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Reviews
Red Dawn (2012)
Awful beyond imagining!
I'm not going to write a long review, because... well, quite frankly, this movie doesn't deserve my time... I'm here for one reason, and one reason only; to implore, warn, and beseech all fans of the original movie to avoid this garbage at all costs.
I can almost hear Harry Dean Stanton shouting "Avenge me! Avenge me" at the criminal way this story has been murdered! There simply is no good reason to waste your time with this movie, when the original beats it in spades... I know many traditionalist movie fans will say this about any given remake, regardless of its quality, but I'm definitely not one of those people... Trust me, give this one a miss.
Robin Hood (2010)
Dreadful, truly dreadful.
There is a South Park episode where an Alien asks the boys what form he should take to be more pleasing. Inevitably, the boys get him to transform into a giant taco that sh*ts ice-cream. Throughout the entire 2 hours and 30 odd minutes of this Robin Hood movie, I was willing such a transformation on the script... not for the movie to turn into a Giant ice-cream excreting taco (although that would have been an improvement) but into a proper Robin Hood movie. Errol Flynn did it way back in 1938, Kevin Costner did it reasonably well, and even Mel Brooks managed to get a cast of B & C movie stars to pull off a half decent comedy version... So why not Ridley Scott with a truck full of money and a cast of A-listers? It simply beggars belief how badly this movie fails at being a Robin Hood movie... It blows so hard, that if it were to transform into anything, it would be a giant French horn with extra blowy bits attached.
One could be forgiven for thinking a 2½ hour movie should, by definition, be a bit slow in getting started, but this movie managed to turn slow-starting into a laborious uphill struggle that dragged-on to the end credits. When I say that nothing of note happens in this movie, I don't just mean it as a flippant exaggeration to make a point; I really mean, nothing happens. Rideley Scott must surely have been paid up front by the producers, because the movie simply drifts from one dull scene to the next without much direction and little in the way of interest or entertainment to fill the scenes.
Much has been made of the epic failure of Crowe's accent, with him even accusing critics of having dead ears. Well, I'm here to tell you (as someone from the North of England) that his accent truly is awful. It drifts from Manc to a hint of Scouse, sometimes wondering into Irish or even back to his native Kiwi, but rarely hitting the proper South Yorkshire or Nottinghamshire sound. As off-putting as this dire attempt at the local accent was (and it truly was off-putting) one is left wondering why he even bothered when the head of the Sherwood Forest feral kids, someone supposedly born and raised in Nottinghamshire, spoke with a broad Northern Irish accent. Crowe didn't spurt away his credibility in Gladiator by trying to fake a Latin Accent, so I'm wondering what sort of brain wave inspired this effort.
The movie attempts a climax of sorts with World War II landing craft (replete with flat bottoms and front opening ramps) and a hail of arrows rather than machine guns. The only thing missing was Tom Hanks, Vin Diesel and a load of medieval gliders and flame throwers.
In summation: Dire.
Ten Dead Men (2008)
Brilliantly Awful
Ross Boyask & Phil Hobden have created, in this movie, a work so awful that it is utterly compelling.
If you remember the dreadful photo stories from the girly teen comics of the 80's, (so brilliantly parodied in UK adult comic Viz) then imagine a moving picture version with violence, and you will be most of the way toward understanding the feel and presentation of this film.
The storyline itself, is a poor version of The Crow, without all the coolness of course, and without the exceptional feeling of empathy for the main character. Where The Crow had dark, brooding, Gothic brilliance, with a classic and memorable score, this movie failed at everything... except at being bad, that is. If revenge story lines were drinks, The Crow would be a fine vintage Champagne, whereas 10 Dead Men would be p*ss flavoured water.
Where it fails in the storyline department, it fails equally as spectacularly in the action genre department. The fight scenes are patently contrived and badly executed, and the gore effects brilliantly poor.
The acting itself is so appallingly bad, that the viewer is forced to consider the possibility that Boyask abandoned the traditional auditioning route, and instead opted for the less orthodox method of approaching likely looking characters in bars, and asking them if they wanted to be in his movie. Seriously, the acting is so bad, that at times even the walking looks strained and put-on.
Doug Bradley's narration seals the deal. It comes across as a badly written afterthought; an addition to the moving picture storyboard. It's almost as if the director realised that the acting talent within the cast pool was utterly incapable of putting the rather tired storyline across, and threw it in as a necessary evil. The movie is however, all the better for it.
And therein lies the brilliance in this movie. It is so unintentionally bad, that it compels you to keep watching, right up to the rather predictable and clichéd ending. One needs to look to the deliberately awful genius of Peter Jackson's 1987 movie "Bad Taste" to see this sort of dreadful. Where movies deliberately made this bad miss the mark of awful by the very act of trying to be such, this movie succeeds in spades entirely by accident... It is that which makes this movie worth watching.
I would have loved to have given this movie a 10 vote, if for no other reason than the maker's sheer lack of shame for releasing it. In the end, I gave it one star, because awful REALLY IS the best description for it... and that's why you should watch it.
Be Kind Rewind (2008)
Promising idea badly executed
Michel Gondry came up with an outstandingly good idea with this movie, and then proceeded to ruin it decisively.
The movie starts out slowly, with far too little character introduction, proceeds through an amusing mid-section, and ends in a flurry of artistic nonsense desperately unsuited to the intended genre. Only the mid section (the making of the sweded movies itself) lives up to the comedic potential of the concept.
The ending is utterly abysmal, and will almost certainly leave many, if not most viewers, wondering why Gondry felt the need to finish his movie by injecting it with an overdose of anesthetic rather than writing a proper ending.
An unfulfilling and dreary movie that will make you laugh in too few places, and leave you with the realisation that those laughs don't balance-out the dire ending.