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Seriously, no other reviews of this?

As far back as I can remember, Hollywood has long shunned the traditional Gregorian calendar, and used their own way of recording time based on the type of films they make. They seem to have based it on the Chinese calendar. We've had the year of the alien invasion, the year of the asteroid/comet, the year of Mars, the year of the magician and the year of CGI animation. We even had (a long time ago), the year of Robin Hood, if you recall. And now we have 2006/2007: otherwise known as the year of the mullet.

For yet again in an action film, the lead, in this case Nicholas Cage, joins a band of other well known actors including Colin Farrell and Tom Hanks to sport what must be the worst haircut since Og the caveman decided to rub his hair in some dinosaur dung because he'd decided that flies were cool. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you; the mullet. The one thing from the eighties that should have stayed there.

Basic plot (trailer): Nic Cage plays a man who can see two minutes into his own future. But observing the future changes it, because you know what's going to happen and can avoid it. So basically, he can see ALL his possible futures, and make the right choices to get to the desired outcome.

As a plot device, it works remarkably well. It shouldn't work, but it does. The film uses this to create some genius heist components, some brilliant future-foo fighting and a really impressive way to search a large area in a short time. All using the same plot device, and without it becoming samey.

Special effects are very impressive, ranging from very subtle to fairly obvious. A couple of scenes that are clearly CGI, such as the steam locomotive (not least because you can't help thinking out loud that there's no way in hell that the stunt director would let anyone do that stunt for real). But all in all, very well done.

The bad guys are rather poorly scripted, no explanation for motivation, and they seem to be French just to be different. However, this is more than made up by the final showdown sequence, which is spectacular. It's basically an evil overlord's worst nightmare.

It's out on DVD now, and its well worth a look.

Score: I'm giving this a B+ because I really enjoyed it. Inspite of the mullet.

OQ: That wasn't it.

Shoot 'Em Up

Oh dear. Symon comments that there all we review nowadays is films about guns and explosions, and here I am about to review a film that's nothing but guns and explosions.

There are many films that require the viewer to just put their brain in neutral and just enjoy the ride. Bad Boys 2, Hot Fuzz and pretty much anything starring Tom Cruise these days to name but a few (or in Cruise's case; too many). However you need a completely new mental gear in order to watch Shoot 'Em Up. It's rather akin to ripping out your gearbox and slashing the brake lines. OK, that's enough car metaphors from me.

It's a very odd film, in that it seems to have skipped the usual process of script writing of writing a plot and then fitting action pieces into the story, passed by the process of "action film making" of having a series of stunts and gun fights and fitting an off the shelf plot in between, and gone straight for option C; forgoing any plot whatsoever.

This might sound like I'm criticising it. But in fact, I really enjoyed it. It was a total hoot! There's never a dull moment, and a lot of the scenes, particularly the gun fights, are just hilarious. Clive Owen plays a character unlike any you've seen him play before. Monica Bellucci is hotter than ever, and Paul Giamatti is just hilarious as the villain.

There's no flat gags, or bad jokes or missed opportunities here, it's just gun fight, explosion, one-liner, bit of a laugh, and back to gun fight. And it really does work!

Now I did say there were spoilers, but really, I can't spoil the plot for you; because there isn't one, in the same sense as there's no plot in 300, in that yes of course there's a plot, but who cares; we just want to see some carnage. I didn't like 300 because there's no sets, whereas Shoot 'Em Up has the virtue of having real sets, which always scores highly with me.

Someone said this film was bubblegum for the brain, which I can't really argue with. It's got Monica Bellucci in it, and I'll watch anything with her in it.

OQ: 'Eat your vegetables...'

Score: This is impossible to score on the Saxon Film Scale. I enjoyed it and I'd watch it again, and I'll buy it on DVD.

In fact, I'll have to score it by comparing it to other films:

Grossness factor: 6/10 on the Reservoir Dogs scale
Bullet fest: 8/10 on the John Woo scale
Swearing: 7/10 on the Tarentino scale
Comedy: 9/10 on the Bad Boys 2 scale
Monica Bellucci: 10/10 on any scale