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Enthralling…An ambitious, full-bodied crime epic of gratifying scope and moral complexity, this is seriously brainy pop entertainment that satisfies every expectation raised by its hit predecessor and then some.
Justin Chang, Variety

Bale again brilliantly personifies all the deep traumas and misgivings of Batman’s alter ego, Bruce Wayne. A bit of Hamlet is in this Batman.
Kirk Honeycutt, The Hollywood Reporter

May be the most hopeless, despairing comic-book movie in memory. It creates a world where being a superhero is at best a double-edged sword and no triumph is likely to be anything but short-lived.
Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

Pitched at the divide between art and industry, poetry and entertainment, it goes darker and deeper than any Hollywood movie of its comic-book kind.
Manohla Dargis, New York Times

Beyond dark. It’s as black — and teeming and toxic — as the mind of the Joker. “Batman Begins,” the 2005 film that launched Nolan’s series, was a mere five-finger exercise. This is the full symphony.
Richard Corliss, Time Magazine

Ledger’s performance is monumental, but The Dark Knight lives up to it. Nolan cements his position as Hollywood’s premier purveyor of blockbuster smarts – and the Batbike is kinda cool, too.
Mark Dinning, Empire Magazine

Nolan turns the Manichean morality of comic books–pure good vs. pure evil–into a bleak post-9/11 allegory about how terror (and, make no mistake, Heath Ledger’s Joker is a terrorist) breaks down those reassuring moral categories.
Dana Stevens, Slate

It has become almost impossible to find a bad review of the new Batman movie.

All I heard last weekend from friends was that this film would ‘blow my mind’ and rank comfortably alongside all-time favourites of mine such as The Godfather and Casino.

Excuse me for being a little disappointed after every single person ratified that statement above.

I’m not saying it’s a bad film, but descriptions of this film as a ‘cinematic masterpiece’ or ’shakespearean’ are a bit much. Christopher Nolan has clearly created an accomplished piece of work here, but it is Heath Ledger’s performance that is the real reason to watch this film.

At nearly three hours long this film seems to go on forever and then some. In those three hours the only thing in that film that was truly alive was Ledger’s performance as The Joker, and I still think there wasn’t enough Joker in it.

This film will be sure to sweep the academy awards when they roll around next, and I’m almost positive Ledger will get himself one for his performance (although good, I’m not sure its THAT good). I thought the action scenes were ok but nothing special, the storyline has been reviewed as ‘deep’ and ‘well crafted’ (it fucking should be at nearly 3 hours) and for all the talk of this film as ‘dark’, it could have been darker (Two Face should have shot that kid in the neck).

Call me cynical but there’s no glaring reason to watch this film again (maybe if it were a reel of clips of the Joker)…

Remember that Max Payne video game? The one with “bullet time” and shit? Good game huh?

Well now there’s a Max Payne movie.

Looks alright…

I went and saw Hancock last night, and I can’t help but feel a little disappointed.

I don’t suppose it helps that EVERY single person that has seen it before me said it was ‘mint’ or ‘awesome’.

Whilst the film was more intelligent than most summer blockbusters, and I can have no complaints about the performances from Will Smith or Charlize Theron - it seemed to start off funny and promisingly, but then tail off into a humourless, superhero rom-com which seemed completely out of place with the start of the film.

The concept of this film is brilliant. It’s one I’ve been looking forward to since the back end of last year. Finally, I thought, a superhero film which won’t take itself too seriously. One which has the premise of a quirky ’superhero’ who is drunk, gets everything wrong and is an ‘asshole’ (everybody elses words). But it evolves into a muddled storyline that stops being funny quite quickly.

The first hour or so of the film revolves around establishing Hancock as a drunk super hero who, when he’s not passed out, will do his best to foil crimes. But, as a series of clips show, the unconvential figure gets it wrong every time causing millions of dollars worth of damage in the process. Then he gets into tantrums, breaks stuff and swears at kids. And that’s all pretty funny.

Then, without warning, the movie takes a distinct change in tone and direction. An unexpected twist, which I won’t come to mention as a lot of people won’t have had the time to catch this film yet, sees the film abandon humor in the pursuit of a story. Who is John Hancock? Where did he come from? How did he get here? How long has he been here? Has he, or will he, ever find love? - just some of the questions you should expect to find in the second half of the film.

Without offering any real answers, or answers in any kind of amusing form, the film becomes quite a souring experience. The character’s origin is all well and good, but I’m not sure I’m alone in assuming that whilst knowing a super hero inside out is a convention of the genre - the majority of people coming to see this blockbuster are not coming to see a super hero film, most are hoping to see a comedy.

I can’t help but wonder why Sony and its director, Peter Berg, chose to pursue the backstory when, in actual fact, I’m not sure people really cared for it. What draws Hancock away from Batman and Superman is that he is a seemingly human individual who makes mistakes, a superhero who always seems to have a bad day, and I don’t think we need 45 minutes of character development to be able to relate to that.

While I don’t want to be too harsh because I did kind of enjoy this film - it’s not like I hated it - I just think it falls so spectacularly short of the mark. So while everyone is telling you that Hancock is “the film to go and see this summer!” try to take that comment with a pinch of salt - the film is not the same as the trailer.

New film from Guy Ritchie.

Looks aaaaaaaace.

Supposedly out October 31st.

Few films excite me these days, here’s one that does…

And the synopsis:

“I was born under unusual circumstances.” And so begins “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” adapted from the 1920s story by F. Scott Fitzgerald about a man who is born in his eighties and ages backwards: A man, like any of us, who is unable to stop time. We follow his story set in New Orleans from the end of World War I in 1918, into the 21st century, following his journey that is as unusual as any man’s life can be. Directed by David Fincher and starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett with Taraji P. Henson, Tilda Swinton, Jason Flemyng, Elias Koteas and Julia Ormond, “Benjamin Button,” is a grand tale of a not so ordinary man and the people and places he discovers along the way, the loves he finds, the joys of life and the sadness of death, and what lasts beyond time.

It’s brought to you by David Fincher, the same guy who directed Fight Club and Seven. I believe Heath Ledger was originally cast as Benjamin Button, but I think we all know what happened there… really looking forward to seeing this film. Will be a refreshing change from the action-clad releases that litter the cinema these days.

Word.

I have a confession to make. I haven’t seen any of the Star Wars. Or rather more accurately, I hadn’t seen any of them until a few weeks ago.

I’m a self-confessed cinema geek. I’ve watched so many major Hollywood movies as well as a tonne of shit (independent or otherwise) from Korea, Japan, China, France, Poland and Brazil. In truth, I will watch almost anything with a remotely decent write up and a plot that makes sense. But I never got round to watching Star Wars.

I’m not a fan of sci-fi in the slightest, and people just seem to jump on the bandwagon when it comes to Star Wars.

My flat mates Mark and Lee, both utter Star Wars geeks (I didn’t realise this), forced me into watching all six episodes starting with A New Hope and ending with Return of the Sith last night. And I have to say they’re not half bad.

The detail in each and every film is ridiculous. I had no idea just how much effort George Lucas has put into these stories - but they’re right in saying that he’s created a whole other galaxy. And whats more mind blowing is that a Star Wars ‘fan’ knows all the planets, all the creatures on the planets and everything in between. It’s something you have to put your homework into.

I’m struggling to pick a favourite out of the bunch. I said to Mark that most of them were either 7/10 or 8/10 in my opinion. I thought ‘Revenge of the Sith’ was a great film - had a bit of everything. Likewise, I really like ‘The Emperor Strikes Back’ out of the original three, it kept me hooked a lot more than the others, and I thought ‘Phantom Menace’ was really good too.

The new ones are much easier to watch for a Star Wars virgin I must admit, and they seem to be much easier to follow. Plus the jedis make it much more entertaining too. Any Star Wars geeks will want to crucify me for saying that, but I did enjoy the first trilogy too, the stories and plot seemed to be much better and I think I had more of an appreciation for those films as they were created so long ago but didn’t look that out of touch.

With all that being said, I still don’t get the furore around Star Wars. It’s ok. Just as Lord of the Rings is ok. They’re not the be-all and end-all of classic cinema like people would want you to believe.

Plus, there’s so much shit in each film that doesn’t need to be there. In ‘Attack of the Clones’ I think it is I remember a scene where Annakin(sp?), Natalie Portman’s character and R2D2 end up getting lost in a factory of some sort and they end up fighting in a factory. After five minutes into that scene I sat up and asked ‘well what the fuck is going on here? what does this have to do with anything?’ and the answer I got back wasn’t great. These kind of scenes are commonplace in Star Wars. Unless you’ve read the books there’s a lot of moments where irrelevant things that don’t make sense keep happening.

Also, the scenes that last around 30 seconds do my tits in as well.

Lucas seems to be a big fan of fitting as much into a movie as possible. He’ll put a scene in just for a couple of lines of speech. I felt like I needed a pad and paper at times to jot down everything.

But yeah, Star Wars out of the way now. I can confess this with you now as I’ve solved the problem!

It’s my turn to school both Mark and Lee on something now. As neither of them have seen The Godfather trilogy… now that’s a crime!

More Will Ferrell-ness for you if Semi-Pro wasn’t enough.

We’re looking at a potential film of the year here. Blades of Glory didn’t quite have the same feel as Anchorman or Talladega Nights but it looks like Will Ferrell will get it spot on again with this film. Long story short, he plays Jackie Moon who is a player, coach and owner of a Basketball franchise, yet he can’t play basketball. Check the trailer, if you enjoyed Anchorman in any way shape or form you will probably enjoy this too!

New trailer for Stallone’s return to the Rambo series.

Looks like I’m going to enjoy this one more than his return to Rocky. None of that pain staking dialogue for Rambo. Just guns.

Nacho Libre wasn’t the best, but atleast it brought about this gem.

I’m too lazy to write something, so I thought I’d let Nacho entertain you today.

That had me in tears for about 10 minutes. The youtube spin-offs are equally funny.