Review: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012) - Timur Bekmambetov

          Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, doesn’t that name get you excited, one of the most influential men in history and one of horrors most iconic villains all in one movie? Aren’t you just drawn in? Don’t you want to see this film? Well you’d be disappointed if like me the mere title excited you and had you thinking of the possibilities. I mean the idea of the film sounds simple enough take one historical figure, sprinkle in fictitious elements and boom success, right?

          Well for this film sadly the answer is no. But I don’t know where the film fails, that is to say I can’t see why it doesn’t entertain but it just doesn’t. Maybe it the alternate history, maybe it’s the way the characters are written, but something about this film just doesn’t have that greatness too it that certain films do. The actors though are phenomenal are put in some truly great performances, Benjamin Walker is believable as Abraham Lincoln especially in the 20-40 age bracket, he’s also very likable and should go far as an actor, Dominic Cooper is great as Henry Sturges, Lincoln's mentor in vampire hunting and a vampire who lost his wife and humanity to vampires and Mary Elizabeth Winstead is amazing as Mary Todd Lincoln, Lincoln's wife.

          But maybe semi historical films just aren’t meant to be paired but with action horror movies. I am genuinely struggling for words to say about this film, but by no means am I saying that this is a bad film, its slightly worse than that it’s a plain film. It is worth checking out would probably make a great film to have on in the background as it doesn’t require much attention to understand.

          With the new rating system this film is a 4/10, not a bad film, but sadly not a good one either. It's the kind of film that if it was on TV some night it would be worth a watch of if your drinking with friends and want something on in the background other than that though I really cant recommend this film, which is a pity as it has so much potential.

Opinions: How I Met Your Mother & other long running tv shows

          I remember when I first heard about How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM), I though what an interesting idea it was and when I saw my first episode I fell in love with the show, the characters were new and genuinely funny, which I quiet rare in sit-coms today. But as the seasons went on and we kept getting hinds and teases about who Ted’s wife (the mother) was I thought of how I’d do the reveal. So here’s what I would of done in season 8 of HIMYM, I would of just introduced the Mother. Now you might think that’s strange seems as though the whole premise of the show is how they met, but taking some liberties with that idea, who says the fall in love the first time them meet? So after introducing her I’d start her and Ted dating and then we’d get to know more about her and be introduced to her friends, this bits key to me and you’ll see why later. So season 8 ends maybe with Ted and the mother having a fight. Now instead of doing a season 9 straight away we have a season of How I Met Your Father, told from the mothers view with her and her friends and how she’s always in the same places as Ted and the gang have been but just keep missing each other and depending on how successful this series if there could be more seasons, maybe season 2 runs concurrently with season 9 of HIMYM. And lastly by season 10 I’d wrap up the story line and have Ted and The Mother marry.

          Now on to the second part of this opinion piece. Long running TV shows in general, as constantly happens TV shows run out of steam after about four to five seasons, this is generally because the original idea of the show has been exhausted and then the writers look to introduce new idea’s into the plot to extend the run of the show, in some cases this works brilliantly in most though it doesn’t. So in my opinion ten in the magic number of seasons for any TV show assuming it survived the slump after season four or five as generally after ten the show will have to jump the shark again, if not for story reasons then because of actors or writers wanting to move on. How many shows can you think of that would of benefit from ending early? Everyone’s favourite example is The Simpsons, “Wasn’t The Simpsons a great show?” and when it ends it will be very fondly remembered but as the seasons keep on coming they turn older viewers away. Anyway back to my point, great television shows know when to end, when to take their bow and move on to other projects, they know there is no point flogging a dead horse and know to wrap up existing story lines and plot points. But that’s just my opinion, I hope you agree, but if you don’t feel free to comment.

Review: Contagion (2011) - Steven Soderbergh

          Contagion is one of those rare films’s that blends accuracy and action beautifully. The film is a realistic look at how a virus can spread in our modern society and shows the worst case scenario of how a relatively small outbreak can quickly spread and become and an epidemic.

          The film starts out simply enough and shows a businesswoman, Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) on her way home after a business trip and an affair, she’s sick we later find out she’s patient zero and the infection spirals out from her, she infects her son who infects other children in his school, however the father, Mitch Emhoff (Matt Damon) is immune to the virus. Beth’s condition worsens and she’s rushed to hospital where she dies, when Matt goes home he finds his son has also died from the same illness. We then see that the CDC (Centre for Disease Control and Prevention) and WHO (World Health Organisation) are both tracking the outbreak of a as yet identified virus in China, the same place Beth was on her business trip. The WHO then send Dr. Leonora Orantes (Marion Cotillard) as their representative to China to try and find out the epicentre of the virus. Homeland security fearing that the virus maybe a biological weapon being used on the eve of Thanksgiving contact the CDC for advice. Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law) a conspiracy theorist, posts videos about the disease on his blog.

          This is one of those films with several interlinking stories that you either love or hate and while it isn’t hard to follow the over arching story, you do have to pay attention. Seems as though most people haven’t seen this film I won’t spoil it but I will try and summarise up the rest of the story.

          Basically the scientists struggle to find a cure for the virus and eventually do find one, however in the mean time the disease spreads and society decays and worst aspects in society are shown. This is a very gritty film but well worth the watch.

So rating, I’d give this film a 8/10 it mightn’t be for everyone but I feel most people will enjoy it, especially scientists.

Review: Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (2010) - Edgar Wright

          I remember when this film came out in the cinema all my friends that went to go see it kept telling me how amazing it was how original and unique the story was and how I never got to see it in the cinema. So instead I read the comic and fell in love with the beautiful black and white images that Bryan Lee O’Malley had drew and the strange love story presented on the pages. The problem was now I was very emotionally attached to the story and had such high expectations for the film (after all the hype my friends had given it) I was worried how it would turn out, by this stage I had decided to wait for the film to be released on DVD. So were my worries justified? No. Putting it simply this is one of (if not my) favourite films ever.

          So what’s it all about then? Well if you haven’t seen Scott Pilgrim, I suggest you do go see it, but if you’d rather not then I’ll try and not give away to many spoilers. Scott (Michael Cera) is in his early 20’s, he’s a musician and he’s started dating a high schooler (Ellen Wong as Knives Chau), he’s never worked a day in his life and he’s very happy go lucky. His friends don’t approve of him dating her. He then meets another girl Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) who is quiet literally the girl of his dreams and becomes obsessed with her ignoring Knives completely. He starts dating Ramona and knows he has to breakup with Knives but keeps putting it off, there’s also one tiny little catch with dating Ramona. Scott has to defeat her seven evil exes. As you can imagine things don’t play out smoothly for poor Scott and around evil ex 4 he begins to wonder if Ramona is worth it, and Knives now realising Scott had been seeing her as well as Ramona does what everyone in the same situation would do she blames everything on Ramona.

Scott then starts to realise how much Ramona means to him but he might of drove Ramona back into the arms of her seventh evil ex, Gideon Gordon Graves/G-man (Jason Schwartzman) who’s the one responsible for putting together the seven evil exes, he’s also literally inside her head by  a conveniently placed control chip. So Scott goes to win Ramona back and challenges Gideon to a final fight with the power of love and is killed, however following the films gamer logic Scott uses his 1up he got earlier to give the fight another go and this time with the power of self respect he along with help from Knives and Ramona defeats Gideon and walks off into the distance with Ramona.

          Ok so as I mentioned I love this film and comic, I loved the use of gamer, music and general nerdy references and here the film is not only extremely faithful to the comic but takes things one step beyond for example each ex is given a symbol representing their number. I also love the actors, I’d love to be able to pick out a stand out but everyone is so true to their character and represents them so well, the one I’d pick if I had to though would be Kieran Culkin as Wallace Wells, Scott’s roommate and all around scene stealer when he’s on screen and takes some liberties with the character that make him probably my favourite. However there are some things I take issue with the main one being the shortening of the story, in the comics Ramona and Scott’s relationship takes place over the course of a year so it makes sense that the two fall in love with each other and it also makes the ending more believable, where as in the film it takes place over the course of about a week so the ending doesn’t feel deserved, the film makes even thought as much putting in an alternate ending where Scott ends up with Knives, that fits with the film. I also missed certain characters/scenes from the comic but I can see why they were cut.

          I realised I never gave a rating before to any of the films I’ve reviewed, that’s because I think you should be able to tell from how I talk about a film how I feel about it, but I think I’ll start giving ratings on a 10 scale. So Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World is a 10/10 for me. I highly recommended you check out this film and hopefully you’ll enjoy it as much as I have.

Opinions: World War Z Trailer #1 (and the film in general)

Am I the only one that thinks this has potential?

Film Teaser Poster

          The trailer starts out with Brad Pitt and his family in a car and then shows the world going to hell as the Zombie’s start to take over the world and overwhelm every country across the globe. That’s right it’s a Zombie apocalypse movie, but the difference is this one is based on the book of the same name by Max Brooks author of the well known book The Zombie Survival Guide. This book serves as a sort of sequel to the popular (spoof) guide book and follows the rules and mythology set out within it. However the difficult part in adapting the book to film was in the narrative structure employed by Brooks, which is a series of individual accounts from various people around the world collected and presented in chronological order. Not a very film friendly narrative, so I liked the decision to have the movie focus on a UN worker whose job is to collect any information that may be useful to help stop the spread of the disease and find a cure, which allows the story to maintain its world scope and have certain characters/stories from the book shown in the film.

 

Book Cover

          Some people have taken issue with the vibe of the trailer which has a Cloverfield/I Am Legend feel to it, saying we don’t need another New York disaster movie and I think the New York scene could just be the first fifteen/twenty minutes of the movie, equally it could be a large chunk of it, but it’s too soon to judge that. Other’s have complained about the CGI super strength and fast zombies and while I along with most Zombie fans prefer the deadly slow creeping zombies, I think fast zombies can be just as scary.

          The film has also had a lot of troubles behind the scenes and was originally due out  for around this time this year but has instead been pushed back to next summer so as the final third of the film could be rewritten by Damon Lindelof and Drew Goddard (both from Lost) and reshot. So while I am optimistic about this film, I am only cautiously so but only time will tell and I will be checking this film out next summer. What do you make of the trailer?

Review: The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) - Mark Webb

           I remember when I first heard they were planning on rebooting the Spider-Man film franchise, I was completely against is. The only reason to reboot a film franchise is if the previous version has taken the series to far from its original roots or there are no more possible stories that could take place in the already established universe and then there’s the third option that at least ten years has passed and it would be too costly/impractical to bring back the original cast. None of these reasons existed in my opinion in Sam Rami’s Spider-Man universe; different actor’s could have been cast and moved the timeline on a few years with little impact on the story in my opinion. But I can understand why they didn’t do this, I could of even forgiven it, if it wasn’t for the simple fact this would be another origin story, which is a little much to take in seems as we already saw this less than ten years ago, and was still fresh in our minds and was an amazing film and should have been left alone again in my opinion. But despite mine and many other people’s negativity towards the project on initial announcement the film went ahead and I have to admit I did warm to the idea of it especially as we were promised a film more faithful to the comic books origins and ideas fans know from it and the 90’s animated television show (web slingers). So to say the least I wasn’t looking forward to this film, but I wanted to see how it turned out.

          My first impression of the film is it’s the closest we’ll get to seeing Spider-Man in The Avengers at least for a while, people have said it might happen in The Avengers 2 but I won’t hold my breath just yet. Stylistically the film has a similar feel to the films set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as in its very grounded in reality, the characters behave like real people and the choices they make even the ones we know they have to are made for very logical reasons and with one exception are very true to the character and reflect the maturity level of them. So when Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) dicks around with his super powers and in some way’s abuses them it feels natural, like something we all would do if we had superpowers and then when he matures again it doesn’t feel like the script just told him to start acting differently we see the decisions that lead him to step up and become a man. So to talk about plot for a bit, this version of Peter Parker is still in high school and is very much the current everybody, he’s still a good student (but not someone who sits in the front row), he’s still a photographer and he’s still good at science, and I like this change kind of making him an everyman instead of a nerd instantly makes him more relatable and likable as a character and makes his relationships with (eventual girlfriend) Gwen Stacey (Emma Stone) and school bully Flash Thompson (Chris Zylka), very believable.

          It’s nice to see a fresh take on certain aspects of the Spider-Man character, like Sally Field portrayal of  a younger Aunt May but with others it feels quiet distracting and you’d rather they got it over with like Uncle Ben’s (Martin Sheen) infamous “With great power, comes great responsibility” spiel and eventual death. However for the most part I liked the retelling the one main issue I had though was having Dr. Curt Connors/Lizard (Rhys Ifans) as the baddie in this film I feel Rhys Ifans did a great job with the role and was very enjoyable, the only problem was in the previous films we got to know Dr. Connors for two films as a minor background character and got attached to him so if Spider-Man 4 had of been made we would have been more attached to the Lizard and felt some of Peter’s resentment and hurt at having to attack and potentially kill him again I like what they did with the character but would of preferred if they had merely teased at it this film and have him as the baddie in the sequel but that’s personal opinion. And seems as though I’ve mentioned the rest of the main characters how could I leave out Captain George Stacey played brilliantly by Dennis Leary, I felt in many ways the film sets him up as the Commissioner Gordon, to Spider-Man’s Batman, but leaving that aside I feel the character is brilliantly developed as not only a police captain but also as a father, my main problem with him though is the promise he makes Peter take to stay away from Gwen when he’s dying and the fact that Peter does so immediately going so far as to not even attend the funeral of his then girlfriends father (this it the above mentioned character development gone amiss moment as no matter what he should have been there for her in my opinion).

          Ok final thoughts time, would I recommend this film? Yes I would highly. While I might not agree with the decisions behind its development I love the outcome and will defiantly be going to see the sequel when it comes out.

Review: The Birds (1963) – Alfred Hitchcock

The Birds

          I remember seeing this film when I was about 7 or 8 with my Gran and being terrified of Birds for the next few months.  I used to love when she came to babysit myself and my brother as we used to always end up watching Classic films; in fact I remember seeing this film in Black and White, which in my opinion makes it scarier.
I put this film on the other night for Halloween and it was my first time seeing it since then, at least 12 years since the 1^st time and it was my first time seeing the colour version and being honest the horror elements didn’t stand up and the special effects really let it down (at least in my opinion). Having said that though I still immensely enjoyed the film and in my opinion it is still a classic and one of my favourite Hitchcock films.

           Ok to get started with the review proper, the story starts off with our two leads Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) and Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) meeting in a bird shop and the Mitch plays a trick on Melanie, treating her like a sales assistant which she plays along with, he asks her for some Love birds for his sister, as well as flirting with one another and setting up the romantic element of the film.  To shorten the plot Melanie buys a pair of Love birds and plans to delivery’s them anonymously to Mitch’s house via boat for his sister Cathy (Veronica Cartwright) and intends to leave Mitch a nasty letter but thinks better of it and instead leaves a note for Cathy, on her way back across the lake she is attacked by a seagull. Mitch then tends to Melanie and convinces her to stay for dinner and she agrees and it’s here we meet Cathy and Mitch’s over possessive mother Lydia (Jessica Tandy). Melanie stays the night in Annie Hayworth’s (Suzanne Pleshette) house, who also happens to be Mitch’s ex-fiancé, she warns Melanie about Mitch’s overprotective mother and how she ultimately broke the two of them up, that evening a sea gull kills itself by flying into the house door.

           The next day at Cathy’s birthday party the children are attacked by Seagulls which Melanie, Mitch and Annie ward off, later that evening sparrows invade the home and a neighbour is killed by the bird in his home, who is found by Lydia whom freaks out. Melanie then comforts Lydia who wants her to go to the school to get Cathy and bring her home, while outside she notices a large group of crows gathered on the play ground (this scene still terrifies me). Melanie and Annie (the school teacher) make a plan to evacuate the school in a mock fire drill, while outside several of the children are attacked by the crows. By this stage the police are now involved and are reluctant to draw a link between the attacks and play down the birds involvement in the neighbours attack instead putting it down to a failed burglary attempt and putting the other attacks down as random unrelated incidents.

The scene that still terrifies me to this day

           At a dinner Melanie is on the phone to her father telling him the story so far and in interrupted by local citizens who don’t believe her until another bird attack begins and basically destroy the town. Melanie, Mitch, Cathy and Lydia then board up the house and wait until daybreak to make a run to the city, they are attacked during the night by a large group of birds who nearly break in through the sealed doors and windows but ease their attacks. During the night Melanie hears a noise upstairs and investigates and is attacked by a group of birds that have broken into one of the upstairs rooms, injuring her badly. Mitch rescues her and start the car for their escape and its heard on the radio that the attacks have spread and that the national guard may be called in to help with the unexplained attacks, the film ends with the car driving into the distance with thousands of birds of different species watching them.

           As a result of this film to this day I’ll look twice when I see a large flock of birds, but like I mentioned the special effects are dated. I love how this film never explains why the birds are attacking and it doesn’t show us winning over nature and shows us how vulnerable we really are against the might of nature.