Past Movie Reviews.

[padi56]

I have watched a lot of newly released films lately, most of which fit into this category. Some of which were huge box office successes, others as transparent as Jimmy Carr's career.

Here are a few I have watched over the last 12 months or so, which I recommend you do not watch.

War of the Worlds (2005)

Utter sh!te. The original storyline was completely lost to a whole load of special effects and sounds, as well as untermidget Tom Cruise's poor acting. While the original was a great story, the new version managed to ignore the entire plot - except for the 'starting a new life underground' part. When this part of the original plot was screened in the unrecognisable dirge that was the entire film, I was ready to switch off.

Domino (2005)

This film falls into the Gemini-Phoenix / Charlie's Angels category. An action film for women, where the plot is not too deep so they can follow while playing with their hair. Absolutely bloody appalling. I fell asleep three times while watching this 105 minute epic piece of cinematic dross. Keira Knightly has a lot of explaining to do for wasting my afternoon with this sh!te.

Cry Wolf (2005)
WTF? As far as continuity of story-lines goes, this film is up there with the 80's Martial Arts classic "Kickboxer" A reasonable plot, seemingly buggered up by a bleeding idiot of a director and what I assume was the producer from Teletubbies. A series of twists at the end are concluded by a montage. Why? because the plot is so sh!t leading up to the end of the film.

Flight-plan (2005)

Jodie Foster on a plane, bores the audience to tears with a craptacular story of trans-Atlantic kidnapping and terrorism. I'd rather be raped with a rusty pole than endure this film again.

Buffalo Soldiers (2004)

When your storyline looks a little patchy, just add more bits in to it. It does not matter if they are relevant to the rest of the plot. In fact, you could call it a complicated plot. Complicated only by the fact that it was complete bolwelocks.

Layer Cake (2004)

Typical London-based gangster movie. Not a Guy Ritchie one this time, but it might as well be because it has exactly the same plot as all of his films. Absolute rubbish.

King Kong (2005).

King Kong is another remake disaster, for all the modern technology and special effects the film is still a disaster.3 hours of crap,would have been better at just 2 hours max,but even that would be to long in my book.That old 1933 movie with the man in the moth eaten monkey suit was still better than the remakes.

The Day After Tomorrow (2004)

Good concept, no show. Instead of gathering facts and highlighting the social and geographic issues surrounding the plot, Roland Emmerich takes us on another American flag-waving,and c#ck-waving story about a father rescuing his son from the rapidly dropping temperatures of Manhattan.

Quote:
The sea water that inundated Manhattan had to be, at minimum, tens of feet deep to carry the cargo ship in from the bay. For so much water to freeze solid so quickly, the outside temperature would have had to have been something on the order of 50 to 100 below zero. Even inside the buildings, everyone would have frozen to death in a matter of hours.But they did burn a few tables chairs and books to keep warm.

Willy Wonka's Chocolate factory.
IS the new Johnny Depp publicity vehicle going to make such an impact on any ones life? Is it hell. Just like every other major Hollywood production it will be an amoral orgy of CGI oompaloompas, shitty acting and plenty of plugs for the soundtrack album / action figure range / comic book / cartoon series. What's more it will fail just like Mike Myers as the Cat in the Hat did.The original film was a visual fantasy which allows kids imaginations to do what kids imaginations are supposed to do. Even now watching that film I find myself being drawn into it, wondering about the daily routines of oompaloompas and so on, although that might be more to do with the skunk than the film. All the remake will spark off in kids heads is the desire to go and buy whatever crap they can find with the film logo on it.

The reason for it's guaranteed failure to make a lasting impact? Like so many other creative ventures nowadays it has no soul, energy or imagination. It's just another play-it-safe marketing exercise designed to generate maximum income over a short term period. Not to mention the bloody almost useless ineptitude of the cast when compared to the sheer bloody genius of Gene Wilder and the rest of the original cast.


Titanic (1997)

Plot: Biggest ship ever built hits iceberg - sinks. The ninth version of the true story. It's worth noting that all it's predecessors failed to make an impact and lost a lot of money. Three hours after the story began, all we have seen is James Cameron's conception of a love story, where he has chosen to ignore all the facts in favour of a revenue generating Hollywood blockbuster. A film only for women.




It's not all bad. I have seen a number of good films lately also. I'm not going to tell you what they are though...