So it has been a while since I last wrote on my blog, and I must apologise. This blog is still very much active and I am endeavouring to write a post a few times a week with my most recent reviews.

Recently I had the misfortune to purchase a cinema (for you American’s out there, a theatre) ticket to go and see The Mummy:  Tomb of the Dragon Emperor…I must note how many recent films enjoy the use of the colon, its starting to get a little old.

I must say at how utterly disappointed I was with this movie, a feeling that I knew I would probably have upon viewing this attrocity of a movie.  Firstly, let me say how sorry I was that Racheal Weiss was not in this movie, as the woman who has taken over for her (I do not know, nor do I care to know her name) was truly appalling.  I can only imagine she is an American trying to pull off an English accent…either that, or she is an extremely crap actor…to be blunt.

Now, Racheal Weiss is not the best of actresses in the world, but I always thought that her role was very well suited to her acting abilities, and I had always liked to previous two Mummy films, even if there were some awful lines in it.  But this movie was in a whole realm of bad on its own…it was a movie that played to being a sequal, with constant references to its prequals with statements such as “thought you said we’d never do this again” and, “I’ve said it before, I hate mummy’s” and many, many more gut wrenchingly bad lines.

It must be said I am a huge fan of Brendan Frasier, but in this film, you got the impression that he was more rail roaded into the role than participating in it out of choice.  The acting by all but Jet Li was poor, and did nothing but barrel role the movie into a slow decent into hell, with the help of a crap story, poor dialect and heart stoppingly bad direction.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that the only thing I enjoyed about this movie was Jet Li and the CG yeti’s which were in fact very impressive graphically.  But these did not redeem the movie in any way, let it be known.  They mearly made me appreciate just how good and actor Jet Li truly is if he can manage to pull off such a good performance given the material he was to work with.

I think it’s safe to say The Mummy series of movies is dead in the water, or at least it should be.  That’s the problem with Hollywood these days…too many sequals of good movies that ruin their name.  I doubt very much I could now watch the previous Mummy films without relating it to this attrocity.  I can only hope that one day Hollywood learns its lessons and starts to create films that are more than just eye candy.

The next film I am looking forward to this year is “My Name is Bruce” which stars the fantastic Bruce Campbell, who is the God of B movies.  Don’t expect anything flashy, he is all about B comedy fun, and none of that graphically beautiful vomit that people think makes a movie these days.  It’s out October this year, hopefully, and Im hoping its not a direct to dvd here in the UK.

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I have been waiting for this movie for such a long time, and managed to access to a preview of this movie in UK cinemas about a week ago, however, I was so glad that I managed to actually get a seat for this movie as I was certainly not disappointed.

As with all my movie reviews, I shall give you an honest opinion of the movie, going through both its good and bad points.  Now, to start with, and I must write this before I forget, I had a major issue with the contingency of the movie, centering around the character Abe Sapian.

Those of you familiar to this series of comic know that Abe is a water inhabitant that in order to survive out in the open must wear the water equivilant of an oxygen tank…though its not exaclty a water tank, but anyway I digress.  For the first half hour of the movie, Abe wears this tank when both in the Headquarters and the outside world…however, randomly, part way through the movie seems to decide that he can actually breathe oxygen and the water tank disappears for the rest of the movie.

See, in all honesty, this isnt even a small inconsistancy…in fact, its actually a pretty large one.  Thing is some people are saying its because he randomly got some kind of small adapter, however something like this would need to be explained and would really only go hand in hand with Red getting a new weapon…which by the way he does not.

And now that my rant is over I shall go on to talk about the actaul film and story itself.  Now most people seem to have mixed feelings about this movie.  I quite simply really, really liked it.  It’s not often I find myself actually laughing at this type of movie, and enjoying it, but I did.  In fact its one of those rare Dark Knight occassions, and probably the last for the year as more Hollywood drivvel prepares to hit the big screens.

The acting is this movie was brillant, and the guy that plays the Prince, superb.  The make up was awesome and very believeable on such characters as Red.  And as for Ron Perlman, that guy is highly under-rated as an actor and an action hero.  In fact most people seem to forget he was in Alien Resurrection and Blade II…in fact, seems he likes to be in sequals…hmm.

I was however disappointed that David Hyde-Pierce didn’t do the voice of Abe Sapien unlike in the first movie, a voice that definitely suited the character, however the voice acting was above par, and if you hadn’t seen the previous movie, then you honestly won’t care.

Also, a new addition to the Hellboy cast was the infamous and brilliant Seth MacFarlane doing the voice of the robot whom I believe was called Krauss…though I am not entirely sure of the accuracy of that statement.  Anyway, his character was completely different the usual Family Guy and American dad that MacFarlane has introduced us to over the past few years, and I was pleasantly suprised at the limitless acting skills that this man possesses.

The story to this new movie was very interesting and successfully managed to keep my attention for the majority of the film, with the random comedy scenes, great action scenes and fantastic general story telling.  And even though there will be a lot of people who will disagree with my opinion of this movie, I actually don’t care.  This is one of those movies that you will either love or hate, and for me this is defintely one of the best movies I have seen all year…not that there have been many contenders.

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You may recall that I very briefly mention yesterday, that a live action version of the hit Japanese anime movie, Akira, has been announced.  This film is going to be broken up into two parts, however, currently they have only announced the first installment.

Whilst much is not known as of yet, I can confim that the film is to be directed by the little known director Ruairi Robinson.  Thankfully, the story is being written by Katsuhiro Ôtomo, who created the manga, and Gary Whitta, who is writing the screen play of the movie.

Currently, there are no confirmed actors, however there are rumours…rumours which I hope and play stay that way, mainly because, they have ‘rumoured’ to cast Leonardo Di Caprio (WHAT!!!?),, most famous for his destruction of a classic Shakespearean play, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who most people will know as "that kid from 3rd Rock from the Sun".

To be honest, Di Caprio is a terrible actor at the best of times, and the only role I believe he has actually been good at, was in the Aviator, and that was probably because of the interesting story, and not his portrayl of the character.

But there you have it, the inside scoop about the Akira Live Action Movie…lets wait and see what hideous things Hollywood wants to include in this popular anime movie.

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On Friday the 9th May, the latest Wachowski "Matrix trilogy" brothers action movie ,Speed Racer, which is based on the 1960s anime series Speed Racer (aka Mach GoGoGo) opened in theaters worldwide.  However, the film has so far failed to achieve the kind of box-office sales required to be the big-budget Hollywood summer blockbuster that is had been expected it to be. The film only took $20.2 million, which is far below the already scaled-down estimation of $30 million.

With this in mind, I once again question the financial viability of the other big-budget live action anime adaptations currently in-production; including the recently finished filming Dragonball, which has been highly anticipated for many years, as well as the recently announced Akira and Ghost in the Shell.  Let’s hope next time they leave it up to the Japanese…im sure we would see an immediate improvement.

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Well, I honestly didn’t think I would be writing about this again so soon, however, I have got in my possession more images from the upcoming Live Action Dragonball Movie, starring Justin Chatwin as Goku, and James Marsters as Piccolo.

The photos provided, were leaked from the set whilst filming in Mexico, and whilst there are actually a few photos now, the ones I share with you today are what I would call the ‘pick of the litter’ and are the best quality phots available.

These images are provided by HoyCinema.  This first image depicts Goku in his strangely different and extremely orange Gi.  Now, whilst I am at least  happy to see that the Gi has remained, I am dubious as to why they decided orange was a better choice in colour, however, this is merely a minor detail.

 The second image that I wish to share with you today is this cool fight scene.  Now, at this point in Goku’s life, you must remember, he was not known to be a Saiyan, and certainly did not have the powers that he had by the end of Dragonball.  I bring this up as I have noticed on a lot of forums, people are saying Justin is too scrawny to depict Goku.  However, throughout most of Dragonball, Goku is actually a little pudgey, and is certainly not musce bound at all, thats why his appearance was always deceiving.

Anyway, so this scene shows them fighting…possibly training, and I must be honest, this image fills me with hope that this film is not going to be the worst film ever…its unlikely that it will be good, of course you realise, however, I have wanted this made for years and would so love it to be good. lets all hope and pray for our dreams to be answered!!!!

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You may remember a while back I announced the production of a Live-Action Dragonball movie.  Well I finally have an update for you, and its one that is hard to find on the internet. 

Thanks to a well known Super Hero Movie source, I have managed to get hold of some one of the first EVER images of Justin Chatwin as Goku.  This image was taken from a Japanese movie magazine.  There is also an update on the cast and release date of the movie, which is set for an April 10, 2009 release. The current cast is as follows: James Marsters, Jamie Chung, Emmy Rossum, Eriko Tamura, Joon Park, Chow Yun-Fat, Texas Battle, Randall Duk Kim and Ernie Hudson co-star.

But now, the moment you have been waiting for, the image of Justin Chatwin as Goku.  Now what you must remember about this image is that it is quite possibly just a concept image, but we will just have to wait and see in order to find out.

Now this initial image is not of great quality, but as you can see, they have opted to have a much more sensible hair style for the character of Goku, something that has the potential to annoy many fans.

There is also the lack of the infamous Gi worn by Goku throughout the WHOLE series of Dragonball and Dragonball Z.  However, it is very unlikely that this will remain due to the fact that the Gi is relevant to the story of Dragonball .  For those who are not well versed with this series, the Gi was firstly given to him by his Grandpa, however, once his training with Kame (Master Roshi), he then has the Kame insignia sewn onto his Gi.

Anyway, as small of a snippet as this is to the Dragonball movie, I still felt that it was well worth sharing as the first image of the upcoming movie.  Enjoy!

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With the recent release of the new live action Speed Racer movie…which by the way looks awful, and as though it should have remained either an anime or computer animated, I have decided to write about the old and classically brilliant (and hillarious) Speed Racer.

Speed Racer is the title of an English adaptation of the Japanese anime Mach GoGoGo which centered on automobile racing.  Mach GoGoGo was first created, and designed, by Tatsuo Yoshida (1932–1977) as a manga series in the 1960s and successfully made the jump to TV as an anime series in 1967.

Speed Racer was quite a westernised anime, and this was due to the creator, Tatsuo Yoshida’s affinity for the United States through portrayals of American life in numerous films.

Despite their Westernization, the series stil falls into the familiar manga-anime storyline.  Speed Racer definitely resembles typical manga characterization of a teenage boy with superior skills, this this case, his amazing racing and driving skills, facing unreal adversity through a multitude of villains, something that is more common in Mech anime’s such as Neon Genesis Evangelion.

If you are contemplating going and watching the new Speed Racer movie…don’t, simply go out and buy the who series of the cartoon (or one of the two series available) as I am almost certain you will be much more entertained.  However, if your curiosity does in fact get the better of you, and you do end up watching this appaling adaptation of an anime movie, then please feel free to inform me of exactly what this movie is like.

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Today I have decided to write about a subject of a different sort…American movies.  The reason for which is that yesterday, I had the harrowing experience of watching the new War of the Worlds 2 movie, that was released 18th March.

The reason I have decided to write this blog about such is simply because I was so astounded at the film that I wish to save you, the readers, the horror of sitting through what is actually, no word of a lie, the WORST film i have EVER seen…and i have seen a lot of poor movies *cough* Fantastic Four: Silver Surfer *cough*, but GOD, at the end of this movie I wanted to gouge out my eyes, pull off my ears and cut off my tongue…those were my exact words to the people I was watching it with!

You may be asking why is this film so poor.  I will go through that in great length, because in all honesty, there is a lot to say.

For starters, the visual effects are so appalling (especially in contrast to the previous film) that the ‘Walkers’ dont even have shadows.  Now as an animator, I know that that is a very basic technique, that NO-ONE should forget.  Secondly, the lighting used on the ‘Walkers’ was poor, and just made it look like it wasnt even part of the film.

Now, I have mentioned these ‘Walkers’…in the previous film they were those big metal tripods that devestated the city…well the producer of this film, interpreted this as, "Oh, they aren’t metal, despite how they look…they are made of flesh"…well done you…well done!  What an absolutely poorly implemented and structured concept!

The biggest thing that annoyed me though about this film is the constant re-use of scenes, proving the film to be an extremely low budget movie.  Honestly, within the first 5 minutes, a scene is repeated at least three times of people running through the city…the same people, in the same places.

The worst use of this scene repetition is used with the walkers…now his scene repeats over 10 times throughout the film…if you ever have the misfortune of watching this movie, you will know what I mean by my description of the scene.  Basically, the scene is, a walker passes a bridge towards some trees…randomly, they will include a laser shooting from it…but that scene is the exact same one used every time.

There are also some ridiculous inconsistencies within the film.  For example, the army have some F22 ‘Raptors’…for those who know anything, that is the aircraft StarScream in the new Transformers movie transforms into…however, in this movie, they are not actually Raptors…they arent even anything like them.

Secondly about the Raptors, the army actually only has about 6 of them, and when they go to attack the mother ship, the guy actually says "Hurry up, we’re all dying out here"…but in the next scene, despite for the last 10 minutes you have seen a maximum of 4 ships, there are HUNDREDS of them…everywhere.  What the hell!  Where did all these ships come from?????  It doesnt make ANY SENSE!!

Next, the Raptor crashes to Mars, completely busted up…but at the end of the film, he says "ill just reverse throttle it and we’ll be otta here"…what?  Thats like me writing off my car, and then driving it home with no wheels and no engine…it doenst make sense…Honestly, this guy needs shooting with a common sense dart!

Finally, the other thing that annoys me is the female scientist with the "What the hell is that" accent.  Honestly, I have no idea…I was told she is from south Texas or something, but she sounds Canadian half the time, the Australian, and then, half the time I cant understand what she is saying cos she doesnt seem to want to form her words…her mouth works like a puppet!

Anyway, thats my review of this film…basically can be cut down to DO NOT WATCH UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!!!!  WATCH AT YOUR OWN RISK OF SANITY and WARNING!!! MAY INDUCE FITS OF AGGRESSION.

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