T2 Trainspotting (2017) Film Review

Twenty years since Renton (Ewan McGregor) ripped off his mates and now he’s had to come back to Edinburgh from his new home in Amsterdam. Back to Sickboy (now known as Simon, played by Jonny Lee Miller) a wanna be pimp, small time drug dealer running the least successful pub in Scotland. Back to Spud (Ewen Bremner), still often a junkie who is trying to get clean and spend time with his kid, with little luck. Back to Begbie (Robert Carlyle), the psychopath with a score to settle. Well, let’s face it, they all have a score to settle. It’s not going to be a trip down memory lane.

But yet, that’s kind of exactly what it is for the audience. In many ways, this is the perfect sequel  – non perfect characters searching for some resolution, with much of the black humour and ridiculousness of the first film. It’s great. The soundtrack is not as good as the original, but it was always going to hard to beat that for me.

Dark Shadows (2012) Film Review

Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp) was part of a powerful family back two hundred years ago, only then a witch, Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green) killed his parents, caused his true love to walk of a cliff and turned him into a vampire, burying him deep in the forest. Present day, Barnabas has been dug up accidentally and discovers his relatives living in the house his father built, but they are on the down and down. It is up to Barnabus to bring their fortunes back.

This is yet another film that I’ve avoided for a long time because I’d heard so many poor things about it. About Tim Burton having lost his touch, making stranger and stranger films with his wife, Helena Bonham Carter and actor favourite Johnny Depp. I really enjoyed it. It was fun, it was stylish and it had an excellent cast of top actors doing good stuff.

Hackers (1995) Film Review

Who would have thought that the nineties would age so badly on film? This film had all of the outfits and trends that either were cool, or that the film designers thought would be cool, but now they just look daggy. Like rollerblading.

Dade (Jonny Lee Miller) was convicted of hacking many multinational corporations at eleven. Now, seven years later, he and his mother have moved to the city and he is attempting to fit into a new school. He quickly finds the underground world of hackers, including Kate (Angelina Jolie), Joey (Jesse Bradford), Cereal (Matthew Lillard), Nikon (Laurence Mason) and Phreak (Renoly Santiago). In trying to prove himself to the group, Joey accidentally uncovers a plot by The Plague (Fisher Stevens) to steal a whole lot of money from a major corporation. The Plague manipulates the police (led by The Bunk – yup, Wendell Pierce) into chasing the teenagers, and they must hack to prove their innocence.

It’s such an ace film – although possibly only for anyone who was a teenager and loved it at the time. Very little about it holds up – the styles, the computer lingo, the internet speed they are managing on their dial-up. But it’s still totally ace and I love it.

Elementary – TV Review

 

Another interpretation of Sherlock Holmes? Really? There have already been hundreds, including the excellent films starring Robert Downie Jnr and Jude Law and the totally amazing BBC series. But why not do an American version? And why not have it set in contemporary New York, with Lucy Liu as a female Doctor Watson? Why not?

The first episode was appalling. Perhaps that’s a bit harsh, but I’ll come back to that. The premise is that Sherlock (Jonny Lee Miller) is an eccentric ex-drug addicted Brit who is used by a New York police detective to assist with unusual murder cases. Watson is an ex-surgeon who, after losing a patient, gave up medicine and now is a companion to recovering addicts. She has been employed by Sherlock’s father to keep an eye on him. What was appalling in the first episode was that the examples that were given to show that Sherlock was far smarter than her were dumb, which made this doctor (and doctors are pretty smart, generally) look really stupid.

Three episodes in and it is getting better. I quite like Lucy Liu, and it’s nice to see her on-screen again, although perhaps I should just watch Kill Bill or Charlie’s Angels and see her being somewhat kick-arse rather than this wussy character. I think the show would have been better if they’d taken a lot of these elements of Sherlock Holmes but perhaps actually not the names. Sherlock Holmes has a lot of in-built expectations, and I think something this b-grade can not live up to it.