Then there's Apatow Productions disaster of biblical proportions, Year One, in which Harold Ramis destroys his rep and a talented cast mess up, it's this year's The Love Guru. Jack Black and Michael Cera do the same stuff they always do, same schtick, different day, they are in a village of cave people they go away, meet biblical characters, and then live and be heroes, why, because the film thinks it's funny.
This is a film where Michael Cera pisses into his own mouth, Jack Black eats ***, Kyle Gass plays a eunich, Hank Azaria only gets to say foreskin a lot, and the idiots behind me, see dumb demographic, loved it cos of the useage of the words penis and sh it as punchlines to the, ahem, 'jokes'.
Poorly handled film all round.
It's not funny in the least, the cast is awful, cringeworthy, I found myself avoiding eye contact with the screen, avoid avoid avoid avoid avoid.
Year 1/10
Friday, 26 June 2009
Blade: The Littlest Vampire
Alright, so I know it's an anime or something, but before the film began I knew nothing, except the CGI in the trailer was awful.
So there's this chick who is half human half vampire or something, and someone killed all she loved, so she wants to kill them, to get to the baddie she kills bottom of the barrel vampires for an American team, always in Japan. She goes to an airbase run by the US where some killings have happened, meets an American girl, defends her as two other vampire girls try to kill her, then Colin Salmon turns into some stop motion looking CGI vampire beast and takes the American girl, Saya our hero kills him easily, and then they find the baddie, and big fight with 'shocking' revelation.
Whilst missing the pre-finale monologue due to a cinema problem might seem bad, honestly, I know we missed nothing what so ever, the fight came on, you knew why they fought, because every film needs a climax, and who would win, every film needs an ending, and the idea of killing the hero doesn't work since you never care for the character, and as such the expositional sequences are dull and tedious.
The action is mishandled, jumping between jump scares and hand held cameras, the wire hack and slash nature feels very odd, American meets Asian cinema, and none of them winning, add to that the ridiculous CGI blood, which there is a lot, sphericaly perfect, but distractingly badly handled, and takes a lot away from the violence of the film, what could have been a graphic and shocking film is a stupid and light hearted action film with limited amounts of anything, and not in the Punisher War Zone way.
It feels like if Blade was set in 1970, and lets face it, if you see this film there's only a few reasons, you like the anime, you like the 18 rating with Blood in the film's title, or you have a thing for asian school girls, and who doesn't, but in the end you're left wanting a lot, and it has a feeling of Miho the Movie, without and of the quality of Sin City.
6/10
So there's this chick who is half human half vampire or something, and someone killed all she loved, so she wants to kill them, to get to the baddie she kills bottom of the barrel vampires for an American team, always in Japan. She goes to an airbase run by the US where some killings have happened, meets an American girl, defends her as two other vampire girls try to kill her, then Colin Salmon turns into some stop motion looking CGI vampire beast and takes the American girl, Saya our hero kills him easily, and then they find the baddie, and big fight with 'shocking' revelation.
Whilst missing the pre-finale monologue due to a cinema problem might seem bad, honestly, I know we missed nothing what so ever, the fight came on, you knew why they fought, because every film needs a climax, and who would win, every film needs an ending, and the idea of killing the hero doesn't work since you never care for the character, and as such the expositional sequences are dull and tedious.
The action is mishandled, jumping between jump scares and hand held cameras, the wire hack and slash nature feels very odd, American meets Asian cinema, and none of them winning, add to that the ridiculous CGI blood, which there is a lot, sphericaly perfect, but distractingly badly handled, and takes a lot away from the violence of the film, what could have been a graphic and shocking film is a stupid and light hearted action film with limited amounts of anything, and not in the Punisher War Zone way.
It feels like if Blade was set in 1970, and lets face it, if you see this film there's only a few reasons, you like the anime, you like the 18 rating with Blood in the film's title, or you have a thing for asian school girls, and who doesn't, but in the end you're left wanting a lot, and it has a feeling of Miho the Movie, without and of the quality of Sin City.
6/10
Friday, 19 June 2009
Autobots! Transform and Sell Out!
So, this is the IMAX-ed edition of Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen here, not the normal one, full IMAX-ed scenes.
And how does it fare?
Well, to be honest the first 45 minutes are great, some nice humour, solid action, bringing back characters and introducing new ones well, in the vein of the original, Shia talk-joke moments are still there, though few and far between, gone completely by the end of the first hour, Megan is purely sexualised once more, more-so than the last one too, Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson are just military people this time, they have no character or point except that they were part of the events of the first one.
It all opens with action in Shanghai, military and autobots running around looking for decepticons, cue big bad one from the trailer, the one that smashes his hands don on the ground for an explosion and smashes through a motorway. In fact a majority of the first trailer is from the opening sequence, which I thought was a good idea when watching the sequence, not knowing as much about what is coming.
Of course this turned out to be another bad omen.
So Shia is off to college, he can't say he loves Mikaela because they need something near the end to get them back in each others' arms, and his parents are off to Paris for no reason, they get about 4 scenes before being scooped up by a Decepticon at about one hour 10 mins in, thrown back half an hour before the end for no reason. Cue terrible music for the college sequences, a roommate who is obsessed with alien robots and conspiracy theories, annoying as he is at the start he is dragged into the rest of the film, why? Because evidentially the writers wanted a new funny character on top of Tom Kenny's sweary min-decepticon hostage and the twin Smart car hispanics, gold teeth, odd eyes, always fighting, they can't read, great work Hollywood!
All the robots get nothing to do, The Fallen is nothing except some bad CGI moaning until the end, when he starts fighting in blurry shaky-cam classic style and is easily beaten. Megatron is found and re-energised just to beat up Starscream, thank goodness, and do nothing, Optimus doesn't even do anything plot-wise, except fight some baddie robots off (All baddies of course black, hardly subversive still) and then, now, how should I say this without any spoilers, go to a farm for a bit, then brought back to beat the bad guys with the ease no other autobot had, yet they can all be killed instantaneously.
Well, the whole final epic battle is a problem on itself to get to later.
So, the plot, Sam finds a shred of the cube in his jacket, how convenient, and touches it, causing him to get shapes in his head he has to write down. An hour and a half later he finds out what they are, and as always, a robot projects the scene and tells us the plot. Some stuff about a vixen in college wanting Sam, lasts about 20 minutes, happening upon John Turturro in the Kevin Smith Die Hard 4.0 role this time, with more action, a ball joke and the poor guy strips off to a jockstrap, in IMAX close up, erm, not exactly great, nor of course funny in any way.
Jon Voight is no where to be seen this time, a mention of Obama suggests that it's supposed to be set 2 years later and Voight was with Bush, who must have liked Ding Dongs and red socks then.
The voices are great, Hugo, Peter, Frank, Tom, all top jobs, of course a lot don't get much time and are skipped over, which is a dire shame, but it's not like the first where they were ignored for human characters, they were ignored for random action or shots of sand.
In IMAX the forrest fight, sand eater and subsequent pyramid fight were in full screen, though the final battle has three segments so only a third if that is up there, but the change in aspects, like TDK last year, isn't too horrendous. However unfortunately the CGI plays up even more at such a big screen. The first one, though limited in shots, looked amazing, and it's the attention to detail from the first one's small shots that is missed here, overblown so much that the CGI is disappointingly and annoyingly bad, Golden Compass bad, so it'll win the Oscar.
The acting from the humans is minimal to bad, nothing major here, they're only there to service a contract and to make money, there's no real reason any humans are in it with the lack of plot and function for 2 hours 30 of the film, add to that the lack of a conclusion, after the big battle the Linkin Park music starts up again and Optimus speaks out, no time to give much of a finish, in the same way that the whole film forgets to humanise the humans and autobots, they're all bloody robotic.
Now, the final battle. So much is just wrong here. For starters the CGI overload is poorly done and looks awful, the whole point of the final battle seems to be a mid-movie sequence with a final conclusion action segment added on to finish the film, the action is shot so poorly you can't make heads nor tales of the robots, again, and by this time you're so uninvested in the characters you kinda hope The Fallen does destroy the Sun and watch Shia and Megan's smug grins burn off their disintegrating faces.
Thankfully among all the turgid awfulness of the movie, the score is once again fantastic, hummable and far outweighs the boring-ness of the sub-par action on screen.
I mean, there's Baytarded, a kind of dumb-ness level for films that still retain the upbeat fun of the piece with explosions, and then there's retarded, where they forget the audience and just make things explode, and as much as I like explosions, there are too many in comparison to the character development the first one had for the most part. Add to that the complete dark nature the film's tone turns for the run time to make it seem slightly dangerous, eliminating the humour that made the characters so fun to watch in the first one, and from that brilliant epitome of a summer film you get a polished turd with little of interest after a solid 45 minute opening.
5/10 For those first 45 minutes alone.
And how does it fare?
Well, to be honest the first 45 minutes are great, some nice humour, solid action, bringing back characters and introducing new ones well, in the vein of the original, Shia talk-joke moments are still there, though few and far between, gone completely by the end of the first hour, Megan is purely sexualised once more, more-so than the last one too, Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson are just military people this time, they have no character or point except that they were part of the events of the first one.
It all opens with action in Shanghai, military and autobots running around looking for decepticons, cue big bad one from the trailer, the one that smashes his hands don on the ground for an explosion and smashes through a motorway. In fact a majority of the first trailer is from the opening sequence, which I thought was a good idea when watching the sequence, not knowing as much about what is coming.
Of course this turned out to be another bad omen.
So Shia is off to college, he can't say he loves Mikaela because they need something near the end to get them back in each others' arms, and his parents are off to Paris for no reason, they get about 4 scenes before being scooped up by a Decepticon at about one hour 10 mins in, thrown back half an hour before the end for no reason. Cue terrible music for the college sequences, a roommate who is obsessed with alien robots and conspiracy theories, annoying as he is at the start he is dragged into the rest of the film, why? Because evidentially the writers wanted a new funny character on top of Tom Kenny's sweary min-decepticon hostage and the twin Smart car hispanics, gold teeth, odd eyes, always fighting, they can't read, great work Hollywood!
All the robots get nothing to do, The Fallen is nothing except some bad CGI moaning until the end, when he starts fighting in blurry shaky-cam classic style and is easily beaten. Megatron is found and re-energised just to beat up Starscream, thank goodness, and do nothing, Optimus doesn't even do anything plot-wise, except fight some baddie robots off (All baddies of course black, hardly subversive still) and then, now, how should I say this without any spoilers, go to a farm for a bit, then brought back to beat the bad guys with the ease no other autobot had, yet they can all be killed instantaneously.
Well, the whole final epic battle is a problem on itself to get to later.
So, the plot, Sam finds a shred of the cube in his jacket, how convenient, and touches it, causing him to get shapes in his head he has to write down. An hour and a half later he finds out what they are, and as always, a robot projects the scene and tells us the plot. Some stuff about a vixen in college wanting Sam, lasts about 20 minutes, happening upon John Turturro in the Kevin Smith Die Hard 4.0 role this time, with more action, a ball joke and the poor guy strips off to a jockstrap, in IMAX close up, erm, not exactly great, nor of course funny in any way.
Jon Voight is no where to be seen this time, a mention of Obama suggests that it's supposed to be set 2 years later and Voight was with Bush, who must have liked Ding Dongs and red socks then.
The voices are great, Hugo, Peter, Frank, Tom, all top jobs, of course a lot don't get much time and are skipped over, which is a dire shame, but it's not like the first where they were ignored for human characters, they were ignored for random action or shots of sand.
In IMAX the forrest fight, sand eater and subsequent pyramid fight were in full screen, though the final battle has three segments so only a third if that is up there, but the change in aspects, like TDK last year, isn't too horrendous. However unfortunately the CGI plays up even more at such a big screen. The first one, though limited in shots, looked amazing, and it's the attention to detail from the first one's small shots that is missed here, overblown so much that the CGI is disappointingly and annoyingly bad, Golden Compass bad, so it'll win the Oscar.
The acting from the humans is minimal to bad, nothing major here, they're only there to service a contract and to make money, there's no real reason any humans are in it with the lack of plot and function for 2 hours 30 of the film, add to that the lack of a conclusion, after the big battle the Linkin Park music starts up again and Optimus speaks out, no time to give much of a finish, in the same way that the whole film forgets to humanise the humans and autobots, they're all bloody robotic.
Now, the final battle. So much is just wrong here. For starters the CGI overload is poorly done and looks awful, the whole point of the final battle seems to be a mid-movie sequence with a final conclusion action segment added on to finish the film, the action is shot so poorly you can't make heads nor tales of the robots, again, and by this time you're so uninvested in the characters you kinda hope The Fallen does destroy the Sun and watch Shia and Megan's smug grins burn off their disintegrating faces.
Thankfully among all the turgid awfulness of the movie, the score is once again fantastic, hummable and far outweighs the boring-ness of the sub-par action on screen.
I mean, there's Baytarded, a kind of dumb-ness level for films that still retain the upbeat fun of the piece with explosions, and then there's retarded, where they forget the audience and just make things explode, and as much as I like explosions, there are too many in comparison to the character development the first one had for the most part. Add to that the complete dark nature the film's tone turns for the run time to make it seem slightly dangerous, eliminating the humour that made the characters so fun to watch in the first one, and from that brilliant epitome of a summer film you get a polished turd with little of interest after a solid 45 minute opening.
5/10 For those first 45 minutes alone.
Friday, 12 June 2009
Chi Bi I Hardly Knew Yee.
Well, after a few years following this film about a battle in history that was by and large eventful to say the least, and knowing of a 4 hour 2-parter freely available region free HD from China, John Woo's triumphant return to Chinese cinema comes in the form of Chi bi, Red Cliff.
As a fan of the Dynasty Warriors series of games I read more and more about the battle, the key components, the events that led up to it, it's major participants, and always found it fascinating, and finally a feature length form of the drama that heeded the battle and what happened to sway large numbers into disarray. I know, Dynasty Warriors, hardly accurate, and you're right, but it introduced me to these events more than anything else.
Basic plot line, three kingdoms in China, all under the banner of the Han Dynasty, however the Emperor is being puppeted by the prime minister Cao Cao, who is a heavy warmonger, think the general in any film where the army comes in to sort it all out. Liu Bei leads a small amount of men, trying to protect the innocent from the hard hands of Cao Cao's men, and after being rushed out of towns around the country, they form an alliance with the Sun clan, and it's leader Sun Quan. Cao Cao prepares his armies on land and sea, not very normal with the boats, the army's moral is lowered from seasickness and a typhoid epidemic. Focussing on the Red Cliff to take the Southlands of China, the two armies build up and begin to make stratergies. Cao Cao claiming to have 800,000 men, the allies with only 40,000, outnumbered and outgunned, they fight to win for the good guys.
Basic outline of the plot before the film kicks in.
So the film introduces us to the world with an American voice over, completely out of place when text would have sufficed, then begins to lead us in with characters appearing with titles of their names, ranks and jobs. For the most part you're checking out the striking visuals, the wonderful cinematography, the amazing editing, subtly intense at times,t he amazing action sequences, to really notice the characters, heck, one scene has two people discussing the battle overlooking the kingdom without a single close-up, all from far away.
And maybe that's why the film isn't as perfect as we'd have hoped, yes it's an amazing, viceral film, but the characters leave a lot to be desired, you like the good guys for sure, but you never really care about them, mortal danger or not, we don't get attached, there's no time, maybe in the extra 1 hour 30 from parts 1 and 2 we'd have got more out of them, but apart from that this film is fine and dandy.
Amazingly epic in numbers and action, a sequence involving an ambush in tortoise formations is simply magnificent and the whole big battle is truly remarkable, some of the best stuff I've witnessed put to film, and whilst the CGI is a little too plasticky for the wooden ships and fleshy people they're supposed to look like, for the most part it's forgivable with the style, the feel and the pacing of the film, yes it's 2 hours 30, but it plays like 1 hour 45. There's little to fault, the mix of epic battles, martial arts fighting and simple dialogue that's subtle enough but not too cliched as well, it's nice to sit down and not be spoon fed another wushu gravity defining but plot missing drama, this has so much more, the simple attributes of seeing from both sides, obviously the film is pro-one side, but there's enough time devoted to both to make the battles and the small moments before the battle engaging, and surprisingly enough some moments funny, very funny.
Whilst I've not seen many John Woo films, this is the best of the small amount I've seen, it's fast, brutal and interesting without tipping over into melodrama or all out action, the human focus though lacking, near the end with all the bodies strewn makes it forgivable.
A near masterpiece you'd be stupid to miss.
9/10
As a fan of the Dynasty Warriors series of games I read more and more about the battle, the key components, the events that led up to it, it's major participants, and always found it fascinating, and finally a feature length form of the drama that heeded the battle and what happened to sway large numbers into disarray. I know, Dynasty Warriors, hardly accurate, and you're right, but it introduced me to these events more than anything else.
Basic plot line, three kingdoms in China, all under the banner of the Han Dynasty, however the Emperor is being puppeted by the prime minister Cao Cao, who is a heavy warmonger, think the general in any film where the army comes in to sort it all out. Liu Bei leads a small amount of men, trying to protect the innocent from the hard hands of Cao Cao's men, and after being rushed out of towns around the country, they form an alliance with the Sun clan, and it's leader Sun Quan. Cao Cao prepares his armies on land and sea, not very normal with the boats, the army's moral is lowered from seasickness and a typhoid epidemic. Focussing on the Red Cliff to take the Southlands of China, the two armies build up and begin to make stratergies. Cao Cao claiming to have 800,000 men, the allies with only 40,000, outnumbered and outgunned, they fight to win for the good guys.
Basic outline of the plot before the film kicks in.
So the film introduces us to the world with an American voice over, completely out of place when text would have sufficed, then begins to lead us in with characters appearing with titles of their names, ranks and jobs. For the most part you're checking out the striking visuals, the wonderful cinematography, the amazing editing, subtly intense at times,t he amazing action sequences, to really notice the characters, heck, one scene has two people discussing the battle overlooking the kingdom without a single close-up, all from far away.
And maybe that's why the film isn't as perfect as we'd have hoped, yes it's an amazing, viceral film, but the characters leave a lot to be desired, you like the good guys for sure, but you never really care about them, mortal danger or not, we don't get attached, there's no time, maybe in the extra 1 hour 30 from parts 1 and 2 we'd have got more out of them, but apart from that this film is fine and dandy.
Amazingly epic in numbers and action, a sequence involving an ambush in tortoise formations is simply magnificent and the whole big battle is truly remarkable, some of the best stuff I've witnessed put to film, and whilst the CGI is a little too plasticky for the wooden ships and fleshy people they're supposed to look like, for the most part it's forgivable with the style, the feel and the pacing of the film, yes it's 2 hours 30, but it plays like 1 hour 45. There's little to fault, the mix of epic battles, martial arts fighting and simple dialogue that's subtle enough but not too cliched as well, it's nice to sit down and not be spoon fed another wushu gravity defining but plot missing drama, this has so much more, the simple attributes of seeing from both sides, obviously the film is pro-one side, but there's enough time devoted to both to make the battles and the small moments before the battle engaging, and surprisingly enough some moments funny, very funny.
Whilst I've not seen many John Woo films, this is the best of the small amount I've seen, it's fast, brutal and interesting without tipping over into melodrama or all out action, the human focus though lacking, near the end with all the bodies strewn makes it forgivable.
A near masterpiece you'd be stupid to miss.
9/10
Tuesday, 9 June 2009
Another Night, Another Fight
Then whilst the wait continued I swallowed my pride and sat in a screening of Night at the Museum 2 for two odd hours, hating the first one with a passion, I was surprised when I chuckled consistently for a long time of the film, and enjoyed some nice moments. It's a good film, for the most part. Some humour is poor, and the singing angel things were odd, I was thinking WTF are these things, and why do they have such a lot of screen time, but alas, the writers are still the same, thankfully Stiller is better, more on target as a successful businessman trying to help his friends, not just a night guard this time, and Hank Azaria's villain is brilliant, as is his two voice parts, The Thinker and Abraham Lincoln.
The cast is fantastic, and deserves a thorough run through, including cameos.
Amy Adams - Always great even in bad films, here innocent and fun, and full of vinegar, very much a 20's kind of gal, and great fun.
Owen Wilson - Not much in the way of comedy, but he's acceptable.
Robin Williams - 3 scenes the poor guy gets, and by the final scene I wished he was in it more.
Christopher Guest - Doesn't have much to do, but the man is a legend.
Steve Coogan - Funny, besides some bad CGI and unnecessary kiddy style gags, a 300 Spoof is spot on.
Ricky Gervais - 2 Scenes, but alright, nothing spectacular in the way of comedy.
Bill Hader - Nothing exceptionally funny, but the man is awesome anyway.
Jay Baruchel - Awesome actor, small part, good Tropic Thunder reference.
Mindy Kaling - Small part, funny, awesome gal.
Clint Howard - Referencing his part in Apollo 13, nice gag.
George Foreman - No need for the cameo at the start, but it's funny enough.
Eugene Levy - Hysterical man, but suffers from being stupid Einstein bobble heads, not very funny, and they say "Pi, well, 3.14159 265 to be exact" Which is wrong, to be exact would be a good couple dozen places more wouldn't it, and that's not good education for the kids.
Craig Robinson and Keith Powell (30 Rock's Twofer) - Not much, but nice little role as African American pilots helping Stiller and Adams.
Ed Helms - Andy from The Office, small role, nothing funny, but nice cameo.
Jonah Hill - Too blue for kids, as the Superbad commentary proved, he has a nice moment with Stiller, but nothing much.
There area few heavy issues with the film however, Owen Wilson's character is put into a sand timer and Azaria says Stiller has an hour before he is killed, but it's established in the first one they aren't human, they are living versions of the material, so Owen doesn't need to breath now does he.
Also near the end Amelia flies Stiller and co to New York with the tablet, so the Smithsonian won't be moving, even though a Squid was put in the water and told to go back later, after they left, and Amelia flies off perfectly after the tablet is taken into the Museum... Ummm, how?
Still, despite some awful CGI, bad gags, and a need for Fred Armisen to be Napoleon instead, he'd be far superior, plus some issues with continuity and plotholes, and the Pi thing being odd for Einstein to fail at exacting, it's a superior sequel, funny for the most part, interesting and actually has a villain.
8/10
The cast is fantastic, and deserves a thorough run through, including cameos.
Amy Adams - Always great even in bad films, here innocent and fun, and full of vinegar, very much a 20's kind of gal, and great fun.
Owen Wilson - Not much in the way of comedy, but he's acceptable.
Robin Williams - 3 scenes the poor guy gets, and by the final scene I wished he was in it more.
Christopher Guest - Doesn't have much to do, but the man is a legend.
Steve Coogan - Funny, besides some bad CGI and unnecessary kiddy style gags, a 300 Spoof is spot on.
Ricky Gervais - 2 Scenes, but alright, nothing spectacular in the way of comedy.
Bill Hader - Nothing exceptionally funny, but the man is awesome anyway.
Jay Baruchel - Awesome actor, small part, good Tropic Thunder reference.
Mindy Kaling - Small part, funny, awesome gal.
Clint Howard - Referencing his part in Apollo 13, nice gag.
George Foreman - No need for the cameo at the start, but it's funny enough.
Eugene Levy - Hysterical man, but suffers from being stupid Einstein bobble heads, not very funny, and they say "Pi, well, 3.14159 265 to be exact" Which is wrong, to be exact would be a good couple dozen places more wouldn't it, and that's not good education for the kids.
Craig Robinson and Keith Powell (30 Rock's Twofer) - Not much, but nice little role as African American pilots helping Stiller and Adams.
Ed Helms - Andy from The Office, small role, nothing funny, but nice cameo.
Jonah Hill - Too blue for kids, as the Superbad commentary proved, he has a nice moment with Stiller, but nothing much.
There area few heavy issues with the film however, Owen Wilson's character is put into a sand timer and Azaria says Stiller has an hour before he is killed, but it's established in the first one they aren't human, they are living versions of the material, so Owen doesn't need to breath now does he.
Also near the end Amelia flies Stiller and co to New York with the tablet, so the Smithsonian won't be moving, even though a Squid was put in the water and told to go back later, after they left, and Amelia flies off perfectly after the tablet is taken into the Museum... Ummm, how?
Still, despite some awful CGI, bad gags, and a need for Fred Armisen to be Napoleon instead, he'd be far superior, plus some issues with continuity and plotholes, and the Pi thing being odd for Einstein to fail at exacting, it's a superior sequel, funny for the most part, interesting and actually has a villain.
8/10
Last Chance and Missed.
Now, I didn't have a clue what the film was about but Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson is a great sell, Thompson is always golden, see I Am Legend, awful film, good intro. So here Hoffman is going to London from New York to his daughter's wedding, and he has one last chance to keep his job making jingles if he misses the reception, decisions decisions, of course when he is bumped from giving his daughter away in place of her step-dad, he runs off, but misses the flight due to traffic, and hangs out with Emma Thompson, an aging woman with nothing in her life except than annoying mother she loves.
Cue lots of walks and talks around London in a Before Sunrise kind of golden age style, talking about nothing and moaning about life, crying, being dramatic, gentle whimsy for the elders to enjoy, screening was packed with hundreds of 65+'s and none of them stopped talking during the film, no manners old people these days.
There's nothing here sadly, the plot is limited and cliched, the predictability is horribly extreme, the acting is almost completely awful except the two leads, and nothing is really good about the film, that said it's well made and looks good, especially for a clearly guerilla-shot series of scenes of walks and talks down the South Bank, even though the extras walk by more times than continuity allows and the leads are evidentially slow at walking, though getting to places in time is fine and dandy.
5/10
Cue lots of walks and talks around London in a Before Sunrise kind of golden age style, talking about nothing and moaning about life, crying, being dramatic, gentle whimsy for the elders to enjoy, screening was packed with hundreds of 65+'s and none of them stopped talking during the film, no manners old people these days.
There's nothing here sadly, the plot is limited and cliched, the predictability is horribly extreme, the acting is almost completely awful except the two leads, and nothing is really good about the film, that said it's well made and looks good, especially for a clearly guerilla-shot series of scenes of walks and talks down the South Bank, even though the extras walk by more times than continuity allows and the leads are evidentially slow at walking, though getting to places in time is fine and dandy.
5/10
Wednesday, 3 June 2009
Do you want me to fucking trash your film? Do you want me to fucking trash it!?
Alright, as always I went to see a film on my Neddy No No list, or as is relevant with this film my "No. NO! Don't Shut Me Up" List (Films that look awful over summer)
Obviously there are the films I will never see, Harry Potter, Ice Age, that malarky, but sometimes there are films that get good reviews and you kinda wanna see them even if they suck, Wolverine, Star Trek, and this one, Terminator Salvation.
So, lets begin with one thing, twice in the credits the name McG came up, both times I scoffed. I mean "A Film By McG"? Really? McGinty is bad enough, but McG? I mean, the writers did Catwoman with Pitof, did they think working with directors whose DGA card has more than 6 letters would be bad for their career? McG was alright with the Charlie's Angels flicks cos they were big dumb balls of fun, but this is Terminator, there's no time for humour, as the film is incredibly serious to the point of being annoyingly dull, so seeing his name there, well, it just doesn't make much sense.
The intro with Sam Worthington struggling to hide his Aussie accent with a gruff American one sets the scene for the struggle of dialect he faces over the film, and thanks to the trailers the shocking revelation that he was programmed to have trouble with the accents as a Terminator are ruined. In the opening scene Helena Bonham Carter's cancer-ridden doctor please for Marcus to give her his body after he is killed, the subtle dialogue reveals he is on death row for killing his brother and others because he informs her he did that incase she didn't already know, thank you.
He asks for a kiss in exchange for giving her his body, and claims it tastes of death, there's no effing point to this stuff whatsoever and do set the scene for some WTF at what point did Christian Bale say "Yeah this is a fucking good script, not unprofessional, I'm a nice fucking guy", and was it the re-writes where John Conner was added more, for no reason whatsoever really, that added this gunk too?
John Conner's character for the most part looks and speaks in a gruff Batman/Gran Torino style, and the action consists of one sequence near the start, then riding a motorbike Terminator, then a fight with Arnie and other robots. That's it, it's not about him, though he gets a lot of camera time for that.
It is after all about Marcus Wright, a way to get Sam Worthington famous before Avatar makes the scene in the winter, and his journey as a decent man given a second chance, and going against the pre-conceptions of robots, get it, the humans hate them but he's a nice one, Good Samaritan much?
So he helps people, including pilot Blair, played by Ewar Woowar wannabe Moon Bloodgood, mnbldgd?
He goes around battling things, being all good guy hero, then has the whole what am I, then has the whole, I'm not a robot, I'm a human being, incredibly predictable, but that's how these writers work.
Add to that this subplot of Conner and the Resistance finding a frequency that controls Skynet and using it for their advantage, 3 scenes, never anything more than one jet is used on, Kyle Reese played by Anton Yelchin, part of the Summer of Anton alongside his Chekov in Star Trek, who just does solid work as always in a thankless role with very little to do except exposition and running around. Bryce Dallas Howard is stuck being a pregnant doctor kissing Bale every so often and doing sod all else, and that's exactly what all the other actors do, they say some lines, stand in the background and aren't used again. Hell, Blair, after some action in the middle, is completely ignored.
The film has an odd feeling, the three act structure is clean and clear, but by the end it feels incomplete, yes it's aiming on another trilogy, two in one year for Yelchin, good work sir, but it'd have been nice to do some tidying up at the very least, not just exploding a San Fransisco factory as it's climax, maybe tie up the fighter piloting with the frequency, blare it out from up high to shut down terminators to allow the Resistance collect humans picked up by a harvester robot, not used much and given up on like all other parts of this film, for a Bale-Worthington third act.
Some of the action is cracking, and although there is never any sense that anyone will die at all in any way, the CGI and some concepts in the chases and the like are nice, of course come the up close Terminator/human fighting it's dull and feels like Transformers or Iron Man, nothing new like the whole film.
Editing is well done for the most part, some sped up moments look out of place in a comic fashion, the look of the film is saturated, and the twilight sequences feel very green-screeny, the lighting isn't noticeable, he clearly didn't trash any lights, and well, the sound, this is a separate paragraph.
Danny Elfman's score trudges along, he has to stick with pre-concieved themes, and uses some loud screechy instruments, but it's not much, he doesn't have any classic Elfman moments, and it just doesn't sound distinguishable or hummable like Transformers or Star Wars or his own Wanted last year, which was a nice score.
The sound design though, wow, lots of nasty metal scraping and gunshots, and whilst it starts off relatively quiet for an action film by the end it becomes ear-bleeding loud in a good way, in a 7.1 Blu-Ray pausing and rewinding to hear specific moments this soundtrack will be amazing.
It's just a shame that the acting is dull, the plot is flying around without giving much closure, the action whilst good isn't new and the pacing can be amazingly overlong at some points.
Though for a film I couldn't give a flying funk about it's done a good job to make me enjoy it.
7/10
Obviously there are the films I will never see, Harry Potter, Ice Age, that malarky, but sometimes there are films that get good reviews and you kinda wanna see them even if they suck, Wolverine, Star Trek, and this one, Terminator Salvation.
So, lets begin with one thing, twice in the credits the name McG came up, both times I scoffed. I mean "A Film By McG"? Really? McGinty is bad enough, but McG? I mean, the writers did Catwoman with Pitof, did they think working with directors whose DGA card has more than 6 letters would be bad for their career? McG was alright with the Charlie's Angels flicks cos they were big dumb balls of fun, but this is Terminator, there's no time for humour, as the film is incredibly serious to the point of being annoyingly dull, so seeing his name there, well, it just doesn't make much sense.
The intro with Sam Worthington struggling to hide his Aussie accent with a gruff American one sets the scene for the struggle of dialect he faces over the film, and thanks to the trailers the shocking revelation that he was programmed to have trouble with the accents as a Terminator are ruined. In the opening scene Helena Bonham Carter's cancer-ridden doctor please for Marcus to give her his body after he is killed, the subtle dialogue reveals he is on death row for killing his brother and others because he informs her he did that incase she didn't already know, thank you.
He asks for a kiss in exchange for giving her his body, and claims it tastes of death, there's no effing point to this stuff whatsoever and do set the scene for some WTF at what point did Christian Bale say "Yeah this is a fucking good script, not unprofessional, I'm a nice fucking guy", and was it the re-writes where John Conner was added more, for no reason whatsoever really, that added this gunk too?
John Conner's character for the most part looks and speaks in a gruff Batman/Gran Torino style, and the action consists of one sequence near the start, then riding a motorbike Terminator, then a fight with Arnie and other robots. That's it, it's not about him, though he gets a lot of camera time for that.
It is after all about Marcus Wright, a way to get Sam Worthington famous before Avatar makes the scene in the winter, and his journey as a decent man given a second chance, and going against the pre-conceptions of robots, get it, the humans hate them but he's a nice one, Good Samaritan much?
So he helps people, including pilot Blair, played by Ewar Woowar wannabe Moon Bloodgood, mnbldgd?
He goes around battling things, being all good guy hero, then has the whole what am I, then has the whole, I'm not a robot, I'm a human being, incredibly predictable, but that's how these writers work.
Add to that this subplot of Conner and the Resistance finding a frequency that controls Skynet and using it for their advantage, 3 scenes, never anything more than one jet is used on, Kyle Reese played by Anton Yelchin, part of the Summer of Anton alongside his Chekov in Star Trek, who just does solid work as always in a thankless role with very little to do except exposition and running around. Bryce Dallas Howard is stuck being a pregnant doctor kissing Bale every so often and doing sod all else, and that's exactly what all the other actors do, they say some lines, stand in the background and aren't used again. Hell, Blair, after some action in the middle, is completely ignored.
The film has an odd feeling, the three act structure is clean and clear, but by the end it feels incomplete, yes it's aiming on another trilogy, two in one year for Yelchin, good work sir, but it'd have been nice to do some tidying up at the very least, not just exploding a San Fransisco factory as it's climax, maybe tie up the fighter piloting with the frequency, blare it out from up high to shut down terminators to allow the Resistance collect humans picked up by a harvester robot, not used much and given up on like all other parts of this film, for a Bale-Worthington third act.
Some of the action is cracking, and although there is never any sense that anyone will die at all in any way, the CGI and some concepts in the chases and the like are nice, of course come the up close Terminator/human fighting it's dull and feels like Transformers or Iron Man, nothing new like the whole film.
Editing is well done for the most part, some sped up moments look out of place in a comic fashion, the look of the film is saturated, and the twilight sequences feel very green-screeny, the lighting isn't noticeable, he clearly didn't trash any lights, and well, the sound, this is a separate paragraph.
Danny Elfman's score trudges along, he has to stick with pre-concieved themes, and uses some loud screechy instruments, but it's not much, he doesn't have any classic Elfman moments, and it just doesn't sound distinguishable or hummable like Transformers or Star Wars or his own Wanted last year, which was a nice score.
The sound design though, wow, lots of nasty metal scraping and gunshots, and whilst it starts off relatively quiet for an action film by the end it becomes ear-bleeding loud in a good way, in a 7.1 Blu-Ray pausing and rewinding to hear specific moments this soundtrack will be amazing.
It's just a shame that the acting is dull, the plot is flying around without giving much closure, the action whilst good isn't new and the pacing can be amazingly overlong at some points.
Though for a film I couldn't give a flying funk about it's done a good job to make me enjoy it.
7/10
Monday, 1 June 2009
Oh God, My Head.
Todd Phillips' The Hangover, a film that has scored very highly with critics and got test screening responses so good there's a sequel already in the works, naturally the expectations are raised.
So how does our favouite Old School helmer fare after Starsky & Hutch and School For Scoundrels?
Amazingly poorly in actual fact, School For Scoundrels was a low ebb for Phillips, 5/10 as there were some very funny moments, and some amazingly awful stuff, but this, oh boy.
It starts out amazingly slowly, introducing the characters 1 by 1, the groom, a simple character as he has nothing to do in the film, he's lost throughout the runtime, then Zach Galifianakis Alan, the Seth Rogen-ey fat and fuzzy guy who is dumb but lovable, he's dumb for sure, but like all the characters there's not one moment you give a flying fuck about them or their situations.
Bradley Cooper plays Phil, the strong leader of the gang, cool calm and collected, and he's so incredibly dull, he doesn't have a 'funny' moment, let alone something that you can laugh at as a normal human being.
Finally there's Ed Helms, Andy from the amazing Office USA, who is a boring dentist out in Vegas to let loose, who wakes up missing a tooth and married to Heather Graham's Stripper.
Cliches abound and yet there's not a single point where it turns to the original, or god forbid actually funny. This kind of comedy is similar to I Love You, Man, it seems funny but doesn't have the money moment where you draw the laugh from the crowd, they just laugh cos they know it's supposed to be a comedy.
At 3 points I laughed, 1. On Heather Graham takign Ed Helms' grandmother's holocaust ring Zach's character remarks "They gave out rings at the Holocaust?" Kinda funny, not really hysterical.
2. Todd Phillips' cameo, not anywhere near as good as "I'm here for the gangbang" but it's kinda funny.
3. Mike Tyson's Phil Collins moment, it's overused in the trailer but it's kinda funny.
Nothing else is funny, Ken Jeong is dull and laughs at fatness too often, the Love Guru laugh to remind people it's a comedy syndrome, same as the POW guy from Step Brothers and his sidekick in the police force laughing at their 'jokes', so unbelievably bad and unfunny.
The physical humour is limited in originality and amazingly dull, no real clever moments, absolutely nothing is good in this film, I cannot stress this enough, this is a BAAAAAAAAAAAAD fucking film, absolutely dreadful, avoid like the plague.
1/10
So how does our favouite Old School helmer fare after Starsky & Hutch and School For Scoundrels?
Amazingly poorly in actual fact, School For Scoundrels was a low ebb for Phillips, 5/10 as there were some very funny moments, and some amazingly awful stuff, but this, oh boy.
It starts out amazingly slowly, introducing the characters 1 by 1, the groom, a simple character as he has nothing to do in the film, he's lost throughout the runtime, then Zach Galifianakis Alan, the Seth Rogen-ey fat and fuzzy guy who is dumb but lovable, he's dumb for sure, but like all the characters there's not one moment you give a flying fuck about them or their situations.
Bradley Cooper plays Phil, the strong leader of the gang, cool calm and collected, and he's so incredibly dull, he doesn't have a 'funny' moment, let alone something that you can laugh at as a normal human being.
Finally there's Ed Helms, Andy from the amazing Office USA, who is a boring dentist out in Vegas to let loose, who wakes up missing a tooth and married to Heather Graham's Stripper.
Cliches abound and yet there's not a single point where it turns to the original, or god forbid actually funny. This kind of comedy is similar to I Love You, Man, it seems funny but doesn't have the money moment where you draw the laugh from the crowd, they just laugh cos they know it's supposed to be a comedy.
At 3 points I laughed, 1. On Heather Graham takign Ed Helms' grandmother's holocaust ring Zach's character remarks "They gave out rings at the Holocaust?" Kinda funny, not really hysterical.
2. Todd Phillips' cameo, not anywhere near as good as "I'm here for the gangbang" but it's kinda funny.
3. Mike Tyson's Phil Collins moment, it's overused in the trailer but it's kinda funny.
Nothing else is funny, Ken Jeong is dull and laughs at fatness too often, the Love Guru laugh to remind people it's a comedy syndrome, same as the POW guy from Step Brothers and his sidekick in the police force laughing at their 'jokes', so unbelievably bad and unfunny.
The physical humour is limited in originality and amazingly dull, no real clever moments, absolutely nothing is good in this film, I cannot stress this enough, this is a BAAAAAAAAAAAAD fucking film, absolutely dreadful, avoid like the plague.
1/10
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