The Fighter: Blu Ray review

The Fighter: Blu Ray review

The Fighter
Rating: R16
Released by Roadshow Entertainment

Based on a true story, Mark Wahlberg stars as Micky Ward, a boxer who's living in the shadow of his older brother Dicky Eklund (a wonderfully wiry and sparky, Golden Globe and Oscar award winning Christian Bale.) Eklund is the pride of Lowell, Massachusetts; a boxer who once knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard, he's the celeb of the working class town.

However, Eklund is racked with addiction to crack cocaine and is dragging the family down - as well as his brother's hopes of staging some kind of fighting revival. Plus along with the fearsome matriarch of the nine strong family, Alice (a ferocious Golden Globe and Oscar award winning Melissa Leo) in charge of their careers, Micky is going nowhere fast.

So when Micky meets Amy Adams' Charlene, a local bartender college drop out, a tender romance develops and Micky begins to start to believe in himself and his ability again.

This is a knock out of a film which pulls no punches.

But it's the ensemble cast which gives this true story a human feel and raise it well above the mire of a clichéd boxing film.

Christian Bale is astoundingly good as Eklund, a sinewy frame supporting a "can't take your eyes off him" performance. There's energy and world class acting on show here as the small town hero who was on the cusp of having it all but blows it for the cycle of addiction.

Yet, while Bale's great, thanks to the sensible and restrained direction of David O Russell, it doesn't detract from the rest of the cast - specifically Mark Wahlberg, whose subtly underplayed performance is the perfect antithesis to Bale's sparky energy. He's an assured presence here and conveys the torment of realizing the family's holding him back and the pain of having to try and make that clean break.

Extras: Director, Filming the Fighter and deleted scenes

Rating: 9/10 

The King's Speech: Blu ray review

The King's Speech: Blu ray review

The King's Speech
Rating: M
Released by Universal Home Pictures

Colin Firth stars as Prince Albert aka the soon to be King George VI and Bertie, who's crippled by a stammer. With the health of his father failing and the second World War looming, his wife Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter) decides Bertie needs help.

So, after doctors fail him and other therapists come up short, she finds a potential salvation in the shape of Aussie Lionel Logue (a brilliant Geoffrey Rush), an alternative and maverick therapist.

But with the death of his father, the forced abdication of Edward and the looming Second World War, Bertie soon finds it'll be his words which will inspire the Commonwealth.

The King's Speech is, quite simply, marvellous.

A brilliant crowd pleaser, with a script liberally peppered with dry wit and humour, along with some stunning turns from Firth and Rush, it's a riveting watch from beginning to end.

Colin Firth swept to glory with this performance but his role as the monarch to be is mesmerizingly good. The frustration Albert clearly feels in his inability to speak is etched perfectly on his face - and not once do you feel Firth is over egging the role. In fact, it's his restrained turn that may have you doubled with nerves as you will him to speak every single word when he's struggling.

Simply the unmissable crowd pleasing film of 2011, which will leave you lost for words.

Extras: A wealth of extras which are welcomed; commentaries, interview with Lionel Logue's grandson and a Q&A with the stars are just some of the best

Rating: 9/10 

The Green Hornet: Blu ray review

The Green Hornet: Blu ray review

The Green Hornet
Rating: M
Released by Sony Home Pictures

Seth Rogen stars as Britt Reid, the playboy wastrel - his father (Tom Wilkinson) runs a newspaper empire and has never really had much time for his son; he even goes so far as to dispense such bon mots as "Trying doesn't matter if you always fail."

So it's no wonder that Britt isn't exactly the life leader his dad expects.

One day after a party, Britt comes home to find his father dead and suddenly, he has the empire to run. With a resentful attitude, Britt sets about doing what little he can to keep the workload to a minimum.

However, one night, teaming up with dad's former associate Kato (Jay Chou), the pair inadvertently find themselves fighting muggers and kicking some ass.

At the same time, a local crimelord Chudnofsky (Christoph Waltz) is keeping the city in his vicelike grip and that spurs Britt into taking on the crims at their own game.

Thus The Green Hornet is born...

The Green Hornet has its tongue firmly in its cheek.

It's also brash, loud, over bearing, funny, entertaining and messy in equal measures.

There's humour in the fight scenes between Kato and Hornet with one long sequence resembling something from the Three Stooges. And there's even echoes of Benny Hill in one early scene.
If anything, Green Hornet is about the banter between Rogen and Chou as their jealous, bitchy bromance partnership grows. Because certainly the likes of the characters played by Cameron Diaz and Christoph Waltz are pretty much wasted and do little but serve to move the narrative along.

Which is a shame.

Overall, The Green Hornet is a bit of checking your brain at the door kind of fun.

Extras: Gag Reel, Commentary, making the film and a couple of exclusives for the Blu Ray release

Rating: 6/10 

Unstoppable: Blu Ray review

Unstoppable: Blu Ray review

Unstoppable
Rating: M
Released by 20th Century Fox and Roadshow

A hero with a buzz cut, a runaway vehicle and the potential for disaster.

Haven't we heard that somewhere before? Well, that and Denzel Washington in another Tony Scott train film too&.

In this latest from Tony Scott, Chris Pine stars as Will Colson, a newbie in the rail industry - and one who, according to older work colleagues has gained his position as a conductor on the rails in rural Pennsylvania because of nepotism.

Denzel is Frank Barnes, a long time employee of the rail roads who's seen it all before and is now just doing his job and training Colson.

However, their spiky training run is broken by the news another train's broken loose and thundering on the tracks, complete with a chemical payload and no driver because of an accidental mess up from a fellow employee Dewey (Ethan Suplee).

As the owner of the railway tries to work out how best to avert the disaster of a train ploughing into civilization, Barnes and Colson work with yardmaster Connie (ever dependable Rosario Dawson) to try and save the day.

Apparently inspired by true events, Unstoppable is actually better than the premise makes it sound - and thanks to some restrained directing from Tony Scott, it's actually more watchable than you'd believe.

Sure, there's plenty of swooping, circling aerial camera shots and continuous angled camera moments as the train continues on its path of destruction; but Unstoppable also throws in some decent characters and some commentary about old timers being forced out of jobs for young upstarts who know nothing of the industry

Thanks to Scott's assured leadership, this train stays firmly on the tracks - and destined for entertainment.

Rating: 7/10 

True Blood Series 3: Blu ray review

True Blood Series 3: Blu ray review

True Blood Series 3
Rating: R18
Released by Warner Home Video

The phenomenally popular True Blood continues to wow the audiences and critics with its Southern American blend of sex, supernatural and soap.

Picking up directly after the end of Season two which saw Stephen Moyer's vampire Bill disappear after proposing to Anna Paquin's Sookie, the action never really lets up.

Most of the season is consumed with Sookie's search for her kidnapped love and takes in werewolves into the mix as well as expanding the roles of the Vampire Queen and giving a more urgent feel to the vampire/ human conflict.

But the central mystery of the season is essentially concerning Sookie's real nature&

True Blood is a classy mix of the sleazy and the supernatural; with an ensemble cast who get everything right, this at times extremely soapy series hits it out of the park on every level thanks to tight writing, good episode cliffhangers, and smart acting.

Sure, it may not appeal to all thanks to its occasional gore and violence but for an extremely guilty pleasure, you can't go far wrong.

Extras: Commentaries, minisodes and cast and crew look at the werewolves; but the highlight is Snoop Dogg's OH Sookie video

Rating: 8/10 

Super 8: Movie Review

Super 8: Movie Review

Super 8
Rating: 8/10
Cast: Kyle Chandler, Joel Courtney, Ron Eldard, Elle Fanning, AJ Michalka
Director: J J Abrams
Small town America - Ohio to be precise - in 1979: Following an incident at the town mill, young Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) is left bereft of a mother.
Joe's solution to cope with the loss is to throw himself into his friends' movie-making project; despite his police deputy father's insistence that once summer is done, it's off to camp for him.
When the group ends up filming their amateur zombie flick at a train station one night, their movie-making is rudely interrupted by a massive train crash, which they soon realise was not an accident.
To make matters worse, when the US Air Force move in with the might of the military and people start disappearing, they begin to suspect something is seriously wrong....and something nasty is loose in the town.
Battle lines are further drawn up when Deputy Lamb (a brilliantly grounded Kyle Chandler, who once again proves his steely everyman appeal) investigates, bringing him into direct conflict with Nelec from the US Air Force, who may have ulterior motives for looking into this case.
Super 8 is clearly a film that wears its influences on its sleeve - and those are many; the fact it's by Amblin Entertainment (Steven Spielberg's production company) shows all the way through - with the whole film having a feel of the Goonies, Stand By Me, ET, Close Encounters et al inevitably dripped throughout.
Yet, you really shouldn't be put off by the fact it's a film about an alien loose in small town America; at its heart Super 8 is a nostalgically tinged relationship film with broad strokes of tenderness brushed through.
There's a wonderful camaraderie between the young kids as they make their film - how Joe copes with the loss of his mother and falls in love for the first time with Alice (the prodigiously talented Elle Fanning) and plenty of intimately played character moments throughout.
Those are punctuated by the various attacks of the creature (the details of which I won't spoil too much here as it's best you make your own mind up over the effects) which are quite sharp, short, vicious and a little frightening for a younger audience.
Director JJ Abrams has clearly ended up making a real homage to Spielberg's films in many ways; the tension's eeked out incredibly well and there's the right amount of genuine humour throughout to cover the whole gamut.
That said, there are a couple of reasons why it misfires - perhaps, to my mind, the ultimate reveal of the creature falls a little short of your expectations, as most of its appearances early on are more effective, thanks to mere glimpses of it than any full reveal could ever hope to fulfil; there's also the feeling that some of the heavy symbolism could have been reined in somewhat to have a little more impact (Joe carries a locket from his mum and every time he's in danger, the camera annoyingly focuses on it) and the finale is a little muddled, mawkish and sentimental - but then, what would you expect from a film with Spielberg's influences at play?

Overall though, Super 8 is a great piece of winter entertainment with some beautifully played intimate human moments; if Abrams had pulled back a little on the influences and symbolism and added a bit more subtlety, this ride would have been perfect; as it is though, it's one of the better thrills of the year.

X Men First Class: Movie Review

X Men First Class: Movie Review

X Men First Class
Rating: 6/10
Cast: James McAvoy, January Jones, Michael Fassbender, Kevin Bacon, Rose Byrne, Jennifer Lawrence, Oliver Platt, Nicholas Hoult
Director: Matthew Vaughn
So once more back into the X Men breach - and a third attempt at an origins film.
This time though it's from the minds who brought us the truly wonderful Kick Ass.
James McAvoy stars as Charles Xavier, a gifted young man whose life is decided by the altruistic path he forges in nurturing mutant kind and uttering the word "Groovy" as the 1960s progress.
Directly idealogically opposite him is Erik Lehnsherr (a brilliant Michael Fassbender) whose youth is defined by his tortuous treatment as a Jew in the Nazi concentration camps at the hands of Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon).
So Erik sets out to hunt Shaw down and kill him - but when Shaw threatens to bring the world to its knees via nuclear war, Erik and Xavier join forces - along with other newly discovered mutants to try to avert a potential world war three.
What to say about X Men First Class?
Well it's better than some of the more recent entrants into the franchise but it's no massive progression for the series to be frank.

It's more a case of the film once again attempting to restart and reboot the franchise and managing to do so in a somewhat at times limp way - so fanboys of this particular genre be aware...
However, there are some truly impressive things within this latest mutant outing.
Firstly Kevin Bacon's Shaw is startlingly good - Bacon's really delivered the acting goods here with menace mixed with charm as well as incredible screen presence. His is the stand out performance of the film without a shadow of a doubt.

Fassbender and McAvoy also deliver the goods but it's Fassbender who is the better actor bringing a dash of danger to the future Magneto as he heads off on his Bond like quest of vengeance; McAvoy's performance is crippled a little by his character's penchant for spouting pompous dialogue and putting two fingers to his forehead every time he uses his telepathy. In fact it's when these two's relationship is explored on screen you get the better film as you know what's to transpire further down the line.
But some impressive effects are hobbled by virtue of the fact there are more shonky ones on display and on this front the film's somewhat let down.

Jennifer Lawrence impresses as the young Mystique and just about manages to convince us of the inner turmoil her character faces before going bad; Nicholas Hoult brings a tenderness to the character known as Beast but January Jones is simply there as eye candy and to do a slight twitching of the face a la Samantha from Bewitched when her telepath Emma Frost does her thing.
The Cuban missile crisis setting adds little to the plot and, like some of the film itself, is a missed opportunity

Overall, X Men First Class may impress some with its fine acting but fans of the X genre will be disappointed nothing radical is done (aside from some great fanboy pleasing cameos); the rest of us may feel it's time to give the X Men a rest - even though this is rumoured to be the start of a new trilogy. It's not a bad film as it goes and doesn't lag despite its 2 and a quarter hour running time but it's not exactly what you'd expect - or hope for - from a fifth outing from this particular genre.