The Top 6 Sort Of OK Films Of 2007

well, these are the films that i managed to sit through which were not all that bad, but not all that great either. i know full well one or two choices and comments here are going to upset friends and close ones, but there you go, it would be dull if we all liked and disliked the same stuff.


and on that note straight away, 300. sorry, but i found it dull. the numerous battle scenes lacked imagination, creativity or interest, and the whole computer generated backgrounds and sets looked just as lame here as they did in that Sky Captain rubbish from a while ago. everyone seems to accept that it must be brilliant on the basis that it was based on a Frank Miller "graphic novel", or comic book if you really don't feel so insecure as to have to make a grown up term for it.

i save it from being slammed as so many people i respect seem to think it's marvelous, and i must say the actors did a very good job of the below average material they were given to work with. needless to say, i really would not recommend this movie with any enthusiasm, but as so many people seem to have seen it and decided it's rather good, i suppose my view doesn't count for much with it anyway. the mythology and legend of the Spartans would make a good film anyway, i do not see why they instead opted for this mostly fabricated approach.


one would generally not expect to see an actor of Al Pacino's stature crop up in a direct to video, or direct to disc, film. he did this year however in 88 minutes.

the film is not all that bad, but is certainly average - these "race against the clock", real time things never took off when Mr Depp made the film Nick Of Time a decade ago, but were perfected on TV by Agent Jack Bauer in that 24 series. to try and make a success of the idea on the big screen again is brave, and somewhat misguided.

whereas De Niro has taken to just taking the money and giving a routine performance in any film going, Pacino at least is still very much Pacino, and his decent acting job in this makes it worth a look. i have no doubt that it will turn up on cable or satellite tv wherever you are in the world in the not too distant future. if and when it does, you could do a lot worse than stick it on to watch on a lazy afternoon when you don't feel like particularly thinking too much.


now Rowan Atkinson apparently is a rather sensitive soul, and gets upset when things that he makes are not hailed as masterpieces or are considered to be successful. if by some miracle he is reading this, fear not, i do not come to slay him. but i do not come to praise him, either.

Mr Bean's Holiday was funny in the sense of it puts a smile on your face rather than being funny in the sense of you laughing yourself silly at it all. i am not sure it ever intended to have pretensions of being a comedy classic anyway, but if it did, it sure never took the time or effort to become one.

like the original Mr Bean movie and the often overlooked Johnny English, this has enough pleasantly amusing parts to keep you entertained over the short duration of the film, but not really enough to go off and recite the best moments to your friends and insist that they all see it as soon as possible. it could have been worse and, given the built in limitations to the character, it is difficult to say how they could have made it any better. those who made this film appear to have done so as they had nothing better to do; let me reciprocate by saying that you should only see this if you have nothing better to do.


The Number 23 was a disappointment to me not so much because of all the idiot reviews giving the plot twist away, but because i had clocked the plot twist from the write up and trailers anyway. much like something along the lines of The Sixth Sense, the "surprise" is so obvious that watching the film after the first few minutes turns into a game of patience, waiting to see that you were right.

i quite like Jim. i still consider it a disgrace, and an example of why all these movie awards are pretty pointless, that he never got some serious recognition for the outstanding work he did in The Truman Show and, in particular, Man On The Moon. since those two films he would appear to have been "slumming it" to a degree, and this must have looked like a chance to move back onto the big time A list, whatever that actually is. sadly, a missed opportunity. there's always a curiosity factor with these "twist" movies, so don't let me stand in the way of you watching, but don't be all surprised when it turns out to be not much of a twist or all that clever.


Epic Movie was this year's cheap and cheerful parody film of all the big films from the 18 months around it. and that could pretty much be it for a review, really - it's cheaply made, but it certainly proved to be rather good, lighthearted entertainment of sorts.

i think this is the kind of film they make in the States just to justify the "multiplex" cinemas across the land; the kind of thing to have onscreen as people pay to sit in a room that's airconditioned for a couple of hours. there were clearly some clever and talented satirical writers involved with this one. the main problem, i guess, was that the films which it was surrounded with to parody were not all that great to begin with. making a joke about a bad or average film is one thing, making a joke film about them all is, and clearly was, tricky.


and finally, the possible king of all "sort of OK films" is Spider-Man 3. after two really good Spidey films, there was an inevitable sense that this one would be a letdown, and a letdown it was. like many third acts of trilogies, this one just gets far too busy, trying to ram each and every idea that comes up into the storyline. basically if you miss a minute or two, or even perhaps just blink in this film, you miss who's now a bad guy, who's a good guy, who exactly is who and in general what the hell is going on.

there's enough to make it worthwhile lazy viewing, however. once again Bruce Campbell returns in a most impressive cameo - this time he seems to push the boundaries of his talents by having a brief go at an accent. and, of course, the effects are really quite impressive, if not in some instances starting to look a little commonplace. you can enjoy Spidey 3 if you just manage to forget the sheer brilliance of the first two whilst you watch it - difficult, but go with the flow and it is bearable.


well, there you go. my apologies if your own personal best of the year is mentioned above, but these are the ones that i somehow doubt i will be giving a second chance to in the near future, but then again you never know.


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!