Evan Almighty

Newly elected congressman Evan Baxter (Steve Carrell) is visited by God (Morgan Freeman) after Baxter prays for help in changing the world.

The Big Man tells Baxter to build an ark. Baxter resists until animals begin following him, and yes they come in pairs, and Baxter begins to look like Noah.

He begins to work on the ark which puts a strain on his family and his career.

This follow up to Bruce Almighty was intended to bring back original stars Jim Carrey and Jennifer Aniston to reprise their roles.

When this fell through The Office funny man Steve Carrell, who had a bit part in Bruce Almighty, was promoted to leading man.

With a budget rumoured to be close to $200 million and with Carrell, who is often regarded as the saviour of comedy, on board this was all set to be a highly funny hit.

But it fails on just about every level. With a movie about religion and politics director Tom Shadyac goes out of his way not to offend anyone during this painful 94 minutes.

The real problem is the most expensive comedy ever made just isn’t funny, even the comedy pros John Goodman and Wanda Sykes are straining to get a laugh.

The pair does offer, however, slight relief but that is all it is sadly these comic actors are really wasted on such a poor script.

There are a couple of exciting moments when the flood eventually comes despite the appalling CGI, which is surprising for such a high budget.

All in all it is a family friendly film but good actors go to waste, it’s surprising Freeman and Carrell signed up for this, it’s a movie that definitely should be avoided like the ten plagues.

Helen Earnshaw

Hairspray

Set in 1960’s Baltimore overweight teenager Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky) has one dream, to dance on the Corny Collins Show. But Tracy’s mother Edna (John Travolta) doesn’t share her daughter’s dream.

Edna hasn’t left the house since 1951, because she is embarrassed about her size, and she fears that Tracy will be ridiculed and disappointed due to her weight.

Velma Von Tussle (Michelle Pfeiffer) does everything to spoil Tracy’s chances. She controls the Corny Collins Show, 1960’s version of the Mickey Mouse Club, with an iron fist. She uses the show to promote her daughter Amber and is trying to ban Negro Day, where once a month African American kids dance on the show.

Soon Tracy is fighting Amber for the (miss Hairspray title), calling for intergration, and trying to win the heart of Link (Zac Efron), the most popular boy in school.

Hairspray has lots of lift and plenty of body and is a blast of fresh air after a summer of CGI driven blockbusters.

From the opening scenes where Tracy delivers Good Morning Baltimore, an ode to her home town, while arriving at school on top of a garbage truck ,which is reminiscent of Barbra Streisand’s tug boat ride in Funny Girl, you know you are in for a toe tapping, heart-warming ride.

Based on the hit Broadway show of the 1988 non musical version starring Ricki Lake it’s a story of social outsiders who unite to fight oppression.

Despite top performances from the younger members of the cast including newcomer Nikki Blonsky as big hearted Tracy and High School Musical hottie Zac Efron, as the greased up Elvis wannabe Link, it’s the older cast members that really shine.

It took the heavily latexed John Travolta fourteen months to decide whether or not to accept this role. And having turned down roles in previous big screen musicals such as Phantom of the Opera and Chicago it seemed he would never again lend his talent to this movie genre.

He delivers a show stopping, scene stealing performance that could well earn him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor come awards season.

Michelle Pfeiffer also gives a great turn with a surprisingly assured vocal performance as the racist Velma Von Tussle in her first movie in five years.

At the healm of the film is director Adam Shankman . Not much was expected from this film after his previous directing outings such The Wedding Planner and Cheaper by the Dozen 2. However Shankman has proved himself, and like Travolta, may just secure himself an Oscar nod.

In all this is an original, funny movie full of catchy tunes that will have you singing along as well aching with laughter.
But the topic and message of fighting racial segregation may have been somewhat diluted despite this issue being resolved come the closing credits.

But it’s the tremendous cast that really make this movie so successful. The older members of the cast Travolta and Pfeiffer really propelling themselves back onto the list of Hollywood heavyweights with Christopher Walken, Allison Janney and Queen Latifah all producing hilarious supporting roles.

The younger members really are the pace of the film all playing their part in this all singing all dancing spectacular with Blonsky and Efron in particular securing bright futures for themselves.

Helen Earnshaw

Transformers

Teenagers Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) and Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox) are caught in the middle of aclash between robot aliens from the planet Cybertron as they search for the energy producing 'Allspaek'.
The decepticons want to use the allspark to bring to life earth's machinery to kill and kill humans,and lead by Optimus Prime the autobots want to destroy the allspark and protect the human race.
Transformers is the live action version of the cult Japanese toy and is the latest in this summer's CGI driven blockbusters.
Despite this action movie tag it is quintessentially a love story between a boy and his first car. And throughout the film Sam builds a relationship with his yellow Chevy Camaro which turns out to be Bumblebee, an autobot.
However the story with Sam is a bit shakey. Sam's grandfather discovered Megatron (Decepticon baddie)while exploring the Artic decades before. His glasses have an imprint of where the Allspark is hiddenand they find Sam through Ebay. This link is placed into the script to try and give it some structure and backbone when really it's good robots v's bad robots. Apart from this the film is superb.
Director Michael Bay and his team effortlessly blend the human action alongside the CGI 30ft robots and this is seen right from the word go as the movie opens with the visually stunning attack on a U.S military base in Qatar where Captain Lennox (Josh Duhamel) is leading his men into battle against, and then tries to escape, an unknown assailant.
From then on the fight scenes get bigger and better until the whole film crescendos with a autobots vsdecepticons, Optimus Prime vs Megatron in the final battle.
But with the robot CGI characters it would have been quite easy for the human side of the story to getlost or play second fiddle to the battles scenes.
However this doesn't happen relative newcomer Shia LeBeouf shines throughout with natural comic timingthat bring light relief from the action. LeBeouf is the heart and soul of this film as he desperately tries to protect Bumblebee, a star is well and truely born.
Producer Steven Spielberg was so impressed with his performance that he has been cast for Indiana Jones IV.
But unfortubately Megan Fox's character is desperately underused she acts as Sam's love interest and littleelse. This is unfortunate as it's hinted that she had a criminal record and put her father in jail and allthis could have been expanded on.
But many of the cast John Turturro, a government agent, and Kevin Dunn and Julie White, Sam's parents areall used effectively in comedy roles. Yes comedy roles, despite the action movie tag it's incredibly funny.
And Bay cleverly uses foolish government agent characters to have a sly dig at U.S President Bush and hisadministration.
Overall Bay has produced a knockout movie with a seemingly seamless incorporation of CGI and human interaction along with a well balanced mix of action and comedy.
While in the past Michael Bay has failed at the box office, in particular with Pearl Harbour and The Island,he at last hits the mark with what can only be described as a kick ass piece of cinema that will knock you off your seat.
This summer has seen a string of blockbusters including Spiderman 3, Die Hard 4.0 and Pirates of the Caribbean:At World's End, but it's surprisingly Transformers that is the absolute must see.
And with a sequel already in the pipeline the Transformers franchise has well and truely been born.
Helen Earnshaw

Vist here to watch Transformers trailers http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/movies/Transformers-3165.html

Die Hard 4.0 Review

It's hard to believe that it's been a dozen years since Die Hard 3 and like many ageing Hollywoodactors including Stallone with Rocky and Rambo and Harrison Ford with Indiana Jones Bruce Willis isback for more.
NYPD Detective John McClane is back in a high tech digital age that is post 9/11. When McClane is sentto pick up a known hacker to deliver to the FBI for questioning it appears to be a routine assignment.
However no assignment is routine for John McClane.
As soon as McClane picks up Matt Farrell (Justin Long) it becomes clear that Matt has enemies thatwill stop at nothing to make sure he doesn't reach the FBI.
Unknown to Farrell he was just one of the hackers that helped Thomas Gabriel (Timothy oliphant), a cyberterrorist, bring the U.S to its knees.
Gabriel's plan includes knocking out the financial, communication, transportation and power systems.
Sequels aren't supposed to be good but Die Hard 4.0 really packs a punch. McClane maybe older and balderbut he appears to have no trouble in killing a large number of bad guys whilst causing a huge amount ofdamage and chaos.
It's a high octane, fast paced ride that doesn't stop until the closing credits and while some ofthe stunts are a little hard to believe; such as the hovering Harrier jet, and the falls that wouldhave killed a man half his age they look fantastic and old school stunts are well worth the risk.
McClane strikes up an uneasy partnership with computer savvy Farrell, Justin Long who has come a longway since his days in U.S TV show ED, who proves to be the brains to McClane's brawn.
And the banter between the pair provides light relief from the action as well as highlighting just howfar behind technologically McClane is to his sidekick. while subtley suggesting that this time around withoutFarrell, and his knowledge of what Gabriel was trying to achieve and how he would do it, McClane wouldnot have been so succeessful in saving the day. While the films does have a story of it's own it's also a great nostalgia trip for fans of the origionaland this can be seen with his daughter Lucy.
To show the passing of time Lucy is now a college student, and like her mother before heruses the name Gennero instead of McClane and wants nothing to do with her over protective father. But asthe film progresses it becomes blindingly obvious that she is her father's daughter.
It's a slick picture that contains a clever mix of politics and knockout action. Willis is superbas the disgruntled McClane develooing a great raport with Long.
Instead of destroying the Die Hard franchise 4.0/Live Free and Die Hard has just given it a boost withlong term fans running out of the cinema to re-watch the previous movies as well as introducing newfans to the original movies.
There's never a normal day for John McClane.

Helen Earnshaw

Watch Die Hard 4.0 clips and trailers here http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/movies/Die+Hard+4.0-2546.html

Hostel Part II Review

College students Beth (Lauren German), Whitney (Bijou Phillips) and Lorna (Heather Matarazzo) are takingin the sughts of Europe on an art trip.
In Rome beautiful life model Axelle (Vera Jordanova) persuades the trio to delay their trip to Prague andvisit the health spas in Slovakia.
On arrival the girls discover that they have been auctioned off to the highest bidder as victims whowill be tortured and killed.
It was inevitable after the success of the first movie that director Eli Roth would be enticed backto provide a sequel.
It picks up where the first left off and Paxton, the only survivor from Hostel, is having nightmaresabout his experiences but meets a grisly end within the first five minutes.
The movie then turns to the trio of college students and from there it's a carbon copy of the origional film:girls get manipulated by beautiful woman, girls get captured one by one, they get killed one by one, themain character makes dramatic escape.
The most interesting part of the film is the relationship between Stuart (Roger Bart) and Todd (RichardBurgi), two American business men, who have the highest bids on Whitney and Beth. While Todd is up for murderStuart is more apprehensive.
Unfortunately however the role reversal that occurs between the two characters is not very subtle andcan be spotted a mile off.
Then of course there's the inevitable guts and gore as Roth aims to shock and repulse the audience.But after the string of horror movies and horror remakes today's audience are becoming immune and slightlybored with this shock tactic that is used so often by horror directors.
But Roth does take it one step further, in the origional men killed men however this time around womenare getting in on the act.
And while the blood and guts no longer shocks there is something profoundly disturbing about watchinga women kill another woman.
This picture is an unispiring ninety four minutes that lacks any sort of originality going everywherethe first movie went. And by producing a carbon copy of the origional Roth is failing to live up tohis title of Future of Horror Movies and Quentin Tarantino's protege.

To watch trailers and clips visit http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/movies/Hostel+Part+II-3080.html

Helen Earnshaw