The Godfather: Part III (1990)

The first two Godfather films were masterpieces in film making. Both had things that made them great, in the first in was Marlon Brando and in the second it was Robert De Niro. The two films were stylish and were engaging. I think part two is better than part one but its not the wildest line of thinking ever. I have never heard a good word said about part three, never. I was hoping that it was going to be mediocre and thought that I would find something in it that would make me say that it wasn’t that bad. Sadly I cant because this film is terrible. I don’t really know why it was made aside from the fact that Coppola needed to make some money for Paramount but this is an awful piece of movie making and tarnishes the good name of the previous two films. The problems are many.

Firstly and is Sofia Coppola. Now she was a late replacement for Winona Ryder but quite frankly you could have got a bucket with a smiley face on it and you would have got a similar if not better performance. She is just terrible and delivers her lines like badly. Secondly the lack of anything happening. Stuff happens but nothing really happens, you never get the sense of Michael’s empire, you just get a sense that we are seeing someone who is reaching the end of his life and even that isn’t done particularly well. There is no real sense of scale and for me that’s a problem. Another problem is that Andy Garcia is meant to be replacing Michael but I just didn’t find him to be as good. He just seemed to be a mirror image of Al Pacino in the first Godfather film.

The film drags its heals badly and at 162 minutes it’s the shortest of the films but feels like it’s the longest because of the tedious nature of the film. I must say that the final 10-15 minutes were enjoyable and easily the best part of the film but I just think that it’s a long way to go for something that if it were in the other films wouldn’t have stood out but because everything in this film is way below par it then becomes the best thing. The Godfather Part 3 is a film that doesn’t leave you feeling the same way that you would about a dumb Adam Sandler film or Will Ferrell film but it just leaves you feeling disappointed, disappointed that after to fantastic films were end the trilogy with this dull, unimaginative and ultimately badly judged film.

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

The Dark Knight Rises brings the Nolan series of Batman films full circle. This film is one of the most eagerly anticipated films of the year and one where I had genuine fears that it wasn’t going to meet my high expectations. Having enjoyed the previous two Batman films I was hoping that this was going to finish off the trilogy in the way that I was hoping it would. The story takes place eight years after the events of The Dark Knight were Bruce Wayne is living pretty much as a hermit. Don’t know many hermits that are billionaires and live in massive mansion but there isn’t time to ponder on that fact because we are quickly introduced to Selena Kyle. Now I have seen the Tim Burton version of Catwoman and I have to say that prefer Nolan’s version. This is done largely because of Anne Hathaway, I’m not a Hathaway fan and haven’t really seen any of her films but I was really impressed with how she glided throughout the film.

The main thing that I was aware of before entering the cinema was that there was an issue with Bane’s voice and to be honest I didn’t really have a problem with it. The first time I heard his voice I was a little confused and there were occasional words which I didn’t understand but on the whole I understood what he was saying. I thought that Bane was a very good baddie and much better than what we got in the god awful BATMAN AND ROBIN (1997) movie where he doesn’t really do much though I am reliably informed that its more truthful to the comic in the 1997 version. Tom Hardy does a good job in a tough role because we don’t see his mouth he has to do a lot with his eyes and with the way he positions his body and he does a really good job. Christian Bale is a fantastic Batman/Bruce Wayne. I thought that this was his best outing because he didn’t spend as much time in the Batsuit as he did in previous films it made it more of a character piece and Bale did that well.

Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine are as usual brilliant in this film. I thought that Caine was just that little bit better but because he was very emotional in this film. I thought that when Alfred was at the gravestone of the Wayne and he was apologising to Bruce’s parents for not protecting him was a really sad moment and reminds us why Caine is a really good actor.

The film takes its take and with a running time of just over two and a half hours it has the time to take. It’s close to an hour before Bruce Wayne is in the Batsuit and I like how the entire film seemed to flow perfectly. I never looked at my watch and never got bored and unlike Marvel Avengers Assemble/The Avengers, I don’t think that this film needed to lose any of its running time because it ran for as long as it needed to and that a rare thing in movies at this time. It was nice how they seem to tie up the film to BATMAN BEGINS (2005) as Liam Neeson and Cillian Murphy both make surprise appearances. They are both good actors so it was a bonus when they appeared though Neeson’s was too brief.

This trilogy for my money is the best trilogy in movie history. This film was everything I wanted to be and met my very high expectations. I don’t know how long it will be before they reboot it (hopefully longer than they left it for Spiderman) but one thing is for sure and that is whoever directs it wont be able to match what Christopher Nolan has achieved in these films.

The Godfather Part II (1974)

I must start off by saying that I think the second Godfather film is far better than the previous. I think this because I find that it just worked better than the first. I really did like that film so it shows how good G2 is. This film splits its time between Al Pacino and a very youthful Robert De Niro. De Niro is playing the Marlon Brando character when the Don first comes to America. I thought that the film took about half an hour to really find its feet but once it did then it just got better and better. The film has a running time of 200 minutes which is 25 longer than the first film. I must be honest and say that it didn’t really feel like that for me. I wasn’t expecting the intermission that came but I used it to get supplies for the second half of the film which was truly enjoyable.

Al Pacino was very good as Michael just like he was in the first film but for me I found Robert De Niro to be mesmerising. Every scene he was in was a superb exercise in fine acting. It’s just a shame that he would be reduced to the Meet the Fockers film. Everytime I think of De Niro in this film I remember why I loved this film. Pacino at times has to surrender the film to De Niro and even though they never share a scene (for obvious reasons) its like a fight to become the best in the film.

Like the previous film, I thought that this was a very good ensemble film with several very strong performances. I loved the moving backwards and forwards of the two big plot strands and even after 3 hours and 20 minutes I found the film enthralling but at the end of this film I realised that we would be heading towards the third film which I have never heard good things about.  The Godfather Part 2 is the finest sequel in movie history. Fact

The Godfather (1972)

It’s an embarrassing admission but I had never seen the Godfather before tonight. I don’t know why but that’s been put right now. It’s regarded as one of the greatest films ever. The film famously has Marlon Brando in and it’s the second film in recent times that I have had to watch with subtitles because I couldn’t understand what Brando was saying. The story is 175 minutes long and it uses every one of those minutes to help construct a massive mafia family led by Marlon Brando and its nice to see the evolution of Michael from being the nice member of the family having been in action in World War 2 to become the head man. The thing that the film shows is there is very little in the way of happiness. There are members of the family that are killed and no one comes out of this film unscathed.

Marlon Brando is very good in this film but its Al Pacino who steals the film. As his gradual rise to power becomes more evident, Pacino continues to come across as the most normal member of the family. James Caan is also very good and is always a reliable and safe pair of hands. The performances of even the supporting cast were all very good and it was very much an ensemble piece and it’s needed because a just under 3 hours it would be a stretch to keep a small band of people in a story which keeps the audience’s attention. Francis Ford Coppola has done a great job in keeping the pace going and not losing his nerve by having a massive action sequence but just keeping it calm and letting the acting shine.

I wouldn’t say that I think this is the greatest movie ever made but I did very much like it. I have high expectations about what to expect from the next two movies but the Godfather is certainly in my top 10.

The Amazing Spider Man (2012)

It’s weird to think that just five years after the last spiderman film, that we should get or need a reboot. But that’s what we have in this film with Andrew Garfield taking over from Toby Maguire in the lead role. I must admit that I prefer Garfield to Maguire because I think that Garfield did the vulnerable and wimpy person thing much better than Maguire ever did. I also thought that the main problem with Spiderman 3 was that there were too many baddies which just got in the way. In this film all we have is the lizard guy played by Rhys Ifans.

It was good how somethings that were in the first Spiderman in 2002 were used in this film but in a slightly different way. I thought that the way that Parker’s uncle (played brilliantly by Martin Sheen) was far more believeable. It was a shame when Sheen was written out as I am a huge fan of his and thought that he brought something to the story. Sally Field surprised me as the only other thing I saw her in was in Mrs Doubtfire (1993). She was very good as Aunt May and was even better in the scenes after Sheen left. I thought Emma Stone was quite good as Gwen Stacey. I thought that Stone was a far better love interest for Parker than Kirsten Dunst.

The film could have done with being about 15-20 minutes shorter but on the whole I found The Amazing Spiderman to be quite good. Much better than I thought it was going to be. I think Garfield is a very good Peter Parker and have high hopes for the future. On a side note I saw this film in 2D as opposed to 3D and I don’t for a second think I missed anything.

Rating – 7/10

Skew (2011)

Skew is another of the found footage films that has a good idea at its core but unfortunately gets bogged down with its own self importance and ultimately loses its focus. The film starts with three friends (well two are in a relationship) and they are embarking on a road trip. Now I’ve seen enough of these films to know that at some point someone will ask the person filming to turn the camera off and that these ‘friends’ will ultimately turn on each other after the events. There are a series of events which occur however due to the fact that the three main characters are about as interesting as ditch water and nothing about what happens to them is interesting in the slightest. I even don’t care about why its happening.

There are some interesting special effects which are very well realised and its impressive with what can be done with a small budget. I also thought the moments where the ‘dead’ people appear and then disappear was also quite effective however that is as much good will as I have aimed at the film. The film is less than 90 minutes long but boy does it drag. The only mildly interesting scene comes at the end where the characters are at the abandoned gas station. The woman buggers off somewhere and Simon kills Richard. No explanation is given as to why she’s gone and there’s no real explanation as to why Simon has gone mad. All in all its one of those films that sets things up but cant be bothered to think of a logical explanation and it’s the one thing that would have improved this movie but I suppose a budget that small cant cover everything.

It’s not the worst film of this genre that I have ever scene however its not scary and doesn’t make me think about much except why didn’t it make sense?

Rating 4/10