I Against I - A generally jumbled mess

I know that not every British gangster flick should be measured against Guy Ritchie's work. And, to be fait, I Against I is nothing like Ritchie's work - in other words it's pretty awful. Whereas as Ritchie can make a complex narrative with numerous characters come together and let the viewer easily make sense out of it, I Against I just seems to want to play around with the narrative structure for the sake of it

Basically, it's a jumbled mess. Again, the far superior Pulp Fiction moved beginning to end and vice versa and got away with it. Some films can do that. This one can't. Scenes seem to happen in random order, making it increasingly hard for the viewer to follow what's happening.

Then there's the characters - who cares about them? They're not particularly likeable and the fact that the story's told out of order makes it hard to keep track of them.

A low budget British gangster film without any major names attached to it was always going to be hard work. And indeed it was.

2/10 Scuzzier than the leftover goo from a Queen alien's egg sack

Needful Things - Good idea, slowly executed

Ah, Stephen King's book-to-film adaptations have a mixed rate of success when they transfer to the big screen (and when I say 'mixed' I mean bad!).  He always seems to come up with very interesting concepts that just don't seem to work well visually.  And - sadly - here isn't that much of an exception to this rule. 'Needful Things' isn't a bad film.  I kind of enjoyed it, but I just couldn't help but think that the idea could have been expanded and made even more terrifying than it was.

A mysterious stranger (the ever-charming and totally evil Max von Sydow) comes to a small American town (and if you've seen any Stephen King story on screen then you'll know the setting well!) and sets up a shop called - you guessed it - 'Needful Things.' From there he seems to have 'that one thing' that everyone wants.  However, like every good businessman, he knows the perfect 'price' for each sale - and most times 'payment' doesn't come in terms of a 'dollar value' - it comes with doing something nasty to another member of the community.

So ,I'm guessing what 'Needful Things' is about deep down is exploring the human desire for consumerism and exactly how far we'll go to possess something that we attribute value to.  This theme I do find fascinating and reckon that it's definitely worthy of having an intricate tale woven around it, especially turning it into a supernatural affair.  However, even though the film runs for a longer-than-most two hours, it never really seems capable of getting to grips with the themes it's trying to explore.  Because we can't dwell for hours of screen time on every resident of the town, we only get a snapshot of what's going on and the chaos von Sydow's character causes in the community.

Ed Harris is the Sheriff who begins to realise that this shop is a little more than it seems, but - despite technically being the hero - he seems to disappear for large chunks of the movie.  I understand that the effects of the antagonist have to be show on the general population, plus von Sydow himself needs time to shine (and he does!) as the villain.  However, it just feels a bit all over the place from time to time.  Plus, Ed Harris doesn't really expand his acting range in this film - he just seems to be playing the same Ed Harris he's played in pretty much every other film he's been in (just minus the VX gas rockets - if you've seen 'The Rock').

It does pick up quite a bit at the end and there are plenty of gruesome moments in to enjoy.  However, in this day and age of online TV shows, I couldn't help but feel that this whole story would have been better as a ten-part series that allows the audience to get to know the various townsfolk and see what makes them tick.  That way when they start to get exploited we can understand why they'd go to these lengths just for X, Y or Z.  However, I know I'm coming across as if I didn't enjoy it, but I did find the idea strong enough to keep me entertained.  Plus I've already mentioned that von Sydow's performance alone makes it an enjoyable ride.  Plus, as I also said, the final act is pretty intense and there are a few grisly shocks and surprises along the way.  Overall, a nice try, but probably could do with an expanded remake on TV.

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that

Red Dawn - No one puts 80s American teens in a corner

I'm one of those rare people who actually never saw 'Red Dawn' in its heyday during the eighties (instead, finding myself watching the recent remake - which isn't as bad as it could have been!).  I found it on an online streaming service and was actually really impressed with what I got.  In case you don't know, those dastardly communist countries around the world conspire to get together and invade the USA - yes, seriously.  And, the only ones able to stop them - well 'hinder them' - are a rag-tag band of teenagers, including Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen.

I heard someone describe 'Red Dawn' as an 'action version of 'The Breakfast Club' and I can sort of see where they're coming from.  However, whereas 'The Breakfast Club' does feel a little bit dated now, 'Red dawn' still holds up (I guess they only made the remake to update the baddies, who became North Korean?).  If, like me, you're a big fan of good ol' fashioned 'overblown' eighties action movies, then you should enjoy this.  I have to say that I expected something more in line with 'The Breakfast Club,' i.e. a story that focused more on the teenage relationships between the protagonists, whereas I actually got a pretty damn good war film.

During the initial invasion of small American town, a school class manages to escape the carnage and hide out in the mountains where they band together to form a 'resistance' movement to thwart the invading forces throughout the occupation of North America.  Of course Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen are the main two teens (if you can believe either were ever once teenage!) and they do a great job.  Lea Thompson is about the only other face you're probably familiar of (but I must confess to only knowing it was her when I saw her name in the end credits!).  But all the youngsters play their parts well and you can actually believe that they're tough enough to form some form of counter-force to the heavily-armed oppressors.

But - for me - what really made the film enjoyable was its realism.  Okay, so if you can suspend your disbelief long enough to accept that the US has partially fallen to an invading force then you can settle in to the story of the hard life a resistance movement must face in their struggle.  The action scenes are pretty impressive (especially for the time!).  There's no CGI here, so all explosions are for real and the helicopter and tank battles are particular memorable.
There are a couple of plot points (especially at the end) regarding character decisions that will leave you wanting to hurl the TV remote at the screen (involving someone wanting to 'perform' a witty quip before killing his hated oppressor, thus giving the bad guy ample time to return fire). 

Anyway, those are minor points.  All in all, 'Red Dawn' actually does a good job portraying hardships that people would suffer if this situation ever came to be.  And, throw in the star-power of Swayze and Sheen and the excellent action scenes and you have a war/action movie that stands the tests of time.

8/10 The Force is definitely strong with this one

Jackie Brown - Waited fifteen years for a second viewing

I first watched Jackie Brown when it came out in the cinema back in 1997. And, like so many people at the time, I was unimpressed. I fell into that large group of people who felt it wasn't up to the violent/gory standards of Reservoir Dogs or the cleverly made-up standards of Pulp Fiction.
Now, fifteen years later, I decided to watch it again and see if my opinion has changed. Now I'm not so blown away with the great Pulp Fiction, I thought I might be less biased.

Sadly, my opinion hasn't changed that much.

This time I was able to look at it as a stand-alone film, not just `Pulp Fiction 2,' yet, unfortunately, I still found it sub-standard.

It's two and a half hours long. And, for quite a lot of time, it really feels like it. Samuel L Jackson plays a similar (if not as cool/likeable) character as his one in Pulp Fiction and does his best to carry the show. Robert DeNiro is obviously a great actor of the modern age, yet he doesn't seem to come alive at all. He mainly sits on the sofa looking like someone who's come on his own to a nightclub and doesn't know whether he should leave or not. (despite participating in the film's really only shocking and unexpected moment of the film). Plus the film's titular character, Pam Grier, is as good as she can be and Bridget Fonda makes good eye candy for the lads!

The major gripe I have with the film is its constant use of over-wordy dialogue for scenes. Yes, we get to know the characters well through how they interact with each other, but it's just too much. Each scene is dragged out for longer than it feels like it needs to be.

Sometimes films are re-released as a `director's cut' with added material. Jackie Brown is one film I'd like to see a director's cut of which has been trimmed down to a shorter run-time.

Jackie Brown is not Pulp Fiction. It doesn't try to be. It does win points for staking a claim to being a film in its own right. However, the fact remains is that it just isn't as good as anything Quentin Tarrantino has done before it, or since.

I'm glad I gave it a second viewing. Even though now I doubt I'll ever watch it again (even in another fifteen years time), I didn't feel like I'd completely wasted the two and a half hours of my life. I just felt that there are better gangster-style films of the genre than this, despite its impressive ensemble cast.

6/10 May just keep you awake if Freddy Krueger was haunting your nights

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets – The Fifth Element’s distant cousin

‘Star Wars, Star Trek, Valerian.’ Spot the odd one out.  Well, apparently, all THREE are major players in the sci-fi world.  The problem is that only one of them is a major comic in France ONLY (and that’s ‘Valerian’ in case you wondered!).  Therefore, there weren’t that many people getting particularly excited when it was announced that it would be coming to the big screen, courtesy of visionary directly, Luc Besson.  Therefore, the only real piece of trivia to help promote its launch was ‘The most expensive French film ever made’ hardly set the pre-ticket sales at the Box Office alight.  And, subsequently, it didn’t really live up to its full potential.

Luc Besson was also the writer/director behind ‘The Fifth Element’ – a sci-fi film with a decent budget that only really did ‘okay-ish’ at the Box Office, before truly finding its place in cinema history throughout the years after its release.  It did a lot better on the small screen and eventually became quite a (profitable!) cult hit, now regarded as one of the best sci-fi films of the nineties.  I’m not saying that ‘Valerian’ is quite up there with ‘The Fifth Element,’ but I certainly enjoyed it more than its disappointing Box Office takings suggested.

First of all, the wonderfully-haunting song (‘Space Oddity’ by David Bowie) plays over a montage of shots showing humanity building a space station around Earth which went on to become a beacon of intergalactic trade for numerous species and, eventually, got so big that it had to be released into the cosmos forever.  Skip forward a few hundred years and we meet our two young peace-keepers-of-the-future, Major Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Sergeant Laureline (Cara Delevingne) who are generally charged with the task of saving a peaceful race from ultimate destruction.  I won’t go into too much detail regarding the plot because it is pretty standard and there’s nothing really new there that hasn’t been done before.

What follows are just over two hours of beautiful, colouring settings which really do put the ‘Star Wars’ films to shame in terms of detail and imagination.  Of course much of the scenery and aliens are computer-generated, but it’s not as jarring as it could be and, once you get used to it, you really do feel these weird and wonderful creatures and places are there.  Plus there’s plenty of great futuristic tech on display to go with the –inevitable – action-related set-pieces – my personal favourite being a market in another dimension that you can only see wearing special glasses (it’s also a tourist hot-spot of the future!).

So, ‘Valerian’ does a lot right.  However, what may go some way to let it down is ‘Valerian’ himself, i.e. Dane DeHaan.  I’ve seen him in other films and he’s a good actor, sadly here he just doesn’t seem to cut it as a believable action hero/leading man.  I don’t know whether he just struggled acting against so much CGI, but all I could focus on was having the saviour of the galaxy and the bags under his eyes!  I know some people slate Cara for her acting ability, but I found her far more believable as a ‘space cop’ and almost wished she was the sole hero the film was based on.  The plot also wanders here and there and you feel like there are a few ‘sub-plots’ which don’t really go anywhere and probably could have been removed.

However, the film overall was great fun and if you’re looking for a beautiful space opera with plenty of neat tricks and action, you’ll get what you’re looking for here.  Hopefully, like Earth’s long-lost space station itself, this will eventually find its place in the universe.  Guess we’ll probably never get the sequel that could have been based on its comic-roots.

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that

6 plots (and yet very little plot)

Australia does its best to mimic the slasher/Saw genre with this mishmash of different horror ideas.
Six of the most obnoxious teenagers in the country get abducted and locked in boxes. Sadly, their friend (who is named after a type of cheese, I believe) has to rescue them. By this point I was kind of hoping she'd just go home to bed and the film would end there and then.

Somewhere among the film is the spark of something quite good, but never really utilised to its full potential. The film exploits modern technology, i.e. Bluetooth, iphones, web-streaming, wifi and then generally shows how they can be perverted into tools for the gross satisfaction of others.

It's all not a bad idea, it's just most people won't really care about the `victims,' plus it requires quite a few leaps of faith to believe that the police force of Australia consists of more than one rough-and-ready officer, plus his overweight call centre operator and deputy (who throws up at the first sign of anything vaguely creepy).

It's a nice try, but ultimately a missed opportunity. It leaves you thinking that all teenagers who get their kicks out of breaking into other peoples houses and filming their parties to show off to their peers deserve to be locked in boxes and burnt to death.

4/10 You can watch this film while you're doing the ironing (you'll still get the general gist of it)

Zombie Hunter - Calling it a `B-movie' would be generous

Okay, so we have a film called `Zombie Hunter' and it stars renown B-movie actor Danny Trejo. So... what are we expecting? I'm guessing that most of us know it won't be Shakespeare and would settle for some silly, over the top, zombie-bashing fun. Right?

I wish. Sadly, right from the start we're treated to possibly the most corny monologue from the film's leading man (who isn't Danny Trejo, incidentally). And, worst of all, this guy who seems to be doing his best impression of Christian Bale in the Dark Knight trilogy, keeps jabbering on all the way through the movie. Seriously, his monologues are so bad, you'd think they were funny - perhaps a way of making sure we didn't take this film seriously. However, they're just not amusing enough to be funny. There is no humour in this film.

If you have a B-movie with no stars and little budget, you don't expect it to try and compete with Hollywood's A-list efforts. You expect the film to play to its strength. However, this doesn't. It's not funny and, if it thinks it is then I simply missed every last `joke' in there.

You won't care about any of the characters. Every last one is a walking-talking cliché who you'll know whether they're destined to live or die from the first moment you see them.

Yes, the `zombie kills' are nice. They're filmed in slow motion and have a decent about of blood (albeit purple blood for some reason). However, zombies have been at the forefront of film-making since the first Resident Evil film. By now a film has to have more than just a bit of stylish direction when an undead creature is killed.

If you're looking for a cheesy zombie film to simply entertain you then look elsewhere. Or just stick to Shaun of the Dead. That's funny, gory and has characters you'll actually care about.

4/10 You can watch this film while you're doing the ironing (you'll still get the general gist of it)