"The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" (1953)

Ah yes, nothing like a good old 50's B movie to put you in a good mood. I am actually a big fan of monster movies, the majority of the time they are a lot of fun to watch, but of course there are monster movies that will suck the hard one such as "Lockjaw", but this movie is actually quite fun to watch, of course there are some flaws but we will get to them as we go, but first, lets look at the positives.

The acting is actually okay for this kind of movie, the majority of the time the actors and actresses give a performace that is somewhat believable and fun to watch, one thing I will always say about actors from the 30's to the 50's is that they were far more carismatic than the actors of today. However there is a little bit of over acting in one or two places, however it is nothing major but it is worth mentioning.

The Characters are all likeable and easy to latch onto, you can easily latch on to the main characters determination to prove the existence of the monster he saw in the north poll and you can also see how the relationship between him and the female protagonist developes in their search for the monster.

The dialogue for the most part is also okay, wheather its one character explaining why another character is insane or another characters excitment over the discovery of a lifetime, for the most part the dialogue is alright, but of course some the dialogue can be kind of chessy, which is kind of expected from a movie like this from the 50's.

However what steals the show is the stop motion special effect by Ray Harryhausen, the monsters movements are nice and smooth and sometimes it actually looks like there is a monster on camera, now adays all those monster effects would be done with CGI and it wouldn't look like it is actually in front of the camera, but back then they didn't have that so they had to use all these other techniques which in all honest are far better.

There is a lot of stock footage used throughout the movie which doesn't really help the movie all that much, when it cuts to stock footage it is so obvious, mainly because the film grain just does not match what so ever and sometimes the background doesn't even match. There is a pecie of stock footage of a shark and an octopus fighting and it is obviously stock footage, not to mention it has nothing to do with the monster or anything to do with the movie and sometimes you can see the the octopuss pressing against glass, clearly indicating that it was in a tank of some sort.

I will say that in the 50's, stock footage was common so this is not too big of a deal but I still feel that it is still worth mentioning.

There are also two minor continuity errors, both of which occur in the same scene, so once again not a big deal but still worth mentioning. Bassically our main character is holding a newspaper, in one shot he has in folded and then in the next shot it's unfolded. There is also a shot when the newspaper is folded and then in the next shot it's folded even more, it's flat out obvious.

Also, when the main character decides how to kill the monster, he just brings it up at complete random, he doesn't really explain it, he doesn't he really have to convince anyone about the method nor was his method even referenced at any other point in the movie, he mentions it and then we cut to the next scene where they are trying to use the method to kill the monster. I will say that the method that they use is quite clever i just don't think it got a lot of exposition.

Now by no means do I not like this movie, the characters are cool, the acting is good, the music is nice and the special effects are awesome, but of course being a 50's B movie there were bound to be some flaws, but it has all the cliche's and cheese that it needs

***/*****

Good fun and a good example of the genre i would say, worth a look.

"Jaws 2" (1978)

As far as sequels to "Jaws" are concerned, I really don't know why this film gets all the crap that it gets, I mean has everyone forgoten about "Jaws 3D", "Jaws : The Revenge" or even the unoficial sequal "Jaws 5 : Cruel Jaws"?

Yet "Jaws 2" still gets a load of crap from people, what did i think of the movie, as far as Jaws Sequals go this is actually not too bad, it is actually rather entertaining, however yes i will say that there are problems with the movie.

For the most part the characters are not too bad, the cheif is the best character of the whole movie, mainly because he was a character in the first movie and seeing what he goes through having to deal with another shark problem, I thought was rather interesting.

The mayor and all the people who work at City hall in the movie are all just as closed minded and arogant as in the first movie, all just putting the whole idea of another killer shark out of their mind.

The teenagers in the movie are definatly the worst characters, most of them are not really all that interesting and are just there really

Some of the acting in the movie hoever wasn't that good, most of the people did a fairly good job but it was mainly the teenagers that I had a problem with, for example, the guy who plays cheifs son was the worst actor in the movie, mainly because he under acted and didn't really put alot of effort in, later in the movie also alot of the teenaged actors started to over act a fair bit, mainly when the shark was attacking but, my god, they went a bit far.

As far as the plot is concerned its not too complex really, another shark is terrorising the local community and the cheif from the first movie is clearly trying to put an end to the problem before it goes too far and so he doesn't wind up with more people dead and reliving the horrific events of the previous shark problem. The plot is not really a re hash of the first movie, it does build on characters and rather than it just being an all out hunt for the shark, in this case its more of a battle for survival (if you want a re hash of the first movie watch "Jaws 5").

There is a fair amount of filler between the 30 minute mark and the 60 minute mark, not a whole lot goes on there (bar maybe one shark attack), it does drag a little but when stuff happens it is awesome and the final hour of the movie is awesome.

The special effects are actually really good, maybe not as good as the first movie but still very good for a 70's shark movie.

I will say that the original film, didn't really need a sequal, the way it ended it didn't really need to go anywhere else, if u have seen the first one the second one really is not essential viewing, however if it's a sequal that you want then this is the one to go for.

Yeah sure "Jaws 2" has some flaws but overall, for a sequal to "Jaws" it was actually not too bad and rather entertaining, not great but an okay film.

***/*****

Worth watching, although I will say, not neccaserry.

"Kick Ass" (2010)

I know, it seems that it took me forever to watch a movie which seems to have the greatest title of all time.

I don't know maybe it was all the hype or summat or maybe the rediculously high DVD price when it first came out, but whatever the reason i have seen "Kick Ass" at long last.

If I had to be honest, I was rather disapointed, the movie was not quite what i was expecting, it probably had something to do with the way it was advertised, it made itself out to be the next "Superbad", but it was nothing like that.

The humour was very dark and i like dark humour but this was not that funny, thats was one of the main problems I had with this film, it really wasn't all that funny, there were funny moments but for me i wouldn't say this movie was halarious like how nearly all the critics said it was.

Although i did like the movie overall there were some nit picking flaws.

I also had a problem with the main character, when he is not dressed as kick ass he is a complete unlikable twat, at least until much later in the movie, when he is Kick ass he is funny and he makes sense and how he realises how horrible it is to be a super hero is well done, but when was out of costume, he annoyed me.

I also felt that certain things could have been developed in the movie, they could have shown more on Dave training to become a hero, they didn't show alot and on first viewing i assumed that he just jumped around and that was him, he said he did more, but why the fuck didn't they show us this.

The relationship between Dave and ..... that girl (I can't remember her name) could have also been developed more, as when they get together later on, yeah it is awesome that they get together but i would have liked to have seen a bit more developement so i could see why they got together. Also on a little side note, when Dave tells the girl that he is not gay and he is Kick Ass, she seems to take it rather well considering that he lied to her and also snuck into her house, but that is not really a major point.

The violence level, while it was awesome, my god, it went pretty damn far, there is an art to making gore funny, this movie may have gone a little too far with the gore and some of the jokes wound up being a bit over shaddowed by the gore.

The action scenes are very well filmed and very well put together, this would be the main reason to call this movie Kick Ass, because the action sequences are such a spectical you just wanna keep watching.

There are some moments which are rather funny like the joke about how the story of the movie was not a revenge story which I though was really funny or how Nick cage was acting like Adam West when he was dressed as Big Daddy.

The performaces are rather well done, the little girl does a pretty good job and it is rather funny when she starts swearing and Nick Cage was awesome.

So yeah, there were quite a few flaws with the movie I have to say, It wasn't all that funny in many places, there was some under development and the main character did annoy me quite a bit, but I woud say that the film is still worth checking out, but be warned it really isn't that great as far as i am concerned.

***/*****

Okay film but highly overrated.