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Tuesday, 17 February 2009

  Tears of the Sun (DVD)

Starring: Bruce Willis and Monica Bellucci.

Rated: 15.

Story: As civil war breaks out in Nigeria, a team of US Navy SEALS enters the country to extract an American aid worker (Bellucci). She won't leave without a bunch of refugees she's been helping, though. The soldiers choose to ignore orders and do what they can to help the locals.

This mainly involves shooting other locals.

Comments: In many ways, Tears of the Sun is remarkably similar to the recent Rambo sequel - different continent but the same tale of a cute foreign aid worker being extracted from a jungle swarming with sadistic enemies. In this one, however, it's an entire squad of soldiers led by Bruce Willis saving the day rather than just Stallone with a very big gun.

On a moral level, it's all very cut and dried. The Americans blunder into a conflict that has inhuman psychopaths on one side and innocent walking-wounded on the other. Failing to help the refugees out, despite orders not to interfere, is clearly presented as unacceptable behaviour for decent people, no matter how many brutalised conscripts get blown up in the process.

As an action film Tears of the Sun is quite uneven. There's very little action at all in the first half, giving the impression the whole thing is going to be a tense reflection on the horrors of war. Skirmishes become more frequent after that but the humungous, explosion-filled battle at the end seems incongruous and unbelievable, nevertheless. Cameroon springs up from nowhere and suddenly it's a sprint to the border with airstrikes and bazookas everywhere. Unfortunately, following on from the scenes of cruelty and torture earlier in the film, a standard Hollywood blast-fest just doesn't seem appropriate.

The movie is more palatable than Rambo but the message still appears to be 'War is terrible; let's send in some Americans with guns to sort it out'.

I'm not entirely convinced...

Conclusion: A film confused enough to cast Monica Bellucci as an American...

Explosions: Lots but they're saved for the end.
Pretty views of jungle: Plenty.
Not so pretty views of torture: Almost as many.
Indistinguishable SEALs wearing camouflage and facepaint: Six... No, eight... Er... Or were there ten?
The answer to all the world's problems: Bruce Willis.

Rating: 2/5.

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Thursday, 12 February 2009

  Resident Evil - Degeneration (DVD)

Starring: Some voice actors who no doubt wish to remain nameless... and an umbrella.

Rated: 15.

Story: Terrorists have released the T-virus in an airport and there's a danger the G-virus may be let loose as well. Leon S Kennedy and Claire Redfield must renew their Raccoon City partnership, shoot some zombies in the head and then have a never-ending boss battle with a mutated monster that just won't die.

So, yeah, imagine a new Resident Evil game with no actual game, only the cutscenes.

Scary, eh?

(And not in a good way...)

Comments: Capcom have milked the Resident Evil franchise hard since the release of the first game in 1996. After almost twenty different games, three live-action films and a stack of merchandising, here's a computer-animated movie picking up the plot a while after Resident Evil 4. That's the game, not the film, by the way, since the storylines in the two media have diverged. But, then again, if you didn't know that already you should probably move along now because Degeneration is hard enough to follow even with a hazy memory of having played half a dozen of the games.

In particular, if Resident Evil 2 passed you by, you're not going to get much out of this.

Sadly, however, knowing your Umbrella from your T-virus still doesn't make Degeneration much fun. The first twenty minutes show some promise: decent visuals, a vaguely intriguing setup, familiar characters and zombies. There's a possibility it might all rumble along nicely. Then Leon turns up and everything goes pear shaped. Nothing makes sense, the middle section is dull and the final third is an excess of daft mayhem allowed to run wild without the budget restraints of live-action.

Some of the dialogue is so bad it's almost good but most of it is just plain bad. The voice acting is frequently wooden and occasionally the pauses between lines are too long, as if the recordings haven't been edited together properly. It speaks volumes about the quality of the script that Leon has to spend a couple of minutes at the end of the film explaining what was going on and the motivations of the other characters.

We've grown used to this level of ineptness in games because the cutscenes are dictated by the confines of the unlikely gameplay (which in Resident Evil consists of searching spooky mansions for weird keys while shooting zombies and solving obscure logic puzzles). As long as the games are fun to play, it doesn't matter if the story is ropey - the clunky dialogue adds to the B-movie atmosphere. Take out the game, however, and all that's left is a B-movie.

Conclusion: Plan Zombie from Outer Space.

Explosions: Plenty.
Brooding loners, cute little girls who need rescued, dodgy senators, unstoppable monsters, underground facilities and scientists who talk too slowly: One of each.
Ridiculous feats of acrobatics: Several.
Impressive CGI: Lots.
Good writing: None.

Rating: 2/5 if you've enjoyed the games, else 1/5.

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Tuesday, 10 February 2009

  In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (DVD)

Starring: Jason Statham, Ray Liotta, Burt Reynolds, Shaggy, Gimli, Hellboy, Terminator 3 and that Lara-a-like who was in CSI: New York for a bit.

Rated: 15.

Story: A farmer in a generic fantasy kingdom battles his way through a horde of generic green men in rubber masks to defeat a generic evil wizard on a generic quest to rescue his generic pretty wife.

And the farmer's name?

Farmer.

I mean, honestly...

Comments: You're going to have to like sword fights for this one.

Sometimes these are the kind of sword fight where a hero can leap up and run across the heads of a gaggle of opposing soldiers to reach his goal, where 'elves' swing on vines that move as if the end off-screen is attached to a zip line and where a boomerang can hit two 'orcs' hard enough to knock them out but still return to the thrower's hand. Mostly they're the kind of sword fight where the hero laboriously cuts a swathe through a massed brawl of extras. It's probably the same extras in each scene, only the scenery changes - a village, a forest, a forest at night, a cave, a forest in the rain, a barn, a forest at night in the rain, a different forest...

Seriously, this film must have the about the highest SFPM (Sword Fights per Minute) rate of any movie ever, making it rather dull and repetitive after not very long. This isn't helped by poor dialogue, hammy acting and a plot that's less sophisticated than those featured in a majority of the old Dungeons & Dragons cartoons.

The combined result is something that appears more of a montage of deleted scenes from the Lord of the Rings than anything else.

Conclusion: Plenty of swords but you'll soon tire of them and spend most of the film wondering what form of sorcery was used to convince so many recognisable faces to take part.

Explosions: None.
Swords: Countless.
Cute females: Three.
Boomerangs that defy the laws of physics: One.
Ways the film could be improved: Plenty. (Almost anything would work. For instance, how about some Scooby-Doo? Matthew Lillard doesn't look right without a computer-animated dog next to him.)

Rating: 2/5.

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Thursday, 29 January 2009

  Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - Season 1 (DVD)

Starring: Lena Headey, Thomas Dekker & Summer Glau.

Rated: 15.

Story: Forget Terminator 3 ever happened. A few years after Terminator 2, Sarah Connor (Headey) and her teenage son, John (Dekker), take a jump through time to the present day. They're fugitives from the law and hunted by murderous cyborgs from the future who are intent on killing John before he grows up to lead resistance against Skynet - the computer system still destined to obliterate humanity with nuclear weapons.

Aided by Cameron, a re-programmed cyborg (Glau), Sarah and John attempt to prevent Skynet being created. This tends to involve moral dilemmas and explosives...

Comments: You're not going to get far with this if you haven't seen the first couple of Terminator movies. That said, if you haven't seen the first couple of Terminator movies, why not? Cyborgs, big fights, time travel and Linda Hamilton - the only thing missing is ninjas. Go watch them now.

The TV series is obviously working on a smaller budget, so involves fewer big fights and more tense situations and sneaking about. Thanks to some excellent editing and pacing this works well. Some of the attempts at lightening the mood aren't so great, though, with too many of the jokes centred around cyborgs not understanding human idioms and behaviour.

It would have been easy for The Sarah Connor Chronicles to follow a 'Terminator of the Week' formula but, thankfully, this is avoided. Each episode concentrates on a new lead in stopping Skynet, with the hunt for Sarah and John forming a backdrop to the whole series. The episodes are more self-contained than in Heroes but not as much as in Battlestar Galactica. Unfortunately, this is sometimes unsatisfying, providing neither closure nor much overall plot advancement. Despite there only being nine episodes, they quickly blend together. There aren't any duffers but, then again, none really stand out.

All in all, this first season is definitely worth watching if you enjoyed the films. Whether there's enough going on for the show to maintain momentum through a full second season is another question.

Oh, and Lena Headey with an American accent is just wrong.

Conclusion: Good but is it going anywhere?

Explosions: Regular.
Tension: High.
Slightly clunky humour: Occasional.
Psycho cyborgs who just won't die: Frequent.
Ninjas: Not enough.

Rating: 4/5.

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Tuesday, 27 January 2009

  Rambo (DVD)

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Darla from Angel, Chappelle from 24 and a whole load of Burmese people dying violently.

Rated: 18.

Story: A group of American missionaries sneak into Burma to bring aid to those being mistreated by the military government. They get captured. Luckily, the taciturn bloke with the big muscles they picked as their boatman has something of a history of mounting single-handed rescues.

Lots and lots of people who can't speak English die...

Comments: I was fourteen when the last Rambo film was released, so I was hugely aware of it but never actually got to see the movie. Having watched this, however, I'm not exactly going to be rushing to find out what I missed. The plot is thin, the dialogue is dreadful and there's vast amounts of gore for the sake of it.

Most of the film is merely a justification for the extended carnage in the final scenes. The Burmese military is portrayed as simply evil, with every soldier deserving to be splattered to a fine red mist by automatic fire. Peaceful attempts to ease the situation are obliterated; controlled aggression fails. Only a homicidal pensioner on steroids can get the job done.

There's no denying that Burma can be a pretty horrible place to be. I'm not entirely comfortable that the answer is to send in Sylvester Stallone with a very big gun, though. Mixing a dumb action film with real world suffering produces a movie that's just unpleasant to watch.

Conclusion: Let's hope this isn't the future of edutainment.

Explosions: Not that many (unless you count people being vaporised by a hail of bullets...)
Stallone's performance: Surprisingly solid.
Stallone's muscles: Surprisingly large.
Stallone's top speed: Surprisingly fast.
Stallone's age: Just plain surprising.

Rating: 2/5.

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Thursday, 15 January 2009

  Hancock (DVD)

Starring: Will Smith, Charlize Theron, Jason Bateman and one of the most ill-conceived plot twists in cinematic history.

Rated: 12.

Story: Hancock (Smith) is immortal, invulnerable, super strong and able to fly. He's also an irritable drunk who's quick to take offence and who doesn't care if he creates a big hole in the road every time he lands. His attempts to help people always end in disaster and swearing.

Then he saves the life of a philanthropic PR man (Bateman) who offers to clean up his image. After a little amusing rehab, everything goes downhill...

Comments: Hancock starts out in a promising fashion. It completely breaks from the Spider-Man superhero movie template of girlfriend trouble -> superpower -> little fight -> angst-ridden girlfriend trouble -> big fight -> pose-striking finish. There's no sitting around for half an hour waiting for Hancock to gain his powers and master them - it's straight to car-smashing chaos. Hurrah!

Sadly, it doesn't last. The idea is great but the execution has no conviction. You'd imagine there'd be plenty of comic potential in the concept of a superhero who's lacking in self control, manners and personal hygiene, but the laughs quickly die out. All too soon, Hancock evolves from scumbag to X-Man wannabe and there's half an hour of sitting around as he masters his powers and we learn how he gained them.

The change of tack almost exactly coincides with a cataclysmic plot twist which destroys the movie entirely. Suddenly the film goes from mildly entertaining superhero comedy to straight superhero action flick. It's not even a good superhero action flick. There seems to be an attempt to fit every mistake possible into forty-five minutes - there's angst, a dull CGI fight, nonsensical limitations to Hancock's power, tiresome brooding, a lack of a proper villain and a schmaltzy happy ending (with posing). Gah!

For once, a sequel stands little chance of redeeming matters. It would be Superman with added Will Smith, wisecracks and swearing. Not a hugely enticing prospect...

Conclusion: You've already seen the good bits in the trailer.

Explosions: Not many. Stuff tends to get smashed rather than going boom.
Jokes: Essentially one (and even the writers give up on it halfway through).
Missed opportunities: Several.
For the kids?: Totally not.
For anyone?: Maybe... but there's probably something better on TV.

Rating: 2/5.

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Thursday, 18 December 2008

  War (DVD)

Starring: Jason Statham & Jet Li.

Rated: 18.

Story: An FBI agent (Statham) hunts a rogue CIA assassin (Li) who murdered his partner. They both end up in the middle of a gang war between Triads and Yakuza in San Francisco.

Comments: Looking through some old reviews, I chanced upon my comments on Running Scared. Remember that one? Nope, I'm not surprised, I didn't really either. It's a by-the-numbers crime thriller with an ending so stupid I had to wipe it from my mind.

Then I watched War.

Woh, deja vu. (Though thankfully it wasn't Deja Vu deja vu. That would have been even worse.)

Yep, the film is OK but many of the elements feel included simply for the sake of it. In particular, there's a dull and superfluous car chase somewhere in the middle that's completely pointless. Nonetheless, War would be decent enough if the makers hadn't felt compelled to round it off with some unlikely revelations.

Imagine a world where at the end of Aliens the queen learns to tap-dance, where Love Actually culminates in a shoot out with vampires or where the final fight in The Matrix involves animated penguins.

Fortunately, War doesn't come from that world. It does come from somewhere fairly close by, however. To quote my Running Scared review, "There's a plot twist ten minutes from the end which is so sharp it dislocates the plot entirely. It essentially re-writes everything which has gone before, causing it to make much less sense. The resulting conclusion feels like it was stolen from a generic action movie." Since War is a pretty generic action movie to begin with, this isn't such a disaster but it doesn't exactly help matters.

Statham and Li make it all passable but even the added presence of Robert Downey Jr, Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock wouldn't make it great.

Conclusion: Shoot, hit, hack, drive, boom... forget.

Explosions: Two (because you can't have an action film without multiple explosions).
Car chases: One (because you can't have an action film without a car chase either, apparently).
Meetings in a strip club: One (because... well, take a guess...)
Cool, exciting plot twists you don't see coming: Two. (That's double the statutory requirement!)
Reasons you don't see them coming: One's rubbish and the other's insane.

Rating: 3/5.

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Tuesday, 11 November 2008

  Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight (DVD)

Starring: The voices of Kiefer Sutherland, Michael Rosenbaum, Lucy Lawless and Michelle Trachtenberg.

Rated: 12.

Story: The evil dragon goddess is intent upon conquering the world of Krynn and a motley band of adventurers must hunt out the necessary magical gizmos required to defeat her.

It's like The Lord of the Rings with dwarves.

Er, no, hang on... It's like The Lord of the Rings with a mysterious old wizard who falls down a deep pit.

Erm...

With a very short thief? Nope. A forest full of arrogant elves? That won't do either...

I know! Dragons! It's like The Lord of the Rings with dragons...

...and, er, the worst animation this side of 1990.

Comments: I have fond memories of reading the original Dragonlance trilogy as a teenager. They're a fantasy epic involving plenty of battles, numerous imaginative locations and a set up based on Dungeons & Dragons. Discovering they'd made an animated movie of the first book promised a nostalgic return to my youth without the effort of actually having to read hundreds of pages of text.

Sadly, things didn't quite turn out that way...

Dragons of Autumn Twilight simply doesn't work as a film. Cramming the whole book into 100 minutes leads to a frantic scramble from one battle to the next. Having about a dozen main characters doesn't help either. Most of them barely get a line or two per scene and seem defined by a brief checklist of idiosyncrasies picked up from a quick flick through the novels. Flint the dwarf: Allergic to horses and gets teased about being old. Check. Tasslehoff the diminutive thief: Short and steals things. Check. Raistlin the magic user: Suspicious, sickly (cough, cough!) and stained yellow. Check. Etc.

Sutherland and Trachtenberg do a great job with voice acting but this merely emphasises how little their characters get to say. Lawless is stuck with some ropey dialogue. Rosenbaum gets a bigger role than the others (Tanis) but is unconvincing.

All this might be forgivable, or at least tolerable, if the film was a visual spectacle. Unfortunately, on a technical level, Dragonlance is an abomination. The animation is jerky and there's a blurriness to the visuals that would have made me take out the tape and shake it if I'd been watching on VHS. Meanwhile, the points where computer-generated 3D monsters turn up and interact with the (very flat looking) 2D of the rest of the film are laughably awful. It all gives the impression it was made in 1989 and then underwent a shoddy conversion from the North American NTSC TV format to PAL. That it was released in 2008 is unbelievable.

Rather than scratch the nostalgia itch, the movie just made me want to read the books again. I'd have been better off skimming through the synopses on Wikipedia...

Conclusion: If you loved the books, you'll want to watch this to the end. You'll wish you hadn't bothered starting in the first place, though.

Explosions: Quite a few but you could have something more spectacular up on YouTube in half an hour with only the aid of three matches, a webcam and a potato.
Dragons: Loads. These look slightly better than the explosions. (You'd need an entire box of matches and two potatoes.)
Redeeming features: Er... After this, they're unlikely to inflict the sequels on us.

Rating: 2/5 if you enjoyed the books, else 1/5.

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Tuesday, 28 October 2008

  Stardust (DVD)

Starring: Claire Danes (the vet from Terminator 3), Charlie Cox, Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert De Niro, Sienna Miller & Ricky Gervais.

Rated: PG.

Story: In a small Victorian-esque town, Tristran (Cox) attempts to win the heart of the love of his life (Miller) by tracking down a fallen star and bringing back a piece. This leads him into the magical kingdom of Stormhold which is hiding through a gap in a dry-stone wall.

Before long, he's competing with evil witches, murderous princes and gender-confused pirates to claim the prize.

Comments: This is a great fairy tale for the whole family. There are some lessons on identity, ambition and dreams but the film never takes itself too seriously. Whimsical humour mixes with beautiful scenery, restrained special effects, decent action and a whole load of imagination.

Apart from a handful of minor imperfections, the film is superb from beginning to end. Claire Danes over-emotes on occasion in an annoying, head-bobbing kind of way. Also Tristran turns from zero to hero rather unconvincingly - it's too fast to be believable but not over-played enough to quite work as parody. Oh, and Ricky Gervais is in it. (Fortunately, he only turns up for a couple of scenes before coming to a sticky end but you'll still want to slap him.)

These niggles are only really apparent because the rest of the film is so fantastic, however. Go watch Stardust now.

Conclusion: Almost as good as a sequel to The Princess Bride.

Explosions: Only one but a host of other effects compensate.
Michelle Pfeiffer's make-up: Thick.
Suitable for the wife?: Definitely.
Suitable for the kids?: Probably. (Slapstick and magic will keep them entertained but under-fives will need a cuddle in the scary bits.)
Suitable for inhabitants of Ipswich?: Maybe... although they might take one bit a little personally...

Rating: 5/5.

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Thursday, 2 October 2008

  10,000 BC (DVD)

Starring: Some mammoths.

Rated: 12.

Story: A village of mammoth hunters is attacked by a more advanced civilisation who cart off half the tribe to slavery. A small group of warriors set out to free their friends.

On the way, they discover navigation, farming and enormous birds with very sharp beaks.

Comments: There are almost no films set in prehistoric times. Since humans and dinosaurs never co-existed, what's the point? A good action story requires guns, cars or giant lizards. Fact.

At least, you have to imagine that's the thought which runs through the heads of Hollywood producers most of the time.

Sadly, they may not be entirely wrong. Despite a lack of competition, 10,000 BC doesn't have two original ideas to rub together in the pursuit of fire. Almost every scene is reminiscent of other (superior) films: Dances with Wolves, Apocalypto, Jurassic Park, 300, Lord of the Rings, The Scorpion King and, oddly, Waterworld.

10,000 BC is reasonably entertaining while it lasts but lacking in memorable moments that haven't been done better elsewhere.

Conclusion: In a few weeks, I'll have convinced myself that Kevin Costner is in it.

Explosions: None.
Historical accuracy: Little.
Mammoths: Woolly.
Giant lizards: Not enough.
Top tip: Go watch Apocalypto instead.

Rating: 3/5.

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  Vantage Point (DVD)

Starring: Dennis Quaid, Forest Whitaker, William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver and an escapee from Lost.

Rated: 12.

Story: It turns out that there's someone less lucky than Jack Bauer. On his first day back at work after taking a bullet for the President, a Secret Service agent (Quaid) finds himself slap bang in the middle of another assassination attempt.

Comments: Vantage Point endeavours to show different perspectives in a terrorist attack by playing the main event over and over from the point of view of various characters. Unfortunately, all this really means is that the action rewinds twenty minutes every time things start to get interesting.

The terrorists' motivations are never explored and nothing much seems to be gained from all the different angles. On top of that, the ending involves too much coincidence and the whole thing winds up feeling as plausible and enlightening as a couple of episodes of 24.

Conclusion: A simple story told in a very complicated way. Slick but nowhere near as clever as it wants to be.

Explosions: Two every fifteen minutes (but that's mostly the same two).
Dubious motivations: Several.
Implausible moments: Plenty.
Obvious but unlikely plot twists: One.
Life lesson: Don't 'rescue' lost children by taking them away from where their mum last saw them and then leave them next to a busy road. You may mean well, but it's just not helpful...

Rating: 3/5.

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  Alien vs Predator 2 - Requiem (DVD)

Starring: A Predator, a whole stack of Aliens and various beautiful people waiting around to be lunch.

Rated: 15.

Story: A Predator spaceship crashes on Earth and some Alien specimens escape near a small American town. Another Predator arrives to clean up the mess and keep it all secret. Lots of people get minced.

Comments: Aliens and Predators fighting each other should be the best thing ever.

It's not. It's mainly dark and confusing and not very involving.

The antics of the humans trying to get out the way are more interesting but are relatively indistinguishable from the antics of the humans trying to get out of the way of vampires, zombies and giant lizards in a score of other films... apart from the bit in the maternity ward - that's probably worth skipping if you've got a new arrival due any time soon...

Conclusion: A film you've seen a dozen times before but with the addition of everyone's two favourite psychotic extra-terrestrial species. Could be worse. (Have you seen Alien Resurrection, for instance?)

Explosions: Lots.
Pregnant women: Several.
Housedads: One.
Scenes in which the housedad doesn't get eaten: Two.
Life lesson: If you're going to stand next to a window and say to a child, "Look! See! No monsters," remember to at least glance out the window first.

Rating: 3/5.

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Tuesday, 16 September 2008

  The Condemned (DVD)

Starring: Vinnie Jones & Steve Austin.

Rated: 18.

Story: Ten death row criminals from around the world are dumped onto a small South American island. They're promised that the last one left alive will receive their freedom. For only $49.99, subscribers get to watch the ensuing carnage live on the internet.

Liberals across the globe wring their hands in horror but then cough up fifty dollars for 'research purposes' anyway. Inevitably, it all ends in explosions.

Comments: There's a long history of people whacking each other round the head while other people pay to watch. From gladiatorial games to Medieval tournaments to modern-day boxing, the combat has generally got less fatal over the years but there have always been people keen to watch a good fight.

The Condemned makes the point that giving all the contestants on Big Brother machetes would do wonders for the ratings but turn the participants, producers and viewers into monsters. Brutal violence isn't entertainment. It's violent and brutal. Don't encourage it.

Well, unless it is entertainment, of course...

It's probably safe to say that watching real people blow each other up on grainy CCTV footage isn't good for you, even if they are psycho criminals. This point gets a little muddied, however, when wrapped up in brutal high definition fight scenes slickly choreographed to be entertaining. Keeping watching can be uncomfortable as the distinction between fantasy and reality becomes blurred. Whether this is genius or confusion is difficult to tell, though.

The film just manages to push through its self-contradictions but is let down by an ending which descends into stock action movie territory of an American hero meting out explosive 'justice'. Ultimately, The Condemned isn't quite as clever as it should be.

Luckily, it has lots of violence to keep everyone entertained...

Conclusion: A good action movie that could have been a classic with a little more thought. Instead, it comes close to tearing itself apart.

Explosions: Plenty.
Moral confusion: Some.
Vinnie Jones: Too much.
Steve Austin: Surprisingly competent.
Important life lessons: If you're going to dump a load of psychos on an island to kill each other, don't give them explosives and then hang around to watch...

Rating: 4/5.

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