Posts tagged Film Review

So Dexter Fletcher has directed a film. If you’re around the same age as me you’ll remember Dexter Fletcher mostly from Press Gang and Gamesmaster, and it’s kinda surprising to me that he’s now a director for some reason. But here it is anyway, Wild Bill is in the British Gangster style but with a lot of heart behind it.

The story begins with Bill being released from prison after 8 years and returning to his London home, only to discover no one there, and is told by a neighbour no one has lived there for ages. So he heads down to the pub and bumps in to old acquaintances who are keen to get ‘Wild Bill’ back in to his old ways, giving him drugs to hold on to and a hooker as a welcome home present. They get him drunk then dump him back in his old flat and in the morning he awakes to find his 11 and 15 year old sons still live there and their mother ran off a year ago and left them to fend for themselves. When he later mentions this to his probation worker and drops them in it with Social Services they convince him he has to stay and put things right so they’re not put in to care.

So the story becomes of the man who’s uninterested in being a father to him slowly beginning to know his kids and becoming more interested in their lives. And when his younger son becomes tangled up with the local drug dealers the lengths he’ll go to to put it right.

Now it’s not the perfect film, it has some issues with the cliches it uses, and there are some small let downs within the film, but on the whole it’s very well directed for a first timer and the story keeps a good pace, has some laughs and is fun and despite that is very well grounded and has a sense of realism that quite often lacks in these sorts of films. I’d say it’s really worth checking out if it’s in a cinema near you.

Contraband is one of those films I’d heard good things about months ago when it was released in America so was quite keen to see despite finding the trailer looking fairly bog standard.

The story is fairly paint by numbers, and you could probably figure out everything that will happen well before it happens. It’s the usual bad guy gone straight with a wife and kid to look after who gets dragged back in to his law-breaking ways thanks to circumstances beyond his control. Mark Wahlberg is Chris, an ex-smuggler with his own security business and he’s trying to make a go of staying on the straight and narrow, that is until his brother-in-law gets in to deep trouble when he has to dump a shipment of drugs he’s smuggling. So here’s the cue for him to be dragged back in to smuggling when the dealer who was expecting the drugs threatens his family if he doesn’t square the account.

So as the story goes on you get the usual problems popping up, nothing going quite to plan, betrayals and all the usual twists. So I can’t say I was ever really surprised and I did roll my eyes are a couple of developments just because they were well trodden, but despite all that I kinda liked it. It was decently acted and directed, and while not strikingly original the story worked well enough to keep me interested. And as was pointed out to me later it had a hero who refused to bring drugs and refused to kill anyone, and for a Hollywood film of this type that in itself is noteworthy.

My opinion on Contraband would be that it’s a passable film, nothing spectacular but worth checking out on DVD but not especially worth the ticket price at the cinema.

Contraband is one of those films I’d heard good things about months ago when it was released in America so was quite keen to see despite finding the trailer looking fairly bog standard.

The story is fairly paint by numbers, and you could probably figure out everything that will happen well before it happens. It’s the usual bad guy gone straight with a wife and kid to look after who gets dragged back in to his law-breaking ways thanks to circumstances beyond his control. Mark Wahlberg is Chris, an ex-smuggler with his own security business and he’s trying to make a go of staying on the straight and narrow, that is until his brother-in-law gets in to deep trouble when he has to dump a shipment of drugs he’s smuggling. So here’s the cue for him to be dragged back in to smuggling when the dealer who was expecting the drugs threatens his family if he doesn’t square the account.

So as the story goes on you get the usual problems popping up, nothing going quite to plan, betrayals and all the usual twists. So I can’t say I was ever really surprised and I did roll my eyes are a couple of developments just because they were well trodden, but despite all that I kinda liked it. It was decently acted and directed, and while not strikingly original the story worked well enough to keep me interested. And as was pointed out to me later it had a hero who refused to bring drugs and refused to kill anyone, and for a Hollywood film of this type that in itself is noteworthy.

My opinion on Contraband would be that it’s a passable film, nothing spectacular but worth checking out on DVD but not especially worth the ticket price at the cinema.

My opinion of The Woman in Black may be a little sullied as when I went to see it the ticket seller held us up trying to tell us we were late for the showing, and how very important it was you see the first 5 minutes and how if there are screening problems I should complain every time because they no longer have a projectionist, and in doing so held us up long enough that we missed the first couple of minutes. Then when I got in there the screening was full of young kids, and I mean looking like they ranged from 5 and up, so there was giggling every 5 minutes. One of the staff kept coming in and telling people to quiet down, turn their phones off, etc. So this wasn’t exactly the best environment for becoming immersed in the film.

So, as far as I can tell, the story begins with Arthur Kipps, played by a much too young Daniel Radcliffe, and his wife in labour. Unfortunately she dies in child birth and then we flash forward 4 years with Arthur still in mourning for his wife and his job in danger. He’s told he must go off to sort out an estate in the north east, so leaving his son with the nanny, planning to have them visit him at the weekend, he heads off on the train to the north east. Upon arriving at the inn he’s booked to stay in he’s told his rooms were never booked and he can’t stay as they’re booked up for the week and he must leave, but the innkeepers wife takes pity and lets him stay in their late children’s room.

The next morning Arthur heads off to see the local solicitor to pick up the paperwork, only to be given a small amount and told to get back off home. But Arthur decides to head off to the house and check out the paperwork there. The house is across a causeway that disappears with the tides and he has to be in and out with them. While going through the paperwork he hears all sorts of noises round the house and while looking out of the window he spots a woman in black on the grounds. Running out to find her he begins hearing women and children screaming in the mist as if a big accident has occurred in the marshlands along the causeway.

And this is the start of all the spooky happenings in the film. And let me say this, I really enjoy horror films and it’s very good to see one that relies on chills and psychological, out of the corner of your eye, type horror rather than totally on loud noises or a lot of gore to give you a scare. And I’ll admit there are a few times during the film that I felt myself on edge and times that set my heart racing. The story is a classic haunted house with local legends surrounding it, so nothing wonderfully original on that score. Talking of score, the music does work well within the film to heighten everything, and while there are a few cheap scares using the music or sound effects it really does well within the confines of a 12A rating to give you the scares, and from what the BBFC have said it wouldn’t be much different in the 15 rated cut.

The only real downside to the film I can say is it’s not as scary as so many people have been saying, though having seen a lot of horror I would say that, I can imagine it’ll work well on the younger members of the audience who haven’t seen a great deal of horror. The other things being that with it being a 12A there are far too many very young children being taken in to see it which does spoil the atmosphere a bit, which brings me to; Daniel Radcliffe. A child shouted out “Where’s his scar gone?” when he appeared on screen, but besides this he does seem too young for the role, a widower with a 4 year old child and a position in a law firm. Don’t get me wrong I can’t fault his acting his reactions are done brilliantly and he does well with what’s there, he just seems young for the role.

On the whole though it’s a film worth seeing if you’re a fan of the genre, hopefully without too many kids about. Though I am curious to see if there are any more scares in the 15 rated cut and if it will be released on DVD.

I have to say this wasn’t a film I was intending to see. It didn’t seem to be my sort of film from the trailers, but today the choices were limited so it was this or Ghost Rider, which my friend had already seen, so Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close it was.

The story begins with Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock in a loving family with their slightly odd, young son, Oskar. Tom is trying to teach him to be more confident and outgoing, sending him on ‘expeditions’ with cards with his name printed on to interact with people he meets and bring back clues in his made up mystery adventures, such as the missing 6^th borough of New York. When one faithful day this is all torn asunder when Tom dies in the World Trade Centre attacks with his son at home watching the towers fall on the TV and listening to messages he left on the answer machine. A year later a weepy Sandra Bullock is having trouble relating with the boy and he’s desperate to find a link with his father, when he comes across a key in an envelope with the name Black written on it. Believing this is another expedition is father planned for him he takes off to try and find the person named Black that this key belonged to.

So with the set up of the story out of the way let me say this, I don’t understand why it’s billed as starring Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock, they probably have about 5 minutes of screen time. The film rests squarely on the shoulders of Thomas Horn, Oskar, and the adventure he has looking for the meaning of this key. There’s a good performance from Max von Sydow and for the most part they hold the film pretty well. But it does feel overly long, I found myself wanting to close my eyes and go to sleep, and checking my watch a few times throughout the film. And while it would be hard to say I didn’t feel anything emotion for the characters suffering, I did feel it was laid on a bit thick, and it was manipulative rather than genuinely earned emotion. I also didn’t feel the ending was earned either. I don’t want to spoil, but it some how seemed a little like the writer thought ‘We’ve let this young lad roam New York City unattended for most of the film, how can we now make his mother look like a good mother now?’ and threw in the half baked ending.

It’s not really terrible but it isn’t really good either and between exploiting the 9/11 connection for all the emotional punch they can get, and honestly being dull for enough of the film to make me want to fall to sleep, I can’t really say it’s a film worth forking out to see at the cinema.

I’ve never been overly fond of the Mission Impossible series of films. I still haven’t seen the first, the second was complete crap, the third was passable entertainment, so you may want to take what I have to say about MI4 with a pinch of salt if you’re a fan of the series.

After a short introduction sequence in Budapest, with an agent being assassinated after a daring escape, we’re taken to an Eastern European prison where Simon Pegg and a new female agent are busting out Ethan Hunt, but rather then cooperate he decides to go and rescue someone else before being busted out. Then we’re treated to an intro credit sequence which is basically a stylised pre-cap of the rest of the film. From here I’m already getting a bit fuzzy on the plot, because it’s your basic mad man wants to blow up the world for his own reasons plot. To stop him they’re dispatched off to Russia to infiltrate the Kremlin and get information on this new terrorist plotting to blow up the world. This mission of course goes wrong when the terrorist blows up the Kremlin and frames Hunt and his team. Which of course leads to another escape and then being disavowed by the US Government, so a lone team, under equipped, though still having gadgets that would make James Bond envious, head off round the world to stop the world from ‘sploding all over the place.

Now I’ll say this, I didn’t hate it, it was sort of fun, in a brain switched off sense, but there was very little substance in the film. There was some Simon Pegg being “funny” and the usual Tom Cruise doing the “action”. But mostly it’s just fluff that will be blown from your mind in the breeze when you leave the cinema. The thought struck me in the cinema it was like watching a hybrid of 24 and Alias. Lots of doing what needed to be done to stop the plot, crossed with a level of silliness and gadgetry. But if you’ve seen the previous films and saw the trailer and thought it was for you, all I can say is that it’s pretty much what you’d expect. But at the minute I would say that Sherlock Holmes 2 is the better of the action fluff films on at the cinema.

When it came to the first Sherlock Holmes film that came out a couple of years ago I enjoyed it a surprising amount. I expected complete rubbish but it turned out to be a fun romp with some nice nods towards the Sherlock Holmes stories without being bound by them, which, for my money, is the best way to handle an adaptation, unless you’re going to stick rigidly to the source material but what would be the point of that when so many others already have?

And so we come to the sequel A Game of Shadows, which sticks to the same formula. Nods towards the source material while telling its own story. It’s flashy and brash in it’s form, unabashedly so, and fun for it. The fight scenes slowed down and plotted out remain from the first, giving it a seemingly more intellectual air to its fight scenes, with Sherlock using his trademark intuition and intelligence to plot out move and counter-move ahead of time so when you see the fight in real time the moves that would otherwise go by in a blur have emphasis to them. There’s a lot of whizz bang for those of us with short attention spans and plenty of humour and a few laughs, too.

As for the plot, well that’s twisty, as you’d expect. John Watson is still trying to get married, while Sherlock is still pursuing the trails and plots of Professor Moriarty. Along the way Irene Adler and Mycroft show up to help move the plot along. We also have Sim, a gypsy card reader who gets drawn in to the plot. So we have bombings, politics and business and in the middle of it all James Moriarty some how pulling all the strings and Sherlock obsessively pulling on the threads to see what leads where. And at the centre of it all the relationship of Watson and Holmes which the whole thing hangs on. Which may be where it succeeds or fails for you, if you enjoy the central relationship, then for all the humour, warmth and arsekicking between them you will enjoy this film. If you don’t like that then that will probably be the downfall of the film and it will be worth nothing.

For me it was fun and enjoyable, the action was well done, if overblown at times. The humour was mostly on the mark but some fell flat. The story, well as I said, when hung over the characters it was enough, but if you don’t like the characters then it will fail you. Judging from the reaction of the audience around me, for the most part, it hit the mark and it seemed like people were enjoying it. I can understand some of the criticisms it’s getting though I don’t share them at all. I really did enjoy the two hours sat there in the dark with this film. If you didn’t like the first you won’t like this one either as it’s more of the same, but if you enjoyed it then this is worth the price of admission.

The Guard is a film I’d heard good things about for a while and I wanted to see it though didn’t seem to be getting a release locally. Since I didn’t think I’d get to see it at home I took the opportunity while on a trip away to see it, and then again while visiting a friend, so I’ve actually had the chance to see it twice now at different cinemas. Once in a big Cineworld and once at a small independent cinema and both times I found it to be excellent and the audience response was very good, too.

The film begins with a fly over, following a car driving erratically on a country road, cutting inside to see lots of drinking going on, just as the pass a police car at the side of the road and this is where we meet Sargent Boyle, looking bored. The car crashes and Boyle sighs and goes over to find the driver and passengers dead, looking through the pockets of one of them he finds a bag of drugs. “Now I don’t think your Mammy would be too pleased about this” is his thoughts on finding the drugs. So he throws away all but one and takes it himself and exclaims “What a beautiful fucking day.” while looking out at the bleak west coast of Ireland landscape in the cloudy light. And this is the perfect introduction to Boyle. An unconventional cop to say the least.

After meeting the new lad, in from Dublin, at a murder scene, which is really the start of the plot. Tip offs and interviews follow. But Boyle is also summoned to a meeting with an FBI agent who’s in Ireland trying to stop the smuggling of cocaine with a “street value” of half a billion dollars. To which Boyle remarks “I often wonder what street you’re buying your cocaine on, because it’s a different street to what I’m buying mine on.” It turns out the guy who was murdered is part of the crew bringing in the cocaine and so Boyle now Boyle is trying to help out the FBI with this drugs bust, but tomorrow is his day off, for whoring around and getting fucked up.

Now this description of the plot makes it sound rather boring, but it’s really a brilliantly done film. It’s a brilliant little film, and a lot to evoke the feel of a western, from desolate landscapes, to shoot outs. There’s also plenty of laugh-out-loud moments. Until I saw this I would have said Inbetweeners was the funniest film I’d seen this year, now I’d find it hard to pick. They have very different styles, including the comedic style, but I found this no less funny, and think it’s actually the better film of the two.

So this review may be a little late for it to be of any use, but if you get a chance to see it you really should.

Cowboys and Aliens started life as a graphic novel, and seems it was going to be a Robert Downey Jnr film right out of the gate after Iron Man, but some how along the way Downey got replaced with Daniel Craig and so now you’ve got a film with James Bond and Indiana Jones in the wild west fighting aliens with Quorra from Tron along for the ride. Seems that should be all kinds of awesome to a geek.

The story is James Bond is the man with no name, no memory and a kick ass alien gun on his arm. Han Solo is the rich man in the area who brings all the business to the local town, and his son is the town drunk causing all sorts of problems but they can’t really do anything about because they’ll lose his father’s business. So when Daniel Craig shows up in town and stands up to the kid he causes all sorts of problems, not least finding out he’s actually a wanted man and gets locked up in the jail with the kid. Later that night Harrison Ford shows up to get his kid the aliens also show up and start kidnapping townsfolk, including his son, the Sheriff and the bartenders wife. They decide to get together and go off in search of the aliens and their family and friends.

And this is where the review falls down, because I find I have nothing to really say about the film. It just didn’t really make an impression on me, it wasn’t bad, it wasn’t good it was just there. The effects work are done well, the story works well enough but it doesn’t really make a lasting impression and generally I will see films multiple times when the chance presents itself, but with this I really didn’t want to see it again when a friend asked me to see it, so I can’t really say I recommend it, but if you’re interested in seeing it I have nothing to say you shouldn’t see it either.

So after an awful 4^th film which it seemed tried to rely solely on the 3D gimmick as it’s main selling point I really didn’t think Final Destination 5 would be up to much. So it was only after hearing good things about it that I decided I should see it.

Well what is there to say about Final Destination 5 that you won’t already know? It follows the tried and tested formula of someone falls asleep, dreams of a catastrophe just in time to wake up right before said catastrophe and warn people and get them out of the way. Only to have those people die in order through the rest of the film and of course there’s the usual bad actor or two thrown in there.

And this time the main big death sequence is a bridge collapse and the characters are a bunch of employees who are being taken on a team building retreat, with the usual mix of couples and arseholes who you’re quite happy to see die. And die they do, in interesting, gory and mostly unpredictable ways. Though since this is Final Destination you know to expect the unexpected and are looking for the ways they will die through each sequence.

Now it’s not the scariest or most original of films, and to be honest I laughed more than I jumped or felt scared but they do have some creative deaths, and the ending is a nice way to tie up the series, which it hopefully will since 4 was supposed to be the end then 5 came along anyway. For the most part the 3D works well in this film, it’s gimmick but it knows it is and uses it to the full effect with things sticking right out of the screen at you and really that’s what you want and expect of this sort of horror film.

While there is some bad acting Miles Fisher as Peter really stood out as the worst for me, but this wasn’t bad enough to ruin the film. And actually it was way better than I expected probably 3^rd best film of the series, so if you’re a fan who was put off by one of the last 2 films I’d say give it a go, you may be pleasantly surprised by it.

The latest Disney/Pixar film isn’t one I’ve really looked forward to, if I’m honest, Cars is probably my least favourite Pixar film ever made. So what’s Cars 2 got that’ll get you interested? Well if the first Cars was Doc Hollywood, this is The Man With One Red Shoe or The Man Who Knew Too Little. A Spy Thriller with someone who’s not a spy in the middle of it.

After winning the latest race season Lightening McQueen is back in Radiator Springs and his Best Friend Tow Mater is excited to see him. So excited he crashes a date between McQueen and Sally and mid-date he sees an F1 car called Francesco bragging on the TV about being the fastest car in the world and phones in to put him in his place and inadvertently gets McQueen pulled in to the World Grand Prix, a new race to prove Allinol, a new environmentally friendly petrol substitute, is viable and safe.

So off they go on the World Grand Prix, with Mater along as part of the pit team. McQueen warns Mater that this isn’t Radiator Springs and he should try to smarten himself up a bit and after embarrassing himself and McQueen, by leaking oil in front of everyone, he rushes off to the toilets to clean himself up, only to be caught in a confrontation between an American Spy and 2 thugs, and before he can be beaten the American spy plants the information on Mater as he leave the bathroom, only to run in to a British spy, who believes he’s the American spy holding his cover, and she arranges to meet him the next day. Mater goes off believing he’s got a date.

The next day at the race track the spies spot Mater in the pits and a load of thugs approaching him, breaking in on his radio headset they tell him to run, believing this is part of the date Mater shouts over the headset and distracts McQueen at a critical point in the race and loses. For this he shouts at Mater and tells him to leave and go back home. Meanwhile the British spies, still believing Mater to be undercover recruit him and take him along on their mission around the world.

So what we have here is a family film, mostly aimed at the kids, playing on the plots of spy films, and other comedy films that also played with spy film conventions. So there are many things here that I don’t believe kids will get. But there’s also plenty of cars racing, and chasing, explosions and bright colours that will probably keep most entertained anyway. There’s funny bits that work, and the obligatory touching moments. Generally I’d say it’s a fair film, it has fun moments, but overall it seems less like the Pixar we all know and love. It feels more a cash in on the popularity of Cars or a film done because the makers enjoyed it rather than for the audiences. But I had that feeling with the original Cars, too.

The animation is good, some really top notch work has been done on the cities that the races take place in, and while the 3D didn’t detract in the way I’ve thought it has in a lot of other films recently, it really added nothing either, it really didn’t pop out at you like most animated films do. So take or leave the 3D option here.

I will say I enjoyed Cars 2 more than I remember liking the first, may just be because I enjoyed the action/spy plot more than the Racing/Not Racing plot of the first. I have no doubt it will be enjoyed by many children and adults alike but it’s far from Pixar’s best, but on it’s own merits, rather than compared to other Pixar films, I’d say it’s a fairly good and enjoyable film.