Death Proof (2007) review

Quentin Tarantino is my all-time favourite film-maker for his brilliant dialogue, his creative stories and his fantastic casting choices which all fuse together to often create a cinematic masterpiece. "Pulp Fiction", "Reservoir Dogs" and "Django Unchained" hold a spot in my personal top 20 for its incredibly entertaining dialogue, often humorous violence, endearing characters and the brilliant pacing. Going into Death Proof, I knew that this would be my least favourite Tarantino film but what I didn't know was that nothing I loved about Tarantino would be in this film.

The film focuses around a stuntman who has a "death proof" car that he uses for stunts in films. Going by the name of Stuntman Mike, he comes to the position in which he decides to use this car to chase after drunk and idiotic women and kill them.

One of the biggest mistakes made by Tarantino is the idea to kill our supposed protagonists an hour into the film. Unlike in Psycho (1960), in which the second hour picks up from the events of the first, here the story is in almost no way affected by what has happened and we as an audience are forced to take it in. What should’ve happened was having Zoe Bell and her friends being killed off early in the film and then established our main characters (who we saw in the opening hour of the film)

The first hour builds up using various dialogue sequences that unfortunately cannot capture the magic of previous Tarantino scripts. A sequence ensues with our supposed main character and her friends talking to Stuntman Mike but a few minutes later, they are dispatched. This half of the film should’ve come second, especially seeing how the events of the second half are hardly focused on. Stuntman Mike pops up and chases after another bunch of girls who eventually take him down. The film should’ve had these group of girls being taken out fairly early in the film, especially seeing how there were roles by Zoe Bell and a few others. This should’ve been a cameo role in which she and her friends are taken out by Stuntman Mike, who then proceeds to kill another group of girls after meeting them at a restaurant. This would’ve created a bit more tension seeing how our main character does have any sort of connection to Stuntman Mike. 

Tarantino’s strength has always been his dialogue which is always entertaining. He has created some of my all-time favourite dialogue but here, none of his dialogue is slightly entertaining. In previous films, we are able to follow his dialogue such as when Jules and Vincent are talking about “royale with cheese” but here, we are forced to painfully swallow 90 minutes of girls gossiping about sex and boyfriends which is neither humorous nor clever. The group of girls come off as nothing but gossip girls and in that way, doesn’t resemble Tarantino’s earlier brilliance. 

The performances itself were very disappointing, especially seeing how Tarantino is able to get the best performances out of his cast such as with Samuel L Jackson, John Travolta, Uma Thurman and Christoph Waltz. In fact, the only worthwhile performance is Kurt Russel as Stuntman Mike but the supporting performances are weak.

The pacing too is horrendous as each dialogue sequence takes forever to move on. In other Tarantino flicks, we are engaged with the dialogue that we lose track of time however horrible acting, terrible writing and poor directing is exposed making us simply feel the need to check out our watch. 

The only positive aspect I could say about the film is the absurd car chase sequences which definitely boost up the overall score of the film. They are long, somewhat funny and surprisingly entertaining. Though some of the most illogical decisions are made, which furiates me, the chase sequences itself were more entertaining than every other aspect of the film combined. The first entertaining scene was about 45 minutes into the film where this girl gets a ride from Mike, who brutally dispatches her. This scene brought the first energetic smile out of me for the whole film. That brought back what Catwoman said in The Dark Knight Rises. “My mother warned me about getting into cars with strange men!”

Earlier, I suggested a different way in which the story should be structured which immediately reveals Tarantino's poor directing. The dialogue itself, which Tarantino is a master of, is absolutely horrendous and the only way in which the film is somewhat enjoyable is through absurd car chases. That said, the end to the film was about as anti-climatic as a film could get and made me laugh. 

Grade- 3.5/10

Avatar (2009) review

I may have been the only person up until now to never have seen Avatar, not because I haven’t had time but simply because, I just didn’t feel it was necessary. I had loved James Cameron’s earlier films (Terminator, Aliens and T2) and whilst True Lies was a good fun film, it was overlong. The same can be said about Titanic and it was by this point that I came to realize that James Cameron was one of the most overrated directors in the business. I can now say that Avatar joins his list of overrated films giving us nothing but visuals to drool at.

A group of marines are sent down to a planet called Pandora in search for some precious material and paraplegic Jake Sully is one of them since he becomes a replacement for his dead brother. Here, Jake begins to bond with the native Na’vis as he learns about their lifestyle and falls in love with Neytiri whilst failing to obey orders given to him.

Here is a premise that has been done before but the issue to Avatar arises with James Cameron and his overuse of CGI to dazzle his audiences. Since 2009, it has become absurd to think how people have truly fallen in love with this film hailing it as one of the greatest ever! This has always annoyed me but having seen the movie, this is absurd. If the visual effects to Avatar weren’t as dazzling and there was no 3D to marvel at, then you have a movie that is absolutely nothing special. Whilst I am not criticizing the visuals, the story is so poorly told and the characters are stereotypical, with none of the characters coming off as interesting in the slightest. Even Neytiri, who we as an audience should be able to connect to, comes off as rather irritating. Whilst Cameron’s earlier films, mainly the first two Terminator films and Aliens were able to convey emotion effortlessly making it very subtle and natural, Avatar truly overdoes it making many of the sequences involving the natives mourning rather laughable.

Though audiences have drooled about the visuals and the 3D effects, I myself saw no true brilliance about each whether it was due to the fact that I knew the overuse of CGI or whether it was the fact that I was able to concentrate on the story and characters. The film itself is paced quite poorly and inconsistently. The first hour drags along as Jake attempts to get in with the natives and the last hour and a half suddenly becomes a much livelier and more action packed feast than it was before. The problem with this is that the first half of the film doesn’t provide much about Jake Sully to truly care for him and too much is given about Neytiri and her people that it comes to the point where it becomes rather difficult to take in anymore. This is overkill!

Even with the poor story and attempt to overly humanize the Na’vi by providing possibly too  much story, the action sequences towards the end of this film are truly engaging even if the characters in them aren’t. It is mindless eye candy thrown onto the screen simply because Cameron knew that there was no way that the film would be received the same without a huge ‘Helm’s Deep’ of his own. Whilst ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers’ had an engaging story, relatable characters, great character development, great performances, strong writing and directing that eventually deserves to be payed off with a huge action feast, Avatar rarely accomplishes any of the following I listed and so the huge action feast at the end is Cameron’s way of attempting to erase his audience’s mind of all the poor things about this film.

I am rather surprised to say this but most of the performances in the film come off as extremely poor when compared to Cameron’s other films such as Aliens which had some of his better performances by actors. Sam Worthington isn’t anything special as Jake Sully. I am still unsure on who to blame for not being able to like Jake. Sigourney Weaver, surprisingly, gives an extremely poor performance when compared with her performances in the Alien franchise. Most of the performances were extremely weird making the characters they played hard for me to take in seriously.

Those who simply praise the brilliant visuals and simply forget about the poor story and poor character development are those who do not truly think about this film and give it a simple pass for its revolutionary visuals. I just ask of them to view the film had the visuals not being at the standard that they were. As a young George Lucas once said, “Visual effects are used to tell a story. Special effects without a story is a pretty boring thing!” We all know what became of this man later in his life but this is a principle that James Cameron himself followed, until Avatar came along.  

Grade- 3/10

Superman/Doomsday (2007) review

My preparation for Man of Steel has been mostly torturing with me hating the last three Superman films with a passion. I wasn’t sure whether or not this film is where I should go next but only decided to watch this simply because I enjoyed the ‘The Dark Knight Returns’ films from 2012 and this year. I can happily say that Superman vs Doomsday is a surprisingly entertaining film that shows us the characters of Kal-El, Lois Lane and Lex Luthor far better than they were shown in Superman Returns and in some ways, brings back old memories.

Superman/Doomsday tells the story of Superman, on a quest to bring peace to Metropolis, realizes that he has found a new enemy called Doomsday, a genetically engineered warrior. During a fight, Superman manages to defeat Doomsday but succumbs to his injuries. Following his death, whilst the residents of Metropolis mourn his death, Lex Luthor has begun an all new and terrifying plot against Metropolis.

Whilst the introduction involving the title was disappointing as it didn’t contain the traditional John Williams score, I was surprised that the theme composed for this film was surprisingly good and showed an extremely emotional side to it. The film begins with a sequence where Lex Luthor talks about god and compares him to Superman and states that even God must die sometimes. I thought that this was a truly fantastic way and intriguing way to open up the film. It immediately brought our attention on the story and made us loathe Lex a bit more than we had done in the past. It was a rather powerful beginning.

The story in this film is generally fantastic, giving us many great sequences and full of surprises. I had always viewed Lex Luthor as a rather bland character but here, he seems a little more energetic and seems clever. His plot in this film is an extremely unique one and though it may sound cheesy, comes off rather well in the film. Lex, after Superman’s supposed death, creates clones of Superman as he makes his army of ‘Supermen’ to rule Metropolis. I thought that this was a completely awesome idea and worked a lot better than the plots to Superman III, IV and Superman Returns.

The action sequences in this film are generally exciting though some action sequences do go on for quite sometime, to the extent where you wonder how it could possibly stuff. The best action scene is quite possibly the scene involving Doomsday and Superman who fight, as Lois and Jimmy are on the plane. This scene had the most surprises and was rather short, quick and extremely effective. The most drawn out scene was the fight scene right at the end with clone Superman and Superman.

The voice acting in the film was done extremely well. Adam Baldwin was fantastic as Superman and his voice for even Dark Superman was good. Anne Heche did a good job as Lois Lane, providing a much stronger and courageous Superman than Kate Bosworth’s terrible performance the year earlier. James Marsters did a great job voicing Lex Luthor, giving a powerful voice.

However, this movie is far from perfect even though it is the best Superman film since Superman II, that I’ve seen. The vision of Metropolis didn’t necessarily meet my expectations and I was disappointed. I’m not sure how loyal this film is to its comic book and I’m not sure how the Daily Planet looks in the comics, but here it seems too spacious and seems like an important place. I wasn’t pleased by this aspect of the film but it makes up by several other great aspects such as voic acting, action scenes and some great character moments such as Superman explaining to Lois that he cannot give away his secret identity because of her own safety which links back to Superman II.

Though I was definitely pleased with the story and Lex’s plot, I was truly disappointed at how quickly Doomsday was finished in this film. He made for a great villain and I thought that if he could’ve returned and still being Lex’s puppet it would’ve been great, considering he is one of the toughest enemies Superman has faced thus far- Hopefully, Michael Shannon’s Zod continues Terrence Stamp’s Zod.

Overall, on my quest to experience different Superman films I was truly happy to stumble upon this one. It gives us a new take on the character of Superman and thus so, in a great and entertaining way. Even if a few action sequences go on a bit too long, an interesting story and some great characters make up for a great comic book film. 

Grade- 7/10

Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) review

When a franchise has been dormant for a long period of time, especially a beloved one such as Star Wars or in this case, Indiana Jones, it is usually evident that a remake or a sequel usually results in an unnecessary addition to a franchise which ends up ruining it. This is evident with Star Wars and even Superman. 

However, as bad as some films may be considered, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is considered the most disappointing film next to The Phantom Menace. I disagree

Based around the crystal skull, this film tells the story of a much older Indiana Jones who is once more on a search for a crystal skull as he must ensure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands of the Nazis….oh wait, the Soviets. This is my biggest concern of the film right here, not the story in general but the idea of using Russians as the main villains. Each previous Indiana Jones film had a memorable villain, with the first and third using Nazis and the second using terrifying Indian people. The villains in this film are so stereotypical and bland that they immediately pass off as forgettable. Whilst Harrison Ford is as brilliant in the role as he always is, bringing in the same endearing characteristics that made him one of the most loved heroes, Cate Blanchett is horribly miscast as the main villain. When you take into consideration how great an actor she is from various films, to the point where she has won an Oscar, you’d expect her to deliver a truly great performance in such a film. Absolutely not in this case. She comes off as an irritating and very unintimidating villain who comes off as a rather laughable person never providing tension when it is needed. This is partly due to some of the poor writing and some of the poor story involved with her character but Blanchett herself is at fault in this particularly case. When you realize every other villain has cast an image in this franchise and she doesn’t, there is definitely something wrong

One of my favourite scenes of the film is the fantastic sequence early in the film in the warehouse where a fantastic and old school looking action sequence takes place as John Williams’ legendary musical score starts bombastically dancing to its own! This scene, despite the obvious CGI backgrounds, had a lot of great action and some great humor and was an overall fun sequence. Ford immediately ensured that we wouldn’t view this film the same as the Star Wars prequels as he is able to bring in an endearing personality towards Indy once more. Then the film certainly slows down and whilst some hate Shia LaBeouf, I certainly didn’t mind him. I thought it was rather clever having him be Indy’s son which goes well with Sean Connery being the father. Both Indy and Henry Jones Sr are wreckless fathers who try to love their children but are too busy getting caught up in their own world and life.

The story itself is presented rather well even though it doesn’t follow the same Indiana Jones structure. Most of the story is intriguing unlike the prequels to Star Wars and come off feeling like an adventure that Indy could go on some day. The script in this film is generally fantastic with some great moments and lines but at the same time, does have some bad dialogue. This is George Lucas’ involvement.

Karen Allen returns as Marion Ravenwood from Raiders of the Lost Ark and whilst her character is present to bring back the feeling of the previous films, comes off rather irritating and doesn’t do too much to help move the story. Whilst her character was great in the first film, this is where it should’ve left with her final known fate being having started a relationship with Indy as shown at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. When she meets Indy once more after a long time, it felt forced and rather awkward despite the two having been in a film of the same franchise, a further 25 years earlier.

Steven Speilberg is a legendary writer and whilst this is critically claimed as one of his least successful films, I personally found it a joy to view the first time. Surely it is full of flaws, more so than the previous films and doesn’t contain the same magical and nostalgic factor, but Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is able to overlook these issues thanks to a fantastic performance by Harrison Ford and some great action sequences early on, as well as an overall good and engaging storyline with a relatively good script.  However, it is truly evident that this instalment never needed to be there for this franchise. 

Grade- 8/10

Superman Returns (2006) review

Everyone hates the last two Superman films, there is not one person who views them as good films. However, prior to the release of Superman Returns, many would’ve been highly anticipated and hyped for this film, saying that how could Superman go wrong under the director of The Usual Suspects when he’s got a massive $250 million to work with. Well, to keep this review short…everything went wrong with this film. Very little good aspects can be picked off this ridiculously long and slow running film which has little to offer in terms of character development and moments, exciting action, amazing visuals or even in terms of acting and writing.

‘Superman Returns’ tells us the story of Superman following the events of Superman II, where has returned to his home planet of Krypton in hopes of finding any survivors after an astronaut discovery of Krypton. He returns to Earth only to learn that the evil Lex Luthor has been released, following Superman’s failure to show up in court. Now Lex Luthor is at it again, attempting to once more destroy the world as Superman must “return” to defeat him.

In terms of story, this is a straightforward premise and could easily be an engaging one. This was very similar in Superman: The Movie and the Lex Luthor storyline completely works there but here, it simply doesn’t. Bryan Singer definitely did not demonstrate his love for film and his passion to resurrect a franchise that died out 19 years earlier. The way that the entire story was told was in a dull manner, never providing the true character moments that even the atrocity, Superman IV remembered and provided. Lex’s plot to take over the world for a while seems interesting, especially a scene involving Jor-El. It was actually great to see them re-use Brando’s legendary performance back in 1978 into this film and surprisingly worked, I must say. However, the whole aspect of Kal-El leaving Earth to Krypton betrayed his character and his constant frustration and jealousy throughout the film resembles more of the Clark from Smallville than previous Superman films!

Something that was horrendous about Superman IV was the laughable visual effects which looked like they had been horribly Photoshop-ed thanks to an extremely low budget of under $20 million. Thankfully, the effects in Superman Returns are good but still, in terms of its age don’t look incredible. Much of the visuals do not seem engaging especially considering most other elements of the film are horrendous. Bland visuals generally don’t mean much but here it does, considering that everything is pretty terrible, especially the characters.

Something that was amazing about the first two instalments were the endearing characters and how they were played out. Kal-El was always charming and possessed all the traits that Superman should have whether it be witty humor, intensity, eagerness, boldness or even the clumsiness and awkwardness of Clark Kent which were all brilliantly portrayed by Christopher Reeve. The same cannot be said about Brandon Routh who simply doesn’t bring much charm and excitement to the film despite some good Superman moments. When he delivers the line, “flying is still statistically speaking, the safest means of transport!” which was a complete take from Superman IV, not much is felt. He wasn’t terrible but he definitely was miscast and definitely does not bring the memories of Reeves’ Superman. Whilst Kevin Spacey is great as Lex Luthor, yet still remains a boring character, there was a huge issue I had with this film and that was Lois Lane who was such a lovable character in the old films. Kate Bosworth was rather terrible in this film for many reasons. She looked and certainly did not act anything like Lois Lane from the previous films but she looks far too young which becomes extremely distracting. However, the core of this issue lies with her acting abilities which are extremely limited. Considering a large proportion of the story is devoted to her story, it becomes rather hard to watch and care for her portrayal of a beloved character. Her chemistry with Brandon Routh was terrible with the two never demonstrating their charming and bold personalities that their previous actors displayed. Eva Saint Marie is great as Martha and it is a surprise that she and Brando were in a film together, despite not playing a couple or anything, since On The Waterfront in 1954.  

There is one decent action sequence in the film and that is entirely it. To not spoil much of the ending, the film ends in the most anticlimactic and rushed way that it becomes utterly frustrating. To think that a new Superman film with the budget and even the time did not add as much action as even Superman III did is just shocking. It’s actually an insult and would make this film feel worse and worse when re-watching. One decent action sequence doesn’t give justice and respect to previous Superman films even if the source material was somewhat loyal to the original films. Since there is almost no action and no final confrontation between Kal-El and Lex, but ends abruptly, most of the emotion and conflict cannot truly be felt. Possibly one of the greatest scenes in the film is when Superman is hospitalized and people support him and wait eagerly, much like us the audience did. But…nothing really happens! 

Another frustrating aspect of Superman Returns was the vision of Metropolis by Singer. This certainly didn't seem to resemble that of the old films and especially sequences inside the Daily Planet seemed to show no recognition of what the old films were life. It now seems like a huge part of life on Metropolis with constant interviews and rooms full of people. Compare this with that of the old films and it certainly doesn't work well especially as a sequel to the first two Superman films.

 

Overall, Superman Returns is quite possibly the fourth worst film in the Superman film franchise and suffers much from poor character development and lack of emotion and conflict. Many performances aren’t that great and many characters and themes feel betrayed by this film. Even the effects do not look dazzling with such a big budget.

Grade- 3.5/10