Because Everybody Else Has One

I would write a snappy introduction but I'm currently busy working out just how many hours I've wasted of my life on these bloody movies... Oh. Bloody hell. This review is also up at Channel 24 . What it's about Five years after the Battle of Chicago, an amateur inventor and his teenage daughter make a startling discovery that soon makes them the targets of rogue CIA agents, alien bounty hunters and an all-new breed of man-made Transformers - with the future of both the Autobots and the earth itself hanging in the balance. What we thought After three awful Transformers movies, I went in to Age of Extinction fully expecting the worst but, at about half an hour in, I was starting to wonder if perhaps I've always been too hard on Michael Bay and his mega-budget updates of this beloved 80s toy/ cartoon franchise. Or, at the very least, I was starting to think that maybe, just maybe Bay had finally learned something from his past mistakes and would fi...

All You Need is Kill! All You Need is Kill! All You Need is Kill!!!!! No. I will not drop it. This review is also up at Channel 24 . What it's about As the endgame of a long and brutal war with an invading alien force quickly approaches, humanity's last and greatest hope lies in the unlikely form of PR Officer and overall coward, Major William Cage. Cage has spent his military career doing whatever he can to avoid any actual military action and when he is forced to join the frontlines of humanity's most desperate battle yet, all of his fears and cowardice proves true as he is summarily killed in action by a particularly strange alien aggressor. This turns out to be only the beginning for Major Cage though, as his death causes him to be stuck in an apparent time loop where every time he dies, he “resets” the day. What at first seems to be nothing more than a painful source of aggravation, soon becomes humanity's most powerful weapon against the invaders, as...

I mentioned this film a lot in my Edge of Tomorrow review so I might as well take a quick look at it. It also happens to be really, really good and is easily this year's biggest cinematic surprise, as far as I'm concerned. I effin' loved this movie - and I don't care how much of a girl that makes me! Also, I should mention that I have not read the book on which this was based but now I think I might just have to. Hazel Grace Lancaster (Shailene Woodley) is a teenage girl whose terminal cancer may be being kept at bay by a miraculous new experimental treatment but she knows it's only a matter of time before her time finally runs out. Augustus "Gus" Waters (Ansel Elgort) is a teenage boy who survived cancer by having his leg amputated but who tries to make the most of his new lease on life. When the two have a chance meeting at a cancer support group, sparks quickly fly and what follows is a tragic, star-crossed love story that not only includes ple...

Transcendent? Not so much. But hey, at least it tries... Wally Pfister has spent years becoming one of the most renowned and sought after cinematographers in Hollywood - he started off making straight-to-video erotic thrillers and ended up as Christopher Nolan's right hand man on Inception and the Dark Knight trilogy - so it's rather disheartening to see just how quickly he crashed and burned in his first time in the director's chair. This isn't to say that he won't go on to great things (the raw talent is clearly there) but Transcendence was savaged by most critics and greeted with deafening apathy by audiences in both the US and the UK. Things are hardly much better here. Despite opening up against no real competition, the film has stalled at number 7 in its opening weekend. As for whether the film deserves the reception it has received, well, it's complicated. It is not, for a start, anywhere near the worst film as the year. Hell, it's not even rem...