Time: 135 Minutes Age Rating: PG – Violence Cast: Sean Connery as Captain 1st rank Marko Ramius Alec Baldwin as Jack Ryan Joss Ackland as Andrei Lysenko Tim Curry as Dr. Yevgeni Petrov Peter Firth as 1st Lieutenant Ivan Putin Scott Glenn as Commander Bart Mancuso James Earl Jones as Vice Admiral James Greer Sam Neill as Captain 2nd rank Vasily Borodin Stellan Skarsgård as Captain 2nd rank Viktor Tupolev Director: John McTiernan
CIA analyst Jack Ryan thinks Soviet nuclear submarine commander Captain Marko Ramius is planning to defect but only has a few hours to find him and the submarine.
John McTiernan’s The Hunt for Red October is an adaptation of the Tom Clancy book of the same name. It would also be the first appearance of Clancy’s character Jack Ryan on screen, who would be portrayed in future movies and shows by multiple other different actors including Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck. It’s not a great action movie, but it is nonetheless pretty good.
The Hunt for Red October is a pretty solid cold war thriller about Jack Ryan being brought in to deal with a tense situation when Sean Connery’s captain steals a Soviet submarine. With it being mostly set in submarines, the movie is deliberately paced and does drag a bit, especially for the first hour. This does somewhat come as a consequence at the grounded and realistic approach to the story, but for the most part that works to the film’s benefit, and helped with the immersion. It felt a little overlong, especially at 2 hours and 15 minutes in length. Still, I was invested with the plot throughout, and they do well at ramping up the tension over the course of the film.
The acting and character development are pretty strong overall. Sean Connery plays the lead role incredibly well and brings such gravitas, even if his accent is a little all over the place at times. Alec Baldwin is the co-lead playing Jack Ryan. This is definitely early years Ryan with him being a CIA analyst (unlike the action hero in most of his other portrayals), and Baldwin plays this convincingly. There’s also a lot of good supporting performances from Sam Neill, Scott Glenn, James Earl Jones, Tim Curry, and Stellan Skarsgard.
As expected with other action movies under his belt like Predator and Die Hard, John McTiernan helms this very well. It could’ve easily just been a rather standard submarine action movie, but he directs it in a creative way. Its visually strong, well shot with some good lighting, the sound design and sound effects are ominous, and it is edited to pretty much perfection.
The Hunt for Red October is not one of John McTiernan’s best and it is on the slower side. However, it is an overall well directed and tense submarine thriller with great performances, led by Sean Connery and Alec Baldwin. Worth at least one watch.
Time: 124 Minutes Age Rating: Sex scenes Cast: Isabelle Adjani as Anna/Helen Sam Neill as Mark Director: Andrzej Żuławski
Mark’s wife Anna asks him for a divorce but he suspects that she is having an affair and hires a private investigator. Meanwhile, he begins an affair with his son’s teacher who is Anna’s lookalike.
I have been hearing about Possession for a little while, all I really knew about it going in was that it was a strange horror movie and that Sam Neill was one of the main actors. I went into it fairly blind, and I really wasn’t prepared for how great it was.
It is actually pretty hard to describe Possession. Essentially, the setup is that a woman starts behaving increasingly unhinged after asking her husband for a divorce, however, there might be something more going on behind the scenes. That’s as far as I’m willing to talk about the plot. Unsurprisingly this is a movie about divorce and it portrays quite possibly the messiest divorce of all time. Apparently, this was based on the director’s own experience of divorce and you really feel that, he clearly put all of his emotions and feelings from that into the movie. It starts out as a melodrama about marriage falling apart, but takes a startling turn to psychological horror. It’s a weird pairing of body horror and metaphorical marriage drama, and almost plays like a David Cronenberg movie at times (who also had his own horror divorce movie with The Brood). It’s a very weird and unconventional movie, so I’m not sure that everyone would be into it. It’s a haunting, disturbing and heavy story, yet I couldn’t look away at any point. Possession has a lot to say, its very layered and there’s a lot of ambiguity and metaphors. By the end it leaves you with many questions and requires you to interpret much of what happened, but in a good way.
While the performances are generally good, it really comes down to the excellent leads in Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani. Neill gives possibly his best performance as a spy who discovers that his wife wants a divorce. But of course the highlight is Adjani as his wife, an absolutely unhinged, over the top performance which can be melodramatic, yet works perfectly for this movie. She conveys so much emotion, anxiety and a sense of dread; there’s a lot of intensity and emotion whenever she’s on screen. Possibly one of the best performances I’ve seen. Neill and Adjani throw themselves into their characters and are fantastic, with such uncomfortable convincing and angry chemistry between the two.
Andrzej Żuławski directs this and his work here is stellar. There’s always an unsettling feeling and atmosphere which only increases as the movie progresses. The visuals are haunting, and while the cinematography isn’t the prettiest and looks washed out and clinical, it fits the tone of the movie. It’s a very immersive movie, helped by the unnerving and swooping camera shots. There are also many scenes which convey the borderline insanity of Isabelle Adjani’s character, one of the highlights being an exhausting scene with her in a train station.
Possession is nothing like any movie I’ve seen before, particularly when it comes to horror. It’s a layered psychological horror drama with a lot to say and interpret from it. While I don’t understand everything by the end of it, its been on my mind ever since I watched it. The atmosphere is effectively uncomfortable and unsettling, and the performances from Sam Neill and particularly Isabelle Adjani are fantastic. Well worth checking out.
Time: 95 Minutes Age Rating: Cast:
Sam Neill as John Trent
Julie Carmen as Linda Styles
Jürgen Prochnow as Sutter Cane
Charlton Heston as Jackson Harglow Director: John Carpenter
With the disappearance of hack horror writer Sutter Cane, all Hell is breaking loose…literally! Author Cane, it seems, has a knack for description that really brings his evil creepy-crawlies to life. Insurance investigator John Trent is sent to investigate Cane’s mysterious vanishing act and ends up in the sleepy little East Coast town of Hobb’s End.
I had been meaning to watch In the Mouth of Madness for quite a while, all I knew about it going in is that Sam Neill was in it, John Carpenter directs it, and it is the conclusion to Carpenter’s unofficial Apocalypse trilogy (which also consists of The Thing and Prince of Darkness). I didn’t know what the plot would be about and what kind of horror film it would be, but it did not disappoint.
Compared to some of John Carpenter’s other work, I’d say its one of his most understated entries, and I was entertained throughout. Much of it is a crossover between Stephen King and H.P. Lovecraft, with King’s psychological horror combined with Lovecraft’s madness. Incidentally, it is about the disappearance of a popular horror writer named Sutter Cane, in the vein of Stephen King, and it gets pretty meta with that aspect. In the Mouth of Madness is a commentary on the impact and influence of fiction, and blurs the lines between fiction and reality. There is an unsettling feeling with a strong atmosphere, a lot of the movie just feels off. It really does well at conveying a descent into madness and losing touch with reality. At times the movie could be slower paced, but I was intrigued throughout. It ends the movie in a great way too, perhaps one of the more memorable horror movie endings.
The acting is really good, but it mostly comes down to the lead performance from Sam Neill, who delivers some of his best work here. Neill is playing John Trent, an insurance investigator who often detects con artists and frauds, and as such is an immediate sceptic when initially encountering the central mystery. This makes his descent into madness and loss of touch with reality stronger as he of all people encounters these unbelievable situations.
As mentioned earlier, John Carpenter directs this and his work is typically fantastic, his signature style is throughout. This might be one of his best crafted films on a technical level. There is an intense atmosphere throughout which really sucks you in. There are some stunning cinematography and shots with an over-the-top visual flair. The visual effects work here, Carpenter as usual makes great use of practical effects, as seen in past movies like The Thing. The editing is great, it helps you feel like you’re going mad, especially in the third act. The score is also very effective at setting the tone and atmosphere for the movie. While it’s not one of the best scores in a Carpenter movie, the title track is great and a standout.
In the Mouth of Madness is a solid and underrated horror film, led by a typically strong performance from Sam Neill, and with stellar direction from John Carpenter. It seemed to be a disappointment upon its release, but in the years after has been developing a cult following, and for good reason. Definitely worth checking out if you like horror, and essential viewing if you like Carpenter’s other work.
Time: 146 Minutes Age Rating: Violence Cast:
Chris Pratt as Owen Grady
Bryce Dallas Howard as Claire Dearing
Laura Dern as Dr. Ellie Sattler
Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm
Sam Neill as Dr. Alan Grant
DeWanda Wise as Kayla Watts
Mamoudou Athie as Ramsay Cole
Isabella Sermon as Maisie Lockwood
Campbell Scott as Dr. Lewis Dodgson
BD Wong as Dr. Henry Wu
Omar Sy as Barry Sembène
Justice Smith as Franklin Webb
Daniella Pineda as Dr. Zia Rodriguez Director: Colin Trevorrow
Four years after the destruction of Isla Nublar, dinosaurs now live and hunt alongside humans all over the world. This fragile balance will reshape the future and determine, once and for all, whether human beings are to remain the apex predators on a planet they now share with history’s most fearsome creatures.
I was going into Jurassic World: Dominion only mildly interested. I’m not the biggest fan of the Jurassic Park franchise. The first movie is known as a classic and was highly influential for cinema, I liked it but wasn’t in love with it like many other people are. At the same time, I like all the movies in the series. The sequels are definitely flawed and aren’t as good as the first or even second movies, but I found some enjoyment in them. So I went into Dominion fairly open minded and expecting to like it, and I did.
I had fun watching Jurassic World: Dominion but I had some issues with it, mainly the writing. You can tell that it really pitches itself as this grand and epic conclusion of the Jurassic Era, by that I don’t mean that it feels epic, but rather that it is trying to feel epic. Despite all that, Dominion doesn’t seem like a conclusion to the Jurassic World trilogy let along the whole Jurassic “Saga”, and it doesn’t feel like much has happened by the end. It is also very long at around 2 hours and 30 minutes, and by the end it just felt dragged out, messy and bloated. I think it does have a very weird plot for a Jurassic Park movie, even more so than Fallen Kingdom which had one half about saving dinosaurs from an erupting volcano and the second half a suspenseful mansion sequence with a killer raptor. Instead of it being isolated to one location full of dinosaurs, Dominion has a globetrotting and at times convoluted plot with so many subplots and too many moving parts. The characters don’t go through much development, it is just them moving from one place to another. The movie itself didn’t get off to a great start with its opening 30 minutes. 4 years had passed since the events of Fallen Kingdom and in its first scene it attempts to recap what happened since then. Whether it be with the returning Jurassic World characters, the original Jurassic Park characters, and the overall world, it just feels rushed and messy. The recap of what happened with the world is worst of all with a montage and a narration flat out telling you, the worst part is that they made it in the form of a NowThis video. The movie is pretty bad at exposition dumps, even if nothing is as bad as that opening monologue. Exposition aside, the dialogue is awkward much like the previous Jurassic World movies. The worst cases are with some of the dialogue between Ellie Sattler and Alan Grant (Laura Dern and Sam Neill) because its them having to say really bad lines. I really could’ve done without Laura Dern having to deliver the line “he slid into my DMs”.
Dominion takes a lot from the previous Jurassic movies and can be repetitive, not really covering new ground. The main theme once again is about how humanity shouldn’t meddle with nature, there’s yet another story of an amoral billionaire using science to profit (and going full Umbrella Corporation). Without getting into too much depth, the movie even ends up having its own ‘park’ despite the world now being established as having dinosaurs roaming free. Instead of taking advantage of the end of Fallen Kingdom, it introduces this random plot about locusts which ends up being a central part of the plot. One plotline that is continued into Dominion however is the one focussing on the character of Maisie and her being a clone. It’s still weird and crazy considering that it is in a Jurassic Park movie, but I liked it more than I expected. At the very least there was more going on with her compared to some of the other characters (especially Owen and Claire). Dominion does lean into some absurdity thankfully, especially with a sequence in Malta. It really picks up in the second half and it is nonstop action in the third act. Of the Jurassic World trilogy, Dominion tries the hardest for nostalgia, which you could probably expect considering that they brought back the main trio of Jurassic Park characters into the plot here. I don’t think it earns the nostalgia, but I don’t dislike their inclusions.
The returning Jurassic World characters aren’t that great, mainly Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, despite some decent enough performances from both. The highlight of the whole movie for me were the returning Jurassic Park trio: Laura Dern as Ellie Sattler, Sam Neill as Alan Grant, and Jeff Goldblum as Ian Malcolm. It’s definitely a play for the nostalgia crowd but I can’t deny, it is so great to see them back. A lot of the time they’re not really given great material to work with, but their presence added a lot to the film and I would’ve liked the film a lot less without them. There are some new characters, DeWanda Wise is my favourite performer of the movie outside of the aforementioned Jurassic trio, and I really liked her. The villainous characters are quite generic and over the top but not nearly as silly as the ones from Fallen Kingdom. The central antagonist is the main corporate billionaire played by Campbell Scott who seems like he’s basically playing Tim Cook. Scott is clearly enjoying playing a goofy biotech mogul and it’s a fun performance at least, making the cliched character more enjoyable to watch.
Colin Trevorrow’s direction isn’t great but I do think its an improvement over his work in Jurassic World. The visuals are fairly nice, the dinosaurs look great and fun to watch too. It seems that they finally found the right balance of practical and special effects. There are some enjoyable action sequences too, from the sequence in Malta involving a motorcycle chase with raptors, to the thoroughly enjoyable third act. I actually think the moments of horror are really well done, there are some good scenes of suspense.
I would say Jurassic World: Dominion is probably one of the worst movies in the series, but it’s at least better than Jurassic Park III. It has some entertaining moments and aspects I really liked. Still, I think a lot of the other films achieved what they were setting out to do a lot better. The plot is very bloated and strange and there’s fun to be had with that, but for a film aiming to be an epic conclusion, it was underwhelming. I can’t tell who’ll like the movie, but if you disliked the previous Jurassic World movies, I’m pretty sure you won’t like Dominion. As someone who generally likes all the films in the series however, I enjoyed it.
Time: 92 Minutes Age Rating: contains medium level violence Cast:
Sam Neill as Dr. Alan Grant
William H. Macy as Paul Kirby
Téa Leoni as Amanda Kirby
Alessandro Nivola as Billy Brennan
Trevor Morgan as Eric Kirby
Michael Jeter as Udesky Director: Joe Johnston
Paul and Amanda Kirby, a wealthy couple, offer research funding to Alan Grant, a doctor, on the condition that he accompanies them to find their missing son on a deadly island.
I had been making my way rewatching the Jurassic Park movies. I seemed to recall the third film being the worst of the Jurassic movies but didn’t have much memory of it beyond it starring Sam Neill and being the first film in the series to not be directed by Steven Spielberg. After rewatching it, I definitely think it’s the worst of the series, even though I have some enjoyment with it.
Jurassic Park III’s plot is a bit weird when you compare it to the previous movies. It plays out more like a creature feature B-movie than a Jurassic Park movie. Not that there isn’t some positives in that, the plot is a relatively and refreshingly simple and straightforward monster movie. It’s also short at around 90 minutes in length. However, the plot just isn’t substantial, it’s a bit too simplistic, dull and is rather paint by numbers. The Lost World increased the number of dumb decisions made by characters, and Jurassic Park III increased them even further. This is especially the case with the Kirbys (as played by William H. Macy and Tea Leoni), who are very likely the worst part of the movie, quite irritating and hard to like. The plot connivences can also be a lot, even the reason to bring Sam Neill’s Alan Grant to the dinosaur island is just so contrived. It is definitely a movie where you need to suspend your disbelief even beyond everything happening with the dinosaurs. There are some very silly moments and aspects. For example, there are times where raptors almost seem to be talking to each other in dinosaur language or something. Sometimes the film can be funny though (intentional or not), like infamous scene in the first act where Alan has a dream, which has become the biggest joke to come out from this movie. It is worth noting that there were issues during production, with the script being written while they were filming, and it certainly shows. Not to say that it is not enjoyable. It does work as a B level monster flick at times, and it can be entertaining. It helps that the plot is fairly tight and is told at a high pace, not letting itself drag. It is basically a slasher movie with dinosaurs and plays more like a Syfy channel flick, and as that, Jurassic Park III does the job alright.
There is a talented cast involved, unfortunately the characters aren’t interesting. Sam Neill returns as Alan Grant in the lead role and reliably gives a good performance, it was nice to see him again. Alessandro Nivola was a nice addition, he especially works well alongside Sam Neill. Those two were the two performances and characters I actually liked. The Kirbys as played by William H. Macy and Tea Leoni are rather annoying characters who weigh heavily on the plot, despite the talent of their actors. Leoni in particular is reduced to screaming throughout the whole movie and is very likely a strong contender for the worst major character in a Jurassic Park movie. However, the worst handling of a character in Jurassic Park III would be Ellie Sattler as played by Laura Dern, who returns from the first movie but only has a couple of scenes here, she’s barely involved with the plot. It was so minimal it honestly would’ve felt less offensive if she wasn’t in the movie at all.
Instead of being directed by Steven Spielberg like the last couple movies were, Jurassic Park III is directed by Joe Johnston. He’s certainly no Spielberg, but his work on the whole is fine, the technical aspects are pretty good. The cinematography is nice enough and the production design is impressive. There are also some stunning visual effects, even if they aren’t quite as good as in the previous couple of movies. The action sequences are generally solid and tense, a highlight being a scene later in the movie involving a large bird cage. While the dinosaurs are portrayed okay enough for the most part, they just lack the magnetic screen presence that they had previously. I remember a scene where it tries to replicate the feeling of wonder from before, like when we first see a dinosaur in the first Jurassic Park, with the main characters watching in awe as the John Williams score swells. In the third movie however, it just doesn’t have nearly the same impact and instead comes across as hollow. The deaths are probably the most violent of the whole series, possibly even more so than The Lost World, sometimes it is like its from a slasher movie, just one involving dinosaurs.
I don’t dislike Jurassic Park III, but its easily the worst of the Jurassic movies. Not that it doesn’t have some positive things; I liked some of the actors (mainly Sam Neill and Alessandro Nivola), the simple approach, and some of the action. However with its messy script, annoying characters and underwhelming (if competent) direction, its just feels subpar compared to the previous two movies. However, as a dinosaur slasher flick, it works. Its no surprise that after Jurassic Park III, there wouldn’t be another Jurassic Park movie until 14 years later.
Time: 128 Minutes Age Rating: Cast:
Sam Neill as Dr. Alan Grant
Laura Dern as Dr. Ellie Sattler
Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm
Richard Attenborough as Dr. John Hammond
Bob Peck as Robert Muldoon
Joseph Mazzello as Tim Murphy
Ariana Richards as Lex Murphy
Samuel L. Jackson as Ray Arnold
Wayne Knight as Dennis Nedry
Martin Ferrero as Donald Gennaro
B.D. Wong as Dr. Henry Wu Director: Steven Spielberg
John Hammond, an entrepreneur, opens a wildlife park containing cloned dinosaurs. However, a breakdown of the island’s security system causes the creatures to escape and bring about chaos.
With the third Jurassic World movie coming soon, I thought I’d rewatch the movies in the Jurassic Park/World series. To be blunt, I have no nostalgia for Jurassic Park. I didn’t watch the original until I was later in my teens, and I’m pretty sure I saw the second or third movies before it. While I liked the original, I just wasn’t as attached to it as much as others. Having revisited it, that remains the same case, but I still quite liked it and can appreciate the fantastic work here.
While I do have problems with it, the script of Jurassic Park is solidly written and well crafted; I was on board from beginning to end. The film is 2 hours long, but doesn’t waste time in setting everything up. The first half sets the mood by introducing the park, explaining why it was set up and how the dinosaurs are back. It allows many of the characters to be in awe seeing these dinosaurs brought back to life. Then in the second half, it turns into a thriller when the dinosaurs get loose. As that, Jurassic Park works. I do have issues with the film, nothing movie breaking but enough to prevent me from liking it more. It potentially might be an unpopular opinion, but the characters here weren’t all that interesting, and were a bit thin. That being said, it still has the best set of characters from the Jurassic series thus far. Whenever the dinosaurs are on screen, I think the film really works and succeeds, but a lot of the human drama is rather forced. I think it succeeds more with spectacle and chase scenes over the character moments, which is unfortunate because stronger character moments really would’ve made it so much better. Otherwise, it is a solid script.
As I said earlier, the characters aren’t all that great, but the performances make up for them. The main trio of Sam Neil, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum are great and make their characters memorable. Richard Attenborough is also great as John Hammond, the creator of Jurassic Park. Out of all the characters in the film, Hammond is given probably the most amount of depth. The rest of the cast including Samuel L. Jackson and Wayne Knight also bring it to their parts. The only acting that doesn’t work that well for me were the grandchildren of Hammond who were a little annoying, but I think most of my annoyance came from how they were written.
Steven Spielberg directed Jurassic Park and his expert craft is on display here. The cinematography is stunning, and everything is perfectly filmed. The visual effects are fantastic, especially with the blend of practical effects, animatronics, and CGI together, which today appears more fluid than you’d initially think for a movie released in 1993. Speaking of which, the presentation and presence of all the dinosaurs were incredibly effective. Something that Spielberg does incredibly well is build up suspense, things which he brought over from his earlier movies like Duel and Jaws. There are some very memorable and iconic sequences, including but not limited to the introduction of the T-Rex. Finally, you can’t talk about Jurassic Park without talking about the memorable score from John Williams, ranging from triumphant and epic to tense and thrilling. I can’t imagine Jurassic Park without this music.
I will admit that Jurassic Park is not one of my favourite Steven Spielberg movies and I have some issues with the film, mainly with some of the writing and the rather lacklustre human characters. As I said, I don’t hold the same love for it like most people do. Still, it is undeniably an iconic and monumentally impactful and influential film, and was truly a technical achievement.
Time: 97 Minutes Age Rating: Some Scenes May Scare Very Young Children Cast:
Jim Sturgess as Soren
Emily Barclay as Gylfie
Ryan Kwanten as Kludd
David Wenham as Digger
Anthony LaPaglia as Twilight
Helen Mirren as Nyra
Geoffrey Rush as Ezylryb/the Lyze of Kiel
Joel Edgerton as Metal Beak
Hugo Weaving as Noctus and Grimble
Adrienne DeFaria as Eglantine
Miriam Margolyes as Mrs. Plithiver
Sam Neill as Allomere
Sacha Horler as Strix Struma
Abbie Cornish as Otulissa
Richard Roxburgh as Boron Director: Zack Snyder
A father owl’s tales of the Guardians of Ga’Hoole enthrals his son Soren, but an older son scoffs at the stories of winged warriors who fought an epic battle to save all of owlkind from the evil Pure Ones. Later the brothers become captives of the Pure Ones, but Soren makes a daring escape and, with the help of other young owls, seeks out the Guardians and brings them back to defend their people once again.
This was actually the first film from Zack Snyder that I watched. It seems like an odd choice for him to direct looking back at his filmography. He’s more known for adapting comic books and graphic novels, not young adult books about animals. While it doesn’t rank among the best movies of his filmography, I thought it was pretty good.
I actually had read the books this movie is based on some time ago, that being the Guardians of Ga’Hoole by Kathryn Lasky. I don’t have a strong memory of the plot in the books, but I recall movie’s plot being roughly similar to that from the novels, however there were some major changes in story and characters. The plot of this movie is quite a simple good and evil story. With that said, it’s darker than most children’s animated movies, and that is one of its biggest strengths. It was a while since I’ve read the books, but parts of the plot and the visuals are darker than you’d usually see. The only problem I have with this is that the tone is a little all over the place, as the humour is a bit unbalanced it has one too many jokes mixed in with this epic story. This movie covers the first 6 books in the Guardians of Ga’Hoole book series, and although the books aren’t that large, there’d be quite a lot of the story to be told in one movie. If it was going to be just one movie, it would probably need to be over 2 hours long to develop the characters and story enough, as well as not feeling a little rushed. As it is, the movie is under an hour and 40 minutes long, and the pacing is a little all over the place. It does feel like the movie doesn’t quite live up to its potential story-wise Also, maybe it’s because much of the movie is more mature than I expected, but I kind of wished for slightly more complexity from the story and characters, even though I know it’s essentially a children’s animated movie. The dialogue is also a little clunky at some points. The movie did leave at a point where it could go further with sequels, but unfortunately we didn’t get any.
The characters aren’t particularly deep and are generally fine, the heroic characters are heroic, the quirky characters are quirky, and the evil characters are evil. I wish the was more to them but they are elevated by the voice cast, with the likes of Jim Sturgess, Emily Barclay, David Wenham, Hugo Weaving, Helen Mirren, Geoffrey Rush and Joel Edgerton, making each of the characters stand out more and more memorable. The villain voiced by Edgerton particularly stood out and was quite effective in his scenes.
This is the first and only animated film from Zack Snyder, and he’s done very well with his direction here. All of his movies are visually stunning, and Legend of the Guardians is no exception. It’s greatly animated, the environments, lighting and colours are outstanding, and when it particularly comes to the effects for the feathers and particularly elements like fire and water, it’s a wonder to watch. Although some had made fun of Snyder’s use of slow motion in some of his movies, it’s used absolutely perfectly here. While it definitely would’ve looked much better if it was made today, it still looks pretty good a decade later. The action involving the owls is also effective, especially some battle scenes towards the end. It’s hard to pull off making owls fighting look epic, but Snyder does it. This may be an animated movie, but you can still tell that this is one of his movies through and through. The music is generally good, except for a moment when a song played by Owl City is played, and aside from the pun with the band name, it’s really out of place and doesn’t fit in with the rest of the movie.
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole is quite good, visually stunning, well made and enjoyable to watch. While there are some things holding back from being even better and reaching its full potential, I liked it overall, and I wished that we got to see more of these movies in this series. I’d like to see Snyder make another animated movie sometime, he certainly showed that here that he’s more than capable of it.
Time: 105 Minutes Age Rating: Violence & offensive language Cast:
Liam Neeson as Michael MacCauley
Vera Farmiga as Joanna
Patrick Wilson as Det. Lt. Alex Murphy
Jonathan Banks as Walt
Sam Neill as Captain David Hawthorne Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
Insurance salesman Michael (Liam Neeson) is on his daily commute home, which quickly becomes anything but routine. After being contacted by a mysterious stranger, Michael is forced to uncover the identity of a hidden passenger on the train before the last stop. As he works against the clock to solve the puzzle, he realizes a deadly plan is unfolding, and he is unwittingly caught up in a criminal conspiracy that carries life and death stakes for everyone on the train.
I’d been meaning to watch The Commuter for a while. It’s a Liam Neeson action movie which would be his 4th collaboration with director Jaume Collet-Serra, who directed him previously in action flicks Unknown, Non Stop and Run All Night. The Commuter was pretty much Liam Neeson on a train so naturally I was wanting to check it out, and it was pretty much what I was expecting it to be. It’s nothing revolutionary but it’s nonetheless rather entertaining and Liam Neeson is good as always.
Much of this movie is a thriller, more than an action movie really, and it keeps the tension raised throughout. It keeps the entire story contained within the train, and throughout almost all of the movie is just set inside that train. While you can sort of figure out how certain things are going to play out and the story overall is not a complete surprise, it’s not entirely predictable what’s going to happen. Throughout the 105 minute runtime, you’re entertained quite a bit. There’s not a ton to the story or to the characterisation but there didn’t need to be.
Liam Neeson is typically good in yet another action role. Neeson is no stranger to these kind of roles however his character in The Commuter is a bit different to those. His character was once a cop but now is an insurance agent. So while he as ‘a particular set of skills’, he’s not at the top of his game with them. Also he actually does seem quite vulnerable and desperate in his situation, despite all of his skills, he doesn’t ever really feel that he’s on top of everything that’s going on. Something that took me off guard was the number of other actors I recognised in the movie, mostly because we don’t actually get a lot of screentime with most of them. I mean at least Vera Farmiga had a presence throughout the movie (even if she isn’t seen a lot) and Patrick Wilson was involved in some major scenes. However some of the castings were odd, like Jonathan Banks gets a really small role that could’ve been played by anyone, and Sam Neill plays a Police Captain who’s in like 2 scenes. That’s not to say that the performances were bad or that they phoned them in, because they weren’t, they all played their roles to the best of their abilities and were pretty good. It’s just personally it was a little distracting seeing so many recognisable faces pop up only briefly in the movie.
The direction as to be expected by Jaume Collet-Serra is good. He navigates the film inside this one train very well and it really does place the movie there for like 95% of the time. There aren’t many fight scenes or really action scenes but they are generally done quite well. There is particularly one fight scene that was done all in one shot, and you can tell that it was Liam Neeson and the other actor doing their own stunts, no stunt doubles were involved, and it was just really great to watch. The movie might actually be worth watching for that scene alone. While The Commuter mostly keeps itself as a contained thriller, it does go off the rails in the third act, mainly in one incredibly over the top action scene. While the movie doesn’t use CGI for most of the movie, when it is used it’s noticeably dreadful. It’s mostly in the aforementioned sequence ‘off the rails’ segment where everything looked so incredibly fake. Thankfully it’s just that one scene which was over the top, everything else has the direction being pretty good.
The Commuter is a fun little thriller, that is directed reasonably well, is entertaining and Liam Neeson is effortlessly good here. It’s not really anything that you’ll remember weeks or even days after watching it but if you are a fun of Liam Neeson action flicks like the director’s Unknown, Non Stop and Run All Night, or even Taken (the film that made Neeson an action star), this is definitely something you need to watch as soon as you can because you’ll have a blast with it.
Time: 96 Minutes Age Rating: contains violence. Cast:
Laurence Fishburne as Captain Miller
Sam Neill as Dr. William ‘Billy’ Weir
Kathleen Quinlan as Peters
Joely Richardson as Lieutenant Starck
Richard T. Jones as Cooper
Jason Isaacs as D.J.
Sean Pertwee as Smith ‘Smitty’
Jack Noseworthy as Ensign Justin Director: Paul W.S. Anderson
When the Event Horizon, a spacecraft that vanished years earlier, suddenly reappears, a team is dispatched to investigate the ship. Accompanied by the Event Horizon’s creator, William Weir (Sam Neill), the crew of the Lewis and Clark, led by Capt. Miller (Laurence Fishburne), begins to explore the seemingly abandoned vessel. However, it soon becomes evident that something sinister resides in its corridors, and that the horrors that befell the Event Horizon’s previous journey are still present.
Event Horizon was a movie that I had been hearing about for a while, particularly for how it inspired the Dead Space video game series. It’s been referred to as Hellraiser in space and it’s also known as director Paul W.S. Anderson’s best movie. Also a lot of the idea of a haunted house in space with like a portal to hell sounds like something interesting, so I was somewhat looking forward to getting around to watch it. While it doesn’t live up to its potential, I think it does work decently enough as a horror flick, and does have some genuinely good stuff to it as well. However, production problems and heavy cuts by the studio really held back the movie from being as good as it could’ve been.
There is a ton of production story explaining what happened with Event Horizon but I’ll try to limit it to the relevant things I’m talking about. Event Horizon has a lot of interesting ideas, the idea of hell being involved is chief among the best, and it wasn’t originally in the script. Phillip Eisner’s original script had alien beings as the cause of the hauntings of the ship but Anderson felt it was too much like Alien, so had a revision of the script done (by Andrew Kevin Walker uncredited) so that it was like a classic haunting movie (like The Haunting and The Shining, there’s even one scene that’s paying homage to the latter), more like a classic haunting movie instead of a monster movie, while also incorporating elements of hell in the movie. I’m thankful that this happened because it’s one of the most stand out parts of the movie. As I said, some of the ideas are pretty good, other aspects can take a little too much from other movies. There’s also some occasionally goofy dialogue and writing that doesn’t ruin the movie but definitely takes you out of it. Now I don’t know if this is the cause of it, but when Paul W.S. Anderson signed on to direct, development had to move quickly cos there was already a release date scheduled (meaning that pre production was likely rushed), so a lot of the script and other elements wasn’t worked on or revised as much as they should’ve been before filming. One thing that really needs to be mentioned is the length, Event Horizon is an hour and 30 minutes long, really quite short. It’s ironic considering that apparently the cut was way too long (even Anderson said that it was too long) and yet it ended up being the shortest length that a typical movie would be. As it is, the movie is fine enough with its length but all the cuts really meant that the story and characters wasn’t really fully realised. Maybe cutting some of the extreme gore (which I’ll get into later) might’ve been understandable and wouldn’t have affected the plot much, but a lot of the plotlines and character development was also cut. 30 minutes were cut from the movie, and I don’t believe that almost all of that was full of extreme gore. There are also attempts at building tension, but the film is cut a lot to speed up the pacing and featuring cheap jumpscares or gore and that can deflate a lot of the tension, no doubt a victim of the tight filming schedule. The ending seems to have 2 endings, and it’s like they couldn’t figure out which one to use so they just used both of them and so it’s just confusing.
The cast is limited but talented, with Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neill, Kathleen Quinlan, Joely Richardson, Richard T. Jones. Jason Isaacs, Sean Pertwee and Jack Noseworthy as the crew. They all do rather well, with Sam Neill and Laurence Fishburne being the standouts. However, a lot of the aforementioned cuts to the movie really affected their characters and performances because a lot of their scenes (including scenes featuring their development and depth) were cut. Something that the Event Horizon (the haunted ship) does is that preys on the crew members’ fears, but we only get to see that with a few of the characters and it just feels like a wasted opportunity. Seeing all of the characters’ fears and having them up against them really would’ve been something great. Even the Event Horizon fear stuff aside, we don’t get to learn about these characters well enough, sometimes making some characters feel out of place and not memorable at all. The biggest example is Richard T. Jones whose character’s development and a lot of his depth was no doubt cut from the movie, and so he just comes across as really goofy and super comedic, like he should be in Jason X (aka Jason Vorhees goes to space) or something. His comedic relief does work fine enough but that’s all there is to his character. Even the characters that work better have been likely affected by the cuts, Sam Neill’s character really isn’t consistent, and even knowing the full plot its difficult to really pin down his whole deal.
This is definitely Paul W.S. Anderson’s best movie and while some of the directional aspects doesn’t quite work, most of it works well. So much of the CGI is dated, particularly when it came to objects floating around in space like in the opening scene, I’m sure that the CGI back in 1997 was more impressive than what was on display here. With that, when it comes to the practical effects and sets, the movie is much better in those areas. So much of the design is very Alien and H.R. Giger inspired, maybe a little too much. Still, the practical sets are great and you really feel like you are in this haunted ship. This movie can also be extremely brutal and graphic but its mostly in brief moments, notably two. Both of these scenes actually went on for a very long time originally and were way more graphic and violent. If you look up what happened, when the movie was shown at test screenings, audiences didn’t take too kindly to the massive amount of gore (to put it mildly) so there were numerous cuts to earn an R rating so it could actually be shown in cinemas and avoid the dreaded NC-17 rating. The makeup and animatronics are also very impressive, Anderson got a lot right with Event Horizon. There are times where you can definitely tell that some things were rushed, particularly the editing. Anderson apparently was only able to do one draft edit for the movie and you can kind of tell that this is the case. For example, Event Horizon at times uses some really stock sound effects, which at times actually deflates a lot of the tension that they were going for. By that I mean that an example is a fight near the end had some goofy 80s action punching sound effects, making it feel really cheesy instead of intense.
Much of Event Horizon’s faults isn’t actually because of Paul W.S. Anderson or his crew but really mostly because of Paramount Pictures, it suffers by some occasionally messy writing and most of all from the numerous edits and cuts made by the studio. It does however have some really good elements, the production design and practical effects are great, the acting is solid, and this haunted ship from hell idea is really something I dig. It was a really good decision on Paul W.S. Anderson’s part to skip directing Mortal Kombat Annihilation for this. I feel like this would be one of those few movies that would be nice to see a remake of, if not at least another movie with a similar idea explored, because we haven’t seen many other sci-fi horror movies go to that place. As for Event Horizon itself, if you like horror movies and you can stomach some occasionally extreme gore, give it a watch, it’s only 90 minutes long anyway. Even if you don’t end up watching it, I highly recommend looking into the production of this movie because it’s rather interesting.
Time: 101 minutes Age Rating: Violence, coarse language, some scenes may disturb young children Cast:
Sam Neill as Uncle Hec
Julian Dennison as Ricky Director: Taika Waititi
A boy (Julian Dennison) and his foster father (Sam Neill) become the subjects of a manhunt after they get stranded in the New Zealand wilderness.
The Hunt for the Wilderpeople was a movie I wanted to check out for a long time. Being a New Zealander, it’s impossible not to hear about this movie, but I only saw the movie recently. And I ended up loving it, this is one of the most entertaining movies of 2016 and one of the best of the year. The cast, writing, direction, editing, everything added together to make such an entertaining and overall great movie.
The Hunt for the Wilderpeople is such a different film, it’s impossible to compare this film to anything else. It’s very easy to connect to and love the main characters, all the characters are very memorable. Also, this movie is hilarious. Like, I didn’t expect to find the movie this funny. The humour is a little different from most films (I can’t describe it, you’ll just have to see it for yourself), which does separate it from other comedies. Most of the jokes in the film, I found hilarious. At the same time though, this movie handled the dramatic aspects very well, you actually do care what’s going on, it’s not just a complete comedy from start to finish. One thing I will say is that there were a few times where the transition from comedy to drama or vice versa didn’t really work as well, and felt a little jarring (unless that was intentional). Aside from that, I don’t have really a lot of problems with this movie.
Julian Dennison was great in this movie, I hope he gets more work after this because he showed here that he’s got a lot of talent. He had excellent comedic timing and was really entertaining. Sam Neil also gives one of his best performances in a while. Both Julian Dennison and Sam Neill play off each other so well, they play completely different characters and the contrast really works. They were both hilarious but at the same time they could connect to each other very well, so it was easy to buy them as their characters. The supporting cast were also so effective and memorable. There are a whole lot of cameos in the film, which I won’t spoil for those who don’t know about them yet, I’ll just say that they really worked. The movie is full of memorable characters, and the actors played them very well.
Taika Waititi wasn’t just great at writing this movie, he was fantastic at the direction as well. The style of this movie is great, much of that is due to the editing, which was also perfect, and helped the movie to be more effective, especially when it came to the comedy. Also, there is a thrilling car chase scene at the end of the film which was incredible. The cinematography was fantastic, the locations used were also great and beautiful, you could really buy that they were there in the bushes. The soundtrack also, fantastic.
I wasn’t sure about how I would feel about The Hunt for the Wilderpeople after hearing so much about it for so long, but I ended up loving it. The acting was great (particularly from main leads Julian Dennison and Sam Neill), the direction from Taika Waititi was fantastic, his writing was on point, hilarious and entertaining from start to finish, just everything fell nicely into place. Check the film out when you can, it’s a very different movie from most, and it’s really one of the best films of the year.
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The Cinema Critic 