Stuff for Dads

  Starship Troopers 3 - Marauder (DVD)

Starring: Casper Van Dien.

Rated: 15.

Story: Humanity is under threat from alien bugs and war rages across the galaxy. Back home, the totalitarian regime manipulates the situation for its own ends.

Johnny Rico returns from the first film to shoot giant bugs and flirt with cute, girlie troopers... again.

Comments: Space ships, big guns, beautiful people and large bugs exploding in a splatter of slime - the Starship Troopers films are dumb fun. As an unexpected extra, there's also a little lesson on the dangers of Fascism and media manipulation.

The first film deals with demonisation of enemies, the second with the idolisation of heroes and this third one covers the appropriation of religion for political purposes. It's not deep but considering we're talking about an action flick with explosions, gratuitous nudity and giant bugs, it's impressive. Although it's unclear whether the conclusions are ambiguous by design or through fuzzy reasoning, there's more to think about than in many projects with vastly higher budgets.

Conclusion: Cheap, silly and surprisingly entertaining.

Explosions: Plenty.
Big bugs: Hordes.
Huge bugs: A few.
Absolutely astoundingly enormous bugs and slimy, psychic, pop-singing, human military commanders: One of each.

Rating: 3/5.

Labels: action, film review, film review (vol.6), quick, sci-fi

 
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  Babylon A.D. (DVD)

Starring: Vin Diesel & Michelle Yeoh.

Rated: 12.

Story: In the not-so-distant future, a gruff mercenary (Diesel) must escort a mysterious young woman and her mentor (Yeoh) from a Mongolian convent to America. Along the way, they get involved in plenty of random violence, some dubious genetic manipulation and the cynical machinations of a New Age cult.

Just to make sure we know it's the future, showers talk to them.

Comments: Sometimes, despite being bad, a film can display something of its original potential. It's possible to see what the makers might have achieved if only they hadn't messed up. Perhaps with more money or stronger performances, a tighter script, better pacing or a touch of divine intervention, the project might have worked out.

Then there are movies like Babylon A.D. which are such a mess you wonder if you're unwittingly watching a reel of deleted scenes rather than the film itself.

What was everyone involved thinking? The script is incoherent and the dialogue ranges from uninteresting to nonsensical. Bizarre locations and dull action sequences are inserted for the sake of it. The plot and characters take so long to develop, it's hard to care about them. In fact, after an hour and a quarter, I was desperate to fast-forward the film to the end. On checking, however, I discovered I was only ten minutes from the credits anyway. I was relieved but also hugely confused since the movie seemed barely half way through...

Babylon A.D. feels like science fiction put together by people whose only experience of the genre is Escape from New York, Highlander: The Source and a few snatches of Blade Runner. ('Look! Talking showers, lots of guns, neon advertising and really, really big TVs - it's the future! Let's add some thugs on motorbikes...') There's no depth or point to it, merely some cool gadgets. It's a shambles.

Conclusion: Not quite as engaging as the episode of Basil Brush my kids are currently watching as they eat their tea.

Explosions: Some.
Unexpected location changes: Several.
The accidental cage match: Implausible.
Kung Fu nuns: One.
The best bit?: The end arriving an hour ahead of schedule.

Rating: 1/5.

Labels: film review (vol.6), sci-fi

 
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  Tears of the Sun (DVD)

Starring: Bruce Willis and Monica Bellucci.

Rated: 15.

Story: As civil war breaks out in Nigeria, a team of US Navy SEALS enters the country to extract an American aid worker (Bellucci). She won't leave without a bunch of refugees she's been helping, though. The soldiers choose to ignore orders and do what they can to help the locals.

This mainly involves shooting other locals.

Comments: In many ways, Tears of the Sun is remarkably similar to the recent Rambo sequel - different continent but the same tale of a cute foreign aid worker being extracted from a jungle swarming with sadistic enemies. In this one, however, it's an entire squad of soldiers led by Bruce Willis saving the day rather than just Stallone with a very big gun.

On a moral level, it's all very cut and dried. The Americans blunder into a conflict that has inhuman psychopaths on one side and innocent walking-wounded on the other. Failing to help the refugees out, despite orders not to interfere, is clearly presented as unacceptable behaviour for decent people, no matter how many brutalised conscripts get blown up in the process.

As an action film Tears of the Sun is quite uneven. There's very little action at all in the first half, giving the impression the whole thing is going to be a tense reflection on the horrors of war. Skirmishes become more frequent after that but the humungous, explosion-filled battle at the end seems incongruous and unbelievable, nevertheless. Cameroon springs up from nowhere and suddenly it's a sprint to the border with airstrikes and bazookas everywhere. Unfortunately, following on from the scenes of cruelty and torture earlier in the film, a standard Hollywood blast-fest just doesn't seem appropriate.

The movie is more palatable than Rambo but the message still appears to be 'War is terrible; let's send in some Americans with guns to sort it out'.

I'm not entirely convinced...

Conclusion: A film confused enough to cast Monica Bellucci as an American...

Explosions: Lots but they're saved for the end.
Pretty views of jungle: Plenty.
Not so pretty views of torture: Almost as many.
Indistinguishable SEALs wearing camouflage and facepaint: Six... No, eight... Er... Or were there ten?
The answer to all the world's problems: Bruce Willis.

Rating: 2/5.

Labels: action, action (vol.4), film review (vol.6)

 
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  Resident Evil - Degeneration (DVD)

Starring: Some voice actors who no doubt wish to remain nameless... and an umbrella.

Rated: 15.

Story: Terrorists have released the T-virus in an airport and there's a danger the G-virus may be let loose as well. Leon S Kennedy and Claire Redfield must renew their Raccoon City partnership, shoot some zombies in the head and then have a never-ending boss battle with a mutated monster that just won't die.

So, yeah, imagine a new Resident Evil game with no actual game, only the cutscenes.

Scary, eh?

(And not in a good way...)

Comments: Capcom have milked the Resident Evil franchise hard since the release of the first game in 1996. After almost twenty different games, three live-action films and a stack of merchandising, here's a computer-animated movie picking up the plot a while after Resident Evil 4. That's the game, not the film, by the way, since the storylines in the two media have diverged. But, then again, if you didn't know that already you should probably move along now because Degeneration is hard enough to follow even with a hazy memory of having played half a dozen of the games.

In particular, if Resident Evil 2 passed you by, you're not going to get much out of this.

Sadly, however, knowing your Umbrella from your T-virus still doesn't make Degeneration much fun. The first twenty minutes show some promise: decent visuals, a vaguely intriguing setup, familiar characters and zombies. There's a possibility it might all rumble along nicely. Then Leon turns up and everything goes pear shaped. Nothing makes sense, the middle section is dull and the final third is an excess of daft mayhem allowed to run wild without the budget restraints of live-action.

Some of the dialogue is so bad it's almost good but most of it is just plain bad. The voice acting is frequently wooden and occasionally the pauses between lines are too long, as if the recordings haven't been edited together properly. It speaks volumes about the quality of the script that Leon has to spend a couple of minutes at the end of the film explaining what was going on and the motivations of the other characters.

We've grown used to this level of ineptness in games because the cutscenes are dictated by the confines of the unlikely gameplay (which in Resident Evil consists of searching spooky mansions for weird keys while shooting zombies and solving obscure logic puzzles). As long as the games are fun to play, it doesn't matter if the story is ropey - the clunky dialogue adds to the B-movie atmosphere. Take out the game, however, and all that's left is a B-movie.

Conclusion: Plan Zombie from Outer Space.

Explosions: Plenty.
Brooding loners, cute little girls who need rescued, dodgy senators, unstoppable monsters, underground facilities and scientists who talk too slowly: One of each.
Ridiculous feats of acrobatics: Several.
Impressive CGI: Lots.
Good writing: None.

Rating: 2/5 if you've enjoyed the games, else 1/5.

Labels: action (vol.4), film review (vol.6), horror, sci-fi

 
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  In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (DVD)

Starring: Jason Statham, Ray Liotta, Burt Reynolds, Shaggy, Gimli, Hellboy, Terminator 3 and that Lara-a-like who was in CSI: New York for a bit.

Rated: 15.

Story: A farmer in a generic fantasy kingdom battles his way through a horde of generic green men in rubber masks to defeat a generic evil wizard on a generic quest to rescue his generic pretty wife.

And the farmer's name?

Farmer.

I mean, honestly...

Comments: You're going to have to like sword fights for this one.

Sometimes these are the kind of sword fight where a hero can leap up and run across the heads of a gaggle of opposing soldiers to reach his goal, where 'elves' swing on vines that move as if the end off-screen is attached to a zip line and where a boomerang can hit two 'orcs' hard enough to knock them out but still return to the thrower's hand. Mostly they're the kind of sword fight where the hero laboriously cuts a swathe through a massed brawl of extras. It's probably the same extras in each scene, only the scenery changes - a village, a forest, a forest at night, a cave, a forest in the rain, a barn, a forest at night in the rain, a different forest...

Seriously, this film must have the about the highest SFPM (Sword Fights per Minute) rate of any movie ever, making it rather dull and repetitive after not very long. This isn't helped by poor dialogue, hammy acting and a plot that's less sophisticated than those featured in a majority of the old Dungeons & Dragons cartoons.

The combined result is something that appears more of a montage of deleted scenes from the Lord of the Rings than anything else.

Conclusion: Plenty of swords but you'll soon tire of them and spend most of the film wondering what form of sorcery was used to convince so many recognisable faces to take part.

Explosions: None.
Swords: Countless.
Cute females: Three.
Boomerangs that defy the laws of physics: One.
Ways the film could be improved: Plenty. (Almost anything would work. For instance, how about some Scooby-Doo? Matthew Lillard doesn't look right without a computer-animated dog next to him.)

Rating: 2/5.

Labels: action (vol.4), fantasy, film review (vol.6)

 
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  Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - Season 1 (DVD)

Starring: Lena Headey, Thomas Dekker & Summer Glau.

Rated: 15.

Story: Forget Terminator 3 ever happened. A few years after Terminator 2, Sarah Connor (Headey) and her teenage son, John (Dekker), take a jump through time to the present day. They're fugitives from the law and hunted by murderous cyborgs from the future who are intent on killing John before he grows up to lead resistance against Skynet - the computer system still destined to obliterate humanity with nuclear weapons.

Aided by Cameron, a re-programmed cyborg (Glau), Sarah and John attempt to prevent Skynet being created. This tends to involve moral dilemmas and explosives...

Comments: You're not going to get far with this if you haven't seen the first couple of Terminator movies. That said, if you haven't seen the first couple of Terminator movies, why not? Cyborgs, big fights, time travel and Linda Hamilton - the only thing missing is ninjas. Go watch them now.

The TV series is obviously working on a smaller budget, so involves fewer big fights and more tense situations and sneaking about. Thanks to some excellent editing and pacing this works well. Some of the attempts at lightening the mood aren't so great, though, with too many of the jokes centred around cyborgs not understanding human idioms and behaviour.

It would have been easy for The Sarah Connor Chronicles to follow a 'Terminator of the Week' formula but, thankfully, this is avoided. Each episode concentrates on a new lead in stopping Skynet, with the hunt for Sarah and John forming a backdrop to the whole series. The episodes are more self-contained than in Heroes but not as much as in Battlestar Galactica. Unfortunately, this is sometimes unsatisfying, providing neither closure nor much overall plot advancement. Despite there only being nine episodes, they quickly blend together. There aren't any duffers but, then again, none really stand out.

All in all, this first season is definitely worth watching if you enjoyed the films. Whether there's enough going on for the show to maintain momentum through a full second season is another question.

Oh, and Lena Headey with an American accent is just wrong.

Conclusion: Good but is it going anywhere?

Explosions: Regular.
Tension: High.
Slightly clunky humour: Occasional.
Psycho cyborgs who just won't die: Frequent.
Ninjas: Not enough.

Rating: 4/5.

Labels: action (vol.4), film review (vol.6), sci-fi, thriller

 
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  Rambo (DVD)

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Darla from Angel, Chappelle from 24 and a whole load of Burmese people dying violently.

Rated: 18.

Story: A group of American missionaries sneak into Burma to bring aid to those being mistreated by the military government. They get captured. Luckily, the taciturn bloke with the big muscles they picked as their boatman has something of a history of mounting single-handed rescues.

Lots and lots of people who can't speak English die...

Comments: I was fourteen when the last Rambo film was released, so I was hugely aware of it but never actually got to see the movie. Having watched this, however, I'm not exactly going to be rushing to find out what I missed. The plot is thin, the dialogue is dreadful and there's vast amounts of gore for the sake of it.

Most of the film is merely a justification for the extended carnage in the final scenes. The Burmese military is portrayed as simply evil, with every soldier deserving to be splattered to a fine red mist by automatic fire. Peaceful attempts to ease the situation are obliterated; controlled aggression fails. Only a homicidal pensioner on steroids can get the job done.

There's no denying that Burma can be a pretty horrible place to be. I'm not entirely comfortable that the answer is to send in Sylvester Stallone with a very big gun, though. Mixing a dumb action film with real world suffering produces a movie that's just unpleasant to watch.

Conclusion: Let's hope this isn't the future of edutainment.

Explosions: Not that many (unless you count people being vaporised by a hail of bullets...)
Stallone's performance: Surprisingly solid.
Stallone's muscles: Surprisingly large.
Stallone's top speed: Surprisingly fast.
Stallone's age: Just plain surprising.

Rating: 2/5.

Labels: action (vol.4), film review (vol.6)

 
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  Hancock (DVD)

Starring: Will Smith, Charlize Theron, Jason Bateman and one of the most ill-conceived plot twists in cinematic history.

Rated: 12.

Story: Hancock (Smith) is immortal, invulnerable, super strong and able to fly. He's also an irritable drunk who's quick to take offence and who doesn't care if he creates a big hole in the road every time he lands. His attempts to help people always end in disaster and swearing.

Then he saves the life of a philanthropic PR man (Bateman) who offers to clean up his image. After a little amusing rehab, everything goes downhill...

Comments: Hancock starts out in a promising fashion. It completely breaks from the Spider-Man superhero movie template of girlfriend trouble -> superpower -> little fight -> angst-ridden girlfriend trouble -> big fight -> pose-striking finish. There's no sitting around for half an hour waiting for Hancock to gain his powers and master them - it's straight to car-smashing chaos. Hurrah!

Sadly, it doesn't last. The idea is great but the execution has no conviction. You'd imagine there'd be plenty of comic potential in the concept of a superhero who's lacking in self control, manners and personal hygiene, but the laughs quickly die out. All too soon, Hancock evolves from scumbag to X-Man wannabe and there's half an hour of sitting around as he masters his powers and we learn how he gained them.

The change of tack almost exactly coincides with a cataclysmic plot twist which destroys the movie entirely. Suddenly the film goes from mildly entertaining superhero comedy to straight superhero action flick. It's not even a good superhero action flick. There seems to be an attempt to fit every mistake possible into forty-five minutes - there's angst, a dull CGI fight, nonsensical limitations to Hancock's power, tiresome brooding, a lack of a proper villain and a schmaltzy happy ending (with posing). Gah!

For once, a sequel stands little chance of redeeming matters. It would be Superman with added Will Smith, wisecracks and swearing. Not a hugely enticing prospect...

Conclusion: You've already seen the good bits in the trailer.

Explosions: Not many. Stuff tends to get smashed rather than going boom.
Jokes: Essentially one (and even the writers give up on it halfway through).
Missed opportunities: Several.
For the kids?: Totally not.
For anyone?: Maybe... but there's probably something better on TV.

Rating: 2/5.

Labels: action (vol.4), fantasy, film review (vol.6)

 
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  Mamma Mia! (DVD)

Starring: Meryl Streep, Colin Firth, Pierce Brosnan and Julie Walters.

Rated: PG.

Story: A pretty girl is getting married at her mother's rustic hotel on an isolated Greek island. She invites three of her mum's old boyfriends to the wedding in an effort to find out which one is her dad. This leads to embarrassing misunderstandings, plenty of soul-searching and lots of Abba.

Comments: There's every chance you were forced to watch this by your mum at Christmas. (Serves you right for giving it to her.) In case you managed to escape on this occasion, however, I thought I'd better give you a heads up so that you're prepared for next year.

Most of the movie is quite bearable. There's plenty of sea and sunshine, some great choreography and an excellent performance by Julie Walters. You'll obviously need to enjoy Abba music at least a little but it's not essential to be a huge fan - despite having been a teenager at a time when Abba was hopelessly uncool, I found nearly all the songs familiar and pleasant enough. I even occasionally paused the game I was playing on my DS so I could pay a little more attention to the dancing.

The three dads struggle with singing, though. They just about pull it off but you can tell that Pierce Brosnan in particular is having to try really, really hard.

And then there's the plot...

The scenery and music manage to keep things going for at least the first half of the film but then the story reaches a critical mass of awfulness that's impossible to ignore. At the very moment I realised this, my wife said, "This is where it turns into the kind of film you really hate." Sure enough, a series of half overheard conversations, 'white' lies and miscommunications ensued, reminiscent of especially cringeworthy episodes of Friends. (You know, the ones where Ross is at his most annoying.)

Luckily, I still had my DS handy and managed to phase most of the horror out by whacking orcs over the head with a large axe. Phew...

To top it all, the film presents a very odd view of marriage. Getting married and then travelling the world together constitutes being tied down, apparently, while taking the same trip as an unmarried couple doesn't. Or something... I suppose you shouldn't expect much from a story that's a Swedish version of Frankenstein's monster, constructed entirely of Abba songs...

Conclusion: You really wouldn't want to have to give this your full attention.

Explosions: None.
Cast members who can sing: Most.
Cast members who can barely sing: Three.
Cast members who can't both sing and move at the same time: Colin Firth.
Abba songs spliced together in a desperate attempt to make a coherent story: Lots.

Rating: 2/5.

Labels: family, film review (vol.6), musical

 
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  DadsDinner Awards for 2008

Welcome to a low-down on the best and worst that's been released in 2008. Well, actually, not all of this stuff was released in 2008 - it's more a low-down on the best and worst stuff reviewed by DadsDinner in the last year.

Er, hang on, I haven't got round to reviewing all this yet. And I've probably forgotten stuff. Oh, and if I gave a list of the worst stuff, it would be full of obvious tat for the Wii and DS and I can't be bothered with that.

So...

Welcome to a low-down on some of the best and most disappointing stuff that DadsDinner may or may not have reviewed in 2008.

Hmmm... I think I may have to hire a second-rate comedian and an X-Factor runner-up to present this next year and add an extra touch of professionalism...

Now, without further ado, here are the categories:

Films

The Best

The Dark Knight - As I keep saying, all superhero franchises should somehow start with a sequel. This second film in the new era is markedly better than Batman Begins and is packed full of action, mayhem and moral deliberation. Would you press the button?

Stardust - A sparkling, witty, hugely imaginative adventure that's the best thing since The Princess Bride.

The Disappointing

Hellboy 2 - Then again, maybe I'm wrong about the superhero sequels. This is a disastrous mix of lacklustre humour and out-of-place special effects. It's like the first film got spliced with Labyrinth. I kept expecting a bunch of muppets to turn up.

Battlestar Galactica Season 4 - The plot went pear-shaped in the last episode of Season 3 and things never entirely recover. It's still good but just not great.

WALL-E - Dull, dull, dull. Shoot me now.

Computer Games

The Best

Civilization Revolution - A turn-based strategy game that's accessible enough to just pick up and play but complicated enough to be entirely engrossing. Experimentally proven to be better than beer.

Fallout 3 - A post-apocalyptic adventure in the nuked remains of Washington DC. Sure, the combat is sometimes a little ropey and scavenging for supplies can get annoying, but how many other games can serve up totally fresh situations and experiences after thirty-five hours? Fallout 3 has the most fully-realised world in gaming.

Dead Space - It doesn't offer anything much new but this is the best survival horror game in a while. The graphics are excellent and there are any number of scares. If the sequel has better puzzles, it will be superb.

The Disappointing

GTA IV - Over-familiar, bloated and squint-inducing. Oh dear...

Card and Board Games

The Best

UNO - A simple card game that requires a little strategy and a whole heap of concentration. It can keep the entire family occupied for hours.

Cadoo - Pictionary, Charades and a couple of quiz games all rolled into one. Most importantly, it even works with two players.

Actually the worst

Junior Scrabble - Dull, dull, dull. Hit me over the head with a copy of WALL-E now.

Other stuff

The Best

Iceland chopped onions and peppers - I stopped buying fresh onions because I always discovered them turning blue at the back of the fridge a few weeks later. I hardly ever got round to chopping them. Now I can just rummage around in the freezer and pull out all the diced onion I could possibly want. It's an instant way to add flavour and vitamins to almost any meal.

Aveeno - Moisturising cream with the power of oatmeal! Fantastic on eczema and almost any other minor skin complaint.

Battery converters - They magically turn AA batteries into C and D batteries. This is very, very useful.

PlayStations and Pooh - One housedad's struggle to remain chirpy in a world full of sleep-deprived women and toddlers with toilet issues. Go read it now!

LOVEFiLM - Unlimited DVDs and games delivered to your door. Vast choice, excellent service, a great price and you get exciting post! Go on, you know you want to...

The Disappointing

Bath toys - Liable to go manky if combined with bath water. This is something of a design flaw... Rinse out some plastic bottles and give them to the kids instead.

Well there we have it. Give a big round of applause to the winners and shake your head sorrowfully as the losers shuffle off in shame. Feel free to add your own suggestions if I've missed anything.

And that's it for 2008. We're back to whatever random tack I can lay my hands on next time. Happy New Year!

Labels: computer game review (vol.4), film review (vol.6), other, toy/game review (vol.5)

 
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  War (DVD)

Starring: Jason Statham & Jet Li.

Rated: 18.

Story: An FBI agent (Statham) hunts a rogue CIA assassin (Li) who murdered his partner. They both end up in the middle of a gang war between Triads and Yakuza in San Francisco.

Comments: Looking through some old reviews, I chanced upon my comments on Running Scared. Remember that one? Nope, I'm not surprised, I didn't really either. It's a by-the-numbers crime thriller with an ending so stupid I had to wipe it from my mind.

Then I watched War.

Woh, deja vu. (Though thankfully it wasn't Deja Vu deja vu. That would have been even worse.)

Yep, the film is OK but many of the elements feel included simply for the sake of it. In particular, there's a dull and superfluous car chase somewhere in the middle that's completely pointless. Nonetheless, War would be decent enough if the makers hadn't felt compelled to round it off with some unlikely revelations.

Imagine a world where at the end of Aliens the queen learns to tap-dance, where Love Actually culminates in a shoot out with vampires or where the final fight in The Matrix involves animated penguins.

Fortunately, War doesn't come from that world. It does come from somewhere fairly close by, however. To quote my Running Scared review, "There's a plot twist ten minutes from the end which is so sharp it dislocates the plot entirely. It essentially re-writes everything which has gone before, causing it to make much less sense. The resulting conclusion feels like it was stolen from a generic action movie." Since War is a pretty generic action movie to begin with, this isn't such a disaster but it doesn't exactly help matters.

Statham and Li make it all passable but even the added presence of Robert Downey Jr, Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock wouldn't make it great.

Conclusion: Shoot, hit, hack, drive, boom... forget.

Explosions: Two (because you can't have an action film without multiple explosions).
Car chases: One (because you can't have an action film without a car chase either, apparently).
Meetings in a strip club: One (because... well, take a guess...)
Cool, exciting plot twists you don't see coming: Two. (That's double the statutory requirement!)
Reasons you don't see them coming: One's rubbish and the other's insane.

Rating: 3/5.

Labels: action (vol.4), film review (vol.6), thriller

 
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  The Muppet Christmas Carol (VHS)

Starring: Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Rizzo the Rat, The Great Gonzo and (a presumably extremely cash-strapped) Michael Caine.

Rated: U.

Story: It's Christmas Eve in nineteenth century London and Ebenezer Scrooge (Caine) is as mean and miserly as usual towards his bookkeeper, Bob Cratchit (Frog). When he returns home, however, Scrooge is visited by a succession of spirits who show him his past, present and future in an effort to reveal to him the error of his ways and release his inner Santa.

Comments: Yep, it's Christmas already. Our tree is up and covered in tinsel. The first cards have arrived. The plastic birds which tweet carols have fresh batteries. I even made the mistake of buying some gum-backed strips of shiny card, teaching the children how to make paper chains and then leaving them alone for half an hour. I came back to discover they'd been rather enthusiastic and the entire lounge was buried under strings of slimy, paper loops which had been licked to within an inch of completely dissolving.

Last year, our advent viewing at Sunday lunch was the BBC production of The Box of Delights. This year we dug out The Muppet Christmas Carol. We put it in the slot with some trepidation, unsure how the production would have aged and mildly concerned that the tape might have biodegraded.

Luckily, the film is still fantastic (and, somewhat to our surprise, our videoplayer still works). There's plenty of slapstick, some funny lines and a good helping of the original book. Scrooge and his family are played by real people and the spirits of Christmas are specially designed creations. The rest of the cast is made up of the regular muppet crew.

The most noticeable difference between the film and the book (apart from Tiny Tim being a cuddly frog, obviously) is that Jacob Marley has a brother, Robert, to fit the two grumpy, old muppets into the show. Gonzo also narrates as Dickens himself with Rizzo acting as comic sidekick.

The main downside is that it's a musical and a couple of the songs aren't that great. Well, actually, none of them are particularly good but most have interesting stuff going on in the background. Caine can't sing, though, and occasionally struggles to act. (Although, in his defence, he does spend most of the film surrounded by scene-stealing muppets, so he was probably more than happy just to get out with his sanity and a pay-cheque.)

All in all, The Muppet Christmas Carol has stood the test of time well but, weirdly, it also looks older than it really is. Go figure. Maybe it's the fuzzy VHS-o-vision, maybe it's cloudy memories of watching Miss Piggy as a seven-year-old or maybe it's merely the sad realisation that they don't make them like this anymore. Who knows? Search it out and remember how kid's films used to be.

Conclusion: Better than a whole host of CGI movies involving cute, furry penguins/squirrels/sharks/robots/zebras/llamas/wombats. (Delete as appropriate to whatever you've had the misfortune to watch recently.)

Explosions: None... just a flaming rat.
Roasted chestnuts: Some.
Christmas: Lots.
Snow: Heaps.
Swedish chef: Not enough.

Rating: 4/5.

Labels: family, film review (vol.6)

 
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  Iron Man (DVD)

Starring: Robert Downey Jr & Gwyneth Paltrow.

Rated: 12.

Story: Wise-cracking playboy and electronics genius, Tony Stark, is captured by a local warlord in Afghanistan while doing a demo of his company's latest missile technology. The warlord demands Stark makes him some of the missiles. Instead, Stark escapes by making a rocket-powered exo-skeleton out of a couple of bazookas and a tin can.

Irritated that his company's weapons are falling into the wrong hands, Stark builds a better suit to become a superhero and put things right.

Meanwhile, the original suit falls into the wrong hands...

Comments: Finally someone's heard my constant moaning about angst-ridden superheroes who spend all their time complaining and/or doing their laundry. Stark is arrogant, funny and the life of the party. Being played by Robert Downey Jr, he's also charming with it and entertaining to watch (unlike Hayden Christensen in Jumper). At last, a superhero who actually quite enjoys it and gets on with smashing things.

I've still got a couple of gripes, though:

1. Why does the first superhero film in a franchise always have to deal with how the hero became super? I really don't care. It's not like it ever makes sense anyway. Is it really possible to build advanced servo-systems in a cave in Afghanistan using a hammer and anvil while recovering from a major injury? I don't think so.

It would be much better if the whole issue was dealt with in a couple of flashbacks somewhere in the middle and the plot simply went straight for explosions and smashing. That worked well enough for Batman.

2. Superheroes fighting their evil alter-ego isn't very interesting. Lately, we've had Hulk vs Abomination, Spider-Man vs Venom and Iron Man vs ... er... Other Iron Man. Unsurprisingly, these battles between combatants with similar powers tend towards stalemate until the hero gets clever or desperate. They're never as much fun as fights between characters with diverse abilities.

Not to mention that the concept of equally matched adversaries was pretty much fully exploited in Superman 2 twenty years ago.

Still, Downey Jr is great and at least this is trying something different from yet another re-run of Spider-Man.

Conclusion: Not bad but it would have been even better if they'd just skipped this one and started with a sequel.

Explosions: Big and everywhere.
Quips: Frequent.
Unlikely science: Prevalent.
Totally implausible feats of engineering: Almost constant.
Angst: Thankfully absent.

Rating: 4/5.

Labels: fantasy, film review (vol.6), sci-fi

 
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  Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight (DVD)

Starring: The voices of Kiefer Sutherland, Michael Rosenbaum, Lucy Lawless and Michelle Trachtenberg.

Rated: 12.

Story: The evil dragon goddess is intent upon conquering the world of Krynn and a motley band of adventurers must hunt out the necessary magical gizmos required to defeat her.

It's like The Lord of the Rings with dwarves.

Er, no, hang on... It's like The Lord of the Rings with a mysterious old wizard who falls down a deep pit.

Erm...

With a very short thief? Nope. A forest full of arrogant elves? That won't do either...

I know! Dragons! It's like The Lord of the Rings with dragons...

...and, er, the worst animation this side of 1990.

Comments: I have fond memories of reading the original Dragonlance trilogy as a teenager. They're a fantasy epic involving plenty of battles, numerous imaginative locations and a set up based on Dungeons & Dragons. Discovering they'd made an animated movie of the first book promised a nostalgic return to my youth without the effort of actually having to read hundreds of pages of text.

Sadly, things didn't quite turn out that way...

Dragons of Autumn Twilight simply doesn't work as a film. Cramming the whole book into 100 minutes leads to a frantic scramble from one battle to the next. Having about a dozen main characters doesn't help either. Most of them barely get a line or two per scene and seem defined by a brief checklist of idiosyncrasies picked up from a quick flick through the novels. Flint the dwarf: Allergic to horses and gets teased about being old. Check. Tasslehoff the diminutive thief: Short and steals things. Check. Raistlin the magic user: Suspicious, sickly (cough, cough!) and stained yellow. Check. Etc.

Sutherland and Trachtenberg do a great job with voice acting but this merely emphasises how little their characters get to say. Lawless is stuck with some ropey dialogue. Rosenbaum gets a bigger role than the others (Tanis) but is unconvincing.

All this might be forgivable, or at least tolerable, if the film was a visual spectacle. Unfortunately, on a technical level, Dragonlance is an abomination. The animation is jerky and there's a blurriness to the visuals that would have made me take out the tape and shake it if I'd been watching on VHS. Meanwhile, the points where computer-generated 3D monsters turn up and interact with the (very flat looking) 2D of the rest of the film are laughably awful. It all gives the impression it was made in 1989 and then underwent a shoddy conversion from the North American NTSC TV format to PAL. That it was released in 2008 is unbelievable.

Rather than scratch the nostalgia itch, the movie just made me want to read the books again. I'd have been better off skimming through the synopses on Wikipedia...

Conclusion: If you loved the books, you'll want to watch this to the end. You'll wish you hadn't bothered starting in the first place, though.

Explosions: Quite a few but you could have something more spectacular up on YouTube in half an hour with only the aid of three matches, a webcam and a potato.
Dragons: Loads. These look slightly better than the explosions. (You'd need an entire box of matches and two potatoes.)
Redeeming features: Er... After this, they're unlikely to inflict the sequels on us.

Rating: 2/5 if you enjoyed the books, else 1/5.

Labels: action (vol.4), fantasy, film review (vol.6)

 
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  Stardust (DVD)

Starring: Claire Danes (the vet from Terminator 3), Charlie Cox, Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert De Niro, Sienna Miller & Ricky Gervais.

Rated: PG.

Story: In a small Victorian-esque town, Tristran (Cox) attempts to win the heart of the love of his life (Miller) by tracking down a fallen star and bringing back a piece. This leads him into the magical kingdom of Stormhold which is hiding through a gap in a dry-stone wall.

Before long, he's competing with evil witches, murderous princes and gender-confused pirates to claim the prize.

Comments: This is a great fairy tale for the whole family. There are some lessons on identity, ambition and dreams but the film never takes itself too seriously. Whimsical humour mixes with beautiful scenery, restrained special effects, decent action and a whole load of imagination.

Apart from a handful of minor imperfections, the film is superb from beginning to end. Claire Danes over-emotes on occasion in an annoying, head-bobbing kind of way. Also Tristran turns from zero to hero rather unconvincingly - it's too fast to be believable but not over-played enough to quite work as parody. Oh, and Ricky Gervais is in it. (Fortunately, he only turns up for a couple of scenes before coming to a sticky end but you'll still want to slap him.)

These niggles are only really apparent because the rest of the film is so fantastic, however. Go watch Stardust now.

Conclusion: Almost as good as a sequel to The Princess Bride.

Explosions: Only one but a host of other effects compensate.
Michelle Pfeiffer's make-up: Thick.
Suitable for the wife?: Definitely.
Suitable for the kids?: Probably. (Slapstick and magic will keep them entertained but under-fives will need a cuddle in the scary bits.)
Suitable for inhabitants of Ipswich?: Maybe... although they might take one bit a little personally...

Rating: 5/5.

Labels: action (vol.4), family, fantasy, film review (vol.5), film review (vol.6)

 
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