Category Archives: Review

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (J. K. Rowling)

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J. K. Rowling is either amazingly lucky, or a brilliant genius (or, stating the obvious, some combination of the two). The fourth in the Harry Potter line of books is, without doubt, her best yet. Darker and more emotional than the previous three, The Goblet of Fire focusses on the conflict between Harry and you-know-who.

Three magical schools come together to compete in a triwizard tournament, and Harry finds himself involved, whether he likes it or not. The plot is intriguing and engrossing, the young characters are as good as ever and growing older by the book and the older characters reveal a little more each time we meet them.

We have humour and moments of real emotion, interspersed with tension and moments of real concern. It’s still a book that kids can read and enjoy, and that has implications about it’s depth and complexity. But if there’s one thing it has in buckets, it’s writing which encourages empathy with the main players.

I’ve read all four Harry Potter books on the trot. For the first time in ages, I’ve read a book which isn’t by David Gemmell as my main recreational activity, rather than as a tiring out manoeuvre before going to bed. It might actually help me to get back into reading more often. Praise indeed.

And, the best praise of all, I’m looking forward to, I’m eager for, I’m anticipating, the fifth in the series. Eat that Jordan.

Tomb Raider (DVD)

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If you’ve read my cinema review of this movie, you already know how I felt about it. So I won’t repeat that here.

So, how does the DVD compare? Very well actually. The transfer is good, and the special features (mostly background info on the movie, and special effects, etc.) are interesting, absorbing and long.

The film itself is, of course, the same, but at home, you can chat to your wife during the bits which bug you, and talk about the bits you enjoyed, which is why it scores five more on DVD than it did for the cinema release!

It’s good, clean-ish, entertaining, fun. Edge of your seat action. Rent it first, if you like it, buy it.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (J. K. Rowling)

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Well, well. The second Harry Potter book (Chamber of Secrets) isn’t anywhere near as good as the first. It feels contrived in too many places, slow to pick up and then rushed to finish at the end.

The same characters are present, and they are still interesting. The story is weak however, and it feels as though the author felt the book had to have the same pattern as the previous one – of course it is set within the timetable of a school year so some things are bound to seem regimented.

Some funny moments, lots of long not interesting moments, some nice dialog, plenty of annoying dialog.

Overall, not impressed, but then it had a lot to live up to with the first one being rather good. Let’s hope the third one (Prisoner of Azkaban) is better.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

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You can, I believe, measure the quality of a movie by the lingering memory you have of it. I’ve just been to see the Harry Potter movie, and in no particular order, remember the following,

The rustling and chattering of children, and the distraction caused by it.
The role of Hagrid as played by Robbie Coltrane.
The quality of the acting shown by Harry’s two sidekicks, and the lack of quality in the acting of the guy who player Harry himself.
Deja-vu after having read the book and played the computer game so soon before seeing the film.
The excellent effects.
Alan Rickman for his excellent Snape.

It was ok, good, not bad, fun, enjoyable, but it wasn’t brilliant, it wasn’t astounding, I didn’t leave feeling enthused. I’m not sure why. Go and see it, try and avoid a time when the kids are out, but do go and see it.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (J. K. Rowling)

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An entertaining read, capturing the imagination and providing for me, the one totally essential ingredient in any book. Empathy. I could empathise with the characters, I cared about them and what happened to them. Even a jaded old git like myself has to admit that the book was easy to read, good value for money, and entertaining. Ok, I didn’t spend hours thinking about it, nor did I cry at the end, but never-the-less, the book was well written, colourful, and full of people that mattered.

A boy discovers he isn’t a waste of space after all, learns about his past, discovers his inner strength, and grows. A typical story, presented in refreshing way. Let’s hope it leads a whole bunch of kids [and not-kids] to start reading more.

American Pie 2

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Exactly what it said on the tin. More American Pie. If you liked the first one, you should like this one. Not quite as funny, not quite as fresh, but funny, lively, feel-good, and sexy to boot. Same characters, same overall concept, different gags along with the old, and, chicks 🙂 Slow in parts, side-splittingly-funny in others. I’d go and see it again, I think I’ll get in on DVD to match the first one, and I hope it does well. Won’t win any prizes for direction or script, but hell, who cares.

Pitch Black

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Just another Alien clone, I feared. But I was wrong. Several friends had suggested watching this, and while I don’t go out of my way to watch movies which scare the hell out of me, I gave it a go.

It’s good. Well, more than good, very good, but not superb. That may be because I already knew the twist or the edge to the apparent plot, I’m not sure. I mean, it’s not a huge twist, but I’d already had a summary of the movie from several people, and so stuff didn’t come as a surprise to me.

Other than that though, it’s a very good movie. Solid performances from everyone in it, even Claudia Black of Farscape fame. Vin Diesel puts in an excellent performance, and hopefully will be in many more movies to come. The script was entertaining, interesting, the plot was entirely original but sufficiently unique to keep me interested. Cinematography was very nice, even though much of the movie is filmed in very dark situations, the lighting and camera work meant nothing was too hard to see. Some very nice set pieces in the film, which I can’t describe or it will spoil it for you.

All in all, Pitch Black was well worth getting out on DVD, and while I’m not rushing out to purchase it, I may pick it up as part of a buy one get one half price deal at some point in the future.

X-Men

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I saw X-Men in the cinema when it first came out; I was disappointed. A long time was spent introducing characters and concepts, there was very little actual action, and what there was seemed flat and uninspired compared to the other movies around at the time.

However, as with MI:2 which I saw on TV recently, I enjoyed X-Men more the second time around, and on the small screen.

In the not too distant future, mutants are becoming more and more common among the human population. They exhibit strange and dangerous powers, and the anti-mutant movement is gearing up. Two humans intend to ‘fight’ for their mutant causes in different ways, on the left we have Evil Mutant who wants to turn everyone into mutants, and on the right we have Good Mutant who wants to promote understanding among the normal populace.

Each of our ringleaders has a bunch of mutants working with them, and they duke it out to see who gets to live until the sequel.

There’s a reasonably lengthy setup at the start of the movie, introducing the major players, then we have a brief conflict, and move swiftly into the closing finale. There’s just not much here to get excited about. The dialog is dry, the characters aren’t all that loveable, there’s never a real feeling of risk or danger, and the mutant powers look like something out of a 70’s B-movie to be quite honest.

This could have been so much more, and perhaps the sequels will be, without the need for intro’s and scene-setting. We can always hope.

A Knight’s Tale

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Superb. Go and see it!

A medieval romp through the delicate foliage of true love, honour and courage. This movie has pace, humour [oh the excellent humour], high emotions, on-the-edge-of-your-seat moments, and more. I’m sure there are detractors who will cry ‘oh how predictable’ and ‘oh but where was the twist’. Well to them – tosh.

We got hokum and bunkum by the bucket, and we loved it.

The characters were moving and interesting, the dialog was sharp, the humour had me laughing out loud, and whilst it may have been easy to predict the story and the results, it never detracted for a moment from the entertainment value provided.

Planet of the Apes ran in a straight line and I disliked it as a result; let’s face it, so did this movie, but here it didn’t matter, because we were being dragged along in its wake feeling glorious and enriched.

With a nod and a wink to the excellent Plunkett And Macleane we are given a period fantasy with a modern feel and an updated sound track. The movie opens with the medieval crowd singing Queen’s ‘We will rock you’, and the banquet dance scene includes modern music and dance in a period setting.

Excellent performances all round, but for me, Paul Bettany stood out as Chaucer. Audacity, charisma and an on screen presence which left me wanting more.

So generally, an excellent feel-good movie, entertaining, thrilling, funny, well worth £5.50, and one I will be buying on DVD no doubt. I strongly recommend seeing it.

Planet of the Apes

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Hmm, overall, dissapointing is how I would describe this version of the ‘classic’ Planet of the Apes. Just to make it clear, I’ve not seen the original movie properly, nor have I read the book so I didn’t really have any pre-conceptions.

The story plodded along, and felt very linear, there weren’t any real surprises along the way, and I can’t even claim this was because I knew roughly what happened in advance. It was because Tim didn’t put any effort in to hiding or disguising what was going on. That may have been his personal choice of course. The acting was passable, the makeup was rather impressive, I really couldn’t tell what was CGI (was there any?) and what was live-action. But the plodding linear story, oh dear. It had no pace, no feeling of excitement, no feeling of any real danger. There elements which could have really been expanded or investigated further. Perhaps there wasn’t time.

The ending has caused plenty of debate, and I didn’t feel that it worked as well as Tim might have hoped. It makes me wonder about what happened, how things got like that, but it’s a frustrated wondering rather than an interested analytical wondering.

If you get the chance, see it on the big screen if you’ve nothing better to do that evening, because it looks impressive, but don’t go out of your way to do so.