Review: The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists.

*Tap tap*

Erm, hello? Is this thing on?

*Whack!*

Ah ha, there we go! Wonderful, we’re back in action and this thing still works.

And I’ve woke this blog from its cryogenically frozen status to give a little movie review, the last one being War Horse all that time ago.

Today the film in question is Aardman Animations/Sony Pictures ‘The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists.’  Now there’s not much room for analysis, symbolism or anything of the sort and hey, we’re not in a classroom anyway so this review is going to be nice and simple.

This film is excellent. It’s excellent because it achieves everything it should and then some. Let’s start with the fact this is an Aardman film. That means two things to me – firstly it should appeal to both children and adults and secondly, it should contain a hefty dose of brilliant British humour. Well check and double check. When I brought up the idea to go see this film to my friends, most of them were up for it. A few, however, were dubious – they were worried we’d be the oldest attendees minus parents of course. I mean, how sad! A group of almost 20 year olds going to see a U rated film!?  They must be girlfriend-less, dead, boring, nerdy, dorky, geeky, sad, pathetic, lifeless people who have no time for grinding, drinking, clubbing, groping or dancing.

Well, only some of that is true (thankfully).

No no, I had faith this film choice and my faith was well-founded. An Aardman film is much like a Disney Pixar film – the Toy Story franchise for example is adored by all ages. They contain dialogue for both children and adults, their stories are clever and interesting and they are well made and crafted with love avec a cherry on top. Overall they deliver films of high quality time and time again. The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists is no different.

One example of this is the fact I actually laughed! Incredible, I know. Usually I’m quite stone faced watching films (see soppy, gushy, manipulative War Horse and then my review for case in point) but several times a chuckle evolved into a full blown guffaw. I was shocked myself in the cinema. The fact it isn’t even a sole comedy and handled action/adventure skilfully as well proves its worth.

An aspect of the film that caused much of the above said laughter was its little details. Like Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, The Pirates! is highly re-watchable because of all the minute jokes you don’t catch the first time. There were some I noticed in the cinema such as one pirate crew member wearing a Blue Peter badge, as well as on an entry form for ‘Pirate of the Year’, the loudness scale topped at ‘Brian Blessed’ level (who in fact voiced the Pirate King).  I’m sure there were many more I didn’t catch, which is most certainly a good thing – I loved the attention to detail.

The Pirates! is of course a stop-motion animation film, being from Aardman and all. They’ve clearly perfected the production time for stop-motion since The Curse of the Were-Rabbit as that took over five years to produce. However, another method that was introduced to keep production efficient was the CGI. Unlike The Curse of the Were-Rabbit which was solely stop-motion animation and Flushed Away which was solely CGI animation, The Pirates! has a mixture of both to great effect. For example, the sea would be practically impossible to animation with clay, so CGI was used instead. And surprisingly, they blended well together – it wasn’t jarring in the slightest.

Concerning the stop-motion animation – it’s just amazing. Any stop-motion animation impresses me because it takes such patience and skill. I think its effects are clear if we compare The Pirates! with Flushed Away (which used CGI in the style of stop-animation). The real deal in The Pirates! adds this fantastic level of texture, it’s so tactile and tangible. These models actually exist and you can immediately sense it. It’s this very reason why so many scathe the overuse of CGI in films today (including myself), if something is not really there in the scene it’s as clear as day.

Enter mini-rant paragraphs about CGI. One good example of this ghastly use of CGI is the Star Wars films. Whilst many look upon the original with rose-tinted spectacles, one aspect that is absolutely true no matter what is the visuals. In the original three films, they used models and miniatures to convey the huge star destroyers or planets. And it works – you can feel the monumental destroyer pass over you in the opening shot, you can feel the AT-AT’s march on jerkily through the planet Hoth. With the prequels, Lucas just went crazy with the CGI – most of the time the actors are just standing on a green screen stage in front of some glitzy, showy background. It’s empty, lifeless and so very boring.

Anybody who has seen Jason and the Argonauts will remember the famous sword fight against seven skeleton warriors, done by stop-motion master Ray Harryhausen – it is truly awesome, and this was back in 1963!

(Might I add I’m not saying all CGI is bad, only when it’s overused. Neither am I saying it’s easier – good CGI animators are just as competent as stop-motion animators.)

Whilst watching some of the set action pieces in The Pirates!  I had to remind myself this was made with pieces of clay moved with minuscule precision thousands of times. It’s astounding when it all comes together to achieve shots so fast and frantic they match something out of Rambo.

To conclude, I’ll just add that the cast were superb. Hugh Grant’s bumbly, British persona transitions well to the Pirate Captain and among his crew you’ll notice many other noted British actors including Russell Tovey, Lenny Henry, Ashley Jensen and Martin Freeman.

Overall The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists is a fun, jolly film. Imagine Wallace & Gromit in pirate form and there you go, need I say more? Go watch it, or bask forever in the scurvy depths of Davy Jones’ locker!

Review: War Horse

Well, here’s the obligatory review for War Horse, having watched it not too long ago.

Before starting I should probably point out that I have neither the read the book or seen the stage play.

Oh and SPOILER ALERT!

My thoughts on War Horse are, to say the least, complicated. Much of this is probably due to the fact that every time I go to the cinema I usually know what I’m going to see a few days in advance. In those few days I can formulate a good impression of the film, what it will be like, genre, plot, perhaps even some early spoiler-free opinions from critics and such (i.e. Mark Kermode). Going to see War Horse was different – it was very much a spur of the moment kinda thing.

Therefore, the only fleeting glimpse I managed to gain before seeing it was that it was going to be sad. Very sad. Sob in the cinema sad. Now I wouldn’t say my heart is made of stone, but its strings certainly aren’t as ‘tuggable’ as others which ultimately meant there were no boo-hoo’s from me. In fact, I eventually skipped past the ‘sad’ state and galloped straight into the disgusted and/or bored.

Why? Well let me explain – War Horse isn’t a family film by any means at all. The BBFC gave it a 12A? Pfft, that means nothing! This film is a depressing rollercoaster of misery and wretchedness with each twist and turn and loop de loop causing another convulsion of pity so that by the end of it you’re overwhelmed with supposed sadness rendering you an emotionless robotic machine.

Y’see, I’ve always thought to gain a sense of sadness, you need balance. An audience needs to invest in the good times of a character (at least times when they aren’t about to die or lose their farm) before anything bad happens. That way, when the bad stuff does happen, its juxtaposition is heightened. The contrast between good and bad, happy and sad is clearer to the audience and the overall effect is strengthened through this.

Let’s put it this way, I have two videos to show you. One is of a little mouse being wholly digested by a snake. The other is a video of a mouse spinning on a wheel, nibbling on a hazelnut, running around in a little ball and then being wholly digested by a snake. Which of the two would make you feel sadder? Perhaps not even sad, just more emotionally invested?

If your answer is the first one then you are wrong – you lose, you get NOTHING!

The clear (and correct) answer to that question was the latter. To see the positive times of a mouse be dissolved away by the acidic stomach juices of a serpent isn’t very nice and because we know what the mouse was like beforehand, it makes his death even more tragic. To just see a video of a mouse being eaten is kinda gross and disgusting and most people would just turn away and not want to watch it.

Well, for me, that was War Horse. The fact that War Horse is a children’s book makes it even stranger – oh Michael Morpurgo, you devilish fiend! The constant barrage of woe was brought to the forefront by the episodic nature of the film as the horse travels around Europe bringing death and destruction with it (though the First World War helped in that respect).  Throughout we meet an array of different characters, Albert of course, but also a British general, two teenage German brothers, a French grandfather and his granddaughter. They each have their own ‘episode’ though I must admit; these episodes are even more miserable and deadly than one of Eastenders! You need proof? Sure, let me list what happens to each –

• Albert – Loses his horse to the war, has to then fight in the war (including Somme), sees his Devonian friend disappear in a cloud of poisonous gas and die, suffer temporary blindness due to said gas. And I’m guessing here, but will suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder for the rest of his life.
• British General – Starts writing a letter to Albert to tell him how Joey (the horse) is doing but before finishing has to fight in a mounted charge towards German machine guns. Have you heard of the phrase ‘never bring a knife to a gunfight’? If so you can guess what happens next.
• Two teenage German brothers – The older brother stops the younger (and underage) brother from fighting in a battle and hence has to desert the war camp. Hide in a windmill from the army, get found – are shot.
• French grandfather and granddaughter – Their home is ransacked by the army, granddaughter dies. Old man has to live alone for the rest of his life.

Right, I think I’ve made my point on that subject. Believe it not there were some things I liked about the film. For example the battle scenes, though ‘romanticised’ in Spielberg’s own words, were still shocking and brutal. Of course there was no blood or limbs flying a la Saving Private Ryan, but it’s a good example of how such horrific scenes can still be intense without the need for gore.

I also liked the acting for the most part though the main character, Albert played by Jeremy Irvine, did have some cringe-worthy horse whisperer scenes. My favourite character has to be the malicious landlord played by David Thewlis, because he was Lupin and once again, holds to his face a wonderful moustache. In fact, War Horse in general had a glorious assortment of moustaches so if you’re an aficionado; you have that to look forward to.

There are many feelings, thoughts and concerns I had when watching the film that I’ve quite clearly forgot, but my overall opinion is that it leaves you with a sour taste in your mouth. Now many can argue that you have to face horrible moments throughout life and films should not ignore these emotions just because they aren’t all sunshine and happiness and puppies and rainbows. I agree, films are a reflection of humanity's cultures, history, personalities etc and let me tell you a lot of that isn’t pretty, but at the same time films should be entertaining. Entertaining not in the sense that it leaves you feeling happy, but entertaining in a sense that you go through a film and come out of the other side feeling satisfied, even if the overwhelming emotion is sadness. For example someone could see a film about a horrible subject, say…rape and come out of the cinema feeling glad they went through that.  I didn’t feel satisfied and after the pull of the strings by the film to make me feel sad (many movie-goers didn’t like the amount of manipulation by War Horse in order to provoke sorrow), I instead wished I’d never seen the film at all.

Review: The Adventures of Tintin - Secret of the Unicorn

I saw The Adventures of Tintin the other day, so I thought I’d write up a quick review about it.

I’ll start off by getting the main thing out of the way – I enjoyed it. It was entertaining, enjoyable and didn’t annoy me. All good things. Time did not drag, nor did it constantly morph my seat like a piece of plasticine into an uncomfortable  pile of fabric and sponge, making me wiggle and fidget throughout the entire film (something which inexplicably happened during Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, despite it also being very good). No, Tintin was a good film. Good.

But it wasn’t great.

And the only thing I can put that down to it the fact that, at its very core, Tintin is a children’s movie.  There’s no intellect or emotion, or really any humour, it’s just a film designed to keep the youngun’s happy. And let’s be clear, it did - I heard several giggles and guffaws around me. But what separates Tintin from the likes of Toy Story is that it targeted only children, whereas Disney Pixar usually sprinkles in a few lines for adults to pick out. Unfortunately, none of that was in here, or if it was I missed it. So that’s what stopped the film from being great, it catered to only one audience, but it was still good and here’s why…

First off, the art style was brilliant. I loved it. Producer Peter Jackson has previously said :-

“We're making them look photorealistic; the fibres of their clothing, the pores of their skin and each individual hair. They look exactly like real people – but real Hergé people!”

That last bit, about looking like Hergé’s people rings true to me. Now, I’ve never actually read a Tintin comic before, but most people know what is meant and have at least seen a picture of the comic. Immediately it was clear (and I won’t give away anything) this film was going to offer a faithful adaption of the famous comic book characters, at least in visual form anyway. Often, the type of CGI-capture this film used can be jarring or just look plain creepy (ahem…Polar Express), but here it was beautiful.  Hergé’s actual art style was something called ‘Ligne claire’, which basically left everything in a panel with equal importance e.g. the background had the same ink thickness as the characters in the foreground. This gives a clean, almost refreshing quality, which I’m pleased to say transferred over to the silver screen remarkably well.

The plot is apparently three Tintin comic stories all tied together - The Crab with the Golden Claws, The Secret of the Unicorn, and Red Rackham's Treasure. This being the case, the film ran rather smoothly indeed and any disjoints or gaps were obviously sealed with some good polyfilla by writers Edgar Wright, Stephen Moffat and Joe Cornish.  I had heard one review before seeing this film, by the much beloved Mark Kermode who said he found the story rather flat and plain. All I can say is that it seemed big enough and exciting enough for my £3.75 (go Orange Wednesdays!) so goodness knows what it was like for 10 year olds. That being said, Kermode had read the comics, so he might be comparing it to a brilliant comic story or something. The action and events were very Spielberg-y – the rises and falls, the relationships, the dialogue, the action (all of the ‘set action pieces’ were creative, inventive and very well put together). In fact, the film had a Spielberg stamp all over it, being another producer. He really does leave a mark doesn’t he? Suffice to say this film included actual guns and no walkie talkies.

Finally, to wrap up this increasingly overwritten review, I’ll say a bit about the acting. And yes, it was acting, just done in a costume with loads of bobbles all over it. Jamie Bell was, as a replacement, good. Nothing spectacular, but then I hear the character of Tintin isn’t meant to be. Tintin is, in fact, rather plain – it’s the characters around him. Or so I hear and read anyway. Personally I felt Simon Pegg and Nick Frost were underused as Thomson and Thomson, but at the same time I found them slightly annoying so hey, perhaps the balance was correct. Daniel Craig can do a damn fine ‘villain’ voice, yet to me the voice didn’t match the character visually. Now I’m just nitpicking.

Overall, The Adventures of Tintin is a wonderfully crafted, hugely enjoyable film. It’s well worth a watch, but that’s probably it. Unlike other classic children’s movies, this doesn’t warrant repeat viewings, which sums up its problems quite well. Oh, except, there’s going to be a sequel so you might have to watch it then too. If anything, the film has made me (and probably many others, including young children) want to read some of the original comic books, so for that it must be appreciated!

Review: Quantum of Solace (plus a bit of art)

Today I wanted to do some painting, so I set everything up nicely for a spot of watercolour studies. All the paints were set up, the brushes, the cloth, the props (to start with, a pretty little flower). I was eager to go, mostly because watercolours, if used correctly, can be quite quick and still give decent results. Other times, if you try to rush watercolours, it comes out as one big watery, muddy mess.

Foolishly I decided putting something in the background to watch would be a good idea, and following on from my Bond-ian mood at the moment, I chose Quantum of Solace. As not to get too distracted, I chose an average Bond film, yet soon enough the film grabbed my attention.  Suffice to say, not much painting occurred…

So here’s my review – Quantum of Solace…isn’t actually that bad. In fact, it’s quite good. There was a lot of criticism upon the film’s release and I was one of those critics. I really didn’t like the film and to be fair, some of my judgements back then hold up today. Let’s get them out of the way first shall we?

A staple of the Bond franchise – the Bond theme song – was brutally butchered with Quantum of Solace. ‘Another way to Die’ by Jack White and Alicia Keys is just a chore to listen to, and it gets worse when the two sing together. Apart, they’re perhaps bearable but when the two voices combine to create some horrible hissing, screeching monster, that’s where I draw the line. I mean, did anyone actually listen to this before it was released? Paul McCartney, Shirley Bassey and Tom Jones it was not, more like Rita Coolidge and Madonna to me.

The film also lacked any decent editing. That opening car chase? Well yes, it was all very nice and pretty but I didn’t have clue what was going on. In order to create tension and excitement, there needs to be some form of context i.e. how far away Bond is from the enemies, where he is in location to his surrounding etc. (TimeSplitters demonstrates this perfectly.) That wasn’t clear, so what would have been a great opening just evaporated into questioning why things were exploding.

And that editing problem carried on throughout the whole film. Often I wondered why Bond was here or there, what was happening and why. The use of Shaky Cam can partially be blamed, but when key plot points are rushed in order for yet another action sequence, I get a bit frustrated. The first that springs to mind is the whole point about the marked money. That seemed to be cut together to last 30 seconds, and then bam, we’re in Haiti with Bond fighting another person.

There are other smaller problems (ahem…sci-fi desktop touch screen thing) , but any Bond film can include nit-picking material.  What I was surprised at by Quantum of Solace was its overall story, including the themes started in Casino Royale – the most obvious being Bond’s relationship with Vesper and his ‘maturity’ being a double-o agent. I like the character’s progression and it’s all dealt with very smoothly, mostly by all his friends and innocents being killed. Poor ol’ Mathis. The scene with his death is very powerful, if a tad cheesy.

There is this idea that the Bond actor’s third outing usually seals the deal with his particular 007, but I’d argue Daniel Craig has performed so well in Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, we’re already there. Many argue we need a sprinkle more humour and light-heartedness, probably in the form of Q or Moneypenny and whilst I wouldn’t disagree with this, Craig’s Bond seems perfectly fine without them.

In the two years or so since I last saw Quantum of Solace, the criticism must have grown so much that today I expected it to be a steaming pile of steam (many thanks to Matthew Seales for that vicious insult). Instead, I watched a perfectly acceptable Bond film, filled with a generous scoop of action, tension, emotion and story. It blows Die Another Day out of the water anyway.

Perhaps I should’ve listened to the radio instead. In the 2+ hours I sat there with a brush in my hand, this was all I achieved...

I think I'll try again tomorrow...

Review: Tron Legacy

Ah...Tron. What a strange film you are. I remember watching bits of you around 3 years ago on TV and wondering 'what the hell is this thing?' I still haven't seen all of the original 1982 film, the one that I guess you could say was way ahead of it's time and can now be considered a flop at the box office. What it did do successfully was create a 'cult' which probably led to the 2010 sequel Tron Legacy we see today.

Well actually, I saw it yesterday and I have mixed views about it. Before seeing the film, I was actually reading a review on the game being released as a tie in 'Tron Evolution' but the article made some very strong points related to the film. Whilst the original film was ahead of it's time, when the general public didn't really know of CLU's and RAM, this film is perhaps past it's time. Nowadays, even 10 year old's know of the ins and outs of computers and slightly older audiences could just laugh off character's called 'Clu' and races called 'ISO's' I'm not sure how true this is but it's certainly a good point - are we as an audience too savvy to find Tron Legacy interesting?

Well I'm not incredibly techno minded, but I found the film interesting. That's not to say good however. I'm not giving spoilers but too be honest, I was waiting for the final showdown between good and bad to happen quite early on. Is this a result of a good storyline with emotional characters? No, I just wanted the end to come. Not so much to get the hell out of the cinema, but just to 'see' the ending. I've now confused myself - is that a result of a good plot? You tell me.

I'm not going to go overboard with describing the visuals. It's pretty obvious they spent a lot of time on them and they do look good. Not mind-boggling good, but then again I didn't see it in 3D, so maybe that was the reason.

A lot of things in the film just didn't make any sense...at all. Large chunks of the film are used to tell of what happened to 'the Grid' and the perfect world Flynn wanted to make in it. To do this he believed in 'Isomorphic Algorithms' or ISO's which are incredibly intelligent forms found in the Grid that could actually  help the real world with religion and science etc. How they could is never really explained and just breezed over, down to sheer laziness on Disney's part I would imagine.

Tron Legacy didn't do amazingly well acting wise, with our protagonist, Sam Flynn, played by Garrett Hedlund, a pretty flat, boring character. Olivia Wilde plays Quorra, the real Kevin Flynn's apprentice and she was fine. Oscar winning Jeff Bridges gave the best performance, as you'd imagine, but even then most of it just involved him doing lots of yoga and meditation. There were also a few odd cameos splashed about - Michael Sheen as some David Bowie-like club owner, Cillian Murphy as some corporate nasty-man and even Daft Punk.

Yet the main star in my opinion was Jeff Bridges CGI younger self -Clu. Digitally made, the character looks like Bridges fresh from the 1982 Tron or there abouts. And my, my it's creepy. There's most certainly a case of teh 'uncanny valley' in question here with Clu*. At first, watching the trailers, I didn't realise it wasn't a real person. But the more I watched, his rubbery face and lack of facial expressions gave it away. You'd think they might have done something about this for the final film but no, it's still there. Over done Botox-Bridges gives one main expression - a creepy looking smile and that's all. Unfortunately, in the end I couldn't really take the character very seriously because of the strange effect he had but it was a good try on Disney's part.

One more thing about Tron Legacy I want to take note of is the amount of Star Wars-like imagery in there. Now, having not seen the original, I don't know whether there was a lot in there, but in this I counted at least 4 to 5 major links. Let's see if I find a few images to show you what I mean...

1) The main character being in some kind of aircraft gunner during a space battle (ok, so it may not look very convincing with these pictures, but if you've seen the film, you should know what I mean).
















2) The main character having a wise-guardian/teacher - I'm mean c'mon, look at these pictures! Plus, in a part of the film Kevin Flynn reprogramme's an evil guard thingy to allow him to fly a jet in the same fashion as Obi Wan using the force to allow them into Mos Eisley Cantina.



3) Tron's evil jet things looked like X-Wings to me.













4)  I can't find any good pictures but in one scene, Quorra's arm get's chopped off - remind you of anyone?

5) Finally, again I can't find any pictures but near the end of the film, people can expect to find huge similarities to Darth Vader and his forces. This in turn mirrors Hitler. That is all I shall say

Ok, this review has gone on long enough. If you liked Tron from 1982 go see this. If you like crazy visuals go see this. If you're bored go see this. But don't expect anything more than a cheesy Disney movie crammed full of 'homages' that doesn't really become what it could have done. It's like Inception but more tech-y! And worse.

* I'm sure you're asking 'what the hell is Uncanny Valley?'

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1: Review

I finally went to go see the new Harry Potter a few days ago, after dangerously trudging through snow and ice to get to the cinema. It is quite ridiculous the amount of snow we're getting at the moment, but digress...

I confess I have not read all of the books (despite wanting to go to university to study English Literature...ahem...) and so, very slightly I was lost concerning the plot. However, I'm sure I also missed a ton of references that only readers will notice, so maybe after all these years I should return to the books - who knows?

Despite these drawbacks, I found the film entertaining. Very much so. It's standard now for the Potter films to be made with such high quality and attention to detail that you almost forget what a polished film it is. The special effects were superb, and yet some so subtle you probably don't even notice them, you expect them.

Fortunately, or unfortunately the film is mainly composed of just Harry, Ron and  Hermione running from a wild goose chase by Voldermort...y'know...the nice politician from Maid in Manhattan? I say fortunately and unfortunately because whilst you get to see some nice acting and all that from the three young stars, you miss out on a lot of the great British talent the past films have scooped up. Smidgens of Bill Nighy, Mark William, Julie Walters, Alan Rickman, David Thewlis, Robbie Coltrane and more crop up, but not enough for me. Of course, the film's based on a book so it's not their fault, but it's a disappointment none the less.

So yes, the film was solid - none of it was amazingly bad (although the cheese factor was knocked up a notch in some cases...BAM!) but then none of it blew me away either. The main reason for this, or indeed the only reason, is because as it says in the title, it is 'Part 1.' In other words, the prequel to the action, the calm before the storm and inevitable most of it therefore is going to be build up and story setting for the final film as it goes out with a bang.

And don't get me wrong, I really do like the story and it all works well but I do have a small problem. I'm not sure whether this is a fault to the film or the books, but the latest cinema outings for the Harry Potter franchise do seem rather bleak and depressing. I am still content with the Chamber of Secrets being my favourite film, or perhaps the Prisoner of Azkaban because they act as the 'Harry learning and growing within the wizarding world' films. In those, everything was fun and light-hearted and there was cool magic and happy people and not everyone was dropping like flies all the time. Now I feel they've went too far the other way and left the films feeling empty. Or this whole paragraph could just be me reminiscing of simpler times when the three stars were young and had nothing to stress over...like me when I watched those films for the first time. Sigh...

Anyways, yes the film was good and yes of course it's made me want to go see the final final but I don't know, something just wasn't right for me and of course, it's only going to get worse in the next film where everything and everyone goes kablamo!!! That's right isn't it? That's what happens!?

Review: RED

I really wanted to title this post 'RED-iculously bad' but in my annoyingly obsessive manner I must stick to what I did with the Expendables review.

Anyway, as you may have now guessed, I didn't think RED was that good. But at the same time, I don't think it was that bad either. Of course, it was 'film bad' which means something completely different, but to me is was watchable. Most of the films released nowadays are 'film bad' which simply put means they weren't incredibly amazing, but worth the £5 or so you spent going to see it (plus if you have a bag of Werther's Originals with you, you're set!)

The ensemble cast of Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren and John Malkovich did a pretty good job, combining very well into the 'Retired and Extremely Dangerous' category. However, something was most definitely missing. The film felt 'empty' and raw. The spy-like thriller tone with a hint of comedy (and I mean a hint, the funniest character on there is Malkovich as the kooky funny man, a foil to Willis) doesn't really go anywhere. There is a...ahem...plot per se but everything moves too fast to keep up and ultimately care about.

It's a run of the mill film to say the least, and after a strong summer of films it certainly quivers in comparison. At this time between the big Hollywood blockbusters of the summer and the upcoming Christmas bonanza of films, it's stuck in the middle leaving no real desire to see it.

Whilst to some it may have dragged on and on and on, it comes as fast as it goes leaving no impact and little to be seen again. Sure it's entertaining, but it has to be - it's a film. That doesn't necessarily mean it has to be good...

Review: The Expendables

Ok, ok...I think I'm good now. After two days of rest I feel capable to write in words what I thought of this film. And to be honest, it was actually quite good!

I think the whole outcome of people's opinion on this film is based around their mindset when entering the cinema. If you go in expecting developed characters, a coherent plot and stunning special effects you're going to be disappointed...quite why anyone would enter thinking that is beyond me, it's directed by Rocky/Rambo man Sylvester Stallone! If you enter knowing that what you're about to watch is two hours of explosions, blood, guns and death you won't be disappointed. It's as simple as that.

The Expendables seems to be one of films where you just switch off your brain and relax enjoying the cinema and friends (unless you go to the cinema alone...you freak). Personally, I thought a lot of it worked well and for what it was trying to be, an 80's-like action mish-mash, it damn well was! The cast of macho men including director Sylvester Stallone, weird shaped head man Jason Statham and big lipped Mickey Rourke pulled the film along with their 'witty' banter and one-liners (for examples, when responding to what his and Sylvester's names are, Jason Statham replies "I'm Buda...and he's pest"...Hilarious!). And that's probably the of the best things about this film, the interaction between the characters and how they get on together.

There's not really much to say about the ideas about this film...obviously, and analysing anything is out of the question but there's one moment in the film which was very strange indeed and I guess is a testament to Mickey Rourke's acting abilities. Halfway through the film after...you've guessed it, lots of fire and bullets, there's a scene between Stallone and Rourke's character 'Tool'. After a bit of conversation, Rourke goes into a story about how when he was with the Expendables he left someone to die when in fact he could have saved them. It's not really important to the...ahem...'plot', but it slows everything down quite abruptly by Rourke's performance.

Whilst nothing was really wrong with the film, there were parts that kick-started the cringe function in my brain, including some very dodgy CGI that looked like a Nintendo 64 game and such cliche shots like a close up of someones eye with a reflection. But they all helped I guess, in it's downright crappiness this film is amazing. I couldn't stop laughing after leaving the cinema, so at least it was enjoyable. I say, if you know what to expect and just want a simple sit-back, no think-y movie then this is for you.

And just to give you a little taste of what it's like, a man's torso gets blow off in the first five minutes! Enjoy!