Predators Review

Welcome back to the jungle!

After the disappointments that were the AvP movies, Robert Roderiguez has shown us that the Predator franchise is far from dead, taking it back to it's gory and adrenaline-filled roots.

Now, first things first – Adrien Brody is hardly the lead we would have expected. He's more known for playing physically weak characters, but he takes the role offered to him and does the best he can, and actually manages to somewhat succeed. One can see that he worked out for the role, though his character is rather bland and predictable – a problem that extends to the entire cast. There is no camaraderie between the characters this time around, as instead of being a unit of soldiers, they're killers thrown together on an alien world.

The movie as a whole adheres to the Predator formula surprisingly faithfully despite this, to the point that one wonders whether this is a sequel or a remake. Despite being set on an alien planet, the movie never develops its setting to the full, giving us maybe two scenes of alien wildlife and a gorgeously rendered horizon, but apart form that the action could have been occurring on any one of Earth's rainforests. Also, the most important aspect of a Predator movie is also present: the gore. Let's be honest, the moment we all saw AvP's certification we knew it was going to suck. The Alien and Predator franchises are infamous for their bloody escapades, and this movie delivers.

So to wrap up my little impression of this film: go see it, show the movie industry that they're finally getting it right. More of the same please with extra development, and act as if the AvP films never happened.

Soft Review

Recently, I watched a short movie as part of my journalism studies - a class that focused on reviwing that week, interestingly enough. Unfortunately I couldn't just hand in one of my previous pieces of work, and so this review came about.

Soft is a short film, a medium that is surprisingly underrepresented when it comes to reviews. I haven't seen a lot of short films myself, true, but the few I have seen (such as Paths of Hate, or The Facts in the Case of Mr Hollow) tend to be finely made, with a certain visual flair to leave a lasting impression. Few such movies are over 15 minutes long, and so tend to be far more focused on grabbing the audiences attention. For many directors, a short film is their chance to garner attention and potential backing from financers for a ful length feature.

Soft is fairly typical in this respect - it is an urban drama exploring the issues of bullying and violence in youth. Some reviewers, like Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian Film Blog favourably compare it to A Clockwork Orange. The plot revolves around a father, his son, and the gang of teenagers who harass them. The course of events is almost entirely predictable, starting off with the son being assaulted and fleeing home, before the gang intimidates the father and then besieges the pair of them in their house. That's about it really - it's readily available on Youtube so feel free to check it out for yourselves.

There is a nice variety when it comes to techniques in this movie - camera phone footage is used in key sections, particularily when the gang is dealing out violence, whilst the rest of the film is presented in a typical fashion. To put it simply, there is nothing new or groundbreaking in this film, but it is a well crafted story told in a minimalistic way, and does a LOT with very little.

Made by Simon Ellis, this short movie has won the International Short Filmmaking Award at the Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for a BAFTA in 2008. Like many short movies, it's readily available on the internet, so do check it out.