Thursday, January 12, 2012

The Disappearance of Alice Creed

Low-budget British thriller about millionaire daughter Alice Creed (Arterton) who's taken hostage by two men, one seemingly the mastermind of the kidnapping (Marsan), the other one—the Irish one—timid and mysterious (Compston); but Alice is not going to make their scheme easy. Smooth-running for a film with only three characters and the use of the cello on Marc Canham's score is phenomenal. But there are plenty of cons to go with those pros. The plot and conflict aren't anything new; there are a couple of sections in the film where character's common sense should play a factor, but doesn't; and the climax is pretty much a back-and-forth showdown to assist the story of reaching over 90 minutes, unmasking its lack of substance

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Red Riding Hood

Beautifully filmed take on Little Red Riding Hood with the identity of the wolf being the central conflict of this whodunit. However, the hipster approach at a story supposedly taking place in the 1300 is more than frustrating, and the acting and soundtrack doesn't help the film. Also suffers how unlikable every single character is; a story should grab the audience either by an interesting story or charismatic characters--good films do both, bad films do neither… this film is unfortunately the latter. The worst part about this movie is knowing how easy it could've been to make it a halfway decent film, but stupidly steered off track to follow in TWILIGHT's footsteps--it achieved it in quality, but not in quantity.