Star Trek

This is gonna be rather spoilery, so be warned.

"Not your father's Star Trek" is a phrase that's being banded around about the franchise reboot from J.J. Abrams and it's an apt phrase in more than just the fresh faced cast and lens flare heavy lighting.

Let's start with the cast; Chris Pine is brilliant as Kirk, I agree with the general consensus, he should be BIG in the next few years, he can clearly balance the humour and action with a massive on screen charisma, strong possibility he's our next Harrison Ford (Sorry Nathan). Zachary Quinto steps in as younger Spock. I've followed Heroes since season 1 (glutton for punsihment?) and knew he'd be perfect as soon as it was announced, he doesn't disappoint. Karl Urban is also brilliant as Dr Leonard McCoy, while Pine goes to firmly stamp his own mark on the iconic James T. Kirk, Karl Urban happily homages-the-crap out of DeForest Kelley and with great effect. I'll be honest Zoe Saldana, John Cho & Anton Yelchin, as Uhura, Sulu & Chekov respectively, are pretty throwaway, ok Uhura's got some stuff going on with Spock and gives us our initial intro to an adult JTK, but overall, they just feel like they're being given their token screen time. That brings us to Simon Pegg as Montgomery Scott, who doesn't come in until some way through the film and doesn't really do anything except be Simon Pegg putting on an accent, he also gets some terrible "comedic" moments courtesy of his spiny sidekick thing.

Eric Bana chews his way through the film's resident villain, Nero, nothing special, but ok.

The casting refresh is one thing, the look and feel is another and this is where it shone for me, a tad too much lens flare maybe, but the look of the sets, the updated ship design and all the general space stuff was pretty damn cool, more energy, more intense, yet clearly updates on the previous versions as opposed to a total re-imagining. I'm not a Star Trek geek, I'll watch it, but I don't get all fanboy over it, I also preferred the movies (not mentioning TNG ones), but the updates hit the right notes with me.

What also makes this "not your father's Star Trek" is the plot. This is NOT a prequel, they even go to writing-hack level lengths to point this out in the exposition, this is an "alternate reality" [Uhura], so how the crew of the Enterprise comes to be in this film is not how it did for the series.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not getting all worked up over this, as I said, I'm not a Trekkie fanboy, but the film's pitched as an origin story, and while it IS, it's not quite the one I went in, and I expect many others were, expecting. That doesn't take anything away from it, just simply an observation... sorry, not an observation, there was a whole sequence devoted to making sure I damn well knew it.

Without going into the convoluted time travel plot, it basically sets up the new Enterprise crew with Old Spock lending a guiding hand along the way.

What stops this reboot from being amazing then? The comedy, that's what. Once you lose some of the language and maybe the brief "sex" scene, it's basically a kid's film, it's full of one liners, some good, plenty bad and stupid slapstick (see: Simon Pegg in coolant tubes) and set against the backdrop of what should be impending doom for all involved, it all feels like they're having a tad too much fun.

I'm not saying this needs to be all doom and gloom, the original movies all had humour, with The Voyage Home being the prime example of this, but that was in context, the humour in this one felt, for the most part, forced and unnecessary. Kirk's son get's marooned in ST2 and we get Kirk wigging out on a revenge trip, the whole of Vulcan gets wiped out in this one and we get Simon Pegg saying how exciting everything is. A bit of balance is what's needed.

So when it comes down to it, the re-boot shows a lot of potential on all fronts (less slapstick though please), there's already a sequel in the works, it looks like Kurtzman and Orci are lined up to write again, let's hope they move a little away from the Transformers style script and give it a little more meat! They came up with Fringe which I'm loving, so I hope they deliver the goods for Trek.

Star Trek - 7/10

The Day The Earth Stood Still (2008)

On the cutout in Blockbuster it says that The Daily Star (yeah) gave it 10/10 and said "spectacular special effects" or something very similar. I'm guessing that was the best review this remake had.

Let's start with the effects (they're as good a place as any with this one!), they're not spectacular, they're pretty MEH actually and contribute towards highlighting the various script issues. The filmmakers made a big deal out of keeping their version of GORT a secret, so they could have a big reveal when the film was released. I can reveal that it's rubbish and just looks like a big chunk of CGI.

So what about the film, the story, the drama, the sheer lack of emotion pouring out of Keanu Reeves... to be fair, this is probably the perfect role for him, as there's supposed to be no emotion, so I guess on those grounds, he's pretty damn good in this. Everyone else ambles along, various token characters crop up all over the place with no development and thus no engagement. It's too long and dull... it's just not very good, just about watchable, but not really entertaining.


The Day The Earth Stood Still (2008) - 4/10

Death Race

Good old Paul W.S. Anderson is back with another cheesy sci-fi movie, but then this is where he belongs. I remember enjoying Mortal Kombat, I remember feeling sick about AvP (I need to re-watch Event Horizon), so as long as you don't give him a well loved franchise, he should be able to pull off a reasonably entertaining action movie.

Add The Stath to the equation, especially Stath in a car, and things are looking up. Take this film at face value, it's a Paul W.S. Anderson remake of a Roger Corman (prod.) movie, it's not Citizen Kane.

It's stupid, cliched, stuffed full of the crappy 'reality tv' message that seems to be popular at the moment (do people forget The Running Man??), but at the end of the day, it's a big car chase, cars with big guns, that'll do me!


Death Race - 7/10

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

Creature

Yay for Joost!! I've recently rediscovered Joost. I signed up yonks ago, near when it first launched and was still using it's own desktop client rather than being web based, I remember it had Bridezillas, some random Jackass type stuff and Total Recall 2070, which was the first programme I looked at and had a surprising amount of nudity within the first few minutes.

Anyway...

Joost is growing, there's still A LOT of crap on there, but there's enough to find something to watch every now and again, and "Creature" was what I randomly picked last night to see what it was, and my girlfriend and I ended up watching the whole thing!! (we've turned off "better" films!)

There's an easy way to explain "Creature"... "Alien". It's quite simply an Alien rip-off, the details of the plot are different enough, but there's still a similar looking alien, a dark, windswept, inhospitable planet, a crew of civilians, an alien craft that's been there for a long time and Klaus Kinski... ok he wasn't in Alien.

The dialogue is terrible, it feels looonng, the effects are average (despite it being nominated for an award), the sound effects are taken from Star Wars and all in all this is a proper Shit-Good film. I've given it 4/10, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't watch it, quite the opposite in fact. If you like watching a really bad film every now and again, this is one you should watch! (it's on the Really Terrible Film Channel on Joost)

Hopefully if the code works, it's embedded below!!! ;)

Creature - 4/10

The Nines

I still maintain that Ryan Reynolds can be a good actor, 'The Nines' shows him trying, unfortunately it's got a highly convoluted plot, the structure's all over the place and by the end of it I was left kinda Meh.

Is it about religion, is it about Sims, is it about too many people thinking they can write the next Donnie Darko?!?!

The Nines - 4/10

Southland Tales

I seem to remember Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko follow up getting universally panned, being ridiculed at Cannes and disappearing back into the edit suite for a time, I also remember being very very intrigued by the trailer.

I missed seeing it in the cinema, in fact I missed seeing it for quite a while, always unsure as to whether it looked any good or not. Skip forward to December 2008 and an HMV 3 for £20 deal (this, [Rec] and Death Sentence btw). A day off over the xmas period and a quiet sit down to finally watch Southland Tales.

It's very weird, it makes very little sense, although you can follow a basic plot, it's over the top, part film - part music video and I loved it.

All the characters are off the wall, quirks, their affiliations are all over the place and for the most part you're not sure who's working for who or what their agendas are, which I guess kinda works as our main protagonist Boxer Santaros (Dwayne Johnson) doesn't really know what's going on either, at least not until the film's conclusion.

The highlights of the film for me, apart from just the really randomly enjoyable style, are Dwayne Johnson, Seann William Scott and Justin Timberlake. Now that may make me sound like a twelve year old girl, but their performances in this, whilst not Oscar worthy, certainly made me look at them in a different light.

The film is pure Sci-Fi, it's all out bat-shit crazy for it and that's part of what makes it so wonderful, it takes a heavy influence from Verhoeven, which is no bad thing but it's also, stylistically very now. It's a bit heavy handed with it's politics, but it does the job. I can see how it's not to everyone's tastes, but I was pleasantly surprised and am looking forward to The Box.

Southland Tales - 8/10

AVP: Alien vs. Predator

AvP should've been an outstanding triumph, it should've been fucking AWESOME!, but no, unfortunately they had to let Paul W.S. Anderson at it, and while Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil (and Death Race) were enjoyable, and even Event Horizon was pretty good I seem to remember, he was WAAAAY off for AvP.

First we have the (now) cliched, strong female lead, then two of the three Predator's are shite, also the rest of the human cast are pretty vacuous, the gestation period of the Aliens is shortened quite a bit, slo-mo flying facehuggers, slo-mo running from big explosion, large helpings of cheese.

It's not great, hopefully they'll do better with the sequel... oh wait...

AVP: Alien vs. Predator - 5/10

Wall*E

Pixar started out by giving inanimate objects life, such as in the iconic short Luxo Jr. Now although robots are not exactly inanimate, an interesting decision was made to not give them human voices as is done in most other films using robot characters.

Although at first this seemed a bit odd, I (along with many other people) thought that if anyone could pull that off, it would be Pixar.

And pull it off they do. The characters a engaging, charming and far more captivating than those of Cars for instance.

It's still not up to the standards of Toy Story, but I thought it was a bloody good film.

Wall*E - 8/10

Outpost

After the disappointment of Unearthed, I wasn't expecting a lot from this (watched them both in the same evening), however, this proved to be an unexpected gem.

It's got Ray Stevenson as the lead, which didn't fill me with confidence, I wasn't really into Rome and the Punisher: War Zone trailer looks God awful. He is in this however, pretty damn good.

The rag tag band of mercenaries, form a more serious Dog Soldiers type vibe, an uneasy camaraderie existing between them, ex-soldiers from various nations (keeping the diversity). Their task to protect their client as he investigates some acquired property.

This property turns out to be an old Nazi bunker, where, funnily enough, crazy Nazi experiments were carried out, and funnily enough, things start to go to shit, basically because of the crazy Nazi stuff.

I almost loved this film, I say almost, because it feels like the filmmakers didn't quite have the courage of their convictions and bring in the action too early. They could've quite easily kept the slow pace and the suspense going for longer with better effect, and the fact that they didn't was a tad disappointing.

Despite that, I heartily recommend watching it!


Outpost - 8/10

Unearthed

This is a perfect example of a film where the trailer is better than the film itself. WAAAY better.

For your delectation I have included a trailer for this one, something I've been thinking about doing, but this one is in context. The only thing is that this trailer isn't the one we saw on the DVD rentals over here, it shows a little more and doesn't finish on the 'buried' tagline, enjoy tho.

Okay, so there's a trailer, basically when we watched the one that we saw, we thought, yeah it's a shit straight to DVD horror flick, but it looks reasonably entertaining (a "shit-good" film), no, just shit.

The "acting" is terrible, they clearly didn't have enough money for more Luke Goss, who whilst not brilliant, is better than all the others here, especially the TERRIBLE lead, Emmanuelle Vaugier!! The script is awful, there's a whole backstory to the Sheriff that is of no importance or consequence whatsoever, the CG is ridiculous, the creature IS an Alien Xenomorph for all intents and purposes (they even rip off the shot from Alien 3), it's just ridiculous.

Unearthed - 2/10

Alien3

(SPOILERS!! more for previous films though)

Although I've seen both versions of this, for the purposes of this little post I'll be focussing on the theatrical cut which I re-watched recently. For the record, I also prefer this cut.

The first three Alien films, literally follow on directly from one another. Following Ripley's story to it's conclusion.

In this one, the EEV containing Ripley, Hicks, Newt and Bishop, crash lands on Fiorina (Fury) 161 a prison planet. They're found by the resident inmates and taken in. The reason for the crash is a fire that broke out onboard the EEV (guess what started that! It's in the opening credits and pretty obvious!!).

After Aliens' whole hive, we're back to just the one, not that that's a good thing for the characters as one's bad enough!

A lot of people don't like this one (or Resurrection for that matter, but that's a different post!), I do! I really like it, I love the premise of the prison, the characters that fill it and general plot. The only bad thing for me is the hokey (using that too much) CG Alien, the tech wasn't quite there at this time, probably could've done with more man-in-suit-in-shadows.

Despite all the trials and tribulations, David Fincher pushes the envelope to create a beautifully atmospheric film and worthy addition the the Alien line-up.


Alien3 - 9/10

The Hidden

Literally a "Hidden" gem, a really entertaining scif-fi film.

A mix of Bodysnatchers, Terminator, Species etc there's an alien running amok and only two men, namely Kyle MacLachlan and Michael Nouri can stop it!

Basically there's cops and FBI, chasing an alien around whichever US city they're in, it's funny, cheesy action and a bit creepy, overall it's brilliant.

Apologies for the crappy type up (like I apologise for the others!!) I'm technically working, but got a little down time, so trying to catch up!


The Hidden - 7/10

Next

Despite what is a reasonably interesting premise, or at least plot device of Nic Cage's character being able to see 2 minutes into the future, Next falls a little flat.

One of the major flaws is we as viewers are asked to believe that Jessica Biel would fall for Nic "Lank Mullet" Cage, no sorry, suspension of disbelief only goes so far! The writers also cop out a little bit, by going past the 2 minute mark (as well as bend the interpretation of that a tad), it would've been more interesting and tense to see them stick to this restriction all the way through.

There's some ok actiony bit's in, particularly the casino scene, which is how the movie should really have continued. It's mildly entertaining but ultimately it's let down by "playing it safe."

Next - 6/10

Logan's Run

Logan's Run is an odd film, it's a good ol' 1970's sci-fi, which feels totally of it's time, set in the obligatory dysotopian/utopian future, Logan is a 'Sandman' basically a copper who chases down 'runners'.

'Runners' are those who's life clock has run out (at the grand old age of 30), but don't really feel like getting beamed up and disintegrated. All's going well until circumstances lead Logan into becoming a runner himself.

There's a whole load of stuff that's never really made totally clear, not ambiguous, just not explained properly. Peter Ustinov is brilliant as the 'old man' and Jenny Agutter is HOT!! She alone is a good enough reason to watch this!!

Besides that, it was quite entertaining.

Logan's Run - 6/10

Stargate: The Ark of Truth

Compared to Continuum, this is just plain pants.

This plays much more like an elongated SG1 episode, rather than a feature, it looks like it too, very "TV" and for the most part...dull.

It's lightened up only by (again) Ben Browder and, the chemistry between him and Amanda Tapping's Lt. Col. Carter.

You also need to know more of the back story, as explained in prior episodes, to fully appreciate the plot in this one. Didn't enjoy it as much as Continuum.

Stargate: The Ark of Truth - 5/10

Stargate: Continuum

I've been getting into the Stargate series recently (SG1 and Atlantis), mainly because there's no Lost, Heroes, Dexter, BSG etc etc (although Generation Kill..CHEERS!) on at the mo, and as such decided to check out the feature length SG1 movies.

First one I watched was this one, the most recent Stargate: Continuum, throwing in a bit of time travel shenanigans, one Baal goes back and buggers up the start of the Earth based Stargate program, fortunately though three of SG1 make it through to the new timeline and after a bit of stuff, proceed to make things right.

The main thing, apart from appearing to actually have slightly higher production values than the series, is that it was actually pretty entertaining! Ben Browder is very entertaining as Col. Mitchell (would like to see him do something new now), Beau Bridges short appearance is nothing short of amazing, and Richard Dean Anderson is old and fat.

It deals with the time travel problems pretty well, and overall gives you a pretty good ride. It's not entirely stand alone, it does sit within the Stargate timeline and universe and as such references previous episodes, which I haven't seen as they're all over the place on Sky, but it's not essential to know this stuff to enjoy it.

Stargate: Continuum - 8/10

Doomsday

Take the following ingredients, stir in and spice up with liberal other influences;

• 1 part Aliens
  
• 1 part 28 Days/Weeks Later
  
• 2 parts Mad Max (mainly 2 & 3)
  
• 2 part strong female lead with damaged past
  
• Oregano
  

I love Dog Soldiers! I thought The Descent was an admiral attempt to get everyone taking home grown British films seriously again (and not a bad film), but when I saw the trailer for Doomsday, I swear I could see Neil Marshall doing backflips over a Great White.

It looked SOOO bad!

A problem I have with "hot new directors" at the minute, and in some ways it's a bit of an unfair criticism, is that as soon as they're given a load of money to make a film, they go all shite. They start off with a cracking low budget debut, then someone comes along and gives g'twirty gillion squid to make a movie and they deliver a cow pat. (this probably isn't a new problem)

Now I was pleasantly surprised by Doomsday, it's not the total cow pat that I was expecting, but at the same time it doesn't have the wit, charm or inventiveness of Dog Soldiers, it is British yes, as the use of the word "Bollocks" proves, and I like that about it, I like that Neil Marshall is proud to be British and allows that to come through in his films and it's also nice to see someone attempt a big action film in the UK (in a non piss take way unlike some).

At the end of the day, it's not taking itself very seriously, it's a big fun action movie with PLENTY of gore, some pretty good gore at that, a few good lines, but not much substance. Rhona Mitra was better than expected, but at the same time, doesn't have the presence to really pull it off.

A few pretty good action bits, a lot of silliness and some enormous unfinished plot lines and holes.

Let's see what he does next, maybe not Outpost, something else??

Doomsday - 7/10

Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs

Let us all remember that The Simpsons Movie was pretty SHITE! Futurama, (which I've always preferred) however, does a much better job of sustaining the running time.

It does lag a little in place, only a little though, and mainly because of the concurrent plot lines used to sustain the 90 minutes, but by the end of it, it felt like I had just watched an episode rather than sat through an overly long cartoon.

If you know Futurama, there's nothing really new here, but it does the job pretty well and I laughed a fair bit throughout, definitely worth watching.


Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs - 7/10

Be Kind Rewind

mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble something about community spirit, not being racist and Ghostbusteeeerrrrs.

When I first saw the trailer I was totally underwhelmed, it came across as a grubby film visually and so very saccharin sweet it could send a Care Bear into a coma.

That's pretty much how it is. It's pretty dull, the Ghostbusters sweding is reasonably funny, then the novelty wears off. Jack Black is Jack Black, none of the secondary characters matter and everyone else mumbles. (Especially you Mos Def (see 16 Blocks)

Michel Gondry is a technical genius. He is hands down one of the most technically and visually creative directors out there... and this film is a mess. There's a load of trademark Gondry in-camera stuff, a whole sequence of 'sweding' that was more than likely done in one shot, some clever costumes and not much else.

The jokes fall flat, the message is ladled on and we were basically hoping the film would end soon (although we stuck it out 'til the hamfisted ending). Some of the shots (not the swede ones, the 'proper' ones), were, frankly, terrible, off framing, odd choices of going to weird angles mid way through some dialogue, all really odd. If they were 'creative' choices, I don't think they worked.

I really don't know what people saw in this.

Be Kind Rewind - 3/10