phil0011

5/10

It made me smile; it made me cringe, the writing was brilliant; the writing was awful, it was subtle and witty; it was dim-witted and tiresome. It was, in fact, the best of times; it was the worst of times. 'Garfield' is one of the most frustrating movies of the year.

From the moment you first hear Bill Murray's voice you know the film-makers have got Garfield spot-on; it is one of the finest pieces of voice-over work ever to grace the silver screen. The casting of Bill Murray was a stroke of genius and lucky for all involved that he accepted the role. It's lucky too the writers decided to keep Garfield's dry wit and sense of humour. If it wasn't for these two things 'Garfield' would have been a complete washout.

The main problems come, not from Garfield, but from the surrounding characters and the plot. One of the strangest choices was the exclusion of CGI from all the animals but Garfield, meaning the CGI Garfield looked out of place amongst them all. One can think the only reason for the lack of other CGI characters was the lack of money to create them. The inclusion of a weird and wonderful array of supporting characters is one of the reasons the comic is so entertaining. Sadly, it was overlooked in the making of this film. Jon, the mice, Nermel and Liz were all underwritten and underused.

The plot grinded away, forcing Garfield to perform tasks that were completely out of character. This is only because it is necessary, in a children's film, for the main character to be the hero. When Toy Story (I+II), Finding Nemo, Holes, Antz and a whole plethora of others raise the bar for children's films, it's a shame studios feel they can still release ones like this. Where the plot is completely out of sync with the main character, the supporting characters are left out of the writing process and the plot goes through the motions as though it is the next in the succession of 'Beethoven' films. For now all we can do is bow down and thank the Gods for Bill Murray and those in the writing team that felt Garfield's cynicism was funny. Unfortunately this part of the writing team was not vocal for long enough.

6/10

Monster movies are few and far between nowadays. The B-movie is dying. It's a shame, because if they were all as entertaining as this we'd all be queuing up to see them. Not since the masterpiece of Tremors in 1990 has a truly good B- movie come along. We've had the nauseatingly dull and overblown Congo and

Anaconda and although we did get the spectacular Independence Day, it was

never really a monster movie. Now along comes Eight Legged Freaks – an

homage to the monster movies of the fifties and a satire on the more recent films of this nature. Lines such as, `Come on we got to go! We got to get out of here! They're coming!' and `They're not aliens they're spiders mutated by

contaminated waste!' don't particularly work if you take them seriously. And this is where I think a lot of people stumble when they come to view Eight Legged

Freaks. They take it in as though we're still living in the fifties and monster movies were supposed to be taken seriously. Gremlins started it, Tremors

perfected it and now Eight Legged Freaks is poking fun at it.

Ellory Elkayem, the director, has a lot of fun playing around with the clichés and the actors do a fine job of not over acting. Surprisingly the director is able to handle both the laughs and the scares with an equal amount of adeptness. It's a fine and intelligent piece of direction, which you don't often see in Dean Devlin/ Roland Emmerich pictures.

It's difficult to criticise a film like this – one that is continually having a laugh at itself. And while I chuckled throughout and was occasionally creeped out by

spiders the size of cars lurking, biting and enveloping; the film never seemed to rise above its self-referential humour. If the benchmark is Tremors, then this never lived up to it. By the time the final last stand takes place you've become a little tired and the ending is much welcomed.

But don't be too put off – this is charming, light-hearted, funny, and occasionally scary stuff. Although there are better films of a similar genre out there this can be pigeonholed into `perfect popcorn fodder for a dreary Saturday night.'

8/10

Time-travel, love, God, death, and a big, scary rabbit are all on display in this wonderful and unusual film. Many people have given different theories as to

what it is all about and most of which you can see on the message boards here. But these are all discussions you can have after you watch the movie. And

being able to discuss something after you've seen it doesn't necessarily make it good. What Richard Kelly does is give us an entertaining, scary and stylish one hour and forty minutes.

The central character is a boy named Donnie Darko, a boy troubled by visions

of a large rabbit who tells him the world is going to end in 28 days. The rabbit is a wonderful demonic image with a voice to chill you to the bone. His name is

Frank. Nothing in Donnie Darko will be as you think it should. Kelly, who wrote and directed the film, creates a sinister setting out of an ordinary suburban neighbourhood. It's a surprising and challenging debut from a clearly talented director. The only problem I did have with this picture was that it left you

scratching your head constantly. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't mind having to think when I'm watching a film, but I felt we needed some kind of closure at the end – what we get is a twist which just leaves us with more head scratching to do. Mulholland Drive springs to mind at this moment. A film which I liked more than this – but an equally confusing film. The difference being, I wasn't

expecting an explanation at the end of Mulholland Drive. Donnie Darko bubbles along, suggesting we are going to be told what it is all about. But the

explanations are hidden and difficult to find. But the inspiring visuals and

believable characters pull you through an enjoyable and frightening ride.

Gyllenhall puts in a great performance as Donnie – a highly intelligent and

curious character. Everything he does is understated – always implying a more disturbing side to Donnie. Patrick Swayze is also great as the `inspirational' talker, trying to `combat fear'.

This is a great film and one you will be able to watch over and over. With Donnie Darko, Kelly reminds me of Lynch – I hope Kelly keeps this dark and creative

side and keeps as consistent as Lynch has done.

P.S. For us brits this film came out a year after it did in America. Now why does this have to be? It really annoys me that I have to wait so much longer to see good American art-house movies when films like Spider-man and Star Wars are

released at the same time world-wide.