Red State (2011)

From Kevin Smith his venture in to “Horror”, well that is how it was originally sold when I settled down to watch it. Your basic story starts with three male teenagers, played by Michael Angarano, Kyle Gallner and Nicholas Braun. They are looking to get laid and via a contact site they meet Sara played by Melissa Leo. This leads to them being captured by an extreme church that are portrayed as lunatics lead by Michael Parks. Then the story takes a switch and you end up with a stand off between the church and the Officials lead by John Goodman.


I had heard mixed reviews of this film and was not really that sure what it was about other than what the trailers tell you which is a bit jumbled to what the film actually is. To me it is a look at the world from a couple of view points, you have the Church with their beliefs and how they want to live their lives however wrong you may perceive that and the officials who are following orders and their questions around those orders. You have some quite shocking actions played out by both sides that will catch you off guard. Overall I found it an engaging film that took me on a roller-coaster ride of entertainment and thought provocation which is part of what I presume Kevin Smith was trying to achieve.


Overall I really enjoyed this film and would recommend that everybody gives it a look, the ending is interesting and I have heard that there was something different planned that made it impossible which I would actually have enjoyed as much as the actual ending. I have heard many people think that Smith got it wrong but overall I think he got a message out on this thoughts on both sides of the argument and I give this 8 out of 10.

Sherlock Holmes 2: A Game of Shadows (2011)

The sequel to the 2009 film from Guy Ritchie starring Robert Downey jnr, Jude Law, Noomi Rapace, Rachel McAdams, Jared Harris and Stephen Fry, I reviewed the original here. I really enjoyed the first film, I was unsure if the second which promised to be much the same based upon the trailers before seeing, so I was not expecting too much from it.

You follow Holmes again expertly played by Robert Downey Jnr as he tries to track Moriarty and you come to see where he is when Dr Watson played by Jude Law tracks him down. Then all over Europe they go chasing shadows and ending up at a conference on world peace at the Reichenbach Falls. This film follows on nicely from the original and based upon some of the Holmes stories I have now read and one of the made for TV films I watched this is an excellent adaptation and continuation of the series and as Mark Kermode says it is really nice to see Guy Ritchie find something he is truly excellent at making.


If you enjoyed the first you will probably enjoy this film more and as I fall heartily in to that camp I am happy to give this a resounding 8 out of 10. The support from Moriarty played by Jared Harris and Noomi Rapace playing Madam Simza Heron you really have a great film, I have to say that the ending is a Hollywood cop-out and the only thing stopping this being a 9 out of 10.

Contagion (2011)

Film of 2012 #44

The Stephen Soderbergh ensemble piece starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Damon, Laurence Fishbourne, Kate Winslet, Jude law and a multitude of other characters. It takes a look at the impact of a deadly global pandemic and what would happen within society if such a thing was to happen in our world. It is very clever in a lot of ways as it mixes the small story following people such as the Matt Damon character who is just trying to survive with his daughter and cope with what is going on around him but just trying to survive without needing to know what is happening. You have the Laurence Fishbourne character as the lead American trying to find a cure and to also track what the disease is and where it came from. The Jude Law character is a blogger that is popular enough that he takes an on line lead in exposing what he sees is happening, his character goes on an interesting story.

This is a difficult story to tell as they are telling it from so many angles and there are a lot of details that need to be picked up to get all of the points they are trying to make. Paying attention is well worth it and I think that on a re-watch this film will be quite interesting to see if you can catch all of the references. I think the way it is sewn together you are not bothered by any story lines, there is none I was thinking, too much time on that person what is happening with such and such. So it shows that the pacing is excellent and they got the split across each of the stories really good.

I have heard lots of good things about this film and can only really add my recommendation to the pile, it is 4 stars and well worth seeing. If you get the chance to watch it or have seen it then let me know what you thought of it, do you agree with me or am I wrong.

Shark Night (2011)

Film of 2012 #43

The Shark Night film is another film from the stable of the OTT extreme 3D horror films and is designed around the shock value of being seen in the cinemas with the glasses on. I did not see it in the cinema with the galsses on so missed out on this experience but I have to say that I still quite enjoyed this film. If you like the Final Destination films of which I have previously reviewed 1, 2 & 5 and the Piranha 3D film which I reviewed yesterday then you will enjoy this film even without the gimmick of the 3D.

Essentially this film is a slasher/monster film with Sharks as usual with this style of film there a certain holes in reality and requirement but overall if you go with the film you can watch it, enjoy the kills and where the story goes. There is some interesting character development at the start they sort of try to make you care for the characters in a strange way by giving them something to live for but really you have a rich girl, her family owns a house on an island. A Basketball player who is commented on as a top 10 draft pick and someone applying to be a Dr. I wonder if they are trying to get you to appreciate what they have to lose but also you cannot necessarily relate to them and you look forward to watching them die, as some of them are bound to do based even on the trailer which i reviewed here. 

Overall this is a solid 3 star recommend for me, especially if you like the other films I mentioned earlier then this film is right for you, I do think that there will be some level of dislike and even hate from people that are not into this sort of film. Let me know if you liked it or if you want to see it now, I am keen to hear other opinions. 

Bad Teacher (2011)

Film of 2012 #41

Cameron Diaz as a teacher, I know that I would have enjoyed that when I was at school and how she goes about teaching her students works for me to begin with and I know that I would have learned lots from her. This is comedy with several good jokes going on in it and there were several good laughs with Cameron Diaz trying to get the money, however she can to have a b**b job and to then woo the rich teacher in this case played by Justin Timberlake. And you have her battles with the well liked Miss Squirrel who is also competing for the affections of Justin. 

This is a grown up coming of age and works quite well in the world where nobody wants to grow up and you have seen the basic story told so many times before, the difference in this film is that it is not portrayed by teeneagers. There is a nice scene when you have Cameron Diaz explaining something to a pupil and the light comes on in her eyes about her own situation. The real issue with the film is that it is not total slap stick so it borders on the unrealistic but reality and there were a lot of things that do not jar well with this and there is an obvious ending that has questionable morality. 

Overall this is a light hearted comedy played well by the main characters and shows how someone will go as far as they can to get what they think that they want and it shows their coming of age. This is a hard film to recomend it is a weak 3 star for me some of the jokes are worth a giggle and if you saw it on, it is worth seeing but will not be a great miss if you do not see it. 

Hanna (2011)

Film of 2012 #23

No Spoilers

When this film came out at the cinema I was slightly intrigued to see it but not enough to actually make it so when I got the chance to see it at home I took it and I enjoyed it but it went in a strange direction near the end that while it was fun and kept me interesting there was a jumbled cut down feel to the film like there was more explanation and it was trying to say something but chunks were missing and it could not decide what it wanted to be or say. You have Saoirse Ronan a teenager raised by her father in the forest taught to fight and survive and you see her thrust in to the real world and the fact that she sees so many things that she just does not understand. 

Now the problem I have with this film is part of the story, Eric Bana who plays her father is training her for a mission yet I do not think that he does all that he can to prepare her for what he has asked and requires her to do. You have Cate Blanchett playing a CIA operative that was Eric Bana's handler before he went off the map and she is clearly hiding something. There is also a couple of spoilers in the trailer that meant when I saw the film the impact of these is totally lost. There are several loose ends in the film that are unresolved and they bothered me that they were left. There is very little actual explanation of what is going on or why they are doing what they are doing and the fact that Hanna is scared by the TV and fan shows me that Eric Bana's character did not go as far as he should have and in that I lost any sense of belief in the characters or the story line and was not that bothered about how it was going to end. 

The performances from Saoirse Ronan, Eric Bana and Cate Blanchett are all fin to me there is an issue with the direction and the story this is a 2 star film not really worth seeing but i would love to hear other points of view, is it just me or is there something wrong with this film. 

Priest (2011)

Film of 2012 #19

Some Spoilers

Another film based upon a comic book that I have not read, this time it is a post apocalyptic world in which humans and vampires have lived together forever and the humans developed the Priests, highly skilled and powerful fighters that were created and trained to fight the vampire menace. I have to say that this film is a mess, it seems to grasp the fact that not many people will know the set up but not enough belief in itself to set the world up properly and develop the world that is new to so many people, had they done this a bit better then i think a franchise could have been born here that would have been quite interesting.

You join the world after the Priests have been removed from power and de-commissioned as the vampire menace has been controlled or so it would appear. Now if the film had been about the world in which Priests were created and you followed the young priest through his training I think you would have a better grasp on how the world got where it is and how the reliance on the church and perhaps the ending could have been the set up for this world, there are a few twists that are obvious and because this film feels so rushed they are telegraphed and not that much of a surprise. The vampires are CGI creations that appear to be more animals than a thoughtful dangerous enemy and perhaps if the vampires had been treated like the Bugs in Starship Troopers you would have taken to them a bit more.

Overall I like Paul Bettany and Karl Urban in this film but they do not really get enough to go with and Maggie Q is another character that could really have done with a bit more development, overall this film is very flawed and would love to hear from you if you have read the comic is the film a good adaptation? This is a 2 star film, the actors do not deserve to be in a 1 star film but really it is a film that I would avoid, let me know if you disagree with that. 

Real Steel (2011)

I went to see the new Hugh Jackman film which is a robot fighting movie with a heart of gold, it is the story of Charlie Kenton played by Hugh Jackman, who is an ex boxer and now trains and builds Robot fighters. And then he finds out the mother of his child has died and he sees instead of a child a paycheck and from there you have the story of a father and son who do not know each other who are spending the summer together before the Son, played by Dakota Goyo moves in with his aunt.

You have a love interest for Charlie in the form of his boxing trainer's daughter Bailey played by Evangeline Lily who played Kate on Lost. They had fairly good chemistry and a believable relationship and you were rooting for them to get together. The story is fairly predictable however the effects were truly awesome with Atom being as much a character as any of the living people and the fight scenes were awesome. This film for me is aimed at a young audience so the bad guys are obvious and outlandish and are played well on the small scale by Kevin Durand and on the grand scale by Karl Yune and Olga Fonda.

I loved and enjoyed this film and give it a strong 4 stars and recommend for the acting, the story and the special effects, go and see this and enjoy it.

The Green Hornet (2011)

I actually chose to watch this film even though like seemingly quite a lot of people something about Seth Rogen just puts me off, his voice performance in Paul was great but this is the only good thing I have heard him do. He just has this way of being annoying, which worked in this film as a he was supposed to be annoying. So your story is Seth Rogen is the son of a Paper Mogul, played by Tom Wilkinson they do not get on and he has to take over the paper when his father dies. He hooks up with Kato his fathers mechanic and they decide randomly to become crime fighters and ingratiate themselves with the bad guys so they can bring them down and using the newspaper they start their campaign of crime against the criminals.

Now as a premise it works quite nicely, the biggest flaws in this film is the humour does not work properly as there seems to be something missing. I think that it is the crossover between slapstick and intelligent and it fails to work. Also I did not believe the relationship between Seth Rogen and Jay Chou who plays Kato and when you throw Cameron Diaz in to the mix the chemistry is just not there between the trio. Christoph Waltz plays an excellent bad guy and with James Franco getting a cameo the cast of this film was actually really good, Edward James Olmos also shows off his chops as the editor of the paper.

Overall I had low expectations and they were barely met, this is a 2 star avoid unless you like Seth Rogen a lot. Will give him credit he does look like he has lost a bit of weight but his style just does not work for me at all in this film or any of the others I have seen him in.

Final Destination 5 (2011)

So I went to see the latest in the long line of Final Destination sequels, it fell in to the trap last year when the stated that they were releasing THE Final Destination it sucked and to be honest after that film I was not that interested in seeing number 5, however when I saw the trailer which I reviewed here I thought a different take now that could be interesting. Now I have to say that they do not play this angle up quite as much as I thought they would but it made a nice conclusion to part of the story. Now I have to be honest and say that I love these films for the campyness and the tension when it is done right.

The story is your basic Final Destination plot with a cast of characters that you meet and then you see the disaster and the survival. Now the disaster is a bridge collapse and it is pretty cool actually they have some good impact scenes at this point the 3D was worth it for some good kill scenes but the CGI was god awful, why can they not get it right. Anyway I was not that bothered by the crap CGI as the deaths were pretty cool and I had a great time in the nearly empty theatre laughing my ass off.

Overall this is probably tied for my second favourite Final destination film with number 2 and behind number 1. The twist that they do at the end is awesome and when I saw it coming I was jumping up and down getting far to excited for a 33 year old man in the cinema alone. This is 4 stars for me I only bump it up as I came out with a really good feeling about the film and would actually go and see it again.

Tucker & Dale vs Evil (2010) Trailer

A fun trailer for me to review as I have seen the film but i have to review it to show everybody else how much fun it is and that you should see it, i saw it at Horror Hound Weekend in March and here is my original review here.

The trailer is a good and honest appraisal of the film, you can see the trailer and the website here.

I have to say that I hope this film gets a wide release and i hope that everyone that enjoys horror films and comedies should go and see this film if it is in a cinema near you or find a cinema it is in.

UK Release Date - TBC

Final Destination 5 (2011) Trailer

You have to love this series but after the 4th film I was like no way can they make another and no way can they make it any good, however from the trailer I have to say that I am won over. The rules have changed in this film and no longer it is about saving each other to make the pattern skip but the trailer makes you think that they kill each other to survive which makes the whole thing a lot more exciting.

I am actually really looking froward to seeing this film after seeing the trailer and i just hope that it gets a chance to live up to the expectations that i ma now placing on it. It is in 3D but I think I will just give that a miss as there is just no need for paying the extra and even though I have my Shrek 3D glasses which I love I am not that bothered about 3D any more.

So I will see this in the cinema and let you know if it is worth seeing at all.

UK Release Date - 26th August 2011

Drive Angry 3D (2011)

This film was another pay check for Nicholas Cage I went to see it with very little information thinking that it would be a good chance for them to use the 3D in an action/gory type way. The performance from William Fichtner as the accountant was excellent, really enjoyable and the direction they gave Hell was interesting and good idea.

However overall the film made very little to no sense it was a series of set pieces with a thin watery story running through it. There was the opportunity for an interesting twists and story line but I think this film was cut and adjusted or just very poor and only got released because Nicholas Cage was in it and they knew there was an audience that would go and see it because of that.

I cannot recommend this film to anyone, if you want to know the interesting thing they do with Hell, ask me and I will let you know. But avoid this film, the 3D is not even good enough to justify seeing the film. 1 Star from me on this one.

Season of the Witch (2011)

So I saw this film on a Sunday afternoon when the GF was working, what a serious disappointment, I saw the trailer afterwards so went in thinking, Girl suspected of being a witch, everybody wants her dead, along comes Nic Cage and sees the good in her. Well if you saw the trailer it destroys that illusion straight away and half way through the film without the trailer you know something is going on.

It is a really simple story that has 10 minutes of violent set up that does nothing to develop the lead roles and it is a total church bashing without any redemption for the main characters in defence of what they do. There are couple of interesting points in the story but based on how the film was sold to me the way the film went made no sense whatsoever. I came away from the film thinking, really what was the point.

Nicholas Cage seems to have decided he is going to do as many films as possible just to get paid, he phoned this performance in and was nothing special the whole film is not worth seeing so a 1 star stay away from this piece of nonsense.

Raymond Did It (2011)

I saw this film at HHW and to be honest it left such a small impression on me I had forgotten that I had seen it, says so much to me about this film. I am not a fan of low budget amateur film making and to be honest having been to my first convention that shows amateur films I will not be rushing back to see a lot of them in the future.

In my experience it was not actually that bad of a film, some of the kill scenes were actually inventive and gory and looked good, but the acting was pretty bad and the whole thing felt like it was dragging on, I think that if this film was cut to 60 minutes from the 85 minute run time then it could have been more engaging but it did drag quite a bit in the middle and I did not really care for any of the characters.

I am going to be generous and say 2 stars for the sheer effort of the director and I think that if given the opportunity and a bit of guidance he will be able to go far, there were some glimmers of great ideas within the film.

True Grit (2011)

This is the remake of the 1969 cowboy film, which I have never seen, the remake stars Jeff Bridges in a role I have heard he was very keen to play and put a lot into it. He was very good and the overall film was very enjoyable, I have heard from other people that have seen both of the versions that it is quite close to the original.

Now from the fact that it is quite close to the original there is to me very little point to this film having been made other than Jeff Bridges wanting to play a specific character and for the companies to cash in on the older film. It does nothing for the modern age as it is set in the Wild West and is not even a director telling a story in their words.

It is part of the problem that today all the films that come out are sequels, remakes and reboots, some original ideas would be nice. If the story is new enough and good enough it will work. Remakes can be good films and they can introduce an new audience to an old classic but for me the Western is a genre that does not need to come back in the modern age, I will give the film 2 stars and this is mainly for the good performances of Barry Pepper, Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin and Hailee Steinfeld. See it if you like Jeff Bridges or Westerns but it does nothing new, see the original instead.

Ironclad (2011)

Saw this film at the cinema and it is the first time in a long time that I have been looking at my watch to see when it will be over. I was looking forward to the film, it was about swords and fights and a siege and had to be good. I was wrong, it was long drawn out and so very predictable, the Knights Templar saves the day, well there was a surprise, really it did nothing for me and would not recommend this film to anybody.

The actors themselves did nothing wrong but the direction and the story really were not that well thought out and I have to say a real disappointment.

So 1 star for this film and a truly obvious stay away from it from me.

Thor 3D (2011)

Cinema April 2011

So I went to see this at the cinema in 3D and I hated it, the 3D that is. I am finally finished worrying about seeing films in 3D so this is the last time I will go and see a film in 3D, the extra money you pay is not worth it.

The film itself was okay, at the start I was taken out of it by the 3D and was distracted during the fight scenes and the action. Overall it is an origin movie for a super hero it has been done many times before and will be done many times again in the future. It is getting really boring to me as there is so much set up and it is really by the numbers.

The performances are okay Chris Hemsworth was likable enough and Natalie Portman who seems to be in everything at the moment is as good as you would expect from her, the film itself just did not grab me and is really just a long set up for the Avengers movie.

Overall there is nothing great or terrible about the film so it ends up with a 3 out of 5 from me, will not be interested in re-watching it, but if you like comic books and cannot wait for the Avengers then go and see the origin, let me know what you think of the end.

Sucker Punch (2011)

Went to the cinema with my Father-in-Law to be, as I go to the cinema a lot I let him choose, he decided to go with something I had not seen, so we went to see Sucker Punch. I was unsure about this film the trailer was not to clear how this film would work. I have to say that visually like all of Zack Snyder's film's it was stunning, the fight scenes and special effects are awesome.

However within 20 minutes of seeing this film I had a couple of ideas how it would have worked so much better, if the opening scene was moved to the end, if the start of the film was about 10 minutes later with the priest, that will make sense to those that have seen it. I think the ending would have had much more impact, the cross over of Fantasy and real life would have been a more awesome to me than the actual end.

Because of the scenes of awesome and the visual effects i am going to give the film 2 stars, the story just did not work for me, the performances worked and cannot fault the actresses within the film.

Scream 4 (2011)

Cinema April 18th 2011

I love the Scream series, 3 is a weak installment and it pushes the bounds of what the first 2 achieved for me. In hearing that 4 was coming I was excited, the original film was to me the start of new horror films that it was to everybody else. And I was interested to see what they would do bringing the series back with it being within the hands of Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson.

Right from the start and the opening scene I was hooked in and did not see the start coming and it was great. The overall film itself was a bit predictable in what was going to happen and I guessed some of the end, however I did enjoy what they did with the whole film.

As a lover of the series I give this installment 4 stars, it will not appeal to everyone however if you have an enjoyment of the Scream series then you will enjoy this film.