Review: Battle: Los Angeles

A clichéd script and a half-baked plot make this one alien invasion you can afford to miss.

Busy getting torn a new arsehole by critics across the board, Battle: LA is an alien-invasion flick which looked pretty promising up until its release. A marriage between gritty combat from the soldier’s perspective and an alien invasion not unlike War of the Worlds, it looked to have serious potential, at least as a concept. But as we all know, when sci-fi/action films go wrong, it can have cringe-worthy (and occasionally hilarious) consequences.

Review140: Paul

#Paul - Funny at times and an interesting comment on spirituality. But it should be funnier and appeals only to a particular audience. 3*
Tweeted at 00:00 by @SamCaveen

Check This Out: Blinky™ Short Film

This short film from Ruairi Robinson shows a near-future where robot helpers are common home appliances. Max Records (Where The Wild Things Are) is a child whose parents are enduring a difficult patch, fighting a lot around the house. The child gets a new robot friend, Blinky, but the fun only lasts for a while when he realises that the robot can't save his parents' relationship.

The kid is rather annoying and a lot of the 12 minute short's beats are predictable, but it's got a nice aesthetic and realistic future vision, so it's worth a watch. If nothing else, it's 12 minutes of your life you don't have to listen to this shite.

Check This Out: Boston Movie

I would watch this film, and I would try to do the accent for weeks following.

Trailer: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

For the record, I actually thought the first film, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, was excellent. Entertaining and funny with enjoyable performances, it was everything you wanted from a classic Disney family adventure film. Since then, I've seen none of the sequels. This may just be my relentless cynicism, or it could speak volumes about where the series has gone since its original incarnation. Either way, the fourth one is here, with the addition of Ian McShane and Penélope Cruz to the standard cast. Given my apathy towards the franchise, my opinion is invalid, so I've posted the trailer so everyone else can see what they think. Regardless, I'm sure this 3D blockbuster will rake in the cash come summer time, giving the studio licence for, dare I say it, another sequel. Johnny Depp's wallet must be more like a toddler's booster seat by now.

Trailer: Super 8

We'll be doing a full preview on J.J. Abrams' upcoming summer sci-fi thriller Super 8 very soon, since it's one of our most anticipated films of the year. For the time being, just watch the latest trailer for the film, and let the old-school Spielberg (producer and huge creative influence on the project) vibes wash over you.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt Confirmed for The Dark Knight Rises, will play Alberto Falcone

The rumour mill at the centre of The Dark Knight Rises, follow up to Christopher Nolan's hugely successful Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight (2008), has been working overdrive, and now it appears at least one of its predictions will come to fruition. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, rumoured from the beginning to join fellow Inception actor Tom Hardy in Rises, will play Alberto Falcone, Variety reports. Alberto is the son of mob boss Carmine Falcone, a major antagonist in Batman Begins, so his presence fits neatly into Nolan's story arc. He also moonlights as the villain Holiday in Nolan's favourite and most-referenced Batman story, The Long Halloween. It's rumoured that Selina Kyle (Catwoman, to be played by Anne Hathaway) will have an interesting relationship with Alberto, believing Carmine Falcone to be her father too, as she does in the comic Catwoman: When in Rome.

Variety also reports that British actress Juno Temple will be joining the cast. The youngster has impressed with roles in Atonement, Notes on a Scandal and most recently in the psychological drama Cracks alongside Eva Green. There's no news yet on who she might be playing other than it'll be a 'street-smart Gotham girl'. Holly Robinson could be a possibility; in the comics she is trained by Selina Kyle. She's also a lesbian, which as Black Swan proved, can do wonders for the marketing of a film. Another possibility could be Harley Quinn, since Temple could certainly pull off the gothic clown look.

Traditionally comic-book films struggle with the problem of packing in too many characters, think Spider-Man 3. But Nolan proved with Inception that he's extremely adept at balancing a large cast, and it certainly seems that he's building a similarly epic ensemble here. Excitement levels are beginning to bubble for the summer 2012 release.