Superman Returns - IMax 3D

Director: Bryan Singer
Starring: Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey, James Marsden, Parker Posey
Production Budget: US$270M
Running Time: 154 min

The title sums it up really. After a five year search for his home world, Superman (Routh), er, comes back. Everyone is pretty chuffed to see him, except the love of his life, Lois Lane (Bosworth). Nevermind the fact that he has just saved her from guaranteed death on an aeroplanes stuck to a space shuttle - in 3D thank you very much - she's moved on with a new man (Marsden as Richard White), a small child, and a Pulitzer prize for an article entitled "Why the world doesn't need Superman". Meanwhile, professional evildoer Lex Luthor (Spacey) is up to no good, with a typically harebrained scheme to create a new continent in the middle of the Atlantic.

The events in this movie follow on from Superman 2 - Singer has wisely ignored the travesties that were Superman 3 and 4; advice we would all do well to follow.

If you are of the age where the original Superman was a childhood masterpiece, there is no way to watch this film without making comparisons. Unlike in Batman Begins, Singer hasn't tried to do recreate the Superman mythos from the beginning; he has remained faithful to the original movies. Brandon Routh was specifically cast for his resemblance to Christopher Reeve, and he does a fine job, although he doesn't bring anything new to the character. Kate Bosworth is OK as Lois Lane, although she lacks the sassiness of Margot Kidder. Kevin Spacey has fun as Lex Luthor, channeling Gene Hackman to good effect. His mistress Kitty, played by Parker Posey, is a joy.

In 1978, the SFX in Superman: The Movie were groundbreaking. Looking at them now, some are good, some look terrible. The effects in Superman Returns are in general awesome. It contains the best use of bullet-time since The Matrix, including an awesome shot of Superman being shot at point blank range in the eye. In the Imax version, four scenes have been transformed into 3D: a scene from Clark's childhood where he first learns to fly, the aforementioned jumbo jet + space shuttle near disaster, a sea rescue and the final scene. They look pretty good, with plenty of depth, but as with all 3D movies, fast action is a little hard to follow. I enjoyed the novelty of the 3D scenes, but I was pleased that the whole movie wasn't done in 3D, because 2.5 hours of it would probably have done my head in.

My favourite scene in the film involves an earthquake in an amazingly detailed scale-model city, complete with explosions, train collisions, people falling into cracks in the ground - all the things you'd expect to see in a real earthquake. It's beautifully filmed, and is clearly a nod by Singer to the scale model effects that were used in the original Superman.

The love triangle between Lois, Clark/Superman and Richard is quite well done. Typically, you would expect the Richard character to be either bad or incompetent, someone the audience can easily hate, and who is bound to get dumped by the end. In Superman Returns, however, Richard as a nice, loving, genuinely resourceful and even heroic character. This adds a lot of emotional weight to the story, as the audience is torn over who to support, and there is therefore no linear progression to an obvious, happy ending.

Superman Returns is probably the most expensive movie made to date, and the spectacle is, as they say, spectacular. Throw in a pretty decent story and you have the best blockbuster I have seen this year. I still find it hard to see $270M on the screen. Considering most of the effects are obviously completely computer generated, I reckon you could get a lot of computers (and nerds to work on them) for much less than that. But at least it was a good movie.

Overall, a fun time was had by all.

$$$$

Summer is almost over. I want my blockbuster!

So I'm still waiting to see a summer blockbuster that's better than just OK. It could happen, but I'm not holding my breath.

This is the list of $100M+ films being released in the UK in the next month.
Miam Vice - $135M
...er, I guess summer must be almost over.

And some highlights in the sub $10M category
A Scanner Darkly - $8.5M
Clerks II - $5M

I'm hoping something blows me away soon, after all, I don't want to become disillusioned with the movie industry, because, well, I have no where else to go. I guess I could give a weekly 5 star review of the latest Simpsons episode, but then hopefully I'm here to tell you something you don't already know.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Director: Gore Verbinski
Starring: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Kiera Knightley, Bill Nighy
Production Budget: US$225M
Running Time: 150 min
Extraneous Running Time: 50 min

The biggest hit of the Northern Hemisphere summer, DMC reunites pretty much all of the characters from the previous film, The Curse of the Black Pearl, and some.

The story goes: Will Turner (Bloom "what I lack in personality I make up for in prettiness") is threatened with the execution of himself and his soon to be wife Elizabeth Swann (Knightley "when are people going to realise that I'm not that attractive and am a bit annoying, really") unless he gets Captain Jack Sparrow's (Depp "woohoo, this is fun, and I'm getting paid a shitload of money") magic compass for the new head of the East India Company. Not everything goes to plan (duh?) and Turner ends up getting caught up in Captain Jack's latest adventure, trying to escape the dreaded Davy Jones (Nighy who is always good in a grumpy kind of way, although surely it would have been more appropriate to use the real Davy Jones), who has come to claim Jack's soul for eternity, which is about how long the movie goes for.

The Dead Man's Chest title turns out to be quite clever, given that it refers to the chest or locker that our heroes must find to defeat Davy Jones, but it also alludes to the object that resides therein. Hmmm...

What follows is a mash of action, comedy and drama. Most of the way too long running time is spent either in huge action set-pieces (some are over-the-top great, especially early on, and some are over-the-top confusing, especially later on) or introducing or re-introducing a multitude of semi-major characters. They manage to squeeze in a story, although it doesn't make a lot of sense, and that doesn't seem to matter. Its pretty easy to get the gist of it. One gripe I have is that there is no sense of time or distance between locations, leaving me wishing for a simple map like that used so effectively in Indiana Jones. After all, it is a pirate movie, a map would make sense.

DMC is a mostly enjoyable movie. It's fun to watch Johnny Depp hamming it up, and the locations are stunning, but it's too long. Some movies genuinely need a long running time because there is so much story to get through, but here the story is very light, and it's not like they had a huge novel that they had to remain faithful to, such as Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. I just think they had such a massive budget, that the producers must have kept saying things like "Uh, Gore, we've still got $80 million left, better make the Cracken attack the ship again, and uh, that scene where three men are sword fighting on a huge waterwheel, it looks great on the trailer, make it twice as long will you, and why not have it go crashing through the jungle. We've paid for this location, so we're bloody well going to trash it. Thanks".

If you've seen Star Trek 2 or The Empire Strikes Back then I guess I just gave away the 'Cliffhanger' ending... and the plot of the next movie in the trilogy. I think it's going to be called The Return of Barbossa's Search for Sparrow.

$$1/2

The Seven Samurai

Director: Akira Kurosawa
Starting: Takashi Shimura, Toshirô Mifune, Yoshio Inaba, Seiji Miyaguchi, Minoru Chiaki, Daisuke Katô, Isao Kimura
Production Budget: $500,000

I was planning on seeing Superman Returns last weekend for my big budget action movie review, but things unfortunately didn't pan out. So in lieu of that, I've decided to go back to the beginning, the beginning of all action movies that is. The Seven Samurai, made in 1954, is touted as being the very first action movie. Ranked at number 7 on the IMDb top 250, I had high expectations that this movie was going to be an all out sword slashing, face pummeling, blood gushing samurai romp. Let me tell you now, it is not. The first piece of sword play comes almost 45 minutes into the movie and without a hint of that Hollywood metal clinging and clanging.

The basic plot runs like this. A farmer inadvertently hears the bandit's plans to attack his village after their barley harvest. They gather round and seek the advice of an elder who tells them to seek out samurai who are willing to help them in return for 3 meals a day. The first part of the movie deals with the recruitment and each samurai(s) character introduction. It would have been insanely boring if all 7 samurai were ruthless warriors, instead we had a commander, a youngen, a perfectionist, a crazy man, a joker, commander's friend and a red shirt. They return to the village and work on training the farmers and building defense. The final battle sequence does not disappoint, long enough to make the whole 206 minutes worth it.

The movie works on subtle cinematic techniques. Suspense is built with clever cinematography; close up on faces, body language, environmental effects. All taken for granted in today's movies. Action sequences are rudimentary, not like the scripted and rehearsed scenes nowadays where combatants SOMEHOW know where their opponent is going to strike next. They are also filmed in wide angle so you can actually see what is going on. Dialog, even though it is in Japanese, is well delivered, interspersed with jokes to not make the whole film too dire or desperate. The only negative points I have about the movie are the farmer characters. They can't all be that scared and sad!

The Seven Samurai has been consistently listed as one of the top movies of all time. This, of course, is subject to other peoples tastes, likes and dislikes. If you had never planned on seeing this movie, I would recommend you find the time to do so, even if it is just to see what all the fuss is about.

$$$$

Poseidon

Director: Wolfgang Peterson
Starring: Kurt Russell, Josh Lucas, Richard Dreyfuss, Jacinta Barrett, Emmy Rossum
Production Budget: US$160M

Poseidon was a flop (it did less than $60M in the USA, creeping towards $130M worldwide). What a disaster of a disaster film... the irony of it all! Although really, if a cheaper film had made that kind of money, it would be a massive success. Hell, Brick, my favourite film so far this year, has only made just over $3M worldwide, yet it is technically as successful as this year's biggest movie at the box-office, The Da Vinci Code (both made back around 6 times their production budgets).

And the strange thing is, Poseidon is better than The Da Vinci Code. Unlike The (abysmal) Da Vinci Code, it doesn't pretend to be anything it isn't (i.e. clever), it goes for less than 100 minutes (i.e. it isn't boring) and it has reasonably likeable characters and they are used to suitable dramatic effect. That doesn't mean that Poseidon is a good movie, but it is a reasonably well made genre movie. The problem is that the genre is high concept disaster movie, which typically has mediocre acting, horrible cliches throughout and costs a lot of money. This movie is typical of the genre.

Even if you can't tell from the poster, or the fact that it's a remake of a 70's movie, the plot of Poseidon doesn't take a lot of explaining. A ship tips over, and a group of survivors try to escape. The survivors fit the following stereotypes: father figure, young lovers, old man (although he is gay, and he is Richard Dreyfuss which adds some interest to the character), mother and child, the arsehole (I wonder if he's gonna die comically early on?), and a single, attractive man and woman. Sadly, there is no token black guy, unless you count the ships captain.

The best two scenes occur before 20 minutes have passed. The opening scene, panning from underwater to a 360^o tour around the ship, entirely computer generated, is cool, and the ship-tipping scene is equally impressive... big, loud and not at all like a model in a bathtub. From then on, it's a by-the-book escape from the sinking and burning ship type thing. Coincidentally, the two main stars just happen to be a former fire-fighter and navy seal... how convenient. The female leads do nothing except provide the usual eye candy, emotional angst and up the tension by slowing down the men. And the kid isn't at all annoying, which is annoying. Once the wave hits, we pretty much follow this group as they race to reach the bottom (which is the top... the boat tipped over you see) before the ship sinks... cue lots of just making it to the next level as the level they are on goes completely under water.

I saw this in the IMAX, and it certainly is an IMAX friendly movie, big, loud, and dumb.

So, while Poseidon has very little going for it, apart from some nice effects at the start, it isn't bad, and if you like this kind of thing, then you'll like this. And I did enjoy the fact that for most of the movie the floor is the ceiling and vice versa.

$

Warning: although it is not a long movie, Poseidon has over an hour of the sound of pouring water, so you may want to check the level of your bladder before entering the theatre.

X-Men: The Last Stand

Director: Brett Ratner (not as good as Bryan Singer, well duh)
Starring: Hugh Jackman (good), Halle Berry (dull), Ian McKellen (good at being bad), Patrick Stewart (good) and many, many, many more...
Production Budget: $210M

Whose side will you be on? Indeed. Following on from the rather good X-Men and X2, the third and final (shyeah right, I'd bet its $100M+ opening weekend in the U.S. on there being more) X-Men movie has a reasonable amount to live up to. Replacing director Bryan (The Usual Suspects) Singer with Brett (Rush Hour) Ratner did not so much increase my anticipation as reduce my expectations, which I suppose made it harder for me to be disappointed.

X3 yet again sees a disagreement between the two factions of mutants, the 'good-guys' led by Patrick Stewart's Prof. Charles Xavier, and the 'bad-guys' led by Ian McKellen's Eric Lensherr/Magneto. And once again this disagreement leads to the near destruction of the world as we know it. Why can't these guys just learn to get along? This time around it's a 'cure' that turns mutants back into regular people, with Magneto deciding that this is yet another attempt by the humans to wipe out mutants, and therefore all humans must die. Throw into the mix the return of Jean Gray (Famke Janssen) as the super-powerful, emotionally desturbed, boyfriend-killing Phoenix and about twenty new mutant characters and you're in for one hell of a super-speedy, porcupine skinned, Goldengate Bridge levitating juggernaut of a ride.

The problem with this film is that there are too many characters, and therefore too many subplots involving teenage angst, love triangles, prodigal sons and other distractions. The main characters, do still get ample screen time even if they don't really contribute to the story, presumably to either apease fanboys or to fulfill contractual obligations (I'm still not sure what the point of Halle Berry's character is after three movies). Sometimes it looks like instead of writing a story, and adding characters where appropriate to the story, they have chosen characters, and then written a series of set-pieces showing off each of their powers, and slapped a story around it. At other times it's as though characters have been inserted into the story to somehow increase the emotional impact, but really, how can one become emotionally attached to a character with five minutes of screen time (see Angel below).

Here is a selection of new characters and how they fit into the story:

Beast (Kelsey Grammar): The mutant ambassador to the White House. He's a bit embarrassing as the blue-skinned/glasses wearing/suited ambassador, but quite cool when he starts kicking arse.

Juggernaut (Vinnie Jones): Magneto's new toughguy. He looks a little weird with his huge body, but is good fun as he runs through walls head first, and the highlight of the movie is his battle with Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page replacing Katie Stuart from X2).

Angel (Ben Foster): Son of the guy who invents the mutant cure, oh, and he's a mutant. Everything that is wrong about this movie is summed up in this character. Corny and overly melodramatic, and more of a plot device than a fully developed character. Oh, and he is a crap mutant - sure he can fly, but I reckon I could beat him with a pair of wing-clipping scissors, or maybe one of those leather thongs falconers use to control their birds.

Callisto (Dania Ramirez): Magneto's new 'flashy' right-hand woman. The badguy equivalent of Halle Berry's Storm. Would you be surprised if I told you they came up against each other one-on-one at some point?

And I have to mention Rebecca Romijn's character Mystique because... well... you know...

The special effects cannot be faulted, but then for that kind of money they bloody well should be good. And that's all they are, good. Not awesome, not mind- or wad-blowing, just good. The major set-piece involving the Golden Gate Bridge is so ludicrous that it's kind of distracting from what is otherwise a reasonably cool standoff on Alcatraz. And I kept wanting to say "Pyro, in this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!".

The ending keeps the sequel option wide-open, and by doing so ruins the emotional edge it would otherwise have had. Oh, and there is a bonus scene after all of the credits that fans will probably enjoy (if, like me, you couldn't be bothered waiting through the credits, or you saw the film and didn't know about it, there is a good description in the wikepedia entry).

As far as this kind of crap goes, it was OK, I guess. But then I'm more of a D.C. boy anyway.

$$1/2 (in other words, exactly average)

Mission: Impossible 3

Director: JJ Abrams(Felicity, Alias, Lost)
Apperances: Felicity (Felicity), Eric Weiss(Alias), Flight Attendant #2(Lost)
Production Budget: USD$150M

What do the three pictures on the right have in common? Answer, they're all COOL. When going to see a movie that was made for over $150M, you can't expect the producers to spend $140M on the script and $10M on the action. The more likely distribution is to have $5M on the plot and $145M on COOL.

Being the third installment of the M:i franchise, this movie works on an already proven formula. (Just like for Bond films). We not only see one infiltration operation, but three. We not only see that patented face first drop from a wire once, but twice. Add a storyline where the agent tries to hide his work from his wife and his co-workers ribbing him about it. Combine in COOL guns(H&K G36E), COOL locations(Shanghai), COOL hotties(Felicity), a plot twist and you've blown your $150M.

Okay, top 3 COOL scenes:
1. Swinging from building top to building top, landing on your back, sliding backwards while taking out 2 former Red Army soldiers, spinning around, and stopping yourself on the very last edge.

2. Lip reading. Once at the beginning to then be linked to a crucial plot direction later on.

3. An older, but still hot, Felicity firing a H&K P9S.

$$$(out of 5)

Continuing with the trilogy theme, my next movie will be X3(Hugh Jackman), not to be confused with xXx(Vin Diesel) or a triple X(crazy horse).

Brick

Director: Ryan Johnson (also writer)
Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt (the kid from 3rd rock from
     the sun)
     Nora Zehetner (girl at party in American Pie 2)
     Lucas Haas (saves the world in Mars Attacks!)
     Emilie de Ravin (the pregnant Aussie girl in Lost)
Production Budget: $0.5M

When his girlfriend (de Ravin) is murdered, Brendan (Gordon-Levitt) goes in search of the truth behind the killing. He does this the only way he knows how, by asking tough questions, and having the crap beaten out of him repeatedly. He slowly insinuates himself in with the local drug dealers, headed by the mysterious Pin (Haas), and the pieces start falling into place. This is set in and around a Southern California high school, but with Femme Fatales, coded messages, and language more reminiscent of The Maltese Falcon than the O.C., this is no lame-arse American Pie rip-off high school film.

The central mystery is intriguingly played out. Brendan doesn't give much away, only really speaking when he is asking questions of others. We don't even find out what the 'Brick' is until a good way into the film (and if you are wondering, it's not the shit-a kind). And unlike The Da Vinci Code, it does not pound you over the head with its 'revelations'. Instead, you have to actually pay attention in order to fully appreciate the plot machinations. And best of all, it makes you want to see it again (take that Ron Howard).

It all sounds a bit like kids acting out adult roles, but Johnson plays to this with the few adult interactions in the film. The Pin's mother is particularly hilarious - reminiscent of Marge Simpson and "Are you boys through playing war? Then here are some cupcakes".

Writer/director Ryan Johnson has done a brilliant job with this film. You never get the feeling that it was filmed on money raised from families and friends. It looks great, it's funny, occasionally shocking and so very cool. A death scene is particularly evocative. The cast is fantastic. The script is written in old-school noir stylings ( e.g. "Throw one at me if you want, hash head. I've got all five senses and I slept last night, that puts me six up on the lot of you."), and the actors speak the lines like they own them. Gordon-Levitt is particularly charismatic as the main man.

It's not for everyone, and that is why you should go and see it. Now!

$$$$1/2 (out of 5)

Please Follow The Usher To Your Seat

Hello and welcome to our change of direction. This site previously detailed the diet challange between Daryl and I, and since that has been run and won (congratulations again to Holland), we had to find something else to do with this site. We could not think of any better way to show off our new found figures than by sitting in the dark.

Welcome to FilmQuest. A site dedicated answering the ultimate question of Budget vs Blockbuster. Easyl (along with a new figure a new alter ego for Daryl) and I, as you can read from the title, each have differing opinions on what consitiutes a good movie. We have each been dragged into one anothers movies once too often in the past only to walk out in the end wanting our two hours back. In the coming weeks/month/whenever we get around to it, we will each be reviewing our criteria-ed movie. We hope you can stick around and enjoy this site as much as we enjoying watching our own choice of movies. Please feel free to leave comments and suggestions on what movie we should review next.

And Now For Something Completely Different

Holland -vs- Woon is changing. This is a post to show you what the original page looked like.

It aint over 'til...

...now.

83kg

I should also appologise for not mentioning that I've been training for a half marathon for the last two months (ran it on Sunday... bloody freezing but I finished). I think that's fair enough given that Meatpopsicle didn't mention that he's been training for the world hotdog eating championships for the last two months.

Well, it was a good fight. I thought I was screwed when Meatpopsicle got sick that time and was down to 78kg or so. But I guess it's the classic tale of the tortoise and the hare, as I already suspected on the 2nd of June (if I knew how to do it there would be a link here). The meat jumps out of the blocks, takes a massive lead, then gets lazy and falls asleep before the finish line, allowing me to waddle past, slowly but surely.

What was it? The golden arches called you once too often? You forgot what the F in KFC stands for? Your wife got pregnant and you are having some kind of sympathetic response?

Still, in both % and kg lost terms, meat wins hands down. Well done... your arteries can thank me later.

What next?

Game Over

Well it's reached the moment of truth. After many weeks of hard toil and many months of not so hard toil, it has come to today. As you might have guessed, I have been updating infrequently because I was actually off the diet and not exercising. As such, my weight is now... (drum roll)...

86.0kg!

We have a winner and I am sad to say, it is not me. Great effort Holland, your keg will be in the mail and I will make sure to write "do not shake" on it.

Holland - weigh in (06/10/05 08:30 BST)

Missed a couple of weigh-ins through overseas commitments and general forgetfulness, so let's see where we're up to....

83kg

Of course.

Only about 6 weeks to go by my reconning... let's see if Meatpopsicle can hold out for just a little bit longer... or has he finally caved-in to the allure of the fast-food diet?

Holland - weigh in (29/08/05 09:30 BST)

Woops! Time flies when you are stuffing your face silly.

84kg.

At last some movement, but not in the right direction. At least it might give me some impetus to actually try a bit.

Anyway, if the result is a tie, I think Meatpopsicle wins on a countback, having lost the most weight.

Woon - wiegh in (25/08/2005 AEST)

81.5kg.

I was thinking, we never put a clause in the contract to cover the outcome in case of a draw. Any suggestions?

Holland - weigh in (11/08/05 08:30 BST)

Yaaawwn... 83kg.

I think my body has decided that 83kg is a good weight, and that no matter what I put through my gut, that is how it will stay, barring loss of a limb in a bizarre letter mailing accident.

So I think the new challenge -Mr. Meatpopsicle - is, can you stay below 83kg for another two and a half months?

Woon - weigh in (11/08/2005 07:30 AEST)

After receiving 2 reminder notices from the gym, finally returned on Wednesday.

79.5kg

Being pigging out lately too. I have a nasty habit of eating all the left over food on the table at the end of a meal. It's just so anonying to have one piece of vegatable or one bowl of soup or one peice of steak left over.

Holland - weigh in (28/07/05 08:20 BST)

No diet... just the regular routine, eat, sleep, play a bit of sport.

83kg

I give up. I'm ready to accept that 83kg I am and will remain until such time as I get lazy and become like Marlon Brando on a pacific island.

And I think I'll pass on the panadol and ulcers diet, thanks.

Woon - weigh in (28/07/05 07:45 AEST)

I have cracked the great diet code.

78.5kg

Stay in bed for 3 days and have only Panadol. On the 4th day, you should have enough ulcers and sores in your mouth so that it prevents you from eating anything solid. Continue until you reach your ideal wieght.

On another note, I got a reply back from Kellogg's.
"The Kellogg's Drop a Jeans Size 2-week challenge is a kick-start to a healthier lifestyle and an effective way to begin a weight loss programme. For two weeks, you should eat a 45g bowl of any Kellogg's cereal with semi-skimmed milk for breakfast then another bowl instead of either lunch or dinner and ensure you eat normally throughout the rest of the day - you do not need to change any other aspect of your diet. Kellogg's recommend that at the third meal you eat a balanced mix of foods and remember to include plenty of fruit and vegetables. In tests carried out at Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh participants lost up to 6lbs with an average weight loss of 4lbs (2kg). The weight loss is purely dependent on the reduction in energy intake by eating cereal instead of lunch or dinner. The rest of the day's diet remains unchanged - you can still have your snacks and drinks like you normally do."

I'm A Loser

So it's been two weeks since the Kick Start Challange and we have a winner. You might have noticed that I didn't actually give an update, and the reason for that was I actually didn't start the Kick Start Challenge. I tried though, I bought the product and the skim milk (which I got told off for since Marcus does not drink skim milk) and actually had two bowls over two days. Anyway, no excuses, I lost, gave up, quit, threw in the towel, whatever.

So what's next Holland?

p.s. I think we should report to Kelloggs and try and get some form of reimbursement for those 4 boxes that you consumed.