cinema

Film review: The Super Mario Bros. Movie

April 12, 2023April 19, 2023 Garry ArnotLeave a comment

After many years of poorly received efforts, we’re finally in a boom period of video game adaptations with the likes of Sonic the Hedgehog, Tetris, and the television version of The Last of Us achieving success and critical acclaim. Following a notorious live-action outing in 1993, the iconic platform-game plumber makes his animated cinema debut in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic. As the brothers attempt to get their family business off the ground in Brooklyn, they are sucked through a mysterious green pipe and land in separate new worlds. Mario (Chris Pratt) soon befriends Toad (Keegan-Michael Key) and asks Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) for help. Meanwhile, Luigi (Charlie Day) is stuck in the Dark Lands where Koopa king Bowser (Jack Black) hatches his latest evil plan.

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DVD & Digital

DVD review: Passengers

January 5, 2017December 5, 2019 Garry Arnot1 Comment

Science-fiction has delivered excellent movies of late and Oscar-nominated Norwegian director Morten Tyldum has thrust two of Hollywood’s most in-demand stars into space for his exploration of the genre. Adventure drama Passengers is set in a future where new planets have been formed for humans to escape earth and start again. To get there, starship Avalon travels for 120 years and colonists go to sleep in hibernation pods until they approach their destination. Following a system malfunction, passengers Jim Preston (Chris Pratt) and Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence) are woken up far too early, so with only each other and android bartender Arthur (Michael Sheen) for company and ninety years of their journey to go, they must work together to figure out what has happened and, of course, fall in love in the process.

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DVD & Digital

DVD review: Jurassic World

October 18, 2015June 9, 2022 Garry ArnotLeave a comment

Carrying on the trend of not leaving perfectly good film franchises alone, Spielberg’s 1993 dinosaur epic is next to get the 21st century makeover, only this time it is a sequel rather than a remake. With much anticipation surrounding it, the unenviable but exciting task of directing falls to relatively unknown Colin Trevorrow. This instalment, set a whopping twenty-two years after its predecessor is ‘Jurassic World’, and stars man-of-the-moment Chris Pratt following his success in Guardians of the Galaxy. Brothers Zach (Nick Robinson) and Gray (Ty Simpkins) are packed up and sent away to Jurassic World by their feuding parents to be looked after by their Aunt Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard). This clashes with a busy weekend for the theme park, and when the ‘unthinkable’ happens and a genetically modified hybrid dinosaur branded the Indonimus rex escapes from its enclosure, it is up to velociraptor trainer Owen Grady (Pratt) to save the day. This has the intense action that all good blockbusters should and excellent special effects to boot, but has the inexperienced Trevorrow bitten off more than he can chew?

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