movies

[Haldamir319]

Really enjoyed Wonder Woman. Comfortably the best DC film, and one of the better origin stories that any super hero film has given us.

[VizardAmata]

Agreed on Wonder Woman, it was pretty damn good.

I also finally watched Batman vs Superman, and while it is very flawed it is nowhere near as bad as everyone made it out to be.

The extended cut was an improvement but I still didn't think much of it. It was all just too dull, miserable and grey...and the less said about the 'Martha' revelation the better. I really don't like the portrayal of Superman in these films, he should be full of brash colourful optimism and hope, instead he's played as a miserable bastard who's only helping people out of some grudging sense of duty. But yeah, it wasn't as bad as some of the reviews made it out to be.

Yeah the extended cut is what I watched. I will agree though, everything was far too grimdark and dreary. But it wasn't the vomit spewing mess I was expecting.

[Jobdone]

As backwards as it sounds, I think that movie has really benefited from how badly it was reviewed.

The hype was so high (Myself included), that the backlash of rage was humongous.

That means the next wave of people seeing it have expectations of a Troll 2 level of shite, and are pleasantly surprised.

[VizardAmata]

Yeah, that's definitely part of it. My expectations were basically in the bowels of hell with how low they were, so anything above the caliber of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer would have been a pleasant surprise.

[Soze]

Finally got round to seeing Alien: Covenant. Perhaps it was my lowered expectations but I really enjoyed it. A much more stripped back, back to basics Alien film, which is what I want out of them. Good fun.

[Haldamir319]

I actually really dug Alien: Covenant. I think it struck a nice balance of the first three films for style and suspense, but with the budget and flair of Prometheus.

[Darkweasel]

WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES

No big spoilers.

Beginning with ape leader, Caesar's, heavily fortified woodland home coming under attack from a platoon of soldiers, War For the Planet of the Apes doesn't hang around getting to the action. After suffering an initial defeat at the hands of their simian foes (and ignoring an offer of peace), a smaller band of soldiers return that night and infiltrate Caesar's camp, but this incursion has a very different outcome.

Having been betrayed by one of their own, Caesar, Rocket, Maurice the orangutan, and Luca the gorilla instruct the tribe to search for a new home while they go off to hunt down the brutal army Colonel (Woody Harrelson) who ordered the attacks.

While tracking the Colonel and his army, the quartet of intelligent primates discover a little girl hiding in an almost deserted outpost. Unable to speak for some reason, she befriends Maurice and joins them. A short while later, the five of them come across a talkative, but very frightened little monkey who knows where the Colonel is heading.

With only one thing on his mind, Caesar leaves his friends but is captured shortly after. He soon discovers that after he left, his tribe were also captured by the Colonel and his troops. Imprisoned alongside them, with an even larger human army arriving shortly, and with Woody Harrelson completely off his bonce, Caesar, his fellow prisoners, and the friends he left behind somehow have to devise a plan of escape before every ape is destroyed...



If you liked the first two, then the chances are high that you'll love this one. The special effects are superb, it has an actual story and features characters with believable motives. Obviously linking up to the previous couple of films, it also manages to add a couple of things that cleverly tie in to the original 1968 movie.

Although the film is called War for the Planet of the Apes, truth be told there's not actually that much in the way of outright war. Battle For the Planet of the Apes would have probably been a more suitable title, but that one had already been taken. That's not to say it's dull though. It's not. It just doesn't have guns, bombs and big bangs going off every five minutes.

There's not much room for laughs either, with really only Bad Ape (voiced by Steve Zahn) giving you something to laugh at every now and again. But again, it's not a depressing film, it just has a very serious tone. That said, the soldier's helmet with "Bedtime for Bonzo" written on it, and the "Ape-ocalypse Now" tunnel graffiti did make me chuckle.

Known mainly for being "that bloke in the computer suit, Andy Serkis puts in another superb performance as Caesar, and considering she has a virtually silent role, Amiah Miller, who plays the little girl, is also extremely good. However, it's Zahn's Bad Ape, who comes closest to stealing Serkis's thunder.

9/10





THE MUMMY

A miscast Tom Cruise attempts to bluff his way through a role seemingly written for someone a lot younger in this first of Universal's "Dark Universe" series. Unfortunately, not even Cruise's boyish grin, twinkly eyes, and perpetual need to run after things can save him here as he surely puts in one of the worst performances of his entire career.

Forget the story. It's a nonsense. Something about a mummy, an ancient prophecy, and some zombie knights. Whatever. The thing you need to concentrate on here is Russell Crowe's incredible performance. Beginning in a reasonably restrained manner, in the blink of an eye, he suddenly becomes an evil cockney, lurching about his office like some kind of demented drug-addled Danny Dyer. Pure, unadulterated comedy gold.

Leaning towards the action/adventure tone of the Brendan Fraser films while inexplicably stealing scenes from An American Werewolf in London, this latest, contemporary version of The Mummy fails to reproduce even half the wit and charm of either, and pretty much ruins the memory of everything it tries to emulate.

Considering its large budget, The CGI is surprisingly awful. A horrible mish-mash of badly rendered green screen work, and computer effects which look like they were created in the mid-late nineties. The separating irises trick was done better in TV show The Exorcist last year, and the water effects in The Abyss were better too, and that was released in 1989.

So, Cruise grins, runs, drives, flies, rides horses, gets shot at, and gets his shirt off again, but still spends most of the film looking as baffled as everyone else unfortunate enough to be watching.

3/10

[Ghost]

Good reviews.

I'm attempting to watch Bullitt for the first time.

[Ghost]

The car chase bullitt is renowned for its certainly sexy. Ah the days when stunts were real.

[Metalchemyst]

They've re-made The Beguiled: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBoLK5z_FHo

The 1971 original is one of Clint Eastwood's best.

[Gandalf the Red]

Where have you been? Even I knew that.

[Metalchemyst]

Where have you been? Even I knew that.

Up Rivington Pike.

Something more up-to-date for you then: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJtZYCv7AxA

[Darkweasel]

The Dark Tower

What a massive, steaming pile of old shit.

[Darkweasel]

COOGAN'S BLUFF
(1968)



Walt Coogan, an Arizona deputy sheriff (Eastwood), heads to New York to bring back wanted fugitive, James Ringerman, for trial. Unfortunately, after Coogan bluffs his way (see what they did there?) into the hospital where his prisoner is being held, he is clubbed on the back of the head by two of Ringerman's accomplices and left in a distinctly un-Clintlike heap on the ground.

Annoying the local cops by trying to track Ringerman down himself, Coogan passes the time by sleeping with a police psychiatrist and ignoring direct orders to return to Arizona. Of course, Clint being Clint, he gets his man, gets the girls, and ultimately gains the respect of everyone who ever doubted him.

Although not one of Eastwood's better outings, this almost proto-Dirty Harry is still worth watching, even if only as an interesting time capsule from the '60s. New York looks dirty, seedy and squalid, and Eastwood's approach to the opposite sex will probably have women shouting insults and abuse at the TV screen within half an hour. Over the course of just 95 minutes, Eastwood, in full 1960s alpha male mode, finds the time to smarm and charm his way into the knickers of three women, and does not care one jot if they go all googly over him. In fact, after sleeping him, the aforementioned sexy police psychiatrist becomes distraught when she finds out he's gone on to sleep with someone else, yet she tearfully waves him goodbye at the end like he's the best thing to ever happen to her. Meanwhile, Clint doesn't even give her a second glance, just casually sparks up a cigarette and smiles to himself. Clint :smug:

In the film's standout sequence, Clint goes to a nightclub called The Pigeon Toed Orange Peel which plays only one song ("The Pigeon Toed Orange Peel") and is absolutely crammed with body-painted go-go dancers and topless hippy chicks. Disappointingly, we never get find out what a Pigeon Toed Orange Peel actually is and the scene stays every bit as confusing as you would imagine.

Having not seen the film in over thirty years, my memory of it had clearly been clouded by time as I remember it being a far grittier and violent movie than it actually is. In actual fact, after an initially fairly tense opening ten minutes, it becomes fairly run-of-the-mill cop-themed comedy drama stuff for an hour or so (complete with a running joke of Clint being mistaken as Texan) before finally getting down to it. On the plus side though, it's rarely dull, it's acted reasonably well, and Eastwood's hair and cowboy hat are simply magnificent in their featured supporting roles.

6.5/10

[Metalchemyst]

^ Is that the film with the fight scene in a bar where Clint twats two blokes with a pool cue after they knock him down?