12: KUNG FU PANDA

Why I chose it?

After the depressing Wanted, I was looking for a bit of a pick me up and Jack Black seemed to be the man to supply it.


Where?


Cinema 5, Shaftesbury Avenue, 9pm.


Comments?


Kung Fu Panda is a lot of fun and a lot of it is down to Jack Black and Dustin Hoffman, offering up different styles of comedy in the guise of Po (the Panda) and Master Shifu (the smaller red panda). There are many humourous moments, a couple of laugh out loud funnies and the animation is top notch, making this an entertaining ninety minutes to sit through.


The plot is quite standard fare but that's all it needs to be: no need for complexity in a story about a clumsy Panda dreaming of fighting alongside the Furious Five (made up of the voices of Angelina Jolie and Jackie Chan to name two of the five). Plot intricacies aside, Kung Fu Panda's strong points include attention to detail. I can't say I know much about Chinese custom or history, but the movie convinced me that the producers did, and that gave the movie some of its originality in the crowded computer animated movie stakes.



The fight scenes are also impressive, easy to follow with expressive moves and complex duels, including those that involve Po. The scene where Po takes on Master Shifu in a duel over a bowl of dumplings using chopsticks is highly engaging and entertaining.


Kung Fu Panda is a colourful, comical romp predominantly due to Jack Black, who is in top form. The kids will love it and the adults will find it good throwaway fun.


Would I pay to see it?


Tough question with this one. It isn't as impressive as Toy Story was or Wall-E is billed to be, but it's still great fun. Not necessarily one to see at the movies; more a DVD rental or Sky movie option for me.


Rating?


6 out of 10


Post Movie Quote:


"Jolie wasn't half as sexy in this one." Daryl Nilbett

11: WANTED

Why I chose it?

The trailer for Wanted looked pretty hot, in more ways than one, and I like James McEvoy's work. Guns, explosions and oh yeah, Angelina Jolie.

Where?

Cinema 5, Shaftesbury Avenue, 6.40pm (the only Cineworld close by that was showing it!)

Comments?

I am like any hot-blooded male - I like action flicks, I like carnage and I like a bit of cinematic violence. But Wanted left me with a sour taste in my mouth. Sure, there was violence and most of it was shot, pardon the pun, in a very unique way, making it quite visually pleasing (and much more so when Jolie hit the screen) and some would say it was entertaining. I wouldn't.

This movie lacked a moral grounding. People are killed left, right and centre and not one of their deaths, including any main characters you may have grown attached to, have any meaning. Even the deaths of the targets of this "fraternity of assassins" are without purpose. The assassins don't know why they are being killed; we don't know why they are being killed - they just are, in the most flamboyant ways imaginable.

When one of the main characters works out a unique way of shooting a target through the sun roof of a car, he grins and fires away and the audience is expected to grin with him, laugh even, marvel at how clever he is. Sure, if this target was the main villain of the piece who has alluded death many times before, it would be a good set piece and we would be cheering. But we don't even know what this guy has done to warrant death in the first place!

Another fatal flaw of Wanted is that it starts off quite brilliantly, approaching the subject matter very tongue in cheek. No hoper (McAvoy) is being pursued by a gun man for no reason that he can discern but is protected by a sexy gun-toting assassin (Jolie) who believes he is the next big thing in the assassin world. There are some ludicrous car chase moves which are gleefully enjoyable and there is a classic scene involving a computer keyboard and the face of a "best friend" who has been cheating on McAvoy's girlfriend. All very funny stuff.

Then the movie starts to take itself seriously, the laughs dry up, the dark humour dissipates and people start dying for no apparent reason. The assassins are taking orders from a loom in a textile mill through a binary code hidden in weaving errors of the cotton fabric - it's called (cough, ahem) The Loom of Fate. In the first twenty minutes, this scenario may have brought a few laughs; at the point in the movie when everything is taken seriously, all it got was a few groans.

Maybe I'm getting old, but this shoot 'em up had less morals than last year's Shoot 'Em Up, and left me lambasting the movie like an old man waving his wooden cane and telling youngsters to turn that music down!

If it wasn't for Angelina . . .

Would I pay to see it?

No.

Rating?

3.5 out of 10 (an extra 1/2 point for Jolie's presence - jeez, I'm shallow!)

Post Movie Quote:

"Wham, Bang, no thank you ma'am." Daryl Nilbett