The Omen (1976)

The Omen is one of those films that is regarded as a classic or at the very least an important one. The film is the first of five (including a 2006 remake) sees Gregory Peck playing an ambassador sent to the UK with his wife and son (who isn’t really his son but pretends to his wife) when Patrick Troughton tells him that he should get Damien seen too. As the film progresses, the desire to get Damien baptised grows stronger and the deaths and attempts to prevent this from happening get more and more extreme. The film is notorious for all the things that went wrong and that is perhaps more interesting than the film itself which is always a problem.

The plot is quite plain and straightforward however its helped with lovely performances. Gregory Peck is an actor that I’m not totally wild about as every film that I have seen him in (which currently stands at 3), the film takes about 2/3 of its time setting up the film before Peck gets into top gear and he does the same here. When he’s good then he’s very good but it takes too long to see it. David Warner is brilliant in it. In fact he’s brilliant in everything he is in and it’s a shame that he doesn’t make it until the end of the movie but his exit was quite impressive. Anotehr great piece of casting was Patrick Troughton, now I am being biased here because I am a Doctor Who fan and even if I wasn’t then I would still have enjoyed his performance because it was a good but all too brief performance. The kid playing Damien (Harvey Stephens) is quite creepy and even though he doesn’t say anything he still manages to have an air of creepiness about him which is what you would expect really.

The film isn’t particularly scary.. I don’t think that its rubbish but there are large chunks of the movie that were not very engaging. The Omen is a film that has a status in movies that it doesn’t quite deserve. Not sure what the other films are like but usually sequels tend to be worse than the previous films so I don’t hold out high hopes for it. The Omen had potential but for some reason it didn’t quite reach it.

Scott Pilgrim vs The World (2010)

Scott Pilgrim vs the World is a film that was directed by Edgar Wright who was behind Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead. This film doesn’t feature Simon Pegg or Nick Frost but does have computer games running through it like a stick of blackpool rock. The story sees Scott Pilgrim trying to go out with a girl but first he must defeat her seven exes. As plots go, this is one of the more interesting that I have seen for quite a while. The film opens up with what the Universal logo and theme would look like if they were on a Super Nintendo.

At first I struggled to like the guy playing Scott. I just found him to be a bit annoying and actually found Kieran Culkin to be the funniest thing in the entire movie. After a while I got use to Michael Cera’s performance and that’s the thing about this movie. After about 20-30 minutes I got use to the whole film and understood that this wasn’t going to a normal comedy. All the battles that Scott was involved in were all quite well done and highly entertaining.  After the first battle ended and the coins fell to the floor I did chuckle to myself and I think anyone who has ever played a computer game over the last thirty years or so will understand several gags that go on in this film. At 112 minutes, this film is just the right length. It doesn’t feel like there is a lot of padding but neither does it feel like its rushing which is a fine balance that Edgar Wright and the writers have got just right.

I do like this film though I’m not entirely sure why. There are plenty of things to like about it but I cant put hand on my heart and say that it’s the best film I’ve ever seen. 

Lincoln (2012)

There has been a lot of hype about this movie due to Daniel Day Lewis’ performance which is possibly going to earn him an Oscar. The film is based on a novel called Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abrham Lincoln written by Doris Kearns Goodwin and focuses on the final four months of Lincoln’s life where is trying to have the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constituion which outlawed slavery and involuntary sertitude passed through the US House of Representatives.

The whole movie is about this and the struggles that Lincoln has to deal with because as well as trying to get this through the house, he has to try and end the civil war. These two things work well in trying to create some dramatic moments throughout the film. At 150 minutes in length the film can afford to take its time telling this story and does so. As a result it allows you to get involved in the characters and of that period and understand why this was such an important in American History. Spielberg has a track record with important historical moments. I think Schlindler’s List is one of his best films and I thought that whilst Munich had its moments, wasn’t as good. Lincoln benefits not only from good performances but also from a good screenplay.

Daniel Day Lewis’ performance was superb with some of the speeches he gives to be fantastic and mesmorising. At times I got so involved in the movie that I forgot it was it was Day-Lewis in the role. He looked exactly like Lincoln and even though we don’t know what he sounded like, the voice seemed to suit the movie. Sally Field is also very good and does well as the first Lady. The character has issues and Field plays it perfectly. Tommy Lee Jones is one of those actors that you can trust to come up with a superb performance and here he continues that. He plays Thaddeus Stevens who comes across as a nice guy and we find out why at the end which I must admit I didn’t see coming.

Other good performances include Hal Holbrook as Francis Preston Blair and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Lincoln’s son. It seems to be impossible to watch a film with him in it.
If I had to pick an issue with the film it is that it deals with Lincoln’s death to rapidly. A large chunk of the movie is dealt with getting the amendment passed and then it feels like the next moment he has been assinated. I would have liked a bit more to this bit to have a greater sense of his loss. That said that is the only thing that I can find fault with and its not a major one which shows just what a great film it is.

Lincoln is a fanstastic film that has some outstanding performances as well as some truly wonderful directing. Spielberg knows how the tell a story and he manages to do it in this movie. One of the critiscm’s that I had heard before seeing this movie was that John Williams’ music is overbearing, well to be honest I thought the exact opposite. The music worked well and I think this may be the best movie of the year and if it wins the Oscar then I wont be too surprised.

Taken 2 (2012)

Taken 2 is pretty much Taken 1 but they have slightly changed the rules and had Mom and Dad taken instead of the idiotic daughter. The story sees the father of some of the people killed in the first movie take revenge on Neeson who is working on a protection job in Turkey. The family dynamic hasn’t really moved on since the last movie and through some contrived circumstances both the mom and daughter join Liam Neeson but that’s when it all goes wrong and actually the movie starts to pick up.

First of all it’s not as rough around the edges and dark in tone than the first one. There were some quite ludicrous moments in this film, too many to mention. However the first one that comes to mind is Maggie Grace’s character throwing a grenade from her hotel room and managing to get it underneath a car in a multi-storey car park which must have been some considerable distance. Then there is the fact that she continues to throw more grenades. There is also the moment where Liam Neeson and Grace drive a taxi through a US Embassy (which just happens to appear on an English speaking Sat Nav) and have a minute long conversation without so much as an armed guard doing anything.

Quite what Famke Jenson is doing in this movie is a mystery. She has essentially got paid for smiling for the first third of the movie and then pretending to be asleep for the rest of it. Liam Neeson is very good as usual. It’s quite amazing how he has suddenly become attached to the hardman image. He would be the last person I would have cast in the first movie but he somehow makes it work and even though the movie is a bit watered down compared the previous movie it doesn’t mean that Neeson’s performance has been watered down. Maggie Grace isn’t taken so she has more to do and isn’t as annoying as she was in the previous movie.

That said, Taken 2 isn’t rubbish. There are certainly some enjoyable moments but you do have to suspend your disbelief and send it home without pay for at least a fortnight because otherwise you can pick holes the size of Turkey in the story but I wonder what the plot will be if there is a Taken 3. Maybe Neeson gets taken and it’s down to mom and daughter to rescue him. Maybe.

Robocop 2 (1990)

The second Robocop film follows the similar pattern to that of the first Robocop film and with a remake on the horizons, it’s time to see what the second instalment of this current trilogy has to offer. The film sees Robocop not only taking on the much bigger Robocop as well as taking on the makers of a new drug called Nuke. Robocop/Murphy is trying to connect with his wife who doesn’t seem to wild about the idea.

First of all Robocop is bluer than before, this is largely due to their being a new suit for Peter Weller to put on and move about in. This is distracting at first but after a while it just looks a bit silly and I think they should have stuck to the old colour. Despite some quite bloody scenes the film doesn’t seem to have the rough edges that the first one did. I think that having established the character and the rules of the character there didn’t seem a lot that they could do so it seemed at times like there was a lot of nothing happening.

Peter Weller does a good job of playing a robot. It doesn’t require him to do a great deal of acting but due to what acting he does do, it means that there is a certain desire to see Robocop come out on top. Nancy Allen puts in a perfectly fine performance which was a lot better than the first offering. The pair work well together and it seems a lot better that the first film.

I remember watching Robocop 2 when I was about 10 and there was one moment that I remember where the baddie machine squashes a brain. Well to my shock it wasn’t in there. The only brain that got smashed was the baddie one by Robocop.  I am sad that one of my few childhood memories has turned out to be wrong.  I didn’t warm to Robocop 2 as much as I did to the first one. It seemed slightly watered down to a certain extent. There were some moment which were quite fun but on the whole, I found this movie to be an enjoyable sequel.