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Reviews
Battleship (2012)
I Feel ......
I am not your typical 'Blockbuster' fan but appreciate a decent yarn and this salty tale was so over the top that any yarn was lost in just over 2 hours of pure action.
I must admit to setting brain to 'chewing gum for the mind' mode so had no preconceptions that this was going to be Shakespeare. And I wasn't disappointed.
A storyline so full of holes you could pass one of the excellently realised alien craft through, so many errors and goofs you could do a BBC special on it (surely someone was responsible for ensuring the insignia on the uniform actually matched the rank that the character was referred to??) and so many cheesy lines you could feed the world in pizza for a year but admittedly one of the characters does comment on this fact at one point.
But, and it's a big BUT: I thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish. The 2 hours 10 exploded by in a heartbeat and my eyes were glued to the totally non-stop action.
The effects are something special and did offer the idea of scale that some movies miss out on. The sound in the cinema I visited was extremely loud and the bass fair rattled my fillings, but it all added to one fantastic experience that was worth the £11.10 it cost to see.
So a bit of a guilty pleasure and my suggestion is to grab a big box of popcorn, sit back and just be entertained.
Skyline (2010)
Some Good WTF Moments & Anti-Hollywood Decisions
OK, first thing - this film cost less to make that it would take to get one A List Hollywood star (as mentioned in a previous review), so an immediate cutting of some slack is called for. Although some may disagree that they paid full price at the cinema, rather than a discount priced ticket for a budget movie.
The film is all about the effects and these are done with great skill. Whether it's the up-close "Scout-Hunter" types, the much larger prowlers or the HUGE mother-ships, all had great attention to detail and were pretty scary.
I think what puts most folks off this movie is the lack of any answers as to "why are we being invaded?", "what is the light business all about?" and "how can our movie hero save the world?".
It's worth saying that it takes a bit of time to get going and it's only when a couple of major decisions are made that the film starts to get into gear, but once this ball starts rolling the whole experience improves dramatically.
Personally I liked this film and feel it does its thing much better than the most recent Predator movies, on a much lesser budget.
Unlike a lot of recent films where most "twists" are advertised long in advance, every time I had a question as to how something would be resolved, the film slammed in with some great WTF moments.
So long as you don't go in looking for end-of-the film "Packaged answers", a deep storyline and "by the book" solving of the world ending, you'll have fun. You'll jump too!
Mutant Chronicles (2008)
Way Better Than Expected
I sat down to watch this with little expectations of a "good" movie but was surprised at how entertaining it was.
OK, so the plot is a little thin and unbelievable but it's a sci-fi / horror / gaming franchise (which I didn't know at the time), so suspending disbelief is a prerequisite.
Overall the story and "World" that the characters live in was handled well by the cast and crew.
One nice surprise were the special effects, which were reminiscent of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, 300 and similar films that rely on green-screen and combined CGI and real-time special effects.
With regards these effects for the various battle and fight scenes; they were more brutal, visceral and bloody than I expected and were more akin to a modern horror film than the sci-fi side.
Make-up was very good and the real time make-up effects were similar in feel to 13 Ghosts, which is a compliment to the make-up team.
Other effects were well handled and didn't detract from the storyline.
Acting from the main characters was passable but (without a spoiler) a certain Irish accent was along the lines of Tommy Lee Jones in Blown Away. All we needed was a few "to be sures" and we'd almost be in County Cork (LOL).
Without spoiling things the twists and turns were pretty unexpected but I did find myself comparing some of these to Quake IV (the video game) and other games (late on it was a bit Left 4 Dead by Valve).
All in all I liked this film and will recommend it to friends but probably not to my mum and dad.
Army of the Dead (2008)
Why, oh why?
Someone owes me 89 minutes of my life back. Or to be accurate- 55 minutes, as I switched this garbage off before it could do any additional damage. Initially I thought this would be OK. The initial scenes did an alright job to build the tension and the use of shadows to show the "undead" killing the Spanish chaps who were intent on stealing the gold were quite well handled. However, I thought that the use of shadows was for effect, but how wrong I was. The reason for shadows is that the CGI skeletons were so poor that Ray Harryhausen must have been spinning in his grave (if he was dead, which he isn't). The moment that caused me to switch off was when they used CGI to show one of the actors having his throat cut. This is sub-par Sinbad / Jason and the Argonauts, with the worst dialogue you can imagine. I pity the actors, who did their best with the lines they had been given, but the pauses between responses smacked of "it's your turn to say something". Save your sanity and watch Army of Darkeness. The real-time skeletons are 100 times better than those shown in this shoddy piece of film. Avoid.