Tuesday 28 December 2010

2012 (2009) Dir: Roland Emmerich

As the Mayan calendar ticks down day by day, Roland 'Independence Day' Emmerich felt the time was ripe for him to make a disaster movie based on the impending doom we face as a race.
See, he's never made a disaster movie before, his previous offerings being the sci-fi guff Independence Day, creature feature Godzilla, beefcake tussling in Universal Soldier and.....oh hang on, wait just one flinking flanking second....impending disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow.
So, what would draw a man of such copious and undeniable talent back to the same subject matter once more?
Who the Christ knows.
The plot:
Solar flares are happening.
They're really big.
The Earth's crust is destabilising.
Massive earthquakes are occurring.
And tsunami's.
And winds so gusty they can whip your skegs off from beneath your very trousers.
Cities crumble into the ocean.
Aeroplanes wend their way between falling skyscrapers like the ultimate level of Sega's Afterburner.
And it's all such a load of absolute cock it's hard not to be taken along for the ride.
At every level, this is diabolical, yet still it entertained, still it kept me watching.
Where loud explosions and fraught voices usually leave me cowering in the corner, flashbacks to a terrifying childhood manifesting themselves in adult life, here they merely entertained.
Look, I know it's twaddle, I know it should be hateful.
But I bloody well enjoyed it.
So fuck right off.


3 out of 5

Wednesday 22 December 2010

TRON: Legacy (2010) Dir: Joseph Kosinski

28 years is one hell of a gap between an original movie and its sequel - I can't think of any that have had longer breaks - so, with Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner and an assortment of other original cast members still on board, would Disney make a complete binary of it?
Well, not entirely.
The plot: Garrett Hedlund plays Sam, a young man whose father, Kevin Flynn, was the head of a game design company that created the legendary Tron before his untimely disappearance.
Drawn to the site of his father's abandoned warehouse by a pager message from a number that should no longer exist, Sam is inadvertently sucked into the digital world of The Grid himself, where he must track down his true father, as well as do battle with the world and programmes in which he finds himself.
And it's a mixed bag.
The visuals are jaw-dropping, but it is just a fraction too dark, a common complaint when 3D is involved.
Jeff Bridges' is under-used, really, Hedlund as his son taking centre stage and his is a lumpen, wooden performance.
The initial set-up is intriguing but, once we enter the digital realm, it quickly descends into expositional dialogue interspersed with drawn out digital fight / chase scenes.
Crucially, though the effects have been updated, it seems little else has as all of the good ideas and impressive visual scenes were merely variations on what has gone before.
Special mention must be made of the 'de-ageing' of Bridges, which looks by turns impressive and genuinely terrifying.
Though no great fan of the original, I was interested enough in this sequel to feel a vague sense of disappointment at the end as, frankly, it was just a little dull. And by the Christ's it was too long.

3 out of 5. But only just.

Saturday 11 December 2010

The Warrior's Way (2010) Dir: Sngmoo Lee

You know, I was only thinking 'tuther day, what this world needs is more Ninja Vs. Cowboy movies and, as luck would have it, along came The Warrior's Way to my local World of Cine.
The plot: Dong-gun Jang plays Yang, finest swordsman in a clan of vicious and feared Ninja's known as The Sad Flutes, a moniker earned in tribute to the sound a throat makes after it has been slashed open. Sent on a mission to wipe out once and for all their most deadly enemies, Yang all but succeeds, but cannot bring himself to kill the last of the enemy clan - a tiny, female baby.
Shunned by his own kind for his act of mercy, Yang travels far, finding himself in America, in a small town called Lode, populated almost exclusively by circus folk. With a tyrannical overlord named Ron (Geoffrey Rush) leaving the population in fear, Yang must try to build himself a new life.
But, inevitably, his past will catch up with him, in a final showdown between Ron's own army and The Sad Flutes, the population of Lode very much caught in the crossfire.
And it's a strange affair, all round.
Mixing humour and cartoon violence, this tries to do too much and ultimately fails to be anything of particular substance. It is, however, beautifully shot, both in terms of the choreography of the action sequences, as well as the backdrops and general cinematography.
And it is not without it's charm.
Dong-gun Jang is a likeable enough lead, and Kate Bosworth makes for a decent foil.
The set-pieces are pretty spectacular, though there aren't enough of them, with the action very much in the comic book ilk, more 300 than The Last Samurai.
Sporadically violent, occasionally amusing, intermittently charming, it's clear to see why this is something of a box office flop, but it is also apparent that it will attract a devoted, cult following.
I quite liked it.

3 out of 5

Monday 29 November 2010

Machete (2010) Dir: Ethan Maniquis, Robert Rodriguez

Robert Rodriguez's full length version of the Grindhouse trailer by the same name is as testosterone laden as the first day on set of Big Boys in Boots 4.
Danny Trujo plays the titular character, an ex-federale (Mexican FBI, I presume) turned mercenary, hired by a crime organisation to assassinate a politician running for office on the back of an anti-immigration campaign. Betrayed by those that hired him, Machete goes on a violent and bloody killing spree, intent on sinking his vicious blade into the belly of the man at the top.
With a host of semi-cameo appearances, including Don Johnson, Steven Seagal and the woeful Robert de Niro - seriously, this is one of the worst performances I have ever seen from a 'proper' actor - this is something of a fanboys wet dream, Rodriguez clearly pandering to the macho inclinations of his core audience.
With a comic tone, set pretty early on as Machete guts someone then uses the entrails to swing from a window to the storey below, this is also pretty damn violent, gaining the movie an 18 certificate here in the UK, something it is increasingly hard for a film to be labeled with.
Blood gushes, throats are slashed, men are disemboweled, eyes are blasted from their sockets, but it's all done with tongue very firmly in cheek.
If you are looking for a 'real' movie, I'd steer well clear of this, but if excessive gore to the point of black comedy floats your boat, check it out.

Sunday 28 November 2010

Unstoppable (2010) Dir: Tony Scott

I approached this movie with mixed emotions.
I love Denzel Washington. His aura, his mannerisms, the way he speaks. He is a real presence in every movie.
I don’t really like Tony Scott's direction. Too stylised, too frenetic, too MT freakin' V.
So would the presence of both on the same movie cancel each other out? Well, it didn't work for me with Man on Fire.
Who would win out?
The actor or the director?
In truth, both do just fine.
The plot: When a railroad operative foolishly steps off the train which he is driving to flip a switch to change the points on the track, he inadvertently sets off a chain of events with potentially epic consequences. The controls are not set properly as he alights the train, moving well below walking speed, so that, between him stepping off and reaching the points switch, the engine is engaged and the train rumbles off, gaining speed all the time. The driver has no chance of getting back on board, so now the game is on: How to stop a half mile long train, pack with a multitude of cargo, including molten phelon, a lethal and highly toxic substance.
Denzel and his new charge Will (Chris 'Kirk' Pine) are the only men in a position to do anything about the projectile but, inevitably, must put their lives at risk to do so.
And it's a great watch.
Super-charged, massively entertaining, this rattles along at a fair old clip, Scott holding his overtly annoying fast-edit predilections in check for the most part.
Denzel is great as always, and Chris Pine does a decent job of matching him blow for blow.
As high concept as it gets, I guess, the fact that it is also based on a true story adds an element of class to proceedings along with the performances of the leads.
Gripping and tense, this is something of a thrill ride.
Very good.

Saturday 27 November 2010

Cronos (1993) Dir: Guillermo del Toro

Guillermo del Toro's breakthrough movie is a strange, quietly disturbing affair. The plot: Almost 500 hundred years ago, an alchemist devised a small piece of machinery that promised the gift of eternal life.
In present times (well, 1997) the Cronos device unwittingly falls into the hands of an ageing antiques dealer, Mr. Gris. Playing a board game with his young grand-daughter, suddenly the table is over-run with cockroaches, the source of which a winged, angelic statue Breaking the statue open, Mr. Gris discovers the device, a beautiful and ornate creation, scarab-like in shape and, clutching it in his hand, suddenly the thing sprouts legs, the legs snapping into place against his hand, piercing the flesh. Slowly, a thin, nozzle-like protuberance extends from the head end of the device, this too piercing his flesh. Meanwhile, another seeks the device, a man who will stop at nothing to get his hands on it, for he too seeks the promise of eternal life and, with Ron Perlman acting as his muscle, there's every chance he'll get it, too.
Massively inventive, this shrieks cult classic with almost every frame.
It's sinister, too, the lighting of each scene evocative and disturbing, lending the viewer the need to peer into the shadows that drape the corners of the screen throughout, just in case something truly horrible lurks there.
Imaginative and visually impressive, this is a fine movie indeed.

4 out of 5

Sunday 21 November 2010

Triangle (2009) Dir: Christopher Smith

This neat little Australia / UK collaboration packs quite a punch for it's relatively moderate budget.
The plot: A young single mother, Jess, (Melissa George) goes on a yachting trip with a small group, only one of whom she is acquainted with. All is well until, suddenly, from nowhere, a freak storm capsizes the vessel. Scrambling onto the hull of the vessel, all but one of the group are safe, when a vast ocean liner drifts past. Clambering aboard the huge craft, the group are puzzled to discover that they are all alone on the ship, the crew nowhere to be seen. Jess catches a glimpse of another person, who runs away as soon as they are spotted and, the group giving chase, they find Jess' keys on the floor, in a part of the ship they had not yet visited.
The group divides up, all the better to search the craft, but divided they shall fall, as one poor unfortunate gets a clothes hook through the back of the skull whilst another couple are picked off by a sniper in the gallery of the on board theatre
Why is someone seemingly intent on killing them off?
And why does Jess feel like she's been there before?
The Bermuda Triangle is one of those folk tales that fires the imagination, having just the right combination of science-fiction mystery and potential scientific plausibility to set the mind a-wandering. It's also a potent trigger for this occasionally vicious, continually smart and well-crafted yarn.
Violent in bursts, the lead actress is sufficiently engaging to carry her role and to sweep you along with the intrigue.
Intelligent and, at times, disturbing, this is a solid sci-fi / horror release. Very good, indeed.

4 out of 5
Favourite line: "Downstairs right now is a copy of myself. Me!"

Tuesday 16 November 2010

There Will Be Blood (2007) Dir: Paul Thomas Anderson

Paul Thomas Anderson's multi-award winning colonial epic is a mixed affair.
The plot: Daniel Day-Lewis, turning in the performance of a lifetime - quite a feat in a career already littered with more 'powerhouse' turns than you can swing an OSCAR at - plays Daniel Plainview, a prospector on the hunt for oil. On a visit with his adopted son to a small town, he learns that a local man believes that there is oil on his property. With difficulty, he convinces the man to give him the rights, and it's not long before the full might of his corporate machinery is in full swing.
But all will not be as easy as he hopes.
Conflict with his adopted son, a run in with the local evangelic nutter and industrial accidents all stand between him and his lucrative find.
Stunning acting and direction should render this a towering epic, to rival even Anderson's own Magnolia in terms of scope and power, but somehow the over-emoting and all too apparent 'award-hunting' get in the way.
Complex it is, but it is also a little too soap opera at times and, frankly, these moments bored me.
Of course, the standout here is Day-Lewis, whose bizarre interpretation of the lead character is both bewitching and irritating. Let's be honest: No-one has ever spoken this way, and no-one has ever had these mannerisms or affectations, but that does not mean it is not engaging and, as a result, it makes for compulsive viewing.
Not the work of genius others would try to persuade you it is, this is actually a touch disappointing from the usually magnificent PTA.

Sunday 14 November 2010

Skyline (2010) Dir: Colin Strause, Greg Strause

Getting some pretty rough reviews this one, unfairly in my humble one.
The plot: A small group of people are sleeping off a party in a swanky L.A. penthouse, when strange lights beam down from the sky. Anyone who looks at the light becomes transfixed, and can't resist the urge to walk towards it. As their faces alter and eyes transform suddenly they are sucked into the light.
The following day, a fresh menace, as huge spacecraft descend from the heavens, again beaming the strange light, but this time we see thousands of people sucked up through the beam of light into the belly of the beast. What's more, smaller craft break off from the motherships, in search of any humans that may have escaped their light beam and, down on the ground, gigantic monsters roam.
Schlocky, cliched and utterly ridiculous?
Why yes indeed, but it is also riotously entertaining and manages to be pretty damn tense in places too.
Apparently, this was shot for the paltry sum of $10 million, lose change for most sci-fi special effects movies but, for the most part, you really can't see much difference. Sure, the odd bit of overlay looks a bit ropey, but it certainly does nothing to detract from the spectacle.
Managing to be both epic and looming in terms of the visuals, story wise this is stripped right down as, for much of the movie, it is not clear if the rest of the planet is affected, or just the one city, the focus instead on the travails of Our Heroes.
Certainly flawed, certainly a mish-mash of dozens of other movies we've seen before, and they blow it big time in the last five minutes, yet this is still an engagingly enjoyable sci-fi actioner.

Friday 12 November 2010

Feed (2005) Dir: Brett Leonard

Uuuuurrrrgggggh.
That was vile.
The plot: Cyber-cop Alex O'Loughlin from Sydney, Australia, uses the latest technology to track down cyber-criminals, tracing their IP addresses to prosecute them for their crimes. We join him as he and his partner are on the trail of a particularly nasty individual, webmaster and owner of Feederx.com, a website dedicated to streaming apparently live footage of very large ladies being slowly fed to death, though voluntarily, by a tattooed male, whose proclivities include getting them to beg for their food whilst he, erm, rubs himself rather vigorously until his back starts to judder.
O'Loughlin traces the router the traffic is sent from, and pins the location to Ohio, US of A, and it isn't too long before, against the advice of his partner and the express wishes of his boss, he's in an altogether different time-zone, tracking the perverted son of a corn dog down.
So, essentially it's a cop on the trail of bad guy movie, but this is an altogether nastier animal than, say Se7en, the focus here more on the females' willingness to be ritually humiliated.
If Saw and Hostel are torture porn, then this is calorie porn, as the director points a camera lovingly in the direction of the bulky matter the deluded lasses happily chow down upon, some of the concoctions fit to turn the stomach of most rationale creatures.
What makes this movie all the more disturbing is that it is based on a real phenomena, men known as Feeders fattening up emotionally vulnerable women to the point that they become bed-ridden and utterly dependent on the one that did them the harm in the first place. It's the flipside of anorexia, I guess, psychologically speaking, though even more complex an issue.
At times brutal, at times emotional, this is surprisingly well crafted for a low-budget flick, and a low-budget flick from Oz, what's more.
Forgive the pun, but you'll need a strong stomach for this nasty offering and, seriously, you will never look at a burger in the same light again.

4 out of 5
Favourite line: "Consumption Is Evolution"

Tuesday 9 November 2010

Stuck (2007) Dir: Stuart Gordon

Got to tell you, I just love Stuart Gordon.
If he'd let me, I'd drizzle him in olive oil, slap him in a frying pan and wolf him down with chorizo.
But he won’t
Whether it's schlock horror gore offerings like Re-Animator or From Beyond or his sci-fi silliness such as Fortress or Robot Jox for me, the man can do no wrong.
Stuck, a neat little exploitation piece that is as devious as it is disturbing, this is both genre-bending and fantastically original.
The plot: After a drink and drug-laced party, a young woman foolishly decides to drive home. Mid-journey, messing with her mobile phone, pissed as a judge on Easter Monday, she hits a man, recently forced onto the street after eviction from his squalid flat. The man strikes the bonnet of the car but, instead of rolling off, plunges headlong through the windscreen, pinned in place by the wipers that are now jabbed firmly into the meat of his matter.
With her hit and run victim suspended, half in and half out of her car, the drunkard must flee for home, then devise a means of ridding herself of her 'problem.'
Morbidly humorous right from the get go, this has a black, black heart, but also a natural wit that carries you through the nonsensical nature of what is actually happening on screen.
Though light on genuine gore, the odd moment of nastiness is graphic enough to make you squirm just a little, and the rapid-fire run time gives this the feel of a genuine cult movie.
Vicious, twisted and something of a morality tale in the end, this is a winner down at Smell the Cult HQ.

4 out of 5

Monday 8 November 2010

Let Me In (2010) Dir: Matt Reeves

In this post-Twilight world, it seems any old vampire story will do.
The bloodsucking Undead are currently enjoying a media-driven prominence that would make Lestat blush, frankly, so it was with some trepidation that I blundered, drunken and only partially clothed, into a mid-afternoon screening of Let me In, the US remake of Sweden's very own Let the Right One In - rated an impressive 8.1/10 on IMDB at time or writing, a movie that, shamefully, I am yet to see.
And boy, was it good.
The plot: A teenager, Owen - played with heart-aching poignancy by the chaffed-lipped Kodi Smit-McPhee - is something of a loner. Picked on at school by big, big bullies, no friends to speak of, he spends his evenings spying, Rear Window style on his neighbours, and playing Rubik's cube in the perishing cold outside. It's 1983, by the way, so the cube is not as anachronistic as it first sounds.
One day, a new family move in; a young girl, Abby - Chloe Moretz, Kick Ass' Hit Girl, no less - and her 'father.' Through desperation rather than genuine desire, they strike up a friendship, two outsiders trapped in a sea of loneliness, but it doesn't take Owen too long to realise there is more to Abby than meets the eye.
She's no ordinary girl, oh no, she's only a freakin' bloodsucking creature of the night.
When Abby's 'father' kills himself somewhat dramatically - skin melts, people, skin more than melts - it is down to Abby to source her own blood, and the violence that follows genuinely chills the blood.
Having not seen the source material - yes, I know, get off my back, I shall be flagellating myself rigorously before the night is out - all I can go on is the current version, and mighty impressive it is too.
You see, this movie manages that rarest of feats, coupling horror with genuine pathos, wringing emotion out of pretty much every scene without once leaving you reaching for the nearest carrier bag to offload the contents of your stomach.
Warm, heart-wrenching, tender and vicious, this is a beautiful little movie that I daresay will vanish from the mainstream cinema's quicker than you can say Deathly Hallows, but here's hoping word of mouth gives it a bit of legs as, honestly, it kicks the absolute arse out of most modern horror.

5 out of 5

Wednesday 3 November 2010

Westworld (1973) Dir: Michael Crichton

With some films, the concept is far better than the execution and, to a certain extent, this is true of Westworld.
The plot: In the future, a theme park named Delos is divided into three distinct areas; Roman World, Medieval World and Western World - think The Crystal Maze but without the maniacal bald man.....oh....hang on a second.... - each area populated by incredibly life-like robots put in place to create the most realistic, most immersive experience for the well-heeled visitors to the park.
In Medieval World, you can practice your sword fighting, get down to some sexy time with a buxom wench or perhaps indulge in a spot of jousting, all in the certain knowledge that "Nothing can go wrong." Similarly, in Roman World, you can indulge your every debauched desire and in Western World, you can play the part of a bandit, a cowboy, a sheriff.
As the scientists that control the park watch on, every aspect of the robots' behaviour is monitored to ensure the participant's safety until, one day, inevitably, things go horribly wrong, leaving our two main characters trapped in Western World, alone, and stalked by a terrifying gunslinging robot that just happens to look exactly like Yul Brynner.
Yikes!!!
Sounds great, right?
And it is, mainly, once the nightmare scenario kicks in.
The flaws come near the start of the movie, as writer / director Michael 'Jurassic Park' Crichton (he seems to like 'When Theme Parks Attack' concepts) delves perilously close to 'wacky' for the comfort of most sentient beings.
Zany antics aside, once the nastiness kicks in, this is a gripping, massively inventive, genre defying sci-fi yarn that is as tense and gripping as they come.
And any man who claims to watch Brynner without feeling a slight stirring of envy - and perhaps a little more than that - has more fortitude of character than I.
A cult classic, and it's clear to see why, this is well worth sticking with past the vaguely annoying opening thirty minutes or so.
Good stuff.

4 out of 5

Sunday 31 October 2010

Saw 3D (2010) Dir: Kevin Greutert

The makers here claim this to be the last installment but, given the packed house I watched this in at 4 in the afternoon, my suspicious mind is already foreseeing an 8th outing for the deadly trap franchise.
So, what makes this different from the six movies that went before?
Well, pretty much nothing.
Same type of setup: a man is forced to face his own failings, to prove his desire for a worthwhile life through a series of dastardly and sadistic traps that, inevitably, involve some of those closest to him.
So, much of a muchness then, which was to be expected - any franchise that gets to part 7 is bound to be running out of steam - but with Saw VII comes a new gimmick: Real 3D, leading to one of the best taglines I've heard in quite a while:
"This October, the traps come alive."
But did the 3D deliver the goods?
As ever, due to my dodgy eyes it is difficult for me to judge it entirely accurately but, from what I could pick out, it was certainly not as effective as, say, Piranha earlier this summer, and James Cameron won't be losing any sleep over it. Let's face it, once you've seen one length of entrail spinning towards the screen at high speed, you've seen them all.
The makers have been considerate enough to throw in plenty of stuff for long term fans, with some nice references, some all the way back to movie number 1, and with a plot construction that leads to a reasonable conclusion, though not an especially satisfying one, here's hoping they stick to their word and leave this one well alone from now on as, frankly, the only way is downwards from here.
Average, then, but no worse than that.

3 out of 5

Thursday 28 October 2010

Red (2010) Dir: Robert Schwentke

Hmmmm,, very disappointing, this one.
I must confess, I have a bit of a man crush on Bruce Willis. Whenever he dons that tight white vest or T-shirt, something stirs within me and I find myself entertaining thoughts of cuddling up against that massive chest, my arm draped over him as he strokes my hair and we sit together and watch the original Die Hard, the whole time me telling him just how gorgeous he still looks.
Erm....erm....anyway, I do like girls.
I do....honest....just not as much as Bruce.
Red: Retired and Extremely Dangerous is an action comedy that pretty much fails to deliver on both counts.
The plot: Bruce is a retired CIA agent who, back in the day, was involved in an operation in Guatemala and, for reasons that become apparent as the movie lurches along, though now retired, this still puts him in jeopardy. Along for the ride are his old team, including Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, John Malkovich and a young woman who he only met previously by phone.
The old team assembled, they must defeat the evil-doers and get back to their quiet lives of retirement.
And it is pretty damn dreadful.
The issue here, folks, is all about tone. It goes for blackly comic and just comes off as 'wacky,' a word that, for any right minded individual, should fill their bowels with dread.
Malkovich is at his 'zany' worst, a sub Chris Lloyd imbecile, whilst Bruce simply seems uncomfortable. Indeed, the only real saving grace here is Mirren, who comes across as a dark and dangerous femme fatale who, at the age of 60+ is still damn sexy when she wields a massive machine gun.
Overwrought, overblown and with only two moments of actual class - the car spinning out of control as Bruce casually walks from it, and the appearance of Mirren's massive gun - this is a genuine misfire that disappointed me so much I demanded a refund at the box office - they told me to clear off, incidentally.
Regretfully,
Extremely
Disappointing.

2 out of 5

Tuesday 26 October 2010

Saw III (2006) Dir: Darren Lynn Bousman

There is an argument to suggest that this should have been the last of the Saw movies but, inevitably, when a franchise is making such a killing at the box office, for relatively little outlay ($10 million is the figure quoted on IMDB) then the studio responsible will be keen to continue to maximise their profits.
Not than I'm cynical about the Saw franchise, mind.
Not a bit of it.
But, enough of the griping, let's talk about the movie, because it is very enjoyable fare, indeed.
Jigsaw is close to death, Amanda struggling to keep his bodily functions active, so they devise a plan. Get in a doctor to keep him alive, but booby trap her so that, should his heart stop, the collar strapped to her body will detonate, killing her instantly. See, Jigsaw wants to see out his last game, the subject playing the game known only as Jeff, a man whose son was killed several years ago by a reckless driver. Riddled with anguish and haunted by thoughts of vengeance, Jigsaw intends to give him the opportunity to either exact his vengeance, or to reach inside himself and learn about forgiveness.
Inevitably, as Jigsaw's dastardly scheme is revealed it is far more complex than at first it appears.
Keeping up the level of inventiveness of the first two, this one actually ups the ante in terms of sickness - the liquified pig drowning section is quite simply the most nauseating thing I have ever seen - as well as ensuring that the viewer is pretty clueless as to the endgame until the closing couple of minutes.
Saw is a franchise that divides opinion, where debates rage about the morality of such films, lazy labelling with the term 'torture porn' and accusations that they are derivative drivel and, frankly, there is some justification for all of those things but, call me ignortant if you must, I bloody love them.
Part 7 is due out imminently, apparently The Final Chapter.
We'll see.

4 out of 5

Sunday 24 October 2010

The Day the Earth Stopped (2008) Dir: C. Thomas Howell

Ahh, The Asylum.
Ahh, C. Thomas Howell, you've just got to love 'em.
The mockbuster is alive and well and in competent hands as, here, Howell dishes up a nonsensical, ramshackle tale of sub-par Star Trek alien invasion that will entertain as much as it confounds.
The plot: A male and female alien, apparently sent from one of the enormous robotic devices that have landed in all of the Earth's major cities, are captured by square jawed military sorts, and beaten up for a bit.
One of the soldiers - writer / director Howell - takes exception to this, particularly the mistreatment of the big-titted female, and decides to go renegade, saving her from the ordeal. As she gradually begins to trust him, she reveals the true purpose of the alien visitation: to provide mankind one opportunity to prove their worthiness, else face annihilation.
Heh, this is an Asylum film, so we expect dreadful effects and piss poor acting and, for the most part, they are present and correct. What we do not expect is a score that is actually energising, nor a directorial performance that must rank as Howell's all time career high.
You know, at times, I actually found myself enjoying this, actually found myself drawn into the story and, clearly, this really pissed me off. This is an Asylum movie: It's meant to be shit.
That being said, this could all be explained away by my peculiarites as the person I was watching it with described it as 'an assault on their humanity.'
Fair point, I guess, and something The Asylum may wish to put on any promotional material they produce from this point forward.
Massively cheap, massively derivative, but certainly not as bad as it should be, I suspect I would prefer this to the Keanu Reeves mega-movie this cashed in on.

Hush (2009) Dir: Mark Tonderai

What can you make for £1,000,000 these days, eh?
That's barely enough to cover Angelina Jolie's nail varnish requirements in most movies but, in Hush, a taut, nervy British horror-thriller, the budget is used to maximum effect.
See, I don’t watch many British films. I tend to find them deathly dull; Social drama's about how grim life is 'Up North,' or emotional, human interest pieces about alcoholism and domestic abuse.
Not my cup of tea, certainly.
So it was with some caution I hit play on this movie, and was somewhat unprepared for what I was about to watch.
The plot: A couple on the verge of breaking up are in the middle of a long car journey, driving around Britain's motorways so that the man, Zakes Abbot, can perform his job of switching advertisement posters. As two lanes merge into one, they almost hit a lorry in front of them and, as the larger vehicle takes avoiding action, it's rear door swings open, and Zakes is convinced he's seen a naked woman inside, caged up. Caught in a dilemma about what to do, they try to get the police involved. The strain on the already fragile relationship is too much, as Beth thinks he cares more about the posters than about the alleged kidnapped woman, and tells him she is leaving him. Then Beth herself disappears, and Zakes must take extraordinary measures to try to find her.
Punchy, massively tense, this borrows liberally from various US sources; Duel is an obvious reference, but so too is Breakdown. 24 could even be cited for the giddying camera-work and almost real-time nature of the events unfolding. Then throw in a dash of Hostel, and you're nearly ready.
With a small cast, and a small sequence of locations, the director drains every last penny from his million pounds and crafts a highly enjoyable, edge of the seat movie that punches well above it's weight.
Very good indeed.

4 out of 5

Saturday 23 October 2010

Paranormal Activity 2 (2010) Dir: Tod Williams

You know, I've seen so many horror movies I could not even begin to muster a guess at the grand total. In the thousands, I should imagine, it's got to be and, in all this time, I can honestly say that perhaps three, maybe four have genuinely scared me.
The Exorcist had me aquiverin', Candyman put the willies up me, as it were, and then....and then.....I'm already struggling to think of another
Until today.
Paranormal Activity 2, I reluctantly admit, scared the bejaysus out of me.
Whilst we are in confession mode, I must admit to not having seen the original, so have no frame of reference but, if this sequel is anything to go by, that must have been one seriously good horror movie, assuming the law of deminishing returns applies here as it does with most franchises.
The plot: A wealthy couple with a teenage daughter and a young baby move into a new house, along with their nanny. The nanny tells them that there are sinister spirits in the house, but is promptly sacked by the father when she attempts to exorcise them with some mysterious vapours. He doesn't hold with that sort of nonsense. Quickly, however, he changes his tune as, in a gradual, nerve-shredding escalation, disturbing events transpire in the home, primarily at night.
And it is heart stopping stuff.
The direction is twitchy, almost spastic, and this draws you right in to the action. Liberal application of PoV shots adds to the realism but, as is often the way, it's what you don't see that really spooks you.
Fundamentally, of course, this is not much more than a retread of Amityville, but it it is all handled so expertly that that is quickly forgiven, as blood freezing horror after blood freezing horror is presented.
I was gripping the cinema seat armrest so hard it would not have surprised me at all had the bloody thing ripped right off.
Genuinely frightening, utterly disturbing, this is a masterclass in terror.
Superb.

5 out of 5

Thursday 21 October 2010

Jurassic Park III (2001) Dir: Joe Johnston

I am loathe to admit it, but the first Jurassic Park movie is something of a guilty pleasure, a film that I have seen more times than is healthy and can quote virtually line for line as it is playing.
It has a certain character that I find captivating; Spielberg's almost childlike enthusiasm for the subject matter seeps through every frame, his goggle-eyed fascination with the dinosaurs apparent from the first moment they are introduced in a sequence that has the hairs on the back of the neck standing to attention.
So, it was with some reluctance that I sat down to watch the 3rd installment, part 2 having been such a damp squib.
The plot: Dr. Alan 'Sam Neill' Grant is back, this time convinced by a wealthy couple to act as guide in a fly-past of dino-island number 2, Isla Soma.
Inevitably, all is not as it seems.
The pair in question have lost a child on the island - how careless - and have recruited Grant to act not as a guide from the air as he believes, but from the ground, as they seek their missing spawn.
As you can probably imagine, he is more than a little miffed.
So the scene is set for a romp across the island, with nerry an opportunity wasted for some full on 'saurus action.
And, in many ways, this is where the movie fails.
In Spielberg's original, he set things up nicely, paced the damn thing to add, you know, tension and drama. Here, the very second the 'plane lands, they are set upon by something altogether massive and escape by the skin of their teeth before in the next scene something else attacks them then some smaller things join in en masse our heroes fleeing for their lives before being ambushed by velociraptors working as a team showing uncanny intelligence and when they escape them something else ghastly wants to strip their flesh before another set of carnivorous beastlies chases them and....and....and Sweet Suffering Jaysus I was so exhausted with the none stop, frenetic nature of the narrative that I genuinely ceased to care.
All out action is fine, but you still need dynamics, you still need something to latch onto in terms of emotional attachment.
Sam Neill is watchable enough reprising his role, though he does seem a touch bored, as does William H. Macy, who was probably wondering what on Earth he was doing in the film in the first place. Tea Leoni tries her best, bless her, but, let's be honest, she's a pretty useléss actréss.
All action, all adrenaline, none stop carnage that, ultimately, wasn't as interesting as that description suggests.

Saturday 9 October 2010

Buried (2010) Dir: Rodrigo Cortés

High concept thriller cum horror that is as tense as a 'banjo string' when Jenna Haze is on screen.
The plot: Ryan Reynolds plays Paul Conroy, a truck driver on contract in Iraq to ferry around supplies. We join Paul as he awakens, in perfect darkness, gasping, struggling in the pitchy gloom, managing to ignite a lighter, only to discover he is in a wooden coffin, apparently underground. With no clear idea of how he got there - his last memory is of his convoy being attacked by what he believed to be insurgents - and only his Zippo, a mobile phone with a dwindling battery and an ever decreasing supply of oxygen, can Paul figure a way out of his predicament?
It's a brave move, this, setting an entire, full length feature in just one location: a small box, six feet beneath terra firma. As the movie kicks in, you can't help but wonder how the director and writer are going to sustain the premise for a full hour and half, but manage it they do, which stands as testament to the quality of both.
Mention must also be made of Reynolds, a man called upon to give pretty much a solo performance for the entire run time.
Sure, he gets to interact with disembodied voices on the other end of the phone but, essentially, this is a one man show, and he pulls it off with some style.
Interestingly, in the screening I saw, I overheard one fellow viewer claim "There's no plot," which, for my part at least, was spectacularly missing the point. There was lots of plot, lots of stuff happening, but the way it was framed we, as the audience, got to see none of it as we were seeing everything from the point of view of one man.
Ambitious, incredibly fraught and with a viciousness at its heart that just about tips it into horror territory (as opposed to thriller, the area the similarly high concept, single setting Phone Booth occupies) this gets two very firm thumbs jabbed right up there from Smell the Cult HQ.

4 out of 5

Tuesday 5 October 2010

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006) Dir: Jonathan Liebesman

Harsh light.
People shouting.
Tobacco spat.
Nasty Sheriff.
Empty headed.
Leatherface. Blood flows.
Teen deaths.
Michael Bay.
Exec. Produced.
Soul destroying.
Modern horror.
Sado-slant.
Cash cow.
Artistic vacuum.
Provoked nausea.
Wrong reasons.
Screaming boys.
Screaming girls.
Screaming Mo.
Bad film.
Eyes blink.
Head hurts.
End this.
Sorrowed heart.
Tears flow.
Film ends.
Mo sighs.
Hangs head.
Death prayer.
Lights out.

1 out of 5

Sunday 3 October 2010

The Hole (2009) Dir: Joe Dante

I like Joe Dante.
I tend to like his movies.
I definitely like his ethos, his cinematic knowledge and, with his latest offering, I like the fact he has chosen to scare the living piss out of very young children.
The plot: A single mother and her two sons are forced to move house yet again, the family apparently fleeing from something, though what is not made clear, at least not at first.
Brothers Nathan and Dane have a troubled relationship, the younger Nathan annoyed by his older brother's reluctance to play with him. They argue and bicker continually, right up until the moment they discover a sinister hole in the basement of their new house, hidden beneath a trapdoor locked with multiple padlocks. Once open, it becomes clear that this is no ordinary hole; it appears to be bottomless and, when no-one is looking, things crawl from its depths.
Dante is something of a horror aficionado, and here he delivers a proper horror movie, albeit toned down to allow for a 'family friendly' rating, but that doesn't stop it being creepy as hell:
The little girl, twitching as she walks, blood running from her eyes; the brute of a man, face in constant shadow, whose boots leave muddy impressions wherever he treads; the hole itself, ensconced in a proper horror movie basement.
Being a Dante movie, there are several nods to other genre films. I spotted Poltergeist (the car), The Wicker Man (an audio reference when The Man whistles), Ringu (the twitchy girl), Saw (the clown thing), House By the Cemetery (something is in the basement) and Funhouse (the fair ground) as well as more than a little classic era Doctor Who (I'm thinking The Mind Robber and The Celestial Toymaker, kids).
Accomplished, intelligent and provocative, if only for the fact the rating it got was probably a little on the lenient side, this is a real hark back to some proper, old fashioned horror movie making and, I have to say, I enjoyed it quite a lot.

4 out of 5

Sunday 26 September 2010

Devil (2010) Dir: John Erick Dowdle

To steal a line from someone else, they missed a trick calling this movie Devil when it should have been called Hellevator.
Based on a story by M. Night Shyamalan, a man whose reputation could not have sunk any lower had he been caught fellating Gary Glitter, this is pretty much the ultimate high concept movie: Five people get stuck in a lift and one of them is Satan himself.
That's the pitch and, honestly, that is the plot.
Sure, we get the odd bit of backstory fleshed out, primarily of the lead detective, but nothing else beyond the scope of that single line synopsis occurs at all.
It's a bleedin' miracle this movie manages to reach the required length to be classified as a motion picture, given the paucity of plot, but it does and, truthfully, though it does start to flag a little towards the end, it never really gets dull.
The ending is ludicrous, and so painfully obvious from about minute fifteen that if you don't figure out who Satan is I would strongly recommend jabbing long, sharp things into your ears until blood starts to flow.
Not really scary, not half as clever as it seems to think it is - it's trying for Cube but ends up more The Blob - I have no intention of ever watching this again, but it mildly entertained for its duration.
Perhaps they should put that on the DVD cover: "Mildly entertaining."

It's a 3 out of 5.

Tuesday 21 September 2010

The Last Exorcism (2010) Dir: Daniel Stamm

You know when you are watching a movie, it's ticking along nicely but then, in an idle moment, you decide to astrally project your inner being outside your own construct and your essence floats above your body in the auditorium. You know, when you can see yourself sitting in the seat, your meta-body aloft, studying your own features, only to find your own face rendered into a portrait of absolute apathy.
You know what I'm talking about, right?
Well, I found myself doing precisely that during The Last Exorcism.
I was mildly entertained.
I was mildly intrigued.
I was mildly spooked at times.
But no more than that.
The plot: A disillusioned evangelical priestly sort allows a film crew to follow him as he performs one more exorcism, to prove to the world the mockery that the ritual actually represents. A letter arrives, marked urgent, so our ex-Man of the Cloth heads down to New Orleans to perform his act of cleansing, only to find.....gasp.....that this is one dispossession that comes with a demonic kick.
It's intriguing stuff.
It really is.
The movie is shot as a documentary, a lens-eye view, if you will and, for the most part, it works. I only say for the most part as, annoyingly, on occasion the PoV shots make little sense, but that's a small complaint.
The real downer is the ending, a pointless ten minute bolt on that bears scant resemblance to the preceding 75 minutes or so, and will come as absolutely no surprise to anyone who has seen either Rosemary's Baby or the Stones of Blood story from classic era Doctor Who.
Not dreadful, just not terribly impressive either, this is one to file under 'must try harder.'

Tuesday 7 September 2010

Piranha (2010) Dir: Alexandre Aja

French shocker Haute Tension's director Alexandre Aja helms this remake of a movie that was itself a Joe 'Gremlins' Dante directed parody in the first place.
Confused?
You might be.
Lake Victoria, every summer time, plays host to twenty thousand screaming jocks and nymphettes, all determined to enjoy their summer break by taking off most, if not all of their clothes, waving their arses around whilst covered in oil, and pouring as much alcohol down their worthless gullets as possible.
A seismic shift beneath the great lake's surface literally moves the Earth and, beneath the water, a crevasse is formed, linking the lake on the surface with one beneath the rock, that had been sealed for millions of years. Though shut off from the outside world for millenia, life still flourished, and soon finds its way into the warm upper waters and, wouldn't you know it, those voracious prehistoric piranha have a wanton taste for human flesh.
Cue much waterbound screaming and thrashing.
A simple enough premise, ripe for the modern faux B-movie workover.
But, this is a strange beast, and no mistake.
Essentially, viewing Piranha 3D is like watching two really short movies spliced together as one.
Movie 1: Run of the mill monster movie, where fish have really big teeth and eat anything that is foolish enough to swim where they lurk.
Movie 2: One of those God awful Girls Gone Wild soft porno's that gained brief notoriety - here in Blighty at least - when Larry David was determined to get his hands on one in CYE.
It's clever, though, almost post-modern.
See, we are watching a softcore movie being made by a cheap as chips porno director in the movie and, by lucky happenstance, that means we as the viewer get to watch a softcore movie ourselves, or at least snippets of it. Then the scene changes, and we're all gristle and gnashing teeth and flying cartilage. Then back again, to the porn movie. It's fucking bewildering at times, and is rooted squarely between the hateful and the genius and, even now, 24 hours after seeing the movie, I can't decide which way it swings.
As the bikini clad beauties shake their poomtang, as the muscle bound morons flex their pecs, delight in the certain knowledge that they will all meet a grisly end.
As Kelly Brook and her 'pal' cavort underwater, bare as the day they were born in a 'mermaid' scene that simply has to be seen to be believed - I laughed out loud at the preposterousness of the whole thing, whilst slowly 'Little Mosefus' made his presence felt - you'll be shaking your head in confusion.
So that's the nudity dealt with, what about the gore?
As a 3D only movie, I wasn't expecting much, but was pleased to be proved wrong as, on occasion, this is positively barbaric. Sure, there's the odd moment of CGI silliness and, yep, you get the occasional 'point something at the camera and wave it around in Real 3D' scene but, for the most part, the gruel is proper prosthetics, and the movie is all the better for it. As people are dragged onto boats midway through piranha attacks, we see their useless, flesh-stripped limbs flailing behind them. In one glorious moment of madness, a rather unfortunate woman gets her hair caught on the propellor of a powerboat and has the skin of her face ripped right off, a fine feat of special FX that had me giggling like an imbecile.
Whilst it takes a little while to get there, when the payoff comes it is well worth the wait and, as the bloodbath ensues, one couldn't help but be put in mind of the opening sequences of Saving Private Ryan, with body parts flying left and right, corpses adrift in the water, whilst those that survive must do battle with a seemingly invincible foe.
But at least this one had a plausible plotline....
Riotously good fun, the only reason I knock 1 off the rating is because, due to a genetic flaw that will affect few others, I can't see the damned 3D effects.
A modern exploitation flick that delivers the goods.

4 out of 5

Sunday 5 September 2010

Salt (2010) Dir: Phillip Noyce

Angelina Jolie action 'vehicle' Salt is a rather silly, surprisingly dull affair.
The plot: When a Russian defector walks into CIA Headquarters voluntarily to turn himself in, Jolie's Evelyn Salt is sent in to interrogate him, to find out what he knows and, just as importantly, to find out what he wants in return for his information. The man is unusually co-operative and, most intriguingly, he claims to want nothing in return.
Then he drops his bombshell:
He claims that an agent named Evelyn Salt is a Russian double agent, one of a batch of sleeper agents set in place by the KGB during the height of the Cold War in readiness for Day X, the day Russia would strike out at America and crush it once and for all.
Salt is rattled, her superiors more so who intend to take her captive, but she has other ideas, making good her escape in a manner so complicated and contrived it brought a genuine smile.
So begins a cat and mouse game of 'hunt the rogue agent,' Jolie protesting her innocence, claiming that she is just trying to protect her husband.
Famously intended as a Tom Cruise movie, the makers had to switch genders when he pulled out to make that height of banality Knight and Day instead, though this isn't much better, in truth.
The set-pieces are ludicrously unrealistic, which would be OK, but they are handled poorly, too, the CGI woven into the onscreen mayhem in a very slipshod manner.
Jolie is OK, I suppose, though she doesn't get to say much, her role pretty much confined to running around a lot, pouting with those freakish rubber lips and clinging on to the top of moving vehicles.
Interest levels aren't helped any by the casting of Liev Schreiber as supporting male, an actor so boring and lifeless he seems to suck the energy out of every scene in which he appears.
Whilst not as bad as I may be implying, this is effectively a watered down version of far superior espionage thrillers; Bourne, Alias, even Bond and, ultimately, just feels a little plodding and tame.
Yawn.

3 out of 5

Tuesday 31 August 2010

Deadgirl (2008) Dir: Marcel Sarmiento, Gadi Harel

You know something?
I am sick and tired of zombie movies.
As much as it pains me to confess such, the thought of sitting through another substandard living dead offering, from whatever the source, is now becoming almost obsessional.
For many long years, anyone who asked me the question: "What is your favourite type of movie?" would receive a short, curt bark of the word "zombie." as I scornfully walked away from them, shamed like the dogs that they were.
But no more.
That is, not until Deadgirl.
The plot: Two hormonal twenty five year olds pretending to be 10 years younger go for a walk around an abandoned mental asylum, as you do, and discover a naked woman; beautiful, vulnerable, very, very dead and yet, she still moves. One of the pair is keen upon alerting the authorities, but the other has more devious plans that involve, yes, you guessed it, sticking his pinky piper into the dead girl's crevices until he's really, really pleased with himself.
So begins a battle of wills that can only end with plenty of bloodshed, more than a little naked flesh and a director tainting you at every turn: "That's right, keep looking at her titties. You know she's dead, right? Keep looking, 'cos it's stirring things down below but, remember...she's dead. Yeah, that pussy shot there, the pretty girl with the muff on show, that's doing things, right? But, you do know she's dead...."
A big fan of movies that play with the viewer's morality, this ticks all the right boxes.
For something this low budget, the performances are surprisingly good all round, and there's a nice line in gritty atmospherics.
The director clearly knows the budgetary constraints, and chooses to relinquish spunking most of the dollars on lashings of gore, instead pouring heavy with the tension, to great effect.
Whilst the subject matter will render this film a no-go area for many, those with a strong enough stomach could do much, much worse.
Long live the zombie movie.
Long live the Deadgirl.

4 out of 5

Thursday 26 August 2010

Audition (1999 aka Ôdishon) Dir: Takashi Miike

If there is a better J-Horror movie out there, I am yet to see it.
The plot: When a lonely widower decides it is time to find a new wife, a film maker friend offers to help. Reluctant to begin with, slowly he comes around to the idea and an audition is arranged of thirty potential wives, for a movie that will never be made, though the ladies are unaware of this. Flicking through the photographs of the women, the man is captivated when he sees the picture of Asami. Young, attractive, just his type, he is equally impressed by her audition and invites her out for dinner.
Shy, demure, subservient, she is just what he is after.
But Asami has a dark secret; a penchant for slicing up would be suitors, as punishment for the crimes of an abusive uncle when she was just a girl. Stunning,stunning stuff, this is seat of the pants scary when it kicks in.
The set up is magnificent, as the first two thirds of the movie is all about the characters, drawing you in, tantalising you, making you, you know....care.
Takashi Miike is swiftly becoming a firm favourite director at Smell the Cult, and here he offers up an intelligent, shocking, thoughtful, deeply grisly horror yarn that the aspiring torture porn directors would do well to set as a benchmark.
One of the finest horror movies of all time, this is a must see.

5 out of 5

Wednesday 25 August 2010

The Expendables (2010) Dir: Sylvester Stallone

Sylvester 'pushing sixty five' Stallone delivers another pumping, high octane actioner.
The plot: A covert CIA agent (Bruce Willis) hires a motley crew of mercenaries, led by Stallone's Barney Ross, to take out the tyrannical ruler of a Gulf Coast island - played with some gusto by Dexter's David 'Angel Baptista' Zayas - and his wealthy American overlords.
Seriously, that's all you need to know.
As most will be aware, the lure of the movie is the red meat on show, with Ross' team made up of Jason 'The Stath' Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture (whoever he is) and Terry Crews (whoever he happens to be), half dozen of the primest specimens of manliness you are ever likely to assemble.
Stallone strings together a series of outlandishly implausible, yet riotously entertaining set-pieces, the script around which they are draped one of the weakest I have heard in manies the moon, with Sly making the classic mistake of trying to write comedy when, as a human being, he is about as humorous as a severe bout of throat cancer. A quibble, but a small one as, inevitably, it's the action that is the star here and, fortunately, it is just excellent.
Dumb as a bag of scratchings it may be, but this manages to showcase several scenes I have certainly never encountered in a movie before; the 'fuel dump' attack by the waterplane, The Stath's death move towards the end of the final showdown and a gun so powerful it makes those automated sentry guns in Aliens look like freakin' pea-shooters. Talking of THAT gun, whenever she appears there is the welcome addition of a touch of splatter, albeit of the CGI kind, though it is worth noting that CGI, for the most part, plays second fiddle to proper, live action stunt work done the old-fashioned way, lending the movie an air of credibility it may otherwise have lacked.
Set your brainwaves to dormant, stick matchsticks in your eyelids and strap yourself to an iron lung to keep your basic bodily functions active.
Then sit back and enjoy.

4 out of 5

Tuesday 24 August 2010

Critters 4 (1992) Dir: Rupert Harvey

Rupert Harvey, erstwhile producer of The Blob, Elm Street 5 and, no surprises, the original Critters movie, here takes up directing duties, delivering a neat, though somewhat schizophrenic monster movie.
The plot: Charlie, have-a-go hero from the first three Critters flicks is on the verge of destroying the final two Crite eggs when a hologram of Bounty Hunter Ug materialises and advises him to leave well alone, else face prosecution for what would effectively be genocide; the knowing extermination of an entire race.
Instead, Ug sends Charlie a transporter, which he uses, but is inadvertently sucked in, leaving him stranded in statis for five decades. When he awakens aboard a salvage vessel, he tries to warn the crew, but the silly bastards won't listen and it is a matter of grim inevitability that they will be picked off one by one by the flesh hungry Critters.
Playing it admirably straight for the most part, this fourth outing for the mouth and fur beasties is entreatingly daft, with low production values and a shaky script, though elevated somewhat by the talent, Brad Dourif in particular; a firm favourite at Smell the Cult HQ.
Not quite a horror, not really playing up the sci-fi, with a notable lack of any genuine bloodshed or nastiness, I suspect this is one example of a budget getting in the way of a director's vision.
Entertaining enough, though.

4 out of 5

Wednesday 18 August 2010

The Wizard of Gore (1970) Dir: Herschell Gordon Lewis

Herschell Gordon Lewis' lurid and eccentric splatter-fest is a riot of colour and ghastliness and, whilst not perfect, it is a damn fun ride for its duration.
Meet Montag the Magnificent, illusionist extraordinaire, a man with a live performance that will boggle the mind. Every night, before an enraptured crowd, he selects a female volunteer from the audience and performs a cruel and sadistic mutilation of her body, be it swords rammed down the throat, heavy machinery used to carve open her midriff, or a chainsaw to the abdomen to saw her completely in half. The audience watch on, horrified, as Montag plays with the guts and the gristle, brandishing it in their direction so there can be no doubt that the deed has been done before, sensationally, the woman is returned to normal and retakes her seat.
Sadly for the victim, however, there is not long left to live as, hours after each performance, the same women are found mutilated in the exact way enacted on stage.
Is Montag the murderer?
It is all an illusion?
Is any of it happening at all?
As trippy as they come, this is quintessential exploitation cinema, with lashings of gore.
For the most part, what takes place makes very little sense, even within individual scenes as, one minute, Montag is covered in blood and laughing dementedly at a shrieking audience, the next the audience are sitting quietly as if nothing untoward is occurring.
One minute, two women are on stage with swords sticking out of their mouths, the next, all on stage is calm.
This deliberately bewildering style simply serves to add to the feel, challenging the audience constantly:
Is this real?
Is THIS real?
What about this?
Christ, if you think Inception is a headfuck, check this bad boy out, it will send your mind reeling.
With one of the most demented denouements I have ever seen, this just shrieks 'cult classic' with every frame, and is one that every 'genre' fan should most definitely check out.
Thoroughly enjoyable stuff.

4 out of 5

Wednesday 4 August 2010

Retro Puppet Master (1999) Dir: David DeCoteau

Seventh in the Puppet Master franchise, this is a prequel and is perhaps the most unusual, featuring something of a romantic feel throughout, as well as a noticeable lack of nastiness on the part of the tiny ones.
The plot: Set during the Nazi occupation of Europe, Puppet Master extraordinaire Andre Toulon is holed up in a Swiss hotel, and recounts to his beloved puppets the tale of a woman he loved greatly, as well as how he was taught the secret to animate his listeners by a mysterious Egyptian sorcerer, Afzel, himself on the run from wrathful Egyptian God Sutekh, furious that Afzel has stolen the gift of life.
As you can imagine, it's pretty fanciful stuff, but it is not without its charm.
Greg Sestero is a likeable enough young version of Andre Toulon and Jack Donner makes for a plausible sorcerer, if that statement isn't an oxymoron!
It drags its heels, however, and the lack of out and out viciousness is a tad disappointing.
Still, I've got a bit of a soft spot for all things Full Moon (the Production Company) and, even though it's clear Charles Band (creator of the franchise, and the man behind the overall story arc) has only ever had one idea, it's a decent enough one, that usually keeps me watching.
A Puppet Master movie you can watch with Grandma?
You bet her withered ass.

3 out of 5

Star Trek: Generations (1994) Dir: David Carson

The first big screen outing for the Next Generation crew is something of a confused affair, not least because they have to share the limelight with some blowhard has-beens from the past for half the fucking run time.
The plot: In Kirk's latter days, just past retirement. he is on launch duties with a new incarnation of the Enterprise when a distress signal comes in.
The new captain, being a bit of a wet fish, looks to Kirk for guidance and it's not too long before Kirk is getting his hands dirty.
When a Nexus strikes the vessel, Kirk is lost, presumed dead.
In the future, in Next Generation time, one Doctor Soran (Malcolm McDowell) is the sole survivor of an apparent Romulan attack on a space station. When the crew attempt to help him, they discover he is not what he seems, having a direct link to the Enterprise aboard which Kirk seemingly perished, and he will stop at nothing to rejoin the Nexus.
Straddling two series was always going to be tricky, and it makes for a disjointed affair, with whole portions given over to one crew, then the next, then back to the first in a kind of temporal pass the parcel that is pretty jarring.
The old crew are well past their sell by date by now, and come across as a bit of an embarrassment, especially Doohan (Scotty) who was always an awkward, annoying presence, his insufferable attempts at a Scottish accent more painful with each passing year.
A most unworthy debut for perhaps the greatest crew to ever man the good ship Enterprise, though much better was to follow:
Next up, The Borg.

3 out of 5

The Gate (1987) Dir: Tibor Takács

Something of a cult classic, this one, and a firm favourite in the Smell the Cult household.
The plot: Two young lads accidentally open up a portal to the underworld and awaken centuries old demons by reciting the words from a heavy metal album. The daft sods.
That's your lot in terms of story, but this is bloody entertaining stuff.
The special effects, whilst a little clunky, are great to watch, the little critters that pour from the portal looking like a cross between the Ghoulies from, erm, Ghoulies and Lotney 'Sloth' Fratelli from The Goonies, animated via the stop-motion technique, the overlay process not particularly good so it is clear as day that they are not actually there in the house, the young actors having to scream and wail and holler to an empty room.
They probably felt a bit silly.
They probably felt a bit silly and just did it for the money, anyway, not for the love, not for the craft, the grasping little pricks.
With a decent, 80's synth soundtrack, a fake 80's thrash track from an album called The Dark Book, and more fashion faux pas' than you can shake a pair of fluorescent leggings at, this is campy, retro, feel good horror. No-one actually gets hurt, no-one is ever likely to die and, even when the odd bit of badness does occur, you know that it will all be set right by the end of the movie.
With only one real moment of gruel, when our hero Glen sticks his hand through his fake father's face, and said face begins to peel off, this is certainly not one that will have you leaving the lights on at night.
Nevertheless, it's a fun ride, and far superior to most modern horror.

4 out of 5

The Omen (2006) Dir: John Moore

You know, I really expected to hate this.
I anticipated that, shortly after viewing, my body would erupt in blisters, searingly painful, dripping greenish yellow pus before my entire being began to shut down, tongue swelling, internal organs failing as I fell into anaphylactic shock, an allergic reaction so severe it would bring to an end my pointless, meaningless time on this unforgiving, cruel planet.
But no such luck, I'm afraid.
Instead, I found myself to be nothing but entertained.
As if you don't already know it, here's the plot: An up and coming politician, Robert Thorn, is traumatised when his wife miscarries and opts to replace the child with that of another woman who died during delivery, not telling his wife of his act. Sweep forward several years and Thorn is now American Ambassador to Great Britain.
A priest pays Thorn a visit (the always magnificent Pete Postlethwaite) and tries to convince him that his son is not what he seems, that he is in fact The Antichrist. Thorn sends him on his way but, slowly, events begin to fall into place that suggest that the priest was not a raving lunatic and that maybe, just maybe, The Fallen One is ready to walk the Earth once more.
As anyone who has read previous reviews will know, I am fairly savage when it comes to modern horror, particularly remakes of genuine classics as, for the most part, they are disastrous affairs.
Here we have something a little different, however.
A remake that takes no liberties, that stays massively faithful to the source material, not meddling, not trying to mend something that wasn't broken in the first place, instead intent only on modernising, on bringing a cracking good movie idea to a new audience.
Whilst there are arguments, and sound ones, against the need for updating as anyone with an ounce of intelligence and taste can 'cope' with a movie that is, after all, not yet thirty five years old - Christ, I've got blisters on my feet older than that - but it is an unfortunate fact that, to many, anything pre 1990 is already vintage, already old fashioned and, therefore, off the radar.
A dimwitted attitude that may be, but heh, I don't make the rules.
Whilst not perfect - Liev Schreiber is pretty bland as Thorn and the lack of the original score loses something in terms of atmosphere - this is still a respectful, well made remake of one of the most well known horror movies of the 70's.

4 out of 5

Sunday 1 August 2010

The Rock (1996) Dir: Michael Bay

Those that have been following the blog or the website for a while now will have noticed a tendency of mine to lambast all things Michael Bay. Be it the hideousness of the Transformers franchise, or his spectacularly annoying intention to remake any horror film of note from the late seventies, early eighties, his is a presence on this Earth I could well do without.
Then I get to The Rock, and I have reason to pause for....say it quietly....it is not utterly dreadful.
Whether that makes it any good, I am yet to be convinced.
The plot: A troubled and rather angry soldier (Ed Harris) leads a platoon of fellow malcontents onto Alcatraz, the force in charge of enough corrosive nerve agent to render San Francisco's entire population a gibbering pool of semi-humanoid matter.
The US government see fit to send in a chemical weapons expert (Nic Cage) as well as a man imprisoned for crimes against the state and, as luck would have it, the only man ever to successfully break out of Alcatraz (Connery).
Can their combined intellect outwit those that seem to hold all the cards?
Will Cage demonstrate any degree of acting acumen?
And did Connery use the same techniques to make good his escape from Scotland?
All of Bay's trademarks are in place:
A massively prolonged run time, far in excess of what the plot actually deems necessary.
Action sequences directed with so many camera's deployed that no amount of planning or logistics or, you know, directorial skill are required, you can just lop it all together in the editing suite later.
An overtly pompous score that is one half patriotic, one half bile inducing.
Grimly depressing caricatures of social minorities that border on the offensive: the gay hairdresser cutting Connery's hair is simply extraordinary to behold.
All that being said, something about this movie just about works. As skull-thumpingly dense as all of it is, I found it impossible to despise and, believe me, I tried.
I ascribe none of the movies enjoyability to Bay, mind you, more to a stroke of serendipity.
Things can be good by chance, rather than by design.
I took a dump a few days ago that was shaped exactly like one of the heads on Easter Island:



I didn't mean to create fine art, it happened entirely by chance and here, the same can be said of Michael 'F' Bay.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992) Dir: Fran Rubel Kuzui

There are certain movies and TV shows that define era's, specifically when you are something of a genre geek, happy to lap up any old nonsense just so long as there is a spaceship, a zombie, an oversized tentacle or, perish the thought, a vampire involved.
Star Wars, Close Encounters, Poltergeist, Predator, The X Files, Battlestar Galactica.
You get the idea.
The TV series that spawned from this full scale movie was a classic in its own right. True enough, the first three seasons are head and shoulders superior to what followed - you know, like, the one's where, like, Joss Whedon actually, like, had major involvement, and stuff - but still, the series as a whole had a satisfying feel to it. We had beautiful twenty something's running around sunny California, pretending to be teenagers, killing vampires and zombies and Inca Mummy Girls and Lizard Boys and teachers that turn into Giant Praying Mantis'.
I mean, what's not to love, douche bag?
So, with a sense of relative optimism, albeit eighteen years too late, I sat down to watch the movie that kickstarted the whole thing.
And what a load of old cobblers it is.
Maybe it's age, but this was an afront to everything I hold dear.
Dreadful, shrieking, shrill vacuous bints prattling on about their hair and their shoes and their dates and how their parents are, like, soooo lame.
Look, I know it was deliberate.
I fully understand that Joss Whedon was caricaturing the empty headed Jock and Jockette dullards that infest American High Schools and are preened over while the thinkers and the artists are called horrid names year after agonising year until they can take no more, grab their father's gun and load up on bullets bought from Walmart before going on a kill crazy rampage around their hometown.
I get all of that.
But it still didn't help the viewing experience.
Truthfully, I never reached the end, and really have not the energy to comment on this debacle any further.
Avoid like a swollen member dripping pus.
Looooser.

Tuesday 27 July 2010

Phantoms (1998) Dir: Joe Chappelle

Based on Dean Koontz's cracking 1983 novel, this is lent a certain level of credibility given that the author himself wrote the screenplay. 
The Plot: Two sisters, Lisa and Jenny Pailey, head to Snowfield, a small town in Colorado, population roughly 500, to escape the trials and stresses of family life. 
As they drive into town, the place seems alarmingly quiet, even for such an isolated community.  Entering a building, they discover a corpse, but worse is to follow as the two women discover a series of grisly finds; severed hands, arm, legs and feet, as well as more bodies, the people apparently falling where they stood, with no sign of a struggle. 
What could possibly kill an entire population so swiftly that no-one has time to react? 
And what link Timothy Flyte, editor and some time lecturer in matters mysterious and unexplainable?
For those familiar with the flatworm theory, the answer may be self evident. 
For others, you’ll have to watch to find the answers.
Whilst many horror book to movie conversions are pretty unsuccessful, as Mr. King has found out to his cost on more than one occasion, this is not the case here. 
Koontz's book is a master class in tension and intrigue, and the movie is certainly heading in the same direction.  With some decent scripting, and above average 'names' in terms of the actors featured (Ben Affleck, Peter O'Toole, Rose McGowan, Liev Schreiber) this was clearly meant to be Koontz's big break into mainstream cinema.  That it didn't turn out that way had more to do with marketing than the poor quality of the movie itself. 
An old fashioned horror movie in many ways, this showcases credible character interplay, a nice line in vicious, face-eating beasties and is infused with a sense of the macabre almost from the opening shot, so should satisfy most horror devotees out there. 
Even the presence of the usually vapid Affleck and the perma-bland Liev Schrieber can't keep this one down. 
Proper horror, done the old school way, I enjoyed this very much indeed.

4 out of 5

Monday 26 July 2010

Inception (2010) Dir: Christopher Nolan

Inception is the best movie ever made.
Inception is the most intelligent movie ever made.
Inception is the most ambitious concept ever to be committed to celluloid.
I have read all of the above sentiments with regards Christopher Nolan's latest offering and, whilst it is a very, very good film, don't be fooled by the hype machine.
The plot:
Leonardo plays Cobb, a man haunted by a traumatic event in his life, an event that means he is never allowed to return home to see his children. Cobb is also an Extractor, a man with the ability, through training not supernature, to enter people's dreams to 'extract' information. He does this with the aid of an Architect, a person adept at sculpting dreamscapes that fool the sleeping victim into revealing the information, no matter the secrecy.
When Cobb is given the opportunity to do 'one last job' at first he resists, but when the carrot is dangled before him that on successful completion he will, at last, be able to return home, he agrees.
The job?
Inception.
Instead of stealing an idea, can he place one within the mind of another and fool them into thinking that they thought of the idea themselves, independently.
Clever, no?
And it is clever.
This is a clever movie.
This is a movie that is chock full of smarts, and no mistakin'.
But that does not make it quite as awesome as everyone else seems to be claiming for, along with the IQ, come flaws:
It's too long by about twenty minutes, with many scenes stretched to breaking point.
The Cobb 'haunted by his past' dynamic I could have done without, thanks all the same.
The ending was a bit predictable, with most of the revelations flagged up well in advance.
I'll balance that out with the plus points:
The physical special effects were a real breath of fresh air in these sterile days of CGI overkill.
The performances all round are superb.
The action sequences were deftly handled.
But it is certainly not a masterclass.
In fact, if you want the truth, I think this movie is actually indicative of just how far we have allowed our standards to fall, of just what we have allowed Hollywood to get away with for too many long years.
Movies should challenge us, movies should stretch us, as this one surely does, but the fact that it feels so rare, so strange is in itself a savage indictment of the movie industry as a whole.
Heh, I'm not slating Nolan here: he's done his job consistently brilliantly for the best part of a decade now, it's just a shame we have allowed the situation where others feel they don't have to follow suit.
So, before you bemoan the lack of other quality, intelligent big budget movies take a look at your DVD collection, or Netflix queue. If a single McG or Michael Bay movie is present, ask yourself this simple question:
Am I partially to blame?

4 out of 5

Sunday 25 July 2010

Cellular (2004) Dir: David R. Ellis

Larry 'The Stuff' 'It's Alive!' Cohen is not a man known for wasting a good idea so, here, he retreads ground similar to that covered in the short, sharp 2002 Colin Farrell thriller Phone Booth.
The plot: A primary school teacher, Jessica Martin (Kim Basinger) is kidnapped by a ruthless gang who believe her husband has something that they want, and they will do whatever it takes to get their hands on it. Trapped in her own attic, the wall mounted telephone smashed to smithereens, Jessica jiggles a few wires and touches a few cables together and gets lucky, managing to make a connection to a man called Ryan (Chris Evans) on his mobile.
At first, he doesn't believe her story but, when one of the gang members re-enters the attic and Ryan hears threats issued, he is convinced, kick starting a race against time.
Can Ryan reach Jessica's husband and son before Jayson Stayffum and his cronies get their hands on them.
High concept stuff, I'm sure you'll agree, with the mobile phone plot device an effective one, lending the movie a genuine sense of the frantic.
Of course, on occasion, things become somewhat implausible - Ryan's method of obtaining a charger, the fact that the police don't take him down within minutes of commandeering the Porsche, the fact that Ryan didn't just head straight to the nearest newspaper HQ the second he saw what the crooks were after - but these quibbles are minor, and kind of missing the point.
This is all about the adrenaline rush.
Have to say, ten minutes in I felt sure I was going to hate the movie, as Ryan's character was fleshed out on Santa Monica pier, his perfect physique and Jockish banter with his 'bestest buddy' enough to make you pray for the Megashark to emerge from beneath the waves and chow down on the insufferable prick, but give the film the credit it deserves, once the MacGuffin was in place, the energy carried it through to the end.
A good action thriller.
But no more than that.

4 out of 5

Saturday 24 July 2010

Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus (2009) Dir: Jack Perez

There are some movie titles that just scream out at me '"Watch this!" despite the fact that I know, with absolute certainty, they will be awful.
There are certain movie conventions and genre's that just demand my attention and, for my shame, giant killer sharks is most certainly one of them. The context almost doesn't matter All I need to know about a film is that it will feature at least one enormous, mutant shark, though more is better, as with the very entertaining Shark Swarm, the movie with possibly my favourite DVD cover:




as well as a great tagline: Fear travels in packs.
So, with Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus the promise is that we will have not one, but two aquatic behemoths, presumably engaged in battle, Godzilla Vs. Mothra styleeeee.....
The plot: As a glacier suddenly recedes due to global warming, the titular monsters are released from their icy prison, where they have been encased since prehistoric times:
Megalodon, a hitherto extinct species of super shark that, according to the fiction of the movie, can leap as high as the clouds and ensnare a jumbo jet coming into land.
Giant Octopus, an eight tentacled brute that seems to attack anything that moves, but has a particular dislike for Megalodon's.
A team of scientists led by 80's pop starlet Debbie 'Electric Youth' Gibson (!) devise a plan to bring the beasts back together, in an ocean trench, where they will fight to their watery death.
Being an Asylum movie, several things are guaranteed:
The narrative will struggle to fill the running time, resulting in many torturously lengthy scenes that lead nowhere.
The special effects will be diabolical and repetitive.
The acting will be on a par with most 70's porn.
All of the above are present and correct.
But something is missing here. Some indefinable ingredient that elevates it above the insipid into kitsch, campy goodness.
As bizarre as it may seem with such a title, the movie is just not OTT enough. Despite the plane attack, despite the shark hanging off the fucking Golden Gate Bridge, despite the ambition far above what the budget could ever stretch to.
In fact, this movie committed the cardinal sin for a a B movie: It bored me.
Pretty disappointed with this one.

2 out of 5

The Host (2006) Dir: Joon-ho Bong

I liked this, but I so wanted to love it.
On a warm, pleasant day down by the Han River in South Korea's capital, Seoul, there are people aplenty. Students relaxing by the water, couples walking hand in hand, just enjoying each others company. One family run business takes advantage of its strategic location, selling chocolate bars, cold drinks and simple meals to the milling masses. The father who runs the place seems to do all of the graft, his lazy, layabout son constantly falling asleep behind the counter, giving youngsters the opportunity to steal their goods. After a customer complains that their squid does not have enough tentacles (!) the younger of the two goes to hand them a replacement when something strange is seen hanging beneath the bridge. All eyes are drawn when, suddenly, it drops from the bridge, plunging into the water beneath. As the crowd gathers, something is seen approaching the shore, a dark shape beneath the surface that most seem to believe is a dolphin, increasing the excitement. As it reaches the riverbank, it's no fucking dolphin , instead an enormous-toothed beast with powerful legs for running and a gaping jaw that proceeds to go on the rampage, snapping at anything that moves.
Our young hero bravely tries to help those running but he too must flee and is horrified when he spies the monstrosity approaching his own daughter. As he tries to lure the thing away it ignores him, snatching her up in its mouth before plunging back into the river and away. Presumed dead, the father receives a call from his daughter (I apologise for the lack of identification but I'm no good with Korean names. Call me a daft old racist if you must) who informs him that she is in a sewer somewhere, though in a pit from which there is no escape.
So begins the hunt to find her before the creature devours her once and for all.
It's nonsense.
Of course it is, but well realised and fairly shocking nonsense at that.
The inspiration behind Cloverfield, apparently, the comparisons are limited once you get past the 'behemoth emerges from the water' angle as, culturally, the two movies are poles apart. Here, we see much more of the monster and, crucially, we get to know the characters involved much more intimately.
Being an Asian movie, there are issues for a Western viewer, particularly when it comes to the moments of humour - the scene where the family are grieving in an OTT manner is particularly bizarre - as, for the most part, humour is confined to one part of the world for a reason: No-one else finds it funny.
The monster itself is very well realised, albeit obviously CGI'd though, oddly, here it is not an issue, despite my constant gripings about the over-use of computer effects these days.
A schizophrenic movie, then, with moments to drop the jaw and moments to leave you scratching your head wondering just what the hell is going on, but never less than entertaining and, at times, spellbinding.
Check it out (subtitled preferably, not dubbed, you unspeakable droogs).

4 out of 5

New Nightmare (1994) Dir: We Craven

The 7th in the Nightmare series was released to fairly mixed reviews, some hailing it a post-modern horror classic, others incapable of seeing through their genre jaded prejudices and declaring it derivative and wholly unoriginal.
New Nightmare is many things, but unoriginal it ain't.
The plot: Heather Langenkamp plays herself, a moderately successful actress, best known for playing the part of Nancy in parts 1 & 3 of the series.
Robert Englund is also a chief protaganmist, again playing himself, the man behind the Freddy mask.
With Wes Craven suddenly struck by a new idea for a Nightmare movie, he has taken to writing again, and is eager that both Heather and Robert are a part of the movie.
When strange events begin to occur, including some pretty grisly killings, Heather begins to become convinced that there is more to what is happening in Craven's imagination than simply penning a new movie, begins to believe, in fact, that Freddy is trying to break through from the world of fiction into the real world, to hunt down and kill all those involved in the original movie way back in 1984.
See, I told you it was pretty original.
As well as an elevation in storytelling craft, the direction is first rate as are the performances (though Langenkamp still can't act for shit).
Craven, in revisiting his most famous horror creation, manages to demonstrate that Freddy, far from the comic book, wise-cracking anti-hero that he became in the later Nightmare movies is in fact a frightening, dread-inspiring creature more than capable of putting the willies up an audience.
Clever, unpredictable and, at times, pretty intense, this is a successful reinvention.

4 out of 5

Sweeney! (1977) Dir: David Wickes

Cult British police show classic The Sweeney spawned two spin off movies, the first of which – Sweeney! – by far the better of the pair.
The plot: A politician, known for an occasional dalliance with ladies of vice, is threatened with ruination when a prostitute he has been 'visiting' is found dead in his hotel suite. Rather than face up to his misdemeanours, he instead chooses to hide his involvement. All seems well, until a friend of the dead woman asks hard smoking, hard drinking, hard punching Detective Regan to investigate and, when he starts asking the right questions to the wrong people, a plan is set in motion to discredit him. Suspended from The Flying Squad on a drink driving charge that was only partially erroneous – he had been drinking though, to ensure a conviction, he was pulled over by a couple of crooked police sorts, kidnapped and forced to swallow an entire bottle of spirits – Regan must go it alone to uncover the truth, with even his ever faithful partner Carter reluctant to get involved.
Gritty is a word often batted about when The Sweeney is mentioned and, in this case, it is absolutely applicable.
Locations are chosen for their levels of dereliction and the dialogue is stripped to the bone, with barely a sentence passing by without an expletive or three offered, the conversations ribald and profane, though never without good reason. Inevitably, some of the language would be deemed inappropriate in this day and age, specifically in terms of attitudes towards race and women but, some allowance must be made given the context.
I’m not saying it’s OK, I’m just saying it’s understandable given the age of the movie and the type of characters portrayed.
Look, I said it’s not OK.
Heh!
What the hell are you doing? Why are you handcuffing me? Oh Christ, it’s the moral acceptability police come to take me away....and they're wearing Kevlar vests with the word OUTRAGED writ large across their chests.
With lashings of violence, though sporadic, and a crackling atmosphere, this is one TV to movie spin off that managed to make the transition without losing too much credibility.
Good stuff.

4 out of 5

The Myth (2005) Dir: Stanley Tong

Jackie Chan goes all mystical and mythic on our collective arseholes in this engagingly silly fantasy.
The plot: Our man Chan plays renowned archaeologist Jack (yeah, I know, I know. Just roll with it) who seems to be experiencing two lives at once. The first, his normal if pretty exciting life digging up relics and unearthing ancient artifacts, his second, a world of dreams in which he is an ancient Chinese warrior, set around the time the Great Wall of China was first constructed, approximately 200 years BC.
Inevitably, the two worlds collide, and the heroic Jack must do battle against foes both mythic and mortal to uncover the location of an ancient mausoleum that could yet provide the secret of immortality.
Wilfully silly, this is pure flight of fancy stuff, unusual for Chan, but he takes it all in his impressively athletic stride. Jackie's knocking on a bit by now, already into his 50's, but that doesn't stop him leaping around the set like a thing possessed, the trademark fast paced, close contact martial arts on show, along with his uncanny ability to use whatever is in the vicinity. One scene of genuine Jackie Chan gold involves a fight on a conveyor belt that is coated in super strong adhesive, forcing Chan to improvise, removing articles of clothing from both himself and those around him to navigate his way to safety.
Funny and impressive all at the same time.
Whilst not up there with his earlier movies - Project A, Police Story et al - this is nevertheless something of a return to form after the unwatchable diabolicus that was the Rush Hour franchise.

3 out of 5

Solaris (1972) Dir: Andrei Tarkovsky

Andrei Tarkovsky's original Solaris is a brooding, melancholic affair, beautifully shot, that is as absorbing as it is long.
The plot: A psychologist, Kris Kelvin, is sent to a space station orbiting the mysterious ocean planet Solaris, after reports of strange goings on aboard reach mission control, not to mention the disappearance and possible murder of one of the scientists aboard.
When Kris reaches the space station, he is greeted with open hostility by the two survivors, and is perplexed by the young woman he keeps seeing fleetingly, though no woman is reportedly aboard. It's not long before his sanity is stretched to breaking point as he is paid visits by his long dead wife, victim of suicide.
Where are the hallucinations coming from, and what is there purpose?
Could it be the planet itself trying to communicate with him?
Hauntingly emotive, this is a slow burner that will drag like a dog's posterior on wet grass for some, but will simply fly by for others.
If action, explosions and laser battles is what you look for in your sci-fi, steer well clear of this, for this is much more austere, a thinking man's science fiction movie, unfit for the dribbling masses.
As Tarkovsky's painful attention to detail allows the narrative to slowly unfold, at an achingly sombre pace, the majesty of the visuals sweeps you along, utterly captivating, utterly riveting, as scene after visually sumptuous scene will leave your mind reeling, convinced that someone must have spiked you with a hallucinogen, for how else to explain the wonders you are witnessing?
At two hours forty five in duration, this is challengingly long, especially bearing in mind that almost nothing happens, but this isn't about plot twists and sleight of hand scripting, this is all about sensory stimulation, and the director achieves his aim, and then some.
As beautifully evocative a movie as you are likely to see, this comes highly recommended.

5 out of 5

Serenity (2005) Dir: Joss Whedon

After the appalling network treatment of the excellent series, Firefly, it seemed only fitting that director and creator Joss Whedon was given the opportunity to complete his tale with this full scale, cinematic outing.
Serenity, a Firefly class salvage vessel, populated by a band of likeable vagabonds who take whatever work they can find, legal or otherwise. Among their number, Simon and River Tam, a brother and sister act, he a doctor, she a troubled sort, having been genetically and mentally 'altered' by The Alliance, the ruling force who, several years prior, won the war against the independents and now lead with an iron fist.
The Alliance are very keen to get their gauntlet clad hands on River once more, as Simon busted her out of their high security facility, but Captain Mal Reynolds is determined to keep them both safe.
An unnamed operative is sent by The Alliance to track down River and bring her back, dead or alive, with kill privileges in place as necessary, but River won't be easy to reclaim, not with Reavers in the area....
Effectively a scaled up version of one of the untransmitted episodes (Objects in Space) here the character of the bounty hunter Jubal Early is replaced by The Operative, though their raison d'etre remains the same.
With a bigger budget, the effects and action scenes are ramped up accordingly, though the beating heart of the series - the character interplay - is not forgotten, the script as witty and warm as anything seen in the series.
Fusing Western and Sci-Fi stylings may seem a strange idea at first but, even if you have not seen the TV show, you will quickly adapt to the oddness; the archaic language used on occasion, the swearing in Chinese, the combination of high and low technology and, unless you truly are the kind of monster who can only find entertainment nourishment from soap opera or reality TV blandness, you will be hard pressed not to be engaged right from the get go.
An excellent sci-fi adventure, here at last being given the respect it deserves, this is simply great.

Land of the Dead (2005) Dir: George A. Romero

Romero takes us on a fourth outing of his much celebrated 'Zombies' narrative, this one a very modern, very different animal from its precursors.
The plot: Set at an unspecified time, both in terms contemporary and in relation to the other movies in the series (assuming this is all the same universe in the first place - an argument for another time) here we see the teeming dead setting siege to a luxurious high rise community, Fiddler's Green (an unfortunate turn of phrase for those in the UK) which is 'governed' by Dennis Hopper's grotesquely wealthy and uncaring Paul Kaufman.
Those within the walls of the city are protected from the masticators of mankind's matter, by both river and electric fence, living in relative contentment whilst the world beyond falls into ever deeper decay.
A small band of survivors do what they can to eke out an existence, taking what they need from abandoned shops whilst at the same time protecting themselves from zombies and would be thieves alike.
Kaufman himself is responsible for an armoured vehicle known as Dead Reckoning, replete with heavy artillery and a barrage of fireworks which are used to distract the corpsified ones when necessary. What Kaufman doesn't reckon upon is that his world of comfort is about to be shattered on two fronts; by a slighted ex-employee who takes offence at being given the boot, and by the zombies who seem determined to get their hands on the fresh meat within Fiddler's Green.
The zombies themselves are an evolution - perhaps in response to the Rage style monsters that inhabit the more recent 'zombie' movies such as 28 Days Later and even the Dawn of the Dead remake - now capable of handling tools and performing rudimentary tasks and they have a leader, an emotional zombified sort who keens and wails whenever any of his own kind fall.
With Romero, you expect social commentary and he delivers, this time his ire apparently aimed at the recent trend for the wealthy and privileged to inhabit gated communities, isolating themselves, shut off and protected from The Great Unwashed.
Perhaps not as gory as Day of the Dead, this still has enough gruel to satisfy most blood fiends out there, though it is worth noting that, however blasphemous it may be to state this, some of Tom Savini's make up design for the zombies is starting to feel a little out of date.
Whilst I am aware that this movie does not quite reach the heights of the previous offerings, this is still damn good quality horror, done the old fashioned way, which is to be commended.
Yes, I'm a fanboy when it comes to Romero and, yes, I have a bit of a soft spot for the zombie genre in general, but this ain't 'alf bad.
Besides, I'd forgive Romero most things.
I might even let him fellate me if he asked really, really nicely.

4 out of 5