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Lawless (2012)
Frustrating, had real potential but ends up failing hard
This could have been such a great film, but a combination of factors made it fall over.The prohibition era is well trodden in film but as far as I can recall I've never seen this aspect of it explored. Then you've got Tom Hardy, Guy Pearce, Gary Oldman, arguably three of the best actors around. This should have added up to a winning combo, at the very least better than average.
Instead we get an uneven mess of storytelling, some terrible dialogue, uneven pacing and way, way WAY too much Shia. Oh my gosh that guy sucks and it felt like he was in every scene.
Tom Hardy has a tendency to a mumbling, grunting acting style, which a lot of people don't like, but personally I love the guy and found myself eagerly waiting for more of his scenes. Instead we get Shia, Shia, and more Shia. While Tom gets to lurk in t he background fobbed off with a tacked on love story. What were they thinking?
There are some flashes of brilliance. The throat cutting scene. Guy Pearce's compelling presence. The fabulously haunting church music (in a scene once again ruined by Shia) which make this experience all the more frustrating. It could have been so good.
It (2017)
Some good points but ultimately disappointing
I was full of excitement sitting down in the theatre, my cinema trips are rare these days, and as a fan of the book and a member of the generation terrified by Tim Curry's Pennywise in 1990 I SO MUCH wanted this to be good.
The opening scene is very strong. Georgie is out playing on a flooded rain-swept street, then his paper boat is swept into a storm drain. peering down the drain, the face of a clown appears, who introduces himself as PennyWise, the dancing clown. The clown jokes and joshes with Georgie, talking about circuses, and popcorn, they giggle together, then suddenly, the clown falls silent, his face goes slack, and he just stares..... It was a truly chilling moment, and I was thinking "Yes! They've nailed it, this is going to be great"
Opening titles roll, and we get introduced to the other kids in the next few scenes. I was pleased to see that all the kids in the losers club, with the exception of Mike, were very capable actors with real screen presence. Bev, and Eddie have real star quality, Henry Bowers is suitably hate-able. So far so good!
And then, and then.....something went wrong, and the slow deflation and disappointment began to set in. I can't say this film was bad, it wasn't bad, but there was simply nothing new here for me that I hadn't seen in fifty other horror movies, Pennywise just became another bouncy vibrating CGI monster, with no more menace or substance than a video game character. In the first few encounters with the kids and IT, you quickly realise that we're back to very familiar ground, a series of suspenseful build ups to noisy jump scares which get just a little bit less effective every time. All this leads up to a final encounter which, although interesting, was unsatisfying, and most definitely not scary.
As other reviewers on here have pointed out, this is a perfectly decent movie for young viewers who have not had the chance to become desensitized to the well worn tropes of the genre. Sadly, despite that early promise, there's nothing special, new or innovative going on here. Such a shame.
Taboo (2017)
I have a use for you...
Essentially your enjoyment of this series will come down to how you feel about Tom Hardy's portrayal of James Delaney. If you dig it, you'll love this series and forgive its bad points. If he leaves you cold, this probably isn't for you.
Personally I thought he was fantastic, an unforgettable character. James Delaney is menacing, feral, taciturn and completely unscrupulous. At times barely holding onto sanity, completely fearless and seemingly inhuman. But also strangely graceful, gentle and incredibly smart.
That's not to say there weren't some other great performances, the cast was a real treat, too many to name in this short review, but a lot of the other characters didn't have much to do, and paled in comparison to Hardy's intensity.
The depiction of the Georgian period in an urban setting is technically brilliant, a huge achievement, and a real change from all the Victorian era stuff you usually get.
The plot is of the "slow burn" variety and the pacing was a bit uneven, you'd get a barnstorming, riveting episode, followed by what felt like filler and too much exposition, I found some of the plot points a bit predictable and formulaic, you get the sense that it needed a bit of a rewrite and maybe reducing down to 6 Episodes.
I think most viewers would admit that Taboo has it's weaknesses, but for me, Tom Hardy put so much power into the lead role that he lifted it into something unforgettable. I REALLY hope the second series isn't terrible.
T2 Trainspotting (2017)
A muddled kind of movie, flashes of inspiration but generally not great
We went along to a late night showing of T2 for my girlfriends birthday, we're both in our middle thirties and the original movie was huge when we were teenagers, it was THE one to watch and whenever there was a gathering of mates we would end up putting the video on. I must have seen it a dozen times at least.
The original was reshown on UK TV a few weeks back and after not watching it for years I was surprised at how well it still stands up, simply a fantastic film in so many ways. So we were pretty excited about the sequel.
You know that feeling when you sit down to watch a film and after 15 minutes or so you get a sinking feeling of "uh", and there's this instant transition from excited expectation to "how long before this finishes before I can move on with my life?" It wasn't BAD, there were definitely some inspired scenes, the 1690 bit was brilliant, Spud with the bag on his head, but there simply wasn't enough to hold it together. Some of the dialogue was poor, and the interaction between the female lead and the rest of them was leaden and clunky. I'm not sure if it was her acting skills or the script she was working with.
Begbie could have saved this film, and his opening scenes were very promising, but at some point he just fell flat, again, a lot of this down to the scripting. He simply wasn't scary any more.
Ewan Bremner as Spud, however, shines in this film and I hope this gives his career a resurgence.
My overall feeling was one of disappointment, everything seemed flat, forced and a bit second rate. I have the feeling this might be one of those films that gets better on the second watch, but I think, in general T2 misses the mark by a long way.
Orange Is the New Black (2013)
Erratic and overrated but oddly compelling in an annoying way
The first two or three eps were top drawer. Funny, sharp and fresh. A very strong start. I was impressed. I really was. Pretty soon though it became apparent that all was not well with this series. The lead character, Piper became very grating and I entirely stopped rooting for her halfway through season 1. An incredibly self absorbed person who lurches from one bad decision to another. Adeptly performing mental gymnastics to justify her shoddy treatment of other people. She is someone you'd avoid like the plague in real life. So, the lead character is infuriating and we don't care about her. Not a good sign. But hey, lots of other interesting characters right? Well, yes, but there's something about the writing that made me very quickly despise them all. I can't think of a single one that I actually liked, identified with, or cared about. All the way through both seasons, I found that the show really seemed to suffer from an identity crisis. It would jump from a rather tedious and banal storyline about the minutia of prison life to someone getting a vicious beating, back to the banality, then onto a lesbian scene, then we get a flashback, then we get a comedy routine. It's all rather jarring and left me feeling a bit unsettled and annoyed. I was hoping it would smooth out a little in season 2 but it didn't, really. I could list many, many more bad points of this show but I'm running out of space. The strange thing is, I couldn't stop watching it. I would binge watch 3 or 4 eps in an evening and I would catch myself thinking about it at work and be eager to get home to watch another one. It's like I enjoy hating it! Very strange.
Frozen (2013)
Number 1 at U.K box office for weeks and weeks. WHY?
Admittedly I'm not exactly the target audience for this movie but I'm utterly mystified as to why Frozen is such a big hit. The plot is dire, full of clichés, boring and predictable. Apart from the ice palace scene, which was admittedly pretty cool, the animation is unremarkable. The endless songs are uninspired and grating. It's just so obnoxiously Disney, everything about it, the gurning animals, the sickly sentimentality, the songs, everything. For some reason the writers have gone back in time to the stuff they were putting out in the 80's and early 90s. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed films like Beauty and The Beast, Hercules, Lion King, Aladdin and so on, but that was over two decades ago. Besides, nobody else was putting out big budget animated movies anyway and we didn't have anything to compare them to. There is absolutely nothing original or groundbreaking about this movie. In an era of films like UP, Wall-E, Toy Story, this kind of output is baffling to me. Remember when Shrek came out and brilliantly mocked the fairytale, twee, sickly sentiment of Disney? It's like things have come full circle. And people seem to absolutely love it! It's very puzzling to me, what am I missing?
True Detective (2014)
Eps 2-5, sublime genius, maybe peaked too early
I'm not normally a fan of procedural cop drama but there was so much buzz around this one I had to take a look. The first episode took a bit of effort for me and it was episode two that really pulled me in. Episode 2 to 5 are for me, the best TV I have ever seen. Maybe my expectations were riding too high after the stunning climax of episode four, where Rusty takes part in the stash house robbery. It was just an absolutely amazing, riveting, thrilling drama of the highest caliber. Episodes 6,7 and 8. I don't know, it was still great, kept me interested, and had a few really special moments but it just wasn't quite as powerful.
I've given it an eight for the stunning early episodes but I have to be honest and say the conclusion was a bit of a let down.
Grosse Pointe Blank (1997)
Funny, cool '90s movie with a fantastic fight scene
A sharp and witty romantic comedy with some really excellent dialogue. I'm not normally a big fan of Cusack but he is perfect in the role of Martin Blank. Minnie Driver looks beautiful and does a great job. Some uneven parts, the ending isn't amazing. My favourite part was the fight at the reunion dance, it's just brilliantly executed, one of the most exciting fights I've seen committed to film. Maybe it's because you actually see John Cusack throwing high kicks and not some stuntman filmed from behind, there is a very authentic feel to it. Martin Blank is wandering through the corridors of his high school, he's just shared a kiss with Driver, he comes across his old locker, jimmies it open and finds a ten year old spliff he stashed there. He smiles and crumbles the flaky joint, dreamy with nostalgia and the possibilities of life, happier than he's been in years. A hit-man steps around the corner, Blank's reaction is instantaneous, instinctive, he gets in the first blow before the enemy has even raised his gun and in the blink of an eye the two killers are fighting to the death. It's just an outstanding scene.
The Keep (1983)
Absolutely terrible
I was doing my usual trawl of late night films to record on my Sky Plus and came across "The Keep" Michael Mann directing, Jurgen Prochnow, one of my favourite actors, Gabriel Byrne, Ian Mckellen. Nazis unleash an ancient evil Nice! I'll give this a go. So I hit the red button. Two days later I sat down and put it on. What unfolded was the worst piece of crap I have ever had the misfortune to sit through. This movie is to be avoided at all costs, it is a stupid, poorly directed, poorly acted, poorly scored pretentious piece of crap. The opening 5 or 10 minute is good, with some striking cinematography and an unsettling atmosphere, after that, things go downhill FAST. I could list the features of "The Keep" that make it so awful, but other reviewers have done so with more flair and eloquence. All I'll say is this is a wretched piece of crap that has no saving graces and deserves to disappear into obscurity forever. AVOID.
The Grifters (1990)
Above average, kind of flat, meh
An above average film noir but strangely flat and unengaging. All the ingredients are there for a really great movie but it never quite hits the mark. John Cusack is alright but not amazing, Annette Benning is frankly irritating, Angelica Huston is very good, given the dialogue she had to work with.
The story beats aren't very well executed, especially the ending and the dialogue is sketchy in places. Worth a watch for fans of the genre but I wouldn't watch it again. The film simply isn't much fun or particularly stimulating to watch.
I'm a little mystified as to why it got 90% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Oz the Great and Powerful (2013)
An average film ruined by Franco and Kunis
I'll keep this short.
The movie was pretty average and the casting of Mila Kunis and James Franco was the nail in the coffin.
Mila Kunis is just plain bad, wooden and awful in the role of Dizzydora or whatever. One of the worst performances I've seen. Really shockingly bad.
Every time she opened her mouth I couldn't stop thinking "Shut up Meg".
James Franco, as other reviewers have said, comes across as an unsympathetic, slightly creepy Oz. His performance is uneven to say the least. Over the top in some places, half asleep in others.
Franco's "likeable conman" Oscar Diggs, entirely misses the mark, you won't hate him, but you won't give a crap what happens to him.
The dialogue isn't strong, some of the visual effects are a bit dodgy and there are flaws in the direction. A strong performance from the leads could have easily saved this movie. Sadly, the terrible casting decisions rendered this film pretty much unwatchable for me.