Finding Neverland

"Do you know who that is?" asked Dave.

"No," said Bian.

"No," repeated Jean, "Who?"

Dave paused before answering. He paused for two reasons. Firstly, he enjoyed the fact that they didn't know. He wanted to give them a few more moments to try and figure it out, certain they wouldn't. It was part of the game.

Secondly, and more importantly, he wanted to give himself a few more moments to make 100% sure he wasn't about to make a fool out of himself and give the wrong answer.

"It's Captain Jack Sparrow."

Johnny Depp. One of the greatest cameleons the world had ever seen. He seemed different, physically different, in every film. Only his eyes gave him away. Boy, did that guy have eyes.

On this occassion he played Sir James Matthew Barrie, the author of Peter Pan, in the story of the events which inspired the adventures in Neverland.

The film is beautifully done. The acting is superb, the balance between humour and emotion is just right and the special effects don't try to dominate the story (a trait which becomes increasingly less common). More than this, the story line itself, although based on actual events, tries to capture the essence that made Peter Pan originally great, the inocence of a child who never grows up. One could just as easily, using the same real life events, have told a tale of adultry and hatred, but it would have been wrong to do so.

James, a play writer, stumbles across a family of four boys quite by chance while they're out playing. He quickly befriends them and their widowed mother and together they have many days of games and laughter. He helps the boys, especially Peter, come to terms with the loss of their father, whilst inspiring himself in to write his best ever work. Peter in turn finds the desire to put pen to paper and begins his own story. The movie captures perfectly the pride of a parent for her child and the joy of a child in seeing that pride.

Neverland was a place filled with faeries and magic, a place of imagination and inspiration, a place where dreams really do come true.

Finding Neverland, as the title suggests, is a film that points you in the direction of how to get there.

Transformers

Transformers, the live action movie. The very idea had gave Dave a roller coaster of emotions. On the one hand, this was the movie he had wanted to see since before he could walk, on the other hand, this was the movie he had wanted to see since before he could walk. It was a movie that could go very very well or a movie that could go very very bad.

It ended up somewhere in between. It was surprisingly good, but it could have been better.

The movie is about the Transformers quest to find the Allspark, a power source which can give life to random machines (Vector Sigma in a handy cube form, for fans of the original). The Autobots want to use it to restore their dying home world, Cybertron, the Decepticons want to form an army to conquer the Universe. A fairly typical Transformers type plot.

The film starts with a sceen showing some army guys talking and straight away the crucial error is made. The focus of the movie lies far too much with people. Regular guys.

Almost imediately this sceen is followed by a Decepticon attack, which is incredibly cool to watch, but no detail is ever followed up as to the Decepticons background.

Apart from Bumblebee, who despite not saying anything still manages to be cool, the other Autobots do not arrive until an hour into the film. They are then given a few sceens, but nothing major. Only Optimus Prime and, to a lesser degree, Ironhide come across as having any character at all. The Decepticons are not so lucky. Megatron and Starscream don't appear until almost two hours into the film. The whole Megatron - Starscream love hate relationship, a very key feature of the original cartoons, is given only one line, when Megatron announces Starscream has failed him "Once again." Presumably, when doing a live action, it's just alot easier to focus on real people than imaginary robots.

On the positive side, the transformers are incredibly cool to watch and certain moments will make real fans incredibly happy, no matter how much they want to hate it. For example, anyone with any claim to being a fan could not help themselves at bubbling up with glee when Optimus Prime announces,

"One shall stand, one shall fall."