Man on Fire (2004)

140mins.... TOO LONG! Top Gun was 105, that felt ok, after all it is Top Gun.

This is a remake of a 1987 film, both of which based on a book of the same name. I haven't seen the other or read the book, but I do want to see the original film, partly as it's only 92mins and i want to see how it compares (there are significant differences between the two, the 1987 one being closer to the book).

What was good about this one? Denzel Washington wasn't as annoying as he usually is, he was reasonably good (although please do look out for the trademark lip smacking and tongue in bottom lip), Dakota Fanning wasn't that annoying, although in the special features she comes across as a mature yet smarmy shit of child, stuff blows up in a pretty good way, it's a revenge film, they can be pretty good as it deals with darker issues.

What was bad about it? Radha Mitchell, it's faaar to stylised (watch the extras to see just how over the top they went, whilst still feeling it justified, although I think the DP had his doubts), it's a bit weak, not entirely gripping, one of those films that fall into the category of "it's not quite boring enough to turn off", I think that's down to the length....I feel the need, the... well you know.

NB: and Denzel's not on fire.


Man on Fire (2004) - 6/10

V for Vendetta

Hmm, bit dull this, picked it up for £4 (I heartily suggest visiting your local CEX if you have one), which to be fair is about the most I'd pay for it (maybe £5 for a 2 disc edition).

The graphic novel is set in the 90's with the back story in the 80's, the film, back story in the 90's and current time, main story set slightly in the future.

Britain is now a fascist state, ruled over by the High Chancellor and is all very Nazi-esque. V has a lot of pent up aggression and apparently don't look to good, thus dresses in a cape and mask but still feels like something needs to be done about the state of the country.

Script/Story wise, various boxes are ticked to ensure that the government is suitably hateable and that certain points ("MUSLIMS!" "AMERICA'S WAR!") resonate with the viewers.

Well, okay I guess that these and similar things are top of the political agenda at the moment, but in the context of the film it all felt a bit forced and heavy handed. 10/10 for effort on Warner's part in going ahead with a heavily political film (maybe because it's set in Britain is why they let it through their net), but subtlety is clearly not the maker's strong point.

What we're left with is a bit of a mish mash of a political drama and a Warchowski event, all of which is well meaning, but just a bit dull.

V for Vendetta - 5/10

The Fifth Element

Another re-watch and how can you not like this film, full on camp sci-fi + camp Gary Oldman + Bruce Willis + VERY camp Chris Tucker (ok skip that one) + Milla Jovovich in a vest and plastic straps...when she does get dressed that is.

There's evil on the way and the only way to stop it is to get these 4 stones that represent the elements to a temple where they can be combined with the aforementioned Fifth Element to create the evil killing light. On the way Future-Texas-Gary Oldman will try to stop you and so will some heavily armed space cows.

It's ok we have Bruce Willis. "Fuck" say Future-Texas-Gary Oldman and the space cows in unison.

All this with bells on, I love it, it's a great sci-fi, is distinctly European (specifically French) thanks to Luc Besson and cohorts (Leon felt more American for example) but it loses a few points on it not being totally sure whether it wants to be all out camp or not, which confuses the tone a little, that and Chris Tucker, which even Leeloo can't redeem!


The Fifth Element - 7/10

Agitator (Araburu tamashii-tachi)

Had this one sitting in my DVD rack for a while, waiting for me to be in the right mood to watch it, as it's a Japanese yakuza (gangster) movie which I thought was going to be pretty hard going.

It's another from Miike Takashi, who I'm a big fan of and am gradually building up my collection of his works.

It's a twisty twisty crime flick, lots of double crossing mixed with traditional yakuza loyalty and is surprisingly easy to follow. The acting is top notch, with well placed comedic turns to avoid taking itself too seriously.

The only downside really is it's a bit of a slow burn at 150 min (apparently there's a 200 min version!), which was a little testing at times, but the story and characters were strong enough to keep me engaged all the way through.

A solid gangster flick.


Agitator (Araburu tamashii-tachi) - 7/10

Cronos

FINALLY! This completes my Guillermo del Toro feature film education, his debut feature and apparently widely regarded as "One of the finest chillers of the decade. A masterpiece - Mark Kermode", thankyou Dr Kermode and thankyou the DVD's cover sleeve.

The first film of his I saw was Mimic, (which I need to re-watch as it's been a while), then came Blade II - CHEERS! - followed by Hellboy, which after the second viewing.. CHEERS!! So i started thinking, who is this guy?!?

Cue, The Devil's Backbone, followed a bit later by Pan's Labyrinth, and now finally Cronos.

It's the story of Jesús Gris, an elderly antique dealer, and his grand-daughter Aurora. It's also, I think, the most original vampire story I've seen. Most of it's in Spanish, although he chooses not to push Ron Pearlman too much! (I'm wondering now what American or English actor has done the most foreign language films.) Not that this is an issue as i was expecting that, like foreign films and can read.

It's a little slow to start, well it kinda gets into the story reasonably quickly after the initial prologue, but feels slow. (Why am I having to wait for my damn browser to catch up with my typing?!?!?), but apart from that it's along the same sort of pace as both Backbone and Labyrinth, and with a similar tone, although Cronos is essentially a contemporary film by the looks of it (albeit made a few years ago now), i could be wrong about that tho, it could be set a little earlier.)

Anyway, it's a brilliant film, not up to his more recent ones, but that only goes to show how much he's grown and also how good he was to begin with.

Well worth a watch...so?...go..now!

Cronos - 8/10

The Illusionist

This has been described as "a poor man's Prestige", I happen to agree.

Like The Prestige, it's a period piece about magic, specifically in this case Eisenheim The Illusionist (Edward Norton), also the name of the short story on which this was based.

It is presented in the manner of Inspector Uhl (Paul Giamatti) giving his report to the Crown Prince (a suitably type-cast Rufus Sewell), thus flashing back in the story, it's essentially a standard plot structure though, eventually catching up with itself. It's a love story at it's heart, using magic as a way to move things forward.

The problem is, it's pretty dull, the tension that should've been there seems absent and an ongoing investigation is neglected in favour of a big reveal (quite easily spotted beforehand). Edward Norton can do better and I'd really like to see a really good vehicle for Paul Giamatti, as it felt like he was being held back throughout this.

The Illusionist - 4/10

Stranger Than Fiction

STOP THE PRESS!!! WILL FERRELL CAN ACT!!

Yes, you heard, he can actually act, to be fair he does a bit of shouting in this, but that's not the staple as it is with most of his stuff, let's put it this way; to get choked up at the end of a Will Ferrell film, there's gotta be something going for it!

At first you think maybe the constant narration is going to be more than a little annoying, but that's not the case, not for me at least, mainly I think because it blends seamlessly with what Harold Crick is doing on screen, rather than the usual VO over montage or non-specific shots that usually crop up when VO is employed.

The "GUI" effects that adorn Harold (Will) throught the first part of the film are well done, lending to the character rather than distracting (and incidentally reminded me of Jack's apartment in Fight Club), Emma Thompson is Emma Thompson, but she's not bad, Dustin Hoffman doesn't even attempt to play an Italian in this one ;) and does a better job.

All in all i really enjoyed Stranger Than Fiction and would heartily recommend it to, well pretty much anyone that's covered by the 12 certificate.

Stranger Than Fiction - 8/10

4: Rise Of The Silver Surfer

Ho-hum... that pretty much sums up the sequel to the rather entertaining Fantastic Four movie of 2005.

I've never really been an FF fan, didn't really get into the cartoons, never really read the comics, but thoroughly enjoyed the first of these two films, it was funny, energetic, and a good dvd night. cheers. The sequel however, is pretty boring, the best bit's probably in the trailers, the rest of the film, nothing much happens. This, funnily enough, makes the film drag a fair bit.

Mr S. Surfer is underused I feel and definitly not enough internal stuff going on with him. Of course I'm not looking for "Batman Dark" for this, it wouldn't be right, but just a little more depth would be nice.

Some of the same jokes are recycled and it's all a bit of a mish mash.

FF4 1 - Entertaining
FF4 2 - Disappointing :(

4: Rise Of The Silver Surfer - 4/10

Children Of Men

Everyone kept telling me that this film was amazing, Oscar nominated, directed by Alfonso Cuarón who did a pretty good job of HP3 and apparently some other good films. I was told it's technically brilliant, some revolutionary techniques used for filming certain sequences, lots of nice long takes, blah blah blah.

Well I was intrigued at least, even if it did have Clive Owen in it, which is rarely a good sign. Picked it up on DVD (see how good a movie at home can be) for £8 I think it was, 2 disc, cheers.

The car scene that everyone raves about, justly so, very clever, very well done and dramatically a very good scene. The Bexhill fight near the end, very Saving Private Ryan (as most war-esque scenes are now), but pretty good, could've been a little more tense tho. But overall, a pretty dull film. I was more engaged by the special features telling me how they did the car and cafe shots (ok I'm a geek for special features), but even so, what does that say about the film. Within the first 5 minutes my mind was crying out for them do go hire a Steadicam, ok handheld's the new black but handheld in a scene that's pretty flat, just don't work, it just serves to distract even more, the camera can't add energy to the performance.

Clive Owen wasn't that bad, but then nothing else really rose to much of a level, Chiwetel Ejiofor was better in Serenity and Michael Caine was just Michael Caine...again...amigo.

The rest of the film was technically ok, Cuaron has a pretty good vision, as he's already demonstrated, the production design was pretty much spot on for a dystopian near future I think and there were some nice visual touches in it.

Apart from that, as I say, it was just a bit dull, not as mind-numbingly dull as Wolf Creek mind, but still, the bottom of their school report echoes mine... Could do better.

To console myself, I'm gonna get a sandwich and watch the special features for John Carpenter's The Thing. Cheers.

Children Of Men - 5/10

Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer

I can't remember what this was a choice between at the video shop, something worse I believe, although Perfume is pretty disappointing.

The story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Whishaw) an orphan born in the slums of (ye olde) Paris with essentially a superhuman sense of smell, he grows up, discovers perfume and decides that he must (after a tragic accident) learn how to preserve scent, in the primary case, of beautiful young women.

That paragraph is a good half the film, mostly with incessant voice over courtesy of John Hurt.
The end of the film is, well, plain ridiculous and the, shall we say, third quarter, basically from the point where Alan Rickman turns up to before it goes all odd, could've made a bloody good film.

The first half, is all backstory, boring, drawn out backstory, with added voice over (not-so) goodness. Dustin Hoffman is quite funny at times, but ultimately his part could've been cut down to a non-sync scene as part of a montage. Mr Rickman does Mr Rickman very well (to the point of both myself and my girlfriend quoting Prince Of Thieves lines whenever he was on screen), but his character is woefully un-explored as is the whole situation in their village/town when all the decent thriller/mystery bits could have happened.

Perfume is set in France, however, no-one is french, the Parisians are London/Cockney (especially cor-blimey-smell-that-Jean-Baptise), the rural people have a distinct West Country accent, apart from Mr Rickman of course, and Dustin Hoffman plays an Italian.... American Italian I'm guessing.

It's never good when you get to the end of a film thinking "that could've been so much better", not even that it was outright toss, that it had untapped potential and every time that happens a kitten dies.

That's it then. Cancel the kitchen scraps for lepers and orphans, no more merciful beheadings, and call off Christmas.

Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer - 4/10

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

A cocking intermission! The last time I went to the cinema when there was an intermission was when I was a small child, and I went with a friend (Howard fyi) to see a double feature of Disney's The Fox And The Hound and Jungle Book. LORD OF THE RINGS DIDN'T EVEN HAVE AN INTERMISSION IN ANY OF THE THREE (we won't count changing of discs on the SE's).

168 minutes apparently, add to that 25 MINUTES of adverts and trailers, before it starts, 10 minute intermission overall +/- say 2 minutes that's....um...hold on... 205 minutes! 3 hours 25 minutes!!! Went in just before 2, came out around half 5!! for Pirates of the cocking Caribbean!

The 25 minutes of adverts were mostly made up of ones advertising Odeon cinemas and services....I'M IN THE COCKING ODEON YOU DAMN NUTSACKS!

Today is Father's Day, and I had my daughter, she wanted to do something and suggested Pirates 3 at the cinema (she's 9 btw), I though, ok, it'd be nice to have a day out with her (doesn't happen often) and especially on Father's Day. You shouldn't come out of the cinema with pent up aggression, which is essentially what Pirates 3 does to you.

It's toss. It's 3 hours of overloaded, non-descript pirate toss. The whole thing builds up to what what purported to be as the massive action finale, which is large, but by no means massive.

You want CG?? HO HO We got CG, lots of it, plus loads of composited rain and splinters, plus Captain Jack fighting Davy Jones atop one of the masts (not sure on the technical term for the cross bits), at which point I was thinking, it'd look so much better if they did it for real, or at least with wires, but no, you got CGI swashbuckling.

I don't care about any of the characters, Captain Jack is just annoying as everything he does seems pointless, none of the others are really worth giving a shit about (except maybe the monkey), but... my daughter enjoyed it, so she says anyway, there was no "WOW did you see that bit?!?!" or "wasn't that cool!!!???!", I had to actually ask if she enjoyed it or not, to which the response was "Yeah", later there was mention of Captain Jack with his shirt off, I let that go as she's 9 and I don't want to go there!

Flaccid, that's the word that's just sprung to mind for this one. Flaccid.

There's a couple of laughs, some reasonable effects here and there, but overall it just reminded me as to why I never bothered to watch the second one and part way through the battle I was thinking that Master and Commander: On The Far Side Of The World, did a far better job.

Top day with my daughter tho, happy fathers day to me.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End - 4/10

Dead Or Alive 2 (Dead or Alive 2: Tôbôsha)

Hurrah! Another Takashi Miike film to add to my collection (I also picked up Agitator recently but haven't watched that yet).

Hurrah! Another Takashi Miike film that doesn't make any sense to me what-so-ever!!

I'm not gonna try to explain the plot in much details, suffice to say it revolves around a couple of hitmen, with history, who team up and the rest is pretty damn weird. (as expected)

Now I'm not saying this film doesn't make any sense, the very basic elements of the plot are easy enough to follow (as with the first of the DOA trilogy), however as with pretty much all Mikke's films, they're loaded with metaphor and unfortunately, that's just something I'm not good on, especially when they're Japanese metaphors! Maybe I should've done a film studies degree and spent two years writing essays on metaphors in films!?

Takashi Miike is one of my favourite film makers, I love his style and whole attitude towards things and DOA2 doesn't disappoint in that department. With DOA 1 it was pretty much standard gangster fare for most of the way through, however with the sequel it's full on weird from the outset, god knows what 'Final' will be like, especially as it's set in a post-apocalyptic future!! Should be good!

Anyway, it's a good film and will make a lot of sense to people other than me.


Dead Or Alive 2 (Dead or Alive 2: Tôbôsha) - 8/10

The General's Daughter

Watched this on telly the other night, I've seen it a couple of times before, but never all the way through, so this was a first for me ;)

So.. what we got here (cue G'n'R fans) is John Travolta playing a US army criminal investigator (stick with me now!), a young woman's body is found on the base, naked, apparently raped, and tied spread-eagle in the mud. This young woman turns out to be the afformentioned General's daughter.

Cue investigation by John T and his estraged girlfriend/wife person played by Madeline Stowe (who convieniently is a rape investigator) (just noticed the tagline on IMDb... "Go Behind The Lies".. brilliant!)

What follows is a pretty much run of the mill crime investigation flick, nothing special, throws in a couple of token taboos every now and again, and ends up a bit too worthy and not entirely wrapping things up for itself.

What keeps you going (although clearly it took me several watches to get here) is Mr Travolta and his dry wise-cracking persona, that makes him likeable enough to make you want to see where he's going next. Bear in mind this was on five so it had ad breaks..that probably helped.

It's an entertaining enough film, definitly one for an evening's TV when you don't want to watch Big Brother or some other crappy reality show about nothing of that much consequence and you can't be arsed to pick out a DVD or go to the video shop.

The General's Daughter - 6/10

The Host (Gwoemul)

This (I think) is the first film I've given a decimal point too and in this case it's .8

Firstly let me say thank you. Thank you to Korea (well the South part at least I guess) for making fucking good films! Hollywood PAY SOME DAMN ATTENTION and no don't remake the damn things, look at what they're doing, LEARN FROM IT!

The Host is a monster movie, an honest, big exciting and at times scary monster movie. Taking it's cues from the standard cold war era ideas, that of genetic mutation due to human intervention (in this case chemicals in the river) and also goes a little further, having a little dig at the Yanks (even though their involved, so well done them), and chemical warfare.

I've been meaning to watch this for ages, unforunatly I didn't get to see it at the cinema and as my girlfriend isn't into "reading a film" it's been a long time coming. We hired this at the same time as Deja Vu, watched Denzel at home and I watched this on the train on my MacBook, I know not the best situation, but a testament to the strength of the film that I can't remember pretty much any of my journey, I was totally involved in this wonderful film.

After the textbook introduction to the "chemical incident", funny, creepy and a little odd, we kick off by meeting our lead protagonist Park Gang-Du (although I think the subtitles may have been wrong there as later in the film there's some t-shirts with Park Kang-Doo on), he's a slacker, practically narcoleptic and a dad. We meet his dad, they both work in a food stall by the side of the Han River, along comes Gang-Du's daughter Hyun-seo, we learn her uncle came to her school thing, he smells of alcohol, and they watch her aunt in an archery contest on the telly. This is our family.

Cue monster and good God what a sequence, thrilling, funny, tender, everything it should have and then some!! During the ensuing carnage the daughter gets taken by the monster and the rest of the film is essentially the family trying to get her back again.

It's a beautiful film, superbly directed, beautifully shot and pretty damn well acted. You have to accept that at times it does have those "very south east asian" moments, meaning (before everyone starts screaming 'racist' at me!!), after watching a fair few Hong Kong, Japanese and Korean films, it seems there's a thing where, when heavy emotion is required they go full on hysterical, screaming, wailing, rolling around on the floor, feet slipping from underneath, stumbling, shouting at each other through tears... it just seems a bit over the top, in The Host it's played fairly heavily for laughs, but it's something that crops up and always feels a little odd.

For the odd hysteria, which crops up throughout, and that I would've preferred a little more subtlty, plus the ending that I didn't entirely get, it lost 0.2. This film is an Action, Horror and Comedy and I suggest everyone go and buy it right now and start watching more Korean films!!

After a good day's worth of thinking... This IS the best monster movie I've ever seen.


The Host (Gwoemul) - 9.8/10

Deja Vu

Tony Scott directed Top Gun. That's pretty much all you need to know.

Deja Vu riffs on the whole Minority Report type affair, "can you stop a crime that's already happened?". Denzel Washington, who to be honest I'm not really a fan of, I find him smarmy to the extreme, but funnily enough that smarm works very very well in this one, he lays on the Denzel smile and lip smacking to quite good comedy effect.

The whole idea behind this is there's a bloody big explosion on a boat and Denzel plays and ATF (no, not Anti-Terrorist Force, (something), Tobacco and Firearms) agent (I'm sure there's someone ticking off a list of government agencies) who is there to investigate.

Cue the trademark Tony Scott homo-erotic undertones.

Say Hi to Val Kilmer from the FBI, who likes Denzel and his boss likes him too. They've got this top secret experimental cctv-esque thing going on. Denzel in the meantime has had a couple of clues sent his way reference to some woman somewhere.

He goes to the project and it turns out that it ain't no CCTV, that can actually see stuff that's already happened... little bit of time paradox stuff... cue me saying "like to see how they tie that up"... moments later it's tied up in quite a clever way. They did a very good job of dealing with the nightmare of the whole time paradox thing, there's a couple of holes left at the end, but the way they get there is bloody entertaining.

What's eating me about this review is that I felt the need to write more about this than Spider-Man 3!! WTF?!

Deja Vu is no masterpiece but it's bloody good fun.


Deja Vu - 8/10

Spider-Man 3

(A couple of weeks late, but still)

Now... I'm a huge fan of the previous two Spidey films, I also like reading the comics, and even though I'd heard and read some pretty average reviews, I was still pretty stoked about seeing this.

On the whole I agree with the reviews I saw, it's too long, it's messy and nowhere near as strong as the previous two.

Some of the criticisms made were about there being "too many bad guys", now I don't agree with this point, I feel that it could've been ok, each bad guy had a point to them as far as the narrative was concerned, the problem for me was all the mush and nothing inbewteen the important stuff.

There seemed to be a load of "stuff" that plugged the gaps between the action scenes and the important narrative devices and this made the film longer and feel very loose and disjointed.

The comedy was good, but i feel that it did need to be a little darker to up the jeopardy for Peter and overall Venom was pretty disappointing :(



Spider-Man 3 - 7/10

Grindhouse: Planet Terror

Let's just say I hope "Death Proof" is better, cos this is old man's toss.

I don't know whether PT is intentionally bad or not, after all Rodriguez and Tarantino are going for the whole sleazy B-movie thing, but at the same time... it's just shit and ultimately it's a hell of a lot more disappointing because I know it's Rodriguez at the helm.

Now I didn't like Sin City either, but I LOVE the Mariachi series, From Dusk Till Dawn was cool and it's clear that RR has got a load of talent as a director, and that's where my confusion lies.

The composition in this film is incredible, it stands out, some of the shots are uber-fucking-awesome, but the script's shite, the acting for the most part is ridiculous (yes Rose) and it feels like just one big incohesive pile... is that on purpose? I don't know, it just made me hate it.

Unfortunately I haven't seen the Death Proof segment yet, but when I do I'll post it.

Planet Terror - 3/10

Clerks II

Ahh, Kevin Smith, one of the movie industry's great conundums.

He's revered by many many people, does Q&A's all over the place (was tempted to go to the London one myself), he shot to stardom with the really rather good indie-slacker-fest that was Clerks, B&W, dialoge that equates to being the Tarantino of the comedy world and yet something eludes him... another good film, preferably without Jay & Silent Bob.

Dogma was ok, everything else sucks balls.

So he comes back with Clerks 2, back to what he knows best, a film to give closure on that chapter of his life, to reflect about being in his 30's.... or a desperate attempt to rekindle what success he had before???

Probably a bit of everything and unfortunatly for the most part, Clerks 2 is utter toss, when you consider turning a film off, that ain't good.

The store burnt down, so they now work in a burger bar and "hilarity" ensues... parts i remember (literally just watched it) that made me chuckle...

1. Lord Of The Vom
2. Work based relationship (know how that feels)
3. ....

that's all I can remember.

Something that struck me.. Rosairo Dawson is ridiculously natural throughout most of it and although they probably fit the characters a little better than they should, both Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson are pretty good throughout, just the film isn't.

It's all about the swearing, all about how crude and offensive can I be... oh how big and clever is that Kevin??

Then as it's dragging towards the end, once it's grated past the "donkey show" and it enters it's final act...wait a minute...what's this????

This is good, a little poor on pacing, could do with getting chopped a bit, but listen to it, it has meaning, it has substance, emotion... KEVIN SMITH CAN ACTUALLY WRITE!!!!

Then why the hell doesn't he do it more often?!?!?


Clerks II - 5/10

Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story

I died watching this. I properly asphyxiated, lost all control over my bowels and thoroughly enjoyed myself all the while.

Dodgeball is one of the funniest films I've seen for ages, pure stupid, mostly slapstick, humor.

Justin Long is brilliant, Stephen Root occasionally slips into Milton, Ben Stiller is "FrEAky Naughtay"

I can't express how funny this film is, that and it's late and my word skills are shite at the mo.


Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story - 9/10

Brick

This was intreaguing from the moment I heard about it, a Noir thriller set in a high school, with the kid out of 3rd Rock from The Sun.

See, intreaguing huh? (I'm sure I'm spelling that wrong)

This is one that I'm gonna have to let sink in for a bit, then watch it again, then let it sink in and so-on. It's a good film, clearly indie, no-budget, well acted in proper Film Noir style, the dialoge and story is (as the writer/director says) almost straight out of a Dashiell Hammett novel.

All in all it's an enjoyable ride, quiet, little hard to follow in places and doesn't have a great high finish, but it's well put together and engaging, to be honest, i don't know what to say about it, because it hasn't really sunk in and I've been mulling it over for at least a week!!!

Want something a little different, watch this.


Brick - 8/10

300 (IMAX: DMR)

My second, IMAX feature film experience (the first being Poseidon), third trip to the BFI IMAX in Waterloo overall.

300 in IMAX. Just think about that for a moment. You've seen the trailers, glorious sepia toned CD, big oily men (!?), a lot of speed ramped violence... 20 meters high! (ish after letterboxing)

300 is all about violence, the Spartan's are warriors (apart from the odd pussy politicians, some skanky-put-you-off-your-popcorn monks and some unfeasibly attractive women), and king Leonidis (Gerard Butler) in true Braveheart fashion leads 300 of them off to fend off the advancing Persian army led by the (I'm not really into Gay bondage, honest) Xerxes, who I've just this second discoved is Paulo in Lost!?!? I saw his name (Rodrigo Santoro) in the credits and wondered who he played.

Now I didn't go into this expecting Gladiator, or much else apart from some top-notch comic book action, and that's exactly what I got, cheers. As far as a Frank Miller adap goes, I haven't read anything of his except Batman: Year One, so I can't give an honest comparison. I hated Sin City (film) though and felt this was infinitly better.

In true Connery fashion, Butler's Greek accent is decidedly Scottish ("Madness? THIS IS GLASGOW!"), but it doesn't matter, once you get over noticing it when he speaks (you don't notice it in the wide mouth shouty bits so much), who cares.

My qualms are minor.. 300, they keep referring to 300, but there's two issues with this, The Captain refers to having assembled 300 men, plus captain and Leonidis, that makes 302, not as catchy I know. Also I'm sure the odd couple get killed off, which would then reduce the number, but possibly does round it off to the 300??

And the other thing with the accents... Pleistarchos (I think it's him), the deformed Spartan, I think runs a local shop... for local people... which was a bit off putting at times and a tad dissapointing when Steve Pemberton didn't appear in the credits.

Overall I've got a lot of time for Zack Snyder, I enjoyed the Dawn Of The Dead remake and I enjoyed this. Bring on Watchmen.

300 - 8/10

The Prestige

C'mon Nolan!!

Let's be honest here, Christopher Nolan is a bloody good film maker, let's look at the back catalogue..

Doodlebug (short, not seen it)
Following (Still haven't seen this, but it's supposed to be amazing.)
Memento (CHEERS!)
Insomnia (His low point so far, but still better than a lot of films)
Batman Begins (CHEERS!)
The Prestige (See below)
The Dark Knight (2008 - BRING IT ON!)

You get my point.

Anyway, The Prestige is the third act of a magic trick, if you've seen any of the trailers you'll know it's The Pledge, The Turn, The Prestige.

And that's what this film is all about, the third act, the great reveal, primarily surrounding two rival magicians' attempts to out do each other. The aforementioned magicians being Bordon (Bale) and Angier (Jackman).

Hugh Jackman, as always is extremely watchable, the man oozes entertainment (watch the special features to hear is native Aussie accent... weird!), he plays Robert Angier, who appears to be from a more well-to-do background, better spoken, better posture, a more upper class kinda guy.

Christian Bale, plays Alfred Borden, the working class foil to Jackman's Angier. I pitch Bale's accent somewhere between American Psycho and Reign Of Fire, sometime slipping into the pure 'London Gruffness' of his RoF voice.

I'll be honest, I'm losing faith in Bale, I've yet to see Harsh Times, but the guy's seeming more 1.5D as he goes on.

Anyway, the film is brillaintly put together, the plot winding it's way through in a similar fashion to Memento, with different times running parrallel and despite many a dodgy accent (Yes you Mr Bowie!), we got to the end feeling well done by and pretty impressed.

Scarlett Johansson who gets a pretty big billing, doesn't seem to be as much as I thought she would be, which is a bit of a shame, but then she's also got a hint of the Dick Van Dyke school of accents going on.

The Prestige - 8/10

Ghost Rider

This latest Marvel adap has been slagged off left, right and centre. For starters it's got Nicholas Cage in the lead role, not something you'd expect in a superhero movie (yes I know he was considered for Superman..still no), it's written and directed by the same guy who did Daredevil, which was ok, but certainly not the best superhero movie ever made, and despite it's success at the US box office, there was a certain amount of trepidation in setting out to watch this one.

It's not that bad, it's no Spider-Man or Batman Begins, but it's slightly better than Daredevil and overall pretty entertaining.

Think "The Lone Ranger" meets "Constantine" and you're pretty much there, it's all about riding and the devil and obviously the devil's insubordinate minions.

It's all a bit silly really, Johnny Blaze (Y'all) with his flaming head and Eva Mendes swooning for him, but still, pretty entertaining and it's got Goodwin in it.


Ghost Rider - 7/10

Ultraviolet

um... er... BLEURGH!!!

Please no-one else give Kurt Wimmer ANY money for ANYTHING! Equilibrium wasn't that bad, this is just horrible!


Ultraviolet - 1/10*

* for having Milla Jovovich in it and the "Are you mental?" line

Freaks

A little disjointed (no pun intented), but technically quite impressive, some of the camera work seems way ahead of it's time, bear in mind this is 1932!

Clearly the technical aspects of this overwhelmed the scrubby plot, with some quite deep subtext floating thoughout, but it's a pretty easy one to follow, depsite the terrible editing.

"Freak" falls for "Dame", "Dame" trys to con "Freak", other "Freaks" not that chuffed about that.

It's one of those films that's on the list of "everyone should see", and I think with good reason, similar to Romero's Night Of The Living Dead, it pushed the envelope for it's time, as does this, the use of real people with real disorders, clearly for shock value, but most can actually act rather well too!

Basically, surprisingly good, and I believe public domain, thus freely available online.


Freaks - 8/10

Office Space

I've been waiting like, AGES to see this. I kept hearing about it, mainly online and from Americans, but I kept hearing about it nonetheless.

HMV have got it for £6 at the mo and I nearly bought it the other day, however I didn't and fortunately it was on BBC2 last night!!

I was laughing virtually from the get-go, especially when Milton was introduced (as he's the funniest thing in the film!.. I didn't quite get the T-shirts before.) however it does tend to lose steam as it goes on. As soon as they're out of the office and not doing work stuff, it gets a little dull and you can be forgiven for looking away every now and again, however it does have sufficient laughs to keep you mostly entertained for and hour and a bit and I may fork out that £6 for it yet, but if I'm lucky Fopp will have it for 5 ;)

Excuse me, I believe you have my stapler...

Office Space - 7/10

Visitor Q (Bijitâ Q)

yeahhh. um...

Took a while to sink in this one, I finally got round to watching it the other day and, well, as with all the other Miike Takashi films I've seen, it completely fried me.

The spec Miike was given for this film was it must be shot on video and it must be about love.

...and then he did his thing.

Essentially about a dysfunctional family (very dysfunctional), a shamed reporter, a beaten mother, a prostitute daughter and a bullied son, their lives are completely (to quote Fresh Prince) flip-turned upside down, when the mysterious Visitor comes to stay at their home.

Despite going through a checklist of taboos, there was nothing that made me flinch and turn away, possibly because of the extremely odd and somewhat comedic context, although others may not be as comfortable.

I've never been one to pick up on metaphors or get a lot of the messages within the subtext of films, but i can kinda see where this one's going by the end, in it's own warped and twisted way anyway. It's a film that everyone should see, as with most Takashi films, at least once.


Visitor Q (Bijitâ Q) - 8/10

Doom

What is it with films based on computer games? I mean... they're all shite.

This one especially so.

Look at it this way, Doom; one of the greatest computer games of all time, atmospheric, scary, revolutionary. So why hire a couple of clearly the worst screenwriters on the planet, find a director who thinks he's playing the game and then spend a shitload of money on it to no avail??

I like The Rock, I most things I think he's extrememly entertaining and he should be the new Schwarzennegger (yes I know I've probably spelt that wrong), however, he's severely lacking in a suitable big budget vehicle to push him to that level, and Doom sure as hell isn't it either!

I'm sure Karl Urban could do better as well, he was ok in LOTR and Pathfinder looks ok, but then there's no real dialogue in the trailer so that could go anywhere, in Doom, he may as well just be the face at the bottom of the screen. And Rosamund Pike, somebody ask her to stop now please.

Doom - 2/10

Tip for the day: Spend 2 hours playing Doom 2 on a DOS PC instead

Saw III

Ok, the first Saw was kinda inventive, interesting, low budget affair.

Saw II, bigger budget, actually carried on the story (to a degree), larger set pieces, bigger cast, (what I thought was) a wicked twist, and Donnie Wahlberg.

Saw III, teeth on the poster, I don't recall any specific teeth bits, at the start at a push, but that's about it, more plot progression, in more detail this time but without the interesting bits and characters, in other words; THE DREADED BACKSTORY.

yawn.

Don't get me wrong, I cringed like a motherfucker at a couple of bits, but overall the film was slow, dull and made the cardinal sin of explaining shit that doesn't really matter! (See Severance + it's special features for example)

So what you get is: blah blah blah blah JESUS OH GOD blah blah blah blah blah well that's it I guess.

My girlfriend enjoyed it, personally I think it's weak, they haven't really upped the ante in terms of gore and inventiveness (traps are different, just not brilliant) and it spent far too long trying to justify it's actions. again.. yawn

Saw III - 4/10

A Scanner Darkly

Um.... Er.... Brain....starting..to..hurt...

Technically a very interesting film, the whole rotoscoping thing, is pretty well done, although at times looks a little odd, backgrounds start shifting in an odd way with the camera moves.

Some of the scenes with Robert Downey Jr and Woody Harrelson are extremely funny, however everything else is a bit of a non-starter really. Reeve's character is barely engaging, the whole concept of what's going on, gets severely muddied, the themes of paranoia, substance abuse and psychosis still ring through, but as for the narrative....um...

I will watch the special features, but I'm thinking £14.99 was FAR too much for this one, even if it is supposed to be the most faithful PKD adaptation yet.


A Scanner Darkly - 5/10

Hot Fuzz

It's unfortunately rare for me to get to see a film on it's opening weekend, however this weekend just gone was a big bad Hot Fuzz weekend.

Shaun Of The Dead was simply amazing, laugh out loud funny from literally the first minute in, a genius film, the best british comedy (or just best comedy) for years.

Hot Fuzz, which I've beeen eagerly awaiting since it was announced... is not as good.

It's laugh out loud funny, the comedy is typically Pegg-Wright (with a hint of Frost), it's a big old homage to the action films they love, predominantly Point Break and Bad Boys II (on first viewing i've also seen in there The Wicker Man (obvious) & T2 (bit more subtle)) and it's also a platform for showing off who they could get to appear in their film.

This final point is a tricky one, after all there's only so many actors on this planet and even less British comedy ones. The fact remains that at times this was still distracting for me though. (Notably the trio of Martin Freeman, Steve Coogan & Bill Nighy plus the appearance of Bill Bailey playing Bill Bailey...x2).

What about the laugh out loud funny??? Yes it is, in places it's bloody funny, choke-on-your-popcorn funny, but int others it's only mildly, smile-and-chuckle funny. The concept is a reasonably good one, Brit super-cop Nicholas Angel (Pegg) is forced to relocate to a sleepy west country village, where all is not as it seems.
Before long the whole thing starts to escalate into a full on Michael Bay/Tony Scott parody, gunfire, sweeping multi-cut steadycam, chopper porn (briefly), explosions, all the while remaining distinctly British, in a very twee, rural village manner.

My problems, apart from the afformentioned kudos-casting, well.. the chuckle factor, I didn't properly laugh until he went an saw his ex (who is?? I'm currently between Thandie Newton and Cate Blanchet at the mo, more the former, but haven't checked yet), so not the best start.

It doesn't feel as natural as Shaun did, it feels like they worked a lot harder to make this work. Then climax is too long and not 'action' enough to be the parody it's supposed to be. The editing and in some instances the direction caused major issues for me.
There's an Edgar Wright trait, I'll call it "The Spaced Cut". It's basically a fast, hard cut montage, for example in SOTD... toothbrush drops into glass, un-zip, toilet flush (roughly)... Fuzz is loaded with them. Instead of cleverly accentuating a couple of moments in the film, Angel's whole journey to Sanford is one long, horrible Spaced Cut and ther are a couple more tht felt unnecessary.

That said, it's still head and shoulders above most other comedies from both sides of the pond. I admire what they tried to do (and for the most part pulled off) and I will buy it on DVD. My girlfriend laughed heartily throughout, came out of the cinema and said "It wasn't Shaun Of The Dead." that pretty much sums it up...but then Shaun will take a lot to beat.

Hot Fuzz - 7.5/10 (8 on IMDb)

NB: I'm also aware of the Straw Dogs references but I haven't seen it. Also before it came out I was hoping it was gonna be like an advert that was on tv a while back. It wasn't.

Serenity

Just watched it on Sky, pretty enjoyable. I never really got into Firefly, mainly because it was on at stupid o'clock on Sci-Fi, from what i saw it was ok though.

Nathan Fillion, as well as everyone else, is clearly having a ball making this "western-in-space" romp across the galaxy. Chiwetel Ejiofor is the cool, emotionless killer (think John Preston before he went soppy, and thus Mr Ejiofor would've been far better in place of Taye Diggs...but I'm wandering...)

Basically everything revolves around the fact that they have a psychic girl (River) on board the ship (I think this leads on from the series), and the visions she's having. (Joss Whedon loves his ass-kicking little girls doesn't he...think John Preston as a girl...see Underworld...almost)

The plot is pretty mych standard sci-fi fare, it's the style (of writing) that sets it apart. Watch, chuckle and enjoy.

Serenity - 8/10

The Punisher (2004)

All round, not so hot.

There's some good bits in it, some moments of inspiration, but overall it's basically dross (here's to the sequel!?)

On the plus side, I guess it's better than the earlier version, which I remember watching a while ago (and have just refreshed myself (unfortunately) with the trailer), but then that one did star Dolph Lundgren...nuff said.

Yes I know he was in Rocky IV, doesn't mean anything else of his is any good though!

Thomas Jane, chews everything up as Frank Castle, except for John Travolta who chews everything up for the bad guys.

If it was a little pacier, more violent and grim, I'd probably have forgiven the acting, script etc a bit, but it wasn't, so this film remains a wannabe.

I'm curious though, not having read any of the comics, if a decent film can be made out of it??

The Punisher (2004) - 4/10

Severance

Unfortunately for this film, due to when it was released immediate comparisons were made to Shaun Of The Dead, so I will make those here.

It's a British horror comedy.

End of Comparison.

Well almost, I'd put this more in the same camp as the excellent Dog Soldiers as opposed to SOTD.

Even throwing in a rather attractive American girl, Severance remains quintessentially British, the main characters, the humor, everything about it is good old Brit!

Most of all it's funny, bloody funny, in a very matter of fact kind of way, and some very clever ideas thrown in (notably with decapitation for one).

It also features probably the best death I've ever seen on screen with Billy, absolute brilliance!

I've seen a fair bit of ranting about this on IMDb (which is *the* place to see ranting and arguments if there was one!), it seems to divide people into two distinct camps, those who get it and those who don't.

The one's who don't clearly went to see it thinking it was going to be a full on "horror" in the vein of Hostel and the like, and even after the title sequence, *STILL* didn't get where the film was coming from and thus, in their ignorance came out unsatisfied.

The ones who do (myself included), see the cliché's and such for the irony they're there for, and thus enjoy the film. I rented this on DVD (see how good a movie at home can be), I WILL be purchasing of it for my collection. Cheers.

PS: Gordon *IS* Penfold

Severance - 8/10

Underworld: Evolution

On a vampire (or vampyre depending on your preference) roll now, watched Night Watch, my mate Greg's on MSN telling me he's watching Underworld: Evolution, I think, "Yeah, i fancy a bit of that, the first was was entertaining enough..."

And so I did. Good story huh? ;)

Well, yes, the first one was entertaining, I enjoyed it at least, and like most heterosexual young men I was initially drawn to it by the promise of a tightly clad, vampy Kate Beckinsale :P And was not disappointed, reasonable film to boot!

So this second one was beckoning me with more of the same (obviously didn't expect anything more) and it delivered, although it didn't feel quite a pacy as the first, there was still enough Vampire vs Werewolf action to keep me amused for the duration.

If there was going to be a third (which there is), |'d watch it! Obviously not a £6 cinema trip, but much like Resident Evil, if it's on Sky, I'll sit down and enjoy :)

Underworld: Evolution - 7/10

Night Watch [Nochnoi Dozor]

Another film somewhat over-hyped I feel. I expected a roaring, visceral, damaging vampire movie, what I got was a slow, mostly dull, somewhat confusing film with an annoying lead, who just needed to SPEAK UP!!

Yes I know it's in Russian, but still the noise of a man trying to speak through a millennia's worth of phlegm is not that nice!

Some of it was quite good, where the action got going that is, although I can understand that the main guy is tormented, depressed whatever, but why so weak?!? C'mon man sort it out!!!

Anyway, the marketing and what I'd heard about this film, pretty much misled me in most ways possible, not sure I'll be bothering with the other two.

Plus point tho, another two words to add to my russian vocab!

Night Watch [Nochnoi Dozor] - 5/10

Layer Cake

Now I've been toying with the idea of watching this for a while, everything I've heard about it has been good and after seeing Daniel Craig in Casino Royale, the watching fate of this film was sealed.

It started off well, music video stylings, cracking soundtrack, although pretty much the same VO introducing the story and "this is Gezzerbird" (not an actual name in the film) character intros, that we've seen in both Lock Stock and Snatch. Not surprising considering it's directed by the producer of those two, Matthew Vaughn.

Unfortunatly it becomes too convoluted for it's own good, and I found myself losing track of exactly what was going on when and where. Regaining that slightly towards the end as I found the various bits of proverbial string that make up the "plot-rope" if you will, the film for me had lost it's momentum, culmunating in the epilogue scene, which was, well surprising at least.

Craig is good, but he was far better as Bond and is probably far better in his other stuff.

Layer Cake - 6/10

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe

I'll get it out of the way now... A poor man's Lord of The Rings. Or rather a small child's Lord of The Rings.

Comparisons are made whether you want them to be or not, the fact is that since LOTR, "fantasy" films are back en vogue and this one is for the kids, and you can tell.

It left me wholly underwhelmed, maybe that's because of the LOTR comparison, but still, it should've at least entertained me. As it was I felt rather indifferent to it.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe - 4/10

Monster House

If this film was live action as opposed to digimation, it would be absolutely amazing! (It isn't thus it's bloody good!)

Why is this 3D animated film any different from all the other rubbish that's come out in the past couple of years? No it's not by Pixar, what it is, is produced by Robert Zemekis and Steven Spielberg, and you can tell right from the start. Why?

If you're about my age (I'm 30 (atow)) you've more than likely seen The Goonies, Gremlins, Back To The Future, Explorers and other brilliant 80's adventure movies, of which there is a distinct lack of in this day and age!!

Chowder is Chunk, [the main boy] would've been played by Corey Haim, this film is brilliant!

I don't doubt for one minute that they couldn't do the house effects in a live action and I can only hope that Bob and Steve realise that today's kids need their own Goonies!! (I'm getting sidetracked)

The dialogue is spot on, Chowder is clearly the best character, but the whole grown-up-but-not-enough part of the plot is well done with [main char], the secondary characters are a tad weak in places, but I'm putting that down to the ani..sorry digimation lacking the human aspect rather than anything else.

I laughed out loud, I grinned throughout, remembering what proper adventure films were all about, none of this Harry Potter/Stormbreaker tosh!! ;)

Monster House - 9/10

Too Late The Hero

Just watched this one, from a FREE DVD with The Mail on Sunday.

For a free film, it's pretty good. Directed by Robert Aldrich who also made The Dirty Dozen, it follows a similar kind of idea, rag-tag-reject group of soldiers, this time British + an American officer, also rag-tag-reject, sent out on a pretty much suicide mission.

Michael Caine delivers a good performance as the squad's medic, although the film itself, while good, isn't great, watchable, a typical Sunday afternoon BBC2 movie.

Too Late The Hero - 6/10

Casino Royal (2006)

Pierce Brosnan is dead! Long live Daniel Craig!!

Ok, Brosnan isn't actually dead, but I think you get my point! Let me get this out of the way first...

a) I despise Pierce Brosnan (obviously not on a personal level but as an.. "actor">

b) Daniel Craig is the best Bond since Connery. Period.


Shout and scream at me all you like for either point, but that's my feelings. Now I went and saw this the other day at the Odeon West End, and thus paid the price of a small car for my ticket, popcorn and 7-up (of which there was only a choice of large and massive), so I was damn well hoping for a good film. At least I was giving my savings away for a 145min film!

Ok, price rant over, 145mins is a bit King Kong (go cockney!), and suffers from a similar problem as LOTR:ROTK, in that it gets to the end, 2/3 of the way through the film. I'm sat there thinking; "this is a soppy ending for a Bond film", only to remember that there hasn't been the Venice bit that's in the trailers and that everyone keeps talking about.

I was apprehensive about CR, but not because of Mr. Craig, but Martin Campbell the director, who also directed Goldeneye, the painful introduction to "Pierce Bond", while Goldeneye is one of the better Brosnan era films, it's still not that great.

Apart from the length issue and the pacing in certain parts, this film kicks ass, literally. It's hard-bloody-core. No messing about, the few "Bond-quips" that are in there are darker than before and Craig is electrifying, the man is simply just one big bit of testosterone fueled muscle, the amount of screen presence that man has, without trying, is phenomenal.

I liked Craig in Munich, I have to say I haven't seen Layer Cake, so this was the first time I've sen him in a leading role (I will be renting Layer Cake this weekend hopefully) and as Bond he is brilliant! No messing about, hard as nails and yet still has the "Bond-feel" which I felt was so lacking in the Pierce Bland films.

i say he's the best since Connery, because obviously Connery was the first and will always be the "ultimate" bond.

If you forgive the film's bloated running time, the slight soppyness (although somewhat justified), product placement (not as bad as The Island) and (although I need to check this) the fact that this is the start of Bond's career as a '00' and didn't Judy Dench's 'M' take over from the other one in story terms?? You'll love this film, a proper action movie, one of the best for a long time.

(Note to Broccoli's people: Jason Statham as a bad guy in the next one please.. goood God!)


Casino Royal 8/10

School Of Rock

"One good concert can change people's lives"....not this one!

Let's be honest, what's the fuss about Jack Black, he's not that great, this film, supposedly one of his best, is simply bland, it has the odd moment of humour, notably his derogatory name calling of the kids, but apart from that, it's simply a very average, light hearted film.

The resolution left me unsatisfied, not a great enough character change for my liking, being that I never really liked his self-centered character, the kids were ok, but the whole thing was just wholly underwhelming.

You'd be better to watch Rock School with Gene Simmons, either series, than this.

School Of Rock 5/10

Pan's Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno)

Hello Guillermo!

My introduction to Guillermo Del Toro was through Mimic, although at the time I didn't really know who he was, I took more notice after Blade 2, then went on to watch Hellboy, then The Devil's Backbone and now his latest piece Pan's Labyrinth.

Pan's is far more along the lines of Backbone than the others I mentioned, it's a fantastical story of a young girl, Ofelia, who finds out she is a princess from an underground realm, set against the backdrop of the latter days of the Spanish civil war, she must perform a series of tasks to prove that she still has her 'spirit' and can return to her kingdom.

Much like Backbone, it's really told from the child's perspective, and I can't see that it would've worked in any other way. It's dark, violent and emotional and although a little slow in places, yet again an amazing film from one of the modern masters of cinema.

Pan's Labyrinth 9/10

Chopper

It’s taken me ages to get around to watching this, literally ages. I kept seeing it in the shops, umming and aahing over whether to get it or not, even dirt cheap, then a few weeks back buckled and bought it.

A good decision.

Firstly, it’s entertaining, funny, gruesome, slightly slow in parts, but makes up for it in sheer wit alone.

Secondly, Eric Bana is one of the finest actors around at the moment and this, which I believe was the role to break him into the film world, just goes to further reinforce that fact.

Immediately I likened Bana’s role in this to that of Christian Bale’s Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, whilst tonally different films, the level the characters are at is very similar, struggling with their psychosis (I make no claim that that is the right word, but hopefully you get what I mean), flipping through moods like a rolodex, blistering performances from both of them.

Chopper is a blinding film, one of the best Aussie films I’ve seen to date, so go and watch it now!

Chopper – 9/10

Taxi 3

I’m a big fan of the previous two instalments of this series (I’ve thus far ignored the American remake!!).

What they are, are simple good fun action-comedy movies, at times cutting very close to the bone with humour that you simply wouldn’t see in a British or American film.

As per usual it starts in much the same way with a practically vomit inducing ride in Daniel’s uber-taxi, this follows and forms part of an unexpected cameo appearance.

There’s a lot of ‘technical’ or ‘reality’ errors in this film (as with the other two), you’ll se what I mean, but at the same time, you just don’t care, the whole thing is ridiculous, and these ‘errors’ are perfectly acceptable.

It’s a proper buddy movie, sentimental, comical and fun, something which is lacking in most of the movies that Hollywood’s churning out at the mo.

If you want a stupid, fun film (or three) watch Taxi.

Taxi 3 – 8/10

X-Men: The Last Stand

Now I like my comic book films, I like comic books (although I've not got into the X-Men comics), and I liked the first two X-Men movies directed by Bryan Singer.

For X3, Brett Ratner takes over the reigns and you can tell, the simple thing is to say "all action, no soul", even when killing people off and having our heroes cry about it, there's still something lacking.

The effects are pretty good, although you can tell more focus has been put on them than the characters themselves, and thus they don't have the impact that they should've had.

The script's pretty weak. I've listened to the Creative Screenwriting Podcast where they did a Q&A with Simon Kinberg and Zak Penn the writers, (Zak who also worked on X2 with the aforementioned Mr Singer) and even they sounded disappointed with how it turned out. Clearly without Singer's guidance, what made the X-Men films good has been lost.

Now the film was entertaining enough, but it was slow and trundled along in places, people waffling away, even themselves seeming at times disinterested in the (slowly) unfolding events.

There was no character growth that I noticed at least, something you'd expect from the third film in a franchise with recurring characters, Wolverine seemed a little weak and simply there for the wisecracks (which doesn't bode well for the Brett Ratner directed Wolverine spin-off), Storm was just plain dull, Magneto (played by the ever brilliant Ian McKellan) was probably as good as the other two, but had a line "what have I done", clearly thrown in for the American audience as a facial expression would've done the trick far better.

Some of the newer characters, Ice Man (forgive me if that's not his proper name) et al were quite good, we'll try and forget about Vinnie Jones' shocking Juggernaught though :/

By the end of the film, I was glad it was over but at the same time, the mushed together ending was far too saccharin laced and left far too many questions un-answered, but not in a "good-cliffhanger-way", more in a "doh-forgot-to-write/film-that-way"

God help us for X4, Wolverine and Magneto :/

X-Men : The Last Stand : 5/10

The Protector

More cheese penguin? This film is ladled with it...and it's damn good fun!!

Tony Jaa, the Thai bastard lovechild of Jackie Chan (who makes a humorous cameo) and Bruce Lee, kicks more ass in the follow up to his bone breaking..breakthru movie Ong-Bak (also bloody good).

Now I was watching the un-subtitled version, so mostly Thai, some sporadic Aussie and oddly enough English accented dialoge and apart from the odd lengthy dialogue and exposition scene, I could pretty much follow what was going on, depsite the really bad cutting, but then it's a martial arts action flick, not a David Lynch mind-fuck.

Basically Mr Jaa, has his elephant nicked and he has to go to Sydney to kick ass and get it back.

If you like martial arts movies (proper ones, not the ponce like Crouching Tiger..) you'll heartily enjoy this!


The Protector - 7/10

Silent Hill

Apparently this is regarded as a horror movie. I don't feel that it is.

It is in fact a complete load of stinking toss. Badly written, badly acted, badly directed, bad CG, some truly cringe-worthy CG in fact, including a shockingly bad virtual camera move when Rose first explores the town.

The plot makes bugger all sense, eg. if you reach the end of a film and say out loud "WHAT?!..Like what the hell was that all about", then it can't be good*

Apparently Christophe Gans (dir.) is supposed to be some sort of visual genius, and while I haven't seen any of his other work, said genius wasn't demonstrated here, I was expecting to be impressed by the ever smouldering town and was completely underwhlemed, but it's poor CG "enhanced" nature.

The townsfolk were laughable, properly so to the extent of several scenes conjouring up visions in my mind of Monty Python and The Holy Grail ("SHE'S A WITCH!")

For the sake of that couple of ours or whatever it is. AVOID.

Silent Hill - 0/10 (I'd even give wolf creek a 2)



*My personal exception to this rule is Miike Takashi's "Ichi The Killer", which made absolutely no sense to me, but I loved it, partly because of that, most Japanese stuff doesn't make sense to us lot over here.

The Devil's Backbone

Apparently this is regarded as a horror movie. I don't feel that it is.

Now I don't mean that in a derogitory sense, simply that it doesn't strike me as a horror. It's a ghost story yes, but not in the same way that say Poltergeist is, playing it solely for scares, but I felt that the ghost element is merely superficial to the rest of the story.

Set in an orphanage in Spain during their civil war, the story follows Carlos, the new kid, he soon discovers that things are not quite right in his new place of residence and starts to uncover dark secrets.

Overall this is a brilliant piece of storytelling mainly Guillermo del Toro is a hell of a storyteller! Next up for me of his Cronos, unless of course I end up watching Pan's Labyrinth beforehand, which bearing in mind how many films I've seen recently is perfectly feasible.

El Espinazo del Diablo, is widely regarded as Guillermo's best film, in the special features, Guillermo himself says that it's the first one he was actually happy about, it's certainly better than Mimic, better than Hellboy, although in a totally different class, and as to which I'd watch again in a hurry, Hellboy snags it, but technically Backbone is the better film.


El Espinazo del Diablo (The Devil's Backbone) - 9/10

Shallow Grave

"Don't tell me you're not tempted?!"

It's surprising to think that Danny Boyle actually made good films once upon a time, but yes he did and this is one of them.

This is my second viewing of this film, I can't remember the last time I watched it, and I couldn't really remember much of it then..except the quote from Ewan McGregor's character above.

Simply, Shallow Grave is one of the best British films I've seen, the writing is bwilyant (sorry ;), the acting is top notch, even Keith Allen keeps himself under control, even though he's only got a small part.

It looks low budget, it feel slow budget, it kinda reminds you that Britain really only has about 10 actors to go around, and it does feel a tad dated with the hardcore techno opening music, although technically, the fast moving streets against the slow woods, is quite nice, but it's a damn good film.

Funny, edgy, and kinda scary as it progresses, you can certainly see why Ewan and Christopher Eccleston went on to become Obi-Wan Kenobi and Dr. Who respectivly....well maybe not.

Shallow Grave - 8/10