much more ambitious in mind.

Beginning with an amazing sequence showing the formation of the universe and early life developing on Earth, and ending with a sequence that could only be interpreted as the afterlife, Malick attempts to, in a way, explore the whole human journey in one 130 something minute film. The bulk of the film in between focuses on a typical American middle class family in the 50's, with father (Brad Pitt) mother (Jessica Chastain) and three young boys. The oldest boy is shown in the future, played by Sean Penn, looking back over his childhood whilst trying to make sense of the death of one of his brothers.

It's here that we see Malick explore through this family as many elements of life that mankind deal with that was humanly possible to fit in under 2 and a half hours. Birth, death, marriage, growing up, loss of innocence, lost dreams, greed and ambition, search for meaning, search for and relationship with God, parents relationships with their children and the effect this had. It's all covered.

Viewing this film wasn't just a regular trip to the cinema for me, it was an almost transcendent otherworldly experience. As a Christian I saw this film as being a 130+ minute appreciation of God and life. I came out thinking that you would have to be at least agnostic to enjoy this film, however that was just what I took out of it, the film is open to interpretation and I'm sure atheists can enjoy it immensely based on their own take on it. I've already seen the film twice, and if I heard of anyone wanting to see it I'd jump at the chance to see it again in the cinema. If you immerse yourself in the experience instead of driving yourself crazy trying to figure out every single symbolic element of the film, this is a very moving and powerful film for those open to it.

***** out of *****

Pixar vs Dreamworks

There appears to be a friendly (or possibly unfriendly) rivalry that exists between animation studios Pixar and Dreamworks that especially seems to rear it's head at Oscars time, regarding who will take home the best Animation Oscar. Jack Black even sung a song about it one year, jokingly referencing the face that Pixar always win. To me the rivalry seems kinda pointless, as it's pretty clear that Pixar are the vastly superior movies.

Dreamworks MO seems to be to make 2 or so visually impressive, enjoyable but safe popcorn animated films a year On the other hand, Pixar take risks, make at least visually equal or visually superior films but put the greater emphasis on storytelling and character. They know how to lay on the pathos and poignancy, and their films are always filled with loads of human feeling, despite usually not being about human characters. In my view they have made no less than three 5 star film, and probably haven't made a film less than 4 stars which is a remarkable effort.

This summer (winter for us Aussies), Dreamworks and Pixar have released sequels, Dreamworks to one of their most popular movies, Kung Fu Panda, and Pixar to what is considered (unfairly I think) to be their worst film, Cars. I have to admit, when I heard that Pixar were releasing Cars 2 it did smell a little of a merchandising ploy, as it seems to be one of their most popular films with kids and they can merchandise the crap out the characters in this film. This seemed so unlike Pixar, a company who had previously released Up (who wants to by figurine of an old guy or a chubby kid?), but I couldn't work out why else they would release a sequel to their least critically successful film.

I was even more worried when I heard the bad reviews for Cars 2, and wondered whether Dreamworks had finally got a one up on Pixar. I held out hope, however, as the original cars was also not a critical success and I thought that was a great movie which told a very human story about a car that gained the world through his professional success, however was still empty inside for having no love ones to share it with.

Upon seeing both films, it turns out my fears were confirmed. Dreamworks did what they always do, and made an enjoyable sequel with plenty of action scenes with beautiful explosions of 3D goodness, but it went no deeper than that. Pixar, again trying to do something different (for which I respect them immensely) ditched the character driven storytelling of the first Cars film and instead tried to make a homage to spy films with the sequel. Unfortunately, the aim of the game here was to make the villains plot as convoluted as possible and to stick in as many spy cliches as possible, and making Mater the focus of the story rather than Lighting McQueen the film falls flat and is just really uninteresting. It still has it's moments, mainly the ones that focus on the relationship of Mater and McQueen, but the film was overall very disappointing. What's most disappointing is that we now need to wait another year for Pixar to come out with the goods again.

I disagree with the critics who say this was Pixar's first bad film, as I don't think the film was bad, just average. It is, however, hands down the worst film Pixar have made to date (with the possible exception of A Bugs Life, which I haven't seen). Dreamworks have won this round by doing nothing really special at all, so they shouldn't let their egos get too bloated. But they did indeed win.

Kung Fu Panda 2 - ***1/2
Cars 2 - **1/2

Tranformers: Dark of the Moon & Bridesmaids

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Imagine a freshly laid cow turd. Imagine five or six young people bored out their minds come along and urinate on that cow turd. Now imagine one of them decides to eat that cow turd, vomits it up due to it's overpowering awfulness and then eats it again, this time keeping it down. That young man has just been left with a better taste in his mouth than this abysmal garbage dump of a film will.

When the first live action Transformers movie was announced I was very skeptical about how well it would work. My skepticism grew when I heard that Michael Bay, who isn't exactly known for his masterpieces, was attached to direct. But somehow, and I'm not sure how, it worked as a fun, popcorn action film. Then came the sequel, Revenge of the Fallen, which despite it's pretty visuals and ambitions to showcase some epic scale action scenes, turned out to be a bloated mess of confusion and noise. And now, with the third (and fingers crossed for the sake of humanity LAST) film in the series, Bay has outdone himself and performed a miracle by making a film even worse than Revenge of the Fallen.

This film fails in almost every area. The acting is terrible from most of the cast, especially from Rosie Huntington-Whitely, who replaced Megan Fox as the main love interest/eye candy for teenage boys. Heck even Frances Mcdormand can't even pull out a decent performance, and she appears like she's just going through the motions and wishes she was anywhere else but appearing in this movie. The characters don't invite you to care one bit about them, there are literally no scenes in the film which are indented to allow the view to empathise with the characters or give a crap if they live or die. The soundtrack is incredibly irritating and insists itself upon you, even in scenes were the characters are having a mundane conversation. And the film is way too long, at least half an hour could have been shaved from the film.

I won't even bother discussing the lack of  plot, because I'm sure anyone who loves these movies would say something along the line of "It's not about the plot, it's about the awesome action scenes, explosions, and 3D visuals!"  So ok, if I were to concede that those things alone make a good movie (which I'm not conceding, but if I were to) the film even fails in that regard. There's a difference between having a well shot, exciting action scene that draws you in and a series of loosely connected scenes that have no flow and exist simply to demonstrate how visually impressive a movie can be with a multi million dollar budget.

I had so much more I wanted to write about this crap (including how little sense the Deceptions plan made) but I thing I've vented my frustration enough, and I'm now going to attempt to bury it to the deepest recesses of my mind forever.This film should score nothing at all, but because the visuals are so damn impressive I guess it has to get something. Just don't watch this movie, Ever.

1/2* out of *****

Bridesmaids

As opposed to the above film I don't really have much to say about Bridesmaids. Also, as opposed to the above film I really enjoyed Bridesmaids. I can't remember the last time I've laughed so much during a movie. Kristen Wiig is very talented as a comedy actress and writer, the characters are all interesting and well crafted, and most importantly a great amount of effort was put into mixing the laughs with pathos, and I think everyone should be able to empathise with the main character. I'm sure some males will be turned off by this film because they see it as being a "Chick flick" or whatever, but they shouldn't. The idea of this film, from what I can gather, was to make a Judd Apatow style gross out film where females were the main characters, and it has certainly achieved that. Come the end of the year I can guarantee this will be remembered as one of if not the best comedy of 2011.

**** out of *****

Aussie Rules vs Rugby League

As a change of pace from movie reviews I thought I'd talk about something that I've meaning to address for a while, and that's the whole code wars thing - Aussie Rules vs Rugby League, or AFL vs NRL. Having lived in Victoria for 20 years I obviously grew up following the AFL, as many Victorians adopt it as their second religion (or, in many cases, their first) and it's almost impossible to escape. I always thought it was a great, exciting game, and to be honest never gave NRL much thought. However, upon moving to Queensland I found it was harder to follow the AFL, especially not having Foxtel at the time, and began to be inundated with pro Rugby League sentiment. Following this, I discovered the dislike and even outright hatred a lot of League fans had for my beloved sport. I found this kind of perplexing, as from my experiences in Victoria people there seem mostly fairly indifferent to League, and it was as if League fans somehow threatened by Aussie Rules.

Well, they have good reason to, as Aussie Rules is clearly the superior sport in every way, and I can only assume that seeing it on TV leads League to realise how many hours they have wasted watching such dribble, and I imagine this must be very unsettling. There are really only two criteria I can think of to judge the merit of a sport, how much skill is involved and how entertaining it is to watch. For the criteria regarding skill this one is obviously won by Aussie Rules, so much so that I don't really know what else to say. I challenge anyone who disagrees with me to watch a full game of both sports back to back and then honestly and without bias hold onto their claim. The second criteria regarding entertainment is much more subjective, however I will say that Aussie Rules is faster, there's much more going and more variety to the game, and as it does OBJECTIVELY require more skill, then I can't see how one could prefer to watch League. But whatever.

I think the easiest way for me to drive my point home would be to address every criticism I can think of that has been directed at Aussie Rules, so here it goes;

League players are so much more buff than Aussie Rules Players

Yeah, never mind the fact that Aussie Rules players are generally fitter, can jump higher, run faster, kick further, have to think more about their plays and get paid more. The fact that League players are "More buff" is way more awesome, man!

In Aussie Rules you get a point for missing

I've got to points to make about this one. First, you don't get a point for missing, you get a point for kicking a "Behind", which if you like is a secondary goal. If you missed completely you would get no score and would most likely have kicked the ball out of bounds on the full, turning it over to the opposition. Second, I don't know how many times I've been frustrated watching sports, say for example Soccer, where a team will work tirelessly to try and get a goal, and have several shots only to keep missing, sometimes only narrowly. I think a point for a behind is a meagre concession for the hard work of getting the ball in your forward line but being unable to convert.

Aussie Rules is so scrappy, you may as well just throw some chips to a group of seagulls and watch them fight over them

I'll make a small concession here, as there is a scrappy element to the game, especially when multiple people are converging around the ball. However it takes up only a small amount of game play, and EVERY sport without exception has their less attractive, boring elements. So it's only a minor concession. Besides, I'd much rather watch seagulls fight over chips than a bunch of lobotomised baboons run into a wall for 80 minutes any day of the week.

League is much faster paced than Aussie Rules

Nope.

Aussie Rules doesn't translate well onto television

I don't know what to say to this other than I just find it to be completely untrue, although I guess it's another statement grounded in subjectivity. I will say however that how well a sport translates onto television is no measure of how good the sport is - most sports were around well before television exited.

Aussie Rules isn't violent enough

This statement makes the presupposition that a sport needs to be violent, which is patently false given the large number of non contact sports. Although I will admit that it's a shame how much this aspect of the game has been toned down in recent years.

Aussie Rules is aerial Ping Pong

I'm not even sure if this is a criticism and it definitely makes absolutely no sense, but it gets stated so often that I thought I had to look at it. Ping pong, also known as Table Tennis, is a game played between either two or four people. They stand at opposite ends of a table with a net on it, and using miniature bat hit a ball back and forth to each other, with the aim being to hit the ball past your opponent, similar to the original game of Tennis. This, in no way whatsoever, mimics the game of Aussie Rules, which is played on a large oval where the aim is to kick or hand pass a ball forward to your team mate, avoiding the opposition players in the process. If the game being played was kick to kick, which you can often see being played by juveniles in parks on suburban streets, then MAYBE there is some vague similarity to be found. Anyone who refers to Aussie Rules as aerial Ping Pong is either a complete idiot or has never seen a game of Ping Pong.

AFL, more like GAYFL

Good one. Your lack of wit is only surpassed by your unoriginality and blatant homophobia.

Need I go one. No. Also, the sport is called Australian Rules Football (Aussie Rules for short), not AFL, you dumbasses.

Rental - Remember Me

Two things to mention upfront about this movie. First, this is an above average chick flick that any male person can watch with his significant other in the confidence that they're watching at least a semi well made movie with adequate performances. Second, I'm sure a lot of people will be instantly turned off by this movie just because it has Robert Pattinson in it. If you belong in that camp you are, quite frankly, a moron. Open your mind just a smidgen and realise he's not the worst actor in the universe just because he was in Twilight. His performance in this is just fine.

This film appears to be essentially a romantic drama, with Pattinson falling for some chick who's name I can't be bothered looking up right now. But it actually goes deeper than that, as both of them are dealing with grief, and I think the central theme on display here is how families relate to on another following tragic events. The performances are all quite fine, and the two main leads have some good chemistry, and I cared about the characters so the film has to be considered a success in that respect. However, the story didn't really draw me in the way I would have liked it to, and there are a few awkward scenes weighed down by slightly clunky dialogue.

This movie had another point of interest for me in that it was directed by Allen Coulter, who I know from directing a number of episodes of The Sopranos, one of the best TV shows ever. He's also directed episodes for a number of other TV shows, however I think this is only his second feature film. He's brought a sort of semi understated style to this film, which I'm familiar with from and enjoyed in The Sopranos, however here I felt it possibly worked against the movie a little bit, failing to draw me in as I said above. Without giving too much away the ending is very unexpected, and I'm still not sure if I like it.

You certainly won't waste your time watching this film and it's worth a rental, just don't expect anything mindblowingly amazing and you wont be disappointed.

*** out of *****

X-men: First Class & The Green Hornet

Man I'm getting slack with updating this thing, especially considering I saw both of these films over a week ago. So, that said, lets get straight into it;

X-men: First Class

Presuming all the X-men films are meant to be set in the same universe and follow the same canon, then we now have our fifth film in the series. In an unusual release format we've seen the original trilogy, followed by a prequel, followed by a prequel of a prequel. The first film was enjoyable fun, the second was a surprisingly better and deeper sequel, haven't seen the third, and the series defiantly went downhill with decent but unnecessarily convoluted Wolverine film. Fortunately, the series is now back on track with the best film in the series so far.

It starts off by laying the background for Eick Lehnsherr (Magneto) who, as a child sees his mother murdered in a Nazi concentration camp by another mutant named Sebastian Shaw whilst trying to get Erik to unleash his powers. Meanwhile, pre-teen Charles Xavier meets Raven (Mystique), and is relieved to find out he is not the only one with extraordinary abilities. Jump forward to almost 20 years later, Shaw and a group of other mutants are bent on mutant world domination through a careful plan of manipulating the worlds superpowers. Xavier is publishing a thesis on mutation, whilst Lehnsherr is tracking down Shaw to get his revenge. Xavier and Lehnsherr meet, and stat working together to stop Shaw. There's a whole bunch of other stuff going on too, but I think that's best left to the viewer to discover.

There's a lot to like about this movie. It tells a great story on an epic scale, but developing the two main characters from their childhood, and then showing them team together and learn from each other right up til the final battle, where, well I'm sure I'm not spoiling anything by saying they don't remain BFF's and live happily ever after. The film moves at a constant pace and theres some much happening and plenty of good action scenes, so there's no room for boredom. The usual X-men political themes and messages of accepting yourself and others for who they are are present, but I think they're looked at in a more poignant way than ever. I'm still waiting for a really awesome film to come out this year, and this one comes close to achieving that, however perhaps falls a little bit short due to the limitations of the genre. Still, it's my favourite film of 2011 so far.

**** out of *****

Rental - The Green Hornet

Before I say anything else I guess I need to mention that I'm not familiar with the Green Hornet character in anyway. I've never seen any movie, TV show or read any comic book featuring the character. Therefore, there's no nostalgia involved for me in watching this film, nor can I say how faithful the film is to the source material. So here we go.

The movie's about Britt Reid (Seth Rogan), who is a constant embarrassment to his father, a wealthy media... errr.... guy. When Britt's father dies, Britt inherits the fortune, and then for some reason decides to start fighting crime with Kato, a martial arts expert and his dad's mechanic. Their motivations escape me completely, however never mind that as they drive some TOTALLY BAD ASS cars in the process, and that's more important than storytelling, right?

The movie starts out pretty badly, with some cheesy soundtrack music, poor dialogue and boring action sequences that make it feel like a straight to DVD film rather than one that got an actual theatrical release. It's only really at the end where you're actually positioned to give a crap about what's going on, with a plot twist giving some depth to the character of the protagonist, and an over the top finale being a bit of fun. But it's a case of too little too late. It's hard to believe that the same guy who directed the emotional and visual roller coaster Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind directed this tosh.

**1/2 out of *****

DOUBLE FEATURE

I went and saw the following two movies within 24 hours of each other, so they may as well have been a double feature anyway. One was quite good. The other not so much...

Super 8

The new film from JJ Abrams (who, of course, was the creative force behind Lost), this feels like a total homage to 80's sci-fi and coming of age films. I've heard it described as a cross between Alien and ET, I'd throw Stand By Me into that equation as well. Set in 1979, it's basically about a bunch of young friends in a small town who decide to make a movie, and one night while filming a scene they witness a train crash. From there a whole bunch of weird stuff stats happening, with suitable doses of mystery, intrigue and suspense.

Coupled with the sci-fi thriller element of the film is the coming of age story of the friends who become caught up in the weird going ons, and the heart of the story (as far as I'm concerned anyway) is the friendship/romance between central protagonist Joe and Elle Fanning's character Alice. There is a quote from one of the characters early in the film that spells out in very simple terms why this film works and why I get frustrated with so many other sci-fi/action films. Whilst going about making their film, Joe's friend who is directing the film makes a comment something along the lines of "It doesn't feel like a story yet. When we give the main character a wife it will make people care about what happens because of their relationship." It's not quoted verbatim but you get the idea. We care about the predicament the characters are in simply because we care about the characters, and about tthe relationship at the heart of the film. For those people who still think The Expendables was a good movie, there's your answer right there as to why that movie sucked (not the only reason though, obviously). But anyway.

There are a surprising amount of themes on display in this movie; dealing with grief, growing up in a small town, bravery, the impact of father's behaviour on their children, and the treatment of people or things that you don't understand (as seen in the film's alien.) The problem is that it only really skims the surface of all these ideas, and doesn't delve deep enough to keep this viewer satisfied. Having said that, all the elements of this film combine nicely to make an overall enjoyable viewing experience, although it falls short of being an amazing one.

***1/2 out of *****

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Oh dear. Here we have what started as an immensely popular and respected family adventure movie that has now degenerated into a shameless attempt to cash in on the franchise with one of the most pointless, redundant sequel I've seen for a while. I wasn't planning on seeing this one after reading the bad reviews, however I was invited out with a group from work and figured why not. Why not indeed.

This film sees Blackbeard, the British Navy and the Spanish all on a quest to find the fountain of youth? Why? Because they can I guess. Jack Sparrow joins Blackbeard's crew, Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) joins the British, whilst the British are hardly seen. Kiera Knightly and Orlando Bloom are gone from this film, and although they played the most annoying characters in the original trilogy this film is somehow more annoying without them. Penelope Cruz joins the cast as Angelica, Sparrows former lover, and despite the writers best efforts to make their relationship a point of interest it fails miserably.

In stark contrast to Super 8, I was left wondering why I should care about anything that's going on. There's no warmth or depth to any of the characters or relationships, and there appears to be nothing at stake should they fail to find the fountain of youth. The only spark of humanity in the film is found in the relationship between a missionary on Blackbeard's crew and a mermaid (yep). There are plenty of pointless action scenes to stop you from falling asleep (Sparrow even gives a monologue before the final fight about how pointless it would be for them to all become involved - but they do anyway), and I'm sure a lot of people will argue that this film is just a bit of harmless fun. But without being set up to give a crap about anything that's happening I don't think that argument is sufficient.

** out of *****

The Hangover: Part II

When I first saw that this movie was coming out my initial reaction was "Does The Hangover really need a sequel?" As much as I enjoyed the first one (even if it was a bit overrated) I figured that unless they took the characters and placed them in a completely different situation the film would be in danger of being to similar to the original. However, being completely bored last Friday night I found myself sitting in the late session (which was surprisingly busy) up the back waiting to see what they had to offer.

And, you know what, it was pretty much a carbon copy of the original, only this time a different guy is getting married, the soon to be son in law goes missing, and it's set in Bangkok not Vegas. What felt like a fresh and interesting formula the first time (even though the whole bucks party gone wrong concept has been done before) just felt like a rehash this time.

Like the first one there were admittedly quite a few laugh out loud moments, although some jokes missed the mark, and some pushed the bar a bit too far (jokes involving Thai ladyboys sound like any ones idea of a good laugh?) For a boring Friday night this was a bit of fun, although it's more along the lines of "Wait for DVD and veg out at home" Friday night fun that "Sit in a cinema full of middle aged couples who find the aforementioned jokes funny" Friday night fun. If there's a Hangover 3 I expect I'll be taking my own advice here.

*** out of  *****

Also, even though I watched Winters Bone and said I'd write about it, I decided not to as a I wasn't really in the right mood while watching it, and therefore wouldn't be doing it any justice. I'll probably rent it out again some day and give it my full attention.

Source Code & Water for Elephants

Blast. I said a week ago I'd write "definitely" write something about Source Code if I saw it, and here I am a week later having written nothing. Poor effort. I've got two to write about now.

Source Code

I've seen some people throwing around the idea that Source Code is this years Inception, seeing as it's a "smart" sci-fi film, or whatever. I'd call it a cross between Inception, Groundhog Day, and some spy mystery film (I can't think of a good film as an example of that genre). The basic premises of this film is that there has been a terrorist attack against a train in Chicago, and there a fears of further attacks. The powers that be in America have developed a program that allows someone to connect with the brain patterns of one of the passengers for the last eight minutes of his life, and effectively live as him and experience everything on the train in an attempt to discover who the bomber is. The subject is able to live the same 8 minutes over and over again until the truth is discovered, hence the Groundhog Day element An army helicopter pilot named Colter Stevens, played by Jake Gyellenhaal, is the subject of this exercise, and takes of the body of deceased teacher Sean Fentress.

The audience are slowly drip fed new information regarding this whole operation, and needless to say there are loads of plot twist and red herrings, and to go much further into the plot would be to spoil it. It's fair to say that this film moves at a million miles an hour, and the edge of your seat suspense hardly lets up for a moment. But what is also so good about this movie is watching the character of Colter develop as he comes to grips with his situation, interacts with passenger Christina Warren (Michelle Monaghan), and deals with the regrets of the state he left his relationship with his father in before he left to serve his country.

As the thrill die down toward the end of the film, the tone shifts from action suspense to pathos quite brilliantly, and starts to reflect on the nature of life and death. However, without giving anything away, just when the film feels like it has the perfect ending, it goes for another five minutes and ends.... well... I have to say that the ending really annoyed me, and I've had to drop off half a star because of it.I can't really fault the film up to this point, and I thought this was overall a great film. I just don't know why they insisted on such an insipid ending.

**** out of *****

Water for Elephants

Hmmmm. Mixed feelings about this one. It's about Robert Pattinson's character, who runs away from home and joins the circus (yah rly) after his parents die in car crash, and he falls in love with Reece Witherspoon's character. Except she's married to Christoph Waltz's nutbag character. And yeah, there's an elephant.

On the one hand it's a very technically competent attempt at making an old fashioned style film, and reminds me of modern films such as Forrest Gump, The Green Mile, Big Fish and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. On the other hand while the imagination and characters in those films almost lept off the screen, this one just seems to plod along in a fairly safe and methodical, and lacks that special something to really hook you in. The characters for the most part aren't overly interesting, and the relationship between Pattinson and Witherspoons' characters just doesn't make you care. Whether this is due to a lack of chemistry or something else entirely I'm not sure.

The main driving point of the film actually seems to be the relationship between the central cast and the elephant, and that component does raise the film above mediocrity. Also, Christoph Waltz give a pretty great performance. I'd say this one fits nicely into the "Wait for DVD" category.


*** out of *****

Next review to come will be the rental "Winters Bone." See ya later.

Multiple Reviews

I've fallen way behind with my goal to write a review of every new film I see for the first time, So I've got a few to do at once. I guess they'll be fairly short as they're not as fresh in my mind as they should be

Rental - Cemetery Junction

Being a big fan of Ricky Gervais I'd wanted to watch this for a while after first seeing it at the video shop, but it took me a few months to actually rent it out. It's only Gervais' second attempt at writing/directing a film after the decent but somewhat disappointing The Invention of Lying. While Gervais wrote and directed that film with some other guy, he shared writing and directing credits on Cemetery Junction with his usual writing partner, Stephen Merchant, so I was almost certain it would be better and more true to his usual style.

The main difference between the two films is probably that while Invention of Lying was a comedy with a pretty ridiculous premises, Cemetery Junction is a much more serious coming of age film, a dramadey if you like. It's about three friends, Freddie, Bruce and Snork, who are all young and stuck in the dead end town of Cemetery Junction. Freddie is determined not to follow in the footpaths of his blue collar father (played by Gervais who is surprisingly only playing a supporting character), Bruce appears fairly apathetic about where his life is going (despite his protests otherwise) and blames his dad for his mum leaving, and snork is basically the loser/sidekick/comic relief character. Freddie ends up falling in love with Julie, which leaves him with some hard decisions about where he's going to take his life.

Although the themes aren't exactly original (the movie reminds me a bit of The Graduate amongst others), I really cared about the journey they went on, and the move is full of the usual Gervais humor. The cinematography is beautiful and some really good selections were made for the soundtrack (I loved the choice of Bowie near the end). Well worth watching.

***1/2 out of *****

Thor

And the summer block busters have arrive (even though it's not summer yet and they're actually the winter blockbusters in Australia.) This is the continuation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe series, which started with Iron Man, continued with The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man 2, and will continue after Thor with the Captain America and Avengers films, and probably others as well.

Not being a reader of Marvel comics puts me in the fortunate position to judge these movies objectively, and without the "They changed the character's personalities and motives, and they messed with the continuity  THIS REALLY ISN'T LIKE THE COMIC BOOK AT ALL AGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!" attitude that you get from the comic book crowd. Fidelity to the source material should never be taken into consideration when judging the quality of a film. Anyway, the back story at the start of this film explains that Thor and his other buddies who reside in Asgard are actually just extra powerful beings from another dimension who were worshiped as deities by the vikings because they didn't know otherwise. Of course. The Asgardians are at war with the Frost Giants, and after Thor tries to challenge them against his father Odin's will he is exiled to Earth for his arrogant insubordination, and the fish out of water storyline begins.

The scenes in Asgard quite visually impressive in 3D, and there's plenty of action to keep the movie exiting. While I do enjoy these fish out of water story lines the movie was at it's strongest whist delivering the action scenes. Thor's transformation from arrogant jerk to compassionate comes about through his relationship with Natalie Portman's character, and I don't think this element of the film was handled overly well. Also, while Chris Hemsworth is competent as Thor, he doesn't have the charisma as Robert Downy Jr as Iron Man or the serious character study approach the Edward Norton brought to Hulk (although this obviously has a lot do with the script as well.) Overall though, this is a good action packed addition to to the Marvel Cinematic storyline whatever it's called, and is worth seeing at the cinema if only because it won't be as visually impressive on DVD.

***1/2 out of *****

Rental - Monsters

This one got some critical attention for being a quality low budget film whilst at the cinemas in 2010 although I missed it at the time. The basic idea of the film is that the northern part of Mexico has been invaded by aliens, and is now an "Infected Zone" or something like that, and the male lead, Andrew, is sent by his boss to pick up the female lead, his daughter Samantha who is stuck in Mexico and to bring her back to the USA. Considering the critical acclaim I expected more from this move. As a sci-fi thriller there's not enough action or suspense. As a romance story/character study not enough time is devoted to making us care about the relationship, and the character of Andrew is fleshed out more than Samantha. And as a political metaphor the movie feels confused and makes no strong comment on anything. However when all of these elements are taken together, and coupled with the fact that the film is a pretty original idea and is quite pretty to look at, it makes for overall fairly enjoyable viewing.

*** out of *****

Paul

This is a movie about a foul mouthed alien voiced by Seth Rogan, and that should be a strong indication as to whether you will enjoy this move or not, and I loved it. Written by and starring Nick Frost and Simon Pegg, I've enjoyed their previous work together (Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz) and this one is no less hilarious. A homage to everything nerdy, including a sci-fi theme and nerdy main characters, numerous quotes and references to sci-fi films, scenes at Comic Con and, errr, nerdy cameos (I can't think of a better expression at 1.30am). There are plenty of digs at Christianity, because of couse all Christians are unintelligent, uneducated backward hicks who need smug, enlightened comedians to point out their stupidity. I find this a bit off putting, although some of the digs are admittedly pretty funny. I don't have much more to say about this move, other than it's hilarious. See it while it's still at the cinemas.

**** out of *****

Rental - Life As We Know It

Just watched this one, so it's still fairly fresh in my mind unlike the others. It was picked out by the wife, and I agreed to watch it as I think it's fair to give any movie a chance, no matter how bad it looks. This one is a romantic comedy, so of course it has Katherine Heigl in it. Josh Duhamel plays the male lead. They both meet through mutual friends who think they might hit it off, however instantly dislike each. However, when their mutual friends die they leave custody of their child to both of them jointly, and the rest of the film writes itself, as they move into the late couples house to raise the child

The premises of the movie is pretty hard to believe, however after starting slowly you do begin to care about the couple, and Heigl and Duhamel have pretty good chemistry together (unlike another Heigl rom-com, The Ugly Truth, where she had zero chemistry with Gerard Butler.) Also, amongst all of the gay jokes, stoner jokes, baby poop and vomit jokes there is some legitimate humor to be found.

However, there are formulaic and cliched elements aplenty on show here, and at the end of the day this is just another standard rom-com churned out by the sausage factory. It's not an especially bad one, but it's not an especially gone one either. If you can't get enough of the basic romantic comedy formula you're sure to this enjoy this though.

**1/2 out of *****

That's it for now, I'm going to bed. I plan on seeing Source Code today, and if I do I'll defiantly write something about it.

Suckerpunch

When I was 12 years old I was a massive fan of action movies. I watched nothing else, and I used to devote a good amount of time to imaging the most awesome action scenes my 12 year old brain would allow, and wish like crazy I would have the opportunity to make a movie with such genius. Of course, I wouldn't have had a clue how to string those action scenes together with character or cohesive plot. And I give you Suckerpunch.

Because basically, that's what this movie feels like. A bunch of random action scenes thrown together with some scantily clad women, no bothersome storyline to worry about and you've gor]t your perfect 12 year old male fantasy wish fulfilment. This was actually the first movie of 2011 that I was looking forward to, and I was hoping that the director of 300 and Dawn of the Dead would give us this over the top fun ride like Kick Ass was last year. However whilst Kick Ass had funny dialogue, characters I cared about and a solid plot to string the over the topness (is that a valid expression?) together, Suckerpunch had none of the above.

Not much can be said about the film without giving stuff away (not that there's much to give away) but basically there's a bunch of orphan girls in a whore house/burlesque house, they want to escape and start using their imagination alot. And that's where the pointless, but admittedly awesome, action scenes come in. And I can defiantly commend the film for these scenes, as they are very pretty and imaginative and a lot of fun to watch. The films structure of having these random action scenes interspersed throughout the film feels as though the director is trying to "video game for the big screen" or something like that, but if wanted to watch a video game, I would have rented one out instead and had more fun controlling the action myself. Also, alot of video games have better plots than the weak excuse for a story that holds the action scenes together.

The ending of the film almost seems to insult the audiences intelligence by trying to make out that the film is really much deeper than it appears, but I doubt that anyone was fooled. The film seems to be trying to send a message of women's lib or female empowerment or something, but maybe I could have care more about this if I cared at all about the characters. Apart from a short opening sequence showing how the main character, Baby Doll" came to be in her situation, we don't really find out anything about the characters at all.

If I had to describe this film in one word it would be garbage. If I had to describe it in two words it would be tolerable garbage. I'm sure some people will overlook this films many flaws due to the impressive action scenes and the fact there are some somewhat original ideas on display here, but I can't. I can't really give the film any less than two stars due to how good the action scenes were, but that all it's getting.

** out of *****

Wrestlemnia 27

First cab off the rank will be Wrestlemania 27, which aired live in Australia on Monday 04/04/2011. A week and a half later M memory of the event is naturally a little hazy, but I'll endeavour to do my best.

The show starts with the Rock coming out as the host of Wrestlemania and cutting a promo which, by the Rock's standards, was pretty standard and uninteristing, mainly talking about how he hates John Cena I think. They also do a bunch of backtage segments with the Rock during the show (one including Pee Wee Herman!), all of which are pretty dumb, except for his brief encounter with Stone Cold, which was really nostalgic and awesome.

Match #1 - Edge vs Alberto Del Rio for the World Heavyweight Championship

Edge is champion going in. Bizarre decision to start the show with this match, gone are the days when the Royal Rumble winner always faces the champion in the main event, which is a shame. I didn't even know who Alberto Del Rio was until he won the Royal Rumble this year, turns out he's a pretty decent in ring worker who plays a good heel, complete with his own ring announcer who speaks in Spanish which always makes the crowd boo him for some reason. Unfortunately I think Del Rio was a bit nervous competing in his first Wrestlemania match, as he looked awkward and sloppy at times. Edge was his usual self, and this match was a pretty good opener, a couple of legitimate near falls from memory, although Edge completely no sold whatever body part Del Rio was working on. Del Rio's good, but not ready for the title methinks so the right decision was made not to give it to him. ***1/4

Now that Edge has retired the week following this match it's sad that this was his last match. He was defiantly one of the WWE's best talent of the last 10 years, and was one of the main reasons to watch the WWE's current product.

Match #2 - Rey Mysterio vs Cody Rhodes

This was just a match, nothing bad but nothing really great either, which really reflects Cody Rhodes as a wrestler, nothing special about the guy but at the same time he holds his own. Rey's usual shenanigans elevate the match from being below average but, if we're being honest, he's not really close to being the performer he was 10 - 15 years ago, despite the WWE's constant touting of his "High flying antics" or whatever. **1/2

Match # 3 - Kane, Big Show, Kofi Kingston and Santino Marella vs The Corre (Ezekiel Jackson, Wade Barrett, Justin Gabriel and Heath Slater)

I'd worked night shift the night before watching Wrestlemania and, of course, fell asleep briefly whilst watching it and slept right through this match. Thanks to Foxtel IQ I rewound it and discovered why, it lasted all of 1 minute 35 seconds. I'm going to call this the contractual obligation match as I can't think of any other reason why they would bring 8 guys out to compete in a match where basically nothing happened and didn't even last as long as Snooki's match. I'm pretty sure the Corre are all guys from NXT, the WWE's "reality"
show about new wrestlers. Stupid. DUD

Match #4 - CM Punk vs Randy Orton

I like CM Punk a lot and hate Randy Orton a lot, and so had mixed feelings about this match up. Turns out it was a pretty decent match, with CM Punk dominating most of the match up beating the crap out of Orton's injury with some really stiff blows, and Orton selling like crazy (I at least respect him for that). The ending also made sense with Orton sucking up the pain and hitting his finisher (RKO) out of nowhere after Punk had tried everything else to beat him. ***

I think it was around this time that they had the Hall of Fame segment. Shawn Michaels is the main inductee after retiring at Wrestlemania last year. Drew Carey is the celebrity inductee because he was once in a Royal Rumble or something, and is appropriately booed by the crowd. I hope the boos were directed at the WWE's bizarre decision to induct him rather than at Carey himself, as it's not his fault.

Match #5 - Jerry Lawler vs Michael Cole w/ Stone Cold Steve Austin as Referee

A certain amount of nostalgia for me with this match, Stone Cold was the biggest star when I started watch wrestling 12 or so years ago, and Jerry Lawler and Michael Cole were the main commentators. Jerry Lawler always played the bad guy (heel) commentator and Michael Cole the good guy (babyface) commentator. Here their roles are reversed, which is how it should be because everyone always hated Cole and loved Lawler anyway. This is the "Sports Entertainment" match that they seem to have at Wrestlemania every year, where they use guys who aren't necessarily wrestlers (eg. in that past they have used Vince McMahon) and use minimal wrestling moves, instead attempting to make the match entertaining by having guest referees, a few big spots, people interfering in the match etc. Given that, this match was a monumental failure. It wasn't in the least bit entertaining, lasted way too long, and featured an incredibly stupid ending where the result of the match was overturned by the "Anonymous Raw General Manager" because Austin gave Cole a Stunner and thus Lawler, who originally won, was disqualified. Lawler and Austin consume copious amount of alcohol after the match, which of course fits in nicely with the new "PG, family friendly" attitude of the WWE. Austin came to the ring on a quad bike before the match for no reason, and following the match Booker T gets into the ring for no reason and gets a stunner from Austin for no reason. I can think of absolutely no reason why this match took place. DUD

Match #6 - Triple H vs The Undertaker No Holds Barred

Well, this was t\he obviously the match that the WWE would give the most time to and attempt to make the match of the night. It's a well known fact that these two guys have the most say over what happens with their matches/story lines, as Triple H is the Boss's Son in Law and The Undertaker has been around forever and is immensely popular, however they both seem to only pop up every now and then these days. A lot of people dubbed Undertaker and Shawn Michael's match at Wrestlemania 25 one the of the best Wrestlemania matches ever, and I was hoping that HHH's ego would lead him to try and outdo his best friend and, well, he certainly gave it a try.

Undertaker's story is obviously that he has never been beaten at Wrestlemania, and is defending his "streak." Triple H thinks he's the one to end the streak, after his bestie Shawn failed to do so twice, and subsequently was "forced" to retire. The match starts with some typical brawling in  the ring, the Undertaker uses "Old School", aka the most pointless move in wrestling, then some brawling out of the ring, featuring the obligatory wrestler being thrown into the steel stairs and the destruction of the Spanish Announce Table. They then go back into ring a begin the standard finisher/kick out/finisher/reverse/kick out repeat sequence (Undertaker choke slam HHH kick out - HHH Spinebuster Undertaker Kick out - Undertaker attempt last ride HHH reverse - HHH attempt pedigree Undertaker reverse - HHH successfully hits pedigree Undertaker kicks out - Undertaker Hits last ride HHH kicks out - Undertaker hits Tombstone HHH kicks out, or something like that.) A standard match probably would have finished with the Undertaker's tombstone, and would have still been three stars if they had ended it there. However, they then begin the extended epic finish which will either make or break the match. After recovering from the tombstone HHH hits Undertaker with two more pedigrees, and after the second one I was pretty sure that the streak was over but Undertaker kicks out. HHH can't believe it and decides he's going to finish Undertaker with his own move and Tombstones him, at which point I'm certain the match is over but Undertaker kicks out again. HHH now has no idea what to do so starts pummelling Undertaker with a chair, but still can't get Undertaker to stay down. During this whole time Undertaker is selling the fact that he is completely spent like a madman, so well in fact that several people who saw the show seem to have thought he was legitimately injured. Anyway, at some point Undertaker, unable to stand up and with the last remaining energy he has, gets HHH to the floor and traps him in his choke hold, which he calls "Hell's Gate", and, after struggling for a while, HHH taps. After the match Undertaker is carried from the ring and seriously looks dead. I can understand why some people thought it was legit.

The beauty of this match was the story being told of how important the streak was to Undertaker. A regular match would have see him lose after 2 pedigrees, but they then have him kick out of a third pedigree and a tombstone which, in wrestling world, would leave you at best completely unconscious and unable to move for five minutes. But Undertaker somehow found the energy to keep going because the streak means THAT much to him. Also, the ending was great as the only possible way Undertaker could win would be to trap him with his submission finisher on the floor as he couldn't even begin to stand up. The negative element of the match was that there was a lot a of time spent lying around doing nothing, although this was important to show the toll the match had taken on them. I may need to see the match again, but for the moment I'm going ****3/4

Match #7 - Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi, John Morrison, and Trish Stratus Vs Dolph Ziggler and Laycool (Layla and Michelle McCool)

Snooki is apparently from reality show Jersey Shore, but I wouldn't know about that. Vickie Guerrero shakes her head as Snooki comes to the ring, and I can't help but agree. Not  because I have anything against her, I don't even know who she is, but I just don't know why the WWE insist on having these celebrity matches at Wrestlemania each year, surely they don't generate enough extra buys of the show to justify the money they spend on the celebrities appearance. Anyway, the match at least features a little wrestling, more than the 4 man tag match, so is instantly better. Snooki gets booed despite being on the babyface team, until she show off her gymnastics skills which seems to impress the crowd. Really a waste of time though, they could have had an actual match in the space they used for this and the 4 man tag. 3/4*

Match #8 - The Miz vs John Cena for the WWE Championship

This is the main event, and Miz is champion going in. A pretty cool video package was put together for The Miz before his entrance, whilst Cena has a weird religious video and a gospel choir for his entrance. What the? Anyway, I'm not a massive fan of either wrestler, although Cena does know how to work the big matches better than a lot of other guys. They wrestle a decent, although fairly predictable match for a while, which for some reason the crowd just isn't into, before they both get counted out and the match is declared a draw. At this point I'm thinking "If this is how they end Wrestlemania I'll give all my belongings away and become a nomad" and, low and behold, the Rock comes out. He gets a message from the Anonymous Raw General Manager, although he of course says he doesn't care what the Anonymous Raw General Manager, at which point the Rock uses his authority to re-start the match no holds barred. The Rock then almost immediately hits Cena with a Rock Bottom, Miz covers Cena and retains the title... and that's the end, after Rock also attacks Miz of course. I kinda wish they stuck with the original finish **3/4. Peculiar ending, but I'll get to that in a second.

Overall thoughts

A lot of the responses I've seen on the net for this show have been overwhelmingly negative, with some people calling it the worst Wrestlemania ever, which I think is pretty harsh, and perhaps "Most Bizarre Wrestlemania Ever" might be more appropriate. There were defiantly some awful matches, and the two world title matches weren't of world title match quality. However, HHH vs Undertaker, and, with the exception of Cole vs Lawler, the matches that had some significant time dedicated to them were at least decent. I think the title of most bizarre Wrestlmania is appropriate becasue; the show started with a world title match, everybody (and I mean EVERYBODY) thought Del Rio and Cena would win the two world title matches, and the opposite happened, and the end of the show was very, very odd. Also, the show just didn't have the Wrestlemania "feel" about it which, if you'd seen a few Wrestlemanias, you'd know what I mean.

Overall Score: 6/10

Now, after having not watched wrestling for a while, my current thoughts on their product are as follows. They still seem very hit and miss in terms of knowing how to use their talent properly. Some of their best workers were either in rubbish matches (John Morrison), had their match removed from the main card (Daniel Bryan, who is their best talent IMO) or not even on the main card at all (Evan Bourne). They seem to live in their own little world where John Cena is still their best and most popular guy just because he sells merchandise and can be marketed to children under their new "PG family friendly" image. Never mind the fact that he still gets, at best, a mixed reaction from the crowd at a lot of shows. With guys like HBK and now Edge retired, and Chris Jericho AWOL (I've got no idea where he's gone) they seem to be in desperate need of some new talent. In regards to the bizarre finish to Mania, on Raw the next night they set the main event of Wrestlemania 28 as John Cena vs The Rock... which should be awesome and it's an interesting tactic to start the build to the match a year early, but did they really have to sacrifice the main event this year to do it? Anyway, I've said enough. See ya later.