X-Men: First Class rebooted the mega-superhero franchise three years ago by moulding its own intricate storylines around real-life, historic events. X-Men: Days of Future Past on the other hand decides it’s spent enough time playing slave to our timeline, and secures the future of Professor X’s team, and his franchise, by kicking out the action to a couple different time zones.

Whereas First Class tied its personal battle between Michael Fassbender’s Magneto and James McAvoy’s Charles Xavier into the Cuban Missle Crisis, Days of Future Past ties its key plotline around the overwhelming presence of mutant-murdering Sentinel robots in an apocalyptic future. A bit different then.

It also uses this future to bridge the gap between the two timelines in which X-Men is now set, taking the casts from past and present and mashing them into one big team.

It pans out well, and Bryan Singer looks back to his X-Men 2 best in the director’s seat of this action-packed effort. The post-apocalyptic world where mutants and humans alike are on the down sees Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart return alongside some impressive newbies, the most exciting of which is Fan Bingbing’s Blink – a character who sets about defending earth by playing Portal in real life. While McKellan doesn’t get as much screen time as he could have done with, Stewart does get the chance to provide some great speeches and face off against former self McAvoy in a scene handled with aplomb.

The Sentinels which lie at the core of the future’s problems are appropriately simple, badass, and hard to evade, and the horrible stormy weather conditions – why can the apocalypse never happen on a sunny day? – are still sculpted well enough to avoid total cliché.

Of course though, the bulk of the movie takes place in the 1970s, where Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine is sent back to right some past wrongs and subsequently stop the Sentinels in the future. Jackman’s return as the hard-knuckled Logan feels a little fresher this time around too, despite the audience overdose received from his spin-offs – his jokes work well, he doesn’t overdo the stage presence and despite his claws being bone rather than metal, he handles his fight scenes like an absolute badass.

Needless to say, McAvoy and Fassbender are both impeccable as the arch-rivals gunning for similar targets with vastly different tactics. McAvoy plays the Professor who has abandoned his ethical aims in search of a bowl of ice cream and a James Blunt album – he’ll be waiting a while if he’s in the 70s – but Fassbender steals the show as the villainous vigilante self-assigned to save the mutant race at any cost. Whereas in First Class he finds himself in the middle of history in Cuba, this time around Magneto decides to write history himself by closing in the White House with the shell of a baseball stadium. Just your average day at the office then.

The appearance of Evan Peters’ Quicksilver to break Fassbender out of his maximum security prison – where the prison is and what he’s in for add a nice extra quirk– is definitely another highlight. Peters’ super speedy character looks like your usual brat-come-good character when we first meet, but his comedic value is so much more. A slow-motion scene where he takes down four shooting officers and has extra time to mess around is undoubtedly one of the kickers in the film.

A special mention must also go to Jennifer Lawrence. The actress gets increased stage time as Raven-turned-Mystique, and the confusion, anger and sorrow of the character are portrayed well in her acting. Although I may be a bit bias, because I am kind of in love with her. (Please call me if you read this).

On the down side, Peter Dinklage, while increasingly sinister as Sentinel creator Tyrion Lannister, err, I mean Dr. Bolivar Trask, isn’t quite given the back story or justification the audience need for his hatred of mutants. Likewise, alongside the likes of McKellen, the future X-Men aren’t given enough screen time individually. The reason Blink stands out is because she’s an awesome fighter, and that’s pretty much all that cast get to do. Even Halle Berry’s Storm barely gets a line.

All in all though, the time travel is handled well, the deadlines imposed nicely, the acting is magnificent and the story grips you to your seat.

Verdict: On the back of a disappointing run out with The Amazing Spiderman 2, it’s nice to see Singer stepping up to the plate, hitting a home run here and showing how superhero films should be handled. New, exciting, action-packed and clever. A real winner.

Note: After the end-credits, mega mutant Apocalypse makes an appearance, so you’re going to want to stay around for that. But it’s a Marvel film, so you should already know this.

                                                                                                                                  Stuart Kenny

The latest take on Godzilla is a tough nut to crack. The concept of a giant monster tearing up Tokyo is one that lends itself rather manifestly to the B Movie action template, but director Gareth Edwards and writers Max Borenstein and Dave Callaham don’t seem quite content to be trapped within these walls.

Rather, they launch a film that starts with science – intelligent, gripping science – and form the basis of an intellectual viewing that can also boast a strong emotional narrative on the side. This plotline comes in the form of the on-the-mend relationship of Bryan Cranston’s Joe Brody and his son Ford, a father and son who are reunited to investigate strange occurrences in Japan some 15 years after the death of Joe’s wife and Ford’s mother in similarly suspicious circumstances. Cranston performs well as the father who has lost his way, while Aaron Taylor-Johnson shows promise and sincerity as the loving son insistent on building a happy family life for himself, his wife and his still-young son.

Early earthquakes and journeys into the depth of radiated territory give rise to suspense and allow the man pointing the camera to flex his big ass FX budget even before the monsters show. For a while, early on in the film, the efforts of the production team to take this blatant B Movie subject matter into the A leagues seems to have worked out surprisingly well. The only problem is that at some point in a film about giant fighting monsters, you’ve got to have giant monsters fighting – and when Godzilla and the M.U.T.Os (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms) begin to face off, all the serious tone of the film completely falls out the frame.

This can basically be seen as a movie of two very different halves. To start with, you’ve got your early plotline and tension building scenes set across America and Japan which are acted out wonderfully, crammed full of enough emotion to glue you to your seat and boast enough dramatic scenery and CGI to impress the best of us. Next, you’ve got your mucho monsters destroying landmarks around the planet while the previous plotlines effectively deteriorate as a bunch of irrelevant characters, including Ford Brody, now fighting with the US Army, fail to make any impact on the war taking place.

Seriously, as soon as those monsters get fighting, the characters may as well just set off. Ken Watanabe is the thoughtful Dr. Ishiro Serizawa, a scientist charged with helping David Strathairn’s template Admiral William Stenz with stopping the beasts destroying the planet. Only problem is, Serizawa very rarely actually offers any scientific input, instead sticking to a more philosophical approach, only ever providing long-winded answers to questions that nobody ever actually asked. Watanabe’s character does provide the signature moment of the film with his dramatic denunciation that the beast is named ‘Godzilla’ though, so we’ve got to give him credit for that. Some quotable shit right there.

Anyway, the visual FXs are impressive, but not to the point where it shocks. Godzilla is effectively a giant scabby dinosaur on steroids, and he appears as such, and the M.U.T.O.S he fights are overgrown bats that are indeed presented well but are hardly an innovation. The big set battles are fun and provide the set pieces that the audience look for in such a film, but after such a strong narrative build up, the remaining storyline descends into army-driven repetition and weakly presented plotlines as the film peters out.

Ultimately, after such good work from Cranston and indeed Gareth Edwards to create an intelligent foundation for the film, the inevitable and necessary scrapping of two overgrown play toys retracts the good work of the script and removes any decent plotline. Perhaps all the early stuff was just out of place intellect, and the film should’ve stuck to the B Movie script throughout – either that or stuck out the clever plotlines better. Either way, the resulting film is a fun watch, but not much more.

Verdict: The big money FX shots and the big set battles are there, but despite a build up which promises much more than just another battling B Movie, that’s exactly what this film inevitably ends up being.

                                                                                                                                  Stuart Kenny

The place of the spoiler has taken on an emphatic yet relatively recent infamy in modern culture that has changed the way we digest film and television.

The rise of spoof and parody films demonstrate how distinct a template the majority of the genres in the medium are now run by, whether it be the Western's lassoing of the runaway bad guy or horror's scary murderer turning out to be the seemingly friendly neighbour all along.

It’s this kind of genre convention that has lead to the rise of our hatred for spoilers and those who carry them. We all know these templates and what we expect to see in a certain genre, and because of this, the biggest thrills available come not just when a scriptwriter disobeys the rulebook, but when he rams a couple of rulebooks together, chucks out the bits he doesn't like and is left with a mongrel the world has never seen before but is dying to meet.

We're not talking about the villain not being the guy you first expected here. We're talking about a film or a series being flipped on its head, ala The Red Wedding in Game of Thrones or the dramatic ending to Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige.  

Before the Naughties, the world of film and television had still been growing, still shifting through a pile of untouched material, but the sequalitis now engrossing Hollywood shows us that the days of original content are coming to a close. Look at recent popular television programming: The BBC’s The Musketeers and Atlantis, Game of Thrones, House of Cards. There is an array of adaptations on offer – not that they are all bad – that have become the favourite shows of the nation.

The big thrill of film from previous generations came in the originality of the story; Ridley Scott’s Alien, Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather, Dennis Potter’s The Singing Detective. Now there have been more sci-fi monster and gangster movies than you can shake a stick at, and the demise of the writer in favour of commercial success – another article for another time – has ensured that the likes of The Singing Detective are no longer commissioned. Where they once were aired, adaptations now live. Whereas they once thrilled through escapism and discovery, modern work is now only able to truly engross the viewer through radical plot twists. 

What this all means is that when something original comes along, a truly innovative and brilliant piece of scriptwriting that shocks the audience, those who are watching it receive a wonderful euphoria where they experience something very rare – a moment of media that is an utterly erratic surprise. It is this kind of shock that has seen the rise of unpredictable programming to award status, the likes of Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones; programmes which install through their plotlines the same sort of wonder that was previously achieved through grandeur and fantasy before these two factors became taken for granted by the viewer.

These are the twists that fans pine for, that they’ll use torrents to get a hold of and sneak into cinemas to see, and if the people are denied their chance to experience these twists first hand, they turn into a right old bloodthirsty mob. 

CONTINUED > Click here to read more.

 Surely Mark Wahlberg is doing well enough that he wouldn't have to star in a reality show. I mean, he's an Academy Award nominee and is set to appear in one of the biggest films of the year, Transformers: Age of Extinction. However, this is unbelievably an actual thing. The brilliantly named 'Wahlburgers' is set to air on Lifetime in April and will feature Marky Mark, his mother and brothers, Alma, chef Paul and New Kid on the Block Donnie as they open and run the Boston restaurant of the same name.

What would you say if I told you that Scottish Dance Producing Superstar, Calvin Harris, is developing a half hour comedy program based on his career thus far? You'd probably say “that's pretty weird”. Well, what if I told you two of the shows producers are Jay-Z and Will Smith? Trust me, it gets even weirder. I sh*t you not, the show will be written by Trainspotting and Filth author, Irvine Welsh. Now I bet you're all like “Say whaaaaaa-”.
 
A pilot has been ordered by HBO and considering the names behind it, I can't imagine it not getting picked up. Even though this isn't as unusual as Will Smith funding a sitcom written by Irvine Welsh based on the life of Calvin Harris, it does seem odd that it is being developed for American television rather than Scottish or British. If picked up, I imagine Sky Atlantic's exclusive deal with HBO will have the Welsh penned sitcom airing in the UK soon after. Also, did you know Calvin Harris isn't his real name? The whole thing's given me a headache but I'm very intrigued to see how the show turns out.

Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee is a Youtube series featuring US comedian Jerry Seinfeld supported by Crackle. Each episode features Seinfeld and a friend (past guests have included Ricky Gervais, Mel Brooks and Alec Baldwin) driving to get a cup of coffee and sharing some light-hearted banter.

This week a trailer surfaced for a porn parody of Seinfeld's interview with Sarah Silverman. Even with being one of the few who saw the original video (which has under 100,000 views on Youtube), I did not once think while watching it “This would make great porn.” The sort of SFW trailer Comedians In Cars Getting Sex! (not as clever as 'Wahlbergers', is it?) trailer can be found on Youtube and is arguably worth a watch just for the mediocre impressions and cringeworthy dialogue. I don't know how many people watch these porn parodies but this may be one of the only ones to be seen by more people than the source material. After this and the 30 Rock parody by the same director, the Tina Fey Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee parody is surely on the cards.

The trailer is here for the much awaits sequel to Sin City! It looks gory, it looks clique and it looks pretty damn cool. We're excited.

The original Anchorman remains one of the best examples of how a low-key film can rise to the height of cult stature.

Insults that would be used for years to follow were crafted in the production, the word ‘diversity’ took on a whole new meaning, and the declaration of ‘an urgent and horrifying news story’ could never be taken seriously again. The coronation of the arbitrary had arrived in style.

It is safe to say however, that while a 2004 audience would have pitched up to meet Ron Burgundy nursing expectations of just another throw-away comedy, crowds queuing up for The Legend Continues were in a position of significantly higher anticipation – something that seems to have largely impacted upon director Adam McKay and co-writer and star Will Ferrell’s sculpting of the work.

Certainly, the film is jam-packed with throwbacks to its predecessor, but the revival of the jazz flute and reappearance of Brian Fantana’s ‘secret cupboard’ only add further additional, unnecessary minutes to a production already almost two hours long.

The presence of Steve Carrell’s Brick Tamland also represents how the previous success of the film has lead to excessive overkill. In the original flick, the challenged Brick was indeed one of the highlights. ‘I love lamp’ became a cult saying heard far too often and the screaming of ‘loud noises’ became a customary call whenever a couple of mates were in a pointless debate.

In the 2004 release though, Brick’s bizarre randomness was used sparingly rather than as an extended plot-line. This time around, the weatherman is brought to the forefront to connect with a female incarnation of his character – Kirsten Wiig’s Chani. The result is an awkward array of pseudo chat-up lines that remove the lovable stupidity of Brick and replace it with a forced, childish dialogue that oozes only apprehension.

Luckily, other call backs to the original go down rather more smoothly. The revamped rival news team fight is brought back on a bigger and better scale – a comment on the nature of sequel society perhaps – with more hilarious developments and big-name cameos than a disgruntled paparazzi snapper could possibly get the time to harass.

The original nature of the film brings back the true feel of unique obscurity that won over fans in the first place too. A sequence involving a lighthouse and a shark seems to parody the entire Hollywood B-movie romance scene in a single segment, the brilliant group dynamic of the news team comes back in a flash and produces some massively quotable, dynamite dialogue, and Ron once again manages to excel in a developing news world in hilarious fashion.

Before, the plot was engulfed in the question of gender equality, now, it glances at the transition of racial awareness that Burgundy progresses through, and as he inadvertently changes the face of news from the hard-hitting tales of Veronica Corningstone to the car-chase obsessed, celebrity nature that dominates modern media, there is an underlying satire pointed straight at the tabloid culture of current news.

At its core though, just like its predecessor, this tale remains an unrealistic adventure of epic proportions. From ‘fried bats’ to Ron’s exclamation regarding ‘the hymen of Olivia Newton-John’, there is much to laugh at and remember in Anchorman 2, and the film takes place at such a quick pace that with the exception of Brick Tamland’s input, there is little time to pick up on failed jokes.

The hair remains perfect, the one-liners remain vivid, and, of course, Burgundy’s voice can still make a wolverine purr.

Stuart Kenny

As published originally at: www.brignewspaper.com