Following too soon after Sam Raimi’s 2002 Spider-Man origin tale and sticking too closely to its narrative beat, The Amazing Spider-Man has no real reason to exist. Though the film is often enjoyable, it’s hard to shake the feeling you have seen it all before in Raimi’s film and countless other superhero origin
Browsing: Lance Harris
Willed into existence in one of the world’s most barren places, the gleaming towers of Dubai are a monument to the triumphs of the age and perhaps to its hubris. Fast-forwarded from the “18th century to the 21st in a single generation”, it is a city that stands defiant against the arid wasteland that surrounds it
The Woman in Black, an Edwardian period horror film starring Daniel Radcliffe, is so thick with foggy atmosphere that you almost miss the faint whiff of the ridiculous in the air. This is a film that considers no haunted house cliché too threadbare to use, but that manages to be chilling despite the familiarity of
Indie Game: the Movie, one of the most talked-about films at the Sundance Festival earlier this year, is a rabidly partisan look at the tribulations and triumphs of indie games developers. Romanticising its subjects as the 21st century’s struggling artists, it
Few films arrive as burdened by expectation as Prometheus, Ridley Scott’s eagerly awaited prequel to his 1979 space horror flick Alien. Though it can’t live up to the years of hype, Prometheus is the most interesting sort of failure and the most glorious sort of mess because it sets its sights high. Prometheus is
Perhaps it’s wrong to hate Call of Duty for being the world’s biggest first-person shooter (FPS), but sometimes it’s hard not to. Activision’s multibillion-dollar juggernaut has turned into a homogenising force in the military shooter market as other publishers try to emulate its success. Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon
Max Payne, first released in 2001, pointed the way to the future of the third-person shooter more than any other game released 10 years ago. Drawing on Hollywood realism as much as videogame convention and propelled as much by narrative as gameplay, it was the granddaddy of Uncharted, Gears of War
Diablo 3, just like 2010’s StarCraft 2, is the product of a studio that has settled into a conservative middle-age, one that has perhaps become hostage to a fan base that is suspicious of innovation. One might wonder what Blizzard Entertainment might achieve with more
Marvel’s master plan for an all-star superhero film with some of its most popular characters has finally come together in The Avengers, a rousing special FX blockbuster that delivers exactly what most comic-book fans will be looking for. It’s an enjoyable
Boyish rom-com lead Hugh Grant is about as far from a 19th century pirate as you could imagine, but then The Pirate Captain he voices in Aardman’s Pirates! Band of Misfits is not your average scorbutic seadog. Preening, caddish and exceedingly proud of his “luxuriant” beard, The Pirate Captain is every bit the roguish man-child that