A totally engaging and adrenaline fueled summer blockbuster with ‘good enough’ performances from the cast and simply breathtaking special effects, Transformers delivers what it promises as long as you don’t dig too deeply or think too hard about the likelihood of the American Military listening to a couple of teenagers, no matter how ‘hot’ either of them may be (depending on your gender preference).
Die Hard 4.0
Totally formulaic high-tec action movie that relies on the dialog and Willis’ delivery to stand above the crowd which amazingly succeeds giving us a fantastic funny fast paced and memorable cinema experience.
The Bourne Ultimatum
Maintaining the same style and frantic pace of the first two movies, The Bourne Ultimatum provides a satisfying conclusion to the story of Jason Bourne and a slick, full and thrilling cinema experience.
300
This heavily stylised (visually and morally) interpretation of a real historical event (Battle of Thermopylae) packs a visual punch and gives a cracking cinema experience while dividing audiences with its light plot and sparse dialog.
Resistance is futile
So far, I’ve managed to resist the second cob option, but willpower is fading fast.
Difficult Decision
Do I have a second bacon cob for breakfast?
Serenity
For fans of the TV series this movie provides a cathartic experience bound up in an exciting story with solid performances and emotional scenes but people who’ve not seen the TV series may find the lack of back-story troubling and wonder what the fuss is about.
Blade II
A confusing story, pointless complexity and a reliance on shocking gore rather than brooding menace ruins this sequel making the worst of the three Blade movies by a long distance.
I Am Legend
Short review of this one. I’d heard from a few people that the special effects let this film down, but really I didn’t find that. I feel the film was a let down, but it was the story and the structure which did that for me, there really was no obvious middle and the end appears to have been tacked on and very overly abrupt. The start is good, I really engaged quickly with Will’s character and I was really looking forward to the development of the ‘bad guy who’s getting more intelligent’.
Which is why it was such a let down for the movie to go from a thoughtful but action based story to an all-out zombie fest in the last 15 minutes.
Maybe the director needed another 30 minutes to extend the story and give us a better look at what was going on, maybe the screenplay was better before it made it to the cinema, either way I Am Legend was more disappointing than entertaining, by no means a bad movie, but no where near the quality it should have been.
Transformers
I never really got involved in the original Transformers, I was aware of it, but I was either too old or just not interested (it’s too long ago to really remember). Of course I knew about Optimus and the autobots and I knew the catch phrase (Transformers! Robots in disguise) but I never had any toys and I didn’t rush home from school to catch it on the TV. However, as should be obvious from the movies I tend to watch, I’m a sci-fi / action / fantasy movie addict, so it was inevitable that I’d get the new Transformers movie on DVD.
It’s ridiculous and yet it’s also great fun. Transformers isn’t really sure if it’s targetted at kids, teenagers or adults and that identity crisis leads to the film having a different feel at different times. Some scenes are gritty and adult and others are almost naive and rose tinted. Overall it doesn’t detract from the entertainment as long as you’re able to maintain the necessary suspension of disbelief.
If you can sustain that and you can ignore some of the more cringe-inspiring dialog, this is a good, solid adrenaline inducing action movie with some amazing scenes and some very gripping moments. The performances of the human actors are acceptable, it’s not exactly stretching, and the animated sequences are pretty breath taking. The pace is pretty good, keeping you interested and tied in throughout the story, and the story itself is engaging all the way to nearly the very end. Nearly the end because what little integrity the story has is pretty much lost when the military starts taking orders from a punk kid and we find out where computers came from.
Despite the 15 minutes of ‘WTF!’ inspired by those sections, this is a good movie, it deserved to do well, and it was exciting and engaging throughout.