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!!!

New year

During the Christmas period I've seen numerous top film lists being posted on Facebook, Twitter etc and have been asked what my favourites of the last year have been. Unfortunately I've struggled to give very comprehensive lists. Although I've been to the cinema loads over the last year roughly once a week I've forgotten most of them.

In the hopes of remedying this I am going to attempt to review each film I watch at the cinema, so I have a record of the films I've seen and to try to post blogs more regurly. I am also hoping to improve my ability to analyze and to articulate my thoughts on films more clearly. 

I think part of the reason I've struggled to be able to concisely list good and bad film from the last year is in part due to the shear number of similar films that have been released over the last year. I definitely felt like my interest was flagging due to the number of films that were filled with green screen animation. From talking too others they seemed less bothered by this than me. So maybe this is down to my interest in animation so am more aware of it. I mostly enjoy entertainment films but the number of movies I saw with explosions, robots, monsters, spaceships etc just became a bit of a blur. 

I'm tired of watching films where a couple of actors are stood in front of a green screen waving sticks at air only for the locations and extras to be put in later. This Christmas I saw the Hobbit and 47 Ronin. Although the Hobbit is the better film it could definitely learn something from 47 Ronin. Although the green screens of New Zealand are very beautiful it makes a big difference when the sets and locations are real. 47 Ronin did use CG but it also had a lots of fantastic practical sets and the colours were great. Unfortunately the fights were a total mess lots of close ups, poor lighting, choppy editing it would have been great if the camera had pulled back and just enjoyed the movement of the choreography. There were lots of other problems but the point I'm trying I make is the Hobbit coming at the end of a year of loads of "digital stuff" just being thrown unrelentingly at the screen was just to much.

At the moment the films I'm looking forward to the most are the Wolf of Wallstreet and Her. I'm sure I will see lots of Blockbusters again this year but will be approaching with caution. So hopefully this time next year I will have a big list of good and bad films I've seen and a blog with regular updates.