Change Your Image
John-396
Reviews
Waterloo Road (2006)
Lost in Manchester
Here in Australia we are now being treated to four episodes of WR a week. Perhaps it is this rapidity of going through the series (we are now well into Series 3) that reveals the major problem with this offering.
The characters don't seem to have memories; at least they can never learn from their mistakes! I suspect this may be due to the plethora of writers and directors - I haven't really checked, but there seems to be about eight of each. There seems to be no "book" outlining the major characteristics of the characters.
Consequently the characterization by the actors is all over the place, as apparently different writers and directors have different views of how some characters should behave. Some have more personalities than Tara! (As in United States of). The rapidity with which the Tom/Izzy/Lorna triangle formed and reformed in Series 2 - when seen one episode each day - was just mind boggling.
Rimmer seems to have a memory problem. When will he ever learn that Steph is a problem for him - perhaps never as every writer seems to want to do a Jack and Steph get together one last time.
There are also major gaps in the storyline which seem to defy logic. In what world is Lewis Seddon - would-be thug and general waste of space - going to suddenly (but without any explanation) going to pop up as a kitchenhand in the very canteen his family tried to destroy only two or three days (as we see the show) earlier?
The Jackal (1997)
I can't believe I watched it to the end.
From time to time you see a good actor in a truly appalling movie: in this there are three. I wondered at first if it wasn't a Naked Gun style take off - it was stupid enough, but not quite as funny. The plot was as thin as rice paper, and the notion that a skilled assassin is going to use a .50 cal machine gun to shoot their prey is preposterous. Also given the remote control system used to control said machine gun (through a cell phone link - shades of Speed!) how stupid to be sitting right next to it. The myth of super-assassins is that they don't get caught the Jackass (sorry, Jackal) would have been miles away.
I thought Gere's Irish accent was quite good; infinitely better than Meryl Streep's feeble attempt at an Australian accent some years ago. Bruce Willis was totally miscast as the Jackal - I would have picked Leslie Nielsen or Michael Palin and really made this the comedy it deserved to be.
Wild Wild West (1999)
A multi-layered film of wonderful humour.
It's not often that you know who is watching the movie on an aeroplane. That's where I saw Wild Wild West. The people watching were those, like me, who were either laughing out loud or stubbornly refusing to do so.
The plot of this movie is pretty thin, but is far less anarectic than Star Wars Ep 1. But it is full of humour. It is a movie that makes fun of itself, and of other iconic movies. I suspect the plot is intended to be totally fanciful as a means of completely escaping from the bounds of reality.
Kenneth Branagh, whom I have seen in a great range of roles, overplayed his character with ruthless efficiency. It was an absolute tour-de-force. The energy delivered in playing the quite unbelievable Loveless actually made it believable. There were shades of Davros from Dr Who in this character.
The other lead characters were equally strong.
I felt that the movie slowed down in the last third, but it had a very pacy start to keep up with.
All up, a most enjoyable movie of great richness. Those who don't enjoy this movie are locked in a world where the emperor is always expected to wear clothes.