Tag: movie review

Film Review: Logan’s Run (1976)

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I meant to write this film review months ago and I had it half-started and then totally forgot to post it. So of course now I should probably rewatch the film to refresh my memory, ha! But don’t take my procrastination as a sign that I didn’t enjoy the film. I thought it was fantastic! A true dystopian, sci-fi classic.

Logan’s Run takes place in the year 2274 where humans live in a futuristic dome, sheltered from the outside world and living lives of bountiful joy – with one painful catch: no one makes it past thirty. They are ‘renewed’ i.e. killed. Logan is a Sandman, one who works to maintain rule and keep anyone who doesn’t voluntarily ‘renew’ from ‘running’. When Logan suddenly finds himself running for his life, he encounters Jessica, and the pair join up to escape.

I must say, I was really impressed by the special effects in the movie! Like, really, really good special effects. Obviously 1976 special effects seem a bit dated now, but there were so many little things they had that I was just blown away by: the hover cars, the dome, the technology, the futuristic depiction of the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. It’s up there with Star Wars: A New Hope!

The storyline was fun and tense, suspenseful and engaging, and I liked the ending. I also really like Logan and Jessica as characters. Definitely a great film for sci-fi lovers and a true classic!

Film Review: Bad Samaritan (2018)

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David Tennant and Robert Sheehan are two of my favourite actors, so of course I was excited to watch Bad Samaritan when it popped up on my streaming site. I didn’t really know what to expect, though. I didn’t read the summary or watch the trailer beforehand, so I wasn’t expecting David Tennant to be playing a serial killer called Cale Erendreich, who Robert Sheehan’s character, Sean Falco, gets on the wrong side of. For some reason I was expecting a horror-comedy, which this most definitely wasn’t! The movie got so gripping so fast!

*MINOR SPOILERS*

The plot follows Sean, a young man who has a side job of robbing rich drivers he valets for. When he steals rich guy Cale’s keys and goes to his house, he stumbles across a girl locked up. Sean immediately tries to free her, but he can’t get her out and she warns him that Cale has a camera on the room. Panicking, Sean leaves the house and returns to his friend at the restaurant, just in time to get the car back to Cale, who’s growing suspicious. Sean calls the police but Cale is two steps ahead of him. Determined to help her, Sean goes to the police station himself, and then the FBI. All the while, Cale’s figured out that Sean’s on to him and he’s moved the girl, Katie, and is doing his utmost to wreck Sean’s life.

I felt so awful for Sean’s girlfriend Riley throughout the entire film. Derek, Sean’s best friend and partner, is a great side character, too. Cale was a truly terrifying character, but David Tennant is such a great actor. Honestly. Robert Sheehan is as brilliant as ever and I really liked his character Sean.

This film is definitely worth a watch! It was very well written and directed, and I enjoyed the performances of the entire cast.

Film Review: Predators (2010)

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Right, so I love action movies. One of my favourite films of all time is Skull Island, which to this day has one of the coolest/most badass moments in cinematic history: James Conrad wearing a gas mask while swinging a katana. The Peter Jackson King Kong was great, too. But somehow I hadn’t actually seen the 2010 Predators until this morning. (I’ve very behind on films, it seems.)

The film follows a group of convicts, mercenaries and otherwise dangerous dudes who are dropped onto a distant planet seemingly at random. (There’s only one woman, Isabelle, played by Alice Braga, in the entire movie, which bugged me a little, but other than that, the casting was brilliant!) You have Adrien Brody, Walton Goggins and Laurence Fishburne, who are three of my favourite actors in general, so seeing them all in a film together is awesome.

The group quickly learn that they’re not alone on the planet and they realise that they’re being hunted by the Predators. It becomes a deadly game of chase as the group try to find a way off the planet and back to Earth while trying to evade the Predators tracking them down. The main character of Royce, played by Adrien Brody, is someone you can root for. He just wants to get home and looks after Isabelle, and the pair are awesome together.

It’s really violent and scary, for sure, but it was a good addition to the universe and there’s talk of a direct sequel, which I would totally watch!

Has anyone seen this? Or any of the other films in the Predator universe?

Film Review: Possession (2009)

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Sarah Michelle Gellar and Lee Pace need to be in more films together. They seriously know how to command a screen! Possession was great! It’s very much a suspense film, and has a bit of a fantasy/horror twist. Kind of. Maybe. Hard to say, really. But I greatly enjoyed the leading couple’s chemistry. The film has an engaging and surprising plot. And apparently there’s an alternative ending, which also sounds interesting, but it’s not on the version I watched.

Basically, a married couple celebrating their one year anniversary are destroyed when the husband dies chasing his ex-con brother in law who’s about to break his parole. Both are hospitalised, but only Roman, the brother, wakes up. He instantly tells Jess, the wife, that he’s her husband. Jess, rightly alarmed, tells him not to act crazy. But as Ryan, the husband, remains comatose, and Roman increasingly wins Jess over with details of her relationship with Ryan, the lines are blurred. It’s hard to tell if Roman’s crazy, if he’s manipulating Jess, or if he’s somehow genuinely Ryan in his brother’s body. I definitely wasn’t sure until the last ten minutes or so.

I gotta say, I was pretty surprised by this film. The acting is top notch and, as I’ve said, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Lee Pace have amazing chemistry on screen. Roman was a seriously messed up character, no doubt, but Lee Pace does a great job playing both Roman and ‘Ryan’. If you like suspense movies, definitely give this one a go!

Film Review: Breaking and Entering (2006)

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Hm. This was an enthralling film, definitely. I’m not sure if I really liked it, but it wasn’t bad. I think my issue is that I have to really fall in love with the characters to totally enjoy a movie, even when the acting and plot are great. This one had the acting for sure. Everyone in this is extremely talented and I loved all the actors I spotted: Jude Law, Vera Farmiga, Robin Wright, Juliette Binoche. It was especially nice seeing Rafi Gavron in a central role, as I haven’t really seen him since Life Unexpected (underrated show!).

This movie follows Will, an architect who is having issues at home with his partner of many years and their daughter. When his office is burgled continuously, Will begins staking out the building to catch the thief in the act. During his nights, he begins interacting with a prostitute who buys him coffee in exchange for sitting in the warm car. When he finally catches the thief, Will chases him home and sees that his mother is the same woman he ran into at the park. On a (weird) whim, Will inserts himself into their lives and things quickly unravel for everyone.

There were definitely aspects of this movie that I liked. Will was a good father and I liked his relationship with Liv and Bea. The moments where he was being a good dad were great. I liked Oana, too. She was super funny. Not sure what I thought of Amira? I could empathise with her a lot, but she did so many questionable things. Like why, girl. WHY. Will was so questionable, too. So, yeah, it’s definitely a movie worth watching because it’s very well acted, but I did struggle with liking the characters as much as I wanted.

THAT SAID, the ending was great. Like, truly. I loved the final court room scene with everyone and the drive home scene, too. I think as a couple Will and Liv worked, I just didn’t want the side plot with Amira. I feel like it wasn’t necessary. But that is totally a matter of personal preference! All in all, a solid movie that I’m surprised I haven’t heard of before.

Film Review: Stardust (2007)

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I was trying to find a great romance yesterday and just couldn’t, and then I put on Stardust and it’s filled to bursting with romance and ticked all the boxes. It was so great! The film is based on the book by Neil Gaiman and follows Tristan Thorn, a young man from the town of Wall, who goes on a hunt to bring a fallen star back to Wall for his beloved Victoria.

In the story, Wall is a small town in England that borders Stormhold, a magical kingdom on the side of Wall’s wall (it’s not a very big wall, either). Before the central events of the film, a young man, played by the fantastic Ben Barnes, crosses from England into Stormhold and ends up fathering a child with a woman he meets at a market filled with magical creatures.

Eighteen years later, in Stormhold, the remaining sons of the king are battling each other for the crown. The ghosts of the brothers already passed watch over them, cheering the remaining brothers on. The king, as his dying act, sends his necklace with the power to rule Stormhold up into the atmosphere. The necklace hits a star, which falls to the ground.

Back in England, the child from the beginning is now a grown man named Tristan. Tristan is madly in love with the town beauty, Victoria, and is trying desperately to win her heart. When he and Victoria witness the star falling, Tristan promises to bring the star to Victoria as an engagement token. Quite problematically, when Tristan finds the fallen star, he learns that the star is now in the form of a woman. Tristan resolves to bring the star, Yvaine, back to Wall for Victoria. Yvaine is dragged along, the necklace the brothers want around her neck. Also at the same time, three sister witches are plotting to steal Yvaine’s heart, because if you eat the heart of a star, you live on, young and powerful. The heart of the last star they killed years before is almost gone.

As the witches and the princes follow Tristan and Yvaine, they find themselves coming across an unexpected group of pirates and their charming captain. Along the way, Tristan’s feelings for Yvaine grow and he starts to change his mind about Victoria and the scope of the mission he’s on.

I loved this film, honestly. It’s just so charming. The whole cast is great – Charlie Cox, Claire Danes, Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert De Niro, Henry Cavill, Ben Barnes and more. Honestly so fantastic! I loved Tristan and Yvaine so much, but every character was engaging and wonderfully portrayed. Definitely a film I’ll be rewatching!

Film Reviews: The Darjeeling Limited (2007) and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

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I am having a Wes Anderson Sunday. I was trying to think of bright, sunny movies to watch and the first thing that sprang to mind was The Darjeeling Limited, which is funny, because I haven’t actually watched the film in years, but I think my brain just went: whimsy = Wes Anderson, and that’s exactly what I needed.

I love how colourful and bright this film is. The soundtrack is perfect for Sunday mornings. And the film is just so darn funny. Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzman are bloody hilarious together and I forgot so many of the scenes – the snake on the train, Rita, the constant bickering between the brothers; each brother waiting for one to leave before spilling the beans had me in stitches. Maturity, who needs maturity?! It’s a great film if you’re looking for brotherly love, bonding, banter and bickering.

I forgot about how much I didn’t like the mother character, too. Anjelica Huston is a great actress, but the character – oh! She was so thoughtless to her children. I’m really glad they supported each other, because she was very frustrating and cavalier. I want to know why. I don’t feel like we got enough context about the parents, actually. We know that they’re grieving their father, who is in a brief cameo by Bill Murray, but we don’t know much about him as a character. I like that everything focuses on the brothers and their growth and feelings, but it’s hard to understand why their mother just up and left them, and what their relationship with their father looked like before his death.

I followed The Darjeeling Limited with The Grand Budapest Hotel, which I actually haven’t seen before. I’ve always meant to, but somehow never got around to it. I’m really loving it so far. The casts in these movies are amazing and I love ensemble movies. The back and forth banter in the opening scene was great. Wes Anderson has such a way with setting the scene, bringing in the right music, making a story. It’s something I also really see in Bryan Fuller productions, too. (Thinking Pushing Daisies, Hannibal, Star Trek, etc.) That ability to make you fall face first into their universe. Not every director can do that and these two are especially good at world building and atmosphere. Peter Jackson is another that comes to mind (The Lord of the Rings, King Kong, Mortal Engines, etc), but there’s something remarkably whimsical about Anderson’s productions that I love. His films are like if macarons came to life with a 1970s soundtrack and colour palette, and I am here it!

Perfect sunny Sunday films for sure!

Film Reviews: Battle (2018) & Fierce (2020)

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Dance/musical competition films are such a fun subgenre that I don’t watch nearly enough. I grew up with Save the Last Dance (2001) and Honey (2003), but there was a good stretch there where I didn’t watch any. Although Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020) was bloody hilarious. Break, that I reviewed a few weeks ago, reignited my love of the genre, so I marathoned a couple this week: Battle (2018) and Fierce (2020).

Fierce is a Polish film that follows a young woman who gets herself involved in a singing-on-television competition in order to impress/frustrate her estranged father, who is one of the judges. The singing in this is really, really impressive. The lead actress, Katarzyna Sawczuk, competed in the Voice of Poland competition in real life, and she’s fantastic. Maciej Zakościelny, who plays her dad, is equally as talented, and I loved his guitar scenes, haha. I also really adored the mother and grandmother! Honestly, the cast overall were awesome, the songs were really catchy and I liked the ending. There is one scene in this that had me like WHOA though, and totally took me by surprise. I won’t spoil you, but it’s near the end and I was like O.o for about five minutes.

Battle is a Norwegian film that follows a dancer after her father loses all of their money and they lose their home. They move to a new place and she hides the reality of her situation from her friends and boyfriend. When she meets Mikael, a young hip-hop dancer, she ends up discovering a whole new side of her new life and of other kinds of dancing. It’s very much like Save the Last Dance and Break, and I totally recommend it! The dance numbers are worth it and the main couple are adorable. Lisa Teige and Fabian Svegaard Tapia are brilliant actors!

Film Review: Stoker (2013)

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Oh. My.

How. Compelling.

This movie. This movie. Oooooh. I’m not sure how I feel about it, but I do know it was very well done. It is an enthralling blend of muted, disconnected creepy, and disturbingly compelling. It’s the rare film that holds my attention so well. I’m not sure I liked all of the twists or the ending, but it was impossible to stop watching. A very well acted, stunningly directed, superbly written, horror show.

The plot follows India Stoker after her father’s death. She lives with her mother Evelyn Stoker, who doesn’t particularly care for her. The arrival of her uncle, Charlie Stoker, really shakes up their home. At first you don’t know what to make of Charlie. India and Evelyn know nothing about him, only that he’s supposedly travelled everywhere and simply never came to visit.

It’s a very atmospheric film. You see that Charlie makes people uncomfortable, that he makes India comfortable. There’s something a relative knows that she wants to tell them, but can’t. India’s mother, however, adores him. The relationship that develops between India and Charlie has an undercurrent of tension, and you don’t know what’s wrong with Charlie – or indeed if something’s wrong with India.

As the strangeness mounts at home, at school, India is continuously bullied and begins to respond, drawing both Charlie’s attention – and approval – and the attention of another boy. This event leads all three down an increasingly disturbing road.

The film is a psychological horror film with a dash of the gothic and a touch of the arthouse. I still don’t know how to feel about the twist or the ending, but I do know it’s going to be ruminating around in my thoughts for a while.

Wentworth Miller should write more films, to be sure!

Film Review: Break (2018)

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Why isn’t every film a break dancing Step Up tribute in French with tougher characters and amazing romantic chemistry between the leads? That’s what I found myself asking after watching Break, a French Netflix drama that is 70% break dancing, 30% high quality romantic tension. The leads are incredible dancers, it must be said. Kévin Mischel, the lead actor, is a dancer in real life. (See this YouTube video as an example.) Sabrina Ouazani, the lead actress, does a fantastic job with different styles of dancing. I really wish I knew what all the types were called! I want to say air dancing (?), which is the opening scene with Lucie, the main character, dancing with Julien, her partner, on wires on the side of the building. Maybe it’s called wire dancing (?). There’s also break dancing, hints of ballet, street dancing, and dancing with silk ropes.

The opening scene, following a gorgeous montage of Julien and Lucie dancing, ends in a horrible accident when the rope holding Lucie snaps. After falling, Lucie wakes up in hospital damaged, but on the mend, and while she’s in and out of it, she thinks she sees her missing father watching over her. When she questions her mum about it, she’s met with lies, and once she’s out of hospital, Lucie sets off to find her dad, tracking him to a run down hotel in a rough part of the city where he works rehabilitating ex-cons. Her first night at the hotel, she meets Vincent, a dancer/ex-con with incredible talent but no desire to dance in public again. After Lucie sees him dancing alone, she pesters him to teach her, and Vincent reluctantly agrees to coach Lucie and Julien for their competition.

The script isn’t without its flaws, but the chemistry between the main characters and dance scenes are beyond perfection and more than make up any of the rougher patches of the dialogue. I rewatched the final dance scene and the club dance off so many times. AMAZING. This film is definitely for those who love dance and romance, and I definitely recommend giving it a try!