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Warcraft: The Beginning (Blu-ray Review)

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warcraft-slideStarring: Travis Fimmel, Paul Patton, Toby Kebbell, Ben Schnetzer, Ben Foster
Directed By: Duncan Jones
Running Time: 122 mins
BBFC Certificate: 12
UK Release Date: October 10th 2016 (UK)

Our Score

In the last few years, Hollywood has become increasingly obsessed with the fast-growing Chinese market. Warcraft: The Beginning is ample evidence as to why that is. The movie was a massive flop in the US, grossing less than $50 million there on a $160 million budget. However, it made over $220 million in China, meaning that instead of being one of the biggest box office disasters ever, they’re now thinking of making a sequel.

The disparity between the US and China reception of this movie is a bit difficult to explain. While American audiences certainly had a lot of choice this summer, it’s a surprise a few more didn’t choose this film, as it’s quite fun. [Read more…]

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Hell Or High Water (Cinema Review)

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hell-or-high-water-slideStarring: Ben Foster, Chris Pine, Jeff Bridges
Directed By: David Mackenzie
Running Time: 102 Minutes
UK Release Date: 9th September 2016
Certificate: 15

Our Score

Quite often I like to watch and review films that I know nothing about and am always enthusiastic going into a film tabula rasa, without any hype or influence and unhindered by trailers. Most of the time the films I see are average but every now and then I see one which is utterly engrossing, thoroughly entertaining and worth shouting about.

Hell or High Water tells the story of divorced father Toby Howard (Chris Pine) and his ex-con brother Tanner (Ben Foster) who rob a series of banks in Texas in order to raise the funds needed to pay off their mother’s mortgage before the bank foreclose, and ultimately save the family farm. They are pursued by Ranger Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) and his partner Alberto Parker (Gil Birmingham), with Hamilton in particular wanting to solve this case as he is days away from retirement. [Read more…]

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Hell or High Water Trailer – Ben Foster & Chris Pine go bank robbing

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hell-or-high-water-trailer-slideDue to premiere soon at Cannes, the first trailer for Hell or High Water has now arrived, which you can take a look at below. The movie stars Chris Pine and Ben Foster, but they’re certainly not in pretty-boy mode.

The film, based on Taylor Sheridan’s black-listed script, follows a divorced dad and his ex-con brother resort to a desperate scheme in order to save their family’s farm in West Texas. As the trailer shows, that involves a lot of crime and bank robbing, but also plenty of bonding between the brother – plus Jeff Bridges in sheriff mode, which is never a bad thing.

Following its Un Certain Regard Canned debut, it’s heading for release in the US in August. Watch the trailer below. [Read more…]

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New Warcraft: The Beginning Trailer – Travis Fimmel & Ben Foster take us into a fantasy world

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warcraft the beginning slide2They’ve sure taken a long time to bring us Warcraft: The Beginning. The film shot almost two years ago, but as this trailer shows, the reason for that is that it needed an awful lot of post-production and special effects work to create a convincing fantasy world, which wouldn’t seeming lacking in comparison the Peter Jackson’s take on Middle Earth.

Here’s the snyopsis: ‘The peaceful realm of Azeroth stands on the brink of war as its civilization faces a fearsome race of invaders: Orc warriors fleeing their dying home to colonize another.  As a portal opens to connect the two worlds, one army faces destruction and the other faces extinction.  From opposing sides, two heroes are set on a collision course that will decide the fate of their family, their people and their home.

‘So begins a spectacular saga of power and sacrifice in which war has many faces, and everyone fights for something.

‘Directed by Duncan Jones (Moon, Source Code) and written by Charles Leavitt and Jones, the film starring Travis Fimmel, Paula Patton, Ben Foster, Dominic Cooper, Toby Kebbell, Ben Schnetzer, Rob Kazinsky and Daniel Wu is a Legendary Pictures, Blizzard Entertainment and Atlas Entertainment production.’

The movie will be in cinemas on May 30th. Take a look at the new trailer below. [Read more…]

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The Finest Hours (Cinema Review)

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finest-hours-slideStarring: Chris Pine, Casey Affleck, Ben Foster, Eric Bana
Directed By: Craig Gillespie
Running Time: 117 Minutes
UK Release Date: 19th February 2016
BBFC Certificate: 12A

Our Score

Disney presents ‘The Finest Hours’, which based on the true…. Hang on, Disney presents? Disney didn’t present the new Star Wars movie or any of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films. I guess it wants to maintain its family friendly image when dealing with films that don’t focus on action or violence. Although in the above films they do mostly paint a binary picture of good vs evil, where good will always win with a fist, a blaster or a lightsabre.

Back on track, The Finest Hours is based on the remarkable true story of an oil tanker that is ripped in two by a massive storm off the coast of Chatham Massachusetts in February 1952.  30 sailors were trapped in the slowly sinking stern of the ship, and 4 brave coastguards in a small boat are sent on a mission to rescue them against all odds. [Read more…]

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The Program (Blu-ray Review)

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the-program-review-slideStarring: Ben Foster, Chris O’Dowd, Jesse Plemons, Lee Pace, Guillaume Canet
Directed By: Stephen Frears
Running Time: 103 mins
BBFC Certificate: 15
UK Release Date: February 15th 2016

Our Score

Over the years, numerous movies about Lance Armstrong have been in the works but never got made. Indeed, one was about to move forward just as he admitted he had doped for his entire career. It’s almost a shame we don’t have a movie from when he was almost universally admired as a hero, so we could compare it to the darker world of The Program.

At the start of the movie Lance (Ben Foster) is an okay but unexceptional cyclist, who few think will ever do anything special. After overcoming testicular cancer, he returns with a passion to win, and knowing the world of cycling is riddled with cheats taking performance-enhancing drugs, he decides he will do the same, enlisting the help of Michele Ferrari (Guillaume Canet) to allow him to set up a ‘Program’ that will help him win, as well as arranging to have a team built around him that will ensure a Tour de France victory. [Read more…]

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