The story is the origin of Captain America that comic book readers know inside and out except slightly tweaked to make the most out of the cheesier elements and make them work for modern audiences. Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is a slight Brooklyn kid in the early forties just as America is joining the war effort in Europe. Rogers wants nothing more than to fight for his country like his friends but his physical limitations hold him back and the army refuse to allow him to sign up. On his fifth attempt to forge records and become enlisted, Rogers is spotted by scientist Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci) a defector from Germany working on a formula to create an army of super soldiers. Rogers manages to pass the physical with Erskine’s help and joins a crew of trainees and potential candidates to become a super being trained by the gruff Colonel Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones) and British agent Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell). Against all odds and showing the kind of courage and self sacrifice that a hero should, Rogers is picked to be the first candidate and physically transformed into a perfect being of maximum strength and agility. This brings him to the attention of the villainous Nazi agent of Hydra Johann Smit aka The Red Skull (Hugo Weaving) who has a few secrets of his own and has harnessed a cosmic power which will give the Nazi’s the advantage when it comes to weapons technology. The scene is set for a showdown of epic proportions.

There is a lot to squeeze into Captain America’s origin story and the screenwriters could have easily been overwhelmed trying to fit it all in. The core of the story is the Indiana Jones meets Hellboy action epic with brilliant stunts and effects but the writers also find time to squeeze in the Howling Commandos, James ‘Bucky’ Barnes, the romance with Peggy Carter, Howard Stark (Tony’s dad)  and of course the introduction of the ‘man out of time’ scenario which will no doubt play out in The Avengers. Its a credit to writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely that the screenplay never feels weighted down or incoherent. It flows brilliantly, is funny in all the right places and the action kicks ass. Unlike Iron Man 2 and Thor, SHIELD are not shoe horned in at every opportunity, so the film is very much its own thing and not just a trailer for The Avengers.  It also looks phenomenal, shot by DP Shelly Johnson with the same kind of affection and love that Bryan Singer showed with Superman Returns. Every frame has a warm nostalgic glow and despite some obvious green screen which really showed up in the 3D version, the effects are pretty seamless. The trailers brought about much snickering because of Chris Evan’s normal sized head on a weedy body. In the finished film the effect is flawless and believable and I can’t wait for the special features on the DVD to see how they did it. Evans was a smart choice in the casting for this role, he is believable as a truly selfless being and is never seen spouting the sort of jingoistic balls that Cap occasionally spouts in the comics. They portray Rogers as a man with a heart of gold and balls of steel but also a vulnerable soul. Its smart and could well be the most likeable character of all The Avengers seen on screen, how they are going to bring him into the modern world to make him become the ultimate leader of a band of superbeings is going to be interesting to watch. Hayley Atwell is an actress I’m not familiar with but now I am in love with her I will be watching what she does next with great interest. Atwell plays Peggy Carter as a powerful mold breaking woman with gumption and smarts in a world that doesn’t see females as having anything of value to add except window dressing. There is a scene where she walks into a British pub with a red dress on that is simply breath taking. Carter and Roger’s unspoken romance is handled well and never gets sugary until the right moment where it is that much more effecting. The supporting cast are also all really brilliant in their parts. Tommy Lee Jones is his normal reliable old self bringing weight and gravitas to a comic book blockbuster. Hugo Weaving essays a great villain essentially playing an insane deformed Nazi who has some back story essential to the plot but never slips into pantomime baddie mode. Stanley Tucci and Toby Jones are also great in their support/plot mechanic roles as are whoever played the Howling Commando’s.

I have a bit of a weird fetish for retro action films and paranormal Nazi science, I seem to be one of the only people who enjoyed Sky Captain and The World Of Tomorrow. Seriously though folks, in what has been a disappointing summer that seemed full of promise, Captain America delivers the goods with style and flair and is a genuine crowd pleaser.  It never goes trumpet blaring and chest beating for the USA but still manages to inspire one to be all you can be. Its very rare to see a film without cynicism that doesn’t get syrupy and has a wide eyed wonder and sense of adventure that works in these jaded times. Captain America IS that film, its the best summer blockbuster of 2011 hands down.

by Chris Holt

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Animal Kingdom takes place in Melbourne and begins with introverted teen Joshua Cody or J (James Frecheville) sitting next to the dead body of his mother who has just overdosed on heroin. At a loss for what to do once the body has been taken away he calls his Grandmother Janine or ‘Smurf’ (Oscar nommed Jackie Weaver) who agrees to take him in. Its at the new household where we meet the rest of the Cody clan, all up to their neck in crime of one form or another but mainly living through armed robbery. Baz (Joel Edgerton) is the leader and the calm family man centre. Darren (Luke Ford) is the youngest and most mellow of them all constantly smoking weed. Craig (Sullivan Stapleton) is a drug addict and a twitchy drug dealer with ties to the corrupt police force. Finally Pope (Ben Mendelsohn) is a volatile psychopath who constantly threatens to bring police attention down on them with his recklessness. When J is reunited with his family he learns that the family are lying low and Pope is in hiding as their recent actions have brought greater police attention than ever. J is happy at first but more and more finds the family intimidating and prefers to stay with his girlfriend and her family. Then a sudden unexpected death occurs and the fall out means that the family finds themselves in free fall with nobody to look out for them. This leads to double crossing and suspicion as Craig and Pope both bring the police net closer and closer through their actions. Sergeant Nathan Leckie (Guy Pearce) recognizes that J does not belong and approaches him to bring him in as a police witness before it is too late.

This is the kind of film that lives and dies on its performances and luckily Animal Kingdom delivers some crackers. Joel Edgerton is brilliant in this movie, based on his work in the Star Wars prequels you wouldn’t have thought he would have anywhere to go but he is fast proving to be an extremely versatile performer. I only realized this week that he played the dense Russian minion in Smokin Aces. His performance here is great and along with the rest of the cast feels completely natural. Essentially he is playing a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders, a man who despite extreme stress remains a devout family man with a moral code. He is the centre of the movie in the first half and really puts across the idea that without this man the family would be truly lost. Ben Mendelsohn as the psychotic Pope is also solid, delivering a truly heinous villainous performance that is unpredictable and scary. Whilst I was watching this I kept thinking that James Frecheville as our main character was wooden and seemed to be a bit of a cipher. After watching the film I’ve realized that this works for the story and the character, as J is truly an outsider, unsure of his place in the world and intimidated by the family he had forgotten but is suddenly reunited with. When J gets to show some emotion towards the end of the film it has that much more of an impact so ultimately its a pretty well judged performance and a good decision from Michod. Guy Pearce is his usual dependable self giving depth to a minor character who has two sides; happily family man and no nonsense police officer. Ultimately Jackie Weaver walks away with the film and was thoroughly deserving of that Oscar nod. Her Grandma/Matriarch character is perhaps the most scary performance of the lot. She has affection for her children which sometimes borders on incest and when she has to protect her pride she does it with a smile and the affectation of a kindly grandma. Despite being a coil of menace the character also has our sympathies, we are seeing a woman driven to extremes to protect the family life that is falling down around her ears. Its definitely one for the books.

David Michod has a style very reminiscent of early Christopher Nolan. The film visually looks very similar to Memento but with added slow motion scenes and an interesting use of light which makes the whole thing come across as a hazy summer memory. The film is told in flashback with a voiceover, so this was a smart decision and adds to the feel of the whole piece. Animal Kingdom is never less than a thrilling piece of cinema, its deliberately paced and takes time to unfold its story but stick with it and you will be rewarded. Thanks to the acclaim this film received Michod should go on to make some great films now, I just hope that he doesn’t completely abandon the low budget independent realm when the results are this masterful.

by Chris Holt

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Dead Hooker in a Trunk: The twin Soska sisters Sylvia and Jen are clearly insane and have surprised me that Canadian’s were capable this kind of thing, this is long way from the films of Guy Maddin. Dead Hooker in a Trunk is their directorial debut and is a low budget romp featuring the aforementioned crazy twins who with their friends end up with a dead woman in the trunk of their car. This leads to run ins with the type of scum not seen since Troma’s heyday and lots of consequence free violence against corrupt cops, pimps, serial killers, triads and members of the public. The lead sister and most violent of the two Sylvia plays a character named ‘The Cunt’ so you get a good idea of the kind of tone they are going for here. Despite very clearly being low budget and probably in need of better camera and sound people, the Soska’s debut has a tremendous energy to it and its quite possible with a bigger budget and professional actors these two babes could hit it out the park next time around. I can’t recall the specifics of the plot apart from when the hooker is discovered in the trunk everyone suddenly wants a piece, suffice to say it was never dull and must have been a blast to make which filters through to the viewer. Recently Vancouver was plagued by riots which were blamed on the fact they lost the Stanley Cup, I suspect the Soska sisters were involved somehow probably shooting their latest movie. ***

Confessions: Wow, just wow. I feel like I should be getting sick of Asian revenge sagas by now but each new one I watch offers me something fresh and exhilarating so bring it on. This is one hell of a good looking flick, each shot is a work of art and everything about it just screams class reminiscent of David Fincher’s best work. The plot concerns teacher Yuko who knows in her gut that one or two of her students were responsible for the death of her young daughter. The film begins with Yuko giving a final farewell speech to her class before making them feel sick and turn on the people she suspects of the murder. The film then continues afterwards telling the story from the point of view of each of the suspects and another girl in their class. There are twists and turns and revelations as the tension builds towards a gut punch finale where revenge is not only taken but lives are ruined forever. This movie feels dangerous, the teacher is trying to get savage psychological revenge on 13 year olds and with all the stories of students run amok in the press its easy to believe that the events here could actually happen. Most controversial of all is the fact that the opening scene has Yuko tell her students that the free cartons of milk she has just given out were infected with HIV. There again this film is Japanese and the culture there towards their kids seems to be completely different (Battle Royale?) The trick to the success of this film is that the characters are fully fleshed out and sympathetic and not just victims. Take Naoki the villain of the piece, we learn a lot about this character and that through circumstances beyond his control he has been twisted and molded into an evil little shit. Despite this come the climax you can’t help but feel sorry for the kid, Yuko uses the tragedies in his life against him, giving him false hope and ultimately devastating his very soul. Confessions is another successful example of an Asian revenge saga (if you read this blog you know the names of the others) that will stay with you for a long time and shows that envelope pushing can sometimes work in your favor.  ****

Jackass 3.5: I watched this on a Friday and was thinking that Ryan Dunn was a actually the funniest of the crew and then he died the following Monday. I was bummed out as the guy is only a year older than me at this point. Jackass 3.5 is the straight to DVD 80 minute long movie made from outtakes from the recent 3D cinema release. Its almost impossible to review this in the traditional sense. If you are a fan then you will love this if you are a critic for the Evening Standard then don’t bother. Much of this movie involves skateboards, catapults, paintballs, radio controlled helicopters, wild animals and snowboards most of which are used to inflict pain and play pranks. You could do worse on a Friday night and I hope that Dunn’s death doesn’t prevent Johnny Knoxville and his crew returning to our screens soon. It feels like hanging with old friends who never grew up. ***

Mulberry Street: This was released in the UK in 2008 under the title ‘Zombie virus on Mulberry Street’. That title made me dismiss the film sight unseen but since Jim Mickle’s second movie Stakeland has made a splash recently I thought I would go back and check out his debut. Mulberry Street is very reminiscent of the REC films as well as 28 days later and The Signal. Some kind of viral infection that comes from rats starts to infect the residents of the lower east side of Manhattan and the infected become violent, dribbling lunatics and start to take on the characteristics of rodents. An ex Boxer, an immigrant woman, an elderly man and his carer are trapped in an apartment block whilst the boxer’s daughter travels home from military service abroad back to the quarantined section of the city. This is one of those great low budget movies that clearly had no money to realise fully the devastation they wished to convey but manages to do so just through clever use of locations and shooting at night, the budget was only $60k and you would never think so. The performances from the unknown cast are all very good and they are believable residents of New York, they nail the accent and the mannerism’s perfectly. The set pieces are all expertly staged here as well, you have the typical zombies dragging people through windows and breaking down doors scenes but they are done very well with handheld cameras that never give you motion sickness. There are no scenes of men with machine guns mowing down hordes of zombies just scenes of unarmed men and women trying their best to survive by using what they have and thats what makes this film so surprising. I really enjoyed this film, it was a genuine surprise that I enjoyed the hell out of. Don’t let the crappy UK title turn you off, Mulberry Street is a great little lo-fi shocker.   ****

by Chris Holt

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The premise is simple enough; the first movie begins with a nice TV journalist conducting an expose of the lives of firefighters as a segment of the program ‘while you are asleep’. She flirts and bonds and then they get a call. The TV crew follows the firemen to an apartment building where the police are struggling to open a door to an old lady’s apartment because the old lady has seemingly gone bonkers. They get the door open and the old lady has indeed lost it, but she seems to have an uncontrollable temper and has gotten a bit bitey (think the infected from 28 days later). The crew manage to fend off the lunatic but find that suddenly the building has been sealed from the outside due to this infection and they can’t get out.

The infection spreads and the TV crew, firemen and remaining tenants of the building have to struggle to stay alive. The whole thing is incredibly intense despite a bit of a sag in the action halfway through. Its really violent and makes you jump right out of your seat but not in a telegraphed way.

The found footage format allows the directors Jaume Balugera and Paco Plaza to move the camera so that the audience has no idea when or where the next shock will come from. This all leads to one of the most unbearably intense finales I’ve ever seen in a horror film. I won’t spoil it but it involves night vision in a dark room with something that looks disturbing as hell.

The sequel picks up the action right where we left off with a SWAT team entering the building to search for survivors along with a priest who knows more than he initially lets on. This allows the camera action some variety in that each of the team has a camera mounted to their helmet. The swat team are attacked by the infected cast of the first movie and the infection spreads some more.

Meanwhile a gang of teenagers, also conveniently with a camera; break into the building through the sewers and get caught up in the slaughter. The increase in firepower allows for far more gory death’s including death by firework which is both hilarious and macabre.

The best thing about the sequel though is how it builds on the revelations in the final act of the first movie and while doing so becomes the best film of its type since, well since The Exorcist really. The ending is a major kicker which should lead further into Rec 3 & 4 which are being filmed as I write this. I for one cannot wait to see how they expand the mythology further still with a wider canvas to play on.

In the recent boom of found footage thrillers, these films are far and away the best. The Rec films are not just the fast moving zombie films they appear to be on the surface. Many people have not seen them due to the fact they are in Spanish and subtitled. Don’t let that put you off.  These films are just about the most blood thirsty fun you can have in a room with the lights off.

by Chris Holt

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His more recent work has overshadowed this simple truth but anyone who has seen the Hong Kong output of the late eighties and early nineties can testify to this. It was perhaps inevitable that Woo would eventually make his way to Hollywood where also inevitably his genius would be diluted and watered down until we got a film like Paycheck.

Now this is going to be controversial to some but I stand by this viewpoint.

John Woo’s best American film isn’t Face/Off or Windtalkers, it’s the first film he made over there, its Hard Target from 1993.

Sam Raimi was the producer responsible for shepherding Woo’s talent stateside and despite limited English and Raimi being on stand by to take over in case things didn’t work out, Woo made Jean Claude Van Damme’s best film and got the best performance out of him prior to JCVD. Despite being heavily censored to get an R Rating in the states, Hard Target feels like the only film Woo made in the studio system which was fully off the leash and crazy with its action scenes.

Face/Off was strangely muted, Broken Arrow was a poor imitation of Speed, Mission Impossible 2 was too in love with producer and star Tom Cruise and Windtalkers didn’t come close to fulfilling its potential. In Hard Target, Van Damme takes a two handguns blazing /split kicking approach to taking out the bad guys, grenades explode and pigeons fly in slo mo. People die violently and in ways that make you fist the air with joy,the lasting effect is a blood pumping adrenaline rush that I revisit time and again.

The story is basically a remake of 1930’s film The Most Dangerous Game, updated to an urban setting in this case New Orleans. Fouchon (Lance Henriksen) baits desperate homeless men (often ex military) with a promise of $10,000 if they can make it from one end of town to the next. Rich men then pay Fouchon for the privilege to hunt these poor men and bring them down like animals. What they don’t count on is that their latest kill, Douglas Binder has a daughter named Natasha (Yancy Butler) and she has come to town looking for him and asking all the questions they don’t want answered. Natasha ends up being saved from some thugs by Chance Boudreaux (Jean Claude Van Damme) a merchant sailor who was raised in the bayou by his uncle and has military training in his past. When her efforts with the police prove fruitless, Natasha hires Boudreaux to help her track down her father. This leads them to the attention of Fouchon and his right hand man Pik (Arnold Vosloo) and they decide that Boudreaux is the ultimate game and will be their last hunt.

A lot of the complaints about John Woo’s US output stem from the fact the films don’t have the heart that his Hong Kong films do. Whilst this is valid in some respects I think the heart on display in the heroic bloodshed subgenre he made his own just would not translate to the west. In The Killer when Chow Yun Fat and Danny Lee come face to face, guns drawn for the first time, the soundtrack goes all rom com for a moment and they look at each other with a very wry smile. If this happened when we first meet Christian Slater and John Travolta in Broken Arrow then there would have been mass walk outs. I think its something that was unique to Hong Kong cinema at the time, even much of Jackie Chan’s output around the same period revolved around the value of friendship (albeit slightly less homoerotic) and even today I don’t think western audiences are culturally savvy enough to take it that way without shouting GAY and stomping off.

If you are talking about the action, then Hard Target is definitely on a par with most of his HK work, with the exception of Hard Boiled whose carnage is hard to top. There is some heart in Hard Target for those prepared to look. The film is very much about the plight of the homeless whilst the rich get richer and turn a blind eye. There is even something approaching emotion in Van Damme’s eyes every time one of the good guys buys it. The subject matter is even more relevant today than it was back in 1993 and the fact that post Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans thousands were left homeless and starving while the republican government did nothing, makes the plot feel a lot more poignant.

Jean Claude Van Damme is not an actor, he is a movie star in the way that Arnold Schwarzenegger is not an actor no matter how much he tries. They are both performers who have charisma and presence but lack thespian chops. During the height of his career Van Damme worked with very few actual auteur’s and instead most of his work was directed by journeyman hacks or untested foreign directors.

As John Woo was at that point; an already proven talent he got Van Damme’s best work out of him, using his accent as part of the character and making him look cool as hell. The character of Chance Boudreaux wouldn’t have been out of place in a western (check out the way he sweeps back his coat near the beginning revealing not a gun but his leg which he is about to do some serious kicking with) and there is a look on Van Damme’s face that says he knows he is on to a good thing and he will never look cooler.

The supporting cast all turn in solid performances especially Lance Henrikson as a truly evil man, killing all who get in his way and Arnold Vosloo playing a man who is like the evil opposite of Boudreaux without a moral compass.

Hard Target is a film that did respectable business when it came out in cinemas. It did better on video and was one of the last films during the ‘action hero’ phase of the late eighties and early nineties. It seems to have been forgotten mainly due to the fact that Van Damme became something of a joke due to his personal problems and the end of the above the title beefcake action hero era. For my money, Hard Target is great Saturday night entertainment and a Van Damme good time at the flicks.

by Chris Holt

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It wouldn’t be until Apocalypse Now and the aforementioned Deer Hunter that Hollywood tackled Vietnam and even then it was a sore spot. It wasn’t until 1986 and Oliver Stone’s Platoon that America began to reach a kind of catharsis with the conflict and explored it further through films like Full Metal Jacket, Casualties of War and Hamburger Hill. Pre-dating all of these films though and a good three years before the similarly themed First Blood which introduced us to John Rambo was John Flynn’s film Rolling Thunder.  A film way ahead of its time.

The film has recently resurfaced thanks to the championing of one Quentin Tarantino and has enjoyed some revival screenings stateside. The original studio behind the movie Twentieth Century Fox was so appalled by the violence in the movie that they sold it off to Grindhouse distribution company American International Pictures. At a test screening for the film the reaction was so negative that some members of the audience got up and tried to physically abuse the studio personnel that were in the theater. Its not coincidence that Taxi Driver screenwriter Paul Schrader is credited as one of the writers on the film, it shares a dark cynicism and casual attitude to violence with that classic movie.

The film takes place in 1973, Major Charles Rane (William Devane) returns home after a long period missing as a prisoner of war with his colleague Johnny (Tommy Lee Jones). Both are shell shocked and broken men and the Major finds that much has changed since his leaving years ago. His son is now six years old and his wife has begun a relationship with the local sheriff and moved on with her life. The Major is greeted as a hero and rewarded with several silver dollars collected for him by the people in his hometown. Its clear through a number of scenes that pain is the only thing that Major Rane understands anymore and he talks of getting to like his predicament as a prisoner and his daily routine of torture. One day he arrives home to find his house invaded by low life thugs who are after the silver dollars he was gifted. They threaten and torture him and are amazed to find that Major Rane won’t break even after they put his hand down a garbage disposal. His estranged wife and child return home and are shot and killed. Major Rane wakes up some time later in hospital minus a hand and calmly and calculatedly seeks out those men who wronged him with the help of a local girl Linda (Linda Haynes) who has a crush on the Major and sees him as a way out of her humdrum life. The two of them head to Mexico where the scene is set for a bloody confrontation.

Rolling Thunder has a lot in common with No Country For Old Men, and I’m not just talking about the presence of Tommy Lee Jones either. Both films are cynical about people and their capacity for evil and have a very dark sense of humor. Both films also take place either on the border or just inside Mexico and the United States and feature Vietnam vets as the hero so to speak. The dialogue in Rolling Thunder is minimal and sparse, never wasting words always getting right to the point. A few of the lines said though are great and the performances match. William Devane is a character actor who has never really played a sympathetic role as he does here. He is a guy who is always popping up as a shady government operative or rich scumbag, probably best known now for his work in 24 and Payback.

Devane is awesome in this role and had this film gone on to be big at the time of release he probably would have had a career like Tommy Lee Jones went on to have. Speaking of Jones, he isn’t in this much but boy does he make his scenes count. At the beginning of the film he is all damaged and shy, having to wear his sunglasses not because of the sun but because he can’t stand the crowd looking at him. In the scenes towards the end of the film he looks lost and out of place just like the Major, not sure what to make of his new surroundings in the family home. When the Major enlists his help to go on a raid at a Mexican brothel he suddenly comes alive and cracks a smile for the first time, aware that violence is imminent and its what he knows and does best. The final shootout still stands up to today’s best shoot outs and is reminiscent of The Way Of The Gun, it all happens very quick and very close with many bad guys shot point blank.

Many have criticized Paul Schrader in the past for misogyny against women and that is very much in evidence here as well. The first woman, Rane’s estranged wife is portrayed as something of an airhead who moved on too quickly once her husband disappeared. The character of Linda is someone who throughout the film, men come on to, sometimes aggressively and its not clear whether Rane has any feelings for her at all (Devane gives nothing away) but it seems mostly like he is using her as either bait or a cover for his revenge. As a result you come away feeling slightly sorry for her, seeing a way out and then being used and abused which she sought to escape in the first place.

I can highly recommend Rolling Thunder, it’s a forgotten film and deserves re-appraisal now that the world has caught up to the cynicism on display. John Flynn went on to direct the equally badass but less good Stallone and Steven Seagal vehicles Lock Up and Out For Justice. He died aged 75 in 2007, a shame as watching Rolling Thunder you get the impression that he definitely had more inside him and could have made an out and out classic had the film done better. Rolling Thunder is currently streaming free to Lovefilm subscribers and will be out on blu-ray in September, if you love the seventies as a decade of film then give it a watch.

by Chris Holt

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My main problem with the previous X-Men films has been the decision to focus on Wolverine as the main character. I don’t want to get too nerdy but in the comics Wolverine is just as cool as Hugh Jackman is in the films but he is part of an ensemble and not the main focus. As a result the previous films have sidelined characters like Cyclops, Storm and Professor X. The problem with the Wolverine character is that he is a bit of a bastard so its quite hard to find an emotional attachment to the films when they focus on such a character. They soften him up somewhat in his relationships towards the female X-Men but even there he is rubbing another mutants rhubarb so to speak with his desire for Jean Grey. Matthew Vaughan’s funky retro prequel focuses on the friendship between James McAvoy’s Charles Xavier aka Professor X, Michael Fassbender’s Erik Lensherr aka Magneto and most movingly Jennifer Lawrence’s Raven Darkholme aka Mystique. These three characters rarely got anything approaching an arc in the previous movies but here they get a full two plus hours for their stories to play out as relationships are formed, bonds are forged and then tragically broken. The plot basically revolves around Charles Xavier and Raven being recruited by the CIA as agent Moira McTaggart (Rose Byrne) has discovered that the Russians are in league with a team of mutants lead by Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) named the Hellfire Club. This brings them in contact with Erik Lensherr who is after the mutant Shaw because he killed his mother. Xavier brings Lensherr into the fold as he is barely in control of his powers and so filled with rage that he is not reaching his full potential.

McAvoy and Fassbender are brilliant as the two men with common ground but separate ideologies which ultimately doom their friendship. McAvoy wisely doesn't mimic Patrick Stewart except for a couple of moments of vocal inflection and gives the character something of a swinging sixties British charm which makes you root for him from the beginning. Fassbender is all intensity and grandstanding speeches as Erik Lensherr, he also does not mimic Ian McKellan and brings a physicality to the character missing from previous incarnations. During Fassbender’s early scenes of Nazi hunting in Europe you cannot help but think of Bond and Fassbender may prove to be a worthy successor should Daniel Craig decide to hand in his license to kill. Jennifer Lawrence proves that Winters Bone was no fluke but instead here plays a character that is both vulnerable and damaged instead of headstrong and determined. It makes me convinced once and for all that she was the best choice for lead in The Hunger Games.

The rest of the cast are also up to the challenge set by the main players. Kevin Bacon is all sixties bond villain menace and does a lot with the role that proves to be pivotal in the development of the three main characters, Sebastian Shaw’s goal is nothing less than the annihilation of mankind which gives the plot a sense of urgency. January Jones is an actress I’m not terribly familiar with but certainly looks the part as Emma Frost in her sexy outfits even though she is given little else to do but be the dangerous femme fatale. Nicholas Hoult is not an actor that has impressed me greatly in the past but shines as Hank McCoy and then later Beast in particular which feels like a dead-on interpretation of that character. The rest of the mutants are all given their little moment to shine with some quality mutant power based battles which feel more epic than anything in the previous movies. It was certainly a thrill to watch characters with the ability to fly actually use that in a fight combined with characters who can teleport and fire death beams then you have some awesome scenes.

The script was re-worked from a Magneto based prequel movie and something else that was going to focus on a younger team of X-Men and as a result has about 6 credited screenwriters. It could have been a disaster but Matthew Vaughan and Jane Goldman have reworked the film into a smooth and thrilling ride which ties into real world events perfectly and makes everything feel more believable. The film moves at a fast pace and you never feel like you have been sitting there for its 132 minute run time. Although they nod towards the continuity portrayed in the first three X-Men movies this feels like a new beginning. It would be a shame if this was a one off and they didn’t get another film showing what took place in the mutant universe of the seventies. They probably can’t introduce characters such as Cyclops and Wolverine due to the timelines and continuity already in place but there are literally hundreds of mutants in the Marvel universe who can be brought in.

So even if you are not a fan of comic book movies but have a fondness for sixties spy flicks, get out there and see this movie. This is the kind of summer blockbuster that we should all support. Its intelligent, thrilling and finally moving and we need more of that in our summer.

by Chris Holt

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Family Jewels (aka Barry Munday): This is somewhat of a confusing movie. Somewhere in here there is a good movie trying to get out but its not quite sure what it wants to be. It starts off like a fairly amusing Shallow Hal esque comedy with Patrick Wilson giving a surprisingly comedic performance as wannabe ladies man Barry Munday. Together with his friend who is also a bit of a wannabe, he cruises bars and restaurants after work on a Friday looking for sex. Usually they end up in a strip club so you get the idea of how deluded they are. Then one day in a movie theatre Barry very nearly crosses the line from womanizer to full blown sex pest and gets a trumpet to the testacles for his trouble. He wakes up in hospital having had his two reasons for living removed and no memory of how this occurred. This is where the movie takes a turn into black comedy territory with all the situations that would occur previously that would make Barry behave a certain way having no effect on him and him having a lot more free time. Barry is then contacted by the lawyers of a partner from a one night stand a few months before advising him that he is the father of the woman’s unborn child. Having realized that this is now the only chance he has at ever having a child he contacts the woman and finds that Ginger (Judy Greer) is something of a disappointment. She berates him constantly and he tries and tries to be nice to her constantly all the while avoiding the attentions of her stripper sister Jennifer (Chloe Sevigny). Once the baby is born the film becomes something like a warm comedy along the lines of a Cameron Crowe film before becoming somewhat predictable and petering out. Its not that this is a bad film at all because it isn’t, just a little consistency in the tone would have gone a long way. Patrick Wilson is really good here, so far he has just played creepy guys and troubled family men. Getting to play the comedic lead in a film like this was a good step and is a good sign that he will have some longevity to his career. Judy Greer (vulnerable) and Chloe Sevigny (slutty) are also really solid as is the underrated Shea Whigham as Barry’s even more hopeless friend. There is some enjoyment to be had from this film but it really feels like it should have been better material. Its not a bad rental prospect if you are stuck on a weekend. Special mention to the soundtrack by Jude Christodal which is full of brilliant songs and that I cannot find on iTunes! **

Sharktopus: Y’know some days I think I need to be more discerning when it comes to my viewing choices. I love a low budget lark thats good on a few beers. One of my best experiences was watching The Toxic Avenger whilst drinking on Christmas Day in 1995. Its with this experience in mind that I decide whether or not to give low budget schlock a chance. Every now and then I get it right, Piranha 3D, The Tournament or Wrong Turn 2 spring to mind as being great whilst loaded.There again sometimes a clanger drops through my letterbox. This month it is Sharktopus, two words smashed together that should equal awesome but instead equal uninspired and lazy crap. This is produced by Roger Corman who has made some crap to be sure but is also capable of the low budget greatness that can lead to Battle Beyond The Stars so I thought I would give it a chance. I was hoping for something so bad it was great but its just so bad its bad. This film has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I’m of the opinion that if you have NO BUDGET then you don’t use CGI, use what you have and make good use of cheap practical effects and camera trickery. Sharktopus looks ridiculous, rendered on a Commodore Amiga and dropped into scenes where a cardboard cut out would be more menacing whilst an actor squirms comically as fake tentacles wrap round them. Now you are probably thinking that a film named Sharktopus isn't meant to be taken seriously and yes you are right. To that I would say, Is James Gunn's Slither supposed to be taken seriously? No but it has awesome practical effects and minimal effective CGI and as a result is a blast. Sharktopus’s story is that Eric Roberts plays some kind of contracted government bozo who creates the perfect killing machine by cross breeding a shark and an octopus. He and his cute nerdy daughter control it through some kind of brain implant harness type of gizmo, which predictably comes off and Sharktopus goes on the rampage picking off hard bodied hotties along the beach in admittedly amusing fashion. The Military get the hump, charge Roberts with recapturing the creature and he in turn employs some meat head who has the hots for his daughter to go get it so that he can spend the rest of the film drinking scotch and thinking ‘this isn’t how Christopher Nolan would do it, I wonder why he hasn’t called…’. After that set up the film becomes tedious with scene after scene of Sharktopus walking on land and bad actors screaming at a bunch of pixels that aren't there. Even if someone drunkenly suggest watching this one evening, Don’t. Instead go to a strip club and get fish and chips on the way home. Sure you’ll feel guilty and kind of sick but; same effect, more fun. *

The Man From Nowhere: Wow, despite being a film who’s plot is cribbed together from elements of Leon, Man On Fire, Kill Bill and many others; The Man from Nowhere is the best action film for a while and again an example of South Korea’s general mastery of the cinematic art form. The plot concerns a mysterious man who runs a pawn shop and forms a weird friendship with the put upon abused moppet next door. Said moppets mother is a bit of a tart and a stripper and somehow gets involved in a police sting gone wrong and with her pimp/boyfriend they make off with a load of cocaine that belongs to some gangsters. The woman is murdered, the child kidnapped and mystery man is framed with her body in the trunk of a car he is driving. Its not long before he breaks out of jail and goes on a roaring rampage of revenge to find the missing child and bring down the mob. See the man has a dark past involving secret intelligence styled brutality. Its Man on Fire without the cameraman having an epileptic fit and thats what's so damn refreshing about this movie. The camera stays still and the fight scenes and car chases are still exciting as hell. There are so many moments that will make you gasp at how cool it all is, including a scene where the cameraman is seemingly behind the main character as he runs down a corridor and dives out a window with the camera following him out the window and all the way down to the ground its very clever and looks phenomenal. There are also about six or so awesome knife fights including one in a toilet cubicle which was brutal and the final fight scene against about six knife welding punks. The whole thing could have been corny and awful but its just fantastic and a great piece of Friday night entertainment. Keep an eye on director Jeong Beom Lee, he could be the next John Woo and also the star Bin Won, who is without doubt gifted with the art of stillness making him a cool leading man in the vein of Chow Yun Fat. ****

Tekken: Under no circumstances ever see this movie. This is without doubt one of the worst pieces of shit in cinematic history. Everything about it is hopelessly inept, the choreography, the script, the music…Its like someone took one of the worst straight to video films from the early 90’s and gave it an early noughties remake with a nu-metal soundtrack and some frankly ridiculous cyberpunk backdrops which would have been dated in 1995. John Foo or whoever who plays our protagonist is one of the worst actors I’ve ever seen in a lead role, sounding as if he is reading off cue cards the entire time. When the lead actor is out performed by Gary Daniels, one of the straight to video ‘stars’ of the 90’s then you know you are in trouble. The female lead Kelly Overton gives a soft-core porn level performance and every outfit she wears is designed to accentuate her ass crack (I'm not making this up) The main plot is basically the video game with some half assed government conspiracy malarkey around it. It even looks like the video game just with live action actors but they have crafted a ‘story’ around it so you may as well play the game. Even Luke Goss is slumming it here. Avoid – no stars

by Chris Holt

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I’ve never started a review with a quote before but whilst watching this film, the above quote by everyone’s favorite nihilist Mr. Nietzsche kept repeating in my head so it seemed appropriate to include it here. Cinema today is in a transitional period, when historians look back on the beginning of this decade I have no doubt that it will be remembered as a period of massive upheaval not just in cinema but in media in general. I don’t know about you but I still prefer to have an experience in a darkened room in front of a big screen, the fact is there will probably be a generation soon who saw their favorite movie for the first time on a small handheld screen. Arguably cinema remains the most powerful medium in the world and very few directors seem to understand that. Gaspar Noe gets it and with Enter the Void he pushed the limits of the medium to create something that was technically stunning but didn’t work as a narrative feature, it was an experience nonetheless. It seems that the whole of the South Korean film industry gets it as well, whilst the British film industry struggles and releases movies that constantly riff on past successes, South Korea’s output over the last ten years has been the best cinema in the world, constantly defying expectations and pushing the limits of what is acceptable on screen. Recent examples of this are Chan Wook Park’s movies, Bedevilled, Mother, The Man From Nowhere and The Good, The Bad, The Weird director Jee Woon Kim’s latest film I Saw The Devil. Due to the transitional phase we now live in, which seems to be less of a format war (ala DVD vs. Blu-Ray) and more about accessibility this has been denied a UK cinema release despite having a penciled in release date of 29th April. The rise in on demand entertainment has meant that in the USA many smaller films get a limited cinema release at the same time as appearing on demand via iTunes or cable. In the UK we have not adopted this model yet because we are a smaller country and much of the stuff that ten years ago would have packed the arthouse circuit now goes straight to DVD. I Saw The Devil is a film that was crying out for a cinema release, its challenging in a way that all great films are and truthfully and without hyperbole, it really is the best serial killer movie since Seven.

The film begins with a young pregnant lady having broken down in her car on the outskirts of Seoul. The snow is coming down and she is understandably nervous about being stuck out alone in the countryside. Kyung-chul (Choi Min Sik) turns up in his school bus offering to help but his help is politely declined, the only problem is Kyung Chul is a remorseless serial murderer and the woman is his latest victim. Her dismembered corpse shows up some days later and her fiancé Kim Soo-Hyeon (Lee Byung-Hun) a secret service agent, vows revenge on the killer and uses all the intelligence and skills at his disposal to track down Kyung-chul. Kim eventually catches up with Kyung-Chul but instead of just killing him decides to drag out the revenge process to make his suffering unbearable. The cat and mouse game escalates and escalates, dragging other innocent victims into Kim’s anger and quest for vengeance.

First thing you should know about this is what you have heard is true, I Saw the Devil is brutal. Even in this version that was trimmed by the Korean censors by ninety seconds to get a release, the film is almost relentless in its portrayal of violence. the film mercifully cuts away during many of the scenes where limbs are severed but like the aforementioned Seven or Reservoir Dogs this is a film that has violence seeping from its pores. At some point in the second hour I just wanted it to stop and felt queasy, unsure if another bashed in skull on screen was going to make me throw up my chicken korma. The excess is kind of the point though and the film is darkly funny as Kim Soo-Hyeon catches up with Kyung Chul every time he is about to take another victim and denies him his fix by beating him senseless and then making sure he is is given medical attention to get better so that the process can begin again. Make no mistake though this is no comedy, what you are watching on screen is the erosion of a man soul as he becomes that what he hunts and lets revenge take over his life. The final few frames will stay with you for weeks afterwards and leave you shaken.

Choi Min Sik has not been in a film since Lady Vengeance back in 2005 due to some kind of political protest over screens in South Korea, which is odd because after the success of Oldboy he surely was set for international stardom. Here he plays a character more damaged than anyone I have ever seen on screen, Kyung-Chul is one of the all time great monsters, he is evil incarnate and Choi plays him as such; never giving him a moment of humanity until the very end. Lee Byung-Hun is an actor who has been in a few great movies now and is probably the better known actor at this point, he played Storm Shadow in the GI Joe movie and ‘The Bad’ in The Good, The Bad, The Weird. In I Saw The Devil he plays the silent heroic type, never really emoting and just driven to accomplish his mission. Only in the final few minutes of the film does he allow emotion to creep up with the toll of the brutality finally overwhelming him. Jee Woon Kim is a master at creating tension and excitement as he proved with The Good, The Bad, The Weird which in my opinion is the best action movie of the last ten years. With I Saw The Devil he proves again he is great at creating a set piece and working from a brilliant script by Hoon-Jung Park he structures the film like every frame matters despite its two hour and a bit running time.

I Saw The Devil is as challenging a piece of cinema as you are ever likely to see. Sadly the fact that its subtitled as well as the period in time it finds itself with regards to release patterns means its likely to remain unseen by most of the world. If you like great storytelling, horror and unconventional approaches to story then you should check out this film.

by Chris Holt

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Insidious: A great thing happened during my viewing of Insidious this past bank holiday Monday, In a half full cinema not one person laughed during the film. When I see a trailer now for a horror film I am thinking two things, 1. Is it populist (i.e a Scream sequel) and 2. Is it something I haven’t seen before. In relation to James Wan’s Insidious the answers are 1. Yes it was a big hit stateside and 2. I have seen this kind of thing before but not done nearly as effectively as here. If we are talking about popular horror movies that pack out cinemas at weekends then in most cases the audience ruin them for the film fan. I used to hear that laughter during horror films was a psychological reaction and to an extent that is true, but when its some asshole purposely pronouncing every ‘H’ and ‘A’ in his tirade of laughter during a film like The Grudge then I think you have to draw the line. It was with trepidation then that I went into Insidious and my heart sank when a group of teenagers started to rowdily pile into the auditorium. Then the film started with an eerie scene that set the tone perfectly and the score by Joseph Bishara swelled and rose to the point where it made you uncomfortable, everyone was stunned into a silence that lasted throughout the movie.

The film begins with Josh and Renai Lambert (Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne) having just moved into their new home with two young boys and a newborn baby. They start hearing noises and their son Dalton one day investigates something in the loft. He falls down and ends up in a coma, Doctors are baffled and cannot see a medical reason for his condition. Then things get really weird. Renai hears angry voices coming through the baby monitor, ghostly faces appear at windows and there are strange shadows and complaints from the other son that Dalton is walking around at night. The family decide to move out convinced the house is haunted. Sadly things only get worse and the disturbances follow the family and intensify. Pushed to their wits end they are forced to call in the experts who reveal that Dalton is on some kind of astral plane beyond normal consciousness and something is after his very soul.

What Insidious reminded me of most was the BBC Halloween special ‘Ghostwatch’. Broadcast in 1992 to a volley of complaints from people who thought it was real, Ghostwatch had the habit of whirling the camera around quickly and then catching a glimpse of something in a corner or by a window which would really freak you out. Very few directors working today really understand how to direct an effective scary scene. Most of the time the camera is moved in such a way that you can tell where the monster is about to pop up from even before the cameraman does, look out for a lot of space at one end of the aspect ratio; thats your first clue. Its why David Lynch is one of the best horror film directors that really doesn't make horror films. Lynch knows how to use a room and lighting and shadow to create an atmosphere. He then holds the camera on his lead performers for long takes up until just before the point of boredom and then the shock occurs. James Wan essentially does the same thing here, he follows Rose Byrne around the house in one scene for a long time adding in tiny little unsettling details before a big shock. The scene in question also occurs in the daytime as well making things more scary as by that point all bets are off. Wan adopts a similar technique for the climax but adds a dash of disturbing surrealism for good measure. Another bravura sequence has Barbara Hershey as Josh’s grandmother recounting a dream she had which is really creepy in itself but is then followed up by a terrific scare where I nearly broke my girlfriends fingers.

There have been some complaints that Insidious becomes clichéd and formulaic in the final act when compared to the first two thirds. Whilst it does become a bit too much like Poltergeist when the ghost hunters turn up there are still many scares left and to me at least, I found it a little bit of a relief from all the tension. This film made me jump possibly more than any film I have ever seen in the cinema and harkens back to a simpler time before ironic slasher movies and torture porn and for that we should all be thankful.

Insidious is already a word of mouth hit and definitive proof that after the original Saw and Dead Silence, James Wan has the goods. As horror fans we have to put up with a lot of guff and films like Insidious make it all worth it.

Hanna: There should be more movies like Hanna and I say this from a screenwriter point of view as well as a film fan. This is a film that could have been the most formulaic and basic of blockbusters had it gone through the endless filmmaking by committee process that studios use to make your typical blockbuster movie. All the elements are there, you have your hot teen starlet, your high concept and a script that once attracted talent such as Danny Boyle and Alfonso Cuaron. Lucky for us and further proof that it still is possible to make surprising films, Hanna is probably pretty close to what was on the page. Its a film that consistently surprises you, you think you can see where it is going to go but then it turns left when normal Hollywood procedure is for this type of film to go right.

Hanna (Saorise Ronan) lives with her father Erik (Eric Bana) in the snowbound wilderness of Scandinavia. Hanna is 16 years old and from an early age has been taught to hunt and kill to survive. As well as being deadly with a knife and bow, She is fluent in many different languages and knows an awful lot of facts that she can quote as if reading from an encyclopedia. Hanna has been given this life with the specific purpose of killing Marisa Weigler (Cate Blanchett) a CIA operative with a connection to Erik’s past. One day Erik is convinced that Hanna is ready and provides her with a transponder to turn on so that Marisa will be led to her. Hanna turns on the device and she and Erik agree to meet in Berlin at a later date. Thus begins Hanna’s journey of self discovery and exposure to the outside world and all the typical things we take for granted whilst growing up.

To say anymore about the film’s plot is to really do a disservice to the new viewer as the screenplay drip feeds you information and plot twists as it goes along. The story plays out with elements of The Bourne Identity, Leon and Grimm fairy tales to create something really unique. Its great seeing the odd little flourishes that they work in there. For example when Cate Blanchett’s character goes to see some deadly assassins in Germany, they are not what you expect and are actually three fairly out of shape and weird looking people watching some kind of hermaphrodite stripper act on stage. The lead assassin is played by a blonde and mincing Tom Hollander from In the Loop, not exactly the frame of reference for an imposing figure. A further example is the scene when it appears that Hanna is about to get that first kiss and it does not turn out the way expected. Its little things like this that put this above your typical spy shenanigans and give the film an air of freshness and originality.

So thats enough about the plot, what about the performances. Hanna is anchored by a trio of strong roles for great performers. Saorise Ronan is going to have a long career, this could well be her greatest role to date. Hanna is otherworldly and dangerous but also has the audiences sympathies right from the beginning. There is so much said without words in Ronan’s pale blue eyes and on her pale features. Through the middle point of the film, Hanna hooks up with a British family travelling through Morocco and there is a great sense of joy in these scenes as Hanna discovers the normal life of the teenage girl and bonding with people.  Ronan and Eric Bana share this great scene towards the end of the movie which erupts in violence when it should have been a touching moment but its true to the characters who have only ever known violence in their lives. Eric Bana is kind of underrated at this point I think, as now Hollywood has stopped trying to make him a leading man and instead he is doing great supporting work. He is incredible in this movie, pulling of a flawless accent and getting one of the films best scenes in an all-in–one-take fight scene in a subway which is brutal and breathtaking. Cate Blanchett is a really hissable villain in this and though its never quite clear what her motivations are, they give her some neat little character moments that give you no doubt that she is a bad person.

Joe Wright, a director not previously known for this kind of thing, has made a truly wonderful film here. He whirls the camera around in adrenaline pumping fashion and uses slow motion only when it adds to a scene, none of it feels like style for the sake of it. Wright must be one of the most versatile directors working today, going from the dramatic likes of Atonement and The Soloist to an offbeat action movie like this with absolute ease like he has been doing it for years. Although he may get ruined by the system, I would love to see what he could pull off with a massive budget if given the chance. The chemical brothers score for this movie is fantastic, it kicks in at all the right moments to either get the adrenaline pumping or pull at the heart strings and never feels intrusive. It was a brave decision to get them to score this but one that definitely pays off.

Hanna is a great film, full of warmth as well as thrills. If you are in the mood for something off the well beaten path then give it a shot. It is my favorite film of 2011 thus far.

by Chris Holt

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