Inspired by the best-selling video games series, Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time is a rollicking escapade which marries gorgeous Moroccan locations with state-of-the-art visual effects. The time-bending storyline of Mike Newell’s big budget adventure incorporates a romantic subplot, presumably to appeal to female audiences who might otherwise give this testosterone-heavy romp a wide berth.
As an exercise in controlled madness, Werner Herzog’s remake – or is it? – of Abel Ferrara’s celebrated 1992 film certainly has plenty of screws loose before the credits roll. The charismatic German director has often been drawn to eccentric loners in his documentaries and demented heroes in his works of fiction. His tempestuous working relationship with actor Klaus Kinski on Aguirre: Wrath Of God, Nosferatu and Fitzcarraldo is the stuff of Hollywood legend – the filmmaker famously threatened his leading man with a loaded gun to prevent him from walking off set.
T-Rex was right, the British love to boogie, and not just on a Saturday night. For the past two years, the winners of the top-rated ITV1 series Britain’s Got Talent have been dance acts George Sampson and Diversity respectively. BBC One and Sky1 have wooed viewers with rival shows So You Think You Can Dance and Just Dance in addition to old stalwart Strictly Come Dancing, and cinema audiences have got their groove on to Step Up, Stomp The Yard, Make It Happen and Fame. Directors Max Giwa and Dania Pasquini celebrate the inventiveness of UK street dance in the first live action feature film to be shot entirely in 3D outside of America.
Director Ridley Scott and leading man Russell Crowe reunite for a thunderous new chapter in the legend of everyone’s favourite 12th century pick-pocketer. Shot with Scott’s typical bombast, this Robin Hood juxtaposes spectacular battle scenes with romantic interludes, political intrigue and melancholic flashbacks, all set to Marc Treitenfeld’s rumbustious score. It’s unabashedly macho and predictable with an inevitable battle cry for Crowe to rally the troops into action: Gladiarcher, if you will. No green tights in sight this time around, but it’s still good fun all the same.
Miley Cyrus + the author of The Notebook and Dear John? A quirky but lovable character that finds herself in a heartwarming but ultimately doomed situation? Yep, you’re going to get exactly what you expect. The tweeny-pop sensation has essentially chosen the perfect vehicle in The Last Song for a transition from pop singer to… well… pop actress. But it is actually a film that will affect anyone other than her existing fan base? Probably not.
We love George Clooney. If there was ever a man who looks like he could build a log cabin using wood he chopped himself, mixing a martini at the same time, while wearing a tux with a perfectly crafted bow tie, it’s him. Seriously, which other actor could come back from the horror that was Batman & Robin to be one of Hollywood’s leading men? And if you don’t think that’s impressive, go ask Val Kilmer how life is treating him post Bruce Wayne duty.
The first Iron Man was the surprise hit of 2008 and propelled Robert Downey Jr back into super-stardom. It was the first movie from Marvel Studios, the Marvel comic group’s own production company, and was hailed as a huge success. So just two years after the first movie, Robert Downey Jr is back as the eccentric billionaire Tony Stark. But is the sequel any good? Well, no. Not really.
First they released Alvin and the Chipmunks, a horrifically high-pitched cacophony of holiday season ‘fun’. With kids flocking to the cinemas in droves, the inevitable follow-up, painfully labelled ‘The Squeakquel’ materialised in late 2009. Following the DVD marketing mantra of “everyone loves a film series packaged in the same box with loads of extras” to the letter, the unavoidable ‘Double Trouble’ has surfaced, breaking the record for “the biggest piece of crap to ever be released in a two-disc box set”.
You don’t need us to tell you this was never going to be a good film. The title alone is enough to not only toy with your upchuck reflex, but also cause you to file this one away to the ‘only if I’m stuck on babysitting duty’ box. Still, we live in an age where kids’ films are fast becoming an art form all their own – from Up to Where the Wild Things Are, this year’s family offerings have allowed us all to shamelessly enjoy ourselves at the cinema with the under 10s. So perhaps some out there among you are curious whether The Squeakquel could rise to the occasion?
The original Universal Soldier, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren as a pair of battling super-soldiers, was released in 1999, back when the ipod was less than a glint int Steve Jobs’s eye and nobody except super nerds had heard of the Internet. Now, for the first time in 18 years, Van Damme and Lundgren have reunited to bring the smack down in Universal Soldier: Regeneration! Better late than never, guys…
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