Sneezes spread diseases

Carriers (2009)

Carriers is a (presumably) low budget movie about survivors of a global plague that has wiped out most of the population. Right from the get go Carriers has excellent atmosphere and tension, the desolate landscape and empty urban centres have a really haunting affect. It is an ugly world and the main protagonists are faced with some horrible situations along the way. Dark things have happened and the present does not look much better.

There are some good performances from the cast and it is hard to find something to dislike about this film. Confrontations are largely played for tension and not cheap violence, there are no easy way outs handed to the characters and we are slowly fed information about the world to keep us interested.

I am going to give Carriers a top end 4/5 and a good recommendation, it falls short of a 5/5 as I do not think it will be a film you want to watch over and over again and while it is very good at being the film it is not anything more than that.

Not a movie?

The Pillars of the Earth (2010)

Pillars is a TV mini series that was produced by a bunch of international TV companies, it tells the story of the building of a cathedral in a fictional part of England during the The Anarchy in the 12^th century and is based on a best selling novel. I have not read the book but I sincerely hope that it is a lot better than this adaptation. 

The best thing I could say about Pillars of the Earth is that the sets, costumes and locations are pretty good. Not much TV or film gets made about the medieval period which is a real shame as there is a wealth of potential in the period. There are more wars and civil wars than you can shake a stick at, apocalyptic diseases and all sorts of other shenanigans that could make for great drama. You also have the large part that religion plays in the everyday life of all people during the period and you would think that this would be an area that Pillars draws strongly on, unfortunately there is little real investigation of the topic and it is more of a plot device than anything else.

There are clichés abound, wooden acting, terrible dialogue, ham fisted tying up of loose ends and random changes in the characters that never get explained. I really wish I could have liked this series but it leaves very little to like. For putting out 8 hours worth of piffle it is really tempting to rate Pillars as a 1/5 but as previously mentioned the production quality is good enough for a 2/5.

Brrraaainnnnsssssss

Zombieland (2009)

After the success of Shaun of the dead it is not surprising someone else decided to have go at a zombie comedy and it is also not surprising that there are going to be comparisons. There is not really a lot to say about Zombieland really, obviously it is not as good as Shaun but it is not bad either. Some of the sequences are really good, Columbus is a decent protagonist and Woody Harrelson provides an above average side kick.

The best part of the film is clearly the cameo in the second half which is hard to say much about without spoiling it really but suffice to say when a cameo is the best part of the film you have to wonder if the rest is lacking a little in substance. There are other laughs to be had along the way but the film lacks the depth of Shaun and while I do think that it is a 4/5 it is on the lower end of 4s.

Disaster strikes?

2012 (2009)

Essentially 2012 is everything you would expect it to be, CGI and cheese. If you have ever seen a disaster movie then you have already seen 2012, it may have been a different scenario but pretty much everything that happens is fairly obvious as is who is going to survive once all the characters have been introduced. Where 2012 does differ from your average big Hollywood disaster film is that it is not offensively American-centric, there are actually other nations in the world and the US president does not just dictate to everyone else how stuff is going to go down but other than that the plot does not have much going for it. There seem to be a few minor plot holes but they don't massively break anything and lets face it if you are going to watch a blockbuster like this you should not really be expecting to have to engage your brain anyway.

The other main strength of disaster movies is always the special effects and I have to say that CGI has sort of killed the genre for me. It is really hard to be impressed when you know how much can be done by CGI these days. In the past there was some mystique about how something was achieved in a film but these days you know it is all just some actors in front of a green screen. I also think that CGI is not completely 100% photo realistic yet and maybe that is some of the reason why heavy use of CGI in every action sequence like in 2012 stands out so much. Right now I think we have got to the point where CGI is just a crutch for some directors and does detract at times.

The other issue I have with the direction of 2012 is while we are not getting to Michael Bay levels of flash cutting it does go too far that way at some points in the film. When there is something cool happening lets show it on the screen please not cut, cut, cut, cut and try to give the viewer an epileptic fit.

Overall I think this is a pretty average film that manages to miss the pitfalls of being stupid enough to annoy the viewer so I give it a 3/5.

Introduction

I watch a lot of movies so I have decided to start keeping a record of what I watch and post short reviews on each movie. No doubt my comments and insights will be of great interest to many and that lots of people have been eagerly anticipating such an outlet for my great wisdom. I will score every movie out of 5 and the score will roughly mean something along these lines:

5/5 – Amazing, possibly perfect. There probably will not be many of those.

4/5 – Good.

3/5 – Average, neither really good or really bad. Worth watching but not worth seeking out.

2/5 – Poor, usually this will be films that just have no plot or reason to watch them.

1/5 – Bad, this will be saved for films that are not only not worth watching but also badly made.

I hate spoilers so will try and keep my reviews as spoiler free as possible but I mainly watch films that have been released at least a couple of years ago so I do not think it is a major issue but you have been warned!

So to get us started I will kick off with a double bill of Thomas Harris adaptations.

Manhunter (1986)

This is the first adaptation of one of Harris's novels and was directed by Michael Mann. Manhunter is based on the book Red Dragon but a film with dragon in the title had bombed at the box office the previous year so apparently the title had to be changed (I'm sure it made a huge difference). I have not read the book so I can not really say how faithful of an adaptation it is and I guess some criticisms I have of the film will be relevant to the book too.

The film focuses on the character of Will Graham an FBI agent who previously retired after a run in with the now infamous Dr. Lecktor but is convinced to come back to help hunt down another serial killer. Graham is a really interesting character and has enough depth to base the film around but it does seem to come at the cost of exploring the antagonist The Tooth Fairy a little more. The fact that Lecktor knows the killer seemed like a bit of a contrivance to me and the soundtrack dates the film slightly as it is pretty obviously 80s synthesiser.

I was a big fan of the TV show Millennium and Graham's character clearly served as an inspiration for that which my colour my view slightly but on the whole the film stays fairly realistic and does not get too gimmicky which seems to be a major pitfall of these type of thrillers so I think that it deserves a 4/5 score. It's on the lower end of a 4 but certainly an above average film.

Silence of the lambs (1991)

Dr. Lecter is back, with a new spelling of his surname and taking control of this sequel that isn't really a sequel as it is made by different people. Anthony Hopkins dominates the film despite his short screen time and is infinitely more creepy than Brian Cox's performance in Manhunter, although to be fair he has a huge amount more to work with in this script.

Where the previous film was all about Graham this film really has it's strength in the relationship between Lecter and Starling, while this is the film's strength it also comes to dominate the film as does Lecter and really we start to wonder about the relevance of the plot a bit. Buffalo Bill, the killer being hunted could have done with a bit more exploration and depth, what really made him the way he is? Again of all the serial killers in all the world Lecter just happens to know this one too, makes you wonder if they have a yearly convention where they all meet up in Vegas or something.

While Silence of the lambs does have it's flaws I think it's good enough for another 4/5 and certainly worth watching. Anthony Hopkins certainly deserved the Oscar he got for his performance.