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Reviews
Starkweather (2004)
Truly awful
Setting aside all aspects of accuracy of story or landscape or props or whatever, and any problems with boom mics this is plain and simply just very bad. The script is the worst offender, truly awful, after Charlie's first murder when he tells Caril-Ann that he did it for her I couldn't believe the response. I actually mouthed to myself verbatim what a corny line would have been in that situation but she actually said it. For a film dealing with a serious subject with a purported serious tone was the sheriff's assistant comic relief or just atrociously written. The car-chase scene near the end was pure farce.
This film is lazy on many fronts but none worse than the character of the mentor. This is the sole justification for why Charlie Starkweather would embark on a killing spree, although at least this is more justification then for why Caril-Ann would go along with it. This seems to me the biggest of corners cut to tell a story, surely there must have been more to Starkweather's background than this, and how accurate is this sub-conscious cloaked man as a part of Charlie's personality anyway? I think better analysers than me will be able to give a whole load more reasons not to see it, all I can do is tell you it's bad, very bad, and despite the occasional flirtation with so bad it's good, it doesn't even merit that.
Garth Marenghi's Darkplace (2004)
say you were there first time round - watch it now
I wasn't fully sure what to expect and nearly didn't watch it at all, that would have been a mistake. Three episodes in and I'm hooked and I'm slowly working on all my friends too as it would be a shame if this slipped by without getting the audience it deserves. I was a bit concerned after the first episode that the jokes would quickly wear a bit thin but this hasn't proved to be the case. I don't think it will be everyone's cup of tea but well worth trying because if it is you're in for one of the funnier half hours of television you'll see all week.
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
slightly disappointed
Perhaps it was because I wasn't in the best of moods prior to watching the film but I was slightly disappointed with the final part of LotR.
I don't think that the makers have done anything differently in style or tone to the first two and I'm sure it is their equal. I think I possibly have Rings fatigue, all the weighty speeches, ham-fisted attempts at comic moments, and truly epic battle scenes have become a bit done for me.
I want to stress I still liked the film and maybe if I watch it again my opinion will change. Three hours+ passed really quite quickly, which is always a good sign, and I think it would be spurious to criticise it for going on a bit too long at the end as it is based on a book, loads was cut out from the end as it was and it was necessary to show most of those scenes for narrative closure.
The world is a better place for having this trilogy in existence but weighing in over 9 hours long proved just a touch long for this particularly viewer.
X2 (2003)
Really??????
I saw this film in the summer and was really underwhelmed. I quite liked the first film, for style and tone if not the afterthought plot, so I was expecting good things from this film as the introductions had been done in the first film and we could crack on with a really good story.
Maybe I need to see this film again but I don't see where on earth all these great reviews came from. I could see how people might think it was okay, or diverting and entertaining but no more. I left the cinema pretty cold. More characters were introduced, more background needed filling in and Bryan Singer seemed to not know how to handle it. Maybe it was the story/script at fault, maybe the editing went astray but I thought this was a lesson in how not to handle an ensemble film that an X-Men film is always going to be. He lost control of all the stories, especially near the end, it seemed like we were jumping between plotlines in a quite unplanned way.
As in the first film I didn't rate the main storyline much either. I hope that when X-Men 3 (or X3, or XXX or whatever it's going to be called) comes that the less is more approach is taken and we get a more structured narrative round the interesting characters, new characters are limited, and we get a good central storyline that is is more than a subplot for the ongoing humans versus mutants story. I think this franchise has potential from what we've seen but has been let down so far by weak story and weak characters.
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
A terrible disappointment...
After a promising 20 minutes I was lead to one of the most disappointing cinema experiences I've had in a long time. The only other movies in which expectation has been replaced by utter disappointment being Batman and Robin and Blair Witch 2 both of which didn't even have a promising 20 minutes. The plot meandered backwards and forwards from one unbelievable situation to another even more unlikely situation. During the final minutes I could actually have believed that a different film was being shown, which was even more ludicrous than the previous one. Why oh why were stereotypical looking aliens with televisions in their heads waxing lyrical about the wonders of humanity when the evidence of our own fall, at our own hands no less was frozen in the ice all about them. Spielberg runied a good premise with his usual overdose of saccharin, Kubrick must have turned in his grave.