Burnham-On-Sea film enthusiast Molly Harding, who was last year nominated for the national award ‘Young Film Critic of the Year’, reviews the latest crop of films showing at Burnham’s Ritz Cinema in Victoria Street this week…
Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides 3D (12A)
Cap’n Jack’s back; this time reunited with old flame Angelica (Penelope Cruz) and en route to finding the ‘Fountain of Youth’ whilst trying to reclaim his beloved Black Pearl.
Pirates of the Caribbean fans have had to wait four years for this fourth instalment of swashbuckling mythical madness and hopefully won’t be disappointed by this one even if it isn’t quite as good as the rest. Fans should just see this one as a bit of fun and look forward to the probable fifth film which has plot lines left wide open to be harnessed and fulfilled.
Jack still has all his unstable swagger but because of the gap between these movies I wasn’t sure where I stood with this but you just have to go with the current instead of being swept away with some of the confusing plot. I’ll tell you this though, if they cut out all the zooming ship and landscape shots and filled it with more content from the new roles this could’ve been a heck of a lot better!
The absence of Keira and Orlando is not prominent but to fill their boots mermaid Serena and missionary Philip Swift needed more screen time to focus on their relationship which isn’t looked into enough but the pirate action will have you coming back for more.
Not particularly memorable – 3/5
Attack the Block (15)
When a swarm of revenge hungry aliens attack a London council estate a gang
of disorderly slag-spewing youths must fight to survive and save the block in
Joe Cornish’ debut blend of comedy and horror.
“Attack the Block” takes a cast of previously unheard of young actors and rests
the film on their hoodie clad shoulders and by golly do they succeed! All their
performances are strong and charismatic and come out with some of the best
script I’ve heard in ages which completely reflects the year that the director
spent researching youth dialect etcetera which makes the teens seem authentic and highly amusing.
The opening sequence involves the gang mugging trainee nurse Sam (Jodie
Whittaker) which is abruptly interrupted by a fiery object crashing close-to.
We soon discover the extra terrestrial glitch of their kill and all hell breaks
loose! The film confidently balances on the tightrope between falling into a
straight horror movie and loosing it’s effect through too much humour. One
moment I was laughing, the next literally jumping out of my seat but
maintaining a grimace throughout the whole running time.
This, in my opinion, is the best genre mish-mash since “Shaun of the Dead” and
is infact from the same producers. It’s brilliant on the big screen and
managers scares using only shocks from figures of black fur with glowing neon
teeth. The thumping part Basement Jaxx soundtrack reflects the adrenaline rush
the film brings and just re-iterates the reasons I wont even compromise my view
on this films sheer awesomeness!
Proper good, trust – 4.5/5
Read more of Molly’s regular film reviews on Burnham-On-Sea.com
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