Movie: 3D - The Day Of The Doctor

You may well ask yourself why I would bother going to see a movie that was already on TV a few days before. That's easy to answer: 3D and surround sound. That makes a big difference, at least to me. I am a huge fan of 3D, so I'll gladly go to see anything in 3D really. Anyway, I never actually saw the ending of the movie (or the very beginning for that matter) when it was shown on TV, so at least going to the cinema to see the whole thing was a new experience for me.

So, this particular movie is part of the 50th year anniversary celebrations of Doctor Who, which had the unfortunate distinction of first being shown around the same time that President John F. Kennedy was shot. Of course, nobody was paying a lot of attention. Through a bit of fortunate insight, the BBC repeated the first show a week later, thereby starting the global tsunami that is Doctor Who.

This movie brings together three doctors to save the world, yet again. There are plenty of references to past (and future) doctors, and as is the case with nearly all time travel based movies, it has a convoluted plot until all the bits start to assemble themselves near the end.

There are some mighty big scenes in this movie, which means they either had a lot of money to spend, or they found some clever high school kid to knock up a few bits on his Apple Mac for a bit of extra pocket money and a new iPhone. Either way, it looks spectacular. The 3D is pretty good: subtle, just the way I like it. The way the Dalek's eye stalks poke out of the screen at you was a nice touch.

We get a glimpse of the next Doctor after Matt Smith, although you only see his eyes. And there is one memorable cameo towards the end. This is a very worthy celebration of the current status of Doctor Who, as well as a great tribute to Doctors past.

Young Kookaburra...

I saw this young Kookaburra in the park today, and couldn't resist dragging out the camera and snapping a couple of happy pics:

3D Thor - The Dark World

Boy, there sure are a lot of these Marvel movies floating around now. I'm finding it hard to keep the timeline straight in my head, because they all reference each other, and I haven't see them all yet, and the ones I have seen, I've seen them out of order. Originally, I had no intention of ever seeing The Avengers, until I discovered it was made by Joss Whedon, and that was enough reason for me to take a look. Now I'm hooked on the whole thing, including Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D on TV.

This second Thor movie pretty much carries on the story line of the first Thor movie. All the same characters are back, including Anthony Hopkins and Natalie Portman. Fortunately, last night one of the TV stations screened the first Thor, which is great because a lot of what happens in the second Thor movie wouldn't make much sense unless you had seen the first one. Characters would appear to come out of nowhere.

 So, with the first one fresh in my head, I really enjoyed this second one.

The movie, like the first, starts with a flashback. Whereas the first movie flashed back to Odin's younger days, this one flashes back to when Odin's father was younger. There was a weapon, called the Aether, which Odin's father captured, and because there was no way to destroy it, he buried it where he thought nobody would ever find it. Flash forward, and Natalie Portman is still pining for he-man Thor (that's what I meant about seeing Thor 1 first. Natalie and Thor had a "moment"). The nine realms are about to converge, so strange things are happening to space and gravity. The realms are intersecting with each other at certain points in London (London is as good a city as any, I suppose...), and Natalie finds one of these spots. Through circumstances that can only happen in a Marvel movie, Natalie is transported to the exact location where the Aether was buried many years previously. The Aether is a liquid entity, and proceeds to enter Natalie's body (no, it's probably not what you're thinking...) The rest of the movie is basically about the original owner coming back to claim the Aether, and Thor trying to keep him away from Natalie's body. The bad guy, Malekith, is played by an unrecognisable Christopher Eccleston, a Doctor Who in a past life.

I mentioned before how these Marvel films reference each other. Well, Captain America makes a humourous little cameo (he has a new movie coming soon). Stan Lee also gets another gig. Also, it has become tradition for these movies to have after credit sequences pointing towards upcoming movies. Well, be sure to stay till the very end, because this move has TWO after credit sequences (I left after the first, I wasn't expecting there to be a second one).