More Scattered Pictures…

I’ve been pretty lazy about reviewing the movies I’ve seen recently, I mean this post has been sitting in drafts for about 4 weeks now… More often than not it’s either been DVD’s or downloads I’ve been watch, we don’t get out to the cinema much, but we drove up to Raleigh to take in the new Harry Potter movie in IMAX 3D so this has prompted me to do quick, dirty reviews of the ones we’ve taken in in the last 3 or so months…

In no particular order.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Now, straight off I’ll say I’m not a fan of the books, I haven’t read a single page of one, I hadn’t seen any of the movies until a few years ago and if it wasn’t for the IMAX 3D part of this one, I prolly would have waited until the DVD came out. But that said I really enjoyed it.

Again that was probably because I didn’t know what was about to happen, I mean I know what’s going to happen but I enjoyed sitting there taking in every twist and turn shown on screen and not nitpicking what was left out. Anyways, Year 5 for Harry is his toughest yet, discredited by the Ministry of Magic following his encounter with Lord Voldermort at the end of the Goblet of Fire, now the dark lord is out to get him. To make matters worse, the Ministry is taking over at Hogwarts leaving Harry, Ron, Hermione and the rest of the children to fend for themselves in order to prepare for the upcoming battle…

This was great storytelling, and a great climactic fight at the end, wizards and witches squaring off left and right, Dumbledore against Voldermort, the whole shebang. I’m already looking forward to next year and the release of the Half-Blood Prince.

Hot Fuzz

What do you get when you add EVERY American cop action movie and place it in a sleepy English country village? It’s The Bill on steroids… And it’s awesome, seriously, seriously awesome.

Simon Pegg is in great form as a cop from London planted into an otherwise quiet village where people mysteriously go missing and murders are brushed under the carpet, all is not as it seems and when he busts the cover open it’s all guns blazing in a showdown of epic proportions…

The first half is an excellent build up, but the second half is so over the top you can’t help but enjoy it, and the amount of blood shed was quite surprising, even by Shaun of the Dead standards. If you enjoy utter carnage and mindless violence and about a million and one spent bullet casings, you can’t go wrong with this, probably the best movie I’ve seen all year.

Spider-Man 3

I loved Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2, and I wanted to love this one too but unfortunately it slides down to the “meh, I guess I liked it” pile. It’s no secret that I’m a Spider-Man fan so the prospect of seeing Venom on screen as too much for me to even think about, but now after seeing it I’m slightly let down.

Sure, they had the basics down, but the black suit just wasn’t right, a black version of the original Spider-Man suit it should not be (as the black suit was modelled after Spider-Woman’s suit). And even though it’s supposed to turn Peter Parker towards the dark side, he ends up a whiney little emo kid dancing in jazz clubs, what’s up with that? Then Venom arrives and they proceed to show Topher Grace’s face as much as possible… Killed any enjoyment for me stone dead.

Oh yeah, and the story was kinda lame too, not good, not good by far.

Ocean’s Thirteen

Ocean’s Eleven was a very good movie, unfortunately Ocean’s Twelve got lost trying to keep everyone on screen at the same time and Ocean’s Thirteen falls at this hurdle too. Don’t get me wrong, it better than Twelve, but it just seems like the same old same old all over again.

This follows the same formula, a bad-ish guy wrongs one of the Eleven, they set him up for some payback and we all have some near misses and various hi-jinks along the way. Though if you’ve seen Eleven you could probably give this one a miss, it’s a near enough remake…

Children of Men

Where better to set a movie of a dystopian future than Britain (see also: A Clockwork Orange and V For Vendetta)? This one is set in 2027, the world is left mourning after the world’s youngest person has been murdered. Women have been infertile for 18 years and nearly every civilization other than Great Britain has crumbled. England has become a neo-fascist state that has outlawed immigration and murders refugees in prison camps.

Put it this way, it starts off with a long sequence that ends in a cafe blowing up and doesn’t let go from there, it has lots of long takes (or crafty editing to make them look longer than they are) and it’s pretty awesome to see such cinematography put to use.

Highly recommended if you like your future grim and gritty and under the boot of totalitarian governments, and who doesn’t?