ian_hodgson Reviews

Jumper (2008)

Nice idea: spoilt by bad acting and an unbelievably bad script

[3/10 · 15 March 2008]

The ability to transport oneself across great distances is of course every school child's dream. And that's really for whom this film is best suited; its perfect for a group of 12-year olds wanting 2 hours of distraction and reasonably tolerable fun.

But for the rest of us, desiring of consistent plot lines and a little acting, this film failed on both counts. With numerous clumsy references to much better films (including the Bourne Series); and acting leads more wooden than Ikea, avoid this film unless you have free access to a cinema and have ABSOLUTELY nothing else to do; or need to see an example of a poor film for your film studies class.

A Short Film About Killing (1988)

...old idea, brilliantly executed

[10/10 · 19 March 2007]

Impressive and thought provoking, this film debates the age-old topic of capital punishment. Here though, there is a difference. The morality of state-killing is critiqued alongside an analysis of individual agency - when a person kills another, apparently from a desire to murder, are there other motives and factors that bring him/her to this position? Are we all, given certain circumstances, capable of killing?

This tantalising and worrying notion has been considered elsewhere, and Camus' 'The Outsider' is a good example. Here, there are many parallels with Kieslowski's film: that a desire to kill - and killing itself - can be driven by a range of factors - some banal, some traumatic, and not all by any means within the control of the protagonist.

Crash (I) (2004)

Nothing new, overblown and simply too sanctimonious for its own good.

[4/10 · 13 November 2006]

Well, I sat down to watch 'Crash' expecting something new - after all, racial division has already been addressed in many films - some very good ('In the Heat of the Night'), some with an interesting spin ('Guess who's coming to dinner'), and some tacky but compelling ('24 Hours').

Well, 'Crash' was a crashing disappointment. It covered nothing new, and seeing a bunch of big movie names overacting and - especially in the case of Bullock - trying to be serious when this is NOT their natural acting style (did no-one tell her?) was eye-wateringly bad. The only plot strand that got close to anything meaningful was with Damon and Newton - acting was streets ahead of the others, and the story almost believable. The antecedents for social racism were made clear here, and demonstrated its contrast with PERSONAL conflicts which are often more complex and ambiguous.

Overall though, hackneyed, patronising, and with a lazy script. The fact it beat 'Brokeback Mountain' for academy award for best film was for me the final damnation.