Film Review - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (2011)

In this, the final installment of the Harry Potter series, Harry. Ron and Hermione are continuing their quests to destroy the Horcruxes which will in turn help to defeat the evil Lord Voldemort, but Voldemort and his followers are now descending on Hogwarts but the magical school won't go down without a fight and in the end, there can be only one.

If the Highlander reference is somewhat confusing I'll say it refers to the final battle between Harry and Voldemort which is the final showdown that ends this series and it does so very well indeed, the battle in Hogwarts which also helps to dominate much of the film is also beautifully staged with some very surprising moments.

But the reason it works so well is this: We actually care about the characters in it and that feeling permeated throughout the movie, in an age where we have movies like Transformers 3 where you have these big effects scenes full of elaborate camera shots and state of the art computer graphics and dialogue like "You didn't betray me, you betrayed yourself" but behind that is a hollow heart, one with no real love or genuine thought attached and as a result audiences don't have any reason to care about the action on screen, here that isn't a problem, we've invested so much into the main characters here that we want to see them succeed, to stand united as one and defeat evil once and for all and it's all brought together so wonderfully well and emotionally it's just as satisfying.

But in the end there can be only one and that is given due credence but I won't say too much more than that other than "One shall Stand, One shall Fall."

All in all, a very satisfying conclusion to a series that has come to mean so much to so many, strongly recommended, 4 out of 5.

PS: Hello to Jason Issacs!

Film Review - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (2010)

Part 1 of the final Harry Potter book the Deathly Hallows, darkness has descended upon the world, the evil lord Voldemort has captured the Ministry of Magic and ultimate power is within his grasp but somewhere out there, Harry, Ron and Hermione are racing to destroy the sacred Horcruxes and end his reign of evil.

After the plodding dullness that was the last HP film the Half Blood Prince, Deathly Hallows 7A captures a tone of darkness and despair rarely seen in a blockbuster, you truly get the sense that no one, nowhere is safe from the evil that plagues the world, in a way it reminds you of the Two Towers which had a similar feeling of darkness and dread, of a world where evil has real power and good men can do nothing.

But as for our valiant heroes, all three actors have really grown in confidence of their roles, Emma Watson in particular who shows real strength in the face of near overwhelming odds, but they all go on in their quest knowing that they must do all they can to defeat evil once and for all.

All in all, part of a tale that is worth your time but the battle is not yet over, one more remains, 4 out of 5.

Film Review - The Green Hornet (2011)

Based off the comic strip, The Green Hornet stars Seth Rogen as Britt Reid, son of a famous newspaper tycoon played by Tom Wilkinson who dies after a bee sting and is left in charge of his empire, but one night he gets the idea to become a superhero with his aide Kato played by Jay Chou and run the story in his paper, but a local mob boss played by Christoph Waltz may have other ideas.

Okay, onto the good parts of the movie and they are some of the individual gags and chase scenes, for the most part these work on their own and the chase scenes are well directed but unfortunately they only work as individual scenes.

However the glue that holds this movie together; the script simply doesn't work at all, going from boorish to action to emotion as it goes on without any rhyme or reason to tie it all together and make the audience give two shits about anything happening on screen, as for the performances Rogen comes across as really annoying for most of the movie and just does nothing more than the stereotypical "overgrown man child who must learn to grow up well after he should've" routine that is REALLY annoying me to no end and Waltz really just does nothing more than the cartoon villain with his "I finally have Gadget exactly where I want him, hehehehahahaha" dialogue that is again very very annoying while Chou is given the impossible task of carrying the whole movie on his shoulders which he does rather well I must say, one can't help but think that if it wasn't for him the whole film would've been a total disaster.

All in all, as I said it has some good points but the script just doesn't work, 1 out of 5.

Film Review - Footrot Flats (1987)

Footrot Flats is based from the famous New Zealand cartoon strip that also featured in Australian newspapers and the story here is that Wal voiced by John Clarke is desperate to both impress his girl and the inspector for the NZ All Blacks rugby team, but those plans are derailed when a new Dog is delivered to him by his Aunt.

And speaking of that Dog, it is the star of this wonderful film, with it's internal monologues very funny including one where he impersonates Don Adams from Get Smart, the film also contains some dark elements too but if I have one complaint it is the lack of use of the great song "Slice of Heaven" by Dave Dobbyn, it only appears at the very end of the film when I wished that it would have appeared in the actual film itself as it would've been a shame to waste such a great song on a part of the movie where people wouldn't hear it in a cinema, they would've got up and left for home.

Oh well, you can't win em all and it's only a minor complaint of what is a very enjoyable film, 4 out of 5.

Film Review - Dead Again (1991)

Dead Again stars Kenneth Branagh as Mike Church, a man who is asked to pick up a woman played by Emma Thompson as she has had a terrible nightmare about a crime regarding Roman and Margaret Strauss, a couple also played in the film by Branagh and Thompson in which Margaret is murdered and Roman tried and executed for the crime, but things are not quite what they seem.

If that plot synopsis sounded a little complicated, then rest assured the film is anything but, it is simply a terrific achievement by Branagh who keeps a tight rein on the ship and makes sure nothing gets too out of hand, Branagh, Thompson, Derek Jacobi, Robin Williams, Wayne Knight and Andy Garcia are all really good in their roles and the score by Patrick Doyle really helps to form the identity of the film, being both quite and tense in all the right places.

One thing I also must mention is Matthew Leonetti's cinematography, it really helps to delinate the two timelines in a way that it clears up for the viewer where they are, the 1940's material is in Black and White and the 1990's material is in Colour, a great move and one that is most appreciated as the B&W material looks terrific.

Sadly though, if the film were to be released today it would immediately be seized upon as a rip off of last year's Inception due to the familiarity of the subject matter and that is a real shame as Dead Again deserves to stand on its two feet as a great film in its own right.

All in all, a really good movie that deserves to be seen, it's a real shame that Branagh's Thor movie wasn't as clear cut and enjoyable as this movie, 4 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Fortress (1992)

Fortress stars Christopher Lambert as John Brennick, a former Black Beret Captain who quit in disgrace and tries with his wife to cross the border who is carrying their second child after their first one died, but is caught and sent to the Fortress, a private security prison, but they won't be able to hold him for long.

Fortress is somewhat like the recently released Thor, in that it has a lot of talent attached to it in director Stuart Gordon, actors Lambert, Kurtwood Smith, Jeffrey Combs, Delroy Lindo and Vernon Wells but wastes every single one of them.

The reason why is that the plot itself is deadly dull and doesn't really inspire anything apart from a Die Hard meets Great Escape style plot and also Lambert himself, now I'm a huge fan of Highlander and thought he was great in that film but here seems unsure of where to go or what to do, it's been said that the project was originally going to star Arnold Schwarzenegger but Lambert replaced him, I wonder if Arnold would have been better in this film as he might have brought some energy to the film.

All in all, a lacklustre sci-fi film best left on the shelf, 1 out of 5.

Film Review - Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)

Transformers: Dark of the Moon is the third movie in this live action series and the story here this time is that back in the 60's, an Autobot spacecraft fleeing Cybertron crashes on the Dark Side of the Moon, creating the famous space race of that decade, in the present day however Sam played by Shia LaBeouf has moved to Washington to start a new job and has a new girlfriend Carly played by Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, but the Autobots may need his help again as rumours fly around regarding the return of some old foes.

Dark of the Moon was seen as director Michael Bay and company's attempt to make up to the fans the failure of the last film in the series, 2009's Revenge of the Fallen which had nothing of any worth to go with it apart from a fight sequence in a forest, as a result this was the one movie I had been dreading so far all year, but was I right to expect the worst or did I expect a pleasant surprise.

Well, first off I'll start with the good stuff and that is twofold: First is the larger allotment of screen time given to Optimus Prime voiced again by Peter Cullen, this time around he's not used just to narrate the film or provide a fight sequence here or there, this time it really feels like he has a part to play in the storyline of the film as well as giving us the aforementioned narration which Cullen has done very well throughout all three films plus the badass fight scenes which are nothing short of fantastic to watch, mainly because we care about Prime as a character and want to see him triumph as "One shall Stand, One shall Fall."

The second positive is that there was a genuine attempt to atone for the mistakes of the last film by actually attempting to write a plotline for the film, the first half of the film for the most part is somewhat interesting as it involves the whole moon landing thing mentioned in my plot synopsis.

However, the film also has a lot of shortcomings, pretty much all of which occur in the latter two thirds of the film, how do I talk about thee, well let thee count the ways in no particular order.

1. Carly herself: Though Huntington is a vast improvement on Megan Fox, she's also not that much better either as she parades through the film looking like a 35 year old fashion model on vacation with Sam being the 21 year old kid she picked up and bonked more times than a worn and very old shagged carpet plus her British accent just gets grating after a while and she turns into nothing more than a plot device with tits and ass that just decides to phone in the whole thing, smegging hell.

2. No Heart: Pretty much the last hour of the film is the battle in Chicago between the Decepticons and the resistance and with the exception of the final showdown with Optimus and a few shots of fighters on the attack, it all gets monotonous, loud (so very loud) and boring as most of it is BWAMMMP, SHREECH, BOOOOOOMMMMPPP turned up to 15 and given audio enhancement steroids, it all gets too much after a time and it feels like you've had 10 decibels ripped off your sound index when it's all over.

3. The Role of the Decepticons: Ah yes, the dreaded Decepticons and Quite frankly, yet again they're given nothing to do apart from setup the action and also yet again, I was reminded how Hugo Weaving makes nothing work with Megatron, with some of his lines screaming for Frank Welker to say them so that you get some satisfaction watching him on screen, however though he does voice Soundwave as he did in the last film as well but again is given nothing to do as is Starscream, he might as well have taken a vacation, I'm sure Thundercracker or Skywarp could've filled his boots and also, what was the point of bringing in Shockwave if you're just going to shove him in there for no reason at all.

And to top it all off, watching this film kept reminding me of how good Avatar and James Cameron were, Bay is just nowhere near as good an action director as Cameron because he just piles the action on without giving any thought to making it matter or giving us a reason to care about the action on screen or for that matter letting us see who's fighting who in a clear and concise way, I know some weren't big fans of Avatar but at least Cameron took his time, wrote a storyline and characters and paced his action like a master.

But there is one last positive I must talk about and that is I didn't see it in 3D, if I did I think it would've been the equivalent of institutionalised torture, the 2D experience was more than enough for me.

So all in all, if you want a good Transformers experience then I highly recommend tracking down last year's video game War for Cybertron, that should be more than adequate, as for this movie well if you must see it then wait for the Blu-Ray release otherwise I wouldn't bother too much in going to see it, 1 out of 5.