The Great Escape – An oldie but a goodie to start the year. Superb movie – if you haven’t seen it yet, do yourself a service and have a look-see. ★★★★★

I Am Legend – Will Smith is the last man left alive, a virologist named Robert Neville who has survived a virus which turns people into aggressive, cannibalistic, vampire-esque zombies who cannot come out in the day. Great effects, especially the empty New York, makes the setting effective. Smith plays the character well, and the zombies for the most part live up to the hype, but the plot has some holes in it that you’re expected to ignore for the sake of the horror/action part of the flick. Very different from the book, apparently. ★★★

Stardust – based on the novel by Neil Gaiman, Stardust is a fantasy flick that doesn’t try to follow in the footsteps of Lord of the Rings et al. This is more of an old fashioned fantasy adventure, with all the cues, and a well executed (albeit obvious) romance angle to boot – Gaiman in particular is adept at weaving the romance with the fantastic, and the actors don’t disappoint in executing the vision. ★★★★ (am kicking myself for not watching it sooner)

Wag the Dog – A political dark comedy set in the Clinton era; a president hoping to get re-elected needs something to distract the media when a potential sex scandal arises late in the campaign. Robert De Niro plays the deep-cover spin doctor who is brought in to save the day, as he stages a war built on rumor and doctored footage, with the able assistance of Dustin Hoffman’s Hollywood producer, to make it seem like the nation is at war and thus swaying the public to the incumbent. A little dated but very pointed and incisive. ★★★

3:10 to Yuma – Ponderous, slow burning Western from the school of old school westerns. ★★☆

National Treasure – Dear god, who comes up with these plots? Grabbing every possible conspiracy theory it can, this is cringe-worthy action that tries to be more intellectual about things. Not. ☆

Shoot ‘em Up – The point at which you will realise how ridiculous this movie is when Clive Owen takes out a team of Secret Service agents while skydiving from a passenger jet. Forget realistic – this movie has no relation to reality what so ever. ★★ (one star all by itself for Monica Bellucci for… just being Monica Bellucci.)

War (a.k.a. Rogue Assassin) – Looks like a by-the-numbers organised crime movie until about 10 minutes from the end, and then… voila, good twist! Guess that, audience. Not enough ass-kicking, but that can be forgiven. ★★☆

Brick -

Nora Zehetner (above) is my new favourite cutie. Also, this movie needs watching more than once just to follow the goddamn slang, but it wouldn’t be the same without it. Feels very Chandler-esque. ★★★★☆

Balls of Fury – bwahahaha! :D Love this kind of movie that doesn’t take itself seriously at all. ★★★★

Rush Hour 3 – Can you ever go wrong with a Jackie Chan movie? Makes the first two Rush Hours look like paragons of plot complexity in comparison, but it is the same old formula and it works, by and large, for a laugh at least. ★★★

You Kill Me – I’d heard practically nothing about this movie until I saw the posters for it around London, but with Ben Kingsley and Téa Leoni (I’ve had a crush on her since Bad Boys), assassins, mafia and a darkly comic atmosphere to it all… err… well, ★★☆ anyway, and it is a bit of a different story.

Aladdin – Disney classics are infinitely rewatchable, even at this age, and Aladdin is a paragon of the genre. Robin Williams rocks in ways uncountable, and Jasmine is the Disney princess with the mostest. The story is mostly tightly paced and the animation excellent – makes you wonder why 3D is pretty much the only game in town these days. ★★★☆

The Darjeeling Limited – Slightly ponderous, but mostly thoughtful and quirky in a way that does keep your attention. I’ll pardon the fact that Darjeeling is almost directly opposite (in the east) to where the movies was shot (in Rajasthan to the west). Superb and non-exploitative. Adrien Brody wins, I think, out of the three. ★★★☆

Run Fatboy Run – Simon Pegg, need I mention, knows how to do a Brit comedy. While this one isn’t as laugh-out-loud funny as Hot Fuzz, it does have a little more of the heart-touching part to it. Pegg plays a man who runs out on his pregnant wife, and 5 years later tries to win her back from a super-competitive suitor by running a marathon – and as the title might suggest, he’s not exactly fit. Also stars Dylan Moran – need I say more? :) ★★★★

Interview – Steve Buscemi writes, directs and stars in this 80 minute pure character study alongside Sienna Miller. It’s far from action packed, but has drama aplenty as Buscemi’s down-on-his-luck journalist takes on Miller’s soap-actress-with-attitude. Feels a little dirty – a little like Buscemi just wanted an excuse to spend a few nights close-up with Miller :) ★★☆

Ok, I get the idea of alternative universes. I even dig the concept of a semi-steampunk world where people’s souls are ‘outside their bodies’, and exist as anthropomorphic animals that may or may not have the ability to speak (dependent on the importance of the character). I can even follow the idea of Nicole Kidman… well, when she is dressed as fine as that, I can follow her pretty much anywhere.

But. This movie, I did not get.

Where to begin? The introduction is all of 10 seconds before we’ve zoomed into the world of Lyra, a pre-teen English child – and if you’ve any idea of English fantasy novels, you will instantly click onto the fact that this protagonist is going to be our key character.

Let’s take a moment to look at that here. What is it about the English children in English fantasy stories that make them the ones that are pivotal to everything? For some reason, they’re imbued with a sense of indestructibility and of instant disregard for order, and manage to pull off feats which would be unthinkable for the ordinary grown-up. Yes, it is fantasy, but I’m detecting a cultural pattern here.

Lyra here comes from the Harry Potter school of heroism, running off with little preparation or foresight in an effort to save the world from itself, nobly assisted by a varied cast (that includes one angry polar ice bear, of all things voiced by Ian McKellan) who rush to the child’s aid regardless of the potential cost to themselves and the stupidity of the child which got them into the situation in the first place.

But I’m not here to critique the world of English fantasy literature; The Golden Compass – adapted from Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy – is the first of three movies, although you never get that indication from the film itself, which is questionable restraint on the part of the producers, given this is nowhere near as renowned as The Lord of the Rings.

From one who hasn’t read the source material, this better be the one that establishes the characters over the plot, because if the next two lack as much exposition as this one it’s going to be a bit of a mess. The entire movie feels a little like it’s there to introduce the characters and the world, with action aplenty to keep it interesting. However, it ends up feeling like you’re skim-reading, trying to get to the good bits – it doesn’t help to explain the world and how it works, and so the menace of some of the bad guys is played down, simply because we’re not given a clear picture of why they are menacing.

Nicole Kidman has a decent amount of screen time, but Daniel Craig appears all too briefly for such an intriguing character; Eva Green too makes far too little impact. Dakota Blue Richards does well, but she is a child yet, and yet to grow into acting quite within the range demanded of her in this movie.

Overall, puzzling. It intrigued me for its setup, but with most walking out of the movie scratching their heads, its merit is questionable yet. If it improves with the second volume… who knows. Read the books, I say.

★★

“The audience knows the truth; the world is simple, miserable, solid all the way through. But if you can fool them, even for a second, then you can make them wonder, then you get to see something very special – you really don’t know it? It was the look on their faces.”

Wow. What a screwball of a movie. Just when you really think you’ve got it more or less figured out, it jumps sideways at you. It’s a real magicians trick of a movie – afterwards, when the trick is explained, you pick up the little clues, and think “Oh yeah, I could’ve told you that from the start.” But, of course, you can’t, hence the brilliance.

★★★★

Reign Over Me: Funny, touching, and wonderfully written drama about a man (Adam Sandler) who retreats from his life after losing his family on September 11, 2001. Don Cheadle plays a dentist who appears to have it all – wife & kids, a house in Manhattan, and a successful practice – only to find he envies his college roommate Sandler.

Whenever Adam Sandler  strays from his ‘comedy’ stereotype, he manages to do reasonably well – Reign Over Me is by no means his best drama effort, but it is certainly a powerful performance. Minus points for being so overwrought about things. ★★★☆

Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix: Harry Potter is one angry little kid. Oh, sure, he’s getting older, but that just means he’s playing to type as the angry/angsty teenager. Oh look, there’s still 2 movies to go after this – guess what the ending will be? (not that you’ve already read the book, of course). At least there wasn’t any broomstick football inanity in this one.

The most surprising bit is the little glimpses back at the earlier movies, when the actors were so much younger. How quickly they grow up, eh? ★★★

The Simpsons Movie: Finally got to see this in one of the few theatres that were still running it – a combination of circumstances having prevented me up till now. I thought it best to see it in the cinema to give it the biggest contrast to watching the Simpsons on telly, and… well, maybe I racked up the expectations a bit.

It really is a little like an extended Simpsons episode, and while some gags run fine in the longer format, there’s a whole needless stretching of subplot that makes it a little tedious. The use of CG is also getting a little more obvious and pervasive, which was never the Simpsons style – that’s Futurama’s realm, dammit.

I certainly hope they don’t sequelise and monetize it to the ends of the earth. It would be good to see some longer-than-one-episode plots though, like the one that made Who Shot Mr Burns such an instant classic. ★★★☆

Two All-American heroes in action movies of their own eras! (ok, that’s debatable for Bruce Willis) Let’s see how they turn out head to head.

Die Hard 4.0 (a.k.a. Live Free or Die Hard)

Die Hard has been updated for the Net generation, and, in the UK and Australia at least, it’s even pitched with a software-esque version number (for the record, I prefer the American name). The scenario is a “fire sale” – a comprehensive hack of all the systems we depend on in our modern life. John McClane gets dragged into it involuntarily while escorting a white-hat hacker to Homeland Security, and as soon as there’s bullets flying from helicopters it’s on.

The action only breaks for plot exposition to advance the action to the next location. As America collapses, McClane is the only one with a clue, apparently, and it’s up to him to save the day, again (only since this movie is rated PG, he can’t swear). Stuff gets blown up on a regular basis and quite spectacularly at that, often for little rhyme or reason. And out of it all, Bruce/McClane finally almost gets to utter his complete line, “Yipee kay yay, mother-”, but remember, it’s PG, so that’s all you get =)

I hope it’s not a spoiler to say good triumphs over evil and  you walk out of the theatre feeling like you could jump off a building and walk away with a scratch. Bullet to the foot? Tis but a flesh wound!

★★☆

Bullitt

When Bullitt came out in 1968, I’m sure it was a revelation – this is how you do a proper car chase, building the tension, speed and action up steadily throughout. As soon as the chase proper begins, the music shuts off, and the note of the cars is what holds up the soundtrack. It’s sweet music – the Ford Mustang and the Dodge Charger were proper muscle cars, and it shows in the low rumbling bass-line that pervades the chase.

Indeed, that’s a point to note about the movie as a whole – while the sound in modern movies is very crisp and focused, in a sense, the soundtrack in this movie is a whole lot more organic, with background sounds allowed to creep in, and just ordinary sounds to be heard. The pace of the movie as a whole reflects this – it doesn’t move anywhere near as fast as Die Hard above – characters take their time waking, or walking – scenes are properly established before action begins. Things just feel more paced and real.

The realism continues to the damage caused by guns. Being an American cop movie, it has certainly got gunfire – but unlike Die Hard, where it seems to take 20 shots to hit anything and 50 to actually do any damage, a single gunshot has a pretty severe effect. Almost refreshing to see after Die Hard, actually.

Overall, a good old-fashioned hard-boiled-cop movie with one of the best (and first) car chases around.

★★★☆

Pixar have a history of telling stories which take the ordinary and recast it into something far more wondrous – who didn’t, after watching Toy Story, take a second look at their toys and imagine their lives when they were alone? It is perhaps a unique advantage of animation to be able to do these things in a believable way and be able to get away with it consistently.

Ratatouille continues in that tradition, perhaps only broken by The Incredibles, which was a movie that could have been done with ordinary techniques (though of course nowhere near as fun). It’s the story of a French rat, Remy, who would be chef, and if that doesn’t twig every sense of improbability then perhaps you’ve just watched Cars. Which was about a world of cars and cars alone (only in America would that concept be even raised, let alone considered bankable).

Naturally with the progress of technology, Pixar’s films look more and more gorgeous as they go, and this movie is no exception to the trend. However, things are still painted in an exaggerated palette, and the Paris of this movie is altogether a lot cleaner than the reality, even if populated with rats =) It’s not approaching the uncanny valley, but that may simply be a result of a conscious effort to ensure the movie retains its cartoon nature. I would like to see though how far Pixar could push it.

The plot on the other hand stretches credibility even for Pixar. Cars was a world where many little things were entirely papered over, and since it qualified as a kids film, no-one really thought about it twice. Ratatouille, continuing in this fine tradition, doesn’t bother to explain how a rat came to learn to read, or prepare meals of all sorts – he just can. The way Remy, the rat, helps out Alfredo, the clueless human hero of the story, is also entirely inexplicable. For the sake of the plot however, you’re willing to forgive – but then, the plot is so loaded with cliche and by-the-numbers “twists” that within 15 minutes you can pretty much predict right up to the movie’s end credits rolling.

If there’s anything the Shrek films, produced by Dreamworks, show us, it is that animation can be both appealing to old and young and on many levels. Pixar however tend to go down a very predictable route, and it is to their ultimate detriment. While these are films more in line with Disney animation’s history, it could have been so much more – there’s potential here, it’s just not used.

As much as I enjoyed The Incredibles, and Ratatouille is miles ahead of Cars, this remains a bit of a disappointment. ★★★☆

“The Deathly Hallows? What on earth is Rowling on about?” was roughly the first thought through my head when I heard of the last Potter book’s title. The second was how massive this book would be given how large the previous one had been. Rowling is many things, but concise is not one of them.

Indeed, even having read the books, I don’t get why it’s “The Deathly Hallows”. All credit to Rowling though, she’s good with coming up with names and the like.

However, she’s also good with coming up with plot tangents, and this book definitely doesn’t feel like it truly wants to wrap up right until the final few chapters, when things suddenly come together all in a rush. And that’s precisely the problem lies – right to the end, Rowling introduces new characters and revisions of plot that aren’t “ah ha! that earlier passage makes sense now,” so much as “what? but that… ok ok let’s move on before we get too tied down.” It’s as though she went back over all the previous books to find any gaps that would allow the completely new convolutions of the final plot to fit.

Characters are for the most part black and white, and even the few grey ones fall to one side or the other when it’s all told – there’s no room for moral ambiguity here. Deus ex machina raises its ugly head many a time to resolve sticky situations.

All said though, it does wrap the series good and proper – the final climatic battle truly does shape as a final fight of the desperate – it is tightly focused, and Rowling isn’t pulling punches, with favourite characters readily dying, and while the final twist remains a bit of an unexplained cop-out, it’s not too bad all considered. This will make for a spectacular movie finale (as long as they leave out the “19 Years Later”).