Yet Another Film Review Blog

American Teen

2009-07-12T15:39:00.003+01:00

A documentary from Nanette Burstein following the lives of four Indiana teenagers in their final year of high school. All the cliques and clichés are represented: Megan, the popular girl, Colin the jock, Jake the loner nerd and Hannah the emo chic. On the face of it, it feels like we’ve seen this all before, and much of it, we have. In fact, perhaps part of the reason that this documentary almost feels scripted is the incredible similarity it bares to, well, every teenage cliché ever.

But there are some issues we see here that are not normally dealt with quite so openly, in particular Hannah’s mental health. With a mother suffering from clinical depression, Hannah is very determined not to end up like her mother, living a life that she does not particularly want. And yet, all it takes is a breakup with her boyfriend to drive her into depression herself, one which she spends the remainder of the year battling.

Of course, all of these teenagers come with the complete lack of perspective that being that age brings. Megan cannot imagine a world of which she is not the centre, Colin has no idea where his life goes beyond basketball, Jake thinks he will always be an outcast and Hannah cannot wait to get out of that town so she can be the person she wants to be.

To Burstein’s credit, she manages to make the kids extremely comfortable with her presence, and is witness to many of these teenagers most intimate and vulnerable moments. What is bizarre (or perhaps even dubious) is how well the events in these teens' lives play out narratively. From Colin sinking the winning basket in the dying seconds of the championship game, to Hannah realising her dream of moving to San Francisco, to Jake’s optimism about his future with his girlfriend from San Diego, there is a remarkable level of “happy ever after” derived from these real lives. Of course, maybe I just have cynical world view – maybe things typically turn out for the best for most people. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Overall American Teen is an update of the clichés that we all know inside out. While it does bring some interesting new aspects to the table, it’s not quite enough to make it feel fresh. B.

Looking For Eric

2009-07-07T21:41:00.002+01:00

Ken Loach’s latest film is the story of Eric Bishop (Steve Evets), a kind and decent man who has made some decisions in life that he truly regrets, and how, with the imagined help of his hero Eric Cantona, he takes the first steps towards righting those decisions.

The film opens with Eric trying to kill himself, and he is truly a pitiable character. He lives with his two step children (their mother having run off), who treat him in much the same manner as one would treat a doormat made of dog shit. We’re introduced to Eric’s football obsessed friends, most of whom feel just a bit sorry for Eric. And then we find out why Eric tried to kill himself – his ex-wife.

Eric’s friends try to find ways to cheer him up, one of which being suggesting that he try to emulate his hero, Eric Cantona. While this fails, it unlocks something in Eric’s brain, because soon, he finds himself being counselled by his hero.

Eric Cantona is excellent, happy to both cheekily acknowledge his god-like status in the minds of fans (“I am not a man, I am Cantona.”) and to show a sliver of what the real man is like. But more than all that, he plays his role with such charm and gusto that it’s a performance impossible not to like.

But the star of the show here is not Eric Cantona, it’s Eric Bishop. The title can be a little misleading because knowing, as we do, that Eric Cantona is in the film, we assume that he is the titular Eric, but I don’t think he is. The Eric that is being sought is the old Eric Bishop, back when he still had his first wife Lilly in his life. Back before the pressure of a new marriage pushed him away from the love of his life; a woman he loves so much, even to this day, that the very sight of her, that visual reminder of all he had lost, was enough to drive him to attempt suicide.

Then there is the excellent plotline of Eric’s stepson Ryan (Gerard Kearns) getting caught up with a gangster, and the simply extraordinary steps that Eric takes to save someone who treats him like a nothing. It is here that Eric gets a chance to show his true colours, how he stands up to the gangster even though he knows he has no hope of winning.

What is most rewarding about the film is that, although Cantona is Eric’s counsellor and guide that sets his life back on course, the film never pretends that Cantona is anything other than a figment of Eric’s imagination. Eric wasn’t saved, he saved himself. It is this, coupled with the beautifully touching moments between Eric and Lilly that make this, to my mind, one of the most touching and heart-warming stories ever put to film.

A beautiful, touching, heart-warming, uplifting and occasionally hilarious film that gives us insight into the life of a man who thinks he’s hit bottom. Wonderful. Simply wonderful. A+.

Terminator: Salvation

2009-07-07T20:12:00.002+01:00

It’s been a while since I saw this film, so some of the details in here might be a bit soft, but I remember how I broadly felt, so I wanted to share it with you all.

Christian Bale stars as John Connor in this latest installation in the Terminator franchise, the first to be set post-Judgement Day. Connor is a lieutenant in the Resistance, but commands a large following of people who see him as mankind’s saviour. (This aspect reminded me much of Neo’s status in the second two Matrix films, actually.) Sam Worthington stars as Marcus Wright, a half-human, half-machine prototype who awakens with no memory of Judgement Day and no knowledge of his cyborg nature.

Worthington is the film’s stand out revelation – incredibly watchable and he brings a superb humanity to his character. Anton Yelchin is (as ever) excellent, truly striking home the frailty of John Connor’s temporal-manipulation-dependent existence as Kyle Reese. None of the other character’s really get a chance to flesh out their characters, with Bryce Dallas Howard in particular getting a rather easy payday.

To the film’s considerable credit, there has been a significant effort put into thinking through the mechanics of this post-apocalyptic world, into how the machines fight the humans. We are introduced to humanoid terminator designs ranging from 7 feet tall to 70 feet tall, motorbike terminators as well as enormous airship terminators. The mechanics may be a tad overly-complex, but they produce such good action scenes, it’s hard to complain too much.

Which brings us to another strength of the movie – action. Thankfully, McG has not failed to realise what made the Terminator franchise so successful – great action sequences. We may not quite have anything to match T2’s storm drain bike-truck chase, we’ve got plenty of contenders – the chase from the petrol station comes particularly to mind.

Overall, it’s not great, but it’s not bad. When you view it as a stand-alone action movie instead of as a part of a franchise, it actually comes out looking fairly decent. It sure kicks the hell out of T3. B.

Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan

2009-06-27T19:32:00.003+01:00

The crew of the Enterprise return for their second outing on the big screen. After the disappointment of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, it’s fair to say that the future of the franchise on the big screen, possibly anywhere, hung in the balance. It focuses on a tale of revenge, as Khan Noonien Singh seeks his revenge on James T Kirk for his actions that Khan perceives to have caused his wife’s death.

The Wrath of Khan is very probably the most celebrated of the Star Trek films, and is proudly held aloft by Trekkies as some of the very finest of what Star Trek has to offer. (Personally, as a child of The Next Generation as opposed to The Original Series, my own favourite is First Contact, but that’s another review.) Frankly, it’s hard to disagree with them.

The performances here are excellent all round, with Shatner at his very finest, bring the most dimension to Kirk that he ever managed. He’s funny, without being farcical. He’s smart, without seeming overly knowing. He’s conflicted, without ever dragging the film down with ponderous reflection. (Plenty of other Star Trek films and series for that.) DeForrest Kelly is marvellously grumpy as Bones, and Leonard Nimoy is ever magnificent as the stoic Spock.

The script, however, is what makes Wrath of Khan stand out from the crowd. For the first time, the crew of the original Enterprise got a story worth telling. Powerfully emotional, genuinely witty, with a personal intimacy that many of the Star Trek films have lacked, it is a truly engaging watch. More than this though, Wrath of Khan is one of the few Star Trek films that stand up on their own, as entities independent of the franchise and all of the backstory that comes with it.

A true classic. Endlessly parodied and ripped on, Wrath of Khan represents the finest that the crew of the original Enterprise have to offer. B+.

Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen

2009-06-27T09:36:00.002+01:00

Too long. Too too too long.

The world’s least favourite director Michael Bay returns to helm this unnecessary follow up to a mediocre summer blockbuster from two years ago. This time out, Sam Whitwicky (Shia LeBeuf) heads off to college, only to become embroiled, along with his girlfriend Mikaela (Megan Fox), in a new attack by the Decepticons against the planet Earth. Teaming up again with Optimus Prime, Bumblebee and a dozen or so other Autobots, they set out to foil the doomsday plans of the oldest of the Decepticons, known only as The Fallen.

The dialogue is truly terrible, on two fronts: human and robot. On the human front, we have such gems as “It’ll work, I know it will.” “How do you know?” “Because I believe it.”; while on the Transformer side of things, all the Autobots apart from Optimus Prime sounds like they’re from the Bronx, which is certainly unusual for a species of sentient robots from another planet.

In addition to this, the jokes aren’t funny. There are dozens of short little scenes between characters that serve very little purpose, other than to allow characters to banter back and forth. It took me a little while to realise that these scenes were supposed to be comic relief because no one in the cinema was laughing. Not one person. Certainly, not all of the jokes are bad, and I’m sure I laughed a few times, but 4/50 is not a good success rate when it comes to comedy.

The acting is also less than stellar, with Le Beuf given very little to work with, and thus hands in a thoroughly mediocre performance. Megan Fox appears to have been shot by a masturbating 13 year old boy, existing for no reason other than to bring the boobage. Sam’s father Ron (Kevin Dunn) is once again terrible, but his mother Judy (Julie White) is good for a few laughs at the start of the film. John Turturro is reasonable as Agent Simmons, though does nothing particularly memorable, and Leo Spitz (Ramon Rodriguez) marches straight onto the list of most annoying and pointless sidekicks ever.

The plotting is poor, with Bay constantly being distracted by shiny things that keep bogging down the plot any time it threatens to actually go anywhere. That is not to say that the film is slow – there is always something happening on screen – just none of it leads anywhere. This is a relatively simple film, but it last for over 140 minutes and takes about 40 minutes longer than necessary to get to its hour long climax; which, as it lasts an hour, never really climaxes, just plateaus. A line of dialogue from Kevin Dunn summed it up nicely for me: “I don’t know what’s going on, but we’d better run.”

Then there is the issue of the effects. There is certainly no question the ILM have, as always, outdone themselves. My gripe is more to do with design and direction, and it was an issue I had with the first Transformers film too: the Transformers are so incredibly complex and the direction is so fast moving and fast cutting that it becomes nigh on impossible to make out what is happening on screen when there are two Transformers fighting. This is a genuine issue for me, as I am by no means a CGI-hater. In fact, I love my CGI. I also think the availability of relatively cheap convincing CGI typically removes a lot of the old budget barriers that exist on old films. But on Transformers, a line has been crossed, where we have vast quantities of CGI for CGI’s sake. It has become so big and so complex that it actually makes watching the film MORE difficult than if the CGI budget had been halved.

So, in summary then, I did not enjoy Transformers 2. I went to the cinema expecting something mindless but entertaining – a summer blockbuster. What I got was two and a half hours of an assault on the senses, a film that leaves you drained and angry that you’ll never get those two and a half hours back. Don’t bother. Just don’t. C-.

The Hangover

2009-06-26T21:50:00.001+01:00

“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Except herpies. That shit comes back with you.”

Never have truer words been spoken, as evidenced by this mother-of-all-mornings-after-the-night-before film from the director of Old School and Road Trip, Todd Philips. Doug (Justin Bartha) is getting married in two days, so his friends Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms) and Alan (Zach Galifianakis) are taking him to Las Vegas for his stag night. Beginning the night with a toast of Jagermeister may have not been the smartest idea ever, however, as they awake in their trashed hotel room with a tiger in the bathroom, a baby in the closet and the groom missing. And so, the posse set out to find their misplaced buddy, and embark on the hangover-day-from-hell.

Where The Hangover avoids being cliché by showing us the boys ever more outrageous antics is by starting with the aftermath, and slowly but surely filling in all the salient details from the night of debauchery. While admittedly, it is more of a narrative necessity than a stylistic choice, the effect is the same, and it vastly contributes to The Hangover’s charm. It is aided further by mostly eschewing big name stars, with the relatively unknown cast bringing an additional feeling of realness and freshness to the table.

It’s superb to see Ed Helms making his big screen breakout, and I genuinely hope he gets more from it, as he possesses unparalleled skill as a comedic doormat, and I didn’t even feel enormously envious of him when he got make out with Heather Graham. But, from a pure one-liners point of view, the stand out winner is Zach Galifianakis: “It would be so cool if I could breast feed.”, “Did Caesar live here?”, “I didn’t know they gave out rings during the Holocaust!”

Incredibly, the film is written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, the duo responsible for the celluloid rape that is Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past. I say incredibly because the film is superbly written, with some beautifully off-beat and quirky jokes, and perhaps more laugh-out-loud moments than anything I’ve watched since Crank 2. Not many film can boast having Mike Tyson air-drum to In The Air Tonight, a bizarrely confrontational Asian gangster who is introduced to us when he leaps naked out of the boot of the car and begins attacking Stu, a baby who is made to mime masturbating, a fat kid tasering Fat Jesus in the face and a band singing a bizarre lounge version of 50 Cent’s Candy Shop while gyrating in front of a granny.

There’s also some great direction from Philips, and the shots over the open credits of Las Vegas in the bright sunlight perfectly represent the sobering regret that is to come with the morning it brings. Vegas is a night city, full of bright, flashy lights, full of enormous bombast and excess in its architecture – it is a dream city. Yet the harsh light of the morning strips away the illusion, wakes you from the dream revealing Vegas for what it truly is: a horrendously tacky place, devoid of soul. It is a parlour trick, a con. All of this wonderfully underscores the mood that the film opens with. You can almost feel the headaches yourself…

The Hangover is, hands down, in my top 3 funniest films this year. It’s a joy to watch, the gags are great and the cast are refreshing. This one’s a must see. A.

Drag Me To Hell

2009-06-20T22:56:00.002+01:00

They don’t make ‘em like this anymore, so Sam Raimi decided to do something about that.

Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) is a loan officer at a small bank. When she denies Ms Ganush (Lorna Raver), an elderly gypsy woman, an extension on her mortgage, Christine finds herself the subject of a gypsy curse that will see her dragged to hell by a powerful evil spirit, unless she can find some way to break the curse. To do this, she enlists the help of spiritual medium Rham Jas (Dileep Rao), much to the chagrin of her psychology professor boyfriend Clay (Justin Long).

Drag Me To Hell is a wonderfully old-fashioned horror flick, bouncing from laugh-out-loud funny to jump-out-of-your-seat scary in the blink of an eye. While modern horror films have a frequently distasteful and almost boring obsession with gore, Drag Me To Hell is a masterclass in scares. The film has more jumps than can be counted, more disgustingly horrible things than bears thinking about and enough suspense and creepiness to fill at least four Hollywood knock-offs.

From the very first frame, Raimi wants you to know that he’s returning to his Evil Dead roots. (Literally – the film opens with the old, 1980’s Universal logo, just like with Evil Dead.) It doesn’t take long for Raimi to show us that directing the Spiderman trilogy has dulled his sense for scares not one iota, with the film’s prologue containing some wonderful frights and jumps. Raimi also pays some wonderful homages to others in the horror genre throughout – when Christine is in the grave, see if you can spot the homage coming.

Which brings us on to Alison Lohman. I’ve never seen Lohman in anything else before, despite spending the entire film convinced I had, but she doesn’t disappoint. On the contrary, in fact, she is perfect in the role. She brings to the table a wonderful blend of innocence and depravity, weakness and strength, all of which serve to make Christine a superb protagonist of our story. She has a kind heart, but is perfectly capable of holding her own in the ass-kicking department, as we see throughout. On top of all this, Christine is not completely without blame in her situation, despite not being deserving of her curse by any means. All this serves to make the film better rounded than most films of its ilk would bother, and it thrives for this.

With that said, Drag Me To Hell lives and dies on its ability to scare, and it has the ability in spades. I almost leaped out of my seat on more than one occasion, and gripped the armrests in anticipation plenty of times too. I winced in horror, I grinned in nervousness and I cried out in disgust. Everything you could ask of a horror film and more.

A truly superb film from Sam Raimi that only serves to highlight the subpar nature of most of the genre today. You’ll be frightened to your hearts delight throughout. A.

Terminator Salvation

2009-06-05T12:03:00.007+01:00

In a desolate future overrun with killer robots, two men fight separate battles. One of them has a mysterious destiny, and the other has a mysterious past...

Dreadful dialogue, too many war movie cliches, a lack of story and a boring visual style drag this one down towards mediocrity. But there are things to enjoy. There are a couple of good performances, a couple of good action sequences and - if you forget the first two Terminator movies - you will enjoy this fast-moving summer blockbuster.

The movie opens with stirring lines like "it's too quiet" and "don't point a gun unless you intend to use it" and continues in that vein for two hours. You are better off not listening when the characters speak because it will make you laugh. So will many of the set-ups and situations. The hero has a hard ass commanding officer who ignores him and reprimands him, there's a mute child running around looking alternatively cute/scared, there's a woman who lays it all on the line for true love, there's a big sacrifice at the end and stuff like that.

Story-wise the split narrative does a great job of keeping the viewer interested. When the Christian Bale storyline gets boring (as it frequently does), the tale returns to Sam Worthington and we are interested again. Worthington has a better story, a better character and gives a much better performance. Bale is relentlessly boring and his character does nothing. He spends a lot of time sitting brooding (while listening to his mother's voice on cassette) and when he does make decisions they are frustratingly bad ones. This is John Connor, huh? Since 1984 we have been told of this great leader. The writers appear to have forgotten that fact or are incapable of delivering a script that will demonstrate his abilities. A hero who sits for hours squinting at a tape recorder and then runs full tilt into a trap does not inspire confidence. Idiot.

Then there is the greyness of everything. Everything is grey and dusty in this movie. Even flickering flames appear to be grey! It's all a bit much.

Sam Worthington and Moon Bloodgood are the highlights of the film. Both have interesting characters to play. Yes, their story arcs are predictable, but - thanks to the performances - I cared and enjoyed. In fact, had this been their story (with no reference to Terminator/John Connor) this would have been a much more enjoyable film.

In terms of actions there is lots to enjoy. Killer robots (small, medium and large) run rampant, there are chases on the land and in the air, and there are fights in the water, in the dusty grime and in sleek futuristic hallways. There isn't much downtime between action sequences and McG manages to put a neat visual twist on a couple of them (I really like the helicopter crash).

Even with all the stuff that was bad/awful/disappointing I can honestly say I enjoyed the film as a whole. It's not epic like former Terminator movies, and it's not clever/deep like the TV series, but it's not an entirely bad way to spend two hours if you like to see things blowing up.

Grade: B

Three Days Of The Condor

2009-05-30T21:02:00.003+01:00

Joseph Turner (Robert Redford) is a CIA researcher, who reads books to help the CIA computers find patterns and codes in a small building disguised as a literature centre in New York. One day, while he’s out to lunch, all of his colleagues are killed by hitmen. Turner – codename Condor – is understandably freaked out by this, and tries to get his handlers to bring him in from the cold. When that first contact goes wrong, Turner goes to ground, kidnapping Kathy Hale (Faye Dunaway) to stay in her apartment. From there, Turner slowly begins to pick at threads of the conspiracy against him, working his way up the chain to discover why someone wants him dead.

Condor has a superb premise, this cannot be doubted, but its execution seems a little unusual today. The pacing is a little jumpy, but not so much that it’s off-putting. There’s also a rather large amount of exposition at the end, having been more or less completely starved of the why throughout. Perhaps it’s simply that as a modern audience, we’ve seen this story so many times before that we’re less interested in the what and more in the why.

Redford is great as Turner, and amply pulls of both his bookish and more worldly sides. Turner has never been trained as an operative, but has picked up lots of tips and tricks in the books that he has read; and Redford does a great job portraying a man out of his depth, using everything he knows just to try and stay afloat. The more memorable performance comes from Max von Sydow as Joubert, the cold, calculating hitman sent to kill Condor. Joubert is the consummate professional, who comes to respect Turner for his ability to continue to evade him. It seems like the performance that launched a thousand imitations. Sydney Pollack’s direction is noticeable throughout, and the film is littered with nice touches and smooth camera work.

What’s important to remember about Condor is that it came just shortly after the Watergate scandal, when the American public’s cynicism of its government was only in its infancy. As such, stories like Condor were relatively new and groundbreaking. Now, the cynicism and paranoia that the film goes to such effort to capture seem almost naïve in their simplicity. Several characters in the film pine for a simpler time, when good and evil seemed more well defined, more black and white. If only they knew. The standout speech of the film comes from Turner’s contact in the CIA, Higgins (Cliff Robertson), and it’s almost uncannily prophetic of the attitude of intelligence agencies today.

Condor is an engaging watch, and one that demands some thought afterwards. It certainly improves with reflection, and it’s a recommended watch. B+.

I Love You, Man

2009-05-25T18:13:00.002+01:00

A simple tale of male bonding.

Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd) is a real estate agent in LA, happily engaged to Zooey (Rashida Jones) and working a major sale (Lou “Incredible Hulk” Ferrigno’s mansion) which he plans to use to finance his own dream project. One small problem – Peter realises that he has no best man for his wedding. This prompts a series of (frequently hilarious) man dates in search of a male best friend. Enter Sydney Fife (Jason Segel) – a smart, painfully honest, easy-going bachelor who embraces Peter’s desire to have male best friend.

Jason Segel’s introduction is superb. I, for one, know I wanted to be his friend. He portrays the kind of humour, intelligence, confidence and all-round suave-ness that makes every guy want to be him. His little bachelor pad in his garage, filled to the brim with guy stuff – guitars, a drum set, a big TV and AV system, beers and a masturbation station – is more than enough to make every guy in the audience grin in vicarious pleasure. Rudd is ever likeable as Peter, with Rashida Jones putting in a good performance too. Jamie Pressley is hilarious in her role as Zooey’s friend and husband of consummate asshole Barry (Jon Favreau). Lou Ferrigno has a great cameo as himself, introducing a nice element of slapstick into an otherwise down-to-earth affair.

There’s an awful lot to like about I Love You, Man. It’s funny, but never grandstands – think of Peter’s repeated pathetic attempts at dude-speak (“See you later, Joben!”). It’s more subtle and gentle than most of the comedy from the Apatow/Segel/Rudd world these days, and it thrives because of it. At the heart of it, I Love You, Man is not really about the jokes. It’s about the friendship: the type of friendship that we see in TV and films all the time, but that are almost never questioned or examined. The film is also about friends just doing friend stuff, like hanging out playing Rush songs or watching TV.

As funny and heartwarming as this film is, I really do feel that the males in the audience will come away with more from this film than the females. Films are built around groups of female friends all the time, but films are rarely built around male friendships in this way, and almost never are they the actual subject matter of the film; and I feel that I Love You, Man should be praised for doing so.

A hugely enjoyable film, well written and performed with plenty of laughs and an uplifting plot. A-.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

2009-05-22T22:45:00.002+01:00

X-Men is, of course, a massively loved franchise, and is wildly credited with being one of two franchises which helped turn the comic book movie into a major box office success. (The other being Spiderman.) However, when Bryan Singer’s departure from the series led to a rather disappointing third instalment, many fans looked to the anticipated Wolverine film to restore the franchise to its former glory.

Those fans have been disappointed.

As children in mid 1800’s Canada, James Logan (Hugh Jackman) and Victor Creed (Liev Schreiber) discover that they’re mutants and brothers on the same night. They go on the run, and fight in every major war between the American Civil War and Vietnam, doing plenty of killing along the way. Then, one day they get recruited by General Striker’s special unit, and do some very specialised killing along with other mutants. Then one day, for no apparent reason, Logan gets tired of the killing and leaves, while Victor feels abandoned and can only express his emotions through the medium growling and trying to kill Logan.

There are a lot of problems with Wolverine. A lot. For starters, the film is supposed to be set in and around the 60’s, yet we see lovely new computers with modern flashy, slick interfaces. The plot is pretty much paper thin, and the character development is pretty laughable. The film also introduces a number of faces from the X-Men universe, name-checks them, then promptly ignores them or kills them off.

Jackman does his best to bring passion to the role, and possibly would have succeeded in pulling off a great performance if the supporting cast were better. Danny Huston’s Striker is a walking cliché of military corruption, and brings none of the nuance to the role that was masterfully handled by Brian Cox in X2. The special effects should also be examined, as they are, in places, some of the poorest I’ve seen in a big budget film for a long time. (The scene with Logan examining himself in the mirror jumps to mind.)

The biggest issues that I have with Wolverine, however, are twofold. Firstly, Wolverine focuses almost entirely on the what that made Wolverine the man we see in the X-Men Trilogy, at the expense of the why, and for me the what has never been what made Wolverine interesting as a character.

The second problem I alluded to in the first, and it’s quite a grievous problem. Wolverine’s greatest failure is that it tells a story that I’m not interested in. We already received a fulfilling origin story for Wolverine in X2, a brilliantly executed, touching, emotional origin story – a story far more interested in character than in style, and is all the more fulfilling for it. It’s quite sad to see Wolverine as a film of such poor quality, because it’s easy to see the passion that Hugh Jackman has for the role, and for the project, but unfortunately, not even a cameo appearance by Patrick Stewart as a yet-uncrippled Professor Xavier can save this film from its mediocrity.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine is, sadly, a rather empty affair - full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. After an hour, I was waiting for the film to end. C+.

Star Trek

2009-05-17T11:10:00.002+01:00

Star Trek is very probably the most widely known and most revered science fiction franchise of all time, so to say that JJ Abrams’ long awaited reboot of the franchise kept a lot of Trekkies awake at night for a very long time would be an understatement. At first, it was the usual fanboy whineiness that Trekkies are infamous for, but then, slowly but surely, as footage and trailers emerged, the complaints turned to faint optimism, and then to excitement, as it became clear that JJ Abrams might just know what he’s doing.

Star Trek cleverly solves the "reboot" problem by creating in the opening sequence, not a new Star Trek universe, but rather an alternate one, one that is aware of the existence of the other universe, but that is subtly different.

Chris Pine does an excellent job as Kirk, bringing a freshness and humour to the role that Shatner hadn’t managed in a great many years. Zachery Quinto is great as Spock, with a superb passing-the-torch cameo from Leonard Nemoy. The rest of the cast also perform well, with no obvious weak or grating performance. Visually, Star Trek is stunning. With special effects from ILM, the Enterprise and the Romulan ship look spectacular, and the space battles are excellent. (One minor gripe is that the film ranks a bit too high on the lens-flare-o-meter, but it is a minor gripe.)

One thing that Abrams has managed to do very well, it must be said, is introduce a real sense of humour to the Star Trek universe. Not in a knowing, slapstick sort of way, but he gives the characters and the script a sense of humour that no other incarnation of Trek has had before, despite Shatner’s best efforts. Bones and Scotty crack one-liners, Kirk is a part-time comedian, and there are moments of brilliant physical comedy. (Who didn’t chuckle a little bit when Kirk turned to run from the giant space bear-ant-eater thing? Who didn’t giggle when Scotty’s little alien helper Keenser stifled a tear?)

However, in doing so, Abrams has shifted away from some of the things that were a part of the core of Star Trek, such as complex plots or social commentary; but he replaces them with an enthusiasm and energy that the franchise lacked terribly during the days when Brannon Braga was at the helm. This considered, it is hard to hold it against Abrams for wanting to make Star Trek more fun and accessible, and the end result is so enjoyable that any such gripes are quickly forgotten. Besides, for the true Trekkie, there are more than enough in-jokes and references to convince you that Abrams’ cares about the Star Trek universe. But more than that, for the first time ever, Abrams has managed to make Star Trek cool, to make it the "must-see" film of the summer so far, and for that we can only congratulate him.

A highly entertaining, well paced, well performed film from beginning to end, Star Trek hopefully marks the beginning of a new canon to add to the franchise. I for one would like to see more. A.

Knowing

2009-05-16T11:54:00.003+01:00

A young girl who hears voices writes a list of numbers on a page which gets locked in her school’s time capsule. 50 years later, the page finds its way into the hands of John Koestler (Nicholas Cage), who quickly determines that the page lists the time, place and number killed for every major disaster around the world in that time. And there are still three that have yet to happen… When Cage witnesses two of the remaining disasters, Knowing begins to ratchet up the insanity with almost reckless abandon. You wonder how far the film will push the story. No matter how crazy you guess, I doubt you’ll manage to be as crazy as the film.

Effectively, Knowing is an M. Night Shyamalan movie, but not by M. Night Shyamalan. Considering exactly how popular M. Night Shyamalan’s movies are right now, you could certainly be forgiven for thinking that making Knowing was either a bold of foolhardy move. But Knowing has an ace up its sleeve that Shyamalan never had – Nicolas Cage.

Cage is ridiculously qualified to play someone who needs to run around on film as the world goes insane, screaming, shouting, punching women in the face dressed as a bear (ok, not in this one, but seriously, if you don’t know what I’m talking about, google The Wicker Man). It’s pretty much all he does any more. I can’t help but feel that casting Nicolas Cage actually constitutes cheating, like casting Samuel L Jackson to play someone cool, or Martin Lawrence as the most irritating man to have ever been born. It’s the bits at the start, before the film goes completely batshit insane, when he needs to play a lonely, grieving widow who is slightly detached from the world that Cage struggles.

Rose Byrne (who never fails to be anything less than superb in the FX TV show Damages) isn’t given a lot to work with here, and is clearly less comfortable with the insanity of the plot than Cage. In fact, you could boil a lot of the entertainment value of Knowing down to being a game in which you try to guess just how far the script is willing to go and how completely at home Cage feels when it gets there.

I feel I should also mention the score, which, while certainly decent musically, so perfectly captures the frantic and incredible insanity of this film that it actually made me laugh at one point. A point which was in no way being played for laughs. In fact, absolutely no part of this film in any way is being played for laughs – to the degree that you begin to suspect that no one involved in its creation is familiar with the concept of humour. This, at least, would explain how a film that deals in the completely preposterous for its entire running time manages to take itself so completely and utterly seriously.

Knowing is complete and total toss from beginning to end, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not massively entertaining, even if it is for reasons other than those intended by the filmmaker. Watch it in a mood to laugh, and you won’t be disappointed. Film: C. Entertainment: A.

In The Loop

2009-05-12T18:50:00.002+01:00

Anyone familiar with any of Armando Iannucci’s work will know the calibre of his talent. His back catalogue speaks for itself. Writer of comedy milestones such as The Day Today, Knowing Me Knowing You with Alan Partridge, I’m Alan Partridge and the lesser known Armando Iannucci Shows, he is, simply put, one of the best satirists of today.

Based on his BBC TV show The Thick Of It, In The Loop is the story of spineless anti-war British minister Simon Foster (Tom Hollander) being forced to toe the party line in the build up to a war in the Middle East. Doing much of that forcing is shouty, sweary, Scottish communications director Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi). Having been forced to equivocate on the likelihood of war, the Americans lock onto him as a pro-war ally, and he is called, along with his aide Toby (Chris Addison), to Washington.

Enter James Gandolfini as General Miller, Mimi Kennedy as Karen Clarke and the wonderful Anna Chlumsky as her aide Liza. (I defy any boy who grew up with My Girl not to fall for Anna Chlumsky all over again.) From here, the satire descends to farce, with political posturing, superiority complexes, arrogant college graduates and hilarious incompetence.

One of the interesting things about In The Loop is that Iannucci does absolutely nothing to make any of the characters likeable. With the possible exception of Liza, all of the characters – both British and American – are weak, selfish, stupid, arrogant or a cocktail of all four, with dashes of plenty of other character flaws.

The highlight of In The Loop, however, is the creativity and breadth of Malcolm's swearing (and later, of his understudy Jamie). Certainly, a highlight is the sight of Malcolm yelling "Lick my sweaty ball, you fat fuck!" at an overweight American tourist who's asked him to stop swearing outside the White House, or the simply delightful "Fuckety-bye-bye, then."

All in all, Armando Iannucci’s world of politics is too spineless, backstabbing and meaningless for us to take it seriously. It is satire after all, it’s meant to use hyperbole to expose the ridiculousness of the problems. I could get all artsy and pretentious here and say that maybe that’s what he’s trying to say. By making his satire a farce, he is saying that politics itself is just that – a farce. I could say that but I won’t. What I will say is that it leaves me just a little bit terrified that it might be true.

For the creativity in swearing alone, In The Loop is worth the watch. The addition of Anna Chlumsky makes it hard to miss. B+.

This Month I Won't Be Watching…

2009-05-07T18:22:00.006+01:00

So it's been a long time since I did one of these, and there's been a lot of awful films you couldn't drag me to since then, but thankfully most of them have been so bland that they haven't stuck in my memory. So when I started writing on this blog again, I just know that I had to do one of these.

As always, remember, I haven't seen these films, I won't be seeing these films. All my opinions on these are based entirely on my prejudices and on the trailers. I may well be completely wrong about these films. But you and I both know that I'm not.

Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past

Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past is a Matthew McConaughey movie – a type of movie so stock, clichéd and unoriginal in nature that it’s bound to be next in line to have its own <insert-vague-genre-here> Movie spoof made soon. Why oh why do these films keep getting made? How does Matthew McConaughey keep getting work? Is his I’m-gonna-sleep-with-all-the-girls smile really that big of a box office draw? Because if it is, then please, please, please, someone, hit him in the mouth with a baseball bat.

However, I do need to be fair to Ghost Of Girlfriends Past, and point out that it does deviate from the standard Matthew McConaughey movie format by not co-starring Kate Hudson. Maybe she had to go shopping that day.

The Hannah Montana Movie

I’ve thought this over, long and hard, and I’m quite certain that I would rather contract AIDS from my rapist cellmate named Bubba than watch this 100-odd minutes of diatribe. I remain convinced that Miley Cyrus is an instrument of Satan sent here to destroy the planet Earth, and I don’t really care which persona she chooses to perform this task. I guess the best thing about discovering that Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus are the same person was realising that there was one less useless person in the world. Thank God for small mercies.

Cheri

This just looks shit.

All The President’s Men

2009-05-05T21:28:00.002+01:00

All The President’s Men is one of the films that help found the political thriller, and like so many that have come after it, it features a journalist as the hero. (Or rather, two journalists.) But unlike almost any of its successors, the focus of All The President’s Men is not the story or the face behind the conspiracy, but rather journalism itself. In dealing with a conspiracy where everyone already knows who the conspirators are, All The President’s Men is free to focus on the details of the how rather than the who. In fact, once the how has been dealt with, the film abruptly ends.

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein (Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman) were the Washington Post journalists who, in following up what started as a relatively small break-in at the Democratic party’s national headquarters in the Watergate building. As they follow where the leads go, the film wonderfully captures the incredulity felt by the editors, and at times even Woodward and Bernstein themselves.

There are some wonderful scenes. For instance, the tension when Woodward first meets Deep Throat in a multi-story car park is palpable. It’s a wonderful location. The sense of claustrophobia that the garage elicits, the paranoia that the shadows create, the danger suggested by the flame of Deep Throat’s lighter penetrating the shadows – all of these things make the Deep Throat scenes some of the best in the film.

There is a wonderful focus on journalism in the film, the mechanics of breaking a story – the endless waiting, the tedious search for sources willing to talk, the exhilaration of finally finding a source, the long hours, the endless phone calls and face to face meetings. In fact, by focusing on the how with such intent, the film distracts us from the fact that we know the ending, that we know where all the pieces will lie, and allows us to follow the story as Woodward and Bernstein break it.

Interestingly, the film doesn’t focus on any of the characters outside of their involvement with the story. We see nothing of our protagonists’ private lives, and nothing of their characters outside of what they do to break the story. This choice firmly roots the film’s focus as a story about the story, suggesting that it is the story that is the most important thing here, not the people who helped break it.

There is a reason that All The President’s Men is considered a classic, and if you haven’t seen it, then I suggest you do, and discover that reason for yourself. Whole-heartedly recommended. A+.

State of Play

2009-05-04T17:23:00.002+01:00

Conspiracy. Politics. Murder.

These are generally good ingredients for a smart, intelligent thriller, and State of Play is, happily, no exception. Based on a BBC series, State of Play stars Russell Crowe as Cal McAffrey, a journalist with the Washington Globe, who works the story of a drug addict and a pizza delivery man shot by what appears to be a professional. The next morning, Sonia Baker, an aide to a US Congressman Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck), falls in front of a train and is killed. The link? Collins is Cal’s old college roommate. Collins convinces Cal that Sonia’s death was no suicide, and Cal begins investigating the story, with the help of pretty, young blogger Della Frye (Rachel McAdams). Soon, they uncover a far more sinister link between the two stories, embarking on a very cleverly-written and well paced plot the leads them through a very sinister corporate and political conspiracy.

The cast is well supported too, Jason Bateman having a wonderful turn as PR sleazebag Dominic Foy (it's incredible how much slicked hair changes Bateman's demeanour) and Jeff Daniels doing well as Senator George Fergus. Robin Wright Penn as has a good performance, giving an emotional background to both Cal and Stephen Collins.

What is perhaps captured better than anything else by director Kevin Macdonald is mood. Throughout, there is a growing feeling of danger and exposure as the story climbs further and further up the political ladder. The film wisely avoids too many action scenes; instead it takes one or two set pieces and executes them with precision. In doing so, Macdonald firmly grounds the film in the real – Cal McAffrey is a journalist, not a soldier or a superman, and there is a there are moments when we genuinely feel his life may be in danger.

In fact, State of play is handled so well and left me wanting so much more that I came home and immediately watched All The President’s Men. And having done so, there are a number of similarities to spot. Of course, there’s all of the obvious stuff, like how they’re both political thrillers set in Washington with journalist protagonists. But there are lots of other little details. For instance, both perfectly capture how claustrophobic a multi-story car park can be; and both feature scenes at the Watergate complex. None of these things are particularly overbearing, but it gives you the impression that State of Play is aware of its prestigious heritage, to which it capably lives up.

All in all, this really is an excellent film. It’s the best “intelligent” thriller Hollywood has produced in a long time, and they should be commended for it. Let’s hope that there continue to be producers intelligent enough to let films like this get made. A-.

Outlander

2009-05-03T13:06:00.002+01:00

Aliens! Vikings! Dragons!

Oh how easy the pitch for Outlander must have been. Conventional wisdom has it, of course, that Hollywood loves high concept. The fewer words it takes to explain your script, the easier it is to get people interested, making it more likely to actually get made. Outlander can be decently summed up in the three words that open this review.

To use a few more words, Jim Caviezel’s Kainan is a human-looking alien who crash-lands in Viking-era Norway, bringing with him the dragon that caused his ship to crash. (If we’re semantic about it, the dragon is actually an alien creature called a Moorwen.) Kainan is captured by a tribe of Vikings, earning their trust when he kills a bear that they believe to be the cause of an attack on the village. Of course, it’s actually the Moorwen, and Kainan stays to help them fight it.

It’s all perfectly standard action fare, but it’s well executed, with some good action scenes. Ron Perlman has a great turn as warhammer-wielding Gunnar, and John Hurt is almost hilariously archetypal as King Rothgar. Sophia Myles is perfectly passable as romantic interest Freya, while Jack Huston is surprisingly good as rival-turned-friend Wulfric (one aspect of the story that was far better than early scenes telegraph).

The CGI is relatively cheap fare, but I do remember thinking in the cinema that it was remarkable how much cheap CGI buys you these days, as it’s passable in all respects and far better than I expected in many.

Overall, Outlander is a decently entertaining way to pass a couple of hours. It’s nothing special, but it’s a well executed, action B-movie of the type that we don’t see a huge amount of these days. B.

FAQ About Time Travel

2009-05-03T12:59:00.002+01:00

Sigh. I really wanted to enjoy this film. I mean, I figured that I’m exactly the kind of audience that they’re going for, right? I like Sci-Fi (though I’m not nearly pretentious enough to call it "SF"), I’m a certainly a bit of a nerd (though I’m not nearly pathetic enough to call myself an "imagineer"), I like Chris O’Dowd and I’m a movie-goer. What more could a film called FAQ About Time Travel want from an audience?

Well, something, apparently, because FAQ left me feeling very cold and annoyed – cold to the attempts at humour and annoyed that I had wasted my time on this film when there were about 10 others I wanted to see.

Ok, details. Ray, Toby and Pete (Chris O’Dowd, Marc Wootton and Dean Lennox Kelly) all work pathetic jobs at a pathetic amusement park. When Ray is fired, they take a trip to the pub to drown their sorrows. This is where Ray bumps into time-traveller Cassie (Anna Faris), who inadvertently affects the future by talking to Ray. This results in the guys being tossed about through time trying to get back to their time. Ok, I’m bored recounting the plot now, so I’m going to stop. Believe me, you’re not missing anything.

The thing that annoyed me most was the fact that this was supposed to be a comedy with a hint of sci-fi, but it wasn’t funny and the sci-fi was tedious. Then there’s the characters. Ray is weak and pathetic and not really that easy to root for. Toby is fat, cowardly and irritating, and left me wanting to punch him in the face repeatedly. Pete is… just… crap. Not even Anna Faris, who is often the only watchable thing in the films in which she stars can’t save this one. (Seriously, Anna, get a better agent.)

The poster says "So funny you’ll want to go back in time and see it again." Wrong. I want to go back in time to warn myself not to watch it. One of the characters asks while in the pub "How hard can it be to make a good film?" Harder than you lot think anyway, guys. D+.

Crank: High Voltage

2009-04-25T17:41:00.003+01:00

How does one describe a film like Crank: High Voltage? With difficulty, I think.

Crank 2 is proof that you can replace plot with a premise, huge amounts of action, a dollop of humour, a dizzyingly frantic pace, and the entertainment power of boobies; provided, that is, that you embrace the lunacy and stupidity of your creation whole-heartedly. It doesn't ask for very much of your time, only about 100 minutes or so, but it's decided that, since you've been good enough to give it your time, it's going to make sure that you are 100% entertained for each and every one of those minutes.

Our hero, Chev Chelios (Jason Statham, who may well have been born especially for the role) returns, having fallen out of a helicopter a mile in the sky at the end of the first film. Despite hitting the ground at a ridiculous speed, he survives, only to be scooped (literally, with a snow shovel - there's even a wonderful little schlop sound when it happens) into the back of a van, and wind up in a dodgy, backroom surgery having his heart removed and replaced with an artificial heart. When they come back for more organs, starting with the one dangling between his legs, Chelios decides that he's had quite enough of this, thanks, and fights his way out, shoving a shotgun up a fat guy's ass in the process. Yes, you did read that correctly.

Now Chev is on the hunt for his strawberry tart (heart), running around LA trying to find the man who has it. Unfortunately, his artificial heart isn't exactly cut out for this kind of stress, so Chelios has to keep himself electrically charged to keep his heart pumping. This in itself provides enormous entertainment due to the execution and imagination involved. The trailer shows him rubbing against a granny in polyester, but for my money, the funnier part of that gag is when he rubs arms with a guy at the racetrack, somehow hoping that he won't notice. Genius. Then there's being electrocuted by taser, by jumper leads, by grabbing high voltage mains cables, by sticking his finger in a cigarette lighter, and many, many more.

Then there's the action, which is also played for laughs. Fantastic. Scenes like a stripper being shot in her breast implants, which then leak dry, leaving just two empty sacks of flesh. Or scenes involving a head being kicked like a soccer ball. Or scenes involving Bai Ling's manky hooker beating a man in the balls with a bicycle.

Speaking of Bai Ling, her character Ria provides nothing but laughs, due to the hilarious dialogue and Bai's total commitment to the role, i.e. her dedication to proving that her character is the horniest, craziest, filthiest hooker imaginable. Lines like "He my Kevin Costner, he beat you both off!" are thrown around without moment for pause, and the cat-fight between Ria and Chelios' girlfriend Eve (Amy Smart, who is hilarious throughout) is a highlight.

Then there's the Godzilla-esque sequence, complete with oversized-head masks; Pedro showing off his nunchuck skills (whether this was deliberate or not, I don't care); the reanimated head of the first film's villain who looks and sounds a little like a severely retarded robot; a man cutting off his own nipples to save his life; and, and, and...

You see, the problem with films like Crank 2 (there are other films like Crank 2???) is that they make me want to list everything I enjoy about them, which is everything. So with that said, let me just say that Crank: High Voltage is the most entertaining film I've seen in a very long time, possibly ever, and that you should definitely go and watch it. I cannot imagine how you could possibly be disappointed. A+.

Lack of Updates

2009-04-25T16:47:00.004+01:00

Hello all!

My apologies to the literally ones of people who have no doubt sorely missed the updates to this site for the last 6 months or so. The reason? To be perfectly honest, I went through a period of being completely and totally unimpressed by the cinema. I went through about 2 months of seeing very few films I liked. And the thought of reviewing these films turned me off this blog. Not because they were especially bad, but because they were especially bland.

Well, during the week, I saw a film reinvigorated my love of cinema. It's not a very good film. In fact, it's really terrible when you get down to it. But it is simply brilliant in spite of, nay, because of these things.

Review to follow.

It's good to be back.

Changeling

2008-11-30T22:11:00.003Z

Changeling is the story of Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie), a mother in the late 1920's in LA who returns home from work to find her son is missing. A search by the LAPD sees a boy being returned to her that the LAPD claim is her son, except he is not. What follows is a harrowing tale of a woman's struggle to find her son, when the LAPD are fighting against her to save face, landing her in a mental institution against her will. However, this is at most two-thirds of the film, but if you've only seen the trailer then you'd think that's all there is. But there is a third act that is truly harrowing and disturbing, and makes this so much more than the story of a mother's search for justice.

Jolie is simply magnificent here, and if there is anyone out there who doubts her talent merely because she is beautiful, Jolie shows that she act and look equally stunningly at the same time. John Malcovich also has a strong turn as a reverend who uses his pulpit to expose the LAPD for the sordid, corrupt organisation that they are, while Amy Ryan has a typically superb performance as an inmate in the same mental hospital as Christine. John Butler Harner is excellent as Gordon Northcott, bringing a wonderfully naive innocence along with savage brutality to his character, while Eddie Alderson is well deserving of a mention as his cousin, Sanford Clark.

I may well have been the only person in the cinema who wasn't going to see Changeling because it starred Angelina Jolie or because it was directed by Clint Eastwood. No, I was going to see Changeling because it was written by J. Michael Straczynski, a man I consider to be one of the finest screenwriters to have ever lived. And for those who know Straczynski's other work, it's easy to spot the little things that mark it as his. The line "Don't start a fight, but always finish it" and Christine's lawyer Sammy Hahn momentarily spotting things to tell his daughter about, before remembering again that she is dead both feature in Babylon 5, and, as a fan, made me smile.

Make no mistake about it, Changeling is a truly great film. The script is impeccable, the casting superb and the direction is effortless. I don't want to divulge too much of the plot, because with a script this good, a lot of the pleasure comes from seeing where the story goes. It must be a strong contender for this year's Best Picture Oscar, and a near-certainty for Best Actress for Jolie, who gives the performance of her career.

If you go to see one film in the cinema at the moment, make it this. A+.

Recount

2008-11-16T22:10:00.001Z

The story of what happened in Florida in the aftermath of the 2000 Presidential Election.If you're like me, then you watched these events unfurl as they happened with the same sense that one watches a car crash. The seemingly enormously undemocratic manner in which the so-called home of democracy elects its leader played out in front of the world like a bad soap opera.

Well, Recount is no bad soap opera. It's a thrilling and suspenseful tale, despite the fact that we all know how it ends. But the ending is not what matters, it is the journey to the end. Kevin Spacey plays Ron Klain, campaign advisor to Al Gore, who goes too Florida to attempt to sort out the mess that was that election. The fights that follow concerning hanging chads, extensions to deadlines, court interventions and recounts are simply superb to watch unfold, aided by the superb supporting cast, including Ed Begley Jr and Denis Leary.

The fascinating thing about Recount is that it does not go to any great effort to demonise the Republican party. Instead, it criticises those in power in both parties. The high-powered Republicans are shown as arrogant, self-righteous and hugely devious (personified in Bush's campaign representative James Baker (Tom Wilkinson), and Katherine Harris (Laura Dern) who wilfully and partisanly abuses the position of her office to her own ends), while their Democratic counterparts are shown to be weak, spineless and holier-than-thou (shown in Warren Christopher (John Hurt), who is more concerned about looking better than the Republicans than winning, or even contesting, the result).

For me, however, the single best thing about Recount is that Spacey's Klain seems to be motivated above all else by the simple goal of finding out who actually won the election. The hardest part of all is that he, like us, never finds this out.

A well written, well acted tale of the mostly hotly contested election result in American history. Don't let its made-for-TV status scare you off, this was commissioned by HBO, and the touch of quality is visible throughout. Certainly well worth a watch, especially when there's no longer an immediate need to be concerned about a repeat of these events. A-.

Taken

2008-11-16T22:08:00.001Z

Liam Neeson is Bryan, a former government agent of some description. He has a particular skill set, that of a highly trained killer. His daughter, while holidaying in Paris is kidnapped by human traffickers specialising in sex slaves, so Bryan sets out to find his daughter again.

There's more to the plot, but you won't care about it. In fact, in several places it threatens to spoil all of the awesome, brutal violence that is to follow. The opening act, establishing the characters, is far too long and devoid of fight scenes. The emotional scenes don't quiet cut the mustard, and Famke Jannsen is just kind of annoying (never thought I'd see myself saying that).

Thankfully, all of this rubbish more or less passes, and what is left is a very good modern, mindless action flick. Think of it as Jason Bourne meets Steven Segal and it starts to make sense. The action is hugely inspired by Bourne - fast-moving, gritty, big body count - but the genre is all Segal - the best at what he does ex-military/government agent risks all to rescue a family member. It may not sound too great like that, but try watching Under Siege 2 without smiling at how stupid and enjoyable all of this action is.

It's a B-action movie for the 21st century - devoid of any deep meaning, but bags of fun to watch. B.

A Film With Me In It

2008-11-14T21:42:00.002Z

Black.

It's how we like our stories in Ireland, full of misery and horrible happenings. Our myths are all full of mourning. We have a traditional style of singing designed specifically to sound melancholy and mournful. It should come as no surprise then, that we like our comedy exactly the same way - as black and macabre as possible.

The film opens by setting the scene. Mark Doherty is Mark - quiet, shy and somewhat hapless. He lives with his girlfriend Sally (Amy Huberman) and paraplegic brother David (his real-life, but not paraplegic brother David O'Doherty) in a rundown flat in Dublin. His best friend is alcoholic Pierce (Dylan Moran). Living above them is their landlord Jack (Keith Allen).

The film revels in its black nature, and happily dives into farce once the characters have been established. Kicking things off is the tragic death of David when a chandelier falls on him, crushing him beneath it. This is followed, minutes later, by the death of the landlord in an adjacent room, falling from a stool while changing a lightbulb.

From here, things go from bad to worse, as they only can in a black comedy. To reveal more of the plot would be to spoil it, but suffice to say that things get much, much worse, only getting funnier all the time.

Mark Doherty is very good as hapless Mark, and Dylan Moran has some fantastic moments as Pierce. Cap this off with a great script, strong supporting cast and a hilarious cameo from Jonathan Rhys Myers and you've got a winner on your hands.

I loved this film. It was completely refreshing to see a comedy that truly was hilarious after a slew of very so-so films claiming to belong to the same genre. Seek it out, you won't regret it. A-.