THE PLAN is badly executed, cynical and not worth your time or money…

I’m a huge Battlestar Galactica (BSG) fan, in particular the now infamous modern take on the series. Granted it had some dodgy moments, but overall it was (and remains) a wonderfully realistic and gritty take on a old sci-fi story with great twists and deep pockets when it came to special effects. I really enjoyed the series and even though I wasn’t particularly happy with the ending, I could deal with it. After all it had killer robots, babes, space-based dogfights, religious overtones, death and destruction and a continuing sense of menace each week. Still, all good things come to an end and the show finished over a year ago.

Since then I believe there is a movie and even a mini-series in the works, mostly due to the potential commercial opportunities to rake in some cash I’d imagine rather than any real artistic need to tell another BSG story, but out of the blue I came across this entity – Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, which proported to tell the entire series again, only this time from the Cylon perspective.

Interesting? Might be worth a look, I thought.

I was wrong; dead wrong. This is quite simply some of the worst shit I’ve seen cobbled together in a long time. There is no new insight or deeper understanding of what the Cylons were up to, no real difference in the story arc or plot that took place in the main series and certainly no reason for anyone to part with hard cash to watch it.

It’s a very cynical piece of exploitation, trying to cash in on the name and fame of the series and I strongly urge you to avoid it at all costs. There is nothing new here other than to re-tell the exact same story through the eyes of the “1″ series Cylon model, who promptly spends the 2 hours organising the other Cylon models to do whatever they can to kill off humanity right up to the point of the truce that breaks out between them. And that’s it. Honestly.

At the end of two hours I was left with an intense feeling of ‘so what’?, and if you manage to watch this you too will wonder why the hell you bothered. It’s a shame really because the series itself was fantastic for the most part. I hope the upcoming mini-series and movie don’t drive a bigger set of nails into the coffin… but I guess we will just have to wait and see on that score.

This really is  a cynical piece of commercial exploitation which fails to hit the target at almost every opportunity… avoid at all costs.

IT’S RARE that I play a new game and find myself in love, in awe and utterly amazed at just how good the game is. Welcome to Far Cry 2…

There are so many things that the development team got right with this game, so many things that just amaze me and constantly surprise me, but it’s also not without its problems and issues, however thankfully the good outweighs the bad by a huge margin.

Before I get any further into this review let me just say a few things to clarify my position:-

GO OUT AND BUY THIS GAME NOW!

OK. Fan boy attack over. Let’s look at this logically for a bit shall we? To start with let me summarise the game. It’s a successor to the seminal Far Cry, set this time in Africa. You play the role of a mercenary, caught up in the dirty little war between rival factions which quickly gets totally out of control, and that’s where the fun starts in earnest. Let’s deal with the good first then shall we…

Ever Wanted That Perfect Sunset?

I can say without hesitation that this is the most beautifully rendered game I’ve ever seen, and I’m a gaming nut so I’ve seen them all. The graphics are simply stunning; trust me when I tell you that you have never seen anything like this before. Ever. Sunrises and sunsets are so good, so absolutely mind blowing that frequently you will find yourself admiring the view (Deserts, jungles, rolling hills and deep valleys, grasslands, swamps, shanty towns, rivers, lakes etc.) instead of paying attention to the sneaky bugger who has outflanked your position and is about to put a bullet in your head. You sit there amazed as the grass and bushes sway in the wind (and wind direction is important folks, trust me!), your jaw drops regularly and you will find yourself uttering words like ‘Fuck Me!’ and ‘Bloody Hell’ when you see the effect you can have on your environment. It is simply stunning. Period.

Flame Wars

Without a doubt the implementation of flames and explosions in this game is the best I’ve seen yet. You can set fire to the grass, the trees… hell you can blow up and destroy pretty much everything you can see (with a few minor exceptions). There is something quite hypnotic when you lob a molotov cocktail into a group of buildings and watch the fire leap from one to the other based on wind direction (Tip: Always check the direction first or you will find yourself running away with your ass on fire as you scramble to inject some badly needed medicine and bandages.

Animations

The animations are quite amazing. From pulling bullets out of your leg to applying bandages to your arms, from exploding jeeps and buildings to exploding heads and limbs. Hell even getting into a damn jeep is perfectly handled, so if you climb in on the wrong side you end up ‘scooting’ across to the drivers position. Likewise when you switch from a gun position to a drivers position or vice versa. It’s just beautiful and never gets old. Even the buddy animations (if you make enough buddies in the game they will come and help you when get shot down sometimes) are cool as they drag you from the battlefield, shooting at bad guys in the process while you apply some medications and get back on your feet. It’s brilliant, really.

Those Wonderful Surprises

The more I play, the more I discover and inevitably the more I find myself smiling, laughing out loud or simply whooping with joy at the pleasure of discovery. This game rewards you for thinking outside the box, for going where no one expects you to, and from thinking before leaping. I don’t want to spoil it for you so I’ll just say the following. Don’t stay on the roads forever – go exploring. Go as far off the beaten track as you dare, and you will be amazed at what you find. Oh and here is a little tip – if you find a bunch of bad guys standing around some ammo… drop a grenade in there and watch the fun as the ammo ignites and fires off in every direction. The watch what happens to the surrounding grass, jungle, trees etc. Oh, and look after your weapons because if you don’t they will fail, and they will even explode in your face if you’re not careful… that’s one of the nastier surpriese in store for you, but there are many many more. Trust me on this.

Fighting Form

The bad guys in the early stages of the game are pretty easy to take out, and just as you are about to get bored you realise that something has changed. Gradually your reputation increases, as do your skills… but guess what? So do theirs! The games increases in difficulty in a wonderfully subtle way until one minute you find yourself out of ammo, out of ideas and shitting yourself behind a tree holding on to your last molotov cocktail and wondering if the wind will be kind to you as you try to escape the five armed gunmen who have outflanked you and ambushed you from three sides. Hell they even try to run you down in the vehicles. It’s pretty fantastic.

Options – You’ve Got ‘Em

You can do it all in this game. Fly, drive, walk, run, crawl, sail or swim your way around a 50km square map that just seems to go on forever. Hell you can even walk between the various districts and areas if you want to, but watch out for that maleria, it’s a killer! Vehicles need to be kept in good condition though, so you will find yourself having to repair them quite regularly. Your weapons will also need to be kept in good condition as I mentioned previously, but you can also upgrade them at various gunsmiths throughout the game, so choose wisely. The currency in this land is diamonds. You get ‘em for carrying out missions buy you can also steal them from caches hidden around the map (one good reason to go off the beaten track!). There are many different ways to approach every single mission or area in the game and you make strategic choices as well which determine how easy or difficult the objective will be. It’s pretty flexible and where as some decisions will force you down one route, most just offer you different ways of achieving the same thing.

The Wishlist

Ok – enough good stuff. There’s actually a huge list of other things I could talk about, but I don’t want to spoil the experience for you. Let’s deal with the not-so-hot things then. Let’s call it my wishlist, and luckilly it’s a small list:

Predators – There aren’t any! There are deer, buffalo, zebras and lots of other animals wandering all over the place but no lions, tigers, snakes, elephants etc. Hopefully someone will either come out with a mod or the developers will include it in a future patch because it would add a lovely edge to an already incredible game (imaging swimming through croc territory!)

Road Warriors – Everyone you meet on the road is a bad guy; it would have been better to force you (as the player) to suss out whether or not the guys you are coming upon are friendly or not the old fashioned way.

Zoom Crazy – The zoom on the monocular is set too high by default, so when you scout out an area you practically have to be miles away in order to make any sense of the image because everything is so close in the scope.

Factions - Don’t exist outside of the main city; It would have been so much cooler to have the factions (AI) struggle for territory outside the main city (similar to Stalker games) which would then change the landscape of the map as you play it.

It has to be said though that the items above are really really niggly and small when compared to the monumental achievement that Far Cry 2 is. I mean right now it’s 1am in the morning, I’ve been playing this game for 2 days and it just escalated up a notch or two on the thrill-o-meter as I’ve had to escape a full scale civil war in a small town and I can tell you I was hyped when I did it. I might just go back and do something different this time and see what happens because it all happens so dynamically, so fast and so perfectly that you get caught up in the action and the pace.

Ok. Enough writing. Time to get back to the jungle and the plot, which is getting darker by the minute. Do yourself a favour and go out and buy this game. It’s legend.

I DID something today purely by chance which required an incredible amount of concentration but resulted in me winning two poker online tournaments – at the same time!

It started with me being a bit bored – as usual – and so I logged onto my favourite online poker site www.pokerroom.com and started messing around at ‘sit and go’ games and then I just got the crazy idea of sitting in on texas holdem no limits tournament, and while I was waiting for that game to kick off (boredom again I suppose) I registered for another tournament, thinking they wouldn’t start at the same time and that I’d probably be knocked out of at least one of them pretty quickly.

Wrong. Doh!

What followed was a pretty intense hour or so of constant play. I had both tournaments up on my screen displayed in different windows and was playing both at the same time. I got some hard rocking MP3s up on my trusty player and decided to see how things would work out.

Weirdly enough it was quite a unique experience; I’d never tried anything like this before. I didn’t get any time to really think about my tactics so I had to just react most of the time. When you only get seconds to decide what move to make next, it tends to focus the mind a bit. I was laying down pairs left and right because it didn’t ‘feel’ right. I was bluffing my way in and out of trouble on a regular basis. Within the first 30 minutes I’d become the chip leader in the first game but was hovering around the middle of the pack in the second.

I tried to focus more on the second game at that point but it was useless; I just couldn’t divide my time in unequal portions so I reverted back to default mode and started playing as fast and furious as I could between both tables and sure enough I made it into the final 3 players on both tables… and that’s when things got really ugly. The sheer speed of things escalated beyond anything I’d experienced before.

At this point the hands are being dealt incredibly fast and the blinds had gone up to the max; so I’m getting even less time to think about my response to each hand. I’ve no idea how long I spent bouncing between both windows at that point because both tables had 3 players going at it hard and fast without any one player pulling away. At some point I managed to knock out a player on one table and was down to a head to head which removed some pressure but then it forced me to play a different style of poker at that point, but I needed to do something drastic on the other table in order to get the headroom to achieve this… so I went all in a few times and finally managed to knock out one of the players.

Now I’m down to 2 parallel head-to-head games and it’s just manic. Escalating agressive plays and bluffs continued for about 5 or 6 minutes until finally I managed to win one of the games.

So – at this stage I’ve won one tournament and am now in a head to head in the other, and it starts to go slow for a bit for some reason, cagey play on both sides until finally I decided to get really agressive and then a series of all ins resulted in me coming out on top.

At that point I stopped, took a breath and realised I’d been so completely focused on the two games for probably well over an hour that I couldn’t tell you what music I was listening to because it all went by so fast. Woah – that was an incredible experience. I’d highly recommend you try it because if you think you’ve got some focus, try this for a while and see what happens. It’ll sort out the men from the boys!

You will know soon enough if the force is strong in your playing ability or not.

BOREDOM drove me away from online first person shooters to revisit the king of first person sneakers in the form of Thief: Deadly Shadows but is it still worthy of the crown?

My current gaming habits have been restricted since I moved to a new ISP service due to some network issues resulting in a distinct lack of any possibility of me playing Enemy Territory: Quake Wars online these days, which is shame. It really is a shame because ETQW is an amazing game, but not to be outdone I searched through some old DVDs and found Thief: Deadly Shadows.

This was the third instalment in the Thief series and unfortunately the last (unless rumours I’m picking up on the Web lately are to be believed). This was also the first dual-platform development effort (developing both console and PC versions at the same time) which accounted for the small levels and clunky transitions due to memory constraints.

Still, setting the limitations aside and playing it again from start to finish was a very enjoyable experience. I’d forgotten just how much fun it is to sneak around in the shadows, thieving and causing mayhem, having to think your way out of situations rather then shooting a way out. The array of weapons also makes for hugely diverse ways of solving puzzles or achieving objectives – water arrows to douse flames and torches, moss arrows to dampen footsteps, explosive mines to trap your unsuspecting foes, holy water flasks for those pesky undead or even oil lamps combined with fire arrows for really explosive results. The list goes on and on but the combinations never get old.

I’d also forgotten just how amazing the audio is in these ‘sneaker’ games. Instead of depending on what you can see it’s more important to listen carefully to the environment, to overheard conversations and tfootsteps, even doors and creaking stairs etc. These are the clues that tell you whether it’s safe to proceed or not. These noises and sounds become your guide through the ever-dark world of Thief: Deadly Shadows.

The sheer inventiveness of the concept – a sneaker rather than a shooter – is enough to earn this series a permanent place in my heart, even if the third instalment is not a patch on the open levels and freshness of the first two in the series.

However playing through Thief: Deadly Shadows again after all these years has only reinforced in me the desire see more creativity in PC games because of late it’s all gone a bit heavy on the graphics and deformable terrain and light on inventiveness. Apart from Stalker (which made great strides towards an A-Life persistence in an offline game), ETQW (Which was the first series to use tactical squad based asymetric warfare as far as I’m aware) and Portal (which made great and unique use of physics) I can’t think of any really inventive games that made it on to the PC lately.

Can you?

WANTED finally hit the screens here a couple of weeks ago and I’ve been meaning to post a quick review, but I got distracted by a minor disaster  for a while. Actually, distracted is a good way of summarising my thoughts on this movie because the combination of bending bullets, slow motion fights, sexy assassins and hard rock music is actually good, so good that it distracts you from the complete lack of any credible plot.

And – just to clarify – I’m not going to do my usual thorough review of the film. It really doesn’t deserve that much effort, so I’m just going to let the stream of conciousness take over and see where the words fall.

To be fair Wanted is really a summer popcorn flick, the kind of movie that you know going in you will probably enjoy as long as you don’t take it too seriously. I mean it’s not art by any stretch of the imagination, but it is an enjoyable romp which the lads in the audience will have some fun with because Angelina Jolie really does sparkle in this film.

Not as an actress you understand – her acting talents were not exactly in demand for this one – but as a sexy female assassin. Her eyes literally sparkle in some of the shots (maybe it’s the drugs!) and she is fit as ever. In fact there is one – all to brief – scene in the movie where she rises from a hot bath, completely naked except for the tattoos and walks away from camera which will have all the fan boys playing with the pause and slo-mo buttons on their High-Def DVD players in a couple months…

If you think I’m kidding, check out this still image from the scene. Anyway – enough about her, what about the film? Well it’s pretty pointless drivel with no real plot or in-depth characters that a respectable postman couldn’t see through in ten minutes (twist? nah – not really) but that’s not really the point in the end because this movie is pure visceral fun.

There is a story of sorts hidded between the action scenes (Useless son discovers his father was some legendary assassin with mad skillz who went rogue and started killing the good guys and further that the son may have inherited the same capabilities himself, if only he can bend bullets and survive the training blah blah blah). Oh yeah and there was something about a whacky fruit-of-the-loom destiny bollox maguffin determining who should be killed which will completely piss you off until the action starts up again.

And the action in this movie is pretty fucking insane. Think Matrix bullet-time and frantic camera angles, now factor in bending bullets and fast cars, oh yeah of course Angelina in some cute outfits with some crazy ass weaponry and you’re getting close.

Overall it’s not going to win any awards and you will pretty much forget about it within a few hours of seeing it, but I have to say I still think it’s worth seeing just for the hell of it. The pumping hard rock tracks combined with the relentless action on screen and the sometimes awkward transition from clueless and oppressed office worker to uber-assassin for the central protagonist (James McEvoy) are just about enough to put a smile on your face during the movie, but not enough for you to give a crap once you leave the cinema. Morgan Freeman should have stuck to his supporting role in Batman because he is plain dreadful in this film, and as for the other actors there are none worth mentioning.

So – in summary, if I was going to do anything with this film I’d add in more Angelina, more nudity and, well, actually that’s it pretty much

Who needs plot anyway?

I LOVE GAMES. There I said it. I’ve loved gaming (the computer kind) since I was capable of understanding what the concept was. I started with a BBC Acorn, progressed to a ZX Spectrum and eventually after years of loading tapes, writing pointless programs that printed out ‘Hello’ a few times I managed to purchase myself my very first PC, then the endless opportunity for faster, slicker and better upgrades arrived and took hold and then of course the Internet arrived and, well… I’ve never looked back since.

I’ve never really questioned why I love games so much, however I’ve always wondered why none of my female friends ever got into the act. I know there are female gamers and clans out there, but they are far outnumbered by the males and always have been. We just seem to get more out of games, but until now I never knew why.

It’s all about territory apparently, and the impact gaining territory within a game has on a males brain; specifically the mesocorticolimbic centre. This is the part of the brain linked to reward and addiction and it goes bananas in males when we achieve objectives, gain territory or otherwise make important stuff happen within a game context according to a recent study conducted at Stanford university.

The study itself is not what I’d call conclusive and of course the number of subjects who took part does not lead me to think the results of the study are extensive in any way, but it does answer the question of why exactly I’ve been spending so much bloody time playing online games that involve the taking or defending of territory in asymetric scenarios, and further why I’m getting so much damn enjoyment out of it too.

That and the fact that I have always believed that playing a PC game (online or single player) has always been an effective form of stress relief for me, but I guess what works for me may not apply to others.

Still, I’d be interested in any extensive surveys or studys out there that can offer a more comprehensive viewpoint on why there are so many male gamers versus female gamers. If you know of one, drop me a link would you? Thanks.

 

I HAD HEARD some pretty great things about this movie before going to see it, and as superhero movies go it had a lot to live up to, but the good news is that Iron Man more than delivers and, with one exception, managed to hit all the right buttons as an origins story and the birth of a new Marvel franchise on screen.

For anyone who doesn’t know this already, Iron Man is the Marvel comic book hero invented back in 1963 who usually featured as a member of the Avengers superhero team and is one of the small number of superheros (like Batman for example) who rely on technology for their powers rather than any mutation orientated origin.

SusiQ even accompanied me to the cimena to see this one in action, a rare event in itself especially for any action orientated films, and she was bowled over by the film too… except for that one thing they just didn’t get right, but let’s talk about the good stuff first.

Robert Downey Jr is absolutely perfect as the titular Iron Man/Tony Stark. His origins story from uncaring weapons dealer to superhero is expertly handled, without being too mushy. His investment in the character of Tony Stark is all over the screen and the childish behaviour, inventor distractions and fledgling steps towards superhero are directed with humour and a great eye for pacing by John Favreau, the director.

Gwyneth Paltrow even turns in a sensitive performance as the ever faithful sidekick and assistant Pepper Potts and manages to convey an inner strength not usually found in female sidekicks for a superhero; they are usually too busy swooning to be noticed but she manages to pull it off.

The special effects and CGI jiggery pokery is extremely well handled with one exception, and I’ll come to that in a minute because it’s related to the overall single thing that I was dissappointed with in this film, but before we get there I feel a special mention is also deserved for the technology on display in this movie because it’s just about a generation ahead of where we are now, or at least as an audience member you buy into that concept because of the way it’s portrayed on the screen. Unlike the tech in Minority Report this stuff actually resembles current day offerings, albeit with a twist and a few upgrades. All in all it helps invest a level of confidence in what we are seeing on the screen and the CGI effects are seemless for the most part.

It helps of course that there are some wonderful scenes where humour is the key, especially when Tony Stark is learning to control his new found capabilities through a combination of trial and error and perhaps a bit of blind luck too. And as gushing reviews go this one needs to stop here because it’s at this point that we reach the one thing they got wrong with this film, and that’s the plot/ultimate baddie confrontation.

I won’t spoil it for you except to say this; it’s obvious and lazy. Worse still the actual confrontation between Iron Man and – well let’s just call him the baddie for now – is a completely over-the-top CGI mash up which is in stark (no pun intended) contrast to all previous engagements for the Iron Man character. It was completely unsatisfying and unnecessary too in my opinion as the same could have been achieved differently… but that’s another story for another time because I will not ruin the core plot for you here by getting in to the details.

Still, leaving aside that one big problem the rest of the movie was brilliant, and brilliantly executed. I do hope they make a sequel because I believe Robert Downey Jr has crafted an excellent Tony Stark/Iron Man character and all the foundations are there to build a very successful franchise out of this one. I would strongly recommend this film – so go see it in the cinema and experience it the way it was meant to be – up there on the big screen. I know I’ll certainly be collecting this puppy when it’s released on DVD and watching it again… and probably again too!

IT’S BEEN A LONG WAIT, but season 4 of that absolutely incredible sci-fi show Battlestar Galactica is nearly upon us again. April 4th is the launch date in the US for the last season of this epic space opera, so set your recorders on stun and get ready to enter into the biggest season yet. It’s generally well known at this point that the fleet will eventually find Earth during this season, but no one is letting the full plot out of the bag just yet.

The real question is ‘when’ apparently.

As in, when do they do finally find Earth, what year will it be? The past or the future? Maybe the middle ages or sometime in the not to distant 22nd century. It’s all up for grabs and that’s just one single plot point. There are may more to be resolved; the final / fifth Cylon has yet to be revealed, the real story behind Starbuck is still a mystery, the fate of Six and Baltar and so much more. I’m not going to be able to wait until this show makes it across the big pond here, probably to be screened by Sky One, so I guess I’ll be depending on my American cousins *cough* to tape it for me!

And, as if that wasn’t enough to look forward to, another favourite (and seminal) sci-fi show of mine is returning for it’s own fourth season on the same day over here in Europe. Doctor Who returns at 7pm on BBC that night to kick off another great season of thrills and spills, and this time includes cameos from all previous ‘companions’ from the first three seasons.

There is a strong rumour flying around that this will be the last season for the current ‘Doctor’, so I guess we are in for some regeneration at the end of this one… although I haven’t heard anything about a replacement as yet.

Judging from the teasers and pre-release info I’ve seen so far it looks like being a hell of season. I love the way this show mixes humour and pathos with the most outrageous villans and situations. It’s a glorious mix between outright camp and good solid science fact which hits the mark on almost every episode.

If you haven’t already done so check out Doctor Who website for more info.

THESE WELSH JEDI lot are a forward looking bunch; I’ll give them that at least. Whether you think they’re whackjobs or take them seriously the UK Church of Jedi actually exists, presumably as a subset of the Jedi Church itself, and most recently they have made the headlines because they selected a rather interesting place to build their latest church, not to mention forming a new Galactic nation state.  I refer of course to the story that some Welsh Jedis decided to create a space colony on the moon.

Yep. You read that right, on the moon!

Of course the first step in such an enterprise is to purchase some real estate, which they have in fact managed to do. Actually, they’re not just interested in buying the land (a one acre site apparently), they are also in the process of setting up a new Jedi nation up there as well. You see the moon is classed as being in ‘international waters’ (although I challange anyone to find water up there!) so legally speaking there is nothing to stop them forming their own galactic state up there.

The two brothers at the head of the UK Jedi Church organisation have gone ahead and set up a government, constitution and royal family of the sovereign state as well. The nation is called The Galactic States of Jediism and they have also nominated their own capital city on the moon called Testa City.

What beats me is how they can fit all this into one little acre of real estate… still it could set an interesting precedent if we ever manage to, you know, actually colonise the moon… although why anyone would want to at this point is a bit of a mystery to me.

Still, it’s not as weird as the next item, because quasi-religious sci-fi enthusiasts doing their thing on the moon is at least ‘out there’ somewhere, a possibility that might be a problem in the future sometime if we ever go back to the moon, where as this next item is closer to home but just as weird.

I reckon that setting up shop for the future Jedi nation on the Moon is not as far fetched as suing the Israeli government for not defending your homestead with laser weapons, which is exactly what residents of Sderot, a southern Israeli town, bordering Gaza, are are doing to their government for not using sci-fi style laser ray guns to protect them from Palestinian Kassam rocket fire. The argument seems to stem from the fact that such a defence is now ‘possible’ due to advances in technology (currently called “SkyGuard”), but because the government hasn’t seen fit to invest and deploy it they are now being dragged through the courts to defend their position by a class action from the residents.

Just when you think things can’t get any weirder on this planet (or the moon I suppose)… they do!

I’m not sure which is the whackier story this weekend. Jedi nations on the moon or laser defences being dragged through the courts in Israel. Either way – you have to admit it’s never dull around here.  I suppose all that remains to be said at this point is… may the force be with you, you crazy wingnuts!?!

THERE ARE MANY words and expressions I could use to describe this film; darkly funny, twisted, unsettling, poignant in parts obvious in others, outrageous, anti-American, politically incorrect, mad… but I have to admit having seen it yesterday and had time to reflect upon it overnight I think the one overwhelming thing that strikes me is the amazing resemblence that “In Bruges” has to “Father Ted” and the lads from Craggy Island.

Before I get into that I suppose I’d better do the usual summary for anyone out there (living under a rock) who doesn’t know about this film yet. The basic plot revolves around a couple of Irish hit men who have to cool their jets “In Bruges” and wait for further instructions after a hit goes terribly wrong. That’s not exactly everything that’s going on in the film, but it’s close. The plot is quite simple and the pretext is obvious, hell the ending is even obvious, but the fun is how we get there via the two central characters/hitmen in Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson). It’s easy to assume the lads were just told to turn up, drink beer and shoot from the hip with this movie because the performances are so effortless, Irish to the core and great fun (especially the seemingly endless politically incorrect situations and conversations) and inevitably (it is irish after all) the film is a darkly comedic tale of retribution and redemption.

It’s the characters of Ken and Ray that make this film worth every cent/penny/dollar. The interaction between the younger, slightly simple but enthusuastic Ray and the older, wiser and worldly Ken are just a joy to behold. Let’s face it, any film with manky hookers, coke, midgets, irish lads on the lash, political incorrectness, gun play and blood is a winning combination!

But the one thing that sticks with me after the film is how close the relationship between Ken and Ray is to the – now legendary – relationship between Father Ted and Father Dougal on Craggy Island. If you don’t know what “Father Ted” is then you really have been living under a huge rock – it’s one of the most original, irreverent and funniest comedies to have come out of Ireland in the 1990s about the trials and tribulations of two catholic priests on a remote island off the cost of Ireland. It was hugely contentious because it was taking the piss out of the clergy, but it’s success rested on the performances of two central characters – Father Ted and Father Dougal – and you should go buy whatever DVDs or download whatever episodes you can because this is legendary comedy at it’s best.

So how the hell did I make the leap from “In Bruges” to “Father Ted”?…

When I consider “In Bruges” and strip away the persona and the situations in this film, the character of Ken is basically an unsure kid trapped inside an adult body, with the emotional maturity of an eight year old and the attention span of a slightly slow goldfish… but Colin Farrell nails this performance and no matter how outrageous it gets, it’s still fun to watch.

In other words Ray might as well be Father Dougal, even some of the facial expressions are the same, so much so that I wonder if he actually modelled his character on Dougal. That would be an interesting thing to discover via the ‘behind the scenes’ stuff on the eventual DVD I suppose.

And as for Brendan Gleeson – the hardest working supporting actor in the business – he turns in a fantastic performance as usual, but actually gets us to invest in his character and the decisions he has to make within the plotline. It’s here that the similarity to Craggy Island kicks in, it’s Father Ted all over again, well intentioned, slightly slippery, manacled to a younger apprentice who needs to have every thing explained to him and constantly looking for ways to keep things normal, to keep it all going along the way it should… which of course is impossible.

I suppose I could liken the character of “Harry” played by Ralph Fiennes to that of Bishop Len at a stretch, but I’m buggered if I can find a Father Jack reference… still I stick by my assertion that the way Farrell and Gleeson interact is pretty much exactly the way things went in Father Ted, which is not a bad thing to be honest.

This is a great film, not Oscar material and not without it’s challenges, but hell I don’t think I’ve laughed out loud as hard in a long time and if you like your comedy dark and your humour politically incorrect then this is the film for you.

One serious recommendation though.. go and see this in the cinema, preferably with some Irish friends if you can. Do not wait for this to hit the DVD shelves or see it for the first time on a download, because you will miss the sheer joy of the audience reaction in the cinema to the rapidly escalating situations and insanity.

Whether or not you see it again in the privacy of your own home is up to you, but I will certainly be adding this one to the DVD collection when it’s released.

The thing is… I wonder if it’s just me or did anyone else notice the similarity between “In Bruges” and “Father Ted”?