4VF News – Daily News Channel

REVIEW:

Having survived the 12 labours and the inexplicable slaughter of his family, all Hercules (Dwayne Johnson) wants to do is to live out the rest of his days in peace.

“Civilisation has become too civilised for us,” he tells his nephew Iolaus (Reece Ritchie).

A sword-for-hire since becoming a widower, the former mighty protector of Athens only needs one more payday to achieve his dream. And 358BC Thrace may be just the place to get it in a trice. Lord Cotys (John Hurt) and his people are battling warlord-cum-warlock Rheusus (Tobias Santelmann) who appears to have the power to bewitch. Thrace needs a hero and someone to inspire and turn their farmers into soldiers, but as Hercules is about to discover, not everything is exactly as it seems.

Based on a 2008 graphic novel by former 2000AD and Marvel UK writer Steve Moore, this latest take on the fabled demigod is a surprisingly comedic trawl of action movie tropes from the past two decades. Starting out with a CGI-heavy Clash of the Titans-esque opening, the film veers into 300 territory before settling on a Robin Hood-meets-Braveheart storyline (heck Hurt even looks like Patrick McGoohan’s Longshanks). Don’t expect lots of exposition though, the good news for fight fans is you get twice the skirmishes of Mad Mel’s Scottish epic in half the running time.

More Sorbo than Schwarzenegger, a beefed-up Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (The Scorpion King, Pain & Gain) cracks skulls and wise in equal measure as he delivers both inspiring speeches and general carnage with his usual amiable charisma. He’s surrounded by an eclectic band of “merry men” clearly hired for their sex appeal and comedic value (there’s Ian McShane’s equivalent of a soothsaying Tuck, Rufus Sewell’s vain Scarlet and a midriff-bearing Marion – an Amazonian archer played by Ingrid Bosol Berdal, who is guaranteed to make more than just her arrows a quiver).

But like Paul W S Anderson’s 2011 take on The Three Musketeers, it all feels just a bit too knockabout (perhaps not surprising given that director Brett Ratner is most famous for the Rush Hour trilogy), interested more in making sure the audience is showered with 3D detritus than keeping an eye on the growing amount of bathos. Visual gags are straight from the Pulp Sport playbook, sexist remarks abound and first-timer Ryan Condal and Disney direct-to-DVD specialist Evan Spiliotopoulos’s script contains at least one too many foiled coup de graces and surprise saves.

And with the visual palette set to gloom (not helped by the usual 3D darkening) and the soundtrack set to constant boom, everything feels about as subtle as a sledgehammer as Hercules labours towards a predictable conclusion. File under sporadically fun but fatuously formulaic.

Hercules (M) 98 mins, directed by Brett Ratner

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– Stuff

Bindi Irwin has slated the cameraman who filmed Steve Irwin’s death, labelling as hurtful his graphic public account of the Crocodile Hunter’s painful final moments.

Earlier this year Justin Lyons, a good friend of Irwin and the sole witness of his death, described for the first time how a massive stingray wildly stabbed the conservationist “hundreds of times” eight years ago.

Irwin had been filming a documentary series, Ocean’s Deadliest, when the 2.4-metre ray struck out at the 44-year-old in shallow water as it was swimming away from him.

“I had the camera on, I thought this is going to be a great shot, and all of sudden it propped on its front and started stabbing wildly, hundreds of strikes in a few seconds,” Lyons said in March during an interview on Network Ten’s morning show Studio 10.

Lyons also recounted the crocodile hunter’s calm final words “I’m dying”, after the jagged barb pierced his chest “like hot butter”.

“He had a two-inch-wide injury over his heart with blood and fluid coming out of it and we had to get him back to the boat as fast as we can,” he said.

The stingray attack, the CPR and medical efforts were all captured on film, but have never been released.

Despite Lyon’s declaration that the footage should never be aired out of respect for Irwin’s family, Bindi has now hit back, saying he should never have spoken of the incident at all.

“It’s really hurtful,” she told the latest edition of Who magazine.

“For as long as I live, I’ll never listen to it. It’s wrong as a family for us to hear about it.”

Bindi, who was eight when Irwin’s death sparked an international outpouring of grief, spoke in depth about her loss to coincide with her 16th birthday.

She said much of the advice she received on coping was well-meaning but misguided.

“I remember after we lost Dad, so many adults came up to me and said, ‘Honey, time heals all wounds’,” said Bindi, who still lives at Queensland’s Australia Zoo with mother Terri and brother Robert, now 10.

“That is the biggest lie you will ever hear. It doesn’t. That part of you is gone forever … that kind of sadness never goes away. It’s like losing a piece of your heart that you never get back.”

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– AAP

One of India’s leading music experts has died in Auckland, Indian media report.

Mohan Nadkarni, 91, had lived in New Zealand for the last eight years with family who had emigrated. He is reported to have died this week.

News channel NDTV

Bindi Irwin has criticised the cameraman who filmed Steve Irwin’s death, labelling his graphic public recount of the Crocodile Hunter’s painful final moments hurtful.

Earlier this year Justin Lyons, a good friend of Irwin and the sole witness of his death, described for the first time how a massive stingray wildly stabbed the conservationist “hundreds of times” eight years ago.

Irwin had been filming a documentary series, Ocean’s Deadliest, when the 2.4-metre ray struck out at the 44-year-old in shallow water as it was swimming away from him.

“I had the camera on, I thought this is going to be a great shot, and all of sudden it propped on its front and started stabbing wildly, hundreds of strikes in a few seconds,” Lyons said in March during an interview on Network Ten’s morning show Studio 10.

Lyons also recounted the crocodile hunter’s calm final words “I’m dying”, after the jagged barb pierced his chest “like hot butter”.

“He had a two-inch-wide injury over his heart with blood and fluid coming out of it and we had to get him back to the boat as fast as we can,” he said.

The stingray attack, the CPR and medical efforts were all captured on film, but have never been released.
Despite Lyon’s declaration that the footage should never be aired out of respect for Irwin’s family, Bindi has now hit back, saying he should never have spoken of the incident at all.

“It’s really hurtful,” she told the latest edition of Who magazine.

“For as long as I live, I’ll never listen to it. It’s wrong as a family for us to hear about it.”
Bindi, who was eight when Irwin’s death sparked an international outpouring of grief, spoke in depth about her loss to coincide with her 16th birthday.

She said much of the advice she received on coping was well-meaning but misguided.

“I remember after we lost Dad, so many adults came up to me and said, ‘Honey, time heals all wounds,”‘ said Bindi, who still lives at Queensland’s Australia Zoo with mother Terri and brother Robert, now 10.

“That is the biggest lie you will ever hear. It doesn’t. That part of you is gone forever … that kind of sadness never goes away. It’s like losing a piece of your heart that you never get back.”

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– AAP

An inquest into the death of Peaches Geldof has heard she was a heroin addict who had been taking the substitute drug methadone in the two-and-a-half years before her death.

Movie star Temuera Morrison is perched on a bar stool in Takapuna’s Berkeley Cinema.

The veteran actor has just finished telling local businesspeople about his trials, tribulations and celebrations.

His smile is warm and he’s frank, funny and genuine – his audience loves him.

So much so that there is half-an-hour of compliments, handshakes and photo opportunities before the question can be asked: “What’s a Rotorua boy doing in Takapuna”

It all started with a rugby game in the 1950s, Morrison says.

His dad Laurie, elder brother of late entertainer Sir Howard Morrison, was playing for his Rotorua rugby club when he hosted a team from Takapuna.

Life-long friendships were forged.

The Morrison family – dad, mum and eight kids – spent summers holidays beachside housesitting on the North Shore as a result.

“I remember how flash their homes were. Our treat was coming up to Takapuna and staying in them.”

Each kid got a bedroom to his or her self – quite a change from the two-bedroom state house they all grew up in, he says.

Two of the older Morrison sisters eventually got jobs in Takapuna and bought homes in Sanders Ave.

Morrison joined them on the North Shore when he bought a property in Devonport in 1983. His smile buckles into a grimace when he recalls selling it in 2003:

“Man, I was so dumb!”

But at least there is still family to stay with in Takapuna and he’s been doing a bit of that for the past few months while in Auckland filming Happy Hour Live.

“It’s a bit of everything – songs, skits and comedy, a good old variety show,” he says.

Morrison wants to honour New Zealand’s rich legacy of 70s and 80s touring acts, which his uncle helped create.

“Happy Hour will have old and new talent.

“It’s got the warmth of the old show bands, Prince Tui Teka, Billy T James, The Hi-Marks, the list goes on and on,” he says.

“It’s a great little job, I felt like my old uncle Howard – I even wore his shoes!”

Growing responsibilities on the marae in Rotorua mean Morrison, of Te Arawa and Maniapoto descent, cannot stay forever with his Takapuna whanau.

“But I love everywhere between Devonport and Takapuna, it’s like California’s Laguna Beach, friendly and laid-back,” he says.

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– North Shore Times