Sadly another foreign classic has been taken on by Hollywood and ripped apart. It's a shame as the cast is quite impressive: Mickey Rourke, Ray Winstone, Sam Riley, Jason Statham, David Zayas (looking a bit more menacing here), an awful 50 Cent and the incredible Michael Shannon (fast becoming one of my favourite actors). But with such an engaging story, a respectable cast and with the same director as the original French film, surely they're not taking any chances here? Spin. Aim. Not necessarily survive.
13 Tzameti was a great film for all the right reasons. The story, if you don't know, is about an underground game of Russian Roulette where people bet a lot of money on the outcome. In a weird sequence of events, a young man gets involved without knowing what it is and ends up having to play the game. The first film was a black and white, gritty, disturbing film that was full of suspense and everything that worked about it has sadly floundered in this remake.
There's a number of reasons why. Firstly, there is a multiple narrative about some of the other contestants, this means that you lose the personal attachment you have with Riley in the first place. It also means that due to the famous cast, you know who is going to survive and who isn't. The Hollywood sheen where it looks pretty, full of rich colours and takes place in a rich mansion means it loses all it's dirty, hostile and cold surroundings that made the original film feel so awkward to situate yourself in. The build-up to watching the bulb is about 1% of the tension of the original, you honestly didn't know what was going to happen in the first one but in this instance you feel like you do and the tension isn't there at all. Instead it feels like a stupid game where you don't care about anyone.
The stories of the other contestants detract from the mood and feel like a complete distraction. Rourke's storyline especially. His little story alongside the painfully unbearable 50 Cent is completely unjustified and a waste of time. Statham and Winstone's brotherly love hasn't been thought out and feels superfluous to say the least. Sam Riley does an okay job as the young innocent player, but his lack of conviction makes you feel like a voyeur rather than being involved. The actual game itself and the gambling techniques were also completely unclear and convoluted with the bulb, once being the main source of tension in the first film, rather being set as a preoccupation. The reason why they had a hanging bulb in the first room is that it was a tiny concrete room, so the only thing there was the bulb hanging down, casting judgement. Whereas here, you can't imagine that blowing each other's brains out around such rich tapestry is ideal for cleaning up.
Finland isn't known for it's film exports, so here truly is a 'Rare Export' but should we return it? It's not exactly in the spirit of Christmas is it?
This film is rather a prequel to two short films that the director made in 2003 and 2005 (both I will stick at the end of this article) where Santa isn't the merry old fat man we've come to know and love but is rather a beast of the wild that is tamed and exported around the world. But deciding that some short films weren't enough, Jalmari Helander decides to make a feature film about his 'hunters' before the events of Rare Exports Inc. & Rare Exports: Official Safety Instructions. I have to put this film into context because when viewing the film, not knowing much about it, it seemed very strange afterwards but now it kind of makes sense. However, it might be worth watching without seeing the videos included here, but it's your choice.
Either way, the story is about how some corporate diggers are excavating something from a mountain near a remote village in the snowy outdoors. But it is a young boy who works out what is buried beneath and is taking every precaution just in case, whether it's taping cardboard to your bum or carrying around a shotgun, he's not taking any chances. I read somewhere that this harks back to the kiddie films of the Eighties like The Goonies where the kids were always right and the adults were idiots, but this has much more of a horror element to it. In fact, it is very funny in different places for different reasons but always keeps a dark, sinister edge whether it's the weird wooden dolls, the crazy rich excavator or the creepy Santa they find, there's always a tinge of horror at all times.
The film is very well directed and, like many have said (mainly because of the snow) reminds people of The Thing, but all the set-up's are there and around the whole thing is the myth of Santa Claus (or Claws in this case). It makes for a very exciting, disturbing experience that is set around a time where people are supposed to get together and for someone who doesn't really enjoy Christmas, like myself, it makes a welcome distraction to all the 'niceness' of the Christmas season. The acting is, for the most part, very impressive and the end sequences with hundreds of naked old men running across the mountains is both funny and breathtaking at the same time. The film finds a great balance between horror, terror, humour and remembering that it shouldn't take itself too seriously, the gag is that it's about Santa after all.
I always found something creepy about a fat, old man going into children's houses at night and giving them presents, seeing if they've been 'naughty or nice' and this plays on people's insecurities especially at a time where paedophilia is all over the news these days. It also has a rather serious, dramatic edge with an obviously painful father/son relationship, a man who is frustrated with the world and a 'coming-of-age' element about sacrifice and becoming independent. It could also be seen as a war of male generations, the son against the father, and the father against his own father, which in this case is represented by Father Christmas, it would make sense seeing as there is no females in the whole film but rather a world of manly hunters where soppy things like Christmas have no place.
Overall, the film is enjoyable and the last five minutes is rather strange but makes sense once you see the short films. It might have a few plotholes but has been well thought out, perfectly directed and for something that could have so easily been one big joke, remains an impressive piece of work that the director clearly cared about. I recommend that you forget the usual Christmas ho-ho-Hell's and delve into a dark place where being naughty or nice is a life or death decision.
Another animated 3D film comes along and better yet, it's about superheroes (groan) except the twist here is that it's from the point of view of the villain, so is it all bad?
The cast of this is a bit like the Who's Who of Frat Pack/Saturday Night Live etc. with Jonah Hill, Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, David Cross and Ben Stiller (with Stiller co-producing as well) all comedy heavyweights and the added Hollywood status of Brad Pitt to boot but do they work? Yes they do. Very well in fact.
I've always wondered how much input stars have with the scripts, after all if you're paying for the talent you might as well let them run riot with the script. By doing so you would get such achievements such as Anchorman which got a lot from improvisation, and you can tell that 90% of all the funniest bits in this film clearly came from improv and are pretty much from Ferrell. People might love or hate him, but I personally think the guy is a genius and will be fondly remembered when we look back at comedy heroes. Sure he sells out quite often, but I think he often makes even the shittiest films funny. That dinner scene in Bewitched? Loved it. His coffee freak outs in Kicking & Screaming? More please. It's just a shame that he is confined to a script, but at least here where you'd think in a medium where improvisation would be least encouraged, he is often able to drop some great one liners. This isn't taking away anything from the script which is funny in it's own right, but if it wasn't for Ferrell's magic, I'd be afraid that it would be a dud.
But before I crawl completely all the way up his arse, I'll tell you what it's about. Megamind is a victim of circumstance and childhood bullying which leads him to use his powers for evil rather than good. This immediately puts him in a more accessible light, Catholics might not rate this film because he's not inherently evil, but the audience can see that he's merely misguided and relishes the attention he gets from performing dastardly tasks rather than nothing at all. He is, after all, an orphan and completely working class. His upper class nemesis is MetroMan (aka Brad Pitt) who is smarmy, slick and arrogant yet believes in justice. After an unfortunate mishap, Megamind is soon left with free reign over the city until he gets bored. In his boredom he creates Titan who is a petty, selfish stalker who uses his powers for bad, perhaps proving that some people are inherently evil after all. As well as all this, Megamind is falling in love but never does this get in the way of the story, in fact it helps steer it forward.
Pitt does his charming superhero to the tee, but never is he truly funny, but then I wasn't sure if he was supposed to be. Fey plays the strong female reporter well without any glitches but it's Cross, Hill and Ferrell that really make the show. Cross as Minion is more like a room-mate than a servant and Hill can easily make you feel disgusted yet amused at the same time, a trait he pulls off quite a bit. You could read Megamind's fight with Titan as Dr Frankenstein's battle with his own monster, a monster that is full of immaturity, selfishness, nihilism and essentially is a sociopath. In order to truly grow up, he must accept and conquer these inner demons which have formed into Titan. Of course this is reading into it a bit too much for a kids film, but all the best kids films have deeper adult undertones.
All in all, I enjoyed the story and the 3Dness of it was appealling but Will Ferrell gives a great bad guy performance that will make kids and adults both laugh. There's enough here as well for adults to go to without kids (like myself - cough) such as Ferrell's Brando performance from Superman, and Mark Twain's quote that rumours of his death have been 'greatly exaggerated' and stuff that the kids are too stupid to figure out, probably. Doogie Howser would have known though.
Overall, I enjoyed the film but it wasn't amazing, it had some really good, funny moments and looked great but lacked a real punch that makes it different from other animations. Though it is definitely one of the best released this year. You won't be disappointed if you made an effort to see it.
Here's what really happened in last Sunday's X Factor: Simon shagging One Direction, Louie up for raping Justin Bieber, Mary is actually a man who likes to play with balls and more. Enjoy!
Ricky Gervais returns to the stage with some more comedy tenuously linked to science. Why he looks like a strange lesbian on the front I have no idea, am I missing a pop culture reference...?
People give Gervais a lot of stick as he had no stand-up experience and on his first tour was selling out huge venues, people felt like he hadn't 'earned' his way up. However, how many people do we see on shitty TV panel shows that suddenly are selling out the O2? A lot.
Gervais got quite a lacklustre response for Fame but with Science, I feel like he is getting back on track. The trouble is, I still feel that he's finding his feet and is somewhat uncomfortable, constantly apologising for himself and being self-referential. It's clear he puts a lot of effort into his performance and material, which is good, but there isn't really a professional feel to it, instead it's like your mate chatting to you for a while. Which isn't a bad thing at all, his everyman connection is what makes him so appealable in the first place. Unfortunately it feels very, very short but his anecdotes and punchlines are amusing and I was properly laughing out loud in a lot of places.
Gervais goes into old territory such as religion, a great bit on a Noah children's book for instance, obese people and again pushes borders by just saying out loud what normal, white, Joe public males talk about. It's smartness contrasting to schoolyard humour is a great, successful mix but some of these jokes fall a bit flat and sometimes you get the impression that some of the jokes are just trying to be controversial rather than funny. Yet I'm slightly perturbed by some of his remarks 'kicking me off TV? Good luck with that', 'they were talking about controversy, so of course my name cropped up' - did it? I'm not sure these comments were supposed to be ironic, in fact I'd say he plays on his success and popularity a lot. However, I feel that Gervais is wearing a bit thin, not just physically (he's clearly lost weight but eeek... look at his arms!) but I can't help but think he's getting a bit old hat. Maybe I'm wrong?
He describes how people meet over humour and to see if you are like each other, fortunately everyone feels like they could get on with Gervais and his cheeky humour, including myself. This was funny, but I'd probably only watch it a couple of times and there's still life in the old dog yet, but this is far from perfect. Great for Gervais fans, but he's clearly not a professional stand-up.
Just before the world goes Tron crazy, we get a glimpse at Disney's game to coincide with the release. Taking place before the events of Tron Legacy, we delve into The Grid to see what all the fuss is about ...
I was apprehensive of this game for good reasons, the production company behind it had only really done Turok before this, which wasn't exactly inspiring confidence and Disney aren't known for their cutting edge computer games (Kingdom Hearts can suck my balls), so what to make of Tron Evolution?
Well let's set the scene, Flynn introduces us to the game by saying how the system he created has evolved, it's not just computer games now. Instead, it's expanded and there's not just basic programs bouncing around in there either - there's Iso's. These Iso's are entities that have formed on their own and serve no direct purpose and there's unrest in The Grid because of this. After an Iso has gone rogue and become a virus, Clu (who is Flynn's server manager and looks just like him) goes a bit mad and declares war on all Iso's - civil unrest ensues and the virus doesn't help either. So that's basically it.
What follows on from there I still don't know. You run into some people in the way and you have to get places but I'm never sure why and I'm afraid I lost interest not long after the start. This isn't just because of the story, it's for a number of reasons.
The first thing you'll notice is the graphics, it's very slick and the neon lights look great and you'll be immediately impressed. However, on closer inspection you realise it all looks rather the same and begins to hurt your eyes after a while. The close up's and anything that needs real texturing look terrible and the Tron universe is simple and quite barren which doesn't make for much of a sight.
The gameplay is also ridiculously behind-the-times. It plays like Prince of Persia where you hold a button to run up walls and basically do anything fancy, which means you're pressing that button for pretty much the whole game. You run up walls, jump about and do other parkour stuff that seems completely out of place and you'll spend about 80% of your time playing it, just moving from one platform to another. However, it's not as advanced as Uncharted or say, Enslaved, so you can fall off at any point, often don't know where you're supposed to be going or what you're supposed to be doing and will time and time again jump off wrong and end up dead. I must have died well over 200 - 300 times and some of the checkpoints are so stupidly placed that you'll find yourself having to kill a bunch of enemies just to make sure you get that one jump right again, and if you don't get the next one right? Back to kill those enemies again. I cannot tell you how frustrating it all is. The platform aspect of the game is tedious, backward, repetitive and a chore - it's no fun whatsoever.
So when you're not jumping about like a retard, what are you doing? Mostly fighting. Once again, this has been poorly conceived as you often don't know how hard an enemy is hitting and with their sodding flying discs you never know when you should be blocking or hitting. You don't feel any real metaphysical contact when you do hit (that should make sense to the gamers) so you just feel like you're swooshing about and hoping for the best. You have four different types of disc but there's no real grace to it, I often kept with the heavy disc and did an 'area attack' which saw me off pretty much everyone. You have to keep your energy levels up by running, much like a bag of crisps along a checkout counter, against an energy wall thing which gives you health. This often means that in crucial times, you'll often miss it or spend 20 seconds trying to get the run right meaning by then you're already dead and have to start it again. Also by using your 'special' discs, you use up power, so to up your power you hop over desks or little stumps in the ground - no joke. The whole thing is just bloody stupid.
So what about the cool stuff like the bikes? Well, like any good gamer knows, sometimes games have to sacrifice skill for spectacle. Take Call Of Duty's little bike or four wheel excursions, they are fast, furious, and take minimal skill to continue and would rather you enjoy it than have to do it again and again and again. Tron isn't like that. Instead, if you hit anything, or even touch the sides you lose a lot of health, which means instead of flooring it, you have to patiently and slowly make your way round bends and then suddenly know when to speed up at points to get over jumps. When other bikers engage you (there's only 3 I think in the entire game and they don't last longer than ten seconds each) then instead of trying to get them to crash into your light, you just have to outrace them. No 90 degree turns either. Disgraceful.
The tank sequences are also laughable and feel like a PS One game gone awry, it's simple shoot and move mechanics that are so lame it hurts. When you have to battle enemy ones without being in the comfort of your own tank, it takes a while to figure out how to kill them and if their turret so much as brushes you, you're dead. The 'game' sequence where you go up against other programs in gladiator type events is so short that if you blink you'll miss it and is stupidly easy. It feels like an afterthought. Apart from that, that's really it.
What annoys me the most is that because of the lights and the fact your character doesn't say anything it reminds me of Dead Space, which makes me even angrier for some reason, probably because the way it looks is it's only saving grace and it doesn't even stand up to a game released years ago. Overall, there have been worse games out there but this is shockingly bad. Apparently multiplayer mode is an important part, but I can't see it being much fun as the story campaign was infuriating. Don't touch this game, just leave it well alone and hope that one day someone can do Tron justice and, if you're planning to get this on PS Move then good luck because I wouldn't dare.
It's definitely taken a Tron for the worst, but looks pretty at times and, I guess it does have light cycles. It's either clearly been rushed for release or the producers are idiots.
Hong Kong legend Donnie Yen hits UK screens in the latest Kung-Fu action film to grace our shores, but is it really a Legend or should Chen Zhen just ... not return?
There is a very confusing background to this film. Firstly, this is a sequel to a TV series called Fist of Fury in Hong Kong, that series was a remake from the original Bruce Lee film. Now, Donnie Yen has been made to basically be Bruce Lee including Bruce Lee sounds, fashion and even a Green Hornet hero disguise. It's also directed by Andrew Lau who made Infernal Affairs, but isn't the Andy Lau who was in Infernal Affairs, that's someone else entirely. Understand? Good.
So what's it actually about then? Well, it's based on an ancient legend but yet this film is set before the second Sino-Japanese war in a Shanghai settlement where the British and the Japanese are battling it out with China in the middle. Chen Zhen has come back from fighting the Germans in France and taken the identity of one of his fallen comrades, why he needs to do this is never clear. The whole thing is then set in a club called Casablanca (yawn) which looks like a shoddy Boardwalk Empire (which if you still haven't tried to get hold of then you're an idiot, sorry) and it's all about people double crossing each other, about politics, revolution and stuff I have absolutely no idea about. I'm just not that clued up on Modern Chinese History I'm afraid, and this film didn't help either.
For those who know their Hong Kong cinema, there will be some friendly faces and the fact Andrew Lau is behind this will be enough to put some bums on seats but if you're looking for an action film, it might be best to look elsewhere. There aren't many fight scenes but when they do come up, they are quite good, but nothing remarkable. Yen's fighting is fast and seeing as he must be about 50 now I'm surprised he looks as incredible as he does. Yet his fighting looks comical and it seems as if they have sacrificed power for speed to make it look more impressive but instead it looks like about ten happy slaps a second, not enough to knock out these bad guys, and a lot of 'signature' moves are repeated. The final fight scene was also not that impressive and if you look at what Hong Kong was making 40 years back, it isn't even close to that type of skill.
So perhaps the story is enough to keep you hooked? Well, not really. It's so melodramatic and unsubtle that you can't help but laugh through half of it and the negative display of foreigners has apparently got a lot of Japanese upset, but you don't see the Germans complaining when Hollywood does a war film do you? Also, haven't the Chinese and Japanese always hated each other? I think it's time to move on guys. The British don't get a good rep either, but then the British guy is clearly not British so I don't mind too much.
Overall, I left the cinema without really knowing what was supposed to be going on but keeping with it enough to know who was supposed to be good and bad. The directing was OK and the scale was somewhat small as it felt like it had been made in a studio rather than drawing you into the scene. I can't say I was ever really bored but I was never entertained, it's a poor introduction for those who haven't seen the rich content that Hong Kong cinema provides and I do hope this film brings in more money into their industry but for smaller, more cutting-edge films rather than Hollywood-wannabe cheese-fests like this one.
Maybe see it on DVD if you're really that bothered but with an April cinema release date, don't expect it until Christmas 2011. Ambitious, but ultimately dull.
was a great film for all the right reasons. The story, if you don't know, is about an underground game of Russian Roulette where people bet a lot of money on the outcome. In a weird sequence of events, a young man gets involved without knowing what it is and ends up having to play the game. The first film was a black and white, gritty, disturbing film that was full of suspense and everything that worked about it has sadly floundered in this remake.
