Movie of the Week: World's End

Twenty years on from their school-leaving celebration (an epic twelve-pub crawl), which they failed to complete, Gary King, a man who has nothing in his life, tries to get his childhood friends back together for one more try. Gary cajoles his reluctant comrades back to their hometown and mayhem begins. Their final destination, The World's End, is more apt that they first assume, especially when they notice that something has changed and the townsfolk are behaving very oddly. Motto, never start a fight in the gents with a yobbo who proves to be a blue-blooded (literally) robot.

I really like Simon Pegg and Nick Frost so it's a pity that this film wasn't quite as clever or as funny as it thought it was. Pegg plays King brilliantly, a sad man destroyed by drink and drugs, trying to recapture what he remembers as the last good time he had. Reminiscences about old times reveal some painful truths.

Definitely a split personality movie, but for me the serious undertones didn't mesh comfortably with the comedy overtones and too many gags relied on finding barfing over your shoes hilarious.

Movie of the Week: The Wolverine

A thoroughly enjoyable couple of hours in the company of Hugh Jackman as the iconioc (Marvel) X-Men character, Wolverine. Set after his final run-in with Jean Grey, Wolverine is haunted by the events in X-Men three and as the movie opens has taken himself into the wilds to live alone. Yukio (Rila Fukushima) catches up with him to deliver a message, an old Japanese man Wolverine Saved from the Hiroshima bombing wants to repay hisdebt before he dies. But all is not as it seems.

The action mostly takes place in Japan and sees Wolverine facing deadly enemies stripped of his invulnerability and pushed to physical and emotional limits.

Hugh Jackman delivers his usual good performance despite the terrible whiskers. (Yes, I know they're in the comic book!) There's a good supporting cast, particularly Fukushima, with Famke Janssen putting in a guest appearance as the ghost of Jean Grey.

It's a long movie but fast paced and well worth watching.