REVIEW: The Visit (15)

M. Night Shyamalan's latest movie is The Visit,  a weird cross pollen genre of horror-black comedy with an over egging of found footage.  Having a peek at some lovely factoids about this movie, apparently M. Night made two versions of this movie - a comedy version and true horror one and the finished one is kind of a mix up of both.

The story begins as single mom decides to send her children - 13 year old Tyler (who pretty much steals the show with his charisma - if a little overbearing at times) and his older sister Becca, who is much more matter-of-fact and has an interesting vocabulary considering she's supposed to be about 15. In a vain attempt to get her mom to make peace with her estranged parents, Becca decides to make a documentary about their week long visit to see "Nana" and "Pop Pop". Although her mom isn't too forthcoming about why she abruptly left the house she grew up in and turned her back on her parents - Becca is desperate to find out the truth. When the kids go away, mom goes on a holiday with her latino lover, Miguel and the kids meet their grandparents for the first time. However, when the rule is not to leave the bedroom after 9.30pm, the modern teenagers flaunt this rule (mainly to sneak downstairs for some midnight snacks) and their grandparents are not all what they seem.

M Night has had a difficult time of late from the heyday of when he was awesome and could do no wrong - hit after movie hit came - Signs, Sixth Sense, Unbreakable - and it seemed he was. Then came the dross that was The Last Airbender and After Earth and his credibility was practically non-existent. Still he is churning out the movies, when maybe he should have stopped. However, this movie isn't bad, but he still has a long way to go to reach the former awesomeness that was his original set of movies. Shyamalan takes the now clichéd route of found footage and takes a stab at this genre - and those expecting a jumpy horror will be disappointed. Tyler (played excellently by Ed Oxenbould) is both endearing and wholesomely annoying, but is a welcome comic relief in the movie. His matter of fact sister - Becca (Olivia DeJonge) is also great as the sensible one, but she doesn't have enough time to develop as a character rather than a person to help the narrative along. The grandparents are suitably strange and Deanna Dunagan plays Nana with the endearing dodderiness of an old lady one minute and the slight of madness in the next. Pop Pop is also a strange character who is as grumpy and withdrawn as the children's mom is outgoing and loud.

The movie is definitely not one of M Night Shymalan's best, but it's certainly a step in the right direction for redemption after the recent disappointments he has helped fill the bargain buckets with in supermarkets. I have high hopes that he will be back as the go-to director for tense thrillers and people will again say - how awesome is that movie. This movie is above average, but I think that he is getting his form back and I hope that as he continues we'll be seeing a lot more awesome movies from this director who gave us such memorable movies in the past.

The Visit is out now at all good cinemas.

POPSCORE: 6/10

What am I talking about? The Visit - the movie
Where can I find out more? http://www.thevisit.com.au
If you liked this try: Paranormal Activity, Insidious, Sinister and any of the multitude of sequels. I would even suggest The Gallows or to a lesser extent the Blair Witch Project.

BYTE: Super September

I'm Paul ... and this is Paul & The Popcorn - welcome to Super September!

As the we leave the summer behind, September springs forth with a number of confusing weather patterns and darker nights - but also my birthday, a few more cool movies at the cinema and the transfer window closes on the football which means only one thing - FIFA is out and people are playing it!

But before we get to the computers let's look to the cinema - now blockbuster season is waning, there is still lots more to look forward to - films such as October's SPECTRE (the latest James Bond outing for Daniel Craig) and November's Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 and December's Star Wars offering, the movies of 2015 haven't quite finished blowing your mind just yet. One on my "to see" list is Matt Damon's latest The Martian which looks superb - but at first I thought it was a sequel to Interstellar. If you've seen that movie, you'll know what I mean.

Let's get to the computers - the Star Wars themed next exciting installment of Disney Infinity 3.0 is now available and not only are we treated to some classic Star Wars charactes to play but also the new ones from the new movie are there too. Mickey & Minnie Mouse are also available as are the cast of Pixar's latest movie Inside Out. This expands the game somewhat and to round it off the Hulkbuster and Ultron are also available for the playset. Cool huh?

I also visited York comic-con which was a fantastic adventure at York racecourse. There was plenty of things to see and buy - and I came home with Jack and Sally Pop Vinyl's from Nightmare Before Christmas.

Looking at the latest stuff as well:

>   Xbox Live:  Games with Gold this month includes the full games of Crysis 3 on XBOX 360 and for the posh 'uns who have XBOX ONE you are treated to The Deer God and, surprisingly, Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition to download free if you are a subscriber.

>  PSN: PS Plus this month is as follows:

PS4 has:
Driveclub: PlayStation Plus Edition
Grow Home
Teslagrad
Super Time Force Ultra
Xeodrifter

PS3 gets:

Teslagrad

Twisted Metal

Vita receives:
Super Time Force Ultra
Xeodrifter
La Mulana Ex

Of course usual rules apply in that if you stop your subscription those games'll stop workin'.

Origin have another Game On The House which is Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2.

As always we have Loot Crate and Nerd Block unboxings to look forward to...

...AND Marvel Collector Corps in October.

It's time to go now but - have a super September and I'll see you soon.

Keep being awesome!

Until next time

Paul

REVIEW: American Ultra (15)

American Ultra stars contemporary starlets Jesse Eisenberg as Mike Howell and Twilight's Kristen Stewart as his long suffering girlfriend, Phoebe Larson. In a small town, Mike Howell is in a "perfect" relationship with his girlfriend. He works at a small convenience shop, is pursuing his dream of being a comic book artist and everything is going great. Great, until a new director of the CIA comes into play and decides that Mike is on his hit list to be eliminated. The former director takes umbrage to this and decides to warn Mike about his impending doom. Then the story unravels to find that Mike is actually a highly trained and genetically modified super soldier that has been deactivated. So, naturally when the CIA goes after him, the former director reactivates him. This then gives him heightened senses and abilities - not bad for a guy who likes to get drunk, stoned and suffers panic attacks.

What could be best described as Trainspotting meets Salt, American Ultra has the graphic violence of a manga comic or anime with a black comedy undertone. I found Eisenberg's character hard to like, and spends most of the time running away or cowering in the corner. But when he does fight it is both gruesome and quite gripping. What could have been an edge of your seat action flick becomes more of a run and hide operation and we only see flashes of this guys abilities. He is almost a superhero in his own right but we don't get to see enough of that.

Topher Grace plays a fantastically smarmy bad guy as the CIA director Adrian Yates and is as smarmy as he is dangerous. The ever reliable John Leguizamo is fantastic and basically plays himself - which is what he always does and it's great. It's also nice to see Bill Pullman in the mix too. Eisenberg plays a decent Mike - but the character himself doesn't really have much going about him. Kristen Stewart doesn't do bad acting here and is sometimes (I said sometimes) endearing but generally joins in the with run and hide/getting caught mould for most of the movie.

Although the movie is full of bloody violence, drugs, sex references and bad language there is one awesome moment where one of the head henchman called Laugher, has a moment with Mike after trying to kill him. He asks Mike who controls him. Mike replies, "No-one," and Laugher shows some real humility by replying innocently - "that must be nice." It was a fantastic and moving piece of cinematography which was probably one of the highlights of the film. The other spark of brilliance was when Mike is pinned down by a gun man in his own house and he throws a pan in the air and shoots a bullet to ricochet off it. It's things like this that make you think a bit more thought and this could be downright awesome!

The zero to hero storyline and the basic premise have been seen a million times before, but the movie is really strange but I can't put my finger on why. It's seems to be a bit all over the place and I was desperately trying to think what score I could give it and I found it difficult. I though 6/10 but that is totally doing it an injustice because it's actually ok as an action movie. Then 7/10 is being too generous. Even 6.5/10 is not quite right so, for the first time ever I'm giving a movie:

POPSCORE: 6.8/10

What am I talking about? American Ultra the movie
Where can I find out more? http://www.americanultrathemovie.com
If you liked this try: The Bourne Identity, Salt, Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, Hot Fuzz

REVIEW: The Fantastic Four (or Fant4stic)

Never has a film caused so much of a stir as Josh Trank’s “offering” Fantastic Four. Rocked by controversy and even Twitter updates from the director before release, this film had everything going against it. Stan Lee doesn’t cameo in it and even the trailers looked lack lustre. My blog, as you may have read, celebrates all things geeky, movies, music and more. I should have been excited for this, I should have been chomping at the bit just like I was for Avengers: Age of Ultron. But you know what? I was quite happy to pass it by.

However, I didn’t and watched the movie – and I’m sorely disappointed.

Josh Trank had a great run with the ever-so-popular Chronicle – so he knows how to make a good movie. Although Chronicle was a decent enough movie (not that I particularly thought it was the best myself), his credentials suggest he was capable of stepping up and making a mark with a superhero movie in the mainstream. I was excited at first, but then saw what he wanted to do. He changed the race of Johnny Storm and was starting to make other changes too. I questioned the casting – yes, Kate Mara is a very pretty girl – but was unsure of her Sue Storm. Aside from the whole Human Torch debate, Jamie Bell cast as Ben Grimm/The Thing was another issue for me. I have nothing against Jamie Bell as an actor – and he even hails from the same town as me - but I didn’t think he was the best choice for the role. Miles Teller – who puts in good performances in Divergent and Whiplash was cast as Mr Fantastic too – but again, he wouldn’t be my choice for Reed Richards. However, I have been wrong before – I wasn’t happy with the casting of Daniel Craig as James Bond and Chris Evans as Captain America at the start – but they both were, and still are, excellent actors (and nice guys) and won me over because they are world class actors and made the role theirs. The key point here is that they convinced me that they were the characters that they played.

So onto Fantastic Four. The runtime is around 1 hour and 30 minutes and this is disconcerting for a reboot. I’m not sure how much stuff you can get into a movie that length – especially if it’s not an animation or kids movie. However what I experienced was that, yeah, you can’t get much into it.

Fantastic Four is a reboot of Marvel’s First Family and the truth is – it was my first exposure to Marvel and comics I had followed by Spiderman. I have a soft spot for them and I appreciated the previous movies even though they are generally described as bad. However, this movie takes us back to the days when they were not sure about superhero movies and not the awesome blockbusters we are used to now.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

The movie starts with a young Reed Richards in school saying he will do great things at the ridicule of others. Fast forward a few years later (7 actually) and he’s at a Science Fayre where he is selling his wares and inexplicably Franklyn Storm and his adopted daughter, Susan, give Richards a chance to make his idea a reality. Teaming up with Victor Von Doom (who is stereotypically goateed and grumpy) and Sue they set to work on his idea. Meanwhile Johnny Storm is doing a Fast & Furious racing and when he prangs his dad’s car he is kind of grounded and gets forced to work on the project by his dad with the others. After a montage of working lots and about 30 minutes of run time (or more) Ben Grimm gets a phone call to ask if he fancies popping by to have a go at this new device they reckon can get them to another dimension called Planet Zero. Ben, of course, thinks this is an awesome idea and turns up and off they go. Disaster ensues when they visit - they get some powers and leave Doom behind as they think he’s bought the farm. They return a bit injured and, we now at around 50 mins into the film they are tested upon by the government.

Right now we are nearly two thirds through the film and really nothing much has happened. The last 30 minutes is condensed into – oh Dooms alive let’s bring him home, I’m home now I want to go back, let’s go back and fight, the end.

END OF SPOILER

Considering the movie is 1 hour and 30 minutes and it takes nearly 2/3rds of that to get going, this is a massive opportunity wasted for Marvel’s First Family. The characters are bland and uninteresting – it’s as if the writer is thinking “we all know who they are …let’s just get on with it” and then hasn’t a clue what to do with them. Sue Storm spends most of the movie rapping computers and when she does get powers spends most of her time holding her breath and flying around in force bubbles. The Thing doesn’t even have blue eyes (another change which I was not happy about), is completely naked (for the love of Mike, why!?) and spends most of his Thing state begging Reed Richards to help him. Reed himself is a flimsy geek stereotype and not the strong leader we know and love in the comics – he even naffs off for some of the movie and leaves the others behind. No real role stands out except for Reg E. Cathey’s Franklyn Storm who has the deepest voice known to man and comes out with some nice thought provoking statements.

It’s hard to say what exactly went wrong with Fantastic Four without mentioning – well pretty much everything. The casting was suspect, the story makes no sense at all (complete with major plot holes) and the changes the director opted for just doesn’t work. It might have been a decent movie if it wasn’t the Fantastic Four and a bit more of an awareness with continuity and sense but as a Fantastic Four movie it’s just terrible. I’ve never seen such an awful adaption since 1996’s The Avengers (which was based on the 60’s spy series of the same name). The movie is confusing and slow and it’s a massive wasted opportunity. I would love to see what Marvel would do with this franchise if they had control of it – and I’m sure it would be awesome, but as it stands it’s really, really bad.

POPSCORE: 4/10

EVENT: Sheffield Film & Comic Con

On 15^th & 16^th August, Sheffield’s Motorpoint Arena held their Showmasters fronted Film & Comic Con featuring an array of stars from the silver and small screen – and the slight peppering of sports stars. I knew I was in for a good convention when I walked in, saw ‘Hacksaw’ Jim Duggan and said, “Alright” and he replied “Alright” too.

First order of the day was to see the various stalls and sellers which had everything from replica swords to those Funko POP! Vinyls I love so much. There were cosplayers everywhere and some cool photo opportunities.

The celebrities were out in the gangway at various points and the stalls were in the stadium itself. To the back of the room there were photo opportunities with props and to the sides were two discussion areas – one for the cosplayers and one for the celebrities. The first order of the day was a caht with the wrestlers – WWE Hall of Famers “Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase and “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan took to the stage along with a TNA Tag Team Champion duo to talk about their experiences in the wrestling worlds. DiBiase was very candid about the goings on and said it was a very competitive market and is a very lonely life as you are always on the road. Duggan added that working with an inexperienced wrestler could be very painful. DiBiase said that a lot of the matches are predetermined – but the actual match (although they know the winner) was all improvised as it happened which made it more exciting. The tag team contributed through their eyes of more modern wrestling but it was quite interesting finding out about the classic wrestling I grew up with – and all of them seemed really nice people.

After the Wrestlers Talk the next guy up for a chat was none other than Michael Biehn, who discussed about Aliens, Hicks, Terminator and Kyle Reese. He said that and Aliens sequel had been greenlighted but he has not been asked to reprise his role yet – but he would be up for it if he was asked. He also said that although he hated what happened to his character in the sequels, this new movie will be a sequel to Aliens and will forget the Alien 3 and the really poor Alien Resurrection. Hopefully it will forget the AVP movies too.

I got to meet “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan and he was a lovely person and really friendly. We “Hoooooo”’d together and he signed my Wrestlemania Box Set DVD collection. I was tussling with the idea of getting a signed photo, but I have it in my head that I’d like a set of DVD’s signed by different wrestlers. I’m considering doing this with my Star Wars collection too. What do you guys think? Put a comment and let me know.

There was the opportunity to pose with some props and those of you regular readers to my blog will know I had my photo taken with the clockface from Back to the Future when I went to Newcastle Comic Con back in March. Here was even better – you could pose with Doc Brown’s tombstone or sit on the throne from Game Of Thrones. Best of all though – you could get a photo sat in the DeLorean from Back To The Future. I, of course, jumped at the chance and to get a photo for £5 in such an iconic car, it will be a picture I will treasure for a long time to come.

After the Delorean and Duggan I wanted to see Robert Englund, arguable the most popular guy at the event this time. I took a ticket to see him – number 297 no less. Even by 3pm he was nowhere near that. He was spending a lot of time talking to the fans and taking pictures so I never got to meet him – but he will be on my list next time. We did however get to see his talk which involved a skit about Freddy vs Jason and Freddy Vs Chucky (which of course Freddy would win). He was very entertaining and really enjoyed the talk and this rounded off my day.

I had early bird tickets and they cost £15 but you could have got standard ones for a bit cheaper, £8 I think. It was a well organised and enjoyable day with some great celebrities and all of us had fun. Well done Showmasters – I’ll have to come to Sheffield next year.   

REVIEW: MOVIEBLAST: The Gift (15) & The Man From U.N.C.L.E (12A)

THE GIFT (15) is  the latest movie starring Jason Bateman as Simon, a successful businessman with everything he ever wanted.  Simon gets a dream job and as a result has to move back home to an enviously lavish house with his doting wife. When Gordo (Joel Edgerton) his old classmate appears and leaves gifts outside his door things get creepy. However when Simon decides the gifts are getting too much and tells Gordo to leave him alone, a sinister letter from Gordo saying he will no longer let bygones be bygones threatens everything Simon knows. The Gift is a psychological thriller from Blumhouse Productions (who also were involved with Insidious and Sinister).  Good, thought provoking movie but not the horror I was expecting. 

POPSCORE: 7/10

THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E (12A) is Guy Ritchie’s take on the classic 60’s spy series has hit the cinema this week – and the question is – how did he do? Combining acting talents of Henry Cavill as Napoleon Solo and The Lone Ranger’s Armie Hammer as Russian KGB agent Ilya Kuryakin, this action fest is ready to blow your mind.

We are at a juncture whereby we are now in 2015 and the Sixties – which seems a long time away now – is ripe for picking from TV series and shows that have been beloved then but maybe forgotten now. Like Mission: Impossible, The Man from U.N.C.L.E was a much loved spy series and it has now been given a more modern makeover. I am not very familiar with the original series but remember my parents loving it back in the day – so this time I took my mam with me to see what she thought. Her answer? It’s nothing like the original.

The mismatched duo attempt to foil a standard world domination plan featuring a nuclear bomb. To do so they need to work together despite their differences and obvious distain for each other. Napoleon Solo, a smarmy ex-con with a penchant for speaking exposition and the grumpy but capable Russian special agent, Ilya Kuryakin find themselves in a race against time to save the world. It’s all very predictable and formulaic but it’s a fun movie nonetheless – I enjoyed it but it’s apparently very different from the original.

Henry Cavill plays a good role as Napoleon Solo, and Armie Hammer (known mostly for the dire The Lone Ranger) puts in a good performance as his Russian counterpart. Hugh Grant drops in here and there to add a little Britishness to the proceedings and the love interests are beautiful and deadly in equal measure. It’s a run of the mill spy film, based on a beloved 60’s show and it’s not bad. Good for a Sunday afternoon or if you’ve seen all the blockbusters out then there’s this to fill the void while you are waiting on the next hit movie. It’s not quite up there with Mission: Impossible, but the ending suggests there may scope for some sequels.

POPSCORE: 7/10

ARCHIVE: REVIEW: Iron Man 2

hey guys, I've always reviewed movies and here's an article I wrote a long time ago - and it was when Iron Man 2 came out. I really liked this movie, but here it is from the archives for your reading pleasure...

FILM: IRON MAN 2

Starting pretty much straight after the last one, after Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) announces that he is IRON MAN it seems that he is on cloud nine and is doing really well for himself. Starting a rather nifty Stark Expo that runs for a year and, according to Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow), it will also drain the finances of Stark Industries.  It's a needless folly but the public like it. Meanest of whiles, an evil is brewing from all sides.  The army want the Iron Man suit to use as a weapon.  Stark's competition, Hammer Industries, want to develop similar suits but fail miserably.  And, a disgruntled son of Starks father's work colleague (Mickey Rourke) decides to have a crack at taking Iron Man down. For the lads, theres a rather nubile Natalie (Scarlett Johansson) working with Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) to try and convince Stark that there's a bigger game to play than the one he thinks he is involved in.

Tony Stark is finding that the power he gets from that thing in his chest (you can tell I'm very accurate here can't you?) is killing him, so a side part of the film is his quest to try to save his own life as well as that of others.  He also has some great lines - and on his birthday he dresses up in his Iron Man suit and answers the most question he gets asked from people - how do you go to the toilet in the suit?

Add a sprinkling of War Machine (Ironman's colleague) and a rocking soundtrack from AC/DC I think you get very much a good bang for your buck. Robert Downey Jr is one of may favourite actors and his portrayal of Tony Stark is spot on - he's a bit arrogant but a bit witty but has his heart in the right place. Scarlett Johansson plays a really sexy part in the film and can kick ass as no one else can, and the remaining characters help the story along.

There is always that problem of the difficult second movie.  But retaining the original cast, moving on from what was developed in the first film and the immediately likeable Tony Stark - this film is fantastic and I'm sure there will be another sequel. There have been a lot of questionable Marvel films out - but this is totally in line with X-men and Spiderman blockbuster standard.

Brilliant movie, if you like action or comic book movies it's a must see.

POPSCORE:  9/10

Oh and as an addition - I really think you should sit through the credits... they may be a surprise at the end... ;-)