Reviews

There has been a drought of good Sci-Fi these past few years, as evidenced by the fact that Star Wars Episode 3 (characterised by poor dialogue and shoddy acting) was relatively well received by a public hungry for Sci-Fi which doesn't suck.

Now we have a Sci-Fi film which gets it all right: Serenity. With crisp, witty dialogue, gorgeous visuals, engaging characters and a strong plot, Serenity is a wakeup call to the film industry. It is fun, action-packed, scary, emotionally engaging (without being sentimental or sappy) and it keeps on *surprising* you. Clichés are turned upside down and jokes are made at the most inappropriate of times. The audience I saw this movie with at the Advanced Screening laughed, gasped and cried right through the film and applauded as the ending credits rolled.

Fans of Firefly will be delighted to see their much-loved characters return, but you don't need to have seen the original series to enjoy Serenity (it will add to the experience though). See it if you enjoy action, adventure or just great dialogue.

All I knew about 'Firefly' when I started watching my friend's DVDs was that it was a Space Western, and the brainchild of Joss Whedon. The former had me worried, as I have never been a fan of westerns. The latter gave me hope, as I have a great deal of respect for Joss.

It did take me a little while to accept the very literal extreme to which the 'Space Western' theme is taken, particularly when they were riding around on horses with old-fashioned 6-shooters. But in later episodes where we visit some Alliance worlds, I finally understood how the show is mainly set on the frontier of space where there is minimal infrastructure and not a lot of high-tech gadgetry to throw around.

But the setting is incidental to the characters, and the characters of Firefly are, IMO, Joss's greatest creations. Mal is an enjoyable cross between Mad Max and Han Solo, with a wicked sense of humour, and his relationship with Inara is priceless. Every character has a vital and unique role to play in the show, creating one of the strongest 'ensemble' casts I have ever seen.

Then there are the visuals. The digital effects are masterfully executed, and it is often impossible to tell where reality ends and fantasy begins. The sets are gorgeous with a stunning attention to detail. The costumes are simply jaw-dropping.

It pains me to ponder where this series might have gone if Fox had at least let it run to the end of its first season. It is a tragedy to see such a masterpiece cut down in its prime.

Monsters Inc. carries on Pixar's tradition of fun, silly and extremely well-made productions. The animation and rendering is superb, and the voice-talent brings it all home wonderfully. Perhaps my only serious disappointment has to be the over-abundance of sentimentality, but this is what happens when you introduce little children into the plot.

I did thoroughly enjoy it, but it failed to have the lasting impact on me that A Bug's Life and the Toy Stories had.

I was only born a year after this series started production, so I only know it by re-runs, thanks largely to my mother who loves the series.

There are a great many TV series with the premise that you've got good guys running around trying to catch bad guys, and there are guns, cars and explosives thrown in for good measure. Some are good, some are not. The Professionals is a cut above the rest, not because of any trick or gimmick but simply because of superb writing, casting, directing and acting.

Shaw (Doyle), Collins (Bodie) and Jackson (Cowley) excel in their roles and are really the glue of the whole series. The constant jibing between Doyle and Bodie is an absolute delight to watch, as is Bodie's unashamed love for fast-driving and shooting stuff.

The action is very satisfying, with many shoot-outs, explosions and car chases. The plots are actually more varied and sophisticated than most people seem to remember, some of them require a very sharp mind to keep track of the wheeling and dealing. There's espionage, grand-theft, madmen with nerve-gas and more than a few personal vendettas. The characters, too, are deeper than most people seem to remember.

My favourite episodes are: "Discovered in a Graveyard" - Doyle is shot and seriously wounded by an unknown assasin. While Bodie and Cowley hunt down the shooter, we are given an insight into the thoughts going through Doyle's comatose mind.

"Blind Run" - what starts as a simple escort run for Doyle and Bodie turns into an urban war as their charge turns out to be much more significant than they thought. This is one of the most action-packed episodes, featuring multiple shootouts and car-chases.

"Mixed Doubles" - Bodie and Doyle are assigned to organise protection for a very high-level foreign diplomat who is almost certain to be an assasination target. As we see our two heroes making preparations, we also see the two hired assasins making theirs and we get an incredible insight into just how similar the two doubles are, and how sad it is that only one pair of them can survive the day.

This film entered production before WW2 began, but was not released until it was well under way. With significant fascist-sympathy in the US, and Chaplin himself being suspected as a communist sympathiser, The Great Dictator was a very courageous endeavour. Such risks in film-making - thinly veiled political statements - would be almost inconceivable today. Imagine the fallout if someone were to make an equally satirical film today which criticised the USA's foreign policy?

This film is hilarious, poignant and tragic. The tragedy is that Chaplin makes a plea for the madness to end, but it is already to late - for him and for us. A must see if you have any interest whatsoever in history, film-making, politics or sattire as an art-form.

I have no doubt that this is an idealised and romanticised version of the Kelly story and history buffs are bound to point out various holes in the detail - but be that as it may this movie managed to bring me to tears by the end. Any movie that can do that must be doing something right.

The acting is quite good, locations and sets are sublime. The direction was quite strong, cinematogrophy was excellent and the music worked quite well. The violence is handled in a sensitive manner - it isn't overly graphic but still manages to convey the ugliness of death and killing.

my only real complaint is that we weren't given any real sense of the passage of time - if it weren't for Ned's beard growing longer I would have had no idea whether days or months were passing by.