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Reviews
Hannibal Brooks (1969)
...And They All Lived Happily Ever After....
.... "And they all lived happily after..." claims the closing caption. Apart from the eighty seven people who were shot, blown up, fell from great heights or were crushed by falling logs, of course.
This World War II POW and elephant escape adventure is a bit on the ridiculous side, although it is beautifully filmed, with some great shots of the Bavarian countryside.
For me, the light hearted, sentimental story of the elephant's escape doesn't quite jell with the violence and mayhem dealt out to a large number of Germans; but that's the way they seemed to like their war movies in the sixties.
Oliver Reed is OK as the hero. As for Michael J. Pollard- seeing him in this movie you can understand why his film career never really took off after his popular success in "Bonnie and Clyde". What were originally novel and engaging mannerisms rapidly became tedious and irritating as he repeated them in a variety of roles over the following years.
A pity the main female human character got shot- it was only half a dozen guys and an elephant who got to live happily ever after!
King Kong (2005)
Spectacular, but too long
Loved the recreation of 1930's New York street scenes, although you had to be quick to take in some of the details. I even spotted a sign saying "Crowe's Hardware"... could that have been a Peter Jackson tribute to a fellow Kiwi...? But as for the movie itself, it was visually stunning, but just too darn long... and I don't think the story was told as well as in the first Kong movie.
They could have cut out 10 or 15 minutes of insect attacks and dinosaur stampede, reduced the number of closeups of Naomi Watts' face with its universal wooden expression, and even the final battle between Kong and the aircraft was too long.
I thought Naomi Watts was too old for the role of Anne Darrow- wasn't Fay Wray only in her early twenties in the first Kong movie? In fact she is probably too old for the role of a romantic heroine in an action adventure movie and should be looking for more sedate roles- if only her acting wasn't so wooden. She seemed to have the same expression for every emotion, whether it was "terror" or "pluckiness" or "now I'm in love", her face never changed...
Rest of the acting performances weren't too bad... I liked the way Jack Black's Carl Denham vaguely resembled Orson Welles.
In summary, "King Kong" was entertaining and was value for money, although I do think the special effects guys did get a tad too carried away with their job.
I know it is possible to pick all sorts of holes in the story, but I have just one question: How come Kong was seemingly immune to the tommy gun bullets of the Venture's crew, but not to the machine gun bullets of the US Army Air Corps? Did that slight step up in calibre make all the difference?
Flightplan (2005)
Irritating and pointless
A thriller which fails to either thrill or entertain, and leaves the viewer with an overwhelming feeling of irritation and resentment... resentment from having been manipulated by slick film makers into swallowing a totally preposterous plot....
*SPOILERS* of some plot details..
And this is a shame, because the film starts off well, creating a dark atmosphere of impending tension and mystery. But as soon as the plane leaves the ground, it degenerates into utter nonsense.
No real human being would ever behave the way the Jodie Foster character does in that situation: running amok through the plane, climbing in and out of all the hidden confined spaces, fiddling with the plane's electronic circuitry, etc, whilst all the time confronting everyone in sight in an extremely intense way.... sorry, but real people simply would not behave like this in that kind of situation. Foster's character is more like a character in an animated cartoon, and thus forfeits what attention and sympathy the viewer might have had for her.
Add this to all the other elements of the preposterous plot: Foster's husband murdered so that a bomb can be planted in his coffin; hijacker posing as a skymarshal; and, most pointlessly of all, the kidnapping of Foster's little girl.... it all adds up to one fat dud.
This was not an enjoyable movie going experience... this was the only new-release movie I have seen this year, and, frankly, with films like this around, it is understandable why movie going attendances are dropping off....
The Last Escape (1970)
Aarrgh!
Probably one of the worst WWII action movies ever made...
Plot is minimal; characterization non-existent. Most of the movie seems to consist of two groups of men, both dressed in German uniforms, shooting each other with sub-machine guns.
The attack by Mosquito fighter-bombers seems to be footage lifted from the movie "633 Squadron". The Norwegian fjord looks awfully familiar, and so do some of the German anti-aircraft gunners.
Whitman, as leading man, is mind-numbingly uninspiring... like a poor man's Ronald Regan, only worse.
Avoid at all costs...
The Magus (1968)
Poor film of good novel.
This is a very poor film version of the famous John Fowles book.It does not come to grips with the complexities of the novel, and does not adequately cover the twists and turns of the plot. It is reduced to Michael Caine having a romantic interlude in Greece, whilst Anthony Quinn amuses them with charades in background.
Anthony Quinn is well cast as the mysterious Conchis; Michael Caine is only so-so as the male lead Nicholas. Candice Bergen is truly awful in the role of "Lily".
If you want to see a good film version of a John Fowles novel, watch "The Collector".
The English Patient (1996)
Incoherent Story!
I found this film boring and pretentious. The director is trying to con the viewer into believing that we are witnessing a "great love story". But it is a love story involving one-dimensional, cardboard cut-out characters acting within a plot that is totally incoherent and impossible to follow.
Some elements of the plot were just plain ridiculous. Why were they flying around in a civilian aircraft in the middle of the North African battle zone? And why was the English patient still being carted around Italy years after he was injured in North Africa? The film made no attempt to clarify these plot elements. Yet it still expected us to be moved by the "great love story". What a nerve!