I've not done a review for a while because I've been incredibly busy trying to not be a massive hypocrite and make some good films of my own. However, there's been so much hype about this film that I had to go and have a look.

Before I get into this, I'm not a fan of superhero films as a general rule. I love Kick-Ass and The Dark Knight but that's about it.

The Avengers (Or Avengers Assemble as it's more awkwardly known) is a huge cash in film by Marvel studios (those comic book guys) that has lots of big names and explosions. The story goes that there's some magic energy source from another planet called the Tesseract that we're trying to figure out, when some guy from another planet appears and steals it. Then the Avengers are assembled, take a ride on a massive helicopter, run a few computer scans to find the energy source, then destroy Manhattan to save the world. The usual shit.

As I said before I'm not a big fan of superhero stuff, so I'm not familiar with the back story to pretty much all the characters that I felt like I was supposed to worship when I walked into the film, but the first thing I can tell you is this; while all of the characters are very well acted and interesting, this is very much Iron Man featuring the Avengers. He steals the show and drives the story more than anyone else. This was always going to be an issue when trying to shoe-horn so many big characters into one film, but I thought the balance would have been a little better at least.

The plot is a bit shit. I mean, it's clear and I guess it's always being moved forward, albeit in some extremely slow and cheap ways at times. The largest portion of the film is taken up on a massive flying aircraft carrier, and the only thing moving the plot forward really is a progress bar on a scanner looking for the Tesseract while the rest of the cast dick around punching things.

The final battle was a bit of a let down. The scale was impressive, but there was really nothing different to any other recent action film, and it gets quite dull pretty quickly. There are some stylish flourishes here and there, but they're too few and far between to keep it interesting.

Overall, I guess if you've bought into the Marvel series of films you'll love this because it's the kind of thing nerds have sex dreams about, but from an outsider's perspective, it's watchable but vapid.

The Woman in Black is the latest film from the recently arisen Hammer studios, and stars none other than everyone's favourite gawkish prick, Daniel Radcliffe. Harry Potter wants to break away from his most famous role and be a serious actor now, and he's chosen to begin this futile quest with a scary adaptation.

The Woman in Black is about a young estate agent who's sent to a small town where there's a spooky house for him to sort out and sell. Everyone in the town is very suspicious of him and tries to make him leave, but his diligence surpasses their warnings, and he goes to the house, where upon arrival, weird shit happens. Weird shit continues to happen the other 3 times he visits in the following days, when finally the weird shit comes to a head, and the film ends.

The film starts well, with a good, dense atmosphere, and nicely drifts through to the spooky house stuff. One thing to note, you won't be able to not see Daniel as Harry Potter at the beginning, and throughout the scary stuff, you'll be screaming in your mind "EXPECTO PATRONUM!!".

However, once he arrives at the spooky house, the film really drops the ball. The biggest flaw is that for this rather large chunk of the film, the plot moves forward very little, so you're left wondering where the film is going for a big portion of it. What makes things worse is that while these house scenes do make you jump, that's all they do, and the scares are very, very cheap. This film seems to have come from the school of horror that thinks a loud noise and something jumping out is terrifying stuff. Things jumping out and loud noises aren't horror; they're surprise, and saying that a film is scary because things jump out and make loud noises, is like saying that a person is a hilarious comedian because they're good a tickling. Of course they're going to make you jump and your heart beat a little faster, but it isn't horror.

Having said that, there are a few good scary scenes in the film, and these are almost exclusively the ones which aren't things jumping out and making loud noises.

The film finally seg-ways into the final act, which involves the terribly cheesy "We need to reunite her with her dead son so she can be at peace" bit. Once all that nonsense is over though, it builds to what is actually a very, very good ending, which is very suspenseful, and completely catches you off guard.

Overall, it's jam-packed with clichés and cheap scares, but it does have the occasional good moment, and one of my favourite endings that I've seen for a while. It's just a shame that, much like Daniel Radcliffe has to do at one point in the film, you have to wade through a lot of shit to get closure.

Steven Spielburg. God among men.
War Horse. God among stage plays.

How could a combination of the two be bad? Take a seat on Uncle Chris' knee and he'll tell you all about it.

War Horse is a film based on a play based on a book, which has been adapted and directed by Steven Spielburg. The story goes that a poor farmer buys a fancy horse at the market, and his son takes the challenge of training this fancy "thoroughbred" to plough the fields. Of course, he's successful, and falls wildly in love with the horse. Then the horse is called away to war and then is involved in a charge and then escapes and then meets some German soldiers and then escapes and then meets a French girl and then escapes and then meets some more German soldiers and then escapes and then meets some barbed wire and then escapes and then meets some British soldiers and then finally is reunited with his young male sweetheart from all the way at the start. Aww.

Now, considering the dark nature of the book, when I saw that the film had a 12a certificate, I face palmed. However, the war parts of the film are very well done. We know that Mr Spielburg is the Joseph Goebbels of war films after his masterpiece Saving Private Ryan, and he brings that same atmosphere to the table here, albeit a little more child friendly(as child friendly as World War 1 can be).

However, this film is essentially divided into two parts, and then these parts are jumbled together. The first part (the good part) is about the war. The other half is about various people falling in love with the horse throughout its journey. This is the most saccharin, cheesy nonsense I've seen in a film for a while. People fall in love with the horse very easily, and this includes other horses. The most annoying way in which the film is ruined because of this, is that the horse is personified in completely ridiculous ways, like the horses gloating to each other after a race, and one horse jumping in front of a gun to protect another horse. Horses don't do that kind of thing, so unless that was actually Sarah Jessica Parker, please stop it.

There are also two story lines with some young German soldiers and a young French girl, where the horse ends up temporarily in their company. These story lines are pointless, are over too quickly to add anything of value, and considering the film runs at almost two and a half hours, would have benefited from being cut.

At a more fundamental level, I think I might have bought into the soppy side of the story more if it seemed like the horse was desperately trying to get back to his original owner. I know that contradicts what I said before about how horses shouldn't act like people, but if you're going the cheese route, the least you can do is fully commit to it. Throughout the film, the horse just seems to be getting on with it, and doesn't really give a shit who's side it's on. I suppose it's like Switzerland in that sense.

Overall, it's a very well made film, which can only lead me to believe that Spielburg was misguided about how to do the film, and instead of ending up with a brilliant war drama, we have the shiniest turd in the land.

The Artist is a silent film, which, ironically, is causing a quite a stir this award season. Silent film was of course big back in a time when almost inexplicably every film was from the perspective of a deaf person. This was an advance over the previous generation of films exclusively from the perspective of a blind person, or "radio", but there's still something not quite there. That's right, I just ranked disabilities.

The Artist follows the story of George Valentin, the world's biggest silent film star, out-shined only by his dog. One day he bumps into a young female fan, and they appear in the newspaper together. This inspires young Peppy to become an actress, and she does just that. As Peppy is making a name for herself, George finds himself being cut from the studio due to the dawn of the "talkies" demanding new faces. George spirals into depression, and Peppy takes his place at the top. But Peppy is a nice girl and remembers what George did for her, and just as he's about to hit rock bottom, she helps him get back on his feet. Then there's dancing.

Since there is very little dialogue in the film, there's a shit-ton of music, and it's good music. It captures the mood on screen, and doesn't forget the era that it's referencing. The performances are great too. Both George and Peppy are brilliant, and it just goes to show how little words mean when you have a functioning face.

Obviously, back in the day, films were silent due to technological limitations, so The Artist is stylistically silent. Now before you silent film puritans (Any still alive?) get in a tizzy because there is sound in parts, remember the fact that it's silent by choice. It does a very good job of using the format though, by making the rare instances of sound more significant, and also using the dialogue captions to create humour and trick the audience at times.

The lack of dialogue can get frustrating, which causes the film to drag, particularly around the middle when there isn't really anything interesting happening. Where's the fun in watching a man sink into deep depression if you can't hear him cry?

Overall, I enjoyed it, despite it being dull at times. It's a nice story, sprinkled with humour, and a very well made film. I'm just happy that something so different is making it big in the mainstream.

Meanwhile, in Liverpool, cinema goers have been asking for refunds due to the lack of dialogue. Yup, that's the world we live in. A world where people are so stupid that it makes headlines, and Scousers have statutory rights.

I'm currently under the weather, and due to this bout of man flu, I set out today in search of a film which I could relate to in my present state.

Melancholia is a film about depression and the end of the world. Written and directed by Lars "Heil" Von Trier, it stars Kirsten Dunst as the young melancholic Justine. The film portrays her family life, starting with her wedding, which just happens to turn into the worst wedding ever, and it's all her fault for being a miserable bitch. Then there's the second half of the film which stars Charlotte Gainsbourg as her sister, Claire, who's scared that the world will end when a planet collides with it. Then a planet collides with it. I don't feel bad about ruining the ending of the film because Lars Von Trier does just that with the first 5 minutes.

The film brilliantly portrays depression during the wedding scenes. Kirsten Dunst's every nuance is spot on, and the way that all of her family don't quite understand her condition and just expect her to cheer up is very well observed. It's also a very good depiction of how drama goes down at an event like a wedding, with lots of people going off into different rooms and talking about it.

The plot is very hard to define, meandering, and grandiose. There are an awful lot of dead-ends and superfluous scenes. The film is split into two "chapters", and these feel quite disconnected. Justine seems like a different person in the second chapter, compared to her almost absent-minded demeanour in the first.

The second chapter goes on about a planet called Melancholia that's going to collide with the earth. We don't really hear about this until half way through the film, at which point everything that was set up in the first chapter is forgotten about. We never meet Justine's husband or mother again, despite them playing very big parts in the first half.

The characters have a tendency to do things almost inexplicably, the highlight of which was Justine practically raping a young man who I'm certain played a retarded boy in another film, though he could just have one of those faces.

The first half of the film is good, if a little dull. The second half is just a bit silly. In summary, Lars Von Trier has done it again. And by that I of course mean he's created yet another pretentious fuck-puddle.

Robert Zemeckis brings us this animated re-imagining of the classic Dickens tale of Ebenezer Scrooge and poor crippled Tiny Tim. With an all-star cast including Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, and Bob Hoskins, we should all be in for a delightful Christmas treat, right?

Set in 19th century London, Scrooge is a tight-fisted penny-pincher with no interest in Christmas. I know what you're thinking. No, he's not Jewish. One Christmas Eve, he's visited by the ghost of his late business partner, who tells him that he's been bad, and to expect visits from three other ghosts; The Ghost of Christmas Past, The Ghost of Christmas Present, and The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. Later that night, he is indeed visited by these ghosts, and they systematically mentally break Scrooge down and convert him into a corporate whore who frivolously spends his money on nonsense and embarks on over-the-top chase sequences just to make it seem like the extra £5 audiences spend on a 3D screening is worth it.

The biggest problem the film suffers is that it moves at a blistering pace. It really flies through the story, and because of this, you never really get to meet any other characters except Scrooge. Even major characters like Bob Cratchet are side-lined thanks to the speed. There's no way you could read the book at the speed this film moves at, though I get the feeling Robert Zemeckis tried his very hardest to do so, because the parts of the script which he hasn't straight adapted from the book are very poorly written. It's like he's heard a few of the words they used back in the oldene dayse, but has no idea about the context and grammar, so just slips them into more modern sentences and phrases. You get me, chap?

There's a huge chase sequence where Scrooge is fleeing the final ghost, and I despise this scene. Not only is it a complete fabrication of the mind of whichever Disney executive forced Mr Zemeckis to write it into the script, but it's completely unnecessary, unexplained, and most importantly, inappropriate. It's like every animated film has a quota to meet of one over-the-top chase scene, and a Charles Dickens adaptation is no exception. More annoyingly, if this scene was removed, the film would be much better for it, because it would free up room to sort out the pacing issues.

The design of The Ghost of Christmas Past is very strange and quite frankly, poop. It has a fireball for a head, and makes unnecessary movements so that we can see his flaming hair flicker. Yes, you have some very nice fire animations there, Disney. Now can we get on with the film?

Also, the film ends very suddenly, and cuts out a lot of the parts of the story which tie things up. Most noticeably, we don't get to see the iconic scenes of Scrooge going round the to Cratchet household with a huge turkey. Instead, we get Bob Cractchet summarising that Scrooge is nice now, even to the disabled one.

The tone of this version is darker than most before it, and I do commend it for this. Some scenes are very well done, particularly the part where Scrooge is presented with his own grave, and the ground underneath him gives way, leaving him dangling 6 feet above his own casket.

Some nice ideas in there, but all things considered, the Muppets did it better.