Displaying Review 11 - 15 of 18 in total

• Watch, man. — for Watchmen
  Written by OhLookBirdies on 04.01.2010

  Having never read the Watchmen comics, I'm probably either the most suitable or the least suitable person to review it, depending on your point of view. On the one hand, I lack any and all background information on the characters, the story, and so on, and all I know is what I am told in the film. And it may be a long film, but it's still a mighty short window to try and convey an entire alternative world in. But on the other hand, this also means I am not weighted down with any pre-conceived notions of what to expect, nor am I hindered by scenes that are not like they are in the comics. So I'll leave you to decide for yourself if I'm a good-willing but ill-informed amateur, or an ideal objective observer.

  I'm sure everybody is aware of the story, at least to a degree, so I'll do the briefest of summaries on that, just for completion's sake. The whole thing takes place in a world where Nixon never resigned over Watergate, and a band of disgruntled lawmen turn to vigilantes in order to restore law and order in a world where criminality seems to have free reign. However, after their initial success, the world's admiration turns to distrust, and the Watchmen, as they are dubbed, are forced to stop their watchmanning duties.

  Visually, Watchmen is a magnificent film. The Watchmen's outfits look fantastic, the fights are incredibly well done, the scenery is convincing in every way, and all in all, despite its inherent absurdism, it all feels like it could well be real. This sense of realism is something not many (super)hero films possess, save maybe the new Batman films.

  The characters are all well scripted and well acted, but personally, I couldn't help but like the bastards best. Rorschach may be a sociopath and a murderer, but his black-and-white sense of justice just holds a certain appeal. Plus, that mask of his is the coolest thing ever. Similarly, the Comedian may be an immoral, violent bastard, but man, has the dude got charisma.

  Another thing I loved about Watchmen is the massive difference between on the one hand the cheerful, comic book-esque settings and characters, and on the other the stark, gritty violence that is a main theme throughout the film. No "Pow! Ka-zing! KABLOOEY!" here, no sir-ee! What we do get is people getting their hands chopped off with a power saw, and people exploding into little clouds of gore.

  The music used in Watchmen is also deserving of a mention. It's not often you encounter a soundtrack that works so well as here. And that opening scene, with Bob Dylan's The Times Are a-Changin'? Fantastic, and not just because it's a good song (which it is), but also because they are quite possibly the best opening credits I have ever seen.

  I'll start wrapping this up now, don't want to end up with a 15 page monologue here. And not only that, I've gotten through an entire review of Watchmen, and I haven't mentioned Dr. Manhattan's penis once!

  ...shit.

• Beverly Hills Cop-Out... — for Beverly Hills Cop III
  Written by OhLookBirdies on 11.01.2010

  Looking back on my oeuvre of reviews so far, there haven't really been any negative ones. But every now and then, it does one good to get some bitching off one's chest, and today is a now and then for me.

  It is a sad law that sequels of unexpectedly successful films are generally far inferior to the original. Beverly Hills Cop 3 is no exception. Where the first one was quite good, and the second one not too terrible, this one... Just no. The creators apparently decided to abandon any and all realism and well-considered story writing in favour of absurdism. And don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of absurdism, assuming it fits the context. Or, you know, doesn't fit it in a funny way, because if it fits, it's not absurd. But in this case, it's as badly executed as a crispy-fried convict in the electric chair going "Is that all you've got?"

  The theme park setting could've been cute and good for a few laughs, but once again, it just doesn't work. The microwave-CD player-mini bar-machine gun-whatever the hell else is in there contraption was just painfully embarrasing to watch, the acting is sloppy and lacks conviction, and even though Eddie Murphy hadn't quite switched from "Gritty, foulmouthed and hilarious" to "over-acted piece of shit family films" at this point in time, he was clearly no longer the Eddie Murphy-who-just-doesn't-give-a-shit we knew and loved from Saturday Night Live.

  All in all, if you haven't seen this yet, don't bother. Honestly. Watch the first two films again, and if you're still in the mood for witty black cops with an anti-authoritarian streak after that, try Bad Boys.

• Blade? More like Bland. — for Blade: Trinity
  Written by OhLookBirdies on 11.01.2010

  I started watching this film with low expectations, partly because I'd heard nothing but bad things about it, and partly because the Law of Sequels dictates that the second sequel to anything can only be any good if an act of God is involved. And yet, despite my low expectations, this film completely failed to meet them. What an utter heap of shit.

  The story is completely ridiculous. Dracula was real, and shitloads older than we thought, namely 6000 years, give or take a couple of hundred. He got tired of the world though, and dug himself in. Some other vampires find this out, and dig him up again, so he can help them defeat Blade. Now call me unadventurous, but to me, this seems like bringing out a bazooka to kill the wolf outside your hunting cabin. Massive fucking overkill.

  Dracula, or "Drake," as he is now called, completely fails to live up to his reputation of ultimate badass once he is dug up. What's with the fucking "LOOK AT MY BIG CHEST!" blouse, for example? And apparently he can "move his thousands of tiny bones, like a snake", enabling him to change his appearance. Now, firstly, if he can look however he want to, why does he settle on the "King Emo" dipshit face? And secondly, if his shapeshifting is based on his skeleton structure, how the fuck does he manage to change his hair as well? Is his every hair really a tiny bone, or something? And considering he is allegedly the "ultimate predator", he sure is a petty little shit, killing a pair of goths in a vampire souvenir shop because he doesn't like what they've done to his Dracula image. Now personally, if I were a perfect killing machine, and humanity was my cattle pen, I wouldn't give a flying fuck about what they think of me. They're basically just walking hamburgers, and I don't mind my food giving me lip before I eat it.

  The good guys are also a bunch of whiny little buggers. Formerly, Whistler and Blade were the cool ones. However, Whistler gets killed in the beginning, and this turns Blade from "Kickass avenger who doesn't give a shit" into "Whiny crybaby who bitches at everyone". Not a change for the better.

  The whole virus-killing-every-vampire thing they drum up is completely ridiculous too. Apparently it will only work right if it's mixed with Dracula's blood, because his is the purest of all vampires. But I'd say he's a completely different kind of being entirely. He's a Daywalker, he has the whole thousands-of-little-bones thing going, and he's generally to vampires what vampires are to blind mole rats.

  If I hate this film so much, you might wonder, why do I still give it three stars? If you were in fact wondering that, well noticed. So far, the film's own merit would not even entitle it to half a star. But the film's makers have somehow managed one redeeming quality: Ryan Reynolds, or Hannibal King as he's called in the film. Reynolds has a talent for salvaging shitty films, but this stillbirth of a film is even beyond his rescue. That is not to say that his scenes aren't awesome, because they are. He is a quick-witted bastard, who always succeeds in pissing off dangerous people in hilarious ways. This is the sole reason this film even manages to scrape those three stars together.

• Move, and the bunny gets it. — for Con Air
  Written by OhLookBirdies on 13.01.2010

  I am of the male persuasion. This means that every now and then, I get these urges. Urges to watch a standard bloke film, for example. Lots of things going boom, people fighting, flashy cars, and if at all possible some boobs. As bloke films go, Con Air is a good one.

  As my introduction might have told you, Con Air is not a very complicated film. In fact, the story is easily summarised in one sentence. A plane transporting some of the nastiest convicts in America gets hijacked, but one person on board is basically a good guy on his way home, and he secretly tries to sabotage the whole holiday to South America the rest of the plane plans on taking.

  The cast is quite good. John Malkovich is chilling as cold-hearted Cyrus "The Virus" Grissom, the main bad guy. Steve Buscemi is a loveable creep, who is apparently the biggest murderer on the plane, but really doesn't do any bad stuff while we see him. John Cusack is hilarious as the sandal-wearing pedantic special agent on the ground trying to track the plane. Nicolas Cage is well-cast as the doggy-eyed big boy scout trying to do the right thing, and as a personal favourite of mine, Danny Trejo does what he does best by being a knife-wielding piece of Mexican scum, although in this particular case he adds rape into the mix as well.

  As befits your standard bloke film, there's a fair few humourous moments to be enjoyed in Con Air, generally at someone else's expense. It never reaches the cleverness level of, say, Pulp Fiction, or the laugh-out-loud potential of, say, Snatch, but Con Air is still good entertainment that will fit a night of male bonding involving movies, hamburgers and beer. So why not go watch it?

• The lighter side of darkness — for Pitch Black
  Written by OhLookBirdies on 15.02.2010

  Most people will probably remember Pitch Black as the film that got Vin "biceps bigger than his head" Diesel [I am well aware I have used that joke before. So sue me, I like it.] his breakthrough into Hollywood. And okay, it was. But it's actually quite a good film, too.

  The story is fairly simple. A space ship is floating gently through space, when it gets a meteor up the tailpipe, and crashes on some god-forsaken planet, killing most of the passengers and crew. The passengers consist of a bunch of colonists looking for a place to colonise, and one convicted mass-murderer with animalistic tendencies and surgically enhanced night vision. Now I don't know about you, but personally I'd have coughed up the extra dough to rent the convict a nice snug armoured ship of his own, but hey, I'm not a bounty hunter, so what do I know? And I suppose the film would have been a lot shorter and less interesting if the only survivors had been colonists.

  Because as it soon turns out, they are not alone on this planet. It's full of flying creepy-crawlies, but fortunately, they can only come out in the dark, and this particular planet has three suns working in shifts, making sure it never gets dark. But ah, this wouldn't be Hollywood if there wasn't some dramatic plot twist right about this point, and indeed, there is! It turns out our heroes have arrived just before the entire planet undergoes a total eclipse.

  I'm not going to type out the entire plot here, because that's too much effort. And just watching it is more fun than reading my ramblings.

  Vin Diesel plays his part of anti-hero quite convincingly. He is not the grumpy but loveable grouch that Shrek is, nor is he the tortured, violent but righteous vigilante that Batman is. He is an ice-cold bastard, who even at his most 'emotional' displays about all the empathy and humanity of a wet blanket. But despite that, you as the viewer can't help but like him.

  The female lead in the form of co-pilot Carolyn Fry has a feeling to her like she's seen Alien, and would love to be as ruthless as Ripley, but never quite manages to pull it off. Then again, Sigourney Weaver set the standard for ruthless space bitch so high with her Ripley that it's really no shame to fall short.

  All in all, as space horror goes, Pitch Black is a decidedly solid addition, and definitely worth a watch. As they say, "Don't hate it just because it's black." And thus I end my dark review on a lighter note.