Frost/Nixon Review

Frost/Nixon is a tense film about that famous interview between unlikely TV presenter David Frost (Michael Sheen) and shamed former President Richard Nixon (Frank Langella) whose confession of wrong doing over the Watergate scandal sent shockwaves through America.

The performances from Sheen and Langella are mesmerising as the charismatic playboy Frost and intelligent, funny yet greedy Nixon. Langella though really steals the show with his portrayal of Richard Nixon, so much so that I almost forgot he was an actor at all. He produces his lines with so much thought and emotion it feels completely natural and you can see him thinking about his actions as if he was actually there. The two actors together have an electrifying chemistry in the interviews providing some of the best dialogue you are likely to see in a film.

There is also a stellar supporting cast of Kevin Bacon, Sam Rockwell, Oliver Platt, Rebecca Hall and Matthew Macfadyen who all help ratchet up the tension during the interviews and also provide a voice to the silent emotions bottled up by Frost and Nixon.

 The script is tight and the direction of Ron Howard is excellent, although Frost's personality and reputation was not shown in its fullness and you rarely if ever see his playboy persona shown, just his reckless side and the worry he feels as to whether the interviews will be a success and if he'll get the funding to make them see the light of day.

This is not a movie with any real kind of action, but it is a stunning movie of words and emotion played out through great acting and a tense script. It is an excellent, intelligent film experience with real fleshed out characters, which shows that even films that aren't action blockbusters can provide a very entertaining two hours and is a welcome detour from many of those poor scripts.

Rating: B

127 Hours Review

For a film set mostly in a small canyon, following just one man (The brilliant James Franco as Aron Ralston), Danny Boyle's 127 Hours is an excellent movie filled with tension that keeps your attention throughout Aron's terrible ordeal.

It's amazing to think that 127 Hours is a true story of a man falling into a canyon and getting a rock stuck on his arm and being stuck there for days and resorting to cutting his own arm off. But it's equally amazing that Danny Boyle and James Franco were able to capture what happened and create a very watchable hour and a half film and keep you hooked. James Franco certainly deserved his Oscar nomination for displaying a rollercoaster of emotions which range from excitement, anger and fear to some craziness. The film completely relies on him and he proves up to the challenge keeping you hooked to the screen and really believing and sympathising which his plight.

When I heard Danny Boyle was doing this movie I did wonder how he could possibly do a film about a guy stuck in a cave. But everything about the film really works. From the stunning shots of the Utah desert, to claustrophobic and isolated feel of the canyon with only glimmers of sunlight. The tension of the film is also helped by the audience knowing the final outcome, that to free himself Aron has to cut his own arm off or remain stuck and die. Throughout 127 Hours you see him exhaust all other options of moving the rock and attempt to come to terms with his life and the decisions he's made that had lead him to this point. Despite even knowing the outcome, Danny Boyle really makes you hope he finds another way out of this hell.

The scenes where Aron begins to cut off his arm aren't really as graphic as I was expecting but certainly made me feel uneasy as he broke his arm then began slicing away with a blunt knife. Again it's all the more horrifying that someone actually went through this! It's also crazy that in real life Aron still goes canyoneering with just the one arm. This film has put me off ever doing it with two arms!

I highly recommend 127 Hours as one of the better films I have in recent years and whilst not a classic, it definitely deserves the high praise it has received. The story is great, James Franco is great and Danny Boyle is again on form and I can't wait for his next film.

Rating: B

Skyline Review

Before I watched this film I knew that it was directed by the Strausse brothers, the same people who directed Alien Vs Predator so I came into it with a bad feeling. That bad feeling was confirmed as Skyline became increasingly worse with every passing scene creating a big budget B movie, but without the self realisation of being one.

The story, which starts instantly, is about aliens invading earth using large blue lights, or 'sirens', which when looked at pull people into them where they are then pulled into the alien spaceships. We follow couple Jarrod and Elaine (played by Eric Balfour and Scottie Thompson) as they watch the events unfold from their friend Terry's (Donald Faison) apartment in a large multi story building.

 The problem with the entire premise is that, if we're following a group of characters who have no pivotal part to play in the alien invasion, you actually have to care about the people in it. I honestly couldn't have cared less about any of the characters in this film. Jarrod just comes across as a nasty guy and his girlfriend Elaine, who is pregnant, doesn't really do anything in the film. The whole pregnancy situation never provides the two with an emotional connection or add any extra danger, and with no chemistry between the two actors the film just falls apart. The fact that the Strausse brothers try to play this off throughout the film as an epic love story at times is laughable.

The rest of the cast is forgettable and any emotional set ups they are given is never developed because everyone instantly dies without any kind of closure. At times I also felt like I was watching a film within a film as the characters constantly looked out their window at the events of a better movie. Watching a huge battle as US planes took on one of the large spaceships wasn't nearly as good as it could have been. Whereas in Independence Day you were there with the pilots as they took on the aliens and could feel the tension and excitement; here the battle is a bit boring as it really has nothing to do with the people you're suppose to be invested in and you don't have the excitment of being in the cockpit and in the thick of battle.

The film takes a lot of cues from J.J. Abrams and Cloverfield. There is a lot of lens flare which does give the film a nice sci-fi feel and the special effects are pretty good at bringing the aliens to life. But again there is rarely any tension when the cast come into contact with them and these moments become increasingly flat throughout the film with countless last minute saves being really frustrating to watch. There is an odd mixture of documentary style filming like Cloverfield and District 9 with more ordinary movie camerawork. It would have been nice to see them stick with one or the other as it made me feel like I was watching two different edits of the same film.

Skyline is a boring film and does nothing to raise the reputation of the Strausse brothers after Alien vs Predator. The film has a promising start but gets duller as it moves on, but n the plus side, you can at least see what is going on unlike in Alien vs Predator Requiem. But what there is to see is mostly rubbish with a completely random ending that makes no sense at all.

Rating: E

Transformers Dark of the Moon Review

Michael Bay and the Transformers writing team really needed to up their game after the poor reception the second movie received (although I'll be honest I really enjoyed Transformers Revenge of the Fallen despite its mountainous plot holes and plot contrivances!)

I'm happy to say Transformers Dark of the Moon is a good action film that provides plenty of humour, especially Alan Tudyk (Firefly) as the hilariously camp Dutch, an employee of John Turturro's Simmons. No Transformers film would be complete without explosions and this film of course allows alot of stuff to blow up in true Michael Bay fashion, who directs some great action scenes as would be expected of him, particularly in the last hour where the film builds to its grand crescendo which is literally nonstop and was actually a bit exhausting.

This time around the film centres around the space race of the 1960s and why America really went to the moon, to find and explore an alien spaceship crashed there. The plot gradually reveals the importance of this event through its fairly long run time of 2 and a half hours and the film also introduces a new major player, Sentinel Prime, the former leader of the autobots, voiced by an excellent Leonard Nimoy. The plot has a few surprising turns and despite some plot holes (come on its an action movie about robots) it feels at times quite epic in scale, even if it needs a few plot contrivances on the way to keep it going.

Shia Labeouf was again well suited to his role as Sam Witwicky and plays the humorous scenes well. It was particularly enjoyable as ever watching his embarrassed reactions to his parents providing up front no nonsense advice and opinions on his life, his banter with Bumblebee and his jealousy of his new girlfriend Carly's (played by Rosie Huntington-Whiteley) relationship with her boss Dylan (Patrick Dempsey). The character of Carly was literally just a like for like replacement for Megan Fox, with plenty of bum and cleavage shots. Carly is even introduced by the camera following her bum for at least a minute as she walks to bed. She was played fairly well by Rosie Huntington-Whiteley but there wasn't much to play around with other than to look gorgeous and make a plot device.

The Transformers looked great as always and I had the easiest time yet telling the difference between who was battling although I didn't know half the names of the autobots and decepticons anyway. There was some really disappointing 3D though in this film and for the most part I didn't notice any and it was definitely not worth the extra price of admission I paid for it.

Some of the voice acting of Optimus Prime I thought was quite poor at times and sounded like a completely different voice actor had taken over for the odd line and the sidelining of Megatron throughout the movie was a minor disappointment given it is the end of Michael Bay's trilogy.

I understand the Megatron has been defeated in two movies now so probably isn't that menacing the third time around, but the writers didn't even try. He just sulks alot and in the big final battle in the last hour, Megatron sits through almost the whole thing with a rug over his head for no reason, not really the monstrous villain he use to be, he just looked like a transformer on the dole.

Shockwave was given the biggest role of the decepticons and was a lot more menacing and at times seemed like he was more in control and more powerful than Megatron, controlling some giant snake like transformer providing the film's most spectacular, if a bit outrageous, moments.

As you'd probably expect from an American action film, some of the scripting is pretty bad and extremely cheesy. Whilst the banter between Sam and Bumblebee and his parents has been done well throughout the movie franchise, some character lines had me in laughter because they were shoe horned in and were so bad. Simmons suddenly saying to Sam during an 'emotional' scene where all seems lost "Years from now, they are gonna ask us 'where were you when they took over the planet?'" was so out of place and its randomness was cringeworthy.

Overall this is a solid action movie with some hilarious comic moments which I think will redeem the franchise in some of its fierce critics' eyes, and it has clearly had money thrown at it by the bucket load. No one should go into it thinking it's going to be an all time classic as many critics seem to do with these kind of films and enjoy it for what it is. Despite a few flaws and cheesy moments this is a good film and will definitely please action movie and Transformers fans. But don't bother watching it in 3D, the adverts before made better use of it.

Rating: C