Eddie the Eagle

While the genre of ‘biographical sports films’ tends to invoke a snore of boredom, Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards definitely has an interesting (if not all that successful) story to tell. Eddie was the first person to represent Great Britain in Olympic ski jumping, competing in the 1988 Winter Olympics and coming dead last – something that only made him more popular.

The 2016 film has taken his story, added in a few colourful characters to bulk it out, and created an incredibly enjoyable,
uplifting and heartfelt film. Taron Egerton (Kingsman – though it may take you a little while to recognise him, as he looks and sounds pretty different) does an impressive job as Eddie, managing to capture his speech patterns and facial expressions to a tea. Hugh Jackman stars as his fictional coach Bronson Peary, giving a performance that’s very different from anything I’ve seen from him before, with a playful but troubled outlook. Christopher Walken and Keith Allen also make appearances, with the latter a particular joy to watch as Eddie’s long-suffering father Terry.

The film has been a big success, probably because it doesn’t pretend to be anything but feel good and slightly cliched. The numerous supporting characters are hilarious (especially Rune Temte as Bjørn the Norwegian Coach) and you will find yourself smiling or laughing throughout. A word of warning however – if you can’t get on board with the slightly cliched, inspirational speech type film then you’ll probably just be miserable throughout this.

Some people have said this is Cool Runnings meets Billy Elliot and I can see where they’re coming from – though there isn’t any dancing. The Jamaican bobsleigh team even get a mention in the film (as it’s set at the same Olympics) so keep an ear out.

As you can tell from the rather short review, there isn’t much to say about this film. The cast are great, the film is enjoyable and it seems to have been successful during its opening weeks at the box office.

Spy

I’m one of those people who don’t particularly find women funny – there’s not one female standup that I own on DVD (opposed to a lot of male standup) and I can only name a few funny sketch show comediennes. However, Melissa McCarthy has just made that list in a major way.

We meet Susan Cooper (McCarthy) who works in the ‘basement’ of the CIA feeding instruction to first class spy Bradley Fine (Jude Law). A quiet, unassuming woman who doesn’t really like conflict, she is thrown into the field when Fine is compromised and other top agent Rick Ford (Jason Statham) goes awol. We get to see a completely different side to Cooper as she must become the agent she trained for ten years ago to stop the sale of a nuclear weapon.

With its fantastic mix of comedy, action and fast mouthedness, there is never a dull minute with this one. The cast all bring different but complementary elements into the mix, with Statham playing almost a parody of himself, Law a parody of most ‘serious’ spy films and McCarthy bringing a very likable and human element.

The weakest link is probably Miranda Hart, because she plays exactly the same awkward character as she does in everything. Her stage rushing 50 Cent is however simply masterful. Peter Serafinowicz is a very odd character, and I couldn’t decide if I liked him. His character borders on sexual pervert and while I found it quite amusing, I can see why he ruined the film for some. The humour throughout is pretty juvenile, with quite a bit of arse and tit grabbing, but it’s always done in a very amusing way. The language is poetical and frequent, with many fucks thrown around so if you’re not a fan of profanity you may want to give this one a miss.

I cannot praise Melissa McCarthy enough for her performance – it was truly a joy to watch. Funny, excellently executed and at no point did you feel sorry for her. Let’s not beat around the bush, she is a fat lady. Not fat by Hollywood standards, but by most people’s standards. And not once was there a reference to her weight in the film. Not one joke was made about it. While this may not seem a big thing, think about it. If there is ever a fat character in a film they’re always the comic relief, the fat best friend who makes the main character feel better about themselves while they stuff their face. However, McCarthy was always graceful, her fight scenes were incredibly impressive, as were her fast comebacks and biting remarks.

Jason Statham was always amazing, as usual. He takes his usual action hero attitude up another notch (if that’s possible) and becomes a tough-talking but oddly bumbling parody of all the characters he has played to date. As he details how one arm got ripped off and he reattached it with the other, you sit grinning so wide it nearly tears your cheeks.

There were many laugh out loud moments, and I for one will be tracking this down once it comes out on DVD. It’s very similar to Kingsmen, but a lot funnier and slightly less smooth. It’s only at the cinema a few more days, so check it out!

Saints Row 4

When we heard that there would be a Saints Row 4, we had some wild ideas about how it could possibly outdo the previous game, and I eagerly purchased it for the boyfriend’s birthday. Around three months later I’ve finally finished it, and at times it was a struggle to pick up the remote.

The beautiful thing about Saint Row III was that it was ridiculous, loud, sexy, immoral and funny. Nothing was sacred, the only things that mattered were how big the guns were and how much damage you could cause. Saints Row IV, for me, had none of the refined beauty of 3, the cleverness was gone – maybe because they had to outdo themselves, be more extreme.

The main problem, and it’s one that a few games suffer from, is that it was originally intended as DLC but then changed into a standalone game. This means that the general mechanics are very similar – the same characters, the same city, the same ideas behind the plot. You begin as President of the USA, with the rest of the Saints holding various positions of power, when suddenly an alien called Zimyak invades Earth and beams everyone up into his ship. He then creates a simulation of Earth where everyone is trapped, you wake up in a 1950s America wearing tweed and proceed to freak out, then break out of your prison. You have to release the rest of your crew, end the simulation and try to save Earth.

As you go through the simulation you begin to unlock superpowers such as super sprint and super jump and so on. They sound quite cool, right? They are for about a minute, and then they just take out all of the fun of getting round Steelport – you don’t need to drive or fly, or run down the street butt naked. And I think that’s my problem with this sequel, it’s just not that much fun compared to the previous game.

But this extends to the activities that are spotted around the city, and even to the melee moves that you can do. In 3, they were funny. In 4, they are so ridiculously overpowered that they become effective but really boring to execute. The same goes for all the other powers that you can obtain – fun for a bit, but you are in general so overpowered that there’s no challenge, the only times I died was because I was doing something really stupid like shooting black holes at my own feet. Yes, there is a gun that shoots black holes.

Something as fun as fighting waves of police in 3 becomes merely an annoyance in 4 because you can obliterate a street full of people in one move. The thing I missed the most was the driving – Saints Row has one of the best driving mechanisms I’ve come across, and yet you barely need to use it. I did anyway, but aspects like customizing a car and superpowering it are ignored. In 3 you could spend an hour driving round the city, streaking, taunting people etc and it wouldn’t get boring – in 4 you either do quests or do nothing. Even the collectibles become a right pain in the arse – there are over 1200 ‘clusters’ in the simulation that you can find, do you have any idea how frustrating it is when you only have one left to find?

It’s nice that they haven’t downplayed the sexiness of it all – if you’re a bit of a prude then you should really avoid the game, there are a lot of very small clothes and ridiculously proportioned bodies. You can also romance every single member of your party with varying results, because clearly Volition (the creators) don’t give a crap whether you’re straight, gay, black, white, alien or robot. And that’s the way it should be.

Once the plot gets going and you unlock more superpowers the game gets a lot better and more fun, and I’m interested to see where Saints Row 5 will take us. All in all? It’s pretty fun, and now that it’s only about a tenner in Game it’s worth picking up a copy, but I wouldn’t bother trying to max everything out and getting all of the achievements – just do a quick play through of the main story and then move on to something else. Though do have a play with the Dubstep gun, it’s fun and obliterates pretty much every enemy.

It’s a shame really, considering how long I spent playing 3 – my game time on 4 is only around 23 hours (which sounds a lot but, when compared to my playing time on 3 of 35 hours, actually isn’t). Also, I heard a lot of outrage and controversy over an alleged alien probing scene which was removed in Australia, but it was nowhere to be seen in our game – has it been taken out of all copies of 4? I am disappointed.

On a side note, Borderlands 1.5: The Presequel arrived on Sat and it’s looking pretty good so far. You can even play as Claptrap, if you really really want to.

Lego Marvel Superheroes

After the roaring success that was Lego Lord of the Rings, we were all dreadfully excited when we heard about about Lego’s newest game based on the heroes and villains of Marvel. Released in October last year, we got it just after Christmas and I finished it (well the main storyline anyway) around a week ago.

I must say, I am very very conflicted when it comes to this game. It is entertaining? Well, yes, for a certain amount of time for a certain kind of person. Is it good? In some respects, but nowhere near as good as the LOTR game and in general has some pretty big flaws.

Okay, so you play through as numerous good guys (such as Iron Man, Wolverine, Mr Fantastic etc) trying to defeat bad guys. This all starts when the Silver Surfer appears to herald the coming of Galactus, but his board is destroyed by Doctor Doom and cosmic bricks are scattered across the world. Doom and Loki want to gather the bricks to create a Doom Ray to destroy Galactus, but Nick Fury gathers together all the good guys to try and stop them.

So the plot line isn’t exactly based on a comic of anything, it’s just as many well known Marvel characters as possible in one game. The levels themselves are pretty standard, the sort of stuff we’ve come to expect from any Lego game, with a couple of amusing moments in between. In each level you have the usual objectives; ‘true believer’ for collecting a certain amount of coins, 10 minikits for completing little challenges during free play, red ‘deadpool’ bricks for unlocking extras in the wider world and the Marvel specific ‘Stan Lee in peril’ where in every level Marvel creator Stan Lee will be in some sort of trouble and you need to save him. So there’s a lot to be doing in each level, and because you need various different powers it prompts you to play through in free play so you can unlock everything. And you see, that is what made LOTR such a great game, I wanted to get that 100% complete badge shining on the screen and I didn’t mind having to walk Middle Earth or do levels two or three times to get it.

But my Marvel completion currently stands at around 34% – and I really couldn’t care less about increasing it. I’ve done the main story and a bit of wandering about in New York collecting a few things but it has become utterly boring now that the story is complete. There are quite a few things that have caused this, so I’ll try to work through them quickly.

First off is the fact that everything becomes the same. Yes the first time you have to pull a series of levers to open a door to get a brick is very interesting but by the 50th time (there are 250 golden bricks in total) it begins to get tedious. Finding everything in New York would take someone who really doesn’t mind repetitive actions, because there are very limited actions that you can do to obtain these bricks. I get the creators wanted to make the game as fulfilling as possible, hence there being so many bricks, but 150 would easily have been enough.

Something that links into this is also the sheer amount of characters that they’ve tried to include.There are 155 playable characters (in LOTR there were only 84) and this was really pushed as a fantastic thing when it came to this new Lego game. Imagine the possibilities when it comes to all those characters – we’re talking a pretty hefty chunk of the Marvel universe and some of them even I hadn’t heard of before. But, in reality, there are only about ten abilities that the characters have, just repeated across the entire group. One or two have unique abilities (such as Ant Man who can shrink down), but on the whole there are these ten main abilities and each character has around two. This means that once you unlock the main cast (who you naturally unlock as you play the main story) you can pretty much do everything you need to without needing to unlock the secondary characters. Also once you unlock the flying characters, you can simply skip the majority of the puzzles by simply flying to the top of the building.

The mechanisms for flying are another big problem for me, they are so damn clunky and bizarre that winning races is nearly impossible in some cases. With the vehicles they don’t fly like an aeroplane would, but they don’t fly like a helicopter either. You have to point straight up to go up, there’s not really just a happy glide at any point. The flying characters are just as difficult to manoeuvre, with A making them soar straight up and B having them plummet to the ground. The forced perspective with the camera also doesn’t help, as sometimes you end up inside buildings desperately trying to navigate someone who’s still outside of the building.

The way you change characters is also infuriating, because they have decided to put the main characters first, followed by the secondary characters in alphabetical order. Okay, so far so good. But most of the main characters and a few secondary have more than one outfit or incarnation, so for example Tony Stark, Iron Man, Mark 42 or Jean Grey, Phoenix etc. Each of these usually do slightly different things, so if you want to use the Mark 42 suit you have to wait for the computer to scroll itself through seven different iterations of Iron Man before reaching the one you want. Considering how many times you have to change character, this can get real boring, real quick. Add into this the fact that if you’re Hulk or Spiderman, when you press Y you change into your alter ego and go through that whole animation, and then the character screen opens. The LOTR way of doing this of having a wheel of your favourites would’ve made this process a lot less painful, because you just have the main abilities that you need to complete a task and pretty much ignore the rest of the characters. I honestly don’t understand why they felt the need to include so many characters, especially when the majority of the wider world won’t know (or care) who they are.

Something they’ve taken out from the LOTR game was the Mithril bricks which you could then use to forge interesting or funny items, such as the Mithril Disco Vial which made everyone boogie round the place. These really added another dimension into the whole game, and there is nothing like this whatsoever in the Marvel game. It wouldn’t be difficult to come up with some cool items that you could create, and it’d break up the monotony of the game.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, this just isn’t as funny. It has a few amusing moments (usually provided by Deadpool) but past that it’s just dull, considering the running joke is Nick Fury constantly eating, the humour doesn’t exactly come thick and fast. Mix this with voices that sound almost right and the whole game just falls a bit flat, which is a shame considering how good it could have been.

So, what to do. If you can give it a go then do but I wouldn’t spend money on it (especially not the full whack of £35) because it’s simply not worth it.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Before the very popular TV series of the same name, there was actually a film of Buffy the Vampire Slayer brought out in 1992, still written by Joss Whedon but starring Kirsty Swanson and Donald Sutherland as Slayer and Watcher respectively. Let me warn you know, if you’re expecting the same cheesy but enjoyable fun of the TV series, then you’ll be sorely disappointed. 

Buffy is introduced as a stereotypical American cheerleader, obsessed with clothes and social status. She is approached by Merrick Jamison-Smythe (Sutherland) who claims that she is a vampire hunter, and he is her trainer. After initially thinking that he is a bit mad, Buffy finally agrees and begins training, getting into a few scuffles with local vampires in the process. Unfortunately she manages to gain the attention of local Vampire King Lothos (Rutger Hauer – Blade Runner, Hobo with a Shotgun) but when they finally meet Merrick is mortally wounded and Lothos announces that Buffy is not ready yet. Buffy, distraught at her Watcher’s death, gives up on her slayer responsibilities until the vampires attack her school at the final dance. Buffy must confront the vampire king and defeat him along with all of his cronies with no help and a lot of hindrances.

So it’s not the most exciting of plot lines, but then again this is Buffy. And this is 1992, so we can forgive the outfits. But even all of that doesn’t make up for the general horrendous cheesiness of this film. The dialogue, the fighting, the exceedingly dodgy ‘special effects’ makes this an absolutely hilarious to watch, but  exceedingly terrible film.

The best (or worst) thing is how Buffy senses that a vampire is near. She gets cramp. Because there’s nothing like a little PMS before fighting someone who wants to drink your blood. Why Whedon ever thought this sort of ‘power’ would  be a good addition I will never know. If there was some sort of logical link between the two I could maybe understand it, but there really isn’t.

Let us wander over to the death scenes for a second. This film sits in an odd place between comedy and gore, but there is one particular death scene that sums up this whole film. Lothos’ second in command gets a stake to the heart and it takes him about five minutes to die, with a lot of complaining and weird noises. Its hilarious, but pretty silly when compared with Lothos’ attempts to be all scary and gothic.

After watching this I can see why it took Whedon another five years to secure funding for the TV series, which ended up running for six years. It’s really quite terrible. Entertaining for a night in with a group of friends, but really terrible as a film.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

So, the title may make you think of some really unsubtle porno, but Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is actually a 2005 film starring Robert Downey Jr and Val Kilmer, and directed by Shane Black. It’s partly based on the book by Brett Halliday entitled Bodies Are Where You Find Them. On IMDB it’s described as a ‘crime comedy’ which is a pretty naff label for what is actually a very good plot. There will, as always, be spoilers.

We meet Harry Lockhart (Downey Jr) as he flees a botched robbery with his friend, who is killed while they’re avoiding the police. Through random circumstance he ends up at a film makers party in Hollywood for a screen test for a film, where he meets private investigator Gay Perry (Kilmer) and high school crush Harmony Lane (Michelle Monaghan). Harry begins to shadow Perry in order to improve his acting, but then end up getting embroiled in a very complicated plot with masked gunmen, hidden identities and a few dead bodies thrown in for good measure. I won’t reveal all the details, you need to go and watch it cos it is an amazing file.

Crime comedy does not do it justice in the slightest. The best aspect is the black comedy, it is so dark and so hilarious at exactly the same time that you’re not sure you should be laughing. Val Kilmer and Downey Jr work fantastically well together, the word play and wit that comes with their exchanges makes this film what it is, and that is an absolute joy to watch. Most of the time you’re not especially sure what’s happening but it all gets revealed at the end and it is dizzyingly complicated.

There’s not a single actor in this whole film that underperforms or doesn’t fit in with the ‘feel’ of the film. The casting is absolutely perfect, with the actors bouncing off each other making ever scene electric. Even Harmony, who is quite a difficult character to make likeable whilst also staying true to the character, is played fantastically by Monaghan and adds to the film rather than subtracting from the other two main male characters. It’s lines such as:

“Look up idiot in the dictionary and you know what you’ll find?”

“A picture of me?”

“No, the definition of the word idiot, which you fucking are!”

That just make this film so fantastic, so much word manipulation, wit and dark comedy all in one film.

This is, and will remain, one of my favourite films and is perhaps my absolute favourite Robert Downey Jr film – even though I love his portrayal as Sherlock Holmes. I’ve watched it numerous times and every single time I still find myself giggling or seeing something new that I hadn’t seen before. Watch it, enjoy it, love it. It is such a fantastic film.

Unfortunately it didn’t do so well when it first got released, but has slowly gained a following. It was voted ‘Most Overlooked film of 2005’ which is in my humble opinion a very dubious award to be given, but is has gained some very favourable reviews from the critics.

Go and watch it!

The Cabin Movie

Due to the recent introduction of Lovefilm to our household, I now have a whole cornucopia of films at my fingertips. This film, directed by Dylan Akio Smith (a cameraman who had a short stint as a director) and released in 2005, is one of those movies that could potentially be quite good, but ultimately fails at every turn.

Three couples travel to a seduced cabin in the middle of woods in order to explore their relationships with each other, both emotionally and sexually. Ken and Maria arrive first and appear to be the main organisers of the event, most comfortable with what could happen but ultimately caught somewhere between sexual discovery and sheer panic. Jason, a happy-go-lucky guy, turns up next but minus his long term girlfriend and instead with Ginny, a random bisexual party girl he met the previous weekend. Finally are sexually repressed couple Katherine and Mark, with her determined to have sex with anyone and Mark not wanting to be there at all. They start to drink and play games but Mark freaks out, they all end up having an argument and Mark is turfed outside to calm down, at which point he storms off into the woods and gets lost. The evening continues, with Katherine having drunk far too much and throwing up in the bathroom before kissing Ginny, which causes even more arguments between the remaining guests. Ginny and Ken then begin to get it on, but Ken’s wife Maria suddenly freaks and goes upstairs, leaving Ken to sheepishly back off. Katherine returns to the main room, asks someone, anyone, to please screw her, and Jason obliges whilst being filmed by Ken. Mark then returns, having calmed down, and tries to get the evening going again only for Katherine to reveal that she has just had sex with Jason. Mark and Katherine leave, quickly followed by Jason and Ginny, and Ken and Maria are left to sit in bed and not talk to each other. The film ends with Mark/Katherine thinking about getting a divorce, Jason is going to go back to his long term girlfriend, and Ken/Maria are considering getting married.

From that synopsis it actually looks like quite a bit happens. Well, it doesn’t. It starts off promising, with Mark having a bit of a complain and the group having to decide what to do with him. It then just descends into Katherine getting wankered and trying to bang anything that moves, Maria wandering around being a bit weird but it’s never really explained why she’s uncomfortable when she’s the one that organised the whole bloody thing, and Ken constantly wielding a camera and just coming off as a bit creepy. Jason and Ginny are really non entities, and are simply there because if they weren’t no sex at all would have happened, and the two remaining couples would probably have just shared a bottle of wine and played a nice game of scrabble.

At the beginning of this post I said it had potential, and it honestly did if it had just delved a bit deeper into the issues and gotten over the actual sex itself. The synopsis I read before watching it said “Cabin Movie is a darkly comic look at the nature of desire, the challenge of monogamy, and the definition of sexuality”, all topics which I find quite interesting, especially within the context of dark comedy. Well, the ‘nature of desire’ is sort of looked at, but the conclusion is basically “we all want to bang anyone, especially if we’ve had a drink and a spliff” which I don’t necessarily agree with. Monogamy isn’t explored in the slightest, because Jason clearly sleeps around anyway (and in doing so cheats on his long term girlfriend) and the only other person who has sex with someone else does it to get back at her husband and not for actual enjoyment or anything like that. The director could have explored it had there been a couple happy to share, but none of them were, promoting the idea that being poly is essentially cheating or something similar. The definition of sexuality was not touched on in the slightest, yes there was a gay kiss but it wasn’t exactly exploring anyone’s sexuality. The genre of ‘dark comedy’ is an interesting one in itself, and I wouldn’t necessarily say that this film falls into this category because there are only a few moments that caused laughter and it certainly wasn’t dark.

I’ll just point out that the actors are not to fault for the failings of the film, they do the best with what they are presented with, but the script on the concept of the film in its entirety meant that the actors were never going to succeed in producing a fantastic film. The biggest question was why the hell these couples have decided to meet up and have a sex weekend – how do you bring that up in conversation? Why not try it with just one of the couples, instead of expecting six people to just get together and get it on with no problems?

I think the most disappointing thing was the ending. The only real result of the weekend was that the couples probably weren’t friends any more. One relationship was doomed anyway, one wasn’t a relationship to begin with, and one stayed exactly the same. With none of the relationships having changed, you have to ask what the point of the movie was in the first place – have someone with a sexual awakening, or have two random people have feelings for each other that mean more than just sex, or something! Explore human emotion in relation to sexuality in some way! These were my hopes for the film, and they were all shattered.

There are no reviews of this on Rotten Tomatoes, it doesn’t have a Wiki page, showing how much of a non-entity this film is. Just don’t bother, go and watch something else and don’t waste an hour and half of your life on this tosh.

Dead Snow

Now I do love a good zombie comedy, and if you do too make sure to check out the 2009 Norwegian film Dead Snow, directed by Tommy Wirkola, a relatively new director who has five or so films to his name. Starring a bunch of Norwegian unknowns, the only thing you’ll be watching this for is the Nazi zombies and not the big names.

Seven students on Easter vacation arrive in the snowy mountains near Øksfjord, camping out in a small log cabin as night falls. A mysterious hiker arrives at their door and tells them the dark history of the region, involving a group of a force of Einsatzgruppe (SS death squad), led by Standartenführer Herzog who occupied the area during World War 2. For three years the Nazis abused and looted the surrounding towns until the citizens led an uprising, killing many and chasing the rest into the mountains where they presumably froze to death. The hiker leaves and the next morning is found half eaten by lead member of the camping party Vegard, who cleverly decides to search the area and ends up falling down into an underground cavern, knocking himself unconscious. The other campers, still in the log cabin, find a box full of treasure and golden trinkets which they celebrate with before returning to the box, but one camper pockets a gold coin. As the evening progresses, a few of the campers get picked off and in the morning they all decide to set off in different directions to attempt to get back to the car. They all end up dying in different ways, with Martin being the only one to escape the rising hordes after he realises the zombies intent and returns the box of treasure to Nazi leader Herzog, quickly running to the car. The film ends with Martin seeing a glint of gold on the floor of the car and picking up the last gold coin as Herzog attacks.

As far as zombie movies go it’s actually not that bad. They do things that you always wish people in zombie situations would do – they arm themselves with power tools, create Molotov cocktails, aim for the brain, and don’t just stand there screaming. One girl is taken down by two zombies, comes round to find them slowly disembowling her and instead of just lying there in a daze, grabs a grenade out of the belt of one of the Nazi zombies and blows all of them to pieces, self included. This is the kind of shit I want in my zombie flicks.

Don’t be fooled though, the comedy is also rampant with quite a few B movie-esque scenes to boot. The guy who falls into the underground cavern gets his neck sliced with a bayonet, so he sows it up with just some wire and sheer determination. He then discovers an old Nazi submachine gun, rigs it onto the front of his snowmobile and ploughs down a small platoon of zombies with it. Another man, after being bitten in the arm, performs a self amputation in the style of Bruce Campbell’s character of Ash in The Evil Dead films, hacking the offending limb off with a chainsaw in case it turned against him. Another zombie promptly bursts out of the snow beneath his feet and bites his dick off, leading the man to go on a killing frenzy before being hit on the head with a hammer and disembowled by a particularly sharp tree branch.

The zombies themselves are quite good, they are the kind that can run and seem somewhat intelligent, for example they notice a girl hiding up a tree and begin to climb it. They’re not the usual mindless freaks and this adds a slightly scary element, fantastically undermined by the ridiculously gory nature of the death scenes. Surprisingly there is a plot, which is the best thing, the zombies actually have a reason for rising – the gold that they stole from the villagers sixty years ago.   Wirkola said that as they were writing the script they decided to go for “the old-fashioned ones where they’re cursed. For me there are two types of zombie films: the curse and the plague or virus. So we wanted ours to be like a ghost story mixed with Indiana Jones.” For an independent zombie comedy, the script and plot have actually been thought about a lot.

Critically it received quite a mixed bag, with a critic from The New York Times saying that Wirkola “doesn’t just hit every horror beat; he pounds it to an indistinguishable pulp,” which I think is a compliment and commenting on the “admirably disgusting work” of the special effects/make-up team. It also suffered some negative comments as well, with one saying that “The thread-bare plot mostly serves as a means to get these people in an isolated area so they may be attacked by the undead. While the characters are likable, they are flat–you’re given just enough information to care about them”, and another dubbing it ‘banal’. It did however get nominated for four Scream Awards in 2009 and did quite well at the box office.

In the world of zombie movies, this was actually pretty good. Check it out! If only for the fantastic death scenes.

 

Snakes on a Plane

So last night I finally remembered to sit down and watch the 2006 film Snakes on a Plane, it’s B movie-esque nature is implied by the title and plotline but undermined by the presence of Samuel L. Jackson and director David R. Ellis isn’t exactly present in the B-movie list.

This actually makes this film harder to judge. It definitely goes with the usual B-movie approach of a hilariously bad storyline and some cheesy dialogue, but then everything else is what one would expect from a Hollywood blockbuster meaning there is a stark discord between the two. Even the special effects weren’t right, some were terrible, some were decent and some were just a bit meh – think of the early 2000 CGI that we were all so amazed with and you pretty much have it. The gore, whilst present, wasn’t quite gorey enough and the blood didn’t cover walls with its force, meaning the film lost the comedy aspect that most B-movies have but wasn’t realistic enough to impact on me – it was all just a bit mediocre.

So to the storyline itself…

After he witnesses a gangster beat a U.S. Prosecutor, Sean Jones (Nathan Phillips) is escorted by FBI agent Neville Flynn (Samuel L. Jackson) onto a flight bound for Los Angeles for him to testify. The gangsters load up a crate filled with venomous snakes, then spray the passengers’ leis (those flower necklace things) with a pheromone that will send the snakes crazy and attack everyone. Halfway through the flight the snakes escape and run riot in the cabin, killing quite a few of the passengers and then the pilot, leaving the surviving passengers to blockade themselves in the front cabin and co-pilot Rick (David Koechner) to take over flying. There’s a lot of shouting, some freaky deaths, Samuel L. Jackson turns the air-con back on and kills lots of snakes. Rick is attacked and the plane starts to go down, causing the blockades to be smashed down by runaway food trolleys and all the passenger take refugee in the cabin with Sean Jones. Flynn decides to shoot out two windows in order to depressurise the cabin, thus sucking all of the snakes out of the plane while the passengers hold on for dear life. One of the passengers takes over control of the plane, citing his experience as playing lots of plane simulator games, and the plane is landed safely. Jones then gets bitten by a snake, forcing Flynn to shoot him twice in the chest. Jones reveals his bulletproof vest, Flynn has saved everyone’s lives (apart from the 50 or so that died) and he goes off with Jones to learn how to surf.

Definitely a B-movie plotline. It’s ridiculous to the extreme, with some of the deaths going from stupid to just plain hilarious, and with taglines such as “At 30,000 feet, snakes aren’t the deadliest thing on this plane”, you know it’s gonna be good. One man gets bitten on the penis, another in the eye, while there’s a woman getting her breasts punctured and another having her tongue bitten out. The point at which the humongous python falls out of the lighting and squeezes a man to death before eating him whole was just too much for me.

Despite my complaints, I actually really enjoyed this film. It’s funny, stupid and doesn’t require too much attention. Samuel L. Jackson plays his usual role but with a bit more hilarity, though the only other character who is memorable is David Koechner as co-pilot Rick. The others characters tend to be nothing more than passing presences, but saying that it’s not exactly a film rife with character development.

There are some points that had me screaming in the TV screen in frustration. Just before Flynn is going to shoot out the
windows he tells everyone to strap themselves in so that the don’t get sucked out of the plane. The two stewardesses grab hold of the railing near the stairs and are then surprised when they nearly get dragged out of the windows. You’re not tied down, you’re holding onto a rail right next to the window he’s going to shoot out you fucking morons.

Due to the internet hype that surrounded the release of Snakes on a Plane, it did well at the box office considering the plot line but didn’t meet up the estimates set by New Line cinema, ultimately meaning it was dubbed a disappointment. Critically, it was quite well received, with most critics agreeing that it gave what it promised – snakes on a plane – but with no added extras, and I’m inclined to agree. Anyone who says this film is rubbish has clearly missed the point of it, though I can definitely see why some people wouldn’t enjoy it in general.

The best thing about this film? It of course has to be that line ever immortalised by Samuel L. Jackson…

“I have had it with these motherfucking snakes, on this motherfucking plane!”

Movie Challenge Days 5 – 8

Day 5 – A Film That Reminds You of Someone

One of the few films that reminds me of someone is the Evil Dead series, starring B-movie legend Bruce Campbell as protagonist Ash who must fight deadites, travel through time and defeat the skeletal army on the other side. I first watched these films a few years ago and is one of my first memories of hanging out with the person who is now my other half. Our love of B-movies has grown over the years, as has our love for Bruce Campbell (that chin! *swoon*), and I now have a reasonable collection of Campbell films and novels. Whenever we watch one of his films, or quote one of his characters, or try to coerce a sceptical friend into watching them with us, I remember that first night watching them (and being confused as to why the recap at the beginning of the second film has little to do with the first film…).

It’s funny, gory and cheesy, with some fantastic lines, hilariously bad costumes and one or two scenes that are truly bizarre. If you enjoy the films I highly suggest doing some research on the production (Campbell’s autobiography If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-movie Actor goes into quite a lot of detail concerning their struggles for funding etc), discovering how difficult it was for both actors and directors makes them even more interesting to watch. I think Evil Dead will remain one of my favourite films for many many years, and will always remind me of the first time I watched them.

Day 6 – A Film That Reminds You of Somewhere

Difficult one… The movie  Secretary will always remind me of the house and housemates that I’ve just left, mainly because that is where I first watched it. I’ve reviewed it on this blog before, and it concerns a woman (Maggie Gyllenhaal) who has just been released from a mental hospital for problems that manifest in self harm. She goes to work for a lawyer as his secretary and they develop a non-sexual BDSM relationship, which eventually after many twists and turns becomes a properly defined one. It’s an interesting enough film though not for the faint of heart, there’s self harm, various BDSM acts, a few bits of sex/nudity, an alcoholic father, the list goes on. The most interesting thing for me was that it was the first depiction of BDSM that showed how much control the sub has within the relationship, with the dominant actually holding very little. The ending irked me, it was a little too neat, and the idea that she would be in a fit state for anything after sitting in a chair continuously for three days is ridiculous. My housemate’s worry/bemusement at what exactly I was watching kept me entertained for days, though could be also be said for quite a few of the films I own.

Overall, films don’t tend to remind me of places, more of people, so there’s not much more I can offer for this one!

Day 7 – A Film That Reminds You of Your Past

Easy one! Kidulthood, because I grew up in the ghetto and am well whack, yo.

But seriously, there really isn’t one. I remember watching some Disney movies as a child (Aladdin was my first cinema experience), and I recall watching Hollow Man starring Kevin Bacon at quite a young age and not being able to sleep afterwards.

Day 8 – The Film You Can Quote Best

“Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries! Go and boil your bottoms you sons of silly persons!”

It’s got to be Monty Python and the Holy Grail, one of my favourites films and quotable unlike any other. There was a time when I could do it more or less line for line, but unfortunately that highly important skill was replaced by other knowledge. Monty Python are amongst my favourites comics, and their films have brought me joy for many years as well as the solo careers enjoyed by the individual Pythons. I even had the singalong version, meaning there was no escape for my poor parents who most of the time had no idea what I was going on about.

There are so many fantastic parts that I won’t attempt to start quoting it all at you now but if you haven’t seen this film go and pick it up at your next opportunity! Yes, you won’t understand bits. Yes, they take the piss out of religion a tiny bit. Yes, the ending is fantastically abrupt. But it is an absolutely brilliant film, no matter who you are or what you age (unless you completely lack a sense of humour, in which case leave my blog).