PUSH Film Review - 29/6/09

This film is the sort of film that gets made because no-one was actually thinking. A large expensive budget wasted on a piss-poor sub-standard X-Men rip-off! Even TV show Heroes had better effects than those on show here! The film has jarring visuals but even more annoying is the totally inappropriate soundtrack of clanging and banging that doesn't suit the mood of the film at all. It also seems to lose any sense of it's own logic near the end becoming really incomprehensible and the dire ending is atrocious. Throw in the background of Hong Kong and some duff fight sequences that all take place in restaurants most of the time and a blink and you'll miss him Joel Gretsch (Who all the way through the film I was expecting to crop up again) and this mess let's you down accordingly. Horrible - Just horrible.

I'm not going into the cobblers of a storyline - Make your own mind up. But a previous review I had read prior to watching this film had said "Don't waste two hours of your life!" and boy were they right with that one!

ANGELS & DEMONS Film Review - 28/6/09

This film should really be called "Ron Howard Stole My Mind" because as I was watching it I had that classic feeling of already having seen it before? Every scene seemed really, really familiar? This is very strange as I read the book many years ago so there wasn't any overspill from having recently read it. I had not seen any Trailers or clips from the film at all and the only reason I saw it was as a follow-up to "The DaVinci Code" dross that was previously out. Maybe the fact that the dreary making-a-film-by-numbers scenario was in effect? The getting together of a bunch of ugly & thuggish actors to continually parade across the scenes at vital points in the thought that 'Hey, that could be the villain!' moment - Yawn!!! This film felt like it was made years back and they had just released a new print of it - It's hard to explain but it felt all out of place? I really enjoyed Dan Brown's books but feel the two film adaptions so far leave a lot to be desired?

SUPERNATURAL {4th. Season} (DVD Review) - 21/6/09

Getting mighty tired of this current UK practice of releasing 2 boxsets for new TV series then releasing the full boxset a few months later! Alas; we also get a stupid cliff-hanger at the end of this series with the last episode entitled "Lucifer Rising". Yeah, so I've watched 4 seasons now, the Devil's about to show up so I won't bother watching anymore? Duuuhhhh! Plotwise the clashing of Angels & Demons isn't anything new but it's given a bit of a twist in this series. One character I wasn't sure about showed their true colours so I was happy to have that confirmed and a conspiracy stretching back years comes to it's final resolution. At least the series didn't end with what I feared might happen with one of the brothers having to actually kill the other for real to prevent the apocalypse.

The 6-disc set manages some good Special Features with a selection of Featurettes and some Commentaries. You get a Gag Reel with Deleted/Extended Scenes which rounds off another good season for Supernatural.

BOLT (DVD Review) - 21/6/09

Okay, who wouldn't want a copy of this DVD without getting a free plush Rhino toy with it? For simple pleasure BOLT is an absolute treat and the more animated films I watch the more astonishing the quality of the technology advances. The clarity of the photo realism just gets better and better and some new techniques are on show here which is why it's worth checking out the Making Of Featurettes. The usual Disney roller-coaster ride of emotions is run through here (Ignore the cynical facets!) but with a piss-taking cat called Mittens and a psycho hamster in a ball called Rhino - Bolt the lead character is more or less along shooting the breeze than anything else! Bolt the dog has superpowers and uses them in the defense of his owner Penny who is searching for her scientist father who has been kidnapped by the evil Dr. Calico. Unfortunately for Bolt he doesn't realise that he is only an actor on a TV show and through a series of mishaps end's up on the other side of the country trying to desperately get back to Penny. With the help of stray cat Mittens and a TV-watching hamster called Rhino they end up on a road-trip to get back to Penny in Hollywood as real-life danger threatens.

Worth seeing the Rhino short on the Special Features which has a classic moment taken from the original film turned on it's head. Trailers, Featurettes on the music, making of and a selection of deleted scenes with voicework and sneak peeks.

LOST {5th. Season} (DVD Review) - 16/6/09

Like the Japanese Himitsu Bako (Himitsu means Secret & Bako means Box - Hence 'Secret Box') LOST Season 5 this time around has wheels within wheels as the tales draw together with a hell of a lot of answers to even minor things and a fair amount of resolution to others. Jumping around in time all over the place with a major headache of space time conundrums and time-travel paradoxes this secret box is fast peeling away it's layers. A lot like the Russian Nested Dolls (Matryoshka) secrets within secrets slowly spill out and a lot of the first 3 Season's now start to make even more sense. If before they didn't; the explanations here will have you gasping, as you start to realise the import of the connections between characters and the reason's why a lot of what has been happening now comes full circle.

This set is down to 16-episodes with a large selection of Special Features with numerous Featurettes and Outtakes/Bloopers.

TERMINATOR: SALVATION Film Review - 8/6/09

This film has received a lot of slating but unlike the TV Series of "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" (Which seems to play hard and fast with Terminator mythology) this new film manages to fit in very cleverly with the previous films. We get a very human element (In more ways than one) which is integral to the plot. We also get an enticing mystery which gets explained very well. You also have (By computer magic) a sleight of hand that adds even more to the story, a vast selection of homages to the first & second films and the ending not only reference's the original film but ties up a load of loose ends while still leaving the way open for further films. I really cannot state what a great film this is - Full of nail-chewing action with a range of new machines (And I've got the nails to prove it - Boy did I chew those down in the cinema!) with a plotline that really does fit in succinctly with Terminator lore. The mind-spinning side-story takes on a greater significance as you delve further into the film and hopefully an extensive 2-Disc release on DVD after it's Theatrical run will enhance the story even more with I'm imagining an in-depth look at how they put it all together?

WOLVERINE Film Review - 6/6/09

'Wolverine' or to give it it's full title "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" was a spin-off from the X-Men films which has an A-lister, a couple of B-listers and some no-names starring in it. MARVEL obviously desperate to get their properties out and make some cash from them will probably have a slew of films along the X-Men Origins theme coming soon. This sorry misfire has some great action scenes and a crappy storyline badly told. Throw in some glaringly awful and obvious CGI with a super young, uncredited appearance by Patrick Stewart and a really silly double-ending finishing off the Credits at the end of the film and that's the stop-gap filled for the Summer. Totally incoherent this won't be gracing my DVD shelf later this year - Dire!

SEX TREK: THE NEXT PENETRATION (DVD Review) - 1/6/09

This ropey old DVD stretches back to 1999. It has butt-ugly blokes with mullet haircuts and awful mustaches with hairy bristled chest hair and skanky rough women with an attitude to match. As a parody of Star Trek it was so successful it spawned 4 sequels with titles like: "Sex Trek II: The Search For Sperm" and "Sex Trek III: The Wrath Of Bob" and it's excruciatingly painful to watch. Captain Quirk turns to Lieutenant Uwhore and says 'Let's probe Uranus' to which she replies 'yEW! whattttttt!!!!!' and he responds 'I'm talking about the planet we're currently orbiting Uwhore'. Unluckily enough it happens to be the planet of the asshole people who can appear as anything they like but strangely want hot lesbian love. Sex parodies are currently flooding the market and everytime I see the title for 'The Da Vinci Code' which some wag has re-titled 'The Da Vinci Load' it always makes me laugh. 'Sex Trek: The Next Penetration' is so godawful you cannot not laugh from the dull sex scenes & atrocious acting, to the 'Special Effects' like having a dildo for a spaceship strung up with 2 clearly visible wires. If only I could get hold of a copy of 'Deep Space 69' now, with the guy dressed as a borg with an unusual implement and the guy with the badly stuck on Ferengi ears?


You don't even want to see the Gallery on this DVD which seems to consist of all the 'actors' genitalia in close-up scene-by-scene. Ewww! Beef curtains............