The Film Review thread ***possible spoilers***

rjsterry

An heir and a spare?

UndercoverElephant

TailWindHome wrote:

UndercoverElephant wrote:

Number one son

Is that chronologically or a review in itself?

Chronological, and an obscure reference to the old Charlie Chan movies. I don't recommend seeing those.

tailwindhome

Rick Chasey wrote:

To watch a film?

You want to eat and drink, go to a bar or restaurant. :roll:

Quite

veronese68

Asprilla wrote:

What did impress me today was the Everyman Cinema. With no child in tow we booked a three seater sofa at the back of the seating area and tucked into a bottle of Merlot with chilli bites. First time I've been to this cinema since it was refurbed and I'll certainly be going again. This is the future of cinema going.

That sounds great. You'd also need some popcorn to lob at the little bloke in red trousers though.
Sound a brazillion times better than my experience at the Rotunda in Kingston on Friday. Managed to get out with the Mrs for once. None of the ticket machines were working so we had to queue in spite of prebooking. Some fat turd and his wife were in our seats. Had to argue to get them to move.
Enjoyed Skyfall and child free time with the EPO though.

vermin

Veronese68 wrote:

You'd also need some popcorn to lob at the little bloke in red trousers though.

RC? Just because he's a mod?

gtvlusso

Skyfall;

Hmm - I was hoping that Bond was taking a fresh new approach with Casino Royale and Quantum - an ongoing story that intertwines. None of the 'Moneypeny' and 'M' in leather clad office guff of the old days.

Anyway, I did not give a toss for the story - so, some ex employee is a bit pi$$ed at 'M'....so what? So, we get to see how Bonds character set develops.....err, okay, but we kinda know most of this.

It went a bit 'A-Team' towards the end too...

With the end of the last film; Quantum - The Algerian getting a right good old kicking from Bond and the whole 'Love Knot' thing - I thought the start in Instanbul would lead to Algeria....How wrong I was! The film turned out to be independent, so in reality I don't think that Quantum is finished or that Spectre is starting to flourish as a storyline.

For that reasoning, It was an okay action film, but a bit meaningless.

veronese68

vermin wrote:

Veronese68 wrote:

You'd also need some popcorn to lob at the little bloke in red trousers though.

RC? Just because he's a mod?

No, pulling his leg for complainig about Asprilla having wine and nibbles. Sitting on a couch with the Mrs in a cinema with a drink and something to nibble on sounds great. certainly a sight more civilsed than the utter shambles that is the Kingston Odioun.

Yes, I know. I spelt it like that as it's odious.

tailwindhome

gtvlusso wrote:

It went a bit 'A-Team' towards the end too....

You say that like it was a bad thing!

notsoblue

gtvlusso wrote:

Skyfall;

Hmm - I was hoping that Bond was taking a fresh new approach with Casino Royale and Quantum - an ongoing story that intertwines. None of the 'Moneypeny' and 'M' in leather clad office guff of the old days.

Anyway, I did not give a toss for the story - so, some ex employee is a bit pi$$ed at 'M'....so what? So, we get to see how Bonds character set develops.....err, okay, but we kinda know most of this.

It went a bit 'A-Team' towards the end too...

With the end of the last film; Quantum - The Algerian getting a right good old kicking from Bond and the whole 'Love Knot' thing - I thought the start in Instanbul would lead to Algeria....How wrong I was! The film turned out to be independent, so in reality I don't think that Quantum is finished or that Spectre is starting to flourish as a storyline.

For that reasoning, It was an okay action film, but a bit meaningless.

I totally agree. I was really underwhelmed by the movie. I was never a fan of the pre Craig bond movies though, and this seemed to be a return to form.

Was fun to see The Embankment get so much airtime though

EKE_38BPM

Veronese68 wrote:

Sitting on a couch in the cinema, nibbling on the Mrs whilst she has something to drink sounds fantabulous.
Yes, I meant a combination of a fantasy and fabulous.

FTFY

veronese68

EKE_38BPM wrote:

Veronese68 wrote:

Sitting on a couch in the cinema, nibbling on the Mrs whilst she has something to drink sounds fantabulous.
Yes, I meant a combination of a fantasy and fabulous.

FTFY

Even betterer. 8)

mr_poll

ARGO

Saw it on Monday and its bloody great. Essentially its based on a now declassified CIA case to get 6 embassy employees out of Iran at the height of the Iranian Revolution. They escaped when the embassy was stormed which thus started the Iranian hostage crisis. As the trailer shows the CIA come up with their "best bad idea" to concoct a story about a fake Canadian Sci-Fi movie and to send in an agent to "scout" locations in Iran and then disguise the hostages as part of the crew and get them out under that guise.

The opening gives you a potted history of 20th century Iran so you get the background and context - and then you see the storming of the embassy - which credit to the film makers was damn scary. Then the film unfolds - the story moves on at pace, it has genuine thriller edge of the seat moments, some good comedy laugh out lines which don't seem out of place, and also some poignant "work destroys family life" moment (a theme that pops up a few times with different characters).

Great story, directed well (by Ben Affleck), the look is very early 80's - (in the credits they show you material/photos from the time and its very faithful), thought provoking and enjoyable. If you don't see it at the flicks then seek it out on DVD as don't think it will lose that much at home.

8.5/10

sketchley

Recent watches

Argo - brilliant film a must see
The Sweeney - don't bother plot hard to follow and fragmented somewhat plus they even got rid of the original theme tune
Ted - the Sam Jones Flash Gordon scene is worth it alone one of the funniest sequences I've ever seen worth a watch for this alone. Goes a bit downhill after that scene.
Jack Reacher - not the best film ever and I've never read the books but an enjoyable 2 hours, worth a watch
Flight - great film (especially to watch on a plane) quite brilliant.
Iron Man 3 - not as good as first 2, very dark to start with, obsessed with explaining away Avengers Assemble but would of been better to just not mention it. Final third picks up a bit and gets back to form, funny and spectacular. Worth a a watch but one and two are better.

greg66_tri_v2.0

Sketch - are you following me around?

Argo: This is very, very good. Proper grown up filmmaking. The tension during the airport finale sets you on the edge of your seat (although it is then spoiled somewhat by the faintly chase down the runway - why not just radio ATC and get the take off aborted?). But that's hairsplitting over what was overall a really excellent film.

Jack Reacher: I started watching this on a plane, got right up to the 1 vs 5 "remember, you wanted this" scene, and then we came in to land. I was sufficiently hooked to watch the rest once I was home. This is pretty good, so long as you suspend belief at some of the wilder accomplishments of the lead character.

Iron Man 3: Hmm. What to say. I thought this was somewhere between IM2 (best of the three) and IM1. I didn't really care for (a) the portrayal of the Mandarin; (b) the obvious effort to wrap up the trilogy and tie a bow round it; (c) a story that focusses on the man stripped of his armour, and has a load of what are basically robots, when the character is about a man in armour; (d) the kid; (e) the anxiety attacks (IIRC the comic character went through a period of alcoholism. His drinking came up in an earlier film, and this could have been a lot darker, and better, IMO, if that theme had been pursued). I understand the desire to explore the "inner hero", but for my money that was done more adeptly and a lot more swiftly in two particular scenes in Avengers Assemble. Oh well.

tailwindhome

Greg66 Tri v2.0 wrote:

Jack Reacher: I started watching this on a plane, got right up to the 1 vs 5 "remember, you wanted this" scene, and then we came in to land. I was sufficiently hooked to watch the rest once I was home. This is pretty good, so long as you suspend belief at some of the wilder accomplishments of the lead character..

Was Cruise believable as Reacher?

Having read a couple of the books I can't see him in the role.

greg66_tri_v2.0

I had the advantage (?) of not having read the books. A mate has, and told me that Reacher is supposed to be 6'5" and have fists like hams. Well, that ain't Tom. 5'6" with fists like hamburgers, maybe. But I don't know whether he's supposed to be cerebral, thuggish, sinister, avuncular, etc. Cruise played him like a cross between the lead from CSI and a watered-down Jason Bourne.

sketchley

Greg, maybe not following you around but have been to Miami and back on plane last week, all bar IM3 where watched on the plane.

TWH re Reacher, I've not read the books. I thought he was believable, apart from one scene in the bar when he's taller than everyone else, which knowing how tall he actually is stood out as being fake, I understand Reacher is 6ft 6" in the books, Cruise doesn't pull that off. They may of been better just leaving him short compared to everyone else.

DonDaddyD

Oblivion:
I liked it but anytime you cast a film with Tom Cruise and/or Morgan Freeman it doesn't matter what characters they portray, they're Tom Cruise and Morgan Freeman. Still, good sci-fi and I loved the twist the love interest and the wife. Towards the end, the main villain and the overall plot - could have been a Fantastic Four Comic, where Galactus plans to eat Earth and Tom Cruise is the herald... still potential for some geeks to buy into the lore and explore what happens to Earth afterwards and where that er Tesseract (or whatever its called) was from.

Iron Man 3
Joss Whedon (Avengers movie) said that the films that follow the Avengers movie (Iron Man, Thor, Captain America - Winter Soldier* and possibly the Hulk) will unpack the characters and get to the root of them over and above their powers. Whedon is great at doing this type of thing, shame he didn't write the script of Iron Man.

I hated the villain
I hate Extremis
I hated the kid
I hated every single iteration of the Iron Man armor, especially the main one. Far too much yellow.

But most of all I hated what they did to the Mandarin. Now then, Iron Man's rogues gallery isn't exactly brimming with supervillain brilliance but the Mandarin was the sole Iron Man villain who could attempt to claim some measure of credibility. What they did with the character was a travesty, I was expecting Thanos (the supposed villain in the next Avengers movie) to supply the Mandarin in the past with his alien rings - but alas, they f*cked it up.

Also the Iron Patriot: In the comics its Norman Osborne who legally seizes Stark's armory and helps himself to a suit of armor and paints it red white and blue. It's a symbol of everything Tony Stark has fought against, his most trusted prize being used by the US army. I didn't like the angle they took with it in the film.

Also they trivialised the impact of the shrapnel in Stark's chest to nothing more than an after thought within the film, when it should have been freaking significant - what with being a main feature of who Stark is for some 20 - 30 years of the characters existence.

Star Trek
It's a good space film. BUT it isn't Star Trek. It wants to be, it tries so hard to be but it this film (as did the first) just felt out of place, as though the fictional World had yet to find its own identity. As for the film itself, it was entertaining but the twists, homages and deus ex machina were all too cheesy and the concept for the technology (phaser lasers and communicators) just seems weird as its almost modern day stuff.

rjsterry

Yes, yes, yes, but what we all want to know is: is DDD a Pinenut or a Cumberb**ch?

On a more serious note, I guess that's the issue with any film adaptation, especially a comic adaptation: everyone has a very definite idea of how the story should be visualised, and that is unlikely to match the vision of the film's writer, director, set designer, etc. The limitations on what can be written or drawn over hundreds of pages are quite different from what can be condensed into a 90-minute film.

notsoblue

I saw Oblivion last weekend. I thought it was an entertaining and shiney but quite hollow mix of three better science fiction movies (It would be a spoiler to say which ones!).

vermin

I've never read a comic but I thought Iron Man 3 was quite entertaining. I completely fail to see any connection with Steed, Gambit or Purdey.

DonDaddyD

rjsterry wrote:

On a more serious note, I guess that's the issue with any film adaptation, especially a comic adaptation: everyone has a very definite idea of how the story should be visualised, and that is unlikely to match the vision of the film's writer, director, set designer, etc. The limitations on what can be written or drawn over hundreds of page are quite different from what can be condensed into a 90-minute film.

This was the case, but we are currently in a golden patch within the comic industry as there are some truly amazing writers: Whedon, Bendis, Johns, Millar (aka God), JMS (aka God #2), Oeming (aka God #3 thus completing the trifecter of geekery) , Yost, Kyle, Lanning, Abnett, Pulido, Gail Simone, Brubaker, Busiek and Ostrander to name a few. These guys are blowing shite out of the water. Millar, for example, has never written a book I haven't enjoyed or loved.

Many have film/TV experience and have grown up collecting comics so know to respect the lore.

The end result: Watchmen, Kick Ass, Hell Boy, Batman Dark Knight trilogy, Scott Pilgrim, Amazing Spider-man, Superman Returns and the new Superman movie (haven't seen it, but you already know its going to be something special). Sure there are some duds: Ang Lee's Hulk and Green Lantern. But with modern technology with what it is and a generation of film/TV writers who have grown up with Marvel and DC we are getting films that are cappable of overcoming the previous assumed limitations that you list above. They refer to Millar's comic book writing/storytelling style as 'widescreen' for peat sake - his Ultimates, which the bulk of the Avengers movie is based [I own a signed copy of Ultimates issue 1 and 3], is like reading a movie.

I couldn't ask for anything more from Thor's movie - and let me put it this way, I love Thor, love the character. Then Captain America's film came out and I could feel my inner geek cried, there was nothing the movie missed, nothing. That was the best comic Movie ever, ever!

Avengers movie has to have its own genre like Industry crossover (like int he comics) and therefore exempt from any comparisons.

You've got me all emotional.

notsoblue

I think The Avengers is one of the most satisfying movies I've ever seen. It all just worked perfectly. A very well crafted film.

rubertoe

DDD -

Are you sure your ready for the move and the kids and the school and being a grown up?

DonDaddyD

rubertoe wrote:

DDD -

Are you sure your ready for the move and the kids and the school and being a grown up?

When I was younger I spent a lot of time consealing the fact that I was a geek from bullies and sh*t - futile though it was the teens are all about survival and I did what I had to do.

Also the lack of money meant I missed a lot of things. I couldn't afford comics, toys, figurines etc during the mid - late 90s during the comic book boom and bust (£5 comics, really), and online PC gaming - and the internet in general - really wasn't for children (back then you had proper porn on the Internet, the kind of sh*t that was uploaded from a tape made in Eastern Europe back when the Eastern Europe knew how to make proper porn). I used to miss lunch at school so I could use my lunch money to buy comics, those days hurt and at £5 a pop I simply couldn't buy enough comics to keep up with the story (back then a story would start in Xmen and finish in Uncanny Xmen - so you had to buy two comics - and they used to reference major back stories plot points from another comic so you would have collect all three to know what the f*ck was going on).

So I made a promise to myself. The minute I had a fulltime job I would indulge my inner geek with as much comics, toys, figurines, online gaming and porn* as humanly possible. I couldn't wait that long so I started going full geek at Uni.

*You're probably thinking why the hell is he suddenly talking about porn. Well, when I made the decision to go full geek, gamer girls were still a new concept still evolving from the 'rock chick' who didn't look at guys like me (I cite LiT in her goth days as an example) so I knew that if I went full geek I would sacrifice getting laid with any measure of frequency, hence the porn...

What was the question again... Oh yeah, I'm a man because I watch porn and collect comics and decided not to care what anybody thinks. Quite besides which my monthly pull of comics has finally fallen below £50 because of Fatherhood, which is impressive if you consider that I use to spend anything between £70 - £100 on comics a month and this was before the price increase and currency increase when comics cost £2.10 - £2.25 a pop.

il_principe

TailWindHome wrote:

Greg66 Tri v2.0 wrote:

Jack Reacher: I started watching this on a plane, got right up to the 1 vs 5 "remember, you wanted this" scene, and then we came in to land. I was sufficiently hooked to watch the rest once I was home. This is pretty good, so long as you suspend belief at some of the wilder accomplishments of the lead character..

Was Cruise believable as Reacher?

Having read a couple of the books I can't see him in the role.

No. He was not. A well made Reacher film could have been very entertaining. This was not. They also chose one of the poorer books.

greg66_tri_v2.0

Star Trek Into Darkness: First things first. We saw this at the Imax at Waterloo, in 3D, sitting in the third row. Maybe I'm getting old, but on a number of levels this was less than satisfying. Firstly, row 3 is just too close to the screen. When the subtitles came up, it was a case of having to hunt for them with your peripheral vision and read fast. Second, the 3D added very little to the film. Third, some of the panned shots lost fluency on a screen that large when you're (too) close). And fourth, the fight sequences, shot in the Transformers style of very tight shots and a moving camera, were not terribly satisfying.

Tech stuff aside, the film was enjoyable. Not great, but enjoyable. As an admitted Trekkie I remain ambivalent about the reboot. Some characters work well (Sulu, McCoy). Some are OK (Kirk, Spock), and some just haven't really clicked yet (Scotty). There were lots of nice little touches designed to appeal to hardcore Trekkies (the Daystrom Institute, Section 31, the whereabouts of Nurse Chappell, Carol Marcus, and the recreation and recasting of the key scene from Wrath of Khan), yet I'm not sure that the film as a whole would appeal to hardcore Trekkies. For one, Kirk's transient role as Captain (by my reckoning over the two films: stowaway, booted off the ship, assumes command, demoted to first officer, Captain); for another, the Kirk/Spock relationship hasn't been going long enough to make the reactor scene in Into Darkness comparable to that in WOK.

Overall: 7/10

asprilla

Started watching Django Unchained on the flight this morning. So far do good. Only 20 minutes in and typical OTT violence from Tarantino but it doesn't distract.

The fact I don't really notice it probably says a lot about the impact he's had on film making as a whole.

DrLex

Asprilla wrote:

Started watching Django Unchained on the flight this morning. So far do good. Only 20 minutes in and typical OTT violence from Tarantino but it doesn't distract.

The fact I don't really notice it probably says a lot about the impact he's had on film making as a whole.

Anyone else parse this as:
"I'm in business class with WiFi & Internet - go me!"
Also, stop posting and concentrate on the film, assuming the weeny 10" panel can hold your attention for longer than 20 minutes at a time...

sketchley

I was on a new virgin plane a few week ago, in economy back from Miami. An Airbus A330, they didn't have wifi but had mobile reception (once out of US airspace) roaming charges applied. Didn't use it....