I’m sick of vampires. I’m sick of men in long coats with middle-European accents and aristocratic bearing sporting pompous hair. I’m sick of the sensitive ones who really long for love after centuries of ripping out the throats of virgins and who only need to find the right woman to toss aside the past and indulge in some of the most cringingly badly written sex in all of English literature. I’m sick of the misunderstood teenage vampires who are just rebelling against the man. I am sick to death of vampires. So it came as a bit of a surprise to discover that I loved Let The Ri... Read More..

Released 14 March 2008 Directed by Roland Emmerich Runtime 109 minutes Warner Bros Pictures Written by Roland Emmerich & Harald Kloser Originally published in Matrix 188 on 07.07.2008 Reviewed by Martin McGrath There are those for whom the name Roland Emmerich strikes a chill in their heart. There are those who regard his noisy back catalogue (including Stargate, Independence Day, Godzilla , and The Day After Tomorrow ) as a blight upon science fiction. I am not one of those critics. Emmerich’s previous films might have been big and stupid and noisy and brash,... Read More..

  Synedoche, New York is the first directorial outing by Charlie Kaufman, who has previously written a string of brilliant movies that includes Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – each, in their own way, thoughtful, intelligent and complex fantasies. If you enjoyed those films then you are undoubtedly going to get something out of Synedoche, New York but whether it is pleasure or pain may depend on your state of mind. There will be plenty of people who dismiss the film as relentlessly self-indulgent and plent... Read More..

Released 9 May 2008 Directed by Neil Marshall Runtime 113mins Rogue Pictures Writers: Neil Marshall Originally published in Matrix 188 on 07.07.2008 'Doomsday' Reviewed by Martin McGrath It is a mistake to think of watching a film as a passive experience. To properly enjoy cinema an audience, and the individual viewer, has to be willing to engage with the images flickering before them, they have to be willing to give something back. Any film worth watching will require the audience to work a bit to get the most from it. And some films ask more of their audienc... Read More..

Released 13 June 2008 Directed by Louis Leterrier Runtime 114mins Marvel Enterprises Writer: Zak Penn Originally published in Matrix 188 on 08.07.2008 'The Incredible Hulk' Reviewed by Martin McGrath As one of the few people who enjoyed Ang Lee’s take on The Hulk (2003), I approached this relaunch of the franchise with a quiet dread. For all its faults Lee’s film at least had the strength of obvious intelligence and a seriousness of intent, even if it did eventually subside into a low-rent pseudo-Freudian drama. Having had ... Read More..

  Scott Derrickson directed one of the most loathsome films I have ever watched – 2005’s The Exorcism of Emily Rose – a disingenuous anti-rationalist rant disguised as a “based on a true story” horror movie that adopted tactics used by creationists and evangelicals to suggest that faith should outweigh the law or scientific proof. To say I hated it would be a serious understatement. I had only just stopped ranting about the abomination of Derrickson’s earlier film when I discovered that his next project was to remake my favourite classic American sf movie, The Day the Earth Stood ... Read More..

Released 13 June 2008 Directed by M. Night Shyamalan Runtime 91mins Barry Mendel Productions Writer: M. Night Shyamalan Originally published in Matrix 188 on 08.07.2008 'The Happening' Reviewed by Martin McGrath I’d been there before with M Night Shyamalan’s movies. Once again we had terrible reviews and disastrous early word of mouth warning audiences off what, in the past, had always turned out to be better than average science fiction/horror films that ask more of the audience than slack-jawed staring at the screen. Unbreakab... Read More..

Christian Volckman first started work on this film in 1999 so he must have been slightly narked when Sin City (2005) was released. That film received acclaim for its transliteration of Frank Miller’s comics to the screen. Renaissance goes one step further in this respect by not just using a blue screen and post production but being totally animated, including overlaying motion captured actors. The result is a startling black and white film. Still, the debt to Miller is so clear you can’t help but feel Volckman’s thunder has been stolen. Sin City was a gratuitously offensive exerci... Read More..

Originally published in Matrix 187 on 01.06.2008   Released 2nd May 2008 Directed by Jon Favreau Runtime 126 mins Dark Blades Films Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges, Gwyneth Paltrow 'Iron Man' reviewed by Lon S. Cohen Standing in my kitchen after viewing Iron Man on opening night, I had the strange sense that something was terribly wrong. Earlier I had taken my teenaged son to see the movie, leaving my wife at home. That wasn’t the problem. The problem lay in the question. The same question we all have to ... Read More..

Released 4 July 2008 Directed by Mark Osborne & John Stevenson Runtime 92mins DreamWorks Animation Stars Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Ian McShane, Jackie Chan Originally published in Matrix 188 on 07.07.2008 'Kung Fu Panda' Reviewed by Lon S. Cohen When I heard that Jack Black was going to star in an animated Dreamworks production populated only by animal characters playing a martial arts wielding panda, my initial reaction was, “What the Fu?” But as the brilliantly rendered characters appeared all over the Inte... Read More..