Fifteen Minutes

	Robert De Niro Edward Burns Kelsey Krammer

Now I'm sorry to say but I have no real big love nor hate for De Niro, or his films, I take them as they come, good bad or just completely silly.
'Fifteen minutes' is based around a media star Cop in a major US city and young Arson investigator who meet at a seemingly accident fire in an apartment block. Linked to the fire are two Eastern European criminals looking for their share of money from a previous job who suddenly find themselves looking for more American ways to make their money.

I'm sure there's some sort of message to the film but why look for it, just sit back and enjoy the film.

Avery Brooks plays a very short lived appearance as De Niro's partner Leon Jackson it probably wouldn't do his career any harm but the lack of acting and the lack of style people fell in love with in DS9.

It's actually a very good film all round, with rather strange sequences where the film is shot from the perspective of a hand held camera using night sight and other neat features. Worth a look at, no real big special effects so if watch films at the cinema for special effects just rent it but if you like to watch films at the cinema for a god film then get there before it's no longer showing.

Pitch Black

	Vin Diesel Radha Mitchell Cole Hauser

A fairly low budget Sci-Fi flick that in all honesty I wanted to watch on the big screen but completely missed. This Australian Action - Horror - Sci-Fi - Thriller, call it what you will, it works well. Not as low budget as Cube but then again it was rather disturbing (Still a good film), anyway, I'm letting myself go walk about here. Pitch Black has a very simple story line but the fast moving nature of the show hides it a little and you keep hoping for a better view of the baddies. As it usually is with these type of films (Alien) you get a better effect from only catching small glimpses of the creatures, until the main characters brush with death. Okay so it doesn't really work like that in Pitch Black but close.

The actors brought the characters across reasonably well, some better than others but then there was the young actor, should really quit while they're ahead. The plot is as follows.

A group of space travellers are marooned on a strange planet while on what should be a normal transport to a distant inhabited planet, they find themselves struggling to survive on a seemingly lifeless sun-scorched world with three Sun's. Not what I was expecting but it was still a good film, which I enjoyed from start to finish. Visually it is a very dark film but doesn't convey the same atmosphere as "The Crow" or the film "Cube", the special effects are a little different but resemble the effects in The Predator, the view from the films name sakes eyes.

To watch for

Evolution

	David Duchovny Julianne Moore Orlando Jones

Tagline: Have A Nice End Of The World

Plot Outline: Earth's five billion-year evolutionary process takes place in a month.

Okay now who thought Ghostbusters was fun, come on, hands up. Ya just about anyone with a sense of humour, well Evolution is the updated version, funny how the same people created it. Now again I've seen some of the reports and most people find it very funny, Duchovny in particular as he basically makes fun of his own stereotyped character from the X-Files. Duchovny has done a number of films before but they have all been away from the X-Files theme, which was a good idea, but it didn't work. This was the case more often than not in the publics eye as they know him as Mulder, this is the film that's going to break that spell. If this film fails to break the Duchovny/Mulder connection wherever he goes then what the hell will.

Duchovny and Jones are the two unfortunate scientists that find the meteor which kick starts the Evolution on Earth. In comes the government, the lovely Julianne Moore plays the less than delicate government scientist that has been sent to help with the problem. The trailers that I have seen show the film to be worth watching so that's what I intend to do tonight at the advanced preview in the local Cinema.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Shrek

	Mike Myers Eddie Murphy Cameron Diaz John Lithgow

Animation / Fantasy / Family / Comedy

Tagline: The greatest fairy tale never told.

Plot Outline: A reclusive ogre and a chatterbox donkey go on a quest to rescue a princess for a tyrannical midget lord.

What can I say, Mike Myers trying to be Scottish again, he does it so well though. This looks like fun, I'm not a real big fan of animated films unless the animation is of a high quality and does not look like it's been done on a computer, "Titan AE" was one such film. From the trailers it looks like it has a pot shot at every fairy tail and a few blockbuster films along the way. Murphy, Murphy, Murphy, playing an ass, ironic, no you got to love it he's gone from abrasive axl Foyle to a talking ass. Murphy plays his part brilliantly, yet again his character was more the basis for the animation than it usually would be. The team got the actors to do the voices first and then animated the reactions of the actors as they went through the script, making the voices and the animation reactions more synchronised and realistic.

The humour is based on the same used in a lot of the so-called children's cartoons of today, it's for the "knowing" adults, I can't wait for it to be released over here, should be a good film.

Swordfish

	John Travolta Hugh Jackman Halle Berry Don Cheadle

Directed by Dominic Sena

Tagline: Log on. Hack in. Go anywhere. Steal everything.

Plot Outline: The world's most dangerous spy is hired by the CIA to coerce a computer hacker recently released from prison to help steal $6 billion in unused government funds.

This film as far I have heard from numerous sources has returned to the old 80's style of action which pulled in the public to see the Lethal Weapon series and the Beverly Hills Cop series. As one American Joe Bloggs put it "Like a good old-fashioned action movie, but with a good plot." The film is based on a very computer orientated subject but still falls back to the old money heist plot. Don't get me wrong it sounds like it's pulled it off and if the web site for the film is anything to go by it should be good. The site invites you to break into it and find secret codes, which in turn allow you to see more documents relating to the film, it all looks well and is presented in Macromedia Flash.

More and more production companies are starting to see the potential behind the Internet media. The late Stanley Kubrick's incomplete film A.I, which was taken over by Steven Spielberg, has a on-line murder mystery which has you jumping from one site to another, all based in the future and around the subject mater, Artificial Intelligence.

Sure to be one of the summers big hits, more so than Pearl Harbour.

Tomb Raider

	Angelina Jolie Daniel Craig Leslie Phillips

Directed by Simon West (I)

Tagline: Who Is Lara Croft?

Okay I think there's no real need to tell people about this, it has been talked about for the last 6 months from the start of the adverts in local cinemas. This film has been a long time coming, with a new producer or someone brought in to do the job again the film has been pushed back constantly. This however doesn't look to be stopping every red-blooded male in America, with £48 Million taken in the US over the first weekend I think the film will do well. It's got lots of action; music and Angelina Jolie, what more could you want in a summer movie. Kids have been raised on this young women (Lara Croft, not Angelina Jolie) with the Tomb Raider games on the play station and PC, Tomb Raider is like a more up-to-date and girl power version of Indiana Jones. I hate using the term Girl Power.

Looks like it's going to do well and has been getting good reports from most news outlets in the US, worth a watch.

A.I. Artificial Intelligence

	Haley Joel Osment Jude Law Frances O'Connor

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Tagline: David is 11 years old. He weighs 60 pounds. He is 4 feet, 6 inches tall. He has brown hair. His love is real. But he is not.

Plot Summary: It's the mid-21st century and man has developed a new type of computer that ...
Summary:Good, heartfelt,ambitious film.

The question of humanity, the meaning of life, a thought provoking film made with a lot of care. I haven't had the pleasure of watching the film yet but I'm worried that it has the potential to fall pray to action scenes and completely lose the plot. As far as I can make out from reports it's works well and doesn't degenerate into the scenario of which I just mentioned. It is one of those films that the more discerning film watcher has been waiting for.

As soon as I hear anything more on the film I will let you know.