KICK ASS
Entertaining and surprisingly violent black comedy about mentally unstable vigilantes and mobsters kicking off. Kickass himself is a curly haired demi-nerd with an drearily unremarkable homelife and a rep as a bit of a gay, which ironically endears him to his love interest, who's apparently just come out of the closet as an bereft fag hag. After a few ill-fated encounters with low-level bad lads where KA gets a good shoe-ing he becomes a massive t'internet sensation, attracting the attention of both the local evil crime lord and Big Daddy and Hit-Girl, who do what he does...just a lot better and with added dismemberment and heavy weapons.
There's a few things I don't like about this movie...the mildly annoying soundtrack with its focus-group-derived songs, the jetpack moment (which brought back deeply repressed and traumatic memories of Robocop 3...MAKE IT STOP) but it's funny, never boring, Hit-Girl has some awesome gun-kata-esque moves and I'm giving it two thumbs up. Until some hollywood bell-end decides to get their thumb out of their arsehole and bring Marshall Law to the big screen this is probably the best mildly-subversive black comedy superhero beat em up type thing you are gonna get. Anyway if the Daily Mail dont like it, that should be recommendation enough. Christopher Tookey...you appalling c**t!
SOLOMON KANE
How bad was Van Helsing? That's right, it was so bad that if you got got close enough to the screen you could actually feel it trying to suck your balls. Superficially this looks a little similar to the untrained eye, but if you can bother training your eyes to be a little less retarded, then you will see this has got a lot more going for it. Even though the main guy does actually resemble a stunted version of Hugh Jackman.
I had never heard of Solomon Kane before, it's a character written by Robert E Howard, who created Conan, was mates with HP Lovecraft and ended up eating a bullet after a life of prolonged depression. Solomon Kane is a cursed ex-pirate/buccaneer/murderer type who battles demonic forces in muddy 17th century Somerset (!!!!!) Takes itself very seriously but looks great, some good action scenes (forget about the xbox-type demon at the end though) and I'll always have time for a hero with a wurzel accent.
SPARTACUS: BLOOD AND SAND: THE REST OF IT
By Jupiter's c**k!! So its finally ended, and I have to say with it the finest saturday-morning-hungover-illegal-download-watching ever. Mad, mental and the rest, but finally came out triumphant after gravely inauspicious beginnings. The first couple of episodes are just a hazy, vaguely cringeworthy memory, and this crude and ballsy festival of ultraviolence, back-stabbing bastardly behaviour and nudey men and women finished up as a compulsive, shocking and ridiculously addictive alternative to whatever shite you are currently watching. A second season seemed inevitable, but now indefinitely delayed as apparently the actor playing Spartacus has got The Cancer! :( Bad tidings...kick its ass man, kick its f**king ass and get back on screen knobbing ludicrously attractive slave women and mangling Romans in ludicrously graphic ways.
IP Man 2
I liked Ip Man 1. It was a stylish turn-of-the-century beat-em-up about Bruce Lee's teacher and his early life and struggle against Evil Imperialistic Japanese Invaders. IPM2 is actually more of the same, except Ip has relocated to Hong Kong, wheres he's now pitted against Evil Imperialistic Brit Invaders. As before, Donnie Yen plays Ip Man as a genuinely nice laid-back bloke who just happens to have the ability to reduce your face and limbs to strawberry jam in a matter of nanoseconds. This time Donnie faces off against some the local Hong Kong masters and primarily a pantomime end-of-level baddie in the form of a cartoonishly evil "western" world champion boxer. The english speaking actors are so ropy it drags the film down from the level of the first, but its still well worth a look. Great fight scenes, especially the one between Ip and the procession of auld fellas on the table.
The Book Of Eli
Denzel Washington. Post-apocalyptic western. Guns. Swords. Bibles. Good post-pub undemanding stuff, but think a movie version of the late great David Gemmell's Jerusalem Man would cover very similar ground (but much more interestingly)
I've also got Alice In Wonderland, but I'm not really arsed watching another "quirky" burton/depp/elfman threeway so f**k off and watch it yourself.
