Change Your Image
associates-47728
Reviews
Hellraiser (2022)
A great reboot of this franchise
A quick disclaimer - ever since watching the first Hellraiser movie I have been an avid fan of this franchise and have watched all of the movies in it multiple times. Some of the later movies were very low budget so my expectations for this latest weren't high to begin with but I was very pleasantly surprised.
The story appeared to borrow from several of the earlier movies but with enough original material that it still felt like it's own movie. I personally loved the fact it drew on the unique features of what I had come to associate with a Hellraiser movie rather than try and reinvent everything. I felt the acting was great with a powerful performance by the lead character and good supporting characters. Special effects weren't always the best - some of it was great, some would have been great 20 years ago but by modern standards were average however for me this didn't detract from my enjoyment of the movie. The sound track was very good and really set the mood and I felt compensated for the aforementioned special effects.
If they make a sequel I'll be watching it.
Fall (2022)
It's been a long time since I have enjoyed a movie this much!
I think what made this movie particularly enjoyable for me is that it was totally believeable. You've only to look on Youtube to find people doing the crazy stuff in this movie for real. While it was a pretty simple story I believe it was told extremely well with great acting, excellent script, amazing photography and most importantly well edited! The movie was exactly the length it needed to be to tell the story (unlike so many movies these days that tend to be at least 30 minutes longer than they really needed to be). I recommend you watch it on a decent sized screen to get the full benefit of the great camera work (watching it on a laptop or phone won't do it justice).
No Time to Die (2021)
Best Bond movie yet (and I've watched them all)
After hearing a few people say this movie was long, slow and boring I was somewhat surprised to discover it was none of those things. For me this was the best of the new style of Bond movie mixed in with some of the elements of the old style that I loved.
My partner usually falls asleep 30 minutes into a Bond movie but she stayed awake for all 2 hours and 43 minutes of this one and loved every minute of it.
Great balance of story telling, character development and action and suspense to a back drop of amazing scenery accompanied by a great sound track.
Spy (2015)
An unexpected gem of a movie
To be honest I didn't expect much from this movie. The poster really put me off it but the trailer hooked me in enough for me to give it a go.
I was pleasantly surprised on several fronts. From a comedic standpoint this movie had plenty of laugh out loud moments. From unexpected jokes to cliched jokes done well enough that they were still funny. To some degree I felt the movie was laughing at itself and pulled this off. Less astute viewers might miss this and feel that the movie is using them for the sake of trying to be clever but in my opinion that was an element of its brilliance.
From an acting point of view I felt that Melissa McCarthy and Miranda Hart delivered the best performances of any movie that I have seen them in and felt they worked well together. Also notable was Jessica Chaffin and Jason Statham.
As for the script I felt it moved the story along nicely. A great balance of comedy, action and drama well paced through out the movie.
This movie was beautiful to watch in HD with some lovely locations and sets which added to my overall enjoyment. This is a movie I will enjoy watching again one day and would risk watching a sequel should they ever make one.
Justice League (2017)
So much better than I expected
I always thought DC had set themselves a difficult task in trying to play catch up to Marvel Studios Avengers. There is no where near the number of movies developing the characters as Marvel had and in my opinion the JL line up chosen for the movie contained two characters I've only ever been Luke warm over. So coupled with some of the less than complimentary reviews I'd read about this movie my expectations weren't great. Thankfully I was very pleasantly surprised. I thought every aspect of this movie was excellent. Casting was definitely on point and I loved each actors portrayal of their characters and the interaction between them and look forward to future stand alone movies further exploring and developing these characters. I also thought the story was epic in its scope. To me it made sense that it would take a threat of the magnitude they faced to bring such independent and disparate heroes together for the first time so worked really well. The special effects were amazing and I loved the sound track and thought it appropriate. I can imagine someone that hasn't followed the DC universe prior to this movie could find it a bit overwhelming (most critics I'm guessing) since it covers a lot of ground but if you're a fan of the DCU I can't see why you wouldn't love this movie.
Echo Effect (2015)
No redeeming features
You don't need a spoiler alert with this movie because it was spoiled before it was even finished. I'm a real fan of Steve Austin and bought this movie on that basis. Just a shame that I couldn't make it to the end of the movie. Which is saying a lot because I have a very high pain threshold when it comes to bad movies and can normally soldier on through to the bitter end. Not with this lame puppy though. I was having serious misgivings at the 3 minute mark but hung in there hoping for some Steve Austin goodness to redeem the sad train wreck of a movie but finally conceded defeat at the 40 minute mark. Sometimes these sort of Z grade movies can be entertaining because of how bad they are but this one didn't entertain at any level. Predictable plot, very poor acting, lousy script, unbelievably unrealistic use of weapons and unarmed combat, sound track that was often inappropriate to what was happening on screen, poorly conceived sets and the list goes on. Pretty sure they used some of the crews houses and apartments for filming and prepped them by removing personal photos etc from the wall because why else would a living room have a whole bunch of empty picture hooks on the wall? Why was I even noticing stuff like that? Spotting the list of errors in this movie could be made into its own movie. The best part of this movie was the satisfying clunk it made as it bounced off the bottom of my trash can.