Reviews

For those who don't want an in depth review, the easiest way to describe Django Unchained is to say it's Inglorious Basterds set in the Wild West. Just not quite as good.

That's not to say it's bad movie. In the world of movies it is a good movie. However, this is Quentin Tarantino movie and in the world of Tarantino movies, this is not his best work. It feels very stock.

From the very first few seconds of the opening of the movie it is immediately clear this is the Wild West Tarantino style - all kitsch, cool, badass, and darkly funny. However, Tarantino does exceptionally well at highlighting the real tragedy and brutality of American slavery. It's fair to say that although everyone knows slavery is and was bad, they don't really know how bad it was, how cruel it was, and what African-Americans had to go through just to have a chance at survival. Being made fully aware of this through this movie, in graphic visual detail, for me, jarred with the trying to add a cool element to it. On top of that the cartoonish violence, the buckets of blood, spouting like torrents when someone is shot, take away from the the impact of the redemption that Django is looking for. You really want the bad guys to die, but by killing them comically it takes away from the impact and righteousness of their death.

Jamie Foxx does an OK job as Django, he doesn't drive the movie though. Although this is his story the movie is stolen by Leonardo DiCaprio as Calvin Candie. His portrayal is a triumph, at once both engaging, funny, yet deeply dark and violent. When he realises the ruse Django and Dr. Schultz (played by Christopher Waltz) are trying to con him in to selling them Djangos wife, his switch from southern gentlemen to violent, racist, murderer grips you.

Christopher Waltz, on the other hand, although he gives a good performance, feels very much as if he is just repeating his performance as Hans Landa in Inglorious Basterds. Furthermore, a lot of the scenes seem to be similar to those in Inglorious Basterds, just with different characters. There are very few stand out scenes. In fact the best scene is a comical moment when the KKK, on their way to kill Django & Dr. Schultz, have an argument about how poorly their masks were made by one of the KKKs wives, and how they can't see where they were going.

Although this movie promises much, it just doesn't deliver as much as it does in other Tarantino movies. It feels much more as if Tarantino was just taking it easy, doing the expected Tarantino things in the Tarantino way, not really pushing himself at all. It doesn't have the visual flair of Kill Bill vol. 1, it doesn't have the pace or freshness of Reservoir Dogs, it doesn't have the coolness or surprises of Pulp Fiction, or the great action scenes from Death Proof and Kill Bill.

Tarantino is right, it's very doubtful it will win best picture at the Oscars. The surprise is it was even nominated at all to be honest. I think the subject matter may have been the reason why, it seems a very political nomination as this is far from Tarantino's best work.

I saw the Blu-Ray of this. I was planning on catching it in a movie theater at some point but missed out and, having now watched it on Blu-Ray, I'm glad I didn't waste the cost of a cinema ticket.

The whole idea of this movie intrigued me, Ridley Scott stating in interviews that it's not a prequel, it's an original movie that references Alien. Being a fan of Alien & Aliens I was intrigued as to what that meant.

Having now watched the movie I now know what he meant was that it is a prequel, but it's so bad I'm going to try and distance it from Alien because I screwed it up and I don't want people to associate it with the Alien franchise because they will lynch me.

It's not original because it's virtually Alien without the Aliens. All of the references to Alien are clearly there but what they do is completely screw up the Alien mythology as it originally stood and if you were to watch Alien now everything you loved about it would make no sense because the prequel that isn't a prequel has destroyed any of the concepts and understanding of Alien and the Aliens in it.

Naomi Rapaces character is Ripley from Alien in a different guise. A strong woman who is not trained to be a leader or killer but who ends up leading everyone else and killing the alien baddie in the movie and, just like Alien, the ending takes place in the escape pod. Hell, even though she's just a scientist, she decides at the end of the move to not return to earth but instead to fly off and go and take on the entire race of the 'human engineers' who created the Aliens to begin with, all on her own with a broken headless robot at her side. The robot is played by Michael Fassbender, and is a direct copy of Ash in Alien, even down to having his head torn off at the end.

Idris Elba's character is a copy of Dallas in Alien, and all of the crew members are copies of all the other crew members in Alien (i.e. the ones who get picked off one by one in Alien). Crew members get inseminated via aliens in metal pods rather than seed pods in Alien, and then something grows inside of them, just like Alien, but it doesn't look like the alien in Alien. See how this movie is original so far?

What Charlie Theron's characters point is I don't know. She doesn't do anything, is hardly in any scenes, and then gets killed. Weyland also appears in this prequel that's not a prequel, but is a completely different looking and sounding Weyland to the Weyland in all the other Alien and indeed Alien vs. Predator movies. How does that work? Why make all the other characters copies of characters in Alien but make Weyland, who appears in all the other Alien movies, different?

This whole movie is bizarre, and it's no wonder if you have a director claim it's original when the story is virtually the same as Alien, with characters poor copies of the characters in Alien. The action scenes are poor, there is nothing scary about the movie, the acting is poor and the accents even poorer (Rapace is Swedish but plays an English woman, Elba is English but plays an American - and both can't do their respective accents properly).

If you wanted to make an original movie make an original movie. If you want to do a prequel to Alien do a prequel, but one thing you can't and shouldn't do is try to do both in one movie. Ridley has quite literally done a Lucas, and completely screwed over an entire franchise to make some money. If this movie was the first in the Alien franchise there never would have been an Alien, because this is so poor no one would want to see anything more. Because it's so poor Alien now makes no sense if this is indeed it's prequel.

If you like Alien and want to keep those good memories of Alien never, ever, ever see this movie. It destroys the Alien franchise.

I saw this movie as I am a fan of Sacha Baron Cohen and his alter egos Ali-G and Borat.

I also understand the point of his characters and how he uses them to show us peoples true feelings and reaction to controversial issues when their guards are down, holding the mirror up to society as he would say, and I find such comedy funny. However, with Bruno I think Sacha has finally gone too far. I don't know if it is because Bruno is the lesser known/popular of his characters so he felt he had to up the ante to get more attention but there is a fine line between being controversially funny and being plain offensive and I'm afraid, with this movie, the line has been crossed and it is overwhelmingly just offensive about the subjects raised.

Clearly some subjects, such as him pretending to be casting for a baby ad campaign to highlight the extremes parents will go to in order to get their baby cast (including agreeing to have a baby lose 10 pounds via liposuction to get the job), highlight misjudged actions and opinions. But pretending to interview Ron Paul and then try and strip in front of him and come on to him, or going to the middle east in a bid to cease the hostilities by singing offensive songs in what is already a hostile situation just crosses the line. Indeed, it shows the misjudged actions of the star than the unwitting people being pranked. Maybe a mirror should be held up to Sacha Baron Cohen himself because, based on this movie, I don't think he'll like what he sees.

Once again, I'm amazed at how a movie such as this gets the score it gets on IMDb.

I can't remember the last time I've been so bored watching a movie. I'm glad I didn't catch this in the theaters because I'm pretty sure this would have been the very first movie I ever walked out of. I hear tales of other films in which people were supposedly so bored they left half way through and I would never have even imagined myself doing such a thing until now.

The premise of Splice is that two scientists (who are also a couple who don't have children) illegally create a new human/animal hybrid species and, despite nearly killing it in the beginning, don't because they develop paternal instincts for it, that is until it grows up into a monster. This premise sounds like good horror fare, but it's let down in several major departments.

The first is the script which, at times, absurd. I mean the final third of the movie has the male scientist Clive (played by Adrien Brody) first trying to kill the monster (Dren played by Delphine Chanéac), then falling in love with it and having sex with it, and then being killed by it (this is supposed to literally happen in the space 2 days - who tries to kill something and then fall in love with it within 2 days? And that something being a human/animal hybrid of all things). At the same time the female scientist Elsa (played very badly Sarah Polley) loves the monster as if it's her own child, then hates it and cuts off its tail to perform experiments on it, then loves it again, then gets raped by it, and then thinks twice about killing it after it's already raped her (and it's this delay that gets Adrien Brody's character killed), then kills it but not because it raped her but because it killed her partner and, if the ending is to be believed, is now pregnant and willing to have a baby from being raped by the monster. It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, let only had to painfully watch.

Secondly, this is billed as a horror movie but it's not scary in anyway, all of the supposed scares are signposted well before they happen, so you know who is going to die and when, and you know when the monster is going to jump on screen, which just adds to the boredom. Horror movies are supposed to surprise and scare you, not give you big warning flags about scary moments coming up.

Thirdly, the acting is bad, I mean really bad. You don't believe in either Sarah Polley's character being a super bright scientist who just wants to help save lives by creating this new monster to harvest special proteins, or in her somehow developing paternal instincts to the monster she's created. There is no chemistry between Sarah Polley or Adrien Brody, so you don't believe in them being a couple, hence you don't believe that he's willing to go along with it out of love for her, or that he then becomes attracted to the monster because it looks like his lover because she used some of her DNA to create it.

Finally, the pace of the movie is soooooooo slow, it's only in the last 15 minutes that anything remotely action orientated happens, the rest of the time is spent on boring conversations about whether creating a new species is right, or how they can't kill this creature because it's like a child etc, it's boring.

I don't get this movie at all, it doesn't know if it's supposed to be a horror movie or high brow social commentary on the dangers of gene science (or a splice of the two - pun intended). It fails on both those, and many more levels. I'd steer well clear of this movie, it's not worth the effort.

I wanted to post a comment here because I think this movie deserves a wider audience than it has got so far.

No, it's not the blockbuster people were expecting, nor is it truly an X File in the mold of the first movie or TV series. But, it is a good movie.

Just as Christ Carter and the cast and crew have matured, so have the X Files characters and their story line. Belief in aliens has been changed to beliefs in religion, and monsters of the fantasy kind changed into monsters of the reality kind, in this case a pedophile priest and 'Frankenstein' like doctors. In many ways, it shows how the fantasy of the TV series plots isn't that much removed from the reality of what really happens in the world today.

As a story, it's intriguing and keeps you guessing, it well scripted and acted (although Anderson does over play it at times), and there are some nice cues to fans of the show. The development of Mulder & Scully's relationship is good to see although odd that, now lovers with a deceased child, they still call each other by their surnames? However, it's pacing is at times slow, because you get ahead of the story line and characters into what's going to happen next, and the finale is quite anti-climatic. It a good suspenseful movie, with a mature attitude and plot, but not an edge of your seat experience.

While on one hand a brave move and one to be quite respected, it does leave you, if your a fan of the show, quite disappointed in that you know these characters and have seen and done much more fantastic and amazing things that this seems like a walk in the park for them really. It doesn't really stretch them as characters or exponentially expand on our knowledge of them. If it was an episode of the TV series it would be enjoyable, but not a favorite, and not one you'll likely watch again.

The capper on this is the sequence over the credits, with long shots of vistas and then finally Mulder rowing Scully to an island and then waving t the camera - what was that all about?????

What a HUGE shame. The hype around this movie was immense, the public fervor rampant, and the hope high, which makes the disappointment so deep.

Superman should be on the big screen, and it's amazing that he was missing for so long. All the elements seemed there for something amazing and yet we got this? How?

What's right with this movie?

• Brandon Routh (great casting, really comes across as Superman, and is not a major departure from the legend that is Christophe Reeve)

• Music - uses the original score to great effect

• Space shuttle sequence (bad ass and really has you tingling as Superman does his super mojo thing)

• Parker Posey (she shines in this movie, whether that's down to Parker's acting, or the poor performances of the other cast members is one for debate)

What's wrong with this movie?

• Story/screenplay (just total pap, from the super-boy plot line to Lex Luther's plans to take over the world - just utter doggy doo)

• Kate Bosworth (not Lois Lane, not by a long shot, doesn't look right, doesn't sound right, doesn't play the character right - just rubbish)

• Jimmie Olson (more like Jimmie needs a punch in the face - just an annoying pointless character/performance)

• Superboy (I just wanted to kill that kid every time I saw him on screen, what a ridiculous plot point)

• James Marsden (why was in the movie at all?)

• Directing (just a total lack of creativity on Bryan Singers part, in both the tension within scenes and his shot selection. He shoots with such a clichéd summer blockbuster style, it has no grandeur about it at all)

There are other things that just don't make sense either. For a movie with a supposed production cost of $200 million plus, where did all that money go? The CGI isn't the most amazing, certainly not on actors salaries, and if it went on sets then Singer could of shot them better, you don't get a sense of a grand-i-ose production, that's for sure. Also, did Singer run out of ideas, every time there's a rumble we get mutiple close up shots of things shaking - pens in pots, plates, pictures, drinks, blah blah blah, there are at least four separate occasions he shoots the scenes this way, it's overload, and smacks of a lack of creativity - total rip-off from Jurassic Park.

It's as if everyone involved suddenly got scared of what was expected, so did everything by the numbers, but in the end the numbers don't add up. It's not one major thing that's wrong, it's several little things that add up to one big mess. Please God let 'Man of Steel' be good, we don't want Superman to disappear again.

Wow, talk about a movie not living up to the hype, or even it's own trailer.

I can't begin to tell you how disappointed (and sick, more of which later) this whole movie made me feel. Who's fault is that? The studio for all the great hype, the reviewers and critics for falling for it and calling this great? Or for the clear references and rip offs of the 9/11 tragedy that are seen throughout this film? First off, I will mention that I watched this on DVD, and had to watch it in 2 installments. Not because it was bad, but because the whole camera constantly moving around made me feel sick and I had to take a break half way through for fear of throwing up. If you suffer from any form of motion sickness be warned, this will bring it out in you. Making your audience vomit through scares and gross out scenes is good, making them sick because of the way you shoot the movie, NOT good.

The idea itself I like, following a group of random people enjoying a party and then suddenly tragedy strikes and we watch it all unfold, as confused as they are, not too sure what it is that is attacking - great idea. Shoot it from a POV - great idea too. However, it's the execution of the idea that this film is poor.

The whole guy meets girl, guy loses girl, girl & guy get separated by monster attack, guy try's to save girl from monster attack thing is fine, but the story elements within it are quite cliché.

The problem also lies in the POV itself. The point of it is that is supposed to be in the style of a video you might see on YouTube or something, but it doesn't actually look like one, because it's shot in Hi-Def for a start, not a proper everyday camcorder, but also it's directed in a very specific way. Although the camera is POV, it's panning and looking in a very specific way, to show very specific things (be they close ups of hands holding or people faces, or quick look at a monsters leg or something crashing into something). And it's so obvious that it doesn't feel on the fly, or amateurish, as it's actually supposed to be. You're very aware that you're deliberately being shown certain things, which goes against the point of shooting it this way, and stops it being the last video of an amateur camcorder user trying to capture events on camera that the premise of the movie sets it out to be.

My biggest gripe though is that, having seen the 9/11 tragedy unfold on TV, as many of us have done, you can clearly tell someone looked at the events of that day, and the many amateur clips seen on TV during that day capturing the attack, and thought they'd do that for this movie. People in NY being caught up in a sudden unexpected attack - check. Amateur footage of the unexpected attack taking place - check. Famous NY land mark being destroyed - check. Clouds of dust chasing stunned NY'ers down the streets as buildings collapse - check. It's so obvious that it's offensive. The producers, writer and director have taken a national tragedy, turned it into a monster movie and used it to make themselves money. I'm disgusted by the clear 9/11 references in this movie.

Add in the lack of character depth allowed by the story the way it's told in this instance, it means you quite frankly couldn't give a rats ass about them either. I understand the need for picking a bunch of unknown actors to help tell this story, as we need them to be everyday people, but the acting is very poor, with Hud (the guy holding the camera and from whose POV we view the entire movie) particularly cheesing you off, with his light relief/comedy role within the movie just not working at all.

I think this movie was made for 15 year olds, anyone older than that or who actually has a brain will see right through the "creative" execution of POV story telling for the bad, rip off, story that this actually is.

Nostalgia - sometimes it's a good thing and sometimes it's bad. In this instance, it's bad.

Yes, the 80's throwback continues, we see it in fashion, in music, and in movies. It's a shame as I'm an 80's child, and I'm seeing all these teenagers now trying to imitate the look of the 80's and I feel slightly miffed that they're trying to copy and claim my childhood as if it's their own, and also as if they're the first to discover it and we didn't actually know what we were doing in the original 80's. We did know what we were doing, because we had the original Indy trilogy, and it was bad ass.

However, the reason it was bad ass was because it was of the moment, it was part of that history of that time and captured it perfectly. As with when I look at all the kids in the leggins and pumps and day-glow colored clothes today, it doesn't work because it doesn't actually reflect the times, it's not worn with the same attitude, it's a fake imitation, and imitations are never as good as the real thing. The 80's look was cool was because it was in the 80's. Take it out of the 80's and it doesn't work. The same can be said for Indy 4.

Reading the trivia section on IMDb, you can tell it has had a long and troubled production history, and it actually shows in the finished movie. The story feels a mis-mash of different ideas from different screenplays (which it is), written to incorporate set piece ideas from the director rather than tell a story (which it was), and filled with one liners and pointers to how good the other movies were rather than continuing the story of the life and adventures of Indian Jones (which it does).

And it gets worse. The directing is actually pretty poor (I know, who'd have thought you'd ever here someone say that about Steven Spielberg). Some of the shot selection, or repetitive points of view and camera pans, is ridiculously amateur. The cinematography is not great either. There's an unbelievable amount of lens flaring in shots (and if this was by design, then it was a poor decision) and the lighting is poorly executed, because you can easily tell the difference between location, studio, and green screen shots, because the lighting changes so dramatically. The sound man also needs to be shot, the amount of re-dubbing, particularly during the first 3rd of the movie, smacks of a poor job.

The action sequences are cartoonish, especially the motorbike scene at the beginning of the movie, and the jungle sequence (Mutt swinging through the jungle a la Tarzan, monkies attacking the bad guys, and killer ants? Come on, this is not a cartoon!). And what was with the whole jumping the car of the cliff to land on a tree that slowly bends down to land them in the river? I'm sorry, did this just become a fantasy film? And the poor CGI execution doesn't help but add to the cartoonish feel of the movie. That goes completely against the history of the franchise. The whole point of the originals, and how Harrison Ford approached the character, was that this was a hero you could believe in. That was clearly trashed in order to appeal to todays CGI market.

Harrison Ford does carry the old Indy swagger well, and it's nice to watch him, but Shia LeBouef is off in his execution of character, while Cate Blanchette and John Hurt play their characters with poor stereotypical traits, and Karen Allen is particularly bad and grating in her scenes, just very poor acting on her part.

I'm sure some of that can be put down to the script though. As mentioned before, it's a mismatch, scenes are clearly there to allow for a certain action sequence to take place, or for a joke or reference to previous Indy films to take place, not to actually tell a good story. And at the end, the whole alien thing makes you feel like they just mashed the endings of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Close Encounters of the Third Kind into one. I think having watched this, and Star Wars 1-3 & Clone Wars, it's clear that George Lucas is clearly now out of touch with story telling. All of the franchise movies he's re-visited in the last 8 years have never been near the standard of the originals. Sorry George, but it's true.

It's sad. As with seeing teenagers wearing 'Frankie Says Relax' t-shirts today, watching this movie makes you realize how good the originals were, but also angry that someone is trying to cash in on your child hood memories by imitating them now so they can be sold to today's kids as something brand new. And, just like the t-shirts, this movie doesn't hold the same power as the original because the original represented a time and feeling, this just represents the need for a quick buck. Indy sold his soul, and all of us 80's kids should be very disappointed by that.

Whoah! The current juggernaut that is The Dark Knight has been breaking records and causing fervor amongst movie goers and particularly, I see, voters here on IMDb. Is this really worth an average score on IMDb of 9.4 (as of July 30)? Of the top 10 highest rated movies on IMDb, does this deserve to be among them? I saw it in a packed movie theater, with a great cross-section of people, but mostly tweens, teens, and people up to around 30's, and at the end of it, rather than a big cheer, or round of applause or mumbling of contentment and positive comments there was just silence as every one left. I don't think it was a good stunned silence in awe of what they saw, more of a silence whilst we all wondered what the fuss was about.

Is it a good movie? Yeah, but better than the first? Nah, not really, just as good but not mind blowingly better. So, what do I consider to be the reason the people I saw it with didn't think it was worth all the fuss? Well from here on in be spoilers.

First off, it's too long. The first half zips along at a nice pace, but then from the point where Harvey Dent is burned and becomes Two-face, it drags on and on and on. Around 1 hour 20 the tweens in the audience started to get bored, around 1 hour 40 the teens started to get bored, and around 2 hours the rest of us started to wish it would end already! Also, talking of Two-face, a lot was said and hyped about how gruesome he looked. Nah, not at all. When the "look" was revealed, nobody screamed, some actually laughed at it, and the groups of girls behind us commented "that looks stupid". And what's with the need for so many villains in movies these days. The marketing campaign makes you think this is a Joker movie, so why bring Two-face into it, why isn't one bad guy enough? There's also a small appearance by Scarecrow too, which isn't really necessary. It's like they said "Well, Spider-Man 3 had 3 villains, we must match that." What about Heath Ledger as the Joker, is he as scary as people say? Is it as great a performance as people say? Well he's watchable, but better than Jack Nicholson's take on it? No, not for me. Not scary either really. I didn't feel this was a real madman at work. Worthy of an Oscar? No way man, I mean if you lost an Oscar to this guy for this performance you'd have to be seriously upset. It would be a gesture at best, and a political correctness one at that.

It's been said that the movie was based on Heat, in the way the whole cop double cross story line pans out, but I'd say you can clearly see ideas from many movies in here. The whole last fight scene with the "sonar vision" reminded me of the ending of Daredevil, and neither of them are good scenes or easy to follow. The Hong Kong scene made me think of Mission: Impossible, and the whole scene about choosing who to save (Harvey Dent or Rachel Dawes) is similar to Spider-Man, and Batman 3, it's not a new concept and you also know what will happen because you've seen these scenes before.

The action scenes are OK, but it's pretty hard to tell whats going on because of all the jump cutting, but the main thing is that Batman never really has a decent fight. He seems to dispatch the foes to easily, there's no struggle to any of his fights, and the action sequences are too short for me. They feel like they're setting up for one cool bit of action, but then they're over again and the final fight scene is a big monster of a fight scene either, it's not the best saved till last concept going on here, the best scene is half-way through with Batman on the Bat-bike chasing down the Joker in the truck.

Finally, the story line. It's OK and all, but it's quite repetitive, as there are several separate scenes which spell out how we make a choice between good and evil, how we have to choose to be good. Yeah, we got it already the first time, and it's this repetition of this concept in the scenes that make the movie drag out.

So, overall, is it a good movie? Yes, definitely watchable. Better than Batman Begins? No, not for me, if I had a choice to watch Batman Begins or the Dark Knight again, I'd choose Batman Begins. Best comic book movie adaptation ever, as I see one commentator say on here? Not the best, no, but better than most. Worth a 9.4 score on IMDb? NO WAY, that's the studio marketing machine driving that right now, I think it will come down when people calm down. Who knows, I'm sure studio people log on and push votes up, and I know I for one was waiting for this to come out and think it's one of the best movies to come out so far, but you need to not let that influence your voting. So, great movie, but not as great as people say, just don't go in expecting to see the greatest movie ever.

This movie was quite trumpeted in the press when in first came out in theaters, and Will Smith duly obliged by appearing on every single show and radio station promoting the movie, hyping it up. After all that, and the promise it held, it's a rather underwhelming experience.

The production history of this movie is a legend unto itself, having a version of the story made in the 70's, and 3 attempts at a more faithful to the book version since then, so you would imagine that would mean that there was an interesting story to be told here. Now, I haven't read the book, so I don't know how it is, but going by this movie, I can't see why there was such a keenness to get it made.

Will Smith plays Robert, a Lt, Corporal something or other who somehow has participated in producing a vaccine for cancer, which inadvertently goes wrong and kills 90% of the worlds population. Of the remaining population, 9% get turned into "dark runners" vampires/zombies for all intents and purposes who only come out at night, and the remaining 1% are their food. Will's character is stranded in New York City, after it was quarantined and he sent his family off to a safe haven and stayed behind so he could find a cure for the vaccine "as NY is ground zero". After 2 years of living with just his dog on the island, only going out during the day, he is yet to find a cure for the "dark runners".

The opening 30 mins follows Will during his daily routines, hunting for food, searching buildings for survivors/supplies, working on his vaccine etc. It works for while, but the problem with just having Will and a dog is that there's not much going on, we get flashbacks to the night of the quarantine from time to time and what happened that night, but it's not enough to engage you, so you have to rely on Will being interesting, and unfortunately he's not. Some actors can act and tell a story with their facial expressions alone, and this is what was needed in this movie with such little dialog, but I'm afraid this doesn't seem to be Will's strength as an actor, and it leaves you begging for some action/drama to allow some more scope.

Unfortunately, there are few action scenes (3 in the whole movie), and these are also very underwhelming. If the dark runners are supposed to be human, then why are they completely computer generated? And why were they poorly computer generated at that? You don't fear them at all, you just keeping saying "Hey, that's really bad effects".

About an hour in some fellow survivors arrive on the scene, and you hope the story picks up, but unfortunately it doesn't. The scenes feel contrived and cliché, with Will struggling to adapt to company, let alone a female and a child who remind him of the family he lost, and his acting in these scenes, especially the breakfast scene when he's trying to control his emotions, seems very forced and over acted.

When the dark runners finally find his hide out and invade, you hope for a grandeur ending, but it doesn't materialize, it's quite quick and not very action packed.

Overall, this movie is very at odds with itself. It's not the actioner you might expect it to be, it's not the horror/scary movie you might expect it to be, and it's not a strong performance by Will Smith, which is a shame, because I like a lot of it's work. It's really a hyped up version of 28 weeks later, with a bigger budget but less thrills, less action, and a poorer script, and you feel rather flat having watched it.

I have to say, I've been liking a lot of Shia LaBeouf's work, and so the opportunity to see him in a leading role was appealing, as he did a good job in Transformers, so I saw this on IMDb, saw the rating it had, and thought it would be a good DVD to rent.

The premise of Disturbia is actually pretty fresh, a kid under house arrest for assaulting a school teacher due to repressed anger about his father's recent death who, with all the spare time on his hands, starts watching his neighbors to get a glimpse of what's happening on the outside world. He soon realizes however, that one of his neighbors late night antics may be more than they seem.

Sounds good as an idea right? I mean I can see a studio exec hearing that and thinking, yeah sounds good, a nice Friday night/date movie. However, as with all good ideas, they only work if they are executed well, and this is just a poor execution of premise and acting talent from beginning to end.

There are so many plot holes and down right stupid conveniences in this movie that it's just annoying. He has a sexy neighbor who moves in next door, whose bedroom just happens to be right opposite his. OK, but how come he can stand right at the window, with binoculars, with all of his lights on, and she can't see him looking at her? How come when he jumps the fence of his neighbors house for the first time to go and help his friend Ronnie, 3 police cars and 6 officers respond to his tag going off within seconds, but when he jumps it later on in the movie to save his mom from getting killed only 1 sole cop turns up, and only after having finished his burger and delaying his response? How come Shia manages to get the blueprints to his neighbors house online? Blueprints to everyone's houses are now available online? How come his murdering neighbor manages to build an entire, huge, 20ft by 20ft medical room in the middle of his house, with white tiled walls, medical operating tables and everything, yet no one seemed to question why a suburban household might need such a room, or why operating theater equipment was being delivered to a house address. Did he manage to build it himself? He could the murdering neighbor split his entire house in half (according to the free blueprints that were found online) and add a huge room and basement and hide it behind a concealed door all by himself? How come his basement is the size of a football field, yet his house isn't? How come his next door neighbor/now girlfriend can send him pictures messages from her phone that seem to go straight to Shia's computer screen? The list goes on and on.

Now sometimes, the conveniences are needed to help drive plot and story, so can be forgiven. But an incessant list of striking conveniences starts to really bug you, and is a sign of poor execution and laziness by both the writer and director.

A prime example of poor execution in the story telling is Carrie-Anne Moss in her role as the mother. She hardly appears in the movie, and when she does it's only to help conveniently move things on, she has no real purpose or character development at all, she pops into a scene to provide a convenient bit of tension or plot point, then disappears for about 30 mins, then suddenly appears again. What does she do, she's never at the house except when a convenient situation is needed. What is she, CIA? A hooker? What on earth does she do that seems to keep her out of the house 24/7? For example, the murdering neighbor, who hasn't been confirmed as a murdering neighbor yet, suddenly appears in Shia's kitchen, having been invited in by his mother (who has also suddenly appeared from nowhere). Clearly there is tension between Shia and the neighbor, who knows Shia has been watching him. Hmmmmm, how can they express that they know what each other is up to when mom is in the room? Oh yes, let's get mom out of the kitchen. How could we do that, what could happen to make her leave????? Oh yeah, she WENT AND LEFT MILK IN THE CAR! How convenient, because what happened was she'd just been shopping see, but the car got a flat tire, so the nice murdering neighbor who happened be there at the time her car got a flat tire helped her fix it, and then drove her all the way home from the grocery store, but then walked straight into her kitchen and left her to carry all the bags of shopping which is why he scared Shia by appearing in his house unannounced. I mean you can imagine them having this conversation on-set because it's just so poorly thought out that it could only have been come up with in a short space of time.

This movie is just mindless, they've put in no thought whatsoever. They have a unique premise, and then spoiled it with every conceivable cliché you could possible make about teenagers falling in love whilst solving a local murder. As long as the women wear skimpy clothes and the guys have cool gadgets, we're golden right? WRONG.

This is pap, I only give it a 3 rating because Shia is watchable, the rest of it is just a joke, about as tense as an episode of Saved by the Bell, but not as funny.

I see this movie has got a very high score and I understand it's a good movie, but compared to all the other movies with an 8 average on IMDb, this doesn't stack up to them.

A story of a dystopian future where infertility has brought the world to it's knees and anarchy reigns is engaging, and there are certain set pieces (such as the car being attacked by a mob and Julianne Moore's character being killed) that are quite thrilling, and the moments certainly catch you by surprise, but overall I didn't find the story very engaging, it didn't strike a chord with me.

I applaud the direction of Curaon, but the acting let the film down. Clive Owen and Chiwetel Ejiofor were great, but everyone else seemed to be overacting to me, Julianne Moore's, Clare- Hope Ashitey (as the character of Kee, and for all intense and purposes the virgin Mary), Michael Caine, and Pam Ferris's characters feeling particularly forced, and annoyingly so.

It was also trying too hard to make some deep, intellectual comments about our world today and the religious and cultural divides we are currently living in, hinting at the current political environment, and what consequences it could have, especially the last third of the film set in Bexhill.

I had read the other reviews on here before seeing this movie, but now I've seen it, I'm quite under awed by it all, and the ending does leave you hanging and several plot holes unresolved, leaving me with a sense of not seeing what all the fuss is about, so if you haven't seen it, I personally wouldn't get your hopes up of being blown away by it.

This DVD has been around for a while now and I think has generally been overlooked.

I am a Daft Punk fan, and caught their recent live shows, which made me go back through their work, and I spotted this, realized I hadn't seen it, so rented a copy.

I'm not necessarily a manga/cartoon fan, yeah I was a fan as a kid, watched all the classics growing up in the 80's, including Ulysees etc, but I had grown out of it, so I'll admit I wasn't really expecting much, just a cartoon set to a classic Daft Punk album. Wrong.

Off the bat you do need to know that there is no dialog, it's a story told in visual form with accompanying music but you know what, it' actually quite a gripping story of a successful band being kidnapped by an intergalactic music mogul, who has their identities erased and manipulated to make the mogul money from their songs on other interstellar planets, as he takes them on a intergalactic music tour in essence. Luckily, an interstellar bounty hunter guy, who is also a fan of theirs and has a crush on the female member, is dispatched to find them and get them back. In addition, despite the band members having their memories erased, elements of their past lives linger and they struggle to break free from there enforced identities and lives, with the help of the bounty hunter.

The weird thing is, I actually found myself getting caught up in the story as there are some truly heartfelt moments, and at times the music was just background noise for me (pretty great background noise, but background noise nonetheless), you forget your listening to a Daft Punk album. Luckily, the accompanying music is from Daft Punk's album Discovery, which has some classic tracks, and when you are listening to the songs, you realize their are f-ing great songs, and the song style and visual style and story are totally harmonious, they work in total unison.

At their live show, I realized how these guys had a really great visual as well as musical sense, and after watching this you realize not only can they gel the two together brilliantly in a live show, but they also do it on video and I can honestly say you don't need to be a Daft Punk fan or cartoon fan to enjoy this, I would recommend it to anyone.

Whooooeeeee, this is one mish-mash of a movie.

First of, the Miami Vice TV series had such a following when it originally aired that any updated movie version was going to get a lot of attention, from both fans who saw the original series when it aired (a young me), and new fans who are in on that whole 80's retrospective thing going on right now. So there is an expectancy from the audience of what this movie will be like, but it turns out it's nothing like the TV series.

The original Crockett & Tubbs had a cocky charm about them, they knew they were good but weren't overt about it. Farell & Foxx on the other hand just have cockiness, like they're too cool for school and know it and want to rub your face in it. Farell's accent is also off, this deep gravely macho sound to match his porno face fluff. I mean it's just not right for the character.

The whole undercover drug smuggling plot is Miami Vice, but not done in a Miami Vice style. It's more of a James Bond-esq kinda thing, with lots of exotic locations, I mean they don't actually spend a lot of time in Miami, rather Cuba & Columbia. The story keeps you engaged, but more out of curiosity rather than an interest in the characters themselves.

The story revolves around an FBI undercover agent trying to get in with drug runners being exposed and killed, and Crockett & Tubbs go undercover themselves to find out who is leaking the information. However, it soon turns into them trying to get the big Columbian drug baron. The problem is we're supposed to believe that they are putting their lives at more and more risk the deeper they go, but keep on going because they have this inherent need to do good, but the way Farell and Foxx come off in their acting and how they perform these characters, you don't view them as cops or do gooders, and hence you just don't believe they would expose themselves to such dangers, they'd rather be in a club with the ladies, you don't believe they'd do this for a love of the job, there's no incentive for them.

The love story between Farell & Gong Li is weird too, you can tell it must of been written as these two just lusting after each other, but the on screen chemistry is such that it doesn't work, and the whole catching a boat to Havana just for a Mojito come on is clichéd and laughable.

As for the direction, this is where Mann must of been on drugs. It just doesn't work. This movie is 2 hours, I'd say 45 minutes of which is actual scenes with dialog and driving the story forward, with the rest devoted to scenes with no dialog but a song (I can only assume they really wanted to promote the soundtrack for this movie) and lots of hand-held shots, mostly close-ups of hands and necks. It's just weird, you cut between shots using pro- cameras, and shots with little hand-held DVs and the way it's done doesn't work, it's jarring. The photography is great, but the visual style is what's off. I imagine the production must've been beset by problems too, because a lot of the dialog has clearly been dubbed over later.

This is just not what you think it will be, it's Miami Vice in it's bare form, it's Crockett & Tubbs, but not as we know them or want them and most disappointingly, it's a Michael Mann film in name but not in nature, and therefore not a movie I would recommend.

OK, OK, can all the fanboys just get a hold of themselves for a second and not overhype this movie and give it a high rating on here.

Now, I was an 80's child, so I understand all the nostalgia and was a fan of the cartoon series, so yes I was eagerly anticipating this, and the trailer did rock, and rock hard, and promised so much.

One thing the trailer didn't do was let on that the Transformers spoke and had moving lips, of which there was much debate during production on whether the transformers should have lips or not. They plumped with should, when hindsight shows they shouldn't.

The movie starts nice enough, and Shia is definitely watchable and likable and the introduction to Bumblee is nice enough, if a little cheesy with the whole music thing. The problem though is that it then quickly turns into some sort of comedic farce movie, I mean once all the Transformers reveal themselves to Shia's character, it's a bit of a joke, especially that whole homeboy street routine for Frenzy, WTF man, way to be stereotypical. And the whole hiding from the Mom & Dad routine? They're four 20ft robots, and the ground shakes when they walk, how did the parents NOT notice them, come on man!

The whole plot is pretty weak, mystic talisman, maps on ancient glasses? And John Turturro, I love you brother, but what the hell do you call that, acting? Were you deliberately trying to get a Razzie nomination?

Some of the set pieces are nice, Scorponocks entry particularly, but the main problem is that the action scenes are so fast and dizzying, you don't really get a chance to check out the cool transformation from car to Bumblebee, or truck to Optimus or whatever, it's really just a blur, when it's actually the coolest bit. The intro's to the fight scenes are pretty cool with their whole rock music kick off, but then the actions is so fast you're not sure whose hitting who with what and where, it's just a big mangled mesh of metal.

I left this movie really disappointed, it doesn't live up to the hype, or even it's own trailer, I mean the movie makers have really just dumbed down the whole thing, and I guess it's a double whammy of disappointment because I remember the cartoons fondly, and they even taught about life and values, I remember the cartoons had morals to every story and a lesson on life in every episode, but this movie doesn't say squat, so it makes me think maybe the cartoons I enjoyed so much in the 80's weren't that good afterall?