Recently in Film Reviews Category

After all the stuff I wrote about the Watchmen film over the last few months, I guess it would only be sporting to report my eventual thoughts after seeing the nearly three hour bum-numb-er last week. But, as always, my thoughts can't simply be confined to a straight-forward review. The Watchmen movie, and recent comments from its writer, screams for a more detailed dissection of the cultural ideology of the superhero genre and can throw up some uncomfortable conclusions.

Every December, Hollywood unleashes the Christmas family films. Last year, it was Fred Claus, a desperately unfunny romp. Before that came Elf and the Santa Clause trilogy and Deck the Halls and a host of other completely forgettable films. All these  films drench the,selves in the same shallow paraphenalia of Christmas hokum, the Christmas village at the North Pole, the elves in the toy factory, every house festooned Griswald-fashion with fairy lights, schmaltzy family warmth and so on.

Script by Vincent Ngo and Vince Gilligan

I don’t think anyone was surprised that the new Will Smith vehicle, ‘Hancock’ smashed the $100 million barrier on its opening weekend in the States. This creates a new record for Smith, the first star to have eight consecutive openings gross over $100 million. But what will be more interesting will be to see how the public reacts after seeing the film.

We saw the film last night and we’re rather surprised at how unrepresentative the trailer turned out to be. The first half of the film contains all the humour (most of which was in the trailer) while the second half turns to much darker territory – threatening to become a standard superhero flick with barely a laugh in sight. Of course, I’m not going to give away the twist here that signals the complete change in tone, but it is there, is unexpected and I know my family felt we had seen a different film to what we expected.

We can all name the worst films currently in distribution, but why do we keep rewarding them with box office success?

“Meet the Spartans” topped the box office around the world, despite every review decrying it as a serious misuse of celluloid. British film critic Mark Kermode blasted the film with one of his most vitriolic rants after summing up his feelings by banging his head repeatedly against the desk. (Listen to the podcast. Everyone should subscribe. Now.) Although he didn’t apply to the film his famous catchcry that forms the title of this post, his inability to comprehend how it entered the UK box office at #1 deeply pained him.

Empire magazine gave it a woeful one star. IGN awarded the film only half the Empire score, continuing to say how they were “flabbergasted that a studio probably passed on making so many other more worthy projects instead”.

Review: Blade Runner - Script by Hampton Fancher & David Peoples

Considering how much of a box-office flop it was in 1982, it is incredible to see the buzz of excitement surrounding the 25th Anniversary special release of Blade Runner on DVD in a brand new 'Final Cut'.

Blade Runner is not the first flop to gain cult status on home video, yet the film is notable for many other reasons. Firstly, as an ongoing work-in-progress, the film has now reached its fifth version. George Lucas may have revisited his Star Wars films more than once, but even he would balk at the number of times an editor has started from scratch with Ridley Scott's piles of dystopian celluloid.