Who's Watching Raptor

With so many super hero movies out at the moment it’s rare to see one with breadth and depth that Watchmen brings. Director Zack Snyder of 300 fame has taken the true spirit of the Allen Moore penned comic book and brought it to screen with his own kinetic and stylised er…style.

It starts off with the death of the Comedian, who is one of my favourite characters I’ve decided. This starts a search for the killer by a vigilante called Rorschach (My other favourite character) which cascades into a wide spread plot to bring about world peace but in a very immoral way which begs the question. Do the ends justify the means? I truly was torn at the end of the film with this exact question.  Is killing a million people to save several billion ok? I could see the point and I could see they why but even I had a hard time justifying it and I guess that’s the crux of it. It’s not an easy decision and most people of moral values would say no it doesn’t but then isn’t it just as morale to save so many…well kind of.

Thuck it in girls! Let the thpandex do its thing.

Now as mentioned before the Comedian, played by  Jeffrey Dean Morgan who you may have seen in the series Supernatural, was the epitome of the Anti-Hero. He performs acts which may be considered heroic or deplorable but all in the name of his country and time after time he is forgiven because of it.  He drips sarcasm and to paraphrase he is a parody of mankind. We see his actions and relationships with the other characters in flashbacks which are used a lot to fill in the plot and background of each of the characters. Laughing while firing a flame thrower at the Vietnamese we finally see him guilt ridden and confessing to one of his old enemies.  Rorschach is another stellar performance by Jackie Early Haley . He plays a gruff, hardnosed mask wearing detective type who sees everything in black and white. There is no grey. The good are there to be protected and the bad to be condemned to hell.  Even at the bitter conclusion he stands firm on his beliefs even to his detriment. He is almost the purist Hero, a violent crazy hero but still a hero. Dr. Manhattan, portrayed by Billy Crudup, is the most powerful naked blue man on the planet. He is so far removed from humans that he is loosing what little humanity he has left and his part shows a lot of his struggle with it. Other notables are Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson) who is practically your Clark Kent crossed with batman superhero who along with Silk Spectre (A very cute Malin Akerman) are swept up in the plot. Finally Ozymandias (Matthew Goode) the smartest man in the world, is a very cool Super hero/villain.

I can’t fault the performances of any of the main characters. They were all quite strong and each had there hearts in their roles and brought their A games to characters that could have come out quite plastic and cliché instead became mutli-faceted which in part was also due to the strong script.

Because the movie spand several generations of superheroes the soundtrack fit this perfectly with song by Bob Dylan to David Bowie and other similar musicians form the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. Did I mention that the story unfolds in the 80s? Oh yes, there is spandex galore as well as naked blue penis….you’ll see.

Now special FX and CGI wise I loved what Zack Snyder has done. The cinematography was beautiful and he did have a number of his signature slow-mo scenes alla 300 but not to the same degree I’d have to say. It also doesn’t hold back on the violence. Believe me this is not a kids movie. With arms breaking, bodies exploding, hands cut off and multiple shootings this a graphic novel brought to a movie and I do mean graphic.

The movie does drag in parts and the back and forth flashbacks can be confusing to some but these were all minor details. To me this was what a super hero movie should be, fleshed out characters, a solid thought out and complex plot along with lots of kerpow and bang in the eye. Oh yeah spandex too. I give this a 9/10.

Bad Lieutenant - not a remake (2009)

Last night I had the pleasure of watching Bad Lieutenant, not the original but also not a remake - mostly. Sure, it's about a drug addicted cop who does things his way -  accepts drugs and sex as bribes, steals from the property room and shacks up with a hooker - but only some of those elements are in the original and if the director of the flick says this wasn't intended as a remake, then that's good enough for me.

This is pretty much the expression he wears all movie

This movie is about a cop (Nicholas Cage in a rare good performance) with a bad back who takes a lot of drugs to deal with the pain - or at least that's his easy excuse for being consistently fucked up on coke, painkillers, crack etc. The great thing about this movie is that he remains the same character from beginning to end, fucking things up, making them right and putting the bad guys away. There were two ways I interpreted the ending; first it could be a drug induced dream and secondly it was the real deal. As shown, instead of being caught out and learning from his mistakes, he solves all his problems through the judicious use of drugs and know-how and in the end he's cruising along in his usual drug induced haze.

You can consider the ending real or a crack pipe dream, it's never clearly stated and the viewer is left to their own discretion. I liked it, it wasn't your usual bullshit happy ending.All things considered I believe the ending was real, if a bit jokey. Cage's character went on to feign sobriety in front of his ex-junkie ex-hooker wife as well as his recovered alcoholic dad and step-mum. These were the only people who knew or had an inkling of his secret life before they reformed, and he simply added them to the list of people he lies too. There's a glimmer of redemption in the final scene but that's how it stays. Just a possibility, then the credits roll.As a whole movie I think this worked. Ignore the naysayers clinging to their original cult classic (which I've never seen), this is a similar movie with a different story and worthy of viewing in its own right. Some of the cinematography was odd but I forgive that for the way the rest of the story was so well told, shot and wrapped up.

Snorting coke off your hand in a dimly lit toilet never played out so good - 7/10

ps. Still no nudie pics, none of the women in this movie appear to have removed more than an overcoat in their movie career. Sorry.

Zatoichi (2003)

Look at my stick, it's a big ol stick. STAB!

Zatoichi, is a remake of the popular and long running series set in the Edo period of Japan's history about a blind Japanese swordsman. The movies began in the 60s and a TV series of over 100 episodes was also produced in the 70s. All up there are around 26 movies plus a few knock-offs like the American made Blind Fury. This particular incarnation is the first Zatoichi made since 1989 and features a far bigger budget than any of the previous movies. The director is also the main character and one of the editors, so that was one way to cut costs. But enough of the history, was it any good? Well, unlike many Japanese/Korean/Chinese martial arts films, the answer for me is a pretty confident yes.

The film begins with a couple of murders then introduces the main character - Zatoichi - followed by the bad guys made up of two rival gangs, then a few good guys to round out the cast. Among the good guys are a middle-aged peasant woman, her mostly useless nephew, a Geisha woman, her brother (disguised as a Geisha) and a motley collection of others featuring the crazy next door neighbor who runs around in his underwear carrying out his version of samurai training. The movie bounces between several main locations; a bar, the peasant womans house, a gambling den, the streets of the town, various flashbacks - and it all feels genuine. That coming from a man who has never been to Edo period Japan, but as far as movie sets go they were convincing.

The story revolves around the Geisha woman, her brother and their quest for vengeance. A gang called the rotting ropes murdered their parents in a paper-home invasion several years back, and ever since they've travelled the land disguised as Geisha entertainers, tracking down gang members and killing them. The siblings arrive in town and meet Zatoichi and the nephew. As the story progresses they discover one of the warring gangs in town is the rotting ropes, and so hatch a plot of murder and dismemberment. Zatoichi goes on to kill a lot of people including all the men in the gambling den when he catches them cheating, and it's wrapped up at the end with a nice long dance number. Yes, a dance number.

For all its funny little idiosyncracies (synchronised field ploughing music, overwrought spurts of blood?), Zatoichi is a serious film about a hardcore dude who kills every motherfucker in the room while at the same time being completely blind. What I really appreciated about the fighting was its brevity. A fighter won or lost in the first 5 seconds, none of this back and forth rubbish, because that's pretty much how real sword fighting worked.

I found the music understated but well matched to each scene and character. The acting was excellent, as I almost always find in Japanese cinema (except Guitar Wolf, but that's a different kind of movie altogether). If I had to complain about anything it would be a few little plot holes and perhaps the length - it was just a touch too long. If anyone can explain why the brother and sister initially tried to kill Zatoichi and the nephew, it would fill in a big plot hole for me.

8.5/10 - Good fun cinema from the far east (or near north for me in Australia). Lot's of swords, plenty of killing, a little philosophy. Oh and no wire fighting. Recommended.

Raptor Solves a Mystery

Welcome back all. Yes I know it’s been a while and I will make no excuses other than it was all Gavors fault for moving back into my state. Pfff.

So have you ever heard of a movies that looks like it will be good and someone then tells you it was good then when you get there and watch it it’s all “OMFG! That was the best movie ever!” Well probably not the best movie ever but it was pretty good.

I'm not sure what your doing behind me Watson, but I'd prefer you put the stick down.

What the hell am I talking about? Could I stop waffling and get on with it? Fine! It was Sherlock Holmes. Why was it so good? Well allow me to elaborate.

Before anything and everything Robert Downey Junior and Jude Law who play Sherlock and Watson respectively. They were the perfect casting for this movie. The buddy humor and banter between these two waked off sharper than a nerd with a full set of sharpened pencils in his pocket holder. I mean I was just waiting for Laws next droll quip or Robert Downey’s outrageous lines defending his eccentric actions. Drug testing on his dog anyone? With these two and a strong character based script with it’s carefully crafted dialogue the pieces were there and I was on the roller coaster and loving every minute of it.

Also along with these two was a good bad guy, Mark Strong who I last watched in Stardust plays Lord Blackwood a sinister wood be king of the world via so called sorceress arts and believe me he is quite evil in this. The two love interests were played by Rachel McAdams and Kelly Reilly and while both gave adequate performances I have to say Downey and Law man.

Now the best part of any Sherlock Holmes film is the who and how done its! This film will have you guessing to the end on how the magical murders where performed and other little tricks. You also get Holmes giving you some interesting fighting tips in slow motion CSI style as precursor to his execution of them which were great to watch. Of course everything gets explained in the end as all good detective movies should and also with a glimpse at the next villain as well. Yes there will be a next movie, I am more than 100% certain of that.

The cinematography was beautiful and setting of 1800s London was very authentic down to the clothes at least to my unprofessional eye. Surprisingly this was directed by Guy Ritchie of Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch fame. Looking back you can see his style splattered across Sherlock Holmes from the editing to the action money shots.

Now any down sides? I have no idea; I was too busy enjoying the ride. This is one of the best buddy/action/comedy/mystery films to come out in a long time. I give this was a serious 8.5/10.

Gavor on hiatus

Apologies for the lack of a movie review but I'm in the middle of moving interstate and naturally the house hunting and job search takes up all my time. Once I find a place to live it will be business as usual (intermittent, biased and badly written reviews).

Quick review: Avatar 3D
More of a wildlife documentary from the future than anything else. The CGI visuals easily surpass anything I've seen before and as a spectacle it reigns supreme over it's 3 hour running time. The last 40 minutes is all things blowing up and people being killed, easily enough for action fiends, but expect a lot of guff before hand. Unobtainium anyone? Bottom line - Avatar wants to wow your eyes and triumphs, I was entertained for the whole 3 hours (not something I could say for the 3 hour snooze-a-thons that were LOTR), but I don't think I'd watch it again. 7.5/10

Raptor Runs with the Wild Things

I admit that that it was more nostalgia more than anything else having read Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak's in my kiddy years that I wanted to watch the movie of the same name. I didn’t know what to expect as the book itself was very simple and director and screen play writer Spike Jones would have to do some padding to create, well a complete story. I have to say he did a pretty good job of doing so and bringing to the screen an endearing story about growing up and the relationships involved.

Oh, you scratched the tree! And what!? You broke that other one. Why would you do that?

In a suburban home Max played by a likeable Max Records (what the?) is feeling left out. His sister is more interested with her friends and his single mum is snowed under with work and trying to make nice with her boyfriend. On the other side, Max is a little shit. Yes he is a spoilt brat and yes you probably want to slap him one for his selfish little antics, just like 90% of kids of around that age (8 or 9 maybe). He then throws a hissy fit and runs off into the nearby creak where he finds a boat that takes him to an island. There he meets the various Wild Things like Carol voiced by James Gandolfini, from the Sopranos fame, who takes a liking to him since he is feeling deserted by KW who he has a child like infatuation/friendship with. There’s also the practical Ira, the bitchy Judith, happy go lucky Douglas and the picked and ignored on Alexander. By lying to the child like Wild Things Max is declared their king and will make them all happy. At first things go well but soon Maxes lies begin to unravel as the Wild Things begin to vie for his attention. Jealousies rise and feeling are hurt and Max comes to terms with the fact that he isn’t a king but just a boy who wants to be with his family.

I really liked the feel of this movie. It was filmed with a granny 60/70s dream like quality with some great scenes drenched in dust filtered sunlight which looks fantastic and other framed so beautifully you’d thing they were a canvas come to life. Adding to this is the music score. Put together by Karen Orzolek from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Carter Burwell the music is so sickingly cheery and joyful with Karen and a choir of kids singing you can’t help but like it. The stand out for me was All is Love which had a big part in setting the tone for me in the movie.

I'm assuming that if he's wearing his wolf outfit he's going to be shitting in the woods

The Wild things were masterworks of puppetry and CGI. I was really hard pressed to see where the facial CGI ended and the puppetry began. This is one spot where I could say the FX didn’t take you out of the movie but formed a solid basis for the characters to work from. When a Wild Thing was sad you believed they were sad or happy. This was especially prevalent in the expressive Carol who was one of the moving forces in the story line. Having said that, if you took all the puppetry and CGI away it would still be would a good character based story, although hiding a kid in your mouth wouldn’t quite make sense.

There were points in the film were I was kind of expecting more but couldn’t quite figure what I wanted. If it was more from Max or something deeper in the Wild Things I couldn’t tell you. In the end I walked away satisfied and yes with that little nostalgic smile on my face. I give this one an 8/10.  For all with a childs heart and a wild spirit I say to you Awrooooooooooo!!

Raptors thrown up an Alien Uprising

Every now and then you pick a movie that you end up regretting like a cheap $5 hooker from the night before. Alien Uprising was probably that Hooker. At least it didn’t have teeth.

Beware DVDs bearing pretty cover pictures

I sat down to watch it with some hopes of maybe a Sci-Fi channel grade movie. You know, okish but with chances of rain. The first 10mins of Alien Uprising were really good. The crew was waking up from hibernation a space ship. We find out they are marines. Ok maybe this won’t be another movie trying to be Aliens. Nope, no such luck.  The marines need to go to a prison planet to quell an prisoner uprising and find out that they have been using the prisoners in alien hybridization experiments the result of which is terrorising the prison populace. “Wait, Wait, wait Raptor” I hear you say “that doesn’t sound all bad, It can be saved can’t it” Yeah sure. Throw a decent script at it and maybe at least half a mil in green backs then sure. Unfortunately it turns out that this movie is trying to be Aliens,  complete with a crappy alien which is a guy in a Halloween mask as far as I can tell, marines acting all marines and a backstabbing corporation guy who yes eventually get’s killed by the hybrid.

What about the acting? Well some of the mains were passable. Rebecca Kush who played Lt. Louise Dun was reasonably good as were two of the prisoners who I can’t remember the names of (scientist guy and the African American). Unfortunately the rest of the cast sucked 5 day old ass that has been sitting in vomit basted with crap. I mean at one point we had a shuttle leaving in a desperate escape from the prison of stupid and 4/5 of the escapes were shaking with the G-forces of the escape. The 5^th person, some female marine was staring blankly ahead as if she was bored or maybe was watching a day time soap. What’s more is they kept cutting back to her. Really? Why?! For god sake why? Or for example at the end were the corporate guy is about to get killed by the alien he screams out Nooooooooo. Then there is this long pause and….guess what? He does it again. Che? Why? Edit that out. You don’t need that.

Finally the CGI/FX. Boy these were woeful. At the start they show the ship approaching the planet. Not bad. Looks okaish, nothing special. Then obviously there $200 dollar shoe box budget ran out and all the ships, base and position of the cast were shown on wire frame models. This maybe was an attempt at retro cool.  Well it was done badly so it failed and took you out of the movie more often than not.

My advice, if you can’t afford to do a sci-fi or even get a decent script, then don’t. It’s not brain surgery.  I have seen some Starwars fan movies better than this and I’m pretty sure they don’t have a huge budget either.

So at the ass end of this review I’m giving Alien Uprising a 3/10. No boobies for me.

Paranormal Activity (2007)

I like ghost stories and I like first person movies. Cloverfield was good, Diary of the Dead was okay, shame about Seventh Moon. But I digress because Paranormal Activity is the subject of todays mini-review.

Paranormal Activity is both a ghost story (or demon story) and put across as an edit of footage shot in the home of a young couple. The husband captured this footage to document frightening stuff happening to his wife and find a solution. Much like a poltergeist, this weirdness has followed her around since an early age; shadows on walls, knocking, footsteps and someone breathing on her in the night. Sounds like my house after I have a few drinks. Back to the movie - stuff happens, things go bump in the night and once or twice it creeped me out, an unusual occurence.

Looks like just another day in my bedroom, my wife wakes up screaming and I plead innocent

The movie came over-hyped, though it's still a relatively unknown indy project, and I was skeptical of how good it would be. Usually the amount of goodness in a film is inversely proportional to how much people slap each other on the back and throw around superlatives (the same inverse rule applies to how awesome a trailer is). This wasn't completely the case here; scares are rare but effective, the acting and characterisation is good, effects were impressive for the budget and overall while the story was slow I never got bored. That makes Paranormal Activity average, but still entertaining. Oh and everyone dies in the end but I didn't mind for once.

7/10 for scaring me once or twice, though I still walked naked through the dark house on my way to bed.

Raptor Hunts Lesbian Vampirs

The title Lesbian Vampire Killers would make any red blooded male hot to trot for some girl on girl vampire action and so it was that I stuck a stake into the heart of this little sucker. Man, that’s some great punnage there.

Is that a cross in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

So Lesbian Vampire Killers is a British movie centring on a curse. Back in the day, a powerful Lesbian Vampire is killed by the Baron of a town with a magical sword he forged but not before she curses all the maidens in the town to become Lesbian Vampires on their 18^th….See how the caps make lesbian and vampire more important. Anyway present times two pals, Jimmy (Mathew Horne) and Fletch (James Corden) plan a trip to cheap ass hiking to cheer Jimmy up after his selfish girlfriend dumps him for the 8^th time. Little do they know when they arrive at the village that there would be a group of hot girls on a research/party trip. Little do they know that they would all be preyed upon by Lesbian Vampires. Jimmy falls for one of the girls, Lotte played by the very cute MyAnna Burning who has this very sexy accent. I think it’s Welsh. I could be wrong, I have not idea. Anyway, girls are turned, vampires are killed and they eventually face off with the grand poobah Lesbian Vampire.

Jimmy and Fletch work well as a buddy team. Jimmy is mostly deadpan while Fletch is the irreverent larrikin of the two. All their lines are shot through with British humour which works quite well. In fact the dialogue across the whole movie is pretty snappy and the actors bring it across with enthusiasm.

The girls, besides Lotte do not last long. They get turned and then offed pretty quick which is sad but don’t fear. All new lesbian vampires appear to take their eye candy place, one of them being a main vampire Eva who is played by a smoking hot Vera Filatova. She does a good job of looking pretty and saying her lines, what else do you want. Jimmys asshole girlfriend Judy played by Lucy Gaskell is a real bitch in this and I can tell you I was overjoyed to see her Lesbian Vampire ass taken care of. Yes she get’s turned as well. One character who didn’t quite fit was the priest Vicar(Paul McGann), maybe it was just me but I couldn’t take him too seriously.

I'm not sure if I'm suppoed to be aroused or scared shitless by Vera Filatova. Nope, aroused wins!

There wasn’t too much blood in this really and that pretty unusual for a vampire film. When one of the Lesbian Vampires died they melted into a kind of white paste….take the “white paste” as what ever you’d like it to be. While not the flashiest FX they were reasonable and believable and the sets were pretty cool too consisting of fog filled forests, graveyards and run down shacks.

The movie really is for those people who don’t want a story that’s too serious and are just looking for a bit of fun to pass the time. Don’t go too deep. Oh there are boobies. Yes that is important.

I give this one a 7/10 for Lesbian Vampire Booby killing action.

Yes even the DVD cover has boobies. Win!

Raptor Goes Trick r Treating

Let’s admit it, most horror anthologies usually aren’t very good. You may get a good story out of the 3 or 4 shown but they rest tend to be crap. Fortunately when I sat down to watch Trick r Treat I was pleasantly surprised. The four stories in of themselves were pretty good but the thing that impressed me the most was the way they interwove them together. It wasn’t a simple four stories wrapped up by another. Each story was linked to another by something almost like watching Pulp Fiction but with ghosts and ghoulies. There was a short prologue story which kind of kicks off the whole chain and eventually the last story links back to this which was cool. The first story was to do with a Serial killer(Dylan Baker) and the humorous way he tries to dispose of his latest victim. The Second story centred around the telling of a tale of murdered children on a school bus and a group of kids that go down to the lake to offer tribute to them but have other motives. Thirdly is the story of Little Red Riding Hood, a vampire and werewolves. This one was pretty cool itself with Anna Paquin from X-Men playing the Little Red. Finally it ends with a grumpy old man(Brian Cox) who hates Halloween and a little pumpkin headed daemon who teaches him the true meaning of Christmas…er I mean Halloween. This one was probably my favourite and Brian Cox played a great old man battling it out with the little imp. Come to think of it another one from X2.

Mum says that putting a sack on my head means I'm really good looking.

All the actors handled themselves well and were quite believable. The director was Michael Dougherty who really hasn’t directed much at all but based on this I think he really should. He has a number of acting and writing credits to his name as well including the screen play to X2 which is one of my favourite movies.

The cinematography and colours of this were just beautiful. Highly above it’s straight to DVD standard. Shots of a mountain-scape that drops to a school bus sinking into a lake or a street with pumpkins head lit with candles really brought out the atmosphere. There were times were the effects were a little off such as the werewolf transformation scene which had short stints of CGI that didn’t add up but overall most effects were practical. The last story had some really nice practical work. There was blood but not too much really for a horror movie or maybe I’m just desensitised to it all.

Dear god they ripped my dirty dreams out of my head and put them on film.

Sadly there was no boobage in this film. Awwww I hear you all say…Wait! I lie. There was a glimpse of boobs in the werewolf transformation scene. Yay! Don’t blink or you’ll miss it.

If you don’t like horror anthologies I’d still recommend watching this was to see how one should be put together. For myself I give this one a solid 8/10.

Zombieland (2009)

Fat vs bat. My money on the bat.

Zombieland is quite simply a good film. What it lacks in boobs it makes up for in zombies, guns and sass. I expected a quiche and they served me prime MSA steak with chips and a tasty red wine jus. This movie has all the vital elements; humor, a pretty girl (Emma Stone with permanent bedroom eyes), Woody Harrelson, a geeky guy (Jesse Eisenberg), zombies, guns, aforementioned sass and some very cool slo-mo effects. The fourth member of the quartet is played by Abigail Breslin.

Eisenberg plays a neurotic recluse with no friends and little family contact. He spends his time eating pizza, playing WoW and avoiding human contact. After a pretty girl stumbles into his apartment and goes all zombie on him overnight, he's forced out of his apartment and into the mean streets of Zombieland, a world populated almost exclusively by zombies. As time goes by he establishes and expands a list of rules for survival in Zombieland and these rules appear on the screen as text each time a rule is followed. For example when Harrelson runs down some zombies then reverses over them before driving off, the rule 'Double Tap' appears over the dead zombies. Simple, but never grows old.

Harrelson and Eisenberg eventually meet two sisters, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin, who con them out of their car and weapons. The two parties, following some more hijinks, eventually overcome their misgivings and team up. What begins as a marriage of convenience grows into friendship and mutual support. Stone's character learns to trust people, her younger sister learns to be a kid again, Harrelson opens up a little about why he's so angry and distant, and Eisenberg finds a family. What makes this movie work so well are those developing characterisations which are admirably supported by the actors, all of whom turn in a believeable performance.

There's a bit toward the end where I thought 'oh no', because the movie seemed to have run out of ideas and steam before it ran out of story. I'm happy to say I was wrong and the ending shows off a very cool shoot out by Harrelson, a zombie duck-shoot from the top of a carnival ride and a lot of cardio work by Eisenberg (rule #1). I felt satisfied by credits time yet hungry for more zombieland...which is all I needed to say really.

9.5/10 - Zombieland went in my eye from frame one and never relented. Three thumbs up...oh God, that's not a thumb!

Raptors' Surveillance

I sat down to watch Surveillance this week and kind of ended with mixed feelings. Directed by Jennifer Chambers Lynch daughter of director David Lynch, she has taken to being behind the camera just like her father. Surveillance centres on a police station in a rural area of the US where some killers have been going on a spree and which the authorities have been unable to catch. In walk two FBI agents played by Bill Pullman and Julia Ormond. They rock up and begin ruffling the feathers of the local authorities at the station and while investigating they begin to find out that no one is who they seem. Dum Dum daaaah! What else is new.

Dam kids graffitied, the ground again. Better call for backup.

I liked Bill Pullmans character, Sam Hallaway. He seemed gruff and distant and focused on the job and Pullman pulled this off well, excuse the pun. Ormond also did well with her character which was quite believable problem was the last 30 or so mins of the movie where the characters all reveal themselves, not to put any spoilers, but the believability kinds of comes into question at that point and I kind of lost interest in them.

The movie plays with flash backs to several groups. A couple who are out on a drug buying trip. Stephanie, a girl (played beautifully by Ryan Simpkins) with her family which isn’t as happy as seems and two police officers with dreams of being heroes are crossing into vigilantism. The groups slowly come together as their worms surface. This is actually the best part of the film. The character depths are shown and flaws revealed but you get to like them. It all comes to a head where the group meets the killers and this is where it became a bit contrived for me. Maybe I’m a little jaded with these sorts of films maybe I’ve seen it all before. I managed to pick the reveal for the two FBI agents 20mins before it actually happened and I’m pretty sure most people will. It was reasonably obvious.

Back at the station the FBI agents are interviewing the survivors of this encounter with the killers. Tensions arise between cops, victims and FBI with parties begging to act suspiciously. The problem I had at the end is what often happens. The killers are shown to be the super villain like geniuses that are always thinking 10 steps ahead of everyone else. Sure I don’t mind that every now and then but in this case it really irked me. One of the cops was this snap shot shooter. Could take out a car tire moving at 100miles from 50m yet at then end he couldn’t shoot a person in the head/body from 3m away. WTF is that! Anyway script issues aside Jennifer Lynch did a great job with direction and she does have a great eye for the camera. Maybe it’s to do with her dads mentoring, maybe it’s cause and effect, maybe it’s karma who knows. It all fit in very nicely.

So in ending, this isn’t a bad movie. I could have been a great movie for me if it wasn’t for a few issues I had with the script. I could be a little hard on it but it is watchable. I’d give this one a 6.5/10. Oh, not a booby to be seen. Dam you Lynch!!

Raptor Finds a Dead Girl

I heard good things about the movie Dead Girl but I wasn’t convinced so when I sat down to watch it I was pretty much thinking this was going to be another crap fest. Well for the first 20 mins or so it didn’t do much for me. The slightly washed out colours looked cheap at first. The two mains we meet, Rickie played by Shiloh Fernandez and J.T played by Noah Segan both seemed pretty shallow and acted out like stereotypical high school students. This was all until they find the Dead Girl in a sealed off room of an abandoned medical facility. It’s then that the two personalities begin to polarise. The dead girl (sexy Jenny Spain. Yes even if she is dead) is a zombie but in quite good nick. How she got down there is never explained. The two friends panic and leave her but J.T. goes back and ends up killing her but she comes back to life so decides to use her as a sex toy while Rickie thinks he’s crazy. Rickie doesn’t want any part of it and guilt kicks in so he tries to free her but finds out she is quite feral and so splits.  There is a side story with Rickie and a Joann (Candice Accola) who he is infatuated with and eventually spirals into a kidnapping by J.T. and meeting with the dead girl.  It's always awkward when your living and dead girlfriends meet.

Yes, there was some dead action in the back section....ewwwww

The movie is tense and the lack of morality by J.T. is juxtaposed to Rickie who’s initial impotence do anything, possibly due to the friendship with J.T. and the fact the dead girl is well dead, fortifies into a resolve to act. It does pose the question that if somes dead or zombie do they have rights? Beats me. I just watch the film but and leave the philosophy to you.


There are some funny moments such as J.T and pal trying to kidnap a girl to make into a new dead girl only to be beaten up by the victim and there are also some huh? I don’t get what the fuck just happened moments too that just don’t click but overall barring the weakish start it ends with a strong performances and a pretty good story line. I give this one a 7.5/10

The Orphanage

Remember when The Phantom Menace came out and everyone who'd seen a preview or a snippet of it before release would crow about the brilliance? Remember how you felt after the credits started to roll and the lights came back on? For me, that was The Orphanage.

Touted all over the internet as the most frightening and thought-provoking horror film in years with superlatives such as 'terrifying', 'edge of my seat', 'mesmorising' and 'unforgettable' being thrown around, I would like to put forward another view. First with the adjectives (and other); 'boring', 'on-trick pony', 'slow', 'predictable' and 'over written'. Now for the explanation.

The Orphanage was a fair bit of story to it. A young girl grows up in an orphanage until one day a family is ready to adopt her. She sadly leaves her friends behind... and now jump forward to the present-day. The little girl is now a woman, the orphanage has closed down for being too cliche and the woman has somehow talked her husband into buying the old building so they can set up a half way house for sick children. If that isn't a recipe for disaster I simply don't know what is.

The woman has a child of her own now, though we learn he's adopted, and the movie shows them moving in and how happy they are. Later, the little boy makes imaginary friends (I think he had other imaginary friends already) with another boy. This other boy is a ghost, apparently. So some stuff happens, a crazy old lady character shows up and the try-outs for position of sick children are held at the house. On the day of the trials, the woman argues with her little boy because this is such an important day and he is wasting her time as he wants to show her something exciting. She hits him. He runs away. This, and the 'proper' ending make up all that is good in the movie, while everything else is slow and boring. The argument, slap across the face and the 'ending' (trust me, i'll explain in a minute why I keep saying 'proper ending') are heart wrenching moments if you have kids of your own, if only they stuck with that storyline this movie would have been worth watching.

I digress. They boy ultimately goes missing and the rest of the movie is about the parents searching for him. The day he goes missing the woman sees a 'ghost' and that night she hears noises in the walls - banging and thumping. Over time various theories are put forward; they think he might have drowned in the ocean or been kidnapped by the crazy lady. Months pass. Nothing. They boy has simply disappeared.

There's a subplot where it turns out the crazy lady was a worker at the orphanage and one of the children was her son. He wore a mask to cover his deformed face and this led to him being left out and laughed at by the other children. One day, after the woman had left the orphanage, her friends lured him down to the beach and he drowned. The mother found out and later poisoned all the children, then ran away. Back in the present-day, the woman finds their cremated bodies in a shed. It's a bit tacked on and only there to offer support for the 'crap ending' and add more ghostiness overall.

Eventually the woman goes a bit crazy, her husband moves out and she plays a game with the ghosts. The ghosts provide her with clues to find something and if she finds it she also finds the next clue. This will lead to her son of course (though the logic of her coming to this conclusion is vague) and after some dicking about, it does. I consider the next 10 minutes the proper ending. What she finds is a secret door in the broom closet and this door leads down to a hidden basement, a basement set up as a childs bedroom. In fact it was the bedroom of the deformed kid  back in the days of the orphanage, and also the exciting thing her son had found and so desperately wanted to show her until she slapped him.

After slapping her son she left the room in a huff and he ran away to sulk in the secret room he'd discovered. Unfortunately, the mother took a bunch of metal poles and shoved them into the broom closet, thereby blocking his means of getting out again. The noises and banging she heard that night, the ones that so frightened her, were the sounds of him crying out while trying to escape.

When she first arrives in the basement it's a vision, the room looks clean and light and she finds her son asleep under a blanket. After a heart warming moment the vision is gone and she's holding an empty blanket. She turns to see the room is now gloomy and dusty, the staircase broken (one of the loud bangs that night her son went missing) and on the floor, a withered corpse. Her son. While trying to escape, the stairs broke and he fell to his death. It's a moving moment and if the credits had rolled, i'd give this movie an 8. Instead it goes on and fucks the whole thing up.

Now mentally disturbed, she kills herself by taking sleeping tablets. While dying, the ghosts of her childhood friends all come to life in a vision and then her son comes back to her (his dried up remains reanimate in her arms). Great. No, I meant rubbish. In the end her husband stands at their graves for a moment then walks away a broken man. The end. I hated it.

So, apologies for the long explanation, but I felt this movie COULD be made into a good thing by cutting a bunch of crap, integrating the 'crazy lady and her deformed son' subplot better, showing the ghosts as figments of the woman's imagination and fixing the ending as I explained above. Just hit Stop when you get to the dead son and I guarantee you'll walk away happier. Well, maybe not happy but at least with a feeling of fulfillment instead of the disappointment I got.

Another great example of not believing the hype.

4/10 - So disappointing I'm not even adding pictures. Oh ok, maybe just one.

"I've managed to show the lead actress, cleavage, wet dress and a shot from the movie all in one. Bravo me

Raptor Reads a Bloody Book

I’m a big fan of Hell raiser and yes some of the sequels too so I thought of checking out Clive Barkers’ Book of Blood. Mary, a paranormal expert and comes across a Simon, a psychic sensitive and asks him to help her prove the exists of spirits in a house that’s had an unexplained and violent past. When messages start to appear on the walls and bad things like oh, say the stories of the dead being cut into Simons flesh I think you pretty much proved it.



I was just walking along when suddenly Clive barker Graffiti’s my back! Dam Asshole.

Book of Blood started off pretty good with a girl getting attacked by a ghost and ending up with her face being ripped off. Well, that came out of nowhere. Unfortunately it was a slow down hill run to mediocrity from there. There were attempts at scares with kids going all undead face and ghosts appearing from no where but it just didn’t seem to gel. Mary starts of being quite sympathetic to Simon and seems like quite the nice person. Fair enough but in the last 20 or so minutes of the movie when Simons skin is being written into by ghosts she goes all psycho or mad or something. Even asking for his skin. There really is no build up to it and her story is that the dead must tell there tales and she needs to tell the world. Right. What ever. Obviously it lost something in the translation from Clive Barkers’ story to the movie.

I really was hoping for better on this movie but alas I’m stuck with Hellraiser reruns. I wonder if can find my Nightbreed or Lords of Illusion DVDs? I give this movie a 5/10. Oh there was some boobage…I guess that’s something.

Raptor's Watching Ants

King of the Antz is really one of those movies that will appeal to certain people but will just not sit well with others. It tells a story of Sean Crawley (Chris McKenna) who’s life and career are going nowhere. When he is introduced to Ray Matthews (Daniel Daldwin) who convinces him to murder an accountant who has some information on his dirty business dealings for a sum of Fifteen thousand dollars his life spirals in a direction that he cannot control until he gives in to it. Ray reneges on his promises to pay and when Sean protest beats/tortures the crap out of him. He eventually escapes and seeks brutal revenge on ray and his pals. On a side story he falls for Susan Gatley the wife of the accountant played by the sexy Kari Wuhrer but things don’t go to well there either.

So what I took from this film was two things. A) if you want something you sometimes have to eliminate the obstacles in your way B) in the end it doesn’t really matter as we are all just ants to be exterminated. Yes, pretty bleak. I guess that was the point of it really. Sean kills the accounts and manages to form a relation ship with his wife briefly before she finds out it was him and it all falls apart which ties to the first rule. He then seeks revenge on Ray and an even to the pleading of some of the kinder accomplices kills them explaining to the poor suckers that they are just ants and all their protests mean nothing.

I couldn’t decided if I liked or disliked Seans anti hero. While played well he really was a self serving and morally unhinged ass and considering the brutal murder he executed at the begging didn’t truly give you to much sympathy for his plight although the ending does give some sort of satisfaction. The director Stuart Gordon is a bit of cult figure in the Horror movie industry having directed From Beyond and Dagon. In this he kind of looks at the bleakness of humanity and how fragile, short lived and futile it can all be.

 

For me, I thought hey yes it’s bleak but I could see where he was coming from, while I didn’t quite agree and the characters weren’t everything I hoped for they did bring home the message. We are all just ants.

Raptor Wants a Surrogate

You know, it doesn’t matter if Bruce Willis is dressed up as some yuppie cop or looking like a beat up bum he always ends up looking cool and in The Surrogates you get both. He also gets to wear a Toupee and pretend he has hair. Believe it or not. 

Um I think you have something feeding on your head Bruce....again.

The Surrogates is set in a world were robot technology has advanced to the point in which humans can control android avatars to do their daily work while they stay “safely” at home strapped to a control chair. Enter in Willis’s character, Tom Greer a cop who investigates a double murder with partner Peters (Radah Mitchell). What’s unusual is that there hasn’t been a murder for years since the two people where using surrogates when they were killed. How can you kill a robot anyway? Well the murder used a device (small spoiler but it’s pretty much at the beginning of the film) that breaks the safety’s on the control chairs. One of the people murdered was the son of Canter (James Cromwell), the guy who invented the surrogates. Throw in a radical anti-surrogates movement and you have a bit of a Sci-fi thriller on your hands.

The concepts behind The Surrogates are pretty cool. What you have is pretty much what most MMO users have been doing all along. Using avatars to play games or do stuff online. Only in this instance it’s transported to the real world. It also asks the same questions you get from MMOs of identity and humanity. Is the person the same as his avatar? Is it really a male or female? Is it a bot or human? What happens when they go to the toilet? (answered by the way). It also shows us a military view point and in my opinion is quite the way that the future of warfare would go if this were possible.

For action, well it kicks off and doesn’t let up with a script that’s pretty much 1, 2 and 3 but for what it is it’s pretty good, well edited although it ain’t going to win any Oscars. Bruce Willis played Greer with his usual cool. Radah Mitchell was there but she didn’t really have much weight in the film. A sub plot involving Tom Greers wife Maggie (Rosamund Pike) in which she uses a surrogate to hide from the world after the loss of their child was quite well done and brought some humanity to Toms character. In fact when Tom has to go out into the real world looks beat up, haggard and yes human compared to all the perfect surrogates running round.

The Surrogates brought up a lot of interesting concepts. It had my friends and I talk about it after for quite some time and that’s always a good sign for a movie. Overall it was well acted, a solid thriller and reasonable plot. My only gripe was the lack of nudity, perfect bodies anyone? It just screams boobies! Anyway I give The Surrogates a hard 7.5.

Raptor Stripps like a Zombie

I have a new favourite Zombie movie. Why is that? Two words. Zombies and strippers. In the same movie. Together. Not to mention that you also get Jenna Jameson as one of the strippers and she can act better than…ok with all the porn movies she’s done she’s a pro at faking it. The basic plot of Zombie strippers is that a group of Soldiers called Z Squad go to clean up a zombie outbreak at a lab owned by Gearge W Bush. Everyone know he owns weapons of mass destruction! Anyway one of the nooby soldiers gets bitten and rather than get his head blown off makes a runner and ends up at strip club owned by the sleazy Hypochondriac Ian played to expertly by Robert Englund (again Freddy yo!). At this point he turns full zombie and attacks Kat one of the strippers played by Jenna Jameson. As the soldier is stuffed downstairs Kat of course gets up and but now she wants to strip and turns out being undead makes you a real good stripper. Slowly the other girls begin to succumb to the lure of being a zombie stripper either through envy, jealousy, adoration or other. Ian sees this as a great opportunity to make money but of course as all zombie movies must go, the zombies cannot be contained and the patrons (dumb males) who the strippers keep lap dancing for (eating their bits) soon break loose.


Fairly new director/writer Jay Lee has done a pretty good job getting this movie together on a pretty low budget. He used a lot of the crew as the patrons and a few friends such as Calvin Green who plays the DJ Cole. The editing is tight and the comedic banter is works well between the actors although some of the joke verge on groan worthy. There are a lot of new faces here and other new bits. The strippers are Hawt! Barring Jenna Jameson we have her rival Jeannie played with bitchy flare by the sexy Shamron Moore. One of the strippers that doesn’t get her kit of is Berenge (Jeannette Sousa) a nihilist that doesn’t quite know if she should support or detest what the strippers have become. Then we have Lilith played by singer Roxy Saint, a gothic and pierced raven who is the first to join kats side. Now this leads me on to the music. It rocks. Roxy Saint actually sang one of the songs that Jenna first strips to as a Zombie called Smother and it got me grooving. In fact so much so that I’m actually looking for the sound track to the movie as we speak…right now like. 

To the special FXs! I have to say down and out these are some of the best zombie FX and gore gags hands down. They were created by Patrick Mcgee and considering the whole film had a budget of $1million that’s pretty impressive. Most of the FX were practical with CGI used sparingly and I’ll have to say my favourite zombie was Tongue guy who lost his jaw in a lap dance. Awww sad. The strippers had about 5 stages of zombiness, from just turned bloody but rare to well cooked black eyed, protruding eye sockets and decaying skin.

The extras on the DVD gave a bit of an insight. There is easily about 45 mins of deleted scenes that were edited to get the movie to a tight 90mins. Some of these I thought would have been great to add a little more to it but there were other scenes that were easy targets to be removed. The commentary with Robert Englund, Jenna Jameson, Jay Lee and Joey Medina is hilarious. We also find out that the movie is loosely based on the play by Eugene Lonescos’ allegorical play "Rhinoceros" with the names of the characters being derived from it including Jeannette Sousa character being the conclusion of it.

Some of the acting was at times a little off, mainly in the Z squad characters but this didn’t detract to much overall. I still thought this was one of the best zombie films I’ve seen in a long time. My score 8.5/10.

Seventh Moon (2008)

You know how sometimes there's a product that really grabs your interest but no matter how hard you try it doesn't seem possible to get your hands on it? You obsess about it a little, build your own mythology the product can never possibly match. You know this deep down but it doesn't stop you. Seventh Moon was one of these things. By all reports a good horror film, the details were sketchy but included some of my favourite movie aspects like handheld cameras (a la REC or Cloverfield), demons, gore and hot women. The trailer..well see for yourself.

Looked like hot larb to me and the kicker was how difficult it was to find anywhere showing it. In the meantime it became my golden movie; something other people raved about, containing all my favourite elements and elusive in its existence. Then, I came across a copy. I should have known better.

Don't get me wrong, Seventh Moon is an okay flick. Set in China on the seventh full moon of the year, the story revolves around an old mythology and the festival associated with it. Every seventh moon, ghosts arise and seek flesh - any flesh. In the cities this isn't a problem but out in the countryside people take the myths very seriously, leaving live animals outside their houses so the ghost's hunger can be satiated.

Into this stumble the idiot Americans; Melissa (Amy Smart) and Yul (Tim Chiou).

The newly wed couple are on their honeymoon when the tour guide driving their car wanders off in the dead of night leaving them alone in the dark. They proceed to stumble about rural China, encountering another luckless man (in a robe) caught out in the open as well as a bunch of ghosts. The ghosts are kind of disappointing as they're naked extras painted up white. So anyways, the trio bumble about in the dark for a while longer until the man decides he'll be better off alone and knocks Yul out. This seemed like a great plan to me, leave the whiny American of Chinese extraction as bait and do a runner in your bathrobe (or whatever the guy was wearing, some white robe thing). The plan goes awry and robe man is forced to run from the ghosts, though in the end they catch and presumably eat him. I say presume because the last we see of robe man is the ghosts dragging him into the long grass. This brings me to another point of unhappiness, the gore. There is none unless I was watching some cut down PG version. Sigh.

Following some more running about, the honeymooning couple are lured into a mansion filled with creepy people holding candles and told they'd be safe there. An odd woman gives them something to drink, which they both go ahead and drink without a second thought, and next you know they've stripped off for sexyness and sex in front of a bunch of weirdos. Cut to them dressed in white robes, outside, locked in bamboo cages. Surprise! Every year the village lures outsiders as the ultimate sacrifice so none of their neighbours are taken. Brilliant! Obviously robe man from earlier in the movie was their original sacrifice, yet somehow he escaped.  Moving right along, the ghosts take Yul away for killing and leave Melissa to be sexy another day. Instead however, she hunts down the ghost's secret lair (this is a genuinely creepy scene) only to find Yul on the brink of death, his blood being drained away so he can die then arise as a ghost himself. Cue escape. The end.

Aside from the average story, dodgy SFX and lack of gore there was no shaky first person camera work. Is this the same movie I read about? The camera was shaken around sometimes but never was it done in a way to suggest that first person, live and unedited experience. A disappointment for me, but others will disagree I'm sure. Enjoying shaky camera work puts me in a select group of people who can handle it without feleing sick and appreciate the premise that less is sometime more. This premise does not apply when considering gore or naked female bodies.

Seventh Moon was an okay horror movie but it broke my heart and for that I give it 6/10.

As an aside, I watched Return of the Living Dead last night and it was pretty good. Two thumbs up for the chick who spent half the movie naked though wearing a flesh-colored prosthetic over her hoo-ha.

Raptor Sees it's Broken

There are movies that you expect to be pretty crappy which then turn out to be  pretty not crappy. The Broken, was one of those movies. I sat down to watch it and really was not pay to much attention for the first ten or fifteen mins. Then it got weird during a strange dream/flashback sequence and suddenly I was like WTF was that? Now I swear I will never look at a mirror the same way again, especially the sound of a breaking mirror.

Oh yeah, why you look 100% better with um...makeup

The story revolves around Gina McVey, played by the very hot Headey Lena (from 300), who after an accident and memory loss of events before it starts to believe that her partner is not who he is and has been replaced. As the story slowly evolves in an almost J Horror style we a picture builds up that shows an invasion of sorts. People having chest Xrays have their hearts on the opposite side than normal. This is rare. We get mirrors breaking for no know reason; until finally we find that something is coming through the mirrors. Doppelgangers of sorts and they kill the person they imitate and take over their lives Now I have probably spoiled of lot of the surprises for you, well it’s not the first time.

I’ve never heard of the Director/Writer Sean Ellis but he seems to have an eye for setting a scene up and uses European like slow takes the build these up. One creepy scene is a shot of the other side of the mirror. It’s pitch black with the only light coming from the mirror itself. This seems to be a clue as to why they want out. Another great scene plays out with Ginas father standing before a pitch dark doorway, then from the darkness behind him the face of his doppelganger appear and turns to look at him. It was moments like this that sealed it for me.

The pacing on this film is slow and if you’re not the patient sort this could bore you but if you don’t mind the slow build up it pays off. The reason for this “invasion” is never really explained and revolves around Ginas slowly returning memories. Also the ending is fairly open which a lot of people won’t like but I didn’t mind at all. There is nudity (Yay) and a couple of kill scenes but overall nothing too gory. The Broken appealed to me and in the end I give it a 7.5/10.

Raptors Hellraising Experience

Today I have two Hellraiser movies for you. Hellraiser: Deader and Hellraiser: Hell World so lets continue on with my special thought on part 7 and 8 of this blood soaked series.

Oh crap, another splinter

Hellraiser: Deader revolves around a journalist who investigates a cult called the Deaders when a video tape is sent to her office showing a girl being killed then resurrected. The journalist, played by Kari Wuhrer who I last remember being in Sliders and still pretty hot, eventually tracks down the Deaders amidst warnings from Pinhead that they are raising an army and are a threat to him. Honestly, what kind of a threat are a bunch of resurrected wannabes to a demonic S&M hook throwing leather fetishist. The movie set a moody atmosphere but in the end the pay off was a little drab. Also the Cenobites hardly appeared at all. You got Pinhead making a warning or two early on then they appear at the end to clean things up as usual and that’s it…I mean sure the nudity was there in the film but there wasn’t anything to surprising in this one. The acting was solid enough and there is a little killing here and there but it’s a pale comparison to some of it’s predecessors. I gave it 6/10.

Hellraiser: Hell World, I have a bit of a gripe with this one. All I can say is this wasn’t a Hellraiser movie. This was some slasher movies with Hellraiser themes tacked on to it. You could have easily removed all the Hellraiser elements from it and would have still had roughly the same movie. Basically the story revolves around a group of 20somethings who played an online game called Hell World and one of them died. 2 years later they are then invited a Hellraiser party by the host played by Lance Henriksen. I wont give it away too much but it’s pretty obvious that Lance knows the kid and he takes out the gang in let’s say by the use of fear. There is also some nudity in this one, it can’t be all bad and the actors while mostly attractive enough could have been anyone really. They also do dumb things like at one point one of the girls is trying to get the attention of a cop outside a window but the cops can’t see her. Try breaking the window maybe? You have a whole room full of crap to do it with. What about sticking your hand in some cracks in the floor boards? Yeah that always turns out to be a good idea. Anyway, this would have all been ok but my stickler is that it’s NOT a Hellraiser movie. I don’t care what wrapping paper you used. I give this one 5/10.

Gavor's movie round-up #2

Over the last week I've been busy selling cars and my house in preparation for le grande trip around Australia. Because of this I haven't had my usual spare time to find and watch movies so here's a round-up of the movies I've watched lately (and that I don't want to devote the space to full reviews).

Planet Terror

Robert Rodriguez's underwhelming zombie movie as part of the Grindhouse feature collaboration with Tarentino. It's okay, but having just watched Dawn of the Dead(both original and remake) it pales in comparison. Good for a couple of beers and a bag of popcorn.

5/10

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Takes all the subtext about consumerism and throws it in the bin then goes on to make a pretty decent movie about zombies. There are a couple of slow moments and not all of the acting works but I still enjoyed it. The grim ending leaves things open to interpretation, which is my kind of grim ending. Not as good as the original, but pretty close. The trailer below is rubbish and doesn't represent the movie well at all.

8/10

Shaun of the Dead

Funny zombies done right, and with a pretty good soundtrack too. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost work well together (and continued to do so in Hot Fuzz),  fingers crossed for more amusing collaborations in the future. Throw in Dylan Moran as a complete tosser plus the future Prime Minister of England as Shaun's mum and you have a great movie about zombies taking over London.

8.5/10

Drag me to Hell

Terrible, cliched shit with no laughs, no scares and almost no gore. I gave up about two thirds of the way through and skipped to the end. She dies. The end. Thank fuck for that. Someone please ask Mr Raimi to stop making movies.

2/10

Raptor is a Bastard

Every now and then there is a movie that’s just fun to watch. Inglorious Bastards is one of those movies. Directed and Written by Quinten Tarantino, like him or hate him you know you’re going to get a movie that isn’t like the rest. Tarantino has put together a cast of charismatic bastards that really step up to the plate and hit a home run. The movie is set in during World War II occupied France and the Americans have sent over a group of elite soldiers called the Inglorious Bastards, so named by the Germans. Well just The Bastards to them really. The bastards are sent on a mission to kill a number of German Officers at a movie Theatre screening a terrible German propaganda film about a Private Frederick Zoller, a sniper and war hero who killed over 300 enemy soldiers over 3 days. The movie pretty much just shows one sniper kill after another. The Bastards find out that Hitler and his inner circle are going to be attending the screening so the mission becomes more important and much more risky.

Do these pants make me look fat?

We begin the story with a French family hiding a Jewish family. In comes Col. Hans Landa “The Hunter” played brilliantly by Christoph Waltz as a cunning, charming and flamboyant self serving Nazi Jew hunter. The scene and dialogue where he corners the French farmer into revealing the Jewish family is truly masterful. He orders his men to kill the Jewish family but one of the daughters manages to flee. This is Shosanna Freyfus (Melanie Laurent) who becomes the owner of the theatre and has her own designs of finishing of the Nazis leaders by burning down the theatre.

Gun and bat? I think he is over compensating?

The Bastards are lead by Lt. Aldo Raine played hilariously by Brad Pitt as a chin thrust out no nonsense military man with an American Indian blood line. With his band and his second in command Sgt Donny Donowitz, the club beating “Bear Jew” played by Eli Roth they start a campaign of gorilla warfare designed to unnerve the Germans. I would have to say Pitt and Roth probably have the funniest scene in the movie with a “Who speaks the best Italian” skit.

When they are asked to meet an undercover contact, Bridget von Hammersmark (Dianne Kruger) a famous German movie actress, a British officer, Lt. Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender), is sent in with two of the bastards. Things don’t go as planned when they find that a there is a small party in the tavern selected for the meeting for a German Staff Sergeant becoming a father and also cunning SS Officer. The fire fight that ensures leaves everyone dead but Hammersmark. Unfortunately the aftermath ends up being investigated by Col. Hans Landa who puts a snag in their grand plot.  Speaking of dead, I would have liked to have seen more of Michael Fassbender with the almost Ian Fleming style British officer but alas eggs had to be broken.

Hi, I'm 5ft 8'' arian features, like long walks on the beach and oh I'm a Nazi.

Back to Christoph Waltz, he is in my mind the centre of this movie, you could say its Melanie Laurent but she paled in comparison to the performance given by Laurent. He was so likeable that I kept thinking man this guys is going to get you but hey so what! He’s the man. This is when he is in control and has all his moves planned out but as one scene shows with Hammersmark he can be extremely violent and irrational when betrayed.

Visually the movie is spectacular and the costumes and settings are very authentic. The violence goes from violent to over the top. There are club beatings, Scalping (The Bastards trademark) and yes gun fights and explosions and frankly all good fun. The script is rattles along at a good pace and the only real problem is the size of the cast. You may want to see more of one character but being so many some of them obviously some get left on the cutting room floor. Still after all that I have to say that the best parts of Inglorious Bastards is the dialogue between characters which in my mind tend to be clever without becoming pretentious.


Inglorious Bastards is a great World War II action movie, a great script and great actors. I give this one 8.5/10. Blow the next thing up thanks.

Humanity's End (2009)

A great example of how far we've come with CGI when a movie can (at times) look so good but play so badly.

Cool fonts, things blowing up and someone in a welding mask....so far so good.

Humanity's End (YouTube trailer) promised so little yet delivered slightly more than expected. Far off in the future of a cliche story involving too many races, sub-races and plot holes - homo sapiens is wiped out by the Nephilim. The Nephilim are a race that evolved parallel to homo sapiens but always strived to grind humans under their heel. After being destroyed, coming back, being destroyed again and coming back again,  the Nephilimhave teamed up with Homo Technis(I think) to destroy all humans. Homo Technis is an off shoot of homo sapiens, their street name being the Konstructs. Throw in some bio engineered races and bio engineered robots (not clear on the distinction) and you've got a movie that tries to do too much with too little yet succeeds at creating some, at-times, impressive visuals regardless.

Did I say humans were wiped out? Well mostly. Two survivors, a breeder and a mercenary captain, team up with another woman who thinks she's human but turns out to be a robot, plus a bio engineered bald guy and a ship called Blue. They fly to Mars with the purpose of finding weapons that turn out to be of no consequence to the plot, then manage to destroy the entire Nephilim fleet with a single fighter (their big ass ship being all crashed on the planet). Also, the Konstructs are now humanity's friend as part of a suddenly revealed double cross by the Konstructs against the Nephilim. Could have sprung the surprise BEFORE killing all other humans. Oh and the mercenary guy is killed at the end. His character was rubbish and his acting poor so it didn't matter so much. I was a touch sader when Blue, the computer, was taken offline.

While on the topic of acting, I must say I struggled to detect any. There was talking at each other, bad emoting, fake crying, a laughable sex scene(but in fairness I think it was supposed to be) - but no actual acting or character building.

The effects on the other hand were plentiful and generally well executed. Given the low budget there was obviously a mix of good and bad, but for the money they got some decent sets and many many effects. Ships, explosions, more ships, guns, more ships. All externals shots were quite attractive and the ships well realised, however the explosions and some of the incidental effects came out pretty awful. Overall, plenty of eye candy and most of it good.

I'd be interested to see what the same studio could do with more money. My sincere wish is that it'd free them not only to create more and flashier effects but also pay some decent actors and buy a proper script. That's a movie I wouldn't mind watching, the world needs more sci-fi movies with ships, explosions and humorous one-liners. Throw out the fucking subtext and intense stares and throw in more leather pant and cleavage. There, done.

No boobs, no acting but lots of decent effects (remembering the budget).

5/10

Raptor gets out of the Crypt

The Crypt seems to be a movie that is trying to be a new take on Descent but doesn’t achieve quite what it’s planned out to do. It involves a group of criminals, who after a car jacking gone wrong decide to go for a bigger and safer heist by stealing jewels from an old early 1900s crypt. So they wonder down and soon find themselves trapped. Gasp! Who would have thought that would happen? So now they are stuck underground and stealing jewels and the spirits of the dead are killing them one by one.

It plays by the numbers. If you seen one escape from a haunted house/cave/paper bag movie then you’ve probably seen this. The acting, while not terrible, wasn’t what you’d call great and the script seemed to have a few too many plot holes such as one of the characters saying that the dead are killing them because they have the jewels. So they dump the jewels but after all her speech about jewels are bad she decides to keep some…WTF! Get rid of it you moron!

The ghosts were reasonably cool with glowing eyes but again nothing too spectacular. It tried to setup some creepy moments which were hit and miss probably because by this point I didn’t really care if they lived or not and was rooting for the ghosts. One or two of the kills weren’t too bad such as the hand down throat but most involved the cast getting dragged away and that’s it.


In the end I wasn’t overly impressed. There was a booby shot at the beginning so that put up the score a little which was 4.5/10. Blah, watch it if you have nothing else to do.