Beauty & The Beast - The Time-Old Tale Of Enchantment Lacks The Charm And Magic Of The Original

As has been the case with many reboots or sequels over the last couple of years, Disney’s live-action Beauty & the Beast was itself no stranger to controversy. The scrutiny began when it was announced that Emma Watson – famous of course for her role as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter movies – was cast as the beloved Belle; the not-so-villagey village girl fated to fall in love with a beastly prince in a castle not so far away. 

Hacksaw Ridge And Fifty Shades Darker

I haven't blogged in little over a week, having been busy with preparing for my upcoming trip and all. Somehow though I always managed to fit in a cinema binge. But then it has been a good few weeks since my wedding now and I'm not working, so naturally my Cineworld membership card has been calling from my wallet...

Move Over MCU And DC - The Real Titans Are Coming...

Did you know you Skull Island on Google Maps? Okay, that's only half true. Skull Island is nothing more than the fictional setting for the infamous King Kong movies - but it really is on there, courtesy of Google's sense of humour, of course. That said though, parts of the new film Kong: Skull Island were shot in Bangkok and Hawaii - real locations that I'll be visiting on my upcoming round-the-world trip (aka "Greedy Honeymoon"). But for now, let's look at the film itself.

John Wick: Chapter 2 Proves Once Again That A Puppy Isn't Just For Christmas...

With the departure of the hugely-popular (though hugely-overrated) Taken franchise having coincided with the arrival of 2014’s already-sequel’d sleeper-hit John Wick, evidently there’s still plenty of room in the market for veteran male Hollywood actors to unleash relentless chaos on the scum of the silver screen. 

Logan Isn’t A Superhero Movie – It’s A Movie About A Superhero.

2000’s X-Men made Jackman a household name, and while he was mostly absent from last year’s stinker that was X-Men: Apocalypse and 2011’s “soft reboot” X-Men: First Class (with the exception of some fun cameos), Jackman has, for the most part, dominated the X-Men cinematic landscape, serving as the figurehead for the original trilogy, spawning his own now-trilogy of spin-off films and saving the franchise from certain doom in 2014’s critically-acclaimed X-Men: Days of Future Past. Now, after having played the character to whom he is forever inseparably affiliated for a whopping seventeen years, Hugh Jackman finally hangs up the claws as he reprises his role as The Wolverine in what it to be his final outing.

The Lego Batman Disassembled...

Someone once said (though I can’t quite remember who); “there’s a thousand ways in which you can portray Batman, and most ways will work.” Evidently, there’s much truth to this, having seen the once-never-Dark Knight go from a ridiculously-camp, spandex-clad Adam West to a Gothic caped crusader in Tim Burton’s interpretations, before morphing into a horribly-futuristic, nipple-boasting Bat-Clown (or Cloon) in Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin, only to be resurrected an acceptable number of years later by Christopher Nolan in the grittiest and most realistic way that also honoured the graphic novels, and then even darker in the hugely-popular steampunk-esque Arkham game series. Simply put, Batman is and always will be re-imagined, and his story re-told. But now you can enjoy Gotham’s most dangerous orphan in the way he was never meant to be portrayed: in Lego.

Double Film Review: Sing And Split

Sing

From Illuminations, the team behind the Despicable Me series, Minions and last year's The Secret Life of Pets, comes Sing; yet another computer-animated entry about anthropomorphic animals, but one that thankfully doesn't include those meddlesome yellow tic-tacs (although I'm sure there are plenty of easter eggs more visible upon repeated viewings). Sing follows koala bear, Buster Moon (Matthew McConaughey, because who else), who is fighting tooth and claw to keep his late father's failing theatre running, but turns somewhat crooked when he publicly announces a $100,000 prize for the winner in a new singing contest - one which he, a koala bar with no more than some nine-hundred dollars to his name, will host.

What Time Is It? It's Morphin' Time...

Like many if not all blockbusters over the last couple of years that have served as big-screen adaptations, reboots, re-imaginings, sequels or prequels, the new Power Rangers movie has also been the target of hatred, scepticism and resentment. And without jumping on the anti-fanboy bandwagon, as a fan of the franchise myself, I'll be the first to admit that, whilst excited for the most part, some of the more recent concept images - mainly those of toys with almost zeo - sorry, zero marketing of the film itself, for reasons unknown - have been downright shocking...

Double film review: A Monster Calls and Manchester By the Sea

A Monster Calls

From director J.A. Bayona (next set to branch out with 2018's Jurassic World sequel) comes this tragic-to-be tale about facing inevitable loss, through the eyes - and deeply unsettling dreams - of young Conor (Lewis MacDougall), as we drop in more than halfway through his mother's failing battle with cancer. But as Conor deals with the crushing weight of her illness, while also fending off his otherwise LA-based father (Toby Kebbell), his estranged grandmother (Sigourney Weaver) and school bullies, he is visited by a giant, powerful tree (a godly-voiced Liam Neeson, of course), who has apparently come to help Conor by offering three seemingly-irrelevant fairy tale stories, all the while encouraging Conor to lash out wherever possible. 

Still Fighting Those January Blues? Then Take A Trip To La La Land...

After reluctantly watching a musical I actually end up enjoying, I always come to the realisation that I possess a seldom-spoken love for a jolly good sing-along, whether it’s one of Disney’s animated classics or the much darker likes of 2007's Sweeney Todd or 2014’s Into the Woods. And then of course there’s theatre: The Lion King, Wicked, Thriller, to name but a few of the classics that have seen me fighting those unstoppable shoulder-gyrations. But quite often, I also find myself fantasising about living in a world where we all sing and dance in harmony and flawless synchronisation. What a world that would be. In fact, you could call such a place “La La Land”…