Star Trek

I never really got into the original Star Trek series or films. Star Trek: The Next Generation, and subsequent films on the other hand, I love. This is why I wasn't all that sure whether or not I would like the film or not. That, and I'm not a huge fan of J. J. Abrams.

However, much to my excitement I did enjoy it. It took me a while as I didn't really like the beginning, but once it got going I found it pretty good.

The acting was very good, as were the visual effects. There were quite a few things I found I didn't like about the film though.

First off is the beginning. It took way too long for the story to actually develop. Most of it was necessary, but there were definite parts which I thought could have been shortened or deleted to cut to the chase a bit faster. The shaky camera work really bugged me at the beginning, as did the fast pans. I felt I couldn't see anything for like the whole of the first scene. It seems everyone is trying to film it Saving Private Ryan/Bourne style these days. It wasn't as bad as Quantum Of Solace, but it was still pretty bad. After the first scene the shaky camera seemed to calm down a bit and the fast pans went altogether.

One thing that didn't go or calm down though was lens flare. Sure lens flare looks real nice when you see it now and then. But it was cropping up every minute in this film and I for one found it very off putting.

Another thing that bugged me to the core was the rock music. Wtf? Pretty much all of the scene where James T. Kirk is being chased in a car when he is a kid is in one of the trailers. In the film it has rock music over it. I thought the trailer music used over that scene in the trailer worked way better. The product placement was a bit too 'in your face' for me as well.

Then there is the rest of the music. The film is scored by Michael Giacchino and sure he does an okay job. But that is about it. The more emotional stuff seemed to work quite well in the film, but other than that it was pretty average. I was expecting (or more like hoping) some kind of Star Trek theme to turn up in the movie. The original Star Trek theme was used in the end credits, but Giacchino's own themes weren't all that impressive. But then maybe I like the Star Trek: The Next Generation theme too much, as I was kind of hoping that it would appear, although really knowing that it wouldn't.

Overall though I thought the film was good and whether you're a Trekkie or not, it is worth seeing.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Having watch the other X-Men films and enjoying them all I was quite looking forward to this film. That is until I saw the trailer. The film look way too heavy on visual effects which even in the trailer just looked rubbish. So when I went to the cinema to see this film I was expecting it to be pretty bad.

Whilst it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be it was by no means as good as I was hoping it would be. This is the second film I've been to recently where the visual effects have been rubbish, the other film being Knowing. I thought they were supposed to get better as technology advances. Even X-Men, which was made in 2000 had better visual effects than X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and that was nine years ago.

But the visual effects weren't the only thing that I found bad. I thought the script was pretty rubbish too. My friend said that he really liked the film because it was very accurate in telling the actual origin of Wolverine as told by the comics. However, I haven't read the comics and so I came in knowing nothing about where Wolverine came from, or who he was before he lost his memory. There were just too many plot holes. For instance, one minute Wolverine was being called Jimmy and the next he was being called Logan. There was absolutely no explanation as to why this happened. It just seemed like he had randomly decided to change his name.

Another thing that pissed me off was the opening credit sequence. It has to be one of the worst ones I've ever seen. In some films, during the opening credits or even the end credits there is a freeze frame of a character, and then the name of the actor playing that character appears on screen. This is what X-Men Origins: Wolverine appeared to do, but didn't. Every time a name appeared on screen the image would freeze. However, every time the image froze it was either on Wolverine or Victor. It took me ages to even work this out and just confused the hell out of me before it finally clicked. And by that time I just thought it was stupid.

There were plenty of other things I didn't like about the film, but lets move onto the good. Hmmm...? I can't really remember. There were definitely some good bits, not outstanding, but okay, probably why I can't really put my finger on them.

Back to the bad, the bit that annoyed me the most was when Charles Xavier appeared near the end. I thought, "Oh my God it's a computer generated Patrick Stewart". After checking IMDb to see if Patrick Stewart made an appearance in the film, I found out that he didn't.

Overall I'd say this film was alright/shit. By far the worst X-Men film.

Merlin [Series 1] (Soundtrack)

I only discovered Rob Lane's music late last year when watching Merlin on BBC1. I found the music on the show very fun, comical and exciting. Since watching Merlin I then tried to find out more about who Rob Lane was. After finding out that he also did the music for the 2008 BBC1 mini-series Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, I decided to watch this as well. I was so glad that I did as Rob's score was just beautiful. I also found out later that he did the music for the 2007 BBC4 mini-series Fanny Hill, which after watching I also felt had a great score.

I was pretty convinced by now that anything this man could write, I would like and whilst I really wanted a soundtrack release for both Merlin and Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Merlin was the only one to actually get one. Nevertheless, this was still good news as television soundtracks rarely get released.

However, overall I found the soundtrack performs quite averagely. There are a few stand out cues of which my favourite has to be "Meeting Arthur / Helen Possessed" simply because of the waltz. But unfortunately I found that the music doesn't hold up as well off screen as it does on screen. I think there are too many suspense building/tension cues, or suspense building/tension moments within cues, and it seems that every track has one of these moments, which doesn't make for a great listening experience. I feel that the soundtrack would have benefited much better having had the music arranged for the soundtrack into suites and not simply the exact cues written for the screen. In my opinion a soundtrack release for Tess Of The D'Urbervilles would have been much more enjoyable.

Rob Lane currently only has one other soundtrack release and that is for the mini-series John Adams, which also features music by composer Joseph Vitarelli. He recently score the BBC television movie The 39 Steps starring Rupert Penry-Jones which aired last Christmas. His most recent score is for British film The Damned United, which was released on 27 March 2009. It is currently unknown whether The Damned United will get a soundtrack release.

Rest Stop: Don't Look Back (Soundtrack)

I must admit I was slightly disappointed when I saw the track listing for this soundtrack as it included six tracks that were on Rest Stop: Dead Ahead (Soundtrack). However, the reason for this was because Bear McCreary wasn't very happy with the label that released the soundtrack for Rest Stop: Dead Ahead, so decided to include his favourites on this soundtrack released by LaLaLand Records. For the purpose of this review I am only going to review the tracks from Rest Stop: Don't Look Back (tracks 1-14).

Rest Stop: Don't Look Back (Soundtrack) is definitely an improvement on Rest Stop: Dead Ahead (Soundtrack). Bear McCreary has taken the same style he created for Rest Stop: Dead Ahead and improved it for the sequel. I found that with the first soundtrack Nicole's theme cropped up a few too many times for my liking and so I quickly grew tired of her theme. However, that definitely doesn't happen here and there are a number of different themes throughout this soundtrack.

Overall the soundtrack has a much more rock like feel to it then the first soundtrack. The first half of the soundtrack is really good and makes for quite an enjoyable listen. My favourite cues have to be, "Cleansing The Sinner", "Jesus, He Forgives You Too" and "On The Bus". I could listen to these again and again. The second half of the soundtrack, whilst still very good, I didn't find quite as enjoyable.

Nevertheless, this is still a great soundtrack and a must have for any fan of Rest Stop: Dead Ahead (Soundtrack), Bear McCreary or horror scores in general.

Serenity: Better Days

Just as fun and exciting as Firefly, Serenity: Better Days is like an extra episode. It doesn't bridge any of the gaps between Firefly and Serenity, but it still is a must read for any fan of either.

Knowing

This film is by no means perfect. Nicolas Cage's acting is quite inconsistent in terms of the standard of his acting. Sometimes it is really good, sometimes it is really bad, but most of the time it hangs around in the middle and is pretty average. The Visual Effects were also very dodgy. Whilst they did the job, you could tell they were visual effects.

Although saying all that, I actually quite liked the film. There were moments when I thought, "I should probably be bored now," but some how I wasn't. Perhaps it was because the story was excellent and the way it was told was as well.

If you're expecting pure sci-fi though be warned. I found that whilst this film appears to be being advertised as a sci-fi film, I thought it was more of a horror with some sci-fi elements. This horror really comes across with the music. I still have mixed feelings about the music. I couldn't quite work out if the music worked or not. Part of me was saying yes it does, and part of me was saying no it doesn't. But I'm not sure if I just felt this because as a fan of film music I didn't really find it that enjoyable to listen to. Then again, this could have just been adding to the horror.

I could definitely feel the i, Robot and Dark City in the film, which were also directed by Alex Proyas, and which are both better than Knowing. But Knowing isn't exactly a bad film and if you don't mind a bit of horror/sci-fi then I'd say it's worth watching.

Bronson

I don't usually 'slag' films off, because I am a film maker myself and I know how much hard work goes into these films and how soul destroying it can be for the film makers when they aren't well received. However, with Bronson there was very little that I actually liked.

This film is based on a true story. It is about Charles Bronson, Britain's most violent criminal. Taking this into consideration you would expect there to be a lot of violence in the film. However, there is not. But that's okay because you would expect the violence that there is to be top notch. But it's not. I've seen student films that have had better fights in them. It wasn't the choreography, it was the actual fighting. It just looked... shit. It looked like Bronson was pretending to hit people instead of actually hitting them.

But sadly this isn't the only bad thing about the film. I found that throughout most of the film, nothing happened. The first half an hour was just a series of shots of him sat in his cell. Or at least that is what it felt like. And even these shots were bad.

The shot composition was awful. There were several times when it actually bugged me, and I was sat there thinking, "Why on Earth would someone use a shot like that? It is so ugly." And to make things worst a lot of the shots were held for too long. It was like, "Why are we still looking at this?"

Even the structure of the story was bad. Some of it was set in a theatre where Bronson would talk to the camera and basically tell his story. There's nothing wrong with this idea itself, except that he didn't really tell his story at all, it was as though he was just messing around on stage. And the rest of the film didn't really go anywhere. Just at the end it seemed to make some kind of progress in terms of story telling and then it just stopped and went back to how it started.

This film literally is a mess. The sad thing is that it could have been done way better. My advise, if you want to watch a great film set in prison then watch The Shawshank Redemption. And if you want to watch a film about violent criminals then give The Krays a go. It ain't perfect but it's a hell of a lot better than Bronson.

The International

After I saw Run Lola Run I really wanted to check out the rest of Tom Tykwer's films. The International is the only other one I've managed to check out, so I can't really compare this film to any of his previous ones. Although I have recently bought Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer which I'm hoping to watch soon.

The International, however, is not what I thought it would be. Or perhaps I should say it's not as interesting as I thought it would be. Story wise it does what the trailer says, it is about a bank that is killing people and Clive Owen is trying to stop them.

Unfortunately though is just seems to be lacking something, a better pace perhaps, I'm not entirely sure. Either way if I had the chance to go and see it for the first time again, then I'd give it a miss. It's not that it is a terrible film, but there are definitely better ones out there, such as Run Lola Run.

Watchmen

First off, I haven't read the graphic novel. However, I am a little interested in reading it now that I've seen the film. Not because the film was bad or because the film was good, but because I'd quite like to know what the ending is, as it was changed for the film.

But talking about the film being good or bad I would have to say that it is good. But this ain't your usual superhero story, which you can probably tell seeing as it has an 18 certificate. Something that definitely made the film better, due to how graphic the violence was.

The story is basically a murder mystery. A superhero called The Comedian has been killed and Rorschach is trying to find out who by. However, at 162 minutes the film would have to have a lot more to it than that, and it does. Each of the characters have their own back story that the film goes off and explores. But there is always the goal of finding out who the killer is. Because of this The Comedian pops up in most of the characters back stories and gradually reveals more about him. The back stories also delve into why someone would want to kill him and any other costumed hero. There is still more to it than that but you get the general gist of it. Basically the film has an overall story ark, although it is mostly about the characters and the reason for their motivations.

It sounds quite boring when you write it down like that, but it really isn't. I'm always quite sceptical when going to see a long film at the cinema because normally if you find a film slightly boring then it tends to drag. But if a 3 hour film drags then you've got a whole other hour to sit through before you're free again. Luckily this wasn't the case with Watchmen and I found it very interesting. Along with some great cinematography, visual effects and music that really works well on screen I found myself immersed with in the world of the film right from the beginning up until the very end. I will definitely be getting the director's cut when it comes out on DVD.

The Day The Earth Stood Still (Soundtrack)

There isn't really a lot to say about this soundtrack as it is mostly just atmospheric music. Because of this the listening experience wasn't all that great and overall the soundtrack is pretty average.

Whilst there weren't any outstanding cues, there were a few I did like. However, I'd only recommend this to people who like atmospheric soundtracks or who are fans of Tyler Bates. Although if you're fans of The Matrix scores or John Murphy's score to Sunshine, then it might also be worth checking out since I found this soundtrack reminded me of them a little bit.