Film 2009 - May
I'm a bit late posting about May's films, which were blockbuster action-movie-tastic, but here we go anyway...Oh, and probably spoilers ahoy if you've not seen them.
Wolverine
I'm a big X-Men fan, and rather fond of Hugh Jackman, so was more than a little pleased when this was announced. I also deliberately made no attempt to find out anything about the plot, although had already predicted the montage-of-wars-past title sequence, which was at least very well done. Bonus points to Liev Schrieber, who really did Victor 'Sabretooth' Creed justice - after the previously poor apprearance in X-Men as a snarling nobody. And while I was also delighted that Gambit (one of my other favourite X-Men) made an appearance, the character was barely coloured in and competing for screen time and development with the stack of other minor and major X-Men wheeled out. (Or should that be shoe-horned in?). While I thought this was head and shoulders above the last X-Men movie, this was mostly carried by Hugh Jackman's sheer enthusiasm. It was surprisingly short, quite predictable and they could have done an awful lot more with it. Oh, and apparently what they did with Deadpool was a travesty, but I liked it a lot and look forward to other spin-off films should they make them. And Hugh Jackman got his shirt off on numerous occasions. Bonus :-)
Angels and Demons
This is based on my favourite of Dan Brown's two Robert Langdon novels. Now, I know they're not good books, but they are enjoyable disengage-brain reading, and I really liked the Vatican setting. However, I'm always pretty loathe to see anything starring Tom Hanks. I'd gone to see the Da Vinci Code, which was pretty dull, so wasn' texpecting much, however, this is a big improvement - much faster paced, a more coherent story, and scarily, I found myself actually enjoying watching Tom Hanks on screen. They chopped a lot of the plot about, updated the stuff at CERN to feature the Large Hardron Collider, which made it all a bit more relevant, and cut or changed some minor characters out. Hanks was given snappier dialogue than last time out, and, importantly, a much better hair cut. Ewan MacGregor was woefully miscast as the Carmelengo and was oddly switched from being an Italian characer to an Irish one, for no reason I could work out other than he couldn't do a passable Italian accent. And his Irish one was pretty ropey to be honest... Sadly, a lot of the stuff that took place under the Vatican in St Peter's tomb was missing, and the main motive for the Carmelengo killing himself at the end (that he was actually the dead pope's biological son) was omitted altogether. Good stuff though, and Tom Hanks has now dropped to number two on my most hated movie star list - which is now topped by John Travolta.
Star Trek
I'd been looking forward to, and also worrying about this for a long time. The pedigree sounded good, but could they pull it off? It was also an odd-numbered film in the Star Trek franchise, which also didn't bode well... However, it was a clever reboot, clearly setting itself in a parellel universe where things were changed, and thus characters changed, predominantly Kirk who went down a different path entirely due to the death of his father, and Spock, who didn't have the benefit of Kirk's friendship at an earlier stage. The actors all did lovely turns that riffed off the original cast, without having to resort to blatent copying, and things that might have been awful, such as the inclusion of 'our' Spock from the original timeline, or the relationship between the younger, more emotional, Spock and Uhura somehow seemed to work flawlessly. And in absolute keeping with the tone of the original series, there was bags of comedy. Little touches like the officer in the red suit being the first one to bite the dust, and the inclusion of the Kobayashi Maru test also worked perfectly. Loved it and really hope there's more to come.
Total films = 3
Film of the month - Star Trek
Worst film of the month (although I did enjoy it) - Angels and Demons
Best gratuitous buttock shot of the month- Hugh Jackman
Total ticket cost (if buying without Cineworld pass) - £21.90
Total money saved due to having a Cineworld pass @£13.50 = £8.40.
Films out this month that I missed, but still want to see: Coraline
Films out in the next month I want to see: Terminator: Salvation, Drag Me To Hell, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Year One
(cross-posted on Facebook)
Wolverine
I'm a big X-Men fan, and rather fond of Hugh Jackman, so was more than a little pleased when this was announced. I also deliberately made no attempt to find out anything about the plot, although had already predicted the montage-of-wars-past title sequence, which was at least very well done. Bonus points to Liev Schrieber, who really did Victor 'Sabretooth' Creed justice - after the previously poor apprearance in X-Men as a snarling nobody. And while I was also delighted that Gambit (one of my other favourite X-Men) made an appearance, the character was barely coloured in and competing for screen time and development with the stack of other minor and major X-Men wheeled out. (Or should that be shoe-horned in?). While I thought this was head and shoulders above the last X-Men movie, this was mostly carried by Hugh Jackman's sheer enthusiasm. It was surprisingly short, quite predictable and they could have done an awful lot more with it. Oh, and apparently what they did with Deadpool was a travesty, but I liked it a lot and look forward to other spin-off films should they make them. And Hugh Jackman got his shirt off on numerous occasions. Bonus :-)
Angels and Demons
This is based on my favourite of Dan Brown's two Robert Langdon novels. Now, I know they're not good books, but they are enjoyable disengage-brain reading, and I really liked the Vatican setting. However, I'm always pretty loathe to see anything starring Tom Hanks. I'd gone to see the Da Vinci Code, which was pretty dull, so wasn' texpecting much, however, this is a big improvement - much faster paced, a more coherent story, and scarily, I found myself actually enjoying watching Tom Hanks on screen. They chopped a lot of the plot about, updated the stuff at CERN to feature the Large Hardron Collider, which made it all a bit more relevant, and cut or changed some minor characters out. Hanks was given snappier dialogue than last time out, and, importantly, a much better hair cut. Ewan MacGregor was woefully miscast as the Carmelengo and was oddly switched from being an Italian characer to an Irish one, for no reason I could work out other than he couldn't do a passable Italian accent. And his Irish one was pretty ropey to be honest... Sadly, a lot of the stuff that took place under the Vatican in St Peter's tomb was missing, and the main motive for the Carmelengo killing himself at the end (that he was actually the dead pope's biological son) was omitted altogether. Good stuff though, and Tom Hanks has now dropped to number two on my most hated movie star list - which is now topped by John Travolta.
Star Trek
I'd been looking forward to, and also worrying about this for a long time. The pedigree sounded good, but could they pull it off? It was also an odd-numbered film in the Star Trek franchise, which also didn't bode well... However, it was a clever reboot, clearly setting itself in a parellel universe where things were changed, and thus characters changed, predominantly Kirk who went down a different path entirely due to the death of his father, and Spock, who didn't have the benefit of Kirk's friendship at an earlier stage. The actors all did lovely turns that riffed off the original cast, without having to resort to blatent copying, and things that might have been awful, such as the inclusion of 'our' Spock from the original timeline, or the relationship between the younger, more emotional, Spock and Uhura somehow seemed to work flawlessly. And in absolute keeping with the tone of the original series, there was bags of comedy. Little touches like the officer in the red suit being the first one to bite the dust, and the inclusion of the Kobayashi Maru test also worked perfectly. Loved it and really hope there's more to come.
Total films = 3
Film of the month - Star Trek
Worst film of the month (although I did enjoy it) - Angels and Demons
Best gratuitous buttock shot of the month- Hugh Jackman
Total ticket cost (if buying without Cineworld pass) - £21.90
Total money saved due to having a Cineworld pass @£13.50 = £8.40.
Films out this month that I missed, but still want to see: Coraline
Films out in the next month I want to see: Terminator: Salvation, Drag Me To Hell, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Year One
(cross-posted on Facebook)