UFO Race by Andrea Ricca

Andrea Ricca, that talent behind The Guardian, has been at it again... life-action and computer animation combine in UFO Race (which probably isn't quite what you think from the title). It's a really fun 3-minute movie, check it out here.

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CaptainD - Movie Reviews Blog

Movie Review - Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen carries on where the first Michael Bay Transformers movie left off - Sam (Shia LaBeouf) is about to leave for college, leave his car that turns into a robot behind, and try to live a normal life. His parents (played by Kevin Dunn and Julie White) are looking forward to a new life of their own now that their boy is flying the roost. Mikaela (Megan Fox) is to keep in touch every night via webcam, and all is right in the world. Well, except maybe her pressuring Sam into saying he loves her, a small remnant of the Allspark turning Sam's brain into a dangerous message, the Decepticons trying to destroy the world, and stuff like that. You know, typical college life.

Without any plot spoilers, here are some of the things you can expect to see in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen:

•- Amazing special effects - they really are impressive.
•- Lots of explosions. Seriously, lots of explosions.
•- A photo opportunity for Megan Fox's posterior that could become even more famous than that shot from the first Transformers movie (which probably did more for her career than anything else could have!)
•- A few genuinely funny moments
•- Some reasonably good plot elements hidden in among the myriad explosions (remember those?)
•- Little Decepticons who will remind you strongly of Gremlins...
•- Ninja twin transformers taking on the biggest transformer of all (silly, but strangely fun... though the same two characters were generally very annoying)

The plot isn't too bad, it gets bogged down with a lot of imponderables but really you don't expect too much from a movie like this, especially when it's directed by Michael Bay. Needless to say there are a lot of metal-crunching fights between Autobots and Decepticons, and between human armies and robots. The trouble with the robots is, despite them having personalities... well, unless you're a big fan of the original series, you'll probably find them rather boring. There are one or two characters that start getting interesting now and then, but really all of the Transformers are one-joke or one-attribute characters. The humans aren't all that much better, though Leo (Ramon Rodriguez), Sam's room-mate, is quite funny.

Megan Fox is actually required to do a bit of acting here, though clearly she is mainly there to look gorgeous. Her lips look much too large (has she has a collagen injection?) and she pouts almost as much as Victoria Beckham, but other than that she's pretty good reprising her role from the first movie. Shia LaBeouf gives another strong performance, I'm coming to really admire his acting ability. For me the best performance John Turtorro as Agent Simmons / Jetfire - his crazy character helps, but his performance is full of charisma. I enjoyed the movie much more once his character appeared.

If you want enough a hint of realism (even in scenes not including giant robots that transform into cars), forget it. In one of the movie's opening scenes, the American army and the Autobots are in Shanghai trying to take out a Decepticon who's hiding in the area. Oh yes, I can just see the Chinese authorities letting the US army in without much objection. Autobots big boss Optimus Prime does a voiceover for the intro and outro of the movie... both sounded rather ridiculous to me. This is a pity really... Peter Cullen tries too hard to give Prime's voice real gravitas, but he sounds almost embarrassed at the drivel he has so say. Similarly the music score (Steve Jablonsky) really tries to add drama to the proceedings, but it doesn't really have much to work with in the way of genuinely moving characters or situations.

The dialogue isn't too bad, though most of the transformers' lines are banal even by Michael Bay standards. There are some genuinely funny bits, but aside from the violence and some sensuality, the movie pushes the 12A / PG-13 rating to the limit with quite a bit of bad language or smutty humour. The language is often indistinct with a lot of background noise (usually explosions, naturally) which lessens the effect, and some just sounds more odd than anything. The toilet humour very rarely even approaches being funny; as with the first film, the most genuinely amusing scenes are built on understated embarrassment and misunderstandings.

Did I mention that a lot of things go bang in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen? Michael Bay clearly believes that explosions are a good thing... unfortunately he doesn't seem to have discovered that you can in fact have too much of a good thing. Action junkies will be happy, but there was too little plot and character development going on for my liking. Forgot to mention the choerography - for the first half-hour the camera is absolutely obsessed with going round in circles repeatedly.

Overall, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was about what I expected; not really my sort of film, a typical summer blockbuster, and a typical Michael Bay film. If you've liked his movies in the past, you're unlikely to be disappointed with this one. For me, the first Transformers movie was marginally better, though my wife liked this one a bit more.

My review of Transformers (2007)

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CaptainD - Movie Reviews Blog

Movie Review - Coraline (3D)

I'd been looking forward to seeing Coraline, though a bit miffed that we had to wait months for it to come to cinemas in the UK. Still, arrive in Britain it did, and we duly went to see it. We watched it in 3D because... well, because it was showing in 3D.

Based on a book by Neil Gaiman (adapted by Henry Selick), Coraline is based on the experiences of a young girl by that name (though she's forever being called Caroline), who has moved with her parents to an old house. Her parents make a living writing about gardening - though they don't like to actually plant anything themselves and Coraline's mother absolutely detests mud - and they have little (or no) time for Coraline. The neighbours are... an eccentric bunch, from the odd boy who talks too much (at least Coraline thinks he does); the ancient showgirls who keep their dead pets - stuff, on the wall; an acrobat who's training an army of mice to perform in a circus.

Even odder, though, are the simulacrums that Coraline finds upon discovering a portal between her world and another one, which seems similar but far better than the real world. Her parents are fun and interested in her, her mother is a great cook, the neighbours all love her and put on fantastic shows for her and Wybie, the boy she thinks talks too much, can't talk at all in this world. Only one thing truly troubles Coraline about this world... the inhabitants all have buttons for eyes, and if she wants to stay there, she's expected to replace her own eyes with buttons. With friends and enemies difficult to discern, Coraline's only true ally may be the only other creature who seems to be able to travel between the two worlds - but can you really trust a talking cat?

The puppetry(stop-motion) in Coraline is superb, with expressive faces, nicely animated movements and some vividly detailed backgrounds. If you've seen The Corpse Bride, this is a very similar style. In fact the plot has several similarities as well, but of the two I infinitely preferred Corpse Bride. Somehow in Coraline I never particularly cared about the characters - Coraline was a bit of a brat, albeit you could understand why considering what her parents were like, and Whybie was a sympathetic character... but with all the weird and wonderful goings on in this movie, I always somehow felt detached from it. There were some instances of humour but really it was more focused on trying to create a world of wonder and mystery, and to me that didn't quite come off.

With voice talent including Dakota Fanning as Corlaline, Teri Hatcher as her mother, Keith David as the cat, and British comediennes Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders, among others, the voice acting is top notch. Director Henry Selick adapted Neil Gaiman's book for the screen, and I feel that perhaps it was here that the film lacks something - not enough wit in the dialogue, not enough characterisation to make us care about what's going on. Of course that's just my impression - an average rating of 8.0/10 on IMDB is a pretty impressive achievement and shows that many loved it. Most folks here on Epinions seem to have liked it more than I did as well. It's certainly not that I actually disliked Coraline, I just never truly felt that it got going.

I think perhaps part of the trouble was that I was expecting it to be something like The Corpse Bride, which I really loved, and in comparison I found it paled significantly. As far as movies based on Neil Gaiman books go, I loved Stardust to pieces and found MirrorMask more uniquely quirky (and just plain strange) than Coraline. If you've never seen any of the above, perhaps you won't have the same impression of Coraline as I did.

We watched Coraline in 3D, and to be honest I don't think it made much difference to our enjoyment of the film. The 3D was mostly quite understated; it added some depth to the backgrounds but there was nothing truly outstanding about it. I don't think there's any real advantage to seeing it in 3D.

Overall I have to admit that I was disappointed with Coraline, but it's not a bad film. I guess I was expecting it to be a lot funnier and more surreal, whereas I found it more whimsical than anything. Definitely give it a go if my review hasn't put you off too much though!

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CaptainD - Movie Reviews Blog

Transformers 2

Well, I saw this last night and it was about what I expected - lots of noise and explosions, not much plot coherence, mundane characters. Just about worth watching - but my mate who's a Transformers fan loved it, of course.

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CaptainD - Movie Reviews Blog

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (2001) - Full Review

I know I've already posted about this a few times, but if you want to read my in-depth review, Click Here.

If you don't want to read it, don't click. Or alternatively, click but don't read.

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CaptainD - Movie Reviews Blog

Movie Review - Monsters vs Aliens

I'd been looking forward to Monsters vs Aliens for a long time, nad I'm glad to say that it didn't disappoint. Unfortunately I didn't get to see it in 3D, but the normal showings are well worth going to as it's a hugely enjoyable movie (and I suspect that it won't suffer from the transition to the small screen).


The Plot

On her wedding day, Susan Murphy gets hit by a meteorite, which is bound to put a crimp on any girl's big day. One side-effect of this is that she becomes gigantic (50 foot tall, in fact, give or take an inch...) and is taken captive by General W.R.Monger, who has been taking monsters off the streets for years (although apparently only has a grand total of five monsters to show for it). When an alien called Gallaxhar threatens the earth, the General decides that the only way to save the day is to call on the monsters, and President Hathaway reluctantly agrees.

Thus the scene is set for Ginormica (formerly known as Susan Murphy), Dr Cockroach (Ph.D), B.O.B. (a blog of gelatinous stuff that has no brain but does have a personality... yes, we all know people like that), The Missing Link (half man, half fish... sort of), and Insectasaurus (a huge bug-type thing) to save the world. There's an inevitable theme of Susan finding herself, her self-esteem, etc running through the whole thing, but it didn't stop the movie from being funny so I can forgive it that.


The Animation and Music

The visuals were absolutely superb throughout. Dreamworks are barely inches behind PIXAR... I don't need to say more really. Henry Jackman composed a great music score for the film, evocative of the great sci-fi movie scores while having a unique identity all its own.


The Voice Cast

Everyone in the voice cast did a great job. Reese Witherspoon plays Susan and gets to gasp in horror or shock quite a lot, but it never sounded fake. The other voices included Hugh Laurie as Dr Cockroach, Seth Rogan as B.O.B., Rainn Wilson as Gallaxhar, Stephen Colbert as President Hathaway, Will Arnett as The Missing Link and Keifer Sutherland as General W.R.Monger. Though everyone was good, Stephen Colbert and Keifer Sutherland stodd out as being truly superb.


The Humour

Key to this whole thing was the humour. For a good animated movie there has to be two (or more) levels of humour - one for the kids, one for the adults (in this case a third layer could be added - one for the sci-fi fans). Though one or two reviewers have said that their children only enjoyed the first part of the film, those in the audience when we saw it sounded like they thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing. There was a level of slapstick and silly humour that they could enjoy, and though the plot was predictable, the cliff-hanger scenes were done well enough. There was also plenty for adults in the audience to laugh at too, with plenty of wry humour and good dialogue.

For sci-fi fans in particular there were a lot of sneaky references to classic movies / series - most obviously Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman, ET, Star Trek and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. These references always added to the movie and never slowed it down. There were also some wry digs at Hollywood - such as the comment in the new report - "Once again, a UFO has landed in America, the only country UFOs ever seem to land in.".


Overall

My wife and I both thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It's a wee bit obvious and there was perhaps a tiny bit too much humour that was just plain daft, but for all that it was funny and entertaining the whole way through. It's not quite as good as Wall-E... it lacked the charm and sophistication of that movie - but for pure enjoyment factor it's not far away.


Best Quote from the film:

Galaxhar: "Humans of Earth, I have come in peace. However, most of you will not survive the next 24 hours."


See also:

My Top Ten Animated Movies
My Top Ten Computer-Animated Movies
My Top Ten Sci-Fi Movies

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CaptainD - Movie Reviews Blog

Mini-Review - The Scorpion King

The Scorpion King is a spin-off of the successful Mummy films, set in a time before those films. It deals with one of the bad guys from the second movie, the eponymous Scorpion King. Unfortunately it's little more than a mish-mash of action scenes and while Dwayne Johnson's performance is good and his comic abilities are well used, there is little else to commend this film - not only that, it only partially explains how The Scorpion King actually came to be what he was at the end of The Mummy Returns. (I understand there is a Scorpion King 2, which perhaps tells the rest of the story.)

The plot tries hard with lots of elements but they just don't gel together very well. Kelly Hu looks fantastic but isn't particularly convincing, and Michael Clarke Duncan is far from his best here. Bernard Hill makes a fun albeit brief appearance.

Overall The Scorpion King isn't terrible, but ultimately it's disappointing and definitely not a patch on films that spawned it.

The Mummy Review
The Mummy Returns Review

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CaptainD - Movie Reviews Blog

Second Viewing Thoughts on The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra

I enjoyed The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (2001) when I first saw it, but I have to say that I found it much funnier on the second viewing. I guess it's partly that there was a strong feeling of disbelief about the scenes the first few minutes I watched it last time, it's just so bad that you don't immediately realise just how good it is!

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CaptainD - Movie Reviews Blog

Voucher Code for Play.Com (for 2 days only)

Play have released a rare vouchercode offering customers £5 off with £35 spend!

CODE: PLAY5OFF35

To use the code simply enter it at the checkout and the disocunt will be applied to your basket.

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CaptainD - Movie Reviews Blog

Movie Review - Duplicity

I was quite shocked that so many people seem to hate this movie, since I really enjoyed it. Oh well... I suppose it's payback for all the movies everyone else likes that I couldn't stand...

Anyway, what's Duplicity all about? Basically it's an espionage comedy thriller. Ray Koval (Clive Owen) works for the British Secret Service while Claire Stenwick (Julia Roberts) works for the CIA. Their first encounter was somewhat unfortunate for Ray, and he's been seeking payback ever since. Or has he? There's a definite attraction between them, though they can never seem to bring themselves to actually trust the other, such is the way their minds work. With both of them having infiltrated major companies and a spectacular new product announcement that will change the world market forever coming up, it's a game of cat and mouse... but there are a lot more(and bigger) cats out there than anyone had accounted for...

I can't go into the plot too much more because that could ruin the film for you; needless to say there are many plot twists, some of which I saw coming, some I didn't. I thought the plot was very good, making the most of a basic storyline that was actually fairly simple, but which came across as quite complicated due to good development of the various elements within it. Some people might get a bit confused by it, but most viewers should be okay.

The humour is key to Duplicity and I really enjoyed a lot of the dialogue and humour from plot elements. Clive Owen was very good (and he even smiled occasionally, something I've never seen him do in any other film!!), his dry style suiting the humour of the film. Julia Roberts I was less impressed with - there were times when her reaction to things definitely didn't fit in with her character. Some of the best scenes were the pair trying to keep one step ahead of each other, such being the nature of their work that they carried it over into their personal lives. The two rival bosses, played by Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti, were good - Wilkinson in particular was impressive, and the rest of the supporting cast did a fine job. Denis O'Hare as head of ops for the team Ray was working for gave the stand out performance.

Though I enjoyed the movie it did have its failings, most notably Julia Roberts' performance in the first part of the film and the pacing slowing to almost a crawl about one third into the film. Other than that though I really enjoyed it with the directorial style (directed by Tony Gilroy) bringing to mind the 60s spy thrillers and James Newton Howard's quirky music score adding to the atmosphere considerably.

Obviously not everyone will like it but I found it to be an intelligently-written, well acted comedy spy thriller and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Rated PG-13 for language and some sexual content


Duplicity reminded me somewhat of an earlier Julia Roberts film where she and Nick Nolte played rival news reporters - I Love Trouble.

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CaptainD - Movie Reviews Blog

Movie Review - Race to Witch Mountain (2009)

Race to Witch Mountain is a strange movie, in that it's obviously aimed mainly at young children, yet the best bits are those slyly aimed at the adults in the audience. Starring former wrestler Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, this has much in common with American wrestling - lots of noise, plenty of bangs and crashes, a bit of humour, but no real substance.

It all starts out with Jack Bruno (Dwayne Johnson), a cabbie in Las Vegas, trying to keep away from his criminal past - which isn't easy as his last boss is quite persistent. He meets scientist Dr Alex Friedman (Carla Gugino) when she takes his cab to a "freak conference" - alien convention - and she will be an important figure in the movie later on. For now though Jack doesn't believe in aliens at all... something which will change when he actually meets them... except they appear to be just normal kids, Sara (Anna Sophia Robb) and Seth (Alexander Ludwig). They're on an important mission and need to get back to their spaceship, via avoidance of an assassin, and stearing clear of the authorities led by the single-minded Henry Burke (Ciaran Hinds).

Amidst the many explosions and action sequences (most of which are, to be fair, pretty well handled) there are quite a few funny one-liners, almost all of them uttered by Jack. Though Dwayne Johnson's acting isn't flawless, I really like him in comedy roles as he has a good sense of timing and a very theatrical face! Naturally he handles the action scenes very well too. His character was relatively well developed, particularly in his failure to initially realise what was happening because he thought the crime boss he'd disappointed by staying straight was after him. Both kids were fine on the whole, though I thought Abba Sophia Robb's performance was a little too... well, human. They were meant to be aliens after all, and the way Alexander Ludwig spoke and gestured made you believe he wasn't quite from this planet. Their characters were ... well, pretty much what you'd expect from a kid's movie - straightforward. I felt that in early scenes they looked too amazed to see things that, while amazing for a human, were surely meant to be pretty commonplace among their race.

Ciaran Hinds was fine, although I thought this sort of role was a bit of a departure for him. Carla Guigino wasn't too bad, didn't quite warm to her character though. The rest of the cast were okay, nothing outstanding and nothing terrible. Garry Marshall clearly enjoyed playing a conspiracy theorist who's views were almost diametrically opposite those of Friedman, who was trying to put forward everything as purely scientific.

Some of the best scenes came when Jack and co were at the alien convention - a lot of the jokes were pretty obvious, but some were funny nonetheless. The movie might have worked better if they're concentrated the whole thing around the idea of being a spoof sci-fi movie. As it was, there were moments of good comedy surrounded by a lot of crash boom bangs.

The special effects were okay, good in places but a little lacking in others. The music score (Trevor Rabin) was nice enough, typical "spooky alien" music at times, fast action music the rest. Director Andy Fickman keeps the action moving along at a decent pace.

All in all this is an entertaining enough movie, but certainly not a great one. There's just about enough to keep adults interested, but it could have been better and I don't think I'd watch it again, so I wouldn't particularly recommend it (unless you have children who're dying to see it!).

Incidentally I've never seen the original "Escape to Witch Mountain (1975)", so I can't say how good / bad this version is in comparison. Actor Ike Eisenmann was in both the original and this movie (he played a sheriff in the 2009 version).


Related Links

As a kid's sci-fi movie it's not nearly as good as the recent animated movie Monsters vs Aliens

For a genuinely funny sci-fi movie, watch Galaxy Quest

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CaptainD - Movie Reviews Blog

Imaginary Bitches

Please pardon the language, it's what this online sitcom is called! Though it's not only online nowadays as the complete first season has now been released on DVD. The creators kindly sent me a copy, and I have to say that I very much enjoyed the series. There are 13 episodes, approx 5-8 minutes each, plus some extra features. (Total runtime comes in at 118 minutes.)

The plot revolves around a young woman called Eden (played by Eden Riegel [All My Children]), whose friends all seem to be too busy with their relationships to have much time for her. Eden imagines a couple of friends, but finds that not only are they not very nice (thus the title), but also that she can't get rid of them!

Essentially a one-joke series, thanks to clever writing and good acting (and probably helped by the short length of the individual episodes), it constantly manages to find new ways to make you laugh - which is something it achieves regularly. With a small cast of characters and relatively few locations, it squeezes out a lot of humour and character development. Think Friends crossed with Ally McBeal, with a slightly less weird version of Phoebe as the main character, and you won't be too far off what Imaginary Bitches accomplishes.

The title might make you think that this will be full of offensive content and bad language, but that isn't the case. There is a little bad language and some episodes certainly deal with controversial subjects (without tact perhaps, but a lot of humour) - it's unrated but I would think a PG-13 rating is about right for it (or 12A here in the UK).

To help you decide whether this will be your sort of thing, I've added the first episode below. The first episode is a good introduction but, as you might expect, most of the episodes that follow are superior.

Of course the image and sound quality are much better on the DVD release than on its original home, YouTube - on the DVD release the sound occasionally fades a bit but is usually very good, and the picture quality is superb.

At the 2009 Webby Awards, Eden Reidel won a People's Voice award for Best Individual Performance, and the show itself got an honorary mention for the writing. The acting throughout is top notch and the writing sharp and witty.

The show is directed by Andrew Miller, who has a fine eye for humour and camera angles, and the pacing of each episode is just about perfect.

Episode List:

Episode 1: It's Not Easy Making Imaginary New Friends
Episode 2: The Dirtier Isn't Always the Better
Episode 3: Where Were You When Eden Got Drunk and Puked All Over Me and Lizzie?
Episode 4: A New Leper in the Colony
Episode 5: It's Totally What You Think
Episode 6: Help James Help You
Episode 7: A Spiritual Bitch-Bath
Episode 8: Sexy Secret Santa
Episode 9: Porn Star Priest
Episode 10: Imaginary Bridezilla
Episode 11: Only Crazy Girls Quife
Episode 12: Three Bitches is an Imaginary Crowd (Part One)
Episode 13: Three Bitches Is an Imaginary Crowd (Part Two)

Episode 7 was my favourite - very funny indeed - while episode 9 is probably the most likely to offend.

Special features:

• Commentary on each episode
• Blooper reel
• Interviews
  

I found the commentary annoying, the bloopers generally unfunny, while the interviews were okay - but as I said, I'm not greatly into DVD extras at the best of times!

Imaginary Bitches is a great example of independent TV - it's a show that perhaps would never gain mainstream success on commercial TV, but it's already got quite a following online and I for one am looking forward to season 2. For me though, more episodes and less (or no) "special features" would be a good way to go - but that's just me!

Links:

IMDB Page for Imaginary Bitches

Official Imaginary Bitches Website

CaptainD - Movie Reviews Blog

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (2001)

This completely mad movie is an attempt to bring back memories of the really bad horror / sci-fi movies of days gone by. It's endearingly daft and at times very funny, though not as funny as I'd been expecting.

Directed and written by (and also starring) Larry Blamire, it's a mixture of absurb stupidity and wry spoof. It doesn't always work, but overall I enjoyed it and may even search out the sequel. If you like movies that dare to be so bad they're good (and that is most definitely the intention here!), go for it.

Also starring Fay Masterson, Andrew Parks, Susan McConnell, Brian Howe, Jennifer Blaire, Dan Conroy, Robert Deveau, Darrin Reed and a skeleton.

Nominated for the 2005 Saturn Award in the DVD Release category.

Trailer below:

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CaptainD - Movie Reviews Blog