Paranormal Activity

I watched this film last week with my fiance.
It's rare for her to like a scary film, but she loved this one. And so did I.

It's filmed by a single portable camera, and is the story of a couple who are being terrorised by a poltergeist-like presence in their house. There are almost zero special effects, everything is filmed from a standard digital camera, as they record a diary of what has been happening to them. And i found it to be one of the most chilling and atmospheric films I've watched in ages.

I'd definitely recommend it to anyone.

And then, this morning, I read this: http://www.ananova.com/entertainment/story/sm_3543314.html

It turns out the entire film was made for less than £10,000. (That decimal point IS in the right place).
If you've seen the film, you'll be able to understand how they managed this, but it's now gone on to make £13.3 Million. That works out to 343,000 % profit. Making it the most profitable film of all time.

It doesn't seem like an 'indie' style film, it's very polished. If you haven't seen it, I'd definitely suggest you do, it's film making at it's best.

Harry Potter: And the Half Blood Prince

Can't really fault this one. The film is good, in the sense that the Godfather Part II was good.
It was interesting, and it answers some of the questions from previous films, it's got the nice special effects, the storyline isn't too bad at ll, the acting is first rate... But by the end of it, you can't help thinking "Was that it?".

People have been saying it's a 'filler' movie to connect the plot and start the ball rolling for the next and final part of the franchise. They're right.

It's worth seeing, it's good fun, but don't expect a masterpiece from this one.

7/10

Bruno

What can I say... Sacha Baron Cohen at his best.

You obviously can't help but compare it to Borat, but it's definitely in the same sort of league.

Whereas Borat showed up other peoples problems, by pretending to be an innocent and curious bystander, Bruno goes completely the opposite way, just to try and see how much people will really put up with.

It's like Borat, but nothing like Borat... If that makes any sense.

It's a short and sweet review because I don't want to give any of the good stuff away, and even if I tried, I don't think the written descriptions would do justice to the film.

It's unbelievable what some of those pushy parents will do for a bit of fame for their kids.

8.9/10

Street Fighter - The Legend of Chun Li

A lot of quite big stars in this one, but they were probably just looking for a pay-check.
It had the overall feeling of a sci-fi channel movie rather than a hollywood production, so I'm not suprised it never got a big-screen release.

If you're a fan of the street-fighter series, or even know anything at all about the history behind the characters, forget it. This bears no resemblance to any of it.

It has characters named Chun-Li, Balrogg, Bison, Vega etc... And Vega wears a mask and has claw-blades. That's it. If they'd simply not made this a street-fighter movie it probably would have done better.

It was the usual chop-socky-bollocks, which isn't always a bad thing, but it made a cheap movie even cheaper by trying to make itself out to be something it wasn't

The acting wasn't terrible, the kung-fu wasn't crouching tiger, but it wasn't laurel and hardy either, the storyline was predictable and obvious.

Overall 4/10

If you're a fan of bad movies, or chop-socky-bollocks, give it a go. If your a fan of street-fighter. Avoid like the plague.

Twilight

Vampires... You gotta love 'em.

Personally I'm a big fan of the whole Vampire genre, so was quite lookign forward to this one. Although expected it to be a bit teen-soppy from what I'd heard.
And it was.

Although it changes some of the rules on Vampires in potentially interesting ways, it never really pushes anything. And I got the feeling the film was really just a tester to see if this series will translate to the screen.

Essentially, it's just a love story, with a little Vampire action thrown in for good measure. It wasn't the worst film to watch, but I found myself playing WarCrack while watching it, and glancing at the screen occasionally, realising I hadn't missed much.

It's not a horrible film, but in my opinion it was like watching the longest intro to a film ever.
When the film finally got going it was all over within about 15 minutes. Maybe in the sequel they'll do away with all the explanation stuff and get more into the interesting angles of the series (I've never read the books by the way).

Overall 6.8/10

Not terrible, and the series has potential, but took too long to get going. I'd still suggest you watch it.

Knowing

Nicholas Cage playing his usual quirky sort of character runs around DaVinci style trying to unravel a mystery.

When I first saw the adverts for this at the cinema, I really fancied the film. It looked like a DaVinci code type (but not like the National Treasure ones he'd already done) and a bit darker and grittier.

The advert promised a special code that could predict the future, but if you did know what was going to happen, would you really want to, and what would you do about it?

Well this was one of those films where the ads are sort of misleading... which isn't always a bad thing, and this is one of those times.

Despite me assuming I knew what to expect, the film takes twists and turns which take it down a completely different path, and turn it into something completely different.

I don't want to give too much away, because half the fun was the unexpected.
By about half way through the film you'll have an idea what's coming, but it's still edgy enough to keep you watching.

Overall 8/10

Not a masterpiece, and not the 6th sense, but holds it's own.

Night at the Museum 2

Short and sweet post this time.

It was good. If you liked the first one, you'll like this one. If you didn't like the first one or have never seen it, avoid this like the plague, it's more of the same and assumes you know all about what's going on.

My son loved it, my fiance thought it was funny enough to keep her entertained for a couple of hours (which is something of an achievement in itself) and I laughed in all the places it expected me to.

Overall 7.5/10

It isn't earth shattering, but it's not meant to be.

Dragonball Evolution

I was very sceptical about watching this film, as I'd always loved the Dragonball-Z cartoons I used to watch on the Cartoon Network.

I always mean to get around to watching the other Dragonball series too, but never seem to manage it.

The first reaction is: Why is Goku caucasian? But to be honest, the more I thought about it, the more I got used to the idea. The anime style of the cartoons always portrays the characters with more western features anyway, and the guy who played Goku, seemed to get the feel of him just right. Mega powerful, kind hearted, but kind of geeky, and a bit of a joke, at the same time.



Overall the film was pretty much exactly what I expected. Its quirky, and unless you're familiar with the Dragonball franchise, it's probably all going to go way over your head, but I thought it was well worth watching and alot of fun.



Chow Yun Fat plays an excellent part, and suits his character very well. James Marsters suited the role of Piccolo very very well, but it's here that the films failings begin.



You know there's a bad guy named Picollo, you know he wants to destroy the earth, you're not sure why but 'hey it's a film' things like this happen every day. The only problem is that you rarely ever see Picollo. Even at the end of the film there's no real major fight scene between good and evil. Picollo is defeated before he even really gets a chance, and not even in any cool style.



With all the build-up to that point, I couldn't help feeling that it was all over just too quickly. The Osaru scenes were ok, but I'd always visualized the giant monkey as a 'Giant'. He got a bit bigger, but still...



Despite the last few paragraphs whinging about the films bad parts, I still enjoyed it, and hope they make more of the franchise. Bring back James Marsters as Piccolo, but give him a full role next time.



Overall: 6.5 out of 10

(Mindless Fun, but it's no masterpiece)



Smyth

Fast and Furious

I went to the cinema for this one, and was pleasantly suprised how good it was.

Don't get me wrong, it's not your epic, earth-shattering masterpiece, but as far as sequels go, this one was pretty good.

If you didn't like (or see) any of the previous movies, don't go and see this one. For a start, it will make no sense at all, and secondly it's pretty much the same sort of thing.

You can imagine the movie executives pitching this one: "Vin Diesel and Paul Walker drive cars really fast, and change gear a million times a minute, while people try to kill them..... again".

Definitely one for the Orange cinema adverts to take the mickey out of.

But that doesn't mean it's not good. The action is fast (and furious), and the characters are well known enough to be able to get away with doing things that, in any other film, you'd just think was ridiculous.

I couldn't help but get the feeling that this was really intended to be the 2nd in the series, rather than the 4th. As long as you've seen the first one, you haven't really missed much plot-wise.

And I'd swear that one of the characters in this was killed-off in the 3rd film (Tokyo Drift), so maybe it was intended to be before that, but it never really made that part clear.

Either way, if you like these kind of films, or are just in the mood for watching a couple of hours of fun, but barely believeable action. Then this film delivers.

But just how many gears does the average car have??

Score: 8.5/10

(Maybe a bit lower if you're not a fan of the series)

-- Smyth --

The Uninvited

This movie can be summed up in just a few words... Obvious, Boring, and non-scary.

On the face of this film, it appears to be a ghost story, but it's soon apparent that it's not at all.
The actors all played their roles pretty well, but the story just didn't seem that strong.
I think this was one of the re-makes of those Japanese horrors, and either it just didn't translate very well (which I don't think was the case) or it just wasn't very good to begin with.


If your other half is a bit of a scaredy-cat and likes to hide behind the cushions at scary movies, this would probably be a good compromise, but only when it comes out on DVD. Definitely not worth paying good money to go to the cinema for.

As with all films of this kind, there's always a plot twist or two, but I was screaming them at the TV before they even happened.
It's worth a watch if you're really bored, or get a hard-on for these types of re-makes. But in my opinion:

3.5/10
(Dreary)

-- Smyth --

Impact

This was one of those films that I downloaded because I had nothing else to watch at the time. but it was a pleasant suprise. And my Mrs actually quite enjoyed it... which automatically awards it an extra star.

Impact was actually a TV movie, but a pretty high standard one. The storyline was good enough to hold it's own, and put a decent twist on the usual "Oh my god, a giant Asteroid is about to hit the earth!".

You obviously can't help but compare this movie with others of the same kind. Things like Deep Impact, and Armageddon. Don't get me wrong, this isn't is good as they were, but had it been made with the same sort of budgets, I think it could have been.

The main star of the show is Natasha Henstridge (probably known to you as the sex-crazed alien from 'Species') and although she's a little older these days, and didn't show any sign of getting her kit-off, she played her part well.

The rest of the cast were people you'd probably recognise from other TV shows, or B movies, no one super-famous, or whose name springs instantly to mind, but they all played believable characters, and pulled the heart strings in the right places.

The special effects ranged from very good, to "was that supposed to look real" (if you watch this film, you'll know what I mean as soon as you see the underside of a cargo-ship). But overall it was a respectable effort.

A hollywood budget, and hollywood cast (and Armageddon and Deep impact never having been made) and this could have been a summer block-buster.

It wasn't... and it isn't but it still gets:

7.5 / 10
(Worth Watching)

-- Smyth --

The First Post

Well here's a second blog from the mind of Smyth.
I'm creating this blog because there's only so much crap someone can post about World of Warcraft, whereas there's always plenty of crap to write about films.

That, and the fact I want somewhere to perfect my blog layout and design without making a total mess of my main Munqui Blog.

So watch this space for posts and reviews on films.