Sylvester Stallone continues his 80′s movie revival with this all out, balls to the wall action flick.

Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) leads the “Expendables”, a band of highly skilled mercenaries including knife enthusiast Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), martial arts expert Yin Yang (Jet Li), heavy weapons specialist Hale Caesar (Terry Crews), demolitionist Toll Road (Randy Coutre) and loose-cannon sniper Gunner Jensen (Dolph Lundgren).  When the group is commissioned by the mysterious Mr. Church (Bruce Willis) to assassinate the merciless dictator of a small South American island, Barney and Lee head to the remote locale to scout out their opposition.  Once there, they meet with local rebel Sandra and discover the true nature of the conflict engulfing the city which includes rogue CIA agent James Munroe (Eric Roberts) and his henchman Paine (Steve Austin).  They escape the island but Sandra stays behind, so Ross has to choose to either walk away and save his own life or attempt a suicidal rescue mission that might just save his soul.

Stallone has been toting this flick for at least a decade now but it’s finally here and although it delivers on what it promises, it doesn’t really give us anything new to the action movie genre.  This is a boys own movie with only two female roles who basically have nothing to do but deliver their lines and look pretty and that’s OK because you’re not coming to this movie for the woman, are you.  No not at all because the action is so full on throughout that you’ll be gasping for air every chance the film quietens down, which is rare.  The opening set piece alone has gun and knife fights, people getting blown in half by a massive shotgun and a marital arts brawl between Dolph Lundgren and Jet Li, and we’re only 10 minutes in.  Throughout the pic you get two carnage fuelled car chases, a plane attacking the army and two more fist fights and that’s all before the final 25 minute action salvo which has the most inventive, thrilling and f**k me action moments that I’ve seen since Stallone’s last film ‘Rambo’.

The cast that Stallone assembled for this flick is astonishing; getting pretty much all the old and new action stars into this flick is a coup that is unrivalled.  They each get their moment to shine too with Statham and Li getting the most screen time along with Stallone but everyone else has at least one action or emotional beat that satisfies that person’s fan base. Stallone is his usual monotone self and Statham barely says a word but together they make a good double act, bantering and slagging off each other throughout.  Jet Li gets a decent stab at acting but he’s here mainly for his ass kicking ability which he does a lot especially to Lundgren who, along with Stallone, is still in great shape for his age.

Terry Crews (Everybody Hates Chris) gets some comedy in before using one of the most powerful and destructive guns I’ve EVER seen while UFC fighter Randy Coutre pops up as the final member of the team who goes toe to toe with former wrestler ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin during the final action set piece.  Eric Roberts is great as the corrupt megalomaniac villain who turns a Central American country into his own playground plus Mickey Rourke plays a former member of the team in a few scenes with one being especially touching as he recounts an old mission which will make any hardened man come close to tears.  And if all that doesn’t make this worth seeing then even more props have to go to Stallone for getting Bruce Willis AND Arnold Schwarzenegger together at last for one scene that had me giggling like a school kid for its utter awesomeness, believe me you’ll be grinning from ear to ear while watching it.

The story whoever is not up to par with the rest of the flick but while the plot is clichéd and full of one liners that will leave some cringing, others will be whooping at the screen in excitement with what is unfolding before their eyes.  But what makes a good film great is a decent story which is completely lacking here, hopefully Stallone solves that issue for the inevitable sequel.

This truly lives up to the hype of having tonnes of action stars doing what they do best while also delivering, in spades, the top notch action that we now expect from a movie of this calibre.

‘The Expendables’ is in cinemas now.

Hmmm… Looks like Call of Duty: Black Ops developer Treyarch might have actually gotten it right this time (and yeah, they’ve gotten oh so wrong in the past, remember COD: World at War, Spiderman 3?!). New info from the Activision / Treyarch camp this morning is that they’ve signed and been working with some awesome hollywood talent for the upcoming Black Ops.

Gary Oldman and Ed Harris are both on board to voice characters in the game. On top of those first class actors contributing their skills to the game, none other than David S. Goyer, writer of, among others, the Dark Knight and the upcoming, yet to be titled, the new Batman and Superman movies, has been brought on boards as a “script consultant”.

This game just got a hell of a lot more interesting to me now! I’ll be watching this one more closely than ever (not that I wasn’t going to buy it. I mean come on, the limited edition comes with a remote control car with camera built in!!)

While were at it, here’s a pretty sweet trailer that’s soundtracked by Eminem!

The London event should also be used to confirm that the N8 is finally shipping, seven months after it was first unveiled. Other new smartphones are expected to come along, although which ones weren’t mentioned.

Image from Technobuffalo.com

Much is riding on the successes of the E7 and N8, as Nokia is hoping to modernize its rapidly aging smartphone line. Its share is collapsing both in smartphones and the wider cellphone arena as Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android platform have been taking away customers. Even today, most Nokia smartphones don’t use touch and are running a modified version of Symbian S60 only somewhat adjusted for finger input.

MeeGo and Symbian^3 will give Nokia multi-touch more than three years after Apple first introduced it to a phone. Both should also provide much more recent web browser technology and will smooth out many of the overly complex interface elements that have held back S60. We are looking forward to trying this one out!

2 New dev diary’s have been released for Square Enix’s Upcoming shooter Front Mission Evolved

The classic Front Mission series makes a comeback with Front Mission Evolved. Set in the future, the world is a changed place. Technology has advanced. Countries have merged into massive geopolitical blocks. One thing remains the same: humanity’s appetite for war.
When a terrorist attack destroys one of the USN’s prized orbital elevators, the military is mobilised to eliminate the threat. Dylan Ramsey, a young engineer, finds himself quickly caught in a swirl of destruction, conspiracies and crumbling alliances.
Experience his story in this high-octane third-person shooter, which puts you in the cockpit of a massive humanoid war machine – the wanzer. Choose from dozens of weapons and wanzer parts to customise your unit, and blast your way to victory.
Jump into fast paced action as you battle enemies in the concrete mazes of cities, the frozen wastes of the Antarctic and a host of unique locations
Choose from dozens of weapons, shoulder attachments, and wanzer parts to build a war machine that suits your play style
Play alone against others online or in teams, and test your skills in battle against other players with their own, highly customised wanzers

Front Mission Evolved Saving The Alliance

Front Mission Evolved: Conquest Online Dev Diary

Shank is a 2d side scrolling beat-em-up which looks very like if you took Streets of Rage and any Rodriguez or Tarantino film and it had a baby. You play as Shank, a man on a mission of revenge against the Butcher. Who in the first scene kidnaps your girlfriend with the intent on doing the nasty with her then killing her!

You travel through various levels in your hunt for the Butcher killing small and medium sized bad guys. You have light, heavy and gun attacks. There are also, grenades, grapple and dive attacks. Your Heavy and Gun attacks can be changed as you progress through the game, you start with a pair of pistols and a few levels later you find a shotgun and so on. You can switch very fluidly between them mid fight and it adds a layer a strategy to a very button-bashing sort of game as using different weapons gives different results. But this game isn’t about deep game play or compelling story telling, it doesn’t need to be, it’s just plain old fun, killing hundreds of people in dozens of ways.

As you progress though the levels you will meet hundreds of bad guys that you’ll deliver swift and brutal death too. At the end of each level is a boss battle, which are a bit of a let down compared to the fluid combat building up to it. You just have to learn the pattern of attack and take a small opportunity hit back and repeat. Sounds simple but that leads me to the next annoying thing about boss battles there dam frustrating getting hit once or twice and your back to the start of the fight.

Aside from the main story mode there is also a local co-op mode where Shank teams up with Falcone, his gang mate in a prequel to the main story. Co-op is great fun but at times your left scratching your head as to whats going down and bosses, oh man they will annoy the hell out of you!

The looks of the game are excellent. It is animated beautifully both in game and in the cut scenes and feels very fluid throughout. I especially love when your character is in silhouette, it’s a joy to watch! Sound effects are good while voice acting isn’t quite there. The game itself is quite short about 2-3 hours but co-op will double this and I think there’s bags of re-playability

Overall this game is very, very good fun with just a few little issues but they don’t take away it. If you crave a good old-fashioned beat-em-up download this today!

4/5

Steve Carell and Tina Fey try to bring their successful TV comedy chops to this pretty unfunny film.

Phil and Claire Foster (Steve Carell & Tina Fey) have been married for several years.  Their days consists of  taking care of their children, going to work, coming home and then going to bed.  They sometimes find the time to have a date night wherein they go out and spend some time together but when another couple they know announce that they’re separating because they’re in a rut, Phil feels that he and Claire could be too.  So when date night comes around again, Phil decides to do something different, they go into the city and try to get into a new popular restaurant but when it’s full Phil decides to take the reservation of a couple who haven’t shown up.  While they’re having dinner two men approach them and instruct them to come with them as the couple whose reservation they took crossed someone and the men are after something, but whatever it is the couple don’t know.  Thus ensues a night of adventure and danger for the couple as they race against these men to try and save their lives and their marriage.

I was so looking forward to this when I seen the trailer as I love both the leads but like most movies out this year all the best bits were already in the trailer.  The script is pretty bad with just the bare minimum of character development and it has a very similar feel to the very funny 1970 movie ‘The Out of Towner’s’ starring Jack Lemmon and Sandy Davis, where a couple from a small suburb travel into the big city for a fun night together and get mixed up in all sorts shenanigans.  The ‘The out of Towner’s’ in turn was remade in 1999 starring Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn and was the unfunniest version until this movie.  ‘Date Night’ is directed by Shawn Levy who always comes out with generic family friendly fare with not much substance, like the ‘Night at the Museum’ films and new ‘The Pink Panther’ films with Steve Martin, and there’s no change for this movie.  This has both the theatrical and extended versions of the movie but the longer cut doesn’t give us anymore funny scenes just extra padding.

The two leads are on auto pilot here, bringing none of the things that make their respective TV shows great, The US Office & 30 Rock.  Mark Wahlberg pops up as a suave agent who helps them out but he’s really just there to show off his body and give us one laugh.  James Franco and Mila Kunis play the couple that they rob the dinner reservation off of but they just play it like a couple of stoners which is not much of a stretch really, especially for Franco after coming off of ‘Pineapple Express’ a few years back.

The image quality is reasonably sharp and the candy colours are bright enough to go beyond the capabilities of standard definition DVD, but there’s an artificial, shot on video sheen to everything.  There’s also a whole lot of digital grain, which actually appears to increase with brighter lighting, and warmer colours.  Overall I’d call this an average transfer with some unfortunate artefacts.  Audio wise ‘Date Night’ isn’t nearly as loud, or aggressively mixed as Levy’s effects heavy Night at the Museum films, but the dialogue is clear and centred, and the other channels aren’t wasted space.  The closest we get to genuinely worthy directional stereo and surround sound moments include an obnoxious alarm system, Mark Wahlberg’s computer system, a few gun shots, and a decent, but short-lived car chase.

Extras begin with a solo commentary track with director Shawn Levy which is available only on the theatrical version of the film.  Levy discusses story structure and themes more than expected, and overall the track acts very much as a lesson plan in how to make an unconfusing, audience pleasing comedy.  Next up is a collection of four deleted scenes, followed by an alternate take reel entitled ‘Alt City’, and four extended scenes, all fortunately are not already included in the extended version of the film.  ‘Directing 301’ is a general trip around the set with director Shawn Levy, who walks us through the various people he interacts with on an average day.  The extras are wrapped up with ‘Disaster Dates’, a series of interviews with the cast about bad dates, ‘Directing Off Camera’, a bit of Levy’s direction during a take, ‘Steve and Tina’s Camera Tests’, a gag reel, three ‘PSAs’, a trailer, and trailers for other Fox releases.

So would I recommend this flick well no, not really, if you want a good comedy with the same story then go for the original 1970′s movie, ‘The out of Towner’s’.

‘Date Night’ is out to rent and buy on DVD and Blu-Ray now.

Finally there’s a Jude Law movie actually worth watching as he stretches his action chops in this future thriller which is almost a great film.

In the future, a company called “The Union” has extended our lives through highly sophisticated and expensive mechanical organs.  The only downside is that if you fail to pay then they will send their highly skilled repo men to take back their property.  Former soldier Remy (Jude Law) is one of the best organ repo men in the business but when he suffers a cardiac failure on the job, he awakens to find himself fitted with the company’s top-of-the-line heart-replacement.  After his supposed accident, Remy’s heart’s no longer in the job and when he can’t make the payments, The Union sends its toughest enforcer, Remy’s former partner Jake (Forest Whitaker), to track him down.

This is a movie of two halves, the first following the repo men on the job and the spots they get themselves into just to get that all important organ and a bonus from the company.  The second is a chase movie where Remy must tries to stay one step ahead of his adversary.  It’s got a lot of hidden messages like our dependence on technology, our failure to accept death and that corporations are just out for money no matter who they hurt or kill.  These themes are what all good Sci-Fi films are about although they are not fully explored here, ditching them halfway through for a generic chase movie which is entertaining but not totally satisfying.

The film is dark and extremely violent in parts, especially when the Repo Men take back the organs, blood spills and people die but that’s nothing compared to the ‘Oldboy’ rip off scene towards the end of the movie.  Where that movies protagonist used a hammer against his enemies, a very buff Jude Law uses anything he can get his hands on including chairs, blades and a hammer too.  It’s a good scene but by the end there’s so much blood spilt you expect the screen to be red.  The film is a lot of fun, in a dark humour kind of way, and is almost a great movie but it’s letdown by a denouement that pretty much turns the last 40 minutes of the movie on its head.  Is it satisfying, hell no, nd why it was included is beyond me as up to that point it was a 4 star movie, if you just disregard the last five minutes then it’s a great film.

The cast are really good, with Jude Law being surprisingly watchable, Forest Whitaker does a decent turn and is not that showy.  Alice Braga plays Beth, who has pretty much gotten every body part changed, she’s having a good year with this and ‘Predators’ out a while ago, and she seems to be the go to girl for a female action love interest these days.  Liev Schreiber pops up as the Union boss and does his usual moustache twirling turn as the pseudo-baddie which is getting very grating, he should do something else.

The HD transfer does a great job at selling a dark dingy future.  With a lot of the movie taking place at night, the solid blacks and deep shadows make for a strikingly sharp HD image and with a clean almost grain free transfer the disc is instantly impressive.  Audio wise for a movie that’s being promoted as an action romp, it really isn’t a constant barrage. It’s mostly dialogue but when the action does kick in from time to time it’s punchy, dynamic and offers up a range of different audio effects.

The commentary track is with director Miguel Sapochnik and writers Eric Garcia and Garrett Lerner.  They seem to have a lot of fun together running through the making of the movie but I’m still not too sure I got what the intentions were with the story and its twist, even with this as a companion piece.  The Universal U-Control comes with a fact track that offers up the details of the movie’s artificial organs tech specs, such as the prices they’d cost.  There’s also a picture-in-picture option for fourteen of the twenty chapters giving behind the scenes footage, cast interviews and the usual making of style video segments.  There are five deleted scenes in standard definition with optional commentary which bring nothing new to the movie, ‘Inside the Visual Effects’ is essentially a VFX show reel with a commentary with the director to explain the details and finally there’s a selection of seven ‘Union Commercials’ to round out the set.

Overall ‘Repo Men’ is a decent, emotional action flick showing a possible future that we may have ahead of us but it’s horribly let down by the last five minutes which they could have done without.

‘Repo Men’ is out to rent and buy on DVD and Blu-Ray now.

Madden NFL 11′s tagline is: “Simpler, Quicker, Deeper”, and most of that is true compared to the previous Maddens. I’m going to start by disclosing that I’m not the biggest sports games fan out there, infact I’m not really into the whole sports thing, but I think I’d give Madden NFL 11 a go as I’d heard good things about it, and honestly, I’ve been enjoying the NFL with friends recently so I figured “why not”

The whole “simpler” thing is down to what EA call “GameFlow’. This is supposed to make the game easier for casual gamers, and gamers who might want to try out the NFL games but might not know all the in’s and out’s of the sport (i.e. ME!). It works well really. You can get into a game very quickly and a game that used to take an hour to complete can now be done in half that time, which is nice, but still, I’m the sort of person that really prefers to play something for 10-20 mins and then move on to the next thing (fickle I know, but hey, such is life!)

I honestly couldn’t get into the details of the “deeper” part of the tag line, cause I’m just not that familiar with the NFL series of games an am only getting into the real life NFL as well (but please fell free to drop me a mail with your comments as to how you think it’s working!)

Graphically, there’s been some tweaks from Madden 10, which was a good looking game anyways and those tweaks only make it a better looking game, but at the end of the day it’s not all about the graphics, but how the game plays and well, it plays like Madden 10, but quicker! That’s not to say it plays badly, it doesn’t! Far from it, it, from a novice point of view, plays very well. I really enjoy picking up this game and playing it, and that’s not something I thought I would ever say about a sports title (bar Tiger Woods Golf, LOVE Speed golf I do!), and the fact I’m saying that speaks hugely as to what Madden NFL 11 has achieved.

EA have really gotten the 12month development cycle of their sports games down to a tee. They know what the people want from a sports title, and even though it irks some people that the NFL games are exclusive to EA, that’s not such a bad thing going form Madden NFL 11 at least!

So, overall, would I recommend Madden NFL 11? Yeah, yeah I would. That’s unusual coming from me! I normally wouldn’t pooh pooh sports games on sight and tell people to stay clear and play a proper game, but I think I’m going to have to go back and revise my rules as to how I see sports games (gah, thank Madden! Making me think about things! )

The supported handsets are generally around the HTC Desire specs (i.e. a 1ghz processor). But other should work.

Pop over to: www.gameloft.com/android-hd-games on your android phone and get some sweet android gaming on! Let us know what you think of them once you’ve tried ‘em!

Now, before I let you get all excited, it should be disclosed that the video below is actually an AMAZING fan made pre-rendered video. It’s just so freakin sweet looking I hope that SEGA are taking notes on this one. This is want I want / have wanted from a true Sonic sequel since the original!!

Have a gander, and if you’re a Sonic fan, you won’t be disappointed, you might be pissed off that SEGA hasn’t had the brain / balls to do this years ago, but hopefully they will now!

via: joystiq