Smokin’ Aces 2: Assassin’s Ball is the straight-to-DVD sequel (actually it’s a prequel, but is being marketed as a sequel) to the big screen flick that starred Alecia Keys, Andy garcia, Ben Affleck and more.

The star power is considerably less this time out (erm… Vinnie Jones? Seriously?), but there are appearances from Tom Berenger, Ernie Hudson and the delectable Autumn Reeser which stop the flick descending into bargain basement territory.

The story is rather different to the first film, but it does feature more groups of mad assassins, dubious physics and extreme violence, just like the first film did.

While the budget was way lower for this straight to DVD movie than the big screen entry, the money limitations don’t show that much thanks to some creative cinematography. It’s a film that will please fans of that first film, but it ain’t going to have people crying out for a third film really. A fun watch, and a great addendum to that first film.

Smokin’ Aces 2: Assassin’s Ball DVD (UK)

Smokin’ Aces 2: Assassin’s Ball DVD (US)

The new Star Trek movie has had its release on DVD and Blu Ray in time for Christmas, and has been released to a good amount of fanfare. Quite rightly so, as well. The film itself was a bold and exciting way to renew the Star Trek universe after it had fizzled out with Star Trek: Nemesis and that damp squib of a TV series known as Enterprise (which started off so well and then quickly lost its way).

Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine are electric in the lead roles of Spock and Kirk, and the rest of the cast (in particular Karl Urban) are excellent as well. The script, direction, effects, score and everything else are top notch with this film, and now the flick is available on Blu Ray and DVD for you to enjoy at home too.

There are various editions of this thrilling science fiction masterpiece available, each one catering for a different section of fandom. Whether you just want the film itself or the deluxe edition with all of the extras included, there’s a version for you. The transfer is crisp and clear on both the DVD and Blu Ray editions of the movie, but it is in Blu Ray that the new Star Trek movie really shines.

The clarity of each frame is astounding, along with an amazing use of sound and music, which adds even more scale to proceedings. While the extras aren’t particularly different from any other extras we’ve seen, they are nonetheless comprehensive and enlightening, with ‘Making of’ features, interviews, deleted scenes, out-takes and more making up a package that really is worth the money.

The deleted scenes available on the Star Trek DVD and Star Trek Blu Ray release provide a greater insight into some elements of the story, such as how Kirk beat the Kobayashi Maru test and more of his womanizing ways. While the deleted scenes are fun and great to watch, you can understand why some of them were removed fro the finished film.

Fans of the movie and the Star Trek franchise can delve ever deeper into the background of the film and the exciting reinvention of the Star Trek saga, and for once there is a film here that lives up to the hyperbole surrounding it. It may not match The Wrath of Khan in terms of compelling storytelling, but this new Star trek film is the best movie to carry the Star Trek name ever since that seminal sequel.

While not quite as comprehensively loaded with bonus material as  this year’s earlier hit release of the Watchmen movie, it still does the Star Trek film and indeed the franchise justice. A brilliant film, a great DVD/Blu Ray release, and an absolute must-have for this Christmas. Good luck spotting the R2D2 Easter Egg!

The penultimate Doctor Who story to feature David Tennant as the tenth Doctor has now aired, and all that remains is the two part finale to his era, is this episode treading water to the big ending? Not in the slightest. In fact, as we head to the downfall of the tenth Doctor, we have been given one of the best episodes in a long time. The tension is definitely building towards his final episodes, and the character takes a rather stunning turn with Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars.

While the plot of this special episode isn’t particularly new, i.e. the Doctor trapped on a research station (this time on Mars) with a bunch of scientists and pioneers, who then start getting picked off one by one by an alien entity. The beauty of this episode centres around David Tennant’s performance and the moral dilemma that the Doctor finds himself trapped in. Without giving too much away for those of you that are yet to see the episode, the Doctor is placed in a situation where he must decide between what he has been taught since his first incarnation and what he feels in his heart(s).

The alien entities, essentially water-spewing zombies, look fantastically scary, and I am sure there were a fair few nightmares had by kids up and down the country, especially if there was a tap running in the house at the time. The new Doctor Who special is well written, beautifully shot and briskly paced, and the visuals give it a suitably epic feeling, which is much needed if it’s to be seen as more than just an extended regular episode.

There are a few things that didn’t work completely though, such as the inhabitants of the station weren’t really given much in the way of characterization beyond some rather standard deep space SF stereotypes. Then again, SF stereotypes can be fun, which they are for the most part here. It is the script itself and the nature of the Doctor’s dilemma that are the most compelling thing with this special, along with a very, very strong performance from David Tennant. The tenth Doctor really does surprise you towards the end of the episode, which sets up what is to come very nicely indeed.

The links to earlier events in Doctor Who series four are a nice touch, keeping it in continuity with the larger DW universe. Lindsay Duncan is on fine form as the main companion of the Doctor for the episode, but she is more a partner than a companion, really, and heads up a fine supporting cast who are sadly not given a great deal to do other than run around and shout.

There are some great character touches, such as the videos from home, but the special would have needed another twenty minutes or so to fully flesh these characters out. A fine special episode indeed, and certainly the best so far after The Next Doctor and Planet Of the Dead. The teaser trailer of ‘The End of Time’ looks amazing, and what’s going on with the Master’s head turning invisible, revealing his skull? We shall soon find out…

Pixar’s latest foray into feature length productions has all the hallmarks of a future classic. When a widower in his late seventies decides to fulfil his lifelong dream (and that of his late wife) by adventuring, he ties hundreds of balloons to his house and escapes his everyday life, which had become ever more depressing following the loss of his wife.

Accidentally taking an 8 year old boy along with him, the unlikely pair of heroes set off on an adventure across the wilds of South America, coming into contact with talking dogs, a huge rare bird called Kevin, and a lost adventurer with sinister desires.

UP is cinematic magic. Shown in 3D, the sense of awe and adventure is unmistakable, but that sense of scope and fun would also be there without the 3D element. This film is a spectacular new entry in the glorious work of Pixar, whose animators have created cartoonish characters and a backdrop that is incredibly real, which makes for a wonderfully entrancing experience that more than merits the popularity of UP movie merchandise.

The story is beautifully handled, as are the rather less cheerful aspects. the opening few minutes are utter, utter genius that only Pixar could really pull off this well. The look of the film is amazing, as are all of the exciting set pieces and misadventures along the way, but the strength of UP is with those two main characters, and their constant bickering and eventual appreciation of one another is handled in a very sweet and real manner.

UP may be a little too scary for very young children, as there are several scenes of great peril for our heroes, but as family entertainment, it doesn’t get much better than this. Disney/Pixar’s UP has a heart of gold, along with lots of laughter and lots of ‘Ooooh!’ moments. A film to savour.

How come? Personal Effects: Dark Art is packaged in a unique hardback format, containing a batch of ‘Personal Effects’, i.e. documents, ID cards, notes, photos and more pertaining to events in the book itself.

With these items, along with websites (Google the companies in the novel and there they are), voicemail numbers and more, you the reader can become part of the book and even discover more about it than the characters themselves ever know.

The concept for Personal Effects: Dark Art is from notorious games designer Jordan Weisman, who got Hutchins involved to supply the novel. It is an ingenious way to take in a story, and it really does add to your enjoyment of the book.

Much more than being just a gimmick, this approach to involving the reader in the action is actually very exciting, and bodes well for future volumes in the series. An extremely good book presented in a brilliant way. I can’t wait for the next one.

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Despite the book’s scant length (only 165 pages), George Zebrowski’s ‘Empties’ is a great read, harkening back to the days of shorter novels without a hint of filler. This is something that many of today’s writers could do with taking note of. Just because a book is 700 pages long, it ain’t necessarily good.

This one is. It’s creepy as hell. Following a detective who is on the trail of a brutal killer. Bodies are turning up without their brains. The book starts out as a pretty grim but pretty straightforward murder mystery with an interesting lead character in William Benek, but around the page 50 mark we are thrown into a maelstrom of madness and violence that doesn’t really let up until the shocking finale.

You really get a sense of Benek’s frustration as the bodies pile up while he can’t do a thing about it. He doesn’t have enough evidence against his suspect for a conviction, and this the chaos continues.

‘Empties’ is essentially a noir thriller with a vicious horror edge to it. Zebrowski’s prose is fluid and to the point, with none of the flab of some contemporary authors. Yes, there is a supernatural element to the story, but it is a little sidelined in favour of the main plot. This works very well, giving the whole tale a macabre edge, with the strange forces mentioned in passing, but never taking centre stage. This makes events so much more powerful.

The development of the Benek character is compelling and harrowing, and with the pace picking up a great deal after the somewhat quiet opening, you’re rarely allowed to catch your breath. This is no-nonsense storytelling that only someone of Zebrowski’s stature can manage.

Empties by George Zebrowski, Golden Gryphon Press, 2009, ISBN: 978-1-930846-59-3 (Available through Gazelle Book Services in the UK)

Thanks to Gazelle Book services for sending this in!

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Publishers: To get your titles reviewed here, send preview copies to: Book Reviews Editor, The Last Picture Show, 38-39 The Lanes, Meadowhall Centre, Sheffield, S9 1EP, England

Wow. It’s been out a little while now, and I was a few days behind the rest of the staff in seeing the new Star Trek film, but I saw it yesterday and am still trying to compute what I saw onscreen. It’s kind of a ‘Did I really see that? moment. Everyone I’ve spoken to that has seen it has loved it, so I walked in there with expectations higher than they already had been. The outcome? I was amazed. The new Star Trek film is a beautiful way to kickstart another incarnation of the franchise, yet with characters everyone is already familiar with.

Okay, the film in itself is wonderful, but as a calculated reboot of the Star Trek movie franchise, it is a work of genius. The cast, despite the reservations that I and many others had before seeing it, are glorious throughout. They have captured the essence of the iconic Star Trek characters rather than impersonating the people that played them. Granted, Karl Urban is spot on with his mimickery of DeForest Kelley (not to mention perfectly creating his own version of Bones), but for the most part the resemblance to the originals is mostly cursory.

Something I really liked was the new approach to Spock. Giving him more of a troubled personality and more of a visible struggle with his heritage works extremely well. Chris Pine is a revelation as James T kirk. I have to admit it was Pine that I had the most worries about when walking into this film. Would he be any good at all in following William Shatner? Yes. Yes he would. Pine is great as the cocky, swaggering young Kirk, but for all the bluster and bravado, there’s the beginnings of greatness that we all know is to follow. It is a remarkable performance from an actor who is sure to be a big screen fixture for a long time to come.

It did amuse me somewhat that Simon Pegg, who you don’t see in the film for well over an hour, is billed first in the credits, but that’s down to me having been a Pegg fanboy since Spaced. His Scotty is a joy. Scotty is funny, yes, but he is also clearly a genius at what he does. It is a great strength of this film that there is a great deal of humour to be enjoyed amidst the intergalactic action and the creation of an alternate Star Trek universe. I loved the fact that they have not tried to say that this is how the original Star Trek came about. This is a vibrant and powerful mixture of old icons with new ideas, and Leonard Nimoy’s appearance in the movie is a most welcome link between the two versions of this wonderful franchise.

Eric Bana is electrifying as villain Nero, putting in a superb performance as the deranged bad guy, but Nero is also where the film suffers a little. His ship, his motivation and the whole design aesthetic surrounding him reminded me very much of Star Trek: Nemesis and its villain Shinzon. Granted, both involved Romulans, but the similarities were rather noticeable. Then again, nobody but the core of Trek fans really remembers what went on in that film anyway, so I think they got away with it.

This is the best Star Trek film in years, and it is also the best possible film that could have been made to relaunch the Star Trek universe for a new (Next?) generation. I loved every minute of it, and the highest praise must surely be that I really, really want to see it again. And again.

10/10

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The Coraline novel by Neil Gaiman is one of the most beloved books for younger readers of recent years, and thus when the news came down that a Coraline movie was in the works, it filled a few fans with dread over whether or not it would ruin the power of the book and cheapen Neil Gaiman’s work somewhat. The finished product, while not on a par with the book it is based on, it still an excellent piece of surreal entertainment.

Henry Selick’s direction does veer a little too close to his work on The Nightmare Before Christmas at times, but he does reign himself in and stick largely to the story.

It does lose some of the subtleties of the book, but as a film, the Coraline movie works well. Neil Gaiman’s lush prose hasn’t really translated all that well here, but the overall feel is of a film made with love for the source material and an eye on bringing the strange tale of Coraline Jones to a wider audience.

I would have liked to have seen more of Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, as they don’t seem to be in the movie anywhere near as much as they are in the book, or maybe that’s just my perception of it.

The animation is beautiful, and particular mention must go to Coraline’s facial expressions, which ooze with personality. her parents (both versions) are well realized, but it is the nightmarish vision of the Other Mother later on in the movie when it really starts to click. A beautiful mixture of animation techniques has made for a gorgeous visual experience even if the story seems to miss some of the beats of Neil Gaiman‘s original.

That said, this is the best film for kids I’ve seen in ages. It isn’t really suitable for children under 12 due to some rather surreal and unnerving fantasy elements, so keep that in mind when taking your family to see it.

The 3D aspect of the film is great fun too, but aside from maybe half a dozen instances it doesn’t really enhance the film all that much. Then again, there are some real moments of visual beauty in the film, such as the gorgeously realized garden in the other world and the mind-blowing climax. Overall a wonderful film to enjoy and revisit in the future. A flawed but beautiful treasure

I went to see WATCHMEN again yesterday, with a friend who hadn’t seen it until then. He was a huge fan of the Watchmen graphic novel (and indeed comics in general), so I was interested in seeing his reaction as well as gauging my own on a second viewing. How did it go? The film holds up remarkably well on a second viewing, really. After my initial amazement at kit, I thought that a repeated viewing would diminish my enjoyment, but no, if anything it heightened the experience.

I loved it even more. My mate was thrilled with the film, and pointed out repeatedly that the changes that had been made all made sense, and in some cases worked better than the comics themselves. sacrilege, I hear you cry, but justified.

It is with a second viewing of the film that you can appreciate the construction of it more without figuring out where they changed elements of the story. I found my second shot at seeing the film incredibly enjoyable, and found myself appreciating the visual richness of its construction to a much greater extent. Much like the graphic novel itself, there is so much going on in every frame that it will take repeated sittings to take it all in.

The level of detail is simply amazing, and there are some lovely little touches that I’d missed before. One of my personal favourites was noticing the inclusion of the classic 1984 Apple Macintosh advert on one of Ozymandias’ TV screens.

Mac love aside, the Watchmen movie holds up extremely well on a second viewing, and we agreed that the extended cut is going to be even better. This is a brilliant moment in the evolution of the comic book film, and a brilliant time to get into the genre. Zack Snyder and his merry gang have raised the bar to an unprecedented level with this film.

Sitting in a cinema packed with long-time Watchmen fans and new converts was a strange thing. The sense of palpable anticipation was noticeable. After two decades, all the hype about the book and now all the hype about the film itself, would it live up to all the praise? Lights dimmed, half an hour of trailers passed without many people noticing, and then the screen went yellow. As the brilliant opening title sequence played, it became something rather surreal. Seeing the WATCHMEN logo rise up during that sequence cemented it. At long last, here we all were, watching the Watchmen movie.

Few films have been scrutinized and talked about so much. The benchmark by which pretty much all graphic novels are measured was finally on the big screen in live action, and I must admit that I was hoping Zack Snyder would have pulled off at least a half decent adaptation. I never suspected he would surpass all of my expectations by such a wide margin. Ladies and gentlemen, Watchmen isn’t just a good film, it is a great film. An incredible film. The most incredible comic book film of all time. Easily. Over Superman 2. Over The Dark Knight. Over X-Men, Spider-man and Iron Man. Everything honestly pales in comparison to this twisted, complicated, multi-layered masterpiece.

In almost every sense the Watchmen movie is a literal interpretation of the graphic novel, with a few things missing, a few things changed, but those changes are justified and make narrative sense. The extended cut with put some of these elements back, but this theatrical cut is as perfect as I could have possibly hoped it would be. It captures the characters, the story, the feel of the graphic novel to an extent that I found rather incredible. The script is sublime, poetic, and in scenes such as those involving Dr Manhattan’s origins, so poignant that it becomes something more than a film. Am I going too far here? No. Watch it and understand. This is a work of art.

The film is extremely violent, brutal, harrowing, just as expected, but it is within its context. It has its place. This is not a throwaway comic book film, or a bloated piece of pseudo-intellectual melodrama like The Dark Knight (IMHO). This is a pretty damn close interpretation of the book geeks like me have been hyping up to people for so many years.

Visually, the Watchmen movie is one hell of an achievement. While a couple of effects sequences aren’t 100 percent perfect, these are very small instances. The cinematography is beautiful- very much in keeping with the style of the graphic novel, and also very in keeping with the visual style that Zack Snyder is known for, but melded together it becomes something else entirely. I bet Dave Gibbons (Watchmen’s original artist) must have a grin the size of Dr Manhattan’s, erm, you get the idea.

Is it perfect? No. The thing is, no watchmen movie could be completely perfect, but this is about as close as we will see to the graphic novel in its purest form. As a feature film it works beautifully. I barely noticed the huge running time. Packed with so much story, the whole audience seemed to be hooked from start to finish. The cast are incredible – Big shoutout to Jackie Earle Hayley and Billy Crudup, hell, everyone involved. Watchmen is the best comic book movie I have seen in my entire life, and believe me, I don’t say that lightly. This is an event film, and the impact it brings with it will be felt for a long time to come. Utterly, utterly wonderful.

Andrew Hawnt