Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Set in modern day San Francisco, Will Rodman (James Franco) is a scientist conducting genetic experiments on chimpanzees in the hope of a cure for Alzheimer's.
Rodman, has a personal interest in the these tests as his father – who lives with him, is in the early stages of the disease.

When one of the Chimps escapes and goes on the rampage in the test centre, Rodman's boss orders all the chimps to be put down, therefore aborting the experiment.
However, he is unaware that the chimp they were experimenting on had given birth before being killed and hid it's young in her cage away from the human eye.
Rodman is convinced by a fellow professor to take the chimp home as it would likely meet the same fate as the rest of the chimps.

It soon becomes clear that the chimp (Caesar) has inherited his mother's intelligence and over the years becomes like a child to Rodman and his father, even learning how to communicate with his adult friends through sign language. He resides with them in their spacious house but is not permitted to leave.

Seeing how bad his father's increasing dementia is becoming, Rodman decides to test the sample on him. The initial response is good but sometime later his system rebels against it and the dementia returns.

During one of the father's lapses, he wanders out of the house and has an altercation with an angry neighbour.
Caesar witnesses this from his window, escapes from the house and violently attacks the neighbour. This results in him being sent to a primate facility, which is not as pc as initially perceived by Will and his new girlfriend Caroline (Freida Pinto).

This is were all the action begins as Caesar is unhappy being locked up like a pet and Will is upset having to hand him over to the authorities, but promises to fight for his release.
Caesar begins to rebel and after some brawls with fellow apes it becomes clear that he is not to be messed with and quickly forms some alliances.
A thorn in his side is the evil guard played by Harry Potter's Tom Felton. He can see Caesar practically reading his mind and watching his every move, therefore makes his life hell in the facility, taunting and teasing him relentlessly.

The longer the human thinking Caesar remains in the facility, the more pro-Ape and less pro-Human he becomes. Meanwhile Rodman is working on an improved version of the drug but again it seems to only make the humans worse and the apes stronger and wiser. There is also the risk of a global epidemic if a human is unnecessarily exposed to the drug.

It is inevitable that sooner or later there will be a rebellion by the apes and they will escape from their confinement. When this happens, there are obvious areas they wanna hit but Caesar's concern is freeing all apes form any form of captivity and makes it clear to the other apes that humans should not be harmed whilst doing so. This is easier said than done!

The first half of this movie is as heartfelt a movie as you will ever see and will make you question lots of things, mainly mankind's attitude toward animals and their continuing use of them in their search for cures to human illnesses.
This will no doubt create many talking points for the viewer and arguments in the car home or in the pub later.
Also, those who are overly religious should beware, as Darwin's evolution theory has never been more highlighted. The apes emote the same as humans, look like humans and communicate like humans.

The second half of the movie is non-stop action and the final scene on the Golden Gate Bridge is awesome. Acting credits go to the wonderful John Lithgoe as Will's father, Franco is fine and Frieda Pinto looks pretty!

However, the movie belongs to Caesar and his fellow apes. The special effects and sounds effects team have done something incredible here and not only is their work fantastic to witness, it's also quite unnerving and scary at times.

It's difficult to negatively critique a film that offers the whole package but the ending does let it down as it offers very little closure. This however, is the only drawback to an otherwise cracking movie.

Score: 9/10

Super 8

A group of teenagers obsessed with horror films and all things ghoulish are making their very own movie on a dark night in 1979, when they vividly witness a horrific train crash.
They all agree that they should keep their witnessing of this incident to themselves. However, the kids are unaware that something escaped from the train that night that will change their lives forever.

Events inside their small community town take a strange turn and as these events all seem to originate from that fatal night, the teens decide to take matters into their own hands and try find the cause of these eerie happenings.

Add to this, a government cover up, the discovery of an alien crash landing in the 50”s, a father and son's troubled relationship and you have the makings of an absorbing and intriguing teen action flick.

J.J.Abrams, the brains behind TVs Lost writes and directs Super 8 with some production help from Steven Spielberg and what they give us is what you'd expect from such a collaboration – A Supernatural meets Fantasy crowd pleaser!

Both young leading actors - Joel Courtney and Elle Fanning are superb, with the later being annoyingly talented. The fact that the cast is short of Hollywood A Lister's instills likeability and belief into the film.

It kills me to compare Super 8 to the classic that is 'The Goonies' but I'm afraid it cannot be helped.
In fact it has so many similarities, the cute intelligent weedy kid with a crush on the elusive (out of his league) girl, the chubby guy, the funny quirky kid, etc.,

But who cares, it's faced paced with lots of funny one liners from an excellent young cast, plenty of action and scary moments to keep the adults on board and a cracking soundtrack featuring the likes of ELO and Blondie.

So, is Super 8 the Goonies of this generation?

Absolutely!!!


Score: 8/10

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2 (3D)

So, the end of the Harry Potter series finally arrives! What does this mean? Well, to anyone who hasn't seen the previous 7 movies - nothing! Therefore there's not much point in reading this review.
However, for those among us who have been avidly awaiting a Harry Potter movie for each of the past 7 years, there will be mixed feelings at the series coming to an end.

The 2nd part of the Deathly Hallows starts off exactly were the 1st one left off, so if your memory's a bit rusty then watch the end of the 1st part again. It's pretty much obvious to fans of the franchise what the premise of the story is but here's a quick synopsis!

Harry is desperately tracking down the remaining 2 of the 3 hocruxes in order to destroy the evil Lord Voldemort. Professor Snape is now the headmaster at Hogwarts after the devastating death of Professor Dumbledore. He's not a popular choice among the remaining staff and pupils in light of his betrayal. Harry is in hiding in lieu of these events so steers clear of Hogwarts.

Harry knows that Voldemore is in hot pursuit of him as he already possesses one of the three hocruxes essential in maintaining Voldemore's immortality. By having this in his possession, he knows that all of his friends and family are in danger so he makes the attempt to head out alone. This proves more difficult than he imagined as Hermione and Ron refuse to leave his side.

There are lots of twists along the way, some that I didn't see coming as I didn't read the books. The action never lets up and the script is the most
complex yet, which I suppose is to be expected seeing as it's the finale and there are a lot of loose ends to be tied up.

The film contains practically every A list to C list actor working in the British film industry at present. Which begs the question, what are the C Lister's going to do for work after 7 steady years?

The exciting ending doesn't disappoint, it was worth wearing the 3D glasses for this alone. Then there's the overly twee final scenes which you can't help but be moved by.

So, it's goodbye to Harry and Co. It's been an amazing ride from an ingenious creator with equally talented directors, writers and actors.
They'll make great bank holiday movies and for those who haven't seen them, well I'm jealous!!!


Score: 9/10

Transformers - Dark of the Moon 3D

A big fan of the first Transformers movie, I was so disappointed with the second one. This is generally the case with sequels, bar a few - The Godfather 2 being the obvious one and Airplane 2 not so obvious but still funnier than the first.

After the mess that was - Transformers 2 (Revenge of the Fallen), the media speculation was that it was a back to basics scenario for number 3 (Dark of the Moon). Well, it couldn't have been more wrong!

I'm not gonna waste time explaining the plot as it's paper thin and basically a re-hash of the last 2 plots with a few new transformers thrown in for good measure. There are about 10 endings in the last half hour of an arduous 2 hours and 40 mins - and I foolishly only ordered a medium popcorn.

There are some plusses though. A lot of the action scenes were spectacular in 3D, especially one scene which sees army recruits jumping out of a helicopter with sky gliding suits on them. That was the stand out scene.

Gone is Megan Fox but guys need not worry as the beautiful Victoria Secrets model Rosie Huntington Whiteley takes the reigns as the hottie. She may be hot but she should stick to catwalks and avoid film sets forever.
Hollywood big shots Frances McDormand and John Malkovich join in the antics as well -shame on them!!! They obviously wanted to have a bit of fun chasing shadows on a big set as I can't think of another reason why they'd sign up for this kind of tripe.

Smarmy Doctor McDreamy (Patrick Dempsey) from Grey's Anatomy also joins the fun and plays - a smarmy company executive. Really stretching his acting skills on his summer break from tv!!!

I can't finish without mentioning the script. You'll go a long way before you find a worse one. It must've been dreamed up by the writer's 3 year old nephew. It contains the most cringing unfunny one liners and cheesy dialogue.

If you're a Transformers fan and feel I've been harsh, I apologise but it's all true. Don't even rent it when it comes out on DVD, wait til Stephen's day in 2 years time when RTE show it.


Score: 2/10

X Men - First Class

A prequel to the X-Men series of movies chronicling how archenemies - Professor X and Magneto and the various mutants first realised their amazing powers.

The realisations kick off dramatically in a concentration camp in Germany in 1944 and after various revelations and incidents along the way, the actions hots up in 1962 in both London the US.

The effects are amazing as usual and the plot actually matches the effects on this occasion - unlike X-Men 2 and 3. This is mainly due to the scope of stories the writer can turn to. It explains in depth how the once close friends X and Magneto become enemies and how their dedicated brood of mutants decide on which leader they'll stick by. Their is also the MINOR subplot of the evil General Shaw (Kevin Bacon) trying to take over the world.

James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender easily match Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen's performances as X and Magneto. Kevin Bacon is always eerie to watch and doesn't disappoint here.

Here's hoping there's a sequel to this prequel???


Score: 8/10

The Rite

Irish newcomer Colin O'Donoghue is Michael Kovak, a trainee priest with huge doubts over his calling. He announces to his superior, Father Matthew that due to a lack of faith he wishes to resign. If he leaves Michael would have to pay a sufficient student loan, therefore Father Matthew strikes a deal with him to convince him to stay. If he attends an exorcism seminar in Rome and afterwards is still not convinced that the priesthood is for him, the loan will be cancelled and he can leave the cloth a free man.

During his time in Rome, it becomes obvious that he is a total sceptic and it is recommended that he visit Father Lucas (Anthony Hopkins) who is renowned for performing exorcisms. He spends a lot of time with Father Lucas and sits in on a couple of exorcisms, however he remains unconvinced that there are any demonic goings on. That is until Father Lucas beings to act very strange and shows some signs of demonic possession himself. Kovak himself is experiencing his own illusions of his own concerning his dead mother and his estranged mortician father, played by Rutger Hauer

Kovak befriends curious reporter Angeline (Alice Braga) and together they set about helping Father Lucas. In order to do this he must put his own demons behind him and step into the relatively unknown world of exorcism.

Anthony Hopkins dusts of his Hannibal Lecter character for this role and is fantastic - as usual! He plays demonic so well that he alone is reason enough to watch the movie. O'Donoghue is excellent as the spiritually confused priest and has a really good rapore on screen with Hopkins. The plot is quite flimsy and it's not the scariest exorcism movie ever made. In saying that there are plenty of scares and tense moments to please horror thriller fans.


Score: 5/10

Oscar predictions

Oscar night tonight, so here are my predictions on what I think will and what should win. Feel free to air your opinions and your own predictions!

Best Actor - Colin Firth (The King's Speech)

Hands down winner. No question, and totally deserved

Best Actress - Natalie Portman (Black Swan)

Again, a hands down winner. Gritty role, played brilliantly. She'll never get a part like it again.

Best supporting actor - Christian Bale (The Fighter)

He went to extreme methods to prepare for the part in The Fighter and is no doubt superb but my vote would go to Jeffrey Rush in The King's Speech. He'll lose out mainly because he is already an Oscar winner. It's a disgrace that Andrew Garfield was not nominated for The Social Network. He was the outstanding actor for me in that movie and I just don't understand his omission from the list of nominees.

Best supporting actress - Melissa Leo (The Fighter)

She has it in the bag for sure and is a deserved winner. However, I would chose Hailee Steinfeld over her as she was incredible in True Grit. The only good thing about the movie and for a 14 year old to carry that off for 2 hours is no mean feat.

Best original screenplay - The King's Speech

Lots of competition here but as scripts go, you don't get much better than this.

Best adapted screenplay - The Social Network

Again, amazing script. So clever and a definite winner

Best director - David Fincher

He'll win it as it's his time. I personally don't think he deserves it, even though I am a huge fan. He'll be getting it for the wrong film. The best direction of the year should go to Christopher Nolan for Inception but he's not even nominated. Disgrace! It's the most intricate/ground breaking direction ever seen.

Best film - The Social Network

I reckon it will just pip The Fighter and The King's Speech to it. Deservedly so as it's a fantastic film.