Rhino-1

You know how it is. You drive past a bus shelter and see a poster for a film. It looks quite good and, in the back of your mind, you tell yourself you must give it a basin full of looking at when the opportunity arises. It stays in your mind and every time you see the poster or title, it's just another reminder that the film is on your "to see" list

And so it was with me and The Mothman Prophecies

Oh dear

The story concerns people who are visited by some sort of monster and who then predict a future disaster. Richard Gere, a reporter, finds out but spends the whole film running around like a headless chicken. The director is obviously from some fancy art house school of film making, using blurred and, frankly, pretentious camera angles to further addle the mind of the viewer

There are no answers at the end - and there's no action at all. It's a series of interconnected boredom inducing set pieces

Feh!

If you were to ask for a great director to direct a great war film, you may ask Ridley Scott to direct Black Hawk Down. He is a great director and Black Hawk Down is a great war film...

But...

The problem with war films is that you've seen 'em all. It's about good guys vs bad guys and heroes and shooting. The fact that Black Hawk Down is set in Somalia is the only thing that makes this different from, for example, Platoon, Saving Private Ryan or Hamburger Hill

UN Peacekeeping forces are under attack in the Somalian civil war of the early 90s. The good ol' USA send in their "elite" troops to counter. The motto of these guys is that they shall never leave a fallen comrade behind, so when one of their Black Hawk helicopters crashes right in the middle of a hostile zone, it's all hands on deck to get any survivors out

What then follows is an archetypal battle with the "good guys" being able to shoot straight and the "bad guys" missing with every other shot. It's beautifully filmed, as you would expect, and with sufficient gore to ensure its realism. The surreal moments as (some of) the soldiers reach the safe zone is possibly the best part of the film, but one is left with an uncomfortable feeling when the epilogue glibly states that 20 American soldiers lost their lives (it lists their names) - oh yes, and so did 1000 Somalians

The acting is great, the music is great, the story is great; one can even forgive the patriotism. But there's nothing new to see here

I'm glad I watched it - but I'm equally glad I borrowed it rather than bought it

Reign Of Fire is full of gung-ho, pointless nonsense with maybe three scenes which make you sit up and take notice. Christian Bale (the schoolboy actor from Empire Of The Sun and The Newsboys) plays the English hero who crosses swords with a shaven headed Matthew McConaughey, the American hero. It's the year 2020 and there are loads of dragons to kill

No-one wants to explain where they came from, and no-one wants to explain why the world looks as though my kids were allowed to wreck it one Sunday afternoon

All I can say is I'm glad I managed to see it for free. I'd have hated to waste my money