SUPER - A New Kind of Hero. Again.

Here I am again to save you from having to watch any more Balding Part-time Helicopter Pilot Marries Grateful Commoner With Good Bone Structure...HE'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU KATE, MARRY ME INSTEAD, A 37 YEAR OLD MAN WHO REVIEWS MOVIES ON THE INTERNET Anyway, yeah, there seems to be a few wannabee superhero/vigilante movie bobbing about at the mo. There’s obviously Kick-Ass, then there's the lamentable Defendor, Some Kind of Hero and now Super. It’s not unusual for Hollywood to spontaneously cannibalise itself and belch out multiple variations on a suspiciously similar theme…and it’s understandable for an ideas-poor industry currently in a  frenzy of reboots to jump on a relatively fresh concept like dogs on bacon. So does Super fly high like a triumphant Christopher Reeves, or stumble badly like a drunk homeless man with a cape made of binbags?

The storyline is almost exactly the same as Kickass. Just change Kickass from a dweeby student with a punchable demeanor to a thirty-something sad sack with serious mental problems. His wife gets seduced and stolen away by a dessicated Kevin Bacon Druglord and he subsequently has some kind of meltdown involving hentai tentacles and gets reborn as an inept super-vigilante called Crimson Bolt. Paired with tidy sidekick Boltie (Ellen Page channeling a homicidal unpregnant version of Juno) Crimson Bolt declares hostilities on crime, with suitably painful and disconcertingly real life consequences. Much as it bears narrative similarities to Kick-ass this is a far darker and less crowd pleasing affair. You’ll not see any jetpacks here. It's written and directed by James Gunn, whose chequered cv includes the Dawn of the Dead remake and both Scooby Doo movies. Hmm.

 I was prepared to dislike this movie and the first half hour just seems a bit quirky and laboured but it gets better as it goes on, a lot better. It's crude, shockingly violent at times and I wish they had used a f**kin tripod a bit more but...I liked it a lot. Wannabee superheroes need to watch Super...fighting crime aint all bulging codpieces and ironic self-depreciation you know.

The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec - NE VOUDRAIS PAS

Hello, how was your easter? Did you enjoy loads of chocolate or does your skin always look like that? No chocolate for me, only sun...lots of sun. And now have a burnt neck. And a burnt leg. But so what? I'm burnt, you're ugly, but we've got movies to review, so tais-toi!

So let's begin with the directorial return of Luc Besson. The man who brought us Leon and The Fifth Element has been a bit quiet of late, doing the odd bit of producing and writing but hasn't really bothered his french arse with directing since the critical immolation of Joan of Arc, a vanity project for the aesthetically pleasing but dramatically limited Mrs Besson, and a few poxy kids films. So whats this...thing?

The confused story has the extremely good looking Adele Blanc-Sec and a swath of deeply ugly men gurning, twitching and shouting their way through a muddle of CG pterodactyls, amiable mummies and "hilarious" japes as the heroine tries to jailbreak some old coot who can resurrect some egyptian pharaoh who can cure her brainlocked sister. So what are Adele's good points?

1. It looks great. But then that's a given for A film de Luc Besson.
2. She (albeit briefly) gets le tits and le derriere out. Viva la France!
2. She's not THE Adele whose pie-hungry whalesong is constantly dribbling out of the radio like the fat-streaked jism from a randy hippo's penis while boring people say "She's got a really good voice doesn't she?"

D'accord, now what are her not-so-good points?
1. Annoying. The whole movie is plagued with really, really annoying pantomime acting accentuated by horrendously twee music cues.
2. Doesnt have much in the way of le plot, it really doesnt.
3. On the one hand it seems like a film for french 10 year olds, on the other theres a bit of nudity and a rather unsavoury accident involving a hairpin and a brain, and its nearly 2 hours long. Who is this for, exactly?

I'm a massive fan of french cinema, primarily because of the recent crop of merciless horror films such as Maryrs and the amazing L'Interiour but this is just a silly gallic version of The Mummy. With tits!

GAME OF THRONES - We're not in middle earth any more

"It's Boromir! shouted Frodo in delight as a familiar shape lumbered out of the forest. Liv Tyler lowered her magic bow and breathed a sigh of relief. Samwise stopped eating and mumbled hello to the approaching man, spraying wet crumbs over the soggy ground. Frodo ran up to Boromir shouting about magic rings and walking trees and giant eagles and wizards and trolls and elves and.... Boromir looked at him in silence. Then in one smooth movement his hand fell to his sword hilt, there was a blur and the babbling hobbit's body exploded, fingers and hairy feet scattering across the red ground. A curly head dropped into Sam's lap. His eyes bulged and he began to scream, then vomited half-digested magic elf bread over frodo's glassy eyed face. He tried to stumble to his feet while pulling out a clumsy sword but collapsed and promptly impaled himself through the groin. He rolled onto his back shrieking and convulsing like a dung beetle having an epileptic fit. 


Boromir watched this impassively, then in five long strides was at Liv Tylers side as she stared aghast at the hobbity carnage. "Why Boromir? What has brought thou to such fell deeds?" she screamed. Boromir glared at her. "My name is Eddard Stark" He spat. One gauntleted fist lashed out and Liv Tyler found herself facedown in the mud gasping.  "I've no idea oo this bormar is, but i dunt like sound of im, and i dunt like these f**king shortarses either." he announced. He then reached down and ripped off Liv Tylers bodice and skirt in one manly movement, revealing her royal elvish arse. Eddard Stark chuckled and began to unbuckle his codpiece."And now I'm going to right rape you, by 'eck. With m'penis." He added.


Liv Tyler moaned..what was going on...this kind of thing never happened in middle earth...help me jrr tolkein...help me...

HBO's latest Big Budget tv epic Game of Thrones, based on the fantasy series A Song of Fire and Ice (clearly a slightly too geeky title) I'm a bit conflicted by fantasy fiction in general, but this first episode has already shown it stands well apart from a limited genre dominated by the impressively detailed but dramatically subpar scribblings of JRR Tolkien.  Game of Thrones has been heralded as The Sopranos in Middle Earth, which I dont really see, its got a lot more in common with something like Rome. Disembowelings, naked women, bold language. Theres no c**ting hobbits having second breakfasts or motherf**king camp aryan elves singing songs and washing their hair...there IS a dwarf, but seeing as his introductory scene involves him having his crank gobbled by some large-breasted strumpet we'll allow G.O.T a vertically challenged protagonist. It's not exactly that fat f**k Gimli is it?

I'll try not to give too much away. The pre-credits sequence is more like a horror movie than some kind of rum sword and sorcery romp...dismembered body parts, decapitation, scary creatures that vaguely resemble the uber-orcs from The Lord of The Rings. Followed by a stunning credit sequence. Very cool. The rest is a muddy and dark medieval intro to the main players in Game of Thrones and there's a fair few of them. Sean Bean's the main man here, didnt recognise anyone else. It all looks stunning and theres enough rugged man-hugging, blood, midgets, incest, sexual politics and paedocide to keep even the most jaded viewer engaged.

 I have say I'm highly impressed...I think this will be huge. I just hope it doesnt go the way of Boardwalk Empire which started off with a cracking first episode but then slowed right down and just plodded along in a vaguely interesting way for another 10 hours. Recommended, and looking forward to seeing where this goes. Winter is coming, I tell thee...

THE CANDY SHOP - mmm....children

Earrrgh! Someone said the road to hell is paved with good intentions…now, I don’t know what that means exactly. So that intro ends…here. So lets just say, sometimes you have to be cruel to the kind. Thats not a typo. The Candy Shop is apparently a shout out for a child welfare society...slagging it off makes me feel like I’m kicking a baby giraffe repeatedly in the teeth but what can I do. Master Gi-Bag is no charity (but am certainly open to bribes) In its favour, first is the “good intention”. Apparently, Atlanta, Georgia is swarming with more kiddy fiddlers than the Royal Junior Philharmonic International Orchestra and child sex trafficking is huge sweaty business. This..short film…is a way to draw attention to it. It’s also free to view here. Can't help thinking that a team of undercover police midgets could solve this scourge in a matter of days but what do I know about procedural police investigation?

Ok now onto the negative bits. I’m not quite sure how to kick this off but it’s REALLY BAD. Nearly as bad as rampant child buggery. The story involves a badly-acting child actor getting involved with a creepy, sub-willy wonka sweetshop owner who's somehow involved with a spate of missing ankle-biters. As a crude allegory, The Candy Shop's heart is in the right place but everything else (especially the brain) manifestly is not, a bit like one of those telepodded baboons in The Fly.

It looks good, technically it’s put together beautifully on a limited budget, but there’s no way around an awful script with fist-bitingly bad dialogue, amateurish performances and brutal direction. It’s just a very very very stupid idea. Wait till you see The Machine. You’ll understand. Anyway, go on their website…maybe, together, we can stand up, raise our voices and put a stop to the hidden crime of child sex trafficking. Forever.

And then there won’t be a f**king Candy Shop 2.

HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN - PUMP ACTION BUM ACTION

"Spare change sir? A pound? 50p? Even 20p?" The homeless was staring at me, mouldy hand outstretched, watery eyes bulging madly like Reaper's underpants. I reluctantly handed over the dough and glared at him malevolently. 5 minutes later I saw him chatting on a mobile phone. I'm not Larry David so didnt confront him with some aggressive but amusing rhetoric about whether he was an blackberry or an iphone guy, but kept it festering inside me until getting home, turning on my puter, logging into Reaper Movies and typing:
"GIVE MY 20p BACK YOU PIKEY C**T"

But lets not get bogged down with random encounters with a homeless that might have a better mobile phone/disposable income/sex life than me and turn our poached-egg pikey eyes to HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN, a frankly mental grime-gore vigilante pic created by the winner of a "create your own grindhouse ad" competition. Heres his winning entry, and well, if you like this you'll love the full length movie. Rutger Hauer is the titular Hobo, running amok in a dystopian sh*thole that makes Robocop's Detroit look like the Eleysian Fields.

There's clearly a limited budget here but it works in its favour, the film influences are clearly grainy grindhouse sleaze...its garish colours, whiplash camerawork and splatter made me think of those mad japanese bio-mechanical DTV gore pics like Tokyo Gore Police and Meatball Machine. Apart from our man Rutger who carries himself with a slightly unhinged dignity the rest of the cast are irritatingly over the top and get saddled with dialogue so crude its just distracting.

Other than that....great fun, hilariously mean spirited, inventively graphic and any movie with a bus load of children being torched by a mentalist with a flamethrower gets a charred, wobbly thumbs up from me.

HATCHET 2 - AXE AND YOU SHALL RECIEVE

The original "Hatchet" was a mildly entertaining 80's style slasher with some nifty OTT kills and a scorchingly hot female lead.  Nothing special, but agreeably old school splatter. It was an admirable calling card for newbie director Adam Green (currently spending a lot of time on twitter moaning about people stealing his movies via the internet. They probably wouldnt have heard about your movies without the internet, guy. Anyway I bought Frozen after downloading it for free, so f**k you in the ear Adam Green)

So how is this sequel to a homage to a traditionally highly derivative genre?  

A big let down after the excellent "Frozen", which was a genuinely sharp and well-crafted survival horror thriller, and inferior to the not exactly awesome original...but does have Ministry's "Just One Fix" as its title music. No real reason for it to be there and its a bit jarring but a good song is a good song. The problems are as follows:

There's too much Victor Crowley. He isnt scary, he looks like a huge mongoloid garbage pail kid. Except not as scary as that sounds. 

The extremely fit girl from the first movie did actually survive, except now seems to have been replaced by a 14-year old imposter.

The first half of the movie DRAAAAAAAAAAAGS. The sole survivor from the first movie makes her way out of Crowley's swamp, wanders back to town and spends what seems like about 40 minutes trying to engineer a new platoon of Crowley Cannon Fodder back to the swamp.

Thankfully once all thats out of the way, the giant fire-damaged Chucky doll shows up, the killing starts and it's harsher, splatterier and more wince-inducing than the original. In fact the violence is really all there is. The acting is uniformly awful and the script seems to have been written mere minutes before the cameras started rolling. Ultimately a rather shoddy and rushed effort that suggests the filmakers probably had marginally more fun making it than you'll have watching what is essentially an enjoyable 20 minutes special fx gore showreel hidden in an 80 minute movie.