Reviews

When I first heard that Zack Synder was on board to direct this film, I thought to myself 'hey, this couldn't be too bad'. After all, the 300 film was faithful to the comic, so I was interested to see how this would turn out. When I did see the film, I was completely blown away by how amazing close to the graphic novel it was! So, it's safe to assume this is a good film, right? Well... yes and no. Baring in mind, I'm coming from the point of view of someone who has read the comic Watchmen (one of the greatest stories of all time), so naturally I'm being a little biased to the film. As a comic fan myself, it really winds me up when film companies get comic book adaptations wrong. Most of the time, they just take the basic plots of the book and then end up doing their own thing, ruining the story and character. But in Watchmen, it's practically like the book--albeit a heavily edited version of it. While I'm sure fans of the comic will really enjoy this film, those who haven't read the comic may struggle with it. The long running time, slightly complicated story lines, graphic violence and some rather unpleasant central characters will probably put off a few film goers who aren't that big on epic comic book films. Though the film has a running theme of nuclear war, it's more a character driven film--and every character seems to have a story to tell, so this film may feel a little drawn out to some people. My advice is that if you want to see this film, I'd suggest reading the comic first--that will make the film a little easier to follow as it has some character development and back story left out in the film. But if you are a fan of the comic, you will most likely think this film does the story justice. Overall, it's one of the better comic book adaptations in recent years. Not quite as groundbreaking as The Dark Knight, but nearly as dark and with an ending that is both bleak, but hopeful at the same time.

Filmed in a similar way to Cloverfield and Blair Witch--but far superior than both of them, this Spanish film is a real treat for horror fans. Following the tried and tested method of having a hand held, shaky camera and following the characters around, we see the horror that unfolds before our very eyes. Their fear is our fear and we end up getting emotionally drawn into the stories as (one by one) the characters slowly get killed of in gory ways. Luckily, this film doesn't rely too much on gore, but rather in suspense, starting off with a very mundane story about a camera crew following around firemen--before delving into a hellish nightmare where there is no escape. This is the way good horrors should be done, creepy atmosphere, full on scares and a lingering feeling of dread that lasts ages after the films finished. Definitely check this one out--but avoid the remake if possible.

Firstly, I have to say that the controversy surrounding this film is totally unfounded. I can see why many train drivers and other people would object to a film about suicide (and trying to convince people to commit suicide), but if they actually SAW this film, I think they'd agree that the subject matter is handled very well. It doesn't make a joke about it and it's very heart wrenching as you delve deeper into Tommy's life as he tries to make up for the mistakes he made. In many ways, he see's suicide as a form of redemption to help his family. And just when you think it's going to have a happy ending--you'd be surprised! Overall, while I don't think it's the best British film to come out in recent years, it's certainly not a bad film in general. The acting is brilliant and the story (while a little far fetched) does follow nicely and makes the film easy to watch. If you watch this expecting a laugh out loud comedy, look elsewhere. But if you fancy a emotional, yet slightly depressing, storyline that will tug at your heartstrings... go ahead and give it a go. Don't believe the controversy surrounding this film until you've seen it, it's worth a look.

Aside from the really bad acting, mediocre special effects (did they even HAVE a budget for this film) and scenes ripped from Raiders of the Lost Ark, my biggest problem with this was the lack of suspense when introducing the monster.

With any good monster movie (for example the first Alien film), they often don't show the monster in full at first. They often show brief glimpses of the creature, thus building up suspense and keeping you guessing what the monster looks like. But here, it's more like "oh, there's a monster trapped in a crate... WOW! There's the monster! Well, we've seen what it looks like now, no need to worry about building it up". That is poor in my opinion and you quickly lose interest in it.

That's this movies biggest problem in general. There is no build up to anything. They talk about something, then it happens almost instantly. Talk about cheap! Overall, it's a very poor attempt at doing a sci-fi monster story. If you get a chance to avoid it, I'd say do so!

After seeing this series on Jetix again, it made me remember how much I LOVED this cartoon. It's one of my favourites of all time and (in my opinion) it's teaches modern day cartoons a thing or two. That I will come to later.

First, I'll try and discuss about the NEGATIVES of this series. As we all know, due to the Fox censors, the violence had to be toned down, hence the fact why nobody fired a real or even had a real sword or said things like "kill" or words to that effect. It also meant the fight scenes were fairly basic and most of the fights involved ducking and diving attacks. This also meant that certain characters had to be toned down (such as Morbuis, The Punisher, Blade and Carnage). Also, they did tend to reuse the SAME scenes over and over again and some of the dialogue cuts were a bit disjointed.

Also, certain characters were changed significantly. Example. In this series, Felicia Hardy (Black Cat) and Micheal Morbuis were lovers, Black Cat got her powers from the same serum that created Captain America, Carnage was created by Baron Mordo and Electro was Red Skulls son to name a few. I don't disagree with these changes though, as I thought it added a little twist to the story.

Now, the Positives. Due to the fact that the violence was toned down, it meant they could add more STORY into it. This way it draws you into the characters (not just Spiderman, but the others as well). This is why I think a lot of modern day cartoons (such as the Batman) don't do so well, because they concentrate more on the martial arts action than the actual characters.

The story lines were very deep and really drew into the life of Spiderman. I'll be honest, when he married Mary Jane and she turned out to be a clone and died in front of his eyes, I did shed a tear. But by then, the story was getting a little bit silly as it tried to simuluate the clone wars thing from the comics.

All the characters were there (except for some reason the Sandman!) and the voice work was amazing. My favourites were Carnage, Baron Mordo (Tony Jay is a voice god!), Venom and Spiderman. They were JUST as I'd imagine and Spiderman's sense of humour was fantastic! The quick lines he came out with were just brilliant! The final episode where Spiderman enters our world to meet Stan Lee? Genius! To conclude, this was one of the greatest cartoons I've ever seen. What it lacked in violence, it made up for in storyline and characters. It's just a shame it was ruined by the later cartoons of Spiderman.