Slash said:
Cloverfield
This is seriously one of the best films ever. Its not a conventional plot and its not a plot that clearly shows a defined movement of whats happening but its just simply fun to watch.
It's not one of the best films ever - sorry
There are two major issues with the film.
1. You don't care if any of the protagonists live or die. Like Blair Witch, they're all irritating enough for you to cheer when they bite the dust.
2. The film is too much a "standard cliche horror" with a sparkly wrapping. I think the idea of the film is excellent, and the documentary style way of telling it is superb - particularly near the beginning of the film (the first ten - fifteen minutes of post party 'action' are very good indeed).
The problem is that after that, it becomes very transparent that the camera technique is being deliberately used to create "standard cliche horror". It pulls the realism out of the film for me - dumps me out of that suspension of disbelief it had me in.
It
is fun and it
is good, but it's far from great.
Best do some catch up reviews actually.
Platoon - One of those films I saw on release when I was a teen. I loved it back then. It was full of everything a teen could want. Swearing, violence, blood, violence, drugs, violence, a serious message, violence, violence and a bit more violence.
It's a really odd one to revisit actually. I remember how touching the film was, lots of emotion. And it's still something of an emotional roller coaster. However, it seemed to me now to be a bit of a 'big pot o'stuff' on the stove.
As a teen, I loved the needless violence (it's not needless it's portraying 'Nam). Now, it sickens me. I've grown up and understand that this is a representation of things that really happened.
As a teen, I thought I was so in touch with my feelings to understand the tensions and to feel when Elias goes down to the psychotic Barnes. Now it feels a bit cheesy and over the top. Like Oliver Stone needed to have a bad guy/good guy thread in the film to give the audience a story to cling to.
As a teen, the message of the mess of the war and how screwed up it made everyone, yadda yadda yadda appealed to my teen sense of righteousness. Now, it all feels a bit ham fisted. It may be that over the years, having seen a lot of Vietnam films, you become a bit tired of the whole "what were we doing and how many people did we screw over?" message. I think maybe it's the fact that I find Sheen really cloying and whiny - like he'd have survived five minutes in Apocalypse Now next to his daddy!
I do think it's still a good film, but it was on a teen pedestal. It's been knocked from what I'd have always said was one of the best films I'd seen to "pretty good". Ah well, the joys of mistakes in your youth
Still worth a 4/5
Next, the family watched
The day the Earth stood still. I'll quote madame_Furie
Madame_Furie said:
That was a rubbish ending! It didn't explain anything
It's okay my dear, the entire film was rubbish, you shouldn't have had high hopes for a good ending.
I am a fan of the original, and I don't object to remakes - as long as they're actually good. This had none of the charm of the original. The entire point of it seemed to be lost in some kind of swamp of script. The tension of the original with Klatu on the run, the quest to get him to change his mind - it all worked brilliantly. Thanks to the piece of oak board performance of Reeves, tension was in short supply - as was any sign of a decent script. Boys own adventure time with the brat struggling to work out the script.
It all went rapidly downhill with the "we have a cool scene where Gort destroys this, but for the rest of it the destruction will be according to plot needs" ending.
Churned out run of the mill pap, based on probably one of the best Sci-Fi B-Movies ever made. I'd give the original a 7/10, but the remake a 5/10.
Pap!
