>The Rocket Post
Director: Stephen Whittaker
Starring: Ulrich Thomsen, Shauna Macdonald, Gary Lewis, Kevin McKidd, Eddie Marsan, Tim Barlow, Deirdre Davis, Clive Russell, John Wood
Rating: (PG)
3 stars (out of 5)
Review by Mark Orton
The reality behind The Rocket Post makes for a great story.
Just before the outbreak of World War 2, two Germans unexpectedly wind up on an island in the Scottish Outer Hebrides.
Dismissive of the Nazi regime for not funding his work, rocket scientist Gerhard Zucher (Ulrich Thomsen) is given the task of devising a spectacular mail service between two remote islands.
Throw into the mix a bunch of suspicious islanders, a wealthy self-obsessed estate owner, and sultry schoolteacher Catherine Mackay (Shauna Macdonald) and you have the makings of a timeless romance drama.
Combined with amazing scenery and the odd joke courtesy of Glaswegian veteran Gary Lewis (Billy Elliot), The Rocket Post is pleasant enough.
Even with unnecessary sentimentality and an overpowering musical score, it still sits well within the tradition of twee British dramas.
Best thing: Eloquent cinematography
Worst thing: Limp love scenes
See it with: Some tissues
>WALL-E
Director: Andrew Stanton
Starring: Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Jeff Garlin, Fred Willard, John Ratzenberger, Kathy Najimy, Sigourney Weaver
Rating: (G)
2 stars (out of 5)
Review by Christine Powley
I was reasonably relaxed about going to see WALL-E (Hoyts and Rialto).
Knowing it was a Pixar film, I was expecting a good time and wonderful animation.
Well, I was half right. The animation is brilliant.
After giving us fish, cars and rats, here we follow a Waste Allocation Load Lifter - Earth-class robot or WALL-E (Ben Burtt) as he goes about his lonely task of compacting trash on a deserted planet.
Unfortunately WALL-E is more interesting than thrilling.
So much effort has gone into making the wee guy seem almost human it becomes annoying.
Here we have the old Star Wars curse of the robots being far more interesting than the humans.
When a probe called EVE (Elissa Knight) turns up, WALL-E promptly falls in love even though EVE is a menace, blasting first, asking questions later.
WALL-E follows EVE to the mothership to let us know what the human race has become; a bunch of Teletubbies.
This is funny, until you analyse it and realise Pixar seems to believe that if all the Americans blasted off into space the world would just stop. The whole concept is rubbish.
The trash WALL-E is so diligently compacting is all good quality recycling.
The second the American slackers left the atmosphere, the poor and huddled masses that had been kept out would be picking over the discarded riches because they would not have forgotten the old adage, "where there's muck, there's brass".
Best thing: Sorry, but all the laughs are in the opening short, Presto
Worse thing: So much bad science you spend your time mulishly muttering, "I don't think so".
See it with: Any child who is fascinated by space
