Movie Review

Title; Tomorrow When the War Began

Starring: Caitlin Stasey, Rachael Hurd-wood, Lincoln Lewis, Deniz Akdeniz, Phoebe Tonkin, Chris Pang, Ashleigh Cummings, Andy Ryan.  

Rating: 4 Exploding Bridges

Review:  You better believe that, despite a high rating, I am going to be damned critical of this film. I have read the book (twice) and while I am generally impressed with the accuracy, I am still annoyed.

The basic plot is that, instead of going to the annual Wirrawee Australia Day Fair, seven teenagers go camping in a place called Hell. The irony of this is that Hell is both beautiful and peaceful, but it is also their only safe place to go when trouble arises.

During one night of their trip, they see a large number of military aircraft flying overhead. They dismiss it as something to do with their own military. This becomes less likely when they come home to find everything abandoned, all power and electricity out and no one to be found. Most animals are dead or starved, but there is no person to speak of.

That night, from the hill behind one of their homes, they see only the showground and hospital are alight. The story continues with trying to regroup after an investigation of what is happening, which is then followed by a need to do something to help. A radio announcement tells them that Cobblers Bay, which is not too far away, is one of the main ports bringing in supplies. There is only one way through from Cobblers Bay, and that is a bridge to Wirrawee. Using a fuel tanker, rope and lighter as ammunition, a stampede for a distraction and a hidden set of motorbikes as getaway vehicles, how could it go wrong?

Well, I’ll tell you. Robyn (Ashleigh Cummings) is portrayed badly. In the book, she is presented as someone who is a little unsure but determined. At the end of the third book (The Third Day, the Frost) she does something so brave that she should be awarded the Purple Heart. She is not a deeply religious character, even though her parents (for all we know) probably are.

The end of the movie is far and away from the direction of the books. The characters somehow get their hands on a mass amount of weapons, black combat clothing and the like, and go marching off to Cobblers Bay. While it is true that they do attack Cobblers Bay in the series, it is not with that much equipment or with that much determination. They remain as unsure and unable as they started. Fairies did not drop off a crate of machine guns, rifles, ammunition belts, war-suited clothing and pistols during the night. Sorry, no!     -1

The modernization of the book is well done, considering the book was released in 1993, and we are a little more advanced than that. But the backwards steps to the technology they would have had anyway was well done, as the telecommunication towers were knocked out and the power cut. So they couldn’t rely on their cells and the internet. +.5 

Lastly, there is way too much character development if they are going to continue filming the series. Elle and Lee (Caitlin Stasey and Chris Pang) are getting too close too fast, as are Kevin and Fi (Deniz Akdeniz and Phoebe Tonkin). They take at least three or four books to get that close. -.5 Kevin and Corrie (Lincoln Lewis and Rachael Hurd-wood) develop a bond, there is no pretence to sex in the book and they are not declaring their love for each other by the end of the book. Kevin is too stubborn and ‘manly’ to admit his feelings. For all of you who want a bit of an insight into what will happen, Kevin will be back, his dog (which shouldn’t have been there in the first place) probably won’t be and Corrie has a minor role left.

The last thing I did notice was an age old problem with these sorts of movies, and that is facial hair. The guys are old enough to be shaving, but watch Kevin and Homer closely. While they have appearing and disappearing stubble, it never gets long enough for the duration of time that has passed. While I don’t expect to see them shaving, I do expect them to have a certain amount of growth. But I won’t dub points for that.

The movie is good for its adaptation, and Elle has some of the best lines. My personal  favourite is…

Robyn: Wow. You’re dangerous

Elle: (at the wheel of a garbage truck). That’s what my driving instructor said   

With a rating of 4, it has taken spot number 5 on the top 10 list, pushing ‘the Prestige’ down to 6 and eliminating ‘Night of the Living Dead.’

Title: Kung Fu Hustle

Starring: Stephen Chow, Yuen Wa, Leung Siu Lung, Dong Zhi Hua, Chiu Chi Ling, Xing Yu

Rating: 4.5 Kung Fu Techniques

Review: I’ve heard of this movie as one of the most brilliant martial arts films there is. However, it is what is referred to as Wire Fu, as there is no possible way someone could defy gravity like that. But that does not cost this movie a point. So when I found the CD in a case in a crate in the back corner of the spare room of where my stuff is in storage and realised I hadn’t watched it, I blew the dust off and set the DVD player to play.

I had a few ideas of what this film might be about, considering the style of filming, and era it comes from, but it was set very differently. The movie looks like it is going to be serious, then it gets rough and then comical, and then tends to jump between that, martial arts action and a wondering of who the hero is.

The movie starts with the overpowering of a Yakuza gang by another yakuza gang known as the ‘Axe Gang’. They are ruthless killers who use fireworks to call each other. It Is rather cool in itself. The movie then moves to the poor parts of the land where two people are trying to fake being a member of the Axe Gang to get money. This backfires when the actual Axe Gang turns up looking to control the area. This gets overthrown by three Kung Fu Experts Who have remained otherwise hidden within the town. The Axe Gang is beaten off and the Experts face the town.

The Land Lady of the area isn’t impressed and kicks them out. Upon their last night, as the three men leave, they encounter two assassins hired by the Axe Gang, who have a mystical guitar board that kills all three of them. In a shock twist, the Land Lady and abused husband turn out also to be Experts. Her special move is known as the lion’s roar, which is quite a powerful wall of sound. With a peace offering, they let the heads of the gang live.

Meanwhile, the two men who tried to fake their way into the Axe Gang have been offered positions in the Axe Gang if they can kill someone. Needless to say these two pathetic idiots have no skill in anything except lock-picking and sleeping. The hero (played by Stephen Chow, but no actual character name) walks away with four knives and some cobra bites. This he manages to heal from with no memory.

We also learn that Stephen was offered a fighting manual as a kid, which is known as the Buddha’s Hand Falling From Heaven. He also tried to save a girl from being bullied as she was a deaf mute, and got bullied himself. She offered him peace, he turned her down. She now runs an ice-cream trolley and he robs her. He later tries to kill her for the money she has, only to discover she is the same girl.

Stephen’s next assignment is to free a fighter from an asylum. This slap-stick break-in-and-out is rather disappointing on his behalf. The man broken out is an absolute master. He fights with our two remaining experts, as the other three were killed, and the fight seems to be a tie. Stephen attacks the master and gets every bone and tendon broken for his efforts.

As he mystically heals, he discovers he has the Kung Fu power and the manual he read as a kid was indeed a powerful (and lost) art. Defeating the master, the master bows to him and swears obedience. Considering he is a lying cheat, I wouldn’t have trusted him, but there you go.

The movie has a nice little joke at the end which will make you wonder if a sequel was ever thought of. Since I hate sequels, I hope one wasn’t. It’d make good fan fiction though.

I rather enjoyed this movie as it was different to a lot of other Martial Arts films. There was a lot more comedy to it than any others and the fighting skill was still good enough for me to appreciate. I am disappointed that one of the original three experts got dropped before he had a chance to fight, because I enjoyed his technique the most, but you can’t have everything.

I took a .5 off because if you consider how much of a beating some of them take, they really shouldn’t get up again. That and the ongoing error that one character with his hair on fire in one scene has a perfectly good head of hair in the next scene. Whoops!

I’d definitely watch this movie again. It has taken third place on the top ten list. It has bumped ‘The Color Purple’ down to fourth and ‘Splinter is off the list.     

Title: Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

Starring: Logan Lerman, Brandon T. Jackson, Alexandria Daddario, Sean bean, Uma Therman, Pierce Brosnan, Jake Abel, Kevin McKidd

Rating: 3.5 Lightning Bolts

Review: As a fan of Greek mythology and worshiper of certain Greek deities, you had better believe I had this movie right under the microscope from the get go.

So we open upon Poseidon (Kevin McKidd) going to visit Zeus (Sean Bean) and they are arguing over the child of Poseidon being the one who stole the lightning bolt from Zeus. This instantly led to two conclusions. 1) Zeus is really foolish for leaving the most destructive weapon made lying around. 2) Sean Bean won’t be dying in this film, which seems to be against his usual genre.

The son of Poseidon is our main protagonist and I like that. I often feel that Poseidon is over-looked as one of the three main gods of Greek mythology. Movies often focus on the relationship between Zeus and Hades (Steve Coogan) or the child of Zeus. So Poseidon is in the middle of this. His son is clueless as to his lineage, until a Fury (looking a lot like a harpy) attacks. This leads us to understand that Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman) with ADHD and dyslexia actually can read ancient Greek and has advanced battle instincts. So he is whisked away by his best friend Grover (Brandon T. Jackson) who is really a satyr to a training camp in the middle of nowhere. Percy Jackson, however, loses his mother to a Minotaur.

Percy, meanwhile, learns he can fight and has mystical powers of water, and kicks the arse of Athena’s daughter Annabeth (Alexandria Daddario). Hades then shows up and offers the exchange of the lost lightning for Percy’s mother. Without a lot of idea on what to do, Percy goes to Luke (Jake Abel) who is the son of Hermes. He tells them that they need to get three pearls and go to Hades via Persephone (Rosario Dawson).

Three pearls, one for each of our heroes (Percy, Grover and Annabeth) go on a road trip across America to find all the pearls on the surface. One is guarded by a Medusa (which was actually the name of the Queen of the gorgon monsters) and take Medusa (Uma Therman) on. I gotta say that it is really cool to see how snake hair would actually look.

The second pearl is guarded by a hydra and this is where Percy discovers how to control water. However, Percy did not know (for some stupid reason) that if you take a Hydra head off, two grow back. EVERYONE knows that! YEISH! He also has a conversation with Annabeth and she tells the story of Athens and how both Athena and Poseidon wanted to be the patron deity of the town, and the people chose Athena. This caused a rift between Poseidon and Athena. Some research would have told them it was Ares who had the rift with Athena, not Poseidon. DUH!

With the third pearl retrieved from Los Vegas, they venture into hell and discover the location of the lightning bolt and the movie comes to a fight and an otherwise predictable ending. What really pissed me off is the way that, once again, Zeus and Hades are enemies. Would it really hurt ANYBODY to do a LITTLE research? It has never been written Hades hated his position, it is often written that Hades OPTED for his position. He wanted to rule the dead and the Underworld, and he got it. The Persephone story is a standard translation; however, some of the lines are really good between them.

So I took a point off for all of the bad, and seriously, these are silly errors. Even Wikipedia could disprove the movie quickly. The other half point comes off because this movie flowed too much like a video game. I realise that the movie is focused at a younger audience than me, but still, it could be a little more… smooth-flowing.

Note to the older generations; it appears that the next generation of Eddie Murphy and Chris Tucker actors are here. Seriously, do a comparison between them and Brandon T. Jackson. Very similar acting styles.         

Title: Sherlock Holmes – Game of Shadows

Starring: Robert Downey Jr, Jude Law, Noomi Rapace, Jared Harris, Stephen Fry

Rating: 3.5 Black Chess pieces

Review: when it comes to sequels, most of my friends (and some readers) know I am not a fan. Sequels simply mean the same story, slightly different context, but otherwise a mirror of its original predecessor. A good example of this would the ‘The Mummy’ and ‘The Mummy Returns’. Even the people I knew who had seen this film before me said it wasn’t as good. I do have to agree, but not for the same reasons. As sequels go, this one was actually pretty good. The story continued on from the point it left off with only a little bit of time having elapsed.

Many reviews I’ve read beforehand suggest that the relationship between Dr. Watson (Jude Law) and Sherlock (Robert Downey Jr) was somewhat overdone and camped up from the subtle to the directly obvious gay humour. While this is true, I don’t feel it impacted badly on the relationship between the two characters. As a reader of the books and a fan of a few of the series, this is simply another way of seeing their relationship and how to have fun with it. It doesn’t matter what version of Sherlock Holes you are watching, you will find that he and Watson are always having goes at each other for one reason or another. In the original texts, Watson is continuously put off by Sherlock putting down his writings and approaches to solving crimes. In the movies Watson Is a lot more focused than in other series, but his relationship with Sherlock is more bromantic than a lot of other series (and is similar, though more camp than the TV series of ‘Sherlock’). So when it came to the negative take on this, the humour that went with it and the telling of the story, there is no issue here for me. The only downside to their relationship is how they treat each other otherwise. The respect that is there in any other context is gone, so I’m not impressed with the slinging matches they always have. Movie 1 made it humorous, movie two made it too angry and therefore, unreal.

This movie also keeps up one of the traditions of Sherlock Holmes, in that Sherlock does (supposedly) die during the series of books. The movie even went so far as to get the place right, so I can’t be too critical of that either. Even as a canon Nazi, I still find myself contented with this. The original story, “The Final Problem” Sherlock does indeed die at the Reichenbach Falls which are in northern Switzerland. When this story was published originally in ‘The Daily Telegraph’ in Dec 1893, thousands of people cancelled their readership. Sherlock was revived in “The Hound of Baskervilles” which was a prequel, and then fully revived at a later date. FYI: Sherlock Holmes eventually retired from his life as a detective and became a bee-keeper.

So now we face the challenge of Moriarty (Jared Harris). The character that gives so much life to the idea of a scheming villain. He has the same intelligence as Sherlock, the same way of thinking ahead and is one of the many villains who wrote his thesis on Chess, amongst other things. While I am yet to come across Moriarty in the books (or Mycroft for that matter), I do have a general idea of what he is supposed to be like. What I find in the movies is the same idealistic and powerful man, a good plan for getting what he wants and the scheme to make it happen. I don’t feel that jared Harris had the physical presence of Moriarty, but he did have the acting skill to be him. Bu I won’t knock points off for that.

And so begins the story. And we discover that Sherlock is doing his best to piss Moriarty off. Sherlock, although somewhat successful, has not got as deep into Moriarty’s plan as he thinks, or we think. So the chase begins over Europe to find out what Moriarty is up to and to beat him at his own game. Sherlock’s disguises, which are legendary in the books, live up to their reputation throughout the movie. From being a bellboy who changes age every few minutes, a student, a beggar or even a woman, we see that Robert is not afraid to play this role. And yes, he wears the makeup. This does bring on a lot of the gay humour, but it was certainly worth it to me.

I was disappointed with the pursuit for a little while, as it did seem to drag itself out over a long period of time. For those who have seen the first movie, we had to keep our wits about us because when it was all summed up at the end, the mass of stuff all came together and made you go ‘ah ha! Context!” And while this movie did the same, the summary at the end where Sherlock and Moriarty verse off in a game of chess was not as good, as there simply wasn’t enough there to build on. Moriarty came apart too easily. -1 for downsizing and dragging what was left out.

I took another .5 off because the villains sidekick/main man etc, is supposedly the best shooter in the world, or at least one of. He can kill a man and set off a bomb in the same shot at a distance that most guns and shooters of the age couldn’t do well. So how the hell did he not manage to shoot Watson during that specific scene, or even put a poison dart into him when he had his back conveniently turned, or all the other opportunities he had to do away with our heroes? I realise it is anti-plot point, but for the love of logic, the bad guys would get what they wanted if they used theirs.

All up, this is a lot better (in my mind at least) than what people have led me to believe. If there is a follow-on movie after this, as the ending seemed to suggest there is a possibility, then I am damned well going to see it in cinema.   

Overall Top 10

1) Silent Hill (4.5) (Own)

2) Sherlock Holmes (4.5) (own)

3) Kung Fu Hustle (4.5) (own)

4) The Colour Purple (4.5) (Own)

5) The Frightners (4) (Purchase)

6) Tomorrow When the War Began (Own)

7) The Prestige (4) (Own)

8) Sleepy Hollow (4) (own)

9) Shortbus (4) (Purchase)

10) The Addams Family (4) (Own)

Next to be reviewed: 

Skyfall

Burlesque

The Adventures of TinTin