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

Assault on Precinct 13

Nope, sorry, just don't like it. I can see how (as with a lot of films from emerging directors at this time), it probably blew people out of the water, especially with the infamous "ice cream truck" scene, but for me it was just boring.

There's not enough tension between the characters, the acting is well below par and, I'm sorry but John Carpenter is just not that good a director. I wanna check out the remake, out of sheer curiosity now.

Assault on Precinct 13 - 3/10

Hancock

The ONLY word that was in my head when we came out of the cinema after this was "INTERESTING", I just couldn't decide whether I liked it or not. My girlfriend was the same, neither of us could decide whether we'd actually enjoyed the film or not. Which is weird.

Interesting is a good word for it though. It's interesting what they do with the 'superhero' genre, the down and out Hancock and where they go with his vague 'origin' story, but that's about it, yeah there are some somewhat funny moments, there's no real peril until the end and all in all it's a bit average. Shame.

Hancock - 6/10

Diary of the Dead

So So bad. George Romero has done ONE good film that was Night of the Living Dead. Everything else is pants.

This is the biggest pair of old man pants yet, even bigger than Land of the Dead (which was pretty bad), top marks for experimenting though, going all "Handheld", although it doesn't have anywhere near the conviction or success in this area that Cloverfield does.

The shots are too framed, the "Narrator" (see shit V.O.), tells you what cameras they're using at the start, one of which is a shoulder mount Panasonic, the other, a handheld one, is conveniently found lying around at a point during the film. Technically it's laughable.

Now onto the "actors", I say "actors" cos they're shite, really REALLY BAD! And the SCRIPT! George has really come up with some God awful nonsense this time! Preachy, hamfisted tosh, it's up there with Zombie Strippers with how not to write a script!

And I think he's still a bit peeved about Zombies/Infected being able to run in other films...GET OVER IT!

Good news though, there's a sequel in the works :/


Diary of the Dead - 2/10

Pathology

Slow for the most part, an interesting idea, although basically Lost Boys but pathologists not vampires, totally redeemed by the ending.

Milo Ventimiglia as our main protagonist, pretty much sucks. The guy's just not a very good actor. I love Heroes, but he's hardly the best thing in that either. Conversely Michael Weston, is brilliant in comparison.

There's a lot of sex in this too, it's bordering on soft pron! Ultimately that could be the decider for whether you watch this one, for us it was quite unexpected.

Pathology - 6/10

Street Kings

Street Kings is a pretty generic dirty cop/crime drama, from the pen of James Ellroy (L.A. Confidential, The Black Dahlia etc), (screenplay co-written with Kurt Wimmer (!?) and Jamie Moss), the basic plot has pretty much been seen time and time before.

Keanu Reeves is the 'spear tip' cop, used for the 'special missions', Forest Whitaker is his Captain in the Vice Special unit. See where this is going?

Pretty early on Hugh Laurie steps in as House... sorry Captain James Biggs from Internal Affairs (it's that one American accent thing, like Christian Bale ;) and that throws in a bit of tension within the group.

To be honest, I've basically seen this movie before in other incarnations, but at the same time it was an enjoyable watch.


Street Kings - 7/10

Superbad

IT'S NOT FUNNY, NOT IN THE SLIGHTEST BIT.

(apart from maybe a very very very slight exhale through my nose at one point late on in the film, but it's only just finished and I can't even remember which bit)

Superbad - 1/10

Zombie Strippers!

Ok, three basic genre keywords for this one, I'll take them one at a time...

Horror

So we have zombies, virus orientated ones in this case. They're a cross between 'traditional' and 'modern' zombies in the fact that, on the whole the move quite awkwardly and slow, but on the other hand, their pole dancing improves quite dramatically.

There's a fair bit of gore to go with the zombies, a mix of composited elements, which could be better, and some, actually pretty good, practical grue and giblets.

It ain't scary, there are simply no scares, nothing to even remotely make you jump.

Comedy

Admitedly I chuckled at least twice, they were chuckles though. The "possibly some badgers" line made me chuckle (although there's a groan inducing line that follows) and the lead up to "Paco time!" also gave me a chuckle, but I think that was about it.

Before moving on to the final genre keyword, I'll cover a couple of other bits. Firstly; Robert Englund. Clearly the most experienced member of the cast, and despite everything, seems to be enjoying himself, plays a brilliant role, which you have to give him credit for, taking into account the overall quality of the script (see: Not Good).

There are clearly Easter Eggs throughout the film, in both the set dressing and the script, some are less subtle than others, note to film makers; Easter Eggs are meant to be discovered, not delivered. Although fair's fair, it's supposed to be a comedy script and as such they tried to be clever with some of the lines. FAIL.

The film is called Zombie Strippers and starts Jenna Jameson, expect nudity, in fact I think most of the film is a pole dance montage, picture the script....

INT. STRIP CLUB - NIGHT 1

JENNA JAMESON is on stage, removing all her clothes.

INT. STRIP CLUB - NIGHT 2

JENNA JAMESON gets bitten by ZOMBIE MACGUFFIN

INT. STRIP CLUB - NIGHT 3

ZOMBIE JENNA JAMESON is on stage, removing all her clothes.

I think that's pretty much word for word. Also, something I learned from this film is that Jenna Jameson looks better with black contacts and covered in blood. Which is wrong on so many levels.

Satire

Now, the meat (so to speak). It's shoved-down-your-throat-clear from the outset that the film is one big attack on the Bush administration. From the poor attempt at a Verhoeven-esque news report at the start, via the various 'Bush' logos, Osama related military codes and mentions of "the war", right through to the In-Case-Your-Brain-Doesn't-Function-Here's-What-We're-Getting-At Exposition sequence at the end.

Excuse me, Mr Lee?.. Intelligent satire this ain't. However if you were going for the Ham-fisted my first attempt at a political message, you're spot on.

Zombie Strippers! - 2/10

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

The Ruins

What can I say about "The Ruins" apart from the fact that it's a pretty average film. It's not great, but it's not terrible.

The main 'horror idea' is reasonably original, but draws on a number of influences, the characters are pretty much standard horror 20-somethings, the girls are pretty damn annoying and stupid in my view, not quite Wolf Creek irritating, but close and the guys actually seem to have a bit of sense, which is quite nice, that it's not all but one of the characters who are dumb. I think the girls got the bum end of the deal though.

I'd put money on the fact that EVERYONE should be able to identify who will die first, which is a shame, because as I was waiting for this first death, I was thinking what an interesting dynamic it would add to the rest of the film, but it was not to be.

There are a couple of pretty gruesome bits in the film, although not as much as I'd been led to believe by others.

The end is also kind of predictable, although I had a few different scenarios going round my head before one of those got checked off.

So, not the best, but not bad, kept me engaged and Vicky (girlfriend) really enjoyed it (gives it an 8/10)

The Ruins - 6/10

Batman: Gotham Knight

An interesting one this, what is essentially an animated prologue to The Dark Knight (no spoilers in it afaik), there's several short stories, all slightly different styles, all slightly different animation/art styles, but all with a common thread.

The animation is pretty Anime-esque, slightly heightened from Batman: The Animated Series (which stands as one of the best cartoons out there), the stories are written by various writers including David S. Goyer, Josh Olsen and Brian Azzarello.

While it's good, it doesn't quite have the tension or action levels to compete with the movie versions, not that it's trying to 'compete' per se, that was a bad choice of words, but it struggled to keep me totally engaged at times.

Essentially though it's pretty well done and a nice bridge between Begins and TDK.

Batman: Gotham Knight - 7/10

Vantage Point

I thought this looked cool when I first saw the trailer, it seemed to be a pretty full on action film, and for the most part, it's just that.

You have to get past the first half or so of the film, which is where it gets it's "Vantage Point" title from (well, you know what I mean). We kick off in Spain, big event with the US President in attendance, there's a big news OB crew, secret service guys, an odd Forest Whitaker with a camcorder (NB: keen eyes will notice that the camcorder footage isn't the ACTUAL footage, or even close) and a whole load of the public.

The first segment opens with the POV of the news team covering the event for the viewers back home, all goes well until the President is shot, the shit hits the fan and then... rewind and we follow someone else's POV. This happens a few times, and I think just one too many, where you start to think "Again?? Can we not move on yet?"

Eventually it does move on and becomes a more traditional chase thriller, and a bloody good one at that, full on pulse racing, edge of seat stuff, even with Dennis Quaid at the helm, saying that I think he does a bloody good job in his role.

Now there are plot holes, and to be honest, I would've liked a bit more depth to it as it's more of a snapshot event rather than a long term story, but as a single event, it's able to keep the pace up and layer the action on.

I'm not entirely sure whether it would've been better or not with a more traditional structure, rather than the numerous rewinds, it would be trickier to cover all the angles effectively and still keep the pace of the ending. A damn good watch tho.


Vantage Point - 7.. no sod it 8/10

The Incredible Hulk

Saw this at the cinema today, the girlfriend wanted to see The Happening, but we would've had to wait around for and extra hour, so we went with The Incredible Hulk.

She wasn't happy at the end of it. 

Vicky: "Well that was a load of old crap wasn't it?"

Matt: "It wasn't that great, no."

Why wasn't it that great? Well if you ignore the fact that Iron Man came out recently and was awesome, I'll tell you..

Firstly, Edward Norton is a crap Bruce Banner, in fact, he's just crap, overly wimpy, wet, weak sack of dead poodle.

Secondly, Liv Tyler is mind-numbing as Betty Ross, literally mind-numbing, but as a couple, they suit each other as the scene where they practically melt into the rain demonstrates.

The combo of Eric Bana and Jennifer Connelly was much better in my view.

Apparently Edward Norton started revising the script when he came on board, I'm guessing he did all the wimpy dialogue bits.

There's too much wimpy bits and not enough Hulk. Yes I know the character has two aspects, but I wasn't at all sold on the Bruce Banner side and when Hulk was on screen, he didn't really have the presence he should've done, no weight to him (physically).

The fights were almost pretty good, Tim Roth was pretty good as Emil Blonsky, but much like the Scarecrow in BB, underused, and I kinda lost interest in him when he turns into Abomination (that's in the trailer btw). In fact, I didn't really care about ANYONE in the film, none of the characters really had any merit to them, I was just sat there thinking, yeah yeah, blah blah, let's see Hulk kick some ass...

...Oh no, it's become Peter Jackson's King Kong. Damn.

There are elements of this one that are good, there are elements of Ang Lee's Hulk, that are also good, if you stick the two together, you're on your way to a decent Hulk movie, but then at the end of the day this is just a setup for The Avengers, at least Iron Man had some substance to it.

So a couple of good Hulk Smash! scenes and not much else.

The Incredible Hulk - 6/10

Batman Begins

After Mr. Schumacher officially killed the Batman franchise, along came David S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan to give the series a good solid kick up the arse.

David had previously given us the Blade films and Mr Nolan had made it big with Memento. Things were looking interesting, despite many people thinking there was no way they could top the Tim Burton films, but look, they did!

By steering away from the more fantastic side of the Batman stories and focussing on (or tweaking to) reality based ideas he gave us a more believeable, grounded and hardcore Batman. He also delved into the origin story, something that hadn't really been done anywhere before. The existing story being, Bruce sees parent's killed, grows up becomes Batman. Not terribly detailed. Various stories eluded to training and such and Nolan goes all out on showing Bruce Wayne's transition to Batman and indeed where he get's those wonderful toys.

He also gives us (an underused) Scarecrow and a clever Ra's Ah Ghul (I've probably spelt that wrong, I may check later), who unfortunatly ends up being a bit of a Qui Gon Jin (probably spelt that wrong too), for the first part of the film.

We also get Christian Bale as BW/Batman, and apart from Bale's American accent, he's pretty much perfect as a Year One Batman, being that he's unhinged an' all ;)

The film's bloody good, a little slow, but then it IS an origin story, and they're always a little slow because they've got to cover that initial ground before the meaty action starts. Although to be fair, Mr. Nolan does a good job of giving us some action in the lead up before the suit comes out.

Now this is clearly a re-watch for me, I saw this in the cinema when it came out, but as pretty much everyone on the planet is aware, The Dark Knight is pretty close now (July 25th in the UK) and I'm damn sure I'll be trotting up to the IMAX for this one!!! Anyway, I thought that Begins was due a re-watch to refresh my memory and attempt to satisfy the hunger that's going to eat me up for around another month yet!


Batman Begins - 9/10

Transporter 2

As you may have seen, I LOVE the first one, the sequel here is pretty good, but doesn't live up to the first one.

Here's why...

TOO BIG FOR IT'S BOOTS.

Yep, basically they try to make it bigger and better and they fail, too much CGI really, they should've kept it real, if they made transporter more like Bourne but less serious it would rule! It does have a Milla Jovovich a-like, scantily clad female villain though ;)

It's still worth a watch, lets see what number 3 brings ;)

Transporter 2 - 6/10

The Transporter

I Fucking love this film! In the grand scheme of things, it's a bad film, but at the same time, it's AWESOME!

Why? Jason Statham, car chases, awesome fights (yes, ok it has the most homo-erotic fight scene this side of porn or Top Gun, but that's ok)

Some of the dialogue is terrible, the plot's pretty flimsy, but who cares, it's fucking awesome!


The Transporter - 8/10

16 Blocks

An interesting little movie this one, Bruce Willis starts acting his age (more so than in DH4.0), he plays an old, washed up, alcoholic cop in NY, who at the end of his shift it told to escort a prisoner witness "16 blocks" to the courthouse.

Reluctantly he moseys on down to the cells and picks up Mos Def, who is putting on one of the most annoying voices in the history of cinema.

Now this little escort trip should be a piece of cake... if it wasn't for DAVID MORSE!!! (dum dum duuuuuum!) and a load of other cops who don't want Mos to make it.

Another interesting point with 16 Blocks is that it's directed by Richard Donner! Yes that Richard Donner. So should you expect big things? Yes, but then he also did Timeline (awesome book, shite film) and Maverick (gee, thanks).

Overall, it's not bad, it's not great, it's a bit slow and doesn't have as big of a climax as it feels it should have, but at the same time it's a pretty good watch. (It ain't no Goonies or Lethal Weapon though)

16 Blocks - 7/10

Jumper

A lot of people have totally slated this film, partly because it's got Hayden "NOOOOOOOOOO!"*Christensen in it, and partly because apparently, it's rubbish.

So, what's the background? Well it's an adaptation from a book (which apparently a lot of people like), it's scripted by David S. Goyer (Dark City, Blade, Batman Begins), Jim Uhls (Fight Club) and Simon Kinberg (XXX 2...DOH!) and it's directed by Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity), so based on those bits, you should expect a pretty good film yes??

Well let's say it's an okay film, it's not great, old Annie can't really keep it up as far as leading man is concerned, it's got a really weak end in my view, it's left wide open for a sequel, but that doesn't mean you can't have a strong ending, for a first film (which should potentially stand alone as well) it shouldn't be a cross between an origin story and The Two Towers.

Samuel L. J is his usual self, this time with funky white hair, Jamie Bell is great but needs to be let off the leash a little more, Rachel Bilson is YAWN and the mish mash of story elements is a bit of a let down (especially from Goyer).

There's simply not enough jeopardy in the film, pretty much throughout David (HC) is supposed to be being hunted by SLJ's Roland, however apart from a bit of squinting he seems to be pretty much taking it in his stride, which when you look at how they're trying to define the character...doesn't work.

Overall it's reasonably entertaining, just feels like there should be more to it.

Jumper - 6/10

*(Yes I know he didn't do the voice, but he was in the suit and pretty bad out of it)

The Warriors

Had this hanging around for a while (must give it back to Simon!!), finally watched it and...

It's not bad, oddly enough! Fair do's it's not the greatest film ever made, but overall it works pretty well.

It is a tad disjointed but then, it's The Warriors having to make their way back home to Coney Island, but having to pass through various other gang's turf.

During the opening scenes, you get a selection of the various gangs from the New York area (apparently), I could immediatly see that Joel Schumacher watched this film before making Batman Forever and Batman & Robin!!

What makes things worse for our 'heroes' is that all the other gangs (and the police) are specifically out to get them, thus, some bad fight choreography and "kung-fu-cos-it's-hip" scenes must crop up with some more of the craaaazzzyy street gangs.

Apparently there's a remake on the cards, I'm hoping that a certain original cast members could return and in some cases, a big name may work quite well!?

The Warriors - 7/10

Horton Hears a Who!

To be honest, I didn't think this was going to be any good, CGI movies that aren't from Pixar, generally inspire that knee jerk reaction.

I was wrong, a bit slow in places with a bit of a heavy handed message, but overall a really entertaining and heartwarming movie.

On the CG front, it's a bit of and odd one, it opens with a pretty much photo-realistic shot of rain drops on a leaf, then becomes very cartoony, ditching any sort of realism on any elements. No while I have absolutely no problem with this, after all it's an animated family film, it just made me wonder why they bothered at the start, maybe just to show that they could??

At the other end of the scale is a brilliant Anime segment in the midst of Horton's trek.

So, all in all an unexpectedly great animated movie!

Horton Hears a Who! - 8/10