Pasha's Film Reviews Etc.

* * * * Seemingly unrelated people wake up on a plane. Very soon they discover that US is under attack. When a dead body is discovered paranoia kicks in. Could these random people work together to survive? And why were they taken on the first place? The market these days is flooded with low budget horror movies and most of them have nothing on offer but cheap thrills and weak CGI. CHARIOT is not one of those films.   It is focused, compact and cleverly written. You can start watching it out of curiosity and will stay with it until the credits’ roll. It has some descent acting and characters you genuinely care about. On the negative side - it is hard to finish the movie like this. The writers put themselves into a corner because every possible ending would ruin the story told so far. So they have chosen the only option available. It is frustrating in a way, but a satisfying one all the same. It is interesting to see how little money may be r

* * * In future the world’s crime is being fought not by man but robots. Only USA, the world’s greatest supplier of police robots, remains “robophobic”.   OMNI CORP, the supplier of robot technology for the world, will do anything to win the American market. Even if this requires to make their robots more human… When cop named Murphy is critically injured OMNICORP brings him back to life, turning him into the weapon of propaganda to change the law and allow robots to patrol American streets. But Murphy still loves his wife and son. With every fibre of his remaining soul he will be clutching to the slipping away pieces of his humanity. It’s a recent fashion in Hollywood to entrust the remakes of great old action films to art house directors who can give a new flavour to the old story. Brazilian director Jose Padilha, whose most successful film Elite Squad: The Enemy Within (have been nominated to Oscars but did not quite made it) examines the influence of media, polic

* * In future the earth had been almost destroyed by the alien attack. The government is harvesting “gifted children” who has the ability to “understand” the enemy. As Alien forces prepare for the deadly strike, the first after fifty years, a boy named Ender fights his way through the hierarchy of cadets to become the commander in chief. But in the world where everyone is for themselves, what is game and what is real? In our age where starving artists are trying to sell to Hollywood the original ideas and being rejected because these ideas are “unsellable” how does a major studio invest into a film with the potentially “unsellable” script? This is what we a dealing here with… a lot of training. A lot of game playing. Then more of game playing. Nothing is really at stake until some nonsensical revelations in the end (at least they seem nonsensical in the film) and a “weird” ending that belongs in the low calibre art-house cinema. Asa Butterfield plays a very unlik

* * * * When her friend disappears after injecting himself with a strange substance which anonymously arrived in the post, a young journalist is on a journey to solve the mystery.   Strange voices on the radio, grotesque shapes lurking in the night and the aftermaths of secret government experiments are all connected and leading her towards some terrible truth. BANSHEE CHAPTER is the proof that a good horror movie can be made on a shoestring budget if it is well written, directed and inspired.   It’s plot is simple, its heroine believable and atmosphere is creepy. Add to the mix a bat-shit crazy revolutionist writer as a sidekick and a few nods to the classic Lovecraft horror stories and you get a pretty solid flick.  The main best quality of any horror film remains the ability to scare you, to make you cringe in your seat. The first time director Blair Erickson definitely knows his business. Can't wait to see what he does next!