Reviews

There couldn't be a more apt title for this movie, for if you're of the right frame of mind, and in the right mood, under the skin is exactly where this piece slides.

Admittedly it's as slow as treacle, which will no doubt bore anyone with a short attention span, or those with an inclination for Michael Bay movies (the same audience, really), yet this creepy little alien flick has some profound conclusions that require thoughtful minds to arrive at.

Alienation, in particular, is a key theme, and and one that's truly broached when our extra-terrestrial stalker meets another Earth inhabitant who's similarly outcast in human society. Finding some resonance with this equally lost individual, our main character becomes inspired to change her spots, though to potentially tragic consequences.

For someone who's also a social outcast (through choice, though), I find this movie treading over incredibly familiar ground, almost to the point of nostalgia.

This isn't a movie for the shallow or the egotistical, so it shouldn't appeal to more than a tiny percentage of humans, perhaps accounting for the low score. That, and the thick Scottish brogues. Incidentally, we don't all have such abrasive accents.

As a final mention, the scenes in the 'void' are some of the most disturbing I've ever seen in motion pictures.

Highly recommended for a slow-burning, thought-provoking stalker movie.

There are plenty of reviews which highlight the countless inconsistencies of this movie (the director should be made to watch it), so I won't mirror these.

What bothered me far more were the numerous religious/theistic tones and symbolism throughout the movie, highlighting the entire wreck as nothing more than a vehicle for some Christianity-selling.

I'm, of course, talking about the title character's baffling, needless Jesus Christ pose in Earth's orbit, the female 'baddie's' childish, claim that "Evolution always wins' (that why the majority of humans are God-fearing despite no sensible reason, facts shunned in favour of here-say), and Superman's Earth-father telling him that he was 'sent to Earth for a reason', that old, egotistical attitude that encourages people to believe that the vast entirety of the universe operates solely to benefit the youngest, most destructive species on a tiny planet in a quiet corner of one galaxy among billions.

And people told me that the movie was "Awesome"?! Why? What exactly does it do that's original/inventive/creative/unique? It's simply another cleverly marketed money-machine to keep hollowood rich, and YOU, the people, allowed it.

Absolutely ridiculous, and an insult to my intelligence.

That said, the effects were pretty good it places.

Please, though, people, let's not settle for this kind of mindless nonsense. You need to want more from your movies if you want to see better ones.

Possibly the least funny 'comedy' I've ever had to sit through, which was a shock for me, since the creators of Family Guy, a show I love, were involved.

I think this entire movie falls on its own rump if the novelty of a swearing, weed-smoking teddy bear wears off at any point. For me it took about five minutes.

After that it was just a slew of simple, crude 'jokes' that never hit their mark due to their reliance on the teddy-bear vehicle.

The bear itself was an irritating character, completely unlikable in every regard, and what was up with Mark Wahlbergs' accent? Are there really Americans with dialects as ridiculous as that? It sounded like he was chewing words rather than saying them.

All in all, juvenile, and not even funny with it.

So often the movies that you don't expect much from are the one's that surprise you, and for me, The Watch was just such a 'one'.

Yes, it's juvenile, the plot is nonsense and there's nothing here you haven't seen before, but it's also very quotable and more than just a touch silly in the vein of the superb 'Hot Fuzz'.

Whether you enjoy this film or not will almost wholly depend on whether you find the humour humorous or tedious. It's a hit or miss, really.

Perhaps the reason my wife and myself found it so funny was because we'd just endured the joy-less and vastly over-rated 'Dark Knight Rises', so anything following on from that would be a relief.

Get your silly hat on and give a go!

What's all the fuss about with these new incarnations of Batman? The first one was instantly forgettable, the second only sparked when the Joker was on-screen, and the third is a confusing, overlong waste of time, save for the wonderful and super-sexy Catwoman. Grrrrr.

After a messy, incoherent opening sequence during which neither myself or my wife had any idea of what was going on, we then found ourselves wondering at numerous points in the movie exactly when it would finish.

A major flaw of the film is the music, which is so loud the characters are constantly shouting to be heard over it. I missed so much dialogue I gave up trying to follow the 'plot'.

It's also a bleak, dull, depressing affair which doesn't encourage the viewer to endure repeat screenings.

On the plus side, I loved Anne Hathaway's Catwoman, a sleek, sexy feline who stole the entire show for me, just as the Joker did in the previous outing.

Apart from her, though, there's nothing to get even remotely excited about here, unless you're impressed when comic books are filmed in dark colours and there's much frowning and glowering, etc.

I think that's what accounts for the vast appeal of this trilogy - the fact that comics aren't supposed to be adult in theme or presentation, yet here they are.

I'm afraid, there needs to be more for me than a grown-up version of Batman.

POW!

What a crushing bore of a movie.

There's nothing even remotely original or progressive about this outing for Bond, and for me it actually plumbed new depths of disappointment that even Quantum of Solace hadn't reached.

It's the same-old, same-old, with the obligatory car-chase opening which, unlike the superb Casino Royale, attempts nothing innovative, such as parquet or scaffold-scaling.

The plot is a by-the-numbers yawn-a-thon along the lines of a rogue former agent, which sounds very familiar if you've seen Goldeneye.

There are even obvious mistakes, which, due to boredom in the cinema, I picked up on. They both involve characters (M, then Bond) failing to pick up objects that they miraculously have in hand seconds later despite leaving them where they lay. This is unforgivable for movies with huge budgets.

I despair for Bond, for although Casino Royale injected some much needed excitement and depth to the series (good plot, interesting characters, emotional resonance), the two movies since have trundled on as if it had never happened.

In fact, so much of the movie is spent referencing the old ones, that there is a desire to dig out the originals, which surely can't have aged that badly, could they? If you don't expect anything new or interesting, you might not be disappointed.

In an effort to avoid disappointment (being a fan of the Alien mythology), I took my seat in the cinema with as open a mind as possible, expecting nothing at all.

Even the day after the late-night viewing, I'm still unsure of exactly how I feel about Prometheus, a very unique position for me regarding movies.

Perhaps the equal amount of positives and negatives I've taken from the film have left me in a state of shoulder-shrugging, a view seemingly at odds with the majority of polar opinions on IMDb.

As has been stated almost universally, the visuals and effects are of the high-tier calibre expected from the director who wowed audiences with Alien and Bladerunner (vastly overrated in my humble opinion).

I also concede that the plot was very loosely threaded and subject to random offshoots which ended without resolution, and themes that were vague and unexplored.

The pandering to religious audiences in having the two main scientists carrying crosses (Holloways tattoo is the other one) is insulting to science, a medium where factual answers are sought, in opposition to the hallelujah corner, who blindly buy into words on a book, written by goat-herders who believed that sneezing released demons.

I find it incredible that in this era of knowledge, people still ask such self-centred, obliviously naive questions such as 'why are we here'? Surely an understanding of DNA reveals the answer, despite this answer being so stark and brutal that billions of humans would rather invent self-pleasing fairy tales to avoid the truth.

We're here because our DNA constructed us, and our purpose is to survive, selfishly, at all costs. End of story.

Even though Rapace's character finds, not god, but alien creators (viable, since DNA is involved), she still searches blindly for something there is (God), not just a complete absence of evidence for, but also absolutely no rational inclination to believe in. How ignorant.

Anyway, I digress.

The acting was as expected for a movie carrying a handful of well-known faces, surrounded by mere cannon-fodder, with Fassbender's android providing much of the magnetism, despite some all-too human emotions and some strange behavioural decisions, such as the drink-droplet.

What I found utterly unconvincing was the blasé reaction from the other characters to the multiple deaths occurring around them, along with some of the inexplicable decisions a few of them made.

Spoilers: The awakened Space Jokey/Engineer's reaction to his discoverers was also a little 'unexpected' to say the least, but then if we're correct in believing that they're out to end our evolution, it may be unsurprising.

So many questions, so few answers. Was the initial Engineer who 'sparked' life on Earth acting in accordance with his species, or as an individual? Why did these beings stop visiting us? Are the Engineers' set on destroying us due to our parasitic and destructive nature? Why did Scott bother with the hastily, unexplored element of mortality, introduced by such a pointless character as the old man? Where did the chest-busters that killed the Engineers vanish to? Where was the intermittent reading of life coming from? Where was the Engineer who was discovered at the seat of the ship in Alien? Why is Rapace's character searching, when we all know that the faithful (so named for a reason) are content NOT to search, but to simply ACCEPT? As my wife has commented, this movie has more holes in it than swiss cheese.

That said, there were occasional scenes that were impressive, including the Med-lab abortion, but for such moments, there were a dozen unexplained ones, such as the paranoid Fifield seeking his own way back to the ship, highly unlikely behaviour for someone who is clearly spooked, or his bizarre return as a crazed zombie, induced by the oily substance.

So, in a nutshell, it was slightly confusing, with some juvenile attempts at philosophical depth, and a smattering of unlikely behavioural patterns, despite a fairly grand visual feast.

Back to the drawing board Ridley. And please don't follow this one up with an even more religious offering, for in this age the shadows in which a traditional God can survive are shrinking, and rightly so. Actual knowledge is far more rewarding than personal desires and fantasies.

A decent effort at a sci-fi epic, but it joins the ranks as an unfitting addition to the Alien mythos.

On first viewing I was completely underwhelmed by this second outing for the world's greatest detective, although this might've been considerably flavoured by a cinema that would've been more effective as a fridge.

A second sitting, though, revealed a well-paced and thoroughly entertaining period romp, channelled, of course, through Guy Ritchie's highly-stylised lens.

The roguish, yet gentlemanly bromance between Sherlock and Watson, continues to blossom here, allowing for all manner of shenanigans typical of the period, and to add my voice to others suggesting likewise, both actors seemed born to play the parts of these characters.

The rest of the cast perform admirably, although naturally playing second fiddle to our two detectives, with Stephen Fry joining in the hi-jinx as Sherlock's brother.

Noomi Rapace is largely wasted as a Gypsy plot-adhesive, yet continues to make a name for herself, regardless.

The story itself is one of diabolical ambition typically reserved for a Bond movie, with Moriarty, Sherlock's adversary wonderfully pinning down the archetypal villain in just the right measure of charm and menace.

The music is flawless, the scenes exciting, and the possibility of a further adventure is on the cards. All in all, it's pretty hard not to enjoy.

My only real criticism is a lack of moral understanding from Guy Ritchie, highlighted in two separate, but related conversations. In the first we hear Holmes analysing Moriarty's handwriting, which he claims suggests a lack of empathy bordering on moral insanity, yet within half an hour we hear Holmes criticise Moriarty for indulging in a hobby of feeding pigeon's which he dubs "...winged vermin". Surely even the most ignorant of moralists understands that it takes far more empathy for a person to relate to a bird than it does to another human. This actually shows Moriarty to have, either greater empathy than Holmes, or simply a lack of empathy regarding people.

That very minor detail aside, though, I thoroughly enjoyed it, although that may have also been coloured by the fine bottle of red, and the roll of green, I enjoyed whilst watching it.

Here's to the return of our fearless duo.

By now it's probably all been said before, so I'm really just adding weight to the views on both sides of the nerd-gasm that was The Avengers.

Entertainment is the name of the game here, and Whedon doesn't hold back for a minute, throwing brawling superheroes, invading aliens, and wide-scale destruction at the screen throughout its running time.

Some of the character interplay, particularly between Tony Stark (Iron Man) and Bruce Banner (Hulk) are a joy to watch, with the former's acerbic put-downs (Thor is dubbed 'Point Break', and Captain America is renamed 'Rock of Ages') injecting fun into what could have otherwise been a joyless jaunt between explosions.

The acting is credible overall, with Mark Ruffalo perfectly characterising Bruce Banner as the embodiment of all that the Hulk is not (awkward, reserved, quiet), Robert Downey Jnr channelling Stark's usual suave arrogance, and Tom Hiddleson's Loki permeating charm and menace in equal measure (Banner comments "you can smell crazy on him" at one point).

These are all positives I'd been expecting from the man who wowed me with Firefly and Serenity, and my wife with Buffy.

Unfortunately, there are quite a few problems as well, even for a comic book fan such as myself.

Firstly, there's some seriously lumpen exposition, particularly the juvenile intro scene where the alien 'plan to invade' is bullet-pointed for the audience, in case we can't follow the basic premise. I fully expected a white board and felt markers to be used at any second. The end-credit scene is in a similar vein, and is equally cringe-worthy.

A pet-hate of mine (and my wife's) is a lack of logic, and The Avengers excels in this area, with 1. The base explosion near the intro, completely unexplained, just to be accepted, 2. Loki brainwashing/controlling his 'minions' by tapping their hearts (rather than their heads, where their 'minds' are (doh!)) with his staff, and 3. Why there are numerous scenes in which the invading aliens don't open fire at the clearly exposed cops, civilians and heroes they are flying over (are they saving ammo?).

Another point to consider is the absence of the National Guard. Were they off on holiday that day?

By some margin, though, the greatest gripe I have with The Avengers, is the lack of genuine threat that Loki and his army poses to, not just the Avengers themselves, but to any modern army.

While Loki is more than capable of taking care of Captain America (then again, who isn't?), he is quite clearly no match for Hulk, Thor or Iron Man, who each take turns in highlighting this fact. In my experience of superheroes, it's paramount to play the 'heroes' as the underdogs, who must face and overcome a challenge that, at first, seems beyond them. This is what makes for exciting (and unpredictable) entertainment.

In The Avengers, there's no point at which we're under any illusion that Loki and his horde will fail, nor is there any need for concern over our heroes, since they are the overwhelming favourites to rise triumphant.

All that said, I didn't feel short-changed when I left the cinema, and this is coming from someone who generally avoids Hollowood movies. Maybe some of the more abrasive critics of the movie are right - some of us are just nerdy and want to see characters with incredible powers knock the crap out of each other.

Although I can understand where a rating of 8.8 has come from (over-enthusiastic fan-boys fresh from the cinema, typing up their reviews BEFORE changing their trousers), I can't add to it. The Avengers isn't Pan's Labyrinth, or Amelie, and in this context, it can't reach top spot or anywhere near it. If you're giving a movie with this numerous faults a full score, you're clearly in need of watching some genuinely well-crafted movies.

It's not clever, but it is BIG!

At the moment the bible quote came on screen I knew I was going to find this movie juvenile and insulting to my inquisitive mind. The whispering voice-overs only added pretentiousness to the mix.

The ridiculous monologue from the mother, claiming some divine separation between choosing the path of nature, and that of 'grace' threw in some delusional thinking to an-already silly premise.

Nature only wants to please itself, she tells us, but that if you accept god you'll have a happy ending. Wait a minute - is there any animal on Earth that wishes to please itself more than humanity?! And this is supposedly a being created in the image of some creator dreamt up to fill in the blank areas of human knowledge.

Yes, nature only wants to please itself, for this is the reason life exists itself. It's called a survival instinct and every living creature on Earth is governed by it, or to be more precise, our DNA.

Some kudos to the director for the wonderful visuals during the story of evolution, itself a surprising inclusion since the bible denies this occurs at all. This mirrors the current trend of religions to jump on the bandwagon of reality (the sciences, archaeology, etc) since the creation stories are becoming more and more foolish as factual knowledge becomes reluctantly accepted by the majority (the religious).

This movie will no doubt appeal to those of a religious persuasion, for it directly aims for their self-pleasing beliefs, such as a special relationship with a fatherly figure, a simple, child-like explanation of the universe, and life after death (despite death of brain and body, all you ever are).

If you are not so afraid of death that you'd invent a utopia afterwards to please yourself, or not so self-centred as to believe you are a pinnacle of evolution and 'special' in some delusional manner, then please avoid this movie.

In short, stunningly beautiful to behold, but grossly pretentious and utterly ignorant of reality itself, in favour of pleasing viewers who, it promises do not live to please themselves.

In a world where religion continues to destroy the world, the last item we need is another movie pandering to the delusional belief that they are chosen, special and morally pure, despite everything in reality appearing to the contrary.

Being a sucker for nice visuals was enough to get me onboard for this movie, and on the stylish, if slightly lacking in substance, movies this director had previously made (The Cell and The Fall), I expected some pretty pictures.

There's no doubt that the set and costume designs are indeed lavish, but unfortunately that's where the positives end for me, as far as this movie is concerned.

As another review noted, everything about Immortals is pure cliché, from the reluctant hero to the token bad guy, by way of a rushed plot involving all the usual devices, such as revenge for a murdered parent, a mystical weapon and an inevitable love interest.

For anyone who doesn't know their Greek mythology this must surely be quite baffling, especially in the numerous short, wooden expositions that stutter this movie's opening twenty minutes or so, where an unneccesarily convoluted plot is all but read aloud by the cast.

There's much mumbo-jumbo talk of faith and of believing in the Gods, and for me the final straw was the main protagonist announcing that he was no longer an atheist due to finding a bow buried in a rock formation. No doubt this greatly pleased the 'faith before facts' crowd.

I'm afraid I didn't make it beyond that point, so patronising was the delivery of this 'revelation'.

Dreadful movie, despite the clear visual flair of the director.

Despite my strong suspicions of this 'movie' being a pile of equine fecal matter, it was recommended to me by a work colleague, so I stuck myself in front of it.

As a fan of the original game series, and of science-fiction and horror mediums, I was completely underwhelmed by Doom.

Aside from the 'game converted to movie' alarm bells ringing in my ears, I stuck this out to the end credits, which were by far the most rewarding section of the film.

Acting and plot are nonexistent in a by-the-numbers marine infliltration of an alien-compromised base on Mars.

There is no suspense, or any attempt at sculpting characters to earn our concern.

The sets are sterile, and the'monsters', using the term in the loosest possible fashion, are men in rubber suits, and hardly befitting of a game franchise that revelled in twisted, Lovecraftian horrors, and dark, gore splattered environments.

Then there's all the usual clichéd boxes that imagination-deprived producers feel compelled to tick off - dodgy orders, a soldier with a past, and a science lab that have caused all the mess, experimenting on people.

We've even got some ridiculous pseudo-scientific tripe about a 25th crommosone which may be...wait for it...the soul! Okaaaaay. Talk about piling nonsense on top of nonsense.

If I'm not being clear enough about this movie, let me summarise by imploring you to watch a good sci-fi horror hybrid instead. Try The Thing (1982 version) or Alien/s.

Despite the average rating above, this movie was a crippling disappointment for me, as seems to be the case for most fans of the '82 version. It's all been said before, though, so I'm really just lending my opinion to the weight of all the others who've reviewed this version.

It's fair to say that the story was always going to be on rails, due to Carpenter's version and the need to align both tales, but even still the 2011 movie is a clear retreading of the classic that went before it, offering little in the way of distinction.

This lack of imagination extends also to an absence of directorial common sense, in that (as others have pointed out) the thing manages to burst through its victims and perfectly re cloth them afterwards so that they appear unmolested, yet cannot duplicate inorganic materials such as teeth fillings. It's this type of silly oversight, so typical of hollowood films, that jars the viewer from the experience. That and the unlikeliness of an advanced organism (biologically at least, perhaps technologically if the spaceship is its own) leaving its safe and OPERABLE transport to freeze in the Antarctic wastes.

Aside from these glaring mistakes, we also have a dreadful CGI creation to contend with, which, ironically, was bettered 28 years ago with animatronics! When are these cash-hungry, dumb hollowood directors going to opt for realism over computer game imagery? One reviewer likened the 2011 thing to a Resident Evil monstrosity, something I wholeheartedly agree with.

The mood, too, is significantly less tense in the 2011 version, although there are moments which strive to reach the intensely paranoid vibe that set Carpenter's Thing apart from so many other alien movies. Of these, the most effective is probably the 'test', which took a fair amount of flak for aping 82's Thing, despite the high probability of this type of action taking place at the onset of dealing with a shape-shifter.

A fair amount of criticism has been directed toward the inconspicuousness of the alien, as compared to the shifty, covert movements of Carpenter's beast, and while I agree that this is one of the main reasons for such a lack of tension in this film, it may also be explained by the creature's inexperience with humans, initially.

Although I've flayed the more recent movie for having poor effects, a lack of imagination and some criminally short-sighted plot-holes, I nevertheless enjoyed it overall as a standard sci-fi/horror hybrid. The sense of isolation in a hostile environment was ever present, and there were some nice plot devices, along with a fairly unpredictable game of who's The Thing for the viewers to engage in. The effects, albeit far too glossy, were still horrific and shocking even if they never reached the gut-wrenching alien-ness of the '82 classic.

I had no problem at all with the female lead, although her unaccountability in the Carpenter film did lead to an unsatisfyingly vague 'explanation' at the end.

In general, the acting, while not outstanding, was suitable enough to carry the movie from one bloodbath to another, without many ridiculous lines of dialogue, although those reviewers highlighting the lack of character arcs are spot-on in their analyses. Mind you, what kind of character growth can we expect from a situation which provokes either outright terror or fierce survivalist determination over a short time period? The segmenting of the two movies ('82 and 2011) would've been effective had the director chosen not to insert credits throughout, which are perhaps the most distancing aspect of any movie for a viewer. They did, at least, tick off all the other boxes regarding the consistency of both versions.

As an afterthought, though, it'll be interesting to watch the '82 Thing again just to see whether the inorganic material is present in any of the absorbed characters.

Overall, a massive disappointment in comparison to the version that preceded it, but still a reasonable popcorn sci-fi/horror gore-session if that strange mix happens to be your bag.

It could've been so much more, rather than just someTHING.

Isolation. Paranoia. Fear.

These are the typical key words used to describe John Carpenter's sci-fi fright-fest 'The Thing'.

The standard plot synopsis normally reads; Antartic research team terrorised by shape-shifting alien.

What's not so easy to convey is the sense of unease that permeates throughout the movie, from the opening scenes of arctic desolation and that menacing bass-thrum, to the unsettling and downbeat ending.

This is genuine, stomach-curdling sci-fi-horror, which effectively translates an ever-escalating sense of fear for the characters amidst the claustrophobic settings of the research base.

Little needs to be said of the well-documented special effects, which may still be considered a bar for non-CGI creation, and where acting and pacing are concerned, not a foot is wrongly placed.

It's not without some consideration that I award this film a top score, for even today, having watched it recently, I'm still gripped by the taut atmosphere that veins the whole movie.

I can think of no other film that inspires such a sense of foreboding or menace, and very few that deliver on such sudden bursts of visceral bloodshed and outright horror.

A true classic for anyone with an interest in being scared.

Being an explorer of the mind, myself, I had great expectations of the visual treats in store from a much-lauded 'psychadelic' experience of a movie.

If you've watched this monotonous pile of bovine faeces, you'll understand just how disappointed I was when I sat down before it.

At the risk of wasting more of my life writing a long review of Enter The Void, having just wasted a couple of hours subjecting myself to it, I'll keep this brief.

Firstly, the characters were extremely bland, completely lacking in any apparent intellect or depth, either emotionally or otherwise, in much the same way as those in Scott Pilgrim Vs The World. I couldn't attach any interest or concern for any of them, and the fact that I cannot even remember their names, having just watched the movie, speaks volumes.

The effects used to convey the drug-use scenes were mildly effective, but became repetitive quickly, especially the main character's 'flying/floating' sections. The city of Tokyo is a garish, strobing mess of neon and quickly becomes nauseaus.

The sex scenes were unengaging, totally lacking in titilation and completely unnecessary, other than to draw out what is an over-long movie.

The plot is simple, basic and pointless, and although it attempts to 'get deep' with some characters dribbling about reincarnation, it offers no philosophical output whatsoever.

What a waste of a couple of hours. This is the sort of puddle-deep, pretentious nonsense with nothing to say, that makes me want to pick up a video camera and show how it could have been done.

Let's cut to the chase. This movie is woefully bad in almost every single aspect. The characters are vague, irritating, two-dimensional non-entities, and as such, I found it impossible to relate to any of them. In particular, Scott Pilgrim is a dull, whiny brat with no personality whatsoever. The rest of the ensemble are cardboard cut-outs aimed at an audience that must surely prize pre-teen rambling over actual conversation, and you'll be hard pushed to remember anything interesting that any one of them said after the movie.

The plot is insulting - boy must beat girl's evil ex's to win her. That's it. Wow! The battle scenes are ridiculous, with enemies reduced to coins after being defeated, one of many, many repetitive nods in the direction of out-dated games consoles such as Nintendo's.

Seriously this has all been done before and with more style. I cannot believe that this pile of equine manure is the product of the same man that wrote Hot Fuzz.

I'll make it plain for you - Do you have ADHD? Are you impressed by flashing lights? Do you want dumb American teens mumbling incoherent nonsense as main characters? If the answer to any of those questions is yes, I give you Scott Pilgrim Vs The World.

enjoy.

Firstly, I've got to share the same sentiment with another reviewer, who stated that intelligent people generally liked this film, whilst ignorant people on the whole did not.

My evidence is in the articulate responses of the former against the badly punctuated posts of the latter.

Further, I also believe that those who fully understand the meaning of the word nostalgic will benefit most from seeing this movie.

Fair enough, it is short, almost plot-less, and it does aim it's arrow between demographics.

It is, however, a very simple story, told with flights of wild fantasy and tones of menace, all set to a rootsy indie soundtrack. I believe this is exactly what it was intended to be.

Life-affirming.

So you know what it's about. Here's a review you can read in about the same time it takes to play a game of who's who.

Firstly there are some wonderfully iconic scenes, such as the 'basement stand-off', and one highly effective performance in Waltz's Nazi detective, Hans Landa, which give Inglorius a rewatchability.

Praise must also be encouraged for the direction of languages, which lend the movie priceless creditability, along with a great deal of its appeal.

Sadly, as has been mentioned elsewhere at length, Mike Myers' cameo is without purpose and merely distracting, as is Brad Pitt's redneck accent.

Perhaps the biggest flaw of the movie, though, is Tarintino's continued obsession with segmenting movies unnecessarily, along with adding titles, and back stories related by voice-overs. These disrupt, not just the flow of the movie (any movie), but also the 'feel' of it. For example, all the cat and mouse tension and emotional intensity of the intro, is undone at the moment when Quinten reaches for the titles board.

The ending was a little flat for me also, and somehow unsatisfying. This typifies the mood of the film, which wavers uncertainly between being a serious war movie and a knowing pantomime.

You finished that game yet?

Yet again independent European cinema shows us why Hollywood shouldn't stand a chance.

Whether you are a fan of the vampire genre, a tag I reluctantly hang from the toe of this movie, or not is irrelevant. For me 'Let The Right One In' is a dream-like tale of innocence, pre-pubescent awkwardness and the chance meeting of two individuals lost in isolation. It also, of course, explores the loneliness of the vampire mythology, an avenue not well-trodden.

I feel sorry for those who approach the movie expecting their usual brand of capes and fangs. They're not going to enjoy this, which is a shame, because for once the vampire genre has something special in its cannon.

SPOILERS AHEAD:

Another aspect that probably turns people away is in the subtly raised questions that never receive answers; Hakan's sadly evolved relationship with Eli, the rings in the egg - a conveyor belt of previous suitors, Eli's genitalia stitched closed, her true intentions towards Oskar in light of her dommed relationship with Hakan...

The first time I watched it I was simply captivated. The second time held far more poignance for me. Also having seen the dubbed and subbed versions I have this to say; the dubbing of everyone with the exception of the two leads is poor, although hearing Oskar and Eli in English, for me, allowed more time to study the visual acting on display.

After reading some other reviews I felt compelled to tag on this additional point. I'm surprised at people's confusion over Eli's gender. She is female, but not a girl. She is an old woman trapped in a girl's body. This, I believe, is the point she is making to Oskar, not that she is simply a vampire.

It's a sad thought that Hollywood is remaking this for the popcorn-munchers. Movies that are born in underground cinema shouldn't be thrown into the blinding lights.

I couldn't tell you why I returned to this saga after being immensely disappointed by Night Watch, but I did. Again I was drawn in by the same misguided hype that surrounded the first instalment.

Who are these simple, easily satisfied cinema-goers that drool over basic gimicks such as the alternative subtitles in Night Watch? What about the convoluted, silly plot, complete lack of interesting characters and vague half-formed ideas? Anyway, enough of the first movie. The second, somehow manages to plum new depths of pointlessness. Again the plot is needlessly complicated in order to direct focus from the fact that there isn't really one.

The characters can never arrest the attention due to the dialogue being translated (badly) from Russian, leaving sub-70's cop show acting. I can only surmise that it was more realistic in it's native tongue.

For a fantasy film there seem to be very little fantastical elements, but rather some vague hints that at any moment now something might happen.

The editing is by far the most insurmountable issue here though, by turns deeply serious then, suddenly, comedic. Absurd.

It's all such a waste that it's hard to tell what the directors were aiming to achieve here. Hopefully it wasn't what we ended up with.