Pure, Creative, Genius.

Sean Meredith's super-elaborate puppet show, which premiered at Slamdance, features cardboard characters on strings and wires and wondrously detailed, deep-focus sets. The story: a modern-day Dante and Virgil take a whirlwind tour of the circles of Hell, where they see signs for fast food chains, baddies forever stuck in ice, Fox News reporters and Strom Thurmond in a Mrs. Buttersworth costume.

SOURCE: Wired

Battlestations: Midway

I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure this title was originally scheduled for release on the original X-Box but kept getting pushed back. But pushed back no more, and with the grunt of the 360 running it, Battlestations: Midway is due to hit our shores just after valentines day.

Battlestations: Midway brings to life the epic naval battles of World War II from Pearl Harbour to the Battle of Midway itself. Featuring an innovative blend of action and real-time strategy gameplay, players can instantly switch between every vehicle under their command throughout the course of any battle.

The single player mode features 11 large-scale campaigns with 12 bonus challenge missions, while the online multi-player combat offers an entirely new online battle experience with head-to-head and co-operative style gameplay with battles boasting over 100 units.

2007 marks the 65th anniversary of the Battle of Midway, the single most decisive naval battle in US history, which served as a turning point of World War II.

Hard Candy

Rating: R18 – Contains Sadistic Cruelty.
Duration: 98 mins.
Genre: Suspense & Thriller, Psychological.
Actors: Sandra Oh, Patrick Wilson, Ellen Page, Jennifer Holmes.
Director: David Slade.
Release Date: Available Now.

Hard Candy isn’t an easy movie to watch. I’m not saying that its not a good movie, more the opposite, it’s brilliant. It’s just that the subject matter isn’t something that can be seen as entertaining.

Enthralling, engaging, darkly compelling, yes. Entertaining, no.

So lets look at the plot. 14 year old Hayley has been chatting with a 32 year old fashion photographer online for three weeks. Long enough in online terms to get to know someone.

The nest step is obvious; they have to meet. Somewhere safe, somewhere public. A café suits the bill perfectly.

Hayley gets her older sister to drop her off, and soon gets talking to Geoff, her photographer ‘friend.’ Geoff seems like a nice enough guy, but Haley on the other hand seems to be a bit of a rebellious wild child.

Soon enough Hayley basically invites herself back to Geoff’s place. Geoff who should know better plays along. There’s more to Geoff than meets the eye. But of course we know that, why else would a 32 year old male be chatting to a 14 year old online?

But Haley is looking for a bit of an adventure, so why not?

But things are not as they seem, a Geoff is about to get a rude awakening. Hayley is not the innocent 14 year old that we all think she is. Nope. She’s a cold, calculating homicidal maniac, looking to enforce her vigilante style of justice on a paedophile creep.

But is it a case of mistaken identity?

Ellen Page is in her element playing Hayley, turning from an innocent child like 14 year old, to a cold, calculating monster at her whim. She really drives the movie; with one of the most convincing characters I’ve seen. Comparatively, Patrick Wilson (Geoff) is almost downplaying his part, but as the intensity heats up, the two actors seem to work off each other bringing the viewer and emotionally charged performance that won’t be easily forgotten.

With the subject matter and the R18 rating, you might be expecting some degree of gratuitous nudity or extensive gore. Fortunately David Slade plays the psychological thriller card very well, and keeps everything psychological. It’s amazing what great sound effects can do better than actually seeing the event.

All in all a well shot, brilliantly acted, tight movie about a subject matter that needs to be discussed.

Still, Hard Candy isn’t for the faint hearted, and will leave a lasting impression.

Food for thought:
Should children have un-moderated access to the internet?

Rent or Buy?
I’m not sure you’ll want additional viewings of Hard Candy, so I’d go for renting.

Lost Boys 2 Gets Greenlight?

Ever since Buffy The Vampire Slayer went off the air and Joss Whedon decided to turn his attention to space westerns and female superheroes, people just haven’t had a reliable source to get their vampire fix from anymore. Clearly there are a lot of fanboys jonesin’ for more from this genre, which explains why Warner Bros have just greenlit a sequel to the 1987 Joel Schumacher classic The Lost Boys.

But don't got getting exited just yet, this sequel will go direct to DVD, and will likely have no involvement from Schumacher or any of the original cast members. It won’t even move forward with any of the long-rumoured sequel concepts like “The Lost Girls”, or the Frog Brothers spin-off. Instead, it will take place in Southern California and focus on surfing vampires!

I wonder what the fanboys will think of that! Sure, Warner's will probably break even, or make a profit, but at what cost to the original or the goodwill of the fans?

Short But Sweet

I've been quite busy at work lately, and my DVD watching has suffered, but heres a few quick reviews of some of my post Christmas viewing that I never got round to writing about...

On a Clear Day
Heartfelt British dramas don’t come any better than On a Clear Day. Middle-aged Glasgow shipbuilding finds himself redundant and in the middle of a mid life crises. His solution; he decides to swim the channel. Filled with warmth and plenty of humour, On A Clear Day is driven by its story of redemption and carried by a strong cast.

Fitness To Go
Fitness To Go presents 10 Weeks To A Better Body, an all-round get fit DVD. Aimed at people with a level of fitness, this comprehensive DVD features a range of workouts on DVD and an audio workout for your iPod, so you can pound the streets with encouragement and focus. Fitness To Go allows you to start at your own pace and work up to their 10 week programme.

Garfield 2
Garfield is back, and better than ever! This time the CGI fat cat is supported by an outstanding cast and a new location. It’s a case of mistaken identity and dastardly villains as John, Odie and Grafield journey to England in the name of love. With plenty of slapstick to keep both the kids and the adults amused, Garfield 2 brings new meaning to the romantic comedy genre!

Hoodwinked
Hoodwinked is like Shrek on drugs. It takes the basic plot of Little Red Riding Hood and rips it apart, dissects each characters motive and reassembles it as a more engrossing, hilarious, pop-culture referencing roller coaster. Fused together with console style graphics and comedic charm, Hoodwinked is a slightly more mature, but great for the kids, fairytale.

PS3 Sucks, Again.

Far Cry team leader Cevat Yerli is working on a new game, Crysis, where he says; “Every individual tree in Crysis has more technology applied to it than the whole of Far Cry”

But more importantly, he says of the X-Box 360 and PS3…

"The 360 is a fabulous machine to work on," he says. In particular, "graphics programming is a blast. Microsoft has done a great job with all of their developer-support tools." PlayStation 3 has "tons of power," but "is not as easy to develop for.... Sony's not as good at the developer-support part of things as Microsoft is. I know people in the office (who got) PS3 development kits and (said) they're twice as (expensive), but they're half as capable.

"It's not a bad console; it's certainly far better than everything else except maybe the Xbox 360. In an ideal world PlayStation 3 will be more powerful, but for the vast majority of the cases, you'll be able to effectively exploit more power from the 360."

Top 5 Worst Things About The iPhone

Just to show that I'm not biased, here's what wired came up with, against the iPhone:

At the risk of sounding churlish—we love the iPhone, we truly do, and will sacrifice our children to get our hands on one—not all is perfect behind the pearly white gates of heaven. Here are the top five worst things about the phone, media player, computer and news frenzy:

1) Cingular. They're North America's largest cellular network, so it makes sense for Apple to deal with them. But it would have been far better if Apple had taken on the carriers' chokehold on handset provisioning wholesale, and simply sold unlocked phones.

2) 8GB Flash drive. For many, it will be more than enough, but the iPhone won't kill the iPod until drive sizes start matching the needs of MP3-era music libraries. My fear is that Apple will stick to its guns and stick with Flash media as it grows to 16GB and beyond, but a second-gen iPhone with magnetic storage is an obvious upgrade path.

3) Built-in battery. Apple's bothersome tradition of non-user-servicable batteries continues. There's no reason to do this, frankly, aside from the kind of implied "we're aesthetic obsessives" claim that Apple still gets away with.

4) No 3G. Fast internet is the horse, 3G is one hind leg.

5) With all those features, a QWERTY keyboard stashed within (somehow) would be the perfect way to turn this little beast into Apple's answer to the UMPC: a cheap, fully-featured computing device in addition to a phone and music player. Even a clamshell...

And I promise, that's all for this week about the iPhone...

iPhone Quotes

"Apple Makes My Head iSplode"
“I Feel Like a Caveman For Using Phone Numbers.”
“Who The Hell is Going To Want Anything Else Ever Again?”
"No parent wants to buy their kid a $600 phone, but I think it will make iPods that much cheaper."
"Looking at the specs of this iPhone, it looks like fanart gone wild."
"I don't think anybody is going to be looking at these phones in the same way again"
"It's definitely a compelling product"
"I live in an area that doesn't get Cingular. Everyone can get stuffed."
"So sleek, so clean, so pretty. What is it about Apple products that makes them
look so yummy?"
"Apple have done it again!"

Coca-Cola Blak

A carbonated beverage that fuses Coke effervescence with coffee essence?

What the heck? Only in France and the good old US of A at the mo, but seriously, how much of a caffeine hit would this be?

Of course to a non-coffee drinker like me, it probably tastes like crap...

The iPod is Dead...

Well, maybe not quite, but with the announcement of the new iPhone, there seems little point in innovating the iPod, besides making the shuffle small enough that it can be worn as an ear-ring.

So once again Apple revolutionises the computer world, and removes the word computer from it's name, essentially saying that they're not just a computer company anymore.

So the iPhone is an iPod looking telecommunications device with a 2 megapixle camera, up to 8GB of RAM, all the features of the latest video iPod, revolutionary web browsing that has a touch sensitive multi format screen.

WOW.

I want one. Trouble is, will it work on the current New Zealand networks?

DeNiro To Do 36 Remake

In a recent interview with MTV Robert DeNiro mentioned that he is co-producing and starring in an English language remake of French police thriller 36 Quai des Orfèvres. Also known in most English speaking territories as 36, the film was released in the UK about a year ago and was hailed as 'The French version of Heat'.

My question is, why do we need yet another French movie re-done by the Yanks? And no, despite my recent anti-American comments on 28 Weeks Later, I have nothing against Americans, I just don't see the point of re-making a good movie that has only just been made... if that makes sense!

28 Weeks Later

So I'm a bit of a Zombie fan, and 28 Days Later was one of my favourite. What didn't get me excited however was plans to make a sequel. This is especially so, as according to joblo, Danny Boyle and Alex Garland, the director and writer (respectively) of 28 DAYS LATER, served only as executive producers of this film. Oh dear.

However because the people over at blackfilm have scored themselves some pics, I figured I may as well put some up here and give you all a brief rundown...

Six months after the rage virus has annihilated the British Isles, the US Army declares that the war against infection has been won, and that the reconstruction of the country can begin. Under the strict supervision of the U.S. Military, the first wave of refugees is allowed back into the city. Among them are Don (Robert Carlyle), his new girlfriend Scarlett (Rose Byrne), and Don’s two children. Don lost his wife during the original infection, while Scarlett lost her entire family. All seems under control until a new carrier of the virus makes his way within the quarantined area. As the only known live specimen, he becomes a vital tool to the scientists who hope to learn from their discovery. Call it carelessness or call it bad luck, but the virus eventually spreads once again and now may be even more difficult to contain than the first time around. Jeremy Renner plays Sgt. Doyle who is part of the American Special Forces team working on restoring order in London. Harold Perrineau will co-star as Flynn, an upbeat Special Forces pilot who leads the families returning to London to their safety, while documenting the ordeal with his camera. Elba plays General Stone is the guy overseeing district 1 in London.


Hhhmmm, here comes the Yanks to save the Brits... that's never gonna float, oh well, might be fun...

New Gears of War Maps

For all you lucky buggers with X-Box Live, there's some free Gears of War maps about to be unleashed on you...

Sponsored by the Discovery Channel, the complimentary new content will be available for download via Xbox Live Marketplace early Thursday morning, January 11.

By now most of the current maps have been memorised, analysed and brutalised, but this map pack will feature two new maps including one where players fight around a downed King Raven helicopter:

Raven Down: A Raven Helicopter has gone down in the middle of a large scale battle with the omnipresent Locust Horde. Gears have taken out the Seeder and gamers join Delta Forces moving into the crash site from all angles to search for survivors.

Old Bones: In an attempt to eradicate any traces of human history and culture, the Locust Horde has emerged under Sera’s Capitaline Museums and has begun to destroy them brick by brick. Each gamer’s mission is to help the Delta Force recapture the museums before all remnants of humankind’s existence are obliterated.

And why am I posting about content for the X-Box 360, that me with no X-Box Live can access? Because the pictures are so darned nice to look at....

There's going to be a riot.

Here's my prediction for Macworld: There's going to be a riot.


Expectations for Steve Jobs' keynote speech Tuesday are so unreasonably high that anything less than an iPod-cum-videophone-miniPC that downloads movies wirelessly from the net and projects them on your living room wall with 7.1 surround sound is going to disappoint.


I've seen it before. I remember one year -- I think it was 2002, when rumors ran rampant that Jobs would unveil a mini-tablet device called the iWalk -- when there was a really strange, ugly mood as he reached the end of his speech and the magical device hadn't been announced.


The crowd looked at each other, saying, "Is that it?" Some people started to advance on the area in front of the stage where Jobs was shaking hands with VIPs and industry execs. I guess most of them wanted to buttonhole Jobs and ask what was going on, but one nut case started shouting and pushing chairs as he moved toward the stage. I remember the startled look on the faces of Jobs' handlers as they ushered the Apple chief backstage and out of the loony's path.


Expectations are higher this year, I think, as Apple moves mainstream and grows. There's more money involved. 

Still, if Jobs doesn't reveal any miraculous new hardware, you might be able to pick up some plunging Apple stock later in the week.

SOURCE | cult of mac

The Fourth Digital Decade...

The world of desktop computing is finally going mobile, according to The New York Times John Markoff, and the shift can be seen in the explosive growth of wireless data for cellular carriers.

To handle functions from text and instant messaging to mobile MySpace and ESPN, computer users are increasingly turning to the cellphone.

“We are seeing the emergence of a fourth screen,” said Jerry Panagrossi, vice president for operations at Symbian, a developer of advanced cellphone operating systems, citing a historical progression of “movie, television, computer and now the smart-phone screen.”

The newest screen is evolving to adopt more and more characteristics of a personal computer. And many believe that the next big shift will be the convergence of many forms of communication encompassing voice, e-mail, instant messaging and video telephony.

That shift may well be underscored tomorrow when Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple Computer, is expected to unveil an Apple phone representing his company’s new mobile communications strategy — highlighted by a device that may include Jobsian refinements such as a sleek ceramic case and a transparent touch screen.

Hhhmmmm, the iPhone… not something to get me all happy clappy, but no doubt it will be a technological marvel that will have me lusting after it, despite the fact that it won’t be supported in New Zealand for the next four years…

Of course Apple is distinctly late in entering the world of Internet-connected digital hand-helds. Arrayed against it are giants including Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and Microsoft, in addition to entrenched hand-held companies like Palm and Research in Motion.

Also waiting to enter the fray are powerful Internet companies like Google, who cannot afford to be cut off from users who now rely on them in the desktop computing world.

“Apple is about to touch off a nuclear war,” said Paul Mercer, a software designer and president of Iventor, a designer of software for hand-helds based in Palo Alto, Calif. “The Nokias and the Motorolas will have to respond.”

Oh yeah baby, bring it on. Nuclear war baby…

Read the full article here.

Bill Gates hails 'digital decade'

Microsoft boss Bill Gates has outlined his vision of the connected future, telling experts in Las Vegas: "The digital decade is happening."

Wow, really? The digital decade? So what was the last ten years about?

Bill also told delegates that "connected experiences" were now the most important part of new technologies.

Hhhmmmm, he's sounding more and more like Steve Jobs every day. Only sounding mind you.

Apparently Bill realises that people want to do things with their content across multiple platforms... does that mean that Bill realises that there's more to life than Windows?

Better check, but I think Hell is staring to freeze.

In a speech with few concrete announcements, Mr Gates outlined how his firm's latest operating system Vista would be the tool to connect people.

Ah, so there is only windows, but nothing concrete, yet.

Justin Hutchinson, group product manager, demonstrated a range of new features in Vista, many of which seemed designed to counter arguments from some observers that Apple was the home of creative computing.

Seemed designed to counter arguments.... seemed. So in other words, Apple is still the creative center of the universe. Maybe hell still has some warmth left.

Robbie Bach, president of entertainment devices at Microsoft, revealed that the company had sold more than 10.4m Xbox 360s by the end of 2006.

Ah yes, game consoles, something that Microsoft is good at. If only they focussed totally on gaming and left the computer business to people who know what they're doing...

A range of new PCs from third-party companies using Vista were unveiled at the show, including a white, round media centre PC from Sony designed for watching of movies and music playback in the living room and a touch screen PC from HP.

Ah, a Mac rip off maybe?

Mr Gates also confirmed that next year would see his last keynote speech at CES as he steps down as head of Microsoft.

He said he had offered to come back the following year but that he might "talk more about infectious diseases than software", referring to his philanthropic work.

Whoah, hold up there, maybe there is hope for Microsoft after all, all they have to do is encourage Steve Jobs to sell his soul and go take control of Microsoft.

And yes, I'm an Apple guy, could you tell?

300 Character Posters

It’s 2007, and 300 still isn’t out, and frankly we’re getting antsy. But to tide us over as we wait for this epic tale of abs and biceps – er, Greeks and Persians – we’ve found some spiffy new one-sheet posters for the film, exclusively for you on Empire.

Well, the Poms might be getting antsy, but I'm still amped about 300, and am still 100% confident that this movie will blow everyone away, I mean take a look at the visual comparison or the trailer would ya!

Grandma's Boy

Rating: R16 – Contains Offensive Language, Drug Use & Sexual Themes.
Duration: 91 mins.
Genre: Comedy.
Actors: Shirley Knight, Shirley Jones, Kevin Nealon, Allen Covert, Linda Cardellini, Peter Dante.
Director: Nicholaus Goossen.
Release Date: Available Now.

Life is just about perfect for 35-year-old video game tester Alex, he has a dream job that enables him to play video games 24/7, and get payed for it. He has no real responsibilities in life, and best of all, he gets to sleep in every day.

That is until one day his landlord kicks him out and he’s forced to move in with his grandmother and her two roommates.

Of course rather than letting his workmates know he’s living with three old ladies, he keeps the truth to a minimum and lets slip that he’s moved in with three hot babes.

Complications arise when a new boss, that just happens to be an attractive female, is brought in to make sure the bug ridden game that the testers are working on, gets released on time.

Unfortunately for the movie, what could have been a very funny romantic comedy, turns out to be nothing more than an over sexualised, pot-headed excuse to use the f-word every ten seconds.

Where as there are some genuinely funny moments, and a passable general plot, you can’t but wonder at the end of the movie if it would have actually been funny if you, the viewer, had be on drugs.

Food for thought:
Is maturity a pre-requisite for an authentic life?

Rent or Buy?
Neither, it sucks.

Pixar on a Downward Sprial?

The guys over at filmjunk have posted a story claiming that the Big Boys at Disney think that Ratatouille is going to sink at the box office.

When I first saw the trailer, I was thinking the same thing. It looks just like a classic Disney cartoon, done in the 3D CGI format. Nothing really ground breaking about it.

But having another look at the trailer, this time with less cynical eyes, I can see the genius of it. It's back to the bare basics of slapstick comedy - the stuff that made Disney great in the first place. It's also the kind of humour that made Ice Age great.

It's in-your-face humour, and if they do it right, it'll work big time.

Not convinced? Well, think back to the day Pixar announced they were doing Finding Nemo, a story about fish. Yeah, thats right, we all thought that was going to sink (pun intended) but it turned out to be their biggest hit.

Silent Hill

Rating: R16 – Contains Horror Scenes & Violence.
Duration: 120 mins.
Genre: Horror.
Actors: Alice Krige, Kim Coates, Sean Bean, Radha Mitchell, Deborah Kara Unger, Laurie Holden, Jodelle Ferland, Tanya Allen.
Director: Christophe Gans.
Release Date: Available Now.

Having never played any of the Silent Hill video games I can’t comment on the transition to the big screen, but what I can say is that the film has some very good visual effects that look like they have been influenced by a game.

The movie revolves around Sharon, a child who has a dangerous habit of sleepwalking that is getting more and more dangerous. The one thing that keep reoccurring in these sleep walking episodes is the utterance form the little girl of Silent Hill.

Frustrated and obviously in conflict with her husband, Rose researches Silent Hill on Google (where else) and discovers that it’s an abandoned ghost town in the same county that their adopted sleepwalking daughter is from.

On a whim, borne out of desperation Rose decides to take Sharon on a road trip, without her husband’s knowledge.

On her way to Silent Hill however, Rose crashes her yuppie Jeep whilst avoiding a ghostly apparition on the road.

Knocked unconscious, Rose awakes only to discover that Sharon has disappeared and the weather had changed. What initially looks like snow, turns out to be a light blanket of falling ash.

Frantic, Rose runs towards the Ghost town, only to catch a glimpse of Sharon running down an alleyway. In pursuit, Rose gets lost in a system of dark tunnels and soon find herself surrounded by the burning, deformed children of the un-dead.

Just as we think Rose is done for, light returns to Silent Hill and the flesh hungry children of the dammed return to ash.

Rose has discovered that there are two realities in Silent Hill. The ash covered and relatively safe light, and the demonic controlled darkness. The darkness is heralded by the flight of animals or a wailing siren. The light by the evaporation of the demonic oppression.

Rose’s husband, Christopher, played by the often-underrated Sean Bean, is in hot pursuit with the uncanny knowledge that his wife and daughter are in mortal danger.

But alas, the community that surrounds the now abandoned Silent Hill are staying very silent – they don’t really like visitors. The local police chief however realises that he’ll have to show Christopher around the town before he can get rid of him. This brings with it the revelation that there is a third reality; the physical world is clear but raining.

Rose it would appear is trapped in a spiritual dimension, where good and evil duke it out in a spiritually physical realm.

These three completely different realities have their own very clear, and cleverly done visual clues and make it easy to follow what’s going on.

The spiritual dimensions are particularly well down, with visuals that are a pure delight to watch, as well as being damn right creepy.

The demonic horde are at times a little overdone for a non-gamer, but sit right at home for anyone who’s played any game with any type of ghoulish fiends. And the beauty is, that beside your brain telling you they don’t exist, they look so realistic that you don’t have any problem with them being as real as their human actor counterparts.

This coupled with some excellent set design make for a very compelling and believable supernatural thriller.

Radha Mitchell takes her role as a determined, back-against-the-wall Rose very seriously, and along with her uneasy side kick Cybil (Laurie Holden) provide some very credible acting that takes Silent Hill to a level rarely seen in the horror genre.

However, the big climax is rather cheesy and it’s reliance on CGI to bring the scene to life, takes what was looking like a cinematic masterpiece and relegates it to the top of a genre that isn’t taken seriously.

If horror or supernatural thriller is your thing, or you’re an avid gamer, then Silent Hill won’t disappoint. If you’ve been put off horrors etc because of bad acting/cheesy plot and effects then give Silent Hill a go, you’ll be pliantly surprised.

Food for thought:
Is there really a spiritual realm that offers life after death?

Rent or Buy?
Buy it. There’s a heap of special features I’m hanging out to explore, and another viewing is gaurenteed.

The Violence of the Lambs

I first got wind of this beauty back in August, and now it has a trailer and a New Zealand release date. Be afraid, be very afraid. And have some mint sauce ready, just in case...

Superman Returns

Rating: M – Contains Medium Level Violence.
Duration: 148 mins.
Genre: Action & Adventure.
Actors: Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey, Parker Posey, James Marsden, Brandon Routh.
Director: Bryan Singer.
Release Date: Available Now.

Superman Returns is an interesting movie. It’s pretty much promoted as an action packed special effects spectacular. But it isn’t. Nor was it meant to be.

But that’s the problem with movies these days – we expect more than we need, and the big marketing machine doesn’t know what to do with old-fashioned movies.

That’s right, Superman Returns is an old fashioned movie. It’s almost as if Bryan Singer wanted to pay homage to Christopher Reeves (and he does in the end credits) and the original Superman.

Superman Returns doesn’t deviate from the original concept, except in this; that Superman has been gone for five years, in search for some evidence that his race still exists. He returns to earth the same way he arrived as a baby, and gets his old job back at the Daily Planet.

Things have changed however and Lois has a baby and a boyfriend.

But Lex Luther is up to no good again, and theirs only one person who can stop him. But what about the kryptonite that Lex has?

It’s all familiar, and it would have worked well, if only I hadn’t been expecting an action packed movie along the lines of Mission Impossible 3 or X Men 3.

Sure, Superman Returns has some great special effects set pieces, and some admirable action scenes, but at the heart of it, Superman is and will always be a human drama.

As a human drama Superman Returns excels, as Clark finds himself even more alone (though seemingly more egotistical as Superman in some crowd admiration scenes) and love seems out of reach for him. But the movie has a few interesting turns for Superman and presents and few modern challenges, that could open the way to a sequel, depending on how much money this re-telling made.

Religious overtones and plot spoilers.
A lot has been said in Christian circles about the Jesus parallels in Superman Returns, and for a Christian these are easy to see. These parallels even follow very closely the parallels in the original Superman movie.

Jesus was sent to earth by his (heavenly) Father, to save mankind. He comes to earth in an unlikely spaceship shaped like a star. Superman often seeks solitude to gain perspective, does battle with Lex Luther (Lucifer) is killed and descends into Hades, only to save the world through his death, and then to rise three days later without anyone seeing him leave the Hospital room.

Rent or buy?
Buy. Rather than an action movie, Superman Returns has a lot of depth that will require multiple viewings.

Top Grossing Movies of 2006 (US)

1. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest — $423,315,812
2. Cars – $244,082,982
3. X-Men: The Last Stand — $234,362,462
4. The Da Vinci Code — $217,536,138
5. Superman Returns — $200,081,192
6. Ice Age: The Meltdown — $195,330,621
7. Happy Feet — $178,017,000
8. Casino Royale — $155,415,000
9. Over the Hedge — $155,019,340
10. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby — $148,213,377

Miami Vice

Rating: R16 – Contains Violence.
Duration: 113 mins.
Genre: Action & Adventure.
Actors: Ciaran Hinds, Naomie Harris, Jamie Foxx, Justin Theroux, Colin Farrell, Gong Li, Barry Shabaka Henley, John Ortiz.
Director: Michael Mann.
Release Date: Available Now.

Written and directed by Michael Mann, Miami Vice was full of promise. For one, it was based on one of the best TV shows to come out of the 80’s, and it was being written and directed by the very same Mann that helmed the TV series as well as The Last of the Mohicans, Heat, The Insider and Collateral. It should have been a sure fire hit.

But it wasn’t.

Instead of being an action flick, which is what its pretence is, it tries so very hard to be cool.

What Mann forgets, is that the audience has grown up since Miami Vice hit the TV screens.

The audience now wants one of two things – either a really well written thriller along the lines of Mann’s own Collateral, or a kick arse action flick like JJ Abrams Mission Impossible 3.

Just trying to be cool won’t cut it.

Maybe, and this is just a maybe, it would have worked better if he’d made it into a camp comedy with Foxx and Farrell strutting there stuff in pastel, with a huge soundtrack of 80’s hits. Throw in a cameo by the Wedding Singer Adam Sandler and you might just have a huge cult comedy.

But no, Mann wanted to be cool, try and resurrect an 80’s TV show into a movie, without adding any action to take care of the longer run time and shorter attention spans.

The only redeeming feature of this DVD is that it comes with a teaser trailer for Hot Fuzz.

Food for thought:
Can an 80’s TV show ever be properly re-done?

Rent or Buy?
Neither, rent Mission Impossible 3 .