Duel Review

Release Date: 1971

Age Certificate: PG

Running Time: 90 mins

Director: Steven Spielberg 

Writers: Richard Matheson

Stars: Dennis Weaver, Jacqueline Scott and Eddie Fireston

Duel is Steven Spielberg’s first feature film, it’s a about a business commuter making his way to his next appointment. On what should have been easy journey, he passes a forty ton truck. The driver for some reason takes an instant dislike to him. This is when things start to get a bit rough, David Mann (Dennis Weaver) has to push his foot to the ground to try and get the truck off his trail and this is where you have your film.

 It’s amazing how Spielberg has created an hour and a half film out of a short film idea, and yet he keeps it tense and exciting throughout the film. He has something about non-human villains in his films i.e Jaws. But yet they are even more menacing than humans.

We never actually find out why the driver wants to kill David, it just adds to the tension and randomness of what he has planned. All we actually see of the truck driver is his arm. This is when he tells David to pass by. We also see his pristine cowboy boots when he walks along side his truck. This also adds to his menace.

Duel is a good film, the chase scenes are perfectly filmed, the screams of the engines and the different camera angles all add to the excitement. All of this equals one of Spielberg’s best films.

7.8/10

Check out the trailer here:

Skyfall Review

Release Date: 26 October 2012

Age Certificate: 12A

Running Time: 143 mins

Director: Sam Mendes

Writers: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan

Stars: Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem and Judi Dench

Bond is back with a bang. Skyfall needed to wash the minds of the public from the abomination, Quantum of Solace. Skyfall stood taller than my expectations; I was so delighted to sit through the 2hours and 23 minutes of nonstop Bond action.

With Skyfall comes, cars, violence, girls and above all a great villain. Javier Bardem gets the honour of playing a Bond baddy, and well, he certainly performs. He is memorable from start to finish, unlike his predecessors, from Quantum of Solace and Casino Royale. The audience actually feels that Bond is tested with Javier, Bond is off form and definitely not at his peak due to what happens to him at the start of the film.

As for the acting, both of them where astounding and as always Judi Dench is amazing. The acting is just one thing that fits this action packed thriller together. The action scenes are tense, the script is good and finally the directing is astounding. Sam Mendes can direct a film, that’s for sure. Every shot is like a painting, they are beautiful.

Javier Bardems villain, Silva, is connected to M, I’m not going to say why, but this tests Bond’s loyalty to her. This finally adds heart filled emotion into a Bond film, which is a pleasant change. Another surprise is that it actually has a story to it; most times you sit down to watch a Bond film it’s just a bit of fun, whereas Skyfall, is a proper feature film.

Skyfall is astounding from start to finish; this is the best Bond film. It was certainly worth fifty years of waiting.

8.75/10

'Let the sky fall':

Looper Review

Release Date: 28 September 2012

Age Certificate: 15

Running Time: 119 mins

Director: Rian Johnson 

Writers: Rian Johnson

Stars: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis and Emily Blunt

In the year 2074, some sort of tracking technology has made it virtually impossible to dispose of bodies secretly, so they send the target thirty years into the past. This is where a hired assassin awaits, these people are called Loopers. But the last thing a Looper wants is for the gangsters to close the loop. This means they have to transport the Loopers future self back into the past where they have to kill them like any other target.

The film is a unique twist on a usual time travel film, I like that. It’s only once in a blue moon that an odd film is great. But unfortunately, the film did not seem to click together, something wasn't there, something I can’t really place my finger on.

But first, let us start with the positives then I will point out the things I did not enjoy. When Joseph Gordon-Levitt first popped up onto the screen, he seemed like a man with a tad too much make up on his face. I had to get used to this. He is one of my favorite actors, and he did not disappoint, his performance was the best in the film. Joseph’s life still holds much more. The defining moment in this film was when two versions of the same man discuss time paradoxes over a dinner table. The film is just full of acting masterpieces; this was the best attribute about the film.

A disappointing thing about the making of Looper is that it had a tiny budget of what it was trying to achieve ($30,000,000), when you look on the scale of high end sci-fi, Inception had a budget of $160,000,000; Looper is blown out of the water, it’s minuscule  You could see they had to make cut backs because one minute he was driving an old Mazda, the next he was on a futuristic hover bike.

Another downside of the film is that if the gangsters from 2074 can send the target anywhere in the world, why would they send them to a Looper. Why not just cut out the middle man; zap them in a volcano or in the middle of the sea. These little floors just annoy me in a film, I want to go home and not think ‘hang on...’

Looper is far from perfect; the main thing holding it up is were its acting performances and directing. It had good intentions but fell flat. It was my most highly anticipated film of the year, for it to slap me in the face was very disappointing. 

7.5/10

Play this on loop: