I was not expecting much from Da Vinci. As stated elsewhere on this site I found all the mechanisms of the story intriguing but found Dan Browns delivery to be formulaic and thoroughly unenterprising.

How surprised then was I to sit down and spend 150 minutes being thoroughly entertained. So much so that anyone who tells you that this movie is boring, slow, silly or badly made is quite simply commenting from a standpoint that does not involve honest appreciation of the movie itself. They are working to their own agenda. I have even read reviews on the Internet that bemoan this movie for stuff that doesn't even happen in it!!

So how did they turn an intriguing but poorly delivered book into a compelling movie. Take a look at the people involved in the production. You kind of feel your in their safe hands, especially one that reads as follows; Tom Hanks, Sir Ian Mckellen, Jean Reno, Paul Bettany, Ron Howard and not forgetting the less well known but talented Audrey Tautou and Alfred Molina as the Bishop.

When they sat down to make this movie they obviously realised its weaknesses and decided to populate the movie with outstanding actors that would so draw you into the characters. This, so that when they do hit those moments in the book where the story starts to lose you, your actually held by these characters.

This is the success of this movie and it works magnificently. Amazingly, next to such quality Tom hanks actually looks a little lost. Of all Ian Mckellen stood head and shoulders above everyone else. His portrayal of the crippled old Grail hunter was truly transfixing, as much in his physicality than anything else. It is he that tells us most of the key plot points and premise behind the story and from anyone else it really might have all sounded silly, instead it was captivating.

Next for a mention is Paul Bettany. He managed to take; 'oh look its a killer albino monk' into a character that you almost felt sympathy for, and at least were drawn in by his conflict.

Another key thing for the movie, is the soundtrack. Right from the very beginning of the opening credits the sound brings you into the world they have created and leads your subconscious through the key emotions of the movie.

Bringing all this together then is the redoubtable Ron Howard. I have found his stuff in the past to be overly sentimental, too Americana, but this is truly a work of art, not from the end product, but how he managed to craft the book into this end product.

If you have read the book, I would recommend this as the best book adaption I have ever seen. If you have never read the book, pass it by and go straight to the movie. If your undecided because of the bad press and the negativity from your closet Christian friends. Go and see the damn movie and make up your own mind.

With a bank holiday weekend of decorating and visiting relatives ahead of me, I thought I would first dab my toes into the pond of high excitement. Which was the thinking anyway, that led me to be sitting in the Reading Showcase as a close up of Clive Owen popped up on the screen and I was whisked away into multi layers of complexity, suspects and uncertain conclusions.

As a whole we follow the hold up of a famous bank on the island of Manhattan, through the wilful taking of hostages, the arrival and establishment of the negotiators and the gradual revelation of why the bank is being held up in the first place. It contains some action to get its dollar out of the MTV generation but this is to be enjoyed for the slow, taught unravelling of a layered story, portrayed masterfully too the screen, edited with exacting craft and acted with infinite subtlety. Its a who, what, why, how and oh my god, dunnit all rolled into one.

As the end credits rolled and I dusted a layer of popcorn from my trousers I considered that I had been thoroughly entertained, preached too rather obviously on specific modern racial themes and importantly not stopped thinking throughout. Walking out of the cinema people debated the main twists and turns and explained them to those that still didn't get it. That is the mark of a good cinema experience for my mind.

There are a few weaknesses. The racial messages are over emphasised and the slight of hand required to pull off the layered twists and dead ends asks just a little too much. I guess if you don't see the twists and dead ends coming it won't matter to you. My biggest gripe though; exactly what is Denzel's very young wife doing spending almost the entire film rolling around on a bed in a negligee waiting for our man to come home and sex her up? For someone (Spike Lee) that spends so much time protesting the rights of the put upon, this seems awfully out of place. Other than that everyone is playing at the very top of their game.

Its a bit daunting starting a review of Kung Fu Hustle, you wonder where your going to start. The movie is Chinese Hong Kong written, directed and starring Stephen Chow. It follows, in the main the comings and goings of a small Chinese ghetto and the poeple that live in it. Amongst these people are some hidden Kung Fu masters, who reveal themselves when the Axe gang come to town and threaten the people they live along side.

Thats for starters and all sounds rather sombre, but it isnt. This movie has its tongue firmly in its cheek the whole way through and stops to have a good laugh on many occassions. Its a homage and mickey take of two decades Asian and recent western cinema, of the later mostly the matrix sequels.

The detail of the movie, the sheer layers are something to behold. The plot itself is quite simple but the depth of character and context is amazing, from the opening scenes, through the outing of the Kung Fu masters and the subsequent quest for revenge by the Axe gang. The scene with the harpist assassins is extraordinarily concieved in soundtrack, setting and visually. This is by no means the highest that Hustle reaches.

Stephen Chow, if the credits are correct, is a veritable genius. I watched his gloriously original Shoalin Soccer back in 2001, although for some reason it has only just been made available here. While Shoalin Soccer is great fun this is a considerable evolution of Chows abilities.

There is so much to commend I am likely to just ramble, I fear I have already began. The screenplay is where it all starts, that itself is amazing in sheer depth and daring. You then add the acting, martial arts, occassionally dodgy special effects, characters and jaw dropping left of field comedy. It all adds up to the best movie I am likely to see this year.

If you want to laugh, and I mean out load, wince, scream in a hide behind the cushions way or just be blown away by a tale that never lets your expectations settle, you should go and acquire this immediately. You will then know what I mean.

Factoid: Highest grossing Hong Kong movie of all time. They are unsurprisingly making another.

This is the second time I have seen 'Peter Jacksons' King Kong. Paradoxically I enjoyed the experience far more this time but did find the runtime somewhat daunting knowing just how much there was still to go!

This I think is down to 'action exhaustion', something I also had with Van Helsing. After we are over the first hour and character development the last two are almost non-stop.

The film cuts down into three separate segments, that are almost mini movies in themselves. The first details the characters, their context and the journey to skull Island where the second hour takes place.

On skull island we are introduced to a wired set of natives that seem to have spent too much time chewing ganga, a very big gorilla they call Kong, some very cool dinosaur's and the adventures that result when you put all of the components together.

The final hour comprises the return to New York with a captive Kong and the mayhem that ensues when it is realised aluminium coated steel, is a mere inconvenience to an ape with biceps bigger than your average heard of stampeding elephants.

As a whole its made with the same love and care that is a hallmark of the Wingnut team. There are no shortcuts, no irreverence to character, nor wink to the camera. It is a fantasy story made about a 25ft gorilla, but we are asked to believe and given every stimuli to make this happen, mostly in the rendering and acting of Kong himself!

At its very essence it is about a lonely old gorilla, the last in his line, embittered by a hard life that falls for a free spirited young women. It is analogous to a relationship a grand father might have with a grand daughter and significant that the relationship between Kong and Darrow is at no time sexual, as was the case in the 1970's remake.

The story is a faithful representation of that presented in the 1933 original and therefore seems awkward and clunky on occasion, but the makers should be commended for this. The runtime does feel overly long but at no stage is it ever boring, each segment pays attention to its objective and never does it any less than in an engaging manner. If your bored by the first hour then you have the intellect of a pre-teen, if you found any part of the rest boring then quite frankly your holding back civilisation, break into a vets and do the right thing.

The acting is all round good, once more Andy Serkis steals the show. Kong was genuinely like your grumpy old grandad and I loved it. His portrayal of the real life ships cook was also one of the best in the movie, and if he doesnt get an Oscar this time round I will be most distressed.

Watch it immediately but dont drink beforehand for 24 hours and make sure you visit the rest room before entering the auditorium.

Superb stuff! Enjoy.

Watched Doom at what was once the Longbridge UGC at the weekend. I am a computer geek in a grown up sort of way and have spent countless hours playing games like Doom (circa 1994) over the last decade, but never really got into playing it at the time. I did spend the best part of one weekend going through the levels and my recollection was that it was genuinely scary, in as much as stuff would jump out at you from nowhere, which you had to then kill. There was a recent release of another Doom PC game using current technology, that I havent played, that is supposed to recapture some of the scaryness of the original and I suspect what motivated someone to make this movie.

The premise is that there is a portal to Mars that has produced evidence of previous civilisation on that planet and advanced forms of humanity. As such the facility on Mars has become a government research institution as much a place of archeology, and in time honoured tradition something goes wrong at the research facility and we need to send in the big mean mothers with big mean mother guns to go sort the problem.

The movie itself, provides us with a set of disparate military characters that spend a good portion of the movies first hour walking down very dark and wet corridors looking for scientists and wondering where the big mutated beasts came from. The last 40 minutes are taken up with balls to the wall action interspersed, with some all to brief but interesting takes on the origin of mankind and our biological design.

This is a genre I have historically enjoyed, and I dont know whether my somewhat apathetic reaction to this movie was down to the sheer fact I have seen this story in one guise or another many, many times or whether it was just not that good. I tend to think it was not particularly good although someone that hasnt seen quite so many of these movies will likely have enjoyed it more.

As for the characters I felt the most disapointing aspect of this was that the Rock, who seems to be genuinely enigmatic in all his previous outings is here very single dimensional. This probably has something to do with the origins of the Doom character being quiet and hard because the main rival at that time 'Duke Nukem' was charasmatic and funny as well as hard.

The movie suffers for this and if it wasnt for Karl Urban, would be in serious trouble. Karl, it seems has quietly been creating an impressive body of work since leaving behind his role of Horse Chief in LOTR's, and so far has never failed to impress. Here he is somewhat stymied by the roll of the elite combat soldier with phychological issues that date back to his time as a child accompanying his father on the archeological dig on Mars. Nevertheless he adds some charisma whenever he is onscreen.

Rosamund Pike is the obligatory attractive female in tight top and performs her duties as a researcher with aplomb. Here she plays it relatively low key spending the majority of her time pushing needles into people and providing us with plot exposition at the appropriate times. If you want to see her in something slightly more demanding then check out the recent Pride and Prejudice movie.

All in all I found the whole thing rather dull save for the last 30 minutes, which I can only assume is all they had on the story front and fleshed out the rest with the best cliche of the genre. If you have never seen Alien, Aliens, Alien3, Alien Resurrection, Alien vs Predator, Predator, Predator II et cetra and have never played Doom, Quake, Quake II et cetra, you might enjoy this, otherwise conciously decide whether watching the first hour is worth the payoff of the last 30.

Not withstanding Will Smith the key reason you need to see this movie is for the representation of Sonny as the robot character around which this movie revolves. Acted in motion capture by Alan Tudyk and voiced by the same, Sonny is the character you bond with and the one you really care about through the story.

Will Smith is the A-List star that will get people in to the multiplex's but he doesnt assume the role of Del Spooner, down at heel, Robot hating cop with a traumatic past. Rather Del Spooner is a charming, wise cracking, Robot hating cop that has a traumatic past, that he is evidently coping with very well. It should be noted that Mr Smith is emminantly watchable and very entertaining here but you see him for the humour and not for any dramatic abilities he might bring to the show.

Bridget Moynahan has the other key part as the robot behavioral scientist with a personality that makes the robots she cares so deeply for seem enigmatic. Sadly her role her is primarily used to make Smith look good.

The movie has one failing which is its copious amounts of product placement, specifically at the start of the movie.

I am not opposed to having a can of coke or pepsi sitting in the background but actually creating story and dialogue to explain why the lead character is wearing clothes from 2004 and constructing camera shots that linger on product names rather too long is almost criminal in the context of making a movie where precious seconds of acting orientated plot will be cut to meet a specific runtime.

As someone that judges any sci fi movie against Blade Runner, I did find myself wondering afterwards what sort of stylish sci fi thriller the sinister plot might have provided us if Detective Spooner had been played understated, focusing on his vulnerabilities. We will never know, this incarnation is very entertaining.

But the historical slant and the prospect of a pouting Keira dressed in nothing but a skirt and two strategically placed leather belts swayed the decision and even without a directors commentary found the DVD sat at the bottom of my trolley next to Sum of All Fears and Starsky and Hutch as I ambled down the late night aisles of Sainsbury's

Having now invested the two hours required for watching this movie and the making of featurette I have to say I was extremely impressed by this. Its well made as you would expect from Bruckhiemer, it looks really good at almost all times, is well acted, for the most part, contains enough relatively accurate historic reference to keep the buffs engaged and is enjoyable to watch.

Two things about this movie really stood out for me;

The ensemble cast in the main struggled in solo scenes but really added to the movie when amassed in or around our wide screens, which is for the most part of the movie. Standouts for me where Ioan Gruffuff, Ray Stevenson and Ray Winston who just seemed to carry on his Henry VIII role into this movie.

The director; Antoine Fuqua is a black American hailing from Pittsburgh who has Training Day sitting atop his list of notable directing credits. Here he presented us with an England that I know and love, an England that I see every day and really gave me a feeling that these events did happen almost a millenia ago in these relatively small tree lined spaces that we go for walks and cycle around today. Brilliant!

All in all, if the rolling tree lined fields of England and the history that has marched through them holds even the slightest interest and you like being entertained then you will not go wrong with this movie. Not sure where the title came from though?

The DVD I brought didnt contain a Directors Commentary which was really disapointing but the making of featurete was interesting throughout its duration. I think I watched the alternate ending but dont think it was that alternate, just a bit longer!

The theatrical release spent the first 30 minutes introducing us to a group of environmental specialists a la Jurassic park, rounds them up and dumps them in the middle of somewhere very cold, drops them 2000 foot below the ground to a gigantic cavern and a very big pyramid. Our group dutifully gets lost in the pyramid, accidentally release the aliens and simultaneously steal the very weapons with which the aliens can be killed. The group soon find themselves hunted by not only mean looking Aliens but miffed Predators looking for their guns.

What failed in this theatrical version was that you didnt see hide nor hair of any alien until you had been sitting in your seat for over 30 minutes. Precious minutes that the filmmakers used to try and build tension amongst the audience, which fails as we know from past outings that the assembled group are mostly bug food or designed to make dreadlocked warriors look impressive while ripping spinal columns from limp bodies.

We really don't have any affinity with the group in the main, we want to see the baddies kick booty!

Now then that was the theatrical release.

The extended version of the DVD, and heaven knows why they decided to cut it from the original release starts with a Predator chasing a lone survivor circa 1904 around the same very cold place our group find themselves a hundred years later.

Just as the Predator makes his move on the cowering human as viewed through his heat sensitive goggles we get Alien enter right with scary snarling and quick cut to modern day! Fantastic! Additionally throughout the first 30 minutes of the extended cut we get quick snippets of the awakening Pyramid and mostly the Predators ship and our fishnet covered beefcake's prepping for the onslaught ahead down below on the planet. Now this really does build the tension and I loved this rendition of the movie.

A standout irrespective of the version is the brilliant rendition of the Aliens, mostly a suited human complemented by CGI the audio commentary would have us believe. They do look very good, closer, darker, shinier and they seemed to dribble more as well.

Viewed from the Aliens franchise in its extended incarnation this movie sits somewhere between Finchers Alien3 and Resurrection. It doesn't quite pull off dark and brooding despite being literally very dark, nor does it achieve the masterful action sequences of Resurrection. But all in all it felt much more rounded than both and contained far fewer disheartening moments.

The audio commentary would have been better served with just the Director, who seems a genuine fan and maybe one other that was genuinely interested in the franchise as opposed to the legendary Henrickson who spent the whole time saying 'Man' and doing industry speak while Sanaa obviously wasn't interested and quite literally had something better to do.

A good DVD for the mildly interested onwards.

I am a big fan of Quaid but he had more than most to deal with in the bad one liners department. Jake Gyllenhaal looked a little lost as Quaids son, Emmy Rossum was captivating as Jakes love interest and Dash Mihok played the streetwise black geezer with more survival savvy than a library full of white geezers with well brilliant understatement.

The production looked high quality as were the CGI, mostly, and where they were not quite up to standard was living CGI opposed to weather CGI. Worth watching if major American Cities getting trounced by the hand of god is your thing.

So then, we can read Trainspotting as the lottery win that has its success in good script , fine acting and happenstance directing and The Beach and now 28 Days Later as ever increasing declines into under achievement or an actual better representation of a single persons talents.

I will not waste too much time on this movie, its a zombie romp without much romp that is often amateurish and at best tv movie fodder that only manages to peek its head above ordinariy courtesy of some deserted london scenes that will reduce your average commuter to tears and some sturdy acting from an ensemble of actors, noteably Brendan Gleeson.

This was heavily marketed on the strength of its deserted london scenes but thats the only thing going for it. Not painfull to watch but only marginally entertaining and certainly less entertaining than all the end of life on earth tv series that were prevelant duirng the late 70's.

DVD Extras
I gave up listening to the commentary. Despite producing a movie that had every disaster cliche from 70 and 80's movie interwined through a shallow story, Danny Boyle sounded like someone that had come up with the most original of ideas and made a brilliant movie about them. I havent seen any of the other extras.

For someone who seems to be almost universally revered across an industry its surprising to know that Mr Tarrontino has only made four movies, with Kill Bill Vol 1 the fourth.

I have to admit to having turned Reservoir Dogs off when they started getting ancy with the tied up cop, there's too much crap like that happens for real every day to make watching realistic melevolant violence entertaining, for my mind. I loved Pulp Fiction, havent watched Jackie Brown yet for no particular reason, although I love the soundtrack and was hugely impressed with Kill Bill Vol 1 even by the time the opening credits, post Hong Kong Big Boss intro had completed.

For most of the movie, I just nodded my head in confirmation of my original impressions or uttered under my breath the word 'quality', occassionally interspersed with 'class', for which this movie in its entirety almost always is.

I did get why he did the 88 (one against lots of people) scene, because its a staple of the movies this is a homage too, which an amazingly few people seem to get. I personally didnt think the 88 scene was good, far to obscure to make it entertaining, but that was the worst of it and everything that led to it and followed it was of the highest quality. Did I mention the 20 minute anime segment half way through the movie. Class.

As far as acting goes, Uma does what she does best which is look lithe and doe eyed, not much acting required. She was good but not oustanding. I did get a feeling that outwith the first tussle there was little discernable evidence that it was her actually doing much of the swordplay, which I felt was disapointing but I hear she was pregnant near the beginning of the shoot so this might have factored. She still looks good though.

Daryl Hannah looked a lot older than I last saw her (which admittedly was Blade Runner and Splash) and actually thought she was Kim Basinger till I read the box cover. She does a good malevolent.

Lucy Lui is the star of the show as she really gets to camp it out and does so with considerable panache.

Other than that, acting isnt a staple of these movies and while everything is done well there are certain barriers movies of this type place upon actors, but these are well glossed over by the shine of a well made movie.

Cinematics are excellent, imaginative and colorfull while the soundtrack rocks, literally, with an excellent combination of sounds from the era mixed to a modern beat. Obtaining the soundtrack is highly recommended.

Its a mark of a movie that pretty much all the reviews including this one discuss the director above all else. Make no mistake, this is a modern classic despite having an audience that seem evenly split on the love it / hate it theme.

I love it. It probably has too much blood, I forgive the 88, no! the movie is not too long, and NO! both movies should not have been one, that would be to miss the point. It (Vol 1) is a homage to the best of popcorn entertainment from the 60's and 70's martial arts genre. Watch it and make up your own mind.