Reviews

We saw this movie at a festival screening with a Q&A with the director and lead character afterwards. Apart from the crane hire for one shot, the movie was shot entirely without money changing hands. All the crew and cast worked for free and paid their own expenses. All the equipment was borrowed.

Its an enjoyable and competent movie. The acting is first rate, mostly from established actors. The direction is confident and tells the story well.

The lead characters words are sometimes a little over sophisticated for the person as written. Some of the locations are a bit posh for the people concerned.

I'm expecting good things from Simon Powell.

Its hard to make a good Narnia movie. For a start, the genre is too heavily overlaid with LOTR and Harry Potter. The books tread carefully (successfully for me at the right age) between scary and cutesy. The moral message is blatant and the policy of losing one or two characters each book and adding new ones works well in a series but doesn't play so well to a movie franchise.

Dawn Treader is modelled as a series - its Lewis' take on Gulliver's Travels. So cutting it into a feature will always take some doing.

The movie plays fast and lose with the plot, but a good movie should and I don't think they did too bad a job. The overarching concept of the book is the redemption of Eustace and they don't lose that. Missing out the torture of Eustace' self-flaying to restore his humanity was cowardly, but we still get a sense of the boy's anguish and his wonder that people cared about him.

I couldn't work out why, but it looks more like TV than a movie. Something to do with the shot-list I think - too few big pans a lot of close-ups.

Where the movie falls down in in the plot and continuity details, and in the lack of a personified villain. Now the book lacks the latter too, but it doesn't have a final battle. There are too many "why would they do that?" and "how did he get there?" moments. A little attention to detail could have fixed these - perhaps some of them were lost on the cutting room floor.

An incredibly honest pastiche of the Disney cut on fairy tales with princesses. Enchanted manages the difficult double act of being a Disney movie and parodying them at the same time.

Its not a great movie. Its not the Princess Bride. But its funny, observant and visually impressive and a good way to spend a couple of hours on Boxing Day.

The animated sequences are "just" sub standard - hopefully deliberately so. The extent to which "magic" works in Manhattan is carefully judged and works very well.

The cast are excellent, although not terribly stretched.

2002 is the ghostbusting department of the Hong Kong Police. The hero is fated to cause the death of anyone he gets close to, which cramps his love-life somewhat. He gets through partners rather quickly too, since they die, become super-powered ghost partners and then get re-incarnated. His mentor sells paper offerings for the hero to burn for their ghost friends.

The script is always intelligent and witty. The action sequences are just right - they move the plot along without dominating it and are great fun. The acting and directing are both excellent and the main characters are likeable and sexy - strong, but vulnerable.

We laughed out-loud, especially at the comments that brought the characters down to earth. We didn't actually cry at the pathos but it was there.

This review relates to the English subtitled version shown on TV.

Not the greatest of its genre but some nice touches. I love the way the house gets more and more scaffoldng as the series progresses.

Rizel is the only one of her batch of synthetic humans to become fully active. To continue the experiment she needs a husband. The problem is she looks about 8, likes a 14 year old boy, who has a crush on his homeroom teacher... Oh and her 3 "papas" have unlimited sci-fi resources to help her.

This one rides right on the borderline of good taste in terms of the apparent ages of the characters and the mild sexual content.

A young girl gets lost and has to work in the bath-house of the gods.

Great fun, but missing the light touch of Porco Rosso, Totoro or Cagliostro or the great plot of Naushika.

The cleaning of the river God is just perfect!

Visually and audibly captivating, this movie shows that you can be serious and funny at the same time. Its a true multimedia experience - speech, music, and visuals are employed separately and together to provide multiple messages.

The total rapport between Ghost Dog and his best friend who don't speak each others language is just one highlight of many.

Never heard of this movie, but it was the best bet on the box. Had a thoroughly good time! Excellent writing, direction and performances. Nothing unpredictable - the Hamlet tie-in says it all, even the characters know they are playing out a tragedy and tell each other. But the predictability of the plot comes from the inevitability of the scenario, which in turn comes from the characters. If the resolutions are a little trite, its because its basically a tragedy played out on an action comedy set and there isn't time to beat about the bush. If you liked the wit and love of life in Strictly Ballroom, you'll like this.