Reviews: Home entertainment

CD
Pink: Funhouse
3/5

I have something of a soft spot for Pink.

With record company “pop rock� creations such as Avril Lavigne, you could almost see the stitches, and you certainly wouldn't switch on a microwave for fear of shorting the circuitry in her robot brain. But with Pink, there was always that feeling that there was something human in there, even as the CD sales rocketed and the product endorsements piled up.

Songs like Get The Party Started might have been played to death, but there was always a knowing wink somewhere that made you feel better as you gritted your teeth.

Her new album Funhouse rounds on her estranged former husband, which at least promises fireworks. But while there are some catchy riffs and choruses in tracks like So What, there’s a disconcerting shift towards ballady offerings such as I Don’t Believe You, which aren't really her strength.

You’d still rather party with Pink than most of her contemporaries, but her funhouse isn’t quite as fun as you’d hoped.
John Hill

DVD
Iron Man
4/5

If it wasn't for that pesky bat, Iron Man could have been this summer’s best superhero movie.

With Spiderman still licking his wounds from a disastrous third outing last year, Hulk tripping over his own green shoelaces again and Hellboy transforming into a lead from a holiday romance novel, the field was wide open for the tin man.

And his entertaining adventure provided great fodder for movie-goers, especially those who didn’t fancy having their skull bludgeoned with the gripping-but-relentless blackness of The Dark Knight.

Robert Downey Jr finished the year with a praised comic turn in Tropic Thunder, but this movie ensured him a good summer as well.

The early amoral Tony Stark is a good fit for his screen talents, so you’re completely in his camp by the time the arms dealer learns his lesson and decides to battle crime in a robot suit.

It’s all high-octane stuff but will it keep its shine for Iron Man 2 in 2010, or will Marvel’s metalhead start to rust?
John Hill

GAME
Lego Batman
4/5

Following Indiana Jones in a plastic fedora and Luke Skywalker with sharp corners, it’s the turn of an ickle brick Bruce Wayne as the caped crusader gets the Lego treatment.

Unlike The Dark Knight film, Lego Batman doesn’t take itself seriously. Instead, there’s plenty of comic-inspired joy, and even some of the campness from the ’60s TV show – all wrapped up in self-consciously silly Lego cutscenes.

As gameplay goes, this is heapfuls of idiotic Lego platform fun: you’ll smash enemies, pull levers, greedily gobble up studs, and generally have a riot across Gotham as the dynamic duo or arch villains – each group with their own power-up abilities and starting areas, be they a brick-built Bat Cave or angular Arkham Asylum.

The great news is that the all-new vehicles sections shine, and the ol’ Lego gameplay has lost none of its charm.

This is bursting with ideas, Batman references and fun for the entire family.
Mark Scott, GAME

BOOK
Tic Tac, Teddy Bears And Teardrop Tattoos by Justin Scroggie
3/5

Ever wanted to be in the club? Ever wanted to know what’s going on? Ever thought that those conspiracy theories and Dan Brown novels might have a sliver of truth?

Justin Scroggie’s here to decode those secret signals, handshakes, tags and flags.

It’s packed to the gills with revelations that offer a fragile sense you finally understand what people are really about (although that’s maybe what he wants you to think…)

The downside is that the world is suddenly alive with symbolism from the colour of your boss’s handkerchief to the flowers planted in a suitor’s garden.

Broken down into 43 chapters, (a prime number. Huh. What’s Justin trying to tell me?), the book travels back through history to the coded signals of repressed societies and is bang up to date with the latest in gang marking, secret service and medical slang.

Pitched into the Christmas stocking filler market, Scroggie hits just the right balance between information and levity.
Giles Broadbent