Film Reviews by BL

I've been a Bruce Willis fan for years and have enjoyed so many of his films particularly his action roles, whether straight or tongue in cheek but the one thing this effort lacks, of any type, is action ,and by golly, does it need it! In fact, in hindsight, what it really needs is yes, action, or a good story or acting or decent effects or ANYTHING that rescues it from being this total load of dross and total waste of time. How Willis or anyone could be happy to be associated with this rubbish is beyond me. I guess the pay cheques must have been pretty good!.

As my wife and I have thoroughly enjoyed all of the previous Men in Black films we were looking forward to the latest despite the absence of both Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith, HOWEVER, this was dire rubbish, with wooden, poorly acted characters and feeble jokes that were hard to notice and completely failed to capture the comic style of the original films. We struggled, without comment, for an hour and then both admitted that it was to painful to watch. What a sad (hopefully) end to a great,fun series.

If Darkest Hour is accurate, it's more than interesting to see Churchill behind the known public image,particularly his obvious doubts and vulnerability as he started to take on the leadership of Britain during WW2 but also to see the start of his obvious strong aims. The film for me passed too quickly, which I take to be the sign of a compulsive watch and while the whole cast were extremely good, it's clear the Gary Oldman's awards for the part were more than justified and I found his portrayal of Churchill to be excellent. My only disappointment's were that the film only covered about the first five weeks of Churchill's leadership and the disc extra's showed nothing about the make-up and effects that were needed to achieve the films reality.

The Favourite is a film well worth watching, if you enjoy period films, however it leaves you wanting in many ways. Olivia Coleman is excellent as Queen Anne and the supporting cast is first rate. The costumes and the atmospheric lighting are superbly done BUT, I think the director has got too carried away with his constant wide and/or low angle shots that are effective at times but so often leave you longing for close ups to show intense moments only to be left with the actors as very small figures in an open space and it loses impact! More annoying is the odd music(?) soundtrack with weird grating sounds that frankly do nothing more than distract from the film itself. All in all a film that was enjoyable but once seen, it will not be one that I would intend to revisit. A pity.