Trailers: Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol

The new trailer for the new mission impossible film, subtitled Ghost Protocol, has been released today (see above to the big video shaped box). Perhaps it was just the fact that the trailer was well put together, but I’m actually feeling rather good about the prospect of another Impossible Mission for Tom Cruise despite so-so nature of the 3^rd film. From the trailer it seems that it will consist of all you would expect a Mission Impossible film to contain, Tom cruise kicking dudes, fast cars, pretty girls, explosions and ridiculous stunts (or some wild combination of the above). Also Simon Pegg seems to be playing a rather major role, which, as a fan of all things Simon Pegg, I’m certainly happy about. It will also be interesting to see how Director Brad Bird (that's Brad Bird, not Big Bird) will transition from his career as a director of animated films to some live action, action. I feel confident! Let’s hope this new iteration on the mission impossible franchise will return to its roots and be somewhat incomprehensible on first viewing! Yeah!

Transformers: Dark of the Moon Review

You may have thought that the transformers series could simply not get any worse after Revenge of the Fallen. Boy did you think wrong...

He did it again. Michael Bay tricked me into hoping, just that tiny hope, that the new Transformers film wouldn’t but another total steaming pile of trash. That first teaser trailer was actually rather exciting and my eyes boggled at the possibilities of distorting something as cool as the moon landing into the transformers fiction. And do you know what Michael Bay does with all that potential? Absolutely nothing. Instead he brings us another Transformers movie, one that is even worse than those previous films in the series, a feat seemingly unimaginable. So now I’m going to write a review, detailing all the things I hated about Transformers: Dark of the Moon, and you are free to read that, or, if you do not have the time, you could just read this sentence and get on with your lives: Do Not Go And See Transformers: Dark of the Moon – It is simply, irredeemably awful.

13 Assassins Review

To state that 13 assassins is nothing but a poor man Seven Samurai is to sell it totally short. It may not be as original or as well scripted as Kurosawa’s samurai epic, but what it lacks in originality, it makes up in pure intensity and passion. A must see.

Not knowing anything about a film before you go into it is always a pleasure (a fact I reflect on rather ironically as someone who reviews films for others...) Going into 13 assassins, I expected something totally different than what I got; a throw away action film with some samurai trimmings, akin to many other recent samurai based films. Instead what I got was a serious drama, one that takes it source material with upmost respect and discipline, but one that does so with such pure passion, that it simply can’t be over looked. If nothing else, it praises the work of Kurosawa’s most famous film to the greatest extent.

The Green Lantern Review

After watching The Green Lantern I feel like I’ve got a good knowledge of the Green Lantern universe and the origins of the man in the green suit – sadly I didn’t have much fun in the process.

First off, I’d like to say that I know absolutely nothing about the Green lantern, apart from the fact that he is green (...and a lantern..?) so for me at least, director Martin Campbell and the mountain of Screen writers who worked on the Green lantern, could have done whatever they wanted to distort the Green Lantern fiction to make it an interesting, or at least entertaining, film. Instead what they gave us was a rather generic super-hero flick which is so full of back-story and explanatory dialogue explaining what the hell is actually going on that it seems he forgot to put in the fun parts. In essence, I feel like the Green Lantern is just trying to do far too much, so much that it fails on its basic principle of being an entertaining film.

From Sky Box Office: The Green Hornet

The Green Hornet is a pretty decent action flick, but apart from that it isn't really anything to write home about. That said, it could have been a lot worse.

Ever heard of the Green Hornet before? No? Well neither had I, and I suspect not many other people would remember this one time comic and radio series from the 30’s to 50’s and television series from the 60’s. Don’t fear though, you don’t have to know the lineage to understand this latest Green Hornet comeback – He’s a vigilante, he has a cool car, stuff explodes. It doesn’t really get simpler than that and in the end its main flaw is that it doesn’t do much to break free from this simple mould.

Attack the Block Review

It’s like Kidulthood meets Alien, in all the best possible ways, you get me fam?

Aliens are cool right? It’s been a while since aliens have come to Britain, let alone London (unless you count Doctor Who), and I was looking forward to what Joe Cornish, in his debut feature length film, had in mind for this urban invasion, I was hoping for high octane action and rich London slang; Attack the Block supplies both by the bucket load.

£3 Film: Black Sheep

Mutant-zombie Sheep? Perhaps there’s a good reason why nobody had tried this concept before, and after Black Sheep, no one ever will again.

I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt to any film that is attempting to try something new and different, and surely nobody has attempted to frame sheep as the main antagonist within a horror film. Obviously those behind Black Sheep couldn’t do this without wandering into comedy-horror territory – which is fine, but such territory is already highly congested with other, certainly better, titles, and ultimately, Black Sheep’s crazy premise can’t rise above crippling flaws.

From the DVD Shelf: Machete

Dumb with a capital D, but in all the best ways; If you like your films fast, gory and ridiculous, don’t look any further than Machete.

Machete has strange origins, originating as a 2 minute fake trailer for Robert Rodriguez’s Quentin Tarentino’s film, Grindhouse. If you’ve seen the trailer in all its generic ridiculous action movie-ness, you may well doubt the possibly of turning the idea of a machete wielding Mexican into something resembling a full length feature. Well Rodriguez not only manages this, but he manages this with some style.

From the DVD Shelf: The Warrior’s Way

Ninja's fighting Cowboys is always good, right? ...WRONG!

The trailer for Warrior’s Way lied to you. It promised pedal-to-the-metal guns blazing craziness and little else. Sadly, for every ridiculous fight sequence, there are a hundred truly awful moments, mainly due to an over use of CGI and some terrible acting, dialogue and plotting.

From the DVD Shelf: Season of the Witch

Nicolas Cage: the first crusader with an American accent. Oh and Hell Boy is there too.

Not many films deal effectively with the medieval period, most normally distorting it out of context horribly by relying upon worn out historical stereotypes to get them along – witches, the Black Death, the Crusades, Mud filled towns, Rain – all that jazz. Well Season of the Witch is pretty much precisely one of those films. Boy are there historical inaccuracies (don’t even get me started! – as someone who likes the crusades...I think I nearly cried) and these probably can be forgiven, I mean it never promises to be the next Braveheart, but the lack of exciting action, rather poor pacing and more often than not silly and dull dialogue, means it doesn’t even really deliver on the whole ‘fun’ part of dumb historical (ish) action movies of this type either.