Quantum Of Solace

I struggled as to how best review this movie.

On one hand it is a pretty decent action movie that opens with a car chase quite possibly designed to be used as some form of bizarre foreplay.

On the other hand it is now the third in a series of movies starring James Bond but not actually being a Bond movie, kind of like Never Say Never Again.

All my gripes about this latest Bond offering are best summed up in the cartoon below...



You can plainly see where the film makers have taken their inspiration from.

It also feels very much like a middle film, lacking anything remotely like a satisfying ending. The acting is good, the story is largely solid and it is a well put together movie.

Overall I'd say that you will enjoy most of Quantum of Solace, just don't expect to have your world rocked.

Rating: B

Max Payne

An insipid and poorly written action movie trading on the popularity of a video game franchise.

God I would love to see that quoted on the DVD sleeve.

I'll clear this up right away so everyone knows where we stand. Max Payne 2 is one of my top 5 best games ever. But I'm not here to review the games, I'll leave that to people with better taste in hats than I, I'm here to review the movie.

It opens well, a nice film noir sort of feel, and uses a couple of nice effects that really help to set the tone. Then it quickly abandons these in favour of randomly changing between rain and snow. I'm not kidding, watch for it, on one occasion in particular we swap from a miserable downpour to snow piled high in the space of about 5 minutes movie world time (about 4 seconds real time). The schizophrenic weather conditions are truly laughable, more so when you notice that there's never any slush, just puddles or pristine white snow depending on the producer's mood.

I won't touch on how the movie has butchered the story of the first game because then you could call me on the bias issue, instead I will judge the story on it's own merits. Max Payne suffers from the rare condition known as Mansion Scene Syndrome, whereby a movie tries to cram too much plot into too short a time (named for the Da Vinci Code) except in this case they've tried to fit an entire game into an hour and 40 minutes.

When I say that they tried to fit the game into 100 minutes, I mean a very distilled version of the game that quite frankly left the whole experience confusing and unfulfilling like a sandwich made of ejaculate between two slices of damp bread.

At no point can you understand any of the characters' motivations, Mona Sax seems largely unfazed by the murder of her sister which is probably a good thing as Mona is almost completely superfluous to the plot. Bravura becomes convinced Max is a good guy and not a cop killer because of... well, gut instinct or something. Payne you are told constantly is an emotional wreck with a death wish but determined to first bring his family's killers to justice, and you can't help but feel that this is the movie makers trying to cover for the fact that Mark Wahlberg is a bad actor.

Plus at times you will suspect that Chris 'Ludacris' Bridges was very much aware of the fact that they changed Bravura from a white guy to make sure that they had a black guy in a prominent supporting role. Why does Hollywood still feel the need to throw in a token black guy? There are plenty of good black actors out there making good movies, why change an existing character just so you can parade him around on screen going "Hey, we're ok, we got one, look."?

I'm not quite sure what the point was with Rothaford Gray's scene in the opening, except to say that Max is an emotional wreck with a death wish but determined to first bring his family's killers to justice. The characters are ALL FUCKING TWO DIMENSIONAL and you couldn't care for any of them, not even Max.

The plot stumbles forward drunkenly before tripping over it's own feet and falling flat on it's face just in time for the big gunfight finale. Speaking of which, for the series defined by Bullet Time the movie thankfully keeps it to a scant few (and well executed) scenes, sadly these are also the only real action scenes in the movie.

I should say that the whole scene when Max takes the Valkyr and starts tripping is AWESOME, it is really well done. The effects of the Valkyr are well portrayed but I can't help but wonder why anyone would take a drug that incapacitates you with mortal fear. Though why do all the 'V' slogans sprayed over the walls still show a syringe (other than trying to copy the game) when the movie makers decided that Valkyr should be a tasty beverage so that they could get a lower rating from the MPAA?

My final point, why the fuck would you try to get a low rating on a movie that is based on a gritty and gruesome series? The games aren't meant for children, so why would you try to make the movie so?

And the musical score is crap.

I really, really wanted Max Payne to be good. I wanted a gritty film noir that captured the essence of the game, what I got was watery dross and a desire to seek a refund.

Rating: D

Postal

An utterly pointless movie punctuated by some genuinely hilarious comedy. Forget the whole "tasteless" nametag that has been applied to this movie (largely by the creators), this has been added by the film makers to increase the movie's hype since it pokes fun at Arabs.

The whole 9/11 scene at the start was supposed to grab everyone's attention and think that this movie pushed the boundaries, it doesn't. The scene is designed solely to outrage an American public who are still reeling from one of their few moments of true homeland terrorism.

Most of the movie is entirely forgettable, even though a midget gets raped by a thousand monkeys and about 30 children get killed in a shoot-out at Germanyland (or whatever it was called).

I did appreciate when Uwe Boll poked fun at himself during the Germanyland scene, that was one of the genuinely hilarious scenes. Anyone remotely familiar with gaming and the internet knows that there are many theories about Uwe Boll, like how he must use Nazi gold to finance his movies because no one in their right mind would pay to make such flops, or how he must hate video games because he butchers the plots. In Postal he admits to using Nazi gold (and even pays a performer with gold teeth) and after getting shot in the balls admits that he hates video games, and for a couple of minutes, God help me, I actually liked Uwe Boll.

But that quickly passed because, as I said earlier, Postal is largely forgettable. I can feel the entire movie draining from my mind as I type this, I'm fairly certain that there was an angry cult as well as Arab terrorists.

You can pass a couple of hours watching Zack Ward try desperately to forward his career or you can go watch something decent.

Ugh, Erick Avari, you should have known better. I actually respected you.

Uwe, content. Content! Content! Content! People recognize that you can be a good writer, hell with a doctorate in literature you could be a great writer, but you keep going for cheap half baked shite and running with it because you want to get the film out. My only other advice is stop butchering video games, it's an experience that can't be recreated on the big screen, and if you alter the story you will only end up pissing off your fans (aka, your audience).

Rating: U (but a step in the right direction, it wasn't all horrible)

Iron Man

Superhero movies and I have something of a gentleman's agreement in place. They don't bother me and in turn I don't point out how they are nothing but a pathetic cash in on the popularity of an established franchise (with the obvious exception of the latest Batman movies).

Whether it be Bryan Singer deciding that Superman should lift islands of kryponite to save the world or Blade suddenly having to face off against Dracula, or the Fantastic Four having to face off against a giant cloud of death in an effort to disguise how shite the movie is. Superhero movies always seem to follow a pattern of "we need something really big to show how great these guys are". A superhero is only as great as his spectacle.

Fuck that shit.

Superheroes should be allowed to face the same problems as the rest of us. For example, Blade struggles to pay for the seemingly infinite amount of silver that he has available because of the credit crunch. Bruce Banner can't become the Incredible Hulk because he is depressed and has had to go on Prozac. Superman can't save the world because he is left looking after Bryan Singer's bastard child whilst Lois goes to knock out a living at the Daily Planet.

Then we come to Iron Man.

How do you rate a superhero when his alter ego, Tony Stark, is the kind of guy who relishes in the hero thing and openly admits to his identity. You can't apply the same laws of normality to such a character as normal for him is attracting the ire of every would-be Dr Doom out there.

I went into Iron Man (seen in the States before all you fuckers back home) with incredibly low expectations (you really have no idea, I watched the trailers for Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk one after the other and said, "Hmm, I see a strikingly unimaginative pattern here".).

I was drawn in as soon as I heard the first riff of "Back In Black" and it all got better from there. The dialogue is sharp, the humour is black as my Doc Martens, and the acting is flawless.

Robert Downey Jr (as I'm sure you've heard by now since I've left it to the DVD release to review this) is superbly suited to the arrogant, self-assured, egotistical Tony Stark. Gwyneth Paltrow is frankly divine as the sagacious Pepper Potts and Jeff Bridges makes an excellent ally turned villain (I hope I didn't spoil that obvious plot point for anyone).

Yeah, it may have been a plot point that you could see coming from roughly the same distance as you can see the sun in the morning but you do appreciate it because the story is fell executed. As I've said before, a well executed tale can even make the most cliched story seem good (watch 3:10 To Yuma if you don't believe me).

The effects are good and the soundtrack is top notch. Frankly if you don't enjoy Iron Man then you are strange and different. All your friends think that Iron Man is great.

Rating: A

Tropic Thunder

Lets get one thing out in the open right now, I don't like Ben Stiller. He's probably a real cool guy and so sweet that when he comes he shoots strawberry milkshake, but every time that I see him I just think that he is one smug bastard short of an Olympic event for smug bastards. I have yet to ever like a character that he has played and I really doubt that I ever will, so Tropic Thunder immediately lost points here.

Now, lets talk about my cinema experience for the evening. Got my ticket, got my coke and wee small tub of Pringles for people who accept that they are a fat bastard but don't want to do anything about it, got to the screen. I was the only one there.

FUCKING SCORE!

It could only have been better if the brunette usher girl gave me a lap dance during the end credits.

Things started off well with a spoof ad for Booty Sweat by the 'real' black man of the group Alpa Chino, followed by three spoof trailers that I have to admit were brilliant send ups of their respective genres.

So lets get into 'the shit' as they say in 'Nam.

The story is complete and utter balls. Really.

But that's ok because in reality this is a character driven movie and I have to admit that the characterizations were superb from start to finish.

Jack Black is fabulous as the funny man of the group who is very much aware of the source of his humour and covers his pain through liberal doses of angst and heroin. The show however is stolen by Robert Downey Jr, the blonde Australian who has had pigmentation surgery in order to play the black sergeant, and who takes his role just a little bit too seriously.

The effects are beautifully over the top, especially in the opening minutes where at one point the explosions filled so much of the screen that I actually felt my penis twitch.

The dialogue is witty and sharp, with one especially memorable occasion when Downey's 5 times Academy Award winning actor character is giving Stiller's washed up action hero actor character a few tips, like how he should never have went full retard in the fictional 'Simple Jack'.

Now whilst I said Robert Downey Jr steals the show, I have to tell you that the best character is the boss Les Grossman. I heard him speak and said 'he sounds like Tom Cruise', he smiled and I said 'he smiles like Tom Cruise'. Then during the end credits I saw that it was fucking Tom Cruise, didn't recognize him at all, and it was awesome. I laugh just thinking about the character because he is just the most phenomenal bastard on all levels.

Anyway, you've probably gathered by now my opinion on Tropic Thunder, so I'm going to go away now.

Rating: B

You Don't Mess With The Zohan

You Don't Mess With The Zohan (henceforth simply 'Zohan' or 'YDMWTZ) as I really couldn't be arsed writing that every time) has been getting mixed reviews, and I'm really trying not to be swayed one way or another. I like to think that I am honest in what I say to you and that if you were actually foolish enough to take my word for something then I would have to stand by it.

So here's my honest review of Zohan...

I loved it.

Most modern comedies seem to need a seen with either semen, vomit, or some other bodily excretion in order to provide you with humour and it is nice to see a comedy that shoots for the plain ludicrous.

Adam Sandler's movies can be very hit and miss but there has always been an undertone of genuine comedic genius to his work and it is nice to see a movie that largely lived up to his potential.

Zohan brings humour to a situation that has defied solution for centuries and really does try to lighten things up, and really, if people had a better sense of humour then most of the world wouldn't be in the trouble it is in. Yes, feel free to attack me for that seemingly flippant remark "Yes thousands are dying in ethnic cleansing but we should all just sit back and have a giggle". I don't mean it like that and you should be ashamed of yourself for not giving me more credit. What I meant was that if people had a better sense of humour and a bit more understanding then most of the silly tit for tat problems in the world would never escalate to anything larger.

Anyway, Zohan is a lighthearted comedy with big laughs (though if I'm being honest you could only ever watch it once or twice) that can perfectly pass a quiet evening.

Emmanuelle Chriqui (pronounced 'Shreeky') is amusing as Zohan's Palestinian employer who does not realize that Zohan is in fact Israel's top Mossad agent (and like any balanced individual does not care about the conflict and just wishes people could try to forgive and move on).

I don't want this review to sound like a political statement so I'll balance it all out by saying that if you are really the maladjusted niggler awaiting the slightest opportunity to be offended then you are really going to be offended when I tell you that you may as well spam my inbox with hate mail now or come to my house and wee through the letterbox you brain-dead fucking retard.

Zohan will amuse you, it's a comedy, it's not going to redefine the genre but it certainly won't bore you.

Rating: B

Get Smart

Every few years, mostly between Bond movies, some bright spark sitting in a Hollywood studio comes up with a really good idea for a movie. It will be a poignant tale with action, romance, just the right amount of tension and a story that will feel complete and maybe leaving you thinking about it long after you have left the cinema.

Then the script will get shit-canned because the studio can't afford to make it having blown the last of it's budget on this year's hey-guys-I'm-a-spy-lol Bond spoof.

Now it is the turn of comedian de-jour Steve Carell to take the reins, this time in a remake of 1965 spy comedy series 'Get Smart'. Yes, it's a remake of an old TV series, how's about that.

I could be hard on Get Smart... actually being honest, I can't.

You might say that I am going to give a favorable review solely because I have a thing for the delectable Anne Hathaway, but that is not the reason. That is not the only reason.

Get Smart is, brace yourselves, genuinely funny. The script is witty, the set pieces are superb, the plot is actually good (though the big plot twist you can see coming from roughly 22 minutes into the film), and the performances are well played.

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson once again delivers a brilliant performance (see everyone, I told you that he wouldn't be another Hulk Hogan) and at times had me in stitches, but without a doubt the man who ended up with all the best lines was Alan Arkin.

Now earlier I referred to 'this years Bond spoof', and that was being unfair on my part. Get Smart is not a spoof, it is a parody of Bond in much the same way that Galaxy Quest was a parody of Star Trek.

Max Smart is potentially the greatest secret agent within CONTROL but time and time again something goes wrong during the actual execution of his plans, and this is the source of our comedy on his part. In fairness to Carell he plays the role very well and you could see a genuine screen chemistry between himself and Anne Hathaway.

I can't avoid mentioning how great Anne Hathaway actually is in her role as the distrustful and slightly emotionally damaged Agent 99, who is very good at her job and can't stand to be sent out with the rookie Smart but begrudgingly gains a certain respect for the man and his tenacity.

And finally I will say that when Max Smart figures out how to overcome his adversary in the end I laughed so hard that I had to check afterward to make sure that a little pee hadn't leaked out.

Rating: B