Jon_Pratt Reviews

The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)

Outstanding

[9/10 · 15 August 2007]

I have been disappointed with so many films in the last 2- 3 years it is great to watch a film that surpasses expectations, and with Bourne my expectations were already high.

Outstanding in every way: fight sequences, suspense, chases, characters. Yes even cinematography.

Cheesy dialogue is kept to a minimum or even non-existent. Action is gritty and unapologetic. Sentimentality is ignored and characters are developed only as much as they need to be.

All this coupled with spot on pacing makes this one of the best action films ever made. My new favourite trilogy.

Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000)

Needless

[2/10 · 23 June 2004]

I would advise anybody who liked the first film to avoid seeing this.

It was clear that the original creators had very little to do with this film, as we see a fantastic concept turned into a generic teen horror. The plot was utterly uninteresting and served only to move the characters into needless situations.

Obviously the producers seemed to like some of the ideas used in the first film - like the interview footage - but its use seemed totally inappropriate.

This exact group dynamic has been over used in recent horror films, but it was totally unnecessary in a film which already had such a fantastic story to work with (from the 1st film). The actors were totally unbelievable in their roles, at almost no point during the film did I view them as their characters - all I could see were obviously cast actors - was I supposed to believe that I was watching a totally free spirited young woman who is one with nature and somehow had time to completely master the wiccan art, when it's obvious she has been in make-up for three hours before the scene.

The addition of numerous drug/alcohol consumption scenes was a very cheap attempt to gain the film credibility with its younger audience.

All in all - the films desire to be a box office success completely undermined the character and raw edge of the first film.

Gothika (2003)

Weak

[2/10 · 21 April 2004]

There is no point me trying to justify this poor film, it is simply terrible.

My biggest gripe with this film is that the director consistently chose to use cheap scare tactics over potential plot development at every opportunity.

There are several points in the film where basic logic was totally overlooked, seemingly for the purpose of getting the lead character into increasingly unbelievable and potentially more frightening positions.

I got the impression that the film makers, while developing the film, had lots of horror movie cliches they wanted to include and many pre-determined scenarios, which they thought might be scary, and a vague plot, but they had no idea how to bring them all together in any convincing way. Opting instead for many cheap scares, in the hope that people will not notice the ridiculous plot holes and general flaws in the film.

Omitting crucial information, from an illogical plot, does not make a film thought provoking or intelligent (as many people have claimed), it just makes it bad.

Planet of the Apes (2001)

this is weak

[1 September 2002]

What the hell ? This is one of the poorest films I have ever seen. At first it seemed quite average, but then, I decided to think about the ending in the context of the rest of the film. It made so little sense that I threw the DVD into space, hoping that it would travel through time a few times, and give me an idea of what happened in the film.

Unfortunately I doubt there is any logical reason as to why the earth became controlled by Apes.I was never quite sure what year he was in, or what planet he was on, so I assumed -at first- that the ending made sense. Of course this later obviously became disproven. All in all there was no need for:

Most of the Apes

Most of the Humans

The ending

24 (2001–2010)

Good show ....but what would happen in series 2 ?

[11 March 2002]

This seems to be a very promising show.

As the series is new in the UK, I've only seen the 1st 2 episodes. Naturally the innovative story-telling format stands out , and for this reason I knew it had potential just from watching the trailers.

However I found the first episode slightly slow and even dull in some places , but in the second episode I realised the importance of the detailed plot build-up, in making the action and drama that much more intense and realistic.

I'm very interested to see if a second series would be made using the same principals as the first.

As the series is based on a one-off event, I'm not sure that the show would have the same effect if a second series was based around an entirely new event taking place over 24 hours.

Or maybe a second series would concentrate on the next day following on from that of the previous series -although that could be less interesting as most of the characters would probably be catching up on sleep.

Either way I am concentrating on the current series, and eagerly anticipate the rest of it.