Stuff for Dads

  Taken (DVD)

Starring: Liam Neeson.

Rated: 18.

Story: Bryan Mills, an ex-spy, attempts to live a normal life and get to know his seventeen-year-old daughter (much of whose childhood he missed because he was too busy explosively fixing things in far-flung countries).

When she is kidnapped on a trip to Paris, he jets after her and finds himself caught between the French police and a human-trafficking ring.

He 'fixes' things.

Comments: There's a surprising amount of scene-setting in Taken. Getting on for half the film is filled with laying out the premise and establishing Mills' backstory and his relationships with his daughter and ex-wife. Thanks to Neeson's charisma, these elements are watchable enough but you can't help thinking it's all rather excessive for such a clichéd scenario.

Things only really get going once the dramatic (but somewhat unlikely) kidnapping occurs. Once he's in France, Mills utilises all his cunning and training to hunt down those responsible. There are some clever moments but events become rapidly unbelievable as the action ramps up. What starts as a tense investigation turns into manic car chases, ruthless brawls and the kind of gun battles where one determined dad with a pistol takes out a horde of bad guys dual-wielding Uzis. Unfortunately, the gung-ho action doesn't sit entirely comfortably with the sordid setting. Some of the scenes of human exploitation are quite depressing - turning the situation into Die Hard is unsettling for the wrong reasons.

Ultimately, Taken is rather unbalanced. It feels like the first and last episodes of 24: Season 1 slammed together with some extra implausibility and a protagonist who's slightly too old to be throwing himself off bridges.

Oh, and remember, if your teenage kids don't appreciate and respect you even though you're a nice guy and working really hard to make them happy, nothing fixes things better than saving their lives by going and wreaking havoc in a European capital...

Conclusion: Like someone held the script the wrong way up so most of the common sense fell out and all the action settled to the bottom.

Explosions: More like a couple of small fires.
Body count: Exponential.
Profound insights into parent-teenager relationships: Not many.
Bad guys capable of hitting a stationary man using an automatic weapon in a confined space: None.
Portrayal of France: They should sue.

Rating: 3/5.

Labels: action, film review, thriller

 
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  Paycheck (DVD)

Starring: Ben Affleck, Aaron Eckhart and Uma Thurman.

Rated: 12.

Story: Michael Jennings (Affleck) is an electronics genius who secretly reverse engineers technology for big corporations. They lock him in a lab for months, he steals their competitors ideas and then they wipe his memory so no one finds out. In return, he gets a huge paycheck.

He decides to take one final job, only to wake up oblivious to the last three years and with nothing to show for it but an envelope of twenty everyday objects he can't remember why he mailed to himself. Then people start trying to kill him. It's like the office Christmas party worst-case scenario.

Mysteriously, the objects turn out to be exactly what he needs to MacGyver his way towards some answers as to what is going on...

Comments: Fed up with movies which start at the end and work backwards to hide the predictable nature of the events? Here's a film where they clearly wrote it backwards and then decided to show everything forwards.

Confused?

Well, to reveal anything more would be to give the game away but the plot of Paycheck is essentially a convenient excuse to make a frantic sequence of improbable escapes seem plausible. For once, surviving one-in-a-million scrapes is a feature and not a reason for scorn. The result is fast-paced and exciting. Ultimately, however, it's all perhaps a little too neat and relies too heavily on its central premise - characterisation is non-existent, there's no real backdrop to the story and everything depends on not just one, but two, unlikely technologies. Don't think about it very hard, though, and Paycheck is rather entertaining. (Maybe even because it skips over so many details.)

With plenty of running about and not much contemplation, Ben Affleck isn't stretched (luckily). The rest of the cast have to make do with characters pulled straight from other movies. There's the evil corporate guy, the efficient henchman, the scientist love interest, the comic sidekick - pretty much everyone you'd expect really apart from the ageing mentor only a few days away from retirement.

Conclusion: A great idea executed merely competently. A little more care (and a different cast) could have made it superb.

Explosions: A couple of big ones.
Ben Affleck running away: Lots.
Uma Thurman looking attractive: Surprisingly little.
Technical plausibility: On a par with cold fusion.
Entirely new uses for a paperclip: One.

Rating: 4/5.

Labels: film review, sci-fi, thriller

 
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  The Kingdom (DVD)

Starring: Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner & Jason Bateman.

Rated: 15.

Story: A small team of FBI agents goes to Saudi Arabia to investigate a terrorist attack on US citizens. They have to deal with unfamiliar customs and politics. After a while, they befriend a local police official and get a couple of leads. Suddenly, every other person they meet has a rocket launcher.

Comments: This is actually a lot more intelligent than it sounds. The film starts with a whistle-stop history lesson of Saudi Arabia and goes out of its way to paint all the major characters not as Arabs or Westerners but as people.

Then again, the movie's not quite as clever as it likes to think. Near the beginning, lots of peripheral characters are introduced in quick succession, their names and important-sounding job titles flashing up at the bottom of the screen. The captions vanish almost immediately, giving the impression it's all fast-moving and complicated. Really, it's a case of lots of high up people not wanting any boats rocked. As events proceed, the whole thing moves into 24 mode and then full-blown action film territory.

Still, no one's motivation is entirely pure and the movie never descends into a simplistic tale of good versus evil. It's compulsive viewing throughout.

Conclusion: Slick and tense.

Explosions: Some.
Angry, vengeful people: Assorted.
Killer marbles: Buckets.
Violations of the Prime Directive: Several.
Unlikely car chases though the streets of Riyadh: One.

Rating: 4/5.

Labels: action, film review, quick, thriller

 
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  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.

Labels: action (vol.4), film review (vol.6), sci-fi, thriller

 
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  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.

Labels: action (vol.4), film review (vol.6), thriller

 
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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.

Labels: action (vol.4), film review (vol.5), quick, thriller

 
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  Running Scared (DVD)

Starring: Paul Walker and the kid from Ultraviolet.

Rated: 18.

Story: A small-time gangster is tasked with disposing of a gun by his mafia boss. He keeps it for insurance but it goes missing. He has to race round town following leads in a desperate race to get it back before anyone finds out and he's used as a hockey puck by his colleagues. This puts his family in danger.

Meanwhile, a neighbour's child gets caught up in events and stumbles into almost every bad situation conceivable, thanks to his startling ability to find psychopaths wherever he goes.

Comments: A great ending can't save a poor movie but a poor ending can destroy a great movie. Imagine a Shawshank Redemption where the warden is revealed to be an alien, or a musical finale to Schlindler's List, or if at the conclusion of the Star Wars trilogy Luke joined the Dark Side and Princess Leia turned out to be a man. The consequences are unthinkable...

For most of its length, Running Scared is a passable, violent thriller with some nail-biting moments. The tension is increased by the frequent combination of children and loaded guns in close proximity. Sadly, 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 (probably involving Wesley Snipes). As the film isn't exceptional to start with, the disappointment isn't on a par with Frodo waking up to discover it was all a dream but I haven't felt so short-changed since Lucky Number Slevin. Grrr.

Perhaps what's really gone wrong is that the movie is trying too hard. It's the kind of film where a meeting gets held in a strip club just because, everyone swears for the sake of it and the final shoot-out takes place somewhere dramatic but daft. Given these elements, the makers probably felt a 'shock' twist was a legal requirement.

Yeah, I know, I was going to avoid films with Paul Walker in after the disasters of The Fast and the Furious and Into the Blue, but I latched onto the phrases 'family man' and 'action thriller' in the synopsis and thought this was worth a shot. In general, it is. Walker actually does a good job and the rest of the cast is excellent. It's simply a shame the plot relies so heavily on coincidence and then makes a nonsense of itself in an effort to wrap things up.

Conclusion: Comes within a quarter of an hour of being rather good.

Explosions: One.
People doing stupid things: Plenty.
Nutters with guns: Loads.
Psychos with arcade machines: Two.
Unlikely, cop-out, happy endings: One.

Rating: 3/5.

Labels: film review (vol.5), thriller

 
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  In Bruges

Starring: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Ralph Fiennes & Fleur from Harry Potter.

Rated: 18.

Story: After a bungled job in London, two hitmen (Farrell & Gleeson) are sent to lie low for a while in Bruges. (It's in Belgium!) One of them hates the place, the other quite likes it. They sightsee, they go to the pub and they try not to get into trouble.

They get into trouble.

Their boss (Fiennes) turns up to sort things out. Violence ensues.

Comments: Yes, we went to the cinema and saw something that didn't involve cute, animated creatures or a boy wizard! We got to go straight in without having to apply for a second mortgage to buy some pick'n'mix or having to frog-march a posse of children to the toilet before the film started. It was fantastic! Then again, we did have to cough up full price for our tickets rather than the pound or two we normally pay for the kid's movie on a Saturday morning. The pick'n'mix might have been cheaper...

In Bruges is never going to be the Saturday morning kid's movie, however. It's full of swearing, gory death, drug use and talk of suicide. The characters are often racist, xenophobic and heightist. It's very funny in places but grim and distressing in others. I can't really see Pixar remaking it with rabbits.

I imagine the writer (Martin McDonagh) came up with the idea after a series of unfortunate events left him stranded in Bruges. Picture the scene: Doomed to several days of canal trips, Medieval churches and swans, he goes to the cinema and watches Mr & Mrs Smith to cheer himself up. This doesn't help. He has some beers. This does help... until he gets the bill and realises he's been ripped off. He decides to get even with Bruges and Hollywood in one fell swoop. He decides to write a film about hitmen that isn't all amoral action and excitement but explores the motivation and guilt... while poking fun at Belgium. Excellent.

The cast does a good job, managing to keep things going even in the few uncomfortable moments when the script shifts suddenly from witty banter to disturbing soul-searching. The whole film is bizarre and unlikely but if you've been to Bruges, you'll be too busy laughing and muttering, 'Hey! That's the bridge along from where we stayed!' to notice.

Since there are plenty of lovely shots of Bruges in the film but much of the humour comes from taking the rip out of the city, it's hard to know what the Belgian Tourist Board makes of it all. I think they may be gambling that if you haven't been to Bruges, you won't get the joke and will just think that it looks like a nice place to visit. They may be right.

Conclusion: Like a trip to Bruges with more laughs, added hitmen and less expense.

Explosions: None.
Political correctness: None.
Swing parks: One. (We went there; it's great.)
Swans: Loads. (We saw them; they didn't bite.)
Clock towers: One very tall one. (We didn't go up there; it was too much like effort.)
Cute, fluffy animated rabbits: None.

Rating: 4/5 if you've been to Bruges, else 3/5.

Labels: comedy, film review (vol.4), thriller

 
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  Mulholland Drive (DVD)

Starring: Naomi Watts, Laura Harring and Justin Theroux.

Rated: 15.

Story: An aspiring Hollywood actress (Watts) attempts to help a beautiful amnesiac (Harring) remember who she is and why she's carrying a bag full of cash. Meanwhile, a director (Theroux) has a run-in with the mob and a hitman bungles the theft of a book of phone numbers. Or maybe they don't. Maybe that's already happened or is going to happen or maybe it's all a dream. But whose dream? And what's that odd blue key about and why is the bogey man camping out behind a diner? And who were those people before they became other people? And... Argh, here comes the attack of the scary pensioners! Run away!

The End.

(Or is it The Middle in the wrong place? Who knows?)

Comments: Having small children has affected my life in various ways. One is that I haven't been to the cinema much in eight years, another is that they've Swiss-cheesed my brain. This combination of issues means I've got plenty of films to catch up on but that I sometimes get confused over which one is which. I thought this was going to be a hard-nosed thriller featuring Tim Robbins. Turns out I got the wrong address. That's Arlington Road. (Good thing I'm writing reviews not driving a taxi.) I wasn't entirely prepared for a David Lynch movie.

Yep, it's time to break out the dancing dwarves...

As soon as I realised my mistake, I began to expect levels of weirdness equivalent to a bad episode of Twin Peaks. Thankfully, Mulholland Drive quickly develops into a dark but interesting mystery with a bit of oddness thrown in (like a good episode of Twin Peaks, hurrah!). It all seems to build towards a final forty-five minutes of fast-paced revelations and shocking conclusions.

Then, suddenly, there's some gratuitous lesbian sex that's raunchy enough to seriously raise the eyebrows of any spouse, grandparent, small child or pet who unexpectedly walks into the room at the wrong moment. After that, it's all mind-bending strangeness. If you've ever been up late at night watching repeats of Top Gear with a grouchy baby and drifted into a bizarre waking dream involving walking teeth and Jeremy Clarkson in drag, you'll know the kind of thing I'm talking about.

Much is explained by the fact that the project was originally filmed as a pilot episode for a TV show. When the show was turned down, Lynch shot some more footage and made it into a self-contained feature. Rather than try to tie up all the loose ends, it would appear he threw in a whole lot more, added a surreal twist and left the movie as a brain-warping conundrum. Whether the puzzle has a solution, however, is open to debate.

I had to go look up Wikipedia in order to find out what was going on. Apparently no one's totally sure. The New York Times wrote that while some might consider the plot an 'offense against narrative order ... the film is an intoxicating liberation from sense, with moments of feeling all the more powerful for seeming to emerge from the murky night world of the unconscious.'

Er, yeah, whatever. Personally, I think there's a con being pulled here and the film is nonsense dressed up as genius. Never mind that the results are entertaining, it has to be said that the Emperor has no clothes.

Conclusion: An intriguing thriller that slowly turns into a bizarre attempt to mess with your head. Watchable but ultimately unsatisfying.

Explosions: None.
Mysterious cowboys: One.
Subplots with no resolution whatsoever: At least five.
Number of surrealists it takes to change a light bulb: Fish.
Who killed Laura Palmer?: That would be telling.

Rating: 3/5.

Labels: film review (vol.4), thriller

 
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  The Invasion (DVD)

Starring: Nicole Kidman (& Daniel Craig but, you know, who cares? It's got Nicole Kidman in it and it's not Practical Magic. Hurrah!)

Rated: 15.

Story: A mysterious alien virus starts turning the whole world into Stepford. A psychologist (Kidman) uncovers the sinister goings on and must escape assimilation, protect her son and save the day while wearing tight sweaters. (Her doctor friend (Craig) helps but, again, who cares?)

Yep, Invasion of the Body Snatchers rides again.

Comments: This is really a zombie flick, except, rather than rip faces off, the zombies spit in everyone else's coffee. They look human, they're emotionless and they're usually placid. It's Attack of the Prozac People.

Although never very scary, this is more nail-biting than it sounds. Fortunately, the film doesn't fall into the trap of a lengthy build up. Everything moves pleasingly quickly from 'Hey? Have you noticed anything odd recently?' to 'Let's drive really fast and squish some zombies'.

Certain of the situations are a little silly but the basic idea is quite thought provoking. In passing, the film questions what it means to be human and asks what price we're willing to pay for free will. It'll have added resonance if you've ever been on anti-depressants. Yeah, they make the world a 'better' place but it's at a cost.

Conclusion: 28 Weeks Later is more tense and The Faculty is more fun but this is a fast-paced effort which contains something to think about and Nicole Kidman.

Explosions: A few.
Unlikely escapes: Several.
Nicole: Lots.
Zombies: Cuddly... until they're sick in your coffee.
Drink?: Er, not right now thanks...
Practical Magic?: A film so bad that even the presence of Kidman and Sandra Bullock couldn't save it. That's pretty bad.

Rating: 4/5.

Labels: film review (vol.4), horror, quick, sci-fi (vol.1), thriller

 
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  Shooter (DVD)

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Michael Pina, Danny Glover, Kate Mara & Rhona Mitra.

Rated: 15.

Story: A disillusioned Special Ops sniper is coaxed out of retirement to help catch an assassin who's plotting to shoot the President. He ends up on the wrong end of a conspiracy. Cue the kind of day that normally only Jack Bauer can handle...

Comments: This has a bit of tension, a bit of action and a little bit of politics. It should be great.

Shame there isn't much sense to it all and it's morally confused. The film tries to make some kind of point about corruption but just seems to say that it's OK to shoot people as long as they really deserve it. (If you can blow them up afterwards, so much the better.)

Conclusion: Not smart enough to be a great thriller but not dumb enough to get away with it.

Explosions: Quite a few.
Sniping from very, very far away: Frequent.
How far exactly?: Far enough for the rotation of the Earth to become an issue on occasion.
Pardon?: You see that clock tower? No, not that one - the one behind it. Try squinting. Yep, that one. Not to worry you or anything, but you might want to keep a foot of concrete between it and your head, OK? Just in case...

Rating: 3/5.

Labels: action (vol.3), film review (vol.4), quick, thriller

 
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  Brick (DVD)

Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt (3rd Rock from the Sun), Nora Zehetner (Heroes) & Lukas Haas (Witness - he's grown somewhat, though).

Rated: 15.

Story: Brendan (Gordon-Levitt), a loner at a Californian high school, discovers the body of his ex-girlfriend lying in a ditch and sets out to discover who is responsible. During his investigation, he has to gain respect with the factions within the school, ingratiate himself with the local drug kingpin and placate the assistant vice-principal. He does so using a mixture of charm, cleverness and violence.

Comments: Sometimes I think LOVEFiLM sneak extra movies onto my rental list when I'm not looking. Every so often, a film turns up in the post that I know nothing about and I can't remember choosing. Then again, I still can't recall 2003, so my memory's probably not be trusted. Maybe I just went down the Top 50 rental list in a hurry one day, clicking on any old thing that sounded half decent from its single sentence description. I should really stop doing that. (Highlander - The Source, anyone?) Thankfully, this time, it's thrown up something interesting.

Brick is film noir - think Humphrey Bogart in a trenchcoat, Marlene Dietrich smoking and lots of prodding the dark underbelly of society at night. Rather than aping the visual style of these movies, however, Brick takes the plot and characters and transplants them to a modern high school. There's a hard-nosed investigator, a femme fatale, tough guys, schemers and a ruthless, intellectual criminal boss. There's also a mystery to be solved and no one is quite who they seem.

As such, a certain level of suspension of disbelief is required. The dubious and bizarre goings-on in a seemingly normal town make it feel like Twin Peaks at times, and there are a few unlikely moments that are down to the difficulty of shoe-horning the genre into the high school setting. For instance, Brendan has to hide the body in order to ensure he gets to investigate without interference from the cops. Has he never seen an episode of CSI? Also, the minuscule budget leads to some fairly barren locations. The school, in particular, is permanently deserted. This adds to the atmosphere but detracts from the realism.

The acting is excellent, though, and the editing is slick and assured. The plot requires some concentration to follow but remains intriguing throughout.

Conclusion: A brooding thriller that will suck you in if you give it a chance.

Explosions: None.
Fast talking: Lots.
Teenage angst: Plenty.
People pretending to be teenagers: Several.
Actual teenagers: Almost certainly none.
Scenes stolen by a table lamp: One.

Rating: 4/5.

Labels: drama, film review (vol.4), thriller

 
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  Swordfish (DVD)

Starring: John Travolta, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry and Vinnie Jones.

Rated: 15.

Story: A computer expert (Jackman) gets persuaded to pull off one last hack by a pretty girl (Berry) and her crazy boss (Travolta). He quickly finds himself in over his head as his family get caught up in events and it all descends from internet fraud to bank heist to CIA conspiracy to nutters with rocket launchers.

Comments: Swordfish is totally over the top but mercifully restrained at the same time. The plot twists keep things interesting without becoming tangled. The narrative only ever jumps about to add spice rather than to make the film-makers appear clever. The pace is broken up nicely and, when the action sequences arrive, they're exciting, explosive and full of surprises. The cast is charismatic and entertaining, and Travolta is at his best. There's even a little food for thought on ends justifying means.

Despite all this, I'd somehow managed to be totally unaware of this movie until it popped up in my LOVEFiLM recommendations a few weeks ago. Was it criminally overlooked on release or was I just asleep? Let's see... Oh, 2001... That was the year Sprog1 got teeth.

Guess I was awake.

I may not have been too alert, though...

Conclusion: Slick, thrilling and fun.

Explosions: Lots.
Silliness: Plenty.
Plausibility: Slim.
Halle Berry's clothing: Limited.
Travolta's smirk: Constant.

Rating: 5/5.

Labels: action (vol.2), film review (vol.3), quick, thriller

 
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  Deja Vu (DVD)

Starring: Denzel Washington, Val Kilmer, James Caviezel

Rated: 12

Story: There's a major terrorist attack in New Orleans. Luckily, the US government has discovered how to harness the power of pixies in order to view events exactly four and a quarter days in the past. They get a local federal agent (Washington) to help them figure out where to point the pixies so as to catch the culprit as quickly as possible. This involves solving a separate murder, a ludicrous car chase, a couple of paradoxes and falling in love with someone who's already dead.

Comments: I don't usually bother with DVD extras. I find being told how a movie was made a bit like having a joke explained. I'm not that fussed about hearing the director muttering into a microphone about the creative challenge of their latest project, either. Extended scenes were usually cut short for a reason. And so on. I did start on the commentary for Deja Vu, though. I hoped that someone might point out a way in which it all made sense and thus take my headache away.

I was sadly disappointed.

The makers of Deja Vu are in denial. The commentary starts with three of them sitting around claiming it's not a science fiction film but a love story. One of them even claims it's science fact rather than science fiction. Twice.

Excuse me? If your story revolves around a technology that doesn't even remotely exist then it's science fiction. Having a plausible explanation couched in quantum physics doesn't let you off the hook - it just goes to prove that you don't have the faintest idea what you're doing. (And, sorry, having a love interest doesn't make it a love story).

By talking up the details of the science, Deja Vu is on a hiding to nothing. Those who know about the actual science won't be convinced and those who don't will just be confused. The makers would have been better off briefly mentioning that it's all down to pixies and simply getting on with things.

The evil robot in Terminator 2 is essentially made of pixies. Does anyone care? Not really. Its unlikely shape-shifting abilities are hurriedly glossed over. No one dwells on the mechanics or complications of time travel, either. It's all just a set up for some explosions and a few thoughts on fate and free-will.

Most good science fiction films rely on the fact that any suitably advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. How the machine works isn't really important - it's what's done with it that matters. Deja Vu doesn't embrace the pixies, however; it goes to great lengths to explain them away. You have to suspect the director and friends just didn't want the words 'science' and 'fiction' associated with them at the same time in case they got banished to a basement full of Star Trek fans by their literary buddies.

The film-makers did rope in some scientists to help but, unfortunately, they asked the scientists the wrong question. They asked, 'How might it be possible to look back in time?" The scientists gave a complicated explanation full of big words that was entirely speculation. The film-makers then regurgitated this speculation as fact in an effort at credibility.

What they should have done was handed over a script to the scientists and asked, 'Is this internally consistent?' That way, some of the enormous holes in the story might have been plugged and a few basic science errors corrected. The whole thing might even have made some kind of sense. Meanwhile, the technological plot device at the heart of the film could have happily remained powered by pixies and yet the overall suspension of disbelief required would have been greatly reduced.

The action sections are great and all the actors turn in passable performances. In the right hands (i.e. not those of science-phobic arts graduates), Deja Vu could have been a fantastic film. As it is, it's slick and entertaining but ultimately a dog's breakfast.

Conclusion: If you put CSI, 24, The Bourne Identity and Back to the Future in a box and shook them together you might get this. You'd probably be tempted, however, to close the lid and rattle the box about a bit more in the hope of getting something better.

Explosions: Big.
Scientists: Geeky.
Flux capacitors: None.
Understanding of science fiction: Minimal.
Pixies: Not enough.
Confusion: Great.
Headache: Enormous.

Rating: C+ out of 5.

Labels: action (vol.2), film review (vol.2), film review (vol.3), sci-fi (vol.1), thriller

 
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  The Sentinel (DVD)

Starring: Kiefer Sutherland, Michael Douglas wishing he was Clint Eastwood, Kim Basinger looking surprisingly well-preserved and the sexy one from Desperate Housewives.

Rated: 12

Entire transcript of the planning meeting: "Let's just do 24 - The Film with a dash of In the Line of Fire. Now... lunch, anyone?"

Comments: It's got Kiefer Sutherland as a member of the Secret Service trying to unmask a traitor in order to stop a plot to kill the US President. Haven't we seen something like this before? He even gets to mutter 'Dammit!' as the main suspect gets away again.

Unfortunately, in attempting to condense an entire series of 24 into two hours, the writers have emphasised the flaws rather than latching onto the good bits. Implausible character motivation and unlikely plot twists, ahoy! Meanwhile, there's not quite enough tension or action.

You wonder if the whole project was organised by Catherine Zeta-Jones just to get Michael Douglas out of the house. Sutherland may not even have noticed he wasn't on the set of 24. Eva Longoria seems to be in it mostly for window-dressing but at least she doesn't get almost eaten by a cougar...

Conclusion: More contained than a couple of episodes of 24, just not as entertaining.

Explosions: One not very interesting one.
Plausibility: Low.
Forgettability: High.
Typecasting of Keifer Sutherland: Complete.
Original ideas: None.

Rating: 3/5.

Labels: action (vol.2), film review (vol.2), quick, thriller

 
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  Payback (DVD)

Starring: Mel Gibson

Rated: 18

Story: Porter (Gibson), a remorseless criminal, is betrayed and left for dead after taking part in a successful robbery. Upon recovering, he sets out to get even and take back his share of the loot. He's not subtle about it.

Comments: This film is so old it's probably on ITV4 every other week. Still, thanks to having small children, I've lost a few years somewhere. I'm occasionally surprised the Millennium has actually happened already. So, here's a review from 1999:

This is a 'one man against the unassailable criminal organisation' movie. The twist is that the hero isn't a policeman on a mission or a vigilante with a grudge - he's a criminal wanting some cash and a bit of closure on a bad experience. He's John McClane without restraint - resourceful and brave but totally ruthless. The result is a take on the genre which is still fresh (and blessedly free of cheesy one-liners).

The most impressive feature of the film is how Porter remains sympathetic throughout. He's a thief, a thug and a murderer but, in some sense, he has principles. He is obsessed with payback but not on wanton revenge. He only wants 'his' money. He looks after his friends. He doesn't enjoy the violence. And it helps that the people who get in his way are dirty cops, thugs and monsters, so it appears he's fighting back as the world conspires against him. He's likeable and smart as well, allowing you to forget he's a complete psycho nutcase. Gibson pulls it off admirably but it's hard to imagine anyone else getting away with it.

That Porter comes across as a decent guy deep down probably poses plenty of questions about the perception of good and evil. Whether that's intentional or this is just violent, amoral fluff, is another question entirely.

Conclusion: An excellent action thriller... as long as you like Mel Gibson.

Explosions: Two.
Believability: Low.
Trail of corpses: Lengthy.
Mel Gibson: Plenty.
Inadvisable uses of a mousetrap: One.

Rating: 4/5.

Labels: action (vol.2), film review (vol.2), quick, thriller

 
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  Crank (DVD)

Starring: Jason Statham, Amy Smart (The Butterfly Effect)

Rated: 18

Story: Chev Chelios, a hitman, wakes up to discover he has been poisoned. The only way for him to stay alive long enough to exact some revenge is to keep his body pumped full of adrenaline. He goes about this by driving very fast, shooting lots of things and having some very public sex. Sometimes in combination...

Comments: This is, in essence, Grand Theft Auto the movie, complete with plenty of swearing, gory violence, shooting, stealing cars for convenience, videogame references and running to the next mission when nothing decent to drive has spawned nearby.

Like GTA, there's also a dark sense of humour but here there's more of a point to it all. Chelios rushes around leaving destruction in his wake as he searches for the next thrill, the next chance to be alive. He is so intent on reaching his destination, he never stops to think where he's going or what he's doing. He never has a chance to enjoy it. Crank is life on fast-forward with the parental safe-guards turned off. It's a call to take stock of who we are and of what we're doing to ourselves and other people in pursuit of gratification.

Or maybe I've spent so long trying to extract philosophical meaning from Teletubbies that I'm giving a tacky action film too much credit. It's certainly not without flaws. It's sometimes hard to tell whether the film's being ironic or serious. Sometimes the shock factor of the scenes can get in the way of the message. For instance, Crank pokes fun at the media for delivering us up-to-the-minute violence and yet it is, itself, a film that entertains through immediacy and violence. Then again, perhaps the whole thing just wouldn't work if it wasn't all so extreme.

On a more mundane level, the characterisation is poor and the dialogue merely serviceable. Statham reprises his Transporter role as a likeable, conflicted villain. He's obviously found his niche and is very effective. He's helped by the fact that the script tends to gloss over the fact that his character is a cold-blooded assassin. Smart is onto a loser from the beginning - her character is an idiot. No one else sticks around for long.

Conclusion: It's trashy and confused but there's genius in there somewhere. The more I think about it, the more I liked it.

Explosions: None.
Pace: Fast.
Outrage: High.
Ending: Slightly rubbish.
Statham's hospital gown: Flappy.
Suitability as a birthday gift for your gran: Low.

Rating: 4/5.

Labels: action (vol.1), film review (vol.1), film review (vol.2), thriller

 
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  Red Eye (DVD)

Starring: Cillian Murphy (28 Days Later) and his scary eyes, Rachel McAdams (Yeah, I don't know either. She's cute, though).

Rated: 12

Story: Lisa (McAdams) finds herself terrorised by Jack (Murphy) as he tries to coerce her into using her connections to help him in an assassination plot. Unfortunately, she can't get away easily because they're sitting next to each other on a plane and, wouldn't you just know it, he's got the aisle seat.

Comments: This is OK but pretty forgettable. Probably the most fun to be had is in working out all the ways Lisa could handle the situation better - ways that don't involve craziness and setting up an unlikely slasher-movie ending.

More could have been made of the moral dilemma which Lisa faces. Jack places her in a situation requiring her to sacrifice a stranger in order to save a loved one. There's plenty of mileage there for soul-searching and some thought-provoking dialogue. But, hey, that might have required some thought from both the writers and the audience. Fat chance. It's just a handy plot device.

The film takes a while to get going and the ending is drawn out but, despite that, the whole thing is only an hour and a quarter. Essentially, the bit on the plane which is quite good is too short. Everything before they get on the plane is filler and everything afterwards is ludicrous. It's watchable enough, though, providing you have some beer and the surround-sound rumble of the plane taking off doesn't make your house fall down.

McAdams is excellent throughout. Murphy is good up until the point near the end where the script goes berserk on him. He does menacing much better than psychopathic.

Conclusion: Like a double-bill of 24. Tense, entertaining, occasionally silly and not entirely satisfying. You'll want to watch another one when it's over.

Explosions: One (but it's a big one).
Ending: Long and silly.
Start: Slow.
Length of film: Short.
Descent into mediocrity: Rapid.

Rating: 3/5.

Labels: film review (vol.1), thriller

 
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  Into the Blue (DVD)

Starring: Jessica Alba's bikini and Paul Walker's Speedos.

Rated: 15

Story: Four divers stumble on sunken treasure and a downed plane full of cocaine off the coast of the Bahamas. They swim about wearing minimal clothing and achieving very little. There are lots of fish. Then everyone suddenly wants them dead. Even the fish.

Comments: The last twenty minutes are OK. Up until that point, nothing happens. Seriously. There's swimming, some fish and plenty of sunshine. That's it. It's all quite pleasant to look at but the plot moves along at a mollusc-like pace towards an entirely predictable conclusion. There's seldom any doubt where things are going but the film simply refuses to get a move on. There's just more diving, more fish, more discussion of how best to get rich quick. It's like watching an inept one-finger typist try to hammer out 'xylophone' - after not very long there's a crushing inevitability to events and nothing to look forward to but excruciating frustration or a quick death. (And that's with a bit of fast-forwarding...)

So it just chugs along for an hour and a quarter and then all at once there's gore and action and dead people everywhere. After the harmless nature of the first three-quarters of the film, it's actually slightly shocking. Maybe that's some kind of point but it doesn't seem likely - it's more a desperate case of trying to wake the audience up. This is foolish, however, because anyone who's lasted this long simply loves watching Jessica Alba swim or has slipped into a zen-like state of fish worship. Either way, breaking the trance risks all kinds of trauma.

It's not even like the plot twists make any real sense.

After this and The Fast and the Furious I think I'll actively avoid films with Paul Walker in. Alba does fine but you have to wonder why she agreed to it all. The rest of the cast struggle to make their characters believable but that's the script's fault more than theirs.

If you want fish, watch a documentary. If you want Jessica Alba in a bikini, buy a calendar. If you want entertainment, try balancing your DVD remote on your nose.

Whatever you want, avoid this.

Conclusion: I watched it so you don't have to.

Explosions: One.
Opportunities for a nap without missing much: Many.
Fish: Thousands.
How they sold it to the execs: Jessica Alba... in a bikini... swimming...
Minutes of your life you won't get back: One hundred and six.

Rating: 1/5

Labels: action (vol.1), film review (vol.1), thriller

 
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  The Fast and the Furious (DVD)

Starring: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, Michelle Rodriguez

Rated: 15

Story: An undercover cop infiltrates the LA street-racing scene in order to catch some truck hijackers. He goes native. People open up the bonnets of cars and stare lovingly at engines.

Comments: If you were a car, this would be porn. You are not a car, so you'd better like Vin Diesel an awful lot if you want to enjoy this nonsense.

Interesting characters: None.
Explosions: I can't even remember.
Lingering shots of mechanical parts: Numerous.
Plot: The sound made by my brain as it hit the floor after dribbling out my ears.

Rating: 2/5

Labels: action (vol.1), film review (vol.1), thriller

 
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  Lucky Number Slevin (DVD)

Starring: Josh Hartnett, Bruce Willis, Lucy Liu, Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley

Rated: 18

Story: Slevin Kelevra (Hartnett) gets mistaken for a man who owes money to two feuding crimelords (Freeman & Kingsley). He has to play them off against each other in order to survive. He is helped by a new girlfriend (Liu) and hindered by the schemes of a bigshot assassin (Willis). He talks a lot.

Comments: This starts well. The storyline whips all over the place in an intriguing fashion and the dialogue is fast and witty. Slevin's predicament is amusing and, as things get more complicated, it becomes obvious that a really clever solution is needed. Everything appears set to build to a tense climax...

...but then doesn't. The film spends two-thirds of its length jumping around in time, keeping us as confused as Slevin, and then takes half an hour explaining everything in tremendous detail. Worse than that, the trick's on us, not just the crimelords.

Everything's just about plausible but doesn't seem very likely and isn't very satisfying. It's an average story that's told back to front in an effort to make it more interesting and less nasty. Unfortunately this just makes it disappointing as well as distasteful and uninspired.

Explosions: One.
Gory Deaths: A few.
Fast, Hip Dialogue: Constant.
Tiresome Plot Twists: An excess.
Unconvincing Facial Hair: Almost worth waiting for.

Rating: 2/5

Labels: film review (vol.1), thriller

 
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  Children of Men (DVD)

Starring: Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, Chiwetel Ejiofor (the Alliance agent in Serenity)

Rated: 15

Story: It is the year 2027 and there are no children. Everyone has been infertile for years, the youngest person on Earth is eighteen and the world has descended into despair and chaos. Britain has a totalitarian government which uses immigrants as scapegoats, locking them in cages and then carting them off to ghettos ready for deportation.

Theo Faron (Owen), an apathetic bureaucrat, finds himself caught up with a group of rebels and is persuaded into helping them transport a young female refugee named Kee to freedom. The plan quickly unravels and Theo is forced to become a hapless action-hero in order to keep Kee safe and protect the hope for humanity which she may represent.

Comments: I expected this to be fairly slow and depressing so I was happily surprised by the tension and action. By action I don't mean Bond-style fisticuffs perilously perched on the arm of an enormous crane, I mean trying to jumpstart a car on a muddy hillside to escape a mob of New Age misfits, but it's no less thrilling. It's also easier to empathise with Faron than with Bond. This is the kind of messed up getaway I could attempt. I'm pretty sure I'd remember my shoes, though...

I've had a soft spot for Clive Owen ever since he starred in the live-action cutscenes in Privateer 2. This is odd because he was a bit rubbish in that and the ongoing rise of his career over the years has been something of a mystery. He does well enough here, though, as does Moore during her brief appearance. Michael Caine is Michael Caine as always, just with manky hair this time. There is a slight feeling, however, that the entire cast was the second choice somehow. Only Claire-Hope Ashitey as Kee seems spot on. The film itself is often the star - several lengthy scenes are shot without cuts which gives a gritty immediacy to proceedings.

The script attempts to cover difficult subjects such as immigration, faith, despair and loss but the questions asked are often vague and we are left to draw conclusions for ourselves. The plot is similarly hazy, with little explanation of the broader picture and setting. Even the ending requires the viewer to fill in the blanks. All that remains are a couple of assertions: a) Immigrants can offer solutions not problems. b) Children belong to us all and without them there is no future.

There's nothing wrong with this approach but if you like loose ends wrapped up then you're going to be frustrated. Science Fiction tends to start with a well-drawn world which is sometimes almost incidentally populated by characters. Children of Men is about one muddled bloke searching for hope in a world very like our own but blighted by a couple of convenient plot devices. Again, there's nothing wrong with this but just be warned that the movie is more Gattaca than Minority Report. Expect to put in some effort.

Conclusion: Memorable and almost brilliant. Great for shoving in the face of anyone who reckons children are a lifestyle choice or grumbles about having to pay taxes to subsidise the health and welfare of other people's kids. The wealth of a society is in its children.

Explosions: Some
Bleakness: High
Inappropriate Footwear: Plenty

Rating: 4/5

Labels: action (vol.1), film review (vol.1), thriller

 
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  Gone in 60 Seconds (DVD)

Labels: action (vol.1), film review (vol.1), thriller

 
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