To the movies

The Crazies have a habit of checking out the movies as they come out in the cinema. The latest couple have been Outlander and the new XMen film, Wolverine. So what did we think of them ?

Let's start with Outlander :

Spaceship crashes, survivor struggles to the shore. But ... there's a hitchhiker along who is Big N Nasty With Claws. There's the expression "as big as a house", well this alien nasty is as big as an office block. Oh - our survivor and his hitchhiker have landed at around the 7th century, in Viking territory.

We didn't have much in the way of expectations with this one but we ended up really enjoying it :-) There's a required minimum of scifi on show here but it doesn't get in the way of the story. Just enhances it by allowing the Monster vs Alien Sole Survivor vs Vikings setting to make sense. The plot is telegraphed all the way through but that doesn't obstruct you as you sit back and enjoy the show.

Good bit of Viking fun along the way, look out for the athletic drinking game. We also have the highly photogenic Sophia Myles playing a major role in this one, will be looking eagerly for more from this actress in the future :-)

Film 2 ! XMen Origins Wolverine

This one's the fourth XMen film made recently, so it's tied into the backstory built up in the 3 previous XMen films. So you'll know where Logan went Heavy Metal and you know who put the metal in him. This fills in the gaps in a kind of Filming By Numbers way.

A good film but I just didn't enjoy it as much as I did Outlander. (However, I was on a super-caffeine high when watching Outlander!)

Special mention for Liev Schreiber as Sabretooth, who puts everything into this role. I fear he may get typecast as Fierce Warrior Guy, especially after he put a similarly high quality effort into his part in Defiance. Wolverine also gives a guest role to possibly my favourite Xman, Gambit. Gambit has a lot of style and you really, don't want to take him lightly. He'll kick your butt.

Sooo - Outlander, well made, paper thin but highly enjoyable slashermonster flick. Will be buying this one and attempting to not drool too much when Sophia Myles comes on screen.
Wolverine : highest quality effects, as you'd expect from a high profile blockbuster but it kinda left me cold. They attempt to put a lot of gags in which don't really come off due to most of the characters being pretty nasty pieces of work. With that sort around, humour doesn't really ring true.

Now watching the Final Fantasy movie from 2001 again, with a bit of Warcraft and Eve later. I'm an input addict, so I find it difficult when on my own just to sit and eat. At home, I'll munch while watching something. At work, I'll be peeking at the internet (lunchtime!) or giving my brain a bit of exercise on Spider Solitaire :-). And because my Skybox has decided to give up almost entirely now, watching something means DvDs ...

The Eve gang did something different last night, we went Alice and disappeared down the rabbit hole. Translation, we checked out a new bit of the game where you can peek in unexplored wormhole space. Curious :-) New things to see, new places to go and the same people to have a laugh with.

And it shares something with what I'm watching now - Final Fantasy was released in 2001 and there's the well known Arthur C Clarke/Stanley Kubrick collaboration called 2001. Well - the Eve wormholes have the signature feature of 2001, Big Black Monoliths. I took screenies and will hopefully post one later :-)