Because Everybody Else Has One

Did we really need another Madagascar film and did we really need it to be in 3D? The answers may surprise you. I know they're massive hits and beloved by kids everywhere but I never understood the appeal of the first two Madagascar films. They were bright and jolly, sure, but the plots were dull and the characters bland and neither film was ever funny or anarchic enough to ever make up for so fatal a combination of flaws. That they also contained some of the most annoying pop-tacular soundtracks of all time didn't help matters either. Here we are then, with Madagascar 3 in 3D and, would you know it, the main characters are still boring, the plot still uninspired and the soundtrack still annoying. Why wouldn't it be. It is still co-written and directed, after all, by Eric Darnell who has somehow made a career out of these movies. Some might rejoice at the addition of indie darling Noah Boambach as co-writer but I still haven't forgiven him for his last film, the t...

Come on, really? Did the creators and/or marketing people behind this film intentionally give it a title that seems to serve as little more than a set up for some really obvious jokes at the film's expense? I've heard that the title is actually the name of a self-help book on which the film is based but I'd prefer to imagine we live in a world where films are not based on self-help books so a set up for a lame joke it is. "What to expect when you're expecting? A bad movie that's what." Why go for lame when you can go for lame and vaguely nonsensical at the same time... First we had Love Actually and it was good. Then we had Valentine's Day and it was basically Love Actually with all the good bits taken out. And then, just a few short months ago, we had New Years Eve and it made the worst, most excruciatingly schmaltzy parts of Love Actually look like the diner scene in When Harry Met Sally . And now, by way of Think Like A Man , comes What ...

Just as well I'm not a respected critic because if I was, this here review would totally sink my reputation. Though, of course, after liking Men In Black III that ship may well have already sailed... There really is no reason to like Gone . It is silly, under-written and has the feel of a bottom-shelf D-movie that makes very little use of its charismatic star or its Winter's-Bone-like setting. And yet, for all of that, I kind of had a blast watching it. First, and there's just no getting past this, I really like Amanda Seyfried. Here she plays a troubled young woman who insists that she was kidnapped by a man intent on murdering her but, in one of the film's many departures from logic and believably, no one believes her so when her sister goes missing in similarly sinister circumstances, it's up to her to find and stop her unknown assailant from doing to her sister what he failed to do to her. In effect, she is playing a role that bears more than a slight rese...

Hey, I almost forgot to have my say on Madonna's "Masterpiece"! W.E. has clearly evoked a variety of reactions in people - or at least the handful of people who actually saw the retched thing - but most reviews seem to lean towards it being either the worst film ever made or a wonderfully evocative piece of cinema. Personally, I'm going to have to go for the middle ground. Or, if not the middle ground, then at least leaning towards the former while still admitting to enough redeeming qualities to stop it from being anywhere near as bad as, oh I don't know, Swept Away. That's right. I'm no Madonna fan. Her  music leaves me cold and, though I haven't seen her previous directorial effort, her involvement in that Guy Ritchie abomination, Swept Away, is enough to ensure that I would have been quite happy to never have the words "film" and "Madonna" mentioned in the same sentence together ever, ever, ever again. Credit where credi...

Ridley Scott returns to the Alien franchise with Prometheus. Really, what more needs to be said? This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about The discovery of incredible ancient wall paintings on various sites throughout earth prompt a couple of scientists to enlist the help of the starship to Prometheus to travel towards a distant planet where they hope to uncover the true – and extra terrestrial - origins of humanity. What we thought While, for some of us, 2012 is all about its big superhero films, other genre fans have undoubtedly placed most of their “summer blockbuster” hopes in the semi-resurrection of a beloved science fiction franchise: Ridley Scott's Prometheus. Scott's 1979 game-changer, Alien, is rightly held up as one of the greatest science fiction films of all time, but in the decades since, his original vision has been sullied by countless sequels and spinoffs, of which only James Cameron's Aliens ranks as a truly worth...