average film reviews : Ireland | movie reviews, clips and trailers... » sci-fi

review: Chronicle (2012)

Nicola-t — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 14:55:29 +0000

There was a plethora of new film releases this week, from a raft of genres, but on paper, this is the one I was most interested in.

Chronicle chronicles the story of three high school boys who find themselves with the somewhat unusual ability to move objects with their minds… or, you know, telekenisis. So it’s kind of a sci-fi film and if you don’t know already, I’m a sucker for any film with a bit of sci-fi in it.

A lot of people are calling this a superhero film, but personally I think that belies a narrative that really is a little more complex. It’s not a superhero film. Just because you have extraordinary powers, doesn’t make you a superhero. This is much closer to a coming-of-age / teen drama, more Carrie than Captain America if you will. And it’s far more interesting because of it.

Now I have a no spoiler policy on this site so I’m not going into what exactly happens to makes this film different rather, what makes it admirable. With Chronicle, Josh Trank and Max Landis (son of John Landis, in case you were wondering) have set out with a relatively small budget, to make a genre film with a splash of originality. Something which is so often lacking in films about teens. These days, all that seems to happen to teens is that they fall in love. Or get wasted. Or both.

Trank and Landis take their three central characters, put them in a fantastical situation and, I believe, manage to create realistically immature and distinct responses for the three of them. Which is not to say that the characters are perfectly drawn… It’s short runtime means that it relies on us recognising certain tropes. Which is fine as a storytelling device, except that one of them could have done with a little more work – I didn’t know who he was meant to be and thus some of his actions were a little confusing. To be generous I’m going to say that perhaps he’s a stereotype who’s little used in film and if you’d gone to an American high school, perhaps he’s very recognisable… *shrug*

There are decent performances all round from the cast. Dean DeHaan has the most interesting role so he’s probably one to watch for the future. In real life they’re all a little older than they should be but I think they pull it off. The jovial relationship enjoyed between the three very different characters comes off as eminiently believable and, as their powers increase, the way their relationships change is well handled by the script and the actors.

However, while I enjoyed the film, it’s not without it’s faults… It could have been 5-10 mins longer and slightly refocused – spending a little less time spent on the powers and a little more on the characters would have led to a tighter film and set us up a bit better for the ending. Speaking of the ending, I thought it was good, I imagine a lot of the budget was spent on it and it looked decent for a $15 million dollar film. It may not sound that cheap but for what they were trying to do, it kind of is.

The biggest, biggest problem I have with Chronicle is that it’s “found footage“. I tire of found footage. I find it gimmicky and I just don’t see the point. Ok, it works for some films – as much as I disliked 2/3 of the Paranormal Activity films, the whole home video / CCTV thing made sense – here not so much… I can see no reason this couldn’t have just been shot normally. It would have avoided two big question marks – Why do they keep shooting? Who edited this footage? It takes you out of the film for no good reason.

So, yeah, if you can get past the whole “found footage” thing, Chronicle is a surprisingly good watch. I’m not sure it would entirely be worth paying the £15 peak time ticket price of a Leicester Square cinema – especially with the decent, not mind-blowing, effects – but it’s well worth your €10.

7/10

review: In Time (2011)

Nicola-t — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 21:30:52 +0000

In Time is the latest film from writer/director Andrew Niccol, who wrote and directed Gattaca. I love Gattaca. Really, it’s one of my top 10 films. So obviously this meant I had fairly high hopes for In Time. Not massively high because well, S1m0ne was a bit of a strange one and I’d heard pretty poor reports of Lord of War… but still, I liked the concept…

In Time is set in a world where time has literally become money. Each child is born with 1 year in the wallet (a glowing set of figures on their arm) and at the age of 25 they stop ageing and start spending the money on their clock. Time can be earned and spent and when it runs out, poof, you’re dead.

It sounded like a potentially fascinating setting for a film. Unfortunately, with In Time, Niccol has wasted the concept. It actually starts off reasonably strong, I’ll spare you the details but basically JT is a lowly factory worker, working to his last minutes every day. One night he comes across a mysterious stranger who, for relatively interesting reasons, gives him a lot of money. I liked that, there were myriad directions to go in with that idea… and that’s the problem.

This film has no idea what it’s trying to say. Time is money. Great. Money brings you time. Cool. Now what? Apparently “what” is a “cat and mouse game” brought about by a ridiculous misunderstanding. Which develops into some kind of a bloodless Bonnie & Clyde caper. Somewhere, somehow, I think they were trying to make some commentary on society, but it was hard to tell as they desperately tried fabricate a whole bunch of unnecessary villans while throwing in a few scenes where we could appreciate how good-looking the leads were.

It really just didn’t know how to stick the knife in… if indeed that’s what it was trying to do. What we’re left with is bits and pieces of ideas. They’re obviously trying to make a comment on banks and the current economic situation, but then they seemed to get scared of it. They danced around, having a peek at it, then backing away and bringing the film back into its (weak) characters. And the heist stuff, that could have been fun, but they had no time, no time. And what about Cillian Murphy’s timecop? He could have been quite the character… but we had to go take a wander down thug town for no reason. This film could have been fascinating and insightful, I mean that time is money is a good strong concept. But no. It was not to be.

Ahh… to be honest I don’t really want to go to hard on it. You might like the fact that it’s quite light for such a lofty concept. I didn’t but then I am quite the sci-fi fan and dystopia is my fiction of choice. So really, this movie just spit at me. I mean, don’t get me started on how messy the actual mechanics of using money is in this society. Really. It’s just, it makes no sense. It kills me a little.

Oh, if you’re wondering if JT can act, he’s ok. Nothing to write home about. Following up The Social Network with a couple of comedies was a good idea but he’ll have to work a bit harder on the next one if he wants to get any respect.

I suppose the main problem I had was that, the stranger and his motivations at the beginning had made the film seem quite ambitious, but in the end it turned completely away from that. I just hope that some time, in the future, someone takes the “time is money” thing and actually runs with it. It could even be Niccol again if he promises to make a proper movie with it. I love his aesthetic but… Why? Why did he do this?

5/10

review: Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Nicola-t — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 00:45:55 +0000

I am a fan of the Transformers films. I even liked the second one. Yes, it’s true, and I know I’ve lost some of you already… but you know what? I just like seeing giant robots beating each other up on a huge screen. So sue me.

Ok. Possibly, I may have given Revenge of the Fallen too high a score… but oh well, I can’t back away from it now. I have revised my rating expectations in the last while but I’d still give it like a 7.

Anyway, there’s a lot of people who’ll see “Michael Bay” on the poster and that’ll make up their minds about the film for them. The fact is, I couldn’t give a damn about Michael Bay. I’ve only seen 4 of his movies and 3 of those were the Transformers films. The other was Armageddon, which I love, quite simply because it’s the most cheesy film I’ve ever seen in my whole life. It’s amazing the level it takes it to. As far as I’m concerned, that’s something to be admired.

Oh wait, this isn’t meant to be a rambling conversation with myself about nothing in particular. This is meant to be a review. So I’d better do that. Ok. Right…

The fact is that, even though I love giant robots. And even though I enjoyed this movie. I found it much harder to forgive the blatant transgressions in this film than the other two. The flaws in this run deeper than in the other two… in my opinion.

I kinda don’t want to start off on a rant so I’m gonna go with some nice things first.

The things I liked about Dark of the Moon were the things I liked about the other two films. I think the effects and the action in these films fan-tastic. I’m not VFX artist. I don’t know jack about these things. All I know is that these films make me believe that they really had giant robots* skating down highways and destroying buildings. I can enjoy a film on that level alone. I don’t really need more than that.

I also think it has decent pacing. Decent, not great. It’d be better paced if they cut out half an hour, but I didn’t think it was boring at any point. They whizzed along from one thing to the next pretty quickly. I was relatively interested in what was going on but mainly I wanted to see giant robots fighting and they did plenty of that.

One could argue that the plot was overly convoluted. I wouldn’t. There were a lot of people and giant robots taking about “Cybertron” and “Pillars” and a “Space Bridge“… but you don’t have to listen. Basically the bad guys want to do some bad stuff and the good guys want to stop them. Beyond that, the plot is irrelevant. I mean it’s there and I’m sure someone spent a good lot of time thinking it through. The details are kinda complicated, in some way, I suppose, but… who cares?

And, I still liked the old characters. I think Shia LaBeouf is perfectly believable as Sam Witwicky, the brave, yet weedy, hero. I find his parents and John Tuturro’s Simmons good comic relief. Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson are still convincing soldier types. Some of the new folks were good as well – Ken Jeong, John Malkovich and Alan Tudyk all turn up and steal scenes all over the place. But… there is another new character… and this is where we come to the bad part of the film.

And now I’m not feeling like a rant, but anyway…

I place all the problems with this film squarely on the shoulders of the people who decided to get rid of Megan Fox and hire a model as the female lead. I’m sure she’s probably a nice person, and I’m not saying that Fox is the greatest actress around. But I always got the impression that Ms. Fox had a brain in her head. Rosie Huntington-Whiteley does not that give off that impression. Which is not to say that I assume she doesn’t. She could be a Rhodes scholar for all I know ^.

All I can say about her is that I hope she is well paid… She seems to have the acting ability of a broomstick and I doubt she will have a long career in the field. I mean she has one scene in the film where she has to do anything of note and it was awful – even I couldn’t pretend I didn’t hear that mindless babble…

… but also, I hope she was well paid because it looked to me like she was horribly exploited in the film. Megan Fox, I believe, knew what she was doing when she leaned over that car engine. I’m not sure that Huntington-Whiteley realised when they filmed that upskirt shot. Or at least, I’m not sure that she realised it would be used. Now I know they hired her because she’s an underwear model but part of me imagines that, per hour, she makes more money at that than being made to look a fool in a Hollywood blockbuster.

It really is my biggest problem with the film. I just don’t see why they decided to go down that route. It’s demeaning and it brings down the tone of the film. Plus, I’m sure there’s plenty of good-lookin’ actresses out there who could look just as hot as Huntington-Whiteley but also actually have the ability to act… Thus, the role wouldn’t have had to be relegated to… well, underwear model. Obviously whoever got rid of Megan Fox didn’t feel that necessary though.

While that mis-step was, to me, almost impossible to ignore, I don’t feel too bad for young Rosie. Not so much that I’m going to say it’s a bad film because of it. There were lots of things about it that I enjoyed and this particular transgression from decency, while shocking, was just about of the right side of forgiveable. And I’m sure there’s actresses who’ve had to do a lot more to get a whole lot less. It may not be a long career but I imagine Rosie will come out of it alright.

So I guess that’s all there is to say. If you like (allegedly) hot women, fast cars, loud explosions and giant robots. This is the film for you. I thought it was good fun. Get some popcorn and check your brain at the door.

Oh! I forgot to mention the 3D. I’d heard along the way that they had especially brightened the 3D versions of Transformers: Dark of the Moon. It shows. I have long complained about how dark 3D films are. T:DotM does not suffer from this at all. Which is nice.

7/10

* let’s see how many times I can put in “giant robots”.
^ she’s not.

Hey, guess what! It turns out it not that hard to not call it Dark Side of the Moon.

review: Sucker Punch (2011)

Nicola-t — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 00:22:16 +0000

You remember when I said the trailer for Sucker Punch had everything but the kitchen sink in it? Yeah. Turns out the kitchen sink was sense.

This was not as phenomenal a mess as The Spirit but it did have a few extra touches of outlandishness that only Zack Snyder is brave enough to throw at us. I’ll talk about them later.

You might be assuming now that like many other critics, I hated Sucker Punch. I didn’t hate Sucker Punch. I actually thought it was a bit of a laugh. I think that’s partly because I had the good fortune of seeing the Rotten Tomatoes score before hand. I had my suspicions about the trailer and they were fairly confirmed by the flood of reviews that came out after the press screenings around the world. Let’s be clear, I thought it was a great trailer and I was looking forward to it… but at the same time I thought it was promising a lot. I just didn’t really quite believe that he could pull off everything in the trailer and still manage to run a consistent and engaging narrative. And he didn’t. So… not entirely a surprise…

First up, let’s talk about how it looks. It looks great. I think it’ll probably look better on BD/DVD – I think there may have been something wrong with the projector/print at the viewing I saw it at – but the effects still looked class. Also I thought the action sequences were good! I know some people have said they were a bit samey and a bit too computer gameish. I didn’t think so. Well, I don’t play computer games so it’s no odds to me if it was – I thought they looked cool and I also thought the girls were convincingly ass-kicking when required. Which was very little for some of them but no worries.

There wasn’t really much else to the film. It was so all over the place that you couldn’t care about following what was going on. Not that it was difficult but you had to wonder if there was meant to be some regard for anything more than the action scenes. There was some half assed attempt to string it all together with some voice over but I stopped paying attention to that after a while because it sounded like gibberish. I’d appreciate a transcript of it if anyone has it though. I wouldn’t mind reading through and trying to work out if the VO was actually trying to make a point. You’d never know, maybe it was as important as it was trying to sound… I kinda liked the idea of the VO being psychobabble, the film was about a mental institution so it was appropriate. In fact…

… There’s part of me that wants to believe that Sucker Punch was all a big subversive comment on institutionalisation or something*, I really really almost do. In fact I think I do, since I didn’t hate it… but there’s another part of me that thinks “Nah, that’s unlikely”. I don’t listen to that part though. I’ve only let it come out to give balance to this paragraph.

Unfortunately, even if you believe the subversive commentary thing, it’s still not brilliant. It may be fun but it manages to throw in some real clunkers of ideas. I mean that fifth thing that they mention in the trailer… Really? What? And please, please, Mr. Snyder, spare us from your musical counterpoint. Seriously man. It was jarring enough in Watchmen but your choices here were embarrassing. They were great songs, but honestly, you cannot play Where is My Mind when someone is being taken into an asylum. You just can’t do it, it’s ridiculous. If it was a once off I could almost accept it but then you hit us with Army of Me… I say Oi! Snyder! No!

I haven’t really said much about what was good about it. Basically. Like I said, I thought it was fun. Aside from the action sequences; I liked that guy that Scott Glenn was playing. He had some great lines, I loved that quote “If you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything”, it was used so randomly, hilarious – where does it come from anyway? And the non action sequences were fine too, they swept the plot along fast enough.

The only thing that really annoyed me about it, bit of a spoiler here, is that [I still can't believe he never showed us Emily Browning dancing at all but oh well, I won't get too caught up about it. It was annoying though. Come on.]. (highlight between the square brackets to read text)

Anyway, I’m gonna leave it there for now. If you want to give out to me for liking it, fire away. As always, I welcome the chance to talk about the film in the comments section.

6/10

* = maybe if I’d paid attention to the VO I would know what that something was.

review: Battle: Los Angeles (2011)

Nicola-t — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 17:24:04 +0000

You may have seen me going on about Battle: Los Angeles recently. It’s the one with that fantastic trailer I saw before The Mechanic. You should click that link and watch it. It’s great.

Have you watched it yet? Ok, great. On with the review.

So as you can tell from the trailer, Battle: Los Angeles is set during an alien invasion. I’m all on for alien invasion films. It’s been a good while since I’ve seen a proper one (unless you count Transformers, and I don’t) so I was up for it.

At the same time though, as I mentioned in the earlier post, I wasn’t really expecting much from it. Yeah, it was a great trailer but I think it’s fair to say that if you expected all films to be as good as their trailers, you’d be sorely disappointed almost every time you went to the cinema. I’m not saying that to be contrary or anything. It’s just a fact. I mean honestly, when’s the last time you went to a film and thought “Wow! That was way better than the trailer made it look!”? Personally I think “Not as bad as the trailer made it look” is almost as positive as you can hope for when it comes to trailer vs. film…

Anyway, on to the film so that I can get to the real reason I’m really writing this review…

… Except that I should probably tell you a bit about the film first.

Ok, so we start off with aliens invading Earth but the film fairly quickly gets to it’s focus – One platoon (I’m not sure if that’s the correct terminology, let me know if I’m wrong) of Marines in Santa Monica who have one mission to do during this invasion. This is not some big drama / thriller encompassing the whole of the world and the effect of the alien invasion. It’s a war film focusing on this one group of people.

The fact is that, while Battle: Los Angeles is set during an alien invasion, it’s really an war/action film, with some beautiful special effects. To that end, I thought it was very well done. I found it reasonably well structured. I thought it was exciting. I thought we got to know enough about the characters (for an action film). I thought the battles were well choreographed. I thought the special effects were fantastic. I did think some of the music was a little… melodramatic maybe, but not so much that it became annoying. Yes, some of the dialogue was a bit clichéd and a bit cheesy and I may have laughed a few times but, it’s not a film that so po-faced that laughing would signal some kind of failure in it.

I also, predictably, if you’ve ever seen any of my comments about him, thought that Aaron Eckhart was very well cast as the tough, grizzled but handsome Staff Sergeant. He brought a bit of class to the proceedings. Ne-Yo? Well, put it this way, I had no idea there was a popstar in the cast and when I found out afterwards I couldn’t guess which one he was. So I’m taking that as a good sign. Michelle Rodriguez? I really don’t like Michelle Rodriguez generally, I find her good-looking bad-ass schtick irritatingly dull… but she didn’t annoy me in this. All the same I’d like to see her play against type some time. The rest of the characters were grand, I mean they were all grappling with the clichéd dialogue but I felt they all made it through. More on that anon.

Here’s the real reason I’m writing this review.

Over the last day or two I have seen a lot of negativity around Battle: Los Angeles. At last check it was around 33% on Rotten Tomatoes. Well I’m here to be one of the voices on the other side. I thought B:LA was class fun. Ok, it’s no Starship Troopers but it put me in mind of it and Starship Troopers is probably my favourite alien film of all time so… it’d be a bit lofty to hope that B:LA could reach those heady heights… but the fact that it put me in mind of ST is an achievement.

The main criticism I’ve seen of B:LA is that it’s cliché ridden. Well that’s true. I’m not going to deny that. The beginning is a bit cringe-worthy as they roll out the characters using every disaster movie cliché in the book. That turns out ok though, given the action later on, they had to introduce the characters early on and well, you have to have something interesting to say about them no? With hindsight, it was pretty efficient actually. The only way it could have been more efficient would be if they’d just lined them up and had them salute and say their names. But then they really would have just been grunts, no different from the aliens. As for the military clichés later on, well come on. You can’t have soldiers running around without at least sometimes shouting “Hoo-Arr!” or some other such rousing call. And let’s face it, it’s not a war film if you don’t have like, the rookie and pissed off fella and people making ridiculous sacrifices and so forth. It’s just how it goes.

Oh, oh! And the most annoying criticism I’ve seen of it is people saying “Is this supposed to be some kind of military propaganda? Are we all supposed to feel good about the war in Afghanistan now?”. Good Lordi people. Where the hell did that come from? It’s a film about people doing their jobs. It’s a film about being human. It’s a film about trying to survive. It never rams any kind of jingoism or any moral or political judgement of any kind down your throat. So the characters are wearing Marine uniforms, so what? If I watched a film about a really good chef, I wouldn’t assume that film is trying to encourage me to become a chef.

What else did I want to complain about? Oh yeah. This other idea I’ve seen bandied about some reviews – that we don’t get to learn enough about what’s going on on the aliens side. I don’t get that. We hear what they’re after and it’s made more than clear that their military procedures are pretty much exactly like ours. What more do we need to know? Ok, they could have, I suppose, shown us some of what goes on with the aliens… But like I said, the film is tightly focussed on this platoon and their mission. If they started doing other stuff it would have been a completely different movie, if you know what I mean. And who cares if we don’t see their faces? Why do I want to see their faces? Just to see how good the make-up people are on the film? What does it matter?

Last thing I’m going give out about is all these complaints about the shaky camera. Now. I hate shaky camera. I suffer badly from motion sickness, check my reviews of Cloverfield and Paranormal Activity to see how that can affect my enjoyment of a film. And I didn’t particularly feel it in this. It was a little dodgy around the start but as the film went on they toned it down and I really didn’t notice any ill effects from the camera shaking. If there was any, it was not excessive in my opinion.

I think that’s enough for now.

Oh no, just briefly as well. I keep seeing people saying “It’s like District 9 without the X,Y,Z” or “It’s not half as good as District 9” or “Go watch District 9 instead”.

Shut up.

First of all – and I did really like it, gave it the same rating as I’ll give this – but District 9 is not the be all and end all of alien films. Yeah, it was good but it’s not like it’s AMAZING. And secondly, I just don’t see how you can make the comparison anyway. All that’s similar about it is that aliens come to town. That’s all. Battle: Los Angeles is a war film that happens to have some aliens in it. You’d be better off comparing it to the likes of Green Zone than District 9.

Phew. I feel better now.

… Ok, ok, I’ll be a little magnanimous. I think a lot of people maybe went into this expecting something else. I don’t know what they expected but I know I expected nothing in particular, except some good special effects. So, I was pleasantly surprised to see characters and a plot and some good battles. I guess if you were expecting more than that then you’d want to find criticism wherever it may be.

Suffice to say, I really liked Battle: Los Angeles. If it sounds like your kind of thing, then go see it. Just don’t expect some ground-breakingly breath-taking new take on the alien invasion film. Expect a competent action film and you should be alright.

8/10

review: Splice (2010)

Nicola-t — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 00:40:10 +0000

It’s been a while since I wrote a review. I feel bad about this. I’m sure you’ve missed my endless waffling about topics wholly irrelevant to the films in question. Never fear though! I’m back…

Splice was one of those films that sounded interesting enough to take note of but not interesting enough to actually find out any more about it. Cross bred mutants? In my head it had fallen into the Species category… could be interesting but more likely to turn out crap.

This has meant that, in some weird messed up way, I was quite happy with Splice. Kind of. It’s kinda like being happy about eating coal because it doesn’t taste like dog shit. It’s a good thing… but you’re not exactly going to jump for joy.

Just in case you have no idea what I’m talking about, Splice is about two scientists working in a pharmaceutical company who create an all new gene-spliced life form using human DNA. That part’s fine, good solid sci-fi topic which everyone can understand; moral dilemma, scientific advancement vs. ethics, money vs. social responsibility. All well and good. And obviously, genetic engineering is a hot-button topic at the moment. I’m cool with that. I love those kinds of films. But Splice never quite makes it to the heady heights of moral debate.

That’s the basic problem with Splice. I get the feeling that it thinks it’s was a bit heavier than it is… it never quite crosses the boundary from schlock-horror over to meaningful discussion of the topic. Now, to be fair, I’m not entirely sure if it was meant to because every time they look like they’re going that way they veer off in some other direction… but I have to imagine it did mean to. If it thought it was a B-grade splatter horror then there should have been a hell of a lot more splatter.

Never mind though, if you can accept what you’re getting then it’s not really that bad. That really is the best I can say about. It’s pretty much exactly what I thought about the other Vincenzo Natali films I’ve seen, Cube (which he also wrote) and Cypher. Half way there. Those films were better though, Splice verges a little too far into the ridiculous for me to really recommend it everyone. In particular, there were one of two crucial scenes that, in my opinion, were a little too shoe-horned in. They should have been able to flow far more naturally into them. Oh well, I guess they did what they could.

Despite that, personally, I did enjoy it… a bit. Aside from those scenes I can’t point anything that sticks out as particularly wrong with it. Those scenes themselves are ok, they don’t ruin the film and in general… the acting is fine, it looks reasonable, it’s not particularly boring… it’s just…. not as good as it should be. For me, I liked the ideas behind it. I guess I’m just sucker for sci-fi, even if the ideas aren’t particularly well dealt with, I’ll be happy watching them unfold. However creakily.

I suppose part of me is just annoyed that it wasn’t brilliant and I’m being slightly harsh on it because of that. I think it had some genuinely original ideas in it. No mean feat in a subject which has been so throughly debated. It could have been great and, to be honest it wasn’t really that far off the mark. But it was definitely off.

Bottom line is though, if you’re looking for a decent scary horror flick, don’t bother. If you’re thinking there might be a good examination of the ethics of genetic engineering then guess what, there isn’t. If you’re looking for a bit of gore… well, there’s a bit of that, but it’s not really worth it… In fact, the only reason I would give for anyone to go and see this film is if you’re a fan of David Cronenberg. In that case you might find it kind of interesting to see another take on the genre he perfected. I am a fan of Cronenberg… so… I think it was kind of worth seeing. Well, I don’t regret seeing it anyway so… that’s got to count for something…. right?

If you have seen it, let me know what you think – I know I’m being somewhat non-committal in this review so I’d love to hear from anyone who did really like it. Or anyone who hated it. I’m not fussy.

5.5/10

review: Daybreakers (2010)

Nicola-t — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 23:07:04 +0000

When I talked about Daybreakers the other week I mentioned that, although I thought it looked great, I was a bit concerned about the fact that I’d never heard of the writer/directors – Michael and Peter Spierig. Turns out I had reason to be concerned.

Daybreakers really had the potential to be a good film. I swear, it really did. I thought it had good solid ideas and it had a good cast; you can’t fault Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe or Sam Neill for the performances they put on. I put the blame for this terrible waste squarely on the writer/directors.

The premise is solid. It’s some time in the future and most of the people on Earth have been turned into vampires. Complete with that vampiric lust for blood. The thing is they are still essentially living human lives, they have jobs, they go shopping, the kids go to school, everything is normal except that it’s all conducted at night. And they need to drink human blood. Unfortunately for them there aren’t many humans left for the blood harvesting and without human blood the vampires turn into crazed mutants. All this you can pick up from the trailer so I’m not giving anything away there. There are other ideas that follow on for this and for the most part they are pretty sound.

The issue is with the execution. About half way through Daybreakers I was thinking “Wow, some day this could be a great remake” and I really do hope that someone does remake it. It was just a mess, the story emphasis was all wrong. They spent ages on things that didn’t matter and not enough time on things that were interesting. They tried to do a bit of gory horror then they changed their minds, they tried to do a bit of moral drama and they changed their minds. It was all over the place. It was honestly as though they took a holiday in the middle of making the film then forgot what story they were trying to tell.

Which is not to say that I regret seeing it, it was a bit of a laugh and Willem Dafoe is great fun, wish he had a few more scenes. But I can’t really recommend it to anyone. Maybe as a curiosity. It looked good as well, very… shiny. Anyway, if you are going along just don’t expect too much from it and if we’re lucky in a few years someone else will pick up the story and run with it. Preferably with the same cast but obviously I can’t imagine that ever happening. Maybe we can reverse things and an Asian director, like Joon-ho Bong (who directed The Host and Memories of Murder) can do the remake.

5.5/10

review: Avatar 3D (2009)

Nicola-t — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 01:54:00 +0000

There is only one film worth seeing in the cinema this week. Avatar. Well, if we are to believe the hype anyway.

Personally, I had been rather apprehensive about this whole Avatar business. I can’t remember the last time a film promised so much (well… maybe Snakes on a Plane but that was really a different kind of promise). It’s been 12 years since James Cameron made a feature film… 12 years is a long time. Of course that film was the highest grossing movie of all time ($1.8 billion worldwide, just so you don’t have to look it up)… but then again, not everyone looks back kindly on Titanic. I actually liked and still like Titanic, but the idea of Titanic in space with a load of blue monkeys? Uh… I just wasn’t so sure about that. And of course Cameron also directed Terminator, Aliens and True Lies. All great films but I just don’t know how this all fits together.. what kind of films does James Cameron do? What kind of film was Avatar going to be? And there’s so much riding on Avatar – Cameron’s reputation of course, but the way it’s being sold, the future of 3D cinema as well. This film is supposed to push 3D out of kids films and horror and into the mainstream. It was too much, too puzzling, I just couldn’t get behind this film wholehartedly.

I’m almost hesitant to tell you what I thought of it. I think you’d be better off if you go see it yourself first. Stop reading now if you haven’t seen it… or read on if you’ve seen it, or if you prefer to hearing other people’s opinions before you see a film… it’s up to you, just don’t say I didn’t warn you, but I do think it’s one that you might want to keep your ears and eyes closed about it beforehand.

If you are still reading on then I think Avatar is going to be a bit of a divisive one, particularly because I think there’s a chance it’ll draw in more than a few people who don’t watch movies a lot… I hope it does anyway. Which is not to say that I think people who don’t watch movies a lot will particularly love it or hate it. Some will and some won’t. I just mean that there’ll be more people talking about it than your average genre film. For example, I doubt My Bloody Valentine was particularly divisive. Not many people who don’t like horror would go to see such an obvious horror/slasher film so it’s not like there’d be many arguments about it. Avatar on the other hand is being sold very wide, wider than I think the genre/s fit. I’m not sure exactly what genre it is but it’s definitely being sold outside it.

Mind you, the genre is irrelevent in a way… I think everyone should see this film. Not everyone will like it but I definitely think everyone should see it. There will be people out there who just aren’t going to buy into the big blue aliens. There’ll be other people who just don’t like sci-fi. There’ll be sci-fi fans who aren’t happy because it’s not sci-fi enough… that doesn’t matter. The fact is, it looks amazing… let me say it again, AMAZING. I could go on with a few more superlative adjectives but it’s not worth it, you’ll just think I sound nuts. Amazing I tells ya. You just have to go see it. It is worth it…. Even if your brain hates it your eyes will enjoy the feast. I liked the 3D in it too. It was used very effectively, there were a few “coming out of the screen at you” moments but a lot of it was giving depth to scenes, just making things look more realistic. It was different from the other 3D I’ve seen. Then again, it’s a very different film from the other 3D films out there.

Will it revolutionise cinema though? I don’t know. First of all, I don’t how much this kind of thing costs and let’s face it, big budget film making is all about the money. But also I don’t know how well it would work with other films. I can see it with the big summer blockbusters, certainly Transformers and Star Trek would benefit from it but I still don’t think that it’s worth it in every case. I guess it really depends on the maths…

In general though, it’s not a great film, it’s a good film but not a great one. Or at least I wouldn’t put it up there with the rest of Cameron’s work. I think in another review, I mentioned that I don’t particularly watch individual films in the context of a director’s overall work. And that’s true. But in this case it’s easier to reference his because… well… I’m just finding it difficult to find a genre to review it in. It’s not really a sci-fi film. Sure, it’s in space and there’s aliens all over the place, but it’s really just a normal drama set against the backdrop of an alien planet. But, you couldn’t compared it to something like… I dunno, Almost Famous or something. I was very much reminded of The Lord of the Rings trilogy watching it. It truly is an epic film. Cameron has created a whole world for us, so I can’t say it wasn’t great because it was a bit of a corny love story. It’s like saying The Lord of the Rings films are just three films about a very long walk. That’s just bollocks.

Ok anyway, this film has really got me waffling. Let’s get down to it. Avatar is a good film but it’s a bit mainstream for my taste. It’s not really entirely a straight up love story like Titanic but it’s more than half way there. The pacing is reasonable but it’s slightly long (about 2 hours 40 mins) and I found the music more than a little annoying (it’s comments like that that are the reason you should watch a film before reading the reviews – now when you watch it you might be listening out for the music and this isn’t a film where you should be worrying about the music… but anyway…). That said, it’s not like the music spoiled it for me, it was just annoying. Characterwise, it’s ok. I wouldn’t say they are well developed but it’s not that kind of film so it doesn’t matter. Acting is fine, a bit shaky in places and the best actors probably aren’t on screen for long enough – I’m pointing at Sigourney Weaver and Giovanni Ribisi here – but there’s nothing painful or shocking about it. The plot is predictable… but again, that’s just the type of film it is. Some films are predictable, it’s not a bad thing, it’s just a thing. It’s not awful though, it’s engaging enough and generally sustains itself across the 160 minutes or so.

All these complaints aside though it’s still a good film. In fact it’s almost a great film. I found myself immersed in this alien world and if a film can do that then it can’t be bad. It is thanks in no small part to the visual effects but also it’s pretty much a full realised world. The Na’vi are a distinct culture and they are a believable culture in my eyes given the world they inhabit.

Anyway I do urge you to go and see it if you haven’t already. It does look AMAZING and yes, it is worth it just for that. And do spend the money on seeing it in 3D. This kind of work deserves to be seen the way it was designed to be seen. Just don’t expect too much from the story. In that respect it’s competent but it’s not worthy of those superlative adjectives I didn’t use to describe the visual effects.

8.5/10

review: Moon (2009)

Nicola-t — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 00:50:00 +0000

Moon is a sci-fi film conceived and directed by Duncan Jones. It stars Sam Rockwell as the sole inhabitant of a moon base that serves as the operational centre for a team of helium-3 harvesters.

I started this review in this conventional manner as, in many ways, this is a very conventional film. I hadn’t heard much about this film except that it’s been widely hailed as a return to classic ’70s hard sci-fi. I suppose it is classic sci-fi, but personally I don’t think hard sci-fi has gone anywhere… last I checked it was alive and well in films like WALL·E, Sunshine and Children of Men. But that’s not a criticism of the film, more a criticism of the publicity… and the publicity is relevant, it colours your view of a film just as much as mood or the company you see it in… I try not the let these things affect how I see a film but the fact is, it’s impossible.

There was nothing particularly wrong with this film. I enjoyed it really, as I enjoy most of the films I see, especially sci-fi. But then again I didn’t feel there was anything in this film that I hadn’t seen before. Themes of isolation and abandonment are abound in fiction and this film reminded of quite a few other films I’ve seen… and I should point out that I haven’t seen 2001: a space odyssey or Solaris, the two which a lot of people are referencing in the context of this film.

It was a nice, self-contained, interesting piece of sci-fi story-telling but I can’t help wishing that it was a little bit more. It could have been a longer film, or it could have been a good book; I don’t know, it was too removed, too tidy, I just didn’t feel involved, there was no sense of introspection – which is what I would expect from classic science fiction. I expect to read or watch classic hard sci-fi and think “What would I do?” or “Could we , actually get to that situtation?”, this film didn’t leave me with any of that. Sure, technically you could ask yourself those questions about Moon, but it didn’t bring me to that point and that’s what I was looking for.

I tend to criticise then try to find some nice things to say in my reviews, so why break a tradition? This was a good film and Sam Rockwell puts on a great performance. It’s an engaging enough story and it’s worth seeing if you like classic sci-fi – along the lines of Issac Asimov and Philip K. Dick I mean, as opposed to say, The Terminator or Star Wars.

7/10

review: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

Nicola-t — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:37:00 +0000

Just to be clear about things. I loved Transformers. I know there are people who didn’t like the first one, to those people I say… don’t bother watching this one. If, like me, you thought that the first film was the most fun you’ve had in the cinema in years, then read on.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is set about two years after the first Michael Bay Transformers film and, as you can gather from the trailers, our friend Sam Witwicky is off to college. I’m not going tell you any more about the plot, personally I wouldn’t even watch the new trailer because I thought it looked like they might reveal too much. This made it difficult to go to other movies, luckily that trailer has hardly any talking so staring at the floor worked quite well. But I digress. I seem to do that a lot.

Ok, when I walked out of the theatre after seeing this I was hyped up, I thought it was great. And it is great. If you love giant robot fighting – and I love giant robot fighting – then this is the film for you. But today I’m wondering, how great was it… really.

Well the effect are fantastic. Really amazing. I mean I’ve never seen anything like it. I thought the robot fighting moved slightly too quickly in the first film and I wasn’t the only one. That has been slowed down a little bit in this one. The action still moves at a frenetic pace but you can actually see if it’s an arm or a leg or whatever that the robots are bashing. So that’s great.

Plotwise, I’ve seen a lot of moaning on the internet over the last day or two. I don’t really know what they’re complaining about. I didn’t think it was particularly complicated, but in any case it doesn’t really matter anyway. In fact I still don’t know how they managed to have so much of a plot at all. There didn’t seem to be time between the giant robots fighting. So that’s grand really.

Where the film falls over slightly is on the characterisation. In the first film we had quite a few characters roaming around and they were all given a direction and a reason to be there. In this one it’s as though Michael Bay decided that we already know the various characters that are back so he didn’t need to deal with them. And it introduces very few new characters so there isn’t really any attempt to build scenes around any connection between any of the characters at all. So that was a bit annoying. It didn’t annoy me at the time, but it annoys me now.

It’s not a perfect film and it was never going to have the same effect on me as the first one. There were no expectations going into that one, we didn’t have any idea of how the movie should be. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was always going to suffer from how people thought it should go, based on Transformers, and it’s not exactly fair to judge it through the same eyes.

I had a great time watching it; the action scenes are absolutely fantastic. Could it have been better? Yes. On the other hand it could have been a lot worse and, while I have focused on merits of the action, there were some genuinely good “normal” scenes as well. In fact it’s a lot funnier than the first one and I welcomed that.

I have to throw it in really as I’m sure there are people who want to know… How does it compare to J.J. Abrams Star Trek. Well… I did love Star Trek and if I recall correctly I said almost exactly the same thing about the criticisms of its plot. It’s kind of hard for me to compare them. Star Trek was probably the better film, in the sense that there was better balance to it, it had all the elements you want, in satisfying quantity and quality… but I can’t say I’m overly interested in seeing it in the cinema again. I might watch it on DVD with a friend (I have quite a large HD TV with blu-ray player so it’s not that I’m really damning it to TV) but I don’t feel a need to pay €10 to see it. I absolutely want to see Transformers: ROTF in the cinema again. On the other hand I’ve given it a lower rating. At the end of the day, as excellent as it was, Star Trek just wasn’t as fun a film. That’s how they compare for me anyway.

Course if I was comparing Chris Pine to Shia LeBeouf we would have an outright winner…

um….

…took a while to find that photo…

…what was I talking about again?

Anyway, as always, let me know your own comments!

edit: I’ve decided that I probably am a bit generous giving it an 8.5/10. I’ve revised that score…

8/10