Last Film(s) You Watched

Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2012 4:53 pm

Underworld Awakening - I expected more from this.. But it was ok film to watch.. There were still lot's of un-answered quaestions remaining.. will there be more? Wink

IMDb Underworld info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1496025/ IMDb Ratings: 6.5/10 from 34,623 users

http://www.flixster.com/user/phubbs1 · Posted: Tue May 01, 2012 4:01 am

Dragon Eyes (2012)

So Mr JCVD is now taking roles as wise old mentors teaching the young stuff, reversed from back in the day when he was learning, that is pretty cool if you ask me, it just seems right like a perfectly fitting piece of jigsaw. Of course JCVD has still got all the silky moves but with age creeping up on him he is obviously not gonna be as believeable as in his hayday.

Cung Le takes on the role as main hero for this 'Yojimbo' remake (yep another one) a loner comes to a small town and uses the two local gangs against each other to get to the big man and bring peace. So completely and utterly unoriginal and to be frank its been done much much better ('Last Man Standing'), the warring street gang element doesn't really work for me here, it just seems like any other warring street gang flick where as 'Last Man Standing' worked really well due to the time period setting, it looked so darn cool.

The cast is a mix of your typical unknowns who all seem to be pretty proficient in martial arts to major player Peter Weller as 'Mr V' the main bad guy. Weller is clearly enjoying himself as he hams it up beautifully whilst for some reason he has been made to look like Frank Sinatra with his little hat haha Old blue eyes kicking ass.

As said JCVD takes more of a backseat role being the mentor in flashbacks and Le is the high flying number one. Personally I didn't take to Le as the main man, he looks solid enough yes but he just doesn't have that leading man quality to pull off being the hero, he's not exactly a great looking guy and I just didn't get the same adrenaline rush from seeing him fight. He can fight but its more of a scuffle plus his moves aren't as sharp or far reaching as others I've seen. Sure its more realistic but you kinda wanna see some fancy JCVD type air moves which make you go 'HELL YEAH!!', I wasn't really behind him feeling the rush. I love how everyone in these films is a martial arts expert hehe every bad guy and every random person called on to fight is a martial artist, I know it equals more kick ass but its kinda stupid isn't it.

A kind of videogame vibe to the style has been attempted in places eg. with the character intros which isn't really needed seeing as it isn't really kept up throughout but overall its a slick moody gangster action piece with a nice limited colour palette giving a touch of class.

A bit lacking for Mr Silver really, not quite up to his usual standards, a mixed bag of good and bad but more average really. Certainly more stylish than recent JCVD films but he isn't involved so much with this one sooooo...good film title, bares no real meaning to the film but its cool.

http://www.flixster.com/user/phubbs1 · Posted: Tue May 01, 2012 5:44 am

Contraband

OK the first thing to hit me with this thriller is the excellent cast and subsequent excellent performances they all give, Wahlberg, Foster and Ribisi really come together and blend well giving really strong tense portrayals of their characters.

All three of the main cast are around the same age (almost) and I think it shows as they seem to effortlessly connect, almost like a small group of your mates working together. I think Wahlberg has nailed the average blue collar working schmo to a tea in recent films but he does tend to be the same character in everything he does, oh well.
The film isn't exactly super exciting but more of a slowish burner as Wahlberg basically needs to get his hands on a load of dosh to pay of some criminals which threaten his family, yeeeeah not tooooo original is it. His so called best mate played by Foster is of course in cahoots with the bad guys and is playing Wahlberg's character (not really a spoiler don't worry), Foster is so good at being low down scummy guys, makes you wonder huh.

Its sort of a heist flick but also more of your typical blackmail, smuggling, gang, mobster type thing which is sort of cool but slightly underwhelming also. The whole thing lacks bite, you really wanna see Wahlberg kick some ass and pop some caps in some asses but he never really does that. Ribisi is a really good junkie redneck in this and he needs a major whipping and you just want him to get blow away, you yearn for some gun action but it never materialises and it just feels like a chance missed.

It does get reasonably tense at times but it just ends all too softly when you really wanna see some quality retribution for the good guys. Solid stern decent performances yes, pumping film...no, could of been so much more exciting, hard to even say it was an 'action' film really, or thriller, kinda somewhere inbetween.

Posted: Tue May 01, 2012 8:19 am

Hubbs, I wouldn't watch dragon eyes again if I was paid! Dreadful film, I lost a hour and half of my life watching it.
Contraband however, whilst not being easy to assign a genre to, I found to be entertaining, on both viewings.
Just watched Avengers and that is a beast of a film, everything it promised and some.

Posted: Tue May 01, 2012 8:30 am

Hubbs...just wanted to say "nicely summed up" on Dragon Eyes. I feel Tony, the young lad in Ong Bak, would have been much better in the role, but I do agree that the film was nicely done in the points you have made. Was it great and would I watch it again? Doubtful at best.

I also wanted to say, thanks for the lead on "Fearless" watched it last night - thought it was very well done and Jet Li played a strong role. Surprisingly well acted throughout I thought.

I appreciate your comments, man...thanks!

http://www.flixster.com/user/phubbs1 · Posted: Tue May 01, 2012 12:28 pm

^ No worries mateys Smile

thanks for the kind words, now take a deep breathe and digest this whopper! lol!

The Avengers

SPOILER WARNING!

Yep I'm using the original US title for the film and not the lame Euro version 'Avengers Assemble' which sounds like a cartoon, all because the powers that be seem to think we're all dumb enough to mistake this new film with another rather old TV series and its mega budget flop film counterpart. Deal with it.

So lets do this thing...the first MEGA blockbuster of the year, how does it fare you ask, well its pretty good says I, not quite as GOOD as I have been led to believe (hyper hype) but its good.

We all know the score so why review it, the 'backup' films to this entry were all solid to great films with most having their favourites, my personal fav is easily the Iron Man films. So with all the guys together for the first time the film does start at a slow pace...for quite some time its gotta be said, I was getting a little twitchy in my seat. Allot of dialog and pacing around very metallic looking military facilities with a whole load of comicbook sci-fi jargon I really don't understand haha. The team are introduced one by one and things feel familiar a they should, a quick bit of action from Black Widow doesn't help though as it looks tacky and stupid in a Milla Jovovich type of way.

Honestly the film didn't really kick into gear for me until we get our first Hulk moment on board that huge flying aircraft carrier thingy (a bit too G.I.Joe there?), this is our first team action and its good, its very good Smile

everyone looks good and the action is sharp, slick and clear.
For me the whole film is all about certain characters and how they come across in battle, in general all the team battles in this film are really very good, as said by many all the characters get their time to shine and no one is left in the cold but clearly some characters just work so much better.

The finale is a firestorm of cgi action and really does blow your balls off with non-stop Avenger ass kicking, its not even hard to follow either, you can see what's happening and there's no silly shaky camera to make you ill, its all precise. Best action from a character goes to Hulk for me with some earth shatteringly pumped destruction going on, they really nailed him good in this one, of course Iron Man gets second spot. The cgi overall is excellent but its not like we haven't seen this kind of thing before though Wink

its hardly ground breaking but it looks way better than the 'X-Men' 'Spider Man' 'Fantastic 4' films, I also liked the huge flying alien metallic dragon things, some nice design work there, the alien soldiers didn't look much (never got a good look really) but those big space dragons were ultra cool.

For me its all about Iron Man , easily the best character in the team, he looks fudging sweet, has great tech, the cgi looks best with him and Downey Jr is by far the best thing about this film. The guy carries the film when there is dialog with his witty comments and subtle sarcasm, the other players can't seem to put across the right angle, Ruffalo and Hiddleston are probably the best of the rest with Hiddleston giving Loki a slightly 'Joker-ish' play with his wry smiles.

As for the superheroes well they all look spotless, Iron Man as I said is my personal best and looks awesome, Hulk is a close second looking the best he's ever been here and actually appearing like Ruffalo facially so you can actually believe he transformed into this green monster, Loki hasn't changed much from 'Thor' and looks good whilst Thor also stays pretty much the same and looks fine. Now this is where I get picky folks, Black Widow (Johansson) looks sexy, a nice tight ass shot whilst she speaks with an incarcerated Loki I enjoyed muchly, but in this day and age her look simply doesn't cut the mustard anymore, its been done soooooo many times you think she could have been plucked from any number of films.
Captain America ...what the hell did they do to his suit!? it was fine in his first film so why make it look so childish looking for this!? the hood part looks dreadful, thought so when I first saw pics of it. We all know of Fury so this leaves Hawkeye , probably the dullest looking character, I didn't like him.

Some niggles do come to mind, I wouldn't say its totally perfect but these maybe my own personal niggles hehe. Its clear Black Widow and Hawkeye are the weak litter in this film, neither really do a great deal and neither really look all that much to be honest, very dull. Hawkeye just seems like a silly character to use for this day and age, I know he's part of the original team but come on the guy runs around using a bow n arrow for Christs sake haha guns, guns, guns, knives, other worldly powers and super strength and this guy fires arrows! kinda funny really.
Plus he seems to be able to hit targets from high up without any consideration for weather, range, trajectory, altitude etc...it also takes him along time to actually run out, am I looking into this too much?.
Black Widow just doesn't really fit in the team for me, sure she's sexy and can fight but she carries two small handguns and that just comes across as rather pathetic in the midst of all out superhero war, like bringing a water pistol to a knife fight.

The other thing was Loki and his alien buddies, I presume Loki's exile was him falling into that abyss at the end of 'Thor'? how did he meet that alien race? how did he get to earth through the portal or get to the portal? and why does he even want to rule Earth? what does he get out of it?
I must also ask what the 'Chitauri' are exactly, when Iron Man downs the big mothership they all just drop, so are they robotic? or somehow connected to a central brain or something?. Trivial but hey that's how I roll.

So yes this film is very good and probably the best its gonna get for superhero team flicks and even superhero flicks to a degree, and when I say superhero flicks I mean superheroes which involve magic, sorcery, space, aliens etc... Batman , Blade , Punisher etc...are different beasts. I still wasn't blown away completely I must admit but for an eye popping mindless comicbook adaptation you can't really get much better, it does what its suppose to do with good cgi, good humour and great continuity from the previous films. Definitely a one off and historical moment as we get the first real superhero team movie, I can't see 'Justice League' topping it.

Ps. No need to stay right to the end of the credits, but don't leave straight away Wink

http://www.flixster.com/user/phubbs1 · Posted: Wed May 02, 2012 8:48 am

Masters of the Universe (1987)

Oh my how delicious is this piece of 80's panto, some of the best badly adapted hokey nonsense I've seen yet somehow its so damn good Smile

Where to start! this really is your typical fantasy film of the era, every cliche every funny little niche is here as you would expect and the funny thing is it was actually meant to be a blockbuster. I have since found out there were many problems in creating this film and it does show some what, the film is really nothing like the original He-Man cartoon in any way.

Effects wise this sorta stumbles through with some interesting ideas, some of the makeup is actually quite good, 'Skeletor', 'Beast Man' and 'Saurod' all have pretty nice makeup appliances and costumes which fit the He-Man universe. Other effects are laughably terrible with some awful bluescreen work, nasty models of which most seem ripped straight outta 'Star Wars', faded poor laser blast effects and some of the most hilariously bad stunts and fight choreography you will see. Most kicks and punches clearly (and I mean CLEARLY) don't make their intended contacts lol!

The cast are actually a mix of decent character actors which is the funny thing, some of these performances saved the film and gave it cult status. Of course Langella as 'Skeletor' is the co de gra of cheesy villains with his snarling voice and bellowing cries lusting for power. For me the best and most amusing performance was James Tolkan as the no nonsense cop 'Lubic' with his sharp tongue, gotta love that guy and his baldness.
Along for the ride is steady character actor Jon Cypher, fantasy actor regular Billy Barty, Meg Foster as the quite sexual 'Evil-Lyn' in her lovely tight barbarian-esq outfit with luscious lips (oh yeah!) and last of all Courtney Cox, yes THAT Courtney Cox of 'Friends' fame and as you would expect she's still annoying as hell even back then.

So yes the film is practically a joke with its Punch n Judy style and completely awful effects, fights etc...but it has gained allot of notoriety for just that. Even when I saw this back as a kid I knew the film bared no resemblance to the original material, it always bewildered me why the creators thought to create new bad guys when there were so many rich villains to use, who the hell was 'Blade', 'Karg' and 'Saurod' suppose to be!? where was 'Trap Jaw' 'Tri-Klops' 'Mer-Man' or 'Man-E-Faces'? the same could be said for the heroes also. Then there was the question of who on earth were all these stormtrooper type foot soldiers clad in black armour that were an idea rip from so many films!?.

I have since found out they were stuck in so 'He-Man' could kill things without becoming too violent for the kids as He-Man wasn't suppose to kill. I can see that now but it still doesn't work right does it, I can't believe Lucas never sued frankly haha even with the almost identical ending to 'ROTJ'.

Its funny to look back and laugh, even more so to think films like this actually made it to the cinema and were meant to be big money spinners hehe. I actually love how the film just goes off on its own tangent completely ignoring the source material, its so far gone its brilliant in such a bad way. Gotta love 'Skeletor's' golden coloured horned silver foil battle mask getup when he transforms at the end which seems to be a rip off from 'Big Trouble in Little China'!, the way Tolkan swears oh and the fact 'Teela' seems to be wearing a thin thong if you look closely as well Smile

kids film?.

Posted: Wed May 02, 2012 2:41 pm

BOONDOCK SAINTS
thought this was a pretty good film, worth a watch

CONTRABAND

best film iv seen in a while

http://www.flixster.com/user/phubbs1 · Posted: Thu May 03, 2012 8:59 am

21 Jump Street (2012)

Never saw the original TV series as it wasn't really on UK TV much as I recall so I'm unable to really comment on comparisons, but after reading up it does seem like this comedy is relatively close to the source material.

Basically some young looking dudes are put into a local high school to crack down on a drugs ring, the reason they are used for the case? they are young looking, pretty much the same deal as the TV show. Of course this film is akin to older films 'The Dukes of Hazzard' and 'Starsky n Hutch' in the sense that it mocks the original source and teen/cop flicks in general.

So in a spoof type way this is quite good, I found myself enjoying the typical piss taking humour as the two leads start off in high school themselves and move up into the police force together. You know what kind of gags and visual stunts to expect, a blend of 'American Pie' and 'Paul Blart: Mall Cop' with a hint of 'Naked Gun'...and it works just fine.

For me the film started to wane from around the midway point though as the guys get emotionally attached to people they meet in the school (very predictably) and things start to get a bit mushy. You know whats gonna happen in the end, its very formulaic and cliched but it does put a smile on your face for sure. I've heard a sequel is planned but I really don't think that is necessary as this barely keeps its head above water if we are honest. I did like the two cameos in the finale though, nice touch.

Posted: Fri May 04, 2012 11:20 am

Hey afn09. I thought that Boondock Saints was really good, and II is just as good, although different enough as well....I'd recommend it.

http://www.flixster.com/user/phubbs1 · Posted: Fri May 04, 2012 8:12 pm

Red Tails

Based on the Tuskegee Airmen of WWII albeit somewhat loosely, but still a pretty good close depiction of what life was like for African American airmen in service over Italy.

You can tell this is a Lucas production you really can, the dialog is terrible and the cgi effects are very reminiscent of 'Star Wars' effects, heck I even noticed the same audio used for explosions and engines I think, I'm not saying the film is bad but merely a clear Lucasfilm production (we know Lucas used WWI/II dogfighting as inspiration for his space battles...and it shows here). It has the look of an old 50's boys own adventure style comicbook or an old TV adventure serial, like the inspirations behind 'Indy', but on the other hand it also bares similarity to a videogame adaptation of old arcade Capcom classic 1942 .

The visuals are of course crisp, clean, sharp, rich and colourful....in short it looks a treat, a comicbook come to life. The problems are the whole thing feels like a TV movie or one of those old TV adventure serials with all episodes stuck together to make a film. The acting is pretty wooden really, the cast are mainly unknowns to me apart from Gooding but it is all pretty hokey to be honest.

Best thing about the film is obviously the action sequences focusing on lots of dogfighting (again kinda seems similar to 'Star Wars', even using the same quick fire dialog here and there! 'I can't see him!' 'I'm on your tail' etc...). The rest of the film is really a bit dull but the dogfighting is brilliant fun to watch.

The characters are terribly cliched and boring which in turn means you know what's gonna happen a mile off. Again...visually I can't fault it, looks terrific but the plot is your totally unoriginal underdog routine with characters we've all seen before. Good intentions for a lively historical epic but it falls short, a shame, but its still a fun action film. The finale with the playing of the American 'The Star-Spangled Banner' is also a tiny bit too much for me.

http://www.flixster.com/user/phubbs1 · Posted: Fri May 04, 2012 11:39 pm

Devil Dolls (2012)

What on earth was the point of this Mr Band!? I thought this was gonna be another dubious yet enjoyable killer puppet horror comedy yet it turns out to be a compilation of three of his older films!!

'Demonic Toys' 'Ragdoll' and 'Doll Graveyard' have all been cut down to short 30min stories which make no real sense now and mainly show the dolls killing. If you wanna make a compilation of kill sequences from your films fine but don't market it as a new film for chuffs sake!.

Complete waste of time and utter rip off Mr Band, for shame. What was the point anyway!? why watch this when you can watch the whole film properly, milking the shit out of your films is an understatement Mr Band.

Posted: Sun May 06, 2012 3:20 pm

Movieholics week 18/ April:

Watched these films during this week:
1. The deep blue sea, (2011), This movie is depressing. The movie is about love and with this love there is no happyness. This slow motion movie has people suffering in very sophisticated and civilized British way.

2. Kaydara, (2011), seven first minutes I was in hypnosis wondering what I was watching, from minutes 7-11 I think I was watching a “home made” matrix movie. And then I stopped. Even though movie would have lasted only 55 minutes, I could not bare it. Can not even give points since this just was not for me.. and I loved Matrix!!

3. Afghan Luke, (2011), first thanks to carcavella, I would not know about this movie if not read your comment here. Movie itself nothing new, except the beautiful filming locations. Story about Canadian war journalist wanting to make a true story about Afghan war and UN troops behaving in there. Movie 6 points but the locations, extra plus.

4. Bending the rules, (2012), nice comedy of a cop and prosecutor joining their forces against bad guys. In a leading role wrestling champion, this guy is a real dude with hawai shirt and short pants.. I bet we will see him in couple of other movies too in a future.

5. Brake (2012), secret service agent kidnapped and put to the box in a car trunk. This film happens in a box, couple of holes where you can see outside world. Guy can communicate with outside world via mobile phone and finds out that he has been taken by terrorists. Good 8/10 points.

Resting for a week now..

Posted: Mon May 07, 2012 3:02 am

Hi Hheidi!

Apocalypse now Redux (2001)
Although I've seen the original '79 version numerous times over the years I've just got around to the redux version. First thing that hits you are the visuals, it's been processed, saturated and sharpened and the sound remastered, this looks like it was made yesterday, just beautiful. There's an additional almost 50 mins of scenes involving a French plantation, Playgirls, and more on the boat so it now runs at about 3 hrs 16 mins and it stands up better then ever, simply epic.

Into Eternity (2010)
Documentary about the site in Finland being built to hold all the worlds nuclear waste. It's a mass of tunnels, shafts and vast underground structures it has to last 100,000 years. The movie is narrated by the director in a message to the future style with slow shots of the Finnish countryside, forests etc as well as the facility, it has quite a haunting creepy feel about it. Also interviews with the scientists, one of the main problems is how to warn civilizations thousands of years in the future not to dig the place up, fascinating.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1194612/

Micmacs (2009)
Surreal French comedy about a bunch of misfits plotting to blow up an arms factory. Best way to describe this is like a Wallace and Grommit movie but with real people, most of the humour is visual and totally whacky it's also a real dig at the arms industry, brilliantly done, very entertaining.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1149361/

Red Tails (2012)
Pretty much agree with everything in Hubbs review, I'm slightly less generous, even for comic book style the CGI is totally over animated so there's planes twirling and spinning like insects with no sense of mass or gravity, just looks like a video game or the intro for one. The sound is terrible, a plane flying right in front of the screen makes no more noise than a cheap lawnmower and machine guns virtually nothing at all. Throw in a non existent script, one dimensional characters and absolutely no sense of period and it's a movie about not much at all, certainly not WWII or the Tuskegee fighters, really bad. Having said that if you liked "Flyboys" you'll probably like this.

Melancholia (2011)
Is it a Sci-fi movie or about depression? or both. The study of two sisters and their friends as a new planet is on collision course with Earth. If it's the former it's from a viewpoint never seen before, downbeat and melancholy (no pun) there's some great imagery and visuals in there. It's one of those movies that you reflect on later to a greater extent than what you experience during viewing. A lot of people will find it boring, I didn't dislike it but I'm not sure if I liked it either, I just couldn't get it out of my head for a long time.

Posted: Mon May 07, 2012 11:45 am

The Rainmaker (1997) - About a young lawyer starting out who takes up a case against a cooked insurance company. Great cast in this including Voight (who is excellent!) Devito and Damon. Not quite up there with other court room thillers, but still a good watch. 6/10
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119978/

Cargo (2009) - A sci-fi/thriller about a crew who are woken from cryosleep on their ship when one of the crew on patrol starts to think that they are not alone on the ship. Thought it started out great but felt it was a bit slow going midway through, but i watched it through anyway and overall thought it was okay. 6/10
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0381940/

Pride and Glory (2008) - Good cast and decent story about crooked cops in the NYPD. Enjoyed this one. 7/10
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0482572/

Hackers Wanted (2009) - Brilliant documentary on hackers and IT security. I loved this, and didnt want to to end. Fascinating stuff.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2292707/