Jack the giant slayer - the review

Despite a slow first act, Bryan Singer's update of the legendary fairy tale gets going once the eponymous hero, and a small army of king's warriors reach the top of the bean stalk in their mission to retrieve the stranded princess Isabelle.
Nicholas Hoult, looking like a young Tom Cruise in Legend, does a good job as the brave-hearted hero, and achieves the remarkable feat of enduring most of the movie without suffering a scratch.
Ewan Mcgregor plays his role with just the right amount of Flashheart style bravado, and Ian McShane is suitably noble as the ruler attempting to keep his kingdom in order and protect his daughter from the wrath of giant enemies.
An added bonus is the ever likeable Stanley Tucci as the duplicitous villain who steals every scene he's in.
Despite some ropey cgi in the first few minutes which looks like it belongs to a 1990s video game, once we see the mo-capped giants, we realise how far cgi rendering has come in the past decade. There a depth and heightened realism to most of these characters, though at times you feel like you are watching cut scenes from a video game.
Bill Nighy does a great job voicing the head bad guy, and there's a touch of How to get ahead in Advertising meets Gollum about his conjoined twin head.
The movie may not have shattered box office records around the world, but on a dull Tuesday in Leeds, it ticks many boxes in the entertainment department.
And in a movie with giants as the antagonists, it's worth seeing it on the big screen if you can.
7/10

Oblivion - the review

Tom cruise's latest big budget epic looks like a mash up of Moon, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Independence Day, wall e, Mad Max and assorted other genre entries. That said it's an engaging, thought provoking yarn with some occasionally touching scenes.
Cruise plays Jack, a repairman fixing robots on a devastated earth. He lives in an elegant pad with his colleague/lover Andrea Riseborough, and tries to avoid Scavs, mysterious bad guys.
However it soon turns out nothing is as it seems.
Don't worry, no spoilers here.
Oblivion looks great, and features solid turns from all, including Morgan freeman. The movie takes its time telling a clever story, and the effects are pretty good.
If you get the chance, pay a few extra quid and watch it Dbox rumble vision. Yes it makes the movie more like a theme park attraction, but like 3d it enhances the storytelling process.
Joseph Kosinski does a better job here than he did with the visually stunning but rather dull Tron legacy. Hopefully he'll land a more original screenplay next time as this version of his unpublished graphic novel is compromised by its nods to some better films.

Color of Night vs Barry Lyndon

In the history of film criticism the eponymous movies have probably never been mentioned in the same sentence. The former, a 1994 Bruce Willis vehicle made to cash in on the post Basic Instinct sex thriller trend of the early 1990s, the other a visually ravishing 1975 Stanley Kubrick epic based on a literary classic.
So, what's the connection?
Simple. I watched a chunk of Barry Lyndon today, absorbed by its stunning visuals and masterly camerawork, and later that evening I watch Color, a film so shockingly bad, it was like a tractor beam.
Bruce was as good as ever despite a script so lame had it been a horse it would have been put down.
They shoot bad movies don't they? Yes, they certainly do, and CON (apt acronym), was either a comedy masquerading as a thriller, or a serious thriller whose cast and crew had a funny turn for the movie's duration.
The odd thing is I'd happily have both movies on DVD, but while Barry would rarely be watched, Color is the sort of film you watch at parties, a Rocky Horror-style cult with some of the most unintentionally funny scenes you'll ever see.
Jane March, aka the Sinner from Pinner, did a vanishing act after this and little wonder. Though game, she doesn't come out of this well.
Director Richard Rush had previously made cult drama The Stunt Man. You wouldn't know it as this looks like he's never used a camera let alone made a movie before. The editing is all over the place, the score wildly wrong, especially during a key scene involving several patients, and the prosthetics are just dire. Yet for all its faults, con is enjoyable. It keeps you watching like a trashy airport novel keeps you turning pages. Showgirls may have been one of the worst films of 1995, but there are no prizes for guessing what took that title a year earlier. Would I watch it again? Absolutely.

Every dog has its day: It's Kevin

In a perfect world all great comedians would have their own show. At least one, and if its good enough and enough people like it, then maybe they land another.
Kevin Eldon has been a show biz regular for decades, lending a hand with the laughs in Fist of Fun in the mid 1990s, and in countless other projects such as Big Train, I'm Alan Partridge and Hot Fuzz.
So now he finally lands his own BBC2 show, It's Kevin, and its clear he's learned a lot from his years in the field. Catchy theme tune. Check. Fast paced sketches. Check. Surreal, Chris Morris style dark side. Check.
Like the slow burn success of former fist of fun colleague Stewart Lee, Eldon has earned his right to be on TV and have his own show. It remains to be seen whether the series proves a hit with the masses, but hopefully he'll get the chance to fine tune any glitches in this inaugural run and create something comedically magical.

Skyfall train launch

On the Skyfall train from London to Edinburgh

Keith Lemon: the movie

Slated by the critics, Leigh Francis' debut movie promised little and delivered in spades.
Centring on the eponymous businessman's rise to fame via mobile phones with a lemon on the back, the problem is Lemon is so unlikeable once he hits the big time he alienates the audience.
Cameos are plentiful, as are bad gags and a morally dubious tone, while Kevin Bishop is wasted as Lemon's idiot sidekick.
Kelly Brook is one highlight of this 80 minute mess which leaves a sour note from start to finish.

Taken 2

You know some films are going to create a black hole style void in your life before you press play on your DVD player.
Taken 2 would surely be one of them considering the dire reviews. Luc Besson could surely have saved CERN millions with his large hadron collider of a movie, generating many big bangs and a black, sucking hole in your heart as Liam Neeson tries to kill every dodgy looking bloke in Istanbul.
But imagine this. Threadbare plot, cartoon style bad guys and Bourne inspired rooftop chases aside, this is great fun. Liam Neeson plays the whole thing straight as he guides his daughter to his temporary prison with the aid of a map, shoelace, pen and grenades. Who needs GPS?
He and Famke Janssen have been kidnapped by vengeance seeking baddies in case you're bothered. Little wonder they're miffed. Liam tried to kill half of Europe in the first movie, so there were bound to be some annoyed relatives.
Yes it's silly and convoluted and the script sucks, but I enjoyed it and that's what matters. Will you like it? Probably not, but each to their own.
Roll on Taken 3.