2012 (2009)

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I haven't actually seen many Roland Emmerich movies... well ok, looking through his IMDb I've seen Stargate, Independence Day and 10,000BC but I didn't know he did Stargate so... anyway... The point is I haven't seen The Day After Tomorrow. Though, I've seen bits of here and there and it looks an awful lot like 2012. I guess he has a type, he goes for a epic story... and he has a slight fondness for the epic disaster. That's cool, I like a good epic film as much as the next person. I haven't actually seen that many disaster movies though and they're not know for being great films though so I didn't want to expect to much out of this one.

Then again, I loved Armageddon; and Independence Day; and Deep Impact... So maybe I never really had anything to worry about with 2012. It's a big, silly, cheesy, funny epic disaster movie. I laughed a lot, I might even have shed a little tear or two; what more do you want! It is as cheesy as quattro formaggi pizza, but like Armageddon, you just have to go with it, this isn't high art here...

The best thing about it really are the action sequences, when things start exploding and flying through the air you kind of forget that they had just spent half an hour or so trying to tell you when and why this was going to happen. It doesn't matter anyway. Though, for what it's worth, the plot exposition at the start wasn't particularly painful. It was kind of interesting. Looking back though, I couldn't really tell you what excuse they gave for this particular armageddon... it had something to do with solar flares, mutant neutrinos and bubbling magma (I don't think they actually used the word magma though. That might involve having a character explaining what magma is). Anyway whatever, like I said, it doesn't matter at all. All that matters is that it leads to some amazing, fantastic special effects sequences. I saw this in one of the biggest cinema screens in Ireland and I wished it was bigger, and louder. I guess I should have just sat closer...

In case you don't know, 2012 actually has a great cast as well. John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Thandie Newton, Oliver Platt, Woody Harrelson and Danny Glover, all great actors who perform ably in this. Woody Harrelson in particular is excellent. In fact I do think that with a lesser cast this could have been awful. As it is, it gets away with it. I'm sure it wasn't a particularly taxing role for any of them but a script like that requires some skill to not make it not sound horrific...

Let me make this clear though. This is not a good film. Don't blame me if you go see it and you think it's the stupidest film you've ever seen. I never said it wasn't stupid. The stuff that happens in it is actually outrageous. Really ridiculous. But it's also an enjoyable, hilarious film and honestly, I've never seen the likes of those effects before. Well, not on that kind of scale. I mean really, they're amazing. Amazing and funny. I do recommend that if you don't mind your movies served with cheese you should go see this. See it now.

8/10

Oh actually, I do have one criticism. At 158 mins it is a bit long. I was fine because I knew it was going to be long but I know some won't be up for that. They could have shaved 15-20 mins off it easy. We don't really need the monk stuff, and the boat stuff is a bit unnecessary. Ok, it was a bit emotional and I like that but there was already plenty of space for that kind of thing with the rest of the characters. So that's the reason it's getting an 8 not a 9 or 10.

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Zombieland (2009)

The plan, on heading to the cinema for the evening, had actually been to see Pandorum... however a scheduling miscalculation meant that I missed the 6.40pm start time so had to go to Zombieland instead. And, despite being at the theatre 20 mins before Zombieland was due to start, I still managed to miss the first minute. Turns out 20 mins is not really enough time to pop down to McDonalds and get dinner... oh well. At least I got to see a film and I had been planning on seeing this one anyway so that's cool.

If you don't want to know what kind of zombies they are, skip the rest of this paragraph. If you do, they went for the fast-running plague infected zombie. It's the modern choice I guess. Personally I'm not a zombie purist or anything, I accept all zombies as they come (film zombies of course, for real zombies I have a sword by my bed).

Zombieland is billed as a horror spoof and that's pretty much all it is. It tries to distract us for a while in the middle with other, more meaningful, stuff, but to be honest you spend most of that time wondering when they're going to kill another zombie. So you may as well ignore that bit and concentrate on the horror spoof part.

As a horror spoof it's very good. Aside from that bit in the middle where they go soft on us, it is, as some people like to say, a "rollicking romp". There's blood and guts and flying words all over the place. Everything you want from a zombie flick. Well, you probably weren't expecting the flying words (I think the last time I saw flying words in a film was Day Watch in 2006) but they looked good in the context. They also have a great cameo, so that's cool as well.

The only real problem I had with it was that somewhere along the way they tried to be something more than a horror spoof. Now there's nothing wrong with trying to be a little more than that but they didn't quite pull it off. It was a little bit like they got worried that they wouldn't be taken seriously so they tried to get a smidge serious and they slightly tried to weave a little romance into it as well. It worked for Shaun of the Dead however Shaun of the Dead was exceptional, they really worked the drama into the zombie story. My recommendation on this kind of mix is that if there's a chance somewhere that it's not going to work, then don't try it. You can't just shoehorn in a little bit and hope.

Aside from that it was strong all round. Great casting, Jesse Eisenberg and Emma Stone seem to be two excellent up and coming actors, even if I do think there's a good chance they're going to be type cast for the next while (not into horror, just into their respective geeky boy and strong girl characters). Woody Harrelson was brilliant, great comedic actor and that cowboy hat really suits him. The plot made sense, which can be oh so lacking in some horror films. Characterisation... well, it wasn't important.

All in all, Zombieland was a fun way to spend a Sunday evening and I can recommend it if you're willing to overlook a bit of a drag in the middle. I can assure that it ends on a high.

7.5/10

No Country For Old Men (2007)

No Country For Old Men is the new film from the Oscar©-winning cult directors Joel and Ethan Coen. Based on the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name, No Country For Old Men follows the chase as a quiet man is thrown into the path of drug dealers and hired killers by a chance discovery.

On the whole I enjoyed No Country For Old Men. I thought the plot was interesting, the cinematography was excellent and the acting was very accomplished - strong performances all round. However, ultimately I found it somewhat unsatisfying and there were really two reasons for this...

The first of which is mainly a matter of taste. I enjoy a wide range of films however for a film to really stand out for me there has to have been a reason it was a film. I mean this is in the sense that I have to feel like I couldn't have just read the book and felt the same. Now obviously this film was a book adaptation so it was always going to be primarily narrative and possibly this meant that I was never going to feel that it was brilliant... However, I think the best adaptations from books/short stories don't simply tell the tale, they make full use of the added visual and aural elements to connect us to that story - take the scene in The Shawshank Redemption when the music is played out across prison - if you simply read that scene in a book it wouldn't be the same. While the Coen Brothers showed us beautiful landscapes but I'm just not sure that it really added that much to the overall feeling of the film.

The second reason that is that I didn't really feel a connection with the characters and I am firmly of the opinion that it's the film-makers job to make me feel that connection. I was interested in what they were up to but for me it didn't really matter what happened to them. I was engaged by the story, by the the cat and mouse chase, however it was like watching a cat chase a mouse... I didn't care how it ended.

But I'm being overly critical of the film. It was a very good film, it's won awards and it will undoubtedly win some more. It really did have a lot going for it, I appreciated its look at fate, chance and choice - Was the ending inevitable, perhaps? Is Chigurh purely evil? Does he make the choice to... not make the choice as it were? It made it interesting, something different from your usual drama, I suppose those situations are not unfamiliar territory for the Coens however that's a good thing, it sets them apart from other directors. Also as I mentioned earlier, the performances were excellent, as you'd expect from such a lauded cast. I'll give it a 7.5 out of 10 but for me it just wasn't a classic film.