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Thursday, 18 June 2009

Movie mini-reviews

In another three months, all my children will be at school and I'll be a housedad of leisure, able to spend many happy hours watching daytime TV and then blogging about it to my heart's content. For now, though, I seem to have less time than ever. The boys are staying up later, Sproglette isn't being distracted by her meals for so long and the summer holidays are almost upon us.

So many films, so little opportunity to wryly slag them on the internet...

Ho well, to keep you going, here are some quick thoughts on what I've seen recently:

Dungeons & Dragons 2: Wrath of the Dragon God - A straight-to-TV sequel which was clearly made on a fraction of the budget of the original. The enormous spired city of the first film appears to have been replaced by a single castle, for instance. The action also takes ages to get going. The many references to the source material will help D&D fans persevere but others will struggle to soldier through a first half full of long names, haughty characters and tedious mythology. 3/5 if you have a fondness for 12-sided dice, else 2/5.

Frost/Nixon (15) - A film about an interview doesn't sound promising. Nonetheless, the performances of Frank Langella and Michael Sheen bring alive the duel of words as the ex-President and the chat show host fight for their reputations and careers. There's maybe too much padding devoted to David Frost's financial difficulties but the movie is still enthralling. 4/5.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (12) - Keanu Reeves arrives on Earth as an alien in a human body, intent on saving us from ourselves. Unfortunately, since he talks in a monotone and can't persuade his face to do anything but frown, someone shoots him. This makes his pet giant robot very angry...

The film isn't a classic like the original but it's passable if you can put up with Keanu behaving like an emotionally stunted version of Al Gore. (Concentrate on Jennifer Connelly or something...) 3/5.

Quantum of Solace (12) - Oh my goodness. What on earth have they done? An incoherent plot, a host of second-rate characters and a string of action sequences in which the camera angle.................. jumps...........
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Daniel Craig remains great as Bond but this doesn't feel much like a Bond movie. After only two films, the series is in desperate need of another reboot. 1/5.

Eagle Eye (12) - Shia Labeouf comes home from work one day to discover his apartment full of terrorist equipment and the FBI leaping in through the windows. A series of phone calls from an anonymous woman helps him escape but, as the extent of the caller's influence becomes apparent, he quickly finds his life channeled along a path he'd rather not take...

Eagle Eye is one of those action films that basically boils down to one long, fast-paced chase. It's tense and entertaining but no one stands still for a moment in the hope that this will stop you from thinking too hard about the plot. Honestly, the whole thing wouldn't be much more unlikely if it involved aliens, giant robots and possibly unicorns. It's fun, though. (WARNING: Contains dubious facial hair.) 4/5.

Chaos (15) - A bank heist movie with Jason Statham playing the cop and Wesley Snipes playing the robber. I can barely remember anything else, apart from a couple of disastrous plot twists and Snipes' inability to act. It's so forgettable that I may not even [TO DO] 2/5.

The Core (12) - More science fiction hokum as a team of geonauts pilot a vessel into the centre of the Earth in a desperate attempt to kick start the planet's slowing core. Surprisingly, however, a decent mix of characters and plenty of melodrama keep events interesting. Worth watching if you stumble across it late at night on ITV3, even if you've seen it before and should really have gone to bed already... 3/5.

Happy Father's Day! Watch out for the inevitable selection of game mini-reviews coming soon.

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