Film Reviews by None

Why is there a moon base with only one guy working there? Is the friendly robot helper all he seems? What happens if anything goes wrong up there? Duncan Jones crafts an effective movie on a small budget, thanks to the excellent performance of Sam Rockwell. The reveal happens quite early, allowing for a gradual understanding of decisions and their consequences. Thoughtful, intelligent, and rewarding.

Dream worlds that people can enter. How do they know what is real and what isn't? What happens if they don;t come back out of the dream world? Slickly edited, head-spinning stuff, with superior effects and enough excitement to paper over the ambiguities, complexities and implausibilities (what does a dream architect actually DO?). Well worth watching, and with good added extras.

In a way this is a complementary movie to Toy Story 3, in terms of seeing growing up portrayed as a subtext. Kids get one thing out of it (big monsters, mud fights, chases), and my kids did love it - adults will see the poignancy of the boy coming to terms with his broken family and with life not being fair. The book is a jumping off point for quite a subtle meditation on growing up and accepting circumstances, and loving families without expecting them to be perfect.

Good fun Russian take on a Hollywood staple.1st movie broadly followed the book's plot. This one massively diverges, with only a couple of plot threads (chalk, relationships) that are in common. Having loved the book, that is frustrating, but my wife who hasn't read it really enjoyed it. To be fair the book meanders around life philosophy, communism vs. capitalism, and would be expensive to film properly in the multiple Russian locationse. I thought the 1st movie was more inventive, but given budget limitations they've made a fun, exciting and unpredictable slice of russian Hollywood. And just seeing the shabby side of Moscow, and Russian skewed view of Hollywood style entertainment, is fun. The books really are better than the movies.

1st movie broadly follows the book's plot. This one massively diverges with only a couple of plot threads (chalk, relationships) that are in common. Having loved the book, that is frustrating, but my wife who hasn't read it really enjoyed it. To be fair the book meanders around life philosophy, communism vs. capitalism, and would be expensive to film properly, although with a heavy slice of vampires, witches and magic layered on top of the cake. I thought the 1st movie was more inventive, but given budget limitations they've made a fun, exciting and unpredictable slice of russian Hollywood. And just seeing the shabby side of Moscow, and Russian skewed view of Hollywood style entertainment, is fun.