Archive for the 'Movies' Category

Iron Man - A Review

ironman_teaser.jpgWell, by some kind of fluke chance the local Vue Cinema was running preview showings of this long anticipated film today, the day before it official release date, so I collared a mate and headed off !

I have to admit, I have no idea what-so-ever what the Iron Man comics are like, which will probably make a few fans spit at their monitors if they somehow stumble across this site, but ill go on record straight away in saying that I think the film was awesome !

Robert Downey Jr (kinda typecast as the witty sarcastic loner) played the role perfectly, everything about it actually fit into place, for once I actually found myself watching a film and not screaming at the screen about how in real life, given the circumstances, no person would ever do that.

Overall the story-line consists of Tony Stark (RDJ), the CEO of stark industries, one of Americas top weapons manufacturers going on a demonstration trip to Afghanistan (yea, PC go nuts with that one lol) and showing off a new weapons system which pretty much blows the crap out of everything in sight. Alas, he is captured by some local ‘freedom fighters’ who set him on as their personal weapons expert and decide to give him access to pretty much anything he asks for (mistake). Well, suffice to say he kinda refuses to build them the weapons of mass destruction they were after, and instead builds a prototype personal Armour suit to escape !

Well after his absolutely cool escape scene, where about half of the Afghanistan rebels are thrown through walls, he’s rescued by the US military and returned home, where his incarceration has embedded him with a deeper understanding of the pain and suffering his weapons developments have been causing, and decides to right this wrong by perfecting his suit into a perfect hybrid of man and machine ! Hence Iron Man is born… Well, given all that, you can pretty much understand why a mass of visual effects are involved in this film, as well as some seriously pleasing explosions. Gwyneth Paltrow even manages to come over quite well as the poor defenseless Pepper Potts, Tony’s executive assistant, but some scenes do scream out ‘Sky Captain and the world of tomorrow’ not sure if this was the persona they were aiming for, but it was defiantly there !

All things being said;

Story line : 7/10

Visual Effects 8/10

Characters : 8/10

Explosions : 9/10

Acting : 6.5/10

Bad Guy : 6/10

Overall Score : 7/10

Final opinion - Defiantly a film ill be getting on Blu-ray as soon as its released, for no other reason that the jet fighter chase scene

SlySoft cracks BD+ and places another nail in HD-DVD coffin !

Whoo, the last nail in the lid of HD-DVD.. as news of the recent update to Slysoft’s AnyDVD software runs throughout the community. Last week a company spokesperson stated that a crack was imminent, hinting at something coming quite soon.

Forums on SlySoft’s forums the AnyDVD 6.1.9.6 beta has full support for playback of Blu-ray discs with BD+. “All available BD+ titles can be copied with AnyDVD ripper, or can be watched on HTPC without HDCP using PowerDVD 3104 and AnyDVD,”.

BD+ which was launched in June of 2007 utilises a small virtual machine that runs in the background while any Blu-Ray disk is being played, providing a brilliant middle-wear solution to keep the disks content encrypted.

Previous mechanisms such as the AACS protection were cracked back in April on both of the formats, HD-DVD and Blue-Ray, forcing the bodies behind these media formats to go back to the drawing board. BD+ was invented and launched out of this endeavour, with a representative quoted as saying that it would take 10 years to crack this method.

SlySoft plans to keep the crack they have developed under wraps (not sure how long thats going to last, but we’ll soon see). As yet no comment has been made from the Blu-Ray disk association, though its unlikely that they have anything really to worry about at the moment, especially since their too busy dancing on the grave of HD-DVD and smiling greedily at Toshiba’s stock price lol…

In closing.. watch this space, its inevitable that the Blu-Ray corp will find a way to re-touch this technology to render SlySoft’s sly new software useless, but for the time being… enjoy !

Resident Evil: Extinction !

Okay… Iv been a fan of resident evil ever since my mate let me play the original version on his Playstation, all the games have had the great effect of permanantly perching me on the edge of my seat (mainly through the shady music lol) and the movies were the icing on the cake, every one has been fantastic !

Now iv just come across the latest Resident Evil: Extinction trailer on the sony website and ‘oh shit’ i wanna see it right now, its got all the coolest stuff from the last films, underground umbrella labs, creepy little girl AI computers, laser corridor of death (Frickin Lasers man), and best of all Milla Jovovich kickin Livin Dead ass !

People, this is the one we’ve been waiting for, the final showdown between the Magnum .44 and a rotting zombie head ! official release date is the 23rd November for the UK, so ill be prebooking my tickets soon, nothing like a little undead carnage to get ya in the mood for a Friday night out ;-)

Check out Resident Evil: Extinction now !