5 mini film reviews
V for Vendetta
Written by The Wachowski brothers and directed by the guy who was their first assistant director on the Matrix Trilogy; V for Vendetta is a class act and much like the Matrix films Hugo Weaving carves out another highly memorable character. You'd think being stuck behind a mask would make things hard for him, but he is simply fascinating. Natalie Portman was the best she's ever been, playing a character who goes through hell and believably transforms in the process. The film's presentation is refined and moody, and once the narrative got going I was absorbed to the bitter end. The sparse action sequences are brilliant, but this really is more of a "talking-heads" film than I expected, but it's so cool that it doesn't really matter. Nothing stood out as particularly bad, but it could have done with a slightly tighter pace. Overall V for Vendetta is a compelling, unique and memorable film experience.
9/10
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A History of Violence
Thanks for making a film I can actually understand Mr Cronenberg, it was much appreciated (and there weren't even any slimy-insect-genital-thingies either)! This is what you get if you take an "Arthouse" director, a veteran cast and make an "action" film. It's understated, elegant in construction, and pulls you into its web in an incredibly precise and skilled manner. Simply one of the best films I've ever seen. I can't wait to own the DVD.
10/10
__________________
The Pink Panther (2006)
I went into this scared... very, very scared. Like many, I used to enjoy Steve Martin's comedies - Dirty Rotten Scoundrels being the highlight for me. His films lately look appalling and I simply would never rent them (much like all of Eddie Murphy's family crap and Robin Williams' soppy melodrama dribble). However I'd heard that The Pink Panther was a return to form for Steve Martin and there is some truth in that. The Pink Panther made me laugh occasionally and there were a couple of genuinely inspired gags (in one scene he plays Good Cop and Bad Cop... by himself, he is later informed by his partner that usually two cops are required), but I couldn't help thinking that his co-star Kevin Kline would have made a far better choice as star - his character Otto from A Fish Called Wanda proves his gift with physical comedy and he at least looks a little more like the original Clouseau played by Peter Sellers. I can think of far worse ways to spend 90 mins and frankly I didn't laugh much more at what is considered the best of the original series with Peter Sellers - A Shot in the Dark. I don't see why people were so hard on this film, it's idiotic, for sure, but wasn't that the point?
5/10
________
Saw 2
This is a dumb film that is full of plot holes, however, I still like the premise of "what would you really do in this situation?". I didn't find the violence as gratuitous as I expected, but I hated the quick cuts accompanied by screeching sounds - fast cuts and horrible noises do not heighten the horror, they are bloody annoying, so please stop. If you can't produce fear and tension with your script and actors, then don't try to make up for it with cheap editing tricks. That aside, Saw 2 has atmosphere and kept me fairly interested throughout. The real weakness lies in the Cop scenes, I have never before seen film detectives who are this stupid. Once they discover that there is a house somewhere with all the poor victims being killed off they proceed to sit around and watch surveillance cameras, while our "hero" cries alot. Only after an hour and a half does it occur to them to actually study the countless pictures on the walls all around them, detailing the killers plans... am I missing something here? Isn't that meant to be a detective's job - to detect stuff? The Detective's son's life is in jeopardy and he simply sits there watching, wouldn't you actually try to figure something out? (Screenwriting 101: Never have a passive protagonist.) At one point Jigsaw (the killer) tells them to inspect a desk drawer that holds a vital clue, this is a drawer right in front of them, don't you think if you had two hours to kill while your son fought for his life you might open those drawers up and see if you can find some clues? But anyway, this is just a dumb horror film and considering that, it's pretty good. More ingenious traps would have been nice though.
6/10
________
Flightplan
This is the stupidest thriller I have ever seen. It makes Saw 2 look like The Shining in comparison. If you actually stop and think for a moment about the plot you will A: Be very confused. And B: Laugh very, very hard.
[Spoilers ahead - assuming this makes any sense]:
O.K. So let me get this straight. This was the bad guys plan: Find a woman who works in the field of Airplane design who has a husband and a daughter. Then somehow get the husband to go to the top of a building so you can push him off and then make it look like an accident. Then you need access to his coffin so that you can put some explosives in it, before it is sealed shut with a large, metal keypad lock thingie. Then make sure that the Mother manages to get through the entire airport (past all the security cameras) without anyone ever seeing her daughter, and then gets on the huge plane with probably over 400 passengers and yet still, no one sees the daughter because Jodie Foster has her under her coat (don't ask). Then the baddie needs the Mother to fall asleep so that he can grab her daughter, walk down the entire length of the plane with the daughter and not be noticed by the hundreds of passengers (because the plot hinges around everone thinking the daughter never got on board and is actually dead). Then you hide the daughter in an incredibly vital engine room that appears to have no security and then come back to your seat and wait for the Mother to wake up and have a meltdown while she looks for her Daughter. Then you must also assume that she will act crazy and freak out the Captain and all the crew and passengers so that everyone thinks she's nuts, so that she will be forced to escape through a convenient trap-door in the toilet's ceiling which leads to a huge overhead area where she can have direct access to all of the planes controls, which are a bunch of coloured cables. Then of-course, the Mother is going to find her husbands coffin and enter her code into the metal code-lock thingie and then the baddie will be behind her at exactly the right moment and will tell her not to shut the coffin, which she seems to have no problem with even though her dead husband is in there while the plane shakes around. Then the baddie takes the bomb out of the coffin and then he lies to the Captain and says that the Mother has planted a bomb and is demanding money but that you should only talk to him and not to her, and yadda yadda yadda blah blah blah bullshit bullshit bullshit...
[Spoilers over.]
I mean I can't even figure it out and I've seen the film. There is suspension of disbelief and then there is Flightplan: The most retarded thriller of all time (and I haven't even mentioned the hilarious attempts by the inept director to make it seem classy like a David Fincher film or something). Utter bollocks.
0/10
Written by The Wachowski brothers and directed by the guy who was their first assistant director on the Matrix Trilogy; V for Vendetta is a class act and much like the Matrix films Hugo Weaving carves out another highly memorable character. You'd think being stuck behind a mask would make things hard for him, but he is simply fascinating. Natalie Portman was the best she's ever been, playing a character who goes through hell and believably transforms in the process. The film's presentation is refined and moody, and once the narrative got going I was absorbed to the bitter end. The sparse action sequences are brilliant, but this really is more of a "talking-heads" film than I expected, but it's so cool that it doesn't really matter. Nothing stood out as particularly bad, but it could have done with a slightly tighter pace. Overall V for Vendetta is a compelling, unique and memorable film experience.
9/10
_______________
A History of Violence
Thanks for making a film I can actually understand Mr Cronenberg, it was much appreciated (and there weren't even any slimy-insect-genital-thingies either)! This is what you get if you take an "Arthouse" director, a veteran cast and make an "action" film. It's understated, elegant in construction, and pulls you into its web in an incredibly precise and skilled manner. Simply one of the best films I've ever seen. I can't wait to own the DVD.
10/10
__________________
The Pink Panther (2006)
I went into this scared... very, very scared. Like many, I used to enjoy Steve Martin's comedies - Dirty Rotten Scoundrels being the highlight for me. His films lately look appalling and I simply would never rent them (much like all of Eddie Murphy's family crap and Robin Williams' soppy melodrama dribble). However I'd heard that The Pink Panther was a return to form for Steve Martin and there is some truth in that. The Pink Panther made me laugh occasionally and there were a couple of genuinely inspired gags (in one scene he plays Good Cop and Bad Cop... by himself, he is later informed by his partner that usually two cops are required), but I couldn't help thinking that his co-star Kevin Kline would have made a far better choice as star - his character Otto from A Fish Called Wanda proves his gift with physical comedy and he at least looks a little more like the original Clouseau played by Peter Sellers. I can think of far worse ways to spend 90 mins and frankly I didn't laugh much more at what is considered the best of the original series with Peter Sellers - A Shot in the Dark. I don't see why people were so hard on this film, it's idiotic, for sure, but wasn't that the point?
5/10
________
Saw 2
This is a dumb film that is full of plot holes, however, I still like the premise of "what would you really do in this situation?". I didn't find the violence as gratuitous as I expected, but I hated the quick cuts accompanied by screeching sounds - fast cuts and horrible noises do not heighten the horror, they are bloody annoying, so please stop. If you can't produce fear and tension with your script and actors, then don't try to make up for it with cheap editing tricks. That aside, Saw 2 has atmosphere and kept me fairly interested throughout. The real weakness lies in the Cop scenes, I have never before seen film detectives who are this stupid. Once they discover that there is a house somewhere with all the poor victims being killed off they proceed to sit around and watch surveillance cameras, while our "hero" cries alot. Only after an hour and a half does it occur to them to actually study the countless pictures on the walls all around them, detailing the killers plans... am I missing something here? Isn't that meant to be a detective's job - to detect stuff? The Detective's son's life is in jeopardy and he simply sits there watching, wouldn't you actually try to figure something out? (Screenwriting 101: Never have a passive protagonist.) At one point Jigsaw (the killer) tells them to inspect a desk drawer that holds a vital clue, this is a drawer right in front of them, don't you think if you had two hours to kill while your son fought for his life you might open those drawers up and see if you can find some clues? But anyway, this is just a dumb horror film and considering that, it's pretty good. More ingenious traps would have been nice though.
6/10
________
Flightplan
This is the stupidest thriller I have ever seen. It makes Saw 2 look like The Shining in comparison. If you actually stop and think for a moment about the plot you will A: Be very confused. And B: Laugh very, very hard.
[Spoilers ahead - assuming this makes any sense]:
O.K. So let me get this straight. This was the bad guys plan: Find a woman who works in the field of Airplane design who has a husband and a daughter. Then somehow get the husband to go to the top of a building so you can push him off and then make it look like an accident. Then you need access to his coffin so that you can put some explosives in it, before it is sealed shut with a large, metal keypad lock thingie. Then make sure that the Mother manages to get through the entire airport (past all the security cameras) without anyone ever seeing her daughter, and then gets on the huge plane with probably over 400 passengers and yet still, no one sees the daughter because Jodie Foster has her under her coat (don't ask). Then the baddie needs the Mother to fall asleep so that he can grab her daughter, walk down the entire length of the plane with the daughter and not be noticed by the hundreds of passengers (because the plot hinges around everone thinking the daughter never got on board and is actually dead). Then you hide the daughter in an incredibly vital engine room that appears to have no security and then come back to your seat and wait for the Mother to wake up and have a meltdown while she looks for her Daughter. Then you must also assume that she will act crazy and freak out the Captain and all the crew and passengers so that everyone thinks she's nuts, so that she will be forced to escape through a convenient trap-door in the toilet's ceiling which leads to a huge overhead area where she can have direct access to all of the planes controls, which are a bunch of coloured cables. Then of-course, the Mother is going to find her husbands coffin and enter her code into the metal code-lock thingie and then the baddie will be behind her at exactly the right moment and will tell her not to shut the coffin, which she seems to have no problem with even though her dead husband is in there while the plane shakes around. Then the baddie takes the bomb out of the coffin and then he lies to the Captain and says that the Mother has planted a bomb and is demanding money but that you should only talk to him and not to her, and yadda yadda yadda blah blah blah bullshit bullshit bullshit...
[Spoilers over.]
I mean I can't even figure it out and I've seen the film. There is suspension of disbelief and then there is Flightplan: The most retarded thriller of all time (and I haven't even mentioned the hilarious attempts by the inept director to make it seem classy like a David Fincher film or something). Utter bollocks.
0/10
posted by Ray_Tango at 10:36 am
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