Far better than AVP.
AVPR picks up immediately where AVP left off but then proceeds to apologise profusely for the continuity errors glorified by Paul Anderson (10 minute aliens anyone?).
One thing worth mentioning is that AVPR has the feel of a survival horror, the aliens are proper badass as opposed to being a threat to everything but the main protagonist.
The lone predator is a nice allusion to the Predator franchise, and like those Predators doesn't look like a brick shit house with a head but instead like a body with a brick shit house on top. The concept for this Predator appears to be something along the lines of an Elder or security operative cleaning up a hunt that has gone badly wrong.
There is some genuine tension in this movie and the film makers clearly weren't afraid to push the envelope when it came to showing just how genuinely horrible the aliens actually are, though they might only have been doing that to be gratuitous.
Overall I would have to say that I enjoyed AVPR, it has left some hope for the franchise.
Rating: C
Sunday, 3 February 2008
Cloverfield
Cloverfield seems to be getting a somewhat mixed reception, I believe that people having been making unfair parallels with The Blair Witch Project.
Overall I would have to say that I found Cloverfield to be a very immersive film, and was enjoyable to watch. There are a few genuinely tense moments and you really do want the protagonists to come through in one piece. I liked how the cameraman for most of the movie 'Hud' (a nice gamer allusion I thought) was accidentally recording over a home movie about the lead dude being so in love and now ultimately heartbroken.
I'm trying not to spoil anything because a movie of this nature really needs to be appreciated with a blank slate, just so that the illusion is maintained.
Particular note should be paid to the the end credit sequence, it works well with the tone of the movie.
Rating: B
Oh, not an alien.
Overall I would have to say that I found Cloverfield to be a very immersive film, and was enjoyable to watch. There are a few genuinely tense moments and you really do want the protagonists to come through in one piece. I liked how the cameraman for most of the movie 'Hud' (a nice gamer allusion I thought) was accidentally recording over a home movie about the lead dude being so in love and now ultimately heartbroken.
I'm trying not to spoil anything because a movie of this nature really needs to be appreciated with a blank slate, just so that the illusion is maintained.
Particular note should be paid to the the end credit sequence, it works well with the tone of the movie.
Rating: B
Oh, not an alien.
Thursday, 10 January 2008
I Am Legend
You wouldn't think that a movie involving crazed sub-human vampire cannibal monsters could be drab, but I Am Legend has managed to succeed against all odds at being just that. There is no problem with the acting, Will Smith has been around for long enough now to do it well, but the general pacing of the movie left me wanting more. And the ending was a cop-out. You can pass the tedium though by playing 'Spot the Product Placement', it doesn't quite surpass Transformers 2007 but bless it, it really does try.
Without spoiling things, there is a point about 70mins (give or take) into the film in which they really should have added an extra 20 minutes of despair just to really show how bad things had gotten for him, either that or cut about 20 minutes of pointless babbling from earlier in the movie and stick it into the part I am referring to.
I also thought that the cannibal vampires deserved more screen time, if only to elaborate on the developing culture of the Infected that was only hinted upon by the male mutant recognizing Will Smith's character as the fellow who had captured his mate. The whole point of 'I Am Legend' was supposed to be that in the end Robert Neville was the monster who was killing the 'Still Alive/Infected' while they slept during the day, he is a monster of legend to them as vampires were to man.
Rating: D
Without spoiling things, there is a point about 70mins (give or take) into the film in which they really should have added an extra 20 minutes of despair just to really show how bad things had gotten for him, either that or cut about 20 minutes of pointless babbling from earlier in the movie and stick it into the part I am referring to.
I also thought that the cannibal vampires deserved more screen time, if only to elaborate on the developing culture of the Infected that was only hinted upon by the male mutant recognizing Will Smith's character as the fellow who had captured his mate. The whole point of 'I Am Legend' was supposed to be that in the end Robert Neville was the monster who was killing the 'Still Alive/Infected' while they slept during the day, he is a monster of legend to them as vampires were to man.
Rating: D
Wednesday, 21 November 2007
Doom
When I first heard that they were making a Doom movie my first thought was "Oh great, I wonder how they're going to fuck this up." My second thought was "Its probably going to be about genetic engineering." My third thought was "I need to pee."
Shares a name with the video game, shares a few terms and weapons, shares characters. Is not DOOM.
Doom was about demons overrunning a scientific outpost on Mars (and later Earth), Doom the Movie decides to pander to the audience of the early 2000's and throw the actual plot of the game in the bin in order to make a story about genetic hybrids.
God, it's been done! And not very well I might add (admittedly 28 Days Later loosely involved gene splicing as the initial catalyst for the disaster that followed, and it was a good film).
However The Rock once again proves that he can in fact act (apart from one scene which was a total mess on all parts) and does manage to save a bit of face for the show, and the innovative first person sequence was enjoyable but I can see why they decided not to do it for the whole film.
There were some nice tongue in cheek references to the game heritage, such as the Pinky Demon and Sarge (The Rock) saying the actual real world meaning of the 'BFG' abbreviation.
The action isn't bad and the 'silvery blue eyes in the otherwise black sewer' scene is creepy as fuck, so as an action movie along the Predator lines Doom fares quite well, you just have to forget that it is supposed to be about Hell crossing over.
In this case it's more like Hell freezing over.
Rating: C
Shares a name with the video game, shares a few terms and weapons, shares characters. Is not DOOM.
Doom was about demons overrunning a scientific outpost on Mars (and later Earth), Doom the Movie decides to pander to the audience of the early 2000's and throw the actual plot of the game in the bin in order to make a story about genetic hybrids.
God, it's been done! And not very well I might add (admittedly 28 Days Later loosely involved gene splicing as the initial catalyst for the disaster that followed, and it was a good film).
However The Rock once again proves that he can in fact act (apart from one scene which was a total mess on all parts) and does manage to save a bit of face for the show, and the innovative first person sequence was enjoyable but I can see why they decided not to do it for the whole film.
There were some nice tongue in cheek references to the game heritage, such as the Pinky Demon and Sarge (The Rock) saying the actual real world meaning of the 'BFG' abbreviation.
The action isn't bad and the 'silvery blue eyes in the otherwise black sewer' scene is creepy as fuck, so as an action movie along the Predator lines Doom fares quite well, you just have to forget that it is supposed to be about Hell crossing over.
In this case it's more like Hell freezing over.
Rating: C
Cliffhanger
Cliched. I'm really not sure how much more I can say.
"You want to kill me, don't you Tucker. Well take a number and get in line."
The dialogue never gets any better. Some of the action isn't bad though, but there are better action movies out there.
Rating: E
"You want to kill me, don't you Tucker. Well take a number and get in line."
The dialogue never gets any better. Some of the action isn't bad though, but there are better action movies out there.
Rating: E
Kingdom of Heaven: The Directors Cut
Kingdom of Heaven was an alright film, on an average day I would give it 3/5. The Directors Cut on the other hand really ties the film together and goes into far greater depth about the actual final years of the short lived Kingdom of Jerusalem, the characters are explored in far greater detail and the hypocrisies and lunacies of religion are properly highlighted. As someone who is a great lover of Middle Eastern History (more so Byzantine, but apart from maybe Islam nobody cared more about that territory) Kingdom of Heaven: The Directors Cut is a very enjoyable cinematic experience. As an added bonus the movie also helps to remove some of the deific reputation that has grown up around the Knights Templar thanks to modern mythology and shows them to be much the same as any other knights- bloodthirsty bastards.
Rating: A
Rating: A
Monday, 19 November 2007
Interview With The Vampire
Perfectly cast and excellently played.
Tom Cruise excels as the charismatic (and slightly homoerotic) Lestat who by now has seen it all and done most of it, and a young Brad Pitt is on fine form as Louis who too late realizes the true meaning of the unlife that has been afforded him. Antonio Banderas is superb as the bored Armand and a 12 year old Kirsten Dunst gives a phenomenal performance.
Its not a deep film, you certainly should not be seeking the meaning of life or a morality tale highlighting the pitfalls of hedonism. I imagine that hedonism probably has more tits in it.
It is simply a gothic tale of the life of a vampire with excellent set pieces, fantastic delivery and full of intense dialogue. And personally speaking, I love how it ends, "You know, I've had to put up with that for centuries" (that isn't the last line, but to say anymore may spoil it).
Anyone who wants to complain that the movie isn't as good as the novel... go suck on a lollipop and stop whining like a child. The film adaptations are almost never ever better than the novel so stop trying to tell us what we already know. And don't ever say that this is a movie for girls because of the 'poster boys', it was thinking like that which stopped me from seeing 'Fight Club' in the cinema.
Rating: B
Tom Cruise excels as the charismatic (and slightly homoerotic) Lestat who by now has seen it all and done most of it, and a young Brad Pitt is on fine form as Louis who too late realizes the true meaning of the unlife that has been afforded him. Antonio Banderas is superb as the bored Armand and a 12 year old Kirsten Dunst gives a phenomenal performance.
Its not a deep film, you certainly should not be seeking the meaning of life or a morality tale highlighting the pitfalls of hedonism. I imagine that hedonism probably has more tits in it.
It is simply a gothic tale of the life of a vampire with excellent set pieces, fantastic delivery and full of intense dialogue. And personally speaking, I love how it ends, "You know, I've had to put up with that for centuries" (that isn't the last line, but to say anymore may spoil it).
Anyone who wants to complain that the movie isn't as good as the novel... go suck on a lollipop and stop whining like a child. The film adaptations are almost never ever better than the novel so stop trying to tell us what we already know. And don't ever say that this is a movie for girls because of the 'poster boys', it was thinking like that which stopped me from seeing 'Fight Club' in the cinema.
Rating: B
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