The Movie Goblin

Oh dear. Britain's main commercial channel, ITV, have yet again thrown a load of money at another star vehicle that has gone down in hilarious flames. Ex-Eastender Nigel Harman (good look, shame about the voice) stars as an ex-spy now running a lobster restaurant who is re-recruited by his shadowy former employers to steal a painting that's got some kind of formula on it (the usual kind you can only see under ultraviolet light). Brian Cox texts in his performance as the head of the agency - clearly all his scenes were shot in one day as he probably needed a new kitchen or something.

What else is there to say? It's badly made, clumsily written, flatly directed trash. ITV are clearly testing this out to see if they can get a series which, trust me, they shouldn't. ITV need to take a page out of the Beeb's books and stop making crap star vehicles and develop ideas into decent scripts and THEN hire the actors.

JP3 seemed to appear in the Summer 2001 movie schedule with a lot less hype than its competitors, so I didn't know what to expect... but that's good, isn't it? I'd enjoyed the first Jurassic Park movie but, like a lot of people, thought the sequel was a bit poor (to say the least). Thankfully Part III is much, much better. It won't linger too long in the memory but as far as Summer Popcorn Movies go, this is great stuff.

The story is slight but it's enough. Kid gets stranded on Dino Island. Parents journey to island, with Sam Neill in tow, to rescue kid. And basically that's it. But hey, who wants convoluted character arcs and labyrinthine subplots in a movie with dinosaurs in it? You want running and screaming and velociraptors running amok, right?

Jurassic Park 3 delivers.

The cast, led by the ever dependable Sam Neill, spend most of their time running and jumping and looking pensive -- their acting muscles aren't exactly taxed -- but it's fun to watch these great actors (especially William H. Macy) on a big rollercoaster ride, getting the hell knocked out of them.

Joe Johnston takes over the megaphone duties for this sequel and he does a damn fine job. The action sequences are thrilling and a nice line of tongue-in-cheek humour is woven throughout. And the visual FX are so well integrated in this movie that you really do forget you're watching something that isn't real. Hats off to ILM!

My only complaint is the running time. As the end titles rolled I looked at my watch and saw that it hadn't even been on for 90 minutes! Too short! I wanted more! I suppose it makes the film more of a sharp adrenalin boost. There's no time to get bored. Top stuff.

LUCKY BREAK is Peter Cattaneo's follow-up to his hugely successful 1997 comedy THE FULL MONTY, which I thought was great. Unfortunately his second stint behind the camera isn't half as successful. The main problem with this comedy is simple: it's not funny enough. Yes, there's a few chuckles but my sides definitely weren't split... they weren't even creased.

James Nesbitt, from TV's Cold Feet (in the UK), is full of cheeky Irish charm but I didn't think he cut it as a leading man. He's great on TV, but he lacked something on the big screen. The love interest is provided by the lovely Olivia Williams, who plays the same same sort of role she's done before, and is fine again here. Christopher Plummer plays the Prison's Governor and it's always good to see him even if the film's not that great. The rest of the inmates were pretty good, with Bill Nighy's scene-stealing poncey Roger as the standout.

Storywise it hit all the right notes but, as I'd said, wasn't nearly funny enough. There are echoes of MONTY throughout but the production put on by the inmates at the end of the film didn't work nearly as well as the MONTY finale. So, overall I'd say it was a bit of a disappointment, which is a bit of a shame.