Film Reviews by AB

Fonda gives a class in how to act cool, calm and collected - even his horse riding seems to be better than everyone else in the film. You know the story and how it will pan out but that doesn't detract from the film's overall ambience and who will get the just rewards, positive or negative.

Too confusing, too loud, too unbelievable, too rubbishy to even be taken seriously as a film.

"edge-of-your-seat" adventure? No. An early Kurt Russell film that should have been buried under San Francisco.

Nothing good about the film at all, no storyline, no decent special effects (perhaps excepting the bug-eyed all-seeing beach ball) and too many Chinese mythology sub-stories that just help confuse the main 'action', which is a long uninteresting sequence of kung-fu confrontations that have been better done in other films and TV series - yes, you, Grasshopper. Cannot recommend at all

A bit of the "only in America" scenario here - the religious cult, the over-zealous FBI, the 'odd' child but the film is actually quite watchable if only to find out what will happen at the end - which is quite interesting. My major quibble about the film is how much of it is filmed at night or in the dark, where it is nigh-on impossible to see what is going on with a minor observation that not enough is explained as to *what* the boy does to people. Watchable

The drawback to this disc is that there are only 3 episodes on it, the first 2 are parts 1 &2 of a story, the third is the first half of a 2-parter, so you get the full onslaught of one but only a skirmish with the other. I loved the first scenes (ie pre-title music) of the first story, introducing a character that I defy anyone to have predicted and which leads to some quite touching scenes later on. The interaction of the storyline with Missy (with or without Peter Capaldi) is great fun and the pair of them with Scots accents bringing out the humour of the situations is well worth the watch!

Amusing in parts, saccharine in others, but overall not a great film - too twee, too predictable, too American to be of any good. Kills a couple of hours of your life.

Over the 3 programmes, every known fact and story applicable to the tragedy was given to us, with personal stories of 3 Londoners, but historical facts, modern-day surviving artefacts and stonework and re-enactments were well done (albeit with cheap graphics). However, what was too irritating was the repetitive push that the programme was about The Fire of London - we know that ( the clue is in the title); that the London in question was a tinder-box (anyone with any knowledge of history would know that buildings were wooden in those days) and that it spread quickly- the presenters kept repeating these, as if speaking to an audience with goldfish-memory syndrome. The replica burning buildings at the School of Firefighting were educational, as was the temperature measuring and calculations, and I would have loved to have seen an experiment showing the river of molten lead from St Pauls. The saving of the Tower of London was shown to be a real positive, due to the fact that it was an arms dump, but I'm afraid that because it was originally shown on a commercial TV channel, the advert breaks would have driven me to distraction - even their removal here without the removal of the 'welcome back' speech preyed on me and the whole thing would have been better as a 2-part, rather than 3-part, series. If you ever invent a time machine, avoid London in 1665 AND 1666 - it won't end well otherwise. Watch the series, despite my misgivings on it.

One of those - "what would I do in this situation"? films where no-one really believes what is going on when trying to explain with a bare minimum of facts and only a hunch as to what the situation may develop into. A vehicle for both Stewart and Day to show that they can act (and in the latter's case, sing), with scenes in several countries (albeit as an obvious film backdrop in some scenes) but overall a very good film with a clever backdrop of how the murder will be attempted, as stated, possibly the first time that this 'cover' has been used cinematically.

The premise - I like. The film itself - so very disappointing. There was virtually no re-enactment of the gaming scenarios that everyone played when they were younger - the 'taking out' of the invaders was done by a 'light cannon' which eradicated everything it needed to but the fun, enjoyment and graphics that one remembers from Space Invaders, Asteroids etc is completely missing from this. A strong dose of humour would have made this better but even that was missing.

Even the synopsis to me was confusing - it talked of 3 parallel lives but apart from the Spanish Conquistador one and the surgeon one, the third strand in the actual film bypassed me - was that dream-like scenario supposed to be mankind in the future? Or a dream? Too highbrow for me and far too confusing to be anywhere near enjoyable. One for film aficionados only or those with a degree in psychiatry or those who eat magic mushrooms every day.

We all know the storyline from this, the first of the 'spaghetti westerns' - the moralistic stranger who has no compunction about killing or helping those in need but even after nigh-on 50 years, it is still a great film, with a superb musical score that leads you on to whistling it for most of the day! Most of the films from that genre have the same storyline but, what the heck. I defy any man to deny that he has seen himself in the Clint Eastwood role

Far too complex to be enjoyable. The film starts in the Ming dynasty and then suddenly jumps to the modern day with only a passing one-liner as explanation, with the same characters in situ. No storyline, explanation or guidance as to what is going on, beyond the time-travelling orb but even that is too simple an explanation as to what we are supposed to be seeing.

Unenjoyable and overly complicated.

The synopsis is elsewhere but given that this film is based on the memoirs of the real-life man who also stars in the film he was a very brave man to take on the role as Montgomery and he must have been a good actor to try and pick up M's habits, gait and mannerisms to the level that it fooled the Germans. Clifton James in this film probably did just what he did in the 'real' scenario but it does not detract from what he did that in the end probably saved a lot of lives. If you read the WIkipedia page on him, the links with well-known people come out that I didn't know - q.v. David Niven, Dennis Wheatley and the fact that James had to have a prosthetic finger

The cgi was good - I liked the giant figures dotting the landscape of the city, but the storyline was a bit too "what does it mean to be human?" to make much of an actual story, the denouement of which become obvious most of the way through. The film is really a cross between the exploits of the Borg, Terminator, Bladerunner and The Matrix with a female Data in the lead. Film was visually too dark to enjoy but left some questions - how many of the 'renegades' were there? Where were they and what were they doing now? Not great but worth a watch as a visual piece of entertainment

A film of conflicts - does the hero accept his NDA details or do the "right" thing? Given the pressure he is put under by corporate moguls I for one would simply give up or try a better method of releasing the information - dump it in the street? Send it abroad for perusal? Makes you fret for the wee people

Despite the genre of stated Drama, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Sports & Sport Films, only the first and last are true! A film about golf, psychology, love, memories, war and township with some good acting and (probably) correct accents

I liked the film, as it didn't try to ram any details about golf down the viewer's throat, which would have spoiled it and instead made it about trust, help and friendships with a sporting background

I got quite emotional watching it, tears appearing, for no real reason I can fathom but it is a feel-good film that should have been more successful with its release than it was and I highly recommend a watch. The denouement of the round kept me guessing as well.

What I found amusing was that at the end of all the usual spiel about cast, crew, location etc, there was the usual bumpf about characters and events being fictitious and any relation to people, dead or alive, is coincidental. So Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen were figments of Robert Redford's imagination?