RED

Last night Colin Firth was finally acknowledged by the Academy and given a shiny gold statue, this ties us neatly to the winner of the Best Actress Oscar in 2006; another rather posh Brit by the name of Helen Mirren, honoured for her role in The Queen as... well, the Queen.  I doubt she knew four years later she'd be wielding a machine gun and making rouge operations look classy.  Today I'll be looking at RED.

RED stands for Retired: Extremely Dangerous, a group of former CIA agents are being targeted for elimination due to some rather sensitive information threatening the Vice Presidents bid for the ultimate leg up on the career ladder.  They've all moved on with their lives but this threat sees them team up one final time along side a rather cheerful former Russian secret agent.

They are all getting on a bit now, living ordinary lives or in one case an underground bunker to avoid those pesky helicopters.  The CIA want rid of them, especially ring leader Frank and so assign a rather enthusiastic and by the book agent, William Cooper.  As is the way with these films nothing is what it seems, initially the former agents seem to be suffering from some sort of collective alzheimers over why they are being targeted, but it soon becomes all too clear and their decisive action is going to cause a lot of paper work for the CIA.

Along the way we are introduced to Franks potential love interest, a pensions clerk, Sarah, who has been dealing with Frank over the phone for some time; this sub plot is set off with an slightly weird stalker moment which lands poor Sarah in the forced vacation from hell.

This is a comedy action film, and both are abundant making a fast paced and witty running time.  It is also a top notch group of actors, Willis is as good as he was in the first Die Hard combining an unflappable exterior with a touching lonely side, Freeman is a tad underused with only a hint of his characters rather perverted behaviour which could have been used for some more comedy gold.  Mirren pulls off flower-arranging action gran with as much grace and gravitas as her former Queen role, this is one granny you will not mess with other wise you'll be on the wrong end of a sniper rifle.

Of course the show stealing performance belongs to Malkovich as the crazy and paranoid Boggs, he carries a grenade launcher round in a pig shaped bag (causing an hysterical cry of "open the pig!") and laments that while most people get paper cuts he mostly gets shot.

Malkovich always likes to bring a bit of danger to a game of hide and seek.

RED pulls together all the elements that make an action film good, the pace never dwindles with pointless exposition, there are bullets and explosions galore and who doesn't enjoy a bit of grenade rounders.  It's tightly written, although based on a book it has pulled away from the dark and relatively humourless source material making an enjoyable and worthwhile romp.

You have to see this film, and hope that rumours of a sequence are fulfilled.  Grab your mates, beer and popcorn; cram onto the sofa and bask in the fact it's still possible to make an original, attention holding action movie.  There is only one thing left to say and that's break open the pig!!

Deep Rising

Titanic, now there's a good film...  Stop moaning at the back, it is!  Well what if you take Titanic and throw in a giant deep sea squid?  A few months after Titanic was hogging every cinema screen imaginable this next film popped up, with a whopping (it was 1998) $45 million dollar budget I give you Deep Rising.

Now as you can see the one sheet seems to be slightly misleading, you may think you've accidentally stumbled into Godzilla, but in order to keep a typically filmic air of mystery surrounding the content of the feature we are simply given an eye...  But a very nice eye none the less.

Deep Rising tells of the happenings aboard Argonautica, a rather spiffy cruise ship heading on its maiden voyage, and as always occurs at these occasions things start to go horribly wrong and some unsuspecting sea creature runs into a banquet for one.  Along the way a motley bunch of mercenaries and charter boat staff turn up, and a rather glamorous thief join the surviving boat owner and begin a merry death by man swallowing tentacle chase.

The unfortunate thing about this film is that it performed so poorly at the cinema it didn't make back even half it's production costs and to be honest it is hard to see why.  Taken as it is this is a no frills 90s B-movie, with a varied ensemble cast all providing sea creature fodder; they run around the ship a lot, there's the usual double crossing git and some questionable CGI; but for all that it's still a jolly good romp.

When tapeworms attack!

The cast is made up of some familiar faces; Famke Janssen, Jason Flemyng and a then relatively unknown Djimon Hounsou; Treat Williams as Finnegan seems to have been the inspiration for Fireflys Captain Mal Reynolds, from the sarcastic humour to the fact that Williams could be Nathan Fillions older brother the similarity is uncanny at times.  They hold together well as a cast, thankfully there is little overacting here but what does occur is an ability to bring an average script with some down right groan inducing jokes to be fun for an audience.  The actors involved know this isn't a serious movie, so it's tongue in cheek, gung-ho for the entire running time.

Obviously Deep Rising is filled to the brim with special effects, actually most of the time these work the creature is massive and it's crazy, acid filled tentacles are flying about all over the place like some murderous ticker tape on New Years Eve.  It's not perfect, there are points where the actors are clearly imposed over the background but not in proportion; it's probably the only time the word giant can be accurately used to describe Janssen.

But for all it's flaws Deep Rising works, it's a bit of fun, with comedy, gore and an impressive use of a shotgun to open an elevator door.  Watch this film, it's a monster film with guts, guns and cheese-tastic glory; and also use it as a reminder never take a cruise if the ship is on it's maiden voyage.

Deep Rising seems to follow me to every hotel I stay in, settling in for the night flicking through the channels and there it is!  Every single time!  That's when it's great to watch, don't plan it just stumble across it by accident and enjoy...  And for those who have seen it, anybody want to place bets on when the long over due sequel turns up and what happens... My guess is they've joined the survivors of Oceanic Airlines flight 815 and are about to meet the polar bear.

Buried

Have you ever seen Van Wilder: Party Liason?  My advice...  Don't!  My next film is made by people who obviously wanted to make sure Van Wilder never happened again, so they stuck Ryan Reynolds in a box and forgot about him.  Unfortunately it still managed to spawn two sequels but that's not the point.  Without further ado onto the film Buried.

Helpfully the makers of Buried summed up their entire plot in the title; see Commando, The Crazies, Titanic (going the extra mile to even reveal the ending!).  In my opinion Avatar should have been called Smurfs On Crack.

Ryan Reynolds plays an American truck driver, Paul, working in Iraq who awakes to find himself in a wooden coffin buried alive.  His captives have been helpful enough to leave him some supplies akin to what most attendees of a rave carry at the weekend; Zippo lighter, glow sticks, torch, knife, flask and a BlackBerry...  Although we aren't supposed to know it's a BlackBerry, no product placement here!  During the hour and twenty minutes this film runs he talks to a lot of people on the phone, proving he should quit truck driving and immediately be cast in a BT advert.

Of course the now clichéd line is uttered...  "We do not negotiate with terrorists", no of course you don't you just go a jolly and steal their oil, but that's far too political for this blog so back to the film.  From start to finish it's all in the coffin, there are no flashes to life on the outside and the only physically present companion Paul has is a 5 minute cameo from a snake who pops out of his pants (that's not a euphemism) and is just as unhappy about being buried.

The thing about this situation is that for all the blabbering Paul does on the phone he makes no decent attempt at actually getting out of the coffin himself.  From what we can establish he is buried about six feet down, the wood is weak and he apparently has such a good air supply he can use his magical Zippo for long periods of time burning oxygen and it never gets too hot to hold.

Of course as a viewer we can criticise all we want, the reaction of Paul is probably far more realistic then we'll ever know.  The script provides a Reynolds a chance to show his acting abilities, demonstrating a kaleidoscope of emotions which border on him needing a straight jacket and a one way ticket to the mental hospital.  There is no doubting he shines in this film, he's no longer the funny guy, he's a one man army.

Today was not the day to decide to quit smoking!

Given the restrictions placed on this film by the plot location it does a good job in building the suspense and holding the tension, it feels short in length when watching but this probably due to the smart use of camera angles.  They constantly move giving different shots around Reynolds to heighten the sense of claustrophobia, watch it with the lights off and maybe wedge yourself between two shelving units to get that complete experience.

This is one of those films you should watch, just to say you've watched it, it'll divide audiences into two camps.  It's either a cinematic masterpiece or a piece of over-hyped rubbish, make up your own mind it's definitely worth the time.

22 Bullets (L'Immortel)

Right here's a little test for you name some mainstream French actors... Quickly... Stumped?  Me too, and if you're anything like me you probably only got two; Gerard Depardieu and Jean Reno, both of which have amazing noses which are worthy of skiing on.  This review will focus on a recent Reno film, 22 Bullets... Or L'Immortel if we're being posh.

Reno plays Mattei, a retired Mafia Godfather who has taken to the simple life of caring for his wife and young son but as it is pointed out in the titles voice-over no one ever really leaves the Mafia behind.  Mattei soon finds himself the victim of a gang of eight masked men who shoot him, wait for it... 22 times!  During this sudden and graphic sequence there is a rather comic little, yappy terrier versus shotgun stand off; needless to say Cesars dog food may want to recast given said dog now looks like one of their products.

Mattei survives, and he is angry, as angry as Reno can look which in all honesty isn't very.  Once he knows who set him up revenge is sought, people briskly walk around in long coats looking permanently worried or constipated, and the police turn up trying get to the bottom of it all but just getting in the way as usual.

First thing to note, this film is in French with no dubbing so a no go for people who don't have the patience for subtitles.  Although you don't really need them it's quite clear what's going on, I speak a little French and I was wondering what film the subtitles were for at times as apparently the writer was watching something else. But here is a conundrum for you, if the film were dubbed would Reno dub himself in English?  We'll never know.

Reno vowed never to return to Ikea during a sale again

22 Bullets isn't an action film, it's a thriller which occasionally threatens to turn on action but gets put to bed with a nice, hot cup of cocoa before it has the chance.  The story is good although the "twist" is obvious within the first ten minutes, and there are times when it takes a minute to remember who is on what side.  It doesn't really have a climax so to speak, it's building up to one but then the cork gets stuck in the bottle and all the fizz is gone.

Acting wise the cast hold together well, this isn't a badly acted film far from it, thugs and gangsters throw their weight around and then plead for mercy when the revenge act kicks in.  It's always surprising how quickly these guys flip when Reno is around.  It does use a standard scripted lines to life span ratio, if you're not saying something useful you're about to die.

Although promoted as being from the same producers as Taken, it doesn't have quite the same energy and turns into your standard Mafia boss war.  There is also the rather blinding blooper, if Mattei had no feeling in his hand to the extent he could not move any of his fingers how the hell did he escape on a motorbike?  Maybe the cat he befriended was driving, who knows, sloppy continuity though.

Somebody give Reno something decent, he deserves it, so long as he doesn't have the same manic grin he did in Godzilla which looked like he was mid demonic possession.  Watch 22 Bullets, it's not a bad film, but much like Mattei it's past its prime.

Mirrors 2

If I said the name Nick Stahl to you would it mean anything?  What has he done?  Well he starred in the Terminator film which shall not be named...  Yes that one with the female Terminator, the one that was a cringefest of bad acting and even badder script writing.  But as far as I'm concerned that film doesn't exist and therefore Nick Stahl has done nothing noteworthy, not even starring in my next film choice Mirrors 2.

Now I'll admit that Mirrors was hardly a brilliant film, Jack Bauer...  Sorry, Keifer Sutherland, ran around looking generally pissed off at everything whilst attempt to exorcise some mirror based demons; but at least it was watchable unlike it's straight-to-video sequel.

Let us review the plot, Max is a night time security guard at his fathers mall, the recently reopened Mayflower department store.  One year prior Max had a serious car accident killing his fiancée and causing him to be clinically dead until he is resuscitated by medical crews at the scene, he is racked with guilt although I'm not sure why the silly woman shouldn't have crawled into the back seat of the car to get a backpack in the first place.  Currently being treated by a psychologist Max begins to see a woman in the stores mirrors and this leads him to see his colleagues deaths like a really bad Final Destination.  Anyway turns out that freaky mirror girl is a missing employee, Max finds her sister and they go off in Scooby Doo mode to solve the case.

It's your bog standard crazy ass dead girl wants revenge, see The Ring for almost identical plot except replace mirrors for a television.  And nothing much actually happens, there's a few deaths but inventive they are not, if one victim had seen Dog Soldiers he's know how to fix the fact his intestines are now on the outside of his body.  The laugh out loud moment came when Maxs father is facing death by pizza cutter!  I don't know what pizza cutters are like in the States but I can tell you over here you'll be lucky if you could cut a pizza with them let alone slash your own face off.

Stahl didn't receive the memo saying the fancy dress theme was cancelled

Nick Stahl doesn't get beyond confused monotone man, with such distractingly bad hair I forgot what his face looked like; actually no he looked a bit like a gerbil, like he's been taking transmogrification class at Hogwarts but hasn't quite got the whole way yet.  The supporting cast of made up of a bunch of clichés get your check sheet out for bitch, slime ball, arrogant over achiever and over sensitive Dad.   Stahl female co-star, revenge bitch's sister, is played by same woman who is Mia in Two & A Half Men and she has the same smug, better than you expression in this.

Really don't bother with Mirrors 2, in fact only bother if it happens to pop up on TV, you don't have to pay for it and don't bother watching the first half hour as the back story doesn't appear till the end so you're not missing much.  Looking in an actual mirror for 80 minutes is a better use of your time.

Splinter

"You're suffering from a severe case of CDS: Can't Do Shit!".  This line probably sums up the situation for the characters in the majority of the next film, it's a little know gem of a horror movie; small budget, even smaller cast and a smartly written script make my next choice Splinter.

Trapped in a remote gas station a young couple and an escaped convict are being hunted by the Splinter parasite which transforms its living victims into poky hosts.  This may seem a little dull, an hour of watching people ponder life and death in a tight space, a bit like Big Brother if Dead Set had actually happened (it's a shame it didn't really).  The story line is tight enough to keep you hooked and the pacing of the film is excellent, I liken it to The Thing slow burning but always aware of the danger outside.

This film is not for the squeamish, it's not your typical maniac with a blade hacking people up but it is gruesome.  The parasite takes over the body in quite a graphic manner during one scene, resulting in some arm bending action that would put a contortionist in hospital.  All the while those already consumed are coming back to find more fresh meat, like a psycho Womble who can't find his rubbish.

When Thing went postal nobody would survive

What holds this film together is a combination of a well thought out concept with a strong cast, there is no horror stereotyping here; the woman do not feel the need to scream in a high pitch voice while bouncing their fun bags and the blokes are not all hell bent on killing whatever is chasing them.  The best way I can describe it is intelligent, yes the characters have some stupid ideas but they realise they are and try something else.

The actors fit well into their environment; Dennis makes a believable turnaround from hard knocks convict to repentant do gooder, Polly and Seth aren't your typical horror couple as she's the brawn and he's the brains much to Dennis' amusement.  The remaining three actors, for their short screen time fit in nicely, Lacey does go a bit overboard with the Ginger references.  You know she's referring to her dead dog but you can't help thinking she's actually just woken up to discover she's ginger, nothing wrong being a red head love.

The special effects are subtle but so well done you be hard pushed to think this had a small budget, the splintering effects as the parasite takes it's host is brilliant and the scuttling body parts caused much debate between my husband and I; was it animatronics/puppetry, CGI, or some bloke off screen with a piece of fishing wire?

Go find this film, watch it and rejoice...  Harking back to the brilliance of The Thing, this is a smart horror.  And if you're ever stranded in a British gas station being chased by some B&Q parasite you'll be cursing the fact we don't have back stocking refrigerators.

The Expendables

I'm a child of the eighties, but I was born too late to see films like Rambo, Rocky & The Terminator; these weren't the kind of films my parents watched but even I was aware of who Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Willis were.  They are the action movie icons, they symbolise the big Hollywood films filled with explosions and raining gun fire.  So it was no surprise that the announcement of The Expendables caused a collective fan boy orgasm.

Building on the success of Rambo (2008) Stallone has given his audience what they wanted, so much testosterone spilling out the screen I refuse to believe you could finish watching it not feeling more of a man.  They're grumpy, muscle bound, brick walls of men; except Jet Li as he likes to keep reminding us he is very small.

The plot is your standard action fare, a group of elite mercenaries take on a job to overthrow a Latin American dictator but things are not as simple as they seem when it becomes clear that the actual target is a former CIA agent turned bad, bad man.  It's fast paced, slowed only by the needless inclusion of a sub plot that sees Jason Statham trying to win over Cordelia from Buffy (does that woman never age?  That's some impressive botox).

Acting wise nobody is going to win an Oscar, but they gel well as a team and the comradery comes across as genuine; this film was obviously a lot of fun to make.  Stallone, Lundgren and Rouke have an unspoken competition over who has the most weather worn face, with Stallone winning through sheer amount of skin to skull ratio.  I would have like to have seen more interaction between Statham and Li, having seen their previous collaborations they make a good team.

There are some awesome action scenes with a brilliant face off between Austin (these wrestlers get everywhere!) and Stallone, Crews provides comic relief when it all kicks off with his AA12 automatic shotgun.  Explosions, buildings collapsing, extras flying off in all directions and an impressive array of weaponry.

Live action Call Of Duty took a lot of organising

All in all this film lived up to its hype, yes it's brainless violence and an excuse for the older generation to show they can still stand up to the new generation of action stars.  As for "that" scene; Arnie, Sly and Willis all cosying up in a church, only one thing popped into my head...  How painfully thin is Arnie now?  But it comes across more as a school reunion, you know the type where you're forced to talk those people who pushed your head down the toilet during break.

I enjoyed it, from the first scene it set itself up for what it is... Guts and glory.  It's definitely a gun show you want front row tickets for and as the credits roll the song is correct, the boys are indeed back in town!

River Of Darkness

From the start I should point out I know very little about wrestling, just that it's men with a rather dubious taste in Lycra pretending to throw each other around for the sake of entertainment.  That being said I have rather enjoyed the last few wrestler starring movies I've watched; 12 Rounds, The Marine and See No Evil all produced by WWE Studios.  Alarm bells should probably have started ringing when it mentioned TNA wrestling on the box (does that make me a wrestling snob?)

The DVD box is promising; explosions, helicopters, hard man with gun... the back features a woman hung on a cross with her guts hanging out.  This ticks all the right mindless action gun toting fun we all secretly enjoy when there's nothing good on telly.

The movie begins and here's the first thing you notice it's shot in that really annoying not quite soft focus style, something that you'd expect a film student to produce because they can't get hold of better equipment.  Not proper film quality but not documentary style either, just shite to be blunt.

There's a story in there somewhere but it's so clunky and awkward I really can't be bothered to try and explain it.  I think there are three spirits, the Jacob boys, back from the dead murdering random residents of your typical American hick river town and to stop them they have to sacrifice another towns member to them for some convoluted back story reason.  These "spirits" look like this:

Dude, I thought you said we were going to a re-enactment of the final scenes from Predator!

The acting is terrible, long pauses at the end of each sentence whilst they try and remember what they are supposed to say next, it's a bit like going to the school nativity play as you're sat there willing them to continue; by my calculations if you took out those pauses the film would be at least 20 minutes shorter.  Kurt Angle is no John Cena, he's cringe worthy at times with an almost hilarious permanent facial expression of "doh!"  It appears that the majority of the rest of cast were told to be as hill billy at possible, lumber jack shirts and caps are ten a penny accompanied with a bizarre southern drawl.

Special mention has to go to Father William who was trying so hard to be Irish he must have forgotten what the Irish accent actually sounds like, it felt like he'd been left on the reserve list for Father Ted and was still bitter about it.

To sum up; it's badly shot, badly acted, badly written and just plain bad...  I've wasted my time so you don't have to, get your dose of wrestler action by watching The Condemned and hope the TNA guys go back to ironing their Lycra.

Lets start with... Piranha 3D!

So after much debating of how to start this blog I stood in front of my epic (it is, really, we may soon have to start suspending them from the ceiling) DVD collection for about 15 minutes and decided.  Yes I chose a stimulating, thought provoking and classic piece of film making...  Folks I present to you Piranha 3D.

"There are thousands of them and they are pissed!" utters Novak, the hapless scientist who does a classic Clark Kent.  He starts the film as the geeky, bespectacled nerd but when the time comes and the 'ickle fishes are launching into an epic Spring Break picnic...  Off come the glasses and he is uber-cool action man off on his jet ski to save the world, albeit with a shotgun .

That really sums up what Piranha is all about, a film that doesn't take itself seriously at all.  There's little in the way of suspense or dramatic tension, those piranha are hungry and they sure as hell aren't waiting for a 5 page plot point get in the way of a little penis nibbling!

Plot wise it's fairly basic, Spring Break is occurring in Lake Victoria when a small earthquake causes a split in the lake floor and releasing our nippy little friends.  In come the scientists and the bad stuff starts happening, a piranha buffet if you will.  But this actually works in the films favour, the story is quite tight even though there are 3 different threads; Jake and the gang on the boat of fun, Jakes brother and sister stranded on an island, and Jakes mum, the local town sheriff dealing with tourists and trying to close the lake.  These threads come neatly together to form if some what of an anti climax.

Over all the film is well produced, I didn't watch it in 3D as I refuse to wear those crappy cardboard glasses you get with the DVD and to be honest I'm not ready to hop on the 3D bandwagon just yet.  Special effects were good and some nice gore effects, include the face being ripped off one unfortunate girl trap behind a speed boat.  The massacre scene is brilliantly shot, fast pace and gruesome, just what you want when watching this sort of film.

The acting is not that bad either, it's well cast with a few familiar faces... Come on the appearance of this guy means it's worth a watch:

Ving Rhames went slightly overboard when making sushi

Even Kelly Brook managed to actually know what she was doing, although she was incredibly British.  To be fair the majority of the adult female stars weren't cast for their acting talent, yes there are lots of boobs (my husband reliably informs me there are a total of 12 naked pairs throughout the film), the only character who really got on my nerves was Kelly simply due to the fact she just came across as whiny and spoilt making me want her to get eaten preferably mouth first.  Look out for cameos from Richard "Jaws" Dreyfuss and Eli "Hostel/I cameo in everything that involves gore" Roth.

In conclusion a good way to spend an hour and a half (in my case spending a lot of it wondering when Jerry O'Connell got so old), definitely worth a rent if nothing else.  Leave your brain cells at the door and bath in the glory that is drunk people being eaten by fish...  Coming soon Piranha 3DD... I'm not joking!