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the-oldgoat
Reviews
The Martian (2015)
Clever, funny, and believable.
I was sceptical when I first read the film reviews. Then I watched it.
If you happen to have watched the Netflix drama-documentary about the first Mars mission, this is very much in the same headspace. A very simple premise, and a completely engaging response.
Damon holds you as the mission botanist accidentally left behind, from the moment he staggers back to the basecamp and (clearly) uses the mission training to keep himself together. <Folks, they are not going to send anyone there who would nt be able to cope. Might make good cinema but really duff for this plot>
Carefully crafting together the Mars Pathfinder and the Ares missions, along with very sold science - ASCII codes for the letters of the alphabet to spell with, hexadecimal for the firmware coding of the rover, burning the hydrazine for water, fertilising the dead soil to grow potatoes - the steps of the huge operation to keep him alive and recover him work well.
The soundtrack to the film is first class, along with Watney's dry commentary about disco. Keeping the referencing current is a great way hold and carry the audience.
Lots of subtle points along the way and a lot of carefully observed, and realistic reactions and commentary. The moment they realise that the two photos show Watney moving things, having just announced his death; the reaction of Watney to being told that his cewmates don't know yet; the scene where Purnell (tech) explains to Sanders (NASA boss) exactly how to turn the mission upside down to save Watney; Watney decidig to declare himself the first Martian, and asking NASA to call him Captain Longbeard. And many more.....
A great film to watch even if you don't normally bother with Sci-Fi.
Capricorn One (1977)
Great idea and concept, but.....
So the idea of the first manned Mars space flight sounds good, especially when you add in the forced hoax.
The plotline is reasonable, and most of it is a fun film to watch, but there is little tension.
Now, here's my big problem. It is very clearly a bad execution of the plot. Too much of it hard to believe, and you need to have believable components to do a conspiracy film like this.
Why? Well, it takes at least seven months to travel to Mars. The launch vehicle in the flim is very obviously a Saturn rocket with probably an Apollo craft on top.
Apollo (as you should know) went to the Moon, so is designed for three people for about a week.
The 'hoax landing' scene clearly uses the Apollo style lander. So were they just going to land, plant the flag and come back? Really? Really?
Up to the point of the burn up in the atmosphere, I'll go back to 'good story'.
Then the time line falls apart. Not wasting time explaining it, but there is far too much to fit into that part, that is actually important to the point of the plot.
BUT the really really really LAME part of the film, is the ending. This is the worst ending of a film I've ever seen, and its pretty clear the director simply ran out of ideas or time to do it properly.
A slow-motion run from the car to the memorial service, with the guilty folks slowly turning to watch?
Sorry, no. There is dramatic tension there, and you just watch it drain from the screen.
Hyams has done some really good stuff, but this is not there with the rest.
Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
Was so looking forward to this...
A singular lesson in why sequels often don't work.
Independence day 2 is the other fine example in this tendency to turn down a blind alley.
Blade runner worked because of how it was staged (forget the voice over and daft ending version) and how it was gritty. Leaving the ending hanging was the right place to stop at.
Blade runner 2049 makes the horrendous mistake of feeling that there is more to tell.
Its a film that might have a good storyline in it but spends it's time confusing and inventing extensions to the original that have no reason to be.
Had it been developed as something different it might have worked.
But it wasn't
And it doesn't.
Cats (2019)
Did we see the same film?
Cats is an utter delight
Apart from the cringe worthy Taylor swift bit.
I'm not a fan of musicals but this is one of the three that I put my hand up to liking
CGI is subtle and clever. The plot is fairly easy going but has no need to be anything more
Brilliant dance sequences and first rate casting
Bighli GA are Ian McKellen, Judi dench and the surprise appearance of ray winstone as growltiger
The standout moment is the beautiful 'memory' song.
Simply don't get why everyone is panning it. Or were you all expecting something else?
Metropolis (1927)
Who needs cgi?
OK, its a daft title, but I finally got to watch this - the 90th anniversary version - and it was a mind blowing experience. You have to really watch and concentrate on the action, the flow of the story, and realise that in the days of the silent film, there was very little dialogue and a lot of very expressionistic acting,miming, and those apparently silly #exaggerated# poses had a really purpose to them.
Within the restored film, complete with the grainy sections recovered from a print found in Argentina, there is a complex story of a "dystopian" future city - gridlocked roads, multilevel railways, a sky full of aircraft, an elite class of city managers, armies of drone-like workers, and three people who turn it all on its head.
Matte, miniatures, overlays, all here, all clearly show where their influence would appear decades later. A lot of the camera work is fixed, but some segments, like Maria being chased through the catacombs by Rotwang, appear to be hand-held, and really jolt you.
Some sections of the film contain amazing choreography - the wild dance of the workers in the ruins of the machine, Marian, as the 'Maschinenmensch' doing an exotic dance for the crude elite.
I watched Bladerunner (final cut) the other week. Its not so different to Metropolis - the restored cut of the film is vastly better then the 'general release' one - but Metropolis gave me a lesson in how to watch, how to really watch.
Its not for everyone. No film is, but take the time to try it, without distractions.
And please, Hollywood, this is not one to eye up for a remake! Trust me, its way out of your league!
After Earth (2013)
Just bad....
Will Smith is badly cast in a role that requires him to be serious, and talk slowly, and try to project the personality of a respected senior military person. In the first two aspects he does fine, but that's not Will Smith's forte - slick roles such as Independence Day and Men In Black are. As the character he is dreadful, but that's not his fault - I got the sense he was trying to make something of it, but it just doesn't work.
Jaden Smith cannot act. End of. having said that, its creepy that his dad is wooden compared to him, but that's not really saying much.
The idea of the film is not terrible, but the casting and the dialogue are both huge mistakes.
Furry Vengeance (2010)
how to make a film without a plot!
At the end credits, I was still trying to get the plot.
Take the concept from 'Over the Hedge' - brilliant! Take Brendan Fraser, big name from several really good action films. Good idea, but this isn't an action film. Add several plot elements and then forget to use them. Ah. Oops.
For some reason, my teenage kids loved this. But then they've never seen the slapstick of Laurel and Hardy.
If the CGI was closer to 'Over the Hedge', or the animals talked, rather than those ridiculous thought bubbles, this could have been so much better. If the plot about the new family in town, making connections along the way, had been explored, and the really embarrassing sub plot about the old teacher with a poor memory had been scratched, it would have been far better. The strange sub plot about the deranged forest ranger was even more of a waste of space. He just didn't fit in.
Oh, and if you're going to use a CEO character who looks Chinese, and seems to come across as that, PLEASE don't give him a western name - either a Hong Kong Chinese or a straight Chinese one.
I'm sure young kids will love this, as its all about the series of slapstick scenes that don't need to hang together with a plot.
Making a great slapstick though, you need to learn the techniques of the masters (L&H). Never reuse a joke. Its funny the first time, and after that makes it look like you've run out of ideas. And, make the slapstick work with the plot, not the other way around !
Faintheart (2008)
Sometimes you don't notice what's right in front of you....
Watching this took me back twenty years in a heartbeat. From that first scene, as the mobile phone goes off. You'd always have something wrong with the otherwise impressive shield wall.... Dayglow orange flashes on the shield, the bloke with the trainers....
The Viking wedding, shown in flashback, with Barbara (Anne Reid) looking very awkward. Um, yes. Remember that one.
But really, this is about the ability (or lack) of people to change. Richard (Eddie Marsan) is too busy being what what he's been for probably twenty years. As Cath (Jessica Hynes) tells him, he's too busy being Julian's (Ewen Bremner) best mate, and as Julian still lives with his mum... Cath on the other hand gives the appearance of having moved on from battle re-enactments, though its more she got fed up of being turned into a camp follower.
We follow through Richard's painful process of attempts to win Cath back, as he tries to go back to when they met, tries to spy out the opposition - Gary the PE teacher (Paul Nicholls), tries to challenge him to single combat, and then misses son Martin's (Joseph Hamilton) play.
At the same time, Julian is trying to socialise online with fellow Trekkies, setting up a disastrous meeting with Kim (Matthew Leighton), but accidentally meeting Maggie (Bronagh Gallagher) in the process.
Caught in the middle is Martin, bullied at school, falling for Emily (Chloe Hesar) in the process, getting fed up with his dad's obsessions, but ultimately pushing him to the exact place he needs to be.
It all comes together in the final section, with a great battle against the rival battle group of Normans, where Gary turns up, finally humiliated in a one-to-one combat with Richard.
The overall story arc is predictable, but the journey is well plotted, scripted and for some of us, squirmingly funny to watch.
Let's have more of these!
Eternal Law (2012)
...but it had such promise!
Oh dear. The concept and the location both have a lot going for them, but you need a convincing story arc and much better scripts.
I had actually got over the weird locations used in York for the market (no, St Helen's Square has a road through the middle, and those stalls hid the copious seating and the outdoor café), the hospital (the old Law courts beside the museum, next to the annoying bit of dual carriageway...) and began focusing on the plots and script. Ooops.
Sorry, but when you compare this to some of the major drama series that have come out of Yorkshire in the last few decades - Heartbeat, All Creatures Great and Small, Open All Hours, The Royal - it just doesn't cut it.
Guys, if you're going for another series, you need to seriously up the ante.
You've Got Mail (1998)
But for that ending.....
Watched this yesterday, having managed not to for about a decade. It's one of those films you'd watch once, just for the plot, most of which is pretty good.
The problem is, the two sides of the story revolve around (first) technology that probably looked clever in 1998, when the Internet was fairly new, and most people didn't have it, or certainly didn't use any instant messaging - we are after all talking about life before Facebook and Twitter - so there is this 'different' angle that just isn't there now, and (second) hangs on ridiculous plot ideas like the lift scene, or the end scene.
Sorry, but the idea of falling in love with someone, only to find out they are responsible for you going out of business, and not giving them a sharp jab to the nether regions and walking away, is crazy.
Open Water (2003)
The only depth was the ocean, that isn't saying much.....
To be fair, this isn't quite the most pointless waste of celluloid any more - that rests with the terminally dull 'Paranormal Activities'.
However, Open Water does shine in two areas still.
The mismatched soundtrack that spends all its time building to a climax which promptly fall flat on its face is the main one. you're left wondering whether you missed some tiny subtle detail - like the dramatic dropping of the knife, or the hilarious jellyfish sequence - "it's behind you!!!".
The other is the simple fact that most of the film hovers around two people in scuba gear, who spend their time floating with no effort. I might be missing something, but if you're floating on the surface, carrying a heavy cylinder of air, how on earth were you swimming effortlessly underwater a minute before? This is sort of compounded when they ditch the weights they were carrying all along.
We gave up after an hour, We'd got tired of waiting for something to actually happen, outside of the domestic row.
Paranormal Activity (2007)
Two hours watching a bad home movie...... please.... (spoilers within)
98% of this film is mind-numbingly boring and pointless. The other 2% is contrived and pointless. Right, and I just sat through it.
Its a substandard mix of Blair Witch and Exorcist with the plot quality of your average teen slasher movie. Strangely enough, that makes most of this almost believable as a straight edit of a home movie. Then, in the last 2 minutes, either the director or the film editor made a really bad decision on the final scene, threw away any shred of common sense and went for a contrived ending.
What I really do not get is how anyone thinks any of this film is even slightly scary, or will stop them sleeping. Had any of the themes or plot devices been original, it would have helped, but since the sole selling point of this is the BWP style hand held camera, it fails.
The one part that had me thinking at all was the sequence where Micah spreads powder to catch the demon's (NOT A GHOST!!!) foot/hoof/paw prints. The ploy works, until you see them. Chicken feet? What???? Even worse, the short sequence played back to show the marks being made very clearly shows three exact prints being made, by a biped, no powder kicked around, no impression of the feet (etc) rolling from ball to toes.... Why didn't he try and cover the demon with flour or something instead? I was guessing on a four foot tall, bad tempered, be-horned #something# for the dramatic irony, based on the 8 inch long feet.
What would have helped the film a little, if ram raiding the Exorcist plot a bit, is the concept of actually bringing the demonologist in on the scene. Instead we get the very obvious demonic possession followed swiftly by the murder and the silly ending, that makes the whole unconvincing.
I'm sorry, but unless you really want an excuse to fall asleep for two hours, simply avoid this film.