thenewstyle Reviews

Unbreakable (2000)

Incredible movie

[1 December 2001]

Woah.....just saw this one the other day after a friend insisted I check it out, and it blew me away. I was very sceptical at first as I thought the Sixth Sense was cliched and predictable, but Unbreakable really surprised me by turning out to be a fantastic movie that had me enthralled from start to finish. The whole linkage between reality and comic books is beautifully done, the direction is spot-on and Jackson and Willis give the best performances of their respective careers. This is a highly underrated, "thinking man's" blockbuster, and should be watched by just about anyone who appreciates movies with more than a cool-looking car chase or a big shoot-out. Excellent stuff. Look out for that ending, it's a killer......

Crocodile Dundee II (1988)

This is an ace movie!

[10 November 2001]

Waaaay better than the first....we are given one of the most hilariously stereotypical black characters in film history in the form of 'Leroy Brown' ("when word gets around, that Leroy Brown, has got something going down..."), the most unconvincing street punks/toughs I have *ever* seen (I mean, c'mon, they're listening to BILLY IDOL for God's sake!) and some South American drug dealers who trail off into tales of chasing snakes into cane fields for seemingly no reason whatsoever. There's two parts to the film - the first sees our hero storming the drug dealers mansion and rescuing his old lady, the second takes the rather dubious 'action' to the Outback, where we once again get to see classic Australian stereotype 'Dong' drinking and fighting and....uhh....being Australian.

Classic!

The Punisher (1989)

The guilty will be punished!

[23 October 2001]

I think what a lot of Punisher fans forget when it comes to this movie is that concessions had to be made for a mainstream audience not familiar with the subject....it could be argued that the Punisher costume from the comic books is not realistic enough to suit a motion picture, and it would be impossible to put in everyone's favourite characters - you get my point. The movie has bad points : the complete inaccuracy of Dolph's accent, the amount of knives used (WTF? We wanna see some guns, man!), the ludicrous sidekick Frank is lumbered with (where the hell is Microchip?!?), and the whole sewer/naked meditating thing which doesn't serve much purpose at all. However, good factors include the movie's overall dark theme despite being a Marvel-endorsed feature, the violence (c'mon, it rules in places), Dolph actually looking the part as Frank Castle (about as physically close to Frank Castle as we could hope for), Louis Gosset Jr. (he is *made* for parts like this), and a generally reasonable plot (for a no-brain action flick, that is). Overall, I'd recommend 'The Punisher' highly to any fans of Arnie/Stallone/Van Damme action pictures, and definitely to followers of the comic book. It's a nice way to be entertained for 90 minutes without taxing the ol' brain cells.

One last note : with the spate of superhero films in the pipeline (Spidey, Daredevil, FF, Superman/Batman), isn't it time someone had another pop at doing a Punisher movie? It's dying to be done, and done well.....