Director : Martin Campbell
Cast : Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Mark Strong and Peter Sarsgaard.
As a fan of the DC comics on which the film is based, I was incredibly excited for this film. Needless to say I hated everything about it. Blake Lively has to be one of the biggest casting cock-ups of 2011, firstly she looked about 12, so I spent a lot of the film thinking that Ryan Reynolds was grooming her and also wondering why someone so young was head of an airbase. Secondly and most importantly, she cannot act to save her life. Not one line she utters during the films 114 minutes is believable or said with any enthusiasm. She is cast opposite the always confused looking Ryan Reynolds who I thought was quite a good bit of casting as Hal Jordan, but together they have no chemistry and plod through a shitty script page by page as I sat in the cinema, bored and confused that the director of 'Casino Royale' was behind this steaming pile of shite.
However as much as I didn't like the majority of the film, there are things that deserve praise. Some of the action scenes were very clever and well shot. There are also crowd scenes involving thousands of aliens that are mind blowing as the design of the aliens themselves are eye catching and well rendered. I also did not hate the 3D as much as most people did, I thought it was fine, wasn't bad but it certainly didn't stand out.
[Spoilers Below]
So the 3rd act of the film has Hal Jordan fighting a shitty CGI face, called Parallax, in a giant space battle. In the comics, Parallax looks like a golden dragon, this is not the case in the film. I nstead the filmmakers decided to make him look ten time cooler (NOT) by designing him to look like John Merrick from 'The Elephant Man' a decision I still cannot get my head around. Anyway, he is fighting Parallax in space and Green Lantern/Hal Jordan decides to throw Parallax into the sun, thus killing him. So after lots and lots and lots of pissing around he finally throws Parallax into the sun and kills him. Later when asked why he killed Parallax by throwing him into the sun, Hal Jordan says something along the lines of "I just remembered that the bigger the mass, the quicker it burns" WHAT! Do the writers think I'm a retard. Seriously. The bigger the mass, the quicker it burns?... Bollocks.
To make things even worse, Sinestro's characters arc (by which he turns from good to bad) is completely non existent and plays out off screen. That is of course until the end when they decided to try and set up the fucking sequel in which they are going to make Sinestro the villain! I leaft the cinema bitter, upset and really angry that they fucked up the adaptation of my 2nd favourite comic book character.
THE INBETWEENERS MOVIE
Director : Ben Palmer
Cast : Simon Bird, James Buckley, Blake Harrison and Joe Thomas
I went into this film expecting great things. The series is hilarious for many reasons but for me personally there has never been a series that represents my time in high school as much as The Inbetweeners, particularly in terms of the way the characters talk to each other. But within minutes of the film starting I knew I was going to be disappointed. The spark that was in the TV series was gone. The dialogue felt forced and stilted. The situations manufactured. The supporting characters so devoid of personality that it seemed to me that they were only there to look good.
[Spoilers Below]
The thing I loved most about the TV series is that it was always believable. The situations and characters were relatable and familiar to teenagers and unfortunately this wasn't the case here. Everything just felt fake and unfunny. Multiple jokes were repeated from the series, the main one being a scene with the deck chairs and disabled people, which was a joke lifted from the first series and has exactly the same outcome and punchline.
My main problem with this film is the introduction of the female characters or the boy's love interests. Each one of them is a female clone of one of the boys and are obviously only there to try and give the storyline some sort of closure, as the film is the last we will see of these characters. So to make sure all four guys get there own lady, there is the tall dumb one, the loud mouth one, the gullible one and the normal one. The loud mouth one is the one I have the biggest gripe with as the writers handle the delicate subject of female weight in the most sexist, misogynistic way that the topic can possibly be handled. This leads to awful and unfunny scenes as the filmmakers expect the audience to laugh at 'beached whale' jokes.
I really wanted to like The Inbetweeners Movie, but i honestly didn't laugh once during the film, which I consider a shame. But the thing that really annoyed me was that when the film finished, me and a friend were discussing how shit it was, whereas everyone around us was proclaiming it to be the funniest film ever made. It certainly is no Life of Brian!
Nice one Adam
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