Reviews by SJMJ91

The Batman franchise was at a normal, balanced level following the two successful comic book adaptations by Tim Burton, but it had gradually sunk rock bottom due to the release of Batman Forever and especially Batman & Robin at the hands of Joel Schumacher. The strongest alternative to possibly revive the series was to simply reboot it in an attempt to expose another side to Batman and co in Gotham City. Furthermore, because Batman Begins told Bruce Wayne’s origin story of how he became the Caped Crusader, it partially served as a non-official prequel. Nevertheless, Batman Begins became a critical and commercial success that became the reboot the series desperately needed.


Nolan’s work hadn’t quite risen to worldwide fame until The Dark Knight’s release but Batman Begins was where he started off his own Batman trilogy. Unlike any other within the series, Nolan slightly reduced the essence of comical backgrounds and approach to characters and expressed that even those in comic books can be exposed as normal human beings. Nolan provided the telling of Batman’s uprising in not only a very masculine and realistic tone but also took us on an emotional and very personal ride. Furthermore, he avoided the vintage computer-generated effects that have overkilled many films over the years and used stuntmen to perform an action sequence, which was more than impressive. Still, the most successful aspect of Batman Begins was how well Nolan handled the realism of it all. The emotions, the storyline and again, how it was filmed captured that feeling and continued to run throughout the rest of the trilogy.


Behind every superhero, there is a build-up, background story of how he/she fulfilled their destinies and obtained their abilities. Peter Parker had his tale of his transformation into Spider-Man as did Clark Kent into Superman, but now we are provided with Bruce Wayne’s young life and the beginning of Batman. Wayne had been portrayed three previous times by Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer and George Clooney. Now we have Christian Bale in the role where we witnessed a much younger Bruce Wayne. Unlike his predecessors, Bale fitted perfectly into both the rich, noble but emotionally confused Bruce Wayne and the uniquely heroic Batman. He grasped a very fixed connection between the two but at the same time, exposed two opposing characters. Nevertheless, Bale may have been underestimated but he undoubtedly is the strongest performer in the role. There weren’t any other actors from the previous films that returned in Batman Begins but there were more sophisticated supporting performers in Nolan’s trilogy than in Burton and Schumacher’s instalments. Michael Caine became the latest actor to portray Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce’s butler and personal mentor. Alfred is what one would describe as “the normal one” as Alfred simply feels how we, the audience, feel during the film. Caine provided this successfully and established a very close on-screen bond with Christian Bale.


Furthermore, Liam Neeson made his presence known in another franchise as Henri Ducard, who trained Bruce before he became Batman. Neeson, ironically, portrayed the master and trainer of Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace - the first instalment of another trilogy. There is always a love interest for every superhero and in this reboot; the role of Rachel Dawes went to Katie Holmes. Her performance was not entirely appalling but her beauty did not suit the nature of the character. She seemed a bit too young in the role, but thankfully her performance was replaced and redeemed by Maggie Gyllenhaal in The Dark Knight. Cillian Murphy took on the role of Dr. Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow and gave a psychologically terrifying performance. He became a mentally unstable start for Batman but was only the beginning as the Joker came along next. Finally, Gary Oldman portrayed Sgt. Jim Gordon, Morgan Freeman performed as Lucius Fox and others, such as Rutger Hauer, Tom Wilkinson and Ken Watanabe made appearances in Batman Begins too.


Overall, Batman Begins is a very personal, dark reboot that the Batman franchise not only needed, but deserved. In addition, it served well as a prequel too as it fulfilled the wishes from the fans and critics as Bruce’s story was told very realistically and became a more than convincing character to journey with. This does not always work with film adaptations, but it firmly honoured the comic books, its original sources, but also revolutionised a modern Batman and Gotham City. The birth of Batman in Batman Begins literally became the equivalence to the resurrection of the entire Batman franchise. Christopher Nolan was the perfect man for the job of renovating this series as he bolted off to a flying start and then progressed to make the two widely successful sequels.

Any comedy starring Simon Pegg in the leading role will at least be worth giving a try. However, he does not have close friends and regular collaborators Edgar Wright or Nick Frost by his side this time but following previous performances in films such as Run Fatboy Run, Pegg certainly knows how to be in a decently entertaining comedy. Within A Fantastic Fear Of Everything there were uncertainties of what to expected how it was going to turn out. Therefore, it was rather mixed. Unfortunately, Simon Pegg stars in a film that is a catastrophe and is simply an all-round chaotic mess.


Based on the novella Paranoia And The Launderette by Bruce Robinson, musician Crispian Mills takes the role of both co-director alongside more sophisticated video director Chris Hopewell. Film director and screenwriter newbies usually start off well or earn Academy Award nominations but the lack of experience really got the best of Mills and Hopewell in A Fantastic Fear Of Everything. For this reason, the flaws were incredibly easy to notice. The story as a whole is rather corny and it simply did not know what it wanted to be to the audience. It is literally trapped between what could have been a hilarious and fun comedy or an intense thriller. Yet it could have been your vintage traditional horror-comedy.


There is no doubt Simon Pegg is truly one of the greatest living British actors and has performed in as well as written some of the most entertaining films of this generation. However, his performance as novelist Jack is perhaps at the very lowest standard of what he can do as he was neither funny nor sympathetic enough for the audience to find him an entirely likeable character. However, there was something rather interesting about Jack’s character that had not been further analysed on the screen. We get a minor understanding of how writers and even actors are influenced and affected by characters of their own creation. Furthermore, it partially shows the impact upon the audiences and how fictional and formerly real horror characters work. Simon Pegg’s role really was not anything that he is capable of doing and can perform a lot better than in A Fantastic Fear Of Everything. Seeing as Jack was pretty much the only character throughout the entire film, there were very few to include that were even call supporting characters. Hellraiser actress Clare Higgins portrayed Jack’s colleague Clair and Amara Karan performed as Jack’s possible love interest Sangeet. Considering that both were supporting characters, their appearances were irrelevant as neither of them served any purpose in this film whatsoever.


Overall, A Fantastic Fear Of Everything is truly an extraordinary film that perhaps tried to revolutionize a new type of comedy, but simply did not work and failed miserably. Where a film truly suffers the most is if it does not express to the audience what it is aiming to be to them. Therefore, it was not really anything at all. Pegg really has hit rock bottom in this role but he deserves and can perform at a much higher standard. There is no need to expect anything like works between both Pegg and Edgar Wright nor an individual Pegg comedy. So, it is truly a film on its own and if one is to somehow enjoy this, they will need to be the most open-minded people in the world with the most unorthodox sense of humor.

It has been approximately a decade since the Ice Age franchise by Blue Sky Studios & 20th Century Fox was first introduced and, thus, went off to a flying start. The series continued to awe and entertain audiences in 2006 and 2009 following sequels that concluded a delightful and heartwarming trilogy. However, less than a year after Dawn Of The Dinosaurs hit the screens, a new fourth instalment was announced. Before this release, there were a number of things to consider about Continental Drift. Fourth instalments are not usually well-received by critics, particularly in this era, and after how its predecessor concluded, another film perhaps was not an essential addition. With this in mind, Ice Age: Continental Drift was, as predicted, an almost completely pointless film that lacked the majority of qualities that its predecessors provided so marvelously.


Carlos Saldanha, a director of the former Ice Age films, dropped out entirely from Ice Age: Continental Drift and was replaced by both Mike Thurmeier, who Saldanha had collaborated with on Dawn Of The Dinosaurs, and Steve Martino, co-director of Horton Hears A Who!. Obviously, the animated effects are out of this world and it was absolutely beautifully filmed, but there were so many weaknesses that it suffered from. Out of the four thus far, Continental Drift is undoubtedly the most predictable as we almost immediately know within 5 minutes of what is going to happen. Finally, what was most disappointing about this was that it lacked all of the laugh-out-loud jokes that we had experienced in the past and the charm and warmth of the characters which have put smiles on our faces.


Once again, the performers of the main characters reprise their roles. Ray Romano has given mixed voice-performances as primary protagonist Manny the mammoth, but there was nothing new he bought to the table in this one. John Leguizamo easily performs the best as Sid, the clumsy, wacky but well-intention sloth. Sid, who is a very close equivalence to Donkey in the Shrek franchise, was not the same character that made us cry with laughter in the three predecessors. Denis Leary reprises as the soft-natured but sensible sabre-toothed tiger Diego and Queen Latifah, Seann William Scott and Josh Peck also return but are more cameo appearances than supporting. Of course, the sub-plot featuring Scrat, a sabre-toothed squirrel, who is still in pursuit of his beloved acorn but all of the catastrophes continue to prevent him from getting it. Unfortunately, even Scrat was not very funny. It is dying down now and is becoming less humorous because it is the same old time and time again.


Like most animated sequels, particularly antagonists and supporting characters, another group of actors replace the ones in the predecessors. Peter Dinklage portrayed main villain Captain Gutt, a prehistoric ape known as Gigantopithecus. Gutt is a pirate captain and his crew include prehistoric species of rabbit, kangaroo and a sabre-toothed cat. Gutt is quite possible one of the most unrealistic family villains of all time. He was not a tremendous threat and there was no background detailing the nature of his character. The whole animal-pirates concept of the story and the iceberg-ships were ridiculous and just by observing this, certain pieces that were taken from the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise are easily noticeable. Unfortunately, the makers of the film just mixed what could’ve been an interesting story (only the continental drift) and the extremely likeable and heartwarming key characters with a very weak, lazy and poorly developed clan of newbies.


Overall, Ice Age: Continental Drift was, as expected, a rather weak, meaningless and at times chaotic fourth instalment in the franchise that is perhaps the runny and sloppy icing on the cake. There are franchises out there that are adapted into a beginning, middle and end that extends throughout film after film. Yet it is a series like Ice Age that needlessly continues and is fading away through repetition and irrelevance. At this rate, we could be in for more future sequels but if this is to be the last film in the franchise, it has concluded very poorly and it deserved so much more.

It has been approximately 10 years since the release of the first Spider-Man in the trilogy and has since then been a successful blockbuster franchise. That is up until Spider-Man 3 came along, which had disappointed the majority of fans and critics. Afterwards, a fourth instalment was originally planned but when the decision was announced that the entire series was going to be rebooted with a whole new cast and crew – only a few years after Spider-Man 3, it became an outrage. Yet, there could be something new put to the table. Nevertheless, this transformation was finally released and although it did have it’s one or two flaws, it really became something new that has re-opened another new franchise and served its loyalty rather well to the original source of comic books.


Following his previous experiences with horrors, Sam Raimi gave us another side to him as he went on to direct the Spider-Man trilogy. The same could be said for Marc Webb who was making only his second feature to date after critically-acclaimed 2008 comedy (500) Days Of Summer. Although Webb perhaps hadn’t made as much of a vital impact as Raimi (in the first two films at least), he exposed a brand new side to the whole franchise with The Amazing Spider-Man. First of all, the entire atmosphere was much darker and had roughly the similar concepts to what were in the original source. Even the title of the film - The Amazing Spider-Man is the name of a series of comic books and there was, therefore, some originality added to it. Also, it included a number of humorous one-liners, which is where The Amazing Spider-Man had far surpassed the previous trilogy. Webb simply revolutionized the entire series for another generation.


For any actor to live up to or even surpass Tobey Maguire’s performance as Peter Parker/Spider-Man in Sam Raimi’s trilogy is very difficult to achieve. He was perhaps the greatest choice at the time to portray the character and unfortunately, he could not continue with it. In the reboot, Andrew Garfield (The Social Network) became the next actor in the role of Peter Parker/Spider-Man. Garfield looked much younger and more charming Peter than Maguire, but the latter had a much geekier approach. Furthermore, Peter’s original background story regarding childhood and his parents had not been acknowledged in the previous films and was bought to life on the big screen. It is safe to say that Andrew Garfield does not necessarily replace Tobey Maguire, but he expressed Peter Parker in a rather different way. Therefore, the former still provided a surprisingly impressive performance that will relieve the fans and critics.


Emma Stone covers the role of not only Gwen Stacy, who was portrayed by Bryce Dallas Howard in Spider-Man 3, but also Peter Parker’s previous love interest Mary Jane Watson, performed by Kirsten Dunst. Stone who had already risen to fame before The Amazing Spider-Man stars in what could possibly be her biggest blockbuster to date. Like Dallas Howard, Stone provided the essence of blonde beauty but as opposed to the former, Stone added the creative and bright intelligence that was in the comics. Furthermore, Rhys Ifans portrayed Dr. Curt Connors in a role that was a minor disappointment. His background story was moving and it was splendid seeing the Lizard in action, but regarding how the audience felt about said character, he did not seem as entirely threatening or dangerous as anticipated. Denis Leary performed as Gwen’s father, Captain George Stacy, and was a lot more involved than James Cromwell’s role in Spider-Man 3. And last but not least, Martin Sheen and Sally Field take the roles of Uncle Ben and Aunt May. Unfortunately, neither were as emotionally or realistically convincing as May and Ben’s previous performers - Cliff Robertson and Rosemary Harris.


Overall, The Amazing Spider-Man is perhaps a film that did not have to be made at all seeing as the series didn’t necessarily need a complete rebooting and did suffer from weaknesses, but it the most original to the comic books out of all four theatrical features thus far. Was it too soon to reboot the series? Yes, definitely! Is it worth seeing at the cinema? Yes, especially if you are a fan of the comics. An open minded viewer is required for The Amazing Spider-Man due to its many differences with previous works. All in all, it is still an acceptable, enjoyable and surprisingly funny piece of entertainment that left a solid cliffhanger ending in the post-credits regarding the upcoming sequel.

First of all, historical dramas in a nutshell are that they are produced and filmed in almost exactly the same way in terms of sets, filming, script and sometimes the types of characters yet all result in new meaningful messages for the viewers. Although there are few exceptions, Hollywood are struggling with films of this kind and Danish, Swedish and Czech drama A Royal Affair hits the screen and in a huge way. Considering that this film involves quite a few genres from drama to romance to thriller and surprisingly moments of humorous comedy, A Royal Affair fits almost perfectly and is one of the strongest historical dramas in recent memory.


Films similar to A Royal Affair are more or less history lessons for the audience on the screen by stating the facts and helping us gain a clearer understand about life centuries before the modern era. Director Nikolaj Arcel is best known as co-screenwriter of 2009 Swedish version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo but now makes a film that is marvellously put together. He perfectly expresses what royalty is like and, therefore, teaches the audience the ups and downs of living that life. Furthermore, Arcel includes that eerie tone to the film with medieval-like settings and the dark sceneries. Thus, unlike most historical dramas nowadays, A Royal Affair is a more gloomy and dismal looking film which added that more realistic atmosphere to it.


Considering that A Royal Affair involves a king and his physician, it is hard to determine who the leading character is of the two. Former James Bond villain Mads Mikkelsen portrayed physician Dr. Johann Straunsee, who is the main focus of the film. He gives a very mixed performance. There was, of course, a very emotional connection between Straunsee and Queen Caroline of Denmark and the audience understood what they were going through, but Mikkelsen was not entirely as engaging to watch as an individual character. The same can be said for actress Alicia Vikander and her role as Queen Caroline. She terrifically defines a teenaged queen – naïve and incredibly attractive.


Furthermore, the hats must go off to Mikkel Følsgaard as the mentally unstable King Christian VII. It is not very often that we witness an actor portray a dangerously disturbed madman so exquisitely. Følsgaard added that essence of evil and insanity to the screen at an almost equal level to Heath Ledger as the Joker. However at the same time, Følsgaard provided us with a very humane, naturalistic touch to King Christian. Therefore, his role is worthy of an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.


Overall, A Royal Affair is another powerful historical drama that despite its slightly delayed pace and predictability, it is at that superior level of earning Academy Award nominations. The film as a whole has similar concepts to Fred Zinnemann’s 1966 hit A Man For All Seasons that involves a lot of psychology, drama and crime within the highest social class. Therefore, A Royal Affair expresses that members of a royal family and their colleagues are all still human beings and that historical dramas really work better in world cinema rather than Hollywood.

Following the experiences of Borat in 2006 and Bruno in 2009, any mockumentary involving Sacha Baron Cohen will either become a huge controversial offense to specific viewers or turn out to be just a traditional laugh out loud comedy. Once again, Baron Cohen decides to mock another social class of individuals which could become the most insulting so far. Although, there were still the few abusive jokes of racism, sexism and other real-life issues added onto the screen and amongst its fair share of flaws, The Dictator was still funny for what it is and did exceptionally well as a comedy that is still enjoyable and entertaining to watch.


Director Larry Charles reunites with Sacha Baron Cohen for the third consecutive time as the director of The Dictator. As predicted, he adds the same type of on-running gags and laughs that we have seen before but on occasions; there were the odd moments of complete and utter shock. Furthermore, it is still the meaningless and crazy story that we all expected it to be. However, The Dictator, unlike Bruno and Borat, was not filmed in a documentary-style format. Therefore, it had a traditional story to it with a protagonist, antagonist and love interest. The work from Larry Charles and Sacha Baron Cohen will slowly fade due to repetition but the more ideas that they come up with, the longer the entertainment will last.


Sacha Baron Cohen is truly a very brave special actor. Not only because he risks his reputation as a person to mock specific social classes or make fun of certain world events, but because in the films he stars in, he is both an actor to find hilarious and to take very seriously. Furthermore, he takes the film entirely as his own and, thus, steals the show. Baron Cohen’s latest character Admiral General Aladeen can quite easily be seen as an offense to specific viewers but if there is anybody that appears to be an insult to a culture but can still be hilariously funny about it, it can only be Sacha Baron Cohen. Therefore for this reason, you really are not sure whether to take this General Aladeen really seriously or as some sort of on-screen prank. What you see is what you get with Baron Cohen in this role and although he doesn’t quite connect to the character as firmly as he did portraying Borat and Bruno, he stills gives another hilarious performance in The Dictator.


As we witnessed in previous Charles-Baron Cohen works, certain Hollywood actors have made cameos only as themselves. However, The Dictator goes somewhere a little different this time as Hollywood actors, apart from Sacha, actually have a role in the film as opposed to very brief appearances. First, there is Anna Faris who portrayed co-op manager and activist Zoey, who gradually becomes a love interest for Aladeen. This is where The Dictator is flawed as a subplot was introduced – a forbidden romance between Aladeen and Zoey. Unfortunately, it really did not work in this film as there was no emotional and genuinely heartfelt connection between them and she was needlessly there on the screen. In fact, she did not even have to be part of the film at all. A bit more sophistication was added into The Dictator as Oscar-winning actor Ben Kingsley performed as Aladeen’s treacherous uncle Tamir, the antagonist of the story, and John C. Reilly had a role as hitman Clayton. Furthermore, there were still the traditional cameo appearances from certain actors who portrayed themselves, such as Megan Fox and Edward Norton.


Overall, The Dictator is yet another humorous, successful comedy from Baron Cohen and Charles that is nothing to take seriously, but is still an enjoyable delight. It was not quite as shocking or as funny as Borat or Bruno but it is still gives exactly what you would expect from it. Of what is featured in the film (characters, story) is nothing to take seriously. It only depends on how the viewers respond to it. Nevertheless, if you are in the right frame of mind, have the right sense of humour to watch it and have enjoyed Sacha Baron Cohen and Larry Charles’ past works, then you will get enjoyment from this that could become your guilty pleasure.

Ever since the first age of cinema, the 1812 fairy tale Snow White by the Brothers Grimm has been adapted on numerous occasions into feature films and television programmes - most notably the 1937 animated Disney classic Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs. Yet, there has not been any major hit of the story since then. However, 2012 became a rather lucky year for the Brothers Grimm as their work on this story was put to the big screen not only once but twice resulting in two separate feature films. Snow White And The Huntsman became the second of the two to be released. Initial expectations for this film were rather mixed but amazingly, it became a surprisingly intense, fun, exciting and at times terrifying ride as it solidly renovates the Brothers Grimm’s dark tale.


To be able to pull off a successful film based on a classic tale is a very difficult task and upon learning that director Rupert Sanders was making his directorial debut, there were speculations of how close it was going to be to the Disney animated version, let alone the original tale. In many ways, it is told as a traditional 1800s fairy tale but at the same time, it had certain aspects where it was just like a brand new fantasy film that wasn’t previously connected to any other works. Although Sanders’ work was impressive and has been a solid debut for him, entering the world of Snow White, the Evil Queen and the Huntsman had its rather familiar environmental and characteristic concepts to C.S. Lewis’s Narnia, Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland and even Tolkien’s Middle-Earth. Nevertheless, it was more or less a welcomed return to a vintage fictional, countryside world.


Kristen Stewart bridged a gap directly between her roles as Bella Swan in the final Twilight films as she portrayed the Princess with “skin white as snow”. Quite frankly, casting Stewart as Snow White, the protagonist of the story, is a rather typical move as due to Stewart’s current Hollywood star status and portraying what became a Disney Princess character, it’ll help the film gain more financial success. With this in mind, Stewart is not the perfect match for Snow White in terms of beauty and heroism but to a huge surprise, she pulls off a more than satisfactory performance. Following his breakthrough performances as Thor in the film of the same time and The Avengers, Chris Hemsworth takes the role of Eric the Huntsman. His performance was another typical ‘macho’ and heroic one that we have seen before. In fact, in certain ways, the Huntsman has his similar characteristics to the heroic outlaw Robin Hood. Following Snow White And The Huntsman and his performances as Thor, Hemsworth has expressed what he is truly remarkable at achieving.


Finding a suitable actress to portray a dangerously disturbed, deranged but young and beautiful woman does not come round the corner very often. South African actress Charlize Theron had already won an Academy Award for Best Actress in her role as serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster back in 2003. Further to that, Theron still had a tremendous amount of beauty, which was an essential requirement as part of the Evil Queen. For the role in this film, Charlize Theron was perhaps the best choice purely because she was not only beautiful and rather terrifying to watch, but she also established an emotional connection between the Evil Queen and the audience. There was a background storyline about her young life, which revolutionized that she has feelings as a human being, as well as an evil witch and Queen. As told in the story, the dwarfs made appearances too, but this time there were eight of them instead of seven. As opposed to real-life dwarves, the roles were portrayed by Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Toby Jones, Johnny Harris, Ray Winstone, Nick Frost, Eddie Marsan and Brian Gleeson respectively.


Overall, Snow White And The Huntsman is perhaps one of the most surprising films that you could see in 2012 and became a film that perhaps does not come close to the Disney version, but it is still a solid effort all-round. It is filled with lots of charm, dazzling effects, exciting action and most of all – the terror and scares within. Nevertheless, this is really not for the kids to see and is a dark telling of the story that is aimed preferably towards teenagers and adults.

First of all, here is the problem with certain Hollywood action-thrillers similar to Man On A Ledge in this generation – they look creative in terms of filming and direction, but they seriously lack both the action and the suspense that keeps the audience’s attention from start to finish. Unfortunately, Man On A Ledge had already given a rather weak first impression due to the very lazy and corny title, but the cast from the likes of Avatar star Sam Worthington, Elizabeth Banks, child-actor Jamie Bell and Oscar nominee Ed Harris added a little more interest and sophistication into the film. Nevertheless, the easiest way to describe Man On A Ledge is simply the same as the title: a boring, un-interesting and empty film that is easily forgettable.


Considering that Man On A Ledge does have its numerous flaws, there were certain moments where it does deserve credit. For example, it begins very quickly and immediately gives us the scheming nature of Nick Cassidy as he sneaks into a top-floor hotel room by posing as somebody else. Therefore, the film simply cuts to the chase and gets the story underway preparing us for more suspense and more dialogue. However, although the direction by Asger Leth had similar Nolan-like concepts, Man On A Ledge still served as a film with no meaning and after the first 5 minutes, there were no added excitement or suspense.


Well, everybody recognizes Sam Worthington in his roles in films such as Terminator Salvation, Clash Of The Titans, its sequel and most of all – James Cameron’s Avatar. Following these films, Worthington has revealed that he can either be really impressive or absolutely atrocious. However, he gave a rather mediocre performance in Man On A Ledge as Nick Cassidy. Worthington’s role was not really anything at all. Upon learning Cassidy’s background story, the character and performance does not engage in any emotional connection and simply does not make him a threat. Thus, Worthington can pull off stronger performances in better films, but Man On A Ledge was a huge miss for him. Elizabeth Banks portrayed negotiator Lydia Mercer in a role that is an almost typical love interest that we have seen time and time again. Furthermore, Jamie Bell performed as Worthington’s on-screen brother Joey Cassidy and Ed Harris makes an appearance too.


Overall, Man On A Ledge was, as predicted from the very flat title, a meaningless and shallow film that does have its one or two strengths but is still easily forgettable. It could have been a much better film with a more sophisticated director and screenwriter, especially within the genres of action, horror or thriller. The actors and some of the other crew members simply need to just write this one off as an experience and move on to make stronger projects in the upcoming future.

Many times, particularly in this generation, we have seen films that focus on sportspersons (fictional and real) in their professional and personal lives, which is exactly what was initially expected of Warrior. However, because it involves something rather different sport – mixed martial arts (aka cage-fighting), it became interesting of how different Warrior was going to be in comparison to previous recent films of that type. Nonetheless, Warrior does suffer from repetition due to the message and the style of filming but it also added something else to the table, so to speak, and became a very enjoyable sports film that is definitely worth a watch.


Throughout most recent years, we see the same old sport-dramas which are usually underdog stories that add inspiration and courage, which usually catches the audience’s attention. However, with Warrior, it still worked but the main problems that it faces is that it lacked that emotional and realistic atmosphere that we have seen before. It is not necessarily the fault of any of the crew or cast members. Times are changing and the theme of where Warrior was introduced is slowly fading away due to repetition. What David O'Russell did with The Fighter and Ron Howard with Cinderella Man were truly remarkable and Gavin O'Connor deserves credit for his work at his attempt at providing us something different. Although, he did manage to transform Warrior into a very physical film, regarding in the ring, story-wise and other areas of direction were not anything major. O'Connor could have given us a huge disappointment but he didn’t and Warrior is a solid enough attempt at a slowly fading theme of genre.


Right before we experience Tom Hardy as the ruthless Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, he provided us with a glimpse at what to expect as he portrayed former marine Tommy Conlon. Although Hardy's performance was a long shot from an Academy Award nomination, he still gave a solid performance. Upon knowing that Hardy was the central figure of the film, he became that immediate underdog protagonist. However, what was surprising was that Joel Edgerton who portrayed Hardy's on-screen brother became a main character like Tommy on an equal level. This caused minor confusion as there was no initial protagonist and, therefore, the film did not express who is more important and who the audience should be focusing more on. Like Hardy, Edgerton's performance was decent enough and wasn't worthy of an Oscar nomination but both actors collaborated together well similarly to Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg in The Fighter.


Furthermore in the cast, Nick Nolte portrayed recovering alcoholic Paddy Conlon in an outstanding Oscar-nominated performance. Nolte, being a former alcoholic himself, perfectly mixes into the nature of the character and following his past experience, Nolte was almost portraying himself in Warrior. This is where his performance relates to Mickey Rourke's memorable role in The Wrestler. If there is anything that Nolte's performance shows, it is that if there is a character that faced a traumatic past or faced troubles in parts of life and any actor who had experienced that would make an on-screen character become reality. Nevertheless, Nolte gave a fantastic performance and deserved his Academy Award nomination.


Overall, Warrior is an enjoyable sports drama that does suffer from its one or two flaws but is still worth checking out. There is not all that much to expect from it apart from a different type of sport has been chosen within a dialogue and story background that we have seen countless times over the years. Warrior is far from being one of the best sports films and is even further away from one of the worst, but with the cast and the crew making it at least satisfactory and worthwhile, it is a solid effort.

Identically similar to before the release of the first Kung Fu Panda film, the sequel was released when DreamWorks Animation provided us with animated features that may have had a colourful and delightful approach and been successful at the box office, but with the exception of How To Train Your Dragon, had resulted in mixed critical response. The trailer of Kung Fu Panda 2 looked promising and we got yet another entertaining ride for families and individuals of all ages to enjoy. However, this time, the sequel went somewhere a little different than its predecessor as it added more emotional drama to the story. Therefore, as well as fun action and hilarious jokes, Kung Fu Panda 2 was a very touching sequel.


Although she has worked with DreamWorks Animation on a number of projects over the years, South Korean film director Jennifer Yuh makes her directorial debut with Kung Fu Panda 2. Yuh gives us all of the excitement, the magic and the comedy that Mark Osborne and John Stevenson provided and, therefore, we experienced in the predecessor back in 2008. However, there was something a little more to the sequel. It surprisingly became a very moving and thought-provoking story with a meaningful and tender message, which will affect adult and child audiences alike. Furthermore, this sequel is a tad darker, story-wise too, and it revealed a few hidden secrets that has opened up Kung Fu Panda as a franchise.


Jack Black reprised his role as the big, fat panda Po. He has proved himself worthy as the Dragon Warrior and has ultimately fulfilled his dream. However, he has another enemy to face off against, but the story of Po’s past comes to haunt him. Po had already become an inspiration in the first film but in the sequel, we saw a slightly different Po this time around. It wasn’t so much Jack Black playing a panda, but Po was ultimately a character on his own. Therefore, we are with him along his emotional and courageous quest to find out the truth of his past.


Dustin Hoffman returned to providing the voice of Yoda-like kung fu master, Shifu, although he wasn’t quite so involved in the sequel as the predecessor. Angelina Jolie, Seth Rogen, Jackie Chan, David Cross and Lucy Liu in their roles too as members of the Furious Five, Po’s colleagues and Shifu’s protégés. Furthermore, in many sequels, we are welcomed with another group of actors who make regular appearances. With Ian McShane having previously provided the voice of antagonist Tai Lung, a snow leopard, in the predecessor, we now have Gary Oldman in the role of the second primary villain. He portrayed the sinister Lord Shen, a leucistic peacock, who provided a very evil and sinister performance. Finally, action heroes Jean-Claude Van Damme and Michelle Yeoh made their presence known in Kung Fu Panda 2 by featuring briefly in supporting roles – Master Croc and Soothsayer.


Overall, Kung Fu Panda 2 is a sequel that does not come round the corner very often as it fantastically jumbles the dark and emotional concepts of drama with the fun action, hilarious laughs and deeply lovable characters. Being able to choose which of the first two Kung Fu Panda films was better is an awkward question with no answer. This is because both are better than the other in opposing ways. Nevertheless, now that we have had two successful but almost opposing chapters in the series and after that cliff-hanger ending in the sequel, it has opened up the possibility of a franchise consisting of many new instalments and characters that could be in store for us in the near future.