Category Archives: Film Reviews

Film Review – The Avengers

by

‘Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. brings together a team of super humans to form The Avengers to help save the Earth from Loki and his army.‘

The AvengersMarvel’s experiment with a shared movie universe has been defying the odds for a while; the various Iron Man, Captain America and Thor movies have each been successful in their own right, and even the less than stellar Hulk movies have pulled in a reasonable income. But the real question on everyone’s mind was whether anyone could pull off a movie that featured all of these characters without feeling like a complete mess. Happily, Joss Whedon is up to the task; delivering a solid movie that doesn’t quite live up to the hype (could anything?) but never fails to entertain throughout. Continue reading →

Film Review – Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

by

‘The IMF is shut down when it’s implicated in the bombing of the Kremlin, causing Ethan Hunt and his new team to go rogue to clear their organization’s name.‘

Going by the example of the Mission: Impossible series, it would seem that a secret agent can only succeed when they go rogue from their agency. This is a tried and true trope of the genre, but it would be nice to see at least one of the four movies in the franchise move away from this setup. In Ethan Hunt’s latest outing, it would seem that the whole agency has been disavowed by the government after a particularly bad screw up at the Kremlin. It is up to Ethan, along with his prerequisite team of Tech Nerd (Simon Pegg), Hot Girl (Paula Patton) and Mysterious Guy (Jeremy Renner) to save the world once again from the bad guys through a series of thrilling chases, death-defying stunts and last-minute luck. Continue reading →

Film Review – The Hunger Games

by

‘Set in a future where the Capitol selects a boy and girl from the twelve districts to fight to the death on live television, Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her younger sister’s place for the latest match.‘

Given the enormous success of the Harry Potter franchise and the fact that the Twilight films are about to wrap up, it was inevitable that Hollywood would find another young adult novel franchise to mine in the hopes of continuing the gravy train. While Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy doesn’t have the high-profile of its predecessors, there is still a massive inbuilt audience for any film adaptation and the studio has banked on that with a reported $100 million+ budget. Unfortunately, the filmmakers have relied far too much on the source material; leaving the film a confusingly mediocre experience that feels like it should have been so much more. Continue reading →

Film Review – Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

by

‘As Johnny Blaze hides out in Eastern Europe, he is called upon to stop the devil, who is trying to take human form.‘

Year: 2012

Directors: Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor, Nic Cage’s Crazy Eyes

Writers: Scott M. Gimple, Seth Hoffman, David S. Goyer

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Nicolas Cage’s Crazy Eyes, Ciarán Hinds, Idris Elba, Violante Placido, Johnny Whitworth

How the hell did this movie get made? Did anyone involved see the first Ghost Rider? Continue reading →

Film Review – John Carter

by

‘Transplanted to Mars, a Civil War vet discovers a lush planet inhabited by 12-foot tall barbarians. Finding himself a prisoner of these creatures, he escapes, only to encounter a princess who is in desperate need of a savior.‘

John Carter

Given the ridiculous number of Tarzan adaptations to grace the big screen over the last century, it’s amazing that there hasn’t been a big screen adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ other epic series until now (apparently there was a direct to DVD movie in 2009). There have been many attempts over the years to bring this project to life by various studios, but the story always remained the same: ‘the technology isn’t advanced enough to do it justice.’ It’s curious that an animated version never made it off the ground, but now we have the next best thing, a CGI filled blockbuster directed by Pixar’s Andrew Stanton. Continue reading →

Film Review – Wing Commander

by

‘In the mid-27th century, the Terran Confederation is at war with the felinoid Kilrathi Empire. After destroying a Terran base, the Kilrathi have seized a NAVCOM unit with the hyperspace jump coordinates to Earth. With Terran reinforcements scheduled to arrive two hours after the Kilrathi hit Earth, it falls upon the starfighter carrier TCS Tiger Claw to keep the Kilrathi busy.‘

Wing Commander

Year: 1999

Writer/Director: Chris Roberts

Writer: Kevin Dromey

Starring: Freddie Michelle Gellar…oh, sorry, Freddy Prinze Jr., Saffron Burrows, Matthew Lillard…were they serious?

When a sci-fi movie made in 1999 clearly intended for a broad youth market (given the casting of the two guys who would go into the dizzying heights of…the Scooby Doo movies) is measured against a PC game made in 1994 and comes off as wanting in the story, characters, costumes and visual effects department it’s time for Hollywood to think hard about their standards. Oh, wait… Continue reading →

Film Review – Zombieland

by

‘A shy student trying to reach his family in Ohio, and a gun-toting tough guy trying to find the Last Twinkie and a pair of sisters trying to get to an amusement park join forces to travel across a zombie-filled America.‘

Zombieland

Year: 2009

Director: Ruben Fleischer

Writers: Rhett Reese, Paul Werrick

Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin

I’m sure there’s some kind of research devoted to understanding why, when an idea hits a creative medium, it must then be milked until its dry and desiccated husk crumbles and is blown to the four winds. Does the onus lie with the creative types, or with the audience who laps it up? This is no dig at creators in a field of work – if they are a professional then they can create whatever the hell they please. But surely most of us can admit it when there is overexposure of an idea. George Romero made zombies cool once upon a time with Night of the Living Dead, but this was back in the days when making movies was really, really hard work. If someone saw that film, and then wanted to make an homage or a spoof or anything involving the prefix “re”, it would cost them thousands of dollars and years of their life. Nowadays, Edgar Wright makes zombies modernly cool with Shaun of the Dead, and subsequently the shelves at Blockbuster are filled with insanely titled diversions like All You Need is Brains, Bong of the Dead, Zombie Strippers and Zombie Honeymoon. Continue reading →

District 9

District 9 Review

by

‘An extraterrestrial race forced to live in slum-like conditions on Earth suddenly finds a kindred spirit in a government agent who is exposed to their biotechnology.‘

Year: 2009

Director: Neil Blomkamp

Writers: Neil Blomkamp, Teri Tatchell

Starring: Sharlto Copely, Jason Cope, Nathalie Boltt

Transformers and the likes of Skyline or Battle: Los Angeles thunder into cinemas with all the force of…well, an alien invasion. These flicks wage a publicity assault of such magnitude that there’s no chance the movie-going public can avoid the countless posters, billboards and repeated trailers everywhere we go. Obviously this is how movies like this make their money, by over-saturating the mind so much that people can’t stand to let the movie pass them by. I, for one, am very glad of this; I’m glad Independence Day hit it so big in its time; I’m glad Cloverfield and Super 8 pull in the crowds they do; I’m even glad that Michael Bay get’s to keep cranking out Transformers over and over to a public that eats that business right up.

Because that’s how we get gold…like this: Continue reading →

Tintin and Captain Haddock

The Adventures of Tintin Review

by

‘Intrepid reporter Tintin and Captain Haddock set off on a treasure hunt for a sunken ship commanded by Haddock’s ancestor.‘

Tintin

The story of The Adventures of Tintin‘s development is long and convoluted, but we finally have a big screen adaptation of the comic that has been a favourite around the world for over 80 years (although I was always more of an Asterix and Obelix fan myself). Tintin has always been a fun character, working his way through adventures that Indiana Jones would be proud of with his trusty sidekick Snowy and it is only fitting that Steven Spielberg be the one to adapt it.

Spielberg first found out about Tintin when Continue reading →

Fright Night Review

by

Director: Craig Gillespie

Writers: Martin Noxin, Tom Holland

Starring: Colin Farrell, Anton Yelchin, Imogen Poots, David Tennant

Year: 2011

I sometimes like to claim that I have a bizarre relationship with horror films. When I was a little ‘un, and our family would go to the video store, I would check to make sure no-one was watching, then sneak into the horror section and start checking out the covers. I wouldn’t actually watch one – not in a million years (well…12 to 15) – but the images on those boxes held a dread fascination. One such cover that I have always clearly remembered was the 1985 cult classic Fright Night. Continue reading →