Let’s get one thing out the way first – when you have a movie based on a cartoon and series of kids figurines you should really know what to expect. With this in mind, I actually really enjoyed it. After hearing some reviews from Julie and Gareth at work, I ended up seeing it with one of my flatmates yesterday.

The movie synopsis is simple and does not deviate too far from the cartoon – alien robots from another planet drop onto Earth in seek of an ultimate power source. One group, the Deceptacons, wants to use it to transform the Earth into a semblance of their former planet, while the other group, the Autobots, want to find this power source before the other group does to prevent Earth’s destruction. The robots and, like most movies in this genre, the fate of the world depends on a single item possessed by your typical less-than-popular nervous kid who also just so happens to form a bond with one of the Autobot transformers.

Remembering this genre of movie, you have to suspend your beliefs in many parts of the movie such as the attitudes of the Sector 7 guys, the sharpshooting of the Secretary of Defense, the focus of the Australian systems analyst (not to mention her “hacker friend”), and the amazingly perfect shot from the soldier on the sliding motorcycle scene at the end.

What it loses points on, the movie makes up with lots of action scenes, plenty of humour and enough reminiscent moments without being excessively cheesy. Some highlights for me included the wiping away the dust to reveal the Autobot icon, Bumblebee taking on the form of the new racer, and Optimus Prime using his sword to take out one of the Deceptacons.

I won’t admit the movie may not appeal to many people though I at least found it very entertaining and a surprisingly long movie at that.

TheKua.com Rating: 7 out of 10

On Tuesday I saw the latest Marvel comic based movie released by director Sam Raimi, Spiderman 3. I saw it at the amazingly stylish theatre on Portobello Road, The Electric Cinema, something I’ll write about another time and highly recommend anyone the cinematic experience it offers.

The movie met most of my expectations – some good visual effects, a nice adaptation of the comic book story to introduce and link some of the characters as best could be fit into a two hour movie, the standard cameo appearance of Marvel comic book writer Stan Lee and the poor acting and cheesy scenes that always seem to make it in.

It’s easy to say that none of the actors in the film will win any Oscars, and I think Tobey Maguire wins the award for worst overall performance with too many frustrating scenes of endless cheese. The choice of Thomas Haden Church to play new villain Sandman worked out really well, and very much looked the part after donning the classic green and black striped t-shirt though I though Topher Grace, playing Peter Parker and Spiderman’s nemesis Eddie Brock and Venom turned out as a poor choice as he was far too small to fill his role.

The movie, like most comic-based ones focuses excessively on the action with some fantastic fight scenes that are very enjoyable to watch, though the viewers need to suspend a certain amount of belief and logic to make it believable. The movie certainly wasn’t produced for die-hard fans and is a film worth watching if you want some light hearted action entertainment.

TheKua.com Rating: 6 out of 10

28 Days Later was a pretty impressive film for me mainly for the way it managed to empty (or simulate) many parts of London (such as the ever busy area of Big Ben and Westminster Abbey).

I stumbled across this painted sign (above) all over pathways around East London and is promoting the upcoming sequel release, 28 Weeks Later. I don’t know if they had local council or city approval, but I like way this biohazard symbol is enigmatically painted all over the pavements. This one I caught outside Old Street station on the way to Hoxton Square.

It’s always great watching a normal movie presented on an Imax screen. For those that don’t know what an Imax cinema is, think of your normal cinema but with the screen approximately three stories tall and proportionately wide. Movies specially made for the Imax are typically disappointing because the cost of filming it just for Imax is so exorbitantly expensive that the result is a very short film (i.e. not more than an hour). Movies adapted for Imax are a much better alternative.

Last night I went with a bunch of people to go see the latest instalment in the Superman series of movies, Superman Returns at the BFI Imax Cinema at Waterloo. Like many long running movies, there are so many expectations to break, but I thought they did a good job overall.

Reflecting on the movie’s many possible improvements, the movie was much longer than it could have been, the story weak, and many nagging questions remain unanswered. To be fair though, for a comic book action movie with such a long running history and hype (did you know at one stage, a balding Nicholas Cage was supposed to play superman?) I personally wasn’t expecting too much.

I thought it had just the right amount of clichéd sayings to be entertaining, a small effort to put it in line with previous movies, and some very awesome action sequences all helped along by a huge screen and with many of the scenes set in 3D! It’s rare that I would pay that much for a movie ordinarily, and though I would have resented paying to watch Superman Returns on a normal screen, for the one-off experience was well worth it.

TheKua.com Rating: 6.5 out of 10