p-braham Reviews

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)

unconvincing and badly acted

[3/10 · 5 January 2010]

Loved the books, I have to say. But this film, right from the beginning, fails to convince. It's impossible to be carried along with it; everything is too unlikely and the child actors are, unfortunately, terrible. The director lets them down horribly - it should at least be possible to relate to their characters, but they are allowed to behave in the most preposterous ways. Only the most credulous would be able to settle down and watch this film. The rest of us, after 5 minutes, are wishing we're somewhere else.

That just about says all you need to know.

The rest of this review is padding to make up the requisite ten lines - I suggest you read no further.

There is no god. Christian allegories are best forgotten as an embarrassing part of the human race's history.

Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd (2003)

Disappointing

[1/10 · 24 January 2008]

The best thing about this film is the title, and I'm not saying it's a good title.

As a sequel to a funny film it had a duty to be funny if only to avoid accusations of cashing in on the franchise. However, it is a hideous disappointment. It's so bad it's embarrassing. There isn't a single laugh in it. I feel sorry for the people who went to see it because they liked Dumb & Dumber - I imagine it left a bitter taste in quite a few mouths.

The makers must have known it was going to bomb so hard, which makes me wonder how it ever got released. I can only imagine that it was a cynical attempt to make some easy money.

Braveheart (1995)

abysmal in every detail

[1/10 · 7 November 2006]

Firstly let me confess I turned it off after 30 minutes.

I hated everything about it, particularly the music, which was Irish and not Scottish. That typified what I saw of the film - slapdash, clumsy, lazy film-making that is an insult to its audience's intelligence. It's not that I'm nit-picking or being perfectionist, this film is really rough in the way it handles everything (in the first 30 minutes). Every character, every scene, every bit of dialogue, every bit of storytelling is so short of believability that it completely failed to weave any kind of spell over me at all.

There is one thing in the film worth seeing, though, which is Mel Gibson doing what he imagines to be a Scottish accent. Hilarious.

The Hours (2002)

magnificent

[10/10 · 16 October 2006]

The film exposes the cultural straitjackets of two separate periods of the 20th century and weaves them together with a third, more liberated and contemporary setting, to create one interconnected story.

Nicole Kidman gives an excellent portrayal of a distracted, haunted, depressed Virginia Woolf. Stephen Dillane gives a beautifully understated performance as her husband Leonard, desperate not to show his desperation. Meryl Streep does very well in a complex role and creates one of the best scenes in the film opposite Jeff Daniels. Suffice to say - well acted throughout. But what distinguishes this film is the magical way it discovers interconnectedness between the lives of the characters and the life of Woolf's fictional character, Mrs Dalloway. I don't want to say too much about that as I think it is better experienced than described.

In conclusion: Intelligently constructed, superbly casted and acted. Judicious use of quality music. Deeply moving. Gripping and enthralling from beginning to end.

Crash (I) (2004)

superb

[10/10 · 19 January 2006]

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened". Sir Winston Churchill.

This is a film about those moments. It's about epiphany, in the non-religious sense. The characters are revealed to us, and then we see them caught up in some event - for each of them, an event which runs totally contrary to their nature, beliefs and identity. An event which challenges them in powerful and extreme ways. And thankfully, I think their view of the world is permanently transformed - they don't hurry off as if nothing ever happened.

I loved this film. It's well acted, immersive, thought-provoking and full of surprises. The characters are portrayed with great sympathy, I had no difficulty understanding and relating to their dilemmas. In fact the whole thing is done with such skill that the emotional impact on me seemed almost as much as it would have been on the characters themselves.

I have not seen a better film from 2005 and I doubt whether you have either.

The Constant Gardener (2005)

disappointing

[5/10 · 14 January 2006]

Good points: well acted.

Bad points: Sets you up to believe certain things that turn out later not to be true, like many films with twists in the plot - but this film does it in a very heavy-handed way which made me feel manipulated and emotionally disengaged. I don't know if it was just the cinema where I watched it, but the colours sometimes seemed to be wrong and sometimes the quality of the image seemed poor. Unconvincing in places. I like Pete Postlethwaite, but I don't think he can do African accents very well. Despite the film being too long, there were places where I thought characters and events were not adequately explained. Rapid changes in shot used much too often for my liking. OK for people with an attention span measured in milliseconds, I guess.

The Hole (2001)

gripping

[8/10 · 4 January 2005]

Engaging, dark, disturbing. I thought it portrayed the psychopathic mentality very well. There could have been more twists and turns in the plot, but I found the fact that there weren't made the film that bit more unusual, that bit less Hollywood.

The film descends through layers. What at first seems like a bit of youthful mischief is unpeeled like an onion, showing ever darker and more sinister motives.

Left me feeling unsettled and hoping I never get caught up in the evil plans of any psychopaths out there.

I thought Desmond Harrington shone, and whereas the other actors were good, they were sometimes unconvincing.... but to be honest, being reminded that I was just watching a film was no bad thing.

Intimacy (2001)

One for the Film Studies class.

[18 March 2003]

A disturbing, theatrical, thought-provoking, difficult-to-watch film which revolves around a sexual relationship between two people who almost never talk to each other. There is passion but no intimacy in this relationship, in fact there is no intimacy between any of the characters in this film. The male character begins to yearn intimacy, but the female character seems content with 'meaningless' sex. Overall the film is a dark and uncomfortable study, well acted but a bit too "arty" for my liking.

Baraka (1992)

fantastic

[10/10 · 18 March 2003]

This is a moving film, with beautiful photography. I could not recommend it highly enough! I think many of the critics on this site have missed the point of what Baraka has to say. Yes, we know about modern medicine, and electricity, and what the Romans have done for us. Baraka isn't some Luddite, back-to-nature manifesto. It is simply an emotional connection with some of the more remarkable features of Earth and humanity in the late 20th Century. Some of it is beautiful, some of it is sad, some of it is awesome, some of it is messed up. If we had to send a documentary about our planet to an alien race, without the use of language, Baraka would be perfect. This film will not stroke your ego or give you some action adventure hero to identify with. What it will give you, if you have any sense of wonder left in your cynical 21st century head, is a spellbinding, spine-tingling, goosebumpy look at your own world.