The Untouchables

I hadn't seen this in ages, but a recent (well not very recent as I'm catching up here!!) re-watch re-aquainted me with what is a classic movie and one of Brian De Palma's better ones in my view.

We've got Kevin Costner as Elliot Ness, Robert DeNiro as Al Capone and Sean Connery attempting an Irishman, what's not to like there?!?

It's an underdog story, set against the American era of prohibition, there's a lot of shooting and the iconic scene with the pram and the stairs. Not only one of De Palma's better films, but also one of Costner's best, if you haven't seen it you must!

The Untouchables - 8/10

Punisher: War Zone

Much to my surprise, this wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Based on the trailers and various self absorbed postings from Lexi Alexander, I thought this was going to be a total and utter mess. It's no masterpiece and it pales in comparison to Iron Man, Marvel's biggest success of 2008 (and so far really!), I did however find it reasonably entertaining, certainly more entertaining that The Incredible Hulk (the other big Marvel 2008 release), although overall a similar standard.

It's a grim film, going for a big tick in the violence box, which fits, as Punisher is pretty damn violent, but with all the violence going on and Ray Stevenson's portrayal of the character, you feel a little detached form it all. I don't care about the kid or his mum, or anyone else for that matter, and I don't care about Punisher's reasons for his actions, or have any sympathy for him, I'm just indifferent waiting for him to go shoot some more shit.

I don't know if I'm supposed to sympathise with Frank Castle, the film's certainly set up as such, throwing in a cheeky flashback to the killing of his family, but it's all a bit token gesture for reboot's sake. When it comes down to it, the man's a killer vigilante, out for revenge, that's not really the sympathy type.

I'm also a little torn, as I only gave The Punisher (the most recent previous version 4/10), yet after watching War Zone, I wanted to see Thomas Jane in the role instead, there's no man crush going on, I think I just preferred his Punisher to Ray's. I think I need to rewatch the other two again.

Villain wise, I think Dominic West's 'Jigsaw' is a better one than John Travolta's 'Howard Saint'

Punisher: War Zone - 6/10

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

Splinter

I really can't decide if I actually liked this movie.

It's a reasonably interesting concept, but they do kind of spoil it, buy making a point of it rather blatantly several times throughout the movie.

So the monster's an anthropomorphic rat...

No, I really don't know. It wasn't a bad movie, it was pretty well shot, nice and short, I think I wasn't totally satisfied by the end, which I won't spoil here, but needless to say I didn't feel it had the impact it needed for me to come away feeling the way you should after a really good gore fest.

There are a couple of nice touches in there gore wise, the script's a tad expositional, but for what is essentially a small, low budget horror, it's ok I guess, worth a watch.

Splinter - 7/10

Lakeview Terrace

Overall, not great, it's a by the numbers nasty-neighbour film, Samuel L Jackson, strolling through the performance of him playing himself and any attempt to get the audience to sympathise with him fails big time. Interesting to see Patrick Wilson in something else, I'd only seen him in Watchmen... he's roughly as downtrodden in this.

It's also a slooow film, it's set against the backdrop of the recent California wild fires, but apart from a bit of smoke they don't really show up til the end, more could've been made of this I feel, it certainly needs something to ramp up the tension a little.

(this was a recent watch, but I've got a load that I haven't typed up, so trying to catch up as well!!)

Lakeview Terrace - 5/10

Watchmen

Now I saw Watchmen around opening weekend over here in the UK, so it's been a good few weeks since then and I'm only just getting around to typing something up on it. To be honest, I did try pretty soon after but I couldn't figure out what to write about it...I still can't really, but here goes.

I'd read the graphic novel a while before seeing the film and, while I can see what all the fuss was about, it's not one of my favourite comics, it's a laborious read, weighed down with a lot of metaphor and waffle (yes I'll probably get flamed for that), and for once I actually agree with Jonathan Ross' view on the movie, in that it stayed TOO faithful to it's source material.

Whilst trying to satisfy the book's hardcore fanbase (and possibly Alan Moore as well..good luck) and depsite the changes that were made and the stuff that was left out, it's still a very heavy going film, very wordy and slow, with A LOT going on, I came out feeling that I possibly would've rather seen a stripped down plot, even adapted more for the film format, cos as a FILM, it's not the best narrative.

On the technical side of things, yet again Zack Snyder pulled out all the stops, he's clearly geeky about the technical side of things and pushing new technology, visually Watchmen is great, a real feast if you will, even if the speed ramped fights feel a little cliched now.

Watchmen - 7/10

The Spirit

Once you get over the fact that the trailers sold it as a reasonably serious action based comic book adap and realise that it's actually a very hammy comedy, it's not too bad.

Of course you also have to get over Frank Miller's ham fisted directing and the fact that he still think's he's writing a comic rather than a film, but all in all, it was okay, there are certain things that saved it though.

Gabriel Macht has got a certain amount of presence to him, depsite having some seriously bad dialogue and directing. Sam Jackson is loving it as The Octopus, and once you indulge him he takes you right along with him, along with, bizarrely, Scarlett Johansson is great as Silken Floss, an understated role, but compliments The Octopus brilliantly, which makes a change as she usually bores the hell out of me.

Skipping over the Sin City stylings (go-on original Frank!) (I was also surprised that Troublemaker Studios didn't pop up at the start), and some of the utterly rubbish animation/wire-work/whatever stuff, there are a couple of really good scenes. There's a nice one between the doc and her dad, and pretty much everything with the kids in is brilliant, I was genuinely surprised at how natural their stuff felt, and how much more mature their scenes and performances came across.

The Spirit - 5/10

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

Eagle Eye

I heard a fair few people slagging this off when it was in cinemas, frankly I think they were too hard on it.

Sure it's not the best action flick in the world, but it's just an action flick just the same, and you can realistically only expect so much from that genre. Okay yes there are some that exceed those expectations, but you shouldn't start out that high.

Eagle Eye has kind of a good premise, ordinary guy and ordinary girl, plucked from their everyday lives by a sinister woman on the end of a phone who can track their every move and influence things around them, forced into doing things against their will etc. (all in the trailers)

One comment that's consistently popped up is that "it gets ridiculous" I kind of agree, it's been seen before though in some form or another, and to be fair it's no more ridiculous than most other big budget action movies.

Suspend your disbelief and just go along for the ride.


Eagle Eye - 7/10

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

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

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

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

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

Pineapple Express

Apart from two moments when I chuckled, one involving an ear, I can't remember the other, it's just plain rubbish.

I'm not a fan of the Apatow camp, when I first saw the trailer I thought it could be quite good. I was wrong, it's the same old Apatow-style shite. Most of the characters talk like Seth Rogan, which is annoying, much like Seth Rogan.

Okay, I'm typing this as I watched the end, third chuckle involving a car.

If you liked Knocked Up, Superbad etc al, you'll like this.

Pineapple Express - 2/10

The Exorcism of Emily Rose

Looked interesting, was mildly interesting, but was kinda lacking in something.

Not sure what though, it was an interesting concept, apparently based on true events, however it's clumsily executed, too much voice over and the different testimonies, make it a bit of a slow watch, it's almost two films mashed together in a bad way.


The Exorcism of Emily Rose - 5/10

Bangkok Dangerous (2008)

As a movie, this is pretty badass! Unfortunately, Nic Cage... not so badass.

From what I can gather (from just watching the trailer), this remake is quite different from the original 1999 film by the same directors. There seems to be a few similar set pieces, but that's about it.

Cage is an assassin, who goes to do a job in Bangkok, needless to say, said job doesn't go to plan and gunfights ensue. Throw in a ladle or two of sentimentality and the odd bit of dodgy camera work/choices and you've got a fresh new remake on your hands.

It's okay, not brilliant, I think it would've been better with someone more convincing as a badass assassin, or alternatively, played up on the ageing pro type thing. Worth vegging out to of an evening if there's nothing else tho.

Bangkok Dangerous - 6/10

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

Kingdom of Heaven

I like Ridley Scott, he's one of my favourite directors, however he's well off his game with this one.

It didn't exactly get a good reception when it came out and i've now seen why, although I picked up the Special Edition for £3, thinking it was the Director's Cut, it's not, so technically I still need to see that as it's supposed to be better, although KoH is long enough as it is, so I'm not sure whether I can be bothered to watch it all over again, but with more!

Funnily enough, I don't buy Orlando Bloom as a hero knight, one minute he's a blacksmith in a muddy village, the next he's an expert military strategist?!?! With great motivational skills?!? No sorry, he's a cock. Eva Green's a waste of space in the movie, which seems to be a trend she's following, Jeremy Irons is always good value, but under used and it seems good ol' Liam Neeson still can't escape Qui-Gon.

I also spent the movie wondering who was playing the kings as he kept sounding like James Woods but a weedy James Woods... it's Edward Norton, so I was close.

The movie is on a massive scale, but isn't really that impressive, it also doesn't make a lot of sense, let's hope Nottingham will be Ridley back on form.


Kingdom of Heaven - 4/10