Tag Archives: movie

March 7, 2013 · 9:51 pm

Watson’s Review of “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters”

“Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters” is a fairy tale remix that’s Grimm in all the wrong ways, a one-joke premise that’s stretched paper-thin before the end of the first reel. Its title will remind many of last year’s “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,” a goofy comic-book actioner in which America’s 16th president was reimagined as an axe-wielding slayer of bloodsucking ghouls. A similar concept is explored here, with the eponymous siblings growing up to become killers of witch-folk, but with less fun to be had this time round: while it was kind of amusing watching Timur Bekmambetov’s 2012 effort put a supernatural spin on US history, it’s not so amusing watching this messily directed fantasy dud half-heartedly poke fun at a 200-year-old fairy tale.

It is the telling of this well-known tale that serves as the film’s opening. You know the drill. Abandoned by their father in the middle of the deep, dark woods, young brother and sister Hansel and Gretel happen upon a cottage made of candy. Within the cottage is a wicked old witch who enslaves them, fattens them up and plans on eating them. As the witch prepares to cook Hansel alive, Gretel breaks free from her chains, boots the bitch into the oven and roasts her on an open flame — as the narration usefully points out, fire is essentially a witch’s kryptonite. (Continue Reading…)

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March 5, 2013 · 2:06 am

Watson’s Review of “A Good Day to Die Hard”

“A Good Day to Die Hard” is the worst of the “Die Hard” movies, not because of its restrictive 12A rating, nor its over-reliance on computer-generated effects, but because it is the first instalment in the 25-year franchise to treat its audience with open contempt — here is the “Die Hard” for the “Transformers” crowd, all flashing lights and no brain activity. That’s not to say that none of its four predecessors are guilty of similar crimes — “Die Hard 4.0” certainly could have done with a bit more brain power — but there’s something especially insulting about this fifth entry’s lackadaisical, almost perfunctory attitude towards anything not directly involving an explosion or a helicopter, or indeed a helicopter that’s exploding.

That’s an image that’s stuck with the franchise ever since its first appearance in John McTiernan’s classic 1988 original, as Agents Johnson and Johnson’s FBI chopper was swallowed up by a rooftop fireball. It reappeared several times throughout Renny Harlin’s airport-bound 1990 sequel “Die Harder,” albeit with winged aircrafts, did so again at the end of McTiernan’s 1995 threequel ”Die Hard with a Vengeance,” and then popped up again in Len Wiseman’s 2007 fourquel “Die Hard 4.0,” as Bruce Willis’ maverick cop John McClane took out an attacking helicopter with an airborne police car. “I was out of bullets,” was his smirking quip. (Continue Reading…)

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December 4, 2012 · 3:41 pm

Watson’s Review of “Skyfall”

In a breathtaking, action-drenched prologue that boosts the heart rate and then brings it to a sudden, chilling halt, James Bond adventure “Skyfall” triumphantly vanquishes the bitter aftertaste left behind by the enduring M16 agent’s previous escapade, the chronically arse-numbing “Quantum of Solace,” and boldly promises that great things are to come. It’s an audaciously extravagant opening, rivalling the Madagascar-set parkour chase from “Casino Royale” for thrills and energy, as Daniel Craig’s 007 pursues a mercenary who has stolen a precious computer hard drive from a field agent in Istanbul.

It’s a complex pursuit: it begins on foot, moves onto a motorbike, onto a speeding train and then finally inside a digger on top of that train. As the chase nears its conclusion, Bond’s accompanying, deliberately unnamed agent (Naomi Harris, “28 Days Later”), who watches from afar through a rifle lens, finds herself faced with a dilemma: either she risk losing the hard drive or risk losing Bond. I shan’t say what she chooses, but her decision packs a hard-hitting punch and provides a sumptuous set-up for a riveting tale of vengeance and betrayal. This is Bond at his brilliant best, and indeed, “Skyfall” is arguably the best of all the Bond films. (Continue Reading…)

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· 3:36 pm

Watson’s Review of “Alex Cross”

Detective Alex Cross must be some kind of superhuman. He waltzes into a homicide scene, informed only of the basic details of the situation, and instantly knows all that has occurred. He knows how many were involved in the killing. He knows if the victim was drugged and whether or not they screamed. He knows who shot who and the order in which they died. He knows the killer’s personality, mindset and work history: “He’s ex-military, a stimulus-seeking, sociopathic narcissist,” he correctly calculates after just one brief glance at the villain of his latest investigation. Heck, he probably knows what the killer had for breakfast last Tuesday morning.

His skills aren’t limited to crime scenes. As he stands at the centre of a city block placed on lockdown to prevent a predicted assassination, Cross suddenly, inexplicably figures out that the killer’s master plan is to fire a bazooka from a passing elevated subway train. Sure enough, seconds later a rocket comes blasting out from the open door of a speeding carriage (and quite remarkably hits its target). Which leads to one important question: just how exactly does Cross know these things? Perhaps he has a Sherlockian eye for detail. Perhaps he has psychic abilities. Perhaps he read the script. But then here’s another question: if he can figure all of this out in an instant, and do so with stunningly little effort, how has he not found out that his dear, beloved wife is three months pregnant? (Continue Reading…)

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September 3, 2012 · 5:27 pm

Watson’s review of ‘Total Recall’

Few will disagree that Paul Verhoeven’s planet-hopping, ultraviolent sci-fi classic “Total Recall” is utterly bonkers — those who do disagree need to order it on Netflix or buy the DVD/Blu-ray and watch it again, this time more closely. Loosely sprung from Philip K. Dick’s mind-boggling, reality-bending short story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale,” the wildly successful 1990 action blockbuster contains scenes, characters and ideas so intoxicatingly, head-spinningly bizarre that there are times it achieves the kind of blunt surreality that can be found in the stranger sequences of a David Cronenberg or David Lynch movie.

Take one memorable moment that sees Arnold Schwarzenegger, the muscle-bound star, hiding within the mechanical body of a middle-aged lady whose detachable head is then used as an explosive device. An earlier scene has Schwarzenegger yanking a tracking device from the depths of his nasal cavity, in spite of the fact that the bug is three times the size of his nostril. One supporting character is a man with a clairvoyant conjoined twin who protrudes from his brother’s belly like a young kangaroo poking out from its mother’s pouch. And then there’s that famous Martian prostitute, the one whose bountiful bosom boldly challenges that age-old saying, “Two’s company, three’s a crowd.”

And now, in the summer of 2012, we have been given a needless, if perfectly harmless remake (from a studio named Original Films, no less), directed by “Underworld” helmer Len Wiseman. Fans will be pleased to know that this new-and-unimproved “Total Recall” boasts some of the more absurd elements of Verhoeven’s film, but this time they are notably tamer in presentation. For example, instead of encasing himself inside a human exoskeleton, leading man Colin Farrell disguises his appearance with a handy gizmo that projects a holographic image of another person’s head around his. The tracking device once lodged up Schwarzenegger’s nose is now in the inside of Farrell’s hand, removed with the aid of a shard of glass. As the presence of Martian mutants is done away with in this Earth-bound redo, the psychic Siamese twin is sadly nowhere to be seen. However, the triple-breasted hooker is here, even if the three amigos are held at bay by a thin leather strap. Oh how the nerds howl in disappointment. (Continue Reading…)

(6 outta 10)

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July 25, 2012 · 3:46 pm

Watson’s Review of The Dark Knight Rises

“The Dark Knight Rises” opens not with a whimper but with an ominous crack of heart-stopping thunder. In the clouded skies looming large over a desolate landscape in central Asia, a CIA plane manned by a cocky agent and three handcuffed mercenaries is hijacked by its prisoners, suspended nose-down in mid-air from a second, much larger plane that swoops in from above, torn apart piece by piece and finally sent hurtling down towards the grassy hills standing miles below. There are two survivors of the crash, one of whom is the villainous Bane (Tom Hardy, “Warrior”), who, with a blubbering captive in tow, hangs from a wire attached to the second plane, which soars off into the horizon, where Gotham City lies unprepared for what is hotly approaching. As Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman warns our costumed hero in a later scene, “There’s a storm coming, Mr Wayne.” What a stirring and destructive storm it is.

This sequence, like so many in “The Dark Knight Rises,” is a stunning, dizzying and goose bump-inducing watch. It’s like something out of a James Bond movie, but on a larger scale. It boldly displays director Christopher Nolan’s preference for practical effects and stunt-work over computer-generated jiggery pokery, along with Hans Zimmer’s booming score and of course Wally Pfister’s staggering cinematography. It introduces terrorist Bane as a fearsome, hulking figure of brute force and cunning tactic. As played with startling physicality by Hardy, Bane is a sinister presence, his face obscured behind a respiratory mask that pumps his lungs full of life-sustaining anaesthetic and muffles his British-accented voice. This opening set-piece, when previewed to select audiences last December, was the recipient of widespread complaints regarding the incomprehensibility of Hardy’s wheezy line delivery. Rest assured that Bane’s voice has been altered and fixed, and much of his speech approaches crystal clarity, with the odd garbled line here and there. (Continue Reading…)

(Ten outta Ten)

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· 3:41 pm

Watson’s Review of TED

I doubt we will see a funnier character on the big screen this year than Ted, the eponymous secondary protagonist of “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane’s feature-length debut. This is at first surprising for the same reason it becomes so obvious: Ted is a stuffed teddy bear, the kind you can make at a Build-A-Bear workshop and give to a five-year-old as as birthday present. But Ted is no ordinary teddy bear, for he can walk and talk and sing and smoke pot and engage in casual sex with Grammy award-winning singer-songwriters. That last one is very true, in spite of Ted’s visible lack of genitalia. “I’ve written a lot of complaints to Hasbro about that,” he gripes. I’m sure Hasbro would receive many more complaints if the case were otherwise.

Ted is voiced and motion-captured by MacFarlane, who provides him with a thick-as-blood Bostonian accent that instantly calls to mind Peter Griffin, another MacFarlane-voiced animated character. He is, as far as I could tell, a wholly computer-generated creation, and he interacts well with the film’s live-action setting, much more so than Scooby-Doo ever did in his live-action adventures. In a deceptively treacly opening sequence narrated by (who else?) Patrick Stewart, we witness the magical origins of Ted. In the suburbs of Boston on Christmas Day in 1985, a crushingly unpopular eight-year-old boy named John Bennett (Bretton Manley) receives a teddy bear from his loving parents. This bear is inanimate and is given the name Ted. (Continue Reading…)

(Eight outta Ten)

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July 15, 2012 · 5:56 pm

Watson Reviews “The Amazing Spider-Man”

“The Amazing Spider-Man” is a reboot of a blockbusting franchise that got off to a good start with “Spider-Man” in 2002, web-slung to towering new heights with “Spider-Man 2” in 2004, and lost its footing with “Spider-Man 3” in 2007. While each of those films were helmed by horror maestro Sam Raimi, this redo is directed by indie newbie Marc Webb, who may or may not have been hired for his eerily appropriate surname. Webb was a good choice: he displays a deft hand at directing drama, romance and action in “The Amazing Spider-Man,” and balances them with profound ease and impressive skill. Once again, a “Spider-Man” franchise gets off to a good start. I look forward to its inevitable sequel and look warily upon its probable threequel.

The Peter Parker, and indeed Spider-Man, of Raimi’s trilogy was played by Tobey Maguire, who was 27 years of age when he first played the super-powered high-schooler. In Webb’s film, Peter is played by Andrew Garfield, who is now 28 years old. In spite of the one-year advantage Maguire had over Garfield in playing a teen, I found Garfield more convincing in the role: the L.A.-born English actor, utterly enchanting as Eduardo Saverin in David Fincher’s “The Social Network,” has one of those faces that looks perpetually young or, more specifically, adolescent. Teenage girls could take him home to show daddy, and daddy wouldn’t bat an eyelid. (Continue Reading…)
(Eight Outta Ten)

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· 5:39 pm

Watson Reviews “Friends with Kids”

“Friends with Kids” is an effective comedy and an even more effective drama, though technically it’s more of a comedy. More specifically, it is a romantic comedy ostensibly not about romance but about parenthood and child-rearing, two topics that – in spite of and because of the hardships that naturally accompany them – provide direct access to a whole wombful of comical situations (poopy diapers, late-night wailing and the such). But “Friends with Kids” ultimately is a film about romance in much the same way that “When Harry Met Sally” was, if I were to dare make such an unfair comparison: it is a film about romance specifically because it is not a film about romance and because, inevitably, romance wins out in the end.

The film focuses on Jason and Julie, a very likeable pair of thirtysomething best friends. Jason, a successful advertising executive and commitment-phobic womaniser, is played by Adam Scott (“Parks and Recreation”). Julie, an investment advisor and loving player of the “would you rather…?” game, is played by Jennifer Westfeldt (“Kissing Jessica Stein”). Jason and Julie live under the same roof, in a swanky apartment building in Manhattan. They have been close, supportive BFFs ever since college, but the prospect of sharing a romance has never once crossed their minds. They are strictly platonic, and comfortably so. (Continue Reading…)

(Six Outta Ten)

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June 27, 2012 · 5:45 pm

Watson’s Review of “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”

“Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” is based on a true story, in a way. Part biopic and part action-horror film, it takes more than a few creative liberties in telling the life story of America’s 16th president, reimagining him as a professional slayer of demonic bloodsuckers. Apparently, when not governing the US of A, Mr. Lincoln would routinely visit vampires’ places of work with the intention of chopping their heads off with a silver-edged axe, often finding himself in high-stakes scuffles with the snarling beasts. I must say, I dread to think of the effect the film will have on history students’ final exams. Examiners shall surely be amused, if not utterly horrified, by claims that Lincoln’s abolition of slavery was not just in the name of freedom but was a desperate attempt at ridding the vampire nation of their main food supply.

Playing Lincoln is Benjamin Walker (“Flags of Our Fathers”), who has presumably been cast for both his striking physical resemblance to the man himself and his stunning athleticism. His role is a physically demanding one, which not many actors who have played Lincoln could honestly say about their role. This Lincoln twirls an axe between his fingers like a baton-twirler wielding a metal rod. He leaps between tumbling train carriages atop a burning bridge. He even chases down a chuckling vampire while skillfully running atop a stampede of computer-generated horses. Again, not many actors who have played Lincoln could truthfully say they’ve done any of that in the role. Benjamin Walker can. (Continue Reading…)

(Five Outta Ten)

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