Monsters vs Aliens

Yeah, I know, it's been weeks since my last post. So sue me. As a result, I've got a bit of a review backlog and as such the next few are all going to be quite short...

Monsters vs Aliens is the latest CGI cartoon from Dreamworks Animation, the creators of Shrek, and the plot is summarised fairly well by the title: the US government has been keeping various monsters locked away from the public for decades, until aliens invade and the monsters are set loose to save humanity. What follows is a reasonably entertaining but ultimately forgettable 90 minutes of by-the-numbers animation with a few classic film references to please the older members of the audience. Oh, and it's in 3D.

Despite an impressive voice cast including Reese Witherspoon, Hugh Laurie, Keifer Sutherland and Seth Rogen, none of the characters are particularly appealing and ultimately it's just not that funny (one absolutely hilarious scene aside). The animation itself is fairly unremarkable by the standards set by the likes of WALL-E and once again, as I found with Bolt, the 3D aspect just doesn't seem worth it - it either doesn't look right, isn't noticeable or distracts you from the movie. Unless James Cameron's Avatar does something spectacular with the technology in December, I'm starting to think that 3D is going to turn out to be a huge waste of time and money.

VERDICT: Generic family entertainment, and that's it. Nothing special.

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X-Men Origins: Wolverine

The first of several planned "Origins" stories, Wolverine acts as a prequel to the X-Men trilogy and fills in the back story to our favourite metal-clawed amnesiac mutant, whilst introducing us to a host of new characters from the comics as well as a teenage Cyclops. The specifics of the plot itself are nothing particularly spectacular; the traditional variety of conspiracies, betrayals and evil plans. Really it's all just an excuse to give Hugh Jackman the opportunity to kill lots more bad guys...

To get straight to the point, Wolverine is a reasonably enjoyable action romp and a fun way to kill a couple of hours. It is however almost painfully average in pretty much every way - the plot is generic and muddled, the acting inconsistent, and the action unoriginal. In all honesty I probably enjoyed it more as a result of having extremely low expectations (early buzz on the film was poor). It does at least play reasonably well in continuity terms with the X-Men trilogy, although there are some niggles - exactly how did Sabretooth go from slightly hairy to practically a human lion in the first movie? And if Cyclops was in high school in the late 70's wouldn't he have been a lot older in the trilogy? And for that matter, wouldn't he have remembered Wolverine when they meet again years later?

Aside from that, there are three things that did bother me quite a bit:

• Ryan Reynolds was totally wasted as Deadpool - apparently there is going to be a spin-off movie featuring the character but I don't see how they can keep it neatly tied in to this film because they seem to have already ruined the character.
• After years of demand from X-Men fans, Gambit is finally introduced. And he's rubbish.
• The CGI is at times appalling and reeks of being rushed. You know things are bad when they can't even make Wolverine's claws look realistic despite it being quite easily accomplished in the first X-Men 9 years ago...

This may all sound quite negative, but it's not that bad. Compared to the main trilogy it's clearly inferior but it's not that far behind X-Men: The Last Stand - but then again that film had a few issues as well...

VERDICT: Enjoyable but ultimately a missed opportunity. Give me more real X-Men movies.

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Crank 2: High Voltage

In the original Crank, Jason Statham played Chev Chelios, a hitman poisoned by a "Chinese synthetic", doing anything he could to keep his adrenaline levels up and his heart pumping, including electrocuting himself, having sex in public and committing many acts of wanton violence as he tracked down his would-be killers. It also ended with him plummeting out of a helicopter and dying. Or so we thought.

Crank 2: High Voltage begins exactly where we left off, with a Triad gang literally scraping Chelios off the tarmac and taking him away to have his indestructible heart removed for transplant, replacing it with a temporary artifical heart to keep him alive long enough to harvest his other organs. Of course, he's not too happy with all of this and escapes in pursuit of his "Strawberry Tart", doing anything possible to keep his artifical one charged, including electrocuting himself, having sex in public and committing many acts of wanton violence. Sound familiar?

Crank was a masterpiece of off-the-wall lunacy with no pretensions of making sense or pleasing critics - it was a highly condensed 90-minute thrill ride and was ludicrously entertaining for it. Unfortunately, in its efforts to outdo its predecessor, Crank 2 sadly crosses the line from being implausible but still vaguely grounded in reality to pure fantasy, and the film ultimately loses something as a result. Although still entertaining, almost every element of Crank 2 seems to go just a little too far, the hyper-kinetic camera-work and editing being the main offenders here. Jason Statham still proves to be a charismatic leading man, with Amy Smart and Dwight Yoakam both providing solid support and clearly having a lot of fun, but the less said about the rest of the cast the better. And I have to say, as much as I appreciate gratuitous violence used in a comedic manner, I could have done without the graphic nipple-slicing...

VERDICT: Insane but ultimately a bit disappointing. Watch the original.

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