Friday 31 August 2012

Brave

A Saturday morning treat for me and my boys, thank you to the good people of PACT and parkway cinema.

A Disney pixar that doesn't disappoint, It tells the story of a Scottish Princess who comes of age, her family want her to marry a son of a fellow Scottish clan, she however wants to make her own path in life, this difference of opinion brings her into conflict with her mother, the princess rides out of the castle and into the woods when he she comes across "sprites" (apparently a creature which can lead you to your destiny), this takes her to a witches cottage where the witches promises with the help of a magic pie (I don't know either) will change her mothers mind.

She then goes home pretends to makes peace with her mother and she eats pie, she then turns into a bear (of course she does !).

The rest is pure Disney uniqueness and silliness but is very well done, also have to mention the addition of her triplet brothers is excellent and nearly steals the show.

The voice talents of this feature is a basically a rent-a-Scot affair, but for me this gives it a authentic feel as then you haven't got a load of actors pretending to do accents.

My opinion of this movie is to go and see it, take your kids because this is truly a film the whole family will enjoy.


Wednesday 29 August 2012

The Arena

A Sam L Jackson movie you would expect it to be good right ?, Well you would be wrong in that assumption.

A guy gets Kidnapped and forced to fight in the .com environment off illegal fighting where men fight to the death for entertainment of an online community where bets can be placed, Sam Jackson is the ring master in all this and controls who will fight next, he takes a shine to our hero and makes a deal with him that if he can kill 10 men he earns his freedom, the woman who found him and kidnapped him starts taking a shine to him and gets extra privileges for him such as more nourishing meals, medical attention and hot and cold running women, he also makes enemies as given the type of film this shit was inevitable.

I don't really need to tell you the rest of the story because you can probably guess it.

Thank god Sam Jackson has signed up to do Nick Fury for a few films because if this is what he is signing up  for at the moment his career will go down the shitter and fast and that is sad because I am a big fan.


Attack the Block

An urban Alien takeover in south London, thought Aliens would have better taste to be honest.

This film I think is going to be a bit of a marmite, you or either going to love it or hate it, Me i thought it was marvelously tongue in check hilarious !.

The film is about a gang of no-good kids, who basically spend their days terrorizing the residents of their estate or "block", after a mugging of a young nurse a meteor falls from the sky which they go to investigate, where they find a new mysterious creature and promptly kill it, they then take it to a drug dealer friend (Nick Frost) because he knows about science things.

Cutting a long story whilst at the drug dealers more bigger terrifying creatures drop from the sky where they decide to investigate and find out oh shit we may get our arse kicked.

Along the way the young nurse gets involved and the boys who were no good find redemption.

All in all a entertaining film, but really didn't need Nick Frost who I can only think they did this to have a name in the film.



Saturday 18 August 2012

Rubber

Jeez how am I gonna write this film up as it has "no reason" and is utterly bizarre.

So this film is about a Car tire with telekinetic abilities, thats right you heard it a car tire, there is a group of people that have paid to watch this car tires adventures, which involves mainly blowing people heads up, think of the film scanners but with a tire, I know I cant believe I said that either !.

I am really having a hard time writing this up as it is utterly surreal, if you have 80 minutes watch it, but be prepared to say what the fuck a whole lot of times, I get the message behind the film but it is so hard to explain.

Once again this film has no reason !!.


Dead Snow

Nazi Zombies ? Sounds cool.

Guess What ? it is cool, it is also a German language film but does have English subs.

The film about a group of friends who decide during a college break to go on a skiing holiday in a remote shack in the Austrian mountains, they make themselves comfortable, then on the 1st night there is a random hiker that knocks on the door to tell them about the mountains and that they are spooky and there is a legend about a rogue German infantry unit that ruled the local area with a Iron rod and generally where all round arse's that ran off there when the war ended, this bit reminded me of a foul mouthed Scooby Doo cartoon telling the kids the legend.

I don't want to go into much more of the story of this film as this movie is one the best zombie films I have seen since Shaun of the Dead, the acting from all the main protagonists is good, they follow the rules of a horror film to a perfect tee, I never got bored during it, it entertained me and kept my interest all way through, the Nazi zombies where good and some of the zombie kills where wonderfully inspired.

The best scene of the movie is when 2 of the male characters go full army of the dead Bruce Campbell on the zombies.

If I am being really nit picky the only thing that bothered me was the easiness of a zombie kill because if you have seen a zombie movie you know the only why to kill one is a impact to the skull and some kills were just a shotgun blast to the chest or other non skull splatting measures, but as I say that is really being fussy !.

If you can get past it not being in English then i fully recommend it if not trot on but please bare this in mind you will miss a awesome film.


Wednesday 15 August 2012

Dads Army

A film based on Classic sitcom, ok cool !.

OK well this is a pretty shitty film and in my opinion it is nothing but a 90 minute long version of the TV show, this is not a bad thing till you notice that the stories has been taken directly from the TV show, which in itself is poor writing, it surely cant be that hard to come up with new idea's.

You really don't need to watch this film if you have seen the series, we start with the formation of the Mainwaring's home guard (as seen in the series), and the disastrous training (as seen in the series), to manufacture of crappy new weapons of war (as seen in the series), to the end scene of taking down some Nazi's (as seen in the series), you get the general idea, it also has the feel of being cobbled together as well, which makes continuity awful.

I don't really want to write to much about this as my attention wavered so much whilst watching it.

All in all its an abomination, if you really want to enjoy Dad's Army then watch the series.


Kickboxer 2 - The Road Back

I quite enjoyed the first kickboxer film and am quite a fan of Sasha Mitchell so I thought I would give a go.

Riiiiggghhhhtttttt, first of all lets put together the very tenuous link that create this sequel, we get introduced to David Sloan a brother of Kurt and Eric Sloan who gets no mention what so ever in the first film even when  in the first film Kurt and Eric discuss when their parents separated how each parent each took a child to raise wouldn't this be a perfect time to mention David ?, so because of that I am already dubious of the film.

So anyways David runs a Kickboxing gym for disadvantaged kids and with the debts mounting is being tempted in fighting again but initially refuses, as he has lost the desire to fight since the murders of Kurt and Eric (they where explained in the film to be killed by the 1st films antagonist Tong Po) he also has a running conflict with a student who wants to fight, eventually the threat of the gym's closure forces him to fight the Kickboxing champion when he does fight he defeats him easily and officially retires, this attracts the attention of the Tong Po (see above) and sends thugs to burn down his gym and kill one of his kids in process.

Whilst recovering Xian turns up (The trainer from the 1st film), however he seems less hard ass than he does in the first film and offers to train David although initially reluctant they end up training.

Meanwhile The student who with David had a conflict with is fighting for the now vacant title when guess who shows up to be his new mystery opponent, he kicks the living snot out him to lure David into a fight.

One of the first thing that gets me with this film how much revenge to does Tong Po want ?, he already killed the people that humiliated him will he not be happy till he kills his David's next door neighbours dog because it has a link to the Sloan's.

Sasha Mitchell does well in my opinion and has obvious excellent martial arts abilities but has a script that takes itself way to serious, but to be honest it shouldn't be Kickboxer 2 it should be something else and not a sequel, it would have been really easy to change the characters names.

Also the film does seem to be a serious version of No Retreat No Surrender, which actually isn't surprising since Van Damne starred in that film and wrote this...................... just sayin is all !.


Monday 13 August 2012

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

A film that parodies NASCAR and rednecks surely that wouldn't be hard to do, right ?.

Wrong ! though the film has a couple of funny moments it is essentially a flop, We have Ricky Bobby a pit crew worker for a NASCAR team, turns out he is a awesome driver and so we follow him to being the greatest driver ever he also gets his friend Cal Naughton Jr a job as his co-driver who always comes 2nd behind Ricky as they have a sort off deal.

We then get introduced to a gay F1 driver who wants to challenge Ricky Bobby in NASCAR and now is about the time you would expect the redneck jokes to come flying and be funny but they just aren't, anyways along the way Ricky Bobby loses his way and has a mental breakdown and we get the introduction of Ricky's wayward father to try and get him his love for the sport, during his collapse his wife leaves him and marries Cal, and he must race again so he can beat the gay driver.

Thats all I can be really bothered to say about it, its not the worst film I have ever seen but its definatley not worth a 2nd viewing.

Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly have certainly done a hell of a lot better than this Devil's turd ! and not even a strong support cast helps.






Friday 10 August 2012

Blade

One of my favourites, also Wesley Snipes doing what he does best.

So we have Blade, a day walker vampire, this happened as his mother was bitten while he was in-utero so as its put in the film he has all the vampire strengths and non of the weaknesses.

So we open to what I believe is one of the best starts in any vampire movie we have a techno night club for vampires with a banging dance track and Blade going into crazy ape-shit vampire killing mode but he leaves one alive, this is crucial as it brings in an unexpected ally into the film and also quite favorably is a hematologist, which I think is a stoke of luck as she is bit and sets out to find a cure for being turned.

We also have another ally in Whistler a man who's family was killed by a vampire and found blade as a teenager feeding on homeless people (forgot to mention blade does age like a human, vampires are immortal), he designs Blade's vampire killing gadgetry.

Also we have to have an antagonist in Deacon Frost who wants Vampires to rule the earth and also wants to be the Vampire blood god, this angers the other vampires as they have a treaty with the human administration to keep it quiet.

So what he have here is a proper Vampire film, not like these days that vampires are misunderstood souls, they are soulless killers !, yes some the film twists are easy but that doesn't matter sit back and enjoy a thoroughly enjoyable film.

Oh this is based on a Marvel comic as well, gotta love Stan Lee.


Thursday 2 August 2012

Daredevil

As you may have read in early posts I am a bit of superhero fan, I haven't watch this for a while so thought I would watch it again as you do miss things at times.

Daredevil aka Matt Murdoch is an unusual superhero as his abilities came from his disability and that his protect the weak came from a pact he and his father made when they strayed from the path, he carries on with extra determination when his father is killed by the gangsters he turned his back on.

Once again I don't want to say too much about the film as its one I really enjoy and I want you to watch it, It is dark in places and has a element of batman with young boys loses family young and wants to get rid of the bad element of his neighbourhood, but don't let that detract from the film.

I am not sure that the casting of Ben Affleck as Daredevil was right however saying that said he does do a good job but does a strong cast around him with have Joe Pantoliano as the Journalist trying to find the identity of Daredevil, Jennifer Garner as the conflicted Elektra, Michael Clarke Duncan as Kingpin, and Colin Farrell as Bullseye.

An entertaining film, very dark in its content and definatley worth a watch.