Reviews

I guess the reason Columbus actually had a day is because he made the prescient career move of actually arriving somewhere. If you want to see Val Kilmer wondering al fresco for forty minutes then this is the movie for you. I say forty minutes because that's about as much as I could take. Incredibly, the script won some sort of award for being in the top thirty scripts read by some film body. I can only cower in fear at the quality of the other twenty nine. And what about the rejects? It was already ominous that Val Kilmer showed up in a recent Orange commercial, the graveyard of has-been movie stars. There is a jarring moment early in the picture when Kilmer shoots someone then disappears off camera. The next shot someone has a bag pulled over his head. We're not sure to whom this is happening at first but subsequently it looks like someone bearing a vague resemblance to Kilmer. So I guess it must be Kilmer. He is ambushed by a gang which he fells quite easily despite being somewhat milquetoast for the "rest" of the picture. It turns out this scene was added by a producer for the straight to video market, a sort of Columbus Cheap-Day return. So it wasn't Kilmer. It was someone dressed up to look like Kilmer. Which is confusing because sometimes in films characters dress up to fool each other or the police. Only this wasn't one of them. So maybe I should shut up. Sorry, not your day.

Kilmer then wanders into a park on a hot day dressed inconspicuously in a heavy overcoat so as not to attract the attentions of bad guys, cops and half pint coloured stick up artists. But I'll get to that. Call it following in the footsteps of Columbus. Like him, I harbour lofty ambitions; unlike the producers of this flick who are conspicuously having an off-day. Anyway, to get back to Columbus Day, which is sinking fast without even the benefit of a ship to bail out from. In a stunning piece of every day realism, a school kid follows Kilmer around and engages him in conversation. In a further astounding piece of racial profiling, the kid attempts to hold him up as kids are want to do alone in a confined space with a possibly dangerous felon.

With straight to video you take your chances. I guess this just wasn't my day. Kilmer may be difficult to work with. Trouble for him he's getting even harder to watch. Perhaps he knows this, hence his attempts to look as much like Jeff Bridges as possible, only on a bad day. Maybe Clint will make my day. It's called Gran Torino and not an Orange phone in sight. Have a nice day.

FIRSTLY, lazy plotting:

1) If you are threatened on a high profile case you are given protection. This is standard.

2) During the hanging scene didn't someone say to the Barrister: "He killed your wife and kid and you want him to live?" In which case, having ears, the bad guy would have come after the Barrister. He didn't.

3) Kneecapping your fellow outlaw. Risking him shopping them all to the police out of revenge?

4) Lewis shows the unmasking of Bryant to the outlaws to warn them of the dangers of exposure and then doesn't destroy the footage? He stores it in his flat to be found by the bad guy and broadcast to the media?

5) Dekker is approached by the ex-outlaw of doubtful loyalty who reminds him of the huge reward waiting for him if he shops Bryant. Yet he trusts him with information about the location of the crime Boss?

SECONDLY, camera-work made to look like "footage sent in by member of public who caught the moment." Very NOW concept, but an utter headache to watch.

THIRDLY, in the extras, Love and cast seem to echo the sentiments of the characters, talking up alleged leniency of paedofile sentencing, etc. This is disingenuous as the film suggests that becoming an outlaw makes you even more stressed, alienated from the workplace and in greater physical danger than ever before. Despite the solemn atmosphere, you don't get the impression Love cares about any "message." It is the means to an end to make a "Lad's Mag" film and tongue never strays far from cheek. Also, was Love joshing when he called Sean Bean a "movie star"? He is a respected journeyman, not a star. That is why he is in your film, Nick, and not "War of the Worlds." Bean does his usual Major Sharpe routine competently enough.

FOURTHLY....there isn't a fourthly because I found it impossible not to be entertained by this film. I didn't expect much when seeing the words "OUTLAW" and "NICK LOVE" together, but it does what it says on the tin. It is gripping and ends on a real belly laugh. I would watch it again. What he did get right is the fact that not all men are macho in real life and are more often than not afraid of confrontation.

Watched "the making of" documentary with an interview with the original author talking cobblers. No, it is not common for serial killers to have partners. It is rare. Most are loners. The author made his killer a woman because of an anecdote by a worker in a psychiatric ward who claimed they were most afraid of the female inmates. Not a good enough reason to make his character a serial killer, which is very rare on the distaff side, let alone in the middle to upper classes. Add to that some banal observations on the moral deception of beauty and hey Presto.

This is in fact the usual middle class wankery, enjoying the frisson of playing with "dark" subject matter. Once again, the murder of children is nauseatingly paraded. Aren't we all sick of this? In one stupid scene we are expected to believe a five year old could commit a violent murder with a knife like the beginning of "Halloween". I hope it was computer faked because it would be pretty reprehensible to stage the whole thing with a kid for real.

The silliest moment is the sex scene between a wrinkled old priest and a gorgeous young girl with pneumatic breasts. Typical writers fantasy that. In the real world he'd be lucky to get it on with a bag lady in his congregation, if that.

On the plus side, I have a thing for Emilia Fox. Just as well, as she's in bloody everything.

It's funny how a B-movie like Night of the Demon will achieve cult status while Witchcraft, although boasting a less original storyline, is ignored despite having some equally memorable visuals.

When we were kids, I remember my sister and I being allowed to stay up late to watch Witchcraft as a special treat, if that's an appropriate way of describing it. It scared the heebeejeebees out of us. As the camera slowly panned up Vanessa Whitlock's body after she has risen from the grave, my sister whimpered: "oh, please make her pretty", which didn't make a lot of sense then but sort of does now. As it turned out, she was semi-relieved as she probably expected worms in empty eye sockets.

I've never forgotten the main set pieces - Vanessa appearing in the bedroom, the spellbound car journey and Granny Lanier's heroic exodus from her sanctuary - so the director was doing his job. What surprised me is how well this ancient movie stood up. Yes, the soundtrack is occasionally overbearing and the Devil doll and Devil worshippers running around in robes somewhat hokey, but there are some effective moments, such as the telephone call by the open door in the Lanier's living room. There is an eerie sense of foreboding as the camera pans to reveal the hall and you catch glimpse of a shadow on the stairs, at the same time as the door begins to mysteriously close.

But what really makes the film is Yvette Rees's uber-freaky performance as the resurrected witch, Vanessa Whitlock. She's not on the screen often but when she is, boy, does she make an impression. With her rictus grin and studied attempts to coordinate herself through rigor mortis, the effect is quite grotesque. Lon Chaney also appears intermittently to bellow lines, and is sadly less distinguished.

Those who liked BBC's Ghost Story for Christmas series (The stalls of Barchester springs to mind), may like Witchcraft. I'm not trying to talk it up to being a masterpiece or anything, but the impressionistic lighting of black and white is so right for this material and it's a shame it is long since out of vogue; Michael Almereyda's Nadja being a rare exception. The director of Witchcraft went on to direct Psychomania, an unfortunate attempt to come to terms with changing social mores. Set in a middling period of transition with more traditional material, Witchcraft is more successful.

This vintage TV movie offers profound insights into the human condition and the implications for our exploration of outer space. NOT! What it does have is a darker buddy buddy relationship than we have come to expect from Spelling and Goldberg and good production values, probably because it was a two hander with more room to spend elsewhere.

The problem is the audience guesses quickly who-dunnit, thus stretching credulity to the limit when the scientists are less quick off the mark. Okay, so fans of the genre automatically look for the sinister, whereas the characters in the 'real' world are reacting as events unfold. Nevertheless, when Dr Enari is forced to apologise to Dr Jones, the penny should have dropped there and then. Altitude is blamed to a certain extent, but professionals in the same field will probably be niggled at the near basket cases presented here before any real investigating gets under way. Funnily enough, although the who was obvious, the why never really entered my head. The out of left field answer will either amuse or frustrate. Culp gives a strong performance as a man pushed to mental and physical limits and I actually winced when his head took a dunk into some frozen water.

Although daft, this movie haunted me for several hours after I saw it so I give it a qualified thumbs up.

Not content with lecturing us on class and colonialism, Peter Jackson wants to make The Passion of the Kong. It wasn't beauty that killed the beast, he wags his finger at us, but you the audience, in the name of entertainment for the price of a ticket. The crucified ape!

Beastiality the only escape for Anne Darrow from a world of venality, weak men and rough traders.

This gives rise to not only a problem of drama, but many choice moments such as the crew risking their lives to save 'beauty' and all she cares about is Kong. "No! Don't shoot him!" She protests, while all and sundry are being crushed by the behemoth. How's that for gratitude? They should have chucked her into the sea and told her to swim to the boat.

Critics have lionized Jackson's 'skills as a story teller', but I've always found the results autistic and cartoon like. Artless. But this was the same style used in Lord of the Rings, which plenty of ordinary punters liked. Kong ultimately collapses under the sheer weight of so many back to back miscalculations and revisionism. It politically corrects itself out of any suspense or drama, aside from the punishing length.

It is not as big a disaster as Ang Lee's Hulk, a movie that should never have been released in that condition, but it is dreadful.

Recently I saw The Guns of Navarone again, which coincidently has a scene in which a boat tries to navigate treacherous rocks, and was struck just how modern cinema has lost that ability to simply tell a moral story coherently and involve us in the characters.

According to the endless conveyor belt that is British 'drama', there are so many serial killers dropping citizens in the UK, you wonder why the authorities are even worried about bird flu. The lack of imagination is depressing. "Viewers may find some scenes disturbing." Then why make it? Do you really think anyone has a pressing need to see distressing scenes of victims crawling in their own excrement and having to drink their own urine? Well, yes, but it's usually a minority taste, not prime-time audience.

Lynda La Plante has just become another hack. Her overrated hit 'Prime Suspect' borrowed from the film 'No Way To Treat A Lady' (the mother and her lipstick). Here she tastelessly uses the Ted Bundy case but with sloppy plotting. Why would the killer put his plaster cast on a different hand on a previous occasion? Where on earth would he park in Covent Garden? It couldn't be miles away if he needed to ask someone for help and with that many people around somebody would see something. You might be able to knock out a girl, but a man? How did he kidnap the two girls without one of them screaming while the other was attacked? Or maybe he kidnapped them separately on the same day which is an even more tasteless appropriation from the Bundy case. Also, none of the victims appeared to die of instant suffocation, just the opposite. You can't just suddenly will a fit body to die, it is ludicrous. Especially a young fit body.

La Plante also shamelessly plagiarised the film 'The Vanishing'. Did she think we wouldn't notice? Come up with your own ideas, preferably without recourse to serial killers, it is nauseating.

To cap it off, the ending is laughably preposterous and drearily right wing. Don't bother with this one.

Based on a graphic novel. Whatever happened to literature? Did everyone's pens run out of ink after Catcher in the Rye was written? This portentous stinker is graced with the usual crass direction from David Cronenberg. An opening scene in which a violent act cuts to a domestic scene will have your eyeballs rolling early. There's even the dreaded hubcap shot, stalwart of second rate directors the world over. And the world is getting smaller every day.

Not one scene rings true. My favourite is the son who through the wonders of DNA suddenly becomes the junior karate champion of America and later suffers not a jot of post traumatic stress syndrome after a bout of participatory violenomics with his old man. In fact, he's swiftly forgotten about and placed into the cupboard helpfully marked 'plot device'. However, those who like to polish their behinds on staircases will not be disappointed by the depiction of violence throughout, no matter how preposterous.

A rather wonderful performance from Viggo Mortensen deserves a better screenplay.

Like I did. Despite horror films being a touch old hat, the jumps in The Descent are by no means as predictable as expected. I was too old to see this movie but I bribed the management into giving me a ticket. It is about some girls who go potholing in the Apelican mountains. There are no pelicans, I just can't spell Appalachian. The director's last film failed because the budget did not extend to actually having special effects. A hairy dummy which I took to be a werewolf was jigged up and down by a window by a prop person while the camera was flung about in attempt to fool us into thinking the wolf was something other than an inanimate object. By that point I was nodding off causing even more jitters. This time the director was able to afford monsters but made them look like Orcs from Lord of the Rings. What is Lord of the Rings? Well it's about a mythical kingdom called Middle Earth that is populated amongst other things by little people called Hobbits and a wizard called Gandalf and there's this ring…no, best not. Anyway, it is one of a curious number of decisions, such as beginning the opening scene with quick cuts like his last film. This meant I almost entirely missed a plot point about an affair which I only 'got' when belatedly reading a review. Confusingly he has also hired two actresses with identical boat races. It was also unwise to pull the rug on sympathy for his lead actress. A film this bleak really needs someone to unambiguously root for, rather than frown upon for moral reasons. I also noticed the odd out of focus shot and the climatic fight was botched to say the least. None of this is ruinous, however. I would say that the only glaring fault is the running time. Eighty five minutes tops, please, for movies that have the intellectual content of a grape. The enigmatic ending seemed contrived to create a buzz for the film on Internet message boards. Mission accomplished.

So to sum up, The Descent is slightly above average. It is depressing and pointless but then so are the last few Woody Allen films so it's Hobson's choice really. Anyone wishing to corner the director into explaining the ending should look for a bald gentleman with fangs standing in an airport departure lounge, clutching a one way ticket to LA. I'm not jealous.

There are some subtle moments in this self styled 'true' re-telling of Mary Shelley's celebrated novel. Anyone notice how Victor's bride to be appears to give his brother the evil eye at the film's opening scene? Also when Victor tries to prevent the creature from throwing himself off the cliff but then notices that there is no one around to see if he did so, and the monster picks up on it? Perhaps the film should have ended there. Instead, it introduces a pantomime villain grandstanding on a set straight out of Fu Manchu with assistants to match, rather too knowing dialogue and even the immortal "well, at least things can't get any worse!" (Cue creature and Tom Baker hamming it up, not to mention the dodgiest skeleton special effect I've ever seen.) This is a pity, because there is a nuanced and heart breaking performance from Sarrazin as the creature and some splendid production design, not to mention diaphanous women.

The central absurdity we are expected to swallow, is the rather unlikely convergence of so many people wanting to raise the dead. The script anticipates this reaction with the scene where Mrs Frankenstein bluffs the local magistrate. Unfortunately, her dogged belief that her husband is still mister right stretches what little credibility the film has left to the outer limits.

The chief problem is the science. A severed arm moving without instructions from a brain? The re-animated corpses, the script suggests, are not expected to change physically, as if rendered immortal by the processes they have been subjected to. But flesh is flesh, so how can a heart go on beating when stabbed, or lungs not fill with water when floating mouth agape and seemingly alive in a liquid aquarium? The creature, for instance, retains twenty twenty vision while the rest of him falls apart and his strength remains undiminished. This lack of internal logic soon causes the film to degenerate into something of a witless farrago. It is puzzling as to why Victor does not merely bring his recently deceased colleague back to life rather than transplanting his brain (without misplacing a hair on the creature's head, you'll notice.) After all, Henri Clerval's dodgy ticker would no longer be an issue, as this new race are supernaturally powerful. Likewise, Dr Polidori's despair at the loss of Prima makes little sense. Plop her head back on her body and submerge her in the tank again. The spinal cord issue doesn't appear to be a problem on either monster.

There is also a very sloppy bit of directing when Agatha encounters the horse and cart. Watch it, and tell me how it makes sense. Not a great film then, but it does have an unequivocally great ending.