So we look to Taylor Lautner to carry this movie. He isn’t too bad a bad actor in The Twilight Saga but unfortunately, he was so awful in Abduction, he looked bored and looked like he’d rather be at home. He constantly wore the same expression throughout the movie whether it was sad, happy or angry (funnily enough, the expression he wore throughout the movie is on the poster above). The writing was pretty much atrocious considering there were so many plot holes, boring dialogue and unexplainable moments and the emotional scenes in the movie were just laughably bad, especially the romance scenes. The only good thing to come out of this mess that is called Abduction is that a couple of the action scenes were entertaining but overall, it was pretty much a yawnfest.

Girls and Twilighters would probably see this for Taylor Lautner and yes girls, he does take his shirt off in the movie, but don’t waste your money and see this in the cinema. It’s not worth your money considering this movie wasn’t really well thought out at all. There were quite a few scenes in which characters would get themselves in a mess and miraculously, they would end up escaping the situation even though it would be impossible unless they had superhuman abilities. Overall, Abduction feels like one of those low-budget movies that are always shown on SyFy. There’s nothing wrong with trashy, entertaining movies sometimes but when they dress it up to pretend it’s something it’s not, that’s when the problems begin. This is a movie that’s best to catch on television!

3/10

Now that the bad and the ugly are out of the way, surely there must be some good to come out of this movie, right? Well, yeah, there’s no denying that Paranormal Activity 3 did have the creep factor, even if it was introduced way too late and sure, it made you jump a couple of times but it’s just not enough to spend your good, hard-earned money on. The acting was pretty realistic and the child actors were good playing their parts. The characters aren’t exactly the best characters around but they’re realistic enough. Unfortunately, the movie didn’t suck you in but it did entertain for all of the wrong reasons considering it was more funny than scary. The audience I saw it with felt the same way I did as they laughed too. Overall, Paranormal Activity 3 isn’t the weakest in the franchise, which goes to the second movie, but it is certainly pretty boring.

By rights, Paranormal Activity 3 shouldn’t really exist. It’s just totally sucked the mystery out of the whole spirit thing and the explanation as to how and why Toby haunts Katie is pretty weak. It had potential at the start when we saw the family take the photo that we see in the first two movies but the questions that were raised when watching the first two movies were not answered in this one. I’d have rather lived in bliss and thought of my own conclusion rather than have seen this movie because this prequel has spoiled the story a little bit. Although there are some good points about the movie, it’s still mundane and there’s just little to no surprise in it. If, like me, you saw the second trailer where she throws water over the ghost and you see the mom get pushed backwards, don’t expect them to be shown in this movie because 75% of that trailer was nowhere to be seen in this movie. All I know is that if there is plans for a Paranormal Activity 4, said plans should be shot down and should be set on fire. This reviewer will not be paying to see the fourth one any time soon.

3/10

Director:

Have you ever seen a trailer and instantly knew about the movie in seconds and what it would be like? Well, Shark Night is one of those movies and it’s not looking good. If you were thinking that it’d be a dark horror comedy with a B-movie feel to it like Snakes on a Plane, you’d be wrong. If you were thinking that it could be like the surprisingly entertaining Pirahna, you’d be wrong. If you were thinking that it would be crap, bingo, we have a winner. Shark Night is utter trash and not in the “I expect it to be utter trash anyway but it’s just a bit of fun” way but in a “Wow, this bores me to tears” way. The first twenty minutes wasn’t too bad but then it started going downhill to the point where you were almost convinced it was made for people who have trouble sleeping. The acting was just poor. At first, you think that it’s supposed to be bad because it’s supposed to have that low-budget B movie feel to it but the movie really took itself seriously and so did the actors. The characters were very stereotypical and one dimensional to the point where you rolled your eyes and wished the movie never existed.

Shark Night felt like nothing more than a cheap excuse to make a 3D movie and it’s quite a travesty how there wasn’t really much thought put into this movie. It just felt lazy and wasn’t fun at all, just dumb. Considering this is from the very same person who directed Snakes on a Plane, you would have thought that it would have been, at least, a little fun. Instead, what we get is a shallow, soulless, heartless movie that manages to only grab one emotion from the audience: Surprise and that’s because it’s a massive surprise how this qualifies for a movie and how this is even released in the cinema. It strongly reminds you of those movies you get from Poundland or one of those low-budget movies that you see aired on SyFy only it’s just not fun at all. Overall, if you’re a horror fan, you’ll be disappointed. This movie is so many things and none of them are remotely positive.

Terrible from start to finish, Shark Night is emotionless and has virtually no plot or storyline whatsoever and whatever little plot it has is both strange and confusing at the same time. The story is just utterly ridiculous and the characters are just as bad, riddled with plot holes, cliches and stereotypical scenes, Shark Night proves to be even worse than the previously reviewed Final Destination 5. To audiences everywhere, do not pay your hard-earned money to watch this tripe, you’re worth more than to put yourself through this heap of junk.

1/10

Director:

So many movies have been released with unnecessary sequels, most of which are horror movies. Just look at Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween and Hellraiser. Although some people may class SAW as having unnecessary sequels, at least those movies did add something to the main storyline with each sequel. Unfortunately, with Final Destination 5, you know that that is not going to be the case considering none of the Final Destination movies actually add anything to the series as the movies are exactly the same as each other to the last detail. The only thing that is different are the different characters but everything else is the same. Although with seeing Final Destination 5, you know that you’re not going for it’s frightening storyline or it’s compelling characters but you are going to see them get killed in very gruesome ways. The story is absolutely tired, tedious and very repetitive and, as I stated earlier, adds absolutely nothing to the story. If you’re watching this for the story, watch any one of the sequels before this one considering they’re all the same. It’s unfair to call this a sequel considering they’re all the same but it would be more fair to call it a remake and they really should leave this series alone considering it’s had so many of them.

With Final Destination 5, the characters are very stereotypical and one-dimensional but nobody really cares about that anyway since they only care about the deaths that are coming their way. It’s very hard to even care about the characters considering they have no likeability whatsoever. The thing that the other Final Destinations has that this doesn’t is fun. All of the other Final Destination remakes-I mean-sequels had a bit of fun but this was just boring and predictable. Overall, the script and the story felt way too rushed and bowed out in favour for the blood, guts and gore but then again, isn’t that what this series has turned to now since there’s nothing new to add?

I know what you’re all probably thinking when you’re reading this: “If he knew what the Final Destination movies were like, why did he watch them?” and my answer to that question is because normally with the Final Destination movies, even if everything in the movie sucked, it was still fun to watch. Sort of like a really bad B movie that you know is terrible but you have fun watching it for it’s cheesiness. However, with Final Destination 5, it wasn’t even entertaining. It’s too much of a repeat of the others and, to be honest, should never have even been released. I also find it quite scary how this is rated a 15 considering the violence in the movie is that on a level of the SAW movies. I warn everybody everywhere to not pay your hard-earned money to watch this in the cinema and to wait until this is aired on television because the 3D isn’t even that spectacular and the movie itself is just poor, a total waste of money!

2/10

Director:

For The Inbetweeners Movie to work, it had to be everything the show was and a whole lot more. It had to be twice as rude, twice as dirty, twice as embarrassing and twice as funny and the most important thing that was needed for this movie to work is that it had to keep the charm of the show. Well, fans of The Inbetweeners will be pleased to hear that the writers have succeeded in making this just as good as the show, if not, better. After Simon is dumped by Carli, Jay, Will and Neil decide to cheer him up by going on a lads’ holiday to Malia where they get drunk, get into trouble and fall in love with hilarious results. The brilliant thing about The Inbetweeners Movie is that it doesn’t feel like a movie but more like a feature-length episode. Jay, Neil, Simon and Will are exactly the same in the movie as they are in the television series but a lot more gross, a lot more funnier and a lot more embarrassing. All of them manage to play their own role in the movie as pairs; Neil and Jay provide the laughs and Simon and Will provide the embarrassing scenes that make the audience cringe in their seats and it works brilliantly.

With The Inbetweeners Movie, the acting was on par with the show and in the show, the acting was great. Not a lot of changes were made with The Inbetweeners Movie from the show which is what made this movie work like a charm. The movie unexpectedly has a lot of character development and some nice messages in which we see Neil, Jay, Simon and Will learn throughout the movie. The writers, Damon Beesley and Iain Morris, the writers of The Inbetweeners Movie and the show do a fantastic job in keeping the charm of the show in the movie as well as making it everything the show is and more. Overall, fans of The Inbetweeners will adore the movie and will find it hilarious and those who like teen comedies will love to see this too. If you want to go on a lad’s holiday on a budget, just watch The Inbetweeners Movie.

At first, I must admit that I was a little worried because of the movie recieving a certificate 15. No, not because of my age, I’m older than 18 but because the show is rated an 18 and yet the movie was rated a 15, making me worry that the writers of the show toned the movie down from it’s usual rudeness and endless sex jokes. However, it was, in fact, even more dirtier and funnier than the show. People seem to compare this to Kevin and Perry Go Large, probably because it’s a British teen comedy which sees teenagers going abroad for sun, sea, sex and booze, but Kevin and Perry Go Large this isn’t, The Inbetweeners Movie is much better. Okay, maybe it has been done before a few times but, believe it or not, among the gross-out humour, the awkward scenes and the vagina-filled jokes from Jay, this movie did have some heart and it’s that mixture of heart and comedy in the movie that makes this one of the best movies of the Summer and one not to miss.

9/10

Director:

Joining the line along with Yogi Bear, Scooby Doo and Transformers as cartoons that have been turned into CGI movies is The Smurfs and quite surprisingly, it’s actually not a bad movie at all. The story isn’t the best of stories and is quite simple but let us not forget that this is a movie that is for children and would be a little bit like making a full-length review about Elmo in Grouchland. Although the story is quite simple and has been done a million times before, it was still pretty entertaining and children will love it, although adults may find it a little dull sometimes. Character-wise, the writer and the creator of the movie didn’t try to change the smurfs to make them cooler or even appeal to this generation and stuck to how they were originally designed and intended in the cartoons, which is a good thing.

The Smurfs themselves were surprisingly loveable and funny in a couple of situations but the funniest character out of the movie was Gargamel’s sidekick CGI cat, Azizel, who provided the audience with the most laughs, which didn’t exactly happen very often in the movie. The only bad thing about the characters in The Smurfs is how weirdly out of place Gargamel looked throughout the movie. He stuck out like a sore thumb! Of course, The Smurfs falls into that stereotypical place of ‘be yourself’ and ‘be kind to each other’ but this is a children’s movie so it’s nothing new. Although I have to admit, the best thing about The Smurfs is the fact that it’s better than expected and didn’t exactly try to be anything it wasn’t. It’s target audience is children aged 3-10 and it succeeded. Overall, if you are a parent, your children would love to see this movie as it would entertain them.

For me, watching The Smurfs was pretty cool because when I was a child, I used to watch the television show in the mornings before going to school. After seeing endless advertisements for the movie, I was a bit dubious as to how the movie would turn out and I was half-expecting it to be as torturous as sitting through one of those awful Seltzer and Friedburg parodies but to my surprise, it actually wasn’t bad. Okay, it’s not exactly the greatest children’s movie and there is better but considering the competition this faces a la Disney and Pixar, it’s good.

6/10

Director:

It all ends here. After a very suitable and coincidental 9 and 3-quarter years, the journey of Harry Potter has finally come to an end. The story for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is fantastic and the decision to split Deathly Hallows in half was the correct decision as both parts stay very faithful to the book, not changing or leaving a lot missed out. Not only is the story loyal to the books but it’s also gripping as well as there are quite a few scenes that will have you on the edge of your seats, especially some scenes involving Severus Snape, portrayed by Alan Rickman. The performances from the cast are fantastic and it’s very easy to say that in this movie, the acting is the best out of the lot. Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint were brilliant as their characters but the best performance has definitely got to go to Alan Rickman, who plays Severus Snape. There’s a specific scene in the movie which involves him that is guaranteed that there won’t be a dry eye in the house. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 weren’t short on special effects and believe it when you hear that the effects were very impressive from Hogwarts Castle to the creatures to the spectacular fights.

Although Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 wasn’t shot in 3D, the 3D worked very well and wasn’t underused or overused. The 3D was used in such a way that it wasn’t gimmicky where many things jumped out of the screen at you to make you remember you’re watching it in 3D but it was great to see scenes such as the Gringotts Bank scene and The Battle of Hogwarts. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 has some fantastic moments and the special effects were used brilliantly. The story has some solid moments and even some emotional scenes, which may bring a tear to your eye. The direction was fantastic as all of the scenes in the movie were very well done and you really cared about all of the characters in the movie. Overall, if you can, watch this in 3D. Many people will disagree with this and will say that it doesn’t add anything but The Battle of Hogwarts is very well done and considering Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is post-production 3D, it’s great.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 brings the series to a fantastic end and not only that, this movie is the best out of all of them. It’s more magical, more dark and very gripping and emotional. However, be warned, this isn’t a movie to take anyone below the age of ten to see. It’s sad to see the series go after almost ten years but it’s ends on a brilliant high. Well done to all of the cast and crew, you’ve done a marvellous job on making fans happy and bringing the boy wizard to life on screen.

9/10

Director:

Man is reviewing Anuvahood, blud, ya get me fam and trust me, it’s not good ting! (Sorry for that, that just didn’t work). So after watching Anuvahood, the first thing that runs through your mind is what you just watched because, even though it’s supposed to be a comedy, the amount of laughs it manages to get were probably two at least which, for a comedy, is not a good sign. This is Adam Deacon’s very first movie in which he writes, directs and stars in the movie and it’s something expected and way too predictable. Granted that he knows his way around urban street ‘yoof’ culture movies considering he’s been in movies such as Adulthood and Shank and he tries to create a comedy out of it but unfortunately, Sacha Baron Cohen beat him to the mark ten years ago with Ali G Indahouse. The story for Anuvahood has been done many times before and hardly offers anything new to the audience and the laughs are extremely limited. However, although the story has been done before, it’s quite a mess as one minute, it’s about one thing then the next, it’s about another. Although, in the end (the last sixty seconds of the movie), we see the message it tried to deliver clearly but through the mess of the story and the horrible characters and the unfunny scenes, it wasn’t clear. The characters were, as said above, quite horrible as there’s no personality or charm to any of them and they were all extremely shallow and very hard to like. 

The acting isn’t good at all, it’s just dire. We’ve seen him do some good performances in movies and television shows such as Kidulthood, Adulthood and Dead Set but all he ever did in this movie was shout, shout, shout and the rest of the cast did exactly the same thing. The script is a laugh but unfortunately not in the sense that Deacon intended. While it is true that this is an urban-street comedy, it will be difficult for some to understand a word that was being said. Not only that but a few of the characters talk way too fast in street slang and you wouldn’t have a clue what was being said even if you pressed the rewind button on your DVD remote and played the scene again.

All in all, the movie absolutely sucks. The trailer is a little misleading since that did actually have a couple of laughs but unfortunately, the movie is nothing like that. The trailer actually did a better job in being a comedy than the movie did! If you wanted to see the scenes that were funny in the movie, just watch the trailer considering all of the best bits are in there. If you like one-dimensional, stereotypical characters shouting at each other in street slang for 90 minutes, chances are that you’ll like this. If you do not, this isn’t the movie for you!

2/10

Director:

Mutant and proud! The X-Men live-action movies have been a huge success as comic books, as animations and as a movie series. Now, we see how the X-Men began in the prequel to the movie series, X-Men: First Class. The story is written very well as we see the characters seek acceptance from a world they think would banish them out of fear as well as the mutants coming to terms with their powers and learning how to control them. The movie is more dialogue and story and about the characters more than it is about action. The characters are fantastic as we see multiple sides to their personality from the feeling of loneliness and self-hatred to the feeling of love and acceptance of themselves and of others, which you’ll see a lot of in Beast and Mystique. When you see the action sequences in X-Men: First Class, they are brilliant as the special effects are magnificent and the action choreography is done very well.

The acting is superb from each character but mostly noticeable in James McAvoy, who plays Charles Xavier, Michael Fassbender, who plays Eric Lehnsherr, Jennifer Lawrence, who plays the lovely Mystique and Nicholas Hoult, who plays as Beast. X-Men: First Class is a fantastic superhero prequel that manages to fit in the timeline of the other X-Men movies and it manages to tell it’s story well and make it relatable to real life as well as make you care very much about the characters. Overall, this movie is actually first class and is the best I movie out of the entire series.

This might be one of the best superhero movies to have ever been made since The Dark Knight. X-Men: First Class caters for everybody and also has the kind of story that is emotionally relatable to real life. Everything, from the script to the characters, is written very well with love and care and it shows through this movie. James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hoult as well as the rest of the cast do a fantastic job in playing their characters and bringing them to life. X-Men fans will love this addition to the series and for those who want to get into X-Men and haven’t seen any of the movies can watch this first as this is a prequel to the movie series.

8/10

Director:

Wes Craven has written and directed some memorable horror movies in his time that include the infamous Scream and A Nightmare on Elm Street series as well as The Hills Have Eyes and The Last House on the Left so what is there to be said about My Soul To Take? Wes Craven has penned and directed this movie and it’s quite possibly the laziest horror movie of the year. The reason why this is is because Craven takes his own ideas from Scream and A Nightmare on Elm Street, mixes them and puts them into My Soul To Take with a change of story and characters. There were so many elements taken from both of them, it was difficult to keep up with them. The idea of the souls of the victims residing in one person was done in several A Nightmare on Elm Street movies but mostly in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: Dream Master and the idea of some knife-wielding crazy person killing a bunch of friends one-by-one and trying to justify it with some crazy motive reminds you so much of Scream. Not only that but there are a few scenes that very strongly reminded you of some of the scenes in A Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream such as the dialogue or the places or even the characters. The story at the start was a little interesting as it started out like an urban legend of some kind but as soon as the story skipped sixteen years later, it went downhill from there and fast! The story started to become bland, repetitive, pointless and quite boring and once you get to the big reveal, you’ll laugh as it’s not believable in the slightest.

The story to My Soul To Take might have been bad but the characters were even worse as they ironically fit the movie title perfectly. Devoid of life or even a soul to take in the first place, the characters walk around with no personality whatsoever as all of them, yes all of them, fit into a stereotypical category. We have the strange, emo teenager as the main character, his sister who’s queen bitch and her two cronies who follow her about, a geeky best friend, a sex-mad jock who is also a bully and a very religious teenager who does nothing but preach and pray. Okay, maybe the last one isn’t commonly seen in movies but all of them have no personality or any good qualities about them and nobody cared what happened to them. What’s worse is that the movie has a killer that just runs around killing people for no good reason. Unbelievably, Wes Craven writes and directs this and it’s not his usual standard of work like Scream or A Nightmare On Elm Street as the script was messy, the characters were lifeless and the story made no sense. The movie had a good idea but unfortunately it was very poorly executed.

My Soul To Take is possibly the worst horror movie of the year and definitely amongst the worst of Craven’s work. From start to finish, there were a lot of plot holes and there was no character development to be seen anywhere, none of them were likeable. The story held some sort of promise in the first five to ten minutes but soon after, it started to become a joke, the dialogue was just bad and the timing was way off making the movie more boring, making you not care about anything to do with the movie towards the end. Overall, My Soul To Take isn’t scary and isn’t thrilling but it is unintentionally funny in some places. I imagine that if I paid to see this in 3D, I would be disappointed. Wes Craven does have some good points in his career but this movie isn’t one of them. While it might have been fun for the cast and crew to make My Soul To Take, it wasn’t fun to watch.

2/10