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Reviews
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)
Enjoyable, but nothing new
DotPotA is an enjoyable film, with excellent visual effects. Unfortunately, the story is hackneyed, predictable and frankly tedious, with an enormous number of holes and rampant stupidity on all sides, which detracts from any impact it may have had.
Quite apart from the hammer-to-the-head morality and message, there isn't really anything to keep a viewer's attention, besides the action sequences. The characters aren't very interesting (though the actors play them very well), the apes are stunningly rendered but equally stunningly one-dimensional in personality, the story is so predictable as to be laughable and, in the end, it turns into a tension-free, suspense-free, popcorn-munching wait until the violence starts (and ends, since there's no real interest or depth there, either).
Very, very disappointing, especially given all the hype and hope for a great continuation of the series. Popcorn fodder, little else.
300: Rise of an Empire (2014)
Beautiful and Boring
Much like the first 300, this film is absolutely gorgeous - if you can put aside the obsession with blood, at least. The trouble is that the beautiful camera-work, flawlessly fluid combat scenes and use of limited colour are all there is.
The story is completely lost, the actors are about as interesting as cardboard cutouts and there's absolutely no discernible emotion in the whole film. It honestly amazed me that the actors all come across as if they've never read their lines before the moment they deliver them - even the big names.
I watched this on my PC screen (as I do with all films), and I was more involved in (and concerned by) the battle going on in a game of Total War: Rome 2 I was playing, than I was with anyone in the film!
All in all, the film serves a purpose as a training video for cinematographers, but is otherwise resoundingly empty. No substance, no emotion, no clarity, no direction, no sides to take and, therefore, nothing worth staying awake for.
Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)
Shameful waste of a great franchise
I'm a big fan of the RE movie franchise, even though I've never played the games. Milla Jovovich is an action heroine of the highest calibre, always bringing charm, humour and a hardass attitude to the films.
However, this outing is an embarrassment. I'm sure it was intended to be a high-octane non-stop thrill ride of an action roller-coaster (or some such journalistic expression), but it turns out to be a single, never-ending action scene with no redeeming qualities.
There's no story. There's no characterisation. There's no suspense. The dialogue is appalling and is almost universally delivered as if it was made up on the spot and voiced by robots without personality. The dramatic scenes are painfully bad. There's no tongue-in-cheek humour to carry the drama. For that matter, there's no drama.
The action scenes are patently ridiculous. The bad guys can't hit anything with 40,000 rounds of ammo; they can't even stop a normal car with a 50-cal. The good guys can kill anyone - as long as they're not a bad guy with a name - with a single shot, and only need a single clip to get them through several hundred enemies. Even the "biohazards" are pathetically weak, not to mention rare.
In the end, it's a story about Alice - who we do care about because, y'know, she's Alice - escaping from somewhere we don't care about. She gets help from other people we don't care about, has to save a child we don't care about, and does so in such a long, painfully arduous way that, by half-way through, I rather wished she'd die and get it over with.
Even the finale - which is without any twists - consists of an interminably long, stupid, tension-free fight scene where all the good guys suddenly become incompetent and can't kill anyone.
An insult to everyone involved. If they make a sixth, I hope Anderson realises his writing skills are non-existent and gets a proper story.
Ong-bak 3 (2010)
A tedious mess
Having sat through the confusing jumble that was Ong Bak 2, I figured I should see the third one to complete the story. Big mistake.
Ong Bak 3 picks up where the second film left off, not only in the story but in the confusing, jumbled mess of rubbish that spends most of its time posturing. Seriously, how many slow close-ups and intense stares can an audience put up with from a lead who says so little and has no expressions other than angry, sad and happy?
This third installment is, in short, awful. The story is almost non-existent and horribly contrived: the crow guy, the sudden haunting of the evil king, Tien effectively turning into a Buddhist monk in short order, blah blah blah.
There's also the issue of boredom. You know how action movies have those slow, supposedly emotional breaks in them so you can recover from the intense action? Well, this one consists of about 90% breaks and 10% action... which really isn't that intense even when it does happen. The advantage of DVD is that you can fast-forward through the painfully long pauses and all that intense staring and get to the bits where something - anything! - happens.
All in all, OB3 is the final descent of the trilogy. After a glorious start, it turned to poop in the second installment and finally fell headlong into tedium and pointlessness.
My advice? Watch the opening fight scene, then fast-forward to the ending fight scene. Catch the crow fight if you like. Everything else is redundant.
Ong Bak 2 (2008)
Posturing 101
I enjoyed the original Ong Bak, though I'm one of those people who thought the fighting got a bit samey by the end. Anyway, I figured I'd check out the second in the series since it had a lot of glowing reviews here at IMDb.
Two-word summary: it's awful.
Four-word summary: don't waste your time.
The first 15 minutes or so are an assemblage of vague, random events supposedly setting the scene for later events. It could be said that the flashbacks throughout the movie are intended to provide the missing detail piece by piece (and thus the opening is "intriguing"), but most people would like SOME indication of what's going on, who people are and whether anything that happens is at all important. As it stands, it's just a mess.
The rest of the movie consists predominantly of average fight scenes strung together by a lack of story and a LOT of posturing. The whole thing tries SO hard to be dramatic that it's laughable: far too many pauses, close-ups and showdowns (which are mostly people staring at each other before something entirely predictable happens).
The movie could be about two-thirds as long and be a riot of action but, as it is, it makes little sense. There's no logic to most of it - e.g. Tien getting "revenge" on slavers when those who captured him were slaughtered by the bandits who adopted him - and it's tedious. The dialog is appalling and, again, tries to be dramatic but fails miserably because there is absolutely no sense of danger at any time - everything moves too slow to get the adrenaline pumping.
And the ending? Oh dear. Talk about just stopping production with no apparent reason or sense.
All in all, it's a real shame. The first one was fun and had some good fights. This one isn't and doesn't. Avoid it unless you like an awful lot of really long closeups of people trying to look dramatic.
V for Vendetta (2005)
Surprising!
I came across this film by pure accident: a list on a blog somewhere of good 'revolutionary' films. I rented it, watched it... then bought it. It's that good.
Admittedly there are many things I find a little rough, like V's overt theatricality (yes, it's part of the character; yes, it's a bit too heavy), the very typical characterisation of the religious leader (who's actually a pervert behind closed doors), the brutal dictatorship based on religion and so on. However, they're just standard tools to tell a story and this one's VERY well told.
The casting is excellent. Portman's brilliant as usual, Weaving proves you don't need to have your face all over the screen to have presence, Rea does a wonderful job of being the cop torn between justice and feelings (and narrating certain parts so they're clear, without seeming like he's narrating) and even Fry (who I'm not a fan of, really) is cast in just the right role. John Hurt? No need to wonder, he's always great.
All in all, there are some heavy-handed moments and the script's a bit OTT but then that's to be expected from a graphic novel conversion and it works with the theatrical feel of the film.
Very, very enjoyable. Some nice surprises, great characterisation, enough action and suspense to keep things moving to the end and a positive message. It may not be the best movie in the world (or even of the year it was released), but it's definitely one you shouldn't miss.
Day of the Sirens (2002)
Ambitious, but painful to watch
People seem split between extremes here and I suppose that's understandable with a film that's obviously VERY low-budget and trying to make a big statement. Personally, I found the premise and story interesting but, in the end, painfully hard to watch and the implementation was a complete and utter flop.
The first problem, as I see it, is that the film doesn't know what it wants to say. Or maybe it does and it just doesn't know how to say it. Either way, through the whole 90 minutes or so of watching (which felt more like 4 hours, the directing/editing is so tedious), I felt as if there was something really substantial and important there, somewhere. Trouble is, whatever message the film's trying to convey just isn't clear so, once it was over, I felt like I'd wasted my time.
On top of this, none of the characters are interesting. Saeed Jaffrey's character is just some old bloke who spends all his screen time crying - an appalling waste of a great actor - when he should evoke a lot more sympathy. His section at the vet's is very touching but the rest is just "whiny old bloke again". Rik Mayall looks more like a random Londoner filmed sitting at home working out his lottery numbers than a radio presenter (and his supposed 'little boy' looks a good 15 years old, despite acting like a 5-year-old, which makes no sense, either).
Even the killer - the point of the film? - is pointless and vague, with no driving reason for his killing spree (which is perhaps the point, though it's never made). Add to this the fact that, even once the killing spree is ended, the film drags on for another 15 minutes or so (which feels like an hour), STILL without making a point and, well... it would have been nice if the writer had done a little resume of what the message was, so I wouldn't feel so cheated.
Speaking of bad characters, all the other 'individuals' in the film are just cardboard cut-outs of people who don't matter: a couple having an irrelevant baby, an uninteresting cop who dies and we don't care, a Spanish couple who are either there to provide the longest wait for a topless scene ever or as an intended shock which is unclear, not shocking and takes so long coming that I no longer cared... oh, and some other people who I can't even remember who they are, they were so one- dimensional.
All in all, I really wish someone better had gotten hold of the story and avoided making it like a series of unrelated scenes held together with string. Disjointed, unclear, badly acted, badly characterised and eventually unfulfilling. A real pity: it could have been SO much more.