mike-3570 Reviews

Snowpiercer (2013)

Leave no cliché unturned. Some spoilers.

[4/10 · 11 July 2019]

I had some reservations about this before I watched it, but with Tilda Swinton on board i assumed that would be some kind of quality assurance.

As dystopian warnings about the future are concerned, this is about as heavy handed as it gets. A class system even more startly divided than Orwell's proles.Soylent green equivalent for supper.

Clichés abound. The class system, the metaphorical layers of hell, the hero, the quest, the turncoat sidekick, the complicit leader, the benevolent dictator, the train itself as metaphor... there is no room for ambiguity here, your thoughts are guided every step of the way.

Some of the fight scenes are frankly ridiculous - I think maybe set up to five an 'old boy' feel to the confines of the railway carriage, but it just didnt work.

And finally, the big spoiler...

He was only supposed to blow the bloody doors off. Not bring about the destruction of the whole of humanity except two. That's just silly. And the polar bear at the end, supposed to give hope... in 18 years would nobody have seen one before, and figured if a bear can live out there we can? I mean, it wasnt even that cold. She didn't even have to put her hood up!

10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)

Cliche upon cliche

[6/10 · 16 March 2018]

I wont spoil it for anyone planning on watching this thing, as a plus, Goodman is excellent. The premise of the movie has been done a dozen times before and I spent most of it wondering how they'd end it without being trite or screwing it ip. Lat 10 minutes gave me the answer; they screwed it up by making the ending totally preposterous.

Alone in Berlin (2016)

Misses the point of the book.

[6/10 · 28 January 2018]

I read the book just before I found out they were making the film so was naturally quite excited to see how they handled it.

While Gleeson and Thompson turn in great performances, the adaptation lets them down badly.

The film and book part company towards the end: the film ends up with a glimmer of hope, with the postcards being thrown out of the window, possibly to give their message again. In the book there is no false hope. Nobody reads the postcards, nobody is affected, the protest is a vain one.

But the message is that even if doomed to fail, we must still protest if something is not right. If we do not oppose evil, we tacitly condone it.

I realise that as reviews go, this is uninformative and a bit rubbish; I feel that it's important to look beyond the film amd to reflect on the book's message, which is as relevant today as it was during WW2.

Gangster No. 1 (2000)

Gangster No 1

[9/10 · 8 June 2006]

Gangster No 1 is more related to the classic Brit gangster movies, like Brighton Rock and Get Carter, than Guy Ritchie's pop video fluff and nonsense.

It's gritty and dramatic with a deep homo-erotic subtext that many seem to miss, and contains one of the most brutal execution scenes ever filmed, disturbingly seen through the eyes of the victim.

Paul Bettany shines and hints of the career yet to come, and is utterly convincing as the brash, violent and manipulative Gangster no 1.

No great shakes at the box-office, but a future classic, this sits easily alongside Scorsese's early works.