Reviews

Battle For The Planet Of The Apes is quite simply, brilliant. A tour de force of great make up, special effects, performances and dialogue. Battle is far superior to Schaffner's original in the sense that is is more entertaining, better made and with a starrier cast. This film grabs you by the balls and never lets go. Roddy McDowall as Caesar tears at your emotions. The cinematography is gorgeous. The score by Leonard Rosenman surpasses Goldsmith's original. This movie will have you gripped to your seat, taking you from tears of joy to tears of tragedy.

PS- I am insane.

The end credits started to roll. The theatre lights came on. The audience filed silently out of the theatre. I sat in disbelief, staring at the screen, drooling and farting, uncontrollably. My nerves had given in. I felt as though my entire family had been beaten with sharp sticks by Spielberg and Co. A passer by placed a re-assuring hand on my shoulder before walking off to drink some cyanide. I had just witnessed the death of Indiana Jones. And what a travesty of bad acting and poor plotting it was. Arriving home, I burned my original trilogy. The respect had gone. I placed the noose around my neck and jumped off a chair. I am now in hell where they are showing permanent matinées of Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull ( and you have to pay to get in).

Bugger.

This film is a cash in. A cash in reliant on a rousing theme tune created for an earlier classic. Yul Brynner has long since jumped ship and so have most of the production values. Lee Van Cleef takes over the lead role of Chris. I can't think of any actor who looks less like Brynner than Van Cleef. Hey, he could have at least shaved off his hair and lost the moustache, just for the sake of continuity. Some correctional centres show this movie in order to punish offenders. One step out of line and The Magnificent Seven Ride! is brought to the fore and wielded. They didn't even bother trying to make this movie not look like a TV movie! Abysmal.

Airport '79 is an analogy for humankind in general. Director David Lowell Rich gives the audience a scintillating expose of the human condition in moments of sublime terror. George Kennedy as the Captain offers a unique performance of subtlety under pressure.This Everyman is going to do his best to ensure that his passengers get to where they are going while enduring the slight inconvenience of missile and jet attacks. The obligatory all-star cast give the performances a credible and considerable reality. The message here is that a good heart cannot be conquered and mankind can and will survive even the most dangerous of missile and jet assaults at Mach 2. " Drinks, anyone?"

Roller-coaster is not a disaster movie. Do not cheapen it by labelling it with this tag. It is a suspense thriller. A lunatic is stalking Americas theme parks and sabotaging the coasters. Cue, Harry Calder(George Segal), a burned out safety inspector who is designated to track the maniac.A tense game of cat and mouse follows with the psycho using Harry as his confidant, calling him regularly, with an almost begrudging respect. This nut is so insane, he actually likes Harry!Timothy Bottoms is excellent, giving a super-creepy performance as the saboteur.Roller-coaster boasts great performances, superb photography and some classic dialogue exchanges. And hey, you've got Richard Widmark AND Henry Fonda thrown in there too! Roller-coaster - a seminal 70's thriller.

Has anyone realised that Blakey's " Doh!" noises have ripped off by Homer Simpson? This film is a classic slice of realism! Seriously. It is Ken Loach with slapstick. These characters are a true reflection of what it is to be British, not just in the seventies, but now also. Struggling to make ends meet, these characters are present in today's society. I won't have anyone knocking this film as it is not only hilarious but it is also, in an odd way, quite moving, especially with lines like, "We haven't got enough money for grub." People who scoff at this film are, in reality, the film's biggest fans, it's just that they refuse to admit it.

Magic is Anthony Hopkins at his best. It is a heartbreaking psychological thriller about a talented performer descending into madness. Corky(Hopkins) is a ventriliquist who finds fame with his foul-mouthed dummy,Fats. However, he is too fragile of mind to even consider being famous, so he flees to the country and starts a romance with a woman whom he admired when he was younger. Then, the schizophrenia kicks in...Corky refuses to let himself be happy, so he becomes 'controlled' by the negative side of his personality, Fats. As Corky is really a decent sort of chap,a transferrence of guilt must take place - the dummy must take the blame for his actions. However, that sneaky director, Richard Attenborough, has left in a shot of the dummy moving by itself, adding a new supernatural element to the plot.Magic is brilliant, disturbing and a must see.

Escape from the planet of the apes is a decent film. Yet it is also not what you would call a planet of the apes movie. This film is more Crocodile Dundee than Apes film. The writers have placed too much emphasis on the fish out of water (or ape out of time) aspects of the plot. We really should have had an exciting chase movie for ninety minutes instead of endless scenes of Cornelius and Zira shopping or playing it for laughs. This approach can only weaken what should be a breathtaking sequel. I had an idea that the apes should have arrived back on earth BEFORE Charlton Heston blasts into space.They could have met him and warned him not to leave etc... The premise for a great film, don't you agree? Heston probably wouldn't have agreed. What we are left with is a decent enough effort that is just a tad too slow.

Abysmal. Shockingly awful. Bottom of the barrel. Things can't get any worse than this stink-bomb. I still suffer severe depression when I think about this abomination. 3D!!! They announced. Well it didn't work. The only teeth coming at me in the cinema were the ones that a boy in the third row had stolen from his grandfather and thrown. The fish's head floating, pointlessly, at the start reminded me to buy some haddock on the way home from the cinema. The acting was so wooden that a carpenter in the audience got his tools out. I could feel the audience slipping away into some mass coma. It was heartbreaking. I remember my friend glancing at me, his eyes lifeless and sad. Special Jaws 3 counselling groups were set up in my local area and I attended regularly.This crime against cinema should be battered and fried. Absolutely disgraceful.

I believe that everyone who laughs at Jaws:The Revenge has a secret obsession for it. They really do find it to be the best Jaws movie. This is because Jaws The Revenge IS the greatest of all the Jaws movies.It has the best performances, the best photography, the best soundtrack and it has the best actor- Michael Caine. People who hate this movie do not hate it really.They love it more than the original yet refuse to acknowledge it publicly. Michael Caine excels in his role as a travel weary pilot, trying to find a reason to live and finding it in Lorraine Gary. Thus follows a tale of two lonely people trying to find company in their later years. Beautiful. True, the shark follows Lorraine Gary to the Bahamas, but so what? Have you never been followed by a wild animal on your way home from the supermarket? I was once followed by a cat. I went on holiday to Austria and on opening my chalet door, there it was, purring for meat. The cat had followed me abroad. These things can happen. Great movie.

Watch out! There are rollerskates about!!! Futuristic rollerskates, that is. Good guys on skates battle a Nazi-esquire regime in a desolate future world. The highlight of this movie is the gorgeous Sarah Douglas as an evil scientist. The lowpoint of the movie is the whole movie. This film is a rip off of countless others. You keep expecting Mad Max to walk into a scene and shout "Hey! Those are my rollerskates, you little swines." Do yourselves a favour and skip to the Sarah Douglas scenes. Or you could do yourselves a bigger favour and have a sleep, or read a book or you could criticize this film on the IMDb. Having your nuts ripped off by a wild dog is preferable to sitting through this thing, and marginally less painful.

I have a sneaky suspicion that Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is Harrison Ford's favourite Indy movie. In a recent interview he said it has 'some crazy action in it'. His remarks seemed in defence of the movie. Temple of Doom has a different angle on Indy. Here, we see a man who is not after personal gain, but throwing himself into an act of selfless heroism. Edge of your seat excitement is what this movie specialises in and it has it by the cartload. We also have a stunning score by John Williams (Academy Award nominated), fantastic photography by Douglas Slocombe, great performances and uncompromising direction from Steven Spielberg. Indy has never been more battered and beaten than in this film and neither have the exhausted audience. Superb.

French Connection 2 is a superior sequel to William Friedkin's sometimes dull original. The first film had too many scenes of people sitting in cars, doing nothing. This film grabs you by the balls and never lets go! Gene Hackman gives, perhaps, the greatest screen performance I have ever seen. His Popeye Doyle, a simmering mass of anger and frustration, roaming loose among the unsuspecting French. The scenes of his enforced drug addiction rank amongst the most compelling committed to celluloid. Fernando Rey, as Charnier, gives us another performance of unadulterated smugness and Bernard Fresson gives a likable performance as Popeye's partner. You will never see a more fast moving, gritty and disturbing thriller. "What are you doing with my file in the s***house?"

This is probably the finest film to come out of Hollywood. It is also about the worst films to come out of Hollywood.Who can forget Glen or Glenda? Who can forget Bride of the Atom? Who can forget Plan 9 from Outer Space? Well, just about everybody.Ed Wood is an hilarious and often moving experience about a man who thought he was destined for greatness, when really he was destined for ridicule. Tim Burton recreates superbly the tackiness of Ed Wood's efforts to make an impression.Jonny Depp excels as the ever keen Ed Wood and Martin Landau turns in a virtuoso performance as drug addicted Bela Lugosi, who finds himself relying on a loser for support in his time of crisis.Ironically,Tim Burton found himself in Ed Wood's shoes when this film was released, as it was generally overlooked, which is surely the ultimate tribute to the film's inspiration!A masterpiece.

This is a hard Academy movie to define. The humour is generally more smutty, keeping up the standards of the original, yet it also has awful gags about people slipping on skateboards and pidgeons secreting on policemen's shoulders. There are also jokes about farting, a sure sign of desperation. On the plus side, we see the return of G.W.Bailey as Captain Harris. That's about it on the plus side. The whole film looks rushed and is mostly set at night or on grey skied days that make it look awful. Not a pleasant film to watch. However, the public, including myself, flocked to see it. But, hey, you don't know what you're gonna get until you have paid your admission.

This film had me in stitches!!! Literally. In my outrage at how awful the film was, I left the cinema early, grumbling and grasping around in the darkened auditorium. I passed a famous golfer who was sitting in my aisle, however I slipped on one of his loose golf balls and tumbled to the floor. The whole cinema audience started laughing! They were pleased that they had gained at least one laugh from their miserable experience. Such a shame that a man breaking his back in real life is funnier than Police Academy 5. I was visited by the golfer some months later, he arrived at my hospital ward. He had brought me some grapes and a copy of Police Academy 7...

Police Academy 6 is a fine piece of social comment. It is analytical in it's approach to two sections of modern society on opposing sides and the eternal struggle between them. Director Peter Bonerz goes straight for the jugular in his approach to individuals battling authority,( eg: Hightower breaking the leg on Harris' chair.)However, this battle must also be fought with the demoralised underclass, who have taken to grand theft. These villains are not stereotypical. Peter Bonerz infuses their character with dynamic and spectacular character abilities. Somersaulting bank raids are the order of the day here. Most interesting, however, is the neo- classical manner in which the films villain is unmasked,echoes of nineteenth century pantomime abound. On the whole, a rewarding experience for those of us who have had their fill of unfunny comedy productions.