Reviews

I was looking forward to this..... but my goodness, what a long drawn out boring load of old tosh... the characters are pretty well drawn, but it's all so so dull... The diminutive lead man, tiny as he is, just doesn't fit the suits he's dressed in nor the part.

He just never really seems to own the character like he did in PB..... some of the most boring parts are the small room long drawn out scenes with boring dialogue.. is this a documentary best suited to Netflix or a drama based on historical record, a record that seems to be the most boring hearings ever recorded, and recreated semi verbatim....... all in all a huge let down.

I didn't expect much from the film but it served up a real treat.

A great story of survival against the odds acted out superbly by the three main characters who were all believable in their roles.

It's a true story and the three airmen survive their ordeal and live to tell their story.... Downed in the Pacific three relative strangers get to know each other and pull together to survive afloat with little to aid them for 34 days.......that's all I need to say without spoiling the enjoyment of the film for anyone wishing to see it.....

Highly recommended, nicely paced and the English lad proves himself a good little actor..

Great film...watch it, you won't be disappointed!

This has to be the poorest lamest excuse for a British film in decades. Never waste a penny of your own money going to see this dreadful pile of tripe. The acting, if it can be classed as such is inept and laughable throughout with the characters drawn so pathetically cartoonish it really does beg the question why?

I don't think there is one line of dialogue in the piece that is remotely realistically delivered from a script that was probably written out for the 'actors' in brightly coloured crayon. The storyline is risible and I can't believe that they could have found a worse ensemble cast anywhere on the planet....an aged hackneyed has been as the lead..a few ex TV actors as wannabees and a smattering of never will be's stumble their wooden way through a truly awful film.....what was Berkoff (sic) thinking???

Utter tripe with the most unbelievable Police service depicted since the Keystone Cops...The writers, producers and director of this steaming pile of turdishness must have a combined age of about 13.

Shoot the lot of them.

Dire....painfully.

Out of all of the Oscar nominated films that I have seen so far, Captain Phillips is the one that I have enjoyed the most as a piece of cinema. While some are banging on about 'Gravity' (Dull and boring) or '12 years a slave' (hackneyed and clichéd') Captain Phillips actually delivers. A fact based story expertly handled by Brit Paul Greengrass who manages to get the story told brilliantly. The Pirates, by and large are extremely believable, and the leader of the band, Muse, is particularly chilling, giving a tremendous performance opposite Tom Hanks by the book Captain. No point in over glossing the film, it's a damn good story, well told and executed without going over the top, especially at the conclusion where the US military intervene and save the day, even that is done in a muted and subdued fashion...a clear indication that the film is directed by an Englishman as opposed to a God fearing, bible chewing flag waving American!

Good film, worth a look.

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First off, let me say that Robert Redford handles all he has to do in the film admirably, no problem from me with regard to Redford and his acting ability, he does what he is asked to do with some aplomb. My issues with the film are what we, the audience are supposed to be making of the character that Redford is playing, surely the most inept and ill prepared solo ocean going sailor ever conceived. You have to accept from the get go that the character has to be a mariner of some experience, why else would he be alone on an ocean going boat? The film opens with Redford's character having to deal immediately with the damage caused to his boat, a two foot square hole just above the waterline inflicted on the fibreglass hull by a wayward shipping container bobbing about in the Indian Ocean. First off he uses the sea anchor to drag the container away from the hull, great stuff...but then makes a real mess of repairing the damage with the materials at hand...epoxy resin and fibreglass sheets... It's clear to us all watching that the repair will not hold, but not to the sailor. Rule number one at sea when the integrity of the boat you are sailing in has been compromised....make sure you have a plan of action and an escape route planned in advance with everything you will need close to hand. Redford's character fails to do this and appears stupefied with regard to basic seamanship skills for someone who is depicted sailing solo in the middle of an ocean. He does some pretty bizarre things, none of which help his situation. Finally the boat sinks and he is left alone in a poorly equipped life raft....just the right time to open his survival kit and try to learn from a book celestial navigation (for dummies) ...with pun intended the shark was jumped so many times in the film that the ending was heavy handed and you could see it coming for miles.....was he rescued or did he die...was the light in the distance a fishing boat or the light at the end of the tunnel...was the hand that reached for him in the water real or the last thoughts of a dead man.....

Good idea, well executed but so full of holes and incredible stupidness from the character!

Redford played the inept yachtsman perfectly....

Hmm...Don't waste your time with this nonsense as there will be better things you can do with your life for as long as this drivel plays out. If you are a teenager, and that would be a dreadful indictment on teenagers in general, so if you are a teenager with a limited attention span, then this film would be good for you, there is limited plot, barely any 'acting' and it's all delivered wrapped up in a typical Euro story set in the States. This is MTV (murder TV) for kids, where a supposed hit woman manages to outwit the police and kill people in the most far fetched ways possible, it's so full of holes it could and maybe should have been called 'Emmental', cheesy indeed. Tripe, and all concerned from writer down should be ashamed of themselves.

This 'film'is possibly one of the most banal ever produced...which is why I have to ask if it is meant to be a joke, if it is...it isn't even a very good one. There is nothing at all scary....frightening....weird.. malevolent...unexpected about it from the first frame to the last.

The main actor is pretty poor, but waaaaaay waaaaay ahead of his supporting cast who's acting abilities are akin to a bunch of 12 year olds...to be fair, delivering lines written by 4 year olds....it's absolute codswallop.

It's only saving grace is in fact it's awfulness, which is cringingly amusing.

Only watch this garbage if you have nothing better to do......no...in fact do nothing instead, it's more entertaining.

It's hard to find superlatives about this second season of Forbrydelsen which eclipses the first story by some distance, and those of you who were gripped by Sarah Lund in the original Danish drama will welcome her back to Copenhagens homicide unit after spending a couple of years checking passports in Gedser.

Lund is back, along with Lennert Brix and a new partner Ulrich Strange as Forbrydelsen II centres on the ritualistic killing of a lawyer, The Danish army and of course the many corridors of power deep within the Danish Coalition government.

Once again, we are taken on a ride through a plot full of twists, turns and intrigue as Lund investigates a serial killer systematically bumping off ex members of an elite army unit.

It's brilliantly acted and scripted and I can offer you no better advice than to watch it!

Excellent.

In a sea of mediocrity that is TV crime drama every now and again comes something so good, so brilliantly written and performed as to become the standard by which others in the genre are judged.

There are reviews on here that actually criticise this series as being flawed, of course it's flawed, real life is flawed, people make mistakes and the characters in this monumental series make plenty, that's the point.

Too many are used to a banal diet of American Cop shows where the hero's wrap everything all up perfectly inside an hour, it's dumbed down television for those that have no real insight into what is a 'true crime' drama. The fact that this series is Danish and therefore requires subtitles for the dialogue for non Danes is also a major factor in why predominantly American's seem to be unable to grasp anything at all not made for them.

Of course, they have re-made the series and set it in Seattle, but THIS is the real deal and I would urge anyone at all who think's they couldn't watch a series with subtitles to overcome their fear of reading and watch this series, every second of it.

I won't write about the plot, or the holes in it, just see it.

Brilliantly written, brilliantly acted and a series that deserves a much much wider audience.

To be honest I was never really a fan of the original film, but Dudley Moore played the wayward richly spoilt character of the movie title impeccably, he was a funny guy and knew about timing and physically was able to make us all believe he was as drunk as he was portraying. We felt sorry for him without hating him....this remake however...or re- telling as I keep hearing Helen Mirren describing it, is banal rubbish of the highest order. Russell Brand is about as funny as slowly drowning in a cess pit, and countless times during the movie I was almost compelled to cut my own head off....just NOT funny. I was under the impression that a comedic film was at least in parts suppose to make you laugh or tweak some flicker of entertainment inside the watcher....this was just a bore, and Brand is just a Boor. He could not garner one iota of sympathy from this watcher as his cringe inducing clumsy and embarrassing performance unravelled, positively unlike-able. In this film, the afore mentioned Helen Mirren causes further embarrassment as she delivers hackneyed, cliché's while playing 'Hobson'...what on earth was she thinking of?....dire.

This was 2 hours of 'humour' that seemed to be based on what was considered funny for 10 year olds in the early 70's on shows like 'Banana Splits'

Brand tries to be funny, a little like Clive Dunn's character in 'Dad's Army'...he can't act, he isn't funny, just a little sad, charmless and thoroughly annoying...and he does this for every second he is on screen....garbage.

Only consider watching this tripe if you have absolutely nothing at all in the world to do....ever.

I am not really sure what this film sets out to achieve here. Within the genre this story has been told a million times and a million times it has been told better than here. The plot is all over the place and the main protagonists are hard to watch, maybe it's the poor script or the risible way in which it is delivered...or maybe it's just because I am not a 12 year old. The only surprising thing about this movie is that those stalwarts of useless films do not appear in it, neither Danny Dire (sic) nor Vinnie Jones crop up anywhere, but you half expect them to at any moment with some rather large doses of scene chewing that they excel at. The film is neither gritty nor entertaining and offers little, I defy anyone to sit and watch this tripe and honestly say they have not...as I have just done...wasted a chunk of an evening. Utter PAP.

Superlatives are rightly being bandied around left right and centre for this most brilliant of films. There is NOTHING to detract from this movie, a story brilliantly told effortlessly by all concerned.

Telling the human story of The soon to be King George VI (played brilliantly by Oscar shoe in Colin Firth) who suffers with a stammer that makes his public speaking life unbearably uncomfortable in an age when the Empire was waking to the sounds of their Royals on the new fangled wireless.

In an age when Hitler's Jackboot was threatening to cast it's long shadow over the continent a strong leader, the figurehead of the Empire once he became King, was needed, and a stammering King would in this era be seen as weak.

Enter stage right Lionel Logue, underplayed to perfection by Geoffrey Rush, an Australian speech therapist plying his trade in London to sort out the Duke's problems.

This is a must see film, and surely, if it swept the board at the Oscars justice would be done, it's that good!

I can't think of a film that I have seen in the last year that has been better than this, with a sterling (mainly) British cast (remember..we do actors, not stars)the film is a delight from start to finish.

For the first time in my 52 years a spontaneous round of applause echoed around the theatre at the conclusion.

Ineffably fab!

...a film comes along that raises questions that just need addressing and demand answers. Machete is one such film. With a plot loosely, and I use that word guardedly, based around the steady influx of illegal immigration oozing into Texas from Mexico and their impact on the States economy you would perhaps be forgiven for thinking that the questions raised would demand some serious chin stroking about the relative merits of economic migrants. However, none of those questions even poke their metaphoric head above the parapet and instead we need to ask 'why did a player like Robert De Niro end up in this garbage?' 'Why was it made?''Who watches and rates this sort of stuff so highly' and finally a big fat 'WHY?'

Steven Segal, who has not made a decent movie since 'Nico' and has since appeared in the same dreadfully dreary film countless times as an 'ex cook/soldier/sailor who suddenly finds himself in the middle of a terrorist action and single handedly hams his way through until the mind numbingly dull finale....manages to stumble his now portly self through this claptrap while managing to keep his perfectly black hairpiece in place (grow old gracefully Steve)adding nothing to the 'plot' whatsoever.

The dialogue throughout is appallingly bad and seems to have been written by a retarded schoolboy and his mates who think that 'grown ups' talk like that....it's dire...all of it.

The action sequences consist of some old bloke with a bad mullet and a big moustache hacking various rubber appendages off of extras in poorly choreographed fight scenes that probably appeal to that same group of schoolboys that penned the script, as an 'action hero' the main character can't run, can't act and certainly in real life would not be bedded by hot women within 2 minutes of meeting them.

Don 'Miami Vice' Johnson, remember him? also appears as some grossly caricatured comedy baddie with a hat to chew up the scenery when others give him the chance to....all in all...this is a pathetic film.

Is it a comedy? did not make me laugh....is it a spoof?...did not make me laugh...is it terrible? you bet.

If you are an 11 year old shut in with a bizarre view of what baddies are then you will be right at home here, if not, give it a miss unless you really want to annoy yourself silly.

...and that's saying something!

Jean Reno sleepwalks his way through this film playing anti hero Charly Matei, a retired Marseilles gangster who is brutally gunned down following his retirement from the mob.

The premise throughout the film is that it is impossible to escape your past, no matter how many new leaf's you turn over, someone, somewhere is still looking for you.In matei's case it is childhood friend and mob boss 'Zak' who Matei sold his gangland enterprise to.

For reasons never made clear in the film Matei has to be killed because Zak has now expanded the business to include cocaine manufacture and distribution.

Pumped full of bullets and left for dead Matei begins to piece together who was responsible and following the brutal murder of loyal henchman Karim Matei packs his family off for safety and embarks on a one man killing spree culminating in a tense stand off with Zak.

Throughout the film is littered with lazy cliché' after cliché' and there are no real surprises along the way, it's not even stylish in the way that perhaps French Cinema should be.

Lazy, hampered by a poor script, and plodding in places Reno hams it up almost in 'Omage to Vincent Price, the scene in the car with Goldman as he begs her to have some compassion for his kidnapped son and his lip quivering is just text book ham, as is a later scene where he struggles his way through more barbed wire than those landing on the beaches on D Day encountered.

Pure hokum, but won't tax your cerebral cortex too much if you have nothing better to do on a rainy day.

It is hard sometimes to find anything at all worthwhile in movies. Clearly, I am not part of the demographic that the producers of this film were aiming at, after all, I am not a complete moron, not completely.

As this film centres around some snowboarding types who find themselves unfortunately stuck 40 feet up in a marooned ski lift it begs the question why such people are not able to work out a way down from their predicament, between them they had enough clothing to effect an escape by using it to make makeshift ropes to at least half the distance from the ground. You would have to be pretty unlucky to plummet to a speedy death into soft snow from say 20 feet. Once down, it is not that hard to stay put in a snow hole, the making of which should be a basic survival skill for people dumb enough to venture into snow covered mountains. Thousands of people worldwide have stayed alive out of the wind (which is what kills) in a warming shelter made from snow.

This film also does for wolves what Jaws did for sharks, painting them out as murderous savage animals intent on collaborating together to stalk and eat snowboarders. Wolves in fact rarely attack humans unless they are threatened, as pack animals that police their territory from other predators (wolves) they are more interested in human presence as observers as opposed to man eaters.

There are a few gory moments for the brain dead popcorn munchers who will doubtless enjoy seeing a man eaten alive.

There is a part in the film where a seasoned snowboarder is chased by wolves, guess who wins the race...the seasoned snowboarder on a board that can travel at 60 -70 mph or a few animals that can make 35 mph top whack downhill for short bursts?

Total rubbish.

Sorry, but I just don't get this at all. I thought movies were supposed to be entertaining, if it wasn't for Crowe's unbelievable accent(s) there would be little in this film to even bother writing about.

I found myself looking at my watch and yawning 45 minutes into the film wondering when it would ever get going. I had zero empathy with the hero mostly because I couldn't understand what he was saying most of the time or why he was speaking like a conglomeration of a cartoon oirishman, an exponent of Ecky Thump and a toothless simpleton.

The story was banal, the action sequences were OK if you like mindless excursions into medieval bloodletting ala Hollywood but mostly the acting is appallingly bad throughout with the one exception of Mark Strong who probably thought it was a good idea at the time.

The story of Robin Hood is of course legendary and in reality he would have had to have lived to be 316 years old to have done all he is supposed to have done and there is so much that could have been set to film without Ridley Scott venting his filmic licence in such a bad way with this load of old tripe.

I hope there is a follow up film that sticks more to the legend instead of trying to make it all shiny and new. Fail Ridley... F A I L

...for producing the creator, producers and director of Kick Ass...already the best movie of 2010 and one not likely to be bettered for all round entertainment!

The premise is great, take an 'average' kid and place him into a world of gangsters over his head armed only with a diving suit, a couple of sticks and a bag full of good intentions. Counter that with a bitter and twisted patriarch grooming his daughter for death, mayhem and destruction and you have an almost perfect movie, one that kept me watching throughout! The balance is perfect keeping enough comic book nuance but always grounded in the real world where no one really can fly, catch speeding bullets or climb vertical walls with impunity. There is not one wasted line and the director gets great performances out of all involved. It looks like it was a hoot to make and for me, it was a hoot and a half to watch. Best film of 2010?

It'll take some beating!

Despite all the Hoopla surrounding this 'epic'miniseries after the first half of it I am not really slavering at the mouth with anticipation for the second half of this somnambulistic waltz through the US Pacific theatre of war.

I am often saying to myself while viewing 'for fk sake get on with it'

The third episode, set entirely in Melbourne a billion miles away from the theatre was just mind numbingly boring....this is supposed to be a war story, if I wanted some half assed romantic soap I would have watched one.

The characters....pfff..who cares...I have no affiliation whatsoever with these vacuous nonentities and really hope they would all be killed off by episode 6 so we can all go home.

Utter tripe.

There are so many flaws in this film that jump out at you while watching it is hard to suspend disbelief THAT much which is of course the pre requisite for any stalk and slash movie.

I know the history of those that put this together and it's clear that they have 'borrowed' much from their own back catalogue and also used just about every cliché' in the book and that is where the film ultimately falls down.

There is not much originality left in the genre and here just about every stone is turned from Hellraiser to Horsemen and beyond.

Saw is clearly ingrained but what this lacks is any sense of purpose, there is little if any suspense built up throughout despite the dark and shadowy settings, and half way through the piece when the 'hero'has the woman scream to distract the collector and draw him to the cellar..why didn't he just hide in the shadows and hit him with a great big fk off shovel or something, instead of hiding in the shadows and running past him to prolong the film for another hour.

Hooks in skin...man called horse...horsemen...hellraiser...masked stalking killer...clearly Jason....

Give three drunken chimps the keys to an editing suite and some reels of film from the genre and you end up with this......

I was bored with the premise and film after 45 minutes...the ending was totally predictable as will be 'The collector 2'