If you know the original Underworld you’ve a pretty good idea what you’re getting here: Vampires, Werewolves, action, a palette of blacks & blue, a certain amount of gore, a British character actor of a certain age, a gut shaking thump to the soundtrack and, of course, Kate Beckinsale in that outfit.

Yet for each of those characteristics they have in common each of the Underworld films is a slightly different beast.  The first is more political, Evolution is more of a chase and Rise of the Lycans is more historical.  So what of Awakening?  Humans have discovered the existence of Vampires and Lycans and set out to exterminate them.

After three films most people will already have some idea if this is a film for them or not.  The real question is does it deliver (and does it have Kate Beckinsale in that outfit)?  Personally I have to say it’s a definite yes.  It delivers.

I’m not going to over analyse it because, frankly, analysing this film too much would be silly.

I still think the first film is my favourite because the politics and mystery added a level of nuance to the story.  Underworld: Awakening is a new fairly close second place.

And it has Kate Beckinsale in that outfit.  With guns.

One critic I saw pretty much said it was more of the same as Sherlock Holmes from 2010 as though that was almost a bad thing.  I’d say it’s a very smart move.  Its equal parts modern panto, action film and Sherlock Holmes redefined.  On a grander scale than Sherlock Holmes but without going to far over the top.

Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law keep the repartee going and both carry the action brilliantly too.  It appears such an effortless relationship that it gives space for the Moriarty / Holmes dynamic that drives the film’s plot.

Moriarty is delicious – a truly worthy performance to complement Robert Downey Jr as a villain to equal Holmes.  He’s not at all a moustache twirler but a subtle and balanced villain.  Stephen Fry’s Mycroft Holmes is used sparingly but brilliantly especially his nude scene.   He could probably carry a Quite Interesting film all of his own.

Rachel McAdams, Noomi Rapace, Paul Anderson, Kelly Reilly, Geraldine James, Eddie Marsan and every other character down to extras playing minor villains, street life and gypsies do a great job of supporting the core cast while in many cases bringing characters only briefly on-screen to life as more than punch bags for the leads.

The sound track is excellent and uses a fiddle to add pace.  There is just enough steam punk without going too far over the top.  The visuals are excellent and the use of camera focus on expansive visual effects shots of historic cities to draw the eye is beautifully used.  The slow motion style from the first film is reused to great effect in the action sequences.

Foreshadows wonderfully used.  Too often films foreshadow one thing with a lingering shot. This one plays with it wonderfully by layering foreshadowing with the obvious foreshadowing of some elements to distract from other foreshadowing more subtly set up for later.

The climatic chess game is a cliché setting up to a twist on Holmes working out a fight before it happens.

Twice they don’t show us the body.  The first time we hear her fall and Moriarty tells us Irene Adler is dead but all we see is a slightly bloody handkerchief.  When Holmes sniffs it could he have detected something that will be revealed in a sequel?   And of course there is the other  body we don’t see.

The only bad thing I could say about Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is that the title is a bit of a cliché.  I mean A Game of Shadows?  Try harder.  Sorry just kidding

So overall I really enjoyed this in fact I can’t think of anything bad to say about Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.  Great fun.

Johnny English Reborn is mildly amusing throughout occasionally managing to actually be funny.  More polished than the first Johnny English film and with far less reliance, thankfully, on toilet humour.

The supporting cast do a good job of being the straight guy to Rowan Atkinson’s English.  Only the characters played by Tim McInnerny, Daniel Kaluuya’s and a few extras don’t always play their parts straight.

There are some ok pastiches of Bond in the score, title sequence, plot, Q branch sequence and look.  There is a training sequence sends up You Only Live Twice’s ninja school with its ninja’s who are immune to a kick to the privates and every other training sequence made up of randomly cut together exercises showing a character going from wimp to hero.

The biggest problem is the inconsistency in Johnny English.  One minute Johnny is a highly competent spy and then suddenly he is an incompetent klutz.  Inspector Clouseau worked because he was always incompetent and accident prone but somehow that ended up played in his favour.  Blackadder worked because he was competent and sharp but surrounded by incompetents.  Johnny English sadly doesn’t achieve

It’s a shame because both flavours of English have their moments.  Incompetent English, the English of the adverts, who flies a helicopter along a road at street level is fun.  The competent English who outsmarts the free running villain is also fun.

So, sadly, Johnny English Reborn is more Johnny English Run Aground.

Hence the lack of a spoiler warning as there isn’t anything really worth mentioning that you’ll not get from the poster.

The period detail is alright.  The plot is solid (none of the issues I had with Blitz and its bizarre mix of British Realism and modern genius on the loose serial killer).  The action is competent.  The acting does the job but didn’t excite and neither Clive Owen or Robert De Niro really raise Jason Statham’s acting out of the usual run of the mill delivery.

Yet somehow the key element, whatever the spice that makes a thriller thrilling was missing.  Maybe Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy has spoilt me for films like this till I get used to them almost hitting the mark again.  Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy manages to be more thrilling with no chases and something like 5 gunshots than this does several chases and lead flying from automatic weapons.

So Killer Elite is not a bad film and not a great film.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy Longer Review: Bloody Brilliant

Ok I give in but really the first two reviews say everything I have to say.

Just back from the new, film adaptation of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

Gary Oldman (Smiley) doesn’t chew the scenery instead he achieves a zen like oneness with his surroundings with a nuanced performance that conveys as much, if not more, than many of his earlier roles.  The main supporting cast are note perfect in fact the supporting cast down to the smallest, none speaking part are perfect. Benedict Cumberbatch stood out for me as Peter Guillam, Smiley’s right hand, but come award season and there are going to be several potential contenders for best supporting actor here.

The plot is gripping.  The pacing is slow but perfect building to a climax without needing to resort to car chases or gunfights.  I love Spooks and it can be brilliant TV but it can’t touch Smiley’s world.  The last few years have seen the return of the slow burning thriller but this is the real deal from one of the original key texts of the genre.  I knew the outcome yet still I had to keep watching.

Everything else is pretty much on the money too from the film grading to the 1970s look to the sound track and sound effects to the cinematography.

This is a worthy, slightly more adult, successor to the 1979 BBC TV series.

There was the bizarre thing of one person at FACT laughing at moments as though it was the funniest comedy they’d ever seen and one woman as we were leaving who was overheard “I’ve read the book, I’ve seen the TV series and now the film and I still don’t get it”.

In January it was a case of if you went to one film at the Cinema this year it had to be The King’s Speech. If you go to a second go to Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy.  In fact if you didn’t go to The King’s Speech Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy – it’s as good.

Or to put it more succinctly…

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy is Bloody Brilliant.

The reverse of last weeks The Guard was true of this film: The Guard had no early hype in fact I don’t remember seeing an advert for it or a film trailer.  Cowboys and Aliens had loads.  The Guard had good reviews and this didn’t.  Yet I enjoyed this as much possibly because I wasn’t expecting as much.

Cowboys and Aliens borrows a fair number of its moments from generic westerns rather than taking the Back to the Future III route of name checking them.

Daniel Craig is a variation on the archetypal stranger in that other people know or deduce who he is while he has amnesia.  Harrison Ford’s ex-soldier cattle baron is bad but only for long enough to be redeemed.  The supporting cast of locals are developed enough to be identifiable and interesting which is important given some will be abducted and the survivors will make up the posse who ride out to save them.

The aliens could probably have been more interesting.   Initially only revealed with shadows, a footprint and some drops of blood revelation of one of them possibly came a little early in the film.  After that the film escalated from being Alien to Aliens with hordes of them being dispatched in later scenes.

The plot is basically logical at least in structure.  It’s also pretty simple and straightforward – it’s not a J.J. Abrams production it’s a homage to classic westerns with aliens.  Yes it does require the watcher to accept that the aliens need to abduct humans to learn our weaknesses and that they came to Earth because gold is very rare and precious to them.  Then most alien invasion films and The Matrix had similarly tenuous or worse plot devices.  At least there be gold in that there planet fits with Cowboys and Aliens.

In the end Cowboys and Aliens is a fun, silly high concept summer blockbuster that it doesn’t pay dividends to thing too hard about.  It does what it says on the tins.

The characters, setting and story have the potential to be interesting: an unorthodox, slightly corrupt Irish policeman, Sergeant Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson) in a quirky, rural County Galway community finds himself at the heart of a multibillion dollar drugs smuggling inquiry. He’s teamed up with FBI special agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle) and up against a trio of nasty characters Clive Cornell, Francis Sheehy and Liam O’Leary (Mark Strong, Liam Cunningham and David Wilmot). His only significant relationship is with his terminally ill mother, Eileen (Fionnula Flanagan) and some affection for prostitute, Aoife O’Carroll (Dominique McElligott).

Mix in some jet black humour and it’s a summer sleeper hit winner that will turn its budget into a huge pile of cash. Think Local Hero, Hot Fuzz or In Bruge. It must have looked like that on paper to the seven production companies that funded it.

The films main problems can be seen on the poster – a cast of almost interesting characters that end up in little bubbles and a desire to be funny which it never really achieve.

The chief problem is that it wants to be a character piece but the characters are all a bit too disposable. Its thin plot would provide a nice scaffoling for some real nice bits of acting but it never really lets the characters get going.

Boyle and Everett need more time on screen together building their characters. They start to have something and then are split up until the end of the film when they’re brought back together for the climax. Along the way various characters pass through Boyle’s life just long enough that you want to see more of them. Certainly when they are together the “chemistry” mentioned on the poster is there but they’re just not together enough.

In parallel to the police we get a few scenes with the criminal trio as they corrupt the Garda, kill some people and go about smuggling a boat load of drugs into Ireland. Sadly they are saddled with some sub Tarantino wittering as they debate philosophy in a car and then life in front of a shark tank at an aquarium.

The secondary problem is that if you’re going for darkly humorous you need to be actually funny. There are a few places this was amusing and a few it raised a laugh from someone in the small audience at the cinema I saw it in. It had opportunities but it didn’t take them. What the reviewer who said it was “A Raucous Comedy” thinks Raucous means I don’t know but it’s not how I’d describe it.

There is some nice cinematography of rain-swept County Galway. I can’t really say the music has stuck with me long enough to be remembered. The story has a slightly ambiguous ending – maybe there was a wrap up after the credits but I wasn’t bothered enough to sit through them to find out.

Overall I thought The Guard was an alright film but I was disappointed. With a stronger script the central and incidental characters could have been more interesting and hence funnier. I’m sure that the makers will be hoping it becomes a cult classic and that strong DVD sales will make it into a profitable success but I think they’ll be disappointed.

When the credits roll don’t get up to leave because almost immediately the film starts again.

The film is very much a morality tale with acts of violence, anger, fear, greed,  hatred, love and kindness along the road to the doom of humanity and the rise of the apes.  Although it made for simple story telling one minor character accidentally is responsible for much of humanities doom which did feel a little contrived.

James Franco, Freida Pinto, John Lithgow, Tom Felton and David Oyelowo are all excellent.  I almost expect more from Brian Cox who played his part well but didn’t seem to have a huge amount to work with.

The real stars though have to be the CG apes and the performances by the actors who played them.  There has been a fair amount of coverage of Andy Serkis’ central performance as Casear but many of the other apes have smaller parts but are equally well acted.  Those performance include real emotional depth and have character arcs that are better developed than many of the human characters.

The CG itself is outstanding especially given the huge number of CG shots in the film.  There were a few slightly dodgy shots where they tried just a bit too hard but they were hardly on a par with the dubious CG man running on collapsing crane of last year’s film of  The A-Team.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is another fun summer movie that probably just misses out on being a true classic despite the exceptional performances of the apes.

I’m going to keep this short because its late and I don’t want to give anything away that might spoil the film.

The cast is excellent and their acting perfectly pitched for the film.  JJ Abrams direction is perfect.  The period detail is spot on.  The story has a strong, logical plot and well-developed characters.  The special effects, especially the train crash, are really well done.  The mystery is suitably mysterious.  And there is just enough sentimentality in the mix without it becoming cloying or annoying.

Oh and including the film the teenagers are shooting on Super 8 during the film with bad acting, dodgy effects and dubious make up alongside the credits is a simple but inspired touch. Don’t leave the cinema till it’s over.

Overall I’d recommend Super 8 as a thoroughly enjoyable movie.  Probably not the best film of the year but certainly a strong contender for a high placing in my top 10.

Captain America: The First Avenger tonight.  Really enjoyed it.  I’m starting to think that (after X-Men First Class and The Watchmen) I prefer my super hero movies with period settings rather than modern day.

Hugo Weaving on top bad guy form.   Richard Armatage’s appearance fun if somewhat truncated.  Tommy Lee Jones, Stanley Tucci, Hayley Atwell, Toby Jones, Neal McDonough, Dominic Cooper, Sebastian Stan and the rest of the supporting cast all gave excellent supporting performances.  Of course it all lives or dies by the central, name on the poster, performance of Chris Evans as Captain America / Steve Rogers.  Fortunately he pulled off the lanky teenager and chisel jawed hero equally well.

Plot wise it’s a bit formulaic.   As with a lot of super hero films it shows us Captain America before powers, gives us the back story on getting the powers and then moves to the using the powers.  Along the way some of the inevitable tropes get played out – he loses people close to him, he messes up getting the girl and he has a standoff with the villain.

The costumes, sets, graphics and most of the design have a really strong 1940s feels to them.   I did find some of the design of Hydra’s vehicles and equipment a little jarring.  Some through its size and some because it had an aesthetic that felt more post 1960 than World War II.

One aspect I really enjoyed was the way the sound track built through the film.  Early on, before Captain America became a super hero, it had a strong Saving Private Ryan / Band of Brothers vibe that was very John Williams / Michael Kamen.  When Steve Rogers truely takes on the persona of Captain America the score moved from the traditional straight war movie theme towards something more in tune with a men on a mission film like Where Eagles Dare / The Dirty Dozen riff – still with a heavier military feel but bigger brassier and with more percussion.

One thing I did find interesting was the number of people who sat through the credits to see the teaser for The Avengers.  I’d say almost half of a pretty full cinema waited right to the end for the brief glimpse of the next part of the series.

So overall I thought Captain America: The First Avenger  an enjoyable, by the book, popcorn, superhero movie.