Universal Prepares to Sink a Battleship

Another one to file under Hollywood madness... a movie adaptation of Battleship - yes, the board game - featuring an alien invasion and starring Rihanna in one of the major roles. Oh dear.

And just to top it off, according to this report, the film is costing in the region of $200 million.

This cannot end well.

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Predators, Toy Story 3, Splice

I'm developing another backlog of films to review so it's time for another set of shorter comments. First off, a rather wide-ranging selection of films...

Predators

Wisely ignoring the very average Predator 2 and the awful Alien vs Predator movies, this sequel is a faithful follow-up to the 1987 original - perhaps too faithful. This time round, a collection of criminals, soldiers and assassins wake up to find themselves abducted and dumped on an alien planet - albeit one that looks like any Earth-bound jungle - and being used as game for a group of bigger, nastier Predators. To be honest, there isn't much to be said about Predators - it's moderately entertaining, doesn't last any longer than it should and is well put-together. Besides that, it's extremely predictable, rarely exciting and the numerous references to the original film almost verge into rip-off territory at times. Adrien Brody does a better job at being an action star than I'd have imagined, but he's no Schwarzenegger.

VERDICT: Average sci-fi action that passes the time well.

Toy Story 3

I like the first two Toy Story movies a lot, but I don't love them - Pixar have made several better films. I wasn't particularly anticipating the third instalment, especially after a set of frankly poor trailers, but after the torrent of overwhelming praise I did find myself looking forward to it. And in the end? I liked it, but I didn't love it. It is great fun and genuinely moving at times (although not as much as I'd heard), and the animation is of course spectacular, but ultimately I would still rank The Incredibles and Wall-E ahead of it. And the 3D is probably an even greater waste of time and money than it was for Up.

VERDICT: The best Toy Story film, but not Pixar's best.

Splice

Oh look, it's Adrien Brody again.

As a huge fan of Cube and especially Cypher, I was very much looking forward to Vincenzo Natali's next sci-fi movie. The plot is certainly intriguing; two geneticists experimenting in merging the genes of different species to produce new lifeforms rashly decide to splice in some human DNA, resulting in the birth of Dren, a fast-growing armless rodent that quickly develops into a highly intelligent feminine humanoid. The scientists (Brody and Sarah Polley) develop a bizarre parental bond with the creature, but struggle to cope when Dren becomes restless and curious about the outside world. Unfortunately what begins as a thought-provoking, Cronenberg-inspired drama eventually descends into an oddly controversial creature-feature horror. Some of the later plot developments are highly likely to divide audiences, with one scene in particular eliciting a mixture of shocked gasps and laughter from the audience I saw it with. While I didn't particularly object to those aspects of the plot, I do still think that Splice's final act is a bit of a predictable mess and squanders a lot of potential.

VERDICT: An interesting but ultimately disappointing effort.

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Who'd have thought it...

... I'm actually looking forward to a new sitcom with Matt LeBlanc in it. Sure, he was fun in Friends but what little of Joey I saw was painful. However, Showtime are launching a new sitcom called Episodes featuring Matt LeBlanc as... Matt LeBlanc. The trailer is fantastic:

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