Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows - Part 1

As The Great Soprendo used to say, ‘Piff, Puff, Poof – the first 40 minutes of this are amazing’. After that, he got bored, lost loads of weight and divorced Victoria Wood. Same thing happened to me. Apart from the crash diet and ‘hilarious’ ex-wife bit.

The early scenes are inventive, exciting and exhilarating. I was hugely impressed. But then our heroes go off on a road trip to look for magicky stuff and the fun just stops. Completely. They just mope about in tents and stare wistfully across foggy landscapes. Ocassionally other things happen like a baddie stops the Hogwarts Express and the passengers tell him he’s a bit of a meanie. Then Harry and Hermione have a little dance because they’re fed up and miserable (I knew how they felt).

This is the first Potter film that we’ve taken Luke to and he was really excited. He looked away a couple of times in the scary bits but he did really well. Even he got bored though – two or three times he said “Is it finished yet?”. We had a ton of popcorn and chocolates to keep us going though.

One of the best bits of the film was the specially commissioned animation to show the story of the Deathly Hallows. This had a really quirky style to it and was a real treat after watching some kids hiking for 3 hours. At times it felt like they were doing an amateur dramatic’s version of Lord Of The Rings.

I didn’t hate the film. I just found it really, really dull. All the great characters are barely in it and they were sorely missed. Stretching the book to two films was a definite mistake in my, er, book.

I still reckon the second part could be a bit tasty though.

Skyline

Quick summary, Independence Day in a posh block of flats.

Slightly longer summary, a very silly sci-fi movie with excellent special effects and some of the best, unintentional laughs I can remember in a cinema.

The first half is pretty good and does a decent job of building the tension until the big reveal of the baddie aliens doing their baddie alien thing. From then on, it’s a sprint to the finish full of screaming, Ferrari squashing, running and (from the filmmaker’s) “how the **** are we going to end this?”. The ending they went with is one of the funniest, worst endings of all time. I could sense where it was going but thought there was no way they’d do it. They’re not going to make her say that are they? Yep, they did. I actually laughed out loud at the sheer bravery of its awfulness. Bravo!

I also thoroughly enjoyed the bit where goatee man goes apeshit, mental on one of the aliens and punches it in the face about 300 times. Also the fact that the evil alien bastards all have loads of eyes and yet not one of them spotted the red brain and thought “that one looks a bit off to me”.

A pretty rubbish film then. But rescued from bile by the superb VFX and the downright silliness of it all.

A Nightmare On Elm Street

The 1984 one which 'introduced' Johnny Depp. Watched it with two horror loving chums as wifey was away doing something girly in London. Can remember seeing this as a young lad (got into horror films at a very early age – thanks Lol) and being both scared and fascinated by Freddy.

Didn’t have quite the same effect this time. In fact I found it all a bit silly – especially the bit where Nancy sets traps for old razor fingers which just came across as a weird version of Home Alone. The music was a bit mental too. The main theme is painfully overused and then either sped up or slow down for dramatic effect. Oh and the actress who played Nancy’s mum is absolutely terrible.

Having said that though, the movie’s iconic scenes are just as strong as I remembered. The body bag girl with the bug crawling out of her mouth, Freddy’s claw reaching out between Nancy’s legs in the bath and the freaky marshmallow stairs - definitely the stuff of nightmares.

Quite fancy watching Dream Warriors (part 3) again actually. That was always my favourite.

Sweet dreams…

Jonah Hex

Blimey it's late. Or early. Or something. Definitely struggling a bit now. If I can get through one more film we'll be getting very close to landing back in good old Blighty. Jonah Hex looks like it might fit the bill and the excellent comic book style intro has got me interested and more awake already.

Josh Brolin is a civil war soldier bloke who has a run in with Malkovich's nasty bastard bloke. Never have a run in with a movie Malkovich. He murders his family, scars up his grizzly face and leaves him for dead and stuff. The near dead-ness gives him supernatural powers and he returns with a vengeance, a scarred up grizzly face and an awesome horse-bound big clanky gun.

So far so good then and I found myself quite enjoying it. One of Brolin's new 'look at me , I'm not dead' tricks is that he can reanimate corpses for interrogation and these scenes are really good. Very creepy. In fact, the whole supernatural vibe of the film was well realised.

Suddenly though, being up for almost 24 hours caught up with me and I started mini dozing which meant I had no idea what Megan Fox's prossie was up to or what all the red dust scenes were about. It's a pretty short film too so before I knew it, it was all over. Still, I quite enjoyed it and best of all there's only 90 minutes left now till we land. Breakfast soon and then sunrise.

Cop Out

The trouble with watching lots of films is that you have fewer films to see. That random statement has more meaning when you're scouring an in-flight entertainment system looking for something to watch. Iron Man 2, Toy Story 3, Predators - yeh, yeh, yeh seen those. I need something new and undemanding to while away another hour or two. I know, how about Cop Out? Sure it's had some bad reviews but Wincey Willis is always fun to watch with a weapon and a wisecrack. It can't be that bad.

It is.

Christ on a bike, this is (un)comfortably one of the worst films I've ever seen. A complete turd toupee of a movie. Breathtakingly stupid and insulting to the intelligence of anyone unintelligent enough to watch it. A career low for all concerned. I don't know who Tracy Morgan is but as well as having a name that sounds like a low-rent porn star, he is incredibly irritating. And self-referential nods to John McClane are not big or clever either.

The more I watched this, the more it became an endurance event. Despite it being the very early hours of the day on a night flight when everyone else was asleep and I felt dreadful, I was determined that I would see every excruciating minute. And I made it. Just. I deserve some kind of award.

Under 3 hours till we land. Surely whatever film I watch next has to be an improvement...

Prince Of Persia

On the plane back from Florida now. This is bad for two reasons - I hate flying and I hate holidays ending. I have a plan though. I'm going to chain-movie-watch and see as many as I can back to back. First up, the film from game thingy that is Prince Of Persia.

Another Jack Daniels and Coke first. Nom. Right film's off. Jake bloke appears to have dodgy accent but he is good at all the jumpy, swingy stuff. And he looks proper buff eh girls? Must ignore Gemma Arterton, must ignore. Focus on Alf Molina's amusing guy-liner. Or Benjy Kingsley doing malevolent stares and blatantly looking forward to picking up his pay cheque. This is all a bit meh so far. Still can't bear Gemma A.

Disney were obviously hoping for another Pirates Of Da Caribbean style franchise here. Heads up Mickey, you ain't going to get it mate. Too boring and unoriginal. And don't try to be all 'relevant' by throwing in a hunt for WMD story thread.

SNAKES! Hope Mrs F isn't watching this (leans round seat), nope she's watching Friends. Safe.

Film over. Above average only in its ability to be completely average. Just under 5 hrs to go. Time for another film...

Get Him To The Greek

In which the erudite, grandpa botherer plays a gobby, druggy, drinky rockstar who causes grief for a lardy record label bloke. Was supposed to be very funny. It, um, isn't. Though there is a bit with a dildo that made me chuckle out loud. Then again, just the word dildo makes me snigger.

This was another film I watched on the plane. Did I mention my holiday? Oh.

I like Russell Brand. Decided I don't like the other fella though. You know, the chunky one who talks from the back of his mouth. The scenes with him and his girlfriend are all very clunky. Which rhymes with chunky.

Piff, puff, poof daddy earnt a bonus point or two for his silly, shouty record label boss bloke.

Have we arrived in Florida yet?