Shrek the third

As they didn't bother to write a script, should I bother writing a review?

There was no story, the animation was often ropey.

I was bored.

lazy - 1 / 10

FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SUFER

This was the first new film I'd seen in a number of weeks. On account of there being no new films out I wanted to see, plus there being films on at my local cinema that I'd seen but were worth watching again

I went to this cinema this evening on the bat of having worked the last 7 days in a row. I was tired and had been sat in front of a computer for 10 hours with a bit of a hangover. Still I tired to suppress all my expectations, I thought I'd go with an open mind and hoped to be pleasantly surprised.

Suffice to say I WAS NOT PLEASANTLY SURPRISED.

There was wooden acting, bad blue screen, wooden characters, super-heroes with rubbish super powers, rubbish plot lines. Even Jessica Alba didn't look good for the whole time I was watching. There were cheesy lines, the guy who played William Wilberforce in Amazing Grace was like the wooden guy from the Cuprinol adverts. The story didn't hang together. The final action sequence was shot on the same stage as the final scene of Superman I.

I hadn't seen the 1st film in this series so was confused by the continuing plots.

Stan Lee has a cameo role in this film - he must've been hanging his head in his hands when he saw how the makers of this film had destroyed his many hours of creative work on the original comics.

DO NOT GO TO SEE THIS FILM.

It does not even merit a mark out of 10. A thoroughly disappointing film

Zodiac

After Panic Room, David Fincher has bounced back and made a stylish, intelligent and very well made film. He has reigned in a lot of his crazy camera moves (that probably wouldn't have been appropriate in this 1970s based film), and kept a restrained hold on a story that spans about fifteen years.

Yes, it is sprawling, yes it is long, and yes, the end isn't as good as a fictional one but this is a quality film.

I'm glad Fincher is back, I just hope it doesn't take so long for his next film to come out.

8/10

Paradise Lost

After viewing the trailer package with this film, I am a bit worried. Films are getting a bit sick at the moment. All the trailers were for torture horror - it's getting a bit old now, so it looks like they are just going to get gorier and sicker.

That's ok every so often, but where have the supernatural horrors gone?

They don't even have proper zombies anymore...

I'm sure it'll all be cyclical and there'll be remakes of Nightmare on Elm Street and stuff in two years time.

Probably with even more gore.

Anyway, on to the business in hand - Paradise Lost.

It begins a bit like The Beach - a bunch of tourists are in a bus crash and so are left stranded somewhere in Brazil. Luckily, they find a spectacular beach nearby, with an amazing bar and get absolutely hammered. They awake the next morning to find that they have been robbed, the bar is gone and they are lost.

And hunted.

Then, unfortunately it becomes a bit of a torture horror. Which is a shame, it could have been done much more subtly and made this film a lot better. Although I was complaining about torture horror a couple of minutes ago, it is okay, if done well; however, the huge amount of them coming out at the moment leaves this film in the middle of the pile in that genre and as such, will be forgotten about.

I'm not going to give away the reason for the tourists being hunted, but I thought that the premise was good, and could have made a really good horror film, rather than this mediocre film.

I will leave this review with a positive note though - there is a chase sequence set in underwater caves - it is pretty cool.

Anyway, enough rambling about this film.

4/10

Catch a Fire

Catch a Fire is set in South Africa in the 1980s and is about an apolitical guy, just living his life until the ANC bomb the oil refinery where he works.

With fantastic performances and a great ending, Catch a Fire is definately worth seeing.

7/10

The Magicians

As we left the cinema, my girlfriend said, "Wild Hogs was funnier."

She was right. We both like Peep Show and so were really looking forward to this film.

Oh well.

3/10

28 Weeks Later

Wow.

This film begins with one of, if not the greatest old school zombie attacks I have ever seen.

Except that they attackers weren't zombies, they were Infected and so the scene moves at somthing approaching a million miles an hour.

Truly awesome.

The rest of the film was big, stupid, but very fun.

8/10

SPIDERMAN 3

I had 2 atempts at going to see this film, and finally managed it on the 3rd. It confirms all the critics suspicions about itself. It is too long, there are too many plot lines going on, the bit where Peter Parker goes evil is like a Lynx advert, it is not anywhere near as much fun as the first 2 films.

Had it been shotrter, with less plot lines and no Lynx advert it would've been awesome.

If you've seen the first 2 and you've been sucked in by the hype (as I was) go see it. If you haven't it's not worth the bother.

I'm going to give this 4.6 out of 10

Wild Hogs

I can't believe we went to see this, but after a mishap involving someone forgetting to give someone else a lift we arrived to the cinema too late to see 28 weeks later, and the next film on was Wild Hogs.

Well, it wasn't quite as bad as expected, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

3/10

Goya's Ghosts

I'm trying to not see Spiderman 3, even though that seems to be the only film on at the cinema at the moment, so I went to see Goya's Ghosts.

It's about the Spanish Inquisition, and is pretty interesting, although slightly ridiculous.

I enjoyed it, even though it didn't really know how to end and so the credits seemed to just suddenly appear to end it.

7/10

This Is England

The performances were absolutely fantastic, the film looked pretty damn good and there was some cool tunes on it.

And yet, I was left wanting.

I don't know what it was, maybe I was expecting it to end up somewhere else, but I was left disappointed.

I was looking forward to this one too...

I don't really know how to rate this, it is better than average, erm, maybe 6.3/10

shame

Provoked: A True Story

So, there wasn't much on at the cinema last night really. But that didn't stop me. it was time for something different anyway.

So I saw Provoked: A True Story.

It is a true story (no, really it is - look at the title) about a woman who sets fire to her husband after he has physically and sexually abused her for ten years.

If you just go with the flow, it does the job.

Not bad for a low-budget indie crossover flic.

I'm gonna check out some proper Bollywood stuff soon - the trailer for Ta Ra Rum Pum looked like it should be good for a laugh.

The Phil Mitchell playing a Policeman bit was hilarious! 5/10

Fracture

Fracture is a good, solid, old fashioned dialogue based drama where it is obvious how the film will end, but you have no idea how it will manage to get there.

And it is a lot of fun watching the plot threads fall into place.


They don't make them like this very often anymore...

7/10

Curse Of The Golden Flower

After Hero and The House of the Flying Daggers, comes Curse of the Golden flower. Sumptuous in its intricately detailed pink and yellow sets and costumes, Curse of the Golden Flower is very pretty, and has some very good set-pieces, but none of the heart of the films mentioned above.

5/10

The Messengers

The Pang brother's breakout film, The Eye, is one of my favourite films. I remember seeing it in the UGC(now cineworld) in Glasgow with the volume turned up full and being absolutely terrified.

Crazily terrified.

The Eye (especially loud) is creepy as hell.

So, what about The Messengers?

It was ok, and was efficiently scary, but predictable.

My advice is that if you haven't seen it already, go and rent The Eye (the original one).

And then sleep with your light on.

The Messengers gets 5/10 - mainly for the cool spidery-type guy. If the Avril Lavigne girly had been killed, it might have got seven.

Amazing Grace

This is a film that deserves to be seen - and as such it was a shame that the cinema was empty.

Amazing Grace is about William Wilberforce and his battle to abolish slavery.

It is a story that everyone should know about and proves that, with determination, you can make the world a better place.

8/10

Sunshine

In space, it seems, people go mad, kill each other or get devoured by aliens.

There are no aliens in Sunshine, so you can guess what happens...

Sunshine is about the Astronauts of Icarus 2 - the second mission to reignite the dying Sun after the crew of the Icarus 1 failed their mission.

The film starts as the Icarus 2 is approaching Mercury on the final phase of their mission.

And then the mission begins to go wrong...

Sunshine is a proper science fiction film - there is some action in it - but this is a film about Man and it is almost truly great.

The sound and visual effects are spectacular (even more so as this was a low budget film) and the tempo and scariness really draw you into the film, the ending is bizarre though as so many serious, adult sci-fi films are.

9/10

The Namesake

This is about a family from Calcutta who move to New York and who try to balance the conflicts between their different cultures. The film is mainly seen through the eyes of the son, who by a series of events, is named Gogol.

I really liked this - especially as the last few films I have seen haven't exactly been fantastic.

8/10

Becoming Jane

I was hoping for something snappier then this, the dialogue was great, but there was too many times when nothing happened in this film. It was a waste of very fine actors.

I'm disappointed.

5/10

TMNT

I didn't go into TMNT expecting much (however John was crushed as he was expecting it to be live action so he could see Sarah Michelle Gellar) and was pleasantly surprised that this old franchise actually ended up being quite good.

Some of the animation was spectacular - although the human characters didn't really fit in with the style - and the story - being a kind of rip off of Ghostbusters wasn't too bad.

So all in all not too bad - if you were 7 years old, it would be the most awesome film that you had ever seen!

6/10