A fun enough little movie, feels like a missed opportunity though. I did watch it on the wrong side of some pints, that may have had an effect on my appreciation of it. Fun enough, but no Hangover.

He Is Legend. Don't worry - NO SPOILERS! Christopher Nolan is a blinkered man. This is not to say his artistic vision is narrowed or hampered, more that he is utterly focused on his work and completely unaffected by Hollywood trends and conventions. There are no forced romances (you know, because women aren’t only capable of enjoying mushy stuff), no trendy songs by of the moment bands in the soundtrack and at times he may ask you to get involved, crainially, rather than to spoon feed his audience and ask you to “open wide for the explanation aeroplane”. I believe he exists today along side a small group of directors, including; David Fincher, Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Michael Mann & Steven Soderberg, that continually seek to push themselves & cinema forward. None are content to simply “tell a story”, yet none are as wilfully obtuse as, say, Gus Van Sant or David’s Lynch & Cronenberg or as commercially minded as Cameron or Burton. Even when taking on a multi-million dollar studio franchise cash cow (even the really crap two took mega bank), Nolan managed to create one of the decades very best films whilst also shattering box office records. He did so by not only delivering huge cinematic spectacle, but also by never patronising his audience or pandering to convention. Much as his wonderful The Prestige was a swift counter balance to the, smaller in scale of the two, Batman Begins, Inception is a suitably scaled reaction to the colossal The Dark Knight. One for the studio, one for him. It only shows his class that his studio pictures are as good as his personal ones. Inception shares a lot with his previous three non-DC works. The tricksy, layered timelines of Memento, the debilitating dream-state mania of Insomnia (yes, I acknowledge this as a remake) and the playful slight of hand of The Prestige. All this combined with something not very far removed from some of the notions of The Matrix, and you have the cinematic equivalent of trying to solve a Rubix Cube who’s colours continually shift as you turn it. Much will be made of the films internal logic. People will question it, as well you should. Undoubtedly some will criticise it. But Nolan never panders to his audience. A lesser director would go to great lengths to make this an easy pill to swallow. Not so here. It makes sense, you just have to care enough to put some thought into it, do a little of the work yourself. And you will, because that’s part of the fun. Yet, Nolan never makes you feel stupid either. Many of his characters share our bewilderment, you are not alone. Visually, Nolan has continued and developed his Gotham via Mann aesthetic and incorporated some of the most mind-boggling SFX I’ve seen. And I don’t mean the obvious CGI; there is an action sequence in a hotel corridor that has to be seen to be believed, it is that good. He has also assembled a terrific cast. Many are old faces from previous collaborations (Caine, Murphy, Watanabe), some new (Page, Cotillard, Poselthwaite) and one unexpected (Tom Berenger? Awesome!). It is however his core trio that really excel. DiCaprio is in a phase of his career that sees him as one of the most assured and believable actors going. He may not have a showy part to play, but he brings it to each and every scene. He is joined by the always impressive Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who really should be in more stuff) and an eye catching performance from Tom Hardy. This is definitely a film I am not only going to need to see again, but want to see again as, like his earlier works, I may know how the jigsaw looks now its completed, but I want to enjoy putting it together all over again.

Truthfully, one of the worst films I've ever seen. I gave it a shot on the strength of its cast, BIG mistake. I hated Closer because it was 2hrs spent with 4 characters I hated intensely, but at least that film was well written, well acted and competently made. This fuck-up can't boast a single one of those things. The screenplay sounds like it was written by the cast of Loose Women trying to remember what it was like before their bits dried up. None of the characters actions make sense or ring true. The scenarios are all obvious and predictable and the dialogue should have made any discerning actor choke. And what of the actors? I pretty much bought it because Ben Affleck is in it and he's the bomb and doesn't act much these days. He was fine, in his 3 fucking 60second scenes? The rest were all plain appalling - Connelly taking the prize for being the worst offender, but only because Drew "shittest actress in Hollywood" Barrymoore was in it for less screen time than Ben. Its only saving grace was a Scarllett Johansson in her underwear - but I got the internet for that.