jtindahouse

With the new 'Naked Gun' movie releasing in New Zealand shortly I thought I better check out the original to see what it was all about. At a very inoffensive 85 minutes in runtime, what's the worst that could happen? Olden days humour isn't always my bag, but this movie was bordering on hilarious at times.

It's PG-13, which can often be a death sentence for comedy, but it fights through those limitations with ease. It's the kind of movie I could imagine being great on re-watch. The jokes come at you so thick and fast it'd be near impossible not to miss some stuff on first viewing.

I finally know what 'Family Guy' was spoofing in their Osama Bin Laden cold opening all those years ago. That tune has been stuck in my head all day ever since.

This was a great watch and has me very excited for the Liam Neeson version coming out shortly. 8/10.

Look, Bryan Bertino, you made 'The Strangers', so you're good with me for life. Anything else good you make is just a bonus. But 'The Monster' was not it.

In fact everything that I loved about 'The Strangers' was the opposite here. In that film the threat felt extremely real, everyone fears home invaders. In 'The Monster' it felt extremely unrealistic and I had to work hard to even try and trick myself into buying into what was going on.

In 'The Strangers' absolutely no character felt safe. Here, it's the complete opposite. You put a kid at the centre of your film and there is just an air of safety that is unavoidable. Also the monster in this film treats side characters extremely differently to how it treats the leads. Funny that.

My point here isn't to compare 'The Monster' to a horror masterpiece, that wouldn't be fair, even if they were made by the same writer/director. My point is that when you have early success in your career the temptation is to do something radically different, and I just don't think it's the best option. Stick with what works, at least until it stops working.

I just couldn't get anything out of this movie. It was a miss for me. 4/10.

Who could ever watch a film like 'Echo Valley' and then think, "Wow, I should probably hurry up and have kids." It's quite incredible just how evil some of the characters in this movie turned out to be. It was a lot darker experience than I expected.

As someone who always cares more about the fate of animals over humans in a movie (and real life) there were some stressful situations presented in this movie, so be aware of that if those kinds of things bother you.

For what it was, I thought 'Echo Valley' was pretty good. There were some grounded and realistic characters and the story wasn't afraid to be quite heavy when it needed to be. 7/10.