Reviews

Me and my sister used to watch this when we were children and we loved it. In fact, the last time I saw it I was only 8 years old, but I remember why I enjoyed the movie. I was too young to understand the adult politics but trust me this is a wonderful film for kids to watch. If I was to watch it now it will not be as powerful, and I may not even enjoy it. The point is this was a film made for children, and as this is the case only a child, or an adult who watched it and remembers it as a child are able to accurately review and justify it. Pryor's performance was superb and it shows how diverse he was being able to star in a children's film and manage to be so convincing and never patronises the film by under-performing.

Behind all the cheese, lies a soulful story males can relate to. THAT is what makes NRNS great. There are two versions, one is just complete cheese with a funky disco soundtrack, the other is more accurate in depicting the soul of the story, it is still cheesy but definitely darker and the one I prefer to watch. The soundtrack is actually superb in this version, 'Stand on your own' is a brilliant tune, really works well in the film. If you haven't seen NRNS before then I personally hope you see the version I grew up watching. They are two different movies but the same story. One is an attempt to be serious, the other is meant to be a viewed as a cheesy karate comedy, and the director wants you to laugh at it. Was he so embarrassed with his original serious version that he completely edited it all to turn it into a complete joke? Personally, I think the guy made a huge mistake doing that. Now you can only buy the stupid comical version on DVD, not the version me and my friends grew up with and loved to watch over and over again.

This was so bad, I had to walk out on this film 15 minutes into it. Absolutely appalling. I loved the old 1930's/40's horror flicks but this is just not them. If you watched Van Helsing and The Mummy back to back you'll see how unsuccessful Van Helsing was at re-capturing that familiar sense of engagement we had with the old classics. For those people saying "Oh, it's just a bit of fun, camp fun", I do not think that was Sommers intention and if it was fair play to him. But I will argue that those classics were not just 'camp', they were a lot more textful than that. They had weird, eccentric characters in them but the films were crafted to have your sub-consciousness take the story seriously, that's what made them great. You know what to expect from them, watching them is the closet feeling to that one you get when you sit round a camp fire out in the dark with friends and freak each other out with little spooky tales. Van Helsing fails at this. I am a fan of CGI, but only if it looks real. The CGI in this made me cringe, its part of the reason I walked out the cinema. CGI can look incredibly good, or it can look incredibly bad in movies. You look at the CGI in Van Helsing and cannot help but be disengaged with the film and think, that's not a vampire, its a silly looking computer animation. And there was lots of it too, even in just 15 minutes. This wasn't fun, it was poor. Whenever puppets, costumes or make-up was used in the old horror films, obviously it looks silly but it can be real enough to accept it as being real, for the sake of enjoying the film. As much as I tried, this did not and would happen in Van Helsing with the CGI monsters. I find with most CGI characters in films they just don't have the correct body movement physics or facial expressions to justify themselves as believable characters, its a very serious issue that is overlooked. For me, the CGI in Lord of the Rings was superb, I didn't feel myself being disgusted with it such as in Van Helsing or in the Starwars prequels. Please, save your money and do not buy or rent Van Helsing its just a poor movie which fails as a tribute to the old classics.

You have to ask yourself; was a sequel to 2001 necessary? 2010 does exactly the opposite of 2001, by telling the audience what it wants them to know, and not give them that stimulating freedom of narrative exploration. They are two different movies, but unfortunately are the same story. 2001 asks the questions, 2010 mainly gives the answers. Although I think 2010 isn't anywhere as good as 2001, at least it exists to satisfy those people who insist on having the answers revealed, and put to rest niggling questions. But I honestly believe Kubrick just didn't want this, what he really wanted was for people to carry on asking themselves questions of 2001, his intention was to have people exploring their narrative throughout the film and even when it had finished. Will the answers revealed in 2010 change the way we view 2001 when we next come to watch it? Yes, because you'll know why Hal goes crazy and you'll know more about the monolith. Knowing this might actually excite some people but remember it was not Kubrick's intention for the audience to know this. It actually conflicts with what he intended 2001 to do to us, which isn't a good thing from his point of view, because we aren't supposed to know any answers. But 2010 is worth watching, Scheider and a few other actors put in exciting performances. What I liked about this film was the chemistry between John Lithgow and Elya Baskin, and Hyams was highly successful with delivering a realistic fictional feel of floating in space; brilliant shots and intense breathing sounds made this possible and it makes my stomach turn every time. Don't expect a fantastic orchestral soundtrack though, there isn't much music. The film's rhythm is OK, but it certainly isn't polished well as there are several rediculas editing errors. But this is still a good film so I recommend you watch it, and to be fair 2001 is a unquestionably a hard act to follow. Definitely worth adding to the DVD collection.