Reviews

I was sceptical about The Righteous Men from the moment I read the strapline across the top: “The Greatest Challenger To Dan Brown’s Crown”.

Aw, shite. Not another Da Vinci Code rip-off.

The Plot

The plot centers around Will Monroe, a rookie journalist at the New York Times whose wife is inexplicably kidnapped while he’s out obsessively working on a story. As he desperately tries to find and save his wife, he also needs to work out what the connection is between two unrelated murders he covered recently.

Interestingly, Will’s investigations lead him to an Hassidic neighbourhood in New York where he finds his wife’s captors and is promptly given a hiding by them.

Just to confuse matters, Will starts receiving cryptic clues by text message that seem to be guiding him. With the help of the text messages and his hot ex-girlfriend, Will has to find his wife before time runs out.

The Verdict

To be fair, The Righteous Men beats the Da Vinci Code for more realistic characters. You can empathise with Will Monroe more than you could with Dan Brown’s characters. His back story is more developed and you find yourself thinking about how you’d react in the same situation. You can also see his conflicts whenever he has to call upon his former girlfriend for help in decoding the text messages he’s been receiving.

I would say for the first two thirds of the book, I was completely drawn in. The last third, I had started to guess at how the story would end. Let’s just say that the storyline takes a weird and wonderful flight of fancy and becomes completely detached from reality.

The increasingly bizarre events and ever more unlikely climax ruin the book in my opinion. I won’t spoil the ending here, but maybe we can discuss it in the comments. If you want to avoid spoilers, don’t go any further.

Tuesday, May 29th, 2007 // Book Reviews

I picked this up at the airport that time we went to Amsterdam in December. At that time, I was a complete Irvine Welsh virgin - had never read one of his books before, or even seen Trainspotting (hard to believe?).

What’s It About?

Bedroom Secrets Of The Master Chefs centres around the rivalry between Edinburgh Environmental Health Officer Danny Skinner and Brian Kibby, a newcomer to Skinner’s department to whom Danny takes and instant irrational dislike.

Danny’s a full-on shit: womaniser, heavy drinker, drug taker, thinks Saturday night’s definitely alright for fighting (he’s virtually a professional football hooligan). All this makes for some pretty spectacular hangovers…

…which is where Kibby comes in. Somehow, in his complete hatred of the clean-cut mammy’s boy, Skinner manages to curse Brian Kibby - and somehow manages to curse Kibby with all his hangovers! Essentially, Skinner can party as hard as he likes and Kibby receives the hangover.

Bedroom Secrets is littered with some very humorous set pieces, set in Welsh’s gritty but affectionate Edinburgh. Interestingly, Skinner’s and Kibby’s lives are linked in more ways than they both know, and the tension between the two boils over into open resentment as the novel reaches its climax.

In Summary

Irvine Welsh manages to create some interesting, three-dimensional characters in Bedroom Secrets, from the protagonists Skinner and Kibby to the bit players like Skinner’s mother and his colleagues Shannon McDowall and slimy Bob Foy.

Skinner himself is a masterpiece of nastiness, delighting in Kibby’s downfall and generally getting up to no good. There’s a scene where he seeks assistance from an old clairvoyant and ends up sleeping with her in ‘payment’. Truly disgusting!

I liked Neil McAllister’s review of Bedroom Secrets - he picked up on a good point, that the ‘curse’ on Kibby is like a perverse Dorian Grey enchantment. Neil’s review is worth a read if you’re interested.

A copy of this review is also posted at PopOpinions.com.

Tuesday, March 13th, 2007 // Book Reviews

Let me start by telling you I’m a huge fan of books and movies that involve time travel and /or immortality. The Time Traveler’s Wife steers away from pure sci-fi, instead telling the story of a romance between a girl and a time traveler.

Henry DeTamble is the time traveler - a librarian who inadvertently time travels whenever he’s stressed or excited. Rather than treat the time travel as an oddity, Niffenegger writes the time travel as an illness called ‘chrono displacement syndrome’.

His girlfriend/wife is Claire Abshire an art student from a well-heeled family. The course of Claire and Henry’s lives seem intertwined, as Henry unconsciously time travels into Claire’s life at various stages from his future. Henry also crosses his own time stream a number of times and revisits a traumatic event from his childhood.

The biggest challenge with time travel stories is avoiding confusion. Niffenegger achieves this semi-successfully by reminding us at the start of each chapter of the date and age of the two main characters. The narrative also alternates between Henry and Claire’s viewpoints, which helps to bring the characters to life and helps the reader to empathise more with their situation.

I won’t ruin the story by going into too much detail on the plot, but in short Niffenegger manages to craft a tale that is warm, witty, romantic and above all, human. As a matter of fact, one of my favourite characters in the book is Gomez, a tragic figure who marries Claire’s friend, but secretly loves Claire. Niffenegger deals with Gomez particularly well, letting us know early on about his feelings for Claire, but also showing how his relationship with Henry develops over the years.

In Summary

The Time Traveler’s Wife is a touching tale that uses time travel as a tool to tell the story of two people. So, despite time travel being a central theme in the book, the focus remains on the relationship between Henry and Claire. Initially, I was a little disappointed that the time travel wasn’t the central theme of the book, but the true value of the book is in the human interactions.

When you look at it, The Time Traveler’s Wife covers all the key events in life: teenage life, romance, marriage, family, children. There’s so much to relate to and that’s probably why I found the book so touching in the end. Sruthi has also written a good review of the book, although she walked away underwhelmed.

Perhaps that’s because there isn’t a ‘happy-ever-after’ ending. I don’t know, but I do recommend the book. If you’ve read it, tell me what you thought in the comments. If not, pick up a copy and then come back!

A copy of this review is posted at PopOpinions.com

Friday, March 9th, 2007 // Book Reviews

I was kind of looking forward to My Super Ex-Girlfriend: partly because of the superhero theme and partly because I’ve been harbouring a crush on Uma Thurman since The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.

What’s It About?

The movie is mostly rom-com stuff, but the difference to standard romantic fare is that one of the characters has super-powers combined with super-hangups. Thurman plays the neurotic (less than imaginatively named) super hero, G-Girl (mousey curator Jenny Johnston by day) who meets average guy Matt Saunders (Luke Wilson) on the subway. A passenger snatches her bag and Wilson’s character gives chase. To cut a long story short, they end up together until G-Girl reveals her identity - and mental problems.

Probably the best part is when the couple are out with Matt’s work colleague Hannah (played by Anna Faris from Scary Movie). They overhear a news report that an impending disaster is about to strike New York and G-Girl refuses to go to the rescue because she’s jealous. Kind of makes you glad that women don’t really have super powers!

Verdict

I don’t know whether it’s testament to Uma Thurman’s acting (I doubt it), but her dippy super hero is extremely irritating and the whole movie fails to be as funny as it could have been. Kudos to Eddie Izzard for his role as the evil nemesis who actually has a long-standing crush on G-Girl, and the final scene where G-Girl ends up fighting it out with Hannah (who has acquired super powers of her own).

I also thought Luke Wilson was a deplorable choice of romantic lead. But then I would be happy to see both Wilson brothers leaveHollywood and never return.

Final Verdict: My Super Ex-Girlfriend - a superhero flop, spoiled by a mediocre storyline and less-than-lovable characters.

Tuesday, February 27th, 2007 // Movie Reviews

On the cover of On Second Thoughts… is a drawing of King Arthur and his knights sitting at a square table as one of the group asks if anyone else thinks the Feng Shui is all wrong.

But they say never judge a book by its cover.

Past the cover, On Second Thoughts falls down hard. The books is a supposedly funny collection of “first drafts” that might have happened, described on the tagline as “Bad first ideas and other rubbish from the bins of the famous”.

To be fair, On Second Thoughts has its good moments. There’s a series of spoof library tickets sent to famous people. A chasing letter to Bono for the return of “How To Be Me” by Mother Teresa and stuff like that.

Admitting my ignorance, I’ll also say that some of the references are too obscure for the average Joe. There were whole sections that I just didn’t get. And I consider myself fairly well read, so there.

Another problem with the book is the poor quality of some of the clippings. I know they’re supposed to be mock-authentic items, but the quality is so poor that the pieces are actually hard to read.

Nope folks, give this one a wide berth!

A copy of this review is posted at PopOpinions.com.

Monday, February 26th, 2007 // Book Reviews

I picked this book up for the missus just before Christmas, and decided to give it a quick flick through before I wrapped it. Within half-an-hour I’d read it cover to cover,

Loads More Lies… is the follow-up to the very popular “Great Lies To Tell Small Kids”, and features a variety of warped cartoons. For example, the picture of a Tweenie lying on the ground - dead - with an Uzi by his side as his anguished mate cries “noooooooo!!!” to the skies. Read the rest »

Saturday, February 24th, 2007 // Book Reviews

The tagline to Never Hit A Jellyfish With A Spade is “How to Survive Life’s Smaller Challenges”, and that’s the essence of this book. A series of short articles lifted from Browning’s Guardian column, each focuses on a micro-topic from everyday life: How to…. eat biscuits, mow the lawn, read a Sunday paper.

I remember reading Browning’s column from time to time and marvelling at how he managed to take everyday situations and spin them into something thought-provoking and funny at the same time: Read the rest »

Friday, February 23rd, 2007 // Book Reviews

Did you ever believe that another Superman movie would ever hit the big screen again?

When I started to hear rumours of a new Superman movie, I was excited. I’m a big fan of Superman and without getting into the symbolism of the character and what Superman means to me, news of Superman’s Return was more than welcome.

But as the hype grew, excitement was replaced with dread. I felt that too much hype = big budget but poor movie. And so, despairing for our hero, I took Mrs Levee to see Superman Returns.

Stop. Fast Forward 3 Months.

OK, the bit above was written just after I’d seen Superman Returns in the cinema. I walked out mightily impressed, thinking Bryan Singer had done a great job and Brandon Routh had managed to bring continuity between his role and Christopher Reeve’s.

Anyway, I rented it out last night and watched it again. It’s not quite the masterpiece I imagined.

Let’s start with the supporting cast. Forgettable. Kate Bosworth is an asexual Lois Lane, not attractive, not actually anything. I detest movies where you can’t empathise with the main cast members, and Kate Bosworth is lame as Lois Lane.

Then we have Kevin Spacey. To all intents and purposes he’s reprising his spoof role here as Dr. Evil crossed with Gene Hackman’s Lex Luthor of old. The problem is, I don’t recall Lex Luthor in the comics I’ve read being a comic turn, surrounded by buffoons. They could have created a much more formidable opponent for Superman.

Next, and this really bugged me, what decade was the damned film set in? In the Smallville scenes, nothing is more recent than the 1940’s: Martha Kent’s truck, the kitchen radio. The whole setup is rooted in the past, in Superman’s early years. Initially, the Metropolis scenes take the same approach - you first see the Daily Planet building, drowning in Art-Deco, then you realise there are plasma screens everywhere, Lois is on a state-of-the-art shuttle craft and Luthor is heading for the Fortress of Solitude in a very modern-looking yacht.

Hell, you might want to see what PopSyndicate says about the movie, because they also make some valid points.

Positive Points: Superman Returns

Well, Brandon Routh makes a passable Christopher Reeve clone (although he looks like he’s wearing a wig at certain points). The early airplane rescue scene is amazing, and helps to establish Routh as a credible Superman.

The effects are stunning, although Superman looks a little rubbery where he’s displayed as a CGI character. A little like Neo in the Matrix movies. The movie is overall a lot darker than the previous Superman films.

I also loved and hated in equal measure the storyline involving Lois Lane’s son. While it didn’t fit with my ideas about the Superman story, it was a nice twist and left a juicy cliffhanger that needs to be resolved in a future movie.

In Summary

Given the talent that Bryan Singer brought to the X Men movies, I’m surprised that Superman Returns wasn’t a better movie. He didn’t kill it stone dead, but after 20 years, thousands of rumours about a new movie, I expected better than this.

Brandon Routh could go another couple of rounds as the Man of Steel, but the supporting cast needs a cattle-prod up the ass and a better storyline next time - how about Doomsday and the Death of Superman? Or maybe one of those stories where Superman gains 21st Century powers?

Saturday, December 30th, 2006 // Movie Reviews

I’m not afraid to admit that I was an early fan of Destiny’s Child. There was always something aluring about their ‘independent woman’ attitude, infectious tunes and skimpy clothes. Beyonce could kick my ass to the curb any day of the week…

That all changed when Beyonce seemed to become a parody of her sexy self and turned into a loathsome clothes horse as displayed on the pages of Heat magazine every week. Then came the gangsta’s moll phase, when she hooked up with Jay-Z. The girlie Beyonce was replaced by a horrible soft porn version. Not nice.

With the release of Irreplacable, Beyonce seems to have gone back to her roots. And a welcome return it is.

The instrumentation is stripped right back: basically just guitar and a simple drumbeat carrying the tune. A very simple verse/chorus arrangement is enhanced by Beyonce’s most honest vocal performance in recent memory. Beautiful melody in the verses and a chorus so catchy it’ll take a lobotomy to stop you singing it.

Subject matter is a return to Independent Women and Bills, Bills, Bills territory - very much woman on top type of thing.

The video for Irreplaceable carries on the ’stripped down’ theme - Beyonce looking her most natural in ages. The storyline reminds me slightly of the Emotion single Destiny’s Child release a couple of years ago. There’s a little bit of posturing by Ms Knowles, enough to keep the lads happy without being as OTT as her other recent singles.

You mus’ not know ’bout a-me, you mus’ not know ’bout a-me….

Tuesday, October 24th, 2006 // General

So, the third (and final?) X-Men movie sees Jean Grey return to the world, but…oops…Charles Xavier forgot to mention that Grey has a split personality and a powerful psychotic alter-ego exists inside her head! Thankfully, when Jean resurfaces she takes a moment to kill her former boyfriend, the utterly pointless Scott Summers (Cyclops).

All this takes place amid the discovery of a cure for the Mutant X gene which promises a normal life for mutants. It’s met with a mixed reaction - some mutants are glad of the prospect of a cure while others (Magneto’s crowd) see the potential ‘extermination’ of the mutant race and choose to fight against it.

The movie remains fast-paced throughout, and it’s abundant in shocks and comic moments throughout: Mystique getting shot with the Mutant cure and losing her abilities, Phoenix (Jean Grey’s alter-ego) disintegrating one of the X-Men in a tense battle, and getting frisky with Wolverine (the bit where she whips his belt off using her psychic powers was a hoot).

One of the set-pieces was completely over the top though: the bit where Magneto raises the Golden Gate bridge and floats it across to Alcatraz Island. In the name of God, why? In X-Men II, Magneto conjures floating discs from atoms of liquid metal! Plus, he has Phoenix in tow with her devastating psychic powers. Surely between them they could have thought up better transportation?

The Acting

As usual, Wolverine and Magneto get their share of the best lines. Ian McKellen is at his wicked best as Magneto, especially turning his back on a newly human Mystique (who’d sacrificed herself to protect him moments earlier) and cunningly convincing Jean Grey to join his rebellion. Hugh Jackman makes the transformation from mild-mannered Aussie to the gruff, blade-fisted Wolverine with ease, and just about steals the show. Wolverine is always the best thing about an X-Men movie.

Kudos should also go to newcomers Vinnie Jones (as rock-headed Juggernaut) and Kelsey Grammer (as Dr. Hugh McCoy). Who would have pictured Frasier as the ol’ blue furball?

On the down side, Halle Berry as Storm is a waste of space. It’s hard to tell if Storm’s character is at fault, or if the the finger should be pointed at Halle Berry’s acting, but three movies down and Storm has yet to play a central role. She’s almost as expendable as Cyclops was. A new hairdo does not the superhero make!

(Oh, why exactly do all the ‘bad’ mutants dress like junkies? Talk about stereotyping…)

X-Men: The Verdict

It’s hard to put your finger on it, but X-Men: The Last Stand is slightly different to its predecessors. Perhaps it’s the departure of director Bryan Singer, perhaps the storyline is too busy, not enough effort on character development.

Whatever your opinion, this is still a comic book translation, so suspend your disbelief for a couple of hours and enjoy the ride. As one reviewer on Rotten Tomatoes said: The Last Stand is as good if not better than X2.

If there’s a morality message, it’s lost in the dizzying special effects and fast pace of the movie. It’s definitely worth a visit to the cinema, so don’t believe the nay-sayers!

Tuesday, July 11th, 2006 // Movie Reviews