Reviews

It's a shame three things spoilt what could have been a reasonably good film. Firstly, Aaron Eckhart is a great actor so I hope they paid him well for the day it took to shoot his scenes on a the one set. He was shoehorned into the movie so they could use his name. Secondly, who builds a camp in hostile territory with no walls or lookouts? An open playground would have had more protection from the rain of enemy bullets. And lastly, the dog. Let's not forget the dog. For a tracker dog that is supposed to lead the way while straining on it's leash, the damn thing had to be dragged everywhere. Where did the production company get it? The local pound? The actors were good, the concept was good, the cinematography was good. Just a damn shame the production was lacking.

Just when you think it's settling into a pattern everything changes. There's something special about this series. Great humour great acting and great writing. Just gotta love it!

I honestly don't know how to voice my concern over this series and this episode should have been so much better. Tesla storyline, great sets and effects, guest star Goran Visnjic so what went wrong? It was incredibly boring and it shouldn't have been. I've been a fan of this series for years and I'm starting to think it's being deliberately run down with rediculous scripts and lazy writing. So sad to waste such potential.

Wow - I don't know what to make of this film - it's like nothing I've ever seen before. I'm just not sure if that's good or bad yet - let me think about it for a few weeks. It's actually one of those films you need to process.

I can't fault the acting - Mads Mikkelsen delivers his characteristic and reliable screen presence, Vanessa Hudgens gives a truly remarkable performance filled with torment and emotion and Matt Lucas creates a quite unique larger-than-life very-yellow bad-guy. From the supporting actors who butcher their way through most of the remaining cast and the cameos of Johnny Knoxville and Richard Drefuss (great to see again)... the acting is near-perfect. Special mention to Katheryn Winnick as Lucas' side-kick and the only one on his team with a brain!

However, the problem I have is the eclectic mix of characters doing their own thing. At one end you have Hudgens giving an extremely dramatic performance (kudos to the actress who has shown a remarkable ability for both comedy and drama). Then, at the other end, you have Matt Lucas and his merry band of killers giving a near-comedic performance. Only Mikkelsen really bridges the two as an action hero who doesn't really seem to fit either but grounds and binds everything. The film is listed as 'action-crime' but should have included 'pseudo-comedy'.

Don't get me wrong. This may actually become a cult film but... one has to ask if the actors filming their scenes knew what the other actors were doing. If they had, they may have delivered their performances differently. The director Jonas Åkerlund did well with this movie - especially the action sequences - given that his career is predominantly music-based videos and documentaries. Only you can decide about this cinematic experience for yourself. You'll either love it or hate it. I don't think there's much middle ground!

It's actually a fairly decent movie - slow at the start but certainly gets better along the way. Didn't know what to expect going in but was glad I watched it by the end. How the hell does a zombie end up being someone you root for in the attack scene on the girl? Didn't see that coming. Had to laugh at 'no... don't bite me' and 'well I can't carry you!' These little surprises made it pretty interesting. Brittany Allen played it well - kudos - really good actress. Well worth a watch when you run out of Walking Dead episodes (in fact, the way the walking dead's been going lately you might opt for this first)!

I actually enjoyed this movie - very happy with the quality and the premise - reasonably okay with the direction and dialogue. Granted it could have been even better - anything can be improved - but it was still an enjoyable film which managed to get us to care about some of the characters. Cinematography was good, fights scenes were good and happy enough to give it a 7/10. Sam Jaeger was great in the lead role and Adrianne Palicki is always a delight to watch - and even Michael Jai White did a surprisingly good job. Worth watching!

I clicked on this and briefly thought I'd accidentally clicked on a Tom Cruise film - Andrew Katers performance in this film has many Cruise traits and he also delivers a pretty sound performance. Brian Krause - one of my favourite actors alas only has a small role - and for the most part the other actors are well chosen throughout. Special effects are good in places and bad in others so try not to be too critical - though the Earth leaving a solar system really wouldn't make the journey intact - so definitely suspend disbelief while watching this. It's pretty okay as these type of films go and, while the solution to their plight has been done in Star Trek a couple of times, it's still fairly original. Worth a watch on a lonely night.

I have no real issue with low budget. In fact, given a great script and one room as a set with good direction and editing you can make a good film for under a thousand. Sadly, this film had none of those things and I was being generous giving it a rating of 2. Now, I rarely blame the actors as a bad director can easily manage to make the greats come across as talentless. The editing deserves special mention as they hadn't even bothered to cut sound correctly with some dialogue spoken at a distance from the microphone being used in closeup. Sadly, you really need to give this one a miss. Bad editing, a terrible script and brutal direction leaves nothing worthwhile in its wake.

This film completely passed my radar and I only came across it by accident. Some well-known actors in a film that draws on the same dead-pan humor and special effects as Red Dwarf.

Kristin Kreuk looks great as usual. Amanda Tapping gives a good performance not too far removed from her character on Star Gate and, as expected, George Takei from Star Trek does a great voice for a very unusual visitor to the space station.

Personally, I liked it. Just don't expect Star Wars - the budget wouldn't have stretched that far. Don't take it seriously and just go along for the ride. It's daft in places - but laugh-out loud in others. Worth a watch!

This engaging series ran for two seasons.

The first was entitled 'popstar to operastar' and the second 'soapstar to operastar'. With that, there were few derivatives left - 'sportstar to operastar' perhaps? Myleene Klass presented extremely well with a slightly over-polished performance and the two main judges were Katherine Jenkins and Rolando Villazón - both superb performers but, as always Rolando's voice was like a perfectly tuned instrument.

It's a shame the same couldn't be said for the participants, though there were several surprises - notably Claire Richards and Darius Danesh (the former from the successful pop group 'Steps' and the latter third in Pop Idol). It was a lovely series but, alas, any series founded on the premise of trying to get non-opera singers to sing opera was always going to have quality issues with the performances.

I personally enjoyed the series and would have welcomed a third and final run.

This is an extremely good episode - neither action-filled nor ground-breaking, but excellent non-the-less. Faced with starting life with nothing but their hands and the clothes on their back, they created a frontier village. No, you can't build hdro-electricity generators within months without mines to mine the ore, smelting plants to extract copper and tools to work with. Faced with the same dilemma, I would be proud to have achieved the same in such a short space of time and I'm an engineer. We saw an alternate life for these key characters - filled with adversity, hope and achievement. This season has upped its game and, despite the continuous omission of humour that would have ensured its success in the ratings, it's still very good science fiction.

The series is set in a large apartment block (apparently a work in progress) located in the old Bedlam mental hospital. The reactions from our small audience were very mixed - between finding it very addictive to others (including myself) who found it to be a badly written piece of entertainment. The actors are all very competent and give their best but the characters are not well developed and so much more could have been achieved by making this first episode a two-parter with a more involved story and a rich tapestry of background for the building and its inhabitants. Hopefully, as the series progresses, it will find its feet.