What do people like so much about this? Most of the positive reviews seem to indicate that people like it ironically. I read that viewers walked out of the screenings due to excessive violence. While someone gets their head caved in at the beginning, unless it was edited out, there really isn't much to get one's knickers in a knot about. As a film, this is annoying, overacted and doesn't have that much of a plot. One of those style over substance movies.

9th Wonder makes some pleasant beats, but he is limited as a producer. I've often felt that his creations get repetitive. 'Friends' is one example. It basically just loops the start of Outkast's amazing 'She Lives in My Lap', that would make it one of the best songs, but it erroneously includes the female's laugh about every two bars that gets irritating and ruins it. The loop in the title track gets repetitive too. On 'Rewind, maybe the keys are too highly pitched, however, part of the instrumentation reminds me of the tremendous 'Iron Galaxy' by Cannibal Ox that helps it be above average. 'What It Is' has some terrible expressionless rapping by Mu$ that makes it the worst moment, and I don't enjoy Roscoe's feature on 'King Is Born', so there are minor things that ruin some tracks for me. Elsewhere, it's fairly vibey, with an improving second half, but nothing wows me. Hus is okay, but says nothing much I've taken notice of. 'Chaos' is the highest point of the project for me. Beats: ★★★☆ Rapping/Bars: ★★★ Hooks: ★★ Best Tracks: Behind the Scenes, Chaos 1. Rewind 63/100 2. King Is Born 50 3. Supergoat 54 4. Friends 50 5. Behind the Scenes 72 6. Famous Poet 62 7. What It Is 34 8. The Waviest 60 9. Chaos 80 10. Already 65 11. Box Office 70

A Very Front Loaded Album Still D.R.E. = One of the best songs in the genre. It's gangsta, has a great melody, a catchy hook, it works on the radio, and I'm not sure who on Earth could refuse it (even if some of the lyrics could be less simplistic - ("Still, I stay close to the heat/And even when I was close to defeat, I rose to my feet/My life's like a soundtrack I wrote to the beat/Treat rap like Cali' weed, I smoke 'til I sleep/Wake up in the a.m., compose a beat")-ehhh). And surrounding 'Still D.R.E.' are great songs with iconic beats. However, like 'The Chronic' is, this album is also inconsistent. After 'The Next Episode', it completely falls away. There is nothing great from 'Let's Get High' to 'Ackrite' before the improving 'Bang Bang' and 'The Message'. And add in the skits, and it just makes it feel more bloated than it needed to be. There are enough great tunes here including, as mentioned, one of my ultimate favourite rap songs, and 'The Watcher' also features one of my favourite beats that Jay-Z reused years later on on 'BP2', but the quality wavers. Dre ain't a great rapper, but he has a strong presence and a good handful of these beats are the reason why he is heralded as one of the best producers in hip-hop. It is definitely held up too highly though by many. For such an apparent perfectionist, I'm not sure why the best songs, that are mostly within the first 11 tracks, weren't scattered around the weaker songs, or why a few of them even made the cut. Beats: ★★★★ Rapping/Bars: ★★★☆ Hooks: ★★★★ Best Tracks: The Watcher, Fuck You, Still D.R.E., Xxplosive, What's the Difference, Forgot About Dre, The Next Episode, Bang Bang

He definitely isn't the only artist to do so, but MC Breed seemed to follow trends, as he seems to be looking like some version of Rick James on the album art. He got more gangsta with his last couple of albums as that genre popped, and here he comes with the g-funk, which was taking off around the time this was recorded (continuing with the west coast flavour of his previous album). I love g-funk, but this just doesn't have anything that original, and as I've said with other reviews of MC Breed albums, he doesn't have that x-factor as a rapper. After three albums that each improved, despite being his most commercially successful project, I think this is a step in the wrong direction. It's consistency okay, (there are lots of 3/5 songs), and even though he is jumping on g-funk, I see some creativity, but there isn't really anything memorable. On songs like 'Back Up in Ya!' the rapping doesn't match the quality of the music either. The album also starts and ends with a completely boring intro/outro which doesn't help its cause, and it isn't until track seven, 'One Time', where a song catches my attention that begins the best run of the album. This one just meanders through a little too much to rate it higher. Beats: ★★★ Rapping/Bars: ★★★ Hooks: ★★★ Best Tracks: One Time, Seven Years, The Deal Is Da Funk, Break Yourself

This was a 3.5/5 for me for much of the movie. The action is entertaining, (it's great to have an R rating when the violence in lots of these movies is unfortunately watered down), the movie never stands still for too long, it did well to make me empathise for Eloise (Phylicia Rashād) despite only having a few minutes on screen, Statham packs a punch, and most of the ensemble are great including Hutcherson. I would have liked to see Jeremy Irons have a bit more to do though. However, the way Adam Clay just avoids bullets and any damage from those who are trained to cause it, until the final disabled South African guy, (this was the best fight sequence), takes any possible realism out of it. It begins with Adam using stealth and taking out individuals who he easily could, but it becomes a little too much. Movies need to stop having highly trained military/law enforcement being unable to aim. At one point during the movie, another Beekeeper is assigned to kill Adam, but she does it in the most unsubtle and foolish way possible by ramming his car and shooting with the loudest gun possible rather than sneaking up to his stationary car and shooting him through the window. Some of the dialogue was average also and I wasn't a big fan of the Agent Matt Wiley character. His whole tone seemed off. Lastly, the other issue is that Adam takes out a lot of tactical police. At times he seems to try to spare their life, such as through aiming for their bullet-proof vest, but this seems to go out the window. Cyber hackers all deserve to die a painful death, but not if you kill hundreds of innocent people to get there. These actions make his comment at the end of the film about law vs justice invalid and means Adam isn't the likeable hero he should be. So, like many action movies, you do have to suspend belief, but I don't think it had to be so far-fetched and think it could have been better by tightening up some of the elements mentioned.