Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

All pretty good stuff. I did feel some bits were glossed over - there's a lot more fun dialogue at Edoras, for instance, that was taken out for no good reason that I could see. Beyond making room for more punching and shouting.

There were a lot of Obviously-Not-Written-By-Tolkien speeches, mostly by Sam that I found jarring, and Elrond, AKA Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Novel was in possession of some highly suspect dialogue.

Mostly very nice though. Good ents, good siege, good trudging towards Mordor, lovely Gollum.

Have heard some complaints about Faramir and the NinjasRangers of Ithilien, but I thought it was mostly OK. That bit would have been quite dull on film without a bit of combat and gratuitious Ring Lust. Waving the Ring in front of a Ringwraith's face was silly though. Very silly.

Also - a bunch of elves turn up to defend Helm's Deep, which is more than they managed to do in the book. I suppose that Peter Jackson thought that the elves looked like Gutless Cowards by hiding in their havens and letting everyone else do the dirty work.

8/10 Not as polished or lovely as the first film, but then the same can be said of the novels.

Harry Potter, Chamber of Secrets

So, we all saw the first one, right? OK. So I don't need to bring you up to speed on the whole Hogwarts thing. Fortunately, this also seems to be Chris Columbus's opinion, so there's no scene setting guff, and the movie gets right down to business.

As a result, this is a tighter, more actiony, somewhat darker movie than the first. The first movie kept showing you whimsical uses of magic every five minutes, like The Flintstones kept showing you comedic prehistoric inventions. This one takes it as read that you know what's going on, what Quidditch is, and generally goes about the business of telling the story.

And good it is too. Much more fast paced than the book, and with good reason. The book subtly scatters clues here and there throughout, and it's a sharp reader that picks them up. In a film that's only 2 1/2 hours long, only a cabbage could miss them, so the mystery angle is played down.

All in all, if you liked the first one, you'll probably like this one more.

Couple of mentions: Richard Harris is less irrelevant in this one than the first, and is jolly good. Nice that his last performance is a warm, and charming one which reminds you why you always liked him. Kenneth Branagh sends himself up admirably. I've always though Dear, Dear Kenny to be a man who wallows in self love, and he milks it for all it's worth here.

Solid 8/10. 8.5 even.

Go see it. It's the only decent movie around at the moment that's not trying to mess with your head.

(NB: Do not see this movie at all if you are arachnophobia. *Lots* of spiders. *Big* Spiders. *Really* big spiders. Worth pointing out that in a 10 minute sequence they managed to get in the entire content of Eight Legged Freaks.)

Oh, and something else I should mention. The rampant Stage Schoolism of the first one is greatly toned down. Draco Malfoy, though, is still a kid who would have had a beating every day of his life in every school I ever went to. A smaller than average kid who goes around telling people he's better than them? He'd never have lasted the week at Birkenhead Institute.

xXx

First up. This film could not have more been a vehicle for Vin Diesel if it had four wheels and a number plate reading D13SEL.

Having said that, it was hugely enjoyable. Basically, the NSA* have sent three agents to infiltrate this gang of anarchist criminal types, and have got nowhere, because all their agents seem to think that being a spy means wearing tux, and this makes them stand out, since the bad guys have their secret hideout at a Rammstein concert. (Really).

So, after three good men have died in the pursuit of this, they realise that you'd have to be very stupid to take this job on. They then have a think, and realise that Xander Cage (Vin Diesel) is quite the stupidest man in America, and so is ideal for the job.

So, Cage, now codenamed xXx goes undercover, which works surprisingly well, since he's a very well known extreme sports dude with a bad rep, and one of the bad guys is a big fan of his.

Cue much action, infiltration, insanely bad Bond plots, and more action. Basically, loads of set-piece action which is borderline plot relevant. Most favourite of mine is the whole snowboarding bit, where xXx outruns an avalanche. In a Bond film, this avalanche would have been accidental and something Bond seriously could do without. In this film, xXx sets off the avalanche himself, because he thinks that the best way of dealing with a particular problem is to drop a mountain on it.

And it is this sort of thing that makes the movie. Bond is cool, suave and courageous. xXx is a grinning idiot with a casual contempt for his own life and safety. And that's quite engaging. He's definitely America's answer to Bond, rather than an attempt to make a pale copy of him.

I'd give this 8/10. It'd be 9 if the dialogue was better - it's ok, but nothing really quotable. I'd also like to have seen a new breed of Bad Guy to go up against him, but our villain still feels the need to laboriously explain the plan to xXx, rather than just killing him. If I were the bad guy, I'd never have bothered explaining my plan to xXx, on the not unreasonable grounds that I don't think he'd understand it.

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*NSA - National Security Agency, the agency responsible for threats to security on American Soil. And who have no mandate at all for sending agents abroad. Maybe this is why their agents all suck.