Bourne Legacy

I love the Bourne films, and watch them most times that they are shown on TV, so it was an easy decision to get Bourne Legacy as soon as it appeared on DVD for some early Christmas entertainment.

Rather like Skyfall, it builds on the established canon and creates a creditable platform for further adventures with some new characters. But, unlike Skyfall, it forgets to add a plot or to take the franchise forward. Bourne 4 is a new Bourne 1 that is not as good as the original Bourne 1.

It is slow to get going and slow to introduce the new ideas that really do not require much time to explain as they are essentially the same as the old ideas.

Bourne 4 also lacks charm. We cared about Jason Bourne in the original trilogy, and we cared for the girl too. In Bourne 1 we meet the man before we see the agent. This emotional empathy lifted Bourne above a simple action story yet this has either been forgotten or deliberately dropped. In Bourne 4. Here we only ever see the agent.

Its one strength is its action scenes yet even these rely too heavily on what has gone before. The car chase is the one from Moscow in Bourne 2 and the rooftop chase is Algiers from Bourne 3.

If Bourne 4 were the only Bourne film then it would have some merit. As the prequel to an intriguing Bourne 5 it may still have some. But as a series reboot or a standalone film Bourne 4 misses all the tricks that Skyfall plays so well and emerges as just an average film and a huge missed opportunity.

Kick-Ass kicks ass (twice)

Kick-Ass, the comic, was a lot of craftily executed fun combining Mark Millar's fast-paced and irreverent script with John Romita Jr's. bold action style.

The extreme violence might not have been to everybody's taste but at least the covers gave fair warning of what to expect.

The comics was soon followed by the film and now it's on DVD.

The film's genesis in the comic is instantly recognisable and it follows the original plot for most of the way, unlike a previous Millar film, Wanted, that diverged rapidly and greatly. And both films have the advantage of being better than the comics.

Kick Ass the film expands on the original by giving us more of Hit Girl's origin (we already knew how Kick Ass started) and she becomes the star of the film. After all, what's not to like about a ten year girl old executing hordes of mafiosa?

Kick Ass is silly but it knows it is and delights in this as it bounces along effortlessly from one brisk scene stuffed with sharp lines to another. The natural reaction is to enjoy the sheer bravura of the story and appreciate the violence as if it were a Tom and Jerry cartoon. The ending is cute too.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

It has been a while since I’ve written anything about films, mainly because it has been a while since I’ve seen a film worth writing about.

I watch, and generally enjoy, several films a week but these are often described as “action” and feature the likes of Bruce Willis or Jason Statham and so are high on entertainment (and explosions) but low on artistic merit.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is different.

It is hard to escape the phenomena that Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy has become, not least because it is impossible to travel on the tube without seeing somebody read one of the books.

The success of the books has, rightly, spawned films. The original films, like the original books, are set in Sweden and are in Swedish. Remakes in English are already planned but as the DVD release of the first original shows, there are perfectly acceptable alternatives with English subtitles and an English voice-over available. I went for the Swedish voices with English subtitles which had the advantage of forcing me to pay attention to the screen. The laptop actually abandoned my lap for a while!

I had not read the book so had little idea of what to expect, except for the clues given by the 18 rating and the mention of torture in one of the reviews that I heard on Radio 4.

The plot is a complex whodunit (but less complex than the book, apparently) and it took me a while to work out who the goodies were, let alone the baddies, or even if there was a baddie at all!

For around two and a half hours the plot and the two main characters had me twister around their little fingers and I was powerless to do anything apart from sit and watch and try to understand.

I enjoyed it greatly, will watch it again and will get the next film as soon as it comes out. Think I’ll give the American remakes a miss though.

Enjoying House 5 on DVD

The Evil Murdoch Empire got their greasy mitts on House Season 5 so it has not made it to terrestrial TV and I've been forced to shell out and buy it on DVD. It was worth it.

I'm getting my hit in doses of three or four episodes at a time and these doses are being repeated regularly and I should be able to get through all 24 episodes in just a couple of weeks.

The best bit about the show is the dialogue. It's unnatural for everybody to be able to come up with an immediate witty response or insightful comment but I am happy to suspend disbelief and pretend that these are real people playing out a complex game with us as shameless voyeurs.

And the best bit about the DVD is no adverts! This reduces each episode down to around 40 minutes so when watching it in real time that's a third of the time spent watching something other than the programme that you think you are watching.

House Season 6 is now being broadcast in the USA and my pirate friend tell me that it is very good too. That's a DVD I will have to buy next year.

Hustle series #5

After four series of the Hustle in four years (2004 to 2007) we had to wait two years for series 5 which made its return bit of a surprise.

In the meantime many of the cast had gone to do other things, such as Wanted, Dexter and Bonekickers, so when the crew is reassembled it is with two new members but we also had the return of Adrian Lester as Mickey Stone, the leader of the gang.

The imprint of the series creator, Tony Jordan, is clear and he set the mood for the new series by writing the first episode.

Hustle is a simple concept superbly executed. Each episode is a separate story where they find a deserving victim and con them out of some serious money. But there is always more to it than that and each con is full of twists and surprises. The mood is very much like the wonderful Saint books by Leslie Charteris where wrongs are unwronged with careful planning and panache.

For some reason the BBC seems to have a "no repeats" rule for Hustle so I will have a long wait until the DVD comes out in early 2010 before I can watch this series again. Now that is something to look forward to.

Wanted in multiple forms

Mark Millar is one of the hottest writers in comics today but I managed to miss his Wanted series when it came out in 2003, probably because it was published by one of the smaller companies, Top Cow.

The film Wanted from earlier this year was harder to miss as some of the action shots in the trailer were very clever and it starred Angelina Jolie.

Now the film is available on DVD and the comic has been issued with the same cover art (pictured). I watched the film and then read the comic a few days later.

As with most film adaptations of books and comics, there is a something of a lose relationship between the two plots but I do not mind that as the attributes of the two media are quite different. For example, curving the flight of a bullet works well in the film (because you can see the motion) but would be a pointless effect in a comic.

I see little point in comparing the two as they are so different, instead I prefer to consider each on their own.

The comic is fairly typical Mark Millar with strong confident characters, sub-plots of treachery and intrigue and a fairly relentless pace. While I can appreciate the techniques used, and I enjoy some of his other work a lot (e.g. Ultimates), there is something unsatisfactory about the comic and it lacks substance. I cannot imagine myself ever wanting to read it again.

The film, however, is just fantastic for so may reasons. The plot is more realistic and more subtle, the actions scenes are great but do not dominate the film, and there are some nice comic touches too, such as when a keyboard is smashed into a man's face and the keys (and a tooth) fly off to spell "F#ck you". I will be watching the film again soon.

Iron Man is a great movie

As an avid reader of comic books I always look forward to films based on characters I love but the experience has been mixed with the good films (e.g. Batman I and X-Men I) roughly balanced by the weak films (e.g. Hulk and Superman Returns) with quite a few so-so films in the middle (e.g. all 3 Spiderman films). So I am delighted to say that Iron Man is absolutely one of the good films.

The film tells the origin of Iron Man which is a creditable update of the original story with the war theatre changed from Vietnam to Afghanistan. Iron Man is then brought quickly up to date and leaps forty years of comics history in, er, a single bound.

The explosion count for an action movie is fairly low and while their is plenty of high-octane action the real strength of the movie is in the characterisation and dialogue. There are also some laugh out loud moments, particularly when Tony Stark is working with his voice-activated factory robots. The ending is really cute too!

After the film came the obligatory visit to Pizza Express and now comes the wait for the DVD.

Neil Gaiman fest

By coincidence, I have been wallowing in Neil Gaiman more than usual at the moment taking dips into both Stardust and Neverwhere, but not in book form.

Last night we all watched Stardust on DVD. I had read the book some years ago so my memory of it is a little hazy but there were parts of the book that I did remember that were not in the film and bits of the film that I don't recall from the book. But, overall, it seems like a reasonably close adaption of the book. The biggest change is that the film has a lot more humour and a little less magic (which is a lot easier to do in words!). Even the two teenage boys liked the film and there can be fewer higher accolades than that!

Currently spinning on my iPod touch is Neil Gaiman reading his preferred version of Neverwhere (which I had to get from the USA for some reason). This is unabridged and so runs to ten CDs. I am currently on number eight but with limited prospects of another long-haul flight in the near future to finish it off. Again it is some time since I read the book and so am not too surprised not to have noticed any differences in the text. I did, however, spot some Americanisms which Neil defended when challenged.

There are common themes in both stories (and with others), such as magic, different realms that people from England manage to cross in to, and cross-race/species lovers that you can spot on page one. But they are very different books.

Stardust is a great story that hangs together very well and contains some wonderful ideas (definitely Neil's biggest strength), e.g. the princes having to kill each other to succeed to the throne. Neverwhere also has some fantastic ideas, mostly around London place names, e.g. the Black Friars and the Knights' Bridge, but overall the story lacks the momentum that Stardust has. This is compensated for in the audio book by Neil's reading which makes it well worth getting.

My recommendation, read Stardust (with Charles Vess illustrations), watch the Stardust film and listen to the Neverwhere audiobook.

Watching films on TV

This cartoon by Nemi (written and drawn by Lise Myhre) rang true with me when I read it back in December because I am always watching things on TV that I have on DVD.

Recently I watched Under Siege, which is one of my very favourite films, on Film4 then watched the ending again on Film4+1. Then, a couple of days, ago I watched Aliens (the best of the four Alien films) and tonight it was Jack and Sarah. Tomorrow night I plan to watch I, Robot too.

So that's a Steven Segal action movie, a horror flick, a British romcom and a scifi film; that must say something about my artistic tastes!

Sensational

It's time to pay homage to the Sensational Alex Harvey Band.

Some of you may recall them from their regular appearances on The Old Grey Whistle Test, others may remember the hit singles Delilah and Boston Tea Party and some their headlining performance at the Reading Festival.

The great news is that after a whole heap of troubles and other projects they are back on CD, DVD and, most importantly, back on the road playing a blistering set.

Obviously the biggest change since the '70s is that Alex Harvey died and has been superseded by a number of singers culminating with Max Maxwell.

Max has phenomenal stage presence and really leads the band from the front (though the guys at the back sometimes have to remind him what's going on!).

The new DVD and CD are both called Zalvation and while they are from the same tour (2004) they are from different gigs so it's worth getting both.

Find out more about SAHB here.

Please go and see them live, you will not be disappointed.