Reviews

I love Iron Eagle. It's heavily slated as a "Top Gun rip-off" but in truth it certainly is not that.

Sure, Iron Eagle doesn't have the babes or the budget that Top Gun had, but who cares? It's still a fantastic fun movie to watch, no matter how unrealistic it is.

Lou Goussett Jr, Jason Gredick and David Suchet all put on blinding performances. The chemistry between Lou and Jason is great, believeable at times.

Iron Eagle in my honest opinion is better than Top Gun, many say it isn't but I think it is...it certainly has the better action scenes and a cool thumping soundtrack.

More of a "lads" movie, probably the pinnacle of an 80's nostalgic film.

Legendary, if underrated. Move over Top Gun.

8/10

Forget lame US sitcoms, British comedy rules them all.

The Office breaths new life into the world of comedy. It's one of the best comedies to be shown on the small screen in a long time. Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant have both done a wonderful job creating this unbelievably witty and unbearably hilarious comedy.

Ricky plays David Brent, the hapless manager of Werham-Hogg, a small paper merchants company which is rapidly going down hill, nearing redundancies and even closure. David thinks he's a funny, tough and rather sexy man although most of his work colleagues thing he's an idiot. David struggles constantly by cracking lame jokes or acting the clown just try and win them over... but inevitably he fails each time. The Office is actually quite frightening because at times is looks and feels so realistic, is must have office's

cringing all over the UK!

Part of Davids "troops" include secretary Dawn Tinsley, Tim (who secretly fancies Dawn), Gareth (who thinks he's tough because he's been in the TA's) Chris Finch or "Finchy" (Brent's best mate, bit of a cocky git like Brent) Keith (who has about as much conversation as a Pot Noodle) Jennifer (Head-Office, very serious person) and Neil (also Head Office). Each character have their own differences and are a joy to watch wonderfully portrayed by a wonderful cast of actors and actresses, making The Office an absolute gem.

One of the best comedies in a long time. Go out and buy the DVD of series 1.

9/10

American Ninja, yet another series of movies which failed from the word "go" brings us yet another sequel; American Ninja 3: Bloodhunt.

Chop socky is not the word for the American Ninja movies...boring comes more to mind. I've seen American Ninja 1, 2 and now 3 and each one is just so boring. I think the 3rd installment tops it off.

No Dudikoff this time, maybe he's seen sense and got the hell out of the American Ninja movies before it completely wrecks his constant down hill career. Although Mr badass himself, Steve James (Jackson) returns, who looks so out of place. There's also a new guy in town, David Bradley, who in my opinion is just a beefier version of Dudikoff, but with less acting abilities and more facial expressions.

As usual the countless number of "ninja's" if that's what you want to call them (I personally think they are the local thugs dressed in pj's) are back. These ninja are possibly the biggest pushovers in movie history, they can't fight for toffee. James and Bradley have to wade through them all, displaying awful choreographed fight scenes (which is the highlight of the movie, as it's so pathetically funny) and kill the usual bad guy...whose also a pushover.

American Ninja is bad, I mean really bad. Don't watch these movies if your like me, a big martial arts fan. The fight sequences are so badly choreographed it's an insult to every decent martial arts movie out there.

You'll see what I'm talking about when Steve James attempts to "display" his wonderful martial arts skills. I'm sorry but the guy just hasn't a clue, it's obvious that he's clueless...just watch the double broadsword scene towards the end of the movie and you'll know what I'm talking about. Wooden isn't the word for him.

2/10 - boring but hilariously crap in parts

The Lone Wolf and Cub or "Babycart" series of movies are a joy to watch. There's never a dull moment during Ogami and Diagoro's travels across the land they call "hell".

White Heaven in Hell is the last installment to a great series. Ogami must face what's left of the Yagyu Clan including Lord Retsudo. Ogami must kill them all to avenge Azami's (Ogami's wife) death.

This movie displays some great choreography (as always) Tomisaburo Wakayama is that good with the sword I sometimes tend to believe the guy is a real "masterless samurai". Although some of the fight scenes are a little confusing (the fight with the girl and the throwing daggers) on a whole this movie displays jaw-dropping sword fights...including an amusing final showdown battle in the snow.

And as usual, the movie displays some weird techniques of eradicating others...including daggers through the head, and even a rocket launcher! This may sound weird, but that's Babycart for you. But it works...in a weird kind of way,

In my opinion, Tomisaburo Wakayama is certainly up there with the likes of Toshiro Mifune...if better.

The end of what's possibly the best samurai saga ever.

8/10

Considering it's budget (200,000,000 francs) that's about £19,000,000 or $31,000,000 I think...this movie was breath-taking.

It was nice to finally see Mark Dacascos in a decent movie for a change, instead of starring in a load of really cheap and pretty lame action movies (although Drive was pretty good). His martial art skills made this movie even more fascinating...a historical fantasy kung fu type movie set in revolutionary France, about a "wolf-like" beast that kills mainly women and children...a very strange concept but very well executed.

I won't spoil it for the people who haven't already seen it, but believe me, the special effects (even if the slow-motion effect is used a bit too excessive) are out of this world. My only rant are some of the `beast' CGI effects. The beast in some scene's looks a little out of place...although it doesn't really matter; this movie still boasts some eye-popping action sequences. It's not surprising really when you have a certain Philip Kwok (Mad Dog from John Woo's Hard-Boiled) as the fight choreographer.

Overall, a great `Sleepy Hollow' esque movie which popped up from no where, sweeping me off my feet...great stuff.

8/10

Let me get one thing straight before I start reviewing Return to a Better Tomorrow. It is in no way a sequel, or prequel to John Woo's class "A Better Tomorrow" starring Chow Yun Fat.

Return To A Better Tomorrow is like many underrated Hong Kong action movies. It has great action sequences, good unknown actors and a healthy storyline. The great thing about Hong Kong movies is that no matter how small the budget, it always seems to pull off pretty well. Like Robert Rodriguez's "El Mariachi" for example, even if it's not a Hong Kong action movie, considering it's budget ($7000) it's a great movie.

Anyway back to Return to a Better Tomorrow. Although it has nothing to do with A Better Tomorrow, this movie does seem to take a leaf out of John Woo's classic film. Some of the scenes in RTABT do have a slight "deja-vu" feel to them, I thing the director was heavily influenced by A Better Tomorrow and decided to base a lot of the action within RTABT from Woo's ABT.

The storyline has all the classic elements of a gangster/Hong Kong action movie: faith, brotherhood, trust, treachery etc, just like A Better Tomorrow, this is when RTABT does start to feel like it's been heavily influenced by the classic John Woo movie, none the less...it's still a great film, if underrated.

This should please most action junkies out there, but please...don't consider it a sequel to A Better Tomorrow.

7/10.