Sucker Punch (2011) Dir: Zack Snyder

Simply dreadful.
The plot: A young woman, known only as Baby Doll, is sent to an institution by her wicked stepfather soon after the passing of her mother.
Once there, she retreats into a lavish world of fantasy as she plots her escape…
It near beggars belief that a movie with so much action, so much on screen mayhem, so much movement and chaos and momentum could be so utterly, crushingly, mind-bogglingly, stupefyingly, absurdly dull, dull, dull.
This is a movie that features Nazi zombies.
This is a movie that features relentless, emotionless cybernetic killbots.
This is a movie that features a fire breathing dragon.
That features samurai swords, a city's destruction, machine guns, biplanes and blimps. Not to mention an assortment of sexy young things wearing the kind of fetish gear with the power to make grown men weep.
And yet.
Aaaaand yet....it is so fucking boring you'll want to eat your own fingers whilst it's on.
A laser beam here, a hold-up stocking there, a slit throat here, a flash of knickers there.
Yawn, yawn, yawn, yawn, yawn.
It's like Snyder delved into every male fantasy and attempted to spunk it all onto the screen, only to find his lustful outpourings watery and weak.
Noisy, nonsensical - honestly, this makes not one jot of sense - and eye stabbingly tedious.
Sure, the girls were smokin' hot, but the movie was fucking awful.

1 out of 5

Robin Hood (2010) Dir: Ridley Scott

What a disappointment.
I wanted to like this movie. I really did.
Though never being particularly interested in the Robin Hood story, even as a child, the very mention of the name brings back painful memories of deathly dull Sunday afternoons, my mother lying on the sofa, inflating over time like a fucking bull frog, stuffing her face full of Liquorice Allsorts as the Enya-bot wailed out the opening sequence to Robin of Sherwood.
I'm haunted by it, shivering a little as I type these words.
Even with all of that, I genuinely hoped to enjoy this new version, not least because of Ridley Scott at the helm, a director I greatly admire, even if I don't always like the movies he makes. For every Alien there's a Hannibal, every Black Hawk Down there's a G.I. Jane.
Know what I mean?
The plot: King Richard is killed waging war in France, a death that leads to the potential for a French invasion, as Britain is left leaderless and rudderless.
Robin Longstride leads a group of men against both the invading French and the treacherous Godfrey, portrayed with genuine zeal by Mark Strong, the shining star in this gloopy, flabby tale.
That's about it for the plot, aside from a crushingly tedious romance angle between Wobin and Marian, that follows the same path as any one of those God awful romantic comedies.
You know how it works: When first they meet she can't stand him, he finds her too cold but, gradually, as they become more acquainted, the frostiness thaws and true love blossoms.
Please, someone, pass me that filleting knife, I want to stab out my own guts.
The plot rambles on, in no great hurry for anything to actually happen, all the action far too mellow, far too restrained, lacking the muscular spectacle of, say, Gladiator, the makers clearly keen to ensure a low enough rating to get the kids in. And it's a shame, as a blood drenched version of the tale could be very interesting indeed.
Special mention must be made of Crowe's accent, which meanders between Wales, Liverpool, Ireland and even Scotland but, crucially, never once settling on The East Midlands, you know, Nottinghamshire, his attempts to sound British a dismal failure.
The Aussie tit.
As a measure of how dull this movie was, I fell asleep for about fifteen minutes and, roughly half an hour from the end, I left the cinema to go and have a fag.
Truthfully.
Disappointingly dull, then.

2 out of 5.