Change Your Image
iandaddio
Reviews
The Invisible Man (2020)
Predictable nonesense
So many holes you could sieve water through it. Predictable at every turn as once again it appears we need everything telegraphed so we will get it. Final thought? At least Chevy Chase's adaptation was intentionally comedic.
The War of the Worlds (2019)
The war of the BBC to appear relevant and with it
Typical middle class tosh from Aunty Beeb who is struggling to be relevant in a world of free choice.
Middle England people are still being forced to pay for their televisual experience until those naughty alien subscription fellows land and threaten Aunties quintessential monoply with their evil satellite beams.
All wrapped up in an absolutely unnecessary and irrelevant social commentary of institutional sexism and, well, not much else. Oh by the way you might see the odd tripod or two if you watch carefully.
American Violence (2017)
Better off watching We Need to Talk about Kevin
Possibly uses every cliché in this genre and still plays like a poorly written country and western song. Acting is shallow and hackneyed, dialogue is stilted and amateur. Can't make its mind up if it wants to be Bonnie and Clyde or just a generic bad guy who is really a good guy but life done him wrong flick. This is just MTV fodder, better off watching We Need to Talk about Kevin.
Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011)
Nice thought little substance
This is a title that dangles promise only to snatch it away at the last moment. I like that the director treats us the audience as Patrick treats his cult members, promise us something that is never really delivered on but is piggy backed by further promise until the actual realisation that we have been had comes too late.
And that is it in my book, this film is a con in several ways:
1. I can see why the critics loved this film because it is enough of a blank canvas for them to paint any picture they want on it, and boy did they go crazy with their crayolas. Yes Elizabeth Olson can be painted to appear disturbed, when actually all she does is nibble food swim have a few memories and kick her brother in law. There is no real substance to her character, so the disturbance we witness is that of a promising actor attempting to breathe life into an empty shell.
2. The good old "I did my research and found something intriguing and unique" flam. If Dunkin did so much research why then did he choose to dump us with a clichéd rehash of the family? This is another repuke of Charles Manson, and a dull and unconvincing one at that. There really was no substance, there was no creep factor, there was no psychological tension; but critics and movie land being what it is they do like their emperor's new clothes.
3 The ending. I have just sat and read a psychologists review of the ending that was nearly as long as the film itself, and almost as irrelevant. The ending is not some great psychological mystery as to the state of Martha's mind, no, it is simply the inevitable consequence of a film without substance. There is nothing really happening in the rest of the movie so how can anything happen at the end?
But that is where the real con and genius of Dunkin lies; because I like the majority stayed till the end thinking that something was going to be there. Well done sir, there are not many modern directors who could deceive their audience into sitting through almost 2 hours of nothing for the slightest chance of something at the end only to find, well, nothing.
Bait (2014)
Nice try
This film had the potential to be a gritty realism movie about lone sharking. But the end product is an overly long overly emotionalised meandering pastiche of This is England and Eden Lake with a bit of Essex Boys thrown in for good measure.
And that for me is this film's problem, it starts off as a well constructed idea which then over plays it's hand. With less of the character building and emotional narrative supposed anchors; the autistic son is an irrelevant attempt at emotionally blackmailing the audience that fails.
The only worthy piece of acting comes from Jonathan Slinger, whose Mr Nice Guy act is genuinely believable; as is his sadistic alter ego.
The two female leads are so over developed in the start of the movie that they quickly become self parodies, more so in case of the supposed street wise and sassy Bex.
This means that the well constructed start rapidly becomes directionless and erratic in both plot progression and plot cohesion. However, the saving grace is the sheer brutality of the closing scenes. Although gratuitous, the violence is held within context of story and ability of protagonists.
Overall a nice try hence the seven stars
Jupiter Ascending (2015)
oh dear
Basically this is an average teen movie dressed in peacock feathers and trying to be intelligent, it is Twilight meets Dune, with a bit of Matrix CGI thrown in for good measure (well it is the 'watchoutski here we go again with our pseudo anime style movie' brothers).
You know your in trouble when a movie contains the line 'Bees are genetically designed to recognise royalty' really?
Overly long dialogue scenes, reminded me of most Facebook statuses; too much pointless information.
Any action is announced well in advance, you know who is lying, who is going to die, what plot the twists are going to be, and the ending will involve daddy's telescope, and yes she will get off with the werewolf; by the way if I am wrong about the ending it's because I didn't watch it all the way through, I fell asleep three times because the dialogue bored me to sleep.
Upstream Color (2013)
Pointless
After Primer great things were expected, and perhaps this is the problem. We all have a movie or a book or an album inside us, fermenting over the years whilst we live our lives and decide whether to birth our potential. This is how I see the phenomenon of Primer.
However, this leaves audiences with expectant anticipations for more. Upstream colour is not more, it is less; a lot less in fact. From the quirky quantum but plausible world of Primer, we are thrown in to the psychotic conspiracy theory world of upstream colour.
This is a film that self marginalises by not allowing access by its audience. The cinematography is breath taking and the sound-scape is intriguing, for the first thirty minutes of this film. Then there is the deflated reality that this is perhaps all Shane Carruth had worked out on the napkin in the café he was sitting in at the time of upstream colour's conception.
It is a literally pointless film, the whole story would have fit into those sumptuous first thirty minutes. The dialogue is trite and overly constructed to be strange. The character connections are tenuous at best, and the plot line, when I could decipher it, was well, pointless; a scientist/terrorist who implants maggots into people to steal their money? really? that's it? And this is padded out and convoluted to last 1 hour 36 minutes!
This is one film I will not be climbing into my quantum human photocopying machine to watch again. Sorry Shane; I really enjoyed Primer though.
The Thing (2011)
stand alone yes prequel? two massive flaws
OK so it was a courage concept to begin with. to conceive adding to a unique (and its very very very rare i use that word) and complete unit.
John Carpenters film from 1982 was unique and complete. it was complete in its atmosphere, the brooding paranoiac disorientated shuffling of a group in disintegration, bouncing between the need for companionship and safety in an already inhospitable and dangerous environment and a sense of isolation and frustration of being amongst a group of familiar creatures but also feeling completely cut off from each other due to the invisible alien potential of each member of the group.
this not only portrayed through the action but also through lighting, sound, and contrast of texture; the familiar sheen of flesh stretched and distorted, the true alieness of the creature only seen when its internal structure is revealed.
this constructed a uniquely futile struggle against inherent nihilism and the human delusion of divine right to conquer.
so the only way to go in conceiving an addition or adaptation would be to begin the story. makes sense on paper and sounds interesting too.
however, this is where the completeness of John Carpenters creation was not fully considered.
firstly, the technique used in the 82 film to build intrigue and atmosphere about the opening sequence with the dog is the comprehensive video data (remember there was over 9 hours of film) found at the Norwegian base.
in reviewing this the cast joins us the audience in our discovering the narrative of the story, brilliant method of bonding the audience with the players.
now this might seem irrelevant until we come to the discovery of the craft in the 2011 adaptation (and this is why i refer to it as an adaptation and not a prequel) it is clearly seen in the 82 film, and commented on by childs, that the full nature of the Norwegian scientists discovery comes from the uncovering of the craft using explosives, as childs states incredulously 'and look they're using thermite!'.
so why in the 2011 film is this omitted??? how can you eradicate such an important event from a narrative and expect it go unnoticed? the craft does not uncover itself as shown in the closing scenes of the 2011 film, it is uncovered and there is video evidence to this fact!
first time around i had to stop watching until i had calmed down (yes i know i am a complete geek when it comes to the thing) then it took me a while to reconfigure in my mind that the 2011 thing was an 'adaptation' of the concepts and premises set up in the 1982 film.
so OK this began to work for me and i was able to settle back in and enjoy the film in its own right, until the closing scenes where once again the writers seemed to slip into their 'aaah no one will notice' delirium.
i am referring to the issue of where in the original does it mention, refer to, or include details of finding a burned alien corpse two snow cats and, AND! the frozen remains of a us palaeontologist at the crash site?? or am i just being too pedantic here?
whether i am being too pedantic or i am not, this for me detracted from the potential of this movie 1 to pay homage to the impact and influence the original had 2 to bring something new to the table.
yes as a stand alone movie this is not bad, some interesting touches in the development of the assimilation process (yeah OK there is the pointless microscope with playback feature for hearing how the cells sound when they are absorbing their prey) also there is the comparative element in each film of, how would another culture deal with this phenomenon?
but as a prequel? then i feel given the points i have detailed above this version is a poor, shoddy,insubstantial, and ill considered attempt at cashing in.