Sunday, February 15, 2009

Friday the 13th (2009)


Mediocre, Samey, Nothing Original, Just another slasher flick etc etc etc.

It's not very inventive, it doesn't do anything new for the genre, it's mildly entertaining yes, but mildly.

Watch it if you like, but if you don't, it's not much of a loss.

Friday the 13th (2009) - 5/10




Saturday, February 14, 2009

Outlander


This looked AWESOME in the trailer, and overall, it was pretty good, fell slightly short of being truly awesome though.

To sum up the movie in one of those "meets" sentences.. it's Predator meets Alien meets The 13th Warrior, all three of those I love, so this should've been pant wettingly good.

The concept is pretty solid, spaceman (Cavieziel) crashes his spaceship on  medievil Earth, somewhere in Norway, also on his ship is a big-ass-alien-killing-machine of a monster, now said spaceman must team up with (fucking-)Vikings to defeat the thing. Along the way friends are made, love is found and we find out a little bit about our own humanity. (So not enough action then yeah?)

Yeah, not quite enough, the alien or Moorwen as it's called is great, although somewhat distractingly looks like it could've been built from the Godzilla CG model, it's a good approach though, very animalistic yet still conveys a sense of sentience.

The humans on the other hand could do with some work, a good mix of accents doesn't help, some of the acting and dialogue leaves a fair bit of room for improvement and all the mushyness, while within the scope of the plot, does slow the pace down a tad much for what I feel it should've been.

There's some nice touches though and all in all it was an enjoyable film.

Outlander - 7/10





Thursday, February 12, 2009

Burn After Reading


I'm not going to start prattling on about this being "a return to form" or anything like that, everyone said that about No Country, which was okay in my view. Burn After Reading is more along the lines of Fargo or The Big Lebowski in that it's a comedy, a black one yes, but nowhere near the sheer bleakness of No Country.

It's also not quite as good as Fargo or The Big L, but I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would based on everything I'd heard about it. Let's be perfectly clear, this isn't another Intolerable Cruelty (thankfully!)

This is also one of Brad Pitt's better roles, hamming it up to great effect alongside Cloony and Malkovich, both of whom also appear to be thoroughly enjoying the ridiculousness of it all!

The ending is a tad abrupt, but it suits what's been going on. It's an enjoyable romp (crap word I know), which is all I really wanted from it and it delivered. 


Burn After Reading - 9/10






Friday, February 06, 2009

The Fall


I was intrigued in this from the moment I saw the trailer ages ago, partly because it looked visually incredible, partly because the actual story seemed interesting and partly because I hated The Cell.

The film does look amazing, he colours are out of this world, every now and again the framing's just a tad too 'stylised' for my tastes, Tarsem does follow themes here and there, certain stuff he's almost fetishistic about (see: slo-mo horses in desert), visually, everything about the film is an icing coated treat.

Story wise, it's not bad, it's a guy in a hospital telling a story to a little girl. The story reflects the events of the real world and it's pretty dark and emotional, and this is primarily sold by the performances of the little girl and the injured guy interacting with her, which is nothing short of charming and totally engaging.

It's a beautiful tale, not perfect, but a great watch.


The Fall - 8/10