Barry Norman I am not

I have watched quite a few films in the last week or two, The Craft, which I ranted about a little, being of highly irritable nature at the time. How could you tell the difference, you may wonder? I did enjoy it on some levels, but not enough.

Of movies that are out on DVD, we watched GhostRider, Hot Fuzz, Pan's Labyrinth and Smokin' Aces.

Taking last first, as we watched it last night, Smokin' Aces was surprisingly slow and talky to begin with, to the point I was nearly asleep, with some violent set-pieces towards the end which woke me up a bit, and back into rather dull territory to finish. I saw the twist in the tale a mile off in the very early stages of the film, and so that just made me yawn a bit in the denouement. A criticism that's often levelled at action flicks is that there is no character development or introduction, but this film did take the time to introduce the characters. Unfortunately it didn't really work for me, just slowed it down and made it yap-yap-yap at the beginning. There were perhaps too many characters and I didn't give a hoot about any of them. It was quite gory and quite pants, not very intelligent and not very much fun.


Talking of fun, Hot Fuzz was that. It wasn't as amazingly funny as some reviews promise, but it was chuckle-worthy (and not the Brothers) and enjoyable.


Pan's Labyrinth was very good, I have nothing more to say about it.


Ghostrider did feature Nicholas Cage, which is always a plus. I didn't like his hair much, though. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I remain firmly of the belief that a ghost-horse is far cooler than a ghost-motorbike. I'm not sure what Sam Elliot's character was there for really, the mentoring didn't seem essential and when they rode together, once Cage arrived where he needed to be, Elliot was simply gone. Seemed mighty weak, although should there be a sequel, it would allow Elliot to come back. If he had been at the show-down, I suppose he would have to be disposed of somehow in order to have the conventional mano a mano climax, so would probably sacrifice himself. Hmm. Still, to have him escort Cage to the scene and then just vanish out of the story seemed a bit pants.