Ok, I might be slow… but I get there in the end.

Toy Story 3 has probably been and gone from the cinema by now, so just in the nick of time for the DVD release… let me get on with reviewing it (fortunately, I can’t imagine anybody relying solely on me to fulfil all their film review needs. If you do though, well, whoops).

Insert your own favourite one-eyed "Woody" gag here.

So, Andy is all grown up and moving off to college (let’s just hope he doesn’t still write his “N’s” backwards, otherwise he might be home again quite soon).

Like most older kids, Andy hasn’t played with his toys in ages, and as a result they’re all feeling a little dusty and unloved. Now seventeen years old, Andy apparently doesn’t like playing with his Woody or giving his Potato Head lots of attention and these days he no doubt prefers to go ram-raiding and happy slapping instead.

Whilst he’s packing, Andy decides to take just one toy with him to college. However, through an unfortunate series of events, Woody and co end up being donated to the local kids daycare instead. With the chance of being played with again by brand new kids, perhaps things have turned out for the best for our toys? Then again, maybe not, as there are strange things afoot at Sunnyside Daycare, as all isn’t what it initially appeared…

Ok, now don’t get me wrong here – Toy Story 3 is a good film. A great film in fact, but…

Is the third instalment the best Toy Story yet? No, probably not to be honest.
Was the 3D fantastic? Well, I must admit I forgot it was even in 3D most of the time (although toning the 3D down in favour of the storyline was perhaps the whole point).
The film was also generally not as funny as I thought it might be and I must say, nowhere near as sad and emotional as I was led to believe either.

All that said, Toy Story 3 still knocks the spots of most films you’re likely to see this year. Should they make any more? Errr, no. Let’s just leave the series there now, shall we?

8/10.

Ahhh, I’ve become stupidly behind on my film reviews lately which is a shame, because if you’ve not already seen Inception at the cinema, you’ll have missed a real cracker.

If you want to avoid cheesemares, avoid eating cheddar just before bed.

The other night, I dreamt a girl at work ate my lunch. I wasn’t pleased. Why do I mention that? Well fortunately, films don’t tend to get made about my boring dreams.

Let’s get this out of the way – Inception is just a teeny bit complicated. It’s all about the manipulation of people’s dreams in order to extract valuable information. There’s not much standing around wondering who just snaffled your sandwich, but there are dreams within dreams… within dreams. And that’s just the simple bit. We’ve got characters in different dreams, extractors, architects, chemists, time dilation and kicks all making your brain hurt. And surprisingly it all eventually does make sense (well, admittedly the last ten minutes or so did start to lose me!).

That said, it’s still the best film I’ve seen for a long time and it’s hard to pick any real fault with it. If there’s one film to see at the cinema this year, it’s probably going to be Inception.

9.5/10.

Don’t believe me about the complex plot by the way? And be warned here as the following may (or may not) be a spoiler. I say may not be, as this infographic still only just about makes sense even if you’ve seen the film!

Read the rest of this entry »

Predators

Ahhh, I love the original Predator film. Predator 2? Hmmm, not so much.

But what about the latest film… Predators?

It’s the story of a group of random hard nuts, who have all at some point been abducted by Predators, knocked unconscious, thoroughly probed, then dropped by parachute onto a planet in an unknown galaxy, far, far away.

In typical Hollywood style, our Predatory friends have stolen just the right ethnic mix of monster movie cannon fodder. So rather predictably, we’ve got ourselves an american white dude, as well as a black guy, a Russian, a Mexican, a Japanese dude and obligatory woman. Those Predators might be mean and fierce, but give them some credit – they do like to make sure they’re hunting a suitably politically correct range of meat.

Anyway the general gist is we’re on a distant game reserve, with those Predator dudes running around everywhere trying to kill anything warm and wiggly.

To be honest, you might as well just watch the trailer and save yourself a couple of hours. It’s not a bad film by any means, in fact it’s quite watchable. Trouble is, it’s just not scary and the trailer had already summed the whole film up nicely. And it’s not as if you couldn’t guess exactly who the last two surviving characters will be is it…

6/10.

I’m sure there are lots of positives things to say about Shrek Forever After.

Oh no... what's going to happen to Eddie Murphy's career now? What? Beverley Hills Cop 4 you say?

But I must admit, I’m struggling to think what they might be.

Plot-wise, Shrek is a bit bored of doing the same thing day-in, day-out. He wants to go back to being a fearsome ogre. When he meets Rumpelstiltskin, Shrek gets talked into giving away a day of his life – in exchange for a day living as a proper scary ogre again. Only sly Rumpelstiltskin takes the day Shrek was born, meaning once Shrek’s scary ogre day is up, he’ll cease to exist.

It’s supposed to be the last Shrek film (not counting Puss in Boots), which ain’t a bad thing really as Shrek Forever After is a bit tired and weak to be honest. Watchable, but not hilarious. I also saw the 3D version, which was a bit crappy. Now I’m no cinema expert or anything, but my Blogalism top tip for all 3D film makers out there: If you’re going to make a 3D film, where your audience will all be sitting in the cinema, in the dark, wearing the equivalent of sunglasses – don’t set large chunks of your film at night. Don’t make lots of your characters dark green, or show them dressed in black, just to make everything even darker. You know, just sayin’, like.

6/10.