"In the woods, something hungry is about to hatch"
Directed by Tony Randell
Starring Seth Green, Alfonso Ribeiro and Clint Howard
When a group of dysfunctional teenagers and their Scout guides go on a camping trip to the California mountains, it turns out a group of redneck Marijuana farmers have been spraying their crops with a Neuro-toxin miracle grow formula, causing normal wood ticks to mutate to abnormal size. These nasty bugs go on a munching rampage gradually pegging off teen actors and redneck farmers (mostly Ron Howards siblings). Token black guy gets bitten, turns into a giant highly inflammable tick and eats the Evil British farmer. The unhappy campers escape by blowing up the tick with a flaming broom and drive off back to LA, only for a Tick chrysalis to be brought back from under their van.
Ticks is a deeply unpleasant film (what did I expect from Brian Yuzna of Mutronics and Society fame). Its gory almost to the point of being unwatchable. It follows the standard campers go into the woods, and nasty things happen to them rules. The shagging couple dont actually get killed though, but the chick gets bitten and starts to hallucinate whilst the buffed jock gets his leg ripped off.
Not much.
Its very gooey and sticky gore. High in the Yuck factor. If you dig stuff like that, its great!
Seth Green about to perform a daredevil swing across a clearing full
of deadly ticks to their van.
"If I can manage to swing out far enough and then defy the laws of
gravity and meet the van on the backswing
(Girlish hysterical laugh then suddenly
macho) Ill need a torch!"
Production Values The special effects are pretty good, and the director gets good usage out of the woodland setting. The lighting and sound quality are okay too. 9
Dialogue and performance No one really stands out, or has anything memorable to say or do other than scream in pain or wrestle rubber bugs. Seth Green seems fairly uninvolved in it all. 15
Plot and execution The plot is just a flimsy pretext to show off some yucky bug effects and is a bit all over the show, but the film is mercifully short. The director could probably do something a little better if he had more to work with, whenever the story threatens to get boring he throws in a gruesome death, so its rarely dull. 13
Randomness Several characters turn up shot dead for no reason (the Sheriff) or just vanish from the plot (the Vet) and theres some shocking continuity errors at the end. Plus the whole mutated hallucinogenic giant bugs from our toxic dope fields thing. 18
Waste of potential As a mutant ticks eating peoples flesh movie Id say it was a roaring success. 8
*
Directed by Peter Howitt
Starring Ryan Phillipe, Rachel Leigh Cook, Claire Forlani and Tim Robbins
BMM Keywords - Boring, Shameless bandwagon-jumping
Computer genius Milo Hoffman (Phillipe) and his friends invent a new uber-compression algorithm for data transmission, and are invited by Gary Winston (Robbins) - the head of the world's largest computer firm - to work for him on the development of his new universal software. The friends decline, but Milo accepts, and becomes a yuppie overnight, as well as Winston's personal protégé. He works on the programmes, and keeps being fed new bits of code, until he starts to become suspicious when his best friend is murdered in his home.
With a little nifty hacking, Milo discovers that Winston has been keeping tabs on every garage hacker in the world and stealing their ideas. He also tracks ways to dispose of his people if they betray him, such as planting Milo's girlfriend Alice (Forlani), who turns out to be an ex-con, and noting his fatal allergy to sesame seeds, or knowing that the office babe's abusive stepfather could be framed for her murder. Enlisting the assistance of Lisa, said office babe, Milo tries to avoid the security manager, find and steal the evidence, and use Winston's own satellite system to broadcast it to the world.
He gets the goods, but Lisa turns him in to Winston's goons. However, with the aid of the honest security chief, his old buddies, and his surprisingly OK girlfriend, he pulls a fast one, and the message goes out. The day is saved, Milo slips off with his girlfriend and open source rules the world.
It's really boring. Nothing much happens in the first hour of the damn film, and not even in a good, tension-building kind of way; just nothing happens. He goes to work, he does his job, flirts a little with the office babe. That's pretty much it. In the second half, the action is piled on so fast that nothing makes sense, especially when you're still trying to adjust to the shift in pace. The plot is also contrived beyond belief, with Winston having cameras installed in the garages of all promising young hackers. ALL OF THEM! Not to mention setting up the girlfriend to be in just the right place at the right time.
Well, on the plus side, no one ever talks in l33t-speak.
Bad. Achingly, bone-warpingly dull. Please note that I was unable to name a single character in this film without looking them up on the IMDb! Moreover, it's just a retread of every hacker conspiracy theory in the world, even if it does feel the need to throw in a few 'Bill Gates is a half-arsed evil emperor' jibes. I didn't even pay for this film, yet I felt ripped off that I surrendered two hours of my life to watch it not be remotely involving.
Hum...Little sticks out really.
Production Values - such as they are - this being a techno-thriller rather than a sci-fi movie - production values are OK. The world almost invariably looks very dingy though; not sure if that's deliberate or just bad cinematography. 10
Dialogue and performances - most of the actors in the film are actually pretty much OK, and Tim Robbins is - as usual - very good. Unfortunately, they are given the most uninspiring pap to speak that their skills go pretty-much for naught. Even the dramatic conspiracy revelations fail to grip. 16
Plot and execution - the essentials of the plot of Antitrust could be etched on the back of a silicon chip. There's a grand total of about one real twist, and that a pretty lame one. But more than this, the pacing of the non-plot is bad. Great bouts of nothingness slide by, with far less panache than is achieved by the French auteurs the director may be trying to emulate. In short, it's dull, and it's directed in such a way as to make it more so. 18
Randomness - Aside from the wackiness of the whole plot, there's not a huge amount of sudden randomness. 4
Waste of Potential - There's still mileage in the evil empire techno-thriller, but even The Net was better than this. 15
*
In the future, one man is the law.
Rated by Simon Drake
Directed by Danny Cannon
Starring Sylvester Stallone, Jurgen Prochnow and Armand Assante
Based on the 2001 comic book character, the film has the usual,
futuristic, society has crumbled, and a new breed of law has evolved plot with
obligatory rainy neon lit cities and desert based mutants
Blah Blah Blah.
Hard core law enforcer Judge Dredd (Stallone) gets framed
for murder by his evil brother-clone, and is sent off to Aspen Penal colony
(nice ski programme Im told!). Dredd teams up with wise-cracking criminal
Fergie (a not really very funny Rob Schneider) and runs around trying to clear
his name by blowing things up and shouting "I am da law!" a lot.
As Tim Burton and Bryan Singer have proved, it is possible to make a decent intelligent comic book into a decent intelligent film. Sadly the makers of this seem to have forgotten the process. Director Danny Cannon has since claimed that his vision was re-edited, and the producers interfered on set and the money ran out midway; all of which shows in the surreal casting, woeful acting, incomprehensible plot and duff special effects.
The opening credits, which (much like Flash Gordon) show images from
the comic books as heroic music plays.
In fact, the opening, set in Mega City 4 has impressive sets (include a
great aerial sweep through the cityscape) has some pretty good action, big fucking
guns
and even bigger guns.
Sadly it all goes downhill from there.
Oh the giant battle droid is cool too, if sparingly used (that Im
sure has some cool name
But I cant remember, and have little desire to watch it
again just to find out).
In the film, the robot is referred to simply as an ABC (Atomic,
Bacterial, Chemical; these being the things that the robots are designed to withstand so
that they can fight wars in contaminated areas) war robot. It is shamelessly based,
however, on the character Hammerstein, from the 2001 ABC Robots series, except that he had
a personality. Hammerstein was partnered in ABC robots by a sewer-cleaning bot called
Ro-Jaws.
This film does the same thing to poor Mean Machine, relegated as he is
to grunting a little, stabbing Ming the Merciless, then getting killed - The Prophet
Its just an accumulation of a thousand Sci-Fi/comic staples It just fails to work.
The opening lets establish Judge Dredd by having him stride into buildings full of armed punks and have him blow them all away scene.
Production Values They start really well, then degenerate into the cheapo film in the desert or film in the Dr Who set locations. The old action favourites, stars being chased by flaming fireball, space cycle chase and the finale punch up draggling from high things. All expensive, none exciting. Also the sound quality is very poor (or maybe its the actors) with a tendency to mumble the plot in slurred whispers (and not just Stallone either) 14
Dialogue and performance Stallone as Dredd? Max Von Sydow as the Obi-Wan esque mentor? Joan Chen as a scientist who wears an improbably short skirt? Its all a bit topsy turvey. The script too is little more than one-liners and (unclear) explanation. 15
Plot and execution A bit of a mish mashed plot. Something about cloning here, and spaceship there Dredds evil clone World domination Danny Cannon clearly trying to keep it all together, but frankly hes out of his depth. What we are left with is a soggy mess. 13
Randomness Joan Chen shows up. A Robot shows up. Diane Lane shows up. The explanation stays hidden. Dredd and Fergie dash from one set piece to another. And who was Jurgen Prochnow again? Oh right, an evil dictator I only knew that as it was Jurgen Prochnow. 20
Waste of potential This could have been great. It has great sci-fi elements, good fan base, amazing potential If only Tim Burton hadnt been making Ed Wood at the time. Although Danny Cannons Ed Wood anyone? Hmmmmmmmm. 20