Gigantic. 0 Money Trains

The following is a guest review from my friend, Stephen Beckett.

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As a guest reviewer of money train quality films I was honored to be invited to review a film I would love to describe a truly awful but can't bring myself to as it was a strangely watchable and endearing film. The film in question is 'Gigantic'.

The film's basic premise is, well this is the starting point of the problem, its not clear to define what it is. It's certainly a boy meets girl movies as there is a boy. He meets a girl. And as is the norm in such situations they fall in love etc so this might possibly be the main story line.

However, our boy is a young mattress sales man who longs to adopt a baby. But he doesn't just want to adopt any baby, a Chinese baby (no I wasn't on acid when I watched this film) and you might think Hallmark Channel would rub their hands with glee at the prospect of the heart wrenching trials and tribulations of trying to go through such an adoption. But no, in this case the adoption thing is more of a side theme bordering on a non-theme. It’s more just something that is used to demonstrate the oddballness of the main character.

Then there's the love interest, and it quite possible this is why I kept watching as it came in the form of Zooey Deschanel. She plays a girl called Happy who comes into the mattress shop to collect a mattress bought by her father and promptly falls asleep on the bed in the middle of the shop. No explanation why, no questions asked she just does, and our hero waits for her to wake up and love grows from there.

And what seems to be the common theme through all of the characters is that quality that many Woody Allen films seem to have in my mind. And this is that the characters seem to exist in their own right. They are not part of a film that needs to develop them, they are not trying to live up to a sterotype that their existence and purpose in the plot requires you to realize and buy in to. In fact it is almost as if the characters fundamental aloofness to the film and what might be realistic in the real world is the only purpose in them being there. They don't seem like the actors are struggling with a crap script or story-line that they are hoping will pick up. Instead you feel that the characters have already been fully developed somewhere else off set and then just left to mumble their way through an hour and a half to see if anything good comes out of it.

So what is the main theme of the film? What is its message? Why was it made? At by the end of the film I can't answer that. There were threads of stories in here, there were things that sort of catch the attention and imagination. But at the end of the day I found myself watching it until the end more to see which of these viens of interest might become the conclusion (and for the lovely Zooey Deschannel). And in the end it was none of them, but nor was there a twist in the tail to wow you. It just kind of ended.

Money train rating. I say it is on a par with Money Train. Watchable but ultimately you are left wondering why you watched it.

Inglourious Basterds. -3.0 Money Trains

That's right. Minus three. Inglourious Basterds is a big pile of steaming poo that left me feeling angry that I had wasted 2 and a half hours of my life, and angry that I didn't think to say to Sarah that I was going window shopping in the mall and she could call me when it was over.

So, what's the problem? Well, the German-hating thing is getting a bit old. Back in the 50s and 60s when WWII was still fresh in the mind and veterans were going to the movies, the all-German-soldiers-are-evil-Jew-hating-killing-machines stereotype had its place. But WWII kicked of 70 years ago. And honestly, (and this is going to be controversial), isn't it time the Jews moved on, especially considering their own track record in Palestine?

Right, that's the underlying politics dealt with. How about the plot? It was thin, to say the least. A bit like A Dirty Dozen, but carried off with less panache and skill. In fact, the plot was kind of hard to follow at times because of the dragging scenes where nothing much happened. Like the scene in the tavern that went for about 40 minutes (or it seemed that long), where everyone just gets killed. And so a character introduced the scene before is eliminated without achieving anything, either for his mission or the film.

Now the characters were caricatures, one and all, and I don't mind that at all, as it was intentional. But even a cast of caricature should surely having you rooting for at least one character. Even Collateral had you backing the taxi driver a little bit. But one dimensional characters are the least of this film's problems.

How about the humour? People in the cinema were laughing, and I honestly have no idea why. Was someone passing notes? Were they watching a different film? Or are they just so low on the evolutionary tree of life that violence gets them giggling? God, there one joke in the whole thing (the Basterds working out who spoke the best foreign language) and the rest was either obscene levels of violence or overly long conversations about nothing in particular where Tarrantino was obviously trying to build suspense and failing spectacularly (eg, the scene with the chick and the strudel).

Right, I'm about done here. But I have to say this: 4 people vanished. Or maybe I fell asleep.

It starts off with 8 Basterds and 1 leader - 9. They pick up the German guy - 10. They pick up the Pom - 11. Then the 2 German Basterds and the Pom buy the farm in the tavern - back to 8. Two more go down in the cinema - 6. Two are left in the final scene - 4. What happened to the others?

Actually, I don't give a crap. This film was just woeful. Give me Money Train any day of the week. Oh, and as for Tarrantino - he loves cinema, he loves paying homage to other films, everyone says he's a master craftsman. And yes, Pulp Fiction was good. Reservoir Dogs was great. But then he went down this in-joke, pay homage to everything avenue and the results have been pretentious and ultimately really boring. -3.0 MT

Collateral. 2.0 Money Trains

Collateral is better than Public Enemies because it is a colour-by-numbers thriller where character development is an optional extra. Also, it has a stronger narative. But like Public Enemies, it looks like it was shot on video in a few scenes too many.

It's still full of loopholes, though, and that makes it worth a laugh.

1. I've never seen a guy fall on a car from height in real life, but I've seen it in movies often enough, and I have a degree in engineering, so I'm pretty sure a 90kg man dropping four stories onto the 1 or 2mm steel of a car roof would cause some damage. Maybe buckle the columns, bend the roof, smash, rather than crack, the windshield. But apparently not. Apparently, you'll just dent the roof.

2. I'm also pretty sure than flipping a car over at 100kph will damage the occupants if they're not wearing seatbelts. Some cuts at least, if not broken limbs and nexts, internal injuries, etc etc. Ok, ok, suspend disbelief, or whatever you're meant to do. But when 90% of the film is set in a car, you'd think you could get these things a little more right.

3. And how come bad guys, who can group their shots within a square centimetre from across a crowded room and while moving cannot seem to hit the hero from 3 feet? That's getting a bit tired, I have to say. I'm not saying the hero should be gunned down in the second act, but how about thinking of a different situation he or she can get out of?

4. This film is LONG. (As is every Michael Mann film, actually.) It comes in at almost 2h, and could have been wrapped up nicely in more like 50 minutes. (Public Enemies could have ended about seven times before it was finally over.) How about a bit of efficiency?

All up, see Collateral if you're bored. It's not memorable though. 2.0MT

Public Enemies. 1.0 Money Trains

What the hell is it with Michael Mann? He makes a great film like Ali, and a load of utter crap like Public Enemies. Is he the American Guy Ritchie?

Now, I haven't seen all his films, but I did see Ali (excellent); Heat (booooooooooooooring); Collateral (see review); I missed Miami Vice but I heard that's a good thing; and now Public Enemies.

It's as if the film makers thought that putting a load of good actors into a film was enough to carry it without having to worry about a plot; character development; or cinematography. Let's look at those:

First, the actors and their characters. EVERYONE is in this, from Johnny Depp to Giovanni Ribisi to Leelee Sobieski to David Wenham, most of them playing bit parts. But not one of them has any character. Johhny Depp's John Dillinger is wooden and lifeless; his woman is a waste of space; Christian Bale's G-man is ... oh god, he was just crap. Everyone in this film was totally crap. There was not a single bit of character development or even enough acting to make you feel for anyone. Even when Dillinger's moll get's the good news about him, you feel nothing. Oh god, what a waste of time.

Plot: well, a bunch of guys go around robbing banks and getting shot. The cold-blooded killer side of Dillinger is kept out of the film to make him a bit of a hero, but, as per the character development comments above, you don't care either way. Look, there was plot. No cause and effect. No narrative running through the tale. At some point along the way, Pretty Boy Floyd asnd Baby Face Nelson are introduced, but you don't know why - they certainly don't add anything to the story. God, what a pile of crap.

Cinematography: you know it's bad when you notice it. It wasn't bad like Dolemite is bad: there were no boom mikes encroaching on shot, but the light was bad, as if it was shot in colour with a plan to convert to black and white. Either that, or it was filmed on video. Half the time it looked like it was shot in a 7-11, the light was so wrong. And if that wasn't enough of a problem, the film stock differed markedly between scenes, from super grainy to regular. In one scene (ONE scene), there are a few seconds when some original footage is spliced in (or it looks that way - they may have just used different stock again, mid way through the scene). Why the hell would you do that? If you do it throughout the film, no worries, but for a 2 second clip mid scene? Come on!!

Yep, this film is appalling. But it's better than Money Train. 1.0

Eagle Eye, 3.0 Money Trains

I quite liked Eagle Eye, I've got to say. It was entertaining, had car chases, high tech gadgetry, that sort of thing. But why is it that the underlying premise of intelligent-computer movies is always the same. Ie:

1. Computer is smart.

2. Computer realises people are doing the wrong thing and that, for the good of the world ("I, Robot"), or the country ("Eagle Eye"), some people need to die.

3. Man disagrees with an evidently vastly superior intellect and shuts down the computer because he has to be able to continue on his self destructive path.

There are variations on this, but it always boils down to: computers are bad and will get the better of us ("Fail-safe", "Terminator", "2001 - A Space Odyssey", "War Games", and a bunch more I can't recall), but we must prevail so we can continue on our path to destruction unaided.

The computer is right! In Eagle Eye, the reasoning was sound: the top 10 US officials should have been eliminated (although the means were a little Heath Robinson-esque) in the interests of national security.

As for the means of which I speak: let's look at what a computer can and can't do.

1. A computer cannot cause a mechanical failure in a high tension power cable such that the cable falls down and electrocutes a guy, especially as, with no CCTV, the computer can't see the guy. (And why does he run along the line of the cables, rather than sideways?)

2. A computer cannot kill a guy with a robotic arm designed to move hard discs from A to B. Why would anyone equip such an arm with a servo-motor that strong?

3. A military computer is unlikely to be linked up to every network in the country and so the all-pervasive access to electronic devices just won't happen in the first place.

4. Why get the guy to travel all the way across the country to the command centre to key in his voice print to unlock the go-codes on the evil mission? Why not just phone up and say "Steve, (or whatever his name is"), can you say the following...?"), and then feed that recording into the security system to unlock the codes? For that matter, why can't the oh-so-smart computer just fake the voice print?

5. I don't care if the guy is an identical twin. His biometric data will be different to his twin.

6. Smuggling the exploding crystal into the House of Reps on a necklace would surely be easier if the necklace was passed off as a gift to any old female punter, rather than engineering the whole elaborate thing of getting the chick across the country, too.

Oh, and 7: Changing traffic lights. We saw this in The Italian Job, too. People don't respond instantly to traffic light changes. Suddenly changing them red without the orange won't cause the flow of traffic to instantly change, and people won't blindly follow the lights and drive out into cross traffic because the light says Go.

But as I say, entertaining. 3MT.

AVP; Death Race; Pineapple Express; Transporter 3

The following films don't deserve a full review, and don't take themselves seriously enough for me to tear them to shreds, but I will include them here:

Alien Versus Predator: 1 MT

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

You know the plot, it's in the title. Everyone dies except the girl, like in so many disaster movies of late (except Deep Blue Sea). Black guys, the multi-millionaire funding the whole thing, the nerdy guy (Spud, from Trainspotting, in this case), the well-trained ex-millitary types, even the potential love interest. All dead. Hilarious film, great for a lazy weekend with the boys and a case of beer.

Death Race: 1 MT

Death Race is stupid. But it's meant to be. It never pretends to be anything but. The real mystery in it is why someone would remake a film with such a bad premise that sank into obscurity in the 70s. This will also sink into the obscurity that marks so many Jason Stratham films. It is, of course, about a race with a high mortality rate. Oh, and the usual thing with a future so bleak prisons are privately run money-making entertainment organisations. Like we haven't seen that before.

Pineapple Express: -3.5 MT

That's right, NEGATIVE 3.5. I had heard from several people that it was hilarious. And I'm not averse to stoner films: Dude, Where's My Car and the Harold and Kumar films have their moments. But for me, the best part of Pineapple Express, was going into the kitchen and doing the dishes. I didn't finish watching this pile of crap and never will.

Transporter 3: 2 MT

This scores a little higher than Death Race because Jason Stratham does some fight scenes in it which are pretty good, in that cartoon-violence, let's-only-attack-him-in-turn-so-he-can-deal-with-us-one-by-one kind of way. The plot is identical to the previous two: Frank (Stratham) has to drive someone from point A to point B, but it's not that easy. Luckily, he doesn't mess up his suit. (If he's so hung up on keeping his suit fresh, why does he wear his jacket driving?)

Dolemite. -4 Money Trains

There's an episode of Family Guy where Peter makes a film called Steel Vaginas, at the end of which Joe Swanson, the paraplegic, remarks: "Wow, that was the worst piece of crap I've ever seen. My ass is actually sore. My ass is actually sore."

I know how he feels. Dolemite is simply woeful. In fact, I've had a hard time rating it, as I can't decide whether it's worse than Storm. On the other hand, it is apparently a very famous Blaxploitation film, has been influential to rappers every since, and is full of pimpin' outfits, sleazy politicians, amusingly bad acting, and great lines like:

"I got your "boy" hangin', you no-business, born insecure, jock-jawed, motha fuckas!"

Dolomite is about a guy - a pimp and "underworld personality" (as Australian news services say) - who is released from jail to find out who is really causing all the crime in Ward 4 of LA. Or to stop a drug deal, or gun smuggling, or something. The police, it seems, are not up to the task, especially the two crooked cops who spend the movie trying to put Dolemite back in jail. 

The crime wave, it turns out, is due to Willie Green, another pimp and underworld personality, who is actually working for the Mayor (who does a disturbing nude scene). Of course, all the baddies want to kill Dolemite, but he is too stone-cold and his moves too fast, plus he is aided by Queen Bee's Karate Killers (high kicking hookers, to you and me): no-one can get near him. You dig?

(By stone-cold I mean wooden, and by fast I mean wooden. Just thought I'd clear that up.)

Dolemite (the movie) does away with several cinematic conventions. For starters, it ignores the convention that boom mikes should be kept out of shot, and reflectors should be held steady. It also does away with the convention that plot points should link up in some way or be cut, not left in leaving you wondering just what was the point of going down to the wharves to discover something about drug smuggling. 

Traditional methods of editing are also not part of this groundbreaking film, with characters often talking to the spot where the other guy no longer is (eg, the warden in the opening scene talking to Dolemite). And on the warden: what the hell? Since when do prison wardens decide whether a guy should be released to prove his innocence? Isn't there some kind of "court" system, and "legal process" for that? 

Then there's the whole fight sequence thing (think Star Trek. The original one), the acting thing (think Storm, or Prisoner (Cell Block H)) and for me, one of the highlights: the car chase.

I've never seen a car chase at 30kph before, and let me tell you, it's not very exciting. Even though they tried to borrow some ideas from Bullitt, the chase is just laughable - but no so obviously laughable to be comedy. It's more like they wanted, really wanted, to do a car chase but forgot to get permission and get the streets closed, and didn't know how to drive very well. 

So what's left: how about unexplained characters? Like the Hamburger Pimp, who Dolemite lets get high before offering up information, and then some hoods burst in and kill him anyway. What was that all about? Or the militant Reverend - still haven't worked out why he was in it. 

And finally, I have to mention the clothes. This had me laughing all the way through. When Dolemite first gets out of prison, he stips off and pimps up, with frilly shirts, big bow ties, and furry fedoras. (Then takes the clothes off again once his in the car and his hoes give him a warm welcome back to freedom.) The pimp-wear in this flick is hilarious, with lapels to the shoulders, collars about eight inches down the back, custard yellow suits with black piping, and capes. Yes, capes. In one scene, Dolemite wears not one, but two capes. But my favourite is the coat worn by the (good-guy) FBI man (also known as "the one who no-one knows until it's time") at the end. First, think plum plaid sports coat. Then take off the lapels, button it on the belly, and then cut out a square bib. Truly horrendous.

Back to the rating: as a film, it's unratable. It is that bad. The acting, the technical stuff, the plot: all appalling. But it does have some kind of entertainment value: the great lines ("That rat-soup eatin', insecure, honkey mutha-fucka!"), the hilarious clothes, and the baffling plot developments. All up, I've decided the entertainment + the poor quality = -4.0 Money Trains.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle (David Wroblewski, 562 pages)

Don't believe the hype or you, too, may be sucked into the lie that has made TSOES an "international best seller". Despite Oprah's Book Club recommendation and Stephen King saying he'll reread it, the truth is that this is an over-long, pointless and somewhat turgid tales that leaves you feeling cold.

The story is about young Edgar, only child in a family of dog breeders who is born mute. Why mute? I can only guess it's because Wroblewski couldn't be arsed writing dialog or using the " symbol. Edgar's muteness adds only annoyance to the story, plus an unhealthy detgree of unbelievability. But no matter, Wroblewski decided the little bastard was to be mute and that's all there is to it, pointless as the decision was.

Edgar lives an idlyic life raising dogs until Uncle Claude shows up. His father, Gar, and Claude fight a lot, Gar mysteriously dies, Edgar believes Claude was responsible but his mother, Trudy, shacks up with him nonetheless. After accidentally killing the vet (and father of the local cop), Edgar goes bush for a couple of months before returning for a showdown with Claude. And you ask yourself: Why? Why does Claude kill Gar? ops, gave it away!) Why did he even buy the poison in Korea in the 50s in the prologue in the first place? Why did Edgar go bush for so long? And why does it take 500 pages to cover this?

None of these critical plot points is explained, which is surprising when so many pages are given over to excrutiuating detail and plain drivel. The first 120 pages, for example, are taken up with family history and setting an idylic scene in which NOTHING HAPPENS.

In the end, the climatic showdown between boy and uncle turns out to be formulaic and the attempted heart-string puller of Edgar finally talking falls flat. And yet surprisingly this book was not too hard to read. Something made me keep turning the pages and I believe it was the belief that some of the questions raised would be answered.

They weren't. I wasted several hours of my life. Don't make the same mistake. 2/5

Rockandrolla - Zero Money Trains

If any doubt remained about the film making ability of Guy Ritchie, then Rockandrolla (Rockanrolla?) dispels it forever: Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrells was either stolen or a total fluke and Guy Ritchie has no talent whatsoever.

Once again, here is a film about London gansters who get caught up in an intricate situation with lots of murder, violence, rhyming slang and characters drawn worse than a Scoobee Doo villain. (And named worse, too: One Two; Tank and others so bad I forget, but probably along the lines of Fingers, Septic, Bacon, and Pink Eye Johnny. Speaking of pink eye, see Knocked Up: great film!!)

The plot... well, I'm not sure there is one. Something about a stolen painting, with a subploit of ripping off Russian mafia, with another subplot of gay best friend, with another subplot of errant step son and another subplot of love interest. As usual, Ritchie tried to tie these together in such a way as to be "clever" but makes more of a mess with it than he did with Snatch, and so ties it together in such a way as to be "stupid", "unlikely", "ridiculous", "frankly annoying" and just plain "dumb".

In the end, Tom Wilkinson's villain gets his just desserts (earned for overacting worse than an Italian footballer); Thandy Newton's double crossing femme fatale has something bad happen to her (I was on a plane so that bit was cut); and the "heroes"; bad actors one and all... you know, I don't even remember what happened to them. They probably got shot or got away or something. Don't really care.

This film is APPALLING - do not watch it. It isn't even funny drunk. Guy Ritchie is the Joe Dolce of cinema.

Zero Money Trains.

A brief rundown on recent films

National Treasure - The Second One
Crap film. Nicolas Cage: need I say more? But I was on a 7 hour flight and I'd seen everything else. Apparently, life is a massive conspiracy theory which is easily unravelled by a quick thinking professor who finds it quite easy to break into places like Buckingham Palace and the White House. This is a film that will appeal to 14 year old boys and no one else.

There Will Be Blood
Boring film. God, I was two hours into it expecting it to build up to something. Blood, for example. it was actually reasonably watchable, and the opening 15 minutes were great (no talking at all - it really gets your attention), but at the 120 minute mark I realised it was still only the second act and that I didn't care about any of the characters. What a waste of time. At least I was on a plane and hal cut on bloody marys.

Lions For Lambs
Number three for today was seen on the same business trip. Emirates long-haul planes have really good entertainment systems, but shit films. Lions for Lambs had three plots running concurrently: journalist tackles with dilemma of not wanting to publish government propaganda, about a new tactic in Afghanistan; two soldiers find themselves stuck in an impossible situation in Afghanistan as part of the new tactic; and aging professor talks to student about doing something with your life, just like two of his old students who were now in an impossible situation in Afghanistan as part of a new tactic. Not bad, but not great.

Butterfly on a wheel
Thriller. Irish ne'er-do-well kidnaps a couple and destroys the husband's life in an act of revenge. The resolution was good and saved it from being an also-ran.

Next. 0 Money Trains

I've been doing a lot of flying lately and seeing a lot of films I wouldn't normally bother with. Including Next with Nicolas Cage.

So his character, let's call him Tooley, because he's a tool and I've forgotten his name, can see up to two minutes into the future. This means he can change his decisions based on this prior knowledge, and so he can win at blackjack, avoid apprehension by the fuzz, survive landslides and dodge bullets. But not, it seems, embezzle, steal, nail a job interview, get a root, or act.

Well, strictly, that second last one isn't true: he falls for a chick and manages to seduce her rather effectively inside about 18 hours, but then he has to use his skills to track down some terrorists with a nuclear bomb. Apparently all the other superheros were at their annual picnic that day.

This film would've been okay, I reckon, with an actor in the lead role. Perhaps the potted ficcus who narrowly missed the lead role in The Interpreter could have been given the part. Basically anyone or anything other than Mr Cage, Keanu Reeves or Kevin Kostner would have been less wooden and more interesting. But we are stuck with Mr Cage, a dress sense for Tooley that is so bad I'm actually commenting on wardrobe, and an ending that is seriously on a par with "and then I woke up." (On a par, not the same.)

All up, 0 Money Trains

Three

It's been a while, and in that time I've seen some absolute shite. Particularly sequels to sequels. Let's begin:

Spiderman 3
Wow. What a ratshit film this one is. Not content with showing the travails of Peter Parker as a nerdy student and then nerdy reporter, the filmmakers show us Peter as a nerdy lover, too. Unlike any other superhero known to man, Spiderman cries like it's going out fashion, which for superheroes, it has.

The trouble starts with Peter Parker being a wet fish. It then goes on when he gets mysteriously covered with some ego-enhancing black goo from space which turns him into Evil Spiderman. Which is the funniest part of the whole film, particularly when he lets the audience know he's in Evil-mode by pushing his cow-lick down over his eye. Watching him strut down the street shooting pretty girls with double barrelled fingers to looks of bemusement is particularly entertaining.

Anyway, Spiderman then faces two more evil foes. The first is a bank robber with a heart of gold who finds himself turned to sand when he accidentally falls into an outdoor physics experiment whose only discernible purpose is to turn things into sand. ("Great Scott, Carruthers, I've found a process that turns things into sand without destroying their life force." "Well done, old bean, we'd better continue the tests in an open air pit to avoid any possible contamination.") The second foe is another photographer who becomes the unwitting recipient of the black space gunk. (You get this gunk off you by subjecting yourself to industrial-deafness levels of noise, and yet Spiderman's hearing isn't affected.) And then there's Harry, Green Goblin Junior who does, of course, turn good in the end, just in time to sacrifice his life for Spidey. Cue more tears.

Kirsten Dunst plays a MJ once again, and as always manages to pull off the trailer park trash look with aplomb. And once again, I found myself hoping the story would be true to the comics and her character would be killed off to make way for someone with interest.

All up, this is on a par with the original Spiderman film. Not Spiderman with Tobey Macguire, but the one from 1981. Still, better than Money Train. 1.5MT

Shrek 3
Oh. My. God. What a pile of steaming cow poo. This film is lame, that's all there is too it. Never mind the whole transgenic issues of donkeys rooting dragons to produce offspring, but this flick has none of the edge or the wit that the first had in abundance, and the second one had in one scene (where Fiona kills a bird in a singing contest and eats the eggs). Also better than Money Train. 1.5MT

Fabulous Four: The Something About The Silver Surfer.
OK, so it's #2, not #3. This is actually an alright film. In it, the Fabulous Four have come into cash, and lots of it, thanks to the sponsorship deals teed up by the Human Torch. Of course, the world is about to end again, other, possibly more capable superheroes are off on other business, so Mr Stretchy Pants, The Thing, Human Torch and the Disappearing Chick step up to save the day, right in the middle of the wedding of Stretch Armstrong and Invisible Blonde.

Stan Lee makes his trademark appearance when he tries to get into the wedding. "I should be on the invitation list," he says, "I'm Stan Lee." "I don't think so," says the bouncer and sends him packing. Classic stuff for the comic book nerds out there.

Oh, did I mention there's this dude with a flying surfboard who has the two great powers of being able to resurrect the dead and show the footy on his stomach-TV? He turns out to be good, but forced to be bad. But before we find that out, there's one of those chases that winds up in space. It turns out, if this film is to be believed, that space doesn't have enough oxygen to maintain the Human Torch's fire, but does have enough to enable him to breath and there's enough pressure to stop his blood from boiling. Who'd've guessed?

3.0 Money Trains

X-Men 3
Or X-Men Apocalyse. Yep, there's plenty of death and gore in this film, and not much science.

Lesson 1: Conservation of matter.
OK, so you can regrow your limbs when they're cut off, like a lizard, only faster. Obviously, the new flesh has to come from your body, which means you'll need to eat. So when Wolverine cuts off your arms so many times there's a pile of arms equal to your original body weight lying on the floor, how much of you do you reckon will be left?

(This law of Thermodynamics is addressed in The Flash comics, apparently, but not in other superhero films. Spiderman, for example: he shoots his sticky web-load some 3,000 times and covers half of NY in his gunk, but never gets thinner!)

Lesson 2: Evolution.
No, evolution is not about random, fully formed mutation. How many mutations of your DNA would you need to grow wings, generate feathers, decrease your bone density to than of a bird and shit constantly to keep your weight down? I'm not a geneticist, but I'm guessing it's a lot.

Now you might say, it's a film, let it go. And for some things, like self-healing, life-force-sucking, power-over-metal, I'm willing to, especially when weird radioactive substances are to blame. But when you say at the start of the first film that it's about mutation and evolution, and one of the characters can turn into metal, I start to think the Intelligent Design people are financing the whole thing to discredit Darwin.

Anyway, in this one, Jean Grey is back from an unnecessary death (she had the mental power to control the flood that killed her from the plane, why did she get into the water?) and is evil in a oops-I-killed-my-boyfriend-with-a-brain-fart kind of way. She's teamed up with Mephisto, or Metallico, or Magneto, or whatever he's called. Together, they kill as many people as they can until, in an all-destructing maelstrom, Wolverine is forced to bring the film to climax. Which is ironic considering that's all he ever wanted to do with Jean.

Now, I would have scored this 3.0MT, but it has Vinnie Jones in it, plus everyone gets around in ridiculous head gear. Therefore: 2.5 Money Trains

Book Review: The Kite Runner

(By Khaled Hosseini)

Amir is a young lad growing up in Afghanistan in the seventies with his best friend, Hassan, who is also his low caste servant. On the day of the local kite competition Amir, desperate to win his father’s approval, wins and Hassan loyally chases down, or runs, the last kite cut, only to run foul of the local teenaged, Hitler-loving bully, Assef. What follows is witnessed by Amir, but he lacks the courage to stop it.

This incident sours Amir’s relationship with Hassan and it’s just after this point that he has to flee to America with his father due to the Russian invasion. The story kicks around reasonably well from here for a while, as we see Amir grow, fall in love and get married. In 2001, he receives a call beckoning him back to Afghanistan to finally seek redemption for the guilt he feels over the kite running incident of 1975.

The story to this point is poignant and touching, but then Mr Hosseini tugs a little hard at the heart strings and his story descends into daytime telemovie cliché like an out of control kite. The first comes early in the third act and is hinted at pretty strongly by the set up in the second act, which also sets up cliché #2. Things, naturally, don’t go smoothly for Amir once he’s back in Kabul (#3 & #4), leading to a run-in with Assef, now relishing life in the Taliban (#5 &#6). The climax of this little incident (#7)is as hackneyed as you could possibly hope for and would actually be funny if you weren’t so disappointed.

As the third act draws to a close the reader might be wondering why there are so many pages to go, and the unwelcome appearance of a hurriedly written fourth act is the answer. This is possibly worse than the last few chapters, as cliché #2 is finally expressed fully for those too thick not to have gotten it yet, and then a complicating factor is thrown in which is pointless, unrealistic and just badly handled from start to finish. The last page and a half gives a final tug at the heart strings as we witness Amir, finally free of guilt for 1975 (but devoid of guilt for 2001) running a kite for Hassan’s son.

This is a shame as Mr Hosseini writes superbly at the beginning of the book, actually causing me to wonder for a while whether it was autobiographical. If he can overcome the Matthew Reilly clichés, he could be a top class author.

The Sentinel; Transporter 2; Smokin' Aces; The Good Shepherd; .45; Vanilla Sky

Wow, I've been dead-set slack with the film reviews, especially considering I've watched so damned many in the past two months. So here's a quick run down on some of the worst:

The Sentinel (2.5 Money Trains)

If it weren't for the Chinese DVD lady coming to my door and flogging this to me for Dh10, I would never have seen it. It's about a US Secret Service guy (Michael Douglas) who is still feeling guilty that it took a passer-by to take down the guy who shot Reagan, and who gets framed for a plot to pop the current Prez. Keifer Sutherland plays the whispering Secret Service agent who is after the first guy, and Eva Longerina (whatever, the chick from Desperate Housewives) plays a totally redundant role. I'm not even sure she had a speaking part, now I think of it, but she is on the picture on the DVD holding a gun with the boys.

Looking back at my original scoring system, I'll have to give this 2.5 Money Trains, because it beats the crap out of Matrix Reloaded. It's a colour by numbers job and no obvious flaws that make reviewing these films such fun. (Except of course, everyone believes Michael Douglas's character is guilt despite a long service record, a total lack of motive and flimsy circumstantial evidence at best.)

Transporter 2 (3.0 Money Trains)

Yep, up there with Cliff Hanger. A fun film where David Stratham gets into more ridiculous situations involving fights and guns and, in this one, a plane that crashes into the sea mid-fight and he and the bad guy survive. Need I say more? Awesome flick. 3.0 MT

Smokin' Aces (3.0 Money Trains)

Another silly shoot-em-up film with a few big name actors getting covered in tomato sauce. Everyone's out to get some mafia guy - the FBI for evidence, a bunch of hitmen and hitwomen for cash. Things go balls up, lot's of characters die, often in amusing ways. And let's face it, any way that Ben Afleck's character dies is going to bring a smile to your lips. 3.0 MT

The Good Shepherd (0 Money Trains)

Lots of good actors, Robert De Niro directing, a plot about the CIA. Such potential. Such a glacial pace. This film came in at about 2.5 hours, I think, but it seemed longer. It didn't exactly depart from standard cinematic conventions, but it seemed like a one act film. God it was turgid. Zero Money Trains.

.45 (-2.0 Money Trains)

I read some reviews of this film on IMDB.com and people were gushing about the realistic acting in the scene where Milla Jovocich gets beaten by the boyfriend. To those people (who were probably only watching it hoping to get another glimpse of Milla's bits), I say see Once Were Warriors.

This film, according to the cover, is about a girl who plots to bump off her abusive boyfriend after the aforementioned bit of biffo. They are "gritty, seedy, criminal underbelly types" say this film's supporters, rather than the sanitised sort we normally see.

So the hell what? The characters are vacuous and one dimensional, as is the script and frankly, when the girl gets beaten up you find yourself not caring a jot. It was a this point I ejected the DVD and threw it in the bin. Don't waste your money or your time. -2.o MT

Vanilla Sky (unrated)

Haven't seen it. (Sorry Matt!) I did see Open Your Eyes, though, the original Spanish film it was based on and really liked it. You also get to see Penelope Cruz's knockers but it was done in such a way that you didn't know in the end if the guy was mad, if he was dreaming or if he was in a virtual world. (Well, I didn't know.) I'm told there was no such question in the American version, plus it had Tom Cruise, so it must be crap.

Five Fingers (2.5 Money Trains)

The best thing about Five Fingers is that you know within minutes that pretty boy Ryan Phillippe, (playing a kidnapped Dutch do-gooder, or possibly terrorist), is going to lose, count 'em, five fingers. And that's worth watching, right?

Yessir, seeing self-righteous political activists lose appendages is right up there with watching schoolgirl full contact rugby. Especially self-righteous political activists with appalling Dutch accents.

The film starts with Phillippes character (it was a while ago, I forget the name) and his older mate (played by Colm Meanie, or whatever the spelling is), getting kidnapped in Morocco by some terrorists and being accused by them of being a spy. "No no", cries Dutchie, "I'm on your side." "Oh yeah? Prove it! And check out these great secaturs and rusty hacksaw blades."

What follows is a painful interrogation (largely due to the accent!) between Phillippe and Laurence Fishburne's character.

This isn't a bad film, but it's not great. Definitely better than Matrix Reloaded, but not as good as Cliffhanger.

Walk The Line & Beerfest

Just to prove I review good films, too, (even if it isn't as much fun):

Walk The Line, the Johnny Cash biopic, is really good, with excellent performance from Joachim Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon. It chronicles Cash's rise to fame, his drug abuse and collapse and his eventual getting it together with ... you know, that country music singer that Witherspoon plays. (Hey, I'm not a professional reviewer, Cash is the famous one, see the film to find out her name.) Anyway, the Cash we see is a pretty ugly character at times, but that suggests it's pretty accurate.

Beerfest is funny. From the same filmmakers as Super Troopers and Club Dread, this is low brow ridiculousness near its best. Two brothers stumble across the beer Olympics at Oktoberfest, have their family honour insulted, and vow to return the next year to win. They get a team together and train hard for 12 months at the time-honoured sport of drinking beer. (This film was actually inspired by the film makers getting caned in a boat race in the Gold Coast when touring Australia to promote Super Troopers.)

Journey To The End Of The Night (0 Money Trains)

Oh.
My.
God.

I was in Karama buying illicit DVDs the other day. My dealer had been busted so I was trying out a new bloke - good prints, but a high price and a poor selection. I walked away with "Journey". I'd never heard of it, but it's got Brendan Fraser (playing Paul, a coked up pimp in Sao Paulo), Mos Def (a dishwasher turned drug courier called Wemba) and Scott Glenn (Paul's dad, also a pimp). So I think to myself: some good actors, promising story, I'll buy it.

Big mistake.

This film is so bad I'm thinking of inventing a new scale just for it. The big problem was that the actors forgot to act. Mos Def turned in his usual mumbling performance and was the stand out performer, but Scott Glenn looked like he was auditioning for the Kevin Costner - Keanu Reeves School of Performance Art, while Brendan Fraser seemingly confused "bad ass" with "bad".

Plot wise, this is one stupid film. When the pimping family's (sorry, I forget the surname) super athletic-looking drug courier dies of a heart attack while rooting a transvestite prostitute (why?), Dad (Glenn) has to find a replacement who can speak some African language so he can sell a suitcase full of Charlie. Enter Wemba (Def. Or is it Mos?) Meanwhile the dad's son, Paul (Fraser), plans to cut the old man out of the deal and abscond with the money and his dad's hot younger wife.

Naturally, things go wrong. Wemba gets mugged (by lazy muggers who forget to take his backpack full of cash) and can't report in, Paul gets in an unnecessary fight with the tranny hooker (coincidence, only), the vice squad shows up and wants a piece of the action, and oh yeah, Paul's doing his step mother.

There are too many stupid details that just aren't necessary, too many stupid side characters that don't add anything, a total lack of common sense from anyone in the film, and an ending
that just screams "I ran out of ideas, how about everyone pulls out a gun?" I think I understand now why I'd never heard of this film. A big Zero from me.

Kokoda (+2.5 Money Trains)

In 1942 a crack unit of Japanese troops landed at Gona on the north coast of New Guinea with the aim of marching across the island and taking Port Moresby. This would give them a forward air base for an invasion of Australia, which would most likely have succeeded. But standing in the way was an outnumbered handful of Australian troops who fought along the Kokoda Track and finally stopped the Japanese advance, just 50km or so from Port Moresby. Not that this was considered good enough, mind you. The army commanders, particularly General Douglas "Let's nuke China" MacArthur, didn't understand what the terrain and conditions were like and were so disappointed with the fighting spirit of the Diggers that they demoted the officers and shipped them off to hardship postings as punishment. Here's an example of the fighting spirit considered so lacking:

Keith Norrish was shot four times in the chest and had three broken ribs. "The medic stuffed sulfamide tablets into the holes, wrapped it up and that was that." Any plans to give up and die? "I had no intention to. We had spirit. It never entered our heads that we would fail. Defeat was never an option."

And another:

Charles Metson had his leg shattered by a Japanese machine gun. He refused a stretcher: "It will take eight of you chaps to carry that thing. Throw it away. I'll get along somehow." So he crawled, dragging his leg, with his hands and knees wrapped in bandages to protect them from the stones that lay beneath the mud.

No spirit?

Anyway, this was the first time the Japanese had lost a land battle in WWII and, by stopping the invasion of Australia, was probably even more crucial to the outcome of the war in the Pacific than the Battle of Midway.

Now, with a story like that, you could film it with Star Wars figures in your backyard and still be up for the Palm d'Or at Cannes and a swag of Oscars.

So it's a pity that the creative minds behind Kokoda chose not to tell it. Instead, they tell the story of one particular mission by a bunch of Diggers. I don't know what stage of the whole Kokoda Track battle(s) this came at, as it just isn't clear. Anyway, these blokes go out, not too many return, and you just don't come to appreciate what kind of hell they really had to put up with. (Here's an idea: they wore khaki clothes and flat soled boots, the Japanese wore jungle green and jungle boots. Guess who had the upper hand.) You do get to see just how precipitous the mountains were they were fighting in, and you get an idea of the mud and the rain, but you don't really care. The characters have no depth, the actors (a "who's who" of Australian B-grade TV actors, or is that a "who's that"?) are wooden, and the plot of this one-act film is nearly non-existent.

The film reaks of being made by film school graduates who are generally so earnest that they shut their eyes when they talk, and they get so involved with their little story that they forget that the viewer isn't approaching the film from the same point as they are. But even if you do have some knowledge of the situation, the film adds nothing. I think they were trying to make another Galipoli, but instead they fell flat on their faces in the mud.

2 1/2 Money Trains: Better than Matrix Reloaded, not as good as Cliffhanger.

A quick word on the book I lifted the above quotes from: "More What If", edited by Robert Cowley. This is a collection of essays on what might have been, and the author on the chapter on Kokoda, James Bradley, while writing a great essay, is under the impression that Australia celebrates a national holiday, Kokoda Day, every August 29th. News to me...

Casino Royale (4 out of 5)

Bond is back and has finally moved away from the ridiculous CGI fantasies of recent outings that made Moonraker look like a documentary. Yes, I'm talking about those appalling Pierce Brosnan films that had, mmmmm, let me think, one good stunt between them (bungee jumping on the dam, but even that wasn't shown to its best in the film.)

The new Bond film is Casino Royale, and has Bond as a newly promoted 00 agent who's still a bit green but who actually has a tiny bit of emotion left. This is a character you can just about believe and my only complaint of the film is that it tries to do a bit much. It starts (with a great film noir sequence) when Bond earns his bones, then picks up the rather convoluted plot involving first an evil bomber and then the financier behind him. When you think it's all over and Bond has finally gotten the girl, it continues on like a soap opera in order to explain Bond's total lack of humanity. But this subplot isn't even a subplot, it's an after-plot and is held in place rather clumsily by the issue of missing money.

By the end of the film, you're left feeling like you've watched several episodes of a TV series instead of a stand-alone movie, which is a real shame as Daniel Craig is great as the government hit-man, the Bond girls are stunning as always, and some of the stunts are simply terrifying to contemplate. (No one has yet topped the plane-top fight of Octopussy for mine, though.) The film even includes the great torture scene from the book (but don't ask me what else is from the book, as it's been a long time since I read it, and I've got better things to do than read it again).

All up, this is not a great film, but it is a great Bond film.

Snakes On A Plane (0 Money Trains)

It's true: you don't need to see this film to know what's going to happen. Deadly snakes get loose on a plane, countless people die, including both pilots, and the audience laughs its arse off, while the heroes think of ways to kill said snakes. And yes, you know that these ways will include fire, fire-extinguishers and plane depressurisation.

But these aren't any old snakes, they're super-deadly, angry snakes that can climb anything and kill people instantly with a single bite. Unless it's a small child that gets bitten, in which case he'll survive long enough to have someone cut the wound and suck out the poison, never mind that that's a guaranteed way to introduce venom, that's almost cerainly in the lymphatic system, into the bloodstream. No one, not a single person, gets a snake wound strapped and immobillised.

And of course it's not your regular plane with four levels of redundancy: oh no, one rogue snake in the electrical switchboard will cut the avionics on this baby and the lights will go out for the duration. And, of course, physics doesn't play a major role: tail winds don't matter if you say they don't, and rapid depressurisation doesn't result in boiling of liquids (eg, blood), freezing condensation in the cabin, or fatal thermal shock.

Snakes On A Plane was directed by David Ellis, who also did Cellular, so that should give you some idea. And if that doesn't, Samuel L Jackson is in it, too.

But why are they even on the plane, you ask? It's an assassination attempt using venomous snakes to top the witness for the prosecution. So why the 20 foot anaconda?