CD REVIEWS: DION -A TANK FULL OF BLUES (2011), YO FRANKIE! (1989), HEROES -GIANTS OF EARLY GUITAR ROCK (2008)

(Note: I'm reviewing these in the order I bought and listened to them.)

I was just old enough to be aware of Dion and the Belmonts in the late 50's but by the time I was old enough to start really getting into pop music it was the early 60's and The Beatles and pop music itself was about to explode so I never really paid any attention to Dion Dimucci for the next fifty years when I heard I Was Born To Cry on a budget sampler from Ace Records (UK) (probably the greatest reissue label in the world) and thought to myself  -wow what a voice- and promptly went back hunting for new Ace Blues reissues. Some time later I learned that Dion had released three Blues albums. I tried one, liked it, bought the next and one thing led to another and I began to discover that Dion hadn't faded away after the early 60's. Actually I knew he hadn't and that he'd had a late 60's hit with Abraham, Martin and John in the singer/songwriter/folkie vein. But this time I dug a bit deeper.

I tried an Ace compilation of his gospel material (Dion is profoundly Christian) but the message was more important than the music which didn't appeal to little ole atheist me. A compilation of his 70's material had a little more appeal (70's: From Acoustic To The Wall Of Sound) but by then I'd moved on to another mini-fad. 

Two or three years later and two weeks ago the third of his Blues albums came up in Amazon's recommendations so I listened to samples and bought the CD.

This was a back to the basic approach, a bass player, a drummer-percussionist, and himself on vocals and all guitars. Dion had always been associated primarily with singing but he's always played guitar and is actually very competent. He's also always been a songwriter and he wrote or co-wrote all but the one cover on this album. I think the reason I didn't buy this at the time I bought his other Blues CDs was because I mistakenly thought it was acoustic. It isn't. It's electric, it's raw and Dion's voice is as strong as it ever was. It would be easy to use the phrase at his peak but that would be misleading because he's actually as good as he's ever been. And as a white Blues singer, he may have peers but not many of them.

To be technical, this isn't strictly a blues album, maybe blues-rock, but it really straddles genres. The final track -A Bronx Poem- is spoken, stream of consciousness, flowing one thought, one word into the next, almost rap, heartfelt and surprisingly effective.

And once again, one thing led to another. I looked him up on All-Music Guide (AMG) one of the best, if not the best, online sources about music. One album caught my attention, I listened to samples, bought it.

This latter day (1989) album is definitely up my street in that it's straight forward AOR. It's superbly produced by multi-instrumentalist Dave Edmunds (except for one track produced by Bryan Adams who was so enthused by the prospect of collaborating with Dion that he not only produced, wrote it, sung, played on it, he also brought in k.d. lang on backing vocals). Guest artists also include Lou Reed and Paul Simon who are open in their admiration for the man. Dion himself wrote or co-wrote seven of the ten tracks. You can tell the quality of an artist by the quality of those who want to be associated with him. (Dion has also shared a bill and a stage with Bruce Springsteen who has openly sung the man's praises.)

The songs themselves are generally pretty good. The seemingly braggadocio strut of King Of The New York Streets has a sting in the tail. Written On The Subway Wall has a Mark Knopfler guitar sound (Edmunds). And The Night Stood Still has echoes of Springsteen. Not all the songs are as strong but the overall standard is pretty high. If this isn't one of the best albums of the 80's, it's still a pretty good one. Kudos to Ace Records (UK) for re-releasing it. AMG informs me that it only made 130 in the Billboard charts. It deserved a much wider audience.

Then Amazon recommended to me an album very different to the two above.

This is a tribute to his peers of the late 50's, the foundations on which rock'n'roll is built. They are people he knew, whom he shared bills with. Here he revisits some of their greatest songs to magnificent effect. Dave Marsh the veteran rock music writer who told Dion while on air that he believed three of his albums of the 21st century were the best he's ever made. This, for which he supplies the liner notes, is one of them and it's impossible to disagree. He sings songs by Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Elvis, by Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, Buddy Holly and Richie Valens, Eddie Cochran and Del Shannon. He jammed on guitar in hotel rooms with several of them. 

Somehow, while mostly sticking to the original arrangements, he makes them vital again, not modern exactly, but refreshed by adding his own subtle twists, and, of course, one of the greatest voices of popular music.

Now in his early seventies, Dion has been writing, singing, playing music for over 50 years and unlike any other rock star I can think of is still creatively viable as he makes some of the best music of his long career. He's got old, he's not got stale. 

Still the cool tough Italian kid from the Bronx.

MUSIC REVIEW: CANNED HEAT -LIVING IN THE PAST and UNDER DUTCH SKIES 1970-74

Canned Heat have been on the road for decades. Or rather versions of the band have. My agrument in this review is that the original band and the only one worthy of the name died when co-founder member Alan Wilson (above, left) died. 

I now have three albums of theirs, those named above and the superb and definitive (accept no others) compilation Uncanned which has an excellent accompanying booklet, packed discs of all their best known material plus oddities and unreleased stuff.

The vocals were shared by Bob 'The Bear' Hite (he was big and hairy) and Alan 'Blind Owl' Wilson (who couldn't recognise a friend from two feet away without his glasses and I know exactly what that feels like). Hite's voice was gruff and bluesy the way you'd expect a big hairy monster to sing like when fronting a blues band. But Wilson had a very high falsetto, was a talented slide guitarist, but a fucking brilliant harp (as in harmonica, but you knew that already) player. Had he lived past 27 he'd probably be acclaimed as one of the world's greatest ever harp players. His fills when accompanying John Lee Hooker on the superb album Hooker'n'Heat sends chills down my spine.

A double vinyl album released in late 1968, it's now on a 2-disc CD. Unlike the original vinyl, this allows you to listen to both sides of the live 40 minute Refried Boogie Parts 1 & 2 without have to leave your chair, unless it's to run screaming out of the room. Only joking; it's actually better than I was expecting, but I'll get onto their endless boogie later.

The first seven tracks (side one) are a mix of blues covers, rewritten blues standards, and originals and in general it's pretty good. It opens with a good version of Pony Blues sung by Hite which is followed by My Mistake an original and haunting song written and sung by Wilson to terrific effect. Also included is their massive hit Going Up The Country. It's all very solid enjoyable stuff.

Parthenogenesis, the final track (side 2 of the vinyl), is 20 minutes long and one of the most astonishing pieces of music to come out of the 60's rock and blues bands. Consisting of nine segments, it's mostly instrumental and begins with a couple of pieces with Wilson on jaw's harp (the polite name for the jew's harp) which are dark moody sonic pieces concluding with and unbelievable version of Rollin' and Tumblin'. Wilson's up front again with a jaunty piece where he overdubs his harp playing four times and accompanies himself on guitar. Then there's Hite singing accompanied by John Mayall on piano. Swiftly passing over the drum solo, Henry Vestine overdubs his lead guitar five times for a slow feedback-laden piece which segues into a melancholy instrumental with Wilson's expressive chromatic harp accompanied by a sitar. The penultimate track is the full band playing behind Vestine's Albert Collins-styled lead guitar and it all ends where it began with Alan Wilson's atmospheric jaw's harp. The whole thing is just amazing as it shows how much subtlety and variety the band could play with and how they could go places you'd never expect. Much to my surprise, it isn't the pretentious load of crap it's been accused of but is in fact highly accomplished and I just love it.

Less than two years later Alan Wilson was dead and Canned Heat just wasn't Canned Heat any more. What you had left was this.

Canned Heat had always been known for their raucous adaption of John Lee Hooker's boogie which is fine and had its place but it wasn't all they were known for by a long long way. With the moderating influence of the immensely talented Wilson, they displayed a versatility and musical accomplishment. Wilson added the light and shade, a diversity of styles. Without him there was nothing but unsubtle renderings of blues-rock and boogie, endless, endless boogie.

GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW: EARTH 2 (2013)

An Amazon 4* review

Parallel Earths have been a major part of DC's continuity on and off since the early 60's (they disappeared for many years after Crisis On Infinite Earths). The first and most fondly regarded was Earth 2 on which heroes first appeared just before World War 2 (as, of course, they did in the comics of the time) and those characters became a firm part of DC's continuity (even after Crisis altered the continuity so that they had always been on Earth 1) and stayed there pretty much until the massive reboot which is DC's New 52 when superheroes only appeared about five years before the timeline of the new 52 comics begins.

So what DC has done is effectively wipe out those much loved (by older comics fans at least) Golden Age characters. Now writer James ('Starman') Robinson has created a new Earth 2 but this time (and there are other differences), the diversion from Earth One's timeline is the invasion by Apokolips when Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman (Earth 2's only superheroes) died saving the world. It's now five years later and new superheroes (or 'wonders' as they are called on this world) are just appearing. This first installment features new Green Lantern, Flash, Atom and Hawkgirl whose alter egos are the same as the original Earth 2 characters so that link remains. They are, however, often very different to their originals -media magnate Alan Scott (GL) is openly gay. They are brought together to fight a new Solomon Grundy whose origin is a bit too close to the New 52's Rot for my liking, but that's a minor quibble.

Writer Robinson produces his best work by far since his memorable run on Starman, creating interesting new characters with a lot of potential. The society in which they live is different with ample room for exploration -as a result of the invasion, there's now a world army. The pace of the narrative is fast and furious as GL and The Flash discover their new powers. The artist is (and at this point please feel free to imagine an imaginary chorus singing 'Hallelujah!') the wonderful, the awesome Nicola Scott of pre-New 52 Birds Of Prey fame who draws with energy and dynamism. And full marks to Trevor (no relation) Scott whose inking does justice to Nicola's pencils.

Simply, this is one of the best titles to come out of the New 52 and only misses a 5 star rating by a hairsbreadth. Essential! 

DVD REVIEW: GRABBERS (2012)

Amazon 3* review. Another alien monster on the loose.

Of which there seem to be a few recently (cf Storage 24). And another alien monster brought to earth pretending to be a meteorite (cf Attack the Block). But this one's a writhing mass of tentacles with a lust for the blood of endearingly eccentric members of the community of a small Irish island (in fiction, all members of the community of small Irish islands are endearingly eccentric -that's a rule). For some reason, although we're told it gets its nutrition from blood, Tentacles has no problem about eating the body as well. Just the body, the head it spits out. Oh yes, and, key point, it vomits up blood with a high degree of alcohol in it so, if the cover didn't already give it away, you can guess where much of the action takes place.

It's all pleasantly enough done though 'pleasantly' is not a word you associate with horror films, 'pleasingly' perhaps. It's not particularly gory, mostly just people getting speared with a very very long pointed monster tongue and the fake heads look like fake heads always do -unconvincingly fake. Well acted, quite amusing, never dull, it still manages to be one of those of the films you forget about five minutes after it's finished and have no intention of ever watching again.

Catch it on TV sometime. 

DVD REVIEW: WHEN HORROR CAME TO SHOCHIKU

This is a box set of a well-known and respectable Japanese studio's brief excursion into horror during 1967-68. I bought it primarily because I wanted to see one particular film and it's the one with the best title.  Yes, what else could it be but Goke, Bodysnatcher From Hell. (I mistyped that a moment ago, omitting the 'd'. Now that would have been a very different film.)

My memory may play me false here, but I believe it came out over here on a double bill with the equally wonderfully titled Matango, Fungus Of Terror. I caught up with that one a couple of years back (also part of a box set) and it was worth the wait. Anyway, I remember seeing the posters at the time and they greatly impressed me though, for reasons I can't remember (possibly too squeamish back then), I never saw them. So when I came across Goke even on this not very cheap set I just had to have it.

I was also determined to save it till last and I started with The Living Skeleton which is the only one in black and white and the only one without an American actress in a major role. It's also pretty good despite the unrealistic skeletons. Years after a robbery/massacre on a boat, a young woman is seemingly possessed by the spirit of her dead twin sister (raped and killed) and sets out to kill the murderers (we see several flashbacks to the event). I won't go into any more detail about the plot. There's a very eerie tone pervading the film and some brief unexpected outbreaks of explicit, including sexual, violence. It's a strange little film but very effective.

The X From Outer Space is a pile of silly crap, a dumb version of The Mysterians. The first spaceship to Mars is interfered with by a glowing flying saucer (why, we never find out) and is forced to return with spacebits stuck  to it and that's pretty much the first half of the film. One of the bits escapes the laboratory and becomes a dozy-looking giant monster, and that's the second half. At least one of the crew is a woman called Lisa and a scientist at that so for 1967 that's quite progressive. One the other hand she's a pretty blonde American who's in love with the handsome Japanese captain and she has a rival.

Genocide is deadly serious as you might gather from the title and in general isn't too bad. You might, however, wonder why the US Airforce would put a crew member suffering from VietNam flashbacks on a plane carrying an H-bomb, unless they actually wanted the plane and bomb to crash on a small isolate Japanese island where there are lots of insects and an amoral pretty blonde Holocaust survivor (Kathy Horan, also in Goke) who has sex with a married man and is creating a breed of killer bugs. It's actually quite grim -that's a recommendation, by the way- and effective.

And that is the original subtitle!

And, finally, Goke, Bodysnatcher From Hell.

The writer of the excellent sleeve notes (mini-essays really) goes overboard in his appreciation of it using words and phrases like "chaotic emotions, nightmare commotions", "unfettered, unpredictable" and names-drops Quentin Tarantino,Lucio Fulci, and George Romero. He's not exactly wrong but it probably was a lot more startling back in 1968 than it is now. It is, I have to say, pretty lurid and apparently has a nickname 'Vagina-face Apocalypse'.

A plane is brought down by suicidal crows, not helped by a bomb threat and a killer for hire on board who tries to hijack the aircraft. They crash into the middle of nowhere where the killer is possessed by talking slime from a flying saucer and proceeds to attempt to vampirise the rest of the survivors. The talking slime openly admits it's here to kill mankind and the crash survivors are first on the list.

While I did have fun, sadly it's no Matango. And, despite the first poster below, there are no fangs to be seen

FILM: BATTLE LOS ANGELES (2011), STORAGE 24 (2012)

You wait for ages for an alien invasion movie and then half a dozen along at once. It doesn't seem five minutes since I watched Battleship (see my earlier review) on Sky and now I'm watching Battle Los Angeles with which it has a lot in common.

And, to be fair, there are also a lot of differences. While Battleship dealt with the wider picture to an extent, Battle takes a more intimate approach by following a group of marines on a rescue mission through an L.A. which is being invaded by aliens and that's the plot. Much of it gives the impression of it being shot with a hand-held camera which provides a greater reality and a sense of urgency. The tough female soldier is played by Michelle Rodrigues and not Rihanna though the characters are identical; it's the generic tough female soldier. Aaron Eckhart is good as the sergeant dumped on the platoon at the last minute just when he was about to retire and his new colleagues are well aware that he was only survivor of his previous mission; they're suspicious, he has to prove himself.

That's it really. Lots of fighting, breaks for some characterisation followed by more fighting. As with Battleship, I quite liked it.

And as with Battleship, there's a dumb premise. The aliens haven't come to conquer, they've come to steal our water. Apparently Earth is one of the few planets in our Galaxy that has lots of surface water. Everywhere else, like on the moon Titan, it's locked underground. Now even if this was true, two things suggest themselves to me. Hydrogen and oxygen are two of the most common elements in the universe. It couldn't be that hard for a technologically advanced race to synthesise in the quantities they need. Also with regard to water being locked underground, you would imagine that it must be easier and more economical to mine it rather than invade an inhabited technologically developed planet.

And then there's-

-which has the virtue of at least making sense (mostly).

It's a low budget, single location, murderous monster on the loose. A bunch of people are trapped in a large storage building with what appears to be a face-eating generally munching and mutilating alien on the loose.

Not another one of those, you moan. It's just another slasher in alien drag.

And, yes you are correct. It is indeed another slasher in alien drag. But it's a very good low budget slasher in alien drag. Noel Clarke wrote the story, had a hand in the screenplay and also plays the lead, though it is more of an ensemble piece to a large extent. Our characters converge when Clarke, Clarke's recent ex, and their friends meet at the storage where the ex has gone to collect her stuff just as mysterious explosions are heard and something odd is happening elsewhere in London. Clarke is angry and bitter with his ex and rather irrational about the split and his behaviour rubs the others up the wrong way and for much of the time the film plays out like a psychodrama until survival takes priority and even then it never goes away. The character interplay held me as much as the slowly building tension.

Then, when the few survivors manage to escape there is one last final and logical sting in the tale.

Here it is in white type or as they call it on Aint It Cool News -invisotext.

Outside the storage place, London is being invaded by aliens.

It may be a low budget slasher in alien drag but it has a very good script, good actors, is well shot, and well directed and probably cost about as much as one day's catering on Battle and Battleship.

MY BOOK ROOM

Finally, at the age of 64, I've got something I've wanted for almost all my adult life -a room to tidily display my book collection. I call it my book room and sometimes I call it Fifi's room for reasons to be mentioned later. It's taken me four weeks to get it almost right. I say almost because financial constraints inevitably force limitations.

Okay, going clockwise from the outside wall we encounter-

-Billy the White Shelving Unit from Ikea which was put together from kit form by one of my several friends who are called Ian. It's an eclectic selection. The bottom two shelves are full of books about comics, graphic novels, and their creators. Above them are digest-sized graphic novels and a few novel novels. Then there's music shelf -books about music,  mostly the Blues, along with three massive box sets. Add some more graphic novels selected by size and a top shelf of various non fiction which includes political diaries by my retired MP Chris Mullin, the English language, and Buddhism.

These weren't built as bookshelves but I'd be willing to bet that you'd never guess what they orginally were for even though it's sort of obvious when you see it. In the mid-90's Sunderland Public Libraries decided to get rid of vinyl albums and, rather than just chuck them out, I was offered the chance to take the display stands to convert as book shelves. In their original state, they sat horizontally on top of a waist high cupboard and the lps were placed standing up in them.

The contents, with one exception, completely consist of graphic novels, nearly all my favourites with a number of them in expensive  oversized editions -note The Sandman series, Watchmen and V For Vendetta.

This is a converted cupboard with pipes boxed in and shelves added. Mostly it houses my DVDs sorted into rough categories like TV, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Asian movies, etc.

 And here we have Billy the Brown shelves. I was so pleased with the previous one that I bought these to replace a couple of smaller and crappier cheap units. I even, gasp, put them up myself. This may not sound much to you but I was the kid who got chucked out of Woodwork at school because I might hurt myself and my dexterity and practical skills haven't improved such since then. But I watched t'other Ian putting up the white unit and it didn't seem that difficult. And it wasn't and I was really pleased with myself until I realised that on each unit I'd put one piece in the wrong way round and couldn't fix it without pulling them to pieces and starting nearly from scratch. You won't be surprised to learn that I said 'sod that' to myself. You can just see which ones they are even on this photo but it could be worse and I did put them both together they way they were supposed to go.

The top two shelves on the left are books about tv and cinema, all Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror related as anyone who knows me would expect. The rest are graphic novels.

 An old unit with its twin being in the kitchen and, like it, is Science Fiction and Fantasy, including a shelf full of Terry Pratchett. Unlike the unit in the kitchen, I can honestly say I've read all of them bar one.

 This is a converted cupboard containing comics I bought before I went completely over to graphic novels, all my Horror DVDs including a large (and nearly complete) collection of Godzilla movies, plus Buffy, Angel, Babylon 5, and X-files sets.

One the bottom shelf you may have noticed Fifi. Except when she dares to venture downstairs to the living room where rarely moves from the padded top of an armchair, she spends the rest of the time here which is why I sometimes call it Fifi's room. The reason she more or less lives here is because one of my other cats chases her.

 I love just going into the room at looking at it all.

Now what can I put in the middle of the room?

MUSIC: MP3 BARGAINS

Of course, having bought an MP3 (see previous post), Amazon have lots more recommendations for me in this format so I thought I'd have a browse through them. 

One which I found tempting was Ten years After: Essential, a 15-track best of for a measly £2.49, and added it to my wish list because I've got way too much new music to listen to before I can consider it -like 200 tracks by Lightnin' Hopkins for a start.. I saw a similarly titled one by Jethro Tull which, on checking, I remembered I'd bought months ago. Then I came across-

This 87 track 3-CD set was on offer for just over £26.00, the MP3 for £4.99. In other words, only 20% of the CD price. While I'm not a great Bowie fan and didn't have anything by him  there are enough of his songs that I do like to make this worth buying. So I did.

Make that 287 tracks to listen to for the first time. Oh yes, and there's that 2-CD Canned Heat Under Dutch Skies (live 1970-74) which arrived today, the 2-CD Canned Heat Living in the Past (with one 40-minute live track) and the Emeli Sande live CD/DVD, both of which are in the post.

Every time I think I've got enough music to listen to -I have a 160Gb Ipod which is nearly full-I keep finding more I have to have. Does this sound familiar?

RECENT AMAZON REVIEWS

5* review. Title: Early days.

There's a lot to recommend about this 3-disc, 82-track set but recommending it to anyone who hasn't heard Lightnin' before isn't one of them. If you want to dabble your toes in his recordings, then it's best to start with a single-disc collection covering his entire career. And if you like that then, and only then get this one.

Presented in approximate chronological order (not all of the dates can be traced precisely) from his first solo recordings in 1946 through to 1954 when he was churning out top rate accompanied stuff, this is a comprehensive collection of his early days. There's a good essay by Neil Slaven whose appearance here can be taken as the veteran Blues writer's seal of approval for this set. The sound is sharp and clear to my ears. At this price it's also extremely good value.

Basically, for anyone wanting build a comprehensive collection of Lightnin's music, this is a very good, and for what you get, cheap place to start. 

Post Script.

Since putting up that review on Amazon and listening to the CD a bit more I went looking on the All-Music Guide for stuff about Lightnin' and checked out some of his recommended CDs on Amazon. I knew there was a massive 7-disc box set with the title The Complete Prestige/Bluesville Recordings which turned out to be going for huge amounts of money (as in over a hundred quid new). I also noticed that Amazon were selling the entire set as an MP3 download for £14.99 which is a bargain by anyone's standards. Amazon do bargains like this -I checked for more- but not very often so they're worth grabbing when you can.

  Black & Decker FSM1600 Steam Mop (Kitchen & Home) 3 star review: Sound but not special.

It fits together easily enough which is a good start and it does heat up in 15 seconds as it states (possibly even less) so there's no hanging about waiting to get started. It's slim and, therefore, easy to hide away in a convenient space.

It works fine on newly deposited material (like cat food) but is harder work for something that's stuck solid. Overall it's handy gadget and isn't expensive as long as you remember that you get what you pay for. 

(NB: this was a freebie from Amazon Vine, as was the item below, so I didn't pay for it anyway.)

Argon Digital Radio With Ipod Dock. 5* review. Neat petite.

To be honest, I'm not much of a radio listener and the main attraction here was that it included an Ipod dock. This may now change.

Setting the thing up is absurdly easy and the short manual makes everything crystal clear -just like the sound from the radio itself. Tuning it in is a doddle and takes less than a minute. The Ipod dock aspect is fine as it recharges automatically and only takes a couple of presses of a button to get it into play mode. The controls are easy to use. In fact it's all so simple that you hardly even need to refer to the manual, though of course you should

It's extremely compact which means you can put it anywhere, as long as there's a socket nearby, and its black colour matches my Ipod. So basically I'm delighted with it. You want a DAB/Ipod dock combo? Look no further.

Post Script.
Mostly I get offered books (usually proof copies) and the occasional DVD screener copy (I have Beasts of the Southern Wild to watch), but now and then something really useful and this item was one of them.

GETTING STUFF FOR MY HOUSE

I've just bought this on Ebay. It's so me.

Something else which is so me but despite being very tempted I just couldn't do it is this-

It's also available in a variety of forms as I discovered when looking on Google images. This is the less rude version.

Well, they amused me.

FILM REVIEW: BATTLESHIP (2012, SKY)

This is one of those movies which opened to a barrage of shit hurled at it by critics but when you actually watch it is surprisingly fun. Taylor Kitsch (who really ought to have changed his name as that's just asking for trouble) is the lead as the problem kid who rises to the occasion and Rihanna is a large gun-carrying grunt whose performance (despite all the crap heaped on her) is adequate to the role. The cast also includes Alexander Skarsgard and Liam Neeson (who, judging by the number of films he makes, is clearly trying to build a nice little nest egg for his impending old age).

Okay, it completely ignores the laws of Einsteinian physics by having a message encoded in a laser burst sent to an earth-like planet which has to be at least more than 4.4 light years away, Alpha Centauri not having any earth-like planets. However, not more than five years is enough time for the inhabitants of said earth-like planet to receive and understand the message and prepare an exploratory strike force and get it to Earth. However you just have to put up with things like that in popcorn movies. There are other dumb things in it but what the hell.

There are nice touches like the aliens being believably humanoid without being human and if you don't fire at them they won't fire at you. Their communications ship is critically damaged by ramming a large earth satellite (they were travelling very fast) and thereby allows great chunks of it to devastate Hong Kong in great detail. It also means that they have to use the communications station on Hawaii (where, conveniently our heroine -Brooklyn Decker of whom I've never heard- and a disabled vet are having a walk nearby) to send the message home -come on over boys, the Earthians are a pushover.

It takes a while to go get going but once it does it holds the attention until the end. 

Well, okay, it is a load of crap, but it's a fun load of crap and I had a good time watching it.

PS.

There's an unexpected scene after the credits which has a completely different tone from the rest of the movie and is actually a little gem.