Action

Never Back Down

7 Aug 2008

ACTION (15) 108min (Momentum DVD retail/rental) Never Back Down isn’t meant for high analysis, it’s basically a film of hot young teens punching each other. The plot to string these acts of violence together is so basic it hardly warrants a mention…

Beyond a Joke - Dark Knight

17 Jul 2008

As the latest Batman adaptation arrives on the silver screen, Alan Bissett explores the colourful history and enduring appeal of the caped crusader’s arch nemesis, the Joker

Bat's Life - Dark Knight

17 Jul 2008

Leigh Rafferty traces the highs and lows of the caped crusader’s cultural career

Batman: Gotham Knight

DVD Review

17 Jul 2008

Intended to fill the gaps between Batman Begins and Dark Knight, Gotham Knights offers us six animated shorts, much in the same way as The Animatrix did for The Matrix. Each story is self-contained and created by a different writer (including Greg…

The Escapist - Brian Cox interview

Edinburgh International Film Festival

19 Jun 2008

As Brian Cox welcomes me into the interview room at London’s Gibson Guitar Studio, he points out a picture of Syd Barrett, ‘a son of Cambridge’, on the wall. It’s been just a few months since the Dundee-born actor was treading the boards on Broadway to…

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

19 Jun 2008

FANTASY/ACTION (PG) 143min In the second instalment of the Narnia film adaptations, the Pevensie children are summoned back to CS Lewis’ fantasy kingdom by Prince Caspian’s blowing of a magic horn, expecting lion king Aslan to rear his head and…

Wanted

19 Jun 2008

THRILLER/ACTION (18) 111min Scottish comic book writer Mark Millar's ultra-violent graphic novel gets the Hollywood blockbuster treatment in this sfx-heavy actioner that benefits from the skewered perspective of Russian director Timur Bekmambetov, who…

Gwyneth Paltrow tells of injuries on Iron Man set

8 May 2008

Gwyneth Paltrow has revealed she left the set of upcoming movie, Iron Man, battered and bruised. The actress, who has broken her toe over 30 times, said she managed to break her knee on set, while playing the part of Petter Potts, opposite Robert Downey…

Beaufort

24 Apr 2008

WAR/ACTION/DRAMA (15) 125min The Beaufort of the title refers to a castle built by the Crusaders during the 12th century in southern Lebanon. In 2000 this mountaintop fortress is occupied by IDF (Israeli Defence Force) troops, who are preparing to…

Jane Doe

10 Apr 2008

ACTION/THRILLER (15) 90min (Metrodome DVD retail) Resuscitated almost-ran Teri Hatcher gets the gun and an action vehicle in this re-released 2001 TV movie. After the desperate housewife is fired from her job at Cy-Kor, a major arms dealer, her…

Rambo

14 Feb 2008

ACTION/THRILLER (18) 90min Last year Sylvester Stallone successfully revitalised the Rocky franchise with Rocky Balboa. After a number of dud sequels, Stallone breathed life back into the pugilist by revisiting him in his decrepitude to winning…

Cloverfield

(15) 84min

31 Jan 2008

Nobody knows how to spin out a yarn like Lost creator JJ Abrams, but even at a short running time, his shaky-cam disaster horror flick Cloverfield turns out to be all spin and no substance. Essentially a marketing concept in search of a movie…

Underdog

(U) 81min

31 Jan 2008

‘This is so much more fun than sticking your head out the car window!’ whoops the gifted canine protagonist of Underdog, a live-action feature from Disney about a crime fighting dog with super-powers. Attractive as this proposition might sound to fans…

American Gangster

15 Nov 2007

Ridley Scott’s American Gangster opens with callous urban cruelty as a man is tied to a chair, doused with petrol and set on fire. But the reasons behind this violent act are less to do with anarchy than with good business, or at least that’s the lesson…

Beowulf

15 Nov 2007

(12A) 114min Beowulf is being released on four formats: 35mm, digital, digital 3D and IMAX. This review is based on the IMAX version, Beowulf being the first mainstream film to successfully employ this technology. Much of the initial wow factor is…

Rescue Dawn

15 Nov 2007

Born in 1938 in the Black Forest region of Germany, Dieter Dengler never wanted to go to war, he just wanted to fly. After emigrating to America at the age of 18 and completing flight training, in 1966 Dengler found himself on board an aircraft carrier…

Planet Terror

15 Nov 2007

Cut loose from its Grindhouse packaging Robert Sin City Rodriguez’s freaky, apocalyptic horror film is undoubtedly the baddest, nastiest and least well behaved child to come out of that divorce. But in this case that’s a very good thing. When an…

DVD Roundup

15 Nov 2007

‘No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees/No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds!’ That’s how English poet and humourist Thomas Hood chose to describe the month of November. There is some of Hood’s cheeky sense of observation in John Waters: This…

The Last Legion

18 Oct 2007

ACTION/ADVENTURE (12A) 101min Director Doug Lefler honed his questionable skills directing episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess before legendary producer Dino de Laurentiis let him loose on this risible slice of sword and sorcery buffoonery.

Day Watch

4 Oct 2007

Timur Bekmambetov’s 2004 fantasy Night Watch was grounded in dank layers of impenetrable local mysticism, made palatable by flashes of Matrix-style spectacle. A trilogy was as inevitable with Twilight Watch currently in pre-production and this…

Mr Brooks

4 Oct 2007

Mr Brooks (Kevin Costner) works in a cardboard box factory, but also murders women, photographs their corpses, then feeds the pictures into a furnace in his family home’s basement while prancing around naked. Demi Moore is Tracy Atwood, the detective…

The Kingdom

4 Oct 2007

The Kingdom of the title is a reference to Saudi Arabia. A potted history in the opening credits boils down everything that’s ever happened to the country to oil or the United States. America, we are reminded, is the number one oil consumer in the world…

Death Proof

20 Sep 2007

HORROR/ACTION (18) 113min Like the best roller-coasters, Death Proof takes an eternity to get moving, but once in top gear, Quentin Tarantino’s thriller will leave you hanging on tighter than poor Zoe Bell, who clings grimly to a speeding car’s…

War

20 Sep 2007

ACTION/THRILLER (18) 102min War, as Edwin Starr once noted, is good for absolutely nothing, particularly when it’s a non-event of a smack-down between cockney tough-guy Jason Statham and celebrated martial arts star Jet Li. Pop promo director Phillip…

Rise of the Footsoldier

6 Sep 2007

If you’ve already picked up any of the Nick Love titles displayed alongside the vegetable-rack in your local supermarket (The Football Factory, The Business, Outlaw), then you’re in the target audience for Julian 'Rollin’ With the Nines' Gibley’s feral…