More Reviews: Sequels, Remakes, Classics
The initial selection of reviews are all either sequels, remakes or originals of movies which have now been remade.
I then follow this with some reviews from some of my favourite directors. Steven Spielberg, John Carpenter and David Cronenberg.
Finally there's a couple of foreign language movies "Y Tu Mama Tambien" and "Ghosts", both of which came very highly recommended.
The Fly (1958) / The Fly (1986)
I felt the need to show these movie posters a little larger. "Once It Was Human - Even As You And I!"
I'd never seen the original version of The Fly before. It was quite surprising to see the movie begin with a murder mystery and then have most of the major events revealed as flashbacks. The story is very well written and the characters are all well-rounded. Why the machine which is central to the story requires three neon lights is not at all clear, but there's no doubting how cool it looks. I must say that I absolutely loved the 1950s version of The Fly.
Re-watching David Cronenberg's remake of The Fly it didn't seem quite as exciting as the first time around. Still, I guess you can expect that to some extent when you know what is going to happen. I didn't remember the female protagonist's ex-boyfriend seeming quite so creepy before, but then again I'm sure there are overly posessive creeps like him in real life. Cronenberg's new take on the premise is not to give us the comfort of knowing precisely what the central scientist has become, but instead to make the change a gradual one. This is extremely effective and stands to put a stark distinction between the remake and the original. Jeff Goldblum's performance is excellent and really gets us under the skin (so to speak) of the scientist as he changes.
Both movies: 5/5 - Absolute classics, both of them.
Insomnia (1997)
The original movie which Chistopher Nolan remade. Both movies are similarly dull, dreary and disappointing. While this version contains some rather more subtle acting from Stellan Skarsgård rather than the overacting we saw from Al Pacino and Robin Williams, he's rather difficult to sympathise with. In the end I felt the movie was a less than pleasant experience without much to justify it.
2/5
District 13: Ultimatum (2009)
The sequel to the excellent french parkour action movie "District 13" introduces us to the variety of gangs that can be found within District 13, only to not really make it worth it. The initial action sequences are great, but in the end the real focus is not on the conflicts withing D13 but on the politics which set up D13 in the first place in central Paris. The movie's third act is more focussed on the politics than than the action, but unfortunately the movie doesn't have the depth to make this work. What we could really have done with was a bigger focus on the action like in the first movie and, in the end, this sequel doesn't have anything to say that wasn't already said in the first movie.
Pretty good fun and more intelligent than most action movies, but unsurprisingly it's not as good as the original.
3.5/5
Blood: The Last Vampire (2009)
Another remake. I knew this wasn't supposed to be great, but on the other hand the original anime seemed pretty underrated too. Sadly, far from being a less than perfect adaptation of the anime to live action, this is barely the same franchise. The original anime was short, beautiful, but the message was unclear. This remake is too long, too tacky and has absolutely nothing to say. While the original anime easily made us believe that the evil of the vampires was carefully hidden under the surface with only about 5 vampires in the entire movie, the remake makes it hard to understand why everybody doesn't know about the vampires already with about 50 vampires in a single fight scene. At some points the vampires in Blood turn into a monster rather than simply a human with sharp teeth, but while this was recently done very well in the case of the lower class vampires in Daybreakers, the creature in this version looks somewhat less impressive than the demonic dog in Ghostbusters (with similar claymation effects used to show it scampering across the buildings).
Even in the original anime Siah had very little character, but in this new movie she has even less. She is also accompanied by an entirely characterless blonde to whom she becomes far too attached for me to reasonably suspend my disbelief. The fight scenes are dull, the extension of the storyline behind the secret government agency Siah works for is contrived and, while her dress looks pretty cool, the newly introduced ultra-badass isn't terribly interesting either.
A massive failure. Do check out the original though (which is far superior and barely comparable).
1/5
Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977)
Oh my goodness, that was boring. Yes, lovely effects for the UFOs, but in the end who gives a cr**? Rather less exciting than War Of The Worlds, but without the misogyny. Good acting and nice effects and absolutely nothing happens. Oh and it seems that the aliens like to communicate through John Williams musical compositions.
*THIS PARAGRAPH MIGHT BE CONSIDERED MILDLY SPOILERY. NOT SURE THOUGH. POSSIBILITY OF MILD SPOILERS.*
What annoyed me the most was also something that bugged me in the movie ET: What is the government's role in all of this? In ET government agents suddenly turn up at the house towards the end wearing NASA space suits and we're never entirely sure what is going on. Similarly here we have an odd situation where on the one hand the heads of the team researching the UFOs seem like fairly nice people welcoming free inquiry and yet we also have police cars chasing UFOs, the male protagonist seemingly losing his job without any actual reason (though later on it seems that it would have been inevitable anyway) and finally the ultra-secrecy leads the government to send planes dropping knock-out gas on the main protagonists.
We've also very little idea as to what to think of the aliens. There's a child abduction scene which seems pretty disturbing and the idea that in the end there was nothing to worry about is a little hard to swallow. *END OF MILD SPOILERS. SECTION ABOVE CONTAINS MILD SPOILERS.*
I ended the movie feeling glad I'd seen the pretty effects, but finding the actual story was rather pointless. It's not so different from Avatar in that respect.
2/5
Big Trouble In Little China (1986)
Great fun. Some of the effects shots are filled with the John Carpenter magic, though in general this is quite low budget. This movie is, admittedly, very cheesy. Also some of the lines aren't delivered especially well. That said, the two male leads (Kurt Russell and Dennis Dun) have the energy to really pull you into the action and, once you get caught up in it, the cheesiness ceases to matter.
While this might not sound like much of a recommendation, I can't help but feel that this was an inspiration for the fighting game Mortal Kombat. The abilities of Raiden, god of thunder, in the game seem reminiscent of a rather awesome bad guy. Also the sorceror Shang Tsung in the game seems rather similar to the main bad guy sorceror in the movie. The whole premise of dark Chinese magic and nothing being what it seems really captures the imagination and it isn't surprising that it may have influenced others later on.
Don't expect too much. This is essentially silly fun. But as silly fun goes, you won't be disappointed.
4/5
They Live (1988)
Yet another re-watched, but I was stunned to find how much better it seemed this time around. The storyline seems particularly relevant to the current economic climate as it begins with the protagonist desperate to find work when there's very little to come by. The general sentiment is that times are hard and that people are just going to have to try their best to get by. Then they discover that there's a more sinister explanation for their situation.
Yeah sure there's a point where two friends decide to beat the s*** out of each other and that scene lasts rather too long and looks a more like a wrestling match than a real-life brawl. Also the famously cheesy line "I've come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass and I'm all out of bubblegum" seems extremely out of place. However, I'm inclined to forgive these few things since the movie as a whole is engaging, imaginative, exciting and really quite clever. I love it.
5/5
Dead Ringers (1988)
Now this was entirely new to me. I liked how Jeremy Irons plays two identical twins, but as subtle as he is I actually had trouble keeping up with who was who some of the time. (Advice if you decide to watch it: Take very careful note, as soon as you can, as to what their names are. I'm actually a bit rubbish with names and I wasn't making the effort to take note of the names at the beginning.) The movie actually seemed a little misogynist in places. I suppose this is what the characters were like and if male characters always treated women well it'd be highly unrealistic. Still, when you discover what the implements in the opening credits are for, it is a little bit of a shock.
Still there were some very clever ideas and while the ending was very bizarre indeed, it's kind of expected from Cronenberg's earlier work. Still, while it was acted well and didn't fail to keep my interest, I wasn't entirely sure I could buy into it at the end. It seemed to lack direction and while it's not so different in style to Cronenberg's excellent "Videodrome" it doesn't have the same level of excitement and creativity.
3.5/5
Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001)
Sometimes more interesting for what is happening in the background than the foreground, Y Tu Mama Tambien (And Your Mother Too) is a sweet film which really pulls you in. I was concerned at the beginning that I really didn't like the characters I was being introduced to and I was concerned that I was going to feel much more like an observer rather than getting caught up in the action. However, the introduction of the older female protagonist means that the immature bravado from the male leads which might otherwise have become boring, is suddenly pitched in a different way which we, the audience, can find more easily approachable. All three main characters have a good level of depth and it really becomes quite significantly more than a foreign movie where people have a lot of sex....
... That being said, there is a lot of sex and it goes on rather longer than is entirely comfortable. (Parental guidance on this one i.e. do not watch with parents!)
Some of the tangents seem a little bizarre. At one point we are introduced to a bunch of pigs only to be told that most of them will be later wiped out by disease. I'm not entirely sure what the point of this information was supposed to be. Still, the whole movie is beautifully shot, the characters are engaging and there was a bit of a twist ending which took me by surprise.
4.5/5
Ghosts (2006)
This one has been sitting around waiting for me to watch it for quite some time and I had actually thought it was a documentary. Actually it is more of a re-enactment of real events. I was very impressed by how endearing even some of the less sympathetic characters become by the end.
Essentially the story is that a single mother in China is desperate to make money to help her son and she is convinced that going to the UK is her best bet. The problem? She'll need to enter the country illegally. It comes as no surprise that things go wrong, not least since the intro sequence reveals in no uncertain terms that things will go very badly. It's well acted, well presented and, at times, very revealing.
Perhaps my biggest issue (and I'm not sure how much I can criticise the movie for this) is that the movie is tied in with an appeal for money for immigrants. Now that might sound reasonable, except that the money is to help deported illegals pay off the debts they owe to money lenders after paying exorbitant amounts to be smuggled into the country illegally. It's certainly a nice thing to do for those who've made the mistake of expecting to earn their fortune here, but the appeal is also accompanied by supposed surprise that the British government isn't helping to pay off those debts. Now I hope this doesn't sound mean, but surely it should be the Chinese government that should help out its citizens with money troubles. The last message that the British government wants to send out is that illegal immigrants will have their debts paid off if things go wrong. They shouldn't enter the country illegally, they shouldn't be provided work if they are illegal and naturally they shouldn't be surprised that it is hard to earn money here without a genuine work permit.
All this being said, the movie itself is very good and I can highly recommend it.
5/5
I then follow this with some reviews from some of my favourite directors. Steven Spielberg, John Carpenter and David Cronenberg.
Finally there's a couple of foreign language movies "Y Tu Mama Tambien" and "Ghosts", both of which came very highly recommended.
The Fly (1958) / The Fly (1986)
I felt the need to show these movie posters a little larger. "Once It Was Human - Even As You And I!"
I'd never seen the original version of The Fly before. It was quite surprising to see the movie begin with a murder mystery and then have most of the major events revealed as flashbacks. The story is very well written and the characters are all well-rounded. Why the machine which is central to the story requires three neon lights is not at all clear, but there's no doubting how cool it looks. I must say that I absolutely loved the 1950s version of The Fly.
Re-watching David Cronenberg's remake of The Fly it didn't seem quite as exciting as the first time around. Still, I guess you can expect that to some extent when you know what is going to happen. I didn't remember the female protagonist's ex-boyfriend seeming quite so creepy before, but then again I'm sure there are overly posessive creeps like him in real life. Cronenberg's new take on the premise is not to give us the comfort of knowing precisely what the central scientist has become, but instead to make the change a gradual one. This is extremely effective and stands to put a stark distinction between the remake and the original. Jeff Goldblum's performance is excellent and really gets us under the skin (so to speak) of the scientist as he changes.
Both movies: 5/5 - Absolute classics, both of them.
Insomnia (1997)
The original movie which Chistopher Nolan remade. Both movies are similarly dull, dreary and disappointing. While this version contains some rather more subtle acting from Stellan Skarsgård rather than the overacting we saw from Al Pacino and Robin Williams, he's rather difficult to sympathise with. In the end I felt the movie was a less than pleasant experience without much to justify it.
2/5
District 13: Ultimatum (2009)
The sequel to the excellent french parkour action movie "District 13" introduces us to the variety of gangs that can be found within District 13, only to not really make it worth it. The initial action sequences are great, but in the end the real focus is not on the conflicts withing D13 but on the politics which set up D13 in the first place in central Paris. The movie's third act is more focussed on the politics than than the action, but unfortunately the movie doesn't have the depth to make this work. What we could really have done with was a bigger focus on the action like in the first movie and, in the end, this sequel doesn't have anything to say that wasn't already said in the first movie.
Pretty good fun and more intelligent than most action movies, but unsurprisingly it's not as good as the original.
3.5/5
Blood: The Last Vampire (2009)
Another remake. I knew this wasn't supposed to be great, but on the other hand the original anime seemed pretty underrated too. Sadly, far from being a less than perfect adaptation of the anime to live action, this is barely the same franchise. The original anime was short, beautiful, but the message was unclear. This remake is too long, too tacky and has absolutely nothing to say. While the original anime easily made us believe that the evil of the vampires was carefully hidden under the surface with only about 5 vampires in the entire movie, the remake makes it hard to understand why everybody doesn't know about the vampires already with about 50 vampires in a single fight scene. At some points the vampires in Blood turn into a monster rather than simply a human with sharp teeth, but while this was recently done very well in the case of the lower class vampires in Daybreakers, the creature in this version looks somewhat less impressive than the demonic dog in Ghostbusters (with similar claymation effects used to show it scampering across the buildings).
Even in the original anime Siah had very little character, but in this new movie she has even less. She is also accompanied by an entirely characterless blonde to whom she becomes far too attached for me to reasonably suspend my disbelief. The fight scenes are dull, the extension of the storyline behind the secret government agency Siah works for is contrived and, while her dress looks pretty cool, the newly introduced ultra-badass isn't terribly interesting either.
A massive failure. Do check out the original though (which is far superior and barely comparable).
1/5
Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977)
Oh my goodness, that was boring. Yes, lovely effects for the UFOs, but in the end who gives a cr**? Rather less exciting than War Of The Worlds, but without the misogyny. Good acting and nice effects and absolutely nothing happens. Oh and it seems that the aliens like to communicate through John Williams musical compositions.
*THIS PARAGRAPH MIGHT BE CONSIDERED MILDLY SPOILERY. NOT SURE THOUGH. POSSIBILITY OF MILD SPOILERS.*
What annoyed me the most was also something that bugged me in the movie ET: What is the government's role in all of this? In ET government agents suddenly turn up at the house towards the end wearing NASA space suits and we're never entirely sure what is going on. Similarly here we have an odd situation where on the one hand the heads of the team researching the UFOs seem like fairly nice people welcoming free inquiry and yet we also have police cars chasing UFOs, the male protagonist seemingly losing his job without any actual reason (though later on it seems that it would have been inevitable anyway) and finally the ultra-secrecy leads the government to send planes dropping knock-out gas on the main protagonists.
We've also very little idea as to what to think of the aliens. There's a child abduction scene which seems pretty disturbing and the idea that in the end there was nothing to worry about is a little hard to swallow. *END OF MILD SPOILERS. SECTION ABOVE CONTAINS MILD SPOILERS.*
I ended the movie feeling glad I'd seen the pretty effects, but finding the actual story was rather pointless. It's not so different from Avatar in that respect.
2/5
Big Trouble In Little China (1986)
Great fun. Some of the effects shots are filled with the John Carpenter magic, though in general this is quite low budget. This movie is, admittedly, very cheesy. Also some of the lines aren't delivered especially well. That said, the two male leads (Kurt Russell and Dennis Dun) have the energy to really pull you into the action and, once you get caught up in it, the cheesiness ceases to matter.
While this might not sound like much of a recommendation, I can't help but feel that this was an inspiration for the fighting game Mortal Kombat. The abilities of Raiden, god of thunder, in the game seem reminiscent of a rather awesome bad guy. Also the sorceror Shang Tsung in the game seems rather similar to the main bad guy sorceror in the movie. The whole premise of dark Chinese magic and nothing being what it seems really captures the imagination and it isn't surprising that it may have influenced others later on.
Don't expect too much. This is essentially silly fun. But as silly fun goes, you won't be disappointed.
4/5
They Live (1988)
Yet another re-watched, but I was stunned to find how much better it seemed this time around. The storyline seems particularly relevant to the current economic climate as it begins with the protagonist desperate to find work when there's very little to come by. The general sentiment is that times are hard and that people are just going to have to try their best to get by. Then they discover that there's a more sinister explanation for their situation.
Yeah sure there's a point where two friends decide to beat the s*** out of each other and that scene lasts rather too long and looks a more like a wrestling match than a real-life brawl. Also the famously cheesy line "I've come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass and I'm all out of bubblegum" seems extremely out of place. However, I'm inclined to forgive these few things since the movie as a whole is engaging, imaginative, exciting and really quite clever. I love it.
5/5
Dead Ringers (1988)
Now this was entirely new to me. I liked how Jeremy Irons plays two identical twins, but as subtle as he is I actually had trouble keeping up with who was who some of the time. (Advice if you decide to watch it: Take very careful note, as soon as you can, as to what their names are. I'm actually a bit rubbish with names and I wasn't making the effort to take note of the names at the beginning.) The movie actually seemed a little misogynist in places. I suppose this is what the characters were like and if male characters always treated women well it'd be highly unrealistic. Still, when you discover what the implements in the opening credits are for, it is a little bit of a shock.
Still there were some very clever ideas and while the ending was very bizarre indeed, it's kind of expected from Cronenberg's earlier work. Still, while it was acted well and didn't fail to keep my interest, I wasn't entirely sure I could buy into it at the end. It seemed to lack direction and while it's not so different in style to Cronenberg's excellent "Videodrome" it doesn't have the same level of excitement and creativity.
3.5/5
Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001)
Sometimes more interesting for what is happening in the background than the foreground, Y Tu Mama Tambien (And Your Mother Too) is a sweet film which really pulls you in. I was concerned at the beginning that I really didn't like the characters I was being introduced to and I was concerned that I was going to feel much more like an observer rather than getting caught up in the action. However, the introduction of the older female protagonist means that the immature bravado from the male leads which might otherwise have become boring, is suddenly pitched in a different way which we, the audience, can find more easily approachable. All three main characters have a good level of depth and it really becomes quite significantly more than a foreign movie where people have a lot of sex....
... That being said, there is a lot of sex and it goes on rather longer than is entirely comfortable. (Parental guidance on this one i.e. do not watch with parents!)
Some of the tangents seem a little bizarre. At one point we are introduced to a bunch of pigs only to be told that most of them will be later wiped out by disease. I'm not entirely sure what the point of this information was supposed to be. Still, the whole movie is beautifully shot, the characters are engaging and there was a bit of a twist ending which took me by surprise.
4.5/5
Ghosts (2006)
This one has been sitting around waiting for me to watch it for quite some time and I had actually thought it was a documentary. Actually it is more of a re-enactment of real events. I was very impressed by how endearing even some of the less sympathetic characters become by the end.
Essentially the story is that a single mother in China is desperate to make money to help her son and she is convinced that going to the UK is her best bet. The problem? She'll need to enter the country illegally. It comes as no surprise that things go wrong, not least since the intro sequence reveals in no uncertain terms that things will go very badly. It's well acted, well presented and, at times, very revealing.
Perhaps my biggest issue (and I'm not sure how much I can criticise the movie for this) is that the movie is tied in with an appeal for money for immigrants. Now that might sound reasonable, except that the money is to help deported illegals pay off the debts they owe to money lenders after paying exorbitant amounts to be smuggled into the country illegally. It's certainly a nice thing to do for those who've made the mistake of expecting to earn their fortune here, but the appeal is also accompanied by supposed surprise that the British government isn't helping to pay off those debts. Now I hope this doesn't sound mean, but surely it should be the Chinese government that should help out its citizens with money troubles. The last message that the British government wants to send out is that illegal immigrants will have their debts paid off if things go wrong. They shouldn't enter the country illegally, they shouldn't be provided work if they are illegal and naturally they shouldn't be surprised that it is hard to earn money here without a genuine work permit.
All this being said, the movie itself is very good and I can highly recommend it.
5/5