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mick-pearce
Reviews
Ong Bak 2 (2008)
fun but disappointing
I am a huge fan of Jaa's films ong bak and warrior king, as some thing of a fan of martial arts films i was pleased with originality that these brought such as the repeated scenes from other angles as with ong bak.
I had heard that this movie had ground to a halt due to production problems so when I got the chance to see it i was pleased.
A fractured start opens this but this is explained during further acts in the film. Unfortunately during his hiatus Jaa or the film producers seem to have watched some of the seminal martial art movies such as jackie chans drunken master and snake in the eagles shadow and some of jet li's original work. This is not to say to the movie isn't fun but it does lack the originality of the Jaa movies I've mentioned before.
What is new is the use of weaponry in this film but I must say that Jaa seems uncomfortable with it, the editing where he uses it seems full of snap shots and fast forwarding. The hand to hand scenes are however superb.
The final 20 minutes or so are high quality and I would recommend any fan to watch for this reason alone but on a whole I expected better.
It would be nice to see Tony Jaa in a buddy movie with a more main stream action star, (I would like to say Jet Li), to see what the result would be but I get the unfortunate feeling that it won't happen.
Ten Dead Men (2008)
low budget British revenge flick
I watched 10 Dead Men following some of the comments I had read here on IMDb. I agreed with some of them and found this to be a (very) low budget revenge film albeit with some interesting scenes, (mostly the fight scenes).
10 Dead Men borrows from quite a few gangster films e.g. Reservoir Dog in the use of costume and flash backs as this is not necessarily a bad thing.
The makers have tried to add parts to the movie such as using Hellraisers Doug Bradley as a narrator that I felt were a surprise and welcomed.
This is by no means the best acted film ever but at times shows promise, (without giving too much away). Worth a watch if you can find it but probably only the once.
Outlander (2008)
sci fi
I got this movie after seeing it in Empire magazine as one that may not be released by the Weinstein brothers.
After watching it I can see why they wouldn't want to release it. The entire film is a rip off of other films most notably predator, 13th warrior, the vikings and the godfather, (watch for the horses head).
i can't imagine why some of the actors that are in it agreed to appear other that they needed to pay some bills.
That said the first act is fairly interesting however the rest of the movie fails to follow suit.
No doubt some people will enjoy this movie and will get on my case doe the bad review but I'm a bit of a purist and this was a waste of my time