DVD OF THE WEEK

X MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE ****
Dir: Gavin Hood
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Danny Huston

Fanboy blogs have had a field day with this Wolverine origin story, venting their rage on every little aspect that doesn't correspond to their inner geekdom. But that's to be expected on the internet, a place where every local loser can moan to the world. Having no history with the X-Men universe aside from the previous movies I found this a bunch of fun.
It comes down to whether you buy into the whole comic book thing, but if you enjoyed the previous X-Men movies then there's no reason not to dig this one.
It starts with Wolverine as a young boy and some unfortunate business with his father before segueing (via a rather brilliant title montage) through major wars of the past century to find the hirsute mutant peacefully working in a lumber camp. But things don't stay happy for long as the evil Colonel Stryker is on his trail along with a bunch of killer mutants led by Wolverine's brother Victor.
And so starts a series of double and triple crosses, along the way revealing the full facts behind Wolverine's metal frame and introducing us to a new set of mutants.
And it's all good. The plot has twists and turns, the action is frequent and spectacular, and there are enough character beats from director Hood – who previously made the impressive South African drama Tsotsi – to stop it being just a slugfest. Add in early glimpses of some well-known characters and you have about as satisfying a prequel as anyone could have hoped for.

A pope dies and, as new elections begin, elsewhere in Rome a scientific experiment creates (for the first time in such quantities!) anti-matter. Said anti-matter is extremely dangerous – big explosion! – so don't you just know it, within five minutes it has been stolen and made into a bomb hidden in the Vatican. This requires Tom Hanks to run around Rome seeking out the helpful clues left in various chapels. Big, bland, impressively silly and alarmingly obvious, Angels and Demons (**) is exactly what you'd expect from director Ron Howard.

Those looking for the usual light comedy from a movie starring Seth Rogan will possibly be a little alarmed by Observe and Report (***), this month's second mall cop comedy and a very edgy and black one at that. Rogan plays mall cop Ronnie Barnhardt but where you expect cute, cuddly and sympathetic he is racist, sexist, stupid and, in all reality, borderline psychotic. It makes for an odd film – there are funny moments but there is a nastiness, a meanness of spirit about this that will put off many viewers.

Nicolas Cage appears to have a bulletproof career. How else can you explain his continued presence in movies after Next, National Treasure, The Wicker Man, Ghost Rider and now, possibly worst of all, Knowing (*)? Here he plays a scientist who discovers that a school's buried time capsule predicts details of 'every major disaster for the last 50 years”. He has a son being stalked by mysterious figures known only as 'whisperers”. As the world falls apart around them you wait in vain for a sensible explanation. Then for any explanation at all. Then you ask for the last 2 hours of your life back.

The Haunting of Molly Hartley (**) centres on young Molly, at a new school and experiencing terrifying, possibly Satanic, visions. Oh, if only. Sadly the 'visions” are dull as ditchwater – the devil obviously has a very limited budget - and nothing much happens, spooky or otherwise, so that when the truth is finally revealed you're more likely to simply be relieved it's over.