Reviews

I really wanted to like this film, but in one simple way it let me down badly - in short, it makes no sense whatsoever.

Great production values; great cast; basically a good story, but what on earth happened to the script? There are enormous plot holes everywhere and even what isn't peppered with discontinuity is essentially a load of old cobblers, as we like to say here.

This movie has been murdered in the editing suite - by whom, who knows? It all reminds me of the disaster that was The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, although I expect no-one punched the director this time. At least Clive Owen managed to actually do some acting for a change. He's come on a lot since starring in Sin City. Denzel Washington, meanwhile, spends the entire movie looking like he knows it's all gone down the well - there's definitely a hysterical edge to his performance. Isn't Mr Plummer looking good?

Well, it's all been said in other reviews right here.

The first words that pop into my mind when thinking of this film are: "Oh my God", and that's because this is an awe-inspiring piece of work, made in the European black and white super-realism tradition of the 1960's, and so masterfully done that you feel like you are watching a documentary made just the other day.

It's painful; it's sad; it's powerful; it's riveting.

Sam Riley delivers a masterful performance as the doomed, sensitive, depressed Curtis (and you really do feel that), Alexandra Maria Lara is superbly gentle yet distant (hard to believe this is the same actress from Downfall) and Samantha Morton is brilliant as ever.

Yes, the direction does teeter a little on the edge of being self-important, but this is a hell of a movie that draws you in to being emotionally involved almost despite yourself, and the ending you already know is heading down the line remains shocking and very very sad.

I am somewhat baffled by this movie.

On the face of it, this is an immensely powerful, beautifully shot and splendidly acted follow-up to the excellent 'Elizabeth', featuring a cast to die for, a top-notch script and a wardrobe of enormous expense.

Never mind that it 'plays fast and loose with history', or that it feels like a Tudor Braveheart - I can put up with such minor irritants for the sake of a good yarn.

Yet somewhere along the line, this movie becomes deeply unsatisfying. Perhaps even unsettling. If I had to put my finger on it, I'd say that the director has simply gotten carried away - he has immersed himself so much in the subject that the result is a work of obsession - and that always sits uncomfortably.

We are, therefore, treated to a movie that (hopefully) inadvertently proclaims that Protestants are good and god-favoured, whereas Catholics are a bad lot generally. That the English are a grand bunch of people, while the Spanish are vile and evil. That absolute monarchy and divine right are the only way to really run the town, so long as the monarch in question is virtuous, English and Protestant.

Of course, all of these things are fine and well for the story itself; the misfortune is that Kapur broadcasts these ideas through the film as his message to the audience.

It perhaps doesn't help that Philip of Spain is portrayed as a demented dancing dwarf with Tourette's Syndrome.

I'm going to watch this movie again at some point, but I have to say that it is, I think, a glorious Ozymandine failure.

Indigenes (Days of Glory), as a movie about the huge contribution made by soldiers from the Empire in the renaissance of the French army in WW2, succeeds on several levels - it holds the interest, it twiddles with your emotions, and it gets a strong message across.

As has been mentioned elsewhere in these reviews, the Free French army would have continued as a single brigade of men, had it not been for the Armee d'Afrique's large resources of Spahis, Tirailleurs and Goums - native troops from all over French Africa, but particularly Morrocco and Algeria. This wasn't because they were especially keen on liberating France per se - it was mainly because they were told to, and their honour depended on it. Nevertheless, there were many who imagined France as the beneficent mother country needing their help. Others felt that demonstrating their loyalty would lead the authorities to thoughts of equality, and maybe even freedom.

So this film is about the journey of some of these fighters, and five in particular, from sandy North Africa to a wet, cold German border.

Along the way, it becomes apparent to them just how feckless and bigoted their masters really are. At every turn, they are discriminated against, even by their own officers, who often only act with consideration because they fear mutiny.

This sort of thing has been said before, of course, on lots of occasions (Glory, for instance), and it's also pretty much all true, not to say a human universal, but the moralising is handled very heavily here... as a white European viewer, it was a bit like being hit repeatedly with a tagine pot.

Beyond that, the film won't give you much you haven't seen before in war movies, but it is well crafted, the story is excellent, and the acting is superlative... you really do end up getting very involved.

Well worth watching more than once.

I write this very shortly after having watched the movie, and I am left wondering whether the many positive IMDb reviews were about the same film.

Beautifully shot and edited, but that should be a gainsaid. Otherwise, mildly absurd, highly pretentious nonsense only relieved (!) by bouts of beautiful young things being all naked and sexy for the camera.

Very shortly after I spotted what the game was (and I'll leave that for you), I fell asleep. When I woke up, they were still quoting lines from movies, having lots of sex and being very daring in a bourgeois kind of way.

The film does succeed in being very French in an overly-stylised fashion, but only if you think that 1968 and Satre is what it's all about. Give it a rest, please....

You know, I like Dennis Quaid as an actor. I really do. And I always felt for him with the Meg thing. But I can't forgive him for lending credibility to this crock. At least Ian Holm had the decency to take to drink and die before the halfway mark.

One thing - and just one - saves this movie from being a complete turkey, and that is that the premise is quite good, actually.

Other than that, the acting is universally mediocre, the script is sub-soap and the direction leaves a lot to be desired. Perhaps the biggest problem is that so little energy is invested in any of the characters that, as a viewer, you don't really care what happens to them.

And if that wasn't bad enough, the SFX are haphazard in effect - a great deal of the CGI looks extremely ropey.

All in all, I kept expecting Charlton Heston to turn up clutching Ava Gardner to his bosom. It was then that I realised that Earthquake was actually a better movie.

From start to finish, this film proudly defies logic in a very Flash Gordon fashion, and even occasionally tries to nod in the direction of Granpappy Jules Verne. Unfortunately, as the story also manages to contradict a whole heap of Physical Laws, it pretty well trips itself up and breaks its own nose.

And that's what this film is - a big nasal hemorrhage. You can even see that thought in the actors' eyes.

However, some of the special effects are really pretty cool, the Core Express itself is very cute and somehow Deco-like, and most everyone apart from Hilary Swank acts competently, at least. Hilary just looks and sounds painfully uncomfortable. And so she should.

A special mention here for the wonderful Stanley Tucci, who combines his usual 'I'm the guy everyone wants to punch' role with a very funny take on Dr Strangelove.

But in the end, this film is just too, too stupid for words. So I'll stop right there. Except to say it isn't AS stupid as Day After Tomorrow.

An extremely thought-provoking movie that leaves you wanting a sequel - I can't help thinking that this is the film that Baise Moi ought to have been.

While it is easy to see the story as about innocent girls fighting an unpleasant, chauvinistic world, it should be remembered that Nina is the central character, and Lizzy is actually a supporting cypher. It is Nina who we see as a newly orphaned teen, wandering in a fog of repressed grief and rage, depressed and wanting only to be somewhere else - a role Kodja plays masterfully - while Lizzy we are introduced to as an anarchic girl with no past who has taken too many pills and narrowly avoided death.

Nina finds herself handed off by a sympathetic but shallow cousin who simply places her with one of her beauty salon clients to drive to La Rochelle. The lady in question is very obviously a sexual predator, yet Nina is too lost and too innocent to notice. She ends up in the family hotel, and what a family! The laissez-faire father, the monstrous mother, the spoilt and petulant son...

Finally overwhelmed by grief, Nina is dumped by these lovely people at the hospital, where she is consigned to a sanitarium, and here she meets the apparently delightful Lizzy, who is also in recovery.

Soon enough, they 'escape' and rapidly find themselves without friends, family, money, a home... they can't wash, they can't eat, they can't sleep. Every time they ask, they are refused or abused, and every time they try to take instead, they mess up. The end result is the suspense of an inevitable confrontational ending. Yet that is not quite how the film DOES end.

And it isn't quite that simple. Lizzy is, in fact, a psychotic who really ought to have stayed in hospital. Not everyone is horrible - Lizzy's boyfriend is actually a caring kind of guy, who does try to help; there's a distrustful but kind lorry driver, a fatalistic old market stall seller and a self-obsessed affluent do-gooder.

Yet the only people who actually offer charity want something in exchange - and if there is no money, then sex is demanded. Yet perhaps the most harrowing scene in that respect is where the girls simply try to get a shower in a truck stop - the mercenary stares of the clientèle become truly horrifying.

The story of the two girls unfolds as a bad dream, where every door is closed to them in turn. Whatever they try to do, and wherever they go, they seem to end up in the same place. They are, in geographical reality, travelling in small circles, and yet all they really need to do is travel from La Rochelle to Bordeaux.

Meurtrieres is a highly polished movie that succeeds in placing the viewer in the minds of the leads. This is due in part to the wonderfully empathetic direction, but mainly to the outstanding performances from Kodja and Sallette, who really deserve accolades, and hopefully great careers ahead.

I have had the great good fortune to see this movie in a local cinema, and I have to say I don't think I've ever spent so long with my mouth hanging open.

Almost every reviewer has made some comparison to other works just to try and describe El Topo, and so here's my take: imagine a Western co-written by Lewis Carroll and the Monty Python team, co-directed by Terry Gilliam, Sergio Leone and Ingmar Bergman, and with design by Salvador Dali and Heironymous Bosch. Then further imagine that all of the above sat down beforehand and took very generous quantities of suspect powders and tablets, and there you have it.

There is a story, inasmuch as there is a strand of activity, although even that falters at times. But there is as little to aide one as to meaning as there is in the blankest of poetry.

There are plenty of awful clichés, some very rough camera work and editing, and great dollops of atrocious acting, but there are also inspired moments, amazing performances and some of the most awesome cinematic images I have ever seen.

And a lot of it is very funny. Like the 'hero' being run over by a dam-burst of the physically disabled and deformed pouring from a hole in a mountain. It's like that, you see. From the very first scene of the typically black-clad gunfighter riding across the desert, when you realise that he has a completely naked small boy riding pillion, you'll find massacre victims spitted on 30-foot poles, Buddhist gunslingers who tragically believe themselves beyond defeat, women dubbed with gruff men's voices, gay sheriffs, and even a village priest whose sermons involve getting the congregation to play Russian Roulette.

As to spirituality, there is lots said in review (and by the director)about the film's inherent orientalism, but I have to say, dead Buddhists aside, that there seems to be a lot more of the Bible in here than anything else, although if it IS an allegory, I'm stuck as to what it might be. You will notice on the way past, however, references to John the Baptist, Jesus, Daniel and the Lion, Samson, and loads more besides.

Everyone should see this movie before they die. Just make sure you view it sober.

You know that saying about bad movies being train wrecks? Well, this isn't just a train wreck...this is the Godzilla sequel to the mother of all train wrecks.

Ohhhhhh, this film plays like an improv sketch of an art-house film written by lobotomised baboons. Or an unfunny gay-porn version of Barbarella written by homophobes.

Unwatchable. Really. And orange. With half-naked oiled-up sailors and enormous phallic mooring posts.

What on earth Franco Nero and Jeanne Moreau thought they were doing agreeing to take part in this septic tank of a film is quite beyond me.

Truly, the worst movie I have ever tried to watch. I suspect I won't try the book either!

Looks great, even if it could be mistaken by a drunk dad for a sequel to ET.

Asides from the little darling, the acting throughout is either wooden or desperately OTT.

What happened to the script? who can tell? Very little makes any sense whatsoever. Preposterous and an utter travesty of Brian Aldiss' original short stories, although the man himself is far too polite to say so.

Basically, a good idea turned into patronising mush.

And I have nothing against Spielberg, nor Kubrick for that matter (except that I'm not sure that Sp. has made a good film since Jaws nor K. since Paths of Glory).