Review: The Bourne Legacy

When The Bourne Legacy was first announced, expectations were pretty low for the series return minus main star Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass: who despite only signing up during the second film The Bourne Supremacy, had become synonymous with the franchise - but in case of the marketing men really earning their money, as each piece of information and trailer leaked out this reboot of sorts started to look like it could be the surprise hit of the summer.

Despite having all the tools in place, The Bourne Legacy never quite clicks meaning it struggles to live up to the standards set before. The film is directed by writer Tony Gilroy with a similar flair for action as Greengrass and Jeremy Renner has much of the believability Matt Damon brought to Bourne as Aaron Cross - but the story so far lets the film down, with too much held back for the sequels leaving a pretty basic plot stretched to breaking point thanks to a run time well over 2 hours, resulting in a final action chase that should be thrilling just ending up a bit boring as you know nothing will be resolved by this point.

The potential is there for a great film, maybe the sequel will see a similar jump in quality like The Bourne Supremacy made from Identity.

Review: Ted

On the surface the premise of Ted, the story of a sweary, stoner teddy bear and his manchild friend sounds like it will struggle to fill a film - but thanks to Seth MacFarlane's proven track record in creating crude comedy characters and Mark Wahlberg once again excelling at playing the idiot, Ted finishes up as one of the funniset comedies of the year.

As you'd expect from the man behind Family Guy and American Dad, the jokes are mostly rude and random - there's just about enough of a plot this time around to ward off any accusation of Ted being written by manatees, but the film is arguably at its weakest in its final third when the jokes slow down and the plot takes precedence - as beneath the jokes its not much more than a pretty basic rom com with a chase stuck in it.

The ability to create chemistry between Wahlberg and a CGI bear is at the core of Ted's success, but there's also strong support from Mila Kunis as John's long-suffering girlfriend alongside Joe McHale making the movie from Community to movies as her sleazy boss Rex - also much like 21 Jump Street, the other comedy hit of the year, the film features an outrageous 80s cameo that comes close to stealing the show.

Review: The Dark Knight Rises

With the hype sky-high after the success of The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan's third and final installment in the Batman franchise was always going to struggle to match up to people's expectations - but quite how short The Dark Knight Rises falls will be a surprise to many.

The main problem with this final film is that whilst the success of the series has been in its realistic setting of the superhero's story in the modern world, too much of The Dark Knight Rises plot stretches the believability to breaking point, taking the viewer out of the film to question whether what happened actually made any sense.

That's not to say this is a bad film - there's plenty to enjoy in the action set-pieces and the performances of Anne Hathaway and the return to the fore of Christian Bale as The Caped Crusader himself, who is back inform after taking a backseat to performances from Aaron Eckhart and Heath Ledger in the previous film. Tom Hardy is good as his nemesis Bane, playing him more like a Bond villain than you may expect - it would be unfair to compare him to Ledger's Joker as they are very different type of villains, but Bane could've done with a bit more development to show why exactly he has managed to amass a cult-like army of followers.

The Dark Knight Rises also suffers from trying to cram too much stuff into one film - it would arguably have been better following the lead of the final installments of the Harry Potter and Twilight franchises by splitting the story into two parts, as it feels like there is at least 4 hours of film crammed into 2 and 3/4 hours, with several minor characters introduced and subsequently getting lost in the shuffle, leading to some underwhelming moments the should be much more powerful as the film hurdles through several of its multiple endings, of which the final one seems a little bit too much like trying to repeat Nolan's trick from Inception, copping out from the proper ending that actually suited the story.

The Top 5 Familiar Faces In The Dark Knight Rises (Spoilers)

1. Lieutenant Jim Dangle (Thomas Lennon) as a Doctor wins the award for the strangest casting, wisely giving the shorts a miss this time around to give Bruce Wayne the once over.

2. Bellick from Prison Break (Wade Williams) appears once again on our screens as a prison guard. With his previous record it won't come as much of a shock that all the prisoners don't stay captive for long.

3.By now most people will know that Carcetti pops up in the IMAX prologue that introduced Bane, but another Wire alumni Bunny Colvin (Robert Wisdom) briefly turns Gotham into another Hamsterdam as an Army Captain. Maybe he thought the nuke was street slang for drugs.

4. Quinn from Dexter (Desmond Harrington) has Bunny's back later as an unnamed officer who makes sure no-one crosses that Bridge - even if Joseph Gordon-Levitt does his best squinty face impression of Keanu Reeves.

5. Finally, Owen from Torchwood (Burn Gorman )plays Stryver, one of Jim Daggett's lackeys. Speaking of all stuff Doctor Who, The TARDIS might actually explain how Bruce Wayne actually managed to get back to Gotham from a jail in the middle of Africa with no money and no shoes.

Review: The Amazing Spider-Man

This latest take on the Spider-Man origin story takes a darker and grittier tone than the recent trilogy of Raimi films - and although its still a world away from Batman-levels of blackness, the more realistic feel does its best to blow away any cobwebs still left after the dreadful Spider-Man 3 and Tobey Macquire's best Saturday Night Fever audition.

New lead Andrew Garfield quickly convinces as the superhero-to-be, tetchy and twitchy enough to convince as geek Peter Parker, but charismatic enough to make you believe you he'd actually have a chance with someone like Emma Stone - its no surprise the real life couple have great chemistry and Stone's Stacy is helped by being more than someone just to be rescued at the end.

However its Martin Sheen who is the real star of the show as Parker's Uncle Ben, popping up at the right moments to give the film a gravitas much like Michael Caine's Alfred and the standard does drop noticeably as Sheen's scenes come to an end - Rhys Ifans does a sound job as the villain, but doesn't have too much to work with as Sony have saved the bigger name bad guys for the inevitable sequels that will follow.

The Spider-Man origin story is a well-worn tale, but this reboot does enough things different and enough things well to make sure it comfortably exceed expectations.

Review: Katy Perry - Part Of Me

During this documentary/concert film following Katy Perry's California Dreams 2011 Tour, it's pointed out at several times that the singer is far from a record company puppet and that Perry oversees all aspects of what goes on when on the road - you quickly get the feeling that control extended to this film as at no point during Part Of Me does anyone having anything negative to say about Katy, shown as the devoted idol to her millions of Katycats and devoted wife trying her best to save her marriage to Russell Brand.

Yet only during the home-video tributes from fans about what an inspiration Katy is does this end up being as lame as it sounds, thanks to Perry having an interesting story to tell about her struggle to make it big against her ultra-religious upbringing and record company politics holding her back for years, alongside the slow break up of her marriage keeping your interest throughout and making sure that backstage segments don't all blur into one.

Concert footage is kept to montages and the odd number here and there, so anyone looking for the live experience will be disappointed - and whilst those who hate Perry's pop won't have their minds changed, there's enough of interest for those on the fence to mean that this is a film not just for the fans.

Review: Prometheus

It's tempting to put Prometheus in with the rest of Ridley Scott's recent work where the impressive visuals have often outshone some pretty weak scripts - and whilst that's true to a certain extent with this Alien prequel, there's enough ideas and excitement to be found beneath its pretty exterior to make this more than worthy of your time.

The cast is reliably excellent, Fassbender gives the standout performance as an O'Toole obsessed android that will change the way you look at Wall-E from now on, but Noomi Rapace as proto-Ripley Elizabeth Shaw and Charlize Theron as ambiguous villain Vickers are also worthy of praise.

On the downside, minor quibbles would be a few too many crew members are there seemingly just to die (I don't think that's a spoiler for an Alien film?) and the big orchestral score doesn't really fit into the mood of the franchise for me - but the biggest problems come in the film's final third, featuring an unsatisfying end that only really tees-up more prequels to bridge the gap with the 1979 original and an over-reliance on big CGI effects to create tension and terror - the original being the case in point for how less is more.

Those flaws aside, Prometheus is still a welcome addition to the post-Inception line of intelligent blockbusters that don't seek to insult the audiences intelligence.