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The Factory (2012)
Screamingly idiotic scrapings from underneath the Hollywood cheese counter.
We all like John Cusack. He's a lovable presence, very watchable in anything he's in, and possesses a kind of wiry energy which translates brilliantly to the screen. But he's really squandering the good feeling with "The Factory" and looks throughout like he's embarrassed to be part of something so intensely pathetic and which insults the intelligence of its audience so catastrophically - but you still took the cheque, didn't you, John? Weak...
"The Factory" is set in a world where there's only one type of pregnancy test kit on the market. It's a world in which imprisoned female victims of rape profess undying devotion to their rapist captor - and mean it. It's a world in which people are sliced open and drowned but are okay two minutes later.
I hate myself for seeing this film through until the jaw-droppingly ludicrous final twist. So will you. Please, please, if you have an hour and a half to spare and are considering seeing this movie, you can achieve the same feelings of incredulity and self-loathing for free by standing in a corner and occasionally hitting yourself in the face with a big spoon.
The Royal Bodyguard (2011)
Sub-Chuckle Brothers atrocity - only let the kids watch this if they've been naughty
David Jason is a hugely talented comic actor. Why, then, are the BBC demeaning him by giving him such a catastrophically idiotic, derivative and mirth-free script as "The Royal Bodyguard"? And who on earth gave this pathetic dross the go-ahead? This is real car-crash television: you can see the 'jokes' coming light years away. Throughout a conversation with a pianist at a grand piano, we all know David Jason's character will somehow mistakenly knock the piano cover closed. The lead-up to this century-old comedy non-starter is excruciating, though when it finally happens, it's still amazing just how limp the payoff is.
Other 'highlights': he tries to eat a lobster but doesn't know how! He tries to attack a suit of armour!! He falls into some water!!! Ahahahaha haha hahahahaha!!!!! I could understand better if this mess was a one-off special for Boxing Day, when people are generally too drunk to get up and turn the telly off - but there's a whole series of "The Royal Bodyguard" on its way.... good grief! In conclusion: unbelievably pathetic, and a hugely embarrassing failure. If a 6-year-old had written this script for a school project, it would be returned with a red line through it. An insult to the abilities of David Jason and an insult to the viewer.
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
This franchise will self-destruct in - ooh, there it goes now!
Some fella wants to blow up the world, or something. We don't know why, but it doesn't matter, 'cos it's that guy from the Millennium films, therefore your argument is invalid. No explanation is needed.
And now Tom Cruise is driving his amazing flashy Xenu 500 to some posh European cocktail party - or something - where all the doors have been unlocked by that British dweeb who used to be funny. We don't learn how he was able to do any of it, but no explanation is needed because OMG did you see that car.
Now let's pause briefly for another snippet of a weird, uninvolving and unresolved subplot about the wife... and straight back to Tom, faffing about on the outside of a big building, scampering around with a pair of customised washing-up gloves. Snore.
No-one looks to Mission Impossible films for detailed character studies, but there's literally nothing here to make us understand the motivations of the baddies or care on even a shallow level about the goodies. This is a crack-force team of androids for whom nothing seems much of a challenge. They have carbon-fibre bones which cannot break, and an electro-magnetic forcefield which repels bullets. And they're not programmed with personalities.
Tom Cruise is a strange one. He makes these hugely narcissistic films but doesn't seem to be offering any performances worthy of his own faith in himself. He polarises public opinion and doesn't have the broad groundswell of support to be able to afford to churn out such a lazy film at this point in his career.
Nice sandstorm though.
The Comic Strip Presents...: The Hunt for Tony Blair (2011)
Incredibly poor
Unutterably unfunny. Such a shame as this was a brilliantly-shot film with excellent work from the actors and actresses. All blame lies with the writers, who have failed on just about every level to produce anything worth watching. Not one laugh for the whole running time, and a script which jumps from style to style (Ealing comedy, attempted political satire, various pastiches of old films, etc.) without ever finding its bearings. This was a Comic Strip presentation - amazing to think this was the bunch who revolutionised comedy in the 80s. Everything in this film points towards the need for a new wave of comedians to come along and sweep this tired, uninspired, bloated cack away for good. Looking for jokes in "The Hunt For Tony Blair" produced less results than the hunt for Iraqi WMDs.
Clubbed (2008)
Mediocre, one-dimensional and depressingly unintelligent. Another misfiring also-ran Britflick.
"Clubbed" is yet another 'will-this-do?' entry into the Brit fisticuffs genre and is sure to keep punters who aren't expecting too much moderately entertained for ninety minutes after a few beers. However, for anyone seeking intelligent, quality entertainment it's really best avoided.
There are so many misnomers in the appalling script that even an actor of the calibre of Colin Salmon is left looking daft. The action is set in the 1980s, but it's never clear why, especially when they haven't been able to pull off any convincing feel for that decade - it takes more than a few 80s soul records on the soundtrack, the occasional zoot suit and a handful of 30-year-old cars. Then we see central characters studying texts such as Sun Tzu's "The Art Of War" and speaking about how violence should be a last resort, while the same characters seem only too willing to start doling out punches with all the testosterone-fuelled, unthinking abandon of a bunch of chavs fighting over a bag of chips.
Character development does not exist in "Clubbed". Nor does irony, subtlety or pathos. This is a film which trades on fond memories of Guy Richie's early gangster films, which despite their flaws certainly had much more wit, better editing, snappier dialogue and packed more emotional punch than this limp little saga. They're a decade old now, anyway - isn't it time we moved on from trying to emulate them?
War, Inc. (2008)
Racist, unfunny, confusing car-crash of a film
Which cokehead green-lighted this? What a colossal mess. From the incoherent opening scenes to the pathetic finale, the script's all over the place. Though the actors struggle to put life into the ridiculous scenarios, the script and especially the direction are so utterly wretched that not even the little baby Jesus could have made this worth wasting your money on.
War Inc. think's it's such an amazing film - so brave, so cutting, so insightful. It's none of these things. It thinks it's following in a long line of satirical war films which takes in "M*A*S*H", "Catch 22" and "Dr. Strangelove". It isn't. At its core it's a deeply negative film, portraying the Americans as greedy, uncaring imbeciles who are nevertheless dominating the inconceivably stupid, violent, drunken "fez-heads". But these points are made with a sledgehammer as opposed to the fine brush strokes of Altman, Kubrick, etc.
Truly, stunningly awful film. Don't say I didn't warn you.