Hayfax_Jo

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - is it a bone fide hit in the making or a load of noisy old rubbish? Well, it's both, quite probably. Having not seen the first film I hoped there would be a sufficient introduction to get me into the Transformers world, but I don't think the filmmakers could really be bothered as it would have got in the way of whatever explosion happened to be going on at the time. Now, don't get me wrong, explosions are lovely and all, but there was so little by the way of character exploration in this that in no way did you care about any of the protagonists; the almost complete lack of plot didn't help much, either. Well, I say there was no plot - there may have been but I can't be certain because my eyes started to bleed and then I fell asleep.

So, what was good about the movie? Well, Shia was likable in the lead role, Megan was always watchable (although I couldn't tell you what her acting was like), there were a few scenes with Sam's parents that were entertaining, much (although not all) of the effects work was effective but that was about it, I think, because come the end, I still wasn't sure exactly which of the robots were goodies or why I should care. Oh well.

As it is, I think they missed a trick with this one; had they cut down on the swearing a bit they'd have made a PG rating rather than 12A/PG13 and so their prime constituent of eight year old boys could have had a field day without having to drag their poor parents along. And, as I sat there with my low expectations I thought, "this really IS just like a Saturday morning cartoon" and so on that basis it was just about tolerable, which is especially odd because I was bored stupid by this kind of mindless cartoon as a kid.

All in all, then, I'd say skip this and go watch Star Trek instead. However, if your only demands are to watch large robots fighting for your gratification towards an ill-defined but doubtless noble cause, then this is the movie for you.

As someone with a longstanding fondness for most things Trek (I've seen most of the movies and quite a few of the shows), I have to say that JJ & Co did a fine job with this picture; the character dynamics were broadly satisfying, the action scenes entertaining and the set pieces well put together. Most of all I was impressed with the lightness of touch of the whole venture - it would be very easy to criticise the picture for making what could be considered significant changes to certain parts of Trek lore, but given that the changes were accomplished with such comfort and confidence makes them, in my view, perfectly acceptable.

With regards to the acting characterisation, everyone was pretty much solid, with perhaps the exception of Sulu, who I thought didn't have much to do. Kudos, though, to Zoe Saldana's loveliness as Uhura and also, especially, to Chris Pine as Kirk - I had always thought Spock was my favourite character, but it looks like I may have to reassess; Pine lives and breathes that Kirk moxie exquisitely and he'll be great fun to watch in future instalments.

With regards to plot, it's pretty good; there is a decent sense of internal logic to it, without it being too overwrought. True, there are a number of points where you might think, "Blimey, that's serendipitous," but as I'd already suspended my disbelief to accept the possibility of time travelling green-blooded alien from the planet Vulcan, these things really didn't bother me at all. Plus there were a number of points in the movie where they were saying, "We were pulling this kind of shtick 20+ years ago, and you loved it then; run with us on this one," and I was happy to.

Oh, and most importantly of all, the movie is fun; it has the good sense to not take itself too seriously, despite remaining well aware of that sense of pomp and importance that all great character dramas should have, and that isn't a bad thing at all.

How this movie will bear up to repeat viewings, I'm not certain yet, but at the premiere, it was a blast.

Addendum: It's a month plus since I originally wrote this and I have seen the film three times in total now - the opening ten minutes remain a manipulative marvel that the remainder of the film struggles to match, the coincidences and conveniences seem even more far fetched than ever and the jokes seem even more silly BUT I still fancy seeing it again, so I guess it must work for me.

Okay, I've not seen either of the first two Rush Hour films, so don't have that direct yardstick to compare them to, but I have seen a good number of action comedies over the years and this one added absolutely nothing; in fact, it was damned close to reducing my enjoyment of the whole genre. Why? Well, aside from the lack of originality, there was nothing to keep you interested in these characters - Jackie Chan's was a mere cipher, which is kind of okay in this kind of film if the plot makes up for it, which it didn't here, but worse of all, Chris Tucker's was just a dick, a total moron, and not even an endearing one - he didn't have the moves, and neither did Jackie, so what was the point? Now, if the movie had been shot well, so you could appreciate the artistry of some of the action, that too would have been a redeeming feature, but it was all too fake and uninvolving. In summary, the movie was mind-numbing and not fun to watch. And I had wanted to really like it, too; I just couldn't.

H_J

An odd fish, this; undeniably predictable and bordering on the mawkish, this uplifting tale of a boy and his music is surprisingly watchable despite its profusion of "Oh, come on!" serendipitous moments and a general air of cliché and hokeyness.

However, if you are prepared to overlook the convenience of it all, and the fact it's linear storytelling at its most basic, there is plenty of scope for enjoyment; the script may be corny but the music's not bad and the acting is pretty good. The one thing it does have is a sense of "Hollywood Magic" - it has that in spades.

Overall, then, nothing spectacular but a solid, uplifting piece of entertainment that, on a sleepy Sunday afternoon, I could probably watch again despite my coolness towards it.

Y'know, this is a pretty tough movie to review, for the simple fact I;m trying to figure out if it met, exceeded or even fell short of my expectations, and I'm really not entirely sure which. Let's think of the positive first of all; okay, it's funny. Sure it's funny; they've been doing that shtick so long that it would be impossible for it to not be funny, and they've stuck to the course and given us a bunch of gags that hit the spot, so all's well there. And sure, the plot's okay, as far as it's something good to hang the jokes off, but like quite a number of reviewers, I did end up thinking, "Is that all there is?" Naturally the film focused on the core characters we know and love, yet I found myself disappointed they didn't stretch any of the other characters particularly far - I think the TV show has possibly spoiled us in that regard. The question is, could it be watched again, like the best eps of the TV show (and here I include Monorail and my personal favourite, for reasons that almost certainly don't make sense, the one with Mr Bergstrom in it), and the answer is "almost", because I don't think it sustains interest over its full running time. Nevertheless, I'm going to give it an eight because it hit the spot often enough, and gives enough reasons to remind you why these characters are both watchable and likable, to warrant it. If you're expecting the moon on a stick, you won't get it, but if you're expecting something other than the moon on a stick, say, for example, the Simpsons, then you won't be wholly disappointed.

HJ

I first watched this movie back in the mid 90s, and remember being deeply impressed by the stark ambivalence of the setting, and being nicely disorientated by the pace and ending, and whilst those same emotions don't quite hold true on repeated viewings, there is much to commend here. Notably, the production design, especially in the pre-directors cut version (which, in my opinion, is probably slightly superior), is beautifully realised in its basicality, and benefits from having been shot in the prime era of the cold, hard thriller, of which I see this, to a certain extent, as a member. I love also the aloof nature of many of the reactions of desensitised people; perhaps this is part and parcel of my enjoyment of the more intellectual side of film. I also love the sense of excitement at the end, past the point we have seen the end of Donald Pleasance, who gives a wonderfully nuanced performance. I would rate it higher but for the slightly illogical plotting, even though to do so, I would readily admit, is less important than the atmosphere of oppression and reluctance to conform the film is all about. However, if anything were to convince me to give it a higher mark, it would be the very final shot, which is one of the best.

I guess, given anyone who's likely to see the movie will doubtless know the premise and what not, that the spoiler warning isn't really necessary, but I thought I'd chuck it in anyway. Okay, so, the film... You know, I really wanted to like this a lot, honestly I did, and I gave it the full 90 minutes, but something really didn't quite work for me. If I was considering it as a children's film, I would likely go a bit easier on it (not because I see children's films as being inferior, but aiming for a younger audience naturally entails not making quite so many demands in the structure and the explanations) but there was much about the film that really didn't work for me. As has been mentioned in other reviews, the premise seems somewhat flawed - why put the forests in orbit around Saturn? And doesn't Freman mention at one point there are domes on Earth anyway? Any why blow up the forests once they're in space - illogical? How come there's plenty of gravity for everything? That these questions cropped up did dilute the movie for me, and I couldn't simply overlook them because, I imagine, my expectations were fairly high. I suppose the reason I'm being fairly harsh is because I'm making obvious but unfair comparisons to 2001, which I was hoping this would be similar to, but instead this is a slightly twee, hippy era message of tolerance for the environment which I didn't find was explored particularly convincingly. That said, I did enjoy Bruce Dern's performance quite a lot and I liked the font they used in the credits, but overall it was no better than average. It does have to be considered in the context of it's era, I recognise that, but even with that I can't give it more than a 5.

HJ

Ha ha Ahahaha Aha aha aha

Now that my eyes have recovered, the above pretty much sums up my feeling towards "Curse of the Golden Flower". I must admit to having found it really rather enjoyable; true, it was doubtless full of anachronisms (I'll admit my knowledge of 10th Century China is patchy at best) and the performances were often entirely over the top, but it was so much fun, and utterly gorgeous, to watch that I was prepared to forgive these flaws. I guess it helped that I was already aware of the number of criticisms levelled at the film (obvious imagery, peculiar chronology, vaguely shallow but melodramatic characters) but if you treat it as a glorious, mass games-like fresco, it pretty much works, although it does get especially silly in the last 20 minutes.

So anyway, I give it a seven.

Y'know, I had had high hopes for this movie; after all, Matt and Trey had been delighting audiences with their sacrilegious iconoclasm for years and years and had truly hit paydirt with the SouthPark franchise, so I was expecting all sorts of sharp and vicious comical treats and, alas, this didn't come close to those expectations. Don't get me wrong; there were a number of asides that brilliantly skewered every kind of wrong--and, come to think of it, right--thinking imaginable, and it would have been an enormously sorry state of affairs if, during the length of the movie, I didn't question their taste, or indeed their sanity, on numerous occasions, but those moments aside, and some top-quality pukery, the movie didn't gel for me; I didn't think it had a strong enough story to back up the gimmickry and, most criminally of all, it simply didn't have enough funny jokes. I will enjoy it more when I next watch it, though, because I will make sure, that time, that I'm baked out of my tree.

I suppose I am one of the minority here inasmuch I neither loved nor hated this film, and I think that this slight ambivalence left me slightly disappointed. Like the vast number of people here, I was familiar with Gondry's "Eternal Sunshine", which I had enjoyed thoroughly. Unfortunately, I was also familiar with a large part of Gondry's back catalogue, including his early video work from the mid-to-late 80's, which meant that the whimsical trajectory of this movie, whilst clearly inventive and charmingly put together, didn't really move or surprise me in the way that it would to someone new to Gondry's work, and that was disappointing, as it felt like Gondry was covering old ground. That said, the film is absolutely hilarious in places (and the rep audience I watched it with was regularly in hysterics) and does also feature some beautiful, albeit wilfully adolescent, set pieces. Also the acting is generally superb, especially Gael Garcia Bernal, who captures Gondry's "I want to be twelve forever" schtick perfectly.

So, is it a success? Yes and no - the story is intriguing, if not particularly profound or well resolved, and the production design is surprisingly unsophisticated, but it is an entertaining, funny movie that delights in saying, "Here is my imagination - deal with it." And that's got to be worth something, which is why I give the movie a seven.

Now, being a bit of an SF fan (and a Cillian Murphy fan), I'd been looking forward to seeing this movie for quite a while and, as you can doubtless tell from the score I've given it, it pretty much lived up to my hopes. I've always loved a bit of heavy duty, outer-space hard-ish SF and they don't make a huge number of films in the genre, really, so when they do, and it's as gorgeous and well made as this, it's something to relish. Sure, as has been mentioned in a number of places, there are some really daft elements, like the slowish start, not having multiple redundancy on pretty much all of the ship's systems, not being able to rely on the thrill ride that is man's endeavours against the hostility of space and instead having to introduce the typical "man gone mad and wanting to kill everyone" thing, plus the look on Cillian's face as he breathes his last and the final scene with the sister, which is a wee bit too long, and indeed, the concept of the sun going wrong as suggested in the movie is stretching the truth perhaps a tad (and I've done a wee bit of your hardcore, actually-in-a-lab astrophysics research, so I speak with a certain amount of knowledge), but those things aside, there is much here to like - I was very fond of how the crew reacted to watching the transit of Mercury, the distress signal of the Icarus 1 was wonderfully haunting, the characters were totally in the prosaic, Arthur C Clarke mould (no surprises there, though) and every shot that showed something at a distance with the inferno of the sun as its background was absolutely, without doubt, the most gorgeous thing I've seen in the cinema for years. And pretty much everyone who died did so magnificently - I was most impressed. True, this film could have been better, in some cases much better, but as an overall package I left thoroughly satisfied, hence my high mark. If you're into SF, I utterly recommend it (if you can overlook its occasional glaring stupidity). If you don't, well, you might be able to think it's just about okay.

Well, what to say that hasn't been said elsewhere? I would like to think I went into the movie with expectation rather than prejudice and I think I ended up feeling somewhat let down. Okay, well, what did I like about it? I enjoyed the fact it was very noisy, and occasionally it looked very pretty indeed, and it wasn't very taxing, but, alas, it was rather overwhelmed by a lot of other bits that just bored me. I had had the good sense to realise that it wasn't going to pay much attention to likely history (which is fine, because neither did most of the classics), but even with all of that, a great deal of the bits in between the fighting scenes I found to be utterly unengaging, probably because of the completely expectable nature of it all. It didn't help that the script and the acting were both incredibly flat (I've not read the comic book, so if it has been lifted directly, then I can only imagine it worked much better on the page), and whilst I wouldn't want for a labyrinthine plot in this kind of eye fodder, something other than absolutely predictable linearity would have been nice (I mean, even the crappiest Bond movie can do that.) I did enjoy the occasional blasts of irony which I am pretty certain were deliberate, and some of the especially stupid bits made myself, and a number of other viewers in the cinema I was in, laugh out loud (mostly involving monsters or animals), but overall, the biggest failing I felt this picture had is that after about twenty minutes I realised I didn't really care for any of these characters because none of them had been given a character (there was less of this here than in "Soldier", for goodness sake), and after about thirty minutes I realised I wasn't going to be given any reason to care,either, and so after that, I was mostly waiting for it to end. Which it did eventually, and that was lovely.

Y'know, I don't think I've actually watched much Scorcese before I watched this last night with the missus, but I can understand why people rate him so highly - in terms of putting together a tight piece of entertainment and getting convincing (albeit not necessarily realistic) performances out of his actors, he's indisputably one of the best, but I couldn't escape the impression that this film was utterly ridiculous. The good points are many; Jack is 200% fun to watch, it rattles along at a rate of knots and I was always intrigued to see what happened next (despite it dragging in a couple of scenes near the end)amongst others, but equally there were places where I thought, "Oh come on..."; I wouldn't know a Boston accent if I heard it, but despite that, even I could tell that a fair whack of them were mangled, especially Ray Winstone's (you're great to watch, Ray, but please, god, stick to Cockney). And I didn't really buy Vera Farmiga's character, but then I've lived a very sheltered life...

I guess I was expecting something more hard hitting rather than this silly, but as I say, it was a lot of fun. I wanted to give it a 7.5, but I can't, so it gets a seven.

Hayfax_Jo

It's an odd world indeed when you find that a comedy drama aimed probably at teen girls is actually one of the scariest movies you've ever seen. I can't dispute, however, that it does pretty much what it aims to do, and it is thoroughly exhilarating, but I can't say I "enjoyed" it, per-se. That said, Meryl Streep plays a monster so brilliantly that I can't help but be in awe of her performance, and everyone else does an absolutely sound job; there is fortunately little by the way of stereotype and I'm glad I've only ever met one person in my life who would be at home in the type of world displayed here (and he was a total idiot). I would have rated the film differently, but I was so disturbed by the shallow, superficial world that I saw that I would be selling my soul to Satan if I gave it anything other than a seven.

I didn't really have much knowledge regarding this film prior to seeing it, although I was distantly aware of the raves that Michael Caine had been getting for his performance, so the missus and I went into this film without too many preconceptions. I have to say that it is genuinely one of the most thrilling films I have ever seen at the cinema; I had more shivers running up and down my back than during any other film I remember viewing and I don't think that's purely because the cinema had turned the air conditioning up.

Now, it's by no means a perfect film; there are some plot holes you could drive a bus through (for example the recklessness of discussing a certain assassination during the dead of night and the early part of the main protagonists escape from the farm) and there are some other rather cliché motifs (the middle section of the film was especially guilty of this and the moment just before the boat arrived at the end was pretty horrible), but the film's strengths were such that these occasional contrivances are easy to overlook; most people here have already mentioned the two long-take action set pieces, and rightly so - they are genuinely awe-inspiring in their construction and execution as to be worth the price of admission alone. The production design was also first class - it was an enormously plausible future Britain and the attention to detail was second to none. Plus the use of humour in some of the most dramatic moments was incredibly effective, I thought, and served only to highlight the brutality of the surrounding action. Likewise the moments where it led you to feel one emotion but didn't let you dwell on it for too long; its ability to manipulate you like that was superb. The acting was generally excellent, although I actually found Clive Owen to be the weak link, despite his performance being actually pretty good.

Now I, like many others, am kind of glad that some of the background wasn't really explained; when it comes to issues of the day, most of us live our lives in various states of ignorance, and this film kind of reflected that. I also enjoyed some of the subtle and not so subtle metaphor (Theo = God = Noah = deliverance blah blah blah) and generally I had a wonderfully ambivalent time. And even the missus quite liked it, which was an added bonus.

It's a real roller-coaster and I'd like to see it again. I recommend it.

Then this is the film that he would have made. I'm lucky enough to have passed through several stages in my appreciation of this film. First time I saw it I thought it hopelessly overlong and as dull as ditch water. I'd heard good things, obviously, but it struck me as being images for the sake of it and a rather anaemic progression through a rather trivial plot. Subsequent viewings, however, slowly revealed those things that most of the reviews I had read had raved about. Even if the movie is not coupled with a reading of the novel (which, as we know, tells a similar but non-identical story), there is a plethora of detail that one encounter will not reveal, like the whole life-cycle/evolution thing, the attempt at objectification of the mystery of human spirituality and the importance of having a nice lunch; it's all there in glorious Cinerama.

About a dozen viewings in, I watched it with my wife, who'd never seen it before and wasn't really in to the arty movie scene, and that gave me an opportunity to see it as the dated piece of 60's optimism it also always was, and that both cheered and amused me and I realised it was a movie that probably did have everything after all. I'm still happy to classify it as a true work of art, and not simply a technological marvel, though - its coverage of universal themes is unmatched in the sci-fi cannon, the soundtrack is awesome and I shall always be grateful that my wife forced me to have fantastic sex for three hours after I made her endure 'a really stupid film'.

Extremely recommended.

Hayfax_Jo

I just don't get it. Here I am, rapidly approaching my late twenties, perpetually a heartless misanthrope, and yet this dang movie gets me every time. It's such a simple movie, with characterisations that are barely more than cookie-cutter ciphers, but it makes me well up every time. What's up with that? I've been fortunate enough, over the years, to see most of the movies in Tim Burton's oeuvre, but I think that it's this one above all that characterise him as one of the most idiosyncratic and imaginative directors around. Everything about this film gets me; the contrasts between light and dark, pastels and charcoal, symmetry and asymmetry... then, on the non-visual level, the mixture of satire, dark fantasy, occasionally moving drama and 50's pastiche... I think this is Burton's masterpiece, I really do.

There's the old accusation that this piece is rather mean spirited and encapsulates a deep antipathy towards suburbia, and that its whole purpose was to exorcise the demons of Burton's 'outsider' adolescence, but if that's what it takes to make something so beautiful, then what the hey. And true, it's not as profound as Kant or as mould-breaking as Kubrick, but neither of those chaps ever did fairy stories.

Anyway, my advice is this: don't watch it if you're drunk and remember that it used to make you cry as a kid. Don't say I din't warn you...

Hayfax_Jo