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Snoopy and Charlie Brown: The Peanuts Movie (Cinema Review)

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Snoopy-and-Charlie-Brown-slideStarring: Noah Schnapp, Bill Melendez, Hadley Belle Miller
Directed By: Steve Martino
Running Time: 93 Minutes
BBFC Certificate: U
UK Release Date: 21st December 2015

Our Score

It’s commercially viable and common place for beloved franchises of the youth of yesteryear to be revitalised for the modern day big screen, and I have no problem with this as long as the new versions are made with care and an appreciation of the original source material, whilst retaining the spirit of its predecessors (21 Jump Street (2012) being an enjoyable exception).

Parents are able to introduce their children to the franchises that they loved in the hope that their kids will get the same enjoyment. However, times do change and the magic is more often than not lost and not relatable in the modern world. This is not the case with this film. [Read more…]

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Vacation (Blu-ray Review)

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vacation-review-slideStarring: Ed Helms, Christina Applegate, Chris Hemsworth, Leslie Mann, Chevy Chase
Directed By: John Francis Daley, Jonathan M. Goldstein
Running Time: 99 mins
BBFC Certificate: 15
UK Release Date: December 14th 2015 (UK)

Our Score

The reboot of the Vacation series didn’t get a vast amount of love from critics at the cinema. It meant that, as I often don’t like comedies others do think are good, I approached this one with a bit of trepidation and little hope that I’d like it. However, I was pleasantly surprised that while by no means a masterpiece, I found it enjoyable enough for 100 minutes.

The film truly is a reboot rather than remake, as it picks up the story of the Griswolds 30 years on from National Lampoon’s Vacation. Rusty Griswold (Ed Helms) is now grown up and has a family of his own. They’re a bit stuck in a rut though, with his wife, Debbie (Christina Applegate), feeling the sparkle has gone out of their marriage, and sons James (Skyler Gisondo) and Kevin (Steele Stebbins) constantly fighting – although it’s the younger child bullying the older. [Read more…]

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Pixels (Blu-ray Review)

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pixels-bd-slideStarring: Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Michelle Monaghan, Josh Gad, Peter Dinklage
Directed By: Chris Columbus
Running Time: 106 mins
BBFC Certificate: 12
UK Release Date: December 7th 2015 (UK)

Our Score

Things have gone crazy with the world in Pixels. For a start we’re supposed to believe the American people have voted Kevin James to be their President, and also that if the POTUS is your bestie, you’re still going to have to work as a home entertainment installer. If that doesn’t suggest things are bad enough, the world is suddenly attacked by aliens whose army takes the form of 1980s 8-bit video game characters – from Centipede to Space Invaders – and starts destroying things by pixelating them.

The military can’t defeat them as they don’t know the rules of the games, so it’s down to Brenner (Adam Sandler), Ludlow (Josh Gad) and the arrogant and unstable Eddie (Peter Dinklage) – who were videogame champions when they were kids in the 80s – to take down the unusual invaders. [Read more…]

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Maggie (Blu-ray Review)

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maggie-review-slideStarring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Abigail Breslin, Joely Richardson
Directed By: Henry Hobson
Running Time: 95 mins
BBFC Certificate: 15
UK Release Date: November 23rd 2015 (UK)

Our Score

Arnold Schwarzenegger makes a zombie movie! He’s going to be blowing the undead away left, right and centre, while mumbling memorable catchphrases, isn’t he? Actually, no, as this is something very different both for the Terminator and for zombie flicks. Except for the undead, this is Arnie in a small-scale mother-daughter indie melodrama, with fairly little action and much soul-searching.

Schwarzenegger is Wade Vogel, who’s living with his wife and kids in the middle of nowhere, where they’ve managed to escape a zombie plague that has affected millions. After his eldest daughter, Maggie (Abigail Breslin), gets bitten and infected, he goes to pick her up from quarantine to take her home, knowing that while she will be okay for a while, eventually she will turn and have to be taken away before she turns completely – assuming she doesn’t die before then. [Read more…]

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Carol (Cinema Review)

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carol-review-slideStarring: Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Sarah Paulson, Kyle Chandler
Directed by: Todd Haynes
Running Time: 118 mins
BBFC Certificate: 15
UK Release Date: November 27th 2015 (UK)

Our Score

If Far From Heaven was Todd Haynes’ love letter to director Douglas Sirk, this is his tribute to painter Edward Hopper. Whatever the flaws of his film – more of which later – it is probably the best-looking movie of 2015. Meticulously reimagining the New York of the 1950s it has shot after shot of its protagonists exquisitely framed, gorgeously coloured and superbly dressed.

Several moments are worth pausing and gazing at for hours, especially one amazing shot of a grey, drab New York street lifted by the bright red coat and hat of the ethereal Cate Blanchett striding along. The interiors are gloomy, the exteriors washed out and tired-looking. Hopper would be impressed.

It received a standing ovation at Cannes and has been held back to coincide with Oscars season, during which it will probably clean up. However… [Read more…]

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Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (DVD Review)

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sharknado-3-slideStarring: Ian Ziering, Tara Reid, David Hasselhoff, Cassie Scerbo, Frankie Muniz
Directed By: Anthony C. Ferrante
Running Time: 93 mins
BBFC Certificate: 15
UK Release Date: November 23rd 2015 (UK)

Our Score

Sharknado hasn’t done badly for a franchise where the joke should have worn off after the first five minutes. The first movie survived simply by its jaw-dropping but oddly good-natured ridiculousness, while the second was made vaguely watchable by being sometimes imaginative about the over-the-top ways it could find to kill people with flying sharks and to get people to kill the massive cartilaginous fish.

But now we come to part 3, where any imagination has run out and the whole thing comes across as so cynical that you can almost feel the makers smirking that anyone would be stupid enough to want to watch a third movie about tornados that throw sharks at people. [Read more…]

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