The first Final Destination (the one with the plane) was a very original piece of work that had most of us enjoying some horror and gore in a novel and new way. By the time the second came out (the motorway pile up) in 2003 it could still be classed as a popcorn movie but they really raised the ingenuity of the death scenes making it a reasonable way to waste an hour and a half. By number 3 (roller coaster) and 4 (Nascar) I didn't see the point in them anymore as you had to sit through an identical plot for 5/6/7 death scenes that, if truth be told, were not great. So when I heard the announcement of a fifth, I really didn't get it. Perhaps they are jumping on the 3D bandwagon like everyone else?
As expected it duly delivered not a lot in the way of entertainment. In Final Destination 5, a group of co-workers set off for a weekend of team building exercises. However on the way to their destination, a bridge that they are crossing collapses and kills all of them. Unbeknownst to the audience this was just a premonition of the event (ironically I never saw it coming...) and after a commotion Sam (Nicholas D'Agosto) manages to convince some of his fellow employees to get off of the bus. The bridge then collapses and their lives are saved. Over the next few days though the survivors start to die in strange circumstances as Death tries to restore order to the world.
12A - 118mins - Action/Sci-Fi/Thriller - 17th August 2011
Finally my prayers to the Hollywood top dogs for a bit of originality have been answered in the form of Cowboys & Aliens, a sci-fi thriller (which puts me in even more of an optimistic mood due to it being one of my preferred genres of choice). Yes it is based on a graphic novel and yes technology in the wild west has been implemented before but this isn't a sequel/prequel and as a concept is very fresh.
Daniel Craig plays Jake, a cowboy who wakes up in the middle of nowhere with no recollection of who he is, where he has been or how he got there. In fact the only clue given to him is a strange metallic bracelet that he is unable to remove from his arm. After making his way to the nearest town he soon makes himself known to the locals and is identified as a dangerous and wanted man guilty of several crimes including stealing gold from local rancher Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford). After being arrested and readied for transport, alien spaceships appear out of nowhere and start snatching people away and blowing up the surrounding countryside. Jake's bracelet transforms itself into a weapon and he is able to drive the aliens away.
Good Neighbours follows three people who live in the same apartment building in Montreal over the course of Winter in 1995. Spencer (Scott Speedman) is a wheelchair bound introvert who spends all of his time in his flat on the first floor; Victor (Jay Baruchel) who has recently moved to the area since returning from China; and finally Louise (Emily Hampshire), a waitress at a local restaurant who spends most of her time either socialising with her pet cats (Tia Maria and Mozart) or reading up on the local serial killer who is running riot near to where they live.
Each of them is flawed in their own unique way so much so that I found myself asking the question why are any of them friends at all? Only the nervous Victor seems to be capable of something resembling social skills despite the uncanny ability to put his foot in everything time and time again and yet on several occasions they all sit down to dinner together when it's extremely obvious that they would be somewhere else.
15 - 107mins - Drama/Thriller - 19th September 2008
A foreign film today all the way from Germany that takes a look into autocracy and dictatorship but with a slight twist- it is set in a school.
Loosely based on the true experiment undertaken by a history teacher in the USA during 1967 which was then written as a book, the film follows unorthodox high school teacher Rainer Wenger (Jürgen Vogel) as he is forced to teach autocracy rather than his preferred choice of anarchy during a school project week in modern day Germany. Deciding that a more hands on approach would help stimulate the uninterested students, he engages with his class in an attempt to show that under certain circumstances the potential for a dictatorship is not as far fetched as some of the students believe it to be. He is elected as a leader by the class and begins to enforce the rules required for an autocracy. The students take to the project emphatically and the experiment soon begins to spiral out of control.
Parts of the film shout out stereotypical teen school and if anything the social groupings are played upon even more than usual as the writers use these differences to enhance the eventual unity that is required for a dictatorship to form. They are not necessarily exaggerated but we are continually reminded 'look, these kids are different from those ones' when this fact is rather obvious from the start and does not need emphasis.
15 - 93mins - Action/Crime/Thriller - 28th January 2011
The Mechanic sees Jason Statham in a role that he rarely leaves these days as a vigilante, in this case called Arthur who fights against many enemies. The plot takes it's slight twist by the addition of a sidekick of sorts in the form of Steve (Ben Foster).
Arthur is a lone hitman who is very good at what he does by eliminating targets whilst making them look like accidents. But when his mentor Harry (Donald Sutherland) is killed leaving behind his son Steve, Arthur takes him under his wing and trains him up, teaching him the ways of becoming a successful hitman. Together they carry out contracts while all the time trying to unravel who killed Harry and why.
The movie is enjoyable with the action and methods in which the contracts are executed making it a decent watch but it never really takes off as a film tending just to jump from one death to another without giving enough plot to keep me overly interested.
I'm actually finding it quite hard to talk about anything else in this movie because there just isn't that much to talk about. The acting was OK, not bad or amazing and the same can be said of the rest of it as well. It delivers on the action scenes but a film cannot be totally reliant on just action to see it through.
I think this can be summed up as a typical Statham movie with lots of action, a story that is never going to blow you away and a girl or two thrown in for good measure. Probably not as good as Crank but gives you a similar way to spend an hour and a half if your looking for a reasonable action/thriller. If that's not what your after then this won't be one for you. Wait for it to come out as a cheap DVD or on the TV.
Next up is the latest summer blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides [my review] which welcomes back some familiar faces while adding a few new ones to the mixer to freshen up the series that was only worsening by the end of the last film. As always the trailer is below so check it out.
Farm
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12A - 77mins - Drama/Thriller/Sci-Fi - 19th August 2005
Well I would be lying if I said that my brain didn't hurt slightly after watching this as it's definitely a bit of a thinker with quite a bit of technical 'mumbo-jumbo' that needs to be listened to in order to find the story behind it. I think it could quite nicely summed up by the fact that if you noted and listened to every detail they mention then you could be quite confident in knocking up your own version of the machine that they end up creating. So if possible try not to overthink this one too much and instead just let the story take you on its journey.
Primer is about 4 engineers who like to spend their time inventing things in their garage alongside their current jobs of building error checking devices. They soon discover that there is more to their latest invention than they first thought and go about trying to find a way to use it to its maximum potential. However while trying to achieve this, they end up creating more problems than they can possible hope to solve.
You are never directly told at any point what the overall picture is and are left to put the pieces of the jigsaw plot together yourself. Instead of glossing over the complexities as other movies might do to make it easier for the audience, it tackles them head on in a way that creates a challenging film but that is refreshing to see at a time when films are being dumbed down to appeal to a wider audience.
This is Shane Carruth's only journey into the film making world thus far and much can be said about the $7,000 film that went onto win the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004. Sure there are some production issues and it could have been executed and written in a better fashion but these flaws are what make it different and in my eyes better than some of its counterparts.
At a whopping 77 minutes long it's not going to hurt to take the time out and enjoy this quite intriguing little movie. Just remember that it's most definitely going to require a thinking cap and probably a second and third viewing as well for those who really want to get to the bottom of it all.
18 - 141mins - Crime/Drama/Horror - 29th April 2011
This time I bring you a foreign movie from the country of South Korea. I Saw The Devil keeps in tune with many of the films to successfully make it out of Korea with it’s dark and gory plot based around revenge.
It follows Kim Soo-hyeon (Byung-hun Lee) who is a highly trained agent. One night while stranded on the side of the road after her car breaks down, Kim’s pregnant fiancée is attacked and brutally murdered by Kyung-chul (Min-sik Choi). This isn’t the first time he’s murdered and it’s sure not to be the last. What he doesn’t reckon on though is Kim hunting him down for retribution.
Both killer and fiancé are continuously interlocked in a game of wits and ever more sadistic acts on both each other and bystanders as they slowly converge towards the end of the movie. As Kim is dragged ever downwards into the world of violence, he treads a fine line with turning into the monster that he is hunting and it is fair to say that many of the scenes in this film will have you feeling slightly uncomfortable if you’re not well prepared.
Choi impresses as the masochistic killer who is a complete opposite from Lee’s calm and collected demeanour. Both actors breathe life into their characters that only seem to become more complex as the film unfolds. Having started out as two opposites, they slowly merge into one and it becomes increasingly hard to distinguish who should get the viewers support.
I wasn’t exactly sure where this movie was going to go especially after an hour when it could quite plausibly have finished with a few tweaks but continue on it did and I am all the more happy because of it. There is plenty of action and fight scenes split in between the character development and where normal revenge films seem to keep both protagonists apart until the end, Jee-woon Kim (the director) was on a mission to bring them together into every scene. The music perfectly suits the mood and is only trumped by the cinematography which was exemplary.
As mentioned, this is not one for the faint hearted or squeamish but the performances are fantastic and it really gives an insight into the minds of a serial killer and a man so stricken with grief that he can only comprehend vengeance. This ranks up there with my other favourite Korean movie Oldboy and although I Saw The Devil’s plot may be based on a tried and tested idea, its execution is very refreshing and keeps you guessing right until the very end.
Next time I go hunting in the dark for vampires with Priest. [my review] Trailer below. Farm
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Well you sure are in for a treat today as I bring you the unique Grizzly Rage. This epic follows four students who decide to go on a road trip after recently graduating. They trespass into a gated off park for some off road fun but early into their adventure things start to go wrong as they crash their Jeep into a tree accidentally hitting a bear cub in the process.
Now as we all know grizzly bears tend to stick close by to their cubs and so it is not long before momma bear shows up and starts hunting them down (in your standard bear with a blood vendetta scenario) as they flee the scene of the crime. And just to make it all that better, this is no ordinary bear, O no, but rather a mutated super grizzly bear from all the toxic waste that has been dumped into the lake nearby.
The acting is poor with weak performances not doing much for the script that would have needed some world class Hollywood stars to make me even think about evoking some emotions. The award for the best performance has to go to the bear who most of the time did look genuinely pissed off, as would I if I had to take part in this movie.
I wouldn't say it was a redeeming feature by a long shot but the cinematography isn't half as bad as it could have been (for one of the scenes at least) when compared to what the rest of the movie was offering.
Even better though is the fact that the movie is trying to take itself seriously but fails on every level to do so. Call me cold hearted but I was laughing all the way through the 'horrifying bear scenes' as the graduates were outsmarted again and again. It doesn't take long before you end up siding with the bear and are egging it on to get the next one. I was going to give you the trailer but this is so much better...
Quote from video- "When you see the animal roar, he's smiling. He wants marshmallows" If only our poor students had known!
Whoever thought that a grizzly would make for a good terrifying enemy in a movie certainly didn't think long and hard about it- being a massive and potentially dangerous animal in real life, there is not one point in the entire movie when bear and actor are in the same shot. This leads to some quite appalling and certainly comical scenes where the film makers use obviously fake props, stock footage and shockingly bad blood CGI (I'm talking Playstation 1 standard here) to bring the bear 'to life'. My favourite scene had to be the guy in a bear costume; and you could tell, jumping on their Jeep while they are trapped inside!
Apart from those moments of unintentional comic brilliance I would rather take my chances in the movie along with the bear as then I would one, not have to watch it and two, could hope to be killed off nice and early so I didn't have to ever think about this again. Why not a zero rating you ask? I've seen worse.
15 - 103mins - Fantasy/Horror/Thriller - 29th April 2011
Now if there is one thing that freaks me out most in movies it is horrors that involve children in any way. So when I sat down to watch a movie from the guys and gals that have given us Paranormal Activity revolving around the story of a possessed child, well lets just say I had my diaper at the ready!
Insidious follows a textbook family, the parents- Josh (Patrick Wilson) and Renai (Rose Byrne) that have it all as they move into their new suburban house with their 3 beautiful children. However all is not as it seems as one of their sons, Dalton (Ty Simpkins), after slipping off a ladder while exploring in the attic falls into a coma. Strange things then begin to happen as objects move, mysterious voices are heard and you catch things in the corner of your eye. After this activity drives them from their new home they enlist the help of a paranormal psychic Elise (Lin Shaye) and the horrifying truth becomes evident. It is not the house but Dalton that is haunted!
As with most horror movies, I find they only tend to scare me until I know what I'm up against ie. keep the monster hidden and let the suspense/not knowing get me grabbing for my cushion. This movie was similar in that respect with the majority of the scares coming in the first two thirds before it began to fall away slightly. This was more than enough though and will give you the jumps that you are looking for if you decide to go and see it.
Considering what the trailer gives us, I was quite surprised that it took so long to get to the realisation that it was in fact the boy that was possessed rather than where they were living. It is a good 50 minutes to an hour before this is realised which irked me somewhat.
The inclusion of the two bickering paranormal activity assistants was a well thought out idea as it gave a break from trying to scare you, injecting a bit of comedy into the fray and enabled the audience to be lulled into a more relaxed state so that when the next scare came you were off guard and less than ready for it.
Apart from the scary evil entities, horrors are made or broken by the music or lack thereof that accompanies the suspense and the cinematography. Insidious does not disappoint. The music leads to the creation of an intense tension that stays with you throughout most of the movie and lingers after it finishes and the cinematography is also top notch.
Insidious does serve up moments of actual horror that had me keeping an eye out for anything out of the ordinary several hours after the film had finished. It is a far cry from James Wan (director) and Leigh Whannell (writer) other collaborations of the Saw series and despite using a tried and tested framework, they made the movie original. It will probably be one of the better horror movies that's released this year but then again, I doubt there will be much competition.
12A - 109mins - Action/Sci-Fi/Thriller - 23rd February 2011
Part teen drama, part sci-fi and part coming of age is how I would best describe this one and I don't think that amalgamation came together as well as it could have, which if I'm being honest would not have been very good anyway.
I Am Number Four is about a boy called John (Alex Pettyfer). He is no ordinary boy but an alien that has found himself on planet Earth with his guardian, Henri (Timothy Olyphant) who helps to protect him. Protect him from what you ask? John is being tracked down my the mysterious enemy of his race known as the Mogadorians who are intent on destroying every last one of his kind. In the opening scene of the movie we are shown the demise of one of his kind, the aptly named Number 3. Therefore for some reason that is never expanded upon, John is next as he is Number 4! Quite why the Mogadorians have an OCD killing problem is also beyond the scriptwriters knowledge- all we know is that in total there are 9, 3 are dead and poor John is next.
In order to stay safe, both John and Henri have to keep moving towns so that they are harder to find. They end up in Paradise, Ohio where John settles into a high school and our teen drama begins where he gets bullied by the jocks, hangs out with the geeks and falls for a girl (Dianna Agron) as in every other high school movie. We must now add to this the need for John to harness his powers which he is only just becoming aware of and to keep his real identity a secret. Remind anyone of some TV series called Smallville? This movie tends to mish-mash other ideas and tries to turn it into something new rather than be original which is ironic considering this is one of the few new movies out that is not based on anything (book aside) or a sequel/prequel to something else- it's an unoriginal original!
The Mogadorians are convincing as an enemy but not what I would call that scary with shaved tattooed heads, sharper teeth and a enhanced ability to smell the only thing distinguishing them from anyone else. The CGI for some of the monsters was a bit basic as well leading to an altogether average experience.
Other things that made this not quite my cup of tea (which is strange because in general I am a fan of sci-fi) were simple things such as the baddies guns all fired red light and the goodies all fired blue- could you get any more stereotypical! Or the fact that the movie didn't really have a conclusion in the normal sense of the word i.e. they have definitely left it open for there to be a sequel. In fact thinking about it, this concept would probably have worked better as a series rather than a movie.
Summing up then, I Am Number Four didn't do it for me. There was the potential for a decent storyline but the background detail was glossed over and it felt very 'samey' when comparing it to other ideas already out there. Saying that though I never felt it drag and the movie passed the hours without me demanding my time back at the end of it. One to watch if you want a sci-fi action but don't want to think too hard.
Soon to be released on the 23rd of March, Limitless focuses around the life of writer Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper) a man who is heading nowhere fast in life; he is most definitely in the slow lane. The book he's currently working on has reached healthy zero words after an extended spell of writers block and his love life is trending down a similar road.
Cue a chance encounter with an old acquaintance and the discovery of a way to escape the mundane world that he is currently calling his life. The way you ask? Take a pill, a simple clear pill that will solve all his problems. It has the ability to open up access to all of his brain function rather than his current 20% and release the boundaries and confines that he was once restricted to. Realising that nothing can get much worse than it already is he uses it and things immediately become easy for him. The only slight issue being he does not have an endless supply and that unsurprisingly he is not the only one who knows of its existence.
Whether meant to be ironic or not the first time you see Eddie you could be forgiven for thinking he was on drugs and as the movie progresses along with his life thanks to the help of the drug, NZT-48 he cleans up his act. Cooper does a good job of self narrating the well written script that gives us some funny moments and dry wit to boot whilst his ability to move between the two altering personalities while he is on and off the drug is impressive.
De Niro and Cornish play their parts well but are not given enough screen time to develop their characters into noteworthy performances as most of the focus is kept on Eddie. This leads me into my only slight disappointment with the movie in that the secondary characters seem to get no mention, then appear for ten to fifteen minutes before disappearing never to be seen or referenced to again making the plot slightly disjointed to say the least.
This is countered by the fact that I absolutely love the cinematography and the way that this movie has been constructed. The effect carried out at the opening credits as the camera continuously tunnel zooms through the urban nightlife sets the standard for the rest of the film. When on the drug everything is brighter, people are well groomed and then when off it everything is gloomier/darker so as to visualise the emotions and state of mood being felt in Eddie's mind. Not only that but you can feel the heightened effect the drug is having as more things are put on screen to engage the viewer and get you thinking while at the same time the camera flits about the place as the tempo is increased to indicate Eddie's enhanced brain activity.
Don't read on if you don't want to find out about some of the plot! The movie ties up most lose ends but nothing is ever really made of the death/murder of the girl in the hotel room drawing back to my point of token extra characters. This could be meant to be sinister especially with the lawyer stating that someone had the decency to wipe the place of prints. Also the ever increasing desperation and the willingness to do anything for that next hit (drinking the blood off the floor) could have been played on a bit more to show the true darkness of how drugs can effect us.
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All in all Limitless was a very enjoyable film that kept me entertained for its duration. The drug effects on the world around Eddie were cleverly depicted as was most on the CGI letting you feel the drug with him and although I felt they could have pushed the boundaries slightly further and explored the drugs side of things a bit more I was glad to have watched this fun flick.
So after the latest blockbuster review what's next in my bag of tricks I hear you ask. Well in order to celebrate my upcoming trip to Wales I will be giving you a Welsh movie to get your teeth into. That's right, prepare yourself for Twin Town [1997] [my review], Wales answer to Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels. Here is a short clip explaining the joys of Swansea.
Farm
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12A - 116mins - Action/Sci-Fi/Thriller - 11th March 2011
Well I hope everyone is recovering well from their St Patrick's Day hangover and I start with a small pre-film ramble before sitting down to watch Battle: Los Angeles and see what it's got to offer. I must admit that since I first became aware of this movie my initial thoughts were that it's not going to be quite the hit I think it is expecting to be and as a worst case scenario it might turn into the next Skyline. Big word of warning, do not watch that movie, you can't get the time back no matter how hard you try. It is truly diabolical. I would rather be relaxing on the beach at the start of Battle: Los Angeles if the trailer is anything to go by than see that again! Fingers crossed lets see what we've got...
Right then. First impressions are that this film is a bit of a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get), if you wanted a battle that's located in Los Angeles then guess what, this is not going to disappoint so long as you don't mind other areas of the film lacking. We arrive pre-invasion to set up the characters and get to grips with who we are going to be sharing the next two hours with, unfortunately they are rather one dimensional and stereotypical. Without giving too much away, yes we have the man with the pregnant fiancée, the young new rookie with a taste for power, an appearance for the hardened female soldier and the main character, SSgt. Michael Nantz (Aaron Eckhart) who is past his prime and on his way out to name but a few. I'm sure I've seen this lot somewhere else before?
Another bone I have to pick with this movie is with the music (Brian Tyler) that seems to be a continuous background noise of semi-patriotic soon to be bursting into a glorious celebratory ensemble number which continues regardless of what scenario is unfolding in front of us, good or bad. The most engaging parts are actually when everything goes silent and only then can the suspense grow.
One thing I did appreciate from this movie was the cinematography which is filmed in a similar style to that of Cloverfield putting you right in the thick of the action and making you feel a lot more involved with the group of marines around which the plot revolves. Hopefully you'll appreciate this as I can imagine that a cameraman with Parkinsons will be getting on some viewers nerves by the end. The way information is relayed to the viewer about what is happening elsewhere on the battlefield is through background radio and TV sources which is rather clever as you only ever know what the marines know which keeps the intrigue.
Quick mention to the visuals which during the helicopter flyover scenes at the start and aerial views over the city are very impressive. The aliens also look real enough as do their ships and as a whole it's very realistic. However if you replaced every alien in this film with a human I honestly don't think I would have noticed much of a difference.
Stop reading now if you don't want to know what happened in parts of the movie. A couple of points that also got to me just that little bit. Once they had destroyed the alien command centre it went all very Independence Day on itself with them relaying off the message of how to take those sons of bitches down. And if you are going to put emotion into this setting then try to find a better way than civilian kids who tended to be plain old annoying without adding much. Finally, if your going to have a film with aliens in it then please please make them act like aliens rather than just large humans with a heart equivalent slightly offset from where ours are. I'm sure with the technology they have they could come up with something slightly better than ballistic based weapons.
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I felt the director Liebesman wanted the viewer to be involved and to try and feel the bond that was supposedly evident between these marines and yet for some reason it just didn't work. At points it was more akin to playing Call of Duty than a movie as they search the city for survivors coming up against enemies who were ever increasingly difficult to kill. The suspense it built just about held me at the start when the mystery of the enemy was still strong but that faded as the movie continued.
As you can see Battle: Los Angeles will not be going down as one of my favourites of all time. It can be summed up by taking the action from Black Hawk Down, the cinematography of Cloverfield and a pinch of Independence Day plot thrown in for good measure. Only problem is it has taken the average parts from all of them rather than the best. Watchable indeed but nothing more than a generic 'lets shoot then before they shoot us' action with which I never found that connection to the stereotypical/clichéd characters that I can only assume I was supposed to.
Up next time, the newest release The Eagle [my review] which follows a Roman centurion in his quest to honour his fathers memory in bonnie wee Scotland. Have a gander below to see what it's all about. Ciao for now.
Farm
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