Review: Fire In Babylon

Fire In Babylon focuses on the emergence of the great West Indies team of the 1970s and 1980s and the impact they had not only on the game of Cricket itself, revolutionising the game fielding a fearsome quartet of fast bowlers - but the impact the team had on society itself in a period of tense racial relations.

A mixture of talking heads and archive footage, this documentary excels thanks to the charisma of those involved - the likes of Viv Richards and Michael Holding having a way with words that always holds your attention throughout. Those without a interest in the sport or younger fans will also be surprised at just how brutal the archive footage can be - Brian Close getting a going over by the short pitched stuff is particularity eye watering at times.

Cricket buffs might've have hoped the film would cast its net wider to cover the other legends of West Indies cricket such as Sobers and Headley that came before and the likes Lara, Walsh and Ambrose that followed on from them - but like the bowlers themselves, Fire In Babylon hits the right marks more often than not to make the film a success

Review: Dinner for Schmucks

Steve Carell and Paul Rudd are usually two of the more likeable stars in the Judd Apatow stable, so its quite a surprise just how bad and unfunny this film is.

Unlike his turn as Brick Tamland in Anchorman, this time Carell is just irritating instead of the loveable idiot - the film hangs on his performance and the lack of any laughs means it fails completely. Paul Rudd coasts along doing his usual nice guy routine, so escapes relatively unharmed - but its a shame to see someone who should be a much bigger star wasted in so many films.

Jermaine Clement provides the few laughs that are in the film, playing a character pretty similar to his role as Ronald Chevalier in Gentlemen Broncos. But the fact that Dinner for Schmucks is only just better than that film tells you all you need to know about this. One to avoid.

Review: Bad Teacher

The problem with Bad Teacher is it just isn't funny, with no real jokes to speak of throughout its 90 minutes of screen time. Instead the film just seems to rely on the premise that Cameron Diaz swearing is funny to try and get its laughs from the audience. Unsurprisingly this weak attempt fails.

Jason Segel pops up at random points to set up the predictable happy ending, but the writers seem to have forgotten to get Diaz to do anything vaguely redeeming to get to that point - I'm not sure her character framing an innocent teacher whose boyfriend she tried to steal is quite the 'journey' the makers seem to think it is.

Bad Teacher certainly lives up to the first part of its title - this is one of the worst films I have seen in a while.

Review: Love and Other Drugs Trailer

Love and Other Drugs tries its hands at many different styles, all of which have potential - but never really succeeds at any of them due to the uneasy nature at which they fit together as a whole.

The film would've been much better if it simply decided whether it wants to be a simple rom-com with Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway as the will they/won't they couple, or a screwball comedy with Gyllenhaal's Randall and his increasingly desperate attempts to sell enough prescription drugs and get promoted to Chicago. Option three would be to drop the comedy altogether and focus on the impact the onset of Hathaway's stage one Parkinson's has on the relationship. yet the film tries to shoehorn all this into under 2 hours and it never really works.

For long periods it does seem to be going down the more interesting route of exploring the couple trying to hold it together in the dace of a terrible illness, but at crucial moments it jumps back into the prescription drugs plot, even more baffling as Gyllenhaal's character never really gives the impression he's that bothered about the job. Add in Josh Gad as his brother who seems to walked straight in from a Judd Apatow film and it starts to feel like you're watching two films cut together such is the disjointed feel.

Still despite its flaws, I do find it hard to hate any film that features Anne Hathaway getting naked for a surprising amount of time.

Review: Man On The Moon

Don't go expecting any big revelations from this biopic of the life of Andy Kauffman, Man on the Moon doesn't do anything to delve beneath the surface to find out what made the controversial comedian tick, instead simply recreating all the famous moments of his career and quickly moving onto the next 'remember this' moment.

That's not to say it's not enjoyable, Carrey gives a nice performance paying tribute to Kauffman and this could well be one of the few times where the words 'Courtney Love' and 'likeable' are used in the same sentence, but the film is just too light and frothy to be anything substantial in the end.

Review: Crazy Heart

On the face of it, not much actually happens in Crazy Heart, former country star drinks a bit too much, a couple of bad things happen and well...that's about it really.

However the story isn't what makes Crazy Heart worth watching, it's the masterful performances from Jeff Bridges as 'Bad' Blake in the lead who completwely inhabits the role and the excellent support he gets from Maggie Gyllenhaal, Colin Farrell, and Robert Duvall who all give suitably world-weary performances, subtle enough to give Bridges the space to shine.

Review: Jackass 3

Jackass 3 is back with more of the stunts and gross-out humour you've come to expect from the likes of Johnny Knoxville, Chris Pontius and Bam Margera. The 4 year gap between films mean things once again feel fresh and the break has given the crew chance to think of some inventive new stunts to fill 90 minutes of screen time.

The main twist this time around was that things were done in 3D, with many surprised by the clever ways with which they managed to use the technology. Having just watched the film on DVD I can't vouch for that myself, but with the amount of props and bodily fluids you see flying about I can guess you'd get your money's worth.

Where Jackass constantly manages to stand out from the competition is that it's always been more about silliness than stupidity, with a warmth and humour present throughout instead of it just being a collection of gross and dangerous stunts that you get from the likes of Dirty Sanchez - the closing credit montage is actually quite touching and shows how the gang and the audience have grown old together.

Review: The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest

The final part of the Millennium Trilogy is a return to form, wisely getting rid of much of the Bond and Kill Bill inspired antics and going back to the spirit of the original with a tale of murders, conspiracy and a mysterious past.

The past in question this time is Lisbeth's as Blomkvist tries to prove she is innocent of the 3 murders she is accused of, whilst to uncover why the Swedish authorities seem so keen to silence her. The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest is still not without problems though, mainly being its still a bit too long and the feeling it would work better as a TV series is hard to shake, but thanks to the power of the performances from Nyqvist and Rapace in particular, you still manage to stick with despite it being hard-going at times.

Therein lies the problem with why the sequels fail to match up to the original - the fact that Blomkvist and Salander are barely together in parts 2 and 3 means they are always destined to be seen as the weaker of the efforts, stripped of the chemistry that made The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo such a success.

Review: The Girl Who Played with Fire

For those whose first introduction to the Millennium Trilogy was David Fincher's recent remake - The Swedish version of The Girl Who Played with Fire is pretty easy to get up to speed with, as the only major difference to get used to is journalist Mikael Blomkvist now looks more like Shaun Ryder than James Bond.

It's a shame then that this second instalment is the worst of the three by far, thanks in main part to the introduction of a hokey Bond-style bad guy who feels no pain in an implausible action-based plot that actually turns out to be pretty inconsequential in the grand scheme of the trilogy's storyline.

Add on an ending that tries to be a cliffhanger but just ends up annoying the viewer for wasting 2 hours on a film that goes nowhere and you have a middle part that is eminently skippable.

Review: Mr Nice

This movie, based on Marks's 1996 memoir Mr Nice is reminiscent at times of 24 Hour Party People, thanks to the light-hearted take on the protagonist's life story and various comedians popping up throughout in several roles.

Much like Coogan did in 2002, Rhys Ifans is a much playing himself as much as he plays Howard Marks and his natural charisma carries the film throughout. There's not much plot to speak of apart from going to different countries to get drugs, but like Marks himself there's a certain charm to it that makes sure it gets away with it in the end.

Review: Wall Street 2 - Money Never Sleeps

With Western civilisation seemingly collapsing around us as we speak, the time couldn't be better for a second instalment in the adventures of Gordon Gecko - but what we get is up there with Godfather 3 levels of disappointment as we get 2 and half hours of a dodgy love story between Shia Lebeouf and Cary Mulligan instead of Douglas chewing scenery as ultra-bastard Gordon Gecko.

When he does get the chance to do that the film succeeds, but they chances are few and far between. In the end a bit more greed would've been good.

Review: Takers

For a film about a gang of thieves, it's kind of apt that Takers liberally steals from the Ocean's Eleven template. As Idris Elba is the only one with the acting chops to match up to Clooney's crew, Taker's wisely focuses most of the plot on his character and the usual clichéd struggle to pull off one last job.

Matt Dillon plays a cop with troubled family life and a corrupt partner, but neither story really goes anywhere - same with most of the minor members of the crew who get a small bit of back story before a couple of Heat-style shoot outs finish things off.