This is an old movie now, made back in 2002, so seventeen years on in 2019, has it stood the test of time?

Yes absolutely! I have watched this movie with a ten year break and both times it delivered it’s magic. The reason why it has not dated is because of the story and the setting. There’s a mix of comedy moments as well as real drama.

I won’t give too much away on what the film is about but essentially it’s in New Zealand and displays the way of life for the Maori people in modern times, with the focus on a young girl and her family.

The lead is superbly watchable, the story is told with great care. This film was made with talent but also a lot of love and attention. The cast were all very committed as it was a film about New Zealand and it’s history, you could tell they all wanted to do it proud.

And they did!

Whale Rider is a real movie!

To me, a REAL MOVIE is one that’s told with verve and skill, and the end product is magic. Something unreal has become REAL! The characters are alive and they are the person in the film and not the actor on the red carpet. You as the audience are drawn in and can feel their emotions through the screen. For example, Transformers is not a real movie, it’s a pop corn movie and it’s dated badly. (I’ll cut the first one some slack, but all the other ones were total garbage. I haven’t seen Bumblebee yet, so can’t comment.)

Jim gives Whale Rider the Oscar winning 9.5/10 that it deserves.

Announcement! I do make some commission from Amazon if you click on it. But it’s tiny really, what I would really appreciate, is if you do watch it, to comment back on the post and let me know what you thought of the movie

Action Character Icon – Check.

Fantastic actress and stunning to look at  – Check

Big Budget – Check

Total turkey – CHECK!!

This was a disappointment, but was it ever going to be good? None of the other Lara Croft movies were. However, being a fan of Alicia Vikander from seeing her in Deux Machina and also The Man from Uncle I thought I would give Tomb Raider a whirl.

The movie was dull, it really was. The opening dialogue was from an era gone by, where the narrator sets the premise, then the two action scenes? Like why bother. They started with a very average fight scene in the ring. The only thing impressive there was Alicia’s abs!! OMG.

In the workout pic above, she looks strong but looking at her in the movie I thought she got too lean, as she looked slightly refugee campee…..emaciated….

The second action scene was cycle chase? There was zero reason for it. They might as well have filmed her going for a jog in the morning. In all honesty, they could have opened the movie with Lara in the building discussing her inheritance, cut out both action scenes out and have Lara dropped into a mystery. Wrap some dialogue in to provide context and away you go. Have the audience asking questions, instead of shoving answers down your throat continuously.

The first two action scenes were boring and unnecessary, the third was there to move the story along, but it was distinctively below average. It was a running, jumping scene around the docks of Hong Kong with three young thugs. However these three thugs looked about 14, even scrawnier then Alicia and about two inches shorter, with zero athleticism. How can there be any tension when you’re not concerned for the lead character? Of all the HK stunt people they could have got, they could only rustle up three high schoolers? And why did they pick such timid looking actors? Alicia looks she could have whooped their asses with her hands tied behind her back.

Now this next bit is a somewhat harsh but it really bothered me, I will admit I never noticed it before in the other movies that I have seen her in. But for some reason, her right eye was all over the shop, I never knew she had a lazy eye. It really distracted me.

With the physical criticism out of the way, I have to add that Alicia doesn’t have the charisma to carry this main lead. It needed someone with more pizazz. With the other movies that I had seen her in, as great as she was in them, she was not the main lead, she was a supporting actress, and I think certainly for action movies that where her strength is. Don’t get me wrong, you can tell she is a dedicated actress, starting with the body transformation, but in the end not even an eight pack could save this movie.

I am sorry to say this film failed in pretty much everywhere. The story was clumsy and obvious, I could literally write the plot line as I went along. Oh, maybe Lara will bump in her father on the island for an emotional reunion? Of course he hadn’t died….

But of course he needed to die in the end to add emotional impact, and of course it didn’t generate any…..sigh…

The acting wasn’t terrible, just bad. The main thing that let it down was the story, far too linear and straight forward, they literally lifted it out of the action movie/game template. But what could have made a difference was the action element.

Unfortunately the action was behind the times, maybe if this movie had come out 10 years ago, people might have been wowed. Take the fallen plane in the rapids scene for example, any gamer would have noticed something similar from the Uncharted series, and it was done better there!

Viewer and fans of Alicia, forget this movie and go watch something else. Like I did – Black Mirror’s Bandersnatch. Or go play the game.

 

 

 

 

I said in one of my previous posts that I wouldn’t review the Last Jedi, but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to……Now a word of warning, with bad reviews I am going to make no effort to disclose plot lines and spoilers, this is on purpose to stop you wasting valuable time in your life to watch it, instead I am sacrificing myself!

What an absolute stinker of a movie. It was pure junk food, seemed OK when you were eating it, but afterwards you feel like crap.

I am a fan of Finn, Rey and also Kylo Ren, but the situation they get put in just makes you as a Star Wars fan want to tear your eyes out.

Let’s start with Kylo, I was hoping for some depth but he ended up like a petulant baby screaming and shouting and generally having a strop. Lost all credibility as a villain, slash antagonist, the director made him into neither one thing or another, just a big bag of wet nappies.

Finn was sent running with one errand after another, none of them actually had any real importance to the overall story, the purpose was to pad out the film and to put in a chase scene. Don’t even get me started on Rose – total fail, from an acting and story perspective. Finn’s end fight against Captain Phasma was lacking in any tension whatsoever. I almost fell asleep. What a waste of Finn’s potential.

Finally Rey, effectively she was re-enacting Luke’s training scene from Empire Strikes Back with no one training her because she can train herself. LOL. Oh, and Jedi is meaningless, so let’s send a lightening bolt to burn it down. What drivel. Face palm time.

Then there’s Luke Skywalker, one of the most iconic cinema characters of all time. With his transition from Farmboy to the Jedi. They totally assassinate his legacy. I don’t know how Rian Johnson can sleep at night, along with all the screen writers, if anyone of them were ever a fan of Star Wars, they would have refused to write this shit. I can only surmise, they all hated Star Wars and rubbed their hands with glee on how they can make Star Wars and Luke into total dog turd. (Case in point – drinking alien cow milk)

Oh maybe some fishing…..

Onwards to the major end scenes which should have been great.

First, the fight scene between Snoke, Rey and Kylo. To be honest, they lifted this scene out of The Return of the Jedi, with Snoke being Emperor Palatine, Rey is Luke Skywalker and Kylo is Vader. But instead of the awesome exchange between Vader, Skywalker and Palatine. The director decided to first of all make Rey into a total weakling, even though she had mastered all sorts of Force skills. (just about acceptable, as you need to make the main villain strong)

but then you kill off Snoke  just like that! Even though he was so powerful against Rey

and conclude with Rey and Kylo fight some poxy Red guards.

Rian’s sorry excuse for killing Snoke without having the main villain do anything was I quote

“When I was working on the character of Kylo, I came to a place where I thought the most interesting thing would be to knock the shaky foundation out from under him at the beginning of this movie…By the end of this film, he’s gone from being a wannabe Vader to someone who is standing on his own feet as a complex villain taking the reins.”

Stop lying Rian! You only wished you made Kylo into a complex villain taking the reins…..

There’s little point building up tension with the main protagonist and antagonist, just to end them so quickly. Drama 101!!! FFS…

Rian Johnson was supposedly promised the helm for a completely new Stars Trilogy in a few years time, where it will be framed in a new time line and completely new characters. (More merchandise for Disney perhaps…)

And then to Luke Skywalker’s swansong. Sure the imagery was great, but if you distil it down. What actually happened? It was the fight that never was. Simple as that. Sure, they can dress it up, oh he saved the Rebel Alliance, he saved Leah and Finn, yada, yada yada. I was incredibly bitter about this scene.

Seriously, think about it. In the original Star Wars Trilogy, very little was mentioned about Palatine, like Snoke we know little about his back story, but we are intrigued. So they’ve copied that very same aspect. Now in the end scene from Return of the Jedi, instead of Vader saving Luke by throwing the Emperor over, he cuts the Emperor in half whilst Palatine is distracted zapping Luke with the lightening, then Luke runs away because he doesn’t want to join the dark side. So Vader pursues Luke to Endor. Then have Yoda re-reappearing or Obi Wan and goad Vader into pseudo fighting so the Rebel Alliance can escape.

How pissed off would you be, if you were sitting down watching the Return of Jedi for the first time, and what I described happened? Well that’s what they did with the Last Jedi……Sickening, absolutely sickening.

Then there’s the straw that broke the camel’s back. (To be honest it was already broken. But I can’t not mention this.)

Leah’s space swim!!!

WTF! Are you kidding me! Why the fuck did they do this…..WHY!

Leia’s ship got blasted so she fell into space, but instead of dying, she used the force to fly back to safety. Of course Rian explained it, oh it’s the powers that she had, laying dormant but surfaced to save her. What a rubbish explanation, it’s total garbage. It made the force silly and nonsensical. Sigh, one of the worst scenes of all time.

You might ask why is it nonsensical? It’s to do with expectation and framing of the fictional world. If you were watching Transformers, you expect giant robots, if someone suddenly cast a fireball spell or summoned an elf, it totally breaks that reality. That’s pretty much what they did with Leia’s space swim. When Yoda levitated in Empire Strikes Back, it’s cool and in keeping, he’s Yoda, Jedi Master with over 800 years of training. But Leia just suddenly uses the force that one time, and then doesn’t do anything else with it the rest of the movie…….sigh….pure trash…

It’s such a bad movie that I have refused to watch it again.

My son who’s 5, a huge Star Wars fan, can watch the the other Star Wars movies over and over again, but yet when his mother puts this movie on. He watches it a bit then walks off to go do something else. He’s a big Kylo fan by the way, but the movie simply didn’t engage him. Sure, he watched it in full the first time, but after that he’e not bothered at all. When he’s watching the older Star Wars movies, he is emotionally involved, he is fearful when Luke is being zapped by the Emperor, he is jubilant when Vader saves his son, and he is sad when Luke is sad at the end when comforting Vader.

With Snoke cut in half, he wonders off for a packet of crisps.

Jim is not giving The Last Jedi anything…..

 

 

 

 

The kids and I caught the trailer on the giant screen at Piccadily Circus. It looked pretty good. But I wasn’t sure. There’s been a lot of Spiderman movies over the years now, and even after all these years, Spiderman 3 had me shuddering on how bad it was – ruined that trilogy!!!

But the kids kept on whining about going to the cinema, so I relented and bought a family ticket to see it in 2D. (I had left it too late to book a 3D viewing.) So, if anyone wants to comment how good the 3D option is, I would appreciate it!

I did think to myself, how are they going to tell this Origin story? After all, every one know how Spiderman became Spiderman these days, Peter Parker gets bitten by a radioactive spider, duh…..

As per the ethos of my blog. I am not going to tell you who’s who, what happens, etc, etc…..But I do need to point out, for a near 2 hour cartoon movie, I was enthralled. The detail and thought that went into this movie was outstanding. Hopefully you’ll see what I mean if you watch the credits.

The audience ranged from young and old, there were couples and just adults that came as a group. It was by no means a family affair in there.

This movie was electric, so much better then some of the recent cinema fare that I had to wade through – such as Star Wars – The Last Jedi (I won’t be reviewing that movie, as it wasn’t that bad, but nor was it good either. However, since it’s pretty much guaranteed that you will have seen it, I probably won’t be able to save you time on telling you to not watch it.)

The music was bumping, and the pace of the movie was fantastic. I would say it was only slow at the beginning. The artwork was different and very creative. Peter B Parker lends awesome emotional depth to the film, and turned what could have been the usual average superhero movie to an absolute gem! Without him it wouldn’t have been half as good.

If they do make another one, I’ll be watching it for sure!

Jim gives Spiderman – Into the Spider-Verse a spine tingling 8.5/10.

 

This was the first basketball movie I had ever seen and for a film to turn a complete b ball rookie into a lifelong lover of the game, I think it says something. Sure it’s no Hoop Dreams, but Ron Shelton is at the top of his game here, and the movie hit all the right notes. Some classic scenes and dialogue!!

More then anything else this film provides a feel good factor, there’s no dread, worry, sadness, just joy and puts a pep in your step……

It’s more than a basketball film in my opinion, it’s about friendship, competition and love…….but all of it in a light hearted manner.

It’s not a serious film, there’s no massive life lessons……oh no there is one, “listen to the woman…..”

Jim gives White Men Can’t Jump a happy 7.5/10.