Review: Gonzo

Whilst given the full title of Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, for the most part Gonzo is a celebratory ride through the most famous works of Hunter S Thompson. Ignoring the usual biopic childhood stuff it instead dives straight into his famous work on the Hells Angels, before moving onto the escapades of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and on the '72 campaign trail. Naturally, plenty of great archival material is uncovered, in particular the tv spot featuring a confrontation with an angry biker and taped anecdotes from his time in Vegas.

Only briefly does it hint at the dark side behind Thompson - his obsession with guns, drug abuse, serial abuse and volcanic temper seemingly laughed off most of the time. An exploration into this side would've produced a more interesting documentary, instead of one that simply perpetuates the the myth surrounding the great writer.

Review: The Escapist

What is seemingly a straight-forward Prison Break thriller avoids falling into cliché thanks to its inventive ending and a compelling performance from Brian Cox in the lead role.

At first, the flash forwards to the convicts escape seem to detract from the attempts to build up the claustrophobic mood, but on repeat viewings drop subtle hints to the films surprise ending.

WWE Night Of Champions 2009

One of the newer PPV incarnations from the WWE, taking over from Vengance, the event sees all the gold in WWE defended on the card - and thanks to the additional matches we usual see a couple of different faces from the usual status quo, though sadly it was not be for Jimmy Wang Yang this year

Night of Champions opened with the Unified Tag Title match, which saw Legacy challenge Jericho for the belts they won on their debut at the previous years event. Jericho had hinted previously that his replacement partner for the injured Edge would be evil - Smackdown had hinted towards Kane, but those who remember the Attitude Era hoped for Kai En Tai and their dubbed comedy stylings to make a welcome return - sadly instead we got the Big Show. Heel versus Heel matches struggle to work in WWE at the best of times, but adding the ponderous seven footer to the equation was the nail in the coffin. It wasn't dreadful mainly thanks to Show spending a fair amount of time on the outside, but you get the feeling Smackdown is about to get a whole lot crapper now since the awesomeness of Jericho will be cancelled out by the nearby presence of the seven foot salad dodger.

Since the raping of ECW of the draft and the raft of FCW alumni starting up on ECW, the Tommy Dreamer title reign has stalled badly - cutting short an interesting feud with Jack Swagger that also involved his challenger Christian. But with Night of Champions taking place in birthplace of all things Extreme, a decent reaction (which was quite an achievement with a crowd that was dead all night) for the ECW original was guaranteed, sadly thanks to limitations of Dreamer in a match without weapons and the like, the crowd didn't stay with them and as a result the title change didn't seem like big the moment it should've been. The result probably marks the end of Tommy Dreamer in a WWE ring for a while and with Christian looking likely to move on to challenge of Koslov, he'll be hard pressed to top the recent run of ECW title matches that he and Swagger had.

Thankfully due to the Big Show's conditioning, or lack of - there was no chance of him pulling double duty and entering the six pack challenge for the US Title. The logical replacement you would have thought must be Evan Bourne, on account of him being involved in the exchanges between Show and Kofi Kingston that set the basis for this match in the first place. But instead Primo was given the chance to step up, making the choice to draft Bourne to Monday night's look even stranger than before. The match itself too didn't make much sense either, seemingly made up of a couple of TNA-esque multi man spots and lots of flying about from Carlito to get the crowd going, even though he was supposed to be the big heel in the match.

Swagger and MVP were pretty much an afterthought in the match, which was a shame as their opening exchanges on Raw pointed to an interesting feud which now seems to have fallen by the wayside since the whole guest host gimmick started on Raw. Hopefully these two will be given the chance to build towards a match further down the line. In the meantime Kofi retained which was the right result in the end as a title change just for the sake of it benefits nobody in the end.

Next up, Michelle McCool defended her title against Melina again in a brutal match. McCool either has the most realistic offence in the WWE or once again she nearly killed Melina several times over during the match. In particular the opening splits spot looked like it was all different kinds of painful and it was later followed by a DDT on the guardrail later on. McCool retained, but seems short on future challengers for her to beat on.

The triple threat for the WWE title followed and whilst it being a pretty good match it suffered from a huge sense of deja vu thanks to the stale main event scene on Raw. Orton kept the title looking weak once again thanks to the predictable Rhodes and Dibiase run in - this was on top of tapping out in clear sight of the referee, which may lead to another rematch between these guys. Again. The fact that Orton still has the aura of a legit killer despite being booked like a total chump is a testament to the way he carries himself.

The Divas title match was the one clunker on the show and was arguably the worst match of Mickie James' WWE career. The match was sloppy and the crowd dead, surprising since Maryse is actually a great heel character. The title changed hands too which also was a puzzling choice since Mickie hasn't really done anything and Maryse is in the midst of a storyline with The Miz.

Given a surprisingly high spot on the card Ziggler vs Mysterio never quite hit the heights it needed to to take the former Spirit Squad member to the next level. The match itself was solid but lacked that spark to send above the likes of an extended Smackdown match - this was mainly thanks to Rey spending most of the time grounded as a result of Ziggler's restholds. Telling a story in the ring is one thing, but this was at the expense of entertainment. Hopefully in the future they give these two the chance to express themselves a bit more in the ring and work a more fast-paced match as Ziggler needs to some impressive outings to build on the potential he has shown so far.

Earlier in the evening, champion CM Punk had struck an awesome promo that basically boiled down to Jeff Hardy being at fault for America's ills. Going into the match it felt like we were finally seeing the real CM Punk, the man who works so much better as arrogant guy rather than ill fitting babyface character that he's portrayed for his entire WWE run so far. Defending against Jeff Hardy, Punk was made to look competitive, dominating large portions of the match, but the decision to put the belt back on Jeff was the wrong call.

A victory over Hardy for Punk would've done wonders to establish a new main event performer - something WWE is short on numbers of at the moment - even if Punk wins the belt back in a gimmick match at Summerslam, which is still likely due to Jeff's contract situation, undermining the 'better than you' character by taking the one thing that backs up his argument is symbolic of the poor choices the WWE are making at the moment, as it not only derails Punk, but renders John Morrison's two victories over the champ as redundant.

In the end Night of Champions was a solid PPV, with the second women's match the only poor match on the card - whilst giving nothing to complain about, it didn't exactly give you anything to write home about either.

Review: Coraline

A visual delight that works just as well in two dimensions thanks to its creepy children's fairytale story that touches on horror at times.

But every frame is such a treat that Coraline will be best experienced in its 3D incarnation just so you can pick up every layer of stop-motion mastery as Henry Slieck intended.

Review: Valkyrie

If you can get past the fact that several of Hitler's most important German officers - who would go on to launch a plot to assassinate him are supposed to resemble a load of British character actors and a Hollywood Megastar, then Valkyrie actually manages to create a fair amount of tension for a story with such an obvious ending.

In the end, the actual assassination attempt itself is the most disappointing part of the film, feeling rushed and would've benefited from been drawn out longer to milk the drama from what really should be the key part of the movie.

All is not lost however, as Valkyrie contains the unintentionally hilarious image of Tom Cruise complete with a eye patch and stump arm, giving a Nazi salute - which is almost worth a recommendation on its own.

Review: Adventureland

With a director most famous for his work on Superbad and a lead character who's immediately introduced as a virgin - you'd been forgiven for expecting another of your typical gross out comedies riding the back of the frat pack success. But for the most part Adventureland eschews all the the usual clichés to make something far more interesting for the viewer.

The end result is actually more coming of age drama than teen comedy, with an excellent 'will they won't they' chemistry between Kristen Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg (who is so good Michael Cera will be sweating) that carries the film. That's not to say that Adventureland doesn't bring the funny either, thanks excellent comic support from several of the minor characters, in particular Mottola's Superbad Alumni Bill Hader as the moustachioed theme park boss.

If anything, where many modern comedies ignore any semblance of a plot - a little smidgen more of the laughs added here and there would've resulted in a film that rivalled the likes of Juno and Little Miss Sunshine in the American Indie comedy stakes.

Review: Brüno

Brüno, the follow up to worldwide über-smash Borat seems to be the natural end for Sasha Baron Cohen's unique brand of guerilla docu-comedy for both logistical and logical reasons.

Once again as Brüno, Baron Cohen takes on the tried and tested formula of idiot savant designed to slyly expose people's prejudices. But as the gay fashionista he takes it (and he really does literally take it in some scenes) to the nth degree that you struggle to think just what he'd have to do to push the boundaries of taste and decency next time around.

The sense of an end of an era is heightened by the lack of believability to several of the scenes in Brüno. With the anonymity afforded to him in his previous work the key to his success it feels like this time around too many people have had to be let in on the joke to make it work. This is highlighted by the films ending featuring knowing cameos from Bono, Sting, Elton John and Chris Martin spoiling leaving you wondering just how much of what you've just seen was actually faked, spoiling the fun somewhat.

All of that is not to say that Brüno is a bad film, it is a very funny rude, lewd and crude hour and a half of fun. But the signs are there that Baron Cohen quit while he's ahead before the joke starts to fall flat.

Review: Terminator Salvation

To make up for the appalling dialogue and a plot that doesn't make any sense, the latest Terminator film simply lungs from overblown CGI fight scene with lots of guns, explosions and robots to another overblown CGI chase scene with lots of guns, explosions and even bigger robots over the course of two hours.

For a film with a supposed massage of how the human heart is greater than the soulless machine, the character aren't given the chance to do a single thing to make you care about them as the focus is instead on the sub-Transformers range of robots and all the different ways they can find to blow them up.

Review: The Proposal

This surprisingly good rom-com rises above the dross thanks to a fine performance as leading man from Ryan Reynolds and excellent turns from Betty White and Oscar Nuñez in their supporting roles.

Sandra Bullock plays to her strengths yet you never truly believe her as the uptight Devil Wears Prada boss she's supposed to be, but the chemistry between the co-stars makes for an entertaining, yet predictable 90 minutes.

Review: Role Models

Role Models isn't a bad film, just a pretty unoriginal one with the feeling you've seen all this stuff before.

This sense of deja-vu comes from the cast playing it safe and doing exactly what has made them famous in the first place - but just not quite as funny. Paul Rudd does his dead-pan nice guy thing (Knocked Up, I Love You Man - but not quite as funny) even when his character is supposed to be a bit of a dick, whilst Seann William Scott does Stifler (American Pie - but not quite as funny) and Christopher Mintz-Plasse does McLovin (Superbad - but not quite as funny)

I've not seen Bobb'e J. Thompson as Tracy Jr in 30 Rock yet, but you get where I'm going with this...

Review: Slumdog Millionaire

After swearing never to watch this film thanks to the god-awful bus ads promising 'the feel-good film of the decade' I finally sat down to watch the all-conquering Oscar winning film from Danny Boyle on the promise no Hugh Grant style antics would be seen.

The film is set as far away from Notting Hill in tone as it is geographically, fitting in shit-swimming, torture and ethnic cleansing before being topped off with a little bit of implied rape - and all in the first hour to boot.

By dealing with the brutal aspects of the reality such as poverty and cruelty takes it way above the traditional will-they, won’t-they of the genre it so loosely belongs to and makes the films message even more powerful.

Game On

Here's the teaser trailer for FIFA 10, which is confusingly the 17th in the series of best-selling football games. It doesn't actually give you much clue about what to expect aside from showing of all the pretty official kits that Pro Evo doesn't have.

Speaking of which, the Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 trailer promises in depth customisation of defensive and attacking options. But knowing Pro Evo, making any sense of their notoriously difficult to understand menus to actually do this will be a task itself.

Review: Watchmen

After 90 minutes of tedious backstory, the film only threatens to get into gear when the Watchmen finally get into theirs.

But don't get too excited, after about half an hour of Zach Snyder doing his slow bit/fast bit thing in the action scenes - its right back to laboured exposition till the end.

Rorschach's raspy voiceover features heavily and is worse than anything The Dark Knight has to offer, quickly making you wish he'd been lobbed out of the window instead.

In the end Watchmen simply suffers from trying to fit in too much into too little time. Scrapping the parallel storylines and flashbacks may have made for a less faithful adaptation, but it would've been a hell of a lot more of an enjoyable one.

Review: Public Enemies

The latest effort from Michael Mann is no Heat, but thankfully it's no Miami Vice either.

The movie is all about Johnny Depp as bank robber Dillinger, who gives a excellent performance in the lead role that wisely eschews the OTT stylings of Messrs Sparrow and Todd - but falls victim to a script that tends to over-egg the charismatic, modern day Robin Hood business a little too much a times to be truly satisfying.

Co-stars Christian Bale and Marion Cotillard are marginalised with too little to work with for the majority of the film's run time - this is further highlighted by the fact that the film's best scene takes place with the two, as Bale's Purvis steps in to stop to vicious interrogation of Cotillard's Billie Frechette.

Where the film fails is the constant shoot outs punctuating any attempts to build up mood and emotion. The shoot out at the Little Bohemia Lodge should be the film's highlight, full of edge of the east tension shot in trademark Mann style - instead it starts to bore as it is at least the fourth big shoot-out to take place.

In the end we are left with another crime thriller from Michael Mann that looks stunning shot in his trademark hi-def style, but thanks to the factors above fails to live up to hype that came before it.

Review: Night at the Museum 2

This sequel, suffixed Battle of the Smithsonian reminds me of Wake Up, Ron Burgundy! in that it feels like a collection of out-takes and deleted scenes cut together to make a new movie.

Which is a shame as it supposed to be the big follow up to the 2006 surprise smash.

There's barely a plot to speak of here, instead it just cuts from set piece to set piece bringing back favourite characters from first time around and introducing a few new ones that they couldn't squeeze in last time.

Hank Azaria as Kahmunrah brings the most laughs and a couple of nice cameos along the way will at least make it worth a watch when it makes it to TV screens.