Review: Horns - Alexandre Aja

" I'm gonna love you for the rest of my life.
 Just love me for the rest of mine."

          Well to say this film wasn't what I expected would be an understatement. I went into this film blind, which is rare for me and i really had no idea what to expect from the story, other that Daniel Radcliffe's character grows horns and become some devil like character. If that's all you know then great, stop reading here and go see the film then come back and see what i have to say one it. Ok I'm hoping anyone reading from this point has either seen the film or doesn't care if they have it ruined on them.

          The film starts out and you're instantly thrown in to the middle of the story which is a method of story telling I like, the main character Ig Perrish (Daniel Radcliffe) has been accused of the murder and rape of his girlfriend Merrin Williams (Juno Temple). It feel similar to Gone Girl's first act's who-done-it plot and revolves around Ig coming to terms with losing his girlfriend and how this affects him. Most of the big character revelations come in the form of flashbacks which flesh out Ig and Merrin's relationship and those of their friends and family. It also unravels the night Merrin was killed from several characters points of view and the limited time they had with Merrin that night.

          Ig doesn't take the sudden loss of his girlfriend and the blame he's receiving from the press and the local townspeople, so he gets drunk and does a lot of stupid things. When he's drunk he sleeps with a girl he knows and wakes up in her bed the next morning it's here he (and we the audience) notice he's started growing horns, becoming the devil the local people and media see him as. From here on out the film becomes strange, Ig's horn give him a certain control over people, they confess their darkest desires to him and seek him allowance to carry them out, which freaks him out and is very weird to watch not knowing what or why this is happening. This leads to some hilarious scenes where people carry out their hearts desires when in the presence of Ig, my favourite one is in the doctors office, with the doctor and his nurse. Ig soon realizes that this power can help him find out who really attacked and killed Merrin. He tracks down the oppositions star witness the waitress from the restaurant where Ig and Merrin had their fight the night she died, she confesses she lied to the police just to get famous. The film then flashes back to Ig seeing Merrin for the first time as children and also show's Ig and his friends as children.

          I think I've talked about the plot enough and don't want to spoil the film, but there are several revelations that completely change how both we the audience and Ig see people and there is a powerful scene where Ig uses his powers to get revenge on those who have hurt him and and eventual show down with her killer that is amazing.

          As I said I really had no idea what to expect from this film when I watched it. I was blown away by how engaging the story was and how it slowly built and fleshed out things. From the director's previous work I was expecting something more generic and a cheesey Halloween flick, I could not of been further from the truth. Daniel Radclife does an amazing job in what is essentially a one man show (even if hearing him with an american accent is weird). I also had no idea this film was based on a novel of the same name by Joe Hill. I would highly recommend this film and I’d give it a 10/10. One of my favourite films this year and that's saying a lot given how great a year this has been see the previous mentioned Gone Girl.

          p.s. I know I haven't done this in awhile, I hope to change this and hopefully I'll get a lot more reviews done next year. I'm going to make up a top ten movies of 2014 list and hopefully another review before the years out. Thanks David K.

New Movie Review: The World's End (2013) - Edgar Wright

"We're going to see this through to the bitter end. Or... lager end."  - Garry King

          For anyone to make a film that not only balances the elements of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz (it's sister films) and introduces a few of its own, they'd have to be a mad man or Edgar Wright, the director of the massively popular Cornetto Trilogy. To call World's End the concluding chapter of this trilogy it to miss the point of this trilogy, it been British-ify-ing popular genres (Zombie & Buddy Cop respectively) while gently parodying them at the same time. While I could go on about the similarities, nods and links between these film's (and maybe I will sometime), for now I'm here to review The World's End as it's own film.

          The film starts off with five estranged friends reuniting twenty years after their secondary (American's read: High-) school graduation and trying to complete their hometown's legendary pub crawl and in the hopes of the groups de-facto leader Gary King (Simon Pegg) finish what they started and recapture their glory days. I have to admit, I loved the start of this film I would of loved to of seen what Edgar Wright would of done with these characters and how he would of developed the story had this not of been part of the Cornetto Trilogy, Mint Cornetto in this case, incase you were wondering. But instead just as the reunion film is about to reach its conflict and gets really interesting, the aliens show up, which we should of been looking forward to, instead signals a complete tonal shift in the film and the dropping of most of the major elements of the reunion film, which is a pity as that would of been as equally an interesting picture. From this point on though the film does get more funny and was genuinely one of the funniest films I've seen in ages, it also becomes more of an action film, with Wright bringing all the skills and techniques he learned from Scott Pilgrim vs. The World to the fight scenes.

          From here on out the review gets tricky, as I don't want to spoil the film and want instead you to go see it. So maybe I'll wrap up my review here, for now and tell you that I loved this film and that it definitely holds up against Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz and is worth checking out in the cinema. Hopefully once this films been out a bit longer I'll get around to reviewing it in more detail. But for now the film gets a 9/10.

New Movie Review: Pacific Rim

It's been so long since my last review, I nearly don't know where to start, I'm hoping these reviews will be more regular and that I'll be getting to more films as they come out in the cinema, especially since now I live near a cinema again. I guess I should get on with the review.

"Today at the edge of our hope, at the end of our time, we have chosen to believe in each other. Today we face the monsters that are at our door! Today we are cancelling the apocalypse!"

          Pacific Rim is the latest film sci-fi film by Mexican director Guillermo del Toro, so if you are familiar with del Toro's work you'll know to expect, a film that's not only visually stunning but one that also has an interesting story that weaves everything together. Pacific Rim takes it inspiration from the Japanese genres of Kaiju movies (i.e. Godzilla) and blends it with another Japanese (mostly anime) staple the mecha genre (think power rangers/transformers except bigger robots) and made them its own.

          The story is set in the not to distant future, when monsters (Kaiju) rise from an inter-dimensional portal in the Pacific ocean, at first they overwhelm our conventional military forces and are barely taken down after days of fighting. As the Kaiju attacks start to become more frequent the worlds leaders come together in order to come up with a solution to fighting these colossal beasts, they're solution are Jaeger's immense robots designed to fight these monsters. The Jaeger's require two pilots working in tandem in order for them to function, as it is too much strain for one individual on their own. For a time the Jaeger's work and seem to stem the advance of the Kaiju, but this is short lived and as the Kaiju keep coming they seem to adapt to the Jaeger's and grow in size, this leads the worlds leaders to instead pursue a giant wall blocking off the pacific ocean. Now I do realise there are a few spoilers in the previous section but this is only the first twenty minutes of the film and are given away in the trailers.

          I'd rather not spoil the rest of the film, but I will say the story is very well thought out and makes you care for the characters and also their struggle to save the world.

          I have to mention the CGI simply put its amazing, the character design's are all unique and extremely different, each Kaiju is unique and so are the Jaeger's seen in the film. The most impressive part of the CGI though is the fact it tricks you into forgetting that these things don't exist, it shows a great understanding of the ability of CGI by del Toro and the amazing things those animators can do when given time to do their job properly, in fact I believe that the CGI sections were all decided in advance of the film even shooting so as to give the animators the time to truly make everything look believable and add in those small details that really help to sell the shots.

          The gamer in me loved the fact the GLaDOS (Ellen McLain from the Portal games) was the voive of Gipsy Danger's (the main Jaeger) AI, even if I did feel a little uneasy trusting her. Acting wise Idris Elba steals the show, I even used his speech as the introduction, Rinko Kikuchi is also good as Mako and Charlie Hunnam is fine as the main character despite what I've heard others say, everyone else do a great job as well with their characters.

          So weighing everything up about the film would I recommend it? Yes its an amazing film, but I cannot say that everyone will like it. If your a fan of summer blockbusters definitely go see it, you'll love it, if your a movie fan who can appreciate a film for what it is and likes to read into things you'll enjoy it too, but if sci-fi's and summer blockbusters aren't your thing I don't think you'll like the film, which isn't the films fault and is your loss but if you don't like these kind of films you don't like them. So score wise I'd give Pacific Rim 9/10, pretty much the perfect summer block buster but won't convert those who don't like the genre.

Movie News: The Wolverine, Kick-Ass 2 and Veronica Mars

          I’m back blogging, I know its been awhile since my last review and I know I’ve missed a lot since then so I’d like to try something new a bit of movie news and just general talking about movies.

The first thing I’d like to talk about is all the great trailers that have come out recently specifically trailers for The Wolverine and both Kick-Ass 2 trailers (the domestic(American) and international versions), both these movies look amazing, I’m a huge comic book movie fan and have been following both these films since I heard about them. And I'll be talking about the Veronica Mars movie.

          Let’s talk about The Wolverine first this is the kind of sequel to X Men (3) The Last Stand and X Men Origins Wolverine and potentially ties into X Men First Class, so yeah the fan boys will love trying to figure out the timeline and what’s canon and not, but for people who haven’t seen all the X Men films (read all the comics) it should be easy to follow and figure out on its own as a movie. It follows Wolverine/Logan (Hugh Jackman) after the events of The Last Stand as he comes to terms with everything that’s happened and trying to figure himself out in Japan, where he meets an old friend who’s live he’s saved and wishes to pay off him debt and offers to make Logan mortal. Now there are two versions of this trailer as well, a domestic and international version, the main difference is that the international version is more action orientated and that it ends with the tagline “When he’s at his most vulnerable, he’s at his most dangerous”, which sums up Wolverine brilliantly. At this point I should also mention that as of this film 20^th Century Fox will be tying their Marvel films (X Men and The Fantastic 4) together in a cinematic (shared) universe, in the same vain as Marvel has done with their Avengers films (Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor and Captain America) and this will be headed up by comic book writer Mark Millar. So what that means to both franchises is they could overlap and interact with one another and who knows potentially the Fox and Marvel universes could cross paths in upcoming films, who knows and just a quick mention that Sony own the rights to Spider Man so if all three companies interact with one another who knows what could happen. Ok you’ve either loved reading that or found it very boring but either way here’s a link to the trailer for The Wolverine The Wolverine International Trailer

Next up it’s the trailers for Kick-Ass 2, the domestic trailer focuses more of Kick-Ass

(Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Hit-Girl (Chloe Grace Mortez) joining together with a group of other superhero’s (inspired by Kick-Ass himself) including Colonel Stars and Stripes (Jim Carrey) to face a bigger and badder enemy, an evil super villain team lead by Christopher Mintz-Plasse (McLovin)’s character The Mother Fucker (the villain Red Mist from the first Kick-Ass). While the international trailer follows more Hit-Girls story and her adjusting to a normal life and the death of her father and then her becoming Hit-Girl again. Both versions however make it clear that this is going to be a great movie, if you haven’t seen the original I urge you to go out and get a copy if you can, be warned though it’s a violent film full of strong language throughout, but it’s also one of the funniest and most original Super hero films I’ve ever seen (or read). Here’s the links to both trailers, enjoy. Kick-Ass 2 International Trailer & Kick-Ass 2 Domestic Trailer

And lastly I’d like to mention The Veronica Mars movie. For those of you that don’t know Veronica Mars was a 2004 teen drama series revolving around the titular character initially in high school and then college moonlighting as a Private Investigator and is best known for being Kristen Bell’s break through role and is also somewhat of a cult classic. Unfortunately the series only lasted three seasons and was then cancelled, the series creator (Rob Thomas) then approached Warner Bros. with a script for a feature film which the opted not to produce, but they gave permission for Thomas to seek finance for the film himself. Now to the main point of this article, Thomas and Bell and the rest of the cast of the show took to KickStarter to raise the money for the film, the main reason I’d suspect that Warner Bros. passed on the film was because of the Niche cult following appeal of the series but that’s exactly what has successfully financed their film. So what I want to ask you is what cancelled TV show would you resurrect if you could in either a movie or follow up series, assuming money and studio cooperation were not an issue? Here’s the trailer for the KickStarter campaign if you want to check it out. Veronica Mars Movie

Trailer Review: Oblivion (2013) - Joseph Kosinski

I'm kind of lost for words, this trailer looks like this will be a great Sci-Fi movie. Just from the trailer you can see that this it not the kind of world you want to live in, and that our main character (Tom Cruise) hasn't been told everything that happened. I'll put the trailer below please check it out and let me know what you think.

Here's a link to the trailer in case you can't see the video below Oblivion Trailer 2

Trailer Review: The Host (2013) - Andrew Niccol

          If you knew nothing about the story of this film, except what you see in the trailer, that it’s an alien invasion Sci-Fi movie with a love story mixed in and plenty of action scenes thrown in the mix too, you’d be excited too right? But when you know the story’s from the writer of the Twilight books, it kind of ruins it right?

          I’m going to say I’m excited for this film, the trailer sets it up beautifully and I’m hoping the writer took the core of the story from the book and built a great Sci-Fi movie around it. But I’m also concerned that I’ve been duped by the trailer and it’s going to be a straight up love story and the trailer is like the first 5 minutes of the movie. So I’m going to say wait till you hear what reviewers say about this film before you go see it, fingers crossed its good though.

Check out the video below or at the link here The Host Trailer 3

Trailer Review: Double Feature: Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters & Hansel & Gretel Get Baked

So the story of this film is basically what happened to Hansel and Gretel after they escaped the Witch and the Gingerbread house from the classic fairytale. They become witch hunters and action movie heroes. This actually looks really good and is a great re-imagining of the characters and looks like its going to be a great action movie, I just hope it’s better than Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter was. I for one will definitely check it out when it comes out in cinemas. Check it out here Hansel And Gretel: Witch Hunters - Totally Witchin' Trailer

Another Hansel & Gretel movie worth mentioning is Hansel & Gretel Get Baked, which unlike this films more action/steampunk style setting is more of a comedy horror where Hansel & Gretel are two twenty something stoners, it looks pretty funny and looks like it will be a good movie, hopefully it gets the horror and comedy elements balanced. Check it out here  Hansel & Gretel Get Baked Official Trailer #1

Trailer Review: Evil Dead (Remake) Trailer #2 (2013) - Fede Alvarez

"We're going to get you. We're going to get you. Not another peep. Time to go to sleep."

          No one ever likes seeing their favourite film getting a sequel/prequel, but what they like even less is seeing it remade. So as a fan of the Evil Dead film franchise I understand where the negative feelings are coming from, but I’m going to give this film a chance and if you’re a horror fan or fan of the franchise it deserves to be at least checked out. For those of you not in the know Sam Rami, director of the Spider-man trilogy (the Toby Maguire one, in case you’re reading this after The Amazing Spiderman No. 3) was originally best known for his horror film trilogy The Evil Dead , which while made on a shoestring budget and not getting a wide spread release, went on to become one of the Horror genres most popular film franchise and a cult film series in its own right. Basically The Evil Dead films are held up on a pedestal by its fans and its untouchable, so when Sam Rami announced he planned on making a Evil Dead 4, after dropping out of Spider-man 4, fan interest was high, would we see a continuation of Ash’s fight against the Deadites, but the project never went ahead and was mentioned very little after the initial announcement. Then in early 2011 Bruce Campbell announced that a remake of The Evil Dead was underway with himself and Sam Rami serving as executative producers, opinions were strongly mixed.

          So with the film coming out shortly, have they done a good job at mixing the old and the new? In my opinion yes they have, they’ve kept the more serious horror feel of the first Evil Dead film and built on that. This film look genuinely terrifying, which I hope it is, it’s a bit of a pity to see the humour of the two Evil Dead sequels is missing, but I for one will be going to see this movie and I hope you do too.

Check out the trailer below or at the link here: EVIL DEAD - Full Redband Trailer

Trailer Review: Spring Breakers Trailer #1 (2013) - Harmony Korine

Who needs plot?

"Spring Break forever bitches!"

          Alright I know what you’re thinking, but hear me out, thisis supposed to be a great film, even if it does seem like it’s just relying outthe four main actors; Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson and RachelKorine running around the place in their bikini’s. The basic plot is these fourgirls rob a restaurant to finance their trip to Spring Break and pretty muchjust dance around the place and get drunk in the sun in their bikini’s, hmm theplots really not helping me justify talking about this film, anyway once they’reat Spring Break they get arrested for taking drugs and get bailed out by JamesFranco’s character, who has them do his dirty work. Anyway check out thetrailer here or below:Spring Breakers Trailer

Trailer Review: Man of Steel Official Trailer #2 (2013) - Zack Snyder

"My Father believed that if the world found out who I really was, they'd reject me. He was convinced the world wasn't ready. What do you think?"

          As you might of picked up on, I am a huge comic book movie fan, its my favourite movie genre and has given its far share of great movies and great disappointments. This movie looks like it will fall into the first category, it seems to be a more serious take on the Superman story very much like Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy (whom is producing it), that is taking a fantastical story and basing it at least partiality in the real world and making the characters very dark and introspective. Another thing this movie has going for it in my opinion is its director Zack Snyder, who is one of my favourite directors and while I didn't think his personal style would fit with a Superman film he seems to have been reigned in by Christopher Nolan and this trailer just looks amazing.

          When the teaser trailer's came out (the same trailer had two different voice-overs) I wasn't overly impressed with it, but it did its job of getting people talking about the film. Now this the second trailer does an amazing job and doesn't give too much away it's very careful about what it shows and doesn't spoil the trailer like many films lately have a habit of doing, this isn't a two minute version of the entire film. What it does though is it introduces the main character of Clark Kent/Superman played by Henry Cavill and in a twist from the comic's and previous adoptions of the film has Clark's father not be as supportive of him using his super powers to help people as he's worried what other people will think of him and how they'll react to him, which is very powerful and a more realistic idea for the character. It also shows Clark Kent's eventual realisation that he'll need to become Superman in order to help the people he loves even if it means betraying them at least that's how I interoperate it.

Please check out the trailer below and if it's not working here's a link to it: http://youtu.be/-DaPBBOHfsA 

Trailer Review: Pacific Rim Trailer #1 (2013) - Guillermo del Toro

To Fight Monsters We Created Monsters

"Today we are cancelling the apocalypse!"

          Ooh my God this trailer looks amazing. I've been following this film loosely as its the project Guillermo del Toro decided to make after walking away from The Hobbit and up until seeing this trailer I thought he'd made a big mistake. But with the recent interest in the Monster movie genre with films such as Troll Hunter, The Host(2006) and Cloverfield I thought Guillermo del Toro could be the man to change the fortunes of this ill-fated genre and after watching the trailer today I'd say he has. Now as any good movie fan will tell you never judge a movie by its trailer as they can cut the best half hour of the film into a decent trailer and leave out the other hour and a half of utter crap, but looking at the man's previous offerings (Pan's Labyrinth, Blade II and both of the Hellboy films) and taking a leap of faith I feel this will be a good movie (especially for Sci-fi and monster movie fans) but it also has the potential to be a great movie if handled correctly.

          This movie is a homage to the Kaiju genre, which is the Japanese monster movie genre to me and you made up of films such as Godzilla, Mothra and countless others. To me this movie is also homaging the other big Japanese genre of giant fighting robots, basically think Power Rangers and Transformers but controlled by being connected to the pilots brain, this is more an anime genre in Japan and is quiet common with series such as Evangelion, Ghost in the shell, Gundam and Macross. But like I said Power Rangers (or Super Sentai the series that each season of Power Rangers is based on) and Transformers are prehaps the best known western examples of this genre.

Check out the trailer below and if thats not working here's a link to it: http://youtu.be/K-ZcqwvQbas 

Anyway I guess I should maybe talk a little bit about the trailer and what I liked about it, can I just say the whole thing? Ok I love the CGI design of the Mecha ((giant fighting robots)called Jaegers in this movie) and the monster (he looks like a cross between Godzilla and a shark). The fights between the Mecha and the monsters just look amazing and the human cast look to be top notch with Idris Elba stealing the show for me. So depending on how the next trailer looks I'll be there to see this film as soon as it comes out.