Posted on August 19th, 2012 by Zettel Film Reviewer
Tweet The Bourne Legacy – Tony Gilroy Fast, furious and slick. Gilroy’s extends the Bourne franchise neatly with enough narrative linkage to the absent Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) and the ending of The Bourne Ultimatum to carry credibility and engage us in the exploits of Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) number 5 operative in […]
Filed under: 4 stars, Action, Drama, General, Hollywood, Sci-Fi, Thriller, Tony Gilroy | No Comments »
Posted on June 2nd, 2012 by Zettel Film Reviewer
Tweet Prometheus – Ridley Scott When did the octopus first become the template for space-monsters? I get why: they carry all the repulsiveness of the snake – multiplied by 8; and they are very what we might call grapho-genic. Wave the arms about a lot and our imagination comfortably believes in flying octopi […]
Filed under: 3 star, Action, Drama, Fantasy, General, Hollywood, Horror, Ridley Scott, Sci-Fi | No Comments »
Posted on October 8th, 2011 by Zettel Film Reviewer
Tweet Melancholia – Lars Von Trier Bookend Malik’s Tree of Life with Melancholia and you’ve got the world covered: from beginning to end. Malik’s conception makes more sense, for having brilliantly conjured a representation of the creation of the world, then his narrative has somewhere to go. Von Trier’s film if not Maliks’ graphic equal, is none the less […]
Filed under: 3 star, Drama, Fantasy, General, Lars von Trier, Philosophical, Sci-Fi | No Comments »
Posted on August 12th, 2011 by Zettel Film Reviewer
Tweet Super 8 – J.J.Abrams A Starbucks movie: all the ingredients; efficiently served hot; looks good; tastes ok in an anonymous kind of way; guaranteed quality; and absolutely predictable – it just tastes nothing like real coffee. Sacrilegious though it may be: is Spielberg a good enough director to warrant this kind of derivative homage? Ok […]
Filed under: 3 star, Drama, General, Hollywood, J J Abrams, Sci-Fi | No Comments »
Posted on February 11th, 2011 by Zettel Film Reviewer
Tweet Never Let Me Go – Mark Romanek Ilie Nastase, after he had been overwhelmed by an impossibly young Bjorn Borg (20) in the 1976 Wimbledon final, was asked why he had lost. Ruefully Nastase replied, “We’re all playing tennis out there – I don’t know what he’s playing.” Carey Mulligan’s fellow actors could be […]
Filed under: 4 stars, Drama, Extended essay, Fantasy, Mark Romanek, Sci-Fi | No Comments »
Posted on November 13th, 2010 by Zettel Film Reviewer
Tweet Skyline – Colin and Greg Stausse Sci-Fa not Sci-Fi: science farce not science fiction. Final score: Latex 10 – Literacy 0. Graphic designers Colin and Greg Strausse (Avatar, Iron Man2, 2012 etc) should have stuck to their day job. As directors, well where should one start? Everything in this movie is derivative and deeply […]
Filed under: 1 star, Action, Colin Strausse, General, Greg Strausse, Humorous, Sci-Fi | No Comments »
Posted on February 4th, 2010 by Zettel Film Reviewer
TweetFilm, performance, screenplay, art Technical, Effects, Art direction Avatar – James Cameron Avatar sucks: the bambification of an aboriginal narrative. A sentimentalised pastiche of a Native American stereotype. The Na’vi sound like Hollywindians and worship an Earth-mother who looks like a fibre-optic willow tree spiritually reified by tinsellated dandelion-seed-like Christmas tree baubles that slo-mo around […]
Filed under: 1 star, Action, Drama, Fantasy, General, Hollywood, Humorous, Sci-Fi | No Comments »
Posted on September 24th, 2009 by Zettel Film Reviewer
Tweet District 9 – Neill Blomkamp The science is risible: the fiction banal. District 9 is a good B movie with pretensions; and like all good B movies, it rattles along at a pace fast enough for you to almost forgive the cheap n’ cheerful costumes, make-up, special effects and frequently clunky dialogue. A docu-drama, […]
Filed under: 3 star, Action, Extended essay, Fantasy, Philosophical, Sci-Fi | No Comments »
Posted on December 14th, 2008 by Zettel Film Reviewer
Tweet The Day The Earth Stood Still – Scott Derrickson Keanu Reeves is an Alien: it’s not often you get to write a sentence with three different meanings that is true whichever of them you apply. As a description of Keanu’s role in this re-make of the 50’s Sci-Fi classic it is factually true; as […]
Filed under: 2 star, Action, Hollywood, Humorous, Sci-Fi, Scott Derrickson | No Comments »
Posted on October 4th, 2008 by Zettel Film Reviewer
Tweet The Island – Director Michael Bay Pure Hollywood. With all that means. Good and bad. A good idea, pared down to the bare essentials; razor-sharp editing, some of the best choreographed action sequences to date; and good performances. May knows how to make a satisfying commercial product. Thankfully this is more The Rock than […]
Filed under: 3 star, Drama, General, Hollywood, Michael Bay, Philosophical, Romance, Sci-Fi | No Comments »