Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

WINNER OF 2012 BAFTA - BEST BRITISH FILM

Now I have seen the TV series (well all but 1 episode) and this is my second movie in two days. I think that this maybe my favourite movie of 2011 and I wasnt expecting to think that.

The story is essentially about how Smiley (Gary Oldman) has to find out who the mole is. Over the course of two and a bit hours. The story does all the things that I remember from the TV series. My main worry about this film was that the TV series was seven hours of fine television and yet somethings would have to be left out. To be honest, I couldnt point it out. The film does make slightly more sense than the TV series.

This film contains the best of British acting. Gary Oldman manages to do a good version of Alec Guiness but manages to make it his own as opposed to an homage. Benedict Cumberbatch is almost on film stealing offering. Colin Firth is also on good form but isnt in it enough for my likeing. I think that after seeing him in The King's Speech, I have a new appreciation for Mr. Firth. Ciarain Hinds is perhaps the one that I wasnt impressed with because he wasnt in it very much. Toby Jones is brilliant and 24 hours after seeing Richard Attenborough in Jurrasic Park, Jones' accent is very odd but I found his performance is very good. John Hurt also puts in a performance that is what we have come to expect from him.

The thing about this film is that like Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons, you have to pay attention. Unless you know what was going on before hand its a film that you couldnt just let your attention wander. I guessed correctly who the mole was and in case you havent seen it I wont say who it was but I think that his ending was very well done and the music was the right choice.

TTSS is a brilliant film. All the good things that I had heard about it were true and Gary Oldman hould get some sort of award recognition when the Oscars and BAFTA's come round. If you havent seen this film, then you should.

Jurrasic Park (1993)

18 years after I first saw this film, I went my local Showcase with a sense of excitment and a sense of dread. Excitment because I felt like I was reliving my youth and dread because it was a 5pm showing on a Saturday evening. I was missing Dr Who for this but I thought it was a price worth paying.

I wont go over the story itself except to say that it stands up remarkably well and the special effects dont look out of place to any special effects laden film today. I was surprised that the film was a PG because I thought that some bits of dinosaurs attacking humans would have pushed it to a 12A rating but that for the BBFC to decide. Just to say that there were young kids who appear to have been traumatised by it which did make me chuckle.

Also something I have never noticed until now is how Richard Attenborough's accent changes wildly throughout the film. One moment it went Scottish and then in other parts it went to British. Odd.

I am curious as to why they have decided to bring JP out on the 18th anniversary. It must only be a money reason but it is a damning verdict of the state of cinema when they are having to bring out the classics to try and make some money. To be fair I dont care because I had a fun time and was glad to see it on the big screen. When I watch it on DVD, it wont have the same effect as the big screen. I will clearly have to invest in a huge TV.

The Taking of Phelam 123 (2009)

I started to watch this film because I had heard about Unstoppable which is a film by Tony Scott which is set on a train that is moving. This is another train film by Tony Scott that doesn’t move. The film sees Denzel Washington as a disgraced train operator who is forced into having a conversation with John Travolta.

Despite this being a rather flimsy plot it is actually a lot of fun and this is down to Travolta and Washington who have some good scenes together. I did find it funny the way that Travolta kept saying Mother f***er. Made me smile every time that he said it. The film would probably have been better had it not had Travolta or Washington in it. There was one moment when Washington’s character talks to his wife about buying milk of all things. Quite a strange moment when its at the business end of things.

This film is rather good despite the things wrong with it and it shows how far Travolta has come since Battlefield Earth.

Troll Hunter (2011)

This film was talked about quite a lot because it was another of those cheap films that achieve a lot. I must admit that I found it to be terrible and not at all what it should have been. Ok so some of it was quite funny and it was an improvement of Grave Encounters but after a while it stopped being fun and became a totally pointless film. So pointless that I fell asleep and woke up once it had finished. I don’t think that I will be returning to it anytime in the future.

It’s not that it’s a foreign film with subtitles because I can cope with that its just that I don’t really get Trolls and find them along with anything like that to be totally boring and not worth making a film about. The only thing that I can say in a positive way is that the effects were well realised despite what must have been a small budget. It all manages to work rather well. Actually another thing is the cast, some of it is rather well done and then there is the troll hunter who is rather entertaining and is simply quite mad which fits in with the film.

Troll Hunters is one of the worst films of 2011

Grave Encounters (2011)

This is a film by The Vicious Brothers which is a spoof of sorts of all those paranormal shows like Most Haunted which spend an evening in a supposedly abandoned place and wait for nothing to happen. This film takes place in an abandoned psychiatric hospital. All that is suppose to happen is that they spend 6 hours watching nothing happen and then come out but it turns out that things are far more real than they expected. The thing about these characters at the beginning is that they are all annoying, not one of them you wouldn’t want to give a slap to.

The film doesn’t really get going until it gets dark and even then it’s not the most amazing film that there has ever been. There are some moments that did make me jump but I think that because I found the characters so bland and annoying that anything they said or did was not taken serious. It uses the darkness to great effect and that’s what makes the film worth watching because when its dark you know that something is going to happen but not sure exactly what.

When the film did get good it was just as the characters were being picked off one by one. It was fun trying to pick who was going to be the next one to be killed. Lance Preston (the presenter) suffered perhaps the most intriguing amount of trouble. He is the last one and goes slowly mad before stamping a rat to death and munching on it. Then he gets a lobotomy, this section goes on for quite a while and its only once its finished that you notice it because the whole idea of the lobotomy comes out of left field that it draws you in. What’s strange is that at the beginning we get some bloke saying these had been handed in. Quite why and by whom is a mystery but that is the main issue with the film. Things happen and no sense is made of them.

Performance wise the actors in this were mixed. They all started off as not the greatest and at best they are average. There’s no real sense of connection and it just seems like a group of people who are forced into making a movie together and when they get picked off you find yourself cheering the monsters.

Grave Encounters isn’t a terrible film but it’s in the vein of those found footage and despite not being the best it certainly has its moments. It has an interesting premise and considering that it didn’t have the biggest budgets in the world (rumoured to be around $1 million) it still have some impressive effects.

Rating - 7/10