This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
2 0 0 4 r e t r o s p e c t i v e
P a r t T h r e e
Thunderbirds certainly weren't go at the box office. A live-action movie
of the classic 60's puppet TV series has been awaited by decades, and when it
arrived courtesy of an American director... the result wasn't good. Despite a
note-perfect Sophia Miles as Lady Penelope, the Spy Kids influenced project
was mired by a woeful script, bad casting and iffy special effects. A
disastrous "assault" on the US box office hammered the final nail in the FAB
coffin. Oh, as did the Busted revamp of the theme tune!
Hellboy, a superhero movie based on a relatively obscure comic, floundered
worldwide but gained some success in the US. Guillermo Del Toro directed the
excellent Ron Perlman as a red-skinned demon who now works for the US
government hunting down occult monsters. Hellboy was definitely different and
blessed with good production design and a strong emphasis on its central
characters. Sadly, though, it all rang a little hollow.
Tom Cruise turned bad in Collateral as a hitman being driven around Los
Angeles by Jamie Foxx's cab driver. Michael Mann always directs with incredible
vision and ensures this drive into the dark side of L.A life was riveting
entertainment with some marvellous acting - particularly from Foxx.
Halle Berry may be an Oscar winner, but her win has quickly turned into a
curse if Gothika and now Catwoman is anything to go by. Berry
plays the titular superheroine, in an appallingly silly cat-suit. Sharon Stone
played the villainess in this camp and downright stupid exercise in how not to
make a comic-book movie.
Sky Captain & The World Of Tomorrow perplexed movie-goers and became
one of the year's biggest disappointments. The movie was filmed entirely in
blue-screen, in case you didn't know. Unfortunately, that's all anyone seemed
to know about the movie thanks to duff marketing that put the effects-work
before the characters and plot. Sadly, the characters are fairly wooden and
the plot is one long cliché. There is style and production polish occasionally,
but this is one B-movie adventure they don't make any more for a reason!
Finding Neverland was a "serious movie" that found success and will
hopefully win a few Academy Awards next year, with Johnny Depp playing Peter
Pan author J.M Barrie alongside Kate Winslett. A beautiful and well-acted
biography of a somewhat overlooked talent and with a phenomenal turn from
child-actor Freddie Highmore (now taking the title role in Charlie & The Chocolate
Factory, alongside Depp!)
Alien Vs Predator
was widely despised before its release - thanks to the presence of rent-a-hack
Paul W.S Anderson behind the camera - AVP is a cynical marketing ploy to pull
in fans of the Alien and Predator franchises. The fact it works is down to
deep-seated love for the sci-fi monsters on display here, although AVP is
never half as bad as you're probably expecting. There's enough low-brow fun
and violent fisticuffs to keep most people happy, just don't expect anything
equalling James Cameron's
Aliens.
There are always movies with "bad productions" and The Exorcist: The Beginning
is perhaps the new daddy of them all.
Taxi Driver.
screenwriter Paul Schader completed the prequel to the 70's classic and was
told it just wasn't scary enough and the studio canned it entirely. Amazingly,
they then hired Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2) to recast and reshoot the movie with
more blood and shocks. The result? A mess of a movie with barely a redeemable
feature and another cynical parasite of William Friedkin's masterful original.
The Grudge amazed many people when it did great business worldwide,
starring Sarah Michelle Gellar as a nanny living in Japan who discovers a
sinister building cursed by bitter ghosts. This remake by the original's
Japanese director was hardly original, and did lift some elements from The Ring,
but it's hard to deny it's a genuinely affecting horror with plenty of scares
and a few masterly moments of menace.
Following Pixar's Finding Nemo, Dreamworks also dived into the fishy world of
animation for their altogether more "hip" movie Shark Tale. Featuring
the vocal talents of Will Smith, Jack Black, Robert DeNiro, Angelina Jolie and
Martin Scorsese, the movie was expected to be a huge success. It was commercially,
but failed critically. After Dreamworks' success with the Shrek movies,
Shark Tale should make the studio realize that Pixar's devotion to decent
characters and lack of product placement (Coral Cola?) is a vital part of the
game.
Not content with Hero, the same director also bettered that movie a mere few
months later with House Of Flying Daggers. It's another sumptuous wonder
of creativity and retina-jazzing production design. Quite simply a masterful
experience from an expert director in his field - this really does put Western
action movies to shame.
Bridget Jones returned in The Edge Of Reason, again starring the excellent
Renee Zellweger and Hugh Grant. For many this was a mildly entertaining sequel,
although it's painfully obvious it's treading water much of the time and
resembles a remake of its own predecessor more than anything else. Disappointing
but entertaining fluff.
Showing Dreamworks how it's done, Brad Bird (The Iron Giant) teamed up with
CGI powerhouse Pixar to bring The Incredibles to life. It was the story
of a family of outlawed superheroes now hiding in suburban America and keeping
their superpowers under wraps... until a dastardly villain lures The Incredibles
back into action. Wonderful animation, gorgeous scenery, excellent characterisation,
punchy music, great jokes and an engaging story - everything we've come to
expect from Pixar. The only downside is that one day, when they do make a
stinker, it's really going to be a fall from a massive height!
Director Robert Zemeckis pushed the boundaries of special-effects with
seasonal Christmas family adventure The Polar Express. This was a
computer animation where every character was motion-captured by real actors to
give a startlingly realistic "painterly" look to the animation. Think Gollum
meets Van Gogh! Starring Tom Hanks in a variety of roles (including Santa
Claus himself) The Polar Express became a modest hit with a great deal of
technical brilliance, but was altogether a little too saccharine and flimsy
to be a true blockbuster.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.