Category: Entertainment

Night at the Museum 2

night at the museum battle of the smithsonian ...
Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

Or Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, to give it its full title, is an example of why Ben Stiller should stick to playing “ordinary” people and ditch all the over-the-top characters he insists on resorting to. One Larry Daley is worth fifty bloody Derek Zoolanders.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Larry, from NatM1, has gone on to bigger things. Sadly, he’s too late to find that his friends from the museum are being shipped to the Smithsonian to go into long-term storage. He sets off to rescue them and stop a mad pharaoh from taking over the world. As you do.

NatM2 is a prime example of how to do a sequel. Take the best elements of the first film, forget about wasting time setting up the premise (most of the audience saw the last film anyway) and roll with it. This manages to be one sequel that’s at least as good as the film it follows on from.

There are some genuinely witty moments and Stiller shows some great comic timing. The new characters are, in honesty, better than the ones they replace or add to from the original. Hank Azaria, in particular, is superb as the lead bad guy Kahmunrah (and The Thinker and Abe Lincoln). You may recognise him from such roles in the Simpsons as Chief Wiggum. And Comic Shop Guy. And Professor Frink. And Apu. And about 150 other roles. Vocal talent, he has it.

A quick thumbs-up for Steve Coogan in one of his best rôles, as well. Oh, and for Amy Adams (no, I’d not heard of her either) who sparkles as Amelia Earhart. It’s good to see a sidekick in a film who’s not annoying.

The effects are also superb, and lend themselves well to the film. The original made do mostly with miniaturisation of a few of the cast and a bit of CGI, mainly on Rex. The scriptwriters and effects team have let their imaginations run a little wilder on this one with some excellent visuals. I particularly liked the paintings that came to life and the black and white gangsters.

If there’s a downside, it’s that Hollywood keep throwing money at Ricky Gervais. He’s not funny – stop it. The film could have managed fine without him – as could the first one. Please, please, just stop feeding his ego and let him quietly slide into obscurity where he belongs.

Oh, and sit into the credits briefly. There’s a cracking little joke a minute or so in.

Great all-ages fun. The kids will love the big effects and whacky bad guys. Adults will appreciate a lot of the humour and historical nuances. Recommended.

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Fighting

Channing Tatum in Fighter
Fighting

Good. Grief. What a bloody awful film.

Seriously. If you could film tedium, this would be it. One hour and forty-five minutes of mind-numbing boredom, horrendous acting and the worst “twist” I think I’ve ever seen.

The positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes simply said that watching Channing Tatum beat people up was the only good thing about Fighting. Thing is, even the fight scenes are crap. They’re not particularly well filmed, are ridiculously predictable and far too short.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Random guy in the street somehow ends up taking place in bare knuckle boxing. And wins. The end.

Just don’t bother. Save your cash. If you’re female (or gay) and want to see Channing Tatum topless then please just find some pictures on the internet. For all that’s precious in this world, don’t pay money to see this film or they may think people actually like it.

Awful. Awful. Awful.

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Goal II: Living The Dream

Cover of "GOAL II: Living the Dream"
Goal II: Living the Dream

It’s taken me a long time to get around to watching this one. I saw the original Goal! probably around four years ago in Newcastle. It did quite well in Tyneside cinemas, probably because it was set around the city and because it was about football.

What was really good about it was that the backbone of the story wasn’t the football – it was very much the characters. Sure, there were your stereotypes, but what would you expect from the scriptwriters of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. Clement and La Frenais aren’t involved in this, the first of two sequels, and to some extent it shows. Mind, with far less of the film being set on Tyneside their influence perhaps isn’t needed.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Muñez progresses from Newcastle United to Real Madrid (in a swap deal which brings Michael Owen the other way!), and begins to face the problems of the Spanish football scene, and being away from his fiancée. Also, more family secrets come out as the film progresses.

Goal II is pretty much an extended edition of a football-themed soap opera. On this note, I have to make a confession. The only soap I have ever followed on television is Sky’s Dream Team. Partly because it was about football and partly because of the stylish way they merged real Premier League footage with the actors.

The Goal series doesn’t quite manage the technical wizardry of the TV series, instead opting for just using the real players and filming live segments in front of huge crowds. It works quite well, though some of the footage doesn’t quite ring true.

It is, as every sports movie seems to be, a “rags to riches” tale, but it’s good to see that the sequel just isn’t a rehash of the first film, only with a Spanish accent. The scene is different in Spain, the film concentrates on the Champions League rather than La Liga and the domestic tension steps up a notch.

In true soap style, the ending is a real cliffhanger… though not on the footballing front. One very simple scene, a few minutes from the end, simply had me gagging for the third installment – even before the “To Be Continued” flash before the credits.

Sure, it’s not going to appeal to everyone. It’s not complex, but it’s about football and it makes a change from the tabloid-led stories we hear of in the real world. The football scenes are entertaining and the acting’s pretty good – partly as Backham doesn’t have any dialogue in this one.

Best of all, Goal 3: Taking on the World (yes, it’s based on the World Cup…) is due out in a month.

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Fanboys

Fanboys Preview Poster
Fanboys

Fanboys was, for a long time, a rumour. A film that was kind of coming out, but never seemed to quite make it into the cinemas. I don’t know if it was ever on the big screen in the UK, but I’ve finally managed to catch it on the small screen and I really enjoyed it.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Four high-school friends meet up three years after graduation and go on a mission to locate a print of the not-then-released Star Wars Episode I. It’s a road movie for sci-fi geeks.

The complaint levelled at it by the mainstream media has been that it’s very much about fanboys and for fanboys. And, you know, this is true. I found myself laughing out loud at many points during the film, but looking back almost every single one was at spotting a line of dialogue (Wars and Trek) being used out of context, or on another incredibly cool cameo by some geek legend or other.

That is most definitely the highlight. Not only seeing these people in the film, but recognising them and knowing who they are. I’m not going to spoil it and name a single one. It would take a good portion of the enjoyment out of seeing this.

Without them, yeah. It’s just a road movie, and not a particularly great one. But he thing is, it does have these cameos, and references and nods. I defy anyone not to laugh at the scene that’s left after the van crashes. It’s not just a nod, it’s a clever nod.

Satisfy your inner geek – if you have one – and don’t miss this.

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