trevorreddin82 Reviews

The Lego Movie (2014)

trailer was better the the film

[9 February 2014]

My 5 yr old son saw the trailer and thought it looked fantastic. Loads of humour and visual jokes. When we went to cinema we were disappointed to find the trailer showed the best bits and the film was just plumped out in between. Having the different characters from different Lego sets was a good idea too as he was able to recognise them especially batman. He got restless towards the end in the basement scenes. The song was catchy and fun and the way everything was made from Lego was of course great. But the filmmakers really struggle with kids films. They either nail it like Shrek and Toy Story or fail like Gnomeo&Juliet and Brave. The Lego movie falls into the latter category. It may be OK for adults and older children that play a lot of Lego but for the younger ones I would avoid it.

The Cabin in the Woods (2011)

Not as great as the trailer makes out

[4/10 · 30 August 2012]

I was looking forward to this, the opening scene was not expected and set it up quite nicely. but the film was just a rehash of previous sci-fi horrors.. if you have seen the Cube films then just don't bother with this... the acting was OK, and reminded me of the teen horror explosions in the late 90's to early 2000s (which have been lacking of late. I was also disappointed with the antagonists, they were not shown in a lot of detail, it was like the makers were harking back to the old horrors where you see an arm smash through some wooden boards and that is all. It ended pretty meekly too, didn't tie the loose ends up or show what happened next, and i didn't really feel it was set up for a sequel.

Battleship (2012)

substantially better then I expected

[8/10 · 12 August 2012]

I based my initial opinion on the IMDb score and from the odd critic review when this was released. I watched this last night and was pleasantly surprised. its a lot better then I expected. I wont go into detail about the plot etc as its in the summary. the only actors I knew were Liam Neeson and Rhianna. Rhianna was better then most other singers that attempt acting. I think to put this in perspective I will tell you some of my favourite films as I feel if you also like these you will like battleship: transformers, skyline, matrix, avatar, lethal weapon, die-hard, van damme films, terminator 2. (I couldn't list them all. :-) ) ignore the fact the enemy look like transformer. I think the makers have done well turning a very old, guesswork boardgame into a pretty decent movie.

Super 8 (2011)

not as good as you might expect

[6 August 2011]

this is a good film, but i feel it fell short of its promises. the poster has Spielberg's name as bold as j.j. Abram's, and the main cast are kids, to me this was going to be an updated E.T. but it is no where near as magical as Spielberg's masterpiece. I don't know what went wrong, j.j. seems to be a good director / writer, i really liked alias & lost but feel he ruined the ending of both these series by rushing them to do movies. his previous movies have been pretty good, star trek and cloverfield. and i think this film may have been better had it either chosen its past - either build on the relationship between Joe, his heartache and the alien. or go with the route of the army hunting the alien, both feel like half fleshed out intertwining stories with no proper conclusion. watch this, as it is good, but don't expect E.T. 2.

Gnomeo & Juliet (2011)

not suitable for younger children

[23 July 2011]

My 2.5 year old loves the toy story films. The theme of those films is generally friendship and some form of rescue, he can grasp that, the characters are easy to identify and all are bright coloured and also they have simple names.now where gnomeo fails is its theme is love - kids don't understand that (or most adults) the characters all look the same aside from the colour of the hat and then its a choice of blue or red.and their names....even I only grasped gnomeo, Juliet and tibalt. Little things like the end credits just been writing on some coloured banners, songs that my son wont remember, same with characters, quite a sad story to deal with and try to explain means this is one I'm happy to avoid. Film makers :if you are making movies aimed at children then rewatch the toy stories and keep things basic.fair enough older kids will get gnomeo and Juliet, but all ages get and enjoy toy story!

Skyline (2010)

was a decent film, not as bad as a lot of these reviews say

[6/10 · 18 November 2010]

Saw this last night, trailer looked really good, didn't bother looking any further into the film or who was in it. I was expecting more from this film, more survivors, more retalliation by the survivors etc, but then i realised that this is a good film if you look upon it is the material of independence day mixed with cloverfield, miked with war of worlds, instead of the governments response to an alien attach we see it from the perspective of the survivors, with ome tentacled aliens taking people in a dust cloud thrown in for good measure.

I didn't see an issue with cgi, aliens, ships and explosions looked very good. I didn't like the blonde girl or turk turkeltons characters much, very bland, 2 dimensional and no substance. (same for the assistant)

The ending seemed tacked on, it should have either ended with the fade to white, everyone has been taken and audience doenst know what happens. Or explore more within the ship and continue that part of the story for a little bit longer.

Decent film, made better that it was orange Wednesday (2for1 tickets)

Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2009)

very, very good!!

[8/10 · 1 January 2010]

I really enjoyed this film, it did not feel like a direct to DVD film, like the hard corps or 2nd in command, this had a decent story, and lots of action, but was not over the top, I would say this was an extremely good sequel to original uni-soldier film, and works excellently if you forget uni sol the return exists (sorry, it was pretty lame, and didn't fit Luc Devereuxs character from 1st film) this one goes back to basics and the crashing through walls and cameras over the uni sol eyes were a nice touch. Only issues I had were - (Spoilers) the story of Luc - what has happened to him, why is he in therapy??? does not explain what has happened in between films too well. Also the fight with the final boss, luc speared him too easy, and i thought killed him to easy. does not mean to say it ruins the film, just feels the final fight could have been done different, but it is more then made up for by the fight with Andrew Scott, which was excellent, and something the fans have wanted since uni sol 1, so well done to the makers, this and JCVD really have been excellent films, I just hope he keeps choosing the right ones to make.

The Final Destination (2009)

very poor attempt / just cashing in

[2/10 · 7 December 2009]

i am glad i never went to cinema for this, i watched it as a rental and that was bad enough. the characters were lame, no real development, i didn't care what happened to them, and after seeing the premonition with the really poor cgi / special effects, i didn't even care how they died as was going to surely been pathetic, unbelievable, and full of cgi. I was a massive fan of 1st film, it was believable, that stuff could happen, we cared for the characters and enjoyed the unfolding of the story as to what was after them, and how to stop it, this new film had nothing new and took a lot of steps backwards - they didn't really have a clue what was after them, or really why, they didn't try to find out answers (like the morgue man in the 1st film). like the previous post - so much more could be done with this film, we don't need to have all the stupid teens and boobs, make a decent film, get the team from 1st film (2nd and3rd were also rubbish). The ONLY good this in this was the skeletal breaking scenes, they looked good. I know the idea is to go bigger and better but they have sorely missed that in these sequels, each one trying to outdo the other in ways people die. Im from the UK so for a start am never going to a speedway race - nothing to fear there, - do the initial scenes in a cinema, then leaving the cinema etc, easy to create scares that way. audience will be on edge to.

Cloverfield (2008)

very very very good!!!

[9/10 · 3 February 2008]

The user before me wrote "don't waste your money" basically wrote the film is crap - I totally disagree, and it was his/hers review that prompted me to write mine.

the previous user said 'there was no steady cam and was shaky all over' - do these people actually have a brain? the film is completely filmed thru a camcorder hand-held, and from the point of view of the survivors from an attack - what were they supposed to go? travel to a film studio and rob a professional camera set up - I'm sorry i don't know the full terminology, but i have used a cam before, and if your running or moving fast (as you would from a explosion) its going to shake!!! anyway the film was excellent - better then i expected, i heard it was a monster film, i was worried we wouldn't actually see the monster or anything, as its from survivors point of view - they're not always going to be in best position to see stuff, well this film was very well thought out and executed, a little like a cross between the new war of worlds, and new Godzilla - taking the best bits and making one better movie. You have heard the hype for the film - you KNOW its filmed with a camcorder, go and enjoy it - If you saw avp2, or planning to see Rambo then you will not be wasting your money with this (but you will with the other 2!!)