Tag: film

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Moomins On The Riviera

I saw this film with my children at the Cineworld in Rochester or it may have been the Odeon in Maidstone. I can’t remember.

The film was largely dull. The social commentary was vaguely amusing. That’s all I can remember.

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Boxtrolls

Unsually for me I went to see the Boxtrolls at the Odeon Cinema in Maidstone. My normal cinema is the Cineworld at Rochester. As ever I rated this film on IMDB, see this communication for an explanation of my rating system.

I saw this movie on a Saturday morning kids club event. This meant I only paid £2-50 for each of us to go. Overall this was a perfectly well made kids film. The animation was lovely and the whole concept was typical fairy story. My son really enjoyed it. I will point out that I don’t like overly large machines used in films [like the spider thing in Wild Wild West] there are issues with structural strength and manufacture [flying airbases in Avengers] but the one in this film gets a free pass as it was used well.

I’m not sure I’m that fussed about seeing this film again, I expect my children will want to see it. Hence I gave a 6/10. It’s worth a watch with kids.

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Insurgent

I went to see Insurgent. It’s the second film in the Divergent series [if that’s what they are called]. I rated the film on IMDB, as usual, and you should read this communication for a better understanding of how I rate films, it’s subjective you see. I reviewed Divergent.

I’m not entirely sure this film had a stand out moment. It was a quite pedestrian storyline. I have a feeling it could have been made more exciting, but I may be suffering from YAL overload. You see, I watched Maze Runner recently. It’s probably fair to say that the overall plot of the films are exactly the same. I’m not sure the youth can claim this kind of dystopian future for themselves, but then every generation needs their own films and music to claim. We have to give the youth these views so that they feel empowered to contribute and change the system.

I feel a certain nostalgia for the badfuture films of the 70s and 80s. Granted, we did have a cold war and the threat of death within four minutes [if you were lucky] but we also needed the films to promote social change. The problem as I see it is that the wrong kind of social change happened. I’ve a sneaking suspicion that politics, power and greed gets in the way.

The poor youth of today constantly worried about the extremely low probability of being killed by a murderer [or terrorist as we now call them if they are a little different to us], they must find it very upsetting. Bollocks. It’s been worse in the past. It’ll get worse again.

Anyway, the film was OK. Nothing brilliant.

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Chappie

I saw this film last night. As ever I have rated it on the IMDB website, or rather the IMDB app.

I think a little next morning rethinking means that I could possibly downgrade this to a 6/10. If you need to understand my rating system then read this communication.

I really enjoyed this film. Within the last six months I watched District 9, made by the same people and I enjoyed it and also found it a very interesting film given the storylines and location. District 9 dealt with the legal repression of a race of beings in South Africa. I thought it was a great film you can sit and watch or an even better critique of the recent past.

Chappie [apart from having an awful title] was quite similar. Many of the locations seemed very similar as it was films around Johannesburg. The laboratories looked and felt similar. I wonder whether the director has the same location or a very distinct look that he wanted for both films.

I would describe this film as a grown up version of Short Circuit. There was so much about it that I liked. There were some science-type issues that I had, but I am willing to let the film have those technological problems for free. This film is worth a watch, just make sure you put the kids to bed first.

An aside is that there was a couple sitting next to me. Before the film they were talking, I was reading a book on my phone, I don’t watch adverts or trailers. The girl asked why the screen was curved. The bloke responded because it makes it look nice. Now that’s not really the case is it? The screen is curved so that all points on the screen are the same distance from the projector so that the focus works properly. I didn’t interject, that seemed rude but I really wanted to. Also, if you have a question like that why don’t you look up the real answer on the internet and learn something. don’t except any answer you hear, even the one I’ve just given, look it up, find out the real reason.

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Focus

So, I went to see Focus, a film with Will Smith and other people. I rated it on IMDB, as ever you should see this communication to explain my ratings.

This was an enjoyable film. It was a pretty standard con movie. There were twists and turns all the way. I very rarely watch con movies more than once, hence this is rated 6 on IMDB. The only con movie I can remember watching more than once was The Usual Suspects, although I guess that’s more of a thriller.

This film was quite good fun. It had all the glamour that you would want and rich people being used. The two main areas of play were New Orleans and Buenos Aires. Both cities looked lovely. Both I think I would like to visit.

The big con was interesting as it involves the world of car racing. There are a number of plot points that didn’t make a great deal of sense but I think I only spotted those because I do like car racing and follow the news and events.

Overall, this film was good.

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Jupiter Ascending

Hmmm. Went to see Jupiter Rising last night at the IMAX cinema screen in the Bluewater shopping complex. Even though it was the 19:40 showing the shopping centre was really busy, I just wanted to use a megaphone and shout “go home people”. Well, as ever I rated this film on IMDB, and even more please remember how my scoring system works.

So, I expect that I will watch this film again, probably with my children as an entry into grand science fiction themes. I think we need to call this one fantasy rather than sci-fi though. I quite liked the grand themes and scenery of this film. It was pretty impressive work. The overall story was interesting and a good idea.

BUT. This was not a great film. The acting seemed pretty poor to me and the script was dull. It was like a poor man’s Dune with grand themes of ruling families and expensive commodities. The action scenes were too busy, it was hard to follow or see what was happening. This has been a problem I noticed since Transformers. In that film there was lots of CGI fighting and machines changing but everything happens too quick or too much of it, it’s like they are trying to distract you from the fact that they don’t know what’s going on or how the machines work.

Jupiter Ascending had an awful lot of falling in it.

Overall, this film gets a 6/10 from me but only because I will probably watch it again, not because I thought it was an OK film.

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Kingsman: The Secret Service

I saw this film yesterday at Cineworld Cinemas whose iPhone app now uses Passbook and so I don’t have to print out a ticket. Good work Cineworld.

As ever I have rated this on IMDB, but you need to see this communication to explain the ratings.

Firstly, it might be worth noting that I went food shopping before this film with the intention of popping the cold stuff in the fridge at home before heading to the cinema. The traffic was at a standstill to get home and so I ended up eating the ice cream in the car on the way directly to the cinema. Even then, there were road works that meant I was delayed on the A228. I arrived at the cinema at 17:04, the film was meant to have started at 16:45. The luck was in for me as I arrived just as the last advert was playing. The frozen stuff in the car survived as it was pretty cold outside.

I was somewhat surprised that this film was a 15. You don’t tend to get many films that are above a 12A nowadays. For each rating you rise, the overall takings drop.

So, the film was funny, slightly gory, predictable and just bloody good fun. They nearly broke through the fourth wall and I loved the self referencing. This is well worth seeing. I will likely watch this again sometime soon.

The use of Elgar in one of the final scenes was inspired.

Not much of a review or spoilers. Recently I’ve done too much of that.

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American Sniper

I went to see this film last night. Here’s what I thought of it on IMDB:

I think I’m possibly too old for these films. I just wasn’t impressed. It might be that I had already read some reviews and they weren’t very positive or it might be that I’m just a grumpy old lefty.

MILD SPOILERS FOLLOW

I grew up with war films. I thought they were exciting. I thought they generally made war look glamorous. The motives behind wars always seemed justifiable. Then I saw lots of Vietnam movies and you start to realise that war is used by governments to maintain their economic advantage over everyone else. I should probably write another communication about my views on war and killing people. So, back to this film.

A man, who loves his country so much, sees something bad and gets angry, he signs up to be a Navy Seal. He’s a good shot with a rifle. He trains to be a sniper and then gets sent off to war. Along the way he marries a woman. We’ve all seen Navy SEAL training videos, we know what they do and that they are tough. Nothing new there. The training part of the film completely missed all of the important aspects of training. It looked like a video game where the first 20 minutes teaches you how to play the game.

Being sent off to war and then being liberal with the truth means our man gets even more angry at everything and kills plenty of people fighting for their own country. He carries a bible all the time, because god obviously justifies all the killing. His tour fucks him up and when he returns home he’s not the man he used to be. He bears a grudge against a “baddie” sniper and keeps returning to Iraq in the hope of getting the baddie first. Our baddie has a wife and children but we aren’t allowed to know his reasons for being in this war especially as he’s not an Iraqi.

Sniper boy gets more and more disturbed but we aren’t really shown this. We get snap shots throughout the movie but no in depth analysis. We have an Iraqi tour followed by a bit of home life where he’s obviously troubled but it’s all superficial. Finally our boy kills their boy and he wants to come home, he’s done his job. Never mind the Americans that are still getting killed.

In the end our sniper does good and becomes himself again once he helps veterans. We see him talking to a shrink and after a couple of minutes he appears to be normal again. Bollocks. This film was entirely uncritical of any elements of war. It would have been far better had we seen more of the other characters and their fight with normality. also, this film has been compared to The Hurt Locker, which I also thought was shit.

This is essentially a cowboy movie for the modern MTV-editing age where we aren’t allowed to have feelings and thoughts and questions. Did I say, it was directed by a cowboy star? Some of Clint’s movies have been awesome and great. This one was shit.

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Ex Machina

Overall, this film is worth watching. Hence my IMDB rating:

As ever, you should see this guide to my ratings.

Firstly I think I should point that there are certain elements of this film that don’t ring true. The single person who invented the world’s most used search engine is also a stunning engineer able to create wonderful human looking androids along with inventing a new medium for the processor which also happens to be AI capable. This is not how I suspect it will be done. However, let’s get over that.

First thing: the house was lovely, a wonderful creation, I hope it’s mostly real.

Second thing: Ava looked awesome, really impressive graphics and design, very organic.

Now, the story line. This was generally good although I was reminded a lot of Blade Runner as it progressed. My mind kept going back to the voice of Gaff shouting:

 It’s too bad she won’t live! But then again, who does?

The story told us to be wary of recluse like figures who are really intelligent. They will use you to fulfil their own aims. Then, towards then end there was a switcheroo which was nice. I liked the manipulation in this film. I liked the simplicity of the sets and the wonderful scenery, although there were random cuts of foliage to remind you we were in the wilderness [which creates quite a few logistical issues for me].

Overall, at times this film may have seemed slow but I think that’s a reflection on modern film making where action is the requirement rather than making people think. This is worth a watch.

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