Last movie watched...

[TordelBack]

The Untouchables. Kevin Costner really did have his moment in the sun, didn't he?  A very enjoyable re-watch of a fun film, which while it lacks even a gesture towards historical nuance, is visually derivative and aurally oh-so-80's, still carries you along with its exciting set-pieces, well-defined caricatures, comedy accents and quotable lines.   

[Tiplodocus]

I watched The Kings of Summer last night.

The lead, a newcomer called Nick Robinson, is great - he's just been cast Jurassic Park 4 which bodes well for that film.

I remember thinking "Hey, Vince Vaughn, the cool guy from Swingers is in JP2. This will be great!".


Anyway, RESEIDENT EVIL: APOCOLYPSE.Whereas I quite enjoyed rewatching the first one with (not so) Tiny Tips, we both agreed this one was shite.

Milla is great (despite a ridiculous outfit) but almost everything else with the exception of the cool Olivera character and the bit where you see the STARS and the police losing the fight against the oncoming hordes of zombies is pointless.  Tiny Tips pointed out at least three "characters" who have screen time but don't actually do anything or have any bearing on the final outcome.

Nearly all of the characters also have some form of far seeing ability. On at least two occassions, Alice arrives in a room and does EXACTLY the right thing to save everybody inside despite having absolutely no knowledge of what was going on in the room.  Similarly at the end [spoiler]when everybody arrived to pick up ALICE from under the noses of Umbrella. Were they sitting in the big car waiting for that exact moment when the healed Alice breaks free?[/spoiler]Did the lass that played Jill Valentine really look like the character or did they retool Jill in the games/cos play/fan art to look like her filmic equivalent?

[radiator]

I remember thinking "Hey, Vince Vaughn, the cool guy from Swingers is in JP2. This will be great!".

[Professor Bear]

I saw JP2 years after first seeing it in the cinema and wondered why it seemed like a different film - I finally twigged that I'd fallen asleep for about twenty minutes during the bit with the trailer hanging off the cliff.  Thinking about it, it would have made more sense if I'd dreamed that bit where a girl gymnast kickboxed a velociraptor to death.

[pictsy]

Oh I agree Resident Evil: Apocalypse was a stinker.  I sold my copy of it to a retail reseller in my town which has since closed.  Perhaps the film was so bad it cursed them.

The sad thing is, it isn't the worst film in the franchise.

[Recrewt]

Predators.  I have no idea why, as a fan of the first two, I stayed watching this to the end, but I just did.  Poor, weak, unimaginative and predictable fare.  Worst of all, for a film which has suspension of disbelief built into the structure of its franchise this was just plain implausible: Bill Paxton's hat from 2 was more believable, and better fun.

Yup, its pretty bad isn't it?  I also enjoy the first two Predators but even they could be seriously hammy and corny at times.  Pred 2 gets a lot of stick but I like the idea of the city setting and scenes like the underground one were really good.

Predators though is just rubbish - I mean the amount of time they had to come up with a sequel and this is what they came up with - another jungle but this time its on another planet (or, in direct opposition to the idea of Predators hunting prey in their own habitat).  AND there's going to be more Predators (again, against the whole single hunting idea) with some bigger ones  .  You could forgive all this if they really nailed the hunter/prey aspect of the original - no, just walk around and get picked off randomly without any suspense.

[Spikes]

Managed to catch Gravity at the Renoir cinema in the Brunswick, and also Woody Allen's latest Blue Jasime.

Gravity is a special effect with a story - such as it is, tagged onto it.
Which when its as spectacular looking as this, its not too bad a thing. The usually watchable Clooney slightly grates here, and Bulloch is fine.
At just over 90 minutes (the ideal film length) it still felt slightly too long. 3D was pretty good, though we was sat offcentre a wee bit, so maybe that accounts for the odd moment of blurring? Fun, if largely inconsequential stuff.

Blue Jasime really satisfied though. Great performances throughout, and felt like classic Woody Allen in a lot of ways.

[pictsy]

I've actually managed to catch some of the hype about Gravity.  Especially poster ads describing it as 'film of the year' which for me is generally a kiss of death for the film.

It doesn't look special and I thought it would be pretty much what you said you found it to be, Jack.

[TordelBack]

Predators though is just rubbish - I mean the amount of time they had to come up with a sequel and this is what they came up with - another jungle but this time its on another planet (or, in direct opposition to the idea of Predators hunting prey in their own habitat).

SPOILERS FOLLOW, but this film was spoiled long before I got to it.

In addition the subpar repeats of scenes from the original (ethnic type squares off for suicidal hand-to-hand rearguard action - oh wait, I get it he's Japanese/an Indian, thus he must be good with a katana/big knife and have a fatalistic/spiritual code of honour!  etc.) and complete lack of originality, it was the endless bits that made no sense in context that got to me. 

1.  A doctor recognises a rare amazonian plant that paralyses people that is for some reason on an alien world. (And see below for just how alien a world it is).  Also, did anyone for one second not realise the doctor was [spoiler]a serial killer[/spoiler]?

2.  Laurence Fishborne has been marooned here for 'ten seasons' and yet is fat as a fool. What the hell is he eating?  It's not like the Predators don't haul their kills back to their camp.

3. How and why did our super-Predators extract a man from Death Row?  Did they observe his rapes/murders, watch the trial and then wait for several years until right before he was due to be executed before.... what?  Using a transporter? Sneaking into his cell in San Quentin and hauling him out?

4.  The traps designed by the dead special forces guy were completely ridiculous.  How did he get hundreds of spikes to drop from the sky in precise patterns chasing Our Heroes like something out of an Indiana Jones tomb? 

5.  The super-Predator blows up his own ship, and his most resourceful prey, rather than using his wrist gubbins to guide it back down so he can make the kill mano-a-monstro.

6. The super-Preds recall their surviving dogs.  And then we don't see them again.  Where do they go?

7. There are at least three massive planetary bodies in the sky, far, far closer than any two equivalent bodies in our solar system.  Is this world a moon of a gas giant?  If so, what are the other two?

8. The sun apparently 'hasn't moved' in the sky while they've been there, so the planet either doesn't rotate on its own axis or is tidally locked to the sun (never mind the fact that planet apparently has a magnetic field that spins constantly).  Then it gets dark, including a period of twilight, so presumably because the sun is eclipsed by one or more of the other bodies?  How the hell does that work?  The planet is tidally locked to the sun, but not to the huge neighbouring moons/planets that pass between it and the sun?  Tell me, it's distracting me from the interesting characters and dialogue. Oh no, wait: it isn't.

I'm now bored even writing these things down, but it doesn't end there.

[radiator]

I just don't get why modern films insist on endlessly riffing on bits of previous films in a fashion that basically goes "Remember this, guys!?!?!". I haven't seen Predators, but the likes of Star Trek Into Darkness do this, and all it ever does is remind you of better films. Why do they keep doing it?

[pictsy]

I just don't get why modern films insist on endlessly riffing on bits of previous films in a fashion that basically goes "Remember this, guys!?!?!". I haven't seen Predators, but the likes of Star Trek Into Darkness do this, and all it ever does is remind you of better films. Why do they keep doing it?

I suspect they are afraid of original thought.  It's just a theory at this point.

[Ghost MacRoth]

It's mainly to tip the hat to those who seen the original, as if that will make up for them arsing up the 're-boot'.  As for original thoughts....well, they may or may not work.   However, an idea that was already a success, well, hugely attractive to producer types.  After all, these folks (for the most part) work their way up through the production office, paperwork, schedules, organisational stuff.  This generally means they are talent vacuums, so re-cycling an old idea is about as 'creative' as they'll ever get.

[Recrewt]

I don't think anyone was expecting Predators to stray too far from the formula that the previous films have set.  That's not really the problem though - the issue is with a very basic premise (they on alien planet, get hunted) that is then spectacularly messed up.  I also love it when they talk about building on the Franchise - so what have we learnt from the latest film?  Err they have these big dog type creatures and some Predators are bigger than others.   

[Fragminion]

they have these big dog type creatures and some Predators are bigger than others.   

After having read some of the Predator Novels. I half expected to see them remark on how the "Bigger Preds" were the  Female of the species.   A bit of the stretch but I would have found it interesting.

[TordelBack]

After having read some of the Predator Novels. I half expected to see them remark on how the "Bigger Preds" were the  Female of the species.   A bit of the stretch but I would have found it interesting.

Now that would have made a difference.  Even something as simple and unoriginal as that would have injected some sense of cohesion into what amounted to: here's a thing; here's a thing you've seen before; here's another thing; here's a thing you liked last time; here's another thing; have we done 107 minutes yet? No? Okay: here's another thing.