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.

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.

From the DVD Shelf: Burke and Hare

Burke and Hare is an alright film, it just isn't funny; what's the point of the comedy that isn't funny?

I was rather interested in seeing Burke and Hare. Quite recently (well about 6 months ago) I travelled up to Edinburgh and came into contact with the legend of Burke and Hare, the true story of two illustrious evil-doers who took grave robbery to a whole new level by murdering people and selling their corpses on. I thought to myself, how do you make something as horrible as that, funny? That was obviously the problem facing those behind Burke and Hare, and plainly they made the wrong decisions.

The Eagle Review

4/5

Varrus, give me back my…Eagle?

[WARNING]: This review contains explicit and disturbing references to the acting ability of Channing Tatum, parental caution is advised.

To my mind there have been few truly great historical action-adventures in the last couple of years and not since the days of Ridley Scott’s Gladiator over a decade ago now, have we seen anything spectacular in that mould, at least not in a Roman Context. That is not to say that the Eagle is the film to fill that void, but it certain does scratch the same itch, if not to the same extent, and it is definitely better than Centurion.