Reviews

Dear UK National Lottery, please stop wasting money funding utter rubbish such as this load of poorly acted tripe.

Much like a lot of Lottery funded films over the years this is a film that would never have been (and indeed should never have been) made if it weren't for the funding grant this film received, unfortunately it did and it was.

There are some good ideas here, the tension leading up to and the subsequent occurrences of a nuclear explosion works but is quickly glossed over, there is confusion as to whether this was a story about a terrorist attack and its aftermath or a war with an invading force of unidentified origin.

Coupled with a cast that (with the exception of the criminally underused Anna Chancellor) couldn't act their way out of a paper bag let alone a post nuclear crisis and you have a badly stitched together mess.

There were far too many plot holes, far too much unexplained and too many cardboard characters that quite frankly no one cared about, especially the leading lady who was just awful. It would have been better to have concentrated on the war (if it really was one, kind of ended a bit quick didn't it?) and forgotten about the really irritating kids.

Oh and before I forget, a note to the British Board of Film Classification who seemed the need to advertise 'Contains strong sex' in the classification card at the start, they were clearly watching a different film to everyone else as the semi clothed cousins 'sex scene' was one of the dullest and most unerotic sex scenes I have ever seen!

To summarise the much anticipated Prometheus:

Fantastic visual effects Amazing attention to detail Lots of nice little nods to the 'Alien' universe Wonderful soundtrack

Pity therefore about the non-sensical storyline and lousy script then as this made absolutely no sense whatsoever. I like a challenging story that actually makes you think but the only thing that this - and lets be honest here – utter mess made me think was 'what the hell is going on?' and that was before we even got to the last third of the film where things really fell apart.

For me this was one of my most anticipated films in years, a brilliantly created build up of trailers and other publicity sold this film (as it should of course) and almost tempted me to go and see a film at the cinema for the first time in twenty years.

Oh boy am I glad I resisted that temptation as when I put the DVD in my player I was gob-smacked at how disjointed and completely muddled up the storyline was. Whilst it was lovely to spot the nods to previous 'Alien' films that were nicely incorporated throughout and I was delighted to see that the same visual look had been continued, it did little to hide the fact that from a story telling point of view, this film is a turkey.

I so wanted this to be brilliant and in all bar the story (and some of the rather wooden acting) it was. Therefore for me I have to say this was a very nicely done missed opportunity that should have been so much better.

Two of my hard earned pounds were parted with on the impulse purchase of the DVD of the film so bad that for the UK straight to video bargain bin market they actually changed the title and I had to submit its new identity to IMDb!! The plot (for want of a better word) revolves around some unstable element extracted from a meteorite that is now causing a few problems (in this instance accidentally wiping a large chunk of Canada off the map following an accident) so rather wisely the authorities decide to discreetly get rid of it before anyone starts asking any awkward questions.

So far so good until we are first subjected to this film's extensive CGI effects budget. Literally tens of dollars must have been spent creating a CGI super tanker (which by the way in no way resembles the very nice DVD cover art work) as the aforementioned unstable material is transported away with the intention of sinking it in the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean.

Does everything go to plan? Of course not...

So with everything going wrong, daft plot devices - sorry - deadly clouds that destroy everything they come into contact with being released all over the place and general panic amongst the powers that be, it is time to bring in our heroes straight from central casting.

The obligatory trio is made up of the usual suspects, cardboard characters that consist of the emotionally damaged hero, his intelligent eye candy sister and superfluous comedy side kick Japanese guy, the history and juxtapositions of which are established in convenient three years earlier style flashback that actually has little whatsoever to do with the 'plot' at all.

They immediately clash with the military guy before descending into the bowels of the ship (or a disused warehouse in Bromsgrove which is more what it really looks like) and make a total Horlicks of the whole rescue operation, releasing another comedy cloud that proceeds to use up another ten dollars of the CGI budget as it wipes out Honolulu.

What is surprising in the midst of the cheap as chips mess is that there is some decent acting talent here, whilst the three specialists who are flown in to save the day are instantly forgettable, there is the presence of Ben Cross who was Spock's father in the recent Star Trek reboot but quite why he agreed to appear in this tripe is anyone's guess.

The Greek captain of the ship is also a decent actor and character who deserved more screen time and a far better script as well. The rest of the characters are so dumb as to be utterly unbelievable, not least whoever is flying the Super Tanker's seemingly endless supply of helicopters around, constantly not learning their lesson and flying into those deadly clouds every time in order to provide a further explosion to wake up the audience who by now have most certainly dozed off if they have not already walked out.

So overall it is a mess and yet another example of a poor film that probably started off as a good idea very badly executed having been saddled with a dire script, twenty dollar special effects budget (All right, lets be generous, say thirty five dollars) and then unleashed on the unsuspecting public.

Memo to self, stop buying cheap DVD's from bargain bins...

Well that was poor… Now don't get me wrong, the first National Treasure was silly but enjoyable and had at least a decent thread of a plot running through it, therefore imagine my disappointment when I put the sequel in my DVD player.

Dear oh dear, an utterly astonishingly awful sequel of which all the major players should be thoroughly ashamed of even being remotely connected with, heaven only knows what the talents of Helen Mirren, Harvey Keitel and Jon Voight were doing in this dire pile of poo.

Yes it is watchable but that is only because it is so bad that it is utterly laughable, indeed it has been a good few years since I enjoyed a movie because it was so utterly awful. The plot holes (a tenuous description since there was very little plot to have holes in really) were so huge you could drive a bus (or in this case a beer lorry) right through them.

Feel free to sit back and laugh at the inane nonsense of it all as we flash from Washington DC to Paris, then London (cue what should have been an excellent car chase through central London that was very disappointing not to mention geographically impossible!) back to Washington DC and then a few other places by which time I was either losing the will to live or just didn't care anymore until I was asked to believe that a lake had magically been installed at the top of Mount Rushmore so that it provided access to a South American hidden city of Gold.

What a load of cobblers….

As the team carried on in search of the most elusive treasure of all (that would be a decent script I presume as they were desperately in need of one) there was also the horrific sight of the mysterious 'Page 47' which sadly opens the door for the inevitable Disney dash for cash that sends us on a collision course towards a second sequel.

I think I will give that a miss somehow

In the late 1990's the extremely talented Rowan Atkinson did a series of commercials on UK television for a credit card company that featured a very funny James Bond spoof character and his long suffering sidekick Bough.

This was ripe for developing into a film (although I though a TV series may have been better) and sure enough before long along came Johnny English.

Oh dear….

Something went badly wrong somewhere as this was by far and away one of the worst films I have ever had the misfortune to have to sit through and marks a very low point in the history of British film making.

As a Bond spoof it could have worked on so many levels but instead the talents of Rowan Atkinson and others were wasted on an utterly drivel laden script devoid of nearly any laughs whatsoever.

It also proved that John Malkovich will appear in any old rubbish these days but even he must have thought of leaving this turkey off his CV… It transpires that the couple of clips I saw on TV at the time of the film's release were the only two minutes worth watching. Indeed this diatribe of insulting codswallop was so bad I just gave up when the showing broke for the news, shook my head in disbelief and walked away.

And then all was revealed – I discovered it was written by the same two utterly useless talent vacuums who penned the almost franchise killing Bond film disaster Die Another Day! That explains why this film which should have been so good was so utterly awful!!

Nice Special Effects – Pity About The Rest of It…..

This attempt by Steven Spielberg to bring us a 21st Century interpretation of the classic H.G. Wells was certainly a brave project so what did we get? In the end we had a very well made film but with some notable low points that just did not seem to gel properly. The special effects were impressive as was the photography and direction whilst for the most part, the cast did their bit.

However we can only speculate as to how good this film really could have been were it not for a number of major failings.

Characters – There was not really a single memorable character amongst the cast, with the exception of Cruise's battling divorced father (and even he had a number of faults), their was an awful lot of cardboard cut outs, cannon fodder and plot device carriers with no depth or even names for the most part.

The Kids – Any movie with clichéd 'irritating yet cute' characters grates with me. Once again instead of a couple of ordinary reasonably intelligent children, we got the delinquent teenager with the attitude problem and the irritating little girl with the health issues (allergic to peanut butter, back problems and claustrophobic). If this is representative of the majority of the youth of today then quick frankly its time to pull the plug on the entire human race!

The Nutter – Tim Robbins is a great if underused character actor but his role in this as the nutter in the cellar was utterly pointless and should have been jettisoned at the first script review.

The Plot Holes – You could see the car being repaired just in time plot line coming a mile off. Meanwhile there was no apparent explanation of how on earth the teenage delinquent son managed to escape certain death to appear once more at the end although yet again I suspected this was what was going to happen.

The Alien Defeat – Yes I am fully aware that the way the alien's just roll over and die in mid battle because of bugs in the air is indeed in the original story but it still smacks of a lack of imagination Star Trek style end of episode reset switch that brings the story to a juddering halt.

The Sound Track – What has happened to John Williams of late? There was a time when the musical genius could do no wrong but yet his recent work, notably the totally out of character (in comparison with the rest of the series) soundtrack for Star Wars Episode III plus this have been very weak and lacking the classic punch and glory of his earlier work

With a bit better script, some attention to the obvious weaknesses and maybe even some different casting, this could have been excellent but as it is, it is watchable but disappointingly average.

CONTAINS SPOILERS - NOT THAT YOU ARE MISSING MUCH MIND! There are good bad movies and there are bad bad movies. Then there are British made totally unintelligible straight to video vehicles such as this codswallop.

The plot - for want of a much better word and assuming you can find it that is - basically concerns Michael Caine's dodgy violent armed robber working for an equally dodgy but well connected gentleman (played with slimy smoothness by Edward Fox) in order to lift a van load of banknote paper which we later see, appears to be transported around in the most insecure high security van I have ever seen!! The instrument by which the plot circulates around is something to do with hitting the van when it is in a radio black spot that has been amplified by some steel scaffolding on the nearby cathedral – any science student will tell you this plot device is a load of cobblers for a starter.

Along the way as the film plod very slowly onwards we meet some paper thin cardboard cut out henchman including Leslie Grantham who plays the angry cockney wide boy from the east end of London who provides the muscle for the robbery – in other words exactly the same role he plays in pretty much everything he has ever appeared in so no typecasting there then…..

The script is woeful, the plot almost non existent and the supposedly inter-weaved storyline about the large choirboy, his rather unpleasant mates and the girl he fancies is completely pointless and irrelevant, making up a large part of the film that should have been jettisoned at the first script read through as it would never have been missed.

The clichés are free flowing pretty much throughout. Be it the hilarious meeting of Michael Caine and his employer around a picnic table in the middle of what looks suspiciously like a disused cement works in deepest darkest Surrey or Grantham's stereotype cockney villain.

Along the way we also encounter an escort girl who adds nothing to the story whatsoever except she is nice to look at, some quite nice scenery and actually some decent camera work.

However the heist itself which supposedly is meant to be at the centre of the story takes ages to eventually turn up, is handled badly, has huge plot holes you could drive a bus through and quite frankly the tarted up cheap and cheerful ex British Gas van is not fooling anyone! Also for such a high security cargo, you would expect at least to find a) an armed Police escort and b) a much sturdier van than the second hand rust bucket that this film's budget seemingly only just managed to stretch to.

I can only assume the quite stellar cast were in desperate need of the cash, they certainly would not have done this film to win any awards except maybe a golden raspberry.

And for their efforts, this rubbish that was already old and dated when it was made, lurked on a shelf unreleased for years and then went straight to a £1 DVD release in the 'Cheap Tat' section of my local supermarket!!

It could have been so good. Bring together the two most fearsome off world life forms in movie history in a face off and then drop some poor schmucks in the meat grinder along with them.

Sounds good doesn't it? What a pity therefore that five films of back story (all right, six if you must count Alien Resurrection!) were all but disregarded in favour of this dreadful mess.

OK, lets get the good points out of the way first as it will be quicker. The soundtrack was a little generic but good and the penguin was cute.

Now for the bad bits, I hope you are sitting comfortably as this could take a while….

First the cast, some interesting choices and bringing in the original Mr Weyland in the form of the now very old looking Lance Henriksen was a good idea but the rest of the cast (with the possible exception of the aforementioned penguin of course) were forgettable, even the one or two established actors such as Colin Salmon.

The characters were woefully underdeveloped but in the majority this didn't matter too much as many of them were fairly swiftly dispatched in one PG-13 style ungruesome manner or another. It is remarkable though that Mr Weyland hired the best so called experts money could buy yet most of them seemed to know about as much on their so called specialist subject as I know about nuclear physics.

They weren't helped of course by a ropey script, some really atrocious dialogue and one of Hollywood's most infamous and indeed talent less directors.

Then there are our two main players themselves. The Aliens did their bit but for the majority of the time they seemed to content themselves with lurking on over hanging ledges and laughing themselves silly at the Predators.

The Predators provided the aforementioned amusement by being lumbering and inept beyond belief, the fact that they also appeared to have overdosed on coffee, doughnuts and pies adding to the unintentional comedy.

If this was a stand alone alien life forms having a punch up story (i.e. the Alien and Predator films did not exist) then this would just about worked but it isn't so it doesn't, and quite badly at that! The one thing that marked out the original Alien films apart from their overall attention to detail, excellent lighting, photography, cast choices etc was that after watching one of these, you would look around you in the dark, a little nervous as to whether an Alien was lurking just over your shoulder waiting to pounce, they were that good.

This family friendly padded rubbish had none of this gritty tension and even those parts of the 'plot' that were all but lifted verbatim from the original Alien and Predator films were so badly used, filmed and directed that even the most die hard fans of the two series could do nothing more than shake their head slowly in sheer disgust.

The really bad news is that this stinking turkey is to get a sequel - WHY? Has the cinema going public not suffered enough from this one. One predicts the murky world of straight to video may be the sequel's (better than deserved) fate.... I hope! Strictly a film for the bargain bin only, and then only if you cannot find your Alien ultimate box set or Predator DVD's.

As a life long fan of all things Hitch Hikers (hey, Marvin the Paranoid Android was one of my role models when I was a child!) I have been looking forward to seeing the late great Douglas Adam's work on the big screen for years.

And so what did we get? Well overall a very good adaptation is what has been presented, its worth bearing in mind not only did they have to squeeze the novel into two hours (the original TV series had three hours) but also every incarnation of the HHGTTG has always differed from the previous one. Add the fact that it was necessary to make this accessible and understandable for non HHGTTG viewers and storyline changes became necessary and were to be expected.

The best parts were the brilliant casting of Stephen Fry as the voice of the book, the continuation of using the UK as the Earth setting (as opposed to shifting it to the USA as per most films these days) the breathtakingly brilliant scenes in the Magarathean Factory Floor and the expansion of the role of the Vogons complete with their wonderfully bureaucratic officialdom! Also wonderful to see (and hear) are nods to the original TV series including the original Marvin in the queue on Vogonsphere, the theme tune and also the original Arthur as the recorded ghostly announcement. (Brilliant closing line 'Your death may be recorded for training purposes' brought the joke nicely up to date I felt) The special effects overall are excellently done and there are good performances from nearly all the cast, however there are problem areas.

Mos Def was miscast as Ford Prefect by a country mile, it needed a zanier character actor to make this unique part pay off. The Ultimate Question, 42 and Deep Thought plot line was reduced significantly to little more than a side show and whilst the diversion to Vogonsphere was funny and well done, it seemed to arrive in the film as though it had been snuck into the script after the final draft had already been written in a 'Oh we seem to be on Asgard and Vogonsphere, lets play along for twenty minutes then return back to the Magarathea plot again' kind of way.

Also the 'joke' with the bat like things that kept leaping up and hitting them made no sense whatsoever and failed miserably whilst the all important role of tea is severely reduced and the majority of the wonderful banter between Mr Prosser (the bypass foreman) and Arthur lying in the mud was cut and felt very rushed.

The Guide graphics took some getting used to after the familiarity of the TV series version that all HHGTTG fans took as gospel but they grew on me.

Personally I would have preferred the film to have been another half hour longer to allow more of the classic favourite elements better room, however I have at last been granted the wish I hoped for when I first saw the original series – Arthur finally gets the girl, and about time too! Newcomers to the HHGTTG universe will either run a mile in a confused state never to return or be hooked for life. If the latter, two strong recommendations – read the book and watch the original TV series and don't talk to me about life…..

Well it was just about watchable but that is where the positive points grind to halt, probably just like the career of pretty much everyone associated with this mess.

Plot holes the size of Nebraska, dodgy acting, even more dodgy fire fighting and wall to wall recycled stock footage of forest fires interspersed with some terrible special effects are the main features of a film with a plot so blinding obvious you could see what was going to happen a mile off.

Large slices of the plot have been lifted almost word for word from Jaws, the defiant kid who gets into trouble, the Mayor who refuses to close the road because of the tourist peak, and even more amazingly one character then goes and admits this! Anyway, the fire gets out of control thanks to their local friendly loony with the fireworks (who anyone with half a brain will identify in about a millisecond after he appears) and then its all solved as if by magic by blowing up the dam - this being achieved with the lamest explosions in the history of demolishing things.

The whole film leaves a lot of unanswered questions - What happened to the fire tankers? Where did that convenient abandoned mine appear from and then just as promptly disappear to? Who put that idiot woman in charge? Did we really need the pointless closing scene at the dance with the flashbacks? What was with the random pointless slow motion shots? What on earth was Dean Stockwell (as the Mayor) doing in this rubbish? If you like a laugh at cheap poorly researched B Movie style disaster flicks (and there seem to be an awful lot of them floating around) then go and find this on DVD - my local supermarket is flogging this travesty for just 97p - and I expect many will still think they have been robbed!!

This is one of those career stopping straight to video efforts that should never have been made.

I giggle with irony here as this long lost film which for reasons unknown got renamed Bail Out in 1994, has finally landed in the UK shores in a Supermarket cheap DVD range at just 97p! The biggest irony of all of course being that is about what this pile of poo probably cost to make.....

Anyway, I digress....

Leaving aside the fact that my 97p (about 60c for US readers) DVD was utterly terrible in terms of picture and sound quality, brings me on to film itself.

Allow you jaw to drop to the floor in disbelief as you watch some of the worst acting and out of sync dubbing in movie history.

Roll on the floor with laughter at Hasselhoff's introduction scene into this mess as he plays tennis in slow motion, and then later he sings in the shower and attempts to ride a horse - both badly! Giggle incessantly at Linda Blair playing the damsel in distress that is straight out of the Hollywood cheap movie handbook. She must have need the cash methinks....

Go 'Ooooh' at the ten quids worth of recycled special effects.

Belly laugh at the cardboard stereotyped bad guys, the leader of which just has to be seen to be believed. Some of the other stereotypes on offer here are also straight out of central casting.

Needless to say the damsel in distress is kidnapped not once but twice (how careless is that?) and of course is rescued with the usual requisite explosions, gun fights and some weird Mexican fella who appears at a crucial moment before vanishing without so much as a reasonable explanation.

There is also a reasonable gun fight in a scrapyard towards the start that seems to have absolutely nothing to do with the plot whatsoever, in addition no explanation is offered for the Bail Bond guy's mysterious car change in the opening credits.

If you are a fan or collector of Hasselhoff's work, you may want to track this pile of garbage down, especially if you want a laugh.

Everyone else is well advised to steer well clear!

Basically what we have here is little more than a remake of the hilarious 1970's classic kitsch horror 'Death Line' which ironically was like this cobblers, also partly filmed at the disused Aldwych underground station.

Making good use of the now disused Jubilee Line platforms at Charing Cross as well as the aforementioned Aldwych, this film contains basically the same plot - dodgy murdering mad zombie in the tunnels preying on the lost passengers who have missed the last train - originality is not this film's strong point.

Indeed strong points are sadly lacking. The gore ranges from the poor to the unnecessarily over gory whilst the sub-Gollum nutter is never really fully explained as seems little more than an under developed plot device.

Franke Polente has little to do with a thin script than run down a lot of tunnels and scream every so often, indeed she was like pretty much everyone else in this film, out-acted by a small dog and a pack of tame rats.

If creepy films set on the London Underground are your bag, or you just want to play 'spot the tube location' them pick this up on DVD when it hits a bargain bin. If you are looking for classic horror, go and dig up a copy of Death Line (aka Raw Meat).

If you are looking for a quality well written and acted film, you will need to change trains.....