POMO

A routine action flick with minimal action and without a shred of style or creative touch. Would-be sophisticated characters, would-be cool humor, zero suspense. And a bad guy who seems to still be lying in bed with Diane Lane. In what way did the makers of this film want to appeal to viewers?

A routine action flick with minimal action and without a shred of style or creative touch. Would-be sophisticated characters, would-be cool humor, zero suspense. And a bad guy who seems to still be lying in bed with Diane Lane. In what way did the makers of this film want to appeal to viewers?

An inconsistent classic. Boris Karloff is great and the individual scenes are brilliantly shot, but they are somehow mechanically, uninterestingly patched together into a single bland whole whose cardinal handicap is the absence of music. Besides the emotional charge of the film, music would have definitely increased the compactness of its ungainly editing. The sequel, Bride of Frankenstein, is a major step forward in every respect.

A pure-blooded, direct, spare-no-one reflection on violence and horror in its most naturalistic form. There isn’t much of an idea to it, but it also doesn’t have embarrassing clichés and cheap repulsiveness. And it builds up in a unique way. One of the highlights of the horror genre.

A generally digestible guide for teenagers on, well, “how to deal”. The film’s episodic humor doesn’t really work, but at least it’s not overly sweet and stupid (see The Princess Diaries and Crossroads). Therefore, it’s a shame that the screenplay doesn’t have bigger ambitions. Mandy Moore is pleasant and talented and she could have carried something better and smarter.

An unfunny comedy, a psychological family drama that doesn’t engage the viewer, and a slight hint of a thriller. Nicolas Cage is excellent, but the film itself is just a boring genre hybrid. I found the ending to be not so much overwrought and complicated as unbelievable. It does help to make sense of what happened before, but it doesn’t inspire enthusiasm. One of Ridley Scott’s weaker efforts.

Field of Dreams is beautifully filmed, but it’s too much of an overly sweet fairy tale. I like poetic films, but if it weren’t for James Horner’s magical soundtrack, which I already knew very well, I would have been rather bored by this.

The excellent, thrilling intro is followed by a prelude with the unraveling of the mystery. And the closer we get to the denouement and the climax, the less fear we feel. The Fog is very nicely shot in widescreen, has atmosphere and decent music by Carpenter himself, but the story lacks the mystery of Halloween and The Thing. WHO THEY ARE and WHY THEY KILL should have only been hinted at, not served to us in the form of a nonsensical fairy tale.

What can save a low-budget action B-movie with the visuals of an Austrian television series? A capable and imaginative director. Is Neil Marshall a capable and imaginative director? No, he is not. He can’t even properly film a jeep driving through a forest.

The first half of Bruce Almighty has a few good jokes and Jim Carrey puts on a great show, but the second half is just another bogus and sentimental morality tale for the naïve American mainstream.