Saturday, April 25, 2009

Movie Round Up

The Unborn (2009/USA)

Below average supernatural horror. Maintains a decent sense of momentum but rethreads too much old ground and rarely provides a much needed fright.




Spiderman 2 (2004/USA)

A well measured and expertly crafted superhero romp. The love story can get a bit twee and it’s fairly slow paced but it has bags of character and delivers the action at the right times. It mightn’t be as spectacular as some of its genre contemporaries but it has what most of them don’t - a coherent plot! A worthy sequel to the genre defining original.





Spiderman 3 (2007/USA)

A faster, more action-packed film than #2. Like the predecessors it develops the existing characters well and introduces some interesting new ones. There are a couple of disappointing sub-plots that let the film down somewhat but it re-dresses the balance with a grand-slam finale.





Black Book (2006/Nederlands)

A thrilling WWII drama/adventure that is refreshingly different despite covering a lot of well-explored territory. The plot has a great balance of pace mixing suspense and action with twists and turns aplenty. The fantastic performance of Carice van Houten in the lead role only added to what is a thoroughly enjoyable film.



The Interpreter (2005/USA)

Below-par political thriller that takes an age to get into gear and when it does it only delivers one truly suspenseful scene and a laughable conclusion. The attempt to contrive a chemistry between Penn and Kidman was cringeworthy.





When a Stranger Calls (2006/USA)

Terrible horror/thriller that is stupendously sluggish and can’t even get it’s clichés right!





Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Movie Round Up

W (2008/USA)

The glossing over of historical facts aside this is a deplorably shallow film with irritatingly hollow caricatures and scenes played for cheap laughs or even cheaper sentiment. Gratingly dull and rarely venturing beyond the press-release viewpoint, this is just awful.





100 Feet (2008/USA)

Average haunted house affair that despite it’s reasonable premise and a couple of nervy scenes never really cuts it. The special effects are of note though, especially those of the apparition.






The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008/USA)

This sci-fi remake is ill-deserving of its universal criticism. The plot progresses at a good pace and the acting is good on the whole (Reeves is born to play the slow-speaking, blank expression-wearing alien!). It lacks a certain creative touch to bring it beyond the average though.






Re-animator (1985/USA)

Classic madcap horror that’s as gorey as it is silly. The HP Lovecraft story, on which it is based, adds a certain solidity to the plot and characters. Added to this some surprisingly good special effects it makes for an unmissible cheese-fest.







Adrift (2006/USA)

Dull thriller with little imagination and even worse characters. A frustratingly stupid film that really sinks (excuse the pun) in the middle and never recovers.


 
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