Movies

I saw the trailer for Stormbreaker a couple of months back, and I noted it in my diary as one to watch. I'm not entirely sure what attracted me to the film, but the thought of a fourteen year-old James Bond type character looked so contrived I had to see it to find out whether the format could really work.

Oddly enough, I found myself quite surprised by the finished product. Alex Pettyfer, who plays the main character, Alex Rider, pulls the role off very well. Whilst there are some aspects to the scripts which are indeed bordering tacky - "He's not a child, he's a lethal weapon" being one to note.

The storyline is simple, yet effective. An orphaned child is brough up by his uncle who spends a lot of time away from home because he works for a bank and has to go to lots of meetings. The uncle is in fact an MI6 agent, gets killed in action, and child thinks that there's something strange about the death. Child investigates, reveals truth, and is (under duress) recruited by MI6 to infiltrate villain's lair and stops sneaky plot to destroy the country.

Upon further investigation, the film is an offshoot from a series of books written by Anthony Horowitz, so I purchased the Stormbreaker book, and I'm pleased to report that whilst there's some artistic licence in the film combined with a little deviation from the story, it remains about 80% true to the book. In true sequel style, I've also purchased "Point Blanc" and "Skeleton Key" for further research.

If you have a cold and wet afternoon to spare, go take a look at this one. You'll be pleasantly surprised.

Okay, so Pirates of the Caribbean, The Curse of the Black Pearl was absolutely brilliant. The reason that it was so good was the Jack Sparrow character that Johnny Depp played. Well, back on form, the sequel, Dead Man's Chest was released on Friday, and I hauled my ass to the local Cineworld to check out what all the hype was about.

Well, basically it was a slightly different story, and where there would have been one CGI effect in the first, there were two in the second. All in all, some pretty good entertainment, but I think that at the end of this film, I felt that the format was tired. Sadly, Disney don't feel the same. The cliffhanger at the end left all the hallmarks of a sequel to come. Bugger.