m.cordell

It doesn't matter how good this film is, it doesn't matter how good the plot is, the acting, or the scenery. Joey Adams' voice is like an ice-cold sonic vibration in my skull. This shrill wench's squeak-speak meant I could never understand what Ben Affleck saw in her. And she was continually smug as well, much like Kevin Smith's films.

Very odd film this, but I was pleasantly surprised. It looked great, was set in England (and English people weren't the baddies for once!) and glamourised places like Northumbria and Norwich! This instantly made me warm to the film (pun intended). We did need to be saved by the Americans, but this is a Hollywood film I suppose (interesting parallels with the current "war on terror" perhaps, but probably unintentional.) The plot was bog-standard and often implausible but good peerformances all round and some interesting characterisation raised this film above other summer fare (it's a lot better than Resident Evil). Star Trek fans will be pleasantly surprised to see Alice Krige (Borg Queen) at the beginning and Alexander Siddig (Bashir from DS9) as a bit-part radio operator, not exactly a glorious role but nice to see him again. What did annoy me about the film were the accents. We're in Northumbria, but the castle is populated by (Dick van Dyke style) cockneys. Why? Why weren't there any North-Eastern accents? Does Hollywood only understand two British accents: cockney and posh? And we seemed to hop over to London like it was next door, when London is around 400 miles away. Other plot improbabilities include the weakness of the dragons that leads to their downfall, the fact the dragons thrive on ash yet seem to want to eat people, the fact that the castle population were starving yet they could have easily grown mushrooms/fungi and other produce underground, the fact that the castle occupants had an arsenal of weaponry yet civilians don't have access to guns in the UK (OK maybe they took them from military installations but the weapons weren't British standard issue). All in all a fair bit of nonsense, with some odd homo-erotic fights and stares by the two male leads.

There were many problems with the film, with plot threads that don't really go anywhere, some cheesy dialogue and daft ideas (that all male porn directors think they are making art - yeah right). However it succeeds in showing the reality of being a lonely male, and the various male needs that lead to use of porn. It looks at different sides of the argument but seems to come down fairly firmly against porn and the industry (the only decent characters are the anti-porn female boss and the naive actress). Makes a valid point that many men would deplore the treatment and exploitation of some women in the porn industry, yet enjoy watching the films. Although the production is pretty bad in some places, it does leave you pondering the issues, which means the film is a success.