Chimpomatic

Jumani

The Next Level

Marginally less fun sequel, but still plenty of laughs.

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16th Aug 2020

Frozen 2

Surprisingly strong sequel that gets going after a convoluted start.

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24th Nov 2019

Mary Poppins Returns

Stylish sequel, hampered in places by some authentic 1960s pacing.

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30th Jun 2019

Sicario 2

Soldaro

Surprisingly stylish sequel that drops the ball in classic straight-to-VHS style halfway through.

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6th Apr 2019

Paddington 2

Well written, well paced sequel. Surprisingly competent and heartwarming.

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4th Aug 2018

Last Flag Flying

Unofficial sequel to The Last Detail. Surprisingly slight effort from Linklater.

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29th Apr 2018

Star Wars

The Last Jedi

Shambolic sequel that squanders the promising set up from JJ, plus 40 years of anticipation.

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21st Dec 2017

T2 Trainspotting

Belated sequel that remixes the original with some success, but the nostalgia runs a little thin.

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15th Oct 2017

Bladerunner 2049

Good visuals, nice music, flabby storytelling and a confusing plot. A worthy sequel.

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6th Oct 2017

Finding Dory

Convoluted, charmless sequel. A rare misfire from Pixar.

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17th Sep 2017

Jack Reacher

Never Go Back

Serviceable action sequel that ticks a lot of boxes without thinking outside of any.

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27th Jun 2017

Another 48 Hours

Chaotic, bloated sequel. Low on humour and mostly involving bad guys flying through plate glass.

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17th May 2017

Samsara

It's familiar ground , but this Baraka sequel hypnotises with embarrassing images of poverty and consumerism.

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26th Jun 2016

Monsters Dark Continent

Money grabbing sequel that ups production value and bypasses the charm of the original.

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9th Jun 2016

Revenge of the Sith

Utterly bloated sequel, clumsily squandering the most anticipated lightsaber duel of all time.

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6th Sep 2015

Attack of the Clones

Brutally incompetent, all-Easter-egg sequel that only makes the @StarWars universe smaller.

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29th Aug 2015

The Phantom Menace

The most disappointing sequel of all time has only got worse with age. Only Darth Maul redeems.

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15th Aug 2015

The Empire Strikes Back

Classy, emotional, unpredictable sequel. Head and shoulders above the other 5 at every turn.

Halliwell says: More exhilarating interplanetary adventures, as mindless as Star Wars but just as enjoyable for aficionados.**

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10th Aug 2015

Captain America

The Winter Soldier

Solid sequel that manages to stay away from too much CGI hokum for a 70s vibe.

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2nd Aug 2014

Sherlock Holmes, A Game of Shadows

Noisy, shapeless sequel, sacrificing pace and clarity for style and set pieces.

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30th Dec 2012

Predators

Inventive, but hokey, shallow sequel ...bringing Robert Rodriguez's A-Game.

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11th Jun 2011

Iron Man 2

Stupid, lazy, rushed, shapeless, underdeveloped sequel - sacrificing style for pure volume.

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26th May 2011

Lethal Weapon 2

Effective, old school, big-budget action sequel marking the beginning of the slide to action/comedy.

Halliwell says: Extremely violent policier which caters to the Rambo crowd but has enough pizazz to recommend it to most classes.

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6th Mar 2011

Repo Men

Empty, derivative sci-fi nonsense with Jude Law. Not a sequel to Repo Man.

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4th Mar 2011

Twilight: New Moon

Emo-teenage-vampire-by-numbers sequel.

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4th Dec 2010

Terminator Salvation

Badly thought out, derivative sequel that ultimately entertains at the expense of the franchise.

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4th Sep 2010

Inception

(dir. Christopher Nolan)

What a relief it is to see something new. After all the endless sequels, franchise-extensions, remakes and reboots we've been lumbered with in recent years, you start to feel like no-one is going to bother coming up with anything new, which presents an odd problem: what are people going to remake in 20 years time?!

Anyhow, Inception delivers on its promise of mind-bending action. It's smart, coherent, tense, exciting, unpredictable and rich with emotional depth. Once the rules of the game are established early on - ex-military tech is now being used by corporate spies to steal secrets from people in their dreams you say? Oh, OK, fine! - the movie takes hold, dropping you off in its dream logic, throwing you around the world, dizzying you with some excellent special effects and not letting up until the final credits. Think Eternal Sunshine of The Ocean's 11 Mind, with a bonus dash of Matrix flash (before it got shit). 

Leonardo DiCaprio steps up to the promise he's been showing since The Departed, with another beefy role as the experienced dream warrior who gets hired to plant an idea, rather than steal a secret. It's like he's getting wider rather than older. Ellen "Juno" Page is a great addition to Nolan's tricksy world, adding a grounded, sarky teen level to the blockbuster antics. Tom Hardy's role moves a touch too far towards Action Dude from the cerebral, shady forger who's brought on board the team to impersonate people in dreams, but he's still great - surely a big lead role in a Hollywood film can't be far off for him? Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays DiCaprio's right hand man, another thoroughly watchable performance from him. Cillian Murphy makes a decent mark for them to target. Ken Watanabe and Michael Caine - two more Nolan veterans - add yet more weight. Marion Cotillard perhaps hams it up a little as the mysterious French femme fatale, but that's a minor niggle - and there's an argument to be made that it's an intentional device. 

Going in cold to a film like this is highly recommended - so we'll stop here; it's easily the film of the summer - and a strong contender for the year's best.

Check out the comic book prequel here.

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14th Jul 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet

Angels & Demons

Surprisingly watchable science vs religion hokus pokus sequel/prequel from Tom Hanks and Ron Howard.

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19th Jun 2010

Terminator 2

Dated, but still bombastic sequel, with that awesome Arnie-isn't-the-bad guy twist to kick things off.

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28th Feb 2010

Harris Pilton's 2009 Gaming Round Up

Various

I can't claim to be any kind of authority on video games. My history of gaming is patchy to say the least, having been an early gamer back when we used "home computers" for such things, but then never owning a PS2. Also, I tend to stick to games which involve shooting at things - so if you're looking for a well-balanced, concise round-up of the gaming year, you might want to look elsewhere.

My gaming life is divided between the Xbox and the DS. The DS is still the best hand-held gaming device on the planet - with an almost resolutely lo-fi approach both sonically and graphically, it's success is down to gameplay and elegant programming. The PSP (with it's high-end graphics and sleek design) is not pulling in the kid-gamer dollars. In the world of so-called casual games (video-crack, more like), the monkey on my back was mostly Peggle and Scribblenauts. Oh, and re-playing the mind-numbingly addictive Cradle of Rome line-'em-up.  As for the Xbox, now I look at the amount of games I've been through this year, I can't believe I had much time for anything else.

The much hyped Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 has been ridiculously successful (sales-wise at least), but in my opinion they done jumped the shark. Brilliant, visceral and engaging for sure, but also short, non-sensical, and rather too easy. It certainly delivered plenty of "fuck me!" moments, with breathtaking use of lighting and sound, but they messed with the multi-player, which is clearly a case of fixing something that wasn't broken. Infinity Ward are edging dangerously close to believing their own myth rather like Bungie have with Halo - all self-aggrandising seriousness and stirring martial music that can't be optioned out of your gameplay experience.

Special mention for post-release support goes to two games in particular. Firstly, Burnout Paradise: here's a rare example of a games developer (Criterion) being willing and able to respond to feedback from gamers. On it's initial release, Burnout Paradise was laced with flaws (ie not being able to instantly re-start a race), but Criterion got on the case - addressing issues, improving gameplay, adding decent downloadable content, and then re-packaging the whole lot at a mid-range price. Excellent work those men in Guildford. The other impeccably supported game was Gears of War 2 - with regular DLC packs of high-quality maps, top-notch graphics and sound, and new gameplay features. Had a lot of good times with online friends fighting off the dirty horde.

We nearly saw the birth of something revolutionary this year, with the release of the most ambitious Xbox Arcade game yet - Battlefield 1943. This was only available as a download, and did not feature a solo campaign. Instead, 4 large maps of territorial contest, planes, boats, jeeps and bombing raids with 24 people fighting online. Sounds good, but bit off more than it could chew. To start with, this game didn't even work properly online for the first week due to "unexpected high demand" or something. Then, once it was working, it wasn't quite as smooth as it should have been. Call me old fashioned if you like, but when I point a machine gun at another player who is only 5 virtual meters away from me, I'd sort of expect him to fall down - all dead, like.

A couple of this year's releases didn't quite make the top-list but are worth a mention (a mention? Hey, thanks Pilton, they only took two years to develop). Wolfenstein (not Return to the Son of Castle Wolfenstein, or Wolfenstein 3 or...) is a game I was getting pretty juicy about. Loved the originals and raised my expectations. Turned out ok, but fell a bit flat for me when (after much enjoyable gameplay) my save file corrupted and I couldn't be arsed to go back through it. Batman Arkham Asylum looked great and played really smoothly - yet was the most on-rails game I played all year. Still good though. Also Flashpoint delivered some enjoyable play - the polar opposite of MW2 this is a game that strives for realism even if that meant spending a large percentage of your mission time walking or running over endless landscapes in order to avoid combat with enemy patrols. Realistic, yes, but essentially lots of dull moments punctuated by some very tough firefights. Halo:ODST was the game for which Blockbuster was invented. A week's hire, rinse it out and forget it ever existed. Nothing original about it, but nothing really wrong with it either. Halo is Halo is Halo - the game that thinks it can fart higher than it's own arse.

This year also finally saw the release of Resident Evil 5 - in which the musclebound Chris ventures into Africa for some wholesale zombie slaughter (sorry, 'infected'. They're not zombies anymore). Jill doesn't nearly become a Jill sandwich this time - and in fact those Japanese translation quirks are wholly missing from RE5 - it plays like a global release, looks like a global release and - my goodness - it was a global release. Once I got used to the lumpy control system, and acquired some decent weapons, I had a wail of a time wading through the increasingly ridiculous scenarios and quick-time fights right up until the bit where you get to fire two RPG's into Wesker's eyes (while he's in a volcano). Beat that.

So, you may ask, since you've wasted so much of your time playing video games this year, what turns out to be game of the year for Harris Pilton? The answer comes with the unexpected late arrival of a classic shooter - Borderlands. A first person shooter with a visual style somewhere between Tank Girl and Metal Hurlant. The joy of this sandbox shooter is that it never forgets it's a video game - never tries to be realistic, pitches it's dark humour just right, and constantly serves up new weapon variants and character abilities. It works well online as a co-op, and the game adjusts the enemy AI to match the skills of the human players - getting considerably tougher when gamers have more collective experience. Borderlands has already delivered an excellent download pack and has promised a sequel for release in 2010, and the completion of the trilogy a year later.

Sadly, there's only so much time a man can devote to the noble art of videogaming, and thus I can make no comment on a slew of other much touted releases including Assassins Creed 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Forza 3, and Sheffield Wednesday nil.

#HarrisPilton

15th Dec 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet