4 minute preview of Captain America: The Winter Soldier

4 minute preview of Captain America: The Winter Soldier

There's a 4 minute preview of Captain America: The Winter Soldier here now to view...


Chris Evans stars as Captain America in the film coming in April from Marvel.

Watch the Captain America: The Winter Soldier Superbowl spot below.


Captain America returns! The official first trailer for Captain America The Winter Soldier -- in UK cinemas March 26 2014. The sequel to Marvel's Captain America The First Avenger. Starring Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Cobie Smulders, Frank Grillo, Emily VanCamp, Hayley Atwell with Robert Redford as Alexander Pierce and Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury.

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After the cataclysmic events in New York with The Avengers, Marvel's "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" finds Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, living quietly in Washington, D.C. and trying to adjust to the modern world. But when a S.H.I.E.L.D. colleague comes under attack, Steve becomes embroiled in a web of intrigue that threatens to put the world at risk. Joining forces with the Black Widow, Captain America struggles to expose the ever-widening conspiracy while fighting off professional assassins sent to silence him at every turn. When the full scope of the villainous plot is revealed, Captain America and the Black Widow enlist the help of a new ally, the Falcon. However, they soon find themselves up against an unexpected and formidable enemy—the Winter Soldier.

Based on the ever-popular Marvel comic book series, first published in 1941, Marvel's "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" is produced by Kevin Feige, directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, from a screenplay by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely, and stars Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Cobie Smulders, Frank Grillo, Emily VanCamp and Hayley Atwell, with Robert Redford as Alexander Pierce and Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury.

"Captain America: The Winter Soldier" is presented by Marvel Studios. The executive producers are Louis D'Esposito, Victoria Alonso, Michael Grillo, Alan Fine and Stan Lee. The film releases March 26 2014, and is distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.

Sin City: A Dame To Kill For trailer arrives

Sin City: A Dame To Kill For trailer arrives

Good news - finally, a first look at Sin City: A Dame To Kill For with the new trailer

Starring Jessica Alba, Bruce Willis, Rosario Dawson, Jaime King, Josh Brolin, Mickey Rourke, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Eva Green, Dennis Haysbert, Christopher Meloni, Jeremy Piven, Jamie Chung, Ray Liotta, Juno Temple, Julia Garner and Stacy Keach.

Watch the Sin City A Dame to Kill For trailer here

Le Week-End: Movie Review

Le Week-End: Movie Review

Cast: Jim Broadbent, Lindsay Duncan, Jeff Goldblum, the streets of Paris
Director: Roger Michell

From writer Hanif Kureshi comes this tale of an English couple heading back to Paris to relive their honeymoon some 30 years ago.

Broadbent is Nick, and Duncan Meg - and it's clear from the moment they're on the Eurostar that there's a strain in this relationship. Meg clearly detests the man after years together, but Nick is wilfully oblivious, taking each barb as something to be mocked rather than viewed with caution.

Conflict is the raison d'etre of their marriage in later life and on most things, they appear to be opposed to all things the other proposes - but things take a turn when the pair bump into Jeff Goldblum's Morgan, who looked upto Nick during his time as a university lecturer.

Soon, Meg's finding herself part of a social swirl and Nick is finding himself a little confused as to what's going on.

Le Week-End showcases a marriage that some will find too familiar and others will be horrified by; Duncan plays the cruel cold wife with ease, and Broadbent's affability leads to the feeling that Nick's charm has worn off years ago. 90 minutes in their company seems to lead you to feel that you've been married to the pair of them as well - with little happening on screen other than bickering and sniping, it's hard to warm to either of them as they swan around Europe's most romantic city (the irony of which is not lost).

Thankfully, a change of pace comes with the arrival of Morgan, but it's a little too late to really fully save the day for the pair as the rot is setting in. Throw in some concerns about whether a son will return home to roost and the tensions are a-plenty; Michell makes a reasonable fist of Kureshi's slightly depressingly familiar screenplay and the actors give it their all in what feels more like a play than a movie.

All in all, Le Week-end has moments which feel like they're influenced by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy's characters in Linklater's films, but without quite the light deft writing; granted, there's a touch of something beneath the veneer but it's hidden by a typically grey British sheen that makes it hard to love, but easy to appreciate.

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Stories We Tell: Movie Review

Stories We Tell: Movie Review

Cast: Sarah Polley, Michael Polley, The Polley family, extended friends of the Polley family
Director: Sarah Polley

The tangled family life of one of Canada's most respected young actors comes under the spotlight in this documentary, which in some ways, defies description and expectation.

Turning the camera on herself, Polley investigates the life of her family - her mother specifically - and how stories change when told by different people and from different perspectives.

Employing the adroitness of someone who would appear to have been doing this for a while, Polley manages to coax the best out of her subjects while sticking to an idea of what exactly she wants from this film. Initially, there's a swirl of confusion as you're overwhelmed by apparent archive footage of her mother at key moments from before Sarah was around.

However, it's here that Polley starts to mess with expectations of the traditional doco and blur the lines between fact and reality - as told by storytellers. Narrating the piece is her father, Michael, an actor who's dry sense of humour is evident throughout - and Polley manages to manipulate this at times by having her father re-read some lines of dialogue as it's recorded, subtly using those moments to emphasise the point she is trying to make.

In fact, her subjects at times seem a little befuddled by what's going on, with one asking "I hope you'll explain what you're trying to do" as the investigation into her past digs deeper. While I'd love to discuss the finer points of what transpires, aside from those being spoilers for those who know not of Polley's complicated life, part of the joy of this doco is watching it play out, as small emotional bombs explode amid the Canadian trademark humour.

The journey is a smartly executed one, with Polley's recreations of her mother's younger years and her examinations getting beneath your skin as she subverts the traditional trajectory of a documentary, mashing the fourth wall and her subjects together and ending up with something that's quite breathlessly different. Though there is a slight sense of feeling robbed when the reveal comes that the Super 8 footage that proffers an insight into a life aren't quite what they're cracked up to be.

The revelations within are more pertinent to her family, than an universal truth to be applied to us all, but the way Sarah looks at how stories are informed within a generation of an acting family is a clever insight into life behind the screen, even if differing sides of the story aren't actually brought to the table.

Stories We Tell remains a fascinating experiment, and a genre defying piece for the documentary field.

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Vampire Academy: Movie Review

Vampire Academy: Movie Review

Cast: Zoey Deutch, Lucy Fry, Gabriel Byrne, Olga Kurylenko, Sarah Hyland
Director: Mark Waters

From the young adult novels, and with more of the undead in tow, here comes the latest in the vamp line of movie making.

Mixing Harry Potter's Hogwarts with vampirism and throwing in a brew of romance, it's the story of the Moroi, and the Strigoi, both lines of vampires and both (im)mortal enemies. The two will never see eye to eye and caught right in the middle of it is Dhampir (a half vampire and half human mix) Rose Hathaway (Zoey Deutch). Her job is to protect the Moroi princess Lissa Dragomir (Fry) whatever the cost.

To that end, the pair has been living in the human world for a couple of years; however, they're tracked down and dragged back to a fate worse than death - St Vladmir's Academy...

Thrown back into the horrors of classes, jealousy, and boys, the pair find their lives in danger when strange things happen on the campus and the Strigoi are suspected of being behind it all....

Vampire Academy is a strangely un-intoxicating hybrid mess of a film.

Part Harry Potter, part romance, part tongue in cheek silliness, part Buffy-style quipping (but without the smarts) and all insanity, it's one of the weirdest hot messes of a film that's appeared in a while, thanks to its wild mix of tone.

While a feisty Deutch does well with her wannabe Buffy / Faith style role, the writing doesn't quite help, with quip after quip flying and hardly many hitting their targets at all. There's an attempt to throw a Mean Girls / high school vibe into the mix, but there are so many elements within already that it just feels overcooked. The start is almost hamstrung by an overuse of exposition via voiceover and writing flying over the screen that it all seems a little too much, a supernatural pudding that's been over-egged with many elements of the genres that have already passed.

The more established names of the cast - Olga Kurylenko and Gabriel Byrne - simply chew the scenery and don't seem to want to know what to do with their underwritten parts. Along with cheesy action sequences and cornball dialogue, it's hard to see whether tweens will go for this given that it's neither fish nor fowl - choosing to shy away from too much self-knowing and parody while mixing in some of the seriousness, Vampire Academy doesn't raise any stakes in the vampire genre.

In fact, if anything, this coffin should be sealed shut for eternity before any more of the six books make it onto the big screen. Terrible CGI for some hellhounds simply show that the stretch of imagination didn't go far in this cinematic outing.

Quite simply, Vampire Academy bites.

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3 Mile Limit: Movie Review

3 Mile Limit: Movie Review

Cast: Matt Whelan, Mia Koning
Director: Craig Newland

So, the first of two Radio Hauraki films gets the early sprint on the release front as the iconic New Zealand station gears up for its 50th anniversary.

Go Girls star Matt Whelan is Richard Davis, a man whose dream has always been to have a radio station and broadcast rock music to the masses in a New Zealand where stiff upper lips goes hand in hand with stuffy chamber music.

But the government of the time is not keen on granting them a broadcasting licence and so the battle lines between the pioneers of the new guard and the stuffy establishment are drawn.

However, Davis has a plan to ensure rock'n'roll lives - along with his techie pal Morrie, these radio pirates decide to head out into the waters of Auckland's Hauraki Gulf and broadcast from within a boat, the Tiri, in an area that's just in international waters, and which keeps them out of the long arm of the law - the 3 Mile Limit of the title...and in Davis' words, "Where we're going, we don't need  a licence..."

3 Mile Limit is a bit of a damp squib to be frank.

Whereas The Boat That Rocked captured the anarchy and hedonistic vibe of the 60s and the taking on of the man, this David vs Goliath story has none of that. Instead, among the wonderful recreations of the era (all drab browns, and excellent use of technology from the time), there's a fairly straight laced story that's more suited for a small screen rather than a big screen outing.

A lack of real characterisation proves to be the fatal stumbling block for this piece - and the other problem is pacing; the story starts off with a gripping scene as the boat looks to be going under and Davis issues a mayday call before cutting back to one year earlier. But, after that, the origin story becomes staid and stodgy, before hitting a lull about 40 minutes in that grounds it in dry dock for the rest of its duration.

Whelan is affable enough as Davis - yet he is the only one who gets enough of an outline to give you something to invest in. He has a struggle at home with an arty wife, who's never quite sold enough paintings, the debt collectors are permanently at his door and there's a real pluck to this underdog. Unfortunately, the rest of his on-screen cohorts don't get as much more than a cursory once over lightly - and it's so distracting that the supporting cast are so neglected that when one of their fates is sealed, you really don't care.

Along with cliched shots (every time Davis delivers an inspirational speech, the camera tracks slowly along as the music swells underneath), there's just the feeling that this story could have been more than a plodding tale. Where's the pluck, the heart, even the passion for it as the good guys take on the archetypal bad guy of the government to get the people what they want....?

The final fatal flaw is that the film changes the names of the characters and some of the events - in a film which claims to be the origin of an icon of New Zealand's airwaves, it's going to potentially rankle those who were involved from the beginning. (Even though the producers have said those who were involved approve of the final film)

Ultimately and unfortunately, 3 Mile Limit is less The Boat That Rocked, more The Boat That Wobbled.

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300: Rise of an Empire: Movie Review

300: Rise of an Empire: Movie Review

Cast: Eva Green, Lena Headey, Sullivan Stapleton, Flashes of Gerard Butler, Rodrigo Santoro
Director: Noam Murro

This! Is! Sparta! (Again)

It's one of the iconic phrases from cinema over the past decade - and instantly calls to mind a six-packed Gerard Butler unleashing all kinds of hell in the 2007 movie, 300.

So it was inevitable that a sequel would make its way to the movies - and here is said sequel.

Starring Sullivan Stapleton as Greek general Themistokles, it's the story of the charge against the invading Persian forces as the Greeks try to unite and stop demi-god Xerxes (Santoro) and Artemisia (Eva Green) the leader of the Persian navy.

And that's about it for plot...

Based on a graphic novel, this Zack Snyder-influenced hollow blockbuster spectacle offers everything you'd seen in the first 300 movie and more of the same. More gore, more nudity (step forward a topless Eva Green wielding a sword), more slow-mo than you can shake a stick at and more visceral thrills that fall short of any kind of character growth.

During the hyper-stylised fighting, each slash unleashes a volcano of blood splatters as hordes of buffed up men shout on the battle fields - but it proffers up nothing more than an empty vessel, lacking in the kind of iconic moments the first film had.

Part of the problem with 300: Rise of an Empire is due to the writing of Themistokles - delivering serious speeches about turning young men into memories before trying to stir the troops into action once again doesn't provide a well-sketched out hero and certainly doesn't go anywhere near making him into the icon that Gerard Butler's Leonidas became. Stapleton tries as best as he can in amid his earnestness but he pales on the screen in comparison to the original Scot's presence.

Likewise, while Eva Green's Artemisia borders on the pantomime dame, she still manages more of a screen presence as her cold-hearted bitch sneers and eviscerates her way through hordes of Greeks. A powerplay sex scene is so over the top that it's more laughable than erotic and is deeply suited to the graphic novel pages and genre than on the big screen. Headey barely registers as Queen Gorgo, serving to deliver portentous pompous narrative that has no hint of self-parody in among the ludicrous seriousness of it all.

Similarly, director Murro's over-reliance on slow mo shots becomes tiring and uninspired as the soulless swords and sandals wannabe epic carries on. Granted, a few of the scenes really bring the epic and use the green screen to brutally magnificent life - a scene of Xerxes towering over his army is breathless with scale - but there's never really a moment in among the action that screens originality in among the never-ending battle scenes.

300: Rise Of An Empire may satiate those teen boys with a blood lust, but there's nothing to engage with among the big screen carnage - and there's certainly nothing to match the influence that 300 exerted over the cinematic world.

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