Battleship 3D

Hugely hyped, massive budget, and seemingly taking another stab at a genre which seems to have been done to death, could this latest blockbuster live up to the likes of Independence Day?

After many years of trying to contact life in the universe, one returns, but they are not the friendly fluffy alien life forms that everybody at NASA was hoping for. An exploratory force lands just off the coast of Hawaii in the middle of a session of war games between a number of the worlds best navy's. The invading force places a force field around the a few of the battle ships which blocks all craft from outside from attacking their position. The fate of the world lies in the hands of the men and women on one remaining battleship and its impulsive and brash commander.

When all of their systems seem useless against the alien force, the crew have to put aside their differences and use all of their natural maritime skills and wits to try to overcome the ultimate enemy.

It was hard not to expect Battleship not to be a repeat of the likes of Independence Day, Contact, or many other similar films we have been subjected to over the years from Hollywood, but this one actually was a pleasant surprise. The action was immense, the body count brutal, but all in all a very decent watch despite the length of the film.

As with this genre you expect over the top animation, giant battles and aliens conjured up from the depths of some whacky writers mind and this one, has all of those in heaps. What it also has, is a really decent story line, some excellent acting from some fairly unknown players, and even a one liner or two which had the audience in stitches. Throw in some massively, over the top American nationalism, a hugely unrealistic final battle and you have the makings of a very enjoyable two hour romp.

Canadian, Taylor Kitsch continues his fine run in 2012 following up his leading role in Disney's overpriced epic "John Carter" with his uptake of "Lieutenant Alex Hopper", a trouble making Navy officer who joined the core to stay out of prison.  Kitsch, gives a very decent performance and does a fine job of annoying Liam Neeson who gives a strong showing as Admiral Shane, leader of the American fleet. The fact that Kitsch wants to marry the Admirals daughter, played by former model Brooklyn Decker. Following her performance in 2011's "Just go with it", Decker shows, that although her acting abilities are improving, she still has a long way to go before she can be considered a serious actress and not just a former model.

Conversely Pop sensation Rihanna shows that she is certainly more than a one trick pony, with a superb and convincing performance as the plucky "Raikes". I hope that we will see a lot more of her acting talent in the years to come. Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano gives probably the best performance of the film in his roleas Captain Yugi Nagata, the mortal enemy of Hopper. The continued rivalry throughout the film is an enjoyable aside from the continual action that makes this film as good as it is.

Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgard gives a convincing showing as the older brother to Hopper, creating a good family bond when needed. The ending takes a lot of believing, but a very good film and well worth a trip to the cinema. Even the 3D works fairly well.

7/10

Avengers 3D

The biggest comic book film in history, has finally hit our screens - Was it worth it after all the smoke and CGI clears?

Finally the movie that all comic book fans, young and old, have been waiting for, has arrived. With a bang and a thump and more CGI than you can shake a stick at, Marvel comics and Paramount have collected the greatest collection of super heroes ever to grace page and screen and thrust them upon cinema goers for the movie event of 2012

The Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America, The Mighty Thor and the slightly less well known, Black Widow and Hawkey, are brought together by Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson), under the S.H.I.E.L.D Banner, to fight the forces of darkness from another world under the leadership of Thor's evil younger brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston). And all of this over a small glowing cube, called the Tesseract that conveniently holds enough power to run the universe until the end of time. Bring all of these forces together to battle for the ultimate prize and you are going to have one hell of a bun fight.

Even to the average non comic book fan, those who didn't sit through to the end of the credits of, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America and the Green Lantern to see the next piece in the puzzle, this still has to be the movie event of the year. A brain fry of CGI madness, huge stars and a better story than many would have predicted along with some brilliant one liners, make this a really good watch for fans of most ages.

The only let down for me, in a film that will probably go down in history as an epic, was the lack of character development for Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawk Eye (Jeremy Renner), both of whom admittedly did not have full length features (Quite a few in the case of Hulk) to establish their characters. The story as a whole, flowed very well, riddled with one liners from Robert Downey Jr (Iron Man) and Mark Ruffalo (The Incredible Hulk) in the best portrayal of the Green Monster and his deep, dark a brooding alter ego, that I have ever seen.

Chris Hemsworth reprises his role as the Mighty Thor, showing off immense strength and adding another string to his credibility as a decent actor, but it is Tom Hiddleston who stole the show with his portrayal of the ambitious, arrogant and manipulative Loki. Even is his silences he is menacing and a true pleasure to watch for the whole of the 2 hours and 22 minutes for which this film runs (don't worry it does seem a lot shorter than that in the action roller-coaster of a ride.)

Chris Evans as Captain America, probably plays a bigger role in this film than he should. His character is not strong enough to hold the film (unlike that of Downey and Ruffalo), and I am not sure he is a strong enough actor to pull this one off. His character is a little boring in places, but to his credit he keeps at it and probably improves on his last outing as the all American hero.

Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury is inspired as always, leaving the audience wondering which side of the battle he really is on? The lovely Gwyneth Paltrow does a good job as Pepper Potts, but sadly only makes brief appearances. Clark Gregg returns as the very likable Agent Coulson for the fourth time in the Marvel Comics films and gives a superb showing surrounded by so many other strong characters. The surprise of the film comes from 20 year old Canadian Cobie Smulders who plays the role of Agent Maria Hill and gives a performance that will hopefully ensure that this first feature outing will soon be repeated. Her character is gripping and demands attention.

The film ticks almost all of the boxes across a number of genres and will suit almost any sort of movie fan. The 3D once again is not used to its full potential, but I would recommend seeing this more than once in order to follow all the action, which can be a bit much at times, while still being really enjoyable. I am excited for the next installment and hope that it will not take Paramount as long to make the follow-up

8/10