The Good Dinosaur (3D)

Saturday 28th November -Leigh - 18:40

It had been a busy little November for the right and wrong reasons so my cinema visits had been cut short, so short that in the final few days of the month, I still hadn't been to the silver screen

To be honest, there was not much that had tickled my fancy, so missing out was not really a big thing.  I knew I would be making up for it in December with a little cult film called Star Wars coming out...you may have heard of it?

So I packed Clare off the the in-laws and settled her in for a night of Strictly Come Dancing and the X-Factor and headed of to my local world of Cine for the next Pixar installment, The Good Dinosaur.

Thankfully, most of the kids were also snuggled at home watching car crash TV so the screen was occupied by the more elderly than the chaotic.

When Arlo is separated from his father. in a very similar style to Mustapha and Simba in the Lion King, he must team up with caveboy Spot in order to make it back home to his family.  Perilous challenges await him on his journey back and he must put aside the fear he once had and become brave and strong like his father.

When I say perilous, I really mean perilous.  There are a fair few gruesome villains, treacherous situations and real life or death encounters for Arlo and Spot, ones that a younger Pixar loving viewer may be petrified to watch.  The story is run of the mill Disney and borrows a lot from previous installments bringing very little new to the adventure, but I still had fun with it.  One scene involving prairie dogs had me chortling out loud, but there are a fair few moment bereft of laughter that is accustomed with Pixar Films.

This is no where near the same standard as Toy Story 2, Wall-E or more recently Inside Out, but it is still far more entertaining that most of the drivel coming out at the moment.  Hence the slow cinema month.

The Last Witch Hunter

2nd November 12:20 - Bolton

With a video game feel and over the top action, TLW is a film you can watch without really watching or noticing it's there....unfortunately, I was sat in the cinema not pottering about at home.

Vin Diesel brings his acting power class, grumbling his lines through another franchise wannabe.  This time joined by Micheal "phone it in" Caine and Harry "Radcliffe" Potter as his new protege.  When a witch queen is killed by Mr Diesel in some far forgotten time, he is cursed to forever walk the earth.  He devotes all this time to becoming a witch hunter who cannot die, hence him being the last.  When strange magic is afoot, he must recruit his young protege and reluctant wicker to help in the battle of evil.

There is nothing new about this film, everything has been seen, done and done again, but again there is nothing wrong with it.  It is a film that you can forget about almost immediately, a film that can be merged into multiple other films so that you actually forget what you watched.

Michael Caine spends most of the film in a state of coma and the times when he is awake do not feel much different.  Mr Potter's character is obviously indecent from the start, but the films holds off till the climax for a big reveal.  I could say that this is a spoiler, but the film does that itself!