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Transformers Optimus Prime on David Letterman

Due for a UK cinematic release of June 5th this is one I’m really looking forward to.

Trailer

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Terminator: Salvation News

Called Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs it’s down for a 1st of July cinematic release (at least it’s not straight to DVD). Check out the trailer below for a first peek.

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Ice Age 3 Trailer

Max Payne (Region 2):
Max Payne (Mark Wahlberg) is a cop. He is a moody, angry soul with a permanent scowl who obsessively works on cold case files in an attempt to find clues as to who killed his wife and baby. He finds a lead which may help him and he pursues it. On his quest he comes across Mona Sax (Mila Kunis) whom he eventually joins forces with after her sister is killed possibly by the same people who killed Max Payne’s family. Max finds evidence of a cover up at the highest level with several clues pointing back to a drug called Valkyr made by Aesir Pharmaceuticals which just happens to be where his wife worked. Will Max find those responsible? Will he get to shoot them? And will he get more work as a gravel voiced talk over guy?

Max Payne is yet another on of the films that are based on a best selling game (of the same name) and as we have seen in the past (Alone in the Dark, Bloodrayne) things have not always turned out that well. Whilst I am happy to say that this movie doesn’t hit bottom like those two films it doesn’t full its potential. But I think that the only reason for this is that nothing really happens during the first half of the film, so much so that my partner told me that she was “going to bed because this is boring”.

This is a real shame as I think that Wahlberg is convincing as the grimacing Max Payne, anyone who has played the game will know that the look on Max’s face throughout that was a scowl and that is exactly what we get there, Max has nothing to be happy about, indeed, max has nothing really left to live for except to deal out revenge on those responsible for killing his family, indeed on certain flash backs we she the spirit of his wife tell him “not yet Max”.

We even have gorgeous Bond girl Olga Kurylenko in the film as a call girl in the film but I felt she was never really utilised enough, in fact I would have preferred to see her in the role of Mona Sax; not that Mila Kunis (who did play her) wasn’t any good as she was, but because I am a complete fanboy of Ms Kurylenko and felt her smouldering good looks should have been on screen more. That said Kunis does favourably as an assassin.

Other people of note are Beau Bridges as BB Hensley, Ludacris as Lt Jim Bravura and Chris O’Donnell as Jason Colvin whom are all there to either help or hinder Max in his quest for revenge. Chris O’Donnell playing the better of the three roles mentioned here.

The movie itself I didn’t feel was overly long, but it did feel unbalanced, not much happens in the first half of the movie and all the action and shooting comes in the last half, some would say that makes sense and yes it does, but I felt that it was a case of so little going on in the first 50% of the film that it could actually be construed as being a little boring.

Looks wise the film is stunning, Director John Moore (behind Enemy Lines) has captured the film-noir influence of the game and has brought it to life here as a dark, foreboding environment with snow flurries to add to the cold desolate chill of the place, The special effects too were all in the same style and quite stunning, in fact the look and feel of the film reminds me of a cross between Sincity, Constantine and 300, sound wise too it is all things good as the LFE rumbles out deep bass especially with each gunshot, it is a real gem on the eyes and ears.

Overall I think that Max Payne has just missed the mark. It isn’t a terrible film and I think that the viewer will be entertained but it is unbalanced and something is missing, whether it is a big of character development or something more interesting in the first half I don’t know, but something is amiss. As a game to film conversion I think it is one of the superior ones out there it looks and sounds beautiful and I do wonder if they will make a second as there is a second game called The Fall of Max Payne.

Extras:
The special features may as well not be there as all you get are three weblinks, I hope the full retail version gives more than this, pathetic.

Overall:
I feel that Max Payne has really captured the look and feel of the game very well but something has been lost in the execution of it. It is worth a watch but it doesn’t pick up until the last half.

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Max Payne DVD Review

Way back in time, 1984 to be precise a film came to our screen’s that was to become a cult movie. That movie was The Terminator. With several reincarnations, the last of which came to us in 2003 we thought that the franchise had been settled, but oh no, a new Terminator film called Terminator Salvation will be back on our screens in 2009.

I think that this new film has once again stirred up an interest in all things Terminator related and so Fox have decided to develop a TV drama series called “Terminator – The Sarah Conner Chronicles” and I have been lucky enough to have been sent season one to review.

Set between T2 and pretty much ignoring T3 Sarah Connor (Lena Headley) and her son John Connor (Thomas Dekker) are trying to both steer clear of the law after the destruction of the Cyberdyne labs (Which occurred at the end of the T2 movie) as well still trying to ensure the destruction of skynet which is the system that causes all of the destruction in the first place.

The law of course are still looking for them and agent James Ellison (Richard T. Jones) of the F.B.I is on their case in an attempt to bring them to justice. Terminator – The Sarah Connor Chronicles of course would be nothing without Terminators and in taking a plot point from T2 we have the good Terminator and bad Terminators. Something I wondered about after watching the season was why do the good guys only get one Terminator and the bad guys seems to be able to send as many back as they wish?

The Good Terminator is Cameron Phillips (Summer Glau) she has been sent back by the older John Connor (the one in the far future) to protect the 15 year old John Connor as depicted in the program, and I also believe to give his younger self some lovely eye candy to look at, as he must have remembered not getting much when he was growing up. Cameron, like the Arnold Schwarzenegger character in T2 is sworn to protect John no matter what.

TV programs have an added difficulty over a theatrical release and that is that whereas a movie has on average 90 to 120 minutes to get its story out, a TV program has to engage the viewer over a much longer time span, therefore we need more character development as well as something to push the story along with each episode. But does The Sarah Connor Chronicles engage? Well I think that is a resounding yes. Each episode is approximately 40 minutes long and watched all 9 of season 1 Episodes in one sitting, I just felt compelled to watch the next episode as each one ended and that has to be an endorsement for the story telling. Oh and season 1 is only 9 episodes long due to the writers strike in the US when the program was in production. And I am pleased to say that a 13 episode season 2 has already been approved.

Acting wise everyone is very competent. The gorgeous Lena Headley who plays Sarah Connor looks tough yet beautiful at the same time even if she does seem a little young to play John’s mother. Thomas Dekker who plays John Connor is perfectly capable in the role, nothing really memorable about it but still he is convincing as the boy who knows what one possible destiny will make him. But a TV sow is nothing without a little eye candy and we have this in Summer Grau. She plays Cameron the “good” Terminator assigned by the older John Connor to protect his younger self. Some of the programs humorous lines go to her, mainly as she is of student age and trying to fit in, but yet she is a machine and does not know all the nuances of humanity, some of the comments she makes are great, but are delivered without belittling the show.

The bad guys are… well the bad guys. There are no real “bosses” in the program, at least not yet, and the Terminators seem to have different missions therefore not all are hunting Connor directly, we obviously see the Connors & entourage get mixed up with these Terminators to various levels.

I didn’t really detect anything that felt bad or out of place with anything over the entire three disks, there was one time when in the pilot episode there was a shoot out and the Terminators gun never seems to run out of bullets, even though he was using a regular pistol. But that was pretty much about it.

Anyone who enjoys programs like this will lap it up; it is a bit like the Terminator film but wrapped up in an X-Files-esque package and after creating a cracking first season I am really looking forward to season two.

Discs:

There are 9 episodes over 3 discs in season 1

Episode Listing
Pilot:
Gnothi Seauton
The Turk
Heavy Metal:
Queen’s Gambit:
Dungeons & Dragons:
The Demon Hand:
Vick’s Chip:
What He Beheld:

Each disc has an option to play which will play each episode in turn. Or you can go into Episodes to watch each individually. Some Episodes have a scissor icon next to them which I think indicates that you can see the cut scenes for that episode or you can go to a section called terminated scene’s to look at the deleted scenes. You also have the languages option to choose the language of choice.

Languages:
Spoken Language – English
Subtitles – English, Netherlands, off

Picture:

As you would expect from a brand new production with picture quality is superb, rivalling many movies that I have seen. Dark shot such as in warehouses, underground etc look great, the blacks are deep and yet don’t lose details; there are no problems that I could detect with the transfer at all. Outdoor scenes are generally bright and colourful, and there was no colour blooming. An excellent transfer with no detectable grain on my system.

Sound:

Most audio comes from the front array with the dialogue being clear and concise, there was the occasional use of surrounds but nothing excessive, explosions seemed full with a nice bass. The balance between the loud noises and dialogue seemed to be well balanced.

Extras:

Very disappointing on the extras front with just a couple of deleted scenes over 2 of the discs, none of them really add much to the story.

Overall:

A brilliant, well made TV show that has been given 2nd season approval. A good story line with each episode well balanced between action, effects and progression of the story, thoroughly recommended. it would have scored an 8 but the overall score dropped to 7 due to a real lack of extras.

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Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, DVD Review

A group of students are going on a trip to France. While they are waiting for their plane to taxi from the gate, Alex (Devon Sawa) has a premonition that the plane will explode after take off. Alex tries to rush off the plane in a panic and six other passengers end up being thrown off with him. Just minutes later while they are being detained in the lounge they see the plane explode through the window.

Naturally everyone is very suspicious of Alex and how he knew this was going to happen. Things start to become more sinister as the surviving passengers start to get killed off. While the FBI suspects Alex is involved, he suspects that a higher force is cleaning up from a mistake.

Video / Audio

Video quality is excellent, as you might expect from such a recent film. The picture comes in a 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen format and is sharp and richly coloured. There are quite a few dark scenes in the film and they come through very well.

The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is very atmospheric. The film is loaded with surround effects and the whole sound stage is used effectively. One of the more impressive things though is the use of subtle sound effects like the wind breezing through the windows. The film also has an excellent and atmospheric musical score.

Extras

First up is the commentary track. This track feature James Wong (Director), Glen Morgan (Writer / Producer), James Coblentz (Editor) and Jeffrey Reddick (Screenplay). One of the problems I always have when a commentary has this many people is that I can’t keep track of who’s currently talking. It would have been nice to have a subtitle display the name of whoever’s talking during the commentary. Complaints aside, it’s a pretty good commentary with some real insights into the background of the film. For example we find out that all the character names are tributes to Horror actors and directors.

Next up is a selection of three deleted scenes. These scenes are all linked as they make up a whole subplot and alternative ending to the film. It’s worth checking them out to decide which ending you prefer. Also hats off to New Line here for taking the time to make these scenes anamorphic.

There’s a 13-Minute featurette on the process of test screening the film. The feature discusses how they changed the ending after the results of test screenings. There’s also read out some of the more humorous comments on the questionnaires. There are some major spoilers on this extra so don’t even think about watching it before you watch the film.

The other featurette is a 20-Minute feature on Pam Coronado, a Psychic or Intuitive Investigator as they call it. Whether you believe in this stuff or not, the extra is interesting enough to watch once.

The rest of the extras are a Theatrical Trailer, some extensive Cast & Crew Bios and two games. One of these games is a Psychic Eye test in which you have to guess the card from a choice of five. After playing several times I can conclude that I’m about as psychic as a dead fish. The other games is called death clock. After answering a series of questions on your general health, it tells you the date you will die on, charming.

Finally, although I don’t normally mention them as an extra, I have to say that I quite liked the animated menus. They are fairly simplistic in style but very effective.

Overall

I actually fly around Europe quite a lot with my job and no matter how many times I get on a plane I still fear flying. If you’re like me then the opening 20 minutes will utterly scare the pants off you. The way Alex checks the body of the plane over and watches the flaps / engine etc to make sure they’re working is just like when I’m on a plane. This just goes to make it all the more scary as the flight starts to go wrong. When things do start to go wrong my stomach was churning just watching it.

As I mentioned at the start of the review, I am not a big horror fan. I quite enjoyed this film though, it has more than it’s fair share of jump out of your seat moments. The violent scenes, while pretty gruesome aren’t too over the top and I’ve definitely seen a lot worse. One of the things that always puts me off these kind of films is the fact that they always have a rubbish ending. This one isn’t actually too bad though, not the best I’ve seen, but definitely not the worst either.

The acting generally was very good with notable performances from Devon Sawa as Alex and Ali Larte as Rivers. There’s also a brief but very good role played by Tony Todd as Bludworth the undertaker. He comes across as extremely sinister and puts a real chill up the spine. Generally the rest of the cast are very good with only one or two actors looking really wooden.

Although I did enjoy it, this is basically another teen horror movie and if you’ve feel that you’ve overloaded on your scream movies it might be a bit too samey for you. For me though, with the jump out of your skin moments and very scary first twenty minutes, plus a good selection of extras, I’m going to give it 4 out of 5.

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Final Destination, DVD Review

I first saw the JCVD trailer a little while ago and thought that the man himself must be getting a little skint and needs to pay some bills, sure he has had regular work throughout the 2000’s but most of it I’ve never heard before and I assume are all low budget offerings which muddy his name further.

But after watching the trailer I have to say that this film looks pretty good, He plays the role of himself but as a out of work actor that is going through a myriad of personal problems and so he returns to Brussels where he is a national hero

He finds himself in a hostage situation and mistakenly the police believe that the man himself is holding up the post office and he has to rely on his brain not his muscles to get out of the situation and protect the hostages.

Check out the trailer, I certainly think that this maybe worth a visit to the cinema, after all IMDB has given it a 7.9 (at time of writing)

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JCVD, Jean Claude Van Damme Movie