Film – Page 49 – Mosher'sUnimaginativelyEntitledBlog

Herbie: Fully Loaded

Yeah, OK. I watched the new Herbie: Fully Loaded film. I was on a long flight, OK? And… it wasn’t bad. Not just because of the lead actress (Lindsay Lohan) who’s rather hot and about 15 years too young for me. Ah, well.

What I really liked about this is it has all the character of the original films without going mad with the CGI. Herbie‘s mischievous, gets his own way and even moves the way he used to back in the 70’s.

Plot in a nutshell: Herbie turns up in a junkyard about to be scrapped. The daughter of a racing driver spots him and buys him. By accident, she ends up in a drag race with an Indy car driver who then demands a public re-match… which he will win by all costs.

The little spark between the lead actress and her mechanic is obviously one that’ll work out in the end. The good guys are going to win. Herbie’s going to mess stuff up because he’s stubborn. Someone will overcome odds to prove they’re better than anyone thought they were. It’s a Disney film, for crying out loud.

I don’t remember the details of the old films too well – it’s been many years since I saw the parade along Low Fell when Herbie Goes Bananas came out – but this is certainly an excellent addition to a classic canon. If Hollywood insists on dredging its history because nobody can come up with something original then this is how to go about it.

Igor

I’m a sucker for a cartoon, so I picked Igor next on the in-flight list. I’d heard a little about it and it seemed a nice premise. The voice cast has some superb actors listed including Steve Buscemi, Eddie Izzard and John Cleese (all too briefly).

Plot in a nutshell: in a mountainous country the king has saved the economy – destroyed by continuous storm clouds – by promoting evil geniuses. Their job is to built devilish world-ending devices. Each year, these devices compete and the winner’s is used to blackmail the rest of the planet for enough money to keep the country ticking over for another 12 months.

Every mad professor has an “Igor”. They’re all called Igor and they all look much the same – small and hunchbacked, speak with a list. Or film follows one Igor with ideas above his station. Of course, he has a couple of comic sidekicks (a brain in a bucket and a squirrel that can’t die, no matter how much he tries) and there’s a bed guy in the plot.

The story is a little predictable, but it is a kid’s film. The action sequences are amusing, the animation superb and – as is often the case – one of the sidekicks has all the best lines. Donkey’s dialogue always outdoes Shrek‘s, for instance.

There’s comedy, romance, action and big monsters. It’s also slightly gross, so it’s bound to appeal to the younger set. Not a classic, but a good way to tide the last 90 minutes or so between Heathrow and Abu Dhabi.

Bangkok Dangerous

I watched a few films on the flights from the UK to Bangkok via Abu Dhabi. And in an effort to cram a few more posts on here, you’re going to have to suffer a couple of reviews. Deal with it.

First up is the Nicolas Cage thriller Bangkok Dangerous. I picked it partly for the simple reason as I was heading to Bangkok and also because it’s a city I like and I wanted to see how it was portrayed.

It’s got a very split personality – much like the central character, an assassin who’s pulling off one last suite of jobs before retiring. He breaks a couple of his own rules, including taking on a trainee and a girlfriend. The thing is, the jump from action to romance really jars in places although Cage does a good job of portraying the hick out of water in a strange country in a relationship with a (deaf!) girl from another culture.

Bangkok isn’t portrayed badly, which is a relief. It’s not all seedy and purse snatchers and go-go bars. A lot of the scenery and culture is shown, and the old waterways feature in one action sequence. The Thai actors who appear are all pretty good, too.

However, it does get a little mawkish in places and the ending’s somewhat abrupt while at the same time open.

Worth a watch on an aeroplane, although the violence – I assume – is toned down somewhat. At least the editing is well done, as opposed to the hatchet jobs you see in the Malaysian cinemas.

Big Buck Bunny

Fancy a very entertaining 10-minute CGI cartoon for free? Then head over to Big Buck Bunny and download this very entertaining short. You can watch it on YouTube etc, but I’d heartily recommend cranking up your preferred torrent program and downloading the high-quality version.

The film’s been made using all freeware utilities by a group of people who just fancied pushing the software to its limits. It’s no Wall-E, but damn impressive for what it is with some wonderfully giggly moments.

Assault on Precinct 13

I started watching Assault on Precinct 13 (the 2005 remake) on Film4 the other night, but a little over halfway through it all went to cock and the cancelled the showing. It took them 15 minutes to announce this – I reckon they’d sent one of the temps off to Blockbuster to try and rent a copy but it was too late.

So I downloaded it to catch the tail end. I don’t feel bad about it – I was watching it on a Freeview channel anyway, and I’ve deleted it now I’ve finished. No different to taping it off the telly.

I saw the original John Carpenter version ages ago and it’s a cracker. The remake’s just as enjoyable and has most of the scenes from the original… but that does raise the issue of “what’s the point?” Unlike the two Italian Job films, for instance, which share pretty much nothing apart from a title and a brand of car, Assault is more along the lines of The Hills Have Eyes or Psycho (although nowhere as much as shot-by-shot as the latter).

The cast are great. The story’s good. The action’s taught. The bit at the end still makes you go “why didn’t they do that earlier?” like in the first film. The bit with the ice cream van is missing though. However, it doesn’t achieve anything the first one didn’t.

Certainly worth watching, I’d say the only thing it has going for it over the original is a lack of Carpenter-composed synthesiser music. Every bit as good as the 1976 version… just a bit pointless in its existence.

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