Reviews

Being a huge fan of the indiana jones series I was both excited and nervous about this 4th installment. Excited because of all the stuff I had heard from Spielberg, Ford etc about how it would be made in the same spirit as the first three, with old school stunts, no CGI, and a fantastic script that had taken 10 years to perfect. Nervous because of the law of diminishing returns, with Last Crusade not as good as TOD and that film not being as good as Raiders.

Well unfortunately I was right to be nervous as this film is a major disappointment. If it were any other film it would be so-so, but as its an Indiana Jones film, I'd have to class it as pretty bad.

It doesn't start off too bad, with a chase through Area 51 (the final resting place of the Ark of the Covenant from Raiders), with the villains of the piece being the Russians replacing the Nazis. From there on however it goes downhill, with terrible ideas coming thick and fast. How bad are these ideas?

Surviving a nuclear bomb by hiding in a fridge?! CGI gophers! Shia Lebouef as Marlon Brando wannabe Mutt Williams who has a connection to Indy, only people with single digit IQ will not be able to guess what that connection is.

And this is only the first half of the movie the second half gets worse.

More CGI with Mutt swinging through the trees with an army of monkeys! Comedy blows to the groin, over and over again! Yet more CGI in the form of killer ants!

Following on from this is the most over the top ludicrous ending that you will ever see that provoked groans from the whole cinema at the screening where I saw the film.

I know people will say that its meant to be a B movie homage, but here's the fact if you spend a hundred million dollars plus on a film it Isn't a B movie.

Also if you spend that much make sure some of it goes on a script.

As others have previously noted about Barry Lyndon, it is incredibly well made (special cameras had to be made to pick up the naturalistic lighting), and the soundtrack is fantastic. Also, although people complain about the running time and acting, I found that both the length and the characters really put you into the 18th Century and every scene in the film is perfectly paced and shot.

The only problem I have with it is that after investing time and emotion with Redmond Barry, and seeing him rise and fall through both armies and the class system, was that he doesn't get revenge on Lord Bullingdon,surely the most annoying character ever put on film. I appreciate that the film was about Barry's rise and fall, and a film doesn't have to have a happy ending to be great, but after watching the final duel between Barry and Lord Bullingdon I was disgusted.

PLOT SPOILERS

During the final duel Bullingdon misfires, giving Barry (a seasoned war veteran) the chance to kill him. Barry does not take his chance, thinking obviously that this would make a truce between the two, but Bullingdon again demands his satisfaction and shoots Barry in the leg which leads to amputation.

In the previous half hour Barry has lost his "friends", and his son, and I felt that this final blow could have been tempered if he had managed to have some kind of retribution against Bullingdon.

In comparison to other Kubrick movies this is not as good as "2001", or "Clockwork Orange", but is as good as "Eyes Wide Shut" and deserves to be more widely viewed.

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** A lot of people knock this first installment of Star Wars but I thought it was great. The problem was that people had built this film up over 16 years since Return of the Jedi, and no film could live up to those kind of expectations.

From the opening bars of the Star Wars theme I had goose bumps on my neck and for the next two hours it was like being a kid again.

The story has been unfairly critcicised for having no plot but I think that the story is quite complicated for what is really a film for children.

!PLOT SPOILERS! Also in what other childrens film do you see the main character, the hero all the way through, die. And the main bad guy Darth Sidious "the Phantom Menace", get away? I think a lot of people who are not Star Wars fans didn't realise that Senator Palpatine is Darth Sidious and the Emperor. Also it was a brave decision by George Lucas to kill off Darth Maul, too often in blockbuster movies the bad guy appears to be dead only to return in some corny and contrived way, but seeing Darth Maul cut in two reinforces that he isn't coming back. Another complaint is that Darth Maul isn't in the film enough but I disagree, the film isn't about him and isn't it better to want more of a character (as with Boba Fett in Empire and Jedi), than to overuse them unnecessarily?

The other thing people dislike is the character of Jar Jar Binks and I can understand that he isn't to everyones taste but he is there to lighten up what is essentially quite a dark story and provide humour especially for children.

!PLOT SPOILERS! The only problem I can see with The Phantom Menace is that by having Anakin Skywalker be such a good little kid it will be difficult to turn him into Darth Vader in just two films.

All in all The Phantom Menace is a fantastic movie, much better than recent blockbusters such as the highly over rated "The Matrix" and "The Mummy" It has great characters, cool lightsabers battles, fast spaceships and out of this world costumes, and is a exciting prequel to the other movies.