Th?nk Media Music Film reviews
Welcome to our film review database.
TMM embraces all kinds of media, and has a passion for good films, whether low-budget, hollywood blockbuster, or just classic, if it's been on a screen we want to celebrate it.
If you have recently seen a film and are itching to give it an editorial, please do submit us a piece, if it's good we would love to post it here.
Casino Royale December 2006
This winter sees the release of the latest Bond film, Bond number 6 is Daniel Craig, blonde haired and laser blue eyed with muscles that would make Arnie double take!
Ok lets get stuck in, the title sequence is typically stylish and I enjoyed it immensely, but the theme song was decidely lacking, the plot revolves around the famous title, in essence Bond must enter and win a high profile poker match, for queen country and freedom from terrorism, for me only slightly more feasible than the plot to tomorrow never dies, but it works and Daniel Craig really makes it work, he has the right mix of boyish cheekiness, and steel hearted grit, for me he is the film.
Being a bond fan myself who believes Roger was the best (sorry Sean fans), I was very much looking forward to seeing what made 007, unfortunately this was reduced to a few minutes of film-noiresque flashbacking at the very start, we see Bond make his first two kills (requirement for double 'o' status) and thats it..
Obviously then the rest of the film is set years later with bond on his latest assignment ripping it up in a DB6, and armed to the teeth with spy gadgetry except for the other glaring omission, the almost criminal lack of the by now mandatory Q intermission, one can only surmise that the film makers wanted this bond to be alot more serious and it is, there are still plenty of one-liners though.
This is a great action yarn, lots of new ideas, but not what I would call classic Bond, for me the last classic was Goldeneye, but nevermind Daniel steals the show and holds it up under the might of his well toned frame, forget his nemesis a scarred KD Lang lookalike who merely provides the vehicle for the story and nothing more, shame..
If you want a good 'fire and forget' christmas movie, go see.
Andrew Bates
The Da Vinci code June 2006
What hasn't been said about this very controversial book and film over the last few months?, at it's very core the Author Dan Brown followed on from the findings from a professor who wrote a book a while ago called 'Holy blood holy grail' a man who suggested he had discovered a code hidden in a french book, and went on to research proceedings in the south west of france resulting in a number of local churchs and buildings all forming a 'pentangle' shape next to a 'star of david' shape.
He suggested that the pentangle represents a symbol of divine femininity, and we are told in the film that the star of david represents the symbol of masculinity bi-secting the symbol of femininity.
What does all this mean I hear you ask, well we are taken on a fictional journey which attempts to suggest that Jesus Christ was only a man (who may have performed miracles), and he had carnal relations with a female, namely Mary Magdelene resulting in the birth of a girl called Sarah, the concept attempts to suggest that the famous 'holy grail' of legend (a cup that was supposed to have caught the blood of Jesus at his crucifixtion), was not in fact a cup, but actually his bloodline.
The implications of this idea are nothing less than staggering, that today there are people who walk the earth who are directly related by blood to the person whom many believe is the son of god.
The film itself has notched up a degree of controversy itself in that it is being touted that dispite all the hype, it's not actually very good, I was myself interested to discover this is largely true.
It has all the hallmarks of a great hollywood film, a great director in Ron Howard, and two sure bets Tom Hanks (saving private ryan, forrest gump), and Jean Reno (ronin, leon), the film is well directed, with regular cutscenes that blend into the main story in an almost dreamlike way to help the viewer undertsand what is going on.
Dan Brown's story does hold water, and is just about compelling for the films entireity, although I found it starting to slow up half way through, things did pick up again towards the end, and there was a predictable 'twist in the tail', although I was dubious as to its ability to convince.
The two things that really let the film down for me was the script, which can for the most part be described as subtle as a bull in a china shop, and even more patronising, and the editing which tended to make the film feel loose and amateurish.
If you cannot get through the rest of your life without knowing what this is all about, go and see, but personally I don't think you are missing much, the story remains fiction, and the film does nothing to convince otherwise.
On another note some thoughts came to me about the idea of Jesus only being a man, I seem to recall in the bible that when a person is born again he becomes a 'joint-heir' in christ, which suggests to me anyone can enter into his bloodline, and dispite even this I cannot get over the notion that if God only came to earth in the form of Christ to procreate with one of HIS created beings, why bother?, why leave heaven to do that? and risk suffering a terrible death?, indeed we are told elsewhere in the bible that God is quite capable of impregnating a willing female supernaturally whose name is also 'Mary'
Andrew Bates.
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