Viewer Reviews
Recent Reviews By MARKWALSH
 | X-Men: First Class (Film)Summary - markwalshPrequels are never easy - most of your audience knows the general gist of what's going to happen, whilst whoever's in the other part obviously haven't bothered familiarising themselves with any of the previous material (in this case: a comic strip, 4 films and several TV spin-offs) so can't be too pushed about the entire enterprise. Unfortunately director more ... |
 | Black Swan (Film)No Billy Elliot - markwalshThis, apparently is Aronofsky's masterpiece, an ostensibly high-brow drama with a few little twists and jumps to play on the audience's emotions. However, the plot is so paper thin it can be described in a sentence; a young girl struggles to bring out her inner dark side for a dream role in the New York ballet. Beyond that is merely a sleuth of stereotypes more ... |
 | Sketches of Frank Gehry (Film)If You Build It They Will Come - Mark WGiven the amount of films aimed at the fans of 'When Buildings Collapse: 5' and it's like, it is refreshing to see something aimed at those who appreciate the structures while they are still standing, and what's more even like to see how they go up. Granted, these are no ordinary buildings, but then again an architect who has been featured on the Simpsons more ... |
 | Die Hard 4.0 (Film)Long Live Die Hard - Mark WAt last the summer has arrived! If the rest of the summer blockbusters have left you feeling as cold as the equally dour 'summer' weather we've been having, this is very definitely the remedy for you. Bruce Willis returns to his role as detective John McClane for the first time in 12 years and though the hair may be thinner and he may have a few pounds more ... |
 | Ghost Rider (Film)You're Firerd - Mark WThis film has good special effects. Right, that's the positives over with, let's get on with the negatives. The plot (something about Nic Cage being the Devil's go-to guy) is hopelessly slow for an action/adventure movie, parts of it are so lacking in continuity that you may wonder if the DVD skipped, the dialogue is dreadful (this does not mean cheesy, more ... |
 | Paris, Je T'Aime (Film)Paris When It Sizzles - Mark WIt really is surprising that there isn't more films like this, featuring 18 different short stories from more than 20 directors all centred around the City of Love, it is a guaranteed recipe for success: Though the segments range from the sublime (Joel and Ethan Coen provide an hilarious treatment of the Paris Metro) to the ridiculous (Christopher Doyle more ... |
 | Shrek the Third (Film)Shrek: Still Big, But Not so Clever - Mark WIf you were to graph most trilogies they'd end up looking something like a U, The Ocean Trilogy, Spiderman, Die Hard, X-Men, Mission Impossible they all subscribe to the 1 good, 2 bad, 3 better rule, thus after the pretty abysmal Shrek 2, some hope could be kept alive for a return to form with this offering. Alas, this glimmer is crushed roughly half an more ... |
 | Black Gold (Film)For Those Fed Up With Decaf Documentaries - Mark WI have a bit of a confession, I derive a perverse pleasure in going against the flow in a documentary: I read Fast Food Nation in Burger King, I went for a McDonalds straight after Supersize Me, I would even have watched An Inconvenient Truth in a drive-in had the option been available. It is thus even more surprising that, as I sipped my full fat, no soya, more ... |
 | La Vie En Rose (Film)La Vie En Woes - Mark WIt is of course tantamount to blasphemy to suggest, in these times of self-pity and healing through talking, that any celebrity has had anything but the hardest life on their way to fame and fortune, Oliver Dahan's treatment of the life of Edith Piaf takes this bleakness to levels which the biographers of Kerry Katona and her like could only dream of, more ... |
 | Tell No One (Film)France's Best Kept Secret - Mark WAbout halfway through this tense thriller comes possibly the biggest surprise of the entire piece, we all know that the French do things a bit differently than they do in Hollywood but you can rest assured that you will never hear more inappropriate music for a chase scene than that used during the police pursuit of the lead protagonist, Dr Alexandre more ... |
 | Letters from Iwo Jima (Film)Postcards from the Edge - Mark WAfter the mediocrity of Flag of our Fathers, inexplicably heralded as a success by media on both sides of the Atlantic, there wasn't much hope harboured for this, the opposing tale of the Battle of Iwo Jima. However, this turns out to be an engrossing and intriguing insight into the little explored world of the Japanese Army, a much-maligned aspect of the more ... |
 | The Good Shepherd (Film)Shepherd the Weak.... - Mark WThere are certain things Robert DeNiro must be admired for, his outstanding acting career and his sense of humour in appearing in Extras and shows like it for example, alas turning a story about the birth of one of the most mysterious, intriguing and sinister organisations the world has know into an almost 3 hour trek of mind numbingly proportions is more ... |
 | The Last King Of Scotland (Film)Another Whitewash - Mark WBefore launching into an attack on the forces which created this film and then the entire Western world, it seems only fair to acknowledge that this is unquestionably one of the films of the year. The cast is excellent, the deservedly Oscar-winning Whitaker is superb as the unhinged despot, while McAvoy is brilliant as his confused, philandering more ... |
 | Ocean's Thirteen (Film)And When They Were Up They Were Up... - Mark WRarely have metaphors fitted so perfectly at that of the Grand Old Duke of York and The Ocean's Trilogy, Soderbergh's heist movies enjoyed more or less the same success as the 10,000 men, the latest installment falling somewhere between the slick, suave entertainment of the first film and the drab, misguided predictability of the second. The story is more ... |
 | Scott Walker: 30 Century Man (Film)Great Scott! - Mark WA cascade of music documentaries has graced the screens in recent times and, in truth, most of them of been passable at best and, in my humble opinion I would say that this offering is little better. Knowing relatively little about Scott Walker, some may say that I am not in a correct position to judge the film, however it is this ignorance which, I would more ... |
 | Water (Film)Hope Springs Eternal - Mark WWith all the sensational documentaries that have been flooding our screens in the last couple of years it's refreshing to see that there all still film makers out there who want to use a narrative to make a political point. Water, the latest instalment in Deepa Mehta's Earth, Fire trilogy, opens with a reference from the Hindu scripture outlining more ... |
 | Jindabyne (Film)Up The Creek Without A Paddle - Mark WThere appears to be a conflict going on in Australia, in the blue corner we have the tourist board, who's current "Where the hell are you" advertisements are little match for the red corner's Australian film industry who are clearly intent on focusing on Australia's darker side. Wolf Creek, Little Fish, Rabbit more ... |
 | Zodiac (Film)In All the Stars - Mark WAfter the somewhat misfiring Panic Room, there were some reservations about this latest work from David Fincher. We needn't have worried however, Fincher has definitely returned to form with this assured treatment of the familiar whodunit format. James Vanderbilt's script, which plays out like a cross between The Silence of the Lambs and All The more ... |
 | Bridge to Terabithia (Film)Bridge Over Troubled Waters - Mark WIt's difficult to know what makes a good kids film these days, popular convention seems to dictate that since their attention spans aren't what they used to be everything needs to move at 100mph, while CGI must be on screen as much as possible to make everything seem more real, God forbid an imagination would be used in a cinema! Gabor Csupo's more ... |
 | Half Nelson (Film)The Grey Area - Mark WIt's refreshing to see that there are still filmmakers out there who believe that the world is not just black and white, good and bad, rich and poor, and Ryan Fleck certainly seems to be among their numbers. This thought-provoking exploration of a teacher struggling to control his crack habit brilliantly juxtaposes the hierarchy we are used to seeing in more ... |
 | The Last Kiss (Film)The Long, Long Kiss Goodbye - Mark WIs anyone else utterly baffled as to how Zach Braff's characters consistently punch well above their weight in the romantic stakes? Following a string of beauties attached to the TV doctor which has made him famous and Natalie Portman's advances in last year's Garden State, the gurning muppet with the good hair now finds himself the object of 2 women's lust more ... |
 | Fast Food Nation (Film)I'll Just Take Mine to Go - Mark WIt was always going to be a brave decision to shun Schlosser's hugely popular book obvious appeal as a documentary, and before any other comments are made it's important to commend the connections involved in this film for resisting a Michael Moore/ Al Gore style, one-sided, sensationalist attack on our capitalist culture. That's not to more ... |
 | This Is England (Film)For Queen and Country - Mark WThere can't be too many filmmakers who cut their teeth as skinheads in Eighties Britain, however Shane Meadows' latest feature has more than a hint of autobiography about it, the lead character's name is Shaun Fields for a start. This does seem to add some authenticity to events, even some of the more bizarre romantic storylines Meadows interweaves with the more ... |
 | The Lives of Others (Film)How the Other Half Lived - Mark WGerman cinema has enjoyed something of a resurgence in recent years, happily many films have even managed to avoid the delicate issues of Germany's past and its constant battle of conscience since the whole 'issue' in the 1930's/40's. This film fails to avoid such material but is better off for it, dealing directly with the final few years of German more ... |
 | The Painted Veil (Film)Painting by Numbers - Mark WWhere would Hollywood be without its stereotypes? In this formulaic reworking of a Somerset Maugham novel - 2 stalwarts of cinema, a predictable love story and a white-man's burden storyline of the non-Western world, come together to deliver some gorgeous scenery but not much else. Proceedings begin satisfactorily enough, it even seems that more ... |
 | Red Road (Film)The Road Less Travelled - Mark WHeavens knows what started it but the Scottish Tourist Board must have done something serious to offend the film industry, aside from Braveheart (of course filmed in Ireland) Scottish films have provided a string of grim, dour, sorry landscapes from which the writers spring their grimmer, dourer, sorrier tales Red Road is no exception to this pattern, using more ... |
 | Once (Film)It's a musical Jim, but not as we know it - Mark WIt's important to get one thing straight before we continue, I don't like musicals, musicals don't like me. It's a relationship which has worked out quite well, until now. Once is a musical, but not as we know it. Devoid of the jarring, tempo-sapping, music-by-numbers set pieces normally offered by Broadway exponents of the genre, Carney allows the music to more ... |
 | 300 (Film)'Never have so many owed so much to so few' - Mark WGranted, the use of quote attributed to the battle of Dunkirk may be a bit excessive, but this epic, the best since Gladiator (and possibly even better) is worthy of praise not normally directed at action films. Unburdened by anything approaching rationality, King Leonidas sets forth on an 'illegal' war against the armies of the Persian Empire. That, more ... |
 | The Illusionist (Film)Love's Magic Spell - MarkWAs tempting as it is to be original and not mention The Prestige in reference to this piece, it's nigh on impossible. Comparisons abound but are quite unfair, as this film, despite starting from the same premise, goes in a completely opposite direction. The road more travlelled which it pursues is that of love, and in truth the film in as much about its more ... |
 | Venus (Film)Death becomes her - Mark WThis touching and engaging drama provides a perfect canvas on which Peter O'Toole displays his wares as one of the greatest living actors. With a mere twitch of his eyebrows the aging genius can convey more emotion than most of today's overpaid movie 'stars' could ever dream of. Appearing in almost every frame of this film, O'Toole plays an elderly actor more ... |
 | The Science of Sleep (Film)Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz - Mark WGondry's second feature is a great disappointment in comparison to the wonder that was Eternal Sunshine. The Science of Sleep contains similar mind explorations to Gondry's debut but it lacks any clear significant narrative train to bind the set pieces together. That said, those set pieces are filmed in brilliantly clever stop animation, utilising more more ... |
 | Pan's Labyrinth (Film)A Terrible Beauty is Born - Mark WNot since Lewis Carroll has a little girl's story envoked such vivid and vibrant characters while allowing those most precise of things, the suspension of belief. What del Toro achieves in this picture is admirable, bearing more than a passing rememblence to Carroll's 'Alice' stories, the plot centres on Ofelia (Baquero), a young girl whose mother has more ... |
 | Hannibal Rising (Film)I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed - Mark WFew characters have enthralled the masses like Hannibal Lecter, at once menacing and charming the opportunity to see the origin of this cinematic deity could have been a classic, instead we receive a dull, listless and (unintentionally) inexpressive Hannibal (Ulliel) sleepwalking his way through a dull and listless feature who's only achievement is that it more ... |
 | Infamous (Film)A good story is worth telling twice - Mark WIt is unfortunate for all involved in this film that it did not get released a year sooner, as it should have been but for a multitude of cast changes. That said, this treatment of the life of Truman Capote during the writing of In Cold Blood does contain subtle, but important differences to it's predecessor to mark it out as a film in it's own right. more ... |
 | Black Book (Zwartboek) (Film)Don't Mention the War! - Mark WJust when you think it's safe to go back into the cinema, another World War II film comes out. Surely, you cry, there is nothing left to be said about the War that has not been done to death (sorry) in cinema over the past 50 years? And you would be right. Verhoeven's little romp through Nazi Holland offers nothing in the way of insight, and little in the more ... |
 | Old Joy (Film)Much Ado, About Nothing - MarkOn paper this film shouldn't work. The plot, such as it is, revolves around 2 friends, and a dog, going on a weekend drive to a forest spa. That's pretty much it, there's no monsters lurking in the woods, no life altering experiences along the way, there isn't even a love interest for either of the 2 leads, or their canine campanion and yet there's more ... |
 | Notes On A Scandal (Film)Been There, Seen That - Mark WIn this day and age it is extremely difficult for a film to be truly original, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. Richard Eyre's latest drama offers little in the way of breakthrough cinema, anyone familiar with the 'Teachers' TV series will have no trouble recognising the main plot. Likewise the sub-plot which is unfolded during the offers has been more ... |
 | Happy Feet (Film)It's not Pixar, but I like it - Cinematic CynicThe bar for animation has consistently been raised by Pixar, last year's 'Cars' the only blip on an otherwise perfecct record, up until now Dreamwork's offerings have been turgid, gormless affairs. Happy Feet marks something of a new departure then for the company; the plot is less patronising to it's viewers than that of it's predecessors and the animation more ... |
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