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

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

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

The Invasion

Wednesday 6 November 2013

Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel, James McTeigue
Year: 2007
Stars: Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Jeremy Northam, Jackson Bond

Yep, still ill. And getting a bit fed up with it now. So, in order to make myself not fear illness at all, I decided to watch a movie called The Invasion. All about people who get ill and have their bodies invaded by aliens that are slowly taking over the human race. And if you're thinking that this sounds like the plot of The Host (or, I've been informed, World's End), you're right. It takes a slightly different point of view, but the premise is basically exactly the same.

However, it's not badly done. As alien invasion movies go, it's actually pretty enjoyable and kept me watching. Of course, I knew pretty much who was going to survive and who wasn't (this is a Hollywood alien invasion movie, after all), but I didn't necessarily know how we were going to get there. Pretty average, but enjoyably so.

Rating: 3.5 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

The Hunger Games: Film #156 of Film 365

Wednesday 2nd May 2012

Director: Gary Ross
Year: 2012
Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Woody Harrelson, Stanley Tucci, Wes Bentley, Elizabeth Banks, Toby Jones,  Liam Hemsworth

Being a fan of the Twilight series (don't let this put you off, I also love Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd, Sideways, Psycho and Stand by Me), I had heard quite a lot about The Hunger Games. It's certainly marketed at the same "young adult" audience- whether or not that is actually the type of person who will go and watch it. I was persuaded it was worth giving a try when every comment I heard about it was a positive one- from Twilight fans, critics and friends who had never read the books alike.

Not having read the books myself, I can't compare it to the novel. But basing my opinion purely on the movie, this is very, very enjoyable. You don't need any prior knowledge of the books to understand the story (something that the later Twilight films admittedly lack), and the way it has been filmed makes for a really enjoyable movie experience.

I was a little bit unsure about the plot at first - it's basically exactly the same premise as Battle Royale (put a group of teenagers together in a forest and get them to kill one another). However, the resulting movies are very, very different. Whilst Battle Royale is unashamedly a horror movie, The Hunger Games is much more political. Although the politics are, for the most part, in the (albeit very obvious) background here, they clearly play a much greater part in the subsequent novels.

Every thing about The Hunger Games has been done to make you think about what's happening. At one point I found myself thinking about how effectively sound was being used to make a point. But then I thought "but so are the colours, and the images, and the narrative". Definitely worth two hours of your time, and you may well want to watch it again.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Film #149 of Film 365

Friday 6th April 2012

Director: Steven Spielberg
Year: 1977
Stars: Richard Dreyfuss, Terri Garr, Melinda Dillon

OK, I admit it, I've never seen Close Encounters of the Third Kind before. So when I announced this when we had some friends round, that was a great excuse to force me to watch it. I was informed that it's a ground-breaking, iconic movie and everyone should see it.

The movie focuses on Roy Neary (Dreyfuss), a man who has an odd UFO-type encounter. He then feels drawn to a specific area in the wilderness that people are specifically warned to stay away from. And that's about it. It's a pretty long film, and I still don't really know why. Not a hell of a lot happens - although there is a lot of twinkly music.

I can understand why I was told it's an iconic movie. A lot of more recent TV shows and films borrow a lot of ideas from it (The X Files and The 4400 are two obvious ones that spring to mind, but there are many, many more). The individual ideas are therefore clearly lasting ones, but this doesn't make Close Encounters of the Third Kind a good movie. At best, it's average. And I still don't really get the point.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Knowing: Film # 134 of Film 365

Friday 3rd February 2012

Director: Alex Proyas
Year: 2009
Stars: Nicolas Cage, Chandler Canterbury, Rose Byrne, Lara Robinson

If Romance and Cigarettes was made to confuse me, Knowing was made to reassure me that there are still such things as Hollywood movies. Almost nothing about this will surprise you - apart from perhaps the ending, which isn't quite as Hollywood as you might expect. And probably all the better for it. Within the first 10 minutes I had pretty much guessed where this was going; but it didn't really mean that getting there was any less enjoyable, as long as you were happy to give in to the standard Hollywood gloss (and, at times, really rather obvious CGI).

Nicolas Cage is John Koestler, a man whose son (Caleb, played by Canterbury) receives a list of numbers when a time capsule is dug up at his school, 50 years after it was buried. It will come as no surprise that the list of numbers is significant, but everybody thinks Cage is mad for believing so - until the final third of the movie.

There's not really much to say about Knowing that you don't know already. It's a perfectly good example of what it is, with a slightly better than average ending. But it isn't going to make my Film of the Year either.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: Film #80 of Film 365

Sunday 9th October 2011

Director: Michael Bay
Year: 2009
Stars: Shia LeBeouf, Megan Fox, John Turturro, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson

You might think that after my review of Transformers, I'd avoid the second movie. Apparently not. I have to admit I wasn't really expecting a lot from it, but it seemed like an easy choice on a Sunday evening.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen definitely wasn't the disappointment the first Transformers was. A lot of this, I'm sure, has to do with my much lower expectations, but the other reason is that this movie simply doesn't take itself as seriously as the first one. It knows what it is and what people want it to be - a movie with cool cars that turn into robots, where lots of stuff gets blown up. It has that in abundance, so if it's what you're looking for you'll be perfectly happy.

The one criticism I can level at it is that it's just too long. However convoluted you make your story, and however many plot strands you bring in, you do not need three hours to blow stuff up. Two is more than enough.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Super 8: Film #61 of Film 365

Wednesday 17th August 2011

Director: J.J Abrams
Year: 2011
Stars: Joel Courtney, Kyle Chandler, Riely Griffiths, Ryan Lee, Gabriel Basso, Zach Mills, Elle Fanning, Ron Eldard

When I first saw a trailer for Super 8, I was really keen to see it. It made the movie look like it had good characters, a decent plot, and plenty of enjoyable scenes. Then I read a couple of reviews. Now, don't get me wrong, the reviews were positive. But they did mention that all the great characterisation that happens in the first half of the movie is lost to bigger, better alien scenes in the second half of the movie.

The reviews aren't wrong, but it's not as depressing as it sounds. Those alien scenes are needed, or this could just have descended into another Lost - good characterisation meaning you actually care about the characters, and then a big fat pile of nothing when you realise there's no decent ending. Thankfully, that doesn't happen here. The second half does include some cheesy scenes, but these don't feel so bad because you really do like, and care about, almost every character in Super 8 (and certainly all the ones you are supposed to).

Rating: 4 out of 5

The Day the Earth Stood Still: Film # 54 of FIlm 365

Sunday 16th July 2011

Director: Scott Derrickson
Year: 2008
Stars: Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connolly, Jaden Smith, Kathy Bates

There are basically no surprises here. I was expecting an action movie with lots of CGI and blowing things up, and that's pretty much what I got. It's a bit of a shame as I think there's probably an interesting movie lurking under here somewhere, but this wasn't the film to explore it properly. This is a remake of a 1951 movie, so perhaps that was the movie to do so?

The Day the Earth Stood Still is all about an alien race (well, one alien in particular) that comes to save Earth - but not necessarily the humans that inhabit it. It's acceptable Sunday-afternoon fare, but unfortunately it has an entirely unsatisfying ending.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Transformers: Film #50 of Film 365

Sunday 3rd July 2011

Director: Michael Bay
Year: 2007
Stars: Shia LeBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson

I'd heard fairly good things about this when it was first released. So, as I'd (intentionally) failed to see it at the cinema, I decided to give it a try when it was shown on TV at the weekend.

Things started out fairly well. All the characters were introduced quickly, but in a way that made it clear who was who. The plot was fairly intriguing, and I was quite enjoying waiting to see people's reactions when they discovered their cars and trucks were really massive robots.

Unfortunately, after about an hour, things went seriously downhill. Sub-plots were introduced that made no sense at all, and I started to get just generally annoyed. Two and a half hours later I was rather bored, and mostly just wanting the whole thing to end. Basically, there was no need at all for hours 1-2, which were entirely nonsensical anyway. At least the final half hour was what it should have been I guess - a final showdown between the autobots and decepticons. Oh, and by the way, Optimus Prime is rubbish - and annoyingly preachy. He was rubbish in the cartoon too. Megatron would always win if those two really got in a fight.

Rating: 2 out of 5 (mostly for managing a decent set-up, if not a decent film)

Source Code: Film #32 of Film 365

Wednesday 27th April 2011

Director: Duncan Jones
Year: 2011
Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga

Well, this was a nice surprise. As I read more and more reviews of this, I became more convinced I wanted to see it. But I was still a little sceptical that it would run away with the plot too much, and just be entirely unconvincing. So what a lovely surprise it was to watch a film that was actually cleverer than it seemed to think it was. Usually the reverse is the case.

Colter Stevens (Gyllenhaal) is a soldier who is sent back in time, to when a train blows up, in order to try and find the man who has bombed the train. There's a lot more to the story than that, but that's all you really need to know to get a sense of the movie.

Every time I thought there was a gaping plot hole here, the movie answered my question. It's a neat, tidy thriller with a satisfying ending. It'll probably hurt your brain a bit, but in a good way.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Sunday 16th January 2011

Logan's Run

Director: Michael Anderson
Year: 1976
Stars: Michael York, Jenny Agutter, Peter Ustinov, Richard Jordan

This is another movie that has been sat waiting to be watched for at least 6 months. The fact that it was being shown again on TV today prompted me to actually watch it.

Logan's Run is set in the future and tells the story of Logan 5, a Sandman who kills "runners". These are people who run instead of going to the Carousel at the age of 30 - their only hope of being renewed rather than dying at this age.

The film certainly has its flaws, but it isn't a bad story. If it was made today it might be a little more convincing as the set design etc. wouldn't look so outdated. The one thing you wouldn't want to change, however, is Ustinov's performance. As the old man he is everything you want him to be, and he thoroughly outshines every other actor here.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Sunday 19th September 2010

Jumper

Director: Doug Liman
Year: 2008
Stars: Hayden Christensen, Jamie Bell, Samuel L. Jackson, Rachel Bilson, Diane Lane

I wanted to see this when it was released at the cinema, but the reviews put me off a little. I got the impression it was a nice idea, but not particularly well executed.

The film follows David Rice (Christensen) as he discovers that he can "jump" from one place to another. With some effort, he learns to jump anywhere - from New York to Egypt, from Egypt to London... However, nothings that simple in the movies and he ends up having to deal with other jumpers, love, and the Palladin (enemies of the jumpers).

This isn't a bad film, but for once the reviewers were right. A nice idea, but not particularly well executed.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Sunday 1st August 2010

Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel

Director: Gareth Carrivick
Year: 2009
Stars: Chris O'Dowd, Marc Wootton, Dean Lennox Kelly, Anna Faris

I wanted to see this when it was released at the cinema - it was a small British movie, but opened to fairly positive reviews. It wasn't on for long though (or at many cinemas), so I missed it. However, it being a British movie, it found its way onto TV not too long after it had been released.

The film follows three nerdy men, one of whom is very into time travel. Things all get a bit odd when one of the men meets a time traveller and another finds himself moving forward in time when he enters the gents.

A fun movie with a bit of a mad premise, this was a fun distraction on a Sunday evening. It's better without its final five minutes, but they don't totally ruin the movie.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Friday 25th June 2010

Cloverfield

Director: Matt Reeves
Year: 2008
Stars: Mike Vogel, Michael Stahl-David, T.J Miller, Odette Yustman, Lizzy Caplan, Jessica Lucas

I wanted to watch this when it was released at the cinema, but never really got around to it. So when it was on TV I recorded, and finally managed to sit down and watch it today!

The movie follows a group of 20-somethings as Manhattan is attacked by a raging monster, and we get to see what happens through the eyes of one of their video cameras.

Even after watching it, I wasn't sure exactly what to think. I enjoyed the film for what it was, but it's an idea that's been done before - perhaps most noticeably on The Blair Witch Project. Having said that, it's done very competently here, and makes for an enjoyable movie. Just don't go in expecting a novel masterpiece, and you'll be entertained rather than bemused.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Wednesday 6th January 2010

Avatar (3D)

Director: James Cameron
Year: 2009
Stars: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, Giovanni Ribisi

I have to admit, I wasn't expecting a lot from this. I wanted to see it at the cinema as I thought it would be the only place you would get the complete experience - and judging from the sold out theatre, I wasn't the only one with that opinion.

I have to say, I was quite pleasantly surprised. Now, this may well be due to the fact that I was expecting a pretty awful plot, but it wasn't actually all that bad. It's a long movie (2 hours 40 minutes), but there is enough plot in there so that the running time feels justified. Basically, human beings travel to Pandora (another world) to try and access that world's resources - but the natives (Nav'i) aren't willing to let them take it. It's Jake Sully's job to "become" a Navi and convince them otherwise... resulting in a love story, lots of blowing things up and some moral dilemmas.

The best thing about this film is how it looks. Perhaps that was always going to be the case, but it is stunning. The world of Pandora looks simply beautiful, and it's clear why this took so long to make. Without that (which is, of course, amazing in 3D) this would probably just have felt like a run-of-the-mill action type movie to me. But the look of the film gives it at least one extra star.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Friday 11th December 2009

The Island

Director: Michael Bay
Year: 2005
Stars: Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johansson, Sean Bean, Djimon Hounsou, Steve Buscemi

I wasn't expecting a lot from this. Knowing it was directed by "action-man" Michael Bay, very definitely an action film, and didn't receive great reviews when it got released, I thought I'd be getting lots of car chases, running and being blown up.

I certainly did get all of the above. However, I also got something that approached a plausible story (within the limits of the action world, of course) that seemed to make an acceptable amount of sense. McGregor and Johansson are Lincoln Six Echo and Jordan Two Delta respectively, two humans who are being kept underground as if they go outside they will become contaminated - or at least that's what they (and many others) are being told. What follows is their discovery of what's really happening to them, and, yes, lots of car chases, running and being blown up. Nothing wrong with that if you know it's what you're getting!

If you're looking for a decent action film, this isn't as bad a place to look as a lot of reviewers have suggested.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Tuesday 13th October

District 9

Director: Neil Blomkamp
Year: 2009
Stars: Sharlto Copley

When I first heard about this movie, I wanted to see it. The trailer made it look really interesting, and the reviews I read were, on the whole, very positive. It sounded like an unusual take on the alien-invades-earth movie. However, I was a little put off when a friend went to see it and was overwhelmed slightly by the gore. Odd, because gore doesn't normally put me off a movie - I must be getting old. Although the gore wasn't enough to put me off when a friend asked us to go and see it with him and it would only cost us £3 each.

Although District 9 is an alien-invades-earth movie, it's not like you're thinking it is. Another Independence Day this is not. Twenty years ago aliens arrived in South Africa, and they have been living in a slum there ever since. This is the story of a government employee and his experience with those aliens. I'm trying not to give too much away, as the less you know the better. But don't worry, there's plenty of story here.

There's also character building (although not in the normal way - it's more subtle than that), plenty of gore and everything you would expect from an alien movie. But done in an excellent way to keep you watching and, more importantly, engaged. As our friend said, if you looked too hard there would probably be plenty of holes - but I don't think they were that easy to spot. For me, this was a thoroughly enjoyable, original and thought provoking alien movie.

Rating: 4 out of 5