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Unicorn-9
Reviews
Watchmen (2009)
So-what-men
I finally staggered through to the end of the movie, but it was a pretty hard slog; by twenty minutes in my girlfriend had decided that it was boring and found better things to do, and I was seriously flagging after an hour and a half. To be honest, I could have found better things to do than watch the rest of the movie myself.
It's a couple of decades since I read 'Watchmen' the comic, but aside from a few changes to the ending, the movie seems to be a pretty direct copy of the comic to the screen, and that's one of the big flaws; that worked for 300, because it's basically a bunch of action scenes with some talking in between, but a comic as pretentious, talky and full of narration as 'Watchmen' makes for a very dull movie.
And the direct translation from comic to screen is also problematic in another way: 'Watchmen' the comic just isn't very good.
Sure, it may have won a bazillion awards, but ultimately it's a decent idea that was poorly developed; the end result is not particularly interesting characters doing not particularly interesting things while indulging in lefty student philosophising in a not particularly original plot. Had 'Watchmen' been a novel or a movie, it would have vanished into obscurity, it only received acclaim as a comic because so few comics of that era made any pretense at intelligent characterisation or plot.
Another problem is that Moore himself seems to have little sympathy for anyone to the right of Stalin, and a writer with no sympathy for his characters can hardly expect the readers to have much sympathy for them either; Moore can do a good job with a 'superhero' like V (for Vendetta), but every character in 'Watchmen', with the possible exception of Rorshach, is basically a cardboard cutout.
So ultimately we end up with a highly over-rated comic turned into a horribly boring movie where people I don't care about do things I don't care about for reasons I don't care about; and the only mildly sympathetic character is killed off by the others. Don't make the same mistake I did: you can find much better things to do with three hours of your life than watch this movie and then shrug 'so what?' at the end.
Chicken Little (2005)
Not good, not bad, not really much of anything
You can tell there's something wrong with a movie when the epilogue which is supposed to be spoofing the previous seventy minutes of the movie is much better than the seventy minutes it's spoofing. I can't help but feel that even the people making the movie realised there was something wrong, because of the way they spoofed Disney's own clichés at the start.
Ultimately I can't say the movie is bad -- it looks OK, there's kind of a plot, there are kind of some characters (the fish is cool even if most of the rest are pure politically correct stereotype) -- it's just inconsequential. They obviously put some time and money into making this thing, but much of the time I spent watching it was spent thinking 'what were they thinking when they made this'? The plot is the same old same old Disney, clichés and predictability abound, the writers didn't really seem to know what kind of movie they were trying to make, and so ultimately Disney took what could have been a decent idea and what could have been some decent characters and left us with... cinematic mush.
Now, obviously I'm not the target audience for this movie and maybe it's OK for a kid; but I've been spoiled by Pixar, who make movies that adults and kids can both enjoy. This one is such a mess that it would probably have a hard time engaging anyone over the age of five.
So yeah, if you're an adult, skip the first seventy minutes and just watch the epilogue at the end. You won't miss much.
Quantum of Solace (2008)
Unwatchable garbage
The movie starts with an 'action' sequence where Bond is being chased through the mountains in some fancy car... or maybe he's chasing someone through the mountains... or maybe he's driving down to Brighton for an afternoon at the beach and some other people are chasing each other through the mountains... or... who knows? They obviously spent a ton of cash on this sequence but then they cut it together in three-frame chunks so the audience have no idea what the heck is going on.
After this there's a brief discussion which seems to assume that the viewer just watched Casino Royale and can therefore remember exactly what happened in that movie (perhaps the fact that I can barely remember anything about it whereas I remember at least the rough plots of pretty much every other Bond movie I've seen should have been warning enough to me).
Then Bond chases someone around town... or maybe someone chases him... or maybe Bond goes for a nice cup of tea as he watches a horse race while two other guys chase each other around town; again it's impossible to tell because of the appalling editing.
Then he flies to... well, I don't know -- or really care -- because at this point we turned off the DVD.
Never once in my life have I failed to watch a Bond movie to the end, until now... and, let's face it, there have been plenty of stinkers. But this is just garbage, and if it's the future of the Bond franchise, it's rushing towards a well-deserved death; the concept of a more realistic Bond wasn't a bad one, but not when you give $100,000,000 to a couple of film school students (OK, maybe the editor and director do have some track record -- I don't even care enough to look them up on IMDb -- but it certainly looks like the kind of movie that bad film school students dream about making).
Seriously, avoid this movie at all costs; it's the worst 'action movie' I've seen in years.
Doomsday (2008)
Better then Uwe Boll
I tried for quite a while to come up with something good to say about this movie, and the best I could manage was that whereas a Uwe Boll movie might make me want to rip out my own eyes to avoid having to watch any more, this one is just boring. Shortly after King Arthur appeared my girlfriend decided to call her mother on the phone for an hour, and then I cleaned the hamster's cage before we moved on to the insanely predictable 'Gladiator' scene (will she win? well, duh, what do you think?); that's how enthralling and exciting 'Dumbsday' is.
Derivative, predictable, nonsensical, lacking a single original thought, full of stupid characters eager to get themselves killed at a moment's notice, barely able to go ten frames without making a cut in the mistaken belief that confusion is a good substitute for writing, pacing and suspense; now, I expected that from the trailer, and waited until I could watch it for free on DVD, but it would have been nice to be surprised.
I honestly can't understand why so many people think so highly of this movie; 6/10 is far too high a rating, unless you haven't seen all the movies he's ripping off and imagine that this is somehow something new.
AVPR: Aliens vs Predator - Requiem (2007)
Requiem for the Alien franchise
Unlike many other commentators, I didn't think this was the worst movie ever made, but it did make the original 'Alien vs Predator' look good. The idea wasn't too bad, but the implementation was inept, to say the least.
Let's start with the script: there are so many characters that it's hard to keep track of who is who and they're so cardboard that I really couldn't care about them in the least. What good is a horror movie where you don't care whether the characters live or die?
Let's continue with the cinematography: much of the movie is so dark that it's almost impossible to see what is going on. The original 'Alien' used darkness well, in this one they apparently couldn't afford to rent enough lights to see anything. They could have saved an awful lot of money by just splicing in an hour of black leader.
Let's conclude with the editing: any time that there's any action in the plot, those too-dark-to-see shots are cut together six frames at a time so you can not only not see what's going on but you haven't the faintest clue of what's supposed to be going on. Alien fights Predator, there's a blur of too-dark-to-see shots and then one of them is dead... yeah, that's some way to tell a story.
I could go on and point out that it's horribly predictable and they re-use shots which were scary the first time we saw them in earlier movies a decade ago but are just a waste of time today: for example, the skinned human body in the tree. Guys, most of us have seen 'Predator', that's not even remotely a surprise today. But why bother? It's a mess with far worse faults than that.
I thought the Alien franchise had sunk to its lowest level when Anderson got the job of directing one, but giving it to a couple of film school students (OK, maybe they're not, I know nothing about their actual movie history and only hope no-one ever lets them near a directing chair again) is really dredging the depths. Maybe Uwe Boll can direct AvP3, that's about the only way they could get worse.
Land of the Dead (2005)
A Romero Zombie Movie
I'm not quite sure what people were expecting from this movie; anyone who's seem Romero's previous zombie movies should have expected pretty much what they got.
Having read all the negative reviews, I was expecting it to be awful, but I actually rather enjoyed it. Yes, it has plenty of plot holes, some weak acting, poor characterisation, plot inconsistencies... and some of it downright makes no sense at all.
But I expect that from a Romero movie. All of his earlier zombie movies have had similar problems, and the thing which set them apart from so many other zombie movies is the way that zombies were treated as monsters who used to be people, rather than just disposable killers. While the idea of semi-sentient killer zombies is a bit silly, it's merely an extrapolation of his previous work.
The one thing that really did jar, however, was the extreme waste of ammunition by the humans; we've seen over four movies now that the only way to kill a zombie with a bullet is to shoot it in the head, but they still go blasting away on fully-automatic rather than take single shots. One character is offered a rifle which fires 'fourteen times a second'; but in a zombie movie that's just a way to burn up all your ammo so you're empty when the next one turns up. That really does make no sense.
'Dawn of the Dead' is my favorite Romero zombie movie, and certainly the one I've watched the most; but 'Land of the Dead' probably takes second place. I'm not a huge Romero fan, but it delivered pretty much what I expected, and that's all I asked for; to my surprise, I also enjoyed the 'Dawn of the Dead' remake, which I also expected to be awful, but I'm far more likely to watch this movie again than that one because it had so little in it beyond a group of people being attacked by killer zombies. Yet that seems to be what many people wanted.
Escape from Angola (1976)
Lots of animals, not much plot
This is a very strange movie. It feels as though someone had a lot of African animal footage and decided to make a movie by surrounding it with a vague attempt at a plot, lots of wooden acting, and some very fake explosions.
As someone mentioned, there's no chemistry between most of the characters, and far too much of the dialog is spent lecturing about Africa and wildlife conservation rather than serving what plot there is.
If you like animal footage and lectures about African wildlife, then it may be worth watching, but judged as a movie by any other standard I'd suggest finding something more useful to do with your time.
Terminator II (1989)
Dumbest movie ever?
This is... very strange. Basically a ripoff of Aliens and a bit of Terminator with guys wearing uniforms that look like they were last used in an Ed Wood sci-fi movie running around a power station. While it doesn't sink to Uwe Boll levels, it would certainly be inept if they didn't have James Cameron movies to rip off.
Now, I must admit, I've only seen the movie in Italian... and I don't speak Italian; so maybe it's less dumb if you do. But I don't really need to, because they lift so much so directly from Aliens that I could tell you almost exactly what they're saying most of the time. And I mean direct; not just individual shots, but _entire scenes_ are lifted wholesale from Aliens.
For those who like their movies mind-boggling it's probably a must-see, but for those who like good movies it's one to avoid. The most puzzling question is how did they get away with it?
NBC Special Treat: Into Infinity (1975)
Andserson curio
I had vague memories of seeing this show as a kid in the 70s, and recently found one of the Fanderson DVDs on ebay to add to my Gerry Anderson collection.
Well, let's be blunt about this: it's not very good. The effects and models are very much influenced by 'Space 1999' (the main ship looks a lot like the 'Ultra Probe' from that show), and for the era they're not bad. But the plot, characterisation and acting is even below 'Space 1999' levels and in many ways the setting makes even less sense. The music is also rather naff: the music in most of Anderson's shows was memorable in itself, but this one sounds like they accidentally used a music tape from a 70s cop show.
So it's an odd combination of science lecture (relativistic red-shift, etc) and SF adventure for nine year olds. For me one of the the biggest issues is the way it makes the kids such a major part of the plot: I mean, are you really going to trust interstellar navigation to a ten year old boy? They justify having them on the ship by saying that the adults don't want to leave their kids behind because they'll be decades older by the time their parents come back, both due to travel time and time dilation, but an adult crew might have made the story more believable. Another issue is that they lecture about relativity so much but don't understand it, nor is the technology even remotely accurate: an Anderson 'hard SF' show in the 70s would have been a pretty interesting concept, but you don't get that here.
All in all, an interesting curio and it might have made a decent series if they'd produced any more, but it's well below the standard of Anderson's earlier SF shows. I couldn't recommend it to anyone other than Anderson fans, but if you do want to see it the Fanderson DVD has both NTSC and PAL versions on one disk and decent picture quality, so it's probably the best way of doing so.
Cubbyhouse (2001)
Naff, but fun
'Cubbyhouse' is one of the naffest decently-budgeted horror movies I've seen in years: a family move into an old house that's been empty for years only to be attacked by demons from the garden shed. As someone else mentioned, the plot is basically identical to every single naff horror movie of the 80s and utterly predictable as a result, but set in Australia, with an obviously deliberate American angle for the international market, and full of bad CG effects rather than bad latex effects.
Yet despite that, I found it surprisingly entertaining: technically it's decently made other than the bad CG effects, the plot isn't totally nonsensical, the kids don't do a bad job in their parts and the older actors manage to deliver lines with a straight face that would leave most of us laughing... the biggest flaw is that Lauren Hewett never gets naked.
It's probably fair to say, though, that a large part of the fun comes just from the cast, and trying to work out which Australian soap opera you've previously seen them in: it's kind of like 'Neighbours' with serial killers and tentacle monsters.
Judge Dredd: Dredd vs Death (2003)
Such a waste
The Judge Dredd comic had been running for twenty-five years or more when this game was released, and that gave the developers a huge selection of stories and characters to choose from. So it's a shame that they chose to make a straightforward and poorly implemented zombie shooter.
The worst problem with the game is the pathing. Often you have to rescue civilians or lead enemies to specific areas on the map where you can kill them. That would be fine were it not for the fact that they regularly get stuck behind the slightest obstruction, like a chair or a barrel. At times I had to restart a level right from the beginning simply because some NPC got stuck and I had no way to convince them that yes, actually they could walk past that barrel or they could walk up and down stairs. That, to my mind is the worst sin of the game.
Even if the pathing worked, the AI is pretty weak: all that most of the enemies do is stand and shoot at you (if they have guns) or run straight for you, if they can actually figure out how to run in a straight line across the open area between you and them... in the more open areas, half the time they just stand there and let you shoot them because the pathing sucks.
So it's not even a particularly difficult shoot'em'up game: in fact, compared to how powerful they're supposed to be and how they were portrayed in the comics, the Dark Judges here are totally wuss when playing on Normal difficulty. You don't need the Judges to handle them, a few Girl Scouts with pointy sticks could have done the job.
The save system is also horrible, taking thirty seconds to go through all the steps required to save, with no quicksave key. The 'checkpoint' system makes up for that a little, allowing you to revert to the last checkpoint rather than reload, but is very consolised: in fact the whole game definitely feels like it's been crippled for the console market.
I can carry two weapons and 99 magazines for a weapon, yet when they send me into a prison with a hundred vampires running around I get a pistol and about five magazines... the end result is that I stand around and let other judges die just so I can collect their weapons and ammo. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
Objectives are often poorly explained, leaving me wandering around wondering what the heck I'm supposed to do next. On another occasion I restarted a level from scratch because I thought it was bugged, only to realise that I was supposed to blow up the computer terminal I was sent to, not 'use it' like the other terminals in the game.
Judge Dredd's motorbike was a major 'character' in the comic, but only ever appears here in cutscenes. Allowing the player to drive it would have at least added something to the game.
The main thing in the game which separates it from the average B-grade shooter is the arrest system. As a Judge, you have to arrest people if possible rather than kill them, and that could have been used to add a whole new dimension. Unfortunately it's also totally consolised, so all I do is press 'F' and the game sentences them for me: despite nominally being 'Judge, Jury and Executioner', I'm given no way to choose punishment myself.
Finally, it's short, the graphics were quite poor even when the game was released (compare it to, say, NOLF2, released a year earlier), and the last few levels become a boring kill-fest. Normally when a game only takes six hours to complete I'd complain, but in this case it was a relief.
So one to avoid? Well, it's hugely flawed in pretty much every respect, but... as someone who grew up reading the 'Judge Dredd' stories in 2000AD, when you can look past the flaws, it's actually quite fun.
In addition, despite the low-grade graphics, in the early levels it actually does give a fair impression of life in the Mega-City One of the comics. About half-way through is where the tedium starts to set in, and some of the 'Arcade' mini-games are fun too, though you have to unlock them by completing the main story missions.
If only the rest had been as good as the start, it would have worked well. I paid $5 for the game in the bargain bin, and I think it's worth that much: I don't think it's worth $10 though.
But I'm sure that if Judge Dredd were here he'd be cuffing the perp who decided to make a Dredd game about shooting zombies and vampires and sentencing him to ten years in an Iso-Cube. What a huge waste of an opportunity.
No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way (2002)
Flawed sequel to a classic game
The original NOLF is way up my top ten of best games ever made: it has flaws -- most obviously the excessively long cut-scenes -- but it's a decent shooter, a decent sneaker and often very, very funny.
NOLF2 tries to add more to the funny spy sneak'n'shoot genre, but falls flat. The story isn't bad, the characters are interesting if sometimes clichéd, but the game design itself lets it down.
The most obvious flaw is respawning guards: there are few things which destroy suspension of disbelief more than having cleared out part of a map and then having more guards magically appear there and shoot you in the back. Respawning is pretty much an admission that your game design is broken.
The other main flaw is the number of 'you can't kill anyone on this level and you can't be seen either', the 'we're sending you to fight an army but only giving you a pistol' levels and the various 'we're sending you against enemies your weapons can't harm' levels. In NOLF you could pick the equipment you wanted for a mission, here you're given what you're given and that's that, and I was particularly unimpressed by the way that guards would see me and raise the alarm when I was hiding behind a sofa in a room on the other side of a courtyard.
Now, that's not to say it's irredeemably bad. The mimes are funny. The 'Ice Station Evil' level is one of my all-time favorites, at least the first time when you don't know what's going on. The tricycle level is inspired, but poorly implemented. The tornado mission would be brilliant, but the respawning ninjas ruin it... I hate levels where it's basically impossible to complete without dying several times while you figure out the path through.
Lastly, the ending. Now, in a way I like the ending as it stands, but one of the rules of good story-telling is that your central characters should be responsible for saving the world, and not a deus-ex-machina. The basic ending could have been kept while allowing your character to have a far more significant impact rather than sitting back and watching.
Definitely worth a go if you find it in the bargain bin, but it's a shame that it could have been so much more.
The Day of the Triffids (1981)
Not bad, but not as good as I remembered
I had vivid memories of watching this show as a teenager when it was first shown on TV, and recently bought the DVD. It's not badly done, but at the same time I found it far less effective today than I did then. Surprisingly, the triffid effects didn't look too bad. OK, they're obviously fake plants, but they're about as convincing as could be expected on a BBC budget.
I think the main problem is that they tried to cram too much into a relatively short series, so the character development isn't terribly convincing. As some others have pointed out, a number of scenes are basically pure exposition with characters expounding their beliefs without much dramatic impact, characters meet and fall in love in a few minutes, and the whole 'should we help the blind or not?' issue is really skimmed over with people making up their minds very quickly: I know it would make rational sense to let most of the blind die rather than try to keep them alive, but I doubt that most people would write them off as quickly as the characters here do. Another issue watching it in the 21st century is that there are a few very 1970s haircuts that rather give away the age of the show :).
So it's worth a look, and it's a far better adaption of the book than the film from the 1960s, but there's still room for a better one!
Volcano (1997)
Attack of the Killer Liberals (spoilers ahead)
This must be the most retarded disaster movie I have ever seen. But it's not even because of the basic idea, which might be geologically feasible but certainly isn't something many people worry about: and, let's face it, a fair proportion of the American population would regard lava flowing down the streets of Los Angeles as a sure sign that God is listening to their prayers.
However, the biggest problem is that from the moment the movie opens, the clichés and liberal heart-bleeding start coming thick and fast. We have the divorced Dad who needs to learn to spend time with his daughter rather than his job. We have the black sidekick who the Dad doesn't trust to handle emergencies. We have the interfering boss who the Dad refuses to talk to because he always knows best. We have the heroic Asian female doctor who won't leave her patients, even when her white boyfriend/husband/whatever tells her to. The female geologist who's going to save the city. The black guy who's arrested by the EVIL white cops because he won't stop demanding that they put out the fires on black peoples' houses, and eventually saves the day. The railway line manager who sacrifices himself to save a driver (who's black, of course). The soldier who won't leave his injured buddy, even though that means that both of them will die. The dog who magically escapes from the lava right at the last moment. The Dad who has to run through the middle of an explosion to save his daughter at the last moment because she's too stupid to run away herself.
Most of all though, the young kid who comes out at the end and says something like 'with the ash on people's faces everyone looks alike'. Groan. How much more preachy can you get? Oh, and let's not forget the geologist woman who goes down into the drains after being told not to (being a 90s career woman and all, therefore unable to take any kind of advice from a man, no matter how well-intentioned), gets her female colleague killed (though I guess one could argue that standing over a hole in the ground full of lava is evolution in action), cries about it for ten seconds and then completely forgets about it for the rest of the movie.
Still, look on the bright side: some of the actual 'disaster' sequences are quite well done, and if you watch this movie, you'll never have to watch another disaster movie again since every cliché of the genre is stuffed into this one. It's a shame they couldn't have concentrated on the disaster and not on the groan-inducing liberal dogma.
The Making of 'A Night to Remember' (1993)
A rarity for the 50s
I have to say I found this a pretty interesting documentary. A modern movie would have a whole team recording behind the scenes footage for documentary use, but it's quite rare to see something with so much footage of the making of a movie in the 50s.
I'd never really considered that the movie had been such a big production for its time, though with hindsight it should have been obvious that it was... the documentary makes that more obvious, with all the different ships they had to use to simulate the Titanic, various models, partial replicas of sections of the ship, etc.
If you buy the DVD of the movie, it's almost certainly worth your time to take an hour and watch this documentary on the other side.
Creep (2004)
The horror of missed opportunities
I have to say, I had low expectations of this movie when I went in -- after all, it's a low-budget British horror movie, so what you can expect? -- but they were dashed by what was a truly well done opening scene. Of course it did have Ken Campbell, which is always a strong plus point, but it well well written, well directed, and also quite funny. From that point on I was expecting great things.
As I've mentioned before, most low-budget British horror movies suffer from one very basic problem: none of the characters are interesting, likable or sympathetic, and the only reason for watching the movie is to see them die (which is rarely, if ever, the director's intention). This movie has several sympathetic characters: the sewer workers, the dog and the homeless people... they might not be admirable, but they're human (or at least canine), I can empathise with them and I don't want to see them killed.
So it's disappointing, then, that the writer/director chose to make the lead role an obnoxious, skanky coke-head woman whose goal in life is to be shagged by George Clooney: breaking rule number one of low-budget horror -- make your lead character someone we want to see survive, not someone we want to see die -- and rule number two -- don't mention better movies or actors or we'll be sitting there thinking 'Boy, I really wish George Clooney was in this movie, then it wouldn't stink so bad' -- at the same time. I guess it's meant to be some kind of 'girl power' thing, but to me it was just a 'please kill her off so we can get back to the interesting characters' thing.
The end result was a true horror, and not in the good sense. The idea had a lot of potential, and if only the story had stuck with the likable characters, it could have made a great movie. The directing was decent, the acting was decent, the cinematography was decent, the production design was decent... but the script sucked.
The movie is eighty-five minutes long, which is a bit shorter than average for the genre. But, because I cared little for the female lead, and because little happened in the plot other than get attacked, run away, rest a bit, get attacked, run away, rest a bit, get attacked, run away, rest a bit, ad infinitum, it felt like three hours.
Even worse is the blatant stupidity demonstrated by the characters. For example, at one point the woman hits the bad guy and he's rolling around on the ground in pain. Does she grab the big pointy stick he's been using to stab people and stick it in the back of his head? No, of course not, that would leave us with half an hour of empty space at the end of the movie (which would have pleased me no end, thirty minutes of black would be better than the movie as released), she just runs away to let him kill more people and track her down.
Similarly, she's locked in the Underground by some rather flimsy gates, which I'm sure she could have broken through in a few moments, and, magically, in the middle of Central London in the entrance to an Underground station, her mobile phone doesn't work, and she doesn't even think to use a payphone instead. I can forgive a certain amount of coincidence, bad luck and stupidity in a movie, but this is way beyond a joke.
Finally, in one particularly memorable sequence, she's in a room with someone, they know the bad guy is outside nearby, so what does her friend do? Of course, stand there with their back to the window. What a smart move, and the results are so totally unpredictable.
Bizarrely, it appears that the director wanted the overall message of the movie to be 'the homeless are people too'. My mind boggles at where that came from, or why he'd think that the way to demonstrate that was by making his main character an airhead George Clooney stalker being chased around the Underground rather than homeless person. On the plus-side, I was so, so expecting that the 'creep' would come creeping out of the tunnel again in the overly long final scene to set it up for a sequel, so it gets a plus point for at least showing a little originality and not doing that: or maybe they just realised that there's no way the movie is going to do well enough to get one.
Overall, it's a bad, bad movie that could have been a good one: the only redeeming feature is that it does have Ken Campbell... What a tremendous lost opportunity: frankly, if I wasn't watching with a group of friends I'd have walked out two-thirds of the way through, and that's something I've never done before even with the worst train-wreck of a movie... at least most of them are amusingly bad rather than just plain bad.
If you want to see a _good_ movie about someone stuck in the Underground which will demonstrate that 'homeless people are people too', go rent 'Subway', despite its flaws it will be a much better use of your time.
Quatermass (1979)
Slightly dated, but intelligent SF
I saw this series when first aired, when I was just a kid, and while I remembered little about the story, I did remember that it made more of an impression on me than most SF shows of the time. Now I can see why.
The setting is very much 'future 70s', with hippies, oil restrictions, social collapse, power cuts, and other fears of that era, the effects are certainly very old by modern standards, and Mills' Quatermass is too undeveloped and unsympathetic for my tastes. However, the story makes up for it, and there are some memorable ideas (like gladiatorial games in Wembley Stadium) and some memorable scenes (again, the Wembley Stadium 'harvesting' scene in particular, and the S&M 'family show' would also have been a lot more fun on Saturday night TV than Noel Edmonds).
One thing I hate about bad SF is that the aliens are just people with a few rubber bits stuck on their face, who come to Earth to kidnap women or steal our resources, or some other mundane and, frankly, very human goal. Quatermass' aliens, on the other hand, are never seen and we never even really find out quite what they're doing, just that they're extremely powerful and don't care about humans in the least... it's a far more intelligent premise, and very Lovecraftian, in a way.
So, the effects are dated, Quatermass himself could have done with more work and possibly a different actor, but overall it's an intelligent premise, and, frankly, the idea of an attack by hugely powerful aliens who care nothing for the human race is far more scary to me than most so-called 'horror' movies of recent years.
Moulin Rouge! (2001)
Nice music, shame about the plot
I like the songs, the juxtaposition of modern music to the 19th century was often amusing, and overall the musical set pieces are great: it's just a shame they felt they needed to add a plot. Maybe I've just read too many 'how to write a hollywood blockbuster' books, but to call it predictable would be a compliment... nor did I think that Nicole Kidman did particularly well in her role as the love interest.
Not a horribly bad movie, not a great one, but it's a shame that the plot didn't live up to the music video interludes... I really liked the first 10-20 minutes, but was looking at my watch by an hour in. I can understand why some of my friends love the move, but it doesn't work as well for me.
Die Hard (1988)
The best Christmas movie ever
I saw 'Die Hard' in the cinema when it first came out (which dates me, I know), and just watched it on DVD for probably the first time since. What surprised me was the fact that it hardly felt dated at all: the biggest giveaway that it was an 80s movie was the use of a Japanese corporation as the site of the terrorist attack.
This movie is certainly Bruce Willis' finest hour, and Alan Rickman's performance as the villain is brilliant too. But what really makes it for me, in this era where action heroes like the Matrix mob and Lara Croft are totally invincible and, therefore, ultimately boring, is that Bruce Willis is most definitely, well, vincible. He's far from fashionably dressed, spending most of the movie in his vest with no shoes, rather than run into a room with six terrorists with machineguns and shoot them all in glorious, balletic slow motion he... valiantly runs away, he's cut and bruised and while he leaves trails of blood around the building, more often that not they're his own. Bruce Willis plays an action hero who can get hurt and regularly does: quite amazing by 21st century standards. And, better yet, he's not doing all this to save the world, but so he can have a quiet Christmas with his wife and kids!
Overall it's a whole lot of fun, with explosions, shootouts, a bunch of surprises, no dull spots, few unbelievable plot twists, good characters and a neat ending. After watching the movie it was interesting to imagine some of the other action heroes of the time trying to play Wills' role... what a screwup it would have been to have cast someone like Arnie or Stallone instead.
Wrong Turn (2003)
Scooby Doo vs the inbred Southern cannibal mutants
Ok, I did finally get around to watching this movie to the end, but from the 'Seven'-ripoff credits at the start I should have known better. While obviously made to a much higher technical standard than the horror B-movies of the 70s and 80s, it was a stale, predictable, by-the-numbers 'teen' slaughter movie that had nothing of the charm of the movies it's clearly ripping off (most obviously 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre', though at times it also reminded me of 'Motel Hell').
The biggest problem is that it's just soulless. It really has no reason to exist other than to gorily kill off a few people, and that's it: beyond that facade there's nothing. I'd say something about the characters, but there really aren't any: just cardboard cutouts straight from 'How to write a horror movie in 24 hours'... and that's the 'good guys'; the 'bad guys' aren't even as solid as cardboard. It's as though it was written as a parody but the director got confused and shot it as a serious movie. Honestly, with all the good movies that could have been made about inbred Southern cannibal mutants, why make this one?
Otherwise the story is short and poorly paced, and what about all those 'I've got a helicopter and I'm going to use it' aerial shots? Yes, we know they're in a wood, you don't have to keep showing us... I doubt that even the target audience of twelve year olds are that lacking in attention span that they'd have forgotten so quickly.
Best part of the movie was the cleavage shots of the redhead chick... there's not even any decent nudity to make up for the silly script and lack of characterisation. But after about 20 minutes you might as well just switch off, because you've seen the best bits and you'll already have figured out the rest of what passes for a story (even down to the inbred Southern cannibal mutants mysteriously deciding that when they capture our heroine they won't kill her like the others, they'll just tie her up and wait for her to be rescued: I'd list that as a spoiler, but it will be obvious within fifteen minutes of watching the movie). About all that's left are a few gratuitous gore shots, but if you want that then why bother with a second-rater: just watch 'Brain Dead' instead.
My final thought, as the end credits rolled, was 'that's the stupidest thing I've ever seen'. With hindsight that's not really true, but it's not far from it: the whole movie is pretty much 'Scooby Doo vs the inbred Southern cannibal mutants', but with less believable characters and a less convincing plot. I'm surprised it didn't end with the inbred Southern cannibal mutants saying 'And we'd have gotten away with it too, if not for those pesky kids!'
In fact, had Scooby Doo been in it, it would have been a much, much better movie. Maybe someone should suggest it to James Gunn.
In the Cut (2003)
Decently made, but disappointing
This is one of those movies where the first 20 minutes are quite engrossing, but by an hour in you're more concerned about the pain in your butt from sitting in a lousy cinema seat than whether Joey the Happy Gerbil will rescue the Rat Princess before she's forced to marry the Evil Overlord, or whatever. Now, admittedly, it's a movie in the 'forty-ish New York women looking to get laid before they get murdered but can't find a good man' genre, which isn't my usual kind of film, but I'm always willing to at least give ethnic cinema a chance.
Technically, the biggest problem is that it felt like either a ninety minute story in a two hour movie, or a two hour movie made with chunks from a four or five hour story. Various characters and subplots turned up and vanished seemingly just to make them potential suspects in the murder sub-plot or potential hurdles in the getting laid plot, but looked like they were probably far more important in the novel. Equally, other subplots ran through the movie but never really seemed to go anywhere (e.g. the poems on the subway).
That presumably worked, because it did keep me guessing about the identity of the murderer through the film, yet, at the same time, the ending managed to be predictable and unsatisfying: 'forty-ish New York women looking to get laid before they get murdered but can't find a good man' isn't my normal kind of book genre either, so I don't know for sure, but I've read a few comments that the novel ending was very different and more in keeping with the general 'dark' tone of the rest of the movie.
The other big problem I had is that this is a movie that probably only got funded because it was made by a female writer and female director. Nothing against female writers or female directors -- I've worked with a few and they've made some of my favorite movies -- but had this been made by a male writer and male director it would probably have been written off as formulaic misogynistic claptrap, whereas because it was made by a female writer and director it will presumably become an "important" movie and win plenty of awards.
So it's not a really bad movie that makes you want to gouge your eyes out, but it's not a great movie, either. There's nothing particularly original about the plot and I think even the graphic oral sex in a semi-mainstream movie has been done before, it suffers somewhat from the obligatory GrittyCam(tm) required by all urban movies these days -- i.e. wobbly and out of focus shots -- and, frankly, too many sex scenes that get in the way of what plot there is. If it was, say, a forty-ish Chloe Sevigny trying to get laid (i.e. cute, but not stunning), maybe it would have been more convincing and interesting, but I just can't see Meg Ryan having too much trouble finding a decent man if she wanted one... despite her acting, having aged pretty well really works against her here.
In the end, it's not a movie I came out of wishing I could get my money back, but equally I'm sure I could have found much better uses for my time. All in all, just disappointing given some of the hype beforehand.
28 Days Later... (2002)
A Life Less Zombie-Filled
I liked the first twenty minutes or so of this movie: in particular, the various scenes of an empty London were well done, though I must admit that even by that point I'd drifted away from the story enough to spend most of those scenes wondering how they'd shot them.
After that, though, it all went downhill.
The main problem I had, other than the confused script that couldn't really decide whether it was a zombie movie or a weak road movie that just happened to include zombies (even though there seemed to be obvious 'homages' to many of the most famous movies of the zombie genre) was that the characters were dumb and caused many of their own problems, leaving me with little sympathy for them. Oh, and the teenage girl wasn't exactly the strongest of actors either.
SPOILERS: First, when faced with zombies carrying a disease that's contagious from contact with a small amount of blood, what do our heroes do? Well, the character who's determined to survive at all costs chops them up with a machete, just to make sure that the blood goes everywhere. Then when they have the choice between taking a tunnel under the Thames or crossing on a bridge, they take the tunnel and, surprise, surprise, nasty things are waiting down there. Then one of them catches the disease by being stupid. Then later when one of them is being chased by a group of soldiers, the soldiers totally forget even the most basic military discipline and let him pick them off one by one.
The only other decent parts of the movie were the rats and the scene where the soldiers were fighting off a zombie attack in the night. More of that, less stupid people doing stupid things, and a decent ending, and it would have been worth watching.
NO MORE SPOILERS: So, while this might have made an OK TV movie in the British post-apocalyptic tradition, I really don't think it was up for theatrical release... and, while they did a decent job of the cinematography considering the cost of the camera they shot it on, I'm certainly glad I didn't have to watch the low-res digital video images in a cinema. Increasingly I'm coming to feel that 'Trainspotting' was a one-off success for Boyle and he's never going to make a good movie again.
The Last Horror Movie (2003)
'Man Bites Dog' meets 'Blair Witch' via 'American Psycho'
I'm not entirely sure what to think about this movie: on the one hand it's very clever, obviously carefully thought out as a marketing gimmick, the acting is great, it's often funny in a somewhat twisted kind of way, it does make a few intelligent points about life and death, and some of the parts that could be really sick are cleverly twisted in unexpected directions, but on the other it probably cuts a bit close to the bone (so to speak) on some of the reasons why people watch horror movies for it to appeal to a wide audience. But then, I'd imagine that's probably rather the point.
The other downside is that it is very much a 'Man Bites Dog'-type script with an 'American Psycho'-type lead with a 'Blair Witch'-type hook: if you've seen those three movies you might not find it as impressive as you would otherwise... and, while I hate to contradict one of the other reviews here, I figured out the ending quite early on. On the upside, it's more intelligent than 'Man Bites Dog', more believable than 'American Psycho', and a damn sight better than 'Blair Witch', so despite the obvious 'inspirations', it's still a good movie in its own right.
In summary, it's the best low/mid-budget British movie I've seen in a long time, but while it's quite impressive I'm not sure I can say it's a movie I enjoyed: it was worth watching once, but I'm not sure I'd want to see it a second time.
Octane (2003)
Definitely unleaded
Like so many British movies, this one doesn't seem to know what it's trying to say, and still manages to say it badly.
SPOILERS AHEAD: The first scene is quite well done other than excessive use of whip-pans to make it trendily 'edgy', but then it's straight into The Exposition Zone with our cliched Spoilt Brat Teenager and Overprotective Mother: why is it that so few British movies actually manage to give us characters who are sympathetic enough to care about? Then, well, not a lot really happens for what seems like an eternity, followed by an obligatory police station scene, a few dance video interludes, and, at long last, a final showdown, where a character who, unless I missed something (and I may well have done, I was dozing off by this point), has barely been in the movie up to now, suddenly appears to blow stuff up and save the day. Finally there's a happy ending but the dead villain drops by ready for the sequel... or does he? That's about it really.
Which is a shame, because it's nicely shot and has an awful lot of potential, it's just never developed, like the characters and their background. In particular, part-way through the movie we're very effectively brought to question whether Overprotective Mother is just hallucinating all this, and it actually gets interesting for a bit... but then we're quickly brought back to tedious reality. It would have been a vastly better movie if they'd decided whether to follow the Vampire Ravers plot or the Hallucinating Mother plot and stuck with one or the other: as it is we only get half of each and they're not very well tied together. And what was it with that whole abortion thing near the end?
SPOILER-FREE ZONE: On the plus side, the cute chick does run around in a transparent dress for a fair chunk of the final sequence, but it's not really worth sitting through the rest of the movie for. And the only day scene (I presume from the credits that the rest is at night so they could shoot it in Luxemburg and pretend it was America) has a couple of pretty wide shots in it, even though the grad filter is very obvious. Sad to say, the fact that those are the best things I can think of to say about the movie probably tells you a lot.
Dog Soldiers (2002)
Nothing special
I'd heard a lot of good things about this movie, so I'd expected to be impressed: unfortunately all I got was a cliched, predictable low-budget 'Aliens' clone with that awful intro ('um expositional dialog, that's original... and hey, a _SILVER_ knife, I wonder if that's going to become important in a story about werewolves, what with being _SILVER_ and all and werewolves not liking _SILVER_?'). Oh, and the DVD decided to turn on Spanish subtitles at one point, which was a bit distracting, and I won't even mention that 'Matrix' line.
Which is not to say it's a particularly bad movie, just that the only reason it stands out in any way is because most recent horror movies have been much worse. It's not a bad idea, competently made, well-acted by low-budget standards and has some entertaining moments... but I spent much of the movie figuring out which 'Aliens' characters they were meant to be, given how close the story was. The other big problem I had with it was similar to 'The Bunker'; because they were in uniform and most were very similar other than the three or four main characters, it was hard to keep track of who was alive or dead at any point... something that Cameron got right in 'Aliens' by making the main characters very distinct both physically and psychologically and killing off the rest early on.
So I didn't particularly love it, didn't particularly hate it, and in a few years I suspect it will be very much forgotten. 'Ginger Snaps' is still way ahead as the best recent werewolf movie as far as I'm concerned.