It,s not cinema....it,s alchemy

Boasting more historical inaccuracies than if it had been made by the production team of My Parents Are Aliens but adapted from a story partly written by noted historical author Valerio Manfredi The Last Legion is the latest film to tie in the King Arthur mythology with the Romans occupying Britannia in the 5th century . It sure goes about it in a convoluted way though.
It's 460A.D.and Rome is on the verge of falling to the Goths whose leader Odoacer( Peter Mullan) looks like Hagar The Horrible .Young Emperor to be Romulus Augustus(Thomas Sangster), rumoured to be blood relative of Caesar( Ehhh!!) is crowned just before the invasion hordes take the city and is thus a prize capture for them. Once this is done Odoacer charges his vicious soldier Wulfila(Kevin Mckidd) to take the lad to a remote virtually impregnable fortress , though he does allow mysterious sage come magician Ambrosinus (Ben Kingsley) to act as the lads companion which on reflection he may have come to regret.
They are then pursued by commander of the Legions Aurelios (Colin Firth) , some of his men , and an Ottoman warrior Mira (Aishwarya Rai) who is there because of her empires allegiance to Rome , but more probably because she is incredibly attractive and gives the film some love interest.
The action eventually moves to Britannia so the renegades can hook up with the ninth legion -the last in the empire. Here a masked villain called Vortgyn( Harry Van Gorkum) enters the fray because he has some connection to Ambrosinus and the whole thing is resolved with a big battle and it's after this that the film finally reveals it's hand and makes the connections to the Arthurian legend.
The Last Legion is directed by Doug Lefler who has worked on" Xena Warrior Princess" so his incompetence at directing action scenes comes as a surprise. He employs an annoying cinematic device of showing actors response to violence , no doubt to get the film a more family friendly rating . Unfortunately this had the side effect of making me swear vociferously every time it happened so it wasn't that child friendly after all. The action is unconvincing and badly edited but somehow it doesn't stop the film from being an enjoyable unchallenging romp. It is not helped in this regard by some truly excruciatingly bad dialogue , for which the writers Jez and Tom Butterworth should be ashamed. and some poor acting .McKidd overdoes the slavering lunatic role , Firth plays Aurelios as Mr Darcy with a big sword and Van Gorkum is one of the weediest villains in movie history . Ben Kingsley adds gravitas , though his accent veers about like a hippo on a skateboard, and James Cosmo, Peter Mullan , Owen Teale , Alexander Siddig all perform fine supporting roles while Thomas Sangster is decent enough. Aishwarya Rai is arguably the best thing in the movie , though I will confess to a certain libidinous bias there.
Taking into account the mis-casting of the principle hero, the god-awful script, lacksidasical direction and the baffling and numerous examples of historical erroneousness The Last Legion should be a complete disaster . But somehow it emerges as a good looking diverting action filled event . It's complete nonsense but it's never dull .Call me as shallow as a puddle of worm pee but I for one would rather watch entertaining nonsense than tedious art. How they managed to turn the constituent parts of The Last Legion into a passable movie is a feat of alchemy worthy of Merlin himself.

Ok but the weakest of the 3

Spiderman 3 is a fairly entertaining film in places, but its also a tad too long, incredibly cheesy and a bad case of too many bad guys spoiling the plot. Tobey Maguire wears the suit with consummate ease these days, but even he can't drag this out of its state of mediocrity. Venom makes for a pretty decent villain, but there's not much else to recommend really. Okay but not great.

Well its Star Wars...what more can i say?

My dad gave me the Star Wars Trilogy 4, 5 and 6 and I fell in love with them immediately. Just fantastic films! In fact they are so good that I could watch them over and over and over and still not get bored!!

The Phantom Menace was good but not as good as its predecessors. However in this movie, more than any of the others, you get to see the true power of the Jedi. I mean at the beginning when Obi Won and Qui gon(i think that's how its spelt!) have come to talk to the Ambassodors. The Ambassodors panic, they panic!! There's only two jedi! They've got thousands of droids adn stuff and they are frightened by TWO Jedis!! That for me shows the true power of the Jedi.

The second, Attack of the Clones, was brilliant, as all the movies are anyway.


Right, Im now going to get on with the review for THIS movie now!! Heres me babbling on about the other movies and you wanted to read about this one!

Right...Revenge of the Sith:

It was amazing but not without faults. I don't really like Christian Hayden as an actor, but I feel he did a better job in this movie. Athough this movie was faulted, I still gave it 5 stars, because its Star Wars...it deserves five stars even if the film was filled with tu-tu wearing Jedis dancing around singing songs of the force!
On a more serious note, this movie was brilliant, especially the fight scene between Obi Won and Anakin, and I really enjoyed it and felt it did a good job at 'completing the circle' and I would recommend it to anyone. But it was quite a sinister movie in parts, so I would watch it first before you let any young children watch it.
However, this movie still doesn't beat the films 4, 5 and 6 and I remember thinking efore seeing this movie, that it wouldn't - no COULDN'T - anyway!

The acting was pretty good in this, as I said Christian Hayden was better in this movie, and The Emperor was excellent. Padme/Natalie Portman however was a bit whiny and I can't believe how much her charater has changed over the series.

All I can say now is Star Wars is a truly brilliant saga and I would give them five stars every time I watched them!

Martial Arts Rule.

This was the first Martial Arts film that I watched last year. I had never watched Martial Arts films before but now after watching many including House of Flying Daggers and Hero I still think this is a good film.

FYI this film does have an English audio option but taking into account the kind of film you are watching I would suggest you watch it in the original language and have the English subtitles on. It may sound horrible having to read subtitles but you soon forget you are reading them and it makes the film see more authentic.

Far better than I expected

I was sceptical watching yet another Die Hard movie, but actually, I was very pleasantly surprised. The action was fast paced throughout and the sheer audacity of the plot kept me fully absorbed. McClane, although looking pretty much older these days, is still plausible as the energetic lone hero determined to do his duty and conquer evil. Yes, the plot was totally unbelievable but why would you want to depress yourself with realism - take a look at the daily news for that! I appreciate a good bit of escapism and this really fits the bill. If you like a movie with a good deal of ass-kicking and where unsuspecting, ill-equipped good guy/lone hero outwits gang of highly skilled, technologically well-equipped and thoroughly organised assasins then this could be the movie for you! And it looks to me like the daughter - a chip off the old block - could be the star of future Die Hard movies assuming her father's mantle?? - now that would be a good movie !!! Give it a go - what have you got to lose?

A bit of a let down!

After watching the trailers this was a movie I definately wanted to see. I love special effects laden movies and thought this looked great, not to mention the directors past offerings I thought this was going to be a winner...how wrong was I!

The storyline sadly lacks, boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy persues lost love, fights bad guy and gets girl back. There are a couple of action sequences but generally I felt a bit let down and the movie ended up dragging a bit.

All in all, disappointing when I thought it would be better

Television Western Mini-Series Keep the Genre Alive

I really enjoyed this movie. In my opinion its one of the best westerns made in recent years. Robert Duvall does his now customary 'Gus McRae Act' which I never seem to tire of. Of course he did this in Open Range as well. Thomas Haden Church is great also, completely different to his role in, for example 'Sideways'. The landscape photography, acting and direction are all brilliant. The movie also features at least one 'stand up' all-guns-blazing shoot out. The bad guys are so evil you just can't wait to see if and when they get dispatched to 'the big open range in the sky'.
Bring on more movies like this.

It's NOT as bad as some would have you believe

Is it really 9 years since The Phantom Menace brought Star Wars back to the Cinema after a 16 year hiatus? Back in the summer of 1999, the world was a very differant place to today. Bill Clinton was still American President. Tony Blair was enjoying his long honeymoon with the British electorate. The Twin Towers were still standing and few people had heard of Al Qeada. As we counted down to a new Millennium the world appeared to be on the cusp of a new golden age of econmic prosperity and relative peace. Admist this background came Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. The hype and expectation for this movie was probably greater than anything before or since in movie history. What film could ever hope to live up to this hype and expectation? No film ever could. The initial response from fanboys and critics across the world was cries of anguish and pain. Claims of childhoods being raped drowned out the more sensible reflections that actually this movie whilst not particularly great, was as bad as many claimed it was. Now, almost a decade on from the initial release, perhaps the time is right for a more considered view of this film?

The Phantom Menace is the very definition of a"mixed" film. It has both good and bad points, and whether you end up liking this film will depend on;

1. Do the bad points outweigh the good points for you?
2. Do the good points outweigh the bad points for you?

Thus you will find the answer of whether or not this movie works for you, somewhere in the balance of the two.

Some of the bad points; George Lucas's direction is stiff. Lucas hadn't directed a film since 1977 and it shows.
Jar Jar Binks is annoying and tedious and frequently gets in the way, however, as with so many complaints about this film, Binks is NOT as bad as some would have you believe, and you CAN enjoy this film despite the presense of JJB. Children will love Jar Jar, so if you show this film to your 8 year old child, please don't let your loathing of Mr Bink's ruin your child's love for this character.
Other bad points are that the pod race goes on too long (it went on too long in the theatrical release, and for some reason its been extended further for the DVD)
Ewan Mcgregor unfortunatly gets very little to do.
Natalie Portman shines as Queen Amidala, but as Padme she often leaves a lot to be desired. Jake Lloyds Anakin is given some annoyingly silly lines to read out (as with Binks, Lloyd is NOT as bad as outraged fanboys would have you believe)
The Gungans are probably the worse species in SW history (except for the Ewoks of course ;) ) and the final battle between the Gungans and the Battle Droids is unengaging.
Perhaps my main complaint about Menace is that the two characters that get the most screen time, Jar Jar Binks and Qui-Gon Jinn, are the two characters that don't really feature in the next two films. Thus, this is, I think, the central problem with Menace. Its mainly filler. Lucas needed"more" in this film.

Some of the good points; Liam Neeson is the glue that holds this film together. Anybody that says the acting was better in the OT, should look at Neesons performance. Its at least as good as anything in the OT.
The political sub-plot is interesting and engaging and seeing how Palpatine begins his rise to power is compelling. Ian Mcdiarmid is outstanding in the small number of scenes he is given.
The Mother/Son relationship between Anakin and his Mother is well done and you do feel a sense of Anakins pain at being parted from his mother and having to leave her as a slave. The twist of Anakin's origins (that he was born without a father) adds a mystical and mythical element. Deeply religious people may be offended, but"virgin births" feature in many mythical stories.
Seeing the workings of the Jedi Council and how the Jedi relate to the Senate is interesting.
Darth Maul is cool and The Duel Of The Fates is probably the most exciting lightsaber battle of the Saga. The piece of music that accompany's the duel is truely outstanding (otherwise John Williams' score on TPM isn't very memorable - Like Lucas, at times you get the sense he is warming himself up with this picture
The general time and effort and attention to detail is wonderful. For Amidala's gowns alone costume designer Trisha Biggar should have won an Oscar. ILM's special effects are amazing. The film looks outstanding and sounds wonderful. As a piece of art, The Phantom Menace is an awesome blend of creativity and artisitic inspiration. Too bad the final product ended up so mixed.

Just to say, the movie ranks as a solid *** affair, but the DVD package itself takes it up to **** The central documentery; The Beginning is one of the best DVD extras you'll find on any DVD release. An absolute gem. It even captures the moment George Lucas himself realise's the movie is not panning out as well as he had hoped. Also included in the extras is a full commentery, deleated scenes, trailers, music video and web-docs (which are also of the highest quality)

In closing, The Phantom Menace IS a deeply flawed movie. Slow, plodding and yes, in places even dull. Much of it is filler and a setting up effort. But it also has moments of pure brilliance and many parts are good or very good. Theres a fascination at seeing the Star Wars universe; BEFORE THE DARK TIMES. This is a film that is about children and for children. Theres a lightness and feeling of innocence that contrasts fantastically to the much, much darker Episode III. Given the time in which the movie was released, itself a moment that could be described as"before the darkness" you can't help but feel a pang of nostalgia when you watch The Phantom Menace. Even those that hate this film must feel that somewhere?

Great movie

This great Hollywood blockbuster is one of a series of thought provoking movies along with the constant gardener and shooting dogs .Filmed in South Africa , London and Mozambique ,the result is excellent and the photography in this movie is a good as it gets .

It tells the story of two people who must find a very large diamond for very different reasons , one to save his son and the other to become rich . The action scenes are very realistic is terms of showing the brutal civil war in Sierra Leone as Saving private Ryan showed the landings in Normandy .

Leonardo DiCaprio deserves praise for his portrait of the South African mercenary he developed very convincing South African accent , he and Djimon Honsou work very well together and there is great scene when their characters clashed over racial issues .

Michael Sheen delivers another impeccable villain role as the unscrupulous diamond merchant who will buy anything from a war zone .

The only character that is not so good is Jennifer Connelly , also her relationship with Leonardo Dicaprio seems a bit far fetched and the romance is not very convincing.


4 and a half stars , only if it had a different female role ....

Cage has lost the plot

Bought the Blu-ray version and even the excellent transfer didn't save the movie. Unfortunately Nick is cast in a role that just doesn't suit him. An intellectual. NT1 was a slighlty lower than really average movie and I was hoping that the producers/writers would somehow improve upon it. It just didn't happen. The movie is simply predicatble the whole way through and why on earth Helen Mirren agreed to get on board I don't know. Her character was just so out of character for her.

I tend to have a thought or two of a movie when it finishes, but all that popped in there after the film finished was the need for a cup of tea. Really disappointing. Save your money, or if you're really desperate, get the DVD when it's down to four quid.

Shockingly bad

When I think of the enormous amount of time and money pumped into this project I feel so infuriated by the outcome. I can only assume that the reviewers giving this film 5 stars know little or nothing about the original poem.

Beowulf is one of the greatest stories ever told, and it could so easily have been made an incredible film. I was excited about this project since the first rumours were heard years ago, but once I saw trailers and promo-posters I knew I was in for a major disappointment.

The story has been warped beyond recognition, and Beowulf himself turned into a extremely unlikeable character. With some disturbingly bad scripting and a disjointed narrative structure this film utterly fails to deliver. Ray Winstone was a terrible casting choice, and his oafish-sounding voice make some dialogue embarrassing to listen to. As for Angelina Jolie, I laughed out loud when I heard her bizarre accent (already showcased in the awful film Alexander).

The one thing going for this film are the visuals, but even they are inferior to both Final Fantasy films (the first one is 7 years old!).

There are more action scenes than you can shake a stick at, but the animation techniques have a long way to go before they become convincing.

Having said all that, Beowulf is an entertaining film and probably worth watching, but ultimately it's a joke. A much better alternative is 'Beowulf & Grendel' with Gerard Butler, which is a longer and lower-budget film, but contains some intelligent multi-level plotlines and an innovative take on the Beowulf story.

Very good picture, great explosions

I haven't been a Transformers fan while I was a kid for the simple fact you couldn't get them in Romania at that time. I can't say I'm a fan now, but the movie is great, meeting my expectations. Lots of action, fire, guns, great cars, robots...you know...what the kid inside every man needs.
The picture is great, crystal clear, excellent colours. I can't talk about sound because I watched it with the TV speakers...lame, I know.
I love the extras, everything is HD, even on the second disc. What I hate is that you have to change the menu everytime you use it, it doesn't remember your theme. Maybe is the player's fault, I don't know.
4 stars instead of 5 for the battle between Optimus Prime and Megatron - disappointing to say the least. Maybe Starscream will do better in Transformers 2.

Captivating and fun...

...are just two words I would use to describe this. I saw it yesterday for the first time, and was amazed how much fun it was. Great characterisation and animation, and the little boy is just scrummy!

My favourite (apart from James) was the Centipede, as I LOVE Richard Dreyfuss in anything. He was such a wise guy....

"That'll teach you to mess with me, you overgrown sardine - I'm from Brooklyn!"

How much I enjoyed this film just goes to show that I'm a big kid - 37 going on 7!

Fun hokum

It's actually quite a fun film. You have to take a lot of things wiht a pinch of salt, but in a wierd sort of way this film actually works. Lots of people comment on the daft naming of 'Farmer' as the main character, who is, unusually, a farmer. However, listen to the tale and you find out he chose this name to go with his occupation. So where you THINK there are things to pick on, there are actually few.
It's a basic tale of heroism, luck and wild stunts, and the fight scenes look as though people got HURT - specifically one poor soldier who has his helm knocked off in the middle of a fight, there is a definite OUCH there! The story follows the usual recognised path, local farmer makes good, but it is more the peripheral characters that make this movie fun! The magic is well done, and the wood-dwellers are amazing to watch, even though they play such a small part in the story. Burt Reynolds manages to pull off the role of the crusty old king, and the soundtrack is pretty good too. If you are up for some hokum and light entertainment, then get this film. If you are a picky perfectionist, go laugh at Lord of the Rings!

Slightly overambitious but a must have for fans

There's not been much left out of this Alien DVD collection that's for sure.

I'm a huge fan of the films, the first two are outstanding, the third is very good and the fourth...well, it's the weakest of the four by far but I've still watched it a few times :)

I think the fact that this set has been so ambitious is partly its downfall. Each film and it's special edition is on one DVD and the picture quality has suffered somewhat for it - It's hardly the worst around but could have been a lot better better. Take for instance Aliens, there's probably 5 hours of video (standard + SE versions) to be crammed onto one disc and the only way that could be achieved is compressions,compression, compression! I guess the only other option would be to have each version of the film on it's own disc so there was enough storage for the film to span the dual layers and take less of a hit on the picture quality stakes. However, that would have lead to a pack of 13 or so discs I guess! I would have bought it...and still would if it comes out! Let's have it on Bluray.......!!

Anyway, that's the only real negative.

The list of extras for each film is extensive and too long to list. It'll keep die hard fans happy for a long time. Alien and Alien Resurrection have DTS sound which is a nice addition.

The set is well presented in a fold out book/box with each DVD having it's own 'page' to hold it in place. There's a little booklet too with a small plot summary and chapter list of each film and details of the extras.

The films themselves and the special editions are probably familiar to many - the only two I had not seen were the special editions of Alien 3 and Alien Resurection. I think the weakest directors cut is the one for Alien 3. It changes key elements of the plot (such as the animal that gives 'birth' to the alien in this film) and I just didn't think it worked well at all. All the other director's cuts expand characters or add in cool stuff (like the robot sentries in Aliens) without changing the key details and are better for it.

Anyway, for this price this pack is one of the best bargains going. 9 Discs containing easily two of the best Sci-Fi films of all time supported by slightly weaker but still watchable 3rd and 4th installments and a rake of extras. I just can't help thinking that if you're a stickler for picture quality you may feel slightly underwhelmed with this set. It's a missed opportunity to give the absolute best but still a worthwhile purchase.

Recommended ****

Shooter:

I first saw this as a rental on reccomendation. As I hadn't heard of this movie before, I thought it'll be just another one of those low budget shoot'em, chase'em films with totally unbelievable characters and frankly stupid special effects.
Before I watched the actual movie I had a quick look at the 'special features', and it looked like this might not be so bad after all. So I watched the movie and absolutely enjoyed every moment, so much so that I ordered a copy as soon as it became available as sell thru. True it's not without some flaws. As a previous reviewer mentioned, the Danny Glover character (Col Issac Johnson) is cringe worthy, quite a pity really as he's otherwise a good actor. Attention to detail and weapons drill is excellent, though I echo the implausible head shot at 200 yards from a moving platform, with a bog standard .22 hunting rifle!. Watch out for the exaggerated but brilliant sonic shock wave effect when Mark Whalberg test fires his old Cheyenne Tac M200 at a tin can, it's a fierce looking piece of kit. There's also an envy educing scene where he's firing an assault weapon from the left shoulder!!, (Readers in Ireland will know what I mean here). Fans of all things 'Southern' will love the old gunsmith character in Tennessee!. All in all it's an enjoyable little shoot-fest and I can without doubt reccomend you get a copy.
p.s. If they killed my dog, I'd want to seek a terrible revenge too!

A colourful dramatic spectacular epic.

This is not a martial arts film. It is full of intrigue, drama, colour and bloody action especially towards the end of the film. The Emperor is poisoning the Empress and the Empress is plotting a coup to overthrow him. The acting is first class. The scenery and the colours are stunning. The filming is simply superb. When the action comes it is epic in scale. The subtitles are small and sometimes move along at quite a pace, which is a little unfortunate but this should not put you off. Well worth watching. Recommended. I look forward to watching it again.

A Good Film

A good film but not a truley great film, its good for a bit of entertainment, and has some exciting action and is a has a very cool fell, but the plot seems to lack depth.