STAR WRECK: IN THE PIRKINNING (DVD Review) - 26/5/09

A few years ago when I first went out onto the World Wide Web surfing the Internet in my ardent hunt for all things Trek I had originally come across this film and had watched a few scenes which obviously I couldn't understand as it was all in Finnish. Thinking nothing more of it we fast forward to now and suddenly I'm seeing adverts for it in various film magazines and being offered for sale on DVD. It turns out that a Film Distribution Company has picked up the rights for the UK and after some re-cutting of effects and sound due to copyright reasons has licenced it for sale. I did not wish to view the censored version first so got a copy of the original version direct from Finland. Following on from their previous outings "Star Wreck: In The Pirkinning" (Part VI) ups the ante again from this no-budget talented Finnish group of friends who have (although amateur) managed some quite astonishing effects when their Star Trek parody crashes into the Babylon 5 universe. Absolute chaos ensues as the piss-take starts all over again with the crew at each other's throats and all the genres faults get highlighted in some case's pedantically!

Captain Pirk now Emperor Pirk takes his new P-Fleet out to the Maggot Hole looking for new space to conquer; unfortunately once through the Maggot Hole with his fleet, he comes up against Captain Sherrypie of the space station Baabel 13 and a gigantic battle ensues for the control of Earth. For further hilarity check out the unintentional (So I think?) English subtitles which come over as slang English, slang American and that particular to Europe version of badly broken English with real English words in the mix and a lot of swearing. We also get an extensive Making Of on this disc, three Deleted Scenes and a couple of early Trailers.

DEXTER {Season 2} (DVD Review) - 25/5/09

I really cannot believe it took 2 years for this to be available on DVD in the UK? Season 3 is just showing in the States - Will it take another 2 years to see it on DVD in your own time? This time around we actually get 5 discs in this set (One of them a complete Special Features Bonus disc) unlike the First Series which was pretty vanilla. With the fallout from the previous season starting to lay quiet Dexter suddenly finds himself in the middle of a murder hunt with the discovery of his seawater burial site. With the FBI being called into the case with a killer becoming known as 'The Bay Harbour Butcher' Dexter finds himself caught with several loose ends coming undone. He has an obsessive Police Sergeant scrutinising his every move & background and his relationship with Rita has gone down shit creek, problems from his past resurface causing problems in the present and an English nut-job called Lila causes Dexter even more problems. It's amazing just how quickly 12 episodes of something that you are really enjoying just flies past and finishes - Again no silly cliffhanger, but still leaving you wanting more! There is a parallel here between the character of Rorschach (From the Graphic Novel 'The Watchmen') and Sgt. Doakes in 'Dexter' both believe in an ultimate truth and if your guilty - Your guilty - No grey areas. A TV show that has it's audience rooting for it's serial killer lead character?

With this set we get 4 episodes with Trivia Tracks and a Trivia Game & Feature. Interviews, Animated Stills, Featurettes and Cast/Bios Filmographies.

STAR WRECK: LEGACY (DVD Review) - 19/5/09

I love Star Trek parody and this is one of the best I have been able to track down on DVD to buy. A bunch of Finnish friends basically got together and with some pretty crappy animation did a short called 'Star Wreck' in 1992. They carried on with episodes 2, 3, 4 & 5. The animation got better, the jokes flew thick & fast and with the fifth instalment they even did a live-action piss-take with 'Star Wreck V - Lost Contact' with wobbly cardboard borg but some quite amazing SFX added to the mix. Obviously added subtitles in English let you in on the jokes; with plenty of toilet humour and the crew who more or less hate each other, and with Redshirts Ensign Cannonfodder, Ensign Goner & Ensign Bodyshield you can see what type of ride your in for! Collected on this Region 0 DVD disc entitled "Star Wreck Legacy" we get the original five shorts plus some early films directed by various members of the crew under the Special Features/Extras section. You get a Commentary on Star Wreck V Lost Contact and a rather good Making Of which covers the background to Star Wreck Legacy and it's beginnings. Lotsa chuckles with this one!

THE SPIRIT Film Review - 18/5/09

While you have to respect Frank Miller for his sterling work on 'Sin City' and in the comic book/graphic novel field this comes over as his very own vanity project. Like a teenage wank fantasy for misogynists we have femme fatale women lining up to seduce and be seduced as none of them are 'good girls' at all - Please!! The blue/green screen is awash with black, black and more black with shades of grey and the odd splotch of colour now and again. Don't get me wrong the visuals are stunning and Will Eisner's comics are brought to life fully realised with Frank Miller's subtle touch. It's just that the story is so interminable slow and so slight it would blow away with the breeze from a fan. Scarlett Johansson does her pouty best with the clunky script and Samuel L. Jackson goes overboard as the manic 'Octopus' but even Eva Mendes struggles to breathe a breath of life into this drivel. A couple of scenes do stand out but some of this comes over like a bad knockabout comedy and all-in-all was very tiresome to watch.

Killed on duty a police officer is revived from the dead and becomes the masked vigilante known as 'The Spirit' who cannot die. Fighting in Central City (Yawn!) against the criminal mastermind known as 'The Octopus' and his bevy of villainesses and minions. Anxious to get his hands on a means for immortality The Octopus is after a rare artifact to achieve this. The Spirit will do anything to stop The Octopus and his own ex-girlfriend San Serif from gaining the ultimate prize.

FRANKLYN Film Review - 18/5/09

Months ago I had seen Ryan Phillippe wearing his mask for his character of Preest which had attraction enough for me to seek this out and watch it. Also starring Eva Green as a suicidal art student who films her attempts as 'art' and Sam Riley as a jilted at the altar loner and a world-weary obsessed Bernard Hill all following separate strands of a story set in an alternate reality and real day London. Like a huge dot-to-dot puzzle the individual threads get partly explained with a flip half-way through then fragment somewhat with little explanation? Visually stylish in a decayed Gothic steampunk way this unfortunately fails to deliver but is a quite clever and quirky piece nonetheless!

If you forget the reality side of the film until it becomes impossible to ignore; as the film's jumping from one reality to the next and then back again, you find events in the alternate reality start to mirror the real reality in present day London. Preest has been hired to do a job in Meanwhile City and has failed with the death of his client a young girl. Getting captured by the city's police The Clerics he is given an option to take out a hit on the Individual the man responsible for his failure.

INKHEART Film Review - 17/5/09

Despite a classy cast headed up by a very restrained Brendan Fraser (Little comedy in this role) with the likes of Helen Mirren, Jim Broadbent and Andy Serkis plus Sienna Guillory and Paul Bettany plus a whole wagon load of English Repertory Theatre actors to boot, they all struggle against the 'Harry Potter Effect'. This dreadful disease is brought on by the success of the Potter Series and in desperation Studio Execs rush out buying up the rights to any novel that could give repeat-franchise business. Unfortunately this has resulted in a slew of films bombing just like this one at the Box Office then being hurriedly released on DVD to make some cash back. You cannot fault the cast; but this film really slowly creaks along with a mish-mash of reality stuck somewhere in a very foreign Europe, within which lies a fantasy concocted from a book. If I was 9 years old I'm sure this would have been the greatest film I had ever seen!

Fraser's character is a man who can charm characters into reality just by reading them from any book - So he doesn't read. Desperately searching for a particular book to do with a tragic incident from his past; he soon finds his past catching up with himself and his daughter as they go on the run across Europe been tracked by a sinister group called 'The Blackjackets' and their master Capricorn.

OUTLANDER Film Review - 17/5/09

From the poster you can tell if you like your men big & butch as this film is where you'll find them! All posing and dirty, holding big weapons just waiting to get it on. This type of poster always makes me laugh as you can tell from it exactly what your getting. Strangely enough though silly advertising aside this clever clash of sci-fi come viking monster movie has a decent line in myth and mythology. Taking elements from 'Beowulf & Grendel' even the Arthurian Lady In The Lake and some biblical context, we have alien James Caviezel crash-landing on earth in Norway around the year 709. Unfortunately the creature he is transporting escapes and the local vikings headed by John Hurt and his daughter Sophia Myles don't take too kindly to having their villages razed and their people eaten. Over in the next valley an unrecognisable Ron Perlman the leader of another group has also been attacked. Banding together the disparate groups try to find a way to stop the creature for good!

TIMECRIMES (DVD Review) - 11/5/09

This tricky Spanish Sci-Fi come horror thriller shows the inherent dangers of time travel and why the path taken does not necessarily mean it is the right one. Writer & Director Nacho Vigalondo looks like one to watch as things start to get messier and messier as events spiral out of control in this tautly directed and highly efficient but concise tale. Unfortunately this sly story is in Spanish with English Subtitles so therefore is being remade in 2011 - As ever Hollywood rips off the best stuff and remakes it for it's own purposes!

Hector is looking through his binoculars and chances to see a young woman taking her shirt off in the woods behind his house. Deciding to investigate what is going on he searches the woods and is stabbed by a scissor wielding assailant but manages to escape, until he realises he is being followed. Breaking into a local building things start to get really weird sending Hector on a journey he does not really want to make.

STAR TREK (2009) Film Review - 10/5/09

Now this was a film I was really debatable about? Having seen various Trailers though, it had enough Trek in it for me to go see it. I thought it would be best on the BIG screen and as my local IMAX is closed I opted to purchase an advanced ticket for the BFI IMAX screen in London and it was worth every penny of the £15 I spent on it! Just as well I booked ahead as all weekend shows were fully sold-out. The sheer scale and clarity of this film was well suited to the IMAX format with it's immense sound and crisp images. As to the film Star Trek purists will be shouting 'cheat' with something akin to JJ Abrams mind bending 'LOST' taking place. It is either an incredibly big gamble to rekick-start the franchise again or could sink $200 and Trek down the pan if it alienates the hardcore fanbase? If you take this quote from May 2009 'SciFiNow' Issue 27's Cover Story "...the nature of time travel in this movie doesn't negate original continuity, instead it creates a separate timeline..." (Well worth getting for the free DVD Preview disc of 'Star Trek' with a photo gallery & TV/Film Trailers) so some fans will be howling! I myself approve of the revamp and the story does explain why things are as they are. They also certainly don't waste time with the story sticking in a little background after the momentous opening sequence and diving ( Literally!) headlong into massive battle scenes and world shattering destruction. Characters you have known, loved and grown up with feel even more real and down-to-earth as they all start out with a new beginning and we even get some gravitas with the original Spock in the form of Leonard Nimoy also showing up for the ride.

Renegade Romulans flitting through time cause untold havoc to the timeline as the original (But new!) Star Trek Enterprise denizens start off at the very beginning of their journey before their original 5-year mission. Word has it that the cast has been signed for three films and the sequel is already underway - Listen to those cash-tills ring!

DEXTER {Season 1} (DVD Review) - 3/5/09

Having seen the US Production Company 'Showtime' was attached to this (The same company that made the US version of "Queer As Folk") I certainly knew that we had a new series here that would be intelligent and fairly sophisticated. I had already read & heard a lot about 'Dexter' so gave it a whirl. I have often said a pilot episode needs a decent hook to get the viewer interested (Unlike the dreadful 'Dr. Who' TV movie that did not even try using a decent hook even with its luminous wealth of background story to choose from) and so it was with 'Dexter'. Using the classic Hitchcock McGuffin we get carefully pulled into the ingenious tableau laid before us but unlike the usual McGuffin this takes an intricate turn and eventually becomes an integral part of the proceedings with an eventual reveal as well. The stylings of the lead character of a man who has to emulate human feelings to fit in as he has none of his own; flies off at a tangent, with the theme of him being a serial killer killing serial killers. (A theme that has been used before but is excelled at here with 'Dexter') The 12 quality episodes not only have a disturbing feeling about them (Particularly the opening title sequences) but seem very concise with nothing wasted. Unlike a lot of really crappy series we don't have an obligatory cliff-hanger at the end but enough to satisfy, but still giving you a feeling of wanting more. If I had the other series on hand I would be already plowing into it. So I hope to get it soon and start in on the second series. Series Three is already in the can and Series 4 & 5 have been greenlit.

The First Season of 'Dexter' has a Forensic Specialist working for the police who just happens to be a serial killer killing off other serial killers. Getting involved with a killer who he can't catch sets up a story arc that covers a wealth of hidden agendas in more ways than one. Unfortunately the UK version seems to be pretty bare-bones on the Special Features front with just some Audio Commentaries. Even for such a quality show as this I would have thought some sort of effort could have been made to flesh out the behind the scenes stuff for this show?

AUSTRALIA Film Review - 1/5/09

When I saw Baz Luhrmann's name attached to this as Director as well as Nicole Kidman & Hugh Jackman starring in it I was immediately drawn to it. Luhrmann's Red Curtain Trilogy of "Strictly Ballroom" "Romeo + Juliet" & "Moulin Rouge" was enough to encourage me to watch this. This literally vast vista of expansive territories with the camera lens really shows you how big Australia is and how magnificent. In very broad strokes we get a little history, some romance and villains, murder & plotting set against the background of the Second World War and the broader background of Australia itself. Also covering a disgraceful period in Australia's history (We all have them) check out the film "Rabbit-Proof Fence" with David Gulpilil (Who stars in 'Australia' as King George) about the Lost Generation of aboriginal half-caste children. Running in at about three hours "Australia" is a drama that never really lets up until the end. Another spectacle from Baz Luhrmann to add to his current fine films available.

Posh aristocratic lady from good old England travels out to Australia to find her husband dead and machinations involving the local cattle Baron and his men. Bung in the handsome drover who is on a cattle run with other murky dealings going on. Throw in some mysticism & passion and an attempt to get the cattle to the Army before said rival does. Sweeping landscapes ensue with a Japanese attack not far off as people are split apart from several sides and causes.