Side Effects

Mini Review

http://www.sideeffectsmayvary.com/

I have recently started making the most of Orange/EE Wednesdays with a friend from work. As I have a Cineworld card it means that with the Orange/EE code, she gets a free ticket. Bargain! We saw the trailer for Side Effects a couple of weeks earlier and as my friend is a fan of Channing Tatum it seemed to be a bit of a no-brainer that we would see Side Effects.

The film tells the story of Emily Taylor (Rooney Mara), a young woman who has suffered from depression since her husband Martin (Channing Tatum), was imprisoned for insider trading. Upon his release she assumes that they will be able to put the last 4 years behind them, but instead she finds herself slipping deeper into depression's grasp. She starts seeing a psychiatrist, Dr Banks (Jude Law), who prescribes her with an amazing new drug. The immediate effects are everything Emily and Martin hope for, but then the side effects of the drugs start to creep in and if they get out of hand, they could destroy the lives of not only Emily and Martin, but Dr Banks too.

I found Side Effects to be quite a different film from the one advertised in the trailer. For one, as my poor friend discovered, Channing Tatum's role is considerably smaller than the trailer indicates. That aside though I found that it was different in a surprising way rather than a disappointing sense. The film was a lot darker and had a lot more twists that I was expecting. From the trailer I guessed this was going to be more of a courtroom drama, looking at the side effects of the drug prescribed, but in reality the film is more of a psychological thriller and had so many double crosses that I had trouble keeping track of them all.

The only problems I had with the film were that it felt overly long, and after the main twist had occurred I'd already figured out what all of the remaining twists were going to be. So it felt more like a waiting game for everything to be neatly wrapped up. I did still enjoy the film overall and if you're a fan of psychological thrillers or any of the actors involved then I'd say you're likely to enjoy this. It's a popcorn movie but an enjoyable one, and at times, brain teasingly so. 7 out of 10.

Viewing Date - 13th March 2013

UK Release Date - 8th March 2013

Cast Overview:

Jude Law ~ Dr Jonathan Banks

Rooney Mara ~ Emily Taylor

Catherine Zeta-Jones ~ Dr Victoria Siebert

Channing Tatum ~ Martin Taylor

Vinessa Shaw ~ Dierdre Banks

Ann Dowd ~ Martin's Mother

Polly Draper ~ Emily's Boss

Director ~ Steven Soderbergh

Writer ~

Scott Z. Burns (Screenplay)

Anna Karenina

Mini Blog

http://www.annakareninamovie.co.uk/

I saw the trailer for Anna Karenina when I was at the cinema with my friend who is a big fan of period dramas. We'd previously seen The Young Victoria and The Duchess together and loved both of those movies more than either of us would have guessed. Therefore as soon as we saw the trailer for Anna we knew we wanted to see it.

Unfortunately the film did not live up to the expectations. It was unnecessarily long with some sequences seeming as though they'd been included just for the sake of showing off the staging. I also felt that the film being set in a theatre didn't really work in it's favour. I felt like the actors should have burst into spontanious song, and if I'm honest I was disappointed that they didn't. As a person who dislikes musicals at the best of times I'm sure this speaks volumes about how dull the whole thing was that I felt making it a musical would liven up proceedings.

Finally to the actors. Knightley was her usual pouty self, despite re-assurances from director Joe Wright that he'd put a stop to that. She's great in some scenes but her character has a tendency to be whiny and needy which is not a great combination. The usually charasmatic Law is faced with the task of making an emotionally detached character likeable, and while you do feel sorry for him, you never really warm to him. Finally, Taylor-Johnson just feels too young to be in the role of Count Vronsky and nowhere near charming enough to win over the affections of a married noble lady.

I found the secondary stories involving Levin and Kitty and Oblonsky and Dolly held my interest a lot better than the main love triangle (if you can call it that), and especially thought that Domhnall Gleeson is one to watch.

All in all it was too long and too boring and I couldn't wait for it to end. Which incidently felt like it should have done long before the credits rolled. A disappointing 5 out of 10.

Viewing Date - 20th September 2012

UK Release Date - 7th September 2012

Cast Overview:

Keira Knightley ~ Anna Karenina

Aaron Taylor-Johnson ~ Count Vronsky

Jude Law ~ Alexei Karenin

Kelly MacDonald ~ Dolly

Matthew MacFadyen ~ Oblonsky

Emily Watson ~ Countess Lydia

Olivia Williams ~ Countess Vronsky

Domhnall Gleeson ~ Levin

Alicia Vikander ~ Kitty

Director ~ Joe Wright 

Writer(s) ~ Tom Stoppard (Screenplay) and Leo Tolstoy (Novel)

Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows

http://sherlockholmes2.warnerbros.com/

I should probably open by telling you that I was not fond of the first Sherlock Holmes movie and had no intention of watching this one. Until I started to hear those magic five words 'better than the first one'. Better you say? Oh well I might as well see it then, after all, December has been rather cine lite owing to my two week absence. Plus I probably won't see anything while I'm up north for Christmas. Lets give it a go!

From what I remember of Sherlock 1 (that's not a lot), Sherlock 2 carries on pretty seamlessly. Irene (Rachel McAdams) is still wheeling and dealing and getting Sherlock (Robert Downey Jnr) into trouble. Meanwhile Sherlock's long suffering colleague Dr Watson (Jude Law) is planning his wedding. All Sherlock has to do is take Watson on his 'stag do' and get him to the church on time, but of course nothing goes to plan when Sherlock is trying to get one over on Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris). One thing leads to another and the pair find themselves in Paris with a gypsy (Noomi Rapace) who is connected to Moriarty by way of her lost brother.

Simply put, whoever it was that said this was better than the first was either stupid or lying. It's over long, it's boring, it's complicated and it's contrived. I have never been a fan of Guy Ritchie but his direction of this film has to be some of the worst direction I have seen all year. He uses way too much slow motion, has these silly scenes of imagined fights before the real fight takes place, meaning you see every fight twice. And he's put in these ridiculous over stylised shots of running through forests. Just when you think it can't go on any longer or get any worse it does. 

The one good thing that can be said about the film is the casting, but even that can't save the film. The two females in the cast Rachel McAdams, who reprises her role of Irene Adler from the first film, and Noomi Rapace, last seen with a Dragon Tattoo, have nothing to do. McAdams is written out within the opening 15 minutes and Rapace appears here and there throughout the film but you're never really sure how she (as an actress or the character) got involved in the first place. The final nail in Ritchie's coffin surely has to be the fact that he can take an actor like Robert Downey Jnr, one of the most charismatic, charming and funny actors around, and make a film so utterly boring that even Downey Jnr can't save it. Surely that speaks volumes about how bad a director he really is?

The cinema was obviously experiencing 'technical problems' with their heating as it was stiffling in the cinema but even so I haven't been as close to falling asleep in a film since I saw The Last Airbender. There's a bit in the film where Holmes and Watson are talking about going home, and the whole while I was thinking, "yes, please go home, because then this will finish and I will be able to go home" but then they decide to go to Switzerland instead, and so it drags on for another hour.

There is a lot of acting talent here but unfortunately for those involved, not a lot else. Please don't let there be a Sherlock 3. 5 out of 10.

Viewing Date - 19th December 2011

UK Release Date - 16th December 2011

Cast Overview:

Robert Downey Jnr ~ Sherlock Holmes

Jude Law ~ Dr John Watson

Noomi Rapace ~ Madam Simza Heron

Rachel McAdams ~ Irene Adler

Jared Harris ~ Professor James Moriarty

Stephen Fry ~ Mycroft Holmes

Director ~ Guy Ritchie

Writer(s) ~ Michele and Kieran Mulroney based on characters created by 

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle