abrondz Reviews

Hot Fuzz (2007)

Great action with a story. Sort of.

[1 April 2010]

This film started off slowly with some dry humor and fancy cutting effects which made it look fast and to the point.

Nicholas Angel is a top cop with the London met police. In fact, he's so good, that the met has to find him a new job so it doesn't appear as if he's running the force (guidelines apparently require everyone to use "police service" instead) alone. That they do, and suddenly Angel finds himself in a small village full of "accidents" and not a single "crime".

The story evolves in a mind-boggling way. Without revealing too much detail, the village is obviously not what Angel expected, and his calm, pacifist ways are pushed to the limit. It's safe to say that Angel is not the same guy he was before he came to the village.

This film just proves that it's possible to make something truly enjoyable out of a simple gallery of characters, none of which are particularly deep, most of them are just stereotypes.

Still, I enjoyed this film and I'd definitely recommend it.

1408 (2007)

Good, but could be better

[7 February 2010]

1408 is the story about a writer, Mike Enslin, who travels around the country and stays at every haunted hotel and inn he can find, just to prove they're all hoaxes. His books aren't that popular, but his publisher has faith in him and urges him to go on.

For his last visit in the book, Mike goes to the Dolphin Hotel in New York upon receiving a post card about room 1408 which doesn't sound like any other. When he arrives in New York, he's urged by the hotel's manager, Gerald Olin, not to stay in room 1408. Mike ignores the advice and stays.

What follows next is a psychological thriller where Mike's past is revealed, piece by piece. It begins quietly, but quickly spirals out of Mike's control and he finds himself trapped in his own subconsciousness. No matter what he does, things only get worse, and as the audience learn the real truth behind Mike Enslin, Mike himself completely loses his mind to a point where he's no longer able to distinguish reality from imagination.

I liked the idea of the room being a journey through Mike's personality. The way the story is revealed lets the audience learn piece by piece how he came to travel around the country looking for ghosts. The paranoia in the film is very credible, and the horror only adds to it. It's definitely one of the horror films which has a deeper story under it.

Even though the story is solid, I believe it progressed too fast, especially after Mike came into room 1408. The fact that it took a man who's visited nearly every haunted hotel room in the country a mere ten minutes or so to get that affected by room 1408 only proves that he himself is a hoax.

All in all, this is a true horror film with a story and character development. I'd recommend it to anyone who's not afraid of spooky hotel rooms.

V for Vendetta (2005)

"1984" gone mainstream

[29 October 2009]

While watching V for Vendetta recently, I couldn't help getting a distinct feeling I'd seen something very similar before. And I had, it was a few months earlier and it was called 1984.

1984 isn't as easy to grasp as V for Vendetta. You need to go into the plot to understand what's going on. V for Vendetta makes that a whole lot easier by adding a villain which anyone can get to know and a main character who goes from being conformist to oppositional through the course of the film. In addition there is an ultimate goal instead of the entire film just being a description of life in an completely authoritarian state.

This is all very nice, unfortunately V for Vendetta fails to impress.

The symbolism of November 5th is at times taken too far. Despite the entire plot being built around Guy Fawkes and the blowing up of the parliament, the reasons behind it are too weak to make an entire film out of it. Having said that, I'm sure films have been built on less. Furthermore, the idea of a villain who's there to save the world, or in this case, Britain, has been severely worn out by now. As always, the villain is hiding behind a mask. Why?

All in all, if you liked and understood "1984", you'll be disappointed.

Karl & Co (1998–2001)

Humor is only skin deep - at least in Karl & Co

[29 October 2009]

I didn't catch much of the show during its original run in 1998, and even if I did, I wouldn't have understood it as I pretty young at the time.

Seeing the show in numerous reruns, it amazes me, in a weird way. The way its built up is extremely dull, predictable and at times stupid. It completely lacks touch with reality and doesn't have shred of credibility at times. Karl Reverud, the businessman who thinks too high of himself, repeatedly finds himself in situations way over his head, something that always has to end in him making a fool of himself, to everyone's amusement and his great irritation. It clearly conflicts with the life he leads. He has a large apartment in what's obviously a rich neighborhood and he's obviously had some financial success, but that can in no way be the same Karl as the one who's portrayed in the show.

The show is clearly cheap. It's built up in a simple way: The main stage is the main character's living room. His friends, acquaintances, neighbors and seemingly random people walk in and out of it, something he irritates himself over almost every time. There is laughter in the background so that anyone watching knows where the good jokes are, unfortunately they aren't. Any special effects, if they can be called special effects, are poorly made.

Still, there is something to this show that doesn't become apparent at first glance. The characters', especially Karl's personality, fits his character perfectly. Having studied introductory psychology myself, I immediately can identify his reactions to to various things that happen in the show. Whether this was intended by the script writers is unknown, but to me, it's quite interesting, especially in a show which in general is very poorly made.

Kill Buljo: The Movie (2007)

Really average

[4/10 · 29 August 2009]

Kill Buljo is the story of a sami whose friends and family is killed during an engagement party. The storyline follows the Kill Bill films more or less, with the only the location and people being different.

The parody is good at times and it definitely includes some funny elements, but the film in general is poorly made and the acting is terrible at times. It got so bad at times, I started wondering whether this actually was a film production or just something for a film project at school. Kill Buljo also left me wondering whether it's actually necessary to add extra nastiness to make a "good" film.. I guess so.

I didn't really have big expectations, so I wasn't disappointed. Watch it only if you have nothing else to do.

Running Scared (2006)

Lots of action, zero story

[4/10 · 22 May 2009]

Running scared starts out promising with a kid who finds a gun which should've been disposed of. The guy who was supposed to get rid of it has to get it back before his mafia friends find out it's gone. To make matters worse, the kid, who has Russian parents, shoots his abusive father and runs off with the gun.

The rest of the film is about how the guy drives around the city in the middle of the night with his own son looking for the kid while his mafia friends are looking for him. At some point the guy's wife also starts looking and eventually finds the kid with some child abusers.

Then it gets weird. The guy's mafia cuts a deal with the Russian mafia and for that the guy gets a beating at an ice-skating rink. He eventually kills the bad guys and just as he does so, the big plot is revealed, the guy is an undercover cop. Of course, how didn't I guess before?

To me, this looks like one of those films where the story writer started out without being quite sure of where he wanted to take the story, so he made a last minute twist which completely turned the plot upside down.

Lots of action though, but unfortunately without much point.

Empathy (2007 TV Movie)

A good, British, film

[9/10 · 21 March 2009]

Empathy is one of the films you've never heard about, but which turns out to be amazingly good. The plot is, except for the visions, very convincing.

Jimmy, who has spent nine years in prison, starts getting visions when touching people. The visions are well made, though he learns more in the visions than what's shown on the screen. The visions aren't random for most of the time. The red line throughout the film is that Jimmy, after not being believed by the police, which is quite common in films with clairvoyants, helps them investigate a murder. That keeps the film going and the audience interested. In addition, the viewer learns about Jimmy's life before and in prison, piece by piece, not revealing too much at once.

Another thing I noticed, was that almost everyone Jimmy touched had committed some crime. It makes you wonder if the world really is as bad as the film shows. Still, it's just one minor detail.

I just wonder how long it'll take for Hollywood to find this film and make a sequel, like they did with 28 days later.

The Abyss (1989)

A good film with a horrible ending

[5/10 · 18 January 2009]

I liked the film until the ending. The plot was a bit confusing at first, but as the film developed, it turned out to be quite good. The aliens who could harness the power of the seawater were quite interesting and somewhat mysterious. I especially liked the navy SEALs who tried to arm the warhead on the underwater rig. Lindsey Brigman was a bit annoying at times, but nothing too bad.

Had the film ended when Bud cut the wires to the warhead on the bottom of the abyss, I'd give it 9/10, but the ending ruined it. When the aliens took the shape of the water, it was mysterious, when they looked like little green men, it just looked like a cliché. Finally, when the alien city rose to the surface, it couldn't have been more of a Hollywood-style happy ending, which I've grown quite tired of over the years. It just felt to me like the ending was a last minute addition to the plot to make it less dramatic.

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Original creepiness

[8/10 · 12 January 2009]

Having seen many modern horror films like Resident Evil and 28 days/weeks later, The Night of the Living Dead doesn't feel that much of a horror film, nevertheless, it's creepy at times and takes many unexpected turns.

I watched the color version and I guess the color takes away some of the effect black and white has on films like this one, but still, the color quality was horrible by today's standards which gave the film some extra creepiness in a way.

If you've seen one or few of the aforementioned modern horror films, you'll notice several similarities in The Night of the Living Dead, but the absence of special effects makes it all much more real.

There are a few obvious mistakes in the filming, but aside from them, this is it's very well made low budget film with a solid plot which inspired the rest of the "dead" series and probably many others.