Review: Battleship***
Love it or hate it; John Carter star Taylor Kitsch is here to stay, and even though his latest movie, Battleship, is monumentally moronic, there is still a huge amount of over-the-top, double entendre theatrics and bombastic action to giggle gleefully at. The added draw for some of director Peter Berg’s (hopefully) satirical ode to all recent sci-fi action movies will be pop star Rihanna or perhaps True Blood’s man mountain Alexander Skarsgård? Either way, Battleship goes forth with all guns blazin’ to bring down an alien enemy and any shred of credibility. The plot is a simple one: based on Hasbro’s…
Review: Wrath of the Titans**
For a sequel bursting and ablaze with special effects and offering far better 3D this time around – as it wasn’t done haphazardly in post production, director Jonathan Liebesman’s take on Greek mythology is surprisingly bland. Unfortunately for him, it’s a combination of bland script and even blander lead in Sam Worthington. Worthington is like the Nigel Mansell of the acting world; performing adequately and a rather likeable chap but never setting the world (or screen) alight. It’s as though Liebesman relies heavily on his effects to inject excitement into Wrath of the Titans (3D) as the rest is a…
Review: Resistance***
As wartime dramas go, one begins to feel very much like another. But what debut feature-film writer-director Amit Gupta has created is an alternative 1940s ‘reality’, based on a fascinating novel by Owen Sheers, about what if the Nazis had succeeded with their invasion plans of Old Blighty. Resistanceactually reignites our interest in the genre, as well as points to a fascinating real-life back-story. It’s WWII and Britain is occupied. A group of women in a remote Welsh village wake up to discover all of their husbands have mysteriously vanished overnight, possibly to join the Resistance. Meanwhile, a German patrol…
Review: Tomorrow, When The War Began***
Although adapted from the first novel in a series by John Marsden about an invasion and occupation of Australia by a ‘foreign power’, you can’t help thinking while watching Tomorrow, When The War Began, “Crickey, the Japanese are coming!” This rather untimely inappropriate and harsh fictional assumption, given recent natural disasters in the Land of the Rising Sun, is further enhanced by the film’s ultra-cool and contemporary cross between Pearl Harbor and The Bridge on the River Kwai – minus the massive film budget, but with all the blockbuster effects. As in the book, the story is narrated by the…
Ironclad
Now and then, there are films that need to show raw violence, in order to recreate the reality of a situation, contrary to the sensitivity of some. Writer/director Jonathan English may have never experienced 13th Century Britain, but it’s safe to suggest that the blade resolved most disputes – be that of the sword or axe variety. English’s Ironclad is a medieval maniacal massacre with a desperate, ferocious and no-holds-barred bloodlust that surpasses even last year’s Centurion that relished in its body count and blood spillage. Ironclad’s story has a significant purpose, though, that captures the contemporary imagination: freedom for every…
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