DVD Review: Tangled

Disney movies have become somewhat overshadowed by Pixar movies of late. And for good reason. Pixar make outstanding family movies; for adults as much as they are for kids. Disney just make movies for kids.

Or at least, they did.

Because a little movie came along that changed all that. And that movie was…The Emperor’s New Groove.

Wait, what? I thought this was a review of Tangled.

It is. I’m getting there.

The Emperor’s New Groove was a 2D old school animated movie released in 2000. It was frantic, anarchic and most importantly funny. I mean, hilariously funny. Seriously if you haven’t seen it, try and get a copy. It was still a Disney movie, but it played with the conventions of what you’d expect a Disney movie to be. It still contained all the elements that other Disney movies had, but gave it a post modern spin, as well as an unusual but perfect voice cast. And all the better for it.

And then, Disney tried it again. And it worked perfectly…only this time it was with a live action movie. Enchanted also played with the conventions of the typical Disney movie but kept it fresh and new. It poked fun at the Disney princess idea, but never felt like it was being mean or bad mouthing the history of the House of Mouse. It was an affectionate ribbing. And again, it was funny.

And then last year, Disney decided that to truly go toe to toe with Pixar that they decided to join them in the realms of computer animation. And it has paid off handsomely.

Tangled is at heart perhaps the most traditional ‘Disney movie’ out of the three movies I’ve mentioned so far. It’s a movie that literally has a fairytale princess, a dashing hero and an evil witch. But it’s done in much the same vein as New Groove. It has a fourth wall breaking narrator character; it subverts all the normal Disney clichés but embraces them at the same time.

And it’s very very funny.

The story itself is nothing new, but it’s presented with such an air of confidence and vigour that you get wrapped up in it. It’s a classic tale but with a modern sensibility, in much the same way that the first Shrek movie was. In fact, you don’t even mind the songs when they arise (the music is really the only concession to the classic Disney archetype, but even they’re great. All written and arranged by Little Shop of Horrors music supremo Alan Menken, fact fans) because they’re not professions of love, but rather funny songs that fit and sow seeds for major plot points later on.

The voice cast is absolutely stellar. The reason this movie peaked my interest however was the fact that Chuck himself (Zach Levi) voices the character of Flynn, the dashing hero of the story. He is the perfect person to voice the sarcastic, funny, vain hero. He’s likable even at his most douche-y, and his casting is as inspired as David Spade’s was for Emperor. I can’t really say much about Mandy Moore casting as it could have just been any other voice actress as far as I’m concerned, but Jenny did inform me that she has a great Disney princess singing voice (Moore, not Jenny). The central couple are likebale and easy to root for, because they’re not just ciphers, they actually feel like real characters.

The star of the show however is the horse, Maximus. The horse that thinks it’s a dog. The physicality with which he’s given, and the animation that brings him to life is hilarious. If I could compare it to another animated animal it would be Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon. Both great triumphs in animation, extracting laughs from the movements rather than words.

I watched this on Bluray, and usually any computer animated movie looks great. I expected nothing less from this, but to say I was blown away was an understatement. It’s the best looking picture I have ever seen in an animated feature, and the biggest action scene in the movie looks simply phenomenal. It makes me wish I’d seen it in the cinema.

Anyway, to summarise: a funny, heartfelt, beautiful movie, and for me it’s up there with some of the best Pixar movies.

4 and a half stars

I’m out
JC

Cinema Review - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

And so, the Harry Potter saga comes to an end with Part II of The Deathly Hallows. And for this movie only Potter fan, it was pretty good.

Not great, but very good.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 was easily in my top 5 movies of last year, contrary to a lot of critics who complained it was too talky and just a set up to the showdown in Part 2. I guess I can agree with that criticism, but it was also a great movie; a very different kind of Potter film. It was, much as I’m loathe to use this phrase, ‘darker’ and rather foreboding in its tone. And after all, without a great setup, the denouement could fall flat. I loved the first part; I was emotionally engaged with the journey of the three leads in a way I hadn’t been with previous Potters. Standout scenes included Ron listening to the radio broadcast listing the families who have died as a result of the Death Eaters attacks (and hoping not to hear his families names among the dead), as well as Harry and Hermione’s little dance, a moment of happiness amongst all the chaos. Those were scenes that made you really feel for the characters, and their dire situation really gave the movie, and the final movie, a real weight and substance.

So naturally that helped this movie considerably. We hit the ground running in Part 2, there’s no time for any set up. If you’re watching it, you know the story so far so we’re jumping right in. And jump right in we do. The movie wastes no time in getting our trio back to Hogwarts for the final battle, and throughout the first hour the tension is nicely built up. The preamble to the battle really did have my heart racing, mainly because having not read the books I had very little idea about how this was going to go down. From the moment that Harry calls out Snape until the attack starts the tension is ratcheted up to extremely high levels, with armies amassing on both sides ready to fight. Shit’s about to go down, yo.

However, it’s actually once the fighting starts that the movie gradually begins to lose it’s way a bit. The movie is so concerned with the Harry, Hermoine and Ron stories that it rushes everything else. Secondary characters are brought on and disposed with in seconds, and criminally some characters aren’t even given a death scene. We just see people mourning over their bodies during a lull in the battle, namely one of the Weasley twins dies (not sure which one), as do both Lupin and Tonks (the married couple). And I felt nothing over their deaths. It was just “Right, they’re dead. Look sad. Move on.” I cried when Dobby died. I actually wept, and he was a badly done CGI character. These characters, despite not really knowing them that well, just seemed like collateral damage in the grand scheme of things. I’m not asking for every character to have a grand death scene, but something would have been nice. Take Haldir in The Two Towers; we don’t know that much about him, just that he’s an elf and a friend of Aragorn’s, yet when he takes an axe to the back you really feel for him, it’s a real sucker punch and ups the emotional stakes of the whole battle at Helms Deep.

And the characters that do get scenes to themselves are rushed and a little unsatisfying. In the press related to this movie much fuss was made about the fight between Helena Bonham Carter’s Bellatrix L’Estrange and the mother Weasley. Yet when it comes down to it, the scene itself is so horribly rushed through that it feels like a missed opportunity. It should be filled with emotion, as she has already lost one child at this stage and Bellatrix is threatening to kill her daughter. As it is, she says the line “not my daughter, you bitch” and then it’s fizz, bang, wallop, a fight that lasts about ten seconds, and then Bellatrix is dead. What should have been an exciting little aside to the main story (as I’m sure it was in the book) becomes a bit of a damp squib, in the hurry to return to the A plot.

The secondary student characters fare a bit better in the action and emotional beats. In particular, Neville (the tall lanky one), a character who’d never really done much up til now, gets a hell of a lot to do in this movie. After seeing the film, and reading a bit more about the books, Neville is apparently the ‘boy who could have been Harry Potter’ so it was nice to see him get some substantial screentime. And he also gets the films biggest laugh just before the fight starts proper – “Yeah? You and whose army?” Come to think of it, he probably gets all the best non-main trio action scenes too. It’s a shame we didn’t get to see Luna Lovegood letting out some seriously weird magic though.

However, those are my only real complaints with the last hour of the movie. The battle itself is really very exciting, at least in the long shots and little battles between characters that don’t actually have names. We have trolls, spiders, stone guards, teachers, death eaters and students all dishing out the pain, and I have to commend the filmmakers for making people waving wands at each other seem exciting. I reckon it’s hard to make a fight seem exciting when there’s no actual contact between the combatants, so kudos for that.

Happily, all the story threads finally came together in the end with ongoing mysteries answered. The biggest one, of course, being Severus Snape’s alliance and overall arc. I didn’t expect Snape to be killed and then his true motive to be revealed afterwards, but in retrospect it probably was the best way to do it. I did think that the patronus (the glowy animal thing that shows up sometimes to help Harry) that I’d always assumed had been Harry’s parents somehow was actually Snape’s to be a nice little touch. Although the whole long thing does make Dumbledore out to be a bit of a dick, by not telling Harry that he’d have to die for Voldemort to also die.

And then to the big fight; the climactic showdown; Harry versus ol’ no nose. Bit disappointing. As we’ve seen this sort of fight before; the whole duelling wands thing. Again, post movie I’ve learned that the elder wand Voldemort uses was actually Harry’s and as such would not kill its master, and if I’d of known that while watching the movie I reckon it would have more impact. But as it was I was a little disappointed, but I reckon book fans would have been more than pleased.

And then, the epilogue. I’d heard there was a ‘19 years later’ bit, and heard that the actors would be playing their late 30’s selves, and I was worried that it would look terrible. When it didn’t I was pleasantly surprised. Although I do think that it should have ended with the three standing outside Hogwarts, as kids, reflecting on everything that went down, even if it differed from the book.

Overall, as the finale to a decade long series of films it’s fantastic. As a stand alone movie it’s alright. Perhaps watching it along with the first part would improve it. A big 5 hour epic. Ideally I’d like a LOTR style extended DVD release which might offset some of the problems I’ve stated above (rushed scene etc), but as for a rating…3 and a half stars.

Cheers

JC

(P.S. Azkaban's still the best)

Cinema Review - Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Ok, deep breath.

The supposedly final part of the Transformers trilogy is here. And it’s exactly what you’d expect.
This is not a good thing.

I could just review it as the leave your brain at the door kind of movie it is, and as that kind of movie it’s great. The action is fantastic, there’s a lot of it, and it has MASSIVE TRANFORMING ROBOTS FIGHTING FFS!!!!!!!!!! But I’ll choose to be critical instead and put my serious film reviewer head on. Just for you.

I’ll get the good stuff out of the way first:

- MASSIVE TRANSFORMING ROBOTS FIGHTING!!!!!!!! IN 3D!!!!!!!
- Shia LeBoeuf is as likeable in this as he is in the other two.
- Rosie Thingummy-Whatsherface isn’t as bad as reported and does alright.
- Um, did I mention there’s MASSIVE TRANSFORMING ROBOTS FIGHTING? Cause there is.

And now, the bad.

The plot makes literally no sense whatsoever, and all the characters (especially both Autobots and Decepticons) do stupid things in order to advance the next nonsensical part of the plot. The one thing that hugely annoyed me though, was when Optimus Prime gave Sentinel Prime the Matrix of Leadership, which is something that would have been useful for him to have once he SPOILER eventually turns evil. And despite no-one being suspicious of Sentinel at this point, he decides to give it back to Optimus without a second thought.

OPTIMUS!

And slightly earlier, Megatron (who for some reason decides that wearing a head scarf is enough to warrant the Transfomers mantra of ‘robots in disguise’) tells his pet bird transformer (seriously) to kill anyone who knew of the ship that landed on the moon back in the 60’s. This is a ship that contains Sentinel Prime, who is the only one who can activate this super gizmo that could end the war between the Autos and the Deceptions. So, when after the pet bird kills Ken Jeong’s conspiracy theorist Deep Wang (groan) and makes it look like a suicide, all covert-like, what does the robot then do? It proceeds to attack Sam, outing itself as the killer of Wang in the first place.

And, and, when it is revealed that Megatron and Sentinel were working together, it makes you wonder why Megatron just didn’t go and wake him up sooner. I mean Starscream flew into space at the end of the first movie; couldn’t Megatron have said to him at one point “Yo ‘scream, scoot on up to the moon and wake up Sentinel. We’ve got this super secret plan to destroy everything.” And then, we wouldn’t have had the stupidly convoluted plan of tricking the Autobots into finding an engine part of the Ark (the moon spaceship), which leads Optimus to awaken Sentinel and kick this whole thing off.

OPTIMUS!

Later on the Autobots are told to leave Earth, because the Decepticons are evil. This makes literally no sense. Sending away the good robots that can protect you because the bad robots that are still on the planet and won’t leave willingly have threatened to kill you. And then SPOILER the Autobots get blown up because the Decepticons are, shock horror, untrustworthy. So now, the only thing that could protect the humans is gone, because the humans told them to go. Don’t worry though, the Autobots aren’t really dead. Not that you think they are for a second anyway. In fact, they only reveal themselves again after most of Chicago has been obliterated, with thousands killed, apparently because us earthlings needed to be taught a lesson about how the Decepticons shouldn’t be trusted. WHICH WE KNEW ALREADY!!!! Thanks, retarded US Government, and fuck you very much Optimus. People are fucking dying here.

(Dammit, I was going to try and not swear, but thinking about these things just makes my brain hurt, and also very very angry.)

OPTIMUS!

And also, what were those other Transformers doing on the moon? They didn’t need to be revived like Sentinel Prime did. They just apparently woke up when the space bridge teleporter thing was turned on. Were they just chilling out on the moon for the past 50 years since the Ark crashed? And that’s another thing, the start of the movie says that Sentinel was trying to escape on the Ark during the Cybertron War, but the Decepticons shot him down. Why? If he was in league with the Decepticons, why would they have shot him down at all? And if only Sentinel knew of the alliance why did all those Transformers on the moon suddenly turn bad. One assumes they were on the Ark, and therefore as Sentinel was still a good robot at the time, they were good robots too.

I could list a whole load more of these stupid stupid little annoyances, but it’d take far too long.

OPTIMUS!

Also, for a movie that is about MASSIVE ROBOTS FIGHTING!!!!!! It takes a while before we see any actual fighting. There’s like 2 big set pieces in the first hour and a half, and then the final 40 minute battle. Which yeah is cool, but you sort of get a bit fatigued by the end of it. It doesn’t build and build and build in the way that some great cinematic battles have, like in Return of the King for example. Its big battle here, big battle somewhere else, and another one somewhere else again. They all seem to happen one after the other. Some inter-cutting would have been nice.

And worst of all, Optimus Prime is taken out of the battle for twenty minutes by, get this, getting tangled in a bunch of cables. This is Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots, who now apparently needs to tow around a truck that carries his weapons in it, and is useless without them, despite having concealed blades up his robot sleeves in the 2nd movie, getting caught in a bunch of fucking wires. It’s stupid, and then the other Autobots get captured which makes them look rubbish in comparison. We're not even shown how Bumblebee et al get captured, just all of a sudden they are. Even though half of them were on the other side of the city a second ago, now they're where they need to be to service the plot. The geography is all fucked up throughout. But it gets worse. At the point where everything seems lost and the Decepticons are about to execute Bumblebee, Optimus shows up out of nowhere and kicks everyone’s ass, saving the day. Ordinarily I would think that was cool, but because Optimus takes everyone out so easily, it the equivalent of the Power Rangers calling in the power sword, whenever things got really tough. Even the action didn’t excite as much as it had previously; I think it’s just a bit of overuse really. I mean, transforming robots was cool 2 movies ago (Optimus transforming in the city at the climax of TF1 is still one the coolest things I’ve ever seen) but now, and it pains me to say it, it kind of boring. In fact, we don't even see the bit that might have been pretty cool, the siege of Chicago by the Decepticons. We just cut to black at one point, and when we come back the city is overrun. I mean I get some things have to happen off screen, but not that. Surely, showing us the plight of some of the humans (the people you'd think we're supposed to care for) would have made the eventual defeat of the Decepticons more powerful. But no, we skip over that bit and don't see the Chicagoans die, because Michael Bay is only interested in the robots.

OPTIMUS!

The final nail in the coffin though was that Rosie Thingummy-Whatsherface’s character is the one who convinces Megatron (Megatron!) to stand up and fight against Sentinel because if Sentinel wins, Megatron will only be his second in command. This is Megatron, leader of a highly advanced race of evil robots, tricked into saving Optimus’ life by a teenager using Psychology 101. And it works. Then despite Megatron saving Optimus’ life, Optimus then goes and flat out executes him. In fact, Optimus is a bit of a dick in this movie, letting the Decepticons destroy Chicago to teach the humans a ‘lesson’ and then killing Megatron who I bet was just about to apologise.

And then, about a minute after Megatron is defeated the movie ends with everyone laughing a chuckling. Don't worry about the thosuands of dead folk littering the streets. As long as Bumblebee makes a cute gag about Sam and Rosie Thingummy-Whatserface getting married and Optimus makes his usual sanctimonious speech, everything is alright.

The next list of bad things aren’t so much plot annoyances, just wee niggling things. Much like Decepticon testicles in the last movie.

- Why do some Transformers have beards? Seriously, this doesn’t make any sense. And why are some of them made to look old? Robots don’t age, and I very much doubt that when they transform there’s a part of their programming that turns their non-transformer form into various facial hair, and/or teeth. Megatron had teeth. Why? This makes no fucking sense whatsoever. And also, one of the Autobots has a Scottish accent and threatens to bottle somebody. I would have foud that funny if it wasn't so fucking ludricrous.
- What the fuck is Malkovich doing in this? He serves no purpose but to be Sam’s dicky boss. Yet he’s shoehorned into the plot at a later point. I don’t remember what he does, but he’s never seen again.
- Alan Tudyk plays a gay, apparently former Nazi, manservant to John Turturro’s now famous ex-FBI agent. I have no words.
- I have no idea who half the transformers were in the movie. In fact the only one I did know was Optimus Prime, because at least one character, normally Sam, screams it every 20 minutes.

-And also, despite being called Dark of the Moon, there is only one point of the movie where it is mentioned and that's right at the start.


OPTIMUS!!!!

So, overall. 2 stars, one for the action, and 1 because it's not utterly irredemmable, but it's pretty close.

DVD Review: Machete

A movie borne out of a fake trailer in between the Grindhouse movies. Everyone thought the trailer was great; surely the resulting movie should be, right?

Wrong.

On paper this movie has everything;

It’s from Robert Rodriguez
It’s in the same vein as Planet Terror
It’s stupid, and incredibly tongue-in-cheek.
It’s very violent.

I should like it. And I did, for about the first 20 minutes. Then the same thing happens for the next 80. The movie basically plays out like this calm, violence, calm, violence, calm, violence, calm, violence, and then ends with one of the worst action set pieces ever. I wasn’t expecting high art, but the whole thing is just dull.

Danny Trejo, great in other things as a bit player, cannot hold an entire movie. He literally has one facial expression (pissed off), and shows no emotion at all. It’s hard to care about why he’s doing what he’s doing. In the action scenes he’s pretty great, you can believe he’s an ex Federale, but not much else

Steven Segal plays the bad guy and seeing him act, it’s no wonder he’s relegated to DTV movie these days. He’s awful. And he also only has one facial expression. His and Machete’s fight near the end (the climactic one of the movie) is laughably bad. It’s going for funny with the denouement, but ends up just looking stupid.

The plot is also a mess. What should have been a straight forward revenge movie (like Taken, for example) goes all political on us, trying to shoehorn in a tolerance lesson about immigrants coming to America. Frankly it’s boring, they should have just had Machete going after Segal because earlier in the movie SPOILER he kills Machete’s wife. You think that would be motive alone, but instead Machete wants to help fight the good fight and it just so happens that Segal is behind that. So with all this immigration stuff that appears, an immigration agent is introduced, and she’s played by Jessica Alba. Not convincing, and just there to up the attractive lady quotient which is prevalent in this sort of down and dirty 70’s revenge movie vibe Machete is going for. She’s terrible though.

In fact the only people in this movie who aren’t plain awful are Michelle Rodriguez and Jeff Fahey. Fahey plays creepy and menacing really well; he makes you wish that he were the main threat for the whole thing instead just a lackey to De Niro’s (!?) racist senator. And Michelle Rodriguez, once again, plays the hard as nails chick, but she does it so well I can’t fault her really. She’s the only one that fills her role with conviction.

Oh, Cheech Marin’s great too actually.

And the less said about Lohan and her excuse for a ‘character arc’ the better.

But you don’t watch this movie for the characters, you watch for the violence. However, after the first action scene, they all become kind of samey and boring. Its cool seeing Machete cut through guys with…um, a machete, and yes, using one poor guy’s intestines as a rope is funny. But mostly the action scenes bore you, when they’re more or less the same each time. And the final battle between the Mexicans and the Rednecks looks like it’s going to be a huge fight, but ends up as the worst group fight scene I’ve ever seen.

Overall it’s a movie that doesn’t know whether it should be serious or flat out stupid. Unfortunately it tries to be both at the same time and ends up failing miserably.

It really should have just stayed the fake trailer.

At least that was fun.

2 stars

Bridesmaids review: No, come back, come back!

This will not be a very long review, mainly because it’s quite difficult reviewing comedies, when essentially you put it into one of two categories: not funny and a failure, or very funny and successful.

Bridesmaids is the latter. And a very pleasant surprise.

Yes, it’s probably a little too long and sags a bit near the end, and some characters are a little superfluous, but it’s the funniest thing I’ve seen at the cinema for ages.

Until I see Transformers that is.

Gentlemen, do not be put off by the title. Yes, it is a movie whose central premise revolves around weddings, but it is not a wedding movie. The lazy way to describe it would be The Hangover with women, and it is an apt description (almost), but where that movie was an ensemble, this movie really belongs to Kristen Wiig.

Likable, funny and most of all believable as a real person; she owns this movie. As funny as the characters were in The Hangover, the situations they got themselves in were what provided the real laughs. Here, it’s mostly the characters and, importantly, the dialogue. Nothing hugely outrageous happens (no tigers in bathrooms here) but it’s the conversations in which most of the films funniest bits come from. Just a word of advice, pay attention or you’ll miss some of the subtler quiet jokes.

However, you will be hurting as you watch the aftermath of a bout of food poisoning. And that’s not subtle whatsoever.

Highly recommended

4 stars

[Shit, that was really short. Sorry.]

Best Opening Scenes...Ever!

So, you’re making a movie and want to capture the audience’s attention. Sure you could start with some arty-farty titles, and a thought provoking opening.

OR

You can go balls to the wall and create a kick ass memorable opener that’ll stick in the audiences mind long after they leave the cinema.

I know what I’d choose. Here are some of my favourites:

Blade

Without a doubt one of the best character introductions ever. But first we have the vampire blood club/orgy scene. It sets the tone nicely; these aren’t your normal movie vampires, these are hardcore vampires. The one human guy starts freaking out as he realises where he is, he tries to get away, music pounding on the soundtrack, the vampires are taunting him as he crawls across the blood soaked floor and then he stops in front of a pair of boots. The music cuts out. We pan up to see Blade for the first time. There’s a few seconds pause as all the vampires stop. They know who he is. They know what he does. They know they’re dead. Even before he does anything, we know Blade’s a dude to be feared.

And then…Blade kicks everyone’s ass. It’s a scene that’s nearly 15 years old, but still looks incredible. Blade using silver stakes, a shotgun and his freakin’ bare hands to kill everyone in the club and save one guy. Best moment: either Blade using his spinny, um…blade to decapitate three vampires in a circle or the bit where Blade hits a vampire in the stomach with the butt of his shotgun, she doubles over, Blade puts the shotgun under her chin, fires, and she disintegrates. Awesome.

Final Destination 2

While the first movie had the plane explosion it was the second where the extravagant opening scene that became the series signature really took off, and as we knew what was going to happen they could really go all out. This one is the best of them all, surpassing the later roller coaster and racetrack openers. The shit consistently hits the fan in this scene, with each gruesome death building on the one before it. Special mentions go to the sheriff (Lois and Clark’s Jimmy Olsen – the first one) getting a massive log through the face, and to the dude in the sports car, getting explodified, burning alive, and then getting creamed by a jack knifing lorry.

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Slow building dread before heart thumping full throttle zombie apocalypse in less than ten minutes. Not bad, Zack. Not bad at all. It’s the little hints that really sell this one. The guy with bite wounds in the hospital. The unheeded warning message on the TV. And then once the little girl appears at the door, shrouded in darkness, everything kicks off. It’s the frantic nature of this whole scene that really convinces you that the whole world has gone to hell so quickly. The husband gets bitten, dies, and comes back as a zombie in minutes. Our protagonist races outside to see that the whole block has been zombified or shortly will be. Panic everywhere, people screaming, and a school bus full of children getting massacred. Neighbours turning on each other. Zombies chasing cars. It’s quick, it’s effective, and it’s scary. It doesn’t give you time to react to what’s going on before something else unexpected happens. And it gets all the exposition you need for the film out of the way. Basically: there’s zombies. Lots of ‘em. And they’re fast. Real fast.

My favourite part of this scene though (aside from the shot from behind the car as it drives away) is the wide shot in which a car slams into the side of another and into a petrol station, and then closes in on the car of our protagonist.

Also, it leads into some end of the world Johnny Cash. And who doesn’t love that?

Mallrats

Okay, so this isn’t an action opener. But for an opening that sets the tone of the movie you’re about to watch, Brodie’s monologue is hard to beat.

[video link]

And by the way, I can quote this entire speech from memory.

X-Men 2

A masterpiece of FX and stunt work, as well as one hell of an exciting scene. Nightcrawler bamf-ing all over the place, taking out guards here and there, and being all cool as he does it. It’s so good it was homaged (or copied, if you’re cynical like me) in this year’s X-Men: First Class. This scene announced X2 as bigger, better and more ambitious than the first X movie.

Revenge of the Sith

Whatever your feelings about the prequels, you have to admit that the opening battle of Episode 3 was a terrific opener, almost recapturing some of the originals carefree knockabout magic. From the simpler opening crawl (no bollocks about trade routes or taxation here. It starts with one word: War!) to the banter between Obi Wan and Anakin, the aerial dogfights, the lightsabre fights, as well as some enjoyable back and forth between Anakin and Grievous (“You’re shorter than I expected.”) it’s a throwback to a simpler kind of movie. I mean, even the droid slapstick kind of works.

It’s a triumph of great FX, great fights, and the terrible dialogue somehow works in the context of these not-taking-itself-so-seriously moments.

The Two Towers

This is the opener that inspired me to write this blog. You could argue that the opening scenes from the other two Rings movies were better til the cows came home. And yes, they are both fantastic scenes (the ‘History of the Ring’ and Smeagol turning into Gollum) but The Two Towers pips it. It’s the only opening scene that’s not a flashback. Well, it sort of is but one to only a few days before, and we get to see it from a different perspective. In Fellowship we see the Balrog drag Gandalf into the depths, and then we follow the remaining fellowship out and see their grief at losing their friend. At the start of Towers, we see Gandalf’s epic (no other word for it) fight with the Balrog as they plummet downwards.

It’s not a scene I think anybody expected, and that’s what makes it great. Watching Gandalf open a can of whoop ass on the creature that leads him to his doom is incredibly satisfying after watching it supposedly kill him in the previous film. Cathartic almost.

And it doesn’t hurt that everything in this scene is incredible. The action, the effects, the music. The fact that you can make out what’s going on throughout the whole scene, through the heat haze from the Balrog, the twists and turns the two make as they fall as well as the speed at which they’re falling. If I had to pick out a favourite moment it would be Gandalf, after the Balrog crashes into the wall, losing his grip but then calmly grabs hold of the Balrog’s horn and continues fighting. It paints Gandalf as a total badass, which is great because up until now we haven’t really seen him fight. It also sets up his eventual return later on in the film.

It’s possibly my favourite opening scene ever and gives me goosebumps every time I watch it. I'll link a video when I can, a picture doesn't do it justice.

So, what are yours?

Battlestar Galactica: My Frakkin' Look Back

Beautiful. Lyrical. Poetic.

Frakkin’ awesome.

The finale of BSG didn’t sit right with me the first time I watched it, two years ago (Frak! 2 years?). Recently, I started my rewatch of the entire series, and I just finished it again a few nights ago, and I have to say, I thought the finale was perfect.

As well as all those words listed above, which could also be applied to the series as a whole.

As with the Lost finale, and really all good TV show finales, it was never about answering questions (although we did get some, if not all, of them answered), but about the characters. And the way BSG decided to show us this was in the flashbacks to their lives before the fall, each of which were incredible and showed us exactly how these characters came to be the ones that we’ve watched over the last four years. Laura Roslin overcomes personal grief and chooses duty over self pity and defeat, just as she has done countless times over the course of the series. Bill Adama refuses to compromise his integrity and chooses the more difficult, but the right, option as we’ve seen him do many many times. Gaius Baltar comes to accept his upbringing as a farmer that he’s tried to deny for so long as he goes off to grow crops with Caprica Six, who he’s loved from the very start even if he didn’t realise it. Saul and Ellen Tigh finally get to live happily together; not as two of the final five, not as 2000 year old Cylons, but just husband and wife. Boomer makes her choice and gets a little redemption, even if it ends in her death; she’s still determined to pay the old man back. Lee learns that he has to let go if he wants to move on. Sam achieves the perfection he’s been searching for all his life.

And Kara? Well, she’ll never be forgotten. She leads the humanity to its end, just as the hybrid said. Although in a much happier way than what we thought when we first heard it.

The flashbacks were the perfect compliment to the present day actions, showing us just how much the characters had changed, but at the same time how they hadn’t as well. For example, Adama’s change of heart when it came to Hera’s rescue; initially he thought of it as a suicide mission and chose to keep searching for a home. He knew it was the smart thing to do, for the continued safety of the fleet, but it wasn’t the right thing. That’s the kind of man the Admiral is.

The finale encapsulated everything Battlestar Galactica was about: a treatise on the human condition, science, survival, politics, friendship, love, some awesome space porn and most importantly faith.

I reckon most people who didn’t like the finale concentrate on the faith aspect being the weakest, or Starbuck Ex Machina, as it were. For me, it wasn’t a problem. I don’t know if your own personal viewpoint would have affected your enjoyment of the resolution to Kara’s story but for me (at least the second time around) I thought it worked perfectly. Kara was an angel, from the point she returned after blowing up. An angel sent to guide humanity to Earth, which admittedly sounds awful when you say it, but watching it in the finale it’s a perfect fit. Faith had always been a part of the BSG universe so I can’t understand the people that say they were unhappy with what happened in the finale. From the very first episode, Head Six (the one only Baltar can see) tell Gaius that she is an angel sent from God. He doesn’t believe it then, and neither do we, but come the finale we discover that that’s exactly what she is. And a fit one at that.



The naysayers will always blame the whole “God did it” thing as the reason why they hated the finale, but it wasn’t so cut and dry as that. If you look at the run up to the finale, you could say there was a divine hand at work for the whole thing. Bear with me on this because I might be a little sketchy with the details. Starting with Kara’s return: if she hadn’t, Adama wouldn’t have sent her onboard the Demetrius to find Earth, Leoben wouldn’t have found her, the rebel Cylons wouldn’t have formed an Alliance with the fleet, the final four wouldn’t have been discovered, which would mean that they wouldn’t have told Kara that there was something different about her pristine Viper, it wouldn’t have been checked to show that it had the co-ordinates to Earth, they wouldn’t have discovered Earth as a nuclear wasteland, the fleet wouldn’t have lost hope, Dee wouldn’t have killed herself, Gaeta wouldn’t have begun the mutiny, which in turn meant Sam wouldn’t have been shot and then hooked up to be a Hybrid. Yes, all this could be argued as a coincidence, but once you put it in the context of Starbuck disappearing in the last moments of the finale you have to admit that all these events began with her returning from the dead. As a Leoben told her way back she is “an angel blazing with the light of God.”

But if you want a more grounded example, take Baltar. His conversion from sceptic to true believer over the course of the last series is what lead him to fulfil his place in the Opera House shared vision between Six, Athena and Roslin, which is something that has reached as far back as the first season finale. And it is his conversion that enables him to give a sincere, impassioned speech in the CIC to Cavil to halt the battle going on between the Cylons and the fleet:

"I see angels, angels in this very room. Now, I may be mad, but that doesn't mean that I'm not right. Because there's another force at work here. There always has been. It's undeniable. We've all experienced it. Everyone in this room has witnessed events that they can't fathom, let alone explain by rational means. Puzzles deciphered in prophecy. Dreams given to a chosen few. Our loved ones, dead, risen. Whether we want to call that "God" or "gods" or some sublime inspiration or a divine force we can't know or understand, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It's here. It exists, and our two destinies are entwined in its force."

You gotta have faith.

But also, some space porn doesn’t hurt either.

Battlestar Galactica was never a show that you watched for the action, but when it did happen, it never disappointed. The finale was no different. After a few episodes with not much action, or even any scenes out in space for the most part, they threw it all into this one. In fact the first 45 minutes can be described in one word: Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiight!!!!!!!!!

The attack on the colony was quite possibly the greatest battle we’ve ever seen on Battlestar Galactica, and there’s been a few, with so much going on yet everything being completely coherent and possible to follow. It’s hard to describe a space battle and do it any sort of justice but suffice to say it was frakkin’ incredible looking. If I could pick out one moment from the battle, it would be the sight of rebel Centurions fist fighting (!) with the bad cylons, among whom we had some original Centurions (as in 70’s Galactica centurions)! A full forty five minutes of heart thumping, pulse pounding action.

Once the fleet arrives on Earth, lead there by Kara inputting the song (All Along the Watchtower) into the FTL, the endings are all perfect wrap ups for the characters. But I reckon Laura and Bill’s endings had the most impact by far. After leading her people to Earth, Laura passes away peacefully after getting a tour of the new planet. As Bill cries, and puts his wedding ring on her finger, I defy you not to feel at least a little emotional for these two characters. And our last scene with Bill, talking to Laura’s grave about the cabin he’s going to build, the one she always wanted. You’ll excuse me if I got a little verklempt at it.

"I laid out the cabin today. It's gonna have an easterly view. You should see the light that we get here. When the sun comes from behind the mountains, it's almost heavenly. It reminds me of you."


If the finale had ended there, it would have been perfect. However, it didn’t and then we have a little epilogue, 150,000 years later. In Times Square in New York. I recognise that the writers were making a point of saying that Earth is just like Caprica and Kobol before it, and therefore will probably destroy itself they way those two planets did – the “all this has happened before” mantra that had been repeated throughout the series, but Six has the hope that this time we won’t destroy ourselves. It wasn’t a necessary addition, as Baltar and Lee had expressed similar sentiments earlier in the episode, we didn’t need another reminder of what might happen. It was fine as it was. And also, the shots of advances in robotics, while Jimi Hendrix’s version of All Along the Watchtower played, seemed to point towards the series’ overall message being “DON’T BUILD ROBOTS, YO. ROBOTS IZ BAD!” It doesn’t spoil the finale for me, but it left a bitter taste after all the brilliance that came before it.

Overall though, I’m much happier with the finale the second time around. I think it’s due to watching the entire series in a short space of time, rather than over 4 years as I did before. Plot threads that you can forget week by week become a lot easier to follow if you watch the episodes in quick succession. And if you’re doing a rewatch I highly recommend firing through it as quickly as possible.

And now, a run down of my favourite BSG moments:

- Boomer’s a Cylon! What the frak!
- Adama getting shot by Boomer. We’d thought she’d overcome her Cylon nature, but then BOOM! Double tap in the Commander’s chest.
- The Chief’s Blackbird fighter. A rare almost happy episode of BSG, as the Chief brings the deck crew together to make a new fighter. And he calls it Laura. Just lovely.
- The entirety of the Pegasus arc. The peak of BSG at the time, highlighting the differences between the two crews, with the horrific discovery of a beaten Six model, the sheer hatred towards the rapist crew of the Pegasus, the first appearance of resurrection ships and culminating in the death of Admiral Cain.
- The whole episode of ‘Downloaded.’ An episode from a sympathetic Cylon view. Genius television.
- New Caprica. All of it. Possibly the peak of Galactica foe me. It never hit the same highs after this. Not to say the rest of the series was bad, but this was it at its best. The Adama Manoeuvre is probably the coolest thing I have seen in a TV show ever.
- The season 3 finale. Final four revealed, Baltar acquitted, Starbuck returns from the dead. Still the biggest mind frak of a finale ever.
- The discovery of a nuked Earth. We’d had some gut punches in BSG before. This was probably the biggest.

So, after my rewatch I think Battlestar Galactica might actually be my favourite TV show of all time. It’s brave, it’s thought provoking, it’s exceptionally well acted, it’s exciting, it’s frakkin’ incredible.

So say we all.