Film Features | For and Against: The Amazing Spider-Man in The Avengers
Next week, the eagerly anticipated franchise reboot The Amazing Spider-Man swings into UK cinemas (read my review here), and with its impending release, its star Andrew Garfield – who of course plays the famous scarlet-clad hero – has been asked on numerous occasions about the possibility of Spider-Man joining the Avengers at a later date.
The answer has always been a tongue-in-cheek ‘Yes’ – honestly, who wouldn’t want to be on that team?! – but there is a lot of red tape to get through in order to get to that stage, what with Sony currently owning the rights to Spider-Man meaning that Marvel will have to buy the rights back before being able to use the character.
There is no doubting that the web-slinging hero is one of the most well-known comic book characters of all time, and his presence in a future Avengers movie is at the very least intriguing to ponder.
The question therefore is; would Spidey be a good fit for the Avengers?
Read the rest of this article on HeyUGuys here.
Film Review | The Amazing Spider-Man 3D
“It’s too soon!” “The origin story…AGAIN?!” This and more was the less than enthusiastic response which greeted the announcement of the cleverly titled The Amazing Spider-Man back in 2010, a reboot of the superhero franchise which Sam Raimi began in 2002. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t among the sceptics; it had after all been only 5 years since Raimi’s Spider-Man 3, and although that movie was disappointing, it would have been intriguing to see how they might have made amends. Still, the steadily improving – if overly revealing – marketing of The Amazing Spider-Man did well to silence many of the naysayers, and director Marc Webb (500 Days of Summer) should take pride in having delivered an engaging finished product, laying a solid foundation for future sequels in the process.
Read the rest of this review on Yin & Yang here.
Film Trailer | Anna Karenina
Director Joe Wright (of Atonement (2007), Pride & Prejudice (2005) fame) teams up with muse Keira Knightley for the third time in Anna Karenina (2012), an adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s esteemed 19th century novel. Slated for release in the fall (right when the awards season begins to heat up), Wright’s latest offering looks set for Oscar contention.
Penned by award-winning screenwriter Tom Stoppard (1998′s Shakespeare in Love), Knightley plays the titular character, an aristocrat who maintains a loveless marriage to a much older government official Alexei Karenin (Jude Law), abiding by the Russian high-societal norms of the time. When she encounters the more suitably-aged bachelor Count Vronsky (Aaron Johnson), she begins to question her happiness, and in doing so change comes to her family, friends, and community.
Watch the trailer on CineVue here.
Film Review | Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
What if Abraham Lincoln, esteemed 16th President of the United States, was a vampire hunter? This is the laughable premise on hand in Timur Bekmambetov’s faux-historical 3D action movie, imaginatively titled Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012), based on the novel by Seth Grahame-Smith (who also wrote the screenplay).
Bekmambetov’s film chooses to put Lincoln’s (an impressive central performance from Benjamin Walker) better-known deeds on the back-burner, focusing instead on the President’s secret life as a vampire hunter. Lincoln’s motivations for hunting the undead are established early on via a flashback of his mother’s death at the hands of a bloodsucker. From then on, the plot zips along at a furious pace as Lincoln is befriended by Henry Sturgess (Dominic Cooper), trained in the ways of vampire-slaying and seeks vengeance on the creatures’ leader Adam (Rufus Sewell).
Read the rest of this review on CineVue here.
Film Review | The Five-Year Engagement
Prolific man-child director Judd Apatow is back in the producer hot-seat for The Five-Year Engagement (2012), an entertaining romantic comedy which will please Apatow fans as well as appeal to broader audiences. Directed by Nicholas Stoller, the plot follows Tom (Jason Segel, reuniting with Stoller) and Violet (Emily Brunt) who become engaged after a unique proposal in the film’s opening minutes.
Plans are made and venues are booked, but when Violet jumps at the chance to pursue her academic career in Michigan, Tom agrees to delay the wedding and put his own career as an aspiring chef on hold. Predictably, Tom’s willing sacrifice soon turns into resentment; Violet thrives in her new position while Tom wastes his talent preparing sandwiches in a deli, lamenting what could have been. As the planned two year stay is continually extended, more and more obstacles emerge for the likeable couple.
Read the rest of this review on CineVue here.
Film Flashback #6 | Batman Begins
Rewind 7 years to the day, on June 17 2005 Batman Begins was released in Cinemas
The quintessential superhero origin story, Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins reinvigorated the Batman franchise, grounding the costumed vigilante in realism and garnering critical and commercial acclaim in the process. Its influence can now be seen in many a superhero derivation, most recently in the upcoming The Amazing Spider-Man reboot which is aiming for the darker, grittier tone in Nolan’s Batman saga. With the highly anticipated The Dark Knight Rises just around the corner, now would seem a fitting time to revisit the beginning of Nolan’s Batman trilogy.
Read the rest of this article on Yin & Yang here.
Film Review | Prometheus
It’s been 33 years since Ridley Scott’s Alien, a film which has since gone on to become a classic and is widely regarded as one of sci-fi’s most seminal pieces. After many sequels and spin-offs – some admittedly better than others – the highly anticipated Prometheus heralds Scott’s return not only to the genre, but to his universe, with the film being strongly marketed as a prequel and being said to have ‘strands of Alien-DNA’. Whilst Prometheus just about works as a standalone sci-fi movie, fans of Scott’s aforementioned work may be left disappointed.
Read the rest of this review on Yin & Yang here.
