Opinions: Arrow (TV Series)

          For those of you who don’t know there’s a new television show called Arrow on Sky One (and The CW in America), based on the DC comic books character Green Arrow and here’s the secret part guy’s, it’s amazing. I feel DC and very smart at doing this small screen stuff as it really helps to build up the profile of lesser known characters and allow you time to get to know them and invest in them, it also allows you to introduce other characters and build a shared universe like what Marvel have done with their film franchises. It’s being made by a lot of the same people who made Smallville another DC television series that was amazing.

          This series feel like its taken a leaf from Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy and even Marvels approach of grounding everything in reality, which in my opinion helps you identify with the characters better. So who is this Green Arrow character I might hear you asking, well he’s one of DC’s better known main characters and I have to be completely honest I only ever knew of the character from references in and never knew his origin story, which is why I love this series so much it starts at the beginning and shows us how Oliver Queen the man becomes The Green Arrow.

          Now I can’t spoil too much I’m only 4 episodes in but the basic story is Oliver and his dad are on a boat trip and they crash, his father tells Oliver to right the family wrongs and shots himself in the head, this leaves Oliver trapped on an island for 5 years where he trains to become The Green Arrow. Once rescued his character is a billionaire playboy by day (cough, Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne, cough) but by night he is vigilante crime fighter The Green Arrow. Hopefully I’ve piqued your interest and you’ll want to go check out this series if not, well then fine, your loss.

Review: The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) - Mark Webb

           I remember when I first heard they were planning on rebooting the Spider-Man film franchise, I was completely against is. The only reason to reboot a film franchise is if the previous version has taken the series to far from its original roots or there are no more possible stories that could take place in the already established universe and then there’s the third option that at least ten years has passed and it would be too costly/impractical to bring back the original cast. None of these reasons existed in my opinion in Sam Rami’s Spider-Man universe; different actor’s could have been cast and moved the timeline on a few years with little impact on the story in my opinion. But I can understand why they didn’t do this, I could of even forgiven it, if it wasn’t for the simple fact this would be another origin story, which is a little much to take in seems as we already saw this less than ten years ago, and was still fresh in our minds and was an amazing film and should have been left alone again in my opinion. But despite mine and many other people’s negativity towards the project on initial announcement the film went ahead and I have to admit I did warm to the idea of it especially as we were promised a film more faithful to the comic books origins and ideas fans know from it and the 90’s animated television show (web slingers). So to say the least I wasn’t looking forward to this film, but I wanted to see how it turned out.

          My first impression of the film is it’s the closest we’ll get to seeing Spider-Man in The Avengers at least for a while, people have said it might happen in The Avengers 2 but I won’t hold my breath just yet. Stylistically the film has a similar feel to the films set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as in its very grounded in reality, the characters behave like real people and the choices they make even the ones we know they have to are made for very logical reasons and with one exception are very true to the character and reflect the maturity level of them. So when Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) dicks around with his super powers and in some way’s abuses them it feels natural, like something we all would do if we had superpowers and then when he matures again it doesn’t feel like the script just told him to start acting differently we see the decisions that lead him to step up and become a man. So to talk about plot for a bit, this version of Peter Parker is still in high school and is very much the current everybody, he’s still a good student (but not someone who sits in the front row), he’s still a photographer and he’s still good at science, and I like this change kind of making him an everyman instead of a nerd instantly makes him more relatable and likable as a character and makes his relationships with (eventual girlfriend) Gwen Stacey (Emma Stone) and school bully Flash Thompson (Chris Zylka), very believable.

          It’s nice to see a fresh take on certain aspects of the Spider-Man character, like Sally Field portrayal of  a younger Aunt May but with others it feels quiet distracting and you’d rather they got it over with like Uncle Ben’s (Martin Sheen) infamous “With great power, comes great responsibility” spiel and eventual death. However for the most part I liked the retelling the one main issue I had though was having Dr. Curt Connors/Lizard (Rhys Ifans) as the baddie in this film I feel Rhys Ifans did a great job with the role and was very enjoyable, the only problem was in the previous films we got to know Dr. Connors for two films as a minor background character and got attached to him so if Spider-Man 4 had of been made we would have been more attached to the Lizard and felt some of Peter’s resentment and hurt at having to attack and potentially kill him again I like what they did with the character but would of preferred if they had merely teased at it this film and have him as the baddie in the sequel but that’s personal opinion. And seems as though I’ve mentioned the rest of the main characters how could I leave out Captain George Stacey played brilliantly by Dennis Leary, I felt in many ways the film sets him up as the Commissioner Gordon, to Spider-Man’s Batman, but leaving that aside I feel the character is brilliantly developed as not only a police captain but also as a father, my main problem with him though is the promise he makes Peter take to stay away from Gwen when he’s dying and the fact that Peter does so immediately going so far as to not even attend the funeral of his then girlfriends father (this it the above mentioned character development gone amiss moment as no matter what he should have been there for her in my opinion).

          Ok final thoughts time, would I recommend this film? Yes I would highly. While I might not agree with the decisions behind its development I love the outcome and will defiantly be going to see the sequel when it comes out.

Review: The Birds (1963) – Alfred Hitchcock

The Birds

          I remember seeing this film when I was about 7 or 8 with my Gran and being terrified of Birds for the next few months.  I used to love when she came to babysit myself and my brother as we used to always end up watching Classic films; in fact I remember seeing this film in Black and White, which in my opinion makes it scarier.
I put this film on the other night for Halloween and it was my first time seeing it since then, at least 12 years since the 1^st time and it was my first time seeing the colour version and being honest the horror elements didn’t stand up and the special effects really let it down (at least in my opinion). Having said that though I still immensely enjoyed the film and in my opinion it is still a classic and one of my favourite Hitchcock films.

           Ok to get started with the review proper, the story starts off with our two leads Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) and Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) meeting in a bird shop and the Mitch plays a trick on Melanie, treating her like a sales assistant which she plays along with, he asks her for some Love birds for his sister, as well as flirting with one another and setting up the romantic element of the film.  To shorten the plot Melanie buys a pair of Love birds and plans to delivery’s them anonymously to Mitch’s house via boat for his sister Cathy (Veronica Cartwright) and intends to leave Mitch a nasty letter but thinks better of it and instead leaves a note for Cathy, on her way back across the lake she is attacked by a seagull. Mitch then tends to Melanie and convinces her to stay for dinner and she agrees and it’s here we meet Cathy and Mitch’s over possessive mother Lydia (Jessica Tandy). Melanie stays the night in Annie Hayworth’s (Suzanne Pleshette) house, who also happens to be Mitch’s ex-fiancé, she warns Melanie about Mitch’s overprotective mother and how she ultimately broke the two of them up, that evening a sea gull kills itself by flying into the house door.

           The next day at Cathy’s birthday party the children are attacked by Seagulls which Melanie, Mitch and Annie ward off, later that evening sparrows invade the home and a neighbour is killed by the bird in his home, who is found by Lydia whom freaks out. Melanie then comforts Lydia who wants her to go to the school to get Cathy and bring her home, while outside she notices a large group of crows gathered on the play ground (this scene still terrifies me). Melanie and Annie (the school teacher) make a plan to evacuate the school in a mock fire drill, while outside several of the children are attacked by the crows. By this stage the police are now involved and are reluctant to draw a link between the attacks and play down the birds involvement in the neighbours attack instead putting it down to a failed burglary attempt and putting the other attacks down as random unrelated incidents.

The scene that still terrifies me to this day

           At a dinner Melanie is on the phone to her father telling him the story so far and in interrupted by local citizens who don’t believe her until another bird attack begins and basically destroy the town. Melanie, Mitch, Cathy and Lydia then board up the house and wait until daybreak to make a run to the city, they are attacked during the night by a large group of birds who nearly break in through the sealed doors and windows but ease their attacks. During the night Melanie hears a noise upstairs and investigates and is attacked by a group of birds that have broken into one of the upstairs rooms, injuring her badly. Mitch rescues her and start the car for their escape and its heard on the radio that the attacks have spread and that the national guard may be called in to help with the unexplained attacks, the film ends with the car driving into the distance with thousands of birds of different species watching them.

           As a result of this film to this day I’ll look twice when I see a large flock of birds, but like I mentioned the special effects are dated. I love how this film never explains why the birds are attacking and it doesn’t show us winning over nature and shows us how vulnerable we really are against the might of nature.

Opinions: The Avengers: Avenging Phil

His Name is Agent

          Ok I want to talk about the The Avengers, (I refuse to call it Avengers Assemble (Take that poorly produced 90's film based on a sucessful 60's British tv show)) a bit late I know but anyway.

          Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) didn't die in the movie, in my opinion he lived. So it doesnt suprise me in the slightest that Marvel announced him for the cast of the S.H.I.E.L.D. live action tv show their producing.

          Here's my hypothesis to back up my argument: Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) realized that the cards  Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) pulled out in the speech/debrief after Loki (Tom Hiddleston) was rescued/freed by his minions weren't in  Agent Coulsons pocket at the time when he was attacked (they had been in his locker), to which Nick Fury says "They needed the push".
So in my opinion what happened was Loki's spear missed Agent Coulson's important organs, he was still injured and probably thought he was going to die so due to this and his bloodloss he passed out (or fainted which is common in people who have serious injurys, especially once the adrenaline is gone), and then Nick Fury made up this story as an oppurtunity to unite the team, going so far as to retrieve the cards from Agent Coulson's locker and smear them with blood (pretty manipulative eh?).

         My next point is the golden rule in action films and horror films for that matter, if you dont see the body they aren't dead. Now I know Joss Whedon has a habit of killing characters to create tension (I mean look at Buffy by my count she's died and been raised/reborn at least 3 times (which isn't alot compared to Sam & Dean in Supernatural but i digress)), however I doubt Marvel would allow their most popular and competely orginal character to be killed off. But that's just my opinion.

          And incase you cant tell I love what Marvel have done in creating their own Marvel Cinematic Universe, it was a big risk and I honestly thought it couldn't be done, but it has been done and it's exceeded my wildest expectations.

Opinions: Star Wars VII and beyond

          When I first heard the news that Disney had bought Lucasfilm (and associated properties and films) and planned on releasing a 7^th Star Wars film by 2015, I was shocked and to be honest angry. As a fan of the original trilogy I thought back to the dark days of the prequel trilogy and the nasty after taste it left on my favourite film franchise. But the more I read about it and then digested the information my opinion has changed to a shyly optimistic one. The main problem with the prequel trilogy (in my opinion) was George Lucas had complete control and no one challenged him, which can work wonderfully with certain projects but didn’t in this case. I will admit though that Episode III (Revenge of the Sith) is my favourite of the prequels and my 3^rd favourite over all behind, Episode IV (A New Hope) my No. 2, Episode V (The Empire Strikes Back), my No 1. And in case you’re wondering Episode VI (Return of the Jedi) is my No. 4, Episode II (Attack of the Clones) is my No. 5 and you guessed it Episode 1 (The Phantom Menace).

Lil Orphan Annie

          Now you might see that I wasn’t a huge fan of the newer Star Wars films and while that’s true to a degree its not the whole truth. As a fan I was unbelievably excited when I heard of the Prequel trilogy and as most fans did it gave us hope that we would get to see more of the franchise we loved, what we got in The Phantom Menace though was a film we had to force ourselves to love, kind of like when you open a present you don’t really want but have to be nice and appreciate it as say thank you (admit it we all do it), its only now when we reflect on it we can admit its faults and downfalls. But we had two more films shot in the same manner and written in the same vein as the first to come so we had to love it, but luckily not all fans accepted the film just because it was a new Star Wars film and took to the internet (yes it existed back in 1999) to express their dissatisfaction with what they saw namely certain characters (Jar Jar), lack of character development (Qui Gon Jinn and Darth Maul), wooden dialogue (everyone’s guilty of this), convoluted over indulgent plot and Annie (ooh Jake Llyod you were better than this). And for the most part these issues were ignored (well except Jar Jar he was cut quicker than the 1^st blonde chick in a slasher film), but they were improved, the producers challenged George more on the 2^nd and 3^rd films after giving him free reign on the 1^st prequel and the result is they are much better films.

          Ok I could go on about the past but now to look to the future, or why I think Episode VII will be good. The 1^st reason is it’ll have a new director, one that isn’t George Lucas and when this happened before it resulted in the best Star Wars film The Empire Strikes Back which is also widely regarded as one of, if not the best sequels ever. So that’s a plus.

Secondly George Lucas won’t have complete control over it as we saw when he is in charge on his own the ship veers towards the rocks (Episode I and II) but when he is challenged and put under pressure he does an amazing job (Episodes III to VI), so him suggesting certain plot points and picking certain creatures will ensure the newest film will match the tone and feel of the ones that have gone before.
And lastly why I think this will be good in general it opens up the franchise to more people and opens the opportunities’ to future Star Wars films set in the expanded universe to be made or completely new original ones that we could never imagine or get with George Lucas at the helm.

          Anyway that’s my two cents on the matter I hope you can see how passionate I am on the matter and try and see things from my point of view and please feel free to disagree with me if you want.

Review: Footloose (2011) - Craig Brewer

Now I gotta cut loose. Footloose

            To be honest I never had any intention of ever seeing this film, it didn’t ever appeal to me nor did it have the glow of nostalgia (for me). But this morning as I do every Friday morning I was watching the Schmoes Know (http://www.twitter.com/SchmoesKnow and http://www.youtube.com/schmoesknow ) podcast ( I love it, but now it’s on at 4am Irish time I can’t watch it live), anyway their guest was Craig Brewer (http://www.twitter.com/mybrewtube  ) director of the 2011 remake of Footloose (As well as “Black Snake Moan” and  “Hustle & Flow”). It was his passion and love of the original film and what the film meant to him that made me decide to check it out. I should also mention that I have never seen the original Footloose in whole, I’ve seen bits and pieces and know the general gist but not enough to do a comparison, maybe someday I’ll add a comparison, anyway without further ado here’s my review.
 
            After the first couple of minutes of watching this film, I knew I was in for a good time, the subtle way Footloose (the song) is played over the studio plaques and then louder as part of intro scene is beautiful and sets the mood perfectly for the rest of the film. But then it changes mood drastically as on the way home from the party the group we’ve been focused on is killed in a car crash, leading to the decision to ban dancing (well unsupervised dancing anyway)as well as introduce a curfew (for teens) in the town in the wake of this tragedy as lead by the parent of one of the deceased teens Reverend Shaw Moore (Dennis Quaid). This was a very good introduction to me as it lays most of the opposition out in the open for the audience to see and digest, but very different to the original where this was only talked about, I’ve always been of the opinion that with film its always better to show it than say it.
             The film then flashes forward three years where we meet our antagonist Ren McCormack (Kenny Wormald), who had to move in with his uncle after his mother died of cancer. His Uncle gives Ren a car to fix up which he does haphazardly (an over head rope for the accelerator and a bullhorn speaker hooked up to an iPod as the radio) and drives into town with the radio blaring and gets pulled over by the police and gets ticketed for disturbing the peace. The next day Ren goes to church and here we again meet Reverend Shaw and his beautiful (butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth) daughter Ariel (Julianne Hough). At school Ren befriends Willard Hewitt (Miles Teller) who is my favourite character, and who also tells him about the dancing ban, the two also have a very witty exchange where the big town Ren schools the small town Willard but it’s all for fun.
            God I’d better start moving this along that’s only the first 15 minutes. So Ariel has a boyfriend (the much older) Chuck Cranston (Patrick Flueger), who’s a dirt track racer, I’d describe him as the jealous dirt bag type. Anyway to cut a long story short Ariel is very flirty and flirts with Ren (she’s willing to do more than flirt with him but that comes a bit later), Ren really falls for Ariel and wont just hook up with her for the sake of it (bless his cotton socks he wants a relationship with her) and as always Chuck is jealous and cocky but he’s sure Ariel won’t leave him. Chuck challenges Ren to a destruction derby style bus race around the dirt track, which Ren wins by crashing into Chuck’s bus. This moves the mostly friendly rivalry between the two into a hatred, and also makes Ariel willing to cheat on Chuck, but Ren calls her on it basically calling her a slut, but he saves her life so it fine.
             After this Ariel and Ren grow closer as friends and we get to see them go out of town to go dancing and drinking and generally been teenagers, on the way home they cross the bridge where the faithful accident took place and Ariel tells him that one of the kids who died in the opening was her brother who she looked up to. Ariel then tells Chuck that she’s sick of how he treats her and breaks up with him, then he beats her up and when she goes home gets in an argument with her father who blames Ren as in his eyes her behaviours gotten worse since he arrived, she says he didn’t beat her and he’s not the reason for her behaviour, then her dad hits her and she storms off (this girl is not having a good night). A few days after this we see Ren and Ariel talking (and possibly dating), Ren has a plan to throw a prom, he gets help from Ariel who lends him her bible marked with a few passages to sway the decision of the town council but is unsuccessful in his petition that the town council revoke the laws they implemented after the crash. Ren’s boss offers the use of his mill for the Prom and as it technically falls outside the towns reach its laws don’t apply, Ren approached Reverend Moore with this information and tells the Reverend his plan which the Reverend accepts he then asks if he can take Ariel to the dance.
Then at the barn Chuck and his gang show up and start a fight with Ren and his friend which they win and dance the night away.
 
             So in summary what did I think of this film I loved it, the music used was brilliant in my opinion it was a great mix of eighties songs and some modern ones, I understand a lot of the eighties songs were ones from the original movie, but they were either cover versions by modern artists or updated remixes of the originals. The film also had an indie vibe off it due to how some of the shots were framed and edited which I loved. I think everyone should check out this film its very entertaining and would make a great date movie.
I’d give it a B^-.

Review: The Avengers (2012) - Joss Whedon

          I wrote this review the 1st of May for a page on Facebook hence the lack of relevance ha, I kept the review spoiler free, let me know what you think.

          Ok I went to see The Avengers last Thursday the 26th of April with my housemate and two guy from work. And it was amazing; if you know me you’ll know I said that words failed me when I tried to describe this film. Well know that I’ve had time to let it all sink in I feel I can more fully explain how mind-blowing the film was. Firstly I will not include spoilers in this review, and I would like to stress that you do not need to have seen all the Marvel films leading up to this movie or be a massive Marvel fan as the story is self contained and everything is explained with in the movie.Ok on to the meat and bones: This movie is great I saw it in 3D and while it was good I didn’t feel it was like Avatar when seeing it in 3D was essential, sure it adds to it but I don’t think id of missed it. The movie starts off with a big action scene and then unfolds the story afterwards (knowing the other films helps but its explained afterwards), the main plot point for the 1st half of the movie is recruiting all the super heroes and showing what they’ve been up to since their respective franchises and this helps add depth and character development and introduce 1st timers to the world and heroes. My favourite thing about this movie is that you can tell Joss Whedon was involved in the story and script as well as directing this beast of a movie, and as a fan of the man I just loved the dialogue (The man is a genius with dialogue he advances the plot at the rate it needs too and still makes the characters feel believable and fitting it in with the respective characters, enough gushing though back to the review). This was also one of the funniest movies I’ve been to in awhile there were a lot of genuine laugh out loud moments and in my opinion the Hulk steals the show, Dr. Banner is very relatable and the Hulk is the character you’re cheering on the most.This then brings me on to the second part of the film, and with most of the story out of the way the onslaught of fighting and special effects can begin and boy does it deliver on this front, it doesn’t feel like the next solo Avengers films budget has been used here it’s more like they added up the previous films budgets and doubled it the effects are jaw droppingly good. Just because you know a scene or character is CGI doesn’t mean you can tell that it is.In conclusion The Avengers (I refuse to call it Avengers Assemble) is an easy 10/10 for me and while I’ll admit I am slightly biased in this review, I still think non-fans will love this film equally, so go check it out while you can and see if you agree with me. This is my opinion please feel free to agree/disagree with me in the comments below and make sure to like this post and subscribe to our page for more film reviews and news as well as all your PS3 reviews and news. – Davey’s Reviews :)