 |
When they’re not lounging vacuously around water features and generally looking buff, our four intrepid heroes are narrowly escaping sinister Bahamanian gangsters through plot holes big enough to sink a pirate ship. Read the rest of this entry »
Star Wars, Indiana Jones… are there any more great films produced by George Lucas in the last 30 years that he can now cynically revive with so-called sequels designed solely to cash in the nostalgia of Generation X-ers? Phew, looks like he’s done the lot, unless of course he wants to release a CGI-augmented version of American Gigolo… Read the rest of this entry »
Well, there’s certainly a lot of blood involved. In fact, in the swordfight scenes that are strewn haphazardly through this trash heap of a film, all it takes is the slightest contact between sword and body armour for a veritable fountain of the red stuff to burst in a torrent from the unfortunate protagonist. Not that there’s anything wrong with a C-grade vampire/fantasy flick going a bit overboard with the gore. What’s less forgivable is the execrable acting and a truly atrocious script. Read the rest of this entry »
Dutch film director Paul Verhoeven has been making a living on lurid, box-office-friendly Hollywood thrillers for some time now. Characterised by a sort of polished sleaziness mixed with frank violence, these films have never been particular favourites of the critics, but nevertheless, their pure entertainment value has led to many of them going down as cult favourites (RoboCop, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Starship Troopers, Showgirls). In Holland, Verhoeven is more highly regarded - his breakthrough 1973 film Turkish Delight was voted Dutch Film of the Century in 1999. Perhaps it’s fitting then that, in his return to his homeland, he should abandon robots, strippers and aliens for the more serious subject matter of the Dutch World War II Resistance.
You know when Ridley Scott is at the helm, the film is going to be an exquisitely professional piece of work. But given his tendency to create films on such an epic scale, it appears critics’ expectations have been adjusted accordingly. Body of Lies has been widely criticized as being “just another spy film” despite its technically immaculate execution and big-name leading men. But what’s wrong with just making a genre film with the highest production values?
The Dirty Dozen meets Full Metal Jacket, Korean style. Read the rest of this entry »
The latest film from Quentin Tarantino is a clear case of style over substance. But it struck me as I was watching: I don’t think he needs any substance. His style packs such a punch that even a piece of self-indulgence like Death Proof manages to provide a pretty satisfactory couple of hours of entertainment. Read the rest of this entry »
