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13 Assassins

June 10, 2011
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13 Assassins: a group of chosen samurai are tasked with killing an evil lord, for the future of Feudal Japan! The first hour is intense, but slow-paced – perked up with some token Takashi maddness / grotesque violence. Then you have the 45 minute long action scene, which starts as a tactical battle but quickly turns into a bit of a generic hack-and-slash – and you don’t see much action, just swords flying and splatter sound effects. Takashi does a good job of playing up / emphasising what outsiders most associate with japan: shogun, samurai, dynasty, honor, respect, code, infatuation with death etc… almost to a patriotic level. The biggest downfall was the focus and development of all 13 characters, which doesn’t count for much when they all have the same outfit, haircut and are pretty blurry in the battle. 13 Assassins is a solid ‘against-the-odds’ type story, but collapses a bit under its own grand finale.

Score: 6/10

Scream 4

May 24, 2011
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Scream 4 / Scre4m: 15 years after the Woodsboro Massacre, ghostface returns for another whodunnit. The biggest failing of this fourth outing is the copious number of drawn-out, boring, unrealistic, painfully ‘meta’ dialogue-based scenes – executed by a bunch of smug ‘teens’ with a hardcore superficial knowledge of the horror genre. The level of self-awareness in Scream 4 is so high that it’s genuinely hard to gauge and continually courts with ‘spoof‘? Despite being promised a ‘New decade, new rules’, what we actually get is a fifteen year old concept with some glaring modern references that stick out big time: social media / hand held footage / torture porn… To further challenge your pain threshold the knife-fodder cast are the epitome of boring, the ending isn’t too hard to figure out from the middle of the film, there’s still no nudity (the most common thread in all horror films!) – also, where’s everyone’s parents when this is all hitting the fan? There are a few standout moments, but they’re few and far between: the speech about victim culture and modern ‘celebrity/fame’ is memorable – and the opening 10 minutes with the Stab franchise was a smart way to start the movie. Unfortunately, this relies too much on the tricks of the original film (namely self-awareness), which seems a tad cheesy after so many ‘Scary Movie’ movies. Unnecessary money-making remake.

Score: 2.5/10

Piranha

September 7, 2010
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Piranha: (Piranha 3D – 2010) Spring break is ruined as an earthquake releases a massive school of 2 million year old cannibal super-piranhas into a party-lake!! The movie’s divided in to two parts: set up (nudity-fest and just enough gore) and bloodbath (gore-fest and just enough nudity). The cast is a who’s who of B-movie stars, all typecast and wafer thin characters; in saying that, Christopher Lloyd’s great fun, Ving Rhames is Ving Rames, Kelly Brook is ball-tighteningly hot and porn stars Gianna Michaels / Riley Steele also get their 3D lungs out – no complaints with any of that! The gore‘s decent enough; most of it is real effects so looks pretty good but the CGI is a bit rubbish and the underwater scenes look very dark with the 3D glasses on. The 3D itself is generally good if a tad sloppy – they clearly spent the most time on the buxom booty and a few cheap ‘poke outs’ and not enough time on the piranhas themselves, but on the whole it was decent. There’s a bunch of nice nods to Jaws, from the poster through to ‘the dolly shot’, when Brody realises what’s happening, and even the casting of Dreyfuss. My biggest complaint is that for the robbery extra cost of seeing a 3D flick it’s very short – although given that Piranha barely sustains itself for 75-80 minutes this may be a godsend! All-in Piranha’s everything you expect it to be: shallow and camp, but bulging with entertaining gore, red dye and constant nudity… what more could you want from a B-movie? Guilty pleasure of the summer.

Score: 4.5/10

Doomsday

July 31, 2010
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Doomsday: Sci-fi action following a hot police babe (Mitra) as she searches post-apocalyptic Scotland for a virus cure. Anything with a pulse is blown up or gunned down in extreme fashion; from axes to the face, tanks rolling over bodies and rabbits being shot to pieces, Doomsday has the bloody quota well and truly covered splattered! Marshal does well with the action here, from a girly sword-fight between two models to a car chase, it’s all handled like a pro. Brilliant vision of a ruined Scotland – tongue in cheek but totally tribal and well realised right down to the little touches like an “out of fucking service” bus sign. The Scottish (& South African) highland scenery is magificent, with a lot of swooping shots of hills, glens and castles!  The strong homegrown cast are also great, with nobody letting the team down. The only thing that this film’s weak on is originality. Whilst it’s not all bad it borrows from a catalogue of classic sci-fi/horror films from Escape from NY to Omega Man, to Resident Evil and everything in between. It’s a good fun splatter-fest that doesn’t take itself too seriously (Two tribes go to war) yet still ticks all the boxes. Definitely worth checking out!

Score: 7/10

Inglourious Basterds

June 29, 2010
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Inglourious Basterds: (Blu Ray) Not really much of a re-make after all. Straight off the bat the first 20 minutes are among the immense, intense and electric in memory. As the film continues there’s just so many great sections: Jews in hiding, the Jew Bear’s entrance, strudel meal, entire bar scene, cinema premier (Inc. Italian Accents). Cast-wise: Pitt looks ridiculous and uncomfortable, but is still very, very funny again; Stiglitz is great to watch, especially in the bar scene; Fassbender totally outdoes Mike Meyers, who plays a terrible British stereotype, and as for Cristoph Waltz, what can I say that has not already been said… It’s a bingo! He turns an already fantastic script in to comedy and tension of the highest level without even trying – 100% charisma!! The dialogue’s much more focused and natural than any of the previous Tarantino outings. I also applaud the use of foreign actors and dialogue, which most war films don’t usually have, Tarantino has masterfully cast some of the best European talent in a lot of the key roles – and although there are a lot of characters and story threads coming together it’s all managed quite well, with only a couple of minor lapses. The alternative history setting (& ending) is always a strange pill to swallow, but if you roll with it the film still works. The music chosen isn’t his finest to date. The Blu Ray Sound and picture are both fantastic, definitely reference material. While Tarantino may not be every critic’s cup of tea he keeps giving the public exactly what they want. Ballsy & enjoyable WWII action-romp.

Score: 8.5/10

Kill Bill Vol. 1

February 16, 2010
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Kill Bill Vol 1: (Blu Ray) a former assassin and her nearest & dearest are murdered; she survives and sets out for revenge – big time. Although his style’s not for everyone this Tarantino flick works the audience like no other. It has style in excess as it flips between live action and anime, the past and present, colour and B&W, tranquility and hyper violence… There’s also a load of retro & chic elements such as the unnecessary censorship of The Bride’s name, yellow jumpsuits, and who doesn’t wiggle their big toe when Uma wills herself on? With all the style, story, great soundtrack and violence it’s easy to overlook Uma’s talent, covering everything between ‘broken woman’ to ‘superwoman’ without raising a single doubt.  It’s very heavy on the homage, but doesn’t take itself seriously – what with the limbs flying everywhere as the bride breakdances with a sword in hand! The trademark unnecessarily long dialogue is toned down a bit and the middle part with Hattori Hanzo feels a tad stretched. The music builds up so much tension before the fight scenes and technically the film’s outstanding: the swooping single shot between the main room and toilets (twice!) in the House of Blue Leaves seems effortless. The consistently vibrant picture and near-flawless audio on this Blu Ray make it 100% worth the upgrade. If a gravity-defying swordswoman hacking and shooting her way through dozens of bodies is your thing, then look no further than this. Perhaps one of the best action films, ever.

Score: 9/10

Ninja Assassin

February 5, 2010
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Ninja Assassin: about a bunch of Ninjas that charge a fee for killing people, doh! It has to be one of the manliest-sounding concepts since Beef Jerky, Beards, Shark Curry and Handsaws. Action’s the only thing this really has going for it but even that’s not the best as it’s far too reliant on on CGI (pretty lazy with the lack of genuine stunts / proper effects) and some of the scenes just digress into a blurry mess. They did try with the story but every five minutes the ‘action klaxon’ goes off and someone, somewhere stylishly loses some limbs. The script’s absolutely terrible: full of clichés and naff lines. The characters are all fairly bland, especially the main – but it must be hard for a Korean pop star to pull-off ‘badass Ninja’ on the best of days. The whole SWAT Team VS Ninjas concept was pretty sweet, and it will want to make you get buff… big time. Unfortunately, it never really matched the suspense, shock, gore or action of the first scene! Definitely an action-fest aimed at guys!

Score: 4/10

Reservoir Dogs

February 3, 2010
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Reservoir Dogs: (Blu Ray) Follows a bunch of – not so – professional criminals after a botched heist – Tarrantino’s debut. Like his later movies this one is stuffed with obscure music, bloody violence, fragmented storytelling, and dangerously high levels of pop-culture. Harvey Keitel and Steve Buscemi lead the cast for me, but you can’t really fault anyone’s performance. It’s stylish, some of the longer shots are frighteningly smooth & effective and there’s cool ideas peppered throughout; standout being the anecdote about the drug deal being told in various situations. The realistic and brutal violence will shock some, and even for the start of his career the homage isn’t subtle. Like his other early works it’s also questionably racist – strange gamble for an up-and-coming director.  The picture’s alright in parts but the sound’s quite rubbish, not worth the BD upgrade. Although the story and characters aren’t groundbreaking, you can’t deny how original the delivery and presentation are. Cult classic, and rightly so.

Score: 7/10

One Day Removals

January 24, 2010
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One Day Removals: Two removal men see their day go from bad, to worse, to worser, to – how do you say it… ah… ‘fucked’!  Being a low-budget, local, film I didn’t really know how bad it would be, but was totally surprised when it turned out to be pretty damn professional. For a sub-b movie this punches above its weight. A really good black comedy, with quite an original story and enough laughs to make it enjoyable. The effects and gore are impressive, the sound mix is solid throughout and you can tell that a lot of effort has gone in to it. Unfortunately, only Scottish people will be able to completely understand this as it’s in the full-blown local dialect. It’s also the most sweary film I’ve seen in a long, long feckin’ time! The news spoofing and court montage are great, but it’s worth picking up the DVD for the ‘Sewary Edit’ and out-takes alone. You can buy the film here, and it would a great gift for any homesick Scottish / Aberdonian people you know!

6/10

Scream

November 9, 2009
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Scream: looking back, this film is totally bizarre. A horror movie about ‘teens’ being aware that they’re living out a stereotypical slasher scenario. Aimed at fans of the genre it’s full of clichés and a classic horror references; both explicitly and through visual homage. Although it’s very gory the humor and self-referencing irony ruins the potential scariness of the film. The high level of ‘borrowed’ content also detracts from how unique the concept of scream was. Ultimately, it became the phenomenon that kick-started a new wave of horror films (& parodies) and although it’s a bit self-indulgent, I take my hat off to Craven for continually pushing the envelope. It also left me wondering what ever happened to the perky Neve Campbell and Rose McGowan? An instant classic that’s entertaining, original, quotable and is ingrained in so many peoples brains all these years on. There’s word on Scream 4 coming out next year, better dig out your box set! Do you like scary movies?

Score 7/10

Versus

November 4, 2009
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Versus: a criminal and mystic are hunted down by yakuza, who are being chased by zombies! How do you make a film with more action than the matrix? Easy, just add gallons of blood, swords, knifes, massive guns, a ton of zombies and have as many fights as you can get away with. It’s (surprisingly) directed by the same guy that did Midnight Meat Train, but don’t hold that against him as this a good effort. He did well with a low-budget: the effects very gory and good, the sound’s not bad despite being re-dubbed in a studio and the camerawork’s admirable, although 360 shots are overused. The story’s pretty thin, and the ‘big twist’ is so bad it’s good. Some of the dialogue and action is very corny, making it feel like a live-action manga adaptation. Quite looking forward to the re-make/sequel that’s being rumored at the moment. Ridiculously OTT live-action-packed ultra-stylish no-brainer hack-fest of a cult zombie flick.

Score: 6.5/10

The Departed

September 23, 2009
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The Departed: modern twisty cop tragedy based on a Hong Kong trilogy and set in Boston; which tees up some of the worst crimes against accents in modern cinema – the foxy psychiatrist being the biggest offender. There’s a lot of ‘hard’ and seemingly strange cuts & edits, with some amateur-looking camerawork in places (although it won Best Picture / Best Editing Academy Awards: so it must just be me!). Despite these foibles you still get absolutely immersed courtesy of the superstar cast and phenomenal story. Walberg’s rage and Nicholson’s insanity are especially great to watch, although all the mains put on a noteworthy show. The soundtrack’s also used brilliantly to get you more involved in the scenes, and the last hour of this film is pure cinema gold, with drama and twists all over the shop! It’s a great film, and if you liked this a lot it’s 100% worth watching the original ‘Infernal Affairs’ trilogy. It won’t do Boston tourism, or the Irish, any favours…

Score: 8/10

UKM: Ultimate Killing Machine

July 13, 2009
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UKM: The Ultimate Killing Machine: Only watched this ‘military experiment gone wrong’ flick because Michael Madsen was in the line-up. Another pretty good b-movie boasted by Zone Horror. Loads of fake gore and the typical stereotypes of society getting into trouble… worth a look, but wouldn’t go out of my way to buy it!

Score: 4/10