DREDD (2012) and Judge Dredd (1995)

Dredd (2012)- Another remake film to come out this year.

The original Judge Dredd film was okay, nothing amazing - Sylvester Stallone doing his best and Rob Schneider in the side kick role, with a few funny lines. The 1993 film had Judge Dredd, the most famous Judge, being convicted for a crime he didnt commit. The film was good fun when it came out and the sets were impressive at the time, very few graphic comic novel films existed, unlike the current trend of never ending comic hero films being churned out of Hollywood, it seems to have taken over the action film genre.

Dredd - The remake is great in one sense that at last they have realeased an 18 rated film for adults which is very rare these days. The profit hungry film industry tends to lean towards 12 rated, watered down films aimed at a younger film audience to boost sales. This is a shame as I feel it has damaged film making, the stories being told are not always to their full potential.  Take the Terminator franchise for example - first film was a hard hitting 18 rated film for adults and ever since the first sequel they have been aimed at kids, thus loosing its original path, the story of a grim world with true violence.

Dredd - for once is reminiscent of those old school films like "Terminator", "Commando", "Predator", "Cobra" all very straight forward action films for an 18 rated adult audience. Not FOR KIDS !!

Adults need adult films as well,  nothing wrong with this.  The film itself is very straight forward with no surprises along the way, he is Judge Dredd and he will Judge! The 3D is pretty good it doesn't over do it and give that extra dimension, the film is dark and if you want lots of gun action, like those old school films, then this is good.

 

I give Dredd 5.5/10 and Judge Dredd 5/10

Total Recall (2012) and (1990)

Total Recall (2012) - Well its a remake of the 1990 Arnie classic. The reviews have been pretty poor from most critics, which is a real shame !

I think this is one of the best Sci-fi action films of 2012 and in the last few years, its a great re-make/re-imagination of the original. The story has been re-worked and is set in a different location, the action is excellent and story unfolds brilliantly. It has a few of the key moments from the original film, such as when Doug goes into Recall chair but those similarities soon end, the new story line takes over and you're absorbed into a great action packed film.

Kate Beckinsale is superb, as well as very sexy, as Doug's wife and the bad 'guy' role, and she knows how to kick ass.


Philip French from the Observer says "Colin Farrell is an unsatisfactory replacement for Arnold Schwarzenegger as the married proletarian who discovers he's really a former government agent who became a subversive freedom fighter and was given a new memory." - This is total crap !! Colin Farrell does a great job stepping into Arnie role, he may not have the huge persona Arnie does but his acting is spot on in this film, for example in a scene where he switches into agent mode, grabs a gun takes out all the cops and then realises what he's done, something Arnie would find hard to pull off.

Dark Knight Rises came out few months prior to Total Recall and got better reviews however I feel that Total Recall is much better crafted action film. Great acting and directing by Len Wiseman. The set design and CGI is also superb with reminiscent look of a Blade Runner like city.
Ignore the press critics and see this film its a must for all Sci-fi fans.
I was fan of the original but this update has been great and i am not usually fan of re-makes.

Total Recall (2012) gets 8.5/10


Total Recall (1990) gets 8/10

Dark Knight Rises and Dark Knight

I was hoping that Dark Knight Rises would be a return to the classy film making Christopher Nolan is capable of, as seen in the first instalment, Batman Begins, however like Dark Knight, which I thought was the worst action film he has made so far, Dark Knight Rises is a let down, with only a slight improvement and I am being generous!

The main problem, I feel, with the last two films of the Batman Trilogy is very lazy film making, and ultimately responsibility for a film has to come down on the directors head afterall he has the final word, right or wrong.

In Batman Begins Nolan successfully created a dark world of Gotham in which a ‘man with a cape’ makes sense, with a mono-rail system showing us a futuristic city and at the heart of Gotham stood Wayne Towers. In my opinion Christopher Nolan became lazy in the second movie by filming it an ordinary city like New York, which gave the impression it could have been set anywhere and based on any city for that matter, he lost the dark world which he meticulously created in the first film to the extent that Wayne Towers just looked like a building from the 1970's. Taking out such a key element has taken the soul out of Batman films, how can you have a dark hero without his dark world which we have all grown up knowing?

Christopher Nolan's second crime is, by his own admission, his fondness of director Michael Mann and his film the HEAT. The opening shots of Dark Knight are taken straight from Heat - the bank robbery sequences with masked robbers and ensuing action all follows in similar style. Also, like most of Michael Mann films, which I find to be very cold and not engaging in any emotional sense, Dark Knight falls down the same cold path.

Although the Joker is well acted, you have zero empathy for the character unlike in Tim Burton’s version of the Joker where the story gives you a reason for his misfortunes and you get far more character building. Nolan’s Joker lacks character building, even though it is briefly explained in one scene reasons for the Jokers behaviour you have zero connection with his rage and anger.

Dark knight Rises is a much better effort however, as with Dark Knight, being directly set in New York (as a Gotham stand-in) it just doesn’t work, the city scape looks too big and loses the dark dingy world created in the first film.

Some people have said they liked the return to the Ra's al ghul story line from the first film, however I disagree I think its just being a bit lazy with the story, so much more could have been done with a fresh story to conclude the Batman triology, however this is a relatively minor point. As with the Joker story line I found that Bane's story line again created zero empathy for the character and I had no emotional connection with the character so I didn’t really care what happened to him.

Catwomen's story line is much better and well created.

Overall the Dark Knight Rises was a better film than Dark Knight however they don't come close to the superiority of the original instalment.

I would give :

Dark knight 4/10 

Dark Knight Rises 5.5/10 

Batman Begins 9.5/10