Reviews by Electrophorus Dragon

The first half, set in the harsh marine training camp is excellent - characters, suspense, and a shocking ending. The second, set in Vietnam (or London Docklands, with Sea King helicopters taking the place of Hueys), for me is disappointingly clichéd, and lacks the punch of the first half of the film. There are better Vietnam films out there - Platoon, Hamburger Hill, Tigerland.

When this first came out I saw the trailer and didn't fancy it. Then, it gradually became clear that it was getting almost unanimous critical praise, so I decided to go and see it. I didn't like it. I didn't hate it, I just came out at the end feeling absolutely nothing, as if I had been watching a blank screen for two hours.
However, the overwhelming critical consensus that this was a brilliant film, the seemingly endless awards/nominations, and recommendations from friends convinced me that I must have been wrong. Maybe I had just not been in the right mood at the cinema... So i gamely rented the DVD and sat down determined to like it this time. And, probably for this reason, I did find the first hour more engaging than I had done on first viewing. After that, gradually, the blankness began to set in again and by the end the same indifference I had felt before had returned.
So, i give up - hats off to all those who like it, I hope you continue to do so, but I just don't get it. It seems to me a very dull film about a very dull subject, based on the glib ironic concept that the founder of the world's biggest social network can't connect with the girl he really wants to (an irony which is, incidentally, totally fictional). It doesn't really say much about Facebook itself, other than that it's a bit shallow and superficial (shock revelation!) and as for the also unanimously praised 'whip-smart' dialogue - well, that was lost on me too; I maybe chuckled 2-3 times in 2 hours. Finally (and before I start ranting - I'm determined not to be one of these reviewers who gets FURIOUS when something they don't like is popular!) I felt that the film had no narrative climax. It really just trundles along (and you know where it's trundling to, as it's all told in flashback) until it gets to 2 hours and then sheepishly says 'Er... that's it now. Here are some captions about what happened to the characters after this bit, so you know it's the end.... er....Bye now'.
Ok, I'll stop now, that last bit is getting near to ranting territory. And anyway, why do I always feel more compelled to write reviews of things I don't like than things I do....? And why have I spent about 6 hours of my life (2 viewings + a couple of hours of reading internet reviews etc) trying to force myself to like something I never wanted to see in the first place?? What's wrong with me??
Ooh, end on a positive note: some good acting, especially Eisenberg and Timberlake I guess..

Visually stunning, with a thumping good soundtrack. I am afraid that is about all the positive things I can say. The story is complex, life force and little children being harnessed for their mental powers? The animation is beautiful, a soaring city of New Tokyo and the motorbikes are rather sexy. But I found the plot hard to follow and not very well explained at the end.

The characters especially the 'hero' called Canada, strange name for a Japanese lad, is a biker gang leader who relishes speed and violence. He is also a bully who picks on the weak. For some reason the character actors cast to convert the original Japanese to English, sound american, and look European. None of the characters aroused my sympathy even the love interest. she really did not seem to fit into the story. They are a bunch of lay-about punks who beat other biker gangs up, ride motorbikes, take drugs and loaf around.

There is a lot of violence, explosions and gun shots. Not that surprising for manga, but not overly graphic. I have seen more violent manga, and Akira is mild in comparison. The metamorphosis scene made me feel a tad queasy. I am not sure why it was there. It was pretty gross to watch.

This one will be probably not be re-watched. I can understand how manga is popular and I would not be surprised if Akira is considered to be a classic. But the complex storyline, unpleasant characters and confusing ending left me not cold but rather tepid.

I can never decide what my favourite film, book, album etc. of all time are, but this definitely isn't a great film. I was tempted to give it one star to try to counter out the ones that say it is.
There is some great camera work that's ahead of its time, and I especially remember one shot where the camera started off outside, passed through a skylight and seamlessly ended up showing an indoor scene with actors. But that's not enough to make a film great.

The storyline is nothing to write home about, the acting is like so many classics of the era - wooden - and some of the backdrops look like something from an amateur pantomime.

Michael Haneke once stated that the intention behind 'Funny Games' was that, if you couldn't watch it all the way through, then you didn't need to.

I'm not sure about that. I don't think I like the idea that a film director knows better than I do what I need to watch, or what I don't need to watch. I did watch 'Funny Games' all the way through, and it's a movie about two guys who torture a family to death. No more, no less. Michael Haneke may want to believe that it's some sort of endurance test or moral lesson for the viewer, but it's not. It's just a movie, and an arthouse movie at that. It changes nothing. If he'd wanted to change the way people think about violence, he should have been Paul Verhoeven, who had the commercial suss to make mainstream movies and the artistic daemon to make them so needlessly violent that they turned off mainstream audiences. Now that's a radical move, if you want one. And I'm still not sure that that changed anything, but at least it reached people who don't watch movies with subtitles.

It reminds me of John Cage's famous silent piece of music, "4' 33"". In that piece, a pianist refrains from playing the piano for four and a half minutes. Cage's intention was that the listener would start to regard the ambient sounds as music. The piece is normally performed in concert halls, and as a result, each performance ends up sounding the same: like a couple of hundred people trying to keep quiet. Chairs squeak, people cough, air conditiong systems buzz. What was meant as a radical gesture ends up being utterly predictable. 'Funny Games' is the same kind of thing; it's highly unlikely that anyone who watches it will be unaware of what the point of the movie is. Haneke is preaching to the converted, and I don't understand why everyone seems to think that that's such a great idea.

Why two stars rather than one? I'm not sure. Technical competence, maybe. Haneke makes condescending schlock and tells us that if we find it boring, then there's something wrong with us. Phooey. It's a movie. If he wants to save lives, he should volunteer for the Red Cross.

Incidentally, since I originally wrote this review I've found out that I am not alone in thinking 'Funny Games' idiotic. No less a filmmaker than Jacques Rivette (Paris Nous Appartient, Celine et Julie Vont En Bateau, La Belle Noiseuse, Histoire de Marie et Julien) called this film in a sensesofcinema.com interview 'a disgrace, just a complete piece of s***!'. Look it up if you don't believe me.

Seen this recently with my partner. And I have to say I was expecting more.

Kristen Stewart is as terrible as ever; she cannot act period. She is emotionless and dull to the point of no return. And carries the same old annoying pout throughout the entire feature. Someone pass the bucket!

Even Chris Hemsworth whom I normally quite enjoy seemed rather disinterested with his role here. I thought he was superb in Thor but in Snow white, I thought something was missing...

The saving grace of this movie is Charlize Theron who portrays the Queen. A brilliant convincing performance that made me smile every time she was on screen.

I am sure for every negative review this film gets it'll get ten positive and this is fine by me. I recommend you see it for yourself and make up your own mind but for me I'll give it one big miss. It started well but by halfway I had lost interest in the story and the characters, albeit for the queen.

Heat isn't just a thriller in the normal sense of the word: it's a saga and a monster of a film. With star turns from Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino as the leading actors, ably supported with the likes of Jon Voight, Val Kilmer, Wes Studi, Ashley Judd, and a young Natalie Portman, Heat tells the story of a cautious mastermind thief (DeNiro) and his crew (Voight, Kilmer, Tom Sizemore) as they try to pull off a $12 million bank heist, avenge a double-cross by a crooked investment broker (William Fichtner), and avoid the police, or "Heat". Leading the chase is Pacino, whose character admires DeNiro's style but is determined to bring him down.
Here's where Heat rises above other films of it's type. The criminals, who we're supposed to hate, are properly developed characters (especially DeNiro's affair with a graphic designer and Kilmer's problems with his wife), and you can't help but feel some sympathy for them and their situation. On the side of the police, Pacino's character is the only one that's fully developed, however as much of the action revolves around his battle of wits with DeNiro, and the toll it takes on their personal lives, this can be excused.

The only issue I have with the film is what comes with it. While the direction is excellent and the script very well-written, all you get on the DVD is scene selection and languages! For a film of this calibre, I couldn't help but feel cheated by the total lack of extras that it offers. Hopefully, though, Heat will be realised as a great saga of a film, and Mann will finally relinquish all that should have been placed on this DVD.

"Casino" is very much a companion film to "Goodfellas". It shares many of the same actors, De Niro and Pesci, the same director , the same epic length and the same general mobster theme. The action takes place in Vegas where De Niro's character runs a casino with the assistance of the violent and volatile Pesci.Sharon Stone plays DeNiro's ex hooker girlfriend and she in fact steals the show with a powerful performance. The acting throughout is immense and the plot is always entertaining and gripping. "Casino" is like a Vegas "Goodfellas" and it is as violent and foul mouthed as that film with several particularly unpleasant and gory sequences. Despite this I found "Casino" to be an excellent film,well worth another watch in my case. I first watched it back in 1996.

I had been looking forward to seeing this film again, but I think time has mellowed me somewhat. Very violent film, with really gruesome, bloodsoaked scenes. Al Pacino magnificent as usual, and very convincing in this role, but even he spoke as though he had a mouthful of marbles. At times his speech is almost impossible to understand. I felt as though much of the violence was gratuitous and could not watch the film at one sitting because it became monotonous. Couldn't help comparing this film to classics like Godfather, The Untouchables etc, and unfortunately Scarface does not compare.

Bought this political drama series through the second season largely based on recommendations that if I enjoyed the Danish crime series Forbrydelsen I would enjoy this as well. Also, it received some good reviews across The Pond. While the first season was good, and the acting and and production values excellent, the second season devolved quickly into primarily a relational melodrama, as do so many initially well done series here in the US. Some, as with an earlier reviewer, will enjoy this, but for me, the series has already lost its interest, and I would not recommend it to anyone looking for genuine political drama or meatier fare than the bourgeois plights and gripes of this series protagonists in season two.