Big Hero 6 Movie Review
Disney's cinematic adaptation of Marvel's Big Hero 6 markets itself off the back of Wreck-It Ralph and Frozen but it is an inferior film to both of those movies, lacking the intergenerational appeal and depth of those predecessors.
Big Hero 6 is all just a bit ‘kiddie’ and twee compared to its contemporaries. Yes, this is a kid’s movie but after all the intergenerational ‘kids’ movies we've had from Pixar and others, a plain ol' kids movie barely cuts it anymore. The beauty of ...
Interstellar Movie Review
Environmental disaster is coming and our days are numbered on Mother Earth. Unfortunately the world is also consumed with an incongruous mixture of hyper-cynicism, conspiracy and hopeless optimism: living day to day, hoping for the best, shunning technology; existing in a perpetual state of damage control, rather than seeking new horizons. In the words of traumatised ex-test pilot, Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), we have become caretakers rather than explorers and pioneers. In what appears to ...
Sharknado 2: the Second One Movie Review
A movie about tornados sucking up sharks and destroying Los Angeles was an unexpected phenomenon. Sharknado dominated the twittersphere when it first aired, the term ‘Sharknado’ began appearing in mainstream media, and organisations (including the Red Cross) used the film’s success to promote storm safety information. The Asylum is not a company to miss an opportunity, and they have released the sequel a year later.
Sharknado 2 starts with the stars of the first film, Ian Ziering ...
Guardians of the Galaxy – a second movie review
Where the film hits its stride, though, is in the painting of its characters - which are a marvelous, dysfunctional and irreverent bunch of varying galactic species with individual agendas converging on a common goal of claiming the reward on a valuable artifact, oh, and maybe saving the galaxy.
Bradley Cooper is wonderful as the feral, sentient raccoon, Rocket. Chris Pratt's Peter Quill (AKA Starlord) is a good, funny, charismatic hero. Vin Diesel is mostly MIA as the tree creature, ...
Guardians of the Galaxy Movie Review
And all this for a superhero team that not many people know, and the first Marvel film not to feature one of the Silver Age group of characters created by Stan Lee.
The Guardians are a bunch of undesirables who find themselves fighting together to prevent one of the Infinity Stones from reaching Thanos. If that all sounds a little crazy, then welcome to the Marvel Universe (not just Earth, or Asgard, or wherever it is that Agent Coulson buys his suits) where universe destroying gems and ...
Lucy Movie Review
The story of a forced upon drug mule, in this case the radiant Scarlett Johansson whose stitched in cargo ruptures and floods her body with an intelligence enhancing drug is only the start of the strain of credibility.
What comes next is an example of one of the most crazed usages of computer enhanced imagery ever seen on the big screen as Besson covers a staggering array of ideas. This even includes another cinematic take on the big bang theory (as if The Tree Of Life’s example was ...
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes Movie Review
The plague created by Will Rodman's Alzheimer's ‘cure’ has spread throughout the globe and decimated the human population and, presumably, empowered ape populations worldwide. Caesar's simian refugees build a growing community in the redwood forest while a splinter group of human survivors eke out an existence within the ruins of San Francisco. The diminishing fuel supply the human's require for electricity generation inevitably bring them into contact with Caesar's community who ...
Elysium Movie Review
The story follows Max (Matt Damon), a downtrodden underclassman vying for asylum in the privileged celestial city of Elysium. Like his poverty-stricken brethren, Max is an oppressed would-be saint crushed under the iron heel of an elitist upper class that is evil beyond redemption.
Emotionally-laden key words such as 'homeland security' and 'no-fly zone' are bandied about to ensure we don't miss the point and one of the bad guys is Apartheid incarnate with his penchant for authoritarian ...
District 9 Movie Review
Perhaps taking its cue from Banlieue 13, Pierre Morel’s thrill ride of 2004 set in Paris where the worst offenders existed in a walled-off ghetto, District 9 (set in Johannesburg) follows a similar theme except this ghetto’s populated by aliens with a taste for cat food. Eventually dark influences exploit the residents flavoured by, among other things, interspecies prostitution and with trouble following quickly, the government are left with no alternative but to create a new ‘haven...
Star Trek 2009 – Movie Review
It matters nought that the unleashing of a black hole in the midst of our solar system results in little consequence to the neighbouring planets (or galaxies, for that matter); or that Simon Pegg's Scotty bears zero resemblance to James Doohan; or that an unlikely intra-crew love affair will require some significant (and potentially fascinating) narrative acrobatics in order to segue future franchise installments back into Gene Roddenberry's timeline. Star Trek is about the fun, the ...
