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Showing posts with the label flop

MORTAL ENGINES - REVIEW

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Review available on the new website .

SUPER MARIO BROS. - REVIEW

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Once upon a time, Hollywood studios made an attempt at bringing Nintendo's most iconic video game character to life in live-action form. Super Mario Bros. starred Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo as Mario and Luigi respectively and it was a commercial and critical failure. Adapting a game franchise as surreal as Super Mario Bros. was always going to be a challenge, especially for a Hollywood studio in the early 90's. So, instead of attempting to recreate the colourful, imaginative world depicted in the games, the directors decided to ground the characters in a more realistic, yet still bizarre, setting. The plot, which sees the two plumbers having to cross over to another dimension in order to rescue a princess, is relatively simple with Dennis Hopper's evil reptilian dictator King Koopa looking to open up a portal that would allow him to rule both his dimension and ours being the main challenge for our heroes. Not translating the games directly for the big screen was a

NOTHING BUT TROUBLE - REVIEW

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The only film directed by Dan Aykroyd to date, Nothing But Trouble was a dark comedy from 1991 which starred Chevy Chase as a businessman who is arrested for speeding then put on trial in the trash and weirdo-filled little town of Valkenvania, just off the New Jersey Turnpike. With a cast that includes John Candy, Demi Moore, Taylor Negron and Dan Aykroyd himself, Nothing But Trouble looked like a safe bet and its goofy plot had lots of potential. Unfortunately, the film was a massive flop, gathering only about $8M against a healthy budget of $40M, and the critics did not go easy on it. Nothing But Trouble was panned by everyone back in the day, including Chevy Chase himself, it was nominated for several Razzie awards and Dan Aykroyd would never dare direct a film again afterwards. Looking back, the movie's failure at the box-office is hardly surprising: sinking this much money into a story this bizarre was never going to deliver. The film itself, on the other hand, isn't

GODS OF EGYPT - REVIEW

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Few things in 2016 looked quite as ridiculous as the trailer for Alex Proyas' Ancient Egypt-set epic Gods Of Egypt . The film itself turned out to be just as over-the-top as expected and, although it did well internationally, the movie bombed domestically and critics panned it. One of the first things to turn audiences off was the controversial casting of white actors as Egyptian gods. While definitely not the best decision from the producers, I would argue that this is the least of this film's worries. Besides, realism isn't exactly what we should look for in a fantasy film as out there as this. The plot follows young thief Bek (Brenton Thwaites) as he helps God Of Air Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) to fight back against Set (Gerard Butler), the God Of Darkness, who has taken over Egypt, stolen his lover and even his eyes. Bek is hoping that the gods will bring back Zaya (Courtney Eaton), his girlfriend who was killed by one of Set's men. Making a big blockbuster a

NICK OF TIME - REVIEW

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Johnny Depp and Christopher Walken star in Nick Of Time , a thriller from 1995 in which a man's daughter is kidnapped and he is then forced to assassinate a politician. The film was a flop upon its release despite the lead's star power and it remains one of Depp's most forgotten efforts. The central premise is an intriguing one as we follow everyman accountant Gene (Depp) in real time as he attempts to get out of his predicament within the hour and a half time limit he's been assigned to do the job. Throughout the film, Christopher Walken's mysterious villain taunts him and watches his every move and he is genuinely intimidating. Unfortunately, this whole real time concept has been done before and since much better going as far back as Alfred Hitchcock's Rope to more recent examples including the 24 series and Phone Booth . This might explain why Nick Of Time evaporated pretty quickly as it comes off less like a theatrical blockbuster and more like a TV m

IN THE NAME OF THE KING - REVIEW

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Uwe Boll directs this loose video game-to-movie adaptation of the Dungeon Siege series, spending a whopping $60M on it making it the director's most expensive flop to date. The film stars Jason Statham as a farmer amusingly called "Farmer" whose farm, along with most of the kingdom, is one day invaded by demonic knights controlled by sorcerer Gallian (Ray Liotta) who is working with the King's (played by Burt Reynolds) slimy nephew Duke Fallow (an over-the-top Matthew Lillard) in an attempt to overthrow King Konreid. Farmer joins forces with his friend Norick (Ron Perlman) to try and save his wife and child and get to the bottom of this whole mess using his trusty boomerang. Don't ask. While the film boasts some decent visual effects here and there, its ambitions of emulating the Lord Of The Rings trilogy (John Rhys-Davies even has a role) falls resoundingly short as, not only is the story needlessly convoluted and really not all that interesting but th

HUDSON HAWK - REVIEW

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One of those big 90's flops which rarely gets talked about is Bruce Willis-starring action comedy Hudson Hawk , a film which not only lost a bomb at the box-office upon its release but pretty much universally confounded audiences. Misunderstood cult classic or deserved failure? The answer, funnily enough, seems to be both! Yes Hudson Hawk is indeed something of a cult gem in that there aren't many other films quite like it and its rather unique approach remains fascinating to this day. It's one of those oddities like The Adventures Of Pluto Nash or that Rocky and Bullwinkle movie where you "get" what they're trying to do and appreciate some of what they're trying to do yet still acknowledge it doesn't work. These are action comedies with cartoonish, old-fashioned vibes and they are admittedly fun in parts but these are also quite niche meaning that spending bazillions of dollars on them was and is folly. It doesn't help that Hudson

FANTASTIC FOUR (2015) - REVIEW

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Where to start with this one? What could I possibly say that hasn't already been said? Indeed, this new Fantastic Four did not do well at all with the critics upon its release, nor did it do very well financially due to poor word-of-mouth. But was the film written off too quickly? Were critics much too harsh on it? Mmmwell... I'd love to say yes but this is one hard movie to defend. For one thing, the casting is tough to get behind. As brilliant as newcomer Miles Teller was in last year's mini-masterpiece Whiplash , he finds himself miscast here and, about halfway through the film, possibly due to increasing on-set shambles, soon stops giving a f***. As do we. House Of Cards ' Kate Mara is also miscast as our new Invisible Girl as she delivers no charisma or personality, something for which the script, I should point out, is entirely to blame. Jessica Alba may have been pretty dire as Sue Storm in the 2005 Fantastic Four but at least she seemed awake an

TOMORROWLAND - VLOG 04/07/15

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I review Disney's latest George Clooney-starring flopbuster Tomorrowland .

TOMORROWLAND - REVIEW

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Disney's new expensive venture Tomorrowland , which is based on their very own theme park attraction, was all set to become a brand new Pirates Of The Caribbean money machine with early word-of-mouth being positive and released stills looking pretty good. Sadly, the film flopped and that even ended up costing us Tron 3 . Add to that critics not exactly raving about it after the film's international release and you've got yourself another big disappointment for the Mouse House. You'd think that spending $200M on the likes of The Lone Ranger and John Carter would have taught the company some restraint but no. Once again, here we have a relatively enjoyable kids' movie with fab visuals but not much else. The idea of a parallel dimension with some perfect futuristic utopia that may not be all that perfect after all was a good one and the ambition director Brad Bird brings to the table is commendable. You can tell there was a genuine attempt here to take the far

47 RONIN - REVIEW

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Some movie concepts are just too good to pass up. Nicolas Cage as a weatherman, John Travolta as an overweight woman, Keanu Reeves as a samurai... Thank goodness for 47 Ronin for suggesting the latter! Unfortunately, the film ended up costing nearly $200M and it's looking like 10 people went to actually see it, and that's including me. Problems between the studio and the director causing the budget to inflate ridiculously due to endless reshoots and stuff like that. Unlike flops like, say, John Carter or The Lone Ranger , you really can't tell where the money went with 47 Ronin, a film which looks like a $10M flick with some decent effects and some really awful ones not exactly helping justify the huge budget. The film doesn't look that great and is more akin to a B-movie like Season Of The Witch visually, which is not a good thing. Another issue is the ridiculous marketing which accompanied this movie: Hiroyuki Sanada, who plays the real main character in t

SPEED RACER - REVIEW

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Here's what is quite probably the most expensive live-action anime film adaptation ever made making it basically Hollywood's biggest risk financially dipping its toe in that genre. Similarly to how the Astro Boy CGI feature lost about 20 million at the box-office, Speed Racer did make money but was ultimately a flop, losing over 25 million. But that doesn't mean anything quality-wise, after all, Blade Runner , The Thing and The Night Of The Hunter were all flops in their day. Speed Racer, however, is no Blade Runner. Right off the bat, you are thrown into a multicoloured CGI world so visually rainbowed that you'd think it was yet another Dr Seuss fairy tale come to life in movie form. The thing basically looks like an even more stylised The Cat In The Hat , with less talking cats and more bouncing cars. Directed by the Wachowski broth-... siblings, of The Matrix trilogy fame, Speed Racer takes a very old anime series and makes it into a full-blown candy-colou

THE LONE RANGER - REVIEW

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You'd think a superhero western about two dudes, one horse, a bunch of bad guys and Rossini's William Tell Overture would be pretty easy to get right. Then again, Hollywood couldn't get its head around Wild Wild West ... That over $250M was spent on a western based on a old show from the 50's is frankly nuts, especially since there was no way a franchise could have ever been spawned from it! The Lone Ranger , on that basis, was a flop from the get-go. With that in mind, let's look at the film on its own merits. It sadly doesn't really work. Now, don't get me wrong: I do like many parts of this movie and I do think that there was a kickass Lone Ranger flick in there somewhere. Unfortunately, the film is too long and too convoluted to really make sense. Honestly, director Gore Verbinski seems to have missed the point of making a Lone Ranger movie in the first place. What this should have been is a superhero movie as a western with a serial feel. Wha

THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN - REVIEW

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Terry Gilliam rarely gets to go all-out creatively anymore and that's a real shame because, for a while there, it seemed as if no project was too nutty for him to handle. Oh who am I kidding? Every single one of his projects is nutty. Hence why financing them must be so daunting! The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen was a huge flop but so many masterpieces were, from  Night Of The Hunter to Blade Runner . You can't judge a film's quality based on how much money it made, you just can't. Gilliam's film is one I've always considered to be a masterpiece of the fantasy genre. Its epic scale, its surreal visuals, its playful anarchism, I just loved every minute of it as a kid, even if by the end I had no idea what the hell I had just watched. It was an adventure like no other and I was completely taken with all these larger-than-life characters and their crazy odyssey. One second you were inside a volcano speaking to Roman gods, the next you were playing card

THE NUTCRACKER 3D - REVIEW

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That The Nutcracker 3D lost about $70M at the box-office (ouch!) shouldn't cloud our judgment of it as a film, I feel. Jumping on every bandwagon that comes along is hardly productive so let's take a look at Andrei Konchalovsky's take on Tchaikovsky's ballet (and E.T.A. Hoffman's story) as objectively as we possibly can. The film seems to want to distance itself from what it's based on as much as possible to allow for new creative input, which is fine because often that can mean that directors can allow their unique style to merge with a familiar story to create something fresh and interesting. Unfortunately what's added here just doesn't make sense with everything else. You've got Albert Einstein in some kind of Geppetto role played, oddly enough, by Nathan Lane who once again gives us a cartoon accent we could have done without (also see The Addams Family musical). You've also got a lot of weird Nazi imagery linked to rats and the Rat Kin

LEGEND - REVIEW

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Legend is one of those movies you remember watching as a kid but don't remember what it was even about. Thinking back to it I could only picture a young Tom Cruise wearing no pants, Tim Curry's demonic villain and... unicorns? It turns out the movie's about a young princess who decides to be an idiot one day and screw up the very balance of nature and everything that's good in the world leaving some young Peter Pan-esque dude to set-off on a quest to sort it all out. Hm, girls back then weren't given the best parts, were they? But yeah, because she touches one of only two sacred unicorns in the universe, this alerts what is essentially the Devil (aka Darkness) and his goblin minions and they're soon on the way to destroy them and their pure, good-hearted human fans. She also throws some ring out into a river and Baby Cruise, because he's so damn in love (read: NUTS), jumps off a cliff to try and retrieve it. When he finally comes out of the water to fi

JOHN CARTER - REVIEW

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Cowboys & Aliens may still be fresh in our minds but that doesn't mean we should NOT have another movie with cowboys and aliens, right? ...right? Come on, you know those two things kick ass and you know you want it... again. That's how John Carter begins: like a moody old western complete with saloons, the cavalry, feather-wearing native Americans and Sergio Leone-style swagger. "Beans: beans is the first item..." "My name is Carter. John Carter." Cut to: MAGIC! Shazam! WHOOSH! Mars. Fair enough. I mean there's no need for Disney to screw around with horses and sarsaparilla and shit when you can just beam to Mars! So anyway, Mars looks great. It's like CGI heaven but the effects are actually awesome. Like Avatar awesome. You've got these kinda gross-looking green guys with four arms, their even grosser-looking babies, some bulldog-type fast-as-shit mutt and loads more goodies. The Mars humans, on the other hand, are

DUNE - REVIEW

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Adapting Frank Herbert's epic sci-fi novel Dune was never going to be easy. So what better choice to direct the epic undertaking but David Lynch, a filmmaker known at the time for directing a weird-ass little movie about a screaming human baby tadpole and something about a guy with elephant-like facial features... Surely THE man for the job. Now I'm not saying that picking Lynch to direct was a mistake, after all, who knew that Tim ' Pee-Wee's Big Adventure ' Burton could pull off Batman ? But if what the studios wanted was some kind of really commercial trilogy or a fast-paced, Star Wars -style action flick then they couldn't have made a weirder choice. But I, for one, am happy they made it. I freakin' love Dune! Now I know it's hardly regarded as Lynch's best work and it's never really listed along with the best novel-to-movie adaptations ever but... it's Dune! By David Lynch! Tell me how that's not all kinds of awesome. Oh