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
Tuesday 28 December 2010
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.
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
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
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