Entertaining tale, again based on a true story, of a forensic pathologists fight against the might of the NFL to try and highlight the issue of brain damage suffered by professional football players. Along the way he runs into the usual roadblocks of personnel, professional and corporate greed, corruption, intimidation and cynicism all trying to undermine his findings.

What raises this movie to above average levels are the excellent performances by Will Smith, Alec Balwin and Albert Brooks. Smith, in particular, is totally believable in the role of an outsider with no interest in football who just wants to find the root cause of a problem however, he is painted as a little too perfect and although it may be an accurate representation of his character, the fact that he seems to have no flaws does not help you warm to him. Also, too much time is spent on his personal relationship and not enough on the flip side of the issue as it would have been nice to look at the effect on the players a little more as we only see small snippets from their point of view and the fact that these sportsmen, who are idolised during their short careers, often end up with pain and suffering, for varying reasons, later in life, so it felt like a bit of a lost opportunity not to spend more time on this area of the plot.

Overall the movie is one of the better dramas of the last year and I can understand how some people feel that it was a snub for Will Smith not to have received an Oscar nomination but I think they got it spot on.

DJ Speaks Rating: 6.5 out of 10

So, part two of what was supposed to be a five part series of Spiderman movies tying into the Marvel cinematic universe but poor box office performance put an end to that, and it shows as throughout the movie as there are a lot of minimally developed threads such as Peters initial friendship with Harry Osborn and Electro developing into a member of the Sinister Six which gives the whole film a very rushed feel where so much is crammed in but with no substance. To give the movie some small credit it still felt more akin to the comic books than the original trilogy, particularly with the Peter/Gwen relationship tale. Andrew Garfield does give another good portrayal of the webslinger despite the manic script but wasting an actor like Jamie Foxx with the pitiful plot for Electro was hideous to watch. The relationship with Harry Osborn was non existent with the Green Goblin feeling more like a spoiled child rather than some supervillian and what was the point in introducing Rhino as he has almost no screen time so I can only assume these were parts of the story that the next movie was supposed to pick up on but we’ll never know. Wouldn’t recommend this at all unless you’re big into your super hero movies. Perhaps the next re-iteration, currently penciled in for next year, will fare better.

DJ Speaks Rating: 5.5 out of 10