Brave

Monday 8th February 2016

Director: Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman
Year: 2012
Stars: Kelly Macdonald, Billy Connolly, Emma Thompson, Julie Walters (voices)

This was shown on TV at Christmas, and we finally got around to watching it a few days ago. It's a pretty enjoyable Pixar movie - primarily because it's about a girl who doesn't just want to find her Prince. Instead, she wants her freedom. And that's OK.

The majority of the plot concerns her father's fear of bears, her lack of wariness concerning witches, and the curse she ends up having to lift any way she can. Brave is a fun movie with a decent plot, and will keep you watching for its 90 minutes running time. There's not really a lot else to say - watching Brave is simply an enjoyable enough way to spend an hour and a half.

The Avengers

Friday 13th February 2015

Director: Joss Whedon
Year: 2012
Stars: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hiddleston, Clark Gregg, Cobie Smulders, Stellan Skarsgard, Gwyneth Paltrow

I wasn't expecting a massive amount from this movie - I knew it was an action adventure hero movie, incorporating a bunch of characters that have previously had their own movies and are associated with Marvel comics (The Hulk, Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Black Widow...). Having seen very few of the previous movies (I think I saw Thor?), I also wasn't sure how likely I was to get what was going on.

The movie pretty much met my expectations - in some ways it may even have exceeded them. The Avengers is what you would expect from a hero action movie, but it gets the tone right and does have a semi-decent plot. It's at least believable in the world it's set in. Loki (Thor's brother, played by Hiddleston) wants to rid the world of free will, and Agent S.H.I.E.L.D therefore decide to gather together the aforementioned group of Avengers to stop him in his tracks. Of course, Loki may have been planning for them to do this all along...

The film is happy to poke fun at itself and the genre - if, like me, you find yourself thinking 'this always happens in action hero movies and it's silly', you'll almost certainly be faced with a joke picking up on that very point, just as you're thinking it. Perhaps some people may hate that, but it did endear me to the movie a little bit more. If you like superhero action movies, you won't be disappointed.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Frozen

Saturday 31st January 2015

Director: Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee
Year: 2013
Stars: Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff, Josh Gad, Santino Fontana, Alan Tudyk (voices)

Considering how popular Frozen is, when a friend mentioned she had this on DVD I figured I should probably ask to borrow it as I still hadn't watched it. She more than happily gave up the DVD, informing me that they had already told their obsessed 2-year-old that it had been lost.

I did actually have the chance to watch this back at Christmas 2013 when it was released (on one of those rare occasions when I actually had the chance to go to the cinema). At the time I chose to go and see Saving Mr Banks, having read reviews and thinking it would be a better movie.

I made the right choice. Frozen does not start well - and I still don't really understand what there is in it for a 2-year-old boy to love (and yes, I do have one). An 8-year-old girl, maybe. There are some very pretty princesses here (oh, maybe that explains it. Two-year-old boys often love princess dresses...). The premise behind Frozen is that one of the princesses can turn everything to snow and ice, but can't control her ability. Queue lots and lots of songs (especially in the first half an hour) and a fair bit of angst.

In fairness, Frozen does improve once the characters stop singing annoying pop songs and the story kicks in properly. There are even some funny moments. Don't get me wrong, I love a good musical. Just not at the expense of any semblance of a story.

In the end, I found Frozen relatively enjoyable, but the first 40 minutes boring me to tears didn't help. Although these are the songs all the kids love, so maybe Disney haven't got it wrong. After all, they're not really trying to appeal to me - although I am the one going out and buying the DVD I guess... (being that my 2-year old can barely sit still and watch an episode of In the Night Garden, which he loves, I doubt he'd care about 1 1/2 hours of Disney movie. He doesn't care for Cars and he loves anything with wheels).

Not a bad movie, but I' still glad I went to see Saving Mr Banks at the cinema, which I really enjoyed.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Friday 2nd January 2015

Director: Peter Jackson
Year: 2014
Stars:  Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Ken Stott, Graham McTavish, William Kircher, James Nesbitt, Stephen Hunter, Dean O'Gorman, Aidan Turner, John Callen, Peter Hambleton, Jed Brophy, Mark Hadlow, Luke Evans, Ryan Gage, Adam Brown, Orlando Bloom, Evangeline Lily, Stephen Fry, Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, Christopher Lee, Slyvester McCoy, Ian Holm

My first cinema since we went to see The Fault in Our Stars back in June for our wedding anniversary (it seems that a cinema once every six months is about what I can expect now), I quite enjoyed the third and final installment of The Hobbit. I suspect this had a lot to do with the fact that I knew what I was getting, because the movie certainly isn't without it's flaws.

For starters, almost the entire movie is one big long battle scene. I don't remember the book that well, but I know that a lot of this movie isn't adapted directly from The Hobbit. In many ways it suffers from the same problems as The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey; it makes the story much, much grander than the book. For example, the orcs here are on a par with those in Lord of the Rings. In terms of the story, this doesn't work - the orcs in Lord of the Rings were meant to be bigger, better and tougher than anything Middle Earth had seen before. But this wouldn't work with the movie, because it's a prequel - so things filmed here have to be bigger and better (or at least on a par with) those that you have seen before.

There are also some very odd plot holes. For example, half the movie is spent talking about an army that will appear from the north. This seems to turn out to be about 100 goblins that, apparently, two dwarves can deal with all by themselves. If there is essentially no army, why mention it at all? (Better than that to introduce another army when the film is already too long - being 8 months pregnant, my back can attest to the fact that this movie was definitely too long).

Not a bad movie, and if you've seen the other two Hobbits (or even The Lord of the Rings trilogy) you'll know whether you're going to fundamentally like this or not. But there's nothing special to recommend it. Equally there's nothing truly terrible about it to warn you to stay away. Mostly average.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Friday 10th October 2014

Director: Francis Lawrence
Year: 2013
Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Liam Hemsworth, Josh Hutcherson, Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland, Elizabeth Banks, Lenny Kravitz, Stanley Tucci, Willow Shields, Phillip Seymour Hoffman

Another movie that I wanted to see when it was released (having already seen The Hunger Games and really enjoyed it), this was the second movie I got to see as part of having a netflix trial.

Now, I haven't read the books, so I can't compare the movie and the book, but I did really enjoy the film. It has similar elements to the first movie, but it is different. It was a while ago I saw The Hunger Games so I did have to cast my mind back a bit, but I did manage to figure out what was going on relatively quickly.

Katniss Everdeen, the winner of last years tournament, along with Peeta (Hutcherson), now have to fight in this year's tournament, along with previous winners from other sectors. The excuse for this is that it's the 75th year of the games. The real reason is to get rid of Katniss and Peeta, who have made a mockery of the system and are starting to cause an uprising. Needless to say, none of the fighters are particularly happy about this state of affairs. There's a lot of angry people in this tournament.

The most powerful aspect of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is how it manages to show you the total injustice of it all - the bad guys are truly evil, and you really do end up despising them. I'm now keen to see the third movie, which must mean I enjoyed this one a fair bit...

Rating: 4 out of 5

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Friday 3rd October 2014

Director: Peter Jackson
Year: 2013
Stars: Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Ken Stott, Graham McTavish, William Kircher, James Nesbitt, Stephen Hunter, Dean O'Gorman, Aidan Turner, John Callen, Peter Hambleton, Jed Brophy, Mark Hadlow, Adam Brown, Orlando Bloom, Evangeline Lily

Another movie that I ended up missing when it was released at the cinema, this is one I've been keen to see for a while. I quite enjoyed The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and wanted to watch the next installment. Thanks to a netflix trial, now was my chance.

The first half of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug was a little disappointing. The movie is very grandiose, presumably in an attempt to retain an association with the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Now, as anybody who has read The Hobbit knows, the book isn't grandiose at all. It all happens on a much smaller, more personal scale than The Lord of the Rings, being told very much from Bilbo Baggins perspective.

Thankfully the movie improves in the later stages, and once we're introduced to Smaug it feels a bit like we're back in The Hobbit book territory, and not just trying to make everything seem much grander than it should be. Not a bad movie overall, but not really close enough to staying in keeping with the tone (not so much the story) of the original book for my liking.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Kung Fu Panda

Monday 29th September 2014

Director: Mark Osborne, John Stevenson
Year: 2008
Stars: Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Ian McShane, Jackie Chan, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, David Cross (voices)

This wasn't a movie I really intended to watch, although I was aware of it and had a vague interest in seeing it when it was first released. Kung Fu Panda just happened to be on when we were staying at a cottage in North Devon for a few days. It therefore seemed like a good opportunity to sit down and relax one evening.

As long as you're not expecting too much, Kung Fu Panda is quite enjoyable. Po the Panda (Black) dreams of being a kung fu master, and ends up getting his chance when he is picked as the Dragon Warrior. However, things aren't usually that easy, and Po has basically none of the skills needed to become the Dragon Warrior. Needless to say, the other kung fu fighters aren't happy about this state of affairs. Neither is Po's dad.

Now, this is an animated children's movie, so I'm sure you've already worked out that things turn out for the best. You know basically what's coming every step of the way, but that's no great surprise with a movie like this. An easy watch if you know what you're getting yourself in to.

Rating: 3 out of 5

The Three Musketeers

Sunday 13th April 2014

Director: Paul W.S Anderson
Year: 2011
Stars: Matthew Macfadyen, Milla Jovovich, Luke Evans, Ray Stephenson, Orlando Bloom, Logan Lerman, Mads Mikkelsen

Having seen that this was on TV, I had a mild interest in watching it (I'll admit, that interest was mostly fuelled by the fact that Orlando Bloom was in it). Finding myself sat alone in a B&B for the night, waiting for a conference to begin the next day, I figured I might as well watch it.

Now, the viewing experience probably wasn't helped by the relatively small TV, made all the smaller because I was sat some way away from it. Or the fact that everything felt a bit distant because I'd been travelling all day and was tired. But The Three Musketeers was just, well, dull. I had a tough time bothering to pay that much attention to the movie because it was boring. And 2 1/2 hours long. Which made it more boring.

I'm not even sure I can give a decent account of the plot, such as it was, here. It meandered somewhat, and was basically just the usual 'bad stuff happens-The Three Musketeers find out about it-there's lots of fighting-bad stuff is solved' plot. There's really nothing new here at all. I'm not entirely sure why the film was made at all.

Rating: 2 out of 5

The Grey

Wednesday 9th April 2014

Director: Joe Carnahan
Year: 2011
Stars: Liam Neeson, Frank Grillo, Dermot Mulroney, Dallas Roberts, Joe Anderson, Nonso Anozie, James Badge Dale

Wow, this meanders. And I don't mean that in a good way. Grey in name, grey in colour, grey in just about every sense. The Grey is so dull.

Liam Neeson plays John Ottway, a man who ends up on an aeroplane that crashes somewhere in Alaska. Cue the potential for a movie about cannibalism, and how to survive in the wild (try Alive, a much better movie). By this point in the movie I was already bored rigid, so to be fair it didn't really matter that The Grey didn't head in this direction. Instead, it introduces wolves. Wolves that like to kill men in Alaska who have just been in a plane crash. I honestly didn't think that a movie about blood-thirsty wolves could be this dull.

I'd finish this review, but I've fallen asleep...

Rating: 1 out of 5

Rio

Sunday 6th April 2014

Director: Carlos Saldanha
Year: 2011
Stars: Jesse Eisenberg, Leslie Mann, Gracinha Leporace, Anne Hathaway, Jamie Foxx, Will i Am, Jake T Austin (voices)

Rio is exactly what it says on the tin. It features colourful, talking, birds, a madcap story and an American, idealised version of Rio de Janeiro.

The story is all about Blu (Eisenberg), a blue macaw who ends up in Minnesota (or, as the film puts it, not Rio). However, it transpires that he is the last male of his species, so in order to mate and continue the survival of the species, he and his owner Linda (Mann) have to travel to Rio. Cue lots of chaos, kidnapping and comedy.

Rio may not be up with the greats like Toy Story or Shrek, but if you're looking for a fun, animated children's movie you could do a fair bit worse than seeking this one out.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Stand by Me

Sunday 30th March 2014

Director: Rob Reiner
Year: 1986
Stars: Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O'Connell, Kiefer Sutherland

I've seen this movie before. Lots. And I love it. But it was my birthday, so the movie was my choice. And I chose the perfect Sunday afternoon movie, which I haven't seen for ages.

And it's still great. Adapted from the Stephen King novel The Body, it tells the story of four boys who go hunting for a dead body - and about all the trials they face along the way (trains on the line, leeches, killer dogs, friendships...). It's a story about the journey, not the destination. And what a journey it is.

Time hasn't done anything to harm this movie, and every time I watch it I love it that little bit more. A perfect slice of Sunday afternoon nostalgia - whether you were born in the 60s, the 80s or the 90s.

Rating: 5 out of 5

Mirror Mirror

Wednesday 19th February 2014

Director: Tarsem Singh Dhandwar
Year: 2012
Stars: Julia Roberts, Lily Collins, Armie Hammer, Nathan Lane

When I saw this was on TV, I was really, really keen to watch it. Unfortunately I was busy doing something else at the time, so I recorded it to watch later. Since then, it's been sitting there staring at me quietly saying "You know you really want to watch me. You know you haven't really got time". So when I was off work sick for the day, and this looked like the happiest, cheeriest movie on the list, I figured it was time to listen to the first half of that quiet voice.

And I'm glad I did. I really, really enjoyed Mirror Mirror. It's the story of Snow White, but with a contemporary twist. The dwarves have names like Napoleon and Grimm, Snow White refuses to be the one getting rescued, and the Prince gets fed a potion of puppy love. Somehow the movie still manages to remain true enough to the spirit of Snow White so that, if you're a traditionalist, you're probably not going to be too annoyed.

One final thing worth mentioning - Julia Roberts makes an excellent Wicked Queen.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Hidalgo

Friday 31st January 2014

Director: Joe Johnston
Year: 2004
Stars: Viggo Mortensen, Omar Sharif, Zuleikha Robinson, Louise Lombard

Another movie that has been sitting around for ages waiting to be watched, we're finally making an attempt to get through them all. 12 to go after this one, which isn't bad!

Hidalgo isn't quite what I was expecting it to be. I knew it involved horses, and I knew it had Viggo Mortensen in it. I was expecting it to be a little more serious than it was though. It tells the tale of Frank T. Hopkins (Mortensen), who was an American horse rider who entered a lot of long distance horse races.

Hidalgo is about his entry into a horse race across the Arabian desert, and how the odds were stacked against him. I'm pretty sure a lot of what happens here is made up, because the movie veers into silly action adventure a number of times, with some proper Disney-like evil characters who are trying to kill Hopkins and his horse.

None of this is to say that the movie isn't fun, it's fast-paced, a fun story and kept me watching. It's just also quite silly in places.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

2012

Wednesday 22nd January 2014

Director: Roland Emmerich
Year: 2009
Stars: John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Thandie Newton, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Oliver Platt

This had been sitting waiting to be watched for some time. I wasn't expecting a lot from it, and it probably wouldn't have been our first choice of movie... except for the fact that it was split into two halves (something to do with small fingers and switches when it was being recorded), and we were both shattered. So an easy-to-watch movie that lasted a few hours before bed sounded about right.

If you're expecting a disaster movie, 2012 isn't actually too bad. You have to accept that camper vans and limos can jump across massive chasms, but if you're OK with that, you'll probably enjoy this. The basic premise is that the the Earth's crust, and therefore the world, is going to get destroyed. Cue lots of weather-related disasters; earthquakes floods, tsunamis, volcanos in the USA, that kind of thing...

There's a lot of pretty impressive CGI here, and I imagine it would have looked even better on the big screen. Also, as disaster movies go, the story isn't utterly ridiculous. Settle down for an enjoyable evening where no thinking is required and you'll be perfectly happy.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Paul

Wednesday 6 November 2013

Director: Greg Mottola
Year: 2011
Stars: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost

Starting to feel better, but this evening seemed like a good excuse to fit a final movie in before I had to go back to real life (work, looking after the baby, buying food, that sort of thing). I've wanted to see Paul for a while, and a few weeks ago it was on TV, so I had just been waiting for a good excuse to watch the movie.

Reviews at the time weren't especially kind to Paul - and in all fairness, it's no Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz. But it is still funny, and very different to those other movies. The premise is incredibly simple - two English guys go on a roadtrip across 'alien America' and meet an actual alien. And yes, there are very, very big hints to Close Encounters of the Third Kind in this movie.

As long as you're not expecting too much, Paul is a really, fun enjoyable movie. But if you want brilliance watch Shaun of the Dead. It's always on TV anyway.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Finding Nemo

Monday 7th October 2013

Director: Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich
Year: 2003
Stars: Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Alexander Gould (voices)

I've seen this before. That's probably not too surprising. But when you're stuck at home with your husband and small baby because you're ill, watching a colourful animated movie that you can easily get your hands on is usually a good choice. Especially if that movie happens to be Finding Nemo.

I've always loved this movie. But I enjoyed it even more this time around, because I'd forgotten just how much I love it. I had also forgotten various parts of the movie (only minor things, nothing plot-changing), which, once again, made it all the more enjoyable.

I'm sure most of you know the story, but for those that haven't been underwater for the past ten years, Finding Nemo is all about a baby fish (funnily enough, called Nemo - voiced by Gould) who gets caught by a diver and taken to a fish tank in a dentist's surgery in Australia. His dad, Marlin (Brooks) then goes on a mission to save his one and only son.

Beautifully animated, a brilliant story, and loads of good jokes along the way. Even the baby paid attention at times. What's not to like?

Rating: 5 out of 5

Sahara

Saturday 5th October 2013

Director: Breck Eisner
Year: 2005
Stars: Matthew McConaughey, Steve Zahn, Penelope Cruz

... unlike Sahara, which doesn't have any realism at all to it - even if that seems to be what the filmmakers were aiming for.

Based on a Clive Cussler novel, Sahara is all about the explorer Dirk Pitt (McConaughey), who is trying to find a lost battleship, but ends up helping out a WHO doctor (Cruz) who has to save the world from an evil dictator. See, even the plot sounds utterly ludicrous. This is the stuff of cartoon fantasy films, not action adventure movies. Sahara has all the allure of a James Bond movie, but just ends up being ridiculous.

The result of all this is complete and utter nonsense. By trying to set the movie in the real world, all Sahara achieves is a level of immense stupidity.

Rating: 2 out of 5

Django Unchained

Sunday 4th August 2013

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Year: 2012
Stars: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson

Well, this was an unexpected, but very pleasant, surprise. I wanted to watch Django Unchained when it was released at the cinema earlier in the year - but you try going to see a 3 hour movie with a 6 month old baby. It doesn't seem totally fair on the babysitter.

So when my hubby's grandparents suggested we go and watch it, I wasn't going to refuse. And I wasn't disappointed. To some extent, if you know it's a Tarantino movie, and you've seen the trailer, you should know approximately what you're going to get. I did, and I was more than happy with it.

In Django, the lead character (Foxx), a freed slave, goes in search of his wife, who is working on a different plantation. Remember that this is a 3 hour long Tarantino movie, so things get somewhat more complicated than that, but that's the basic idea. There's lots of swearing and shooting and blood, but that was all OK with me. One of those movies I love, but where my mum sits there going "I don't know why you watched that, they all end up dead anyway". (And I don't think that's giving anything anyway - partially because it's only half true).

Rating: 4 out of 5

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Sunday 12th May 2013

Director: Peter Jackson
Year: 2012
Stars: Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage, Ken Stott, James Nesbitt, Stephen Hunter, Dean O'Gorman, Aidan Turner

In contrast with Sideways, The Hobbit turned out to be better than I was expecting. After hearing a number of reviews when it was released and I didn't get the chance to go to the cinema and see it, I believed it probably wasn't going to live up to all the hype.

Don't get me wrong, The Hobbit is definitely filmed on almost the same scale as Lord of the Rings, when the book really isn't written to the same scale. However, I wasn't bored by the film, and personally I enjoyed the fact that it had such a clear link to the Lord of the Rings movies. This is helped by the fact that all the actors who need to, return to the roles they had in Lord of the Rings

The Hobbit is due to be released in 3 parts, so this movie certainly doesn't tell the full story. Its main focus is on Bilbo's life before Gandalf (McKellen) and the dwarves appear, and how he copes with being dragged away from his home to go in search of a dragon. This isn't to say that there aren't fights with goblins, orcs, and the ever-present Gollum, of course. By the end of the movie the action has fully kicked, and I, for one, will be happy to watch the next instalment, due out this year- The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.

Rating: 4 out of 5

The Host

Monday 1st April 2013

Director: Andrew Niccol
Year: 2013
Stars: Saoirse Ronan, Diane Kruger, Chandler Canterbury, Max Irons, Jake Abel, William Hurt, Scott Lawrence, Boyd Holbrook

Oops, it's taken me a while to blog about this movie! I was keen to both watch and read The Host, as I enjoyed the Twilight saga so much, and The Host is written by the same author, Stephenie Meyer. I started reading the novel before making it to the cinema, but just couldn't get into it at all. It seemed to move at such a slow pace, and I just found it a bit of a slog. So when I went to see the movie at the cinema, I was nowhere near having finished the book.

This turned out not to be such a bad thing. The movie moves along at a much faster pace, and even only having read the first tenth of the book, I knew that a lot of detail had been cut out. I had no problem with this at all, and quite enjoyed the much speedier pace of the movie. This isn't to say that The Host was a brilliant watch, but it was enjoyable enough for a Bank Holiday weekend cinema visit. 

The basic premise is that aliens have taken over human beings bodies, and replaced human's souls with their own. Wanda is a soul that has been placed in Melanie's body, but Melanie refuses to give it up and leads Wanda to a group of humans who haven't yet been taken over by souls. Melanie's brother and partner are living there, and Wanda slowly comes to understand why humans behave the way they do.

It's a relatively satisfying movie, and now that I've read a lot more of the book, that's become more enjoyable as well. I can't complain about the pace of the movie, but I do know that in a few months time I'm unlikely to find the story that memorable.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5