Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 2nd, 2004
Synopsis
The exploration vessel Palomino discovers the gigantic, long-lost Cygnus orbiting aroundthe edge of a massive black hole. Boarding the Cygnus after the Palomino suffers some damage,the crew discovers that the only human left aboard the Cygnus is the megalomaniacal MaximilianSchell. Aided by his army of robots, he is preparing to plunge into the black hole, and he willsacrifice anything and anyone to complete his goal.
On the positive side, the production design is m...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 30th, 2004
Synopsis
When Greg Kinnear and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos are emotionally devastated by the loss oftheir eight-year-old son Adam, scientist Robert De Niro approaches them with an alarmingproposition: he offers to clone Adam, so that they might have him again. While Kinnear isdoubtful, he eventually capitulates, and the operation is performed. Things go very well for thefirst eight years of the new Adam’s life. Then he begins to change, as if being taken over by ademonic presence.
...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 29th, 2004
Synopsis
Straight-arrow, straight-laced cop Starsky (Ben Stiller) is partnered up with the laid-back,ethically bent Hutch (Owen Wilson). Despite initial matter/anti-matter friction, the two soonbond (surprise!) and will stop at nothing to bring down vicious drug dealer Vince Vaughn.
Not much more of a storyline than that, and the point here is to revel in 70s kitsch. Thoughthere are a couple of very funny moments and lines, by and large the film just sits there, too staticto...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 27th, 2004
Synopsis
An wounded amnesiac (Matt Damon) is fished from the Mediterranean. He travels acrossEurope searching for his identity, only to discover that he has several, one of which is “JasonBourne.” He is, in fact, a CIA super-assassin who has slipped his leash, and the Agency isdetermined to take him down. Dodging killers, he travels to Paris in the company of Marie(Franka Potente), still searching for the key to his memory and a way to escape the implacablepursuit.
Easily ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 20th, 2004
It seems like there have been quite a few dramatic films over the past three years or so that have fallen into this trap of bad marketing. Curiously enough, they all seem to have the same narrative feel, from Heist to Confidence to Spy Games… and now Spartan. I sometimes have a hard time figuring out why some films become hits, and some don’t. (Of course, if I were a master at that, I would be the highest paid man in Hollywood.) I don’t understand how mindless films like Men in Black II...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 11th, 2004
Synopsis
If the word “Supermarionation” triggers a delicious shiver of nostaglia in you, then youobviously need read no further. The stories of the two films are properly expansive variations onthe TV show’s basic plots.
In Thunderbirds Are Go (1966), a Mars-bound spaceship, the Zero-X, is sabotaged ontake-off. International Rescue is called in to provide security for the second attempt. This time,the Zero-X makes it into space. But its sojurn on Mars and return to Ea...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 11th, 2004
Synopsis
On July 14, Bastille Day, a group of small-time hoods stage a daring warehouse robbery.Meanwhile, a brutal Albanian mafia kingpin is being transported to Strasbourg for trial. Theconvoy is ambushed by what looks like an entire battalion of heavily armed men, and thearmoured car winds up taking refuge in the warehouse. The soldiers and the thieves, massivelyoutgunned and outnumbered, band together to hold off the enormous siege.
The jacket copy calls this film “Th...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 6th, 2004
Synopsis
Cody Banks (Frankie Muniz) is training at a CIA summer camp. A midnight drill that resultsin the flight of the camp leader turns out not to have been a drill at all. It turns out that the man isa villain (so why did the CIA let him run the camp at all?) and he has absconded with a mind-control device. Muniz is sent to England to track him down, where he hooks up with fellow teenspy Hannah Spearritt and adult-yet-childlike handler Anthony Anderson.
The idea of a CIA ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 20th, 2004
Well if you don’t know what is going on in this film then I am not quite sure why you are reading this review. This is the third and final installment of the Lord of the Ring’s trilogy, we finally after three long years get to discover the fate of Frodo, the ring, Sam, Gollum and all of Middle Earth. This film like The Two Towers just keeps getting better and managing to exceed our ever increasing expectations.
The multiple story lines all come together and finally conclude themselves, maybe not quite exac...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 9th, 2004
Synopsis
All the expected characters from a typical western are present in this parody, but everythingis turned on its head and made ridiculous. Cleavon Little, formerly a slave, then a railwayworker, becomes sherif (cue the racial humour) in a town besieged by the forces of the evilrailway baron Harvey Korman and henchman Slim Pickens. Also in on the fun are sharpshooterGene Wilder and saloon singer Madeline Kahn.
So the American Film Institute named this #6 on its Top 100 ...
