The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Movie Review
Thankfully such scepticism is unfounded as Ritchie's rebirth of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is a solid cracker! It shows Ritchie back on key and looking like the kind of director who would be capable of pulling off something as cool and snappy as Lock Stock.
The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was conceived in the mid sixties as a kind of 007 for TV, indeed Ian Fleming himself was involved in the programme's conception. Its likeness to Connery-era Bond is clear and Ritchie does a superlative job in ...
Fantastic Four Movie Review
Despite its incredibly successful Marvel brethren, this Fantastic Four is yet another dud, albeit a dud with a $200 million dollar budget.
The story is fantastically linear: we follow genius, Reed Richards, from childhood as he meets each of the characters who we know will become part of the Four as well as the guy we know is destined to be the villain, Victor von Doom (with a name like that, how could he not turn bad?).
Usually in an instance like this the structure of the film would ...
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation Movie Review
Firstly this edition, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation puts storyline characterization on the back burner as it ramps up the action. These are real live stunts, not ones dependent on CGI and as such the film’s action sequences provide the big bang factor. In comparison to the film’s main rivals, the Bond and Bourne franchises, having Cruise on board with his bravery on overdrive creates some extremely crazy moments to view.
This approach makes for an at times spectacular experience ...
Self/less Movie Review
There is also the issue of the major name on the movie marquee being severely underutilized and contrary to the film’s trailer and ad campaign, Sir Ben Kingsley role is more cameo than leading. The film tries hard to cash in on lead actor Ryan Reynolds’ innate charm but the script gives him too little to work with. Elsewhere Matthew Goode’s icy menace is more effective.
The story line is structured to be more on the thriller side and as a results, the science of the story is very ...
Ant-Man Movie Review
Well, kind of. The story presents itself as an interesting aside in the wider Marvel universe but it is just that - an aside. There's certainly an interesting story here, and perhaps future instalments may add something more substantial, but as it is presented here the most intriguing moments are when it references Marvel's mega franchise, The Avengers. And, indeed, intentions are made very clear that Ant Man will join the Avengers team in the near future. This raises the question as to ...
Terminator Genisys Movie Review
The story throws a lot your way and it relies quite a bit on the viewer’s past knowledge of the Terminator film series and its liberal take on time travel. Most of the plot twists originate from that ethos and they are at times hard to follow. It also features a progression of special effects as the early reels show simpler CGI while the later reels try their best to blow your mind with what’s now possible with zeros and ones.
The new cast play better with Arnie than they do with ...
Jurassic World Movie Review
That's not to say that Jurassic World is terrible - it's not - it's easily the second best of the franchise but it is yet another re-run of practically the same story. Again we have two children loose in a dinosaur park run amok while the park's controller (and relative of the children) attempts to retrieve them with the aid of a mercenary type.
The script throws all caution and common sense to the wind in ways that would never be allowed in the real world - how these two youngsters come ...
Spy Movie Review
Feig may have inadvertently stumbled upon McCarthy's limitations, however, as his star is strangely the least funny character for at least the first half of the movie. This is because for the first half of the film McCarthy is playing the ‘nice girl’ and ‘nice’ McCarthy just isn't very funny. Fear not, though, when Rose Byrne's villain enters the picture, McCarthy gets a sparring partner and enters ‘hard arse’ mode and hard arse McCarthy is very funny indeed.
In the comedic ...
San Andreas Movie Review
Why are there never any people that spill out of the buildings that get completely destroyed? They were warned this time by Paul Giamatti to get the hell out of Dodge.
Why is it always the daughter that steps up to be the hero and not the son? Boys don’t look as good in wet t-shirts.
Why is it almost always California that gets destroyed in disaster films? It’s halfway there already.
What would it be like to hang ten on a giant tsunami? Good in a small emergency craft, not so ...
Tomorrowland Movie Review
The story revolves around a parallel universe that is not unlike the hidden world in Ayn Rand’s opus Atlas Shrugged (minus the extreme narcissism). It’s a land where science is let loose to the benefit of mankind. This gives the filmmakers a platform for some very cool wishful technology and also features a lot of fantastic set design artwork.
With a list of participants that includes director Brad Bird (The Incredibles and The Iron Giant), George Clooney and Hugh Laurie, it’s a ...
