Tarzan (1999)

The first thing I remember about this Tarzan film would have to be the opening scene of how Tarzan became, well.. Tarzan to put it simply, the second would have to be the main theme song of Tarzan called Two Worlds. The song itself almost makes the entire film completely giving that jungle feel to the film itself in one little beat. Mentioning the music I have to say at some points hard-core Disney lovers may not like this as there is only really one song done in the style of a musical but to me been less music in it worked brilliantly well and I thought it was great that they worked more on the story rather than the next memorable Disney tune like the ones in the Lion King films. 

Characters in this film are very loveable, especially Tarzan and his companions which are show with him from when he was a little boy to a man or to a monkey to a gorilla...The relastionship between Tarzan and Jane is probably one of the best pieces of how the story is put together in the film because it is also how Tarzan learns about where he came from which also brings up many beautiful scenes and images of human history. Action is done quite amazing in this film as Tarzan himself is an amazing acrobat which he spends most of the time vine swinging a manoeuvring himself through the tree's instead of brawling like the average primate. Some of the style of the animation put into the action is done very well and is very realistic when scenery is involved from the sketched out backgrounds especially in the scenes with the leopards and baboons. 

Tarzan is also a film when it is trying to be funny it actually is funny where as in some cartoon films you can be just glaring at the screen thinking erm no. The expressions coming from Tarzan and how he acts when he first runs into Jane and her exploration party let's say is will leave you with a snigger of laughter but it won't leave you in stitches but it does the job.I thought one of the memorable scenes in this film would be when Tarzan walks out in a suit of his real fathers after he is shown where he really came from, to me it shows that he r wants to be part of the human society and also be with the people where he truly belongs as throughout the film Tarzan explains or shows that he has always felt different and un-wanted from his clan. There is of course love been a Disney film, to me I don't think it was really needed but I guess without Jane he would never have wanted to find out where he came from. 


Overall an amazing Disney film, it may not please hard-core Disney lovers with its lack songs and its different style of animation but nothing you shouldn't be able to let go of anytime soon. Plus it also has a Beauty and the Beast reference in it which I thought was good, beside the point though... I think.

The Hunchback Of Notre Dame (1996)

One of my many childhood favorites, a great tale about Quasimodo the "Half Formed" human living on top of the lovely bell tower of Notre Dame living a lonely life forbidden to never set outside the bell tower by the orders of his master Frollo. Frollo ridden with guilt/hatred and fear of killing his mother twenty years ago he raises the boy feeling that he will be punished into hell for his crimes against the gypsies and his mother even though he considers them as theifs, witches and not part of their society he does everything in his power to remove them. This is a tale about friendship, trust, love, equality and betrayal and is done very well, made for all the family people will certainly enjoy this. 

The wonders of been older make you understand the concept of it more with its jokes and story, its meaning of "who is the monster and who is the man" and to not judge others for been different. Characters are great in this film especially Clopin Trouillefou which I clearly had to look up but he really makes the film with his humour and story-telling. Other brilliant characters would be the Gaurdians and friends of Quasimodo, these Gargoyle gaurdians never move for others apart from when Quasimodo is around which can make you believe it is his only his conscience speaking to him in his own way. Quasimodo may not be respected but is certainly talented and is a great character, from modelmaking to an amazing acrobat with great strength which truly shows that you should never judge.

The music in this film, especially its main theme is quite addictive to get in your head and of course been Disney is done rather well. I wouldn't say it matches up to The Lion King or Jungle Book but it is nice to see more of a classical side to Disney's music. CGI and animation is beautifully done in this film mainly coming from Notre Dame itself with lighting and smoke effects. Shockingly there are quite a few crule scenes in this film especially after the festival when Quasimodo is tied up and tortued which leave this film as quite a dark one which is quite shocking considering Disney usually make films that are obviously happy and try and hide the dark tone but this is thrown right out in front for us all to view. 

Overall a great film from Walt Disney which I think is easily forgotten, a great tale set in a great time. 

GoldenEye (1995)

Before I get onto the story of this film there is a few things I have to get off my chest, firstly now the years have passed you get to notice that this film can be quite childish at times from the extremely corny but lovely one liners that come of Pierce Brosnon which we either love or hate, the scene where Pierce decides to get into a tank even though there was a tank right next to him when he gazes his man whore eyes at the tank in the distance and when Pierce takes out the horse winged statue with the tank which somehow manages to stay on the tank all the way through the scene which at times ruins the maturity of the film but do we still love it, perhaps. 

Story sets of with James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) and Alec Treveylan (Saun Bean) committing a raid on a chemical weapons plant in the soviet union where unfortunately they are captured, however James Bond manages to escape but the same can't be said for Alec Treveylan. Later on Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen) commits a raid of her own on a secret military base with the help of her malicious soldiers and steals the controls of an high tech weapons satellite system called GoldenEye, after getting what she needs she removes all witnesses from the equation killing everyone in the military base for the only one who is left alive Natalya Simonova (Izabella Scorupco) who joins up with James Bond in hope to stop Xenia Onatopp committing further disasters with the power of the GoldenEye. 


Characters, well I have to say all performances are pretty top notch apart from the cheesiness of melodrama coming from Pierce Brosnan and Izabella Scorupco, to me I would consider Sean Bean, Famke Janssen and Alan Cumming to be the best characters they play through the entire film, funny enough it's the villains with best job than the hero's in this film, especially Famke Janssen who seems to get a little bit excited when killing people. Q played by Desmond Llewelyn is the most loveable character in the film, whenever I watch a James Bond I always look forward to his appearance and it is uttermost a shame that he is no longer with the world.

Action is almost perfect apart from what I mentioned above, it adds all the elements of action into most of the scenes as possible from exploding trains, cars helicopters and pens. Overall if you can get passed the one liners coming from Pierce Brosnan character and some immaturity you'll certainly have an enjoyable watch of this film.

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit (2005)

Story, the creative Wallace, inventor extraordinaire and Gromit, the brains of most and everything, now in charge of the Anti Pesto rabbit defence against the village prized vegetables of the up-coming vegetable competition. But now as the full moon approaches they will have up the defences the Were-Rabbit draws near.

 Now take the style of Steve Box and Nick Park with a classic horror style of a were-wolf you get Wallace & Gromit's next adventure with lots of slapstick humour, a purely brilliant with old fashioned British tongue and the stop motion from the clay animation is some of the best you can get which truly shows you do not need to rely on pure CGI to create such a wonderful tale. The action sequences shows some of the most creative sides to animation you will ever see, some I believe to reference old shows of Wallace and Gromits adventures, especially a sequence involving the fight between Gromit and Victors hound on the plane which really reminds me of an original scene with a train which I have seen countless times in animation museums to show of the style of stop motion camera.

As I mentioned before the slapstick style is actually done really well, I have never really beed fond of such humour but the film left me laughter which I never thought it would. Been that I have seen this before I never seemed interested in watching this film at first, I believe this has something to with style of the story referring to films of were-wolfs we have always seen before. This in some ways I believe that this  let the film down and does not live up to the classic Chicken Run tale which were also created Steve Box and Nick Park. Chicken Run was completely new and interesting idea to personify such creatures, with exciting personalities that we could all love with the added evil villain that perhaps a child and adult could relate to that we all probably get throughout our life. In conselation though we do get a mass of amount of human side characters, this does make up for it in some ways as they are mostly the core of which the slapstick does originate from and they give of some of the more creative lines of the film.

The voice acting is as creative as the film, you would not expect Helen Bonham Carter to play a role for such a film but does great for what she is given and really does brilliant job shaping her characters personality from start to finish. Overall this film may exceed its Chicken Run preprocessor but keeps true to style and creative of the original Wallace and Gromit which will keep entertained throughout.

The Crow (1994)

"It Can't Rain All The Time"

Story, "People once believed that when someone dies, a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead. But sometimes, something so bad happens that a terrible sadness is carried with it and the soul can't rest. Then sometimes, just sometimes, the crow can bring that soul back to put the wrong things right" Eric Draven (Brandon Lee) a young guitarist with the love of his life, fiancée Shelly are planning to get married on Halloween but are attacked and killed by thugs who are hired by a man called Top Dollar (Michael Wincott), the gangster or ruler of the city. A year has past since the event of Eric Draven and Shelly's death, with Halloween on its way again but this time it shall bring justice from the fire of Eric Draven's past. 

Brandon Lee shows a determination performance in his character, to seek justice, revenge and retribution while the Crow itself shows him the way to what he needs to succeed and survive. A true and memorable piece of acting from a person who has become such an iconic actor through this film due to his much saddened death in the making of The Crow. What I believe is that there could of been such a great future of of this actor, I can honestly could have seen him rival such brilliant actors as Johnny Depp or perhaps could of played Heath Ledgers Joker, it a such a shame that we will never see such a future from this actor and my heart really goes out to him been this film been part of my childhood for so many years and hopefully my future. I am not familar with the comics but the behold such a dark tone to film, not just with characters and gore but the entire atmosphere of the whole film, even the mysteriously looking and run down city has this very dark, industrial  reminds of such films like Escape from New York. Michael Wincott shows true dark villainy with his character but also some form of sadistic charm with it, a charm which which most of the main characters  seem to form as the film moves on. What I really love about this film is the true energy to show that nothing is trivial in life, that we should cherish each moment together, that everything matters when it is love. With this you really feel the pain coming and bursting out of Eric Draven to show this is his main fuel to help him punish the ones responsible for Shelly's death and suffering. 

Action, we have guns, knifes, gore, martial arts, with Brandon Lee and the direction of Alex Proyas, this is what you get. We probably get one the most memorable comic book films of the early nineties. There is also the very thearitical humour of which comes from Brandson's Lee charcter of Eric Draven which we can not help fall in love with when he goes in guns blazing and black lipstick on quoting the poem The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe.

"Little things used to mean so much to Shelly- I used to think they were kind of trivial. Believe me, nothing is trivial" 

Overall, a film no one should ever miss watching through their life even if they where to dislike it, a truly memorable dark film from the nineties, surely one I will never forget.  

Source Code (2011)

Story, Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhall) wakes up onto a passenger train to Chicago but all is not what it seems, familiar surroundings are not so familiar and all that he remembers was his last mission in Afghanistan. He awakes to a fellow friend, Christina Warren (Michelle Monhagan) but as not even recognizer her he begins panic as her stating him as another name entirely. As more shocking events start to accur as he discovers his entire identity to be completely different eight minutes later the train he travels on explodes killing everyone on board by some form of bomb. He awakens yet again in a capsule, and ordered questions and instructions to a new mission called the "Source Code" find the bomber, where is the bomb, eight minutes back and back again into a parallel world or a possible reality to which true events will occur he does not end this threat. Fuled by the milarity skills and the memories of his loving father he sets out to save the passengers of the train. After contious fails, no progress gained and no relative information given to him for his reasons of this task he sets off not to just to save the passengers but himself from the military grasp. Maybe more meets this Parrell world, maybe more meets this "Source Code"

Jake Gyllenhall gives a beyond impressive performance in this film, with not such a noticeable cast among audiences to notice he holds his ground and shows/portrays strong character development from start to finish, it almost seems interesting to learn about his character past and present, why he needs to do to complete his task. Michelle Monhagan as a supporting role also holds her ground and at times become the cheeky love interest to Jake Gyllenhall character. Action, there is not much action to behold unless the smarts of the story count. This could become such a problem to certain mainstream audience to find such a film interesting to some viewers and could be forgotten quite easily amongst the world of film which is such a shame in a lot of respects to Duncan Jones second film direct, his first been the 2009 film Moon. With the script and the full feel you get from watching the film, you can certainly tell there is the Duncan Jones twist in the mist of the direction of the film from start to finish with some small elements which could slightly relate to the film Moon which I think is great to see and also brings me quite a lot of joy to see what else this director has in store for us in the many years to come. There is however only one problem I have this film is that it has quite predictable scenes with events of time travel of which a character already knows events of which are about to occur but this is certainly no major problem to the films whole idea. You would after watching this film once that it would not really hold any re-watch value but to me its always nice to see parts of which you may not have given much attention to the first time round, an example would be knowing who did what but of course I will not spoil that one. 

Overall, and very  mind bending and iconic film in some ways which will dazzle the mind, and perhaps dazzle ones mind into quantum mechanics with the idea of one taking more action in life with its very moving ending .

"What would you do if you knew you had less than a minute to live?"

Cars 2 (2011)

"Ka chow"

Well that gets annoying...

Story, Lightning McQueen sets off in his next adventure in the first ever World Grand Prix to compete with his rival Francesco Bernoullo, While Mater sets of on his own action adventure becoming a secret spy and meeting some double O's along his mission to save the Grand Prix. And that's that, been a Pixar you would believe the film to have some for deep emotional and inspirational feel to film which you would think they would understand after the wide success of Up and their other great success Toy Story but sadly to say they do not. This really lets the film down straight away and this doesn't help to find the funny side at all to the film, I know the film is meant for kids but Pixar have always made films which can relate to adults as well and this is usually the key idea of kids films today to grasp a more wider audience but it sadly doesn't which is such a shame to some respect.

Visuals are highly impressive as always coming from Pixar but I feel In this film they have really tried to mask this poor film with such effects and the actor Michael Cain who voice acts secret agent Finn McMissile, thinking that people will just see the film as cool just because of him. However great Michael Cain may obviously be a really hate it when people obviously cast actors for such a purpose. I don't really feel Owen Wilson was such a great idea for the film just in general, it was obviously a great way to show his narcasist values in the first film for him at least develop his character into a more nicer and loveable McQueen but as his character did not learn anything at all from the first film at all. Owen Wilson does a good job voice acting McQueen but the voice at all doesn't seem to be fitting with character as well but this could just be me.

Action gets a bit obvious after a little while after one barrel exploding after another, and another, and well another which does not do the film any real justice as been a new car film except the spy factor of the story. Been that the whole spy idea as well is such an obvious way to move on from a car film and I don't think this was the right idea moving onto this for a  sequel, I am no film writer but I would of loved to see some form of emotional conflict with McQueen rather focusing on Mater, perhaps a long lost selfish father or two? and to involve more lines to come from the main characters which were in the first film as these are the main ones viewers will have grown to love.

Overall a very annoying a predictable film with nothing fresh to warm the heart but only the eyes, at least they visited Japan...