Sunday 31 May 2009

Night at the Museum (2006)

[Movie 141 / Day 151]


Ben Stiller plays a divorced man that seems unable to hold down a job and as such, is in danger of not being allowed to see his son anymore. So he takes a job as nightwatchman at the Museum of Natural History.

Unbeknown to him however, all of the exhibits come to life at sundown and cause havoc until dawn.

Various adventures happen, everything turns out well enough for them to have made a sequel.

It's OK, fun but not particularly funny.

My rating: 6.5 / 10
IMDB rating: 6.4 / 10
Running time: 108 mins
IMDB link

Saturday 30 May 2009

Eagle Eye (2008)

[Movie 140 / Day 150]


I really enjoyed this story of a supercomputer gone wrong. It did suffer from the usual impossible technical effects (like zooming into a photo from a security camera and then 'enhancing' it to get a perfectly crisp image - never, ever going to happen so just stop doing it) but the story was interesting enough to keep me hooked.

Nothing massively special, but fun enough.

My rating: 6.9 / 10
IMDB rating: 6.7 / 10
Running time: 118 mins
IMDB link

Thursday 28 May 2009

Star Trek (2009)

[Movie 139 / Day 148]


The original Star Trek series was cheese-laden fluff. Enjoyable, but a bit rubbish. I can remember sitting in the lounge with my grandmother in the mid-80s, watching William Shatner ("Ooh, he's a nice man" in my grandmother's opinion) hamming it up opposite Leonard Nimoy ("I don't like him"). I never really got into the whole Trek thing much beyond that though. Clearly, JJ Abrams did. He's grabbed the original premise, scraped off a decent sized chunk of gorgonzola, polished it up and added lots of whizzy effects. And he's made a decent fist of it.

The casting is very good; in particular, Zachary Quinto's is excellent as Spock. The effects expected in a summer action blockbuster are all present and correct - and as far as I can tell, there are quite a few nods to the original.

So, another Hollywood franchise reboot then. Pretty much, but this one works well - it manages to simultaneously shake off most of the cheese that has been piled onto the series since it started and still remain faithful to Trek's roots. As an introduction to a shiny new franchise, it works well. Would my grandmother like it though? I doubt it; apart from the introduction of some 'modern' language, it also features Leonard Nimoy and not William Shatner which would probably be enough to make her switch it off and do some hoovering instead.

My rating: 8.0 / 10
IMDB rating: 8.4 / 10
Running time: 127 mins
IMDB link

Wednesday 27 May 2009

Slowing down...

As expected, the number of movies I'm watching has dropped off massively since the days have been getting longer and the weather better.

I fully expect to be back on course in the later part of the year, but I'm afraid things will get worse before they get better!

Friday 22 May 2009

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)

[Movie 138 / Day 142]


I know it's been panned, but I enjoyed it. Don't go into it expecting anything more than a popcorn infused action fest.

This movie tells us Wolverine's backstory and does it with enough explosions and cool claws-cutting-through-metal shots to make it fun.

It's not the best comic book movie ever made, but it's by no means the worst either.

My rating: 6.9 / 10
IMDB rating: 6.8 / 10
Running time: 107 mins
IMDB link

Friday 15 May 2009

Withnail & I (1987)

[Movie 137 / Day 135]


Just brilliant.

My rating: 7.9 / 10
IMDB rating: 7.8 / 10
Running time: 107 mins
IMDB link

Thursday 14 May 2009

Barton Fink (1991)

[Movie 136 / Day 134]


I like the Coen brothers. I like John Goodman. I like John Turturro. Yet I found Barton Fink to be oddly unsatisfying. I'm not sure why. I didn't like the ambiguity of the ending much. The story also seemed to unfold too slowly and left too many unanswered questions.

Having said that, I always seem to dislike Coen brothers movies on the first watch (with the exceptions of O Brother and Burn After Reading). Maybe on the second go round I'll love it.

My rating: 6.1 / 10
IMDB rating: 7.7 / 10
Running time: 116 mins
IMDB link

Tuesday 5 May 2009

Wallace & Grommit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)

[Movie 134 / Day 125]


Wallace & Grommit have set up shop as pest controllers and are busy protecting giant vegetables from hungry rabbits. Rather than killing them however, Wallace has built a machine that enables him to brainwash the rabbits into disliking vegetables and hence rehabilitating them.

Unfortunately, whilst this is going on, a giant were-rabbit starts terrorising the local vegetable growers and it's down to W&G to capture the monster.

Lots and lots of fun with loads of little jokes for adults to enjoy that will pass most kids by completely.

My rating: 7.8 / 10
IMDB rating: 7.9 / 10
Running time: 85 mins
IMDB link