Latest reviews – Page 449
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Reviews
Thunderbirds
Dir. Jonathan Frakes. US. 2004. 90 min.Thunderbirds, the 1960s UK television series starring action-hero marionettes and model rockets, has been given the big-screen, live-action tween treatment, and the result is a bouncing colourful kid-friendly romp. That it is entirely unrecognisable from the series is beside the point. It's a triumph ...
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Reviews
Thunderstruck
Dir: Darren Ashton. Australia. 2004. 100minsFor vitality, volume and pace the team behind high-octane rock 'n' rollroad movie Thunderstruck can't be faulted. The debut feature fromfirst-timers Darren Ashton (director), Jodi Matterson (producer) and ShaunAngus Hall (writer), it follows the members of a failed rock group, first atthe height of their ...
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Reviews
Control (Kontroll)
Dir: Antal Nimrod. Hungary. 2003. 105 mins.Displaying anenergetic drive seldom seen in East European cinema, Antal Nimrod'sdebut feature Control has enjoyed that rare feat of satisfying both thebox office (it was Hungary's biggest draw of 2003) and the critics (it has wona clutch of local awards). Successfully combining the dynamic ...
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Reviews
Casshern
Dir/scr/cine: KazuakiKiriya. Japan. 2004. 141mins.With digital technology,it is now possible to create big, visionary movies without breaking budgets -even those of the Japanese film industry. The result has been a spate ofJapanese films, such as Mamoru Oshii's Innocence, screening incompetition at Cannes, and Katsuhiro Otomo's forthcoming Steam Boy, thattake up ...
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Reviews
Mean Girls
Dir: Mark Waters. US.2004. 97 mins.A cut above the low-cost teenage movies churned out of Hollywood studiosthese days, Mean Girls is a smart comedy with an acerbic edge which hasalready found a wide audience in North America, taking more than $42m after twoweeks on release, and should carve out a ...
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Reviews
Troy
Dir: Wolfgang Petersen.US. 2004. 155mins.If, in the end, Troy fails to stir the heart as much as it dazzles theeye, it is nevertheless one of the most intelligent and ambitious tentpoleblockbusters to come out of Hollywood in some time. After all, it took someguts and not a little hubris to ...
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Reviews
Van Helsing
Dir/scr:Stephen Sommers. US. 2004. 132 mins.Thrillseekers looking for the maximum number of effects shots for their box officedollar (or pound, euro or yen) will get their money's worth fromwriter-director Stephen Sommers' $150m summer action-adventure Van Helsing. Which is just as well,because there's not much else to be got from this ...
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Reviews
Godsend
Dir:Nick Hamm. US. 2004. 100 mins.Humancloning ought to make a juicy subject for a psychological horror film (not tomention a topical marketing hook for distributors). But the cloning premiseturns out to be more intriguing than the execution in Godsend, adisappointingly generic PG-13 thriller from Lions Gate that marks the US ...
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Reviews
Tarnation
Dir:Jonathan Caouette. US. 2004. 88mins.Alreadysomething of a myth in the world of US independent film, Tarnation wasmade on Apple's I-Movie programme for a total budget of $218.32 according to itsfilm-maker Jonathan Caouette. Screened at the Sundance Film Festival in theexperimental and often overlooked Frontier section, the film was immediately amagnet ...
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Reviews
Strange Bedfellows
Dir: Dean Murphy.Australia. 2004. 105minsHomegrown comedies set infriendly country communities did not fare well at the Australian box officelast year. Danny Deckchair and The Honourable Wally Norman (forinstance) had large, sweetly eccentric supporting casts but little credibilityand far too few supporting laughs. Strange Bedfellows follows thistrend, though it boasts an ...
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Reviews
Laws Of Attraction
Dir:Peter Howitt. US. 2004. 90mins.Laws Of Attraction travels the well-worn path ofcountless screwball romantic comedies before it. Yet while the join-the-dotsplot is disappointingly devoid of any fresh twists or ideas, the film itselfproves an unexpectedly pleasant diversion, thanks to sparkling dialogue andwinning performances from Pierce Brosnan, Frances Fisher and Michael ...
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Reviews
The Calcium Kid
Dir:Alex De Rakoff. UK-US-Fr. 2004. 89mins.Orlando Bloom's post-Lord Of The Rings appeal will be sorely testedby The Calcium Kid, a title fight mockumentary that packs a puny punch.A world removed from the genre-defining classics of Christopher Guest and histroupe, this uninspired effort has more in common with parochial British farelike ...
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Reviews
Strange Crime (Sotto Falso Nome)
Dir:Roberto Ando. It-Switz. 2004. 105 mins.Asurprise choice as closing film for this year's Cannes Critics' Week, StrangeCrime is a frustratingly unresolved erotic thriller about false identityand dark secrets from hardworking Italian indie director Roberto Ando. Mostmemorable for its steamy sex scenes between Daniel Auteill and Anna Mougalis,which take us back ...
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Reviews
Man On Fire
Dir: Tony Scott. US. 2004. 145mins.Just weeks after The Rock (Walking Tall) and Tom Jane (The Punisher) decimated parts of the US, comes Denzel Washington to wreak havoc on Mexico City. Man On Fire is yet another post-9/11 vigilante movie in which a righteous American tough man takes revenge on ...
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Reviews
Appleseed
Dir: Shinji Aramaki. Japan. 2004. 103 mins.Japanese animation is insinuating itself into everything from Kill Bill Vol. 1 to kiddy cartoon channels on US cable. Unlike makers of Japanese live-action films, whose total annual exports wouldn't underwrite one middling Hollywood movie, Japanese animators can strike it truly rich abroad - ...
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Reviews
13 Going On 30
Dir: Gary Winick. US 2004. 97minsA female take on the 1988 hit Big, 13 Going On 30 concerns an insecure 13-year old girl who longs to be a grown up, convinced that adulthood confers automatic popularity, success and happiness. With the help of a little magic dust, she gets her ...
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Reviews
Turn Left, Turn Right (Xiang Zuo Zou, Ziang You Zou)
Dirs. Johnnie To, Wai Ka-Fai. Hong Kong, 2003. 102mins.Softer compared to some of Johnnie To's recent fare like PTU, the latest offering by the prolific Hong Kong director is firmly planted with one foot in the West and the other in the East. Warner Bros Pictures first Chinese-language film Turn ...
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Reviews
Two Brothers (Deux Freres)
Dir: Jean-Jacques Annaud. Fr-UK 2004. 109minsAlong with Roman Polanski and Luc Besson, Jean-Jacques Annaud is one of the few France-based directors who can shoot an international production in English that will be screened worldwide.Sixteen years ago his film The Bear, about the life and adventures of its titular hero in ...
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Reviews
The Punisher
Dir: Jonathan Hensleigh. US. 2004. 124mins.Hard on the heels of the first movie about Dark Horse Comics' Hellboy comes a new film of Marvel Comics' The Punisher, a startlingly brutal actioner in which the comic book anti-hero is almost as sadistic as the inhuman killers he seeks to punish.Slickly produced, ...
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Reviews
Connie And Carla
Dir: Michael Lembeck. US. 2004. 98minsWith My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Nia Vardalos, both as scriptwriter and star, demonstrated that she knew exactly how to turn run-of-the-mill TV fodder into theatrical box-office gold. Her second outing in the genre, the funny and often touching Connie And Carla, preserves and perfects ...