Reviews

A fairly likable film, but I feel that Ratatouille is undeserving of the high praise heaped upon it. Number 129 in the IMDb Top 250? Are you kidding me? Above Toy Story 2? Above Finding Nemo? Above The Incredibles (arguably the finest animated movie ever)? And, I'm not the world's biggest fan of it, but above The Lion King?

The only area that Ratatouille is superior to any of the afore-mentioned films is the excellent, realistic animation and the innovative 'action' sequences. Character development? Minimal. Laugh-out-loud moments? Reserved for the last twenty minutes...the biggest redeeming feature of the film (well done Mr O'Toole). Silly plot twists? Check. Overkill of a premise? Check. Speaking English with newspapers in French? Check. Overdone physical 'comedy'? Check. Pointless violence? Check.

I think a little more time needed to be spent on the script and not how well it was presented. I didn't feel much of a connection to any of the characters, and did not become emotionally involved with Remy until the end of the film.

However, this isn't a BAD film, it's just disappointing. Brad Bird's Incredibles saga was a hugely engaging, entertaining and funny film, and this is not. I know a lot of people may disagree with me (129th??), but I felt this fell way short of the bar. Bring on The Incredibles 2 and let's give thanks that Hayao Miyazaki is still churning them out. At least Spirited Away is in a fitting place on the Top 250.

Very enjoyable Bond film. Some of the action sequences suffer from overkill, but are still exciting, if a little convoluted. I was almost ready to blast the movie for not including the James Bond theme, but...oh, you'll have to watch it.

Daniel Craig is a great Bond. Full of pith and vinegar, cold and charismatic, sexy and sinister. It's almost as if the opening black and white sequence tells you to forget everything you knew about Bond and the franchise so far...this is Bond re-born, year zero.

Once the movie gets into the plot of the original novel, the movie is in full swing. Obviously plot devices such as mobile phones and state-of-the-art MI6 communication have been inserted to modernise Bond, but the story does not suffer for it.

I've heard a lot of people say that they hate Bond movies, but they really liked this one. People also comment that they don't like the gadgets either. What the hell? Are the gadgets not one of the most exciting elements of a Bond film? The suitcase in From Russia With Love? The key-ring from The Living Daylights? The Lotus car/submarine from The Spy Who Loved Me? The Aston Martin from Goldfinger? Come on! This is certainly a re-invention, but the lack of some Bond traits disappointed me. Die Another Day was, quite rightly, hailed as the worst movie of the franchise, and CR does set things right again. A wonderful sign of things to come...but please, don't forget the roots of the series. Some things must be updated, but not everything.

All in all a very good movie, Bond film or not.

As many a movie-goer has said...the penguins were the best thing in Madagascar. There seems to be an alarming trend in animated films where secondary characters outshine the main cast, eg: Scrat from the Ice Age films.

What more could you ask of the penguins? Great characters, wonderful quotes, hilarious visual antics and fantastic animation. I was so excited the DVD contained this wonderful Christmas short, and I constantly watch it in favour of Madagascar...although sometimes I just watch the penguin bits.

I'll leave you all with some of my favourite penguin lines:

"Hoover Dam! We're still in New York! Abort! Dive! Dive! Dive!" "Shittake mushrooms! No more cute and cuddly!" "Never bathe in hot oil and Bisquick?" "Gotcha! Just kiddin' doll, the people are fine. They're on the slow boat ride to China." "This is all some kind of whacked-out conspiracy. We're going to the wide-open spaces of Antarctica." "Eggnog at 2100 hours, writing our names in the snow at 2105."

It's almost like it was directed by Kubrick's son. Sure it wasn't a Kubrick film, but it had similar themes and pacing as some of his movies. Spielberg is too much of a director in his own right to make A.I. the way Kubrick envisioned it.

That being said I thought this film was fantastic. Osment and Law were wonderful in their roles, Law in particular showing a lot of believability to his robotic performance. The premise is nothing new, but the state of the world in the future is terrifying. A world where many cities are now drowned and robots are built to perform tasks only to be discarded later.

That is what is so heart-breaking about this movie. A robot programmed to love a woman as a mother is then rejected by her. He then spends the rest of his life wanting to be a real boy so she will love him. The final thirty minutes of this film had me in tears. It was a dark, depressing film at times, but ultimately, it was a happy ending.

Well done to the human touches given to the robots. Robin Williams' voice for Dr Know, Chris Rock's brief comedy robot and of course, Jack Angel's wonderful voice for Teddy. You forgot that Teddy was just a teddy bear. Take that Wilson!

This isn't for everybody and it certainly isn't for every Kubrick fan. Try not to have any pre-conceived notions of what you're in store for. It is incredible how human this story really is.

What a great idea for a story, and a great way to tell it. You can't turn your brain off with this one. Every scene makes the previous scene make sense, and if you switch off you miss vital plot developments.

The film is all down to Guy Pearce and the incredible editing. His sincerity and complete believability in the role of Leonard is fantastic. How this film didn't get more notice is beyond me. The fact that it didn't pick up the Oscars for editing and original screenplay is baffling.

I just know that I'm going to be doubting what is real in my memory for a few days. Recommended for those who like to think, and want to break from the typical Hollywood blockbuster no-brainer. Well done Mr Nolan!

A great movie with a plot that just unravels on its own terms. Great characters and incredible action sequences are the backbone of this fantastic film. It's also beautiful to watch, with the cinematography wonderfully capturing the lush scenery as well as the dazzling fights. My only criticism is that the background story of Lo and Jen goes on for too long. I felt that I wanted to get back to the compound, and follow the rest of the story. Otherwise, this is an almost flawless film, without the typical Hollywood endings or twists.

While the supporting cast is excellent, make no mistake: this is Hugo Weaving's film. He constantly keeps the audience guessing and easily changes his role from the victim to the villain by the tweaking of his facial features.

Hugo is starting to make waves in the international scene, and hopefully, if there's any justice he will a win similar success that Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce are enjoying. Roles in the Matrix (and now Lord Of The Rings) trilogy are winning him notice.

This film is recommended for those don't think any movie made in Australia (by Australians) can be worth watching. A very intelligent film that demands your attention and holds your intrigue until the very last shot.

A very bold and uncompromising movie. Filmed in black and white with a doomed ending, eerie symbolism and mysterious messages a-plenty, it is clearly not your average piece of cinema. It is very weird, and almost nonsensical in parts, but I love this movie. I love Johnny Depp's left-of-centre movie choices, and this is certainly that.

For some reason, I love the opening scene between Depp and the extremely under-used Crispin Glover. It makes very little sense, but it sets the tone for the rest of the movie perfectly. Glover's delivery of the line "I wouldn't trust no words written on no piece of paper by no Dickinson from the town of Machine' is eerily prophetic and even disturbing.

A different western with wonderful performances from the strangest group of actors assembled together in recent memory. Recommended for film buffs that are not afraid to make their own conclusions, and don't need to have everything spoon-fed to them.

This fascinating TV special about Billy Connolly's adventures in the Arctic shows more insight into Billy's personality than the beautiful landscape. There are some moments where he is alone, talking to a camera, and we get a sense of how he sometimes likes being isolated and enjoys his solitude. Quite interesting for a man who comes across as being so extroverted.

There is one part where he groans about the rest of the crew joining him during the day. He says its so peaceful and tranquil until he hears the sleds and noises of the others arriving. He almost comes across as a bit of grumpy hermit, but this doesn't make you love him any less. He is still entertaining, and he is still funny. There are some glorious scenes of nature and interesting trivia as well. Recommended if you want a nature show with a difference.

Heroes' Mountain offers a great insight into the Thredbo tragedy. We Australians were devastated by this disaster and we all greatly admired the sole survivor Stuart Diver. This movie shows his ordeal very well, with a fine performance from Craig McLachlan as Diver. Every member of the supporting cast was excellent, lending such believability to their performances that you forgot that you were watching the film, and not the real thing.

The only drawback, I felt, was that it didn't deal with the aftermath at all. We got told that Stuart Diver recovered and eventually returned to Thredbo. It would have been good to know other details of the tragedy, rather than just focusing on Diver. How many people were killed? What happened to the families of the victims? What did Stuart Diver achieve after the accident, if anything?

It is a well directed film, and very engaging. Particularly for those of us who remember seeing Stuart Diver pulled out live on television in 1997. Well done to all the actors. Definitely worth a look.

The best thing in Ali is the acting. Will Smith, Jon Voight, Jamie Foxx, Mario Van Peebles, Mykelti Williamson; everyone in the cast gives a great performance.

The worst thing is the length of the film. It goes for nearly three hours and it drags (it felt like Lord Of The Rings went for two hours) due to some long, boring sequences. We want to see Ali fight, or hear him launch verbal attacks at a press conference or finding out about some major incident in his lifetime. Instead we get to see Ali running around in Africa for nine minutes (which feels like twenty) and we suffer through pointless montage sequences which make no sense.

This had the makings of being another Raging Bull, but it just isn't as entertaining. Will Smith does carry some of the film, as you put up with the slow parts to see more of his performance. It also felt like parts of the movie wanted to deal more with Malcolm X or the Black Muslims than Ali himself. It needed more focus, quicker pacing and more character depth.

A very enjoyable film with fast pacing, funny moments and plot twists a-plenty. A great cast giving great performances, and a much livelier script than the original 1960 film, make this so easy to watch. Highly recommended for Soderbergh fans and movie buffs in general.

What a follow-up to Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels! It's the closest thing to a sequel without being one. The same kind of humour, similar characters and more harrowing situations. Guy Ritchie has such a visual style that gives his films such energy! The opening character introductions are fantastic and cleverly edited together.

Sure, the story is nothing new, and the characters are stereotypes, but it is heaps of fun. It is on par with LockStock and the two make an excellent double feature. How many quotes and one-liners can you and your friends swap from these films? Great cast, great storytelling and great fun!

A great dose of action, comedy and suspense. Full of great quotes and eccentric characters. Wonderful use of colour (or lack of it) and different styles and effects. Very enjoyable and fun film!

Just as good as Snatch. Watch the two films together. What a fun double! Enjoy!

This movie had a promising premise and a great cast. Unfortunately it was very slow-moving and an effort to watch. Some scenes were very entertaining, but the story could have been told in almost half the time. That would have also contributed to it being a more enjoyable film.

I was disappointed by Martin Brest's first effort since Scent Of A Woman, one of my favourite films. It had none of that movie's fun, emotion or humanity. Pitt and Hopkins, as always, delivered very fine performances and Jeffrey Tambor impressively showed his serious side.

If you have the time, it's worth a look, but it's no Scent Of A Woman.

Not an original story, but an original presentation. We've all seen similar plots in similar films before, but rarely are the performances this believable, the direction this excellent, or the stories this gripping. I loved the changes in cinematography used to contrast the different settings, the highly original camera angles and the clever interweaving of the separate plot lines.

I know there are some who think that Zeta-Jones lets the film down, but there is not one dud performance in my opinion. Every cast member shows a strong window into their character's plight. Whilst Del Toro was very good, I did feel that all the acclaim and awards that he received from this role made his performance a little overrated. He was wonderful to watch, but my expectations of him were very high due to the hype surrounding the film. In retrospect, I think I understand what was so impressive. It was great to see Cheadle and Guzmán paired together against a very under-used Miguel Ferrer, as well as Quaid and Douglas in meaty roles.

Very refreshing use of interwoven plot lines since the swarm of movies using them post-Pulp Fiction. I've noticed a few comparisons to Magnolia because of this, but that is the only similarity. You get more closure in this movie and it hits the point quickly and clearly. In all, Traffic is an excellent film worthy of all acclaim it had received. It deserved to win the Best Picture Oscar, considering it won in all its other nominated categories (but we all know that Gladiator had the Hollywood Epic sign stamped all over the voters). Do you find it spooky that three of the four Oscar winners from Traffic are named Stephen or Steven?

Higher than highly recommended.

Don't get me wrong. I did really like Magnolia, but I felt that it was a big ALMOST. The acting is incredible. Each cast member delivers a fantastic performance that endears you toward their character and their plight. The weaving of the sub-plots are extremely well edited and strung together. When it is engaging, it is very well written.

Unfortunately parts of the film feel too long, and some scenes could have been cut in half. And there was the feeling of wanting to see more of Stanley or Mackey, but we got lumped with an endless Partridge monologue, or a tedious bar scene with Donnie Smith. Sometimes the direction was wonderfully clever and quick-moving, and at others boring and slow, for no real reason.

The frogs was a unique touch that was unnecessary, and I felt was put into the film out of whimsey. Yes, yes, yes, Exodus 8:2, a plague of frogs in Egypt, but how does that correlate with the plot of the movie? It ultimately affects two of the characters, but it just being 'one of those things' doesn't wash.

The overriding triumph of this film is the humanity, and what people deal with while living their lives. It is well worth seeing, bearing in mind that you are really seeing one day in the lives of ordinary (and not-so ordinary) people.

PS: In the DVD documentary, Paul Anderson does not talk about Magnolia as being one of top five best screenplays ever. He's talking about the film Network (1976) when viewing it to his team to show what he's looking for in the portrayal of Jimmy Gator. And he talks about what other people think of Boogie Nights, and how Magnolia will (and did) get compared to it.

PPS: It is not the most overlooked film of 1999. Fight Club was. At least Magnolia got some awards and critical acclaim.

I feel that Australian movies are very underrated and not given enough credit by it's own audience. It seems that respect and/or interest has to be earned, which is apparent in the success of Working Dog's new film, The Dish.

Although, there are a handful of great Aussie films to come out of the 90's that even we Aussies love. Romper Stomper, Priscilla, Muriel's, The Castle, but to name a few are all classics; and now Two Hands has earned that title.

A very original movie, although the plot is nothing new, that uses black humour, shock tactics, romance and action to tell the plight of Jimmy, played by the excellent Heath Ledger. This is such an enjoyable film, and being an Aussie, I was so happy to be hearing our language and watching our scenery. The engaging script written (and directed) by Gregor Jordan is fast-paced and full of wit and humanity. It was wonderful to see Bryan Brown as a bad guy, and only an Aussie film could have a villain named Pando.

I highly recommend this film to Aussies who tend to bag Australian films. Maybe the reason they don't have the success and the hype of the UK and US films, is because we don't believe in the ability of our own film industry. Don't wait to hear how good an Aussie film is, just go see it.

I was so impressed with what Tim Burton had done to The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow. Anyone who has read the story, or is familiar with it, will know that Headless Horseman wasn't real at all. Which is why this movie works so well - the Headless Horseman is very real indeed.

You put Johnny Depp together with Tim Burton and you get gold. This is no different from their other collaborations. Brilliant mood, art direction and costuming makes you feel like you are watching the Disney cartoon come to life. I was applauding Burton's nod to Disney's animated short with an almost exact replication of Brom Bones throwing the flaming pumpkin at Ichabod Crane.

Andrew Kevin Walker changed the story for the better. If they had remade the original story, people would have been bored to tears. This is a wonderful action film that is filled with great imagery, human emotion and quirky humour. Highly recommended.

I was riveted to the serial chapters of The Green Mile when Stephen King first published them in 1996 and I was absolutely delighted to learn of the film being made. I was really hoping that they wouldn't screw it up. I needn't have worried.

This is a brilliant film, and it is as close to perfection as you can get. It is everything I wanted it to be. The entire cast are magnificent, particularly Michael Clarke Duncan and Doug Hutchinson. I feel that Michael Jeter's performance was ignored, because he was fantastic. Tom Hanks, as always, well...the man can do no wrong. He's an excellent actor.

I can only describe this movie as essential viewing. It will move you so much, if you haven't seen it yet, please take the time. Be prepared for that lump in your throat, though.

Of course this film is not for the squeamish, which is why 8MM hasn't received much critical acclaim and has such an unfair rating on this site. Considering Se7en is similar in many ways, I am surprised that this movie has had much less success, almost slipping by unnoticed.

This is a brilliant film. Driven by Nicholas Cage's excellent performance of a man falling into a world he didn't know existed. The downward spiral of a naive, out-of-their-depth character into a hidden underworld hasn't been portrayed this well since Lynch's Blue Velvet. Whilst singling out Cage, I should also point out that the entire cast is excellent. Each actor being well-cast and adding great dimensions to their characters.

My only criticism is the stereotypical wife who is loving at the start of the film, and then gets all hysterical and threatening to leave at the end. Sound familiar? But other than that, an excellent achievement of creating a dank, sinister theme that only gets worse as the movie accelerates.

Anything that Andrew Kevin Walker's name is attached to, I will make a point of seeing. I love his stories. Anyone who loved Se7en and Sleepy Hollow owes it to themselves to watch and enjoy this outstanding piece of film-making.

One of Kubrick's best films, and probably his most accessible. His deliberate slow-paced style is less of a feature with every scene holding your interest. A lot of people say that the first forty minutes is all that's worth watching but the rest of the film contains many satirical and political comments of the stupidity of the Vietnam War. The boot camp is definitely the strongest section due largely to excellent performances from R. Lee Ermey and Vincent D'Onofrio. All in all an excellent film about the horrors of war with Matthew Modine in an underrated role. Arguably the best war film ever made.

An extremely enjoyable fast-paced barrage of Robin Williams live in San Francisco. He is amazing to watch as he bounces of audience members and his own manic genius. Highly recommended for those who have only seen Robin in the movies. It is impossible not to laugh out loud, as funny as Eddie Murphy's Delirious. The only drawback is the 'encore' and the ending which incorporate one of his SNL characters. Nevertheless it is well worth watching.

You really need to throw reality out the window to enjoy this excellent film. Luckily, it's not hard to do, as it's so easy to get up in the story and actually believe in what is happening. Anyone who does not allow themselves to believe is not going to like this movie. It's such an enjoyable film, very entertaining and holds your interest.

A really great film, it's great to see Jim Caviezel working again. Dennis Quaid is also excellent and believable. Highly recommended.

An excellent film, and very Kubrickesque. Lots of the brilliant director's classic trademarks are in here: the deliberate pacing, zooms, the angle of the close-ups, etc, etc. What I loved most about this film was that you weren't given a clear-cut answer to anything. The house, Nick, Mandy, the dream, you could make of it what you wanted. Maybe that's why so many people didn't get it, because they needed it spelt out and spoon fed to them.

I have been waiting for a new Kubrick film for years. Funnily enough the first film of his I saw was 1987's Full Metal Jacket, which I rate as one of his best. I loved EWS. It was everything I hoped it would be. Well acted, well directed, well written and well shot. I will never look at a mask again without getting goosebumps.

My only criticism (if any) is that the start was a little slow-paced (what Kubrick film isn't), but that's it. A great movie. Stanley Kubrick RIP.