I didn't become familiar with the Jack Reacher character until I heard there was a Jack Reacher movie coming out, and everyone lost their minds because Tom Cruise was cast... and they didn't lose their minds in a good way. So I read the novel One Shot, which the Jack Reacher movie is based on, then I watched the film. I didn't get the hate for Cruise's casting then, and I still don't. And I've read many Reacher books since. OK, I do get it a bit. In the books Reacher is like 6'5 and blonde, and built like a tank. Think Dolph Lundgren and you've got Reacher. But Cruise nailed the character, and that's all that mattered to me. He's got the attitude down, the way Reacher thinks and acts, and he kicks ass with the best of them. Casting aside, Jack Reacher the movie, and One Shot the book, aren't that different. A few characters were jettisoned in order to streamline things a bit, which is often the case in adaptations. The ending is sligh...

The Relic is one of my all-time favourite creature features. I've professed my love for it here , and regret nothing. It's a rip-roaring good time at the movies. 'Nuff said. I'd never read Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child's Relic when the movie came out, but heard from many the film couldn't live up to the book. Having now read it, I disagree. I actually think the book and film are on par with each other, but in different ways. The movie exceeds the book when it comes to action and carnage. The entire museum showdown plays far better on screen than on the page, and I appreciated how the monster was dispatched in the film as opposed to the book. The book's ending was, well, lame. But Preston and Child didn't intend the book to be one-off. There's a lot more going on in the book than in the film, which is essentially a stripped down version of the story. For one, Preston and Child intended Relic to be launching point for a series of novels bas...

Everything has already been said about Steven Spielberg's Jaws. It's a bonafide classic. It's my favourite movie ever. And, for a while, it was the biggest hit of all time. Jaws was based on Peter Benchley's 1974 novel of the same name, and was actually optioned as a film before the book hit shelves. And while the basic plot of the book and movie are the same, the stories are quite different. Spielberg has said he felt the story, from a cinematic standpoint, was about three men who set out to kill a Great White that's been terrorizing the coastal town of Amity. About half the film's running time details this. While that does occur in the novel, it only makes up the final few chapters. A lot of the book has to do with small-town corruption, efforts to cover up the shark attacks, and an affair that transpires between Hooper and Brody's wife. Benchley's original script stuck pretty close to this, and it's no wonder Spielberg said "narp....