This is the worst thing I’ve ever seen, and I’m not limiting that to just films.
Embarrassing. Simply Embarrassing.
Director Edgar Wright (“Shaun of the Dead,” “Hot Fuzz“) and a big cast deliver a high-energy hip-fest based on Bryan Lee O’Malley’s six-part graphic novel. For those of you, like me, who had never heard about the Canadian comic prior to the film then it concerns a slacker bass player who must battle his new girlfriend’s seven evil exes to win her hand. The title character Scott Pilgrim is a twenty-something loveable slacker… obviously played by Michael Cera and his total disregard for becoming type-cast.
For those of you who are afraid you won’t get the video game references you may have heard about then please don’t let that stop you from seeing this movie. I haven’t bought a games console for 10 years but most of the references are a nostalgic nod to the old 8-bit machines. The Universal Film logo done in 8-bit graphics, along with beeping sounds, is worth the admission price alone.
I thought I’d find this film too cheesy but I ended up really enjoying it. With its surreal take on human relationships it is quite similar to ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,’ which is no bad thing. Also if you like 60’s US garage rock definitely check out the soundtrack.
It’s sad to see a remarkable artistic talent reduced to nothing more than a shadow of their former self. Many people have had it then lost it. Tom Jones, Ronaldinho, Mel Gibson… Eddie Murphy had it then definitely lost it. And Bobby Davro.
Well this is also the same story of film director M. Night Shyamalan. The Sixth Sense was an amazing classic but with every film he’s made since a little more magic was lost, until he reached the bottom of the artistic swamp with The Lady in the Water and The Happening.
But wait! The Last Airbender takes us to a new low. Based on the popular Nickelodeon cartoon series M. Night Shyamalan manages to take the enjoyable kid’s show – steal the all the warmth and then inject some pseudo-spiritual nonsense.
Here’s the premise: the universe is divided into elements: air, water, earth and fire. They’re out of balance or something. A bald child is needed. Bald kid unleashes power and that. Balance comes back.
The script is awful. The only funny lines will go over a kid’s head anyway:
‘There are some really powerful benders in the northern provinces’ haha… yeah… there certainly is.
The opening of this film is amazing with the group attacking Somali pirates. There is great interaction between the team and loads of violence (a pirate gets blown in half!) so I was expecting a fantastic homage to 80’s action movies. And it almost is.
I really enjoyed the film but I wanted this to be more of a Dirty Dozen-type of film but it was really more about Stallone and Statham’s characters. As I left the press screening you could hear that opinions were divided on this movie, so I’ve compiled a checklist to see if this is the film for you.
Just read the passage that most suits you:
Hi Tom, I’m a guy with tattoos, will I like this film? Yes, you will go nuts.
Hi Tom, I’m a guy who likes the idea of having a tattoo in principle, will I like this film? You will but you will also moan about the lack of depth in the story.
Hi Tom, I’m a young lady who has just bought some pretty shoes, will I like this film? No, most likely you will hate it but then you had Sex in the City 2 earlier in the year so… come on.
Hi Tom, I love the music of Erasure, will I like this film? I very much doubt it, although the guys are muscular.
Hi Tom, we’re a middle aged couple who have just come back from the BBC PROMS, will we like this film? No, I think you will be disgusted and write a strongly worded letter to the Daily Mail which will probably begin – ‘As the silent majority I feel compelled to write…’
Hat’s off to Stallone though for the action scenes. If a 64 year old man can film violence like that then what went wrong with the Predators film? The older generation have put Rodriguez to shame.
From the start I just want to say that I really wanted to love this film… but I didn’t.
The film almost took off, but never quite ignited. As an audience we knew too much and the film wasn’t sophisticated enough to deal with this. We all know it’s a Predator movie, we know Earth’s toughest have been dumped on an alien game reserve, so why take so long to reveal the reveal that we all know?
Adrian Brody is the main guy here and was arguably the best thing about the film. He leads the team as they make their way through a distant planet whose exotic and alien landscape looks almost exactly like Northern California.
There is a scene towards the end with a Yakuza warrior going up against a Predator with a samurai sword which should have been amazing… but it wasn’t. Speaking of the Predators, the designs are a little rubbish too. The helmets are so big on their bodies that they looked like Rick Moranis in Spaceballs.
I use to watch the A-Team TV series a lot growing up. I distinctly remember at primary school being told to remove my A-Team t-shirt for P.E. and then in true military A-Team style I just stood there and burst into tears.
As the film opens, we see the events that led up to the four guys ending up together. The cigar-chomping Hannibal (Liam Neeson) and Face (Bradley Cooper) who were already working together on a mission in Mexico. Hannibal breaks free of his captors and is racing to save Face, who is about to be killed by somebody evil. Hannibal runs into B.A. Baracus (UFC champion Quinton “Rampage” Jackson), and they also team up and save their Face. When the mission is complete, they decide they need one more member for their newfound Alpha Team in the form of a certifiably insane pilot named Murdock (Sharlto Copley).
The film then jumps ahead several years and the film begins properly and then promptly falls apart. The team is recruited in Baghdad to retrieve some printing plates and then the whole film is about keeping hold of these plates. The problem is I don’t care whether they succeed or not. They’re not protecting refugees, they’re not retrieving a nuclear bomb, they’re not even looking after an abandoned kitten. THEY ARE JUST PRINTING PLATES!
I feel now that, 24 years ago, I cried for nothing.
Tom Cruise plays a secret agent in Knight and Day whose job is to protect a young man who has invented of all things, a battery which could control all the energy of a small city. However, his corrupt partner wrongfully accuses Cruise of trying to steal the battery for his own game, when really its the partner who’s the baddie! Anyway, the only thing Cruise can do is go on the run to try to clear his name but also protect and hide the nerdy battery creator.
Along the way Cruise accidentally meets Cameron Diaz and unfortunately she gets caught up in the action.
The film was OK, nothing to shout about though as I felt that there wasn’t anything unique about the storyline, you’d kind of seen it all before. Nevertheless if you like action films mixed with a bit of romance then that’s what you’ll get.
Well what can I say Disney/Pixar have outdone themselves once again in this next instalment of the Toy Story trilogy. Woody and the gang are back in a new adventure which sees the toys wrongfully donated to SunnySide Daycare Centre for children, as Andy prepares to go to college. Tumbling out of the toy box those loveable toys are catapulted into an environment with unruly children and some not so nice toys who are under the leadership of what us Brits would know as a Care Bear, although obviously there were some copyright issues with that one!
The new adventure sees Woody and his fellow stuffed and plastic creations strive to return to their one and only owner Andy before its too late. Anyway, the characters, animation and plot are out of this world and the creators deserve a huge pat on the back. The film is entertaining and very funny, although I did feel that there weren’t as many adult jokes (those jokes kid’s don’t really understand the hidden meanings to) but nevertheless it was a superb watch.
This emotional and very touching film is now available on Blu-ray and DVD and personally I can’t really recommend it enough if you like a good old family drama and a heart warming tale of one family’s struggle to live life after the murder of their daughter.
Directed by Peter Jackson who is responsible for epic films such as The Lord of The Rings Trilogy, The Lovely Bones follows the story of a teenage girl who is murdered by her creepy neighbour but is trapped in the inbetween, before she can move onto heaven she must somehow communicate to her family about the circumstances behind her death in order to bring her killer to justice… or a fate he so fittingly deserves.
To be honest I cried pretty much the whole way through this film as it is so emotional not just watching a young girl get tricked into going with her murderer, but the whole journey the family goes through in the aftermath is so heart wrenching.Totally loved this film, it is so clever how the different worlds are portrayed and the cast gave some really believable performances. It’s a must see!
Knowing the details of how Inception unravels will not ruin the film for you but going into it as a blank slate I think is the most rewarding. So I won’t explain too much other than Leonardo DiCaprio plays Cobb, an expert in extraction, which is the art of stealing secret information hidden in people’s subconscious. He and his team are tasked with inception – the seemingly impossible act of implanting a thought into somebody else’s subconscious.
The mission is to plant an idea in the head of billionaire industrialist Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy). He is helped by a team including Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page and Tom Hardy. But during the mission Cobb’s own psyche begins to threaten the team.
This is an amazing film that challenges the mind, which is rare for a mainstream Hollywood film. The credit for this is down to director Chris Nolan who has obviously made a personal film and followed through with the vision.
But just because this feels like an intelligent film that doesn’t mean you have to be intelligent to watch it as this incident which happened to me in the cinema shows. It happened during a scene when Ellen Page’s character has finally twigged the problem with Cobb’s mental state and confronts him:
ELLEN PAGE: “The deeper we go into Fischer,” she explains to Cobb, “the deeper we also go into you.”
GUY NEXT TO ME IN CINEMA: Begins giggling before saying under-his-breath “gay”.
