-
10 Things I Hate About You 1999
I enjoyed this a lot more than I expected. A lovely modern take on The Taming of the Shrew, it's got a damn good script, endearing cast and some genuinely funny moments. Not usually my kind of thing, but worth a watch.
-
1408 2007
It was interesting to rewatch this on DVD given I felt it didn't really match the trailer's promise at the cinema - my feelings haven't really changed, truth be told. It's a great premise that doesn't meet the potential within.
No fault of John Cusack, who holds the film together well with a committed performance as ever, nor the legend that is Sam Jackson - filling his underwritten and underused supporting role with real gravitas. The problem is after a…
-
2012 2009
The thing about Roland Emmerich is, well... he's a bit crap isn't he, really? He's like a slightly better Uwe Boll with 200 million more dollars to play with. However (unlike Boll) he traditionally makes films so laughably daft they're great fun. Stargate? Check. Independence Day? Check. Godzilla? Yes, well, there my point is proven about his crapness. And I can safely say it's clarified with 2012, his latest. See, I actually really enjoyed the TWO AND A HALF HOUR!…
-
28 Days Later... 2003
There are quite a few movies and TV shows that owe a little something to 28 Days Later, chief among them perhaps The Walking Dead, as this takes the overused 'zombie genre' and gives it a whole new, fresh, modern approach. Danny Boyle isn't interested in undead hocus pocus, the Rage virus is a feral, terrifying contagion that under the right medical circumstances could conceivably happen, and that's what gives the whole thing such realistic horror for the majority of…
-
2 Fast 2 Furious 2003
So mind bogglingly bad a sequel I had to switch it off after less than an hour. Just... a world of NO.
-
300 2006
It becomes clear when you rewatch 300 how it's not quite the sum of its parts; the whole thing is enormously unique and from a direction and cinematographic POV it's a real tour de force, stunningly brought to life by Zach Snyder. What lies beneath, however, is not altogether that much; once you strip back the battle scenes and put aside the visuals, it's much ado about nothing. It should rightly be remembered as a movie that looks gorgeous, but…
-
30 Days of Night 2007
A test of time piece of film would not bore me intensely on the rewatch, and 30 Days of Night did.
Frustratingly, this has a killer idea yet is hampered by plodding execution, propped up by an incredibly bland lead in Josh Hartnett (with Melissa George playing one of her two stock acting talents: confused or evil), and it just descends too heavily into a B-movie gore fest, not doing nearly enough with the interesting concept or the vampires themselves, who Danny Huston at least attempts to inject with some gravitas - but it's just not enough.
Avoid. A real missed opportunity.
-
3:10 to Yuma 2007
I'm really not a fan of Westerns. Barring Sergio Leone's stuff, the ones back in the 50's and 60's when they were everywhere bored the arse off me growing up so I approached this modern-day remake with trepidation, drawn in by the two lead actors who I both admire.
Christian Bale is good as ever here, playing the classic moralistic rancher torn between doing the right thing and looking out for his family. But this is Russell Crowe's film -…
-
40 Days and 40 Nights 2002
A story about abstinence deserves much more in the way of laughs than this Josh Hartnett vehicle delivers, offering up a lukewarm romantic comedy that wants to be one-part rom-com, one-part American Pie but largely fails at both. I got the sense 40 Days and 40 Nights, rather than not knowing what it wants to be, knows what it is - but the components just never come together to make it fly, across the board.
You can start with Hartnett…
-
(500) Days of Summer 2009
This review reportedly contains spoilers. I can handle the truth.
-
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective 1994
As a 12 year old kid back in 1994, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective was the funniest thing I'd ever seen. I remember endlessly quoting 'alrighty then!' or 'liiiiike a gloooove' in the playground and swiftly, what with The Mask & Dumb & Dumber around the same time, Jim Carrey became the most hilarious man in the world. I haven't watched this breakout movie of his probably since I was in my teens and while it's lost a great deal of its childish…
