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Reviews
La La Land (2016)
Not sure what the fuss was about
For a musical, this film had no rhythm. It's lacklustre plot took a good hour to become apparent and oscillated between passing quickly and ever-so-slowly. I was clawing at my eyeballs. Overall, I found nothing to grab me. It was turgid and very self-aware. It knew all the buttons to press for the Oscars nominations but for those not obsessed with their own industry there was little here to grab me.
Doctor Who: Arachnids in the UK (2018)
The plot used to be breathless, not the Doctor
I am trying to keep an open mind about Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor, but the constant panting, breathlessness is putting me off. Add to this weak plotlines and poor writing and I am, to quote Alan Suger, "really struggling". This episode feels particularly weak: oversized spiders is a good start. Throw in a pastiche of Donald Trump (Rbertson) and things are looking positive.
In the past, at this point other Doctors might have thought long and hard about how to defeat the growing menace. To be fair, this Doctor did, but failed. And then in a real anti-climax, Robertson strides in, shoots the spider and solves the problem. The writers could at least have had him do that at the start and saved our time.
This was a ham-fisted attempt by the writers to set up Robertson for a future re-appearance (and maybe come-uppance). Maybe they should have concentrated on making this episode engaging in its own right.
Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)
Buy an album and save your time
All biopics are linear to a degree, but this takes it to a new level. The music is great, the storyline average and the acting weak. Like my soufflés, it sagged in the middle and I spent the last hour and fifteen minutes willing the end to arrive.
I felt I should enjoy it more, but was left feeling I would have been better off serving up some of their albums on Spotify. Save your money - play an album.
The World's End (2013)
This is the way the world ends - not with a bang but a whimper
Oh dear. The loose trilogy concludes with a narrative-laden, vaguely amusing but overly-long story. The plot is thin and a poor story is rescued only by some good acting from the lead players and the occasional one-liner that reminds us of the talent behind Shaun and Hot Fuzz.
The film begins with what we later find out is a characteristically long piece of dialogue giving everyone's back-story and then moves onto the intriguing but thinly developed plot line about middle-aged men not having left childhood. Somewhere between the idea and the reality falls the shadow of a missed opportunity.
I loved the other films, as did my wife. This time she fell asleep in the cinema - there was no noise and no mirth to wake her. To quote the great Keith Hunt on Alan Partridge - "no manners, but what a critic".
Air Strike (2003)
Discovering a new circle of hell
Some films are good, some are so bad they are funny, then there is this film. There is a circle of hell reserved just for producers of this type of formulaic, hammy-acted, badly scripted and badly filmed detritus.
In no particular order, my favourite moments were:
* Garret picking up two AK47s and then walking slowly, shooting from the hip with both weapons and wiping out scores of enemies who are all camouflaged and taking cover.
* The guy who, when a building explodes somewhere near him, appears to jump pointlessly out of his watchtower, crying out. I don't know why he was wearing camouflage paint on his face when he was in a watchtower, maybe it was to hide the fact that it was Christiano Ronaldo brought in specially for the theatrical dive.
* The stock footage of helicopters firing missiles used repeatedly, just different helicopters from the ones they showed taking off.
* Garret shooting someone and saying "suck on this". Really?
* Garret and Charlie engaging in phone sex over the radio ("I've got wood") while a team of Rangers is trying to extract him from a hot zone.
My biggest complaints, though, are reserved for IMDb. Why has the site allowed people to rate it more than 1? The average rating of 2.5 is far, far too high. In fact, why does IMDb have a minimum rating of 1 star? To give this 1 star is like polishing a turd.
City of Life (2009)
Just about more than a special interest film
Feature-length films from competent Arab directors are rare. This one is both rare and good. My wife worked hard to persuade me to see the film after having seen it herself the day before. It is at first off-putting watching a film financed by product placement - largely due to my fellow similar goers cackling "ooh, that's Cat Boy and Geordie Bird" and a rather staged scene in a ballet school, but the film quickly reaches its stride.
This film leaves every local watcher of all nationalities nodding and saying 'so true'. Like the film, Dubai isn't perfect by any means, but that doesn't mean both aren't great.
It is a film about dreamers and their dreams, but set in almost real life. The Bollywood wannabe taxi driver Basu (perhaps the best portrayal in the film), the frustratingly wooden Natalia, playboy and eventual arch-villain Guy Berger: all have different dreams. For me, though, the Emirati characters steal the show. Summing up the brash yet uncertain confidence of this country and showing the true heart of the Emirati population. The final scenes involving Faisal, Khalfan and their families bring a tear to my eye every time. Just don't tell the wife.