Killer Elite

Killer Elite Poster

I saw a couple of previews for this while going to the c cinema last year, and for some peculiar reason I never got round to seeing it unfortunately, I absolutely love Jason Statham, he typifies what it means to be a British hard nut. Robert De Niro is also in this film, what is there to say about him, the name is just enough. Dominic Purcell (Blade: Trinity, Prison Break) is also in there playing another tough guy Englishman. Rounding off the excellent English cast is Clive Owen who is also fit for the part in this film.

What’s it all about I hear you say? Well,  it starts with the 3 main characters “Danny” (Statham), “Hunter” (De Niro)  and “Davies” (Purcell) on a mission to assassinate a government official, when things go badly wrong for “Danny” as he kills the official, a child is also in the car, and subsequently for his hesitant stance, he is shot by a police officer, “Hunter” then manages to retrieve “Danny” and then they drive off and “Danny” telling the other two that “he wants out”.

And so the movie starts from a year on. “Danny” is out of the “game”. This is when he receives a letter saying that “Hunter” has been captured by a sheikh and he wants “Danny” to help him with a situation, thus letting “Hunter” go on completetion. “Danny” along with “Davies” is then told to kill 3 men who were responsible for killing the Sheikh’s 3 sons (with 1 remaining). What “Danny” and “Davies” don’t realise is that they must get past one hell of a man on a mission in Clive Owen’s character “Spike” who is defending his fellow SAS. This is the basic story and like my other reviews I don’t really wan t to give too much away without you seeing it.

The film is set in the 80’s and is interestingly based on a true story, which allows the audience supposedly see the lives of killers in the 80’s. so it is a very original take on this type of film, if you get what Im saying without being too confusing.

The acting is of a good standard, typical De Niro and typical Statham, make this a good film, some parts of the film are action orientated and others are slightly slow but add to the depth of the story which is nice for this genre.

Overall the film is a good one and is good at what it does, but nothing more and nothing less.

Get Watching!

Peter James - Dead Man's Grip

Peter James - Dead Man's Grip Cover

After giving up on “Stephen King’s The Stand” (500 pages out of 1500) realising that it was just pages of nonsense and pure detail, I decided to go for something a lot simpler, and the next book that I was given to read was this one.

The story is mainly about a woman named Carly, her son Tyler, and Roy Grace a Police officer just wanting his pregnant fiancée to have their baby and him solving the case of 2 brutal murders in Brighton. There are a number of peripheral characters, such as Ricky Giordino, Fernanda Revere, Tony Revere (Crime Family). However the main story is about Carly and 2 other drivers causing the death of a young student, Tony Revere, by knocking him off his bike. What they do not realise is that he was born into a massive crime family similar to the mafia in New York. They hire a Hitman to take out the people involved, its Roy and his team’s job to stop him from succeeding. When Carly realises what happens how far would you go to protect your only son?

(I have literally just looked at the book and realised that this is the seventh in the series, I feel slightly gutted knowing that this is a series, the one thing I can say is that you can just pick it up and read it. From what I have read I don’t think you need to read the other books in the series to catch on.)

So after my recent realisation, it only furthers my current thoughts on this book positively. It is an excellent thriller. Peter James certainly does well in explaining each scene to the best of his ability, and it certainly isn’t over the top like Stephen King.

Overall an excellent book and it just makes me want to read the others now. Get Reading!!

5 Websites That I Couldn’t Do Without.

So with the recent blackout of Wikipedia, I have decided to write an entry to do with websites that I couldn’t do without. Some are buying sites, some are miscellaneous, and it is also going along with things in my life, like my other articles, “10 Films that rocked my world” and “20 Songs that rocked my world”.

Play.com

Why?: Play.com is the most convenient online shop going on the internet, that I have come across, delivery is free even though now they give options for 1^st class delivery and specific day delivery. Their prices are cheaper than any other online shop that I have come across, and have never had bad service from them. I would recommend to anyone that wants to buy items for birthdays, Christmas and any other event.

When I Started Using The Site?: 2006

URL: http://www.play.com/

Wikipedia

Why?:  I think pretty much everyone was pretty gutted that Wikipedia wasn’t working on 18^th January 2012. I know the students were! Wikipedia is the largest online encyclopedia ever and it is still growing. You will even notice now that they are top of your searches on “Google” and pretty much advertise anywhere and everywhere. For anyone that has a particularly demanding job such as nursing, clinical coding and anything involving multiple amounts of information that have to be researched.

When I Started Using Site?:  2009

URL: en.wikipedia.org  

Online Banking Sites (Various)

Why?: One crucial part of everyone’s daily life is banking (unless  you’re a benefit thief, you never have to worry, unless you get caught). With the option of online banking you can literally do it anywhere. If you want to see how much balance you have before you buy an expensive item, then all you have to do is have an internet enabled phone (most phones these days) and WHAM there it is. Fantastic way of managing your finances on the go, if you have a slight touch of OCD like me or my fiancée with numbers.

When I Started Using The Site?:  2006

Pitch Side Manager

Why?: This website, is very good if your massive or even slightly interested in management football games. This is exactly like “Football Manager” accept it’s a “watered down” version without several of the features and fake player names, `but just as enjoyable and against other real world players. I have got a number of my work colleagues interested in it, even they say that its excellent. It’s a little fun to brighten up my day. Get on there now,

When I Started Using Site?:  2010

URL: www.pitchsidemanager.com

The News:

Why?: As much as I dislike living in this city sometimes, I like looking at the local news, simply to keep up to date with current affairs, and its always interesting to look at the jobs that they are putting on the site or in the newspaper. It also helps me to keep up with current affairs at my favourite football club, Portsmouth FC. BLUUUUUUE ARRRRRMY!

When I Started Using Site?: 2004

URL: www.portsmouth.co.uk

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Midnight Meat Train

Midnight Meat Train Poster

I have wanted to watch this horror movie for quite some time, I think that the cast and genre were what drew me to it, with “hard-man” Vinnie Jones and “woman’s dream” Bradley Cooper. Unusually of all, is that Bradley Cooper is in a horror. This must have been one of his stepping stones towards international stardom.

Anyway, back to the films synopsis, the film is about obsessed photographer, Leon, he absolutely loves photography, however this has a detrimental effect on his current relationship with his girlfriend Maya, he takes pictures of situations in the city, while we are learning about Leon and his problems, throughout (the film) you see Vinnie Jone’s character “Mahogany”, brutally murdering people in different ways on a New York subway train.

The first thought that popped in my head when watching this film was, this is the most ridiculous, unrealistic film that I have seen. However fear not all the questions are answered in the end, i.e. what is he doing with all the bodies, how is he able to kill all these people without the conductor knowing about it.

Back to the storytelling, one night Leon gets out of bed in the middle of the night to go and get some photos he ends up breaking up a potential rape and gets a photo that makes another famous photographer intrested in his style of photography. She sets him the task of finding another 2 photographs that will really set the world alight.

He eventually finds out that the girl he saved on that fateful night, has now gone missing and so he investigates Mahogany, he was also on the same train as the young lady (who is also revealed to be a famous model, within the realm of the film.) low and behold Leon does not know what he is getting himself into and so the killing starts.

The film is certainly not for the squeamish, the CGI isn’t that great, but I am surprised that they haven’t remastered it for a 3D version, the camera angles are unique to say the least and they would work really well for a 3D version.

Clearly you can’t expect too much on the acting side of things, there are no Oscars or Golden Globes with this film, although the acting isn’t that bad it could have been better.

Overall the film is quite enjoyable, with an excellent twist at the end. Although you can see it coming, it’s definitely worth watching all the way through, maybe not worth a rent, but definitely not one you can watch over and over again.

Woodkid - Iron EP

Woodkid - Iron EP Cover

So a lot of people aren’t going to have heard of Woodkid, however may I say that the gentlemen that created this EP is on the way to stardom and in a huge way has had a massive amount of exposure.

1.       The main song of this EP, Iron, is the song featured in the Assassins Creed: Revelations advert.

2.       Woodkid (Yoann Lemoine) has worked with many well known singers already such as Katy Perry, Taylor Swift and Lana Del Ray.

This is a great step in the right direction for Yoann as an individual as it really shows his creative side, rather than help Pop song videos  for the likes of Moby.

He uses several different types of song in this EP which shows a wide range of ability, from Iron’s orchestral sounds to Baltimore Fireflie’s slow soothing sounds. It is a brilliant EP and hopefully this will give him a bigger stepping stone to go on to, to allow him to do a full blown album.

Iron is definitely one of my favourite songs this year, it is a masterpiece in song writing with excellent lyrics which almost make it look handmade for the advert of assassins creed.

Overall the album is excellent and I would recommend it to anyone that enjoys this type of music.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Poster

So, the directors of Hollywood have attempted to remake another foreign film without realising that these sorts of films are untouchable if they are foreign masterpieces (REC – Quarantine, REC – Quarantine 2). Unfortunately I cannot make this my opinion due to me not viewing the Swedish version of this film starring Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salamander.

This time around they have used the British lead Daniel Craig to portray the disgraced journalist Mikael Blomquist and the American starlet Rooney Mara (who I found out isn’t actually using her real name, which in actual fact is Patricia) as Lisbeth Salander. There are a couple of other big names in the film too, such as Stellan Skarsgard as Martin Vangar and Christopher Plummer as Henrik Vangar.

Let me just start out by saying that this film has a ridiculously brilliant opening credit, with CGI used throughout, and is very “James-Bond-Esque” length and feel about it, It certainly draws you in with loud music playing in the background. People are already saying that it’s worth going at the cinema just for the opening sequence. I have never said “Wow” after an opening sequence.

Anyway moving on towards the films plot. Lisbeth Salander is an extremely talented hacker and research assistant; she is given a small job at the start to research the disgraced Mikael Blomquist for a businessman Henrik Vangar (Head of Vangar Industries) who in turn wants to hire Mikael to investigate the murder of his niece Harriet Vangar. This is the basic outline of the story.

The themes in the film are highly sensitive in this film, themes such as Sexual violence, rape, love, persecution of women, hacking and torturing. So as you can see it’s quite a sensitive storyline and I will say now, some parts are not for the squeamish.

******SPOILER ******

(Highlight the text to see the spoiler)

Lisbeth has been abused throughout her life unfortunately, and due to her social status of being a recluse, people like her social worker take advantage of her sexually, it is shown through the first half of the film. In one of the scenes she is brutally raped by her acting guardian Nils Bjurman, he rapes her and in return gives her money for his entertainment because he has control over her bank accounts as she is not deemed responsible enough to look after her own accounts. The shock of this scene is quite high, and it isn’t done very tastefully (Not that rape is a tasteful subject in any instance, however I thought that this scene could have been somewhat more tasteful. It’s very raw and very emotional, I notice in the cinema that a lot of people found highly distressing, my fiancé included).

******SPOILER ENDS ******

Running along the same topic as above, there is a lot of nudity in this film, 90% of it, is completely and utterly nonsensical. Rooney Mara shows her top half about 3 or 4 times in the film, and if you were to take it out of the film it wouldn’t make any difference. Don’t get me wrong Im not one of those people that despises nudity in all films, but there certainly is a time and place for it, and unfortunately this isn’t it. And it truly hits the heights of absurdity when you see Rooney with absolutely nothing on her, right in front of Daniel Craig. People can sit there and say that it’s a metaphor of her opening up to him, when the only thing that its actually doing is showing the audience what a malnourished young lady Rooney Mara is, obviously taking into account that her character is supposed to be portrayed as malnourished individual. And YES! That was a rant.

Rooney Mara transformed into Lisbeth

Anyway, back to the story of the film, its okay, nothing new, mediocre at best. I think my opinion of this is like it because the films and books were hyped up so much that, for me it was okay at best and the two things that kept it going is because you want to know what happened to the niece of Henrik Vangar and Daniel Craig’s interesting acting skills. He is the one that keeps it together along with Rooney.

Maybe I am just being harsh about it but I just feel kinda……ripped off. Commercially it wasn’t a success with it costing just under $100 Million and it only racking in just over $100 million , so it wasn’t a particular financial success for such a large blockbuster (just a 5% return is not a lot in Hollywood) in other words this just proves that when the original is a foreign film, then Hollywood should just leave it alone, because it ruins the books and the films before its remake.

In the end it’s a little bit, “oh really, is that it”, it’s a slightly predictable ending, I guessed it with the first 30 mins and I haven’t read or seen the previous films.

The only redeeming factor about this film is that its soundtrack is nothing short of excellent, Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) and Atticus Ross (Book of Eli Soundtrack). It’s a really hard and gritty soundtrack with 1 or 2 classics remixed.

I would still recommend people to see it, due to its high amount of publicity and OTT opening sequence but other than that, you could wait for a rent.

I would really like to see people’s opinion’s on this film, I just don’t see what the fascination is with it.

Assassin's Creed Revelations

Altair & Ezio Auditore

Although this title has been out for little while, I was given this as a present for Christmas, which I extremely appreciated. So, where do I start (without ruining it for people, who haven’t played the others) well, we join our friends Ezio Auditore De Firenze and Altair. Ezio has grown since the last game “Brotherhood” he is now in his early 50’s, and a wiley old character, with some neat tricks and some new inventions (which I will get on to later on). Altair’s parts in the game, (or so far as I have seen) are bits in the game to help you link information to the current storyline and helps it to flow better.

******SPOILER ******
(HIGHLIGHT THE TEXT BELOW TO SEE THE SPOILER)

In the world outside of the animus Desmond, (our present time character) has been put in to a safe place inside the animus because, he is struggling to piece his memory together, because he has done too much damage to his mind inside of the animus, so his mind has been placed inside a piece of software called “the black room” which is where he meets “Subject 16”. “Subject 16” shows him how to piece his mind back together, thus the game starting.

******SPOILER ENDS ******

So now we no the main premise of the story, what has changed about the gameplay, graphics, soundtrack and lip-sync.

Well the gameplay itself hasn’t changed very much, Ezio is slightly slower than usual due to his oldness, however it they have designed a new weapon/way of getting round, its called the hook blade, and it is extremely useful. It allows the player to zip line around the city of Constantinople which is said to increase your speed around the city by up to 30%, which is quite an interesting statistic, I haven’t personal used it to much however, it is quite satisfying to zip line over the top of someone and then assassinate then from above, very quick, very easy. Another huge addition to the game is the craft of making bombs; there are over 150 variations of bombs you can make, ranging from The Stink Bomb (Using Skunk Oil) or a bomb that explodes like our modern day grenade with coins inside it. Its very usual in certain situations like assassinations, throw a smoke bomb into a crowd choking everyone, quickly pop into the cloud, use your eagle sense, bish bash bosh (kill your target) and get out, no one will know what has happened until they find the dead body on the floor.

As you can see massive change in graphics!

Graphics: well there are parts of the game that have been improved and parts where they haven’t, however “why fix what isn’t already broken” very much, there are little tweaks to the surroundings, and some good improvements on characters faces, you can definitely tell the difference between Desmond’s current face and “Brotherhood” face. The lip-sync has been improved excellently, still not at the level of L.A Noire but it’s a brilliant improvement.

The soundtrack throughout the game (what I have played so far) is absolutely excellent, thankfully I was given the special edition for Christmas, so I got an extra disk with the soundtrack on it, I put it straight on to my iPod, and must say that its definitely up there in some of the best soundtracks for games. If you like fast paced orchestral music amongst slow paced calm music then it’s the soundtrack for you. (Music written by Jesper Kyd).

The one thing that I has improved the game endlessly, is without doubt the multiplayer, I have spent the most time on this part of the game, simply because it is so addictive, yet so simple, the perfect combination for an online multiplayer game. Modes include: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Assassinate, Capture the Artifact and many more. My favourite is without doubt Deathmatch which puts you up against other templar’s and you have to identify your target while being chased by another templar, it’s very good and a complete adrenaline rush. You have an extensive amount of ways to customise your character’s look and choose what type of perks you have for a kill streak and death streak and perks that you can use during the game, which changes the dynamic of the game very well. (very “Call of Duty-esque).

So far of what I have played, the game has been excellent, and I would definitely tell anyone that was thinking about getting the game, to get it. It’s a brilliant addition to the already massive Assassin’s Creed universe.

Hopefully you will enjoy the game as much as I am at the moment.

Enjoy!

Fast Five (Fast and Furious 5)

So as everyone knows about this series, there is no need for an introduction (sorry if you haven’t seen this series, I would like to take this time to say that you are a minority of people, who haven’t seen this, and WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!)

Fast Five Poster

Anyway, now I have said my piece, this instalment is the best of the lot of them, bringing back all the characters past present and future (and your probably wondering why I just made that statement of past, present and future, well guess what? You will find out if you watch it, what I mean.)

This one stars, Vin Diesel, PaulWalker, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Jordana Brewster, Ludacris, Matt Schulze, Sung Kang, so as you can probably imagine it’s quite the cast, and this is a serious blockbuster. Forget the street racing scene, this is going to be the new branch of the “Fast & Furious” franchise. This is all about the heist and the driving of fast, exotic and old school cars alike.

So the premise of this film is that the team are on the run from the FBI after a heist goes seriously wrong to get one more payment, 3 cops are killed and they are blamed for it, even though its Rio De Janeiro’s very own mafia man who was part of it. What the team don’t realise is that they have something of the kingpins that he wants back. And so the ball game starts. In between all of the action is showing Hobb’s (the Rock) team preparing to try and catch Dominic & Co.

The storyline is excellent, with twist and turns through out, for fans of the series, like Mission Impossible, you will not be disappointed what so ever.  The action is as the title explains, Fast and Furious; there are many more fighting scenes, with some hard hitting sound effects to allow the audience to really feel the effort put into each punch, although predictable fight scenes, the choreography is pretty good.

The soundtrack is excellent, with the same beats as the original, some heavy bass from Rap and R’n’B. It gives off a good vibe for the audience as it makes you feel as if you are being chased too, this gets their heart pumping and their adrenaline running around their bodies.

Overall it’s an excellent addition to the series, and it has definitely added a new dynamic to the already excellent series. Definitely worth buying and without doubt the best in the series. I urge everyone to see it, if you’re interested in Babes, cars, Vin Diesel.

By the way, if anyone is interested about the chronological order of the films then here it is:

Fast & Furious

2 Fast 2 Furious

Fast & Furious 4

Fast Five

Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift

This should stop the confusion surrounding some of the characters and storylines.

Enjoy!

Cowboys and Aliens

Cowboys and Aliens Poster

This is exactly what the film is about funnily enough…….. (Note the sarcasm in my writing). With a solid cast it was set up to be something of a bit of a blockbuster, and that is exactly what it is. With some ridiculous effects and some good performances, this is something of a dark horse for blockbuster of the year. (Realising the fact that transformers: dark side of the moon) wasn’t what it was cracked up to be.

Starring Daniel Craig (James Bond), Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones), and the beautiful Olivia Wild (House), it is basically about Jake (Daniel Craig), wakes up in the middle of the desert not knowing his name or where he is from, and so the story starts. He eventually has to team up with his arch enemy to overcome the alien invasion, but what is interesting about this story is the relationship between Ella (Olivia Wilde) and Jake (Daniel Craig) as not everything is as it seems, which makes a good twist in the story.

The whole movie cant help feeling like a B-movie, but a good B movie at that, I and my  fiancée both really enjoyed the film surprisingly, considering I wasn’t expecting much from it, and I had heard very mixed reviews about it. But I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and I would recommend the film. Probably not worth a buy but definitely worth a rent.

The soundtrack is pretty good, typical spaghetti western  music.

Overall an enjoyable experience , and definitely worth a watch.

Enjoy!

Coldplay - Mylo Xyloto

Mylo Xyloto Album Cover

So this is the long awaited album from Coldplay after what I thought wasn’t a very good album in Viva La Vida, there was only one song that I enjoyed in that album. Luckily this album is much much better than the last and is a huge improvement.

It has some killer songs, and really uplifting vibe about itself, with songs like:

“Paradise”

“Every Teardrop is a Waterfall”

“Princess of China”

All of these songs are excellent, you may have noticed that these songs are or have been released as singles, but these songs really are the best on this album, sometimes you will find some songs that are really good but haven’t been released as singles on an album, unfortunately it is not the case with this album, however you wont feel short-changed as these 3 songs really set a high standard for the other songs on the album.

Like I said earlier the album is uplifting and is shown very well through the theme of love. Chris Martin and CO have done a really good job of getting a new record out that is really good and could have possibly broken the mould of having a really annoying voice (I have never supported people saying that he has an annoying voice).

Overall a really good album which I would be recommend to people who are fans of Coldplay and also new fans of Coldplay. Very good and worth shelling out the money for.

Horrible Bosses

Horrible Bosses

I wanted to see this film in the cinema, and completely forgot about it until it appeared out on DVD about 4 – 5 weeks, I was very quick to snap it up and see what it was like. With a good cast like Jason Bateman, Jennifer Aniston and the brilliant Kevin Spacey, I thought this was going to be a brilliant film. Don’t get me wrong it’s a good film but it’s not brilliant.

The story goes that 3 men all have “Horrible Bosses” but when one of them takes another ones joke too seriously it ends up with the 3 of them planning to kill their “Horrible Bosses”.

The 3 Horrible Bosses are portrayed very well by Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Aniston and Colin Farrell. Kevin Spacey plays the egotistical, know-it-all boss who only promotes himself in the organisation. Jennifer Anniston plays the sexy boss who wants to wind her colleague up, and she tries to persuade him to sleep with her even though he is engaged, this story comes with some hilarious consequences and finally Colin Farrell plays a boss who is hell bent in just laundering money out of his deceased father’s company to pay for his drug and prostitution habits.

The 3 colleagues are played by Jason Bateman (Kevin Spacey’s employee), Charlie Day (Jennifer Anniston’s employee) and Jason Sudeikis (Colin Farrell’s employee), all 3 of the actors play the parts of the disgruntled and harassed employees very well, and I can imagine that some of the situations unfortunately, are realistic. (Fortunate if you were Charlie Day’s character).

Throughout the film you feel like something is missing but you quite put your finger on it? It is a good film but I don’t think there are enough funny moments through out the film to keep you thoroughly entertained. Rather than being one great big great film, its broken up into small moments, and they do just enough, but never excel your expectations, which brings me to whether or not I thought it was funny.

I will leave that verdict up to you; I would recommend it purely based on it being quite realistic in some of the situations you can be put in the work place.

Overall, good film but only worth a rent.