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Never Let Me Go was nothing like what I was expecting. I had heard that it was a great, emotional film and it's obvious that it's a romance; however, I knew nothing about the deep and haunting plotline. Some say that they were disappointed with the movie as it did not live up to the expectations set by the book, but if that's the case, the book must be bloody brilliant.

The film revolves around the lives of Cathy, Ruth and Tommy, three children who meet each other at Hailsham, a boarding school for children. The film is quite clever in that it is split into three main parts at different points in the characters lives which means that a lot of the irrelevant waffle that you find between parts of films is gone. At the beginning we see Cathy, the narrator, looking back on her life to when the three children were at Hailsham, then it moves on to when the three are moved to 'The Cottages' and live there after they're 18, the third and final part is when the three characters are nearing their thirties but they've all gone their separate ways. This is great because we get to see how the characters have progressed throughout their lives and it makes the film a lot more interesting.

The lives of all the children are changed when they discover that they are in fact 'donors', children who were bred for the sole purpose of providing organs for people with illnesses such as cancer and prolonging the human life span to well over 100 years. I was truly shocked and disgusted when I found this out. This film explores the possibility of 'harvesting' humans to save other humans. Now thinking about it, this could actually happen, perhaps that is what makes it so gruesome. When I say grusome, the film itself isn't grusome, it's not gory, but in the back of your mind you are constantly thinking about people harvesting organs and the likes and it's really not a very nice thought. It is quite shocking to think that a society would go to these lengths to prolong human life and it's truly disturbing.

Whilst the knowledge that all three are destined to be donors plays around in the back of your mind, in the forefront the plot moves on as Ruth and Tommy start dating even though it's plain for the audience to see that Cathy and Tommy should be together. This is a story of true love as Cathy never stops loving Tommy all throughout her years, even though he is in a relationship with her best friend. After leaving Hailsham School they move to 'The Cottages' where they wait to be called up to start donating. Cathy took the opportunity to apply to be a 'carer' of the donors, which means that she would be called to donate much later and in the meantime she has to care for the donors whose conditions get steadily worse the more donations they do. This is when the three friends part, Cathy becomes a carer and Tommy and Ruth become donors. Of course, later on they are reunited and then it gets really emotional as all three are fighting against time to rectify their past mistakes and to try and make the most of the time they have left before they 'complete'.

This story is so moving and it sort of has two plot lines that are closely intertwined. The story of love between the three friends and the story of their donations. It is truly saddening and really makes you think about the moral implications of sacrificing humans to save other humans. This film is incredible and I highly recommend it but prepared to shed a tear or two. The acting is superb from the three main characters: Keira Knightly, Andy Garfield and Carey Mulligan and it is tied together with the carefully constructed plot line making this movie unmissable. I'm definitely going to add 'Never Let Me Go' to my summer reading list as well.

Out on DVD now.

Green Lantern.

In 2010, at the Los Angeles Scream Awards, Green Lantern won the 'Most Anticipated Movie' award; however, I'm sorry to report that it did not live up to it's high expectations. I have to admit I'd never actually heard of the superhero 'Green Lantern' prior to watching the film but let's be honest, 'Green Lantern' is a bit of a pathetic name for a superhero. In fact it just reminded me of the 'Dragonfly' in the spoof movie 'The Superhero movie'. In addition it was awfully confusing given that 'The Green Hornet' had recently been released as well as the titles are far to similar and the plot lines are essentially the same (as they are in every superhero movie).

I don't think it was the acting in this movie that brought it down, in fact the acting is quite good with Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively (Gossip Girl), Peter Sarsgaard, Mark Strong, and many other familiar faces. Personally, I think that there were far too many visual effects that did not enhance the action at all but made it all rather ridiculous and reminded me of 'Son of the Mask' which is basically about a ridiculous green dude doing stupid things. Ryan Reynolds plays Hal Jordan, the 'Green Lantern', and he has 'will-power' which he can use to create anything he wants in order to block his opponent and the producers could've made this very exciting. Instead, all Hal does is create a race track, a giant fist, and some brick walls, nothing too exciting about those. It's funny because when I look back on this movie all I can think about is the colour green. I just rememeber seeing flashes of green on the screen all the time and I didn't find the fight scenes particularly exciting.

The plot was badly developed as I didn't think that it was actually going anywhere and one hour into the movie Hal Jordan still hadn't done anything significant as the 'Green Lantern'. Everything started to happen at once near the ending and it was all rather rushed and not very well thought through. The 'bad guy' didn't have a prominent role in the film and therefore I didn't feel like the Green Lantern was protecting anyone since the baddie didn't seem to be much of a threat anyway. In my mind this is what happens in the movie: Hal fancies Carol (Blake Lively), Hal gets whisked away and becomes Green Lantern, Hal doesn't want to be Green Lantern, Hal becomes Green Lantern, Hal 'saves' the planet, Hal gets the girl, Hal runs off to save the Universe. I really don't think that there was a lot more to it than that.

In conclusion, I don't recommend this movie because the special effects are over-used and this lessens the quality of the movie, the plot is badly developed, the movie is very slow paced up until the end when everything happens at once. It is a shame because Reynolds and Lively make a good couple.

Green Lantern in cinemas NOW.

The Vampire Diaries: The Return - Nightfall.

The reviews for this book are extremely mixed, there was even a controversy on Amazon over it. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to say that I was extremely disappointed with this book. Having read the previous four books in 'The Vampire Diaries' series I assumed that this book was going to be excellent, sadly I was wrong. It appears to me that over the seventeen year break between 'Dark Reunion' and 'Nightfall', LJ Smith lost her touch, which is understandable giving that seventeen years is a heck of a long time. Nightfall did not live up to the expectations and is way below the bar that the previous four books have set.

By 'Nightfall', I believe that the plot had just become rather ridiculous. Elena had undergone so many changes (human to vampire to dead to spirit to human) that the plot had become even more unrealistic. No one character can possibly go through that many life changes in such a short space of time.

'Nightfall' got off to a very slow start and I found it difficult to get back into the series. For a lot of the first part of the book Elena is just trying to get back to human self and has to essentially relearn everything from how to walk to talk to act and it's all rather boring and sappy as Stefan mollycoddles Elena and Elena overstretches herself. The plot doesn't kick off until around half way through and even then it's all very repetitive. I didn't think that the characters were very well developed in this book and there wasn't a lot of substance. This book was considerably longer than any of it's predecessors, it's probably about twice the length, and consequently, twice the rambling and irrelevant information. Stefan, a main character, was AWOL, inexplicably for the majority of this book and even by the end of it the reader is left confused as to what has happened to him. Stefan is not the only mystery. If I'm perfectly honest, I haven't got a clue what was going on at the end of this book despite the fact that I finished reading it only a couple of short hours ago. The story did not finish, but it was not the sort of cliffhanger that the reader likes, it was just loose ends that needed to be tied up.

The imagery in the story reminds me a lot of 'The Exorcist' or 'Splice' as many of the town's people become possessed by 'malachs'. They then proceed to do weird and disgusting things, but again there is little explanation. There are two new characters, the two troublemakers, but I didn't understand their motives at all. It is quite a long book and it's taken me quite a long time to read it because frankly I just kept getting bored and drifting away from it. Thinking back, I really don't remember all that much happening throughout. The climax is very near to the end but the problem with this is that a. most people are so bored by then, they really don't care and b. it wasn't worth the wait. I know that a lot of people will disagree with me as many think that this is an excellent book, but I am sorely disappointed and I don't feel like I want to read the two subsequent novels.

All in all, this book does not live up to the expectations that were set by the previous four books and I wouldn't recommend you read it. Don't let this book spoil your memories of the first four (excellent) books.

Bridesmaids.

Unlike a lot of other rom-coms, a lot of the plot of 'Bridesmaids' is actually pretty believable. The main character is a sad and lonely woman who's reaching 'that age' when you begin to have a minor breakdown because everyone around you seems to be getting their lives sorted whilst you are only moving backwards. Annie (the protagonist), really starts to crack when her best friend gets engaged and makes a new friend all at the same time. Annie crumbles and all seems lost. She's sleeping with her ex-boyfriend even though it's clear he's using her, her business has failed because of the recession, she loses her job, she's sharing an apartment with two siblings from the UK (Matt Lucas is one!) and her best and seemingly only friend is slipping away. Annie takes an immediate disliking to the 'new' friend and they start a silent, but raging, battle between them, competing for the title of 'best friend' of the bride. As you can imagine, things get out of hand.

I don't want to spoil the plot for you, so I won't tell you anymore but this is a genuine story that I'm sure every woman will be able to relate to. This rom-com actually received really positive reviews. Shocking, I know, but it is definitely worth watching. It's even been called 'the best female driven, r-rated comedy of all time'. However, not all of this movie is fun and games, for a large part of the movie the audience will be feeling sadness and sympathy (one would hope) as things really do look bad for Annie. This is what makes it genuine as it isn't a fairy tale, it could be a true story.

Kristen Wigg plays the protagonist and she does an excellent job and is no doubt about to become an even bigger star than she already is. I was suprised to find quite a lot of non-American actors including Matt Lucas and Chris O'Dowd, both of whom are famous comedians in the UK and no doubt have brought their impressive comic skills to this film.

I would say that this movie is aimed at and will most appeal to woman who are in their 30s, but to all other women as well. I wouldn't particularly recommend this movie for men but if you're a single lady looking for a day out with her friends, I definitely advise you to go and watch Bridesmaids, a rare, genuine, funny, heartbreaking rom-com. Enjoy ladies.

The poster's got it right: CHICK FLICKS DON'T HAVE TO SUCK.

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FILM REVIEW: Never Let Me Go.

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