Category: Film Reviews

Columbia Pictures
whoissalt.com

Not that any more proof should be necessary that Angelina Jolie is the go to girl when a movie demands that it’s lead actress not only be so staggeringly attractive, you can’t look at her directly for fear of you’re brain shutting down but also be able to axe kick a British terrorist master mind off the wing of a moving plane with a steely grace; but Salt really does solidify her reputation as just that women. Be it bending bullets and obeying the orders of an ancient piece of weaving equipment in Wanted or boobing her way through the boob Tomb Raider series of boobs with boobs….she really is in a league of her own as a female action star in Hollywood films these days, standing shoulder to shoulder with big name male stars of the genre.

Salt is the sort of action movie that can be expected in these post-Jason Bourne years, it exists in a world where spies are not all about the gadgets ala Mr. Bond, by more about being furiously unstoppable in their resilience, knowledge, adaptability and general ass-kicking-ability. Originally, Tom Cruise was envisioned for the character, but turned the role down fearing it echoed too similarly to his part of Ethan Hunt in the Mission Impossible series. Thus, Edward becomes Evelyn, and Cruise becomes Jolie, a move which, for all intents and purposes, was a very wise one.

The film follows Evelyn Salt, a highly trained CIA agent accused of being a Russian sleeper agent activated to kill the president, so, she goes on the run from her own people and tries desperately to locate her husband, who she fears is in a bit of a pickle.

So far, so fairly standard. The plot however takes a turn for the more interesting when it’s revelled she may actually really be a Russian sleeper agent activated to kill the president and her characters motives become increasingly tricky to guess as the film plays out, is she a hero? Is she a villain? Or is she something in between? It’s not impossible to guess how the piece is going to play out by the end, but it’s nice to see a film where every once in a while it takes a detour down some character avenues you weren’t expecting it to wander.

There’s some pretty cool set pieces, especially a sequence where Salt, whilst in the back of a police car, makes her escape by tasering the driver and electrocuting him to go faster, bringing a whole new meaning to the phrase “back seat driver”. However, the plot is startlingly ridiculous once you start to think about it and other than the aforementioned sequence, there aren’t that many blood-pumping action moments. Not that a movie should rely on them…that can often be worse than having an underwhelming lack of the things (I’m looking at you Quantum of Solace…hang your head in shame) but, it felt as though it was missing a bit of “oomph”

From the ending you can see it’s wrangling for a franchise, but I don’t know how many more movies they could really get out of the films core concept, Salt pretty much does everything it was intended to do Essentially it’s The Bourne Identity: Lighter Version…..and Matt Damon suddenly has fantastic boobs and lips.

Jonathan Day

Iron Bull Films

The Bleeding is directed by world-renowned stuntman Charlie Picerni, but after viewing this one, here is hoping that he isn’t giving up his days of jumping off buildings as a stuntman as it is the product of some disastrous decisions made by everyone involved.

The first point of disaster was the script. The plot reads on paper to be halfway decent; ex-Army Ranger Shawn Black (Michael Matthias) searches for the killer of his parents discovers a family of vampires in a factory-turned-nightclub and must kill them as revenge. Sounds simple enough and with the opening car chase and gunfire, hopes were incredibly high; a touch of The Fast and The Furious, with an added bonus vampire attack. However, after this scene, which is actually future along in the narrative, the film cuts through the part where his family is killed and heads straight to revenge. It is through a voice over from the main protagonist that we are told about his life history, his parents and what he plans on doing about it.

The second mistake was calling upon Vinnie Jones to be Cain, the king of the vampire family. Jones is a hard man and is more than capable of carrying his own in films but as a vampire, he is just unable to pull it off. His death scene especially is one of the most inadequate you will have ever seen. Besides Vinnie Jones, stars of the film include newcomer Michael Matthias who could give Vin Diesel a run for his money, DMX, and Michael Madsen as drunken Father Roy, none of which are very dramatic.

Thirdly, the violence and fighting sequences are unbelievably phoney and this can be seen easily. When Black is lying on the floor getting kicked by some other fellas he actually looks up with no expression and moments later jumps up as if never been kicked. When Tag, played by rapper DMX is tortured, his screams were as scary as a young girls. Then there is the moment one individual is getting punched yet the camera reverts to someone else each and every time a punch is heard being made. What is the point of the punch, if it cannot be seen?

Lastly, the ending couldn’t have been more disappointing. After spending the past 70 minutes watching someone hunt down a clan of vampires to seek out their King and kill it, the lead protagonist manages to kill him in about two minutes; it’s the worst death of a vampire I’ve ever seen.

If you are a vampire crazed movie fanatic of features like Dusk till Dawn and the Lost Boys, then this one will be a huge disappointment. No all-star cast, no sufficient action or horror, no entertaining narrative and no point in watching.

Michelle Moore

Lionsgate
theexpendablesmovie.com

There was one thought that crashed through my head for the entirety of The Expendables, my mind pulsing the words ever brighter in garish neon, growing louder and louder until no other thoughts or thinks could even begin to nudge their way in around it.

I wish this was better.

I could see Stallone’s terrifying silhouette, all muscles carved from cow hide and veins bulging in places no vein should bulge, stretching out for an admirable goal, to re-unite the biggest and brightest from his 80’s action co-horts, along with some new(ish) kids on the block, and reach a sort of crystallised vision of what an action movie means to him. Where the leads aren’t serious thespian types (see Robert Downey Jr or Christian Bale) but rather, almost in-human bundles of meat, tempered in explosions, forged in montage and getting by on nothing but semi-audible one liners and an increasingly ridiculous body count.

Somewhere along the way, Stallone never quite achieves the giddy heights of his best intention, and thus, we have the Expendables, a movie that does not stink of opportunity missed, but rather…a potential for something greater that’s never fully realised.

Part of the problem stems from the fact that Stallone, in his writing of the film, was clearly so enamoured by the assembling of his wonder cast, that he overlooked such trivial things as interesting characters or a semi-coherent and believable plot. Instead, what we get are a bunch of hard bastards running around a tiny jungle island trying to kill an evil General dictator and Eric Roberts for some reason (a deed which, as we all know, is impossible), the only motivation seeming to stem from the fact that said General’s daughter is a bit on the fit side and apparently gets wet every time she wanders into a butchers shop and sees slaps of cold dead meat hanging there…cause she gets awfully goo-goo eyed whenever Stallone’s about…

And thus this wire-thin plot frame serves for a bunch of scenes  involving such hijinks as, a plane raining gigantic amounts of deadly force down on a tiny pier full of faceless enemy soldiers, Jason Statham kicking seven shades of shit out of a basketball court full of nobs, Dolph Lundgrand squaring off against Jet Li and a huge Commando-style kill frenzy at the palace serving as the enemies base. Stuff blows up, uncountable amounts of people die, Stone Cold Steve Austin grunts…a lot…and every ones favourite walking corpse Mickey Rourke dishes out some awfully trite advice about “why we do this job”

Sure, it’s a fun ride along the way, there’s a tongue in check humour about the whole thing that keeps the general vibe of the film a very enjoyable one indeed….and though it does do pretty much exactly what it says on the box….it never quite does it as well as you’re imagination is going to wish it could have…even the sequence where Stallone, Brucey Bruce Willis and the Governator himself have a bit of a chin wag falls a little flat.

If you’re a lover of the sort of films these guys used to make back in the 80’s, you’ll find plenty to love….but even then, you’ll be left wishing for a little more.

Jonathan Day

20^th Century Fox
knightanddaymovie.co.uk

It has been a while since Tom Cruise graced us with his presence on the big screen, at least in something half enjoyable to watch. With his new action comedy Knight and Day, it is as though he had never been away, reverting back to the days he stunned onlookers with his Mission Impossible stunts.

In this escapist fantasy plot, we follow the adventures of Roy (Cruise) and June (Cameron Diaz), who after literally bumping into each other at the airport, go through a series of crashes (aeroplanes to cars), gun fire and close escapes while Roy attempts to protect a continuous energy battery called the Zephyr and its maker, a genius young inventor, from his own team.

The film is packed with high-energy action from car and motorbikes chases, aeroplanes and helicopters racing through the air to gun fire and Cruise enlightening us with some of his fighting skills. The interweaving of comedy though all the action is what makes it so enjoyable. Cruise’s character is especially witty when preparing June for another get away. Diaz’s character is a little more comical when her romantic feelings advance and when her fright kicks in. It is this combination of action, comedy and romance that separate Knight and Day from previous films attempting this. With the tremendous on screen relationship between Cruise and Diaz, things are even better.

The film changed lead cast members a number of times while in production. Adam Sandler, Gerard Butler and Chris Tucker were mentioned for the lead of Roy and Eva Mendes in talks about portraying the character of June. However, if you seriously sit back and watch the interaction and the chemistry at work between Diaz and Cruise, you will understand there were no two better to make the situation an enjoyable and at times hilarious watch.

Knight and Day is not perfect, but no where near as horrid as reviews from America have made it out to be. Although it may have bombed at the US box office, it will not have the same outcome in the UK. It is an original movie, aimed for adults with comedy, action and a little bit of romance. This is one of Cruise’s finest performances in a long time and exactly the film he needed to re-boot his career. With Mission Impossible IV in the works, look set to be seeing a lot more of this man in the near future.

Michelle Moore

20th Century Fox
predators-movie.com

It’s often difficult to squint back into the past and remember a time when the predator franchise didn’t suck comically oversized balls. Despite the best efforts of a series of sequels so increasingly awful, the original still has a certain 80’s muscle bound, tongue firmly in cheek, firearms fully loaded, Austrian accented charm about it, that somehow managed to remain intact regardless of atrocious crimes against mankind like Alien vs. Predator and Alien vs. Predator: Requiem.

It’s clear from the get go that director Nimrod Antal and producer Robert Rodriguez both feel similarly about what has become of the predator over the years, hence this production desperately tries too hark back to the original and clamours to reclaim some of what made that film pretty special. Unfortunately…. it sort of… well….fails.

Though, that’s not because it’s a “bad” film per say. Rather….it’s gut wrenchingly, frustratingly average. A group of strangers wake up in free-fall heading towards a large jungle….they soon learn that each one is in their own way an extremely adept killer (so you get Walton Goggins as a serial killer, Danny Trejo as a Cartel hitman, Louis Ozawa Changchien as a Yakuza assassin etc.) and rather quickly it becomes apparent that something very big and pissed wants to hunt them down and fuck them up. The problem here is that a really good predator movie…the one that will finally do justice to the original’s legacy, needs to be much, much more than just a bunch of two-dimensional stereotype tough people getting picked off one at a time by a big grumpy alien.

A major issue I had was with the casting of Adrien Brody’s nose (and the actor attached to it) as an action lead. If he wants to try and expand his repertoire out in this direction, this was not the correct vehicle to show it off. Simply adopting a gravely Christian Bale Batman voice and getting all buff ’n’ shit does not an action star make. He’s a fine actor, as he’s proved time and time again, however, this character is such a shallow, uninteresting, lazily written part, lacking in any charisma or charm…that his presence just seems jarringly out of place and wrong.

It’s a film that really needs to be a lot more than it is…and probably could have been, instead of harking back to the original, it comes across more as a damp echo of it, reverberating still with many of the unwanted trait’s of the awful sequels.

Ultimately, any movie where an alien with dreadlocks that can turn invisible and has a shoulder mounted laser cannon and swords on it’s wrists and infra-red vision and a myriad of other pieces of outlandish technology all designed for hunting and killing things can actually make you feel bored half way through should hang it’s big floppy head with a spiky vagina mouth in shame.

Jonathan Day

Lionsgate

Psychosis is the new British horror film from director Reg Traciss. It stars Charisma Carpenter, if you’ll recall she was the assertive cheerleader from Buffy the Vampire Slayer many years ago and British model Paul Sculfor in his debut-acting role.

Successful horror novelist Susan (Carpenter) moves with her husband David (Sculfor) from sunny California to a secluded home in the rural English countryside to find peace and tranquillity to work on her new novel. Soon after the move, Susan begins getting disturbing images of death and murder and has some unsettling encounters with their creepy gamekeeper. Before long her worlds of reality and imagination begin to intertwine and she is no longer sure what she can believe in.

With such an intriguing and terrifying plot, expectations are high for Psychosis to be a frightening tale of one woman loosing her mind as her imagination gets the better of her. Unfortunately this is not the case. Although the narrative that follows Psychosis is a good one, when ideas from paper are put to film, it is no match. The house in which all the action takes place is not very scary and it has not been used to its full potential. If given the right lightening and direction, it could have literally come alive with terror in much the same way the hotel of The Shining did. Carpenter may have made watching Buffy enjoyable, but she doesn’t have the same effect on this film as her screams seem extremely phoney and don’t add anything to this film’s already limited believability. The actions of her husband are also dull with the majority ineffective in creating any more sense of the story. The only time sense is actually made, is during the concluding segment when you understand what Susan has actually been though, before given an unexpected twist at the end; this was probably the most shocking event in the movie and it only took 80 minutes to get there. It is also at the point the opening ten minutes that at first appeared to have no connection with the remainder of the film, finally make you go ‘ahhh’ with acknowledgement.

Do not expect a typical scary movie with Psychosis, as you will not be getting it. What you will get on the other hand is dullness, lack of interest and some darn right ridiculous goings on. Some will likely love Psychosis while others will not. Which side are you on?

Michelle Moore

Paramount Vantage

Whatever happened to the days when a comedy film actually consisted of a decent plot, hilarious characters and events that were so funny you felt like wetting yourself? Are those days in the past or does the future look bright? When it comes to The Marc Pease Experience, the future looks unfortunately grim.

So many of us, ‘us’ meaning those who have left our teenage years behind, wish we could hold onto our lost youth. The good old days of late night parties, drinking all hours and believing we can make our dreams come true if we truly put our hearts and soul into it and believe in ourselves. For Marc Pease (Jason Schwartzman), his teenage wish becomes an obsession and reality to some degree, as he gets older. Marc Pease is a man of 24 living in the past. He was the star of his high school’s musical ‘The Wiz’ and after graduation, maintain his ponytail, dates a 17 year old and continues to sing in an a cappella group with the dream of recording their material in the studio with the help of his former mentor and musical theatre teacher Mr Gribble (Ben Stiller).

At first Stiller appears to be the kind of teacher everyone always dreamed about having in school; entertaining, approachable and most importantly fun, although as a musical theatre teacher sucks at singing. It is when Pease finds out about his girlfriends “after school activities” with Mr Gribble that his personality changes and things get a little too stupid and desperate to be funny. Up until this point the film consisted of a relatively interesting plot, two lead characters that had the potential to be interesting and entertaining and overall it was fairly enjoyable. Once Marc hears about Mr Gribble’s secret, his character gets annoyed, agitated and quite ridicules while the character of Mr Gribble becomes stuck-up, egotistical and unkind.

There is never a moment The Marc Pease Experience actually becomes funny and the comedy sets it, which is unfortunate. Original and quirky it may be, however funny it is not.

Michelle Moore

www.brooklynsfinestthemovie.com
Millenium Films

First and foremost, this is a mean film. That’s not to say it’s a difficult watch, far from it; Antoine Fuqua’s return to the world of crooked cops after the Oscar-winning tour-de-force that was Training Day, is an extremely watchable, engaging, powerful, jagged and thoughtful thriller. I just wouldn’t advise going to see it at a 12:45 showing on a sunny Monday afternoon….it’ll put ya in a funny mood for the rest of the day let me tell you. The world will feel a hell of a lot more relentless, cruel and dark than it did wandering into the theatre; unless you just happen to exist in a murky twilight of drug trafficking, sex-trading and gang violence…in which case…you’ll feel right at home.

Anchored around three central characters, and set over seven days within the same area of Brooklyn, we follow Richard Gere’s dishevelled, almost alcoholic, potentially suicidal, cynical, beaten down cop Eddie. He’s seven days away from retirement and with a distinctly large hole where his soul might once have been after witnessing twenty two years of relentless crime on the streets. Don Cheadle’s undercover cop finds life becoming an increasingly arduous tug-o-war between the loyalties he has forged undercover amongst criminals, and the possibility of an easy life if he can put them away for good. Finally, Ethan Hawke’s complicated and craggy catholic Sal, faced with financial dire straights due to a constantly expanding family (clearly a firm believer in Monty Pythons ‘every sperm is sacred‘) and having to pursue an extremely risky, not-really-very-legal means of dealing with it.

It is a film that does not deal with right and wrong as black and white statements, but rather, things that must be taken into account depending on their context. As we watch each of these characters forced into some extremely dark corners as a result of the personal compromises ruling over their lives, it’s clear that this is a movie that exists in a murky grey world, where what may seem the correct course of moral action on paper, is just not logistical when dealing in a real world situation. It’s powerful stuff indeed, with turns from each of the actors mentioned that really, really, make you care for these characters. Right from the get go, you want them to succeed; to over come their problems; to be able to sit back safe in the knowledge that whatever gets thrown at them, they will overcome them.

However, this is not Richard fucking Curtis’s version of the world, as much as you want to make believe away the notion that the world is not this strikingly violent, it’s as clear as day that these stories will not unwind pleasantly…and sure enough, they don’t. Expect some real emotionally weighty material slung about before the credits role.

It does get a tad…much at points. The sheer amount of shit being heaped upon these people…people that really don’t seem to deserve any of the punishment that the beardy, satin-clad man in the sky is dishing out to them. It almost verges on becoming hard to take seriously. Though, saying that, it never tips into enough of a nihilistic hell that you stop caring. This is an engaging and powerful thriller that has taught me one thing in particular…

Never go to Brooklyn.

Jonathan Day