Day Of The Samurai 4: 13 Assassins - 2011

13 Assassins is the greatest Samurai film to have been released recently. Not only is it a brilliant hearkening back to the glory days of the genre, but it is also one of the very best films to have been released this year.

13 Assassins was not a financial success in the West, but it's reception from film buffs and critics alike was almost unanimously positive. It literally came out of nowhere and took the various film festivals by storm, I did not know what to expect when I first saw it, as Miike is well known for his unpredictable nature. But fortunately it was a very straightforward hearkening back to the Golden Age of Samurai films, as a fan of the genre, I loved it.

Return To Blogging.

I've been meaning to post this for ages and it's just been getting longer and longer. So don't bother reading this if your not interested, I'm mainly doing it so as to keep track of all the films I watched anyway...


X Men First Class - 2011 directed by Matthew Vaughn
4/10
Of course due to my dislike for superhero films in general, I was not expecting to love this film. But the all around high praise it received did lead me to expect a certain level of quality. Unfortunately I found the film to be most disappointing.
Matthew Vaughn is a talented director, and all the cast have done some great work previously, but for me this film just failed completely. The praise it receives completely mystifies me.

Blockbuster Review: Conan The Barbarian 2011

After the pleasant surprise of the last Hollywood blockbuster I watched and review, Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, we return to yet another wholly unnecessary, entirely awful re-imagining of an 80's classic.

Conan the Barbarian was directed by Marcus Nispel, who is mainly known for a couple of reimaginings of classic horror films and the very poorly received Pathfinder. And was written by an assortments of writers, all of which have pretty terrible scripts to their names.
It stars Jason Momoa as the titular character, as well as Rose McGowan, Ron Perlman and Stephen Lang.

The original Conan The Barbarian was by no means a great film, and certainly wasn't a particularly successful one as it failed in it's aim to launch the heroic fantasy genre into mainstream cinema and only succeeded in propelling Arnold Shwarzenegger into a career full of terrible action films.

But at least that film had aims to speak of, and fulfilled a purpose of sorts (whether it was a good purpose is a matter of opinion of course), but this remake is nothing more than an enormous waste of money in the worst possible kind of way.