Humanoids From The Deep - Even evil fish-men need love, too

The title kind of explains everything you need to know about this film anyway. If you can't work out what the film is about and the quality of the movie, then you need to watch more films!

A small town gets more than they bargained for when someone does something or other (it doesn't really matter) that makes giant fish men come up from the depths and start trying to `get to know' the local female population. But don't worry... a plucky band of fish-fighting men are on hand to sort out these aquatic Casanovas.

The film has a real eighties feel about it - which is odd as it was made in 1996 - the same year as sci-fi blockbuster, Independence Day. It's hard to believe that two so radically different looking films can be made at the same time (although, Humanoids From the Deep is a little more believable when it comes to plot - no fish men were killed with the help of an Apple computer).

The first half of the film is played straight, however in the second half, the mood starts to change to something a bit more tongue-in-cheek (definitely how this movie should be taken, in my opinion). Yes, it's cheesy, yes, it's daft and yes, this film will never be up there with The Godfather and Shawshank Redemption. However, it is rather silly fun and if you're a fan of eighties horror movies with men in big rubber suits trying their hand at dating human females, then you might enjoy this - definitely one of those `guilty pleasure' films.

NB. Was it just me, or did anyone else think there were a few `Aliens' references in this film? I won't go on about them. It might just be my imagination.

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

Friday The 13th Part II - Probably should have been the first film

'Friday 13th – Part II’ is better than the original ‘Friday 13th’ film. And it isn’t. What it is, is EXACTLY the same film, just done again. If you were to put Friday 13th on one television and Part II on a TV next to it, you’d feel you were looking at the same film on both screens.

The first film was phenomenally popular, so the makers obviously decided not to stray too far from the original concept. Once again… you have a group of annoyingly attractive teenagers who go to a summer camp to pair off and have sex then get murdered (and not particularly gorily by today’s filmic standards). They get slaughtered one by one until you’re left with the only girl who hasn’t had sex. She is then stalked, while constantly screaming and running away from the killer until the traditional climax. Occasionally the ‘action’ is broken up by an ugly man wandering into the camp to try and warn the kids, only to also get murdered.

You really could just watch this film as ‘Part I’ as it’s technically better, even though it’s basically the same story. Plus the ‘reveal’ of the killer was more satisfying this time round.

I also couldn’t stop thinking of ‘Blackadder II’ when he puts a bag over someone’s head. Here, the killer also wears a bag (and is therefore about as scary as an episode of Blackadder).

The early Friday 13th films are more about ‘horror history’ now than genuine scares. You can watch them for nostalgia value and to see how horror used to be done. However, they’re filled with every cliché that the ‘post-modern’ horror films (such as ‘Scream’) make a living out of ridiculing. Enjoy them for what they were, not how they come across now.

Should really be 3/5 stars for its lack of originality, but 4 stars if you haven't seen the first one.

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

The Delta Force - Wonderful eighties action romp

The Delta Force is, if you didn't already know, an elite band of American soldiers who do everything from rescue hostages to perform excessive wheelies on motorbikes while pursuing planes on runways. So, when some nasty ol' terrorists take a plane-load of innocent civilians hostage, the government calls in Lee Marvin and Chuck Norris. The terrorists don't stand a chance.

The current trend in Hollywood film-making is serious, serious, serious. Franchises like The Bourne Identity, Nolan's Batman saga and post-Brosnan James Bond are dark and moody. Sure, they're great films, but are they fun? Do you really find yourself cheering and laughing as you watch? I didn't. But I sure did with the Delta Force.

There's no way the Delta Force can be taken totally seriously. The Delta Force are basically indestructible and the terrorists unable to hit anything with their hopelessly inadequate machine guns (think the Stormtroopers in Star Wars). Chuck Norris therefore guns, hits and generally blows up hundreds of bad guys without even ruffling his beard.

Yes, it's daft. Yes, it's unrealistic. And, yes, it's probably a bit dated and maybe even a little politically incorrect in its representations of certain `non-western' cultures. But, if you can put all that aside, it's also damn good fun. My one regret is that I watched it alone. It's the perfect movie to invite the guys round and have a few beers to.

Seriously, they don't make `em like they used to. Tragic.

8/10 The Force is definitely strong with this one

Cop Land - An okay film made great by its cast

When you have heavyweights Robert DeNiro and Harvey Keitel on board, you expect some pretty damn fine acting. And, of course, from those two (and Ray Liotta) you get it. Therefore, some might find it strange that these greats are sort of dotted around Sylvester Stallone - a man not known for his diverse range of acting talent.

Stallone plays a Sheriff, in charge of a (mainly) quiet town that's home to New York's cop population. After years of having an easy job, he slowly uncovers a whiff of corruption and has to investigate.

I'd use the phrase `slow burner' to describe Cop Land. With Stallone in the lead, some might be mistaken for thinking it's some sort of action movie. It's not. It's a slow police thriller - definitely an acquired taste. The story is nothing new or exceptional, but, as I've already said, it has DeNiro and Keitel backing Stallone up - something that can't be overlooked.

Therefore, if you remade this film minus the A-list cast, you'd probably have a turkey on your hands. The cast definitely elevate it over other similar stories.

And fair play to Stallone who, despite mumbling throughout most of the movie (you know - how he does), he did at least shed a lot of his trademark muscle in favour of piling on the flab to look more `out of shape' for his role as a Sheriff who's just going through the motions of law enforcement in a town where - technically - no one is the baddie.

If you like cop movies, you'll probably get some enjoyment out of this. However, I can see some people labelling it as a bit slow for their liking.  

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

Black Rock - A student film with a star in it

Why is Kate Bosworth in this film? Does the writer have embarrassing pictures of her that he threatened to make public? I know she isn't the biggest of Hollywood starlets, but she's about a million times better than the dross you have here.

Three women who absolutely despise each other go on another camping trip to a secluded island. In a rare moment when they are screaming abuse at each other, they meet three soldiers who are there for the hunting. One woman gets drunk and seduces a soldier, only to change her mind half way through the `act.' He gets cross, so she kills him, meaning the remaining two soldiers decide to hunt down and murder the remaining three girls.

So, can three women survive and overpower two well-trained soldiers with guns? I'll give you a clue: this is a movie. Take a guess.

Whereas the soldiers have their military training to fall back on, the women just sit in bushes before trying to sneak about the place while shouting loudly. Then, when they get in the water, they decide just to splash a lot rather than swim.

I can't think of many films like this. There are only six cast-members and you might think that what the producers save on cast wages they could put towards a decent story or effects. However, this has neither. It comes across as something a poor film student would make. The `fight scenes' look like that sketch in Monty Python where six old ladies mud wrestle. Seriously, it's that bad.

If you want hunting in the jungle, there's a little-known film called `Predator' starring one Arnold Schwarzenegger. Check it out if you haven't seen it. If you have, just watch it again - it's in a different universe of film-making to this.

Kate, why?

3/10 Jabba the Hutt wipes himself down with this film

The Apparition - Horror by the numbers

It's been about two hours since I watched `The Apparition' and I'm severely struggling to remember what it was about. Ghosts, I seen to remember. There are ghosts. They haunt a young couple. Spooky stuff happens. Only it doesn't - not really. There isn't enough spooky stuff here to fill a trailer for a children's Halloween fair, let alone an hour and twenty minutes of a full length feature film.

Apparently, if you find out about this history of the film, you'll learn that it was made and then sat on the studio's shelf for a couple of years before it was released. That says it all really - even the studio seemed to know it was a bit of a turkey and didn't know when the best time to try and make their money back was.

Ashley Greene of Twilight fame does her best in the lead, but the script is just too tired and weak to offer anything you haven't seen before. If you've ever seen a horror film made post the U.S. version of `The Ring,' then you have effectively seen this film - only better. In fact, if you have ever seen a horror film then you should just watch it again, rather than waste your time with this one.

It's not awful (despite the clichéd dialogue from the equally-cliched British nerd), but it's just simply nothing new enough to be memorable and worth any horror fan's time.

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

X-men 2 (X2) - X-tremely good sequel

I was never that much of a fan of the original X-men movie, not that I’m a die-hard comic book fan of the source material; I just thought it could have been better.  Luckily, X-men 2 (or ‘X2’ as it’s sometimes known) is that rarest of breeds – a sequel that actually surpasses its predecessor.

For the few of you that don’t know, the X-men are a bunch of superheroes (or ‘mutants’ as is the term here), naturally each having his or her own superpower.  And, whereas the nice of our mutated friends hang out at ‘Professor X’s’ ‘school for the gifted,’ those less keen on helping mankind are part of Magneto’s ‘Brotherhood.’ Naturally, the two groups have a tendency to square off from time to time and anyone like me, i.e. not a superpower to my name, does tend to get caught in the middle.

Therefore the President of America isn’t too keen on his voters being fried to a crisp with some sort of mutant ‘mind-ray’ and enlists the help of one slightly psychotic general (Stryker) to come up with a plan to get rid of all mutants – good or bad.  This, in turn, means that the X-men have to team up with the Brotherhood in order to save their collective skins.  So, you have a nicely uneasy alliance formed (which you basically know won’t last, but it’s still fun to watch).

And it’s generally a great adventure to watch.  If you’re generally into superhero movies then you’ve probably seen the ‘Marvel’ films.  It’s worth noting that X-men does have a flavour of its own and, despite being taken from the same comic universe, feels different enough to make it stand out in its own right.  Its tone is overall darker than the films of Iron Man, Thor and Captain America, but, unlike Marvel’s heroes, the X-men has to concentrate on more characters at once.

It’s an ‘ensemble’ cast, with many famous faces playing the leads.  Therefore not all the X-men really get as much screen time as the probably deserve.  Yes, there are a few ‘lesser’ mutants who don’t really matter, but equally most of the cast would probably be able to carry an entire film of their own (not just Wolverine, the fans’ favourite who spawned an entire franchise of his own).  Yes, (the many) fans of Wolverine will be happiest, as he’s clearly the star, but Sir Ian McKellen gets a decent crack of the whip as the leader of the Brotherhood.

One misfire was ‘Nightcrawler.’ I do actually remember him from the comics as a creepy-looking good guy who basically looked like a monster/vampire.  I always pictured him a dark and hulking presence, brooding silently and basically playing the part of the anti-hero.  However, he’s sort of more the ‘comic relief’ of the film, always jabbering on like a blue-faced Jar Jar Binks.  Luckily, like many of the lesser mutants, he’s not in it that much, but he could have been so much cooler than he is (my opinion!).

So, all in all, if you like your superhero movies and enjoy them with a darker flavour than your average Marvel epic, give this one a go.  If you’re well into your X-men comics, it might be worth checking the cast list to see how much your favourite character is in it – even a big film like X2 can’t cater for every mutant!

9/10 almost as perfect as The Godfather