Reviews

A gore fest, far more worthy of B Movie, slasher status. This has little to do with the bible & everything to do with Medieval European "Passion Plays".

This film goes absolutely nowhere, it's all basically a long, drawn out torture scene. Quite what this was meant to achieve is beyond me..... nah, it's Mel Gibson's Retirement Fund, that's obvious.

Playing in to the current, post millennial religious fervor Gibson comes up with a cynical manipulation of the Christian Bible. I used to think that John Wayne drawling "Truly this is the on of Gawd!" as an abomination, but Gibson's film puts all the 1950s & 60s Hollywood Bible epics to shame. At least they pretty much stuck to the story, whereas Gibson simply milks the violence. Like the nails that are so lovingly shown being hammered home, this film knows no shame when it comes to audience manipulation.

As a guilt trip (you're a sinner/Christ died for your sins/so if you sin you're guilty/repent/loathe yourself etc etc) it probably appeals to a huge section of Christians who will throw all they've got at it & ensure that Gibson never has to work again. Just wait for the "Special Edition DVD", then the "Easter Special Edition", then the "Christmas Wonder Special Edition", ad nauseous.

Is there anything positive? Well the direction & camera work are often very good & sometimes impressive. Caviezel seems set for bigger thing, giving a eye catching performance, albeit when he's allowed to & not simply being an inanimate object for punishment.

Apart from that there's little else to say. Gibson has obviously hit upon a theme, but deals with his target audience on the most exploitative level. One wonders who's the bigger fool, Gibson for making this tripe or the audience for being so willing to gobble it down wholesale.

Jimmy Stewart made films that were always watchable, with an amazing variety from the quirky Harvey to the dark Vertigo & even as far as supplying a voice for the cartoon American Tail. Unlike others (Ronald Regan & John Wayne to name but two) he wasn't afraid to fight for his country either & his experience as a USAF pilot during WW2 served him well for this epic.

The central problem for the film makers is the 30 hour flight, there simply wasn't enough material to depict this, the most famous episode of the whole story & the whole reason behind the legend. The use of the flashback here is entirely reasonable & to be expected as a result.

What does annoy me is the fact that he wasn't the first to fly non stop across the Atlantic. He WAS the first to fly SOLO & the first to fly non stop to Paris, but he just wasn't first to fly across the Atlantic non stop. Alcock & Brown flew across, non stop, in 1919, some 8 years before Lindnergh. Don't forget 8 years may not seem much but consider that in 8 years we went from the Mk1 Spitfire to the almost supersonic Sabre jet! Also the Vivkers Vimy bomber Alcock & Brown used was World War 1 surplus equipment, running on gasoline that had more in common with used dishwater. Yet this achievement is side stepped by Hollywood & simply ignored, yet if it was Lindbergh who'd crawled out to chip ice off the wings of his aircraft time after time we'd never have heard the end of it (a daring feat necessary because the Vimy kept accumulating too much ice to keep flying during a storm).

Useful, this film is an incomplete picture, as carefully framed in it's story line as the the impressive camera work. It does, however, continue to present a skewed view of history.

This was a show that had all the elements of a new Star Trek, or Quantum Leap. Let's face it the premise of those two series was equally as fantastic, but that never held them back. Beauty & the Beast tried hard to be up there with the best, but just couldn't seem to get the critical mass together in time.

I always thought that the producers, story writers & studio execs were afraid of their creation, it seemed to constantly be on a tight leash, not allowed to develop in the areas it obviously needed to do.

Ron Perlman was stupendous as Vincent, a character equally as outstanding as say Dr Evil, or any one of The Borg. But bogged down in somewhat soppy romance this character was impeded. There seemed to be a strong element of torture in his soul, resentment at his fate, the lack of biological parents & so on. This avenue could have been used to widen the scope of his screen persona, but it never happened.

We saw that with his fictional "Father" (Roy Dotrice) who had shrunk from the world when his warnings about the nuclear age went unheaded & he suffered at the hands of the establishment. This aspect was played upon in several episodes to a useful degree.

Linda Hamilton as Catherine was far too sweet & soppy, especially as she was obviously adept at action sequences. Her career went from strength to strength following her departure from the series & into feature films. It's a pity that she wasn't able to impress us with her skills to the same degree here.

The concept of an underground, alternative culture isn't so fantastic after all, as we now know from years of revelations regarding the underground passages used by the city's homeless. However this is a far more wretched existence than the one portrayed here.

On the whole if there had been less timidity with this project we might have had a series that ran for a lot longer & become a long remembered classic. The fact that it still has it's adherents & fans shows that there was something there to work on, something that was absolutely right. But, like they say, there's no such thing as being a little bit pregnant & the flaws eventually caused the show to veer off course in a desperate attempt to correct pent up demand for change. This did try to reach out to a new audience, but by then that audience had already classified it as "not my style" & didn't tune in to see the changes. Meanwhile the old audience, already too small to warrant continuation, was aleinated & bailed in large numbers.

It could all have been so different.

PS.

To see a classic Ron Perlman performance, forget Hellboy, get the DVD of that strange & febrile French fantasy, Les Enfenats Perdus (The Lost Children AKA The City of Lost Children). I learned French JUST for this film, as at the time no subtitled or dubbed version was available. Yes, it's that good.

The titles say "Based on a story by Issac Asimov". If that means using the title of the original story & little else then yes, it is based on the Asimov story!

It's predictable, a 1970s cop "Buddy Movie" with CGI & flying cars. A good old 1950s paranoid Commie Hunt B movie wrapped up in a surprising amount of glitz.

Yes, the CGI robots are amazing, sometimes acting better than the often wooden Will Smith, and it has to be said that the visuals do make up for some of the short comings. But........

The story, as mentioned, is about as far removed from the Asimov original as you can get. Basically it's Frankenstein's Monster or Blade Runner, along with the usual "Cop on the outside" clichés from a thousand previous clones (Die Hard, Leathal Weapon etc etc). The premise that a robot could subvert the 3 Rules of Robotics by themselves is a major deviation. Asimov has a robot who's rules were altered for a specific &, as thought by the story characters at the time, perfectly good reason. The result of this innocent alteration (a change to the 2nd law in only one robot) was to have disastrous repercussion. This is a telling allegory, a warning that what may seem to be so simple & harmless can have enormous consequences (remember the Arriane Rocket that exploded due to one misplaced character in its software!).

Squint & you can see Tyrell at the head of US Robotics, or Ernst Blofeldt (007 villain) or Emporer Ming, wrapped up in slick, new millennium corporatism. You could almost see him shaving his head & sticking out his pinky as he says "isn't that a little .... evil?" Ah, but I won't give the game away.

As usual the brush strokes are broad, the characterisations somewhat clunky & the originality is down to zero. The CGI often takes the lead, admittedly being startling, but I cannot believe that this is what the future will look like in a little over 30 years time. Maybe 130 years, but definitely not before then.

It's worth seeing, but there is better. Having said that there is, sadly, much, MUCH worse you can see so at least sci fi fans get something to immerse themselves in.

For me this film is both fantastic & disappointing. For a start let's get the negative out of the way. This final section of the trilogy is the one that deviates from the original story the most. For instance Shelob's part is almost sprinted through, Saruman simply disappears from sight, the Shire isn't wrecked & rebuilt & Sam is not seen to depart into the West (there's plenty more deviations too).

However this is small citicism of probably one of the hardest stories to portray on film & Peter Jackson has done wonders, keeping the narrative faitful & gripping while avoiding the need to go as far as having to make a 4th film, which would surely have been necessary if he'd stuck to the book.

What struck me the most, though, was the overwhelming clues & references to Tolkien's experiences of World War 1. Perhaps Jackson had this in mind when shooting the scenes, but reading the original book you can see that not much has been changed. Perhaps the most obvious is the scene where Frodo & Sam are struggling up the slopes of Mount Doom, amid the chaos & devastation, facing almost certain death Sam asks Frodo if he can remember the Shire. Squint a little & you can see them cowering in the trenches of the Somme or Ypres. Again & again this section of the story shows how ordinary, remarkably innocent creatures are propelled into inhuman adversity & somehow manage to prevail.

It is no coincidence that the Hobbits come from The Shire, where so many volunteers for the ranks of the British Army were filled for the conflicts on Vimy Ridge & Paschendel, echoing the rural idyly of Lancashire, Worcestershire, Gloucestershire... all "Shires". In the previous section, The Two Towers, we see the Dead Marshes, a portrayal of the dead lying in the mud of Flanders after battle. Quietly Tolkein gets the horror out of his system & onto the page, wrapping it up in a tale of fantasy.

This is why I was disappointed with the deletion of the scenes regarding the return to the SHire. In the original the wizard Saruman has set up camp there following his defeat by the Ents & has set about destroying the area. The party of Hobbits return to find smoking chimneys, machines, polluted rivers & sickly children. This is an allegory for the different England that awaited the return of surviving tropps following the armistice of 1918. England had industrialised to meet war demand, as well as adopting a new wave of mechanisation to make up for the loss of so many men to the war. Men returned to villages that were as changed as they were & perhaps this is what we see when Frodo & all who were affected by the ring finally set sail for the mystical "West" where they will be healed & find peace.

In all it is a fantastic effort, the whole trilogy is cohesive & masterfully brougght to the screen. Of course it had a good start in life due to the amazing story Tolkien wrote, but Jackosn has worked miracles with the film making process, stretching to new heights. In a Hollywood dominated world, where originality is sadly lacking & innovation all too often regarded as dangerous, Peter Jackson has triumphed over mediocrity & banality. Where others play it safe by remaking old favorites, Jackson has created something entirely new, a genuine trilogy, not something like "Die Hard" where each offering is the same as the rest, only with a bigger budget & more cheesy one liners. It will be a VERY long time before anyone makes a film as good as this, let alone 3! And I doubt that anyone will be remaking this trilogy within our life time, unless they want to be compared very unfavorably to the original.

Whatever you think of Michael Moore (& don't think for a moment that I like him) this film represents what the US media SHOULD have been doing since the events of 9/11/01 but have completely failed to do so (Note also I've no problem with the invasion of Afghanistan, so don't call me "unpatriotic").

The way that the Bush administration has railroaded, bullied & arm twisted the media & the people into following their mantra (9/11=Sadam) is matched only by the media's willingness to go along without question.

One criticism of Moore's film is worthy of note, several people have pointed out that cinema isn't the place for this sort of investigative journalism. They are correct, the media is the place for this sort of investigative journalism, but they haven't been doing their job. Long gone are the days when the Washington Post unearthed the Watergate scandal. Someone had to do it, Moore took up the challenge & used the only avenue open to him, not being an owner of any Talk Radio or TV "News" stations.

Another notable criticism comes from those who dispute the facts & this REALLY is something novel & should be encouraged on every occasion. Is the film factually correct? Debate rages around some of the claims, although little is said about the rest. What is novel about all this? Well previously any dissenting voices have been immediately silenced as "Anti American", with such unsubstantiated comments such as "You hate your country", "How can you say this when our troops...." etc etc. To see the Right Wing Neo Cons finally stepping up to debate facts, rather than simply slinging mud in a schoolboy manner, is something we've not seen since before the Nixon era. Although Moore has drawn a good deal of the usual character assasination ("you hate your country" etc etc) that makes up political "debate" these days the inclusion of questions about the facts makes a radical & very welcome departure to say the least!

Public debate, scrutiny & accountability of our leadership is what this country was founded on, it is why we are here to begin with & not simply a part of Canada. It is enshrined not only in the US Constitution, but in the History of this land & has driven its citizens of all political persuasions to make sacrifices, even with their lives, to protect it dearly. THIS IS WHY THIS COUNTRY BECAME GREAT & REMAINS GREAT, although now we teeter on the brink of political stagnation & decay.

This film shows us that we need to wake up from the post 9/11 hypnosis, to steer ourselves away from the messianic, millenarian chants of "9/11...terrorism....Sadam....fear... nuclear.... fear... WMDs...." that pervade our current political scene. If we do not then we risk losing our world leading position by the stifling of political free thinking, with its benefits of economic & social promotion. I do not wish to see this Great Nation marching in Brainwashed Lock Step towards a 1984 Big Brother, where disenters are silenced & leaders are drawn from a tiny political elite that views the country as theirs to do with as they wish. This is the world of dictatorship, the Nazis, The Communists, the religious theocracies of Iran.

Moore is a bit of an idiot at times, he loves to grandstand on the screen, but here he takes a back seat & let the facts speak for themselves. Has hit the mark squarely in the dead center.

Hmmm, let's see. An American soldier, battered by the effects of his home grown war, is sent to a far distant region. He eventually goes native & adopts a new culture completely alien to his own. When confronted with his past he is more & more driven to embrace his new identity.

This isn't "The Last Samurai" this is "Dances with Wolves! The story line has been planted into 19th century Japan, with a few tweaks & adjustments. Another indication of the paucity of innovation in Hollywood these days, where no one makes a decision for fear of failure & anything successful is distilled into a formula & then flogged to death.

Having said that the film is entertaining, with Cruise in his most interesting role since Minority Report. Enough has been said about everything else in this film for me to not have to repeat the same observations here.

How on earth these movies still get made I'll never know. Derivative in the extreme, it is a by-the-numbers-movie graced only by some good camera work & locations that are undeniably agreeable on the eye.

Diane Laine plays a newly divorced professional writer desperately searching for answers to her sad life. Around her are the disfunctional & simplistic characters seen a thousand times before. The disfunctional represent her past, the simplistic her spiritual future, the return to her own personal Eden. Blah blah blah.

The film exploits not only the "chick dollar" but the "pink dollar" too by sending her away on a gay holiday. I suppose this was an attempt by the producers to widen the audience & so increase revenues, but anyone who fell for the "gay & away" line will be disapointed as it is a device quickly disposed of, but by then it's too late as you've paid & are in the cinema.

On this tour she sees a house & buys it on a whim. Obviously this girl has never tried to do business in Italy, where things can be slow to say the least! Anyway she ends up with this abandonned villa that is in dire need of several million dollars of renovation.

So where's the army of workers who renovate the house? Surely the Polish handyman wasn't working 24/7 to do all this, was he? Or are we to believe that the place simply needs a coat of paint & hence took only a few days? If so why was it in such bad shape? Do we accept that Ms Laine does this all herself? Then how did she get round Italian immigration laws that allowed her to stay for the years this would have taken her? It's utter poppycock from start to finish.

Raoul Bova as Marcello is predictable to the extreme, only a naive cretin would miss the clumsy way his character was set up to be unfaithful to her. YAWN! When I saw this movie I was amazed how the audience was surprised by Ms Laine's discovery of this fact! I have news for these people, when you go to Disney Land & meet Mickey Mouse it's really only a guy in a suit. Got that? Good!

What really made me groan was the tap (faucet). I watched this incredibly obvious & shallow plot device & chose my time to sigh in a loud voice "Let me guess, the damned tap will be finally running" just before the sound of running water was heard. Of course the tap's dryness was a symbol for Ms Laine's parched & empty life. Now it is providing water again she is fullfilled....... hand me a sick bag PLEASE!

It is just SOOOO predictable.

Of course there were a few highlights, mostly, as I mentioned, the scenery which was very well handled. There was also the dress Ms Laine wore on the scooter ride to her "boyfriend" which was simply a classic, with well handled photography & direction & let's face it she looked stunning. Also there was the gratuitous "bouncing boobs" episode where she runs down a steep hill wearing a tight T shirt. Ah well, I suppose the husbands & boyfriends dragged along for the ride on this movie had to have something to wake them up!

All in all it is another example of the lack of imagination in Hollywod right now. What plus points it has are vastly outweighed by the negatives, although I have no doub that it could have been a lot worse.

Perhaps the most stunning criticism I heard was someone in the exit line who grumbled "It's nothing like the book, they changed practicaly the whole story & made a mess of it".

Plenty have said a lot about this film, covering most of the themes. However something that doesn't get mentioned is the racism.

Sure Jess's dad, Mr Bhamra, was the victim of white cricket players when he first arrived in the UK, to the extent that his talent was wasted. But look a little deepr & you'll see a whole new, unmentioned, level of racism revealed.

Mrs Bharma makes comments about Muslims that would be unaceptable if a white person made them. It's not as if it's a "foreign" muslim, i.e., non Asian, even Indian muslims are considered base & beyond the pale. Also spot the reference to white people as "Ghuras". This reminds me of a Chinese person who once, in a drunken state, told me that they refered to white people as "boiled chicken". Now then, how much trouble would I get in to if I called a black person a "Spade" or "Darky"? There is a perception amongst everyone that racism has a white face, a racist slur to begin with & simply not true. Whether the film makers intnetionally showed this matter up is still a question however.

Beyond that the story is a little soppy, but not too over the top. Let's be honest, this is about girls so it's already straying in to areas of emotional minefields. Note how Jess gets in to trouble with her friend over the coach. First of all Jules told Jess she regarded Joe (the coach) as a brother & Jess never kissed Joe. Yet Jules blasts Jess regardless of what actually happened. For once I'm glad to see a female character suffering the same trouble when dealing with female "logic" that men have to deal with all the time!

The footage on the field is, of course, massaged to make them look good, although Jess & Jules can obviously play. Is this a fair criticism when Arnold Schartzneger has the same techniques applied to his films? (note the Terminator 2 scene where Arnie pulls a gun from a bartender. The speed of movement was due to editors pulling every 3rd frame out of the film strip, NOT his fast reflexes!) The film's visuals do lack a decent polish, but since it was filmed on a tight budget this can easily be forgiven.

It's a fairy tale after all, perhaps with all the films that portray what's right as the bad guy getting poetic justice at the end of some tired buddy movie, we forget that some times a little magic & good news can be on show too.

As an attempt to describe the unravelling of steroetypes & attitudes within modern UK society it serves it's purpose well. It's fun to watch, without being gripping. The characters are a little cliched, especially Joe, but it shines a light into Sikh society as the next generation pulls away from their parents & picks & chooses the elements of Sikh & UK culture that they feel comfortable with.

There are some true comic moments, the cell phone ringing at the wedding for one & the things Mrs Bharma sees as she wanders around trying to find her daughter for anotehr. So much for upright morals!

A vapid attempt to recapture the Thelma & Louise magic, using a storyline that makes frequent reference to the 1960s when the lead characters were supposed to be Uber groupies of the Rock World.

It doesn't work.

It's so twee that you'd think it was directed by Ron Howard, with the "Tart with a Heart" Suzette played by Goldie Hawn & Susan Sarandon as Vinnie/Lavinia Kingsley who struggles to forget her depraved past & reinvent herself as "Mrs Respectable Middle Class".

The plot device is obvious, with Sarandon & Hawn being 2 halves of the same psyche, with Hawn as the youthful, irresponsible side & Sarandon as the respectable, stable side. The tussle is played out on screen for all to see. This is the problem.

Hawn looks as plastic as a Barbie Doll, probably something intentional, but she no doubt provided the make up artists with a good start. Look at her debut in the 1960s TV show Rowan & Martin Laugh in, she looks younger now than she did then! Looking younger, but not looking good, she's like some embalmed corpse that's come to life. The same can be said of her acting.

Sarandon is always capable of acting the likes of Hawn off the screen & she does a good job with the turgid script, but ultimately the problems with the story burden her too much.

The side story, a device to get the broke Suzette on the road, features a depressed writer, Harry, played by Geoffrey Rush. This was a pleasing performance, again while struggling with the script.

What does the story achieve? Well it gets Hawn on the screen again, one hopes for the last time. It dredges up the 1960s Free Love sexual undercurrent (so much of an "undercurrent" people forget that it actually the vast majority of people were not affected at all) as opposed to the constrained reality of the year 2000. Hawn is the Ghost of Orgies Past, while Sarandon is haunted by the cinders of the fire that once burned within.

Blah blah blah. Do we really need 90 minutes to explain all this?

Worst of all are the frequent references to the musicians they slept with. It seems that they were the Between the Sheets version of Forest Gump! The tacky use of icons, name dropping at its worst, probably seemed right when drawing the script up, late at night listening to The Doors & Jimmy Hendrix while sipping a few beers, but so what? All these girls did was have sex with seemingly every dead rock star that came their way.

The domestic violence portrayed by Sarandon, when she throws a glass of wine in her husband's face FOR NO REASON is simply unforgivable. She's a bitch & should've been reported to the police. She chose her man & chose to repress her past, her choice. To take it out on her husband, who might be boring or whatever, is totally wrong as he is honest about who he is. Sarandon's Vinnie/Lavinnia is totally dishonest in that she's trying to be what she isn't & as such decieves people while deepening her own feelings of unhappiness, which she liberally passes on to others around her.

The conclusion is fudged, only Harry seems to get anywhere as a character. Suzette & Vinnie/Lavinnia just seem to go back to their separate roles.

This is a "Chick Flick" of the worst kind, pandering to female sexism & chauvanism. As a piece of comedy it fails miserably, I didn't laugh once. As an allegory it is clunky & ham fisted. I can't think of any real positive things to say about this heap.

This is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. With relentless emotional manipulation piled on top of wooden acting & a dreadful script. See how bad the world treats Sam. See how good this simpleton is to his daughter. How pure his love, how corrupt & selfish the "normal" people are. Blah blah blah. Pass me that empty popcorn bag, I'm gonna hurl.

It isn't that the story hasn't got a point, but that it is horrificaly overplayed, the message being delivered in industrial amounts. It's like expecting a teaspoon of sugar in your coffee & getting 2lbs of sacharrine dumped in it instead.

The clumsy manipulation isn't limited to the script, with wooden, cliched characterization & oh so obvious directorial & cinemagraphic tricks. Notice how the scenes are technicolor when Sam is with his daughter, but have a cold, blue, almost monochrome color during the court scenes. Sublety seems

not to be this film's strong point & wherever there is a chance to drive a point home with a sledgehammer the opportunity is taken to do so with obvious enthusiasm.

Michele Pfiefer is normally watchable, but this has to be her first role where I couldn't bear to look. She does her best with the part, but ultimately the clunking story & dialogue leave her trying to shine while carrying a dead albatross round her neck. God only knows why she agreed to add this turkey to her resume. Maybe it seemed a good idea at the time. Maybe it simply paid well & the rent on her mansion was due.

Sean Penn is simply diabolically bad, unconvincing & puke inducing as Sam. Laura Dearn ambles through looking like she's smelt something bad. The rest of the cast simply wallow around, subsumed by the crushing sentimentality.

This whole film stinks. The one area where there is some very limited relief is the soundtrack, where Beatles tunes are played. Even here this is spoiled, for a start they're all pretty sub standard covers by other bands & even then we only get snatches.

When you consider how many great film ideas never get anywhere you have to wonder just how this pile of poop ever got onto the screen. I gave it a "1" on the IMDB voting, but I would have given it a big, fat zero if I could have.

A lot of people criticise this film for the wooden acting, but this ignores a vital point. In the period the film is set people were a lot more formal, especially in the Royal Navy. Such negative comments are on a par with claims that Shakespearean language is too floral or that George Washington wore a powdered wig. Honestly I cannot accept any such comments. Anyone who's seen the God Awful TV movie, "The Junction Boys" will see much more woodeness.

Charting the maiden voyage of the Nazi battleship's Bizmark & her brief career in the Atlantic, this film lacks modern details now known about this episode due to the efforts of divers, namely information gained from the wreck of the Bizmark itself & investigations of HMS Hood's remains, famously blown into pieces by a hit from Bizmark.

Also not dealt with is some of the rather more subtle facts of this period. Bizmark is touted as "the deadliest warship afloat" but this isn't borne out by the facts. The Bizmark chose it's battles very well, avoiding conflict with Royal Navy warships that could do it actual damage. She was a commerce raider, praying on defenceless merchant ships, less powerful warships & fleeing from anything that could do her harm. The fact that she came up against warships that could actually do damage to her was down to the doggedness of the Royal Navy.

At first she did prevail, but once more due to the opposition she was given. HMS Hood was definitely NOT a good choice for this conflict, she was NOT a Battleship, she was an old, thinly armoured Battle Cruiser & well below the standard of Bizmark, her guns were innacurate & her armour wasn't up to the threat she was faced with. The accompanying battleship Prince of Wales was a brand new warship, with terrific specifications, but was so new she also had teething poblems (her firing control wasn't fully calibrated & some of her guns had problems that prevented them from firing) & even went into battle against the Bizmark with civilian ship builders on board who were still working on her! Hardly surprising then that Bizmark sank Hood & damaged Prince Of Wales badly. None the less between the two of them they hit Bizmark three times, knocking out one of her boilers, puncturing her armour, so she took on water & leaked fuel, a critical turning point in the eventual outcome.

When Bizmark was later damaged by aircraft, robbing her of her rudders, she was unable to run away & finally forced to come up against "KG5" (HMS King George The Fifth) & her support fleet, then the truth was revealed. Bizmark was good, but against the older, less well specified KG5 she lost heavily, with enormous loss of life. Bizmark was good, but in a fight with comparable forces she was nothing special (yes, she was outnumbered, but by very much older ships).

The confususion of this time is clearly shown, as Bizmark circled uncontrolably following the air strike, so meaning that sightings sent to RN HQ mean that at one point she was thought to be heading away from the battle fleet, then towards it.

We do see some emotional manipuilation going on, an effort to either sustain the narative, or arouse hatred in the audience for the enemy so that we are not horrified by the carnage that will soon be unleashed upon them. Royal Navy ships are shown getting sunk that actually didn't even get hit. Also Ark Royal Swordfish aircraft are shown getting shot down, when actually all returned intact (a fascinating fact, the ancient, obsolete Swordfish from the aircraft carrier Ark Royal were all the Fleet Air Arm had. The Germans at the time laughed at the cumbersome, bi-plane torpedo bombers, but they couldn't hit them! Their anti aircraft guns had predicters on them to track incoming aircraft & hit them, but the Swordfish flew so slowly the predicters couldn't compensate & all the shells missed!).

Technical details apart, the naval action is where the movie excels. For the last time British movie makers were allowed access to a Royal Navy Battleship, probably HMS Vanguard, the last RN Big Gun warship. Notice how the scenes in the Bizmark & KG5 gun turrets are identical! Well they weren't going to get this footage from the German Kriegsmarine! However notice that the sailors are shown wearing their white, anti flash covers correctly for once. They should go over the mouth, but rarely do you see this in films.

The acting is superb, considering the period & the generation they came from. Kenneth Moore plays the part of Cpt Joh Sheppard (co ordianting the show down with Bizmark in the London RN HQ) sympathetically, portraying the genuine feelings the RN sailors had for the Nazi sailors who'd lost their lives. (A comment from a sailor of the time "She was the most beautiful ship I'd ever seen & we'd come here to sink her"). Later it was known that the German sailors went throught similar moments after sinking the Hood. The final seconds of the film show Moore reluctantly throwing Bizmark's Atlantic battlefield model into the rubbish. Not covered is the abandoning of the surviving Germans by the Royal Navy. It is claimed that this was revenge for the loss of life on the Hood, where all but 4 were killed. But Lufftwaffe air attacks against the Royal Naval Forces were a genuine threat, as was an attack by German U-Boats who did not hesitate to sink any enemy ship no matter what was going on. Basically not stopping to pick up survivors was Standard Operating Procedure whether they were friend or foe, something that seems to be forgotten by the German survivors. They blame the Royal Navy, but the RN never knew if a U-Boat torpedo was on the way, headed for their valuable ships. It was ultimately the effects of their Nazi Admiral Doenitz's orders, comander of the U-Boat packs, that lead them to be abandoned.

Carl Mohner portrays the Captain of the Bizmark "Lindeman" with an air of professionalism, he isn't seen as a Nazi. He is shown as a good warrior, but not a Fascist. Karl Stepanek as Admiral Lutchens is shown as a slightly arrogant, puffed up Nazi. There is some truth here, but later intelligence releases would explain why Lutchens sent such a long message to Berlin that allowed the British to fix his position so accurately & seal his fate. It wasn't arrogance or a death wish, basically he already believed that he had been located by the RN & so had nothing to lose by breaking radio silence (he was wrong, at that point the RN had no idea where he was). Later historical evidence shows he was rather more complex that a simple Hitler toady.

The final battle scenes avoid the brutal carnage, later comments from surviving German sailors tesitfy to the impact of 16 inch shells from the Royal Navy as they tore the Bizmark to pieces. Basically they describe how the decks were littered with flesh, "like a butchers shop" as one put it, from the crew as they were blown to bits by the Royal Navy shells. Given the hatred the British still had for the Germans in 1960 when this film was made (ask my mother who at the time wept for the loss of the Hood & swore at German air armadas that dropped bombs on her) this ommision isn't a surprise, as is the limits of acceptability at the time.

Also not covered is the end game, where KG5 pounded Bizmark with broadside after broadside. This is one of the reasons that the Bizmark aquired the legend of strength & invicibility. However any naval tactician of the time would have quickly pointed out a fatal flaw in this part of the action. Getting in close & sending 16 inch shells into Bizmark was NOT the way to sink her, the shells would be travelling at a shallow angle & would explode in the upper decks. The proper way to do it is to get further back & send in shots that come in at a plunging angle, exploding deep in the ship. She wasn't invincible, she was simply tortured.

All in all you have to look a very long way to find a similarly finessed work charting Naval Warfare. "Battle of the River Plate", "Midway", "The Cruel Sea" & "Tora! Tora! Tora!" are about the only examples I can think of. Intrigiungly they are also open to the criticisms levelled at acting standard of "Bizmark" but seemingly they don't attract the same. Why this is I don't know.

Avoid the knee jerk reaction concerning the portrayal of the characters involved & you have a deep, fascinating portrayal of one of the most interesting chapters in WW2 Naval History. For similar adventures try the films mentioned above but NOT the fat-head 2001 "Pearl Harbour" remake, which makes me want to puke.

So someone sits down & watches "Taxi Driver", but mainly gets their ideas from the excellent Cohen Brothers "Miller's Crossing". Throw in some Japanese "Manga" & "Anime" camera angles then let them go out & make "Road to Perdition". Must have sounded simple at some cocaine fueled Holywood production meeting, where studio executives are so afraid of making decisions when they get married it takes them 25 years to decide where to go on honeymoon.

Derivative, slow & somewhat predictable, Road to Perdition is a worthy effort & worth viewing for the stylish 1930s Film Noir theme as rendered in the age of colour & if you haven't got anything better to do. Several small problems annoy the attentive viewer. The rain on piles of snow would wash it away & frequently the ice cold scenery isn't matched by the breath of the actors, they should fog but don't alway do so. Also any Tommy Gun firing long burst during the elaborate scenes of carnage will smoke like heck, especially in the rain, as they got very hot very quickly. The problem with this film is that drags along at such a slow pace that you have time to examine the scenery in detail as it crawls along the screen.

The characters are comic book, two dimensional & the story oh so predicatable. The end scene in the beach house is telegraphed to the point of making me puke. Don't tell me you didn't think that was going to happen! Of course the hero falls just as he attains his freedom! Cue violins & heart strings being plucked. YAWN YAWN YAWN.

Plus they're all murderers, what a subject!

6/10, could have so easily been so much better.

When you get someone like Jim Carey it's often hard to find a vehicle that's suited to their talents. No such problem here, with the manic, hyper energetic comedian fitting the role with utter ease. It was as if the whole idea was written with him in mind.

Actually it's more likely that someone sat down one day & decided to see just how far they could push the new digital special effects of the day. Whatever, the results are pure lunacy.

Carey, as mild mannered, down trodden Stanley Ipkiss is a bubbling pot of seething desires & emotions ready to boil over but forever with the lid firmly clamped down. He plays the part supremely, not overly sentimental (something of an achievement in today's Hollywood!) & always giving an air of the raging spirit within that is just itching to get out. It's like watching someone walk a tightrope.

Jim Carey as The Mask is something of a whirlwind, quite literally. Who can forget the two stand out lines when the Mask takes over; "Somebody stop me!" & "Smokin'!". These two lines sum the character up in a marvelous way.

His dog, Milo, is also well done. How on earth some Hollywood exec didn't insist that it become some sentimental pooch I'll never know. Yes it is far too intelligent, far too useful, far too convenient, but it is excusable in the context of the film.

The marginal story line about gansters, a bank heist & so on is merely a framework for Carey as the Mask to perform increasingly manic acrobatics on the screen. The references to cartoons, especially Wiley Coyote & Road Runner (perhaps the best, most imaginative cartoons ever made) are obvious. There is even a direct steal from a Bugs Bunny cartoon where it appears that the audience has stood up in front of you to applaud a performance as Carey gets handed an Oscar.

The cops & the villains are all about as dumb as each other, which is the reasons why they're there. Carey as the Mask is the focus of all this, after all. Peter Riegert as Lt Kellaway & Peter Greene as the villanous Dorian Tyrell do the job well though & Tyrell even gets a shot at wearing the Mask with somewhat muted results. Let's face it, nothing compares to Carey's version.

The pace wanes a little towards the end, but still contains an interesting twist, where the love lorn Carey discovers the truth about Amy Yasbeck's reporter & Cameron's Diaz's night club singer. It is not what you'd expect. There are also some surprisingly good musical numbers, I bet that took some explaining in the studio board meetings!

All in all a good laugh & the mark of this film is that several years later, after watching at least 3 times since release, a recent TV showing still made me laugh again.

There'll never be another, perhaps that's as well as I doubt that the material would be so forthcoming, although it's a shame there won't be another helping of The Mask.

Unlike most who comment on this film I've been in Northern Ireland & seen the petty, small minded, nastyness that really lies behind the so called "noble cause", a truth that lies in drug dealing, racketering, international terrorism & sheer thuggery. I find it ironic that there is also a complete lack of any sort of reference in this film to the Marxist roots of Irish terrorism & the support these people got from the US. This must be the only time that the people & government of the United States have given so much money, help & support to a band of Communists since the end of World War 2! What was Korea, Vietnam & the Cold War all supposed to be about then?

The production values of the film also lend nothing to the experience, it's cheap & awful, with a wiggling camera that looks as if it's been suspended from a yo-yo. As an experiment to try to convey the immediacey of the times it's a worthy experiment, but it just doesn't work. What I can't figure out is why the producers didn't register the similar criticism of the TV show "This Life" which used the same technique & attracted the same complaints. The accents I didn't have any trouble with, although I can understand why international audiences might.

The story itself is pure B-S, slanted to the Republican side it loses all credibility by the end. Did members of the IRA open fire? Do you think those involved will ever come forward & admit to it? Are they even still alive? Certain political leaders try to convey that the army had never been shot at before Bloody Sunday, but anyone can read the coroners reports & see for themselves that the army had genuine concerns of ambush & sniper attacks. One major step forward though, for years the likes of Jerry "I've Never Killed Anyone" Adams referred to the protestors as "peaceful marchers", so at least this film has the guts to show that they were anything but peaceful. Such is the world of Northern Ireland, where the truth counts for nothing & if it rains on your day off "It's the fault of the British Government".

In conclusion then "nothing" is the word I would use for this film. It does little to shed new light, nothing to heal wounds, nothing to unveil the truth, nothing except to entrench existing views. It doesn't go into the Irish mentality that you can only solve problems with mindless violence, doesn't deal with the lack of sane community leadership, doesn't mention that the troops were there to initially protect the Catholics (which the Catholics welcomed) & that the progress that was being made regarding their problems was blown away by the mobs who rioted & expected to be rewarded for it afterwards.

The history of Northern Ireland in the last 40 years is undoubtedly a tragedy for all concerned & a litany of opportunities thrown away time & time again, but this film just deals with one fragment which is easily cast in a highly partisan light. Of course it could have dealt with the wider issues, but that would be to undermine the message it tries to peddle & would put the Irish republicans & their cronies in a bad light. The film could have dealt with the inability of the people to accept the responsibility for the increasing mess they were getting themselves into, but it doesn't.

0/10, a pile of rubbish, AVOID AVOID!

Forget the bloated, self serving, cliched & down right innacurate Spielberg production "Saving Private Ryan", if you want to see a true representation of the effects of modern war, see this film.

Vietnam produced some of the worst conditions for fighting in in modern & Hamburger Hill reflects that perfectly. The grinding, exhausting slog up the hill in all conditions, fighting the slippery slopes as well as the implacable enemy.

There are the usual story setting steps. The cast are introduced, their past, civilian lives are painted in remeniscing between the rest of the squad, with references & expansion being made as the film moves on. We've seen it all before & it was cliched then & it's cliched now. However the thoughtful use of unknown actors lends a certain degree of credibility to this plot device & it's seldom overused.

Also predictably the characters slowly get whittled away, often in the most gruesome fashion. The random, impersonal nature of the conflict is at great & jarring contrast to the almost hand to hand combat. One soilder is peppered with bullets while just a few feet away another is left unharmed. The chaos is clear, it's brutal effects also.

Where Hamburger Hill really scores over other efforts is the refreshing directorial view. It doesn't try to sell a corrupt message (unlike Spielberg in Private Ryan with yet another dig at the British Field Marshal Montgommery, he, like most US war film makers, just can't resist it). It sticks to the plot, without any diversions & the impact is all the greater for that.

In all the director retains the futility, the sheer gut wrenching horror of the battle, it is a masterpiece of lead, explosives & the ripped flesh of the combatants. "Private Ryan" blew what credibility it gained by the flag waving at the end, Hamburger Hill makes no such mistake.

A slight, romantic comedy that didn't provide too many laughs for me, but was OK in it's own way.

What stands out in this early Adam Sandler offering is that Sandler actually acts. It's not anything deep & meaningful, but he actually plays someone who isn't exactly like Adam Sandler (unlike the atrocious rubbish he's churned out ever since).

The story is predictable, it's been seen a thousand times before. Let's face it, apart from a few cosmetic alterations, this is a well worn path. Girl meets boy, boy is rich. Girl loves boy... or does she? Girl meets underdog, who's not rich but is "wholesome" or some other trite excuse. Girl falls in love with second boy, first boy beats up second boy & so so & so on, blah blah blah.

You just know that Sandler's character will end up in bed with a girl, just by chance, & that Barrymore will call round at that particular moment to declare her love only to be greeted by a semi dressed blonde or something.............. YAWN, isn't anything in Hollywood original these days?

True it is funny to see a retrospective on the early 1980s, with one wedding present consisting of a $700 CD player, the gift bearer having to actually explain what a CD is! The hairstyles (including the "Flock of Seagulls" reference) plus the music & clothes are all pretty well done, without being overdone. But the joke wears pretty thin after a while, even given the appearance of Billy Idol & the whole film sags under the burden of a plot line scraped from the very bottom of the barrel.

Finally I must say that I do think that this is the best Adam Sandler film I've ever seen............ which wouldn't be difficult given the absolute rubbish he's made the rest of the time.

Well you could dismiss this film as a "Three Reel Weepie" except that it goes on for over 2 hours!

For a start the plot is yawnful, it's all be done before. Retarded father loses daughter to heartless authorities. He's shown as the idiot who's unimpeded by social restrictions, has no cynicism about unconditional love of his daughter & eventually he wins her back through his unending love for her....... blah blah blah. OK, if you like this stuff, but this is hardly original.

It's also pretty much by-the-numbers, with the expected relationship between Sean Pen's "Sam" & his hard bitten lawyer, Pfieffer's "Harrison", popping up (oh what a surprise, eh?). She even gives him a suit for his court appearance, but can't you just tell he's going to get it all dirty at the last minute? (oh what a surprise.... again....etc etc etc, YAWN!). This goes on & on throughout the whole 2 hours, something I do not expect to have to pay good money to see.

To be fair there are some impressive performances. Sean Pen as Sam is a wonderful performance, seldom does he lose the character's multitude of ticks, quirks & other autism habits. Pfieffer is a real pro' & can seemingly take on any role with ease & keep your eye on her when on screen without looking as though she's actually working hard (which she most likely is, but that's the skill, isn't it?). The supporting cast are also competent, with Laura Dearn as the foster mother, Lucy Diamond Dawson as "Sam"'s daughter & even Brent Spiner as a shoe salesman (the cameo has REALLY had a come back it seems). As for Sam's film obsessed friends, you couldn't really tell if they were also autistic or not. Were they actors or were they autistic actors? Either way they were the foil for some slight comedy & character insights.

The camera work & direction is also polished, Jessie Nelson plays with colours quite a lot (notice the bright, almost primary colours of Sam's world & the drab colours of the real world.... also the child protection agent appears in almost monochrome at times, except her earings which are bright gold.... etc etc). This reminded me of the wonderful "Three Kings" where colour & hue played an important part of the atmosphere when following the various plot threads.

Some of the "Sam plays with daughter" flash backs were so twee they almost seemed like washing powder ads, but it was always well done.

The underlying weakness of the film is the plot. It's so limp wristed & wishy washy that you wonder how it's going to hold together without completely falling into old cliches. In fact the end creeps up on you in such a hopelessly weak manner I had to wonder if I'd missed something.

2/10, boring.

I've no idea what the makers of this film were trying to achieve. On a more personal level I've no idea why i continued to watch it, even when it was clear that the plot line was not going to develop into something more interesting.

The story follows the return of Gene Hackman's character, Royal Tenenbaum, to the family home, by weasling his way back into his estranged wife's aquaintance with a claim that he's dying. There's a lot of voice over work, with broad sweeps of the narator's brush cutting through the family history, something that continues right until the end.

All the family children return home too, by one way or another, plus there is the family friend "Eli Cash" played by Owen Wilson. The dysfunctional aspects of the family can the be explored (Oh how novel), with Gene Hackman's caracter being revealed as a lying, cheating, busted ex-lawyer; Ben Stiller is an over-achieving widower who lost his wife in a plane crash & who has look alike kids who's lives he's screwing up too; Gwyneth Paltrow is a disaffected daughter who's never adjusted to her adoption into the family; Luke Wilson drifts along as the ex-tennis pro & Anjelica Huston stars as Mrs Tenenbaum, the only member of the family to show any signs of being reasonably well adjusted.

There's sub plots, twists & avenues along the way, but in reality it's all so limp wristed that it fails to hold your interest for long. It's not that important messages are lost under a veil of subtlety, the narrator holds the audience's hand far to firmly for that to happen, it's rather that nothing really happens.

This is no more than a cheap TV drama, dressed up with a big budget, given a slight (& I do mean SLIGHT!) comic twist & sent scurrying off to the big screen by way of an all star cast.

To be fair there are a few comic moments, best of all with Danny Glover falling down a trench as he walks alongside Huston. This scene is well done, but it's been seen a thousand times before since the days of silent films. As for the druggy Owen Wilson's appearance with his crazilly painted face that was enough to raise a smile, but that's about it.

Ben Stiller can usually make me laugh, but not this time, as he didn't seem to get much chance to use his comedic talents. Gwyneth Paltrow played such a disipated character that she was almost forgettable & might as easily been invisible. Luke WIlson's failed tennis pro also just seemed to drift around the screen, as if lost, which just about summed up the matter for me. They all just drifted around.

Bill Murray was a surprise, sporting a greying beard & glasses he seemed uncannily like Salmand Rushdie! You can tell it's getting desperate when it's something like that generates interest.

All in all what this film was about baffles me. Family reconciliation.. so what, it's been done a thousand times before, done better & far cheaper too, no doubt. My advice is to avoid this dog.

The title claim that this is based on a true story & well it may be. Certainly some of the tale is so ridiculous that you can believe it's true, it would take an imaginative screen writer to think up some of the twists & turns & sheer outright strangeness you see.

First of all the casting is simply flawless. At first I wondered what on earth Billy Bob Thornton was doing in the role of Ed Crane, playing a barber, he seemed totally wrong for the part. But instead of the usual Hollywood knee-jerk reaction of putting a big name personality on screen to attract audiences, giving us ego instead of character, Billy Bob does a wonderful job of creating the man of few words, Ed Crane. Well, this is the Cohen Brothers after all, not some predictable Brockheimer or Speilberg rubbish!

The inclusion of old time Coen Bro's playlist actors like Francis McDormond (Ed Crane's wife, Dorris Crane) & Jon Polito (dry cleaning evangelist, Creighton Tolliver) ad to the talent bank without overwhelming the screen with too many familiar faces from previous movies. McDormond is pathetic/tragic, while Polito is suitably sleezey.

A little criticism surrounds the casting of James Gandolfini .... "David Allen 'Big Dave' Brewster" in the film, who pretty much reprises his role in the TV series "The Soppranos". No bad thing, the act fits in perfectly, but you do end up hoping he can find other modes of expression. His on screen wife is played by Katherine Borowitz .... as Ann Nirdlinger, the owners of the store "Big Dave" runs (& who is embezzling funds from with the aid of McDormond who does the accounts). Borowitz is simply spooky, especially the part where she visits Ed Crane's house after Big Dave is murdered & tells Crane that the Government & aliens are involved, "We camped out.... there were lights in the sky...they took him up into a flying saucer..." & so on. Her eyes simply freaked me out the whole way through & she permanently looked as if she was being electrocuted. Wierd.

The surrounding issues wind & twist, sometimes without any logical reason, but as I said it's supposed to be based on real life & that can be wierd enough, as we all know. To an extent you have to let it flow like a river & see what comes past. In the end it all makes sense.... mostly! The are two scenes that left me puzzled by their significance, the dream scene where Ed Crane sees the flying saucer & seems to have some communication with it & the flash back with the asphalt salesman. Perhaps the latter shows how loveless & barren the marriage was between Ed & Doris Crane, but you know that already by this point.

As in all film noir the simple act of blackmail that kicks the whole tragedy into high gear, unravels in a messy way. Bodies pile up at a steady, but restrained pace, there are some slightly cliched scenes with the resulting court cases, but then there are wonderfully poetic bits of cinematography concerning the crowd scenes. Notice the part where Ed Crane is walking against the crowd & the later part where he drives his car slowly, as he shadows the private detective walking along the street. It's all like a dream.

How the part of Scarlett Johansson .... "Rachael 'Birdy' Abundas", fits in I am not quite sure. The story goes off on a tangent for a while, as, in the midst of the tragedy & with matters getting out of his control, Ed Crane attempts to mentor the piano playing teenager trying to boost her talent. He gets more than he bargained for...well almost! (you'll see what I mean). But if this section had been missed out I don't see how it would have affected the plot. Maybe it was included simply because it happened. Anyway you get to see an old 1950s car well & truly thrown through the air, I hope it was a model or a mockup. Either way it's a simply wonderful scene as the car Ed Crane drives leaves the road at speed & is seen spiraling through the air.

The story takes another twist, in typical noir style, the final scene again concentrating on haircuts, with bitter irony.

If you can tolerate the almost non-existent dialogue from Thornton & the totally retro style then this is for you. This is not a film for those who want their steaks served as mince between a bun. This is a film for those who like films & as such gets my hearty endorsement.

Right now this awful film is suffering the final ignimony it truly deserves. Having hit the shelves on DVD it didn't sell & so is being knocked out at the same price but including another major release from the same studio. Even then, such an incentive can't shift "Pearl Harbor" off the shelves. And people scoffed at Kevin Costner & "Water World"!!!!

As far as the story is concerned, well we all know the plot, a staggering torrent threatens to overwhelm us .............no, not the effect of the Japanese air attack on the Naval station at Pearl, I'm talking about the cliches & their effect on the audience. "If anyone has finished with their popcorn can I borrow the bag, I'm going to barf!".

Oh, here we go, right in at the deep end. Childhood pals grow up in some Perfect Little America, Rafe (Ben Affleck) and Danny (Josh Hartnett).Ben Affleck goes off to England to fight the Nazis... he's shot down (predictably) presumed dead (you know he isn't really)& his best friend "comforts" his now emotionally stranded girlfriend (Kate Beckinsale). Yawn, yawn yawn....can't you tell what's going to happen next? Broderrick returns... Zzzz Zzzz Zzzz... the friends fall out & everything that follows is played out to the tune of falling bombs, waving flags & running to battle stations while showing your muscles & good looks....Zzzzz Zzzz Zzzz.

By the time the battle sequences started I was already beyond caring & could hardly keep my eyes open, but the caffeine in the coke I was drinking helped. I perked up a little when the bombs started falling, but this soon faded. The CGI aircraft, bombs, ships & explosions looked cheap & nasty & the little plot line that remained between the characters was continually tiresome, irritating & pathetically predictable.

In the end I couldn't wait to get out & I regret having wasted time & money on such tripe. I don't often find so little positive to say about a movie, but this one takes the prize, beaten only by the indescribably awful "Smokers". The one & only bright spot in all this gloom is John Voight as President Roosevelt, but even this performance is overshadowed by the sheer boredom involved in getting so far & all that follows.

Why Hollywood continues down the same old ludicrously dreadful lines I'll never know. One explanation I have heard is that people there are so afraid of making a decision that when Hollwyood executives get married they take 15 years to decide where to go on honeymoon. No one wants to decide, because if things go wrong they'll get the blame. The result is stagnation & this film reeks of it. Let's face it, if anyone has seen the equally 'by-the-numbers' tripe "Titanic" then you've seen this version of Pearl Harbor. For the Japanese air attack read the iceberg, for Pearl Harbor read the Titanic. It's just another bucket load of the same, old same-old wrapped up in a different cover.

Don't go anywhere near this film, stick to the infinitely superior "Tora Tora Tora", which, despite it's age, is the definitive work on this piece of history.

Hopefully Hollywood will learn from this mistake, but I doubt it.

I remember the fuss & bother about the original book's publication & since then I've come across a seemingly endless number of people who've bought it, but never finished it. If the film is anything to go by, I can understand why.

First of all the film has the natural advantage of being set in the Mediteranean, so you get the beautiful backgrounds of the sea, blue skies, lush olive groves & so on. Although I have no idea if it was filmed in the Greek islands that's what fills the screen & it's pleasing on the eye. The CGI German Stukas still look unreal, proving that the computer programmers have a long way to go even before they can replace objects, let alone people, but CGI is only to be expected when showing such rare aircraft in the massed formations used in World War 2. Gone are the days when films such as The Battle of Britain, or The Battle of Midway could be filmed with the real thing! Those ex-mlitary aircraft, once so plentiful to film studios when the airforces of the world fianlly got rid of their old piston engined fighters in the 1960s, have long since passed into museums & private collections.

As for the story, well I kept waiting for something to happen & all I got were a few fizzles & ultimately dissapointment. What does happen is so predicatable it's not worth the wait. The too-ing & fro-ing between the characters played by John Hurt, Nicholas Cage, Penelope Cruz & Chris Bale is yawnfully cliched & tired old stuff. Oh yes, it's a love triangle... how novel....'scuse me while I catch up on my sleep. There was one minor highlight very early on, where the town fathers wouldn't surrender to the Italians & insisted on a German officer instead, but that was about it.

It doesn't even try to maintain accuracy, like when the sea-mine is exploded. Yes it's nice to finally see something of what an explosion REALLY does & not what Hollywood likes to make you see, but the simple fact is that sea mines contained a ton or half a ton of explosives & despite the sand-bagged bunker Corelli used he'd be minced meat, quite literally so.

Also, can anyone tell me if the Germans ever used landing craft with drop fronts? As far as I was aware they never had anything like this in WW2. Maybe I'm wrong, but I suspect that modern day landing craft were used as the sight of barges lazily ploughing their way across the Aegean wasn't so dramatic.

As for the actors, well Nicholas Cage should give up hopes of ever putting on an accent ever again. It was AWFUL! Overall he wasn't convincing either, something I can't put my finger on, but he was woefully miscast in the part of Corelli.

As for Penelope Cruz.....well she's as sour faced as ever & simply uninteresting. Although the latter may have been a product of the overall disinterest I had in the film I have since seen her in the far more interesting "Blow" & the same impression lingered. She has a nice figure, no doubt about it, & the guys will cheer when she gets her top off for a roll in the hay with Corelli. But she's got that Audrey Hepburn thin neck/big head combination that looks like she will break at any moment. It also makes her look anorexic at times too.

John Hurt ( the Brit') discharges his role with understated ease....aided by the fact that his character seemingly doesn't have much to do, despite being center stage for a lot of the time.

Chris Bale wanders around as the third corner of the Cruz/Cage menage au trois, alternating between heroic, sympathetic, pathetic, to rebelious. All in all I'm left with the conclusion that the story simply doesn't give the actors enough to do. Nick Cage's Corelli does seemingly have an indestructable nature, he survives being bombed, shot & blown up (the sea mine incident), to return to his beloved greek girl (Cruz). The earthquake of 1947 is shown, why I don't know, maybe it was a real incident that had to be worked into the story, but it just seems to happen & what it's supposed to mean I'm not at all sure.

It's hard to be so down on a movie, but that's the way it goes with something like this. I'm glad to say that the night wasn't wasted, I'd rented "The Rutles", so had plenty to laugh at this week (a BBC comedy, half Monty Python, Half Saturday Night Live based on the life of the Beatles & the inspiration for "This Is Spinal Tap"...try it, you won't be disapointed).

For those who rent this on DVD, forget any bonus material, no cut scenes, out takes, behind the scenes, or "making of" stuff, completeing on DVD the overall disapointment of the film.

This is the kind of film that I had almost given up hope of a Hollywood studio ever making. Can you imagine selling the idea to Hollywood exec's? I tried explaining the plot to a friend & couldn't even do it, even after seeing the film & understanding what was going on!

The way the plot unfolds in reverse is a terrific idea, as it robs the audience of the usual narative mechanism, putting us in the position of the character, Leonard Shelby (an excellent Guy Pearce). This is written large during the chase scene, where he's running, but can't work out whther he's chasing someone, or being chased.

Here's where the skill of the director, Christopher Nolan (who also has writing credits), comes to the fore. There is no sledgehammer-to-crack-a-nut plot lines. Natalie's character introduces us to the way Leonard can be maniplulated due to his short term memory loss & Leonard's own recolections of Sammy Jankis fills in some of the other blanks. After that you have to put two & two together. This is NOT "Die Hard" where it's a case of events being set up like pins in a row, with the obvious intention of them being knocked down later, you have to think about this one & BOY will it make you think.

In the end some may not work it out, but or those who do the prize is sweet. Enjoy.

Enough has already been written about the use of music & the luxurious imagery of this film, but one disturbing fact remains uncertain concerning what happens on screen.

Things go pretty well up to a certain point, the young writer (McGregor) seemingly recounting his tale, the narcoleptic Argentinian dropping through a rotten floor into his apartments just after he arrives in Paris(if you've stayed in French hostelries you'll appreciate just how possible that would be in some of them!), an occurrence that leads to the meeting with Tolouse Latrec & his troupe. So far so good.

Then they take their first sip of Absinthe, a powerful hallucinogenic drink, renowned for introducing people to "The Green Fairy". Sure enough up she pops, in the form of Kylie Minogue & to the voice of Ozzy Osbourne (no stranger to drugs himself). Now the film goes into hyperspace & the imagery aquires a twisted other worldlyness that persists, only broken by the odd reprise of McGregor's character sat at the typewriter tapping out what happened.

Glasses of Absinthe are continually popping up throughout the film, suggesting further consumption. McGregor's hotel has another clue, with a faded advert for Absinthe to the right of his window. Although Absinthe was particularly popular & no doubt widely advertised & consumed, the way you are propelled through the gates of the Montmarte region once the first glass has been downed suggests that this is not merely attention to detail.

The scenes from then on fit very well with an Acid trip. For instance it may be tempting to say that finding your true love makes you fell that you can dance on air, but is this really Baz Lerhman borowing from Buzby Berkley or Fred Astaire? True he borrow enough from others, but the trend that builds up is suspicious.

Perhaps one of the final scenes is the most suggestive. Near the climax the Duke's asassin has a gun which is knocked out of his hand. The weapon exits via a window in the theatre & flies through the nightime Paris air, only to bang into the Eiffel Tower. In a clear breach of perspective the comparative sizes of the gun & tower have changed dramatically, with either the tower being shrunk or the gun being enlarged. Clearly something is not right here.

All in all it seems that Baz Lerhman has been playing with our minds, something that Ridley Scott did with such skill in BLade Runner, only Lerhman is more up front about it. Maybe it is simply something else he has borrowed, like all the other references. But this doesn't make it a bad film.

I don't think too much should be read into this, even if it's all just an attempt to mess with the viewer's mind. Let's face it what's more surreal that a bunch of kids & a nun in plain clothes suddenly breaking into song for no other reason than there's Nazis approaching? It worked for The Sound of Music & it shouldn't be forgotten that in the world of cinema real life ends when the lights go down & only restarts when you discover that you can't remember where you parked the car ..... & it's raining.

On balance Moulon Rogue is a damned good tale, filled with high dudgeon, vivid characters & plenty of laughs. This is odd when compared to the publicity releases & trailers, as I was convinced that it was going to be dreary & dull, being dragged along by my wife who wanted to see it. Quite why the studio publicity machine has chosen not to even so much as suggest that you might well laugh at the antics of the on screen characters is quite beyond me. It's a pleasant surprise to see that Hollywood can still produce something as off the wall as this, which still retains mass market apeal.

McGregor & Kidman are excellent...by the way in Ewan McGregor are we really looking at the next James Bond? Kidman is too thin for my liking & should eat a few Mars Bars (Rene Zellwegger in "Bridget Jone's Diary" gained much admiration for her figure don't forget), but her performance can't be faulted. Jim Broadbent as Zeigler is as mixture of coldhearted ruthlessness & deep down softness, with a screen filling persona that is just right for the film. Jacek Koman as the narcoleptic Argetinian provides a wonderfully odd character that I don't think I've ever seen portrayed before. Richard Roxburgh get's his chance to ham it up completely as the Duke, driven to insane jealousy for Satine (Kidman), providing us with a classic villain whom you can almost see twirling his moustache & tying young heroines to the railway line.

Sit back, enjoy the ride.