Kung Fu Panda 2

The original Kung Fu Panda was a fairly solid and fairly typical Dreamworks Animation film: stellar voice cast (Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, Lucy Liu, Seth Rogen and Jackie Chan); well done animation (although not up to PIxar standards) and an entertaining story mixing humour and action. It screamed competence rather than inspiration, it was a decent second rate effort that failed to match Pixar or even Dreamworks own best efforts (the original Shrek or How to Train Your Dragon).

Hardly surprisingly, Kung Fu Panda 2 gives us more of the same - the voice cast gets more stellar (Gary Oldman on villain duties; Michelle Yeoh and even Jean-Claude Van Damme!). The animation remains attractive and effective and there are some nice touches in  mixing in different styles of animation for the flashback sequences. It has some funny moments and some decent action, without ever being truly hilarious or emotionally engaging.

The story, having sorted out Black's Po at the end of the last film, has to un-sort him to give him a new character arc (or rather the same arc repeated). To do this, they fall back on the old-hat daddy issues. Although, to be fair, this does knowingly play on one of the most perplexing aspects of the first film - how a panda has a goose for a dad. On the positive side, Oldman is a delight, hamming it up to great effect as the villainous Lord Shen and the interplay between him and Michelle Yeoh's soothsayer goat is one of the strongest aspects of the film. The rest is never less than entertaining, but never much more either. And it loses marks for the shameless link to a possible third film in the final scene.

Overall - 6.5/10  Solidly competent with a few nice touches.

X-Men First Class

After the success of the first two Brian Singer directed films, the X-Men frachise took something of a nosedive through the messy Last Stand and the hugely disappointing Wolverine prequel. Once again we return to prequel territory with this origins story. On paper there was reason to be optimistic - the director's chair was taken by Matthew Vaughn (fresh off the success of Kick Ass) and the cast includes Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, January Jones and Kevin Bacon.

So, does this film work to heave the franchise back on track. The answer would be an almost unqualified Yes. Almost unqualified in that it has some faults - it probably tries to introduce too many characters so that some are poorly served - Riptide has little to do and less to say and some of the new characters' powers are either a bit derivative of previous characters (Havoc) or just a bit naff. But on the whole it works very well.

Vaughn, re-teaming with Kick Ass scripter Jane Goldman, has delivered a film which combines a bit of wit and humour with some good characters and some great action set pieces. The final battle of the coast of Cuba is one of the best handled and most thrilling finales to a superhero movie for a long time. In fact, the period, the tone and setting in the Cuban missile crisis gives this the feel of something akin to a Connery era bond movie, only with mutant superpowers and echoes of the Anakin/Vader plot from Star Wars.

As for the cast, the stand-out is Fassbender who makes a startingly good young Ian McKellen and brings some depth to the role. McAvoy struggles a bit more to live up to Patrick Stewart (hence repeated jokes about not wanting to lose his hair) but generally holds his own well enough. Of the others, Winter's Bone's Lawrence makes for a sympathetic Mystique, Nicholas Hoult brings pathos to the role of Beast and Mad Men's January Jones makes a great Femme Fatale as Emma Frost. It goes without saying that Kevin Bacon also makes  superb villain. Also watch out for brief cameos from Hugh Jackman and Rebecca Romjin from the first films.

Overall - 7.5/10 First Class superhero flick and franchise firmly back on track.

Edinburgh City Centre by-election

There's go to be a by-election in Edinburgh. The sitting SNP councillor for the City Centre ward is resigning to go to Harvard. Normally,  council by-election wouldn't be all that interesting, certainly not enough to warrant its own blog post. However, there are two things that make this interesting:

1. Should the SNP lose the seat and the Lib-Dems not gain it, then the ruling Lib-Nat coalition in Edinburgh will no longer have enough seats to control the council and will need to bring on board the Tories or the Greens, (unless the Libs decided to ditch the Nats and hook up with Labour - not likely at the moment!).

2. More interestingly, City Centre ward is perhaps the closest 5-way marginal seat in Scotland. The results in 2007 were:
SNP 20.3% (elected)
Con 20.1% (elected)
LD 19.7% (elected)
Lab 17.9%
Grn 16.8%
By the time the Green candidate was eliminated, he was only 18 votes behind the Labour candidate (who was a sitting councillor). Transfers from the Greens then took the LD candidate over the threshold for election. The surplus from the LD then saw the SNP candidate elected and kept the Tory far enough ahead of Labour to be elected.

Of course, a lot has changed since then. The Lib-Dem vote, in particular, can be expected to have dropped quite sharply as they experience the backlash of nationally being in coalition with the Tories. The Tory vote has also probably dropped (although their New Town vote in this ward is probably quite loyal). Labour's vote should have risen, but in Scotland generally they find themselves in a bit of shell-shock after their drubbing in May. The SNP generally seem to be on the rise, but might themselves suffer a wee bit for being in coalition locally with the Lib-Dems. The Greens were disappointed not to pick up more seats in May, but did increase their vote across Edinburgh and finished ahead of the Lib-Dems on the list in all Edinburgh constituencies except Western.

So putting all that together what is likely to happen. On first preferences, the SNP will probably finish first and a little bit further ahead. Then it could end up being very close between the Tories, Labour and the Greens, with the LDs probably dropping to 5th. After that supposition gets even more tentative. Currently transfers from the LDs are likely to break more in favour of the Greens, probably followed by the SNP and then Labour and the Tories. This might stretch the SNP lead. Then...
If the Greens are eliminated next, their transfers would probably also favour the SNP, then Labour and finally the Tories. Meaning the Tories would be next to go. Most of their votes probably wouldn't transfer but the ones that would, would break in the SNP's favour. Result SNP victory.
If the Tories were eliminated after the LDs, again most votes probably won't transfer. Those that do would heavily favour SNP, with probably the Greens marginally ahead of Labour. If the Greens went next, the SNP would clearly beat Labour, but if Labour went next, their transfers might break in the Greens' favour although probably not by enough to catch the SNP.
If Labour were eliminated after the LDs, their transfers would almost certainly ensure that the Greens were ahead of the Tories, although to stand any chance the Greens would need to be ahead of the SNP too at this stage, as Tory transfers will probably favour the SNP.

So, by far the most likely outcome is an SNP victory. Surprisingly, the party with the best chance of beating them is the Greens, but only if they can get ahead of Labour early on and even then their chances are slim. In reality, they will probably be content with a strong showing putting them in a good place for one of three seats that this ward will elect next May.

Of course, if the current thinking prevails and this election in the city Centre of Edinburgh is held in August in the middle of the festival then absolutely anything could happen!

Senna

I was in Zimbabwe when Ayrton Senna died in a crash at Imola in 1994 and even there it was big news. The film Senna from director Asif Kapadia is both powerfully enthralling and ultimately slightly frustrating. Kapadia takes the route of eschewing voice-over, instead relying on the accounts of those who actually knew him and archive footage to tell the story. The result is a fascinating story in two parts.

The first two thirds of the film covers Senna's quick rise to being one of the leading drivers in the world and his long-running duel with Alain Prost. The film paints an enigmatic picture of a man of devout faith, but who was also convinced the establishment was out to get him. Kapadia's tone is more reverential than objective and as such the fiery Senna is shown in a more positive light than the more calculating Prost. One effect with this foregrounding of the rivalry is that other key players (Piquet, Mansell, etc...) are more or less ignored, but this is Senna's story, so fair enough. However, the draw back of the reverential tone is the feeling that, despite the evident combination of faith and paranoia, the film never gets really gets under the surface and grapples with what really made Senna tick.

The final third of the film is taken up with Senna's last season and the events leading up to the fatal crash. This is where the film really packs some emotional wallop. Showing Senna's reactions to the earlier crashes of Rubens Barrichello and the fatal crash of Roland Ratzenberger. There is a kind of horrible inevitability building and when they cut to onboard cameras on Senna's car for the race itself, it becomes almost unbearable. One of the things that strikes you is just how unlucky he was - his crash looked by far the most innocuous of the three (if anything, Barrichello's looked the most horrific and he survived).

Overall 8/10 Often with a story this powerful in a documentary, it is very difficult to actually evaluate how good the film is, but this is fascinating and compelling, if not flawless, documentary making.

The Hangover Part II

The original The Hangover wasn't everybody's cup of tea (or indeed, bottle of beer), but what it did have was fresh creative energy in large amounts which showed itself in the innovative structure and the sheer unpredictability of some of the events. This was actually the source of much of the humour. So making a sequel, you have a choice of whether to find something new and equally inventive or to repeat the same gags, merely upping the gross out factor.

Unfortunately, here the filmakers decided to go with option B. The same tricks are repeated again, replacing the surprise factor of the original with more ugly extremes. So the film starts with a telephone conversation between the same two characters (who in this instance would have no real reason to be talking). The baby is replaced by a monkey, the prostitute by a ladyboy, the tiger by a mute monk and so on and so forth. The result is all very predictable, unengaging and unfunny. To be fair, there is one moment of genuine invention, where the flashback enters the mind of Alan (Zach Galifianakis) who sees them playing out the events of the previous evening as children. But this moment just highlights what lazy film-making the rest of it is. It goes from bad to worse at the end when the viewers eardrums are assaulted by the aural torture that is Mike Tyson trying to sing One Night in Bangkok.

Overall - 4/10 A comedy so unfunny that not even the presence of Paul Giamatti can lift it.

Win Win

As an actor, Thomas McCarthy is one of those faces that keeps cropping up but you can never put a name to. However, as a writer-director, his previous two films (The Station Agent and The Visitor) have been underseen slices of brilliance. He has a gift for crafting compelling stories out of very real but unlikely relationships and human contact.

Win Win is lighter in tone than his previous two films. Paul Giamatti gives us another performance as a put upon everyman as Mike, a lawyer with financial problems, who takes on the guardianship of an old man because he needs the fees. Things start to get complicated when the man's grandson, Kyle, turns up to stay. But what would you know, the kids a star wrestler and Mike coaches the local, not very successful, team. Of course, things don't turn out that smoothly.

In different hands, this could have turned into a standard comedy, with Mike going to ever more desparate lengths to cover up what he's doing. McCarthy doesn't go there, preferring instead to keep some very real, sometimes funny, but sometimes painful relationships at the core. At the heart of the film is a true-feeling relationship between Mike and his wife (Amy Ryan) and their growing bond with Kyle. Given this, the ending is a bit of let down - feeling too neat and not quite real somehow, straying into the kind of Capra-esque feel-good factor which is fine in its place, but feels out of place in this film.

Elsewhere, the acting is superb - Giamatti and Ryan are every bit as good as you'd expect. Bobby Cannavale and Jeffrey Tambor add most of the laughs as Mike's two friends and fellow coaches.

Overall - 7/10 The ending's a slightly off note, but otherwise this is a funny and moving film with the ring of truth to it.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

The first Pirates of the Caribbean movie was an unexpected delight - a genuinely fun and exciting film, so much better than anyone would have expected from an adaptation of a theme park ride. It also unleashed a truly memorable cinematic character in Captain Jack Sparrow. The sequels suffered from trying to make it a formula, too much plotting, a surfeit of Orlando and Keira and the incomprehensibility of Keith Richards.

In those last two respects, On Stranger Tides has a headstart - no Bloom or Knightley and Richards is amazingly intelligible in his brief cameo (and has one of the best lines of the movies - "Does this face look like its been to the fountain of youth"). In fact, the film starts promisingly enough with the nonsensical court scene and Sparrow's escape from king's custody. Unfortunately, from then on its downhill most of the way, with a brief upswing for the mermaid attack (which is the best action sequence in the whole film). Yes, the production values are still great and yes, the film still looks gorgeous, but its not enough.

On Stranger Tides, despite a new director, falls too closely into the short-comings of Dead Man's chest and At World's End. There's too much plot without any real reason - three different groups all seeking the fountain of youth, only one person actually seems to really want to find it, one group are completely sidelined, we have zombie sailors, giant flamethrowers and real ships in bottles for no apparent reason other than somebody thought it was a good idea. There are also still too many characters. Of the new characters, only Penelope Cruz's Angelica has any real presence (and more chemistry with Depp than Angelina Jolie in The Tourist). Ian McShane's Blackbeard is the real disappointment - the pirate all other pirates fear lacks depth, conviction or menace, coming out much worse than Bill Nighy's Davy Jones in the villain stakes. The romance between missionary (Sam Clafin) and mermaid (Astrid Berges-Frisbey, yes, really) is so starved of room and bland that you might find yourself getting nostalgic for Orlando and Keira. Even Geoffrey Rush' Barbossa seems to be running on empty.

Director Rob Marshall (Oscar nominated for Chicago) strangely seems afraid to try anything original, so we get a fight reminiscent of the forge in the first movie, and a climax in cave with numerous reverses which seems to lifted straight from the original. Which wouldn't have been such a crime, if only it had been carried out with some energy and conviction, but instead it feels rushed and half-hearted lacking the twisting sense of the first film. Whisper it quietly, but on of the main problems here is with Jack Sparrow himself. In the first film, he was a breathe of fresh air who had a rock'n'roll sense of unpredictability. Now on his fourth outing, we know him too well, there are no surprises left, we know exactly what he's going to do in any situation. Depp seems to sense this and appears less invested in the character than ever before. In fact, with this on the back of The Tourist there is a worrying possibility that Depp is starting down the De Niro route of lazy performances to pick up a paycheque (although to be fair, Depp has yet to make anything equivalent to Little Fockers).

Overall - 5.5/10 Its still a well-produced and mildly entertaining film rather than a bad one, but it feels half-hearted and over-familiar.

Catching up on films

May elections and personal developments have been rather occupying my time lately, so I've fallen rather behind in the film reviews. Here then is a whistlestop overview of what I've seen over the past few weeks.

Red Riding Hood - 5.5/10 Gorgeous looking but rather flat fairy-tale updating which doesn't manage to match The Company of Wolves. Amanda Seyfried is left rather stranded in a love triangle with two men competing to be the most wooden whilst Gary Oldman does a rare turn demonstrating how to go truly over the top.

Your Highness - 3.5/10 Deeply unfunny so-called comedy in the genre of those 80s fantasies. Krull was both a better movie and funnier. Oscar-winner Natalie Portman (why????) gamely tries her best, whilst Oscar-nominee James Franco seems to spend the whole film laughing at a joke that is lost on the audience. Maybe its just me, but I just don't get Danny McBride's appeal.

Thor - 7/10. Portman is better served here in the latest from Marvel. Kenneth Branagh directs and manages to do a good job of making it fun without descending into self-parody (given that we need to buy into the hero being a Norse god, thats no easy feat). Anthony Hopkins and Stellan Skaarsgaard add the gravitas, whilst relative newcomers Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston give star-in-the-making turns as hero and villain respectively. It also gets The Avengers back on track after Iron Man 2 plugged it rather too heavily - watch out for Jeremy Renner's cameo and the post-credit teaser. Next up - Captain America.

Cedar Rapids - 6/10 Frank Capra updated for the gross-out generation. Small little comedy drama which is pleasantly watchable, but at its best when it goes meta with its riffs on The Wire.

Hanna - 7.5/10 The latest from director Joe Wright (Atonement, Pride and Prejudice) is a slightly strange combination of Bourne and fairy-tale. The film combines action and comedy well, but could have done without the soundtrack that tries to bludgen you into submission. Tom Hollander makes a truly creepy bad guy (referencing the Fritz Lang classic M) whilst Cate Blanchett also enjoys a trip to the dark side, but Saoirse Ronan holds the film together with a performance thats part cold killer, part naive innocent but never jarring.

Rio - 6/10 Over-trailed, but quite watchable family entertainment. Even as an animated bird, Jesse Eisenberg is still Jesse Eisenberg, but the film is almost stolen by the Jermaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords) as the villainous cockatoo, but why did they only give him one song - which is the film's only moment of true genius.

Attack the Block - 7.5/10 Aliens take on inner city yoofs in a British film that effectively combines humour, action, elements of gore and horror and Nick Frost. The Aliens look a bit too much like shaggy dogs to be genuinely scary, but the cast of largely non-professional youngsters add a sense of authenticity to the dialogue and setting.

Elections - who will be the happiest?

So the votes are all counted (except Northern Ireland) and there were some predictable features - the failure of the referendum, the collapse of the Lib Dem vote. Others were more surprising - the SNP gaining an outright majority, the conservatives making gains in the English local elections. Who will be the happiest?

1. SNP A no brainer really. Watching the seats fall was the closest to the experience of the '97 landslide there's been since. An outright majority at Holyrood is a remarkable achievement. Of the four big parties, the SNP are the best to govern at the moment. My main concern is that large majorities (of whatever party) without an effective opposition tend to produce bad governments - the SNP need an effective opposition to sharpen and balance them. Labour are clearly in no position to provide that, so its going to be down to the Tories, but with only 15 seats that's going to be tough.

2. Conservatives Their vote held up reasonably well in Scotland, they progressed in Wales and finished the second largest party and they won the referendum. They gained seats and councils in England - far fewer than Labour, but this was an election where they were supposed to lose seats by the hundreds, so their achievement is more remarkable.

3. Labour Overall, it will have been a slightly disappointing night - they obliterated the Lib Dems in the English metropolitans, but failed to take the number of seats that they would have hoped for overall. They made progress in Wales, but missed the outright majority. They won the Leicester South by-election, but without the huge bounce they enjoyed in Barnsley. But the major fly in the ointment was an absolute disaster in Scotland, losing seats that they previously thought they owned by right.


4. Greens Will be disappointed by their failure to gain extra seats at Holyrood, despite promising pre-elections polls. Also failed to gain their first Welsh Assembly member, but in both cases increased their vote. They also did better than expected in the English locals, where they were expected to struggle against a resugent Labour, they held most of their seats and made gains elsewhere to finish 13 seats up overall and the largest party in Brighton (the first time ever they've been in this position).

5. UKIP Failed to build on promising by-election performances. Missed out on gaining a Welsh AM. Disappointing result in Leicester and finished with only 7 councillors elected across England - exactly the number of seats they were defending. Treading water.


6. Plaid Cymru Totally failed to emulate the SNP's success - finished down 4 seats in Wales and in 3rd place. Disappointing.


7. BNP  Defending 13 council seats in England - won just 2. Vote in Wales almost halved. In almost terminal decline, but probably thankful they aren't the... 


8. Lib Dems Surprisingly, what looked like being their worst result at the start of the years - Wales - actually turned out to be their best - they only lost 1 seat. In Scotland, their vote collapsed and they were reduced from 16 seats to just 5, with Orkney and Shetland being the only constituencies held and with no representation at all in 4 out of 8 regions (remarkably including Lothians). In England, they lost over a third of their councillors up for election and lost countrol of 9 out 19 councils. Their best result was arguably in Leicester South where they held on to second and only had a 4% drop in their vote.

Thursday - some predictions

Scottish Elections

This should have been an election tailor-made for a Labour victory. Now in opposition at both Westminster and Holyrood with unpopular cuts being forced through. Two months ago, Labour looked unassailable for Holyrood - surely they couldn't blow it from here. Step forward Iain Gray and co. Most polls now have the SNP consistently in front. An admittedly rather suspect one for STV today had Labour down to the mid-20s in both votes. Whereas it looked like Labour would be reclaiming the seats it narrowly lost to the SNP 4 years ago (Glasgow Southern, Stirling, Edinburgh Eastern; Almond Valley, etc....) now it looks more like a question of which seats the SNP will add to therir gains from Labour - Linlithgow is the most likely to go, followed by Aberdeen Central, then maybe Clydesdale where the absence of a Lib Dem candidate could produce an unusual result. (There are also large votes for parties no longer standing in Glasgow Kelvin and Strathkelvin and Bearsden, which make them slightly unpredictable).

Both parties will look to capitalise on the Lib-Dems unpopularity. Labour will almost certainly take Dunfermline off them and will look to take Edinburgh Southern (where the sitting MSP has a strong personal vote and potentially a lot of Tory/SNP votes to squeeze). The SNP will be looking to take the Lib Dems two Highland seats and also Aberdeen South (where Nicol Stephen is standing down). There are even some rumours that Tavish Scott may be in trouble from a Independant in Shetland (I reckon he'll still be pretty safe though).

The fall away of Labour's campaign has left most of the Tory constituencies looking a bit safer. McLetchie should now hold Edinburgh Pentlands. Galloway might possibly be a gain for the SNP though. They might also lose some list seats

The Greens are of course focussing on the list vote. Their most likely sources of seats in order are (I reckon)
Lothian, Glasgow, Highlands, North East, Mid and Fife, South, 2nd Lothians, West, Central.

My prediction:
SNP 54
Lab 46
Con 15
LD 7
Grn 6
Margo 1

Wales
The Labour campaign here seems to have held up better. The may or may not get an overall majority - I reckon they might come just short. It might be a funny election in that the Tories could lose most of their constituencies, but still finish up overall. On the other hand Plaid and the LDs could both hold their constituencies and finish down. Also a chance of UKIP getting their first AM.

I'm going for
Lab 30
Con 15
Plaid 11
LD 4


AV Referendum
After an amazingly poor campaign by both sides, the referendum will be lost, by something like 59% to 41%.


Leicester South by-election
Lost amidst all the other elections, there's a by-election in Leicester South (a seat the Lib-Dems won in a by-election in 2003 - they won't get close this time). It will be another smooth ride for Labour.

Lab 57.3
Con 19.9
LD 14.8
UKIP 6.8
Loonies 1.5

English Local Elections
 Inevitable gains for Labour, but they are coming back from a very low point. I do get the sense that they have lost a wee bit of momentum and the results won't be as pleasing as they would have liked. They might finish about 1200 seats up (900 from the Tories; 300 from the LDs). What will be interesting to see to tell how much Labour are actually winning voters back, or how much the coalition is losing them, is how Labour fares against parties like the Greens where they are in contention in places like Brighton and Norwich. Looks like being a bad set of locals for the BNP though ;-)

Tomorrow, When the War Began

This grammatically-interestingly-titled offering from Down Under is adapted from a best selling series of books by John Marsden (8 books so far and counting). (The tense-bending title seems to come from a line that's in the trailer, but not the actual film). The story follows 7 Australian teenagers who go on a camping trip to the enticingly named Hell, only to discover on their return that their part of Australia has been overrun by the evil invading armies of The Coalition (the political jokes here are too obvious, so I'll pass over them) and decide to become guerilla fighters in the Outback.

The Characters are more stock-types than fully-fleshed individuals - think The Breakfast Club goes to War. And the character arcs are equally predictable - you know the posh girl is going to end up falling for the rebel, who in turn will respond well to the crisis and become a leader and you know that at some point the Christian who refuses to kill will at some point pick up a gun and mow down everything in front of her.

However, where the film succeeds are in the action sequences - a genuinely thrilling car chase around the town and the climactic attempt to blow up the bridge are handled as well as many a Hollywood blockbuster with a much larger budget. Its when things slow down and get talky that you start to notice the patchy acting talent and the leaden script (at one point a character really does say "what's the worse that can happen?" without a hint of irony). Still that doesn't stop the whole being rather entertaining fun. Part 2 is already in the works.

Overall - 6/10 Counter-intuitively for what is a low-budget take on a Hollywood staple genre, the action scenes rock, but the talky bits drag. Not bad though.

What a Choice...

I will be voting on May 5th as I want my vote to count both in the regional list vote for Holyrood (for the Greens) and in the AV referendum (Yes). However, when it comes to the constituency vote for Holyrood I'm faced with a completely uninspiring choice - in my particular constituency (as in many this year) the choice is just the candidates from the main 4 Scottish parties. In all cases, I can come up with very good reasons not to vote for them, but am struggling to come up with a single decent reason to vote for any of them.

The Conservatives seem to have put together a manifesto that is totally blind to real issues of poverty and inequality that Scotland faces, not to mention a head in the sand approach to pressures on the environment. Labour still seem to be in absolute denial about their role in damaging the UK economy and creating the pressure for the cuts and have come up with a bunch of crowd-pleasing slogans and no money to pay for them. The SNP also have a huge unexplained financial hole in their plans and are an environmental disaster with their support for more fossil fuel use and more road-building. As for the Lib-Dems, who would normally be my default choice, not only are there the compromises of coalition, which in themselves wouldn't put me off, but actually more importantly, the absolute insanity of what seems to be their central campaign idea of financing their ideas by selling off Scottish Water's debt. That's not going to end well in the long term. If Labour mortgaged our children's future, the Scottish Lib-Dems now seem to want to re-mortgage it.

So, the choice is do I hold my nose and put the cross beside one of the above or do I, for the first time in my voting life, spoil the ballot paper. Its not a practice that I normally approve of, but if I was to do it, I'd like to do it quite imaginatively by, for example, writing in a candidate that I would genuinely like to see elected to the Scottish parliament. Any suggestions?

The Eagle

It is rather hard to believe that The Eagle is directed by the same man (Kevin MacDonald) who brought us excellent films such as The Last King of Scotland, State of Play and Touching the Void. This adaptation of Rosemary Sutcliffe's well-loved novel The Eagle of the Ninth concerns the quest to re-capture the lost eagle of the ninth legion from the barbaric lands north of Hadrian's wall. As such it covers very similar ground to last year's Centurion (directed by Neil Marshall), but whilst Centurion had a certain visceral thrill to it and a sense of fun at times (mainly when Dominic West was on screen), The Eagle has, well, not a lot really.

What should be at its heart is a tale of an unlikely friendship between Roman Marcus Flavius Aquila (Channing Tatum) and his British slave, Esca (Jamie Bell). However, the film gives very little in way of credibility as to how the friendship forms and how they move from mutual mistrust and enmity to surprising loyalty. When Sutcliffe wrote the character of Marcus it is doubtful that she envisaged muscle-bound and decidedly American Tatum talking of his family's honour being pissed on. However, Tatum's not the worst thing here (although his presence does seem to lead to the crazy fact that all the Romans, even those played by British actors, now have American accents). If anything, he holds his part better than Bell, who looks a bit lost searching for some believability in his role.

Structurally the film suffers from having the best set-piece battles at the start, leaving what follows as feeling rather flat, although the last stand of the remnants of the Ninth at the end briefly raises spirits. Also, whilst Centurion had some genuine tension and sense of threat in the chase across the Highlands to avoid the pursuing tribes, here things feel peculiarly tension-less. And then there's the problems with the tribes themselves - MacDonald seems to have put great effort into the historical accuracy of the Romans and their tactics (although there was one moment early on when the Romans were sitting huddled in their fort, afraid to send a patrol out because a druid had been seen when I did wonder if I walked into Asterix by mistake) and against them we have these British tribes who look and act more like they belong in Polynesia or the plains of Africa. Woeful.

Several of the films best moments come courtesy of  twinkle-eyed Donald Sutherland and that, by itself, says a lot about how disappointing this really is. The landscape is well shot and the fights well-handled, but the characters lack depth and its generally dreary fare.

Overall 5.5/10 Disappointingly flat and unconvincing.

Coming soon...

As I received some positive feedback on the policy comparisons I did before last year's general election, I'm aiming to try and do something similar for this year's Scottish elections - watch this space.

Killing Bono

Killing Bono is the loosely based on true story of the McCormick brothers. I'm not well enough informed to know how much is true and, frankly, I don't care enough to find out, so I'll concentrate on what's in the film. The McCormick brothers, Neil (Ben Barnes) and Ivan (Robert Sheehan) went to school with the members of U2. Ivan had the opportunity to join U2, but Neil blocked this without telling him, preferring to have Ivan in his own band. As U2 become increasingly big and globally successful, Neil is driven by guilt and desparation to try and make it too.

As a film its an entertaining little yarn, with a smart script, some OK tunes and likeable leads. Barnes, in particular, shines, not only maintaining a fairly good accent, but bringing a degree of humanity and likeability to a character who is basically a self-delusional ass. There are a series of amusing cameos and bit parts, most notably from Pete Postlethwaite as the boy's landlord when they move to London. And the films rolls gently on - consistently amusing, but rarely outright funny. By the end, it feels overlong and over-familiar. The whole Irish gangster sub-plot feels rather unnecessary and only adds coarse stereotypes, coarser humour and gratuitous nudity. Credit then to the two leads for holding things together so well and for Martin McCann for making a pretty good Bono.

Overall - 6/10 Gently amusing, but overlong tale that feels like it should have been tighter and funnier.

The Best Argument Against Proportional Representation???

Many of you may not recognise the woman opposite - she's Marine Le Pen, daughter of Jean-Marie and leader of France's far-right Le Front National (in other words you could see her as a blonde Nick Griffin, but that's probably not a particularly pleasant mental picture). She's also been doing rather well in the polls recently - at least well in terms of getting votes, but not seats.

The last two weekends in March saw the Cantonal elections in France for about 2000 seats. The French system works rather differently - over two rounds of voting on successive weekends. After the first round:
- If any candidate gets over 50% of the vote, they are elected without a second round
- Any candidate securing votes of over 12.5% of those registered to vote (NB not those who actually vote) proceeds to the second round
- If less than two candidates meet this requirement, the top two automatically proceed to the second round.

Le Front National polled over 20% in the first round nationally, winning them places in about 400 second round contests. In the second round, they polled almost 12% (at an average of over 30% for each candidate they actually had standing). And how many seats did they win - just 2. That's right - 2 or roughly 0.1% of seats. By contrast the Greens managed to double their first round vote to about 8%, but ultimately won 27 seats. Under a proportional system, Le Front National would have won 300-400 seats probably.

Now, in reality i don't think that keeping any party (however obnoxious they are) out of power should be the deciding factor in choosing an electoral system (something that neither campaign in the upcoming referendum seem to agree with me about - both seem to be arguing that a vote for the other gives the BNP more power), but it is food for thought. And with Ms Le Pen currently polling around the same levels as M Sarkozy and the leading socialist contenders, it looks likely that she might make quite a splash in next year's presidential elections.

Elsewhere in Europe (using a proportional system) there was better news for Greens. Two German state elections also at the end of March saw them increase their number of seats in Baden-Wurttemberg from 17 to 36 and in Rhineland Palatinate from 0 to 18.

Meanwhile, closer to home, our own  nasty far-right seems to be struggling somewhat - it looks like the BNP will fielding well under half the number of candidates in this year's English local elections as they did in the last equivalent elections.

Limitless

Limitless is a competently entertaining thriller that is probably most noteworthy for one thing. It marks the emergence of Bradley Cooper as a genuine leading man. After strong performances in ensemble pieces (The A Team; The Hangover) and miraculously coming through Sandra Bullock disaster All About Steve with his career more or less intact, here he has to carry a film for the first time and proves himself comfortably up to the task. He may not ever be troubling the Academy voters, but showd he has enough charisma and sparkle to keep an audience with him, even when his character is doing things that may not be altogether likeable.

Cooper plays Eddie Morra, a struggling writer whose life is transformed when he is offered a drug that enables him to tap into more of his brain's capacity. Needless to say, in good Faustian trandition, there are consequences to this path to success, including blackouts, headaches and many a nasty thug to deal with.

Director Neil Burger delivered a competent thriller in The Illusionist, but this is better and the action holds together well, although some of visual flourishes to show the effects of the drug are a bit too showy for their own good. Burger also leaves pleasing ambiguities in the ending, like is or isn't Eddie still using and was he guilty of killing a girl during one of his blackouts. Make your own mind up. Cooper is ably supported by Abby Cornish, who has more of a character to work with than in Sucker Punch, but drifts out of the film towards the end. Its also nice to see De Niro acting as if he actually cares about the role for a change as Cooper's mentor-nemesis.

There are weaknesses here too - the stereotypical Eastern European rent-a-thugs add little to proceeding other than to muddy the plot a little and up the violence levels.

Overall - 7.5/10 A confidently engaging thriller which marks the emergence of a true leading man.

Source Code

Source Code is director Duncan Jones follow-up to intelligent indie sci-fi success Moon. This time he's got a bigger budget, bigger stars and a script that's not his own idea. The good news is that he's still managed to produce a gripping film thats's above average in both intelligence and execution, even if it lacks a little of the originality and charm of Moon.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays Colter Stevens - a US air force chopper pilot, who wakes up on a train, opposite an atttractive woman who's talking to him as a friend and with another man's face. Eight minutes later the train blows up and Colter finds himself inside a capsule somewhere talking to military types (Vera Farmiga and Jeffrey Wright) on a screen, who explain that they have the technology to send him into the last eight minutes of somebody's life in order for him to work out who planted the bomb in order to stop a bigger attack threatened to happpen later (this is, of course, classic movie bad guy mistake #7 - start with a small attack to give the authorities time to respond and catch you before you can pull off your catastrophic masterplan). So we get the same 8 minutes repeated with differences as Gyllenhaal looks at different likely suspects to try and catch the villain, all the while falling more and more for Michelle Monaghan's fellow passenger. Here the film throws up some good red herrings alongside the real clues before finally revealing its hand. All the while there are interesting questions in the background about where Gyllenhaal's capsule really is and how he got there from flying missions in Afghanistan. And, most importantly, about whether he can actually change what has already happened.

The explanations for the science part of this are rather glossed over, which is probably a good thing as they would probably have sounded even more ridiculous than the do if it had been explained at any length. As it is, its a interesting movie idea that works in the world of the movie. Even then, the ending raises all sorts of questions and suggests several paradoxes and wholes in the plot that the film can't quite answer. However, by this point, the film will have taken you along with it enough that you won't really complain bout being given the ending you feel it deserves (even if it doesn't make a lot of sense).

The cast are great - Monaghan believably fallable for, Farmiga touchingly human in the uniform, Wright unusually hard for him and Gyllenhaal carrying proceedings very well both in believable character and in action. Jones keeps things brief and moving to good effect and whilst this might not be as good as his debut, it shows enough to prove it was no fluke.

Overall - 7.5/10 Thoroughly engaging film built around some good ideas and strong performances.

Sucker Punch

Sucker Punch is the mutant offspring of Girl, Interrupted; Moulin Rouge; Casshern  and countless Japanese Mangas. If that sounds a mess, broadly speaking it is. The story, such as it is, follows the heroine Babydoll (Emily Browning) as she is pit in an asylum by her abusive step-father and faces the prospect of a lobotomy in 5 days time unless she can work out a way of escape. She retreats into a fantasy world, where the asylum becomes a brothel where she dances for the clients to distract them, whilst her companions (Abby Cornish, Jena Malone, Vanessa Hudgens and Jamie Chung) go about pilfering the various things they need to make their escape. Except we don't see the dance, but rather enter into a deeper layer of Babydoll's fantasy where the girls are fighting giant samurai robots, clockwork steam-powered German zombies, dragon and yet more robots.

Director Zack Snyder's previous films (300, Watchmen) have suffered from a triumph of style over substance, but at least the style was impressive and there was some kind of coherent story to hang it. Here, there are impressive images but there are all thrown together so haphazardly in a blur of action that what you end up with is lots of things that might look good as still images getting lost in the blender with none of the steampunk, gothic, burlesque, martial arts, anime, fantasy, sci-fi or just plain weird elements having enough room to actually shine. As for the story, well, by the end you might well be scratching your head. In other filmd with multiple layers of reality (most recently and notably, Inception) the links between the layers are managed well, here -they feel clumsy to the extent that we're left wondering what happened to three characters in reality (is it actually reality) after events at one fantasy level. By the end, you might even be wondering whose head this is all happening in. Of the characters, only Browning, Cornish and Malone are allowed anything anywhere near depth or nuance.

That said, each individual set piece is well enough handled in terms of the action to be engaging and interesting, even exciting at times. The performances are on the whole not bad and there's a cheesy charm to Scott Glenn (channeling the late David Carradine) turning up and offering advice and corny aphorisms.

Overall - 5.5/10 Noisy and messy, but not without some good features and invention, but maybe needed a more disciplined hand in putting it all together.

Submarine

Submarine, adapted from a novel by Joe Dunthorne, is the debut as director of The IT Crowd's Richard Ayoade. It is a confident debut - coming across as almost a British Juno (without the pregnancy), or in other words a cool, indy teen comedy. Ayoade directs with an assured hand, full of nice little flourishes without ever being two showy. The script is smart and funny, without ever being quite as self-consciously (and artificially) cool as Juno. And the soundtrack is enhanced by som great original songs by Arctic Monkey's Alex Turner.

The story follows Oliver (debutant Craig Roberts), who is trying to handle his first relationship with Jordana (Yasmin Paige) whilst simultaneously trying to stop his parents (Sally Hawkins and Noah Taylor) splitting up after his mum's old flame, now a self-help guru (Paddy Considine bravely sporting one of the worst mullets you're ever likely to see), has moved in down the street. The adults are brilliant in their roles, but the film stands or falls on the younger performances and both Roberts and Paige absolutely nail it. They are slightly let down by a few of the other younger members of the cast who at times lapse into incomprehensibility, but that's not a major factor.

Overall - 8.5/10 An amazingly assured debut, with great performances by the young leads. Fresh, funny and moving. Well worth seeing.

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger

This is the latest London-set Woody Allen film, following his usual themes of love, relationships, insecurity and fate. Its an ensemble piece with a terrific cast - so Gemma Jones consults a mystic (Pauline Collins)  to help her deal with her husband, Anthony Hopkins, leaving her. He is meanwhile about to re-marry a much younger "actress" (Lucy Punch). Meanwhile their daughter (Naomi Watts) is struggling in her marriage and has a crush on her boss (Antonio Banderas), whist her writer husband (Josh Brolin) sits at home lusting after the woman in the flat opposite (Slumdog Millionaire's Freida Pinto). And that's before Anna Friel, Ewan Bremner, Celia Imrie and Philip Gleinster all come and go.

Allen's London films (of which this is the fourth) have so far produced one decent one (Match Point) and two absolute turkeys. This isn't quite as bad as that and has some redeeming moments, but its a messy affair that falls a long way short of Vicky Christina Barcelona, let alone his genuine classics, and confirms that Allen is going through something a lean spell at the moment. There are two rules which seem to determine the characters - the older ones seem better written than the younger ones and the men better written than the women. So Jones  manages to be almost decent (even if they are playing rather stereotyped caricatures) and Brolin and Hopkins have the most fleshed out characters, whilst Watts has moments but also some bits which clang dreadfully (not sure if its the script or the strain of the British accent), but Punch struggles with a lazy cliche of a gold-digger and poor Pinto has to try (and utterly fails) to bring any credibility to what is essentially an Allen fantasy - the young, intelligent, attractive woman who ia actually attracted by the older loser perving on her at every opportunity.

The tone veers sharply between broad comedy and pseudo-profundity and attempted pathos in a way that achieves nothing successfully. The ruminations on fate and the twists and turns and downfall of plans are painted with a blunt instrument rather than a deft hand and a light touch. And yet there are moments which suggest that this could have been much better and which show the talent that Allen still possesses. Like the moment Brolin moves in with Pinto and looks back through the window the other way or Watts awkward attempts to declare her feelings to a Banderas who is doing his best not to acknowledge them.

Overall - 5.5/10 Moments of something better, but overall this is messy and confused and a long way from what Allen is capable of.

Battle Los Angeles

Battle Los Angeles is rather similar in plot to last year's Skyline - aliens invade Los Angeles. However, it decides to focus on the military response rather than the civilians caught up in it and has a rather bigger budget and more recognisable cast (more recognisable in the sense that you might actually be able to name one or two of them rather than going "Oh its him off that thing on TV"). Its also a better film, but not as much better as you would hope for.

It could probably win several awards for bad science (if they're hitting the earth they're meteorites, not meteors) and terrible geography (aliens land in the sea and attack coastal cities including Paris!) as well as some questionable military tactics. It has dialogue that ranges from the dreadful to the so bad that its actually quite good (my favourite being "we've already had breakfast"). They plotnotes and character arcs are stereotypical and utterly predictable - you know just who is going to be reconciled to whom, who will make it and who won't, etc... It borrows heavily from the predictable sources - Independance Day, War of the Worlds, Aliens, etc...

However, once you get past all that and a horrendous meet the characters opening section and get into the action, its actually a lot more fun than it has any right to be. Director Jonathan Liebesman handles the action efficiently, if with no great flare, and the cast give good value to their limited roles. Aaron Eckhart is the Sergeant whose last mission went badly wrong, Michelle Rodriguez essentially plays the same role she did in Avatar and Michael Pena plays the civilian dad caught up in the middle of things. At times it feels like it wants to have pretensions to be Platoon with aliens, but is actually much better when it stops taking itself seriously and just keeps the action rolling.

Overall - 6/10 Loud, dumb and unoriginal, but entertaingly action packed and surprisingly fun.

Why I won't be voting for the SNP in May

OK, the Scottish elections are something like a month and a half away and my mind is already made up in terms of how I will be voting for the regional list, but the absence of a Green candidate in my constituency means I still have a choice to make about that. However, I might already be reaching a decision by process of elimination - I've seen nothing so far that would persuade me to break my longstanding habits and vote either Labour or Tories. Added to that I can categorically say that I won't be vote for the SNP.

This has nothing to do with independance (an issue which, as an Englishman in Scotland, I am surprisingly neutral about). No, my decision is based on what for me are the two most important issues in this election - in the short-term there are the cuts facing Scotland and in the long-term there are the environmental issues. In the first case I find the stance of the SNP contradictory and in the second their track record is now approaching the disastrous.

The Cuts
If I was to put the parties on a specturm with regard to their attitudes towards the cuts, at one end you have 
The Tories who, however much the try to dress it up as necessity, ideologically like the the ideas of cutting back state funding.
Next come the Lib-Dems who seem to have been persuaded that the cuts are necessary due to the economic situation.
Somewhere in the middle you have Labour and the SNP both of whom seeming to be appealling to the popular vote by appearing to stand against the cuts and the evil coalition who are viciously imposing them on poor Scotland. Labour are doing this whilst offering no alternative strategy and doing the whole "No sir, it wasn't us, a big bank did it and ran away" act as to how the country ended up in an economic mess in the first place. The SNP are attacking Labour for this, but still not offering an alternative to handing on the cuts from Westminster. Indeed they allowed the democratically mandated tax varying powers of Holyrood (which could offer some alternative vision) to lapse into a state where they could no longer be used without informing parliament (symptomatic of a contempt for parliamentary process they have shown around a number of issues). Meanwhile they exacerbate the situation be cheap populist vote-catching measures like the council tax freeze and by huge, expensive photo ops for Salmond unnecessary public projects like the Forth crossing (of which more later). For a party whose whole raison d'etre is the separation of Scotland from the UK, this unwillingness to explore Scottish alternatives to the Westminster solution, but it actually fits with the way the party has acted in local government across Scotland - they complain about cuts to get support and then cut when in power. It might actually be a fiscally resonsible approach compared to Labour, but they need to stop trying to milk the anti-cuts vote so hard - that is not where they are standing by their actions!

At the other end of this spectrum is, of course, The Greens who say that the cuts are going too far and are wanting and prepared to use the powers the Scottish parliament has to try and find alternatives in Scotland.

The Environment
The SNP, like the other major parties, do their best to try and present themselves as green. Salmond will make speeches about Scotland's potential for renewable energy, but politicians need to be judged by what they do and not what they say and at every opportunity the SNP has shown its loyalty to the coal and oil industries, a dependance on short-term solutions that are denying us the chance to build for the future. The SNP favour building more coal-fired power stations in Scotland rather than investing more in renewable sources, they will try to explain away the environmental impact of this by talking about the carbon capture potential of the North Sea, but there they are talking about technology that has yet to be proved feasible anywhere in the world. They favour allowing deep-sea drilling off Shetland, using the same technology that failed so dramatically in the Gulf of Mexico. Even without the environmental impact, there is a short-termism to these solutions - fossil fuels are running out, investing more in them now is denying us the chance to prepare properly for that time. The fact is that Scotland could be producing almost twice its electricity needs from entirely renewable sources within 20 years or so. If we were to invest now, we could be at the forefront of Green energy. This just won't happen under the SNP.

They also remain committed to more road building projects, like the new Forth crossing, which will cost £2billion (budgetted - as we all know, major projects in Scotland seem to have a problem sticking to budget!). Repairing the existing bridge, which is only 50 years old, could be achieved for a very small fraction of that cost. The costs for that project include a £100 million liability cost to BP as the new crossing will be built across a pipeline thar carries an awful lot of oil. Again, the SNP decided to withhold this information and costing from the parliament when the project was being considered (for "security" reasons). At the same time they are withdrawing funding from an initiative which was working, which had the support of businesses, to get more freight off the roads and back on to the rails.

I could go on, but I won't.

Rango

Rango is the latest CG animation film to hit the cinemas. It features the voice of Johnny Depp as the eponymous chameleon who finds himself in the wild west town of Dirt, where the tall tales he tells land him the job of sheriff and of finding out what has happened to the town's water supply.

The first pleasant surprise about Rango is that it has resisted the current craze to put everything in 3D. The second pleasant surprise is that this is just about the best looking non-Pixar animated film you're likely to fine. They really have shown great attention to detail and produced a wonderful looking film.

The script and the characters might not quite be up to Pixar standards, but all in all, they're not bad. There's an impressive vocal cast - Ray Winstone, Isla Fischer, Abigail Breslin, Bill Nighy, Timothy Olyphant and Alfed Molina (among others) and a script that is silly enough to entertain younger ones, whilst offering enough humour to keep adults watching as it plays with the cliches of the Western and the Clint Eastwood iconongraphy.

Director Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean) keeps the action moving from one set piece to another, some of which are very well handled indeed, and whilst the plot might be somewhat predictable to say the least, its at least an enjoyable ride to get there.

Overall - 7/10 A pleasantly surprisingly entertaining animated feature - full of fun.

Fair Game

Director Doug Liman's (The Bourne Identity) return to the field of spy movies couldn't be further from the world of Bond and Bourne. There's very little in the way of running, shooting and blowing stuff up. Instead this is the true story of former CIA operative Valerie Plame (Naomi Watts) whose identity was exposed to the press by those inside the White House after her husband, former US ambassador Joe Wilson (Sean Penn) wrote an article detailing why some of George W's claims in justifying the invasion of Iraq couldn't be true.

There are obvious strengths and problems just from that set-up. With Watts and Penn in the leads, you get the strong, committed performances that you might expect. You also get, given Penn's involvement and the subject matter a fair deal of speechifying on true American democracy, etc... However, one of the main problems with the subject (as with last year's Green Zone) is that we all know how its going to turn out - that there were no WMDs, that the White House did exaggerate and push things in its justifications.

It still manages to be thought-provoking through a few effective scenes - the bullying and manipulation of CIA analysts by White House staff until they got the answers they wanted and the callousness with which the CIA itself abandoned Plame's Iraqi contacts to be killed by the Israelis once her cover was blown. This last point is particularly telling, as in a war against terrorism intelligence has got to be key and the attitudes of the americans in both ignoring the intelligence they got and betraying their sources must ultimately prove hugely counter-productive.

However, the film's most moving and strongest moments actually come away from the political arena in the relationship between Plame and Wilson, the strains events and their differing reactions put upon that and their ultimate strength.

Overall - 7.5/10 The material feels slightly too familiar by now, but strong performances and confident handling of the elements will keep you watching.

The Adjustment Bureau

The writings of Philip K Dick have long been a source of intelligent (and less intelligent (yes, I do mean Total Recall)) sci-fi movies of the likes of Blade Runner and Minority Report, even if they often don't stick that closely to the souce material. The Adjustment Bureau (adapted from Dick's short-story Adjustment Team) follows in this tradition, essentially turning Dick's story into a metaphysical romance.

Matt Damon as would-be senator David Norris who is inspired by a chance encounter with a girl Elise (Emily Blunt) to give the speech of his career. What he doesn't realise is that the encounter has been engineered by the titular bureau - be-hatted men who engineer events to run according to their plan. This plan also states that David and Elise should never meet again. When David discovers this, he is rather reluctant to comply with the plan (opening up a whole free will vs fate idea).

Writer George Nolfi (The Bourne Ultimatum) makes a good debut as director, especially in the early stages of establishing the world and the concepts. The aesthetics of the Bureau itself (borrowing from Wings of Desire) are beautifully realised and devices like the shifting diagrams in books showing the plan and the interconnecting doorways (accessed by the hats) across the city that the bureau use work well, enabling Nolfy to create the his world without too much clunky exposition.

He's aided by a script that is intelligent without being too talky and a strong cast. Damon is as dependable as ever and Blunt seems to get better with every role. The two conjure up a strong chemistry between them. They are aided by The Hurt Locker's Anthony Mackie, Mad Men's John Slattery and Terence Stamp as the adjustors. There are a few hiccups along the way - some of the attempts to avoid using religious language - "the Chairman", etc... - feel rather clunky. But in general, this is an engaging and entertaining movie with a bit of intelligence which sets itself up nicely for the final act. The final act doesn't exactly disappoint, but is more flawed. Firstly, having set up the chase so well, you can't help feeling that its all over rather too quickly without fully utilising the potential of its ideas. Secondly, I'm not sure I totally buy Elise's motivation to run off with Norris on her wedding day under the circumstances. And finally, the conclusion is actually one of the most cliched of all rom-com cliches - the run for love. They just about get away with the final point because the whole is so entertaining and engaging.

Overall - 7/10 A beautifully realised and engaging film slightly let down by a rushed and weaker final act.

I Am Number Four

Hollywood is still desperately searching for the next big teen sci-fi/fantasy franchise to take over from Harry Potter. I Am Number Four, based on the novel by Pittacus Lore (the first of six proposed) is the latest attempt. And that is its main drawback - it feels too much like it is trying to set up a franchise rather than telling a story in its own right. Thus we get too much introduction, too many alien artifacts which are never really used or explained and characters who are glimpsed (like Theresa Palmer's Number 6) before swinging into action in the final moments to show us all what we've been missing.

The plot follows alien teenager (Alex Pettyfer, Stormbreaker) who is hiding as a human on earth from evil other aliens who want to kill him and generally trying to contain his super-powers at High School whilst romancing a human girl. Anybody hearing echoes of TV series Roswell here is not without justification. The parallels stretch right down to the fact that the High School sports star/bully is the son of the local sheriff and has had a past relationship with the lead alien's crush. In many ways, Roswell had more engaging characters and action. Here we get Timothy Olyphant in strangely reined-in mode when  the film could have done with him letting loose. We also get a voice-over introduction about Mogordorians or something like that - never a promising sign in a film like this.

Despite all that, there is potential here - Pettyfer has clearly developed as an actor since Stormbreaker. The bad guys are rather fun (if a bit stereotypically so) and when things do finally take off in the last twenty minutes there are signs of something that could work. Then just as its getting going, the credits roll.

Overall - 5.5/10 Plays more like a pilot for a re-boot of Roswell than a stand alone film, but not without its potential and pleasures.

Drive Angry

Drive Angry could have been a fun, guilty pleasure kind of B-movie. It's got Nicolas Cage as a man who breaks out of hell in order to save his baby grand-daughter from a cult. It could have been, but it's not.

For the most part, it takes itself far too seriously. It pinches ideas liberally from the likes of Shoot Em Up and does them less well. But the main drawback is Cage himself, who after something of a renaissance last year (Kick Ass, Bad Lieutenant) is back on sleep-walking to the paycheque form here (as he was in Season of the Witch). He is comprehensively out-acted by his co-star Amber Heard, mainly because she actually looks like she gives a damn. Regretably as the bad guy cult leader Billy Burke is also a disappointment, lacking in both charisma and menace.

On the positive side, the 3D is not the worst there's been and there are a few sharp lines (mainly in the trailer). However, the main plus here is the excellent William Fichtner as The Accountant, sent to bring Cage back. He brings some style, wit and humour to proceedings, but unfortunately there's far too little of him in the film.

Overall - 5/10  Could have been fun, but Fichtner apart, isn't.

Animal Kingdom

Animal Kingdom is an Australian gangster movie, but don't give up on it yet. It is told largely through the eyes of young "J" (James Frecheville), who after the death of his mother, moves to stay with his grandmother "Smurf" (Oscar nominated Jackie Weaver) and falls in with his three bank robbing uncles.

Where the film works well is in creating an underlying sense of tension at all times. Even in seemingly happy family times when other films might relax the tension, there remains an underlying sense of menace and threat which keeps the audience on the edge of their seats. This is added to by the fact that the police seem no better than the villains they're chasing. Even with Guy Pierce's seemingly sympathetically copper we're never really quite sure whether he is genuinely trying to help J or to manipulate him to get at his family. This creates a film where you are genuinely unsure quite what is going to happen at times and who will make it through to te closing credits.

Weaver's performance is more subtle than might at first appear and justifies her nomination. It is only in the closing stages when we see the lengths she will go to for her family and against those who cross her, that we see the real steel and control in the character. Frecheville has an equally hard task - not unlike the lead in Neds he has to hint at an inner world that is hidden behind a necessary protective facade of blankness. That this works is either down to his skill as an actor or because he is enough of a blank canvass for the viewer to project their own reactions onto.

The downside of this is that there isn't enough here to lend credibillity to J's final act character arc when he is transformed from passive survivor to controlling string-puller. Whilst you might be rooting for him, he no longer feels quite believable.

Overall - 7.5/10 A strong but flawed film that nonetheless grips.

UKIP victory in Barnsley

Of course, they didn't actually take the seat (by a long way) but compared to expectations they must be the most delighted with their performance in the Barnsley Central by-election yesterday. So here are my idiosyncratic placings for how I think the parties did compared to expectations yesterday:

1. UKIP placed 2nd (their best ever result in Westminster poll), beating not only the Lib Dems, but also the Tories and not only saving their deposit but almost trebling their share of the vote to 12.2%

2. Tony Devoy (Independant) He had stood last May and got around 1.6%. Yesterday he increased that 5.2%, beating the Lib Dems and saving his deposit in the process and independants usually do badly in by-elections where the big parties can devote all their energy to it.

3. Labour They won the seat very comfortably (as they were always going to) and their share of the vote (Around 60%) is around par for the course under the circumstances - well up on last May, around back to 2005 levels, but well down on what they have achieved here in the past.

4. English Democrats 2.2% from not standing before is a decent performance (especially in a crowded populist right-wing field) and they managed to beat the Loonies this time.

5. BNP Disappointingly held their deposit and came fourth (ahead of the Lib Dems), but encouragingly their share of the vote still fell by almost a third since last May.

6. Official Monster Raving Loony Party For the second by-election in a row they avoided the wooden spoon.

7. Michael Val Davies (Independant) An independant from Devon standing in Yorkshire was always a bizarre idea, so 60 votes and last place is about what could be expected.

8. Conservatives The collapse in the Lib Dem vote was predictable, the Tory collapse was less so. On the one hand they stayed in third place, on the other hand their share of the vote halved to a lower level than it was during the 1997 Labour landslide.

9. Liberal Democrats 6th place and a lost deposit is one of the worst Lib-Dem by-election performances ever. Disastous. Their candidate (who stood in Barking against Nick Griffin last May) seems to specialise in telling people not to vote BNP rather than getting them to vote for him (Labour must love him).

So, overall, a good night for UKIP but whether that can be turned into seats at any level remains to be seen. A bad night for both the coalition partners, but in an election in which neither were ever in contention, I doubt that they will be too worried... yet.

My Annual Oscar Rant

OK, so it wasn't that bad this year. Grudgingly I'll admit that the Academy achieved at least pass marks this year and there wasn't anything to really jump up and down about in absolute disbelief. They could hardly go wrong with the actor and actress prizes and Christian Bale was a deserving winner in Supporting Actor. It was also good to see Aaron Sorkin winning Best Adapted Screenplay for The Social Network - deserved recognition for one of the best in the business. As to Best Picture, well it was a fairly even field and if The King's Speech just pipped The Social Network nobody's going to complain.

But its no fun to just congratulate, so here's where I think they got it wrong:

Best Supporting Actress Melissa Leo is a fine actress - she was superb in Frozen River (for which she was deservingly nominated) but her performance in The Fighter (hampered by a dreadful caricature of a character) was not the best in the field. Heck, it wasn't even the best in The Fighter. In fact, she was probably the poorest of the five nominees.

Best Director The King's Speech is a fine film, brilliantly acted, well written, but I can't help feeling that Tom Hooper has got the Oscar based on the other elements of the film. In terms of direction you would be hard pressed to argue that he did a better job than Fincher (The Social Network), Aronofsky (Black Swan) or The Coen Brothers (True Grit). An example a film getting a bit of a bandwagon momentum and sweeping awards it maybe didn't deserve.

Cinematography - OK - both Inception  and True Grit  would have been worthy winners, but this means that Roger Deakins (one of the very best in the business ever - look at the man's CV for a list of some of the most beautifully shot films of the last two decades) has now been nominated 9 times and never won! It also meant that whilst Inception and The King's Speech got 4 statues a piece, The Fighter  and Toy Story 3 got 2 each and Black Swan got one, the really good True Grit left empty-handed. Heck, Alice in Wonderland got 2 Oscars and Wolfman 1, but nothing for True Grit???????????

True Grit

I approached True Grit with a certain amount of eager anticipation - it's the Coen brothers doing a Western, it's Jeff Bridges, it's Matt Damon. And for once a film turned out to be pretty much what you'd expect - and that's pretty darn good.

Of course, there are some for whom the very idea of a new version of True Grit (and this is a new adaptation of the book, not a re-make of the John Wayne version - important distinction) is sacrilege. But despite the fact that it was the film that Wayne won an Oscar for, it wasn't the classic that it would be made out to be and can't hold a candle to true Wayne classics, like The Searchers. So there is room for improvement, and True Grit Coen-style delivers.

The script not sparkles with their usual wit, but also displays their customary ear for unusual speech patterns and period phraseology. The film looks beautiful, with Roger Deakins adding his usual beautiful touch to the cinematography, aided by some stunning landscape. Of the cast, Bridges has a ball as the drunk marshall Rooster Cogburn and Damon shows a deft comic touch as the Texas ranger version of Monty Python's "When I were a lad...", but the film really belongs to newcomer Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross, the young girl who hires Cogburn to catch her father's killer. Despite her nomination for Best Supporting Actress, she is the real lead here and gives an amazing debut performance. Elsewhere there is good support from the likes of Josh Brolin and Barry Pepper as the movie's villains.

Its not a perfect movie - the snake pit sequence after the ostensible climax of the film seems slightly misplaced, but overall its a hugely entertaining and well-made film.

Overall - 8.5/10 Definitely recommended - a film that delivers what you'd expect and hope for.

Paul

Paul is the latest offering from lovable Brit-com duo Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (this time without writer-director Edgar Wright, who was presumably too busy off helping Scott Pilgrim take on the world). Pegg And Frost star as, well as themselves really - a couple of British Sci-Fi geeks on a roadtrip round the US's top alien sites when they pick up the eponymous alien (voiced by Seth Rogen) who is trying to get home.

As a comedy, its a slow starter - the initial Comic Con scenes feel too much like a love letter to the fans and as such lack any real bite (Jeffrey Tambor's bitter comic book writer has potential, but is underused), whilst the repeated running gag about people thinking they are a gay couple feels tired and overused on its first appearence, let alone repeated outings. Its only when get out on the road and meet Paul himself does the film really take off. To be fair, even then its never quite reaches the comic heights of either Hot Fuzz  or Shaun of the Dead, but rather like Pegg and Frost themselves, its rather charming and hard to dislike. Rogen hasn't been this funny in ages, probably since Knocked Up and he's joined by a host of other familiar faces - Jason Bateman gives good value as the Man in Black in hot pursuit, Kirsten Wiig is Pegg's disllusioned creationist romantic interest and Sigourney Weaver has fun as the big bad boss, amongst others.

Director Greg Mottola (Superbad, Adventureland) creates a good-looking film whose Spielberg references (both visual and verbal) successfully tread a fine line between homage and pastiche.

Overall - 7/10 It never threatens greatness, but is a charmingly funny and entertaining film.

The AV Referendum - why I will be voting yes.

The legislation has finally made it through the House of Lords fillibusting and we will have a referendum on 5th May. Both the Yes and No campaigns are kicking off and, to be honest, they're both talking nonsense so far.

The No campaign seems to be centring around nonsensical posters about needing maternity units and bullet proof armour rather than a new voting system. This is nonsense not only because on May 5th voters won't be given the choice of AV or a new maternity unit, but its also nonsense because the figure they are quoting £250 million has actually been plucked out of thin air and it has no bearing to any costs that anybody who knows anything about things has come up with.

Other stupid arguments against AV - its too complicated - no actually I think most of the UK electorate can cope with ranking things in order of preference. Also, there have been arguments that AV is more likely to produce hung parliaments (if that is a bad thing) - there is little evidence of that, it is, after all, not a proportional system and in 1997 would have produced an even larger Labour majority. As to the idea advanced by some (not the actual No campaign, but some Labour supporters) that we should vote No to punish Nick Clegg - that's just ridiculous. One way or another Clegg will be gone in a few elections, we may have the electoral system we vote for for some time.

That said, the Yes camp are hardly doing much better:
AV is fairer votes - not necessarily - see above about 1997 - it is not a proportional system and can disproportionately exaggerate big swings.
It will ensure that MPs are elected with 50% of the vote  - no it won't as it won't be compulsory to rank all candidates (it is in Australia, I think) so some (in some cases many votes) will not transfer, meaning that candidates can still get elected with less than 50% of the vote.
Every vote will count/it will do away with safe seats - not true and not true. Strictly every vote counts under First Past the Post (or alternatively only votes for the winning candidate count) - I don't understand what difference AV will make). As to safe seats, in most safe seats the winning candidate (the monkey in the blue/red rosette) will get over 50% on first preferences anyway, so AV will make no difference.

However, I will be voting Yes on 5th May for two main reasons:

1. A No vote probably spells the end to electoral reform for another generation - that would be a shame. Personally I would have preferred that they had started with reforming the House of Lords (an elected house using STV) but lets not give up now.
2. The preferential system of voting actually suits the way I approach things - I'm not rabidly pro-any party to the extent that I would say them and nobody else. I am probably more along the lines of being 70% in favour of one party, 60% in agreement with another. AV allows me to express this better - to say I want him, but if not him then her. For example, at the last election my preference would have been Green, with a second preference for Lib-Dem. I ended up voting Lib-Dem as I felt that under FPTP a Green vote would have no impact. Under AV I have more room to express a more nuanced opinion.

Of course, AV is not totally new to the UK. Scottish local councils are elected using STV, but when there is a by-election for just one seat, STV becomes by default an AV system. The results can be quite interesting - for one thing, the transfers do tend to go all over the place and not just in the directions you might expect. There have been 4 Scottish local by-elections since the last general election. 2 were safe Labour holds, although interestingly they failed to get over 50% despite polling over 40% on first preferences. The other two should have been SNP wins, but the transfers saw independant candidates take the seats despite trailing on 1st preferences. Its a different kind of democracy, but not necessarily a worse one.