Star Trek Into Darkness

After yesterday’s visit to see Fast & Furious 6, I went this morning to see Star Trek Into Darkness.

The reviews I read about this pretty much slated it as being extremely self indulgent. Being only an observer of the franchise, rather than a rabid fan, I only noticed a few of the main back references and I didn’t really see them as a bad thing. Instead, I thought they added a little extra dimension to the story.

It’s a full-on action flick more than a sci-fi film really, but worth going to see in my opinion. If they do more of them I will probably go to see them. If they don’t I won’t cry myself to sleep. 🙂

Accent Alert: Will all Scottish people please cover their ears whenever Simon Pegg speaks. I used to go out with a Scottish girl and she would punch the living crap out of me if I did a Scottish accent that bad! Every time he spoke I felt myself twitch as if ducking for cover!

Cheers

Tim…

Fast & Furious 6…

Similar to the Resident Evil franchise, you know exactly what you are going to get when you go to see one of the Fast & Furious franchise. Fast & Furious 6 does not disappoint. It contains a liberal mix of car porn, car chase porn and disaster porn, with the odd bit of comedy thrown in for good measure. It is totally ridiculous, but totally fantastic at the same time.

Probably the thing that has grated on me the most in this series is Paul Walker. It’s not that I have something against him. I’m sure one of my colleagues would describe him as “very scenic”. It’s just he doesn’t do the whole “bad boy from da street thang!” very well IMHO. It’s about as believable as me trying to claim I’m posh. 🙂

That minor gripe aside, it’s great. I think this is the best of the lot so far. I can’t wait for No. 7 due out next summer. Hang around at the end to see who the new villain is. 🙂

Random thoughts:

  • The Rock (you will forever be The Rock, because you real name reminds me of Dwayne Dibbley) is MASSIVE! You could feed a family for a week on one of his arms. He’s built like a barn door now. I know he’s done some film about bodybuilding with Mark Wahlberg. I think he may have taken that role a bit too seriously. 🙂
  • Vin Diesel is looking a lot smaller and a lot chubbier than before. I guess things look more exaggerated because of The Rock looking so massive.
  • Michelle Rodrigues is hot. I love it when female characters look like they could kick your ass.

Cheers

Tim…

Iron Man 3…

Iron Man blew me away when I first saw it. Iron Man 2 was good, but not as good as the first. Iron Man 3 was better than Iron Man 2, but not as good as Iron Man or The Avengers movie, in my opinion. Don’t take this as a major criticism, because all of these films are very cool. It’s a relative thing…

The tech didn’t take so much of the center stage during this movie. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot, but it seemed much more about Tony than the suite. That’s not a bad thing, but the suit is the cool bit for me. There were a few suit-related scenes I would have developed a bit more. Also, it needed some AC/DC during a kick-ass action scene. If they were there I didn’t notice them. 🙁

The end was a bit weak, but stay until right at the end credits to see the extra scene and a little message before you leave…

I’m being extra picky here. It’s definitely cool and worth going to see!

Cheers

Tim…

 

Oblivion…

Just got back from watching Oblivion

I was a little bit reluctant about going to see it because the trailer looked awesome, which these days tends to mean the film is terrible. Fortunately that wasn’t the case here. The film was great. Visually fantastic, with a pretty good story. Why can’t we have a few more Sci-Fi films like this?

As far as the trailers go, Iron Man 3 looks cool and the new Star Trek film looks very interesting. Maybe I’ll get my cinema mojo back after all…

Cheers

Tim…

Django Unchained…

I’ve delayed watching Django Unchained for a few weeks, mostly because it is 3 hours long and I struggle to sit for that long in the cinema, no matter what film I’m watching!

Let me start by saying I’m a big fan of . He’s obviously a smart guy. I like the dialog in his films. He always does interesting things with his characters. I think he’s got a good eye as a director. I kinda like the extreme nature of many of his films. Having said all that I really don’t know what I think about Django Unchained.

So the bullet points that should make me love this film are:

  • The dialog is what you would expect from QT.
  • The characters are interesting, as you would expect from QT.
  • It looks great. Or to put it another way, it looks bad when it is meant to look bad and great when it is meant to look great.
  • It is extremely violent at times.
  • It has some genuinely funny scenes.

Where I struggle is the racism in the film. Now as I’ve said before, Quentin Tarantino is a smart guy, so I think my reaction to this is what he intended. As well as the obviously funny scenes, there are some “comedy” scenes that I think will draw differing reactions depending your attitudes in this area, kinda like the following:

  • If you are a racist you will find them hilarious and be falling off your seat laughing, before renewing your subscription to the British National Party, or the equivalent right-wing racist organization in your country!
  • If you are kind-of oblivious to race issues you may find them mildly amusing, or maybe not even notice them.
  • If you are sensitive to racism, in whatever form it is presented, you will find them very hard work.

I think this may well be the genius of this film, but ultimately it is what makes me uncomfortable about this film.

It’s a great piece of work. Do I think you need to see it? Yes. Do I think you will enjoy it? I hope you don’t “enjoy” it, but I hope you see its value. Will I ever watch it again? I don’t think so.

Cheers

Tim…

Bullet to the Head…

After boring myself to tears watching The Hobbit, I lost my cinema mojo for a while. I’ve struggled to motivate myself to get involved. Tonight I decided to give Bullet to the Head a shot ( ouch 🙂 ) at revitalizing my cinema spirit and you know something? It did it!

Stallone is a low grade hitman. His partner gets killed, so he accidentally teams up with a cop and goes on an ultra-violent killing spree of revenge.

The film plays to all Stallone’s strengths. He is doesn’t get involved in lengthy dialog. His lines are simple and direct, with a lot of attitude and a reasonable amount of humour. It’s a very basic action flick, but I think it delivers very well. If Stallone can keep delivering stuff like this, I’ll keep going to the cinema to see it.

On a mildly related note, I watched Dredd (2012) last night on cable at a mates house. It was pretty good. I should have seen it on the big screen.

Cheers

Tim…

The Hobbit: An Expectedly Boring Journey…

I’ve been delaying going to watch The Hobbit for a while because I knew it would leave me bored and with bed sores on my ass.

I was with some friends the other day and they had watched the 3D HFR version and said it was cool. One of the guys said he would like to see it again in 2D because a lot of action sequences were really blurred in 3D HFR. I figured my low expectations might work to my advantage, so I agreed to go along and watch it today. What a mistake…

After an hour I tweeted that I’d been watching it for an hour and nothing had happened. My mate fell asleep, so I woke him up and forced him to watch it, since it was his fault I was there. A bit later my brother phoned, so I got a little break when I went out to speak to him. Unfortunately, I was driving my friend home, so I couldn’t use that as my opportunity to leave. I went back in and watched the second half, with a little surfing the net (on my broken Nexus 4 🙁 ) to relieve the boredom.

If you liked the LOTR Trilogy you are going to love The Hobbit. Just like them there is hours of walking around doing precious little. Also like them, there are very big, but ultimately boring action scenes. Peter Jackson just can’t do fight scenes. He focuses on numbers of enemies, rather than interesting fighting dynamics. It’s just dull seeing a couple of guys easily beat down thousands of orcs or goblins.

I feel like I could have been watching any of the LOTR films. It brought nothing new or interesting to the table. Just like the other films, this one should be watched on DVD with your mates around, so the film can provide some background noise to fill in the gaps in the conversation. In fact, I had a great time watching one of the LOTR films (can’t remember which one because they are all the same) the other day when we spent most of the time talking over it, adding our own bits of dialog etc.

I’m sure it will be a raging success and lots of people will disagree with me, but I think I would rather watch a Twilight film than this. Hating a film is so much more fun that just being bored by it!

Exceptions to the general boredom were provided by Cate Blanchett, who is lovely, and a very amusing scene with Gollum. Although I did enjoy those bits, it just wasn’t enough payback for the rest of the dirge.

I really hope I stick to my convictions and don’t bother with the next two. I’ll just catch them on DVD or something at a later date…

Cheers

Tim…

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2…

All completely crap stories must come to an end, and so we come to the last in the massive pile of toilet that is The Twilight Saga:

Since I’m not the target audience, I decided to go for a later showing to avoid the hormonal pre-teens. The adverts before the film let you know what you are in for. It’s a mix of lipstick and feminine hygiene products. Then the film starts…

To put it politely, it just drones on… I was convinced by my mate’s 12 year old daughter than Bella is meant to be crap all the way through, because when she turns into a Vampire she suddenly becomes awesome! That didn’t happen.

Eventually, just before you start gnawing at your own wrists wanting to die, a fight scene starts. Pretty early on in this scene some key members of the cast die and it sparks your attention, making you think that finally you will see something worth seeing. Then it turns out none of it really happened and it was a Bobby Ewing moment.

After a bit of cheesy crap it finally ends and you know you will never have to witness such a complete pile of steaming crap ever gain.

Stephenie Meyer should be thoroughly ashamed of herself, that she has been part of an insidious attempt to destroy all that is great about vampire and werewolf films!

I was looking forward to seeing this film so I could close the circle of hatred and I’m glad to say it didn’t disappoint. It is truly, heart-stoppingly terrible.

Cheers

Tim…

PS. In case I didn’t mention it, it’s really bad!

Skyfall…

While writing this I am singing the Skyfall theme in the style of a bad pub singer, kinda like Vic Reeves would do.

I couldn’t face queuing and all that jazz during the opening weekend of Skyfall, so I went at lunchtime today instead. I’m an old git, so Sean Connery will always be the “real” James Bond for me, but I think Daniel Craig is a very close second. I like the fact he looks like he’ll **** you up if you mess with him! The last bond that really had that presence was Connery.

Naomie Harris is hot. Javier Bardem was a freaky mother-hubbard in No Country For Old Men and he’s even more freaky here, if that is possible.

The story is OK. It’s not an amazingly novel concept, but it’s well executed and does itself justice. Most importantly, it’s actually possible to understand what the whole film was about, unlike Quantum of Solace. 🙂 Like the previous two outings, it’s a grittier and more in the style of the Bourne films. I kinda like that, but also miss some of the camp techno-whiz of the old films. Being the 50th anniversary, there are some references to the old Bond, which are kind of fun.

Overall, well worth seeing if you are into the Bond franchise. If I’m honest though, I’m much more looking forward to the remake of The Girld Who Played with Fire than I ever was for this…

Cheers

Tim…

PS. The last of the Twilight Saga is out soon. I can’t wait to go and see it so that I can report how much I hate it. 🙂

Looper…

Looper is not, “This years The Matrix”, or whatever crap they put on those posters. It’s easy to be blasé now, but The Matrix was totally amazing when it came out, before they could ruin its legacy with the sequels…

So now I’ve managed your expectations, it’s worth saying that Looper is a pretty decent film. Unlike most time-travel related films, it doesn’t try to get too intellectual, which is good because on the way out I listened to some guy trying to explain the plot to his uninterested girlfriend and he got it all wrong. Time travel is a mind-f*ck for regular folk, so stupid people should steer clear of the concept…

Joseph Gordon-Levitt looked so different in this film, which was really freaking me out. I was starting to wonder what the hell he had done to himself since his last film outing. The reason becomes obvious as the film progresses. I must say they did a good job on that front.

There are a few fantastic scenes. I’d like to say more, but it would be a real spoiler if I did. In summary, it’s a pretty good Sci-Fi film.

Cheers

Tim…