Funny Games U. S. (2007)

Shall we begin?


Michael Haneke remade his 1997 film Funny Games for an American audience, starring Tim Roth and Naomi Watts. It follows an upper class family as they holiday in their lakeside home and then you meet Peter and Paul. This film is designed to disturb and upset you and is violent without being gratuitous but it is uncomfortable to watch. This is the aim of Michael Haneke and to be honest he achieves this to the point that while watching it as it approached the end, being in a position to look I looked up the ending as I needed to know and could not handle the tense feeling and I very rarely ever do this while watching a film.


This is not normally the sort of film that I choose to watch but I have also come to the conclusion that I cannot judge a film by what others say and really have to watch these things so that I can judge all of the films that are there. It does fall in to the Horror/Terror category so this is one of the reasons when I saw it on the TV I decided to give it a watch. The feelings it evoke are hard to bare and then Haneke in his wisdom rams it down your throat that he only made this to show you what you want to see. The fact that this is a shot for shot remake means that I do not have to watch the German original and while I actually appreciate what he achieved with the tension I do not need to see this film again. 


However this is probably the hardest film I have ever had to recommend or rate, I would say 4 stars in film making, should you watch this film? This is something you will have to decide for yourself, I will say if you love film and want to see what can be achieved then go for it. If however you watch films for enjoyment then this is not the film for you, if you have seen either version or have any thoughts on them please let me know.

King Kong (2005)

The latest version of the 1933 classic film from Peter Jackson who is now in position for making the epic films after his exploits with the Lord of the Ring trilogy. This is a more direct remake of the original story with the characters using the same names with some slight changes to their roles in the film but ultimately they fulfil the same roles as the original.

The biggest difference between this film and the original are the size of the set pieces, from my experience this is the biggest issue that most people have is the fact that a couple of scenes go to far in stretching the believability of even the extreme situation they are in. The dinosaurs stampeding is one of them, the fact that fewer incidents with the people, the vines and the T-Rex fight and the bug attack are all points that stick out where you watch and go that is very clever but really? It takes you out of the film some what.

The best part of the film though is Kong portrayed by Andy Serkis using motion capture technology and while they do put some human emotions on an animal still you can see an intelligence in the eyes of the beast. This is 4 stars, simply for the effects and the tie in to the original film. Worth seeing so you can see what they can do with special effects these days.