Guillermo Del Toro’s a bit of a cinematic oddity. One minute he’s making sinister Spanish folk tales like Pan’s Labyrinth or fantastic ghost stories like The Devil’s Backbone, the next he’s comfortably riding the Hollywood dollar with flashy action movies like Blade or Hellboy. So, how to approach Pacific Rim, his latest CGI-fest that could…
When Kathleen (Karen Young) – a displaced Bostonian and diligent mass-goer complete with Madonna tooth gap, new to Dallas as a fresh-out-of-college teacher – meets Larry (Clayton Day), studmuffin lawyer with a fetish for things that go “bang”, she reluctantly succumbs to his advances after the two bond over Larry’s wealth of knowledge about the history of handguns. Kathleen’s still licking the wounds left by a recent break-up and isn’t up for being more than pals; unfortunately for her, though, guns aren’t the only weapon on the menu.
World War Z was plagued from the first day of production with hasty reshoots, the lack of an ending and the need to fly in Damon Lindelof for emergency rewrites. When you need to hire Lindelof to tidy up your screenplay, you know something’s gone wrong. Imagine our surprise then, when World War Z proved to be not only coherent but actively enjoyable. It has no where near the scope of the Max Brooks book, and is tonally uneven, but for a CGI-driven action film World War Z is above par. Prepare for your bottom to be firmly clenched.
Everybody knows Superman. Sometimes dismissed under the title of ‘The Big Blue Boy Scout’, he is the virtuous, infallible and virtually invincible symbol of American heroism; the superhero that begat all superheroes. Yet what’s often forgotten is that, despite possessing these traits, Superman is also something else – an alien, an ultimate example of the ‘other’. By focusing on the latter, director Zack Snyder lends interest to the former, providing a Superman whose otherworldliness serves only to make him more Earthly. It’s a strong starting point for the new franchise, but, as with the rest of mankind, this newly human Superman still has room for a little improvement.
Everything about the DVD cover of Konga proclaims it to be London’s answer to King Kong: the title, the giant gorilla angrily striding over the diminutive Houses of Parliament, the terrified blonde trying to run clear off the DVD. Unfortunately no one seems to have realised that King Kong was a rhetorical question.
In 2001, The Fast and the Furious skidded into cinemas and gunned every adrenaline-fueled, testosterone-steeped, speed-freak fantasy within us. Set against a back drop of underground racing, it pushed the car beyond just what it could do and showed us exactly what it could be. More than just modes of transports, they became invaluable tools, weapons of mass destruction, growling, grinding extensions of an owner’s soul and the ultimate path to freedom. And yet, even with two subsequent sequels, this franchise seemed doomed to be a sad one hit wonder. Luckily for gear heads everywhere, it only took 8 years till the Fast & Furious brought back all of the original cast in an effort to reboot the story and kick-off an unprecedented rejuvenation which has already given us three brand new installments and no plan on stopping.
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