“Is there a word for total screaming genius that sounds modest and a tiny bit sexy?”

Hello Everyone :-)

It’s that time of year again…. the new series of ‘Doctor Who’ has started!

As always I will be sharing my humble opinions in the coming weeks. I’m going to try my best to be spoiler free but if the occasion calls for it I’ll flag it up by giving a “SPOILERS AHOY” notice at the start of each post.

Episode 1 of series 7 aired on Saturday 1^st September at 20 past 7 and is called ‘Asylum of the Daleks’.

We re-join our favourite Timelord as he is lured into a trap on Skaro and beamed to the Parliament of the Daleks. There he is joined by the similarly captured and newly divorced Amy and Rory. It transpires that our beloved trio have been enlisted by the Daleks to help obliterate a planet facility called ‘The Asylum’ to which the Daleks banish those who go insane. The Dalek Prime Minister (who knew the Daleks had such an organised Governmental structure?!?!) explains that a ship has crashed into the Asylum and broken the force-field surrounding the planet. The Daleks wish to destroy the planet to stop any of the unhinged residents escaping but are too afraid of the of the aforementioned inhabitants to go down to the planet and turn off the force-field in order to do so. The Doctor and his companions have to travel to the Asylum in order to shut down the force-field.

I cannot begin to tell you how happy it makes me that ‘Asylum of the Daleks’ is awesome :-)

I loved last season’s, second half opener ‘Let’s Kill Hitler’ but there was a lot of exposition in that episode due to the massive amount of loose threads that the series had yet to tie up. This series, however, is a fresh start and as such is unburdened by unanswered questions. What ‘Asylum of the Daleks’ does is set up what I think is going to be a bit of a puzzle that will keep Whovians guessing till Christmas.

I said no spoilers and I stand by that so all I’m going to sat is there is a surprise performance in this episode. It’s really good; in fact it’s heart-breakingly wonderful and has made me super excited about the rest of the series. I shall say no more on the subject :-)

You may remember my none too favourable look at ‘Closing Time’ from last series and my criticism of their use of the Cybermen, you’ll be pleased to know I have no such baddie qualms here. The Daleks have been used so much in the past that last series Steven Moffat made the conscious decision to “rest” them. That decision has paid off dividends. There is a nice twist at the end that means that they can go wherever they like with the Doctor’s greatest nemesis which I loved.

Arthur Darvill… GORGEOUS in this episode. Seriously, even my Mum said “when did he get so handsome”! He’s come a long way since he was Rory the Nurse… Incidentally there’s a sequence when he’s in a room with some seemingly dormant Daleks that is genuinely ‘hide behind a cushion’ scary. I held my breath for the whole scene.

The only place this episode falls down is the emotional aside of Amy and Rory’s marriage break-down. I won’t give away the reasons behind it but to me it doesn’t make any sense. I think they would have survived the issue that caused the break-up so the motives don’t really ring true. That said the scenes between those characters are sweet and I enjoyed them.

‘Asylum of the Daleks’ is a wonderful example of Doctor Who at its heart-string tugging best. One minor quibble aside I think it was a fantastic opening to the new series :-)

Now let’s seen if we can’t find some…

Reasons to be cheerful :-)
1. Catching Fire has started filming! There’s been lots of additions to the cast, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jeffrey Wright, Sam Clafin and Jena Malone are all new. I’m looking forward to it, it is my favourite of the books and with a cast like that it’s sure to be good :-)

2. New ‘Wreck it Ralph’ Trailer! I can’t wait, this looks like it’s going to be really special :-) One to look out for in 2013!

3. New pictures from 'Thor:The Dark World' (aka Thor 2)! Thor and the Lady Sif kick ass! I'm excited :-)

That’s all from me for today.

Goodbye till next time :-)
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“A day where anything can happen. A day where I can change my fate”

Hello Everyone :-)

Oh Pixar. Dear, lovely Pixar. Thought by many to be incapable of making a bad film, in 2011 the released ‘Cars 2’. Garnering mainly negative reviews it’s seen by many to be the company’s first toyetic release which was disappointing from a company that seemed to have the ethos ‘only tell stories worth telling’.

But now they’re back with their first fantasy, fairy-tale adventure and I’ve been to see it.

‘Brave’ centres on Merida (Kelly Macdonald), a Scottish Princess from Clan Dunbroch. Merida is a free-spirited teenager who loves riding her horse, rock climbing and archery but this all comes to a halt when she is told by her Mother Elinor (Emma Thompson) that she is to be betrothed to one of the Princes of the other Clans. Merida is none too pleased about this and sets about finding a way to change her fate.

This is just lovely :-)

First and foremost, this is aimed at an older audience. Obviously it’s still a children’s film but probably more the older end of the scale rather than the under 7’s at which ‘Cars’ and ‘Cars 2’ was obviously aimed. As a result the film has a darker edge to it. ‘Brave’ seems to have been made in the same mold as the original Brother’s Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen tales, all of which have sinister undertones. It is, by all accounts, Pixar’s first fantasy film.

The standard of animation and voice work is as high as always (say what you will about the muddled plot of ‘Cars 2’, at least it still looked nice).

The filmmakers have done a wonderful job of capturing the breathtaking vistas north of the border (unsurprisingly the Scottish tourist board have jumped on this and are using it in their current promotional ads). It not only looks beautiful but they weave Scotland into the tapestry of the story so ultimately it isn’t just an incidental gorgeous setting, it makes it seem like this story couldn’t take place anywhere other than the highlands.

The cast is excellent. Billy Connolly as Fergus is such a big, warm, bear of a voice it’s easy to see why Merida is a Daddy’s girl and Emma Thompson does very well as the prim and proper Queen Elinor. Originally Reese Witherspoon was down to play Merida which sounds too horrible for words (that’s not a slight on Reese Witherspoon, I love Reese Witherspoon, I just wouldn’t have been able to cope with a Scottish Princess with an American twang…). Thankfully the always wonderful Kelly Macdonald is on hand to lend her native Gaelic brogue to proceedings.

I’m always astounded by how much chemistry Pixar seem to get from their characters. Considering the act of voice recording is usually a solo endeavor, Macdonald and Thompson bounce off each other, as if they recorded their dialogue together and really convince as a Mother/Daughter duo.

It’s not as continually funny as Pixar’s films aimed at a younger audience, but there are some choice scenes that I liked, most of which come from the conflict between Clans and choice lines from the incomprehensible Young MacGuffin. King Fergus is great and the triplets Hamish, Hubert and Harris are adorable.

Like almost all of the Pixar films that have gone before it, ‘Brave’ is a story about parent-child relationships. More obvious in that respect than the ‘Toy Story’ trilogy; the central pairing in ‘Brave’ is Merida and her Mother, Queen Elinor. I’m not sure whether it was the way the story was told or the simple fact that it was a Mother and Daughter pairing but it tugged at my heartstrings and my friends and I were in tears before the end (any of you that follow me on Twitter will know that me in tears is a common occurrence but I assure you, my friends are made of sterner stuff).

As someone that went through a (albeit brief) rebellious period, when I came out of the screening of ‘Brave’ I just wanted to ring my Mum and apologise for all the times I’ve ever been a pain in the arse.

It’s not as instantly iconic as ‘Toy Story’ and it’s not as bright and colourful as ‘Finding Nemo’ but ‘Brave has a charm, wit and beauty all of its own. Whilst I’m sure it can be enjoyed by both genders ‘Brave’ might be particularly effective on a female audience, it’s likely that you’ve either been or know an unruly teenager or a pushy Mother. Back on form, Pixar have given us a gem.

Now, let’s a have a look at some…

Reasons to be Cheerful :-)

1. ‘The Avengers/Assemble’ has made $1.5 billion worldwide. That makes me so happy! It’s great to see a fun, well written film do so well. I also love the little note at the end of that article. “Nolan's box office figures have been achieved without the financial fillip of 3D cinema screenings, which incur a higher ticket price.” Hahaha!!! In your FACE 3D!

2. ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ looks set to be Marvel’s big 2014 release. It’ll be released in May 2014, the same year as ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’.

3. We have a Finnick Odair! His name is Sam Clafin. I’m not familiar with his work but he’s a bit cute :-) This could work!

That’s all for today!

Goodbye till next time :-)

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“Track ‘em, Find ‘em, Kill ‘em”

Hello Everyone :-)

I love my family dearly. I am unbelievably lucky to have been born into a fun, caring home that loves me in spite of my many bizarre foibles. Sometimes though, they let me down.
One such example was a couple of weeks ago when I suggested we go to the pictures as a family to see the new Pixar film ‘Brave’. The response I got was, “Can we go and see Expendables 2 instead?” It’s that old thing; I wasn’t ‘angry, just disappointed’ in them.

In the Expendables 2 we re-join Barney ‘The Boss’ Ross (Sylvester Stallone) with his team of misfits; Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Yin Yang (Jet Li), Gunner Jensen (Dolph Lundgren), Hale Caesar (Terry Crews), Toll Road (Randy Couture) and new recruit Billy the Kid (Liam Hemsworth) as they are hired to do daring overseas missions. After rescuing a Chinese Businessman and Trench (Arnold Schwarzenegger) from a gang in Nepal, Ross is given an assignment from Church (Bruce Willis) to retrieve something from an airplane that has crashed in Albania. Church insists that the group take Maggie (Yu Nan) a Chinese computer genius when they go and make sure whatever is on the plane doesn’t fall into the hands of Jean Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme).

What can you say about ‘Expendables 2’? Seriously… what can you say?! The thing is totally review-proof.

One reason it’s hard to say anything about ‘Expendables 2’ is because it clearly doesn’t give a flying fuck. It KNOWS that the plot is irrelevant, it KNOWS that the characters have got the most ridiculous names ever (Jean Vilian… he’s the bad guy and his surname is VILIAN FFS!) and it KNOWS it’s as shallow as a puddle. It knows all this, yet carries on regardless and I’m not sure that there isn’t some kind of demented genius in that.

One serious bad point: distinct lack of Jet Li. This makes me sad because I love Jet Li and his bizarre double act with Dolph Lundgren amused me greatly in the first film.
The movie knows its ace cards though and plays them very well indeed. Despite his Chinese comedy partner going AWOL Lundgren is great. His shambling, alcohol abused Gunner is brilliant and probably my favourite thing in the whole film.
Jason Statham irrefutably gets the best fight scenes, all of which he carries out so well it’s practically balletic (albeit ballet with automatic weapons). One downside of all the big shooting, fast stabbing action however, is some appalling CGI blood splatter. It’s so bad it’s shameful.

It’s a marked improvement on the uninspiring bad guy of the first film. Insane moniker aside, Van Damme does ‘bat-shit crazy, knife wielding villain’ quite well. It’s also nice to see someone that matches our ragtag band of heroes from a ‘legend status’ point of view. I don’t know about you but I don’t think Eric Roberts cut it in the first film. The final showdown between Vilain and Ross also serves as a reminder that, at one point, they were two of the biggest action stars around. Van Damme is a welcome addition.

I really don’t know what to say about the jokes. The comedy seems to fall into two brackets; cringe-worthy puns and references to films in which the biggest three actors have previously appeared. I didn’t laugh at the cheesy lines or any of the references (on the contrary, some of them actually made me wince) what I did laugh at was the madness of it all. Prime example being the fact that, despite being referred to as ‘the Lone Ranger’, the theme tune to ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’ plays every time Chuck Norris is on screen. Also, as I’m sure you’ve all heard by now, there is a reference to the now infamous ‘Chuck Norris Facts’. It’s bizarre, hysterical and I’m pretty sure I heard the distant sound of the internet imploding as I sat watching it.

Part knowing parody, part unintentional hilarity and 100% excessive madness, I really don’t know what anyone can say about ‘Expendables 2’. It wears its two-dimensional storyline like a badge of honour and for that I kind of want to commend it. I laughed, I groaned, I cringed but at least it got a response out of me unlike so many other action films of recent years that have bored me to tears. It has no delusions of grandeur and for an hour and 45 minutes I was entertained, although maybe not entirely in the way the film makers intended.

Now let’s have some…

Reasons to be Cheerful :-)
1. Billy Crystal has been talking about ‘Monster’s University’! I’m so excited! I went to see ‘Brave’ the other day and it made me fall in love with Pixar all over again.

2. Steven Moffat has released the keywords for series three of Sherlock! Last year we had ‘Woman, Hound and Fall’, this year’s words are ‘Bow, Wedding and Rat’. Harder to decipher than last time but that’s not going to stop me trying! The game is afoot!

That’s all for today!

Goodbye till next time :-)
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“You only adopted the dark, I was born there. The shadows betray you, because they belong to me.”

Hello Everyone :-)

No stupid pre-amble today. I love ‘Batman Begins’ and ‘The Dark Knight’ so let’s have a look at ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ (TDKR from not on).


This blog contains SPOILERS about ‘The Dark Knight’ so if you want to read it, watch that first and come back to me.


Eight years after Batman took the blame for Harvey Dent's insane killing spree and Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) facilitated the cover-up, Gotham City has become an all-round safer place due to the ‘Dent Act’ which helps incarcerate members of organised crime syndicates. During those eight years Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) retired the Dark Knight and has been living a life of isolation, mourning the loss of his childhood love Rachel Dawes. His world is upturned by the arrival of Bane (Tom Hardy), a terrorist of gargantuan proportions (literally and metaphorically) and cat burglar Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway), both of whom mean the Batman is forced back on to the streets of Gotham to save its people.

It’s hard to overestimate just how anticipated this film has been. I wouldn’t be able to choose between this and ‘The Avengers’ for the ‘most hyped film of the year’ award.

What strikes you, when you first think about TDKR, is how little Batman is actually in it. About three fight scenes and a chase round Gotham; that’s your lot from the Caped Crusader. The focus is unashamedly set on Brice Wayne and works well as a result. Wayne has to grapple with the his own physical inabilities of which there are many; having come into this actively avoiding any news or spoilers I was shocked by how infirm he is at the start of the film.
There’s also a desperately sad plot strand that hones in on, not just the physical sacrifices Wayne has had to make, but the personal ones as well. As always it’s Alfred that verbalises this perfectly when he says,
“I never wanted you to come back to Gotham. I always knew there was nothing here for you, except pain and tragedy. And I wanted something more for you than that. ”
It is utterly heartbreaking.

TDKR fits like a straight brick in the Tetris game of this Trilogy. It feels like a perfect fusion of ‘Batman Begins’ and ‘The Dark Knight’ but definitely has its own identity. Imbuing a film with those seemingly opposite ideas (being simultaneously new and familiar) and making it work is nothing short of extraordinary and when you consider that Nolan never intended for this to be a trilogy it makes it all the more remarkable. Nolan is a wonderful film-maker and if we get one of his intellectual, emotive, spectacle-toting films once every two or three years I’ll be a happy lady.  Christopher Nolan I doff my proverbial cap to you.

The cast are an embarrassment of riches. Each actor brings their ‘A’ game and genuinely, 100%, there is not a bad turn in the bunch. That is a rare and wonderful thing.
As I’ve mentioned, Alfred is the beating human heart of the film, nay, the entire trilogy. Michael Caine is wonderful; when he cries, you cry. Simple As.
Gary Oldman is superb as Commissioner Gordon. He really nails that inner turmoil, living with the guilt of the Harvey Dent cover up. I mean what more can I say? It’s Gary Oldman!
Joseph Gordon-Levitt is really shaping up to be something special isn’t he??? Who’d have thunk it all those years ago watching ‘3^rd Rock from the Sun’! In TDKR he plays John Blake, a selfless Policeman who empathises with Bruce Wayne and draws a parallel with his troubled beginnings. His plot strand takes as long to play out as Wayne’s and I found it really enjoyable.
Christian Bale has more emotional meat to chew as this film revolves around Bruce Wayne coming to terms with the life he has chosen. I really liked his performance but then I’ve really liked all his performances over the trilogy.

Catwoman has been done to death (the mortal blow was with Halle Berry’s shudder inducing ‘Catwoman’ spin off) but the always excellent Anne Hathaway breathes new life into her. Never actually referred to as ‘Catwoman’, Selina Kyle is a cat burglar with a moral compass that, more often than not, doesn’t point north. Hathaway looks incredible, to my mind she’s the physical female ideal which, as well as making her look like sex on legs, is key to the character. She’s lean, strong and curvy; whether jumping out of windows or seducing senators she uses it all to her advantage. Hathaway completely immerses herself in the role and impressed me greatly.

I did a little bit of research into the comic book sources of the various Bat-plots a few years ago and since then I have maintained that the interpretation of Bane in ‘Batman and Robin’ is one of the biggest disservices ever done to a character, ever. The character of Bane is fantastic and he would be the ultimate superhero if he didn’t have such sociopathic tendencies. Tom Hardy clearly ‘gets’ this. As we can all see he’s got the size down pat, what he also nails is the intellect of Bane. He is not only a physical but a psychological threat to our hero and for a large part of this film you genuinely think ‘Batman might not win this time’; having that level of jeopardy is a huge deal.

It’s a long film but it never feels like it. I mean it’s LONG, 15 minutes short of three hours. The action sequences have you on edge; the opening aeroplane scene gave me that feeling in my stomach when you go upside down on a rollercoaster and you briefly feel weightless before being jolted back to earth. The whole thing just feels so epic. I fail to see how anyone (provided they’ve seen the previous two films) couldn’t get swept up in the scope and scale of it all. I cheered, I cried, I gasped, I gripped the edge of my seat in fear… what more could you ask for???

Concept artist Tully Summers said of Nolan’s work “One of the things that makes his Batman movies so compelling is their tone of plausibility” and, for me, that is the key. There is the physical reality and practicality of the gadgets and gismos such as ‘The Bat’ (Nolan’s love of in camera effects is well documented), but there’s also the shades of moral grey-ness that exist in Gotham’s inhabitants and gives them such realism. None of the characters are wholly good or bad, they all have motivations and beliefs that make them seem so much more than words on a script. On paper the idea of a realistic Superhero film sounds rubbish but in practice it is that authentic gritty overtone and tangibility that make this series so amazing.

Honestly I could sit here all day and waffle about the merits of this film.
In a market that is full of never ending reboots and sequels it feels strange that something is actually ending but fuck me, if you’re going out, do it like this. There is the possibility we could return to some of these characters in the future but only a fool would try and step into Nolan’s gargantuan shoes.

I’m buying the inevitable Box set and making a space next to my Toy Story Trilogy (and everything that implies) because this is damn near as good as it gets.

TDKR made me the happiest girl in the world but if you need to turn that frown upside down here are some…

Reasons to be cheerful
1. This is just one of those stories where you say “aren’t humans bloody brilliant sometimes?!” Against the odds a one handed pianist has graduated from the Royal College of Music. Stuff like that just makes me smile :-)

2. Any of you that follow me on Twitter will have seen that over the past couple of weeks I’ve been borderline obsessed with the Olympics. I’m in the midst of writing a post-Olympics thingy (because I’m sure you haven’t read enough of those in the past fortnight) but for now here’s a video of some of Britain’s wonderful Olympians miming along to ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’. Just when I thought I couldn’t love Sir Chris any more…

3. The Paralympics starts on the 29^th August and the adverts for it are brilliant. Personally, I can’t wait to ‘Meet the Superhumans’ :-)

4. Finally… DOCTOR WHO PICTURES!!!! I can’t wait. I’ve been watching series 5 and 6 box sets on a loop just to get a Who fix… I’m like a Sci-Fi crackhead…

While you’re here, I’d just like to say… FUCK THE X FACTOR. I watched the first episode on Saturday and it made me hate the world. I don’t want to hate the world; I bloody love the world, so I’m not watching it any more. I’ve had enough. I shall not mention it on Twitter, I won’t write about it on here, none of my energy will be wasted on that circus that masquerades as ‘reality television’.

After that little outburst, that’s all I’ve got for today.

Goodbye till next time :-)
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"Thirty-eight of New York's finest, versus one guy in a unitard!"

Hello Everyone :-)

In the immortal words of ‘Cabaret’ “money makes the world go around” and it is the supposed‘root of all evil’ that is the main reason ‘The Amazing Spider-man’ exists.

You’re probably wondering ‘what's the point of rebooting a franchise whose first film came out only 10 short years ago?’. The answer boils down to money; not wanting to pay it out but also wanting to make lots of it.
Sony, who own the rights to Spider-man, want to make lots of money from new Spider-man films but they don’t want to pay Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire an increased amount for sequels to the original trilogy. They also don’t want to lose money by giving the character rights back to Marvel (which they'd be contractually forced to do if they didn't make enough Spider-Man movies over a certain time period) and so some executive types got together and decreed that a reboot was on the cards.
Let’s see how this finance driven venture translates to the silver screen.

‘The Amazing Spider-man’ is the story of Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) who lives with his Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) and Aunt May (Sally Field) after the death of his parents in a plane crash. Peter attends Midtown Science High School where he’s a quiet, photography loving, science Geek with a crush on the clever, beautiful Gwen Stacey (Emma Stone). After discovering that his Father had connections at Oscorp and desperate to find out more about his work, Peter sneaks into their headquarters and enters a lab where a "biocable" is being created from genetically modified spiders, one of which bites him giving him spider-like superpowers.

I can’t talk about this film without talking about ‘Spider-man’. I just can’t. 10 years is not enough time to forget that film and watch this one without drawing comparisons. That might seem unfair on ‘The Amazing Spider-man’ but actually, I think it compares quite favourably.

For starters I like how this film totally focuses on Peter Parker's High School life. It takes it’s time establishing the character and with the proposed trilogy of films it’ll be nice to watch Parker grow up across them. The film’s focus on Gwen and Peter’s High School romance plays to the Twilight teen-girl market but there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s an audience that has been abandoned by the mainstream save for silly films about sparkly Vampire boys so they deserve something new to watch.

Another thing this film has over its 2002 counterpart is the cast. The cast in ‘The Amazing Spider-man’ is far superior with one exception (which we’ll get to later).

I much prefer Sally Field as Aunt May, she still worries about Peter but there’s a lot more personality and humour to her character than we’ve seen previously. Martin Sheen is the ideal male relative; you want him as your Dad/Uncle/Grandad; after watching this I can’t imagine a better Uncle Ben. Together they portray a couple who live in blissful domesticity.

I adore Andrew Garfield and infinitely prefer him to Tobey Maguire in both the roles of Spider-man and Peter Parker. He’s playing much younger than he is and nails it with a healthy dose of teenage angst. For me Maguire’s performance in‘Spider-man’ is too earnest and he plays Peter Parker as too much of a goofy, goody two shoes. Garfieldplays Peter as an outsider and I prefer that approach. He’s still super clever and a bit of a geek (I squealed when I saw Peter Parker had the same Richard Feynman desktop background as me!) but there’s also isolation to him. Admittedly it was slightly over-egged but generally I liked the moodier angle on the character.
Garfield also differentiates between Spider-man and Peter Parker which Maguire never really did. He transforms when he puts on the red mask, from quiet and isolated to a wise-cracking, smart-aleck that annoys the hell out of his opponents. For me this was much truer to the original source material and put a lot more emphasis on the power of anonymity and how it helps Parker create his alter ego.

The best top-trump card ‘The Amazing Spider-man has is Emma Stone as Gwen Stacey. Her performance absolutely wipes the floor with Kirsten Dunst’s Mary-Jane Watson. She doesn’t get masses of screen time (a failing on the film’s part) but Gwen is clever, cute, fun, sexy, vulnerable and has a brilliant wit. Ryan Gosling said that Stone “is everything, all the time” and in this she really is. Be you man, woman, gay, straight or bi, if you see this, walk out and you’re not in love with her there is something wrong with you. Stone and Garfield (who are a real life couple) bounce off each other and their on-screen chemistry is a major factor in why I enjoyed this film as much as I did.

One cast member that made me cringe big-style was Rhys Ifans as Dr Curt Connors/The Lizard. It’s not his fault, Rhys Ifans does his best but the character isn’t fleshed out very well and his motivations fall apart when you question them even slightly. It’s such a disappointment because at the beginning you have sympathy with him but his decent into full on cackling baddie just doesn’t hold up; I don’t get the jump from wanting to re-grow your arm to wanting to destroy the world. And the CGI… Oh the CGI! It’s awful, I was sat there and I thought I could draw a better Lizard using Microsoft Paint... THAT SHOULDN’T HAPPEN IN A SUMMER BLOCKBUSTER MOVIE! I read a review that says “he looks like a Goomba from the Super Mario Brothers movie” and yes, that is exactly what he looks like.

However, the main problem with ‘The Amazing Spider-man’ isn’t really one of cast or bad CGI, its main problem is 2002’s ‘Spider-man’. The trouble is that whilst I prefer this version, ‘Spider-man’ did some good things that ‘The Amazing Spider-man’ hasn’t matched up to.

‘The Amazing Spider-man’ treads the same origin story and in places feels like it’s trying to be different for the sake of it. A perfect example is the immortal line from the 2002 film “with great power comes great responsibility”. It’s a great line. The version of that line in this film is “If you can do good things for other people, you have a moral responsibility to do it.” EURGH! WHAT?!?! It just sounds like the writers have said “We need someone thing to rival ‘with great power comes great responsibility’… I know! Let’s get out the Thesaurus and rehash that line without using any of the original words! Genius”. No. Not genius.

It’s hard not to sit there and think what might have been. I think if you got the two films to run at each other really fast and when they collided they merged together you’d have the perfect Spider-man film. Take the cast, characters, high school story line and a pinch of Peter’s moodiness from ‘The Amazing Spider-man and mix it with the fantastic baddies and colourful comic book aesthetic of the Raimi movies and you’d be onto a winner.

It's a good film, I really enjoyed it, it's just a shame that whilst we all dream of an imaginary, perfect Spider-man film we must accept the reality of two imperfect ones.

Finally, Marc Webb… the director of ‘The Amazing Spider-man’ has the surname WEBB… If you know of any other actors or directors with movie appropriate names leave them in the comments, they’ll amuse me no end!

So, after all that web-slinging action let’s have some…

Reason to be Cheerful :-)
1. Its ‘Doctor Who’’s 50th Anniversary next year and to celebrate all-round beacon of talent and loveliness Mark Gatiss (GATE and then HISS but without the H, say it with me… GATE-ISS) is writing a drama to look at how the show came to be. I imagine it’ll be along the same lines as the brilliant ‘Holy Flying Circus’, the Monty Python drama that aired on BBC4 but with Gatiss’s brilliant writing. I for one can’t wait to go on an ‘Adventure in Time and Space’ :-)

2. More ‘Who’ news! We’ve got a trailerfor the 7th series! It looks A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! DINOSAURS…ON A SPACESHIP!!!!!

3. The Great and Powerful Joss Whedon has been confirmed to direct Avengers 2! Everyone that loved ‘The Avengers/Avengers Assemble’ breathes a sigh of relief! I’m so happy about this I can’t begin to tell you. Judging by the new characters (cough…ROCKETRACCOON…cough) it’s going to be an interesting sell but for me Whedon is the man for the job :-)

There you go. Doctor Who and The Avengers. What more do you need to bring a smile to your face?!?!

Goodbye till next time :-)
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