jamalionerf

Vanilla Sky is a very irritating film. You know sometimes you see a film that is so bad that you become embarrassed to watch, because you know that your smarter, better self is dissapointed in what your doing? This is the kind of film.

Tom Cruise, well, after seeing him reinvent himself and go for interesting roles (Eyes Wide Shut, Magnolia), he has now gone back to formula, playing shallow yuppie, spoiled upper class, Hollywood bird magnet brat (himself?) and obviously this is the intention, no fault of the 'Cruiser', its Cameron Crowes' (writer/ director) for having such a bland view on relationships and the even more irritating Penolope Cruz, whom you want to place faeces on her head and smack more than you'd like to make love to.

The love affair between the two, the 'chemistry', is like a really, really disturbing horror film, that can take a while for the after effects to heal and natural, healthy sleep to reinhabit itself and overcome the trauma. It is so unremmitingly shallow (like episode of Freinds' without the canned laughter) and makes a shambles of superior (I'm talking 'God Like' proportions) remake Open Your Eyes that approached its themes with more depth and panache (don't they always).

For 'cake and wine' fanatics and fans of the 'pyjama with popcorn party' only, and for them they are bound to say, 'wow, wasn't that deep? good but a bit weird at the end, don't you think? but what does it all mean? did he really do this?' e.t.c. At which point you vomited. Then leave the room. And let them clean it up. And chuckle your a** off on the way out.

no stars (out of infinity)

I listen to soundtrack now and am thinking, WHY NOT NOW? Why they not make like this now, I not know- is better than Flubber, is better than the Hugh Grant Nine Months Later, or Six Weeks Notice, Stripteasing, the Showgirl, The Street Fighting Man, Velvet Goldminer, Silver Magnolias, the Internet, and I do not know what- is better than all this masterpises. The music, by Georgina Mordinna, is fantast, and Jenny Eels, she is like SEX MANIAC OR SOMETHING! REALLY!! You can see from the dancing- she crazy, like she need one, she need something (I HAVE!). This is good one from the child hood, make me hard, feel good, and better, is a happy, nice one, give to me a smile. Good to break to (or something like that, maybe not the same).

BLADE was fantastic. A super cool, super sexy, kick ass vampire film with a great (super) hero, great villains (a perfectly cast Stephen Dorff) and fantastic fight sequences. Blade 2 is just atrocious. WHY? It shouldn't be, it has the same script writer (David Goyens) and a seemingly bigger budget. But it looks cheaper. The acting is atrocious and believe it or not it is actually really badly dubbed in some scenes (why was it dubbed to begin with?).

It looks very cheap. Badly lit, cheap 80's stylisation and very few fight sequences- we spend more time with the blood pack (rubbish breed of semi vampires) and plot set-ups that fall into place later in the film, that dominate over action (ignore reviews that say Blade 2 ups the ante on action- we see Blade kick ass three times and it's seems to miss out on the originals self conscious sense of coolness). The original had a really frenetic pace and a hero in Blade who was too cool for school but was also fairly angst driven. In this he spends half the time insulting the blood pack and investigating fancy gadgets and not nearly enough time getting down to business.

The truth is Blade was just a few steps behind the Matrix (in terms of the modernisation of it's fight sequences which actually came out before the Matrix). BLADE 2 looks and feels remarkably similar to a cross between Alien Resurrection (right down to the appearance of Ron Perlman who plays a very> similar character in both) and an episode of the A Team (if it ever featured vampires).

Admittedly the effects of the Reapers are excellent (but are severely underused) as is the creative spin on the CGI driven fight sequences (these are quite remarkable in never-before-seen ways, but are also severely underused). Most shocking of all though is that most critics seem to think it's an improvement over the original!! That's like saying the PHANTOM MENACE is the best Star Wars ever......it simply is BS.