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Reviews
Perfect Creature (2006)
Decent little flick that puts an interesting spin on the vampire mythos. ** Spoilers **
** possibly contains some SPOILERS ** Hearing absolutely nothing about this movie I recently got a chance to watch it and I have to admit I was slightly entertained. I would not put it in my top 10 or give it any major awards but it was definitely an enjoyable movie which showed that the vampire genre is not dead and has potential to come back, just not through this movie.
The existing plot description make it sound like you will be baffled by the plot and it will keep you on the edge of your seat, which is a half truth as you will be definitely baffled by the multiple plot lines which never go anywhere.
As someone pointed out this movie revolves around the existence of humans and "vampire like creatures" in a fictional alternate reality putting the time frame somewhere around 1930s-1950s ( I could be off ). The major story is somewhat a "film-noir"esque murder mystery with subplots of epidemics / human evolution / love.
The film stars off well enough by giving us a background on the "brotherhood" ( vampires ) and how they are trying to coexist with humans which is interesting in itself but never really develops into anything concrete.
Then we are introduced to our main villain( Leo Gregory ) and our protagonist ( Dougray Scott ) with a very well done bit of cinematography. But after that things start slipping ... rest continued at the bottom following the review ** spoilers *** To sum it up, the movie was "ok". it presented a lot of interesting ideas and i believe would have worked well if kept as a straight up murder mystery and simply focused on that plot line. But with too many interesting characters and potential subplots open up to so many different ideas there just wasn't enough of one thing to keep me interested.
I would give it a 7/10 for trying to bring back the vampire flick but the rest was very adequate and nothing to write home about.
** SPOILER ** The main characters were very shallow and this included the more interesting villain who simply "snapped" one day and decided to go on a murdering rampage to cause a conflict between the humans and the "vampires". Not very original nor interesting which is too bad because the performances were pretty good and the actors did a fine job but the sub par character development kept it from being really gripping.
The mother ( Saffron Burrows ) / daughter development seemed like an afterthought to appeal to the "Children of Men" fans. Secret society who controlled the human life was interesting but once again very underdeveloped and cliché. The love story between the vampire ( Dougray Scott ) and the human ( Saffron Burrows ) was completely unnecessary.
The whole movie seemed like it started off original and could have taken many different genres to a new level and then someone ran out of steam and just picked away at some more popular movies from this genre causing a big mish mash of unfinished plot lines.
Anyway these are my two cents.
The Monkey's Mask (2000)
A nice little mystery
A nice little movie but for a flick that is supposedly a crime / mystery the plot really moves along slowly and takes some fair turns away from the mystery part at some points. Susie Porter is quite good in the role and since this is the first time I've seen her act I was quite impressed that she managed to pull off the tough PI role quite well. The music in this film along with the cinematography is a very nice touch to the rest of the story and I really liked the usage of different shots to get the attention of the viewer and show them something new.
The plot itself was alright, not the greatest mystery movie I have seen but alright, but then again most people will probably not remember the story as well as the interesting characters it presents. Our lead PI being probably the most memorable.
The whole movie has a `independent / student film' feeling to it which I really like so I would have to recommend this movie for anyone who is slightly bored of the fast paced mystery films which focus more on cheap thrills rather then character development ( ala Along Came a Spider ).
Versus (2000)
action at its best
this has to be one of the slickest movies that ive seen in a long time. being a huge fan of martial art movies ( anything from the 70's kung fu movies to the crap americans try to make ) i belive i know a thing or two about action and how its supposed to be played out and let me tell you Versus does that plus more.
short plot outline: we have a couple of escaped convicts that meet up with a gen x Yakuza group in the middle of a somewhat spooky forest. none of them really know why they are supposed to be there and after one of their dead gang members turns into a living corpse they stop caring about the whys as all hell breaks loose. after that the plot is just a glue that sticks all the events together, so dont go see this movie thinking its one of those psychological screw with your brain and make you loose sleep type anime movies, this is an action film pure and simple.
review: amazing, when i first got a copy of this film i watched it about 3 times in a row. this is one of those movies that puts a big grin on your face as you watch it, and trust me it can be watched over and over. lets see what is there not to praise about this film, the cinematography is great, the camerawork is one of those best ive seen in martial art films its on par with Yuen Woo Ping and John Woo as far as style goes, the acting was awesome i especially loved the one Yakuza member with the daggers, cant recall his name, hes one of my favorite characters now. but hes not the only one thats great all the characters in this film are very well acted out with a very anime style, you got your quiet calm hero, the crazy funny bad guy, the gay guy, the kind of annoying girl, a tough loyal martial artist and the sick demented boss. i dont think i even need to mention the awesome quality of the martial arts and gun play shown in this movie. its just plain superb, especially the final showdown between the two main characters, then again that showdown is the reason why you watch the movie.
anyone who is a fan of action anime martial arts and japan cinema should see this. i cant recommend this movie enough