The Movie Rants & Reviews!

Ever get those moments when you've watched what you hoped would be a good film only to come out of it disapppinted and wanted to rant off to someone.
Me too.....

Archive 01 - 2004-07

RETURN to later reviews.

I Am Legend
[29/dec/2007] Score: 6/10
And also known as "I Am A Repeat" as this is at least the third time I've seen the famous science fiction/horror novel"I Am Legend" turned into a movie, and if you've seen one version you've seen them all.
The story remains the same, a reversal of the original Drecula theme, of a lone human vampire hunter hiding in his "castle" in a world of vampires out for his juicy blood.
Up-dated for the modern world, the vampires being rather more CGI hyper-active, in a desolate empty landscape of New York city (shades of "28 Days Later"), this offers a good retelling for a new generation of viewers who haven't yet seen Charlton Heston ("Omega Man") or Vincent Price ("The Last Man On Earth").
The only problems in this version are the usual glaring technical plotline questions typical in any Hollywood film, like how another survivor manages to cross to Manhattan Island when there are no bridges, and why doesn't another nearby community of surviviors hear the hero's radio calls for three years and come to his aid?
Verdict: A good nibble.
St. Trinian's
[22/dec/2007] Score: 6/10
E' gads sir! What are standards in this world coming to when the girls' hockey team of St Trainian's put on such a poor show! I think this needs a STRONG LETTER to The Times!
Indeed I cannot say say stronger than to suggest that perhaps the educational standards of this esteemed establishment for young ladies has certainly lowered its hard and demanding liberal standards to permit so many feeble and weak girls to addend! How can such girls look up to their elders and seize the opportunities the world presents them on their entry to the adult world when they've lacked such a poor start in their lives?
I can only assume that we were not permitted to see the full truth by the weak lilly-livered socialists currently inhabiting our glorious parliament and that the true story will eventually be revealed, however it may upset those of a weaker disposition.
In the meantime, sir, I shall have to award this film one or two fewer votes that I might normally have been aroused to grant it.
Verdict: De-meritus.
Enchanting
[14/dec/2007] Score: 8/10
And such an enchanting, sweet film. Rather than poking fun at the idea of an overly-sweet Disney cartoon-turned-real-life, the producers and writers have kept the kind of natural innocence in the story that allows cartoon characters to pass easily into the real(?) world of New York and produced a great fun film for the family at Christmas.
Verdict: Spell-binding.
The Golden Compass
[8/dec/2007] Score: 6/10
Although this will be agreat crowd-pleaser for younger audiences who will be impressed by the spectacle to a point there are, I feel, huge holes in the story and charater development which deserved more attention.
Even if that would have lengthened the film, to Harry Potter proportions, it ought to have been done.
Here though the holes, a lack of depth and explanation which I suspect has been left out from the original book, give the story a hurried sense which ought to have been avoided as the producers try to cram the story into too small a time frame.
Verdict: Needed better navigation.
Hitmen
[1/dec/2007] Score: 5/10
Forget any sense of realism, this is nothing more, or less, than a frentic race through videogameland as a totally amateur Hollywood-style assassin blends into the crowds with his huge bald barcoded head, and blasts everyone in sight with even huger guns.
Although it lacks any depth (were the writers in a pre-Hollywood writers' strike?), the film is nicely paced to race you from action to action, scene to scene without a thought for any sensibility. Perfect candyfloss for a damp Saturday afternoon movie.
Verdict: A hit, for those not yet men.
August Rush
[23/nov/2007] Score: 10/10
All right, maybe I shouldn't give this slushy romantic family film a full score but who's to know when cinema audiences will be difficult to find for this magical Fairy Tale of New York (had to get that one in) about a nice Irish boy musician meeting a beautiful American girl musician one night in NY and conceiving of a beautiful child progedy they know nothing about until he grows up and creates the song that will bring them all together.
Problems abound with the film including Robin Williams giving us his interpretation of a musicial "Fagin" leading a gang of unruly talented street children, a wasted opportunity where more depth could have offered us reasons for his behaviour barely hinted at in the story. With other clear themes from Dickens the story lacks pure originality, but compensates for this with its magical beauty and the whole theme of music running through our souls and destinies carries you along to the end.
Verdict: Perfect composition.
American Gangster
[17/nov/2007] Score: 8/10
Many people are comparing this with all sorts of other gangster films, whether Goodfellas, or The Godfather, they want to tell you this is as dramatic and intense as those other great films. It isn't.
When I finished enjoying this long drawn out, richly detailed drama about New York gangsters my final thought was about "Serpico".
This is in a sense a far more detailed, cooler, but still remarkably good tour through the 1960/70s rise of drug lords in New York. More authentic, being based on a true story, than the other US gangster movies, this gives you the grit that they lacked, no vast dramas, just the story of the rise and fall of the first moder major drug king and all the corrupt police who supported him.
Verdict: Cold bloody killing.
Beowolf 3D
[15/nov/2007] Score 10/10
This is where it all began. If you're looking for the inspiration for every Hollywood adventure, every great, and tall, tale then the 1400 year old Anglo-Saxon "Begwolf" is the beginning.
Nobel deeds that turn sour, battles against monsters, a hero's quest, and deep dark seduction. It's all here for the enjoyment in glorious 3D.
Verdict: Monstrously good.
Silk
[14/nov/2007] Score 5/10
If you want nice gentle acting, magnificent photography and subtle direction without all the crash, bangs of a "youth" move, then "Silk" is a gentle romantic story for you.
However, (spoiler ALERT don't read on if you don't want your enjoyment spoilt) it's also a formulaic Victorian romance - involving rather wet characters who Do Rather Well in the world, then Suffer Tragically with the failure to have children, wander aimlessly through life before she dies of consumption (well, in most Victorian romantic tragedies it's consumption).
So in a sense this is just as standardised as any regular Hollywood fare.
Verdict: Candy-Flossy, nice girl, but she died tragically.
Lions For Lambs
[13/nov/2007] Score: 5/10
A lecture for all liberal Americans and a standard journey through the enduring American theme of Americans facing up to the fact that while all the rich white folk sit in their palatial homes and wonderful careers, whether college lecturer, senior journalist or ambitious politician, it's the dirty skinned ones from their endless poor ghettos who die for the glory of white America.
Oh, and if you're a serving soldier don't laugh too loud at the Hollywood heroics of their fighting characters, we both know it's complete nonsense.
Verdict: Lamb chops are tastier.
Good Luck Chuck
[11/nov/2007] Score: 5/10
In an attempt to out-gross and out earn the grosses of American Pie, Good Luck Chuck thrusts deep into more than apple pies for its thrills, and while there may be a few moments of humour and adolescent sex (boobs, boobs, boobs, boobs, etc.) in there the overall effect is an uninspired plod through the same old fields of not-so-imaginative romantic sex comedy., with the usual embarrassing moments, the usual failure to communicate and talk to each other that would avoid all the problems, the usual overacting stupidity, the usual race to get the girl at the end, etc., etc.
Verdict: Chuck it.
Planet Terror
[10/11/2007] Score: 8/10
The second (first?) half of the "Grindhouse" movie duo from Tarantino and Rodriguez, this delayed and extended version of Robert Rodriguez's contribution is closer to the crackly low budget styling than Tarantino's and invokes memories all the trash-budget Sci-Fi zombie movies of the long lost age of the Grindhouse movie.
If you just want a trip back to that age, or you want a little trip to broaden your own film experience this is a fun way to do it.
Don't take it seriously, but use it to inspire your own experience or your own ambitions in film production.
Verdict: Ground down and polished.
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
[5/11/2007] Score: 8/10
Ahh, those were the days, when men, and women, were men, and small religious nuts really were small religious nuts, and not just "misunderstood", easy to slaughter on the high seas by the might of the plucky English navy, and the odd huge storm.
None of this stupid political correctness or worry about the "innocent victims", just get out there and chop their heads off, spike, them drown them, and so many other wonderfully simple ways to put the world right, bring down empires and build your own.
Of course we can't have that nowadays, but it's always nice to dream, and this is a dream, but once a reality, and we did win. (Bet New Labour in Britain would have had something to say about that!)
However, in all the glory of the special effects as the Armada got it in the neck from plucky little England I did feel that the scriptwriters were being overwhelmed by the visual impression of the film and could have done with a touch of the Shakespeare about them to match equal to the glory of the vision that was the beginning of Britain's 300 year Golden Age.
Verdict: Radiant.
30 Days Of Night
[3/11/2007] Score: 6/10
Nice vampire film, but although this has been billed as a new style for the new century of vampire films I found it very difficult to get my head around the idea of a hundred or so people managing to hide out for a month in a town that's supposed to be infested with vampires, who obviously seem clever enough to ensure the town is isolated, then fail to conduct a thorough search of every building once the feasting begins.
As for the townsfolk. Like the vampires they seem to have left their brains behind when they moved to this town, because the story leaves so many questions and silly little details hanging around begging for answers, like - why go to a general store for food, etc., and not pick up some spare weapons, knives, axes, chainsaws, etc., especially as they had days to plan their move?
Verdict: 30 days of dimness?
Nancy Drew
[2/11/2007] Score: 6/10
Forget your disbelief, just leave it at the door and enjoy this silly fish-out-of-water tale of young girl detective hitting big bad city of the angels.
The pace and the fact that everyone treats it seriously makes the suspension of disbelief that a fifteen(?) year old girl could out-fox adults at every step of the way so easy to accept.
Unlike my previous review The Dark Is Rising, Nancy Drew shows you can create a nice little story as long as you just carry the story along briskly, don't try to over-stretch your audience's disbelief and imagination, and take them of a nice ride.
Verdict: All Agents and Managers in Hollywood are evil.
The Dark Is Rising
[30/10/2007] Score: 5/10
Derivative, exploitative and just good enough for many younger audiences, but not for a wider family, this story of a young boy finding he's the last of the Old Ones (why are they always the last, and not the middle, or the first, or anything else, but the last, what happened to the rest of them?) and sent on a mysterious quest to find clues the thingies to save the world against The Dark.
As usual the goodies are all po-faced and wooden, and the baddies get all the good lines (they must have stolen them, that's why they're the baddies, boo-hiss!).
This will work for some younger ones until they get around to the wonders of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, but with those latter majesties to enjoy any other youth/family fantasy has to stretch itself in new ways or with new subtleties.
Verdict: A dark future for many a scriptwriter I see.
Sicko
[27/10/2007] Score: 6/10
This is a Michael Moore film, so forget any thought of objectivity and embrace the biases of this campaigner against all things greedy and Republican that is rotten in America. Here we have the wonders of the US medical system, the richest in the world, that leaves the destitute and poor to fend helplessly for themselves.
That Michael Moore then highlights other services around the world, like the British National Health Service, with an idealised glow that remains ignorant of the faults and failings any decent Briton could discuss at length, is only the product of his primary objective - to waken the people of America from their illusions and apathy and maybe, somewhere along the line, see them too benefit from a more civilized system of humanitarian health care.
Verdict: Oh look! A flying pig!
Eastern Promises
[26/10/2007] Score: 7/10
Another quirky, low profile and gritty thriller from Director David Cronenberg in the style of "A History Of Violence". If you're expecting something dramatically glossy then the first twilight gray gloom of London ought to dissuade you of that illusion; and if you want a clear definitive conclusion to the story then seek elsewhere, but a small scale story about small people in a big situation, seen only from their point of view will satisfy you all the way.
This shows that you can create a great story from a small amount of material without the need to over-dramatise anything.
Verdict: Promises kept.
Stardust
[20/oct/2007] Score: 8/10
When I first sat down to watch Stardust I was expecting an average fantasy tale, probably not up to the standard of a Harry Potter plot, but still good enough to pass the time, but as time passed and the story unfolded I was surprised by the pace, the wit and the style of a film that invokes that old-style fantasy story we've not seen since at least The Princess Bride.
Though some of it will go over the heads of the youngest in the audience this is a great story for children of all other ages and those who never really grew up.
Verdict: Sparkling.
The Last Legion
[19/oct/2007] Score: 3/10
Avoid this ridiculous mish-mash of Hollywood-style "legend" as they try to mangle the Arthurian fantasy with the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. But if you have to watch it then seriously suspend your disbelief and pass a couple of hours while you wait for something important.
Verdict: Load of cobblers.
Ratatouille
[15/oct/2007] Score: 10/10
For originality can you beat the idea of a rat that wants to cook in a top Paris restaurant, and succeeds? And for suspension of disbelief: the humour, the drama, the swift pace of the story, the wonderful animation? All right, so this is a daft story idea, but it's also a great piece of entertainment and a perfect way to spend a happy afternoon, and above all it doesn't fall into the pit of sentimentality at the end.
Verdict: A Five Star serving *****
Resident Evil: Extinction
[13/oct/2007] Score: 6/10
Zombies, people who have spent five years fighting zombies and make all the traditional mistakes (do they teach this in American schools - "Being Killed By Zombies 101"), big evil corporation dominating, the remains of, the world, and sexy babes slashing their way through it all.
Nice continuation of the first two films and a nice little twist at the end, but nothing spectacular.
Verdict: "The Zombie Formula!"
The Heartbreak Kid
[8/oct/2007] Score: 5/10
There's just something about Ben Stiller's occasional over-the-top antics that doesn't work for me. I don't mind the bulk of his performances, but in every film he has to just overdo it. I guess it's the American taste for the clown rather than subtle humour and romance which demands such behaviour, but it spoils what could be a good film and breaks the spell of a good story.
So it is with The Heartbreak Kid. I think it's something to do with being a Neil Simon story from a few decades ago that still leaks through, the glaring mistakes, the gross misunderstandings when people just fail to explain themselves, we've seen so many times before. Perhaps with less knowledgeable, younger audiences this would be a good story, but somewhere along the way I got bored with all the predictability.
Verdict: Heartbreaking opportunity missed.
Day Watch
[6/oct/2007] Score: 7/10
Second story in a trilogy of Russian Good v. Bad, vampire movies, and they just love trashing Moscow, what, don't they like their home city?
Forget a Hollywood or any Western trasher/slasher bloodfests, this is more about the spiritual battle, of choices made and lives lived from their results.
Verdict: Bloody good.
The Kingdom
[5/oct/2007] Score: 7/10
This is an extended and simplistic episode of CSI: Saudi, all about gung-ho Americans saving the lives of the Saudis from big, bad terrorists. Like all good heroic American films of the genre no one important dies, just everybody else. There's the usual shouting loud at foreigners, and looking butch and really cool while up to you your elbows in mood mud, some racing around looking dashing, then a big finale, that's it, end of story.
Now, if you ignore all that and look closely you will find a complex sympathetic portrayal of the Saudis and their situation.
Verdict: Shot well.
The Brave One
[2/oct/2007] Score: 6/10
Exactly how "brave" is it to buy a gun in America and go on a killing spree?
This is a nice, comfortable fantasy story, glossy and sophisticated for those who live in New York are too stupid not to go down the park on a dark night and wear casually stylish Gap/DKNY clothes, the kind who think their high-paid careers protect them from the hunger on their doorsteps.
Well hey, it's American so when the dream is disturbed you just go get yourself a gun and start shooting (why didn't they think of that before going down that dark alley?).
So if you like your movies silly and glossy, and violent, but with a cute chick, then this is for you.
Verdict: Bang on entertainment.
Michael Clayton
[29/sept/2007] Score: 7/10
A cool slow, paced and delicate attack on American's favourite hate figures (apart form all the other hate figures) namely lawyers and big corporations (sorry, I mean evil big corporations).
If you like a good courtroom thriller, intelligent, and classy then this is one for you, unless you're a lawyer or the MD of a big corporation.
Verdict: Right on the mark.
Deathproof
[25/sept/2007] Score: 6/10
If like me , you watched some of those trashy silly, low budget American films of the sixties and you part enjoyed and part cringed at their crass budgets, and their imagination on less than a shoestring then this is a perfect celebration from the master of grossed-out movies and who adores all those movies.
Like any connoisseur of the art, Tarantino gives us his unique interpretation and let's the blood flow freely; but if you're looking for a top-notch Tarantino film then look elsewhere. That's not a criticism of him but of the critics who complain he wasn't offering them their expectation, rather he was, as intended celebrating the sixties.
Verdict: Beyond the Vanishing Point.
Disturbia
[22/sept/2007] Score: 5/10
Like many films for the teen audience, this takes an older story (usually Shakespeare) and retells it for a younger audience, with added bikini clad girlies.
This is Hitchcock's Rear Window for teens. a teen trapped at home all summer bored, begins spying on his neighbours, especially Miss Bikini 2007 next door (how come they always live next door, why not in the next street?) then stumbles on "Something Weird" in his other neighbour's behaviour.
Never mind telling the police, or his mum, he's off in his own teen hollywood fantasy hero world to save the day.
Verdict: Bikinia.
Shoot 'Em Up
[20/sept/2007] Score: 7/10
This should really be called a sequel to that earlier non-stop adrenaline rush "Crank". Just turn on the hormones, female as much as male, and what a lot of female hormones are slushing around, and you're running wild through the night, with babes, in both senses, and guns.
I have no idea why a man at a bus stop suddenly turns into a superhero with a gun, must be something to do with all those female hormones wafting around.
Verdict: Well shot babe.
Run, Fat Boy, Run
[8/sept/2007] Score: 6/10
A romantic comedy with more comedy, less romance, and spare the slush Can't be an American one, must be British, and golly gosh, look, a nasty American rotter out for our hero's fair maiden.
And rising to the challenge is Brit slob, who of course makes a complete ass of himself then, kind of, wins the girl and lives, happily.
Verdict: A fun run.
Breach
[1/sept/2007] Score: 6/10
I'll give this a moderate award for not being a regular Hollywood spy film (they just can't do spying as good as the British) and based on a true story helps in a way as this tells the final months in the investigation to one of American's biggest spy scandals that cost the lives of until number of agents around the world as one American traitor unraveled decades of work.
As it is based on reality the writers and producers are restricted in what they can say and how, but they do pull off a good thriller about betrayal and the kind of people who do it.
Verdict: Guilty.
Knocked Up
[30/aug/2007] Score: 5/10
This is supposed to be a romantic comedy and totally implausible, even more than regular romantic comedies, in introducing a glamorous girlie to a superslobby nerd. No, it doesn't work. The whole theme of romantic comedies is that we're supposed to like both parties and yearn for them to get together, not want to sit and shout at the girl to run for the hills or want to smack her for getting into such trouble in the first place.
Verdict: Knock it off!
The Bourne Ultimatum
[18/aug/2007] Score: 6/10
Taking the final lap around the block running with Bourne we see this story conclude his own recovery from his loss of memory while the super-agents of America are able to track his every move yet never catch him.
How come they can always put agents in place anywhere in the world (don't passport control know when to stop a huge army of men with big black briefcases and long sweeping coats from entering the county?), they have every computer you can name and instant blueprints on every building in the world and can tap into every security system you care to name, and still can't catch him?
Makes you wonder.
Verdict: Ultimately, the end?
The Hoax
[8/aug/2007] Score: 5/10
Based on a true story about one man's scheme to write a fictional biography about one of the worlds' greatest recluses, without realising he was dealing with one of the world's greatest political players, and was chewed up and spat out as a result.
Can you really create a charming film about such sleazy goings on? If nothing else it's a good lesson in the dangers of trying to take on the really big boys and their really big games.
Verdict: The truth.
Evan Almighty
[8/aug/2007] Score: 5/10
I don't mind a good comedy, even one about god appearing to tell you to save the world, and all the lumber to build an ark suddenly turning up, but then to have the character try to keep it a secret from his family? Why? Doesn't he love and respect them?
As for a warning about a flood, in the middle of the country. Surely someone intelligent enough to have excelled in his career in TV reporting and politics, well, okay, maybe just your average person, would have taken a look around and noticed the huge dam at the head of the valley and started thinking seriously about all that lumber?
Verdict: Thank god for, well, god.
The Simpsons
[28/july/2007] Score: 8/10
The world's most loving, loyal and dysfunctional family come to ruin the world then save it from pollution and an excess of doughnuts.
Verdict: Doh!
Transformers
[21/july/2007] Score: 9/10
This is hysterical, fun, entertaining, fast-paced, nonsense, a racing laugh through the drama of the end of the world if the evil robots get the thingy before the good robots. Great for all grow up boys, and some girls, with a huge toy box of guns, tanks, planes, big, huge, enormous cars, and cute girls.
Great entertaining interpretation of the original kiddie show.
Oh, and I would have given this 10/10 for pure entertainment, except the producers, as in Die Hard 4.0, featured a fat computer geek, which cost them one point.
Verdict: A transformation.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
[14/july/2007] Score: 10/10
I've not given a ten out of ten for entertainment for a while but I felt that the textural depth of the story's presentation, briskly moving through so many characters and developments in just over two hours and appealing to children of all ages deserved some acknowledgement.
The story is a darker one than previous trips to Potter's Hogwarts, and might not have suited the youngest children, but then again I'm sure those who've grown up with the wee Wizard will have matured enough to handle his latest adventure.
If there has to be a criticism I felt that the story was more abbreviated than I suspect the book, many characters, many situations all vying for that limited time onscreen and only a few were permitted their opportunity to rise above the race through this adventure; but that's what books are for.
Score: A wizard story!
Die Hard 4.0
[7/july/2007] Score: 7/10
Computer terrorism to terrify the timid masses.
When I went to see this earlier today I told a friend that if this film contains a typical Hollywood stereotype of a computer geek - overweight nerd living at home - I'd downgrade this film by at least one point. Which is what I did.
Ever since Hollywood discovered nerds, and the awesome power they wield over the rest of the world, they've been portrayed like this. I first came on this anti-nerd culture in Jurassic Park and I see it hasn't been remedied.
As for the rest of the Die Hard story, great fun with some an added curiosity - that John MaClean's daughter actually looks like his daughter, by which I mean instead of getting in some useless blonde here the actress bears a resemblance to the original characters of the first film and adds an interesting twist of realism (just an aside really but interesting).
The rest of the action is darkly humorous and over-the-top, with two great imaginative stunts involving aircraft versus ground vehicles.
As we've come to know and enjoy in Die Hrds films the baddies are predominantly euro-baddies and the goodies are all-American superheroes. What more can you ask for, there are even a couple of sly hints at James Bond in the dialogue and acrobatic action.
Verdict: Keep moving, Die another day.
Shrek The Third
[2/july/2007] Score: 5/10
There are too many characters, too many quick changes of action and scene, and too many adult references for this to work as a purely children's entertainment. It's fast, noisy and has a nice simple fairytale-like story, but also lingers on a a few adult scenes and themes that will bore children, or adults with infantile minds - teenagers and politicians).
I realise that the Shrek audience are not really the littlest children it's aimed at but the older children who already know all the original fairytales (preferably the Grimm and not the Disney versions) and enjoy the jokes at the expense of the original stories, but I have a sense that there's a little too much adult story drifting in there when an alternative writing of a few scenes could have made the same point without boring the youngest in the audience.
Shrek is still great fun, but raced through so much, so quickly I got dizzy at times.
Verdict: Third time unlucky?
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
[16/june/2007] Score: 6/10
Where other comic books transferred to the big screen develop the characters and their lives the Fantastic Four focus on the comic book, and comic, action of this four super heroes. For example we have no development or exploration of the relationship between Mr Fantastic and Invisible Woman before we're launching into the wedding ceremony, compare that to the three films that Spiderman/Peter Parker has spent wooing and agonising over Sarah Jane.
A brisk, brief story, only 90 minutes, sweeps us through the story as a steady pace getting down to the action of saving the world and wrapping everything up nicely, for now.
This is a nice, undemanding, compact story with a few of the usual Hollywood flashes, and a quick flash of a nude Invisible Woman to satisfy the boys in the audience, to keep it going. Want more? Go visit your friendly neighbourhood Spiderman.
Verdict: Fun 4 all.
Ocean's Thirteen
[8/june/2007] Score: 6/10
Nothing jumps out about this cool and clever caper movie, better than the second Ocean's film, but not as good at the first, where we had a chance to see and enjoy all of the eleven with their own distinctive skills. Here we know everyone and their talents but somehow seem to have lost some of the adventure along the way, we know they're going to rob the casino, we know it's going to be a clever trick, so just sit back and enjoy the fun.
It did deserve two viewings for me to catch on to everything that happened with such a fast, complicated plot and such a large list of characters, were there thirteen, or was that fourteen, or fifteen??
Verdict: Bet on it for a fun time.
Wedding Daze
[1/june/2007] Score: 5/10
Should this have gone straight to video, or was it released as a light-hearted and fluffy antidote to this summer's almost endless stream of big, bold, expensive sequels? Either way Wedding Daze is a sweet little silly romantic story of boy meets girl, and gets her. With just enough hiccups along the way to the wedding chapel to ensure they really are made for each other the story spins along without a single controversial bone in its body. And best of all, it's not a sequel!
Verdict: I'm in a daze of delight.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
[26/may/2007] Score: 6/10
After the rubbery computer special effects of the second Pirates movie this third and final(?) one in the series brings everyone out to play at Pirates, with a lot of Yo, ho ho, but not a bottle of rum in sight (must think of the kiddies in the audience). If you want value for money from your movie ticket then Pirates III is a great investment in your nearly three hours, and with its slightly unexpected (I was enjoying myself too much to think about it all) finale it leaves the door open for the slim possibility of further Pirates to zoom over the horizon in the future.
Some scenes were a mite too long, but you have so many characters, each deserving their moment of heroic daring-do, there has to be time for them all, and the producers have to show where their huge investment went.
Not as original or inspired as the first film, but then we all know too much about our favourite pirates to be surprised by all they can get up to the story surges through a huge scope like a good galleon surging through the waves in pursuit of her prey.
Verdict: A jolly roger good show.
The Painted Veil
[19/may/2007] Score: 6/10
Just for some relief from idiot scripts we have something classically adult and dramatic. A lonesome, soulful love story set in that distant age of British Empire when "bright young things" left for far shores to make their fortune or do "good works" on behalf of the local peasants, and then mostly end up dying of "something nasty". Well, it makes a relief from a happy ending.
Verdict: Reality behind the veil.
28 Weeks
[12/may/2007] Score: 5/10
It's a zombie movie with all our safety and trust placed in US troops. Which is another way of saying, look out, duck, take cover and then run for your lives as that pesky rage virus is about to leap out and get all the people who survived its previous outing, despite all the efforts of the US of A to firebomb and blast London into sterility.
If you like your zombie movies cut fast and violently then this one serves up the main course from start to finish; but if you prefer something more intelligent then switch your brain off well before watching this one. (Why do they always leave infected zombies alone in unguarded and unmonitored rooms where just anyone can stroll in and let them loose into the very heart of your community of survivors? How can zombies follow you for hours without you noticing, then suddenly pop up from nowhere to bite you just as you relax?)
Verdict: Leaves me in a rage.
Spiderman 3
[4/may/2007] Score: 8/10
It took a couple of visits to get the full extent of the story and the sheer size and movement amongst all the varied characters. From brining in new enemies and the parasite symbiant Venom to Sandman and Spiderman's confrontation with his friend and enemy Green Goblin jnr, this throws so much character progression at you that you feel as if the writers were just trying to grab everything they could into a last final fling at the Spiderman franchise. They weren't.
This Spiderman continues the story of Peter Parker and his relationships, with friends, enemies, lover and workmates. In a sense it can be seen as one on which he begins to grow up and establish himself in the adult world, faces up to temptations and fails to understand women (normal life then).
It may seem a lot to handle in one film, where the pared down confrontation of Spiderman v. Octopus in S2 appeared much simpler, but then there is a lot to deal with and with Spiderman's life expanding we see the story stretching in new areas, especially as Peter Parker's ego is given full vent in this, from public adulation to intense and violent revenge against his enemies.
The core of this story is relationships, if you look through everything else, the fights, the enemies, at its heart this is a young man learning to deal with people and his own power. And making the kind of messes we all do.
Verdict: Powerful
Reno 911! Miami
[1/may/2007] Score: 4/10
We all need a few idiot stories about Americans on the loose and this is the year's fine upstanding antidote to all the cop shows where serious hardened professionals solve the most intricate crimes with unlimited forensic science and special effects budgets. I just about stayed through it.
Verdict: An arresting experience.
Straightheads
[30/april/2007] Score: 2/10
Put it this way, I walked out halfway through this dreary British crime and revenge "thriller". Predictable and so slowly paced that even I couldn't be bothered waiting to any kind of climax on it. I appreciate it was produced on a tiny British budget and former X-Files lead Gillian Anderson did her best to play posh English girl, but this just didn't hold the attention, didn't grip, didn't do anything, and the whining male lead character was just too unsympathetic to accept.
Verdict: Straight out of my head.
Next
[28/april/2007] Score: 6/10
A nice little premonition type movie that doesn't fall too deeply into standard CIA paranoia conspiracy and treats its main protagonist with more sympathy than just a tool to be hunted down and used for other's benefit.
The advantage, granted through the use of modern special effects, is that ability to convey to the audience how someone with the ability to see a couple of minutes into their own future life would use such a talent, seeing all the possible outcomes of any action they take. This allows you to understand and enjoy using such a talent.
So, the problem? There is one big hole in the story and that's the key driving force behind much of it - the relationship between man and girl he meets in the diner. There is no real exploration or explanation into this aspect, how is he connected so strongly. As she's the key to so much that subsequently occurs I found it a major gap in the plot that nothing really happens to answer this questions. She's just the token motivation and nothing else, yet without here nothing else can happen.
Verdict: Talent, without a heart.
Alpha Dog
[25/april/2007] Score: 5/10
The true tale of rich white trash in the hood. Over-pampered middle class white kiddies playing white niggers for want of any culture or lives of their own, and the culture of drug-induced selfish pleasure pursued by parents and passed down to their brats.
No sympathy with any of them.
But a relatively good film exploring a mental and spiritual wasteland.
Verdict: Trash.
The Reaping
[23/april/2007] Score: 5/10
This begins well as a story of science versus superstition and the plot throughout suggests that reason will win over religion.
Shame it doesn't and instead turns into a regular plotline of weird hicks in the sticks doing things that are sick, with the tradtional ending opening on a door into a sequel (if anyone can be bothered).
Nicely played, but in the end a dissatisfyingly dull production, it'll pass the time with Hilary Swank's lovliness as the main, only(?), attraction.
Verdict: Unimpressed with this harvest.
Fracture
[21/april/2007] Score: 7/10
This is more intelligent than the average courtroom drama and Anthony Hopkins devours his character with such dialogue and detail that you just sit back and delight in the flow of the story.
And it's as predicable as any regular TV Colombo episode as we see the evil doings at the beginning then have to work out whether the cops and DA will solve the crime the way we did half-way through the movie.
This shows what you can achieve with a reasonably intelligent script and a good budget producing an above-average detective thriller without the aggressive melodramatic shootouts and wild car chases thrown into many of them nowadays.
Verdict: A cracking good story.
Curse of the Golden Flower
[16/april/2007] Score: 4/10
One way to look at this title is to imagine it's a Woody Allen movie. Another way to look at the film is as a standard soap opera - a family in dispute, tearing itself apart in squabbles across the generations.
That's about it.
If you've seen one Flying Leaping Bounding Tiger Dragon movie you've seen them all. Sumptuous sets and attention of mythological detail with thousands of troops slaughtering each other doesn't make up for a more entertaining story.
Verdict: Cursed.
Shooter
[15/april/2007] Score: 7/10
Although a derivative story about loyalty, betrayal and redemption this story a far more than just a straight-to-video action thriller we see churned out on a regular basis. Exploring the profession of the sniper and the threats posed to modern leaders from enemies both internal and external it gives us a non-heroic, sympathetic view of military people and their loved ones serving their country irrespective of the corruption surrounding them.
It has all the hallmark elements of a regular thriller, but managed to exceed them with its depth of details and its careful avoidance of many simplistic story and action tricks.
Verdict: Well shot.
Sunshine
[6/april/2007] Score: 4/10
This film doesn't just insult your intelligence, it takes it behind the pub for a good kicking then throws the remains in the canal.
Any science fiction enthusiast is advised to switch his or her brain off as the beginning and treat this as a silly comedy film. All the standard features of almost every Hollywood movie are there: loss of communications with Earth, computers that talk back then fail (the Apollo missions to the moon only needed a handful of circuits compared to modern technology), radios that break, no backups, spares or failsafe technology, a vulnerable spaceship that breaks at the first hint of trouble and an egotistical, dysfunctional crew of half-brained idiots led by a weak inexperienced commander who couldn't even spot a clue if it was written on the deck with fluorescent paint and big arrows pointing at it.
Star Trek fans and teenagers might take this seriously but no one else.
Verdict: Dim.
(Footnote - I now plan to write my own response to this script, a thriller that will give you an intelligent adventure and not more mush like this.)
Amazing Grace
[5/april/2007] Score: 4/10
A worthy cause, remembering the first step in the British abolition of the slave trade, is lost in a confusing storyline that bounces from one character and scene to another with little to hold and draw the viewer into this complex, dramatic, historic turning point.
What ought to have been a strong narrative of one man as the spokesman of a great movement ends up in a directionless mess.
So did it meander that I wandered off half way through.
Verdict: Unamazing.
300
[24/march/2007] Score: 8/10
This retells, in comic book style, the legendry story of King Leonides, his three hundred Spartans and the Battle of Thermopylae against the Persian invasion, and it shows exactly how cinema and modern techniques can create a stunning memorable visual impression as legendry as the story itself.
Using the latest state of the art for the production it is a visual celebration of the eternal myth of a few standing against many at a turning point in history. The way all the Persian characters are grossly enlarged against the plucky little Spartans, the story is partly told in voiceover by the narrator, just as such a story would have been told from town to town and city to city over the last two and a half thousand years, the film has been produced a a stark, Spartan, style the evokes those ancient times in our own mind's eye.
Verdict: Heroic.
Sleeping Dogs
[17/march/2007] Score: 6/10
A wickedly nasty black-comedy that pushes the movie boundary a little further all about the sexual experience of one girl growing up and leaning about life, and how sometimes you really should let sleeping dogs lie rather than face the eruptions that come from revealing all.
Verdict: Educational.
Premonition
[16/march/2007] Score: 5/10
While I enjoy a good spooky story like everyone there seemed to be a little less imagination here than we should expect in a world saturated with ghostly, spooky, psychic stories. By now the chief character, played by Sandra Bullock, should know when she's being given a chance to alter here destiny from all her vivid dreams, but she spends most of her time sleep-walking through every experience.
I suspect that we have here a post-9/11 theme of pre-destination and loss to satisfy American audience's hunger.
Verdict: I can see it coming.
Outlaw
[10/march/2007] Score: 4/10
It's yet another, low budget, loud-mouthed London gangster movie.
Verdict: Nuffin'!
The Science Of Sleep
[22/feb/2007] Score: 4/10
surreal adventure of a man permanently lost in a world of his own imagination and still seeking love in the real world. Bit like the rest of us.
Verdict: Zzzzzzzz
Hot Fuzz
[17/feb/2007] Score: 6/10
One man can save the world, of little tiddlington, or wherever, as a tough super-successful cop from London is transferred to the remotest, sleepiest village you can imagine because his success was embarrassing his bosses.
What begins as a quiet village soon turns into something nasty in the undergrowth as the local yokels reveal their dread dark secret.
Verdict: Blistering.
Blood Diamond
[21/jan/2007] Score: 7/10
At first I though this would be another silly Hollywood appeal on behalf of poor, innocent middle class protest groups to stop the world trade in something that helps poor people survive in the third world, like drugs. But I was surprised to find a more richly details and realistic story about the trade in diamonds and how it paid for wars and revolutions in Africa during the 1990s.
Perhaps next they can make one about the war for oil in Iraq to pay for poor innocent American corporations: Blood Oil?
Verdict: Bloody good.
Miss Potter
[10/jan/2007] Score: 6/10
Inspiring, gentle biography of Beatrix Potter, her efforts to achieve independence in the repressive world of Victorian England (hasn't changed a lot) through her unique writing of children's stories. although I'm sure much more could be said about her this story of Miss Potter certainly provides one source of hope for anyone else who wants to follow her example of personal achievement and how she used her success and wealth for the wider common good of preserving the beauty of the English countryside.
Verdict: Bunny bountiful.
Apocalypto
[6/jan/2007] Score: 6/10
Now the dilemma with reviewing this is that while we have a richly detailed view of life in the Mayan civilization in the final days before the arrival of European conquerors, and a dramatic story of a native tribe's doom, we also have too many uninventive plot devices for our hero. Whether a handy trap in the jungle to catch your pursuers unawares, a convenient waterfall to evade capture, or the local (there's one near every evil castle) eclipse of the sun to scare the high priests everything in the screenwriter's bag of tricks is pulled out, dusted off and laid out for all to see. Did I mention the evil portents and the Prophetic Witch?
Verdict: Apoplectic.
Flags of our fathers
[29/dec/2006] Score: 7/10
I might have given it a higher rating but for the usual "heroic" image American film makers cast over all their Great Moments in (Hollywood) History, and this one's one of the greatest visual images that invokes heroism beyond the norm in American mythology, the raising of the american flag during the Pacific battles.
Here it is treated realistically with care by Clint Eastwood and deserves suitable respect.
Verdict: Uplifting.
Night At The Museum
[28/dec/2006] Score: 6/10
This film was slow to get going for an adult viewer. What began as a "jerk" movie of one man acting the idiot gradually transformed into a sweet all-family entertainment. A short, simple film no way to overstretch the mind this is perfect holiday viewing for children of all ages who just want to sink into something warm, and preferably without the Santa Claus outfits.
Verdict: Perfectly preserved exhibit.
Eargaon
[22/dec/2006] Score: 4/10
At the very end of the year we reach the dregs of the bottom of the barrel of cheap rip-off scripts that copy every formula you can imagine from all other smiliarly themed stories.
If you've seen Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and all other similar fantasy youth-on-a-quest stories then you've already seen Eragon, only with far, far better results.
And THIS got a budget!!??
Only works for children who haven't seen all the rest or want another dose of cute dragons.
Verdict: 'ere and gone, forever, I hope.
Casino Royale
[24/nov/2006] Score: 9/10
Wow!
The only really distinctive reason I didn't give this stunning, new-start, refreshed and invigorated Bond movie a full 10/10 score was the lack of a good signature tune. For the last decade or so the Bond movies have lacked that really distinctive, wickedly sexy style of signature song we've heard from the earlier films, now it's all bland pop sung by poppets. It may be good for music sales, but they're nowhere near as memorable as the earlier songs and don't create that special Bond movie mood that make the whole experience that more magical and distinctive.
Verdict: OO Heaven
Starter For Ten
[15/nov/2006] Score: 6/10
Coming of age romantic comedy set in the world of British university life in the 1980s (another 1980s story in such a short time, hmmmm).Pretty well predictable in the storyline and style, meet girls, get laid, (almost) find wrong girl(s), make mistakes, etc.
The only distinctive feature about this teen story is that it wasn't an American Californian teen dream of high schools, drugs and other silly nonsense.
Verdict: A victory score.
Romanzo Criminale (Crime Story)
[8/nov/2006] Score: 5/10
An Italian movie that tells the story of four young thugs growing up in Rome during the 1970s and 80s and taking the city's crime community by storm, while getting mixed up in all the politics and corruption of the era. While not a "perfect" story, with so many of the standard conventions of these stories, it does offer you a glimpse of that time and place.
The only problem with any film like this is the difficulty in tracking the characters through the language barrier, and the final sequences of the story seemed to become wrapped up in so many rapid developments that there was no real understanding of who was doing what to whom and why - the characters changed so much that I lost track at the end of what actually happened
Verdict: A crime not to watch it.
The Departed
[14/oct/2006] Score: 5/10
After a few hours to think about this I find I was disappointed. While it offers all the promise of all the great Scorsese movies this lacked any of the features, the depth and sophistication you'd expect.
Too many Hollywood coincidences in the plotline to be believable (would both opposing characters really meet and even fall for the same girl?) and if you are going to deal with gritty reality of crime then you have to accept that some times someone manages to escape the situation, but here there was no sense of redemption or escape.
In the end this looked more like a cynical Hollywood style exploitation movie than a good, solid well-written drama.
Verdict: Departed - RIP.
The Devil Wears Prada
[7/oct/2006] Score: 6/10
It's a chick flick, it's got lots, really lots, of glossy chicks, flicking their hair, skirts, heels and whatnots around flouncing and flaunting around glossy offices and glossy cities. So, a complete and total antidote to all the "serious" dramas and "gritty" nonsense around. Just lean back, take a long deep breath of Channel No.5 and drown in all the dishy lovelies.
Oh, yes, it's a pure, glossy, traditional, success story. And in the dim, dull world we're all living nowadays a good antidote for all the nonsense we see, hear and read in the media.
Verdict: You look Absolutely Fabulous in Prada.
Hoodwinked
[29/sept/2006] Score: 7/10
Okay this is pure kiddie fest... except... well, it had me laughing out loud a few times so it must have been doing something really good. And it was.
This remake of the Red Riding Hood tale turns it all upside down and pulls it inside out to give you a hilarious story for children of all ages.
This is a good example of how a story can be revitalised and while some of the jokes and japes were over-the-top for children's understanding it moved along briskly enough for the errors to be ignores (would young ones wonder what the Laser-in-a-castle joke was all about?).
Verdict: Squirrel this one away.
DOA - Dead Or Alive
[16/sept/2006] Score: 6/10
I first mistook the title to mean "Dead On Arrival" but found it more alive than I originally expected. This is pure nonsense video game turned movie, that easily makes it above the deadzone of all those that have gone and been forgotten before it.
While the script leaves something to be desired at times and the eye candy of non-stop bikinicladness may seem tired and repetitive to older viewers it did have enough surprising humour and quirks that lifted it above the norm for these kind of movies. Perfect for a Saturday afternoon.
Verdict: Alive And Kicking.
Crank
[2/sept/2006] Score: 6/10
Fast, bang, speed, freaky film for anyone and everyone who wants a dose of adrenaline and the kind of quirky humour in the midst of disaster no Hollywood actor would touch (can you imagine any West Coast "A" lister in a scene getting naked and making love to his girlfriend in front of a crowd?).
For speed and inventiveness Crank has buckets of energy and more to throw across the screen and drive you through heart-wrenching action after action.
The fact that the story keeps up the pace and humour throughout says a lot to the ambition not to be more than it is - pure power overdose
Only disappointment is how are they ever going to write a sequel, as a sequel is surely going to be in the minds of the money-men?
Verdict: Stimulating.
A Scanner Darkly
[19/aug/2006] Score: 7/10
Any film based on a Philip K. Dick novel has to be approached with care. You won't find Hollywood glamour down the psychotropic mean streets that Dick trod to bring us his tales of a twisted and distorted future American and A Scanner Darkly takes us there rather than the typical glamorisation of the future.
Here's a world increasingly being destroyed by the appearance of a fashionable new drug that twists and turns your mind around until you're not sure if your still looking through your own eyes or out the back of your head.
While recent fantasy films have built up upon computer graphics A Scanner Darkly offers an entirely appropriately, bold and twisted view of the world as all the imagery, shot live originally, is translated into animated sequences to bring you the same feel that's probably going through the burnt out heads of every character here.
Through this the actors has created impressive performances that make each character stand out despite the distorting effects of the visual style.
As for the storyline, the sudden sharp turn at the end is excellent plotting, but then what can you expect from a master storyteller like Dick?
Verdict: Visionary.
My Super Ex-Girlfriend
[18/aug/2006] Score: 5/10
From some opinions I'd read and heard this was not all that great a movie, so I was surprised by the crowd watching it when I went to see it yesterday, and I liked what I saw.
If you are looking for a light-hearted antidote to the smug coolness of Superman then here's the perfect answer. Taking it seriously was left at the door when making this movie of a superhero with all the fragility of a woman scorned when she goes on the rampage in fury at being dumped by her ex-boyfriend.
I'll bet Superman never had that problem, but then he's a boy so what doe he know about "feelings"!?
Unlike the other "Super" movie, and a few others of its ilk My Super Ex-Girlfriend doesn't go in for enormous streams of special effects and computer graphics. Where I was overwhelmed by those in Pirates of The Caribbean and impressed by those in Superman, that fact that only the shark scene (man chased by shark in his apartment!) stuck out and wasn't as noticeably excessive as others, shows how a lighter touch can have a greater effect on the final production.
Verdict: You'll believe a bitch can fly.
Miami Vice
[5/aug/2006] Score: 7/10
We're back after many years since the last of the TV series, back rolling in glossy cars, through glossy night clubs and scenes, and glamorous girls hanging on the arms of bejewelled men, and that's just the cops.
This is a very fast-paced story, as fast as the cars, boats and planes that everyone is driving, sailing, flying, that throws you straight into the middle of everything to race on into the night and the action to come.
And a lot of action, especially the queasy camera work as it tosses and throws you around just like the thrill ride you're on, watching the story unfold.
Very little time is spent here in long dialogues when a few brief moments of action can express a thousand words as director Michael Mann carries you along that long dark road to dawn.
Only little question, how did the baddies find out about the cop's wife/girlfriend to snatch her if he was deep undercover, and yet still keep thinking he was his undercover persona?
Verdict: Perfectly chilled, drink it.
Superman Returns
[3/aug/2006] Score: 6/10
Don't treat Superman Returns as a stand-alone story. There are enough references back to the earlier Christopher Reeve films that this really is a "return" and not a true fresh start; and returning with new computer graphics add a special lustre and texture that isn't excessive (see Pirates below) and just adds to the overall sense that you really could believe a man (super-) can fly.
There are the usual slight problems with reintroducing the storyline after so long, explaining what's happened and reestablishing the characters. Once again the baddies, Lex Luther is back too by the way, get all the good lines and expressions and the goodies have to stumble along being "noble" (Hollywood style), so we don't get the kind of real-life questions when both Superman and Clark Kent return on the scene at the same time (hmmm, no one seemed to have noticed that one, maybe it's a Special Power to hypnotise??).
One of the problems of any Superman story is that you can't get into "real" expressions without exposing the characters more to a broader experience. How does Superman "feel", is he so cold all the time, or is it just his alien demeanour, and if so then can the writers explore those aspects?
I expect there will be more Super stories to come, and only hope they can avoid the temptation to rack up the thrills and special effects and look more to developing the characters within a story; even more interesting with Lois's little boy around.....
Verdict: Krypton alright!
Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
[13/july/2006] Score: 6/10
Yo, ho, ho and a bottle of Rum, and other rum doings and goings on. Here's part two in the amazing story of the Pirates of the Caribbean tales. A tall-masted tale if I ever saw one! Ha-harrrr!
And a jolly fun story it was too all around. Of course, there are a few faults in all the running and chasing around, I felt that the use of computer graphics was excessive at times with all the "horrible monsters" and pirates on the loose, especially Davy Jones's crew, and I think there were a couple of scenes early in the film that wouldn't be suitable for young children.
The story doesn't set out to be a single conclusive tale. We all know that there is another film to round it all off (for now) and this current story plays out more like a fast chase towards the middle, lots of chasing and fighting going on, and very noisy (the children will love it all), but still a sense of a good ride but also incompleteness.
Verdict: "Pieces of eight, for the next one, I cannot wait!"
X-Men 3: The Last Stand
[25/may/2006] Score: 5/10
When I saw the first X-Men film I was left with a sense of unfulfilled expectations. A relatively short 90 minutes doesn't do justice to such a complex and unusual group of characters. Compared to Spiderman the X-Men films have always suffered this lack of character and situation development. The Last Stand is no different, perhaps even worse in offering up such enormous challenges to the characters and offering us instead just a templated piece of Hollywood disposable nonsense of special effects (good), noisy chases, (okay) and intriguing characters (utterly wasted). Here is story that goes straight for your wallet, not your heart or mind.
As a story so much is left unexplored. Here was a missed opportunity for an epic and dramatic story, a good three hour movie could have been had, but instead we're served up with a mere hundred minutes to cover so much territory. No wonder I was left empty at the end.
As for setting up the plotline for another film, well if painting yourself into a corner is the only way to show your superheroic film-maker talent for escaping then I will congratulate the writers and director(s) for getting themselves out of this tight corner. But on past experience I don't expect it to happen.
Verdict: X-Men 3 : RIP.
Mission Impossible III
[20/may/2006] Score: 5/10
When I saw the first MI film I thought how amazing it was that you could fit a helicopter down the Channel Tunnel, but now the MI team have out done themselves with flash-bang implausibility. With its heady mix of misogyny in which two relatively innocent women are slaughtered, and its nod to "Team America: World Police" in its gay American destruction of European heritage (The Vatican) MI tries to cram in so many references to other sources.
Need computers? The MI team abound with them, want to use you brain to solve a problem or produce a better story? The MI team will go find that brain for you, after an awful lot of chasing around.
If you want an explosive mix of silliness and nutty plotting then MI-III is as good a way to spend a couple of hours as you can ask for; but by the end of it even I was tapping my feet in impatience at the predictability and the endless stunts, with even more silly computers popping up everywhere. Can't these American spies solve their problems without resorting to a local branch of "PCs R Us?"
I used to love the original "Mission Impossible" TV series in which "Jim" and his hand-picked team would confound their enemies with their clever subterfuge and misdirection, but now it's all more like an armed raid by a gang of dumb bank robbers.
Verdict: A mission implausible.
V for Vendetta
[18/march/2006] Score: 7/10
It's about time someone remembered what autumn in Britain is really all about, not the merry chase after stupid American Halloween horrors, but the darker, nastier and far more political celebration of Bonfire Night. On November the Fifth, when Treason and Plot rule and parliaments burn.
Hope somebody's warned Tony Blair about this film, maybe he'd like to ban it in case it gave us all ideas about terrorism?
Verdict: A great sparkler.
Aeon Flux
[18/february/2006] Score: 5/10
I've got to confess a bias here because when I first saw the Aeon Flux cartoons off MTV I knew they'd make a great film, and I wanted to make it. In the meantime we have this.
This is pure and simply an "eviction from the garden of Eden" story, take the story of Genesis and wrap it up in a science fiction package, reinforce those good old Hollywood favourite middle American values, add a variant of the virgin birth sub-theme, and Aeon Flux is what you get.
The science fiction story is a good subject, but the execution lacks a certain sharper edge I hoped to see. This may be to do with wanting to create the image of a future utopian society (always a dull place to live) then liven it up with a few snakes in the grass and a need to introduce a strong female action character and an intelligent subject.The end result leave a lot to be desired in terms of creating the characters and their motivations.
Verdict: Blunted.
Zathura
[15/february/2006] Score: 6/10
For children everywhere and adults who still remember those old fifties science fiction films of rocket ships and bug eyed monsters ruling the universe. An imaginative and wonderful children's adventure story.
Verdict: Rockets Away!
Underworld:Evolution
[24/january/2006] Score: 5/10
You really needed to see and remember the first film to understand what was going on in the second.,or buy them on video and watch them back-to-back as a single story about vampire evolution turning full circle through hundreds of years.
Verdict: Another one bites the dust.
Jarhead
[17/january/2006] Score: 5/10
Been there, (to war with the Marines), done that (got shouted at by the Sarg't Major), got the T-Shirt (khaki green). " Full Metal Jacket" for the Next Generation. Anything new? Erm, well, less cynical than its predecessor, less dramatic? Great for the armchair heroes we've all become with our TV wars and video games.
Verdict: "Hup! SIR!!"
Just Like Heaven
[30/december/2005] Score: 7/10
A romantic comedy with a twist she's dead and he's being haunted by her, so how will they ever get together? And telling that turns into a great journey of discovery for both of them.
Verdict: Heavenly
King Kong
[21/december/2005] Score: 8/10
What a difference a few decades make in realising a great, romantic adventure story.
Most of us all know the story of Kong by now, but here is the added bonus of a vastly more realistic presentation and a fuller story, stretching over three hours as every aspect of the journey to meet Kong and return home is played out against the backdrop of the 1930s Great Depression in the USA.
If there is any problem with this it is the development, or lack of it, for the male love interest. There just doesn't seem to be a real character there - he's outplayed by the ape!
Verdict: A runaway success.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe.
[16/december/2005] Score: 6/10
While everyone in the press seem to be writing all about the religious themes in the story (nope, didn't see a thing) I was more interested in how a major children's story adaption compared with the other recent one from the Harry Potter sage, and I didn't compare too well.
For some reason there was too magical a sense of story and maybe a little less fun to go along with it to engage the child in every adult.
I'm certain the story will appeal to every youngster watching, but for that added little "edge" or grit - it lacks.
Verdict:
Keeping Mum
[13/december/2005] Score: 8/10
A surprisingly sweet little British black-comedy of murder in a sweet little village when the Vicar's odd housekeeper goes on the murder rampage to make the family's life better. Very well written and avoids the obvious pratfalls of plotline you'd expect (such as the vicar totally embarrassing himself in front or a major audience) from less able productions. Would love to see a sequel.
Verdict: Heavenly.
Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire
[25/november/2005] Score: 9/10
Harry's back with the next thrilling and magical episode for children of all ages as he begins to grow up and so do his adventures. May be a little less appealing to the very young children as Harry begins to confront the forces that gave birth to him and his uniqueness.
Verdict: Magical
The Constant Gardener
[24/november/2005] Score: 7/10
A little underrated film that wouldn't get the kind of mass youth appeal so many go for, but will appeal to older audiences with more interest in something romantic, adventurous and challenging to the mind and spirit.
This is the wonderful story of a gentle man haunted by the death of his wife, who challenges everyone blocking the path to his true love and the discovery of the story behind her murder. The kind of men we used to have building the British Empire, before it was sold off by modern Whiz Kids.
Verdict: A Constant Pleasure.
The Legend of Zorro
[28/october/2005] Score: 4/10
If you liked the original Zorro you may be expecting more of the same or a development of the characters with new vigour, adventure and humour. But if you're Hollywood company with a limp-wristed imagination you may end up just rehashing "family" stories of arguments, splits, divorces and other nonsense that destroy all that went before.
Verdict: Sorrow not Zorro
Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Wererabbit
[8/october/2005] Score: 10/10
Erm, rabbits!! Arrrgh!! Speechless. Please watch this with care as your laughter may disturb the rest of the audience, well, mine did! And watch the end credits.
Verdict: It's right champion!
Howl's Moving Castle
[6/october/2005] Score: 10/10
Forget the cutie animal characters of a typical Hollywood animation, here's a magical story of growing up and learning to love. A beautiful and funny fairytale for all age
Verdict : A Moving Experience.
Serenity
[6/october/2005] Score: 7/10
I get the feeling all the fans of the TV series Firefly will know things the rest of us don't; but for a rip-roaring futuristic pirate story Serenity has all the ingredients nicely mixed to enthrall, entertain and just have fun to. The only problem I see with these kind of stories is how easy the hero's have it in solving their problems, but also how stupid they are in allowing events to overcome their chances to stop and consider their situation. Should you go straight through the evil fleet of aliens, or- no let's go right through, but what about- no, we'll go straight through, right now! So, you don't want to save all the pain and trouble, by going around them? Too late, I've decided, let's go!!
There was no biggie problem with this, so go and enjoy, at least it makes a change from those worthy dullards in Star Trek movies.
Verdict: Snappy.
The Business
[2/september/2005] Score: 5/10
It's f**ing loud, it's f***ing noisy and it's an f***ing offence on my brain.
A hot, fast race through the 1980s and Thatcher's thrusting Yuppies (Young Upwardly Mobile Professional Pushers) as they launch themselves in Spain. If you've seen Scarface or Boogie Nights, or want a British version of Goodfellas then this London Crime Spree Goes to Spain is for you.
Verdict: F***ing.
The Dukes of Hazzard
[27/august/2005] Score: 3/10
When I went into the cinema to see this I was first in. And only five others turned up to "enjoy" this.
In recent years we've seen some great adaptions of comic books into movies. Now, like "Bewitched" (below) we see the other dark side of the Hollywood exploitation machine - dumb and dummier in the Deep South. Most people will remember the TV series of "Dukes...", but this isn't the TV series, just a simple exploitation of the image without the substance, dumb characters doing stupid things don't make for a great movie. If you want wild and "stoopid" hicks then this is for you, if you want something that celebrate the fun of the original series...
Verdict: Nope.
Bewitched
[26/august/2005] Score: 3/10
This is NOT bewitching. This is not entertaining. This was one of the few films I wanted to leave before it finished. This was an embarrassing shambles of an over indulgent story concentrating on a convoluted story within a story that wrapped itself so tight on its own amusement there was no room for fresh light to shine through and brighten the magic of the original TV series. This was so full of "knowing" insider jokes at the expense of any good plot that the only redeeming feature was the performance of Nicole Kidman as the witch with the wiggly nose.
Verdict: Wish it away.
The Devil's Rejects
[6/august/2005] Score: 4/10
An over-inbred family of country hicks-turned-cannibals(?) loose on the countryside.
Apart from a few unreal surreal character scenes which perked it up this was a return to the old style of anti-hero movie - where the cops are corrupted but he cannibals maintain the good old family unity in the face of increasingly surreal odds.
Only that fact that I'd spent good money on the ticket kept me there.
Verdict: Rejected.
Madagascar
[3/august/2005] Score: 6/10
Also known as, "how to get along with all sorts of friends from different cultures and with funny looking skin, and fangs, and other appendages".
A lot of the jokes will go over the tops of the teenie members of the audience but the fun is for everyone. Watch it for the Penguins.
Verdict: Animal Magic.
Skeleton Key
[28/july/2005] Score: 5/10
Haunted house horror. At first you think it's a good psychological thriller, then the idiot switch is thrown and the lead character starts behaving like all the other idiots down through the history of Hollywood, leading right up to the twist in the tail.
Verdict: Lock it away.
Fantastic Four
[22/july/2005] Score: 8/10
The danger of a mis-adaption, making the wrong turn when translating a popular comic book into a major film, is avoided here with a nicely-paced story the unfolds the creation of the Fantastic Four and their first bickering and quarrelling, oh and their first evil enemy bent on world domination.
This is a squabbling family perpetually fighting with each other as they deal with their own transformations, taking the occasional time out to deal with the bad neighbours and "take out" the trash.
Verdict: "Four On!"
Wedding Crashers
[16/july/2005] Score: 8/10
A chick-flick, a great romantic comedy, for boys.
The biggest difficulty in writing any chick-flick romantic comedy is how to entertain the other half of the audience. So, here's your answer - tell it from the boys point of view in boy-style. Loud, noisy, brash and beautiful as the boys fall for the babes.
Verdict: A party worth crashing.
War Of The Worlds
[2/july/2005] Score: 6/10
Yes, I've marked Spielberg's latest "blockbuster" lower than expected. Why? Sloppy writing and story development, and an excess of post-9/11 American jingoism.
It may be good to get one the world's greatest directors, and star actors in Spielberg and Tom Cruise respectively to craft this latest work of the master H. G. Wells, but it's not an excuse to leave bit idiot holes in a script that you can drive a horde of alien invaders through. For example:
- 1 - Aliens are supposed to have buried enormous spaceships and weapons underground for thousands, even millions of years all over the Earth? EVEN UNDER NEW YORK CITY!!?? And nobody noticed?? That would, possibly, have worked if someone had set those moments in graveyards and explained them as ancient holy burial grounds still haunted by ghosts. AND why didn't they invade millions of years ago??
- 2 - Electromagnetic pulses destroy everyone's electronic gadgets, then a few minutes later we see a video camera still working, and later we see a TV crew van that was close enough to film the whole event and all its machinery is still working?? And no explanation is offered??
A great story is about the suspension of disbelieve, a bad story breaks the spell with silliness. I sat through the film spending my time wondering more about these than enjoying the very good special effect that make the Martians come alive and more menacingly than ever before.
And the "Spielberg Moment" (you know that single image that just freezes a scene or zooms in on one tiny feature?) - a little girl standing on a crest as an alien looms overhead.
(NOTE: I have a slight bias here, I'm working on my own Alien-Invaders idea. Long way off but coming.... at least I'll know to be careful in writing the script.)
Verdict: Momentous, monstrous, amazing they got away with it.
Kung Fu Hustle
[27/june/2005] Score: 8/10
I wasn't going to see this movie, more of a weekday curiosity than a Saturday must-see. I'm glad I went. Kung Fu Hustle is a fully, camp, comicbook cartoonish story of larger than life characters, battling baddies, and great fight scenes. It may be a little camp at times, at is paints some of its characters with too broad a stroke but the overall impression is a great fun movie.
Verdict: The Way is Mysterious
Batman Begins
[17/june/2005] score: 8/10
This is an up-to-date telling of the Batman story, that adds a depth and grittiness that was missing from the recent 80s/90s batch of batty movies. Here we have a greater sense of realism rather that the excessively comic-book style that eventually drove the bat into hiding ("Batman and Robin"? Never saw it, except fleeing from the first ten minutes.). You can more easily believe the characters, their motives, their histories, even their wickedly imaginative gadgets.
the only flaw still seems to be the Bat Man himself. Where is the strength of character that makes the baddies stand out, has he become lost behind that featureless mask? Batman need to get a live of his own. We know his history, we know his destiny, but still we don't really know him??
Verdict: Ka-pow!
Mr & Mrs Smith
[11/june/2005] Score: 6/10
An antidote to Sin City (below) is this comic, romantic-thriller of two perfectly matched middle class executives so busy with their careers that they don't have time for their own marriage. So, their careers happen to be secret international assassins who suddenly find their marriage and career problems getting mixed up as their secret identities are exposed to each other, with potentially deadly results.
As a story it flows smoothly through the whole action from the first introduction of the characters through to the anticipated conclusion. While the ending is never, quite, in doubt the journey and the twists and turns to reach it's conclusion make for a great ride.
If you want a cute romantic comedy with added bullets, and a little flavour of Lara Croft, then this is perfect, if you want something with a greater intellectual bite to it then take a trip to Sin City instead.
Verdict: Nice neighbourhood.
Sin City
[4/june/2005] Score: 10/10
I'll try and find something to say about this movie once I've gotten over the stunning visualisation of the comic book/noir stylistic imagery as you are carried along the literary waters through the fluid sewer that is Sin City.
Like the original "noir" stories it shows how little you need, sets, lighting, money to produce a superb story. Like the original noirs you can expect the sudden impact of bullets thudding through undeserving innocents and equally deserving villains, and endings that never quite turn out the way you want or expect - just like real life.
I wanna make one of these, so that's my target for the next year.
Verdict: Wickedly good.
Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith
[21/may/2005] Score: 8/10
After 29 years of waiting we see the "final" episode completing the long, long story set in a galaxy far, far away, about the rise, and later fall, of the Dark Side - Darth Vader makes his first, dreaded appearance. Despite the forewarning and dread of yet another mish, mashed script like Star Wars I, this is a near perfect conclusion of the series so many people have come to love. Bringing Vader to life, his life, his "birth", his dark driving force is realised here in a smooth complement to the rest of the series. Don't expect superb writing, but do expect to see a brilliant entertainment; and that is what Star Wars has been about first and foremost - entertainment of the masses.
Verdict: "Arise.."
The Wedding Date
[20/may/2005] Score: 4/10
Rule of romantic comedies set in London - don't let the Americans do it. At least this is the lesson of "The Wedding Date", a seemingly simple attempt to follow the magnificent leads set by "Four Weddings And A Funeral" and "Notting Hill" this sets the story up at a wedding in "Quaint England" (two miles down the road from "Little England") with an assorted bunch of Americans enjoying the flavour of romance, but without the humour of a stuttering-but-cute englishman to win all the girlies over.
Verdict: Sorry, I've got another date that day.
The Jacket
[14/may/2005] Score: 10/10
You go to watch what you think will be a standard horror movie about a man trapped in a lunatic asylum and victim of a mad scientists who's intent on driving him insane in a series of halucigenic medical experiments, and you find yourself watching a far better story. A surprising, brilliant romantic, psychic race through time and the mind. If you liked the wild imagery of Twelve Monkeys then you'll love this one.
Verdict: Madly brilliant.
Kingdom of Heaven
[7/may/2005] Score: 6/10
Half way through this I suddenly realised I was watching a repeat of Gladiator. Same director, same theme of noble man, looses his beloved wife and child, and sets forth on a quest to redeem their memories.
He confronts evil in high office, challenges historical forces, and somehow wins through.
So, if you liked Gladiator, then I'm certain that, like me, you'll enjoy Kingdom of Heaven.
Of course I still have those nagging doubts, like how well he could learn to fight after only one brief lesson in swordplay, and suddenly he's a Knight with the fighting skills of a mediaeval ninja. And how come all these hero's turnout to be of noble birth and inherit lands, wealth and nice horses? I guess you could never, ever explain away a poor hero struggling to find a bale of hay for his mule, let alone trying to find a sharpening stone for his little knife, so that wouldn't make as great a story.
Verdict: Heaven on Earth for all those who like a good scrap.
Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy
[30/april/2005] Score: 6/10
As a long term fan of Douglas Adams's brilliant and witty work, from the first day of Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy on BBC Radio 4, and knowing how he liked to rewrite his stories for each genre, from radio to TV to books, now we have the cinema release. And it IS different.
Unlike the previous incarnations Douglas obviously went for a thorough polish of the gem that is Hitch-Hiker's, but I also detected something of a "sanitization" for wider audiences and compression of what was originally a three hour radio play.
So any problems, and rants? Well, not quite. The effects are great when needed and otherwise ignored, the scene of a huge fleet hovering over the surface of the Earth makes a dramatic impression and the effects of the Improbability Drive just have to been seen and laughed over, but the greater impression is a script that has been weakened from its original and seems at times to be too lacking in the quirks that made up the earlier versions, whether it's Marvin the Paranoid Android, here played as an over-grown toy robot with too little impact on the story and characters or the playing of the characters there was a serious lack of time to develop and introduce their real wildness and weirdness. In only 90 minutes I'm left with the feeling that too little was said to explain everything or develop all the characters and opportunities. But then I guess there will be sequels?
Verdict: Don't Panic!
Cursed
[23/april/2005] Score: 4/10
A werewolf movie, and in keeping with many Wes Craven movies in recent years, a spoof of the genre. I have no problem with spoofing a genre, especially as I have plans for a sixteen or seventeen part series of spoof/black-comedy vampire films, but this film lacked a core storyline that could run through the whole story. In exchange of one main story we are treated to two, one of each following the experiences of a brother and sister as they discover that they've become werewolves after a slight accident on the night of a full moon.
With each story we have a collection of characters, motives and events which don't easily mesh together, causing us to spin from one to the other in quick succession. The result is a confusion in the plotline and the audience, namely me.
Verdict: A dog's dinner.
The Interpreter
[16/april/2005] Score: 6/10
This film runs for most of its length as an intelligent thriller set in Nw York but drawing in serious issues of trouble and responsibility to our fellow men around the world. Although the film doesn't shy from dealing with the issues of African dictatorships it does end with a totally implausible silly Hollywood confrontation that is out of character from the rest of the story.
While there is a potential sub-plot of inter-racial love (how I hate the whole concept of "inter-racial" and its reinforcement of stupid stereotypes which have clouded our minds for generations) it ignores all but a brief reference to something which could have turned into a better, even more realistic plot twist. Imagine how often a strong rebel leader in a small remote country has been replaced on his death by an equally strong wife or lover. Now that would have been a far better ending, but perhaps too oblique for American audiences?
Verdict: A good interpretation, but not the reality.
Sahara
[9/april/2005] Score: 5/10
if you want a senseless Saturday afternoon matinee popcorn movie that you'll forget within minutes of leaving the pictures then Sahara is your dose of Hollywood junk. Not only is this a fun exciting, fast-paced adventure all the way into "darkest Africa", but it is totally implausible and silly. Great for the children in all of us!
Verdict: Pass me the popcorn.
A Rage In Placid Lake
[2/april/2005] Score: 8/10
So, this little boy is sent to school wearing a girl's dress to "challenge sexual stereotypes" according to his parents, and gets totally humiliated and beaten up for the rest of his school life. Well, that's what comes of having hippies for parents; and this is the start of our hero young Placid Lake's journey to adulthood and the discovery of his true self. Does Placid grow up into a hippy like his parents, or something else? I leave it to you to discover.
A quirky, funny, story of growing up, self-discovery, love and office politics. Although it has all the standard ingredients of most teenage coming of age stories, the ways it's conveyed, the twisted view of Placid Lake's world and the weird characters throughout make it a great story. As for the abundance of sex, well, it is a fantasy of every teenage boy.
Verdict: Adolescence was never this sexy and intelligent.
Melinda & Melinda
[30/mar/2005] Verdict: 6/10
Does Woody Allen have his own school of acting to "do a Woody"? I only began wondering this when, despite the absence of the esteemed Mr Allen on the screen, many of the actors started playing Woody - the stream of verbal neurosis and stuttering acting that suddenly erupts from several of the leads in this story of all the twists and turns in our lives, from comedy through tragedy to romance, from loves and laughter, to sadness and torment. Don't you just love those nice, wealthy, neurotic, artsy East Side New York folk in their own little universe?
Verdict: Another Woody Wonder.
Maria Full of Grace
[26/mar/2005] Score: 8/10
If you want the opposite of Miss Congeniality then Maria Full of Grace is the antidote to Hollywood glamour. A gritty down-to-earth telling of one girl's experience becoming a drug mule for the Colombian traffickers as her only escape from a life of drudgery and poverty. And it's happening every day of the year. I recommend it for anyone who want to understand more about the world than the candyfloss offered us from LALA Land.
Verdict: Graceful.
Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous
[25/mar/2005] Score: 6/10
Like "Hostage" (below), Miss Congeniality is a standard format, but slightly better written and better paced story of hostage-taking and rescue. Gave me a good few laughs and that was unexpected! Worth spending a few hours enjoying the comic antic of the FBI's top agent in the jet set.
Verdict: Fabulous dharling!
Hostage
[21/mar/2005] Score: 5/10
A standard Bruce Willis thriller in keeping with the similar "Die Hard" series the story had a certain predictability, but also provided all the thrills and spills you'd expect. I think the only weakness was in the psycho-baddie in the hostage-taking. Why wasn't he played by an English actor, I thought hey were the standard baddies nowadays??? Also his death sequence was just on the other side of very silly. There is more depth to the story action in having both a leading sequence that sets the scene and multiple adversaries for Bruce to deal with; but at the same time the unbroken rule of "heroic cop with bad marriage to redeem" isn't tampered with. Why are they always on the edge of a nervous/marriage breakdown before having to shoot and kill their way out of trouble, just easy on the writing demands?
Verdict: Help save me!!
Robots
[19/mar/2005] Score: 5/10
Looks out Robin Williams is loose!! With his gag-o-matic on full stream here's a story that will entertain children of all ages, and the depth of detail in the animation of the robot city is something you have to see. While there were a couple of small points in the story where I felt the writers were aiming too high, to the adults accompanying their children, and would go far over the heads of the little ones, the pace soon swept us all on through the story. All in all this is a great little tale of robot folk.
Verdict: Well screwed together.
Constantine
[12/mar/2005] Score: 6/10
Big, noisy, dark, spectacular comic-book drama. Keanu Reeves is just his good old bad, wooden, haunted and glum self, but if there was supposed to be a romantic plot, or even a hint of one between him and Rachel Weisz then I missed it. Maybe in the sequel, or the second sequel? If you loved Matrix, you'll love this and I'm sure the sequels are being written already.
Verdict: Devilish.
Hitch
[11/mar/2005] Score: 6/10
What can I say about Hitch? slushy, romantic comedy, a little different from the run-of-the-mill romantic comedies in having at least two love lines running through it instead of the usual boy-meets-girl-girl-hates-boy-boy-wins-girl plot.
anyway, take some tips from Hitch and there may be hope for you yet.
Verdict: Get Hitched!
Hotel Rwanda
[5/mar/2005] Score: 10/10
Now that the British General Elections are upon us (impending soon) it's interesting to reflect on how our political leaders were so insistent in not becoming involved in the Rwandan civil war and the million or more people who were slaughtered. Despite appeals the Tory government of the time refused to act, and the Labour opposition remained silent.
Hotel Rwanda reminds us all of how brutally our so-called "Civilised" government can be when people are in desperate need of help and how nobel others can be when the time for action arises. This powerful drama focuses not on the grand vision of battle and slaughter, but on the narrow world of one man as he struggles to protect his family, friends, neighbours in the middle of another holocaust, while the fat rich western governments turned their backs, again.
Verdict: Another Lesson for us all, how many more.......?
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissu
[3/mar/2005] Score: 7/10
We all dream of being heroes embarking on great adventurers, some of us try to live out those dreams on holiday and some try to turn them to reality to some extent or another. The Life Aquatic is a celebration of everyone trying to live the adventure and, like most of us, not quite meeting up to the image of what a hero ought to be, but in the end our efforts at heroism are often far greater than being the hero, because at least we try when others just sit back and watch it on TV. Here's a bunch of not-really-quite heroes not quite fitting the mould of society or the hero, who embark on their own adventure.
Verdict: Heroically human.
Shall We Dance?
[26/feb/2005] Score: 8/10
Another grown-up drama and romance for everyone seeking an antidote to shoot, bang and scream movies. If you're expecting a steamy sexy movie then forget it, but if you want a passionate and highly charge erotic film then pay a visit for your dance lesson. Contains one of the most erotic scenes I've seen for a long time.
Verdict: I'll dance to this tune anytime.
Ocean's Twelve
[5/feb/2005] Score 6/10
A great excuse to gather a whole clan of "A" list movie starts as they have to steal millions in just two weeks and can't do it in America so launch themselves on a jolly jaunt around Europe in a caper heist movie sequel to the first "Ocean's" film (well, the remake of the original). Like the first it's got all the glossy glamour of romantic high class thievery, so sit back and enjoy the fun, as they're certainly enjoying themselves.
The only little sticking point was the movie in-joke at the expense of a couple of the leads and a cameo from Bruce Willis as they pull a "Julia Roberts" stunt, which I felt went to bit too far off the main line of the story and could have done with toning down a bit as it distracted from the main thread of the storyline. Apart from that wild diversion it's a good caper with a Hollywood in-crowd joke thrown in for good measure.
Verdict: A distracting gem and enjoyable jaunt for the candyfloss crowd.
Sideways
[28/jan/2005] Score: 8/10
Boys meet girls, boys get girls, boys loose girls, boys get girls back. So that's it? Well, yes, but it's also told with such a flavour of delicacy, a scent of spice from a well-matured grove that you just loose yourself in what turns into over two hours of fine adult story-telling.
No flash-bang special effects, no battles with mythical beasts, only the day-to-day battle, growth, maturity and experience in the real world. These are four people dealing with life not herculean struggles. Makes a great change and give you a sense of balance in comparison with the fantasy worlds regularly spilling out on the screens.
Verdict: A mature delicacy from a seasoned cast, with just that hint of sensual body.
Elektra
[22/jan/2005] Score: 4/10
Now, the score does not related to the dishy Jennifer Gardner, she of "the Jennifer Walk", but to a story that was best left to a video game or badly-written comic strip. With a good deal more sense and character development (see Spiderman for comparison) I'm sure the Elektra might have had some interest, but this...?
We first met Elektra in the film Daredevil. In that she was heir to a huge fortune and vast company. In the new film she's working solo as an assassin living on the run all the time from some mythical organisation "The Hand". So what happened, how did it come about that she effectively lost everything from her past?
No idea, not a clue. And this is one of the big problems of Elektra - very little substance in her background to establish any continuity with her previous appearance.
As for the rest of the story, somewhat like House of Flying Daggers the film shows one or two "magical" combat effects but seems to loose its way with effect and no sense of reason.
Verdict: Not electrifying.
Team America: World Police
[16/jan/20005] Score: 8/10
Last year we saw the live action version of Thunderbirds. Well "Team America: World Police" is an all-American Thunderbirds, but with fewer wooden actors!
This is the military-political manifesto of the Bush White House. Every scene is a page torn from reality, or an inspiration to American troops everywhere on how to behave with, well, every goddam foreigner in the whole wide world.
If the US military have a recruitment drive then this will be their advert.
Heroism on a grand scale as elite Americans fight them damn foreign terror-ists/ commies/reds/whites/blues/Frenchies, etc. With no room for them damn liber-al actors, only the hardest, toughest actors star in this movie, real Americans, telling a real story, telling it like it is!
Puppets did you say? Well, yes there were one or two if you look closely. I managed to spot Toy Blair.
Verdict: Go U.S.A! Fuck yeah!
Aviator
[15/jan/2005] Score: 10/10
If this was a British film it would have concentrated all of its attention on the sordid private life of an old man reflecting from his madness and paranoid isolation on the peaks and troughs of his turbulent life.
Fortunately this isn't a British film and therefore concentrates on the highlights and the peak performance of one of the most driven, talented, visionary and brilliant people of the last century. Ably assisted by a great cast the story unfolds not of madness but brilliance that certainly deserves the nearly three hours of attention it receives in this film.
I'm sure the critics will find something nasty to say about it, but who cares about them when you see the achievement of Howard Hughes in so many fields of endeavour.
Verdict: A brilliant flight with the Aviator.
Alexander
[8/jan/2005] Score: 6/10
A big noisy bunch of ancient Greeks go tearing around the "known world", bitching, squabbling, and fighting everyone and each other in this rip-roaring expose of the sordid underbelly of ancient myth. If it's battles you want then battles you shall have, both on and off the battlefield there's blood and gore aplenty. And when they're not fighting they're bitching and quarrelling amongst each other.
In an attempt to redress previous heroic epics the makers focus on the homoerotic aspects of ancient Greeks and sweaty young boys fighting, fighting, fighting, looking pretty and dying, prettily.
Verdict: Pretty.
Without A Paddle
[3/jan/2005] Score: 4/10
Sort of dumb and dumber, and their dumb friend, go on a "Deliverance" wilderness course.
It would have scored a 1/5 if it wasn't for the redeeming feature of two witty and intelligent sensitive drug pushers, nice boys.
Verdict: They should have left it up the creek where it belonged.
House of Flying Daggers
[30/dec/2004] Score 6/10
Another one from the flying China circus. Fantastic dance (sorry, fight) sequences vie with a dramatic characters set against a powerful background of Chinese history as forces fight for control of the country and people's souls in the middle kingdom of myth and majesty.
So why the slightly lower score? While I know a lot of people will say that this was far better than Hero earlier in the year, and they may be right, after the first dance sequence there was a feeling that the CGI effects were on remote control. It looked like a case of how imaginative could you use the effects and at least once in the film I did suddenly wonder if they'd overdone it. Good effects are good if blended perfectly into the story, but if they overdo it then you have nothing but the effect without the story. While the echo dance scene was utterly brilliant, the bamboo forest chase looked too, erm, well you know, not right.
Verdict: Spectacular.
National Treasure
[28/dec/2004] Score: 6/10
Egad! Those dastardly Britishers are out to steal our National Treasure!
Yes, welcome to Hollywood's favourite baddies as they embark on a treasure hunt, chasing "Our Fearless Lone American Hero" across the map of American Revolutionary History. From the Dawn of Time (War of Independence from the British) to modern times, with a few side trips through Hollywood's interpretations of ancient history, the Templar Knights and The Masons, we learn the American Is The Centre of Civilization and ALL THINGS GOOD, treasure house of the greatest loot from around the (western) world to be kept safe from the evil British - those dastardly Britishers will never win!
If you enjoy a good romp, treasure maps, damsels in distress and Bold Hero's outwitting inept officials, baddies with British accents and you loved Indiana Jones then you'll like this fast-paced adventure that throws you in at the deep end from the very first moment.
Verdict: Gee-Whiz, I'd never have guessed.
Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events
[18/dec/2004] Score: 10/10
This is the second "grown up" children's adventure story I've seen this year (also see "Five Children and It") which doesn't include cutie little fluffy animated creatures (except at the very beginning) and which invoked all the memories and dreams of films and stories from long, long ago. Like all good fairy stories it's as dark as a forest, as haunted as night and as wonderful as cake and lemonade on a warm summer day. Eat it all up before the bad people come and take it away.
Verdict: A Fortunate Experience.
Blade: Trinity
[11/dec/2004] Score: 6/10
I remember when watching the first Blade movie and thinking how much some of the scenes and music just merged like a mixture of a pop video and hair shampoo advert. Well the shampoo Vamp. Boy is back and slashing his way through another horde of fanged fiends. And what fiends they are from feeble-minded post-modern "style" vampires who can't think "Hey, let's use a sniper to shoot the vamp.boy" through to the "Old Man" himself, Drac, he of the tall, dark and handsome, somewhat more stylishly "foreign" sort, complete with shirt-with-no-buttons. But don't worry Vamp. Boy has a whole crew of sidekicks-who-can't-remember-elementary-security to stand and fall by his side in this week's "Ultimate Battle of Evil versus Well We're Not THAT Bad".This is said to be the last in the trilogy.
Verdict: Fangs for the memory.
After The Sunset
[27/nov/2004] Score: 5/10
It's a crime caper. There's a sharp, sophisticated up-market jewel thief and his gorgeous girlfriend, and a down-market cop hotfoot on his heels all the way down to the magic isles in the sun and the biggest caper of all. If you enjoy the fun and frolics of the jet set as they steal from each other, then you'll enjoy this little taste of the high life.
Verdict: A glossy sparkler.
The Incredibles
[20/nov/2004] Score: 10/10
It's incredible. It's Fantastic and there are Four (and a half) of them! It's incredibly funny. It's worth seeing, buying the video and telling all your friends. Take the kiddies, go and watch it after bed time when all the kiddies have had their fun and see how many homages you can spot to other (especially Bond) films. Go and see Edna's Incredible new movie.
Verdict: Incredible dharling!
Bad Santa
[13/nov/2004] Score: 8/10
I laughed out loud at the boxing scene in a film that surprised me with its humour of a totally foul Santa robbing the innocent department stores in the "season to be merry (and buy toys)". But then I've always disliked the sugary Hollywood Santa's, and long planned my own little Christmas Stories (including the Real Christmas Fairy (wanted: leading Hollywood actress to star, must be tall, beautiful, with a twist)), so it's nice to see other people share my opinion and have added a little salt added to our diet.
If you hate Santa the salesman and his grinning cohorts of toy pushers, then you'll love "Bad Santa". NOTE: contains lots of sex, swearing, alcohol and modest violence, just like a real Christmas.
Verdict: Ho, ho, ho!
The Grudge
[6/nov/2004] Score: 8/10
First time I've seen a Japanese import to Hollywood treated without the Hollywood treatment, "The Grudge" follows a similar story path as "The Ring", a horrifying story of a haunted object, without the blood and gore we've come to expect from teen-slasher-horror flicks.
Want a haunting with a soul? Visit the house of "The Grudge".
Only one proviso, don't be surprised if someone (me?) one day produces a parody of these Japanese hauntings (I'll call it "The Smudge" it's about a......).
Verdict: Spooky!
Five Children And It
[31/oct/2004] Score: 6/10
If you ever remember the old style British children's adventure stories, perfectly illustrated by "The Railway Children", and if you have ever dreamed of release from the dread of yet another batch of noisy animated wise-cracking animals from America, as perfectly illustrated by, well, all of them, then "Five Children and It" will save your sanity.
A beautiful story in what I'd come to think of as a lost art or real life adventures of children escaping from parental supervision and discovering a world of magic, "Five Children and It" will entertain all ages who've not forgotten, in our cynical world, that there is more in our world than fear of our own shadows.
Verdict: It's good.
AVP - Aliens V. Predators
[23/oct/2004] Score: 6/10
Another wild video game takes gets a Hollywood makeover as you take assorted pesky sweaty Aliens, mix with a sample of Rastafarian Predators and throw in a "flavouring" of stupid humans with never enough ammunition, and a feast of fireworks ensues in an isolated Pyramid deep under the Antarctic ice (no, I don't know how it got there either).
This is a multi-layer game for players from every part of the universe. Only one rule - survive until the girl gets you!
Verdict: Bite me! But wouldn't it be even more interesting if it was Aliens V. Predators V. Ripley (although we would know who wins in the end!).
Man On Fire
[15/oct/2004] Score: 8/10
The moment the film opened with the same stylistic cutting and imagery we've all become used to from the Scott brothers I knew we were in for a meaty story and a real ride along the same road as recently trod in "Black Hawk Down". Not a glamorous glossy Hollywood production, you can see the grit of reality on every frame. What begins as a human and humane story of one man at the edge of life, soulless and desolate from unnamed past experiences, becomes a remorseless pursuit of those who snatch away his one final hope of salvation.
Verdict: Danger! Explosive! Short Fuse!
Resident Evil: Apocalypse
[10/oct/2004] Score: 6/10
Wow! Two semi-Lara Crofts for the price of one! Looks at those skimpy costumes, hear the creak of their tight leather, see their enormous.. guns, monsters, zombies, reasonable CGI and all that stuff!
Story? Well, it was a video game to start with, but good fun for a Saturday afternoon.
Verdict: Mmmmm, just love those Racoon City girls!
Layer Cake
[9/oct/2004] Score: 5/10
Well John, it's like this now, we're gonna make this movie, sort of like a gangsta movie, but, get this John, it's gonna be unique - it's gonna be abart gangstas from London, na' wot I mean?
Gosh, look at this a gangster movie, set in London, what ho chaps, that's original!
Layer Cake is from the same stable as "Lock Stock...", et al, and has all the wonderfully usual ingredients of gangsters, in London, killing each other, with a few totties (extremely pretty, clever, decorative girlies for our non British readers), thrown in for good measure.
Not forgetting the token "northerners" (from Liverpool, why is it always Liverpool!!??), who have more sense than to mix with the flashy geezers from "darn south".
And the story has a nice moral in it...
Verdict: Sorted.
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow!
[2/oct/2004] Score: 10/10
Tally Ho, Chaps! The Sky Captain is here to save us all! This is a film for you if you remember those old 1930s Flash Gordon serials (forever repeated on BBC2) or those 1940s-50s Science Fiction comic books and short stories, where Tomorrow was a place you dreamed of going to live and not a place of dread, where science could make the world a better place unless in the hands of mad scientists. If you long for the age when men really were men and not a bunch of touchy-feelie whining soggy nappies, and where women were feminine and feisty, then go see "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow!"
Other reviewers have complained about the special effects, the script, the fact that is wasn't "modern", middle class and cynical. So? Who cares? The story, the stylish imagery, the playing is perfect if you want to recreate hope in heroes and the future. If you think "Tomorrow" is a place of wonder then spare a little time in this time machine. And the punchline is perfect!
Verdict: Brilliant and spellbinding!
Hero
[25/sept/2004] Score: 6/10
Welcome to the ballet, the style, the flair, the bold panache that British film-makers couldn't reproduce if

The Movie Rants & Reviews!

Ever get those moments when you've watched what you hoped would be a good film only to come out of it disapppinted and wanted to rant off to someone. Me too.....

Archive 01 - 2004-07

Ever get those moments when you've watched what you hoped would be a good film only to come out of it disapppinted and wanted to rant off to someone.
Me too.....