Holiday movie reviews
I couldn't let my movie review duties slip while I was on holiday, so I took a bunch of DVDs with me to watch. Some of them new purchases, the others a bunch of old favourites. I saw a whole bunch of them, so I'll only review some of the best. Enjoy!
I'll start with the new (to me at least) purchases.
Time Bomb
Michael Biehn plays Eddie Kay, a mild-manner watchmaker. Or is he? Eddie is having flashbacks or miscellaneous naughtiness (killing people and naked ladies) you see. It turns out that Eddie used to be part of a secret government program to create the perfect assassin. After an incident that makes the national news alerts Eddie's former superiors (who thought he was dead), he goes on the run with psychologist Dr Anna Nolmar, played by Patsy Kensit. No, really. Patsy Kensit plays a psychologist.
This was a very enjoyable movie if you fancy a bit of daft action that won't tax your brain too much. Michael Biehn is great in the lead role. It's a pity he didn't make it big like other actions heroes. He has been reliably good in all the movies that I've seen him in. Patsy Kensit on the other hand... Her character doesn't really do much except take her clothes off when the plot calls for it. Pretty much the same thing she did in Lethal Weapon 2, then.
There's plenty of action to go around as well. My particular highlight was a fight in a hotel room when a bunch of government goons try to take down our heroes. Eddie wraps one goon's head up in a sheet and pounds the fellow's face into a bloody mush. Nice.
The Woman In Black
Daniel Radcliffe plays Arthur Kipps, a lawyer that is charge to obtain the paperwork with which to sell a large spooky manor house, Eel Marsh House. Of course, this being a Hammer movie, you know things are soon going to go bump in the night. yes, you read that right. Hammer are back making scary movies again, baby!
I heard that this movie was pretty damn scary and was expecting a pants-fillingly scary time, but I was slightly disappointed. Don't get me wrong, there were still plenty of scars throughout, but it wasn't quite as scary as I was led to believe.
You have to feel sorry for poor old Daniel Radcliffe. He was excellent in the lead role, but it is still a little difficult to see him as anything other than Harry Potter. Hopefully People will soon be able to see him as something other than Potter.
This movie may not be suitable for those with children, however. The titular ghostly woman compels children to kill themselves, you see. Those with wee ones of their own might find this movie particularly scary.
Now for some old favourites...
Aliens
57 years after the end of the first movie, Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is rescued and revived from cryo-sleep. It turns out that communications with a colony on the planet that her crew visited all those years ago have ceased. She is assigned to accompany a bunch of Colonial Marines to investigate. There's your typically shouty Sergeant Apone, quiet Corporal Hicks (yay, Michael Biehn!), butch Private Vasquez (Jenette Goldstein), panicky wiseass Private Hudson (Bill Paxton), 'synthetic person' Bishop (Lance Henrickson), corrupt executive Carter Burke (Paul Reiser), and woefully inexperienced commanding officer Lieutenant Gorman (William Hope). There's a bunch of other Marines, but I won't bother naming them here, because they're obvious xenomoprh-bait.
With all the characters introduced it's time to head down to the planet, and that's when things really kick off. There's also a lone survivor of the colony, a little girl called Newt (Carrie Henn), who forms a rather forced bond with Ripley.
The version of the movie that I watched was the director's cut that adds a bunch of extra scenes. We find out that Ripley had a daughter back on Earth who died during Ripley's time in space, we find out some backstory for the doomed colonists as well as the name of the colony (Hadley's Hope), there's some business with automated turrets, and it turns out that Hicks' first name is Dwayne.
A hugely enjoyable movie. Care is actually taken to introduce the characters before they're inevitably killed. My personal favourite would have to be Hudson. Yes, he's an annoying wiseass in places, but he eventually grows a pair when things all seem to be lost.
Commando
Be warned all female types, we're in manly country here! This is my favourite non-Terminator Scwarzenegger movie. Our Arnold plays John Matrix, a retired Delta Force Operative. Somebody has been killing the members of his old unit and his former superior fears that he will be next. He leaves guards to look after Matrix and his daughter Jenny (a young Alyssa Milano), but it's all for nothing as they are soon taken out by the goons sent to take care of Matrix. Matrix onviously manages to kill most of them, but the survivors make off with his daughter.
Matrix is needed to carry out an assassination for a South American general who he deposed some years previous. It turns out that Bennett, a member who Matrix kicked off his team for liking killing too much (Vernon Wells), is working for the general too and they will kill Jenny if Matrix doesn't do as they want. Of course, Matrix doesn't to as they want and ends up killing them all.
Good old-fashioned cheesy manly action nonsense. How manly? There are only two female characters of note, Jenny and a air stewardess that Matrix kidnaps to assist in Jenny's rescue. All that womanly stuff isn't important, it's the manly action we're here to see! Manly! It does start to get a bit homoerotic during the final battle with Bennett however. The guy desperately wants to stick his massive weapon inside Matrix. Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself...
That fight is so mismatched! The sort of guy that looks like he just returned from a specialist club with a Village People mustache versus Arnold? We're supposed to believe that this guy is some sort of badass? Matrix takes out an endless supply of goons with barely a sweat, yet he has problems with this guy? Aww, nuts to logic. Just enjoy the cheesiness!
There's a scene where a bunch of goons track Matrix into a tool shed and shoot it full of holes. Of course, Matrix is unharmed and kills all the goons with various bits and bobs he finds in the shed. This scene had bits of it cut in the British version. Pooh. I wanted to see goons get their arms hacked off and junk! Here's the full scene uncut...
The general fellow needs to recruit better goons if they can't kill a guy the size of Arnold. He just stands there with a massive gun slaughtering them! The music can get a bit overbearing too.
Turn the sound up full and imagine this playing pretty much at any moment during the movie. It makes even carrying logs or walking down the street needlessly epic. EPIC!
I'll start with the new (to me at least) purchases.
Time Bomb
Michael Biehn plays Eddie Kay, a mild-manner watchmaker. Or is he? Eddie is having flashbacks or miscellaneous naughtiness (killing people and naked ladies) you see. It turns out that Eddie used to be part of a secret government program to create the perfect assassin. After an incident that makes the national news alerts Eddie's former superiors (who thought he was dead), he goes on the run with psychologist Dr Anna Nolmar, played by Patsy Kensit. No, really. Patsy Kensit plays a psychologist.
This was a very enjoyable movie if you fancy a bit of daft action that won't tax your brain too much. Michael Biehn is great in the lead role. It's a pity he didn't make it big like other actions heroes. He has been reliably good in all the movies that I've seen him in. Patsy Kensit on the other hand... Her character doesn't really do much except take her clothes off when the plot calls for it. Pretty much the same thing she did in Lethal Weapon 2, then.
There's plenty of action to go around as well. My particular highlight was a fight in a hotel room when a bunch of government goons try to take down our heroes. Eddie wraps one goon's head up in a sheet and pounds the fellow's face into a bloody mush. Nice.
The Woman In Black
Daniel Radcliffe plays Arthur Kipps, a lawyer that is charge to obtain the paperwork with which to sell a large spooky manor house, Eel Marsh House. Of course, this being a Hammer movie, you know things are soon going to go bump in the night. yes, you read that right. Hammer are back making scary movies again, baby!
I heard that this movie was pretty damn scary and was expecting a pants-fillingly scary time, but I was slightly disappointed. Don't get me wrong, there were still plenty of scars throughout, but it wasn't quite as scary as I was led to believe.
You have to feel sorry for poor old Daniel Radcliffe. He was excellent in the lead role, but it is still a little difficult to see him as anything other than Harry Potter. Hopefully People will soon be able to see him as something other than Potter.
This movie may not be suitable for those with children, however. The titular ghostly woman compels children to kill themselves, you see. Those with wee ones of their own might find this movie particularly scary.
Now for some old favourites...
Aliens
57 years after the end of the first movie, Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is rescued and revived from cryo-sleep. It turns out that communications with a colony on the planet that her crew visited all those years ago have ceased. She is assigned to accompany a bunch of Colonial Marines to investigate. There's your typically shouty Sergeant Apone, quiet Corporal Hicks (yay, Michael Biehn!), butch Private Vasquez (Jenette Goldstein), panicky wiseass Private Hudson (Bill Paxton), 'synthetic person' Bishop (Lance Henrickson), corrupt executive Carter Burke (Paul Reiser), and woefully inexperienced commanding officer Lieutenant Gorman (William Hope). There's a bunch of other Marines, but I won't bother naming them here, because they're obvious xenomoprh-bait.
With all the characters introduced it's time to head down to the planet, and that's when things really kick off. There's also a lone survivor of the colony, a little girl called Newt (Carrie Henn), who forms a rather forced bond with Ripley.
The version of the movie that I watched was the director's cut that adds a bunch of extra scenes. We find out that Ripley had a daughter back on Earth who died during Ripley's time in space, we find out some backstory for the doomed colonists as well as the name of the colony (Hadley's Hope), there's some business with automated turrets, and it turns out that Hicks' first name is Dwayne.
A hugely enjoyable movie. Care is actually taken to introduce the characters before they're inevitably killed. My personal favourite would have to be Hudson. Yes, he's an annoying wiseass in places, but he eventually grows a pair when things all seem to be lost.
Commando
Be warned all female types, we're in manly country here! This is my favourite non-Terminator Scwarzenegger movie. Our Arnold plays John Matrix, a retired Delta Force Operative. Somebody has been killing the members of his old unit and his former superior fears that he will be next. He leaves guards to look after Matrix and his daughter Jenny (a young Alyssa Milano), but it's all for nothing as they are soon taken out by the goons sent to take care of Matrix. Matrix onviously manages to kill most of them, but the survivors make off with his daughter.
Matrix is needed to carry out an assassination for a South American general who he deposed some years previous. It turns out that Bennett, a member who Matrix kicked off his team for liking killing too much (Vernon Wells), is working for the general too and they will kill Jenny if Matrix doesn't do as they want. Of course, Matrix doesn't to as they want and ends up killing them all.
Good old-fashioned cheesy manly action nonsense. How manly? There are only two female characters of note, Jenny and a air stewardess that Matrix kidnaps to assist in Jenny's rescue. All that womanly stuff isn't important, it's the manly action we're here to see! Manly! It does start to get a bit homoerotic during the final battle with Bennett however. The guy desperately wants to stick his massive weapon inside Matrix. Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself...
Click to viewThat fight is so mismatched! The sort of guy that looks like he just returned from a specialist club with a Village People mustache versus Arnold? We're supposed to believe that this guy is some sort of badass? Matrix takes out an endless supply of goons with barely a sweat, yet he has problems with this guy? Aww, nuts to logic. Just enjoy the cheesiness!
There's a scene where a bunch of goons track Matrix into a tool shed and shoot it full of holes. Of course, Matrix is unharmed and kills all the goons with various bits and bobs he finds in the shed. This scene had bits of it cut in the British version. Pooh. I wanted to see goons get their arms hacked off and junk! Here's the full scene uncut...
The general fellow needs to recruit better goons if they can't kill a guy the size of Arnold. He just stands there with a massive gun slaughtering them! The music can get a bit overbearing too.
Turn the sound up full and imagine this playing pretty much at any moment during the movie. It makes even carrying logs or walking down the street needlessly epic. EPIC!