The Abyss review

 Number 709 on the top 1000 films of all time is James Cameron's science-fiction drama 'The Abyss.'

Virgil "Bud" Brigman (Ed Harris) is the foreman of the Deepcore oil rig. Joined by his estranged wife Dr. Lindsay Brigman (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio,) they and their crew are tasked with the task of salvaging a US navy submarine that inexplicably lost power and sank to the bottom of the ocean. There they find a group of alien creatures.

Intense, claustrophobic and unrelenting, the Abyss was as difficult to watch as it was to make. Shot on a gruelling schedule in awful conditions with an authoritarian dictator in James Cameron, it is no surprise that Ed Harris almost drowned and later had a nervous breakdown. On another occasion, having been pushed too far by Cameron, Mastrantonio) stormed off set. Both actors have since distanced themselves from the film. And few, if any, of the cast and crew have worked with Cameron again.

It is a shame that they were pushed so hard, because they both gave excellent performances. Their chemistry helped give this film some much-needed heart, as we watched the pair re-discover their love for each other. I just don't think they needed Cameron's tyranny to bring out the best in them.

I couldn't help but compare this film to Das Boot. It had that same claustrophobic feel from the tight camera-angles to the cramped set and dim lighting. I couldn't help but feel a little trapped myself. And, as for the scene where the divers are exploring the lost submarine, that is a hard no from me. Sure, it was intense and well-shot, but not something I would ever want to do.

The other comparison would be Cameron's Aliens. Again that is a science-fiction drama taking place in a suffocating setting. But the obvious difference is the actual aliens. In the Abyss, they are friendly, plus they looked visually gorgeous. The visuals were stunning throughout.

I have read so many horror stories about the making of the Abyss, least of all about Cameron's dictatorial direction, that I'm surprised it was made at all. He pushed his actors to their absolute limit, but was that a really necessary thing to do?

The Thin Red Line review

 Number 694 on the top 1000 films of all time is Terrence Malik's 1998 epic-war film 'The Thin Red Line.'

During the World War Two battle of Mount Austen, a group of US Army infantry soldiers are tasked with taking a key position of the Guadalcanal campaign which could be the turning point of the war in the Pacific.

I've watched a lot of war films and I don't think I've seen one as slow, badly-paced and boring as the Thin Red Line. It was a blocked, drawn-out affair with an overly-large cast.

I would say it takes a while to get going, but it never truly does. For the first ten minutes, we are introduced to Private Witt (Jim Cavizel) who is frolicking with the Melanesian locals, but we don't have any reason to care about them at this point. It is only after the ten minute mark do we see any whisper of conflict where Sergeant Welsh (Sean Penn) tells off Witt for going AWOL.

Thirty minutes later, the soldiers go to the war. Seriously. It's a war film and we don't see any war until well over the forty-minute mark. It's a far-cry from the storming of the beaches in Normandy depicted at the start of Saving Private Ryan.

The Thin Red Line also suffered from a severe lack of main characters or any characters to root for. Sean Penn received star-billing as Sergeant Welsh, so you would think he's the protagonist, but the he only appears in a handful of scenes. But Private Witt is the first character we're introduced to, so you might be forgiven for thinking he's the main character, but then he goes AWOL for much of the film.  

Private Fife (Adrian Brody) was originally scripted as a key-player, but much of his dialogue was edited out. He only had two or three lines. And while the cast was dominated by high-profile names like George Clooney, John C. Reilly, John Travolta and Woody Harrelson, their roles were little more than cameos. It was all very distracting and it certainly didn't make me care for their characters, which was problematic when they were in battle. I didn't care if they lived or died. If anything I cared more about the poor Japanese soldiers they were killing.

The two most memorable and best performances came from Nick Nolte as Lt. Colonel Gordon Tall and Elias Koteas as Captain James Staros. Having been passed over for promotion multiple times, Colonel Tall sees one last chance for glory by telling Staros to capture a bunker by full-front al assault. However Staros realises the position is heavily guarded and he refuses to send his men to die, leading to a huge confrontation between him and Tall. Although their conflict only lasts for a few scenes, it was one of the most interesting and dramatic.

Much of the rest was spent hearing random voiceovers of random characters all philosophising about the meaning of war. It all became very pretentious especially since there's no rhyme or reason as to why these characters are giving voiceovers at that particular time.

Terrence Malik was ruthless with his editing, not only vastly reducing Adrian Brody's role, but also cutting out other roles completely - Mickey Rourke was supposed to appear, but only does so in deleted scenes. I do think the film was overly-edited; it is an incohesive mess of random scenes and characters thrown together without any clear storyline.

Big surprise. I did not care for the Thin Red Line. Not only was it pretentious and bloated, but it was also something a film should never be and that's boring.

Y tu Mama Tambien review

 Number 641 on the top 1000 films of all time is Alfonso Cuaron's Mexican road film 'Y tu Mama Tambien.'

Tenoch (Diego Luna) and Julio (Gael Garcia Bernal) are two bored, over-sexed teenagers who meet the older Spanish Luisa (Maribel Verdu) by pure chance. The three of them embark on a road trip to a paradise beach. Cue a coming-of-age drama with a lot of sex.

There have been some who have dubbed Y tu Mama Tambien as a Mexican 'American Pie,' while the two both are coming-of-age stories with a lot of sex, I don't think the comparison is really fair.

Y tu Mama tambien has a lot more depth to it than four boys trying to lose their virginities. It is a story about love and friendship taking an introspective look into adolescence. It made me nostalgic for an adolescence I never had. And that's where Alfonso Cuaron's excellent direction came into play.

Tenoch and Julio are never the punchlines to any jokes. Yes, the film has its funny moments, but it isn't a comedy. Instead of laughing at the characters, we can relate to their innocent ways. Yes, the two are directionless miscreants who go through life with a starry-eyed naivete, but that is what makes them infinitely relatable.

That is until, by chance, they meet Luisa and invite her to a paradise beach that might not even exist. She decides to join them for reasons that aren't immediately clear. This is one of the film's most unrealistic moments. The film was released over twenty years ago, but, even then, what would woman would join two strange teenage boys on some random round trip.

Nonetheless, she acts as a calming force helping to bring the two boys back to reality, all building toward to the ending, where they inevitably lose their innocence in one way or another.

Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal are best friends in real life, which meant their on-screen counterparts have an excellent chemistry. And Maribel Verdu was a great addition to the cast. In many ways she acts a mentor to her co-stars, especially, in the steamier scenes.

And this is definitely one of the steamier films I've seen. Yes, it's a great take on the coming-of-age drama, but not one to watch with your parents.

A Few Good men review

 Number 682 on the top 1000 films of all time is Rob Reiner's 1992 legal drama 'A Few Good Men.'

At the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba, Private William Santiago, a US marine, dies in mysterious circumstances. Soon afterwards, Lance Corporal Harold Dawson (Wolfgang Bodison) and Private Louden Downey (James Marshall) are charged with his murder. Upstart lawyer Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) and Lieutenant Commander Joanne Galloway (Demi Moore) are assigned as their defence. But Galloway soon suspects a cover-up that goes all the way up to Colonel Nathan Jessop (Jack Nicholson.)

Before Tom Cruise became a larger-than-life character better known for his action-hero roles and dodgy connections to scientology, he wasn't a bad actor. It's something you wouldn't think of now, but it's true.

Daniel Kaffee is a great example of this. Cruise took him from an arrogant, obnoxious jerk into a likeable lawyer with a lot to prove. It was a good story-arc and Cruise played the different elements of Kaffee's character well. He was such an arsehole before that I didn't think I would ever come to like him, but I did.

But the true arsehole was Colonel Jessop played brilliantly by Jack Nicholson. Jessop is a man who takes his job seriously. So seriously that he is willing to bend or even break the rules to get the job done. His final speech where he argues that men like him are needed to do everybody else's dirty work struck home, thanks to Nicholson's excellent performance. 

In some ways, it is difficult to believe this is the same Rob Reiner who also directed the Princess Bride or the the Bucket List. While 'a Few Good Men' had a few funny parts, it was mostly a serious affair, but also very entertaining. Considering the film's explosive conclusion occurs in a courtroom, Reiner kept the tension and suspense high. Courtroom dramas can get bogged-down in an overly-dramatised, legalese affair, but that wasn't the case here. Of course, it helped you had Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson giving great performances.

But there's more to this film than its men. I also enjoyed Demi Moore acting as the strait-laced Galloway - very much the complete opposite of Keffler. I was also relieved to see that their relationship was kept platonic. Both Reiner and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin were under pressure from studio executives to have Keffler and Galloway hook up, they refused saying it would have been little else but a cheap thriller. I couldn't have agreed more.

A Few Good Men had the potential to be a boring courtroom drama, but it was a thoroughly entertaining affair. 

The Last Samurai review

 Number 576 on the top 1000 films of all time is Edward Zwick's period-war drama 'The Last Samurai.'

Captain Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise) is a celebrated American civil-war hero. While his exploits of killing native-Americans has earned him a fiercesome reputation, it has also left him with severe PTSD. Sensing the prospect of future trade deals with Japan, his superiors send him to Japan to train Emperor Meji's (Shichinosuke Nakamara) army, so they can defend themselves against the rebellions led by the eponymous last samurai: Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe) and his men. Billy Connelly, Timothy Spall and Hiroyuki Sanada co-star.

The Last Samurai strongly reminded me of Kevin Costner's 'Dances with Wolves.' Both films star an American protagonist befriending and fighting alongside the enemy they're supposed to be fighting. Both films have the protagonists keep diaries as a narrative device. The difference is that the Last Samurai didn't bore me to the core. It was everything Dances with Wolves should have been.

It helped that the Last Samurai was directed by Edward Zwick who also brought the brilliant film Glory to life. Yes, he did use too much slow-motion at times, but he also presented an entertaining, watchable film that portrayed a country at war with itself. Should Japan modernise with Western traditions, clothing and, most importantly, guns, or should they stay true with their own tradition of the samurai. This is the question Zwick answers. 

It was also refreshing to see Tom Cruise in a different type of role. Yes, this isn't a million miles away from Ethan Hunt in Mission Impossible, but Nathan Algren had more depth than some of Cruise's more action-oriented roles. He is a man looking for redemption. And Cruise brought this tortured soul to life.

But the true star was Ken Watanabe. He received his only Oscar nod for this role. It was well-deserved. I thought he was brilliant as the samurai so desperately clinging onto the honour and tradition that he holds so dear. At times, it was a subtle, delicate performance, at others it was explosive, but it was always entertaining.

The cinematography and world-building was also well-textured and detailed. New Zealand stood in for Japan which explained the gorgeous cinematography.

My main gripe was with Billy Connelly who was doing some weird accent that was a hybrid between Irish and his native Scottish. It was like if they had asked Sean Connery to act with an Irish accent.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed the Last Samurai. Along with Glory, I can count it as another Edward Zwick success.

The Bourne Identity review

 Number 399 on the top 1000 films of all time is the 2002 action-thriller 'the Bourne Identity.'

Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) is found drifting in the Mediterranean Sea with amnesia and two bullets in his back. As he tries to rediscover who he is, he finds that he is at the heart of a secretive CIA training programme.

This was a soulless thriller that was missing some heart. I guess the heart was supposed to come from Bourne and his relationship with the German Marie (Franke Potente) who he meets at the US embassy in Switzerland where he starts his journey of rediscovery.

First starting out as distrustful acquaintances, the two quickly become lovers. My problem isn't with the predictable instant-lover cliche, but rather its execution. There was a severe lack of chemistry between Damon and Potente. Things are initially awkward between them, as they naturally would for two strangers thrown together by fate, but their relationship never becomes more convincing.

Perhaps that's because Marie was largely insipid/useless. The Bourne Identity came out in 2002, long before Black Widow and Katniss Everdeen entered the scene, so I wasn't expecting Marie to be a crime-fighting badass, but I was expecting her to have some pep.

The Bourne Identity was also suffering from a lack of interesting, fully-fleshed out villains. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje plays a generic African warlord who is more of a plot device than an actual character. Agbaje was also completely over-the-top.

Chris Cooper and Brian Cox play shady CIA chiefs, but they were too un-developed to have any real impact. As for Clive Owen, who plays a hitman sent to kill Bourne, he looked about as threatening as a bank manager.

You take away all these elements and you're left with a bland, generic action-triller that like its eponymous character struggled to find its identity.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly review

 Number 264 on the top 1000 films of all time is the French biographical drama: 'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.'

Based on the true story, TDBATB tells the story of Jean-Dominique "Jean-Do" Bauby (Mathieu Amalric) the editor of Elle magazine. After a stroke leaves him with locked-in syndrome, he is forced to adapt to a whole new way of living.

TDBATB is based on the story that the real-life Jean-Do wrote while he was in locked-in syndrome, all through a letter chart, a pain-stakingly slow system of blinking and a very helpful assistant. It is a tragic story, but also an inspirational one.

The movie adaptation does the story justice. Director Julian Schnabel did brilliantly to make us feel the shame and humiliation that Jean-Do felt during his ordeal. He goes from being a healthy forty-two-year-old to not even be able to wash himself without assistance. It is a pitiful existence, yet we have a lot of empathy for Jean-Do.

This was partly because the first third of the film is told entirely from his POV, accompanied by his cynical narration. The audience are figuring things out the same time as him. This intimate, even claustrophobic perspective put us firmly in Jean-Do's shoes. Even if we didn't want to, we were forced to experience how awful his life had become.  

The rest of the film is told more conventionally leading it to lose its unique perspective. I understand that a first-person POV might have been difficult to sustain throughout the whole film, but its intimacy is what made it so powerful. We weren't looking at Jean-do through an external lens with an external bias, but through his own eyes, hearing his thoughts, his feelings and his voice.

Considering Mathieu Amalric had little to act with, but his voice, he did well in making Jean-Do, a sympathetic, yet powerful character. And his character was never reduced to a joke or a cruel cartoon.

In many ways, the film is a deep introspection into Jean-Do's life, as he reflects on his successes, many failures and different relationships. The most notable of these is his relationship with his ageing father, Mr Bauby SR, played masterfully by Max Von Sydow. His father is very much a mirror-image of his son. Whereas his son is trapped in his own body, Mr Bauby is trapped on the top floor of his apartment building, too scared to use the many steps. Sydow was brilliant in the part, and their relationship was very moving.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was a brilliant introspective into not only locked-in-syndrome, but also the human condition. Even with locked-in-syndrome, Jean-Do is a still a human who deserves our love and respect. Sometimes that is something we forget.