And now weighing it a mighty one hour, one minute and thirty five seconds (including credits) we have Rammbock: Berlin Undead a brilliant albeit short foray into the zombie genre. In case it wasn't obvious from the title this is a German movie just to clear that up.
It's refreshing in the modern horror climate where so many films are seeking to emulate Twilight or going down the torture porn route that good simple movies like Rammbock still exist. The story itself is sort of survival horror love story. The main character Michael comes to Berlin to give his ex girlfriend back her keys and hopefully get back together. When he gets to her apartment he is almost immediately attacked by a handy man doing repairs and inadvertently rescued by his assistant Harper. From there on it goes straight up survival horror as the two of them together with the other residents of the tenement try to defend their home. There are other romantic sub plots in the film and they all tie together to highlight different parts or types of relationships.
There are only a handful of characters and some are more developed than others because of the time constraints but there's enough of each to get a feel for them so that some of the twists are obvious before they happen.
For what looks what a pretty low budget movie the effects are well done and the survival aspect of a zombie apocalypse are well highlighted by the scarcity of food and some brilliant use of household items to make weapons and tools.
Some purists might dislike the use of the 28 Days Later style zombies especially because the claustrophobic nature of the setting really don't call for it but there are reasons for using them as well so either one would have been equally effective with some minor changes to the plot and/or setting.
As I said at the start this is a relatively short film but that works in it's favour because it let's it do what it needs to without over staying it's welcome or adding unnecessary padding so it's well worth checking out of you're a fan of the genre.
Showing posts with label reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reviews. Show all posts
Sunday, 3 July 2011
Tuesday, 28 June 2011
Pretty Little Liars, Season One
With the second series of Pretty Little Liars just two episodes in now seems as good a time as any to talk about the first season of the show.
Initially it would be easy to dismiss PLL (look acronyms are cool OK) as just another teen drama but to do so would be to ignore an extremely enjoyable show which despite being aimed at the teenage demographic has enough going for it to appeal to a wider audience. Admittedly the plot can be a little convoluted and nonsensical at times which is the biggest flaw but the strong cast bring a lot to the table and it's obviously been successful enough for ABC to renew for a second season despite some fairly mixed initial reviews and a lot of critics are now realising the shows appeal even if it's just as a guilty pleasure.
It's also gone on to win several Teen Choice Awards and been nominated for the People's Choice Award and a GLAAD award so it's definitely been a mild hit among it's target audience.
In a nutshell the plot of the show is that the girls are trying to figure out who the mysterious presence known only as "A" is while at the same time dealing with their regular lives. Every episode ends with a cliff hanger and a mysterious figure identified only by a gloved hand.
The show centers around the four main characters Aria, Spencer, Hanna and Emily and the faceless protagonist known only as "A".
Where the show truly shines is in making the four girls likeable despite their many flaws.
Aria despite having a good heart finds it extremely hard to trust others and finds it hard to let go of grudges.
Spencer is loyal to a fault at times is fairly promiscuous and a massive over achiever.
Emily...actually I find it hard to see where her faults lie apart from expecting others to hold up to her own values and standards and can be a bit of a bitch when people fail to live up to her expectations.
Hanna is extremely likeable but because of her past and family issues acts out in sometimes oddly defiant ways. There's also the underlying but never stated fact that she may have an eating disorder but this is debatable since it's never actively talked about in the show.
The show is driven along in two ways. The first by flashbacks to the night of the groups former leader Alison went missing which reveal the back story of the group and how they all came to be friends.
The second by notes, texts and email from the mysterious "A" who is initially taken to be the missing Alison.
The supporting cast are fairly strong as well particularly Ian Harding as Ezra Fitz the English teacher torn between his job and the woman he loves. The show handles his relationship with Aria extremely well considering that it is quite a touchy subject and is usually portrayed as either the older man/woman seducing the impressionable young pupil or the emotional youngster who falls head over heels for the unobtainable older mentor.
Special mention has to go out to Holly Marie Combs of Charmed fame who plays Aria's mother and Keegan Allen as Toby Cavanaugh. The latter is definitely one of the more interesting characters in the show and looking at the actors IMDB page he's not been in a lot of shows but after his performance in this I hope he starts getting more work because he's a talented young actor. Actually that comment could go for most of the main cast none of who are extremely well known but all give solid performances here.
Pretty Little Liars isn't breaking boundaries or reinventing genres but like most of ABC's summer lineup it's a light entertaining show that fills the gap as the big names go on hiatus for another season and with season two just started it's a good time to go back and check out the first season.
Initially it would be easy to dismiss PLL (look acronyms are cool OK) as just another teen drama but to do so would be to ignore an extremely enjoyable show which despite being aimed at the teenage demographic has enough going for it to appeal to a wider audience. Admittedly the plot can be a little convoluted and nonsensical at times which is the biggest flaw but the strong cast bring a lot to the table and it's obviously been successful enough for ABC to renew for a second season despite some fairly mixed initial reviews and a lot of critics are now realising the shows appeal even if it's just as a guilty pleasure.
It's also gone on to win several Teen Choice Awards and been nominated for the People's Choice Award and a GLAAD award so it's definitely been a mild hit among it's target audience.
In a nutshell the plot of the show is that the girls are trying to figure out who the mysterious presence known only as "A" is while at the same time dealing with their regular lives. Every episode ends with a cliff hanger and a mysterious figure identified only by a gloved hand.
The show centers around the four main characters Aria, Spencer, Hanna and Emily and the faceless protagonist known only as "A".
Where the show truly shines is in making the four girls likeable despite their many flaws.
Aria despite having a good heart finds it extremely hard to trust others and finds it hard to let go of grudges.
Spencer is loyal to a fault at times is fairly promiscuous and a massive over achiever.
Emily...actually I find it hard to see where her faults lie apart from expecting others to hold up to her own values and standards and can be a bit of a bitch when people fail to live up to her expectations.
Hanna is extremely likeable but because of her past and family issues acts out in sometimes oddly defiant ways. There's also the underlying but never stated fact that she may have an eating disorder but this is debatable since it's never actively talked about in the show.
The show is driven along in two ways. The first by flashbacks to the night of the groups former leader Alison went missing which reveal the back story of the group and how they all came to be friends.
The second by notes, texts and email from the mysterious "A" who is initially taken to be the missing Alison.
The supporting cast are fairly strong as well particularly Ian Harding as Ezra Fitz the English teacher torn between his job and the woman he loves. The show handles his relationship with Aria extremely well considering that it is quite a touchy subject and is usually portrayed as either the older man/woman seducing the impressionable young pupil or the emotional youngster who falls head over heels for the unobtainable older mentor.
Special mention has to go out to Holly Marie Combs of Charmed fame who plays Aria's mother and Keegan Allen as Toby Cavanaugh. The latter is definitely one of the more interesting characters in the show and looking at the actors IMDB page he's not been in a lot of shows but after his performance in this I hope he starts getting more work because he's a talented young actor. Actually that comment could go for most of the main cast none of who are extremely well known but all give solid performances here.
Pretty Little Liars isn't breaking boundaries or reinventing genres but like most of ABC's summer lineup it's a light entertaining show that fills the gap as the big names go on hiatus for another season and with season two just started it's a good time to go back and check out the first season.
Monday, 20 June 2011
Dylan Dog in Dead of Night review
This film is a bit of an oddity and very nearly slipped under my radar until I noticed that the main star was Brandon Routh of Superman Returns fame. Just a couple of points before I start.
1) In my opinion Brandon Routh was the sole redeeming feature of that Superman Returns and since he's been in it I've only ever seen him in Chuck and Scott Pilgrim vs The World and he was excellent in both of them. For some reason I can't help but think of him as a less schlocky version of Bruce Campbell and wish more directors would start utilising him as a comedic actor which he clearly has the talent for.
2) A little history lesson behind the film though since I had to do some research myself. Apparently it's based on a series of surreal Italian comic books but the movie deviates heavily from the source. The wikipedia page sums up the differences so I won't go into them here since they're largely inconsequential for the sake of this reviews.
The film starts out looking like a standard murder mystery albeit with some sort of large hairy creature being the culprit (spoiler - it's a werewolf) and then we get a brief explanation of the setting from the title character. I really dug this intro and it gives the film a vaguely noir tone. The problem is the film fails to stick to this tone or indeed any tone throughout and becomes a confusing mish mash of styles so you can be left confused wondering what sort of balance the director was trying to strike. Overall it comes across as mostly comedy/horror with undertones of action and noir.
The comedy largely comes from the interaction between Dylan and his sidekick Marcus played by Routh's fellow Superman alumni Sam Huntington. While the comedy is fairly predictable and extremely hit and miss the two work well together and really seem to enjoy their roles.
The noir comes from the fairly bog standard story. There's a damsel in distress and through a series of events Dylan is drawn into helping her discover the identity of her fathers killer and eventually track down a stolen object of great power before it can be used for evil.
The action scenes are largely forgettable with the exception of the warehouse scene where Dylan and Marcus battle a horde of cannibal zombies. Yes you read that right but more on that shortly. While the rest just kind of plod along and aren't very well shot or choreographed.
The setting will be familiar to anyone who has watched a supernatural series or film in the last decade. The vampires and werewolfs have an uneasy truce and there is one human (Dylan) who is stuck bang in the middle having been assigned the role of peace keeper between the two.
The take on zombie lore is fairly interesting however and as far as I can recall has never been done before but my memory is fairly bad so no doubt someone knows better. The zombies are completely sentient but can only eat dead or rotten food and anything else they throw back up. As previously mentioned there are cannibal zombies though who have gone insane from hunger and eventually started eating each other.
While you see plenty of vampires, werewolves and zombies in the film there's really only one main character of each. For zombies we have Marcus as mentioned previously and for the vampires we have Taye Diggs as Vargas and the werewolves are headed by Peter Stormare as Gabriel.
Both actors do admirable jobs. Vargas is extremely over confident and cocky that his plan will succeed while Gabriel much like Stormare's character in Prison Break runs his werewolf clan much like a mafia family.
The special effects are passable for the most part apart from the final scene where the boss fight looks like something out of a made for TV movie.
Dead of Night has atrocious ratings on both IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes neither of which I really think this film deserves. The final scenes are where it really goes downhill and feels a little bit rushed and is obviously meant to lead into a TV series or a series of movies which it probably won't get.
It's definitely not up there with the greats of comedy horror but if you're looking to pass a night and can look past the script which is fairly predictable at times and some comedy which just completely misses the mark then it's a perfectly solid B movie.
1) In my opinion Brandon Routh was the sole redeeming feature of that Superman Returns and since he's been in it I've only ever seen him in Chuck and Scott Pilgrim vs The World and he was excellent in both of them. For some reason I can't help but think of him as a less schlocky version of Bruce Campbell and wish more directors would start utilising him as a comedic actor which he clearly has the talent for.
2) A little history lesson behind the film though since I had to do some research myself. Apparently it's based on a series of surreal Italian comic books but the movie deviates heavily from the source. The wikipedia page sums up the differences so I won't go into them here since they're largely inconsequential for the sake of this reviews.
The film starts out looking like a standard murder mystery albeit with some sort of large hairy creature being the culprit (spoiler - it's a werewolf) and then we get a brief explanation of the setting from the title character. I really dug this intro and it gives the film a vaguely noir tone. The problem is the film fails to stick to this tone or indeed any tone throughout and becomes a confusing mish mash of styles so you can be left confused wondering what sort of balance the director was trying to strike. Overall it comes across as mostly comedy/horror with undertones of action and noir.
The comedy largely comes from the interaction between Dylan and his sidekick Marcus played by Routh's fellow Superman alumni Sam Huntington. While the comedy is fairly predictable and extremely hit and miss the two work well together and really seem to enjoy their roles.
The noir comes from the fairly bog standard story. There's a damsel in distress and through a series of events Dylan is drawn into helping her discover the identity of her fathers killer and eventually track down a stolen object of great power before it can be used for evil.
The action scenes are largely forgettable with the exception of the warehouse scene where Dylan and Marcus battle a horde of cannibal zombies. Yes you read that right but more on that shortly. While the rest just kind of plod along and aren't very well shot or choreographed.
The setting will be familiar to anyone who has watched a supernatural series or film in the last decade. The vampires and werewolfs have an uneasy truce and there is one human (Dylan) who is stuck bang in the middle having been assigned the role of peace keeper between the two.
The take on zombie lore is fairly interesting however and as far as I can recall has never been done before but my memory is fairly bad so no doubt someone knows better. The zombies are completely sentient but can only eat dead or rotten food and anything else they throw back up. As previously mentioned there are cannibal zombies though who have gone insane from hunger and eventually started eating each other.
While you see plenty of vampires, werewolves and zombies in the film there's really only one main character of each. For zombies we have Marcus as mentioned previously and for the vampires we have Taye Diggs as Vargas and the werewolves are headed by Peter Stormare as Gabriel.
Both actors do admirable jobs. Vargas is extremely over confident and cocky that his plan will succeed while Gabriel much like Stormare's character in Prison Break runs his werewolf clan much like a mafia family.
The special effects are passable for the most part apart from the final scene where the boss fight looks like something out of a made for TV movie.
Dead of Night has atrocious ratings on both IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes neither of which I really think this film deserves. The final scenes are where it really goes downhill and feels a little bit rushed and is obviously meant to lead into a TV series or a series of movies which it probably won't get.
It's definitely not up there with the greats of comedy horror but if you're looking to pass a night and can look past the script which is fairly predictable at times and some comedy which just completely misses the mark then it's a perfectly solid B movie.
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