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Best thing: The Bin Laden song is frikkin hilarious. Like seriously, actual genius. (Though SEAL explaining where he got his scars was a pretty close second: "F**king wolves!")
Worst thing: This is a comedy that throws a lot of gags at the screen and some really don't stick. One clip of the press going overboard with all the flasks they are drinking from, felt more weird and random than funny...
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The star, Andy Samberg, who also plays Jake Peralta in the comedy series Brooklyn Nine-Nine, has a band called Lonely Island. It's parodying the kind of music that I'd never listen to. It's not like Flight of the Conchords where the songs would still be amazing even if they weren't hilarious. Nevertheless, the music isn't bad and the lyrics are hilarious.
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This is one of those weird comedies where everything is just thrown at the audience to try to elicit as many laughs as possible as often as possible. It's all loud and obvious, rather than dry and careful. It's the sort of comedy that Phil Lord and Chris Miller do very well and Adam Sandler does very badly.
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While not all gags landed for me, overall I had a lot of fun. This is more disposable than I'd have preferred, but I found it solidly enjoyable and it had some excellent moments. I cannot deny that there were points where I was laughing out loud.
B+
Review of Jack Reacher (2012)
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Best thing: Werner Herzog as the villain is inspired. It looks like the movie “The Grand” (comedy movie about gambling starring Woody Harrelson) did it first, but still....
Worst thing: Well I'll tell you what ISN'T the worst thing: Jai Courtney. (I seriously don't get the hate for that guy. He was the only bearable thing in Die Hard 5.) I guess the worst cliché in the whole string of clichés was the whole "one of your bosses is a villain so watch yourself" thing. I mean seriously, what help is that, Mr. Reacher?
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A fairly average action movie. I can see how the books might work better, but this adaptation is a bit dull really.
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No problem with Tom Cruise's performance. It wasn't clear during the film why the character needed to be a big guy, but I can see why fans of the book would be annoyed.
C-
Review of Train To Busan (2016)
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Best thing: Any antics involving the zombies are brilliant. I actually really liked the wall of zombies idea in World War Z, but Train To Busan takes that ant-like swarm-like behaviour of zombies to a whole new much more creative level.
Worst thing: The worst thing WOULD be the scene where someone seems to have pretty flimsy reasoning for dooming an entire carriage of people to a zombie massacre. However, the very worst thing has to be the little girl's singing. I know it's intentional, but seriously, we in the audience are still subjected to this unbearable din...
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I'm a keen follower of the movies from Korean directors Chan-Wook Park and Joon-Ho Bong. It seems that Korean cinema sets a high bar for itself and there's a trend for a combination of wacky elements and darker themes (so Train To Busan is no exception).
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This certainly isn't a horror movie with a bunch of bland disposable characters. Certainly there are archetypes, sometimes making characters somewhat comical, but for the most part these are singular vibrant individuals. It is remarkable how easy it is to distinguish such a wide range of characters. And we have a central child actor who gives a reassuring strong performance.
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I love the zombies that are somehow both silly and almost cheesy and yet absolutely terrifying at the same time. It seems like zombie movies have been so often now that you'd think nearly everything had been done already, but the action sequences where the characters are escaping from zombies are fresh and inventive.
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I'm not sure I entirely buy into the irrational paranoia expressed in the second half. I'd have thought the characters would all understand the rules by then. I think the zombie plague is being used as a source of satire and that may explain why it's occasionally a bit odd how things unfold. The choice as to whether to help others or to selfishly look out for number one is a big theme...
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Train to Busan has all the weirdness we have come to expect from Korean films and this is both a pro and a con. Korean movie weirdness is what makes films like Snowpiercer and Oldboy unique, but this style can also make these films less accessible for some viewers. But if you feel you can handle Korean weirdness, you are in for a real treat.
A+
Review of Star Trek Beyond (2016)
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Best thing: As per usual, Simon Pegg's Scotty is the best thing in the new Star Trek movies. Though that's certainly not the fault of Pegg's script which gives more even coverage of the characters than the last two films. (Particularly pleased to see Bones and Spock more closely paired this time, since their love-hate relationship has always been my favourite element in Star Trek.)
Worst thing: When Uhura recognises a fact about the villain it seems quite implausible that anyone could have spotted it. That this big reveal about the villain is left until the the third act means that, like with Into Darkness, the villain's background is left rather limited. Poor villains seem to be a flaw neo-Star Trek now shares with Marvel Studios, but this film at least deserves credit as far as the audience is left begging: "Please we need to know more!" If only the last minute details were conveyed a little more clearly.
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As we all know, Simon Pegg is a bit of a geek. This was perhaps clearest for me when Charlie Brooker released his zombie mini-series Dead Set (where the cast on Big Brother are unaware that all the crew outside of their enclosed area has been infected with a zombie virus). It was dark and remarkably joyless, considering the subject matter, (rather like Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror series). However, Simon Pegg's response was to write an essay on why the zombies should have been the traditional slow and shambling zombies.
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There was no particular need to write that essay. Shaun of the Dead had been and gone and it had been a big hit so this wasn't part of a self promotion. So Simon Pegg similarly cannot have needed much cajoling to write a script for the new Star Trek film. He was central to the script-writing process on Edgar Wright's Cornetto trilogy and he combines his knack for comedy with his passion for the series in his writing here.
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That being said, there are definitely third act problems here. Some of the later action scenes fail to stir the level of adrenaline that they ought to and the villain has Marvel Studios syndrome, not really drawing us into his motivations with much depth.
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Still, of the new Star Trek trilogy, this instalment breaks the mould by being clearly better than the preceding two entries. Fun, beautiful, fairly smart and with a lot of nods to the original series; this was a satisfying entry.
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Good work Simon. You did your fandom proud. But could the next film push these characters to a new level? For all the dramatic stakes, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of personal stakes for these characters.
B+
Review of The Signal (2007)
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Best thing: The violence is genuinely horrifying, there's a consistent sense of tension, and the way the film shows the mind-warping effect of the signal is very effective.
Worst thing: The film drags in the middle. In the middle segment the story is set up around a character clearly set up as a villain in the first section. This section carries on with neither of the other protagonists present and it's not such an interesting segment as a result.
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Having really enjoyed Adam Wingard's films, it was cool to see some familiar cast members show up here. AJ Bowen has been in many of Wingard's films including "You're Next", "The Sacrament" and "A Horrible Way To Die". Meanwhile Justin Welborn's connection is a little more tenuous. Adam Wingard directed segments of both V/H/S and V/H/S 2. In V/H/S Viral, Justin Welborn plays the evil magician in my favourite segment of that film.
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The Signal has a similar combination of wacky, creepy and awkward to the VHS anthology films. The decision to combine all three sections of the film didn't work very well for me. In particular, the second segment would have probably worked better as a stand-alone.
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All in all this semi-anthology, The Signal, is fine. But I can't imagine ever wanting to return to it. All the segments rely on each other and by the final segment it has really lost steam. But it's pretty well put together and has some great moments.
C+
Review of Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003)
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Best thing: Angelina Jolie's performance is brilliant. She's always excited about danger, she's always got a knowing smile and she just perfectly represents the super-confident and capable, thrill-seeking millionaire playgirl. All those elements that made me adore her in the first Tomb Raider movie are still here.
Worst thing: There are many bad elements here; not least the central macguffin. But there's one scene towards the end where we have the gunshot *gasp, who fired the shot?* and when the camera pulls away, not only has Angelina Jolie NOT been shot, but apparently she was holding a gun at the ready by her side the whole time seemingly without the threatening figure noticing. So dumb!
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As dumb as this film is, the big step-down is the action sequences. The first Tomb Raider had some pretty brilliant choreographed action. Even coming out just after The Matrix, the bungee fight in the hall of Croft manor stood out as a really creative sequence.
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Yet while films at this point, such as Equilibrium, were continuing to pick up the gauntlet laid down by The Matrix, Tomb Raider 2 reverts to the lazier James Bond sequences with its gunfights that just involve shots fired from a distance. I suppose the aim was to thrill us stunts rather than martial arts action, such as when Croft freefalls off a skyscraper to escape the bad guy. But whenever Tomb Raider 2 features a gunfight it always seems lame.
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Lamer still is the CG. It's really sad because someone clearly put a lot of effort into a 3D computer model of a shark. But it's simply way too obvious that the shark isn't there. It might be that CG effects were not so well developed back then, but I think it's also because the director has insisted on the CG work being added in post rather than allowing them to do the preparation required to make their shark effect blend with the scenery. The CG monsters in the final scenes are pretty cool. I don't want to say the effects work is simply bad, but it doesn't blend with the live action elements and looks horrible as a result.
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Angelina Jolie is fantastic and deserved a better sequel. Gerard Butler is frikkin' terrible.
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And the whole convoluted idea that Pandora's box released a virus is dumb. Isn't it enough that Pandora's box released all the evil in the world?
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We start the film with Lara Croft discovering an ancient hidden palace of Alexander The Great and that was wonderful. That's pretty much where the tomb raiding aspect of the film ends. The rest of the film is in modern settings (the great wall of China is just there so they can say "Hey, we're in China!') until Pandora's Box is found in some random area of Africa.
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The romance with Gerard Butler is clearly intended to be the source of drama here the way the death and legacy of Lara Croft's father brought drama to the first movie. But, whether it's Gerard Butler's acting or the boring script, I never really care about the central relationship.
D-
Review of The Black Cat (1934)
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Best thing: Bella Lugosi and Boris Karloff both give intense central performances. It's difficult not to be enthralled by the scenes between them, even when the plot is going nowhere fast.
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Worst thing: Sure, this has nothing to do with Edgar Allen Poe's "The Black Cat", but then again Corman's "The Raven" was nothing to do with Poe's poem and it was still pretty fun in its own right. The problem is that this film about war crimes and satanists just seems to lack any kind of focus. The film tries to leave things mysterious ("my servant has to pretend to be the villain's servant so he can help us and that's why he won't let us leave to get help" - eh?), but the result is that the story feels completely ungrounded.
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Despite the two central powerhouse performances (and despite being mainly known for their horror performances these are seriously awesome showmen) the actual plot is, when it comes down to it, garbage.
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What seemed to be an intense thriller about old secrets, bad blood and the threat of exposure of those secrets, turned out to have a very cheesy satanic cult explanation that I felt cheapened it.
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The actors are chewing the scenery, but it's a bit of a bland meal.
D+
Review of Jaws (1975)
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Best thing: Y'know, I've heard that the model used for the shark looks pretty unimpressive in real life. So there must be some amazing movie magic at work here, because the shark in the movie looked very convincing to me.
Worst thing: Naturally I love this film so I'm seriously nitpicking here. The mayor refusing to take the shark threat seriously just seems dafter and dafter every time I watch Jaws. Also, while I know that film is a visual medium, should you really show the protagonist researching the shark threat by opening a book and immediately skipping to the pictures?
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Jaws is a classic for a reason. The iconic monster, the hidden threat, the simple but effective techniques to build tension.
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And let's not forget the endless ripoffs of Jaws that were released.in subsequent years exploiting our fear of various sea creatures and forces of nature in general.
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I don't need to tell you that Jaws is brilliant. You all know. If you haven't seen Jaws already, get it on your bucket list.