AshCaton

What's bad about this film: there's a fair bit of crazy camera work - OK, a little madness is fun, but too much and we haven't a cat in hell's chance of knowing what's going on. More product placement. Gemma Alderton. And Bond is in a mood. What's good about this film: everything else. I mean that. Some of the best action sequences you'll ever see in Bond; the post-credits chase, the boat chase, the opera house. It's clever, sophisticated, without getting too much bogged down in technical details. Craig is a relentless force, intense. He can switch from quietly charming to bulldog fury in the blink of an eye and doesn't pull any punches. Matthieu Amalric is wonderfully slimy as Dominic Greene, and his end is understated but ultimately very satisfying. This is certainly as stylish as Bond has ever looked, from the slick editing to opening credits. (OK, not the best song, but the animation is fantastic.) My only other jibe at this movie is that when the opening credits to appear, they have a faltering, unsure and delayed start, prompted by an inconsequential line. When there is such a defining gunshot only five minutes after the credits, it makes you wonder why they didn't just do it then. Anyway. All in all, a cracking addition to the franchise, Bond is definitely here again. Hopefully he will have a little more fun next time.

This is not a groundbreaking film. This is not even an informative film. Instead it is an ordinary, clichéd, love story set on a boat. It looks gorgeous, it's very well acted, it's only failing is in it's false premise. This is not a film about the Titanic. This I found incredibly irritating as I was desperate for more focus on what was going on anywhere else but with Jack and Rose. What is most ridiculous is that the film even makes point of introducing the Captain and other historically accurate characters, only to ignore them until the climax. Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio are both very capable actors and I think they tackle Rose and Jack admirably, in other hands they could have been very cringe-worthy indeed. For me, the most interesting part of this film is Bill Paxton and his mates going to examine the ship in present day. The rest of the story descends into a bloated, overly sentimental blur of over dramatic emotions as Billy Zane suddenly goes loony and Celine Dion's heart goes on and on and on... Literary critics said in 1912 that it took a vast amount of human vanity to create the Titanic, and now it took another huge dollop to make this movie. I didn't cry. Neither will you.

X-Men as a whole has to be one of the best things Marvel have trundled out so far. Each of the Marvel films shares a similar look, which helps to realise each of these characters are in the same universe. The first X-Men works well, largely because it abandons any attempt to fill in a long, overwrought origins story (see Spider-Man, Iron Man etc.) and just jumps right in there. Particular highlights of the cast include a hardened Hugh Jackman on growling form as Wolverine, Ian McKellen as Magento and Patrick Stewart who holds it all together as Professor X. What's great about this film is that it focuses on the team dynamic, something director Bryan Singer made his name for in The Usual Suspects. We have a good even spread of all the X-Men instead of being bogged down dealing with just one. It's also rather satisfying to see the baddie mutants (Magneto et all) making life difficult, especially for the slimy Senator Kelly. As you would expect, the graphics are spot on and there are some very memorable fight scenes. A worthy superhero movie.