300 2

I recently watched the second 300 movie Rise of an Empire. I cant say I have been looking forward to seeing this particularly but there isn't much on at the moment.

Before the showing they previewed a couple of extended scenes to which one audience member ran out of the screening with his hands over his ears to avoid any spoilers (it wasn't me). Captian America 2 looks amazing I'm really excited for this. The first film was good up until he became Captain America then they didnt really seem to know what to do with him and it went a bit rubbish. But this looks great cant wait!

So 300 its okay not great but not bad either. Its set before during and after the first film and follows the larger events of the Persians invasion. Its a bit odd in that one of its messages is that the first film is dumb by regurly referencing the events of the first film and telling you the characters and events are dumb. This is odd because this isnt a particularly clever film and doesnt seem to have a whole lot to say either.

The reason this is elevated to okay rather than bad is Eva Green who is amazing she is by far the best aspect of 300. Her performance is incredible she absolutely blows every other actor off the screen with her portrayal of the villainous Artemisia. It is worth watch 300 just to see Eva Green. The other characters are just buff men holding swords hitting one another. There is very little to the other characters in this they really are only in the film for the fighting. Which is the main reason I imagine people go to see this. From that aspect this is good, the action is entertaining although the CG blood is very poor and definitely takes you out of the experience of enjoying the film.

I really liked that the film was mostly set at Sea as there doesn't seem to be many naval war films around so that was a memorable aspect of the film. The other memorable moment of the film is Themistocles (Sullivan Stapelton the main hero) secret weapon towards the end, this made me laugh as its pretty stupid!

As I've written this I'm going to upgrade my opinion if this film to a very positive okay, still not good. I wouldn't buy the DVD but if it was on Netflix I would add it to my watch list although I'm not sure how quickly it would get watched!

Robocop 14

So it's been ages since I last went to the cinema but on Friday I went to check out the new Robocop film.

It follows officer Alex Murphy who is a tough undercover cop trying to solve a case with his partner Lewis. After a failed attempt to arrest crime boss Antoine Vallon he orders a hit on Marphy as revenge. A minion plants a car bomb on Murphy's car resulting in him being hospitalised with extreme injuries. His Wife agrees to have him turned into to a cyborg police officer named Robocop. 

The film is okay the action scenes are good similar to GI Joe or any number of superhero films where a meta human fights Robot or big Robots. There's a fun shoot out pitting Robocop against an army of drones and a fine fight against a bunch of ED209s. The second attempted arrest of of Vallon is provides a shoutout in the dark lit mostly by gun fire. This is serviceable but nothing special it reminded me of Hit Girls rescue of KickAss from the movie KickAss except it lacked the same emotional impact or the excitement of the underdog overcoming the odds. Vallon was unfortunately very underdeveloped and had little interaction with Murphy or Robocop due to his hands of nature so there was little reason to get emotionally invested in Robos pursuit. 

When I first wrote this I totally forgot to even mention Joel Kinnaman so I guess he turned in a largely forgettable performance. To be fair to him he was fine at pretending to be a robot and his voice was good though not as good as Peter Wellers. 

Other than the action which for an action movie was a bit thin on the ground especially when compared to all the debating and discussion about man versus machine. I really enjoyed Gary Oldman as the scientist/doctor who felt torn over his actions in the creation of Robocop. The rest of the characters were a little bland Micheal Keaten was fine, Jay Burchil provided a couple of smiles as did Micheal K Williams as Lewis. Jackie Earle Hayley was an interesting and enjoyable character who I would have liked to have seen more of. Robocops Wife and Son have a larger role in this film though other than looking good Abbie Cornish did little other than blubber her way from scene to scene. Although there was ample time to allow everyone an opportunity to shine non of the characters really stood out as memorable. 

There were a handful of propagand broadcasts sprinkled throughout hosted by pro robot supporter Sam Jackson. These fell a bit flat for me as they were to similar to actual news broadcasts that can be seen on Fox News US though not as extreme. 

The tone of the film throughout is very serious and pleased with itself for having digs at US foreign policy near the start a couple of stolen lines from the previous Robo film, a dig at Transformers and other various bits of head nodding to the previous film. 

As I stated at the start Robocop 2014 is okay though lacks anything that stands out as new or memorable best just to wait for it to be on Netflix.

If you do have Netflix just watch actual RoboCop as it is miles better than RoboCop 14. The characters are better, the hero is more tragic, the action is far more memorable, there is a very genuine sense of danger for our heroes as the villains are totaly mental, the film is witty, smart and just plain entertaining! There is also an actual point to the existence of RoboCop in this version. Detriot is totally going to help it seems like a genuinely scary place to live and the police clearly cant cope. So they produce RoboCop to try to clean up the streets. In comparison the new film seems to just want to make him for the sake of making him. As theres no sense that crime is out of control or particularly a problem in this films future detroit.

So go watch actual RoboCop!!!

American Hustle

Going in to watching American Hustle I knew very little about the film. I hadn't seen the trailer, though I had seen the poster so I knew that I fancied Jennifer Laurence and Amy Adams and this looked like a film that had been produced to win some awards.

Upon arrival at the cinema I had still not received my Orange Wednesday code which was disappointing, my back up was to use my Odeon card as I thought I had accumulated enough points for a free visit, WRONG :( I was 30 points short due to the price increase. The Birmingham Odeon now costs a disgusting £7.95.

The trailers prior to the film starting were all acting films, heavy on emotion and looks to the camera for an Oscar.

American Hustle see's Christian Bale and Amy Adams play a pair of Con Artists who get caught out by Bradley Coopers FBI agent. Who then forces them to perform a bigger con in an attempt to catch out crooked politicians and Mobsters.

The film is slow to get going and I found myself drifting off a couple of times at the start. Once it did pick up I quite enjoyed the movie. The story is fairly simple and the con is straight forward and easy to follow. The story aside this is a film to check out for the characters and performances. The five main characters are all great to watch, I would have liked to have seen more of Jennifer Laurence as Bales bonkers wife. I liked all the hair styles particularly Bales hair construction scene and Coopers curlers. 

There was a distinct lack of violence resulting in no sense of danger for the characters, at no point did it feel like there was any risk for anyone on screen. Although I really enjoyed watching the characters and the performances I didn't really care about any of them leaving me cold to the films conclusion. Criticisms aside check out this film it's entertaining, with come good humour, although nothing amazing.