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RISE OF THE GUARDIANS - REVIEW

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It's so hard to find good Christmas movies these days, let alone animated ones. Could it be that The Nightmare Before Christmas was the last word on that? Well, from the looks of this latest Dreamworks outing, it seems that there's still hope for holiday movies yet! Rise Of The Guardians , while far from perfect (I'll get to that), still boasts enough creativity and popcorn entertainment to make it a fair attempt at something good and festive. The plot sees Jack Frost (Chris Pine) being taken in by the likes of Santa (an unrecognisable Alec Baldwin), The Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman), The Sandman and The Tooth Fairy (Isla Fisher) to join them as a "Guardian" (basically a Moon-appointed superhero of sorts). Their goal usually being to keep kids safe and their imaginations intact, this time they're having to face off against Pitch Black (a fun Jude Law and a damn good sci-fi B movie) whose plan it is to fill everyone's heads with nightmares and make fear

PARANORMAN - REVIEW

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With Aardman, Henry Selick and Tim Burton currently the main guys still pushing stop-motion animation forward in a big way, I was surprised to learn that ParaNorman is not actually by any of them. From Sam Fell, who brought you The Tale Of Despereaux and Flushed Away (both of which I personally wasn't too keen on) ,  with co-director/writer Chris Butler being one of Coraline 's main art peeps, it looks like the stop-motion masters finally have some new competition in town. ParaNorman is a supernatural horror/comedy which takes the familiar "I see dead people" scenario and gives it a fresh, yet very much retro, makeover. As a matter of fact, the film kicks off with a Grindhouse-style fake horror B movie trailer which sets the tone beautifully. It's a shame the film softens a bit when it actually gets going but that's not to say that it forgets its dark and twisted roots. Far from it. Check out that scene where Norman is trying to take some book which his

THE THREE MUSKETEERS (1993) - REVIEW

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Talk about a 90's cast... Yes Kiefer Sutherland, Charlie Sheen, Chris O'Donnell and Oliver Platt face-off against Tim Curry's villainous Cardinal Richelieu in this Disney-produced Hollywood adaptation of the classic Alexandre Dumas tale. No, I never pictured Jack Bauer as a musketeer either but hey, he makes a good Athos. Actually, the three musketeers work pretty well despite not matching the characters from the book to the letter. Charlie Sheen's Aramis is far too 'winningly' jokey and Oliver Platt's Porthos has one one-liner too many I think but on the whole you buy that these guys could be a team, and that's the main thing. The plot takes key elements from Dumas' novel but reduces the plot to a more simplistic good people vs bad people kind of thing which is a bit of a shame but considering they're telling this whole story in under 2 hours, that's fair enough. The film starts off surprisingly well actually. Chris O'Donnell, o

SNOW WHITE & THE HUNTSMAN - REVIEW

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After Tarsem Singh's "attempt" at a Snow White movie, the odious-looking Mirror Mirror , this instalment looked amazing. The trailers promised a stylish, exciting, dark, moody epic sort of like Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland but grittier and actually probably better. For the most part, Snow White & The Huntsman delivers. I was afraid the film would go down the Alice In Wonderland route and trick its audience into thinking they were about to watch the classic Snow White story when in fact giving them some weird, stand-out sequel but this one does stay surprisingly close to what you'd expect from a Snow White movie. You get the evil queen, the creepy brother, the mirror, the dwarves, gloomy forests... it's pretty much all there. It's almost like the film tries to hide its Snow White-ness wanting to be something altogether darker and more twisted but restraining itself for the sake of the fairy-tale. The cast is hit-and-miss with Charlize Theron&

THE CABIN IN THE WOODS - REVIEW

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For a film that's sat on the shelves for so long, The Cabin In The Woods has done rather well for itself. It's been called a "game-changer" within the horror genre and it's been compared to Scream for its self-awareness and satiric take on a familiar horror template. The result? One hell of a fun movie! And pretty darn clever. ... and spoilers so if you haven't seen it: beware. As the trailers spoilered (new word), The Cabin In The Woods mixes sci-fi with Evil Dead -style slasher conventions to create something resembling a cross between Cabin Fever and The Truman Show but altogether infinitely better than the former, don't worry. Actually, the sci-fi twist isn't much of a "twist" at all: the film begins with both genres firmly meshed together. You've got the ever reliable Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford casually chatting in a futuristic Bond villain-style lab setting before the title bangs on the screen loudly in bloo

THOR - REVIEW

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The trailer for Thor promised epic camp the likes of which hasn't been seen since Flash Gordon  and a lot of it looked like they probably would not work for a second. Frost giants? Yeah that won't be silly at all... And yet there I was, witnessing Norse Gods in shiny gold armour riding horses along a glass rainbow bridge, taking it all in and not even batting an eye. The entertainment value of the whole thing was such that I could easily go "nothing wrong here" and suspend my disbelief like I've never done before to accommodate this ridiculous, yet somewhat irresistible mythological superhero epic. For one thing, Asgard looks amazing: this is Marvel on a grand scale and, upon its release, it was probably the most ambitious superhero film ever made. Yes, when you take a step back it's like: "what is all this?" but if you allow yourself to go with it, you'll just love this visual feast. It's almost a shame Thor has to go to Earth, esp

CAPTAIN AMERICA - REVIEW

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You'd think that 20 years after the godawful Captain America TV movies we'd get something half-decent...not so. Made in 1990, this Captain America suffers such bland cinematography it feels like a 70's film. 90% of the film is spent with Captain America not in costume going to boring places and talking. The rest of the time Steve Rogers is wearing his silly plastic costume and being as bland as a cool character like Captain America could possibly get (very very bland as it turns out). As for the Red Skull, he's at the rendez-vous for about 5 minutes and the rest of the time he's also out of costume so in essence we get about 3 minutes of watchable Captain America vs Red Skull action: yay. In the hope that the new Chris Evans film will at the very least be entertaining, lets try and forget about this dull and lazy attempt. It's not as bad as 1994's Fantastic Four but pretty lame nonetheless.

SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD - REVIEW

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Life post Superbad hasn't been easy for Michael Cera. His various attempts at adapting his nerdy, awkward persona to other ventures felt somewhat hit and miss ( Nick and Norah , Youth in Revolt ) even if Cera himself was always spot on. Finally, with Scott Pilgrim, we not only get his most enjoyable (and different) performance but also his best film to date and one of the best teen movies of the Noughties. Based on the quirky Manga-style comic books, Scott Pilgrim vs The World is really an ode to 80s-90s video games, kung fu films and anime so if all this geekiness isn't your cup of tea it's very likely that Edgar Wright's latest will fly right over your head like its P-bar's up to its full potential. And if you don't know what a "P-bar" is then, well, good luck with that. There's loads to enjoy regardless, though. I mean you've got Chris Evans as a skateboard-riding douche with a funny beard, Brandon Routh as a super-powerful vegan, a