The Moon of Liberty

 4 August 2007, Kick off 4.00 pm

 England V Wales - Venue Twickenham

Sky Sports 2, Commentators Miles Harrison and Stuart Barnes

A few weeks of summer rugby for England began here with the first warm up game in the run up to defending the World Cup in France. Since winning the World Championship in Sydney 4 years ago England's form has been pachy, most recently they got well beaten on a tour of South Africa and were also well beaten earlier this year by todays opponenets Wales.

Wales themselves followed up by a strong performance in a narrow defeat against Australia. For their part today was about strangth in depth, particularly in the forwards where they left out a number of first team regulars to see if other players could step up. England put out a much stronger team today to try and take advantage of this, and they certainly did.

England's pack won the ball from Johnny Wilkinson's short kick off from the start, this set the tone of English dominence up front. Early pressure however did not lead to points as Wilkinson uncharacteristically missed two early penalties. The pressure was eased however when Nick Easter went over for the first try from short range after the English forwards battered the Welsh into submission.

From there on it was a prosession of one way traffic. The forwards dominated and by half time had added two further tries, both of a very similar close range fashion, one from Steve Borthwick and the other, a second for Easter. Wilkinson added a further penalty to give England a 22-0 lead at half time.

The only question was would the backs cut loose after the half. This did not quite happen as a couple of overlaps were wasted by the backs. It was left the the pack to continue to pile on the pressure, Easter got a hat trick from close range again, Shaun Perry added two more and the biggest cheer of the day was reserved for the ever popular Laurence Dallaglio who balsted over from five meters out from a close range scrum.

A couple of substitutions by Wales made a degree of difference for around 10 minutes when they did get some ball and Dafydd James went over in the corner after a smart Welsh move. That would be all for the Welsh however, as in the last two minutes the backs finally put a couple of moves together, Jason Robinson went over to show he is still a big threat, and Matthew Tait finished the game off with an easy try under the posts from a long kick with no Welsh defender in sight. This gave England 60 points, a miserable day for Wales weakened team proving they have little strength in depth.

As for England, tougher will be to come, the pack wont have it this easy against South Africa in the World cup group game, the backs wont be able to squander chances like they did today then either, but they showed today they can compete, especially in the forwards with fine performances from Easter, Perry and Borthwick and Regan. don't right off the World Champions just yet.

RESULT

England          62  Wales          5

England - Tries (Easter 3, Borthwick, Perry 2, Dallaglio, Robinson, Tait) Conversions (Wilkinson 7) Pens (Wilkinson 3)

Wales - Tries (D James)

MOON OF LIBERTY STAR MAN - Shaun Perry (England) - His breaks began the rout, two tries and directed the whole game from scrum half, a super performance.     

Transformers (2007)

Starring - Shia LaBeouf, Tyrese Gibson, Josh Duhamel, Anthony Anderson, Megand Fox

Directed by - Michael Bay

So after the SImpson next on the big screen is Transformers (robots in disguise.) A former cartoon favourite, this however is no cartoon, it has real people plus spectacular robots the special effects people can be exceptionally proud of. I however, am not one of those who belives special effects alone can make a film (Take King Kong, great effect, terrible film.)

So does the wider film match the work of the effects guys. Well, yes it does. The film wastes no time as decpticons attack a US military base in Qutar from the off. Through the internet both the evil decepticons and the good autobots have traced the all powerful 'All Spark,' an all-powerful cube that can be used for good or evil, to Earth.

Meanwhile in a little school, a young man named Sam Witwicky tells a story about his Grandfathers treck to the Artic circle, he also has his grandfathers glasses salvaged from the trip. Little does he know that these glasses hold the key to the whereabouts of the all spark. He intends to sell the glasses and other artifacts on ebay, seeing robots checking ebay for the details is very amusing.

As a result a pursuading his teacher to gvie him an A he did not deserve, his father buys him his first car, the car however turns out to be Bumblebee, sent to also trace the All Spark. Later Sam and Mikaela, a girl he would like to date, then meets Optimus Prime and the rest of the Autobots. Sam's involvement in the serach fort eh All Spark is set, and takes him on a journey into the dark world of Government Alien survellence units, as well as into the heart of the Government defense department. The race for the cube like object is underway, and to get it before Megatron, the leader of the decepticons, does.

There are few pauses for breath in what is a rattling good story. It moves fast, and the slower parts are principally good humour to add to the drama. My only reservations were the fact we have the 'Is Bumblebee dead?' storyline twice when once would have done, this did drag out the ending a little. There was also much airtime given to two characters, one girl working in the defense department, the other caught with a CD the girl from the defense department had given him. These could have been replaced with standard analysts in the department, I have no idea what the point of these two characers were or what they added to the film.

All in all though, this delivered, good film, good story, good flow. Not great acting but enough to carry the battles between the robots, which afterall, is what this film is really there for. Well worth the hype, and a look if you have not seen it.

MOON OF LIBERTY VERDICT - RATING 'B+' - Lived up to the hype, a great story was put together and had me locked in from start to finish. These films often don't deliver, this did, well done to all involved.