Film Reviews by PV

Hmm well this is pretty awful as a Dinosaur movie, all absurd really, but in its favour the plot makes sense and the CGI dinosaurs are not bad.

It is what it is, and mercifully short. the end seems to suggest a sequel that never got made.

Makes you realise how great Jurassic Park is, even the sequels.

2 stars - just.

This film is based on a novel and looks it - these family dramas are often from novels and of course, in the book, the author can reveal backstory and motivation and multiple points of view far better than in linear, 2-d film really. It shows and some events here seem way too out of the blue.

Anyway, excellent for the genre - though rather forgettable. only half-way through did I realise I watched it before, on TV. It is a so-so family drama.

No subtitles which is annoying as much dialogue is naturalistic AKA mumbled.

Excellent acting BUT the teenage boy looks nothing like either of his parents, which niggled - he actually looks rather like the director, actor Paul Dano, which is even weirder. Maybe Dano was originally cast as the father?

Good to see 1960 USA, though the whole wild fire motif blows itself out pretty quickly.

I remember other films set around the same time, like Pleasantville, Diner, Gods and Monsters, others.

3 stars

I do not think I have ever seen a Lebanese film before - so glad I saw this.

It is probably the best film i have ever seen which portrays poverty - real poverty, as opposed to that in the west where we have a benefits system and free healthcare in the UK etc. Child abuse and the issue of people having too many children which causes both.

Superb from beginning to end, brilliant acting from everyone esp the boy Zain al Rafeea, but everyone else too. So authentic. Deal with real issues of desperate poverty and survival, with a final monologue to match Charlie Chaplin;s final speech in The Dictator.

The writing and cinematography is superb and it SHOULD have won the 2018 Oscar. Roma won that, no doubt as it was about Mexicans coming to the USA. This was the real winner.

This film is perfect. Direction, music, acting, script - everything.

5 stars. Brilliant.

Awful script; wooden acting; wordy scenes lacking action, no subtitles.

Best watch BATTLE OF BRITAIN the wonderful 1969 movie then. Or Dark Blue World.; or Reach for the Sky. Or Angels One Five (1954); or Piece of Cake, 1988 TV drama.

Not this. I liked the planes, even if CGI. But the script is wordy, slow and, frankly, boring. The acting is so wooden it could make a table.

This is very much the Paul Gross show - I'd never heard of this actor, though he stars, directs, wrote the script and even half the feem toon!

The extra shows him explaining some of this is based on what his WWI Canadian veteran grandfather told him about his experience of WWI, esp one event - at the start of the feature film. The extras also show how they constructed the WWI battlefield on first nations land in Canada which is fascinating, though the blessing woke witch doctor ceremony is beyond daft.

Special mention for Joe Dinicol who plays the young asthmatic soldier to perfection. Others act well, and it is generally well-written and directed. Some decent war scenes.

No spoilers, but I disliked the quasi-religious/Christian symbolism end scenes. Some may like it. Many of these low budget war films are funded by Christian organisations so have that aspect to them. Here, it may be because of the writer/director's faith. Anyway... I dislike stuff like that.

Watch the end credits with real WWI footage which is fascinating.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

Very low budget; rather unbelievable plot, no subtitles so some dialogue incomprehensible.

I've seen worse. But then again, I've seen a lot better...

2 stars for effort

I almost gave this a 1 star. It really is absurd.

Vaguely scifi, and cartoon character at that.

Low budget WWII fantasy complete with strong role model women - or one anyway, an evil genius etc.

All Utter Hokum. But it passes the time.

This is fiction. Dedicated to all who were tank soldiers in WWII, but the connection to reality ends there.

Pure action movie fantasy - the central conceit is absurd. In 1944, the Germans were too busy losing the war and running out of resources to do silly training exercises as portrayed here.

The lack of subtitles grates. The Dubbing is SO awful, and I mean horrendous. Real Yee-haw cowboy stuff. And often so unclear I had to rewind to understand it. This distracts from the whole.

If you can get past that and the fantasy element, there are some good action sequences - and thankfully NO attempt to woke it up, with the new cliche of 'strong independent female characters' shoehorned into the plot, or characters of colour.

2 stars. I have seen worse.

Anyone who has watched IRON SKY, the original, made by fanatical scifi gamers in Finland, who started making graphic novels, computer games and cheapo films in their bedroom and basements ('Star Wreck'), will know what to expect.

It is all utterly absurd. BUT so bad it's good in a way, and with better than usual CGI effects, eg the T-Rex which is of course ridden by Adolf Hitler...

Mrs Thatcher is there as an alien as is Steve Jobs as is Mark Zuckerberg, Stalin, most dictators from history, Osama Bin Laden, a pope et al.

Some funny gags about the old Nokia phones (I STILL HAVE ONE!) and more. Some funny, some not.

What amazes me is how so many people, fans, online gamers etc can put up so much money to make a sequel - the first Iron Sky was enough.

Watch BLOODSTORM (Nazis at the Centre of the Earth) to see Adolf Hitler (again, this time as a robot), and the conspiracy theory of the HOLLOW EARTH - all utter nonsense., The Germans explored Antarctica in 1938-39, the mountainous area Queen Maud Land between British and Norwegian claimed areas, because they wanted a base from which to get whale blubber to make the margerine the Germans ate loads of apparently. It was a total failure BUT from that, a conspiracy theory grew...

By the way, I used the subtitles for this movie and I do not know who did the subs, but they were certainly not a native English speaker - they often bear no relation to what characters are actually saying!

2 stars

I watched this for fun, and the film is dated late 60s hippy horror fun - with a late 60s and jazz soundtrack, lingo of the time and dated echo sound effects. Hard to think this is only a decade after the truly great horror films such as Dracula and Frankenstein.

Peter Cushing was a brilliantly expressive actor who, in our days of mumbling naturalism, probably would not even have a career (and not as an older white man with a posh English accent)> Shame.

Hilarious scenes in this., It's all pre-meetoo etc - thankfully! Reminds me in a weird way of much later film UNDER THE SKIN - maybe the beach scene?? - or AMERICAN MARY re Cosmetic Surgery.

The title is bad though - who came up with 'Corruption'.? The alternative title 'Carnage' is better. I'd prefer FACE ACHE... or NOT THE FACE.

See Tony Blair's father-in-law Tony Booth as an exploitative glamour photographer grappling with Peter Cushing.

Oh how all these plots would fall apart with DNA testing, CCTV and mobile phones...

Btw the director of this was a 50s TV director who then make lots of hippy-chick films in the 60s. Nothing from 1974 then died in his mid-50s in 1977.

3 stars

I loved this film. It's not only highly entertaining, but educational - though not in the woke pc preachy lecturing way of so much BBC/ITV Television drama now. I did not know about Marcel Marceau's WWII resistance story, so that was fascinating - and true.

There is a rather random scene in this film of a gay nightclub/bar in Berlin full of SS and German army and Hitler Youth - that could be a whole other film in itself, but seems shoehorned in here, and clunky.

Most of the film takes place in Strasburg, or Lyons, the latter being in French-ruled Vichy France until that ended in 1942 and Germany took all of France. The French police/gendarmes there happily rounded up many jews to deport them to death camps.

The film is also about the 'Butcher of Lyons', Klaus Barbie, who was finally convicted in France in 1983 and spent his last years in prison there.

Before that, the USA helped him escape justice after the war, because he helped their anti-communist effort and knew all about torture. That is US history most do not know. They also recruited von Braun for the space programme - he who has designed the V1 and V2 rockets that killed 12000+ in London.

They were 2 of many who escaped justice after the war, often helped to escape by the catholic church via Genoa then Spain/Portugal (fascist dictatorships at the time). A few were captured and brought back, such as Adolf Eichmann. Some killed in situ. Most survived - like Dr Mengele. In total, 97% SS members and those who committed war crimes evaded justice, often going on to work for the German state after the war, or at universities, or in business, or in politics, media etc. Shameful. Watch GENERATION WAR the great German TV series (2013) to see that and more.

I did wonder in this film if the French resistance had black members. I have found accounts of 2 black women operating in Vichy. No black men. So no idea how accurate this is or how boxticker the film is being to nod to the diversity quotas. Certainly, there were many Africans, black (eg from Senegal) and moorish from Algeria/Morocco, in the French military. Those the Germans captured in 1940 were shot, as an 'inferior race'. But the south of France landings in 1944 had many Free French black colonial battalions.

Sadly, no subtitles available. They would have been useful what with various accents being mumbled.

It's occasionally a bit disjointed as a film, but an excellent watch nonetheless. The acting is great, from Jesse Eisenberg and especially Matthias Schweighofer who plays the monstrous anti-semite Barbie with a cold dark menace, though as a three dimensional character with a wife and baby.

4 stars

This is not a bad film, but it is not a good one either.

The main problem is the script, which has obviously been written by someone Norwegian/Danish and not checked with a native English speaker.

The stereotyped upper class Englishman speaks like a cartoon version of one - I almost expected him to say 'I say' and 'by Jove' and 'Toodle-pip'!; though Rupert Grint's Scouse accent is OK but what he says is not - ANY working class lad like him from the 1920s/30s would have known poverty and used newspaper toilet paper, for example.

This is 1940 when the Nazis slyly invade Norway in April NOT to get Norway's raw materials BUT to enable Norway's ports to be in Nazi hands as during winter that was the only way Germany could get the iron ore from 'neutral' Sweden (which made a fortune from selling Germany that in 2 world wars while 'neutral') during winter when the Swedish ports were closed by ice.

The Nazis are not believable either - this is 1940. Not 1944. Germany had invaded Czechslovakia and Poland and now Norway and soon France, Belgium and Holland - it was on the rise, marching acorss Europe. I very much doubt any German soldiers would have been disloyal and anti-Nazi. Esp re certain book burning.

The acting is decent - and if you ignore the absurd dialogue which is SO bad, the film has enough events and tension to keep breathing - just. The young actor David Kross was excellent in the film about a German footballer goalkeeper in the UK - THE KEEPER.

There is a 1942 film about that invasion of Norway - THE DAY WILL DAWN. Watch that, not this.

This has been promoted as the Russian 'Titanic'? Seriously? Maybe a Poundland Titanic, I suppose...

This is a confused and confusing very unfocused and amateurish film indeed and with cardboard cutout characters - and if you cannot feel for the characters then why care what happens to them?

Some of this is German Nazis versus Russian soldiers on land. Then it is all about Leningrad women and children escaping the besieged city via leaky rafts which are then attacked by German planes. Lots of bangs and explosions does not a decent film make.

And when we have Germans on the screen, there are subtitles in English - but Russian viewers do not get subtitles or even dubbing. Nope, just some bloke in a studio speaking what various Nazis say into a microphone. This is he cheapo option - I saw in in the 90s on Polish and Czech TV, where a Czech bloke in a studio translated the English words of David Attenborough or whoever whose voice i could just hear in the background with animal noises. It is the low budget options; subtitles next; and dubbing the most expensive. It really does not work.

There are better films about the awful siege of Leningrad which causes mass starvation. Watch them - not this.

2 stars for the effort and decent war scenes.

What to say about this film? Well firstly, its title is actually NAZIS AT THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH. For some reason it is called BLOODSTORM outside the USA.

The first-time director made 2 filmes the next year 2013, Age of the Dinosaurs and Bone Alone a kids' film about a dog. That says it all really..

I actually laughed out loud more than once watching this. Btw The amateur actor who played Dr Mengele, James Maxwell Young died in June 2012 aged 61.

I have seen Adolf Hitler portrayed by a multitude of actors (maybe a black woman soon thanks to colourblind genderblind casting eh?) but never like this. The CGI and effects are OK.

BUT on the plus side, it is coherent in its plot (however absurd - only Iron Sky the Finnish Nazis on the moon movie as as bonkers and that is less entertaining than this). I admire anyone who makes a low-budget film and has a go!

Well filmed, with green screen stuff for the ice of Antarctica etc.

Think Sharknado - so bad it's good! Watch it and laugh. Enjoy the ride.

2 stars.,

This is a so-so low-budget Welsh film, one of the very few supported by Film Cymru (the likes of Canaries are not!). No doubt the producers had the right Cymru contacts...

Despite the acting talent here, it is overblown, cartoon character stuff, unbelievable plot, homage to Tarantino or even Sam Pekinpah, and all very silly.

Michael Smiley is one of Britain's best character actors, and watchable in anything he does.

The Elvis subplot is just plain silly, and the cartoon character English cafe owner played by Paul Kaye is borderline racist. The usual anti-Brexit stereotype.

Darren Evans - a great Welsh actor great in all he is in - is sadly underused here.

3 stars.