Writer-director of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, not to mention cult television series Spaced, Edgar Wright is a comedy-writing hero to many. Which of course means that any forthcoming project from the funny Simon Pegg collaborator is going to be met with eager anticipation.

Having tweeted relentlessly about the film for months on end, Wright’s latest feature – Scott Pilgrim vs. the World – is now here. But, although it has unmistakeable touches of the British comedy genius, Scott Pilgrim is very different to anything you might expect. For a start, it doesn’t star Simon Pegg.

MICHAEL CERA: He just ain't as amiable

Based on a comic book (aren’t most films these days?), Scott Pilgrim takes place in an invented world that exists somewhere between fantasy and reality.

When Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) falls for a girl that’s seemingly out of his league, she instructs him that in order to date her, he must defeat her seven evil exes. In true video game fashion, Scotty high-kicks, uppercuts and fast fist-fights his way through the movie, despatching foes one by one, end-of-level-enemy style, until they’re all finished off, he’s learned some valuable growing-up lessons and won the woman of his dreams.

Scott Pilgrim is best enjoyed through eyes that watch without questioning why. It effectively captures a comic book feel, cleverly weaving the computer game motif throughout -with coins dropping for every baddie done away with, stylised fighting and inventive visual effects.

Elements of magic realism add a really intriguing dimension to the film, making it feel fresh and original but the curious pacing, which drags through the first four fights then speeds through the next three, makes it feel an odd mix of tedious and rushed.

Michael Cera – so charming and funny in Juno – is less so here. He wrongfoots the audience early on and we are never sure how to feel about him. At the start, he seems cruel and ever-so-slightly sleazy, creeping the audience out and making it really hard to cultivate trust in – and empathy for – him as the film progresses. You keep expecting him to get his comeuppance and yet he never does. The film’s ending offers him slight redemption but the film’s problematic opening confuses our feelings.

Also starring Anna Kendrick, Kieran Culkin, Jason Schwartzman and Chris Evans, Scott Pilgrim is an interesting and imaginative comic book adaptation that is perhaps best regarded as most accomplished when seen as an innovative exercise in mainstream filmmaking. As far as entertainment value goes, it’s fair to say it struggles.

I am doing very well at not spending money on clothes. I have managed exceedingly well considering my inherent urge to purchase new things to wear. Rediscovering old stuff is actually quite pleasurable, even if it does give me the headache of deciding what to wear, especially when it comes to occasions.

I had two celebrations over the last two weekends. My birthday and a friend’s birthday. My birthday was spent doing Afternoon Tea at the Lanesborough in Londres and the friend’s birthday was spent at the races. Both required a nice outfit.

But instead of just buying something new, I took my pick of what was already in my wardrobe and found things that did the trick. Oh no, wait. Actually, my mum bought me a new dress which I wore on my birthday. Darn.

Oh well, anyway. I wore a pre-existing dress to the races at any rate.

SUMMER DRESSES: To be worn until it is completely impossible to wring any more warmth out of summer (usually around the end of October)

But my post today is not one of these outfits. No. It’s the dress I have on today. I have been searching for this dress all summer, wanting as I was to wear it, but I couldnae find it. However, one day when I was actually looking properly, it turned up in my wardrobe! Huzzah, I thought. And promptly put it on. I’ve worn it a lot since and will continue to wear it until… ooooh…probably the end of October…? That’s usually when I finally let the summer go.

Of course, I won’t wear it continually. It *will* need washing at some point and I *will* find myself in situations where it may not be suitable or where I just want a change.  But I’ll wear it as long as there is still some warmth and sunshine to be found.

It’s from ASOS by the way. Dependable old ASOS. I <3 ASOS. In fact, I’m feeling the need to take a peek at what’s new online. Just window shopping, you understand…

The Avatar is the only being in existence able to master all four elements of water, earth, air and fire. Able to bend all the elements to his will, he is the only hope for saving the world from the clutches of the power-hungry Fire Nation. The only problem is, the fabled Avatar is missing. When a peaceful tribe of Waterbenders finds a strange young boy named Aang (Noah Ringer) in its midst, siblings Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) and Katara (Nicola Peltz) soon realise that he is not only an Airbender – a race of people thought to be extinct – but he is also the all-important Avatar. Sokka and Katara take it upon themselves to protect Aang to ensure he meets his destiny.

Shyamalan, sadly, has made a right hash out of this. One of the film’s biggest problems is its lack of tension and excitement. Fight sequences should be spectacular visual effects-fests to make audiences gasp and howl; the opportunities laid out here in a story that allows characters to harness the elements are ripe for exploitation.

But in Shyamalan’s hands, battle scenes are ridiculous – so slow and tedious that you actually have time to stop and laugh and wonder why characters are even bothering with all the Tai Chi-inspired movements required to summon up the elements. In the time it takes to do this, they could simply have punched their fiery foe in the face. Fighting in The Last Airbender is by and large ineffective – by the time Prince Zuko (Slumdog Millionaire’s Dev Patel) has created a fire-based attack, Aang, Sokka or Katara has summoned up a watery defence.

Remarkably, BAFTA-nominated Brit Dev Patel does emerge from this film with his dignity in tact. He makes a rather good little glowering villain and the role proves to be a decent one for an actor who has recently complained about the Hollywood parts available for an actor of his ethnicity.

Dialogue and tone are also major problems in The Last Airbender. Aside from the obvious references to ‘benders’ that raise more than just a chuckle or two from British audiences, the chatter is without humour, to the film’s detriment. It is also full of unfathomable exposition which gives the film an overly-serious tone that never wavers throughout and leads to long, boring stretches.

The Harry Potter films may not be works of genius but as obvious films to which The Last Airbender can be compared, they stand out as hugely accomplished works of cinema.

As incredible as it may sound, The Last Airbender will have you re-evaluating The Happening and willing Shyamalan to make a return to his much-maligned formula.

Today was the day Stallone, Lundgren and Statham did press for The Expendables (out 19th August).

STALLONE: He looks pretty good irl. Word.

I found it all rather amusing. Sly and Dolph make a pretty good double act. Sly spent a good deal of time taking the mickey out of the big Swede (not a massive head, I mean Dolph – he is from Stockholm, see, and is 6′5″) while Dolph sat there taking it. And smiling. A lot.

I saw the film last week and really liked it (not as much as Rambo but I enjoyed it nevertheless). Look out for a full review here during the week of release.

Incidentally, at the screening, I was asked to say a piece to camera about what I thought of the film. I said something embarrassing about buttkicking awesomeness and Jason Statham being hot. Erk.

Anyway, hooray for Sly and Dolph. Me likes.

Bringing together two of Hollywood’s most bankable stars for an old-fashioned romantic action comedy sounds like a recipe for hitting the summer box office jackpot, doesn’t it?

Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz thrown together in a modern spy caper and into a love-hate relationship should create sparks that set the silver screen alight, shouldn’t they?

But unfortunately, the best you’ll get are some sparsely distributed glowing embers.

It all starts when the two literally bump into each other in the airport. Loser-in-love June Havens (Diaz) immediately falls for the charms of the slick Roy Miller (Tom Cruise) but shady secret agent Miller sees her as an accessory useful for guarding an important item in his possession known as the Zephyr – a powerful everlasting battery. Cruise is on the run from a traitor in the ranks and he must protect the Zephyr from falling into the wrong hands at all costs.

CRUISE AND DIAZ: They're all wet

June is therefore inextricably drawn into a cat and mouse game, which sees her trust in Miller waver and leaves her at the mercy of her growing romantic feelings for him.

Of course, this being in essence a rom-com, things can only go one way…

This being the case, everything counts on how the film manoeuvres itself from A to B – which places unavoidable importance on script, action and above all, chemistry between the two leads.

Of which, there is none. As much as the film would like to think there is, there is no witty exchange of repartee and there is no apparent convincing mutual attraction. Despite having teamed up before in Vanilla Sky, Cruise and Diaz feels like a seriously mismatched pairing.

Reasons for this include Diaz’s inconsistent character, who on the one hand comes across as a desperate, annoyingly girly stereotype and on the other is meant to be a tough, tomboyish, independent kook, as well as the lack of significant love scenes. This is hugely damaging. We never see the extent or strength of their feelings for one another and therefore we find their romantic entanglement entirely implausible.

Knight and Day is one of three recent releases with similar subject matter. The Bounty Hunter, starring Gerard Butler and Jennifer Aniston and Killers both covered the same ground and although both were roundly panned, of the three, Killers is by far the best – buoyed such as it is by the spirited interplay between leads Ashton Kutcher and Katharine Heigl.

So where does this leave Knight and Day? Billed as an old-fashioned style action comedy, it is weak in the areas it needs to be strongest. An unfunny, uninspired script plus zero chemistry equals a by-numbers exercise in profit-prioritising moviemaking.

Formulaic and lacking invention, this movie star-heavy, care-light attempt to ignite the summer’s cinema screens is one summer ‘blockbuster’ to cruise past.

I was dreading having to sit through the movie adaptation of The A-Team. If you loved the popular US television show from the 1980s, there’s every chance you’ll be giving it a wide berth. How can anyone fill the shoes of George Peppard, Dirk Benedict, Mr T and Dwight Schultz?

The good news is, the casting could scarcely have been better, with all four actors mostly managing to make the roles their own (albeit with varying degrees of success) and largely eliminating memories of the original quartet of crack commandos.

THE A-TEAM: Four blokes and some guns and explosions and shouting and that

Anyone who remembers the original series will have the voiceover from the opening credits indelibly imprinted on their minds. It tells the back story of The A-Team, which is the focus of director Joe Carnahan’s movie. Re-introducing us to the Special Forces operatives so familiar to us from the 80s, the plot is based around an attempt to frame our boys for a crime they didn’t commit. Attempting to clear their names, the team becomes embroiled in a dangerous mission to recover plates used for printing counterfeit cash and to discover who is behind the crime and the framing operation.

Action fans will find plenty to enthral in this stunt-heavy shoot-em-up. Some sequences are jaw-droppingly far-fetched yet air-punchingly awesome, particularly for teenage boys who will adore the action set pieces.

But with some dubious special effects and a smidgen too much action, the film’s strength lies in the comical interplay and verbal sparring between the four main characters.

And though Liam Neeson may not quite have the sardonic humour of George Peppard’s Hannibal Smith, he certainly has the presence. His gruff, Darkman-recalling tones lend an air of authority that is crucial in marshalling this otherwise disparate band of wayward military misfits, albeit ones that are highly trained and astonishingly adept.

Bradley Cooper lacks the suavity and charm of Dirk Benedict’s Faceman but he does bring a mega-watt smile and super-tanned, taut torso to the vain ladies’ man that will have modern audiences drooling, while Sharlto Copley makes an arguably even more unhinged – and as such ever-so-slightly less likeable– Murdock.

Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson as B.A. Baracus is perhaps the most problematic casting decision of all, since Mr T was – and still is – inextricable from his role as the angry, blinged-up, Mohawk-sporting badass. Finally, it’s good to see hottie Jessica Biel in the role of Charissa Sosa, a strong woman who isn’t for once encouraged by her director to disrobe.

A dull story with no surprises is drawn out to feature length, meaning many will tire rapidly of the on-screen shenanigans, willing the film on prematurely to its uninspiring denouement.

Incorporating lines and motifs from the original series, fans of The A-Team might enjoy seeing B.A. Baracus’s iconic van, even though it is destroyed early doors, and may well lap up the inclusion of key catchphrases. And while newcomers might appreciate the updated revisions – setting it to a sick rap soundtrack, shifting to larger scale international locations and incorporating bigger and more expensive bangs – what’s most likely is that in trying to please everyone, most viewers will walk away unsatisfied.

I love it when a re-make comes together but unfortunately, in this case, it generally doesn’t.

He has made some of the most important, controversial and enduring films in the history of cinema. The man behind such provocative films as Nixon, JFK, Natural Born Killers, Platoon and Wall Street, Oliver Stone is unquestionably one of the world’s most significant filmmakers.

Whether he chooses to acknowledge it or not, Oliver Stone is a political commentator and a man clearly fascinated by power. However, the respected giant of American cinema considers himself a dramatist first and foremost.

Denying suggestions that most of his films are preoccupied with the subject of power (“Born on the Fourth of July is about an underdog – a kid – so’s Heaven and Earth, so’s Platoon, so’s Natural Born Killers…”, he says), his latest documentary South of the Border shines the spotlight on seven South American presidents, their policies and their achievements to date in an attempt to tell the real story behind the sensationalist headlines of the United States’ media. But it also paints a telling portrait of these powerful figures. Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Bolivia’s Evo Morales, Brazil’s Lula da Silva, Argentina’s Cristina Kirchner, Paraguay’s Fernando Lugo, Ecuador’s Rafael Correa and Cuba’s Raul Castro all reveal themselves to greater and lesser degrees in addition to showcasing the political aspirations they deem fit for public consumption and highlighting what is happening in their respective countries.

 As a dramatist, then, what appealed to Stone about telling his ‘version’ of the truth in a documentary format?

 “I am a dramatist. I like the big picture,” says Stone. “I think the big picture is what matters with the Chavez story.”

 In the film, Stone decries the way the situation in South America is reported by the US media, which he sees as picking up on the bad points and magnifying them so that the view of US citizens on the situation in South America is skewed. The reality, according to Stone and his political advisor and historical expert on the film, Tariq Ali, is that the continent is transforming itself, rapidly.

 “All this nitpicking in the US – and in Britain probably and Europe, by the way – it’s like looking for flaws,” he says. “This is a mindset that’s very Western. Of course, there are interests involved. Like the New York Times tried to do to us [with South of the Border], you pick apart some little detail and you say “Ah” and then the whole is off. That’s the only way to do it. Because the whole is not off, the whole is on. And this is a big thing that’s going on.”

Stone continues: “This is the first time in South America that you have seen a unified movement of people who have the same goals of independence and preserving their own wealth. This is an amazing story. I haven’t read it anywhere. That’s what’s amazing to me, also because it’s clearly the case and it’s not been reported. The US is very effective at pecking away at these people. There’s an election in Venezuela in the autumn, there’s an election in Brazil, both of which are going to be met by US opposition. And on top of that you have Chile, you have Peru and you have Columbia which are three problematic animals – obviously they are going to be promoted as working countries that are the proper way for South America to go.”

The theme of power is one that resonates with Mr Stone. A powerful man himself, he recognises that with great power comes great responsibility and he acknowledges that he has a legacy to leave. He wants that legacy to be a lasting document that reports historical fact, rather than the distorted version of the truth that he believes the US media feeds the American public. His next project also promises to make a huge impact. It’s a ten-part documentary series called Secret History of America that highlights the real story behind significant events in American history.

“It is a legacy,” Stone asserts. “I looked at my children and I said: ‘They’re getting the wrong history’. They’re all screwed up. Who am I? I don’t have a historian’s degree but I read a lot of history books and I can see a lot of flaws in them so why can’t an amateur get in there and give it a shot? If you can make a film that’s interesting to the eyes of a young person that is somewhat accurate to the truth…because the truth is a very elusive thing. We don’t all agree on what happened in history but if I can make some semblance of a historical interpretation that holds the mark, it would be a good thing to leave behind.”

Stone’s eagerness to redress the balance in South of the Border in terms of conveying an accurate picture of the political situation in South America is undoubtedly admirable but is he ignoring the whole story? Surely he should be asking some more pertinent questions – pertaining to human rights issues, for example – in order to paint as accurate a portrait as possible. Does he believe he has asked the pertinent questions?

“I’ve asked some of them,” he says. “The big picture is there. You could quibble about so many details. You could nitpick and I think the New York Times has done a fairly decent job of trying to deconstruct [the film] and you can
criticise it. There are problems in Venezuela of distribution, re-distribution. There are problems at all levels because it’s rough reform. It’s coming from a badly mismanaged government – badly mismanaged. The gap between rich and poor was gigantic. But I can say on the broad picture – and the World Bank would support the fact – that [Chavez] has cut poverty by 50 per cent and extreme poverty by 70 per cent, that literacy is widespread, that infant mortality is way down. All these basic statistics are terrific.”

It’s perhaps an obvious question why Stone didn’t make a dramatic feature film on the subject like those for which he is renowned. He would be bringing his points to a far wider audience. But Stone is passionate about the documentary format and believes that it can be a powerful tool.

“I agree you have a much larger audience for a drama. Because people want to be entertained and they look at documentaries as going to school. I don’t. I think documentaries when they’re well made can be exciting. That’s the whole point of trying to make exciting documentaries.”

Not only does Oliver Stone want to change the world view on history, then but he’s also looking to revolutionise the way we look at documentary film. He’s certainly a man on a mission or two.

South of the Border is currently on limited release nationwide.