Category: Film

Posted on

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie

Travelled to see Captain Underpants this morning. I went to Rochester and then after the film I rated it on IMDB. You can read my rules for the rating system in this communication. I posted the rating on Twitter.

I found this film to be very enjoyable. I’d possibly even watch it again if it was on TV and I’d definitely go and see any sequels. The story was silly and stupid but the friendship and humour displayed was truly affectionate. It’s a story about friendship more than anything else and I really liked it.

There’s not really a great deal more for me to say about it. I enjoyed it.

Posted on

The Emoji Movie

Dear god help me I went to see The Emoji Movie. I rated this movie on IMDB and you should read this communication for a discussion of my scoring system.

I’m not sure I can tell you what I thought. I can tell you I went to the Cineworld cinema at Rochester and that it was raining when I went and when I returned.

I didn’t walk out but I possibly should have. It was terrible. For ammusement I suggest you read the comments on the IMDB page as I am sure some of these high scoring reviews are just there to take the piss.

Nothing more to say.

Posted on

Dunkirk

It’s been a while and so I thought I’d better catch up with some films. There are a few I want to see and Dunkirk is the first of them. It’s going to take a couple of weeks because of prior engagements.

I went to the Cineworld cinema at Rochester along the banks of the river Medway. I rated this film on IMDB and you should read this communication regarding the scores.

Normally when I watch a film I think about what I’m going to write on this website. Certain sentences and ideas strike me and I hope to remember them before I commit pen to paper [in a sense]. I have very little for you from this film.

It was very enjoyable. It was also a reminder of the terrible cost of war.

I liked all of the sequences but I especially liked the aircraft and the flying scenes. It was all very realistic.

The last moment with Churchill’s “Fight Them On The Beaches” speech was chilling and emotional. I also liked the lack of dialogue in this film, it added to the overall feel and emotion.

Posted on

War For The Planet Of The Apes

I went to the cinema to see a Planet of the Apes film. It is usual for me to travel to Rochester and I did the same thing for this film. I rated it on the IMDB website and you can read a discussion of how I grade films in this communication.

I wasn’t really sure whether to make this a 4 or a 6. I only went for a six because I thought it better than everything I recorded as a four, but I wasn’t that impressed. I wrote about the previous film here.

This film looked bloody gorgeous. It was beautiful. It was computerised. It was 3D which does fuck all for me. The apes looked great.

Now for the story. It was pretty shit. Maybe I missed loads of deep ape-becomes-man subtext with all the staring shots into Caesar’s eyes and face but I’m not sure. If the director was making large philosophical statements then I missed them. I’m really one for deep and thoughtful metaphors.

This was a slow war. The middle 7/8 of this film was slow and boring. Stuff happened but it didn’t really matter. There’s a virus somewhere. There are humans killing each other and apes because if there’s one thing we do really well it’s killing each other. There’s a prison break out and some stupid comedy. Mostly though, this film didn’t really matter. There wasn’t a meaning in there.

Posted on

Baby Driver

Yesterday, I took the vehicle to Medway Valley Leisure Park to watch Baby Driver. The tide was low. I don’t know how much leisure you need to be a leisure park but there is:

  • Cinema
  • McDonalds
  • Bowling
  • Bingo
  • Hotel
  • Gym
  • More restaurants

That’s probably enough to make it a “park”. I rated this film on IMDB and this communication deals with my system. There are likely spoilers ahead.

My overall thought was that this film suffered from a “bit too much stuff” in it towards the end, all the action became a little too much and I just wanted it to go away.

The opening twenty minutes of this movie was pretty darn good. The car chase was a car chase and nothing particularly seemed above and beyond anything else we’ve seen. I’m not sure there are always cop cars just around the corner, ready to chase and a Subaru like that would have left them standing, easily. But, movie, you can have that one for free, because this was entertaining.

I liked the idea of the music, the soundtrack to this film was brilliant but after this opening part of the film the dancing and lovely movement seemed to die. The main point for this film stopped happening. The choreographed walking and camera work stopped and this became just another heist movie. The heists weren’t even that clever.

The top man of this film wouldn’t have employed the nutter chap, I can’t remember his name. This guy was too much of a loose cannon and so wouldn’t have made the team. The plans were quite meticulous and he would’ve fucked things up straight away.

The last job these guys pull goes tits-up. It’s the aftermath of this that became too much for me and I quite like action movies. Lots of shooting and people being bad shots. Lots of driving that was quite implausible. Lots of “stuff”. And the choreography had disappeared or I failed to notice it.

I normally find that my ratings tend to mirror the meta-score on IMDB, but not this time. This was rated around 8/10 instead of my 6. I’ll probably try and read some reviews to see just what it was the critics liked about this movie. Oh, it also had a shit title.

Posted on

All Eyez On Me

A later afternoon jaunt to the cinema at Rochester revealed the inner workings of Gansta rap. My customary rating on IMDB follows, but only once you’ve read this communication about the rating system.

I’m quite happy to listen to rap music, or most kinds of music. So, I was curious as to what this film would be like and how much it would tell me about Tupac and his music. I learnt some of what his music was about and how he wanted his sound. I got a little of what his work meant to him and the story he wanted to tell.

The biggest part of this story seemed to be that even if you make it big you don’t get all the money and the record companies will screw you over.

Having just spent quite a while ranting to all who know me and in this communication about my ideas of politics then watching a film showing the inequalities of being black in the USA [or probably most countries] did not result in my mood becoming happier. However, there wasn’t really any activism in this movie.

All the scenes were shot from a Tupac point of view and I don’t know what really happened or the stories behind them. Perhaps with was whitewashing the history or perhaps it was accurate. I doubt he was an angel.

I am not going to change music style and I enjoyed listening to the tracks within the film. I would claim that the lyric disturb me, but they don’t. I have and do listen to lyrics far worse/better depending on your view.

Posted on

Unlocked

I spent the morning at the Showcase Cinema in the Bluewater shopping centre. I arrived very slightly late to the screen and I was amazed that the film had already started. My ticket time said 10:00 and I got there 10:07, normally there’s about 20 minutes of adverts so I was surprised that I missed the beginning of the film.

This is also the very FIRST time I have had a cinema screen to myself. There was no one else in the cinema. The minimum that had happened before was two people. I should have used the opportunity and moved from seat to seat throughout the film [which would have been better than the film] but I did not.

As is my habit I rated this film on IMDb and there’s some information about the scoring system on within this communication.

This film was quite terrible. It was meant to be a slick spy thriller but it was shit. It wasn’t slick. The script was appalling. The acting was fine and the actors were by and large very good at their job. But the story was shit. The script [again] was shit. It was all rather obvious.

AND THE SPY PROCEDURES AND TECHNOLOGY WERE BULLSHIT.

I will comment on a couple of things because if I was to break this film down into everything that was wrong with it I would be here typing for the rest of the day. It might be fun to do that once this comes out on DVD. I could sit here, watch 10 seconds and then let you know what was wrong with.

Gunshots everywhere in London and no police sirens.

Head of MI5 always wears a bullet proof vest?

Head of MI5 goes in the field?

Resting CIA spy knows head of MI5 personally?

Orlando Bloom mistakes Helmand as being in Iraq?

The Marburg virus was ONLY picked up by one kid?????

The delivery system of the virus was overly complicated.

Why have a countdown on the delivery system?

Burglers steal massive TVs from expensive apartments?

This entire film was entirely NOT plausible. Hence it scored 4/10.

Posted on

Diary Of A Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul

When it’s the hottest day of the year it’s a sensible thing to go to the cinema. It might be just me but two hours in an air-conditioned room being entertained while the UK burns seems like a good idea. I even managed to park in the shadows and made sure that while the sun tracked further south the trees would still bath the car in glorious shadow.

While it might seem that I am moaning about the weather I am not. I love the weather whatever it does. Rain is good, heat is good, bloody cold is good, it’s all part of the life experience and we should relish whatever mother nature throws at us. This might change once I have to put a shirt on tomorrow and spend time at work in this heat. But, I still won’t moan out loud. The idea that Britishness is somehow defined by people moaning about the weather annoys me and I refuse to conform.

As usual I rated this film on IMDB and you should read this communication to get an idea of my scoring system.

Basically this film was the least worse of those at the cinema that I could take young people to. It was enjoyable in a “stupid American comedy” way. I have a whole subset of the comedy genre that is “stupid American”. Things like “Dumb and Dumber” etc. Stupid films where laughs come at the expense of people getting hurt or being stupid.

The film followed the journey of a family heading to MeeMaw’s birthday party. I laughed a couple of times and really enjoyed the performance of the teenage brother, I think he did a great job. The rest of it was full of puerile comedy with no sense of reality in the stunts. But it’s a kids film so that’s ok then.

Posted on

My Cousin Rachel

Last night I celebrated my first night of freedom from exam marking with a trip to the cinema. I chose to go and see My Cousin Rachel largely because all the other films looked terrible. I don’t want to see the Mummy reboot or the latest Pirates film. I didn’t know a great deal about My Cousin Rachel. I went to the Cienworld Cinema at Rochester, the tide wasn’t in or out.

As is custom on this site I rate films out of 10 on the IMDB website but there are rules and reasons and perhaps you could kindly read this communication.

I’m not that fussed by period dramas. I’m not that fussed by book adaptations. I don’t like films which reinforce the failed concept of a Lord Of The Manor doing good for his people and looking after them, it perpetuates the concept of government FOR the people and that doesn’t seem to exist. I do like Cornwall though.

The short version of this review would be “men and their dicks, eh?”.

The longer version is that I actually enjoys this film. I spend some time worrying about candles and fire, the soot and cleanliness of houses and also wondering what you do once it’s dark outside. Did I say that Cornwall looks bloody lovely, such a beautiful county and filmed wonderfully.

“I say Jeeves, make me a picnic for two, now”. “Fuck you Sir”.

How my response would render me dead or in jail.

Anyway, my current anger at politicians and government is creeping into this review subtly.

So, a young man grows up in a privileged position within society and his uncle goes away and dies after marrying. When the widow turns up young man falls in love with her. But he falls ill. Is she killing him?

I enjoyed this film. It was good looking, sensitive and fun. I thought Rachel Weisz acted the bollocks out of it.

Posted on

Wonder Woman

I was worried about going to see this film. I had a bad experience at the cinema a few weeks ago and I thought this film could be similar. I went to the Rochester Cineworld cinema and parked under one of the three bridges to protect the car from direct sunlight, it was quite a warm clear day.

So I rated this film on IMDB, which is my custom, and you should see this communication here for explanations of the scoring system.

I really enjoyed this film. I could even argue it was more of a war film than that of Wonder Woman. There were some bits of the first scene that bothered me but overall this film was a very enjoyable experience.

Potential Spoilers Ahead.

We see how Wonder Woman discovers the human race and then battles Aries to end all war. I think that more could have been made of Wonder Woman possibly condemning man to exist in a state of war forever as it is man who clearly loves war. But she discovers LOVE.

Now, I think I’d fuck man over and leave them to their pathetic world of war and hate and killing people because that’s all they deserve. I’m not sure the existence of love is enough to forgive man the shit that he does to other men. The world seems full of hate. Especially when you consider this was set in the First World War.

This was a comic book story and so there needs to be simple discussion about good and bad. This film could have been much more with a deeper discussion of philosophy and how the British and Americans were just as bad as the Germans. I don’t think there was a good side in WW1. It would have been nice to see the humanity of the German soldiers on the front line but they were treated as though they were animals.

This was still a good film even though there wasn’t anything to show the humanity of ALL man. Maybe because it doesn’t exist?

My single WTF issue was when a massively armoured truck turns up at Le Louvre and then the security guard just carries a briefcase in to the museum. The truck seemed overkill or the guard was underkill. Also, the briefcase wasn’t locked. There was no attempt to unlock the combination locks, it just opened.

I liked the slow motion during the fighting scenes. It made the film look more like a comic.

Posted on

Miss Sloane

I went to see Miss Sloane. Je voyageais par la route de l’autre côté de la rivière, c’était une marée haute. The river looked lovely and calm. I rated this film using IMDB and this one got a 6. You might find it helpful to read my communication about the scoring system.

This, was I guess, a political thriller. It was pretty good. I found the performance of the lead actor probably kept it going well. There was a little too much intrigued and double guessing for me. I haven’t worked in high management or politics but I do think that the political system largely reacts to random events and, while there may be a grand plan, it never really gets too far gone.

I quite enjoyed this film and the cinema provided some respite from the warm temperatures in this lands at the moment. This is not a complaint. I like the heat. I just dislike sun burn. Which I spent a good proportion of my youth suffering with.

I guess the amount of writing here tells you how much I was affected by this film. It didn’t really impact on me. Just have a look at films I thought were stunning or absolutely terrible. I write way more when I’m really happy or annoyed at a film.

Posted on

Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2

There’s something about the ebb and flow of a tidal river that’s organically beautiful. The mass of water that enters the Medway and travels up to Allington Lock transforms the landscape from mud flats to a rippling estuary. It’s gorgeous, even if it is brown and looks dirty. The tide was in as I drove to the cinema last night to see Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2. It does that twice a day, raising the level of water and bringing food into the marshes.

I watched the film at Cineworld in Rochester. Fortunately the cinema was quiet, unlike the previous film where there were lots of people eating popcorn through the quiet bits in the film. Popcorn itself isn’t loud but the paper bags rustle with gusto. None of that this time. I rated the film on IMDB, which is customary, and usually I tweet the result, but the app on my phone wanted me to Rate It at the same time as confirming my tweet and it wouldn’t let me tweet automatically. Somewhat annoying but I gave this film an 8.

So, 8/10 seems a reasonable score. This film was enjoyable, grandiose and anthemic.  It didn’t quite maximise all those qualities though. It looked lovely, was fun and humorous. I do think it had a little bit of “too much stuff-in-it”. There were space fights and graphics with so much going on that it distracts from the story. Yep, it looks good, but it doesn’t add anything. Films can look good and be great without all this “stuff-it-in” approach. Honestly, it’s worth minimising films occasionally. But perhaps that is an outsider approach and wouldn’t make money.

There aren’t many individual comments that I can add to this film. While watching it I didn’t have sentences forming in my head to be written here as I normally do. I usually leave the cinema remembering about 50% of my in-head comments ready to share here. I just didn’t get that many from this film.

Oh, there was a massacre about 2/3 of the way through. Which seemed a little dark and a tiny bit unnecessary. It wasn’t really needed for the plot or character development.

Stan Lee cameos annoy me.

That’s it. I’ll probably watch this film again sometime. It wasn’t great but it was good fun.

Posted on

Alien: Covenant

On such a lovely weathered day I thought the best place to be was in the dark, air conditioned atmosphere of a cinema. I did have a lovely run earlier today and managed 7 miles or so.

So, off to Rochester cinema I went. Worriedly. The last film I saw I walked out of. I’m not sure if that was because the film was truly terrible or maybe I was just having a minor head-fuck moment. It was with trepidation that I entered the theatre this time. I was also worried because Ridley Scott’s last foray into the Alien series had distressed me so much.

This film was largely OK. Hence I rated it a 6 on IMDB.

So, in more detail here’s some thoughts after I steal quotations from some source. If you read my Prometheus Arrrgh communication you will understand what I was worried about. I have since heard people say that Ridley Scott makes gorgeous films, but when he’s been given a shit script, it’s still a shit script.

Finally we have much more involvement of the synthetic human and he has gone mad. This pleased me because the entire series should have been about the relationship that humans have with the alien within their system, within humanity itself.

There were still some issues with this film. You don’t land on a new planet without surveying it THOROUGHLY. You’d also check toxicology reports etc. Humans are quite fragile really!

Now, if I ignore all that, I will admit that the rest of this film was pretty darn good. Really it was an horror film and an awful lot of it was filmed in the dark. Don’t wear sunglasses in the cinema, you won’t see a thing! There was gore and the Alien and stuff.

In all honesty, this film is nowhere near as good as Alien. It’s almost a cross between Alien and Aliens. I fully recommend that you go out and buy Alien and watch that instead.

Oh, and how to kill an Alien? Blast them out into space. EVERY TIME.

Posted on

The Fate Of The Furious

I sauntered to the Cineworld cinema at Rochester last night and I should have left home earlier as parking is really busy on a Friday night. You circle the car park waiting to see people walking away from the cinema to their car and then you hope to get to the lane where they are parked before another circling car does. It’s like vultures and carrion. It doesn’t really help the there are plenty of people who can’t park and leave gaps way in excess of necessary.

I went to see F8, or Fast and Furious 8, or The Fate Of The Furious. I expected it to be shit. I rated it on IMDB but I had to refer back to this communication to look up what this score should be. I tweeted this opinion too:

I think this film was utter shit. I physically left the cinema before thirty minutes was up. Emotionally I think I’m still in there, I can’t believe how shit this was. I was mentally prepared for a slickly filmed, well written piece of crap which would have garnered a reasonable review but this was . . . . . not that film.

I have watched the first and possibly second second film in this franchise. I can’t remember. I do know that while the first film was not a good film it was watchable and a good piece of entertainment. F8 was a far cry from watchable. Maybe I’m a film snob? Bollocks to that, I am a film snob. I do expect films to at least put some effort into the script and characters. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone to see this particular film? But I am able to like these films and see them for what they are. Why this one made me leave the showing I don’t know.

I have now walked out of two films at the cinema and considered walking out of only one other. Van Helsing was so bad I thought about leaving but I didn’t want to disturb the other guy sitting in the row of seats. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe was the other film I actually left. I wasn’t enjoying it but hadn’t considered leaving it until my guest asked me if I was enjoying it. “No” I replied. “Shall we leave?” came the response. This was a startling revelation, I had never really considered leaving before. We left.

F8 started out with a red car driving along what looked like the Florida Keys and then we were in Cuba. I don’t know if there’s a road like that in Cuba but there definitely isn’t a land link between the Keys and Cuba. Oh well, I can chill out. Havana looked lovely, even if it was in fraternity house party mode. I doubt it’s like that really. We start with a car race along a “Cuban Mile”. Whether that is like a Cornish mile I don’t know. It did seem to be quite a distance. Apparently you can take any old piece of shit car and race it against the best on the island, break it, set it on fire, perform a J turn and reverse FASTER than a fast car going forward and win a race. Just before you are going to launch into the sea you jump out of the broken car and roll along the floor with no injuries. Fuck you movie.

I did like the CGI waves that crashed into the sea wall as the cars came on to the promenade. But it must have been a freak wave because there were no more large waves crashing and in all the other shots the sea was rather calm. Maybe the intended audience isn’t expected to notice these things. Am I too snobby about movies? Up until now I hadn’t thought about leaving. Even Vin Diesel’s dumbstruck stupid acting face didn’t make me want to leave.

The following dialogue made me want to puke, it went a little something like this:

“Hey, you really won the race in that heap of shit car. You must be awesome.”

V.D. wry smile [no actual face movement]

“You can have the keys to my car and my respect.”

V.D. “I don’t want your car, your respect is enough.”

INSERT RED ALERT WARNING SOUND

Who wrote this shit? It’s utter machismo bullshit. This film should have been named “Bullshit cars and bullshit stereotypical hard men who are real men, none of that namby-pamby emotional stuff that was made for girls”. Maybe I have anger issues?

Now, I’m not sure what happened next but at some point there was an association football match between two girl teams and one of them was managed by The Rock. God, this film was lazy. The Rock’s team performed a version of the Haka before playing their match and the other team looked on as though they had never seen this or known about it. Now, if a team has rituals you would KNOW about it. You would be prepared and you would have measures in place to counter the rituals. One of the girls in pink [because hard teams are in red with a dragon and soft pussy girly teams play in pink] says “I don’t want to play anymore”. Did they employ a ten year old to write this script. Screw you movie!

We need to steal an EMP from some place in Germany. Quick, call a group of people who can drive really fast! This movie was so lazy they didn’t even want to attempt a heist sequence. We join the knobs as they are running away having already stolen the EMP. Oh and for information EMP stands for Electro-Magnetic Pulse. You have to add bomb or weapon to the end of EMP for it to make sense in terms of the movie. Also, obviously if you design an EMP weapon it can be lifted by a single person and has EMP written in massive font over its surface.

All of the chasing police are wiped out by a demolition ball swinging from what must be the world’s tallest infinite crane in the world as the bottom arc was perfectly parallel to the road. Perhaps this movie wasn’t for me. Perhaps I need to chill. I am writing this about twelve hours after starting to watch this movie and it is STILL annoying me intensely. I need to get out and have a run.

Somewhere in the thirty minutes I watched there was a car that ACCELERATED from 200mph to enter the back of an aeroplane while it was flying along a run way with the rear ramp down. Note to the producers and script writer. Some cargo planes could fly along a runway at 120 knots with a headwind. Also, how do cars somehow enter a run way on an airport in modern Germany? I thought we had tightened up things like fucking airport fences since all the bad people in the world keep trying to put bombs on planes.

All I needed now was a final trigger to make me walk out of this movie. I even had to disturb two people in my row. I actually considered their viewing pleasure but I reached a point where I couldn’t cope with the shit any more.

The Rock ends up in a bizzarre prison in a cell opposite cockney hard man Jason Statham. So, there followed a load of bullshit “I’m harder than you” dialogue and, surprise surprise, all the locks in the prison suddenly fail and all the prisoners break out and start fighting. I got up, gathered my coat and left. Best decision that day.

I am sad I didn’t see the submarine chasing cars over sea ice, but I’ll stream just that bit another time. This film was terrible. I’m trying to go meta and work out why I reacted so badly to it. The length of this communication worries me. Is something wrong? Normally I can end these reviews in a few paragraphs. “Fucking bullshit” would have worked for this film but it annoyed me. The utter laziness of the script and the machismo crap that reinforces all the stereotypes that modern liberal society is trying to remove. This is a film for reassuring the masses that it’s ok to be an arsehole. It’s ok to be a twat. It’s ok to fight. Pink is a girly colour only for pussies and muscles win over.

I hold out hope that towards the end of this movie the style changed and it reflected upon itself and had a different message. The world should be ashamed of this shit.

Posted on

Monster Trucks

I went to see Monster Trucks at Rochester Cineworld Cinema. It’s a kids film. I rated it (surprisingly high) on IMDB and you should read this before taking my ratings seriously.

You know what? This film was alright. It was a bit like an earthly version of Transformers. There was a young man who was obsessed with trucks but also quite intelligent and a young woman trying to impress him. I’m not really sure. There was also some step-dad stuff along the way with Danny Glover playing a scrap metal merchant in a wheelchair.

There were monsters. But, of course, they were mostly friendly. Apart from the physics of crashing down a hill and crushing your vertebrae this film was mostly good fun.

Posted on

Ghost In The Shell

I went to see Ghost In The Shell this afternoon. I booked a 14:30 showing. As is custom I went to the Cineworld at Rochester. Maybe one day I’ll change my “usual”.

So, the thing with the ratings is that you should read this communication.

I enjoyed what I saw of this film and I thought it was good. I recently watched the original anime version and thought that was brilliant. I don’t care for comparing across the genres. The only film I would get touchy about is that tour de force Akira.

I did “rest my eyes” a few times during this film and so I think it would be sensible for me to go again sometime when I am feeling more awake. A short and sweet review this time!

Posted on

Life

I took a break from building the Lego monster to visit Rochester cinema and watch the film Life. I rated this film on IMDB and you can see a guide to my ratings within this communication.

I spent a lot of this film wondering what to write. I’m still not sure. One of the ways I interact with films is to consider what I write here. It allows me to collect my thoughts and experience the film as something more than just a cinema trip. I am nearly at the point when I am going to take a pad and pen into a film to note down my thoughts as the film rolls. What is written here is normally a collection of illiterate thoughts after the fact. My musings are filtered through the cold process of entropy increasing. Occasionally I add an extra thought here or there when I realise I’ve missed an important point I wanted to make, hence a note pad would be a good idea. I don’t want to write notes on my phone because that’s likely to get me kicked out or would, at the very least, be quite anti-social in the darkened environment of the cinema.

You know what? I’m still not sure what to write. There are some science issues and orbital mechanics things that annoyed me a little but I don’t think they spoiled the film for me. Overall it was quite a good watch. This was essentially Alien but on the International Space Station. It wasn’t really as suspenseful as Alien, but then I do love Alien and Aliens. I did find this ultimately quite not-frightening.

Right [collects thoughts]. This film was fine. I like space stuff and this film had space stuff. Yep, that’s it. Fine.

Now, some bits a pieces with potential SPOILERS.

The ISS had to “catch” the mars probe? Not going to happen.

The life form was very aggressive, I don’t think this type of life form could exists on a planet. It would have to compete for food and resources and it would use them all very soon. Oh, shit, like humans on Earth. Wow! perhaps I missed that metaphor.

The Martian soil didn’t float about.

They found a single microscopic cell out of all the junk they brought in from the probe.

The Soyuz launched to boost the ISS to “deep space” would not have enough fuel. The film mentioned “deep space” a few times as though it’s easy to get there. It’s not. The energy required is immense. We have never, so far, sent a human to deep space. We haven’t even sent a human out of the Earth’s gravity well. We have sent some probes out beyond Earth’s grip but nothing that could sustain human life. I guess the film was set in the future so maybe they can have that one.

The Soyuz docked at a closing velocity that would have destroyed both machines.

There are probably other issues but I don’t want to come across as petty or pedantic. I am both. This film was largely: fine.

Posted on

Kong: Skull Island

I took a birthday trip to see Kong: Skull Island at the Rochester Cineworld Cinema. If you don’t know me by now, then you’ll never, ever know that I rate my movies on the IMDB website, but there’s a catch. I explained my rating system here, but I think scores have been creeping recently so I may have to redefine the system. Watch this space. When I decide my score I tweet it, which leads to a quite nice embedded format:

I had originally scored this as a 6, but upon reflection it didn’t deserve to be rated that highly, hence my change of mind.

Because, this film, was, shit.

SPOILERS ahead.

The script was appalling, lazy, stereotypical bullshit. Samuel L Jackson’s eyes got too much screen time. The film makers can’t count helicopters.

The monsters looked brilliant. I’m not really aware of the mythology around the Kong character but in this film he seemed to be more of an accidental benevolent monster type thing rather like Godzilla than all out terrible monster. I guess it’s OK because he fell in love with Brie Larson, who didn’t get smashed to death inside Kong’s hand while he ripped the brain out of a two legged lizard thing. It was irritating that Brie Larson seemed to spend all her time with a bag strap over her chest to enhance her breasts, this wasn’t needed, it seemed sexist to me.

The characters were terrible. War mad generals, smooth calm SAS member, crazy scientist with stupid theories, tribe who don’t speak. It was lazy terrible bullshit.

I can suspend my disbelief for gigantic monsters on an island surrounded by a perpetual storm. That bit was fine. The rest of this was bollocks.

It’s the little things. Little things that shouldn’t be things I have to write about. Like helicopters that materialise from nowhere. On the ship travelling to Skull Island there were, quite clearly, one Chinook, one Sea Stallion and four Hueys. All of a sudden when they take off to head to Skull Island the Hueys had babies and there were eight of them!! I have no idea where they came from. I also don’t know where the helos at the end of the film came from unless the US Navy had a task force nearby.

Oh, the Hueys had tape players and speakers. I can’t quite decide if this was an homage to Apocalypse Now! or just a plain bullshit rip off. The shots were almost exactly the same.

If you want a film with rebellious music, at least make the music decent. There was a ton of decent stuff around in the 1973 setting.

The two chaps who had crashed on Skull Island in the opening sequence made a boat out of aircraft parts. The team spent about a day turning this hulk of 29 year old metal into a working boat by turning some bolts and waggling some leavers. They made a metal thing work smoothly after 29 years in a humid environment. They must be geniuses. Oh and then, when they get the engine running it pops away smoothly and quietly in the background. Let me tell you that there are NO aero engines that run “quietly” in the background. That engine would have been producing in excess of 900bhp and no silencing. The makeshift boat would have torn itself apart.

According to the Wikipedia page I missed the post-credits scene where other monsters are revealed to the viewer. I don’t care.

If I wanted to be very extremely generous I could claim that the film was a complete metaphor for the USA’s battle against terrorism with Kong representing the terrorists. But I don’t want to be generous with this film.

Posted on

Logan

In an unusual move I went to the cinema this morning to an 11:00 showing! I’d already had a run so I figured why not? I won’t embed that here, you can search my Twitter timeline if you want to see that. As is usual I rated the film on IMDB and for an explanation of the rating system you should read this communication.

So, I enjoyed the film. It was pretty violent and very well done. It wasn’t that violent given what I have seen in the past but I guess for a 15 it was impressive.

 

WARNING there are SPOILERS from HERE.

 

I don’t like superhero films. Or mutant films. Most of them are rubbish. This one was good but not brilliant. I’ve seen people raving about it and I think that’s mostly the rubbish they’ve been fed over the years colouring their view. 

I need to add that the whole idea that the kids would be safe once they “crossed the border” was odd given that the company chasing them was perfectly happy to blow shit up in Mexico and the USA and so probably wouldn’t mind popping into Canada. 

It was lovely to see Richard E Grant being evil.

This film was going to be rated 6/10 but I have given it 8/10 because of the major deaths that take place in the film. I though it was important to give those characters some honour.

Posted on

Hidden Figures

Last night I went to see Hidden Figures. It has been a while since I’ve been to the cinema as things are just a little busy at the moment. I’m sure I’ll catch up in the next month or so. I’ve had a recommendation to see Logan and given my general dislike of superhero films it will be interesting to see it.

I went to see Hidden Figures. It is customary for me to rate films on IMDB and I did so.

Perhaps you should read my reasoning behind my ratings, although I have to admit the logic is shifting slowly over time, as should be expected I guess.

Hidden Figures was a good film. It was about some of my favourite topics; space, rockets, maths, civil rights, humanity.

Quite a broad range of topics there, but this film managed them all. This was the story of three mathematicians at NASA. That doesn’t sound particularly impressive until you suddenly say BLACK FEMALE mathematicians at NASA in the early 1960s. Everyone should see this film, it has the right amount of everything, really worth while.

It stuns me to see how different people were treated. God, people can be fucking assholes.

Privacy Policy Proudly powered by WordPress