Non-Review Reviews | the m0vie blog

Non-Review Review: Unstoppable

Posted on August 19, 2011 by Darren

I guess I’ve kinda marked Tony Scott as a more talented Michael Bay, in that he’s a director who manages all the tense and superficial elements of his action films particularly well, but that he also a strong eye for dramatic talent and seems to work much better with his leads – or, at least, draw stronger performances from them – than Bay. I was kinda thinking that as I was watching Unstoppable, pondering how Bay’s fascination with physical objects and explosions could have turned the film into a nigh-impossible mess, as the movie is literally based around the idea of a runaway train. Scott can’t quite find the human drama at the core of the story he’s telling, but he does try. And I think that effort alone makes the film watchable, if not remarkable.

Train-ing Day...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: chris pine, denzel washington, film, films, hollywood, michael bay, Movies, non-review review, review, tony scott, train, Unstoppable | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Change-Up

Posted on August 18, 2011 by Darren

This movie was seen as part of Movie Fest, the rather wonderful film festival organise by Vincent and everybody else over at movies.ie. It was well worth attending, and I’m already looking forward to next year. Good job all.

Body swap comedies are pretty much a subgenre unto themselves. There’s a fairly standard formula, much like the conventional romantic comedy, but the success or failure of a given movie rests pretty much entirely on the execution of that formula. It’s finding the wit and energy to inject into a familiar structure, to produce an interesting and compelling result. It’s been done with considerable frequency. However, The Change-Updoesn’t really generate enough laughs consistently to make a memorable addition to this category of comedy.

Just kidding around...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: alan arkin, Body swap, Change-Up, comedy, film, Film festival, films, jason bateman, Leslie Mann, Movie, movie fest, Movies, movies.ie, non-review review, Olivia Wilde, review, Romantic comedy film, ryan reynolds, The Change-Up | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Drive

Posted on August 17, 2011 by Darren

This movie was seen as part of Movie Fest, the rather wonderful film festival organised by Vincent and everybody else over at movies.ie. It was well worth attending, and I’m already looking forward to next year. Good job all.

Drive took home Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival, and it’s easy to see why. This pulpy retro crime thriller is an intense joyride featuring what might hopefully be a long over-due star-making role for Ryan Gosling.

Gosling has an impressive body (of) work...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Albert Brooks, arts, Bryan Cranston, cannes film festival, Carey Mulligan, Clint Eastwood, Drive, drive (2011), drive (film), film, Film festival, france, Lacemaker, los angeles, Madame Bovary, miami vice, Movie, Movies, Nicolas Winding Refn, non-review review, Piano Teacher, review, ron perlman, Ryan Gosling, United States | 11 Comments »

Non-Review Review: 30 Minutes or Less

Posted on August 16, 2011 by Darren

It’s kinda strange to watch 30 Minutes or Less. It’s an entertaining enough farce that is carried mainly by its superb primary cast, but it feels strange because the viewer gets the sense that the film might have worked better as a quirky caper film instead of a flat-out comedy. I enjoyed the movie, even if it wasn’t really in the same ballpark as Ruben Fleischer’s early film, Zombieland. I spent most of the movie with a smile on my face, rather than laughing out loud.

Banking on another great comedy...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: 30 Minutes or Less, Aziz Ansari, danny mcbride, jesse eisenberg, michael pena, Nick Swardson, non-review review, review, Social Network, zombieland, Zombieland [Blu-ray] | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Fright Night

Posted on August 15, 2011 by Darren

Fright Night is great fun. It’s not a perfect film, but it’s one that’s produced with enough skill and charm that it feels well worth your time. A superb cast and confident direction make the film feel like a breeze, even with a slightly muddled middle section and some strange plotting and pacing. It’s also one of the best uses of 3D I’ve seen since Tron: Legacy, and I genuinely don’t say that lightly. All of adds up to a movie well worth sinking your teeth into.

Put the Fright one on...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: anton yelchin, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, colin farrell, Craig Gillespie, david tennant, film, Film festival, Fright Night, Horror film, Imogen Poots, Movie, non-review review, review, toni collette, twilight | 5 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Final Destination 5

Posted on August 15, 2011 by Darren

Okay, if you’re reading this, I’m going to assume that it means you’re interested in the Final Destination series. I mean, at a fifth instalment, it’s hard to argue that the audience doesn’t know what to expect – especially in a series like this, which is build around a particular gimmick. In this case, the gimmick happens to be turning the entire world into a Rube Goldberg Machine… of death. So the question isn’t really whether the film works as a self-contained entity, or whether the entire concept works. We’ve had four films to determine whether the very idea of Final Destination 5 appeals to you, so let’s just focus on – if you’ll pardon the pun – the execution this time around.

It's a grave matter...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: arts, David Koechner, death, Emma Bell, film, Film festival, final destination, Final Destination 5, Fright Night, Glen Morgan, Jacqueline MacInnes Wood, James Wong, Movie, Nicholas D'Agosto, non-review review, review, Tony Todd | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Cowboys & Aliens

Posted on August 15, 2011 by Darren

It’s a testament to Jon Favreau’s skills as a filmmaker that Cowboys & Aliens ends up as a watchable, if entirely forgettable, addition to an ever-growing summer schedule. The movie is plagued by fairly fundamental problems, from a miscast lead to a failure to follow through on an interesting premise, right down to being one of the more blandly predictable blockbusters in quite some time. Favreau plays the best hand he can with the cards he has been dealt, offering a passable imitation of Steven Spielberg, but the problem is that none of it adds up to a win.

Not quite a blast...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: American Old West, Bourne Identity, Cowboys & Aliens, daniel craig, film, Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, harrison ford, jon favreau, Movie, non-review review, Paul Dano, review, steven spielberg, Western (genre) | 6 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Takers

Posted on August 12, 2011 by Darren

The obvious point of comparison for Takers is The Town, Ben Affleck’s bank-robbing thriller that opened around the same time. However, I think it’s a misleading comparison, if only because Affleck’s film feels far more specific and nuanced in scope than this heist thriller. Instead, I think the best point of reference for this particular feature film is to consider is as “Heat for the MTV generation.” Of course, any film’s going to come out quite badly from that synopsis, but I do think it’s fair, as it speaks to both the strengths and (perhaps more importantly) the weaknesses of this particular film.

Are the crew being taken for a ride?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: arts, bank robbery, ben affleck, fiction, film, Idris Elba, los angeles, Matt Dillon, Montage (filmmaking), Movie, Movies, non-review review, Online Writing, review, Rosemarie DeWitt, SAT, Takers, the wire, United States, Wire | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Ninja Assassin

Posted on August 12, 2011 by Darren

I want to like Ninja Assassin. I want a nice, pulpy, old-school hyper-violent throw-back like the title suggested. The two words thrown together don’t necessarily evoke the imagery of classic cinema, but they at least promise a reasonably diverting action thriller. However, it seems that nobody told the writer and director this. Despite it’s surprisingly direct title, the movie is just one big bloated mess, which seems to aspire to a complexity that nobody expects of it, and fails miserably. There seem to be occasional moments where the film grabs the potential of the concept, acknowledging a sort of Tarantino-light nostalgic approach to pop culture trash, but most of the film takes itself far too seriously, but without the skill necessary to succeed as the film it seems to want to be.

All fired up...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: arts, Europol, film, films, kung-fu, martial arts, Movie, Movies, Ninja, Ninja Assassin, non-review review, review, sin city, thriller | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Green Lantern – Emerald Knights

Posted on August 11, 2011 by Darren

In many ways, Green Lantern: Emerald Knights can be seen as a counterpart to the earlier Batman: Gotham Knight. Beyond the fact that both contain “knight” in the title, both animated films were released as promotional tie-ins to major motion pictures featuring the characters in question, and both are structured as vignettes rather than one continuous storyline. Don’t let that fool you. Unlike the incredibly uneven Gotham Knight, Emerald Knights is actually quite a worthy little movie.