Predators / directed by Nimrod Antal

I watched this movie on the plane to Nepal and found myself shocked and mortified . . . by the acting. It is safe to say that this is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I'm actually not sure what possessed me to watch it in the first place - I'd had two hours sleep the night before and was looking for a movie that wouldn't make me think too much - it was successful in this respect.

The movie follows a group of complete strangers, most of whom are part of special forces army teams (with the occasional criminal thrown in to add to the party). They are all dropped on a remote, unknown island where they are hunted down by the monsters known as Predators (made famous in the 1987 Schwarzenegger film).

There are many things I couldn't understand about the movie. Why would they all start trying to shoot each other at the beginning instead of working as a team? Why, when they see an enemy would they just shoot wildly at it without taking aim thus wasting all their bullets? How do special forces troops aim that badly?

And that was just the start. Unfortunately I got so bored that I lost concentration halfway through the movie and had no idea what was going on. So I really don't know why a couple of the characters did some rather uncharacteristic things and I'll never really understand why one character somehow found a Samurai sword, removed his shirt and tried to take on one of the Predators. If anyone can answer these questions, it would really save me the pain of watching the movie again.

I really think they could have done more with this movie. The action was ridiculous, the storyline barely made sense and the acting was atrocious. Not recommended.

Predators / directed by Nimrod Antal

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

The other day I went to see this movie and I thought I would share my thoughts on it with you. Firstly, before seeing it you should ask yourself- “have I read this book or the previous book?” or “have I seen the previous movie?”. Because if you don’t know what happened before this movie starts you won’t be able to follow any of it. As it was, it had been a while since this reviewer saw the last film and even longer since he read the book, so some of the action had me struggling to remember what was going on. Anyway, at the beginning of the movie we find that Harry has been tasked with an important mission: he has to find and destroy seven “horcruxes” (parts of a soul) so that he can end the evil wizard Voldemort’s rain of terror once and for all. Two “horcruxes” have already been destroyed and the final horcrux is of course Voldemort himself.

So Harry has his work cut out for him, trying to find the horcruxes and trying to avoid being caught by Voldemorts “death eaters” at the same time.
Voldemort himself also has a problem of sorts. His wand is made from the same materials as Harry’s wand which means he can’t use it to kill Harry.

The movie is quite faithful to the book, however, there were a couple of extra scenes that were added that weren’t necessary in my opinion. For example, take the dance scene between Harry & Hermione. What was the point of it? Isn’t Harry supposed to like Ginny? There is another scene in a forest where Hermione almost gets caught by “snatchers” which also could have been cut in my opinion. As it is, I had the feeling that the movie was too long (it goes for almost 2 ½ hours).

Of course, the problem with adapting 400 pages of a book (I checked the book to see how many pages made it to the movie- which leaves roughly 200 pages for part 2 to cover) is that you can’t cover everything in the movie. However all of the highlights are covered- even though people may be left scratching their heads as to the importance of the “Deathly Hallows” at the end (minor spoiler- people who have seen the other movies may realise that Harry already possesses one of the “Deathly Hallows”).

Don’t get me wrong though, the movie is good and if you’ve read the books it’s great seeing the story come to life. It’s just a pity that we have to wait another seven months to see the ending! If I were forced to give it a rating, I’d give it 3 ½ stars out of five- it just lacks the great ending that the other movies had.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1