Transformers
Genre: Action, Adventure and Sci-Fi
Director: Michael Bay
Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, Jon Voight, John Turturro (with voices from Peter Cullen and Hugo Weaving)
Duration: 144 minutes
Year: 2007

Based on a toy franchise by Hasbro, Transformers tells a story of an epic intergalactic war between the Autobots and Decepticons. In this live action movie directed by Michael Bay, the giant robots are fighting over a cube, the Allspark.

The Allspark holds the key to the Autobots and Decepticons as the relic can bring mechanical objects to life. In fact, anything that is exposed to the Allspark can both repair Cybertronians and convert Earth electronics and vehicles into Transformers.

But to locate the cube, first the robots need to acquire a map and thanks to the Internet plus eBay (yes really!) Optimus Prime and his group of Autobots track down a teenager who has it. The item in question turns out to be a pair of glasses, which happens to have an imprint of the location on the lens!

Rising Hollywood star Shia LaBeouf plays Sam Witwicky, who receives his first car from his father. The car was no ordinary vehicle however, but it turns out to be Autobot Bumblebee! But unlike the original cartoon series, the yellow car with black racing stripes is based on a 1977 Chevrolet Camaro instead of a Volkswagen Beetle.

The alien robot is tasked to protect Sam, who is in a possession of something his great-great-grandfather (Captain Archibald Witwicky) owned. If the item falls into the wrong hands such as the evil Decepticons, then the world and mankind will be destroyed.

Meanwhile, as the US military led by Secretary of Defense John Keller (Jon Voight) and his team of advisors are trying to figure out who is hacking into their computer system and stealing classified files, Sam and his girlfriend Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox) must evade the Decepticon Barricade as well as Agent Reggie Simmons (John Turturro) from the secret government group Sector 7.

Being a Michael Bay movie, the action scenes speak louder than words and it is not surprising that the CGI-heavy fighting sequences take centre stage in this two-hour plus film. The poor dialogue, humour and a lack of plot doesn’t help but to make up for that are some of the most impressive special effects thanks to the creative geniuses at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). The detail of each robot when transforming are stylish and far more complex compare to the original.

Overall an entertaining film that will please fans but for others, a lack of character development and its ridiculous story will put off many.

Capcom’s survival horror game, Resident Evil 5 certainly looks impressive judging by this new extended trailer.

The promotional video features Chris Redfield, the main character that first appeared in the original game (along with Jill Valentine) shooting and talking!

In addition, actual gameplay scenes are shown, with the ‘over-the-shoulder’ look from Resident Evil 4.

There are few details regarding the game’s plot but the setting does seem to reflect the movie ‘Black Hawk Down’. Despite a lack of information, game producer Jun Takeuchi has stated that Resident Evil 5 will be an actual sequel to the popular Resident Evil series.

Before Takeuchi took over, the game’s former producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi stated “it’s safe to say that Resident Evil 5 will naturally proceed from where Resident Evil 4 left off.

Download the clip in High Definition here or from the Xbox Marketplace/PlayStation Network. Resident Evil 5 will be heading to Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in the near future.

From the creator of The West Wing comes a new drama that goes behind the scenes to expose the mayhem of producing a flagship series on a major television network.

It’s a world of politics and romances, and a delicate balance between creatives, on-air personalities and network execs.

Aaron Sorkin, the mastermind behind “West Wing” and “Sports Night” brings this next great drama, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Featuring an all-star cast in front of and behind the camera, such as “Friends” Matthew Perry, “West Wing” Bradley Whitford, plus the talented Amanda Peet, D.L. Hughley, Richard Schiff and veteran Ed Asner.

In the pilot episode (shown tonight on More4), the once great sketch comedy show ‘Studio 60′ is suddenly close to cancellation due not only to its less than stellar on-air product, but another, more unexpected type of action, its Executive Producer’s on-air mental meltdown. So enter NBS Chairman of the board Jack Rudolph (Steven Weber) and a new network president, looking to put her mark on the struggling network, Jordan McDeere (Peet). This results in the re-hiring of Danny Tripp (Whitford) and Matt Albie (Perry) to replace the former Executive Producer and hopefully save the show

Catch Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip tonight on More4 at 10pm. Further details on the new drama can be seen on the Channel 4 website.

The latest issue of the Japanese gaming bible ‘Famitsu’ features an interview with Gran Turismo series producer Kazunori Yamauchi. The motor racing enthusiast talks about some of the new features that will appear in the upcoming Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, which will be heading to PlayStation 3 this October.

GT5 Prologue will feature online integration with PlayStation Home (a little icon appears on the top menu screen in the game or when viewed from the Home universe, a link to “Gran Turismo World” galaxy appears).

A new feature named My Page is also included. What does this do? Well, when the ‘driving simulator’ starts, a My Page screen will also appear. In the final version, Yamauchi hopes to include a friends list as well (something like your contact lists in Xbox Live). There will be several background images for the My Page screen such as Tokyo and other cities, but will also include sceneries of both outdoors and indoors. There is also a weather forecast displayed so that other players will know which geographic location you are in and how the weather is there.

Unfortunately, there will be no downloadable content (cars or tracks) with GT5 Prologue. But the producer plans for 40 cars and four course with eight different layouts to make it to the final version of the game.

The playing style sits between the Gran Turismo career and Arcade mode. Players can earn reward money from each race and purchase new cars. There will be normal cars and tuned cars, but players cannot tune their own cars in this version. The save data from Prologue (such as money earned and cars purchased) can be carried over to Gran Turismo 5.

Sixteen-car races are being planned for offline mode, but that number may drop to 12 for online play.

Yamauchi hopes to include B-spec mode but it is still not decided at this point.

Japanese developer Konami this week celebrated its 20th anniversary of Metal Gear Solid by hosting a press conference in Tokyo, Japan.

The event was all about the popular stealth action game and Konami were only too pleased to announce new titles heading towards fanatic Solid Snake fans.

The first of which is a new PSP-based graphic novel (Metal Gear Solid 2: Bande Desinee). This is an interactive cut-scene heavy comic adventure story featuring the man in the mullet.

In addition to the comic book, a cell phone game (Metal Gear Solid Mobile) has been developed along with a Beta-version of Metal Gear Online. The online game, in which only 3,000 players from Japan were selected to participate, offers multiplayer sneaky neck-snapping shenanigans.

But the main highlight of the Metal Gear Solid 20th anniversary event was actual game play footage of the highly anticipated Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots for the PlayStation 3.

The video can be seen below and I have to admit, it’s simply gorgeous! The level of detail, from the sound of explosions/gunfire to the body movement of Solid Snake is astonishing. Clearly this game by Hideo Kojima, really showcase the power of PlayStation 3 and no, this won’t be coming to the Xbox 360 despite the on-going comments from desperate fans…

After watching this, you really feel the urge to play Solid Snake! Click here to download the footage in High Definition.

The hit US science fiction drama television show is heading to BBC2 this Wednesday (July 25th). Heroes tells a story of several people who “thought they were like everyone else… until they woke with incredible abilities” such as telepathy, time travel and flight.

One of the characters is Mohinder Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy). A genetics professor in India travels to New York to investigate the death of his father. It leads him to a secret theory - there are people with super powers living among us.

Meanwhile, a young hospice nurse, Peter Petrelli (Milo Ventimiglia), tries to convince his politician brother - Nathan Petrelli (Adrian Pasdar) - that he can fly… A high school cheerleader, Claire Bennett (Hayden Panettiere), learns that she is totally indestructible and Niki Sanders (Ali Larter), a Las Vegas stripper struggling to make ends meet to support her young son - Micah Sanders (Noah Gray-Cabey) - discovers that her mirror image has a secret.

A gifted artist, Isaac Mendez (Santiago Cabrera), whose drug addiction is destroying his life and relationship with his girlfriend - Simone Deveaux (Tawny Cypress) - believes he can paint the future.

Matt Parkman (Greg Grunberg), a down-on-his-luck Los Angeles police officer can hear people’s thoughts and Hiro Nakamura (Masi Oka), a computer programmer from Japan, develops a way to stop time through sheer will power. It seems that their ultimate destiny is to save the world…

The plot of the show is designed to be similar to the stories of comic books. Like comic books, Heroes has large overall arcs and small arcs within the main arc. No matter what characters exist and what events make up a season, all seasons of Heroes will involve ordinary people who discover their abilities and their reactions to their self-discovery.

Each episode reveals new answers and questions and progresses the story and/or the characters. There is an overall arc of the first season that revolves around stopping an explosion of immense proportions that happens in the future. That arc is initially carried by two characters, Hiro Nakamura and Isaac Mendez, where the former saw the event in the future and the latter painted it from his visions.

Heroes has been described as the new Lost, and unlike the group of people stranded on a hatch-filled island, the different lives and situations makes this drama somethink worthwhile.

It’s not surprising to hear that the fantasy drama has been named programme of the year by the Television Critics Association in Los Angeles recently. You will soon see why with the terrestrial channel showing the first two episodes from 9.00pm - followed by a series documentary (Heroes Unmasked).

More details on Heroes can be seen on the BBC2 website here.

Classic 90s kids television show ReBoot – the world’s first CGI animated series – is being set for not one movie, but an entire trilogy.

ReBoot focuses on the lives of biomes and sprits living in a city called Mainframe. The main danger for these digital citizens came from the gigantic game cubes (not to be confused by the Nintendo system) which would descend on a section of the digital city.

When this happens, sprite guardians Bob, Dot Matrix and Enzo must protect the city by competing and beating the User. Or face the consequences if the User wins… Further threats came from the evil Web, and dangerous enemies like Hexadecimal, Megabyte and (later) Gigabyte.

Originally made for children, ReBoot attracted many older fans when it became thematically darker partway through its second season. Additionally, throughout its entire run, the show made countless references to computer terms and pop culture that would not be understood by most children. The success of this series helped establish Mainframe Entertainment as one of the pre-eminent computer animation studios in the world.

With the announcement of a film, the plans to ‘reboot’ the series and take it to the big screen are complex - Rainmaker is teaming up with a comic site called Zeros To Heroes and asking five undiscovered writers to work up story ideas, which fans will then have the chance to comment on and get involved in proving.

In August, fans will choose the winning pitch and a web comic will come out, based on that idea, later this year, with a film following after that.

It maybe a complex plan, but will satisfy the loyal-fan base by allowing creative input. I reckon its’ time for the developers to restart and build a new mainframe.

McLaren’s Fernando Alonso won a thrilling European Grand Prix after beating Felipe Massa in a chaotic, rain-interrupted and dramatic race at the Nurburgring.

It all started with a sudden heavy deluge, which flooded the track during the opening lap. Many cars simply struggled in the extreme wet conditions and aquaplaned right off the circuit! At the first corner alone, six cars went into the gravel trap and these include the two Toro Rossos (Scott Speed and Tonio Liuzzi), Jenson Button in the Honda, Spyker’s Adrian Sutil, Nico Rosberg (Williams) and Lewis Hamilton in the McLaren!

Luckily for Hamilton, he managed to keep his car off the tyre wall and got back on track. He was a lap down, but under the 2007 Formula One regulations, the championship leader was allowed to unlapped himself under the Safety Car laps that were run as the race restarted after a 20-minute halt.

Hamilton had earlier suffered a tyre puncture when he was involved in a silly BMW-Sauber crash involving the team-mates of Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld on the run-down to the first corner…

With so many incidents on the track, the race was wisely red flagged on the fourth lap. Incredibly, Formula One rookie Markus Winkelhock – making his Grand Prix debut in the Spyker – was leading the field, thanks to the team’s great strategy call to place him on full wets after the parade lap.

The race restarted a short while later under the Safety Car. Immediately, Markus Winkelhock’s Spyker dropped backwards as the team took the gamble to fit extreme wet tyres in the hope of another sudden downpour. It didn’t and the race resumed with Massa leading ahead of Alonso.

Kimi Raikkonen had earlier led the original start to the race but when the heavens opened, the Finn tried to head into the pits but unfortunately understeered off! At the second restart, Kimi gained some extra places by pitting a lap sooner than the others for dry Bridgestone tyres (as the track was drying out). He then gained rapidly on the leading pair, only to retire on lap 34 when his Ferrari started cutting out…

As for Alonso, he was losing touch on Massa – as much as eight seconds - until the clouds darkened again in the last 10 laps… The entire field had to pit yet again to go back on to intermediates, and Alonso proved substantially faster than Massa on the wet track.

The Spaniard was all over the back of the Brazilian’s Ferrari, and although Massa managed to resist him for two laps, the McLaren swept around on the outside of Turn 5 - with a touch of wheel-banging - on lap 55, then proceeded to pull away and claim an extremely important race victory.

Later the Brazilian complained of a set of tyres that vibrated badly and he wasn’t pleased by the double world champion’s overtaking move. Still, he managed to finish the crazy race in second.

Finishing in third was Red Bull’s Mark Webber. The Australian drove a fantastic race in the mixed weather conditions to earn his first podium finish since Monaco 2005. He had risen to third during the early chaos, then regained the place when Raikkonen retired.

Alex Wurz was close behind in the Williams and came within 0.2 seconds of stealing third from Webber as the two cars crossed the finishing line. But in the end, Wurz settled with fourth.

David Coulthard completed a great weekend for Red Bull Racing with fifth ahead of the BMW-Sauber pair (Heidfeld and Kubica respectively), who had recovered from their early tangle in the original race start.

And finishing in the last remaining points position was Heikki Kovalainen. The Finn took a gamble to make a premature switch to intermediates as the rain approached at the end of the race. Heikki was originally in fifth but took the risk to change the tyres a bit too soon.

As for Lewis Hamilton, the world championship leader suffered a nightmare weekend with a non-points finish in ninth. Despite that, Hamilton drove a determined race and was unlucky to be caught-out in the wet/dry/wet conditions.

Fernando Alonso’s victory at the Nurburgring means he has reduce the points gap to team-mate Lewis Hamilton by two points as Formula One heads to Hungary in two weeks time.

European Grand Prix, 60 laps

1. ALONSO McLaren 2h06m26.388s
2. MASSA Ferrari +8.1s
3. WEBBER Red Bull +1m05.6s
4. WURZ Williams +1m05.9s
5. COULTHARD Red Bull +1m13.6s
6. HEIDFELD BMW +1m20.2s
7. KUBICA BMW +1m22.4s
8. KOVALAINEN Renault +1 lap
9. HAMILTON McLaren +1 lap
10. FISICHELLA Renault +1 lap
11. BARRICHELLO Honda +1 lap
12. DAVIDSON Super Aguri +1 lap
13. TRULLI Toyota +1 lap
R. RAIKKONEN Ferrari +26 laps
R. SATO Super Aguri +41 laps
R. SCHUMACHER Toyota +42 laps
R. WINKELHOCK Spyker +47 laps
R. BUTTON Honda +58 laps
R. SUTIL Spyker +58 laps
R. ROSBERG Williams +58 laps
R. SPEED Toro Rosso +58 laps
R. LIUZZI Toro Rosso +58 laps

Fastest lap: MASSA 1m32.853s (lap 34)

Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen took pole position for the European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring, in a session interrupted by an accident that befell the championship leader of Lewis Hamilton.

The McLaren driver had just set the fastest section time when he suffered a front-right wheel failure on the approach to the fast Schumacher S. The silver car slew straight on, bounced over the gravel trap before crashing hard into the tyre wall.

After impacting the wall, Hamilton was seen moving his legs in the cockpit. The British rookie attempted to extricate himself from the cockpit but was clearly in some discomfort and stopped to await medical assistance.

The qualifying session was immediately red-flagged while the doctors attended to Hamilton, who waved to the crowd while being stretchered away to the medical centre.

McLaren subsequently confirmed that Hamilton sustained no serious injuries, broken bones or bruising, and that he did not lose consciousness during the crash. The Englishman was taken to Koblenz Bundeswehr Hospital for a precautionary CT scan, which proved to be entirely normal. As is normal, Hamilton will require a final sign-off by FIA Medical Delegate Gary Hartstein on Sunday morning before he is allowed to race. The team expect the outcome of this to be positive.

The cause of the shunt was a problem with the right-front wheel airgun during the previous pit stop in which Hamilton’s McLaren was fitted with its last set of Bridgestone tyres before his all-out qualifying run. The wheelnut could not be fitted properly, and a second airgun was needed to cure the problem. However, back on track the wheel was still able to move enough to generate sufficient damage to cause it to fail.

The session was red flagged for 30 minutes as the damaged car was recovered, and repairs were made to the conveyor belt round the tyre wall. When the session resumed, Ferrari’s Felipe Massa lapped in one minute, 31.778 secs to set provisional pole. But this was immediately beaten by team-mate Raikkonen with a time of one minute, 31.450 secs.

As for the double world champion, Fernando Alonso was actually faster than the Finn in the first section but he then had a major oversteer moment in the middle of his fast lap and as he crossed the start/finish line, the Spaniard could only record the second fastest time with one minute, 31.741 secs.

This was Raikkonen’s first pole position since the season’s opening Grand Prix at Melbourne and judging by his previous two race performances, the Finn is looking great for a hat-trick of wins.

Behind the leading three came the BMW-Sauber pair of Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica – fourth and fifth respectively. Mark Webber did a splendid job to qualifying his Red Bull in sixth (14 places ahead of his team-mate David Coulthard, who was eliminated at the first knock-out stage).

Heikki Kovalainen was the only Renault in the top ten with P7. As for Giancarlo Fisichella, the Italian struggled and could only managed 13th position.

The Toyotas of Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher will line up in eighth and ninth on the grid – despite Trulli spinning at the final chicane at the end of the third session.

And starting behind them all will be Lewis Hamilton. The championship leader will start the race carrying the same fuel load as when he competed in qualifying.

Sunday’s European Grand Prix will be a fascinating contest as the three championship contenders’ battle for the overall win. Will Raikkonen go for his hat-trick of race victories? Can Alonso reduce the points gap to Lewis with a better grid position? What about Massa, can the Brazilian challenge his Ferrari team-mate and take the win himself? But I suspect all the focus will be on Hamilton. The British driver will start in his lowest grid position this season and it will be interesting how well he will race against Heidfeld, Kubica, Webber, Kovalainen, Trulli and Schumacher in his comeback to score valuable championship points. It should be highly entertaining at the Nurburgring!

European Grand Prix starting grid

1. RAIKKONEN Ferrari 1:31.450
2. ALONSO McLaren 1:31.741
3. MASSA Ferrari 1:31.778
4. HEIDFELD BMW 1:31.840
5. KUBICA BMW 1:32.123
6. WEBBER Red Bull 1:32.476
7. KOVALAINEN Renault 1:32.478
8. TRULLI Toyota 1:32.501
9. SCHUMACHER Toyota 1:32.570
10. HAMILTON McLaren 1:33.833
11. ROSBERG Williams 1:31.978
12. WURZ Williams 1:31.996
13. FISICHELLA Renault 1:32.010
14. BARRICHELLO Honda 1:32.221
15. DAVIDSON Super Aguri 1:32.451
16. SATO Super Aguri 1:32.838
17. BUTTON Honda 1:32.983
18. SPEED Toro Rosso 1:33.038
19. LIUZZI Toro Rosso 1:33.148
20. COULTHARD Red Bull 1:33.151
21. SUTIL Spyker 1:34.500
22. WINKELHOCK Spyker 1:35.940

The highly entertaining motoring TV programme returns to BBC2 next week with a special Polar-themed version of Top Gear.

In Top Gear’s most ambitious and arduous challenge to date Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond attempt to race from Northern Canada to the North Pole, 450 miles away.

The terrain in between is some of the toughest on earth - a mix of mountainous land masses and jagged sea ice where temperatures can drop to a mind-numbing minus 65 degrees Celsius.

Jeremy and James will be driving a specially adapted pick up truck whilst Richard will be travelling on something a little less high tech - a sled pulled by a team of ten Canadian Inuit Dogs.

Who will win in this epic race? Catch the Top Gear special (showing in High Definition) at 8pm on July 25th.