Movie, music and TV reviews by Matt Neal, a Rotten Tomatoes-accredited ABC Radio film critic (also an author, musician, journalist and all-round okay guy).
Way back in 2011, my favourite film criticThe Incredible Suit figured out there were exactly the same amount of months preceding the release of Skyfall as there were Bond films. And thus BlogalongaBond was born, in which international film critics from around the world (hence the international bit) reviewed one Bond film a month until Skyfall dropped.
Being the top bloke that I am, I convinced my then-girlfriend (now wife) to take part in BlogalongaBond with me, seeing as how she hadn't seen a Bond film before, or couldn't remember having done so.
For the sake of posterity, I have collected our BlogalongaBond blogs here. To be honest, they're probably some of the best bits of film criticism on this site, which isn't saying much. But they were fun to write. And who doesn't love making one's significant other watch movies they don't want to watch? No one, that's who.
Click the poster to choose your Bond.
And the post-BlogalongaBond 007 reviews (ie. my wife doesn't watch Bond with me any more):
Quicksilver vowed to never join a superhero group via Craigslist ever again.
THE Avengers isn't the only super-powered ensemble to impress on the big screen this year.
In fact, Rise Of The Guardians is a lot like a "childrenised" version of Marvel's blockbuster team-up — instead of Thor, Iron Man and The Hulk joining forces, we have Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy combining to battle evil.
As with The Avengers, each of the characters is given their time to shine and is nicely developed, while a tidy sense of humour sparkles on top of the darker undercurrents of the story.
The big bad here is Pitch, aka The Bogeyman, deliciously voiced by Law and hell-bent on infesting children with his nightmares in the hopes of becoming properly "believed in".
Standing in Pitch's way is North (aka Santa, voiced by a Russian-accented Baldwin), a boomerang wielding Easter Bunny (Jackman), the silent yet powerful Sandman, the birdlike Tooth Fairy (Fisher), and reckless newcomer Jack Frost (Pine).
It's Frost who is the central figure, with his search for identity and meaning in his life one of the key themes in this surprisingly deep and thoughtful children's adventure.
Duty, selflessness, teamwork, finding your purpose and overcoming your fears are often standard go-to ideals for a kid's flick, but in Rise Of The Guardians they feel fresh thanks to being dealt with intelligently, with the dumbing down kept to a minimum.
While few of its ideas are original — its characters are tweaked classics and even its "power of belief" plot was handled more cleverly and satirically in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel Small Gods — the combination of its elements is exciting for all ages.
Pitch is a particularly intriguing character, artfully shaded to look like he's stepped out of a black-and-white film noir and developed enough to be more than a caricature.
Law's voicework is excellent, and the broad Russian accent Baldwin brings to North is good fun. Jackman is allowed to let his ockerness run free, which borders on being a bit too "Strine" at time, but it's only Pine's too-mature voice that's really out of place.
The spectacle is excellent, from its single-take chases to its hyper-powered battles. It should go without saying in this golden age of CG films, but Rise Of The Guardians looks amazing. Equally, the sound design is impressive, as is the use of light throughout — kids movies don't usually have this amount of visual flair to them.
It's not perfect — it's ending is too convenient and predictable and doesn't really make sense in the global scale of the movie — but it's thoroughly enjoyable, no matter how old or young you are, and that is the makings of a great family film.
Now, all we can do is sit back and wait for the inevitably disappointing sequels.
