Eloise's thoughts and fancies - Movie reviews

Scott Pilgrim vs The World

nospam@example.com (Eloise Pasteur) — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 19:43:02 -0600

Let's be honest, looking at the trailers and the cast I ought not to be in the demographic for this film. But actually, it really, really worked well.

Although one of my movie-going companions is very teasable about this, if FAQ About Time Travel was a nerdy rom com about time travel, Scott Pilgrim is a geeky rom com about video games. There is, most certainly, a rom com storyline in there - boy meets the girl of his dreams and has to overcome obstacles to woo her. In a move that will have literature professors spinning in their graves, or falling into them early, it even has some elements of classical romantic literature with most of the lead characters showing development, developing maturity and the like.

Of course, for Scott Pilgrim, the challenges are not social opprobrium (yes Mr. Darcy I'm thinking of you), interfering families (actually there are interfering family and friends but they're not the big challenges, they more comic relief), and the like. They are the Seven Evil Exes. These defeats could all be metaphorical and allegorical - some of them clearly are, even while watching the film without further reflection - but they are also where the video games come into it - each challenge takes the form of a battle (not necessarily a fight) from a video game.

If I was more of that kind of geek I would doubtless know them all. As it is, I wasn't into musical video games (I know about Guitar Hero, who doesn't? But I've never even see a copy of it in use for real), and I wasn't into the Street Fighter etc. genre either and that's where the battles are set. Despite that I think we all know enough about the style of the games, certainly I found I did, that even if we miss many game specific references (I'm sure I did) it's still funny. And funny it was - well it's a comedy after all - laugh out loud funny on a regular basis.

The film also has a ton of visual style that refers back to the gaming. Many sound effects are accompanied by visual cues - not quite Batman (TV Series) "Ka-Pow" captioning but getting there. There are a couple of potty-mouth scenes with black-boxes to stop lip-reading and beeping out of the words - not played to keep the rating down as much as for the laugh about games that do that. Many characters have little information cards that pop-up, very CCG tie-in friendly. Ramona's ever changing hair colour and style is a throw-back to the kind of graphics we had when games first went into colour, all those years ago. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't get the colour range into 8-bit colour schemes, but it was still the right sort of look.

It was loads of fun. It's not going to be in the running for the best film of the year in my book (Inception is still up there, chased by Sorcerer's Apprentice and Percy Jackson) but I'm pretty sure it will be in the next tier down - good solid film that I thoroughly enjoyed and would probably see again.

Salt

nospam@example.com (Eloise Pasteur) — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 23:31:51 -0600

Salt is an odd movie to try and review. To quote one of my companions "There's nothing wrong with it" and actually there's quite a lot that's good with it but we all left it feeling a little disappointed.

Part of the problem is that, unlike a James Bond movie say, there's a clear bad guy, actually lots of clear bad guys but there's not really a good guy. You may or may not like Bond as the roguish hero but there's no doubt he's a hero throughout. With Salt that is far, far less clear even at the end of the film. From that point of view it put me in mind of some of the darker, grittier spy stories. I guess I'm thinking Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and the like from the John Le Carre true Cold War era where everyone is tainted it's just a case of trying to work out not only who has done unconscionable things but done the wrong unconscionable things from the point of the view of the country they're employed by.

Of course Le Carre novels and the films and TV series adapted from there were rarely high octane summer action blasts. Salt most definitely adds that to the mix. If it had been Tom Cruise, Jason Statham or someone like that the film would have been just a modernised Cold War spy story with nothing special about it. Having a female lead changed that somewhat. It shouldn't - there's no doubt that we have female spies after all but the Hollywood action genre is so dominated by men that it's hard to remember sometimes that their ought to be females doing some of these things but Angelina Jolie pulls it off and carries the film along happily. She's as plausible as any male action star in the fighting scenes, the running scenes and the jumping around doing unlikely stunts scenes. Actually in many of them she's more plausible because while I'm sure she has an ego it doesn't come out in "my jump's got to be bigger than his" and so when she's climbing around, jumping around etc. they've got some concept of plausibility rather than "bigger stunt than that guy's." There are various points where all of us wondered why the people she's beating up didn't just step back and shoot her. OK, it's common to the genre but we each noticed one or two such cases enough to comment on them.

Despite feeling a bit disappointed I don't regret having gone. It is quite like a modernised Cold War movie complete with mad, bad Russian sleeper agents and the works. It won't be for everyone but it's fun enough if you enjoy that type of thing.

Addendum: What I was trying to say has become a bit clearer on reflection. The summer blockbuster movies, be that Bond, Bourne, Die Hard etc. have a clear and unambiguous hero. Even in Bourne, where he's trying to uncover his identity and so on, he's clearly a hero. It's a part of the trope. Salt doesn't have this - instead it has the more intellectual spy novel approach; le Carre is an excellent example - where it's not clear if Salt is a hero or a villain in bigger terms, although she's clearly the protagonist of the film. But there's just a little something lurking, at least there was for me, where one needs the protagonist to be a hero to carry the action scenes where she (or more usually he) spends hero points to stop people shooting her. That wasn't there in this film and it made it not quite gel.

Although that sounds quite negative, I think it was a brave choice to try it like this. I think Angelina Jolie carried off the ambiguity of the role magnificently. And, with time (rather than reflection) the points that jarred at the time are less significant. Unlike Clash of the Titans which I liked at the time but grew increasingly dissatisfied with in retrospect, Salt was pretty good at the time but has improved in memory.

FAQ About Time Travel (movie on TV)

nospam@example.com (Eloise Pasteur) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 03:46:20 -0600

Although it's superficially different in almost every respect, FAQ About Time Travel is at heart from the same stable as Shaun of the Dead. Where SOTD was a rom com set in a zombie-apocalypse, FAQATT is a rom com set against the backdrop of three nerdy mates who can't get a girlfriend, one of whom is the biggest nerd of the bunch with serious chats about time travel and the like.

Anna Faris plays the unlikely time cop who falls for the famous (in her time) but unattractive time travel nerd. It's quite tempting to say she's superfluous to the plot but she's obviously essential to the rom part of the rom com - Hollywood wouldn't have gay nerds in a rom com after all, although given this was jointly funded by HBO and the BBC they might have got away with it. The bulk of the humour, apart from his mates not believing he met a beautiful woman who was in to him, is really in the nerd territory. We have time-travelling editors who try to assassinate public figures at the height of their fame for posterity as the bad guys. Anna Faris' character as a junior time cop who should be able to explain The Grandfather Paradox and can't. Layering of time tracks as they bounce back and forth through time and see themselves from dozens of different perspectives at various points.

The jokes are well paced and if you didn't think a comedy about time travel was possible but the idea is intriguing, you could find a much worse way to spend 90 minutes or so.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

nospam@example.com (Eloise Pasteur) — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 19:53:45 -0600

According to one review I read the idea for this film was to take the famous "Sorcerer's Apprentice" scene from Fantasia, you know the one with Dukas' music and Mickey Mouse shown below courtesy of YouTube, putting it into a more modern movie and building a movie around it.

I have to say if that was the plan, they should have more ideas like this at Disney/Jerry Bruckheimer Films because the result is a jolly old romp of an adventure story. You know it's from Disney and aimed at children, so there's the inevitable happy ending but it's not cloyingly saccharine. The title character is delightfully nerdy and there are a series of nerdy jokes and references built in that delighted the pair of us and several points at which the adults in the audience burst into laughter to the confusion of the children who were there in force. Nick Cage makes an an excellent, and occasionally disturbing, centuries old magician carrying emotional pain and hope for 1200+ years and an entertaining mentor and trainer. There is, in a way I don't remember seeing in a movie before, a five minute info-dump for (most of) the back-story right at the beginning. It worked very well for me and didn't seem to bore the range of kiddies surrounding us so that was good and avoided nasty exposition scenes later on, letting the action flow and the little bits of extra information that were added come out of the drama in a suitable way rather than as exposition.

The chief baddy is suitably villainous and also has a string of good lines.

You might be surprised, as I was, to see a car chase scene in a movie about magic, but actually it worked surprisingly well as various magic tricks were used throughout the chase scene. It didn't have the length or poise of, say, Matrix Reloaded, but it was a fun and fresh take on it.

All in all, very satisfying. My only caveat? It was possibly a bit testosterone rich, the women are mostly in ancillary roles and there look pretty or be evil, or both. Is this really a world post-Xena, Buffy and Alias? There's a moment of redemption for the girls that I won't spoil, and some of the plot lines would have needed tweaking to have a more significant female character but I can't help but think they could have managed that- couldn't the apprentice have been a female nerd rather than a male one, and fancied the handsome, male music student? But asking Disney to challenge stereotypes like that might be a bit much to hope for!

But still fun and currently contending with Percy Jackson for the number 2 spot in my end of year rankings.

Inception

nospam@example.com (Eloise Pasteur) — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 23:33:23 -0600

Ah, the film of the year to date, without a doubt.

This is film is interesting, layered and for a change doesn't insult your intelligence. It is filled with dreams of course but because of that it is filled with shaping dreams and creation in many and interesting forms. The characters, all of them, are interesting and engaging. They're not necessarily nice but I cared about them and what happened to them. And there are a lot very lovely big scenes with tilting bars, spinning corridors and the like. These ideas are worked into the plot and make sense in the context of the film but even if they didn't they would look pretty and real - possibly because wherever they could the team made them real rather than reverting to all CGI.

There are definitely times when I was watching it and thinking to myself this is Second Life except it is Second Life writ large under the old slogan: Your World, Your Imagination. There were also a number of times that it reminded me, and all of us in fact, strongly of The Matrix. The questions were slightly different, but questions about the nature of reality, consciousness and unconsciousness, and the like permeate the film. Those who study dreams (presumably oneirologists?) will probably not like the questions or the answers, but from a storytelling perspective it is a very satisfying and well crafted, interesting set of questions.

At least one person that reads this blog will probably disown me for saying this, but although the medium and story are different, this film also made me consider the parallels to "The Sandman" of Neil Gaiman fame. I won't go so far as to say that this is better, but it's certainly capable of standing up to the comparison without disgrace and that is high praise in deed.

The number of small asides and little quirks as well as the big elements make me suspect this is a film worth watching several times - much like The Matrix was. It may grow old in time, as The Matrix has but it will have a good run for a while.

Very highly recommended to anyone with a brain.

Predators movie review

nospam@example.com (Eloise Pasteur) — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 11:45:09 -0600

Predators is one of those potential summer block-busters that's low on complication but, if you are in the right sort of mood for that sort of movie, then it works quite well.

It is, essentially, a return to the original Predator format. (God, was that really released in 1987?!) A load of military/para-military hard cases (plus a couple of other killer types) in the jungle being hunted by the Predators and picked off one by one as they try to survive and kill the Predators. There are differences though, this time they're thrown into jungle wearing Predator parachutes and it turns out they're on a different world, one that is used as a private hunting preserve by Predators. This gives some interesting things, like Predator hunting dogs which are scary.

Guessing who will survive, who will get to kill a predator and the like is part of the fun here - but actually it's not hard to guess who will survive from minutes into the film. Personally, I agree with the first two predator killers, the last one was just too predictable and could have been handled much better, but it was OK. There are a couple of so-called plot twists too, but basically they're so clearly trailed, I was left wondering how the characters still alive at the point they were "revealed" had missed the clues. But I guess I'm watching it rather than being hunted all the time through the jungle... that's probably hard on the nerves.

Laurence Fishburne has a cameo where he basically acts the pants off everyone else, at the same time, as the rather PTSD and loneliness affected lunatic survivor. He is a great info-dump for them and plays the whole lot beautifully. He's rather big, barrel chested even, for someone that's supposed to be living in the shadows off scraps for 7 hunting seasons, or maybe 10 as his invisible friend tells him it is, but he's still good. Alice Braga manages to pull off being eye-candy and a convincing bad-ass soldier which isn't a bad feat.

I suspect, a bit like Resident Evil, this could become one of those guilty pleasure re-watch movies.

Prince of Persia (the movie)

nospam@example.com (Eloise Pasteur) — Wed, 26 May 2010 00:20:27 -0600

I think "Pretty good for it's type" would be a fair, if short review.

Face it, it's the movie of a video game and they've never made good films to date. I still like (and recorded and watched again recently) Resident Evil but it's really hard to describe it as a good film despite the fact I enjoy it.

Unlike many films in this genre there's a fair bit of exposition to break up the action scenes. Even without playing the game you're not really left wondering why they're doing this (something Resident Evil manages quite well in a far less exposition heavy way). Many of the action scenes in Prince of Persia are based around parkour. I'm pretty sure Jake Gyllenhaal isn't a freerunner so what the mix between stunt work, wire work and CGI is, I'm not sure but it does make for some fun chase scenes. By comparison the actual fight scenes largely suffer from the current filmic style and are cut to pieces with cuts every second or so and whilst this makes them fast and exciting to some, it makes them disjointed and confusing to others. Not helped in this case by striving for a 12 certificate and so you're never sure if a baddie has just fallen over, dodged out of the way or has been killed. (On a side note, I hope we soon get the generation of film makers that look to Crouching Tiger etc. for their fight scene inspiration and we move back to flowing fight scenes rather than 50,000 cut scenes.)

Despite the fact that with a name like Gyllenhaal it's a pretty safe bet there's not an iota of Persian blood in him, I found Jake quite reasonably in the role. My companion felt "he had the sexual chemistry of a halibut and pulls faces like Rodney in 'Fools and Horses'" and was rather less impressed by him. Gemma Arthurton was again playing the pretty girl doing the exposition (different name, different blurb, but same role as in 'Clash of the Titans' and stepped comfortably through it.

Unlike many of these films, there's a plot here that, if not exactly everyday reasonable, is not a really bad fantasy plot. Of course, being based on a video game there are lots of little climaxes before the final one, as you have to end each "chapter" and catch your breath as you find out what the next level's challenges are going to be. That was more contrived than you'd see in a typical fantasy movie and certainly more contrived than you'd see in a modern fantasy book, but despite that, it fundamentally worked and before sleeping on it hung together.

It's not really a good movie in its own right, but its far from a bad one. And if you like action adventure with that taint of video game in its parentage, then it's probably a good way to spend a couple of hours. Ah, and if you like pretty scenery, that's well worth a look too - although it's not more than 5 minutes worth of that scattered through the film, some of it is really beautiful.

Robin Hood

nospam@example.com (Eloise Pasteur) — Fri, 14 May 2010 23:43:07 -0600

Films and stories about Robin Hood face a challenge, at least when they play in the UK.

Robin Hood is an amazing strong part of our cultural heritage, our cultural mythology. And it is, firmly, in the realms of mythology. But, unlike many other myths it's really quite well set in time - the Prince John/Richard the Lionheart/Crusades element mean it's a myth that you can date. Cultural historians may squirm and, probably quite rightly, say that the myth as we know it is based on a earlier series of myths but they can't deny that it is the myth that we know and have woven into our national identity for centuries.

This film needs to be viewed as trying to add to the mythology without worrying too much about the history. For large parts of the film I managed to forget the history, enjoy the mythologising and enjoy the movie. There are a number of parts where I was cringing however - the French assault on the beaches from medieval landing craft that would have looked more in keeping assault the Normandy beaches, they were particularly bad. And I guess your opinion of the film depends how many of these howlers you spot, care about and react to.

For me, I got into the "mythology not history" side and stayed there quite happily for quite large parts of the film. I ended up really quite enjoying it. We had a spectrum from my normal film-going companions from "OK" to "Steaming pile of rubbish." Your mileage may, it seems, fall anywhere on that spectrum. But if you're a really history buff it will tend to the steaming pile end I suspect.

Centurion

nospam@example.com (Eloise Pasteur) — Mon, 03 May 2010 01:09:34 -0600

What to say about Centurion.

The story starts from the historical "fact" that the iXth legion marched from Eboracum (now York) around 117AD and disappeared in to the mists in the lands of the Picts, never to be seen again. Wikipedia suggests there's some evidence that this story isn't accurate but also that this evidence is far from clear.

Given that starting point, you're not expecting a happy story and for about 2/3rd of the movie you're treated to massed battle, survivors running around behind enemy lines trying to rescue fallen comrades and then escape with their lives whilst being hunted by bloodthirsty Picts bent on revenge over home territory. It is, as you might imagine, rather bloody as it oscillates between Rourke's Drift, Saving Private Ryan and Bravo Two Zero but set in a time of swords and sandals. It nearly finishes with The Alamo done in sword and sandals too.

However, for the last third of the story they start to weave in a particularly obvious and out of place romantic line for one of the characters. Hollywood couldn't leave well enough alone and despite there being a suitably "no one came back alive" mysterious end set up, they didn't have the courage of their convictions and actually kill them all off. They also killed off one or two in particularly contrived and stupid ways.

The costume police and the history buffs, and martial arts buffs should probably try to leave their knowledge at the door, although in fairness although we caught a number of silly moments I don't think any of us thought it detracted from the film critically, certainly I didn't, unlike the happy ending they contrived.

It's a shame. It could have been a good movie, and instead left a nasty aftertaste in my mouth making me feel it was kind of average.

Kick-Ass

nospam@example.com (Eloise Pasteur) — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 02:54:59 -0600

I should say up front that I'm about 3 decades too old to be in target audience for this movie. And whilst I might have enjoyed it anyway at the showing we attended there was a fairly raucous group of teens of the right sort of age. By the time they'd laughed hysterically at the wank joke, equally hysterically at someone being stabbed, again when he was run over and each time the 12 year old swore but they'd missed the jokes about not being Spiderman, Batman, Supermam etc. I was not well disposed to them nor to the film.

There were, it has to be said, a number of excellent fight scenes in which the action looked wonderful, made more spectacular by the youth of the actress. But good fight scenes do not a movie make and the plot was so thin that I had no investment in the reasons for the fight.

To my mind, the reason the plot was so thin was that it was pulled in too many directions. The film was clearly written by people who are well versed in, and enjoy, superhero comics. There was nothing malicious in the fun they poked of the genre but they were, I felt, in part poking fun of the whole superhero genre and the paucity of the story that often goes with that. They were also commenting, somewhat, on the way violence is presented in comics and the media in general. There was a bit on the stupidness of the superhero genre too. There was even a bit about life as a modern teen and the technology that has changed the ways they live compared to my teenage years. If they'd committed more fully to those elements, or maybe if they'd flipped into satire rather than humorous homage and put in a bit of bite, it would have been better for it, to my jaded palette.

And finally, the Daily Mail film critic was frothing at the mouth about this movie peddling paedophilia. Normally I wouldn't have read this, but it was pointed out to me before we went. All I can say is that his employers should get him CRB checked because if he can read paedophilia into the relevant 3 lines which end with "I'd totally save myself for her to be older" he's totally missed the point, to the point it makes me wonder about his proclivities. Having an 11 year-old in a schoolgirl uniform and bunches, with or without a gun in hand, is hardly sexualising a child, it's an intelligent way for a child to gain access to a guarded location and it exploits the fact that people don't think 11 year olds can be a threat rather more than anything else. In fact it's one of the few intelligent parts of the movie.

I'm not sure I'd only give it 1 star if I gave star ratings but until the frothing at the mouth about paedophilia and sexualising children and violence I agreed with quite a lot of the comments he had to make in broad terms. It's not a very good movie, with some truly spectacular action sequences but toxic waste designed to appeal to the perverts? No, it's not that bad.

Clash of the Titans

nospam@example.com (Eloise Pasteur) — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 23:23:08 -0600

If you're a purist of Greek mythology, you probably want to avoid this film. My memory of Greek mythology, certainly in detail, is about 40 years out of date... and this film hit most of the high-points I remembered and so didn't really offend me.

And whilst we're on things that annoyed me, Zeus' armour when he's on Olympus (VERY shiny and High Medieval Northern European. Uh, what?!) and the extra doses of "evil" (sibilance at least) added to Hades' voice too just hammed it up too much.

But after those gripes, this was a fun adventure romp. There was a pretty strong sense of how the Gods see humans, and that the Ancient Greeks wanted to get the heck out from under their rule. There was a nicely written and paced adventure story with a number of lovely elements - the djinn and the giant scorpion cavalry for two were truly spectacular. The red shirts were, well most of them, developed as characters and were interesting enough to deserve it. You knew they were destined to die, but they were nice as individuals and great as a group.

There was a lovely touch to the original film too, that I won't mention and spoil it.

So, really, unless you are a particularly anal student of Greek mythology, put your brain into lazy and enjoy the romp. And if men's legs are you thing, there's lots of hunky men in short skirts showing off their legs throughout the movie.

Update: In the nearly a week since watching this, my opinions of it have fallen as the things that annoyed me have become more significant in my memory and the rest of the movie has pretty much faded to nothing. The movie was fun and pretty, and had some nice touches. But it was so light and thin away from those bits that the memory of the fun faded and the annoyance is all that's left. Kind of like the traditional canard about Chinese food, that you'll feel full and 2 hours later you'll be hungry again, I left the film feeling it was fun, but by a few days later I was not only hungry to see a movie, I wanted to wash the bitter after-taste away too.

Shutter Island

nospam@example.com (Eloise Pasteur) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 03:01:55 -0600

Shutter Island is a disappointing movie in my opinion. As you may have seen in the advertising the US Marshall visits Shutter Island, home of a prison for the criminally insane to investigate a disappearance under mysterious circumstances.

If it's not obvious from the start it soon becomes blatantly obvious this is a film which is going to question whether the lead character is seeing the truth or is actually mad. And therein lies part of my problem with the film: there is a massive ensemble cast - guards, nurses, doctors, patients etc. who, if this is a movie where he's mad have to be in on the act, at least enough for him to misinterpret what they're doing and why whilst in the persona of a US Marshall. It's pushing it's luck for me.

Add to that a really overplayed series of flashbacks to the liberation of Dachau, in which the lead character is supposed to have been involved, combined when moments when the score is about as subtle as an over-eager Great Dane jumping in your lap and I, at least, came out of wondering where the subtle touches of the master film maker that Scorcese can be had been applied to this particular movie.

And, final nail in the coffin for me, it doesn't do anything new and interesting with the type of story. It's not a bad film, I've certainly seen worse, The Road and Where The Wild Things Are that I've seen this year both spring to mind as appreciably worse, but it's an overlong, quite average movie from a cast and crew that you can't help feeling should have done better.

And, as an aside, a lot of the details in the flashbacks to Dachau seem to be real. Except... April 29th (when Dachau was relieved) seems like a really late date for the amount of snow and ice and depicted in the film. It niggled me during the film, and finding the date and the pictures from the time when I got home just reinforced that.

Solomon Kane

nospam@example.com (Eloise Pasteur) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:14:42 -0700

There are lots of reasons critics might dismiss this film: it's a swords and sorcery fantasy (well and flintlocks too) which always draws its own opprobrium, add to that an incredibly loose grasp of some elements of British History and you've got another reason to deride it. Finally, if you're used to British accents you won't want to listen to the West Country accents too closely... there's a fair old mix. Pete Postlethwaithe's Yorkshire and his character's daughter RADA-RP is one of the most awkward of these.

But that would lose sight of the fact that this is a roaring good yarn. There's a story in several parts that build on each other. There's enough of the groundwork laid that you clearly understand WHY Solomon's choice to take up the violent path again is one that he resists and resists and resists until he is really left with no choice. Even after that there are a few twists and turns. None of them are really hard to spot nor to predict, but they're nevertheless satisfying and deftly handled.

Although this story is based on a book there are a number of shots very reminiscent of 300 and Sin City in their posing... to the point I was half sure there must have been a comic strip and they were reproducing certain frames. They weren't and although you might think that makes it sound quite derivative, it actually adds to the visual style of the movie quite strongly.

And then there's the precipitation. It snows, it rains. It POURS with rain. There's more rain and a extra portion of rain. To go with that there's mud. Shin deep mud. Shots of the hero soaking wet in the rain, sitting on a horse in the rain, fighting bad guys in the rain, moving his sodden cloak out of the way to get to his swords in the rain.

The is despite all of that, a fun story of soaking wet redemption. Well worth the viewing.

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

nospam@example.com (Eloise Pasteur) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 22:43:55 -0700

Percy Jackson is an everyday student with learning difficulties: dyslexia and ADHD in fact. Until he finds out that he's the son of Poseidon, a demigod and in deep trouble.

He has to race against time to rescue his mum, return the lightning that he didn't even steal to Zeus and avert a war of the gods. Other reviews have suggested this bears a strong resemblance, in the original at least, to Harry Potter - that isn't so strong in the book because Percy et al are older, 17 or so and the whole story is about escaping from school to save the world. The books may read differently.

There's a strong sense of Xena running through it too - not the lesbian tease, but the Greek Myths inspiring a modern story. And really there is more of a strong sense of the Greek Myths than in Xena - this film is rather more strongly linked to the myths because the gods and demigods are the central characters in a way they weren't in Xena.

Xena crossed with Harry Potter could be great. Despite NOT being that, or maybe because it was brave enough to go its own way, this film was great fun.

There's a satisfying collect the tokens plot to move you along, complete with challenges and rewards at each stage in the collection as you'd expect. Medusa (beautifully hammed up by Uma Thurman), the hydra and the Lotus-Eaters form the challenges and are basically good takes on the myths. There's a plethora of heavy-weight British actors in heavy-weight roles (Zeus, Poseidon, Chiron etc.) who lend it that gravitas which makes you believe in it.

And, above all, it's beautiful. It's beautiful in a way that the old Harryhausen movies of Greek Myths were but with more modern technology. In particular the opening scene of Poseidon rising from the waters and then shrinking to human size and just about all the scenes with Chiron are amazingly good. Their centaurs are WAY better than the Narnian ones.

Unlike Avatar, however, in Percy Jackson the beauty of the effects adds to the story. There is a perfectly satisfying story there too - not really ground-breaking and challenging but not so well worn as the Avatar story either.

Absolutely well worth going to.

Ponyo

nospam@example.com (Eloise Pasteur) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:42:45 -0700

For the first time my hearing loss significantly affected a film for me. I can't lip-read an animated movie, certainly not a Studio Ghibli one and with two child characters their voices were high enough pitched that I really struggled to hear them.

That said, I still got the story and enough of what was going on to really enjoy it, and as you might expect the drawing is magnificent.

The rub comes in trying to explain it without spoilers. Let's just say it's a magical story about how humans treat the sea (like a bin) and the relationship that develops between a boy and a magic fish, and his and her parents with a particularly unsubtle message to the rest of us about how it could all get. That is, entirely, true, but doesn't do justice to some of the twists and turns that are here. Nor does it do justice to the glorious animation.

Despite what at least one critic has said, this isn't a hard story to unravel, but it is still beautiful and well worth some time. If you can, try to get an evening showing. Our cinema doesn't do them for this film, so we had a fair number of young children around. It is aimed at them of course, and suited to them, but might be a distraction for you.