mattwaterhouse Reviews

Grave Encounters (2011)

Stick with it

[29 October 2011]

This film centers around the cast of a fictional ghost hunting show filming an episode in an abandoned asylum. In the name of good TV, they have arranged to be locked in the asylum for eight hours with their cameras, all to see what they find. Naturally, things turn nasty.

Really, I don't want to go any further than that, this film is best viewed cold. There are a few surprises amongst quite a few clichés, and several of the horror set pieces work very well. The real star of Grave Encounters is the asylum itself, the Vicious Brothers (directing) create a strong atmosphere of trauma and dread with the set up and the direction. The actors themselves do their job with a bunch of initially unlikeable characters who are basically frauds.

But is it scary? Yes, but only after about forty or so minutes. When things start kicking off, and kick off they certainly do, the film really works. The first half is marred by exposition, which is necessary and essential to the premise, but slows the pace to a crawl. Even early on in the asylum there are the usual slammed doors and slightly moving furniture that Paranormal Activity and others have done before. What Grave Encounters does and does well is escalate and pile on the tension, and for the most part you end up rooting for the characters as they are pushed further and further out of their depth. Naturally there is a black stereotype who is pretty insufferable, but if you ignore him he goes away.

So Grave Encounters is worth a watch and if you stick with it you'll probably end up having a good time.

The Expendables (2010)

Barely even an action movie

[1/10 · 6 September 2011]

The Expendables is about a group of good guys who have to go kill some bad guys. That's all you need to know plot wise. It's as deep as puddle of pee. But this is an action movie right? So you don't need all that "movie stuff" right? Just some 'sploshuns.

But this is still a 2/10, and I'll tell you why so you aren't conned by this movie. I would forgive and forget the wafer thin plot, wafer thin characters and bad acting if there had been the following:

1) Good action scenes. There were none. The fist fights were filmed with shaky cam and looked terrible. The gun fights were boring.

2) Effective villains. There were none. They were a pair of pussys and they did nothing. In the latest Rambo Stallone gave us villains that were downright evil, and you rooted for the good guys to kill the hell out of them. You have to love to hate your villains. They should chew up the scenery like wood-chippers, or be cold and calculating. These villains were boring.

3) Good use of the actors. Jet Li was wasted because he manage to kick only one person to death. Jason Statham was boring. Stallone was boring. Mickey Rourke had a couple of good scenes but he's barely in it. Arnie and Bruce were in it for about 90 seconds. Good use of Stone Cold as a henchman. Your character's don't have to be deep, but they have to be likable.

4) Cheesy one liners. There were none, at least none that are in any way memorable.

5) Ridiculously heroic death scenes. There were none. In a man-on-a- mission film, which this was supposed to be, you need to kill of some of your heroes in really over the top and heroic ways. In this film not even the guy who died actually died. They called this film The Expendables. If they are so expendable, kill some of them off. That would add a bit of tension.

6) Tension. There was none.

7) Big, bad set pieces. There was one, in the stone corridor near the end. Jet Li kicked a man to death, and Terry Crews shotgunned people into paste.

Give me all that, and I will have a blast. Give me nothing, and I'll call your s**tty movie out for exactly what it is... a s**tty movie.

The Captains (2011)

A Slice Of Nostalgia

[5 August 2011]

As documentaries go, I admit I don't have a lot of viewing experience. As Star Trek goes however, I found this to be very enjoyable.

Shatner comes across as a pretty decent guy and his interviews with the various actors who have sat in the captain's chair are revealing, often funny, and occasionally very touching, and it is in these moments where The Captains really shines. The contrasting discussions with Scott Bakula and Patrick Stewart over their divorces and the discussion between Shatner and Stewart over their legacies on the show are both fantastic moments. Throughout the documentary there is a lot of insight given into the construction of the captain characters.

My one major complaint is that Avery Brooks gives pretty much nothing. He sits at his piano and plays jazz in a lot of his scenes, which is OK I guess, but we don't really find out anything about his relationship to the Sisko character. The first twenty minutes is also a little tedious.

Really, if you're a Star Trek fan, even in passing, this is worth a look. I definitely recommend it.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

Disappointing

[4/10 · 24 June 2009]

I liked the first Transformers movie. A lot. I saw it four times at the cinema. It tapped into something inside me, the child that used to play with the action figures, and brought the way that felt right out. Revenge Of The Fallen was good, maybe not as good as the first film, but still well worth seeing on the big screen.

The Autobots are now working with the two soldiers from the first film (Josh Dushamel and Tyrese Gibson) in a covert alliance to fight the Decepticons, whilst protecting the general public from knowledge of the robots' existence. Needless to say, giant robots are kinda conspicuous, and on a mission in Shanghai they screw up and a Decepticon is set loose. It's final words: The Fallen will rise again.... Meanwhile, Sam Witwicky (Shia Laboef) is going to college and has to leave Bumblebee behind. As he is leaving, he touches part of the Allspark (from the first film) and begins to have visions and write down symbols leading to a source of Energon, which puts the Decepticons hot on his trail.

What I love about this movie is the fighting between the robots. They are much more epic than they were in the first film, and the audience can actually see whats going on. The effects overall seem more polished and clearer, and the Transformers themselves look like they fit into the scenery. We also get to see another world, which looks very nice. With the exception of Star Trek, these are some of the best special effects I have seen this year.

Story-wise, its a little too convoluted. The films comes out at around two and a half hours long, and my god I started to feel it after around one and a half. There are a lot of clever elements, the concept of The Fallen was very good, and the relationships between characters seem a lot better. For example, Megatron and Starscream have a much more venomous relationship with each other than in the first film, which works really well. The human characters are pretty much the same as they were in the first movie, not really that deep, but not blank or vacuous either. The movie has a little bit less heart than the first, the only time I really cared about the characters were when Sam and Bumblebee were on screen together. The Transformers themselves had a degree of charm, but I wasn't feeling it as much as the first movie.

This was written by the same guys who did Star Trek, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, and its really nowhere near as good. Its got a lot of the charm and action it needs but it really overdid the humour. There are way too many jokes, and around 70% of them are really not funny. The film also falls really flat about halfway through. This is not as disappointing as Terminator Salvation by far, but not as mindblowing as Star Trek is. I'd give it a 6 out of 10.

Terminator Salvation (2009)

Ridiculous

[4/10 · 11 June 2009]

I'm going to be honest here. I had no idea what to expect with this movie. Its a completely different film to the previous trilogy, so what made those movies good might not work as well here in what is essentially a war movie. I went into the theatre blind, which I suppose gave me an element of impartiality.

So I sat there in the theatre and I thought, this movie, at the very least, has to be better than T3. At the very least. Although T3 is decent, the problems that faced it were easily solve-able, so this film should be able to give us a decent story etc. Two hours later, I had my answer.

It couldn't even manage that. Terminator Salvation was ridiculous.

The plot is as follows. It is 2003. Marcus Wright is on death row, and is convinced by a dying doctor to sign his body to medical science. Flash forward to 2018, and after a failed attack on a Skynet base by John Connor, Marcus awakens in the post apocalyptic mire and meets Kyle Reese, who is later captured by the machines. John Connor, discovering this, has to launch a rescue mission before the resistance leaders nuke the place where he is being held. But is Marcus all that he appears? If you've seen the trailer for the movie, you already know that answer.

This is a perfect example of how advertising can shoot your film in the foot. The biggest and most interesting twist in this movie is given away in the trailer. What this serves to do is remove a lot of the tension in the Marcus Wright scenes. This is especially annoying when you consider that Marcus is the most interesting character in the film. Sam Worthington isn't the best actor in the world, but he does a good job here, aside from having virtually no reaction to waking up in what is essentially the Capital Wasteland from Fallout 3. His scenes are really the best thing about this movie, especially when he meets up with Reese, played by Anton Yelchin. Again, Yelchin does a good job here, his character doesn't have a huge amount of depth but the character is fairly interesting, with subtle echoes of Michael Biehn's portrayal way back in T1. And they are the only two characters that are worth anything.

John Connor is an established character in the franchise, played brilliantly by Edward Furlong in T2 and pretty well by Nick Stahl in T3. At the beginning of this movie they introduce John Connor via text as this sort of warrior-prophet who has managed to predict the future correctly thus far, and some people believe him and some don't. This is actually an interesting angle to take on the character, which is never brought up in the whole movie. I'm not kidding here, at no point in this movie is John Connor anything but a guy with a gun, when he could have been and should have been so much more. Worse still, he's pretty much vacuous, there is no trace of the resourceful kid or the guy who had to listen as the world ended around him. All this Connor is is a guy who thinks all problems can be solved by shouting a said problem. Connor is played by Christian Bale, who is in one gear throughout the whole movie: intense. Has was so intense they could have brought in Keanu Reeves to play the character, and the sad thing is he probably would have done a better job than Bale. And whoever said to him, "no its fine, do it in your Batman voice if you want," should go and sit in the corner, and think about what they've done.

The rest of the characters are just a motley crew of blank and vacuous plot devices. From Common to the mute kid. They all suck.

Oh and thanks to all you prissy internet idiots out there who complained about the ending to this movie, McG and co. changed the entire third act. To be fair, it isn't that bad. But the actual ending to the movie is just stupid. What they had planned was MUCH better.

Now for the more positive stuff. The special effects are cool. The robots are cool, and actually pretty scary in some instances, which captures some of the essence of the first Terminator. As much as I've faulted the acting and the characters, McG isn't a bad director. Some of the action sequences and most of the fights are very well done and are well paced. This goes for the whole experience, the pace only really falters once or twice. This movie isn't badly directed at all. It's badly, laughably written. The script is peppered with bad dialogue and references to the older movies that are crow-barred in. It took me out of the movie every time instead of flowing along naturally with the rest of the dialogue, like it does in films like the new Star Trek.

Overall, this is the weakest film in the franchise by far. The gulf between all the other movies and this movie is pretty sizable. I hope this is the end of the franchise, but considering that they have set up for a possible sequel, I doubt its over just yet.

Watchmen (2009)

Very well done

[10/10 · 8 March 2009]

It is very rare that a movie seems to be made especially for me, but this was. I have tried my best not to let that effect my evaluation of this film.

It is 1985, and the world is on the brink of nuclear war. Watchmen begins with the murder of former masked hero The Comedian. The near insane vigilante Rorschach investigates the murder, and begins to uncover a much more sinister plot, whilst trying to convince his former allies that they are in danger.

This film won't do as well as it could at the box office because of it's 18 (R) rating, and by toning down the gore it could have gotten away with a lower rating and pulled in more of a teenage audience. However its maturity works well and this is the first real attempt to explore the darker side of masked heroes. The graphic novel is a fantastic piece of literature and in my opinion it has been adapted very well by Zack Snyder.

The run time for this is just over two and a half hours, and I didn't feel it, which for me is a first. It kept me gripped throughout and I liked the way the film looked; the cinematography was incredible. In terms of performance, the cast pretty much delivered on all fronts. I found Malin Ackerman a little too one note, but that aside the casting was fantastic. Jackie Earl Haley and Jeffrey Dean Morgan were mesmerising as Rorschach and The Comedian respectively, whilst Patrick Wilson and Matthew Goode gave good performances and Nite Owl II and Veidt. Billy Crudup gave a very interesting take on Dr Manhattan, one of the highlights of the film was the exploration of his back story. Indeed, the exploration of the characters' pasts was where the film really excelled, in particular those of Rorschach and The Comedian. The ending, which has been changed from the graphic novel, has divided audiences. I feel that it was a solid adaption which brought a lot out of the characters and brought the film to a satisfying climax.

The only things I would have changed were the second to last scene, which was pointless, and the score. Aside from the opening credits where Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A'Changin'" was played, the song choices were clumsy and failed to add to the atmosphere. An orchestral score would have been far superior. Also, I would have liked to see more of Moloch.

This is a film to watch at the cinema, so far it is the best film to come out this year.

The Wrestler (2008)

Oscar worthy

[10/10 · 2 March 2009]

I don't cry in movies. Don't get me wrong, I'm not heartless, I just don't. There were points in this film where I had very real tears in my eyes.

Mickey Rourke is Randy "The Ram" Robinson (the wrestler of the title), who lives in the nostalgia of his former glory but who's career has taken a nosedive. After a match he suffers a near fatal heart attack, and facing the reality that he can no longer do what he loves, he tries to face living in the real world.

I have not seen many films by Darren Aronofsky, but after seeing this I really want to. The direction is sublime, the writing smart and subtle and the editing highly commendable. In particular, in the scene where The Ram starts working in a new job, the sound of a crowd cheering is edited in as he walks towards the entrance. Also, the final shot of this movie took my breath away. Its amazing.

It is clear that Aronofsky can get the best out of his actors. Most of the cast are unknowns, I only recognised three of the names in the credits. This gives the film a sense of reality, and also gives the leads a chance to improvise and banter. The wrestlers are all real wrestlers, and they have some great dialogue with Mickey Rourke. The people who stand out though are Evan Rachel Wood and Marisa Tomei. Wood only has maybe 3 or 4 scenes, but uses the time well, both brutally and in a way that breaks your heart. Tomei's character delivers brilliant dialogue and is a fantastic mirror for The Ram, as an ageing stripper holding on to her profession even though she rarely has custom.

Now, Mickey Rourke. This guy is a very good actor, but this is his best role by a long shot. I dare say the best performance by a leading man this year. He delivers genuine emotion and brilliant range in his portrayal of a man who cannot let go of what he is best at, and what he loves. He had this character down to a T and I really hope this movie re-energises his career, because goodness knows he deserves it.

The best compliment I can give is this; despite the subject matter and the issues raised, this never lapses into melodrama. It remains subtle and heartbreaking to the last, and I can only give praise.

Bangkok Dangerous (2008)

Predictable

[4/10 · 7 September 2008]

This is about an assassin called Joe who decides to end his career after his next trip abroad. The next trip is to (you'll never guess) Bangkok, where he has 4 people to kill, and he hires a young crook to work for him. However, Joe begins to break his own rules as he begins to see something of himself in the crook and falls in love with a deaf chemist.

I feel sorry for Nicolas Cage. He is possibly the biggest victim of typecasting in Hollywood, and he does his best with the roles he is given but the odd film slips through the net, and sadly Bangkok Dangerous is one of them. Nic is distinctly average in this and the performances of the supporting cast aren't much better with the notable exception of Charlie Yeung, who delivers a fine performance as the love interest.

This film isn't awful, it just suffers from an average and completely unoriginal script. This is Action Movie 101, and unlike some movies it doesn't get away with it by glossing over the cracks with special effects, like Wanted. Like Wanted, I successfully predicted the entire plot straight after Nic's opening monologue. Some scenes were very good, some very bad, the scale is balanced. The movie is like Marmite, you'll either love it or hate it.

The Dark Knight (2008)

Magnificent

[10/10 · 27 July 2008]

I had been looking forward to The Dark Knight since the middle of 2007, and the death of Heath Ledger increased the already growing hype surrounding the film. Approaching the cinema, I decided to forget the hype, forget my own desire to watch, so I could do the film justice in my own way. I'm glad I did, as I think this is the 21st Century's best film so far, it surpasses the hype magnificently.

The film centres around Batman, James Gordon and Harvey Dent's struggle against the Joker, a new criminal in Gotham City who is running riot. As the city begins to descend into chaos, our heroes begin to see what they must become in order to stop him.

From the opening scene, it is clear that The Dark Knight is more about the villain than the hero. Heath Ledger is simply unbelievable as the Joker, he bristles with psychotic energy in every scene. His body language and vocal range are an inspiration and he is a truly terrifying character. As a Heath Ledger fan, my expectations were exceeded beyond belief. The real surprise was Aaron Eckheart, who was at times even more chilling as Two-Face than Ledger. Watching him slowly turn from Gotham City's white knight into an evil, vengeful monster is brilliant. Christian Bale is as good as he was in Batman Begins, and it was nice to see Maggie Gyllenhall surpass Katie Holmes. Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman's performances were several levels above what they were in Batman Begins. Each actor complemented each other, and shares a common plus point with Anchorman in that it was as near as can be to perfectly cast.

I think this film's main strength is it's writing. The script delivers constant high quality dialogue and some of the best twists and turns since Fight Club, and I love Fight Club. I love how Nolan adapted the characters into what worked the best, in particular the villains. The campness of the Joker and Two-Face's previous incarnations is non-existent, and would be out of place in this version of Gotham City. The Two-Face character is visceral and graphic, and Harvey Dent's fall from grace is handled brilliantly. The origins of the Joker are not shown, merely referenced by the Joker himself in some horrifyingly genius dialogue.

I was blown away by The Dark Knight, it was almost perfect. The only niggle I had was that I would have liked to have seen more of Cillian Murphy as Scarecrow. This film was a fitting end to Heath Ledger's career, and the Joker is definitely the role he will be most remembered for. The must-see film of 2008.

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)

One of the decade's best comedy films

[9/10 · 11 July 2008]

Its the 1970s. Will Ferrell is Ron Burgundy, a newscaster with a passion for his hair and the jazz flute. He and his news team are shocked when their boss brings in a female newscaster, and immediately try to simultaneously bed her and have her fired. Ron is the main instigator of this, until he finds himself falling in love...

Anchorman made me cry with laughter, the gags were all of a crude high quality and the ensemble cast worked together brilliantly. It didn't need to be clever, it wasn't aimed at Woody Allen fans, it was aimed at frat boys and people up for a laugh. The thing that really sells this movie however is that it reaches past it's target audience, my mum and dad love this film, because it is much more intelligent than it needs to be. There is a brilliant joke in every scene and cameos from everyone from Jack Black to Tim Robbins.

Will Ferrell is at his best, and his funniest scenes are alongside his news team of David Koechner, Paul Rudd and the sensational Steve Carrell as Brick Tamland. The four of them improvise and create so much comedy that they light up every scene. They are supported brilliantly by Christina Applegate, Vince Vaughan and Fred Willard amongst others. In my opinion this film is as close as I've seen to perfectly cast, I cannot think of any actor that could be replaced.

Overall I would describe Anchorman as one of the best movie experiences I have personally had, and it is undoubtedly a must-see.

The Protector (2005)

The new Bruce Lee

[8/10 · 6 July 2008]

Tony Jaa plays Kham, raised in the jungle by his father with the elephants. When the old and baby elephant are kidnapped by poachers and his father is killed, Kham travels to Sydney to get them back, and with the help of a call girl and a Thai Policeman, uncovers a much more seedy and corrupt environment than he thought.

Tony Jaa is the new Bruce Lee, hands down. Jet Li cannot be classified in the same way as he does completely different kinds of film. Jaa is fantastic in Tom Yum Goong, his character is rather two dimensional on the surface but he grows beyond it and delivers a breathtaking performance. In every case he carries the film, even though the performances from most of the characters are fairly admirable. But Jaa isn't just an actor in this, he's the choreographer, and in terms of choreography this film should have won an Academy Award. A bold statement maybe, but a true one.

The action sequences in Tom Yum Goong are close to the best I have seen, there is no wire work, very little CGI and a variety of martial arts. Tony Jaa's fighting style is exquisite, brutal, and flowing, and when mixed with Brazillian street fighting, wrestling, karate and countless weapon-styles it means that no two sequences are the same. The four/five minute long one-shot sequence in the restaurant is fantastic, I found it more rewarding an experience as the first person sequence in Doom, which I also loved.

Ong Bak was sensational and Ong Bak 2 will be sensational. Tom Yum Goong was a fantastic experience as an action flick and as a very human story about a man who tries to rescue the only brothers he has ever known. A must see.

The Happening (2008)

Painful and hilarious

[2/10 · 1 July 2008]

It was the plants, punishing us for polluting the planet. There, I just saved you from the most pointless 91 minutes of your life.

Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

I really have trouble with M Night Shyamalan, firstly because I have real trouble spelling his name, and secondly because he is so inconsistent. His recent films have been either severely below par (eg. Lady In The Water) or average at best (eg. Signs) and he has turned from being a promising young writer/director into a provider of weak cinema. The obvious fact is that he got lucky with the Sixth Sense, followed it up brilliantly with Unbreakable, and then kept trying to write more elaborate twists and turns in his movies. He is still riding on the Sixth Sense's reputation as a classic, and hopefully the fact that The Happening was god awful will knock him down to earth and make him go back to the drawing board. This worked with him before, in the distinctly un-Shyamalany Stuart Little, so hopefully it will work again, and PERMANENTLY.

The Happening, which is by far the most unassuming title in the world, is about a an unexplained epidemic of suicides in built up areas of North East America. A school teacher attempts to flee this epidemic with his wife, colleague and colleague's daughter and hilarity ensues.

Yes. Hilarity. The mass suicide scenes are shot so badly that they are funny. Mass suicide made funny, and not intentionally. Great. I'm speaking generally, there are some scenes that are very well done, like the builders jumping from the scaffolding, but the others, especially the guy who tries to make a lion eat him, are awful. This said, there are three set pieces that are brilliant. I've mentioned the builders; the second is where the colleague drives with some other people into a town looking for his wife, and they are greeted by the sight of the town's inhabitants hanging from lampposts. Brilliant suspense is created, and a real sense of doom when they notice a hole in the roof, punctuated by the car being crashed into a tree. The old, crazy woman is brilliant too, and the scenes in her house were genuinely scary.

But what made this film so poor was the acting. Mark Wahlberg can act, The Departed, Boogie Nights, Four Brothers, they all prove it, so there is absolutely no justification whatsoever for a wooden performance that makes Hayden Christiensen look like Al Pacino. The sad thing is, in comparison to everyone else in The Happening, he is actually pretty good. Zooey Deschanel makes no effort, her part could have been filled by a corpse. John Leguizamo was very average, he had his good and bad moments, and the girl who played his daughter was similarly OK. Everyone else is instantly forgettable, except the aforementioned old crazy lady, who makes the last few scenes tension filled and gripping. The script the actors had to work with was boring, stale and... You know what, I'm not even going to go there. IMDb won't let me swear, and I can't talk about the script without using the dreaded "f".

The bad far outweighed the good. I left the cinema feeling like i would never get the time i had spent watching this sorry excuse for a film back. Don't watch it. It will only help Shyamalan get good again. Hopefully.

The Incredible Hulk (2008)

Thats more like it!!!

[9/10 · 30 June 2008]

I hated the first Hulk effort with a passion. The franchise had bags of potential and it was never realised, even though the style was visually impressive the film had no substance. Eric Bana and Jennifer Connelly were well cast but their characters were a bit two dimensional. All the other characters were poor.

Thank heavens for take two. The focus was taken from the origins of the Hulk and more on the aftermath, which then takes the focus from the Hulk and onto Bruce Banner, which was the smartest move the director made, and there is no better actor for portraying the humanity of a character than Edward Norton. When I first saw that he was in the role I was excited at the prospect of the new dimension he would bring to Banner, and he is successful in so many ways. His portrayal, William Hurt's portrayal of The General and Tim Blake Nelson's portrayal of Samuel Sterns had so much depth that it was a joy to watch them all on screen. Liv Tyler did an admirable and surprising job of surpassing Jennifer Connelly, who was one of the better performers in the first attempt. Tim Roth was somewhat below par as the main baddie, but he did the job expected of him with gusto.

In terms of visual effects, its pretty much whats expected of a superhero film. The major difference from the first attempt at Hulk is the departure from the comic-book visual style. The effects are much darker, and the Hulk looks much more menacing than he did before. The tributes to the old incarnations of Hulk are well done, with the "You won't like me when I'm angry" speech nicely referenced, and there is a neat cameo from Lou Ferignio, who provides this Hulk's voice.

I was incredibly impressed by this movie. It realised all the potential that the franchise has and does almost everything right. This and Iron Man have set the bar for superhero movies and bringing them together in the Avengers film will surely be a winner.

Superhero Movie (2008)

Not bad. Not bad at all.

[6/10 · 8 June 2008]

Superhero movie is one of those films that you cannot judge by normal film standards. As a film, it's ... well ... passable. Just. If you judge it as a spoof, it isn't passable. Its bloomin' marvellous.

Superhero movie is full of some of the most spontaneous and genuine humour that we've seen recently from the filmmakers, and is somewhat of a return to form. They haven't done anything nearly this funny since Scary Movie 3, and I hope that they continue along these lines because the writers proved with Scary Movie and Scary Movie 3 that they can do it, they just don't do it enough.

And on that point, it's annoying that their other movies have been so awful. But having said that, the movies they send up are perfect, Spiderman, X-Men, and Fantastic Four had it coming frankly. When this film is on a roll, very few others can top it. The sequence in the laboratory is hilarious and full of surprise, and the send up of Professor Xavier and the mutant mansion is great fun to watch. Leslie Nielsen is as sharp as ever and Chris Macdonald has some great lines, especially the hero/villain sparring with Drake Bell. The humour is puerile at times but there is enough good to outweigh the bad.

Day of the Dead (1985)

Arguably the best of the series

[10/10 · 28 May 2008]

Considering that this film is about as far from what it was originally intended to be as possible, George A Romero did a remarkable job in shaping this film into a near masterpiece. The script is one of the best presented on celluloid, delivering line after line of razor sharp dialogue. Characterisation is a massive improvement on the previous two films, a considerable achievement considering that the last two were also fantastic horror films. Lori Cardille, Terry Alexander and Jarlath Conroy are brilliant as the only three characters who still seem vaguely human. However, to find the best roles, you need look no further than Joseph Pilato and Richard Liberty as Rhodes and Logan. The two leaders of the opposing factions amongst the survivors are sensational on their own, and the best scenes in the movie are the ones where they are verbally sparring with each other.

The make-up was incredible and realistic. It hasn't dated in the slightest, although there are a couple of dodgy moments. The closing scenes in particular are visually impressive, and at times I found it a little difficult to watch. Saw can't make me think that, and thats basically the point of the Saw films.

Romero's difficult third album comes good in every sense. While it has been criticised for being dialogue heavy, when the script is as good as this, thats no bad thing

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

Outlandish

[8/10 · 28 May 2008]

In terms of the Indiana Jones movies, this film falls seriously short. Crystal Skull cannot compete with the others, but it is still a pretty good action flick with brilliant action sequences, a solid script and some neat references to the film series, such as a cameo for the Ark of the Covenant at the beginning.

The main problem with this movie, indeed with the series, is that there is a standard formula: Indy has to find a relic, an evil guy also wants to find the relic, the evil guy makes Indy get the relic, the relic kills the evil guy, relic is lost, the end. Despite this, the trilogy worked brilliantly, it was incredibly inventive and it always brought the best out of the cast. For Crystal Skull, this formula is used again (if it isn't broken, don't fix it) but it doesn't work, and the problem isn't that it's a bad movie, because as I've said it isn't. The problem lies with the films premise.

The Crystal Skull of the title is not a plausible relic. At least with the other films the artifact is believable, because they were religious icons from an age that is a mystery to us. They were grounded on the planet Earth, and to be honest, involving aliens in a Indiana Jones film is seriously flawed logic. Indy is not sci-fi. Indy has never been sci-fi. Granted the skull was sort of a religious icon, but ALIENS? It didn't work, and the ending was such a disappointment I was left wondering what the point of the film was. The treasure was knowledge. OK, i get that. The knowledge set the villain on fire? Wha...? Marion and Indiana get married? Come on, the series is better than that kind of cliché.

When it was good, Crystal Skull was infallible. But the end was such a poor cliché I felt cheated.

======

And then, several weeks after i posted this comment, I realised that I was wrong and that cliché was the point.

The Indy films are intended to be B-movies, and Crystal Skull epitomises this brilliantly, far more than the others do. Whether that's a good or bad point really depends on the viewer, I personally didn't like it at first but then later I realised the merit and purpose of the style. Without the B-movie tone the film would definitely not be as rewarding an experience.

To like this film you have to get it, and now that I do i can see that it is much better than I realised at first. I still think the older ones are better, but in my revised view Crystal Skull stands up nicely. I look foreward to more :)

Diary of the Dead (2007)

Such a big let down i died a little inside

[3/10 · 27 May 2008]

It had to happen at some point. George A Romero was going to make a bad zombie movie. Cloverfield made me want to watch this film, so it will be my reference point.

Ugh. There are no words to convey the sheer disappointment I felt when I watched this film. The characters are, for want of a better and more dirty word, awful. They all hate the cameraman, even before the whole zombie outbreak routine, which was just a pain after the first few scenes. The cameraman himself was slightly less wooden than the rest, but only just. The best character was the Amish, who although he had no dialogue (he was mute) conveyed his role as best he could. For the attempt he deserves something, even though he's only in the film for about 6-7 minutes.

In my Cloverfield review, I said this: "That this film works makes me look foreword to Diary Of The Dead, which will be an incredible experience if George A Romero utilises the camera half as well as Cloverfield has." Thats the problem. He really didn't. The guy is an icon to the horror genre and the last four "___ of the Dead" films have been excellent, but he used the hand-held cameras like they were proper studio cameras, and thats just not what they are for in this context. Admittedly, the setup of the footage being edited together into a movie by one of the characters didn't help, but even Blair Witch managed to create a bit of suspense and fear in its audience, regardless of the fact that the camera-work was pathetic. Diary Of The Dead needed to make better use of that camera because it's integral to the plot.

The films saving grace, in this case saving it from a 1/10, was its realism. Even though I didn't like the way all the characters moaned at the cameraman, it was realistic. The outbreak itself was also pretty believable. Unlike, for example, Resident Evil, the world didn't go Hell straight away, and this is a carrying theme in the earlier "___ of the Dead" films.

The other good thing was the opening scene. The set-up of a news report was authentic and brilliantly executed, and it's a shame that this didn't carry over into the rest of the film.

I am a Romero fan. A big Romero fan. I walked away from this feeling so disappointed that it hadn't worked, because the potential was there in buckets. Unfortunately, it was a let down.

Doom (2005)

A Guilty Pleasure

[7/10 · 27 May 2008]

OK, so the acting is below par.

...and the back-story is as weak as wet tissue (then again i wasn't actually expecting one considering its a game-to-film movie)

...and most annoyingly, RRTS? what kind of half baked abbreviation is that? Rapid Assault Tactical Squad gives you RATS, and it has a better ring to it.

Other than those points, Doom was better than I thought it would be. The writing wasn't perfect by any means but it did the job, and actually gave us some pretty decent one-liners from certain characters. The opening sequence was fantastic, delivering some well thought out suspense and it drew parallels with, dare I say, the Alien films. But only Alien Resurrection, the rubbish one. Not great, but again, better than I thought it would be. In fact, that they went for a Doom 3 effect rather than the effect in 1 or 2 actually served this film well. The way it delivered suspense throughout was of a high quality, and there were scenes in the film that made me think "wow, that was actually pretty cool". And the monsters? Sweet Jesus the robotics were just great. I can honestly say they are some of the best that I've seen in recent cinema.

Oh and the first person sequence was fantastic. A great homage to the earlier doom games with wave after wave of zombies, but done in the same style as Doom 3? That isn't anything other than absolute genius.

So who cares that The Rock can't act? Not me. This film is, and forever will be, one of cinema's greatest guilty pleasures.

Event Horizon (1997)

Works brilliantly as both a sci fi and a horror

[9/10 · 11 March 2008]

A signal is picked up in orbit of Neptune from the Event Horizon, a starship with experimental engines that went missing several years previously. A salvage crew, as well as the ship's designer, are sent to investigate and retrieve the ship and crew, but on board the Event Horizon all is not as it seems...

This movie is very good at creating suspense and it does this in many ways, from the performances of the characters and the magnificent score right down to the lighting. And it does this as well as any horror film (aside from the obvious genre leading films like Psycho etc.) The film undoubtedly works as a sci-fi too, but this is psychological horror at it's most disturbing without lapsing into torture porn. Performance-wise, overall this film is a showcase. Britain is represented brilliantly in Sam Neill (who is actually Australian, my bad), Jason Isaccs and Sean Pertwee. Neill in particular shines in what I believe is by far his deepest and most well acted role as Dr Weir. The other stand out performances are from Kathleen Quinlan and the criminally underused Jack Noseworthy: the latter's performance in the airlock scene is simply breathtaking. The only annoying thing about this film in terms of performance was that Laurence Fishburne and Joely Richardson, both established actors, could have and should have been a hell of a lot better in this movie. Richardson is not in it enough, but neither was Noseworthy so thats no excuse. And the Cooper character was just there to play a black stereotype, saying "OOOO YEAH BABY!" at every opportunity. Without him this movie would be a definite ten.

I have seen this film a couple of times, and it still has the capacity to make me soil myself every time. For fans of sci fi and horror this is a must see.

Stealing Candy (2003)

Could have been really bad, but its not

[4/10 · 3 March 2008]

This film is a porno. Dress it up however you like, it will always be a porno. But its a porno with a sniff of a plot, and while it's about as far fetched as you can get, its still a fair effort. A trio of crooks need money, and to do this they decide to kidnap a Hollywood actress. She doesn't normally do sex scenes, so they film her doing one of them and post it on the internet as pay per view.

Daniel Baldwin and Coolio excepted, the acting is frankly laughable. Jenya Lano and the other guy whose name I can't remember are poor to say the least. It's the two guys I mentioned before that turn this movie from "Oh God No" to "Meh, it's OK I guess". Just about worth a rent, so give it a shot if you must. If you're a porno person, this might actually be the jump you need to start watching real movies.

Cloverfield (2008)

A piece of art

[10/10 · 3 March 2008]

There are films that take your breath away, and this is most definitely one of them. What could have been just another crappy monster movie is instead a piece of art, with incredible realistic performances from a largely unknown cast. The scriptwriter was clearly at the top of his game, the snappy dialogue keeps the plot moving at a good pace, and the set pieces in the film were genius. Never clearly seeing the monster also gave this film an edge and a sense of enigma. It makes a refreshing change not to have the stock goofy scientist, or any of the other stock monster/disaster movie characters, you find out the information as the characters do, which makes it easier to identify with the characters.

J.J.Abrahms made a risky move in shooting this film on hand-held cameras, and thank goodness he did. Contrasting films like the Blair Witch Project, it works brilliantly, and contributes to the success of the movie. The sequence in the subway tunnel for example shows how the camera can build tension and create suspense. That this film works makes me look foreward to Diary Of The Dead, which will be an incredible experience if George A Romero utilises the camera half as well as Cloverfield has. Definitely a must see.

The Godfather (1972)

Damn Good

[9/10 · 1 March 2008]

To be honest, I approached this film with an air of apprehension after being told by everyone that it was a masterpiece. I didn't want to like it at all, and the fact that i ended up loving it is a testament to the director.

The movie was incredible. Seriously. Marlon Brando was stunning and Al Pacino an inspiration. The nature of their performances should send this film into the history books, as well as those of James Caan and Diane Keaton. From an actor's POV, splendid, and the plot kept me hooked for the majority.

Key word: MAJORITY, as good as it was, I didn't pay complete attention for the whole thing. That aside, incredible movie. The genre has been done better recently in American Gangster and The Departed (Scorsese, legend, and as good a director as Francis Ford Coppola) but this is a true testament to American and Italian cinema. If you don't watch it, you're a closed minded idiot. No offence lol.

Fight Club (1999)

The best Film Ever

[10/10 · 1 March 2008]

I could lie to you and say that I hated this film. But I would feel dirty if i did that. This is the best film ever, and i'v seen the Godfather (no. 1 according to IMDb).

Everything works. All the performances are top notch, Edward Norton is fabulously understated as the lead, Brad Pitt brings Tyler Durden to life in a way that proves that the guy ain't just a pretty face. Helena Bonham Carter, Meat Loaf and Jared Leto excel, especially The Loaf, because he is an incredible actor that deserves more credit than he gets for his acting.

The twist, although I guessed it halfway through, is brilliant, and David Fincher brings the whole thing together like the Mona Lisa. If I summed up this film in one word, I could think of none but Sen-effing-sational. WATCH!!!