Vin Diesel | the m0vie blog

Non-Review Review: The Last Witch Hunter

Posted on October 19, 2015 by Darren

There are quite a lot of things wrong with The Last Witch Hunter, to the point that it’s almost endearing that the film sends so long setting up a potential sequel. (The Second Last Witch Hunter, perhaps?)

The Last Witch Hunter is a misbegotten mess that feels like the work of five different writers working with five different directors and a surprisingly consistent VFX team. The film is stilted, illogical, clumsy and ill-judged. Indeed, it seems like the production went wrong from the moment it was decided that Vin Diesel would be the perfect actor to convey the enormity and tragedy of immortality. Diesel is a reliable screen presence, with considerable gravitas, but he is not ideally suited to this sort of pathos.

… and carry a big sword…

The Last Witch Hunter stumbles from half-formed idea to half-formed idea, through a mess of CGI and misjudged direction. There are point where the action can be difficult to follow, whether through the script’s dependence on liberal amounts of exposition or the fast-paced editing that makes it difficult to get a sense of character or location in the midst of all this computer-generated mayhem. There is something frustrating to all this, given the faintest hints of interesting concepts that are smothered in rip-offs of other better films.

The audience might well wish that it really is The Last Witch Hunter.

Any witch way, but loose…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: film, Movie, non-review review, review, the last witch hunter, Vin Diesel | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Riddick

Posted on September 1, 2013 by Darren

Riddick is remarkably candid about the trouble with The Chronicles of Riddick. “Somewhere,” Riddick tells us in his introductory monologue, “I lost my way.” The movie sees Riddick trying to get back to his roots – literally and figuratively. He abandons the trappings of The Chronicles of Riddick, casting Karl Urban aside after little more than a cameo and a convoluted back story. He longs to return home.And, in a way, he does.

Eschewing the scale of The Chronicles of Riddick, the movie finds Riddick and the crews of two ships locked in combat on the surface of a planet, discovering that the elements are against them – and the monsters hiding therein. The movie is acutely aware of how tightly it’s mirroring Pitch Black. At one point, before an alien onslaught begins, one co-star asks how many survivors emerged from the crash at the start of Pitch Black. “As many as are in this room,” Riddick replies, underscoring the similarities.

However, Riddick is strongest when it tries to recapture the mood of Pitch Black, rather than trying to connect more directly with its predecessors. The decision to hang the back story of the film on a minor character from a movie released a decade ago feels like a miscalculation, and the movie’s introduction suffers from an indecisiveness about whether it’s breaking free of or following on from its direct predecessor.

Apocalypse how?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Chronicles of Riddick, Dave Batista, David Twohy, film, god, Han Solo, Karl Urban, Katee Sackhoff, Matthew Nable, Pitch Black, Pitch Black [Blu-ray], Riddick, Vin Diesel | 8 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Fast & The Furious 6

Posted on May 14, 2013 by Darren

The ideal The Fast & The Furious film could only properly be summated with hand gestures and poorly improvised sound effects. “Rrrrrrr….” and then (wavy hand movement) and then “smack!” and then (index finger jams into opposite palm), followed a “bb’tccccch…” and (outward gesture of hand indicating explosion). Fast Five came close to being that perfect macho car chase film, one less concerned with plot and performance than a riveting high-octane spectacle treating its human cast as much like props as the vehicles they drive.

The Fast & The Furious 6 backs away a great deal from the charm of the previous film. There’s the same dumb action set pieces delivered in a charmingly intense manner by Justin Lin, but the script feels over-plotted. There are lots of big emotional moments between an ensemble that really wasn’t built to give those sorts of performances. There are lots of shocking revelations from events several films earlier. There are lots of personal conversations where Lin has no idea what to do with the camera but circle around his actors and hope that the audience doesn’t get too bored.

Not so fast…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: arts, fast & furious, Fast & Furious 6, Fast Five, film, GoldenEye, Index finger, Interpol, Justin Lin, Lin, London, Luke Evans, Michelle Rodriguez, Movie, non-review review, Paul Walker, review, Vin Diesel | 2 Comments »

Watch! New Fast & Furious 6 Trailer!

Posted on April 29, 2013 by Darren

The folks from Universal Pictures Ireland just sent over these two clips from The Fast & the Furious 6. I actually quite liked Fast Five, so I’m a little curious if the franchise can maintain the relatively light touch and no-nonsense action movie vibe for another instalment. I remember watching one of the trailers at the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival before the surprise film. The audience reacted much more strongly to two minutes of the tank and highway mayhem of The Fast & the Furious 6 than to a full two hours of the somewhat sterile Hollywood-violence-in-London of Welcome to the Punch.

Anyway, check them out below and let me know what you think.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Action film, fast & furious, Fast Five, hollywood, jameson dublin international film festival, London, universal studios, Vin Diesel | 4 Comments »

Watch! Fast & Furious 6 Trailer!

Posted on February 5, 2013 by Darren

I’ll confess that I actually quite enjoyed Fast Five, the fifth instalment in The Fast & The Furious franchise. Not to the extent that I’m salivating at the release of the next instalment, but enough that I’m cautiously optimistic. The series hasn’t been the most consistent from film to film, but when it is good it is very solid popcorn entertainment. Anyway, check out the Superbowl trailer below.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Dwayne Johnson, fast & furious, Fast Five, Jordana Brewster, Justin Lin, Michelle Rodriguez, Super Bowl, Vin Diesel | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Fast Five

Posted on June 26, 2012 by Darren

Fast Five reminds me a lot of the kinds of cars that its leads drive. Now, please excuse me if the metaphor is a bit clunky. I know nothing of cars. However, whenever we cut to inside one of these enhanced driving machines, it’s clear that virtually every unnecessary component has been stripped out in order to make room for more relevant pieces of equipment. The passenger seat, for example, has been removed and replaced with some canisters I can only assume allow the car to go faster. In many ways, Fast Five feels a bit like that. I knows exactly the film that it wants to be, and it knows exactly what it needs to be that sort of film. Anything else – whether wit, sophistication or character development – is all just dead weight between fast one-liners, impressive action sequences and effective stunt work. And, I am not ashamed to admit, I actually quite enjoyed it on its own terms.

Let’s Rock ‘n’ Roll…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: characters, Chris Morgan, david tennant, Dominic Toretto, Dwayne Johnson, fast & furious, Fast Five, film, Internet Movie Database, Justin Lin, List of The Fast and the Furious characters, men, Morgan, Movie, movie trailers, non-review review, Paul Walker, People, review, tommy lee jones, Vin Diesel, Wikipedia, Yahoo! Movies | 6 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Chronicles of Riddick

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Darren

There’s a good movie to be found somewhere inside The Chronicles of Riddick,I’m just not quite sure where. At the very least, you have to admire David Twohy’s ambition, staging a lofty large-scale science-fantasy with old-fashioned production design that we haven’t seen in years. Unfortunately, it’s a very tough type of subgenre to get right, and Twohy doesn’t necessarily come close. I can’t help but feel that Riddick himself is at the core of the problems with the would-be science-fiction epic, which gives any idea of just how deeply rooted those flaws must be.

Vin and gone...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Chronicles of Riddick, Colm Feore, David Twohy, film, Han Solo, Jordi Mollà, judi dench, Katee Sackhoff, Languages, Movie, non-review review, Pitch Black [Blu-ray], programming, review, Riddick, Thandie Newton, the chronicles of riddick, Vin Diesel | 2 Comments »

The Sequel Myth and the Death of Originality in Hollywood…

Posted on May 12, 2011 by Darren

It seems that every other day somebody is taking the opportunity be bemoan Hollywood’s creative bankruptcy. The decision not to press ahead with Del Toro’s version of The Mountains of Madness sparked a similar debate a little while ago, and the success of films like The Fast & The Furious Five seem to be raising the topic once again as we enter summer. It’s become something of a mantra for film fans, quietly chanted and repeated, something that we can use to continually bash the studios over the heads with. And, truth be told, I’m tired of it.