Source Code

Jake Gyllenhaal does well in this sci-fi action thriller which sees him playing Captain Colter Stevens. We see Stevens wake up on a commuter train, disorientated and confused, not recognising the girl who's talking to him in the opposite seat. After a panic and confused few minutes the train explodes and everyone is dead...

Stevens then wakes up in some sorts of cockpit, strapped into a harness, a voice calling out to him in a military fashion to which he eventually responds. Questions get fired at him, “Who's the bomber!? Did you find the Bomb!?” We then learn that he has been sent back into a memory to relive the last 8 minutes of a passengers life, in order to catch a terrorist who blew up the train and has threatened to release a dirty bomb on downtown Chicago.

What unfolds from then on is a compelling action-packed adventure full of twists, turns and revelations which are thoroughly enjoyable.

Source Code is a very well put together movie, good performances all round. Gyllenhaal does well as the lead and Michelle Monaghan is a good co-star like she usually is. My only annoyance was the way at which Jeffery Wright talks! He doesnt talk in this annoying manner in any other of his films so not quite sure what was going on.

IMHO give Source Code a well deserved 8/10

Stakeland



Stakeland is a new take of the post-apocalyptic world scenario, though this time not through nuclear or natural disasters but a virus that cause people to turn into vampires -- vampires which pleasantly don’t follow the normal rules for the genre (good looking, suave and uber “RPatz” six packs). In Stakeland they are more of a hybrid, a vamp cross zombie which works really well and is a very welcome change from the norm.

The film follows the journey of Mister, the mysterious loner, and Martin a recently orphaned teenager who Mister rescues and takes under his wing. Their journey sees them trying to reach the salvation of “New Eden” aka Canada, and the battles and friends they make along the way.

The film feels like a pleasant change to the horror genre and has an air of The Road and The Book of Eli about it. It stars a relatively unknown cast apart from a rather old looking Kelly McGillis (Top Gun). They all play their parts well and are convincing in their roles.

Where Stakeland lets itself down is the over use of the cinematic transitions the director uses to cover the large portions of their journey. It seems every time they got into a car we had to have this slow down and switch to bittersweet music. I felt that if they used this maybe once or twice it would have worked, but instead it happened five or so times and really made the film drag in parts. That coupled with a very corny ending brings the score down for me.

IMHO give Stakeland 6/10

Hanna (2011)

Managed to watch Hanna today, billed as a Bourne-style movie but featuring a genetically modified teenager who has been raised in the wild by her father (Eric Bana), honing her skills as an assasin, getting her ready for the day when she is able to go into the world but at the same time she would be hunted by the American government.

What certainly started off as as a very intriguing and enthralling film slowly seemed to lose itself into itself. It felt as though it didn't know what to do and ending up falling a bit flat. The action was few and far between and wasn't all that impressive, certainly not in the same league as the Bourne movies.

The cast were all quite good, Saoirse Ronan did a good job in her lead role. Eric Bana was ok, good start but then fell off towards the end, but that was more down to his character's role just becoming bland - he just ended up running lots but the directing was a bit poor making scenes hop about all over the place. Cate Blanchett was not good in her role, she looked like Agent Scully from the X-files and her American accent was over the place more than a certain premiership footballer. As accents go all the lead cast members were ropey at times but I guess that's what happens when you have one Australian playing an American and another playing a German, and a American-born-Irish-raised girl playing a German whose accent slipped so much at time she sounded English.

Hanna is the sort of movie that has so much premise yet it falls flat on its face. We have seen it happen way too many times. It's not action packed despite its promising opening twenty minutes and it's not heartfelt enough for you to get attached to Hanna enough to care what happens to her.

Overall I felt kind of disappointed but would still recommend it for those lazy Sunday afternoons when there's nothing else to do.

IMHO gives Hanna 5/10



Bethesda what have you done...

This game is terrible; controls are clumsy, camera has a mind of its own, graphics are horrific, it's just a nightmare to play with zero enjoyment.

Labled as an action rpg and from the mighty Bethesda I was hoping for a game similar to Oblivion or Two worlds, but it's not. It's nowhere near. Instead you're on a linier path to boredom and frustration.

I would try and write a more in depth review but I'm bored even thinking about the game and I only got to the end of the first stage, which was a stage too far.

IMHO gives Hunted: The Demon's Forge 2/10

Dead ACE 2!

I have been waiting a while to get to play Dead Space 2. After thoroughly enjoying the first in the series I was quite eager to give this a go. I was not dissapointed...

Like in the first you play Issac Clarke. You awake in a medical station with no memory of the past three years but you soon discover all is not as it should be... the Necromorphs are back...

The graphics are just as impressive as the former and the controls are easy to master. The gore is of the finest quality, nothing quite beats blasting the limbs off the enemy, a complete dismemberfest! I love the weapons in the Dead Space games, entirely unique and savage. I wish I had my own Javelin Gun to pin my foe against the wall then send 50,000 vaults through them!

The horror element of this sci-fi survival game is up there with the original Resident Evil. The game is full of moments that make you jump out of your skin and the haunting images and flashbacks that trouble Issac through the game are just that, haunting.

The only downside to Dead Space 2 is that there's nothing new in the game. Theres no excitement in experiencing the innovative features it has as they were all in the predecessor. Not entirley a bad thing as the origional was so much fun.

I would descibe Dead Space like a cross between Event Horizon and Aliens, if you can picture those two movies in one game you;re on my wavelength! Alien is in fact a good comparison. The first Dead Space kind of mimics the 1979 movie by having civilians battling the Alien monsters, and with the sequal there's a more militaristic feel about it, minus the one liners. Stay frosty.

I hold Dead Space and this sequel in high regard - they are compelling, horriffic and action packed. Presented beautifully they are good on the eye and the hud is original and works fantastically. The single player campaign will take a good 10 hours to complete and there is now multiplayer to further enhance your experience with the game.

This game is damn good!

IMHO gives Dead Space 2    9/10

"Tyred" of the same old movies?

If your looking for something a bit different, something that offers no reasoning to the question "why?", then Rubber is a must watch. 

It wont make sense to a lot of people and they will turn it off within a few minutes, unfortunately for them they will be missing out on a completely original film which somehow, despite the plot, is engaging, clever and enjoyably gruesome!

From the first moment I saw "Rubber" rise out of the dirt and take its first newborn giraffe like steps, I was hooked. Somehow this inanimate object was able to convey emotions. You can tell it thoroughly enjoyed rolling over a plastic bottle, the satisfaction in crushing it was evident (somehow) just as much as its frustration at its attempt to break a glass bottle. This is where, through the power of thought (read telekenisis) rubber develops the ability to make things explode!

He then sets off rolling around the local area exploring and killing anything and everything it comes across. I dont want to reveal too much about what happens as to not ruin the film for you, but heads do go pop!

The ability of director Quentin Dupieux to get a very dynamic performance out of an inanimate object than what current Hollywood pieces of wood manage in their whole career (Liam Neeson, Nicolas Cage, Clive Owen) is very impressive.

Rubber wont win an Oscar but is definately going to be a cult classic. Hopefully you will be able to open your mind enough and not question what your seeing to enjoy it as much as I did.

IMHO give Rubber 8/10



Just-eat.co.uk

Slighty different review here, but I wanted to take the opportunity to recommend the service provided by Just-eat.co.uk. If you're like us and enjoy the odd takeaway then next time you're going to order one give Just-eat a try. It's an online ordering site for your local restaurants that have signed up to the service - all the different eateries have their menus online and you simply add what you want to the basket. Simple! Takes away the language barrier issues that sometimes crop up when placing a phone order and it makes life a lot easier as you can pay by cash or card (card payment adds 50p to the bill). It lets you re-order your last order so it's a lot faster ordering and you can rate the restuarant you order from too.

It would be nice to have more restaurants signed up (but saying that the list does keep growing) and regular discount codes would be welcomed I'm sure. Not being charged for paying by card would be a bonus too.

Right now the following code is giving 15% off, but hurry I doubt it will last much longer!  WCVHSGZ54

IMHO give Just-Eat.co.uk 8/10

Fast and Labourious 5

"The best one yet," they said. "Not like the others," they also said. Turns out they were right! Well almost. We met with friends to go and see this the other night, everything I had heard and seen leading up to us going was all positive and I was expecting a more grown up, action packed, neon light-less experience, well two out of three isn't bad.

In my head I said that for it to be different from the rest it was only allowed five shots of somone changing gear, which it adhered to for about 25 minutes. During one sequence I think we saw somone change gear eight times in a five speed gearbox. That's some talent! And a quarter mile race lasted about two minutes - boy those cars must have been slow!

Paul Walker was his usual cardboard self - the film is filled with countless shots of his gormless smug grin. Duane "The Rock" Johnson was quite good! At least he played his part convincingly, and it wasnt his fault his dialogue was cringe worthy in places, but he certainly kicked butt. Vin Diesel was his usual self, didnt expect anything else from him as he consistantly delivers mediocre.

There is a few shots to boost Vin's ego, namely when squaring up to The Rock. They had him on a box, they must have done, because Vin is a max of 5"10 with The Rock measuring in at 6"4 yet they were eye to eye with the shot cut at the waist. The Rock is massive in this movie and dwarfs Vin, yet he obviously didn't like that and wanted to measure up more.

Thankfully there is no chavvy street racing, well there is but you dont get to see it thankfully, just see the result of it. There is also a lack of underglow neon lighting which is welcoming. But where I thought it might of grown up is reducing the amount of gravity defying impossible stunts and inaccurate firefights, but no it's filled with them. From a Ford GTO flying out of a train and happily bouncing off the ground and driving off, to a couple of cars pulling a 50 tonne vault out of a wall and speeding through a city with it...

However depsite all of this it is an enjoyable action packed movie, fully enjoyable if you're able to take your brain out and just watch. It IS the best one of the series and is different form the rest which was welcoming, and The Rock was the best thing about the film (even if his goatee was changing length through the film).

IMHO gives Fast and Furious 5    6/10



L.A. Snore?

Along with many I waited patiently for L.A. Noire to be released, anticipation grew to a point where I actually pre-orderd the game, something I never do. After first stumbling across a few early production stills over a year ago I was hooked. Could Rockstar actually deliver what they were promising? A game set in an exciting era with the openess of the previous Grand Theft Auto games, the player taking on the role of a detective having to work crime scenes to solve the murders which had taken place, a sandbox game with radom street crimes to keep you on your toes whilst working the bigger cases? It was also boasting about a new technology which was able to, for the first time, fully capture people's face motions enabling the use of emotions to help detect whether a person is lying or telling the truth - a fantastic achievemnt if they can actually pull it off.

As time passed actual gameplay trailers were released. They looked stunning and seemed to confirm what was promised; the faces look spectacular, Los Angeles looked impeccable and the game play seemed to fit.

Then the day came, the letter box flapped as my new favourite postie pushed through my copy of L.A. Noire. The box art was very good, it made me want to know more. Popping open the case I found the game was spread over three discs, something I was unaware of but further boosted my excitment by making me think this game is huge! I fired up my ever trusty xbox360 and popped in disc one...

After unlocking my pre-order outfit with no issues I took a peek in the social club menu to find I'd been given a second outfit. Cool, I thought, I like extras! I started up the main story wanting to have a piece of this revouloutionary game. The first case finds you as a normal beat cop, answering a call to a shooting - straight off it looked stunning, usual controls for this type of game, all good. Spent the next ten to fifteen minutes searching a dark alley hunting for clues to unravel what had taken place... where was the murder weapon!? So far so good, very impressed. But then for me it tailed off...

Instead of being this big open world filled with crime that needed me, the big new detective on the scene, it turned into a very linear restricted game, the "random" street crimes consisted of pre-scripted events with their own cutscenes and always in the same location on the map. There are only fourty of them some only taking less than a minute to complete, that's not what I was expecting at all. The main story was kind of what I was expecting but after three cases you already knew the angles to take, you know that when you "solve" this case; the next one will be exactly the same. A friend described it as "Groundhog Day, but less funny." Couldn't agree more.

The game has many flaws - the biggest one and the biggest gripe of mine is it isn't based on free roam like I feel I was led to believe. Then you have the character you "play". I put play in quotation marks as you dont really. You dont choose what to say, it's all prescripted. You cant beat a confession out of somone like one of the other game characters suggests and you certainly cant arrest anyone or solve the case off your own back as you have to follow the script filling in the blanks made up of quite obvious clues dotted about the various locations. It's like playing out a TV episode of Columbo, but with less cigars.

Interregations happen a lot, of course they do, it's their main selling point, though time and time again even though you know the person is lying you will fail the question unless you choose the right evidence from a list you compile as your working the scenes. Which brings me back to the lack of being able to beat a confession. This is 1947, they wanted accurate, let me be the bad cop. Don't have all the evidence? Let me pound his head against the bonnet of my car and let's see who's guilty then. This was a feature I, now wrongly, assumed you could experience.

Going back to the character you play, Detective Cole Phelps, you end up not giving a damn about him or his flashbacks to the war. The game unfortunately got so mundane, it was a pleasure to skip the cutscenes when you were allowed.

Another big, very annoying bug I've found is the art of the dissapearing cars! One of the achievements is to drive all of the 90 plus cars in the game, however it's made all the more diffucult by the fact that cars can and will randomly disappear right next to you if you dare to turn your camera away from them even for a split second. Flaw or feature? Also, only a very small amount of the cars have locked spawn positions making it more luck than judgment in finding them all - the film reels were in set positions, why not cars?

Free roam can be played but only once you finish the second desk (traffic), this lets you drive around in L.A. gathering all the collectables and generally to have a break from the story (you'll need it) but thats all you can do, drive around. Sure you can access a small portion of the street crimes that are available on that disc but thats all the action you can get because you cannot draw your weapon. Nope! No going postal here! Disappointing, as that reduces the fun factor by about a million.

Despite its many flaws and misgivings, L.A. Noire is still enjoyable (in small doses that is). The style and gameplay isn't what I was expecting at all (GTA with gangsters and interrogation) but is still somewhat rewarding. Graphically it's stunning and the face capture technology used really adds to the game.

All in all IMHO gives L.A Noire 7/10